The Little Things

Leveling some toons on a different server so I need to keep track of what quests for instances in the various level ranges:

Horde
Ragefire Chasm (?? - ??)
Hidden Enemies
Searching for the Lost Satchel
Slaying the Beast
Testing an Enemy's Strength
The Power to Destroy...

Wailing Caverns (?? - ??)
Serpentbloom from Apothecary Zamah [14]

Shadowfang Keep (?? - ??)
Arugal Must Die from Dalar Dawnweaver [18]

Razorfen Kraul (22 - 32)
Blueleaf Tubers from Mebok Mizzyrix [20]
Going, Going, Guano! from Master Apothecary Faranell [22]

Gnomeregan (23 - 33)
Return of the Ring [28]
Rig Wars
Chief Engineer Scooty

Scarlet Monastery - Graveyard (27 - 37)
Vorrel's Revenge from Vorrel Sengutz [25]


Scarlet Monastery - Library (30 - 40)
Compendium of the Fallen [28]

Razorfen Downs (32 - 42)
Bring the End [33]

Scarlet Monastery - Armory (32 - 42)
Into The Scarlet Monastery [30]

Scarlet Monastery - Cathedral (35 - 45)


Uldaman (35 - 45)

Aenara the Seeker

Despite completing Tricks and Treats of Azeroth last year Aenara was getting credit towards 3000 Quests Completed when pocketing treats from the various Candy Buckets. For the final quest she returned to her initial questing area of Dolanaar where Innkeeper Keldamyr bore witness to that final quest.

Now for The Loremaster. Currently have 613/700 in Loremaster of Kalimdor and 526/700 in Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms so it's not too far away!

Almost Done Before Restarting

Still a little rough downing Heroic Sindragosa 25 but we got her on the third attempt. Picked up the Heroic Phylactery of the Nameless Lich. (Yay!) Excepting three Heroic Vanquisher's Marks of Sanctification and the ultra-elusive Professor's Bloodied Smock, Aenara now has all of the gear she's been eying. For now.

Soldiers Arise, Stand and Fight!

Finally! Faerune's Loot-Filled Pumpkin contained The Horseman's Horrific Helm! She now has all the horseman accessories to annoy friends and randoms with.

Good Point

Source: Fun Hunter

Give Me a Numer

wtfismygs.com is really a site!!! *rofl* It's actually pretty compact and has nice mouse-overs for raid achievements. Wow-Heroes still wins with tracking both specs and gear details.

Oh Come On

Got done with the Headless Horseman on all the toons when Aenara saw some spam in Trade Chat for Black Temple. They were on council so it would be getting the achievement done pretty quick. Trying to zone in kept erroring out with a message: “You have entered too many instances recently.” Searching the forums there was a blue post that stated: “Five instances per hour is the current limit. Please note that this is per account.” *sigh* I understand they want to limit instance farming but there's obviously a bug. I'd done HH easily six times in 30min so whatever. Maybe the LFG system gets around it but if Blizzard is going to deny access, the least they could do is provide a “XX more min until you can enter an instance” message.

Thankfully they wiped on their first attempt due to lack of healing. *snicker* Might be able to get in while they try to fine more.

Out on the West Coast

Been fun watching the 3v3 tournaments at BlizCcon 2010. Some really amazing matches. It makes me understand the allure of televised sports… watching others do what I cannot from the comfort of my home. *snicker*

Wonder if Blizzard notices/cares about the caster dominance and Druids being the preferred healer. There was one PMR team that made it to the third round yet the pressure matches were all ranged casters. Personally I favor LSD since I love the burst and utility of 3.x Elemental Shaman. Yet DML has also been amazing. Watching the second match of the Top Bracker (*aAa*/LSD) versus Lower Bracket (Complexity.Red/DML). Co.Red actually lost to *aAa* in the upper bracket, 0-3. See if they come back for the $75k.

On a completely shallow note I love how all the competitors are pasty white boys and Asians. Hate to be the creepy old guy, but there are a few really cute ones. Have to say my top three are:

1. Jenõ "Lopaay" Tanos (LightZ CaMerA ActioN/Fra?)
2. Fabio "Jamesbond" Nardelli (*aAa*/Ita)
3. Romain "Hrk" Neveu (*aAa*/Fra)

It's Over 7000!

Aenara got stuck at 98/100 on The Summit of Storm Peaks. EveryQuest's incomplete list showed a missing drop-quest started from a Dark Armor Sample. Didn't stick around to finish The Iron Colossus chain once the zone was done since there were still Tournament dailies waiting. Just have to finish up 87/140 Icecrown: The Final Goal for Loremaster of Northrend.

Aenara is now up to 7050 achievement points, with 661/1056 completed. Currently #8 in the guild.

Long, Strange #4

Finally! Picked up the only item Aenara needed for more than a year from the Inn Keeper in Westguard Keep… the damn Hallowed Helm for Sinister Calling. Picked up Hallowed Be Thy Name and What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.

Was down in Howling Fjord to finish up I've Toured the Fjord. Working on The Summit of Storm Peaks while watching 3v3 PvP at BlizzCon. Got Into the Basin done late last night so only Icecrown: The Final Goal remains for Loremaster of Northrend.

If Only They Were All This Fat

This pumpkin wasn't simply loot-filled, it was about to explode!!

Wha Happen?

More stealth nerfs inc!!*cowers in fear*

Two More Done

Somehow found the patience to grind out some more kills today, so Aenara finished up Oh My, Kurenai… which was also the last reputation needed to finish up The Diplomat. It did take some time yet it was sort of amusing running around camps of Burning Crusade mobs, dropping a single Insect Swarm on each, then circling back to collect loot. Which reminds me… I really need to see if Loot Filter is running again. It makes culling the loot trash so much more tolerable.

The mobs in The Steamvault didn't fare much better. Still spread IS around yet the new super-damaging Thorns made quick work of any melee mobs. The turn-ins were the most tedious part of finishing up Cenarion Expedition. Seems somehow right in an role play sense to have the druid astride a Cenarion War Hippogryph. Still have 72 Coilfang Armaments left over for the next toon that wants the rep. *rolls eyes*

This brings me up to 27/30 Exalted Reputations, 18/25 Tabards, and 77/100 Mountain o' Mounts. Thinking of targeting The Argent Dawn along with Deathcharger's Reins next while getting Hero of the Zandalar Tribe finished up.

So Not Fair

Faerune got a second pair of The Horseman's Reins. *sigh* These things should really be Bind on Account.

Drop Rates or What

Trade Chat babble has mentioned that the drop rate on reins has increased. Naturally I took this with a grain of salt, yet Scheme's loot-filled pumpkin had The Horseman's Reins along with a Flimsy Male Undead Mask. Whoa! Would sure be nice to get the mount on one of the toons I'm doing Mountain o' Mounts on…

Surprise! Heroic Sindragosa

Was pleasantly surprised to get Heroic: The Frostwing Halls (10 player) done tonight. Faerune is in a casual guild that has few hardcore people in it, so our progress through Heroic encounters has been pretty difficult. Yet after an hour-and-a-half of face grinding we managed to down her on our last attempt for the night. If we can somehow pull the Heroic Putricide rabbit out of our collective hats, we might get some Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquishers before the expansion.

Having both raiding experiences does help me not take Aenara's progress for granted. For instance… tonight she cleared 10/12 of the heroic 25 encounters in two hours—all one-shots. The officers actually called it early to do the weekly raid so we'd have something to do tomorrow. Heh.

On a completely unrelated vanity note, I really love the Ninja DK on a Horseman's mount. Here she is waiting with Sindragosa circling and Peddlefeet keeping everyone company.

Mildly Innappropriate

So someone on vent was laughing at one of the deaths, saying “You got so duffed on that.” Was a term I'd never heard of yet before I could ask, one of the Aussies chimed in with, “Duffed means something pretty different down here.” So I was off to Urban Dictionary where I copied the second, hilarious definition into raid chat:

Duffed (v) - The act of getting used and or manipulated by an attractive, mentally unstable person of the opposite sex. Unfortunately this includes an abundance of flirting, profound mixed messages, and sexual innuendos that don't actually lead to SEX, merely the illusion that it will. The Duff usually ends by the Duff-er getting back together with their original girl/boyfriend, leaving the duff-ee with a killer case of blue balls/dry-gina.

Definitely caused the raid to skip a beat but was worth it.

Green Hooves!

In all the years of doing the Halloween event I've seen The Horseman's Reins drop once. Didn't have it on any of my toons until today. Faerune DC'd twice getting in (damn patch!) yet when she opened her pumpkin, there they were! Now if only Aenara can get so lucky…

First Wintergrasp

Blizzard added Wintergrasp to the regular PvP interface—quite handy. Felt like Aenara was ready to try some more PvP so decided to queue. Horde continue to suck on Azjol-Nerub. There didn't seem to be any bugs or changes to the zone. The quests grant significantly less honor. Was hoping they were dailies now but they didn't count towards the cap when turned in. *sigh*

The gather quest was A Rare Herb so headed down there. The Steppe of Life was heavily farmed so I took a quick break. Got back and had 7/10 Horde Herb Pouchs when a Horde Warrior and Mage popped up. It was surprising how easily they died. Was at half-health when another Mage appeared. Destroyed him, too. Maybe they just sucked, but Spect, Mouzashi, Magerfeeb really disgraced their faction this morning. Will have to hold on to the Unwarmed Shoes I took off Mouzashi's fail corpse. *giggle*

Shrooms + Wrathful

Aenara finished up The Czar of Sporeggar with relative ease. In three Normal clears I picked up 82 Sanguine Hibiscus. Ran Favor out with another 143 from the bank and done! The little spore bat is fun. This puts Aenara at 68/75 for Lil' Game Hunter, 16/25 Tabards, and 24/25 Exalted Reputations.

Figure that The Diplomat will be next. Aenara murdered her way up to 3198 in Honored with Timbermaw. Kept Favor on auto-follow to soak up the free rep. Pulled in 186 feathers along with the Deadwood Ritual Totem and the Winterfall Ritual Totem. Going to take a while to finish that.

Had to stop the grind when there was talk in the guild about the Wrathful PvP items. I'd heard somewhere that the gear was going to be purchasable without the Arena rating requirements. Sadly the requirement numbers where still there. Yet someone in the guild randomly tried to buy a piece and was able! So I hearthed up immediately to pick up Wrathful Gladiator's War Staff and Wrathful Gladiator's Wyrmhide Robes. Aenara was exactly ten points short for Wrathful Gladiator's Wyrmhide Helm but managed to get a 24 points in a horrible Warsong Gulch loss. Also dropped a Great Feast for Dinner Impossible. *lol*

The Drake With the Most Pink

Finally got On Wings of Nether completed this morning with the dailies and a couple extra Netherwing Eggs. This puts Aenara 2701/3000 Quests Completed, 60/100 Mountain o' Mounts, and 23/25 Exalted Reputations. Knocked out Crocolisks in the City really quick in hopes of picking up the last croc she needed, Chuck, but was denied. WoWJuju tells me another 225 Sanguine Hibiscus will get Sporeggar done so I might try doing that now.

Top Orc

Martini got Skyshattered done a year ago but I sure couldn't get it done on Aenara. Yet when I went out to get the dailies finished today I noticed I remained mounted on my Nether-Rocket, so I retained my 310% speed! Needless to say it was easy to complete this pesky achievement. Sometimes the patch bugs are good.

Grid, Come Back!

The WowUI admins haven't been able to verify the Grid update yet so I had to go directly to the WoW Ace download. *crosses fingers*

Edit: Had to download the Ace2 libraries and it appears to be back. Will try using Clique with it when the servers are done restarting.

Wow WoW

Head is still spinning from all the changes. Aenara is doing insane Moonkin damage and pulling aggro off instance tanks with ease, single-target and on packs. Didn't end up reforging anything as I was right on with hit. Mana was a slight problem. Will see how things go in raid tonight if everyone is ready. Could get Grid running so I refused to try out my healing spec in a pug. Really like the flaura spawn from Swiftmend though. *smile*

Faerune has fared pretty well. Too much talking and reading to get the tanking configured (SO MANY CDs NOW!) yet Frost DPS is looking pretty amazing. The built-in Power Auras made reacting to Rime and Killing Machine procs very easy. It's sad that KM doesn't affect Howling Blast anymore, but DPS was fine. Pulled instance aggro a number of times so not looking forward to tanking.

Biggest problem with loading Professions, namely Inscription and Jewel Crafting. I suppose everyone needs those right now so it's taking a toll on the servers. Sure is frustrating. Takes a few minutes for the categories and cuts/glyphs to load, especially in Dalaran. My gouging plan didn't really work with Glyphs. I didn't realize that they work like spells now... once you learn one, you never need it again! Did sell a bunch of Druid and Rogue ones at inflated prices. But it wasn't worth the time and materials. I'm going to have to make a bunch for my toons, and they bumped up the cost of each glyph from 1 to 3 Ink of the Seas.

Still have so much to figure out not even sure where to begin. I really need Grid to work, so I'll prolly start there. Then maybe Favor? Scheme? Feraline? Sloosh? *sigh*

Gouging

In an attempt to make cash during the frenzy, I'm going hawk Glyphs. Granted I never make a profit in the auction house but I'm bored and I need to research every class anyway. Might as well see if I can turn my data mining into gold.

Death Knight
Blood
Death Strike
Heart Strike
Rune Strike / Death and Decay (AoE)
Dancing Rune Weapon
Rune Tap
Pestilence
Horn of Winter
Blood Tap
Resilient Grip
(Spec/Source)

Frost
Glyph of Frost Strike
Glyph of Howling Blast
Glyph of Obliterate / Glyph of Icy Touch (AoE)
Boil Blood
Hungering Cold
Pestilence
Glyph of Path of Frost
Glyph of Blood Tap
Glyph of Horn of Winter
(Spec/Source)

Unholy
Death Coil / Glyph of Icy Touch (AoE)
Raise Dead
Scourge Strike / Death and Decay (AoE)
Anti-Magic Shell
Blood Boil
Pestilence
Blood Tap
Horn of Winter
Raise Ally
(Spec/Source)

Druid
Balance
Insect Swarm
Starsurge
Moonfire
Starfall
Thorns
Rebirth
Aquatic Form
Wild
Unburdened Rebirth
(Spec/Source)

Restoration
Rejuvenation
Regrowth
Swiftmend
Healing Touch
Wild Growth
Innervate
Aquatic Form
Wild
Unburdened Rebirth
(Spec/Source)

Feral Tank

(Spec/Source)

Feral DPS
Rip
Savage Roar
Tiger's Fury
Feral Charge
Ferocious Bite
Rebirth
Dash
Wild
Unburdened Rebirth
(Spec/Source)

Hunters
Beast


Marksman


Survival



Mage
Arcane

(Spec/Source)

Fire
Fireball
Living Bomb
Molten Armor
Dragon's Breath
Ice Block
Polymorph
Armors
Monkey
Slow Fall
(Spec/Source)

Frost
Frostbolt
Ice Lance
Molten Armor
Ice Barrier
Icy Veins
Polymorph
Armors
Slow Fall
Monkey
(Spec/Source)

Paladin
Holy

(Spec/Source)

Protection

(Spec/Source)

Retribution

(Spec/Source)

Priest
Discipline

(Spec/Source)

Holy

(Spec/Source)

Shadow

(Spec/Source)

Rogue
Assassination

(Spec/Source)

Combat

(Spec/Source)

Subtlety

(Spec/Source)

Shaman
Elemental

(Spec/Source)

Enhancement

(Spec/Source)

Restoration

(Spec/Source)

Warlock
Affliction

(Spec/Source)

Demonology

(Spec/Source)

Destruction

(Spec/Source)

Warrior
Arms
Mortal Strike
Overpower
Slam
Sweeping Strikes
Long Charge
Rapid Charge
Battle
Command
Demoralizing Shout
(Spec/Source)

Fury
Bloodthirst
Raging Blow
Slam
Cleaving
Death Wish
Heroic Throw
Berserker Rage
Battle
Bloody Healing
(Spec/Source)

Protection
Devastate
Revenge
Shield Slam
Shockwave
Thunder Clap
Sunder Armor
Battle
Command
Demoralizing Shout
(Spec/Source)

Whew

Looks like Decursive was just updated for 4.0. Think I'll continue using it until I have Grid and Clique perfected.

Patch Notes Official Bitching

Since the patch notes are now up on the Official Site I decided to do some bitching…

Flexible Raid Lock System
I love how they make this sound positive when it's fucking us. It should really read, "You need to choose 10man or 25man raiding. If you go with a pug and they melt after the first boss, you're fucked for the whole week. Time to find a guild, loser. Enjoy."

The Chill of the Throne effect has been removed.
In other words, if you can't get a Kingslayer title now, just fucking stop.

Ammo has been removed from the game.
More cries of anguish from the RP'ers.

Spells and abilities no longer have multiple ranks and now scale with character level.
Well about time. Why wasn't this done when Downranking was nerfed?

Resilience no longer reduces the chance a player will be critically hit by an opponent.
Wasn't mana-drain reduction also nerfed? I thought all resil did now was reduce player and player-pet caused damage.

Item Durability: cloth, leather, and mail now have as many points of durability as plate, making the repair cost on death much closer to equal for all classes.
Hahah! Now it's not just the plate tanks complaining.

Spell Alerts have been added to notify players when procs on select spells and abilities occur.
Blizz stealing more functionality from the AddOn community. Yay for built-in Power Auras!

New Raid frames are now available. They can also be used in place of the standard 5-player party interface via the User Interface options.
As Godly as Grid? Doubtful.

It's surprisingly short for a patch of this scope but then "Many class talents, spells, and abilities have been overhauled, added, or removed." does cover a lot of ground. Still can't believe Kings is going to overwrite my Mark now. Heh.

Extension Please!

Surprise of surprises, patching is extended again:



I wonder if we'll be able to raid at all tonight. Oh well. In the interim I've cleared out all my addons and the Saved Variable folder (after making back-ups, of course!) I re-downloaded those specifically flagged for 4.0 then will go back and try the ones I'd still like to use. So far I've got:

• Clique
• ShockAndAwe
• AtlasLoot
• Omen
• Pawn
• IceHUB
• Recount
• Quartz

Guess I should go look at the new WrathCalcs spreadsheet.

Reforging

Just for easy reference:

You can reforge:
* Critical Strike Rating
* Dodge Rating
* Expertise Rating
* Haste Rating
* Hit Rating
* Mastery Rating
* Parry Rating
* Spirit

You cannot reforge:
* Agility
* Intellect
* Stamina
* Strength
* add to a stat that is already on the item

From WowWiki.

4.0 Druid -- Boomkin with Int, Resto with no Tree

With the big patch out today I'm looking at a solid week of reviewing all ten toons. Both fun and tedious, but I need to get it done fast. If I'm going to switch mains then I'll want to alert the guild right away. So Aenara is first.

Moonkin

Sources
Druid: Balance PvE (updated for 4.0.1)
*Patch 4.0 Guide*
Moonkin Guide 4.0.1

Talents/Glyphs

WowHead

• Heard some interesting mana arguments (post 80) where it might make sense to drop Owlkin Frenzy if it's not getting triggered enough by mob mechanics along with skipping Blessing of the Grove. This allows four points that can be put into Moonglow and Furor (MMO Champion)
• Eclipse. The base Eclipse bonus is 25%, and the 12% from Total Eclipse stacks on top of that. The damage bonus is multiplicative. Spells provide Eclipse energy when they land. Eclipse ends after the cast that takes you to 0 energy; the last spell is still affected.
• Moonfury: Damage increase stacks multiplicatively. Due to the odd critical bonus stacking rules, the total crit bonus for affected spells if you use a Chaotic meta is 209%.
• Balance of Power: Your base Spirit is not included in the hit rating conversion, only bonus Spirit (green number in the tooltip).
• Sunfire: Identical to Moonfire in all respects except appearance and damage type. Affected by Glyph of Moonfire, Glyph of Starfire, Genesis, Lunar Shower, Nature's Grace, and Shooting Stars. Sunfire and Moonfire overwrite each other on the same target. There is currently a bug where Sunfire has a base tick rate of 3s instead of 2s, and is not affected by haste.
• Lunar Shower: If you don't have the buff, it only appears when you cast Moonfire or Sunfire. Once the buff is on you, it stacks and refreshes whenever you move. So if you are not moving and cast two consecutive Moonfires, the second will be affected by one stack of the buff, but to go higher, you need to move.
• Heart of the Wild: Stacks multiplicatively with Mark of the Wild.

Resulting Spell Coefficients and Damage Multipliers

Overall damage multiplier (Nature/Arcane): 1.08 (Earth and Moon) * 1.02 (Earth and Moon) * 1.03 (Arcane Empowerment) * 1.25 (Moonfury) * 1.1 (Moonkin Form) * 1.02 (Balance of Power)= 1.591.
Haste multiplier, before haste rating: 1.05 (Moonkin Form). Multiply this by (1 + HasteRating/3279) to obtain final haste ratio.
Crit Chance: 5% (Leader of the Pack) + 5% (Improved Scorch) = 10%, added to whatever you see reported in your character sheet (Nature's Majesty is included there already).

Stats

Weights
Intellect:
Spellpower:
Hit rating/Spirit:
Haste rating:
Critical strike rating:
Mastery rating:

Stat Value Caps

Hit: Against a level 83 target, with all buffs, we need 446 hit rating (17%) to cap at 100%. To check your hit rating, just mouse over it on your character sheet--it already includes the bonus hit from Balance of Power. Against an 82, 81, or 80 target, the caps are 158, 132, and 105 rating respectively.

Haste: Now that Wrath is a 2s base cast, it cannot run up against the 1s GCD minimum at any reasonable level of haste. There is a weak haste cap where the GCD hits 1.0s with Nature's Grace active. This requires 1.5/(1.05*1.15) - 1 = 24.22% haste, or 795 haste rating.

At certain levels of haste, our DoT's gain extra ticks. With 3/3 Genesis and Moonkin Form, and no Glyph of Starfire, they get an 11th tick at 365 haste rating, a 12th tick at 712 rating, and a 13th tick at 1059 rating. When affected by Nature's Grace, the 14th tick comes at 493 rating, the 15th tick at 795 rating, and the 16th tick at 1097 rating.

Overall, these softcaps are far less important than in WLK. Only the hit cap should be a significant factor in gear selection.

Reforging
Reforging allows you to change 40% of one secondary stat on an item into another secondary stat that's not already present. As noted above, the usual order of secondary stats by value is:

1. Spirit (technically better than Hit since it can occasionally give you mana).
2. Hit rating (until cap).
3. Haste rating.
4. Crit rating.
5. Mastery rating.

You should reforge whichever is the lowest-ranked stat on item up to the highest-ranked one that it doesn't already have. The only situation that's not obvious is when the hit cap is involved. If you need hit, reforge crit/mastery to hit on pieces that have those stats first, before you reforge haste. If you have excess hit, reforge hit/Spirit to haste wherever possible.

Gems
Red: Brilliant Cardinal Ruby (+20 Intellect)
Yellow: Reckless Ametrine (+12 Spell Power and +10 Haste Rating)
Blue: Purified Dreadstone (+12 Spell Power and +10 Spirit)

Eclipses

Lunar eclipse increases the damage of

• Starfire
• Moonfire
• Starfall
• Starsurge

Solar eclipse increases the damage of:

• Wrath
• Insect Swarm
• Sunfire
• Typhoon
• Starsurge
• Hurricane

AddOns

DoTimer
Balance Power Tracker
Quartz

Not Yet Updated for Cata
SquawkAndAwe
SquawkHard
Ovale
ForteXorcist

Links

YouTube Arythorn has a few PTR videos on the DPS rotations and output
The Moonkin Repository
Druid Resource list for 4.0.1

Restoration

Sources
*Patch 4.0 Guide*

Talents/Glyphs

WowHead

Still sad over the changes to resto so I'm going to put this off. Regrowth has been destroyed. Only one Lifebloom can be out. Treeform is on a CD. No more ticking poison removal.

There are good things. All the hots can crit. Treeform effects are great. Remove Corruption is an all-in-wonder like Shaman.

I'll prolly be main healing on the shaman at this point.

LFG Tool Success!

I have Aenara running around doing dailies when I get a whisper from someone named Rhialla asking if I wanted to do the Weekly. Took me completely by surprise because I'd queue'd up in the Raid Finder over two hours earlier. *snicker* Sadly I forgot to mark the Healer checkbox so I suppose I was lucky to get an invite at all. Was a bit rough as I out-geared the tank, Svennorsky, by a great deal and started pulling aggro around 80%.

It really isn't worth sitting in a city and enduring trade chat to find a raid yet I'm glad we got Anub'Rekhan Must Die! done. Aenara had 434 Frost Emblems and 188 Triumph Emblems so she doesn't really need any, but she only had 2304 emblems towards 2500 Dungeon & Raid Emblems. Sadly, when the quest was turned in, it didn't increment the count. Turns out rewards don't count as it's not looted. *sigh* Not sure I'll get that achievement since emblems will be going away next patch.

Argent'd

Scheme finally got done with the primary Argent Tournament grind. She was so far behind on Exodar reputation I kept her doing the dailies until she had over one hundred Valiant's Seals and almost ninety Champion's Writs. Worked out that I actually had a few too many yet she got it all done:

• Champion of the Alliance
• Champion of the Exodar
• 10 Exalted Reputations
• Exalted Champion of Stormwind
• Exalted Champion of Gnomeregan
• Exalted Champion of Darnassus
• Exalted Champion of Ironforge
• Exalted Champion of Exodar
• Exalted Champion of the Alliance
• Ambassador of the Alliance
• Exalted Argent Champion of the Alliance
• Exalted Champion of the Exodar

Thankfully I had 201 Champion's Seals so the Rogue now has both the Argent Crusader's Tabard and an Argent Pony Bridle for her squire.

Call in the Cavalry!

Did some late night PvP with the guild on Aenara. We usually win a bunch so I had to spend honor as I approached the 75k cap. Still don't want to break up my 2t10 bonus so I decided to grab a Black War Elekk and got Call in the Cavalry done. Hoping the honor grind in Cata isn't too painful as I'll need to get the other four mounts eventually.

Wasn't So Dark

Finished up the Ulduar achievement run from two weeks ago. We only had to drop Yogg-Saron left—who I'd never seen let alone killed. Went through the exhaustive tactics writeup on the Wiki so I felt confident, though I still watched Cassette's and TankSpots ten-man videos. Took four attempts with twenty-two people yet it felt a lot smoother than General Vezax.

Since Aenara hasn't done much Ulduar there was quite a number of achievements that scrolled by:

• Glory of the Ulduar Raider (25 player)
• One Light in the Darkness (25 player)
• Two Lights in the Darkness (25 player)
• Three Lights in the Darkness (25 player)
• The Descent into Madness (25 player)
• The Secrets of Ulduar (25 player)

Actually would have used Show of Faith for healing yet a pally beat me out. Took home Soulscribe as a memento. Of course the real pay off was the Ironbound Proto-Drake. I'm finding I like it more than the Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher.

Classic Cenarion!

Magmadar finally gave up a pair of Cenarion Leggings so Aenara was able to complete her tier one Cenarion Raiment set! It looks so corny and I love it.

Finally got enough trash killed to move the druid into Revered so she turned in Hands of the Enemy and completed The Fifth Element. Looks like she and Sloosh will be the only toons to earn that Feat of Strength.

Meow Someday

Aenara continues to gather Feral gear. In this lockout she picked up Frostbitten Fur Boots along with Aldriana's Gloves of Secrecy. With Cataclysm so close I'm not sure I'll really get a chance to use any of it. *sigh*

Pay Attention

Heading towards the Netherwing questing hub I passed over the green lava near Eclipse Point. My mouse happened over a Felfire Diemetradon and the tooltip said they can drop Fel Glands for A Slow Death. *facepalm* I was under the impression that only Greater Felfire Diemetradons would drop them. Guess it will be easier doing that quest here on out as the pools at [46/61] are crawling.

PTR, Round 1

The maintenance was taking too long so I decided to play around some on the PTR since it was up. Last week I wasn't able to transfer Faerune because the service was busy. Instead I transferred one of the pre-made Death Knights so I could see what tanking was like. Ugh.

There's still a problem with trade skills so I wasn't able to gem any of the "ZOMG FREE EPICS!" gear they give you. Nor did I have any glyphs. So it wasn't going to be the best test. Yet it was fun to look at the new talents and see that I now have even more defensive cool-downs, namely Bone Shield and Dancing Rune Weapon. BS has always been BS because it gets eaten so fast, but might as well take it now since it's in the tree. DNR was always novel but impracticable yet now it adds 20% parry while active. Good times.

Was really strange being in Blood Presence, which now adds the stamina, armor, and damage reduction along with threat increase that Frost used to. Started creating my usual macros, binding Rune Strike to my four main strikes. Thankfully I tried this out on Coren Direbrew first. None of my strikes were landing. Looking closer, it turns out that RS no longer function like Heroic Stike and landing "on next swing." It's now it's one strike and eater of a GCD. *sigh*

Trade Chat was filled with whining, trolls, and garbage—more plentiful as there's only one PvE server. People claimed that the LFG tool didn't work but I got one readily as a tank. Zoned into Drak'Tharon keep and immediately apologized, explaining that this was my first tanking experience with the new talents.

It's immediately apparent that AoE threat has been nerfed. While it's nice that Death and Decay only uses on Unholy rune, it doesn't do much. Pestilence has also been nerfed, doing only 50% damage to the targets it spreads diseases too. Not having any addons, I don't know for sure but it felt like Icy Touch isn't doing as much threat as before.

It went pretty well considered. The warlock with us still went wild with AoE. He pulled the whole room before Trollgore and I could do nothing to save him. Yet I was able to hold Trollgore with no problem when I pulled him. The healer and two of the DPS DC'd as we killed King Dred. The remaining ret pally, Dyley, was game to continue. Was dicey at a few spots but Death Strike and Rune Tap kept me going. Felt accomplished to two-man the rest of the instance.

I'm still unsure if the Death Strike change is a nerf, the whole "healing you for 30% of the damage you have sustained during the preceding 5 sec (minimum of at least 10% of your maximum health)." When I was getting hammered it did nearly 20%. Yet without meters or parsing addons, I can't be sure. It doesn't mention that having one or both diseases is required for the healing so it may be a buff overall.

Anyway. Will have to get Faerune transfered for some real testing. Having to work in another key for Rune Stike is rather annoying. And people are going to have to re-learn restraint when DPSing groups. Hopefully the live servers are back and I can get my last day of Direbrews in.