SO CLOSE

I am a little over a third of the way through 79.

And after healing a guild group at the Amphitheater of Anguish (watched an Alliance group with a hunter, then ran our own group with the hunter class leader in it), I desperately want to play on Ideale, but I'm so. Close. To 80. Can't wait to get there, and then I can go back to tag-teaming between the two again.

Also I want to PVP. I WANT TO PVP NOW. NOW PLZ.

But if I PVP now, then I will do that for the next 2-3 weeks and be sitting at 79 the whole time. And I want at least one 80 before I start getting sidetracked so I can actually do more stuff with the guild.

Don't get me wrong. I adore playing Ahami and have been having a BLAST the past month with all the grouping and healing and exploring and stuff I've been doing. I still fully intend to keep her as my main, I love playing her so much.

But oh, it will be really nice to be able to kill things at a decent speed again, without having to stop and drink every other mob. And it'll be fun to run with Cinnamon again (lame but true, I miss my pixelcat).

P.S. The Venture Co. realm is literally the most awesome realm in WoW. Someone started cracking child molestation jokes in Zul'Drak today, and half the people in the zone jumped down their throat over it, and the person apologized. If I hadn't been there, I'd never have believed it, but it was really kind of cool. I <3 VeCo.

True cat stories: Merry Treemas

I think I mentioned that Sparrow loves soft things and has stolen several stuffed toys from me because of this. If not ... Sparrow loves soft things and has stolen several stuffed toys from me because of it.

Her favorite is a terrycloth dollar store Kitten that has seen much better days, with stiff competition from Chococat and Softbunny, a soft blue bunny my roommate bought her. She carries them around from room to room throughout the day, lines them all up at the door around the time I get home from work, plays with them as if they were real cats, and is generally adorable as hell.

Sparrow also loves Christmas trees. She was much tinier her first Christmas, and spent most of the holiday launching herself at us from about halfway up the tree. Luckily, she also weighed about three pounds, and the tree never ate it.

That was last year. Many ornaments died. She doesn't climb the tree anymore, though — she just hides underneath it.

This year's Christmas tree got put up Monday night, and the roommates and I all went out for something after that. When we got home and flicked on the light, there was Sparrow laying behind the tree, content and purring. On her right was Chococat, on her left was Softbunny, and directly across from her was Kitten, all facing the tree.

(And yes, if I ask her where one of them is, she will go find it and occasionally carry it back to me, mewing the whole time. Which is hilarious when it's Chococat, because she's smaller than the toy is.)

Resto shaman item enhancements

Exelus at Shamantics posted this awesome list of rep rewards from each Northrend faction and which items/enchants could be helpful to which tree.

If you are an inscriber, ditch the Sons of Hodir shoulder enchant, because Master's Inscription of the Crag is more awesome.

There are also some decent enchants out there if you are lacking in the resilience for PVP. You might take a hit in mana regen in exchange.

Enchants/enhancements for the resto shaman:
Head: Arcanum of Blissful Mending (Wyrmrest Accord - Revered) or ; PVP Arcanum of Dominance (40 Stone Keeper's Shards, purchased in Wintergrasp)

Shoulders: Master's Inscription of the Crag (Inscription 400; Scribes only) or Greater Inscription of the Crag (Sons of Hodir - Exalted; Honored gives you access to the Lesser version); PVP Inscription of Dominance adds resil, but the hit in spell power and mp5 probably makes it not worth it.

Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats (Enchanting 440; 15x Infinite Dust, 4x Abyss Crystal) or Enchant Chest - Greater Mana Restoration (Enchanting 420; 20x Infinite Dust, 8x Greater Cosmic Essence)

Legs: I may be wrong, but you seem to be able to buy and use Sapphire Spellthread even if you are not a tailor.

Wrist: Enchant Bracers - Superior Spellpower (Enchanting 440; 24x Infinite Dust, 16x Greater Cosmic Essence, 2x Abyss Crystal), Enchant Bracers - Greater Spellpower (Enchanting 395; 8x Infinite Dust, 4x Greater Cosmic Essence) or Enchant Bracers - Greater Stats (Enchanting 400; 16x Infinite Dust, 3x Greater Cosmic Essence)

Hands: Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower (Enchanting 360; 4x Infinite Dust, 1x Lesser Cosmic Essence)

Feet: Enchant Boots - Greater Vitality (Enchanting 405; 14x Infinite Dust, 4x Greater Cosmic Essence)

Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle, of course.

Weapon: Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower (Enchanting 435; 40x Infinite Dust, 20x Greater Cosmic Essence, 6x Abyss Crystal) or Enchant Weapon - Exceptional Spellpower (Enchanting 395; 10x Infinite Dust, 2x Greater Cosmic Essence)

Shield: Enchant Shield - Greater Intellect (12x Infinite Dust)

Rings: Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower (Enchanting 400; Enchanters only)

I'm really not finding anything else other than armor kits, which seem to be fairly useless for casters aside from the +stam. Am I missing something?

The Great Hunter Nerf?

Honestly, I haven't even played my hunter much yet, and I saw it coming a mile away. We were already way OP for PVE, and Echoes of Doom just added to that.

That said, my spec will be changing pretty immediately — no point in keeping Readiness at the expense of the extra pet talent points if it doesn't effect BW/TBW. And some of the changes (I'm thinking mainly Deterrence and Kill Shot) will actually buff us slightly for PVP. In fact, I might retry BM/SV spec — the change to Improved Tracking would be nice in PVP. I've kind of been examining the spec I used last time and I think I see why my DPS dropped so drastically — will need to work on my +agi, though, if I do this.

And the Growl fix will really help with soloing. I wasn't having too many problems for the half-level I've done in Howling Fjord on Ide, but it was a bit more of a pain to manage my threat. Since I farm the stupid way (one mob at a time), this will make soloing much less stressful on my hunter.

The point being, for raiding hunters, I do sympathize, but I'm really not all that upset about these changes. Except Volley. I wanted to PVP with awesome Volley some more before it got nerfed.

Halfway through 78 on Ahami, and about to have a massive gear upgrade in the next day or two thanks to guild leatherworkers who are on top of the recipes, so Ide should be getting play time in the next few weeks. Which means I'll actually be posting about huntering!

Wishlist: PVE gear for the almost 80 resto shaman

With tomorrow and Tuesday off, I should be hitting 80 by the weekend at the latest, so I am starting to put together a little wishlist of gear from factions and the basic (non-heroic) 77-80 dungeons for PVE purposes. I really do want to give this PVE thing a real go — it's much more fun as a healer than DPS, and now that I'm finally starting to feel like part of my guild (they're awesome, it just takes me a long time to feel comfortable in new groups, honestly — I like to think I hide it well but I am excruciatingly shy in real life), running instances is much more fun.

I'm sure I will eventually be doing heroics, and since the guild has already started 10-man Naxx (and cleared a couple of wings, I think!) with a bunch of extras, I will hopefully be able to tag along on the occasional raid despite my schedule. But at the moment I don't have the gear for either and need to learn the instances a bit more thoroughly anyway, so.

Anyway, here's what I am aiming for:

- The Stormhide set (Crafted - Leatherworking) is actually better than most of the current items I have access to via PVE for the chest, feet, waist and wrist slots, at least until I hit 80 and start doing heroics.

- Hands: Gauntlets of Dark Conversion (Culling of Stratholme)

- Head: I have a few choices here. My best bets might be either the Hollow Geode Helm (Halls of Stone) or the Battle Mender's Helm (Argent Crusade - Revered), depending on my other gear. But the Sharkjaw Cap (Oracles - Revered) or Nightshock Hood (Crafted - Leatherworking) would be okay short-term choices, too.

- Legs: Kilt of Molten Golems (Halls of Lightning). And such an awesome name, too! Second choice would be the Scavenged Feather Leggings from the Frenzyheart, but Ahami doesn't care for those wolvar much and there are things I want from the Oracles first anyway.

- Shoulders: The Epaulets of Market Row (BOE drop from Culling of Stratholme) are just a titch better than the Stormhide shoulders.

- Cloak: There is a very, very nice purple BOE cloak made by tailors that I very, very much want - Wispcloak. However, it will be quite some time before I can gather the mats for it. In the meantime, the Shroud of Dedicated Research (Kirin Tor - Honored) and Shroud of Resurrection (Utgarde Pinnacle) aren't bad.

- Shield: Warsong Stormshield (Horde Expedition - Revered), which I can pick up right now. The Alliance equivalent is Lordaeron's Resolve (Alliance Vanguard - Revered).

- Neck: Chain of Fiery Orbs (Halls of Stone) would be good enough for now — I will be leveling Ide's mining and jewelcrafting soon enough.

- Finger: None of them thrill me. I'll just pick up whatever drops that looks okay and replace as I level Ide's jewelcrafting.

- Trinkets: Soul Preserver (Culling of Stratholme); not sure what to put in the second slot. Maybe Badge of the Infiltrator for now. I could try for Darkmoon Card: Illusion. There are some engineering trinkets that look nice, but I won't be leveling engineering until Ide's mining and jewelcrafting is at 450 and Silang is to Northrend to pick flowers, if at all.

- Totem: Totem of the Bay (Grizzly Hills vendors, requires Venture Co. tokens) would be nice, especially for PVP, when I basically spam Chain Heal. Savage Gladiator's Totem of the Third Wind (PVP, requires honor and arena points, no rating) might mean I'll have to suck it up and dance in arena a few times, because it might be better for some 5-mans when I'm not chain healing.

I will worry about weapons another day, since this is already tl;dr.

Spirit Kitty

After seeing all the jerks in Sholazar gloating about killing Loque, and all the hunters pissed about it, and all of the horror stories on BRK's blog about people who finally, finally see the cat only to have it snatched from under them ...

I am totally taming the spirit kitty. I'll get a windserpent on one of my other hunters. That same little stubborn streak that has caused me to level Ahami from 10 to 77 (halfway to 78!) as straight resto has been activated, and as soon as Ideale is 76, I will probably be spending most of my time in game camping the spawn point for Loque.

Gearing for the battlegrounds at 80

With 3.5 levels to go before I hit 80, I figured it was time to start looking at options for world and battleground PVP. Unlike the previous expansion, where you could buy the basic blue resilience set from various factions upon hitting 70, there are, as far as I have been able to tell, no faction-sold PVP sets for 80. So where do you get gear?

Well, there are a few options.

Option 1: Become an Arena Junkie
If you are into arena, then you are pretty well set — all you need for the blue Savage Gladiator set is arena points and honor, and if you manage to top a 1550 rating, you can get the mid-rate Hateful Gladiator epic set. [Note: I linked to the plate chestpiece for each set, since the links for the full sets seem to be sort of busted. Just search for "Savage Gladiator" or "Hateful Gladiator" to find the appropriate set pieces for your class.]

According to WoWHead, the blue set will also be available with Emblems of Heroism, gained from heroic 5-mans and 10-man raids; you can purchase the purple set with Emblems of Valor, gained from 25-man raids. That's all I know about arena gear, though, since I really don't intend to do it.

Option 2: That PVE Thing
As mentioned above, you can earn Emblems of Heroism and Emblems of Valor from completing PVE objectives, and use these to purchase arena gear. Why you would do that rather than purchase PVE gear, I don't know, at least right now. I could see this happening later when you are overgeared for everything and have 82 of the things, but now? That's kind of shafting your guild, if you are all working on the content, but you're not working on gearing for it. Unless you are just PUGing heroics to get them, but why would you do that to yourself?

Anyway, this is not the only way to get geared. See, in very general and oversimplified terms, PVP gear is itemized around survival first and burst damage output second, whereas PVE gear is itemized more around doing continuous damage/mana regen and efficiency/lasting power/etc. (Or so it seems to me, based on the stats for comparable pieces of both.)

If you were really dead-set against arena and enjoy that PVE thing, you could probably build a "glass cannon" PVP set around PVE gear. Use PVE gear, gem and enchant with resilience in mind, or supplement with the off-set pieces (which can be purchased with honor points; cannot find if they require an arena rating to purchase, but I'm pretty sure at least the blues will not). Basically, try to mitigate the loss of stamina and resilience with a significant increase in MQoSDPS, ranged or otherwise, or lots of healing power and staying power. (If you're a good healer and you're not in a battleground with a bunch of schmucks, the only way you're going to die is if you get zerged or some sneaky warlock DoTs the crap out of you before anyone can figure out where they are, and you'd probably die anyway in that case, after you've finished the battleground returned to Dalaran, and wandered off to fish in the sewers or something.)

If you do this, of course, be sure you aren't gimping yourself in PVE — that's unfair to the groups you run with. Use off-set pieces, pieces for slots you've upgraded, vendor gear, etc.

Option 3: Wintergrasp PVP and that Wintergrasp PVE thing
Stone Keeper's Shards. You can get them in a couple of ways: By completing the daily quests in Wintergrasp, or as boss drops when your faction controls Wintergrasp only. Stone Keeper's Shards can be used to buy some VERY nice gear, like the Prized Beastmaster's Mantle (extra nice because it binds to the account and scales with level). Or enchants or gems like the Inscription of Dominance or Trenchant Earthshatter Diamond. Or you can just blow them on fun stuff, like the Reins of the Black War Mammoth, and then ride around Dragonblight yelling, "MAAAAAAAMMOOOOOOTTTTTHHHH!"

Ahami and Ideale will be spending quite a lot of time in Wintergrasp, I can tell.

Plus, if you do the PVE dungeon in Wintergrasp (available only when your faction controls it), the bosses drop arena gear of various levels. And the season hasn't even started yet!

Option 4: Craft Craft Revolution
Blizz included crafting recipes in the expansion that can be used to create a full set of basic arena gear. This gear is not great — in fact, if you have S4, S3, and maybe even S2, you might want to very carefully weigh which pieces you replace — which stats are you shaky on? Will a few pieces of the Stormhide set fix that?

If you had a fresh 70 who you chose to level to 80, then the set is a very good starter set, to be supplemented with gear obtained in other ways. But if you had a 70 who was already decently geared for PVP, then weigh your choices. The nice (well, sort of) part about these sets is that they don't have a set bonus, so you can replace pieces as you go without worrying about maintaining a certain number.

Certain specs of certain classes (holy paladins and enhancement shamans, for example) might be better off looking elsewhere for PVP gear.

That said, here are the sets you can get:
Blacksmithing: Blacksmithing sets seem to be taught by trainers. Blacksmiths can make the Ornate Saronite and Savage Saronite sets.
Leatherworking: Leatherworking patterns can be purchased in exchange for pieces of Heavy Borean Leather. If you have a skinner, you might offer to supply your leatherworker if they purchase the patterns for the pieces you need. Leatherworkers can make the Stormhide, Swiftarrow, Eviscerator's, and Overcast sets.
Tailoring: Like blacksmithing, the tailoring set seem to be simply taught by the trainers. Tailors can make the Frostsavage set. As far as I can tell, this is the only tailoring set available.

Are there better ways to gear up for WotLK PVP? Probably. But with avoiding arena as much as possible in mind, this is what I've come up with to gear my peeps. (Though I might give arena a go for a couple of rounds — the new arena maps and the rebalancing is supposed to have made it somewhat closer to fun. Don't really want to commit to something I don't have a schedule for and would just be half-assing, though.)

True Cat Stories: OH GOD GET IT OFF

Back when I lived in Queens, I used to hang out in the parks all the time because I missed living in the country and they were about as close as you could get.

So one day, I was in Central Park and this guy comes walking down a path with this absolutely gorgeous Himalayan cat on a leash. It was possibly the yuppiest thing I've ever seen, but also the most awesome — this can was completely unperturbed by bikers, roller bladers, and people walking their dogs, and he even let me pet her (yes, I asked!).

Ditto, my old kitty, used to just follow me along and never needed a leash, but when Sparrow was a kitten, she had a propensity to wander away to chase after bugs and stuff, and living in town, I was afraid she'd run into the street or something, so I went out and bought myself a cat leash. After the first time she wore it, it never bothered her at all, and now when she hears me taking it out of the basket, she comes running from wherever she is in the apartment to go for a walk.

Klio, on the other hand, was not all that fond of the outdoors and never needed her leash — which is good, because she's one of those cats who acts as though the leash is crushing them. (She did the same thing with her collar for a week.)

Only recently, Klio has decided that if Sparrow gets to go outside, then she should go outside, too. The first couple of times she was great. She was nervous, so she stuck to my side like glue.

Once she got used to it, it was a nightmare. See, Klio is a very playful cat, and her favorite thing in the world (Sparrow's too, actually) is to be chased. And she decided that "Time to go in" meant "Time to play chase!" and started hiding under bushes, running up trees, coming a fingertip's distance away and then running in circles around me, and so on, and for a chubby little cat she is EXTREMELY FAST.

Last time we went out, then, I put the harness and leash on her. And she stayed the entire time at the foot of the stairs (which I had to carry her down), yowling like I was killing her and pressed flat to the ground.

So when we got back inside, I left the harness on her. She'll get used to it, right? I figured I'd feed them wet food, and by the time she was done eating, she'd have forgotten it.

No dice. I carried her to the food, plopped her down inches away, and went to check my e-mail. Three or four minutes later, she started yowling again, and I went to check, and found out why she was crying. Sparrow had taken advantage of Klio's apparent inability to move the two inches to her food dish and was wolfing down Klio's treat in addition to her own. *facepalm*

So the harness is off for now, and I am at a loss as far as figuring this out. Klio desperately wants to go outside — to the point where she tries to sneak out when I am coming home from work or bringing Spar back in — but I cannot trust her off the leash and she is immobile and loud on the leash. What to do?

Clearcasting

With the itemization change that led to +spell and +heal being something like the same thing (or whatever, I don't get math), I decided to shoot for a few points in the elemental tree rather than the enhancement. I figured that then I could use essentially the same gear if I got stuck DPSing for some reason, and still do a decent amount of damage. (Don't use my current spec as a guide for anything. I just stuck points in random crap until I got what I wanted in both resto and elem. I'll shell out the gold at 80 for a real spec.)

Let me just say right now, two things have made me extremely glad I did this: Lava Burst and Clearcasting.

Lava Burst is the shit, and with the points in that talent that adds to your crit and damage for Lava Burst and fire totems, I can actually burn down mobs at something resembling a normal leveling speed now. I went from 74 to 75 faster than any level since the 30s, and I'm already halfway through 76. When I put Flame Shock up first for the Lava Burst autocrit, I'm critting for 2400-2800. I think that's pretty good for a shoddily-geared resto shaman at 76, right?

And the wonderful thing about the autocrit is that it procs Clearcasting. Clearcasting is AWESOME — it basically cuts the mana cost of any two damage or healing spells by 40 percent every time it procs, meaning that in the rotation (haha, like I actually plan these things out) I am using while soloing, a good two-thirds of my spells are reduced price. I played for two hours yesterday morning and had to drink once. ONCE. And then I played for two more hours last night, a bit more intensively, and am down just four more honeymint teas.

Let me be a bit more clear: Before I got Clearcasting, I was going through 2-3 stacks of drinks every time I played and it took me ages to kill anything, but with the elem sub-spec, I'm killing things much more quickly and it's costing me much less mana.

While I do plan to go something like 13/0/58 at 80 while I relearn the battlegrounds/learn Strand of the Ancients and Wintergrasp (haven't really ventured in since WotLK hit*, though I am planning an hour or two on my death knight tomorrow, because her lack of kills is bugging me, and I might suck it up and try the 19 bracket on my mage this week, too), I do want to experiment with a resto/elem hybrid spec at some point as well. But I might wait until dual-specs are implemented, because I'm incredibly attached to Riptide. <3 Riptide.

Anyway, the point is, if you are a resto/enh shaman, you might want to give resto/elem a try — it's totally worth the loss of instant ghost wolf.

*It's my carrot, along with my hunter. I made the mistake of going into the battlegrounds on Ahami at 49 and spent two weeks doing nothing at all but PVP. And then at 59 I did the same thing, but for even longer. If I go in on her before I hit 80, I won't come out, and I'd like to get there before the New Year so poor Ideale can get some love.

Post-break breakdown

So I after not playing on Thursday and Friday because of the holiday and work, and not playing Saturday, Sunday and most of today (EDIT: Today meaning Monday — it's not a new day until I've slept) due to Christmas shopping, card making, and various cooking projects, I finally got Ahami up to 75. And Silang close to 59 (I put Onashne on hold and have been going through Stranglethorn Vale with my friend E. on her priesty, but E.'s computer is in the shop, so Silang has mostly just been herbing).

Oh, and my troll mage up to 14. *shifty eyes*

Actually, the break was kind of nice. I got a lot done over the weekend and did some catching up (I've been playing fairly heavily since the patch came out, and needed to take a step back), and jumped back in ready to go.

I'm really excited, though, because in the process of getting Ahami to 75, I also completed the last of the prerequisite quests for the Wrathgate chain (yes, I'm still in Dragonblight. I still have quests in Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra, too, but I think after I finish this chain and the Dragonblight group quests, I will move on for now). I held off on starting it because of the server restart, but after the vague comments about how incredible it is, I am very much looking forward to doing it in the next few days.

I'm glad I chose not to start it tonight, though, because I got a little tip just before logging off that I should do all of the quests offered by Varimathras before starting this last leg if I plan to do them at all. And while I've done them all on Ambassador Ideale, I have not done them on Ahami, so it looks like I will be doing a few lowbie quests before I continue with leveling.

And on a side note, a group needed a healer for the last boss in the Nexus (good timing, no?) and I ended up healing through 6? 7? attempts. Three levels later and that instance still blows. We finally ended up getting through it with me and an enhancement shaman both healing, and lost the tank and rogue right as that bitch finally went down. The rogue got a dagger, and I got the achievement and will never step foot in that hellhole again.

Really, I think that unless you are a druid or maybe a priest, or really, really experienced with panic healing and GOOD at it, too, that instance is not a good one to be healing. Too many of the mobs and bosses either interrupt or require you to keep moving, meaning that unless you have a decent arsenal of quick-to-instant heals or HoTs, you end up sacrificing your own life to heal only for everyone else to die when no one heals.

EDIT: Oh, and I went and did some exploring in Grizzly Hills to kill the remaining time before I logged for the night, and it looks just like camp from when I was a kid. Except at camp the bears mostly just knocked over the dumpsters a lot instead of attacking random people riding down the road, and there weren't any furbolgs. But yeah, I don't know if it was the inspiration for sure, but it sure looks an awful lot like Yosemite.