I spent some time reconfiguring my addons on the laptop. Something wasn't right and I eventually fixed it, but it meant reloading Threat plates and I lost my prior settings. I'll need to fix that soon.
I flew down to Booty Bay and picked up some recipes for Aldonza, took the boat to Ratchet and headed south. I took the Great Lift down, ran to the Feralas flight path then back through the canyons to the Shimmering Flats. I did a bit of grinding on Turtles, Scorpions and Basilisk before I turned in quests. i was close, but not quite level 33. I headed over the hills to get the Gadgetzan flight path, flew back up to Ratchet, sailed to Booty Bay and by the time I'd turned in those quests, I'd dinged.
I queued for another run in Gnomeregan. Things went well until Emi Shortfuse did her thing. Suddenly folks started running into the cave and killing the troggs there. I tried calling them back, assuring them they'd come to us, but they ended up abandoning unlooted corpses to escape before Emi brought down the house.
I failed to win Grubbis Paws and then the healer and the warlock left!
We three manned the trash until the dormitory. I washed the grime encrusted ring and a bunch of other grimy things, but we eventually gave up. I left the group to finish the ring quest chain. A couple reagent arrangements and a trip to Ironforge got me a new ring!
Day Twenty Three - 29 August 2010
I've discovered that taking screen shots isn't easy. At first. I just was forgetting. then I discovered that each of my computers uses a slightly different key sequence. I'd need to double check what I was doing, adding a delay and resulting in lousy shots. When I get the desktop stable, I'm sure it'll improve.
So I knew I had some comfortable time today. I could run a random LFD. If I got Stocks, at least it would be quick. I wanted to run any of the others. It gave me the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard. We went straight to the final boss and nothing dropped for me:
So that was nice and fast. The Tumultuous Necklace of the Bear dropped from the satchel of goodies. Just the enchantment I wanted!
With that done, I decided I'd like to select Razerfen Kraul. I had to wait a few minutes, but then we got going. Things were going smoothly. The first three bosses succumbed to our might. Overlord Ramtusk dropped just what I wanted: Tusken Helm!We moved on and were getting close to the next boss when my laptop went dark. It's a strange problem and only rebooting seemed to fix it.I'm sorry I left my group in the lurch like that, but I suppose they got another tank before too long. By this time I was just short of level 31 and I had my interest soured by the cranky laptop, so I took a break.
Later I got set up on the good laptop and got threat-plates and some other addons all set up. It was time to run Gnomeregan. The party was looking for XP and was perfectly happy to hunt down every boss. We shared quests and took off. I felt we did fine. The instance isn't easy to navigate through, but we found Grubbis easily enough and nobody got trapped in the explosions. We got to the room we knew had a boss, but couldn't spot him, "Vicious Fallout" just doesn't look like a boss, but we figured it out when the blue dagger popped up. Time to move on.
I didn't have problems with threat or runners, but I was burning through the mana. I had to drink twice and uses a mana potion twice to keep things going. After the third boss, we knew finding the fourth would be tricky, but one party member volunteered and led us down with some fancy jumping. No one misjumped and we got to the Crowd Pummeler. We knew exactly where to go next. Stopping just short of the final boss, his trash defenders line up in a very different way. These guys didn't look like they were wandering around, but instead were resting until released. One party member thought it looked scary and I agreed. They were rather intimidating, but fell quickly enough. Actually, so did Thermaplug. He dropped his shield and I won that. I also got the grime encrusted ring, but folks left before I could convince anyone to run back to the Sparklematic with me. Oh well, I can use another run.
I turned in my completed quests, including the one that gave me Dual Reinforced Leggings. I like upgrades, but I am not a fan of the metal bikini look. I cry!
I realized two other quests required me to return to the part just outside of the Instance to finish (Techbot's brain and the Phial thing) They were surprisingly easy. Still, I will need to return inside to clean the ring.
I celebrated by running Arathi Basin twice, but Alliance still failed to win! Grumble, grumble.
All those quest turn ins and the PvP gave me the XP boost I needed to ding level 32. It was a busy day.
So I knew I had some comfortable time today. I could run a random LFD. If I got Stocks, at least it would be quick. I wanted to run any of the others. It gave me the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard. We went straight to the final boss and nothing dropped for me:
 |
| I lost the greed roll on the Headguard |
With that done, I decided I'd like to select Razerfen Kraul. I had to wait a few minutes, but then we got going. Things were going smoothly. The first three bosses succumbed to our might. Overlord Ramtusk dropped just what I wanted: Tusken Helm!We moved on and were getting close to the next boss when my laptop went dark. It's a strange problem and only rebooting seemed to fix it.I'm sorry I left my group in the lurch like that, but I suppose they got another tank before too long. By this time I was just short of level 31 and I had my interest soured by the cranky laptop, so I took a break.
Later I got set up on the good laptop and got threat-plates and some other addons all set up. It was time to run Gnomeregan. The party was looking for XP and was perfectly happy to hunt down every boss. We shared quests and took off. I felt we did fine. The instance isn't easy to navigate through, but we found Grubbis easily enough and nobody got trapped in the explosions. We got to the room we knew had a boss, but couldn't spot him, "Vicious Fallout" just doesn't look like a boss, but we figured it out when the blue dagger popped up. Time to move on.
I didn't have problems with threat or runners, but I was burning through the mana. I had to drink twice and uses a mana potion twice to keep things going. After the third boss, we knew finding the fourth would be tricky, but one party member volunteered and led us down with some fancy jumping. No one misjumped and we got to the Crowd Pummeler. We knew exactly where to go next. Stopping just short of the final boss, his trash defenders line up in a very different way. These guys didn't look like they were wandering around, but instead were resting until released. One party member thought it looked scary and I agreed. They were rather intimidating, but fell quickly enough. Actually, so did Thermaplug. He dropped his shield and I won that. I also got the grime encrusted ring, but folks left before I could convince anyone to run back to the Sparklematic with me. Oh well, I can use another run.
I turned in my completed quests, including the one that gave me Dual Reinforced Leggings. I like upgrades, but I am not a fan of the metal bikini look. I cry!
 |
| The Metal Bikini |
I celebrated by running Arathi Basin twice, but Alliance still failed to win! Grumble, grumble.
All those quest turn ins and the PvP gave me the XP boost I needed to ding level 32. It was a busy day.
Day Twenty Two - 28 August 2010
I had a plan, really.
The plan was to run Arathi Basin on this Call to Arms weekend. And I did. Three games, all lost to the Horde. One game I only joined for the last 3 minutes or so. What I didn't anticipate was that I'd ding level 30 after the third one!
And I have diminished interest in being at the bottom of a bracket.
I considered how to spend some of my 800 honor points, but nothing struck me as critical, so I'll wait a bit.
I took the opportunity to do some travelling and pick up some more flight paths. I grabbed the green bang in Duskwood, the Rebel Camp and then switched to Theramore. I entered the Barrens and remembered that I had the shard from Wailing Caverns. So I rode to Ratchet and picked up that flight path, rode the boat to Booty Bay and grabbed that one. I remembered to pick up a few recipes and parrots for Aldonza to sell before riding the boat back to Ratchet and do the next step in the sharding quest chain. The final step required a flight to Darnassus, so first I rode through the Stonetalon Mountains and picked up the flight path at Stonetalon Peak. That's when I flew to Darnassus to turn in the final quest.
My travel through the Barrens provided an opportunity for a couple nice screen shots, one above the Crossroads and the other just a bit lower down that peak to the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior.
I had some trouble with the laptop and a few other distractions, so I hesitated running an instance. I knew something would pop up. Hopefully tomorrow!
The plan was to run Arathi Basin on this Call to Arms weekend. And I did. Three games, all lost to the Horde. One game I only joined for the last 3 minutes or so. What I didn't anticipate was that I'd ding level 30 after the third one!
And I have diminished interest in being at the bottom of a bracket.
I considered how to spend some of my 800 honor points, but nothing struck me as critical, so I'll wait a bit.
I took the opportunity to do some travelling and pick up some more flight paths. I grabbed the green bang in Duskwood, the Rebel Camp and then switched to Theramore. I entered the Barrens and remembered that I had the shard from Wailing Caverns. So I rode to Ratchet and picked up that flight path, rode the boat to Booty Bay and grabbed that one. I remembered to pick up a few recipes and parrots for Aldonza to sell before riding the boat back to Ratchet and do the next step in the sharding quest chain. The final step required a flight to Darnassus, so first I rode through the Stonetalon Mountains and picked up the flight path at Stonetalon Peak. That's when I flew to Darnassus to turn in the final quest.
My travel through the Barrens provided an opportunity for a couple nice screen shots, one above the Crossroads and the other just a bit lower down that peak to the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior.
 | |||
| Above the Crossroads |
 |
| Shrine of the Fallen Warrior |
Day Twenty One - 27 August 2010
I was Called To Arms to the Arathi Basin this weekend. Being level 29, it all seemed like destiny was demanding it. We won on the first try and the Honor just flooded in.
Not that I have plans on spending it immediately. I'll probably pick up another trinket as that second empty slot is burning a hole in my pocket... so to speak. Do other folks have this yearning to see slots filled? Leaving my tabard and shirt empty gives me an ache, although not one big enough to do anything about it.
I also enjoy seeing all these blues! When I was levelling Martuska, I know I never had many. It might be a residual effect from running around at level 80 and trying to improve my gear score, but on Kallixta, overgearing is just funny. It tickles something.
So I had another empty slot, head, that I knew was there, but was attempting to ignore. After running AB, I decided to do something with all my accumulated cheap iron that Aldonza had been picking up at 25% normal price. I cranked out some green iron items to 170 and then went to buy whatever new recipes were on offer. Green Iron Helm? Well... let's just jump up and down. We will pretend I knew that was coming all along. Oh and those Green Iron bracers I was making to level Blacksmithing just happen to be an improvement?
So I stopped for a minute to do research, just in case I was missing something important. I also checked the Auction House for usable recipes. It just so happened that Shining Silver Breastplate was sitting there with less than 2 hours remaining and while its buyout price was over 10 gold, the bid was only 2. Fine, I'll put in a bid. Since I had jumped on Kallixta without giving Aldonza a peek at the Auction House, I decided I could check on smithing supplies. I grabbed some more cheap stone and iron bars and lesser moonstones. Because of my haphazard planning, I must have made 6 trips from the AH to the forge in the Dwarf Quarter. Is there a closer forge? When I returned to the AH, someone had bumped the price of the Breastplate, but it was down to less than 30 minutes now. With some patience, discrete purchasing and a final bid, I got the recipe for around 3 gold.
After spending all this gold, I felt a horrible spendthrift, but looking at my cash reserves, I realized that I was still doing fine. Aldonza has been making plenty of money plus while the leveling blacksmithing is costing money, it's nowhere near as expensive as expected. Those Golden Rods in particular provided some nice profit.
So while tonight only witnessed Arathi Basin runs, I did improved my wrist slot and got my first helm and I levelled my Blacksmithing to 180.
Not that I have plans on spending it immediately. I'll probably pick up another trinket as that second empty slot is burning a hole in my pocket... so to speak. Do other folks have this yearning to see slots filled? Leaving my tabard and shirt empty gives me an ache, although not one big enough to do anything about it.
 |
| Now with Vertiferrous Fluoride! |
I also enjoy seeing all these blues! When I was levelling Martuska, I know I never had many. It might be a residual effect from running around at level 80 and trying to improve my gear score, but on Kallixta, overgearing is just funny. It tickles something.
So I had another empty slot, head, that I knew was there, but was attempting to ignore. After running AB, I decided to do something with all my accumulated cheap iron that Aldonza had been picking up at 25% normal price. I cranked out some green iron items to 170 and then went to buy whatever new recipes were on offer. Green Iron Helm? Well... let's just jump up and down. We will pretend I knew that was coming all along. Oh and those Green Iron bracers I was making to level Blacksmithing just happen to be an improvement?
So I stopped for a minute to do research, just in case I was missing something important. I also checked the Auction House for usable recipes. It just so happened that Shining Silver Breastplate was sitting there with less than 2 hours remaining and while its buyout price was over 10 gold, the bid was only 2. Fine, I'll put in a bid. Since I had jumped on Kallixta without giving Aldonza a peek at the Auction House, I decided I could check on smithing supplies. I grabbed some more cheap stone and iron bars and lesser moonstones. Because of my haphazard planning, I must have made 6 trips from the AH to the forge in the Dwarf Quarter. Is there a closer forge? When I returned to the AH, someone had bumped the price of the Breastplate, but it was down to less than 30 minutes now. With some patience, discrete purchasing and a final bid, I got the recipe for around 3 gold.
After spending all this gold, I felt a horrible spendthrift, but looking at my cash reserves, I realized that I was still doing fine. Aldonza has been making plenty of money plus while the leveling blacksmithing is costing money, it's nowhere near as expensive as expected. Those Golden Rods in particular provided some nice profit.
So while tonight only witnessed Arathi Basin runs, I did improved my wrist slot and got my first helm and I levelled my Blacksmithing to 180.
Day Twenty - 26 August 2010
My decision to title posts by day wasn't fully thought out, but I still like it. At the time I started, Kallixta was an idea and I had an experimental mindset. Now my mind has a much crisper philosophy around her and for all intents, she is my "Main". However, if I plan to only be online for less than an hour, I wouldn't log onto her. Instead I'd log into Aldonza and play with the Auction House. In theory, the time logged onto Kallixta would all be "active", not idle, but I'm not perfect. I've idled Kallixta more than once. Still, I hadn't logged onto her for a short half hour session until last night.
By intention, I logged in, travelled to the WSG Quartermaster, bought my cloak and equipped it, switched to my one-hander and logged off. I considered a quick run into a battleground, but I wasn't on the good laptop and I was tired.
I don't think I've mentioned before. The original main computer with WOW has problems and won't allow me to re-install. Therefore I can only play on either my son's nice laptop or my daughter's older laptop. I can't remap keys without negotiating with them. Martuska is on the original account. This was originally my son's account, but is now my daughter's and I've got my own Vanilla WOW account. I could still play Martuska, and I will on occasion, but only if my daughter isn't on. I also can only play when one of the laptops is free, at least until I can get WOW re-installed on the good desktop machine. Oh yes, there is another desktop that we use to run WOW on, but that has less memory. Still, if I get desperate, maybe...
By intention, I logged in, travelled to the WSG Quartermaster, bought my cloak and equipped it, switched to my one-hander and logged off. I considered a quick run into a battleground, but I wasn't on the good laptop and I was tired.
I don't think I've mentioned before. The original main computer with WOW has problems and won't allow me to re-install. Therefore I can only play on either my son's nice laptop or my daughter's older laptop. I can't remap keys without negotiating with them. Martuska is on the original account. This was originally my son's account, but is now my daughter's and I've got my own Vanilla WOW account. I could still play Martuska, and I will on occasion, but only if my daughter isn't on. I also can only play when one of the laptops is free, at least until I can get WOW re-installed on the good desktop machine. Oh yes, there is another desktop that we use to run WOW on, but that has less memory. Still, if I get desperate, maybe...
Entering the 30-39 bracket
Razorfen Kraul
I was sketching out a plan for my next few sessions with Kallixta. On the list included upgrading her equipment, either through quests or dungeons. Despite already running RFK once, I noticed on Cassandri's Razorfen Kraul guide that I had missed optional bosses, quests, and loots. I'll need to go back.
Besides RFK, I'll be visiting Gnomer and its tasty rewards. I don't yet know if I want to repeat visits to these two dungeons or instead just level with quests until SM opens up to me. According to the strategy I've been following, I'll respec at level 30 to full protection.
PvP
My earlier visit to the AB Quartermaster got me thinking a bit deeper about how to spend some honor points. In particular, I think the Caretaker's Cloak might be a good investment since any such blue drop in an instance would have way too much competition. The Arathi Basin trinket would be good if I includes its usage in a macro. Otherwise I'll forget it too often, probably.
I was sketching out a plan for my next few sessions with Kallixta. On the list included upgrading her equipment, either through quests or dungeons. Despite already running RFK once, I noticed on Cassandri's Razorfen Kraul guide that I had missed optional bosses, quests, and loots. I'll need to go back.
- There is a quest chain that starts at the Thousand Needles great lift and requires a run to Feralas, kill the final boss of RFK and yields a nice blue.
- There is a quest from Ratchet, but it's probably not worth a special run for itself. I may want to go to Ratchet anyway, but not just for this quest.
- There are a pair of quests that start inside the instance, but after the final boss. One is an escort quest back to the beginning. The other just requires a item return, but it's easy to overlook.
- Possibly drops include a mail head piece (Tusken Helm), a necklace, a ring and bracers.
Besides RFK, I'll be visiting Gnomer and its tasty rewards. I don't yet know if I want to repeat visits to these two dungeons or instead just level with quests until SM opens up to me. According to the strategy I've been following, I'll respec at level 30 to full protection.
PvP
My earlier visit to the AB Quartermaster got me thinking a bit deeper about how to spend some honor points. In particular, I think the Caretaker's Cloak might be a good investment since any such blue drop in an instance would have way too much competition. The Arathi Basin trinket would be good if I includes its usage in a macro. Otherwise I'll forget it too often, probably.
Day Nineteen - 25 August 2010
Playing without a Plan
I logged onto Kallixta without a plan. I hadn't thought past my previous plan, so having completed BFD and Stocks, I didn't know what to do.
Well, I had some ideas. I needed to finish up the Stockade Riots questline. I had turned in Thredd's Head, but still needed a couple of Clara's Fresh Apples for the next step. Having a mount at this level makes this whole business of dashing around (and outside of) Stormwind so much simpler. It's still a bit of a pain having to run up and down the halls of the keep. I remember the pain of soloing these two as a Mage and I'm so happy being a Paladin on occasions like this. It was also brought home just how long ago it was that I did this as Martuska. I'm sure it wasn't the King that gave me the final blue reward. Was it his son?
That was some easy XP and nice reward for a few minutes of running around. It sparked a memory of a prior plan to gathering quests for upcoming instances. In particular, there are several quests for Gnomeregan and at least one requires getting the first punch card prior to the instance itself. So, I have a fresh plan for the next few minutes!
The dash across western Dun Morogh by horse meant I could finish Explore Dun Morogh. Soloing my way through the first hall of Gnomer was simple and I got a Yellow Punch Card in no time at all.
Picking up the Achievement as a side effect reminded me of another minor plan. By doing all of these Dungeons and not quests, I hadn't been collecting flight paths. I had entered the Wetlands before to mine Incendite Ore, but never made the long trek to Menethil Harbor. By horse it wasn't that painful. I rode the boat to Theramore and picked up the green arrow there. I even waited for the boat to Northrend before remembering that Kallixta is on a Vanilla account and aborted that trip.
After another long ride, I made it to Refuge Point in Arathi Highlands for the flight path there. Seeing the Quartermaster made me check my Honor Point total and pencil in some PvP time onto my sketchy plan. Since I couldn't immediately buy a trinket to fill my last slot, I postponed any purchase at this time.
I next headed for Southshore and the small accumulation of discovery XP actually got me to ding 29!
With Southshore's flight path, I was uncertain of my next move. I wasn't ready for more riding to someplace else when I remembered the fishing pools just off the docks. I should explain that I enjoy fishing sometimes, but usually when I can multitask. I'll watch TV and listen for the splash. I'll fish on Kallixta, but it's very much a low priority thing. Still, there were Oily Blackmouth just waiting for me and the first to get pulled flashed the Old Gnome and the Sea achievement! I emptied three pools. I wasn't sure if I could find something else to do while waiting for them to respawn.
This is when I decided to queue for Arathi Basin. The recent visit to Refuge Point made it easy to just push the PvP button and jump in. I had done some research on AB and knew as a level 29, I wanted to visit now and before I moved brackets again.
I couldn't tell you much about the Alliance team, except there were at least 3 paladins and we all were happy to buff the others with their preference. As the gates opened, I found myself the first to the Lumber Mill flag by a small margin. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do when fighting a hunter and pet, but I became very good at finding someone less than 50% health and finishing them off! I need to improve my awareness of my allies and heal some of them. I wasn't particularly good at strategic awareness, but someone would spam the /BG with suggestions and I'd run off to the suggested location and help. We won an Arathi Basin Victory and I was middle of the board in most things, too low at healing and I did have one cap, so I felt pretty good.
I was back to Southshore and the fish hadn't respawned and I didn't want to wait anymore, so I hearthed back to Stormwind. I did the sell, mail, repair stuff and realized I had some tasty clam meat to cook. The Auction house didn't have any more obvious food to cook, but I did raise my cooking enough that I thought it useful to check with the cooking recipe vendor. I bought 4 recipes I didn't know and had Lunch Lady flash.
It was nice to have several small achievements to measure an evening without a plan!
I logged onto Kallixta without a plan. I hadn't thought past my previous plan, so having completed BFD and Stocks, I didn't know what to do.
Well, I had some ideas. I needed to finish up the Stockade Riots questline. I had turned in Thredd's Head, but still needed a couple of Clara's Fresh Apples for the next step. Having a mount at this level makes this whole business of dashing around (and outside of) Stormwind so much simpler. It's still a bit of a pain having to run up and down the halls of the keep. I remember the pain of soloing these two as a Mage and I'm so happy being a Paladin on occasions like this. It was also brought home just how long ago it was that I did this as Martuska. I'm sure it wasn't the King that gave me the final blue reward. Was it his son?
 |
| With the new ring |
That was some easy XP and nice reward for a few minutes of running around. It sparked a memory of a prior plan to gathering quests for upcoming instances. In particular, there are several quests for Gnomeregan and at least one requires getting the first punch card prior to the instance itself. So, I have a fresh plan for the next few minutes!
The dash across western Dun Morogh by horse meant I could finish Explore Dun Morogh. Soloing my way through the first hall of Gnomer was simple and I got a Yellow Punch Card in no time at all.
Picking up the Achievement as a side effect reminded me of another minor plan. By doing all of these Dungeons and not quests, I hadn't been collecting flight paths. I had entered the Wetlands before to mine Incendite Ore, but never made the long trek to Menethil Harbor. By horse it wasn't that painful. I rode the boat to Theramore and picked up the green arrow there. I even waited for the boat to Northrend before remembering that Kallixta is on a Vanilla account and aborted that trip.
After another long ride, I made it to Refuge Point in Arathi Highlands for the flight path there. Seeing the Quartermaster made me check my Honor Point total and pencil in some PvP time onto my sketchy plan. Since I couldn't immediately buy a trinket to fill my last slot, I postponed any purchase at this time.
I next headed for Southshore and the small accumulation of discovery XP actually got me to ding 29!
With Southshore's flight path, I was uncertain of my next move. I wasn't ready for more riding to someplace else when I remembered the fishing pools just off the docks. I should explain that I enjoy fishing sometimes, but usually when I can multitask. I'll watch TV and listen for the splash. I'll fish on Kallixta, but it's very much a low priority thing. Still, there were Oily Blackmouth just waiting for me and the first to get pulled flashed the Old Gnome and the Sea achievement! I emptied three pools. I wasn't sure if I could find something else to do while waiting for them to respawn.
This is when I decided to queue for Arathi Basin. The recent visit to Refuge Point made it easy to just push the PvP button and jump in. I had done some research on AB and knew as a level 29, I wanted to visit now and before I moved brackets again.
I couldn't tell you much about the Alliance team, except there were at least 3 paladins and we all were happy to buff the others with their preference. As the gates opened, I found myself the first to the Lumber Mill flag by a small margin. I still don't know what I'm supposed to do when fighting a hunter and pet, but I became very good at finding someone less than 50% health and finishing them off! I need to improve my awareness of my allies and heal some of them. I wasn't particularly good at strategic awareness, but someone would spam the /BG with suggestions and I'd run off to the suggested location and help. We won an Arathi Basin Victory and I was middle of the board in most things, too low at healing and I did have one cap, so I felt pretty good.
I was back to Southshore and the fish hadn't respawned and I didn't want to wait anymore, so I hearthed back to Stormwind. I did the sell, mail, repair stuff and realized I had some tasty clam meat to cook. The Auction house didn't have any more obvious food to cook, but I did raise my cooking enough that I thought it useful to check with the cooking recipe vendor. I bought 4 recipes I didn't know and had Lunch Lady flash.
It was nice to have several small achievements to measure an evening without a plan!
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