Thursday, March 31, 2011

Blogpocalypse

Good grief there are a lot of bloggers hanging up the keyboard. Some of my favorites too.

Larisa closed the Pink Pigtail Inn
Tam closed Righteous Orbs
Troll Racials are Overpowered is not really blogging about WoW.


There just seems to be a general malaise with WoW and blogging these days.

To be honest, I have only been logging in to make some gold.

I checked out some of the gameplay for Old Republic Online and it looks freaking awesome!

I am hoping that something comes along soon that will keep my interest besides just making gold. It is fun and all, but....bleh.

Anyways, I hope to have more posts next week than I did this week.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Get your Pet Achievements here!

There are a lot of Pets that can be obtained out there. Many of them can be picked up simply with gold on the AH. There are also some that you have to get yourself if you want it. I will go over some of the available pets that not everybody may no about. This may help some of you who are trying to get to 100 or 125 pets with the new acheivements next patch. Although if you have that many pets, you probably already have these. So, here is a little list of pets to pick up.

Quests:

There are a few new ones that you get as a result of a quest.

Firefly: If you do the Keeshan quests out in Burning Steppes, it will eventually lead you to this pet.

Mr. Grubbs: A small version of the ugly ass Giant Grubbs out in Eastern Plaguelands. First thing you need to do is get one of the zone buffs at one of the quest hubs. It will be the one that gives you loot bags. In these loot bags can be Mr. Grubbs.

Withers: This quest is in Ashenvale. Look it up on Wowhead. It is a long quest chain that eventually nets you a little treant pet. I dont know if he still has the same effect, but you can go through a body of water to make him grow significantly.

Snarly, Muckbreath, Toothy, and Chuck: Possibly some of the cutest pets in the entire game. These little bad boys drop off of the Shattrath Fishing Daily "Crocolisks in the City". You pick up the quest, go to Stormwind, fish up a Crocolisk and return. The best part is the drop rate is very good on this quest. I have obtained 3 of the 4 on Darraxus.

Strand Crawler: The Strand Crawler is a cute little red crab that drops in the reward bag for both the Cataclysm and Wrath fishing dailies.

Sunflower: This is a very interesting pet that sings to you. You can obtain this one by completing a quest chain in Hillsbrad. You will have to look it up on WoWhead for better info. Be prepared to take a few tries on some of the quests if you have not done them already. It is a WoW version of Plants vs Zombies.

Westfall Chicken: This is a classic pet quest and is still there. Go to the Saldean farm and buy a bit of chicken feed from him. Create a macro that says /cluck. Put it on your action bar. Find a chicken and spam the macro until he has a quest turn in. Give him the feed and get a pet!

Drops:

Disgusting Oozeling: This is obviously considered a tough one to get. It drops from a bag that random slimes drop. The best place to farm these is the Swamp of Sorrows. In the water area around Stonard there are a bunch of oozes in the water that can be killed to get the bag. They respawn pretty quickly as well. My wife farmed up two of these for her characters in around 6-7 hours of killing mobs.

Sprite Darter: You used to do a quest to for Alliance. Now it is a zone wide drop. I recommend smashing the Yetis in the cave south of Dire Maul or the Ogres a bit further south.

Instance Drops:

Worg Pup and Spider: Both of these pets used to be a quest reward. Now they are a 100 percent drop in BRS. The Worg Pup drops off of Quartemaster Something Rather. The Spider drops off of the Spider Boss. Easy peasy.

Phoenix Hatchling: Possibly my favorite pet in the game. Fairly low drop rate of of Kael'Thas in Magisters Terrace. It drops off of Heroic and Regular as well.

Mojo: This horny frog drops in Zul'Aman. I picked it up on Darraxus and have been helping my wife and friends get it on their toons before the change to the instance. If you /kiss him he will whisper something dirty to you and turn you into his frog lover. You use Amani Hex sticks on the frogs around the middle pool to have a chance at Mojo. A couple of things. Make sure you have bag room as he jump into your bags. Second, the Hex sticks drop off of Humanoid Trash Mobs. Third, dont kill the bosses. If you dont kill bosses, their trash will respawn withing the hour. You can farm it all week if you want to.

Annoying Ass Fishing Pets: There are a couple of pets that can be fished up. The Magical Crawdad and the Giant Sewer Rat.

The Magical Crawdad can be fished up from the fishing pools around Skettis in Terrokar Forrest. You will get a blue item called Mr. Pinchy. He will give you three wishes apparently. I got the Crawdad on my first wish. I can certainly take a while to get the drop. If you dont have bag space, Mr. Pinchy will send you an angry email with the Crawdad attached.

The Giant Sewer Rat is a Giant Bitch that has never dropped for me. Fish him up in the sewers of Dalaran. If you dare try.

That is my short list of Pets. Go forth and horde them critters.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

New Server Making Gold

How to Make Something from Nothing

In WoW, not everybody starts out with high level characters to give them money. There are several ways to make more than enough gold to get yourself comfortable.

I recently started a Horde toon on a server that I had never been on before. I started with nothing.

I now have around 150 gold at level 20 with no extra work required. Here is what I do.

Gathering Professions: Gathering Professions are your friend. I went with Herbalism and Skinning on my little Tauren. I decided that I would sell the leather on the AH, and send the herbs to a low level Goblin I created to level inscription. Selling the things you gather while questing will get you gold in no time.

As a explained, I also picked up inscription. At level 10 you can level your inscription to the next level. You can also start doing research for glyphs. This can make you a lot of gold if you do it every day. Glyphs can be pretty cheap to make and net you a huge profit. That is why so many people do it.

Another quick and easy thing to do is download auctioneer, and start scanning. After a bit, you will be able to find some great deals by using the resale tab under the search function.

The third thing to do is do a vendor search. People will put items on the AH for less than you can vendor it for. It may not be a lot, but every bit of currency counts in the beggining.

Dont waste money on any low level crafting profession unless it is Inscription, and it is profitable on your server.

Most of the Professions at lower levels are gold sinks. Inscription can make money from the time you hit level 10. Other ones make you money down the road, but you want it now. Stay away from the rest.

These are all pretty obvious, but perhaps some people could use the help.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Thoughts on WoW Morals



I dont know if morals is really the right word for this, but here goes anyways.

My sister was telling me about a pug she ran the other day where the tank was wearing the cloth heirloom chest. Obviously this is for the extra 10 percent xp.

My question is.....is this ok to do?

On one hand, you get more xp. On the other hand you look like a noob who doesnt give a crap about the rest of the group.

I for one would not wear something like that in an instance. If it is the only heirloom you have, I would put it on while turning in the dungeon quests or while I was questing on my own.

What are your thought on this?

Friday, March 18, 2011

Real Azeroth Heroes



Real Azeroth Heroes

Darraxus presents: Real Azeroth Heroes

(Real Azeroth Heroes)

Today we salute you Mr. 2k DPS but still holding aggro guy.

(2k but he is still holding aggro!)

You are doing Wrath level tank DPS....and I havent died yet.

(How the eff are you doing it?!)

Just like you, I enjoy tanking an instance.....

(But I have to work sometimes to keep aggro!)

You have somehow won the game

(Even though I just lost the game yeah!)

So Mr. 2k Dps but still holding aggro guy, have a bud on me. You are somehow defying all game mechanics and making bear tanks look good....and bad at the same time.

(Mr. 2k DPS but still holding AGROOOOOO GUYYYYYYY!)

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Have YOU ever been a FailPug?

Have you ever been that fail pug?

You might be a fail pug if:

1) You are a tank and do not stop to let healers get mana. You then yell at the healer because you died.
2) You are a tank with crap gear who thinks that AOE tanking is completely appropriate.
3) You are a melee DPS wearing cloth or spirit gear
4) You are a Boomkin who melees mobs....with a tank mace...when asked to hit something.
5) You refuse to move out of the bad because the healer is a noob who should heal you through it.
6) You teleport out of a dungeon but don't drop group causing the rest of the group to have to 4 man until you are able to be kicked.
7) You are a DK who has replaced the awesome starting area Blue items with BC level Holy Paladin gear.
8) You are a Hunter who does and entire instance without a pet.
9) You are doing Wrath level DPS at level 85

These are all things I have encountered.....fail pugs are everywhere. That is why I rarely ever pug anymore. Cataclysm has made it easy to fail.

There is a difference between someone who doesnt know and someone who doesnt take the time to learn. I will play with the first person all day. The second is why I only play with friends.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Are you Casual?

I have become a casual.....and I like it.

Casual has often been considered a dirty word in WoW. It is usually equated with "bad". I do not equate it with being bad. I equate it with enjoying the game in a different way.

I do a little bit of everything to be honest. I used to raid on a fairly regular basis. I have not done a single raid outside of BH since the expansion came out. I have better things to do with my time to be honest.

I spend a bit of time making gold. I was around 410k before I decided to buy a few epics for my warrior and some pets for my wife. I am at around 380k now, but should make that back in no time at all. Making gold has become one of the more fun things for me to do in the game. Unfortunately, I am currently sitting on a bunch of gold worth of Darkmoon cards. They are not selling....at all. Perhaps it will be better for me to save them until the next Darkmoon Faire comes around.

I spend a bit of time doing PvP as well. I leveled my Warlock to 85 to do some PvP, but have barely played him since getting there. I do a most of my PvP on my Resto Druid at the moment. I am doing OK in arenas and actually have a winning record. I have gotten a lot more comfortable with healing arenas.

I have been leveling different toons. I have a little 27 Worgen Priest on my main server and started a Goblin Warrior on another server to check out the Goblin starting area and level up a horde toon with friends. The most fun I have in game is playing with my friends and wife. It doesnt even have to be anything serious. Just doing low level instances is plenty fun.

I have been doing regular 85 instances and neglecting Heroics. I like Heroics ok, but some of the people I play with are not comfortable enough to do them. I still get JP and rep from the Dungeons, so I don't mind. It is also nice plow through the Dungeon ala Wrath of the Lich King dungeons.

I am casually playing in all aspects. There is nothing that I am doing that is "hard core". I enjoy logging on with friends and not having to stick to a schedule. I can run an instance. I can level some lowbies. I can work on professions and making gold.

I a way, "hard core" has taken on a new meaning to me. Tied down. I play games to have fun. Not to work. I get my competetive fill playing Modern Warfare 2.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Your Toon is an Eff Up.

Have you ever thought about what bad behavior that your character or other players exhibit in WoW. Mass genocide of boars and foozles is just the start. Some random observations on why WoW players should be imprisoned.

Quests: Ok, so in real life we have quests. It is something like....Go to the grocery store and buy food. Reward: Not starving. In WoW, we walk up to random people and ask what they need. It makes me thing of a hobo or a drug dealer.

"Hey man. Hows it going. I need some dough.....yeah, I will take anything you got. I can hawk that shit. What do you want me to do? Yeah, I can go out and kill a dozen crocolisks and then sodomize their corpses. Cool.....50 silver and Sword of Crocodile Molesting would be awesome, thanks."

In real life, I dont see a dude standing on the street corned and walk up to him to ask if there is anything I can do for him. They would probably:

a) Think I can going to mug them and pepperspray me.
b) Think I am a perv and pepperspray me.
Second, there is just no other way to say this. Our characters and nasty, dirty, grubby mutherfvckers. Think about it.

Most normal people will shower on a daily basis, wash their clothes, throw out things that are bad, etc.

Our characters sit in nasty ass crusty armor for months on end without showering. Do I even need to ask where all the poo is going? My characters still have shoveltusk stew in their bags from their first time leveling through Wrath. That shit has to be rank by now.

Do you walk around with gobs of rotten and spoiling food in your pocket/purse? I didnt think so.

And where are out characters storing all of those pets? The old myth about Richard Gere and Gerbils comes to mind.

What do we put at the bank in real life? Money and in some cases, other valuable things or documents.

What do characters put in their banks? Hog balls, horse grits, and coffee gravy. Can you imagine the real life equivalent?

"Yes can I help you sir"
"I would like to make a deposit please"
"How much would you like to deposit?"
"Well, I have a pig carcass, a lumberjack hat, a bouquet of flowers, two small piles of pebbles, and a roll of toilet paper."
"Ummmmm......security?"

Our character would also be in trouble for animal abuse in the real world. We ride animals constantly without feeding them or watering them. We have pets that we train to kill and maim others. When we get in too much trouble, we let out pet get murdered and then fake like we are dead. Then we do it all over again. Hunters make Michael Vick look like a Saint.

Also, take into account dungeons. If we did the kind of shit we do in dungeons in real life, we would be in jail...probably awaiting the death penalty.

"Well Bob, what do you want to do tonight?"
"I was thinking we could go to Phil's house, murder him and his family, then take all of his stuff"
"That sounds like a good idea. He has and awesome pair of sunglasses that would totally be an upgrade over these."
"I know right? He has some nice croc skin shoes that would definately replace these old Reeboks."

What about gatherers in WoW? You see people that are farming herbs or ore and another guy swoops in to take it from them while they are busy killing a mob. It is the equivalent of stealing a lady's shopping cart while she is busy dealing with a crying toddler. Not very socially acceptable.

Overall, our WoW characters are horrible, horrible creatures. They murder, plunder, steal, and generally cause all kinds of mischief.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Favorites and Least Favorites (Part 3)

So, everyone pretty much remembers Wrath for what it was. A zerg fest. I don't know if I am alone on this, but I actually quite enjoyed smashing through instances at break neck speed. It was a nice time to socialize with friends while actually getting something done in game without the stress of wipes and failure. I love romping through dungeons. It was like a version of Diablo almost.

What I also remember about Wrath is that they really stepped up in the beautification of the game. It looked tremendous when compared against BC. This upgrade in looking all hawt also applied to all of the new Dungeons. So, without further ado, here are my favorites.

The first instance I did in Wrath was actually one of my favorites. Utgarde Keep was short and sweet, looked nice, and let you get in and out and be on with your day. The bosses werent hard at all, and the trash was easy as well. I enjoyed this instance because of how it looked. I loved the first time I stepped into the forge room with the giant dragon furnaces spitting fire all over the place. You make your way through a winding castle to finally find yourslef on an outdoor Terrace where there is a commander overseeing the siege of the Alliance City and giving orders to drake riders. I enjoyed it from the very first time I did it, and always had a soft spot for it.

The second instance I wanted to talk about was Culling of Stratholme. I really enjoyed that instance for another reason. In the beggining, it actually pushed you, especially in Heroic when you were trying for the drake. It was all kinds of awesome. Run here there and everywhere killing ZOMBEHS. I also enjoyed the whole RP thing with Arthas, Jaina, and Uther at the beggining. It was cool the first few times. I am just glad they added the option to skip it a bit later on. The bosses were not very difficult, but you had to bust you ass to get that Drake back in the day. If your groups DPS sucked, you probably werent going to get the timed run. If you tank or healer sucked, you probably werent going to get through the gauntlet and miss the timed run. Also, the Heroic version dropped one of the cooler looking shields in the game. I had to run it a ton of times to finally get that thing. I think the fact that original Strat was one of my favorites probably helped with this particular instance.

Now, for the ones I hated. There are two that come to mind and there will probably be a lot of people who agree.

The first one was Occulus. Nothing can breed tremendous amount of fail quite like vehicle combat. Come on. Ridiculous. The hopping on and off of mounts was annoying. Drakes aggroing when you are not on your mounts and killing you was annoying. Having one hell of a time trying to actually kill the last boss when your drake only had 75k health was also annoying. Pre-nerf, everything about it was annoying. Even after the nerf hit it was still annoying because as soon as someone got in, they were dropping group. Because the old version was annoying. The newer version was only slightly less annoying. Dragons= Good. Vehicle Combat= Bad.

The second one I will mention is Old Kingdom. Long, tons of trash, and did I mention long? When you get used to zerging instances like we did in Wrath, that is kinda what we expect. A bit of a cake walk. We don't really want to go in with an AOE mindset and then go up against mobs that nobody want to interrupt because "lulz it hrts my dpsz". Said mob then smashes tank to smithereens. There were a lot of bosses, and most of the bosses made the fights become drawn out. The first boss would phase out and make you kill adds. The second boss would vampire fuck somebody and make the fight go longer. The third boss would float up in the air while you had to kill adds. The last boss would put you into a dream where you had to kill everyone else in your group. I mean, WTF? Come on. If you are going to have some of those fights in an instance, fine. But at least make it so that there are a couple quick tank and spank bosses as well.

Anyways, those are my good and bad from Wrath. What ones would you have choosen?

Friday, March 11, 2011

Favorites and Least Favorites (Part 2)

So, I already went over my least favorite and most favorite Dungeons for Vanilla. Now to do the same for BC. I had some great memories from BC. Some of those Dungeons were REALLY hard.

One of my favorite instances was Hellfire Ramparts. It was the first instance I did in a shiny new expansion, and it was somewhat tought. I remember getting to the Nazan and getting absolutely PWNED by his fire breath. I still had Vanilla tank gear, which would just not cut it. The thing that I liked about the instance was that it was relatively short and sweet. I was so used to giant dungeon sprawls that it was enjoyable to not spend 3-4 hours in a single instance. AOE tanking was still not in existence at this point. Keep in mind that Thunderclap in Defensive stance and Shockwave were not added until the patch right before wrath. You had to CC, be mindful of mortal strike debuffs, and use LOS to pull mobs and avoid patrols. The bosses were pretty good to. The first one required that you either kill or CC two adds while dealing with the boss. The second (or last depending on how you look at it) would debuff you to do damage to those around you as well as spawning felhounds that could cause a wipe by silencing your healer.

And iof course there was the Nazan fight. A two part fight that did not give you time to mana up after the previous trash pull. Tank and Spank the orc on the ground while avoding fire, then killing Nazan when he landed and having to use defensive cooldowns to survive his breath weapon.

Another instance that I really enjoyed was the Mechanaar. That instance was great fun when they first released Heroics. Mainly because it was not impossible and would give you 4 badges even with skipping the nearly impossible second to last boss. I used to run it on a daily basis until I got enough badges to purchase my very first epic shield (which lasted me pretty much the entirety of the expansion).

The boss fights were even somewhat interesting. After the first two mini bosses, you got to do the plus-minus shuffle, much like Thaddius in Naxx. The boss was not hard unless people screwed up the plus/minus thing. Then it was wipe city. Then you went up the elevator and skipped that boss. I don't think we ever downed her. She summoned a bunch of fire adds that tracked fire across the floor. The fire was bad. Much dying ensued.

The last boss wasnt exactly a pushover, but was very doable.

I also got the Suneater from this instance....my first epic weapon, which is still sitting in my bank to this day.

Most Hated:

This list was potentially pretty long, but I narrowed it down to 2 so that I am not here all damn day writing.

Shadow Labryinth. That instance was the bitch of all bitches. I hated that instance with every fiber of my being. Talk about long and hard (thats what she said). There were really no gimme bosses in this instance including the first boss. The first time I cleared this instance it was about 17 wipes in. Hideous....and not fun.

Well, lets get down to why it sucked so damn bad. First off, the trash mobs. There were a lot of them and they were packed like Sardines. Second, they were hard. The Felguard mobs were particularly annoying. They hit like trucks and feared everyone. Including the healers. A lot of times, there was a fear and more mobs were pulled causing a wipe. Other times, there was a fear and the Felguard beats the tank to death causing a wipe. That was all before the first boss.

First boss. Not incredibly hard except that he fears you....THRU THE WALL AND TO YOUR DEATH!!!!! That was as fun bug. It happened a lot. If you could avoid that, then it wasnt that bad.

Then the next room where there is a sermon going on. A lot more tightly packed and difficult trash mobs. This room took forever to clear before you could even take on the boss.

Then there was the boss. Time for Fun my ass. Getting mind controlled is funny once or twice. Doing it over and over and over is not. Oh look, the Mage Pyroed the Healer to Death again. One of the most epic experiences was when the healer and I two manned the boss after the first mind control had all of the DPS dead. It helped that the healer and I were unable to even hurt each other.

Then after that....more crappy trash followed by another annoying boss. This boss summoned voidwalked mobs. If they got to him, they healed him. Not fun. You had to kite him one way, then the other in order to hopefully avoid being killed by your healer running oom while the boss healed himself to full.

After that, you got tons and tons of additional and craptastic trash mobs before getting to Murmur, who was a challenge on his own. You had to run out when he was going to do his AOE ability or die. If you were "the bomb" you were best server staying away from anyone and going inside one of the tents so that you didnt get thrown too high up into the air and die from falling. This is probably my least favorite instance in any expansion, let alone BC.

Next on the list of Craptastic instances was Black Morass. Never ending mob spawns and no AOE tanking ability? Yes please! You have to keep a bunch of mobs from beating Medivh's sheld down. These mobs are constantly spawning. If you dont kill them quick enough? Here are some more mobs! The bosses werent all that bad, just getting through all of those waves is what made it tough. Not to mention that you had to clear a bunch of non elite trash so that you didnt have jaguars jumping you in middle of a fight.

BC was one tough mother for 5 mans. To be continued soon with a list of Wrath Instances. What were your favorite and least favorites in BC?

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Favorites and Least Favorites (Part 1)

My wife asked me yesterday.....what was your favorite instance ever.....and what was your least favorite?

Having played since Vanilla and having done just about every instance in the game, it still took me a few minutes to think up some good answers.

In recent days, I have taken to leveling via instance. I enjoy running things with friends. I get really bored questing in the same ole content constantly. I have been instance leveling my Dwarf Shaman in Outlands. I don't know that I will be able to do that in Northrend as I am tired of both the quests AND the instances there.

Anyways, back from my rambling and back to talking about favorites and most hated. Once again, there have been so many so I will just break them down by expansion.

Vanilla WoW Favorites:

Deadmines: This was the first instance that I ever ran way back in the day. It was somewhat difficult at level way back when (addmitedly, I did not know how to play properly). It also had a pretty cool Pirate setup that reminds me of the Goonies. It was huge, but quite easy to navigate (besides getting into the instance for the first time). There was even a cool storyline behind VanCleef if you managed to do the quests leading up to that point.

Scholomance and Stratholme: I don't really know that I incredibly enjoyed these instances. I just found that I ran them on a daily basis with a good group for friends. We just wanted to kill some baddies and get some loot....and spend a few hours doing it. These instances were not short. We never did Scholmance with 10 people. We used crowd control. We did not just AOE mobs down. Back then, there was no such thing as AOE tanking for a Warrior tank. It was all about tab sunders. Kill order and CC was important (kinda how it is now in Cata). I had a Priest who would pull mobs for me. Yes. The healer was doing the pulling.

These were my first "srs bsns" instances and I didnt really know what I was doing. I cut my teeth as a tank in these instances. They were difficult. You had to not stand in stuff. You had to not pull aggro unless you wanted to be dead. It was epic for me. I don't think that the instance in itself will ever be as epic as the memories of it.

Incidentally, my wife named Strat as one of her favorites because of all of the times I ran her through to gather runecloth....to get to exalted with Gnomer. I was in there tons and tons of times. Still never got Mr. Rivendares Deathcharger.....he was being a little bitch on those visits apparently.

Vanilla WoW Most Hated:

This list is actually pretty easy for me to populate for a couple of reasons. Back when we didnt get to instantly teleport to Dungeons, I didnt really do any of the ones on Kalimdor. That pretty much ruled out Mauradon and Dire Maul. My two least favorites were other annoying sprawing instances with confuding level curves.

The first was Gnomeregan. I mean...what the eff man. That place was horrendous. You go in, get mobbed by leper gnomes, can't find your way anywhere, and then have to finish at a later time because there were yellow con mobs at the beggining and they are red by the end. This giant pile o shit made for many annoying runs. Not to mention that you wanted to pull your hair out with the stupid punch machine quests. Oops, we missed one. Lets go back. Crap, respawns. Oh well, we can finish some other time that we have 2-3 hours to kill.

The second was Uldaman. The place was huge....and confusing. We didnt have instance maps back then. It made we want to punch a baby. Or kick a puppy. It was like a damn instance outside of an instance. I mean....come on! You have to fight all kinds of shit to even get to the instance. Then you have to try and figure out where the hell you are going inside. Then you have to make sure that a single person picks up both staff fragments or else you are unable to complete the instance.

What is the one common denominator for both of those crap holes? Troggs. Which is why I hate me some fucking Troggs. More than Murlocs. More than Naga. Troggs can suck it Trebeck.

Anyways, I am going to make a series of posts with Favorites/Most Hated, so this one will be continued with BC instances.

What were your favorite and least favorite original WoW instances?

Monday, March 7, 2011

Hola!

Hai there!

Been a while since I posted anything. Been busy with life.....and well, I just havent given a shit recently when it has come to blogging.

Not that I havent been playing. I have been playing a lot actually. Which is probably why I havent really had time to blog.

I am still not raiding. I doubt that this will change at all. What I do know is that I still enjoy doing 5 man instances....provided it is with people I know. It doesnt even have to be a heroic. A regular 5 man works as well. It gives me midless time to gather a few justice points and to hang out with my friends.

Raiding does not work with my schedule. It is like a job. I play WoW to have fun. Not work. I do enjoy raiding....just on a more casual basis. Hard modes can kiss my nuts. If I really wanted a second job, I would get one that actually pays.

In other news, I have picked up PvPing again. My old arena parter from BC (Mura the Uberpally) leveled a Worgen Warrior. I decided to do some 2s with him and have had some good fun with it. Currently I am in the low 1400s as for rating, but then again we only do the minimal 5 wins per week.

One thing I have really noticed in PvP is that gear makes all the difference. If you have the resilience, you can do well. If you dont, you are gonna get smashed.

Mura said something interesting on the subject coming from a player who has made Gladiator several times. Basically, once you get past the 1500s there is very little difference between the players, just differences in gear.

I really like Resto Druid in PvP and find that I can annoy a bunch of baddies at a time and survive for quite some time before dying. Unfortunately, Alliance in my Battlegroup is still beyond terrible.

Other than that, I decided to level up the last two professions that I never had. Blacksmithing and Alchemy. I put them both on my DK. My alchemy is now maxed out and my BS is right around 450. BS is a giant pain in my left testicle, but I really want to have all of the professions for more money making opportunities.

The thing I have been doing most recently is playing with family and friends. It doesnt really matter what we are doing, it is just more fun. We have:

- Done some PvP
- Done some regular level 85 instances (actually a lot of them to be honest).
- Tried out a Heroic (It think I may have tramautized my wife and another member as I chose to do Deadmines and nobody could keep the adds away on the third boss)
- Leveled some lowbies. I made a Worgen Priest who is now level 24. The other members of the group are all Worgen as well. Mage, Rogue, Druid. I have enjoyed it quite a bit and we have leveled almost entirely through instances.

So, its not that I havent been busy, its just been that I have not been sharing. Bad Darraxus....BAD.

Anyways, just wanted to throw an update out there.

Also, read Tam's post at PPI. I miss Tam and his wall o texts in the blogosphere. I actually nearly named my Worgen priest Nomnomhealz because I remember how much Tam enjoyed the mis adventures of the original Nomnomhealz.

Anyways, until next time.