Oh my god, just release that patch already!

So, one week until the new patch (link will change, I'm sure) and I'm bored out of my mind. I looked forward to leveling fishing tonight, for godsake! I know I should be good and farm gold through the Dailies and stockpiling mats for leveling GJ's, Claz's and Narandia's trade skills. But, I seriously can't do it for some reason. Yesterday, I ran a lowbie guildie through Shadowfang Keep instead of farming gold.

So, let's try to strike up some interest in what I'll be doing in the month after the patch but before the expansion.

1. Inscription- Greatjohn will be dropping skinning and taking this trade skill. I've stockpiled most of the mats I'll need to power level.
2. New hunter pets. Claz will be leveling the white gorilla that's been sitting around in the stable (yes, I was very impressed with BRK's Gorilladin movie). I also want a red hyena from Scarlet Monastery.
3. Gold farming. This will happen while leveling the Gorilladin.

Hmmm. That's all I got. I'll probably do some PvP to get used to the new talents, but nothing all that serious.

Man, I guess I can't wait for the expansion, eh?

I'm broke...

So, with a lucky drop that a guildie wanted to buy off me and with being able to do the dailies on two toons a day, I was able to buy the artisan riding skill. Wow. Just... I'm so happy with that. After paying that huge amount of money, I did all of the quest chain for swift flight form except the last, where you need to kill Anzu. Very special thanks to the guildies who helped me get through the chain so quickly and to /hug for writing the great guide.

Now I just need to do heroic Sethekk Halls. I have no idea if I'm geared for it. Maybe there's a guild out there who want to try for the Raven Mount and would want to take me along?

I'm sure some of the people in the guild are geared for it, but... GJ? Who's only been level 70 for a week? No idea

10 days means many changes

Greatjohn made 70 last week after a huge, long, drawn-out session. Afterwards, Bumwaller made me a starter tanking set and I bought the blue-level Feral PvP set.
Then I started on the dailies.


As I was working on GJ's dailies, I noticed that a lock was looking for a group to do the Dire Maul Warlock Dreadsteed quest. I quickly popped onto Narandia and joined up. We needed a tank and healer since there were three locks. It wasn't easy until I decided to appeal to people's greed and paid 100g for a level 70 pally and warrior to take us. Yes, 100g ea.
But I have my mount!

Now, I'm about 66% of the way to getting epic flight for one of my toons. Now, Claz has been waiting around for it forever, but... I'm seriously thinking of switching Greatjohn to my main and giving him the skill, which would mean Claz would probably have to wait until sometime in the expansion (probably after he's level 80) for the skill. Sucks... but take a look:

I wants it bad!!!

Grinding weekend, day 2

12:47PM
50% to level 65.

Was doing the quest where you set off the mana bomb in Terokkar and Braxxis' Staff of Slumber dropped. I didn't notice it until I went back to town to sell vendor trash. According to WoWWiki I'll probably be using this staff for tanking for a long time, so I got the +35 Agil enchant on it. Now I have 12k armor and ~20% dodge. My health is low at just under 8k, though.

Taking a break.

Grinding weekend, day 1

9:28AM
Dinged 63 while doing quests in Zangarmash. Can now use Starshine Staff of the Beast, giant upgrade from Agamaggan's Quill. I love Druid itemization in Burning Crusade.

9:46AM
Neutral with Sporregar.

12PM
35% through level 63.

I made the mistake of listening to Kimya Dawson while playing. I love her music, the way she sounds so innocent and jaded at the same time. But... it was thoroughly depressing, too. I'm going to take a break, drop the roommate off somewhere and buy some cigaretts. Maybe read a little Harry Potter (shut up, they're good books and they reset my mood to neutral when I'm down!).

More later.

2:45P
Back and restarting the grind. No more Kimya.

3:24pm
Honored with Cenarion Expedition.
Herbalism- 376 (Tauren get +15)

4:42pm
Got almost all of the solo quests in Zangarmarsh completed. I've decided to move on Terrokar.
54% completed with level 63.
Taking a bit of a break before the evening push

10pm
Fell asleep for 2 hours.
Got up, maxed herbalism and skinning.
Hit level 64.
Time to stop for the night, I think.
4 levels until I can fly!

12 Sept- updates

Didn't get to level 63 today, I ran out of steam before it happened but I'm 85% through 62. If I get up at my usual time, I'm sure I'll hit the next level by noon, and maybe, just maybe 64 by the time I go to bed. A guildie asked if I was chinese, I said, "no, I'm French German."

Bumwaller got a beta key. Yes, I've already commented how much I hate him. He's already posted pictures of his Death Knight. When the expansion comes out, I'm sure I'll roll a DK, probably a female Blood Elf, just to do the beginning quests. According to Epic Dolls and Bumwaller, the quests are very... uncomfortable. I'm looking forward to it. Depending on how annoyed I am with the glut of DKs, we'll see how much I level it (and depending on if Greatjohn is ready for Northrend).

Speaking of that, I think I would have leveled today if I hadn't had to play with the Alliance. It got to the point where the druid was getting ganked by an annoying gnome mage so much that I had to log into Claz and kill him a few times, just so he'd go away. Sure, I'm on a PvP server, sure I'm going to get ganked, but... this was getting too much. I almost even went to STV to take out my anger, but then I realized that I was turning into that guy.

So, that was the highlight of the evening. Now I'm going to go to bed and try to get up early enough to avoid the gank parties.

Quick update

To the left you will see a poor fel orc being slashed by three ferals. He's having a bad day. This was from the quest "The Foot of the Citadel".

GJ hit level 62 and I'm getting very anxious for flight form. If I keep this up, I could have it in a week, but I think it will be less. I'll have 2.5 days of nothing to do but level GJ and I'm about it hit Zangarmarsh (actually peeked in there) and Terrokar. These two zones have a lot of easy and clumped-together quests.

So, the "first part" of the next patch is available on the Background downloader. When I saw that I panicked because GJ isn't ready yet. Bumwaller had a good point that they may not want to have Brewfest interfere with the new content. I guess we'll see.

Nothing even slightly amusing to say. I'm tired. RL Warning! I audited over 500 accounts today and I think I was ready to dump the computer into my bosses lap after hitting her soundly about the ears with my telephone.

No. That wasn't funny, either.

Hellfire is the new Barrens

Greatjohn hit 61 last night. That's 16 levels since August 31st and I'm pretty proud of that. Even more, I resisted the urge to buy a basic healing set that I would upgrade with quest rewards and drops. It might actually be a good idea to do this, but I don't want to get into the habit of spending money on stuff since I need the 5k for either Claz's or GJ's epic flight (probably GJ's since I'm 90% sure he'll be my main in the expansion).

But, man, I'm starting to hate Hellfire Peninsula. The zone is so ugly and filled with boring and annoying mobs (I especially hate the Gan'arg, those technician guys in the Forge camps; who came up with their audio?). I'm starting to see Hellfire in the same way I see The Barrens: a zone that is so annoying that you get through it as quickly as possible to get to the more interesting areas. At least Chuck Norris jokes are missing, right? (I love Chuck Norris jokes, but they get old after the 327 hours you need to spend in The Barrens).

Not much more to report. GJ is leveling nicely and is ready for the second phase of Hellfire quests that you get in Falcon Watch. With my work schedule, those will probably take me a couple days and then it's on to Zangarmarsh, Terrokar Forest at around 63 and then my favorite zone: Nagrand. And this time, no grinding for the Talbuk!

Well, a tauren on a talbuk... that's pretty amusing, isn't it...

Planning for the future

I've been giving a lot of thought about what I'll be doing when the expansion comes out. My guess is that we'll be seeing the new patch right around the time of Blizzcon, probably the Tuesday just before. I think they'll want to give people more of a buzz about WoW, get people excited and have more to talk about during the proceedings. Then, maybe a month later, Lich King will be in stores. If memory serves me correctly, this was about the timeline they used for BC. If I'm right, we have about a month before the world event (spoiler alert) to get ready. What am I going to be doing?

With my concentration on the druid lately, I've been considering making him my main and relegating Claz to more of a gatherer / farmer toon. I still love the hunter, don't get me wrong, but... Greatjohn is just so much fun to play! If I go in this direction, my overall goal will be to get GJ to level 70. But, the secondary goals (in somewhat order of importance) are:

1. Epic flight form- I never had this on my old druid. /Hug has a nice walkthrough on the quest. It doesn't seem too bad, though getting the rep for heroic Sethekk Halls may be an issue. I can't remember if you can get the rep through questing or if I'll need to grind some other instances.
2. Max out Herbalism- Since I'm really sort of excited about Inscription, I want GJ to be ready to concentrate on that skill. With herbalism being the associated gethering skill, I don't want to have to worry about having to level that skill.
3. Try to max out the seconday skills- Cooking, First Aid and (shudder) fishing. The worst will be fishing because I'd like to get this done before Lich King so that I don't have to spend a lot of time in Outland leveling it up later.

Hmm... not too bad.

They're also saying that leveling from 60 - 70 will get sped up after Lich King, which means the lock will be leveled pretty quickly when I get back to her. Man, I don't know how you people with multiple 60s leveled them when Outland came around. That's a serious investment of time. My goal is to have 3 80's six months after the new expansion (Druid, Hunter and Lock). How did you guys do that? Any suggestions? What I'd like to do is level them up one at a time so that I can enjoy the new quests without getting burned out on them. I have a fear that I'd start to hate WoW if I had to repeat the same quests three days in a row on different toons.

My eyes have melted and are running down my cheeks like hot wax

I have not had a grind like that in a long time. Even leveling mining on Claz (2x) wasn't as bad as that herbalism grind. It helped to get the fast kodo (isn't that an oxymoron?). I went from Hillsbrad to STV to Swamp of Sorrows / Blasted Lands and finally Un'goro.

I seriously think I would have rather leveled fishing.

Yep, today Greatjohn made it to level 60 in the Eastern Plaguelands. At level 58 I did pop over to Hellfire Penninsula and did a couple of the first quests to get the massive gear upgrades. But I realized that I was underpowered at level 58 to be there without a whole lot of frustration. So I finished the last two levels today. I can't believe the difference between 58 and 60.

So, I hit 60, trained, went and bought my Great White Kodo and the skill, then back to the Penninsula. Much easier.

If you're trying to powerlevel, I do recommend listening to something other than the game's music and sound effects. I got caught up on the Epic Dolls and BLARM! (not WoW related and VERY not for kids) podcasts. For some reason listening to podcasts makes grinding so much easier.

Ok, taking a break for an hour or so, then back to leveling!

Outland awaits... but it needs to be patient

So, today Greatjohn dinged level 58 and is eligible to go to Outland. I took him to Thrallmar and did the first three or four quests to get the rewards, but then decided that I'm going to level herbalism to 300 before really starting the leveling again. The way I see it, I'm going to have to do it sometime soon anyway and I'd rather level the gathering skills as I level the character. You see, I've decided that GJ is going to be an Inscriber and herbalism is the gathering skill connected to that profession.

Having changed Claz's professions a couple times and countless times on the old Druid, I've decided to try and plan things out a bit better. Besides- I want to be a Polar Bear! (I know, you can be one anyway, but... I needed to end on something very slightly amusing)

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

First
Well, Claz is back to a beastmaster spec. I got an invite to pug Kara and I didn't want to embarrass myself or make a bad name for Limited Warranty. I just don't know how to raid as a MM spec. As it was, my crits were pulling aggro off the tank, so I think I made a good choice.

Second
I've gotten serious about farming gold for my Epic-level flying skill. I really want the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine (and of course, I've always wanted an Onyx Netherwing Drake, ever since I found out that they existed). In three days of serious dailies and farming, I'm now 20% of the way there.

Third
As Bumwaller wrote, Limited Warranty is in need of tanks. The need is such that he is willing to put together a tanking set and respec his druid whenever we needed him to. I salute his dedication, but... I don't think it's really fair, especially since he's told me that he isn't that excited about melee fighting. Now, personally, I love tanking. I tanked on my old druid all the time, and, I was told, I was good at it.

The other day, Vashj went down and I was bored (and with my anxiety levels lately, I needed to play). I rediscovered Hirnek on another server! Out of boredom I played around with him. He was level 45, which means that the feral tree really starts to be fun (maximum fun comes with Mangle), and let me tell you, I had a lot of fun.

So, I paid for a character transfer and now Hirnek is moved. Well, someone ganked his name on Vashj, so my level 48 druid is now Greatjohn. When I'm not farming gold, I'll be power-leveling this toon up to the point where he'll be able to go into Wrath right away and will be ready for tanking. I don't think I'll get him ready before then, there's just not enough time because I want to get Claz flying fast.

This means that I'm going to be putting the lock on the backburner for awhile. As much fun as she is to play, I want to help the guild out more and we really don't need another DPS.

Again with the druid

So, I played a new druid alt that I started on the Vashj server. He's only level 13 but still a lot of fun to play. I decided that if I wanted to play a druid bad enough with Limited Warranty, I'd level the alt up instead of paying the extra money to transfer the level 45.

I took some advice from Big Bear Butt's WI articles about how to level a low-level druid. Like, don't just run up to something while in bear form and start whacking, do: wrath, moonfire, switch to bear, enrage, THEN start hammering away.

Yep, I'm a noob with druids, too. :P

All-in-all, I had fun leveling a couple times with Grendirk (or whatever his name is...) and may keep leveling him now and then.

For Claz, I did get a bunch of the food I wanted to grind and I even did the Thrallmar PvP daily. Too bad the Alliance on Vashj rarely take the fortifications away from us. Not that I'm a big PvPer, but I did enjoy wiping the floor with a 64 gnome rogue.

Hirnek 29 - 43

I blew through the 30s and I got Hirnek to 43 today. Leveling with all the changes in experience requirements makes leveling easy! Especially when you use Jame's updated leveling guide. Of course, because he cut out all of the grinding sessions, Hirnek still doesn't have a mount (but I have travel form, so... so what?).

What am I finding? I'm re-discovering my deep love for druids in general. I'm finding that I'm having more fun with Hirnek than with Claz (don't be sad, Claz, you'll get to 70. I promise!). I think my play style fits with the shapeshifting better than with the ranged DPS. I seriously was grinding Claz today while eating: attack mob, pop trinket, let autoshoot fire while fixing my PB&J. I came back, set down the sandwich, attacked another mob while going back to the kitchen for a coke.

No, I'm not saying that Hunters are easysauce. Well, I used to tease a hunter I was guilded with back when I had Amantara about how easy hunters were, but I never really meant it. At the time I had a lot of angst about the state of the druid class and all the love that the hunters seemed to be getting. Yes, I'm still a little raw about how ferals got a huge amount of love when BC came out and then we got nerfed. And, when I really think about it, a level 68 druid with quest reward gear really shouldn't be able to take out a level 64 shaman, 62 warrior and 62 mage. Well, I shouldn't have been able to do it, since I'm so horrible at PvP. But it was still tough to take. I mean, I stuck with Amantara through a lot of teasing because of how terrible ferals were at one point and then when the love pillow (as opposed to the nerf stick) was gently pushed up to our furry little faces...

Anyway. No, I'm not saying that hunters are easy. They're not. They take a lot of skill to properly equip, spec and learn the tactics for. Playing a hunter means a lot of backend preparation and learning before you even go into the instance.

*Cough* Not that I'm saying druids are easy. They're not. Druids take less backend preparation (because there's less itemization? Hmmm...) than hunters, but they're such that you have to be more on your toes and adjust your tactics a bit more. In my opinion!. Hunters seem to have a lot more options to recover if things aren't going the way they plan: the mob comes after you, feign death or intimidate or trap. The mob comes at your druid? Run away!

You see, I think I have a touch of ADD. I'm not a person that can sit back and zone out while I grind, which you can do with a hunter. I need to be jumping around, popping out of kitty, warstomping, moonfiring, casting a HoT, switching to bear, enraging and then pounding the living crap out of whatever dared to raise its fist/claw/tentacle against my nature-fueled fury. Can you tell I used to play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons?

Anyway, there's a lot of camaraderie in the druid community. Just look through the official forums (don't bother with the "nerf druid!!!111!1!" QQ Posts) and you'll see that, for the most part, druids help each other out. Sure, we'll tear into each other in the BGs, but if you play a druid, you're more likely than not to get a /wave and /salute from a passing highbie druid than you would if you played a rogue and another rogue happened by. This is especially true with the old school druids. Those of us that grew up through the "you need to innervate if you want to see MC" period of WoW are more likely to help each other out or at least ignore each other. I mean, go to Moonglade and you'll see a lot of silly bears, kitties, trees and hawt nelf ladies (*cough*) dancing together, lions and panthers all together in a big hippie love fest.

And I get all caught up in that. Amantara would sit and fish in Moonglade for hours. If I noticed a cow druid trying to do his Aquatic form quest, I would lead him to the right spot. I've ganked groups of lowibies but left the druid alone (and even maby do a /lick and /hug while he tried to stick up for his friends). I just get off a bit on the druid.

Ugh. I'm such a WoWNerd.

Why a druid, prt 2

Big Bear Butt Blogger is now a writer for Wow Insider and his first column is about the fun of being a druid.

OMG! He's gotten me so fired up that I might level my 30ish druid on a different server than Claz is on and then do a character transfer to Vashj (as much as I dislike that server, I really like the guild I'm in.

Go. If you're thinking about rolling a druid, go read the post and you'll see why I'm doing it again.

Oh, and I'm one of the old school druids- I will only fight another druid if they throw the first "punch". Call me sentimental, but druids should stick together.