…My gnomey shadow priest’s looking more than a little Sha-touched these days. Between her strangely frightening visage, as you can see above, and the Shafiend that keeps following her around, even on her farm (see below), she’s gotten a little bit more evil as the season has worn on.
I completely blame/credit LFR. While it certainly can never take the place of the feeling of exhileration that comes from being part of a successful collaborative raid team that’s kicking booty, it has been a great way to keep a toe in raiding on my favorite class, despite not having a schedule that could accommodate regular raiding with a guild.
I’m crossing my fingers, however, that we’ll be able to do some 10-mans with Friend or Foe soon. I had the pleasure of finally completing Terrace of Endless Spring last night, thanks to two FoF tanks (/waves at Manglehaft), and can tell it would be a great experience to casually raid with those folks.
I haven’t made much progress on the alts, other than getting the shaman to 90 a few weeks ago. I mean to be leveling my boomkin, but I mostly want to play my shadow priest. No, my Alliance shadow priest. Not, you-know-who. She’s still hoveringaround at 85, trying to figure out if there’s anyone left to play with on Bronzebeard…
I have a confession to make: I’ve been running around Pandaria, listening in on your deepest secrets. No — really. You see, in the midst of my inscription research one day, I made a glyph of confession. And I couldn’t resist the temptation of learning it myself instead of just making a few and selling them for profit.
The first player I targeted and cast the spell of confession upon told me: “I go into dungeons not to make Azeroth a better place, but just for loot.”
Just as I’d expected! My fellow adventurers weren’t really in it just for the thrill of adventure. I KNEW IT!
Inspired to learn more secrets, I targeted more adventurers standing around int he tavern. That mage in the flashy dress nursing a beer? They said: “I really wasn’t prepared. Who knew?”
Ha! You probably mooched a ton of fish feasts off those of us who *were* prepared, missy!
That other shadow priest though, they were the one I really wanted to find out more about. Casually, I shifted out of shadow form for a moment and stopped to talk to the bartender. Then, when I was sure they weren’t paying any attention to little gnomey me, I cast the spell and learned: “I have stood in the fire.”
Woah. Really? You just..stood there? For shame! You could have at least dispersed! Bah!
I stood there pondering this for a moment, when out of nowhere I saw myself saying “I never use the lightwell.”
Quickly glancing around, I looked for that sneaky shadowpriest. And sure enough, he was targeting me. Beaten at my own game by a fellow shadow priest! Oh, the humanity!
As recently noted, transmogrification was the #1 thing I was looking forward to in Patch 4.3 which dropped this week. Thus it should come as no surprise that when I finally logged in to WoW, post-SWTOR BETA weekend, that the first activity on my agenda (and my only activity thus far) was to get my transmogrifitcations in order.
My first order of business was my druid, Candy. At one point, all of her bank bags, plus two of her personal bags were stuffed full of old gear and vanity pets. Eventually, our pets went into the Companion tab, which meant she was able to hoard even more gear and tabards. I considered her full set of Tier 1, and the T2 recolored set from BC heroics, but settled on her full set of T2. In addition to loving its look, it was a minor miracle to have collected all 8 pieces at level (only 1 other druid on our team also got all 8 pieces, my friend El.). My vanilla WoW raiding days were definitely the high point for my druid, so I love that she is now able to forever memorialize that moment in time.
Next up: my gnome shaodw priest Snake. She was born a Draenei at the dawn of the Burning Crusade. And as soon as she hit max level, she was tapped by her friends and family guild to start coming to the weekly Karazhan raids. Everyone wanted her OP replenishment and healing powers. I still remember the night the Staff of Infinite Mysteries dropped for her. I couldn’t stop grinning for a solid hour. It totally made the outfit. “…the Menagerie is for guests only…”
My beloved shadow priest Anexxia, however, did not have a similar happy transmogrification story to share. Her bank is somehow a mess of mismatched helms and shoulders, one dress, and a few other misc bits. But most importantly, her halo is missing. That’s right– my most favorite piece of her gear, which I have posed with in numerous costumes/dress up screenies– POOF! To say that this deflated my transmogrification high would be accurate. I poked around, and settled on an outfit, but I am not happy with it. I wanted the halo. I’ve put in a ticket asking to have the item restored, but given my recent track record with GM requests, I won’t hold my breath.
How about you — how has your transmogrification been going?
Recently, on twitter, pretty much from the moment Blizzard announced them as the new expansion’s focus and new race at Blizzcon, there has been much backlash against the Pandaren. I’ve seen many comparisons to Ewok and gnomes (because apparently many many people feel sickened and/or threatened by gnomey awesomeness) and assertions of how their “silliness” as a class equates to Blizzard having jumped the shark and ruined the World of Warcraft.
All I can say to that is: BALONEY!
Personally, I am equally at home with my love of vanity pets and gnomes and kittens and being a face melting shadow priest! I challenge anyone who has played with me to honestly say “Oh that Anexxia is such a carebear gnome lover and kitten scratcher that it gets in the way of her being a good player; she really needs to L2play.”
The entire style of WoW, to me, is somewhat cartooney, versus hyper realistic. It’s not meant to be a very serious representation of modern life. I don’t want to play a character that looks just like me in real life– I play me in real life every day. Having a little fun with appearances doesn’t change my ability to play in any way. Yes, sometimes we are going about very serious business, such as very important raid boss killing, but at the end of the day, we are playig a game, with a goal of having fun. And having a dancing gnome shadow priest in your raid is fun! Not as fun as a dancing boomkin perhaps, but FUN all the same!
You know what else is fun? Bouncing along as you run. I bounce on my night elf. I bounce on my Forsaken. I bounce on my gnomes. And the bounciness is contagious. Before you know it, you have other folks bouncing along in synchronization with you! And suddenly that long run back from that wipe isn’t quite as annoying.
Frankly, it always puzzles me how much anti-gnome sentiment I’d hear while playing my beloved gnomey casters. Now, Pandaren have taken up the mantle of most heckled and despised race. I don’t particularly like the hunchbacked, ever-sniffing worgen, but I don’t go on Internet tirades about how they ruined Wow and are ridiculous insults to my gaming self. I just simply don’t play one. Hopefully the anti-Pandaren uproar will die down and folks will find something else to deride. If not, at least all you pandas will have a nice thick furry skin to deflect the criticism. And hopefully you’ll have an awesome beer-powered dance to dance those cares away with…
PS a big thank you to Cyn for suggesting I actually post about this.
Hasten ye to Orgrimarr and Stormwind to embark upon a new adventure, which will eventually result in this creepy crate following you home. He will clatter behind you all clickety clackety, occasionally popping up an eye– or a tongue– for a quick look around. Get him too close to a critter and ZAP! purpley lightning will wrap around them and suck them into the crate.
Watch out tho– I haven’t found a way to get rid of the foul stench from his green gaseous emissions…
BREAKING NEWS: There seems to be a shadow priest lurking within the creepy crate! the shadow orbs do not lie!
Like most crackpot ideas, this one was hatched over a nice cold cocktail at the end of a long hot day: wouldn’t Azeroth be an even more beautiful and happy place if my two favorite heroes found love with each other? That was a thought that crept into my head last night, as the temperature inside our apartment pushed past 80 degrees.
They are both powerful leaders and snappy dressers. Both are at home amongst the undead.
Yeah, I know, it’s not much to go on. Perhaps I needed another cocktail. But it just seemed so right as I mulled it over last night.
Sure, I know it would be hard for them to get over their disparate faction allegiances. But think of what a great army they could bring together against Deathwing? Wouldn’t that be reason enough to join forces?
I'm a smidge tardy with this week's Friday Five, thanks to having spent the better part of the week out of town. But I did get home in time to see some of Blizzard's April Fool's handiworks. And thius, this week's five:
Appearance tab. Acknowledging the continued requests of our players, an Appearance tab has been added to the game! The Appearance tab will finally, at long last, allow players to customize the look of their non-combat pets. Simply summon a non-combat pet and use the Appearance tab to change its look to that of any of the other non-combat pets you own. Summon, customize, and play! NOTE: of course, we'd *really* like to see this come true for characters, not pets, but still.
Acknowledgement that there's not a lot of choice in the talent trees. Talents are now automatically chosen for a player based on the main specialization chosen.
Super herber status. Druids now perform an area-of-effect knockback when harvesting herbs, looting, or skinning (does not remove Flight Form). NOTE: none of my druids are herbers, mind you, but this would be too funny.
Mirror images now more magey. In addition to their current spells, mage Mirror Images now can randomly cast Frost Nova, Ring of Frost, Portal: Dalaran, and Mirror Image. Mirror Images summoned by Mirror Images can also cast Mirror Image. Mirror Images summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images can also cast Mirror Images. Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images that are summoned by Mirror Images…
Priest class conversion. Evangelism now has a 2% chance to convert all surrounding party members to the priest class.
BONUS: Female warlocks are now correctly called witches.
