20 days of WoW: Favorite item in game

I don't have any single item in game that I like more than the others. A lot of things make me swoon, especially anything that involves a little bit of luck or hard work to get, or that particularly fits the persona of one of my toons. The above picture is a good example of the types of items that make me happy. Blatella the forsaken with her Medusoid staff, little Oracle pet and Origami Slime Inscription toy. The origami toy was a random drop I believe, but the pet and staff were quest rewards. I really enjoy embarking on a quest or series of quests with the knowledge that a particularly cool item lies at the end.

Did I mention that I actually like Archaeology? Wapsi has achieved the Associate Professor rank and acquired a lot of super cool artifacts along the way. Finding the Fossilized Raptor and Hatchling made me giddy for days; they look especially good with Wapsi's dragonskull crown!

In other news, for some strange reason I decided to start playing my hunter again yesterday. No, not my night elf hunter Milyra, but my very, very first main toon, who started as a troll, went to the Alliance as a dranei, and back to Horde as a goblin. Like the topic of this post, it was all about the fun of finding cool new things in game: I wanted to start collecting hunter pets, beginning with the Battle Cat pet in Felwood. Sooo...I race changed her yet again, this time to a blood elf, gave her a go-go diva hairdo and renamed her Gallore (aka Pussy Galore, cuz blood elves are such saucy little vixens), and quickly tamed Battle Cat. Also, look at that gun (a quest reward at Agmar's Hammer in Dragonblight I believe)! So yeah, I like hunters because they have access to some of the coolest items in game.

Running Gallore through a couple of instances last night gave me another idea for a post, unfortunately: Hunters, the Most Hated Class in the Game?

Inner conflict*

Formerly a priestess of the Light and a healer in the old City of Lordaeron, it seemed natural that Blatella continue to use her gift after her transformation. There was nothing for her in Eastern Kingdoms, so she travelled across the sea and made her new home in the Horde city of Orgrimmar. From here she could continue her studies on Inscription as well as advertising her skills as a healer. For some time she soothed the wounds of fighters as they vanquished evils from dungeons all over the world, and even beyond the Dark Portal. It was a good life, providing ample gold to live and allowing Blatella to feel that she had maintained some of her humanity and faith.

But the dark was always pulling at her, weighing on her mind and soul as she left the dungeons for the day and settled into a cozy nook at the Wyvern's Tale. A few mugs of Frog's Venom brew was just potent enough to drive the darkness away, sinking her into a deep dreamless sleep. But such relief was fleeting.

A newly minted level 80, Blatella accompanied a platoon of orcs on an ill-fated mission to the bottom of the sea.

Amidst the disaster, a representative of the Earthen Ring. Could Blatella use her Holy power in their battle against the Naga? Could she assist in the rescue of their captives?

And so she fought.

And aided those in need when she could.

She explored the sunken land of Vashj'ir.

So beautiful! But so treacherous as well: she died many times on her travels through this watery land. She could heal, and she could kill, her Holy Words were strong and deadly. but she could be killed too easily. And so her thoughts turned to the dark again, stronger than ever before. Power! She wanted power! She knew exactly how that could be accomplished. It would be so easy...

She went back to Orgrimmar and made the necessary preparations. And for the first time ever, she cast her Holy ways aside, temporarily she told herself. But when she took the shadowform, the surge of power she felt, strong and confident, was more electric than 100 Frog's Venom brews. It felt like this was what she was meant to be, what she was always been meant to be.

She was shadow.

*For more information on Inner Conflict, check out the above song. RIP Peter Steele.

Monday wrapup

Taking a break from the 20 days of WoW posts to catch up with my toons after a busy weekend...

I don't like to toot my horn too loudly, but let's just say that Wapsi did an awesome job on Warmaster Blackhorn (DPS meter to the right). Sure, it's mostly a stand and smash with some minor getting out of fire, but it was great to watch her rising up the meter as the fight progressed and then holding it, holding it, holding it until the Warmaster finally went down! Aside from that though, LFR was a bit of a frustrating experience this week with not a single drop. See that troll enhancement shaman in the lovely midriff-baring ensemble to my right? He got both drops I needed on the second half of LFR, the tier head token and my second No'Kaled. For No'Kaled, he was the only player who needed besides me. RNG still hates me!

Blatella the undead priest dinged 80 and continues to make a killing on the AH with her glyphs! Not wanting to start healing Cata dungeons in ilevel 250-ish gear, she is actually doing some questing in Hyjal, and tonight will enter Vashj'ir because she must have the Medusoid staff. For a dyed-in-the-wool healer, she's not doing that bad at DPS, especially once she remembered that Holy Word: Chastise thing.

Blatella also leveled her Herbalism in Northrend prior to entering the Cata zones, enjoying the views in Howling Fjord and Sholazar Basin. It made me think that I've been playing a heck of a lot of dungeons lately, not only with Blatella, and should really get out and quest and enjoy the world a bit more. Maybe with my long-neglected many-times-race-changed-first-main hunter?

Panthalassa switched to her mail heirlooms, got level 40 riding, tinkered away at some Engineering and ran a few dungeons.

And hey, Boomhoof got her leather int heirlooms back and went back into dungeons with a couple of weeks of rested XP! She's now up to level with Pantha, and I plan to continue leveling them neck-in-neck.

Which brings me to a question for any caster-types who may happen to be reading: when during leveling does caster-class DPS rise out of the gutter? Both Boomhoof (boomkin) and Pantha (elemental shaman) are nearly always at the bottom of the DPS meter, usually by a substantial amount. Do I just suck at playing casters and need to go back to hitting things with axes?

20 days of WoW: favorite WoW moment

After much thought, I think my favorite WoW moments would have to be when I finally take the plunge and do something that I am afraid of. Typically this is entering Dungeon finder for the first time on a new toon, or a toon who has never run instances before, as was the case last night. I finally brought Goetia the rogue out of retirement and ran some normal Cata dungeons with her. I'm glad Recount wasn't working for some reason because I'm sure I was awful (let's just say that I went through one boss before remembering to put poison on her weapons...). But by the end of the evening I was feeling the rogueyness again and I think Goetia will be soon be on her way to hitting LFR.

Another plunge was rolling a healer and leveling her up through dungeons. Blatella's first dungeon, Wailing Caverns, was a bit of a disaster, in no small part due to the fact that I hadn't installed VuhDo yet to help with heals. But she made it through, and now at level 79 I feel that she is a competent healer. We'll see how she does with the Cata content, though.

Next topic: favorite item in game...

20 days of WoW: first day playing

Long, long ago, I housesat for a friend in Arizona, and was getting bored sitting around in the evenings. A friend suggested that I try WoW, so I ordered the Battle Chest from Amazon (containing only Vanilla and Burning Crusade at the time), and promptly rolled Carbuncle the undead warlock. I did some questing in Tirisfal Glades, died a lot, and by the time I made it to Brill had a nice letter from my friend containing the cockroach pet and some tailored cloth gear. But the game didn't really stick with me, primarily because at the time I thought it was way too complicated and I was never going to figure anything out, and in addition was going through some rough times personally and just had too many (crappy) things going on to be able to immerse myself in a game. But during that brief first try, I was very impressed with the visual beauty of the game (as evidenced by the fact that I was already taking screenshots), and although a bit daunted was also intrigued by it's complexity.

About a year ago I found myself in another period of time where I felt like I was sitting around being bored in the evenings, so I went to the Blizzard website and downloaded Vanilla again. This time, although still clueless, I was enjoying climbing the learning curve. A couple of weeks later I bought the rest of the expansions and I've been journeying through Azeroth ever since; I've level capped two toons in the past year and have several alts at various stages. Why was the game more enjoyable this time? Probably in part because of all the online resources, including blogs, that I was able to use as a kind of traveller's guide. In particular, being able to prepare myself for instances, in terms of gear, talents etc as well as strategies for the instances themselves, gave me the confidence to finally start running LFG, which is now my favorite part of the game.

 Day 4: favorite WoW moment

Day 2: why did I start this blog? + why do you do what you do

Today I'm combining the 20 Days of WoW Challenge with the Newbie Blogger Week 2 challenge, as the topics go hand in hand.

The pictures accompanying this post are of my original main, Goetia the rogue, as she quested through Northrend for the first time. It was during this time that I really got hooked on WoW.

I've alluded to my reasons for starting this blog in a previous post: it provides a creative outlet for my interest in playing WoW. In addition, it provides me a means to "talk" about what I'm doing in game. I am a mostly solo player as I know very few people IRL who play. My boyfriend is happy to hear about my adventures in Azeroth, but he doesn't play so those discussions are mostly one-way. So blogging gives me  an outlet to share my experiences as I learn the game, and even if no one reads, at least I get the satisfaction of knowing it's out there.

And since I've only been playing for about a year, every day is still a learning experience. I don't have the expertise to write class or boss guides, and you won't find any theorycrafting here. Instead, I hope that I am able to convey my excitement at exploring the game: learning to play different classes, running instances in LFD, getting cool new gear and mounts, questing my way through the far corners of the world, and how my toons' stories are developing as I get to know them. I'll supplement those tales with ample screenshots, as the visual beauty of the game is probably the biggest draw for me.

Which leads me to the second question, Why Do I Do What I Do? I'm a scientist IRL, and exploring, learning and experimenting is second nature to me. An immersive, expansive game like WoW is the perfect place to play, documenting my travels along the way. I like reading and learning how to be a better player, but I also like finding unexpected new things. So WoW has kind of pushed my buttons as a scientist and a creative person, but in a fantasy setting that provides some escapism as well.

Tomorrow's post: First day playing WoW

20 days of WoW blogging

I've been thinking for awhile about participating in the 20 Days of WoW Blogging challenge, so here goes!

Introduce yourself...
For the purpose of blogging I've decided on the monicker Wapsipinicon, who is my tauren enhancement shaman main of the moment. That's her in the picture above. I took the name from a river that runs through my hometown, and I think it fits very nicely with the tribal tauren vibe.

In real life, I am a biologist working at a flagship state university, where I teach and do research on the topic of insect brain evolution. That's a developing wasp brain in the picture above.

I live in a cute little house on a hill that I share with three cats. Aside from playing WoW I like to read, listen to heavy metal music and collect tattoos, and when the mood strikes me I've been known to make little pieces of art out of found objects (although my creativity comes and goes).

Tomorrow: why did I start this blog?