3 Written by
Anna on
June 7, 2010 – 9:54 am
I’ve done a few things for the first time (either ever, or in a long time) recently, and it’s been quite a lot of fun. It’s very easy to get into a rut and do the same old things all the time, and I’m certainly guilty of finding my niche and staying there. But occasionally I do branch out (sometimes with a solid kick in the pants from other folks to get me going), and I’ve had a lot of fun with these “firsts”.
I Tanked A Raid Instance
Granted, it was 8-man Naxxramas and then VoA 10, and I was the offtank. And I had a lot of help, both in the form of SSH (who helped me with boss strats and stuff) and in the form of several really good healers. But we won, and I even got a little bit of loot. So yay for that!
I’m not sure tanking is my favorite thing to do, and I still prefer healing overall, but it’s certainly a lot of fun, and I’m very slowly getting better at it. I still don’t do really well with chasing down adds that get loose, but otherwise, I manage to do ok!
I Am Playing My Hunter
Something that doesn’t usually happen very often – especially the part where I’m really enjoying it. I leveled Angoleth mostly with gritted teeth in Burning Crusade. I really wanted her to hit 70, and I wanted to be able to use her leatherworking/skinning skills as part of the great alt conglomerate to ease up on the cost of raiding mats for the three raiding healers I had at the time. The last time I was a hunter for more than 10 minutes at a time, I was running Karazhan (can that really have been 18 months ago or more?), but I’m finding that once I get the dust off, I’m enjoying it again.
I’m also planning out achievements I want to get… which is another first.
I DPSed For A PUG (and had fun doing it)
See that bit about being a hunter. I know very little about “modern” huntering, and my hunter instincts are weak at best. But I managed – and the group I got plunked into decided to keep me along for a second run. (To the guys from Crushridge – thank you for being awesome, and for even RPing with me. You rock!) I had my pet on passive with growl off; I MD’d the tank on cooldown; I used Bestial Wrath on boss fights and frost-trapped things that tried to eat the Tree.
I am not yet to the point of doing MQoSRDPS, but I will get there.
I Killed The End Game Boss
For the first time since I started raiding, I have killed the Big Bad of the expansion. TRI never made it to Illidan or Sunwell in the last expansion, and while I saw Nefarian, I never saw the original Naxxramas or even C’thun. But I have a Kingslayer title (and hopefully will soon have the 25 man version to go with it), and I think that’s pretty cool, especially considering the RP implications Arthas’ death has for Aely.
Being able to take part in an Arthas kill is something I really wanted for Aely since the expansion launched, and I’m really thankful for the other people I raid with. Without them I’d never have gotten to see the fight, let alone beat it.
What new things have you done lately? Are you trying new things in RP, PVP, or PVE, or maybe even all three? Have you enjoyed them, or did they reinforce that you prefer to do other things?
2 Written by
Anna on
June 6, 2010 – 3:42 pm
Howling Fjord is one of my favorite zones in the game, and probably my favorite zone in Northrend. This quest chain is just one of those reasons.
Angie and Shan’re had fun running around as wolf-buddies, and from an RP standpoint? Totally awesome.
7 Written by
Anna on
June 4, 2010 – 9:34 am
A previous Friday Five had us thinking about songs that reminded us of or signified our characters. I wanted to update that a bit, since there are a few new Aely songs running around, plus one or two for Annie Mae.
For Aely:
- Miranda Lambert’s The House That Built Me – brought home particularly by the ending of this War in the Frozen North, and her desire to see her home again
- Mumford & Sons After the Storm – Another Yva find. Yva is awesome!
- Eva Cassidy singing Fields of Gold – Sadly, this one is no longer available online
- Warren Zevon Keep Me in Your Heart for Awhile - for Aely and Jolstraer
- There are a number of songs for Aely and Arrens, but the one that’s most appropriate right now, since Aely’s at the front full time and only back in Stormwind rarely, is David Cook’s Light On. There are other, happier songs too.
For Angoleth (who isn’t really this sad, but these two songs just fit somehow):
- Imogen Heap’s Speeding Cars
- Ella Fitzgerald singing ‘Round Midnight – I don’t know the lover that she lost, that’s part of Angoleth’s story that she’s not told me about, but there’s something about this song, its disjointedness, and Angie’s tendency to just wander around at night that makes it work.
For Annie Mae:
- Kristy Lee Cook’s Cowgirls
- Toby Keith Beer for my Horses
Oh come on, you can’t expect Annie to be anything OTHER than up-tempo country music!
What are the songs you associate with your characters? Obviously for Aely I’ve got a whole soundtrack, but others are just a song or two for when I get into their head (or they get into mine). Do you listen to the songs when you’re playing the character, or is it just an association?
19 Written by
Anna on
June 3, 2010 – 8:52 am
I got to log in last night for the first time in about 3 weeks. I popped on Aely, checked the mail, and made sure I was ready for the raid tonight. Puttered around on my other characters, did a quick AH scan with my banker… and realized I had no idea what to do. There weren’t many people about for RP – most everyone was out playing alts or doing other things – and I could barely remember that the Abyss Crystals I’d mailed myself were for an enchant on Aely’s new Valius, Gavel of the Lightbringer (SQUEEEE!), let alone why I’d mailed my banker a pile of light leather.
So I did what I’ve always done when faced with such a situation. I went back to the beginning, to the character I started out with.
Angoleth got dusted off, I did some bag rearranging (I’d mailed my banker the light leather because I didn’t have the pattern for something Angoleth was going to make for Annata, my rogue. Go figure.), and I set out to get some XP on the hunter I’ve played since vanilla but who always seems to be my third or fourth string alt to make it through the new expansion.
As an aside – when I started Burning Crusade and when I started Wrath of the Lich King, the first character to go exploring on both continents was Angoleth, and yet, in both expansions, she’ll be the last of my level capped characters to hit 80, and in both cases I leveled a new character from scratch before she made it (Aely in BC, Annie Mae in WotLK).
Anyhow, I stopped by the stable master to figure out who I’d be dragging with me out to Howling Fjord to go do some Kalu’ak quests. I was faced with the following:
- Russ, a brown bear
- Talia, a black owl
- Ishura, a red windserpent
- Arsaelan, a white lion
- And one empty stable slot
I’ve never really decided what would go in the last slot – whether I’d pick up a Spirit Beast (I’m particularly fond of both Arcturis and Skoll) or whether I’d grab a wolf to round out the pet list.
As I was thinking about it, I remembered – waaaaay back in the bad old days, when I was level 45 or so, I decided I wanted to tame a wolf pet. Angoleth’s last name means “wolfwalker” and part of her backstory involves an old wolf pet that she’d had at Hyjal. When I finally found the one I wanted, a rare wolf from Ashenvale, I tamed him and then spent weeks getting him caught up to my level. I was a noob, and didn’t know there were similarly skinned wolves in Ferelas at level 40 or so, so I tamed one that was level 21, back before ANY of the pet leveling changes had happened.
Leveling him took FOREVER, but that wolf eventually became my favorite pet. I raided Molten Core with him, and he made it partway through Outland.
Sadly, with only three stable slots at the time, he was released (I took him back to Ashenvale to let him go, I’m weird) for me to pick up Ishura and see if I couldn’t improve my DPS, since windserpents had a patch or two that they were the “flavor of the month” as DPS pets and wolves were cunning pets and couldn’t compete.
Back to last night, I figured why not try a wolf pet again.
I’d not had good luck leveling with the bear (unbelievably slow, I was always out of mana) or with the cat (really squishy, always losing aggro), so I figured it couldn’t hurt to tame a wolf in Northrend and see what happened.
What happened? I spent 4 hours leveling Angoleth, got about 3/4 of the way to level 72, and had more fun huntering than I’ve had in awhile. Mr. Wolf does nearly as much DPS as Angoleth in mana-conservation mode, but it didn’t feel slow, and I felt like I got a good rhythm going where stuff just died. I even got to do a little showing off, trapping and pulling things so that we could just plow through stuff and get all the Kalu’ak quests in Howling Fjord done in one night.
Here’s where you come in.
Obviously, I’m sticking with a wolf pet. Right now I have a black worg from Howling Fjord, but I’ve always been fond of the shaggy grey coyote-wolves from Azeroth. I’m torn between the two – I don’t really like how the black worg always has his mouth open, and how he always looks like he’s mostly starving… but he’s also level 71 and I don’t have to do any work to get him up to Angie’s level.
Should I keep the black worg, go find a grey wolf, or pick another wolf? (I’m not fond of the UBRS style worgs. I am also aware that the prairie wolves in Mulgore keep their yip yip bark! after you tame them, but Anaje has that wolf as her main pet, so I’d rather not have a duplicate.)
And the second question…
What do I name him? (This wolf is very much a Him. I asked. If I pick up a different wolf, it might be a Her though, so both male and female names are OK.)
Since I’m going to be playing Angie a bit, at least for now, I’d rather not run around with “Wolf”. It feels lazy.
Let me know of your ideas, and also if you have any characters that you always seem to “settle back into” even after periods away from the game.
Update (click to embiggen):
