Still Moving Forward

Not a lot of excitement lately… the usual grind of XP and instancing. Finally happened… Sloosh's first green upgrade is the Mendicant's Charm, replacing Dark Iron Smoking Pipe; it's better to have the higher base damage and take the drop on the use boost. Also ended up putting away my beautiful Hammer of Judgement for an ugly yet fearsome Kalu'ak Rep Reward: Totemic Purification Rod.

Did a Nexus run last night with some of Klutz's crew, Zethos, Nitespirit, and Fowler. Since I was tanking with Aenara it was nice with Nitespirit there. Klutz can totally heal me but we went really crazy with the extra backup. After Nexus Nitespirit had to head out so we picked up Pobedog then ran Azjol-Nerub and Utgarde Keep.

Try to get dailies out of the way in the morning. Today's set is:

Blackriver Skirmish: 20750xp, 5g60s, 10 Venture Coin, 137 Alliance Vanguard
Break the Blockade: 12050xp, 4g70s, 138 Alliance Vanguard
Defending Wyrmrest Temple: 20750xp, 5g60s, 275 The Wyrmrest Accord
Planning for the Future: 16250xp, 5g, 550 The Kalu'ak
Preparing for the Worst: 16250xp, 5g, 550 The Kalu'ak
Drake Hunt: 12050xp, 4g70s, 275 The Wyrmrest Accord
Infused Mushroom Meatloaf (Dalaran Cooking): 16200, 5g30s, 3 Northern Spices, 165 Kirin Tor

Sloosh (1298779/1653900) should be finishing up in Grizzly Hills tonight and I'm sure she'll hit 79.

Gaining Ground

I was pretty pleased with myself for soloing The Jig is Up with Sloosh. A Blood Elf rogue failed horribly after me as she didn't realize that Hozzer still had to be killed. "Mad" Jonah Sterling is fearable so he was very easy to beat down to 5000 Health. The bear wasn't fearable and also had over 20k health, so he was more of a challenge. What ended up making it easy for me was shortly after I sent my Shadowfiend in I was knocked up to the high ledge. As with most knock-backs, aggro on the bear was reset. So my fiend held Hozzer down lower for a few extra seconds while I finished him off before he could reach me. Turning around I also found The Frozen Heart of Isuldof conveniently waiting on the ground to be looted.

While my gear is still making things go well the mobs are starting to get harder to kill. My standard kill sequence is Vampiric Touch, Mind Blast, Power Word: Shield, and a Mind Flay. I used to be able to start on another mob while VT finishes yet now I find I'm casting a second Mind Flay to end it, which is just enough to start making my mana drop. After about five-seven kills I'm at half mana so I have to chill. Oh well… couldn't stay easy forever. I may have to start working in more Crit and Spirit gear.

Then again, maybe the new spells will help. 74 was a sweet spot for me since it included upgrades to Prayer of Mending, Smite, Mind Blast, and Mind Flay. Those last two are staples plus I picked up Silence. 75 will be even better for grouping with Shadow Word: Death, Shadow Word: Pain, Vampiric Touch, and the shiny new Mind Sear!

In Dalaran I did check out the Cold Weather Flying trainer and was relieved to see that I can pay the 1000g to train flying at 77 even though Sloosh only has cheap flying. Since she's not a gatherer I trained Decimate in Epic Flying first. Between all my characters I don't have over 3000g so I'll have to find some way of churning out some gold. For now, I'll keep doing the lower level quests for XP then save the higher quests for cash. Leveling the other characters will also generate gold… especially when it's five at once. *lol*

Questing into 74 and Dalaran

Thought not very challenging, Sloosh (1280497xp/1571800xp) went back to back the Howling Fjord to quest. Some of the quests were green yet the XP granted was still over 20k. Got the lines around Westgarde done then went South to Scalawag Point. Was really nice already having the Fort Wildervar FP so I picked up a few there.

People are still assholes and I'm happily one of them. Like when I was staking out Bjomolf's spawn for Brother Betrayers there was a Pally waiting to Consecrate. Naturally it spawns further away so I tag with Shadow Word: Death then Larac decided to invite me to a group. I almost decided not to Accept but I did. The drop rate for The Fragrance of Money sucked so I pulled three bears at once, easily DoT/Flaying them down. Another Shadow Priest, Darcspirit, came up and spit on me! *giggle* I let her watch in amazement/annoyance as I solo'd The Jig is Up. She got no invite on that one.

Most of the questing was pretty chill and relaxing. Scare the Guano Out of Them! was tedious so I shielded and feared to collect the shit. Leader of the Deranged was cake because people had cleared a path for me (Take North entry above the EE in Keep down then turn Right (West) to get to the cave) so I waited less than a minute for the spawn. There was a Warrior, Zakniel, running around ahead of me so Mission: Eternal Flame was easy to complete (and I gave him a Fortitude and Renew by way of thanks). The drop rate for The Yeti Next Door was sucky but I was doing Preying Upon the Weak at the same time. Was even rewarded by one of the spawned Prowling Worgs with my first BoE Blue drop: Mendicant's Robe of Mendacity.

Getting late in the evening and I had leveled off exploration experience… of Gjalerbron! Happened to be passing through Valgarde when I noticed a new quest giver on the top floor of the Inn. It was Archmage Hooper offering me a free port to Dalaran! I figured I would have to make the run from Windrunner's Overlook yet it was as simple as getting this quest and letting him port me. Once there there's a quest to show you how to port down to Crystalsong Forest. Wandered around and asked a guard where the City portals are, bound myself at the Alliance Inn, then headed down to the sewers to do my daily cooking quest (The Pot mentioned in the quest is placed in your inventory and is not found in the kitchen or sewers *sigh*) and pick up my Ghostly Skull.

Sloosh is at 100/130 quests in Howling Fjord so I plan to finish them off tomorrow then resume work in the Dragonblight.

[Image:SoloJig]
[Image:LevelByExplore!]
[Image:Skull!]

Not Quite Ahead

Once Sloosh entered the Dragonblight from the West I put myself in LFG for an Azjol-Nerub group. A few of my guild mates had been in there and they said it was fast and fun. After an hour I had no invites but I had kept busy.

An “Exit Borean Tundra” quest The Lost Courier had taken me to Star’s Rest. There were one or two quests for the area but instead I followed the messenger line. It flapped me out to Wintergarde Keep. There’s was a lot of Scourging to deal with yet the first quest was very fun, Flight of the Wintergarde Defender. You get a whistle to summon a two-seater Gryphon to rescue people on. And when flying out of the approved area (or sometimes when you are still in the approved area), the bird drops you off with a handy parachute!

Tromping around the mine I saw Cellar looking to do the group “Wanted” quests so I sent a whisper. We picked up another two, Bobbyorr and Galathenar, then headed out. Kreug Oathbreaker ended up killing Cellar with relative ease since he didn’t even bother to put on a shield so the rest of us finished the kill. We actually wiped at Bloodpaw because each of us brought mobs from different camps on the way in. Thankfully Iustus went down without a problem.

Since I was pretty far North East in the zone I decided to head over to the Crystal Forest. Started to go through the Crystal Vice but there were too many elites for a clothy so I followed the North West border to the middle of the zone. There were a few elementals in the way but it was pretty easy getting to the incredibly high overlook. Being a Priest, I backed the horse up a few steps then took a running leap, casting Levitate at the last possible moment. *snicker* There was some aggro from Level 78 wolves but nothing I couldn’t outrun. Turned on achievement tracking so I could be sure to open up all the main areas. The only one I couldn’t easily get to was the one I was most concerned with, naturally. I finally got the Windrunner FP by following the East zoneline path.

Landing back at Wintergarde I got an invite from Cõõlbreeze for Azjol-Nerub. I headed over to help with summons once we found Whaam, Babyboi, and Aetius. Babyboi and I were the only ones who hadn’t been there so it went pretty smoothly. It was quick and I completed Death to the Traitor King and Don't Forget the Eggs!. That took me from 774,349xp to 920,509xp.

I left that group fully intending to get a few errands run then camping out for the night yet when I saw someone actually requesting a Shadow Priest for The Old Kingdom I sent a whisper; ended up being a good decision. Hooked up with four people from Spies Like Us: Littlehammer, Goocher, Crimsonmage, and Enhancment. They were all in their vent so I’m sure I was missing stuff but it’s always a pleasure to group with people that work well together. Littlehammer knew the instance well so our only wipes were from exhaustion.

After the first run I was good for more XP and Littlehammer really wanted the Plate Chest from Jedoga Shadowseeker. Goocher had to go so they had Sephestra join—lotsa totems! Herald Volazj’s Insanity ability was very fun. The whole party turns on each person individually; each image has the same abilities but only 4000 Health. With Fear and my PvP skills it was cake but still amusing. The two runs and completion of The Faceless Ones had me go from 922177xp to 1210919xp.

Really wanted 74 for the new Mind Blast and Mind Flay, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Oh well. There’s always tomorrow…

Boring Borean

Conta is really into his new Death Knight, Saidar. While I really enjoyed playing my Tauren I did make an Alliance on the second account. The Dranei free heal sounded really appealing, yet I figured I would mostly PvP so I went with a Night Elf. Faerune was still sitting half-way through the intro quests so I got them all finished up and parked her in Honor Hold. She’s half Unholy and half Blood for now. Getting back to Sloosh… who was still 71 (77151/1555700).

Sent the bank alt to the IF AH and the cheapest Overcharged Capacitor I could find was 79g. Instead of my usual crying, pissing, and moaning I just bought it and moved on. Don’t have an engineer high enough to make one nor is Favor able to go out and mine the Cobalt. Sloosh was parked at the Air Strip so I wanted to log in, complete Just a Few More Things..., then move on. When the priest is leveled I’m definitely going to have Favor gather tons of ore to sell; vengeance via profit.

While I did complete The Cell, I decided to let Keristrasza rest comfortably within the Augmented Arcane Prison in my bags for a while. There were so many people around Coldarra it seemed wiser to wrap up the other Borean areas. Actually got the Nothing Boring About Borean achievement done around 7pm. Finished up by playing with the Murlocs. The Oh Noes, the Tadpoles! took forever with all the competition but it was fun to have the army of baby Murlocs following me around.

The whole DEHTA quest line was pretty amusing. The gnomes at the Air Strip made me kill mammoths for a robot; never did try to approach the druids with the “Animal Blood All Over You” debuff. As I was turning one of the quests in, a gnome rogue walked up bloody and was dead in like two hits. Gnome deaths always make me laugh yet this one was doubly amusing. The final quest to kill Harold Lane I finished up with Daryius (who I did the first failed UK run with) and his friend Midgetcaster. We were doing fine yet I wanted to use the horn anyway. The mammoth stampede was even more hilarious than the pelts that Harold was throwing at us. That line actually got Sloosh Exalted with Cenarion Expedition since she started it at 19k in Revered.

Off to Dragonblight.

My Other Characters Aren't On

In the Geyser Fields I ran across a team of four shaman! Being lead by Turkiye were Ikiz, Zey, and Amasya. All are members of Animalhouse and they were spewing out synchronized Lightning Bolts. *whimsical sigh* Was amazed the person was able to get all four accounts going despite the queues. I really have to get Sloosh to 80 first. Then I’m working the boxes…

Show Me the Fish

One of my guild mates squawked when they fished up a Weather-Beaten Journal. Now according to the Wiki it was added in 2.3.0 but I had never heard about. Apparently it allows tracking of the schools of fish… need to pick a few up.

The Huddled Masses

With the flood of levelers, General Chat in the starter zones is back to trash talking. Normally I tune it out but sometimes I’ll catch a gem:

Random_01: Oh admit it. You all need women.
Random_02: Nah. I’d rather watch two women while I level. srsly.
Ronnokk: Women come and go, but epics are soulbound.
Falannin: Spoken like a true virgin.
Random_03: I actually prefer women that come and go.

Lovely.

Nexus and Surrounding

RL got in the way in the form of a full day at work—stupid deadlines. Got home a little after 6pm once my random pieces were done. Sloosh was 71 (437448/1539600) and it was time to be 72. Joined the LFG channel for the Nexus and before I could finish Gamel the Cruel some random hunter invited me. The Priest, Saintjergens (Holy lotion?! *lol*), was decent but the Pally Tank, Osgard, was horrible. He asked to be reminded to use Righteous Fury. *sigh* The Hunter did know the instance so we made it through and I had another instance achievement done.

With the free summon out to Coldarra I decided to start on those quest lines. Unfortunately it was Saturday evening and rather busy by then. Trying to do Keep the Secret Safe took three times as long since Arcane Serpents were in short supply. About the only thing keeping me sane was the chit chat on my Vent server. We were all in different areas but suffering together. Guinnessnow noted with amusement how everyone with Quest Helper or Carbonite flock to the first spawn option that presents itself. He turns track on and finds another set of mobs to complete his stuff with ease. Was a good point so I started wandering more myself from the clusterings.

Cosno was also visiting so we were giving him some encouragement as he was making his way through the last 60% of level 79. The guy was pretty hard core. He had maybe twelve hours of sleep since Wrath went live. Was pretty cool to see the world achievement announced. People in my guild grumbled things like “these people need to move out of their mother’s basement” so I shared all the comments with him.

Definitely liking the quests in the Borean Tundra over the ones in Howling Fjord. Gained a lot of ground in Borean today so I’ll probably get those finished up before moving on to Dragonblight.

[Image: Nexus]
[Image: Cosno]

There's 71

Was up a bit late last night but Sloosh logged off about 400k into level 71. Tried two runs in Utgarde Keep. Got to Ingvar the Plunderer with the first one but our tank had less than 12k health and the Pally couldn't keep him alive. I tried helping heal after Ingvar's rez then the Pally let himself die. After the fourth attempt we disbanded. On the second boss we wiped on the four pull so I was out.

Though I started out getting a number of quests done in Borean Tundra, after getting summoned I picked up in Howling Fjord. I'll check my achievements for the highest quest count but I'd like to go back to the Borean Tundra to finish up. Would also like to see the Nexus.

It's a real joy questing with BT-level gear as a Shadow Priest. With a Vampric Touch, Mind Blast, and Power Word: Shield I can finish with wanding and have zero downtime. If I feel frisky I can Shadow Word: Pain three or four mobs, fear them, then tag a few with Mind Flay after tagging one with VT/MB. None of the quest reward gear has been an upgrade so I've been collecting enchanting materials. I wonder when the upgrades will start flowing…

Death Knight OP? Why Yes!

Spent entirely too much time on the Death Knight. Decided I wasn't in any rush to look around so I read through the quests and enjoyed the content. It was really fun starting out at 55 with a full set of green equipment along with 270 in First Aid. Got to steal a horse, duel others, and all manner of nefarious deeds. The final quest where the Lich King's thrall is broken was very fun yet4 I enjoyed flying around on the bone drake the most. I mean… you get to eat people for health and mana!

It was difficult figuring what talent tree to take. With all the chatter in General Chat it seemed that Blood is PvE, Frost is for Tanking, and Unholy is for PvP. Finally went over to the Wiki and went with a Zephire's Deep Unholy DPS build (16/0/55) since I figured I'd do PvP first. The only diversion I made was picking up Summon Gargoyle because that sounded way too cool.

The mechanics of the class are very interesting. I never understood what the runes meant until actually seeing them in action. It's also not very clear what each type is for initially but you get a better feel for it as you us the attacks. All of the numbers seem so small individually so it takes a while to see how they work in tandem. It's certainly interesting to have a tanking class that can't use a shield and isn't mana-based yet has abilities that are both melee-based and mana-based.

PvP ended up being wild. The DK started quests give you the basic PvP trinket and all of the final blues are superior to the starter Outlands questing, so right out of the box you're ready to gib. Unfortunately the Horde absolutely suck AV in our battle group so I only tried two games before giving up. Two native class abilities, Death Grip and Ice Chains, made Warsong Gulch a living hell. The game I got in had nineteen Death Knights and one Alliance shaman. After almost two hours we did win, but it was exhausting. I expect lots of outrage and QQing from the other classes so it was fun to get some killing in before the nerf bat starts swinging

Shamanistic Outlands

Been ignoring the expansion though I've already seen people with Death Knights over 60 running by. Got a lot more done with the Shaman crew. They're all 61 now. Even managed to drop Watchkeeper Gargolmar in the Ramparts. Some really sloppy pulls yet I never wiped. Definitely have some more work to do though.

Will come back later and clean all this up:

Makuru's Vengeance: 10400xp (61), Sedai's Ring, HELLISH drop rate
Atonement: 1050xp (61)
The Pools of Aggonar: 10050xp (61), CAKE
Cleansing the Waters: 10050xp (61), Telhamat Pendantcc
Helping the Cenarion Outpost: 975xp (61)
Colossal Menace: 12950xp (61), Totem of Lightning
Naladu: 2550xp (61)
A Traitor Among Us: 10050xp (61)
The Dreghood Elders: 10050xp (61)
Azreth's Demise: 12600xp (61)
Sha'naar Relics: 10400xp (61)
The Seer's Relic: 12950xp (61), Vindicator's Chain Helm
Cruel Taskmasters: 10400xp (61)
The Heart of Darkness: 9800xp (61)
Overlord: 15550xp (61), Vengeance of the Illdari
Fel Spirits: 9800xp (61)
The Exorcism of Colonel Jules: Honor Hold Defender, Magma Totems; 12200xp (61)
Trollbane is Looking for You: 957xp
WAtchkeeper Gargolmar: Bracers of Finesse -> Small Prismatic shard
Drill the Drillmaster:
An Ambitious Plan:
Weaken the Ramparts
The Longbeards
An Old Gift

60 Shaman x 4!

A couple of hours in The Outlands questing and the Shaman are now half-way through 60. The Recruit-a-Friend Bonus does stop once the character dings into 60, so it should be a little more slow-going now. Got a number of quests done:

Fel Orc Scavengers: 27000xp (58), Landslide Buckler
Waste Not, Want Not: 29400xp (58), Battle Seeker Chestguard
The Legion Reborn: 2925xp (59)
Laying Waste to the Unwanted: 29400xp (59), Helm of Affinity
The Path of Anguish: 29400xp (59), Staff of Twin Worlds
Expidition Point: 2925xp (59)
Disrupt their Reinforcements: Wrathguard firetrail is BAD; all got credit; 30150xp (59), Arcane Ringed Tunic
Mission: The Murketh and Shaadraz Gateways: use Gossip script; long cool down Seaforium PU-36 Explosive Nether Modulator; 37800xp (59), Battle Scarred Leggings
Shatter Point: 950xp (60)
Wing commander Gryphongar: 950xp (60)
Mission: The Abyssal Shelf: Gossip Macro 2; 10050xp (60), Arcane Ringed Greaves
Go to the Front: 975xp (60)
Disruption - Forge Camp: Mageddon: 9800xp (60)
Enemy of my Enemy: 9800xp (60)
Invasion Point: Annihilator: 9800xp (60)
the Dark Missive: 4850xp (60)
The Path of Glory: 9800xp (60)
Ill Omens: 2250xp (60)
Zeth'Gor Must Burn!: 11900xp (60), Bonechewer Berserker's Vest
Cursed Talismans: 9000xp (60)
Warlord of the Bleeding Hallow: 9550xp (60)
Return to Honor Hold: 4850xp (60)
Digging for Prayer Beads: 4850xp (60)
The Temple of Telhamat: 2600xp (60)
In Search of Sedai: 2550xp (60)
Return to Obadei: 2550xp (60)
Deadly Predators: 10050xp (60)
The Rock Flayer Matriarch: 12950xp (60), Boots of the Earthcaller

Will get things linked up later. Taking a little break while my server gets restarted. When back on, I'm going to fly up to Southshore to pick up the Alterac Valley quests then try a BG or two.

Going to be a Bumpy Ride

That's pretty classic. I wonder if it was free Shaman gear again.

Daily Diversions

Browsing around various blogs I found the post about Shattered Sun Offensive quests I'd been looking for over at Five Fingers of Fury. It's going to be a while until I can use it, but I wanted a copy here in case I lose it again:

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SSO Dailies for multiboxers

So there I was at work last week, bored and realizing I needed to grind rep for SSO for the shield/neck/weapons but already hating what I had been doing due to the mana residue and naga ore quests. I decided since I didn’t feel like doing any work on my project I’d try to find the fastest way to get rep in a multi-boxer friendly way but with maximum efficiency and minimum collection, so I now present it for your laughter and ridicule.

I’d also like to firstly say thanks to Suvega for his thread on his dailies routine that gave me the basis for the 3 macros I use in this routine.

Phase 1:
1. Send 1 character to QD Isle, have rest at Shat (helps at the end of the night to use the Dalarian Teleport scroll on 4 characters and leave one at QD, or have a mage), and have the character at DQ grab Rediscovering Your Roots and head to Shat
2. At Shat have all characters grab Sunfury Attack Plans
3. Head east out of Shat up to Razorfang Ridge, have group loot on FFA and kill Razorthorn Flayers (which will drop Razorthorn Flayer Gland) until you have 1 gland on each character
4. Have each character use a gland on a ravager each (make sure the ravager is moving before you use a gland on it…they like to go into evade mode up there and then you waste the gland)
5. Once all characters have a ravager each go up to a mound of dirt and use the following macro on all characters. The ravagers will dig up one Razorthorn Root each, grab one per character and move to the next mound until you have 5 of them each

/cast Expose Razorthorn Root

6. Mount up and head northeast until you hit the Throne of Kil’Jaeden and the quest giver there
7. Grab Blood for Blood and Blast the Gateway then have everyone use their Sizzling Embers to get the little fireball ready
8. Start running round and killing Incandecent Fel Sparks until your balls level up to unstable status (the Fel Sparks will also level up your balls if you are just near them when they die as well, so if you see someone killing one run over to them and benefit, or if you are already killing one pull it over and let everyone benefit).
9. While doing this also kill 4 Wrath Herald and loot them with your main char to get 4 Demonic Blood to power your Fel Siphon
10. Once you have the 4 bloods, go find Felblood Initiates, use the Fel Siphon on one and tap it at the same time with one of your other characters to stop someone getting the credit for it. Once the drain has channeled the mob will turn into an Emaciated Felblood but WAIT until you see it lose its amour and turn to a white skin before killing it or you won’t get credit
11. Once you have killed the 4 initiates, run back through the demonic gateway with your unstable fireballs to blow it up and hand in the quests there
12. Fly back over to Honor Hold and get a bird to Area 52
13. Run up to Manaforge B’Nar and kill mobs until Sunfury Attack Plans drop. It’s random drop with round 20% droprate I think but it’s group lootable.

Phase 2:
14. Head back to Shat and go through the portal to QD, drop down into the bottom of the building and grab The Battle Must Go On, Know Your Ley Lines and The Air Strikes Must Continue
15. Leave the building and head southeast to the Dawning Square, kill 6 demons and the Emmisary of Hate (though will usually find it already dead) and have your main use the banner on it to finish The Battle Must Go On for the group. Also have your main use the astromancer crystal near the portal for part 1 of Know Your Ley Line
16. Head back up to the building north of the square, where the armorer is, grab Keeping The Enemy At Bay on the first floor landing and Crush the Dawnblade on the top floor
17. Head back down and noth to the boat on the right of the inn, grab Disrupt The Greengill Coast here
18. Head east to the greengill coast, kill Darkspine Sirens and loot the Orb of Murloc Control that each one drops on your main then proceed to use them on murlocs as you head west to the small shrine in the water
19. Have your main use the astromancer crystal at the shrine, all in group will get second part of Know Your Ley Lines done
20. Head back west to the boat and hand in Disrupt The Green Gill Coast
21. Head west to the inn, hand in Rediscovering Your Roots
22. Head west to the flightmaster, have all characters right-click to bring up the gossip screen with him and then use the following macro on all characters to have them mount and fly at the same time for The Air Strikes Must Continue

/script SelectGossipOption(1)

23. Hotkey the arcane charges for this quest and then once you are in the dead scar just spam and target. It will likely take a few flights before you work out the positions of the mobs you need and even then it may take 2 flights to complete the quest depending on number of people also doing it and your accuracy
24. Have everyone right click the guy next to the flight master again and use the following macro to start all characters at the same time on Keeping The Enemy At Bay

/script SelectGossipOption(2)

25. Again, hotkey the flaming oil and use if once on the mast of each ship you pass on the flight path to set fire to the sails of each ship. For the third ship wait until you turn and fly up past it’s side to be in range.
26. Once you land, stay on the first ship and kill the 6 Dawnblade Reservists you need there as I found it’s annoying to get onto the other ships, need to jump and move up out of the water so usually will accept a wait time on that boat
27. Once the quest is completed have all characters right click the dragonhawk and use the Dead Scar macro to head back to QD
28. Head south into the small building with the quatermaster in it and grab Further Conversions then back out and head south to the Dawnblade area
29. Kill dawnblades as you go for Crush the Dawnblade and head into the big building to find 3 summoners around a blood crystal. The summoners are always in evade mode on Proudmoore so I’m not sure if they will agro or not, but head in there and have your main use the astromancer crystal to finish off Know Your Ley Lines
30. Once you have finished Crush the Dawnblade go SW and kill any Erratic Sentry you see, have your main use the Attuned Crystal Core on them until you have 5 and then head back to QD center

Phase 3:

31. Hand in Further Conversions at the quartermaster building
32. Hand in Know Your Ley Lines, The Air Strikes Must Continue and The Battle Must Go On in the center building
33. Head to armory building and hand in Keeping The Enemy At Bay and then up the top to hand in Crush The Dawnblade
34. Head back to Shat (I use the teleport scrolls from Know Your Ley Lines because if you don’t you can’t hand it in again until you destory them) and hand in Sunfury Attack Plans

Results:

At the end of this run you will get ~115g, 2700 SSO rep and 15 Sunwell Supplies giving you at least 15 greens to DE and a chance at a Badge of Justice per supply and will usually take about an hour or so depending on how co-operative the Razorfang Flayers and Sunfury mobs are being for the Glands and Plans.

Shareable Quests:
* Crush the dawnblade
* Disrupt the greengill coast
* Sunfury attack plans
* Rediscovering your roots

Unshareable Quests:
* Further conversions
* The battle must go on
* The air strikes must continue
* Know your ley lines
* Keeping the enemy at bay
* Blood for blood
* Blast the gateway

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Serious Downtime

I guess today's scheduled maintenance took a serious turn for the worst. The log-in screen said the servers would be up at 6pm PST but now they say 7pm. This gave me a chance to update my initial Outland Element Shaman gear guide. Think it turned out pretty well.

Decided to start using Powered by Wowhead tooltips. In the past I've only linked to The Armory and WoWWiki, but the tooltips are pretty trendy with zero work to implement. No idea how those things load so damn fast.

The Pally tanking thing still has me excited. The WoWWiki page on WotLK Pally tanking build made a lot of sense so at 66 I'll spec Favor with nearly everything they suggest. My variance will be with picking up all three points in Improved Devotion Aura before moving over to get Deflection.

Now… if only the servers would come up…

Elemental Shaman Outlands Gearing

Caught a Shaman team logging out at Allerian Hold on my server. Didn't catch the name of their Pally tank, but I did see Liilil, Liillil, and Lillil from their Guild Roster. They were all 66 but I'm going to keep their gear here as a guide:

Head: Helm of Affinity (Waste Not, Want Not, Laying Waste to the Unwanted)
Neck: Necklace of Bloodied Feathers (Do Secrets of the Arakkoa chain to get The Skettis Offensive)
Shoulders: Fierce Mantle (The Terror of Marshlight Lake)
Back: Windtalkers Cloak (Avruu's Orb grants the quest)
Chest: Stormstrike Vest (Ill Omens, Cursed Talismans, Warlord of the Bleeding Hollow, Return to Honor Hold, The Exorcism of Colonel Jules, Trollbane is Looking For You, Drill the Drillmaster)
Wrist: Marsh Bracers (Ango'rosh Encroachment, Overlord Gorefist)
Hands: Verdant Handwraps (Crimson Crystal Shard leads to Natural Remedies)
Belt: Storm Lord's Girdle (Drop)
Legs: Scaled Legs of Ruination (Kill Vazruden for and Ominous Letter which leads to The Blood is Life)
Feet: Boots of the Earthcaller (The Rock Flayer Matriarch)
Finger1: Sage's Band (Bought from Logistics Officer Ulrike when Honored)
Finger2: Cenarion Ring of Casting (Lost in Action)
Trinket1: Vengeance of the Illdari (Kill Warbringer Arix'Amal for a Burning Legion Missive to get Overlord)
Trinket2: Ancient Dranei Arcane Relic (The Vengeful Harbinger)
Main Hand: Blade of Trapped Knowledge (Drop)
Offhand: Landslide Buckler (Fel Orc Scavengers)
Relic: Totem of Lightning (Colossal Menace)

Their gear is exacting, even down to the world drops like Blade of Trapped Knowledge and Storm Lord's Girdle! Probably run by someone with lots of gold.

A few of the pieces won't be available immediately. After perusing the Hellfire quests, I'll be picking up:

Two Hand: The Staff of Twin Worlds (The Legion Reborn, The Path of Anguish)
Chest: Arcane Ringed Tunic (The The Path of Anguish chain leads to Mission: The Abyssal Shelf)
Legs: Arcane Ringed Greaves (The The Path of Anguish chain leads to Disrupt Their Reinforcements)
Finger: Sedai's Ring (Makuru's Vengeance)
Neck: Telhamat Pendant (The Pools of Aggonar, Cleansing the Waters)

Looks like I'm screwed for a Belt and Shoulders so I'll watch the AH for greens.

Warp Speed Ahead!

The Recruit-A-Friend bonus is… wow! Just… wow!! *lol* Through their 20s the Shaman quickly out-paced the unlinked Hunter. Around 35 I started working on some SM runs with the Druid since the Hunter barely hit 29. Last Wednesday the Shaman hit 44 so I ran them around with the Enhancement Shaman, who was 52 with a full rested experience bar. As of this morning the Enhancement Shaman just hit 55 while all four linked Shaman are around 40-45% into 58!!

Right now this is actually working against me. I wanted to get some of the Outland intro quests done for gear yet stay in the 51-60 AV bracket. I'm not sure if the RAF bonus will continue once the Shaman hit 60. If it does, they will rocket to 61. Really shouldn't complain as my goal is still PvE for now. Yet I would like to get a taste of PvP while it's not all serious. See what I can do.

I've agonized over the Druid vs. Paladin tanking for a while now but finally decided on the Paladin yesterday. Being mana-based can be such a pain but a Paladin can still cleanse and cast while tanking along with most of their threat being passive. I tranfered Favor over to the secondary account yesterday. She's still 66 and full-up on crap gear so this will be an interesting challenge. I've never tanked on the Paladin nor have I fully groked 3.0.2—even more of a challenge! The split between physical stats and spell power is making gear selection confusing. Guess I'm going to blend Sorcerer, Beast, and Defender for the greens. The quest rewards I'll guess on.

Instance Demands

The all Shaman crew is moving along quite well yet I can feel myself approaching a wall. They've been leveling so fast their gear is rapidly getting behind. Plus I've been dorking around in Zul'Farrak. The Enhancement Shaman is only 53 so if enough mobs are ganging up on her, it gets nasty. Especially when a ranged mob decides to run…

This is good though. I've had it pretty easy outside questing so far. There's been no reason to put together any real synergy. Yet instancing in the Outlands is going to require it, so it's time to start looking at what works. While it's highly amusing to open with Chain Lightning I find that it's not wise. In ZF specifically, I find a solid lightning bolt volley against Blooddrinkers was good to open. After the first cast I drop a set of Grounding Totems then a set of Stoneclaw Totems. Then I go back to finishing off the melee in range while the casters waste their mana.

Though I had two embarrassing deaths, I never wiped. Did the whole Troll Nation encounter without a problem and Ghazrilla dropped so everyone has their Carrot on a Stick now. Managed to get all the other collect quests done, too. Even though it was a ton of Troll Tempers, the quest experience has been very worthwhile.

Let Me See Your Bracers...

Spent time leveling Enchanting on Shaman1. I plan on doing a bit of instancing so there's bound to be plenty of items that would go to waste if I didn't have an enchanter in tow. Ended up following this guide for most of it since it had a good list of materials and some alternatives. Had to stop at 245 when the materials became obscenely priced on the AH.

Used at least thirty stacks of spare Silk to tailor a number of Green Silken Shoulders to disenchant. Once everyone is up to 260-265 First Aid, I can start making White Bandit Mask with spare Mageweave to see if I can get some higher level mats rolling in. Might have to find something in Rune cloth. Going to need tons I'm sure. *sigh* Swore I would never level Enchanting again but oh well.

Priest Review

The next time I'm forced to spec Sloosh healing I'm going to give this this 10/51/0 spec a shot. I hate not having Inner Focus and Meditation, but the new Surge of Light and Guardian Spirit sound pretty fun; haven't been that deep in the Holy Tree forever. Divine Providence seems focused on spells I wouldn't use as much, so I might trade it for Serendipity and two points in Test of Faith. Twin Disciplines is of dubious worth but it's better than the nerfed Unbreakable Will.

If I ever manage to get back to PvP I'm going to start with this 56/5/0 spec. It's a really big departure from the routine to skip on Mental Strength and Power Infusion. I don't like the PI change so I went for Improved Divine Spirit. The way it reads, I also liked Enlightenment over Rapture even though Disc is classically horrible at mana efficiency. Penance really didn't interest me but the last point I had wouldn't really fit anywhere else so I'll try it. Will have to watch some high rated priests for additional insight.

I'm currently raiding with a 5/0/56 spec. Having three points in Shadow Affinity is probably overkill with the built-in 30% threat reduction of shadow form, so I may be trying Psychic Horror or Improved Shadow form when I can. It's frustrating having a Raid Spec and PvP spec so close together because I would trying PvP Shadow. Yet if I have to respec anyway, might as well stay with Disc.