/afk

I must apologize, I’ve been a bit lax on the updating side of things here at The Barracks.  It’s partly because I haven’t had a chance to play a lot of WoW lately, and also because I’ve been pretty busy (hence the not being able to play much WoW).  I’m also trying to think of more interesting blog posts than “yay I have a new item” or whatever, and more in depth material takes longer to think about and write.

I noticed that my daily hits has started to dwindle, and that’s probably because of the lack of new stuff.  But fear not, faithful readers, I’ve not abandoned ye. 

I might as well take some time to give you the obligatory character update.  On the Thodin front, not much new to speak of.  There is much going on in Natasya’s life, however.  She dinged 22 on Sunday and, after waiting around for someone to come help her get her new pet.  Thanks go to Dodin, level 70 hunter and good IRL friend, for coming all the way back to the “old country” from Outland to keep the naga at bay while I ran around hunting for kitty statues in Darkshore.

For those of you not in the know, there are ruins in the north of Darkshore where you can open cat statues that have the chance of spawning a Ghost Saber.  This is a pretty cool looking cat; it’s basically a snow leopard that is perpetually stealthed.  I’ve not seen many in my travels (I actually can’t remember ever seeing a hunter with one of these, but I might just not have been paying much attention) so I thought it would be cool to have a pretty rare pet.  I haven’t thought of a good name for the kitty yet, it needs to be something awesome.  I have screenshots but I haven’t formatted them for the blog yet.

So now Natasya has left Kalimdor and is now questing in the Wetlands.  Leveling with a hunter is freakin’ amazing, I must say.  I haven’t needed to group with anyone yet, even to beat elite and group quests.  I had a bear whilst questing in draenei lands, so he could survive more than the new cat, I’m sure.  But I was able to survive a battle with five murlocs, so we’ll see.

How was your weekend?

Oh mine was fine, thanks. Why, you ask?

Because I finally killed Blackheart the Inciter!!!

That’s right. He’s dead.

Now, this might not sound like a big deal to you uber folk out there, but for anyone who’s been following my blog you know that this is a big accomplishment for me. Now I just hope I can do it again! Because he didn’t drop the Adamantine Figurine which I want.

Incidentally, I also killed Murmur. Here’s proof:

I know, I know. “He dies the same way as Ragnaros, that’s not cool anymore you nub.” Shut up. Nobody can deny the cool-factor of seeing a huge elemental behemoth fall to it’s death and leave behind a huge friggin weapon.

Here’s a tip for those of you who may still be having trouble tanking Blackheart: after he does his little MC nonsense, DO NOT DPS until the tank regains a bit of aggro. This helps the tank IMMENSELY because the tank doesn’t have to run all over the goddamn place chasing Blackheart around.

In other news, Natasya is now level 17. I didn’t get to play her too much this weekend because I was too busy running instances, finishing quests, and spending tons of gold. Thodin is now the proud owner of Legguards of the Resolute Defender (with Clefthide Leg Armor for good measure), Grom’tor’s Charge, Sha’tari Wrought Armguards, Sha’tari Wrought Greaves (still need to get some good gems and an enchant to make these good to wear), and Tenacious Earthstorm Diamond that I won’t socket until I’m very ready (it wasn’t cheap).

Well that’s it for now. Hope everyone had a great Monday!

TGIF!

Ain’t that the friggin’ truth?

Another week passes, another weekend begins.  Thus, the cycle continues.  A year ago this day I would have started drinking by 3pmat the latest, in order to get ready for senior’s last night out.  The rest of the weekend would have been a blur.  And it would have been great.  This year, however, I’m no longer a senior in college, so I have to find other ways to pass the time on the weekend.  Luckily, I have WoW (Note:  I also still have beer, but I can’t start drinking until at least 5pm).

So plans for this weekend… 

On Thodin I need to finish quests in SMV so I can get Grom’tor’s Charge.  That’ll take a good while.  I also plan on running Shadow Labs until I can beat the damn place.  I will have firey vengeance for all the pain and frustration Blackheart the Inciter has caused me and my friends.

I want to try to get Natasya to level 20 and above if I can.  She needs a new pet, too.  I trained a bear (named him Baloo) because… I wanted a bear.  But I think she really needs a cat.  A bear is good for tanking and all, but when I’m leveling I want to be able to tear through things in seconds, which is what cats are for.  The only cats around her at the moment are on Azuremyst Isle, which kinda sucks because she’s level 15 and they’re level 9 at most, so they’d be trailing a bit behind.  Mayhaps I’ll keep the bear until I’m done with the noob lands and grab a kitty when I head to the mainland.  Who knows.  But getting to level 20+, that is a necessity.

I haven’t spent much time at all over on Velen with Gitr and Co., and I feel bad about it.  I’ll probably head back over there for a wee bit as well.

In other news, I’ve been toying around with a new UI lately, and I finally got it set up pretty decent. 

I switched to FuBar instead of Titan, and I haven’t quite yet decided whether or not it’s better than Titan.  Sometimes I think that all the extra UI changes I make are unnecessary.  I moved the map down to the lower right corner instead of top right corner; I don’t know why.  I tried moving the character panels down to the middle of my screen right above my buttons (on the bottom), and I changed the party layout so it went across the top of my screen; again, I have no idea why I would do such things.  It ended up being a horrible idea anyway, and I went back to the default layout (though I still use Xperl unit frames ftw!).

The only two UI changes that actually help/affect the way I play the game (instead of being convenient changes that make things faster, more accessible, etc) are Bartender and MetaHud.  I’m kind of disappointed that I’ve come to rely so much on MetaHud, because I like the fact that most of my addons are things I could live without, but MetaHud makes my “info at a glance” life so much easier, it sucks playing without it.  Bartender I could technically live without, but the way I have my main attack buttons is just so convenient and makes stuff so much easier to click on.  Two rows of six bars is a lot more compact than one long row of 12.  I don’t have to move my mouse around as much.

I’ll post some screenshots of my new UI soon, and if everything sticks I’ll make the necessary changes to the Addons/UI page.

So what about you people out there in Intarweb land?  What are your plans for the weekend?  Have any specific goals in mind?