Enchanting rods are ridiculously expensive relative to the cost of materials; wish I’d realized that when I levelled up my (now mothballed) blacksmith.
If you have the Southshore flight path fly up there and take the main road out of town until you come to a cross road.
Head EAST on the road and follow it past Tarren Mill until you come to a bridge
Cross the bridge and continue traveling EAST until you see the ruins of Durnholde Keep
Travel to the Eastern wall OUTSIDE of the keep (do not go in as there are mobs waiting to kill you)
Once you have reached the east wall travel NORTH until you find yourself behind the keep
Keep traveling NORTH and you should find two named griffons flying around
These griffons are near the path you need to take to enter the Hinterlands!
Hope that helps. 
I may have priced them too high (15g) - I haven’t had any takers. But yeah, the rods are something enchanters have to have, so some gouging is to be expected, I guess.
I’m trying to level this DK blacksmith’s mining so I can take him to Outland, and right now I need Thorium nodes. So once again I’m in the Burning Steppes, wondering if I’m crazy for thinking that a zone with an area labeled “Thorium Point”, where the Thorium Brotherhood hangs out, ought to have more, I don’t know, thorium? So far I’ve found a gold node, an iron node, two mithril nodes, 4-5 dark iron nodes, and one lonely thorium node.
Maybe they mined them all and the respawn is reallllly long.
Personally, I’d vote for ImageShack–if you upload multiple files at once, it turns them into a gallery. I can’t see any Facebook content from work.
I used my Brewfest dress for my Cooking outfit, so I got nothin’. Let me know if you figure something out!
:smack: I knew that at the time I quoted it, and then I forgot about the post title when I actually replied.
That’s how they get ya. You better bet the Shady Oaks Lakeview condos are mighty shy on oaks, shade, and adjascent large bodies of fresh water, too.
Yeah, I’ve also wondered about the town of Goldshire, and those kobolds packing gold dust. There’s nothing but copper in the area!
Also, profession skillups: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
I really wish they’d change how the different colors affect skillups. Instead of the current “Orange = 100% chance of increasing skill level; Yellow = 75% chance of increasing skill level; Green = <50% chance of increasing skill level” I wish they’d go to something like “Orange = 1 skill point, Yellow = .75 skill point, Green = .5 skill point” and you get the relevant amount every time.
As it is now, I’m becoming more and more convinced that the random number generator for profession skillups is rigged when you’re in the yellow or green. I swear that almost every time I’m getting close to the skill level I need to learn the next thing, no matter how many skillup actions I perform (when doing it in a batch all at once) I end up 1 point shy of the next number I need. Like if I’m making Heavy Linen Bandages and I want to get to 80 so I can learn Wool bandages, and my current skill is, say, 72. I’ll stand there and make 40 Heavy Linen Bandages, and by the time I’m done my skill level is at … 79. Or I’m in town and there’s a Cooking Trainer nearby, and so I want to train the next rank of Cooking before heading off to quest in an area without a trainer, so I cook cook cook like a maniac and end up 1 point shy.
The problem is it’s not an exact analog. Orange isn’t always 100%, yellow isn’t always 50%, green isn’t always 25%. It’s actually logarithmic. This becomes mightily apparent as you reach the skill when the recipe turns grey, it gets harder and harder to get those last few points. It’s the same way with weapon skills.
They are planning to revise how skillups work in Cataclysm, though. Something like you can choose to create 5 easy green items for 1 skill point or 1 difficult blue item for 5 points. Don’t take the numbers as gospel, it’s just an example of what they’re looking at doing. I would definitely welcome getting more skill points for making the difficult stuff, though.
Weapon skills? That’s for darned sure. My mage spent TWO HOURS whacking stuff with a staff to get from skill level 399 to 400. That’s longer than it took to get from 390 to 399.
What drove me nuts was the number of times someone saw me whacking on mobs, throwing up my shield every 30 seconds, and “did me a favor” by killing the mob for me–often accompanied by a “WTF?” whisper. Then I’d say, “I’m leveling up weapon skills – please don’t help,” and most would leave. One stood and watched for a good 15 minutes, probably thinking, “when else will I get to watch a level 80 mage beating up level 60 spiders with a stick?” (I was combining weapon skill leveling with silk farming)
One guy “helped” three more times, and only left when I said, “LEAVE ME ALONE, DAMMIT!”
I probably amused a view spectators when my level 80 pally was running around Outland punching lvl ~60 elites But I did end up with Weapon Master and Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich?
Please, I am begging you, for the love of god NO FREAKING FACEBOOK.
Unless you are a member you can not see the photos. I [and others] refuse to belong to facebook for many reasons [the whole friend thing is one of my main issues, I have a stalker, and i would rather not have my real life name and face plastered out where people can find it, and my email … ]
Okay, finally got the directions right, and went behind the EAST WALL of the keep, but maybe I’m going TOO FAR north, because I didn’t see the 2 griffons and wound up back in the Alteracs.:smack:
Thanks
Q
… who tried to help me with The Hinterlands quest. I didn’t realize I have an FP to Aerie Peak/Hinterlands, and I’m there now.:smack:
Gotta go dive in some lake for Sprinkler in Gadgetzan!
Sorry I wasted everyone’s time, but I guess this dementia shit must be getting worse, if I’m missing my FP’s.
Maybe I need to “up” the meds!
Thanks
Quasi
Checking cages in Witherbark village #1, and suddenly can’t move Wolkie.
Would an attack on his intellect cause him not to be able to move, because that is what I see near the mini-map. And I have tried to move him 360 with every click of the arrows, have tried to jump him, and nothing works. Also re-set video options to default.
Guess I’ll have to hearth out and make that 8 + minute trip to HL again! :smack:
Thanks
Q
I have to agree here. I abolutely HATE “social networking”.
Especially when folks get smarmy with me about the dementia, and ask how I’m “doing these days?”
I wanna say, “Check the goddam blog, mother-fucker!”, but I don’t, so I just stay out of there completely, and anyone who knows me and cares about me is either here on The Dope or checks the blog regularly anyway.
Sorry for the hijack, but I think Facebook and its clones are not a good idea at all.
I think my last entry was my own quiz and its answer: "If I Were A Bowel Movement, How Would I Smell?"
My answer was (sarcasm, remember?): “The one which smells like roses, and which millions of people line up to pay to enjoy!”
Having said all that, how do I answer, “Yeah, but what about your blog, Bill? You’re pretty open and candid about that, aren’t you?”
Yeah, I reckon so, but so far no one’s stalked me, tried to hack into my bank account, and hopefully it has done some good.
Plus, it’s a legacy of sorts. What I write, in addition what is going on with me in the “here and now” are my memoirs.
Sorry for the rambling, but when I say y’all are my family, that is exactly what I mean. I hope to God this site doesn’t go dark, but if it does, I hope y’all will find a way to keep in touch!
Thanks
Quasi/Bill Wolkie and Silka
I did that, too, and for exactly the same reason. But somehow it’s even funnier when it’s a mage in hand-to-hand combat.
Weird. The links I’ve posted are prefaced on the site with, “Share this album with anyone by sending them this public link:” That is, the link is supposed to allow non-members to see the gallery. I don’t know why it doesn’t work for some of y’all.
I’m really only putting them there cuz I’ve been too lazy to design a gallery page for my personal site. Facebook lets me just upload everything and it makes the gallery for me.
Anyway … my draenei fire mage just hit lvl 26 running around Wetlands. I spent a lot of time in the Whelgar Excavation, and for the first time (surprisingly) discovered one thing that really sucks about there being too many people working the same area/quests: there’s no way to keep track of how long the nearest mobs have been dead. If I have the area to myself I can sort of work my way from one end to the other and have a general idea of when the mobs I’ve already killed are going to respawn. But there were two or three other people doing the same quests, killing those raptors. And over and over I’d walk through an apparently clear area and attack the nearest raptor, only to have another raptor respawn right freakin’ on top of me. Aaaieee!
I also had to politely ask a nelf rogue to please stop attacking my mobs after I’d frozen them with Frost Nova. His attacks were breaking the “root effect” of the Frost Nova, and since he was lower level than me his attacks weren’t grabbing the aggro from me, so the raptors would break free and come right back after me.
All that said, I’ve finally come up with an effective rotation on this toon, where all the timing works to my advantage:
• First, Mana Shield!
-
Frostbolt from maximum range - gets the mob’s attention and slows its approach
-
Immediately start casting Pyroblast
-
About halfway through Pyroblast’s cast bar, hit hotkey for Flamestrike, position the green targeting thing right in front of myself and keep my finger on the mouse button
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As soon as Pyroblast goes off, click mouse button to start casting Flamestrike
• Ideally, Pyroblast hits the mob while it’s still a few steps away, and the timing works out so that Flamestrike goes off right at my feet at almost the same instant the mob reaches me and makes its first melee attack
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As soon as Flamestrike goes off, cast Frost Nova
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Run away!
• At this point I can just sit back and let Flame Strike’s DoT do its work while Frost Nova keeps the mob rooted in place. Depending on the level and HP of the mob, all that remains is to maybe hit it with a quick blast from my wand, but in most cases the mob dies from Flamestrike’s DoT.
The weak points in this rotation are the frost spells. Frostbolt can miss, which means I have the mob’s attention but it isn’t slowed down. Or Frost Nova can miss (how you miss with an AoE spell at point-blank range is beyond my understanding) and then I’m forced to take a beating (depending on how long Mana Shield holds out) while I blast the mob with more fire spells. And obviously it’s only effective if I can grab just one mob at a time.
I have, on advice from the guild, respecced my retribution paladin to protection at level 58 and I am going to try to learn how to tank in Outland, do we have any tankadins here? I have a couple of questions:
- What Seal Vengeance or Righteousness?
- What is your usual rotation, open with Avenger’s Shield, pop Holy Shield, Consecrate rinse and repeat? More complicated than that?
- Do you have any addons to tell you when your spells are up?
- Any must have glyphs?
I have trawled the interwebs but the most detailed stuff is for level 80s and the rest is either too vague or I can’t get a consensus. Obviously I will work out what’s best for me as I go along but I’d like to start at least trying the right thing.
That’s… pretty terrible, actually. Ideally, as a Fire Mage, all you should need to kill a mob of roughly equal level is Pyroblast, Fireball, Fireball, maybe Fire Blast to finish it off. Using Frostbolt as a starter isn’t such a bad idea at lower levels, but using Pyroblast after it is due to its five second cast time. It should be either your starting spell or only used when you get more levels and can fire off instant Pyros. Also, Flamestrike is terribly mana inefficient and pretty much wasted on a single mob.
You could also try using Scorch in there somewhere, espesially when the mob is near you. Its fast cast speed and decent damage make it good for situations where you can’t afford the longer cast time of Fireball.
edit: There also aren’t any Fire spell specific +hit talents that I could remember off-hand, so your Frostbolts won’t miss any more than your other spells.
I haven’t played a mage since wrath came out but that sounds horribly complex and not very efficient, when I leveled as Frost I only needed Frost Bolt most of the time. Usually the mobs were dead before they reached me, and if they weren’t I could just use Frost Nova to get some range(and 50+% crit thanks to Shatter :)).
But even if you want to level as Fire I question the wisdom of using Pyroblast as anything other than an opener, because its dps sucks compared to Fireball, especially if you have improved Fireball.