1. What is your name and where did it come from?
• Zulfon’s name is fairly adequately explained in this earlier post.
• Queklain’s name… well, there you go.
• I’m feeling generous, so here’s some more alt names. Valmafra, my blood elf hunter, is from the same source material. 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.
2. 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.
3. Are you in love and with whom?
• Queklain and Zulfon (in unison): “Hah!”
4. 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.”
5. 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.”
6. 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.”
7. 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.”

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Fine, fine, since you asked

My blacksmithing lags behind, at 277. Oh, sure, I could go pick up Master Blacksmithing too, but there’s really no point: none of the Outland blacksmithing plans are available until 300, so it’s a few more hours of running around Silithus. Silithus really is my new favorite place, especially when compared to my old favorite (Winterspring, which was remarkably devoid of nodes the last two nights) and my old old favorite (Burning Steppes). Three major “sets” of locations, usually 2-3 nodes per location, 4-5 ores per node? Yes, please! Sign me up. And if it means slaughtering the occasional bug, so much the better.

It’s been a thoroughly un-WoW weekend. Yes, I ran in circles mining and making blacksmithing stuff. I also stopped at one point to run Blackrock Depths by myself, which was quite a feat on my netbook (I was playing on my Acer Aspire One while watching the Colts game). For bonus points, if you’re soloing BRD: don’t kill anything in the room with Emperor Thaurissan before attacking him. It’s fun, I promise! And hey, I came out of it with a piece of gear I can actually use. Shut up, shirts are gear.

Sadly, I have no new information for aspiring Death Knights today. I did do one bit of experimenting lately: I tried out Skeleton Jack’s dual-wield build. For the first few minutes, it was mostly me bringing up my sword skill, and after that… well, I wasn’t terribly impressed. Me plus a ghoul with that build, puts out less than me by myself in my currently 17/54/0 build. I changed back after an instance run or two. #1? I don’t think so. Maybe once Howling Blast comes off cooldown and is truly spammable when you have the ability to use it. Of course, there’s rumors Blizz might nerf the thing anyway, as they don’t want dual wield to dominate for Death Knights; part of me wonders if they’re regretting making that an option now. One benefit of dual-wielding, though: if both weapons have Rune of the Fallen Crusader on them, the effect of it is up all the time. Of course, it feels like it’s up on every fight now, so who knows.

I did log on several of my alts, fix their UIs, and mess with their spec a bit, then I played them to make sure they’re playable. Valmafra (née Eladhon) is now Survival-spec, which I’m not sure is ideal for leveling but is definitely where I want to take her eventually… so far, it works exactly like a BM Hunter without Bestial Wrath, which honestly I never used all that much anyway. Thunderfist the Gorilla still holds aggro while I shoot things, so that’s that. I do feel a touch more mana-efficient. I suspect things’ll speed up a bit once I get Steady Shot.

Xajek went Disc/Holy to Shadow, which I figured was appropriate since he was no longer following a hunter around, and… holy crap. I do not have the first clue how to play a shadow priest. I just kind of flail mindlessly at the Mind Flay, Vampiric Embrace, Shadow Word: Pain, and Mind Blast buttons until things die. Occasionally I remember that I can cast Power Word: Shield in Shadowform and do that too. My mana constantly hovers at about 50%, and my health… well, my health constantly hovers at about 100%. I need to find some good guides on shadowpriesting, if only so I can get Xajek some more levels. Eventually he’ll be healy!

I have this sneaking suspicion that part of my wants to heal: I’ve now started (and gotten to the mid-40s, at highest) a priest, a shaman, and a druid all with the intention to make them resto or holy, as appropriate, at the highest level. If I find myself starting a paladin too, then I’ll just conclude that apparently I’d like to make the health bars go right, too.

Happy new year to you all. What’ve you been up to lately?

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Running in circles, banging on rocks