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It’s a Monday, and somehow I’ve already been awake too long. Let’s dive right in to what’s running through my head and has been happening in-game, shall we?

• Leave it to Blizzard to invalidate anything I was writing about two posts ago. I don’t have to worry about pet control in a 51/0/20 Blood build because, well, it’s completely impossible. The permaghoul is now completely in the hands of heavy Unholy builds.

• I respecced my DK again (0/20/51), grabbed the best slow/fast weapon combo I could get with absolutely no effort, and went to Heroic HoL. I hadn’t had any practice whatsoever with this build, but I still took second place on overall DPS. I would’ve had higher, but the tank was having a lot of problems holding threat against the shadow priest and me. Reason: I don’t think I’d ever really given dual-wielding a fair shake, and so I figured, why the hell not? Not like I’ve got anything else going on these days.

• I really, really, really want to get into a Malygos raid one of these days. I don’t see it happening pre-3.1. /sad

• My baby druid is up to 22, having just finished up the last of the Tranquillien questlines, hitting Exalted with them, and wandered off to Undercity to hand over the good tidings of Dar’khan Drathir’s passing. In all his clothie gear, he’s the funniest-lookin’ moocow to ever moo. I also just remembered he needs to go train. Hopefully I remember to do that tonight.

• I keep looking at my shaman and wanting to level her, but at the same time… I wish it was an orc. And not a her. I dunno. 36 levels isn’t really that much to lose, especially when 20+ of them were RAF granted ‘bonus’ levels. But, I’ve been holding off on that because…

• Vandersloot and I are supposed to be starting new alts soon, possibly as soon as Friday. He wants to make a warlock, and do recruit-a-friend, so I volunteered to be on the ‘new’ account, and will probably be rolling a warrior. Busy, busy.

It’s about time someone recognized me as deserving of awards. I mean, really, you people, do you think I’m writing this for you? ;)

I kid, of course: I write for me, but I also write for you. And apparently that earned me some recognition in the form of the above award, disguised as a meme, and handed out by Lady Jess herself. Thank you, thank you. I couldn’t do it without you, the little people (and I don’t mean the gnomes)!

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

I can only assume it’s the content, because the design’s stock-standard. I should work on that. Anyway, like many awards, which come with rules like ”don’t pose for Penthouse after being crowned” and ”don’t use performance-enhancing drugs,” this one comes with rules too. Here we go.

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.

2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Honesty is the best policy, I suppose. Here’s ten things about yours truly.

1. I have an addiction to shiny pretty brand-new gadgets, limited only by my budget and common sense, and moreso the former than the latter.

2. Matt says I’M THE BEST! AROUND! NOTHING’S EVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN~!

3. I have alt-itis, but at the same time I have alt-paralysis. I have a bunch of alts, ranging in level from 35 to 70, most of whom I only log on in fits and spurts. My druid has been getting a lot of love, though. To be honest, my first character was an undead rogue, but my first character after I learned how to play was a tauren druid, and I think it’s some of that nostalgia coming back to me. (That and the fact that blowing stuff up is fun.)

4. I’m on an RP server, but I really don’t RP. Funny thing, eh? I do write little RP journals on Path of a Hero for Whitebough when inspiration strikes, but I’m horribly out of practice.

5. My Halloween costumes have gotten progressively nerdier over the past four years, and I largely blame my roommate(s). In ‘05, the four of us went as the Fantastic Four (I was Reed Richards). In ‘06, the three of us went as Mario, Luigi, and Link (I was Mario, and I talked my girlfriend into going as Princess Peach). I can’t remember what was in ‘07. In ‘08, my roommate and I went as Mega Man and Dr. Wily (I was Dr. Wily). This year? Who’s to say? If he played WoW, we’d probably go as Varian and Thrall or something, and maybe I could talk my girlfriend into a Jaina costume.

6. I am really, really bad at PvP. I can’t believe I managed to rope Llanion and Siha into an arena team with me. THE FOOLS, MUAHAHAHAHAcough.

7. I have a lot of trouble coming up with things about myself. You wouldn’t believe how long I’ve been sitting here thinking about this (hint: most of the day).

8. I once managed to break both of my big toes at once by falling over onto them on a concrete floor because I was inside a sleeping bag and hopping from one spot to the other instead of getting out because it was cold, damn it.

9. I used to play FFXI, and I still have an account, but recently my linkshell (WoW players: read that as “guild”) broke up and everyone scattered to parts unknown and so now I really don’t have a reason to go back there. A hello to Wendell and Skaphia from Midgardsormr, if they happen to run across this; Socrates misses you guys

10. I used to be a complete Mac addict; now it’s toned down to more of a strong like. I actually have articles published in O’Reilly Media’s Mac OS X Hacks, which is now out-of-print (and the tips I wrote therein are obsolete). Still, it’s nice to know I’m in print somewhere.

Okay, there we go. Now let’s see what we can do about tagging some other folks. 7 bloggers, eh?

• Bellbell at 4haelz, my current druid mentor!

• Everyone at World of Matticus. Yes, all of you. Individually. Is that cheating? Screw you, it’s my blog and my award!

• Trustyn at Zap!

• The recently relocated Llanion, at Mad Cow Chronicles, without whom Banana Force M would be less Banana Force M-pressive. (Grooooan.)

• On that note, also Siha!

• Ms. Nibuca, over at Mystic Chicanery!

• And, a guy more of you should be reading, Linedan at Achtung Panzercow!

You all rock! Now get to writin’.

Gotta love it when other people do the work for you, right? Geistig over at Skeleton Jack has a great post on leveling Unholy, for those of you who like the idea of ridin’ around with your best ghoul by your side, being nigh unkillable in an entirely different way, and - oh yeah - moving really fast. Trust the lady, read the post, try the spec if you’re still comin’ up in the world. :)

She mentions it briefly, but I can’t emphasize it enough - if you’re leveling Unholy, take On a Pale Horse. Frankly, I still miss the mounted movement buff today, given the sheer size of Northrend.

Warning: the info in this post was posted prior to patch 3.1, and as such, while there may be some relevant information in it, large parts of it may be outdated or irrelevant. You have been warned.

Been doing a little thinking about Blood-spec in 3.1. I’ve done some testing on the PTR, and outside testing’s confirmed it, but Blood (with diseases, as opposed to without, which is what I’m rolling with now) is a real contender for DPS again. And, on top of that, bonuses to Obliterate in the Blood tree have more or less vanished, replaced with Death Strike bonuses (including Improved Death Strike, which is sexy), meaning Blizzard is trying to encourage Blood DKs to use Death Strike at least alongside, if not in place of, Obliterate.

In fact, my testing on the PTR has shown them to be just about equal, with Death Strike coming out moderately ahead. Which is fine with me - that’s 13 fewer points I have to take in Frost - but now I have the pesky job of trying to figure out a spec, so I don’t spend tons of gold respeccing even in the face of dual specs (my other spec will be for my tank spec, thankyouverymuch - have to hammer that one out, too). Here’s some contenders.

• Skeleton Jack’s blood build. The post in which he explains it is here. I tend to take SJ at his word, and this was the build I tried first, I’ll admit. I have a few reservations about it, mostly centered around the ghoul (I really hate pet control with the damn thing, and it’ll have to be even more micro-managed due to not getting Night of the Dead for avoidance), and Blood-Caked Blade (which Jack’s build is 3/3 in, but which - a mere two posts later - he says isn’t all that hot anymore). Also, with Death Strike getting such a buff, I really feel like I should have Glyph of Death Strike in there somewhere, but I can’t decide which one would have to go to make it worth it with this build - maybe Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon, since DRW already has an extended duration in 3.1.

• Daniel Whitcomb’s blood build. Daniel’s piece on the rise of Blood from WI also brings up the Ghoul-babysitting, as well as the tightness of the rotation. With 2/2 Epidemic, though, you already get 21 seconds of disease - I could see them falling off in movement-heavy fights, but they do that now, and against less movement heavy fights, I wasn’t experiencing a problem at all. Daniel’s build grabs Corpse Explosion, something I hadn’t considered, but forgoes the extra runic power cap of SJ’s build.

• My ghoul-included blood build. As you can see, this is basically Skeleton Jack’s blood build, but with Ravenous Dead instead of BCB. Our biggest hits are all physical in Blood spec (namely Heart Strike and Obliterate/Death Strike), and my gut feeling is that the 3% Strength, plus further Strength and Stamina to the ghoul, is a boost if the ghoul is to be included. (That said - Glyph of Dark Death? Really? Is Richard Knaak writing glyph names now?) The problem with this is that I’ve managed to create a more ghoul-dependent build, because if the ghoul has such large increases to Strength and Stamina, he’s going to be doing an even larger portion of my DPS, and I’d be even more crippled if he died. Would probably need to replace Glyph of Blood Tap with Glyph of Raise Dead, ‘cause I’d be going through a lot of ghouls.

• A sans-ghoul blood build. Here’s my thinking. Right now, on live, on a boss fight, the Dancing Rune Weapon will actually do more damage than a normal summoned ghoul, even with Glyph of the Ghoul and 3/3 Ravenous Dead. In 3.1, the Dancing Rune Weapon has an extended duration, but does 50% less damage. So my thinking is, leave in Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon, take out Glyph of the Ghoul, put in Glyph of Death Strike. This also builds up the new-and-improved Plague Strike a bit. I am pleased with the performance of the new Plague Strike, to say the least - it does enough damage that I no longer cringe when I press it to apply diseases.

Obviously I can’t do any math on this at the moment (mostly because, due to Blizzard’s “wonderful” (/airquotes) copy process, my DK on the test realm has 6 gold), but my gut feeling is that the last one listed there will end up being roughly equal to any of the above builds, but without the hassle of pet management. However, if anyone else out there is trying out blood specs in the brave new world that is 3.1, I’m interested to hear your take on things.

Ladies and gentlemen: I hate toy trains. I hate them. I hate them with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. I despise them, I want to destroy them. People put them down during anytime anyone is talking in Vent, and it makes me want to learn how to reach through the internet and stab someone in the braincage. Therefore, it made my day when BRK posted this delightful little video:

In conclusion, bwaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha!

In 2009, their mission began. Three bloggers, out to “compete” (/airquotes) in the arena tournament, for the promise of prizes for participation. Pondering the big questions, like “where is my Moonfire keybind,” and “how the hell did they just get off a heal,” and “what if we run into someone who reads our blogs?” They are…

Banana Force M, proudly failing their way to a murloc. What could possess a team to have such a silly name? Simple: we took a component of each blog name to form the title of this tri-national arena team:

• Siha, of Banana Shoulders, representing the Deep (Really Deep) South, hailin’ from Australia (and feeling kind of dirty because we’re making her play a blood elf instead of her usual human),

• me, of course, reppin’ for the U.S. of A., (and unnecessarily crippling my team further by playing a class and spec I’ve never played before, an Arms Warrior), and

• Llanion, of Mad Cow Chronicles, holdin’ it down for the Great Frozen Northlands of Canada.

We entered with one goal in mind: to win a murloc! Specifically Murkimus the Gladiator, the prize for playing 200 matches. We have no illusions of making it into the top 1000 in order to get the Vanquisher title (as I think I mentioned after viewing our rank last night, “all we need is for 1,325 teams to be worse than us and we’re in”). But by , we’ll get that fishman!

Some highlights:

• Realizing that our team name sounds like some kind of 80’s cartoon superhero combo, and reacting accordingly:
  

• Llanion killing a death knight in single combat. (He was so proud, it was adorable, sort of. To be fair, the death knight kept spamming Chains of Ice despite diminishing returns, was in full Deadly Gladiator gear, and apparently had forgotten where his/her strangulate button was.)

• Is something missing here? (Click to embiggen)
  

• Leaping onto the tomb in the center of the Ruins of Lordaeron to /chicken at a priest on a team that was just cowering in the doorway. Luckily, we won, so I didn’t look like a huge idiot.

• OH SHIT BEES!
  

• Losing to teams with such names as Just Here For The Murloc, ThisWasTheOnlyNameLeft, WERE ALL GUYS IRL LOL, and Crazy Cat Ladies.

• Beating teams with names like Two Jews and Marcello and the Power Rangers.

• Look, ma, we briefly had a winning record!
  

Sometimes you roflstomp over the other team, sometimes it is you who gets roflstomped. We’re all very zen about it, and we really do win our share of matches. Despite having a losing record, I freely admit I expected to be doing a lot worse - Llanion claims to be terrible at PvP, I’m playing a class I never played before, and Siha’s the only one with any extensive experience on our team.

Also, impromptu dance parties.

1/3 of the way done. We’re almost there! Our squishy little metal murloc is in our reach! o/

Linedan tagged me by name at least, but technically Anea’s original post was a trap into a meme! Sneaky space goats. Anyway, question and answer time.

1. What is your name and where did it come from?

* **Zulfon'**s name is fairly adequately explained in [this earlier post](/2008/11/12/rp-life-death-and-rebirth/).

* **Queklain'**s name... well, [there you go](http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/C%C3%BAchulainn_(Final_Fantasy_Tactics)).

* I'm feeling generous, so here's some more alt names. **Valmafra**, my blood elf hunter, is [from the same source material](http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Valmafra). She used to be called **Eladhon**, which was generated by the random name generator in WoW and had the unfortunate side effect of my guildmates referring to him as ‘Aladdin.'

* **Xajek**, my troll priest, is another random name. In this case the generator generated ‘Xaj' and I added ‘ek' pretty much by tapping a random vowel and a random consonant.

* **Galehorn** and **Whitebough**, tauren shaman and tauren druid respectively, got their names by being modeled vaguely after existing tauren names. 

1. How old are you and what is your birthday?

* **Queklain**: "Time is meaningless to the dead. My birthday is every day, as far as I'm concerned, since I'm still alive. Undead. Whatever. Flee, mortal, you're beginning to bother me..."

* **Zulfon**: "I was mebbe 20, 21 years old. Jus' a few years as an adult. Now dat I'm like dis, though... I'm as ageless as he is." She jerks a thumb to indicate Queklain, who is nodding off in a chair. "Birthday, though, is August sevent'. And don' you forget!" She grins a little bit, exposing her small tusks.

1. Are you in love and with whom?

* **Queklain and Zulfon** (in unison): "Hah!"

1. What is your favorite mount and why?

* **Queklain**: "My Frostwolf Howler. It was _truly an honor_," he says, his voice dry, "to help our Horde _brethren_ in Alterac Valley, for which they bestowed upon me this wolf." Under his breath, he mutters, "They sure as hell wouldn't have made it on their own."

* **Zulfon**: "Malfas, mah purple nethawing drake. ‘S a sign of my pact with de Nether Flight, and mah work underminin' Illidan. And a far deal comfier than dem bony birds mah brethren ride."

1. Do you prefer a certain type of Azerothian meal and where do you get it from?

* **Queklain**: "Gnome."

* **Zulfon**: "Dat's disgustin'."

* **Queklain**: "Don't knock it till you've feasted upon its freshly-slain corpse."

* Zulfon gags a little. "Food don' quite taste like it used ta, so I go for de more exotic flavahs. Spiced wyrm burgers, that kin' of ting."

* **Queklain**: "Gnome's kind of exotic."

1. You know those giant mushrooms in Zangarmarsh? What is your theory on how they came to be and why are they so huge?

* **Queklain**: "You know how mushrooms grow on dead things, right? Well, look at Draenor. I rest my case."

* **Zulfon**: "Ain't nothin' right about Outland. I worry less ‘bout de giant mushrooms and more ‘bout de ones walkin' about."

1. If you saw the Lich King walking towards you, what would you do?

* **Queklain**: "Oh, doubtlessly flee in abject terror. I'm surely no match for a man who - oh, wait, who can be wounded by a single apothecary with a batch of blight. Bah." Queklain waves his hand dismissively. "Lich King, Bitch King."

* **Zulfon**: "Well, it's not like it'd be de first time, now is it?" She grins again, this one a bit more predatory. "Dere's always a price to pay for betrayal, and we bot' done betrayed each otha, so dere'd be hell to pay all around."

See the picture above? Yeah, that’s Desolace. I’m gonna talk about a questline there.

Wait, come back!

Okay, so it’s no secret that Desolace is wildly unpopular with both sides. For starters, it’s insanely ugly. It makes Duskwood look homey and cozy. And if you thought the Alliance outpost in Desolace was annoying to get to, try getting to the Horde one. And the quests? Fuhgeddaboutit! Demons galore, many of them elite or at least over-leveled in the southern reaches, kodos, and - oh yeah - the centaurs.

Of course, that’s what I’m here to talk about today: the centaurs.

Wait, come back!

I have very few actual thoughts on dual spec, other than that it’s a Good Thing. I can’t say I’m super-excited about another cash sink on many of my alts, but I’ll manage. For me personally it’ll save me a lot of respecs and reglyphs going from tank to DPS and back again, though I can’t see as much utility for it on my warlock (maybe solo spec vs. raid spec, I suppose). I’m going to point you at Siha instead since she said pretty much everything I wanted to say.

I will add that I think dual spec’ing is like Blizzard’s apology to hybrids. The manual (yes, referencing the vanilla manual again, since I still have it - dwarf mages, plainsrunning and all) implies that hybrids should be able to dps and heal and (in some cases) tank; however, it’s been a long accepted fact that trying to spec for two roles using the same pool of talent points results in subpar performance. While you can’t switch midfight, at least now you can switch between fights.

There you go, hybrids: it’s only been, what, 3 years?

Just a momentary heads-up: this site may appear to go away tomorrow for a little bit. Our host is migrating all the servers to new servers starting on Wednesday, and I haven’t had a lot of luck getting TSF to work on the new site - but then again, it’s also a temporary set up, and when the URL isn’t the same, WordPress is periodically unhappy.

So while you may lose me for an hour or two, rest assured, I’m still here. On the upside, general access of the site should be improved, and with far fewer Internal Server Errors.

Cross your fingers, and I’ll see you on the flip side!