2 weeks later….

The good news is I have 2 weeks  on holiday starting as of right now. No exotic foreign travels planned, instead it will be days out here and there, possibly even some time to play WoW and I may even manage the odd blog post here and there too.

On the WoW front there has been a few things happening, lets see….

• Paladin to level 70, Northrend here I come. Still not sorted out the professions dilemma but I do think Enchanting over engineering is the likely one.
• Hunter still at 78. I’m bored with the hunter, it just doesn’t grab me the way some other classes do. The last couple of levels will be a grind for me.
• Shadowpriest. I finally took the plunge and moved him to the new server to join the rest of them. I’ve left a rogue behind as a placeholder in the old guild as there are a couple of people I’d like to stay in touch with.  That there are only a couple explains why its time for a change. Transferred the character and I’m in my worst nightmare – this. My shadowpriest has been my longest played character and has had the same name throughout those years, now he has to get a new name due to some imposter.  So what craven ne’er-do-well has got my name on this server? Here’s the culprit. Some alliance priest with bad facial hair and a tendency to heal. The entire episode leaves a sour taste. I’m sure he’s really an alt of some female gnome with pink ponytails.

So I’m in the situation where I require a new name for the shadowpriest and I need it, like NOW! My mind goes blank and I can only think of names already taken or really crap ones. In a moment of panic I go for Archlector which is the senior rank in the Inquisition in Joe Abercrombie’s books. The following day I hate it and promptly spend the £6 to change it. I’ve gone for Misera. Its based mostly on the Shadowpriest Talent Misery, I also like gold collecting so there is a bit of a pun in the use of ‘Miser’. The ‘A’ at the end was just to make it sound a bit better. My guild character already has the note ‘Cheer up’ attached.

On the blog update I have removed the Wasmemon link. Its  been inactive for 3 months so I reckon they aren’t coming back. It’s a pity as I quite liked the way it was written. The character still seems to be playing just not blogging. If the blog resurrects I’ll add it back in. I’ve also added Bible of Dreams to the links list.

Also time for a change on the music front. As Devo have just realeased their first album of new material in about 20 years, its time to revisit a classic – Gut Feeling.

Update

I’m still depressingly busy in Real Life (managed 5  budgets for 5 different locations last week and didn’t even get an achievement, meh) and finding I’m only playing WoW sporadically at best. Still, there has been some progress. The hunter has reached 78 and the Paladin 69. What I have learned is I don’t really like playing a hunter. They sure level quickly enough, but I just can’t quite get into it. I can see me levelling the hunter to 80 and then not doing an awful lot with him thereafter.

Paladin is more fun, but I’m undecided whether to keep on with Engineering or go for Enchanting, which does seem more useful to have when building a group of characters with a commercial venture in mind. My instinct is to go with Enchanting and have Engineering on the Goblin when Cataclysm comes out. I know that sounds a tad predictable, but I mean it is a Goblin afterall.

On the rogue side of things, I managed to get a couple of 232 daggers for Cimetiere and also some 226 bracers from the Flame Leviathan from the weekly. I also finally bit the bullet last night and got everything enchanted. Nothing else for it, at some point the troll will have to raid. I still want to be proficient in the Rogue ways and while gear isn’t everything, it sure helps. Looks like ICC is beckoning and I may just manage to get in at some point.

The DK continues on doing the odd daily Heroic and trying to get JC recipes.

Leaving me the Shadow Priest dilemma. After not playing him for a while I donned Shadowform and set out in a couple of HCs and thoroughly enjoyed it.  All well and good, but what next? The Shadow Priest lurks in what has been my guild for sometime, which has a large number of people I just don’t connect with and a small number I get on very well with. I have no qualms dumping the former, but I would miss the latter greatly. The guild has too many cliques but at the same time it is my clique I would miss. The option is transfer him to Aszune and play in the new guild where there is very little in the way of cliques, but also I lose the close playing friends. It’s probably a healthier playing atmosphere without cliques. I can always leave the 2nd rogue there to catch up with the friends as and when. Most are in some form of hibernation just now awaiting Cataclysm.

I’ve added a music section to the links. I always play Warcraft with music on unless I need vent.  So in a display of  complete selfishness I have decided to share (or inflict – delete as you see fit)  the sort of thing I listen to. I’ll be changing this randomly to whatever grabs my attention at the time. First up is Joy Division and their classic Love Will Tear Us Apart. It’s almost exactly 30 years since the singer Ian Curtis took his own life, and with that act one of the brightest lights in music went out. The influence of this band is still massive, even 30 years on. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are well worth looking up.

I’ve also added a couple more links to some blogs and resources I use myself.

Lastly, this will never get old. Truly a nation cheered.

That ain’t no rogue, boy…

For a few years my main was a Shadowpriest and he’s been getting ignored a bit for the past few months while I have been rogue-ing it. I decided to dust him off and take him out for a spin. Lets have a look at the purple one. Note firstly how he is not purple. I took a few pictures with him in shadowform and  they all looked awful. So here we have a shadowpriest ‘sans shadow’. I have always liked shadowpriests, but no matter what, they always look terrible. And as soon as you get a great looking mount (no matter which one it is) it looks awful too.

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The mounts in order were: Polar Bear, Cenarion War Hippogryph and Frostwolf Howler (just in case all you saw were three variations of the random purple blob mount). The Polar Bear was a particular woe of mine. Three  months doing crappy daily quests in Storm Peaks for a random quets reward, when I finally get it… its a purple Polar Bear. Lets get one thing straight, I don’t mind the colour purple. In fact I actually quite like it (especially for gear if you get my meaning), but it would be nice to have something that wasn’t turned entirely purple the minute I get it. Anyway I digress…

Having dusted down the Shadow Priest I tried an heroic or two and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was fair to say my gear sucked mightily. So I have embarked on a bit of a crusade to get him some better gear. If you look at the RSS feed from my Armory its all Tarsis this and Tarsis that. That’s likely to be the way of things for the next couple of weeks while I try for badge gear. I’m not giving up on the rogues, but they will be taking a back seat for a short while.

Last week, I was hanging around waiting for the dungeon finder to inflict me on some poor souls who deserved better when some one in the Guild decided to organise an Onyxia 10 player. I haven’t done Onyxia since it was a 40 player event so I decided to give it a go. I know this is a bit close to raiding, but hey ho, sometimes I do give it a shot. Having dealt with Onyxia (after a few silly wipes and lots of cries of ‘more dots’ and ‘-50 dkp’ (a bit close to the bone when you remeber this)) I decided I was on a roll and when they said lets go for a Trial of the Crusader 10 player event I agreed to tag along. “Tarsis, can you switch to healing spec for this one?” ehmmm that would be a ‘no’ – I haven’t healed since pre-TBC and have very much adopted the atitude of can’t heal, won’t heal and don’t heal since then. If its a question of me healing or you dying I just hope you have exalted rep with the repair merchant of your choice. Anyway, we tracked down a real healer and went for ToC(10). We struggled on the beasts and were all set to call it a night when we managed to down them. We 2 shottled the worms and one shotted everything else.I bagged a few upgrades seeing as nobody else would sully themselves with mere i232 gear and besides, we were somewhat caster light that night.

The main reason I got fed up with the Shadow Priest was that for a dps class the dps was kind of low. That’s been addressed to a fair bit and Mind Sear makes the class a lot more fun to play on trash mobs too. In the past I got somewhat fed up with having low dps as the mobs were dead by the time I’d finished casting my dots and they had hardly ticked at all. That seems to have much improved by having Mind Sear for multiple trash and a proper rotation for boss fights, With a few improvements in gear I should be verging on reasonable.

I’ll probably add some Shadow Priest flavour to the blog on an ongoing basis (unless I get bored with the class again!) and we’ll see how it goes from there. So meantime it will be Rogues and Shadow Priests. For any purists out there…. tough!

Blog Update

Inserted an RSS feed and also added a link to Wasmemon Troll blog. I can’t help it – I like Trolls as a race (despite never playing one properly) and anyone who is blogging about Trolls will get my support. The site is also well written and I like the humour – check it out.
Aside from that I’ve also been playing WoW as opposed to reading about it on various blogs. I’ll see if I can manage a ‘proper’ post in the next day or so.

Blog update

Sorted some semblance of order in the Blogroll section.
Samuel Tempus at Slice and Dice added my site to his Blogroll yesterday and I hit the dizzy heights of 8 views – my highest daily figure yet! While its safe to say to Fame and Notoriety have not quite arrived, I do seem to be moving in the right direction. Thanks Sam!

The downside of this, is Sam is what I’d classify as a Real Rogue and and also a Real Blogger. He knows what he’s talking about and communicates it well. Leaving me with the feeling if I am going to be in such esteemed company I’d better not be too much of a slacker with the blog.  Oh my – Bloggers peer pressure – whatever next?

Blog Update

Added Cast page with Armory links to my Motley Crew