Shattered Halls Sucketh

It started out bad. I don't know why I didn't expect it to just keep going downhill.

Firstly, we had to PUG one of our members because we didn't have enough from the guild. No big, it's just one person, right? So, we snagged a mage. We already had me, Martin, a Druid healer from the guild that we like and our enhancement Shammy friend. I'm game, I'm fired up, it's the daily, I'm ready to tackle it.

We fly over to the Citadel, ready for action. "Go pick the door." "Uh, I can't. I'm four skill off of max and, evidently, it takes max." So we have no key and no picking of the door. I instantly feel like n00b roguetard! Dur! Ok, calm. Even though none of us guildie types has the key, the PUGged mage does! Awesome. PUGs don't look so bad, now. So, we get inside, and the Mage is like "I thought we were doing Heroic." So, already she's disappointed. You can see how things began to slide, can't you? (It was also discovered that I couldn't pick the door inside and we had to take the sewer to the first boss. No one was excited about this.)

In the end, Martin had never been there and neither had I. Pulls went wrong, aggro-stealing happened, wiping happened repeatedly. It was nasty. Finally, Martin decided to send me out to sap in a room absolutely saturated with mobs. We didn't know what to pull first. Three times I attempted to sap, three times I got seen and beaten down. Eventually the group was laughing so hard no one could speak. It was just that funny. It was Wipefest '08.

We ended up giving up and going to do the quest that gets you your key to Shattered Halls. Hey, at least I got to kill a Fel Reaver, finally. THAT tasted sweet.

Meanwhile, I've since realized...I should've distracted while trying to sap. It might not have worked, but it might have. And I feel like an idiot. Martin said "You should always distract when you sap". Here I've been relying on blind luck. This really goes back to what I'm having a problem with right now. I'm gear-stressed, yes, but more I've been feeling like I just don't know what I'm doing. If I knew what I was doing, I'd have already known to use distract. What else am I not doing that is going to drive people nuts or cause problems down the road?

I think I'm going to have to accept the fact that, if I ever do become one of those really accomplished, smooth rogues that everyone expects (which is looking unlikely), that it's going to be FAR down the road.

In the meantime, I'm fiddling with a new mage character to take the edge off. That's right. When too stressed from playing WoW, just play more WoW.

The pointy end goes into the other man!

Today I was talking with a guildmate who was attempting to choose a helm for his shadow priest. I told him I couldn't be much help, as casters completely confound me. He said that rogues confound him. Now, personally, I don't see much confounding about rogues. Ok, maybe there's stealth and finesse and timing, but really I think it boils down to that quote from Zorro. "You know how to use a sword, don't you?" "Yes, the pointy end goes into the other man!" I mean, c'mon, it's that simple. Put your blade where it's supposed to go and try not to get tagged by the bad thingie. Try to say it ain't so!

I've almost assembled most of the mats for my Shadowprowler's Chestguard. I've seen some discussions about this with people saying it's not good for rogue's at all, that druids should have it, ha ha you stupid rogues wearing gear that's not for you! Well, thhhhpppttt. Bite me. It has the stats I need right now and the list starts at Stamina. My AP is currently almost 1400, but my hit and health need help to reach the point where I can hit some heroics, start collecting badges and start working towards getting better weapons which is a huge thing for me right now.

So huge, in fact, that Martin and I have decided to switch to Aldor. Me, so I can get the Vindicator's Brand and him for...I don't know, something or other. Other than that, I've finally given in on the whole PvP thing. Yes, I hate it. After trying it, I can't stand it, it's no fun and it gives me a headache. But there are swords. I figure if I just keep going and hope everyone else doesn't suck as much as I do, I'll eventually grind the honor/marks to get a decent offhand weapon.

Meantime, instances, instances, instances. That part of the game I love. I like the shared experience, the teamwork aspect and the general laughter and talk that goes on during them. Even when I die six times (like in Mech the other night), I still have a good time. Plus, there's loots. I like loots.

Respeccing and Flying High

I finally figured out that I don't get to have my cake and eat it too. I can't have the DPS and energy regen talents and have the stealth talents that I've come to love so much for leveling with Martin. I have to make a choice and, well, since we're coming up to lots and lots of instance running, I'm going with the uber-DPS. Especially since Martin and I have decided to get that Fel Leather gear made, I should be able to slice through bad guys like they were made of cream cheese, just like in my dreams! No, really, I have those dreams. It's so sad.

Enter the respec. I'm tweaking the standard combat rogue 20/41/0 spec just a bit, because I want to have more deflection, so I'm going with a 19/42/0. I don't know if this is optimal or right, but it's what I'm going to try for now. If it tanks, well, back to the drawing board and all of that. I'm hoping that this respec will do what I'm looking for it to do, though. We'll see! I don't really have a combat swords friendly mentor to give me any noteworthy input, as the only other regularly-on rogue in the guild is dagger specced and does a ton of PvP, which I'm currently avoiding. I'd actually also like to know from someone's firsthand experience what PvP as a combat swords rogue is like.

In other news, I finally broke down and let someone lend me the money for my epic flyer, as did Martin. This friend, yes, has tons of money on his other character, but I still hate borrowing cash. He doesn't care when we pay it back, but I do feel compelled to try to do it as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, though, I can fly! I can fly fast! I did a turn around Nagrand hunting for Adamantite today and, man, was it a ball. Then Wot and I practiced some silly flying tricks like loops and barrel rolls. Stupid, but fun! I can see that having a flier is going to spoil me rotten. Which is just how it should be.

Farming Bunny

That's me. Farmer Allysera. Bourg and I both need a ton of Primal Shadow for gear we want to have made and guess who gets to farm it, because I'm home with the time? That's right!

Turns out, I have the right temperment for this sort of thing. I set a goal of, like, 3 or 4 in a session, and then bang away until I have enough motes. I get tired, go do something else for a while, then I'm ready to do it all again. Unfortunately, this has given Bourg ideas. He thinks that we can make scads of cash if I just farm my heart out. He even volunteered to do all the backlogged housecleaning if I just spend my time farming. Dunno about that one, myself.

70! ...wait, what?

So...70. Wow. I'd say it's been a long haul, but it doesn't seem like it's been that long at all. In fact, I don't feel ready to be 70 in any way, shape, form or fashion. My gear isn't up to snuff and I'm not entirely sure on where to go from here. Everyone says "Arena! PvP! It's awesome" and others, who I'm inclined to listen to because I don't think I like PvP very much say that PvP gear is good for short fights, but not good for the sustained DPS that I like. Honestly, I'm not sure that I feel like I know how to play the damned class anyway. I thought that, at 70, I'd be comfortable with what I was doing and have all kinds of awesome gear. My gear is semi-alright and I still feel like I'm banging away in the dark. I don't want to be known as a "Noob Roguetard", which what I'm deathly afraid of.

I have decided to try out the more conventional sword specs, maybe with slight tweaking, and see how I like those. However, I need spiffy new weapons. You get those from instances and whatnot and there have been precious few of those. Move on to Martin's post about wanting to run instances and....there ya go. I guess I have to start banging out those instances we missed if I want to have a chance at the phat lootz, as they say. Of course, that could mean multiple runs and I hope everyone's ready for THAT, because I want some specific items. I have another friend who swears we should start churning out heroics as soon as possible, because THAT is the way to get awesome gear. Meanwhile, I'll keep farming up the 40 primal shadows Martin and I need to get some interim gear made. (And, ohmygod, do I HATE Collapsing Voidwalkers.)

In other news, I have my flier. The regular one, so it's painfully slow, but at least I can get up high now. We did some stuff in Skettis (Skeksies, anyone?) and I managed to only get dismounted and killed once. I think I might get the hang of this flying thing. If I can only get together the rest of the dough for my epic. And then special rep-based mounts. And, oh, farming rep for enchanting formulas, don't forget that.

Hey...I DO have stuff to do at 70 after all!

Dude Looks Like a Lady!

While Bourg was looking pimptastic in his Valentine's Day gear, this guy cracked me up. And he was completely proud of himself, too, stating that he was the sexiest guy around. I'm starting to think Martin might be right about male Blood Elf sexuality.

Brass Tacks

I guess it's finally time to get down to them. I've been avoiding this. Really I have.

A week ago, maybe, Martin sent me an email containing links to Rogue-centric blogs, intending that I should start looking them over for end-game information. Builds and gear and that sort of thing. I balked. Who wants a hobby that you have to work that hard on? Math? Are you serious? I wasn't good at math in school. I even hated doing pro-rate calculations and making change at my dad's office. Now I'm going to try to figure out what makes the best DPS and damage meters and I don't know what all? I don't even know where to begin, honestly. I sorta snapped at him and he snapped back and it was never spoken of again...until now. And now we shall speak of that part of it no more. Shhh.

Anyway, the last couple of days, after some disasterous PvP I decided that maybe I will put some minimal effort into this. In other words, I'll find someone who has already done the work and copy them! Genius! I am Brain and all others are Pinky or below!

One problem, though. When we first started playing, and really up until now, I've counted on Martin to tell me where to spend my talent points. Now, he's never leveled a rogue and I've never leveled a...well, anything, so we were sort of flying blind, popping points in willy nilly. That worked well enough for a while, but I'm starting to think that it won't cut the mustard at 70. Two things I DO know, however. One, I want to stay combat sword specced, but the issue I see there is that everyone says it's a bad PvP build and Martin wants us to start doing some PvP (plus I hear the reward gear is awesomeness). Two, we plopped 14 points into Subtlety with Master of Deception, Camouflage and Initiative and I don't really want to lose those. I really like the extra combo points and the better Stealth. However, from what I can see, those are better for a combat dagger specced rogue who PvPs.

Gah, I'm all messed up and unsure of where to go from here. I don't know if I should just go ahead and try one or two of the "standard" combat sword builds and see how they go, or try to customize my own build and risk screwing it all up like crazy. To make matters MORE complicated, I picked up the Ceremonial Warmaul Blood-Blade last night and, since it outstripped my offhand sword, I switched to it, which makes my sword speccing a bit useless at the moment. I'm going to wait until I pick up another sword to replace it to try experimenting with builds, but I'd like to know a place to start, for Pete's sake!

Ideas, suggestions, complaints, tar and feathers?

Pimps and Ho's, Y'all!

Martin and I decided to do the Love is in the Air quests this morning, just for fun. We were rewarded with these foine looking outfits here. Possibly THE sluttiest female clothing in the game. Martin wanted matching outfits, however, and don't we look splendiferous?

Meanwhile, he brought to my attention that I haven't put up a current picture of Ally since level 63, so I'll have that up later. I'm also trying to convince Martin that we would be much more effective, blog-wise, if we combined our efforts into one uberblog of his experience and my newbiness. He's thinking it over. I think that's guy-speak for "I don't really want to, but I still want to get laid, so I'll pretend I'm considering it." You tell me!

Phew!

This morning I logged into WoW and found my character in a place I didn't leave her...in the bank. I checked the bank and "Whaaaa?" there's a ton of stuff I don't recognize. My inventory is filled with 158 adamantite and 158 Arcane Dust. I freaked and called Martin while he was driving in to work, absolutely certain I'd caught the hackers in my account again, only this time in the process. However, while I was talking to Martin, I hit my mail and realized that it was Blizzard Staff that had done it, and had also filled my mail up with the rest of the things I was missing. Relief!

I didn't get things back precisely as they were, but near enough that I'm happy about it. They seem to have given me all of the things the hackers mined with my character, like the ore and a ton of gems I didn't have before. I also got a bunch of BoE blues that the hacker had picked up. I used one (it was nice) and the others will be given to my leveling partners or will be DE'd for shards. I got back my Mojo and my horsie, so I'm happy, even if miscellaneous shit is still missing. It's only stuff that's super-common an easily gotten. I got back all my enchant formulas I hadn't learned and even the quest items that had been deleted. The only thing I was miffed about was that only two of my bags were returned. I went and bought a bunch more on the AH and filled out my bank, including going ahead and buying up the last two slots because, oh my god, I have too much stuff.

In other news, Martin and I ran Black Rock Depths about 6 times last night until we got the Fiery Weapon Enchant to drop. That took a while, but now I have a nice glowy firefly ass again, thanks to my sword being all firey. We also got a ton of Dark Iron Ale so we could get jubling eggs. Next up, Outland instances!

...hacked...

So, yeah. If you read my fiance's blog, Dire Aquatic Form, then you already know. I logged at around midnight Friday, watched Buffy with Martin and then crashed, all happy with the world...woke up Saturday morning to a character that had been raped and pillaged quite thoroughly. And my alts deleted, including the awesome new Mage I was working on.

My bank, including all of my bags, was pretty much emptied. My inventory was reamed. Even my brand new skeletal warhorse was gone. Thankfully, they left me in the gear I had on, even though they'd changed out my rings. Friends said they saw me popping in and out of Slave Pens all night and, when they tried to talk to "me", they were told to "fuck off" and other interesting things. I think they got an idea it wasn't me. The hackers left me in Coilfang Reservoir with about a millisecond of breath left, so that was fun. They'd been mining on my character all night, too, as my mining was up to 375 (from about 330) and there was a stack of 10 adamantite in my bag. My XP was up by about 100,000, my gear was worn and needing repair and my bag had 89 flash powders in it. Obviously some hijinx had ensued.

We regained control of the account and scanned this computer six ways from Sunday with, like, three different programs and came up with nothing. No keyloggers, no Trojans...zip. I'm the picture of internet safety. I visit the same five or six news, blogs and comic sites a day, nothing shady. I don't even open attachments on my sister's emails, for goodness sake! No idea how they managed to do this to me, I just hope like hell that it doesn't happen again.

Now the thing to do is wait to see what, if anything, Blizzard restores to me. I've talked to account services, I've talked to GMs, I've got emails in. Everyone says I have to just wait. Meanwhile, though I was told it was fine to play, I have nowhere to keep all of my stuff. My bags are full, my bank space is nil since those bags are gone and I'm concerned that, if I buy temporary bags, they just won't put back in my former BIG bags. And if I put my new stuff in the bank, where will the old stuff go? My guild and friends have been great in trying to lend me money and give me items until it gets sorted, but until I know what I'm getting back, I don't want to take anything from anyone. I'm starting to think I should just stop playing...for a while, anyway.

Yes, I feel violated, I feel nervous and paranoid and I have no trust anymore. Blah, blah, blah, whine, whine and all that. Since the idiot made a banker alt, that he left friended on my account until he got sick of my saying "HI!" all the time and deleted it, I know he plays somewhere. I keep wondering, as I run around playing, if people I pass could be the guy, laughing up his sleeve at me. A Night Elf passed me yesterday and, inexplicably, stopped and waved and gave hugs and things and, while it could have been someone I know on an ally alt, I couldn't help thinking, what if it's him?

Blah, at least the weather matches my mood. Crappy. I need chocolate.