Thursday, October 22, 2009

WoW and Windows 7



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've been running Windows XP on my main computer for many many years. I've been playing wow for over 3 years now and will say that they ran together well enough.

Recently I got my hands on the Windows 7's final release build. I've been using it for over a month now, and wow has never worked better and smoother with Windows 7. In addition, I specifically installed the 64 bit version of Windows 7 on my PC since I have AMD 64 Athlon ( finally taking advantage of the 64 bit architecture). Through all of this, wow works great, just as smooth if not smoother as it was under Windows XP.

Just remember - you don't have to reinstall wow when you install Windows 7. Just back the whole wow folder to another drive, then just copy it back and run wow - no installation hassle.


To Raid or not to Raid



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.


I think some of the reasoning behind it was also I did not enjoy the new Trial of the Crusader raid. I didn't get enough of a chance to raid Ulduar, and also present Ulduar runs are always falling on my school nights, so TotC became the raid to shoot for, but I don't like it. I like a bit more trash and scenery then just baam-waam type of boss killing. I guess I miss Nax, it was such an Experience. TotC is just boring.

By the way I think the 5 man Trial of the Champion is equaly boring. I think back to BC and the last 5 man there - Magisters Terrace - that was awesome. % man ToC is just epics farm.


Monday, October 19, 2009

Anouther one to Northrend and why I dropped Leatherworking.



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.


What I'm really working on right now is Mining and Jewelcrafting. Yes, I've droped my level 370 leatherworking and my 375 skinning. I did not find leatherworking that exiciting or reawarding in outlands. It was just a pain, and then I found market flooded with other leatherworking pieces other people were leveling with. Just not much market. When I leveled BlackSmithing on my paladin there
was tons of market for plate. Leather/Mail is just not the same :(
So I went back to level one of Mining/Jewelcrafting. And after a weekend of nonstop mining (pain) I got my mining over 300 and JC is at 285. Now the pain of mining in outlands.

One key i found when you get over 260 in JC is don't smelt all your thorium, keeping in ore and prospect it for gems.

Oh and here is a pic or two of me mining. Notice Khorium vein. I found three of them in low level zones withing 15 mins. Why is it you always find a rare vein when you can't mine it!.


Monday, October 12, 2009

Shaman in Outland



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.


Oh and i got the dual spec, and have healed a few instances. It's actually a lot of fun, and I get to use Chain heal, my favorite spell in all the world :D. About blue gear in outland all I got to say is - wow there are so many holes, I mean sockets LOL.


Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Enetering Outland!



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

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Running around with alliance



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.


Friday, September 18, 2009

TotC - No mistakes



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).