So I've got a baby warrior that I've been working on as I'm sure you've noticed. She's cute and adorable and a giant money sink. All my daily quest money goes into supporting her serious need for gear. Yesterday I got 350 engineering (Engineering/Blacksmithing with no mining, WOO!) and made Tankatronic Goggles. Of course I needed a Meta Gem and a regular gem. I also needed a 12 stamina to bracers enchant for my bracers that I got the day before.

This is where trade chat comes in. It went something like this:

Me: LF Jewelcrafter that can cut Eternal Earthstorm Diamond, PST!
Trade Chat: Guild Recruit Spam, Random weirdness, Talk of how someone who is in orgrimmar on their bear mount is an attention whore with no life.

So then a friend suggested that I get people's attention by calling Chuck Norris a sissy. Hmm. Well, couldn't really hurt could it?

Me: Chuck Norris is a SISSY! PS - LF Jewelcrafter to cut Eternal Earthstorm Diamond, PST!

I wasn't really expecting much, was just being silly really. I almost instantly got 5 tells. O.o

Later I was looking for a jewelcrafter again for Enduring Talasite. This is actually a really common gem. Or so I thought, because a couple months back they were all over the auction house for about 15g each. Well that has changed, they're up to 55g on the auction house. (12 stamina gems are about 25g now oddly enough.) Luckily for me, I had a talasite in the bank. Woo!

Me: LF Jewelcrafter to cut Enduring Talasite PST!
Trade Chat: Guild Recruitment Spam, random weirdness, talk of how someone standing around on their bear mount sucks and has no life...same conversation from earlier actually.
*crickets*

"Well...I suppose I COULD try it again."

Me: Chuck Norris is a SISSY! PS - LF Jewelcrafter to cut Enduring Talasite, PST! - Almost instantly resulted in 3 tells. Interesting.

I found it kind of amusing. When I needed a 12 stamina to bracers enchant later on, the same thing happened. Clearly I need to make trade chat a WORSE place by mentioning chuck norris everytime I want something, because it would seem that its the only way to get people to pay attention to my needs...For trade goods...In trade chat.

In other news, I don't really talk about my real personal life much. I don't really like talking about it on the interweb. My close friends know about me and my real life and all my adventures that end in tragedy but I'm not one to talk about it on my WoWBlog, guild chat, trade chat, forums, etc. However I have a sister who we shall call Lily and she has a daughter who we shall call Emma. She actually has two daughters but we don't really talk about the one. She's THAT person in the family. *nod* I'm telling you this because I'm going to tell you about a conversation I had involving these people the other night. I'm not entirely sure WHY, but I am.

I called my sister and this is the conversation that took place:

Emma: Hello?
Me: Hi! Is Lily there?
Emma: Er...No. She's in the emergency room right now.
Me: Er...ok. Is she...alright?
Emma: Well...Yeah...No...Yeah...She just went to the emergency room for...I don't really remember.
Me: Er..ok.
*click*

You would think you'd know what your mum went to the emergency room for but I guess not! I haven't heard any more on the subject since, but I imagine that my sister is fine otherwise I would have heard something from someone. I think.

I don't know about you, but I haven't gotten much done. I have got to play with my characters a bit and like the changes, but I haven't really gotten anything done. Did part of an instance last night on Naissa, I approve of the tanking changes.

This incredibly dark image is the Naissa that we all know and love. I've always liked her facial markings, her hair style and her hair color. Thats about all that I liked though. I hate the ears. I'm also not a big fan of the eyebrows, which every night elf in existance knows are made out of the strongest material in the universe. As a warrior I've worn helmets made out of Steel, Iron, Fel Iron, Dark Iron, Thorium, Mithril, Adamantite, Khorium, Whatever Tiers 1, 2, and 4 are made out of, and whatever the Dungeon 1, 1.5, and 2 sets are made out of. None of those materials were a match for the Night elf Eyebrows of DOOM, they always stick through. If I could do it over again I'd have made a human instead of a night elf, but oh well. Naissa is awesome and I like her. Even if she has stupid eyebrows and ugly ears and her fighting style makes her look like she's drunk...and stupid to start with.  So anyway, to the left is the old Naissa that we all know and love (and hate) and are used to. I wasn't going to change her appearance when barbershops became available but I gave in to temptation...Which is fairly stupid considering I'm always in Deviate Delight/Noggenfogger/Transporter Failure form. >.>

And to our right is the new and "improved" Naissa.  I have algae hair! Ok so its like...radioactive algae hair. I like how it looks, but it makes her ears look bigger which is the LAST thing she needs. I need to bribe one of those barbers that lop of tauren horns and see if they can't do something about Naissa's ears. >.> I'm not entirely sure why I went with green hair since green is one of my least favorite colors.  Anyway, its different and I like it. I think Azizi's hair is next, big pink piggytails are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo last year.  I think the best thing about the new hair customization options are that its cheap enough that I can change how my characters look fairly often. For Naissa's entire new look, it was only around 7 gold.

So other than the instance and the hair stuff, I played my long abandoned hunter. I have one of those, I do! I don't talk about her often because she was leveled and played way before TBC and the hunter class was very different then and I prefered it to TBC Huntering. Sorry hunters, I just like pre-BC hunters more. I couldn't pass up the chance to tame a new and "exotic" pet though. So I hopped on my hunter, came up with a spec, and decided I would go tame a Devilsaur.  Flew down to un'goro and discovered that most other hunters had the same idea so finding a Devilsaur was hard. Finally found one and tamed it.

So here is my hunter, with STOMP the T-Rex. Why Stomp? Because thats what they DO!

Playing WoW again recently. For the record I think that WAR is a better game in almost every aspect but unfortunately I haven't really found anybody to play with, which takes most of the fun out of it. Which in turn leads to me playing more WoW than WAR. I have fun with WAR, but its not the same without anybody you know...You know?

I was reading this thread on the general forums today and it made me feel somewhat old. I "get it" and I remember enjoying that game. (Read the replies, if you've been playing video games for a long time, you should get it. :P)

Also called Naissa's Guide to Not being a Ginourmous Fuckhead.

From time to time on the internet you'll make friends. Sometimes these friends will have other friends, or family, or significant others. This can be tricky! It seems to me that most people aren't really sure how this works!

Friends/Family/Significant others of your friends are people, not lepers. Now granted, you don't HAVE TO Play with Bob's mentally deficient cousin that thinks its a good idea to be a protection paladin wearing cloth, but you SHOULD include friends of friends in things from time to time and engage in conversation with them so that they don't feel like they've got the plague or something.

Let me give you an example. My bestest friend in the entire universe and me had two friends that are no longer friends because they're asshats. They would always say "Hey Naissa do you want to run X instance?" Always. They would never ask her! Ever! This lead to hurt feelings and me being cranky. It wasn't that they just needed X class and that was me, because at the time I was a DPS warrior 100% of the time, and you don't NEED one of those for a 5 man!

So I've made a handy chart type thing. We'll get to that later.

If someone is a friend of a friend, you don't HAVE TO like them, theres no rule or law that says you do but you should probably NOT pretend they don't exist, or only talk to them to ask them where your friend is. Thats rude, and you want to avoid doing that. If you go 3 months without saying a word to someone and then you say "Hi - Where is Bob?" The first thought going through their mind is how they can kill you without geting caught.

Its not nice, it leads to hurt feelings, don't do it!

Lets talk about SOs - If someone's husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/mail order bride plays the same game, its probably a good idea to talk to them and invite them to things from time to time, even if they usually say no, because 10 times out of 10 someone is going to choose their SO over you. "Sorry Tom, like you, but I love Susan and Susan says you're an asshat, don't talk to me anymore!" - You probably want to avoid that, or you're a shitty friend to start with.

Also if you're a hooker you probably want to avoid acting like such to someone's SO unless you're looking for trouble. For example:

Hi Janet/Tom do you want to go to heroic underbog? - GOOD
Janet, I was wondering do you have any pictures? PREFERABLY TOPLESS EH EH EH? - BAD
Tom, Did you know that Janet is a horrible person and she's not right at all for you? - BAD! BAD! BAD! Stay out of people's personal business! >< ;;

Why am I posting this? Because I've seen this happen entirely too often. Enjoy!

Greetins Landlubber - Today be National Talk Like a Pirate Day jest so ya know, matey! And I be the fearsome Capn Crun-errr Captain Naissa, Savvy? ARRRRR!

Now normally us buccaneers don't be observing holidays or followin' landlubber's rules but seein' as this un's about us - I think we'll make an exception YAR!

If yer a filthy landlubber but ye want in on the piratey action t'day - Ye can find ye some scurvy bilge-rat pretend pirates in all the major city that'll give ye proper piratin' attire. (60 minute buff - When you die, it dies, matey.)

See ye on the seas!

(Fun as this is, I hope I can stop talkin' like this soon. YARRRR!)

Well I finally got to try out that Executioner enchant on my King's Defender. I really like it. The extra threat is verrrrrrry nice. I'd recommend it to anyone that is thinking about it.

I tanked Heroic Magister's Terrace and picked up [Commendation of Kael'thas] which puts me at around 16.5k health unbuffed. Its really nice. Like really really nice. I haven't noticed the proc much because I've mostly been tanking Heroic MgT, which is mostly spell damage, and the proc requires a melee attack to reduce you below 35%. I also had 35 badges so I decided to pick up [Slikk's Cloak of Placation] but I'm not entirely sure I like it. Its an upgrade true enough but its just...ehhhh. I don't know. Theres just something about it that I don't like.

I've been pretty bored lately but also really cranky so I haven't felt much like leveling Moossa. I was going through my bank and I found [Alliance Battle Standard]. That brings back memories. I can't recall the last time I actually saw one of those used. I remembered that pre-BC when I had like 6k or 7k health (and that was a big deal back then! O.O ) I got Fort/Kings/Mark, went into AV, dropped a battle standard and popped last stand. I don't remember exactly how much health I had, but it was around 15,000 I think and everyone was all "OMG thats awesome."

At the time it was like the coolest thing ever to me but now with 16.5k health unbuffed it doesn't really seem all that impressive. So I went into AV yesterday to see how high my health could get. I got Kings/Fort/Mark and I drank a fortitude elixir. I went and tanked Galv so that we got the +stamina buff. Then I dropped a battle standard and popped last stand. The end result?

So what am I up to now? Still bored. Trying to get that trinket from Heroic MgT for Azizi. Its not looking good though.

I just wanted to post and say I'm still alive and everything. I'll try to be more active on the blog but I've been busy busy!

As you can see (If you click for the full size image.) I've stolen Ambi's hippy damage font. Not sure if anyone remembers Ambi. She's been MIA for awhile now.

(This started out as a story about me tanking something and ended up being all educational and informative. Bleh!)

So you may have figured out by the picture of me attacking Prince's feet and the title (Tanking PUG Karazhan) that I tanked Karazhan last night for a group of people I don't know. I had just finished doing my arena matches for the night (1650ish in 5s. Woo! Yeah ok I'm still a scrub.) when one of my guildies mentioned he was having problems tanking prince. He said that he was tanking Prince Malchezaar and that getting crushing blows and he wanted to know why.

This is a pretty common question. When you click on Defense in your skill tab it says

Higher Defense improves your chance to dodge, parry, and block attacks, makes you harder to hit, and makes monsters less likely to land a critical strike against you.

and according Tankspot/Evil Empire and personal experience, Defense from gear/anticipation does not reduce your chance to take crushing blows. When you block an attack it can't be a crit or a crushing blow and since you probably already have a high chance to block and you'll be keeping Shield Block up as much as possible (read: Every time its off cooldown. Every. Single. Time.) you won't be seeing crushing blows all that often. Prince WILL crush you though. While he's dual-wielding he attacks extremely fast and eats through your shield block charges quickly, which leaves you open to crushing blows.

A couple of my guildies asked me if I could come and tank Prince for them. I figured that they made it to Prince so how bad could the pug be? (Famous last words right?) So I went and did a quick Respec to Protection and then got summoned out to Karazhan. Being a PUG I was worried about the healing but I have to say the healing was great and the prince fight went without incident. Well ok a hunter died and the other warrior died. Paladin/Rogue/Shaman T4, Healing Ring (I think), and the "Rogue" Dagger dropped.

I figured my job was done and was about to hearth out when they said they wanted to go do Nightbane. Uh-oh. So we all ran down to Nightbane's area and they summoned him. We lost 2 mages and a Priest somehow during that fight. The mages died during the air phase and I'm not entirely sure what happened to the priest. When he was about to land the second time there was someone standing right next to me and I was so worried that they were going to get cleaved and die but somehow they managed to live. I almost died a couple times but potions, Last Stand, and Shield Wall and good healers saved me. With the loss of the two mages the DPS slowed down a lot so I think that coupled with the loss of the one priest made the healing a lot harder and by the end there they were running low on Mana which is probably why I almost died.

I had fun and I got to try out my new boots (They rock!) which made me happy. I'd definitely do that again and I hope that they ask me to come and do that again because it was pretty fun. Its so weird that people PUG that place now because I remember when we first got to Prince we had so many issues with him.

Her name is Kat. She's probably one of the most artistic people I know. Look what she did:

Seriously, how cool is that? Its my cow...But with tier 6 and lightning! Lightning cow ftw. You can check our more stuff she's made here but Lightning Cow is her best work imo. Ok I'm just saying that because its a tauren.

I listened to Episode 3 of the Twisted Nether Blogcast this morning which mentioned a post by Big Bear Butt about keeping WoW interesting and whether or not WoW still satisfies your needs in a game.

Theres so much left in WoW for me to do before the expansion comes out and when the expansion comes out there will be tons more to do so I really don't think I'll be losing interest in it anytime soon. WoW does a great job in providing something for everybody. Theres always SOMETHING to do. Something to work on. Badges/Honor/Arena Points for gear, profession leveling, etc.

I really don't like playing on my Night Elf Warrior right now, but thats not because theres nothing to do. If I wanted to I could get online and find an instance group almost instantly. I've got PvPing I can do, daily quests, etc. The problem with her isn't lack of things to do. My tauren warrior pretty much has my undivided WoW attention at the moment. Its just so much fun leveling her and playing with her and doing the horde quests which are still new and somewhat exciting to me because I've only ever done them twice, unlike the alliance quests that I've done a billion times.

I've got my complaints about WoW but its managed to hold my attention longer than any other game has. Blizzard is good about that. Before WoW I really liked WC3 and played it quite a bit. This is my first MMO though. I've tried others but this is the only one that I've actually been able to stick with for more than a day or so. I just love the character and camera controls in WoW and those two things have been pretty blah to me in other MMOs that I've tried. I really like the graphics in WoW too, the graphics are nice. They're not ultra-realistic which is something that I've seen a lot of people complain about recently but I prefer it this way. I don't like playing games that try to be super realistic because they end up looking more "fake" to me. Something about the faces of the characters. Specifically the eyes.

Recently I've been playing Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines when I feel like playing something but not WoW.

On an unrelated note: We're currently working on picking our top 3 favorite article contest submissions. Results will be out...when they're out!

For all the complaining about the GMs that goes on, I've had very few complaints. I've always found them to be helpful. They've almost always resolved my issues quickly.

My first ever run in with a GM was when a mod that I was using bugged out and vendored my gear when I tried to swap gear while I had a repair vendor's window up. This was at level 60 and it was long LONG before the buy-back the last 12 items feature was implemented. It took them maybe a week to restore my items. I logged in one day and there were all my items (All blues but they were nice at the time!) CoD for their vendor cost.

Then I had a character that I didn't like so I deleted her but awhile later changed my mind and got her back. Blizzard was very understanding and very helpful and I was thankful that they helped me.

More recently I was doing Karazhan and we killed Curator, looted our badges, got disconnected and came back to discover the badges weren't in our bags and weren't on curator. We all opened tickets. Everyone else got their badges back after a few days but my GM told me that he couldn't restore my badges. So once other people started getting theirs back I opened another ticket and pointed this out and within hours got my badges.

Our Main Tank's account got stolen, all his gear and gold and bags and everything were gone. Except his PvP and rep gear that couldn't be vendored. His gear was back in a week. Gems and all intact I believe. No gold and no bags though. Still it was good that he got all his gear back because it took him a LONG time to get that gear.

A friend of mine stopped playing about 6 months ago and recently came back to discover that their characters were all naked and goldless. I kind of expected this because a few months ago one of their characters signed on and wasn't speaking in the way that was normal for this person. Lots of "u" instead of "you" which is totally not like my friend. I had no way of contacting them though to tell them that someone was on their account. So now theres the usual process of contacting blizzard and requesting help. At first Blizzard said that they weren't sure how it would go because it had been so long ago but then they said they would do a full restore.

Today they sent an email saying that they couldn't find a record of all the gear so they would compensate with gold instead. At this point in time I would be furious if it happened to me. No matter how much gold they gave me. They could give me 10,000g per character on my account and it wouldn't make up for what was lost and all the hours spent acquiring it. I'd like to think that I'm not an unreasonable person. I just can't put a price in gold on all the things I have. How do you put a gold price on a [Swift Zulian Tiger]? Or even if that was still there how do you put a price on all the heroic mech runs it took me to get my Sun Eater, or the months of karazhan it took to get King's Defender? The hundreds of badges I've farmed, the thousands and thousands of honor/arena points spent? Pretty much the only stuff I could replace with gold would be my crafted items and I've only got like 4 of those.

They offered 350g per level 70 character on the account and considerably less for all characters under 70. :/ Personally I think thats unacceptable. I know that they can't just give all the items back to this person if they can't find a record of all the items that the characters had and heck if my friend can remember them all with the 4 of 5 70s they had, I just think a gold reward, especially that small, is silly.

I don't even know what I'd do in this situation. Other than tell them I find it to be unacceptable and hope they could come up with something better. :/