Missed Me?

Well it’s been a busy month and I apologise for the lack of updates but I’ve been away on a number of courses and spending evenings at home playing rather than writing about playing.  There have been a number of things I wanted to do with the blog, especially in the light of changes in patch 3.1, in particular an update of the profession changes is due.  Yes, Lightweave Embroidery no longer sucks, in fact it’s a good reason to retain tailoring now that it gives a 250 spellpower proc!

In other news, since spirit is also a moderately useful stat for mages after 3.1, I’ll also have to update the Pimp My Mage posts to take this into account.  I think Blizzard are still in a state of denial with their mage itemisation choices, though.  They went through such a song and dance about forcing mages to accept spirit on their gear then they give us the Conqueror’s Kirin Tor Gauntlets, Leggings and Collar of the Wyrmhunter.  Not that I’m complaining, just bewildered.  It could be a lot worse, I could be a feral druid.

Speaking of Ulduar gear, I’m enjoying the boss fights in that place, both in 10 and 25 man mode.  It’s nice to have boss fights that you can’t faceroll your way through again.  And yes, I include Flame Leviathan in that category, because hard though it may be to believe, according to some statistics I saw the other day, 49% of guilds manage to wipe on him.  Really.

So I raid Ulduar 25 on Calli, my mage.  Ulduar 10 in two seperate raid groups on Gorn (warrior tank) and Aluriel (priest).  It’s fair to say I’ve seen the fights from just about every perspective, although Gorn’s group hasn’t progressed past any Keeper other than Auri…  Auria..  Auriy..   Crazy Cat Lady.  But the 25 man raid has started on Yogg-Saron and Aluriel’s group have downed Mimiron, so, things are going nicely.

But enough of that, I have something funny to tell you.  I’m levelling Sithica my Deathknight at the moment, and she just hit level 76.  A few nights ago I’d blasted through the Wintergarde Keep quests to get to the Wrathgate and Battle for the Undercity, and after my Wrathgate achievement was announced to guildchat, I got a whisper from one of our druids who was also about to do the Battle for the Undercity and wanted to group up with me.  For those of you who don’t know (or play Horde) here’s how the quest line works for Alliance:

Participate in the Wrathgate, speak to Alexstrasza.  She gives you a quest to return Highlord Fordragon’s shield to King Varian in Stormwind.  Varian goes nuts, Jaina Proudmore asks him to hold fire until she can find out from Thrall what happened.  She asks you to accompany her and go to Ogrimmar, and she opens a portal direct to Thrall’s council chambers.  After speaking to Thrall, she portals you back to Stormwind where Varian has gone off the deep end and organised an assualt on Undercity, to which Jaina opens you another portal.  You attack Undercity, slay High Apothecary Putress, yadda, yadda, yadda, save the day, blah blah..   it’s all very exciting stuff.

Anyway.

I whisper our druid friend back and say sure, I’d be happy to do the quest with him, I’ll meet him in Stormwind.  He says he’s already done that part and will meet me in Ogrimmar instead.  I’m now a bit confused.  Because of the way phasing works, his comment didn’t really make a lot of sense, until I shift-click on his name in chat and see that he’s in The Barrens.

Let’s just go back to that part of the quest recap where I said Jaina Proudmore opens a portal direct to Thrall’s council chambers. More specifically, opens a portal to a phased instance of Thrall’s council chambers that exists seperately from the rest of the game world and doesn’t prevent Horde guards from chopping your liver out if you don’t take the portal but instead fly to Menethil Harbour, catch a boat to Theramore, run through Dustwallow Marsh, head north into The Barrens, cross the river into Durotar and get your dumb ass pvp flagged trying to walk into the front gates of the Orc and Trolls’ capital city.

Oh how we laughed.  Well,  I did.

And then it ocurred to me.  I’d done something equally as dumb myself.  Calli is the mage that all the mage alts and new mages in the guild tend to ask about specs, gear etc.  A week or so before, while in Ulduar 25 on Calli, one of these mages (very competent now, I hasten to add) whispered me asking why, since I was now a Fire/Arcane mage, did I still have the Glyph of Frostfire equipped?  Was there some sneaky mage trick I was keeping to myself for imba dps?  Er no.  I’d just..  you know..  forgotten to reglyph after 3.1.

I think I got away with it.

And now for some screenshots!

New mount!  Sure, she’s a bit slow, but how can you not love her?

Yeah ok, you can probably take chasing achievements just a little too far.

No, not a naked raid, but one of the better graphics bugs.