OMGBARBERSHOPS

Yeah, so, the thing I was most looking forward to in the truly massive Echoes of Doom patch? Barbershops. Hand down. Check this out: I have yet to spend any talent points on my priest, but I have already given some makeovers. So not even kidding about that.

Sinead before:


Sinead after:

Wholahay before:


Wholahay after:

I think Melisende and Matesha are staying as is for the moment, as they have undeniably awesome 'dos already. Or maybe I just don't play them as much and thus aren't yet bored.

Brewfest Kodo!

Woot.

Fix Sinead's Shit Campaign a rousing success!

Last night, with the help of Keridwen (I guess that's what we're calling you here) who totally figured out a better way to level enchanting and ferried me over to farm it AND then did most of the killing for it AND totally hooked me up with some much needed shards, I maxed out enchanting. Thank you for that, buddy, because I was totally not ever going to get around to it on my own.

Then, we went to normal shadow labyrinths and killed a single mob, giving me the rep I needed to pick up my last heroic key. Sinead's shit is finally totally in order (with the exception of aldor rep)! Woot!

Also, Dani helped too. Cause she's a team player. And I need many handouts.

I have bad timing.

Story of my life, really, so it's not a big shock that it should apply to Warcraft, too. Just like everybody else, I'm stuck in this weird purgatory waiting for the expansion to come out. Some people go to other games, some people stop gaming altogether for awhile, and I....am treading water.

Mostly, I'm kicking myself. I spent my entire summer leveling a character to 70 on a PVP realm I had left once before, lured by the promise of superfancy raiding. And I got to do it! And it was so unbelievably awesome (except the trash waves in Hyjal that are too much for my computer to handle. You know, the ones where I turn the camera up to the sky and just hear cool shit happening. Fun.)! I got thrown into it headlong and made cheat sheet and spreadsheets and tried to learn how to heal on the fly. All very exciting and heady stuff.

And then, one day, it all just kind of dried up. Overnight. Like a particularly vicious drought had hit and I hadn't read the forecast. Pretty much from the start of it, I was rather resigned about the whole thing. Truth be told, the End of Raiding As We Know It couldn't have happened at a better time - the semester was starting up and I had a lot of researchy and teachy type shit to pull together.

And as much as I love raiding (and I really, really do) I kind of needed the break to get Sinead's shit together, too. She was an idiot savant, frankly - enchanting only half leveled up and rep so messed up that she could only do a handful of heroic dungeons. Yeah. Not pretty.

So I had to let the dream of getting to Sunwell go. I had plenty on my plate, and while my guild was in a turbulent and unstable state, the interwebs suggested that most guilds were getting hit pretty hard. No real point in trying to find a new guild (which as Dani pointed out (woot! return to blogging!) take some time and effort) when I'd probably only be able to raid for a month or so before having to level to 80.

I've been biding my time trying to fix Sinead so she's able to shatter voids and get into whatever heroics people are running and leveling alts. The Fix Sinead's Shit campaign has been chugging along with some success - only the Lower City key remains to be gotten, I think, and she's 4 points away from max enchanting. The Level Alts campaign has actually been full of twists and turns. So, stay tuned for that.

But yeah. Kicking myself and asking two questions: why didn't I level to 70 sooner? Or just wait till after the expansion?

Go go endgame!

It may not be a slapfight, but I do have a video for you:



Yep, last Thursday, with just over 15 days played, Sinead hit 70! My very first truly high-level character! As you may be able to tell from the gushing and the fact that I nor only recorded the ding itself but also waited until I had witnesses, this was a thrilling moment for me. I definitely felt like I'd earned a cookie.

I have to admit, though, that I'm playing at 70 so far has been a bit of a mixed bag. I've read some random stuff on the interwebs about how warcraft is essentially two games in one, leveling and endgame, and that the two bear little resemblance to each other. To this end, it does feel a bit like I'm starting back at square one. I am still learning the basic little details, like where to pick up daily quests, and it feels just like the very first time I played and couldn't figure out how to right click without a mouse on a mac. I also have to admit that I feel a little loss without an XP bar to gauge my progress by, but I assume that I'll get used to that soon enough.

I'm also having a love/hate relationship with the endgame instances. On the one hand, a desire to raid was the driving force behind me leveling up so fast, and I really couldn't be more excited to finally see a lot of the content I've just been idly reading about. On the other hand, I am painfully aware of just how green a healer I am. A couple of Karazhan runs at 68 and 69 and a Zul'Aman run just after I hit 70 have left me with some really awesome gear, so I look good on paper (as it were), but I'm learning how to heal as a holy priest. All of the fights are also totally new to me, meaning I tend to make a ton of really embarrassingly noobish mistakes. I'm sure I'll get better in time, and thankfully everyone's very patient, but I really hate sucking at things and wish that they didn't have to be so patient. Nothing like a steep learning curve to keep you humble, I guess.

Nope, still not 70 yet...

...but last night I dinged 65, which puts me much closer! Let me tell you, the last 5 levels have been a doozy. It took me about 11-12 days to go from 60-65, which is twice as long as it took to go from 40-50 and about 1 1/2 times as long as it took to go from 50-60. Brutal, right? Well, nothing felt more brutalized than my poor ego, which had taken some measure of pride in being able to level up so quickly thus far. I mean, Dani (among others) had warned me that the grind from 60-70 was essentially WoW's version of a widowmaker, but in my youth and arrogance, I didn't listen.

But now, there's only 5 levels standing between me and endgame! WOOT, baby! I CAN DO THIS!

Anyway, it's been awhile sine I blogged about anything other than slapfighting, so let me bring you up to speed a little bit about how I've been keeping Sinead busy. First, Outland is on massive amount of crack. Glorious crack, the likes of which Whitney Houston would no doubt love, but crack nonetheless. Exhibit A: the clown clothes of Outland (see below).


Exhibit B: the mushroom forest of Zangarmarsh (also home to mushroom people).

go go levitate

Exhibit C: proof that someone at Blizzard loves the Dark Crystal just as much as I do. I mean, what else am I supposed to think when presented with richly dressed bird creatures huddled around a floating rock?


I credit the actual progress of my leveling more to two other things than to Outland, per se. The first is a sort of ad hoc carrot-and-stick mechanism that's developed recently. The stick is represented in part by that nagging voice in the back of my head that chides me whenever I feel like I'm not leveling fast enough. The actual nagging voices of those who've taken me under their wing (it should be noted that Dani is generally more supportive than nagging) make up the rest of the stick.

The carrot is the lure of playing alts. Not the alts I already have - new fancy shiny ones on Sinead's server. I've gotten this idea in my head that it would be really awesome to level up one of each healing class - just to see how healing is different for them. So, I've been rewarding myself by playing a couple of levels here and there on each whenever Sinead hits her various checkpoints.

brewing an army of healbots

Probably the biggest thing pushing me forward is a more direct focus on the endgame. Something you should know is that I'm not a social person. Really, I'd describe myself more as a hermit than anything else. It's not that I'm unfriendly (I actually have no problem making or keeping friends at all), it's more that I don't really feel compelled to seek out social interaction most of the time. Which means I'm kind of an odd fit for an MMORPG (well, except that such self-imposed seclusion does make ridiculously quick leveling possible).

So that's what I realized - that you raid in groups. I also realized that healing myself and Dani when she came to kill things for me was nowhere close to what I'd (presumably, hopefully) be doing in a raid, and that I'd have to step out of my comfort zone to develop some mad endgame-appropriate skills. The first time this happened, the guild decided to run Molten Core for shits and giggles. And I got pulled into, too, and proceeded to follow people around trying desperately not to die and trying to heal whoever was in range. It was crazy and stressful, but it was also a raid and I was in it, and that was awesome.

noob's first raid!

Perhaps more practical, I started running every pug looking for a healer. Up till now, I've gotten random whispers asking me if I would heal this or that instance and always turned them down (except for one Scarlet Monstery run). Now, need a healer? I'm there with bells on. Which has been an interesting experience, between the shieldless tank, the warlock who refused to soulstone me, and the rogues who ran into battle at half health because they wouldn't eat and thinking that they were dying because the 'healz must be gettin d/c.'

The Big 6-0

The only thing between me and level 70 is bigger badder space boars!

That's right, everybody, a few days ago I hit 60. Woo! Go me! I have to say though that as it takes longer and longer to level it's starting to feel more like I'm running in place than making progress.

In any case, a number of important changes have accompanied the journey to level 60. Sacrifices have been made. Around level 55, I respecced from Shadow to Smiter, and had to give up mind flaying and turning purple. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but I'm liking the Smiter build a lot, and ultimately, I think what I miss most about Shadow is spirit tap....which I totally forgot to put talent points into while respeccing. I also replaced Whitemane's Chapeau, which I loved dearly.

Dani took me to the Dark Portal and showed me around Outlands

The biggest change, hands down, is moving to Outlands. Woo, Outlands! See, the thing is that I have read about Outlands a lot (because I read about warcraft a lot), but since I have not leveled a character past 40 up till now, I had played through any of it. The novelty of exploring the crazy weirdness of it is sweet, but probably better is that the drops and quest rewards as miles above anything I have been wearing. For example, I'm am currently wearing pants whose item level is 33....and until I hit Outlands, that was kind of the norm. Go go upgrades.

Slapfight Sunday: Sinead vs Squiddleton

You know what's awesome? Naked sissy slapfights, that's what. Yep, when I get bored I challenge my friends to a duel and then promptly strip down to my virtual skivvies and proceed to bitchslap the bejesus out of them. If you've never had the pleasure, I highly encourage you give it a shot. But, in case you're the kind that prefers to live vicariously through others (hey, no judgment!), every week I'll be posting a video of me slapfighting with someone naked set to inspiring montage-y rock music.

For the first edition, we have Sinead (my lvl 50 priest) vs. Squiddleton (my boyfriend's newly created lvl 5 paladin). In the lush forests of Azuremyst Island, the two squared off and slapfought as no two draenei had EVER SLAPFOUGHT BEFORE! See for yourself:

(I have to give mad props to that bird who swooped in and helped out though. It was totally touch and go there for a minute)

I hit level 50!

I am inordinately proud of this for a few reasons. First, I can kind of start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now, like I'm closing the gap to level 70. Second, I finally picked up a 41 point talent! For some reason, this seems like an accomplishment. Third, it took me less than a week to go from 40 to 50, making the whole level-up-as-fast-as-you-can thing seem like a less Sisyphean task. Go me!

Maintenance Day

My near-pathological breakneck leveling pace has been halted briefly by maintenance day. As Blizzard toils away on my realm (and I always, for some reason, envision that this process is somewhat similar to getting your house fumigated for pests, what with the being unable to go into for a certain period of time and patches tha fix bugs and all...but maybe that's just me), I'll take the time to reflect on Sinead's whirlwind tour¹ of Azeroth so far.

Sometimes Azeroth seems like it's really in the Twilight Zone. I'm not talking about the inordinate number of zhevras that refuse to drop hooves (though they will kick the shit out of you with them) or the damaging effect the sheer number of predators in such close proximity to one another should have on the ecosystem. No, I'm talking about things like this:


It's half a cat! Sticking out of a mountain! The hell?! How did it get there? Where is it going - wait, can it even go anywhere? In the end, there's no answer to these questions, and you just have to saddle up and ride into the sunset.

I have to say that in leveling Sinead, I've learned a lot more about being dead. Don't get me wrong, I've died plenty of times on my alts, too, but this is (much to my chagrin, I remind you) a PVP server and the ganking is a constant danger. Long story short, after being ganked yet again - this time by a stealthed rogue who waited until I had a rock elemental down to around 15% health before leaping out and brutally killing me - I noticed that my ghost was emitting a weird sort of light.


See what I mean? I'm like a dead glowbug or something. It's actually kind of cool, and noticing it for the first time softened the ego blow of having been mercilessly ganked yet again.

Ok. I have one more for you, but I'm going to warn you now that it's...uh...not in the best of taste. Yeah, so, I was running around the badlands and turned to say something to Dani or Jon (the boyfriend) and when I turned back I realized that my elekk had gotten kind of hung up on a small tree. And the more I looked at it, the more it looked like the elekk was kind of humping the tree. Here, I made a video to show you what I mean:



See what I'm talking about? My mount is a total dendrophiliac! Wasn't expecting that, honestly, but hey, no judgment, right?

PS - we did something totally awesome, but as it was Dani's brainchild, I'm going to let her tell you all about it. Stay tuned!
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¹Ok, for some people out there in internetland, this may not actually constitute breakneck leveling speed. But for me it does, so make of that what you will.

Going for the gold

Dani got me hooked on warcraft pretty soon after she started playing. Unlike Dani, who had a certain single-mindednes of purpose, I didn't stop there: I became a fairly severe altoholic. I also became a carebear. Dani's server is PVP, and after my shaman, Wholahay, got ganked over and over and over one night in Ashenvale, frustration got the better of me and I transferred. Long story short, I finally stabilized at 4 primary characters on Mok'Nathal: two draenei (a shaman and a hunter) and two trolls (a hunter and a priest).¹ All was well in Azeroth.

Well, almost. You know how there are just some people who can get you to do things? Inexplicable things that you totally thought you would not ever do until BAM, there you are doing it? Well, for better or worse, Dani holds that eerie power over me. And she convinced me to reroll on her server and level to 70 ASAP. My thought process went something like this:

HELL NO! I am a CAREBEAR! Griefers can blow me....

....but I have been wondering about PVP lately....

....but I just got two of characters up to 40! I don't want to abandon them!

....but if you just leveled up super-fast you could be a healbot in fancy raids....

....and you'd have a new character to play....

...you could go create it right now....

....wouldn't that be fun?

So, in about half an hour, I completely folded and made Sinead, a draenei priest. That was about two weeks ago and I've been leveling here virtually nonstop ever since. I miss having alts to tool around with, and the total lack of other lowbie characters in our guild means I'm basically soloing 95% of the time. Which is also lame. But, I'm just bulldozing through the dark spots as fast as I can.

Good news is, I'm making progress! I just hit 40 this morning, and picked up shadowform and an elekk - which means I am now officially a badass. See?


Ok, back to the grindstone. But, before I go, I'll leave you with this video of Dani and I celebrating when my fancy new robes dropped in Scarlet Monastery:

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¹For some reason, I have weird preferences with characters. I can only play draenei or trolls. I tried other races, but they just don't feel quite right in some small way. And, I really prefer to play things with mana and ranged DPS capabilities. Melee makes me all flustered.