Mend Pet

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of character jumping.  Raiding on my Hunter, leveling my Paladin and my Mage too.  These three classes do not have very similar playstyles.  In fact, they are almost as far apart from each other as you can get. Ranged with a pet, melee with heals and spell casting clothy.

This makes it difficult for me to switch between them smoothly.  Last night I played my paladin for a bit, then switched over to my mage, who I hadn’t played in a couple of weeks.  It was… a shock.  I was too used to my buttons and keybindings, expecting different things from different abilities, quite a disaster! (Let’s just say Polymorph != Holy Light and Pyroblast != Exorcism)

I realized I need to adjust my alts to follow a similar keybinding strategy to my main.  I need to know where everything is in a pinch.  So I need to decide what abilities I associate between each class.

So here are the major categories of situations/abilities and which spells and abilities I associate them for each class.  Hopefully this will help me sort my keybindings out so no matter which class I’m playing, the same button will have approximately the same effect.

OMG I’M GONNA DIE, GET IT OFF ME! (Aggro drop/damage protection)

• Hunter: Feign Death
• Mage: Ice Block or Mana Shield
• Paladin: (What are you talking about?  My paladin NEVER dies.) A.K.A. Divine Shield or Lay on Hands

Crap, he’s a runner!  Get him quick before he pulls adds! (Intant ranged cast)

• Hunter: Arcane Shot
• Mage: Fire Blast
• Paladin: Hammer of Wrath

You’re trying to heal?  I don’t think so! (Stun/Interrupt)

• Hunter: Intimidation (when BM-spec’d) or Silencing Shot (when MM-spec’d)
• Mage: Dragon’s Breath
• Paladin: Hammer of Justice

They’re EVERYWHERE!! (Area of Effect)

• Hunter: Volley
• Mage: Flamestrike or Blizzard
• Paladin: Consecration

YOU! Stay there while I kill this guy.  kthx! (Long-term Crowd Control)

• Hunter: Freezing Trap or Freezing Arrow (depending on mob/location)
• Mage: Polymorph
• Paladin: Repentance

Any other situations that you need to be readily accessible instinctively?

Raiding as Fire/Frostfire @ CriticalQQ
As Alouette closes in on 80, she’s beginning to set her eye on raiding… but seeing as I have never run a real instance on her, I need serious help learning what’s important to a raiding Fire mage.  Euripedes has some great information for a little spark like me.

Don’t Let Dailies Grind YOU! @ LadyJess
One amazing tip here.  I love that doing the Champion and Valiant dailies nets me credit for two quests at once.  Well, you can do more than just that!

Kiting Boot-camp! @ OutDPS!
Euripides (the Hunter one, not the Mage one) has a nice little guide for a skill that every hunter should have, although it’s become almost a lost art!  This is a great guide for those who never had to do much kiting ‘back in the day’!

iPhone Apps for WoW Players @ Catryalini’s WoW Blog
I bought an iPhone this week!  In fact, the same day I bought mine she wrote this post, so it gave me a good place to start on my path to iPhone App addiction.  Unfortunately, it seems Blizzard has also sent out Cease and Desist orders to several of these apps… so pick them up while they’re still around!

Death By Chocolate @ Sideshow & Syrana
Syrana’s posted a nice little summary of both the good and bad sides of the Noblegarden festival, as well as a short guide.  I know the event is almost over, but it’s a good read anyway!

You can check out all the blogs I read on my list of Other Peoples’ Blogs!

My apologies for being missing the last few days!  I completely didn’t bother with my posts for the weekend.  I’ve got a French exam this afternoon so I’ve been studying, and even though I didn’t leave my apartment all weekend, I’ve also managed to find myself ill once again.  Here’s hoping it’s just a cold!  Spent most of the afternoon sleeping yesterday, and I feel like quite the mess today.

But here’s what I’ve been up to:

Managed to squeeze in some play time this weekend, and got my paladin up to level 45.  I’m happily going along feeling extremely overpowered, just like a good ret paladin should!  Judgement of the Wise?  Awesome.  Exorcism on every mob?  Sweet.  I’m having way too much fun getting 700 white damage crits with my Darkmoon Executioner with Crusader.

Also worked on Alouette.  She’s up to halfway through 71 already!  I’ve taken way more screenshots when leveling her than when I leveled through Northrend the first time… of course, I didn’t have the capability to have my graphics set to maximum my first time through, so I’m noticing a lot more pretty things.  I’ve decided I want to get her to 80 before working on Ferguson, so I have a second 80 to play around with when I’m bored.  Because like I mentioned before, BGs at level 70 are not fun!

Finally mastered the Grand Melee daily quest for the tournament, and picked up Lance a Lot.  The amount of rep these quests are giving is amazing!  I’ll be exalted with the Darkspear Trolls in no time!  After I do my dailies today, I’ll be moving up to the rank of Champion and be able to start earning real rewards.

After two nights battling the Loading Screen boss, Unemployed finally managed to get into Ulduar-25 on Thursday night.  It was so much fun!  I got to both drive and ride in a Salvaged Demolisher, partnered up with a good friend in the guild.  We had a few false starts in there, I think some people were just too excited – we started the whole event early, and accidentally pulled the boss a couple of times – but no one really cared because it was just so much fun riding around doing something different for a change!

One thing I didn’t like was trying to shoot down the blue power boost thingies during the boss fight.  You can only target the little propeller – and by the time I could get one targeted it would always end up outside my shooting range.  I’ll probably get the hang of it though!

Once we got that guy down, we decided to try Razorscale.  We didn’t really have much of a plan, since that night was more of an exploration night than anything else, but we still had some pretty good attempts.  We tried to develop different strategies as far as the adds went, and I got to practice using Silencing Shot.  We never managed to get him to phase 2, but I think we’ll get it pretty quickly next time.

And the Unemployed Top Chef Cooking Contest has ended!  I haven’t really written about it yet.. but later this week I’m going to post the recipes and rules up for anyone who is intested in it.  I got second place!  Woohoo!

Monday nights are alt nights for me and the boy.  It was exclusively a time to work on the Mage/Prot Warrior combo, but since we’ve rerolled my priest and a druid to use the recruit-a-friend, Alouette’s had to get pushed to the backburner for a while, which means she’s stuck at 70.

But I do love my mage.  So when Gadgets called me to let me know he’d be working very late last night, I decided I’d play Alouette anyway.  I can’t level without him, and I was in a bit of a ludic mood so I tried my hand at PvP.

PvPing as a level 70 mage in the 70-79 bracket is not the smartest idea.  Do you know how long it takes a level 79 to do 6283 damage to a clothy? I’d tell you, but my timer doesn’t count in milliseconds.

I queued up AB and WSG, since I didn’t have any achievements in either.  WSG popped first.  I zone in to a game which was 2-0 for the Alliance, and I immediately realized all my macros were still missing from transferring!  D’oh.  So I sat in the flag room and fixed that while my teammates won me [Warsong Gulch Victory] and [Warsong Gulch Perfection].  Thanks guys!

After I’d fixed the rest of my macros, AB popped.  It was a fresh game… I was quite disoriented. Arathi Basin is my favourite battleground, but I’d never done it from the Alliance side before.  The map was constantly backwards in my head.

I spent the first 5 minutes without a single Honorable Kill.  Even though I was following a group of others around, two hits from a cat or a Death Knight and BAM!  I’m having tea with my dear friend, the Spirit Healer.

It was a very long and close game, and I quickly developed a nemesis.  A level 77 Balance Druid.  His name started with an H.  Let’s call him… Hogarth.

I claimed my post defending the Stables like a good little gnome, finger hovering over my instant cast and AoE keybindings.  as I look around, in the distance I see a giant bird-owl-chicken-beast thing coming at me with a gaggle of trees in tow.  He’s on me before I can do anything.

Trees everywhere!  Ah!  Feign Death!  No, this is a mage.  There is no Feign Death.

Ice Block!  But before I know it, I find myself asking the Spirit Healer if she knows where the heck I put that button on my bars, because I certainly don’t.

I’m quickly back into the battle, stationed at the stables… holding my position.  I turn around… it’s Hogarth again.  And his horrible trees.  Just as they are about to hit me I try to Frost Nova, but before I can… BAM!  A giant mysterious tidal wave hits me and sends me flying.  It takes out half of my health and the rest quickly follows with a Moonfire.

I ask the Spirit Healer how I’ve never in my life seen that spell before.  Guess I haven’t done much PvP since 3.0.

This means war.  I mount up and go Chicken hunting.  I’m gonna get him down if it’s the last thing I do!  I’ve got my battle strategy ready to go.

There he is!  His trees lay dead on the ground beside him already.

“You’re not going to take our horsies!” I cry as I power up my Fireball.

Fireblast!  Dragon’s Breath!  Fir– oooh, look at the pretty stars!

…

Once again the Spirit Healer hovers there, mocking me for up to 30 seconds as my little Gnome fills with fiery rage.

*BRRRING!*  The Horde has won the match!

I got out of there with 14 HKs, and at least as many deaths.

Someday we’ll meet again, Hogarth.

And I’ll be having BBQ’d chicken for dinner that night, if it’s the last thing I do.

I think I’ve got everything sorted out.

I’ve paid to transfer Brajana to my new account.  Didn’t realize I’d be losing my guild affiliations even though I wasn’t transferring servers… it was a bit interesting when I had to ask another officer in Unemployed for a ginvite.

[W To] Barlo: Hey Barlo, could I get a ginvite?
[W From] Barlo: Sure, for who?
[W To] Barlo: me.
[W From] Barlo: huh?

Unfortunately, although I have 3 other characters I consider favourites, I felt I could only afford to bring over one more.  I already spent $100 on the game, I can’t afford another $100 on transfers.

I chose Alouette.  Sure, a mage is easier to relevel than a Priest, but I feel a much bigger connection to Alouette than Ferguson, to be honest.  I’ve been playing her more recently, and I also cheated on Ferguson.  He used to be my brother’s character, so I only actually leveled him from 52 – 71, rather than all the way from the beginning.

So I spent last night preparing my account, “making it as comfortable as possible” before the inevitable end.

I took many dramatic screenshots of me typing “DELETE” into the box overlaid on my naked level 71 priest… but I forgot them at home.  So just picture it in your mind.

D-E-L-E-T-E.

Enter.

In fact, Hydraxis is now completely empty on my old account… it’s a strange sight to see!  I created a new bank alt and decked him out with 16 slot Netherweave Bags (because everything else is too expensive).  I sent him my stockpile of Outlands herbs and even passed him the lucky monocle that my old bank alt was donning.

The boyfriend and I are releveling Ferguson with a druid and using the RAF bonus.  Now, Ferguson is a level 8 priest.  Identical in all ways, except level and professions.

But what about Ghugh?  My unexpectedly beloved Dwarf?  Well, like I said, I can’t afford to transfer all of my characters… but being the great guy he is, Gadgets has offered to pay for me to transfer him across, because he knows how much I love him.  Only problem is, since I just transferred him to Dark Iron I will have to pay an extra month of subscriptions before I can transfer again.  More money!  But since I am technically getting a free month on the new account, it’s not so bad.

So I’ve spent an extra $160 to get my account in my own name.

Was it worth it?

I think so.  I didn’t necessarily have to do the transferring, since both accounts took on the same properties when I merged them… but it feels better to me anyway, to have them all on an account I created.

It could have been vacuous, maybe I never needed to do any of it in the first place.  Maybe I’d never get in trouble for playing on an account that wasn’t technically mine.  But now I don’t have to worry any more, I don’t have to feel guilty!  And that itself is worth it.