Almost Picture Perfect: STV

STV definitely has to be one of my favourite zones. I have many pleasurable memories of world pvp here, from long drawn out battles in the arena to fast furious guild versus guild and plenty of low level scraps. It’s an area I always look forward to when leveling alts and of course, the sheer beauty of the place helps.

20 Days of Blogging: Why you decided to start a blog

Back roughly in sequence, this is day 2 of Saga’s 20 days of Blogging.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog
Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW
Day 04 – Your best WoW memory
Day 05 – Favourite item(s) in game
Day 06 – Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)
Day 07 – The reason behind your blog’s name
Day 08 – 10 things we don’t know about you
Day 09 – Your first blog post
Day 10 – Blog/Website favourites
Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws
Day 12 – A usual day in your life/online time
Day 13 – People (players/bloggers) that you admire
Day 14 – This upsets you
Day 15 – Your desktop background (on your computer) and why you chose it
Day 16 – Things you miss (post Cataclysm)
Day 17 – Your favourite spot (in game or outside it)
Day 18 – Your favourite outfit
Day 19 – In your bags/bank
Day 20 – If this was your last day playing WoW, what would you do?

Why did I start blogging?

Well I’ve always been a screenshot addict, filling folder after folder and I’ve always been avid reader of other blogs, both WoW related and otherwise. At first my intention was to keep a private on-line diary about my experiences playing WoW, just a repository of the stuff I was interested in along with somewhere to store my pictures. At the time I was in a guild with Seph and when she started blogging, I decided to give it a go too. For the first year or so, I  kept quiet, making sure that if I commented on anyone else’s blog, I didn’t use a link so that no one could track down my random musings. Then when I returned to raiding full time with my old guild, I decided to transfer my blog from Blogger to WordPress and “go public” so to speak. I finally got around to signing up with Blog Azeroth and posting actual comments as Erinys rather than some anonymous lurker.

Ultimately though, I blog because I love to write. I enjoy sharing bits and pieces of my life, both in-game and out with the wonderful people I’ve met through blogging and can’t imagine not doing it anymore.

There is just something about hanging out my verbal linen which appeals to me.

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: Hoarding and Me

The Blog Azeroth Shared Topic this week is one dear to my little hoarding heart.

World of Warcraft has added many different items for players to collect, whether it be collecting pets, mounts, transmog gear or knickknacks about the lore. This week’s topic asks what you do collect in the game and what is your prized item from that collection?

Suggested by Noahdeer of Be MoP.

I have a slight tendency to collect all things but if I break my various bits and bobs down, it probably comes out like this:

1. Gear with a primary focus on staves. This is my very first Druid, Briarrose with her Undead slaying skirt and her Grand Marshal’s stave. In fact even though I’ve hadn’t really used a staff on any end-game character since the off-hand enchant was introduced, I have bags full of them.

Erinys being my main for so long has the bulk of my clothes and weapons collection but Sprout hasn’t done too badly herself, especially with old dungeon runs. That said, my prized item of gear has to be my Benediction. I was the 2nd Priest on my then server to complete it and it has a lot of wonderful memories both of that sense of satisfaction of killing the bosses back in my first raiding days but also of the people I played along side who helped me farm for the Eye of Shadow all night.

2. Things to gank with. Gathered from a variety of sources, some from rares and some from festivals for example but over all, little silly things to brighten up battlegrounds and frustrate the enemy.

Here we can see the results of the Gin’ji knife set (that pile of meat I’m sat on happens to be Panda) and my romantic picnic basket. Oh and before anyone assumes I’m a hateful ganker, my little monk arrived in Arathi en route to the Scarlet Monastery to be greeted by this:

Okay anyone with a fragment of a brain cell may have questioned why I stayed whilst being spammed by that and personally the /chicken and /laugh emotes would have definitely made me nervous had I been in their shoes but …. they forgot the cardinal rule of world pvp, there is always a bigger fish somewhere in the shadows.

I’m tempted to say that the knife set is my favourite of these items, simply because I’d hate it to be used on me. The fact that you can use it on your own faction is a plus point too.

3. Pets/Mounts

My very first WoW pet cost me the shirt off my back, quite literally as I hadn’t found the auction house at the point but desperately wanted to buy a cat off the crazy lady with cleaver. Since then, I’ve done my best to acquire a decent pet collection. I’m also well on my way to 150 mounts, which I freely admit isn’t many by some standards but given that all my characters seem to ride the same 4 or 5 is still a little excessive.

The favourite here would be a toss up between Spike my Iron-bound protodrake (lots of happy memories of frying dwarves week in week out) and my Hyacinth Macaw, a gift from Mr Harpy who got lucky with the drop in Vanilla whilst camping some Horde in STV.

4. Achievement points. Unfortunately I’m one of those people who when shown a list has a pathetic urge to tick everything off it.

I’m also quite partial to collecting grey items, especially the ones you get from pick pocketing so have quite a few Gnome Effigies and Rag Dolls kicking around in my bank just waiting to be used for something. One day I just know they will come in handy!

A Crisis of Confidence

My love affair with Priests has hit a stumbling block. I’ve never liked Disc as a spec and always resented being pushed into it throughout Wrath and Cataclysm for both PvE and PvP. With Mists I vowed I’d never play a spec I didn’t like again and I’ve tried to persevere with Holy, I really have but in PvP in particular I have terrible mobility and when shut down I’m rather squishy to say the least. Sure, gear is part of it, but when you’ve already got over 55 percent resilience (or whatever it’s called these days) but people still regularly crit you for 200k, getting a few percent more isn’t going to make a huge difference.

I miss the days when I could as a healer take on a dpser and stand a chance of winning (i.e. every expansion bar this one). That coupled with a few stupid mistakes in roughly pve related things, brought on in the main part by my shyness when having to play with strangers have left me wondering what good is Sprout. She struggles to do her dailies alone, random battlegrounds are hugely painful because as soon as one or two competent dpsers glare at her she tends to go splat and I’m too short of time and too insecure to raid anymore.

And yes, emo post is emo.

“But war is a bitter bugle”

Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the glowing globe of flame heading straight for the beachhead. Somehow the juxtaposition of the elegant ship, it’s sails furled sliding across the moon with the harsh bolts of the tower and the spiked defenses made me think of a few lines by Charles Causley.

But war is a bitter bugle
That all must learn to blow
And it didn’t take long to stop the song
In the dirty Italian snow..
O war is a casual mistress
And the world is her double bed
She has a few charms in her mechanised arms
But you wake up and find yourself dead.

from his poem “A Ballad for Katharine of Aragon“

Almost at the end of the quest line for the Operation: Shieldwall, I find myself wondering “What is worth fighting for?” Also I have to admit I preferred Anduin in the days of Lady Prestor when he just stood there as a small but quiet child to his current teenage brat behavior. Constantly running away from his protection detail… pff Jaina should turn him into a sheep for a bit.

 

Somehow from there, I ended up contemplating Sky Admiral Rogers, Sprout’s new role model (possibly because my wandering brain swapped her name for war in the previously mentioned lines). Not only did she tell Admiral Taylor to put his “big boy pants on” but her desire to weaponize everything and anything which might help turn the tide of war speaks volumes to a Gnome!

Plus she’s a bit genocidal, which probably means she’s going to die at some point in the not to distant future so we should revel in her whilst we can.

Those green dirtbags down there plagued your homes in Southshore, laid siege to your children in Redridge, and massacred every man, woman and child in Theramore.

It. Is. PAYBACK TIME! (from the quest text)

Although Thrall did something similar to unarmed Alliance in the Goblin start zone and he’s still alive and kicking so who knows.

20 Days of Blogging – Your first day playing WoW

Today’s random number is 3.

Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Why you decided to start a blog
Day 03 – Your first day playing WoW
Day 04 – Your best WoW memory
Day 05 – Favourite item(s) in game
Day 06 – Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)
Day 07 – The reason behind your blog’s name
Day 08 – 10 things we don’t know about you
Day 09 – Your first blog post
Day 10 – Blog/Website favourites
Day 11 – Bad habits and flaws
Day 12 – A usual day in your life/online time
Day 13 – People (players/bloggers) that you admire
Day 14 – This upsets you
Day 15 – Your desktop background (on your computer) and why you chose it
Day 16 – Things you miss (post Cataclysm)
Day 17 – Your favourite spot (in game or outside it)
Day 18 – Your favourite outfit
Day 19 – In your bags/bank
Day 20 – If this was your last day playing WoW, what would you do?

I have to admit I wasn’t convinced when Mr Harpy pointed out World of Warcraft on the shelf. Prior to that point, the only computer games I’d played seriously were first person shooters and I had mixed feelings about the multi-player aspect of the game*. We picked up one copy and brought it home and got it installed. In fact at first I wasn’t convinced at all, we died to owls, spiders (lots and lots and lots of spiders) and cats. We got lost in caves and fell off things. There were other people with weird names running around and everything seemed dark and depressed. Oh and did I mention the dying to random things. In fact I think I gave up between levels 4 and 10, by which time Mr Harpy had found a guild, a boat to Auberdine and discovered sea monsters. In the end it was the baby Loch Ness monsters and the sheer size of the world which dragged me back in. At first we thought Teldressil seemed huge and so finding it out that it was just a tiny acorn compared to what else existed out there for us to explore…. well that took our breathe away.

It didn’t take long until sitting sharing a character wasn’t good enough and I went out and bought my own version of the game. I promptly rolled a Warlock and then discovered PvP….. the rest as they say is history.

*In fact thinking about it, I still do have my reservations about that area of the game. In many ways my comfort zone is playing pretty much solo because that way if I screw up, there is no one there to see it. Plus in what I’m doing now which is primarily random battlegrounds, everyone else seems to be doing the same, i.e playing “interestingly” or worse. Sure I miss raiding, or rather I miss feeling like part of a team but then I’m too insecure to play well with others because at the slightest hint of a mistake, I’m fighting the urge to delete my character. It’s weird because in real life, I’m actually far more confident or perhaps I’ve just got a whole lot better at hiding it. I deal with confrontations on a daily basis, people screaming abuse in my face, crying, screaming and throwing blame around like candy but that’s fine, it’s roughly what I get paid for but switch that to an on-line situation and I struggle to cope. Maybe it’s because I know I’m good at my job but less convinced about WoW or perhaps it’s because I know I suck at WoW and I hate having it pointed out. Who knows, maybe I’m just weird..

“It’s not my fault, I’m not to blame”

I’ve been toying with the idea of entering Matty’s Oscar competition for a while now, considering first one film and then another but nothing seemed right. Then I started listening to the Hunchback of Notre Dame audio book on my phone.

So without any further ado I would like to present my take on Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Esmeralda

Clutching flowers from Quasimodo.

Judge Claude Frollo

Feel free to pause here and sing a couple of choruses of “Hellfire“.

Phoebus

Gear lists to follow – as this is a bit of an eleventh hour entry (although I’m not 100 percent cartoons count) anyway but the Hunchback of Notre Dame is an awesome film , it has goats after all!

Twiceshy and the Big Green Bug of Happiness

Large green bug finally acquired! That’s one thing less to achieve before the patch comes rolling around. Now I just need to take him into a few battlegrounds and feed him Goblins.

Mentzelia: The Harvest Witch

I’ve never been a great fan of titles in-game but there are a couple of NPC only ones that I’d jump through hoops for.

Both belong to Worgen Druids and both have a decidedly seasonal feel to them.

I love the idea of a Harvest Witch (or Druid), in tune with the earth and fully understanding the need to reap just as much as to sow. A herbalist by nature, bags full of flowers dried and fresh. Naturally she prefers the wild places, those quiet groves and silent forests.  Her constant companion is a raven, shiny black feathers and curious eyes.  Thus Mentzelia was born, named for a plant otherwise known as the Moonflower.

Of course, being ever so fond of planning, making her wasn’t enough, I needed to create some outfits for her too.

Sowing  or Restoration

• Helm: Conqueror’s Nightsong Headpiece
• Shoulders: Mantle of Wild Feathers
• Chest: Living Breastplate
• Hands: Shardtooth Gloves
• Off-Hand: Dreamseeker Dandelion
• Main-Hand: Ceremonial Kris
• Legs: Forestwalker Kilt

Reaping or Feral

• Helm:  Conqueror’s Nightsong Headpiece
• Shoulders: Pygmy Shoulders
• Chest: Cosmos Vestments
• Hands: Gloves of Northern Lordaeron
• Weapon: War Scythe

So if you come across a garden nestled by the hedgerow or blooming in a forest, be careful what you take for two sets of eyes may be watching. Then as you wander home, your arms full of stolen herbs, would you see the raven soaring above you, tracking your every move or would you notice the rustle of the long grass as something stalked towards you, perhaps not, at least until it was too late.

Pre Patch Panicking

Time scales and deadlines always make me nervous, suddenly I feel that I have so much to do before Blizzard roll out the next patch.

Sprout

• Finish up her remaining reputations (Shado-Pan and that pesky Alliance one in the Wilds)
• Farm as many Conquest and Valor points as I can lay my sticky little mitts on
• Finish up beating the Pet Tamers
• Hit 480 item level for the new LFR

Twiceshy

• Tame a giant worm

I would also like to level a couple of my alts past their respective starting zones and tick off a few achievements which have been sitting around half finished for ages.

It may not seem like a massive list, but with my limited play time, I’m definitely a bit concerned.