Elkagorasa the Casual

Ever since Teddi equipped the Admiral's cap, I've been working to fit him out as a pirate. So far, it's been a matter of looking at the AH, for stuff that I 'think' looks pirate-y. Oh, look this bracers, or this chest piece. Boo. I had found the a chest piece at a vendor in town, only to find that it's not xmog-able. But of course. Then I went and started searching the AH, found a vest, and it's cloth and "can't be used to provide look for this item." Bleh. Wow Role Play Gear: Pirate 4  Back to Wowhead, I found a comment pointing over to WowRolePlayGear.com . Over here they have 'builds', how hard it is to complete (BOE, crafting and some luck). With that I've fallen in love with " PIRATE IV ', an alliance only (OMG REALLY?!) set posted back in 2012. The centerpiece of this set is the chest, Knightbane Carapace . Problem being it's a rogue class chest, so there's a different model for the horde vs the all...

The other night (before Black Temple), I was trying to get into a few dungeons. To avoid the stress of tanking, I jumped into the DPS (i.e. werecat) queue. Sadly after 45 minutes in queue, I check the 'queue status' to see 0/1 Tank 1/1 Healer 3/3 DPS. OMG, go figure.. It's all my fault no dungeon... I hop on YouTube and watch the Grimrail video to get an idea of what to do on boss 2 (1 and 3 are fairly straight forward). I queue up and happily drop into this very dungeon. Managing to get through with me dying (to trash of all things). Yeah over-pulled coming up to the boss 2. Happily no wipes. Sadly no loots worth anything for me (i615 replacement of existing i630 crafted item).. In fact, the Tavern quest netted me only the ' bloody bandanna ' which sparked the run into BT. Salts includes how to get the differences between normal and heroic, plus the achievements in the dungeon. Here are each of his videos for the level 100 dungeons.. Everbloom: Grimrail...

Last night I decided that it was time to head back to the Black Temple and finally attempt to pickup Illidan's headpiece . It was extremely easy 30 levels over all the bosses and they only progressed to phase 2 where it was required by the boss. Since I'd never ran Black Temple at level, I found this quick video by Nobble extremely helpful. He points out an easy order for killing the bosses so that you can get into see Illidan. (counter clock wise). It was more helpful for me to simply find the best path between bosses. As I've stated before, it's SO EASY to get lost in these places!?! :) It's funny running through this as a raid, after seeing it as the warlock scenario to get green fire. Many of the same bosses are here, except the warlock scenario starts at the front door and Akama takes us straight for the Essence of Anguish. To get there, I took the portal.. Yep. Back to Panderia, taxi'd to Temple, then portal to Shatratth. I've now set my ...

My Alliance druid is still working hard to reach level 90 before the expansion drops. The last few days played (real time elapsed since 6.0.2 dropped), Esha-Alliance has been questing and running Wrath dungeons. The questing has been interesting because of the difference between Alliance and Horde. Little nuance differences like their purpose for coming to Dragonblight. Save the humans , vs experiment on the humans! As of yesterday, I've dropped carrying the iLevel 40 off-hand and decided to just carry a bouquet of flowers . The stein provided only a few stam, then int and spirit. The flowers. set off the ninja costume nicely against the main-hand weapon. Yes, it's silly, but so was equipping a weapon that was from the starting area of Vanilla. Ok, I really should have gotten the two-handed weapon for tanking! I know now! DMF is almost over, but I've tried to maintain the Whee buff for the dungeons. I really should purchase a few of the DMF hats for when I pull more ...

Headdress of the Green Circle So, after leveling my last druid up to 60, I boosted to 90. Now that I am leveling this second druid all the way to 90, I feel that I need to update this list to include items after. Update (10/12): This list isn't quite correct with the level 65, Sethekk Halls dropped in my LFD queue. Looking for a better source of info. 50: Quest: Breath of Cenarius - rewards Headdress of the Green Circle   58: Dungeon: Blackrock Spire 59: Dungeon: Hellfire Ramparts  (first BC dungeon) 60: Talent slots open up 60: Expert Riding (normal flying) 60: Flight Master's License (fly in vanilla) 61: Dungeon:  Hellfire Citadel: The Blood Furnace 62: Dungeon:  Coilfang Reservoir: The Slave Pens 62: Mark of the Wild 63: Dungeon: The Underbog 64: Dungeon: Mana-Tombs 65: Dungeon: Auchenai Crypts 66: Dungeon:  Old Hillsbrad Foothills: "Escape from Durnholde" 67: Dungeon: Sethekk Halls 68: Dungeon:  The Mechanar 6...

Leveling this time feels to be going really, really slow. Maybe it's just the mid-50s , where there is only 2 dungeon options at level. I've been running Sunken Temple and BRD for the last 4 levels. Looking forward to 57 when my first BC dungeon (HF  ramparts ) comes into rotation.. My gear is sort of keeping up. I still have two items in the 40s. The satchels of useful goods keep dropping the same items (boots, back, helm, bracers). I've been selling all of them immediately. Question. Can my Druid wield a dagger off-hand? WowHead seems to think so. If so, CAN'T WAIT to replace my INT off-hand to something useful. UPDATE: No, it's still considered a ' dual wield '. Loch Modan Not having a 'boost' to look forward to at 60, I feel like I should go back and level up my skinning. It frustrates me to no end that I can't skin the dragonkins in ST. There are just so many... Maybe time to start following a leveling guide ?? So much for leveling...

I was looking into the various heirloom gear options on WoWHead because I'm still not really happy with my Druid's main hand weapon. While looking at the page, I saw a link to a guide referencing the mace. Reviewing this guide, it has some great suggestions, including various gearing options, questing areas and tricks to minimize your time spent. The author suggests avoiding looting mobs unless you have a collection quest and queueing for specific dungeons that you haven't done before so you can complete new quests each run. It's the beginning of the month, so it's about  Darkmoon Faire time.

Back in March to June, I blogged about my progress raising a Troll druid from 0 to 60. The overall process took me just under 38 hours, reaching level 61 while inside a BC dungeon. It was a 'fun' endeavor and it was nice to see a lot of the old vanilla dungeons again. Why am I doing it again? Well, a few co-workers are Alliance. Alliance on Auchindoun-US, which is a PVP server. Husband and wife have a wonderful level-25 guild. So after some discussion (around my PC as we watch the WoD announcement) I decide to start leveling up a toon on their server. As I've learned with my last alt, the hybrid model is ideal. I can run dps while questing, then pop tank when I want to hop into a dungeon. As I've already burned my 'boost' (and I don't want to pay the $60 ), this toon will have to make the adventure all the way from 0 to 90 the old fashioned way. Quick dungeon queues and questing. Say Hi to.. Esha @ Auchindoun-US Female - Night Elf Guardian Druid ...

This week has been rather fruitful for my druid. Got another Burden of Eternity, so I converted a head  token. Of course, then ...  Tanked phase 1 of Siege of Orgrimmar successfully, picking up 3 items, head , neck and trinket 2 . No wipes and very few deaths and now only one item still left post-boost set (main hand). Sort of liking the look of the head piece, so not sure if I'll transmog it back to Rayne piece or keep it. Realized as a Blacksmith, I can make my own belt buckle . (doh!) No excuse now for not having one equipped. They're still selling for 500+ gold on my server, whereas the living steel sells for around 250-400 gold. Took about 4 hours, going through Klaxxi quest chain to reach Honored and pickup recipe . Having two alchemist (only one with recipe), I made the living steel as well. 60 Ghost Iron bars = 1 living steel bar. A stack of 20 ghost iron are selling for about 80g. So for about 250g I made myself a buckle.  In the process of running ...

For the last 2 weeks, I've been having a lot of fun with the addon  oQueue . If you haven't used this add-on before, it's something the helps breathe new life into the game. What does it do? oQueue allows users from cross-domains find each other. Players can setup a request for other players, post it out there. Then players see that request popup, and request to be put on the wait list. If the event organizer loves you, they can send you a meeting invite and off you go! This is the addon that Blizzard hopes their new Group Finder will replace. BUT will they go far enough? Another central innovation in Warlords is our Group Finder feature, which will allow players to easily form and search for raid groups (among other activities) with players from their entire region. [...] For players who want to take the next step beyond Raid Finder, or who want to find a weekend run for their alt, or who just need a last-minute tenth member for their raid, Group Finder will make th...

Spent about 2 hours yesterday gathering up items from the Discovery Transmog . The beauty of this set (especially if you haven't quested during leveling up) is that all the pieces drop from quests and not random drops off mobs. I've gotten 4 of 6 pieces so far and found a belt on the AH that I like (so far). Head piece is from a single quest given by Rayne in Eastern Plaguelands. At 90, I could fly directly into the towers, drop the flower seeds and run back out. The chest and shoulders are rewards from a short 5-quest chain near Rayne, starting at Carlin Redpath  and ending at Chromie . The shoulders come from a mob kill which show how questing has changed since Vanilla. One player, one kill vs multi-players, shared kill. Had to wait for respawn on the wolf for about 45 seconds before I could get my own kill. The pants required flying south from Orgrimmar down to Gadgetzan and finding  Megs . She had 3 quests for me, then she moved to Lost Rigger Cove for Dead ...

Last weekend, I ran a full Last Stand of Zandalari with Sinabun -Thrall, another guardian druid. I got a little over-anxious due to Sinabun's gear level and started running ahead pulling mobs back. AAGRRO!! Sin just laughed as I died a couple times and finally PST me saying "slow down hun..". It's then I really took those Pandarens to heart and 'slowed down..'. Bowing down, I let Sinabun dictate the pulls and how to run each fight. Jin'rokh - I followed Salts video almost to a tee. Grabbing aggro each time Sinabun was hit by electro-smash. I never got wall tossed, so it was basically just stay out of the water.  Horridon, line the dino perpendicular across each door in order. This put the DPS between the dino and the door to grab adds as they came out.  Council, I tanked Mar'li and sometimes Sul until the stacks of Frost got too high on Sinabun. Then I grabbed Frost King for a few turns while they dropped.  Where's the Cheese? Still no...

Hey, it's not that bad?! After running dungeons from 15-60+, I was timid about hopping into to full fledged raid tanking. Now instead of just 4 other people dying because of something, I had 24 other people's repair bills to keep in mind. Healing wasn't so scary, because I have typically 5 other healers who could cover for my lack of gear.  Tuesday night, sporting 493 average gear (3 green 483 post-boost items [legs, trinket & mainhand], rest 496 Timeless token items), I hopped into the Mogu'shan Vaults . I had went through both the Bryna and Evaly videos on this raid tier and was prepared for the worst. Despite that, the 'main' tank was a pally sporting a luscious set of gear that I could only wish for, so it was basically me off-tanking everything. Each trash group and boss appeared to be a tank/spank boss with no real tank swap mechanics. "boy this is easy!!" Middle of the last fight, I realized that I hadn't loaded any good add-ons. Wh...

Been spending the last few days leveling up my gear from the boosted i483 green gear up to i496 Timeless Isles blue gear. This has been fairly interesting in that it has gotten substantially easier just dumping the quest greens. I only have 3 items still remaining, main hand (probably never be replaced without dungeon/lfr/valor points), legs, and a second trinket. I've also gone through and enchanted (via priest/enchanter) and purchased the gems that go for less than 200g each. That means, I still need enchants for weapon, belt buckle, leg armor and some how missed my wrist enchant? Drops of gear has been rather good except for hands, legs and trinkets. As you can see from my bags (top 2 rows), I have 5 TI cloaks, 2 TI belts, 1 TI boot, 4 TI chest, 3 TI helms, 1 TI shoulder, and 2 TI rings, in addition to the single that I've converted to gear for each slot. The two rows of gear under that are all the items I've replaced (or not equipped). Still need to put guild tabard u...

Last night Esha traded in her brown heirloom gear for shiny greens. After reaching 61 on the weekend, I logged in last night to boost Esha to 90. Lot more painful than I originally envisioned. First off, I decided on following Arielle's advice and respec professions into Blacksmithing and Alchemy before the boost. This required remembering how do I actually unlearn a profession. I knew it was blindingly obvious. First off went to trainer, no option to forget Leatherworking. No sprinkle-y powder of don't-need-that-anymore, no tome of forgetfulness. Looking closer at the UI, I see this greyed out little NO symbol. Oh yeah, that's it. 20 minutes wasted. Next, Esha ran over to the reforger. I blindly followed the AMR suggestions, converting most everything to Hit or Expertise. She is now sitting at 5% Physical Hit and 11.7% MH Expertise. Unfortunately, AMR assumes that I did all the other optimizations and I am not considering doing any enchants on green i483 gear...

As I anxiously dungeon my bear up in the levels, I am once again introduced to the complexity that was only found in Vanilla. The dungeon of the day is Blackrock Spire . This dungeon has 9 bosses in the 'upper' region and 5 more in the lower region. There are 7 different 'floors' to this map, with several shortcuts between each level. If I was a Blizzard level designer, this would be my masterpiece. I think this would be a perfect level for Warlords of Draenor (Orcs, Ogres, and Spiders Oh My!). 83 minutes at level 57! Play time has reached a soaring 2100 minutes! (1 day 11hrs) to reach 57.99. Yeah, I am only 2000 xp from reaching druid flight form. I was so torn to just run one more dungeon, or maybe go fly out to the next zone and grind some beasts, but I decided to simply wait for next time I can run dungeons. Probably later this weekend. Update :: Sunday night, logged in for about an hour. Of course, get BRS again, and ding 58 while clearing the trash in the ...

Gotta love the model for the Crushing Mass of McGowan  that my druid has equipped. Yes, she did have the Deadly Kris equipped, but I changed that about a month ago now..

As I've been leveling my Druid to 60, I am constantly frustrated when I do ding a level, say, mid-fight, and all the 'Congrats! Now that you're __, you can now do ____." flies by.  This list will attempt to be a comprehensive list of those new items. I am mainly concerned with 0-60. Level: 6: Learn cat form 8: Learn bear form 10: Pick specialization 10: First specialization spell 12/14: Second spec spell(s) 15: First talent slot 15: Dungeon: Deadmines 15: Dungeon: Ragefire Chasm 16: Learn travel form 16: Learn moonkin (balance spec) form 17: Dungeon: Wailing Caverns 18: Learn aquatic form 18: Dungeon: Shadowfang Keep 20: Apprentice Riding 22: Dungeon: The Stockade 22: Dungeon: Blackfathom Deeps 25: First glyph activated 26: Dungeon: Gnomeregan 28: Dungeon: Scarlet Halls 30: Second talent slot 30: Dungeon: Scarlet Monastery 32: Dungeon: Razorfen Kraul 36: Dungeon: Maraudon 37: Dungeon: Uldaman 40: Journeyman Riding 40: Dungeon: Scholomance...

So, leveling is still going on with my druid tank. She has reached 47 without any controversy. Tanking so far via the dungeon finder seems to be a ton of button mashing. I have my tanking abilities and simply mash them as the cooldown pops. Probably not the most efficient, and I'll probably want to prioritize them if tanking a raid, but works for 90% of the dungeons I've hit so far. Only when say a warrior or paladin hop and aggro first do I tend to have to chase mobs down... Not a "crusader" no crusader heirlooms. With that, I've started searching out more guardian tank sites to link to. You'll see the "Tank Talk" section now on the side bar including a link to " the Inconspicuous Bear ". The author contributed a nice write-up on wowhead about beginner guardian tanking. Now that she's equipped the DPS dagger, I was looking into possibly a heirloom offhand. There are 3 available (+int tome and 2 shields) if you have the 220...

Taking a page from Cynwise , I thought it would be interesting to do some basic analysis of my leveling so far of my Druid alt. Considerations : I am leveling her using all pieces of heirloom gear available (except for the ring). All +xp, in addition to two trinkets for +health regen. I am leveling as a tank, so it means instant queue times for all random dungeons. I do not play every day, more like every other day, so I have a fair amount of rested bonus to burn between play sessions.    I found it really interesting that for the most part, I am averaging a level every 30 minutes. Dungeons like Gnomregan, it seemed like 2 levels a run due to the amount of trash, last night it was only 1 level in Uldaman due to the amount of running back and forth to the quest givers. It appears, based on casual observation, that the average time to finish a level, increases by a few minutes each 5 levels. Most likely due to the amount of XP required to reach the nex...