Today’s Special, Fried Blog!

It kinda sounds like a seafood dish, fried blog. Anyway, like The Boots of Canine Restraint I once again find my mind’s making up stuff. Behind my back. I think it may have to do with the fact that I’m trying to cut back on what I eat this week. I’m trying to make up for the orgy of brownies, chips, salsa, chocolate milk, that I ate over the weekend. I don’t know, I think it was caused by the impending hurricane. Only hours to live, let’s go out eating!!!

So once again I’m attempting to make up for a gluttonous weekend by starving all week. I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve gained and lost the same five pounds. So I’m a little hungry right now and I’m reading WoW blogs and it came to me that I think of them like restaurants.

Need information about your spec? Going to head to one of those theorycrafting, incredible with numbers, with painstakingly thought out spreadsheets blogs? When I do, I think of it as going to a five-star restaurant. I can only think of an equivalent restaurant in my area but it would be like going to The Inn at Little Washington. And the really great thing about blogs is I don’t have to pay them for their five-star information.

There are blogs that I go to because I like the sound of their voice. Yes, I know they’re words but they still have a tone to me. Some blogger’s words are soothing, great place to go to read if you’ve had a bad day. It’s the equivalent of going to a family restaurant and being served homemade meat loaf with a side of macaroni and cheese. All is well with the world (of warcraft) after a visit here.

There are blogs I go to because they’re funny, I think of these as fast food. You can count on them to give you exactly what you’re looking for, a chuckle, a smile, maybe even a full on ROFLMAO.

What am I? I like to think of my blog as one cheese doodle. That’s right, just one cheese doodle. Why, I really can’t defend this hypothesis it’s just how I think of it. One cheese doodle. Okay, I’ll get a grip, I’ll stop. MUST NOT THINK ABOUT FOOD.

OMG, the next blog on my list to read is The Gamer’s Fridge, I’m doomed!

They Walk Among Us

Okay, I’m sorry, cheap trick, but I just couldn’t help it. Pass up a chance to use H.R.Giger’s Alien? Never happen. But no, not them. If they’re here we’ll know soon enough.

I decided to try to find a normal level 73 warlock to compare stats with Ironsally to see just how gimped she really was. I was curious about health, mana and spell power. What does a normal level 73 warlock have in comparision to Ironsally? Here’s Ironsally’s info.

She’s sporting an epic ilevel of 60! You go girl! And she has a whopping 137 spell power, yeehaw! Yeah, I know kind of underwhelming isn’t it. So I set out to find normal level 73 warlocks. This proved to be difficult. You can search the armory filtering for level and class but only within a guild. I searched names that I thought would be common to get a list of guilds and then looked for guilds with high membership. I soon tired of this inefficient method. Level 73 warlocks are a rare commodity apparently. Plenty of 85s but only one level 73 warlock did I find. This one.

Notice anything strange? Is this a closet Ironman? They were wearing typical gear for their level, not bad, not great. But they have no talents, none. The only warlock I could find and they have used no talent points. Is this someone that’s been away from the game and just came back and is unaware that we now have wonderful talents points to use? I mean Sally’s been tormented every ding that proclaims YOU’VE EARNED A TALENT POINT with fancy graphics and all. You really can’t miss it. Wouldn’t you be curious? I guess it will have to remain a mystery. I might try finding a comparable warlock again at a higher level.

I know, probably not that interesting to you but I felt an overwhelming need to communicate using my precious electricity. The news people keep telling me that I won’t have it much longer, and further torment me by saying it could be out for a long time. Hurricane Irene is soon to visit.

I figure we’ll get an aftershock in the middle of the hurricane. Could someone send Mother Nature a gift certificate for a night out or something, seriously. Next week we’ll be serving up volcanic eruptions! Nah, just kidding … I hope.

The WoW Ironman Challenge — Warlock Level 72

There’s Ironsally cowering on the Riplash Strand in Borean Tundra. How embarrassing Cat had to see her that way and now thanks to me you’ve all seen her too. Few levels have past since she last checked in but, wow, things in-game have changed and not in a good way. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto.

Sally’s plan had been to stay in Outland on hitting 70 and trying to get to 71. She still had parts of Blade’s Edge, Netherstorm and all of Shadowmoon Valley ahead of her. It was a good plan in theory but after slogging away at quests and moving at glacial speed she noticed that with rested bonus a kill of a level 72 netted her about 120 xp. What? Then she noticed that quests were giving much less xp too, even though they were still yellow. Well hell, Sally wasn’t sticking around there anymore.

Off she went to Dalaran to get her shiny new Wand of Onyx which would be her last wand upgrade. Sally had been lucky in Silithus and by selling a Disgusting Oozeling  she was able to train Artisan Riding. Excited to be in Northrend she decided to just fly around for a while, discovering a few zones for easy xp. Little did she know what was coming.

When she stopped sightseeing and flew to Borean Tundra to get to work, boy did she get a rude awakening. Maybe everyone else knows this, maybe I knew this and forgot. The level 69 mobs in Outland are nothing like the level 69 mobs in Northrend. Holy Moly, we are getting our butt kicked! Help!

Ironsally decided she needed to up her intimidation factor in Northrend, sorry Cat.

My thoughts on how far Sally’s going? Sally has a synergistic relationship with her minion. The two make a whole and without each other they’re toast. My non-ironman Warlock isn’t quite the same. As a rule she’ll have three or four mobs going at once and sometimes she’s tanking, this is impossible for Sally. That minion is the only thing between her and certain death. If she loses the ability to keep him alive long enough to finish one kill then it will be over.

If Wrath plays out the same way BC did, then she should be able to get to 80. In BC, if she could survive the first zone the rest were doable. Her problem is that she is now having to Health Funnel the Void while killing one regular mob. Since she’s draining her health to do it, she’s in big trouble if an add comes along and finds both Sally and her minion at 50% health. At this point, remembering how hard Cata mobs hit I don’t feel real confidant about making it through to 85 but we’ll worry about hitting 80 right now. I’m going out on a limb and say she can do it, go, go, Ironsally!

The quests in the mine at Farshire resulted in numerous deaths. She’d run in, die. Run in, die. I think she’s now gotten over her fear of dying. I had noticed the mobs hitting like a freight train in Cataclysm but I don’t remember getting to Northrend and noticing anything. I guess that’s the difference in being geared.

There are things to be said for being underpowered though. Sally is the first character who didn’t accidentally and repeatedly kill the Beryl Sorcerer she was trying to capture to torture, so that’s something I guess.

She’s run out of quests with level 68, 69 mobs to kill in Borean Tundra so considering how hard these guys are hitting she going to head to Howling Fjord and do any quests with low levels to kill before returning to Borean Tundra. She’s hoping to complete enough quests to be able to get to 80 before, gulp, Icecrown. She doesn’t think the odds are good for her staying alive long there at all.

We’ll leave her enjoying herself, surfing. Who knows what’s in store for her next, she’d better have fun while she can.

Planning on trying the WoW Ironman Challenge? The Ironman rules are at Psynister’s Notebook.

I Didn’t Mean to be a Jerk

Sometimes things happen in-game that really bother me, usually it has to do with me behaving in a way that could be construed as jerkish. I’m not here to be a left-hand apologist, well maybe a little, but to the person whose question I appeared to ignore yesterday I’m sorry. I really did answer you. It’s just that by the time I did, you had probably logged out, driven to the store, done your weekly shopping, put gas in the car, you know, it took a while for my response.

Above is a photo of my hands on my keyboard. What, wait, you say I’m too cartoony! Psshaw! Am not. Okay, I’m a hard person to buy gifts for. I don’t really want anything other than ibook credit so occasionally someone in my family gets creative. They obliviously know I love WoW and what better present than a gaming keyboard! Yay!

And it was a really good idea except it’s a right-handed keyboard and I’m left-handed. Not hurting my family’s feelings is more important to me than speedy typing while playing WoW so I manage. But as you can see my fingers are nowhere near the letter keys so to respond to anyone with something other than a macroed “Thank You” it takes a lot of time. First I have to kill that zombie that’s trying to kill me, then since this character is a little under-powered I have to mount and fly up out of harm’s way, then I have to slide that baby across the desktop, mouse usually falls on the floor, bend down to pick it up, bang my head on the desk, etc., then type.

I know being left-handed isn’t the only handicap people have to overcome in WoW. And yes, I know there are a lot of real, bona fide, class A jerks in WoW but I just wanted you to know that sometimes it’s just a lefty with a right-handed keyboard and I’m pretty sure you won’t find any Talandra’s Rose until you get to Zul’Drak.

Edit: I don’t know when you’ll hear from me again. I am taking a tent and living outside for the time being. I don’t know how people live where there are frequent earthquakes. And to make matters worse I was in the Utgarde Catacombs when it happened. Scary. I didn’t know I could move that fast, I think I beat the dogs outside!

Transmofy … transmi … um, wait a minute, Transmogrification!

All the WoW bloggers are talking about transmogrification so in an effort to look like I stay current on everything WoW, I thought I’d better post about it too. My past experience with transmogrification is limited to trying to change one of our dogs into a reindeer at the holidays.

If you’ve been here before you’ll know this won’t be a well researched, well thought out, well written post about the topic. If you’re looking for ideas on how you want to dress once transmogrification is available you could consult The Visual Roleplay Gear List. If you’re looking for one of those well written posts, WoW Insider collected a few good ones.

Personally I think it’s terrific, I appreciate Blizzard giving the WoW community something a lot of people wanted. Unfortunately I’m not sure it will have much impact on me. My main is a feral Druid so even though I love her because of her many forms, in this case it’s a definite drawback. She is almost never in Night Elf form, she does that to avoid the Night Elf jiggle. I mean how can anyone take her seriously as a fierce warrior if she bouncing her … well … you know.

So to all those of you that are making your transmogrifying plans I wish you better luck with it than I had. I mean my dog only stayed in reindeer form for about a minute. Then he ate the antlers, sigh … it just didn’t take.

The WoW Ironman Challenge — Warlock Level 69

Ironsally had planned on saying hello at level 70 but she takes copious notes, so to avoid an even longer wall of text she decided to say “Hi” from level 69.

How’s she doing?

Staying alive?

Not so much.

Dying, oh yeah.

Things didn’t really get noticeably harder until reaching the Blade’s Edge Mountains. The problem she’s having is that she can’t get any separation on levels like she could in Azeroth. Quests have to be done at yellow and she’s way too close in level to the mobs. My guess is that there are so many group quests in Outland that she has to pass on she can’t get ahead of the curve. Only time will tell but considering Wrath had many, many, group quests I’m guessing that 70—80 might be harder than 80—85 since Cata has no group quests that I can remember other than Crucible of Carnage. But then I remember just how hard Cata mobs were hitting a well-dressed character, geez, poor Ironsally.

Ironsally keeps whining about Healthstones, she wants me to lift the ban on them. I told her real Ironmen don’t need no stinking Healthstones but we might revisit that argument later on.

At level 66 irl it was thunderstormy and dark outside so I asked Sally to leave the dreary Bone Wastes for a while and move on to Nagrand where the weather was nicer. Higher level zone, but if you have to die it’s a lovely place to do it. She was really motivated to level as she had some level 67 clothes she was anxious to try on.

It’s interesting that on Zangarmarsh there are actually characters of an appropriate level in all the zones. I don’t think I’ve ever done a /who in Nagrand on Fenris and seen anyone other than an 85 in the zone. In Nagrand Sally finally gave in and started to take a death to thin a crowd if needed.

At level 67 armed with some new white armor (it’s hard to keep a straight face calling it armor) about the easiest quest she had in Nagrand was Murkblood Invaders. Three level 67’s, didn’t look good for her. First try she died, those Murkbloods seem a little smarter than the average mob. She sent in the Voidwalker, let him get aggro before casting and they still came running for her. Next try she decided to blow her mana and try sending in the big guns, the Infernal. That did the trick.

In Blade’s Edge, things started getting tough on Ride the Lightning. Getting hit by lightning 25 times took freaking forever as she could only live through two strikes, sheesh, wasn’t pleasant for Sally.

On dinging 69, the only quests that went green were Talbuk Mastery and Bring Me The Egg!. Sally went back to Nagrand and managed to take down Bach’lor but she didn’t try Bring Me The Egg. There’s been too much senseless death (Sally’s) lately and I remember the Matriarch being considerably harder than Bach’lor. She wanted a shot of her victory over Bach’lor and this was the best she got. She had to move on because the area was infested with Mountain Gronn and the Voildwalker kept complaining about the weeds cutting into him.

For anyone who actually finishes the Ironman I think there should be a new achievement, Catastrophically Common has a nice ring to it.

Ironsally had to pay 200 gold for her hat so thought she should at least see what it looked like. She was delighted, she thinks it makes her look very Harrison Jonesish. Hang on Harrison, she’s coming!

Planning on trying the WoW Ironman Challenge? The Ironman rules are at Psynister’s Notebook.

Through Your Interface — Place Swap

Day Fourteen of World of Saz 15 Days of Screen Shots challenge, Place Swap. Didn’t even have to think about this one, definitely I’d want to swap with my Druid.

The dogs and I could play in the snow in bear form. I could switch to cat form and be chased around by them and get some exercise. Those quick runs to the store for something I forgot would be a breeze in flight form as long as I didn’t need to carry much.

I’m not sure what I could do with aquatic form. The dogs wouldn’t be interested as although they’re labs they hate water. I know, what’s up with that. I’ll have to think on that one. Halloween maybe? Scare the bejeesus out of the neighborhood kids with my scary, walrusy, sea lion form?

Maybe I’d better hold off on using aquatic form. They’ve just had a chupacabra sighting in the area and I don’t want to end up in a cage. 🙂

True (WoW) Confessions :o

I have nothing interesting or edifying to say today but I’m not going to let that stop me. Okay this is a little embarrassing. I keep making these Blood Elf characters, um, male characters. Not on my server but you know, around. Usually they’re Death Knights cause they come with an outfit. I log in once in a while and /flex, /dance and run around, leaping about in The Ebon Hold. I’m sorry to say not one of them has ever actually left The Ebon Hold. After a few minutes of dancing I’m happy, log out and get on with serious business. What! Hey, like you guys don’t do this. No, I do not believe every single naked dancing Blood Elf, Night Elf or Draenei woman I see is being operated by a twelve year boy. Just thought I’d come clean.

This leads to my next confession, you know that “What I Read” over there? Well it’s a big fat lie! Sure I read those but I read a whole heck of a lot more than that. I’m like a WoW blog addict. And I have fallen in love, one word, Fabulor, isn’t he dreamy, sigh. Yes, I know there are incredible posts on lore and all manner of fine things there, but he has FABULOR! Anyway, I’m thinking sometime when I don’t have rl work I should just add a page with my enormous, really real list and call it “What I Really Read”.

Let’s see, what else have I done, oh, oh, I pre-ordered SWTOR. My son-in-law pre-ordered it and I know he’s going to catch hell for it so I did it purely to give him some moral support and because we might get to play it together and because my husband didn’t know what to get me for my birthday so I bought my present for him, and no I’m not leaving WoW.

Hmm, since I’m on daytime US Eastern and it’s pretty quiet out there I decided to check out an Oceanic Time Zone server to see if there were more people about over there at midnight. It was an interesting experience. On my US server everyone assumes that I’m a dude although my character is female. I thought it would be pretty much that way everywhere. Not so, I was followed around by numerous characters asking me if I were female irl and upon hearing I was wouldn’t leave me alone. Was it the time of night or are you Aussies just more romantic than your US counterparts. I finally gave up and went back to my daytime wasteland.

Okay this last one isn’t a confession, just a weird observation. You know how if you want to comment on some blogs you have to fill in a captcha to prove you’re a human. I’ve noticed that some of them, I think it’s Blogger seem suspiciously like Japanese car names, like Altima, Impreza. The kind of words that you’re almost sure are real, but not. Makes me wonder if Toyota and Honda are branching out into social networking, maybe, maybe not.

The WoW Ironman Challenge — Warlock Level 65

Ironsally longs for Azeroth, the land of mini hubs that send you out with 3 or 4 quests all nicely grouped together. The land of easy drop rate. Kill ten tigers, get ten tiger toes. Now she’s in Outland, need ten worg tails, kill eleventy billion worg. She shouldn’t complain, it’s xp however slow. You know those kill ten fill in the blank quests you get that you just blow through? Now they matter, everything matters.

Every little aspect of each quest is important now. I don’t know how long Sally spent hovering over Raastok Glade to be sure she knew the number of stealthed Warp Stalkers in the area so she’d know a safe position to land. All this for a kill ten Warp Stalker quest. Everything has slowed way down but I don’t really notice as I have to do so much planning and thinking over simple tasks.

There have been moments of terror. Sally had food she got in a Package of Identified Plants, she thought it was just regular old food and ate some. Imagine her horror when she saw a buff pop up. She clicked that off so fast and threw away the food, looking over her shoulder. Cheater, cheater, it’s like Sally thought the Ironman Police were lurking behind a mushroom.

There was a moment in Zangarmarsh that she felt almost godlike. She was on a killing spree. This isn’t that hard, I don’t know why I was thinking it was. She’d been killing Spore Bats for a quest and hadn’t noticed she got the buff Energizing Spores. You wouldn’t believe what a difference that attribute increase of 30 made. She went on a Spore Bat killing rampage but never got it again, it was five minutes of bliss.

She hasn’t had any lolnoob comments on her attire yet but I attribute that to the fact that she plays off peak hours and doesn’t go into town. She’s dying more now, sometimes it’s just stupid player mistakes like touring Zangarmarsh by air and not paying attention and getting one shot by a guard in Zabra’jin, another time she got swarmed by Ravagers. She had a hell of a hard time with The Path of Anguish particularly the Flamewaker Imps.

To be honest Hellfire Peninsula has always creeped me out so I was probably an influence in her decision to move on to Zangarmarsh to gain a level before coming back to Hellfire. The mobs were higher level but by picking easier quests, and not having the stress of listening for Fel Reaver footsteps she did fine and returned to Hellfire with another level under her belt.

As far as killing she opens with Curse of the Elements,  Immolate,  Corruption, and Bane of Doom  after that it really depends on who she’s fighting, what her mana and heath situation is and whether it looks like there might be the danger of adds. She just got Incinerate so once in a while if she’s sure there won’t be adds and she’ll have time to get her mana back after the fight she’ll use it, well, because it’s fun. She also moves mobs around with her Voidwalker a lot more than my regular Warlock does to minimize adds.

Occasionally the Voidwalker glitches and refuses to help, not a problem with one mob but a really serious problem with an add, I think he does it to make her appreciate him more. Sally thinks she’ll make it to 70 but after that she’s not so sure, just have to wait and see. Since it gets a little lonely out there and the Voidwalker isn’t much company, he just complains all the time like a kid on a long car ride, she purchased a cat. He’s good company although he keeps scaring the heck out of her by running up behind her out of nowhere. Silly cat.

She sends her love and says she’d imagine it will be a while before you hear from her again. She’s shooting for 75 next, I got my fingers crossed for her but we’ll see what happens.

Through Your Interface — A Fond Memory

Day Thirteen of World of Saz 15 Days of Screen Shots challenge, A Fond Memory. This one was easy since I have managed to salvage so few older screen shots.

Even if I had all my old screen shots I still might have picked this one. My Druid when she was much younger in levels taking in the fireworks at Booty Bay. The whole world was still ahead of her, places to explore, mysteries to uncover, wrongs to right.

She even wore her hair differently back then. I think she was born in 2007 and became my third main. It was touch and go until she got cat form, my first attempt at Druid got deleted at about level 17. Someone told me you have to stick it out until you get cat form so I tried again and she’s been my number one ever since.

She’s not feeling the love for me right now though. I’ve been spending way too much time with a certain Ironman on another server. I’m kinda worried we’re going to have words when I log back into Fenris, ugh, awkward.