Day Fifty Four - 10 March 2011

Usually when I have a very limited time to get on WoW, it's spent doing a bit of Auction House. I thought this night would be a chance to see what I could do with Kallixta. I still have difficulty balancing my race to top-level with a desire to see different things on the way.

So what would I do with a few minutes on Kallixta? Well, I had stopped abruptly last time and there were a few things I wished I had completed but hadn't. Level 65, for example! I was close enough to taste, so it shouldn't take long. I had also been farming ore nodes to level my mining and blacksmithing, so another circuit around Zangarmarsh made some sense.

I had once had a plan to work on my BC reputations, but I've had second thoughts. The rewards aren't needed for leveling and they're too grindy otherwise. So despite a desire for that lichen shield, it's more like a distraction. There are more important things to see on this journey. The grind for exalteds belongs with my achievement-seeking character.

After logging in, I noticed I had one quest 6/8 completed and 5 minutes later I was ready to turn it in. Sadly, that wasn't sufficient to ding, but I spotted a Fel Iron node on my mini-map and after taking my pick axe to it, I saw while not increasing my Mining skill, I still got XP for it. So I felt like another round of ore node farming would probably be appropriate. Sure enough, after a few more nodes I got my level and some ore to work on my Blacksmithing. I happened to be in southern Zangarmarsh, so it seemed like a good time to visit Shattrath.

I had accumulated a lot of junk in my bags, so I sold a bunch of stuff, mailed some things to my bank alt, and found the BS Trainer. I did some smelting and then concentrated on my Blacksmith leveling. I completed my complete Fel Iron Plate set and managed to level BS to 335. I'll need to pick up the Adamantite Cleaver plans next. I've been making a bit of profit from the rare recipes I've been picking up in Outland, including things sold in Telredor.

I should fold up my tabard to better display my complete Fel Iron set with the Jade shoulders. She looks spiffy!


All 5 pieces of Fel Iron Plate



Martuska, Laptops and Foolish Love

I've mentioned my family computer situation before in Communal Laptops. At that time, we had 3 laptops and 2 desktops. 5 computers? We didn't know how good we had it. Now I dream of 5 computers in the house. Luxury!

The newest laptop went with Syylia to Korea. My older boy's laptop died. It was only a couple years old, but a bad video card burned out the motherboard and the thing is totaled. The remaining laptop is ancient and decrepid, but it's the only thing running WOW right now! Actually, I could probably installed WOW on my older boy's desktop, but he needs that for his college classes and it's inconvenient. The other desktop is even older and needs a video card upgrade to run WOW. It ran fine before 4.0.1, but won't now.
Meanwhile, the hinge on the remaining laptop is broken and the battery won't hold a charge. It also has a hard drive with a loud and annoying whine, but it works. I haven't installed all the addons I had before, but (and this is the important part) it works.

Obviously I should just get a new laptop, but we've a few other expenses with higher priority. I can live with it. All this has resulted in my neglect in playing and I was resigning myself to failing to finish the Fool For Love holiday achievements on Martuska and thus flunking Strange Trip completely this year. I know Syylia was resigned to that. Mentally I knew it would happen, but then this weekend arrived and I had some time. Could I do it? Let's see what I had left... I only needed two achievements: Red, Red Rose and Pity the Fool. How hard can that be? That's one dungeon run and some dips into PvP, right?

Saturday morning I ran some quests and realized the critical path was collecting enough Love Tokens to purchase the Love Fools. Granted, if I ran short, I might be able to find someone else with one, but that's where I started. A few quick dailies and I had the Love Tokens to buy two and a half Love Fools. Good enough. I could finish it tomorrow. I went ahead and pitied my two purchased in Wintergrasp and Gurubashi Arena. Nobody was around for these, but that wouldn't be the case for Arathi Basin. I needed to check out my PvP set.

I only dabble in PvP. I've more experience with it on Kallixta, but I was doing this on my mage. I'm still horrible, but I wanted to contribute, not just join the BG, run my pity macro and get out and to do that, I wanted something other than my PVE gear. Luckily for me, Psynister and Cynwise recently wrote pieces on Planning for PvP. Cynwise's Gearing Strategy outline was perfectly applicable for any class and for my purposes, I only needed to look at step one "Get the crafted pieces made as soon as you can"
Well, I'm a tailor and I already had most of the Frostsavage Battlegear and could craft a few Fireweave/Emberfire pieces, too. One visit to the Auction House later and I had over 400 resilience without hurting my other stats too much. This should mean that I could NOT excuse excretable performance on my gear.

At this point it was Saturday evening and the guild was running a Black Temple raid. This would be a low pressure raid and something I missed during Burning Crusade as I hadn't gotten to level 50, nevermind a raid-worthy 70. I had one disconnect, which punted me back to the beginning and I had to navigate my way back to the group, but we managed to Kill Illidan without much trouble. The whole run reminded me of my real goal, getting Kallixta up and raiding. But this weekend was still keeping an eye on the short-term goal of making a fool of myself for love.

Day Forty Six - 22 Jan 2011

Outland

Despite being only level 54, Kallixta wanted to make a visit to Shattrath. Someone answered my portal request promptly and BAM, there I was. I confirmed I didn't need to pick up the flight path. I could fly to Honor Hold and the Dark Portal itself. Asking a guard got me to the Blacksmith Trainer. I needed 5 more skill levels before I could train up. Luckily I had a bunch of Thorium from mining in Un'Goro, so I popped out some Imperial Plate items to reach the necessary minimum. Done.

There isn't a Mining Trainer in Shattrath and I wasn't close on First Aid or Fishing, but I found the cooking trainer. I now recall leveling up to max on Pilgrim's Bounty.

I took the flight to Honor Hold and confirmed I couldn't get flying early. I'll need to wait for level 60 as expected, but I did train in Mining, opening myself up to leveling that while picking up more Thorium in Azeroth.

Un'Goro Crater

After the server reset, Kallixta finally managed to get back to the Hot Springs and the crazy Maxmillian of La Mancha or whatever. I followed the storyline, dinged 55 and completed Explore Un'Goro Crater and Un'Goro Crater Quests, so it was time to return to find a new Call for Heroes!

The Blasted Lands

I've finished 12 /35 of Blasted Land Quests and dinged level 56 in short order. I've more Rested XP that should see me through another level or two. The plan should see me hitting level 58 once I've finished here and I'll move back through the Dark Portal.c