Now that my Tauren Warrior of Super Ultimate Cuteness is raiding, what am I going to do until WotLK? And what am I going to do when WotLK is released?

Prior to WotLK:

Do as much Kara/ZA/Gruul/etc as possible.
Get a bloody epic shield.
Start leveling a druid, probably tauren.
Learn more about Inscription. (Banana Shoulders has a great Inscription Guide)
Get over this stupid flu. (THE PLAGUE!)

Things to do when WotLK is released:

Level Cowssa
Level Warlock
Level Drood
Level Hunter
Level inscription on one of the above
Avoid Death Knights.

I WILL be leveling Naissa, but the tauren is getting level priority. I've heard a rumor that some of my friends would like me to level through instances with them on Naissa and I'll gladly do that.

Dear Dual-Plagued Brain in my backpack,

While I find it fascinating that you can no longer hear the voice of the lich king, that theres fire in your eyes, that you want to eat my brains, that you want me to put you out of your misery because you've done horrible things, that the lich king will enjoy eating my soul, that you're a brain that can communicate with me and that you must feed...PLEASE SHUT UP. GAHHHHHHH. Hate. You.

-Naissa/Cowssa.

I picked up the brain quest and then went off to do dailies with the brain still in my bags. Don't do that. Its really annoying...for you.

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.

Tonight the new warrior went in Zul'Aman. As someone who is still undergeared that was somewhat terrifying. "Its just ZA!" but some things in there could probably make hamburger out of me in seconds. We went for as many chests as we could get and we got 3. Is there anything IN the 4th chest now? We did the Bear boss second and our main tank died. It went something like this:

Tank: *dies*
Me: Oh God Oh God Oh God
Me: Oh I should probably taunt that.
Me: *taunts* *frantically mashes buttons* Oh god oh god oh god

We killed him though! We won!...And then I died from the DoT. >.>

We didn't get any MooTank loots but I did get enough badges to buy Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx. Which makes me a happy tauren. A verrrrry happy tauren. One green left!

Yeah so I gave in to the urge to play with the Barbershop again today. I had just finished daily quests and had some gold to burn and I was curious to see if I could make my tauren look better. I'm not sure the new look is BETTER but I find it to be highly amusing. Are female taurens supposed to have ginourmous horns? O.o

Yeah... Looks a little weird doesn't it? I think so...but I LIKE it!

So...I've been playing my hunter alt quite a bit the last couple days. Well sort of...I should say I've WANTED to play my hunter alt quite a bit over the last couple of days, but I haven't actually done so.  Every time I've tried to play my hunter someone has found something else for me to be doing. One of those times though it was an old friend from before WoW that wanted me to play WC3 with him. That was pretty fun actually even though I'm pretty sure I'm horrible at it now.

So this new pet leveling thing is awesome. I had a level 37ish plainstrider in my hunter's stable and when I took it out of the stable it was level 57 or so. Awesome! Stomp is leveling nicely too. Thats really all I have to report on my hunter playing because I'm not familiar with the class anymore...So I'm mostly just sending my pet in and mashing buttons..and pulling aggro. >.>

Warriors! I got a chance to play my warrior a bit...and...its...AWESOME. Its not awesome because its easier, (Which is not so awesome actually) its awesome because...its awesome! At the moment I'm doing daily quests on the tauren and its a much better experience than before. Before it took forever to kill anything, now I'm killing things quite quickly. Not as fast as a fury warrior would but I've got NO downtime. I like this whole enrage thing too. (Damage increased by 10% when you Block/Parry/Dodge) So I'm spending 2 rage and getting 1900 crits. Woo!

Haven't touched my Paladin/Warlock/Mage yet, so I have nothing to report there.

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!

So this here is my latest warrior alt.  She's an albino tauren and she's completely awesome. Last night she did Karazhan with her guild. At this point in the game I'm sure people are getting sick of Karazhan, but I still adore it. I'm exalted with Karazhan on my Warrior and Warlock and I believe I'm Revered on my paladin. So I've done quite a bit of Karazhan.

Even though I've done it a lot, there are still things I'm discovering about it. I've spent a LOT of time in Curator's room, because we got stuck on him for a bit when I was first doing Karazhan. Just the other week though I noticed the ginourmous owls that decorate the sides of the room. I mentioned this in raid chat and it seems that quite a few people never noticed the massive owls on the sides of the room.

So anyway last night I ventured into Karazhan on my tauren as an off-tank and I walked out with some fairly nice swag. Moroes was kind enough to drop something very Drool Worthy for me. He gave me Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch.Which is totally awesome. A good time piece is a very important tool for an up and coming cow...As is a massive amount of dodge! She's a Dodgy Cow! >.> After that I got Fool's Bane for when I need to lay the melee smack down on something.  It looks awesome, it IS awesome, and its all mine!

Its definitely an entirely different experience from Naissa. Its kind of like when Naissa first ventured into Karazhan, before she was SuperWarrior (Shhh) and she had blue gear...It was...somewhat dangerous. Things could gib me. I was terrified but it was fun. I offtanked Moroes, and I tanked the humanoid in the Huntsman fight.  I tanked lots of trash and a couple other things in boss fights. I was a little nervous on Nightbane when our Main Tank died, but he got battle-rez'd and got the boss back on him. It was pretty awesome.

I'm looking at something like this:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=LVZhZVItrxckVzI0sGo
or
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=LVZhbZVItMxckVzI0sGo

For when the patch hits. I'll probably end up with something more cookie cutter as time goes by, but for now its probably going to be one of those too. I'll definitely do a lot of playing around with my spec (Which could get expensive ) once the patch hits.

Just a couple days left...and I can't wait.

I'm playing yet another warrior alt and doing instances with it. (I've got a warrior fetish, leave me alone.) Its very different than tanking instances on a geared warrior, you have to be a lot more careful for one thing.

With Naissa I can get away with being a bit lazy and don't have to do things perfectly. Nothing is going to insta-gib her. Even if I wasn't playing an undergeared tank alt, it would probably be a good idea to get back into the habit of doing things properly now that we're so close to the expansion.

1) Remember that you're only 1/5 of an instance group. Your role is extremely important, but there are 4 other people with you. Your role is to protect those people, even if its from themselves and their own stupidity. You're the poor sap that stands there on the front lines and gets smashed in the face repeatedly so that the other people don't have to. Keep your Taunt and Intervene bound to easily reachable keys. It could be the difference between life and death for someone in your group. Don't assume that someone can handle something if they pull it off of you. Unless you don't like them, then by all means, let them die.

2) Speaking of hotkeys - Remember to bind all of your abilities to keys. Even if you're a PRO Clicker, clicking for intervene is probably going to result in someone dying.

3) Be familiar with, at the very least, the boss fights of the instance you're doing. I've gone into a few instances blind and relied on the DPS who had been there before telling me what the bosses do. Usually this resulted in them leaving out something that the boss did only to the tank. Thats not a good situation to be in. (Not as bad as a 3 melee DPS heroic Mech group that doesn't know how the Positive/Negative debuff works and commits mass suicide because of it.)

4) Never give up. Oh no, the hunter, while trying to trap, just pulled an extra group of mobs and now they're headed straight for you? Don't give up! Try your best to get the mobs on you and keep them there. Do your best to stay alive and keep everyone else alive. I've been in some situations that seemed hopeless, but by not giving up, we were able to get through them with all or most of us alive.

5) Save as many people as you can. You're a warrior, and lets face it, you weren't given many ways to get AWAY from combat. You're big and slow, and if it goes pear shaped you're going to die. You don't have feign death, invisiblity, vanish, etc. So when things go bad, and you KNOW you aren't going to pull through...Try to save as many other people from dying as possible. Give the mage the time for invisbility to work, or if people are running for the instance entrance (Which is annoying btw) - Try to buy them time. You won't make it, but they might. You're going to eat the repair bill either way.

6) Don't be afraid to tell someone what to do. You're the tank, which means that you're usually the group leader. You assign CC, mark mobs, etc. If someone isn't doing their job, don't be afraid to point it out. It could very well be the difference between success and failure. If someone is doing a horrible job of .. whatever their job is. Feel free to offer them tips, just don't be a braying jackass about it. Nobody likes that. If they act like a giant stupidhead after you were trying to be helpful in a friendly manner, THEN its time for braying jackass mode. (Is that a druid form?!)

7) It may seem tedious, but keep Commanding Shout, Demoralizing Shout, and Thunderclap up at all times. Demo Shout and Thunderclap make a huge difference to the damage you take. Make your life and your healer's life as easy as possible.

Don't break the CC with your thunderclap. This can be hard when someone sheeps a mob right next to you, but adjust your position so that thunderclap won't hit it.

9) If CC is getting broken early by someone and its not getting applied again, or if your mage just has a huge blonde moment and doesn't re-sheep...Just grab the mob. Better its beating on you than running around wildly beating on your squishies.

10) They ARE your squishies. The other members of your group are a lot more squishy than you. Its your job to protect them. I'd say to think of them like your children, but some people have psychotic hatreds of children, and besides that a child can take a beating. I mean...Umm...Disregard that! >.> They're more like...eggs! One hit, they're gone. So its really important than you don't let that big orc over there with the massive axe come over and whack Legololz, Shanku, Darkflame (The frost mage), or Charles (The healer, they have the most normal names...usually) in the face. Its not pretty. Here is a picture to help with that thought.

11) Don't pull a Naissa and charge head on into a massive group of mobs with no CC markers...Unless you're with friends. And have gear. Gear is always good for that.

12) This one goes for healers too. Realize that you're going to get blamed for things, even if its not your fault. You can do your job perfectly, but all it takes is for ONE loud mouth jackass to die and suddenly you're being called the worst Tank/Healer ever, told that suicide is your only option, that you're horrible, the honor of your parents will be called into question, etc. Don't listen to these things, they don't actually mean anything. Don't feel sad and emo if someone tells you that you're a bad tank/healer. Just add their name to your "List of people to try my flamethrower on."

13) Don't end a Tips list with 13. Its unlucky.

Hope this was helpful, but if not - I'm pretty doped up on NyQuil at the moment. Woo sickness gogo!

PS - I'm guildless on the armory, this is accurate.
PPS - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10697504509&sid=1&pageNo=1 - Found this on the forums this morning. Good times.

Disclaimer: I do NOT beat my own children, I don't even have children. Nor do I beat anybody else's children, even though I'd sometimes like to. >.> That part of Tip #10 was just a joke!