I won two items in Looking for Loot errr…Looking for Raid last night.  Gloves and…wait for it…

a Helm Token!

Already had gloves so I passed them along to Elgar (poor little guy didn’t have any mittens and his hands were freezing.)  Note:  Yes, I admit I considered a round of Elgar Pong in LFR…

Ran off to get my helm, gems and enchants then off to the reforger to get my hit back up.

Then the loot drama started.  Not the drama you’re probably expecting, but the Loot Comparison Drama to figure out if Item A is better than Item B.

The good news..

I actually won something I needed for a change (curse you, RNG!)

The bad news…

It’s a LFR item so I’m losing ilvl and stats compared with the VP helm I purchased.

The good news…

The LFR helm gives me the T13 bonus.

The bad news…

Apparently the bonus is considered “weak” although it sims out as a dps increase, and the LFR version also ranks significantly lower on Shadow Priest BiS list(s) for Normal and LFR than the Soulgaze Cowl.

Now, I could sim both helms and get some numbers, but the keyword here is “numbers.”  Yeah, I get a bunch of numbers and not sure what to do with them.  I’d have to hire a math guy to explain it all, so I’ll just default to the BiS stuff.

BiS Normal Raid from HowToPriest.com (* is what I have so far)

Helm: Hood of Dying Light
Neck: Petrified Fungal Heart
Shoulder: Mantle of Dying Light*
Back: Woundlicker Cover*
Chest: Robes of Dying Light
Bracers: Dreamwraps of the Light
Gloves: Gloves of Liquid Smoke
Waist: Cord of the Slain Champion*
Legs: Leggings of Dying Light
Feet: Janglespur Jackboots
Ring1: Ring of the Riven
Ring2: Signet of Suturing
Weapon: Rathrak, the Poisonous Mind
Offhand: Ledger of Revolting Rituals
Wand: Finger of Zon’ozz
Trinket1: Cunning of the Cruel
Trinket2: Will of Unbinding*

Ugh – I’m a long way from BiS, so here is the BiS LFR list:

Head: Soulgaze Cowl

Well, I’ll stop there because the Soulgaze Cowl beats out the LFR Hood of Dying Light even in the LFR BiS list.

Go figure.

Well, I guess I better hang on to my Soulgaze Cowl until the RNG gods decide to favor me with a regular helm token – I might have to sacrifice a gnome or something.

But at least I can play with the T13 bonus and start practicing the new spell priority rotation for it just in case…

Pets for my Rogue

Since I didn’t get the pet from Mr. Pinchy yet, my Rogue was a high enough level to solo LBS for the Worg Pup and Smolderweb Hatchling.

Gotta love stealth – took me about 5 minutes to get both pets and I only had to fight Mother Smolderweb and Quartermaster Zigris.  Yeah, they hit a little harder than I expected but it wasn’t too bad.

Worg Pup

I’ve been really enjoying my Rogue so she’ll need a few pets.

Smolderweb Hatchling

I might actually get this one to level 85!

I had sadly neglected my cooking skills (about level 172) so I had to “catch up” to take advantage of the Outland/Northrend daily cooking and fishing quests when I hit level 70.

Levels 60-68 are painful.  I’d been through Outland recently enough to know which quests to skip, especially the “get 20 bear butts” quests with horrible drop rates.

I would probably enjoy Outland a lot more if I didn’t have to kill 40 mobs to get 5 quest items.  If I have to endure the low drop rates, at least give me mobs with pockets to pick!

Blade’s Edge Mountains is particularly painful.

“Go kill 30 ogres.”

Okay, I can do that since I’m going there anyway to steal some brew and crystals.

Here’s your brew and crystals – anything else before I leave?

“Ummm…yeah…go kill 30 more ogres.”

I don’t suppose you could have told me that the first time I went there?  Sorry, gotta run…I hear they need some help over at Toshley’s Station…

“Take this gizmo then use it on the eggs to get some stuff and keep using it until you get the one you need and hopefully you won’t get killed before it changes and blah, blah, blah…”

Sorry, too gimmicky – gotta run!

The only thing that gets me through Outland without screaming are the Ethereals.  I’ll do their quests simply because I love they way they look and I would absolutely kill for an “authentic” Ethereal transmog outfit!

So…I wasted the entire day leveling up cooking.  Running all over to get skill-up recipes, fishing and hunting for cooking mats but I finally got cooking to 360 and fishing to 391.

While I was killing raptors for eggs in Wetlands, I found another Matriarch, Matriarch’s Nest with a Razormaw Hatchling and a Treasure Chest!

Razormaw Matriarch and Nest

I even caught Mr. Pinchy.

Mr. Pinchy

But I didn’t get the pet!  First time I haven’t got the pet on the first wish – I got Benevolent Mr. Pinchy.  Ugh.  Hope I get the pet so I don’t have to catch him all over again!

I bid a fond farewell to Outland, picked up the starter quests in Borean Tundra and finally made it to level 70.

Level 70

I wasn’t doing too bad in Northrend. Completely forgot to switch to Combat to better handle multiple mobs that would aggro from a few inches away from me, but I didn’t die much.

Until I started the quests in Coldarra…

I’d get a bunch of mobs on me and would die every time.  Not sure what I was doing wrong but I couldn’t kill anything fast enough.

Eventually I got most of the quests finished, so I went back to Dalaran to vendor trash and that’s when I noticed I was still wearing my Fishing Hat…

Oh well.

I now officially have 5 characters stuck in Northrend.  It’s not that I dislike Northrend, it just seems a very long, long road to level 80, and everything is suddenly “serious business.”

I plan to push everyone through to at least level 80 – if not level 85 – before MoP is released since I want to level up professions as well.

Northrend is just where I seem to hit the wall…

On the bright side, my divorce went to court on Friday so I can officially disenchant my wedding rings and find a nice, well-geared tank to run some dungeons…err….I mean I can put away my wedding rings and find a nice man for dinner and movie…

Quote:

“Hopefully not a shot of her dead.”

Luckily I have a USB drive filled to capacity with screen shots – all completely unorganized!  Since I have only two folders – one for cropped images for the blog and one for everything else, I sorted them by the default WoW name and picked the 6th…

Sixth of Six

Ah, crap…

Update:  I see I got tagged again by Looking For More, so how about a sort based on file size?

Challenge 2

Much better!

A nice screen shot of my BE Priest.  Can’t remember if I’ve ever used it or not, but I do remember it was such an atmospheric spot it deserved a picture – I especially liked how the lighting looked at that particular time.

Level 60

I’ve been doing the Love is in the Air dailies for most of my characters, so I noticed that my Rogue’s Chemical Company quest was now in Terrokar Forest instead of Winterspring.

Okay, no problem – I was heading out there anyway, so I skipped Hellfire Peninsula and went straight to Shattrath City.

The Chemical Company was just a little outside near some hills.   I estimated I could do the quest in about 1 minute – kill 5 mobs, throw the bomb – in and out.

I was wrong.

It took 20 minutes because I kept getting killed.  I stopped counting after 12 deaths.  My armor was orange and red.  I couldn’t get close enough to throw the bomb without dying.

After the first 4 or 5 deaths it was clear my “usual” approach wasn’t going to work.  Stealth, sneak up behind, sap, pick pocket, ambush, etc., etc.

Those buggers can apparently see through stealth.  I swear by the Light of Elune they can detect stealth.  They are also so close together I’d have three attacking me at once.

Oh, and let’s not forget about the blue moths flying around close enough to notice a Rogue getting attacked by three Chemical Company lackeys and wanting to join in the fun.

No point trying to run because they will follow you all the way down the path and if they don’t reach you their perfume spray will get you.  No, Recuperate doesn’t heal fast enough.

And with the very quick respawn rate, forget about running back from the graveyard and getting a few seconds of cleared path to throw the bomb.

Yeah, that was fun.

I was tempted to just drop the stupid quest at that point (there was no one in the guild logged in who I could bribe to come help me) but I thought no – this was a golden opportunity to really test out my Rogue skills and see if I could defeat the Evil Chemical Company mechanics.

I switched to Combat spec, equipped my sword, read up on a few Combat tactics and tried again.

It made a big difference – I died faster.

So back to Sub spec.  Eventually I got the stupid quest finished – run in, throw the bomb and run off a cliff knowing I was going to die anyway.

It would have ended there if I didn’t notice that I was getting some very sweet loot and coins from pick pocketed lock boxes.

My greed got the best of me – it was too good to pass up.

I stealthed and went around pick pocketing the more isolated mobs around the edges.  I eventually figured out the optimal range I could get close enough to pick pocket without attracting any attention or anyone detecting me.

The whole miserable experience motivated me to level up as fast as possible just to have a fair shot at getting that stupid quest completed.

I went back to Hellfire Peninsula, picked up the usual quests and promptly got stomped into the ground by the Fel Reaver while I was minding my own business killing buzzards.

Yes, it was a good day to die – several times.

I gathered up enough Love tokens to get a Truesilver Shafted Arrow and a Lovely Dress Box that had a Lovely Black Dress in it.

Perma-Peddle

I eventually got up to level 63.  I probably would have leveled faster if I simply did the quests, but I would get caught up in the Pick Pocket game and refuse to leave a quest area until I pick pocketed every single mob that looked like it might have a pocket.

Lovely Luck Is On Your Side

I usually get only a few coins, some poisons and a grey item or two but I can’t help it.  With the Glyph of Pick Pocket and Glyph of Pick Lock I’m a pick pocketing junkie.

I suppose it’s because I get something.  Even getting junk is better than the disappointment of running stuff days, weeks, months and years with nothing to show for it (I’m looking at you, Holiday Boss drops!  Where’s my Toxic Wastling??  My Headless Horseman’s Mount??  My Frigid Frosting??  My Lump of Coal??)

Each little lock box I pick pocket is “free” stuff and more than a few times I’ve opened a box to find a recipe I don’t have or a green item to sell.

So I guess I won’t be leveling as fast as could…unless there is a Pick Pocket Support Group somewhere in Azeroth…

Fool For Love

Fortunately, the only achievements I have left for the drake do not involve hunting down specific race/class combinations, so I don’t anticipate any problems finishing them up.

I haven’t even paid much attention to the Holiday Boss drops – not that I usually get anything interesting anyway.  I’ve been looking more at getting enough tokens to get the new mount, and I might be able to squeeze out enough before the holiday ends.

I’ve also been slacking off on holiday dailies with my alts.  I should make the effort to do them as it’s pretty much a “free” experience boost and might help get a few of them out of Outland.

Babe in Firelands

So…when I was asked to come along on a FL run to get stuff for a Legendary – on my Troll Druid – I wasn’t even sure I could get in.

I haven’t logged on with her much lately, so she was rocking green and blue ilvl 312 gear in Balance spec.

But they just needed a warm body.  It sure wasn’t my “leet deeps” because I was pulling an astonishing 5k and considered myself lucky if I actually did enough dps to even get on the chart.

Adventures in Firelands

Well, I totally forgot how to play Balance.  Someone needed a battle rez and I couldn’t find it on my bars because I forgot what the icon looked like.  I’d hit my Mind Blast keybind and wonder why it wasn’t working.

Let’s see…on the hatchling birds some AoE would be great here…now where’s my Mind Sear?  No wait a minute…what have I got?  I’ve got mushrooms!  I can blast those little birdies!

I know what you’re thinking.  “You really didn’t use mushrooms to blast the birdies, did you?”

Why yes, yes I did.

Adventures in Firelands

In fact, just about everything I did was so totally absurd and my dps so pathetic that I couldn’t do much else but laugh (seriously, I’m still laughing every time I think about how I blew up birdies with mushrooms.)

And I do not feel one bit guilty laughing at myself.  It’s not as if my contribution was going to make or break an encounter since it was “easy mode” for everyone else.

All I had to do was the best dps I could manage to make stuff die a little faster and stay out of the fire.

As someone said to me, “Some dps is better than no dps.”

And yes, I can do “some.”

I see someone posted logs if anyone is interested in “theorycrafting” my deeps or at least needs a chuckle (Oh come on!  The logs don’t have my blast birdies with mushrooms???)

I also got a lot of gear/weapon upgrades that were kindly passed to me (and totally didn’t earn) and a renewed interest in working on my Druid since I had a lot of fun – thanks everyone!

I’d still like to try Druid Healing, and I might even try a normal dungeon or two…

It’s the last one I need for Fistful of Love and the absolute last one I need for the title.

After camping out the “usual” spots where the Horde hang out – Uldum for the daily, Dalaran (just in case) and even spending several hours at DMF (except for the weekly LFR – yeah, the tokens I needed dropped but I don’t want to talk about it…) I can positively confirm there is no such thing as a Troll Rogue.

It’s a lie – just like the Cake is a Lie.  There is no chocolate in the Delicious Chocolate Cake, and there are no Troll Rogues in all of Azeroth (at least on my server.)

The DMF had the most Horde hanging around, so I parked myself right at the spot where characters zone in, and if it was one I needed, I would chase them down until I could toss my petals.

Another good spot was at the DMF arena, but no Troll Rogues.  I would assume that since Rogues are a popular choice for PvP there would be a ton of them around the arena, and there were lots of Rogues of every shape, form and race – except the elusive Troll.

At one point all I needed was a Troll Rogue and an Orc Shaman, and sure enough I found several Orc Rogues and Troll Shamans.

It’s this type of stuff that makes one want to bang one’s head on the keyboard over and over and over…

Since I really don’t have a kingdom to give for a Troll Rogue, I might have to resort to creating a trial account and making one myself – if that would even work.

I managed to get I Pitied the Fool finished up – a relatively easy Achievement even with the dreaded PvP components.

Wintergrasp was interesting.  Gone are the days of massive battles I remembered in Wrath.  There were exactly five of us on the Alliance side.  I pitied my fool, then stayed to fight the battle against a few Horde.

Not one Troll Rogue.

We lost.

A guildie needed the Naxx fool, so we went together and got that one done.  Then we queued for AB, but for some reason she got in but I didn’t.  When I tried to queue, it said a member of my party had already queued.  She got the AB completed but I had to leave party and re-queue for it again.

This was a slightly bigger battle – about 20 or so players.  I found the Blacksmith, did the pity and stayed to fight.

It took forever.

There wasn’t a Troll Rogue in sight.

We lost.

On the bright side, I got the Achievement and picked up one of the  DMF PvP quest drops from a dead Horde.

I Pitied the Fool

With all the achievement chasing my Rogue has been a little neglected, but I did get her to level 50 and she’s ready to go to Outland.

Level 50

I’ve got more than few characters “stuck” in Outland. I really don’t like Hellfire Peninsula and it’s painful to quest through that zone.

Once Love is in the Air is over, I should make the effort to push them all through Outland and at least get to the starter zones in Northrend, and pick up my level 82 Hunter again to keep questing through Cataclysm.

Yikes…lots to do!  Good thing I signed up for the Annual Pass…

Fortunately with all the BoAs I didn’t have to stay in any zone very long before I leveled out of it.  Lots of runners I’d have to chase after, and if I didn’t kill them fast enough they’d bring back all their friends.

Two Mobs + One Rogue (Zero Combo Points – Recuperate x (Forgot Premeditation + Poisons)) = Dead Rogue.

So…I still have a few bugs to iron out.

I finally leveled enough to go to Winterspring (cute cub pet and start the Frostsaber grind) and suddenly I’m back to Rogue God and on my way to be crowned Queen of Kalimdor.

One minor, horrible problem though with Winterspring quests so far….

Yetis don’t have pockets to pick.

Love is in the Air

Love is in the Air started yesterday, on the tail end of the Lunar Festival and doubled up with the Darkmoon Faire.

Now, I love the new Darkmoon Faire – it’s a lot of fun, new “stuff” to save up tickets to buy, and quests to give a little push for leveling professions.

I’ll take the time to send all my alts there just for the profession boost if nothing else.  Yes, I am foolishly leveling an Enchanter, Jewelcrafter and Alchemist – all at the same time.

I decided a while ago that I would be diligent getting achieves, pets, etc. on my main Shadow Priest since that’s the character I love playing the most and have invested the most time.  Hard to believe I’ve spent almost two years on that Priest!

I know that isn’t much compared with people who have been playing for years, but for me it’s the longest played character I’ve got and just feels right for me.

So I’ve been suffering through all the Word Event PvP Achieves in hopes that I might get the Violet Proto-Drake this year.

Unfortunately I slaked off Love is in the Air last year because of RL divorce stuff (on the bright side my time is my own now so I can play WoW whenever I feel like it) so I’ve got the last two nasty achieves to finish up.

A Fistful of Love (2 done) and I Pitied the Fool (0 done.)

Yeah, it’s going to take a while.

What’s worse is the new mount for a boat load of tokens, and I need a boat load of tokens to get the Achieves.  I might have to skip the mount this year and just finish up the achieves.

I thought I’d just go grinding for Lovely Charms and took along the quest for the Grizzly Trophy and ended up with 250 trophies, about 80 charms and 600g worth of Embersilk Cloth.

I turned in the trophies so that shouldn’t be interfering with charm collection – at least I hope it doesn’t.

If I play my tokens right and get those achieves done early, I might have time to get enough for the new mount.

If I don’t, well…there is always next year.

Dragon Soul

No joy yet – Deathwing is still wiping the universe, but everything up until then has been smashingly good.  Even that flipping boat fight that makes me bang my head on the keyboard.

Think we got him down to about 6% – 7%?  It was close but need to squeak out a bit more DPS.

I suppose I could blame my poor performance on the cat.  During one the attempts my cat decided not only was it an opportune time to jump on my lap, but it was also an excellent time to yammy into my bowl of “raid snack” fresh strawberries.

Yes, it was the cat.

I might have enough VPs to upgrade one of my lovely 378s before raid night, but I’m not very hopeful about anything from LFR – way, way way too much competition and couple that with my usual “stellar” rolls between 1-12, and well…tier is nothing but a dream.

Yup…every time a tier token drops and I lose, I tear up (get it??? tier?? tear?? Ha! Ha!)

Good news – I could transmog my First Mate Hat so now I look like a raggy Ghost Priest Pirate.  Just wish it wouldn’t hide my lovely pigtails under the hat.

Raggy Ghost Pirate Priest

As much as I love my priests, getting through all those levels – even with full BoAs – is slow and painful.  It’s not the wimpy cloth armor, it’s the constant OOM.

Kill two mobs at your level and you have to drink.  Kill one a little higher level than you and you have to drink.

It takes forever as once past those first very early levels where you get “instant” health/mana regen, it slow down to a crawl.  Even my level 76 Horde Shadow Priest-in-training can’t do a dungeon or quest without stopping every couple of kills for a drink.

I suppose this is to prepare one for the clunky “mana matters” healing play style at end game, but come on – Shadow Priests don’t (usually) heal so better scaling would make getting to at least level 80 a lot less painful.

I think it might just be priests who have mana issues from level 10 and up since the big regen mechanics don’t kick in until much later.  I don’t remember having such horrible mana problems with a mage, druid or even a paladin.

Maybe that’s why in comparison to leveling a priest, my rogue seems incredibly over-powered.  I’m sure rogues are all balanced out by level 85, but right now…

Fear me, for I am a Rogue God.  I am Queen of the Eastern Kingdoms.  I can sneak up behind you, pick your pockets then kill you.  You won’t see me – heck, you won’t even know what hit you.

Lord Sakrasis

I started out as a Combat Rogue and then picked Subtlety for my dual spec.  I already had the BoA sword and mace for Combat, so when I thought I’d give Subtlety a try I got the BoA dagger.

After reading a few Rogue leveling guides, I decided to get the BoA PvP dagger for off-hand and the JP trinket.  My main had a lot of honor points collecting dust, so I purchased the dagger and converted the rest to JP.

I was a few JP short for the trinket, so off I went to a random battleground and got Strand of the Ancients for enough honor to convert to the last JP I needed.

I didn’t know at the time it was Over-Powered Paladin Night.  I don’t know if we had any paladins in the battleground (considering the damage numbers I’d say no) but we won and my Shadow Priest picked up a couple of achievements along with the honor.

Strand of the Ancients

Not bad considering I usually spend most of any battleground in the graveyard…

I sent all the shiny new BoAs to my rogue, then logged over to her for more questing.  I switched over to Combat to add a few talent points, picked up a few glyphs then headed over to Western Plaguelands.

I probably wasn’t playing it right, but Combat seemed a little slow killing stuff even with my new spells.

So after a very helpful discussion with guildies, I switched back to Subtlety, took their advice and was back to god-mode.

Subtlety just seems to work better for me than Combat.  I might try switching Combat for Assassination just to try it out.  Anyway, Subtlety just feels more “rogue-like” than Combat – all sneaky and stealthy with nasty daggers.

By the time I was ready for Eastern Plaguelands I was back to god-mode, one- or two-shotting everything and leveling fast again.

Level 40

But I’m not in any hurry.  I’m actually having a lot of fun picking pockets and opening up lock boxes.  I even found a few Tailoring patterns my Priest didn’t have yet hiding in boxes, and the free poisons are just a bonus.

If I think my rogue is over-powered now, just think how much more over-powered she will be if I remember to apply my poisons…

Dead Again - Warmaster Blackhorn

But hey! We finally got him!  Full story (with better screen shots) at Reputation Grind!

Warmaster Blackhorn

We blasted through the spine fight and then hit the wall with Deathwing.

We’ll get him. Compared with the stupid boat fight Deathwing is easy mode.

A Little Change

I’ve been re-arranging my Characters to maximize their professions, inventory my heirlooms and decide who I’d like to level and who should be deleted.

It’s amazing how “attached” one gets to certain characters.  I couldn’t even consider the possibility of deleting any of my leveling characters, including my Death Noob even though I still haven’t figured out how to play it yet.

So that left my two “banker” characters – male and female human rogues.  I had leveled the male rogue up to about 12 a while ago, but the female was stuck at level 1.

It’s not as if I had anything of particular value in the banks anyway.  Just stacks of mats collected by various characters “just in case” I need them someday or the odd BoE item I might want for transmogrification.

But now that I’m working on leveling up professions, I can re-distribute mats, delete one of my bankers and free up another character slot.

It seemed fairly obvious to delete the female rogue and keep the higher level male considering having a lock-picking character is a definite advantage.

So…I sent my rogue some heirlooms and leveled him up enough to open up some low-level trunks I’d been saving for some reason.

Level 20

Well, I had forgotten how much fun it was sneaking around, picking pockets and wiping out mobs with my surprise attacks.

I thought I’d have the same problems I had when I tried melee with my cat druid – I just couldn’t sneak around behind the target to get my attacks in before they spotted me.

But for whatever reason, it seems a lot easier with a rogue – especially now that I’m motivated to pick everyone’s pocket before attacking.  I also have Sap to help get me into position and that makes a big difference.

There was only one problem…I just didn’t like playing a human male.  Not because it’s male, but because the human male models are just so ugly.

It’s difficult to be serious about a sneaky, stealthy rogue who looks like the earliest evolution of a Neanderthal who could crack coconuts on his forehead.

So I bit the bullet, paid for a Character Appearance change and turned my rogue into a lovely female with an appropriate new name.  Yes, I know I should have race changed to Worgen for the perks, but I really, really don’t need another Worgen.

Rogue after "Surgery"

Now that my rogue actually looks like rogue, it’s been a lot more fun to play.  I could easily blast through levels (rogues in heirlooms are seriously over powered) and probably would be a lot higher level if I didn’t stop to pick pocket every single mob that crossed my path.

Level 30

I got up to level 30 as Combat, and with Dual Spec I thought I’d try Subtlety and see how that goes.  I haven’t found one decent leveling guide for Subtlety so I don’t have a clue how the spell priorities work or even what they are.

It’s probably not the “best” leveling spec, but the big perk for me is Shadowstep that immediately clears up the problems I’ve been having getting behind a target.

I picked up another heirloom dagger for the Subtlety spec, and I have the heirloom sword/mace to use for the Combat spec so I can level with both.

Transmogrification surprise?

I took my “new” rogue to STV to do some quests, and while killing some nasty goblins (and picking all their pockets!) a First Mate Hat dropped.

First Mate Hat

First time I’ve ever seen one except for one or two at the AH at outrageous prices.

Since it’s a cloth item, I sent it to my Priest.  I’m not sure if this is considered “silly” enough to be ineligible for transmogrification, but if it’s possible, Pirate Priest!

First Mate Hat

A Pirate Priest wielding the Dark Herring fish? Come on Blizzard, make it happen!

Big thanks to Rev for taking the time to run me through the last four dungeons I needed for the Elders of the Dungeons and the title!  You have no idea how many hours you saved me from banging my head on the keyboard just looking for the entrances…

One more World Events Holiday down and several more to go!  If I don’t miss any events and finish up a few Achievements I need, it’s quite possible I’ll get that Violet Proto-Drake sometime before Brewfest.

Mini-Games

So…what do you do when you run a Heroic with two Priests who have Leap of Faith and your GL on his Gnome alt?

Why, you play Gnome Pong of course!