A long time ago...

 ...I actually wrote on this blog! Well, I think it's time to do so again. Over the last few weeks, I had exams again, and my computer was busted again, so I barely even touched the game. The worst part of it is, the computer broke just when the Cataclysm patch was released so I didn't get to experience any of the changes from the start.

Well, exams are over, the computer is now working, so I've been very busy.

I continued to clear my inventory and sell everything that will become useless tomorrow. This means I left the eternals and common gems I had, as I expect those to be in demand once all those new Worgen start to go to Northrend and level their professions. I also left some enchanting materials, but not much, since I used up most of them. My scrolls sold for the most part, but I still have a bunch left over so I hope I will somehow manage to sell those later, at least at a discount for a partial return of my investments.

Lashtar is doing well with inscription, but I didn't stock up on inks because of my computer, so I'm just selling the stuff I already made. Still, he started at around 1000 and is now at close to 7000. With a single 5 minutes-a-day time investment, I think this is pretty damn good. With all of this, I am right now sitting on about 220 000 gold total, so I think Cataclysm won't be a financial issue.

I also cleared Larthas' inventory and bought him some flasks and potions of water walking. I was also going to buy some swiftness potions, but there aren't any on the auction house. With that and the vendor mount he owns, leveling will be a painless process. I did nearly the same things with my other characters but I still have to research what a good leveling spec would be for each of them.

I also leveled my mage to 65. He can now make frostweave and netherweave bags and he already made a whole bunch of them hoping the price would increase tomorrow and over the next few weeks. He should make a nice profit on those. I really loved leveling in the old world with him. The whole 1-60 content redesign is awesome and it plays great. Leveling is truly fun again.

Most importantly, I decided to leave my guild. After all the breaks I had because of hardware and other issues, I just didn't feel like I belong there anymore. Also, I don't think I will be able to raid as much as I used to, so that's another reason I felt it was time to leave. Since I have so many alts, server transfers are out of the question, so I made my new home in Nerf Me, a much larger guild which, while they do raid, also makes room for social players which is what I will probably be for the next few months. I might do a raid every now and then if there's room and I have the time, but mostly, I will be taking it easy and enjoying the game at a slower, less time intensive pace.

Anyways, over the next few days, I will be leveling and finally experiencing some truly new content, so I'm not really sure how much I will be able to write, but I promise to at least try and give you a short update.

Is there an achievement?

I'm not allowed to post at the inn, so I'm going to express my opinion here. It seems Larissa is annoyed with a person asking "is there an achievement" regarding the new phase of the invasion. She seems to think that it's wrong to think that way and to ask questions like that. Like the game should be played "purely for the fun of it".

Well, It is my opinion that she is one hundred percent, completely, absolutely wrong. I also think that she is extremely narrow-minded in stating this. Now, if the person who asked the above question also thinks that the event is stupid because there is no achievement (other than the minor feat of strength), then that person is wrong and narrow-minded to.

There is no right or wrong way to play an MMO or any game for that matter. The game is supposed to be fun, true. The thing some people seem to be consistently missing is that everyone has their on definition of fun and, as long as that definition doesn't involve directly destroying some other person's fun in a multiplayer game, then this is completely fine. You get it, guys? YOU like the "social experience" of defending Stormwind form an elemental invasion. True, I like it to, for the first few times, but I also like getting achievements, raiding properly every now and then, doing some PVP. I sure as hell don't tell myself that your opinion is the norm or the only right one. There are people in this game who only PVP. There are also people who like top level raiding, math and spending hundreds and thousands of gold to get 10 more dps. All of them have as much fun as you do, and to think that your fun is somehow "better" than theirs is just idiotic and ignorant.

So yeah, If all that person cares is the achievements and that's fun for him, then that's great. If that same person starts thinking that achievements are the only good way to have fun in this game and thinks people who prefer the social aspect or PVP or raiding are wrong, then he/she is just as ignorant as those that claim the same for any of those aspects.

Today, I played WoW

Quite a bit, actually! Now let's see, what did I do?

First I killed some horde noobs in Darnassus with a guildie.Four or five of them tried to kill Tyrande, but we stopped that, single handedly. This also got me to 27/50 on City Defender.

Then I decided it was time to start clearing my inventory. Having only one banker guild with only three tabs, I can't really stockpile that much for cataclysm, so I decided to get rid of inventory that probably wont be selling. This includes current enchants, epic and meta gems, stuff like that. It also means I completely removed my thresholds on those items. I'm still making a profit on most of them, even without the threshold, but the priority is to get rid of them. I am currently siting at about 200 000 gold and I expect at the very least a couple of thousands more after the clearance sale.

I also started seriously making money on inscription. I got a bunch of inks and made one of each glyph I know how to make. They sell at insane profits on my realm so I expect it to be the major money maker during the next week or two.

I also tried making some money with leatherworking and it is working, but the potential here is much smaller. Still, these are things that move fast, so I will be using it for a while.

I also leveled my mage to 45. Nothing major there, but I did it.

The big thing, however, is the fact that the next phase of the elemental invasion started. Portals are appearing throughout Stormwind and Ironforge with elementals pouring in on all sides. Once cleared, you are able to bring the fight to them and fight four major elemental bosses throughout Azeroth, with some of the more renowned people at your side, like Magni Bronzebeard. I missed the invasions for now, but I did fight the fire boss in Blackrock. The next invasion should be in less than an hour, so I will be ready.

There, finally a post with some content, hope you guys enjoyed it.

Been a while...

I have been neglecting this blog for a bit, mostly because I didn't have much to write about. Even today, all I can give is a short update.

I have slowly been going back to the AH business, but it doesn't feel as fun anymore. I might put this part of my gameplay on hold until cataclysm gets out.

In other news, I managed to get exalted with the Zandalar Tribe today with Larthas, so I won't be losing anything in that aspect once they remove it in the next major patch. There are also some great news. The Insane title will still be obtainable come Cataclysm, even a bit easier than before. All they did was to remove one reputation faction from the requirements.

Also, Sahtral is now 42 and I might even push him to 50 to start preparing for the huge demand for Netherweave bags when Cataclysm gets out. The problem is, exams are coming up in a week and they will last until December 3rd so I'm not sure if I have the time to do it. I have to say, I'm loving the Arcane tree in dungeons. All of my spells are instant cast and I rarely, if ever, run out of mana, thanks to Evocation. The class is now truly fun to play.

Anyways, that's about it. I didn't do much else, and I probably won't do much else due to real life obligations.

Bejeweled!

So, apparently, Bejeweled 3 is coming out on the same day as Cataclysm - December 7th. This might be a serious problem for Blizzard and could cause them to lose allot of subscribers. What do you think? Will you be buying Cataclysm, Bejeweled or both?

I, for one, am undecided as of yet. We shall see!

Also, my computer is back again and it seems to be working for now. I haven't played much, but I did spend allot of time configuring my new interface, TukUI on all of my characters as well as trying to recapture the auction house, which really went under while I was gone.

Also, Sahtral should be around 37 now, if I'm not mistaken...

One other thing. In case you didn't realize, that up there was sarcasm...

I got hacked!

Yep, I did. And I really mean hacked. No social engineering involved, or anything of the sort. I did not fall for a scam, I did not buy gold, nothing like it.

What happened is, my main e-mail account was compromised, probably because there was a keylogger on one of the college computers I used it on. From my main e-mail account, the hacker got access to some of my WoW account data and he managed to reset the password. From there on, he attached an authenticator and blocked me from accessing my account.

I went through the recovery process and everything should be restored by the time I get my computer back on Tuesday or Wednesday. Whoever he was, I think he loved my more than one hundred thousand gold pieces that I had on all of my characters combined.

Did I learn anything? Not really, since it was due to lack of security in my college. I can't avoid opening my e-mail there, so all I can do is to change my passwords at home, after each occasion of accessing my accounts in college. I should also probably delete my old e-mails more often, as my WoW account data was in on old e-mail on my main e-mail account.

Will I be buying an authenticator? No, definitely not. It's not that I think it's a waste, it's just that I hate having an additional gadget on my desk. If I get a decent mobile phone, I will get the mobile app at one point, but my current phone is not supported so that will have to wait.

I think that two years of gameplay with no issues is a good track record, so I'm not worried really. Even less so, since my new WoW e-mail is now completely isolated from all my other accounts.

Hardware issues are back...

In case you didn't follow me for the last few months, my laptop malfunctioned. It happened slowly but, over time, I couldn't do anything on it because it would go out as soon as I put even the slightest stress on it. Last week, I finally ordered a new computer and got it last Friday. Sadly, the GPU was busted and I finally got it replaced on Monday. The computer worked perfectly until last night, when something else malfunctioned and it wouldn't boot. Today, I left it at the shop so they can find the problem and fix it properly.

Sadly, since it's the holidays, I won't be getting it back until Tuesday or even Wednesday so I won't be playing WoW again. This really sucks, but there's nothing I can do about it except be patient. Hopefully, once I get it back next week, all these problems will go away at least for a while. For now, I will follow the blogosphere, try to post a tip every now and then and possibly write a quick rogue guide since that is the last alt I have at 80.

It's good to be back!

The computer is finally working so, at long last, I played the game again today. Mind you, I have a headache, so I haven't played nearly as much as I would like to. I managed to spec Larthas and have been practicing my new priority system. I have also done the Hallow's End daily and spent some time rebuilding my settings with the new Zero Auctions addon. It work's pretty much the same as always, except you have to confirm every auction now.

Other than that, I didn't play much. I will probably try and spec some of my other characters tonight and spend more time at it tomorrow if the headache is gone.

On a related note, glyphs seem to selling like crazy still, so I should probably try to get in on that.

Hardware sucks...

My hardware troubles still persist so I won't be playing anything any time soon, sadly.

I've been hearing about various bugs introduced in patch 4.0.1 from my brother in law. It seems his game completely freezes sometimes when he enters a random dungeon, and, apparently, others have this issue also. All he can do at that point is to physically turn of and restart his computer. Anyone else having any weird issues? Any fixes for those? I would hate to finally be able to play the game and then be blocked by a nasty bug.

Busy, busy!

Sorry for not posting, guys, but I've been busy for the past few days trying to get my new computer into a usable condition. I got it yesterday morning and get this, it's broken. I guess it's a factory defect, so there wasn't much I could do. I took it back to the store (drove all the way to Zagreb), where they plugged it in and it was suddenly working. When I got it back home, it worked for an hour, but then the troubles began again. I will probably have to get the GPU replaced, but at this point, it could be anything so I might even have to leave it at the shop. The good news is, I have the warranty so it's all free. The bad news is, I still have to pay for travel expenses so right now I'm regretting not buying it somewhere closer for a bit more money.

As for WoW, here's something. It seems I have mislead you and the cooldown on epic gem transmutes was not removed. Sorry for spreading missinformation.

Patch 4.0.1 Shaman Healing

Well, my fourth alt was a shaman and, while I did level as elemental, I also made him a healer and used a healing spec through the dungeons. As usual, this is all purely theoretical, so don't crucify me if I'm wrong, just let me know and I'll try and fix it.

Talents

Talents are... let's just say a bit weird. I'm really not sure what you should do with some of them so allot of this is probably personal preference. I guess 31/2/3 is what I would go with right now, but only it's hard to tell what will soon be preferable. Depending on your mana and output, you might instead put 3 points in Improved Shields and two points in Acuity. If you really lack mana, you could even remove Acuity completely and take Telluric Currents instead. It really is completely dependent on your gear and preferences. Also, the one point in Cleanse Spirit could be put somewhere else, but I figured, if I need to cleanse him, he is probably taking damage. Basically, give it some thought and redistribute as you feel is needed.

Glyphs

This is a bit easier to chose, but there's still some options left. For prime Glyphs, you should probably go with Earth and Water Shield. As for the third one, both Earthliving Weapon and Riptide are viable, but Earthliving Weapon more so. You could also go for Shocking if you feel that using Shocks is taking to much of your healing time.

Major glyphs are pretty straightforward. Take Chain Heal, Healing Wave and Healing Stream Totem.  It will give you some flexibility and improve your performance.

For minor glyphs, this is really completely your choice, but I will probably take Astral Recall, Renewed Life and Water Breathing, simply for the convenience.

Gear, Reforging, Gemming, Enchanting

First of all, you will be using mail now. Sorry to say, but if you had cloth and leather pieces, you will need to find some replacements as the 5% bonus is good. 

Other than that, the gemming will remain the same except SP is replaced with Intellect. You will probably be using the Frost relic from now on, as relics don't give you special procs anymore and are simple gear items instead. 

You will probably be able to keep your old enchants without much issues, but you could get Brilliant Spellthread, Arcanum of Blissful Mending and Greater Inscription of the Crag now.

As for reforging, there are no caps to reach, but do try and track your haste levels to see when you can reach certain thresholds and reforge accordingly. 

Combat

OK, we are out of DPS and Tanking waters so I rally can't help to much here. There is no "rotation" or priority system to follow. Heal as needed and pick the right heals for the right situation. Don't waste mana and be smart. All that I can say based on the news is that you will be shocking allot and maybe electrocuting if you picked the talent. 

Conclusion

Well, I believe this would be it for my shaman guide. As I said, healing requires me to test things out, so I really can't decide on allot of things based just on numbers. You will have to change the way how you heal, that's for sure, and in this case, the best tip I can give is to practice. 

Patch 4.0.1 Death Knight Tanking

My DK was the third alt that I got to 80 and she was going to be my exclusive banker, thus the girl name that doesn't follow the rules of my other alts. I wanted to have her as a tank so I can do dailies and the weekly raid fast without wasting to much time on queues and trying to find a group. Before this patch, she was a frost tank and it went well for heroics and weekly raids. Thing have changed!

Now, keep in mind, this is all theoretical, as I am unable to play. This is what I would do in theory, but I have no idea how it would work in practice. Once I fix my hardware issues and start to play again, I will update all of my guides and try to make them as short and as simple to follow as possible. I'm not trying to do statistics here, I just want to make quick and easy "cheat sheets" so people can look up information in a hurry. If you want in-depth stuff, go to ElitistJerks or something.

Talents

First of all, Blood is the tank tree now. No Frost, no Unholy, just Blood. Period. I find this a welcome change as it will ease balancing and make it easier to understand for newbies. As for those who complain that the class isn't unique any more, go cry in a corner somewhere.

There are several ways  I could go with the spec here, but I think this version of 31/0/0 would be the core. As for the rest of the talents, we have a few choices. Keep in mind, Scarlet Fever and Abomination's Might are pretty much interchangeable, based on raid composition. If both is covered, you could take Blood-Caked Blade for threat or Hand of Doom for some utility.

As for the remaining 5 points, you could go allot of ways. There's 3 potential points in Epidemic, so you can keep your diseases up easier. Then you can add some to Unholy Command, but both of these are probably better choices in dungeons than in raids. You could also take both Scarlet Fever and Abomination's might to cover more areas in your raid/group, or put some points in Blood-Caked Blade to increase your single target threat.

 
Glyphs

For prime glyphs, good choices are Heart Strike and Rune Strike for more damage and threat, and Death and Decay for more AoE threat. There is also the option of Death Strike if you prefer to focus on single target.

For major glyphs, we have a few more choices. You could take Dancing Rune Weapon for more threat on cooldown, Vampiric Blood and Rune Tap for healing, Bone Shield so you can react faster and Blood Boil, Pestilence and Death Grip for more range, and better AoE. Anti-Magic Shell can also be situationally a good choice, as well as Strangulate.

As for minor glyphs, just pick what you like and what you feel like it might be useful. None of them affect your performance that much, but they actually seem fun.

Just remember, you learn glyphs now and always have them, so remember to switch when needed (those dusts aren't that expensive).

Stats and Reforging

Basically, if you have to much hit or expertise, reforge to other stats, based on what you need. You can't reforge to stamina so there really isn't a perfect answer for this. Still, Mastery probably is the better choice to reforge to. Once you get Expertise and Hit to cap values, you should probably reforge the excess to Mastery. You don't really need to be hit capped to tank, but you might as well if you got the gear. Extra threat is always welcome and gives you the chance to worry about other things.

Gemming

In ICC, it's still Stamina all the way, nothing has changed there. If the socket bonus is 12 stamina or more, then take it, otherwise, don't bother. Use expertise, hit, dodge and parry in combination with stamina to get the bonus (green and purple). 

Threat

This really isn't as simple to explain as DPS priority/rotations, but let's try. Basically the best way to spend runic power is with Rune Strike. It causes the most amount of threat per point spent, by far. For AoE, Death and Decay is your friend, but keep in mind it will be up 50% of the time at best. If you took Crimson Scourge, Blood Boil will be a good addition here. Overall, Heart Strike will be the best choice, but you should really switch it up based on the situation.

Put diseases early and don't let them drop. Don't worry about clipping them, we aren't warlocks. If you have Scarlet Fever and Crimson Scourge, the best way to refresh diseases will always be Pestilence.

Survival

This one seems complicated, but the basic premise is simple. Use cooldowns as required. You have a wide array of choices and so pick the ones that are best for the situation. Also use your Rune Taps when needed. It's better to reduce your threat/damage output for a while than to die, the same goes for Death Strike. Summoning the Army of the Dead actually also grants you damage resistance while channeling, so keep that in mind for emergency situations. 

Most importantly, KEEP BONE SHIELD UP! 

Combat

So let's put all of this to practice. This is how you should start combat:

• Apply diseases. Outbreak can be a quick and easy opener and it will leave your runes untouched, so you can then start with the hard hitters right away.
• If you are the one with Scarlet Fever, use Blood Boil early and keep the debuff active.
• If there's no emergency, just use Heart Strike. If there's more than 4-5 targets, use Blood Boil instead.
• If you think it's getting tough, use Death Strike
• If there's more multiple targets, Death and Decay. 

Conclusion

Well, that's about it, I hope it helps. Just remember that I had no way to test this. If you have something to add or you feel like something is wrong, let me know and I will correct it. You probably won't be getting a DPS guide for Death Knights for me, since, other then leveling, I have no experience with it.

Affliction Warlocks in 4.0.1

Since the warlock was my first alt, I thought I should also write a quick guide about affliction, the spec my warlock uses. Some of these things can be applied to the other two specs, but not all of them.

Talents
31/0/5 is what I will be using before Cataclysm. Again, talents are easy to pick now and most of the optional stuff really is optional. Both the Drain Life and Shadow bolt approach are viable now, but Shadow Bolt really is more effective so if you wish to maximize your output, you should go in that direction.

Glyphs
Nothing to think about here, use Haunt, Lash of Pain and Bane of Agony as prime glyphs, Life Tap, Soul Swap and Shadow Bolt as major glyphs. Take whatever you like as minor glyphs. Obvious from the choice of glyphs, the Succubus will be our pet of choice now. If you decide to use Drain Life instead of Shadow Bolt or if you have more than 1400 haste, the Life Tap glyph is not needed. 

Gemming
The Chaotic Skyflare Diamond will be your meta of choice. As for others, try not to break socket colors and use a Veiled Dreadstone in blue sockets. Once you reach the hit cap, switch to pure +20 Intellect, as no socket bonus is worth 10 Intellect. As for yellow slots, use a Smooth or a Quick King's Amber if the bonus is more than 3 Spell Power, otherwise, just go for pure Intellect. 

Spell Priority

• Corruption
• Haunt
• Unstable Affliction
• Bane of Agony
• Drain Soul (If target is at less than 20% health) 
• Shadow Bolt or Drain Life 

Stat Priority

• Shadow Bolt: Hit (17%) > Intellect > Haste > Spellpower > Mastery > Critical Rating
• Drain Life: Hit (17%) > Intellect > Mastery > Haste > Spellpower > Critical Rating

Reforging
Reforge critical rating to hit and mastery as much as possible. Also remember that you will need 2 blue gems for your meta requirement, so you should make those +hit gems. Basically, fill your blue sockets with +hit/+int, then reforge your +crit to +hit until you reach the cap, then reforge crit to haste and if you can't reforge to haste, reforge to mastery.

Additional Tips

• Unlike all your other dots, do not refresh your Bane of Agony while it's still on your target, because the damage it does ramps up nearing the end of it. Wait for it to run out and then recast it, or you will miss on some heavier ticks. 
• Feel free to use Shadowflame if the situation allows it, as it's damage has been ramped up. 
• Doomguard and Infernal have now become guardians and you can use them, on cooldown, beside your pet. Just consider them as damage cooldowns. The first one is for single target, while the second one is for AoE. Their strength is based on your stats at the moment of summoning, so try to chain up some trinkets or something before summoning them. Also, they will attack targets with the bane spell, so make sure you cast one before using them.
• Enchanting pretty much remained the same, as far as I can see so there are no new enchants to consider

Disclaimer
All of this is purely theoretical. I cannot play the game at the moment, due to hardware issues so I'm just following logic, based on the info I have outside the game. If you feel I am mistaken about something, please let me know and I will check and correct it if needed.
 

Retribution Paladins in 4.0.1 and Cataclysm

 Our class has changed allot in this patch. The mechanics are pretty much flipped upside down and we are more like rogues than our old selves. Allot of people have questions, so I will try to answer some of them.

Talents
I will probably be going with 3/2/31 for now while planning to put points into Arbiter of the Light and Blazing Light on 85 leaving me at 7/2/31. This leaves one point in the end, so you can pick it for yourself. I plan to put it in Rebuke to increase my utility. An extra interrupt is never a bad thing. Some of these talents are optional, but you should be able to figure that one out for yourself. Talents really are a no-brainer with Retribution. 

Gemming

It looks like we will be gemming pure strength only now and in Cataclysm. This hasn't changed but it does look like there might be something in gemming strength/crit or even strength/haste in some situations. For the absolute optimal gemming, we will have to wait for some theorycrafting.

As for the meta gem, the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond will probably be the way to go now.   

Enchanting

Everything should stay to same here, except for the cloak. Our new cloak enchant at 80 will probably be the Greater Speed one.

Gear

2 T9 and 2T10 is still the way to go before you can get 4 T10. It gives a flat 10% increase to all our damage sources. Also, with agility not being our thing anymore, we should all be switching to the strength version of our Ashen Verdict ring. The same goes for all other agility gear. Also, WEAR ALL PLATE! The 5% strength bonus is big.

Reforging

First of all, reforge to get to 8% hit cap. After that, cap the expertise (26). Once you get those two down, reforge to haste until you reach that cap. After that, crit is priority. Now, for the haste cap, it's not as easy to calculate so check out Elitist Jerks and RetributionPaladins to figure it out. Basically, you want Crusader Strike to drop to 3 seconds so you can do CS > Filler > CS without losing anything. In ideal cases, that would require 1015 haste, but since we have latency to worry about, the number fdrops to about 750haste at 100ms or 510 haste at 200ms of latency. All of this will change with the new spell usage background mechanic Blizzard will be implementing, so I'm not sure how those values will work out.

Fights

You use the Seal of Truth on bosses and Seal of Righteousness on trash and AoE packs. As for blessings, it's Might unless the group is caster heavy, in which case you use Kings. If you need to close in on an enemy, use Judgement now unless you have Art of War stacks, in which case you use Exorcism. Also, paladins have utility, a good paladin will make use of that, so use Word of Glory when you see someone needing it. Any good DPS should have raid frames in a visible place just like a healer. A Flash of Light every now and then isn't that bad either so if it's needed, use it. Keeping another person alive at the expense of some of your DPS is always worth it.

Now, we don't have FCFS anymore so our "rotation" now is CS > filler > CS until we hit three Holy Power and then a finishing move is used. The choice of the finisher depends on the situation. If we are fighting less than 3 enemies, use Templar's Verdict. For more than three, Divine Storm should be your choice. If someone needs emergency healing, use Word of Glory. Once we start leveling to 85, we will also have Inquisition, but no need to worry about that for now. As for the fillers, they actually are FCFS so the priority would be Judgement > Exorcism (with Art of War) > Hammer of Wrath > Holy Wrath > Consecration, if I'm not mistaken. Just keep in mind, once you get enough haste, you will only be using one filler in between Crusader Strikes so just use the one that does the highest damage. Also, you won't be using Consecration that much, so don't worry about it.

Other than that, we have a new cooldown and our old one has changed a bit. Avenging Wrath is now usable at any time and it lets you use Hammer of Wrath regardless of enemy health. The new one is Zealotry which boosts your Holy Power production for 20 seconds. Use them when you think it's smart and, but be sure to use them as many times in a battle as possible.

Conclusion

Well, that's about it. If I missed anything, let me know. Retribution has been a little low on DPS on day one of the patch, but some quick hotfixes changed that, so you should be fine in toping the charts now. Enjoy!  

How are things?

So, the new patch is out and the auction house rush is probably subsiding on most realms.

Since I couldn't make use if it myself, I'm wondering how things went for the rest of you. All around the blogosphere, people are reporting huge profits from glyphs and slightly less huge profits from gems and other items. Well, how did things go for you? Did you make or lose money? Did you learn anything?

Other stuff happened two. Some of the classes have completely different play styles now. Some have been boosted, while others nerfed in damage. Of course, Blizzard will fix these things soon, but the question remains. How did it go for you and your class?

Throw me a bone here guys! I can't play myself, so I would at least like to hear how others are playing. :D

Also, what are your plans for the next month and a half? The events will probably be starting soon, but my guess is, they wont push them together it Hollow's End.

What experience teaches us...

Allot of people aren't really aware that there are new ways to gain experience in Cataclysm

Aside from the obvious new dailies, you will now be getting experience from gathering professions, archeology. How much you get seems to depend on your level, your skill level and the level of the thing you are gathering.

Some examples for a level 80 would be:

• new dailies - around 23.000xp
• level 80 mob kills - around 4-5000xp
• intro level cataclysm herbs - 4-5000xp
• archeology fragment - around 23.000xp
• archeology site cleared - around 70.000xp

According to various sources, ore seems to be broken in the beta right now, but my guess would be the same amount as with herbs. In any case, it seems that just by leveling archeology, you can get a level or two. I'm not sure how this scales to lower levels, though.

A good idea might be to get 25 daily quests from Wrath endgame and complete all of them, but not to turn them in. That way, you get a nice start once the level cap goes up to 85. Blizzard might decide to stop you from doing this, though, so don't put all your hopes into something like that.

Addon Nerf!

If you used QA3, like me, you will notice an issue with the new patch. Automated posting, sadly, is not working anymore. Blizzard has protected the auction posting APIs, which means that any automated posting is now broken. The only fix would be to add a confirmation dialog for every new item (you can still post multiples of the same item). Sadly, this is against the QA addon policy so the addon is/will be broken.

Of course, this isn't the end of the world. You can still post extremely fast by clicking the "Yes" button. The problem is, QA3 won't have this button, so we need a replacement. Thankfully,  Shadowed, the author of the addon has changed the license, allowing anyone to modify the addon as long as they reference that it was originally QA.

Sapu94 has, quite soon, taken the QA code and made AuctionProfitMaster, which is basically just QA with the confirmation dialog. For now, you should probably try that one, and in the future, we will see. There are a couple of projects in development, some of which look very promising.

In other news, I hope you guys stocked up on low priced rare gems so you can use them tomorrow (or today in the US) to make huge amounts of epic gems and sell them. Depending on how big the demand for them is, you should also bare in mind the option of selling the rare gems themselves at a profit, as their price might skyrocket to (it already did on many servers).

Also, Glyphs! :D

Mount Scaling.

This is something that is rarely spoken off, but I read from several sources that mounts in Cataclysm will be scalable. This would mean that, for instance, the normal speed land mounts would become epic speed land mounts, once you learn the next riding level at level 40. Likewise, the normal flying mounts would jump to epic flying speed, and then the "extra epic" speed, again, once you learn the required flying skill.

If you ask me, this is great. Some of those normal speed mounts look pretty good and it would reduce the clutter in the mount menu, since you can pretty much click any mount without wings and it's OK. It also increases our options at all levels. What do you guys think?

Faster Leveling...

So you are leveling your fifteenth alt and it's getting a bit dull? Well, you could do some stuff that makes leveling a bit faster. For instance, once you reach a high enough level to queue for a new dungeon, take a few minutes to travel around Azeroth and take all the quests you can for that dungeon. Take it one step further, even. Start leveling in zones connected to the right dungeons. You will get some more advanced quests and you will lose less time on traveling around.

Secondly, make use of the cloth turn in quests, if you have the cash. They are quick and easy to solve and will give you a nice experience boost. Just remember, only the first runecloth quest for each faction gives you experience. No use in doing it more than once.

Thirdly, once you get to 57, go to the Eastern Plageulands and do all the turn ins you can there. Dark Iron scraps, Cores of Elements, anything you can buy on the auction house, you buy and it will probably give you enough experience for the last level before outland. It usually does for me, but I'm not sure of the exact total you get.

Other than that, make not of quick and easy quests you can do just by traveling around or getting something of the auction house. They might not be worth it on this character, but you can get stuff in advance for the next character you will be leveling.

Now, if you really want to take it to extremes, try leveling a few alts at once. Leave them at inns so they can get rested bonus and simply queue a random dungeon ever now and then to make use of the bonus. You could be leveling one alt normally, and just do randoms every few days on others. It might not be the fastest way to get them all to the cap, but it will give you most for the least amount of time invested.

I am aware some of these things will change now that Cataclysm is around the corner, but if you have the right mindset, you can find similar opportunities even in the revamped world.

Gear Shopping!

There is a simple to increase your gold amount when it comes to buying gear on the auction house - just don't do it. Seriously, just don't. Leveling is easy and fast as it is. There is no reason for you to waste your money on gear that you will replace within a few hours. I know you feel that you will be able to level up faster if you invest in it and this will help you reach the cap faster and allow you to make more gold, but for the most part, it simply isn't worth it, unless you are rolling in gold already.

Now, if you are rolling in gold, just go for it. There is no point in having allot of gold if you don't use it. Heck, my last two alts have set me back 2-3 thousands each before they got to 80. Just don't do it if you are low already.

Now, I can think of an exception or two for this advice. If you are a spell caster at a low level, got to the auction house and buy one of those low level wands that enchanters make. It will make your leveling much simpler, all the way up to level 20. Those wands do plenty of damage and cost no mana to use, so you will have less downtime and level faster. Just remember that there is a point where you should start using spells exclusively. No one likes a wanding warlock in Uthgarde Keep.

Another exception would be if you are leveling as a tank. The Northrend low 70 tanking set is great and will really help you stay alive, so you should probably invest in it. You probably could make it without it, but you will make the lives of your party members much easier. Also, feel free to fill those gem slots with some blue or even green stamina gems. They might not be as strong as epic, but they will provide a nice health boost.

Blacksmiths should also be aware of the above tip. People buy those tanking sets, so make sure you check if you can turn that fact into profit.

Other rare recipes...

The other day, I tried to shift your attention to cooking recipe's you get from quests and how well they sell.

Well, this time I would like to point out that the same applies to all other rare recipes. You should keep an eye on those. Scan the auction house for them, check every recipe you get as a drop, pretty much everything you cant buy from a vendor.

Most of those things usually sell for a good price on the auction house, especially stuff that cannot be farmed. A good example would be Recipe: Heroic Potion. This one, while somewhat farmable, is extremely rare and sells for several hundred gold each, sometimes even over 1000.

A decent way to get some rare recipes is from Sealed Scroll Case which you can get in Zul'Aman (more info on the wowhead page). Just remember a basic rule, if you have seen it for the first time and you already have a level 80, then it's probably rare.

Raids in Cataclysm

If you have been following the news, you probably already know that there wont be much difference between 10 and 25man raids in Cataclysm. You will get the same loot, just more in 25 and you will even be able to split a 25man raid lockout into two separate 10man lockouts. Off course, allot of hardcore guilds are against this.

Well, I'm not. You see, I'm the type of player that likes pretty much every aspect of the game. I don't wanna be awesome at just one part and only do that, I prefer to do a little bit of everything. This change is perfect for me. I will be able to do the raids for the week and I still wont feel to burnt out to do other stuff.

As for the completely hardcore guys, I guess they will have to find something to do with a few of those extra nights they will get.

Cooking Recipes!

If you payed any attention while leveling, you probably noticed a number of cooking related quests which reward you a cooking recipe and a stack of the food the recipe is for in return for gathering some reagents.

Well, in my experience, those recipes can sell for a nice sum on the auction house. If you are leveling alts and you have no interest of getting all the recipes for them, you might consider not wasting those on yourself and selling them for some extra cash. If nothing else, it will slightly decrease the pressure on your mains pockets. You can always buy the same recipes back when you are rolling in millions from all these awesome tips you are getting. :D

For the farmers out there...

While I do prefer making gold on the auction house, most of the WoW community still makes money mostly from farming and daily quests. Well, in case you want to try for some quick cash, there is a spot in Westfall that might interest you. On the coast of Westfall, around the most wester part of it, there's a spot where crabs spawn. Now these aren't critter crabs, but your regular, area level neutral mobs. When you kill them, they crawler claws, crab meat and clams, which give you clam meat. All of those things are usually in high demand, as they are the the key materials in some cooking recipes that are really good for leveling.

Now, they usually don't sell for to much, but the thing is that this area spawns them incredibly fast. You literally can't kill them fast enough. Within 30 minutes of farming, if you are good enough, you can have a couple of stacks of each item, which transforms into some decent money, especially if you just rolled a new character on a new realm or something.

Happy farming!

Go to Zul'Gurub!

In case you didn't know, Zul'Gurub will be gone in 4.0.3. For those bad with numbers, that is not the upcoming patch, it's the one after that.

Why should you go there? Well, if you want to get the exalted title at one point, Zul'Gurub rep is pretty easy to get. You can get those bijous and various other turn in items and, even better, you can go in, clear the trash, go out, reset, etc. In any case, it wouldn't be a bad reputation to get to exalted.

Also, you might get one of the mounts.

Also, since other people will probably be doing this, those bijous and coins might actually sell well to.

In any case, if you are mostly trolling in the trade chat, go to Zul'Gurub, it's worth it.

Some markets you might be missing.

Since I pretty much said everything about how I make gold in wow, I thought I should also mention some markets that not everyone is in, but might be profitable.

First of all, vanilla enchants! In case you haven't noticed, people make alts and, usually, they want to level them as fast as possible. This is why allot of them use heirlooms and also enchant them with the best possible enchant available. This is where you come in. Get some old world reputations up, buy some nice enchants for shoulders, chests and weapons and start selling them. The profit margin on these things is usually huge and there is very little competition. Some of these would be the +15 Agility on weapons, anything that increases Intellect or Spellpower, basically anything that would give a big boost in damage or uptime for low level characters. There are also some non-heirloom enchants that you should be looking at, like the Healing Power one for bracers.

As for other professions, Leatherworking, Blacksmithing, Tailoring and Jewelcrafting should all be able to make some decent money on selling Northrend blue items, especially tanking sets and stuff like that. These are a bit harder to automate, but it's still doable, you just have to make more item groups in QA3.

Tailoring should be pretty decent with Netherweave bags, but only if you have a cheap supply of cloth.

Engineering I have no experience with, but I seem to remember buying some engineering items on the AH for various quests, so you should look into those. Scopes and Ammo will sell well to, probably.

For Blacksmithing, be sure to see if those Enchanting rods are profitable. Other than that, you will probably be limited to Northrend stuff.

I'll try to think of some other stuff, but, as I said, I don't have much experience with some professions so I can only do so much. In any case, I hope this will help.

How to make gold in WoW

I see some other WoW bloggers tackling this aspect of the game, so I decided to do my best to show my approach to this. Now, I'm by no means an expert. There are other WoW blogs dedicated exclusively to tips on making gold in the game. However, I do have some knowledge of it, so here goes...

First and foremost, there are no 100% sure ways to get lots of gold. There or no solid tips or tricks which will always work. If you expect something like that, you can forget about it right now. The amount of gold you will make is directly dependant on how much time you are willing to invest and how well you streamline the process.

I started actively trying to make gold around the end of last year. At first, I started slowly, following the tips on various sites to the letter. It worked to a degree, but I made much less than I was hoping. Then I started to farm for a bit, again according to tips from other people, but I have found that the farmable items usually didn't sell so well on my realm or it was just to boring. In the end, I realized there are no quick ways to do it. If you want to make it by farming, you will invest allot of time in it. If you want to do it on the auction house, then you simply can't expect big, quick profits.

I started tracking items on the auction house. At first, I did it with excel. I was following all the popular Northrend items, like ore, bars, eternals, cloth, herbs, basically anything that has a solid supply and sells fast. After about a week or so of doing this, I started to notice regular price fluctuations. Now i had about 6000 gold at this time, mostly made through farming and dailies, the two things I now hate the most about the game. Once I started to recognize which prices are low and which are high, I simply started to buy low and sell high. I made mistakes sometimes, but all in all, my gold supply started to increase. I did this for a while, and i got to about 15 000 after a few weeks. Yes, I know this is slow, but it took me about 20-30 minutes a day to do it.

Pretty soon, though, I wasn't to happy about the amount I was making. My first alt was an alchemist, so I decided to try and make use of that. I made him a transmute master and started making epic gems. As you know, you can only make one a day, so it was a limited profit, but it was a sure 60-80 extra gold per day. I realized it worked so i tried my luck on flacks and potions, but I couldn't get a steady herb supply so I gave up on that. On Larthas, I started making belt buckles and those sold quite nicely. I also tried to do some enchanting, but I was focusing on a few scrolls like Berserking and +10 to all stats on the chest, so it didn't work out that well. By that point, I've found an addon called Market Watcher and, thanks to it, stopped wasting my time on excel tables.

Some patches came out  pretty soon, and I've found that the market has changed to much so I won't have a reliable income for a while, until the new prices stabilize. This is when my death knight, which was supposed to be my banker finally got to 80. I decided to make her a jewelcrafter. At first, i tried to sell some blue gems, but I didn't have any of the popular recipes and those that I had sold like crap. I started stockpiling my epic gem transmutes and doing the jewelcrafting dailies to learn epic cuts. I used wowpopular.com to determine which recipes to buy and pretty soon, I started making some minor money from that.

I was at about 30-40k when some raw gem prices dropped madly. I decided to risk it and spent about 10 000 to buy them all out. At first, I thought it was a horrible mistake. The prices stayed low and, for a wile, the cut gems also dropped in price. I kept my raw gems though, and sold other colors which still had a decent price. After a week or two, to my luck, the prices got up again and I sold most of them for about 70-80% profit. I ended up at about 50-60 thousand. It was then, that I realized that the mistake was not to keep buying them when the price was low. Now, at this point, I had a whole bunch of recipes and it was getting tedious to make all of them every day. This is when, tanks to some other bloggers, I discovered two amazing addons.

The first addon was Kev's Tool Queue. What this addon allows you to do is make macros like:

• /ktq queue 2 cardinal
• /ktq queue 2 king's amber
• /ktq queue 2 majestic zircon

To explain it, the first line checks all the recipes that you know, and adds 2 pieces of any item you can make that contains the word cardinal in it's name. Now, I hope you understand how powerful this is. With a single macro, I can queue 2 of each epic gem cut I know, and if I learn another one, it will queue that one to, the next time I use the macro. Now, an even better thing to this is that it checks your inventory and your auction house to see if you already have  any of those items, and if you have any, it deducts the amount form the queue. So, if only one of my 2 Bold Cardinal rubies sells, it will queue only one of them. If neither sold that day, it wont queue them at all, since i already have two. This basically transformed half an hour of my time in a couple of clicks of the mouse.

Another amazing addon was Quick Auctions 3. In this one, you can define item groups, determine the minimum amount you want the sell the items from a group for, the maximum amount you want to sell and the amount you wish to undercut for. Then you add items to that group, go to the auction house and click post, and the magic happens. It will check the AH for every item on the list, see what's the minimum price available and, if it's above your minimum, it will undercut that price and post your item. With just one click and about 30 seconds of wait time, it will smartly post all of your gems. In addition to this, you can make the addon undercut the second lowest item on the AH inf the first one is to low, you can make it post at a default price is the lowest one is to low or skip posting the item at all. These features are awesome for a profession like jewelcrafting, since I already basically have just six item groups - one for each gem color.

With these two addons streamlining my gold making process, I started making loads of gold pretty soon. To increase it all, I used both of them to start an enchanting industry on Larthas. It was a bit harder, as I was forced to make a separate item group for each and every enchant I wanted to sell, but it payed off soon. Right now, I also started making money with leatherworking on my rogue, but this will go on hold until my laptop is back to health. I also plan to research elixir mastery and inscription on my shaman, but I'm having a hard time with those, because herbs always have a weird price fluctuation on my realm. With Larthas, I'm also selling enchanting rods, titanium plating, basically anything that's in a somewhat high demand. On Auriaya, I tried selling some blue items, and it was making money, but pretty soon I was having a hard time storing all my mats, and I didn't want to waste to much of my time on making money instead of playing the game. Basically, at this point, I feel my profits are high enough for comfort, so I'm not looking into expanding to much. In the future, who knows.

Well, there you go, I hope my experience will help someone. The best tip I can give is "keep at it". When I started jewelcrafting, it started out slow, but I was posting twice a day, kept watching the market to buy cheap uncut gems and tried to give the lowest prices I could afford. My minimum price wasn't at 10 go profit or anything like that. It was the price of the uncut gem plus 5% plus the price of the posting fee to account for canceling and items not selling. Yes, I lost a gold piece every now and then, but pretty soon, being the one buying most of the cheap mats and the one selling most of the gems, I pushed other people of the market and it became much easier. Just make sure to try and post once or twice a day, at least. Otherwise, people will get back into the market and you will have to wait a few days again before you get back to your old profits.

Hardware trouble...

Well, I have computer issues again, so I won't be playing for a while. I still might post every now and then about something WoW related, but there will be no gameplay, I'm afraid. The little that I did play, I made use of the Brewfest event and did got some extra emblems. My warlock also got the Kodo and my Lasthar, I believe, got the remote, but that might be one of my other alts.

RAF!

A guy in trade was offering the recruit a friend rocket mount for 25.000 gold today. Since I was pretty sure that item is soulbound and cannot be sold, I asked him what exactly he had in mind. Apparently, for 25.000 gold, he was willing to give me his e-mail, let me invite him, buy the game and pay for the two months for me to get the mount. Now, since I live in Croatia, where this service isn't available, I assumed I can't do this, but he told me that I could easily temporarily change my country of residence and do it anyway.

Since he was only asking for a 4000 gold deposit in advance, I decided to risk it and give him the money. Well, 15 minutes later, I was riding the, in my opinion, coolest mount in the game. As a special bonus, I got a month of game time free. I'm aware that the legality of this whle thing is somewhat uncertain, but I really don't see it as doing anything wrong. He had the money and wanted the gold, I had the gold and wanted the mount. I think 25.000 was well worth it.

Gearing up...

I've spent the last few days casually gearing up Salthra to a decent level. I didn't buy any emblem gear because i decided to wait and see which items I can have trough drops, but did do a we runs trought the new dungeons to get some items there. I wasn't that lucky, so all i got were some shoulders from ToC5 and pants from Pit of Saron. Salthra is right now sitting on a bit over 80 emblems of triumph and 6 or 8 emblems of frost.

In other news, my gold count is now about 135k and I also did the Gnomeregan world event with Auriaya. The only one left now is Lashtar. I might clear it with him tomorrow. Funny side note, there is almost no one doing the event anymore. There was a total of five of us when Auriaya did it.

Operation: Gnomeregan

Good news everyone!

Operation: Gnomeregan started yesterday and the surface of Gnomeregan is finally liberated. The plan was actually to liberate the whole city, but due to an unexpected nuclear explosion, we decided to settle for just the surface. As a reward, Larthas, Salthra and Hastral got a nice cloak as well as a cool item that transforms you into Gnomeregan infatry for 30 minutes. The event was extremely fun and funny and exciting and some other things i can't remember at the moment.

In other news, today is the day that Salthra reached level 80. He will be my leatherworker and this actually means he is almost ready for Cataclysm. All i have to do now is level my leatherworking to the max, figure out how to make money with it and maybe get him some gear so leveling is easier once the cap is increased.

Helloooooo Leatherworking!

I think i finally properly solved my laptop problems, so hopefully i won't miss posting days from now on (yeah, right!). Aside fromy my daily maintenance and "chores", I also leveled Salthra a bit. He is level 65 which means he can max out his leatherworking. I don't know how profitable it will be this late in the expansion, but i definitely expect it to pay off come Cataclysm. If I'm not misatken, all that's left now are tailoring and engineering. My mage has tailoring covered and who knows, i might replace skinning on Salthra for engineering. I might also just level a dwarven hunter, who knows...

In any case, Salthra is 65 now and will hopefully be even going to Northrend soon. It would be nice to get another max level character so i might actually go for that. If not, my mage will be next.

Getting, closer to Outland...

Today, I again did my dailies and auctions, skipped the heroics this time and went straight to Salthra. Sadly, i had some distractions during the day, so I didn't level as much as I wanted. I am currently level 56, but i will try to at least get to 57 before i go to bed. In any case, I will be in Outland tomorrow, hopefully.

EDIT: Well, surprisingly, i managed to actually get to 58. I cleared most of the quests in Winterspring, which got me to a bit over 56. Since i had a messenger quest to Chillwind Camp, i decided to go there next, since it's a good leveling area. When i got there, i did some of the introduction quests, two of the cauldron quests, the Lightbringer series and the quests Chromie gives me in Andorhal. After getting to 57 and turning in some quests, i rode to the Eastern Plaguelands where i logged off and switched to my banker. I bought a bunch of turn in items like Savage Frond, Core of Elements, Dark Iron Scraps, etc. and this gave me enough experience to get to 58. I immediately went to Outland and right now, Salthra is sleeping in the Honor Hold inn.

Sadly, I don't think I will be playing allot tomorrow, because my laptop is overheating and i urgently need to get it cleaned properly.

Hi, my name is Larthas, and I'm an altoholic...

After posting my auctions and doing the jewelcrafting daily, as well as the heroic dailies on both Lasthar and Auiraya, i continued to level Salthra some more. He is 52 now, soon to be 53. Hopefully, i will get to Outland tomorrow. I have most of Un'Goro Crater to complete, so it shouldn't be a problem. If i manage to miss some quests, I can easily continue on to Felwood and Winterspring.

Leveling, achievements and progression.

Since it has been a while since I've posted anything (you can find the reasons on my other blog), some stuff did happen this time. I pretty much geared my alts as much as i can from heroics, and i leveled my rogue to 48. My guild also managed to kill the Lich King on 25man, so, while I'm still not a Kingslayer, i am 2/12 on 25man HC. For now, I've killed Marrowgar and the Gunship which are probably the easies fights there.

As for gold, I'm nearing 120k and my rogue will soon contribute with leatherworking, hopefully. After that, it will probably be my mage with tailoring.

Altoholism, gearing and other stuff...

Past few days have, again, been somewhat uneventful. I did some heroics on my alts, level Salthra to 39, did the routine AH stuff and that's about it. Today, i tried a few runs of ToC5 with a guildie. Me for the healing trinket and him for the melee dps trinket. We were both unlucky, sadly, so we might try again tomorrow.

Since i really don't play that much, i will probably spare the 2 readers i have from boring status updates. If something fun and interesting happens, you will be the first to know. If not, there is no point in writing how i didn't do anything.

Very little...

Again, I've mostly done auctions and dailies over the last few days. I guess the summer is getting to me like it does with most players. Today, however, I did a few ToC5 runs with Auriaya and got the tanking trinket so she is pretty well geared now. I don't think getting accepted to weeklies will be a problem in the future.

Also, i got about 2500 reputation with the Cartel for my Insane in the Membrane feat on Larthas. There's still a long way to go, but I guess I could call this progress.

Slow and uneventful...

I really played very little for the past few days. I did the daily JC quest, logged in to do some auctioneering, but that's pretty much it. I tried to get the trinket from ToC5 Normal for Lasthar today, but even after 10 or so runs, no luck with it.

Lich King getting near!

Last night we organized two 10man groups first, both doing ICC10 HC. Around 21:30, we finally had enough people to continue on the Lich King in 25man. I am proud to say, we are getting really close to kill him. We managed to get to phase 3, but for some reason we are having trouble killing the Raging Spirits in phase 2.5, so 3 of them are on the off tank in the transition, killing him really fast. Still, there was obvious progression going on, so hopefully he will fall tonight. I just hope there isn't any thunderstorms tonight.

In other news, I've spent some times on my alts, leveling my Salthra up to 38 and gathering emblems on Hastral, Lashtar and Auriaya. Epic gems are still the main source of my income and i managed to get two farmers to sell me theirs directly. Larthas' enchanting is a close second, while Hastral's transmute just got upped to third place. I started selling uncut meta gems and titanium and titansteel bars, so i make about 200-300 a day from that.

Routine...

Not much done today. I did some dailies, did some auctioneering and even leveled my rogue a bit. All in all, just a routine day. Also, my brother in law was here so I looked over his characters a bit. He doesn't have Wrath of the Lich King yet, but he will probably get it soon, because his hunter reached level 70 today. There is another thunderstorm tonight, so no raiding, sadly.

Ruby Sanctum

We ended up wiping for four hours on Ruby Sanctum 10HC yesterday. Still, we did make progress and i really think Halion could be down tonight. The only problem is, a freaking thunderstorm! With my luck the guild will do this without me. Don't get me wrong, I like it when my guild downs bosses for the first time. Still, I would like to be there for just one time...

In other news, Larthas did some Dire Maul runs to get his goblin reputation back up. I am now 10/36k hated. Also, I managed to restock on gems on Auriaya so I will be back to selling now. The rest of my characters I didn't even manage to visit. Sadly, this means I missed a day of transmutes and dailies.

Skip a day...

Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I went to bed early so it slipped my mind. The good news is, stuff actually happened, so i have something to write about. Larthas went on a raid with the guild and we managed to reach the Lich King on the first night. I wanted to come tonight as well, but i had to take care of my nieces so that didn't happen. Hopefully, the Lich King will go down on 25 soon. I also got a new Tier10 token so now I'm just missing one piece, not counting the gloves which I probably won't get. Also, I managed to blow 16k today buy buying the Traveler's Thundra Mammoth. I really want to start on my Insane in the Membrane feat, so this mount will be very useful.

As for my other characters, i did the weekly on all of them and that's about it. Auriaya is still doing her JC dailies and selling gems, while Lasthar and Hastral pretty much do the daily transmute and that's it.

Only a little bit.

Again I haven't played much. I managed to do two randoms on Salthra and gained a level, and I also did a few heroics on Lasthar so I can buy a proper totem. This got him the Superior achievement so he is slowly on his way to greatness, I guess. As for everything else, I again bought a bunch of cheap enchanting mats so I'm really stocking up on scrolls nicely. It should start paying off soon.

Some progress!

I managed to clear Ruby Sanctum 10 on Larthas. It took a few wipes due to a few silly mistakes; one of them on my part, but in the end, we managed to kill Halion. Nothing dropped for me, but I got a bunch of Frost Emblems and an achievement so it was definitely worth it.

Also, my money supply dropped suddenly. Someone flooded the market with cheap enchanting mats so I had to buy it all out. The plus is, I probably wont be needing fresh ones for a week or so. I managed to make 3-4 of each scroll with the mats I bought. I also decided to try my luck on some of the old world twin enchants. The profit mating is huge, but I'm not sure how well they sell.

None of it...

Sorry guys, no game play today. Just the JC dailies and some auctioneering. I almost got to100k today, but went right back down because i needed to restock on raw gems. Larthas is having some difficulties getting his enchanting mats so i might have to raise my threshold prices. I will probably play some tomorrow. There is a raid tomorrow night, but I'm not sure if enough people will show up. Summer is really killing our progression.

Hm....

I really have no idea what to write about. Today was just routine. I did a few dailies, checked my auctions, reposted stuff that was missing and expanded my blacksmithing business on Larthas a bit. I'm trying to sell the low 70s saronite gear as well as the three lvl200 epic helms. For now, it looks pretty promising.

In other news, the community is buzzing with rage about the new RealID changes. Personally, I'm fine with it, but i can understand why other people wouldn't be. As for the announced talent changes, i think it has major potential and hopefully Blizzard will do their magic on it and make it great.

Long time, no siege!

Well, I guess I'm really, really bad at keeping promises. It has been about two months since i last posted. If you follow my general gaming blog, you will know why. The good news is, for the next two months, I will have all the time in the world to play and write as much as i want. The bad news is.... wait, there is no bad news! So lets do a quick recap of what happened during the last two months so i can go back to playing.

Larthas did almost nothing. I did not have any time for raiding, so that is out of the picture. I did, however, manage to join a nice arena team, but even there, i missed 2 out of 4 weeks of game time. Hopefully all of this will change now.

As for Auriaya, she keeps doing her JC dailies and increasing the variety of her merchandise. Things are going really well, as I'm actually having trouble keeping up with the demand for cut gems. I can easily sell 30-40 gems on a regular day.

Sahtral and Salthra both didn't do much, but they did get a few levels due to rested xp. Every time they reach 100% rested, i do a few dungeons with each of them to use that up.

Hastral did absolutely nothing. He just does his daily transmute and that's about it.

The biggest news, however is Lasthar. He got from 40 to 80 and is having loads of fun. I made him a healer so I'm now healing heroics to get a bunch of emblems. I also maxed Alchemy and Iscription as his professions and made him an Elixir Master. Once i get a feel of the market, i will try to make some money in those areas. For now, things are looking really good for him. I will gear him up to about T9, and then make him a professional scribe. I hear glyphs are a great source of money.

This is becoming a habit...

Yes, yes, I know, I know, again with the "no posting" thing. All i can say is, when you have exams, and your gaming time is limited, you really don't wanna spend it posting about how much you don't game.

So, what did Larthas do?
Well, he managed to kill Professor Putricide and the Blood Queen in ICC25. Finally the guild got a full group, and these bastards fell like Patchwerk. We then proceeded to one shot the Dreamwalker encounter and then wiped a few times on Sindragossa. This happened over a week ago, and after that, i did not raid at all. Also, yesterday i managed to get my Bloodsail Admiral title with a guild mate. I also continued to push my reputation with the Buccaneers to honored so i would be ready for when i try for the Insane in the Membrane achievement this summer (or maybe sooner, who knows).

As for Hastral, he barely did a heroic or two.

In other news, Auriaya is 80 now and she is a pretty good tank already. I got two pieces of T9 and some other minor upgrades, so i sport about 29k health unbuffed. I also manage to do a JC daily each day so i got a bunch of recipes now.

I also leveled some of my other alts and managed to get Lashtar to 40. He can sell some glyphs now, but it will require me getting to at least level 65 in order to really be effective.He does have an epic ground mount now, so that means leveling will be faster.

Well, that's about it. I have 3 more exams this week, and then a bunch of lab work, but things should start to clear up, at least partially, by the end of the week.

Routine...

Again, some jewelcrafting dailies done, a level or two gained on my alts, a thousand or two gold earned and i started a guild ICC10 run with Larthas. Also, i managed to do the weeklies on both Larthas and Hastral. I also try to do the normal Northrend daily on Auriaya, so i can maybe buy a T9 piece for her as soon as she gets to 80 (which will not be to soon).

Uneventful...more of it!

Again, not much happened during the last few days besides me doing the dailies. I also managed to earn a few thousands after buying a heap of cheaply priced gems and cutting them. I'm still trying to decide if i should spend my frosties on Larthas for PVP or Tank gear. Also, i got a level or two on some of my alts.

Uneventfull...

Today i did my jewelcrafting daily on Auriaya, and we almost killed Putricide on 10man with Larthas. Oh, also, i got a level with Lashtar so i wouldn't waste my rested bonus. That's about it, sadly. There was no time for anything more.

Exam season over...

...and another one is nearing! Well, not exactly exams, but i have lots of lab assignments to do, so i wont be doing much gaming of any kind. Things are going slowly in World of Warcraft. The guild has hit a wall, so we are not really progressing in 25 man content. I did get a few achievements in 10 man, but nothing major. I've spent some time leveling some of my alts, and i got Auriaya to level 72 so she can now easily do her jewelcrafting dailies. I already got some of the more popular cuts, so she is making money that way now. I got about 70 000 gold total.

As for Larthas, he also got back into PvP. I got a few new gear pieces and i am now part of a proper 2v2 arena team with a friend of mine. We aren't really that good yet, but we're getting there. Hastral decided to use his frost emblems to buy 2 pieces of Tier 10, since getting Shadowmourne obviously isn't going to happen.

I got a bunch of alts now, so i try to level one or two when their rested bonus gets maxed out. That way they level pretty fast and no rested xp is wasted.

The laziness continues...

Yeah, yeah, i know, i promised i would post more, but i can't seem to keep that promise. Not much has happened lately. Some changes in the guild leadership happened, which i find, lets say sub-optimal, but hopefully I'm wrong and it really will turn out OK. Other than that, i managed to tank ICC10 with Larthas successfully and i now finally don't need any more emblems of frost for my main spec. Everything that i could buy, i already did, so there is no more pressure in doing heroics every day for two measly emblems. I will still probably do it though, so not much has really changed.

As for Hastral, he is still doing his low profile thing. I log in every day, sometimes do a heroic, do some /trade advertising and post some of my items at the auction house.

In other news, Lashtar is now level 26 and is starting to wreak havoc on monsters and enemy NPC-s alike. He is still specing in the elemental tree, because I have no trouble whatsoever in healing the current level dungeons. I hope to hit 40 before that turns into a problem, so i can get my dual spec.

Im lazy...

And again i haven't posted in ages. Sorry about that (I'm apologizing to empty space). It's not that i didn't get the change to play, it's just that i didn't get around to posting something. Lots of things happened though.

Larthas is now pretty good at tanking. Heroics are a breeze and i get lots of praise for my speed and nice atmosphere i try to create. I even managed to tank a  VoA10, Toravon specifically. As for my main spec, i finally got the 4pc T10 bonus so now i can concentrate on getting other emblem gear to fill up some holes in my equipment. I definitely could use a better trinket, since I'm still using the Chromium Coaster, which is about 3 tiers behind the rest of my stuff.

As for Hastral, he still needs some nice trinkets and some other stuff, but he is good enough to do heroics and weekly raids. I'm getting close to earning enough frost emblems and gold to buy the 25 Primordial Saronite i need for my Shadowmourne quest on Larthas.

I also started a new character. It's a shaman and i might actually try and make him a healer this time. I know i hated it on Larthas, but maybe it's the class and not the role that I hate. He is level 23 now and i will make him a scribe when he gets a bit stronger. For now, i decided to try and play him without any funding from my other characters, so i made him a herbalist and a skinner to earn some money. Thanks to the new dungeon system, i got about half of my experience trough dungeons exclusively. Healing is easy for now, but it's not even close to how it will feel at high levels, so I can't say anything about that yet.

A new tank!

I finally managed to get my tank gear ready for heroic tanking. It cost me a few thousand gold, but hopefully it was worth it. Most of my gear, apart from the gloves is epic and i have about 31k health unbuffed. I tried a few test runs and the results are inconsistent.

First run was Occulus and it was total crap. I forgot to turn on Righteous Fury and didn't even notice my sword skill is untrained. Due to this, i couldn't keep aggro at all and my mana was constantly low. Thankfully, the players that didn't drop right at start had patience with me and really helped me to get the feel of it.

Second run was Trial of Champions, and it went really great. I had no trouble keeping aggro, the healer healed me easily and there was only one death with one of the spellcasters being basically oneshoted. The only place for improvement was phase 2 of the third boss, where i forgot to put Holy Wrath on my action bar.

The third and fourth runs weren't meant to be. First i got the Pit of Saron in progress, right on the uphill run. I took insane amounts of damage from the trash, but the healer managed to keep me alive and i kept aggro with no issues. Then, due to my mistake we wiped on the last boss once, and on the second try i had to Alt+F4 due to a RL emergency. If any of the people with me are reading this, I'm really sorry, but there was no time to explain. I know no one other than me is actually reading, but hey, what the heck, worth a shot. As for the fourth run, i think i got Halls of Lightning, but again i had to Alt+F4 before i could even see what it was.

Anyway, it will still take some getting used to, but i think i will like tanking. DPS will still be my main spec though.

What a long, strange trip it's been...

Yes, boys and girls, i finally got it. I finally got the meta achievement that encompasses all of the holiday events, as well as my Violet Proto-drake. It took a while, but it's finally here. I think that by far the worst event is the current one, the Lunar Festival. It's just grind after grind, with nothing really interesting going on.

In other news, Hastral is still farming frost emblems, and Larthas is still farming frost emblems to get his gear. Nothing important going on in that area, except for the fact that I'm in a proper ICC10 group so i plan to get even more emblems per week and maybe even make some progress on the bosses. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

More raiding!

Again, not much done lately. I'm doing my dailies on both of my level 80s, getting frost emblems, and ocasionally doing some PVP with Larthas. I'm trying to figure out paladin tanking and get some decent gear together to speed up my dailies, but that's about it. 

I entered an ICC10 group with Larthas yesterday and we managed to clear everything up to Putricide quite easily. Some of the new guildies are really and the group shows much promise, so this might actually be the second 10man progression group the guild needs. Some fine tuning is required, off course, but the group definitely shows promise. We will continue with Putricide and try to down him tonight. 

Rading!

Not much i did during the last few days. It was the start of a new raid week yesterday, so we started with ICC25 again. We've cleared the first wing after some silly wipes with Lady Deathwhisper and managed to kill Festergut after some more silly wipes. I didn't get any new loot, but i managed to gather enough emblems to buy myself the T10 helm. We also did the ICC raid weekly, so we can concentrate on progression now. Today, its VoA25 and the continuation of ICC.

The Love Fool

I got the meta achievement with Larthas today. It took a while, but i did it with guildies, so it was fun. This means there's just one more meta until i get my Violet Proto-drake.

In other news, not much else happened. Both Larthas and Hastral did their dailies, i made some money, and that's about it. 

Btw, if you want to get some of the charm bracelets really fast, go to Ulduar. You can just keep killing the iron dwarves in the area before flame leviathan. If you place yourself correctly, you can just stand still and bash the #1 action button. It's boring as hell, but it's fast.

Love is in the Air

It's here! One of the last two world events that i need to complete is here! Even better, the other one will be here in a week. They changed it a bit this year. If you dedicate yourself, you can finish most of it in a day and it's not really luck related. I already finished a few achievements, did the dungeon with both Larthas and Hastral and got a rose for Hastral that he holds in his mouth (^_^).

Right now, I will be farming lucky charms in order to get most of the other achievements out of the way. Who knows, i might even get the title on both Larthas and Hastral. 

In other news, Larthas is working on a tanking set for dungeons only, and Hastral finally completed his tier 9. I started PVP again on Larthas and i hope to do better in arena this season. More about all this later! 

Exams! And some other stuff...

I had for the past few weeks and i still have exams, which is why both of my blogs were on hold. I still played games, mostly World of Warcraft, but i didn't make much progress so there wasn't much to post about. Anyways, some stuff happened, so lets try to make a recap. Now let's see where i was last time i posted...

Wow, it really has been a while, hasn't it?

In fact, it has been so long, that Hastral even managed to get to 80 and earn enough emblems of triumph to get 3 of his T9 gear pieces. Other than that, he got some other upgrades, so he now does close to 3k DPS on single targets, and frequently crosses 10k on groups. This also frequently overaggroes the mobs, so he dies, but thats faillock for you. He is also earning frost emblems by doing daily randoms and weekly raids, so hopefully, Larthas will be able to get his saronite soon.

Now, regarding Larthas, he really was on hold achievement wise. He managed to kill Festergut with his guild, and his guild managed to kill Rotface without him (damn exams). Putricide is still up on 25man, but the guild did get a server first in 10man, again without Larthas (damn exams). He has some wonderful gear now, including 2 pieces of his Tier 10 set, and some best in slot boots, rings and some other stuff. All in all, gear is progressing nicely even though he was forced to miss most of the raids (damn exams).

My gold industry is doing wonderfully to. I broke the 40 000 barrier, then went down a few thousand due to unforeseen expenses, and then broke it again a day later. Since I'm rich now, i decided to inst the money in more ways of earning it. I ditched my level 2 (exploration XP FTW) warrior banker, made a girl draenei death knight (cause people prefer to buy stuff from girls) and leveled her to 65 so she can max the jewelcrafting profession. This again set me back for a couple of thousands, but i think it will be worth it eventually. I decided to level her as a tank, and it worked out great. Most of the time, the instance queues were instant, i got plenty of XP, and i think i actually like tanking. Anyways, she is level 65 now and retired for the time being, so i will continue to use her as my new banker. As for making money from jewelcrafting, first i need to learn how to do it and follow the market a bit. Her album is added to the sidebar for some progression pictures (which i again forgot to take from the start).

Oh, before i forget, Blizzard added some fun new features to the armory page, so i will see what i can do with those on this blog. 

Of Quests, Dungeons and Frost

For the last week or so, i invested some time in Hastral. It's nothing major, but i did play a few hours a day and got him to level 76. I want to get him to 80 as soon as possible so i can do the weekly raid with him and farm Primoridal Saronite for Larthas and his Shadowmourne quest. Mos of the experience i got was trough running random Northrend dungeons. This also got me a few triumph emblems so i hope to get something for him really soon after he gets to 80.  After he dings for the last time (at least until Cataclysm) i plan to get another one to a higher level to. I'm not sure which one it will be, but I'm leaning towards Sathral, since his tailoring might be a good way to make gold. 

As for Larthas, i really didn't play much with him. For the most part, I'm raiding and doing the heroic daily to get frost emblems. I managed to get 60 for the first time and bought my Tier 10 shoulders immediately. Also, Justicebringer finally dropped in ToTC 25, so i was "forced" to spend all of my DKP in order to get it. Sadly, Icecrown Citadel drops a better weapon even on 10 man, so it probably won't last long.

The economy was good also. I managed to break the 25k gold barrier, but I'm now back at 22k after buying loads of low cost merchandise. I plan to sell this soon, so i might even break 30k in the near future. Most of my income comes from selling Eternal Fire that i bought cheap a week or so ago, as well as from transmuting Saronite to Titanium. This one is steadily declining, though, so i will have to find a new source of income soon.

Winter Veil

So i got the Merrymaker achievement on Larthas. This means that only need Fool for Love and To Honor One's Elders for What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been meta achievement. Only a few months to go! Other than that, the guild finally managed to clear the currently available part of Icecrown Citadel and i was actually there for the achievement this time. I didn't get any new gear yet, because i want to save my DKP for a good weapon that drops off the first boss. I really need a weapon upgrade so i think this is my best option. 

As for Hastral, i didn't play that much with him. I completed a few quests and managed to do the daily normal dungeon for the 2 emblems on each of the last few days. He is almost level 73 and he got a new staff fron Azjol-Nerub. I still didn't get Nexus as a random dungeon for some reason, so hopefully this will happen today.

Other than that, i decided to get Salthra to level 10 so he appears on the armory and i got him an heirloom mace for his other hand. As for my finances, they are doing fine. I was at 18k two days ago, but then I've spent around 5k for various items on the AH that looked like a bargain. At the moment I'm selling those items. I already got my investment back and i still have loads to sell, so i think it was a good move. Titanium prices are steadily declining so i get less money from that lately, but the prices of Eternal Fire and Abyss Crystals are all around the place so i get a nice amount from buying these items when the price is low and reselling some other day.

Yes! It's here!

Patch 3.3 has finally arrived and I'm loving it. We completed the 3 new heroics the first afternoon in a semi pug group. It took some wipes, but we managed. Also, Battered Hilt but another guild mate got it on a roll so ill try for it some other day. We also started clearing Icecrown Citadel in 25 man. We didn't have any luck with it the first evening, but we managed to kill Lord Marrowgar yesterday night. Lady Deathwhisper seems even harder, but i have a feeling we are doing something wrong, so hopefully she fill go down soon. 

I've spent a big part of the day yesterday chain running random dungeons with Larthas, which got me some money, some enchanting materials, 2 Emblems of Frost and close to 50 Emblems of Triumph. I also got some of those the first day of the patch, witch means i finally got enough to buy the Mark of Supremacy and Turalyon's Battleplate of Triumph . I had about 50 left after buying all that so i also bought Furious Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders, for my PVP gear set.

As for Hastral, I've Toured the Fjord with him just a few minutes ago. He is extremely close to dinging 72, but i decided to take a break now. I also managed to pug Utgarde Keep with him and got a nice upgrade for my head - Reinforced Velvet Helm. I managed to top the DPS meters, but it seems there are errors with those things due to problems with cross-realm communication, so i can't be sure.

On a small side-note, i finally broke the 10 000 gold barrier on my bank alt today. It seems that stockpiling resources for the patch payed off. I still have allot to sell, so i expect more soon. 

Getting back into the game...

Exams are finally over, so I'm starting to play more again. Problem is, I didn't have a working phone line for two days, so i didn't really get the chance to play properly. All i did was a 10 man Ulduar and a 25 man  TotC raid with Larthas and that's about it. Also, there are rumors about Icecrown Citadel hitting us this week so I'm excited about that. I plan to do raiding with Larthas, and level my alts with the help of the new instance system. Larthas still needs 10 or so emblems of triumph so he can get a new hit rating trinket and his t9.5 chest.

Pilgrim's Bounty

The new world event is basically the only thing i managed to do with all the exams and other obligations i had. Since Larthas is my main, the priority was to complete all the achievements with him. I managed most of them on day one and the only thing left was Turkey Lurkey and Terokkar Turkey Time. The latter was completed on the second day of the event if i recall correctly, but the former had to until Friday for me to find the time to do it. In the end, i managed to do all the achievements and got the title and the turkey pet. 

I also used the opportunity to raise the cooking skill of Hastral and Sahtral to near-350 using the cheap ingredients for the special holiday recipes. This saved me some cash and time in the long run.

I will take a few screenshots of the new clothes and the pet tomorrow.