Today Windows 7 became publicly available. I just wanted to say a few words about Windows 7 and WoW. Here it is- they work great together, perhaps even better then ever.

I haven't raided in a while, almost a month now. I've been busy with things in my life, and those things don't fit into the neat raiding schedule of my guild. And to a degree it's been OK. I've been just leveling my alliance toon on anouther server.

Well anouther toon reaches level 68, this time my shaman - Ruadia. She's off to Northrend. I first went to Houling Fjorge, got slautered a few times and then decided to go to Borean Tundra instead. So far did a few quests.

Well Ruadia is running in Outland leveling as elemental. It's a change from my previous enchancement spec, but it's cool, although a bit blant. Lightning bolt lightning bolt etc.... I'm also working on my leatherworking, will see how much I like it.

Entering Outland! Ruadia is 58 and ready to go to outland!

I've started school, and with my crazy classes I don't feel like I have enough time to raid with my guild anymore. So I've been leveling my shaman on the alliance side. It's kind of quiet since I'm not part of any guild with my Ruadai.

Now as far as leveling Shamans, they become really fun once you get dual specking for enchancement. I leveled enchancement all the way to level 58 when I went to Outland. Here I switched to elemental and never looked back. I'd say both specs are fun and very powerful to DPS with. But elemental provided a nice switch to something different. The other big advantage of Outland is there is gear for every spec. In vanilla wow most of the gear you'll find would be more for enchancement spec.

Finally I've also picked up and leveled leather working to the level appropriate for the outland (300). So far so good. Although I have to learn what to make that sells well. Unlike my blacksmithing where almost everything sold, this one is a bit less certain. Still I think I'll be able to recuperate and make money even before northrend. Just to note I bought very few leather, most of the leather I used I saved up my self from skinning. Now the key is to make things people would want to buy.

My guild is hitting the new raid instance TotC 10 man. I ran it once with my guild mates on my healer. What I found is that in this instance there is very little room for mistakes. Everything has to be precise. You've go to move out of the fire right away. You've got to jump on the tank spamming really big heals when the first beast boss is below 20%.

I found the cobolts to be very annoying and yet an interesting twist. Those little buggers not only through around the fire bombs, but they also jump on you and can spell lock you for a while - BAD for a healer. It's an interesting dynamic that DPS has to go now and knock them off you. Now if they through a fire bomb on you while other dps is knocking them down, you've tons of AOE damage for the raid.

I don't know, I think I would rather run Ulduar on 10 man or even 25 man then to do this TotC raid on 10 man. I think I miss trash :(, and Nax ( and Kara, but don't tell anyone about this one).

Just an update on some of the resent acomplishments for Moralight, my main character a Healadin.

I've finally aquired the flying mount from the CoS timed run :D.

In Ulduar 10 with my guild I've gotten up to Hodir twice, killing him once so far, although we skipped Ignis the Furnace Master and The Assembly of Iron. I think the thinking behind my guild leaders is to get as further down as possible.

In Ulduar 25 we killed first boss with two towers up.

Pics coming soon (as soon as I get home)

I've decided to give up on tanking being my off spec. It seems that tanking is something you have to constantly do or you lose your skill. My recent tanking adventures with my paladin were disastrous. I would forget to put up the buff to increase my agro, mess up buttons etc... With more DPS being better and better geared, it's harder to keep agro.

I've been lately only playing with my paladin. Trying to heal and DPS as my pally, i found that it was much more enjoyable to heal then to DPS. It could be due to the fact that is so much easier to get healing gear (especially spell plate which noone wants) then to build a dps set. My dps in heroics and Nax on the bosses has been in 1000s range, compare that to the 3500 minimum on my lock, that just did not fly.

So after some thoght I've instead decided to give tanking a try as my "secondary spec". I still want to heal and that was my primary reason to level my pally. But since i got a bit of tanking gear accumulated from here and there, and there is always a shortage of tank or healer I'll be the perfect utility toon.

I've also used the renaming character service to rename Elirias to Moralight. I found that just like my paladin's name - Elirias was WoW generated, there are tons and tons of other paladins with names that start with El or AL. I found especially in pug raids it can be a nightmare try to figure our who's who when they refer to you in vent.

Finally, I am enjoying playing with pally's in general. I created a new pally toon a female draenei on my alliance server Terrokar, and I am really enjoying just running around and doing quests with the pally. I have to say it is clear to see why pally's are some of the most popular chars out there. They are tough to kill, easy to dps with, easy to level, and have three different specs they can bring to raid.

I just realized how long it has been since I've posted here. Last post I see talks about trying to use a holy spec to quest and heal. Well I'm happy to report that I've quested and healed my self to level 80 before 3.1 came out on my pally. The holy spec was a lot of fun to heal in instances, and also not back questing either. I would not recommend it now since with dueal specking you can have retributions, and blow mobs away when you quest. But if money is tight, you can definetelly quest as holly in Nothred especially when you run some instances and get some nice spell plate which noone will want anyways.

Elirias, my paladin is 80 now, and I'm healing level 80 instances as well as trying to heal heroics. While on Moramor, i've finally killed Saph and KT in Nax 25 this weekend, which was awesome!

I wonder when my guildies will start venturing into Ulduar, I hope soon :)

Well I'm back to the dilemma of wanting to heal instances in Northrend while I'm leveling, but not wanting to have a spec that does poor damage when I'm questing. Being Protection specked is awesome for grinding speed and completing quests where you just go to kill a bunch of mobs. But my heart still wants to heal :(. I tried a hybrid holy/retro build and did not like it at the end.

So the other night I downloaded the PTR and copied my paladin there. I then proceeded to respect into holy. I then went around killing mobs of my level to see my damage output. I tried it without using the exorcism since you can use it on all mobs now, not just the undead. Well after experimenting with different gear, that is trying the spell damage/intellect gear that I would use for healing, then trying my protection gear with the mace and shield. I finally found the best combination - I've put my prot/dps gear with a two handed weapon, and left a few pices to increase my intellect ( mostly rings and neck). And boom, there is a build you can level with.

Unlike all the other people who recommend for the holy build to rely on spell damage for the DPS, I say not so! It may be true for some great holly pally who is coming geared up epics from BC. I unfortunately only have the questing gear and stuff I can make with my Blacksmithing. So what i found is I don't need to buff my spell damage, it's going to be there automatically. If I add 600 spell damage the spell damaging spells will increase very slightly, but if I put my DPS gear with lots of strength and put my big two hand ax on, I got nice spell damage and a nice white damage from the ax. So it worked well on the PTR. I think today I'll try it on the life and see how well I can still quest with it. Here is the build I'll take, note that I'm putting 5 points into the strength talent so I can do more white damage.

Proposed holly build for questing/healing:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sEA0x0zhVuzxRx0xZVd

I wanted to mention some significant achievements for myself and my guild that happened past weekend. We finally cleared the Military quarter and completed all the others to unlock the Sapphirion on 25 man raid. I got the beatiful Damnation from the 4 horsemen. I have to admit that it was just a bit selfish for me to roll on it since it was a small upgrade from the Staff of Restraint. But it was the only piece I got from that run, and I had my eye on that staff for a long time and only two other people rolled on it.

The Damnation is a really cool staff, and presently is the second best two handler for a warlock in the game. Now there are a lot of people who will argue that one hander and an off hand is better then the two hander. And I agree with them foolheartedly. Unfortunately I still don't have a better combination for the one hand/off hand that is better then this staff. Presently my best combo is Blade of Dormant Memories and Ward of the Violet Citadel. Which I do use when I switch gear for the Sapphirion fight and need more hit. For now just run around with this awesome staff. Pics coming soon by the way.

Well Elirias is 70 and happily continuing to level in Borean Tundra in Northrend. I've remained specked into the protection tree, after trying a retro/holy build. I still like taking a hole bunch of mobs down at the same time.

I've also leveled up my Blackminthing quickly to make the items for level 70 out of the new cobalt sets. They look pretty good and have some nice stamina, strength and defense stats, which are exactly what I'm looking for for my protection spec.

In addition, all the plate pieces I've been making as well as weapons from adamantine and cobalt have been selling quite well at a good premium at the AH. I guess death knights and other plate weathers keep buying them, which is great and will pay for the huge money sink blacksmithing was to get it to 300. It also helps that both adamantine and cobalt were all mined by Moramor and stored in the bank, so I did not have to buy them off the AH.

I've also try to tank by tanking the Utgrade Keep with a PUG group. That went a bit rocky because our healer was a druid, and even though he was healing specked, i don't belive he knew well how to heal. Specifically any burst damage was the end of me. I do have to say that it is quite a lot of work to tank, and I think at 80 I will try to heal instead.

I've been doing some of the Level 78-80 quests, including finishing up my Sons of Hodir chain quets. I also ran some Heroics with my guildies, which was fun and quick. What I'm fininding and quite to my surprise is that you can get pretty well geared by doing those two things to get you ready for raiding.

Since I've had a lot of rest experience, and combine that with a lot of dailies I did while leveling, I got to 80 without doing a lot of the higher end quests. So most of my gearing came from crafting and raiding. My guild was already in full swing with the raids, so it made sense to do that. On the other hand if you got your character who is not part of a raiding guild or if it's an a lot who's not allowed in many guild runs, do the quests. There is some great gear, and you work on your rep (and cash) at the same time.

Also run the heroics. A lot of my initial gear came from there, and a lot of that gear can even compare to some of the gear you get in Nax and OS, especially if it is 10 man versions. In addition you get badges to buy better gear. Example, the other day I got two pieces of gear that were small upgrades for me, while running heroics. Now while small upgrades (a wand and a ring), they were upgrades nonetheless, and I've got most of my gear coming from 25 man raids.

I've always loved theorizing with gear and dps options on my lock. I spent countless hours comparing gear and stat choices. And the best tool for that is a Warlock DPS Spreadsheet developed by Leulier. The link to his site is - http://www.leulier.com. This amazing spreadsheet along with the Lootrank.com and the ElitistJerks forums are the best tools for maximizing your DPS and gear choices.

But I digress. The reason I love to play wit this spreadsheet so much is because it is so convenient and comprehensive. You can input you gear and talent builds and then you can play around with all the different option as far as buffs, changing talents changing gear etc. And as soon as you make a change you get a DPS number update. So it is an amazing tool to see how much dps you will get if you make a gear or talent choice. For example, on the ElitistJerks forum there is a great post for Affliction Warlocks - Dots and You. And it has great high level gear upgrades. However, how do these upgrades relate to you?

When it comes to upgrades that drop in the raid and few others want, there is no brainer, you take them and you use them. But what if you decide if you should get some piece of gear with your hard earned badges or PVP honor points. Will the upgrade be worth it? It seems that the item you going to get is better then the one you have now, but how much DPS will you get out of it. Well use the spreadsheet, and boom if it's only 10 points of extra dps them maybe you should save badges and wait for a better drop, but if it's 60 or 80 dps upgrade, then maybe you should buy that piece.

You can also keep a lot of the higher level gear and then compare different combination. Maybe a piece that before only gave you a small upgrade because you needed more hit, and another piece gave you a lot of hit in that place. Well now you got plenty of hit, and this piece you saved can actually give you more dps. This is also a great tool to see how re-gemming will change your dps and stats. So use and abuse this spreadsheet!

One more quick note, the spreadsheet now has amazing feature to pull your talent build and gear right from armory. This is a recent update that makes this spreadsheet better then ever!

I finally completed the starting zone for Death Knights and have my freshly minted Death Knight ready to hit the Outlands.

I do have to say that the quests in the starting zone are excellent. They are fun, give you lore, teach you how to play your new toon and give you awesome gear as rewards.

In fact I see now why so many people created and play with the Death Knights. You get a character who is ready to hit Outlands in full blue level gear with trinkets and sigil complete. Compare that to starting anouther character class, and drudging through 58 levels, scrapping for gear and time, it's no brainier.

My paladin which is also now in Outlands, had really hard time getting any decent gear until he went to outlands. I did not level blacksmithing on him untill the last few levels before outlands, and thus most of hte gear he had was quest gear and maybe some other stuff I found on AH.

All in all, I enjoyed playing with the death knight. A very fun and strong class. I crated my DK on a different server from the rest of my Horde characters. I wanted to have a high level Allies toon, so I made my DK a Drieni. I think she looks pretty cool :). If I like her too much I may just stick to playing with her instead of my paladin :). Or I may create anouther deathknight for the Horde on my regular server.

Well I keep wanting to write something and post a pic of my characters, but as usual i don't write at home where my pics are, and I don't have pics at work where I usually write my posts.  So pics can wait I guess.

My paladin is now 61, and happily questing in Outland.  I kept him protection, and I love it to no extent.  The new spell that is just awesome is Hammer of the Righteous. Armed with that, and the gear upgrades that you get from some of the first quests in Outland, I can take on 5-7 mobs on a time, and they all dead in seconds.  If mobs are undead or demons - of which there are plenty here - things go down even faster.  So in shorts questing and leveling here for a protection pally is quick, painless and fun.

I've also slowed down and actually read all the quests.  Originally, when I level my lock through Outland I felt it was too quick, and I would rarely read quests completely.  With my pally there is no rush.  I will quests as quickly and efficiently as possible, but I will also take my time to read quest, and perhaps complete some of the quest lines to the end.

Anouther big achievement is getting my Blacksmithing to 300.  That was quite a quest.  The amount of materials you need to squeeze the last 40 levels of Balcksmithing is amazing.  On top of it the fact that ore is now so scarse!  It seems all the newly minted Death Knights are all doing something related to ore - black smithing, engineering or jewelcrafting.  The places where I would usually be able to mine Thorium and Mithril are now swamped with death knights running around and ninjaing your nodes right from under your nose.

Here are some extra tips I've learned in blacksmithing.  When it gets really expencive to make things to get points, make things that are orange.  Because it realy sucks when you make something that is yellow skillup color and it reaquired a bit of mats, and it gives you no points.  So what's the risk there?  Well at some point I was really upset because i crated 8 mithrill pants and got no skill up!  That was about 100 mithril bars!  So from then on I started to make things that were orange, even if they were alot more mats, at least I knew exactly how much it's going to cost me to make things for each point.

Well, 3.08 patch is upon us.  Besides some of the tweaks in the patch that's going to make my warlock life more enjoyable (can someone say a summoning stone for those lazy guildies?),  and make my tailoring a bit cheaper, there was waiting for the WIntergrasp Gear. Sad part is that Wintergrasp itself got a bug in the patch :(

You see, I've spotted this gear on www.lootrank.com a long time ago.  There was a helm and boots that were really nice.  It's just they were not available in the game yet.  The data was from the Test realms.  Meanwhile I've been saving my marks from Wintergrasp and crossing my fingers.

The two pieces that caught my eye, the boots and the head pieces come in two varieties - one has hit  and the other has haste.  Here are the Cloth pieces:

Titan-forged Slippers of Dominance

Titan-forged Slippers of Salvation

Titan-forged Hood of Salvation

Titan-forged Hood of Dominance

The head piece costs 40 winterspring marks, which is pricey.  On the other hand boots are only 15 marks.  And I badly needed to upgrade my Leiah's Footpads.

I took the boots with the hit Titan-forged Slippers of Dominance, put a nice hit gem into them and I'm now happy about my boot gear.  My next prize is the head piece.

I really like these pieces and the fact that you get them with just the Marks from Wintergrasp.  I always try to participate in the battle because i find it fun.  This reward, which I picked up for my raiding gear, will stay for a while with me as my PVP pices even when I get better boots in raids.  So it's something that will go a long way.

Here is a link to the all of the Titan-Forged gear on wowhead:

http://www.wowhead.com/?search=titan+forged#items:0+12+1

To my readers, I am planning to complete the getting my lock to raid at 80 series and will create the part 3 with all the trinkets, rings and etc.

Meanwhile I've been raiding a bit with my guild in Nax, although I've been so far very unlucky with drops. I know that this will change! :)