About my posting absence

When health allows, I write tabletop roleplaying games. In recent years, health hasn't allowed much. But it is now, and so I'm really in the swing of firing up a project I had to shelve a couple of years ago. There's sooo much to do as I get underway. For the moment, it's eating up pretty much all of my available writing/blogging time. But I will be back with new tales to tell and pictures to show, in the next couple weeks.

Hunter Armor Sets

Eep. Two weeks since last post. Two busy happy weeks for me, which I'l write up soon, just ones that have distracted me from blogging.

To tide you over, check out this delightful guide to hunter armor sets from the beginning of WoW to the upcoming next patch.

Ding!

Spiderheart hit level 80 this afternoon while doing quests for the Brunhildvar in Storm Peaks, an area and set of quests I continue to love.

Later in the day, I did my first heroic-level tanking, for acquaintance sin the Nexus. At first I stank. Then I stank some more. Gradually I didn't stink quite so much. We finished up downright okay.

I have a lot to master yet.

Watching the PTR Go By

Yeah, as most WoW players know by now, the public test realms are active and people are poking at the material lined up for patch 3.1. (We're currently at 3.0.8, for the rest of you; Blizzard's practice is that .0, .1, .2, and so on are the substantial ones, with new dungeons and stuff.) I'm letting them pass by, as part of my philosophy of focusing on what's most rewarding to me. Others can hassle the technical problems, the sheer volume of participants, and the ongoing changes; I'll pay attention, some, as we get close to a release date.

If you want to see PTR fun (and it can be a lot of fun), go check out Eleanor Holmes or someone. I'll be here chuggin' along.

Felcloth Farming Tip

I know there's not particularly a lot of call for felcloth anymore, but I wanted to make shard bags for a couple warlocks in Red Harvest, so went to rustle some up. Remembering a previous bit of advice I'd encountered, I went to the east wing of Dire Maul, going in through the back door at Lariss Pavilion and just hitting the satyr-infested part. I scored 24 pieces in two passes, and got to admire the scenery as I went.

Victory Through Firepower

The big priority of Red Harvest as a guild is to do fun stuff. Recently joined-up friends transferred over some existing characters, and we've been helping fill out their gear, quests, and so on. Today three of us (Spiderheart; 78 death knight; Jaldorn, 77 shaman; Akaa, 73 holy paladin) took Radovan (63 rogue) through Hellfire Ramparts and Blood Furnace.

Now, I write about Akaa from time to time. Her player has this feature: she is really at her best when she feels excited and challenged. It's tedium that drives her quality of play down. She's been reading Banana Shoulders (and incorporating advice in e-mail from Elle, for which much thanks), and poking at advice and accounts of play, and she really wanted to try pushing it a bit.

So we pushed it.

This is all the enemies in the room with the switch that unleashes Broggok, the big floating eye boss in Blood Furnace. Other roundups I didn't get good screenshots of included sets like "everyone in that big platform in Ramparts before the paths to the last two bosses". The only one we really had trouble with was "everyone in the curving hallway with fel orc transformation booths"; the stuns + the silences added up to significant trouble, and Jaldorn saved the day with timely self-rez and healing. Apart from that, more or less everything fell without a lot of fuss, but with enough workout for Akaa that she felt it was really worth the effort to come along.

That was so much fun. I was already looking forward to taking part in Jaldorn's long-held goal of working through all the Outland instances, but now I'm doing so even more.

The reputation grind continues

As you can see:

I owe my non-WoW-playing readers a post about the achievement system, along with other stuff. The short form is that you get these points for accomplishing discrete tasks. Thus I got 15 points when Spider earned exalted status with the Kurenai, and simultaneously earned another 10 because it was the tenth group she'd gotten exalted with.

The Kurenai are one of the groups that sell mounts to those exalted with them. Check out Spider on her new cobalt war talbuk:

I can't remember right now if this is actually the first time I completed the Kurenai grind, or the second. Still a novelty, in any event, and one I'm happy to have done.