Fishing for dummies (and other junk)

I’m feeling a bit grousy today. It has poured rain all day; I had to work; and it’s a Monday. On top of that, I’m feeling kind of blah about WoW right now.

So last week we had the patch, which went pretty smoothly overall. Our scheduled raids for the week were canceled, and instead my guild made some impromptu 10 and 25 man Ulduar excursions. I didn’t go. I just didn’t feel like it.

I’ve been playing this game too long to feel much excitement about anything, anymore. Maybe that’s a sign that I need a break, I don’t know. What I did, instead of raiding, was fish. I do love the change to fishing.

You can fish anywhere in the game, now, and you won’t have any more misses, either. Instead, the mechanic has been changed so that until your fishing skill is high enough level for the zone, you catch junk that sells for a couple coppers. Occasionally, you may catch a zone appropriate fish, but mostly you catch junk–old, tattered fabric, knotted fishing line, a piece of drift wood, etc. But you still get a skill up.

What that means is I can skill up the fishing of my alt characters anywhere in the world. That’s huge for me, being someone who actually enjoys and appreciates fishing.

So is that all I got out of Patch 3.1?

Well I did dual spec my Shaman, and I played him a lot this weekend. I took him through regular Utgarde Keep, and then quested him up to level 72. I was DPS on that UK run; however I was prepared to heal. Dual Spec has probably pushed him up my short list of characters I will take to 80, and subsequently my two hunters have now dropped to the bottom of that list.

I also played my Orc Death Knight quite a bit this weekend, but have not been brave enough to tank Nexus or UK yet.

Oh, and my main, my Warlock, Holdwine, gained Exalted with the Ebon Blade and Revered with the Oracles. My egg is incubating my Green Proto-Drake (fingers crossed) even now. Ebon Blade was my tenth Exalted, so I got the achievement. What disappoints me, though, is that for all the time played, my Warlock still has no titles to choose from, other than Jenkins.

That sort of brings me around to one more thing I didn’t do, after Patch 3.1. I flew out to the Tournament grounds and put my name on the rolls, then lost interest. I’ve got a lance in my bag and a quest for Melee training in my log, but it’s been a week and I’ve not done anything with that.

WowInsider tells me there are some titles available to participants, although it’s unclear to me whether those are only available now, to those who have been playing from the start, or whether I can pick them up retroactively.

The Tournament may be the easiest way for me to pick up an additional title, especially since I’m pretty faithful at grinding dailies for rep. But so far I haven’t been able to get excited about the event.

Part of it is that I only have a certain amount of time for dailies on my Warlock, and now that Ebon Hold is finished, those dailies are Wyrmrest, Oracles, fishing, and cooking. I know, why am I still grinding Wyrmrest dailies? Kirin Tor rep is more valuable to me because of the Spellthread pattern at Exalted, so I wear their tabard in Heroics. Wyrmrest has nothing but a red drake to offer me.

On the calendar this week: Ulduar on Tuesday and Friday, and 10 man Malygos and Sarth with one drake on Wednesday.

I’ll probably have something to say about Ulduar later in the week, once I’ve experienced it.