I haven’t mentioned it, but in the past few months I’ve broken my long-standing phobia of taking a more responsible role in grouping.  I’ve been healing, and not just on my 80 Shaman, but on my level 40 Priest, as well.

Actually, before I ever healed a Heroic on my Shaman, I was already healing on my Priest.  I decked him out in heirlooms a few months ago, and I’ve been leveling him primarily in BG’s as a Discipline healer.  Leveling a Priest through questing is not my idea of fun; it’s slow and boring.  But battlegrounds supply an infinite amount of opportunities for excitement.

It was actually healing the BGs that first tipped me off to the fun of keeping others alive while they do all the work of killing things.  So this weekend, for the first time, I took my Priest into an old world instance and healed Scarlet Monastery, Library and Armory.

Scarlet monastery viewed from below

I was probably lucky to even get in on a true at-level run of the Monastery.  Even though it’s one instance everyone seems to enjoy and want to run, actually finding a PuG for it is difficult.  I’ve gone into LFG the past three weekends and never seen anyone else waiting to run it.

It turned out to be a partially successful run.  The people I ran with were all much lower than me, ranging from level 32 to 35.  I was at level for Cathedral, but after clearing the Armory we decided we couldn’t do the Cathedral wing.

This decision was mainly due to the fact that our Druid tank, specced Balance, left after clearing the Library.  He hadn’t got the drop he wanted from Doan, so with a “sorry guys gotta go,” he went.

We couldn’t find anyone to replace him, but having a Paladin in the group, we decided to four-man Armory with him tanking–in Ret spec with a two-hander.

Looking back, it’s a wonder we cleared it.  The Paladin died twice, but we never wiped.  I was basically using a rotation I use in BG’s–Shield, plus Renew, followed by a Flash Heal as needed–which worked well up to a point.  My goal was not to waste mana throwing out large heals unnecessarily.  Mana was a huge issue for me.  The two times we lost the Paladin, it was because I was running on empty.  Basically at these points, my improved shield, which heals for a percentage of damage absorbed, was the only heal on the tank and it just wasn’t enough.

Still, we made it through Armory like this, with a hunter who didn’t wait for anyone else before pulling, and a tank with next to no mitigation, and a healer whose only healing experience on a Priest was in Battlegrounds.

I felt pretty good about it afterward.  I didn’t get a single drop, but I got something better: a good memory, and good experience.

Following up on my article from yesterday, there is one add-on I’d like to promote that can really make PvP and PvE much easier and more fun.  Power Auras Classic.

I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned this little addon before, because it has become one of the most essential addons in my game folder.  Like Auctioneer or Arkinventory, I would find it difficult and not very fun to have to play WoW without it.

What it does is it prompts you to take action under certain conditons, particularly gaining a buff or debuff.  Sometimes it can prompt you when certain conditions are not met, such as a class buff dropping off.

As an example, on my Warlock I use it in a couple different ways.  First of all, I use it to prompt me when Fel Armor drops off.   When it happens, I have it set up so that a green reticule bubbles around my character.  I have similar effects set up for Water Shield on my Shaman and my Paladin’s buffs and auras.

The real beauty of this addon, however, is how useful it is at prompting me when I gain a certain effect or buff, such as Decimation when I am in Demonology spec, or Backdraft and Backlash when I am in Destruction.  Blizzard doesn’t provide much of a prompt when these abilities proc.

Backlash has the same prompt as Nightfall, in the Affliction tree, which is to say not much of a prompt at all, especially in a noisy Wintergrasp battle.  So what I’ve done is to set Powerauras to give me the louder, more distinctive raid prompt warning when Backlash procs along with a red, flashing reticule around my character.

There are probably innumerable other uses for this handy addon.  I know I first heard about it from Big Red Kitty, who used it to notify him when Lock n’Load procced.

No, I have not faction-changed Holdwine to the fearsome Undead Warlock he would be, if he were Horde.  I’m talking about PvP.

As my game has become more casual, I’ve been PvP-ing more, on all my characters.  This is the part of WoW I used to hate with a passion, so I’m as surprised as anyone that I actually find myself enjoying it.

I think it was Wintergrasp that changed things around for me.  I.  Love. Wintergrasp.  Even with all the changes, from queues to weekly quests instead of dailies, I still love Wintergrasp.  There are days when I log in only to do Wintergrasp.

One reason is that the rewards are so substantial, and easy to obtain.  I’ve purchased nearly all the heirloom items I could ever want, for any class, via WG Stone Keeper’s Shards.  I’ve almost fully outfitted HW in PvP gear (lacking only bracers and cloak, I think) in a relatively short period of time.  It’s so easy to reach the Honor cap, there is no reason anyone should not have their faction PvP trinket and at least one other piece of Deadly Gladiator gear within the first two or three days of beginning to PvP.

I love it.  And as my other characters have reached 80, I’ve embarked them on the same course as my Warlock, sending my Shaman and Death Knight into WG at every opportunity.

Last night, on a whim, I changed my PvP spec from Affliction to Demonology.  Affliction just wasn’t working for me, although I concede maybe I wasn’t doing Affliction right.  It is supposed to be high on survivability (it has to be, since your DoTs have to have time to kill another player), but I still didn’t find myself surviving very long without a healer.

I suppose that’s true of any class and spec, though.

Demonology PvP spec

What turned me off to Affliction for the time being was an encounter I had in WG between battles, with a female Orc Warrior (great class/race/gender combo, btw) and a male Orc Shaman.  I like to think of them as a husband and wife 2v2 power-team, with hubby healing.

Anyway, they were just having some fun killing the NPCs near the Vault entrance, as well as Ally players trying to buy from vendors, including myself.  I fought them again and again, and died again and again.  Even with the succubus out to seduce the healer, I could not kill either one of them, although I came close to killing the warrior once before the healer broke seduction and healed her back up again.

It didn’t help that there were Allys sitting on their flying mounts, high above the action, doing nothing.  I kept asking in general for people to group with me to take them down, but the response I got (from a priest who was one of those watching from a safe distance) was that they were two “fags” in good gear and I might as well give up.

Eventually, I did get a Druid and a Hunter to help me, and we killed them.  That was all I wanted: once victory over them.  So then I left and respecced.

I tried it out in three successful Warsong Gulch’s.  So far, I’m pretty happy with it.  I know Affliction has the better PvP talents, with Improved Fear and Howl of Terror, as well as Curse of Exhaustion, but Demonology provides more (though only a little) of the bursty damage that seems more successful for my style of play.  However, survivability is higher than with the true burst spec, Destruction.

I’m not a good defensive player.  If I am without a healer, and if I can’t burst my opponent down in a few seconds, it’s probably going to be over for me.

As long as I don’t get banished by a Warlock or feared by a Paladin, Metamorphosis is just an awesome ability.  And with the glyph, it seems like it lasts forever.  Combine it with Voidwalker sacrifice, which now does NOT sacrifice the minion (only a portion of its health), and Meta is *almost* overpowered.

If I were doing Arena, I’d probably spec Affliction, mainly because Meta is less useful in an environment where people actually use CC against you.  but for Battlegrounds and Wintergrasp, I think I’m going to enjoy it for awhile.

It’s been about six months since the release of Patch 3.1 and the smack down of WoWMatrix by Curse and WoWInterface.  I recall at the time being quite perturbed at the single-handed decimation of an app I had come to rely on for keeping my addons up to date.

Now, several months later, I have to say I could care less about the whole issue.  At some point after WoWMatrix stopped working for me, I downloaded the Curse client and registered at WoWInterface for the addons I could not get via Curse.  Because I am a Mac user, the Curse client is still free for me to use, and it works perfectly.  I have no complaints whatsoever.

I’m wondering how others feel?  Do you miss WoWMatrix?  Do you still use it?  Are you still holding a grudge against Curse?

This morning I’ve been catching up on some of the speculation surrounding possible new playable races in the next WoW expansion. I didn’t even know there was much evidence for any particular race, until I read this WoWinsider article, New Halloween masks point to a new playable race?

Worgen Mask

From there I went to Scrolls of Lore for the original article, and from there over to the official WoW forums.

A lot of the comments on the forum posts, as well as the WoWInsider story, merely echo each other, so I thought I’d sum up the best arguments martialed on all sides.

On the one hand, Blizzard could just be adding new Halloween masks, plain and simple. Often the simple answer is the correct answer.

However, in the past, only playable races have been represented as Halloween masks. Goblins and Worgen both have been in the game since the beginning, but neither have been playable.

Goblin Halloween mask

Goblins have always been a neutral race. How could Blizzard align them with a faction without aligning the Goblin cities with a faction?

Neutrality really isn’t that big a deal. Some Goblins remain neutral in order to play both sides of the financial market in Azeroth. The Steamwheedle-affiliated Goblin cities in Azeroth remain neutral, while the playable Goblins instead align themselves with a faction (probably Horde).

Worgen we’ve seen in the game so far are unintelligent monsters, savages with no civilization of their own. True, except in Grizzly Hills in Northrend, we see Worgen living part of the time as humans, in a human community. Their Worgen-nature is seen as a disease, rather than as their “race,” but there is nonetheless a model there.

The extensive Worgen-themed quest line in Grizzly Hills also hints at something a Blizzard GM said recently, that Blizzard will “pre-seed” new playable races into the existing game rather than introducing them from scratch the way they did with the Draeneii and Blood Elves.

All in all, I think there is a good possibility this speculation is correct. The Worgen always seemed far-fetched to me as a playable race, but I can see it, now. Lots of speculation revolves around Gilneas, the land behind the Graymane Wall in Silverpine Forest, as a possible home land/starting area for the Worgen race.

Undermine would be a likely candidate for a Goblin city. My guess is it would be an island in the ocean. I’d like to see Blizzard open Steamwheedle port in Tanaris as a genuine port town, and as a way of making southern Kalimdor more easily accessible. I’ve always found it odd that it’s a completely non-functioning port, even though from the dock, one can see ships off shore.

I really think this is going to be the big announcement at Blizcon at the end of the month. It just works. It also fits with the announcement made a couple weeks ago that soon, people will be able to pay for a faction change. Alliance can convert their level 80 characters to Horde and vice versa.

Blizzard is anticipating the groaning that will come when people really, really want to have a Worgen character, but don’t want to level it from 1 to 90. Faction change will allow people with a high-level character of the opposite faction to simply convert that character to a high level Worgen. Same with Goblins. I can easily see myself converting my Night Elf Hunter to a Goblin Hunter, if I decide I want to play that race extensively.

More ideas I like: Alliance Worgen would get to play as Warriors, Rogues, Hunters, Shaman (only four classes, and no pure magic classes, much like the Tauren).

Horde Goblins would be able to play as Warriors, Rogues, Hunters, Warlocks, and Healing Class TBD (or no healing class at all, but Goblins could be Mages, much like Gnomes).

I actually like the idea of a Goblin medic that uses technology rather than magic to heal, but there is no basis in the game for such a race-specific healing class.

As for the new racial mounts for Goblins and Worgen, I’m really not sure. Goblins riding Ogres would fit somewhat with the game, particularly with Goblins of Warcraft II. I doubt Blizzard wants any race, even Ogres, to basically become slaves of another race, though.

Rather I think Goblins will get some sort of mechanical ground mount, just as Gnomes have their Mechanostriders. Worgen could ride…I don’t know…thinking of the kinds of beasts we see in Silverpine Forest, maybe a bear of some sort? Or else a black Felsteed-like horse such as we see in Shadowfang Keep. Worgen are probably going to be a bit larger than humans, so a horse mount might not “fit” them. I’m thinking bear is a good possibility.

Suddenly I’m feeling a little bit of excitement about WoW’s future. I say the sooner the Graymane Wall gate is opened, the better. Depending on what they look like, and the details of their story line, I’d play a Worgen.

For most classes there is usually a consensus on which build is best for leveling.  I’ve not found this to be the case for Warlocks, a class with two “leveling” trees that both have adherants: Affliction and Demonology.   Although I’ve spent a great deal of time playing both trees and have nothing negative to say about either one, when my newest Warlock hit level ten and it was time to spend that first point, I did not hesitate.  I put the point in Improved Corruption and started my Warlock’s journey down the Affliction tree.

Why?  What makes Affliction so much better for leveling, in my mind?

There is one simple, good reason, and several other lesser reasons.  The best reason to level as Affliction is that it has more spells that return more mana and health as you kill than any of the other trees.  This means less down time as you are grinding mobs and questing.

Granted, at early levels the Warlock’s +Spell Power is so low, not much mana and health is returned by spells such as Life Tap (even when specced for Improved Life Tap) and Drain Life.  Even at level 40, my Orc Warlock found it difficult to drain tank with an Imp because the amount of health and mana generated via spells wasn’t enough to keep him topped off.  Life Tap and bandage/eat was still often necessary.

However, play as Demonology for awhile and you will appreciate Affliction’s benefits.  Even at 80, Demonology is particularly a huge mana drain.

Another reason to level Affliction is that from the very first point spent, you are buffing your damage.  Improved Corruption is as valuable a spell today as it was back when it had a cast time and you specced Imp Corruption in order to remove that cast time.  Even for a Demonology Warlock, Corruption is a primary damage ability.  You can’t go around spamming Shadow Bolts without eating and drinking after every kill–Life Tap and Bandage simply can’t keep you going that long.

A typical rotation for my sub-level 20 Warlock is Immolate, Corruption, and then wand.  Yes, wand.  As with drain tanking, the goal is to finish with high health and mana.  Life Tap after the mob dies, and then bandage.  Until I get Nightfall at 15 points, I never use Shadowbolt.  It just isn’t necessary and isn’t mana efficient at this level.

In the next tier after you fill out Imp Corruption, with Improved Life Tap and the buffs to your Drain spells you will start to see your down time decrease even more.  At level 15, my new Undead Warlock was returning 66 mana as opposed to 53 the previous level, all because I put my sixth talent point into Imp Life Tap.  It will only get better.  Fel Concentration, Siphon Life…all these spells combined with earlier talents make you unstoppable against ordinary mobs, and usually even elites.

Of course, Affliction really shines post level 60, when your bonus to spell damage begins to pick up.  Only then can you really appreciate how powerful it is to take on four or more mobs at once, dotting and drain tanking until they all fall at your feet dead.  But even at earlier levels, the tree is designed to make you an efficient killer.

That’s not to say Demonology isn’t good, or that Destruction for that matter has no value to a leveler.  I know some people swear by each of the other two trees.  Demonology buffs your survivability by boosting yours and your pet’s stamina, and if you spec for it, your Voidwalker will never lose aggro.  At lvel 50, you get the all-powerful Felguard, and then your fun really begins.

Destruction at 80 is spectacular.  When doing dailies, there is no faster way to cut through mobs, particularly if you spec for Replenishment.  It is a truly mana efficient tree, especially compared to Demonology at 80.  I joked in guild chat the other day that it’s always kind of funny when I kill a Vrykul so fast that they are still speaking their flavor text when they hit the ground.

But for me, I will probably always spec Affliction for my new Warlocks.  I don’t like to eat and drink.  I like to keep moving after a kill, and Affliction is best, if that is your attitude as well.

I’ve reached that stage in a WoW player’s life where alt-itis becomes chronic.  Experiencing old content anew and experimenting with different race/class/profession combos, via alts, is really my primary way of enjoying the game after almost four years.

Thus last night, I rolled another alt, and not just another alt but another Warlock alt.  I was bored.  I didn’t think another alt would really alleviate the boredom, but it turns out it was a unique enough combination of race/gender–Forsaken Female–that my interest has been piqued.  So has my interest in writing about the experience.

I am not really starting over with her, since I am not abandoning my main Warlock, or my other alts.  Nor am I attempting to level without the benefit of a sugar daddy.  I tried that, I really did.  But the first time I went to the trainer and didn’t have the 95 coppers to train Shadow Bolt Rank 2, I went to my bank alt and sent my new Warlock a cash infusion.  10 gold isn’t a lot–less than earned from one daily at 80–but it can go far on a low level alt.

I also sent her four Netherweave bags, total cost 40 gold.  If I had it to do over again, I’d probably not be so extravagant, instead buying the non-BoE 12 slot Mageweave bags since I can trade the bags around once she outgrows them.

So, after the jump, a screenshot and some further discussion about starting a new alt.

Forsaken Female Warlock in Combat

Something to consider when starting an alt is where you will level.  For me, I usually try to escape the standard starting zone.  For one thing, I’ve probably already run it a half-dozen times, and for another sometimes the rewards are better/more attractive in another zone.

In this case I chose to level Livilla (might as well start using her name) in the Blood Elf starter area.  A couple good reasons for this: 1. I will earn more silver more quickly here. 2. The quest rewards are better.

From a role-player’s perspective (not that I am much of a role-player), I also have a story to back up this choice.

Liv is an inventor/engineer, as she was in life in Lordaeron’s hey day.  This background in hard science also tends to coincide with the temperament of the Explorer.  She heard about the Forsaken’s new ties to Silvermoon and decided to join the vanguard in exploring this new region.

Liv also takes a guilty pleasure in pretty things, a holdover from her old life, thus she prefers the silken robes of the Blood Elves to the plain, grungy flaxen vests and pants of the Forsaken.

Corny, I know.  But I’m a very story-oriented person, and I like to “know” a little about my characters.  This is especially true if I become interested in playing them, as I have in this case.  The interest may not last, but that’s the good thing about an alt.  It’s like an infatuation.  All good feelings, with no commitment.

Even before where you will level, one has to decide the race/gender/class combo, and to me that’s the really interesting part.  Do we make a Female Dwarf Rogue just to be unique, or do we create a Blood Elf Hunter because we want a really pretty avatar to look at?

I decided to go the opposite of pretty.  Not that there’s anything wrong with pretty…I just wanted to do something different.  I also like the Female Undead casting animations.  A male undead caster looks like he’s winding up a fast ball; female undead casters look like they are restraining the raw power of a particularly deadly spell.

More than spell aesthetics, though, I wanted an Undead Warlock.  I’ve got a Gnome, an Orc, and a Blood Elf. As yet I have never once felt the desire to roll a Human, of any class.  But Undead…there is something wholly appropriate about an Undead Warlock.

I should add that of my tribe of Locks, only my Gnome is level 80, or higher than level 50 for that matter.  My Orc is forever 40, and I lost interest in the Blood Elf long ago, at level 20, when faced with the prospect of walking all the way to the Thandol Span in order to obtain an NPC’s heart for my Succubus quest.  Why in the world that idiot is still standing out there in the middle of nowhere after all these years, I have no idea.

I may not level Liv any further than 10.  I certainly won’t level her further than 20 at this point.  In Patch 3.2, she will be able to obtain her first mount at level 20, so I see no point leveling beyond that right now.

Back to my original starting point for this post, however.  Why another Warlock?  What is it about this class that keeps me rolling more Locks even after reaching 80 on one of them?

For one thing, I will always be a Warlock.  It’s my class in WoW.  I play other classes, but this is what I do best.  I know the spells.  I know the tricks.  Even at level 6, Liv was dotting two and (once) even four mobs at the same time and tanking them while her imp burned ‘em down.

I like how a Warlock’s main tricks of the trade are all available at an early level.  Shadow Bolt, Corruption, Life Tap, Fear, Curse of Agony, Drain Soul, Summon Imp, Summon Voidwalker…they are all in place by the time the players reaches level 11.  Drain Life falls into place at level 14.

Leveling a Warlock is fun, too. With the Life Tap/Bandage combo, there isn’t much down time.  Did I mention your first profession should be First Aid?

Also pointing to ease of play, like Hunters, Warlocks are a pet class, and they are a stamina-strong class that can easily survive over-pulls and other player mistakes.  If you like playing a magic-using class, but don’t like the risks involved in playing a glass cannon like a mage, then the Warlock might be right for you.

There are advantages at higher levels, too.  Being able to solo some group quests is a definite bonus.  I soloed Chillmaw once on my 80 Lock, but it isn’t something I make a habit of.  Until no one is doing the Tournament dailies any longer, it will be easier to find a group than to try to survive that encounter alone.  But when you absolutely can’t find help for that group quest, you can usually find a tactic that allows you to solo it, if you’re a Warlock.

But right now, my 80 is winding down his activities in Northrend.  I raid Ulduar once a week, twice at most, sometimes 25 man and sometimes 10 man.  I am almost finished with the Tournament dailies, for now.  I have about three days left before I am an Exalted Argent Champion of the Alliance.

It’s a good time to find other diversions, and what better diversion than a new Warlock of a faction/race/gender I’ve never played before.  While at it, throw in a profession I haven’t leveled much, like Engineering, and there are hours of good fun ahead.

Noblegardener is perhaps the first World Event meta-achievement actually achievable by a casual player–primarily because all the items needed for the meta-achievement are obtainable by gathering chocolates and buying the items from a Noblegarden vendor in the starting zone where you gather eggs.

That makes it sound easier than it actually is, however.   Wowhead’s Noblegarden guide provides a detailed walkthrough of the Achievements involved, and although completing the meta and earning the title is not completely subject to the whim of the RNG gods, it is subject to how much real-life time you can devote to gathering eggs.

At a minimum, you will need 100 chocolates for the Chocoholic achievement, and at a maximum, 365 chocolates in order to eat 100 and use the remaining 265 to buy your necessary items.  That’s a lot of egg-gathering.  And if you only have evenings free to gather eggs, good luck, because that’s when everyone else will be gathering them, too.  I had great luck yesterday morning, but it was a Monday morning–the only Monday morning available during this holiday.

If the RNG gods smile on you and deliver all the items needed as random loot in your eggs, you’re a lucky fella.  Myself, I’ve already looted close to 250 on my Orc DK, and I still haven’t gotten the white tuxedo shirt, the spring flowers, or spring robes.  Yesterday, I ended up doing Chocoholic and then using the remaining candies to buy the items I needed; however, I still came up 25 chocolates short of buying the Spring Robes.

Unfortunately, my playtime is going to be seriously circumscribed this week due to some real life issues.  I think I can still manage it on my one character, but I don’t know if I can complete any of it on any other character.  Thus since I started the Achievement on my DK, it looks like he will be the one getting the Noble title, rather than my Warlock.

I am really going to put some effort into this holiday.  I came very close to the meta for the Lunar festival, but just couldn’t find the time to finish it.  If it happens again, oh well.  At the very least I’ll be over halfway to achieving the meta next year.

I’m going to do it. Tonight, I’m going to spend the gold necessary to finish leveling Enchanting from 440 to 450. Ten points doesn’t sound like much, but it will probably cost me the better part of 1000 to 1500 gold.

Just doing some quick math using Wowecon to gather prices on Enchanting mats, I compared three recipes that will take me to 450: Enchant Boots: Greater Assault; Enchant Boots: Tuskarr’s Vitality; and Enchant Bracers: Superior Spellpower.

Whichever enchant I use, I will have to buy the recipe, so right there is about 120 gold unless I have a few shards in the bank (I’m not sure if I do). Then, comparing mat costs on my server, I get the following breakdown:

Greater assault = approx. 120 g per skill point

Tuskarr’s Vitality = approx. 100 g per skill point

Superior Spellpower = approx. 144 g per skill point

Without a doubt, I’ll go with Vitality and (hopefully) spend only a little more than 1000 gold to get those 10 points. Since I will definitely be putting the enchants on Vellum to sell on the AH, hopefully I can make some of that money back.

I might even make a profit. The price for a Tuskarr’s Vitality scroll varies pretty widely, but on the high end I might make as much 125 gold. That will be a pretty slim profit margin, but considering that at one time I’d have had to eat the loss entirely, or else stood barking in Trade all day, I don’t mind.

So why am I suddenly so intent on leveling my Enchanting to cap? Two reasons, really.

Formula Enchant Weapon: Bladeward

and

Formula Enchant Weapon: Blood Draining

Both are zone drops within Ulduar, and I am going to Ulduar for the first time tonight. If either of these drop, I do not want to be denied the chance to roll on them.

I still recall with some pain being excluded from a roll on an Enchanting recipe because my Enchanting was a few points lower than the 340 required to use it. I think the recipe was Dexterity, because it dropped in one of the Auchindoun instances.

That was in a guild group, and the only other group member who was an Enchanter was the group leader’s wife. I remember he asked me what my Enchanting skill was at, and without realizing where he was going with the question, I told the truth. And his wife’s glee was almost evident through my monitor as she said, “Well that decides it. I get the recipe.”

Up until that point, I didn’t realize that a person’s profession level should matter at all when handing out recipes. But I can tell you that after that, I made sure my Enchanting was maxed as soon as possible. I wasn’t about to give anyone else an excuse to deny me a roll on a recipe.

Even so, I’ve always had terrible luck on rolls. I never won a single Enchanting recipe from Karazhan, for example. Moroes still has my Mongoose recipe.

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.