Do I Look Like A Warrior?

“Oi. You. Yeah, you. I think we be needin’ ta have a little chat.”

What’s wrong Klondike?

“Look at me, and tell me if you REALLY need ta ask.”

Two heirlooms, and some reasonably level-relevant gear. What’s the problem?

“I look like a fookin’ rainbow yacked on me!!!”

Well, to be fair, unless you’re in heirlooms head to toe…that’s kind of bound to happen. Since you’re only level 50, there is only so much to work with. Trust me, once you grow a bit more, you’ll have more options than you know what to do with.

“Really? Because th’ Orc is over 100 and he looks like shite.” 

Are you really using an undead orc to try to win this argument?

“Eh. Erm. Perhaps not. But there’s still the matter of me transportation to sort out.”

*sigh* And what might the problem be?

“What might the problem be? Do I look like some mobile shanty of knick knacks to you? Because this bloody thing sure tells everyone ELSE that. All I’m missing is some pretty hat…wait don’t get any ideas.”

I’m not that cruel. But I think I found a mount that will put things in perspective for you.

“I hate you so much right now.”

See? The other one wasn’t so bad now was it?

“…breathe in….breathe out….breathe in…breathe…ARE YOU OFF YOUR BLOODY ROCKER?!?!?”

Nah, just messing with you.

“Notice I’m not amused.”

No, but I sure am. Listen, all kidding aside what about the Spectral Kitty?

“Other than the word ‘kitty’ is a bit unfitting of a warrior, that one in the barn’s for some of th’ others ta be ridin’.”

Hrm. But you’re not against the idea of a feline mount. One sec…

Ta da!

“Now we’re talkin’ lad. Why’d you have ta be so bloody difficult?”

Well, it was me or the gnome.

“…”

30 Days (April) – Favourite Tier

When it comes down to Tier gear, I’m somewhat torn.  Quite frankly, the Tier 2 Paladin armor set is the most iconic set there is, as far as I’m concerned.  Whenever someone mentions the word “tier” it’s the first set I think of.  At the same time, I just love what the Priests got at Tier 5, the Avatar set.  So rather than just pick one, I’ll choose both.  And then funny enough, I’ll choose neither.

Don’t get me wrong, I like both sets of gear.  But the thing is, I’m just not a Tier gear kind of person.  I never have been.  Okay, I’ve wanted to complete some sets, but that’s more to feed my OCD and has nothing to do with how good or bad the outfit actually looks.  I was a campaigner for transmogrification before it had a name, and with good reason.  While Blizzard makes some nice sets, they also make some horrid ones.  Plus, just because the set looks nice doesn’t mean it looks good on my character or even fits that character.  These are among the many factors that see me making my own sets instead of using Tier gear.

It now occurs to me that this question may have been asking which set is/was the best in terms of skill.  Let’s face it, if that’s the question…I haven’t the foggiest idea and won’t pretend to.

Winter Veil Comes Early For Alts

I had originally planned to try and get a new chapter of Posthumous up, but work was too crazy for that and I didn’t have the energy by the time I got home.  More importantly something came about in-game that I wanted to talk about.  I first heard it from Zwingli, and then had it confirmed on WoW Insider: you can now send account bound items to other servers.

This makes me a happy Amateur.  From the first day “Bind On Account” items were introduced I felt they were anything but.  Heck, remember when you couldn’t even send them to the opposing faction on the same server?  To get to where we are today is a great boon for the game.  As my title suggests, this is a huge boost for alts.  You don’t mind levelling on a new server because the process can be sped up with just a quick mail or two.  As it is, I’m scattered across roughly half a dozen servers and I can imagine there are people spread much wider than I am.  To be able to now grab an heirloom with a toon that has more than enough resources to do so, and send it to another on a distant server just feels like that oh so sweet gift on Winter Veil morning.

If you want to send something, just type in the character name and the server that toon is on, such as Semblance-Fenris.  Instantly, account bound item is transferred.  Will we see other future items become transferable?  That’s hard to say.  Account bound items work because they’re like pets and mounts were.  It’s easy to make it happen because they’re basically attached to the signature of your account rather than one character.  Either way, I’m going to bask in the glory of this news…just as soon as I figure out where all my BoA’s are located.

Saturday Night’s Alright For Yoggin…

I won’t lie.  For selfish reasons, this weekend and next I scheduled Laid Back Raids for Saturday night and I never know how that is going to turn out.  Some folks have plans and some simply don’t notice.  With Algalon on the schedule for the Alliance last night, I knew for sure that Healblade was out. After that was a crap shoot

We ended up with about seven of us, eight when Zwingli was able to join us early on and then again for the final two bosses.  In 10-man, that was serious zerg.  Well, except for the fact that I wanted an awesome screenshot of Algalon, but instead targeted him and interrupted his little constellation speech.  We wiped when I think he removed the entire floor.  No fight, just more of a “how dare you” as we all died.  So we regrouped and hoped that didn’t happen again.  Well, us Claws of Nature folk…despite “thinking” we were within the platform for the fight, were in fact not.  But at least I got to watch them whoop the star-crossed boss.

I think if you look close you can see Repgrind’s Mage getting off a spell.  I can’t remember if we still had two alive at that point…I know Magik was dead beside me.  I was fine with dying, but disappointed I didn’t get the shoulders to complete Liouxpold’s current transmog.  However, I did win the roll for Avalanche when it dropped from Hodir. It would seem after years of being a crossbow only guy, Liouxpold is turning into quite the bow collector.  Which is probably good.  Man did I get heckled on his behalf last night.  No Guild Page, not Exalted with my own guild, no Cold Weather Flying, “Turn off aspect of the pack,””turn it off again please”…yeesh, it was never ending!

The good news was that we rolled on and I had forgotten Magik had never finished Ulduar, in fact Cat Lady was as far as he had gotten (back when it was current).  So to be able to show him the whole place was great.  To be able to down Yogg-Saron at the end was perfect as well.

Also during the raid, Magik, Mrs, and myself got a pleasant surprise as one of our other guildies (Grexinimi) was on and kinda doing his own thing…

So, needless to say when the raid was over…Magik went straight to Stormwind, while Mrs. and I switched to toons that were Exalted with the guild and we were all proud owners of Dark Phoenix pets.  Magik and I captured the moment…that prissy Hunter Naeda was too good for us, I guess.

Darkside of the Toons

Finally!

So, quite some time ago I picked up the Shield of Impenetrable Darkness during a Laid Back Raid.  I had always meant to make an outfit for it, complimenting it with the Crystal Spire of Karabor.  Today was to be that day.  All I needed was the legs and gloves and I was set.  Husband of Ysera’s Daughter happened to be on and made me some Vicious Ornate Pyrium Legguards and Boots.  I then hit the JP vendor for a set of Bladebreaker Gauntlets and was good to go.  Or, rather, I thought I was.  I realized I still needed the Wailing Nightbane Pauldrons from The Unforgiven in Stratholme.  Fortunately it only took killing him twice to get them.

However, you’ll notice in the picture Saintvache isn’t sporting a Mace.  That’s because of a very annoying transmog limitation.  You see, you cannot put a Main Hand item over a One Hand item that you’re holding in your main hand.  So, that idea went out the window (no 85 Maces on the AH either at the time).  So, his tanking look remains the same as it’s been for the past six months.  Instead, I took his healing gear and knowing he was holding a sword grabbed The Turning Tide from his bank.  The other pieces of the outfit are Bogslayer Breastplate, Gilded Thorium Cloak (which dropped last night during a Kara run with Ratshag, Helke, and a few more), Vicious Pyrium Belt, and Heroic Skullcap.  I used the Argent Crusade Tabard to cap it off.  Made him just a hint less of a Death Knight.  And yes, as I pointed out to Arvash this morning, in pure ass-backwardness my tank outfit is light and my healing outfit is dark.

Now I no sooner finished that and switched over to Larfleeze to see what the Runetotem Auction House had for me to discover (cheap Primordial Rubies was the answer), when I came across my first Jeweled Onyx Panther in-game.  Brezell barely sat still long enough for me to get the shot, but you can see it alright.  That’s what happens when you take the four colours and merge them.  So you’re looking at about 100-125 thousand gold there.  Sexy, but I like the four others better.  Speaking of which, I still haven’t seen a green one in-game.

The A In BoA

It’s been a year and a half since I talked about Heirlooms and wondering when Blizzard is actually going to make the “A” in the term BoA mean something.  As it stands, we have a number of ways to obtain Heirloom items in the game, but they are limited to the server we get them on.  Once upon a time, I bought into the difficulty of making the items available to other servers.  You simply can’t mail to another server.

That makes complete sense to me, which is why I suggested obtaining them the same way we used to get pets.  When you created a character, there it was in your mailbox.  But let’s face it, that doesn’t even happen because of the new UI for pets and mounts.  There’s two sides to that coin, though.  Those UI’s show us now more than ever Blizzard should be able to remove the realm limit on an heirloom.

If I log onto Saintvache, his mount UI shows all the mounts available.  That means the Alliance specific ones that I have earned are not there for him to use.  The Magic Carpet is, but if I try to use it then I get the message I do not meet the requirements to do so.  So, how is it the game can tell what mounts I qualify for, but not what account bound gear pieces are available to me?

It makes complete sense now.  You could easily have a tab in your personal bank, for example, that has a UI identical to the pet one.  A list of the Heirlooms you’ve acquired, and the ones you haven’t are greyed out.  Your Priest wants to equip the Plate shoulders, you get a proficiency error.

I hate to rag on Blizzard some more, but this is a long overdue feature.  Players rejoiced when the gear was introduced, and then raised proverbial hell when it was limited to server and faction.  When the faction nonsense was removed, people were happier.  At the time we were told of the difficulties involved in moving the items from one server to another.  I buy that.  But thanks to features the company introduced on their own, it’s clear we don’t need to move the items to make it work.  It’s just a matter of whether the developers decide to actually do it.

Transmogging 101: Crystalforged War-Axe

One of my absolute favourite weapons in the game, the War-Axe is the embodiment of the great hues used in the Burning Crusade expansion.  I often comment on how good it looks and flip the weapon quite regularly on the Auction House.  Having said that, it’s an incredibly unique looking item.  So, today I finally took the time to make an outfit to go with it.

• Cheerful Shoulders
• Breasplate of Avenging Flame
• Jouster’s Gauntlets
• Blinding Girdle of Truth
• Replica Legplates of Heroism
• Replica Boots of Heroism
• Crystalforged War Axe