Elkagorasa the Casual

My Disc Priest, fka Bank Alt, is coming up on level 85. Guildies have already expressed interest in having her start filling in as a healer for pinch situations. With raiding on the horizon, I need to seriously consider what perks that she can get to help her be best healer available. While leveling her up, I made a few considerations. First, I wanted a profession that provided me a bit of gold. With Elk being an Alchemist/Herbalist, I had my transmutes and flasks covered. No need for those. Gathering professions didn't look good considering I was leveling solely up via the LFG tool. There is no way I wanted to go back to the starting areas and level up mining, or skinning (and therefore no leatherworking or blacksmithing). Inscription and enchanting seemed the perfect fit. I could DE while in PUG and create glyphs for big money.  Looking forward, I think it's time for a change. Inscription is not the big money maker it was. In fact, I am not sure I really need a big mo...

Part of the reason is that Battlegrounds are like ducks. A duck looks like it effortlessly glides across the water, but their little feet are actually working madly beneath the surface to make it happen. Battlegrounds are the same way. They may look simple -- even static -- to a casual observer, but in reality there's an incredible number of very complicated processes going on behind the scenes. Part of the reason for this is due to a lot of technical hurdles that need to be jumped to make them perform as seamlessly as they do, battle after battle. As a result, it's actually extremely difficult to design Battlegrounds, partially due to the technical limitations that are currently in place. ( source ) I loved this blue comment posted on the forums the other day. For one it gave me this wonderful image of a mechanical duck swimming around a lake. Looks like a duck, swims like a duck, but really it's a robotic duck patented back in 1738. Second, it continues detailing the ...

This isn't an official Shared Topic, but a question posted to the Blizzard Forums. I thought it would be fun to answer in the form of a song! haiku blog post. What if one day, your character magically became an NPC? What do you think he/she'd do? Would you be a quest giver? Would you make armor for the army? Would you be like Topper McNab, begging on the streets of Stormwind?   I think if I became an NPC, I'd be a flight master :p ( source ) When my friends first described the game of Warcraft to me, they talked about the ability to create things and then sell them to other players. As I mentioned before, this functionality intrigued me. I was coming from a FPS background, so having a player 'craft' something seemed surprising, and unusual. In that frame of thought, all players could act like NPCs; buying and selling items to anyone else in the game. This is the type of NPC I'd like to become, an eccentric vendor. My NPC would be a little different. Fi...

. Last night, our raid group had 12 people who wanted to go. Being one of the best geared DPS in the group, I gracefully dropped so that my guildies could get some upgrades. Of course, first boss down, and they announce they got Valor points for taking down Magmaw. (Yeah! There back!) My #1 priority last night was to complete the " CLUCK !" quest. This hidden in-game quest has been available to the Horde since patch 3.1, but hey, I was busy. Prior to this patch, a horde player could only get this pet if you knew an alliance player to do the hard work, and you were there to loot it. As of 3.1, you could now buy the special feed from William Saldean (undead) in Brill. This comment sums up the Horde process. Go to Brill (Yeah, Brill, not Westfall) Buy Special Chicken Feed from William Saldean Target a Chicken from Brill Spam this macro until it turns green: /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken /chicken Get the quest Turn in in the...

Have you started the new Firelands dailes yet? Me either, but the quest rewards look very appetizing. I did re-complete the rescue Thrall quest line again. This time, I was rewarded with the epic i365 back , nice upgrade from my valor point haunt of flies . I did also start the quest chain for entry into Firelands. I finished the quests, picked up the first 2 dailies then said, " meh, it's late, another time.. ". I haven't been back, but I should. According to guild-mates, really quickly I can pickup about 5 gear upgrades. See, doing the entry quests, I picked up some 16 marks. Zen'vorka , resides in the area you reach after you turn in 20 marks. Next comes Damek Bloombeard , which requires a total of 425!? marks (fed from a growing number of dailies). Phase 1 takes 20 marks to unlock the Molten Front zone (this has recently been hotfixed to be accessible the very first day). Phase 2 takes 150 marks to unlock either the Druids of the Talon or the Shadow Ward...

Saturday night, after picking up Wither's, I started the quest chain to pickup Mr Grubbs. This non-combat pet is maggot grub dropping from mobs in Eastern Plaguelands while under  Fiona 's Luck Charm buff. I started this adventure around 10PM and found Mr Grubbs around 2AM. Considering, I've heard of drop rates ranging from 5 minutes, to 5 days, 4 hours isn't that bad. Based on the comments for Mr. Grubbs, I learned that the more quests you do, the 'luckier' you are. This meant to me, the drop is basically a reward for doing the quest chains in EPL. At level 85, the slowest portion of this running between the dead bodies and looting. (again, where's my loot monkey ?). Fly to Lights Hope Chapel and pick up the breadcrumb quest from Lord Maxwell . He has you fly all the way back out to the Bullwark and find the worgen Gypsy Fiona . She is the leader of  a traveling caravan. As you complete the quests in each area, you board her caravan and ride to the...

The Armory was the topic two Blue posts on Friday. First off, it appears that we now have a wowhead or WarcraftPets type view into our pets and mounts . Still pursuing a particular pet? Mad for a magnificent mount? Just mouse over the object of your desire in the Companions & Mounts page and you’ll see information that should help make your next hunt a success. You can filter the results to make it easier to find pets and mounts from a particular source, or sort them by rarity to help you plan future collecting expeditions. ( source ) One thing I really like about this feature is the advanced search functionality. I set my query to show all pets still available via quests. This brought up 2 pets that I had not known about; Withers and a raptor pet. For the Alliance, Withers is a quest reward in Darkshore. For the Horde, just go buy it for 30 silver from Apothecary Furrows . The raptor is from a short quest chain that starts in Stranglethorn, but ends in heroic ZG....

About 2 weeks ago , I posted that I thought my account was hacked. This happened after Blizzard publicly changed their security policy to no longer request the PIN on authenticators when they see people consistently logging in from a similar location. Today, I'd like to point out a legitimate hack . Skimming through my top secret warlock email, (yeah, we all get those) I received a notification that my Blizz account info has been changed. Nefarious deeds definitely at work here. I bet it was those Mages; mad that we got sparkly soul harvest. hello! This is an automated notification regarding your Battle.net account. Some or all of your contact information was recently modified through the Account Management website. If you made recent account changes, please disregard this automatic notification. If you did NOT make any changes to your account, we recommend you log in to Account Management review your account settings.Log in link below, fill in your account information and ...

So, you like pets and you see everyone with those great balloon pets, but haven't asked where to get one? This pet is a reward from a strange little gathering quest, seems like a good candidate for Children's week, but hits closer to the State fair. Ok, go find Jaga . He's standing right out side the Drag, near the little pond. He's a young orc boy. Jaga has a low-level quest for you. He's lost his balloons and they flew away (in town). Go get all 5 for him. The balloons are easy enough to find. Look in corners of the Drag. I found all between him and the cooking trainer. The furthest out was by the mailbox out by the stairs at the far end. Once you hand over all 5 balloons, he lifts off and thanks you for allowing him to see the world. I followed him up to the top of the zeppelin tower, then he disappeared. I wonder if we'll see Jaga again out on the country side? Maybe trying to build himself a zep of his own?

Here in the States, it is that time of year, when we love to get away from it all. Take some time and enjoy the summer season to visit far off places. Our kids are out of school and away from learning. So, what better excuse than to take some time away from the gaming keyboard and mouse, to visit the beach or the House of Mickey Mouse. Outside of the positive health benefits of getting a little sun, there are (IMHO) a number of positive benefits to take a week off from the game. A Time to Rest The purpose of vacationing, is to get you away from your work and let you forget for short time. Let your brain recharge from the work-induced coma and wake up. While enjoying your time off, you recharge, ready to face the long fall and winter seasons back behind the keyboard, tucked into a cubicle with no windows and that rattling vent over your head. While leveling up an alt from 0 to 85, personally, I like to take advantage of every +XP bonus available. The one bonus that Blizzard h...