Busy catching up on WoW and Cataclysm

Playing catchup is allot of what I seem to be doing, so really not allot of time to dedicate to writing anything much or anything long. Plus being a bit busy re-learning how to play and leveling up 3 of my lvl 80 characters to 85, so not much time to stop and talk about it either. Quite understandable that is. As well been reading some other blogs and forums trying to understand some the changes and mechanics of some the classes I play.

So not really busy trying to blog about much.

Did transfer my Paladin, Shadow Priest, Shaman back to the old server of my Paladin back to Zangarmarsh. At least to play with some old WoW friends in my old former guild. So was able to do that vs spending time building back up guild on the server where I was which i really don't have time for anymore.

Since leveling my Paladin to lvl 85 and with fairly ok mostly ilvl 333 tank/dps gear from leveling up for both specs, haven't done much or played since. Mostly been working on leveling up some profession when i can. Still have alchemy to level up a bit though leveled it up enough to craft the epic trinket that i cant remember the name of.

Started to work at leveling up my lvl 80 Shadow Priest, but first had to figure out a spec as well as relearn allot of how to even play one as well as learn the changes to the class vs before. So spend some time reading other blogs as well over at EJ to figure things out a bit. However was able to get my Shadow Priest to 85. I still find the class fun and not to difficult to relearn though it took a while after months of haven't played one.

So now just left with leveling up my Enhancement Shaman with a Elemental off spec who is currently at lvl 84. So had to look around for a few blogs to read that i read before that already had some good info as well as visit EJ forum to read their class compodium to understand class changes. So had to do the same as well as did with my Shadow Priest had to figure out spec and re-learn skills, talents and spells and dropping totems. Re-learn how to play the Shaman was to me harder than figuring out how to play the Shadow Priest. Took awhile. But so far been doing ok and almost there leveling up my Shaman.

Have found the new instances fun and challenging though been there just as dps really. Overall just busy playing, observing and catching up really in allot of ways so just not allot of time to blog right now. If anything i'm spending time reading other people's blog as well as forums just taking in and understanding stuff and class mechanics.

Most Crazy Fun Quest in Cataclysm

I think its called Gnomebliteration a quest a few deep into a chain quest you find from a item that drops off a Crazed Gnome Surveyor or something like that in the South Eastern Dessert of Uldum zone a bit south of where Halls of Origination dungeon is but where you also find a whole lot of gnomes.

You get to flame roll hundreds of gnomes which is a whole lot of fun. Too bad its not a daily quest, it would be so much fun to flame roll gnomes. Must be tough to be a gnome, they get picked on allot. You get a nice blue item piece for the trouble of flame rolling gnomes.

Shunning the Rat Race, lvl 85 gone Fishing

The constant burnout factor and been away from the game as long as I have as well as playing other MMO games have given me a different perspective of personal game enjoyment and how I choose to spend my time. No longer I feel the need to quickly burn myself and game enjoyment out of existence in a hurry for nothing, or join the Rat Race at lvl 85 for endgame efforts. After about 11 months away from WoW by choice and back playing the game for who knows how long, here I am having just started the new Cataclysm expansion and already facing the end of it at lvl 85 and the Rat Race beyond.

So after briefly exploring some of the Twilight Highlands I decided to do something I've always had a great love for, to do and always enjoyed the quiet times away from the rigors of combat to go Fishing. While many and most after hitting lvl 85 for their own reasons and have started their Race Race to gear up for Heroic and Raiding I've decided to go kick back at the riverside with a camp fire and go Fishing. I just choose to go do something different vs exerting my hardcore tendencies. Its a different time for me these days in WoW.

I guess I will level up a bit from 450 Fishing while I'm here kicking back enjoying the quite sounds of nature at the river relaxing and contemplating my thoughts and existence in this realm and the universe at large.


And so several hours past while enjoying one of my truly favorite past time activities in WoW as a real WoW Fisherman. I may swing elaborate shields and awesome weapons in combat to break the knees of hostile foes yet I can enjoy angling a fishing rod as well for awesome catches.

I guess I contemplate If my Paladin ever became a really old man and remembering the days of heroes, and wars of past he be hanging out with his buddy the famous fisherman Nat Pagle. Somewhere maybe crafting the latest new fishing rod and fishing away while swapping stories of past days of glory while angling awesome fish catches of the day.

Few the moments it were watching a half a dozen heroes drop by the river banks and gaze in wonder the man sitting across the river pond sitting with camp fire and fishing in the river. And then they themselves too join in interrupting the silence and fishing as well for several minutes and then probably easily grew bored and left to do other things.

Several hours after sitting by the riverside with my fishing rod, warm camp fire, enjoying the quiet sounds of nature and contemplating my existence and those of fish's here in the river or not I'm now a Illustrious Grand Master Fisherman. Having gone from from 450 Fishing to 525 Fishing all in one sitting at the river side. Yeah I caught ALLOT of fish.

No doubt I'm a real WoW Fisherman. Elsewhere in Azeroth the Rat Race goes on at full speed, I guess that's my perspective. Wherever you are in WoW, don't forget to enjoy the game, however you choose to play it for your own reasons.

So lvl 85 Finally.

So hit lvl 85 on Saturday sometime, can't remember when, but it was a very long day session playing WoW. Had just started the initial quest chain from Orgrimmar to get to the Twilight Highlands. And had just completed a few of the quests in Dragonmaw Port the horde foothold in the Twilight Highlands before hitting lvl 85.

Somewhere mid lvl 84's while doing the quests in Uldum with Harrison Jones and Bronzebeard completed almost every quests in the zone I could find and searched around to find but was out of quests. Somewhere I was missing a quest or completing it. The way quests are linear each unlocking others that can easily happen. Only had two dungeon quests left for the zone that had picked up so figured it was on of them yet to be complete preventing access to more quests probably. Couldn't figure out how to get to Twilight Highlands at the time and had not picked up the quest in Ogrimmar as yet to start the chain to get to the zone either.

Only Cataclysm dungeon hadn't yet found and unlocked was Grim Bitol in Twilight Highlands. And had two dungeon quests for two different dungeons in Uldum zone. Mid way to lvl 84 and out of quests decided to finally queue up from running quests to run my first set of Cataclysm dungeons just doing randoms. Didn't feel much like tanking for my first step back into dungeons so queued up as dps and ran several dungeons as dps till close to lvl 85 and by that time was just too tired. Seeing the new dungeons for the first time was all interesting. Had completed Halls of Origination quest for Bronzebeard in Uldum and still couldn't find any more zone quests unlocked anywhere in zone. Called it a night there.

Back in game again later after a marathon sleep found the starter quest which starts the chain which gets you to Twilight Highlands right there in Orgrimmar in front of the Warchief's building. So eventually completed the initial chain quests which got me to the Twilight Highlands and much different zone to being in the desert zone of Uldum. Wasn't but a few quests after being there at the port that hit lvl 85. Hard to believe the leveling experience is now over after it just started.

After which just went exploring the zone a bit to see what was there in the Twilight Highlands.

lvl 84 and onto Uldum

Completed all the quests in Deepholm yesterday hitting lvl 84 at the very end. That also including finishing all the daily quests at the end for the Therazune daily quests. I think I hit Honored with the Therazune. Not sure where their quatermaster is at, must recheck to see what they have. They weren't much else left to do but a dungeon quest in zone. Had allot of fun in zone but it was fun to be going someplace else to maybe see some sunlight or change of scenery. So doubled back to finish a few quests I believed I still had to do in Vashj'ir.

Turned out had only the last quest in Vashj'ir to do which involved the Naga's and Tidehunter with all the cutscenes. That was quite allot of fun to see and be involved in. I could only imagine somewhere down the line this Naga story will become a endgame raid of some sort for Cataclysm. Completed it and got the achievement for 20,ooo leagues below the sea or something like that. Jumped through the rift at the end following behind the NPC that got abducted and ended up finding and unlocking the Throne of Tides dungeon. Wasn't quite sure where to go so jumped into the dungeon and guess picked up a few quests for the dungeon.

As much as would of liked to see the new dungeon, didn't feel much like dungeoning and didn't feel like jumping in to tank my first return to WoW dungeon as yet. I think I must be still getting over some syndrome of getting used to playing my character confidently enough to tank again and tank in PuGs which I used to be famous for running in groups with.

I'm excited to hear CC is back again in Cataclysm. It was one the things that I totally hated about WotLK and mentioned my feelings here on the blog how everything was just a AoE fest and often no real group thinking and sad state of instance Pugs as well classes that knew how to use they own abilities in a jam if they had to. That in the end was one the reason I started hating Puging group dynamics in the end and the sad state of Instance Pugs/Raids. I love to AoE like anyone else, but I also or used to enjoy the art of executing a surgical pull with group dynamics to execute fun tactical play while tanking. And though I can barely remember at this point the exact details of every class CC abilities for tanking for obvious reasons at this point, I'm glad its back to the Dungeon/Raid game. Anyway for now I'm having fun with quests, leveling and shaking some rusts off using skills.

Already had picked up a quest in Deepholm towards completing most the zone that ended up sending me to Uldum by way of Orgrimmar and already completing several quests already. So decided after finishing things mostly in Vashj'ir to head off to the sunny dessert once again to Uldum.

Things learned in Deepholm

Zone is full of node spawn for the valuable Eternium and the other Obsidion Ore but lots of Eternium. Most the mining I did was just mining heading while heading to a quest spot to kill something or complete a quest. Beating other players to nodes can sometime be a fun little mini game. Pays well on AH as well.

If you explore the underground caves in the Crumbling Depths they spawn lots of nodes inside it seems, at least while I kept going through there they did. Just got to fight the worms to get to some of them or get around them.

Most Dissapointing Thing So Far in Cataclysm

Well to me at least. No solution to storing a bank full of Tabards, Faction Tabards and unique Tabards earned that fills up everyone banks that been playing the game for years. Would of hoped Blizzard would of come up with a solution for that.

Screenshots

In five years of playing WoW i've taken literally hundreds and hundreds of screenshots and for the blog to pic and use. Eleven months away from WoW and i've almost completely forgotten how to take screenshots. Too good a hiatus I guess. Anyway I now play on a Mac Pro Laptop so taking screenshots is a bit different than using a Windows PC. Its probably different to when i played on my Mac G5 desktop before which no longer works for Cataclysm.

Though I do remember how to take a screenshot thanks much to it being the same way to hit the same keys as in playing EVE Online I can't remember in WoW how to clear the screen UI interface so as to take a clean screenshot. Which is a bit different keys to hit on a Mac Pro as compared to doing the same thing in EVE Online. If anyone knows how to clear actually the UI to take a screenshot in WoW on a Mac Pro laptop please let me know.

Too long a hiatus from any MMO and you can forget how to do allot of things sometime and get quite rusty at even basic stuff you once did without even having to think about it.

End of first Week of Cataclysm

After a long delayed start to Cataclysm spending a untold amount of time after having logged in months was finally able to get things moving a bit. That was after doing character administration cleaning up filled up banks and more banks of used to be valuables, then trying to figure out a spec and learning how some new redesigned class spell works.

Since Vashj'ir was my starting zone at lvl 80 since it was the first quest zone to either of the starting zones so I just went along with things. The zone is very pretty zone and quite aquarium like and full of Naga's and see life. I have to say the story line I enjoyed the most really has to be the Battlemaiden quest line story. Really had allot of fun that story line was. Overall was able to complete over 150 quests to get the first zone achievement for quests completed. Though I did quite a bit more quests after that still seems there are a bit of quests left there to do.

At some point picked up a quest that sent me back to Orgrimmar which diverted me from other quests in Vashj'ir but that eventually sent me to Thrall at the Maelstrom and into Deepholm athalf way to lvl 82. Finding the zone a refreshing change of scenery from being underwater at Vashj'ir stayed and did some zone quests there. Lots of very interesting scenery the zones are.

While questing in Deepholm kept finding mining nodes for other mining ore can't remember the name but the WotLK equivalent of Saronite to Cataclysm. Since was still leveling mining mined enough to hit 525 in not too long a time. At some point in the process it became a race to find mining nodes and seen other players swoop down out of nowhere grab them. So before long it became a race finding the nodes around the zone before the other players did. In the end left the zone with 9 stacks of the new ore to sell on AH. I guess had a great time mining.

At the end of the night which was quite late finally hit lvl 83 and just turned in remaining completed quests. One of the last quests turned in was for a quest to turn in at someone inside Stonecore. Though at the time had no idea it was for a dungeon related quest to turn in inside the dungeon. Took a while to figure out how to get to where the entrance to Stonecore was and eventually popped inside the dungeon and turn in the quest. Was surprised after looking for a while where the entrance was. So far that's the first and only dungeon entrance have been able to find so far.

So far for Catclysm the zones seem to be quite enjoyable especially being away from the game for a while. New zone quests really does seem quite linear especially having done most of the overall questing so far in Vashj'ir which does send you from one direct location to another. Everything so far seem so new it takes some degree of effort to remember where things are, used to be as well even how to properly play character. Its as enjoyable and new as I probably would have imagined after being on a very long hiatus from the game.

First Death In Cataclysm - Pawned!

Sitting in the Inn in Orgrimmar working on figuring out the new talents and spec. Shift to secondary spec fix new talents points. Shift back to protect spec. Cast Arcane Torrent for some quick mana. Bamm dead! Duhh! Pawned immediately by Gamon the Elite sitting right behind me in the Inn. That was too funny, i guess that was considered a hostile act since he was in range or Arcane Torrent.

Progressing onward at lvl 82

So far have made it to lvl 82 questing and maybe 1/8 of the way to lvl 83 questing in Vashj'ir zone. Getting used to using my paladin abilities/skills again though keep getting better don't feel all that normal as yet though it keeps getting better the more I work at it and reawaken old skill tactics.

For Cataclysm I'm playing on a fairly new Mac Pro Laptop and have elected to just use the default UI. I have no pleasure of having again to deal with using the world of addons and more addons installed for WoW and more especially to download them to my new PC for all the trouble they can be. So its also a bit just getting used to using the default UI playing as well.

I'm just barely at around 58K HP so far and slowly have replaced about 4 or 5 pieces of gear. Its quite shocking to see other players in zone with over 100K HP and having seem others with over 150K HP already in city. With my old WotLK epic progression gear it don't seem to last all that long into the next expansion. Makes me wonder somewhere deep down in my mind about the rat race at the level cap for gear progression and the effort and headache that can be. However I'm also glad as well to get rid of the gear as I pick up better Cataclysm pieces leveling up to 85. At least the answer that I was looking for to clean out my personal bank of the old epic gear and gears is clear that I can junk vendor it all.

Since I was questing in Vashj'ir I had flew to Undercity to bank/AH some stuff and out of curiosity I picked up a quest that ask me to head to Mount Hyjal by way of Orgrimmar to Moonglade. Just did the initial quests to get to the zone, picked up the new Flight Path's and complete the first real quest. Zoning into Mount Hyjal for the first time was very cool seeing Deathwing which was cool. Place looks really pretty, reminds me a bit of Night Elfs land so far.

Thought about questing there a bit in Mount Hyjal. However already had more time already invested and having done most of all the initial zone quests and didn't feel like starting over. So headed back to Vashj'ir zone to progress on questing there. I get the feel that Mount Hyjal may be more about Elementals invasion and Vashj'ir about the Nagas.

One the more difficult thing so far is figuring out a combat rotation on spells once combat starts that seem to work smoothly without clashing global cooldowns compared to how i remembered It used to be in WotLK with a smooth rotation. And so far I haven't figured out one as yet that works well. Often seem more like just button mashing most the time when cooldowns are up for the spells I primarily want to hit. At most I can figure having maximizing having more Holy Power charges seems good to be able to slam big with Shield of the Righteous, hitting harder with Inquisition with more charges or a good self heal with Word of Glory. Still getting used to using that too.

I guess it could be easier to get the answer with more knowledgeable understanding behind actual mechanic of talents and skills if I dropped by the Maintankadin forums and read through the a Cataclysm tankadin threads and figure things out.

Getting out the Cataclysm starting block

Wasn't quite that easy trying to clean up all my character bags and bank before the starting bell to at least start doing some things in Cataclysm. It took quite many hours to clean things up a bit on all 5 of my lvl 80 characters. And as well having to clean up and clean out the guild bank for my guild which as a job as well. It was like cleaning out a garage on and then trying to liquidate things by selling them all on the auction fairly cheap. Took quite a very long time where dumping it all to a vendor could of being easier, less time and less gold as well.

Most of the stuff I wanted sold got sold in 24hrs. Some I had to put back up on the AH to resell in 24hrs again and got sold. Wasn't much that didn't get sold, but some didn't and i just vendor the rest of everything that didn't. The hardest thing was trying to figure out what to do with a bag full of epic gear and gear sets for Galo. In the end after cleaning out personal bank I couldn't figure what to do with all my lvl 8o epic gear so I threw it all back into the bank till I could decide sometime later.

Made a few thousands selling all the stuff on each character on the AH where everything suddenly seem so expensive. Was happy at least got something vs straight junking everything to a vendor.

Next thing had to do as figure out how to spec my characters since everyone of then has no spec and all untalented points. That was too hard a task to do for each character since barely have any idea of class changes with everything being so new. I hadn't really decided which character I was going to play. However which character to play was a easy choice of which character I can remember how to play the easiest at lvl 80 first straight off the top of my mind. That was my paladin! It was easier to at least try to spec my paladin. So sat in the Inn in Org for a few hours trying to figure out a spec as well as trying to work at configuring the default UI.

Took a while and finally realize how much my paladin had changed as well as spells and skills. Didn't realize how much less points as well now have to talent a lvl 80 character. All this stuff was now new to me remembering how things used to be. I was amazed at how much talents had been moved around and shifted trees. As well as gone was the bloated talents. I was surprised only had 36 points, I was wondering where the rest of the points went.

Anyway was at least not so hard to figure out a Protect Spec for Galo. Figuring out where to put talent points in protection didn't seem that hard after doing a dry run of talents the first time. Seems like almost everything but a few places. Hardest part of making a decision talent points wise having no clue of how things had changed and not having no clue how new spells work with each other came down to deciding where to spend 3 extra points. After really reading the talents and again looking over the spec it was easy to put 3/3 in Crusade in the retribution tree. Was easy as well considering had Crusade in the old spec and re-reading the new talent description. So went ended up 0/33/3 at lvl 80.

What I couldn't figure out reading the Crusade spell was why it said Crusader Strike and had no idea what Templer's Verdict was. I had no idea that Crusader Strike was now a skill usable in the protection tree even though I clearly saw it in the spell book. I had just overlooked it since I knew it was always a retribution talent. So much so I leveled to lvl 81 without it. It wasn't till hit lvl 81 that went back to trainer and picked up the new Inquisition spell that looked again back through spell book and kept looking at the Crusader Strike skill. Moved it to see if it went on UI bar. And it did, I was surprised at that point.

Then had to spend a little bit of time trying to configure using the default WoW UI as well as look for them old macro's I had and minor update a few.

It was interesting seeing the new Glyph tree and the changes to how many and the types of glyph category. Had some empty slots to fill in for glyphs so after deciding a bit had my DK Alithas make me a few extra glyphs and was at least now set to go see the world.

At least best I can figure that's what I went with so far. In the end worked out a protection paladin spec and also spec my secondary retribution spec as well for 3/2/31 best I could figure things out.

Hearted to Dalaran since that's where my heartstone was set at and met a ghost city. Funny the place was packed the last time I was there, but that was months ago at last log in. There was no one to be found in Dalaran but maybe one or two players but a ghost city to say the least. Dropped by the trainers and updated training for all of Galo's professions to be able to train for the new skills. Stopped by the flight master and picked up the new flight training for Azeroth whatever it called can't remember.

Then was heading back to Orgrimmar. Umm where did all the portals go? Didn't realize all the portals in Dalaran are now gone. So took the flight master and flew to Borean Tundra and took the boat back to Orgrimmar.

Decided to do the first quest I had picked earlier up and actually did the first quest for "The Eye of the Storm" which i didn't realize is right there at the quest giver. Which eventually sent me off to Vashj'ir though at the time I had no idea that's where I was going. Being away from the game for so long everything was just so new that had no idea that's where I was going. I did know the other new lvl 80 starter zone was to Mount Hyjal but I had no clue where to find that so Vashj'ir at the time was just fine.

By the time did the first quest in Vashj'ir zone was about 0150 am. The zones looked quite impressive and had fun doing the new quests. Loosing track of time I played several hours and eventually hit lvl 81 that was now about 0800 or so. was too sleepy at that point to stay awake.

First Day of Cataclysm

Finally got the installation done of Cataclysm and logged into few my character accounts. I could barely recognize the world. I'm playing with plain default UI.

Since the last time I logged into WoW was quite a while ago for the most part when I logged in I was actually outside or Orgrimmar and had to hop on into the city. Hell I could barely recognize the place and had no idea where anything was. Could barely find the Auction House and the Inn of all places. Everything just seem so new, and could easily get lost just running around Orgrimmar at this point.

First order of things. Look into my characters bags at all that gear and junk and try to make sense of it all and getting rid of most of it. Tough task that seem and all my character bags was just full of stuff I barely remember what they do. Stuff that used to be worth quite a bit of money now almost seem to be close to junk.

Anyway tried to sell most of it on the AH to see what I could get for most of it. Basically spend several on various characters trying to clean out their bags which all seem to be full for why I can't remember and try to clean out their banks a bit of all the crap that was there. Seem like a tough job when haven't played in months to decide what to get rid of.

Would almost be easier to just sell every single thing in bag and bank to the vendor including all the epic gear sitting in bag and bank to get rid of it all and no longer have to fuss with it anymore.

Installing WoW & Cataclysm..

Just finally decided to go ahead and buy Cataclysm and log into my Blizzard Battle.net account that took quite many attempts to remember the password.

Bought the digital download version as well as went ahead and reactivated my subscription account.

So now have a new and full clean installation to do of WoW to do on my fairly new Mac Pro Laptop. That will be a whole lot of gigabyte's to install for a complete installation of WoW all the way up to the very latest patch of Cataclysm.

Now sure how long this will take. But will see.

12/08/10 - 0630 Started a full and complete Installation of WoW.

12/08/10 - Log into server and still downloading patches.

Wish you all a fun time leveling with Cataclysm

I guess its now D-Day in Cataclysm. And you all have hit the ground running mad leveling in Cataclysm. Some starting with new characters and some moving on from being at lvl 80 for what seem like been there forever. Somewhere deep down I wish I was out there with you all hitting the ground like times past.

However I can at least stop by and wish you all well and allot of fun times on the new journey in Cataclysm. And I know some of you stuck at work and can't play and some of you probably called in sick just so you can stay at home and play. I probably should be playing Cataclysm myself since well i got so much free time right now being recently unemployed.

However I still haven't quite decided to install WoW on my newer Mac Laptop and re-sub as yet. Maybe later today i'll make a decision. I'm probably leaning towards one :)

I'm sure the servers are and have been crazy for the new launch. Wish you all a damn good time on the journey and at least don't forget to smell the roses in the new world and have fun.