Pilgrim?

The Turkey stuffing feast is over and a multitude of achievements to go with them. Tobold ask: Are you a Pilgrim?

Me. Nope!

Don't even think my Paladin even killed a Turkey. Not that i even had him do much either beyond learn the new recipes since he's been at max cooking for forever.

I decided long ago to be a underachiever. I make my own goals of what interests me and those are what i really do or spend time doing. Achievements don't really do much for motivating me. I just do what i feel is fun or quick to do and thats all i'm doing.

The only thing I really did was to get the cooking leveling done on a few alts that I hadn't had time to level cooking skills on at the time of the holiday event. Did throw some food at some people since it was easy and right there by the tables. But i didn't go chasing any Rogues or anything like that or LTB Rogue to shoot for Achievement, paying 100g. Nope didn't do any of that.

What i did spend my time doing was getting my Shadow Priest to lvl 76. I did making enough of that Cranberry stuff for that nice spell power food buffs for leveling with my Shadow Priest for having a good stack of cheap good food buffs on hand the entire way to 80. I did them on the last day of the event so had enough to last for 7 full more days and picked up a few of the items to make a the platter feast for instancing.

But not much for chasing after all those Pilgrim holiday achievements even if they were fairly easy. What they were and usually are is time consuming. Time is precious.

But i'm sure some of you got the Pilgrim title and all the achievements right?

Pilgrim Cooking from 1-300 on the Cheap.

I'm not usually much for running around doing holiday stuff just for fluff. I tend to stick to doing more important things for me that i need to get done. As the Goblins say time is money. But this Pilgrim Cooking for the Holiday event is just AWESOME!

It something you need to log on to every Alt you have, high or low that don't have much cooking skills yet. As on the cheap you can level up your low lvl cooking from 1-300 right there in the cooking area outside any your faction major city. There is even a Cooking Trainer right there as well.

If you don't know how awesome that is. Consider that a freebie from Blizzard! Because you can level up cooking from 1-300 or as high as your alt can go per their lvl on the total cheap and only cost you mere silvers maybe a gold or two. Folks you normally cant level up cooking that cheap ever or which as less effort as you can here at the.

Even the food stuff you cook with the Bountiful Cookbook gives some really nice food buff comparable to lvl 80 cooking food buffs like Spice Bread Stuffing and more. Only last 7 days but hell its damn cheap buffs for Instancing or Raiding for seven days.

Few of my Alts I haven't had time to lvl cooking on as yet. So this is what I'm doing. Even my lvl 80 DK only had 1/300 cooking. Just haven't had time to level his as yet as well my other recent new alts. Some city vendors have select recipe items for cooking so you may have to check the different city event vendors if you cant find a item.

Get cracking and save you lots of time and effort with cooking. Then go do whatever else fancy your taste to waste time doing.

I Know You Really Want It!

Yeap gaze upon that thing with total envy, as I know you want it. You have enough reasons to really want it just and one reason would do. I won't blame ya, I would want it too. I got both a dual spec Paladin and a DK that can use that. That weapon is AWESOME!

Quest for Shadowmourne the Legendary is only available in 25 man Icecrown Citadel raid and you also have to kill the Lick King to get it forged at the end of the quest chain. Good Luck on that Epic Journey! That sure cuts out the amount of people that will ever see that including myself since its a 25 man raid as well and i'm only likely if ever to see Icecrown in 10's.

If you want one good reason to 25 man raid Icecrown Citadel in patch 3.3, right there gazing upon that weapon is one good reason to slave away for quite sometime to try and wrap your hands around.

People will really mourne in envy you when they see you with it. What will you do to get your hands wrapped around your legendary? You know you want it right?

What would I do, hmmmm. If Zan my old fun ex Warrior buddy and former GM restarts playing WoW again and reforms the old guild back to 25 man's just a possibility I'll move servers and rejoin him. Just day dreaming, but thats what I would do. Doubt that will ever happen.

WoW Blogosphere Drama In Play

Not often the WoW blogosphere get filled up with drama. But it sure can feel dramatic being in the community when it happens. I mean there is enough drama is the game itself. But sometime the drama evolving around the game itself can be just as fun to watch it play out. Its like watching soaps sometimes.

Last community drama episode I remember involved a Paladin author trying to pass as someone else that was writing for a popular paladin site. Was really confusing to say the least the whole thing.

The latest drama involve guides about gold selling guides, a WoW blogger and a few well prominent WoW bloggers. You can read Tobold or Greedy Goblins blog.

Im not getting into this, but its just fun watching it all play out from my little corner of the community. Its not often the WoW community is filled with drama and watching it all play out. Gives everyone a chance to weigh in for about a week on this if you don't have much to write about already.

I'm just going to watch this all play out. Sometime this kind of drama can seem more fun to read than playing WoW itself.

WoW Update 11/16/09

Busy leveling my Shadow Priest. So got Shadow boy to Outland. Got him some Outland gear, and cleaned up Hellfire Peninsular weaving shadow magic. Got him some wings as well. Toured around Zangarmarsh a bit them was off to Nagrand a zone which I always enjoy.

With that managed to get him to lvl 66. Even got him a name change to from Eternallord to Darkweaver to more kinda match his dark magic nature. Kinda matches my Shaman name a bit since he's Voodooweaver. Just 2 more levels in Outland and be off to Northrend on the home stretch. Shadow continues to be fun and has gotten more fun since getting to Outland and getting better Outland gear.

Thats about all I've been up to.

Happy Veterans Day!!

Happy Veterans Day to all you Veterans and whatever branch of service you freely served in and Wars past! And to all you who freely serving in harms way during this Veterans Day keep it safe.

And Happy Veterans Day to all you salty behind the ears squids and shellbacks like me from the Navy. I proudly served there too.

I remember my very first Veterans Day as a Veteran. Iraq had already invaded Kuwait and I was on deployment aboard my first navy ship in the Arabian Gulf with out navy battlegroup awaiting orders to strike. I was in engineering a GSM and I was barely 18 years old. I remember all those days, I used to think all day long if i would ever see home, my friends, my family, if i would make it to 19 years old. I guess i did. Served 8 long years.

I will always miss my buddies. They were like a brotherhood that only someone that's been there can ever understand.

Wish all you who both proudly and freely served or payed the price in service to country, Happy Veterans Day!

My old ship and last command USS Bunker Hill CG-52. Its a she, and she can do and deliver allot of solid fast dps!

Thoughts on Leveling my Shadow Priest

Ahh maintenance day. I get to have the day off and servers are down for maintenance consuming my day off...... bummer! Unfortunately I didn't get to play much or at all on the weekend either, since was too busy working as well. But did get to play a little before the server shut down for maintenance enough to move my newbie Shadow Priest along to lvl 51. As well he will remain my entire focus in game play till he gets to lvl 80.

Good thing as well the Shadow Priest is my very last Alt I'm leveling up for the rest of WotLK as well and my last time leveling through the soon to to be forgotten world. I will be finally glad to be done with my leveling project as well. So the end is in sight as well.

And so far I'm also enjoying learning the ways of playing and leveling up Shadow Priest strictly for dps and to play around with like my other few 80 Alts as a option to the weekly emotional gyrations to all things Paladin.

I've had my Priest for almost as long as my Paladin has been around. He's was at first my banking mule, then prime banker for way too long. So its good he's finally seeing some long delayed adventure. One the thing whether I was tanking or in a instance I just never see much Shadow Priest around. Holy and Disc Priest for healers but few "fultime" Shadow Priests. I did read 35 pages of thread at Elitist Jerk forum to get up to speed. I cant say exactly what i remember, but I did learn a few things, though I cant really say what exactly that was after 35 pages and I read every one of them.

For leveling up my last Alt I needed something a bit different to play and something interesting to me at least. It was almost a shoe in bet that I would level up my lvl 22 Druid. I was sure it would be my Druid as well. But when I logged onto my Druid and looked at his spells having not played him in forever I just couldn't think of what the spells remotely was used for nor did the names make easy sense to me. My Priest remained a option, but it was my last option.

So I decided I would test run a Mage and a Warlock both to lvl 10 to see if it was something I felt like playing. And I did lvl both to lvl 10 quickly and couldn't quite decide between been a evil Warlock and a nukeum Mage. DPS capability of either class had no really factor to me. Something different and something fun, but something different! Between the Warlock and the Mage, i think i somewhat preferred the Mage. So then I decided to take my lvl 20 Priest for a test spin somewhere. I hadn't played him in years, I wasn't even sure what his spells did anymore or how to use.

He still had quests from Ghostland. So took him on a few quest spin through Ghostland on green quests to get relearn how to use spells and abilities and get a feel for things. Took me at least 2 levels to get the hang of playing things. And at some point playing my Shadow Priest it just seemed like something I would enjoy in a evil way. The style felt like something different and interesting to play. I noticed I never died much or barely ever. So I just kept playing and it seems like fun to me at least and kept playing and all options of possibly leveling my Druid with much versatility evaporated as well as any options of a nuking Mage. I'll level a Druid someday though I'm sure.

So 31 levels later I'm still playing my Shadow Priest. One the odd thing is I play classes that can heal, but you will never see me playing a healer. I like the versatility in utility but I simply don't play healer. I just don't enjoy it as a full time gig. In emergency as a utility yes, but otherwise no. My Paladin can heal, my Shaman can heal, but neither will ever be spec to heal. So my Shadow Priest will just be for pure dps.

My experience so far leveling and learning the ways of a Shadow Priest seems a bit like roguish Warlock. Both use dots and dots but with a few Blasts and Mind Seering that seems fun. And for me it was interesting enough as well and figure out how to use spells. In some way I find a Shadow Priest quite a bit tough even though they wear cloth and can take a few hits. And I guess what i mean they have survivability and seem tough to die vs the other cloth wearing class. And I guess I've always like that as well and was something to grow into liking about my newest alt.

Stuff seem to dies fairly fast leveling as Shadow within use of a few spells. And i guess you have to get use to playing the class and using the abilities as well. At some point at low lvl sometimes it can seem a bit boring but with limited spell options its easy to see why as well. Leveling I never ran into anything I couldn't kill or kill with a bit of strategy and some thinking in how to approach. At best If things seem challenging I could just fear away a mob and tow it about and mind seer it to death which always seems fun to do.

At least I survived which is always a good thing. But I've fought mobs at +3,+4 and fairly easy. At +5 it becomes a bit quite difficult due to spell misses which is tough on mana if spells are missing leveling. But I've managed to win the greater majority of the time still despite that but its usually a close call. But its fun testing out what your limits are and how tough you can be to manage to survive being killed by a mob. And that's something for me to like in playing Shadow.

Until you really pick up Shadowform things can seem a little slower. You do drink a bit after dot dotting a few mobs for a kill in a row for mana. But after picking up Shadowform the spells start getting a bit interesting for talents and abilities. While leveling I could easily stand surrounded in a camp of mobs and take down 3-5 one after another without needing to drink for mana and it can be fun. Sometimes I just play to kill a mob but mostly conserve mana to lessen the down time. Later on you pick up the Vampiric Touch for more Shadow Damage and mana regen and it gets even more fun and have even less of down time but more manageable. But it seems to get easier leveling with the talents and abilities. And that's making it fun to play the class and character. Something about dealing Shadow damage seems fun to me while melting the minds of mobs. Im aware of some the class/spec issues reading around on Elitist Jerk but class changes been at warp speed in WotLK and im sure things will keep changing for improvements and into the next expansion for the better hopefully.

I guess with good skill and gear allot of those abilities get enhanced. In leveling good gear can be difficult as well to come by reliably. For the most part i just make due and not worry about gear to much and just have fun toying with mobs. I can eventually see myself playing or dpsing as a Shadow Priest at 80. It seems fun enough to play despite whatever the class challenge is. Some people play classes just to be epeen on damage meters. I at least like to have fun in what I'm playing while seeing how good i can get playing my class and to work at increasing my damage output in what I'm doing.

So far my Shadow Priest is a Tailor and Jewelcrafter and only manage so far to be working on Tailoring since he had to drop 225 Enchanting since he's had that for forever to pick up Jewelcrafting since my Shaman is a full Enchanter. But so far I'm enjoying Shadow, its seem roguish to me as a caster. I'm not sure if you would enjoy it with a fair amount of play for the class, but I know I do.

For now its fun and I'm sure it will continue to be even more fun as the levels goes by. I'm enjoying the leveling and learning experience and that remain run in learning a new class for diversification

Reflections on 1000 Emblems

Some days you just going playing the game and something happens that make you reflect on how you've played the game. I've never quite like chasing Achievements. I like when things happen naturally and unexpectedly doing stuff as a surprise for doing whatever it is you were doing. And BAM it happens!

But the other day I hit a 1000 Emblems and I was totally surprised when it happened.
A guildie needed help with a Daily Heroic and couldn't find a tank. He knew I had one, and I didn't want to tank either for him the Heroic. I just didn't want to have to tank anything period! I didn't want to have to log on my Paladin and roll into a Heroic which I haven't stepped foot into for months. I was reluctant to tank to say the least. Ever been there? He was a good guildie and told his to see if he can find someone else since I was playing or leveling one my dps characters and it was what I played daily. So I said if you cant find any tank for Heroic in LFG or Trade I could tank it for you. Most reluctantly really!

Logging on to my Paladin felt a bit wired. I barely recognized my UI, I barely recognized my spells. I had to think for a while what they really did even though I knew what they did in general. But I had to reacquaint my mind with things. I though to my self, its been a while since I've been here. Hope i can remember how to swing a sword and shield. Sounds funny, but really it happened. I felt rusty beyond belief. Numerous reasons why I was reluctant to tank even for a guildie. Ever hate when someone ask you to do something you don't even want to do?

Anyway the guildie just needed me to tank for his group in Heroic DTK for the daily. I could of cared less about the Heroic, I just didn't want to have to play my Paladin. I'm still on vacation from sword and board. I still remember how to tank, but my tank reflexes were slow, i felt rusty going through the motions of things and thinking what this and that spell do and what to use. I could barely remember my macro's and how I had them set up to use. I had to think vs things been a reflex action to things. To most other people on the run I don't even think they could tell the difference though the run went fast. But I knew the difference in my performance.

So tanking Novos the Summoner I saw a flash on the screen for a Achievement. I barely noticed what it said since it was so sudden. But it said Achievement for 1000 Emblems. At that point I started reflecting on things. I thought wow 1000 Emblems really? Big deal some people got 2000+ Emblems since WotLK, most are really progression raiders on content with that much Emblems. WotLK dungeons been open a year now, so allot of time to rack up lots of Emblems/gear for players playing endgame content.

I kept thinking the whole time and reflecting on the achievement. For the most part none of my achievement really mean that much to me, I just don't care that much about them that much. But some do make me thing or reflect on things playing my character. This one made me reflect on my time up to now even though I was just taking my Paladin out for a spin to help a guildie out most reluctantly.

And when I really though about things with the Achievement, my total time playing WotLK on my Paladin is just 3 months including the time going from lvl 70-80. Sometimes Achievements alone don't always tell the whole story of a character or why or how you got to that point in time.

After coming back from my long hiatus since WotLK launched, my first Northrend Dungeon starting leveling from 70-80. I was right at lvl 70 then.

That was my first Heroic at lvl 80 while working on my gear. My guild at the time was busy running Naxx 25. They offered to help me gear up or come to Naxx and get somewhat easy gear. Our ubar Holy Priest Jimmy at the time even offered to heal my Heroic runs to help me out. Wasn't my style to get gear like that in raid, I like working for what I have. So I ran Heroic and geared up on my own while my guild ran Naxx 25 at the time for lots of Emblems.

Fairly geared up as one of our guild tank core that was my first time in Naxx and it was a Naxx 25 Raid. I was OT with my former guild buddy and GM our Warrior and another Paladin. A few more Emblems.

My first Northrend 10 man raid. Just a few Emblems.

On our weekly Naxx 25 guild raid progression we finally downed Sapphiron to some degree of effort on our third try or so it was. But raiding was taking a bit of toll on the guild and our GM in the effort. A few more Emblems though. Much drama went down after that raid and the guild fell apart soon after. Was a sad time playing WoW and for raid progression.

Around this point out guild Warrior and GM quit wow due to other guild members lack of dedication and weekly raid progression issues. So sadly guild broke up and I transferred server to a new server starting over. On new server I answered a call for a pugged Ulduar 10 man raid as the OT and got my first Ulduar 10 man progression kill. It felt hollow as it was without my old guild as well. But progression it was and a few more Emblems.

This was my last Heroic ran on my new server even though I was new to the server. I was just loosing all interest to swing my sword and board. The guild break up was rough! But a few more Emblems. Remembering back I didn't really run any more Heroics after since till hitting 1000 Emblems. I was starting over somewhat playing a alt Shaman and more.

Another pug Naxx 25 man raid on the new server. Was finally able to clear Naxx 25. It still felt hollow to complete Naxx 25, as it was in a pug and not with friends. But it was complete the raid dungeon. A bit more Emblems for the effort.

Another random pug on the new server for a Ulduar 10 man run. I was in Dalaran one night with nothing really to do on my new server. Need a OT for Ulduar then gtg. Why not! Hey I'm available. A few more Emblems. Total raid time in Ulduar 3.

After that raid that was the last time I progression raided, ran any heroics or played my Paladin to do anything worth while or just played my Paladin at all up until this point. Its been that long since I've really played my Paladin. So taking him on a around the block tank run I hit a 1000 Emblems for just 3 months of WotLK playtime.

So i reflected on that and things that have transpired since. I would imagine If I had kept raiding or kept at things I could of had double that amount of Emblems/gear and more in raid progression. It just wasn't my focus anymore to raid or stack up Emblems for gear. At some point I just made a choice to just not log in and do anything meaningful on my Paladin for focus. So hence my reluctance as well when the guildie asked me to Tank for his Heroic. I just didn't want to. But eventually I did.

I guess that's the story of my 1000 Emblems where Achievements never tell you the whole story of things or how you got there. I guess i reflected on that and how many patches its been since all that time or how much things have changed as well as class changes. Lots to reflect on as I did. I could of been further along I thought thinking of things and more Emblems and better gear for the count. However I don't have any regrets in the months that has passed since.

In patch 3.3 1000 Emblems can get you a ton of gear. I'm behind much in the gear curve now. I guess I'll need allot more Emblems now and loot luck to catch up. I guess that's something now to think about as well. I guess that Achievement made me reflect on all that. Funny how things are.

Screenshots: Shadow Priest turns 50

So far its been fun melting faces. I'm enjoying leveling up my Shadow Priest. He turned 50 a little while ago on the road to 80. Never knew leveling a Shadow Priest could be as fun.

Quitting Life on Silver Street

Hey AD Whats New?

Well I got a office memo a few days ago across my desk. My 3+ year old lvl 20 investment banker who resided in Silvermoon decided to quit his day job. Seems he was tired of banking and bankrolling his other band of brothers but was seeking greater adventures besides being stuck working on silver street.

Sad to see my banker quit his day job. But he's been faithfull at his job for almost 4 years bankrolling his first brother since before he was even lvl 40.

With that my 20 S.Priest decided to pack up his bags and riches and high tail it out of Silvermoon and headed off into a dangerous world seeking his own tales of adventure.

With that I had to quickly find me a new banker. My forever 24 druid that was stuck in Tarren Mills decided he could fill the job spot. Banker position filled!

All is well with the world it seems at the moment and for the last time in WotLK one of my Alts band of brothers will be making his way to 80. This time as a Shadow Priest.

Shadow boy is enjoying his new adventures melting minds and just hit lvl 41. He seems to be enjoying his new life afterall.