Vanity Pets

This is the first time Ive managed to get a toon to lv 36 without a pet. For some reason I just couldnt decide what suited my little Orcling the best. Im really not a Snake person so they were out (none of my characters have snakes, although I guess when the expansion comes out, Ill pick them up simply for collections sake). The Dragonhawk hatchlings seemed to exotic for her simple tastes. My Mage has one, but shes loud and its bright plumage suits her robes and her personality. The prairie dog is too small, plus it might get lost in Orgrimmar’s bustle or Tamung could mistake it for a critter and use it for weaponskilling. As for the cockroach, well, after the Bahamas, Im just not fond of them, virtual or not.

Then it came to me, why not get a Parrot. So here we are, exploring the jungle in the rainy season together.

Its a Jungle out there

On a medium population server you might think that hitting STV at 4am would be relatively safe. You would be wrong, within 10 minutes we had been ganked by 2 completely different lv 70s.

The rain started just as we arrived. I suppose that should have been an omen. It went from light and airy in Booty Bay to wet, grey and dangerous in the jungle.

Which brings me to my current dilemma, we arent gankers at heart. I think its partly because there are 2 of us, which makes attacking solo questers who make up most of the opposing faction we encounter just seem wrong. Also, I think its a personality issue, maybe a touch of arrogance, why attack someone when you know you would beat them.. its no challenge. Which is why, I dont understand what 70s get out of killing people in their 30s.. ah well, only 32 levels to go before we can hunt them down and eat supper on their corpses. Anyway back to the dilemma, do we gank everything red on the principle that when the next scrub 70 comes riding past and one shots us, we will smirk to ourselves as we corpse run remembering all the misery we had already caused… or do we stay as we are, playing nice and then regretting it?

The arena rating theory is still holding true btw, both our little friends had rubbish ratings. This crocodile could probably have beaten them in a duel.

Perhaps even my parrot could have, well that might be pushing it.

On a more positive or at least more aggressive note, we got around 40 honor today from a lv 42 gnome warlock. He had this fascination with Grom’gol, lurking just outside the perimeter dotting up all the low levels venturing out. Which just plain nasty but for some reason he just didnt want to get the hint. We killed him around 7 times, the final time way out at sea. For some reason he thought escaping from a Shaman would be easier at sea…. water walking proved otherwise.

Whirlwinds

Ever since he hit lv 30, Tamung has been eyeing his Whirlwind Axe quest a bit like a puppy eyeing the biscuit tin. The other night we hit STV and collected all the Bloodscalp tusks (if you can see a troll has 2 tusks whilst alive, why oh why dont they all have 2 on their corpses..) and tonight we braved Arathi Highlands for charms. Now, we were lvs 33 (me, because I slack) and 34 (him) respectively and the mobs we needed are lvs 38 and 39. Actually it went a lot easier than I expected, in part I think due to windfury and the fact that I can heal.

That brought us to the hard part. How to kill a lv 40 elite when you struggle to hit lv 38 normal mobs. Obviously the easy thing would have been to ask one of the various 70s running around to help out, but that would have been too easy. Potted up with nature resist, totems down we summoned him. In the end, it was fairly touch and go, he hits hard and his knockback makes trying to tank him when you are 6 levels lower “interesting”, but with around a 100 health to spare we killed him first time.

Tamung is a happy little Orc, running around with his shiny new toy. Shame plus 2 weapon damage doesnt have a glow, oh well, I really need to level enchanting.

Hex and all that Voodoo

There are two races Ive never managed to play to a decent level.

Dwarves, primarily because I dont fancy their animations, looks and voice/jokes

and

Trolls, mainly because of their feet “issue”.

However out of curiousity I decided to give a Troll one more shot, and much to my surprise Im rather taken with my little priest. I like her casting animations, I like the way she sits so delicately and I love her accent.

So here she is, Sugarplum my latest alt. She is going to be shadow forever (yes yes I know ive said that before, but I mean it this time).

Stormwind Harbour

Now since I have a fondness for Night elfs Ive made that run of peril from Menethil to Ironforge so many times. In fact its probably the biggest killer of my low level toons, that and the Defias Pillagers so I received the news that come the expansion boats will go from Auberdine to Stormwind with a mixture of glee and sadness. Glee that no more will my low level toons have to gamble with their lives running from crocs, dino and spiders and sadness that the “rite of passage” will no longer exist. Add to the fact that they have already nerfed Defias Pillager’s into the ground and where is the danger now? Hopefully Northrend will have some new evils lurking in the shadows, deadly like hogger and sneaky as a felreaver.

Here is my little Mage watching the construction with interest. She has heard all about the mysterious world beyond Elwynn and cant wait for the harbour to be finished so she can safely visit it all.

Sunset

Finished the last few quests in 1k needles tonight. It took longer than it should have simply because the scenary was so beautiful I had to keep stopping to take screenshots.

Things Im already excited about in WotLK

1. New zones to explore
2. The changes to healing/damage means there will be a healing flask
3. The changes to hunter’s pets means that there will be more viable pets. Looking forward to having a pet that can disarm people as well as a cute fangly worg again
4. Furbolgs
5. Being able to buy enchants off the Auction house. Finally my enchanters will be able to make money without hanging out in cities and I’ll be able to enchant my own alts without having to pay some random a small fortune
6. Not losing half my bag slots to mounts and mini-pets

Ganking Lowbies

Now dont get me wrong, I love pvp as much as the next person, but I really dont understand the mentality of people who just hang out at zones 50 levels lower than those they should be questing, killing greys. Today we visited Tarren Mill to discover a lv 70 hunter running around killing npcs and baby horde. Then we moved to STV to start doing Tamung’s weapon quest and low and behold there is another 70, a warrior this time again killing lowbies.

Which leads me to the reason for this post. Someone posted whilst ranting on the official forums that people who gank lowbies all have sucky arena ratings and fail at fighting their own levels so take out their lack of epeen on lv 20s. Now I tend to take everything i read on said forums with a pinch of salt, after all people are usually too busy complaining, fighting or trying to protect their own bruised egos but that one comment got me thinking. Luckily I keep a stack of postit notes by the computer and I made a note of all their names and checked their amoury profiles… would you believe it… their average rating was 1300 in 2 v 2.

So Zamppa and Snappyah, this post is for you two pvp gods 😀

On a slightly more bragging note, we had our first proper pvp today. Running around in 1000 needles finishing a couple of quests a lv 41 squid mage decided to be a hero and try and aoe two little orcs. He died and gave 3 honor points, my first 3 to be exact. Your first always needs to be immortalised in print so hello Sötsomsocker.

I have to admit the reason I dont lowbie gank is simply because you look so stupid when it all goes wrong. When your target/s fight back, kite you to guards, produce 70s out of the bushes or anything else sneaky. On the other hand, managing to be a lowbie who successfully kills a skull by clever use of terrain/tactics/pots is one great feeling.

Windfury and Wolves

The Orcs finally hit 30. Windfury, Astral recall and mounts, have to say im a happy orcling.

Hoping the horde version of the call of wind quest is more challenging and fun than the alliance version.

New Pets in WotLK

I have to admit being excited about the forthcoming expansion, searching for tibits of information all over the place. I keep telling myself its because i want to be able to make the best possible informed choices about spec/professions/leveling etc once it goes live.

But the sad truth is… its like christmas presents, I much prefer peaking inside when its forbidden to actually opening it on Christmas day. The speculation is far more fun, than actually getting your hands on it.

However, my little hunter is postively gleeful. Im very much a dog person but in the current game all my hunter’s have cats simply because they are far better choices for all aspects of the game, but with the changes to pets (new talent trees etc) it looks like worgs will again be viable pets.

Plus to pile on more excitement they are adding new worg models. All that remains now is to level a hunter to 70 in preparation.