My (future Pandaren) Hunter

Made the decision earlier that, once Mists launches and things die down a bit, I’ll be race-changing my hunter to Pandaren. I’m still planning on rolling a new panda to experience the Wandering Isle, and rolling a Tauren monk on a friend’s server, but I’m… a bit worn out with all my Draenei.

With the future in mind, I farmed up a mog set to use at 90, based around a few Scarlet Crusade pieces that may or may not disappear come 5.0 next week. The shoulders and gun will probably get swapped out; there are a few JP/token/honor pieces I can’t pick up yet, though I’ve also seen a good bit of red and gold in some Mists gear. Here she is currently, if anyone has any questions or wants the gear list, hit me up in the comments:

Keep on Wishing…

Continuing my previous post on my WoW wishlist:

• A toggle for undead characters, to either show or hide their bones – ie, give us a choice whether we want our new shiny gear to be ripped to shreds or not.  Seriously, I’m sick of every male Forsaken rocking shorts:

• Not something Blizz can really do anything about, but I’d love it if WoW Model Viewer and MogIt/in-game displayed the same colors for gear. I hate, hate, hate working up an awesome transmog, then loading it into WMV just to find one piece is off-color there. Drives me batshit crazy.

More to come as they pop into my head; working diligently on my Mogolympics team and hit those two points of contention. Till then…..

My WoW 6.0 Wishlist

This is one of those things I keep coming back to, usually in the lull before an expansion.

Back before Wrath, it included things like titles based on your spec – i.e. Missescake the Assassin, or Beastmaster Saccharin – and some sort of faction betrayal mechanic (cross-realm grouping has helped ease the need for this, but it still sucks to see good friends online who only play Horde).

Leading up to Cata, it was seeing the Emerald Dream fully open, public quests, letting hunters tame their own mounts. I was also feeling a bit of pain playing a pure dps class, so a shake up of class specs to include more roles per class was on there too.

Here we are a few months out from Mists, and again my brain has been toying with the things I’d love to see in 6.0. For now it’s a short list, just ideas I’ve had while stuck at work on a particularly boring night, though I’m sure it’ll grow with more time and consideration.

– Overcoats. Rather than add a whole new gear slot, these would count as Shoulder items, replacing the (sometimes ungodly huge) shoulder graphics. Available through tailors/leatherworkers, reputation, and rare drops. Could be transmogged to/from shoulders.

– Scarves. Again, use an existing slot (in this case the Tabard slot) and allow mogging to/from tabards.

– Updated player models. Think this is on everyone’s list, mine maybe a little more so since I’ve been working on outfits for the Transmogolympics. Have you seen how awful old-world equipment looks on a Pandaren? The newer models – Mists, Cata, even most Wrath items – look great. Since our characters are covered by these shiny new items for most of the game, it’s pretty unnoticeable. But stick a panda in some level 50 greens and get ready to be sick.

– Fourth talent trees for every class, expanded roles per class, and tri-spec. I’ve been wishing for this for a while, even more after picking up Rift for a few months. How fantastic would it be to have an option besides DPS on a Rogue or Mage? I’ve put a good bit of thought into it (note to self: future post idea right here), and worked up some pretty cool ideas. The only classes I’m stuck on are additional roles for Warriors and Monks… Though now that I’m thinking about it… maybe add a pet tree to each?

Thoughts? Who else has their own wishlist for the future?

The Hidden Cost of Diablo 3

5400 gold, 13050 Justice Points, and 18475 Honor. That’s how much it’s going to run to replace the seventeen heirlooms that WoW’s mail system deleted while I was off saving Sanctuary.

Here’s the abbreviated timeline:
-Get beta invite
-Mail all heirlooms to my druid
-Copy druid to beta
-On live, send heirlooms back to alts
-Diablo 3 releases, WoW time all but disappears
-Get tired on D3 grind, fire up WoW

After not playing for a while – besides hopping on my main for five minutes here and there to see what guildies are on – it takes me a few days to get back in the swing of things. I decide to finally plop down $30 to move my SoR-boosted pally over to my main account and level her before Mists.

I knew I’d picked up the tanking helm/cloak a while back for another (abandoned) alt…. but now I can’t find them. I check Altoholic and give a sigh of relief – they’re sitting in my lowbie shaman’s mailbox. Toon hop, run to the mail and….. nothing but my D3 CE pet.

Cue panic.

At this point, I realize two things. First, I’m a moron. Second, this can be fixed. Blizz is pretty awesome with their customer service; the few issues I’ve run into have always been sorted out (except for the Sea Turtle I fished up and lost, but that’s a story for another day).

I jump on the beta realm to get a list of what’s missing. There’s my level 4 gnome monk, Methadone, with all my gear intact. Snap a few screens just in case, hop back over to Cake, open a ticket, and wait.

—–

Fast forward a week and a half. In a nutshell, Blizzard restored what mail they could, but apparently once it drops out of your mailbox, records are purged fairly quickly (they didn’t give a timeframe but it has to be less than a week, could even be with the Tuesday server resets).

They also said they can’t use anything from the test realms as evidence. I can kind of understand, but seriously, there’s no possible way I could have purchased all those items on beta.

My last resort was to ask, if I dig through my thousands of screenshots and find ones of my alts wearing the gear, would that be enough “proof”?

No.

Okay, lesson learned, I guess you could say. But thinking about how much time I’ll have to devote to dungeons/LFR/PVP just to replace what I’ve lost…. I’m tempted to to just throw in the towel. I’m on the hook till at least October with my Annual Pass, though I’m the idea of calling CS and saying “I’m done” is very, very strong.

Sorry for the rant. If you read this far, thanks, and hopefully you can learn from my mistake.

Sleep? Who needs it?

Two naps, two and a half hours each, and back to work I go.

Thought I’d share Cake’s current mog, still a work-in-progress, since I’ve been awfully quiet since Mog Madness ended. Didn’t mean to fall off the face of the earth, just haven’t got the hang of blogging with any regularity yet.

Mog Madness Round Five Entry

“Phnglui mglw nafh C’thun Ahn’Qiraj nagl fhtagn”

Was very excited when I read what Round Five was to consist of. After digging around through MogIt on a death knight and pally though, my excitement was… lessened, especially after coming up with an awesome lock outfit during last round that would’ve been a lock to enter. Ah well….

I had a whole little back story for this round too, but my brain is fried. Here’s some side shots then a link to the gear list on wowhead.

Gear Link with 3D model.

Thanks, hoping the other four had an easier time this round.

Edit: Forgot to mention which Old One my pally has fallen to. With the sandy color, pink and purple accents, and armed with Qiraji weaponry, I tried to make it apparent he’s been hearing the whispering of C’thun.

Mog Madness Round Four, Pt 2: Entry

On to my actual entry for round four.

When we last left off, I was awake at 6am, well medicated and staring into a bowl full of fruitalicious swirls. I’d tried and failed to create a mog set with which I was satisfied, on nearly every class. I hadn’t rolled a warrior to play with, but discounted them out of hand. I’ve never been able to level one past the starter zones; if I’m going to play a plate class, I want one that can heal as well (which also explains why I’ve never gotten into death knights either).

What’s left?  Druid.

Maybe I can work with that.

Purple, teal, and acid green.   All have at least a dash of blue…  What about contrasting colors?  Orangish-red, pink, dark green….  Hmmm….  Now we’re getting somewhere.

Log in to my Night Elf druid, fire up MogIt, and get to work.  Racing through helms first, I find exactly what I want.  It’s a leather helm, sold by G’eras in Shattrath, that my rogue used to drool over.  I didn’t begin raiding till very late in BC so I never had enough Badges of Justice to pick one up, but now it’s a steal for 390 Justice Points.

Once I had the helm, I worked my way down, swapping out pieces here and there till I was satisfied.

Here’s the end result of my Trix- and painkiller-fueled bout of insomnia:

And from the side:

• Head: Mask of Primal Power – Bought from G’eras in Shattrath, 390 JP.
• Shoulders: Deep Earth Mantle – Traded for the Shoulders of the Corrupted Vanquisher token (heroic) in your capital city.
• Back: Denmother’s Cloak – Quest reward from Report to the Denmother in Felwood.
• Chest: Vestments of the Soulflayer – Barely visible, beyond the straps around the upper arms. Drops from Jin’do the Godbreaker in Zul’Gurub.
• Shirt: Sawbones Shirt – A rare (3%) drop from Doctor Theolen Krastinov in Scholomance.
• Tabard: Purple Trophy Tabard of the Illidari – Required. Contained inside Offering of the Sha’tar, rewarded from Battle of the Crimson Watch in Shadowmoon Valley.
• Wrists: Drakewing Bands – Low level BoE blue drop.
• Hands: Devilsaur Gauntlets – Another blue BoE, this one from leatherworking.
• Waist: Cord of Pale Thorns – Alliance-only drop from Eydis Darkbane, one of the Twin Valkyrs in Trial of the Crusader.
• Legs: Borelgore’s Skin – Yum. Quest reward from The Corpulent One in Eastern Plaguelands.
• Feet: Bard’s Boots – Low level BoE green item.
• Main Hand: Scaleslicer – BoE epic drop out of Blackwing Descent.
• Off-hand: Voodoo Shaker – Another item from G’eras, 182 Justice Points.

While I was browsing items, I fell in love with the belt/pants combo. Until you look closely, from the front it looks like a purplish bird in flight – the belt buckle face with its wings flapped down across the thighs – which to me echoes the silhouette of the helm/shoulders, where the bird has it’s wings spread.  Could just be the meds talking though.

Also, the whole shebang in 3D is available here.

My soundtrack for this outfit: “Disaster” by The Used.  Awesome b-side off their new album, Vulnerable.

One last shot, portrait style:

I lied. I have one more pic to add, as promised in my previous post. This was the orc warlock set I abandoned earlier this week:

Thanks for looking, and best of luck to everyone!