Aspect Switch

No, it's not about what you think... :P

Is anyone else slightly put out by Aspect of the Cheetah and Aspect of the Fox being switched on the special action bar?

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I don't know about anyone else, but I have keybinds set up for those slots and I'm going to get them mixed up an awful lot.

Yes, I could change my keybinds, but that would mean re-learning those two spell slots for all the rest of my classes as well (admittedly probably easier, since I don't play alts anywhere near as much and the muscle memory is probably not as strong).

On the upside, at least they didn't change Aspect of the Pack... would be incredibly annoying for raiding/PvP/dungeons if the rest of my party had to suffer my misclicks as well!

Digging the Archy Changes

Whilst on the hunt to re-fill my stables (more on that in a later blog post), I discovered the improvement Blizzard made to Archaeology:

Increasing the number of times you can survey at a dig site means you can get one or two common artifacts at each site - great for people like me who still have one rare item left to discover for a few of the races (and 4 for Tol'vir :P).

I still don't think I'll manage to get all of the rare items before MoP brings in more, but at least I have more of a chance now! :)

This space NOT for rent

Having gone through all of my characters and organised their spells, I once again find my hunter short on action bar space.

I don't know whether there are any other classes that suffer the same problem, but I have a druid, warlock and priest all at 85 with spare spell slots and I've never had this problem on any other class (or at least, the hunter has always been the worst).

Survival (I've switched from MM, since I like Entrapment better than Chimera Shot) seems to not be as bad - there are 3 fewer abilities than for my BM setup.

I am, however, definitely liking my self-heal and survival options, of which there are plenty - Readiness is going to be epic with double Exhilaration, Intimidation, Silencing Shot, Deterrence spell reflect, Bestial Wrath, Scatter Shot.... can't wait to get into the MoP Arena - PvP has never looked so good! :)

Beta luck next time

Awhile ago I was excited to finally get my MoP beta key and was getting ready to do my usual testing.

Unfortunately, although I usually have plenty of bandwidth, there have been various reasons why I haven't been able to keep up with the WoW beta download - Diablo 3, live streaming the Olympics (Australia's Channel 9 free-to-air coverage was abysmal)...

This month I'll have plenty of bandwidth, but I'm pretty sure I've just about run out of time to test this thing, considering MoP will be live in 6 weeks and I'll still need to set up my hunter's spells, glyphs, macros, interface, pets.... not really the most ideal situation!

Oh well.... I'm sure the other beta testers have gone through all of the important stuff... I never was any good at number-crunching!

Nef needs new minions

Saw not one, but 2 appropriate PuGs last night; one for DS with 5 heroic (which I missed), and one for BWD heroic (which I managed to scrape into).

I was slightly surprised to find heroic BWD more difficult than I expected - it's definitely not a "faceroll", even for a team of 10 fairly well-geared and competent people.

It probably didn't help that the boss that gave us the most trouble was Magmaw - this first boss gave me a repair bill of >100g.

Luckily, most of the raid were from the same guild and all prepared to wipe - I can't imagine a regular PuG would have stuck at it for so long.

The only boss we didn't do on heroic was Nefarian, and only because it was getting late and the guild didn't want to even bother trying. At least we did manage the Achievement for it.

All in all, it was a great run. To me, a 200g repair bill is well worth seeing the fights on heroic, not to mention the Achievements and the challenge of running a difficult raid.

And even if I didn't get any of that.... 200g is totally worth this:

No glory for silver

This week, the STV fishing comp started just after Bolt's lightning Olympic run, so I figured I had a great chance of winning for once.

Indeed, I started off fantastically, getting quick bites of mostly tastyfish and not too much competition for pools.

I'd just picked up my second last fish - and getting tentatively excited - when a tauren made a neat landing next to the pool I was fishing from and promptly fished it out.

"OK, it's fine. I just need one more," I thought.

Of course, it wasn't to be; every pool from that area had vanished and by the time I *did* find a pool (close to half the map away) and cast the line out for my last fish, someone had handed theirs in.

I guess this week just reflected what the Aussie swim team must be feeling: close, but no cigar! :P

Valour Failure

Since my guild started our holiday raiding break (which is now looking to last until MoP, although that's another story...), I haven't been getting my usual quota of Valour Points.

Last week I'd realised that one week of points could get me over the line to the Arena bow I'd been wanting for transmog purposes, so I thought, "Great! I'll just do a quick Raid Finder Dragon Soul and be done with it".

Yeah, not so much.

Whilst RF used to be a quick and easy source for VP, I'm pretty sure that anyone and everyone - including me, really - who is actually capable of running the place has long finished farming it and is nowhere in sight.

Not to mention, the healers left at the slightest hint of a non-optimal group (stretching the queue time and leaving us with only the desperate hangers-on), making it incredibly difficult to finish the run once you wiped.

A few attempts later and I decided it was sadly much easier to run 5man heroics for VP, much to the delight of more than a few undergeared PuGs who /boggled at my ilvl 398 DPS.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, really, considering that everyone is feeling pre-expansion lethargy, but still. LFR is supposed to be easymode raiding, dammit! What happened? :(

Aspect of the Dragonhawk

No, we aren't getting that spell back; I'm talking about this:

Yep. Because you can change Aspects whilst mounted, you actually get a cast animation if you change Aspects whilst transformed into a dragon via Vial of the Sands.

It does look a little odd, since the dragon looks like a chicken sticking its neck out really quickly... but pretty amusing as well!

Bubble-o-flage

After running through the Well of Eternity and getting Tyrande's Hand of Elune buff, I realized that not only does the buff put a clear bubble around you, it also changes Camouflage to put a second visible bubble around the first one:

Reminds me a little of those Alien eggs for some reason, even though they don't look the same... but in any case: definitely not stealthy to be walking around inside a double bubble!

Outfit Complete

Finally! After more than a few runs through Sunwell (much thanks to my guildies!), the Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas dropped for me and I have my complete elven ranger outfit:

Unfortunately my dark ranger outfit (which I use for PvP) needs 3 more items with extremely low drop rates, so I'm still using placeholder items (which really aren't too bad, considering).

I'll still have to run Sunwell for Thori'dal, of course, but at least I have my PvE set done! :)