Lo-Quality WoW

If you can hear crickets chirping, it’s because adventuring around last night was very quiet. I’m still short a Halls of Stone run for that very last Elder but all the runs last night seemed to be for regular and not heroic. Yes, it’s easier on regular than on heroic but if you’re sitting there as a lvl 80, you should be doing things in heroic unless you absolutely have no idea about the fights, then maybe a regular run to get familiar with it, but that’s it. But since I didn’t have a run and I was bored, I puttered around the classical lands.

So to be silly, I decided to finish up my To All The Squirrels I’ve Loved Before achievement, because critters need love to. Very silly since I spent 15 minutes wandering around Elwynn Forest looking for a fawn. Then again, it isn’t Spring yet so maybe there’s not as many fawns out there yet. But while there, I get a message on the guild that a couple of guildmates want to do the warlock quests to Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deeps.

We meet up at Menethil Harbor since the two alts didn’t have any of the other FPs on the way. And then I whip out my Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth and we’re off. A couple of things discovered on the trek. Yes, passengers get xp credit for exploration. No, you don’t have to dismount to grab Flight Points. Yes, a passenger can access the vendor sitting in the other seat while riding. And yes, a passenger can fall off, making you quickly turn around and frantically search for the button to dismount so you can rescue said passenger from being eaten.

Shadowfang keep is one of the instances I rarely ever went into, mainly because it was such a long trek for Alliance. So I wasn’t too familiar with that particular instance. And since my warlock is in his high teens only, I also hadn’t done the quest. I compensated by slaughtering everything I came across. Between exploding traps and volley, things cleared out pretty quick. My two guildmates got their Shadowfang Keep achievement, the warlock got the drop they needed, and we were heading back to Southshore.

From Southshore, a quick jaunt to Stormwind Harbor and we were heading for Auberdine. Got a lot of admiring looks and questions from passer-byes about the Mammoth when I realized I rarely have seen anyone with the Traveler’s. It is expensive but I personally think it’s worth it not having to travel too far for repairs, food, drinks, ammo, or even to sell vendor trash. Being a taxi is only a small bonus.

Blackfathom Deeps. The first instance I’ve ever gone to. Also where my arch-nemesis is. Yes, the turtle. Ghamoo-ra. You wouldn’t believe how often our rogue and I would fight the turtle only to have it laugh at us. Nowadays, in the rare occasion I return, I make sure that turtle is dead. Even if we only need to head partly in, I’ll travel inside far enough to kill that darn turtle. It must die!

Don’t worry, my guildmates have pointed out how insane I am about the turtle. It happens. But we go through, grab the items the warlock needs, kill the hydra and get my guildmates their Blackfathom Deeps achievement. And then I’m off to Durotar to search for a swine and a hare to love.

Having never really created a horde character, running around Durotar looking for critters is a bit frustrating. Even with the amusement of having a lvl 72 Tauren Druid follow me around, I was getting a bit irritated. But finally, I found the critters to love and managed to get my To All The Squirrels I’ve Loved Before achievement. And what’s that? There’s a quest giver over here a hop, skip and jump from Ogrimmar’s front gates and he has quests for me? Don’t I feel special?

So I do the two quests for the tinker and then head back to Stormwind to find other unfinished quests. And I find them. In the Human start zone. So a few new players were treated to the vision of a lvl 80 NE hunter, running around killing lvl 1 Kobold vermin. But it was just enough to get me my Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms achievement. The Kalimdor version is going to take awhile, I’m still short about 75 quests over there.

And as the night closed, I decided to stop in and redo my talents. I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about 2/18/51 builds people are using ever since BMs’ got nerfed. While I’m amused by all the sudden focus on SV builds, some of what the mention makes sense. Of course, even though there’s a “default” build, you still need to tailor it to your situation. For instance, I still have 3 points in Focused Aim to keep my hit up. Considering I’m seeing characters built with less points in Focused Aim and with less hit rating than myself, I’m interested to see how it works out. I’m always willing to experiment a little and we’ll have to see how it affects my overall dps. Of course, if I see that my dps has dropped off, I’m going back to my old build. I’m silly like that.