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!

Weekly Updates: Last Minute Achieves

With Cata only weeks away, I've been trying to nab what few easy achieves there still is for Aenur and Aelyra. The easier ones would be the lowbie dungeon achieves which is currently being pursued by Aenur, and Aelyra is doing all she can to get the Fishing and Cooking ones. I have Aerdread running the odd heroic or two and netting some achieves during the process, and Aerhandor is still running regular FoS once every day for the chance at the nice DPS staff from Devourer of Souls, and he's only a few Champion's Seal away from the Argent Pony - should be able to get it by Wednesday I think.

But on the whole these feels like fillers, something to fill my WoW time while watching the horizon for the inevitable arrival of Deathwing. I've done the Elemental Invasion questline on all available toons, including the lowbies; I've gotten the Feat of Strength on Aenur for closing the elemental rifts (almost got it for Aelyra too, but the darn Fire rifts just won't spawn when I need it)... so now it's just a matter of waiting.

And waiting, as the local saying goes, is torture.

Weekly Updates: New and Improved

From now onwards, all posts regarding character and other updates will be titled "Weekly Updates: ". This is to better differentiate between normal, general posts and the updates, and also because I got tired of thinking of a witty "Of Something" title lately. Though I suspect that a lack of breakfast may have something to do with that today...

Anyways, I've got just a scant few things to mention in this week's update - most of it trivial, a couple are big though. Here we go:

Aenur - Has gotten extremely lucky to be able to get into a competent PuG that's farming Justice Points (or JP) at the time when I actually have nothing in the house to do and was set on doing a couple hours of WoW! So she tagged along for heroic UK, VH, Oculus and UP before disbanding after a successful HoS run. Got a Frozen Orb, a few blues and a couple of epics from the run plus she finally netted enough JP to be able to purchase the final T10 piece - the Lightsworn Legplates! At last, now she can step into Cata with a content heart and a complete tier set =D

...oh, and did I mention she's gotten her Bear Mount too? =)

Aelyra - Is skilling up on Fishing nicely (if you can call 278/300 "nice") and has also gotten her Bear Mount. Aside from that and the Cooking dailies, I don't feel like doing anything else... Okay, I 'fess - I'm thinking maybe I should try and do a few random heroics, get enough JP for the two cheaper T10 pieces (shoulder + handguard)...?

Aerhandor - Is now at the 123 Champion's Seal mark. Another 27 and he'll have his Argent Pony! And after that, the Bear Mount! And next... umm... well, actually... on second thought, I still need that staff from normal FoS, so maybe a few dungeon runs before I can actually be content.

Aerdread - Officially, I've given up on getting him the "Ambassador" title and getting Exalted with the relevant Argent Tourney factions at this point. Unofficially, I'm still trying to net that. But dailies' burnout are a serious obstacle now, and I'm not sure I can muster the inner will to push ahead. By rough calculation, even if I stick to the schedule it'll be at least 40+ days before I can accomplish this goal. And that's not even counting the effort needed to complete his T9 set.

I'm sorry Aerdread, but apparently your status as an alt has inconvenienced you =(

Impending Cataclysm

First off, I would like to apologize for the long delay in getting a post up since my last update. A combination of several factors plus my own laziness has conspired to prevent this post (or any other post for that matter) from materielizing, and for that I believe an apology is in order.

Usually, whenever I had some spare time to play games I'd fire up WoW and get busy with alts or tend to my mains' pet projects. But early last month, I got a copy of Civilization V and since then has been lost in border disputes and resource wars - dang you, Gandhi and Bismarck! >=( And I've also been a victim of Facebook's Bejeweled Blitz, which almost everyone in my family being attracted to it. So, having to divert my time to these games have impacted my WoW time a bit.

Aside from that, the humongous Patch 4.0 also took almost three days to download thank to lousy local 'Net. And even after I managed to log in, the lag is still there occasionally and I still need to re-talent, re-gem, re-learn and re-evaluate all my toons... which costs me an additional two days. By the time I'm settling in, it's time to go off chasing achieves as Hallow's End dawns.

On RL, my baby boy Adam is fast learning to talk, explore and ask for stuffs he finds interesting - usually food and plastic bottles, though he's moving on to handphones and laptops quickly. Keeping up with him is becoming a full-time job, so I can only sneak in a couple hours of WoW when he's fast asleep during his afternoon nap. Also, a major reshuffling is in order where I'm working so I need to focus on jobs at hand for now.

As far as WoW is concerned though, I guess I'm almost at the maximum limit of pre-expac preparedness - both my mains are doing well, with about 95% of their main objectives completed, and the alts are nearing theirs. I'll detail them as follows:-

Aenur - Has almost completed her T10 set, with only the legguards remaining. I plan to run heroics for the points and also do VoA and see if I can get it from the pinata boss. Also, she's saving some gold for the Dal bear mount - I wanted the mount and the achieve before Cata hits. Aside from that, she has nothing else to work for - any further upgrades she obtains from now onwards will pretty much become obsolete in a month.

Aelyra - Is currently doing nothing except Fishing and Cooking dailies, which she started prior to Hallow's End. If she can get enough gold, I'll buy her the Dal bear mount for the achieves too.

Aerhandor - Is almost at the 150 Champion's Seal mark, at which point he'll be able to buy that Argent Pony and be done with WotLK. I've thought about trying to get the epic staff from Devourer of Souls in normal FoS, but so far no luck (it dropped once, but I lost the roll). Also, like Aenur and Aelyra, he's saving for the bear mount.

Aerdread - I originally planned for him to bear the title of Ambassador, but starting the Argent Tourney dailies so late in the expac he hasn't managed to get even a single Exalted home faction at the moment (only Revered with TB and Org, and the rest at Honored). To top it off, he's only got 3 out of the 5 pieces of DK's T9 and will have to work like mad if he wants the rest of the pieces. I'm pretty sure both would not be possible before Cata =( But I'm making him do it anyway - the gold and the rep may help come the expac.

Aergor - Stuck at level 75 in Borean Tundra, because I need to give more attention to Aerdread. I don't mind, since he's already established (with a complete Swiftarrow set waiting for him plus some nice weapon). I'll probably continue leveling him after the others have made it to 85.

Aeyrin - Is now level 51, and is waiting for Cata at SMC. Unlike Aergor, she'll be able to experience the new Azeroth's level 50-60 quests. I'm just not sure what to do after I hit Outland, though.

Aerander & Aezurin - Both bank alts will probably be stationed at their current location - Aerander in SMC and Aezurin in TB. I've read Tam's post the other day about getting his bank alt a mount to facilitate travel between AH and banks, and may just level Aerander to 20 to get his Charger and Blood Knight tabard.

Without access to the Cata beta like some WoW players, I cannot make any future plans for my toons. I'll be stepping into new Azeroth in the dark, like I did when WotLK arrives and I took my first few steps into Northrend. I don't have any worries about Cata though, but I do have one regret - I will regret not having the time, opportunity and skill to get the Paladin's T2 Judgement armor and Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros.

With Great Brewfest Comes Great Latency

It's been one week since Brewfest began, and the lag I mentioned in my previous post has shown no signs of abating. I have been forced to run the Direbrew boss under 3k latency, do some of the easier dailies with 1.5k to 2.5k latency, and stare at the screen as the latency hits 5k at times. I wonder if the server's borked again...

I can only regret all those wasted Frosts from all those random heroics, weekly raid and VoA I've missed, and all those lost golds from dailies I can't reclaim.

On the other hand, I managed to complete the Brewmaster achievement on both Aenur and Aerhandor (with both of them obtaining the Swift Brewfest Ram from the daily keg) and net them the title. Also, after some debate I've relented and bought a couple of Primordial Saronite from the AH - Aenur used one to purchase Plans: Hellfrozen Bonegrinders. She still needs another 4 Primordial Saronite before she can craft one, though.

To while away the time until the lag goes away (I can't see that happening until Brewfest is over, though), I've re-rolled a few alts over on another server. Unlike a normal re-roll, I've created toons in the same order and looks as my main server - a Belf Paladin bank alt, a Belf Hunter and a Belf Paladin... with the same names too! Well, it's just for a temporary amusement I tell myself. I've levelled both the Hunter and Paladin up a bit, and tell myself if the situation with the main server isn't improving I might as well focus on these two until the end of the festivities. Also, whenever lag hits I can just switch to this alternative version of my toons.

And yes - no updates this time. Like I mentioned - bad laggy =(

Brewfest 2010

It's that time of the year again... the time when all hell breaks loose and you can see almost-nekkid orcs and dwarves scattered in front of Orgrimmar and Ironforge.

It's Brewfest - let the virtual beer flow!

So instead of half-heartedly approaching this annual event, I decided from day one to try and get the Brewmaster title for Aenur and Aerhandor, maybe even Aerdread. I could include Aelyra in this venture, but decided there's always next year for her - she only needed to get the wolpertinger pet and she'll be done.

To accomplish my goals, I had Aenur rush all the way from Dal to Org (heh, only one portal away lol) and set her up for the festivities. Bad news hits first, though - along with the celebration came a heavy wall of 5k latency, making Brewfest laggy as hell for her. Five disconnects and one hour later, she got the wolpertinger pet plus all the achieves necessary for the meta except two: snuffing Coren Direbrew, and The Brew of the Month membership that costs 200 Brewfest tokens. Shuddering to think how to do the ram racing (and getting the tokens) in this kind of lag, I decided to make Aenur do the latter. And it was a very fortuitous decision.

Aenur queued for the holiday boss via LFG, and almost immediately the dungeon confirmation window came up. She found herself teleported into the encounter, starts to help out, killed the nasty Coren... but wait, what's this? Another requeue window? Apparently she had the good fortune to be grouped with the determined few who plans to farm Coren Direbrew for all the dwarf's worth. It was fun, it was intense, it was rewarding - almost 15+ encounters later and she had Ancient Pickled Egg, Mithril Pocketwatch, Brawler's Souvenir and the very nice Coren's Chromium Coaster. She also got the two Brewmaiden charms, which will be useful as part of her Prot off-spec. No mount drop, though - but you can't have everything I guess =)

When it's Aerhandor's turn, he got a bit less lucky - he's got the chromium coaster, but nothing else. It was, however, hugely compensated when he opened the keg he got as the daily reward - BOOM! A Swift Brewfest Ram!

It looks to be the start of a very delightful festival, this Brewfest 2010. I wish you guys all the best of luck - as best as mine, if I may say so ^_^

Of Quick Updates

Normally I'd start with some short paragraphs trying to summarize the previous week's experiences, but I'm not feeling creative today and instead will just skip to the character updates. Sorry - I'll try and make it up... no promises though.

Aelyra - As expected, managed to finish the Quel'Delar questline and got herself the epic Quel'Delar, Cunning of the Shadows (plus achievement). It came with a bad experience though - the group that helped her get the HoR part down sadly did not manage to proceed past the final gauntlet and disbanded. But at least she's got the cool sword (with a +65 AP enchant slapped on it).

As an added salt to the wound, she also won a Barbed Ymirheim Choker during one of her random heroic runs... if you remembered, just last week I had upgraded her necklace to a Broach of the Wailing Night. The only logical response to this is a /facepalm.

Aenur - A weekly raid (which happened to be Flame Leviathan) earned her enough Frost to buy her third T10 piece, the Lightsworn Helmet. Put some gems into it, add a cool head enchant, and Boom! Now I'm really tempted to put all those T10 gear on and rush into ICC 10 mans. Oh, and I also upgraded her belt to the Belt of the Singing Blade (yes, more Triumph downgrades) from the previous Flame-Bathed Steel Girdle.

One worry though - with the upcoming expansion coming hard and fast, I fear that I won't be able to amass enough Frost to be able to purchase her next T10 gear. It's sad, since I really liked the look of the set and this is the furthest I've gone on my own to obtain a Paladin Tier set (since my very first Paladin, those many many years back).

Aerhandor - Short, sweet... but brutal update:- On Thursday, went to Dal and downgraded a few Triumphs to buy a Broach of the Wailing Night, following the footsteps of Aelyra. On Friday night, queued for a random, got heroic PoS... guess what dropped from the first boss and was won by Aerhandor? This - Barbed Ymirheim Choker. It was an epic "NOOO!!" moment.

Aerdread - Is now Exalted with the Sons of Hodir, courtesy of the bucketloads of Relic of Ulduar over on my bank alt. Bought the mammoth mount just for kicks, then moved him back to Dal - maybe do a few JC dailies before mustering enough determination to re-do the Aspirant/Valiant dailies @_@

Aergor - Has dinged 74, and almost finished with his Howling Fjord's tour of duty. But instead of moving him to Dragonblight for further questing, I may re-direct him to Borean Tundra and start some of the questlines there, especially the Kalu'ak and Wyrmrest Accord ones. I fancy some of the rep rewards from those walrus people and the drake mount from Wyrmrest for my upcoming Hunter.

Of Titles, Upgrades and Rediscovered Passion

Note: Last weekend in Malaysia we celebrated Aidilfitri, or Eid-ul Fitr, the day of celebration after Ramadhan, a month of fasting. I originally thought I wouldn't have the time to play since we're visiting a lot of relatives (and being visited by them too!) - but my wife had to work the day after Aidilfitri, so I was stuck home taking care of our dear baby Adam. So I managed to play after all =)

Last weekend I was finally able to accomplish a number of objectives, as well as re-discovering the passion for running randoms. It actually began last week, as I was mulling over what to do with my DK and Druid. As I mentioned previously, I'm thinking about upgrading their gear - it wasn't dismal, but it's not raid-worthy materiel either. So I pushed Aerhandor hard to nab his achievement then moved him to Icecrown for the usual treatment of "doing-dailies-while-queueing-for-randoms". As for Aerdread, I'm still doing the Sons of Hodir dailies with him, and queueing him for a random regular (2 Triumphs per day, since I'm not yet comfortable playing a DK at this time).

As I ran a few randoms, it began to dawn on me that I actually miss doing this - the teleporting into dungeons, buffing peeps and then shredding mobs. I actually didn't mind the few times I had to switch mode into tank/healer to bail the group during emergencies, and I found that I love the feeling I get after successfully completing the run. Apparently, the saying "You never missed something until it goes away" is true O_o

So maybe in the near future, I'll be running more randoms - both to gear up my two undergeared toons as well as for that extra WotLK kick.

Anyways, here's the regular update:-

Aelyra - There seems to be a lack of 1h weapon (especially swords) fitting for a Hunter - the few that caught my eyes have some undesirable stats (Expertise, anyone? Darn Rogues...) and the ones that bear proper stats are too hard for Aelyra to access. So, I turn to the last option I had - I bought a Battered Hilt from the AH and initiated the quest for it. The end objective is to get Quel'Delar, Cunning of the Shadows to replace her aging Fang of Truth. At this time, I'm about to do the 'running PoS' part of it and I'm fairly certain I should be able to finish the entire questline by the coming weekend.

Just as an aside - did you know you could zone into PoS and collect all those Infused Saronite lying around the tents in the place without aggroing anything? It certainly helps, since I now only need to down Garfrost, loot his hammer and re-forge the sword.

Other than that, Aelyra managed to get into a VoA 25-man run, and a VoA 10-man run immediately after, got the achieves for both, and managed to get enough emblems to purchase a Broach of the Wailing Night to replace her Pendant of the Outcast Hero (yes, I had to downgrade a few Triumphs).

Aenur - Missed an opportunity to join a guild ICC 10-man due to oversleeping (late by 20 minutes) and ran a few random heroics instead. Her Frost count is nearly enough to buy her next T10 piece - I'll most likely go for the helm - and aside from that... nothing much. She's skilling up nicely on Cooking and Fishing on those Dal dailies, though.

Aerhandor - After a few weeks of running the Steamvaults...

...he's finally become a respected member of the Druid community - congratulations Aerhandor, Guardian of Cenarius!

In other news, I'm making him run more random heroics now to fund his upgrades and trying to position him as an alternative for Aelyra if in case I need to run a lower tier raid later (Naxx or Ulduar). For the moment, I'm parking him in Icecrown where he's contributing by doing dailies and trying to get his squire an Argent Pony.

Aerdread - Has finally managed to collect enough Triumphs to be able to purchase his first T9 piece, the Koltira's Shoulderplates of Conquest. But even with this upgrade, I'm still hesistant about getting him into heroics - the major reason? I feel I suck at playing a DK. I'm not certain about my rotation (I always end up with every rune on CD and only auto-attacking at some point) and the lack of Hit dissuades me from doing a higher dungeon mode. I guess I'll just stick with the 2 Triumphs a day until I get enough confidence to finally step into a heroic with him.

Aergor - Almost to 74 now, and I've been playing him whenever I have the time - doing a couple of randoms, a few quests here and there to inch him slowly to level cap. I'm still looking for a decent gun somewhere within his range, but the closest I could find is in heroics. Ah well, maybe when he's 80...

Of Icecrown Raids, and Miscellaneous

Last Sunday, I logged in quite early in the morning - I was thinking about getting a few quests done on my lowbie Hunter before going off doing a number of chores that was planned yesterday. So imagine my surprise when Kragg was on Gchat trying to drum up some guildies for a ICC-25 man run with another friendly guild. At this time, my freshly awakened brain couldn't quite foresee the time investment needed for such a venture, so when Kragg asked me if I wanted to tag along all my brain could come up with is - "OK."

Aenur was there at Icecrown Citadel by the time the raid reached 19-strong. To pass the time, I ninja-AFK'ed and got some of the chores done... and after about half an hour, the raid went under way. I have to tell you, this is one of those sweet, sweet run - every boss up until Saurfang were one-shots and there was no wipe except for that one trash encounter at the Upper Spire (and I wasn't sure why we wiped though - all I see was a number of empty health bars suddenly cropping up before my own demise). However, just before Festergut, two of our raid members had to leave due to the time and the run was stalled. A number of attempts to seek out replacements failed, and the raid was called at that point. No phat lewt for Aenur though, but she did get a number of Frosts and earned enough rep to get her Ashen Band of Greater Might.

This run, coupled with the one I had the last few days, really peaked up my interest in doing the full ICC run. But like I mentioned previously, it's not "becoming a full raider" - just enough to run the place, get to feel the experince Blizzard has so painstakingly crafted for us and getting your money's worth. Something like what I did with the guild back in Kara =)

Anyways, here's the update on the rest of the posse:-

Aelyra - Still doing dailies (boy, don't you guys ever get tired of hearing that line over and over). However, with Aergor quickly coming up to 80, I'll need Aelyra to craft another Swiftarrow set for him... which means farming leather and some Eternals. I still have a number of Eternals stashed on the main bank alt, but there's no leather stock and it has got to be farmed. I may devote one or two afternoons farming in Sholazar this week and see if I can skin enough gorillas/sabretooth cats for use and storage.

Aerhandor - CE rep is now up to 16712/21000, and given enough time this week I may be able to make him hit Exalted. Too bad in the last run he barely found any Coilfang Armaments drop, otherwise he'd be sitting at around 17k rep by now. I've also decided that once his CE mission is done, he'll be back to Northrend doing some random heroics to improve his gear.

Aerdread - Is now Exalted with the Kalu'ak. Say hello to the penguin pet, Aerdread!

Now it's off to the Storm Peaks, where he'll be making friends with the Sons of Hodir by doing dailies after dailies and finally get his hands on that ginormous Mammoth of theirs. At the same time, I'm having a deep resentment with his current gear - maybe a few random heroics can lift my mood some?

Aergor - Ding 73! He's done a couple of random dungeons which has helped him a lot in leveling. And also, thanks to the enormous number of Infinite Dusts and Essences accumulated by Aenur, Aelyra, Aerhandor and Aerdread during their intensive random-dungeon-running, he's finally able to hit 381/450 in Enchanting. Pretty soon, I will have my own Enchanter that I can use to do some of those fancy enchants, muahahaha!

Of Distractions and... oooh, shiny!

Again, my master plan for the domination of Azeroth has been distracted - I've been busy trying to save the galaxy from being overrun by the nefarious Zerg and their sadistic queen Kerrigan. Yes, after almost a month of waiting I've finally got an original Starcraft 2 game (which is hard to come by, since the local market for PC games is saturated by pirated copies). I've finished the entire campaign in late August, and worked through some of the more easier achievements before being satisfied and coming back to WoW. So please forgive my absence >.<

Not much has changed in how I run my toons these days - it's still mostly dailies and an occasional quest or two. The only issue is random heroics, since the queue time has now reached such phenomenal level that I can queue for a random and finish every dailies before the dungeon confirmation ever pops up. Now, I normally skip random heroics and focus on the dailies unless any guildies has a random to run.

I've also re-arranged toon priorities - I'm putting Aeyrin the Rogue on ice until Cata, Aenur has been relegated to Cooking daily in Dalaran only and Aerdread is getting pushed in to fill the gap.

Aelyra - Like expected, she's managed to get the 150 Champion's Seal required for the Argent Pony Bridle for her squire, and... is back grinding for more Champion's Seal. Well, not exactly the seals - I'm making her do the Tourney dailies for the gold. 80-100 gold in 20 minutes per day is a steady way to build cash reserves methinks. And even if it's not, my bank alts sure could use some Heirloom lovin'.

Aenur - Has the luck to log in right when my guild is prepping to do a 10-man ICC. Well, not actually, she missed the call by about 5 seconds. But Thau, bless his good heart, offered to sit it out and gave me the opportunity to go instead. So it was that Aenur got into an ICC run straight up until the Blood Princes. At this point, we just couldn't push it further and decided to call it. She got a couple of achievements from the run, too.

Ramaladni's Blade of Culling dropped from Blahbringer Sourpants and the raid expected me to roll on it. However, I'm just not an axe person (and Aenur hasn't trained axes) so I passed. That got the raid a bit aghast, but I assured them I really don't want it anyway since I'm eccentric that way. So it went to Kragg, who still tries to make me take it anyway (that's okay mate, I'll wait for a mace upgrade from LK lol). All in all, a pretty good run - Marrowgar, Deathwhisper, Saurfang, Lootship, Rotface and Festergut one-shotted.

Aerdread - Moving in to fill the vacuum left by Aenur, I have him doing the two Kalu'ak dailies for the cool 1,000 rep and 10 gold in 10-12 minutes per day. He still needs about 5k more rep to hit Exalted, then it's off to Storm Peaks to open up the Sons of Hodir dailies. At this time, all I want him to do is to gather rep and build a separate cash reserve, and so far it's working fine. Later on, I may slot him for the Tourney dailies just to build more rep and gain access to better paying dailies.

Aerhandor - Running SV for CE rep. Currently, I'm only able to do one or two runs per week due to a limited play time, but he's getting there slowly. He's currently sitting at 10235/21000, and each successful SV run nets him an average of 1.8k rep (not including the Coilfang Armament drops, which may contribute up to an additional 750 rep for a total average of 2.5k rep). I estimate it'll take another 6 or 7 runs to max out CE rep for him. And after that? I don't really know... maybe book him into an inn until Cata? More dailies?

Aergor - Has dinged 72, is now Exalted with the Shattered Suns Offensive, has the cool tabard to show for it, is now wet from swimming all the way from Quel'Danas to Howling Fjord... and is now waiting as I mulled over which option to choose in leveling him - the regular questing way, the random dungeon way or the bloody BG way? Anyway, I still need to look up some proper gear upgrades for him first - it wouldn't do to stride into a BG or random Wrath dungeon with some outdated Outland gears.

Of Rusty Warhammers and Dusty Bows

Sooo... I found out that I'm not that rusty after all - I can still do most dailies out of muscle memory and a bit of quest text skimming, and my toons are geared enough to allow me to commit a couple of errors or compensate for my few momentary lapse of judgements (...wait, when did I map Serpent Sting to there??).

Good news: Due to diligently keeping both my bank alts in order, I have no problem sorting out out-of-date inter-toon item mails. And the heirloom items for my future Tauren Pally are complete and awaiting the creation of said owner =)

Bad news: Cash-wise, I'm broke. Between 4 level 80s and an upcoming level 71, plus one or two lowbie alts, I have at most 15k gold. With Cataclysm looming on the horizon, I'm tempted to work all alts equally hard to make enough gold to survive the expansion. Trouble is - I'm too lazy to work all alts =P

Onwards to toon updates:-

Aelyra - Is still going with the Tourney dailies. She now has 100+ Champion's Seal, and once she has enough to grab that Argent Pony Bridle, she's off to more exciting things - like raiding Ulduar. Yeah, you heard me right - Ztormy is trying to organize an Ulduar team specifically to do hard content and possibly Algalon, and I've put up Aelyra as my preferred toon.

Gear-wise in my humble opinion she still need a necklace upgrade, a main hand weapon upgrade and at least a trinket upgrade, but even without those she's rated at ICC level by WoW Heroes. So there should be no issue of her (or me, for that matter) performing in Ulduar, eh?

Aenur - Still need 3 pieces of T10 - the headpiece, the chestpiece and the skirt. And with her current Frost count at 33, it looks to be a long and boring road of random heroics and lucky VoA raids. Oh I wish I could magically turn those excess Triumphs into Frosts...

Aerhandor - In light of Cataclysm's impending approach, I've decided to forgo dailies by him and instead focus on getting something personal for him - the title of "Guardian of Cenarius".

The title, bestowed by the Cenarion Circle to druids who are Exalted with both the Cenarion Circle and the Cenarion Expedition, is quite a pain to get. To get to Exalted with the Circle, I had Aerhandor move to Silithus and farm Twilight mobs for their rep and also the Encrypted Twilight Texts (turn 10 of them in at Cenarion Hold for a beefy 500 rep). So far, he's halfway through Revered and should be able to hit Exalted in one week's time.

Cenarion Expedition is a different matter - the prospect of doing repeated Steamvault runs does not quite appeal to me, but I'll deal with it when I get there.

Aerdread - I was seriously thinking about shelving my Tauren DK a few days back, because there seem to be nothing I wanted to do with him in the long run. Also, I'm not particularly interested in re-doing the whole Tourney Aspirant/Valiant dailies again. Which is why I'm now in a quandary... should I go ahead with the plan to shelve him?

Aergor - Shattered Sun dailies. They've yielded some gold, some green items, loads of SSO rep (just hit Revered yesterday) and one level. All I care about here is the cool tabard and the extra Exalted faction count. Once he hits Exalted with the SSO, he's gonna grab the tabard and swim as hard as he can to Northrend.

Aeyrin - The neglected Blood Elf Rogue. Love the fancy heirlooms and cute face, just couldn't find the time... until last weekend.

I've unleashed the beast within that Rogue, and she's catapulted from 42 to 48 in a matter of two days. She's been Cheap Shotting and Pickpocketting and Sinister Striking and Rupturing and all I can see is that level bar climbing higher and higher. By the end of her session, she's up by 6 levels and her Lockpicking skills have also improved substantially. I may just clear up my weekends to try and see if I can slot another level 80 into my toon list?

Connecting... ... ... Connected!

I was back in WoW yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, there was no welcoming party or the like waiting for me when I logged on - just a simply "Heya" from a guildmate.

I feel so sad =,(

My good friend Red Latency is there though, smiling through all that 3k m/s of hers.

So, long story cut short - I'm back. Took Aergor out for a spin and ended up with leveling him from level 69.1 (9% XP) all the way up to level 70 and moved him to Isle of Quel'Danas. Did some dailies with Aenur, Aelyra and Aerhandor and re-initiated some assets arrangements between my bank toons. Thinking of seriously deleting another toon that I don't use much - either the Hunter bank alt or the Rogue. Maybe even the DK, if worse came to worse.

But first - I have definitely got to make a priority list >.<

Return of BD

Yes, I'm not dead yet (although I suspect most of you thought otherwise).

Since my game time ended somewhere around April 17th, I've not bothered to renew because of two reasons:-

1) The local game shop is simply atrocious in supplying WoW game cards. There'll be a few in stock when I've already bought one, however when I need one they just don't have any available. I've done some scouting and found another game shop in the area that sells it, but their record of supplying WoW game cards is similar to the first shop. So meh...

2) I've been cheating on WoW with another MMORPG. And her name is EVE Online. I've been playing the 14-days trial just after my WoW sub ended and was eventually hooked - I registered an account and am now on my way to making millions of ISK. The abundance of PvP however did get on my nerve, so I'm thinking of tuning it down until I can afford enough ISK to sustain a PvP lifestyle.

Two months without the company of my guildies is now beginning to gnaw at me. How are they doing? Did they down LK yet? Are they preparing for Cataclysm? How many alts did Shadow have now? And is Rage working on his 12th alt to level 80?

So, I decided to come back to WoW by the end of July, and maybe put EVE on autopilot for a while (training skills).

Azeroth, look out - (in best Terminator impersonation) "I'LL BE BACK".

Of Noblegardening... and Other Stuff

...oh well, alright, just a short update - since I really really REALLY NO REALLY need to have my WoW progress and adventures well documented for history to analyse.

Aenur - Since it's Noblegarden last week, and since she already finished most of the easier achieves last year, I took some time off from her dailies and made her do all the remaining achieves, earning her the Noblegarden meta and the title "the Noble".

She also been in a few Wintergrasp matches, doing her best to grasp the situation and help the Horde win the place (a few wins, some losses) and getting into the 10-man VoA that forms afterwards if she's not saved. Doing these VoA is helping a lot with her Emblem of Frost farming, in addition of her daily Frost heroics and one or two weekly here and there.

Aelyra - Still with the dailies, but I've abandoned running Triumph on her since she already has adequate gear to move into ICC raiding. I may run ToC once or twice and see if I can nab Banner of Victory for her, but even if she doesn't have it I won't mind. I'm reconsidering extending the Tourney dailies on her to grab the bow heirloom for my lowbie bank alt Hunter, but I'm not sure if I wouldn't be bored of it halfway through.

Aerhandor - Is continuing his random heroics to nab enough Triumph for his T9 leggings. Previously, he got Chewed Leather Wristguards from a random heroic PoS and enough Triumph for an Idol of Mutilation, to replace his King's Square Bracers and Idol of the Plainstalker. O_o

Also, due to Aenur's success with Noblegardening, I made Aerhandor go through the same achieves. Even though he lacks Aenur's head start, he still manages to do all the achieves and get that title.

Aerdread - No change.

Aeyrin - I managed to add a couple of levels to Aeyrin during a few spare hours, so she's now level 44. I'm debating whether to continue like this (stop, level a couple of level, stop again, repeat) or seriously taking another look at my adventuring schedule and try to put her in, like what I did during BC with Aenur and Aerhandor (alternate leveling, Pally one day and Druid the next).

Aergor - Has moved out of that bird-infested Terokkar Forest into Nagrand. He's picked up most of the Garadar quest, so I'm letting him accumulate a level or two of rested XP before leveling him again. I'm estimating that I could either get him to level 69 or even 70 by the time I finish with the zone. Then, it's off to Isle of Quel'Danas to farm Shattered Suns rep and gold for his epic and Cold Weather flying before going to Northrend.