I have a lot of toons

I used to have more. My lvl 83 Troll warrior had to go because Troll just didn't seem like the right race for a warrior. I never felt right playing him. Deleted. Went Forsaken for the new one, which I know has crappy racials for tanking, but something about this curved-spined, decrepit, rotting husk of a toon being a badass, smash your face tank made me smile. That and the Forsaken are my favorite race. Had a DK at 80, was my only Alliance toon on a realm full of Horde and needed that 10th spot for a reroll. Deleted. Had a hunter who sat at 30-something for a long time. Was my 3rd toon, but coming right after my lock, a range class with a pet seemed too similar. She became my banker for years. Grinded her up to 40 and bought her a Mechano-hog with all the perfect 'banker' gear to make her shine. But I wanted her name for my new paladin, which would be my 2nd paladin, never got into that first one since I mostly power-leveled him for proffs. Now that first pally is my banker/inscript/alch. Sometime he tanks stuff. I've rolled several locks. Just love the class. My very first toon was a Human rogue. I abandoned him within a week and rolled my actual main, a Forsaken warlock (who I recently faction/realm xfer'd into a Worgen, worst idea ever, love the new guild, totally lost connection to this foreign character with some new weird name). He's not the toon I got 50'000+ HKs on. He's not the toon I cleared Ulduar on without a single raid member dying, then defeated Yogg in 226< gear. Nor the toon I "Seek"ed out massive quantities of "Lore" on. Nor the character I not once, not twice, but thrice nabbed the grand prize at the Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza on. Two weeks in a row for the first 2. Won it a few other times on my alts. My realm should hate me. But I digress back to that first toon.

This rogue languished at 20-something for years, I just couldn't bare myself to delete him considering he was the toon I first discovered Azeroth on. I had him wearing a 'dress' with intel and spirit because I didn't know any better. I managed to gain 2 or 3 more levels on him in just as many years. I rolled another rogue in this time, and having to deal with the 10 toon limit per realm I realized I had to sacrifice one soldier to help keep the army growing. I have even more toons than those listed above. I just got bored filling out the form-page to add them.

This wall o' text started out as my introduction to the current start of class while leveling and their unbalanced OP-ness in the BGs. Since The Shattering I have rerolled every single class mainly to kick ass in the BGs and I've yet to fail at do so on any of them. My disc priest, currently... 30 something is still getting top damage and top heals in every BG. Putting those huntards to shame. My 51 hunter has only ever been beaten out, by another hunter. My rogue, fugitabotit. My frost mage... well you know how badass they are in the bgs, don't need to got there but just fyi, she was doing 2k+ at 65 on BC dungeon bosses. Remember when Wrath launched and 2k dps was the standard required when pug'n heroics in trade? "LFM HoL pls do 2k+"... lol. I have her parked at 70 now, thinking about xfer'n her to a BC raiding guild. Could really use that 2nd alch xmute though... decisions, decisions...

Anyhow, perhaps my next post will actually delve into the fantastic and frustrating (depending which side you're on) world of low-level BG OPness amongst (F.U. Blooger spellcheck!). Lord know it's been one of my most favorite parts of this expansion. 

GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE...

Moar Maintenance = Moar rage!

Maintenance is nothing new. That regular Tuesday morning downtime is something that's been going on probably since the original launch. I know it's been a weekly staple as long as I've been playing. What's new, or actually what's changed is these "Breaking News" messages and how much later in the day Blizzard has been posting them at log in. I seem to recall whenever I would start playing on Mondays that this prompt was always up. Whether that be 10 in the morning, 4 in the afternoon, etc... But in recent months I haven't even been seeing them at all and often times I don't even log in till late in the evening. 

So yes, somewhere unacknowledged in the back of my mind I know that servers will be going down, typically at 5am PST, but when I don't see that message at log in there's this bit of hope that no maintenance is required for that week and I can just keep joyfully playing on my abnormal nocturnal schedule. I can recall a time when some weeks there was no maintenance and even when there was my realm would be back up hours earlier than the standard 11am estimation given. When I rolled a toon on a brand spankin new realm some time in the middle off 3.3 I was delightfully surprised as it seemed to go a month at a time with no maintenance. Maybe I'm remember this one wrong, but that's what I seem to recall.

So, I'm going off target here, mostly I'd just like to see those 'Breaking News' messages nice and early, especially considering this week when Mondays regular maintenance started 2 hours earlier and this rare mid week maintenance just came out of the blue. I mean, I have shit that needs to get done in game! If I know the server is going offline for a few hours I might just hold off on running that guildie through another heroic on my tank or perhaps choosing to do these dailys over those dailys or like tonight, I didn't even get a chance to hop on my banker and I know I got a full mailbox from everything that didn't sell in the last 24 hours.

But mostly all this downtime just grinds my gears because I speculate that all this "maintenance" is really just Blizz's way of saving a few bucks by just turning off the whole infrastructure for several hours. =D Makes sense, imagine if all companies could just turn off a large part of their networks for a 3rd of a day every week. Verizon would probably save a few million every Tuesday morning! I could prob switch to a crappier MMO if I didn't have to deal with paying to transfer characters, or weekly downtime, which from what I hear a lot of other MMOs don't have nearly as many shutdowns or for as long. I'm guessing it's because they're nowhere near the size of WoW, but eh... What was I talking about?

My !#$% in a box, in a box, in a box

My mage is so Awesome!

Think I got 6 acheesements in this one, including the EoE Victory since it was my first time in and dinged 58 at the win. I am so awesome!

Maintenance blows

Am I spacing out at log in or is Blizz putting these shutdown maintenance messages up later in the day than they used to? This one totally caught me by surprise. Really sucked too since I just finished my Rockstar Punched, the official drink of angry raiders. Mtn Dew is for newbs and tweakers.

= FTW!

Nothing to do with WoW

I don't care how many commercials you force on me for all of your original programming, I'M NEVER GOING TO WATCH ANYTHING ON YOUR NETWORK BESIDES HOUSE RERUNS!!!

Another WTF Blizz moment

Updated!!1 A few couple days after 4.2 dropped.

Your new honored status with the Avengers of Hyjal grant you access to their vendor to purchase... what.... ? ? ?

That's right, a brand new cloak!!! To replace that one you just got yesterday from saving Thrall which replaced that one you got last week from killing Ahune!!!!

Really wish I read patch notes, I would have flooded the AH with chants and mats for engineering chutes.

Original post...

Yay, 4.2 is here and with it the new epic questline to save Thrall from damnation. It's epic because it's a great story with love and action and you get to take part in helping Thrall, the coolest cat in Azeroth.  It's even more epic because it's not very long. Two thumbs up!

My gripe comes with the final reward, your choice of ilevel 365 cloak. Hot damn, everyone gets a new piece of leetness from the get go. So why the frak did I bother putting up with long queues and ninjas for Ahune to get a cloak that would just be replaced this easily even before the seasonal event was finished? Oh, I didn't, not on any of my toons, but I know a shit ton of y'all did. Well at least that Ahune fight was fun and memorable...

Drunk NPC's

Edna Mullby wished me a happy Brewfest today. I guess when you're a drunk everyday is Brewfest.

Happy Midsummer Fire Festival! (aka *S.S.D.D.)

*Same Seasonal, Different Day, er year I guess.
So yes, Midsummer Fire Fest is here again! Whoopie-freakin-doo! I used to love the world seasonal events. I was chasing after them on alts for more than a year after my main had the What Long Strange Trip it's Been. Most recently I earned 'the Noble' title on my lvl 40 pally. At first I didn't care, then I realized this is one of the few titles obtainable at pretty much any level, with the help of some 85 guildies. I'd have that violet proto-drake on my main alt shaman as well, but I lagged on the dailys during last year's Brewfest and didn't have enough tokens to buy the Beer-of-the-Month subscription. Eh, who cares.

So this year everyone is all up in arms (again, btw) about the crappy stats on the Frostscythe of Lor Ahune. Hey noobs! Guess what!? It's been like that every flippin year since the damn thing came out! Last year everyone, including myself who got it on my priest was QQ'n about the lack of crit/haste secondary stats in comparison to other 5-man/older raider 232 ilevel caster staves. It was a bit under-budget, yet still a viable option for the ilevel.


What irks me more so about it this year is that instead of just being grossly under-budget for it's item level is the obvious auto-stat-update to level 85 treatment that Blizz gave it and their completely dismissive response to why it is the way it is: "Making it ideal (stat-wise) now and it would stomp all over ZA/ZG weapons. It's fairly trivial to obtain so we're just not really willing to do that."


It's a trivial item because you made it trivial, but nothing about getting one is trivial. It's such a rare drop and it's so freakin' cool looking what's the harrm in making it useful? I say make it a 359 with stats on par with equivalent current raid drops. Oh, but wait! THERE IS NO CURRENT CASTER STAFF ANYWHERE IN THE GAME! Well, if they couldn't bother to actually create a staff for their brand new expansion, then what the hell are we doing bitching about the lack of attention given to this recycled piece of eye-candy?

My biggest bitch is that my level 22 hunter couldn't get a flippin BG queue to pop all afteroon. Those brackets take no more than 10 minutes even at 4 in the morning server time. I was in queue for 15 minutes, dropped requeued for another 15, dropped again and waited almost 40 mintues in that last queue before giving up. Didn't do a random on any 85 today (actually haven't done hardly any randoms in months, on any toon) but from what the WoW websphere says it's been f'n up dungeon finder and arenas as well.

Those are several bitches thus far, but I haven't even gotten into my main complaint regarding Midsummer. This like most other seasonals have gone mostly untouched for years. I'm not asking for a full overhaul or new multi-questline chain, but how about you just throw something new in that vendors inventory to at least try and motivate the vets to go out and wrangle up more Burning Blossoms. A reskinned/recycled vanity pet would do the trick, always does... "But this one's green.