Huge Smelly Orc

If you haven't had a run through the new Redridge Mountains, you're missing a hell of a fun ride. My baby Worgen had a blast!

/salute Bravo Company

I think Danforth might have something against orcs though.

Krazzworks

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The Krazzworks, Twilight Highlands

Want to see more pretty pictures? Visit R&R's Gallery Page.

Change of Pace

There's change in the air.  With quite a few bloggers calling it quits around the place and other seasoned players heading off to try out Rift, things are shifting slightly in the Blogosphere and Twitterverse.

Fannon of Dwarven Battle Medic is welcoming his first little Dwarfling to the family (hopefully already welcomed by now - they were at the hospital at the time of writing!), and he wrote the other day about changing priorities and managing limited play time. He still intends to raid with his guild and I wish him the very best of luck in trying to continue with his goals.

I'm on the final stretch - just five-ish weeks left before my Sproutling makes an appearance (at least I hope it will only be that long!). Unlike Fannon, I have no intentions of trying to keep up with any in-game commitments. My guild has actually fallen back to a casual guild - with too many of our old raid team taking breaks or not having time to gear up, raiding is not looking like happening any time soon.

I'm not planning to give up altogether, if the little Sprout permits me time. I've geared my Druid up to raid level more or less, but I've shifted my focus more to my other characters, and rediscovering the "new" game.  My little Priest, Angelya, just dinged 50 and has been enjoying the quest lines through the new Thousand Needles and Tanaris. Once the little one gets a bit older and I have more time again, Leesah will hopefully make a comeback.

If you're feeling burned out already or a change of pace is needed, I do recommend a new character to check out the improved zones - I am delighted so far with what I've discovered !

Updates and Tweaks

Patch 4.0.6 dropped earlier this week. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about it, since I've been so busy that I've barely logged on all week, but there are plenty of Druid bloggers out there spreading the word about the changes that have been made.  You can find most of them in the enormous list to the right of the page.

The one change that I did want to mention though, was [Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect] dropping from 100 Intellect to 40. While a bit of a non-eventful change in itself apart from the sad loss of tasty Int, it has helped me to be informed (after a comment from Ferret - thanks!) that it seems that I've been undervaluing the one-handed weapons in my Resto Pre-Raid gear list.

Since we should always have the +40 Intellect enchant on our off-hand, I've added 60 to the score of each One-Handed weapon. Interestingly, this puts most of the one-handers above the staffs (staves?), although the two Archeology epic staffs are still top of the pre-raid lists.

Incidentally, if you're looking for gear from raids rather than a pre-raid gear list then I recommend you check out Red Cow Rise's post from earlier in the week.

The off-hand tweak does affect the Balance Pre-Raid Gear list as well but as I haven't scored those items, I re-ordered them instead.  They're now ordered by iLevel then with the one-handers listed before the two-handers. Keep in mind these aren't scored, but generally speaking one-hand plus off-hand will end up with better stats than a staff.

A bit of an in-game update:  I've been running heroics here and there but I've been hit by a combination of busy-ness and general tiredness (plus some random lurgy making my computer run like a slug) so I haven't been playing much at all. There have been quite a few people in my guild who have been taking breaks from the game, a few people have moved on, plus we are still trying to gear up tanks so we haven't had any raids yet. This has kind of helped to sap my motivation, and I seriously doubt now whether I will see any raids before the imminent arrival of my Sproutling.  To be perfectly honest, while I really really miss raiding, I doubt I could stay awake and focused through a whole raid just at the moment anyway so it's probably not such a terrible thing!

Anyway I hope the patch hasn't hit anyone too hard, and that you are all enjoying your game, however you play it :)

Love is in the Air Again

The Lunar Festival is still not yet over and already we're starting another one - Love is in the Air!

The achievements look to be the same as last year, with a few bugs that will be ironed out over the coming days in hotfixes or the looming patch (which, by the way, Keeva has covered quite comprehensively), but the important thing to note is that the holiday boss(es) in Shadowfang Keep now drop iLevel 346 neckpieces.  If you still need your last few items of pre-raid kit like I do, it's worth running a few times to pick up the Winking Eye of Love.

You can queue for the Holiday boss not through LFD this time, but via the Steamwheedle Shyster in Orgrimmar or Stormwind.  The Orgrimmar one is just in front of Grommash Hold.

I haven't been about much this week as it's been stiflingly hot in my computer room so there's not much new to report, but I just had to share this gorgeous bit of Link Lovin' from Qieth - Flight of the Moonkin. 

Updated again - Cataclysm Herb Charts

Once again, I've updated the Cataclysm Herb Charts to take into account the latest spawn counts from Wowhead.

Cataclysm Herbalism Charts

This update was important because it allows us to see the distribution of new herbs in level 80+ zones more easily.

I hope you've found the charts useful for your flower picking!