Wednesday 9 September 2009

Extending my Patience

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Blizz has apparently decided to extend the maintenance on the Darkspear server, until around 2pm today. The cheeky Bastards!

They've thanked me for my patience and understanding, but I don't think they appreciate that today was one of the rare days where I'm actually able to play for the full day. I was obviously expecting to be offline until after 10am due to the regular weekly maintenance, but for christs sake...2pm??

If I wasn't enjoying the game so much at the moment, I'd cancel my subscription in disgust.
OK, now that I've gotten that rant out of the way, I've tried to use my time effectively.

So I've had a look at what gear I can pick up for my Pally's Tanking-Set. And it looks like my best options are BOE Blacksmithing recipes for most of the slots.
Meaning I'll be skipping most of the heroic gear altogether, and jumping directly to Raid levels of gearing.

I know Grenth can make some of this stuff, but that means waiting till he's online. So here's my list of required items, give me a shout in-game if you can make them:

Breastplate of the White Knight
Titanium EarthGuard Chain
Indestructible Plate Girdle
Saronite Swordbreakers
Tempered Titansteel Treads
Tempered Titansteel Helm

I might not be able to buy them all at once, depending on what mats are needed. So I'll probably spend today doing some instances, and trying to grind some more cash. A few thousand gold should be more than enough for my needs. And will just leave me needing trinkets, rings and legs.

Craftingness

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I've always tried to avoid having a crafting profession on any of my toons.
Sometimes when I've rolled a new one, I've started them out with something I thought might be useful. But in the end I've usually ended up switching it for a second gathering prof.

I've just never really seen the point. Most of the end-game gear is better or equal to the crafted items. And it's effectively easier to get, because it either comes from rep rewards or from instances which other people will also be doing, and also provide additional drops and benefits.

I think part of the problem is that the lower level items produced by crafters are just totally pointless now. Essentially you're going to be grinding out the lower levels, and spending extortionate amounts of gold leveling your prof, just to reach the higher levels where things start to become useful again.
Having said that, I've levelled my Engineering on my new Pally. To the point where I can now use the AH in Dalaran. Now it's cost me around 800-1000g to reach that point. But I've also made some ofthat back by selling some of the crafted mats.
I also have maxed mining skill, but I try never to use my own mats. What I do instead is buyout any underpriced ores / bars on the AH, and then post mine at just under the price of the next highest.
This isn't always posible, obviously, if the prices are stable, and there's lots of an item available, sometimes it's just more sensible to use my stuff, rather than paying the posting fee, and letting the AH take its cut too.

But anyway, the point is realy the crafting. Using engineering as an example:

Between certain level ranges, the lower level engineering items are used in higher level items. For example, blasting powders are used in many items, but the powders themselves are crafted at a much lower level than the items they are created for. This makes sense.

But once you pass the next level of the profession (e.g. Moving up to Grandmaster) all the stuff you've made and learned before that level is wasted. The items are useless to you, and with the excpetion of a few crafted materials they're worthless on the AH and with vendors.

Now, in my opinion, what Blizz need to do is allow items to be recycled (this would especially fit in with the engineering prof). Essentially this is the same as dis-enchanting, where materials are extracted from a crafted item.
You wouldn't get back everything that you put into it. But you'd at least salvage some of the mats to re-use or re-sell.
Or, the lower level items should be useable or transmuteable into higher level items. Think of the skinning Prof. Every skin can be transmuted into a higher version. It might need 10 of a certain skin to make 1 of the next level, but so what? If they don't get used, they'll eventually just get vendor'd.

With everyone who's trying to level a profession needing to make exactly the same items just for the sake of levelling, they're bound to be worthless to others, or have little value on the AH.
I know Blizz like their money-pits, but in the case of professions, they're going to be making enough back anyway. Do they really need to have us vendoring all of that crap?

With all that said, I'll be sticking with my engineering, although I won't be pushing hard to max it. It was more for the AH and the funnily-useful stuff like portable mailboxes and repair bots, rather than for epics.

Dings and Dongs

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Well what a surprise that was!

After spending the day slowly levelling my Paladin, through his final level, I got called up to DPS Malygos because some of the raiders hadn't turned up.
I'll be honest, after waiting nearly 35 minutes to start (which is a long time when you were called in as a replacement), meaning that we only agro'd him just after 9pm, when the raid was due to start at 8pm. I was almost ready to say "thanks, but no thanks" and go back to my pally.

But I stuck it out, and I'm glad I did. First try we got to Phase 3 in plenty of time, but about 8 of the raiders were dead within seconds of phase 3 starting. After a quick but effective explanation from Vind, and a demo of the skills using the daily quest dragons, we tried again. The bastard just would not go down though. We got him to 1.8% before the wipe.

Spurred on by our almost-win, we tried again. Didn't do so well on the 3rd try, but on the 4th attempt down he went, easily. Most of the raiders were still alive by the end of it, and the chat screen flooded with achievement dings from all of the players. Good job all....

So after that hour or so of distraction, I relogged on my pally. With only 200k XP to grind. And 20-30 mins later, he Ding'd too.

So off to IF to learn all my final skills, for both specs. And then to the AH to empty my bags and begin my hunt for Epics.
In the last 2 levels of grinding I've made another 2k gold, so I've got a good amount to start me off.
My best investment was a TitanSteel Shield Wall, courtesy of Grenths BS. They sell for around 600g on the AH, but the mats were just short of 400g. (There's a profit to be made there if there are any goblins among you).
I could have also picked up the Tempered TitanSteel Treads, and Helm. (Again selling for 600g, but mats at 400ish) But 1 Epic was enough for the night. And I didn't want to spend all my money at once.

So today I'll check what rep-rewards are available, and then begin my next grind. To achieve 540 defence. I'm at 495 already, so it shouldn't be too hard to reach. (The 2 BS epics might even push me upto that anyway).

So, all in all, it was a good night.