Whirly: good to go

Mark’s account has been hacked. That’s what the email from Blizzard said. It also mentioned they had locked his account. Mark believes it started with a visit to a malicious WoW web site. Blizzard requires you to crawl on your knees to South Africa to regain control of your account. Mark is off on that quest. He’s also getting an education in internet security.

As you can imagine, he’s a little pissed about the whole thing. Also concerned he might find all his stuff and characters gone when he get his account back. It’s a terrible thought. I’ve been trying to assure him it doesn’t matter. It’s not the stuff or characters that make it fun to play.

While we await Marks return, Mike and I are trying something different. We are working two characters to the high teens so we can do battlegrounds. Mike is a hunter. I’ve been trying a range of toons figuring out which would be best. I popped into a battleground tonight with my 18 hunter and got myself owned, but it was fun. At the end of the battle I checked the stats and the high scorers, alliance and horde, were rogues. I’ve decided to go with a rogue.

I’m intending to be a major twink, gear, enchants, everything. I suppose everybody will hate me. Doesn’t that sound like fun? I wonder if we can get Mark to start a druid or shaman. That would be fun. Even with a post-hacked account.

We popped into Razorfen Downs for the last time. Embarrassingly, we died on the third pull when we got two groups; ten guys were just too much for us. Everything else was just an average crawl. Even the bosses weren’t that much of a challenge.

Mike and I, mage/priest, had a little difficulty when Mark, our warrior, took an unplanned re-boot break. We worked it out. Mark had to take a short break, when the tornado sirens started blowing, to check if he was in danger. He’s a real trooper and we finished the instance like it was a yellow brick road. We found we could always go home by clicking our hearth stone.

We took all the bosses and even got a few non-leather drops. I got a new neck and chest. We tried the escort mission, but we’d come in the other way so hadn’t cleared anything. I couldn’t heal or buff the guy we were escorting and he went down the first big group we ran into.

It was a fun night. Mark and I dinged 44 and Mike didn’t have much further to go. There isn’t anything left in there for us. We be done with Razorfen Downs. On to Zul’Farrak, I think that’ll still be a bit hard for us, or back to Uldaman for another level; we still need to go downstairs and try the big guy.

We put the Lifestealing enchant on a 44 weapon Mark brought along just because we could. It’s hard to tell how much good it did. I haven’t parced the heals. The glow isn’t very special.

Mark had us practicing AE (area effect) killing in Uldaman Monday. He says we need to work it out. For what, I don’t know. Probably something bad.

Here’s how it works: I shield the warrior (Mark) and mage (Mike). Warrior pulls and tries to get the five to seven guys rounded up in a bunch. The mage starts doing whatever mage do to piss them all off and I chain flash-heal the mage till we are the only ones left standing. It’s very slick and easy. I’m always surprised when it works.

Here’s how it fails: Warrior pulls but can’t round them up quickly, with two casters it’s not easy. Warrior now needs a heal. All the mobs start beating on me because of heal aggro, I heal me. Mage starts his stuff. Warrior is trying to get aggro. I’m getting heal aggro. Mage is getting boom aggro. If the mage gets aggro, while I’m healing the warrior or myself, the mage will die before I can get a heal on him. It happened twice. It’s fairly easy for the warrior to clear what’s left. I rez the mage and we move along.

If there is a choice, I’m going to let the warrior die next time. I figure, once the mage starts booming, we don’t need him anyway. Taurens take up a lot of room you know.

I spent another 1000 gold on enchantment formulas this weekend. I’m going to take an acquisition break for a bit. I never would have started this knowing what I know now.

I occasionally offer my services to the community, “Free enchants (YOU supply the mats).” Invariably I get a tell from somebody wanting one of those free enchants - they have no materials. Or asking how much I charge for a certain enchant – I have no materials.

I probably should change the message to, “If you’ve researched an enchant, and collected the materials, I’ll enchant for free” or, “If you have an interest in an enchant, I’ll tell you what you’ll need.” Ahh, it’s too hard trying not to be rude. Not being rude is one of my major goals in life; enchanting isn’t helping.

So far, I’ve made 1 gold as a tip enchanting. I didn’t ask for the tip, but I took it. 1999 more tips and I’ll break even. I never would have started this knowing what I know now.

Whoosh, this enchanting is expensive; I’m talking real expensive. At 43 we are playing with high end enchants and it hurts.

Let’s look at Crusader, something I’ve been working towards. The formula for Crusader cost 400 Gold (g). I need a ruined arcanite bar, which requires an arcanite bar. The ingredients plus tip for the 57 warrior, with no enchants on his weapon, who made it, cost nearly 100g. The ingredients to make it ruined – 83g, using Allakahazam pricing, I think I might have paid more for some of that stuff. The ingredients for Crusader are another 128g bringing our total to 711g.

711g, is that crazy? I should have never gone into the enchanting business. Fishing, That sounds way better.