It's Bloody 2008

And I’m sick. Suppose I was overdue for a bug of some kind.
Went home early yesterday and lay helpless in bed, sniffing and sneezing, barely strong enough to pull a fresh tissue from the nightstand.
Yeah, no. Went home and joined an SM PUG :D
Certainly sniffed and sneezed my way through it, but it was far better than being that annoying plague victim in the cube next to you at work.
So, it’s January 10. Last post was December 9? Good lord. I need to stay on top of this thing.
WoW is still at the forefront of my online activities, amazingly. My girlfriend bought me a beautiful 19” widescreen LCD monitor for Christmas, so I’m playing in a fantastic 1400 x 900 resolution with gorgeous colors.
Still playing with my hunter, though I had another lapse of altism a week after the last entry and rolled a Troll holy priest (and, um, a warrior and, uh, oh…a rogue). She’s level 29 now, and the hunter just dinged 38 last night.
I’d fallen into some boredom with the hunter, and I think that it was largely because I didn’t (and still don’t) know what I was doing. I didn’t know, for example, that one could temporarily tame pets just to learn their special abilities and then teach them to their main pets. Kind of important.
So when I learned this last week, I jumped back to the hunter and immediately ran out and tamed an Arathi spider for Bite (rank 4, I think), a Stranglethorn Tiger for Dash (rank 1) and a Desolace scorpid for Claw (rank 5). Got this done in about 45 minutes. I then shot back over to Org and overhauled talents for my pet and I both. I switched from Marksman to Beast Master and amped my Raptor up with all her new skills.
The difference is beyond insane. She now holds aggro like nobody’s business (we had two warriors in SM yesterday, and she kept stealing aggro until I turned Growl off (noob moment of the day). I also found myself consistently surviving confrontations of 3 and 4 same-level mobs at a time in Dustwallow Marsh.
I suppose it’s not all that big a deal; my warlock could always handle stuff like that. It just seems harder to manage multiples as a hunter since I have to maintain ranged attacks. The warlock had no minimum range with dots or nukes.
The SM run yesterday went fine, aside from a few wipes. One thing in particular really pissed me off: since when did respawns ever appear so quickly?
We ran the Library first and lost our mage right before Arcanist Doan. We ran back to escort our new member inside, and found that every single fucking mob had respawned. We hadn’t even been inside for 30 minutes. So we fought our way through it all again and took a break for supplies and repair before hitting the Armory. Same story. We had a full wipe at one point less than 30 minutes in, and found that everything was right back in play. Stationary groups and pats alike. No one seemed to recall SM ever respawning that quickly, and it was a serious pain in the ass to clear it all again.
Maybe it’s something Blizz implemented to counterbalance the leveling boost from patch 2.3? Whatever it is, it’s bullshit.
Suffice to say, I left SM and gathered mats straightaway to finally level my Engineering up to 165 and craft the Goblin Jumper Cables. Even if they rarely work, it’s worth it to have them around and not have to clear a whole fucking instance again.
Still haven’t taken my Omilia, my mage, past 60 yet. To be honest, I really enjoy my new guild and want to transfer her and Mercot over when the waiting period ends. It was a complete waste of money to take them to my brother’s server…long story. Seriously, this will be the last time I transfer those characters.
I did respec Omilia to learn Icy Veins after Tuesday, though. Ran a random twink through RFC to get a feel for her again. I do so love the mage. Nothing quite like decimating 15 or 20 Ragefire Troggs all at once with Nova and Blizzard. I’d like to play her more after the transfer and really practice AOE farming in WPL. Should be decidedly more challenging than level 14 elites. J
Everyone and their Orc greatmother is making WoW New Year Resolutions, so I guess I’ll make a few of my own:
No more server transfers after February 28, 2008.
Level Omilia to 70.

And relatively unrealistic goals:
Level the hunter, Paquita, at least to 60
Level the priest, Pulaski, at least to 60
If I get Paquita to 70, attain 375 epic flying skill and craft the engineer flying mount :)

That’s it for now. I hope to get Paquita to 40 this weekend, and nab her chicken mount. Pics forthcoming.