Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 151 - What They've Been Doing

Aprillian, Ashayo and Jeppy discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG. Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator, they are back in the store.

For Cypher and Hypknotoad

A great podcast called The Addicted at http://theaddictedcast.com/


Special Segment:

Hi all at ctrl alt wow!

My names Rille, or as others know me better, Jaminbee on twitter and the like. I was talking to jeppy and our friend celticlucas after listening to the-then latest episode. I was also running Dire Maul and talking about how much i loved the look and lore behind the instance, to which lucas commented that he knew very little about the lore behind the instance. After talking about the lore i made a joke about a lore podcast, to which jeppy suggested that i produce a segment for ctrl alt wow.

that leads us here, i have a short episode on the subject we talked about that night, dire maul, and wondered if you wanted to stick it in there somewhere, let me know what you think!

FOR GNOMEREGAN!

~Rille

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

After recording Episode 150, I got to hang out with Iceflow and Caoboi. I love running instances with them because they make me feel so safe and not stupid. We had fun! and I got to do Occulus. I also got two new pieces of gear:
Crown of Unbridled Magic and Boots of the Crackling Flame. Both required gems and re enchating. We did TOC, which is awesome. I learned a lot.

Weird thing. I was looking on WoW-Heroes for all new enchants and it suggests as a top chest enchant Enchant Chest Major Spirit.

And my gearscore went up!

Got some new enchants, changed my glyphs, got some new gems for the new gear I got. Also got my Hodir rep halfway to exalted thanks again to my Fairy Godparents, Iceflow and Coaboi.

Did a Random Heroic, you know to get those Frost emblems:

Logging started on 01/16/2010 at 08:15:17.
09:15:18 [Aprillian]: haiul
09:15:39 [Aprillian]: cookies?
09:16:19 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: sec for mana
09:19:59 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: dont have to clear the whole instance
09:27:26 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: im gonna outdps the lock
09:28:40 [Aprillian]: wellyou're not
09:28:59 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: Recount - DPS for Overall Data
09:28:59 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: 1. Cassus 3439.1 (44.1%)
09:28:59 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: 2. Msguillotine-Burning Blade 1850.2 (23.7%)
09:28:59 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: 3. Niko 1180.8 (15.1%)
09:28:59 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: 4. Aprillian-Earthen Ring 791.3 (10.1%)
09:28:59 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: 5. Trainwrek 536.1 (6.8%)
09:29:50 [Aprillian]: do you want me to leave?
09:30:00 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: nope
09:30:20 [Aprillian]: You're gearscore is over 5k
09:30:39 [Aprillian]: I'm a brand new 80
09:34:00 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: allmost there
09:37:34 [Trainwrek-Shadowmoon]: thanks all
09:37:39 [Aprillian]: thank you

What was the point of critisizing me and I don't know where he got that, I got this:
09:41:46 [Aprillian]: Recount - DPS for Overall Data
09:41:46 [Aprillian]: 1. Cassus-Shadowmoon 3552.9 (40.6%)
09:41:46 [Aprillian]: 2. Msguillotine-Burning Blade 1789.4 (20.4%)
09:41:46 [Aprillian]: 3. Aprillian 1444 (16.5%)
09:41:46 [Aprillian]: 4. Niko-Shadowmoon 1207.8 (13.8%)
09:41:46 [Aprillian]: 5. Trainwrek-Shadowmoon 749.8 (8.5%)

Well I got my emblems, that's all that matters.

Respecced my off spec to Ashayo's current Spec, but I've tried to use it and have had awful results. Got killed fighting Chillimaw!

Logged out wearing my lance and my Wow heroes stats went down

Preparing Toons for transfer - Bought BOA head enchant from Kirin Tor, probably should have done some from Hodir- too late. Also sent Tomb of Cold Weather Flying, 300 g, some Titansteel bars, frostweave bags and Winter's Veil Pets. Then I transfered Deepril from the RAF account to my main account. She opened her mail box and got this:

And a few minutes later a letter to meet the Flying Trainer at Thrallmar.

Looked at Epril on Monday morning and got overwelmed. Her gear score was 1117, used Wow-heroes.com to see what gear would be upgrades. Found some Auruk could make then realized it was all mail after she equipped but her gearscore doubled.

Spent Thu morning running heroics and levelling up 2 toons on the RAF account. Really sick of people who don't loot their trash. I work hard to keep my bags empty, so it's hard. Accidentally hit record while in Occulus. Didn't realize until way after. wondered why I was having some movement issues. Still can't believe new toons get Shat FP right out of the b

Got exalted with Hodir & got the Glacial bag pattern & Wyrmrest & got the [Tailoring: Mysterious Bag]. Made one glacial bag. Had mats for the Enchanting bag but hesitated to make it.

Ran Random heroic - Forge of Souls with Sarossa and got [Very Fashionable Shoulders] upgrade.

Got the Chill enchant on Deepril BOA dagger, now she looks awesome:

Aprillian & Vrishna

Played with sis

Ran Stratholme with Virinya healing. It was awesome.

Rogues in Eastern Plagueland, new FP?

Virinya ..... Scholomance ... naked duel ...door locked from BOTH sides

Stratholme ... ate chicken .... healed and cleansed Epril & Elyte ... Aprillian gets her wish, a healer. I feel TRULY USED !!! LOL Until ... oooh, some sparkly stuff. CLANG, trap,

rats, Deepril on follow and we're both dead.

Ran Hellfire Ramparts with my healer, Epril & Deepril = Awesome.

Vrishna

Dokitza Turn in or kill ...... KILL

Ashayo

On Vacation STILL!

Caoboi & Iceflow

Iceflow: Went raiding with Not in the Face 25 man and got Rotface and Festergut down like we have been killing them for weeks! I did awesome on the raid mechanics and I managed to stay out of the stupid. I got my 95 frost emblems needed and got my first piece of Tier 10, my helm. Kinda makes me look weird but the damage cannot be denied.

Caoboi and I have been playing our mage and pally combos and we finally got to Northrend. We finally got to level 70 and we are on our way to 80. Our droods are 150% rested and they are ready for us to play.

Had a crazy random with Caoboi and Aprillian. Had to put some people on my ignore list for the first time from the crossrealm pugs.

Getting ready for the AIE meetup in March (shameless plug).

Got Windows 7 and WoW is still running great on it.

Compare to a year ago, I never thought Iceflow would be as geared as she is. Thanks to AIE.


Caoboi: I too went raiding with Not in the Face 25 man and 10 man as well, I happened to get subbed in for one of the healers/ranged DPSers I managed to get my 2nd Tier 10 piece. I now have my shoulders and my Helmet. The shoulders have a cool animation check them out: :)

Here's a pic of Ice and I hanging out in Dalaran:

Got my mage, Caobolt, up to level 70 with Iceflow's Paladin. Also been doing randoms daily to get more frost badges and had an Awesome COS run with Aprillian and Ice where I got to let someone that was rude die. Ice and Aprillian ended up dpsing/tanking the last two bosses including the Dragon at the end :) The guys friend that was rude was there also, he decided to ninja as much of the stuff he could but I had the satisfaction of him having to run all the way back from the graveyard.

I've also been working on my newly minted 60 druid, Caolei, herbalism. I'm trying to get herbalism up to level 300 so that I can herb the outland herbs when Ice and I go to the outlands. Got our tickets ordered for Nerdtacular and room booked we are super excited!

Jeppy

A fine week of focus focus focus.

The hunter twins kept up the pace through Northrend and apart from one follow related death by falling seem to have shaken of the bad luck which has dogged them thus far.

An update.

Karlaine and Farlaine shot through Outlands hitting 70 in Nagrand after some umming and ahhing about carrying on in the outland zones they finally gave that up as a bad idea and jumped the boat to

Borean Tundra.

Hit 72 whilst completing 'Nothing Boring About Borean' Not the best zone but a nice collection of quests. Liked all the dragon stuff over in Coldarra and was more disturbed by the poison wolf poop quest than by the so called 'torture' Hated the DEHTA people (bleeding tree huggers)

Hit 74 whilst completing 'I've Toured the Fjord' This is by far the superior of the two starting areas but glad I did both.

Hit 77 whilst completing 'Might of Dragonblight' I love snow so this area was great! The quest (Flight of the Wintergarde Defender) where you borrow a gryphon and rescue villagers from the scourge was super frustrating. Had to keep trying as it opens up all the Wintergarde facilities plus several group quests. Loved when I got to borrow a drake from the temple. I used it for as long as I could and kept trying to fly further than it would allow.

As soon as I hit 77 I shot over to Dalaran and gladly shelled out 2000 gold for both hunters to get cold weather flying. This made it an almost different game again. I love flying! Sadly Dalaran is often like a slide show on all my PCs.

Then it was onto Grizzly Hills (so far my favourite zone) Flying helped me to complete 'Fo' Grizzle My Shizzle' which is far and away the best quest achievement name.

After a long conversation with Alachia it became obvious I had missed a trick DAILIES! She showed me the cool Kalu'ak ones. I love bringing sea lions together. I was a wee bit concerned about the one when you capture the pups (Planning for the Future)

'Hey mister did you just kill my mummy'

'Nope now get in the bag!'

They say it is to save the Wolvar but I have noticed several 'Hot Pup Pita' stands in the Kalu'ak villages.

I also did all the PVP dailies in Grizzly Hills (think the rock star Wemb mentioned this many months ago) Super easy (especially at the times I play) and tons of gold and XP.

Hit 79 when I moved onto Zul'Drak. Before moving onto 80 Alachia suggested I flew around all of Northrend for the 'Explore Northrend' Achievement. Got about 11% of my needed XP and a rather bland tabard.

The (drum roll) I hit 80. I had planned to do this in an epic manner but instead prematurely dinged on a non achievement discover! Oh well.

So my second day as an 80 I once again talk to Guru Alachia and she suggest I look at the spec of one of her guilds top Hunters Blackfist which I did and even read some of Elitist Jerks!

Next thing I know I am in heroics with her and Flipmax who made my first time very very comfortable with uber healing and super DPS/

They helped me experience Utgarde Pinnacle, Drak'Tharon Keep and then The Culling of Stratholme. Where I got the Bronze Drake now I just need to save for epic flying!I also got my first emblems some cool trinkets and an appreciation for end game.

I am currently running with the Ebon Blade tabard so I can get the best shoulder enchant for my class.

So overall a damn fun run to 80. Next up a Paladin :)

Emails

Email #1 from Chol

Hey guys...

Listening to ep149 - Tempestes Listening... and listened to Ashayo mention that I'd been doing battlegrounds and also being an ach. whore.
I'd like to put my case forward before the title of "..... has changed" gets applied to me...

I was doing battlegrounds due to being on but knowing I needed better gear. While the bg won't provide that, it will provide honour to get gems. That's what I'm after. I still dislike doing battlegrounds - but this was very much in the nature of a "necessary evil".

As for the title of "Achievement Whore Choldar".... I wanted to do runs that I had never done. The fact that the way the game is currently done provides an Achievement ... well, there's a bonus for me... and that I got at least 1, and for the final boss - 3 - achievements... well... it happens.

I hope you will consider this before granting me another achievement of ".... has changed". :D

Take care guys
Choldar, Cholsdeath, Herewego, Plastichair
Pantsonhead
Jubei'Thos


Email #2 from Jeannine


Hi! I've been a fan of Ctrl Alt WoW for almost a year, and I never miss a show. I play with my husband, and we just celebrated our one-year WoW anniversary on January 1. I bought him a mekgineer's chopper for an anniversary present. It took me weeks of slaving away in the auction house to finally make enough to buy it. He loves the chopper, and now we quest together in style.

Several months ago, I gave you all a 5-star iTunes review. Aprillian read it aloud and then poked fun about literate Alliance players. So, /Vroom vroom /rasp.... Eat your heart out, Aprillian ;-)

We have toon pairs in each race on the Alliance side with levels ranging from 9 to 72. My favorite are our gnomes--Zooce and Herra, a warlock and mage. I think the game has brought us closer as a couple. We play WoW instead of watch TV. WoW is way more engaging than television.

We make a good team. He sets our questing agenda and is wonderful with mapping and directions. I stink with maps and directions, but I'm great at making gold, and I keep us all outfitted in the best gear and fun pets and toys. It feels good to know we've got each other's backs in the game, and that feeling extends to real life. WoW has definitely increased our sense of partnership.

Thanks for doing such a great job. Your podcast is always entertaining, and I learn something new every week. I enjoy your banter. I miss Glanther and hope that he will return, at least to visit once in a while. Thank the Alliance that Jeppy joined; he's a welcome addition to the Ctrl Alt WoW team. LONG LIVE THE ALLIANCE!

XOXOXO,
Jeannine, The Scryers

P.S., Poor Ashayo and Jeppy on New Year's. It really was funnier in your head! ;-)

Email #3 from Acaldra

Hello Ctrl Alt WoW crew, Acaldra here from Alea Iacta Est. Currently I am playing a 80 Blood Elf paladin as my "main" but always love the good alt! It all started when my friend recommend me to the game and unaware of how wrong it was, I rolled Alliance and stayed that way for the first 8 or so months of my WoWing career. First I rolled a rogue and got it to level 18 or so and decided nah, not for me at the moment. Then I rolled a druid and loved it but couldn't quite get from 10 to 20 without gouging my eyes out. Then I discovered the paladin... I made a Moon Cow holy warrior that I slowly leveled towards 80. From the moment I started the game I have always been listening to WoW podcasts in order to be more informed about what is going on in the game outside of my little bubble. While I was leveling my paladin, I thought that getting to 80 was the only thing that I wanted to do and that once I was there, the game would be awesome and so much better then the whole leveling "ordeal". With this in mind, I rolled a DK the moment I dinged 55, thinking that it would get me to 80 faster. Once I got to level 80 on my Death Knight, I realized that it was not the class for me and decided to level up my paladin. I leveled the whole way dual-specced Holy/Protection and loved every minute of it. I took my time and did my professions correctly and really just enjoyed the game. The moment faction transfers came into play, I grabbed the opportunity and hopped on over to AIE as quickly as I could. Since then I have been raiding on my Paladin once a week with the guild (currently in TOC 10) and have rolled alts a plenty.

Sorry for the wall of text, love the show and keep up the good work,

Acaldra

80 Belf Paladin of AIE and all of my Alts!

Email #4 from Melindria

G’Day Aprillian, Ashayo( in absentia), El Jeppy and Vrishna,

I’d suggest that

a) Ashayo read this, since I am an Aussie (pronounced Ozzie) as well, but

b) I am a female Wow player who games with her significant other beside her, so maybe Aprillian should; but then again

c) I mostly play Alliance, so maybe El Jeppy should; but yet again

d) my main toon is a hunter who does not get as much play time as I would like so maybe Vrishna should; or yet again

e) I believe you are having guests this week, and I’d hate for them to feel left out , so I’d be delighted if they read.

Well, that probably gives a brief overview of my wow play style and who I am, so on to the reason for this email.

I was listening to your wonderful episode 150 with Tempeste guesting while I sat and waited through a day of medical tests and scans. What could have been a stressful time probably made some people wonder if I was there for some kind of psysch testing instead, since I had a loopy grin on my face throughout much of the time , and burst out into uncontrollable guffaws at the point where El Jeppy described his unfortunate encounter while in Murloc guisewith the non dancing priest - that has to be one of my favourite quests in the entire zone. Love those tadpoles!

I wanted to thank you all for brightening that day in particular, but you should know how much I , and I am sure many others, look forward to the download hitting iTunes at the beginning of each week. Besides you all sounded so sad at the number of emails you get each week, so I bit the bullet and wrote this (during Tuesday maintenance of course!)

Donna’s email inspired me to resume my Loremastering questing, and with the changes to addons , several are now available that can help you in this achievement. Everyquest combined with Questhelper configured to show incomplete quests, has proven to be a real boon, but I am sure other listeners could advise on other ways to tweak your journey. I wanted to thank you , and Donna, for re inspiring me, since I have quested in Teldrassil with many alts, and hated those harpies SOoooo much that I had never discovered the Mist and Shimmering Frond quests there. If that’s what I find in a relatively well known zone, I can’t wait to see what is to come in the nooks and crannies of Azeroth . I’ll keep you posted on my progress, currently I have 125 quests to go in Kalimdor

For the Alliance!!!

Melindria Level 80 N-Elf Dalaran server US + many other toons (including ones you can’t read out since they belong to P.O.H. in Jubie’Thos)

Email # 5 from Noxiouss

Hello Aprillian, Glanthur, Ashayo, Vrishna and Jeppy!

I just wanted to open up this email by saying I've been listening to your show for about 2 1/2 years now and your podcast was the first one I started listening to. I listen to many podcasts, but yours has been on my itunes subscription list the longest. I also rarely write-in to podcasts. For this reason, I apologize, in advance, for how long this email is. I knew I would write in eventually and I have kept many things in mind for when I would eventually write in. As of right now, I have finally caught up with all of the podcasts I listen to, all of the wow news feeds I have set for myself, and can finally get to writing this email since wow is down for maintenance.

First off, congratulations on making it to level cap Aprillian! Yay!!! To be quite honest, I'm quite surprised that you eventually decided to try for and achieve level 80. I love your innocence of the game and always wondered what you would do at level cap if you were to get there.

I don't know if you have ever thought about this, but I think there is a third group of listeners you have out there that listen to your podcast. There are the alt-o-holics that the show is made for, those crazy single-toon rollers who like listening to and about said alt-o-holics, and people like me. I started listening to your show because I was new to the game and wanted to learn as much as possible about everything I could. I thought I could learn from people who know a little about everything, it would help me decide what I wanted to play. It's also nice to hear about other people's take of the game and adventures they go through.

Unlike what you think most people roll for their first toon Aprillian, I rolled a TROLL hunter (not night elf). Once I got bored with him and after listening to your podcast, I decided to roll a mage. [Funny side-story: My boss ran my hunter through Scarlet Monastery a couple of times with his then 70, and I thought it was so OP I wanted to level the class that he played. I thought it was a mage, but I found out later that he was a Warlock]. Most of my toons are Alliance, but only because I found out later that my cousins played on alliance. I am 26 years old (no, I don't consider myself a kid) and I am also horde at heart.

I'm not sure if you would want to break up this email over several shows, but I have compiled a list of things/helpful hints that I have kept track of when listening to your podcast. At one point, I believe Aprillian was having trouble getting help for finishing the quest in Hellfire to take down the Fel Reaver. When I played my mage, I was able to solo this by waiting for it to patrol next to Thrallmar. If you get it close enough or kite it over, the guards will take over and help you kill it. If you die, the graveyard is right there and you can help finish him off.

As for both your rogue and Vrishna's rogue and that tower out in Westfall, (this is when I leveled my alliance rogue. Not sure if it's for horde as well) the quest to get the poison for your weapon also helps you with leveling your lockpicking skill. If you try it at level 20 it's a bit challenging, but there are 2 of you, so you should be fine. Also, keep lock-picking that chest over and over, and it can get you up to level 170. Just realize that you can only skill-up your lock-picking equal to the level you currently are. So at level 20 your lock-picking won't let you skill up to 170. Let me know what level you are with your lock-picking and I can help you find locations to help you level it up. Admittedly, I should have done a lot more pick-pocketing when I played my rogue. I don't think I took advantage of that ability as much as I should have.

To Glanthur, if he's still listening, I have always played games with my friends in raids to see who can survive raid wipes. Depending one what class, you can use many different abilities to escape the repair cost. Other than Hunters using feign death, Mages can use invisibility, Rogues can vanish, Paladins can Divine Intervention, and I used to use Shadowmeld all the time when I was on my druid. :) Both of my cousins I would raid with would literally try to kill each other or myself. One was a hunter who would misdirect the rogue and the other was a rogue who would tricks of the trade the hunter, but they would feign or vanish to stay alive and I would Shadowmeld. Kind of funny to watch.

Speaking of playing my druid. I have one at level 80 that I've played and raided on all 4 specs. There was a listener not too long ago asking for a rotation for feral cat. If you would like, I could spare you the writing and maybe call in (voice app on the iPhone) to give advice on rotations and priorities for playing a feral cat. But for now, I will just attach a funny, but quite simple diagram for a kitty's rotation/priority list (Aprillian, don't know if your show notes are pg as well, so you might want to edit it if you put it on your website). Let me know what you'd like me to do.

Well, the realms are back up, so I'm going to get back to playing while I have the chance. Hope this wasn't too long. I'm sure I forgot something I was wanting to say. Keep up the good work. Love the show! For CtrlAltWow!!!


Noxiouss (80 undead mage)
Luunah (80 night elf druid)
Juggergnawt (80 human death knight)
Vathrows (80 draenei paladin)
Critzs (73 human rogue)
Berrymanalow (70 gnome mage)
Vathros (65 blood elf paladin)
Xuess (60 human death knight)
Cupcheck (55 undead death knight)
Jillaen (51 draenei shaman)
Snicklefritz (44 troll hunter)
etc. . .


Email #6 from Flynte

Needless to say I was very excited to hear my email being read on the podcast, but I wanted to clear a couple of things up. I am a father, not a mother. It's very coincidental though, just yesterday the WOW Armory was showing my character as a female human instead of a male human.....hhhmmmmmmm...

I also would like to say that I have not tried breast feeding, I believe the bottle of formula is doing a sufficient job :)

This past week I have been able to run several heroics through the Dungeon Finder, so hopefully it will become more common place.

Thanks again, and keep up the good work.


- Flynte Level 80 Ret Pally on the Fizzcrank Realm.
- Beware The Click-a-din!!!


Email #A from Karen

Hey Ctrl-Alt-Wow crew!

I finally caught up with all your podcasts, so feel like I can write in. Loved the New Year's Eve Episode, though I think that in general, a no drinking while podcasting rule is a good idea. The last episode with Tempe was also great. I agree, it does take two Americans to replace a single Aussie.

I just started a new full-time teaching job, so haven't had as much time in-game as I'd like, but my Alliance Guild ran Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning for the first time last weekend. I know, we're kind of late to the party, but we're only a 6 person guild, so it was an accomplishment to get everyone together and make it through. They are beautiful instances, lots of fun to see.

Other than that, I've been leveling my gnome dk, doing the Argent Tournament Dailies when I can, and enjoying the time I have in WoW as a break from all the other stuff in my life.

Keep up the great work, I commute to school, so need my podcasts to listen to!

Karen

ps My husband, daughter and I will be at Macworld Expo this year, though this may be our last year. We debated about going this time, but the King Tut Exhibit is also in San Francisco, so we're going to do both. Are you going to be there, Aprillian?

Email # B from Makling the Mage

hey guys, makiling here,

i just listened to your show and it was nice hearing tempeste on the show.

my week in wow has been made up of two thigs: leveling jewelcrafting and doing random heroics.

jewelcrafting was quite expensive to level as a profession. i remember in a previous episode that ashayo leveld jewelcrafting on one of his toons, and he recommended having a miner. so i had my priest who had mining send the mats to my druid. i wanted the jewelcrafters stamina gems to help boost up her health as a tank. the hurdle to get over in jc is the one before getting to the northrend ores, and its smooth sailing after that. so now my druid has the jc gems and the jc trinket, woot!

i've been doing random heroics on all my toons to stock up on emblems, and buying emblem gear. my mage and my priest eventually got all of the pre raid gear, and i've been focusing mostly on my druid. and in one of my occulus runs, i won the blue drake! its a shame though because i only use the swift flight form...

an important lesson that ive learned is that if you want to ignore someone from another realm, you have to add them to your list before you drop group. i had learned that after i got into a group of immature individuals who cannot follow simple instructions. it was the first boss in pit of saron, and the last straw was when they started calling me profanities despite talking to them nicely the whole time.

has aprillian done the oracles quest? my toons have been having mostly aged yolks.. better luck next week i guess.

that's it from me for now,

i hope jeppy gets his lvl 80 hunters soon =)

for the horde!

Email #7 from Morphius

Hello, my name is Morphius and my main is a level 80 Druid in the Hearts of Fire guild on the Arygos server in the Hearts of Fire guild. I play wow as a mixture of an altoholic and a semi-hardcore gamer. I work nights so it's hard to find a good raiding guild that raids after midnight or in the morning or I would probably become a hardcore raider because I do love to raid. I do also have a level 80 Death Knight and Warlock. I tend to switch mains every month or so but haven't here recently because I started taning on my druid and love it plus it's really fast to find a group in the new LFG system. I'm currently working on getting a healing set for my druid so I will have at least one of each kind of toon: healing, tank, and dps. I really enjoy the show. I download it and listen to it while I'm at work and it's great entertainment and makes the night go by quicker. Keep up the great work!!

Morphius

Email # C from Bidkar

Greetings CtrlAltWow Crew!

Bidkar, undead Mage here. I had quite a bit of "character maintenance" to do for the last couple of weeks, so I didn't get a chance to quest much. I had been a bit lazy with my bank and mailbox. My mailboxes on the 9 toons I play regularly were full and so were their banks, so I have been playing auction house quite a bit. I've made about 5k in gold so far and they are only half empty! I'm quite the packrat so I save everything that isn't gray. I've found it to be handy to save everything because one of my alts probably can use it eventually.

I only did the cooking and fishing dailies on Bidkar and Jehi the paladin. I did finally finish Bidkar's enchanting and brought him up to 450. I was short 5 points for a long time, but I don't like to waste mats by just leveling willy nilly.

I dinged 73 on my blood elf warlock Allerea. She's still working on her jewelcrafting. I have the mats to take her to 450, but I'm waiting till I can use the items created.

Sagrado the priest is just sitting around waiting for his turn.

Joash the tauren druid leveled from 61 to 71. I love playing the druid so much I've decided to actually finish Outland on him instead of moving on to Northrend. He's in Netherstorm right now. His alchemy is up to 436. I farmed the mats for his alchemy on the death knight. It's very nice to have the Northrend flasks and elixirs. I picked transmutation as my specialization mainly because it did not require an instance run. Get ready to laugh at me, but I have only been on two official instance runs in all of my time in Wow. I've been run through a few times here and there by an 80 while leveling Bidkar. I've run a few of the Old World instances on my paladin after he hit 80 to help out some people, but that's it. I don't care for them and avoid them like the plague.

My troll death knight finished her Northrend inscription research. I should level her to 80, but I can't dig the death knight groove.

My poor hunter is still in Thousand Needles waiting for me to find time to play him.

That's it for right now. Hopefully I can avoid the auction house for awhile. It is fun to get the gold in the mail, but posting auctions on the auction house lacks the excitement of questing.

Glanthur, I hope you are having fun learning sign language. I really miss your lore segments.

As always, I love the podcast. Anytime you want to podcast twice a week, I'm ready to listen.

For the Horde and For Glanthur and El Jeppy!

Bidkar and his many alts

Shout Outs & Thank You

Momomomnt

Hello all,

hope you are doing well and having fun.

I have had a long work week (by the time you get this 2 weeks!) which has cut into my wow time,

yes crazy work getting in the way of wow!

I have been able to get some daily random Heroics done for badges on my priest and the weekly raid too with my guild even though we have had some guild drama which is another stupid part of the game but we persevere and find more people to play with us.

Oh and I need to tell you about another wonderful pug "lfg" me and guildy were able to get into. I was on my priest and she was on her mage. We had the lfg pop up as I was waiting for UK to load up, and once it loaded and I was zoning into the instance, everyones health was below 90% the tank was already onto the 2nd group of mobs.

Yes yes I know we have gone through this but one more time will not hurt.

So I say ok lets just make this tanky and dps happy and rush rush rush!!!

I heal him through as he gathers mob after mob, into the big room with the big fire...one dps gets aggro and I let him die because I just focus on the tank health getting lower and lower than another dps gets aggro and wipe!!

So we come back as the tank and dps are complaining and repeat that again (as the tank has 3 diff groups on him) than tank/dps drop out. We could not believe that we were killed in UK, not once but TWICE!!! comeon!!! Are we not eliete!! guess not! Thankfully we were able to get into lfg again and find a tank that moved on a fast pace without being all crazy like.

In exchanging tweets with @outlandishmatt he stated he does do something similar but I am willing to give him and other good tanks the credit that they do not cause wipes and are not ridiculous. I keep bring this up because as a healer it keeps happening and all we all need to do is take an extra seconds, literally seconds and we do not have to worry about wiping the group or leaving the group.

Another (not sure if it is new phenomenon or not) strategy is to skip bosses. This I do not understand at all ( I do know it makes completing the instance a bit faster) as skipping bosses means missing badges and loot to shard.

I know everyone is not going to be like mo (or be like Mike :)) and smell the roses or others like me but can we all just get along!?

In the raiding life we are progressing to the new ICC bosses and will be trying 10 and 25 groups this Friday and Sunday and hope it goes well. The new bosses are so pretty Aprillian I hope you can checkout some screenshots from someone, of rotface and whathisface oh and their precious little dogs. They are all so cute, they are giving Hello Kitty a run for her money!

To close out, Thank you to the Ctrl Alt Wow crew and all your podcasting colleagues as we do appreciate your work and make out weekly wow lives so much better. Have fun in game and out of game and sorry to hear the tweet this week Aprillian stay safe.

Take care all

--
Mo

DeWayne Willoughby (@Ahigabg)
1/19/10 12:06
@Aprillian OMG! U guys r killing me wth ep 149!! I am lol at work and people think I am crazy.

Aprillian (@Aprillian)
1/19/10 12:34
@Ahigabg That's my job, making people look crazy at work, on the subway and in the privacy of their homes!