Change Of Pace

Hubby has a friend who apparently loves him more than I do, because he bought Fallen Earth for him. Because of a free trial on their site, I was able to hop in with him and check it out for myself.

My laptop is not the ideal machine to run this game. Character creation was made frustrating because of my sub par machine(though you could spend a good hour or more creating, there are so many items to tweak), but the game itself runs fine once the tutorial is over. Above is Shawndra in a world decimated by a horrible virus called Shiva (fitting name). She is a clone who was fortunate to be cloned for the last time, only to find out that she is dying, and needs to find some alpha clones to fill in the gaps of her dna structure. But, she is not strong enough, or skilled enough yet. In the tutorial you are a level 30, but upon your next cloning you are level one, and have to get up to level five before you can withstand the rough and tumble land beyond your chosen starter town to find these alpha clones. So, you resign yourself to cooking and making things, picking plants and scavenging debris and dead bodies.

So far it is an interesting enough game. I am tired of having to kill rats and chickens (watch out for those prairie chickens, they are badass!), or rather, I am tired of them mortally wounding me and waking up in the cloning center. It seems the smart way to level up is to pick and scavenge and craft, then spend your ap points where you wish, even if it is combat and not crafting. I am just not good at the shooter type game where I have to do more than face my foe, but actually make sure it is in my sights as well. Hubby was laughing under his breath and he told me to not be so rough on my new mouse. I know it wasn't the mouse's fault that I was performing so poorly. Something had to take the blame though.

More on this later. I just finished a 2 hour long trial, and I am intrigued, but not committed yet. I decided I needed a WoW break (meaning I went off to go play some WoW. No dragging me away just yet!) :)

Random Dungeons And The 19 Twink.

Today, partly to test out the blocked experience bar on my rogue, and partly to see if the 15-25 crowd were as nubbly as the 80 heroic crowd I was having no pleasure with tonight, Rowena queued for the random instance. Rewards were to be a handful of copper and a random useful item. Rowena ended up in the Deadmines, working on the second boss.

The under 25 bracket people I started with were a warrior tank, a priest healer, a hunter, and a warlock. The damage dealers seemed to know what they were doing, even if the pets were being unruly. The tank was holding aggro well, but I think I stepped on his ego a coupe of times, stealing the threat away and taking care of adds that strayed. The run was rather uneventful, until we hit Greenskin. Somehow, the hunter pet ran past a bunch of mobs andbrought Greenskin, his two pirate buddies, and 3 more, with parrots. I was able to help clear two, and got Greenskin to about 20%, but evasion was on cooldown. We wiped, everyone came back ,and we tried again. This time, less adds, before we got the second of the four adds down, the tank died. The hunter helped with the last add, then I was on Greenskin again. Somewhere before that Greenskin and a parrot bugged at the base of a ramp, giving me time to bandage. It was a close fight, but I got him down, with only 5% health to spare. I think that was the last straw for the warrior, as he never came back. We ended up pulling a paladin in to finish the last boss, and Rowena got her achievement for Deadmines. Here in the picture you can see what else she got.

If you click you can see my badly drawn commentary. I am now off to submit a ticket for my twink friends out there so that I am one of the few that earn experience after experience is turned off, or at least get some kind of answer. The belt is yummier than what I had, though, and Rowena has a few more experience points she can trade if that is the way it has to be.

Since posting this, a ticket has been opened, which is sitting unanswered. I just submitted a post here about it. Hopefully I'll get an answer to this question soon.

Rest and Relaxation

Tamarind over at Righteous Orbs gave me the most wonderful present of a topic to write about for Christmas, and I thought I would unwrap it and write about it early. If you haven't been following, pop on over and start reading. Tam and Chas' posts are always good for a grin and some "yeah, that's me" moments. So, here is my gift from Tam:

"...if your characters (or you can just do Shawndra if you prefer, since she seems to be occupying your time and attention at the moment) were going to retire from the adventuring life, where would they settle down, and what would they be doing instead?"

Shawndra fell in love with Nagrand the minute she set foot in it. The fishing is plentiful. The grasslands are lush and green, and the herds of clefthoof and talbuk offer a good living, giving up their skins and meats. Living in Nagrand, after the toughening Shawndra experienced fighting the minions of the Lich King, would be the easy life. If the orcs of Garadar wouldn't put her up, there were one or two abandoned camps or outposts she remembered that would do fine. Just give her a pole, a fire with a kettle, a rude shelter, and she'd bring her knife and live well and happily.


Delgada would not retire easily. If she came to the point when that was all that was left to do, I imagine she would bank all but the necessities, find a corner of the world she hadn't explored thoroughly and continue working. If forced to retire, she would probably find a shallow grave and hand the one responsible the shovel. Sitting idly fishing or twiddling is just not her style. She did enough of that after a lovely piece of scourged toast with honey.


Halinka is rather young and the idea of retiring really hadn't been thought about until now. Halinka loves to read and would happily watch the world go by from the window of any number of places, so long as there was a room with a view. I'm sure Minya would like to see her retire. At least she is no longer hanging out in the Exodar waiting for Halinka's findings. Stormwind is much healthier!

I don't see Dinnaeh (formerly Esoterique) retiring. I do, however, imagine her being the tragic victim of casting fire spells in her sleep. She should probably see someone about that...


That's all I have right now. I looked back at some of my roleplay posts to see who had back stories, and it turns out I have many, but the main characters are listed above.

Now, for the second part of this gift. This is the part I give to you! Comment below if you would like a present of a topic to write about for your blog. I will respond with your very own topic, chosen with your blog's personality in mind. As stated in Tam's post, this is a gift, with no strings. Use it, don't use it, regift it, use it to paper your parakeet's cage, it is your choice!

Horde Racial Abilities ARE Important.

I have been toying with the idea of a shorter, pointier eared version of Delgada for some time now. If I really wanted to, the money would make itself available. But I can't imagine playing a priest without Will of the Forsaken. I can't have people dying while I'm running, afraid for my life and the well being of my robes. To me, arcane torrent and a 2% resist to all schools of magic isn't a good enough trade. Guess I'll just have to keep an Orb of the Sindorei handy.


Hubby and I were talking about racial abilities on the way to my step kids week day house. I cannot imagine my beast mastery hunter as anything but an orc. They just make more sense, with the racial bonus to pet damage and the attack power buff from Blood Fury. My hubby is all for a marksman hunter Troll, as well. Why? Their berserking ability grants 10-30% additional haste rating and the 1% critical strike bonus when using a bow fit perfectly.


I hear that the minute they made race changes available, a lot of pvp loving players changed to Undead. I can't blame them, really. Smarter and more resistant to shadow, a trinket-less get out of sleep, charm or fear ability, and let's not forget the ability to dine on the dead bodies of our kills! What better choice for pvp is there? And, for those time you have nowhere else to hide, underwater breathing is awesome. Yes, random pug in one of my random lowbie dungeons, undead can drown. Stay underwater longer and find out!


I haven't mentioned the Tauren, and only briefly mentioned the Blood Elves. The Tauren are very common as tanking classes for their 5% increased base health. War Stomp, their racial ability, is a nice way to stop the damage mid fight for a bandage, or enough time for the healer to catch up when they are behind. I have one Tauren character who is a shaman. She's a great little gal, but I haven't found clothing that looks good on her since AQ40, so she sits unused. Blood Elves have Arcane Torrent, which replenishes a small amount of mana (energy, runic power) and silences casters that are close by. I can see this being very helpful for a rogue, death knight, or a paladin, since they are up close to their intended victim(as long as they aren't players). It just doesn't seem as helpful for a caster, who would have to run up, cast, and run back for it to be used to full effect. I have a blood elf paladin in her mid twenties. I don't expect her to get much older, because I keep killing off my elves for something different. I get to a point with them and want to shoot myself in the head. Maybe they're just to uppity and perfect looking for me.


Well, I think I have demonstrated well how Horde racials are important. Tune in later this week as I pick apart Alliance racial abilities and traits. There may be a test later. You have been warned!

Looking For Group!

This has been my habit all week. Right after I get home, I log into WoW, ignore my husband(he told me to put that in there. He is partially right), check my bank character, then log in Delgada and start running instances. I always select damage and healing, but so far I have been chosen as dps only once. This is not altogether a bad thing. Delgada has resigned herself to being a healer and shadow only in secret. All the groups, save a pug on her own server, were a breeze, free smites thrown at bosses and mobs instead of becoming free flash heals. The pug on her server? I don't know, but that death knight took so much damage, I couldn't keep him up. Sorry, Mr. I have strange letters in my name, but there is something wrong there. I don't know what it is, but he needs someone in better gear than Delgada healing him in ToC heroic.

Last night she traveled to the Argent Tournament grounds and bought gloves and shoulders. I didn't even know they had gear vendors there. Her gear is coming up. I expect her gear level to climb rapidly, now that I am enjoying this random dungeon queue. I got to run the same heroic a couple of times in a row last night, even though it said I was locked. All I have to say is, sweet!

Today, I tried it on my bank character, Rowena. She hit one dungeon, but didn't receive the reward. I think it was because she got pulled in after the first two bosses. So I switched to Anselma and ran one of my least favorite instances, Blackfathom Deeps. She finished it, even after kicking a paladin who kept pulling when the tank (who was supposed to be me but ended up being a warrior) wasn't ready and wiped us in the murloc cave. Anselma got a Tumultuous Cloak of the Moon in her goody bag. Building a healing set is good!

I then logged in to Maura, my 70 rogue, to see what I would get as a prize, joining up with my buddy's 70 hunter. It took forever, about 4 quests worth, before we got a group. Utgarde Keep was difficult. I had to go before we finished, so I turned the keys over to my hubby (what a great guy), and he finished it out for me. As I left, I heard him grumbling "Ation bars all wrong, everything's all wrong", grumble grumble. Sorry! I guess she got a couple of badges for her efforts, along with some gold and a tonne of experience. So, it would seem the ability to run Wrath of the Lich King dungeons is the cut off for getting goody bags. I logged in Gwenna later that night just to see what the reward was for running a Burning Crusade instance. A goody bag, 6 gold and change, and about 1200 experience points. Today I will log her in and see how long it takes for her to get a group.

My research finds that, in the high teens and twenties, a tank and a dps (seperately) were able to get a group during the morning hours within 10 minutes. Two grouped dps in their early seventies took about 20 minutes during off peak hours. I haven't tried the 80 characters off peak yet, but I imagine the demand would be enough to get a group within 5 minutes for healer or tank, 10 for dps. I don't have anyone in the middle area between 25 and 60. Until I do, I have no answers for how available instances are through there. I am toying with the idea of only instancing with my paladin from here on out, so by the end of January I may have some answers.

I love this new tool and I cannot say it enough! I have grouped with all sorts of interesting people. I'm looking forward to my time in the queue today!