Elkagorasa the Casual

Not the author Like any small community, there are cliques. In high school, you had the jocks, the nerds , the popular and the completely unpopular. Depending on how your parents dressed you in the morning and your genetic predisposition to sports, often placed you in your high school clique. Now while, I never (who would) consider myself a total outcast, I didn't exactly fit into the jock crowd. Maybe I should have listened to the track coach and tried out for the x-country track team.... Throughout life, my moto has been c'est la vie (yes it's a cheesy 80's reference). I take most as things come. No bumper sticker commitments. No standing on fad commitments. It's served me through college, work and now into my game play. What has this to do with my topic? OK, what does "Casual" mean to me?? First off, casual means family first . I do not want aspects of my game play to impact my wife or children. Yes, they know I play Warcraft. They have seen...

A quick run down . My pictures from the Beta , now look like live.  Cry because the portals are gone in Dalaran. Caverns of Time portal works, but is it shorter than flying to a zep? Dunno. Cheer cause so are the flight restrictions (in Dal at least). Cooking Dailies in Org  (see Marogg). +1 cooking skill if not max. Otherwise just +1 cooking award (see vendor standing next and no, not same as Dal cooking daily award) and 7.4g. Looking forward to a little in-game espresso.. I can now roll a troll druid and start leveling up. (oh, sorry just joking).  Saw a level 7 troll druid on at 10pm local. Had to retalent and reglyph my priest.  I now need to change my tabard to the Goblin one, gotta have my trike.(see Frizzo Vallamar by Orgrimmar flight master/trainer). No rep yet, even hFoS. Cataclysm.:( Carbonite is broken (as with I suppose any number of addons). Updated via WowMatrix and Curse before loading. Spotted some new fauna in Orgrimmar.  You get to ...

With this holiday, I become reminiscent of my childhood. I remember those long drives, early in the morning (without any of the modern conveniences) to Grandma's house, to have fun filled afternoon with cousins I barely know. I remember sitting there watching hours of televised sports (aka American Football) not knowing the difference between the teams (or secretly caring - nerd, not jock) or who wins. Now I get the honor of spreading that same joy, this year to my kids. Now as one can imagine, with any family get-together comes food and eating. This means one of two rooms are usually extremely busy, and I am not referring to the kitchen. Playing a horde character, I am some-what surprised by the lack of facilities in our lands. Sure the Alliance lands are spotted with little rooms with moons, but I have yet to see one in Durator. Is this due to the belief that Horde are animals ? Unless I am missing something, the Blood Elves and all their glory, do not either. Just saying... th...

Despite being in the Beta, I am planning on taking a day or two off next month. With that commitment of time off around the 7th, I don't want to be caught without a game to play. Over the last week, I have been torn, Amazon with "Release Day Delivery" or Blizzard with their streaming download. Luckily for me, my pre-order from Amazon of a recent BluRay movie arrived a day after release. This helped settle my decision; I canceled my pre-order with Amazon and ordered the download from Blizzard. Since their download model is a P2P, the more who do purchase it this way, the faster the updates. I have a feeling that Blizzard isn't going to necessarily leave us hanging, and will have the game slipstreamed onto our machines between now and then. The physical media, which is probably being printed now, will not. All users who upgrade via the DVD, will probably have another 700mb to download on C-day. What's your plan? Download? DVD?

Reading through the 4.0.3 patch notes , I thought I'd comment on a few: When in a Looking For Dungeon group, using an instance portal to that instance will now take players to the Looking For Dungeon entrance point instead of the normal destination of that portal. This will make it easier to return to the instance after dying in an LFD group. This I see as ideal for two instances. One, anything in the Hellfire Citadel , and second Gundrak . Too many times running from the graveyard, to find myself going in (or towards) the wrong portal. Now if this works the way I hope, I can simply hop into the first portal I see. No longer running all the way across and back for the specific one. The default UI Scale has been altered so it will be set at a 1:1 pixel/texel ratio. This will result in a smaller UI appearance for higher resolution monitors. Using Bartender4, I run some of my buttons at 60% of normal because those default buttons seemed HUGE. This might be a nice fix for those disp...

In this off time, I've been leveling my priest alt and having a lot of fun. Back in June, she was a level 9 Holy priest. I did the fire festival dailies and got her up to level 15. At that time, I thought I'd quest and do dungeons. With healers, as you may know, the typical dungeon queue time is nothing like that of a warlock. I hate to say it, but I don't like running dungeons on my lock now. "/g 15 minute queue!! NO WAY! toon hop.." At level 40, I picked up dual spec and started running a Discipline build. In fact, I am finding that mana usage on disc is quite a bit lighter than Holy. I also find that as a disc priest, I am able to usually keep tanks alive in red content (1-2 levels higher). As I see it, Disc priests have 2 major differences advantages from Holy. First, disc is not necessarily about healing, but about damage mitigation. How? Bubbles ! Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis to be specific. There are also a number of talents that directly buf...

I know, I know. ZG mounts are difficult to get. Virtually impossible based on the less than 1% (0.7% according to Wowhead for ZG tiger ) drop rate of these beasts. This rarity makes them a status symbol to many. Now, what if Blizzard, once the means to get a mount goes away, it goes on the Blizzard store. For example: Zul'Gurub mounts? Achievement based mounts (i.e. iron bound proto-drake )  Amani War bear ? Argent tourney mounts?  Class mounts?? (warlock, pally) Cross-faction (retired only) mounts? Can't you just see an orc on a frost ram ? ( A H ) Would you do it? How much would you spend?

Did you see this mount as posted over on MMO-Champion? It appears to be from a BOP Item from Alchemy Recipe. It is supposed to transform you into a rideable mount!! Since, I think this is absolutely cool, I thought I'd break down the required mats. Considering the #2 ingredient is sold in Uldum, I'd bet (some part of) the recipe will require an Exalted standing with Ramkahen .(which also has a couple camel mounts also!). Yasmin , who sells the Sands is in Uldum, just south of Cenarion Hold, Silithus . She appears to be part of a Nessingwary-style camp, so I doubt it will ever have a rep discount.  Vial of the Sands x 1      Pyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial x 1      Sands of Time x 8      Truegold x 12          Pyrium Bar x 36          Volatile Fire x 120          Volatile Air x 120   ...

I have not a very good beta tester these last few weeks. Heck, it's been a good month since I last logged on. Just having too much fun running dungeons with my alt-priest. It seems like she's seen more low-level dungeons that Elk has. Ah, well.. Anyway. Yesterday Blizzard announced an in-game, beta test of the PVP realms, today (11/11/10) at 4PM PST. If you want to participate, all you have to do is form a raid group with nine other players and queue for Rated Battlegrounds. We'll be conducting this test in a 10- vs. 10-player setting using Warsong Gulch, Twin Peaks, and Battle for Gilneas as the locations, so be prepared for some sweet, sweet ownage. This sounds like a lot of fun. I read that Wintergrasp doesn't play the same way it was planned. Wrath beta only had a few regular testers, so the game zone played differently that real-life "production". People moved and used the area differently. That is why we had a number of patches soon after Wintergr...

With most guilds putting raiding on the back-burner until Cataclysm drops, ambitious individuals are trying to pug ICC. This leads to interesting creation process, as these ambitious raid leaders are forced to pick between several competent players. Often the deciding factor on who is asked to come along, is based simply on what they bring to the table (as a class). So, I bring for your raiding consideration, Warlocks . Healing Yes, Warlocks can heal. I've mentioned it before, but I've ranked #2 on recount in numerous VOA runs due to my epic healing abilities. A generous lock will even donate a glyph spot to provide 30% improved healing. Sure, if you get into a bind, a lock heals are going to help, but not carry you through. and mana replenishment Destruction locks have a fourth tier talent called Soul Leech . Blizzard has already implied that mana will be an issue as we move into Cataclysm raiding. Sure, 1% of 10 people isn't a lot, but it will definitely help o...

Book 1 - Click image to dl. During my daily commute, I am listening to audio books. Not one to invest actual cash into the endeavor, I have found free sources for excellent stories. One of my current books is a fantasy story, with lots of magic, intrigue and of course, sword fighting. In book 2 of the series, you are introduced to a race of creatures called the Pooka. These beings are humanoid, close to nature, and can at a whim, transform into a beast. Bear pooka, hawk pooka, fish pooka, etc. During a conversation between the main character and a pooka, it comes up that they actually eat animals, animals that some of their race turn into. Odd. Got me thinking, druids do the same thing. Turn into beasts, eat beasts . Roasted , toasted and smoked . Anyway you have it, their eating the animals, that (IIRC) they are trying to protect. Going a step further, there's no buff, vegetarian food. Sure, lots of vegetarian treats (cookie, cupcake, cake), occasional holiday items (i.e....

Tripping the Rift (Amazon) No, I am not referring to some Sci-Fi network cartoon, featuring aliens, but a Feat of Strength based on the Cataclysm pre-launch events. This achievement requires you to kill ten elementals at each of the various types of rifts. These rifts are spawning all over Azerorth. In one night, I killed elementals in Stonard (air), Blasted Lands (fire) and Darkshore (water). The rifts spawn on a roughly 50 minute timer and last for approximately 10 minutes. This means you could (like I) run from Blasted Lands to Stonard and get both in one time frame.(Note: no way to track which elementals you already killed, so keep notes or do it quick). The best list of spawn points I've found is on Wowpedia . This site contains a table for each elemental containing zones, levels and coordinates. Find a good spot, and camp it. The first night, I partied with a guildies and we camped two spots concurrently. Calling out in vent when they arrived. If you kill (or are ...

When Elk was a young Orc, a hearthstone was this cool thing. Fighting his way, deep into a damp, dark tunnel, grab the final quest item, and then hearth to safety. As he leveled, this safe spot changed throughout, always to the safety and comfort of a Inn. This was continued all the way until Elk learned to fly. Orgrim Doomhammer Flying meant that Elk was no longer tied to a specific location. He didn't need to hearth home, he could fly back home or to at least to a local taxi stand. This meant the hearthstone could now be homed on a more permanent residence; one that included useful vendors, trainers and possibly portals. Shatrath was an excellent choice for quite sometime.When the scourge brought the plague, Elk moved to Dalaran (eventually). Despite all Elk's travels, none of these has ever felt quite like Home . Sure he could get around both Shat and Dalaran, but they never met all those needs, requirements. As Elk's burgeoning raw gem empire was taking off, he ...

I gotta give kudos . A few days ago Cynwise posted a most excellent article covering the fine art of DOTS and Haste in Cataclysm. It's detailed, concise and to help, there are graphs, and lots and lots of maths. The article has really helped me understand the changes and why they are no longer an issue (except for BoAgony). For example: There's no dot clipping in Cataclysm Excuse me , those aren't Haste caps, but haste plateaus . Go check it out!!

Thrall going shaman, Garrosh in charge .

I was struck with the notion to log in this evening and dance with Catrina. Day of the Dead , as I mentioned before, is one of those interesting holiday's. Sadly or smartly, I could not locate a Macabre Mariachi Marionette . Does not look like this is a permanent pet, still. What I did find was fire elementals. Their sprouting up all over town. As Horde, I did all my questing in Orgrimmar. Here's a basic walk-through. Find Blood Guard Torek in front of the big bonfire by entrance of Org. He has a quest for you. So does one of the Earthen Ring shaman standing by him. Pick up both.  As you head towards Grommash Hold (i.e. Thrall's office), chat to the first Doomslayer you see by entrance of the Drag, then the next three have packages for you. Grab one at each. See Grommash Hold and say Hi to the Earthen Ring Tauren in there. Head back to Torek Torek now wants you to put up " don't believe the cultist " propaganda. Look for little blue hunter's m...

Reviewing this week's Blood Pact , I realized that my ideal gem selection has changed. I was never a big fan of stacking Spirit on my gem selection, but it worked better when trying to match gem colors . Now that Spell power is only on weapons, it makes gemming a LOT easier. Looking over Elk's gear , I just realized that he is running 4 Purified Dreadstones . Their suggestion is to replace them with veiled (purple +hit) or brilliant (red) gems. I personally also like the reckless (orange +haste) for my affliction spec (DOTS burn faster when cooked with +haste). For a breakdown of all the pretty +int gems, here's a few to consider . If you haven't reforged your level 80's gear yet, I suggest you check out the entire article over at Wow Insider for Adam's review of what you should remove all that Spirit for (and why you may need to make up an additional 6% Hit).