louis vuitton hand bag blog: 2008

World of Warcraft on 56k dial-up

Monday, December 29, 2008

Just so you know, right off, it's quite possible to play World of Warcraft over a 56k dialup connection.
You can get to level 50+ just like other new, casual players to the game.
It's possible to get into battlegrounds and (while being confused like all new players are) die over and over while also contributing to [...]No tag for this post.

Priest Hits 65, Healing In The Outland

In aiming for the goal of getting my Priest to 70 and running a few heroics as healer before the expansion pack hits, I've put steady love towards levelling this toon - mainly through instance runs.
This toon has been running instances for most the level up I've done from Level 38 to now, minus a [...]No tag for this post.

Gaming With Family

I just got back from a week's visit with my parents and older brother, where Brother and I did a whole bunch of business together, Mom and I caught up on the family happenings, and I helped Dad set some playing goals for the time he gets to spend on World of Warcraft (which is [...]No tag for this post.

Questing With Dad - Helping the Newbie Mage

I had a great time tonight, questing out in the Ghostlands with my father :)
Dad started to play Runescape as a way to chat with my brother and myself (mainly me, I live further away and visit less often), and then recently we got him onto World of Warcraft and he's been plugging away since [...]No tag for this post.

How To Get Tailoring from 360 to 375

My Priest is a tailor, just like my Mage is, except my Priest has a Mooncloth specialty and my Mage is into Shadoweave.
I haven't really spent a lot of time advancing Tailoring on my Priest since she hit 350 and spec'd for Mooncloth, but I've advanced here and there.
Recipe To Use To Advance From 350-370 [...]No tag for this post.

Summer Festival, Guide to Ahune the Frost Lord

I haven't done this quest yet - I just got back from a wedding and am getting caught up.
But, I hope to tackle this today:
I've quoted this from WoWHead.com, it was written by Femaleshammy -Al'akir -eu server.
Full guide of %26#8220;How to%26#8221; (complete Ahune the Frost Lord)
-First. Go to any major city(Exodar, Darnassus, Thunder Bluff, Silvermoon [...]No tag for this post.

How To Get a 10% experience bonus for one hour

The Midsummer Fire Festival is here!
This entry is about one of the many neat things that have come along with this festival celebrating the arrival of Summer in the northern hemisphere.

How To Use This Special Event To Powerlevel Your Lowbies
Any level of player can use some of the magic of this festival to gain a [...]No tag for this post.

Clean Up & A Request For Opinion

Heya folks!
I've been going through my blog and cleaning things up over the past few weeks - after upgrading my version of Wordpress and getting a new design a couple of months ago (thanks to my brother, yay!), I've been working with the new technology tie-ins by turning what used to be Categories into Tags [...]No tag for this post.

Priest Hits 68, Gets Some Season 2 PvP Gear

Hey folks!
Thanks so much for the responses to my last post, asking for information about which of my posts I should bring into the main navigations of the site! Great information, and lots for me to work from. I'm deeply greatful for the feedback :)

What Have I Been Doing?
Over the past couple of [...]No tag for this post.

Running My Lowbies Through Instances

I've got two World of Warcraft accounts. Don't ask why... I just do.
Partially because I wanted to be able to Enchant my own gear - so when I set up the second account, I transferred my 70 Hunter to that account, and kept the rest of the %26#8220;family%26#8221; together in the original account.
Another thing [...]No tag for this post.

I Think I Screwed Something Up

Dernit.
I'm getting ready to send out another series of email to my Gold Tips and Tricks list but in getting ready to do so, I think I reset things I shouldn't have with some subscribers.
The result will be that some will be getting email they already got from the list !! :(
Please, if you're one [...]No tag for this post.

Ode to the Everlasting Underspore Frond

How I love thee, Everlasting Underspore Frond.

How many times have you fed my pet? How many times have you given me free food and water for my questing? How many times have you been the only mana-restorative thing I had, when all water had been depleted in an especially heal-heavy dungeon run?

A thousand times easily, and I love you more every time I turn my attention to you and you lovingly provide.

What IS The Everlasting Underspore Frond?

In short, it's a non-equippable quest reward from Oh, It's On! which is a Sporeggar rep quest that you can get once you're Neutral with them.

Once you get it, it sits in your inventory and takes up space. ;)

What's It Do?

It produces 10 Underspore Pods which, when eaten like a Conjured Manna Biscuit, heal both mana and health at the same time - just over 4k of each.

The food itself is a fungus, I believe, and thus can be fed to pets that eat fungus foods. I had a Dragonhawk from Shadowmoon Valley for a while around 68-70 on my Hunter, and the pods were its main source of food for a while.

The Frond itself has a 12h cooldown, so if you use it regularly, you can get 20 per day.

Is It Worth The Bag Slot Space To Carry Around?

Yes. I don't use my Underspore pods or the Frond very often, but when I do, it's often a bit time or life-saver.

I've used it in dungeons where bringing 40 water wasn't enough for the entire run because the group was highly chaotic or undergeared and required a lot of healing.

I've used it when pet food was a zone away and I didn't want to spend the time traveling there and back because I was already on a limited schedule.

I've used it while soloing or while taking friends through dungeon instances.

I've saved a heck of a lot of money and time just by having that nifty little thing in my inventory for emergencies.

And, I've made sure to get it on every one of my toons as they go through Outland.

Do YOU have your Everlasting Underspore Frond?

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Magtheridon?s Lair - Raiding Magtheridon

Yay! Another raid video I finally finished and uploaded.

Here's one where we're downing Magtheridon and I'm on my Frost Mage, with cube-clicking duties.

I love it when I get assigned something to do, other'n buff!

WoWGrrl's videos on WeGame.com

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Why PUG?

Pick Up Groups are the name given to parties that form without a previous agreed-upon roster or schedule, in order to take on content that can't be handled solo at that level.

I've written a lot about them here in my blog, because over the years of playing, I've come to recognize the high value of them for any player who likes to experience the depth of the game in all of its aspects, and the social value that PUGging has given me when it comes to holding my own with new friends I make while playing the game.

Why PUG?

Lots of answers spring to mind, but some of the main ones for me, are this:

Why I PUG:

I like the concentrated encounters that dungeon runs offer (versus questing) - less running around, more playing
I like the quietness of a small guild of introverts for my general hangout - that chat window isn't big enough to have real conversations going on very often
My friends aren't always available for what I want to do, or there aren't enough of us
I like my toons and love to practice all of their skills. Playing with different classes in a familiar encounter adds spice
As I PUG, I meet other players who are solid in skill and attitude and we become friends, and I begin to meet their friends
As my experience in PUGs grow, I'm invited to other parties with people I know play well more - and good players tend to gather together.
As a writer, PUGs also inspire me in compiling educational information for those who, like me, have a competitive edge to do well in whatever they do, even if they don't have raiding aspirations :)

Why I Want My Friends To PUG

So that when you decide to join in on a dungeon run I advertise on chat in the Outland (or at level 70), you're not making all of the cardinal sins that PUG-experienced players learned while PUGging in Azeroth. I don't want to have to say %26#8220;dude, you stink%26#8221;.
So you have a basic clue of what you need to do to handle heroics and I don't have to ask you each time whether you're heroics geared when you say you'd like to come along
I want friends who will invite me into their dungeon group, without any type of reliance on me to help fill out the rest of the group.
I want to share experiences with my friends, as it's much more fun that way - as long as it's not my friend who is committing cardinal dungeon party sins out of lack of experience (and thus looking like they're way younger than they are)

Now, that having been said, let me say this as well:

My Hunter was my first one up, and she really didn't do a LOT of PUGs. I did some, and killed a lot of people until I figured out how to control my pet and use it as a tank, and negotiate tight areas with difficulty getting Ranged to be able to sling arrows.

When I hit Outland the day of the expansion release, I didn't PUG at ALL with that toon, just did quests until I hit 70. I still rarely PUG with her as my Mage came up and that's where I got comfortable with PUGging and my role in it.

My second and subsequent toons have all PUGged a lot. In fact, my Healing Priest who just hit 69 in her second run of Shadow Labs, has been PUGging since level 38 almost exclusively for experience and leveling (52-58 I gave up, went Shadow and ground my way to Outland then went back holy and back into LFG). The toons lower than her are also on the same trek, with a few more traded run-throughs with friends added in there.

So, I understand getting familiar with the game, making a few friends and doing quests with another person or two, and only having larger parties on rare occasions to take down some group quest outside an instance... but once someone has any aspiration to get some gear from dungeons or experience the whole dungeon thing, I think PUGging is important and a respectful way to show your friends you want to do your part to be a solid contributor in the group.

So, maybe you don't PUG with this main toon for a bit, maybe you PUG with a lowbie where others are just as inexperienced as you. The skills transfer to your higher level toon as many are basic dungeon etiquette and dungeon processes more than class skills.

And of course, if you're on a 14.4k modem or simply don't have the time to even consider dungeon instances, no need to PUG.

But please, when I ask if any DPS wants to join in on a run that's forming in the Outland (Azeroth is way more forgiving and quite okay - it's where everyone is still learning the ropes), don't decide that now is the day you're going to %26#8220;try dungeons%26#8221;. Jumping in to the deep end will be stressful for both of us ;)

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Healing Priest hits 70, Puts On 7 Epics, Buys Epic Flyer

And puts on 4 PvP purples and the full 3-piece Primal Mooncloth set.

Ding! Level 70.

I hit 70 while running a Shadow Labs run, and I put on my 70 gear right then, because I had brought it along. After we got all the way through Slabs and downed all the bosses, I hearthed to Shattrath City and then flew to Shadowmoon Valley to train regular and epic flying and buy my mount.

A new friend I had been PUGging with on our way up to 70 over the past few weeks met me there and cheered as I took a picture of myself beside the epic mount training dude, and cheered again when I mounted the first time. Thanks E! That was a fun thing to share!

You can see some other pictures I took around this time - of my stats just before dinging and my stats just after I dinged and put on all my new gear - on Facebook. You shouldn't have to log in to see these but let me know if there's a problem:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=35439%26#38;l=b5fe2%26#38;id=686248734

Friends me if you're on there ;)

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Zul?Aman Raid Video: Akil?zon the Eagle Avatar

Another raid video processed and posted, and added to my Frost Mage's raiding resume.

If you're playing in the realm of Zul'jin and need some solid DPS/CC to round out occasional raids, give me a shout, or leave me a note!

WeGame.com - WoW Videos

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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PTR patch notes, 2.4.3

I have no idea if this is going live today, but the PTR pages are still active which makes me think perhaps it's not this week (don't they shut down the PTR pages before patches go live?)

But here's the deal:

View patch notes in

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.3

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

General

Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
Parry Rating, Defense Rating, and Block Rating: Low level players will now convert these ratings into their corresponding defensive stats at the same rate as level 34 players.
Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World’s End Tavern!
Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
Blood Elf flightmasters outside of Silvermoon City and Tranquillien have traded in their bats for glorious fire-breathing dragonhawks.
Alcohol cooldowns have been rolled into Drinks: All 10-second cooldowns have been removed and replaced with the 1-second Drink cooldown.
Numerous flying non-combat pets have had their flight height modified to no longer skim along the ground: captured firefly, dragonhawk hatchlings, moths, owls, parrots, phoenix hatchling, spirit of summer, sprite darter, tiny sporebat.
Nether Ray Fry (a non-combat pet) is now available from the Skyguard Quartermaster. This requires an Exalted reputation with Sha’tari Skyguard.

Druids

Barkskin:The cost of this spell is now reduced by Tree of Life Form.

Hunters

Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet’s Growl.
Pet Aggro: Pets will no longer generate threat immediately from being summoned.
Scare Beast: This spell will now be limited correctly to one target.

Paladins

Greater Blessing of Light Rank 1: This spell will no longer overwrite Greater Blessing of Light Rank 2.
Summon Warhorse is now available at level 30.

Priests

Mind Vision: This effect will now be cancelled immediately on targets who use an Invisibility Potion or Gnomish Cloaking Device.
Spiritual Healing: Ranks 2-5 of this talent will no longer prevent refreshing Prayer of Mending.

Rogues

Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.

Shaman

Earth Elemental: This pet will now leash back to its totem when pulled beyond 50 yards away.
Lightning Overload: This talent will no longer do excessive damage when used with Lightning Bolt Ranks 2-10.

Warlocks

Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.
Demonic Sacrifice: This ability will now interact correctly with the Spirit Guide resurrection system in battlegrounds. A sacrificed pet will not be resummoned on death, and will not prevent keeping a record of the most recently created pet.
Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.

Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.

Warrior

Revenge: Ranks 1-5 of this ability now have damage ranges instead of fixed damage values (like ranks 6-8.)

Professions

Alchemy

Philosopher’s Stone now requires 200 Alchemy.

Cooking

Juicy Bear Burgers now correctly increase healing as well as spell damage.

Jewelcrafting

Activated beneficial effects from jewelcrafting trinkets can no longer be dispelled.

Mining

Green quality gems can be found in mining nodes again. The drop rate of blue gems from mining nodes remains unchanged.

Tailoring

Removed the cooldown from regular Mooncloth.
Herb bags can now hold Un’goro Soil and Evergreen Pouches.
Mycah of Sporeggar has discovered how to create 28 slot herb bags.
New Tailoring patterns are available from Haughty Modiste in Steamwheedle Port, Tanaris: Haliscan Jacket and Haliscan Pantaloons.

Quests

Bhag’thera now spawns at a normal quest spawn rate.
For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, phased characters will not be able to see non-phased character AoE effects and vice-versa.
For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, pets gaining/losing phase status will now properly break off combat from unphased/phased opponents.

Dungeons and Raids

Magister’s Terrace

The Stun component to the Sunblade Mage Guard Glaive Throw has been removed and the Bounce range reduced.
Vexallus and Kael’thas are now tauntable in Heroic mode.
Vexalus’ damage caused by Pure Energy has been decreased.
Kael’thas’ Arcane Sphere has had its visual size increased. His Arcane Sphere attack has had its range decreased and the damage/second of Phase two on Normal mode has been decreased. (Heroic mode remains unchanged.)
Sunblade Warlocks have had their damage reduced slightly.
Fel Crystals in the Selin Fireheart encounter have had their health reduced slightly.
Warlord Salaris and Kagani Nightstrike have had their damage output reduced slightly.

Sunwell Plateau

Creatures in the area around Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash will no longer spawn while the twins are in combat.
Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil’jaeden’s Shield Orb Shadow Bolts.

Items

Bow of the Verdant Keeper’s Aim: This item’s triggered effect no longer breaks the effect of Scatter Shot.
Brutal Gladiator’s Pummeler has had its Stamina value increased to the appropriate value.

Clockwork Robot Bots fight amongst themselves again...without attacking people in the arena. Well... they’ll blow up other Bots in the arena, but you know what we mean.
The Eredar Twins will now award the same items regardless of which order they are killed in.

Invisibility Potions: These potions now are on the same cooldown as other combat consumable potions (such as mana potions.)
Pendant of the Violet Eye: This item will again work correctly with Holy Light and Flash of Light.

Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen: The triggered effect from this Item can now occur on periodic damage ticks.
Thori’dal, the Star’s Fury is now Unique as intended.
Vengeful Gladiator’s Baton of Light: This item now appears in the correct position on the vendor list.

User Interface

The help interface has been simplified dramatically. Players will no longer be required to select a category when opening a GM ticket. In addition, players can use the “Talk to a GM” button to fill out a ticket that requires a GM response or the “Report Issue” button to fill out a ticket that does not require a GM response.
Target buff/debuff timers that appear when you cast a spell are now more visible.
Time Management features have been implemented! These features include an alarm clock, stopwatch, and viewing your computer’s local time.
The new stopwatch feature can be accessed via the /stopwatch, /sw, or /timer slash commands. Inputing a time into the slash command will make the stopwatch count down. For example, /stopwatch 1:0:0 will make the stopwatch count down from an hur, /stopwatch 1:30 will make it count down from 1 minute, 30 seconds, and /stopwatch 30 will make it count down from 30 seconds.
For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI %26#38; Macros Forum.

World Environment

Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs may now drop Thick Yeti Fur.
Skinning any Winterspring Ice Thistle yetis may now result in Thick Yeti Fur.
Increased the drop rate of Pristine Yeti Horns from Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs.
Goblin Weather Machine- Prototype 01-B weather changes will no longer force the affected character to stand.
Collector’s Edition Pet Redemption NPCs/items/quests have been relocated/modified to/for towns with mailboxes (Goldshire, Razor Hill, etc.).
Young Sporebats and Greater Sporebats in Zangarmarsh now drop Sporebat Eyes for the quest Gathering the Reagents.
Blacksmithing Supplies vendor and repairer, Blazzle, in Area 52 is now next to the forge and anvil outside the inn.
Banker Meeda, in Area 52 is now in the...well...the bank, along with a guild vault and guards. The other three Area 52 bankers are still located in the auction-house-turned-bank.
Wastewander Bandits and Rogues should be more plentiful in the northern parts of Tanaris.

Bug Fixes

The mage spell, Counterspell now shows in the combat log.
Gan’arg Analyzers will no longer occasionally become friendly to players.
Talented abilities that cost a percentage of base mana will no longer display an incorrect mana cost when inspected by a player of a different class or level.
Guild leaders should now be able to properly promote a new guild leader regardless of their range.
Druids: Mangle will no longer incorrectly indicate a 100 yard range on the tooltip.
Hunters: Using an instant ability after Steady Shot will no longer lock out auto shot.
Hunter Snake Trap will no longer break players out of stealth if the snakes pass near the stealthed character.
Hunters: Concussive shot will now propelry have a chance to proc Bow of Searing Arrows.
Rogues: The talent Heightened Senses, Rank 1 and Rank 2 will now affect attacks from wands.
Using Jewelcrafting figurines will no longer cause scrolling combat text to appear twice.
Fixed an issue in which shadows were not appearing properly for users with GF4 video chipsets in Open GL mode.
Corrected an issue in which users with Creative X-FI sound cards would sometimes here a slight popping noise when running.
Players will now correctly receive a Battleground Mark message for the marks that are received at the end of a battle.
Corrected an issue where the initial trigger or activation sounds for Immolation Trap and Explosive Trap could not be heard by some players.
Smelt Hardened Khorium will now properly require a forge instead of an anvil and hammer.
Corrected a typo in the tooltip for the Druid spell Rip (Rank 4).
Looting a Nightmare Vine will now properly no longer apply poison when the node is looted.
The Figurine- Seaspray Albatross ability will now properly restore the correct amount of mana.
First Aid bandages can no longer be applied to a player with the Recently Bandaged debuff. An error message of, %26#8220;Could not activate more than one bandage%26#8221; will be displayed.
Corrected the tooltips to read properly for the flight paths from The Stormspire, Toshley’s Station, Blade’s Edge, and Area 52.
Greater Elementals summoned by a shaman will now properly have a combat log entry.
Players will no longer become stuck on the Nimboya’s Laden Pike when driving it into the ground.
The quest, %26#8220;Going Going, Guano!%26#8221; will now have a more consistent level requirement for the dungeon.
The quest, %26#8220;Into The Scarlet Monastery%26#8221; is now available to players of the appropriate level for the instance.
Blueleaf Tubers can now be properly looted.
The quest turn-ins for the Ahn’Qiraj war effort now give the appropriate amount of credit for each successful quest turn-in.
Cloak of Shadows will now properly remove Shrink.
Nightbane will no longer become unresponsive during his air phase.
Several items sold by the Consortium reputation vendor Paulsta’ats are now bind on pick-up: Formula: Enchant Weapon- Major Striking, Design: Delicate Blood Garnet, Design: Shfiting Shadow Draenite, Design: Lustrous Azure Moonstone, Design:Thick Golden Draenite.

I
t is no longer possible to delete a character that is an arena team captain without first promoting another player to captain.
Taunts will now properly stick when a target is stunned while being taunted.

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Hunters Don?t Need Salv

So, the other night, I was invited into a partial-PUG - one of my friends has brought up his second healer toon in the form of a Shaman, and has only recently hit 70 and is running regular 68+ instances for reputation and gear upgrades on his way to Heroics, and had teamed up with a PUG tank from the night before in order to head into Botanica.

Since it was a Regular and not a Heroic, when my friend invited me to come along to DPS, I switched from my Mage that I had been doing some PvP with, and logged into my Hunter, who is less geared and also isn't topped out on Sha'tar reputation.

I joined in the party, and flew from Shattrath and met my friend there and we started the Summoning process, then headed into the instance.

Right off the bat, everyone starts to buff, the Soulstone is discussed as to who should get it (SPriest got it as the Shaman can ahnk back to life if required), and we get ready to go.

Then, the Pally tank gives my Hunter her buff - Greater Blessing of Salvation.

*blink*

I ask if I could get Might instead, with my standard inquiry that also includes %26#8220;I'll feign regularly%26#8221;. Pally tank tells me no, he'll keep Salv on me because then I can %26#8220;go all out%26#8221;. I ask him if he has Omen and he doesn't respond. I say Hunters don't need Salv because they can Feign Death (which is a complete aggro wipe) every 30 seconds, and there's no response.

The first battle starts, and I see *everyone* has Omen, including the most important one on there, the tank, I took Salv off, and went without a Pally buff.

He re-applied it later on when someone else's buff wore off, and I took it off again. I think he re-buffed me a third time when he noticed the buff wasn't there a couple of minutes later, but I took it off again and I don't think it was re-applied.

Did I pull aggro? Once, with an immediate Feign (but the aggro went to the SPriest, which is why we don't like DPS pulling aggro - when dumped, it doesn't tend to go back to the tank more than another DPS or the healer). The rest of the time, I paid attention to Omen like a good little Hunter does, and practiced some of my Hunter skills by feigning death regularly, especially after dealing out my first bit of massive damage by using all of my cooldowns.

It's kind of like what I have to do on my Mage - cause a lot of hurt for a short period at the start of the fight, then use Invisibility to drop my threat to 0 and start dealing out hurt again from the lower threat position on the charts.

At any rate, In the middle of the run, I hit Revered with Sha'tar, yay!

The run itself went pretty quick and there was only one wipe, and that was mainly due to miscommunication between the tank and the rest of the party when the tank decided to handle High Botanist Freywinn differently than the standard %26#8220;line of sight%26#8221; technique that myself and my friend were familiar with, and instead wanted AOE when the Lashers come out and Freywinn starts his channelling of Tranquility. Unfortunately, the SPriest and Warlock in our group hadn't ever been in this instance before and therefore the Warlock didn't know %26#8220;when%26#8221; to AOE.

I think our tank nearly had a stroke he was freaking out so much on the Warlock... but once the fight was explained a little better to the people who had never seen it, the next attempt went much smoother, still using the AOE-down-the-Lashers technique instead of the regular Line of Sight one that many other tanks use.

The tank still, however, felt extreme frustration that he channelled towards the boss as Freywinn lay dead on the ground... said something that labelled him %26#8220;young%26#8221; in my book, using the %26#8220;C%26#8221; word in his profanities. I thought about saying %26#8220;mixed company, not appreciated%26#8221; but instead I just marked him in my Karma tracking addon as an A-type personality tank (ie: one who knows a lot and runs quickly but freaks out on group members and says inappropriate things that don't endear one to others).

That's not to say I wouldn't run with him again, but I would at least be able to warn my friends that while the run will be sucessful and fast, he'll probably be quite a bit of a jerk during the process.

We finished with no further mishaps after that first wipe, and since I'm an Enchanter, there were three Large Prismatic Shards to divvy out at the end, after a couple of people got some nice blues as upgrades.

The tank asked if we'd like to run it again, only %26#8220;this time without bothering with marks%26#8221;, but I'm pretty sure all of us declined, as it was 1-2 in the morning depending on where we all were, and I know I was pretty tired.

When I headed back to Shattrath, I hit the Quartermaster for the Sha'tar to see what might be waiting for me now that I was Revered in reputation - and I got a great one that I can use on my Healing Priest's weapon - Formula: Enchant Weapon - Major Healing - rock on!

I like being able to enchant myself :)

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Mount Hyjal, Rage Winterchill

I'm still just catching up with posting old videos that I had partially processed when I visited my family last time and was stuck on 56k or without Internet entirely when their %26#8220;out in the boonies%26#8221; phone service was out due to a downed line that had to be fixed.

I've got a set of 10 videos coming out that aren't raid videos - when you hear me talking on the video, you know that's one of the 10 I was talking about working on a week back. The series that is upcoming will talk about Vendor goods that can be bought and resold for nice profits in the Auction House, but for now, you get my raid video... :)

WoWGrrl's WoW Videos at WeGame

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Doom Lord Kazzak Shouts, Hellfire Peninsula

I don't know if it's the same on your realm, but on our realm, there are always bored folks hanging around the Throne of Kil'jaeden in Hellfire Peninsula, taunting Doom Lord Kazzak from where he stands up there.

He shouts about how %26#8220;All Mortals Will Perish%26#8221;, and how %26#8220;The Legion will conquer all!%26#8221;. One of my favorites is %26#8220;Contemptible wretch!%26#8221;, but you know he's not only been aggro'd and taunted, but actually killed a player when he says %26#8220;The universe will be remade.%26#8221;

But the other day while I was running a Heroic Ramparts on my Healer when things went awry and we wiped. On our run back from the graveyard (oh how I love it that in Heroic PUGs, 90% of the time nobody has to be reminded that if the rezzer runs, everyone runs - everyone just releases and runs back), Doom Lord Kazzak shouted something I had never heard before, nor had my teammates:

$Here\'s what Doom Lord Kazzak says when he wakes up after a dirtnap...$

I looked it up this morning on WoWWiki, and found that this is Doom Lord Kazzak's spawning shout.

Looks like he took a dirt nap and woke up a little reminiscent of the past ;)

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Soloing Hellfire Quests As Holy Priest

My Healing Priest really hasn't done much in the way of quests all through her healzorz life.

I started healing full-time for PUGs of complete strangers at about level 35 after having traded run after run with various friends of mine to get her up to that point while she was a toon that I didn't focus on very often and mainly only played to burn off rest bonus here and there.

PUGging worked great (especially those late-night ones) all through the 30s and 40s, but once I got to the point where Blackrock Depths was the main instance to run through, things slowed way down, and I finally bit the bullet, went shadow for a while, and ground my way from 52 to 58.

Once I hit level 58, I re-spec'd back to Holy/Disc and started healing Ramparts and Blood Furnace runs in Hellfire Peninsula. I didn't touch a single quest in that zone (not even dungeon quests) until after I had reached 5999/6000 Friendly with them, and then a quest-turn in from a drop in Ramparts brought me over the boundary to Honored.

After I finished getting to Honored with Thrallmar, I was ready to hop into the Coilfang Reservoir instances, and then into Auchindoun, and up and up from there.

I lived in instances throughout my 60s and, once I hit 65 and started planning for my level 70 gear, in the PvP battlegrounds as well.

Why Holy/Disc Priests Are Generally Poor Solo'ers

I'm sure it's no surprise, but a character like a healing priest with very few points in the Shadow tree aren't anywhere near as uber as most other characters in the game when it comes to questing and in particular, solo questing.

$What great fun, fly in, land close, nuke \'em down.$ We wear tissue paper for clothing, we have very few offensive spells, and our bars are all set up for healing if we're dungeon priests.

But of course, there's a limit to that cry of %26#8220;Healing Priests can't solo!%26#8221;, because at some point of gearing, no matter what your +heal gets to, you've still got pretty decent +damage stats as well, especially if you're looking to solo quests a few levels below you.

At 1600 +heals, I also have over +600 damage in the same gear, which is way more than most Shadow Priests have until they get into the level 70 gear themselves.

Soloing Hellfire Quests For Reputation Gain

Reputation gain and quest rewards are two reasons for a level 70 player to go back to the quests they skipped in various zones while they did the Dungeon Scene - the rings and trinkets and other rewards can help fill out off-sets or holes in primary sets quite nicely.

And of course, if you want maximum reputation gain in Outland, you save the quests for after you've maxed out what the lower-level regular-mode dungeons will give you...

So, here I am, grinding through Thrallmar and Spinebreaker Post and Zeppelin Crash Site quests by myself, having a grand old time with my limited arsenal of offensive spells, and smiling wordlessly to myself as I quickly gain reputation that others around me seem too fearful to try to get because they're (not a Paladin) and either Holy or Protection spec'd.

Heck, in Hellfire I can easily take on 3 mobs at a time, and I'm sure there are some Holy/Disc priests of my exact same spec who can do a lot

Why Do Them As Holy? Why Not Shadow?

Simply put, I like to be non-standard, and I like to prove that it's possible to do things in a non-standard way and still be successful with it.

Plus, I hope that some of you Priesties out there who are a ilttle afraid of trying to solo some quests on your own will be inspired and get further ahead individually as a result.

I'll let you know when the zone quests start to get too hard for my Holy/Disc healer!

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Hello To Shrimproll Pumpkin Head

My apologies to the Crash Test Dummies for rewording a line from their song about Peter Pumpkin Head, but it is fitting.

Pumpkin Head Fits Over Helmets and Hats!

I got a small stack of Weighted Jack-O'-Lantern during last year's Hallow's End festivities and kept a hold of most of them with the thought that I might sell them later in the season when they'd sell for stupid prices in the Auction House...

But they're too much fun, so I think I'll keep them for myself and my friends, and we can all be Punkin Heads.

$Here\'s what you\'d look like if you were a Punkin head!$

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Getting A Key for Upper Blackrock Spire - UBRS

I decided to try to get the Darkmoon deck %26#8220;of Beasts%26#8221; for my Priest Healer, in order to turn it into the trinket.

So, just after the Darkmoon Faire left Shattrath, I went to the Auction House. Over the course of a few days, thanks to the addons that I use to determine Market Prices, I looked up %26#8220;of Beasts%26#8221; and bought out Two of Beasts clear through to Eight of Beasts at significantly reduced rate from the average Market Value.

Then I looked up on Thottbot where Ace of Beasts dropped, and confirmed it over on WoWHead.com - Upper Blackrock Spire, from a mob called %26#8220;The Beast%26#8221;.

That's the only place in the game it's been recorded to drop. Oh joy.

I could imagine that if it ever DOES show up on the AH (and that wouldn't be very often), it would be very very very expensive, so I decided to turn to one of my friends who knows LBRS and UBRS quite well, and see if I could call on a favor to first get keyed for UBRS, then go through with the key to find the route to The Beast.

It turned out that my friend had a 57 Rogue he was working on advancing, and his wife was working on her 51 Paladin, so I took my 70 Mage and a 70 Druid healer friend along, and the four of us went into Lower Blackrock Spire to traverse through its mazes in order to kill the bosses that dropped the various gems that fed into the Seal of Ascention for forging the key.

LBRS With A 51

Yes, it's possible. But it's a lot slower than if everyone were 56+ because you'll have to clear a lot more packs of mobs for fear of the 51 aggro'ing them from across the room. Fortunately, if you've got a good player on that little 51, they'll learn from their %26#8220;oops got too close%26#8221; mistakes and there won't be a lot of deaths. And we had a good player on that 51.

We did wipe once - Pally didn't wait for us to clear a little bit when we all took a shortcut and jumped down at one point (I think she pulled the whole floor), but when we got back from that long-ass run from Thorium Point (no Warlock, no SS), she let us clear more and there weren't any other deaths after that.

But it WAS slow-moving because we couldn't just sneak past mobs that we could if we were all level 70. That's okay tho, since I considered it a price paid for having a guide who knew exactly where to go in order to get done what I wanted to get done.

Starting The Quest For The UBRS Key (Seal of Ascention)

Bring your Seal of Ascention and 3 Gems Here! Once three LBRS bosses have been killed and the Gems have been collected and a Seal of Ascention has been picked up from one of the trash mobs along the way (and the Seal of Ascention can be traded from another player if you didn't get one yet and someone else did), it's time to turn in the quest and get the next stage for Forging those components together.

Fortunately, you don't need a quest to start collecting the Gem and Seal of Ascention, so you can pick up and turn in this first stage at the same time.

Also, the game has even been altered so the Gems drop every time the boss is killed, instead of being a % chance drop like it used to be. If you can get everyone in your party to agree to pass the Gems to you, you can get the UBRS key components in one run, which used to not be the case.

Forging The UBRS Key

Once you've got the Unforged Seal of Ascention, it's time to head out of Blackrock Mountain and head to Dustwallow Marsh where, in a deep cave, a Dragon by the name of Emberstrife is hanging out.

Emberstrife is only a 61 Elite, but since he's a Dragon, he's extra-tough for a 61 Elite. An because of what you must do in order to complete the quest, he's even tougher!

You see, if it were just a matter of blasting him down, I proved I was able to do that the first time I ran across him - I hadn't actually READ the quest to see that I was supposed to do other things, and was semi-expecting that the key forging would be like for Shattered Halls where the Fel Reaver is killed and you cook the unforged key on his remains.

But no... for Emberstrife, you're supposed to slap down the Unforged Key of Ascention on the ground, and then when Emberstrife %26#8220;faulters%26#8221; at some 15-20% life, you're supposed to Mind Control him with another item you're given for the quest, and then get him to %26#8220;blow%26#8221; on the unforged key of ascention in order to forge it. Then you stop mind-controlling him and blast him down the rest of the way.

Get your Unforged Seal of Ascention forged! After four tries to get the timing right, failing the MC once because my Water Elemental was out, a second time because I MC'd before putting the Unforged Seal down, and dying each time I didn't just straight blast down the Dragon, I got a hold of a healer friend and had her come along with me to help make sure I stayed alive long enough to get the job done.

Thank goodness for friends :)

Bug When Turning In The Forged Seal of Ascention

One thing I hate about old-world stuff is that there are stupid known bugs and it looks like they'll never, ever get fixed... because it's the %26#8220;Classic%26#8221; version of the game and they've got enough bugs to worry about in the more-frequented places of the current expansion.

One such bug exists here, and after looking it up through the comment discussions in Thottbot, it took me an hour longer to turn in the quest to complete the UBRS key than it should have:

When you turn in your Seal of Ascention and 3 gems, the quest guy takes away the items and gives you the Unforged Seal. Unfortunately, it's only the Seal of Ascention that wakes up this quest guy to even offer a quest... or a turn-in.

So, when you were running LBRS with 4 friends, it generally happened that one person in the group had a Seal of Ascention on them when you'd approach the quest giver (who had a red name like an enemy until you got closer with the Seal), and having that Seal would trigger the quest guy to offer his quest, or offer the turn-in for the Forged Seal of Ascention stage.

But, if you are alone in there, you have to have a Seal of Ascention YOURSELF in order to turn in your Forged Seal. But the Quest guy took away your Seal of Ascention along with the gems, so you don't have one.

And the drop rate of the Seal of Ascention has been cut WAY down - I farmed UBRS trash packs for an hour before another friend logged in with the Seal, and then just before I broke down and asked him to fly all the way to Badlands and make his way to Blackrock Mountain, the Seal dropped for me and I was able to go turn it in.

The Key To UBRS ... Is Not A Key??

When I turned in the quest and got the so-called %26#8220;key%26#8221; to UBRS, I was disappointed to see that it's NOT actually a key - it's a ring! It doesn't go into my key ring, and it's something I'll have to pay attention to so I don't sell or toss.

WTB a key ring that holds ALL manners of keys, even if Blizzard decided to put them into a different form!

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How Geared Is Geared Enough; Levelling The Lowbies

I've now got 3 level 70 toons that I can take to various levels of Heroics and Raids, but really don't have much %26#8220;drive%26#8221; to gear them up a lot more than they are.

I mean, I still earn badges and spend them on new pieces of gear when that comes up, or, more recently, spend the badges on upgrading gems on my Mage and Priest's epics, but I'm not actively hunting out new gear for these toons because as it stands, I can go almost anywhere in the game on one toon or another, and I have no aspiration to become a hard-core raider.

I've been into Sunwell in one of those %26#8220;Trash Farming PUGs%26#8221; that I see advertised (especially since they're screaming for Mages and say %26#8220;if you can sheep, that's good enough for us%26#8221;), but haven't gone back because I don't see a point in spending thousands of gold on a single piece of gear that gives a rather marginal upgrade to what I already have.

I've never been a buyer of epic gear in the Auction House either - I would rather gather the mats myself (at times leveraging my ability to make money elsewhere to shorten the gathering by buying some mats from the AH) and tip someone nicely for crafting something for me, if I can't craft it myself with my own professions.

Plus, in terms of Sunwell, farming those same 7-8 guys over and over and running out of the dungeon in between was novel at first, but boring very quickly. Farming in general is something I have low-tolerance for... 10-15 minutes at a time and I'm bored stiff, so I'd prefer other methods of getting new gear.

Nevermind the high-epeen-measuring, whiny players that the Sunwell PUG attracted when I was there... Maybe it was just a bad mix, but the run I was in had far too many people preening about who was the best damage-dealer, and when loot dropped, whiny players complaining that other people bid up %26#8220;their%26#8221; item to unrealistic values.

It's a PUG, not a guild run, not a run with friends... (why do some people expect PUGs to behave like lifelong friends?)

Back To Levelling The Lowbies

So, while I run some Heroics and occasional raids on all 3 of my 70s, I've turned to my Lowbies a lot more in order to get them up to a decent level before WoTLK comes out.

As mentioned before, I don't quest with my lowbies anymore - I park them in an Inn and let them rest up, and I do dungeon PUGs or (occasionally) trade runs with friends who also have lowbies to level.

I've updated the sidebar with my new lowbie toons - but they're not all that new. They just didn't get much love before recently and therefore weren't mentioned as part of the %26#8220;family%26#8221;.

But now that I've started truly advancing them again and learning how to play them in their dungeon PUG roles, I put them on the list, and started doing the standard upgrades I do on all my lowbie toons:

- Fill all inventory bags with 16 slot bags

- Fill all bank slots with 16 slot bags

- Pick up professions bags if required, for better storage in the bank

- Configure my inventory restocking addon so they never run out of water and reagents

- Level up First Aid

- Level up Cooking

Why Level Up Cooking?

I'd imagine that to most players with alts, all but the last one makes sense - I mean, if you've already got a toon that can cook, why get more?

My answer is simple - I like to have well-rounded characters, and Cooking is something I can powerlevel by watching the Auction House for good deals, storing the meats I know I'll need at a higher level of advancement, and using them when required.

Plus, as a secondary - the level 70 cooking quest gives way more materials than it requires to complete it, and is an easy quest to complete every day, so I think having a bunch of toons that can gather buff foods with a minimal of effort isn't a bad idea either!

Why Not Fishing?

Because All my 70s have fishing over 300, and it's not an easy profession to powerlevel.

I'm still advancing Fishing on my Priest, so if I need fish (Raw Sagefish takes you through a difficult levelling time, for example, and is close to Tarren Mills and plentiful) I fish on her. The Hunter and Mage are already locked at 375 and can fish out The Lurker Below without any troubles ;)

Plus, the Daily Fishing quest at 70 doesn't award many useful things. At least not for the amount of fishing one needs to do to get to 375.

Finally, Why More Lowbies?

I'm looking forward to the release of the new Expansion pack, to have more levels for my Priest, Mage and Hunter to progress through and explore and PUG in... but I want to also watch the progression of the new Death Knight class without actually becoming a Death Knight of my own when there are a billion running around.

I figure there'll be a lot of need for other classes, especially in the dungeon PUGs... so I'm bringing up a new generation of toons that will be able to watch things first-hand.

Plus, I'm finally taking on the role of a Tank, by using my Paladin, and that's turning out to be more fun than I had originally thought it would be.

I'm sure I'll be writing more about my Lowbie PUGging adventures and skill-learnings in the future!

(and of course, I'll be continuing to amass cash so when they hit 30, 60 and 70 they get the fastest mounts available, immediately!)

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How To Become Champion Of The Naaru

$This title won\'t be available once WoTLK comes out, so get it now!$

Champion of the Naaru is a special title that is given to players who have completed a couple of Quest chains to result in attunement for The Eye in Tempest Keep and for Serpentshrine Cavern in Coilfang Reservior.

The actual NEED for attunement to enter these 25-man instances was lifted as of Patch 2.1.2 which was quite a while ago, but as of Patch 2.3.0, the title was introduced as a way to allow people to discern themselves from others who had not completed the quest chains.

So, basically, right now it's just a social marker - something to label you as someone who did something specific, whether or not you did it BEFORE attunements were lifted or not.

I started this quest chain when I was in my brief stint in a raiding guild, but by the time I left, I still needed to finish three more quests to complete it all - two heroics, then downing Magtheridon.

I didn't put any real efforts towards getting the right heroics done until I heard someone mention that the Champion of the Naaru title won't be available once WoTLK releases, in order to prevent players from getting the title on EZ-mode with the new Northrend gear and levels.

What? Something That Won't Be Available Later??

Okay, fine, I figured... I'll get it on my Mage, since he's already very close to achieving it.

Starting The Quest Chains

In order to get the title, a player has to complete the attunement chain quests for Serpentshrine Cavern and The Eye in Tempest Keep.

$Here\'s the rewards I got for killing Mags as the final step of the Trial of the Naaru quest chains.$

The SSC quest you can pick up at any time by heading into the Heroic version of Slave Pens and progressing partway through it towards the first boss. Once you've got the quest, you need to venture into Karazhan for Nightbane, and Gruul's Lair for Gruul himself to pick up the items, and then return to Heroic Slave Pens to turn it in.

The TK quest chain, however, requires a pre-requisite quest chain to be completed: The Hand of Gul'dan in Shadowmoon Valley. This quest chain is the longest part of the process, and has a few group quests (Cipher of Damnation) that one level 70 will not be able to solo, so round up your buddies or listen in on the General line in SMV to get in on parties forming for it when you hit them.

For the Shadowmoon Valley quest chain, there's two of those types just about back-to-back (one solo in between) to make it easier to find a group for the second - turn in and stay with the group you're with after you complete The Cipher of Damnation - Borak's Charge so you can work together to complete the final step of [70 G5] The Cipher of Damnation.

Once You've Got It, How To Show It!

I got mine after turning in the Trial of the Naaru final step of killing Magtheridon. I had already long killed Nightbane and Gruul and finished that series.

The process of showing your new title is easy - open up your Character Sheet and select the new title from the drop-down:

Show it off, be proud!

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Chess Event, Karazhan, video how-to and tips

The Chess Event in Karazhan is one of the easiest %26#8220;fights%26#8221; in the game. Certainly, it takes no mana, no health, no tanking, no healing, and no watching of threat.

The object of the game is to take down Medivh's King, before he takes down ours.

Here's a video from a recent PUG I was invited into, with tips and tricks in case you're new to the fight or haven't seen it yourself.

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Morogrim Tidewalker in Serpentshrine Cavern, Raid Video

Shot from the perspective of a Frost Mage, this is a video about one of the many fun bosses in Serpentshrine Cavern, designed for a 25-person raid team.

Morogrim Tidewalker is a giant like those found off the shore of Ferelas, patrolling the sea. He's got murlocs at his command, and it's time for him, and them, to die!

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There’s Epic, and then there’s EPIC Joining a TK run

Now that folks have been in level 70 End Game for so long, and a billion guilds are doing Kara and beyond, and many people have more than one toon epic'd out... I'm noticing there's this big gap between %26#8220;epic%26#8221; and %26#8220;EPIC%26#8221;.

I've gone into Kara and SSC PUGs (SSC was a guild who picked up a few PUGgers to fill out numbers for the night, so not a true %26#8220;PUG%26#8221; by my standards) with my mage where very few people topped 800-900 DPS, despite being geared predominantly in purples (1-3 blues left, no greens). In those PUGs I sit on top of the damage and DPS meters, being able to maintain 900-1200 DPS over the course of a raid, depending on how many AOE fights there are.

Then yesterday afternoon, a well-known raiding guild on my server headed into Tempest Keep - The Eye, and I just happened to be in the city when the Guildmaster and Raid Leader did a call-out for 2 DPS to fill their raid. I had a few hours I could burn, so I whispered in response, and got an invite.

Going To TK As A Guild Outsider

The raid was mostly formed, and when I joined their Vent server (which worked with my Mac, oh joy), most people were already in vent.

I hearthed to Netherstorm and made my way to the stone, and then announced to the raid chat that I was going to disconnect for a moment to check addons.

While I was reloading the game, I offered my Magely services on the vent line - saying that even though there were 3 other Mages in the raid, if they wanted to give me a buffing or sheeping assignment I was all for it, just let me know.

Just as I finished checking over my Addons and was about to re-login, someone asked on Vent whether anyone had an offline timer on my character. I spoke up to let them know I was still there (as did the raid leader), but it did make me smile to know that they pay attention and take action on people who d/c from a raid. It's a pain in the ass to everyone else to have teammates missing, so I appreciate the sentiment even though it was aimed at me.

When I got back online, about half of the raid was already in TK. Nobody was yelling out for summons (another plus), and only one had to be summoned once we were in the instance, save for a few toon swap-outs for the different boss fights we faced. Swap-outs were done efficiently and quickly.

Vent was mostly quiet, and the voices that spoke on it were calm and relaxed.

And It Begins...

Marks went up, assignments went out. Four Mages, so I was the only one not assigned a Polymorph marker. Fine with me since it's been a while since I was in TK, and the guild I was in with before only downed Loot Reaver (before it was broken and then fixed) and Solarian a couple of times when I was there. (I'm sure they've progressed now, but I left back in May).

And as it turns out, I needed all the time to concentrate on DPSing that I had available, just in order to try to keep up a LITTLE bit and not look like some %26#8220;noob%26#8221; off the street they picked up and dusted off!

With my 900-1200 DPS output in various fights, I was generally hovering around 7-9 position on the charts. (to note, I was in position 2-3 of the 4 Mages) Seventh to Ninth position!! There were all sorts of people cranking out more damage than I was in that raid, and I was really impressed and inspired by the whole thing.

By The End...

By the end of the raid, we had downed Al'ar, Void Reaver, and Solarian, but didn't go after Kael because the tanks didn't have the proper resist sets, and we didn't have a proper fire-spec'd Warlock. (this is where I nod my head and say %26#8220;okay%26#8221;, because I don't know the fight specs at all)

But the raid had gone so well and nobody had to leave halfway through, nobody AFK'd during it, and everyone was still there, so we went and downed Doom Lord Kazzak in Hellfire Peninsula, and Doomwalker in Shadowmoon Valley!!

Both went down with very little problems, and it's neat to note that you get 2 heroics badges from each of those world bosses (plus a few gear drops).

Wow, that was a lot of fun (to do once in a while)! Maybe I'll watch again another afternoon to see if they need DPS or a healer to fill out raid ranks. But in the mean time, I've got some more gems to upgrade! :)

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There’s Epic, and then there’s EPIC Joining a TK run

Going To TK As A Guild Outsider

The raid was mostly formed, and when I joined their Vent server (which worked with my Mac, oh joy), most people were already in vent.

I hearthed to Netherstorm and made my way to the stone, and then announced to the raid chat that I was going to disconnect for a moment to check addons.

Vent was mostly quiet, and the voices that spoke on it were calm and relaxed.

And It Begins...

By The End...

Both went down with very little problems, and it's neat to note that you get 2 heroics badges from each of those world bosses (plus a few gear drops).

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Prince Malchezzar raid video, Karazhan, Mage perspective

Prince Malchezzar is the Demonic Presence in Karazhan that you have to kill as part of the Karazhan quest chain that starts outside the instance.

It's one of the fights where the randomness of where the firey Infernals drop that can determine whether Prince goes down or the raid wipes - even if you're in a really well-geared group.

Here's an example of an extremely close call. We got him, but can you guess how many raiders were left alive at the end?

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Using be.imba.hu as a Guide to Character Advancement

With level 70s part of the problem, unless you're in a raiding guild already, is the whole question of %26#8220;what do I do now?%26#8221;. You know you need to upgrade your gear and make it better, but the question of %26#8220;Where do I start?%26#8221; comes to mind.

I've got some guildmates in my small social, non-raiding guild who are hitting 70 or recently hit 70 and are asking this question, so I thought I'd write a little about what I do, myself.

Introducing The %26#8220;Be Imba!%26#8221; Website

If you're a hard-core raider, you probably already know about this site - I learned about it back in April, but I'm still finding a lot of people who don't know about it, so I thought I'd start by sharing the information:

http://be.imba.hu

This site is a %26#8220;PvE character tuning%26#8221; site for level 70 players of World of Warcraft. If you're below level 70 you can't use this tool yet.

If you have a 70 (or know someone else who is one), go to that site and do a search on your character by filling in the basic form you'll find below the banner ad. (EU or US?, what realm? what character name?)

Then click on %26#8220;Query Report%26#8221; (for me on my Mac, hitting return in the character name field doesn't activate the search, only a click does), and give it a moment to generate your report.

If the server is overloaded, you'll need to come back at another time to check your report. Try when it's not so busy. I suggest doing it in the morning.

Once the report comes up, you can look over it and find a whole whack of interesting information about your character:

- How many %26#8220;low level%26#8221; items do you have that need upgrading?

- Are your enchants the right ones or are there better ones for your class?

- Does your spec check out for being good for PvE or PvP or quest grinding?

- Do you have enough hit or spell hit for raiding for the spec you've chosen?

- What level of instances are you geared for?

How To Use The Information To Guide Advancement

Now that you see all this information, how can you use it to improve your character?

My strategy has been simple:

1. Knock out all the %26#8220;Warnings%26#8221; about my character.

1. Use the site's linking to figure out where I need to go to get my next upgrades of various pieces of gear.

My Hunter was the last toon I looked up on Be Imba! in order to go through this upgrade process, and I went from 1467 AP and 44 ranged hit to 1800 AP and 143 ranged hit just by re-gemming and getting the various enchants that they recommended a Hunter get on the site. (my crit is still low at under 20%)

How Others Use Be.Imba

... mainly to see if you're geared.

I use it quickly to see if the Kara PUGmates I'm in a group with are geared or not geared, and same with Heroics PUGgers. It's an easy way to avoid players who say they want a %26#8220;badge run%26#8221; but aren't geared enough to properly contribute to such a quick, successful run.

So, look yourself up first and see what it's saying about you! :)

My Toons On Be.Imba

In closing I thought I'd leave a link to my toons as well. I don't think my Hunter will ever catch up to where the Priest and Mage are, but I'm pretty happy where they all stand and what I can do with each of them now :)

Frost Mage

Holy/Disc Priest

MM/SV Hunter

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The Darkmoon Faire Is Coming To Town

The Darkmoon Faire is being set up right now, in Elwynn Forest.

It'll be there for a week, starting officially on Monday and packing up after the last day of festivities on Sunday.

The Faire will be visited by a wide variety of players, myself included, even though it's way off in Alliance territory and it's quite a ride to the nearest Horde settlement.

What will I be there for?

Cheap Fel Lotus on occasion (4g ea vs the 30-45g ea in the auction house here), and for my Priest to get her Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon from the Beasts Deck I picked up in the Auction House this morning for 2000g.

Forget Farming UBRS.

Yes, I bought the deck. I figured after finding out where the Ace was located in UBRS and how I'd have to bring a few friends each time to get past certain parts of the instance to get to the guy who drops the Ace (2% of the time, so not even a high percentage drop...), I'd buy it if it came up at a reasonable price.

I've seen the Ace on its own come up for over 1500g, so when I saw the full deck for 2000g (versus the Blessing Deck for my Mage which sits at 3500g and still sits there according to me), I hopped over to a toon that has unlimited access to my guild bank funds, withdrew 2000g and bought the deck.

It's now in my Priest's mailbox, and I've sent my retired Warrior over to Goldshire to scout out the status of the Faire (even though I know it starts tomorrow). Tomorrow my Priest will venture over to the Faire ground herself and pick up this new trinket.

Incremental Improvements

That's sure to bring her over 200 on the Be Imba! %26#8220;Gear-o-meter%26#8221;, and will be a nice trinket to use clear through most of WoTLK's levelling portion at the very least, I would expect.

After these recent SSC and TK groups I've filled a spot with for a couple guilds lately, I do think about actually improving my Mage's gear again. Perhaps I'll work towards getting the Blessings Deck which turns into the Darkmoon Card: Crusade for my Mage for the next time the Faire comes to town... which I think will be closer to home, in Mulgore if I'm not mistaken.

Am I the only one that thinks these Card names were shuffled? Shouldn't Blessings be for a Priest or Paladin, while a Beast be for Melee or perhaps Hunter class?

Whatever. The trinkets are high end and give me somewhere useful to spend the gold I accumulate with my family of toons, and in the end that's what counts.

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Sunwell Trash Runs SWP trash runs video

On our realm, Sunwell Portal trash runs have been very popular and many players have gained great gear and gobs of money by going into these two hour trash-fests held by the elite raiders on the realm.

I haven't had a lot of time this summer to get into them and haven't wanted to spend thousands of gold on those particular gear upgrades, either, but I did have to see what all the fuss was about, and how the whole thing worked.

And I'm happy to have created a video so I can share it with you, too!

Watch more Blue's Videos

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Advancing The Lowbie Shaman

My lowbie Shaman just hit level 30 and got skills like Astral Recall (hearth with a 15 min cooldown) and the ability to self-ressurrect with the help of a reagent, the Ankh.

About My Shammy

Shammy is spec'd a mix of all three trees, with 5 points in speeding up my main healing cast by .5 seconds (resto) and 5 points in increasing my mana pool by up to 5% (enhancement), and the rest of the meagre points spent in elemental.

My gear is mostly cloth with a few leather pieces I could find. I'm a caster Shaman who generally goes into parties as a damage-dealer and then acts as backup heals when things get messy, and there's very few pieces of caster leather out there that I've found.

My professions are Skinning and Leatherworking on this toon, knowing that at end game Leatherworking is useful to a Mail-wearing Shaman, and also having had a profession gap there for a long time, with no Leatherworker. Shammy's at 225 Leatherworking, waiting for level 35 when she can start to advance to 300.

Shammy In Recent Days

Recently, Shammy has been peacefully resting. Having spent all my rest bonus while advancing from 26 to 29, I put her into an Inn and turned out the light, and have only checked in on her a few times.

Checking in on my toons usually means I'm making sure they're all ready for the next set of dungeon runs that will happen when they're pulled out of the Inn. Enough water? Reagents? Do I have any quests to collect?

Then, I log out again if I'm not planning to run something at that moment. When I log back in I know it's ready to go.

Upcoming Dungeoning Plans

I've already progressed through a handful of lowbie instances, and finished all of the quests in each of them. My next focus is Scarlet Monestary, and I've spent time running around gathering all of the pre-requisite quest chains and finishing them up to the point of needing to go into Scarlet Monestary to finish my quests.

This weekend I will log in and put myself into the LFG tool and find some Scarlet Monestary groups to heal or DPS for, and by the end of the weekend, with a few successful runs, I will have spent my rest bonus and Shammy will be sent to rest again for another while.

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Zul’Aman Hunter Duties

Edit: This is posted during maintenance, but was written last night :)

I'm going into Zul'Aman on my (undergeared) Hunter right now, with some well-geared guildmates.

I've only been in ZA with my Mage, but I know there's duties I have to worry about as a Hunter in order to appear semi-competent.

Here is where I write about those duties:

Misdirects:

On Nalorakk when he changes form, redirect onto the tank. I'll only be able to do this once every second time, so I'm Misdirecting onto the Warrior tank and letting the Pally tank generate his own threat to facilitate the switch-over between tanks.

On Hex when he shifts form, redirect onto the tank. Same restriction as above.

Tranquilizing shot:

On Hex when DBM says to do it (when he enrages)

Killing Assignment:

On Jan'alai, when killing theatcher going to the right when two come out, while Pally tank handles the hatcher on the left. Watch for the Pally's hatcher for when he's finished hatching the left side because he runs to the right side to hatch those ones if left alive.

Killing the hatcher going to the left when two come out, while Pally tank waits for the Hatcher to hatch the left.

And from there, don't die.

(We made it to Halazzi but didn't down him, too weak in the DPS department beyond myself)

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Maiden of Virtue Raid Video, Karazhan, Mage Perspective

Here's a video I made after a fun PUG through Karazhan with some others who were well-geared like my Mage.

It's done from the Mage's perspective, but I'm sure soon I'll have the Priest Healer's perspective up for all to see!

Watch more Blue's Videos

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Naxx Attunement: I?m Attuned, Now What?

Weird, I actually wrote this back in June but for some reason didn't publish it... maybe I've missed something I meant to link here, or I meant to have an image that never made it... at any rate, here's the post :)

AOE Farming Stratholme (undead side)

I'm on a quest to get the Piccolo of the Flaming Fire, but I really didn't know Stratholme very well when I headed into it, so I kind of bumbled around for a while, happily working on my AOE instance grinding skills and trying to avoid the patrols that make mage AOE tremendously difficult.

Eventually I broke down and looked up a Map of Stratholme and found where Hearthsinger Forresten spawned, and found he was marked as %26#8220;roaming%26#8221;.

Only, the times I've found him, replica watches Hearthsinger is quite stationary. It seems to me that he isn't a Roamer more than a %26#8220;rare%26#8221; spawn (that spawns each time I've been in) who spawns in different spots each reset.

Twice he's reset just under the sign for the Kirtonos Bros. Funeral Home, and once he was to the East of that locale, but again located at a junction in the dungeon itself. He seems to like to hang out near busy corners, but he watches the action from afar and isn't a part of it.

At any rate, I'd just knock off watches %26#8220;/target hearth%26#8221; once in a while and when the target worked, I knew I was nearby and started to look around a little more closely. Once I found him, he was easy to take down - he shot a few arrows at me and ran towards me but I had already Frostbolted his ass to the wall so he never reached me.

Naxx Attunement On The Side

Since I got to Honored with Argent replica rolex submariner eta Dawn during these farming sessions (my Mage had largely avoided WPL/EPL in favor of quickly getting into the Outland and had only been Lvl 23 when the BC expansion came out), I looked up the Naxxaramus Attunement requirements and found them to be tremendously simple with a bit of cash and appropriate stocks in the AH:

In Eastern Plaguelands, in Light's Hope Chapel, find Archmage Angela Dosantos. If you're level 70 like me, she won't have an exclamation mark over her head anymore.

Depending on your reputation level with Argent Dawn, she'll give you a quest to gather materials and come back to her. If you're Exalted with Argent Dawn, there are no materials to turn in, you can just complete the quest and be attuned:

Honored:

5x Arcane Crystal

2x Nexus Crystal

1x Righteous Orb

60 gold

Revered:

2x Arcane Crystal

1x Nexus Crystal

30 gold

Exalted:

Free

Turn it in, and you're done!

This one is super simple compared to, say, the Onyxia attunement chain, which maybe I'll look to next. Doing regular quests seems to bore me at 70, but attunements are fun :)

My Last Questions

Now that I'm attuned, is there any way anyone can tell that by looking at my profile?

If I were to join a Naxx PUG would I know the leaders can at least have some way to check to see if people joining are attuned?

Even though I have no idea how to get into Naxx...

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Karazhan Raid Boss Video: Attumen The Huntsman

Most people these days start their raiding experiences with Karazhan, and possibly even this boss, Attumen the Huntsman.

However, as a Mage, I found it easy to gear up past Karazhan standards with my own Tailored gear topped up with Heroics Badge gear, and my first raiding experience in Karazhan was the mana-intensive fight against Nightbane, and then I headed straight into 25-toon raids.

Therefore, it's fun to grab my lesser-geared Hunter in order to go %26#8220;back%26#8221; to Karazhan and Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's Lair, because I really didn't get a chance to get sick of them ;)

Bluehairmage's videos

Yay raid videos are fun, but I'm running out of music...

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Shameless Plug: Wealth On Warcraft

Here's the first of three videos I've uploaded to help promote my guide to Wealth on Warcraft. If you haven't heard my voice, now's your chance, but I still don't have my picture in there (yet).

I've got another seven videos in the series that will be uploaded over the next seven weeks, so if you like this video and get something out of it, watch my video feed over on Vimeo as is linked at the bottom of this video imbed.

You can also see the other two videos I uploaded by going to Vimeo right now.

I have produced these videos because one of the primary ways I earn gold in World of Warcraft is by buying and reselling Vendor items that sell well in the Auction House, and I'd like to share with others how easy it is to find these things if you know what you're looking for.

But of course, I'm not going to give it ALL away - that's why I wrote my guide to Wealth on Warcraft, and right now it's over 75 pages, with new updates and helpful videos released regularly.

Fast Warcraft Gold in Orgrimmar: Valuable Vendors from WoW Grrl on Vimeo.

If this information helps you and you earn a bit more gold on World of Warcraft, please be sure to let me know! And feel free to send the video to friends who are just starting the game, or are re-rolling on new servers, as it's particularly useful for them.

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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Life In A Quiet Guild - New Tabard!

After I finished my two-and-a-half month stint in a raiding guild that was taking on 25 man content, I created a guild of my own, and named it Silence is Golden.

Initially, there were some strangers in the guild, but I paid them off well and thanked them for their charter-signing services, and sent them on their way.

Then, I set up the Guild Bank and bought two tabs, and started putting things in there that my various Outland toons would share - potions, elixirs, gems and the likes.

When I invited my father into the guild, I re-arranged the bank tabs a bit and put the things I wanted to share with MY toons in tab two, and things that would be more beneficial for my father's characters, who are still in Azeroth, in tab one.

Since the guild only had Dad and I in it, I set it up so that our characters could take repairs from the guild bank instead of our own funds, and I started using the Guild Bank as my Money Storage Device, very much liking the log tracking feature that comes along with official Guild Banks as compared to a %26#8220;Bank Toon%26#8221;.

Designing The Guild Tabard

The Guild Tabard, of course, is the very best part of being in a non-raiding guild.

Of course!

I mean, when you see guilds advertising in Trade about their non-raiding guilds, trying to get new members, what are the two things they mention? First and foremost, that they have a Tabard, and then that they have a Guild Bank.

My initial tabard for the guild reflected a general resentment towards the sheer volume of JUNK I had been expected to endure on the guild line before making my own quiet spot where Silence was the word... you can see that tabard in my Gruul's Lair videos while taking on either High King Maulgar or Gruul the Dragonkiller himself.

That tabard is, well, like it's getting ready to bite someone with big teeth.

I've since relaxed into the quietness of my own guild, so a two weeks ago I re-designed the Guild Tabard to something that is more reflective of my father and myself. $It\'s the closest to a Canadian Flag that I could make$

I've had some compliments on the Tabard in the battlegrounds even! Kind of funny.

I'm thinking of changing the music my videos tend to end with, to encorporate the Canadian theme a wee bit. Right now I can only think of beer commercials:

%26#8220;I am, you know I am... I am Canadian...%26#8221;

And of course, the big poem about being Canadian but not saying %26#8220;aboot%26#8221; and not living in igloos etc...

Any suggestions for me? :)

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Raiding Blackwing Lair?

So, over a week ago I was on my 69 Priest and am just short of my monetary goals for hitting 70 with, so since I had a full level to go through yet and that'll take a few dungeon runs, I opened up /lfm and poked through the three instances I'd like to go into:

Auchindoun - Shadow Labyrinths

Hellfire Citadel - Shattered Halls

Coilfang Reserve - Steam Vaults

There's no partial-groups listed, unfortunately... just a handful of DPS and at least one other healer listed.

So, I go to the Looking for Group tab at the bottom, and fill in my 3 dungeon choices as above, then put in a comment: %26#8220;healer, whisper first, please have a tank already :)%26#8221;

Yes, this is optimistic, but as Momma said, and someone said to her... %26#8220;If it ain't worth askin' for it ain't worth gettin'!%26#8221;... so, continuing on...

This, of course, subscribes me to the LookingForGroup channel, which is readily active this evening as people are looking to fill out final spots in their Karazhan raids and daily Heroic parties and RFK runs... but nothing really in my range.

Until someone advertises that they're looking for healers for a raid on Blackwing Lair.

Hmm.

Never been there. And beyond %26#8220;somewhere near Lower Blackrock Spire%26#8221;, I don't even know where it is!

So, I whisper the guy, and after a bit of a confusing conversation about whether or not there was an Attunement process required for entering the instance (there isn't), I'm extended an invite and I make my way through to Undercity, and then hop on the Bat to fly to Kargath in the Badlands.

There are a few others of us who are added around the same time, and we all start to make our way to the instance. There are no Warlocks in the group to leech off of, and the Summoning Stone doesn't summon people so close to, or at, level 70, so nobody said a boo, just made their way there.

I arrived at the door to Lower Blackrock Spire, and was told to go in and wait for an escort who would be coming through. A Rogue soon joins me and we await the escort.

I started recording video just outside the portal to Lower Blackrock Spire, and was pleased that the recording process didn't cut out as it sometimes chooses to do... and I actually was able to record the entire route through the dungeon and to the portal for entering Blackwing Lair.

Old World 40-man Raid Instance in Blackrock Spire

There was some chaos in the video, of course... this raid had been formed 2 hours earlier and we had to deal with respawns as our escort brought us through to the primary group... but I think if I needed to, I could use the footage to find the instance door again.

I might also publish it for the heck of it... bored people want anything for entertainment, right? ;)

Unfortunately, as is regular in PUGs attempting old-world content, there weren't enough people to make an actual attempt by the time we got there - the 2 hours of the raid already existing before I got there, and attempts done when the new-joiners (including 2 healers) weren't yet around to raid heal... wore enough people out that folks dropped out before I got there.

Darnit, I was kind of looking forward to seeing more than the first room, but I now at least know the route through Lower Blackrock Spire to get to the instance portal for Blackwing Lair...

More near-useless knowledge on the level of knowing all the words to the story of %26#8220;Little Bunny Foo-Foo%26#8221;.

And speaking of which, in that Rhyme where you came from, did Bunny Foo Foo %26#8220;bop%26#8221; the field mice on the head, or was it something different for you?

And, was it little RABBIT Foo Foo where you came from?

This article is %26copy; WebGrrl Enterprises - visit WoWGrrl's World of Warcraft blog for more tips and tricks, videos and writings about World of Warcraft.

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