From the beginning
:::2 Feb 2005 - Creation of WoW Journal:::
I have realized that part of the enjoyment I rec'd from playing online games is the sharing of adventures with other friends.  Since I don't know anyone locally that plays WoW I am starting this log.  I will use this log to talk about some of the things that happened in my previous WoW sessions.
To bring this up to date I have a few characters; on the Elune server I have Ghaani, Guuinnes, and Zozan, on Dragonblight I have one character Haamut
Ghaani is a Night Elf Hunter currently level 25.  Her main pet is a level 25 bear named Fred.  She is decently equipped and is a sponsored applicant to the guild, Mithril Web.  Ghaani is a journeyman Herbalist and Alchemist which makes her a little more less reliant upon others.  She also bakes and fishes which helps her keep Fred fed.
Guuinnes is a Human Paladin he just reached level 18.  I am having a hard time determining if I want to make Guuinnes or Ghaani my main character.  I have a lot of fun playing each one.  Both have their strengths and weaknesses.  I have decided to make Guuinnes an Engineer and Miner.  He now has the ability to make dynamite which is lots of fun, plus give him a method of ranged attack.  I enjoy Guuinnes for his ability to take a beating and to heal himself while taking said beating.  His damage output is not as high as Ghaani but as Guuinnes I feel like I am doing more since I am toe-to-toe with most of the mobs I face (many times it is toe-to-toes).  Gu also has been Mithril Web Tagged.
Zozan is a level 8 Human Mage.  I like the mage in WoW but they are nothing like the magician in EQ.  (Actually the base WoW mage is more like EQ Wizard)  Zozan has no real manner of melee defence but he can pack a punch with his spells.  I have not fully decided on what trade skill I want Zoz to have; when I play him more often I will decide.  Right now I am focusing on Ghaani and Guuinnes.
Haamut is a Taruen Shaman.  Shaman in WoW are very powerful.  Only the Horde side can be Shaman (as only the Alliance can be Paladins)  I have only played Haam for a couple sessions to explore the character.  I think I would enjoy playing a shaman more than a mage, but you gotta have a mage to make things go boom!
As for how I like WoW, well it is fun.  I have been playing for just under a month and I have only seen the tip of the iceberg as to what the game has to offer.  I like the limited PVP of the Elune server where you can turn the PVP on or wait a short time and not engage in PVP combat to have the PVP turn off.  Travel is good and keeps in the feel of the game.  I am sure as I get higher up in levels I will see players poring people around but now other than running from place to place I have gone from one area to the next via boats, Hippogriffs or Griffons.  There is an underground train that runs from Stormwind, the Human capital, to Ironforge, the dwarf capital, that I have used as well.  The tram really fits into the theme of the game with the dwarfs being closely allied with the gnomes and each having a mining/engineering background a train between the two cities not out of place at all.  Like the tram, the griffs and boats offer a fairly quick method of moving from one settlement to another.  It cost money to fly a griff, but is usually worth it (and so far never more than a few silver).  You cannot fly to an area that you have not been to before which makes it necessary for each person to explore as much as possible.  On top of that you actually get XP for "finding" new areas it isn't much but it when you are on a quest it is nice to see an XP bonus for going into a new area of the map.
XP is nice, I seem to never worry about "grinding" for xp.  My quest-log always has several active quests that I am working on that keep me going from one place to the next.  I have yet to be "bored" with the game or "tired" of doing the same thing over and over.  In fact, by following the story lines within the quests has really added a nice touch to explaining why I am doing each quest.  I like the "resting" feature.  If you are in an Inn, or log out while you are in an Inn you gain a resting bonus.  This is really nice for people like me that play for a limited time and have multiple characters.  What the rested bonus does is add to the total XP you gain from killing mobs.  The longer you rest the longer of a time the bonus is.  That is one of the reasons why I will not play either Ghaani or Guuinnes the day I play the other.
 
:::3 Feb 2005:::
Short night, I just logged in to finish one quest for Guuinnes.  I "discovered" a new area, completed the quest and logged for the evening back in Lakeshire.  Ghaani is camped in Ashenvale.  I most likely will play Ghaani tonight.
 
:::14 Feb 2005:::
Been a few days since an update, so here it goes... Ghaani is now 31 and progressing nicely.  She has been questing in Darkshire.  After a rough beginning she is now running the land fairly freely.  There is still this epic level 35 mob that is owed a few more butt-kickings.  Ghaani did complete one quest and recieved a NICE 2h sword, Archaes.  She uses it pretty much exclusively now when in melee.  All of her combat skills, save crossbows, are within a few ranks of being maxxed.  She can use Daggers, one and two handed axes, one and two handed swords, and two handed staves.  As for ranged weapons, Ghaani has maxxed both bows and guns for her level.  Darkshire has been fun, but it looks like she will be moving deeper into other areas to climb up the level ladder.
Guuinnes is up to 20.  He has started several quests in Lakeshire.  The draw to play a Paladin is greater and greater, although, I do see more of a need to group with him.  A group with 2 paladins and one mage are nearly unbeatable.  Guuinnes still is VERY dependant upon his gear and Ghaani is nice to send along things she can't use or things that would be better for Gu.  I use the mail system quite a bit to pass things back and forth between my characters.  It is neat and adds a bit of a personal flavor to the game.
Tonight I most likely will not be playing, but if I do, I will be on Gu.
Until next time.
 
:::18 Feb 2005:::
Well, I lied.  I haven't played Gu for a few days.  I have been playing Ghaani pretty much exclusively.  I think I will make Ghaani my main and level up Gu as an alt.  Ghaani is now 33 and exploring in Stranglethorn Vale.  Most of the creatures in this area are at least her level, so the XP is nice.  Plus, there are MANY quest in the zone that have a nice reward.  When she is finished with them, she will have nearly replaced all her armor and several of her weapons.  Last night Ghaani was experimenting with new pets -- The Hunter Class is able to "tame" a beast to make it their pet.  The pet needs to be fed, trained and taken care of or it will run off.  Each type of pet has certain abilities that the hunter must learn before the abilities can be taught to the pet.  It gives more of a "I learned this skill now I am teaching you" feel, not the "I bought this scroll and now you can do it" feeling.  Each type of pet has differing assets, for the most part Ghaani has kept her bear, Fred, with her.  Fred is a good bear, has the ability to take a pounding, but he is a little slow in dishing out the damage.  Last night, Ghaani put Fred in the stable (which is a way to store one pet while learning from another) and worked with a crocisilik (big gator) for a while, the croc was very powerful, and could take a pounding, but Ghaani decided to let the croc free and tame a Raptor.  Yes, a Velociraptor is now Ghaani's pet.  WOW that boy can take a BEATING and give one in return.  Plus it looks cool to have a friggin dinosaur following you around.  The only drawback is dino only eats meat, where Fred would eat any type of food (meat, cheese, fish, bread, plants, or fungus).  I'll just have to stock up on meats from now on.  I haven't given the dino a name yet, but I am NOT going to call him T-Rex, Rex, or Dino.
 
:::28 Feb 2005:::
I have been on vacation from work, I did not go anywhere this time I just had a break from work and it was nice.  I did do a little progressing in game.  Ghaani is now 36, her pet raptor is named Ben.  I showed the pet to my son and asked him what I should name the orange and blue striped dinosaur, he thought about it for a moment and said "Daddy, why don't you name him after me, and call him Ben?"  So I did and he was very happy.  Ghaani has completed the Missing Diplomat quest, and what a quest it was.  She had to go to several locations, fight many fights, do a lot of running around and end the end she received a nice ring and a lot of XP in the process (over 6k for the last turn in).  This type of quest is really what makes WoW fun for me.  It had a story, you had to get certain items from different NPC's all over the globe, was entertaining and had a decent reward.  I didn't have to "camp" a certain area to wait for the NPC to "spawn" they were always up I just had to find them.  Also, I didn't have to race another player to complete certain parts of the quest.  There was one part where another player and I were at the same place in the quest, he let me do the part (actually had to fight the NPC) then he did his and he didn't have to wait but a moment after I had finished and the NPC had reset to where he could do his part.
I have noticed that EQ is contracting servers and WoW is adding more.  That is a really good sign for the game.  EQ is finally not the king of MMORPG and WoW is moving up.  I am having fun and more people are experiencing the game each day.
OH! I nearly forgot a grouping that I did last week.  It was me(I was 33 or 34 at the time), Monocot (40'ish mage), Squeeky(upper 20's mage), a 34 Paladin, and another Hunter that was a couple levels below me.  We went to the Gnomeragin instance and had a BLAST!  Most of the mobs were below my level but due to the number of them they could have posed a danger, but due the quality of the team we had no problem completing the quests we were working on everyone received an upgrade to their equipment.  The only thing that stopped us was the clock turning 3:00am  We could have stayed there a lot longer, but it was too late for most of us to continue.
Ghaani also has just one more of the beginning Hunter quests to complete in STV, the elite Raptor.  She will need help to get this big boy, but the reward will be nice.
Finally, I decided to get all of Ghaani's pet skills up to date.  She had to run from STV to the Arathi Highlands to Desolace.  It was a LONG journey and took nearly an hour to complete.  Now that I think about it, I need to go back to the Highlands to complete an STV quest, grrr.
 
:::1 March 2005:::
I ran back to the Highlands to complete the STV quests.  Little did I know that I needed someone that has mining skills to do this.  A guildie pally came and helped me get this.  I also continued work on a few Highlands quests.  A funny thing happened though, when I took my port stone back to Booty Bay, which is major league bugged, I logged out, and back in -- In to the mine that I just ported out of also in the middle of 6 mobs.  I can normally handle 2 or 3 by myself but 6 is a bit much especially since they started beating on me before I was fully in game.  So I died.  Then I had to re-log to be able to find my body.  So I did this time I just took the rez and ran back to BB.  When I got there I finished some quests and decided to head out again, but Ben wasn't with Ghaani, and he wouldn't respond to being called either, then the game crashed.  Finally I logged back in (re-completed the quests) Ben still wouldn't respond, so I called it a night.  Hopefully things will be better tomorrow.
 
:::22 March 2005:::
OK so I have been busy and on vacation.  Let's start with updates; Ghaani is now 41, Guuinnes is 21, Zozan has not been played.  I am now a full member of Mithril Web -- I even have my Guild Tabbard, which looks really cool!  Gear wise Ghaani now can wear chain mail, a nice upgrade from juat leather.  She has upgraded in nearly all her equipment slots.  For weapons she primarily uses a twin-axe setup for the Agility boost.  Even using the two axes she is able to dish out a decent amount of damage in melee.  Her ranged weapons have upgraded due to several STV quests (I swear they just don't end!  I complete one and two more are activated!)  She is using a nice hunting rifle with accurate slugs for ammo.  It is not uncommon for Ghaani to have over 130 DPS when fighting a monster when she can just shoot at it.  For comparisons, when she is melee only she maintains DPS in the 50-75 range.  That isn't bad, but the ranged is much better.  To keep her skills sharp (no pun intended) she has a Sword/Dagger setup -- Better DPS in Melee but reduces Ranged DPS, and a 2HS setup -- on lower level mobs the proc on this really kicks in to mow through them.  Sunday, Ghaani got her first peice of "set" armor.  Scarlet Mail Gauntlets.  Armor sets are nice in that if you have all parts of the set they gain additional bonus.  On the Tradeskill front Ghaani has been spending more time working on levels and earning gold (she is now "able" to buy a horse and purchase riding lessons, she just needs nearly 100 Gold to do so.  Currently in her "horse fund" she has 40GP.  That total is also the largest amount of gold she has ever had. /shrug.  Anyhow, she has gotten her Herbalism up to 208, she hasn't trained for "expert" yet because that cost 5gp.  After she gets a horse she may invest in that.  Her Cooking is up to 108--She has a recipe that requires a skill level of 130 so she might work on that in the near future!  Also, since the last update, Ghaani has rec'd her first and second neck items!  They are both really nice and help in certain situations, once helps when she is fighting over long periods (mana/hp regen +Sta) when she has no other method of mana regen.  The other provides a nice boost to agility (the stat that improves damage/DPS).  To get that new gear she did an evening in the Scarlet Monastary with a few guildies.  It was A LOT of fun with a great deal of loot being won by all there.  We went in with a Warlock, 2 priests, and for a while a mage, plus the Hunter Ghaani.  I was really able to see the power of each class.  We were killing things REALLY fast, espically when we had Blinky, the mage.
I am figuring that the WoW Hunter class has many abilities.  When looking at the EQ classes, I see the WoW hunter as having:
Group Speed buffs like the EQ Bard
Feign Death like the EQ Monk
Pet Abilities like the EQ Beastmaster
Trap setting skills like (but FAR Superior) to the EQ Rogue
Weapon Skills, ranged fighting, and combat abilities like the EQ Ranger
I am getting disappointed in being a Hunter/Alchamist/Herbalist/Baker for one reason: NOT ENOUGH BANK OR INVENTORY SLOTS!!!!!  On Ghaani she has her 20 slot backpack, 16 slot ammo pouch, 12 slot weapons/potions bag, 16 slot herb bag, and a 16 slot food bag.  She keeps the food bag filled so she can keep her pet fed and happy and so she can regen HP/Mana faster between mobs.  Her herb bag is nearly full of herbs.  When she gets a full stack of one type of herb she moves it to her bank.  In her weapon bag she keeps her Two-handed sword, her Sword/Dagger combo, (or the axe combo depending upon which she is using)her fishing pole and bait, and her health, mana, and buff potions she has gathered/created.  Her backback usually contains quest items and loot.  The ammo pouch can only hold ammo.  This leave very few slots for carrying loot.  In her bank there are quite a few slots but right now they are ALL FULL!  She can purchase additional "bag" slots (slots where you can place a bag to hold more gear) but the next one costs 10 GP!!!)  In Ghaani's bank there is quite a large amount of Herbs and cooking supplies.  I guess if I got busy and progressed up the ladder in each of those skills she could clear out some space.  Oh well, enough of an update for now, I guess I should update this more often!
 
::: 4 April 2005 :::
Some sad EQ news to start my update:  My old server, Lanys T'Vyl, is being merged with 7th Hammer and keeping the 7th Hammer name.  This means that my on-line home for most of the past three years is going away.  I had many good times and good friends there.  Most of the friends have long since gone away.  But the memories remain.
OK, Back to the here and now (wow).  Ghaani is almost 44.  She would have hit 44 last night but I took her on a little journey to the Sawmp of Sorrows.  That was FUN!  I took her there because it was the one zone that I could get both my pet attack skills upgraded.  I didn't look at a map before I went.  I had no idea what I would find there.  WHAT A RUSH! 
Oh, I guess I should update on the pet front so you would understand why I was out hunting for pet skills.  Ghaani has set free Ben, her Raptor.  Ben was a good pet, but starting to become overmatched.  When Ghaani hit 43 she went back to STV and tamed King Bangalash the elite white tiger to be her new pet.  King B is fast, strong and has a bit larger diet than old Ben had.  Anyhow, back on the skill hunt, In the Swamp of Sorrows the mobs are from upper 30's to low 50's.  There is a Horde fortress in the south central part of the zone and there is an island in the eastern part of the zone that is home to Dragonkin.  Ghaani did not engage any of the dragonkin due to each one she saw was at least level 43 and elite! 
To learn pet skills the Hunter must tame a beast that has the skill.  But, you ask "can you have two pets? What about King B?"  Well, you cannot have two active pets.  What you have to do is put the pet you want to keep in a stable (they are located almost everwhere there is an inn) then go tame the beast that has the skill you need.  You then fight with that pet to "learn" the skill.  Once you learn it then you can teach it to your other pets when they are the right level and have enough training points.  So Ghaani went into SoS with King B (now named Sam, my daughter named him.  She said "Just call him Sam" so I did) in the stables.  She zoned in and tamed a level 38 spider for backup, then a 40 crock for better support.  She then went through the entire zone looking for the beasts that had the skills she was looking for (Bite 6 and Claw 6)  After engaging the wrath of a few 50+ horde guards at the horde outpost (RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!) Ghaani happened upon the spiders that had Bite 6.  She quickly dismissed her croc put on her defense gear and tamed the spider.  One fight later she had learned Bite 6.  Then the fun really began.  She scouted the entier zone looking for a Silt Crawler (crab) to learn claw 6.  This is where she saw the Dragonkin (did not want to fight them) and several other level 45+ camps.   It was fun creeping around the zone selecting what to engage and what to avoid.  Knowing that if I hit the wrong target, or walked into the wrong area, Ghaani would not survive.  The thrill was invigorating!  Finally, she found the crab in the far north east corner of the zone.  She dismissed the tarantula and easily tamed the Silt Crawler.  While fighting another crawler to obtain claw 6 she niticed that the crab was a good little tank.  They easily defeated the other crab and it dropped a pair of legs there were needed for a quest in another zone!  WOW!  Too easy, so she attacked another and it dropped a pair.  She fought several crabs and they all dropped at least one but as many as three legs.  So that quest was quickly completed.  After getting the 12th leg Ghaani ported back to Ironforge, dismissed the loyal crab, retrieved Sam from the stable and trained him with the new skills.  She then took the Griff to Menethal Harbor so she could finish the crab-leg quest. She is still just a short way from level 44 and has 60 GP in the bank.  Only 40 more GP and she can buy her mount.
On Saturday night, Ghaani had some fun in STV.  She hooked up with some other players that were wanting to finish some of the same quests that she had.  The first was "cracking Mauray's Foot.  This required killing an Ogre Lord.  Simple enough.  But this Ogre was surrounded by many other Ogres and they are all very social.  The first time we tried to get him, we were mercilessly slaughtered.  We added a couple people to our team (now up to five) but the Pally (Pollyra from MW) was a ways away.  So we started clearing the area around the big ogre.  I noticed a pathing for the ogres around the big guy.  I was able to single pull all the ogers from aroung the big ogre then single pull him!  He he he, Hunter pulling at it's best!  We engaged him without Polly.  He quickly killed my pet and the minions from the two Warlocks that were in the group.  So I was tanking him.  He got Ghaani down to near death but she quickly used a health stone, disengaged and feigned.  The big ogre was dumb enough to buy it and resumed hitting on one of the minions.  She then popped up when the Ogre had moved into shooting range and she UNLOADED on him.  Killing him.  Whoa that was FUN!  She looted the key that was needed for the quest.  The team stayed together completing a few other quests.  One camp allowed Ghaani to use her Volly and Multi-shot skills (AOE shots)  That was fun.  We ended the night taking on a level 47 Giant on the coast of STV.  We engaged him he quickly killed our pets and Polly moved into a healer role with me tanking (EEP!)  He did kill me, but we were knocking him down too.  I ran back to the fight as quickly as I could then started shooting him.  Polly noticed that I was back and let me take on the Giant again.  She was healing me and we took the buggar down!  Another victory for us!  It was a great night lots of fun and good loots for all.
I think tonight is "Alt Night" for MW.  If it is, I will pe playing Guuinness.  I hope it is, I need to move him up the level ladder a bit as well.
Enough for now, be safe!
 
:::5 April 2005:::
Nothing Earthshattering happened last night, I played Ghaani.  She leveled to 44 and spend 10GP getting new spells (GRRR!).  I did go back to Scarlet Monastary again with a group of friends.  I was pulling this time.  We had Mage/Pally/Pally/Priest/Hunter (me).  We were killing fast and only had one bad pull, well it wasn't a pull, I hit TAB to switch to the next closest target and sent Sam to attack, well, it targeted another mob inside the castle I tried to call back Sam but it was too late.  10 mobs came screaming out of the castle, three of the party died plus Sam.  Ghaani survived becasue she stayed in the courtyard while the rest of the part ran to the zone.  That took all the mobs but one which she was able to beat handily.  Tonight I should get the kids in bed early and hit a major grind-fest to make some GP and XP.
 
:::6 April 2005:::
Last night started simple enough, I logged in went to Stormwind and went FISHING!  I had nothing pressing to do so I went to the canals of the human capitol city and fished for a while.  Sam, my pet, likes fish and the canals in SW have the right fish I need to advance my cooking skill.  I caught enough Whiskered Catfish and Rockscale Cod to get my cooking to 130 skill.  That was the skill I needed to learn "Curiously Tasting Omelet"  Once I learned that skill I could clean out my bank of all the raptor eggs that I had been stockpiling! 
Before I go in about tradeskills in WoW I have to talk about the Fishing.  First off, the water looks JUST LIKE you are looking at real water.  The water moves and reflects just like real water.  It is hard not to think you are actually looking at water.  They did a great job with that.  Fishing in WoW is a different that in EQ.  First you have to stand to fish in WoW.  In WoW you don't NEED bait and I have yet to have my fishing pole to break.  Also in WoW, when you cast your line you see a cork bobber with some feathers floating in the water (and it bobs up and down with the waves plus it makes a splash when it lands).  You have to watch the cork for when it goes under you have to click on it to attempt to reel in your fish or whatever you caught.  You can catch lockboxes, fish, or other various items.  The level of your fishing skill helps to determine what you will catch as well as where you are fishing.  Certain zones have certain fish that you are more likely to catch.  Also, each zone's fishing areas have a "skill level requirement"  where if your fishing skill is not high enough (through base skill and modifiers) you cannot fish there.  Lately I have been fishing with nightcrawlers and my "Bubba Bump's Family Fishing Pole"  The pole has a +5 mod to Fishing while equipped and the nightcrawlers (a drop from some of the "undead" mobs) add a +50 for to min.  The Pole mod and the Bait mod stack, but you cannot stack multple bait mods.  These two mods take my base skill (150) up to 205.
Now the tradeskill interface in WoW is also a lot better than EQ's.  First, if you have the materials to make an item, you make it.  There are no failed attempts.  However there is no "expierimenting"  you cannot "put" items into a tradeskill container to see if they make something.  As with EQ you have to "learn" different recipies.  In WoW you can buy them, they can be dropped as loot, or you can get them as a quest reward.  All recipies have a skill level that they can be learned plus they have a level that they will no longer "advance" your skill (turn grey).  With Ghaani's cooking, for example, the Omelete recipe is a base level 130 skill.  She had to have a cooking skill of 130 before she could learn it.  I don't know what level it will grey out, but currently it is Orange, meaning she will most likely get a skill increase each time she makes an omelete.  When Ghaani started cooking last night her skill was 105.  She was cooking rockscale cod.  With her skill at 105 the cod was a yellow skill, when she got to 130 the cod turned green, at 150 it is grey.  Yellow means that you are more than likely to get a skill increase when you make that item, green means there is maybe a 50-50 chance for a skill up, and grey means it is no longer a challenge to you and you cannot skill up.  Much like the mob's level in regards to xp.  Also, with WoW you can select how many of a item you want to make (based on you having the needed components) or you can simply hit the "create all" button to use all of your components of that one recipie and it will make them all (as long as you have bag space).  One thing with cooking that is greatly different in WoW than it was in EQ, I have not found a vendor that sells ALL the components that you need to cook.  You MUST gather the bulk of the ingredients by killing mobs, fishing, gathering herbs, or paying other players to do it for you.  You can buy a few ingredients but again I have yet to find a recipe that has all the items vendor bought.
 
:::18 April 2005:::
Update time (It is hard to type with a bandage on your left index finger)  Ghaani is 46 (about a third of the way to 47) and the proud owner of a "Striped Nightsaber"  AKA The Black Cat mount.  After talking to a few of the more seasoned players in the guild, they said to sell all my Herbalism stuffs, so I did and made quite a bit of gold, enough to buy my mount and to not miss any training.  Actually after dinging 46 and getting her mount Ghaani still has 20 GP in the bank and a LOT more bag space!  Also, Ghaani owns a White Kitten.  It is a cute little kitten that follows her around.  It does nothing but look cute.  Ghaani's pack looks cool when she is moving.  First is Sam the White Tiger then Ghaani on her Black nightsaber (just a big black tiger with white/grey stripes) then the little Kitten following behind.  It is quite a crew.
Last night I played Guuinnes for a while, at first I SUCKED playing the pally.  I kept getting killed and the people with me were dying too.  After a while, I got the hang of playing a healer/tank again.  Our group was Mage/Mage/Hunter/Warlock/Pally (me).  One mage was Mr. NukeItAll; he would pull and get EVERYTHING!  So everything was beating on him, and with the high Mage AC and Defense skills, he died a lot.  It got so bad that I was casting a heal on him as he would pull then chain heal him through the fight.  By the end of the evening I was getting good enough to keep him healed, the rest of the party alive and then tank.  Which is good, because I was thinking I was stupid at the start of the evening.  Gu dinged 22 and got a few key upgrades in spells, one nice one now increases his attack then when the seal is put on the mob it keeps them from running (YIPPEE!) also some gear upgrades (he is still quite poorly equipped sice Ghaani stopped sending him gear).  I might play Gu tonight to make sure that I don't "forget" how to play the pally again.  Plus he has several quests that he is really close to finishing (and I can build up Ghaani's XP bonus)  I like the flexibility and the "neededness" of the Pally but his DPS SUCKS!  Maybe as I get more gear, he will be better, I can only hope so.  I think he'll be in Redridge/Lakeshire through 25 then make the quick move to Darkshire through the low-mid 30's.  If I don't play Gu, Ghaani will work in either the Badlands/Uldaman or the Hinterlands.  Both areas have several quests that she needs to complete.  I don't want to spend too much time on Gu because I NEED to get Ghaani at least 10 more levels so she can start Raiding again.  That is one thing that I really miss from EQ -- RAIDS!  I like to raid, I mean I REALLY like to Raid.  There is something about taking on a really big monster with everyone working together to beat it down.  The only thing I don't like about EQ raids is that EQ made it where you had to race to all the advancement targets.  Meaning you had to be engaged by 6:00pm CST or you wouldn't get the choice target.  My schedule doesn't allow me to get on before 8:00pm so I was usually outta luck.  Ghaani(EQ) was lucky to have been Elemental Flagged and as close to Time as she was.  Although I had the want to play like a hard-core raider, my Real Life didn't allow it.
Enough for now. More to come as I have opportunity.
 
:::19 April 2005:::
I played Ghaani last night.  I went to the Hinterlands to finish several quests there.  One quest involved "escorting" a mechanical chicken across the zone.  Easy enough, right?  Nope!  That stupid chicken walked right into several groups of monsters each harder than the previous.  I tried it first solo and almost made it until I ran into the 4 trolls and 2 wolves (eep!)  Wilddiana and Thoarn (both of them are 55+ now) came to help me and we completed it twice, the first time it failed for me but was successful for Thoarn (he needed the quest as well) so we did it a second time and had no issues.  We then ran across the zone finishing quests for me.  We knocked out about 4 quests (and I had finished two others before they got there) so all in all I had a good XP night.  Before they got there I was soloing 44-48 ooze that gave anywhere from 450 to 600 xp per kill and they were fairly easy.  So I stayed there for a bit after I had completed the quest :) I ran into some more Dragonkin.  I didn't engage them as they were Elite and at least a couple levels above me (When a mob is Elite it is like adding 5 levels of HP, reistance, and abilities to it so don't hit an Elite that is your level or just below you alone unless you know that you can handle the beating)
When I logged I was about 10% away from 47.  I should easily get that tonight and should have some time to play Gu, unless I get involved in some other quests =)
It would be nice to have Ghaani well into her 50's by the end of the month.  That should be doable, I would just have to find some "sweet spots" for grinding some XP.  Once you get over 40 the quests are nice, but usually need a couple others to complete them.  In the same time it would take to get a group and complete the quests you could earn more XP (and loot) in an XP sweet spot.  For example the ooze quest I was working on required me to kill 20 ooze (10 green and 10 jade) Now the quest itself gave around 4,000 XP but for killing the mobs I got more than double that!  So I stayed there killing the fairly easy ooze and racked up the XP (the quest XP was like added XP, nice to get for going back to the town to sell my loot!)  Quests like that are not the rule, more often than not you will be looking for a specific mob or like the "chicken Escort" trying to keep an NPC alive so you don't have an opportunity to sit in one area and grind out the XP.  I guess I need to write down all the quests that are in my quest log to do some research and see which ones are worth completing and the quickest way to do that.
 
:::20 April 2005:::
I think I found a "sweet spot"  Last night, after I was FINALLY able to log in after patching (grrr!) I took Ghaani to Tanaris.  That was a bit of a journey from Rut'therian village but non-eventful.  Ghaani made it to Gagetztan a town related to Booty Bay and Irongorge.  There were several quests available and many of them were of the "Kill XX number of mobs"  aka the XP bonus quests that I like.  So I filled Ghaani's quest log with as many quests as I could and took off to the sands of Tanaris.  There are all kinds of desert creatures in this zone; scorpions, spiders, and hyenias.  Also there are some human bandits, thieves and warlocks (the ones I hit for my quest were from level 41-46), Ogres (44-48) and I even saw a named 50+ dragon (I didn't get close I just ran away)  One of the Human mobs I hit was a named thief.  When I attacked him he sent his two guards, who were shadowed, to attack me.  I stuck Sam on the main guy and let the guards beat on me.  Finally, we were able to kill the main dude and I turned Sam on one while I tried to keep us both alive.  I popped a health potion, and healed Sam (while I had mana).  I was getting dangerously low in health so I backed up a few steps and hit Feign Death.  It worked and soon both mobs were wacking on Sam.  I got up and took an aimed shot at the mob with the lowest health, it hit him which caused him to flee.  I hit him with a concussive shot to stun him then a regular shot to finish him off.  Sam then turned around to the last guy.  I healed Sam once (just enough mana to do that one time) then started shooting the last guy.  He died rather quickly with Sam and I surviving with a very little amount of health and mana left.  Thank goodness no other mobs decided to join in on the beating!  I was a bit disapointed that the named dude didn't drop anything nice, but the fight was fun.  I say that because I lived. 
After I made it to Sweetwater Bay to complete a couple Booty Bay quests I worked my way south exploring the zone and looking for other quest mobs.  I found a ruined temple that was overrun with ogres.  They ranged in level from 44 to 48.  They have a fairly small aggro radius which makes them easy to pick them off, one at a time.  I killed many of them (getting around 600 xp per)and they are needed for a quest (BONUS!) 
Ghaani dinged 47 while she was hunting the Thives and Bandits and now is about 25% in the level.  Since she is camped in the Inn in Gagetzan she should get level 48 rather quickly.
In the patch last night Blizzard supposedly put in an Epic Hunter weapon.  Since I am a sucker to Epic quests I will have to do this.  I will keep this updated with all the information that I get in regards to that quest.
 
:::22 April 2005:::
Been a slow couple days in WoW.  Wednesday I didn't get on until late and last night I was busy as well.  With the patch on Tuesday there were new pet abilities added.  So I spent the first part of the session getting them.  The first one Dash2 was fairly easy.  Ghaani put Sam in the stables, walked out of the Gagetzetan gates, and found a Rabid Bloodfur (hyenia) tamed it, attacked the closest beast and Blammo! Dash2 was learned.  Ghaani dismissed the foul dog and made a run for the Griff for a flight from Tanaris to Feralas.  The two zones are fairly close to each other but I don't have a flight path that connects them (grr) so I had to fly from Tanaris to the zone just north, I needed to do a quest turn-in in Rut'therian Village so I had to fly all the way north to there then all the way to Feralas (LONG FLIGHTS!)  I need to find a shortcut.
After I got Dive2 I went back to Tanaris.  Two friends of mine, Lugh and Morganne, asked if we could do a ZF run.  It was going to take them a little while to make it to the zone so I went out questing.  One quest I had to do was to fill a vial at a certain body of water.  This pond was surrounded by level 44+ elite mobs.  They were green so I decided what the hell and attacked them.  They were not easy but as long as I got them single Sam and I could cut them down (at 880 XP per!).  On one, he ran at low health which aggroed another mob we killed the first but the 2nd killed Sam.  Luckily he was an "Axe Thrower" and stayed at distance.  Ghaani kept shooting him until it looked like the mob would kill her.  She popped FD and the mob forgot about her (woohoo!) She recovered, rezzed Sam, and they quickly eliminated the Mob.  When that was done she went to the water to fill her vial.  I had read that when the vial is full a giant scarab would spawn.  There was another group there doing this quest and I watched them get their scarabs.  I went into the water filled mine and the scarab popped on them.  Oh well, they were horde anyhow, I am sure they appreciated the extra mobs ;)
 
:::25 April 2005:::
Let me see, I really didn't play much this weekend.  I didn't play at all on Sunday.  On Saturday I logged in with Ghaani and started to get back to Tanaris when a couple guildies asked if we wanted to do a Van Cleef run.  This was geared for characters in the early 20's I told them that Guuinnes needed to complete that (plus he could get a drop for his Verigan's Fist, aka Pallie Ass Kickin' Mace).  We went in with a level 23 Warrior (Swift), 23 Rogue (Gnoochi), 32 Druid (Blueeyes), 20 Rogue (Jetaki) and Gu a 22 Pally.  WOW!  We OWNED the deadmines!  We did not come close to losing anyone throught the whole thing.  Everyone got some upgrades and I had fun going from tank, off-tank, to healer and I got the drop I was looking for.  Was a lot of good experience for me.  After we finished Deadmines, Gnooch asked if we wanted to do a Stockade run.  Jetaki couldn't but Blue, Swift and I could.  I had to take Gu to empty his bags (he REALLY needs some bag upgrades!) Do some quest turn-in's and pick up the quests for the Stockades.  Again we kicked some major butt!  I really like Seal of the Crusader.  It has a chance to stun the target each time I land a blow and when I release the seal on the target they cannot flee.  Really, really cool when fighting casters or mobs that run with low health.  After the Stockade run and the Deadmines run Gu is now 24 and moving closer to 25!  I could see myself playin Gu more now.  Friday night I did log in with Ghaani to clean up her quest log.  She did a few things in Arathi and then moved to Darnassus where it looks like she has started the Epic Weapon quest.  I still need to do some more research on that quest.
 
:::26 April 2005:::
Last night was full of fits and starts.  I first logged in with Guuinness, collected my coin from the auctions, talked to a guildie that could make some bags for him, and then switched over to Ghaani who I thought had the materials to make the bags.  Well, they sold.  I had two stacks of Mageweave cloth in the AH for a week without selling and finally when I realized that I could use them, they sold.  Oh well, I quess I'll buy a couple big bags for Gu.  At that point I couldn't decide if I wanted to play Gu or Ghaani.  I decided that I needed to get Ghaani another level and was flying her to Tanaris.  She got bounced from the server.  So I realized that I needed to play Gu.  I logged him in and continued his quest for the fist.  Since he has no flight paths outside of Ironforge I realized that it was going to take a lot of walking for him to do anything.  With my nice new 19.1 DPS 2HS in tow off he went.  I saw that his 2hs skill was a little low so he took a detour on his way to Dun Morden to smack around some low level kobolds.  With Seal of Justice and that big sword it is funny to beat on the lower level mobs.  I whack them first, SoJ stuns them, I whack them again before the stun wears off and they die.  It took a few dogs to get my skill where it was respectable :)  So I continued to Teldrasil in Dun Morden  I picked up some "travelling quests" for the run so I could make use of the travel time.  I cleared the Azure gauntlet and was nearly to Menethril Harbor when I reallized that the area I needed to be was in Dun Morden not the Wetlands (oops!) so I turned around, ran back to Teldrasil (got the flightpath) and proceeded to kick some Ogre butt!  The Ogres that I had to take on were in the 19 to 22 level but they were all Elites.  I didn't have much trouble taking them on one on one, but after killing a few (completing a Kill X number quest) I grouped with a level 17 Pally and 18 Warlock.  We had fun slaughtering Ogres.  I was tank and healer.  I didn't heal the other pally much--cause he could heal himself so he died quite often.  Still with two pallies in group the amount of buffs that are running is amazing.  I was running Divine Shield aura and buffing with Blessing of Might whie the other pally had Retribution Aura and buffing with Blessing of Wisdom.  That gave us all an increase in AC, ATK, Mana regen, and a damage shield.  Stacking pallies is nice.  We decided to kill the big named Ogre.  He was linked with two guards.  He also has an annoying G-Flux which made it hard to heal/stun/fight.  We tried to take him out a few times but died doing it.  Before that, when we had just entered the cave looking for Brutes, we were swarmed with one mystic and two brutes.  I took on the mystic and was healing.  I killed the mystic and one brute killed the other pallie.  I then got both Brutes beating on me and took them out without letting them kill the warlock.  I felt quite powerful.  I didn't have to use divine shield or LoH.  I even forgot about using divine Favor (an ability that allows you to "critical heal" the next heal--that with my 100% chance to regain the mana spent on a heal when it crits is like a Free Heal).  Anyhow, we fought into the night, we added a level 20 warrior and were able to kill the big named Ogre.  It looked bad at first because when we were clearing up to him, he and his guards aggroed making us have to ake on four mobs.  I switched from the one we were clearing to tank the big guy, I was lucky and got him in a stun-lock, he went down FAST and we finished off the rest.
After turning in all the quests Gu is just shy of hitting 25.  When I play him again, I'll take him back to Redridge to finish those quests and see how close to 26 the get him.  With his new skills he should be able to finish them all with not much help.
 
:::27 April 2005:::
Trolls and Scarabs, Trolls and Scarabs all night long Trolls and Scarabs.  I played Ghaani last night and did a few ZF runs.  I will admit the encounters are getting harder and harder.  It is now taking some strategy to complete our objectives.  I have found that a Warlock, Rogue and Hunter can pull just about anything.  The Hunter will set a frozen trap between the mobs and the party, the rogue will sap one mob and get the other two to attack him.  He will run back over the trap freezing one then the party will quickly kill the non-trapped mob before the timer expires.  Once that one is down then you can quickly eliminate the 3rd.  Still a hunter's ranged shot after watching the pathing is the best way to pull if you ask me.  Ghaani did complete a couple quests last night and dinged 48, only 12 more levels to go! (seven more to be able to raid).
I still need to do a complete review of Ghaani's quests.  She has been staying around 19-20 quests in her journal.  she have a few to do in Uldaman and ZF (instances) but the rest should not require a group to complete.
 
:::28 April 2005:::
Last night was spent in Uldaman.  I was able to put together a guild group of Philip (Dwarf Hunter) Squishie (Gnome Mage), Jae (Night Elf Hunter), Ghaani (NE Hunter) and luckily Jovis (Human Paladin).  It was a good thing that Jovis was able to join us because without him, Ghaani would have been the highest level in the group (by a long way) and we had no healer at that time either.  Jovis is a level 60 Pally so he took most of the tanking and all of the healing responsibilities.  He'd go into a room, grab 5, 10 or more mobs and starts wacking on them.  Phil, Squishie and Ghaani would stand back and AoE them into submission.  Poor Squishie lived up to his name, more than once, by getting squished when he over nuked and the mobs came running after him!  We fought our way through the dungeon (boy Uldaman has a major Indiana Jones influence, down to the "map room" where you have to place a staff with a amulet on it to open a locked door) The mobs were varied, the tactics we used were different for each major encounter.  We cleared everything down to the big boss.  WOW!  What an event!  Archaceus is a TOUGH mob for a level 44 Elite.  He has a room FULL of guards that he calls as he is being attacked.  We wiped to this three times before calling it a night.  The last time Philip had to leave and Jovis called in Tealy (level 60 Druid) to heal him during the event.  Jae and Squishie really were too low a level to effectively help keep the guards clear.  I was able to kill the dwarfs with one or two swings but the Golems would come alive four at a time.  Tealy would get aggro and we couldn't get them off her fast enough to keep her alive so she could keep Jovis alive.  We are planning on hitting him again tonight but with a better group makeup and tactics (Jae will bring his higher level toon and Ghaani will be 49 by the time we get there).  It would be nice to finish him off because he drops some nice gear and the last piece to my last quest in Uldaman!
I did go in and get a listing of the quests that Ghaani has, she even completed about five of them.  She got three more but should have those completed soon.  Also she should make the goal of hitting 50 before the end of the month!
 
:::29 April 2005:::
Ding 49!  Well it isn't a ding in WoW it is a Flash and Gong when you level.
I tried to go back to Uldaman last night but was unsuccessful in getting there.  Something seemed wrong with the "back door" which wouldn't allow us to get in.  So we scrapped the plan and went on our merry way.  I went to the south Badlands with Ghaani to do a quest turn in and finish another portion of a quest.  She had to find some Unruley Rock Elemtals to get three different scrolls.  The first one was easy (once she found those specific elementals) then the hunt was on.  She probably killed two dozen more before she got the 2nd scroll.  I guess it was a good thing they were around level 40.  They weren't giving much XP byt she used the opportunity to get her two handed axe skills up (She won a nice Axe during the MW Uldaman run the other night)  She started the evening with a skill around 90 and ended the night with a 220 skill (240 is her current cap).  Speaking of skills she has her gun, one-hand axe, and dagger skills nearly maxed.  Her one hand sword is around 220 and her two hand sword skill is about 215.  She needs to do some training with those.  Her staff skill is poor, in the 100's, but there are hardly any staves that are worth using as a melee character.
After completing the Badlands quests, Ghaani returned to Ironforge.  Her bags were FULL of stone and stuff from the elementals.  she made some good coin from them.  Most of the stuf was vendor trash, but a stack of some of those got nearly a gold.  not bad.  Speaking of gold, Ghaani is back up to 55 GP after buying her mount.  She still needs to get a few run-speed modifiers for the horse but it is nice having it. 
Ghaani was planning a return to Tanaris when she saw a ZF group was forming.  She joind that group and went there.  WOW what a bunch of IDIOTS!  There was a level 44 Hunter that refused to use his pet "because he sucked and couldn't control it" and that hunter did not know what traps did.  Well talk about an idiot playing the WRONG class!  He should just re-roll as a rogue because he is doing no good as a Hunter.  I know part of the reason why his pet "sucked" that hunter already had Trueshot Aura.  That is the last skill on the marksman talent tree.  He must have built his Hunter to be a marksman and spent no talents on his pet.  That may be a good thing at higher levels but at his level you must rely upon your pet or you will be totally reliant upon groups to do anything.  After going though the first three sets of Mobs in ZF I knew that we were in BIG trouble.  The Priest INSISTED on Mind Control pulling and no one would assist to fight a common mob.  Worse yet they would hit trapped or saped mobs causing them to attack when there was more than two mobs.  The paladin didn't use Seal of Justice (keeps mobs from running) so mobs were running everywhere, getting adds and making life terrible.  I would stun or wing clip every mob I encountered but there were too many for us to handle.  After we all died, I decided that we weren't going far and left the group went back to Gz and logged for the night.
 
:::2 May 2005:::
50!  OK so I was a day later than my original hopes, but I did get it last night.  Ghaani did have a very productive weekend.  Friday night she got in a KICK ASS ZF group.  The group consisted of a Paladin, a Warrior, a Druid, and another Hunter.  We employed the "pick a target and tank it" method of crowd control.  There was little that we could not do.  We cleared all the way to the Divino-Matic temple.  That is a FUN fight.  What you do is clear the area then free the captives.  Then they will fight with you against several waves of trolls. We actually failed the last wave, but we did get a portion of the quest done.  Now that I have done it once I'd like to do it again.  We also kicked Ghaz'rilla's ass.  It wasn't even a close fight.  Ghaani ended up with Ghaz's chestplate.  It has nice AC no AGI but a hellacious Spirit boost (+23) and it looks cool.  After the GZ fight we all realized that we were too tired and it was too late to try the Divino-matic quest again.
Saturday night we took a guild group into Razorfiend Downs.  It was me, Phil (hunter) Blinky and Maddol (the twin Gnome Magi) plus a pickup dwarf priest went in and dominated the place.  Since most of the mobs were way below me, I ended up pulling/tanking or at least getting them in one area for the magi to AoE.  It was lots of fun with no one comming close to getting killed.  We took on at three to four boss mobs (Phil got to complete his sword quest, nice sword too) and the rest of us left with our bags full of loot to sell.  Ghaani did get an upgrade mail coif (slightly lower in AGI but lots more AC and STA).  After selling the vendor loot and putting the AH stuff up, Ghaani purchased some mail leggins.  They look nice and are a big AC increase over what she had, without losing any AGI. Oh, She also finished the turn in to get her Carrot on a Stick, the +Speed to mounts trinket, now all she needs is her spurs which she will put on the next pair of boots she gets.
Last night, I got on late so I just kept to really do anything so Ghaani set out to complete three of the quests that are in Tanaris.  The Centipedar quest and the two elemental quests.  With the armor upgrades Ghaani can REALLY stand in there and take a beating!  She was fighting the same mobs at the same level earlier this weekend and nearly got killed, now it is no big deal.  She completed the bug parts quest and moved down to the elementals.  The first quest there was a kill X number of mobs quest (easy).  Then she did the Laden Dew Gland quest.  DAMN the drop rate on that is horrific!  Ghaani teamed up with a Pally and warlock to mow through the mobs.  We killed about a dozen Dew Collectors and didn't get the right gland.  The Pally got fed up and decided to log.  So the Warlock and I continued.  We killed at least another dozen Dew Collectors before I got my gland.  It is a good thing that we were killing them extremely fast or we would have left too.  After about another half dozen dew collectors Someone (the Warlock) got his gland.  Now remember this, for each Dew Collecter we'd have to kill at least one other mob.  So we were leaving a major pile in the area.  We decided to head back to Gz and do the turn in's.  Ghaani arrived at Gz 91% to 50.  She completed the four quests she had and was still just a few xp away from the level (she actually showed 100%)  I took her just outside Gz and offed a few scorpions for the level.  So she took the stone back to Ironforge to train, drop off her AH loot, and stock up on goods.  She camped in the armory ready for more adventure!
 
:::5 May 2005:::
Hmm been a couple days since the update.  Monday I played Guuinnes and got him to 25 and cleaned out his quest log a bit.  He has completed the first two parts of his Verigans Fist quest and should be able to get the third rather easily.
Tuesday night Ghaani took a group back to RFD so she could get her Vanquishers Sword.  She got it and a blue dagger that is an upgrade in DPS (and looks) over her existing dagger, but she will still use the old dagger when she is in Range mode (the Vanquishers Sword is +26 ATK and the Dagger is +18 ATK).  I need to get Ghaani a new bow and focus on Archery for a while.  There is a quest for the Gorewood bow (best bow available atm) that is fairly easy to complete, with a raid.  I just need to get some levels on Ghaani so she can get the quest.
Last night Ghaani went to Un'Goro crater.  WOW!!!!  Talk about a land of the lost.  There are T-Rex dinosaurs, Pterdactyls, and all sorts of other dinosaur types there.  I do hate the ooze there.  They have a large aggro radius and appear out of nowhere.  There is a camp there that has LOTS of quests.  Ghaani has completed a few.  One, the escort Squeeky to Frizzle Rack, resulted in another upgrade in armor.  Ghaani now has a +12 mail headpeice (looks better than the coif as well).  She even got an upgrade in ring.  She is about 75% to 51 now and should have no problem getting 51 if she plays tonight.  There are many area in UG that she can solo (and complete more quests!) so it looks like she will be there for at least a couple levels.  While Ghaani was running back to Gz there was a call LFM for ZF and that they were doing Divino-Matic.  That was the last quest in ZF that Ghaani had, so she went to help.  We had a Warrior, Pally, Warlock (Someone, his name, who I had been grouped with most of the night), a Druid, and Ghaani.  She was the highest level there, but we were a good group.  We had one wipe when we started due to moving too fast.  The second, and final, wipe was due to an AoE in the scarab room (not smart).  We cleared the base of the tower to start the Divino-matic quest.  When we got to the top we started the quest and KICKED ASS!  The quest is intense.  There are waves of mobs rushing the tower to attack the "prisoners" that we released.  We kept pounding and pounding, the mobs kept dying and it seemed as if noone was suffering.  We cleared the mobs, then the NPS that we were attacking turned to attack us, so we killed them too.  Completing the quest.  Ghaani looted the Divino-Matic rod from Sgt. Bly and retunred it to Gz and got another nice ring (the Masons Fraternity Band, +12 AGI).  So for the night Ghaani had upgraded both her rings and her head peice.  She still has quite a way to go to get close to what others have but she is getting there.
 
:::9 May 2005:::
I am so tired.  We went to NLR for Mother's Day Weekend and did not get back until late last night.  We left Friday.  So there won't be much of an update for today.  Thursday Night I started with Ghaani but a guildie (Dahoss) needed some help getting the Wethered Lumber to start his Verigan's Fist quest.  So Ghaani went there and laid a serious beating on the mobs there.  He wanted to continue so I logged in with Guuinnes so we could get the Smithy Hammer (he did the 2nd part while Gu ran from Menethril Harbor to South Shores).  Once Hoss got to SS we ran to the instance (well he ran I put auto-follow on) we kicked butt!  He was 27 and Gu is 25  we both got some decent XP and our hammers.  Now the only thing left is to get the Kor Gem.  Gu will have to go back to BFD to get that.  Before I logged for the evening I took Gu to BFD to see how difficlt it would be for him to do alone.  He could take on one mob without getting killed.  But it drained him nearly of all his Mana and XP.  Most of the mobs are casters so his SoJ worked very nice.  They are also shaman type mobs so they kept heling themselves through the fight.  It did take a couple min to kill each mob.  To get that part done it looks like Gu will need to have some help.
Last night I did log in briefly.  I wanted to see what I had sold at the AH, put the items that didn't sell back up, and get the rest of my pet skills.  I started in STV to get cower 5.  That was easy.  Ghaani then went to Felwood to get Dive 3 and Claw 7.  It took longer to get there than it did to get the skills.  I tamed one Owl and he had both skills.  That rocked.  I then ran Ghaani to the Griff (far NE corner of the zone, she was in the south part) the griff went to Darkshore.  From Darkshore she flew to Tanaris so she could get Bite 7.  That was available from the Giant Surf Crawlers (they are elite turtles in the extreme southern part of the zone)  The first time she tried she died with .5 seconds left for the tame to take place.  So she had to run back, rez, recover, then try again.  This time she placed a snare trap so the turtle would get there slower, and it worked!  She charmed the big turtle and got bite 7.  She now has all the pet skills for her level.  She did not fight enough mobs to level but if I get a chance to play tonight, it won't take long.
 
:::10 May 2005:::
We went to the baseball game last night so there wasn't much time to log in.  I did get in with Ghaani for a little bit.  She is now 51 and has completed a couple more Un'Goro quests.  She still has several to go, she is still getting good XP there because most of the mobs are between 49 and 55 so the XP will remain fairly good.  She did return to Iron Forge to pick up some supplies to make potions and cook food.  I need to find the vendor that sells the Rockscale Cod recipe so I can further clean out Ghaani's bank.  That and the recipe that requires Tender Wolf Flank and Mystery Meat.  I have way to much of that in my bank right now.
I do think something is wrong with my pet's growl.  Sam could not keep aggro to save my life last night.  I'd send him in to attack, I'd even wait for him to hit first before I shot, then after one or two shots, the mob was running to hit me!  Something is messed up with pets right now.  I hope there is a patch tonight that can FIX it.  Sam has Growl 5 (the level 50 pet taunt) and I would make sure that he had plenty of "mana" to cast it.  I had turned off a few of his other skills to make sure that he was using it as much as he could.  I am glad that I spent some money upgrading my armor or Ghaani wouldn't have a chance standing toe-to-toe with them.
I did talk briefly to DaHoss, he is in his 30's now and has his Fist.  He said that he'd help Gu get his too.
 
:::11 May 2005:::
Last night was a grind fest.  Not your standard sit in one area and grind but hit every area in Un'Goro for quest items.  Ghaani did complete several quests and even got a few new recipies (her cooking is now 225, and she has to complete the clamette omelet quest to go above 225.  To finish that she just needs a few more giant eggs)
I have decided to use Zozan as a mule for the time being.  Ghaani's bags and bank are just way too full for her to work on the quests she needs.  I'll just keep the stuff she is using at the time and will pass the rest of the stuff to Zoz for him to hold.  He is in Stormwind now and after I have him pick up the mail I'll move him to Ironforge (this will allow me to "bind" Ghaani in Gz to help with the LONG run out of the crater to end the evening)  Ghaani had to sell Archeus (her first named sword)  It was sitting in the bank just taking up space.  She got 57 Silver for it.  She has been buying the materials she needs for Alchemy and she still has around 70 GP.
XP wise I did get Ghaani about 70% to 52.  Should I play tonight, she should get the level easily and 52 is a spell level, yippee!  I still need to show my son Un'Goro Crater.  He is the Dino-phile, he LOVES dinosaurs.  Right now the path I will take Ghaani is to finish the UG quests then move to the Plaguelands. 
I think I fixed Sam's Growl.  For some reason when I got the updated skills it had cower "on" so I placed cower back on the pet bar and put dash to a macro.  Sam was able to hold aggro a lot better last night.
 
:::12 May 2005:::
I started the evening by exploring Un'Goro Crater and showing my boy the dinosaurs.  He was really excited, espically when I attacked the "T-Rex", the Devilsaur.  The Devilsaur was level 55+ so I was no match for him.  He stompped Sam quickly and I had to FD to keep alive.  I gave a tour of all the areas in UGC then logged out for a bit in the northen camp.  When I returned I was determined to complete as many of the UG quests as I could.  I started out completing the "Beware of Pterrordax" quest then I finished the Shizzle Flyer quest.  I completed the Alien Ecology by fighting the bugs in their hole.  That was tough because you had to be in the CENTER of the last room of the pit.  You were not advised of the location until clicked on the "vial" to do your sampling.  While I was in the bug pit Ghaani dinged 52.  Ghaani also completed the Un'Goro Gorilla quest and two others.  It was nice going into the camp with all those quests completed.  Ghaani rec'd over 20K XP (and is now over 25% to 53!) 
After doing all the turnins I took Ghaani to IF to train and to check the AH.  Then she flew back to Tanaris to complete the Clamette Omelet quest.  She had to get 6 more Giant Eggs.  The Rok's in Tanaris dropped those eggs.  They are a normal spawn and the egg seemed to drop one out of every two to three kills.  Ghaani did get all the eggs she needed and did the final turn in.  She can now train to 300 in cooking.  It took over an hour from the last time Ghaani "stoned" to IF to the time she completed the cooking quest so she stoned back to IF to start COOKING!  She hit the AH one more time to see if any more recipies were available.  She got three, one for bbq'd wolf meat, one for undertow clam chowder and one for smoked clam.  She had the other one for smoked raptor.  All she needed was some spices to empty her bank of the uncooked meat.  The only recipe that she needs now is "mystery stew" then she can clear it ALL out.  I logged Ghaani with a cooking skill over 250.  It shouldn't take long to get to 300.  I need to get Ghaani's Herbalism over 280.  Only Alchemy is lacking.  But with a focus on herbalism she should be able to get that up with not much of an investment.
 
:::13 May 2005:::
Short Night last night, as Thursdays usually are.  I logged in first with Ghaani to make a trip to Desolace (Nigel's Point) to get the Mystery Meat Stew recipe.  I saw Dahoss was on and asked him if he wanted to go get a gem for Guuiness.  He said that he would so I switched over to Gu.  He was in SW so I had to get him all the was to Darkshore.  I finally got him there, we hit BFD and after three mobs had his gem.  I ran Gu to the griff in the zone (shorter than running to the griff in Darkshore and I'd need it later) flew back to Darkshore, got the gem purified, stoned to SW, ran to IF, did the turn in and now Gu has his own Verigan's Fist!  I'll try to get it enchanted so it looks REALLY cool.  I didn't even run out to use it.  I just took some of the gear Gu had to sell placed it in the AH and switched back to Ghaani.
Ghaani made a flight to Nigel's point, purchased a couple copies of the recipe (one for sale) went back to IF and emptied out her bank of Mystery Meat.  Zoz had sent his tender wolf flank so Ghaani used all of those and now her cooking is 280'ish.  I also purchased a couple stacks of herbs to make fortitude potions and took her Alchemy up to 205.  Now I need to figure out what I need to do to get it above 225.
All in all it was a wierd night.  I think I fought 6 mobs tops.  I wasn't in game for a long time but I think I accomplished quite a bit.  I still need to work on Gu's weapon sets and figure out how to make them switch better.  Oh, I also got Ghaani's spurs attached to her boots.  Now her nightsabre runs even faster!
 
:::16 May 2005:::
Let me see, I didn't play much Friday night, I didn't play at all Saturday, and I just played for a little while last night.  I am getting the feeling that I need to do more (some) PvP.  I am seeing more and more people with titles and with the upcomming Battlegrounds I need to find out where I am weak and where I am strong.  Now that I am exploring the Plaguelands I can find a bit more PvP in my game.
 
:::17 May 2005:::
More exploring in the Western Plaguelands.  I have completed a few quests and I need to do some research on the Brotherhood quests.  Anyhow, the quest series that I am doing now involves infiltrating the undead army's potion making areas to 1) get a sample of what they are making 2) put a counter-posion in what they are making and 3) kill as many UD as possible.
I did the first cauldron run easily enough, you have to eliminate the Cauldron-Lord get his key then get to the cauldron.  The first one he was easy to see, easy to attack and nothing else assisted him.  I think he was level 50.  The second was quite a bit harder.  First, the mobs surrounding the Cauldron have a LARGE aggro radius and there are a lot of mobs.  Second, the boss is a level 55 mob that spawns an armored skeleton guard when he gets below 25% hp.  Third, the boss only spawns when you get inside the scarecrow line (there are a few scarecrows that set up a "perimeter" around the cauldron)  he is not visable until you cross this line.  The added hard part about this is he is a caster, so he will stay at maximum range, and if you do not loot the key if you kill him, before you die, then you basically will have to kill him again to be able to get to the first body because you crossed the scarecrow line again.  There are zombies there that hit you with this disease where you and every member of your party takes around 115 damage every 8 seconds which makes it really hard to eat/drink to regain HP/Mana (the hit disrupts you and causes you to stand and interrupt your eating/drinking).  Finally there are several mobs right around the cauldron that you cannot see until you get to the cauldron.  Once you touch the cauldron the other mobs swarm you.  I was able to sacrifice Sam so that I could complete the second quest, but I died four times trying.  I helped two other paladins to do the quest after I did it. It was nice to have someone that could cure the disease, but we still had a few deaths along the way, due to the number of mobs and their use of Fear on us.  Still the quest is fun.  I like the challenge.  Maybe I'll try the third one tonight.  Regardless what quest I do, Ghaani will hit 53.  She is 96% to level 53 right now.
 
:::19 May 2005:::
Last night was a Guuinnes night.  I wanted to give his new hammer a workout.  Before I get into Gu's evening I should do a quick Ghaani update.  Tuesday night I logged in briefly to get Ghaani to 53.  I did and took her stuff to sell to the AH.  Miji was doing enchantments, and I wanted to get Gu some beef, so I logged him on and got a +50 HP to his Chest, +5 Dmg to his hammer, +STA on his bracer and +50AC on his cloak.  Needless to say he got a hefty boost.  OK Back to Gu's update.  I took him to Redridge to complete some quests.  Wow what a nice hammer this is.  Before he had a hard time taking on two mobs now, solo, the same mobs that used to kill Gu, Gu can take on three at the same time and not break a sweat.  I took Gu to the tower to work on the Shadow Magic and Thral'Zal quest.  I put together an interesting party.  It started off with Gu and a level 21 Pally.  We were doing pretty good.  Then we added a priest.  We still were doing pretty good but I was the highest level in the party and we had a hard time dealing with multiple monsters.  We got ANOTHER priest (2x Pally 2x Priest) and we had no problem killing, it just took some time.  Finally we got a mage and WOW we kicked butt!  The other Pally was new to playing MMORPGs so I had to teach him some stuff.  I was doing REALLY good with Gu.  I was the Main Tank.  When we took on three or more mobs, I'd go in and whack each of them then do a quick flash of light.  I'd stun the caster and put a judgement of justice on him so he wouldn't run away.  I'd then cast seal of fury so my hate would grow on all the mobs.  With two priests healing me I would just stand there, beat on them with my hammer and keep them all on me.  When we completed Shadow Magic and TZ the other pally and mage left (/rude!)  We picked up another priest (3x priest 1x Pally)  Luckily one of them was shadow specced so he could act as mini-mage.  I'd use the same tactic and we were easily able to finish Shadow Magic for the other two.  I was greatly pleased with how I played Gu.  Aside from a rough patch when we were figuring out how we'd fight (and wiped a couple times) it was a good night.  Gu dinged 26.  When we were done I went to the Pally trainer and spent over 5GP on my new spells (so Gu is BROKE again!)  Thank goodness I have two levels to make more money for my level 28 spells.
I had a lot of fun playing Gu.  I need to do that more often
 
:::2 June 2005:::
OK, so I have not been playing much latley -- I have a good excuse.  The 20th (which was our 10th wedding anniversary) we drove to Arkansas to drop the kids off so Pam and I could fly to VEGAS on Saturday.  We were in VEGAS from Saturday to Thursday.  We had a BLAST there,   Thursday we flew back to Arkansas.  We had planned on driving back home on Saturday, but I got sick so we pushed that back to Sunday.  We arrived back home Sunday Evening.  I was too tired to even turn the computer on.  Monday was a holiday, Memorial Day, and we took the kids to see Star Wars Episode III.  I did play some Monday night with Ghaani.  I didn't do much just ran around the Plaguelands to get some XP.  I was on-line for alittle over an hour.  No time really to do much.  More of that on Tuesday and Wednesday night, log in late do a little grinding, work on WPL quests and log
Last night I logged in and Ghaani was 85% to 54.  I had to make a run to Ratchet to complete a quest.  Since the Crossroads are in the same zone (and a major PVP area) I decided to run there to give it a shot.  I did get 15 honorable kills while there.  It was fun, but I need to get to 60 before I can really do any PVP.  I took Ghaani back to WPL to get the XP needed to level. 
One of the quests I have for WPL requires me to go to the Scarlet Lumberjack Mill and place a barrel of termites.  The place is crawling with level 55 and higher humanoids.  You have to run through a LOT of 53 and up spiders and wolves to get there (and they respawn FAST).  I got to the mill and was clearing the area outside when a level 59 guard appeard by me.  I tried to FD but he shield bashed me right as I was going down so it failed.  I tried to put Sam on him and run away but Sam had been jumpped by some spiders and they had rooted him.  I took off running but he bashed me again and stunned me.  Ghaani quickly died after that.  I ran back to recover but the bastard was camping my body.  I tried to rez and run but he has a large aggro radius so I didn't get too far and died again.  This happened a couple more times before I was finally able to get away.  I decided to attack that area later (or with help) and went to corrupt the second cauldron.  I finished that and was oh so close to leveling.  I wandered around the zone killing everything I saw.  Finally I leveled to 54! I took the stone back to IF sold my stuff, got my spell upgrades and logged.
I may not log in tonight, I am tired.
 
:::3 June 2005:::
I felt better when I got home and CSI was a repeat so I logged in.  I dedicated last night to completing old quests.  Cragack 60 War, Larland, 48 Druid, and Grayghost, 44 Hunter came to help me (was nice of them)  We first gathered in Arathi to Summon Maryzel.  While I was waiting for everone to get there I was taking out Water Elementals.  I had a couple Aimed Shot Crits of 1245! Nice to see those things go down in one shot!  We summoned the princess and took her out rather quickly.  She was summoning many elementals to help her, but none of them were higher than level 44 so we took them all down with little effort.  Crag, Lar and GG were also on that part of the quest so it was noce for all of us to get 7100 XP and a decent neck item.
From there we went to save grimfeather.  That was an interesting crawl.  We had to fight our way up this tower then to kill three 50+ elites.  The mobs at the bottom were rather easy most of them were in the 40'ish range when we got to the top the mobs were around level 50.  We had no problems until we got to the Vile Priestess and I pulled her too quickly.  We took her down but she hexed Lar (our healer) and he couldn't heal while her guards killed us.  I was able to get the key from her before I went down.  We recovered, let the little griffon free (his mummy and daddy came to fly him home).  Crag and I jumped down the mountain to do the turnin.  I got 7900 XP for completing the quest in addition to 2.5 GP and some pants that sold for 1.5 GP.  I finished the night with over 25% in 54 and my quest log cleared down to just 10 quests remaining.
 
:::6 June 2005:::
This weekend was a Guuinnes weekend.  I did not play Ghaani at all.  I took Gu from 26 to about 20% away from 30.  I started in Redridge where I finished all but one quest there (I could probably do it solo once I get 30).  I then moved to Darkshire to do the quests there.  WOW I love fighting Undead with Gu.  Just plain and simple ass-kicking.
Friday night started easy in Redridge.  Gu compled what he could there and picked up the Missing Diplomat quest (I like that quest)  After running around Stormwind a bit Gu went to Darkshire.  As soon as he hit the town he picked up all the quests he could.  I started there clearing the little quests around town.
Saturday Gu hit 27 and 28 did more clearing of Darkshire quests.  I teamed up with a priest that was a couple levels below me to to the nightstalker quests.  We were a good team.  I took the beating and gave one back (I love my hammer!).  We continued to Raven Hill to beat on some more undead and continue the quests.  My priest friend decided to log shortly after he leveled and I continued completing and gathering quests.  Finally I loged for the night a little more than half-way to 28.
Sunday I continued with the Darkshire run.  Completing the plague spreader quest, the Prove your worth quest (an kill X number of mobs type quest that i love so much) and getting the Mor'Ladim quest done.  I had completed all the groundwork running around and completed many other quests (even leveled to 29) when I got invited to a group to take out Mor'Ladim.  We had a 33 Paladin (HellHammer), 27 Warrior (Xanthis), Gu (29 Pally), and picked up a 28 Pally (Paks).  Before I could get back to Raven Hill X adn Hammer were jummped by Mor and they took him down.  X needed to get the Plaguespreaders quest done so hammer took us into the catacombs.  WOW!  I was running my Shadow resistance aura, Hammer was running his AC aura and Pak was running the DS aura.  I kept BoW on us all and Hammer kept BoM on all of us and we KICKED MAJOR UNDEAD ASS!  We were knocking them out as if they were abunch of level 10 nothings.  We even went around to hit Mor again and took him down with little effort.  Once we were done, Gu went around doing all the turn-ins and now is the proud owner of Archeus.  Gu even did some more quest completion stuffs and got to the final "embalmber" final quest.  I tried to do that solo and well that was a mistake.  After Gu died (quickly) I decided to take the Rez from the SH and call it a night.  Gu is sitting in the Inn in Darkshire with around 20% away from level 30.
I will most likely log in with Gu and get him 30 then see how I feel about progressing.  Since I am at an area that I enjoyed so much with Ghaani I will probably continue with Gu.  I'll work on the missing diplomat quest, the legend of salvatan and the Morbent Fel quest.  Those are some pretty big quests and will dictate that I spend a bit of time doing them.  For XP needs I might hit South Shore (and make a run through the Scarlet Monastary!)
I REALLY am enjoying playing Gu and will stay with him at least through 40.
 
:::7 June 2005:::
Logged in with Gu last night, did the Embalmber's Wife final kill, got a nice sword.  Actually we had an overkill force (Elle - 55 Mage, Gu, a 33 Hunter, 35 mage, and a 40 Pally.  There was even a few others standing around helping!)  We actually took her down twice!  After we finished a few needed Morbent Fel so we took him down (twice)  Once that was done the group broke up.  I ran into Paks again, she and I and then the 40 pally from the earlier group did the third part of the nighragers quests.  Gu hit 30 when we killed the last of the mobs Paks needed.  I stoned to Stormwind to sell and train (grrr another 5gp for my spells!) I got an upgrade to my LoH, upgrade to my main heal, a new "remove target from threat" spell, and a new seal, seal of light.  SoL adds a heal proc to you weapon, or when you release the seal on the mob you have a chance to be healed (by a lesser amount) when anyone hits the mob (neat!)  After I trained I went to finish the Savlatan quest.  I had to run to the Eastlake Logging camp (in West Goldshire) to get another part of the journal, then back to darkshire to do all the hand-ins. Then went over to his hut, picked up a group and splat, he was gone.  That only leaves the Morbent Fel quest for me to have all of Darkshire completed.
I then ran to STV!  I cleared my questlog of some of the lower level quests that I most likely wouldn't do for a while and picked up the hunting quest.  Gu has completed the first tiger quest and is working on the first panther quest.  When I got tired I ran to Booty Bay to log (damn I forgot how long of a run that was!)
I still am enjoying playing Gu and will continue to play him as long as I am having fun.  There is a patch Tuesday so I don't know if I will be able to log in.
 
:::9 June 2005:::
Did a Gnomer run with a pick-up group last night.  What a MISTAKE!  There was this one greedy asshole pally that rolled and won EVERYTHING!  I tried to confront him about it during the instance and he just laughed.  I talked to him after we were done and his responce was "No Loot Rules were set" and I asked him if that gave him the right to be a greedy asshole?
Anyhow we killed the Boss of Gnomer and I got nothing from it.
I then went to work on the last bits of the Morbent Fel and Missing Diplomat quests.  I just need to visit Sven and I am ready to take down the Fel.
Guu is 31 now and progressing nicely.
I did place an order for FIBER OPTIC INTERNET SERVICE!  After the 17th there should be no reason for me to have ANY net lag what so ever. /drool.
 
:::10 June 2005:::
Let me see, what did I do last night... Oh Gu finished the Missing Diplomat quest and got his ring (it went rather FAST this time).  I also did some of the Cursed Sailor quests out of the Wetlands.  The Sailors cast a curse on you causing you to appear as Undead (Gu looks pretty COOL as an Undead with Archeus glowing!)  I finished the first part and now have to go get a key from the captian.  I got Gu to over 55% in level so I should be able to level him a couple times this weekend.  I think I'll check the quest for the captian to see what is required then I'll set up shop in STV.  It might be beneficial to play Ghaani at least once this weekend to let Gu's rest bonus build up again.  Also I need to clean out Gu's bank... He has too many baking items in there to be able to hold his Mining stuffs.  I think I'll send those to Zoz.
 
:::13 June 2005:::
Hmm, busy busy busy weekend.  I didn't play much (was too tired)  Gu is 32 and around 40% in the level.  I did go back to The Wetlands to take on the captian, that part was easy the hard part is finding the blased stronbox.  I will need to get a potion of underwater breathing so I can do that part.
I did log Ghaani is for a brief period last night, I used her to help Biegeldog with a few quests.  It was nice I was hitting sub-50 mobs (some sob 40) and was registering over 200 DPS!  What a change from Gu!  I'll still keep progressing with Gu for a while because dispite the lack of DPS I am still having fun.  I have mapped out my talent path and should be 14 in Holy 5 in Protection and the rest in Retribution.  I think it will be a fairly balanced build.
I did take Gu through Gnomer again, this was still a bit odd, with another loot whore making things less fun for the rest of us.  Gu was the main healer for the party and noone died until we got to the Dark Iron Agents (and their stupid landmines!) Still, we completed several quests and had fun.
 
:::20 June 2005:::
I had a busy week last week so here is a update.  Gu is 34 and about 60% in the level.  I have been playing Gu exclusively these days.  I have done a few quests in STV.  I have done all the tiger hunting quests, I have done the first two panther quests and the first two raptor quests.  Also I have completed all the sub 35 quests in STV/BB.  There are still many many more to complete.  Gu will be mainly in STV until 40.  I need to get Gu to 40 for two really big items 1) the Pally Horse and 2) ability to wear Plate Mail.  Each of those will be a major upgrade.  I can't tell you how much I miss having a horse.  Running around on Gu is so slow it is painful.
On Friday I got my FiOS installed.  WOOHOOHOO!  I LOVE it!  5mbps is soo nice.  I am noticing greatly improved latency speeds and somewhat reduced lag in majorly populated zones like IronForge.  The lag is still there but not as bad.  When I browse the net it is REALLY REALLY fast.  I still need to get my home network re-configured but that will happen when it happens :)
 
:::23 June 2005:::
Gu is 35 and still kicking butt in STV.  Right now he can take on any mob that is under level 40 and live.  If he is at full health and mana he can and has survived when a couple mobs attack him.  I am enjoying this.  I know my DPS is lower than most others but the ability to take a beating is amazing!  Last night I completed several of the STV quests (and there are still many many more)  I completed the pages quests (where you have 5 different quests to first get 15 different pages for four quests that give you chapters, once you get the 4 chapters you get the final turnin) for good xp and reputation boost.  I have completed Kurzen's Mystery -- I started that on Tuesday night with a cleric and hunter that were not very skilled and very obvious that they hunt solo most of the time.  That quest requires you to "collect" information about the four troll ledgends.  The info is on four tablets throughout STV which are surrounded by lots and lots of mobs -- Fun fun!  I need to get one more troll ear to finish that quest.  I need to explore in Kurzen's cave to finish a few quests in there.
I took Gu to "the isle of mystery" which is populated with level 37 water elementals.  Gu can easily take them on even taking on two at a time if needed.  I like the island for grinding for several reasons, The elementals don't run, there are LOTS of them, they aren't very social, there are no other mobs around to interfer, they give good xp, there are a few quests that require killing them/getting drops from them, and they drop enchanted water (a great drink for regaining mana!)  I will most likely go back to the island to get 36 tonight.
I will have a lot of wow-time next week.  I'll be home alone and off from work!!! I should get Gu well into his 40's next week.  I can't wait!  40's mean PLATE armor and a HORSE!  40's also means Scarlet Monastary (lots of mobs, lots of lewt, lots of fun!!!)
Oh, I FINALLY had a great use for my targeting dummy.  I was walking up the ramp into one of the troll temples when there was a troll hunter and mage coming at me.  I dropped the dummy and attacked the mage.  The hunter started on the dummy.  The troll hunters start the fight off throwning spears/knifes/axes so it took a little time for the hunter to dispatch of the dummy.  While he was focused on the dummy I wasted the mage =) Also, the hunters will cast a root (net) on you so they can get some distance to spear you while you can't run or get to them.  Luckily I had a few bombs that have a "stun" effect.  That troll netted me and I tossed a bomb at him.  He was stunned while I waited for the net to wear off.  Poor troll didn't have a chance.  Oh and the mage and hunter were at least level 35.  I just love Gu's survivability.
 
:::24 June 2005:::
I did as I mentioned above, I hit mystery isle and the water elementals there for the quest and XP.  I picked up my last ear on the way to finish that quest. I partnered with a priest on the island to help her with the elementals and with another quest.  I thought I had enough XP to I'd level when I did the turn-ins but I was 300 XP short.  DRAT! So I ran out into the jungle and bead town a couple animals and leveled to 36.  I retunred to BB to fly to SW to train, nothing groundbreaking with the spells, just upgrades.  Then to IF to sell some stuff and I bought a few upgrades.  New shoulders, new chest, and new bracers.  I had some boots in the bank, I just need to get them enchanted with +3 STA so I wouldn't drop in STA.  Now un-buffed Gu has 1776 HP and really nice AC.  I did get the chest and boots enchanted (+35 HP and +3 STA respctively)  The bracer is my second part to the Scarlet Armor Set (I had the belt) which gives me 2 peices to the set and +10 in ac just for having the two peices.  Maybe this weekend I can make some runs through SM to get the rest of the drops =).
I need to check the level for RFD... I think Gu would be GREAT there but I know I'd need some help.  There is that sword I want from there .
 
:::5 July 2005:::
Wow wow wow!  What a week! I had a serious WoW week!  I took Guuinnes from 36 on Friday June 24 to 44 on Sunday July 3.  During that time Gu did many many things (some things over and over again)  I have finished all the STV quests, I have hit Scarlet Monastary so many times that Gu has every reasonable Paladin usable item from there on him (or something better) except for the axe that Herod drops (seems to be a very rare drop) Here is how my progress went:

First I hooked up with higher level guildie friends to run through a good portion of the STV quests.  We knocked several of the Bloodsail Buccaneers quests out.  I did most of these with Wilddiana and Dijan (Didan's Rogue alt).  When Dij had to log Thoarn came down to help us, Wild is 55 but Thoarn is 60 with lots of MC gear... Needless to say, Thoarn ROCKED!  We did the captians and he was killing stuff so fast I could not keep up.

Later during the weekend we did a Guild Scarlet Monastary (SM) run.  I did this wiht Nienen (60 Hunter) and a few others.  We ran the Library first testing how we would do, and to get me a key.  Then we brought in a 55 mage (shame on me for forgetting a guildie's name) to blast the Cathedral.  That was fun, there were three of us that were sub 40 and then the two high level guildies.  We used the pull everything and AoE blast it strat.  when we had made it in the Cathedral propper we rec'd a 15 min warning that the server was going down.  So we cleared everything and finished the loots with about a min to spare, actually the server went down as I was running out!  But we were successful in clearing the place. Fun Fun!

Over the week I hooked up with another Priest (then he was level 39) and a Warrior (then he was level 43) and we had a marathon run through SM.  We did the Armory and Cathedral so many time (I think I was in game for 10 hours!)  We started a bit rough but we soon learned how to work together and kicked some butt!  This is where I got most of my SM upgrades.  I got my Bezerkers helmet with the Nienin pass, but during the trio run I got Herod's shoulder, Shield of the Scarlet Command, the Mace of the Lightbringer, and the Scarlet Commander's mace during the successive runs.  I also got a few peices of the Scarlet armor set (pants, waist, and bracer)  They are mail so once I hit 40 they were quickly upgraded to plate!  Also, we made so much money that I started buying stuff from the AH.  I have so mush tied up in selling and buying that I don't know exactly how much gold I have but I do remember seeing over 120 gp in my bank at one time yesterday.  I bought a new 2hs, Witchfury, it is SWEET! It has nearly 40 DPS has a proc and is fairly fast.  I had it enchanted with +4 damage so it hits even harder (and glows blue)  I have seen some Seal of Command crits for over 600 while using it.  I had the Scarlet Commander's 2h Mace enchanted with a fire enchantment, adds +Fire damage chance per hit and glows a cool orange, the mace looked cool without the enchantment but looks SWEET with it.  With all the upgrades I sold my vicious warhammer, Archeus and my old 1hs.  I now have Witchfury as my primary weapon, the Mace of the Scarlet Commander as my "tanking +DPS" weapon and when I hit 45 I get to start using Blight (a sweet polearm!)  When I just need to tank with some backup healilng I'll equip the Scarlet Shield and the Hammer of Light (over 30 DPS, +15 to healing spells and +6 to Spirit)

Also during the week I started doing runs through Uldaman.  The first trip there was with the priest from the SM Trio and added two other tanks and some other people.  We did really well for a Pick Up Group (P.U.G.)we were able to take on just about anything short of the final boss section.  When we got there we were too tired and just not well enough equipped to handle it.  During that run I got a nice mace from The Fireplug Dwarf (does about 27 DPS with a Fire Shock proc) and some nice plate gauntlets that have +6 to Spirit and +5 to Defense (added to the tanking setup).

The last big guild thing I did during the week was a Uldaman run with Kaboom, Nexen, Blueleaf, and Swiftstriker.  Swift and I were the only ones under 50 (swift was 44 and I was 43 at the time)  Swift had never been to Uldaman so we wer showing him around.  We hit all the boss mobs and then made a run at the big boss.  Nexen (60 rogue) was the main tank he'd pull a mob (or few) and we'd blast them down (well, Kaboom, 60 mage, would blast them) and Blue (60 druid) would heal buff and blast.  Swift and I were there to pick up scraps.  I was the "tour guide" for the team.  We had a blast each getting a few items (or at least the dis-enchantitem from those items).  By defeating The Big Boss twice Swift and I completed the all off the Find the Gems quest.  I got a nice necklace for completing the quest (+10 sta, +10 spirit) and a really nice ring (+50 ac +9 int +9 Sta).  There was a quest that was started after we completed the boss that ended up with a 14 slot bag and during the run I got a traverlers backback.  This helped me open up some more space.

I ended Saturday just short of 44 and with a couple quests left in STV.  Sunday I got on and finished the STV quests, two with PUG's and the last two solo.  They gave me enough XP to hit 44.  I went back to IF to train sell, and logged.  Last night I just logged in to complete a few quests, one in Theramore and one in Tanaris.  Gu camped out in Gagetezan in Tanaris where he picked up several quests.  I plan to work that area as far as I can and maybe throw in some Feralas for a change of pace until I go big time in Un'Goro Crater (high 40's and 50's).  I still want to go to RFD to get my Vanquishers Sword.  Now that Gu is in his mid 40's the quest should be no problem at all.

Talent wise, Gu is a still about seven levels away from getting Blessing of Kings.  But I did get Consceration which is a nice AoE that can hold or gain aggro pretty good.  After the Herod fight in SM there are 30 or so mobs that swarm the room.  With Conscetration level 2 and one big bronze bomb I am able to wipe out all of them by myself in two clicks (one for cons, one for the bomb)  It is almost like a mage launching one big AOE (and quite funny).  I do have a talent path set for Gu.  I know what Talents I am going to get each level.  Right now I am alternating between Defelection and Anticipation.  Deflection raises my percent chance to parry and Anticipation raises my base defense 2 points per talent point.  I have a couple more points to go in them before I max them out.  Once I get 20 points in Retribution (the catagory) I will start training in Savage Strikes (increase my chance to score a critical hit, when I crit, Vengance goes off which increases my damage (and to crit chance)  With Savage, Vengance, and Seal of Command my DPS will be respectable

The next things that I am looking for first is level 45 so I can use Blight. (then there would be a masscre of low level mobs to get my skill up).  Also at 45 I could get into some ZF groups.  There is where I finish the quest for my carrot on a stick (more horse speed!)  Speaking of horse, WOOHOOHOO! I love having my free horse.  I can now quickly ride where I need to go.  I finished the "this is going to be hard" quest and I have a ten-second 40% run speed increase which is nice as well.

PVP - muhuhaha - Pally in low level PVP is nasty. I stun the horde punk slap them with a judgement of light and then open seal of justice (keeps stunning them) and can you say Dead horde!  I have about six pvp honorable kills.  My first one was a 30'ish cow hunter that was using the deathguard at the Tarren Mill to terrorize some level 20 players.  Once he got away from the DG I slapped him with a stun, pulled out my then big hammer, and dropped him.  I don't think he touched me.  A while later while we were waiting on a SM instance there was a cow hunter and undead rogue that were PVP enabled.  The rogue running and using the instance portals as a quick get-a-way to hide from getting his butt whupped.  The hunter was beating our warrior (the rogue had posioned him) I got back in the area and used my stun tactic and low and behold another dead cow.  The rogue remained a chicken and did not fight.  In STV there were some horde fighting the guards at the refugee camp.  They became PVP enabled and needed to be slaughtered.  Our group leveled the first two of their group, then the horde split up.  I chased the warlock, reached out and stuned him then BAM he was gone (he he he) two of their group had singled out our warlock and killed him.  We recovered and took those two out.  Again, I will need to get a few more levels so I can take on most of the server in PVP (and not be slaughtered) but with a Pally, PVP is an option.

Skill wise, 2h Mace, 2h Sword, 1h Mace and 1h Axe are all within a few points of being maxed (well the were when I was 43 seeing how I just dinged 44)  I have not used 1h sword for a few levels, but it was maxed when I stopped using it.  2h Axe is lagging fairly far behind.  I have trained in polearms but I have not used one (so I have a LONG way to go when I hit 45!)

I have made Guuinnes my main character.  Ghaani is now offically my alternate characer.  I have still been able to amaze people at my healing abilities (I took over as healer on the PUG Uldaman run for a bit when the Priest was afk, we even took on and beat one of the more difficult boss mobs and I did a really good job)  My DPS output has increased substantially due to my new weapons.  I am still nowhere near what Ghaani was doing, but I can take on mobs that are three or four levels above me and have no worrys.  I can even take on Elite mobs that are a level above me and still win solo.  I am becomming a better tank in that I can take on multiple mobs and keep them on me while the squishy classes beat the mobs quickly.  I have been the main tank in several instances, a backup healer/DPS in others and all sorts of things inbetween.  When I log on I am hit up almost instantly for groups (nice!) and I don't see that fading anytime soon.

 

:::6 July 2005:::
Logged in last night for an easy evening, Killerinstinct (Warrior friend from PUG Uldaman run) sent me a tell waning to do SM for a friend.  I knew Dij needed to get a couple mobs from there for his dagger.  I got Dij into the group we got a druid to come and well, we owned the place and Dij has his dagger.

After that I went to Tanaris to do some questing.  There was a LFM for ZF in the general channel.  I figured what the hell and asked if I could go.  Our group was three paladins and two hunters.  I was the lowest of the group but with my defense/healing setup I had more AC and Base mana than the other paladins (the highest pally was level 48!!!)  I was healer because I had some Holy talents and for the basic tenent that Heals are not resisted.  Suprisingly we did rather well.  There was one death along the way because my system locked up on me for a moment.  Nos from SC on Lanys was there, it was good to see him again.

When they were going over the stat call, I felt REALLY good about where Gu stands.  Here I am a 44 Pally and I had more mana and AC than a 48 and 46 Pally.  Yes I was in defensive mode, but even when I am in damage tank mode I don't lose that much Mana or AC (I go to 3900'ish from 4600'ish).  I finally got my Golem Shard Leggings.  The cost me more than I really wanted to pay for them but I needed the upgrade.  They are base 429AC +22 Str and +9 to Defense I added +32 to AC so they are really nice.  I have +16 to defense and when I get doone with Anticipatioin I should have around +21 to defense.

OH!  My Mace of the Commander with the Fire enchant hits like a TON!  Oh My God!!! I was clearing the entrance to SM while I was waiting on the rest of the group and I was getting close to 100 DPS, actually more when it was a one-on-one fight, but there wern't many of them and I was still in the 80-90 DPS range.  With it's stats I might be using it as my primary weapon and not Witchfury.

Anyhow, back to ZF.  The others did not know where they were going, so I was the tour guide again.  I took us to the Divino-matic fight since noone had the mace to call GZ.  I told them that we had to really work together and it is a long fight.  I was amazed that without a true healer we made it mid-way through the second wave.  I died early in the 2nd because I was fighting instead of healing.  Anyhow, I was able to stand toe-to-toe with level 44 and 45 elite mobs and hold my own (actually survive)  I think that I was the better Pally of the evening.

 

:::7 July 2005:::
Short night last night, I just spent the evening doing Wastewater Justice quests in Tanaris.  Man, I really enjoy being a Pally.  I started fighting one shadowcaster (and pet) and another shadowcaster aggroed.  While I was fighting them a Wastewater rogue joined in the fight.  All these mobs were at least level 43, I was level 44.  I finished off the first shadowcaster then started on the 2nd.  I got him in a stun cycle but I was still taking lots of damage.  I fired off divine shield after I finished the second 'caster.  I was self healing and fighting the remaing mobs.  I took on the rogue and got her down.  I used divine protection while I used my big heal had already drank one mana potion and health potion and was getting close to running out of health and mana again.  I hit LoH for a complete heal, at the sacrifice of all my remaining mana, the first pet was now gone and the 2nd one was falling fast.  I was able to regenerate enough mana to stun the pet then I finished it off.  I was still standing had over half of my health remaining.  Wow! what a fight and I was never all that close to falling myself.  Anyhow for the night I completed both of the Wastewater Justice quests and logged for the night about 15% away from level 45, and BLIGHT!

What is a Paladin in WoW?
A Paladin is a tank.  A well equipped pally can take an extreme beating and remain standing.  It is a little bit hard for a pally to generate a lot of aggro naturally but by using all of his talents he can hold the attention of two to three mobs while letting others finish off the mobs.  If a Paladin spent some points in Protection he could really be an awesome tank.  I have not spent any talent points in Protection and I think I am a rather good tank.

A Paladin is an emergency healer.  With just a few points spent in Holy Talents a Paladin can fill in as the healer in a group.  I have spent those few points and I to fill in as healer, sometimes I AM the healer.

A Paladin is a PVP monster! With their stuns and heals a Pally is a horde's worst enemy in PVP.  If a pally is able to get in close range to the other player there is no reason why a good paladin should lose a PVP battle.  I have beaten Hunters, Shaman, and Warlocks.  A mage might pose a little bit of a problem with their ice spells but you'd have to use blessing of freedom when they hit you with ice, then you would have to stun them and keep seal of justice up for the remaining stuns -- If they can't move they can't beat you!

A Good Paladin is a group's hero.  When a pally is not the tank or healer he is the offtank, crowd control, squishy class rescuer, and the healer's healer.  If a pull goes bad it is up to the Paladin to make sure the group survives.  If a caster or healing mob comes with the intended target it is the pally's job to take on that mob and apply a stun at the appropriate time.  When you do this you sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the party.  Tell the healer that if he should focus on the tank and that you will heal yourself when needed.  If just a melee mob comes, you try to get aggro of that mob and assist the tank to beat the primary target as quickly as possible.  Again you should use all the tools you have to keep the other mobs fighting you and not the High DPS or Healing classes.  One thing that I like to do to gain aggro is to whack the mob, stun it, and then cast a flash of light (fast, and low mana cost) to get the added aggro that healing builds.  During the fight if it is needed and mana is not a problem, I'll also cast a consecration and use one of my short range aoe stun bombs.  Only time I do not use consecration or the bombs is when there is a mage in the party/raid and mobs are beeing sheeped.  A good paladin knows the area and the mobs around him. A good Paladin knows what it will take to accomplish the task at hand.  A good paladin is fair.

 

:::11 July 2005:::
Had a good weekend. Gu is 46 now.  Blight is sweet.  I still need to max out polearms but I am close enough that the weapon is effective.  Actually I have all weapon skills (1H Axe, 2H Axe, 1H Sword, 2H Sword, 1H Mace, 2H Mace, and Polearm) at least 210, max rank is 230/235 depending upon type, with 2H Sword, 2H Mace, and 1h Mace at 230.  The only reason why I don't have those skills maxxed is I am just into level 46.  I did spend a good deal of time on Sunday skilling up 2H Axe.  I started the evening with a skill around 130.  I knew I needed to go get some ingrediants for cooking and they were from low level mobs, so I went farming with my axe.  I got enough stuff to get my cooking up to 180 -- not bad since I started the day with cooking around 26.

Friday night was another Uldaman run.  I am FINISHED with Uldaman.  I'll still go there for the good xp, potential good drops and I like the place.  I got another polearm, Grimlock Charge, during this run.  It is nice.  It's DPS is less than Blight but more than my other weapons.  It also has stat buffs, +10 STR, +10 STA, and +10 AGI.  There is no proc, I might get Icy put on it.  We took on Archaeous in Uldaman on this trip.  We wiped to him the first time because the "group leader" insisted that we fought the adds instead of focusing on the big guy, and he wanted ME to fight the adds.  I don't think that was a good idea but I went along.  at worst I think I should have tanked the big guy and let the War take on the adds.  I could have hled the big guy, healed myself until the golem spawn and then we all could have blasted him.  But anyhow, we wiped and the war called it quits.  I had a level 60 rogue guildie come help us and the lowbie mage brought his 60 hunter.  Needless to say we kicked his butt.  He dropped the ring that I already had. But it was nice to get another victory over Archaeous.  Before I logged I ran Gu from Ratchet to Nigel's Point to Feathermoon.  Damn that was a LONG run, thank goodness I had my horse or it would have been A LOT longer.

Saturday started by running around completing various quests and ended up in Zul'Ferrek (ZF)  We had a good group there to start until the 47 Pally had to emergency log.  I was able to get Juumar from the guild to come help us.  With Juu we were able to beat GZ (the big lizard) breeze through the Divino-Matic fight (still one of my favorite battles in the game) and the serpants.  I got a new 1h Axe.  It hits a lot harder than the one I currently have, but a bit slower.  I'll keep the fast one for training purposes (that and it looks cool).  I bought an Executioners Axe (2H Axe) that has a +66 ATK when fighting undead.  It looks cool but is not as cool as the axe from Herod.  I still want to go get that thing.  Before I logged I did all my quest turn ins and dinged 46.

Like I said, Sunday was trade skill day.  I gathered my cooking stuff from Zoz, went through the forest just outside Stormwind slaughtering wolves for meat and then travelled to Darkshire for some axe-work vs the UD there then over to westfall to get materails for cooking.  I went bad to SW when my bags were full.  I sold the junk and cooked up everything that I could.  I then went to Redridge for some Murlok slaying.  It was rather boring.  I'd get a group of them around me and take them down as fast as I could.  I was there for just under an hour and I must have taken down at least 50 of them (I had 37 murlok eyes in my bag and not every murlok drops eyes!)  After I cooked up all that I could I took Gu to Thousand Needles and the racetrack to get my Carrot on a stick quest.  I then logged Gu in the Inn in Gazetstan.

Goal update:  Get level 50 by the end of the month.  Get cooking high enough to make Mystery Stew.  Get my carrot on a stick.  Get better in everything that I do.  Work on Mining and Engineering.  Complete or delete the green quests in my log.  When I make it to Un'Goro there are at least a dozen quests there so I need to clean up what I have.

Cooking, I need to get online to research what recipies I need and who I need to get them from.  I should be able to get to 200 in one setting.  I have some fish that I need to cook.  Also my bank is over full again (grrr!)  I need to clean it out.  I also need to decide if I am going to take Gu on the Goblin or Dwarven engineering paths.

I have been playing Gu exclusively for just over a month.  He started this month at level 26 and is now 46.  I would say that is good progression for a casual player.  I think it should not be that difficult to make 50 before the end of the month.

 

:::13 July 2005:::
Gu is around 80% to level 47 and has been clearing up his quest log.  He now has 13 quests working, most are from Tanaris, all of the ZF quests have been completed, including the Carrot on a stick quest (horse is fully modded now).  When I was working on the last of the ZF quests a very dissapointing thing happened.  The Warrior that I had done so many SM runs and a couple ZF runs with, Loreal, turned into a major lewt whore asshat.  He kept saying things like "I am the reason why we are here" and "I know how to do this" and "you can't do it like that"  He kept pulling like he was going to clear everything (and take a long time) when we kept telling him that you didn't need to.  Finally after one too many wipes we dropped him and added a level 45 mage.  We continued without another wipe until after the priest left.  We took down G'Zilla and the divino-matic fight with no losses.

Last night I helped some guildies with another run through Uldaman.  We kicked Archaceous butt yet again.  This time I got a decent 2h sword.  I finished the night running around completing as many quests as I could.  That took me back to Arathi Highlands.  I did Trelane's Defenses, solo.  Actually I started solo cleared down to the tower and got my gem.  A level 37 priest was wanting to do the same quest so I grouped with her and we got her gem.  We later added a hunter, a 39 warrior, and then my pally friend Paks (she is just level 35... I have pased her).  I was able to get Fozruk and then we did the last part of the tower quests.  It was nice to be the tank and in control of things.  The rest of the group needed Otto and Falconcrest so we knocked them out.  We worked as a really tight team and did not have many difficulties.  I just need to run to the Badlands to do a hand in to the lost dwarf (again!) and I will have another quest complete.  Then I can get back to leveling -- I should hit 47 tonight with no problems.  I will most likely go back to Tanaris, there are a few areas there where the grinding is pretty good.

Oh, when I was fighting in Arathi, I noticed something... My DPS meter was pegging the 200 DPS mark for a while.  I know I was fighting against mobs that were 5-7 levels lower than me but they were still green (giving me xp) and many of them were elites (which gives them an armor and HP increase) Anytime my DPS is close to 200 I feel good.

 

:::14 July 2005:::
Last night I got to show Dej and Krond around Uldaman.  We started out just the three of us, with me being tank and healer.  At level 46 that is a tall order, especially since Dej is just 43 and Krond is 40 (minimum level recommended for Ulda is 41...)  We made it to the dwarf room to get the talisman for the shaft.  The way the fights were going I know we could not get much farther so we backed out.  We were just about to split up when we ran into Fireside and Kaboom (60 Druid and 60 Mage respectively) and they were going in Ulda to get the enchanter trainer for Fire.  WOW!  We ROCKED!  We cleared Ironya (the giant woman locked in the hidden chamber) the Fireplug, Grimlok, and cleared our way to Archadeous.  Fire was doing the bulk of the tanking and I was healing.  All along the way Dej and Krond were getting upgrades and visiting areas that they have never been.  We awoke the boss and proceeded to kick his butt. Fire tanking, Kaboom blasting and me healing as needed.  It was a shame that Dej and Krond didn't get an opportunity to see how difficult that area really is but I think they enjoyed themselves.  I know Dej did.  After the fight I let Fire take the 50 AC +10 Int +10 STA ring it would have been an upgrade for me but Fire didn't get anything and he did come to help us after all.  I did get some stuff to sell in the AH and I got a good bit of Mystery meat for when I get my cooking to 175 (136 currently so not too far off).

I did ding 47 while there, just three away from my end of the month goal.

I still think that I am a better pally than most that are my level.  I have been gearing Guu to be able to fill in any role.  I have no problems soloing, being off-tank, being main tank, being backup healer, runner control, buff-bot, and emergency healer.  I understand that I am not as true a tank as an equally equipped warrior or as good a healer as a priest or druid but I am good enough to make the groups I am in better.  Some people say that Pallies decrease in power from 40 to 60 and the decrease is sharper the closer to 60 they get.  That may be true but I am still having fun playing a pally and I am looking forward to doing more and more with Gu.

Gear wise I am slowly getting bigger and better things and keep improving my trade skills and my bank continues to grow.  I still have over 100gp in the bank.  I soon seeing more of armor being replaced (probably my Herod's shoulder going first) then even my chestpeice next.  I did amaze Dej with my weapons cache and I need to continue to improve each and every one of my weapons.  I cannot get the "best weapon" for a pally yet because it I have to be higher in level before I can.  I do think I have the best weapons available for my level.

I have a ball game tonight and I don't think I'll be in game tonight.  If I do get in I will just work on some trades and keep the AH items going.

 

:::18 July 2005:::
Hmmm, I didn't get much game time in this weekend.  Yesterday I just played long enough to get a laden dew gland  and to show my boy what an Ogre looks like when he is hit with Blight (turns a need shade of green).  Saturday I didn't play at all.  Friday all I did was just run around, get stuff moved around and did a little tradeskilling.  I am going to a ball game tonight so I don't think I'll be on tonight.  I am just 35% to 48.  I plan on getting back on track this weekend, I will be all alone and have some dedicated WoW time. 

 

:::21 July 2005:::
I finally had some game time last night, so much so that I dinged 48.  I started last night 60% to level thanks to some running around in the Hinterlands on Tuesday Night.  Last night I started in Tanaris to fight some of the "uppity weeds" and finish those quests.  I knocked those out then decided to visit Un'Goro.  In UG I set up my "camp" in the southeast corner of the zone and had my fill of raptors (level 48 to 50).  With the rest bonus they gave up to 680 XP per (VERY NICE!)  I hit 48 in UG then went back to Gagetzan for the turn-in for the weed quest then stoned back to IF for training.

My "dedicated WoW time" is not going to be as much as I originally thought.  Tonight I have a ball game at 8:30, Friday night I have a poker event, and Saturday I have TLI from 9:00a to 3:00p.  Oh well, I might be able to get to 49 by Sunday.  Getting 50 may not happen this month.  On the 29th I'll be going up to LR for the weekend so that will limit my opportunities.

Last night Corrivin was logged in, it was good to talk to him again.  I haven't seen him in a long time.  Also, Wilddiiana dinged 60.  I hope to get there sometime.

 

:::25 July 2005:::
I did get some game time in over the weekend.  I didn't make the training on Saturday due to my leg injuries so I engaged in a bit of pixel fighting.  Gu is now 49 and just over 10% away from 50.  Looks like I'll make my goal afterall.  Saturday afternoon I went to Maraudon for the first time.  Holy Cow!  That place is a mess.  I did get quite a few upgrades.  I got a +10 Nature Resist trinket and a nice new shield.  We went after the Princess (hereafter referred to as The Big Ugly).  The hunter in our group had to bail and I had Meegee come to help us (60 rogue) but they invited a 55 Hunter (she wasn't that good) so our warrior (there is something really WRONG with a warrior being a Gnome and having purple pigtails, but I digress) decided to leave.  Nearly 45 min later the Hunter and Meegee reached the falls (thank goodness Meegee had the staff to port them to us)  Meegee led us right to TBU.  WOW she is a pain!  She has the AoE "fart" that hits you and causes you to be knocked back.  She also has a fear that goes off too often.  We killed her on the first try and I got a nice upgrade for pants.  Killing her completed a quest for a nice 1h sword, Thrash Blade that has a chance for an extra hit on hit.  Later, I hooked up with another group that was working on the purple side.  This allowed me to finish the quests there.  I now have the staff and then we fought down to the Big Ugly again.  The priest in that group REALLY pissed me off. Laua is NOT a good priest.  She could not keep aggro off her, she could not keep herself out of combat, she bitched at me for not healing her when we were fighting mobs that stun and silence, oh and I was the TANK!  Finally, when we fought TBU the second time I knew that we were going to wipe (everyone was dead but me and Laua and she had aggro) so I hit Laua with Divine Intervention.  This took her out of the fight, not aggroed and alive.  I died.  She was able to rez us so we could fight quickly and she COMPLAINED about me saving her.  She thought we could beat her.  To beat the big ugly you need a good deal of ranged attack.  She goes down in a hurry then.  One of the other party members left and they brought in a level 60 warrior.  We took her down (because the warrior could hold aggro) and I got a nice ring upgrade.

Sunday I played some more in Un'Goro and in ZF with Dej.  Monday Night we are putting together a Mara run for guildies.  Hopefully we'll be able to knock the Princess out again.  I should also hit 50 tonight as well, it is looking by mid-Aug Guu will have surpassed Ghaani in level.  Should be a good night.

Tradeskill wise, Guu is now a member of the Goblin Engineers.  Goblins have neat things that go BOOM!  His engineering is now over 215 and progressing nicely. 

 

:::26 July 2005:::
50! Woohoo I made my goal.  But training at 50 was pricey!  I spent about 25gp on spells, ouch!  Anyhow before I hit 50 we had our Princess run.  I teamed up with Dej, Tsuga (priest), Glom (mage), and Marcus (60 druid friend of Dej).  I was the tour guide for the evening (fun fun fun) and I was the primary tank.  We did amazingly well on our way down to the big ugly.  My tanking has improved greatly.  When we were fighting the pairs of giants on the slope down to her uglyness I was tanking one, Marcus on the other and everyone helping me then hitting the one Marcus was on.  I'd go in and put a Judgement of light on the giant, stun it, then seal of fury on me.  I was using my Thrash Blade and shield and at level 49 they did not pull aggro off me.  That made me feel like I was really doing my job and that I am getting better.  When we got down to the ugly one, we cleared the turtles and had Marcus be the primary tank.  Dej and Glom had not fought her before so they were learning.  I screwed up and did not get my LoH off in time to save Marcus then I didn't DI Tsuga in time to save her.  We did get the princess down to 5% even with my failings.  We would have taken her down on the second try but Blizzard had to take to server down for an emergency fix.  We called it once we recovered.

After the server came back up I made my way to Un'Goro to do some of the crystal turn ins, get what I needed for the Un'Goro soil quest and bloodpetal sprout quest.  Plus I did some fighting along the way.  I hit 50 while fighting a flower then did those turn-ins.  I decided to make the dash through Terror Run to get the last part needed for the salvage the expidition quest (5500 XP) It was a scarey run, I made it there and back without getting killed, and completed the quest.  I then stoned back to IF for training, do some tradeskilling, get some equipment upgraded then loggeed for the night.

I need to go hit the Raptors in STV to stockpile raptor eggs.  I need to get my cooking to 150 so I can learn Lion Steak which will allow me to clear up a few bank slots, then 175 for mystery stew, which will clear up quite a few more slots.

Bag space is a priority now.  Now in my weapons bag I have my shield, Thrash Blade (1h sword, enchanted +dmg), Hammer of Rightousness (1h Mace, enchanted firey weapon), Blight (polearm, enchanted +dmg), Grimlok's Charge (polearm), Morrigrane's Might (2h Mace, enchanted Firey weapon), Witchfury (2h sword enchanted +dmg), Stonebender (Slow 2h sword), Executioners Axe (2h Axe), and Ripsaw (1H axe).  All of those weapons are blue (rare) and I think are nice for my level.  What I like even better is that I only purchased Witchfury (for 6gp it usually sells for over twice that) and Blight was given to me. I have my Verigans Fist in the bank (my first blue weapon) In addition to the weapons I have the following trinkets: Nifty Stopwatch (+40% run speed), Carrot on a stick (+Runspeed for mounts), the +10 to Nature Resist and cast clense trinket, my Goblin Mortar (damage + stun!), and my trinket that gives a +10 to all stats for 30 seconds when proced on hit (I REALLY like that one) That is 15 items right there, then I have my Boots with the Mithril Spurs, my sharpening stones, my bag of explosives and healing potions, oh and my food bag... and on and on... geeze I have little room for anything else!

 

:::27 July 2005:::
Just some general running around last night.  I picked up the slight path from Silithus (makes for a quicker flight from UnGoro to Gadgetstan). I also did a turn-in in Darnassus (and picked up the 2nd leg of that quest).  Gu is about 30% to 51 (Ghaani is 54) and he has equipment that seriously dwarfs everything that Ghaani has.  His Weapons are better, his armor is better, his trinkets are better.  Ghaani has two blue items and Gu has only three non-blue main wear items (I don't count the stuff that I switch out like trinkets and horse boots) The only thing that Ghaani has that Gu doesn't (other than ranged weapons) is Cooking and Alchemy and Gu is working on Cooking so he won't have to send his stuff to Ghaani to make!  If I play tonight I'll go to STV for Raptor Egg harvesting.  (I will even shout to the zone that I am purchasing the eggs!)  It shouldn't take too long to get my cooking to 150 (at 136 now) then I can use the lion meat to get to 175.  Regardless, getting up to 150 will greatly reduce the amout of clutter in my bank.  Oh, I did pick up a robe last night.  I think it is funny running around town in just a robe.  As a role playing aspect, it is nice to get out of that armor for a while =)

 

:::28 July 2005:::
Finally!  I hit STV and was able to get enough raptor eggs to raise my cooking to 150, then I used my already gathered lion meat to further raise my cooking to 163.  12 more skill points and I can REALLY clean out my bank.  I did go on a Maraudon run last night with Stabbum and Dej.  Unfortunately we went with Mara who was not the same priest that Dej and I ran ZF with a wile back.  He basically SUCKED!  Also we picked up a 59 hunter elfswinds or something.  Elf was a sad hunter as well.  Our original plan was to hit both the orange and purple instances clearing as much as we could.  At that time we had a warlock but when we wiped at the first larve crawler duct the lock left.  That is when we picked up elf.  Once we regrouped and got elf with us, we ported to the falls.  We started working back towards the ugly one herself.  I was "leading" the group and we were doing great until we got past the first behemoth.  Just past him there is a room with four dinos.  They cast an AOE silence (no casting) and since we had no true crowd control we were forced to tank each of them up.  Stab and I were doing our job (each of us holding at least one) Dej was bouncing back and forth killing as fast as he could.  Elf put his bear on one and tried to help.  Somehow one got free and quickly killed Mara.  Seeing this and that another behemoth had added I dropped to healer mode as soon as my dino went down.  Mara made a few "I can't look" comments but I was able to keep everyone else alive and we successfully cleared the area.  I rezzed Mara and we continued.  It was at this time that we really understood how lame elf was.  He was going to rush the pair of behemoths that are on the top of the ramp.  He said "I don't see the patrol, lets go"  I was firm in getting the rest of the group to remain at the other end of the hall to take down the pat.  After that he wanted his pet to tank one of the behemoths while all of us hit on the other.  I told him that was not a good idea, since we had two tanks in the group.  Our plan was for me to tank one and stab to tank the other.  The rest of the group was to assist me then when the first one was down assist stab.  I have done that many times before and it works well.  I charge in to grab mine and the other tank gets his.  Aggro is firmly established and the behemoths are just pounding on the people that are built to take a beating.  After we cleared the first two Mara and Elf both commented on "how easy that was"  That comment alone validated my method.  We cleared the rest of the way down with Mara going LD during the last set.  I am glad that I was watching because I was getting low in HP (quickly self healed) then watched as Stab's health went down with no heal.  I again switched to healer mode and kept Stab alive.  While we waited on Mara to return we cleared the turtles.  We were rebuffing and recovering then the big ugly was pulled.  I did not have an opportunity to brief Mara and Stab on what to expect.  Mara got aggro early and I could not get to him to save him. once he died I knew that it was over.  We failed and it was after midnight so we called it.  I think Dej is really pissed at the Princess and wants to take her down.  If I were to be in town this weekend I would set up a good MW group and we would go clean the place.  I hope he has an opportunity to get there this weekend.

 

:::29 July 2005:::
I got the good guildie award last night.  I logged in and was planning on getting my cooking above 175 when Dej logged in.  He was planning on soloing around Mara and was talking about setting up another Mara run for Monday.  I had been talking to Dondor (our fearless Guild Leader) and a few others about doing some stuff so I started asking guildies to assist with a Princess run for Dej.  Dondor, Tealy, and Thoarn (on his priest Gilliana) said they would help.  Dej was really suprised and greatly appreciative.  We got there and ran quickly to the portal.  I opened the portal and we started kicking butt.  It did not take us long to get to Landslide (a named mob that I did not know about!)  We took him on and during the fight he has an AoE Stun while he summons helpers to his aid.  We fought and fought and finally took him down.  I got a NICE new helm (625 AC +10 to Nature Resist and +10 to Defense).  We then worked our way down to the princess with not may worries.  Well except when Don went LD when we engaged the first of the Behemoths.  I did what I could to tank them both, but they were just too much for me and Tealy ended up getting spattered.  Don got back on just before we had the first one down so it wasn't all that bad.  We recovered continued to the ugly one.  Once we engaged the princess it was a long fight (with two pallies as your tanks, anything will be a long fight!)  We took her down with no losses Dej completed his quest and got the ring and I got a nice 2h Mace (slow but hits a TON!).  We killed the gator and Dej got a nice upgrade for his chestpiece.  We then worked our way to the goblin tinker, we had no issues until we engaged the tink.  A stone patrol decided to path by as we were fighting so we had to fight him and the patrol.  The problem with this patrol is it starts with two big mobs that when you defeat them they "splinter" into six smaller mobs.  We took down the tink then I assisted Don on one big guy.  That one split and I was able to have most of the little ones hitting me along with the other big one.  Don even said to focus on the little ones (which I was) since the big guy was hitting me.  During the fight, Dej died then Gil died.  Don, Tealy and I were able to secure the area then rez the fallen.  I picked up another sword, same DPS as the thrash blade but adds a 1% chance to crit spells, so I sold it.  All in all it was a fun trip, Dej was excited to FINALLY beat the princess and it is always fun to have a guild group to do anything.

Afterwards I went back to IF to sell stuff and work on trade skills.  I was lucky to see a couple stacks of Raptor Eggs for sale in the AH.  I bought them and went cooking.  They raised my cooking skill to 176 (woot woot!) so I went to the bank to pick up my Roast Raptor, Mystery Stew, and Bar-be-qued Buzzard Wing recipes.  I also got all my mystery meat and raptor meat and quickly took my cooking up to 225!  I got the quest for raising my cooking max to 300.  I have a few of the items needed but that will have to wait until next week.

 

:::1 August 2005:::
Welcome to August.  Like I said in my last update I went out of town on Friday and I didn't get back until late last night. So I have not played since I logged on Thursday.  I should have a nice bit of rest bonus waiting on me when I do log in.  That should be tonight.  What I plan on doing is first logging on Ghaani to check the AH for a couple items then I will log on Gu and go to Un'Goro to work on quests and get as much XP as I can.  With the rest bonus I might be able to get 51 tonight.  At 51 I get Blessing of Kings, +10% to ALL STATS!  That will be nice.  If Ghaani is able to find the things I need to complete the cooking quest on Gu then I'll do that.  Still having Gu almost as good of a cook as Ghaani is nice.  I also should work a little on mining as there are some nice mineral deposits in Un'Goro (and I can't mine them due to my skill too low!)

Goals for August: Get at least 55 on Gu!  The closer to 60 the better.  This month will be a grind for Gu.  The 50's are long hard levels, there are not as many quests and the monsters hit harder.  Also, I am in the decline of power for Gu.  Unless I get some crazy equipment upgrades I don't see my DPS going up.  I plan on staying a Ret/Holy specced pally.  I have just a few points left and there are a few in Retribution that I need to get to max my DPS output.  If I hit 51 tonight I could easliy have Gu ahead of Ghaani by mid-month.  When I get Gu to 60 I will then work on getting Ghaani to 60.  It just hit me but I have 2 over 50 characters!  That is cool.  Once I get Gu to 58 then the raids will begin.  I will have to look in to changing my specialization from Ret/Holy to either a mix Holy/Def/Ret or a pure Holy/Def.  From what I have seen from Blizzard, they are re-working all the class talents so I will wait until they are done before I do a wholesale change.  In the next big patch it looks like there will be a new Hunter talent build.  It looks like they have really beefed up the Survival skills for hunters, hopefully making their melee skills actually worth a darn.

New areas upcomming for Gu: Western Plaguelands, Black Rock Depths (BRD), and Sunken Temple.  I should be hitting sunken temple now and hope to do so soon.  BRD is more like a raid area and I might have to be closer to 60 before I can get there.

 

:::4 August 2005:::
Let me see, Monday night was spent mostly running around with Dej in Maraudon seeing what we could do as a duo.  We actually got more done than I figured.  If we had just one more person I think we could have cleared a lot of that place.  I didn't get much XP but the experience was fun.  Tuesday night I didn't play because I was sick.  Last night I got on and went to Tanaris to get the last bits needed to complete my cooking quest.  I was killing Roc's, getting giant eggs when I got a tell asking me to join a group in Sunken Temple!  I looted the last of the needed eggs, did the turn-in (I can now advance m cooking to 300!) and made my way to Swamp of Sorrows.  It is a neat place.  Lots of mobs and lots of stuff to do.  I did level to 51 and now have Blessing of Kings (woot woot).  I am about 50% to 52 and should hit that tonight.  I plan on finishing many Un'Goro quests tonight and they will provide A LOT of XP. 

It is neat how things come full circle.  Gu is now sending stuff to Ghaani for her upgrades.  When I started playing Ghaani was sending Gu stuff.  I have to purchase ANOTHER bag slot (this one cost 25 gp!) I am holding on to way too many things and now I am carrying several sets of weapons and starting to carry different sets of armor/trinkets for different situations.  Last night I got a great new BP for tanking, but it is not so good for ordinary use.

 

:::5 August 2005:::
Did some running around last night, I finished a few quests and started a few of the Sunken Temple quests.  I did another ZF run with Dej.  We knocked off 'zilla and the divino matic quest.  Dej hadn't completed those so it was good to get them.  It was good to get the XP bar moving but I didn't get enough to get to 52.  I am about 85% to 52 so it won't take too long.  I still have not hit Un'Goro for clearing that section up, but I did complete five other quests (got two others...)  My task this weekend is to clean up my quest log!  I have a few green quests that are just taking up space, they don't have that big of a reward but I have some time invested in them so I want to complete them. 

The ZF run last night was interesting to say the least.  I was teaching the priest how to be a healer!  Quite often the priest would just gain aggro and not say anything and die so I'd have to stop what I was doing and take over as healer.  Now it was somewhat easy with a level 60 warrior as the main tank.  I really shined when we took on the Zombie Lord.  When he called his minions to assist him the priest was dead almost instantly (I don't know what he was doing, I was casting my AOE and causing a rukus, I guess because of his level the mobs made a bee-line towards him)  So I stopped fighting, switched to healing gear, and kept the rest of the party alive with no issues.  I'll tell you one thin, with Blesing of Wisdom, Judgement of Wisdom and Seal of Wisdom, I am a mana regerating MACHINE!  BoW is +50 per tic, Judgement of wisdom gives +33 per hit and Seal of wisdom is +50 per hit.  Not to mention that I have over 110 Spirit when I have healing gear on and my shield is +5 mana per tic.  I have to REALLY use some mana to run out, or to be out for long.  During the Divino Matic fight I did just that, had BoW, Judgement/Seal of Wisdom and my healing gear on and then started consecrating like crazy!  WOW that was a BLAST (pun not really intended)

Now before we got the Priest in our group we lost a few Pallies because they were "not supposed to heal" well I want to close today's update with what I told the guys.  I am built to do whatever the group needs.  If I need to emergency heal, I can do that.  If I need to tank, I can do that.  If I need to shut up and dish damage, I can do that.  I will admit that I can not heal as good as a druid (no where near a priest), I cannot tank as well as a Warrior, and I cannot dish out damage as well as a Warrior (and no where near a rogue), but I can at least fill in any of those roles if needed.  That is why I play a Paladin.  I can fill in many roles.  I am using my Talents to increase my damage output and gathering gear to assist me in each of my other areas.

 

:::08 August 2005:::
This weekend was mostly spend finishing quests.  I have gotten my quest log down to nine quests and four of those quests are level 60 quests.  I knocked out the basic stuff in Un'Goro (finally) the Azhara runes quest (that would be a good grinding place) and finished the Arathi quests.  I did figure out a new way for me to fight.  I was fighting in Un'Goro and saw that the Pterordax were hitting really fast so I dropped divo aura and cast ret aura I triggered my crystal spire damage shield then I wielded my Thrash Blade and Shield.  The combined damage shields were hitting for up to 32 (12 for the spire and up to 20 for Ret Aura) every time the mob hit me.  This method proved its worthiness to me when I found myself fighting two level 55 Elder Dimetrons at the same time (I was 52 at the time)  I didn't have any other HP buffs and I survived the attack with my protections and LoH still available.  I was nearly out of mana and under 50% health when the fight was finished but I was the last one standing.  When fighting mobs like the Pterrors who hit really fast (like four times to my one) this is a really smart way to fight since the DS's hit every time the mob hits me.

Level wise Gu is now 53 and I have started some quests in the Plaguelands.  Lots of undead there.  Most of the mobs are 50 and above.  This will be a lot of fun for me for a while.  I still have a few Un'Goro quests to complete and a couple more to get but it is nice to not have nine quests left for one area.

Oh, I did do one ZF run over the weekend it was a complete and utter failure.  It wasn't a failure because me and another pally were the main healers but because this on TOTAL and COMPLETE IDIOT Hunter was in the party.  I will never fight with Ninesisters again.  She kept griping that we weren't moving fast enough, would shoot whatever mob she wanted (no matter if we were already engaged in fighting several other mobs), and then when we asked her to pull, she'd pull by sending her pet which would aggro ALL the surrounding mobs.  To be honest, I did great as healer when she did one of her pull tricks and we were fighting nearly a dozen mobs (the party was me and the other 52 pally, two warriors and the hunter) during this first "jailbreak" we knocked down a few of the mobs when the other pally got disconnected and I was left to heal the party.  No one else died and we cleared the area.  Now as soon as I rezzed the other pally the hunter was yelling to go (he hadn't even gotten back into the area, I had just cast the rez).  I kept telling the party leader to kick the hunter, but he didn't before it was too late.  On her last pull she sent in her pet and it aggroed the entire area around the fountain then she started shooting a mob that was not even one we were fighting.  I don't know if she was a bad bot or just really damn stupid.  I healed as much as I could but I saw that we were doomed and I was out of mana.  I cast LoH on one of the tanks and ran out.  I told the group leader that I was sorry but I would not be in the same party as that idiot.  He apologized too.  The other pally was cursing that hunter too.  It is people like that that really give gamers a bad name.  I have no clue how that hunter got to level 54.  She must have soloed her entire way there.

My plans for this week are to work on a few more quests, get the quests for Sunken Temple, possibly get in some ST groups.  If I cannot get ST groups, then I will work in the Plaguelands.  I hope to get another level or two this week.  If I get two levels (55) Gu will have passed Ghaani.

 

:::9 August 2005:::
I did some running around last night.  I got the first few quests for my boomerang quest completed and also got "Pawn captures Queen"  I completed the last of the ZF quests and now need to go to the Hinterlands to get the Ancient Egg for the ST quest. I do need to go to the Swamp to get another pre-req done so I can get another ST quest.  The ZF run I did was nice.  The party was War, War, Rogue, Druid, and me (Pally).  The Druid was good.  She was just 45 and still able to keep everyone alive.  We did divino, the mummy, snakes and Hydormancer without getting anyone killed.  We had a couple times when we had mobs running everywhere but we were able to fight through it.  During that run I had went from Tank to Healer to AoE.  During the Divino run I just stood at the top of the steps had BoW running, and Seal of Wisdom on and was chaining consecration.  The mobs kept coming to me so I kept swinging at them (for +75 mana a hit) and they went down pretty fast.  It was pretty cool seeing a whole bunch of mobs getting hit by my spell at one time.  When the run was over the combat stats were listed and I was the number two damage dealer for the party.  Not bad for a gimp pally.  Tonight might be a patch night so I am not anticipating much play time tonight.

 

:::10 August 2005:::
Had a lot of fun last night.  I got on and flew to Un'Goro.  Then I hooked up with Badan and we completed the Lok'awri quest and the Pawn Captures Queen quest.  For Lok'Awri it was very funny.  We were riding there and a pair of horde also got there.  The started the event and the big Dino appeared, hitting Badan and his pet hit back.  We got out of the way and let them take down the dino.  Well, we got the XP and the loot!  We didn't do anything.  We looted and the two horde were a little Pissed. Alliance and Horde cannot talk to one another so I figured that I could at least trigger the event for them and let them kill the baddie.  We did the turn in (5500XP) and went to find the queen.  She was in the hive so we fought our way there and then located the stone where you have to summon the queen.  As soon as we were ready a Hunter and Priest came in and wanted to take down the queen as well.  We all grouped together and it was cake.  When you summon the queen there are two sets of two bugs that come out, then the queen comes out with two more bugs.  We took them down rather fast looted the quest item and I won a nice plate BP (same AC as my tanking BP but +46 ATK).  After we fought our way out I took off to do the turn ins and Bad went to the camp.  I did the turn-in in Gadget (5500xp) and had to fly to Darnassus for a turn in (550 XP) which had one more turn in at the Darnassus bank (8100 XP and some nice boots).  I then travelled to Ratchet for another turn-in (another 5000ish XP).  I then took the boat to Booty Bay and camped for the night.  I started the evening at 50% to 54 and ended the night close to 80% and I still had the rest bonus from the previous night!  Not to shabby for a couple hours.

 

:::11 August 2005:::
I didn't get much done for me last night.  I logged in and Zathis was looking for some help in Feralas so I went there to help him.  While I was going there Dej logged in and came to help.  As we were finishing up Bell asked in guildchat if someone could come help her in ZF.  So we all went there (we had picked up a Warlock who was doing the same quest as Z and she came along).  We made a bee line to the Hydromancer took her out and started to head out.  One of the party mentioned that they needed scarabs.  I thought it would be cool for me to pull all of the scarabs and with my Retribution aura and Consecration take them all out.  One thing, I forgot to tell everyone that I was going to do that.  I pulled the lot of em, started my work, popped Divine Shield and then they all left me!  I think the warlock launched an AOE and took all of them to her.  OOPS!  It would have been cool to take them all out, but I ended up wiping the party. 

In the end we did hit the other boss and I got some nice new gloves (+ATK!)  Now I have three pair of boots (Riding, Tanking, Normal) Two pair of gloves (Tanking and Normal), Three Chestplates (tanking, Normal, and a DPS one that I am trying to decide if I want to keep).  That armor goes with my collection of trinkets (Carrot on a stick, Mark of the chosen, Argent Dawn Seal, Goblin Mortar, Nature Resist trinket, and Nifty Stopwatch).  I then have my bag-o-hurt, weapons bag, that contains my big mace from big ugly, Grimlok's Charge, Blight, Witchfury, Hellslayer Battle Axe, Beastslayer, my shield, Thrash Blade, Hand of Riteousness, and another one hand axe that is +atk vs Undead.  That is 24 items that I keep and can only use a max of six at a time (if I am using a one hand weapon and shield).  I still have several weapons in the bank, Verigan's Fist, Stonesmasher, Morigane's Might, and the one hand mace form the Fireplug in Uldaman.

I logged a bit early with about 5500xp to go till 54.  I'll log in early tonight and see how far in 54 I get =-)

 

:::12 August 2005:::
My level of gaming changed last night.  I purchased a headset with microphone and installed Ventrilo.  I went on an adventure with Stabum, Thoarn, and Tealy where we all were using Vent and it was SWEET!  Just talking to people while gaming brings the game to a whole new level.  I didn't type much at all last night and having the sounds of the game and the voices right in my ear makes the game really kick ass!  Vent is cool because it took all of a min to set up and works like a charm.  I did ding 54 last night and got another trinket (+5% to HP and Mana regen).  The quest series that we were doing last night was fun and A LOT of xp.  I am about 40% to 55 and I logged with rest bonus remaining from the previous night.  Speaking of that I am just percentage points away from passing Ghaani.

I did some more engineering work last night and I also decided to sell some stuff.  I broke doen and sold my Verigan's Fist, The Fireplug's mace, and a few other things.  I ended the night with a bit more space, but not much.  My basic backpack is empty but my two mining bags are overflowing as is my cooking bag (they are in the bank).  I have a couple empty bank slots, but not much.  I did add yet another armor piece for swapping last night a Mining helmet, adds +5 to mining.  I also have a person that wants me to make the fishing lures (Tealy).  When I go hunting in the plaguelands I should get quite a few of them to make for her.

Final note on the evening, when we were getting started Stab was having a difficult time telling who was who in Vent.  When I "introduced" myself he said, "Oh Guuinness has the Phone Sex operator's voice" we all lost it.  So I think I have a new title.