Ooookay, So Here It Comes

Ooookay, so here it comes...

*embarassed shuffle*

Firstly, apologies for the sudden disappearance. RL has a tendency of yanking you in the opposite direction of where you want to go, and that has happened more times than I care to count lately. Not all of those yankings turned out bad however, so at least I am thankful for that.

I am now a proud owner of a nice cozy apartment (condo?) not far from where I work. Since moving into the apartment in April 2012, my wife and I have been quite busy refurbishing, cleaning and generally making the place more like a home =) Everything is more or less settled... except that I still don't have a permanent gaming station - it's still just a corner of the room where the PC is... and on the floor >_>

I am now a proud father of a beautiful, playful baby girl. That, coupled with my adorable two and a half years old son has taken up much of my time (as they should, /wink). Between having to do baby duties and attending to her brother's call for attention, I find myself pushing WoW further and further into late nights and therefore leaving me no other time for blogging.

I am sadly getting overwhelmed at work. With both my operation executives unavailable (one transferred, the other retired) I find myself slowly unable to cope. It's getting to the point where I'm very frustrated and start thinking about resigning. But to find another job with the exact amount of finance to support my current needs is quite hard at this time. I may have to endure this until someone in HR wakes up or I break under the pressure.

Anyways, WoW-wise I'm in an okay position.

Aenur is fully in T13 RF, plus Gurthalak. Aedruyn is just starting RF and already has the chest and shoulder piece. Aelyra is missing only her boots from the heroic Twilight instances and the bow from Madness of Deathwing (not planning on getting her T13 RF, too much work). Aerhandor is doing Grizzly Hills dailies for Honor (gearing him via PvP for looks). Aerdread has 4 pieces of the epic PvP gear and only need the helm, plus making him do random heroic Twilights for PvE gear and cash. The rest of the toons are either on ice or moving at their own paces (slowly, one level at a time ^_^ ).

Should Mists of Pandaria come this year, I am more or less in a position to go forth and explore, rather than fret about unfulfilled criterias.

Because RL has taught me that sometimes, being yanked in the opposite direction can be a good thing too!

"He's Near, Lurking In the Shadows...!"

To quote Perot'han.

I'm not dead. Yet.

I'll be sure to let the Internet knows that. Soon.

*cue evil laughter*

Weekly Updates: No Love for Lag

Just a short update for this week, since my RL is busy and I've also been having some difficulties with latency this week (again).

Aenur got 150 Marks of the World Tree, and managed to get the Shadow Wardens to join in the fight against the forces of Ragnaros in the Molten Front. Aedruyn is now Champion of Silvermoon and is now fighting on behalf of the Darkspear trolls - I may need to find another way to snag faction city reps and get him Exalted with Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon soon. And the rest is still business as usual... when there's no lag =(

Hope to be able to present a better update soon... and lag, please go away!

Weekly Updates: One week after Patch 4.2

It's been one week since Patch 4.2 goes live, and I've had the opportunity to run both of my mains through the epic Thrall/Go'el questline. It's very entertaining, and except for the fact that Alliance seems hell-bent on flagging and trying to net a few Horde kills on various stages of the questline, the questline itself is pretty decent and the rewards are very cool.

I got Aenur started on the Firelands dailies since she has finished the grind with Hellscream's Reach and gotten both the land and flying mount. I'm still debating whether to make Aelyra do the same (she's close to the Hellscream's Reach land mount) or continue the grind for the mounts and go to Firelands later. If I do that, she'll be left behind quite substantially since she has to unlock quite a bit of progress later.

I'll have to think about this more =(

Aenur - Currently working on the Firelands dailies - at 93 Marks of the World Tree now. She currently has Mantle of Fury from the World-Shaman questline and the Fireheart Necklace from the Firelands dailies starter vendor. At the current rate of Marks, she should be able to unlock the next set of dailies in about 4 days.

Also, with the JP she currently has when the patch hits, she managed to snag a Reinforced Sapphirium Battleplate and a Reinforced Sapphirium Gauntlets, her first T11 items. Gotta love this new patch =)

Aelyra - Currently doing... nothing >.< But seriously, I have been so busy with Aenur I haven't taken Aelyra out for a spin until a few days ago. She still need another 40 TB Commendation to get that sweet spectral wolf mount from Hellscream's Reach, but I've been putting that off in favor of lots and lots of PvP on Aenur.

But anyway, with the new patch I have found a good reason to once again return to the Hunt! So after finishing the World-Shaman questline, Aelyra now has Mantle of Doubt and soon after unlocking the Firelands dailies, she should be able to get a nice +Agi ring from the Firelands dailies starter vendor. Afterwards? I'm not sure, lemme just think about it first...

The rest of the gang has done nothing much - Aedruyn is still grinding Argent Tourney stuffs, Aergor with his usual daily transmute, Aerdread with his two dailies a day (Fishing and JC), and Aerjin with his Cooking daily. I may run Aerhandor through the World-Shaman questline so he can get the epic cloak, but I probably will not push him to do the Firelands dailies soon.

Patch 4.2: Rage of the Firelands

According to speculations, Patch 4.2 will become live on June 28th 2011.


So, what will this mean to me? Quite a lot actually.

When Blizzard implemented Patch 4.1, one of the changes that came along with it was that Honor points can now be traded for Justice points at the rate of 375 Honor = 250 Justice (you can also trade Justice for Honor but I'm not interested in discussing that today). What this means is that I can now do PvP for Honor, trade them in for Justice and then use those Justice points to buy better PvE gear from vendors! Which is wonderful news for me, since I'm unable to get Justice through standard means (instances and raids) ever since Cata hits... well, except for the one or two times doing normal Cata instances with guildies.

So now, outside of dailies I find myself doing a substantial amount of PvP-ing... and most of that is done in Tol Barad. On a good day Horde would OMGWTFBBQROFLSTOMP the Alliance and I'll be bringing home about 600-700 Honor... or usually Horde would get crushed by the Alliance and I'll only net about 300 Honor. Since doing this, I have accumulated enough Honor to buy the Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Vindication on Aenur and am now working to stockpile Justice points.

Why stockpile Justice, you may ask.

Well, this brings us to Patch 4.2. Blizzard has stated that the new patch will open up the next tier for everyone - new raids, new epics, more dailies... but most importantly to me: The current tier gear, Tier 11, will be purchasable with Justice points. Currently Tier 11 gear is only purchasable with Valor points, which everyone can get either by running heroics or Cata raids.

With Tier 11 being available for purchase with Justice points, and if the value for the pieces does not change, I should be able to get all three pieces of them with a full stock of Justice and Honor (4k Justice and 4k Honor). Which means that I'll finally be able to get my first epic Cata tier gear (sounds weird, no? Epic Cata tier gear...).

Here's to hoping for more Horde wins in Tol Barad - Fight better you lemmings! FOR TEH HORDE!!

The Return of BD

It's been about seven months after my last post - and that is mind-boggling. It's like having a seven-months gap in your diary, or memory... or in this case, your adventures. All those excitement, the highlights and achievements missing. Sigh... that'll teach you not to slack off, BD.

Anyways, I'm back (in blogging, at least). To be honest, I didn't stop playing WoW all this time - on the contrary, Aenur, Aelyra and Aerhandor has dinged 85 with Aergor, Aedruyn and Aerdread following not far behind. My toon priority's been shifted around, but currently it looks like all the mains will remain as mains. Only the question of which alts deserve a better position and attention remains.

To be honest, Cata is a bit of a let down for me, and maybe for a lot of casual players out there. With instances being an intensive time-consuming activity with random strangers who may or may not be friendly and helpful, and with barriers all around epic gears and achievements, we are reduced to spectators and minor participants of the so-called "hardcore" and "elites". Do I mind? Not so much. It rankles a bit at times, though.

That did not stop me from trying though. I've reluctantly entered PvP with Aenur, trying to get better gear through honor and PvP instead of instances and PvE. It's working, but the stress of all those matches is horrible - like trying to eat a whole, unopened durian. Thankfully, once patch 4.2 hits I should be able to get some nice T11 gear due to Blizzard's new honor-to-Justice arrangement and due to T11 now available with Justice points instead of Valor points. Which then would mean the same grind with Aelyra... =(

As for the alts... I've been spending a lot of time with Aedruyn, making him go through the Argent Tournament so he can get his Argent Charger and Hippogryph - it's easier now that he's level 81 and armed with Cata greens, gems and enchants (he 3-shots most mobs now). Aergor is now level 82 and is doing the Org's Cooking dailies as well as daily Truegold/Living Elements transmutes. And Aerdread is level 82, doing the Org's Fishing and JC dailies. I will push Aedruyn out to 85 once he finishes the Argent Tourney objectives... if the others doesn't ding 85 first.

The rest of my alts are the level 37 Shadow Priest Aerjin, who I recently become fond of, and the level 20 deleted-then-rerolled Combat Rogue Aerlyn (previously known as Aeyrin). Not doing much with them other than the Org's Cooking dailies, which is a slow but steady way of leveling them.

So, that is in short my progress in WoW. With this post, I hope to kickstart my weekly updates as well as putting my thoughts and opinions of my adventures back into the blog. With a few bloggers already deciding not to continue their blogging forth, I feel compelled to at least light up my own candle against the night.

SQUEE!!

... I haz mai Tauren Paladin! No one touchie - all mine!!

Imma name him Aedruyn, imma dress him all up in nice shiny armor and shoulder-cover, and imma give him the shiniest pointiest stick, and imma make him go kill some poor defenseless critter...

(I'd link the Polished Breastplate of Valor, Polished Shoulder-armor of Valor and the Reforged Truesilver Champion, but WoWHead is down for some reason, so no linkie atm... maybe later)

Squee!!!

EDIT: Link is up!