Anabelle: Epic Flight and Ho Ho Ho

 6,000g is a lot of money to spend, but this weekend I finally  bought Anabelle’s epic flying skill.  The pros of being able to level faster and have both herbalism and mining at epic speed were just too good to ignore.  I could have bought an epic gryphon, but I decided to turn my flying machine into a turbo-charged flying machine instead.

Yesterday was the beginning of Winter Veil Seasonal event.  A good friend and I went and soloed the Mage boss in Nexus twice and got our santa hats.  A note to the wise:  if you are going to do this with a paladin and a warrior, the paladin had better have gear that makes them not take damage, or you probably want to use healing gear and just heal. 

If my gear looks a little miss matched, it’s because i had left my healing gear in the bank, and used what odds and ends I could find to heal.  At least I don’t look half as ridiculous as my friend Trogdor.

Anabelle Dings 78

I’m still trying to get used to the iPhone for writing posts. The computer is still my prefered method for writing posts, but since this is with me wherever I go, I might as well get used to using it for posting.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, Anabelle, my Paladin had a fun weekend, with her most recent achievement of dinging 78. I also dropped 6k+ gold on epic and cold weather flying, which allowed me to get my mining maxed out.

I tanked a few instances, and I’m noticing that my gear is starting to lose its effectiveness. Healing and dps is still pretty easy, but I’m starting to take significantly more damage when tanking. Hopefully there are some upgrades on the horizon.

When I get home and back to my desktop, I’ve hot some pics of Anabelle on her new flying mount that i’d like to post. In a related story, It’s really nice to have epic flying to gather for both mining and herbalism.

-Sam

Testing: iPhone Wordpess App

I just got an iPhone 3G for Christmas from my dad. No, I’m not a teenager; I’m in my late 20’s.  My dad was nice enough to get my wife and I a pair of 8 gig 3G iPhones.

I’m testing out my ability to post using the WordPress app that you can download from the app store. I’ll be the first to admit that using iPhone screen as an input device is not the easiest thing to do, but the error correction Is very good. I’m not likely to post long of often with this app, but for short posts and comments, it will do just fine.

-Sam

Edit:  No justified text on the iPhone WordPress App.  Looks like I’ll always have to come back and edit my posts later.

Quick Update

Just a quick update for you.  Heroics are still fail.  Finding a good tank and healer at the same time just isn’t happening.  The good news of the weekend is that I took my paladin from halfway through 72 all the way to 20% through 75.  The guild is ramping up for Naxx, and it looks like we’ll be firing on all cylinders soon.  Maybe I’ll have something exciting to post soon.

-Sam

Leveling an Alt: The No-Healer Heroic Blues

Ah the good old days are back again.  I used to wait around in Shattrath when trying to get into a heroic group.  Just change the scene to Dalaran, and you’ve got my typical time on Samuel.

The main issue with just being in the LFG channel is that many people send just as many if not more requests for groups in Trade chat.  To have any chance of finding a healer in a (relatively) timely manner, you really have to be in a major city.

I would still like to finish Icecrown, as well as Storm Peaks Sholazar Basin and Zul’Drak, but at the same time, I want to be in heroic groups as well.  During the week, my playtime is limited, so if I run off to quest I am nearly guaranteed to miss out on Heroic Opportunities.  On the other hand, if I just sit in the city, I’m wasting time.

What’s a Rogue to do?

Level their alts!  I logged on my Paladin and got to work.  I completed most of the Fizzlecrank Airstrip questlines, while waiting for a group for Utgarde Keep.  I ran that twice, and Nexus once, and I’m 50% through 72.  Unless I’m pulled away by a guildie to DPS something, I’m going to spend the weekend working on leveling my Paladin.

My goal for the weekend is to reach level 74, but I realistically think that 75+ isn’t out of the question.  That would catch me up with my wife’s priest.  I’m sure it would thrill her if I spent some time helping her level.

I’m still going to break down Assassination, and do some serious number crunching.  Hopefully I’ll get that done this weekend.  I’ll do my best to have that post done next week, but I like to put some extra effort into those posts.  People tend to actually read those, so they need a little more substance than my other, more random, musings.

- Sam

Running Heroics and The Lack of Healers

“LF1M Heals Heroic                 “

Fill in the blank, repeat 15 times and you have a transcript of one minute spent in the LFG Channel.  Everyone needs healers.  In fact, everyone needs them so bad, that I’ve actually considered shelving Samuel, and changing Anabelle’s spec from Prot to Holy.  I doubt I’ll do it though, despite the number of times I died yesterday.

How many times did I die yesterday?  Well, I died a lot.  I mean A LOT!  I can think of a few that I caused myself, like jumping down to another platform in the Nexus, and missing badly.  I was just following the tank (who went splat about a half-second before I did), but I should have “looked before I lept.”  A lot of the time that I died, it was due to the healer.  Now, I know that some people will read that last sentence and think, poor rogue, QQ more about not getting heals.  That being said, I’m not so focused on DPS that I forget about my own survival, so I use all of the tools available to keep myself alive…