The Grand Altish Chart of (in)Competence

Wait … what? Me? Well yeah I know I’m level 100 now but … you see … some of us leave the serious fighting to the cat and the warlock. I am so NOT going to Socrethar’s Rise and if you have a problem with that mister, you better talk to my handler. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s old Commander’s fault.

Yeah … they might pull my Altoholic Guild card on me. Some of … well pretty much all of those I consider alts aren’t … well, let’s say up to snuff. Some more than others. Liwu up there is pretty good, she just doesn’t have gear yet, while others … really bad.

I gave up on leveling my shaman the traditional way. At 97 I threw up my hands in disgust. Never should have changed her to elemental but oh well, water under the bridge. She will limp to 100 by doing fishing dailies in places she won’t get her butt kicked. She will continue gardening and mining for the vast sum of 30xp and hope the critters don’t kill her. Oh, and beat up Ashlei’s pets every day. However long it takes … I give up.

This got me wondering, is there a pattern? Is it the class or just that I don’t spent that much time learning enough about the alts? So I embarked on a serious scientific study. Really, it’s like I’m an alt theorycrafter. I know! I can’t believe either!

Ah ha! There is a trend appearing! Okay first, I don’t know what it is about plate wearers. I don’t get that. Maybe it’s because I think they’ve got all that plate so yeah, I don’t need to pay attention, they’ll be alright.

Look at the mage. I got her to level 53 in Vanilla and one day she had a breakdown and begged me to let her be the bank alt where she’s lived happily ever after. I remember like two times she was fun and both times it was with a group. NEVER alone.

It appears that I can’t play ranged dps who have to learn to be defensive. Warlocks are fine as they hide behind their demons, same with hunters. Rogues, Druids and Monk are okay, I don’t know why. Apparently I’d rather be killed or kill quickly and get it over with … not drag the whole thing out.

Anyway, I’m exhausted from the whole being scientific thing. I need something relaxing. I know! Let’s get the fifth one going! Hunter Zor! You’re up!

Alts Saved My Life

What? Too melodramatic? Okay then alts saved my WoW life. I mean look, even the Voidlord refuses to do dailies on Thunder Isle anymore. And by the way I’m fine with all the dailies, I appreciate that they’re available if you want them. It’s up to me to have the good sense to STOP doing them at some point before I burn myself out. So I’m reading a post at Reputation Grind and I think, “We’ll yeah you big dummy, that’s what you like to do so why aren’t you doing it? You’ve strayed too far from your roots! You’re an altoholic, act like one!”

I have little desire right now to level my 85-86 level characters but I love leveling low levels and seeing the world again through their eyes. So what to do? Eureka! Zounds! I have a plan!

JD at Amateur Azerothian had given out wonderful panther gifts to LBR participants and I was one of them. I started a Monk on Runetotem, I was welcomed to Claws of Nature, I started leveling her and got to level 22 or so. I got distracted, JD quit WoW and then she was abandoned. I would feel guilty about her but wouldn’t login because I was sad JD wasn’t around.

I know, I’ll transfer her to Fenris where she’ll have rich big sisters to help her and heirlooms and she won’t be sad cause JD’s not going to login. TA DA! I’m happy again, of course it was a little sad to have to give someone the boot to make room, but in the stoic way of Orcs, Darknell took it rather well especially considering Liwu is Alliance.

I love professions and they are fun again. Instead of Cat logging in and learning another pattern for PvP gear she doesn’t want and won’t sell or learning a lovely iLevel 522 piece she can’t get the Haunting Spirits for out of habit, Liwu is GOING to be an Engineer, and it’s FUN. I promise you Liwu I won’t delete you as I have every other Engineer. See, it’s in writing. You’re safe. We had a fine time yesterday running around in The Wetlands and gained 6 levels. She’ll be riding that panther in no time.

Everyone was happy about this, Scribe resumed scribing as she might learn something Liwu needs. Miner went out to mine copper to kick-start Liwu’s mining and engineering. Even my bank alt was excited. She hangs on to so much stuff that no one can use. Finally someone to send bags to!

I don’t know why I was so stupid I forgot what I enjoy. Even Ironsally is on the move again. In the same time it took Liwu to gain six levels Ironsally gained two bars into 85. Yeah … this is harder than I remembered. Can’t keep Void alive, each mob is the equivalent of soloing a Thunder Isle rare … but harder. Add to that the constant fear of being killed because she’s on a PvP server. We’re having fun again! Easy Liwu, hard Ironsally, professions! Ah, life is good again. I even wrote a note for me on my about page so that if I get lost again I’ll remember what is was I liked about WoW. Whew, I’m glad that’s over.

Rusty Alts and Login Server Busy

The login server says it’s just too busy to deal with me, I guess it’s having a day. Alrighty then have it your way. I’ll just talk about my rusty alt instead.

Oh wait, totally unrelated but I wonder if the Pandaren take that whole lovely and polite thing too far. Every time Cat does the Golden Lotus dailies and has to try to save those Wounded Defenders who are laying there grievously wounded and there are bombs going off everywhere, the first thing the wounded defender says is usually something like, “Tell me of your travels” in a cheery, polite voice.  Seriously? NOW? Do you think we could try to get to a safer place first? Seems a weird time to chit chat.

Anyway, Cat wants some stuff and the person that will have to get it for her is my jewelcrafter/scribe Enhancement Shaman. Back in BC she was my main before Cat was born. I loved that Draenei but as time moved on and the world changed, I fell out of love when wielding a big two-hander was no longer a viable option.

She leveled through Cata sitting in SW doing jewelcrafting dailies. This will not be possible now, she needs motes of harmony and recipes so sitting in town is not an option. Her gear was in the high 200s iLevel. Hmm … probably not going to cut it so Cat made her some new clothes that pushed her over 300 and off she went.

OW! Ouch! Oh sorry little Draenei, really, my fault entirely. I was so focused on her gear I totally forgot I hadn’t a clue how to play her anymore. Yeah, we bombed them real good from the air but on landing in Pandaria we got our butt kicked bad. There was dying … more dying and more too.

We kind of corpse jumped our way to Paw’don Village where I apologized and stopped to do some reading before continuing on our way. I felt really guilty for putting her through all that. She’s made it to 87 now without too much pain. But that girl is just not lucky or else Cat is just extremely lucky. Cat had a couple Spirits of Harmony before she even left the Jade Forest while Lok just made her first one. I wish those things were bind on account.

I have to say the trip this time is more enjoyable without the crowd. I hope it stays that way for all the upcoming trips. I don’t know who’s going next. Herbalist/Alchemist? Miner/Blacksmith? Enchanter/Tailor? I can’t decide, maybe I should let them work it out amongst themselves. Maybe draw straws or something.

So Cat’s fine with this, she’s moved into her place in Halfhill. Oh look, I see she even did a little decorating. There she is taking a nap … I think she’s taking a nap, but what’s in all those bottles by the bed. I hope she didn’t make a spectacle of herself in front of the Tillers. Sigh.

Forsaken Love and Serial Altoholism

Come back here! I’m going to beat you like a rented mule! Oh dear, I thought something was up. My Undead Warlock is in general a taciturn young lady, and running around Tol Barad shouting about beating mules is not like her at all. Since I’ve known her she seems to stoically accept her fate and move on. I mean she’s had to, too much thought about her past would drive anyone to beat a mule.

She did find a few things out though. Apparently some people are aware of the fact that Warlocks are supposed to be dangerous in PvP so they’ll take one look at her and run, I don’t think they’re familiar with what beginner, homemade, PvP gear looks like so, whew, one less death for her. HAHAHA! Joke’s on you! But that’s not what’s making her cranky. Nope. It’s love. I eavesdropped on a conversation she had over a pint with Gamon. I’m really not surprised she choose him to tell her sad story of unrequited love.

Yes, she’s in love … from afar. She follows Mog Madness apparently and found the man of her dreams, yes, Frank. I mean who could blame her, really? He’s obviously a man among … um … dead men. She carries his picture with her, poor thing, and I don’t think I’ll say anything about yelling at strangers cause she’s got a lot on her mental plate right now.

So I feel a little guilty because I’m so happy. I WON SOMETHING! And it’s a wonderful something! I came second in The Great Blog Noblegarden Egg Hunt 3 hosted by Kamalia! It’s a headshot/avatar image to be drawn by Vidyala of Manalicious! My only problem is I keep changing my mind about who to pick. I’d decided on Ironsally but then I don’t think that’s really fair to my Druid although she says it’s okay. Must make up my mind.

Oh yeah, altoholism. Okay, look at that picture.

WTF! I have all these things to do and I delete a character and roll a Rogue. What is that about anyway. I don’t really like to play Rogues. I deleted my last one at level 72 to make room for another character. What am I doing! I’d always wondered why, for an altoholic, I don’t have more characters. I generally have about 25 or 30 at any one time. Then it hit me. I’m a serial deletist, I don’t want to say murderer so I’ll call it deletist cause that’s what you type. Anyway, I think I’ve killed deleted hundreds of characters since 2006 because of my insistence on keeping them on one of two servers. So not only am I a altoholic, I’m a SERIAL altoholic, geez.

And why the rogue if I don’t like playing them? At the character creation screen I build the look first and then that dictates the class. Weird I know, but does she look like she’d wear a dress? I think not.

Go Away … I’m Fishing by Sound

Yeah, random thoughts again. No real topic here. My Druid ran up and down the ramp on the Exodar trying to get her Lovebird to take flight. Take wing, little Lovebird, fly! The bird did try; I’ll give her that but so far no luck, so I’ll keep trying.

As for the fishing thing, this has to be the funniest thing anyone has ever said to me in WoW. My Forsaken Warlock reached level 80, leveling this fast causes problems with professions. Her cooking and tailoring are so behind she’s going to have to stick around Wrath for quite a while as she’s not rich enough to buy her mats. I realized she hadn’t trained fishing.  Stupid handler, how’s she supposed to level cooking quickly without it? She trained it and went to the sewers to start the leveling process. You’d think it would be pretty deserted wouldn’t you.

Fishing by Sound

Not so! Along came a bouncy Moonkin who stood beside her and proceeded to cast. Oh, that’s nice she thought, company. After a few casts the Moonkin told her to move along, that they were fishing by sound and she was screwing them up. She thought that was a little cheeky so she remained. The Moonkin then did the “dance on your bobber” thingy for a while not knowing this would only insure her continued fishing, cause she’s real stubborn. She asked him why, in such a big empty sewer he needed to fish right there. He said it was his spot. WELL, he should have said that to begin with, she could certainly understand a lucky fishing spot so she moved on.

Investment Portfolio

Yes, I know I hang on to a lot of dumb junk. I can’t help it but never mind that. This is a snapshot of my investments. I have an extra Lovebird and Lantern that I hope to sell later at a huge profit. I’m not sure when the optimal moment will be to do this. Three months? Six months? I’ll have to consult the AH wizard’s blogs, but I was happy to have something SENSIBLE saved in my bank wedged between Bad Clams and Honeymint Tea.

Stop with the Freakin’ Changes Already

I know we ancients get called a lot on not liking change. I’m generally fine with change; never get upset about changes to my class or the game but geez, Twitter’s interface changed, and then Blogger based blogs changed their @##$$/&@!! captcha to something that causes me to have to try over and over to post a comment because I now can no longer EVEN BEGIN to figure out what the letters are. DAMMIT, I AM a human, and humans can’t read that crap! And I was already on shaky ground with these blogs as they already wouldn’t let me comment with my WordPress info. If you two can’t get along fine, but don’t involve me in it! I wish Blogger and WordPress would kiss and makeup. So if you’re a Blogger blogger and don’t hear from me it’s because I had a brain aneurysm from trying to figure out the captcha.

Dangerous Life of an Alt

My poor Forsaken. She needs lots and lots of Frostweave cloth. I forgot that she was an 80 and flew her to Icecrown and landed her in a group of about nine Converted Heroes to grind cloth. Oops, it’s what my Druid does but then she’s level 85. She landed and I stopped to take a drink and then she was dead, well Undead AND dead.

She received a helm that needed a gem and again I forgot that she was still in Wrath and bought her the appropriate and very costly gem. Couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t equip it, duh, it’s a Cata gem. I don’t know how she puts up with me. Oh well, I’ll look at it as doing my part to keep the server economy going.

I must be off, she only has eleventy billion more fish to catch to level her fishing, it seems my work is never done.

Cleaning Virtual Closets

I thought I should log off and get a little work done. Not money-paying work, the other kind. My husband has injured his knee and has to limp around on a cane right now. I think it’s safe to say he’s not going to be able to rake the leaves. That darn cane would keep sinking into the ground. It looks like it’s up to me and the dogs. The kitchen floor needs cleaning, I mean really, really needs it. It is a lovely off-white, such a perfect color to accent muddy dog paws. Yup, this is what I should do. But, you know it’s kind of windy. I should wait for tomorrow. Then ALL the leaves will be down and I won’t have to do it again. Same with the kitchen floor. It’s wet and rainy out; it will be muddy again in an hour. Yes, definitely, I’ll wait until tomorrow. Instead I’ll face the task I’ve been dreading, who will live and who will die today.

Who says WoW is all game and no housekeeping. I have to prune my characters. I don’t like it but if left unattended something like this can happen.

Yes, that’s right. The Great Dumpling Fiasco, the only time my Druid and I had words. It wasn’t pretty when I had to confront her about her dumpling hoarding tendencies and I don’t want to let the character situation get out of control.

I really wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t at the cap of 50 yet, almost but not quite. I think a lot of them were created a few years ago when Blizzard would take whole Battlegroups down for some type of upgrades that I don’t remember now. I’m very proud that my elite fighting force is now down to a manageable 26. Okay make that 27, there’s one on an Oceanic server too.

Most of the characters were low level, so there were no big emotional partings. I was surprised though that a lot of them reminded me of a time or an event so they were a little harder to delete. Oh, the hunter I INSISTED my husband try. He got it to level 2. He didn’t do any quests he just walked around saying “What’s over there?” “Who’s over here?” “What do you mean, kill the wolf?” Then he was dead and that was the end of it. There’s the one I made one Hallow’s End when the neighbor’s son wanted to see what I was doing. The candy buckets were a big hit with him. So yeah, still some emotional attachment even though they were low level.

I got rid of the Blood Elf that was always yelling at me, no problem there. What? What do you mean, Captive Blood Elf? He is NOT a captive and no, I didn’t delete him. I might play him someday … really. So all in all I feel like I got a lot of work done. I think I’ll log in again, I’ll get those leaves and kitchen floor taken care of tomorrow. Unless something comes up, then maybe the next day.

Have Gun … um … Axe Will Travel

I’m just all about my Paladin right now, just can’t stop playing her. Since she’s got to take a temporary break because her quest hub was just barbequed I thought I’d talk about her instead. I have started many Paladins before and they were always deleted before ever reaching level 20. There must be something about the race/class combination that clicked this time. But I have many questions.

I don’t know enough about Paladins to know whether they are really this powerful or is it just the heirlooms and the easier 1 to 60 content. When I started playing her I looked for beginner Paladin guides and couldn’t find any. There are a lot of fine guides if you’re at level cap but I wanted something more basic. As it turns out she doing fine without it, I just randomly mash any key that’s cooldown is up. Now is that what I’m supposed to be doing?

I have to keep moving to new zones looking for a little more challenge, but that doesn’t always work as the quest givers won’t give her a quest because she’s too low a level although she can easily kill the mobs in the area.

Who knew! I guess I now know why Paladins are so popular. She doesn’t even have plate other than the heirlooms yet and I still feel omnipotent while playing her.

Another first is the pace. I have no idea whatsoever why I race to level 85 like the devil’s chasing me. I always do it, which is stupid and it’s why I immediately have to roll another character because I missed stuff, which was the whole point. Aside from having to do quests below your level to get The Loremaster I like to do quests the first time on a level appropriate character. The Paladin is the first character that’s taking her time. She fishes, cooks, piddles around, levels her professions and generally is more laid-back than any of my other characters.

Okay, those quest givers must have reincarnated by now, back to work saving the day. For the Light! Or whatever good Paladins say, I’m not up on proper Paladin etiquette yet. Any experienced Paladins out there feel free to stop me before I let her run into a dungeon alone, because it sure feels like she could do it!

Altland

I’m not looking forward to the rest of the day, it started out inauspiciously and I’m hoping it’s not going deteriorate further, sheesh. I spent ten minutes this morning trying to get an eyelash off my face, just couldn’t get a hold on it. I finally dug out a magnifying mirror and to my horror found out that I’d been picking at a wrinkle, yeah, it’s a permanent eyelash. Once I had my contacts in I saw I also had a big zit right on the tip of my nose. Considering the available square inchage on my face it seems unfair that it selected the EXACT middle of the tip of my nose … really, like it used a ruler to be sure it was in the optimal position to be prominently displayed for everyone to appreciate. I have a big lump on my lip; I don’t know how I got it. I’m starting to wonder what goes on here at night, anyway …

I wanted to go to the store as we’re out of grape jelly. I don’t NEED grape jelly but it’s one of those things I feel is essential to have on hand at all times, like ketchup, and mustard and peanut butter. If a disaster hits I want to be fully stocked with condiments. But NOW with this thing on my nose I don’t want to venture out.

I don’t have any work right now. Clients aren’t shy about calling at all hours of the day or night when they want something. I do find however that when what they want requires them to provide you with something, this triggers an immediate communication lockdown. You don’t get an email saying they’ll get back with the information, they just go stealth mode. So great time to play, but the servers are down for about four more hours.

OMG, how cool is that! I decided to write this in Word for a change rather than directly in WordPress. I see Word has given me a semicolon, something I never use. This is really lazy because if The Oatmeal explains it to me I can usually grasp it, but I’m not a writer. If I could communicate strictly through pictures I probably would, which brings me to what all this rambling is about.

I’m having a hard time keeping up with all my alts. Where are they, what level, who has the heirlooms, what professions need leveling. So I decided to come up with a visual way to track them. I thought it would work much better than the little scraps of paper I use. I misplace them and I can’t read my writing half the time and when I can the notes are rather cryptic. I mean what does “mo croof fen” indicate? Whatever it is, someone apparently needs ten of them.

So rather than go to the store and endure the check-out guy staring at my nose I’m going to work on my visual alt tracking device. At least until the servers come up or my client resumes normal communication. He’s at like DefCon 1 now but he might come down to a 5 later today. Probably just when the servers come up, it’s that kind of day.

Combating Loneliness While Alt Leveling

My warlock wanted to go to the Isle of Quel’Danas once she hit 70 just to take a look, didn’t stay long though. While still lovely the emptiness was disturbing, I kept remembering what it was like when we were opening it up.

While leveling up she didn’t encounter anyone of her level until Hellfire Peninsula. Hellfire was a surprise it was mid-afternoon and there were four horde in the zone. I don’t know why but some zones seem lonely when you’re the only one in it and some don’t. I don’t like Shadowmoon Valley but I didn’t feel like I was in a ghost town there where I did feel that way in other zones.

Anyway by the time she reached Area 52 I thought of a solution. Archmage Vargoth! That’s it! He doesn’t stay long on his visits but he makes a pleasant break from the Voidwalker who just constantly complains about not liking this place. Mr. Wiggles is nice company and all but he is just a pig and I’m down to my last Mechanical Yeti. I have to admit I feel just a tiny bit guilty. It’s clear that he’d like me to do something for him, he seems a little disoriented every time I call him with the staff and we’re in Borean Tundra or someplace rather than Netherstorm but he’s good company so I’m keeping his staff until I reach civilization.

Wow, my Alts were so Spoiled

My Undead warlock is 32 now and there she is flying into Desolace, oddly everyplace else she’s been has seemed weirdly empty, no one around but in Desolace it seems normal as nobody was ever around there the many times I passed through. I’m sure it may vary from server to server but leveling her without any financial backup has been a revelation to me. I leveled many alts before but they had help. I wonder if there are many new people starting WoW, if so I hope they find helpful guilds to help them along.

Blizzard had done many things to ease the pain, and I’m pretty sure they must have increased quest rewards in the lower areas because I don’t remember getting over one gold as a quest reward in a level as low as Stonetalon Mountain in the past. My problem has been the prices in the AH. I have to use quest reward gear as I can’t afford anything at all. I was excited when I got to level 30, glyphs! I could buy my glyphs! Yay! Nope, I’m sure it varies on different servers but to get the Fear glyph it would cost 120 gold. Immolate was listed at 130 gold. I don’t know if that was just an aberration so I’ll keep checking the AH in the hope that it was, but geeezzzz … life is tough if you’re not an alt.

I’m lagging behind on my tailoring too, I out-leveled the areas where the cloth drops were so thought I’d just buy some, nope, a stack of wool 62 gold and that’s been steady, so it was back to a lower level to pick on the lowbie NPCs for the wool. I’ll have to worry about First Aid when/if I get to level cap cause I so am not wasting my cloth on it now.

I finally wimped out today. This poor girl was sporting a low level dagger with +1 Intellect and +1 Stamina at level 32, scandalous! I hadn’t wanted to use heirlooms as I don’t want to level faster, well at least not until post level 60 but today I sent her the caster staff and two trinkets to wear. They won’t increase experience like the robe and shoulders but now I won’t have to try to buy a weapon or trinkets for her for a while. Quests seems pretty easy she managed a couple 2-man quests with her stinky little dagger, but I just felt bad for the poor girl. All in all it’s pretty fun, I’m lost all the time, especially in post Cataclysm Orgrimmar. This experience has given me a whole new outlook on people just starting WoW now, they should get a Feat of Strength for that, something like “I Walked a Mile, Uphill, in the Snow …”