Inscription is teh Shitz!

Okay, yeah, I've been to the barbershop. Do you not love my new gnome pigtails? I calls'm gnometails. I thought pink would go nicely with my otherwise necromantic appearance. But I digress. This post is about the new profession of INSCRIPTION, which is "teh shitz!!11!one."

Hellgrima (Hellgrimma on beta) hasn't gotten outside the main area of Northrend much cause she's spent all her time running between the mailbox and the Inscription trainer. Inscription is a new profession that is a cross between enchanting and jewelcrafting, imho. You create scrolls and glyphs that other players can use to buff existing talents. Some are class-specific, for instance, I made my hunter a glyph that adds a 20% bonus to Mark of the Hunter. I also made one that boosts the Aspect of the Monkey (dodge rating). Some items are generic, useable by any class. I can make scrolls of recall, which function much like the shammy's second hearthstone. While you have a 1 hr CD on your hearth, the scroll lets you pop back home in 15 min intervals (each scroll is a single use item, btw).

The scrolls and gryphs require ink and paper. Here's where it gets interesting and begins to resemble enchanting and JC'ing. Inks are made from powders, e.g., verdant dust; and powders are MILLED from herbs (think of prospecting ore like a jewelcrafter). A stack of five herbs can be milled for a residue powder which can make an ink, or combine with other residues to make a slightly different ink. Paper is bought from the inscription supplier. Here's where it gets messy like enchanting. So far, and I'm only level 238, I have about 10 different inks in my bags. I'm flashing back to the joys of enchanting and having shards and powders that filled my bank. UGH. But....sure is fun to do this profession.

The glyphs are attached to player profiles. Each player has 5 glyph slots: three "major" glyphs, and two minor. More to come as I do more with the glyphs as a player.

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Hell/Hall/Sammi/Tynaqua/and monster DK Fortknight

Death Knight - Part II

Ya gotta wonder about the art department on this... this is armor, and it is very good armor according to the stats, but could it be any skimpier? I don't think so.

FortKnight is now 66, almost 67, and spent yesterday solo'ing the Nagrand trifecta: Banthar, Bach'lor, and Gutripper, each of which is an elite 67 "group quest." It wasn't easy, but it was sure doable. Man, you know they are going to have to nerf these talents. I also tried a frost respec. and yes, it has a big burst damage item or two, but I just didn't like it and so I'm back in unholy, and killing just fine, as you can see.

Tynaqua is making me food, bandages, and gems for gear. At some point I need to push on the jewelcrafting and inscription profs of my mains in Northrend, but the Northrend server is so unstable it's not fun to play atm. Hopefully later this week... stay tuned.

Death Knight - Part I

So into the beta of WotLK I go, and immediately roll a Death Knight. The start zone is immensely fun, including and especially the Arthas and Dad final scene that alienates you from Arthas and puts you out in EPL to begin leveling. Took only a few hours to hit 58 and then off to Outlands. However, the leveling there is quite slow. I have a ghoul minion much like a BM hunter pet. It holds agg pretty well and delivers a pretty good punch. I noticed it does something that the hunter pet does in beta, and that I hate and hope they will fix. Once I start an attack, the pet lunges for the target, whether or not I've said to go. That's a bit annoying. Sometimes you want to pull the target out of where it is, and when the pet runs to the target and grabs aggro, that can be hard to do without stopping your attack and calling your pet back. arg.

The DK is going to be OP, and in beta it is hugely OP. I was solo'ing multiple mobs several levels above me. I spec'd for unholy, though many were spec'd for blood. After a few days it appeared there were increasing numbers opting for unholy.

Probably the best skill is Death Grip, which you can use to literally rope and pull a mob from a good distance. I'd guess about 35 feet. And in the beta it seems to be a very low threat cast, thus you can pluck people out of groups to kill them.

In my unholy spec I have a spell that lets me return for 45 seconds as a ghoul after I die, much like the way the priest has a postmortem ghost life. I've used it to win a duel and to move past a difficult mob, finally dying past their agg. range.

I have all sorts of wonderful spells that cast pestilence and plague, but my favorite is Corpse Explosion. (picture coming). This is a kind of AOE since it spreads plague infection. I have another couple of AOEs, too. ANd, as a blood elf DK, I have three spell interrupts, because of arcane torrent. Which just had it's global cooldown removed. w00t!

This toon is so OP it's ridiculous, but good god, it is sure a lot of fun to play. Stay tuned, more to come. Next installment will be on Northrend.

Ticket Boss Downed!

Buying tickets for this year's Blizzcon turned out to be a truly epic quest. The site immediately crashed upon startup, and was intermittently up and down for close to two days. Would-be purchasers banded together over the hours, in the Blizzcon forum, commiserating, sharing tips and experiences with the Blizzard store, ranting, joking, doing call outs for their homies, and so on. It was a very interesting self-organizing community. Maybe Bonnie and I could do a paper on it. It's pretty remarkable. You can see a good bit of it here.

I made a Cafe Press t-shirt commemorating the Oopsloc (above) and the seemingly everpresent repair bot, below. It got more complicated when AMEX decided there were too many attempts to use the credit card and therefore rejected the charges. A phone call, from them to me, straightened that out, just in time for the next burst of sales. Needless to say, we got the tix! w007!