That’s three

Illy hit 80 over the weekend, I just hadn’t gotten around to the post before now.  She’s my third level 80 (as compared to my wife’s four, probably five in a couple weeks when her now-71 resto druid gets there).  As you can tell from her stats, she’s not exactly uber-geared…most all that stuff is a mixture of mid-70s instance and quest reward blues, with the exception of a couple of heroic pieces and one incredibly lucky drop, her new mainhand sword, Avool’s Sword of Jin.  Because, hey, fresh 80 beastmastery hunters need a 143 dps mainhand, amirite?

She can limp along through heroics…she plus her new pet (a purple wasp named Indigo) can combine for about 1400-1500 dps if I push it as hard as I can, hit Bestial Wrath and Kill Command every time they’re up, and keep my rotations tight.  Not great, but I’ve seen worse.  I’d like to get her ready to be able to sub on Naxx runs, but that ain’t happenin’ anytime soon unless I can radically gear her up.

(Wasps, by the way, are just cool as hell hunter pets.  They don’t scale down in size very much when you tame them, so she’s got this eight-foot-long insect following her around constantly cleaning its mandibles.  And when she hits Bestial Wrath, let’s just say Indigo gets pretty intimidating.  And hurty.  I find my love of a wasp as a pet ironic, considering I’m phobic around stinging insects in real life.)

Sleepy Saturday morning random thoughts

A few random thoughts tossed out while trying to wake up on a cloudy, rainy Saturday morning after plopping my daughter down in front of a Backyardigans DVD…

- You may have noticed a distinct lack of 3.1 and PTR information.  Honestly, there are a squillion places to find information from the PTR that’s a lot faster and more complete than anything I could put together, and chances are you already know where they are.  (If you don’t, try some of my blogroll.)  Plus, I try (often unsuccessfully) to avoid getting caught up in the back-and-forth hysteria from PTR build to PTR build.  Particularly this early in the cycle, things change so fast that it’s not much use freaking out over, say, the 10% “pwn tax” on Titan’s Grip damage.  Once things get closer to release, I start paying more attention and use the information to plan what I’m going to do after the patch drops.  Besides, I test software 40+ hours a week for a living.  I kind of like to leave it at work when I get home.

- Itanya Blade (one of the Anvil’s raid officers) makes a good point over here.  It applies in WoW as much as it does in the real world, because when you’re dealing with a raid, you are dealing with the real world–25+ people with real lives and real problems.  Communication is key.

- I’ve finally closed most of the gear gap between Linedan and the other tanks in our raid.  Not all, but most.  The final link was biting the bullet and dropping the 1050g on an Armor-Plated Combat Shotgun.  Expensive?  Yeah.  But since I’m working on Ebon Blade dailies now (40% of the way to Exalted), money isn’t that big an issue–at least I can break even over my repair bills, and a bit extra.  And while four digits is aspensive for sure, from what I’ve seen price-wise, it’s not all that much more expensive than gathering the needed eternals.  In the old money-vs.-time tradeoff, this time I chose money.

- I did something similar with Beltar.  He went from over 3000 gold down to 45 gold in two days after buying five pieces of armor, a Nesingwary 4000, and a scope on the AH.  It’s the curse of an alt who doesn’t get all that many cracks at instance runs.  But, now he’s doing about 1500 dps combined with his cat in heroics…maybe ready for Naxx 10?  Not sure.  I may get the chance to find out this weekend.

- In other Beltar-related news, he has a new pet for instancing, a Cursed Offspring of Har’koa that he’s named Longpaw, also called “Bigballs.”  (Don’t ask.)  I thought I was being a unique and special snowflake by grabbing the silver, spotty, glowy-eyed cat.  Uh, no.  I’ve seen nine of them in two days.  He can’t do a spirit beast since he’s marks, so at least I’m not tempted to do that endless search. 

- Now Illithanis is 51 in BM, and can tame Loque’nahak, and she’s level 76, and my wife already has one on her hunter.  Get her to 77, get her slow-flying back again, and maayyyyybe…

- Moktor’s 70.  Still wearing a purple steel bustier that she’s falling out of, and still overpowered as all hell.

Dramatis Personae: Illithanis

It’s time for another installment of “Dramatis Personae,” where I introduce my various characters that I occasionally mention here on Panzercow.  Today, meet my blood elf hunter Illithanis.

• Full name:  Illithanis Jadehawk
• Created:  November 2007
• Level/race/class:  Level 76 blood elf hunter
• Spec:  Beastmastery (currently 53/14/0)
• Age:  119 (human equivalent 20)

“Illy,” as I call her (and she does not call herself), grew up in Quel’thalas, where her family, the Jadehawks, had considerable land and holdings south of Silvermoon in what is currently the central portion of Eversong Woods, on the western edge of the Dead Scar.  Many generations of Jadehawks before Illithanis served proudly as Farstriders, the ranger corps of the quel’dorei, dating back three thousand years to the Troll Wars.  Skill with bow and sword, and a great affinity with taming and training winged animals such as dragonhawks, ran in the family.

All that changed when Arthas showed up seven years ago and led his assault on the Sunwell.  Illithanis and her fraternal-twin brother Althoris were sent to Sunstrider Isle in a last-ditch effort to preserve the family line–both were very indignant at this fact, as they wished to fight the Scourge.  In the end, they were two of the few survivors of the quel’dorei, renamed the sin’dorei–blood elves.  (Miraculously, both Illithanis’ parents also survived, though their landholdings were all but destroyed and the elder Jadehawks were forced to abandon the rest, and now live inside the rebuilt city of Silvermoon in moderate circumstances.)

Illithanis attempted to follow in her family tradition and join the Farstriders.  But with the ascension of the Blood Knights and the Magisters, the Farstriders found themselves greatly diminished in power, prestige, and size.  In addition, Illithanis’ rather negative opinions of Lor’themar Theron and the post-Kael’thas administration of Quel’thalas rendered her politically “unfit” for service.  She became the first Jadehawk in three thousand years not to serve Silvermoon as a Farstrider, and made her own way out into the world as a free agent.  Her brother Althoris, on the other hand, became an eager young Blood Knight.

Physically, Illy is fairly unexceptional; attractive, but not memorably beautiful, with regular features, something of a long face, pointy chin, and thinner lips than she’d like.  She’s of a normal blood elven build and height, perhaps a bit more athletic than a caster-type but by no means muscular (“wiry” would be a good word).  She has jet-black hair of just over shoulder-length, held back of her ears with a jade-encrusted clasp.  She’s got the complexion of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors.  She hardly ever wears makeup, and her only jewelry besides her hairband, rings, and trinkets is a small jade hawk earring in her right ear.  That doesn’t mean she’s slovenly; far from it, she bathes as regularly as she can, and her clothing and equipment are always repaired and as neat as she can possibly keep them.

I’m still working on Illy’s personality.  Some things I know about her, and some things she’s steadfastly refused to reveal.  I know she’s a generally decent sort, especially for a blood elf (which fits in with what lore says about Farstriders in general).  She can be arrogant and doesn’t suffer fools well.  She despises what she sees as the lazy, indolent, corrupt culture of the “elite” in Silvermoon and fumes at what’s been done to her beloved Farstriders, especially by the Blood Knights–and yet, up until patch 2.4, she was an unrepentant Kael’thas fangirl.  We’re talking poster-on-the-ceiling levels of squee here.  She saw him as the savior of Quel’thalas in the Third War (such as was saved), and constantly wished he would return from Outland, sweep aside Theron and the Blood Knights, and reset the sin’dorei on the path toward greatness yet again.

Then came patch 2.4.  Whoopsie.  Come to find out that Kael really is a bastard who stole his own people’s naaru and left them starving for magic.  Illy’s still getting over the betrayal.  It’s left her with a huge distrust of kings and magisters in general, and deepened her hatred for her native Silvermoon even more.  She only comes there now to occasionally visit her parents and sometimes to train with the Farstriders.

I do know that Illy has taken to the Horde more than a lot of blood elves.  She respects the warrior tradition of orcs even as she’s repulsed by some of their bloodier aspects.  Tauren culture fascinates her, but it’s in sort of a patronizing Jane-Goodall-and-her-chimps kind of way.  She stays well away from trolls–hey, 3000 years of conditioning is hard to break–and Forsaken squick her, even though her #2 idol, Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner, is one.  She’s neutral on dwarves, gnomes, and Draenei.  Humans infuriate her for what she sees as Garithos’ betrayal, and she really looks down her nose at night elves, thinking them stupid redneck country-bumpkin tree-humping idiots.  If she calls you a night elf, she just insulted the hell out of you.

The other hook I’m trying to hang onto with her (but may not be able to) is that she only tames and works with flying animals.  She started with a dragonhawk, then switched to a Thousand Needles venomous cloud serpent at level 28.  At level 44, I found her a beautiful red Feralas rogue vale screecher, named it Bloodwing, and she’s used it until now.  (And yes, I admit it, I tamed it because at the time, her armor was all red, and they matched.)  Bloodwing may get honorable retirement, though.  Yesterday I tamed an Emerald Skytalon from the Emerald Dragonshrine and named it…Emerald.  C’mon, her last name’s Jadehawk, how could I not tame a bright green bird of prey?

And for slogging through this wall of text, you get a bonus…my tribute to one of the greatest scenes in movie history, Ursula Andress’ famous entrance as Honey Rider in the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, done WoW style:

Anna’s RP Friday Five – The Three R’s

It’s Friday morning, so it must be time for another wonderful Friday Five from Too Many Annas.  This week it’s about…edumacashun.

• Can your character read and write?

Actually, all of my various characters can to one degree or another.  Maybe it’s laziness on my part, but I just can’t seem to work up the energy to play a good illiterate.  Moktor is probably the closest I’ll ever get to a functional illiterate, and hers is more just a fifth-grade education than anything else.  But it’s not like you really need to read and write so much when you can command the powers of frost, disease, and blood.

• Is he/she good with numbers and business-like things?

Linedan and Moktor, no.  They can do normal math if you give them a minute, Lin more so than Moktor.  Illithanis is a little better just because she’s brighter and has a formal education from Silvermoon (albeit nothing more than your average elven high school diploma with a 2.8 GPA).  Beltar, oddly enough, would be my best numbers guy.  He’s smarter than he looks and acts, and has hung around enough merchants and criminals for a century that he’s picked up a nose for numbers and how to manipulate them.

• Does your character have a formal (schooled) education or an informal (apprenticed/learned by experience) education? Or both?

Hard to say with Linedan…I imagine Tauren education is largely informal.  Beltar’s basically a ninth-grade dropout with a century of classes in the School of Hard Knocks on top of it.  Illithanis, as stated above, has a formal secondary-level education but her “practical” skills with bow, animal, and skinning knife are family-taught.  Moktor’s an elementary-school dropout street urchin.

• Has he/she learned another language than the one they grew up speaking (in full or in part)?

Linedan, yes because he knows Orcish in addition to Taurahe; his spoken Orcish is very precise and somewhat formal.  Beltar, yes because he knows Common in addition to Dwarven, and has also picked up a very small smattering of expressive cursewords in Darnassian, Thalassian, Orcish, and Tarquinese/Jolstraerian.  (His latest project is a Lordaeron-to-Common dictionary, entitled “The Apostrophe, Why It Is Half The Northmen’s Alphabette.”)  Illithanis, again, yes because she can speak/read/write in Orcish and Thalassian quite fluently, and in fact rather oddly likes the harsh Orcish language.  Moktor, nope, just Orcish for her.

• What does your character’s handwriting look like?

Linedan:  Block printing, very slow and precise, because that’s how he learns–not by gift of intelligence, but by sheer bloody-minded hellbent rote persistence.  Beltar:  Doctor-level semi-intelligible high-speed scribble, but the spelling is usually close to right at least.  Illithanis:  Small yet flowing, somewhat sloppy because she writes quickly (a Farstrider talent of quickly making scouting notes).  Moktor:  Ten-year-old all-over-the-page badly misspelled scrawl.

Ruminations on the Wrathgate

This morning, after wiping on the Insomnia boss, I got my blood elf hunter Illithanis through the last part of the Wrathgate questline, saw the Cutscene of Cool (SPOILER ALERT!!), and completed the Battle for the Undercity (gaining level 75 in the process).  Illy is the third character I’ve run through the Wrathgate (now two Horde, one Alliance) and it’s still pretty much made of awesome.  But as I helped Thrall clean up the mess in Undercity, my sleep-deprived mind started wandering, as it is wont to do, and got me to thinking…

(CAUTION: Spoilers lie under the cut.  If you are one of the, eh, fourteen or so people out of 11+ million who don’t know how the whole Wrathgate/Undercity event goes and want to wait until you see it for yourself, then you may want to skip this and read some of the other fine content on this here blog thang or check out the blogroll.)

Anna’s RP Friday Five: Keeping Up Appearances

Today’s RP Friday Five over at Too Many Annas is about “Keeping Up Appearances.”  Here’s the questions, and my answers:

1.  Describe your characters general appearance – is it exactly what you see in the avatar?

My characters look generally like their toons.  Beltar’s a little shorter and scrawnier, Lin is actually even bigger, Illithanis is pretty much dead on as to what her blood elf toon is size-wise.  In terms of their features, they match up with their in-game looks; it’s easier for me to keep straight that way.

2.  What are their opinions on baths/showers/etc?

I’m not sure what Tauren bathing habits are like, but Linedan generally doesn’t worry about it too much unless he knows he’s going to be around people he knows (such as Monday night RP), then he’ll clean up.  It’s more a luxury than a necessity.  Beltar likes baths for the pleasurable feeling of hot water more than for the actual practicality of being clean; he spent enough time on the road that he’s used to roughing it and doing without for a while.  Illithanis likes to be clean, and enjoys a long hot soak as a luxury, but again, with her being a Farstrider type, she’s used to long stretches in the woods where she’d have to settle for a dip in a freezing lake.

3.  Do they fuss about their looks (and if female, wear makeup)?

Linedan and Beltar could both care less.  Lin doesn’t care what his armor looks like as long as it protects him and it’s structurally sound; Beltar’s mostly the same way.  Beltar’s only exception is if he’s back in Ironforge and has one of his occasional dates at the Stonefire Tavern with Bretta Goldfury (the gun seller)…those, he’ll clean himself up for.  Illithanis almost never wears makeup–mascara gets in your eyes when you’re trying to stick an arrow through somebody–but she does take care of her appearance and keeps her armor and clothing looking as neat as possible.

4.  If they could pick an outfit out of an infinite closet, what would it look like?

Linedan:  Big, nasty, gnarly, matching saronite plate armor.  Beltar:  Black shirt, gray pants, black boots, and his favorite red fedora.  (The fact that the fedora summons beer makes it his favorite.)  Illithanis:  Simple and comfortable linen shirt with a leather vest or overshirt, linen or leather pants depending on the weather, comfortable boots.  Colors would be muted woodland colors, heavy on the greens because green is her historic family color.

5.  For the guys – boxers, briefs, or commando trousers? For the girls – bikinis, thongs, or boyshorts?  (This is not my question.  You can go thank Jess for it.  I’m still not sure I should even think about posting it.  I can see my spam comment count going through the roof already!  And yes, you really do want to click on and read about commando trousers.  Just, don’t be drinking anything, or you’re likely to end up with it in your nose.)

Linedan:  loincloth.  Beltar:  commando if he’s just hanging out around town (pun intended), briefs or boxers if he’s out in the world killing, for protection against mail pinching certain places.  Illithanis: bikinis, with long johns and a linen shift under her armor and shirt in cold weather.

3.0.8 patch notes up on the PTR

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Nothing particularly unknown or unexpected there.  The only change for prot warriors is that Taunt (and druid Growl) have a 30-yard range now instead of 20.  There’s better news for Fury warriors…the extra 5% miss penalty for Titan’s Grip is gone.  I, for one, welcome our new dual-2H-axe-wielding overlords.  All the Titans Grip barbarians I know will be drinking and wenching far into the night in celebration.

Hunters, well, they don’t do so well.  Beltar, a hardcore marks hunter, will be pleased with the reduced cooldown on Kill Shot and the small buff to Improved Tracking, even while lamenting the moderate nerf to Steady Shot.  But Illithanis, my BM spec?  Not a happy belfette.  Her DPS is so low and her gear so terrible at 71 that she may not even notice, we’ll see.  But between the Serpent’s Swiftness attack speed nerf, the Unleashed Rage damage nerf, and the Kindred Spirits damage nerf?  Pet damage is going to drop considerably.  And, the Readiness/Big Red Pet cooldown change may be the death of the 50/21/0 gimmick build.  We’ll see.

And for you mages and warlocks:  Any ability that agros a mob will now “tap” it to you, so nobody else will be able to get xp/loot from it.  Yep, you won’t get your sheep stolen anymore, and locks won’t have that two-second window of vulnerability before the first DoT ticks hit.