Disappearing Act

Has it really been that long?! 3 weeks?! I've definitely fallen into the "I've been too busy playing to blog about playing" thing that I've heard from some other people.

My gut instinct was to level all of my characters straight to 100, and I've seen a lot of people doing that. But I'm taking my time. Loihi and Adelaide are still my only level 100s. I've got my new (boost character) druid, Stitch, to 98. I've got my priest, Bisous to 94. It's unlikely that either of those will ever be "serious" characters, though. L & A have always been my only serious alliance characters, and I don't see that changing now. And Todd & Co. bailed on us with the guild they formed (and we joined) so I've somewhat abandoned A.

I did finally convince Josh to start playing horde with me. I have been maintaining Amayaa's garrison this entire time. I've made sure to send my followers on missions at least once a day since I got my garrison (November 20) and it has put me way ahead of the game. Amayaa is only level 93, but she has four level 100 followers and over 4000 resources. I'm pretty dang excited about it. Since Josh didn't get Zelu's garrison until about a week ago when he started playing him, he's not so far ahead. But with these characters we've decided to really take our time, think things out, and do things right. We're learning from the mistakes we've made with Loihi and Popkorn (and Adelaide and Vare) and we won't make them this time around. There's no rush to 100. Amayaa and Zelu probably won't see Highmaul, or if they do, they'll be on the tail end of it. Loihi and Popkorn are our "main"s and they'll teach us everything we need to know.

I'm a little unsure what to do about Amayaa's professions, though. She is an enchanter/jewelcrafter, and it has always worked out really well for us. But now that gems are sort of a non-thing, I hate that I have a jewelcrafting building taking up space in my garrison. I guess when they designed garrisons, they assumed one of your professions would be a gathering one so they didn't make those take up space, and then you'd have a space for a building of your choice. Unfortunately, Loihi is a tailor/enchanter, so that didn't work out for her either. I'm hesitant to drop jewelcrafting for fear that gems will once again be a thing (that they'll start putting definite gem slots on items) but I guess it doesn't matter that much. Somehow Amayaa is always rolling in gold, so I can easily buy gems when I need them. But leveling a new profession. Ugh. And what would I choose? I could go blacksmithing, but by the time I need that gear, it will probably be obsolete. I could pick up a gathering profession and then just get a building to do the work for me (like alchemy, maybe). I could go engineering because that's always fun but super expensive to level. Oh, the decisions!

Go for the Gold

I don't think I've mentioned this, but I've been struggling with Loihi. I've been struggling hard. I mentioned how my dps was deplorable the one time I ventured into SoO with my guild, and it wasn't getting better. I've been kicked out of two heroic groups for having terrible dps. It's really frustrating because I have the item level and the silver proving grounds achievement that say I'm allowed to be in heroics. I wasn't causing wipes, and we were killing bosses. People just like to be asshats.

Ever since Elitist Jerks stopped being the go-to place for information about how to play my class, I've been using Noxxic. I stumbled upon Noxxic on a Google search, and I've never really felt like I could trust it. I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I think it was mostly that I'd never heard anyone else mention it, whereas, everyone had talked about EJ.

Last week, someone in trade chat said, "Noxxic is the Fox News of WoW." I went, "AHHHH I KNEW IT!!!!" Hahaha. So it became a discussion and the consensus seemed to be the Icy Veins was the way to go now. I, of course, immediately went to check it out. My talents were a little off. My priorities were a little off. Everything was just a little off. I literally read every word that Icy Veins has to say about destro warlocks, and I learned a lot.

My guild has a requirement that you have to get gold in the proving grounds to be allowed to raid. I had really struggled with silver, so I was not looking forward to attempting gold. With my new information came new-found confidence, so I gave it a whirl. And I failed. Repeatedly. I kept getting stuck on wave 6. The AoE was killing me. I didn't want to look up any strategies. I wanted to do this on my own. After all, it is called the proving grounds. (Although, when Josh mentioned the proving grounds over the phone to his friend, the friend replied, "You mean 'prah-ving' grounds?" Uhh, no, I mean 'proo-ving' grounds...) I'm supposed to be proving my ability to play, not my ability to Google.

I used what Icy Veins had taught me and reworked my talents again. I gave it a little more thought and came up with a better strategy on my own. And this time I made it all the way to wave 10. I didn't beat it, but I saw every wave. I was so excited. I gave it several tries before I decided I needed a break. We went out to dinner and then ran an errand. We came back, I gave it a few more tries, and BAM!

I don't think I have ever been as proud of an in-game achievement as I was of that one. I truly was starting to think it would never happen. It was such a weight off my shoulders too; I wouldn't be sitting on the bench while the rest of the guild goes off to Highmaul. There were still several people after me who hadn't done it yet too. So, YAY LOIHI!!

Broken System is Broken

I get an awful lot of page views over here, but zero comments, so I have no idea if anyone is actually reading this, or if it's just bots.

But tell me if you know anything about this.

Way back in the Wrath of the Lich King days...I can't remember how it all went down. They implemented the Looking for Group system, and I don't think it was right away, but they implemented a penalty system for kicking too many people. It's been quite awhile now, but if memory serves, in the beginning you had to wait 15 minutes before you could attempt to kick someone. Each person was allowed to initiate one kick per dungeon. You couldn't kick in combat or shortly after combat.

Then they implemented this penalty system. Ever since then, both Josh and I have had a 4 hour timer on our ability to kick people. There is no dungeon in the game that takes 4 hours, so there is no way we can ever kick people. The best part is that sometimes it will say 2 minutes, and then when the 2 minutes is up, it switches to 4 hours.

I have opened tickets a number of times, and every time I get a completely different answer. My second to last ticket got a response saying that it is a known issue and they're working on it. This was a couple of months ago, and after a particularly frustrating dungeon experience earlier this week, I decided to open another ticket. This has been going on for more than FOUR YEARS now. That's right, folks, neither Josh nor I have been able to initiate a kick in a dungeon for four years. I think if it's a known issue, four years is a pretty reasonable amount of time to get it fixed. And if you can't fix it, turn the system off. It isn't fair that I pay to play this game just like everyone else, but one aspect of it is broken for me that isn't broken for most people.

The most recent response that I got was this:
This is Game Master Phaelonum and I have your issue about the vote to kick! Thank you for taking time out of your day to hit me up about this, so that I could look into it for you :D

So, about the vote to kick, not sure if one of the things mentioned is that it is account wide, so any of your characters participating in the vote to kick, in any way, be it targetted, initiated, or even if you just click to vote someone, will reset the cooldown. Yes, even if you are the target of that kick, or the one who is voted to be kicked, even if it doesn't go through :(

I am so glad that I could look into this for you, Nicole! Please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you come across any other ways we could assist. Take care and may all of your adventures be EPIC! o(^_^)o(#) A cookie for you!

Okay, GM Phaelonum. Thank you for not even attempting to address the issue and telling me something that I very clearly already knew and talked about in my lengthy explanation of the problem. Here's the thing. It has been four years. Okay, I may have been the target of a few kicks in that time. I'll never know about the ones that didn't go through. (And if they don't go through, doesn't that typically mean someone is just kicking you to be a jerk and it isn't deserved? Why should that count against you?!) And every few months, I will attempt to initiate a kick in hopes that it has been fixed. But even before this happened, I really don't think I kicked people more than the average WoW player. Can you honestly tell me that four years isn't enough of a punishment? Even if I have been kicked and have attempted to initiate a kick a few times during that time, there's no way it has happened enough times that I haven't served my time in four years.

How do I know it's been four years, you ask? Because back when it started, when I opened the first ticket, I started tracking my dungeons. I made absolutely certain never to initiate a kick or to vote yes if someone else initiated it. I tracked over 150 dungeon runs, and I was guilty of a kick about 1% of the time. And the only times I did kick was when people were offline and my vote was required.

Meanwhile...Josh and I were in a group last night. The healer was just standing around and we wiped, so Josh said something like, "Are you afk or what?" They initiated a kick against him with the reason "gay." You cannot tell me that someone who is willing to kick someone that quickly has not kicked hundreds and hundreds of people...and yet...no penalty for them? And why in the hell should that count against Josh?! He did absolutely nothing wrong; someone initiated a kick because they wanted to be an ass, and Josh gets penalized for that? Bullshit.

It makes no sense. I responded to GM Phaelonum and demanded to see my stats in comparison to the average WoW player because they're going to have to do some serious work to convince me this system isn't broken. I doubt they will give me the stats, but I will open a new ticket every day for the rest of my life if I have to. It's not fair, and I'm tired of it.

I'm not one to complain about problems in the game. When everything was messed up on launch day, I sat back and relaxed. The game would be there later. When maintenance gets extended by several hours, I don't let it bother me. I don't write angry posts on their Facebook wall telling them it's their fault they're getting DDOSed. Almost every ticket I have ever opened has been about this one problem. And it's really starting to make me angry.

So many choices...

Being level 100 is overwhelming. In the last few expansions, you would hit level cap, and you knew exactly what you were supposed to do - jump into heroics and get geared.

This time around, it isn't that simple. So I did the reasonable thing - I quit and started leveling another character.

Just kidding.

No, but really. I've been playing Adelaide on and off and I made it to halfway through 98 rested. I completely skipped Gorgrond and I was able to skip half of Spires. It was glorious. Once I got to that home stretch, I stopped caring about rest and just pushed right through to 100. Adelaide is in a guild with people that I have known on WoW for many years now. Todd, Kyle, Stevie, Ryan, Anthony, and...probably other people. Ryan was the first 100 on The Scryers and he is determined to do this thing hard core. They're jumping into High Maul tomorrow. They want Josh and me to come, but our item level is sitting right around 600. Besides that, they plan to start at 9:30. Assuming they start on time, we'd be able to stay for about an hour. They really want us (and by us I mean Josh) to be on their A team, but it's not going to work out. I have no problem being backup, but I've already made a commitment with Loihi. And that commitment is to people who actually raid at a time that is reasonable for me.

As soon as I hit 100 with Adelaide, I jumped in the proving grounds and did bronze healing. It was cake. I went out of mana because I was panicky and spam healing when I didn't need to be, but it was still super easy. Then I did bronze dps. Also super easy. It was kind of upsetting because bronze dps took Loihi several tries. Last night, I did silver healing. It took me a few tries. I have to remind myself that it's a marathon, not a sprint. I have to slow down and breathe. I don't have to heal every time someone takes the tiniest bit of damage. Once I got that under control, I did it with ease. Silver dps took me a couple of tries, but I got it done.

It made me feel kind of crappy about Loihi because I feel like I must have tried 100 times before I finally got it down with 610 item level. Then I learned that the proving grounds scale to your item level. This doesn't make sense to me because I tried it with Loihi SO MANY times when she had a lower item level, and I didn't come close. Then when my item level got higher, I was able to do it. But I'm not even close to gold. So am I just that awful? Do warlocks just suck right now? (Because seriously, it was so much easier with Adelaide, who is an elemental shaman.)

So I've got my garrison to a place where I'm comfortable with it. I've completed all the quests in all the zones. I'm working on my professions as quickly as they'll allow me. (I've made a cloak for myself and I'm halfway to making one for Popkorn.) Now I'm finally ready to jump into heroics. It's time for Loihi and Popkorn to get geared so they'll be ready when the time comes.

I am thoroughly enjoying this expansion so far. I can't wait till Josh is ready to play his blood elf. I'm excited to try out the horde!

Loihi has earned the achievement Level 100

We did it!! *happy dance*

Initially, I thought it would take longer. But then at some point, I just knew it would happen on Wednesday, and sure enough!

On Friday night when things were still a little buggy, I wasn't able to log in to any of my alliance characters. So I ended up logging into Amayaa and giving the horde quests a go, even though I told her that she was in for a long rest. She was pretty excited to see me again so soon. I spent the evening leveling her. I kept switching back and forth from prot to ret. Neither made me very happy. In ret, I was super squishy and kept dying. But prot is only good if you're able to round up a whole bunch of mobs and then mow them down. Once Josh catches Zelu (his BE hunter) up, I think I'll stick with prot and we'll be set. But he isn't ready to play Zelu just yet.

So aside from Friday night, I've spent all of my time playing Loihi. We took a couple of short breaks on Saturday and Sunday because there comes a point where I can't sit still anymore. But Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we played from the time I got home from work till the time our heads hit the pillows. We attempted to play with Todd on Monday night, which I think set us back a little. All three of us were 96, and Josh and I were questing in Spires of Arak. Todd had been PvPing and hadn't quested since Gorgrond, so he couldn't get most of the quests that we had. We ended up going around doing bonus objectives and killing rares until he had to leave. Let me just say that I am over the Arakkoa. Their quest line was WAY too long and annoying. Overall, Spires was my least favorite zone so far.

Josh and I are in the habit of moving onto the next zone as soon as it's available, and we never complete any of the zones. This time we felt it was important to complete a zone before we moved on, so we hit 100 just as we reached Nagrand. We only did the first few quests in Nagrand, but I am loving it. It feels like home. But of the zones I've completed, I think I liked SMV the best.

I went back to my garrison and upgraded to level three. So exciting!! Josh, unfortunately, didn't think things through and wasted all of his resources changing buildings. So he only had about 100, when he needed 2000. Ooops. Needless to say, he was a little butthurt. I haven't done any research on garrisons, but I knew better than to mess with things before I was 100!

I tried out the proving grounds, and bronze took me several attempts. I'm really really struggling these days, and I don't know why. I've always been good at warlocks, even when warlocks were bad, and it's really upsetting that I'm doing so poorly. I know gear is a factor right now, but I know my skills (or lack thereof) are a bigger factor. I need to do some research. We ran Sky Reach, and Josh was doing 3-4k more dps than I was with a lower item level. Ugh. Gotta get my shit together!!

Welcome to Draenor

Yesterday was probably the longest work day of my life. It's hard to say though. It was comparable to the day I was leaving for Disney World a couple of months ago. I'm not sure which I love more - WoW or Disney World. Haha. I stopped by the grocery store on my way home to stock up on Mountain Dew. I almost never drink Mountain Dew except when I'm planning on an epic gaming session. (Honestly, I knew it wasn't going to be that epic last night because I had to come back to work this morning.)

So I got home, logged in, and got straight to it!

For all the whining I've done about always being on a low-pop server, I was glad last night. I didn't have to wait for one minute in a queue to log in. However, Josh did run into a bit of a snare. He had been playing his druid (Yonywu) earlier, but he had intended to level his rogue (Popkorn) with me. He wasn't logged on at all when I got home. So he went to log in to Popkorn, and it was doing the 90% loading screen thing. Finally, it went back to the character screen and said, "A character with that name already exists." I searched the /who, and sure enough, it said Popkorn was online. Only, she wasn't. I checked the forums, and it seemed all the people it had happened to had been knocked offline, and when they tried to come back, it gave them this error. It was strange because Josh hadn't been online at all. But we waited 15 minutes for it to "log off," and then we were set to go.

General chat was so full of tears, I'm surprised it didn't flood. So much, "You would think Blizzard would know how to release an expansion by now! They should be prepared for this!" Y'all. That's like saying, "You should be prepared for someone to drop a bomb on your house." Even if you know in advance that it's coming, what the hell are you going to do? There's only so much preparation they can do. The rest has to work itself out (for example, after a few days, EVERYONE won't be trying to log in at the same time) or get worked out as they see the issues. 

One of my favorite WoW memories was on the WotLK release day. I was out in Borean Tundra killing things, when all of a sudden, every NPC in sight disappeared. Friendlies, enemies, neutrals...all of them. Gone. What could I do but laugh? It was funny! I don't understand these people who rage over things like this. They came back after a few minutes, and I stopped laughing and got back to killing things. I've seen every release except Vanilla and MoP, so I knew what to expect. Everyone is saying this one is the worst, though. Maybe that's true, but for me it doesn't seem so. And it wasn't the lag or the problems with the garrisons are any other game factors that upset me. It was only the other players whining about the problems that got under my skin.

And Blizz's hatred for warlocks. So way back in the day, warlocks didn't have any instant spells except for curses, and a curse wouldn't tag a target. Because, you know, people are always just accidentally throwing curses around. You have to throw a 3-second shadowbolt to show you really mean it. (I don't know if shadowbolt ever really had a 3-second cast time. It seemed like it was a 5-minute cast time before haste was a thing. But I'm destro; I don't even have a shadowbolt anymore.) So on a release day, or in daily zones, when there were a ton of players and not so many mobs that needed killing, it was nearly impossible for a warlock to get what she needed unless she was killing things with a friend. Then Blizz finally realized, hey, this isn't cool! A curse is a spell and it should tag a target. Thanks, Blizz! I love you guys! All was well in the warlock world. I could quest on my own again. And then they took away our curses. I can conflagrate every so often, but that just isn't enough. So last night, when I was in a crowded area, I would just cast rain of fire right over myself. It wasn't stealing mobs from anyone because the chance of hitting a mob is still pretty small and it was only getting the mobs that I should have been able to get on my own. So then this death knight comes and lays death and decay directly under my rain of fire. Really dude? You're melee. You have death grip. You have zero trouble getting mobs. Even if you still wanted to use my tactic, you couldn't move over ten yards and get the mobs that would never have even come near my rain of fire? When I finally finished that quest, I had a few choice words for him. His response was to try to invite me to  a group. Really?!

I'll be sure not to get separated from my pocket rogue anymore.

I got about two bars into 91 before I called it a night. We got a bunch of upgrades, which was pretty sweet. Okay, so maybe a lot of them weren't actually upgrades, but we figured we ought not look a gift horse in the mouth. If they want me to show a little lot of skin, I guess that's what I'll do.

Goodnight, Sweet Amayaa

Last night, I didn't feel much like playing WoW. I live on the east coast, which meant that if I wanted to see the release of the expansion, I would have to be up at 3am. I was online around 5:30pm and saw a bunch of people saying they were going to bed so they could get up at 3 and start playing. Later, I lamented that I had not done the same. But let's be real; I would be falling asleep at my desk right now if I had done that. Game release or no game release, I had to come to work today.

I sat in Stormwind, talking in trade chat a little, but mostly just watching. There were so many names that I haven't seen in years. It was amazing to see those people coming back. The Scryers was always a low-pop server, so it was a pretty tight-knit community. You recognized people's names, and you knew who their alts were, even if you weren't friends with them. It made me all warm and fuzzy inside to see those familiar names again.

Before logging off, I went to have a moment with Amayaa. It's always a tough decision - who am I going to level first when a new expansion comes out. But it's always been Loihi. It's just the way it is. It doesn't feel right any other way. But I love Amayaa just as much, and I feel that I am truly horde at heart. (Probably why I have a real life horde tattoo.) It's hard to leave her. So I told her I'll see her when I can, and I tucked her into bed with one of her many kitties. She's going to need plenty of rest when it comes time to venture into Draenor.

Ye Olde Scourge Invasion

Remember the Scourge invasion pre-Wrath of the Lich King event? Yeah, so do I.

I dreamed about it the other night. I dreamed about it! It's pretty safe to say that was my favorite thing that ever happened in World of Warcraft. In searching for an image to use for this post, I learned that it happened the first time Naxxramas came to town as well. (That was about six months before I started playing.) So there is hope!! There is a new Lich King, and we will have to defeat him sometime, and when that time comes....another Scourge invasion!! Please? Pretty please, Blizz?

I know a lot of people hated it and cried about it because they couldn't do their dailies and boo hoo hoo, but I had so. much. fun. I think that's pretty obvious if I'm dreaming about it six years later. So here's hoping the next expansion brings us some zombies. (Not WoD. The next one.)

Another Hallow's End Gone By

We didn't get the mount.

Excuse my interface. Adelaide and I were too distraught to think about hiding it.

Deplorable DPS

I don't know if I mentioned this, but Loihi recently joined a new guild. I haven't raided seriously since ICC, and I really really want to raid in WoD. The problem is that the guild I used to raid with is a.) on a different server and b.) on a west coast server. Back in the ICC days, I was working in a restaurant. The earliest I ever had to be at work was 10am, usually more like 11 or 12. It wasn't a problem for me to raid on west coast time and finish at 1-2am. But now? Now I have a big girl job. I have to be at work at 8am. Staying up until 2am is not an option.

A few years ago, I had transferred Loihi to another server to play with some friends. Some of those friends are no longer playing, and some of them are no longer my friends. I decided to do a quick search and see if there were any guilds on that server that met my needs. If I couldn't find one, I was going to transfer out. But I quickly found Under***d. They finish raiding at 11pm, which is still a little late for me, but they only raid two nights a week, so I can do it.

They asked me to join their SoO group, and I've been hemming and hawing about actually doing it. My gear isn't great. I haven't even done SoO on raid finder. I don't like going into a raid without being 110% prepared, and I just wasn't there. But last night they asked me to join their flex, and I decided to just take a leap and do it. I died a few times because I didn't know what to expect. On the first boss kill, I accidentally need rolled a cloak that dropped. I've never raided with a guild that didn't use master looter/dkp, even when the raid was on alt farm, and when the loot popped up, I clicked it out of habit from dungeons. I felt a pang of regret as soon as I did it and quickly apologized in raid chat. No one was mad, and if there were loot rules, no one made mention of them. Still, I only rolled greed the rest of the night.

But let's talk about my dps. I was at the bottom of the chart. I mean the bottom bottom. Just barely above the healers. Everyone else was on their alt; I was on my main. Granted, my main has gotten very little attention in this expansion. (Or the last one, for that matter.) Still, I was extremely embarrassed. It was almost as embarrassing as the first time I raided with Veritas back in BC. We were doing Gruul's Lair. We had just come back from a wipe, and my run key got stuck. I ran straight into Gruul and wiped us again. Ugh. It makes me cringe just thinking about it!!

Hopefully I will have time to get some raidfinder gear this weekend and learn the fights so I can be more prepared for the rest on Monday. For now, I'll leave you with a picture of Loihi in her (transmogged) PvE gear.

The helm/shoulders don't necessarily match that robe, but it is my favorite robe, and they are my favorite helm and shoulders. I don't think it looks awful, so this is the transmog I tend to keep. I don't really have a sword that I love enough to transmog this one. I think this one looks pretty cool.

It's time for introductions

Uhh, better late than never, right?

Some of my characters are not in the gear in which I'd like to present them, but I'm at work, so there's nothing I can do about it right now.

My very first character was an itty bitty baby warlock named Loihi. Though I knew nothing about the elements that warlocks use, nor that a fire (destro) lock would become my favorite class/spec in the game, I wanted to name her after a volcano. Loihi is actually an underwater volcano that no one has ever heard of. I've never been to Hawaii, and I don't speak Hawaiian. I couldn't find a pronunciation anywhere online, so I took my best guess and pronounced it lo-wee-hee. A month or so later, I met someone in game who claimed to be from Hawaii. He told me I was wrong and that it was lo-why-hee. After a couple of years, I learned that my first guess, lo-wee-hee, was absolutely correct. But it had been too long. The name was stuck, and so I pronounce her name incorrectly to this day.

After a couple months of playing, I had reached level 25. (Hey, it was hard back then!) Shortly after BC came out, they opened up free realm transfers from highly populated realms. Josh decided to take it, and I decided not to. I was being stubborn. Scarlet Crusade had been my WoW home those few months, and I didn't want to leave it. He tried to cancel his transfer, but it was too late. By the time I realized it was stupid to play without him, the free transfers had ended. And so I left behind my level 25 Loihi, and she's still there on Scarlet Crusade.

I created a new warlock with the same name who looked exactly the same on The Scryers and pretended it had never happened. So I think I created her around March of 2007, and if I remember correctly, I finally reached level 70 in February of 2008. In January 2010, I faction changed her, and within two weeks, I changed her right back. I'm really weird about Loihi. She has to be exactly as she's always been, or it really gets to me. I've never been able to change her hair or anything. I'm still dealing with her new face.

She's my baby. Before achievements, mounts, etc, were account-wide, I did everything with her, even when I had lots of alts. She's always the first one I level in a new expansion. It may sound silly, but I feel like she's a part of me. So here she is in silly pvp gear.

Don't worry. No one else will have that long of an intro.

So next is Adelaide, my draenei shaman. She was my first alt. Josh and I had done refer-a-friend, and I was able to boost her to level 60ish right before WotLK came out. Josh had already had two max level characters at this point (warrior and warlock) and I was happy to be able to catch up. I leveled her as enhancement, but once I hit 80, I decided to try my hand at healing. I loved it. And I was good at it. Hell, I played on a laptop with the touchpad mouse, without healbot, and I was still good. So when I started playing on my desktop with a real mouse and with healbot, people didn't die. Ever.

Shortly after leveling both of them to 80, we got burned. We decided to switch to horde. I decided to give a paladin a try, since everyone always talked about how easy they were. I leveled retribution, of course, and I hated it. I sucked at it, and it was just so boring to me. So once I hit 80, despite my affinity for healing, I decided to go protection. And I loved tanking even more than I loved healing. Josh had always been a tank on his warrior, and it made him rage a lot. But tanking was just so much fun for me. (I did eventually give pally healing a try, and I hated it.) So meet Amayaa, my blood elf protection paladin. (Excuse her ugly gear.)

We stuck with horde for awhile, and I started to miss my warlock. Amayaa had everything she could ever want or need out of Naxxramas, so I leveled up another warlock...also named Loihi. Lol.

And then we got burned again - this time by real life "friends." So we went back to the alliance. I had loved paladin tanking so much that I decided to level a draenei paladin. And so we have Lumey. (Excuse her ugly gear too.)

We weren't in a raiding guild and weren't really doing much of anything else, so I just decided to level another alt. This time I went with a warrior. If I remember correctly, I leveled her all the way up as protection, and I enjoyed warrior tanking just as much as pally tanking. Whimsy has had her hair and her face changed since the patch, and she's still not as cute as she was before. :/ Right now, she's fury because that's how I leveled her.

Now here's where we enter the Land of Too Many Alts, and things start to get a little fuzzy. I think I leveled Gatsbie next. Gatsbie is a druid. I leveled her up as a kitty with the intention of having my offspec be boomkin. However, I decided to try out a bear spec, and guess what? I loved it. I just really love tanking. The only kind of tank I don't like playing is a deathknight. I don't like playing any kind of deathknight. So Gatsbie never got any kind of caster spec. She's always been kitty/bear, and I enjoy them both, which is interesting because I don't like playing rogue at all. (For some reason, wowhead would only give me her old model.)

I think Ladella came next. I didn't have a healer horde side, so I decided it was time to give priest healing a try. I like discipline a lot, and I went through a phase where Ladella was my preferred character to play.

Then maybe Avena came after that. She has pretty much always been a dps warrior. I'm really not one for melee dps classes because I suck at staying behind the target, but I had fun with her. She's currently arms (and only level 89.)

Next came Katnìss. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why I chose to level Katnìss. I think it was that I had just finished reading The Hunger Games, and I thought it would be cool to have a hunter with that name. Her main pet is a cat named Buttercup. I've never done a whole lot with her besides leveling her to max level. But I do think her new model makes her look beautiful.

And last, but not least, is Liora. Somewhere along the way, Josh and I had done refer-a-friend again and I leveled a shaman. We had a shaman/mage 2s team, and it was freaking amazing. But I was too cheap to transfer that character to my main account, so she's still sitting there at level 85. I decided to level a new one, but I stopped about halfway there and just finished leveling her this week. Right now, she's enhance, which I hate. If I decide to do anything with her, I'll probably go ele/resto. She also needs a new face, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I think she looks like a human man haha.

I do have a mage and a priest (both alliance) that are level 81. I was trying to get them leveled up to use them for the last few days of horseman, but I don't think that's going to happen.

So there you have it. My happy little big family!

Come on, man!

So at this point, I've killed the Headless Horseman well over 200 times. I think at the beginning of Hallow's End this year, I had 6 or 7 characters that could run it. I had a bunch of 85s, so I leveled them all up, and I now have 11 characters that are 89-90. Josh has 12. Neither one of us has gotten the damn horse. And if the 0.5% drop rate is correct, I should have gotten it by now. Although I did see it drop once, so I guess that counts as my one time in 200.

I've gotten both the helm and the sword on my SHAMAN. Super helpful!! I wish they would take away the damn loot filled pumpkin, make it so you can only run the instance once a day, and make it all drop off the horseman again. I wouldn't roll on the helm or the sword on a character who can't use them, so someone else in the group who could use them could have them. And I assume the mount is ending up in pumpkins of people who already have it. If it were a drop, they wouldn't get it multiple times, and it would give the rest of us more of an opportunity to get it! My friend Todd told me last night that before they made mounts account-bound, he had the horse on three characters. THREE. And he has never been as dedicated to killing the horseman as I am, nor has he ever had as many max level characters as I tend to do. Damn you, WoW gods.

The Horseman's Reins and What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

This is going to be my year. I can feel it.

Despite having killed the Headless Horseman every day of the event almost every year, many years on multiple characters, neither Josh nor I have gotten the mount. I saw it drop once back when it was a drop and not something you got in a pumpkin, but that was the closest I've ever gotten. I mean, I've killed him at least 140 times, and that's probably a really low estimate. (Is there a place I can see this statistic? I know they track certain boss kills, but I don't think he's one of them.) I mean, I know it's only got a 0.5% drop rate, so it's pretty reasonable that neither of us has gotten it. But it feels like we're the only ones. I don't know anyone else that doesn't have it.

I've also soloed Kara plenty of times in an attempt to get Midnight. It may have a different name,  but it's the same model, and I'll take what I can get! The drop rate is slightly higher (0.9%) and I really need to make it a point to do this every week on all of my characters. I just never remember.

One day, my friends. One day I will have that horse.

Hallow's End is definitely my favorite holiday. The Midsummer Fire Festival is a close second, but sadly I managed to miss it this year. :( Those are the only two that I really get into and do all of the quests and everything. There are a few that I hate, like Lunar Festival. These are the reason I still don't have "What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been." Maybe this year I'll go for it. Maybe.

I still need the following achievements:

Winter Veil

• 'Tis the Season
• Let it Snow
• The Winter Veil Gourmet
• A Frosty Shake
• With a Little Help From My Friends
• Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la
• Bros Before Ho Ho Ho's

Lunar Festival

• Elders of Cataclysm
• Elders of the Dungeons

Love is in the Air

• Charming
• Flirt With Disaster
• Nation of Adoration
• Shafted!
• Lonely?
• The Rocket's Pink Glare
• Fistful of Love
• I pitied the Fool

Children's Week

• School of Hardknocks
• Bad Example

It's kind of a lot. But only four holidays. So if I do it, I'll have my mount in April. If you notice, with the exception of Lunar Festival, each of the holidays I haven't completed has a PvP achievement. The reason I haven't bothered with the non-PvP achievements for those holidays is because I know I won't do the PvP ones!! (Particularly School of Hardknocks. I have never done any of those things with or without an orphan involved.) But this time around, I'm going to suck it up. Really. I mean it this time.

Thank the WoW gods...

...for allowing us to change our faces at the barbershop. I truly didn't think Blizzard would do this for us; after all, we had to pay to do it before. I saw hundreds of players who said they would be satisfied if, the first time we logged into a character post-patch, we got the chance to change our face. If we didn't take it, too bad, we'd lose it. Blizz really outdid themselves this time, and I am so happy they made the right decision this time.

Because Loihi's face was awful. Right? Right. I mean...wasn't it?

I found out yesterday morning that this was a thing, and I ran home from work at lunch to change my face. Seriously. I was that excited that I got to get rid of her ugly face.

I went to the barbershop. I sifted through the other faces. I picked one. I paid my gold, and I left the barbershop. I stopped in the Trade District to admire my new face...and I hated it. I hated it just as much as I'd hated the one they gave me. Okay, let's try again. I went back and sifted through the faces again until I found the best one. Once again, I paid my gold and left.

I went back out to the Trade District to admire my new face. That's really quite a lot of cosmetic surgery in one day, but it was so worth it. This face was much better than the last one. As I was looking at my face, I started to think, "Is it? No... It can't -" Sure enough, it was the face Blizz had originally given me. So I spent 60 something gold, only to end up back where I started. Oh well!

I did make one more trip to the barbershop to change my hair. It's such a subtle change that you really can't tell the difference in a picture, or else I would show you.

I will be changing some of my other faces for sure, though. All of my gnomes got beaten with the ugly stick.

green fire fail...again

Josh and I spent the first half of the weekend killing rares to try to get Nyckole's tome so she could get green fire too.  When it finally dropped (wayy more kills than it took Loihi) it was my loot, and I couldn't trade it with her because she was on a different realm, even though she was in my group! We were both so mad, and Josh ended up just buying the dang thing off the AH.

Finally it was time to attempt Infiltrate the Black Temple once more. I figured out it was my pet that was giving me so much trouble in getting through the traps. Once I dismissed him, I moved through the maze quickly and easily (though I did use my demongate too just to be safe.) My first attempt at killing Essence of Order went miserably. The second attempt went better, but at the rate I was going, I thought I'd run out of money for repairs before I killed him. On the third attempt, however, I got my strategy down pat, and I killed him. It was just Immolate/Incinerate/Conflagrate. Keep Rain of Fire up any time there are adds out, and save all burning embers for Ember Tap. Of, and of course, I sacrificed my felpuppy and interrupted the hellfires. That's super important. It took a little while because my gear isn't great (ilvl 491) but I did it! I was so excited.

The next stage, however...oh man. There's an objective to loot as much as you can, and the other objective is to reach the end of the Den of Mortal Delights. I think there is a big assumption that anyone doing this has done the Black Temple raid because there's a lot of "just go here" and no indication of where that place might be. I had no idea what the Den of Mortal Delights was or how long it was, so I was taking my time, picking up all the loot on the floor. When I got down to a minute left on the timer, I realized I'd better start moving to the end. I just ran through all the mobs, and by the time I died, I hadn't even gotten to where I could see the end. With each attempt I picked up less loot and figured out ways to avoid more mobs until, on my last try, I didn't pick up any loot until the very end and only had to kill a small number of mobs. I still just barely made it. I wish I had better gear so I could have killed stuff faster so I could have gotten more loot, but it is what it is.

I finally got to the last boss, and oh man. I hadn't done any research, but after I did, I only learned one thing: I need better gear. It seems all of the strategies are from patches and patches ago, and things no longer work the same way. So I guess they nerfed locks but didn't change the fight? This is the first time since like...October 2012 that I've played seriously, so I know nothing of the changes that have happened. I've pretty much had to relearn how to play. I did give him two attempts, but I knew that I didn't have the patience to sit there for hours of trial and error. I'm going to attempt to obtain some better gear from raid finder and pray that they wait a few weeks to drop the patch.

green fire fail

So as I mentioned in my survey a few weeks ago, my first character was my human warlock, Loihi. One day I will have to tell you all about her history and her adventures, but today is not that day! Hahah. I've checked out most of my characters on beta, and I'm pretty satisfied with the changes. But Loihi...oh man, it makes me want to cry. She is my one character who truly holds a piece of my heart. I feel like I've been through so much with her, and she is a part of me. And I hate her new face.

It just looks so...derp. I also don't like the way they "fixed" her hair. I liked those pieces sticking out. But this character...I once got her hair cut, and after having it that way for a week, I just couldn't deal with it. I had to put it back to the original. So I am hoping and praying that they will give us at least one free re-customization. Because I don't want to spend money to fix her, but I really can't live with that face.

My second main is a blood elf (paladin), so I don't know yet if I'll like those changes. I have a feeling, though, that she's going to look hot no matter what they do to her.

Next is my druid, Gastbie. (Side note: The Great Gatsby has been my favorite book since...2003? I've had the character for...awhile. And then when the movie came out, people started giving my all kinds of crap for my name. So lame! I also have a hunter named Katniss who I've never played seriously, but I made her way before the Hunger Games craze started, and people gave me SO much crap about her name that I just don't even play her at all anymore.) So here's Gatsbie:

She looks so mean! Her old face was so friendly and nice, and now, she looks like someone I wouldn't want to mess with. But I'm okay with it. She's a total badass, and I like it. Plus she's a cat or a bear most of the time anyway.

I wasn't going to show my undead Loihi in this post, but I accidentally captured this super cute face. 

Hahahaha. I think they made the undead look too pretty (look at that skin!) but I absolutely love them.

So the actual point of this post was....green fire. I renewed my account on Sunday, and I have been working with Loihi (human) to get her green fire ever since. It took a few days and a lot of rare kills to get the tome, but my husband was helping me, so it wasn't so bad. 

I got the tome and got started on the quest chain while he went to start leveling up his warlock (from 87) so that he could do it when I got done. I really enjoyed the storyline, gathering the soulstones, and seeing the memories. It's one of the most enjoyable quest chains I've ever done.

Then I got to the Black Temple scenario. I couldn't even get past the third stage where you have to use your eye of kilrogg to see traps and then you have to get around them. I knew I should probably try to utilize my demon gate, but I'm so bad with that thing. It seems like every time I need to use it, I panic and end up dead. Don't get me wrong; I'm good at playing a warlock. Specifically a destro class. It might be my strongest class/spec. (Maybe my second strongest.) But I am just awful with demon gates.

So I got Josh to get me through that stage, and he continued playing until he got to the boss. He tried to kill the boss until Loihi's armor was broken and didn't even get him down to 50%. I was looking up strategies and trying to guide him through it, but nothing was helping. I wouldn't say that warlock is one of his strongest classes, but he does know how to play one. Loihi's item level is 490, which from what I've read, is sufficient to complete it, but I did read that there are some specific talents that will really help you out (so much for talent choices not being important!) that I didn't have. So I'll do some reworking tonight and try to kill that dang boss! It just really sucks that you have to start the scenario from the very beginning if you log out.

(If you're wondering why I got these from wowhead and not from the game, it's because I'm at work xD)

release date

So we have a release date!! I never thought I'd see the day when Blizzard would release a game earlier than initially expected. It's not as early as I like, but I can definitely live with it.

My plan to get everyone to 90/600 before my account expired totally failed. I don't even know what happened, to be honest. There was that day when they were having all those issues and no one could log on. Other than that, I just don't know. It just didn't happen.

I'm going out of town for 4 days at Labor Day, and I've decided I'll renew my account when I get back. It's silly to renew it now because I wasn't really doing anything anyway, and I know I won't have time to play for a few days even before we leave, so I'd lose a whole week, which I hate to do.

In the meantime maybe I'll play beta? I'm not gonna lie; I completely forgot I had a beta key! I've had it for awhile now, but after they did the first character wipe after I got it, I was done. I had a key for Cataclysm beta, and I don't remember them doing that. Then again, I didn't play it much either because I didn't want to spoil anything. Maybe I'll give it another go, though. If I do, I'll be back here to let you know how that goes. Otherwise, I'll be back after Labor Day!

10 Years 10 Questions

I saw this over at Plenty of Paladins, and it looked like fun!

1. Why did you start playing Warcraft?

I went home for the summer after my sophomore college, and when I came back, I found that my boyfriend was playing WoW. He had played before but hadn't played since I'd known him. I didn't even know what WoW was. He wanted me to play, but I wasn't a gamer, and I thought it looked ridiculous. I resisted for a long time. Fast forward to later in the year when the BC trailer was released. I saw it, and I was intrigued, but I didn't let on that I might want to play. I went home for Christmas break, and as a way to "hang out" with Josh, I decided to get a trial account. I asked for the full game for Christmas, and the rest is history.

2. What was the first ever character you rolled?

The very first character I rolled was an undead warlock named Kilauea. I hadn't told Josh that I'd made an account, and I spent a couple of hours getting to level two (seriously). My sister (who was 9 and had been playing on Josh's account over the summer) then informed me that Josh was alliance and I wouldn't be able to play with him if I was horde. So I deleted her and rolled my human warlock, Loihi. When I was level 24 (after playing for months and months) they were offering free server transfers for high pop servers, and Josh decided to take it. I was stubborn and didn't want to go. Then the window closed, and I was stuck by myself on Scarlet Crusade. I ended up abandoning her and rolling a new Loihi on The Scryers. She ended up being the first one that I leveled to cap, and she was my only level 70 until WotLK came out.

3. Which factors determined your faction choice in game?

The last question pretty much explains that. I wanted to roll horde, but my boyfriend was alliance because the friend that got him into it was alliance. Eventually we ended up rolling horde. I prefer pretty much everything about the horde. I even have a horde insignia tattoo in real life. Loihi will always have a special place in my heart, though, and I tolerate the alliance for her :P

4. What has been your most memorable moment in Warcraft and why?

Dang, there are so many, but I'll just share one.

There was one time we were in ICC 25, we had just pulled Sindragosa, and some of our guildies in California started saying in vent that they were having an earthquake. They were all very nonchalant about it, while those of us who don't live in earthquake country were kind of freaking out. We were all, "Are you okay?! Do we need to just wipe it?!" We ended up killing Sindy with hardly any issues, and if I remember correctly, it was our first Sindy 25 kill. Apparently earthquakes are good luck.

5. What is your favourite aspect of the game and has this always been the case?

I'm always happiest when I'm in a guild with people that I like and we can do things together. I've been in KoT for many, many years, but their roster has changed a lot, and we've had a lot of periods of inactivity, but we've always been able to come back and make new friends and have a blast with them. Unfortunately (for the sake of the guild), Josh and I finally have grown-up jobs. KoT is a west coast guild, so they don't finish their raids until around 1am our time. That just doesn't work for us. Hopefully we'll be able to find a guild home on our horde characters soon.

6. Do you have an area in game that you always return to?

Not really. I typically hang out in Orgrimmar/Stormwind, but only for convenience reasons.

7. How long have you /played and has that been continuous?

I'm not at home, so I can't check my /played. However, it wouldn't be accurate anyway because there are a lot of hours that were *cough* not me playing... Before I started having "my friend" play on my account (Cataclysm) I think I had 100 days on Loihi (not to mention Amayaa and Adelaide). I have played on and off since December 2006 (more off than on) with my longest continuous span being December 2007 to October 2010. In most "off" times, I only took one or two months, but my longest off time was December 2012 to December 2013. I renewed my account for December and January and then let it ago again until July.

8. Admit it: do you read quest text or not?

No. I'm too impatient. Even when I first started playing, I would only skim it enough to find out what I needed to do. Still today, I only read it if I'm stuck.

9. Are there any regrets from your time in game?

My biggest regret was bringing some real life acquaintances into our guild. For the first time, Josh and I had a pretty successful guild running Naxx (WotLK). All of our RL friends had quit playing, and when we met some people who had quit but were looking to get back into the game, we invited them to roll on our server and join our guild. To make a long and painful story very short, they destroyed our guild. It broke my heart, and I'm still not over it five years later.

10. What effect has Warcraft had on your life outside gaming?

It has affected it in a lot of negative ways from time to time, but it has also affected it in positive ways. I have made some very good friends in game, two of whom I've met in real life. One has now traveled from Michigan to South Carolina to hang out with us 3 times - one of which was for our wedding. It can be a good stress reliever, but it can also be a stress inducer. It's just really important to find a balance between WoW and real life. I'm going to be honest; I struggled with that for awhile. I think I have a good handle on it now, though.

i'm back

I can't believe it's been three years since I posted here. I didn't love Cataclysm and never played seriously. I did raid finder a little towards the end, but I was never in a guild and never saw a non-raid-finder raid. Then there was MoP, aka the worst thing that ever happened to WoW. I honestly can't even remember who I leveled first - human Loihi or Amayaa. I want to say it was Loihi. Josh and I leveled together and we ran a few heroics, and then we were done. Over it. At some point I came back and leveled whichever one I hadn't leveled first, as well as Gatsbie. After about two months, though, I lost interest again. This expansion just sucks.

I am really looking forward to Warlords of Draenor, however. I'm super excited about it, and I really hope they do this one right. So right now, I'm preparing. I'm getting all of my characters leveled up to 90 so that I have choices. I'm leveling all my professions to 600. And I'm trying my best to stockpile gold. Maybe I just haven't found the right strategy yet, but I think it's always pretty difficult to make money at the end of an expansion. No one really needs anything, so you might sell mats to people like me who are getting their professions leveled up, but other than that, it's hard to really pinpoint something that is going to make you money.

So right now I have:
Amayaa - Blood Elf Paladin - Level 90
Gatsbie - Troll Druid - Level 90
Loihi - Undead Warlock - Level 90
Katniss - Orc Hunter - Level 90
Loihi - Human Warlock - Level 90
Adelaide - Draenei Shaman - Level 89
Ladella - Undead Priest - Level 89
Avena - Blood Elf Warrior - Level 88
Liora - Tauren Shaman - Level 87
Whimsy - Gnome Warrior - Level 87

Needless to say, I have lots of choices. I probably won't play Whimsy or Adelaide at all because they're on a server where my guild and pretty much everyone I knew left. I transferred my main off that server, and there just isn't really anything left for me there. Luckily, I have both another shaman and a warrior. I hope to have Ladella, Avena, and Liora to 90 by the end of this week.

I don't even remember leveling my professions, but somehow I already have jewelcrafting, enchanting, alchemy, inscription, engineering, herbalism, and mining at 600. I don't have all the fancy schmancy new recipes, but again, it doesn't really matter at this point. At least I won't have to worry about doing leveling any of that when WoD comes out; it will be ready to go for the new stuff. Today I was working on blacksmithing. I think I got to 530 or something. I just need to farm a ton of ghost iron and I'll be finished with that. I've been debating leveling a tailor. Human Loihi's tailoring is maxed, and I leveled that as I went with her. (She was my first character and has been around since vanilla.) It was a nightmare even leveling it that way, so I don't know if I will pick it up on my horde server or not. Josh does have a max level tailor, so I don't necessarily need it.

Once they announce the release date, I'll be able to come up with a better plan. If it does end up being December (or even November) I'll probably just unsubscribe until they drop the patch. If it is coming sooner, then I may spend my time PvPing until that patch drops. I have no interest in trying to get into anything PvE-wise at this time, though.

So I guess we'll see where everything is on Thursday.