Enter the Flame.

Warden that is, I've been getting that title on a few different characters. No PvP, no hassle for me! ('cause, if you didn't know, I don't like PvP.)

Rumor has it that Vantox and any alts he has in Verve are going to become officers at some point. The fact that I made this rumor up is trivial, the guild master herself has essentially promised me that the next time they decide to promote someone to a ranking officer it'll be me. Obvious hints include "You're on the top of my list, and if they don't agree with them then they'll get the /gkick!" (her exact words, almost, pretty close to it anyway), along with a request of mine to one guild master for help with a couple of toons taking down Ahune for the Flame Warden title and having 3 officers come along for the ride (two on alts that also wanted it). I'm not entirely sure, but I *think* it may have been some form of initiation. Three officers and the GM helping me on something that is very minor like Ahune? They must really like me or something.

Also: I totally killed stuff in heroic Ulduar, and netted the current best bow I could possibly hope for (no way in hades that Verve will be downing 25 man Ulduar bosses on hard mode). Siren's Cry to be precise, HUGE upgrade from my Angry Gun which I loved dearly. Autoshot DPS upgrade of ~50 due to haste. That alone is big, not to mention the added benefits to my special shots, my DPS has increased significantly. One problem with it though: It's a bow. I already miss mah Boom Stick. I loved him like a son...well, not really, but I thoroughly enjoyed him and his bonus crit due to dwarf skeelz.

Aestara, whom I have taken under my wing, is doing very well and has managed to make her way to Northrend, the Howling Fjord to be precise, and is now out to CONQUER THE WORLD!!!

...

Not really. But she *is* coming along very nicely and surprisingly good at face-melting. Well, I guess that's not so surprising considering that she's a shadow priest, that's like what they're made to do. She's another Alchemist, so I'll try and convince her to specialize in something that Dramthar hasn't, I'm thinking elixirs.

Also: Dramthar, with his Transmute Specialization, will be a highly requested alchemist come patch 3.2, what with his chance to proc multiple epic gems with no cooldown. 5 proc on a Cardinal Ruby? Yeah, stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it. Engineering's fine and kinda meh, but it's getting some small buffs and removing the need of wearing goggles (which, for him, are still the best thing he can use), so I don't plan on dropping it and picking up something else anytime soon.

Thamlack is still a tool. Tailoring is very close to 400 though, so he'll be able to make some niffty spellthreads soon, I may finally have a use for all that northrend silk I've got kicking around everywhere! That's exciting news. OOooh, and when he can he'll have a flying carpet! Sweet. That'll be fun.

Adeata is an exceptionally skilled Scribe for her level, she's more skilled than she should be. She has a skill level of 300 at level 44, so she needs to get to level 50 soon, she's very excited to be able to make darkmoon faire cards to both sell and help out my toons with. Man, Noble's decks on any of my toons? That'd be freakin' amazing. Yeah, yeah, I know it takes a lot of luck and materials, but if I can supply them myself I don't really have to care about the cost.

All my little alts and altlets have been profiting rather majorly due to the Fire Festival, they've all gained at least one level just from throwing and juggling torches. Well, all the ones on Bladefist anyway. Sorry friends on other servers, but I'm just so invested in Bladefist, I can't really go anywhere else and expect to keep myself there.

I think that's just about everything. Ooooh, except the Silver Covenant Hippogryph that I'm gonna get come 3.2, Tox is all about the hippogryphs now apparently. So pretty...I needs it....*schemy fingers*

Anyways, I'm off to go do whatever and hoo-haw, probably something involving washing dishes.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I figured I better post at least once a month.

Yeah...well, it's better than never I guess. Still not like exceedingly good, but whatever.

Sooooo....It looks like I'm going for the Seeker and Loremaster achievements now. I've become a Chef, I'm a Champion!, I've got the Argent Hippogryph, I've wrangled me a Traveler's Tundra Mammoth (Yeah, that's right, I can carry people around and have my own vendors), and the eldest Toxnation Brethren has converted to being a Dwarf Hunter. I think things are working out rather nicely for me.

Verve still uses me as a filler in Ulduar, apparently I'm one of the hunters they like to have around. There are only one or two people in Verve who I regularly run with that can significantly out DPS me. One's a feral kitteh, the other's another hunter with better gear.

I've also apparently got a friend who, if I ever decide to leave Verve (which I probably won't, I'm pretty committed to the current GM who some of you may or may not recall seeing a post of on here), is willing to attempt to get me into , which is apparently a decently high ranking guild that regularly goes into 25 man Ulduar and has most of the bosses and is recruiting hunters. Like I said, it'll probably not happen, but I've got a friend who would like having me there.

EDIT: Crikey, she either started or was a charter member of Adrenaline. Man, I didn't know that... they're doing really well for themselves considering that they became a guild in May.

I've taken a shine to Soloing level 60 raids and/or bosses. Onyxia is significantly trickier than Azuregos due to her second phase where she'll all flying and whelps are coming out after me... the fireballs are less than pleasant. Plus soloing Azuregos can net me a helluva lot more cash, he drops like 160 gold just himself, not to mention anything else that could have massive selling potential *cough*Sinew*cough*. Zul'Gurub's pretty fun to solo, aside from those bosses that I can't... stupid bat priestess and her massive heal combined with my lack of interrupts...

Even better though is running around with my Bro on my Mammoth and watching him go freakin' crazy and TRY to aggro like 20 mobs knowing that I've got his back. It's loads of fun. Plus I just like helping people, brethren especially.

Well, I'm gonna go work on stuff and junk, potentially a picture that I promised a friend, but I'm not really sure.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I HAD a topic...I just forgot it.

It happens to everyone.  You come up with a great idea, plan a big long essay-ish post about it, but you forget to do anything with it.

It happens to me All.  The.  Time.  Just when I think I've got a fantastic, hilarious post ready too.  And only rarely do I actually remember them in the future.  It's hella annoying.

You're so excited about the topic, you have big plans, it's gonna be the breakthrough post, with this you'll make the big leagues!  Everything is going so smoothly, it just all seems to easy.   That's because it is.  You forget what you were going to talk about in the next hour and can't recall anything about it for the next few days.  Eventually you have a similar idea, but nothing really striking or thought provoking occurs to you like it did the first time.  You figure the idea is bunk, so you toss it in to the imaginary trash can of your mind, never to be looked at again.

Thus is the conundrum.  Great ideas that fall by the wayside, never to be heard from again.  Where do they go?  Are they just lost for an eternity, never to be spoken of again?  Or do they slip into a different stream of consciousness and get passed on to different people without either of the participants knowing that it happened?

Now I've got a question for you: Where the hell did that all come from?  I mean, I THOUGHT I was going to do a post about WoW or something, which, if you hadn't noticed, is the primary topic of this blog.  Guess I was wrong.

TOPIC CHANGE.

Dramthar, he's doing well.  He's averaging about 1900 DPS in 5 man heroic instances, out performing rogues of higher gear and entirely different spec.  I've stuck with my Combat Swords, I think I'm running a 15/51/5.  Most rogues now adays seem to be running a Mutilate spec of sorts.  That's fine and dandy, but it focuses on a whole lot of small damage followed by a really big crit.  That doesn't seem dependable to me.  Combat Swords doesn't have the really high crits, but what it lacks in that it more than makes up for by having a higher mid-ranged damage and the double-swing procs from both weapons.  Plus it's got Killing Spree and Adrenaline Rush.  Both of those are basically just win (though using them together is just a waste, I suggest using KS first, preferably when you've got 2-3 combo points as it lets you build up your energy to max them out and either Slice and Dice or Rupture).

Have you noticed how easily people tend to forget that a newly forged level 80 toon who has engineering has engineering?  There's most definitely been claims of "Dram could have used that helm...." With my immediate response of "Nu-uh, he's a geer," which is often followed by a moment of hesitation until they realize that "geer" is short for "engineer."

Ooooh, that reminds me, I need to make Tox more bullets.  Some of the best gosh-darned bullets out there, too.  Just need some more 'splody stuff to put in my saronite....I should go farm it or sommat.

Anyways, I think I'll go head out and work on a different something or whoosit, I dunno.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Things of Note.

Dramthar, ding 80, nearly instantaneous 700 AP upgrade via guild bank gear, stuff I made for him and enchants.

Thought that crossed my mind once: "Man, I'm a jerk sometimes.  Oh wait, no, I'm a rogue."

Sometimes people don't know help when they see it.  I was attempting to aid some hordies by not attacking their mobs before they did and quite clearly not planting my ebon blade banner in the corpses.  That's like the most a rogue can help, and they spat on and shoo'd me.  I was slightly disheartened, but it's just 'cause rogues are all misunderstood.

A new friend of mine, another rogue, and I very much want to run raids together competing for loot.  Luckily he's daggers and I'm swords, so there would be no argument over weaponry.  I think it'd be a blast, but unfortunately my schedule doesn't really allow me to run when he would.  Slightly miffed at that, but otherwise more power (and better loot) to him.

Attempting to grind Ebon Blade rep as fast as possible is not an easy task.  And I *NEED* that sword they sell at revered, I'm still using my old Season 2 PvP mainhand weapon, and that's brutally bad for what I need it to be doing.  I don't think I'll allow myself to run heroics until I get it.

Not much else going on for me currently.  Peace out hombres.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

I Almost Hit "Publish" Without a Title.

Hey howdy fellas and femnauts.  What?  Where'd that come from?  Sheesh, I need to stop saying what pops into my head...

Anyways, How goes it?  I'm doing pretty well.  Life and actually playing WoW have kept me rather occupied.  Vantox is the man of the hour lately, high focus on the Argent Tournament with a dash of high DPS when called upon to raid by Verve.  Gear upgrades are slow but still there, and I can't remember if I said anything about his badassery last time, but it's definitely there and working nicely for him.  He got one of them fancy Ulduar cloaks last night, and is very pleased with the change from a purple cloak to an eye-catching red and black.  And he's got that very angry looking gun that Kel'thuzad drops on the ten man version too.  I'm very pleased with it.  

Dramthar's finally voyaging to get to 80 and is doing so at record speed (for me anyway), focussing on Icecrown as soon as he got to level 77 in order to get Argent Crusade and Knights of the Ebon Blade rep.  I highly advise any rogue or feral kitteh druid to do the same as the chest piece and boots that can be obtained from those factions are incredibly good for those classes.  Along with the epic gear, the Ebon Blade has the key headgear enchant for all physical DPS, so you should build that reputation up as soon as possible if you're any physical DPS class.  Plus you can start the Argent Tournament at level 77, so that's just an added bonus for rep, leveling and decent gear to start off at 80.

Franny's been a little neglected as of late, but he's still kickin' around and a pretty decent 5 man heroic tank.  I'm rather happy with both his specs currently, though I think I might be able to pull off higher DPS if I went with a blood spec for DPS as well as for tanking...I'll play around with it sometime and figure it out.

I've picked up a couple heirloom shoulders for some of my alts with the intentions of eventually getting them up to 80, the next one in line is going to be Thamlack in an effort to aid Aestara get his tailoring up to snuff so he can help out my clothy friends and alts and stuff.

You know what I find weird?  Paladins that are tailors.  Now that just doesn't seem to make sense to me.  I mean, yeah, niffty flying mounts and good spellpower pant enchants that don't cost an arm and a leg,  but seriously?  Tailoring?  Blacksmithing just makes so much more sense.  You can give yourself 3 additional sockets along with crafting your own weapons, shields and plate armor, not to mention that tailoring is only useful for holy paladins.  If people refute that logic then they probably need to get something checked out.  Mind you, I'm not saying that they can't do it or shouldn't do it, it's their own choice and they should play the game as they see fit.  I'm just sayin' that blacksmithing is a logical choice is all.

Well, I think that's all I've got to say currently.  Oh, and I'll be back from time to time, hopefully more regularly, but we'll see how it goes.

To quote the immortal John Madden, "If you're gonna catch the ball, the quarterback has to throw it."*

Good Hunting,

~Tox

*Not actually a John Madden quote, but I'm pretty sure it sounds like something he'd say.

Dangnabit, I should really post more frequently.

That being said, I had hit a MAJOR lull in WoW.  Franny got geared to tank, Tox was too affected by the BM nerf (I SHALL NEVER BE ANOTHER SPEC!), and the game just lost its sheen.

But now that 3.1 is out, BM hunters are back in the running (Hurrah for moar pet talentz!), and Tox is actually performing very well.  Seriously, better than I've seen him do in a long, long time.  Verve likes him (friends with the GM and a bunch of the officers, who'da thunk?) so they occasionally call upon him to fill in for DPS that drops out of their raids.  Only reason why he's not a regular part of them is due to scheduling conflicts... again... Why does everyone on Bladefist live on the East Coast?  Seriously.

The Argent Tournament's fun, and I'm totally dedicated to it enough to get the Argent Hippogryph  It'll take a while, that's for certain, but I wanted one of the white and brown hippogryphs ever since I first saw them flying around the Grizzly Hills.  I'm excited for this, in a way that I haven't really been excited about anything in WoW for quite some time.

Also: What the.... When did Tox get all those epic pieces of gear?  I don't remember this happening...I'm down to having 3 ilvl 200 Blues, everything else is epic.  Bwha?  That doesn't seem...proper.  Back when BC was out and everyone was just getting up to 70, it took me for freaking ever to get any epics.  I was in mostly blues for an eternity.  But now all-of-a-sudden I've got epics coming out my wazoo.  Hell, I've even got T7.5 gear on him.  At 70 I never had any Tier gear.  Granted, I did make a bunch of LW pieces for myself that were better than a lot of the tier gear, but that was strictly due to massive funds and me wanting the pieces incredibly badly.

TOPIC CHANGE!

Franny.  His specs got effed.  I need to find new tanking and DPS specs that have a good feel to them.  I miss Howling Blast in my tanking spec to no end.  That skill's like Franny's absolute mainstay.  Anything else just feels wrong.  So I'm probably gonna go at least 51 points into frost for his tanking spec along with his DPS spec.  (Frost is my shtick, if you didn't catch that).  What I really miss though are the 7k forced crits on 10 mobs at once.  That was hella fun but only doable with the previous patch in a 0/32/39 hybrid spec. 

I will admit that DKs were over powered.  I was pretty dang good tank and DPS pre-3.1, but now everything's more even and I don't blow all the DPS with similar level gear out of the water anymore.  I'm still good, but I'm most certainly not the best.

Though probably my favorite thing that's happened wow-wise is the ending of lent, which means that Aestara's back in action and I'm leveling up/questing with her on Thamlack.  He's getting a promotion apparently, no longer a DE mule, he has been upgraded to "DE mule/questing partner", which is actually a lot of fun.  Probably the most fun I've had since...I dunno, but it's awesome.  Though "learning" Ulduar's pretty awesome too.  I'm a glutton for punishment, I love the challenge and all the deaths.  No, seriously, I find that stuff to be incredibly fun.

Anyways, I'm outy, gots ta get me some valiant tokens.

Good Hunting,

~Tox

Sometimes, People are Stupid.

So there I was, minding my own business, looking for a group for Violet Hold and asking around, when I find a potential group in the LFG and the note says they need DPS.  I talk to the leader saying something along the lines of "You need DPS for VH?  Well it just so happens that I'm DPS."  and the response I get was less than underwhelming.  To quote the person exactly: "Would you like some Asprin for that swelling?"

Now you can probably understand how I had no idea what in the world that meant.  I'm not going to go into the gory details of the conversation, but it turns out that a gear check was done on me and they were looking at the wrong stats.  There was mention of "only 3017 AP" (Which was true, for my Melee, RAP was 3700 something with Aspect of the Dragonhawk and it took me a while to figure out where in the world that number came from), and "only being BM" and classifying my DPS as "1200-1300."  Thoughts of the tank out-DPSing me came up from the group leader.

Problems with those statements:  

• 3017 was my MELEE Attack Power.  I'm a hunter, who knows how to play my class, I.  Don't.  Melee.
  
• My DPS has been averaging (admittedly while buffed) at 2000-2100.  That's a lot higher than 1200-1300 now isn't it?
• As proven by BRK, a competent BM hunter with similar gear can keep up with an SV hunter as long as the SV hunter doesn't get a massive crit-streak.
• I have never, for as long as I've played this game, been out DPS'd by a tank, and I don't plan on starting to be any time soon.

I was just LIVID.  The fact that this person would also go out of his or her way to insult me when I was being more than reasonable in my explanations and defensive statements didn't help.  

Fortunately, I will no longer ever have to hear anything they do or say as we're both ignoring each other.  And I also found a different, less uptight, far more accepting group which I got some new friends out of and did, by far, the most damage in as proven by this recount just from the two runs we did last night.

  

(I'm the one at the top, and the only one that starts with a 'V')

So my night wasn't completely ruined.  I got some new friends who were referred to me as "One of the best randoms I've seen in a long while" or some such jargon.  And the other hunter was SV, I just out-geared him significantly.  Oh, I never once had Blessing of Might, the pally gave hunters wisdom, and I'm not gonna complain about mp5 in a group that needs me to be doing damage for longer periods of time.

Anyways, I'm glad to get that out of my system... Thanks for listening?

Good Hunting,

~Tox