Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 107 - Why Won't He Talk To Me (is it my breath)

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG.

Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com and being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or an authenticator.

Contest - Still no Authenticators. Iphone and other mobile phone app coming soon.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

After last weeks podcast, I got to think about the wisdom of having an alliance engineer. And as easy as it was to get my Alliance toon to 281, I could do the same with a Horde one, of course it would have to be a DK. Which means I would have to delete a DK.

Decided to train my mage to be an engineer. She was at 40. She still had some Mage quests left to do, so she went with Epril, the DK miner to Arathi to do the witherbark totem quest and then into Scarlet Monastery to do the [40] [Rituals of Power](Part 3 of 3), she got the [Loksey's Training Stick] off of the Houndmaster. It was a nice upgrade from [Odo's Ley Staff].


A whisper on Auruk: [10:30:08] [Achiistra] whispers: don't wear spellpower gear
[10:32:15] To [Achiistra]: even if it looks good on me?
[10:32:25] [Achiistra] whispers: unless it's for RPing
[10:32:35] To [Achiistra]: which one is psell power and thanks by the way
[10:32:45] [Achiistra] whispers: [Clefthoof Wristguards] [Oversized Ogre Hauberk] [Helm of Affinity]
[10:32:53] [Achiistra] whispers: [Verdant Handwraps] [Unyielding Waistband of the Invoker] [Arcane Ringed Greaves]
[10:33:20] [Achiistra] whispers: wear more things like [Windroc Boots]
[10:34:06] To [Achiistra]: okay, I'm really just a alt skinner but I will try

Got up Thur morning and did Dailies, wine and Cheese for Auruk, Revenant for Epril, and mana cells and Sunfury plans for Aprillian. Then back to Power leveling my mage. Took her to Dustwallow marsh to complete some mage quests. Then to ZF. Had a blast in ZF.

Did Dailies Friday morning. Ran Elyte and Epril to Wyrmrest and then down to the Moa'ki and over to Venomspite to get the fp all the way to Howling Ford. Back to ZF with Epril and Tiaa. I am finding my "Death Knight" Footing.

Signed up for Battle.net account

Went to Uldaman with Epril and Tiiaa, an alliance character laughed at me.

Ashayo

Oracle - White Tickbird Hatchling (Yes there are two tickbirds ; this is my first white one)
Warning: Don't put the egg in the bank - Blackangel's timer didn't decrement, and when he took it out, it was back at 7 days!
Gratz to Wych for getting the Green Proto-Drake this week! (bastard)

Exalted with Sons with Hodir on Ashayo and Asheal. Nice shoulder enchant and the Glacial Bag pattern for Asheal.
Violet Hold - Ichoron - cheated with crystals again - got Exalted with Ebon Blade, 15 Exalted Reputations
Only Argent Crusade to go with WotLK factions (quite a difference to BC factions!)

Drak'tharon Keep - Blackangel tank as his 1st heroic, and Ion on his resto druid was new too. Wiped a bit on King Dread, but got done

DwP 10-man Naxx
- Started running VoA and Obsidian Sanctum before heading to Naxx. 2nd try for most people seeing the boss. Only a dps warrior left standing!
- Gothik the Harvester for the first time. There are waves of mobs before actually fighting the boss. I died on the last wave, so didn't do any DPS at all. Boss down - one shot. Achievement [Military Quarter]!

Guppers 25-man Naxx
- Obsidian Sanctum - Sartharion with 1 drake up [Heroic: Twilight Assist]
- Naxx - Construct Quarter - new records on all bosses
- Thadiuss dropped two tier pieces for legs - rolled a 10 :(

Working through quests in Icecrown. Will only have Howling Fjord left after that. Will probably dual-box it with Hiide, to help him level. Only going for achievement on Ashayo.

Asheal - Kel'Thuzad down in Nightlife raid!

CoS - 3 times. Only rolling against 1 or 2 people. Lost every one.

Spent 40 emble of heroism on a trinket, but still have over 100 and nothing to spend them on that is an upgrade. Will 3.1 bring more items to buy?

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Email #1 from Jovam

Try to beat me on Tap Tap Revenge

Hey its jovam, first off let me say thanks to glanthur for the PVP talk. Now, i have somethin for blade. I think i may have found another star wars refrence. In the shimmering flats, have you ever taken a close look at the goblin racer going around the track? It seems to look an awful lot like anikens racer in the phantom menace. Well anyways great show and. For the horde!!!



Email #2 from Faghleis

Hi guys,
My guild has a huge problem
We have in a guild of alomost 50 players only got about 3 maxed out healers.
We were starting naxx 10 VOA and OS 10, we had plenty of tanks and dps but we would have to keep pulling in the guild leaders real life partner to help lead the healing.
So I have started along a very dangerous path... dodging and weaving around wife and baby boy agro... I have started my first RAF account and dual boxing. I dont think I could ever level another alt the old fashioned way again. I have to say dual boxing my little pally and druid is soo much fun and every time I announce a double ding in guild chat i get a heap of laughs and cheers. The guild cant wait to have the ranks of 80's swellled by another couple of healers.
In the short term we will still be pulling in pugs for healing but hopefully it wont be too long.
So thanks for motivating me to take the plunge. Also a huge thanks to Keelhaul for the awsome guide he posted about multiboxing. it really got me started in the right direction.

Faghleis (Faeg-hlies) Holy Knights, Khaz'garoth

Email #3 from Keelhaul

Hey All,

Thank you for the suggestion on working on Alliance Vanguard rep so I can get the schematic to make the motorcycle, just in time for summer too! :D I priced out some of the mats that are needed to make the chopper and well lets just say its going to take me awhile. :) However all of the gold im getting from questing will help. Alliance Vanguard looks like a combination of a few other factions, so I guess I have a reading assignment this weekend.

Hearing how Ctrl Alt WoW got its start was interesting. Aprilian said she started it then met you guys, but what inspired her to do the podcast in the first place? I am also of the opinion that its better when all three of you can be on at once but its still an awesome show and the first one I look for in itunes every week.

I have been playing since launch in 2004 and I consider myself an "older" gamer at 37. The guy who got me into WoW, who is also my next door neighbor, is in his 60's. I recently joined a casual guild and one of the members is in his late 50's, see it’s not just a kidz game. Who is the oldest player you guys have met in WoW?

Thanks again for the great show.

-Keelhaul

Email #4 Valathilia

Hello Guys :)
Valathilia here again
Thank you for the tips, but I think I am going to choose my guild raids and just level my 71 lock to 80 and make him Vala's sugar daddy :) lol I actually have some funny pvp experiences, I was at the summonig stone for BRD and was gonna run a guildie through, soon enough a Ally DK shows up I guess he expected to kill me since I am holy, oh how he was wrong all I had to do was mind control and make him jump into the pit of lava, talk about burn baby burn LOL, I repeated this twice till he gave up :) talk about pwnage from a holy priest :)
Another story was just recently I was on my warlock and a guildie was making fun of my class and how we are not Op anymore! My motto is ur class is only op if u make it op. So he came down to org and dueled me, I am lv71 and she was lv80 spriest, I owned her she didn't get me down to 1/2hp, I never was made fun again :)

Well ty guys for a great podcast

For the light!
-Valathilia

Email #5 from Ivii

If you want the Superior Achievement & already have one ring that qualifies just swap spots on your character. Same works for trinkets -)

The Ivii (formerly Tzolekk)
80 DK if Alea Iact Est on ER

Sent from my iPhone

Email #6 from Tracey

Hey there, just a quick hello.

I finally dinged 80 on my Death Knight - DKHumpdy! Yea! But now that I'm there - now what?

I started some raids and a heroic but I want to learn to tank without wiping my guild friends and the other issue is gear - what to get what enchants etc.

She is totally blood spec and I have only played with that spec too.

Well any suggestions would really help!

I listen to the show alot and really enjoy it!

For the Alliance! Yea for Hand of Destiny on the Malygos server.

Tracey aka Dkhumpdy, Warhumpdy

Email #7 from Ghitta (g-ee-ta)

Altaholic - I can stop whenever i want, i just dont want to

Hey Aprillian, Glanthar and Ashao

I finally got off my butt and sent you guys an email.

your show is my favorite wow podcast and I look forward to it every week. you could reduce the download size a bit, it is filling up my macbook pro and I may have to start deleting old episodes.

I'm emailing to answer your question:
what do you do with all your alts.

Several months ago I got a second account with refer-a-friend and started 2 boxing. (sadly it was over far too quickly, but I kept the second account)

I started with a Pally - hunter combo

the pally has since become one of my favorite alts and is up to level 72 and is currently running around northrend Ret, but respecs all the time back and forth between protection and retribution spec. The huntard is 64 and is currently survival spec after the great BM nerf of patch 3.0

I then started up a warrior shaman duo, both of which are about 56, the Shammy is coming out of retirement since he is my scribe.

I used my refer-a-friend free levels to get a priest up - my little slice of masochism is leveling holy and is level 62. I actually have been doing more dps since I switched over from shadow, but that is a whole 'nother email, lol

My pride and joy is my 8o resto druid, I'm decked out in full epics, mostly from naxx 25 and badges (wow-heroes.com score 2204) and currently casually raiding 2 nights a week.

I also have several other alts, a couple warlocks, mages, a 37 rogue, and a few DKs

These days I when multibox the priest and hunter are my main choice because it is easy mode with a pocket healer, the hunter DPSing and my Gorrilladin tanking up a storm.

When I'm soloing, its usually the paladin, but the Resto druid needs to get some play to, so she can get prepared for Raid night.

I'll stop the wall of text here, i could go on....

PS if I win...(please please please) I really need an authenticator as alot of my friends have been hacked lately

Thanks muchly

character - Ghitta (g-ee-ta), Kilrogg US
guild - Ancient

Sent from my iPhone

Thanks And stuff

Thanksk No. 1 From Gothicplate

Hello all,

Can't tell you how flabbergasted i was when i heard you reading my email during the podcast. I didn't think you would read a hint but i appreciate it and the awesome roll. I would like the free month just let me know what you need from me…and it better not be my user name and password ;o)

Keep up the good work and fun times I love listening while I’m playing it’s a nice break from Rap, Rock, and Techno.

For the Horde!

Gothicplate (Sent)

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 106 - Working Day and Night

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG.

Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com and being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or an authenticator.

I was interviewed by http://undergroundwow.blogspot.com

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Training Engineering with Ally DK. Bought stuff from the ally ah, only expensive thing was copper ore. Got her to 200 using a guide off the internet. I made the other one a miner.

Tues morning got up at 6 to see that maintenance was starting 8, so decided to get some play time in before going back to bed.

Cooking Daily was Mustard dogs, easy as pie, got all four mustards up by the Landing. My ally alt was completely out of pets except for a couple of dragonhawks and some cockroaches.

Got my Nelf DK to 238 mining, just by smelting ore. Got my Gnome DK to 281 Engineering. Finally had to send the Nelf out into the real world to mine.

Did Dailies on Epril, Auruk and Aprillian. Friday it was the wine glass one for cooking and the Valkri necklace for Jewel Crafting. I've got the to get Aprillian to make cloths cooldowns. Aprillian went to Dragonblight

Friday night I had both Koe and Epril in Silthius mining Thorium. Oh and Shadowmeld is OP.

Ashayo

- In-game virus email ; links to a "guild video" that installs keylogger.

- Oracles - 1 x tickbird

- 3.1 background downloader ; slow - seeding

- Guppers 25-man Naxx. Nice progress through Plague, Arachnid and Military quarters. Yet to do the safety dance without a death (which is an achievement)

- 25-man VoA : Both priest gloves and chest dropped -only one priest (should've brought Asheal!) Johnni from DwP Naxx group got both. Gratz!

- 10-man Naxx : Arachnid quarter - Loatheb (the "no healz" boss) - died with boss having 5000 health, tank was last one standing, took him down! - Instructor Razuvious ; with one Understudy dead! (much easier than I remember 40-man naxx being)

- Weekly achievements: [Bread Winner] - 10,000g from quest rewards [The Empire of Zul'Drak] - 100 Quests in Zul'Drak [Dehydration] - Ichoron's Ichor Globules not merging in Violet Hold [Higher Learning] - Necromancy book spawned shortly after Naxx run finished. (Hint: /join bookclub) Receive item [The schools of Arcane Magic - Mastery] Allows you to teleport to the spire atop Violet Citadel Where you find Archmage Vargoth, and he gives you [Kirin Tor Familiar] - a NCP like a void walker.

- Attempts at Caverns of Time proto-drake 2 minutes short ; but first time for Tarqq to run it, let alone tank it.

- Joined BoE's guild last week. You'll need to listen to their podcast to find the guild and server. Completely gathering - mining and herbalism. Levelled to 450 Titansteel cooldown at 60! Interesting trying to run around Outlands Northrend at level 60 to level professions. Was killing level 64 mobs ok, but harder to kill level 65.

- Westley, Blackangel and Deadlyvyv all hit 80 this week (after playing for only a few months) Trying UK Heroic. Failed Tried Utgarde Pinnacle the next night, and had much more success. Though it did highlight undergeared for heroics. For example, hit rating is needed to ensure hunter traps are more reliable.

Glanthur

Talked to Jovam in-game, and asked what he'd like us to talk about more. PvP it is.

Finally got Arlaerus to 430 in Jewelcrafting. Am now doing the dailies in Dalaran. I can make Glanthur a Titanium Impact Band to get his Superior achievement without shelling out 6000 gold for Kirin Tor ring. That's always good.

Killed rare T-Rex rare mob.

Glanthur is done with heroics for a while.

Bladed Edge

Hey all, Blade here...

Things have been interesting this past week... and I'm a little uncertain as to where to go from here... See... I tried a few things this week... did a little pvp... only enough to remind myself how much I detest it... Also tried a little 10-man raiding... people have assured me that 'Once you find a good group of people you know and like, it will be very different'... but ya see... here's the Catch-22... how do you *find* these people if they're all already in raid groups of their own? Kinda like 'How do you get experience tanking a raid if all the raids only want raid-experienced tanks?' So all in all... I haven't done a lot on Skull for that reason. I'm already geared enough for Heroics and 10-Raids... I realize I'll have to juggle gear around to push my hit-cap and expertise higher for 25-raids, but if I never get enough 10-raid drops, I won't get to see the 25-raid stuff. I've been playing Wolf this week a little more... went to Howling Fjord and picked up that quest that has you don a worg disguise in order to talk to another questgiver for another two or three quests... but I kept the disguise... it fits with my 'character' so when I'm in the Fjord on Wolf, I pull out his Worg pet (Goremaw - the elite from Grizzly Hills) and the two of them run the hills of Howling Fjord as wolves across the snow-covered plains. Also... I got back on my Mage (Greymalkyn) and dps'd Utgarde Keep! Wow! You dps-types have it EASY! All you have to do is point and click!

Nah... I know each role requires its own degree of skill specific to the situation... and we *did* have a 80 bear druid tanking it... so the entire run was super super easy... but still... dps sure beats the heck out of tanking in terms of worrying about threat and mob positioning and marking and healer aggro and... and... and... This week I'll find a level-fair group of 70s and see about doing it again... that way I don't get lazy.

Onward...

From the Dirty Little Tricks Department... In defense of the Frost Mage... yeah yeah... I know what you're thinking... 'But Blade... Arcane iz pewpew now... do not need Frost kk thx'. Ah... but how soon you all forget. I'd bet even money that 75% or more of you leveled to where you are now as Frost... some of the more pvp-minded went the way of the Fire Mage... but the majority of you were Frost. Some of us *stayed* Frost. Back in the day... only Frost Mages had their really cool 'damage mitigation' tricks like Ice Block... then someone inevitably QQ'd and said 'No fair why can't fire mages turn into blocks of ice?' (Let's ignore the obvious lack of logic in that statement, shall we?) The end result was... all Mages can now turn into blocks of ice. Instead of a talent, it's now a spell... The good thing is... this [Emergency Ice Block] macro still works...

#showtooltip Ice Block /stopcasting /cancelaura Ice Block /cast Ice Block

Basically... it stops whatever you were casting before... great as a 'O-Crap!' button... and freezes you solid... tap it again and it dismisses the ice Block... so this one isn't one you'll want to spam. Ah... but back to the cold-as-ice Frost Mages... our Water Elemental pet is one of the nicer talents... that and the super-huge crit potential we have against frozen targets... Try this [Water Elemental / Frost Nova Macro]:

#showtooltip Summon Water Elemental /cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental /click PetActionButton5 /cast Frost Nova

What's it do? Summons your Water Elemental if it's down, casts your Water Elemental's Frost Nova and if THAT is down, drops yours... Now add this [Point-and-Shoot Ice Lance] macro as well:

#showtooltip Ice Lance /cast [target=mouseover,harm] Ice Lance; Ice Lance

Now you're in business... I'd put this macro on a button on your mouse... like Right-Click with the Ctrl key down or something... cause you'll be using it a lot... and it will also free up a key on your hotbar that way.

Onward...

From Ol' Blade's Easter Egg Basket... I assume you've all been to Vengeance Landing at some point... if you didn't stay very long, head on back and stop in at the inn... there's a picture hanging on the wall that's an obvious /nod to the painter Grant Wood and *his* rather-famous painting of 1930 entitled "American Gothic"... And... this ones for you comic-book fans... from Ol' Blade to you in a sort-of 'honor to the superhero-genre' of movies that have come out of late... and are coming soon! Specifically, the Paladin spell Avenger's Shield - the 41-point talent in the Protection tree. The TCG card has the flavor text "Those who oppose the shield must yield.". Interesting, no? This is a /nod to the Marvel superhero known as Captain America. From the action of the spell (one of Captain America's trademark tricks was to hurl his shield at his enemies and have it ricochet off them before returning to him...), to the name of the spell itself (Cap was a member of fthe superhero team known as the Avengers...), to the card's caption... Waaay back in the 1960s there was a short-lived (and rather poorly animated - even for the '60s) animated Captain America show with the following verse as a theme: "When Captain America throws his mighty shield All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield If he's led to a fight and a duel is due Then the red and the white and the blue'll come through When Captain America throws his mighty shield!"

As always, an awesome podcast guys!

Loremaster Blade

Emails

Email #1 from Stephen

Hi Aprillian, Glanthur, and Ashayo -

First I want to thank you for your podcast it's always a great listen and one of the few WoW-related that I regularly listen to.

In large part because of you guys I've just taken the plunge into something I've always been intrigued by but never knew enough about to try - multi-boxing (well, I can run two instances of the game on my old Sony VAIO Centrino Duo laptop with no problems). I basically spent yesterday afternoon figuring things out and had a lot of fun!

I started two pairings... an odd couple Paladin/Rogue combo figuring they'd probably hate each other but be a well-matched pair (and on top of that made the Rogue an enchanter since I don't have one in my stable of alts), and a warlock/mage combo. I haven't gone very far probably around level 14 for all four of those toons, but I already notice with the refer-a-friend bonus that I've outleveled the content I have quests for (some are greying out, most are green).

Here are some basic questions I have: is there an add-on that will turn in quests for all party members or does that need to be done manually? I'm still really new to this and don't use many macros (even on my main) but would you suggest I educate myself and look into a multiplexor? I don't think I want a split screen showing both accounts simultaneously but I have had to stop when I noticed that the following toon was stuck running against something... what are your thoughts on this? Should I drop my grey quests immediately to move up to level-appropriate zones or should I take it slow to help develop their professions? Should I even be questing? My goal isn't really to race through (I have until June for the refer-a-friend) I'm just trying to level some classes I haven't tried before but I don't want to be wasting my time either if I can be more efficient.

Thanks for the info, Stephen Email #2 from Sevononine

Hey Aprillian, Ashayo and Glanthur,

I have been a long time listener and wanted to tell you that your work is much appreciated! I listen to a few wow podcasts and yours is definitely number one or two. Your insight on the game has helped me avoid those "noob" moments and your multi-boxing discussions have been very interesting.

I wanted to tell you how I play my alts. I just dinged 55 on my Paladin, she was my first level 55 so I parked her in undercity and she is resting happily while I take my first Death Knight out for a trial run. My Undead death knight is now level 60 and took his first trip to Shattrath and I have to say the ports are do convenient I had no idea what I was missing :)

Again thanks for the great show and For The Horde!!

Sevononine(55 Plaladin) and Tajj( 60 Death Knight)

Email #3 from Sjostrom

Well its sjostrom again and i got somethin ta ask. Now im sorry if this has been asked before and i missed it im sorry but i would really like to hear each of yalls favorite class! Thanks, Sjostrom

Sent from my iPod

Email #4 from Elsinne Starsong

I cannot hold my tongue while Aprillian and Glanthur trash the great city of Darnassus. I am praying to Elune that I can hold my composure as I type this.

Ironforge is designed in a simple, uncomplicated way because it was designed by dwarves. It couldn't be any other way. I would expect no more from them. Don't get me started on Orgrimmar. Aprillian, Orgrimmar is nothing but a burned out crater. I suspect that it was designed to weed out the weak. If you can't handle the physical feats it requires to get around, then you don't belong there. That must be the orcish line of thought. I expect this from a race who values brute strength over intelligence. I am insulted that you would compare that poorly built matchstick city of Thunder Bluff to Darnassus. But I won't go into that further because it would just give me a headache.

Glanthur complains that Darnassus isn't laid out well and there are no guards. Train wreck? Has it occurred to him that we don't have spare people standing around with nothing better to do than give directions? We'd rather not have a bunch of visitors anyway. Most of you others are disruptive. Dwarves like sticking their noses where they don't belong. You won't find anything related to the Titans in our city. Please go look someplace else. Humans? Always in a hurry. Always. "Darnassus isn't laid out well. It's too time consuming to get around." Where are you in a rush to get to? And Draenei? Can't you just go back where you came from? And gnomes can't complain. They're too irresponsible to handle a city of their own. That's been proven. Furthermore, they break everything they touch. Let them continue to tear up Ironforge.

Darnassus is the most beautiful city in creation. That's not an opinion; it's a fact. We take pride in it's grace, serenity, and seclusion.

Hopefully the sindorei Ashayo has more respect for our marvelous city.

Your podcast is fantastic and I love you guys. The three of you are wonderful. Elune be praised! Elsinne Starsong Email #5 from Gothicplate

Hello all,

I was listining to your pod cast and I think Glanthus was talking about searching the AH for cooking recipies you didn't know and you mentiond you had to mouse over them to tell. If you click the "Use" box it will only show you the recipies you need not the ones you already know.

Hope this helps,

Gothicplate

Horde 77 Troll Death Knight

Boulderfist

Guild Blitzkrieg

Email #6 from Valathilia

Hello guys :) Valathilia again This time I actually have a question, I am currently trying to get vala her epic flyer and most of my profession mats go to my guild and are raids. However farming mats and not gaining any gold toward my flyer Is a bit annoying, I do my dailys as often as I can, but is there a easier way to make gold? And is blizzard going to put another daily zone like isle of quel'danas? And glanthur it's totally cool that you couldn't pronounce my name, I am not ever sure if I pronounce it correctly LOL well that's what I get for pressing random Thanks guys for the awesome podcast For the alliance (now leveling a dranei shaman and it's great)

Email #7 from Ginsue

Hey Kids!

I say kids because all adult gamers are just kids trapped in adult bodies. :-)

I was wondering with geography being against you three, how you got together on this podcast.

I have met many, many people over the years of gaming. I started out playing first person shooters and have now dragged some of my old shoot um up friends to Azeroth.

If you can fit in the story of how CnrtlAltWow became what it is today in the next episode I would love to hear it. I have been listening now for about 15 or so episodes some I'm semi new.

I understand splitting the show due to time zone issues but I must say I liked it better when all three of you could comment on what had been going on in each others week in Wow. Its not bad this way it was just a bit better before. Maybe we can move Ashayo over here though I hear women outnumber the men down under so he prolly won't want to leave. :-)

Thanks for the entertainment!!!!

Ginsue

P.S. Any luck finding more authentacators?

And one more thing

Glanthor,

You mentioned that you fear being hollered at for not wanting to dual spec healer/tank.

My main is a rogue and I just got one of my many alts to 80. He is a paladin and I plan to spec ret PVE and ret PVP. No healing build and no tanking build.

So if anyone yells and makes you feel bad you can always sit back and think Inacan (Ginsue's alt pali) really must be getting ripped on daily.

I have tanked and healed end game content in ZG and MC on my druid. I feel I have paid my dues.

Don't let the man get you down and play the way that makes you happy.

Happy Hunting,

Ginsue

Email #8 from MO

Hello, sorry I was not able to email last week; as you know life does get in the way of wow at times.

I am still enjoying my RAF as i have one month left.

My Alliance pair on Borean Tundra are up to 45 almost and it is getting a little easier to get through the mobs and also make more gold now.

I have not started the ctrl alt guild yet and we will see if we do or not.

I do have to say I am in the minority in that all the dual spec talks, I dont see how it will benefit me. With my alt playing style or even other people that just pve, I dont know if this is a huge deal, especially since it may be 1000gold. But we shall see, I may change my mind. I am glad to see the Priest changes as I dont think they are getting nerfed. On my 75 priest, I do have to manager my mana better but that goes for most mana classes doesnt it.

As always thank you for your show and I hope to write you again as one pair of alt hit 50 and other pair work on 30's. For the Ctlr Alt Wow Thank you

Mo

Email #9 Keelhaul

Woot! I just dinged level 80 on my dorf hunter. Next project, getting my epic flying skill. I decided to go back to Dragonblight and complete the rest of the quests I missed there. I also got to finish the Wrathgate story line and all I can say is awesome! Questing for gold instead of xp is paying off and I have gone from 700 gold to almost 2,000 gold in a fairly short amount of time.

I am currently working on Oracle rep in Sholzar (sp) basin and really enjoying the dailies there. I can’t wait to get my egg! I do have a question; I guess you can get rep by wearing tabards from the various factions. I went to wowhead and looked at some of the stuff you can buy with rep, but nothing jumped off the page at me. What would you recommend a Dorf hunter that is an engineer/miner to work on first, rep wise? Thanks again for the great show guys! -Keelhaul

Thank you's & Stuff

Thank you #1 from Lesaun Hello its Lesaun, Last week i didn't know that it had to be a actual email :O, So ill tell you something i've done, about a month ago i wanted a level a few alts and i wanted to do refer-a-friend but i didn't want to spend to much money on keeping the account active, upgrade to bc, or transfer the other characters off the other account so i decided i would get my alts then just cancel the second account. i had thought i would have to spend 20 for the game + a month of wow which would have been 35$ but i later found out that when you buy the box you get 40days free play time also when you buy a month your main account gets a month so there's no point after the free 40days to buy 1 month so i was able to spend 20$ and get 70days to get as many 60s on my main account as i wanted. its been 30 days and i already have one 60 mage and a 30 pally on my main account + another 45levels i can grant and another 40days till my second account expires. I thought this info would be nice to some one who wants to level with refer a friend but only had 20$ to spend. Also yea glanther my rolls are always hot :).

--I would like the mounth free What info do you need for this? Thank you! -- (Sent)

Thank you #2 from Jeff Aprillian,

WoW, that is very nice of you to offer to include a mini for Solareia as well, thank you!

Solareia picks the Blood Elf mini if you still have one.

Thank you again!

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 105 - Dailies, Dailies and more Dailies

Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com and being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or an authenticator.
Visit our Website at http://ctrlaltwow.com

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Auruk did the Cooking Daily 2 days in a row and got the 5 daily acheivement and the [Recipe: Delicious Chocolate Cake]. Took the Twins to Northrend to mine and pick herbs.

Then

Monday night Auruk did the wine tasting daily, running around Dalaran scavenging half glasses of wine. Had some ninja'd. Tuesday morning he ran around Crystalsomething forest picking carrots. Good thing he had a bunch of chilled meat.

Tuesdayspent the entire day in Ruby Dragonshire, grinding ghouls. Auruk got 4 bop recipes Haunted Herrings, Tasty Cupcakes, [Recipe: Last Week's Mammoth]. Got the twins to 68.

Wed morning Auruk dinged 68, did the Cooking Daily in Dalaran "Mustard Dogs", had the rhino dogs and quickly got the mustard up on the Landing. He now has 7 Dalaran Cooking Awards. He had to figure out that they were in the Currency Tab and went to Howling Fjord by accident and ended up doing the Northern Cooking Quest and completing it right away because he had Chilled Meat.

Thur it was the wine and cheese platter cooking daily. Then the twins and Auruka went to Borean Tundra to go to the ocean and kill Valkiri. Epril did her JC daily but it was one she had gotten a couple of days ago.

I started thinking about the day Aprillian goes into an instance and that maybe she should have First Aid. So I spent Friday and Sat gettting her up to 391. She had to go to Arathi Highland for the Triage. The books I didn't have on alts, I bought off the AH for 3 to 6g so it wasn't bad. Acheivement in gchat

Sat Auruk got Mustard dogs daily again, love that one. Epril got the Proto Dragonbone one, so they went to HF to try to find one. All of Aprillian NR cloth cd were available, she flew to Dragonblight.

Sun, Cheese platter Daily for Auruk and Epril got the Northrend Dwarves. Primall got to 350 on DE'ing, I don't think I need to do anything else on her.

Making it to the Dwarves in HF was easy.

Went to Nagrand with Twins, while finishing up the Death Knight Ally starting

Ashayo

Alliance Death Knight has been busy levelling herbalism and mining

Friday night Naxx run with Guppers
Started with the Construct Quarter and one shot first three bosses.
Wiped a few times on Thaddius, but got him down - so heroic construct quarter complete.
(And got the achievement even though I disconnected about 20 seconds before end of the fight!)
Rolled a 9 on tier pants :(

DwP 10 man Naxx had an impromptu weekend visit for some new boss attempts:
1 shot Instructor
1 shot Patchwerk ; which is pretty much a gear/dps check
Gave Grobbulus a couple of tries, but people are still learning the fight.

Ran quite a few Heroics. Blackangel has hit 80 and is gearing up. Was enough to get Exalted with Kirin Tor (no upgrades)
Heroic Gun'drak
Heroic Drak'tharon
Halls of Stone (managed Brann Spankin' New again)

Then ran with Dills and Kiele on Heroic Oculus, who had completed it the day before.
(Two dps, two healers, one tank)

Which completed all the heroics of Northrend - Achievement "Northrend Dungeon Master"

Heroic Culling of Stratholme to try to get drake mount
- Only two rolling on the mount twice ; I got a 9 :(
- Failed to meet the time a 3rd time.

Healed 10 man Vault of Archavon on Asheal

Glanthur

Working on continuing to gear up Arlaerus with healing epics with Emblems of Heroism.

Also, finally hit exalted with everyone but Alliance Vanguard on Glanthur.

Finally got to 450 in Leatherworking on Glanthur

Arlaerus was able to buy his way to 277 in Jewelcrafting

Achievements

Dual Spec Fears

Bladed Edge

Blade here...

Ashayo asked about the Loken fight in Halls of Lightning... yeah... you know that dance you have to do to avoid his incredibly-gross aoe explosive 'gonna-kill-yer-tank-with-one-shot' attack?

It's hard to avoid - even harder when your tank is a noob to the instance and has no idea where to go... we wiped on him once before the switch of group members, twice afterward and decided to call it there... remember my 35 gold repair bill... that was with *nothing* damaged to the point on seeing it on the little paper doll that appears when your armor is getting close to broken.
Someday I may force myself to spirit rez a bunch of times and wipe out the durability on my armor... just to see how much I'll have to pay for the 100% repairs... but I'm gonna get my epic flight skill first.
I guess I've crossed some sort of line... or managed to achieve some sort of hidden mark of quality or capability... as soon as I started tanking Heroics... I've been asked virtually non-stop to do them!
Well... not so much... but I've done one each time I've been on long enough to run an instance...
Once, it was commented that I was crazy... hehe they musta been talking to my Ol' Uncle Throgg... because it was noted that my DPS was rather high for a tank...
1000 dps to be precise...
Personally, I didn't really put any mind to it... and after a quick check (read: slog through the comments from idiots to hopefully find what you're looking for...) I found that 1000 dps is apparently right on par with where I am in instance-running... maybe even a little low... with raid-buffs and appropriate food buffs, an epically-geared warrior tank can expect to clear 1500 dps easily...
Meh... if the rest of the party takes little to no damage through the entire fight, then I did my job... I could care less how much damage I did.
Though I gotta say there is a little boost of ego when I'm #2 on the dps list when we check Recount.

Onward...

I'm now on 'The Other Side' in terms of tanking gear.
I hit the Defense minimum of 540 (vaulted right past it, actually) and now I've been collecting various pieces of gear and mixing-and-matching them to get the best benefit for the situation... be it extra threat, pushing closer to the hit cap, more stamina or whatever... and so long as my Defense never drops below 540, I'm golden.
There's something to note, as well... I am wearing very little if any Instance-gained items... the majority of my gear is from solo-able or small-party quests and crafted gear.
Not only is it possible to get to 540 Defense and 27000 health all by yourself, but it wasn't all that difficult to do... just a little either time-consuming (if you farm your own materials) or costly (if you don't).
In either case... check the AH prices... sometimes the cost of materials is vastly out of proportion to the cost of the item...

From the Dirty Little Tricks Department...
This one's another one of those 'space saving' macros multiplpe skills that don't share a cooldown... Specifically for Concussion Blow... back in the day, if I recall, this didn't do any damage... just a nice 5 second stun... but it lost its place on my toolbar because of Shockwave... being an aoe it became much more useful overall and Concussion Blow took a backseat and eventually lost its spot on my hotkey bar...
Dunno if anyone else is in the same situation, but here's a macro that brings it back...
#showtooltip? Shield Slam
/cast Shield Block
/cast Concussion Blow
/cast Shield Slam
Obviously, it's more recommended to use this when you have a few points of rage to spare... as using the two skills together is a nice, hefty 32 rage loss... but snapping your target for Concussive Blow damage and Shield Slam damage... plus a stun if your target *can* be stunned...
Oh... if you used Charge or any other stun previous to this macro... be aware of diminishing returns... so Concussion Blow will only last for around 2.5 seconds... but that's still a 2.5 second stun OFF the global cooldown... and even if you used Shockwave as well... that's still a second or so where your opponent will be not attacking you and causing you damage...
But... playing Devil's Advocate... keep in mind that Concussion Blow is another 15 rage to have to spend... so you might save this macro for multiple targets, during fights where you have a fairly decent amount of rage coming in or as an additional spell interrupt to stop casters dead in their tracks.

From Ol' Blade's Easter Egg Basket...
To Dalaran with you! In the Sisters Sorcerous shop, your proprietors are named Endora Moorehead and hagatha Moorehead... appropriately 'witchy-shounding' names...
Well they ought to be... Endora was the mother of Samantha Stevens in the 1960s television show Bewitched... with Hagatha being Samantha's seldom-seen aunt.
There was another aunt... Enchantra... I wonder where she's gotten off to...

For you Alliance types... this on'e s a kind of a two-parter... Admiral Odesyus is a level 60 questgiver located at Odesyus' Landing in the Draenei stating zone of Azuremyst Isle. Firstly... his name... Odysseus (a character in Homer's epic saga The Iliad and the title character of the following saga The Odyssey) was also a captain of a vessel with a penchant for shipwrecking on strange islands... but that's not the only thing neat about him...
During one of the quests, you have to return to him with the makings of a trap. His response to you is "I love it when a plan comes together." which is a line spoken in almost every episode of the 1980s television show The A-Team by Hannibal Smith

He also shares a bit of a humerous dialogue with another NPC:
Admiral Odesyus says: Hey, Cookie! What's for dinner tonight? And don't say chicken!
"Cookie" McWeaksauce says: Yarr, Admiral. Let me think about it... Arrr... It be comin' into focus.
"Cookie" McWeaksauce says: It looks like it be succulent pork ribs basted with its own delectable juices and a side o' Captain Sander's Secret Sauce - fer dippin'.
"Cookie" McWeaksauce says: And fer dessert we be havin' cheesecake, flown in fresh from Stormwind on the wings o' angels...
Admiral Odesyus says: Wow! Really?
"Cookie" McWeaksauce says: No. Not really...
<"Cookie" shoots a chicken>
"Cookie" McWeaksauce says: It be chicken...
Admiral Odesyus says: I hate you so much, Cookie.
And as Aprillian had been scouting about Netherstorm a little more of late... I thought I'd throw these extra ones in...
After completing the Netherstorm quest A Little Extra Kick, the giver and receiver of this quest (B.O.O.M. Master Mixologist Boots) dies. A goblin paramedic rushes in to stimulate his heart. After a couple of shocks, the paramedic screams "Dammit Boots, I'm a doctor, not a priest!"... a nice little /nod to the original series of Star Trek and the ship's doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy and his often quoted and misquoted line "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a ".
Oh... another gem... the zone of Netherstorm has similar colors and chaotic theme as the Delphic Expanse (you Star Trek fans will know exactly what I'm talking about). Did you know that... prior to patch 2.4... warlocks were unable to summon into Netherstorm in a similar way that certain starship functions do not work in the Delphic Expanse of Star Trek.

As always, an awesome podcast guys!

Loremaster Blade

Emails

Email #1 from Kyle

First off love your podcast <3 I really enjoy listening to you all chat about what you've been up to and the interesting sites you've encountered and the occasional oddness the happens.

Anyway, just a few odd ideas I thought of and would like to share to see what you think.

First, just now Thrall was killed (sad!), and people were going on about how we should defend it, Org should be the hardest raid and we just let them kill him, and others responding "oh quit QQing it's not like he's not going to respawn." Well what if he didn't respawn? What if here was like a day or more delay in Thrall's respawn, and maybe everyone who was in the town that lost the raid gets some sort of day-long debuff. That would certainly promote more town defending, rather than the "we'll let you kill our leader if we can kill yours" mentality. I mean where's the love, does noone love Thrall or Sylvanas?

Thought 1.5: The assault to take back Undercity (near end of a long questline in Dragonblight) was epic! Fighting alongside Thrall and Sylvanas made me love them more ^_^ There should be more epic quests like that where you fight with either the two of them.

Second random thought/question: while leveling my undead priest I fell in love with the Outlands. I recieved invites to instances about every 15 minutes, and I did well and recieved compliments of nice heals and such. Such wonderful times! Then I got to Northrend, and it kicked me in the butt. My first time trying to do Uthgard Keep we wiped at the first boss and couldn't go further. Of course I got the blame for bad heals, but the tank kept taking so much damage I just couldn't keep up! It would be like one or two hits and he'd be already at 25% health. Now we were all around 68 - 70, so were we just probably too low leveled (but I tried a couple more times with different groups with the same result, and in the end someone got an 80 friend to run it for us), or are Northrend instances that much harder compared to the Outlands? Since that time I respecced from holy to shadow and just stuck to soloing, but now that I'm nearing 80 I want to respec again to holy and do healing again, but am afraid I just won't be able to cut it. Advice?

Thanks again, and keep up the awsome work!

Oh, and for the Horde!

Kyle
ThouThou - Bleeding Hollow

Email #2 from Valathilia

Woot
Hey there guys
Valathilia here
Your last podcast was good considering Ashayo and Glanthur were seperated, still great! Thank you for giving me the priest tips it helped me alot. And aprillian how do you do it leveling so many alts I have such a hard time leveling my lock, priest, and Druid alone. Well guys thank you for the great podcast and byfar out of all all the podcast I listen to, your the one I look foward to the most :) plus how can't I you guys are great
For the horde
- Valathilia

Email #3 from Tarqq

Hello Aprillian, Ashayo and Glanthur! I enjoyed your show and I wanted to re-extend my offer to run Aprillian through Kara. If we can coordinate a time that works, I'll gather the troops and we'll show you the funnage that is Karazhan. We usually run at 1am server to 4am server since we're all on West Coast time. As for Naxx, we would absolutely love to bring you in to check things out. DwP, team Beautiful, has an open door for our friends at CtrlAltWoW. I guess that includes you too Glanthur, but we have loot rules that are not too kind to those squishy alliance folks. Just kidding. We can all tell that deep inside is that dark side that is.. THE HORDE! As for Mr. Ashayo, it's always a blast to have a celebrity amongst our group. But do we still have to call you Mr. Ashayo, Podcaster of CtrlAltWoW, everytime we address you?

Keep up the great work and I'll be looking forward to being your Karazhan Tour Guide!

Tarqq and the crew of DwP, team Beautiful!

Email #4 from Lesaun
*Blows on dice*
Love the show!

Email #5 from Karen

Just a quick note on behalf of my husband (he doesn't actually listen to your podcast, but I tell him all about it after I listen to it).

He's looking for a new recipe addon to let him know what recipes his toons don't know and where to get them. He uses Recipe Radar and loves it when it's working correctly, but it's been erratic of late. I thought I remembered you guys talking about a Recipe addon and we looked at Recipe Book, but that just seems to list the recipes your alts know (or are we missing something?).

What do you guys use to find recipes?

Great job on the recent episodes, as usual. I love hearing from all three of you and you're definitely a breath of fresh air after listening to my other wow podcasts, which can tilt heavily towards the raiding outlook.

That said, I'm actually working on getting my horde hunter to 80 so that I can help out in my niece's raiding guild. The family that plays together, stays together, you know.

For the Horde,

Karen

Email #6 From Bryan

Hey, Bryan again here. I just wanted to get back in touch with Ashayo to reply to him about the Reaper mouse. When you open the Reaper settings in the system tray, they label the last button as "7th button". I have had no problems getting to map so I'm not sure what the issue might be for you. What keys are you mapping them to? I am using Home, End, Backspace for the 5th, 6th, and 7th buttons respectively. Something you may want to try is using an addon that allows you to "hover map" buttons. Two addons that I use are Dominos and Autobar [http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/auto-bar.aspx]. I currently have "mount" mapped to the 7th button / backspace though Autobar. If you need any assistance with this, please email me back.

This should work. Good luck and best wishes,

-Bryan

Email #7 From Keelhaul

Ashayo,

Last week I emailed and spoke about hunters and how they are my favorite class. When I was talking about warlocks and their pets I was not talking about the utility of the pet, I think we have all seen the videos with locks soloing some impressive stuff with their pets; I was talking about the pet skins. A voidwalker is a voidwaker is a voidwalker ect…

I was merely saying how I appreciated the choices that hunters have when choosing their pets.

Aprillian,

One thing you might want to try selling when transferring horde pets to the alliance side is the starting gear and weapons in the blood elf starting zone. It’s all level 1 gear that looks gear. I tend to do beteter with the starting weapons, Mana Staff ect, than I do on the armor. But I have sold all pieces at one time or another, just be carefull not to flood the market. Most of the items can be purchased for a silver or less and I sell them for 20 gold each on the alliance AH. A lot of folks like to dress up their level one bank alts, and this stuff is perfect for doing that ;)

Glanthur,

I will be starting the Son’s of Hodir quests this weekend, hopefully. Thank you very much for the battle naked tip when doing the Thrusting Hodir’s Spear quest. There will be at least one more necked dorf hanging onto a flying dragon. lol

Thanks again for the great podcast guys.

-Keelhaul

79 dorf hunter

Thanks and stuff

Thanks No. 1 from Jeff

Hey guys,

Listened to episode 104 last night, and was excited to hear my email story of "I found my soulmate in Hellfire Penninsula" on the show.
Good Show too....thanks guys!

And WoW....when Ashayo rolled a 1 and my baby and I heard that I won the contest thingy.....Woot! How totally cool. Maybe I need to play the lotto this weekend....lol

Anyways, as far as the prize goes, I would like to get an authenticator when they become available.


Thanks again so much for the show and to Ashayo for rolling a 1 ;–)

Sincerely,
Jeff (aka Maestoso and his beautiful Warlock lady Solareia on the Undermine Realm)

Take Care Kids!

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 104 - Horde/Alliance

Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com and being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or an authenticator.
Visit our Website at http://ctrlaltwow.com

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Spent Sun/Mon running Aprilian around Dragonblight to make cloth. It's very hard to find all these little places, maws and stuff. Finally made them all and got back to the trainer only to find that I had to spend over a 150 in gold to train at level 420. She did like being in Northrend though. Everytime the ally alt made enough, she would buy Frostweave and infinite dust to make Frostweave bags.

Epril and Elyte and Auruk ran around Blade's Mountain doing all sorts of woodsy stuff and then when they all dinged 67, they headed to Netherstorm.

Wed morning ran around with Tiiaa getting pets from TB, UC and Ogrimmar and I had my alt in Everson send in some dragonhawks. Doing a brisk business.

Thu discovered all I needed for Netherweave bags was rune thread. Went crazy making Netherweave and Mooncloth bags. Wanted Mooncloth bags for lower level bank toons.

Jumped and did it, took my quad to Northrend, had a blast. 3 67's and Aprillian is doable. Took the Twins back to Dalaran to train professions. Epril got the JC daily and bought a pattern. She also made some necklaces using mats gotten from my ally and sent them to Primall. Elyte made a shoulder enchant in inscription.

Sat night at lunch , in Mightstone Quarry battling bugs and releasing victims to fight with me with the Twins. Then ventured into BT, can't get quests but can get good xp and herbs and mining nodes.

Primall got the jewelry from Epril and de'd getting some infinite dust and some small dream shards, cool. The Twins went all the way to Dragonblight, could fight mobs 5 levels over them.

Sun morning Aprillian did the Mana Cell Daily. Now her achievement log says 3 of 5 for the 5 daily quests in a row, it had been resetting. Maybe she will get it on Monday. Now she's off to Dragonblight to make mo7onshroud. I'm thinking of changing her cloth spec to whatever makes spellweave as the mats, eternal fire, seem much more expensive. So making 2 of them would be better.

Auruk is doing the cookie daily.

Ashayo

Asheal ran Vault of Archavon 10 man healing. No drops.
Heroic Culling of Stratholme - The Culling of Time - Lanc won the drake.
Won an epic ring which gave me the Superior achievement - Min level 187 item in every slot.
Heroic Halls of Stone - The "Event" gave us grief, but we persisted.

Oracle eggs - Got the Proto-Drake Whelp

Sons of Hodir dailies - Revered. (Though pretty much a waste of time for an inscriptor) Quest "Feeding Arngrim" easiest of all the dailies!

Alchemy - Northrend Research failed to proc

Druid - Omen of Clarity is now passive

Hiide - AN, half of Old Kingdom
Aspect of the dragonhawk at 74

Ashayo - 10-man Naxx - Arachnid quarter.
Arachnid
1st boss - many wipes
2nd boss - one wipe
2nd night- Maexxna
Heigan - safety dance! 1st night

Vault of Archavon - 10man on Ashayo with mostly Naxx group

Death Knight starting zone - on alliance!

Glanthur

Glanthur is almost exalted with all the factions of WotLK. Just 1000 more for Wyrmrest Accord.

Been doing heroics on Arlaerus as well. He's getting pretty well-geared. Once Glanthur is fully exalted then I'll focus more on Arlaerus.

Bladed Edge

Blade here...

It's been a chaotic week... lots of time to play one day... no time at all to play the next... plus my power adapter crapping out didn't help things any...
But Ol' Blade will struggle ever-onward!

Got some pretty spiffy news, though - and a shout out... see... I was playing a little later than usual the other night when a guildie sent a message over gchat saying 'Anyone that wants Loque'nahak, I'm found him'.
By the Beard of my old Uncle Throgg!
That cursed Spirit Beast!
The super-rare everyone-seems-to-want-him-

but-he-spawns-only-when-he-feels-like-it ultra-hunter pet!
It must have been foretold by the Earth Mother... I was in flight and almost at an inn when Karius announced his finding... I dropped out of Skullblade and onto Wolftusk... verbally cursing the speed of my computer... logged into Wolf and managed to have the forethought to dismiss my temporary gorilla pet before I mounted up and took off like a shot towards Karius's position...
My usual place of logging for Wolf was a semi-regular spawn point of the Spirit Beast... just like 95% of the hunters in Sholazar Basin... so when I logged in and grouped up with Karius... I took off towards him... and flew past at least four hunters on my way...
Thanking the Earth Mother that they didn't up and follow me... they probably thought I was being a noob for leaving my camping-spot...
I recall as well regretting not taking the hunter talent that increases mount speed... 300% flight speed seemed far... too... slow...
Finally land near Karius... and there he was...
Loque'nahak! in all his glory!
Of course... I'm super-hyped up at this point... I lost track of where my freeze trap was... found it... dropped it to set up the tame... pull Loque over, he hits the trap... oh... my... nerves... *I CAN'T FIND MY TAME BEAST SKILL* AHHHH!
Then Loque'nahak BREAKS the trap... I'm sweating bullets... he's pummelling me and I'm starting to feel like a scratching post... AHA! Found it!
Start taming him...
Holy heck this Tame Beast thing takes a long time... my health is falling faster than the economy...
... and managed to get him with like 3000 health to spare!
WOOT!
So yeah... after great grovelling thanks to Karius and giving him the most expensive thing I had in my inventory in appreciation (a stack of Adder's Tongue), I am now the proud companion of Loque'Nahak.
So there's my shout out... Karius rocks.
Only one problem now... I have *no* idea what to name Wolftusk's new companion!

Oh... Skullblade hit 80, too! And my goal to reach 30,000 health? I can do it... but I sacrifice Defense to get there... with any luck, the few missing pieces to my Beginning Raiding Defense Plate Armor collection will balance me out... as it stands now, 530 Defense and 26,900 health leave me *just a little* shy of Raiding calibre...
Oh... talking about achieving stuff... my very first delve into a Heroic dungeon happened the other day!
Halls of Lightning! I think I did ok as a tank in there... in my defense it was a 'trial by fire'... I had never been in the Halls of Lightning - Heroic or otherwise... so we wiped on a few trash encounters... one time we got extra adds... you know... the standard "WIpe on the trash, one-shot the bosses" kind of run...
We did ok, too, overall... until we got to the end-guy Loken... we had to swap out members mid-run for their sceduled Naxx raid - which had us at (if I recall correctly) an entire 5-man group in a Heroic dungeon with zero experience with Halls of Lightning other than wowwiki.
It hurt.
35 gold in repairs to be precise... ah well... "Welcome to Epic Level" I suppose...

Onward...
Last week you were talking a bit about Haunted Mementos... I have a bunch as well... personally, I'm looking forward to a year from now when very few people remember what the silent spectral things moving around the cities are and people start getting weirded out...



Ashayo asked about the 5-man follow up to the Dragonblight elite quests... Sarathstra, Scourge of the North.
Dictionary Definition: Cocky
~ arrogant; pertly self-assertive; conceited; see also: Skullblade
Yeah... that was me after those fights... so I'm thinking "Huh... she's *only* a 5-man... I wonder how hard she can be..."
PWNED.
In my defense, I managed to get her down to about 75% of her 265 thousand health before she handed me my butt...
So... yeah... Sarathstra solo? Not so much.
Later that day I did join a small group (me - 77 warrior, an 80 warlock (Shavonne) and a 74 tree-druid... whose name escapes me... feel free to lambaste me in gchat) and we went around Dragonblight hammering down all the elite quests we could find... including the Scourge of the North. In fact... our druid didn't have the quest series... so we ended up killing her twice!
What a rush! It's one thing to be in a 5-man... it's another thing to be in a group where there's only a ranged dps... if not for the warlock pet, it almost looked like I was standing toe-to-toe against a dragon! No wonder a lot of tanks have egos... we think we're unstoppable!
Having a healer is dangerous for me... I was rushing into groups of mobs with absolutely no fear... like 'Huh... there's another small group of three mobs... let's get them *too*... that makes what... six I'm tanking?... not worried! I haz a healzor!'

From the Dirty Little Tricks Department...
Here's a couple of macros swip-err... *copied* from various sites including, but not limited to tankspot and wowwiki... these ones are mainly for you 'fledgeling' warrior tanks (at least the tanks that haven't hit 80 yet and are still leveling)... but all warrior tanks I think will find these macros to be of use... I used the first one against the pre-bosses in Halls of Lightning... extra threat is always a good thing right out of the gate!
#show Retaliation
/cast [stance:2] Battle Stance; Retaliation
/cast Defensive Stance
Be aware that it's a bit of a button spam... you have to hit it more than once (unlike most of the macros I've detailed thus far)... Basically, this one jumps you into Battle stance if you weren't there already, pops Retaliation, then jumps you back into Defensive Stance (three taps).
I was great to use when I wanted to make sure I had more threat coming out of the gate... and automatically attacking each and every time I was hit seemed to work just fine... it's a 5-minute cooldown, though... but it doesn't share the cooldown with Shield Wall anymore... so if you need to use your uber-defense skill, it's there when you need it.
The alternative for the Fury-minded among you:
#show Recklessness
/cast [stance:3] Berserk Stance; Recklessness
/cast Defensive Stance
What's the deal with these two macros?
Extra dps. Retaliation has you attacking back every time you are attacked, and Recklessness has the next three special ability attacks you use have 100% chance to crit... but for the next 12 seconds, you take 20% extra damage.
They were taken off the timer with their counterparts (Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall) and given a 5 minute cooldowns specifically (instead of the 30 minutes we had way back in the day). Be aware, though, they have a 10 second cooldown with respect to each other... so you can't spam them all at once... also... it was recommended that you insert a /cast Shield Block in the Recklessness macro to offset any incoming damage... but we've done that anyway with our uber-Charge macro.

From Ol' Blade's Easter Egg Basket...
Mrs. Blade's birthday has come and gone... and with Winter Veil passed us as well, I find myself surrounded by quite a few seasons of the Simpsons. Which got me thinking... maybe folks might not know about a few Simpsons-esque references in our beloved World of Warcraft... I'm sure there are more to be found... but here's some to whet your appetite
Groundskeeper Wyllithen in Eversong Woods (68,46)
Seymour in Lower City (63,66)
Speaking of high-profile celebrities... in Nagrand, at the arena, you have the distinct honor of being able to interract with one of the moguls of mayhem and sport violence himself... Don King!... err... I mean... "King" Dond. Yeah... that might have been a bit of a stretch... were it not for the nearby Ogre named 'Earbiter'...
Ooh... and one more for you tailors out there... there's apparently a Majestic Flying Carpet that can be crafted at Tailoring 425. This, by its very description, is a spiffier version of the 'normal' flying carpet... and is the epic flight speed version.
Nothing so specific about this one... but wait... read the buff you get when you hop on your carpet...
"Don't you dare close your eyes."
Ha. A not-so-subtle reference to the Walt Disney movie 'Aladdin'.

As always, an awesome podcast guys!

Loremaster Blade

Emails

Email #1 from Jeff

Hello Aprillian, Glanthur, Ashayo, and Blade,

I’ve enjoyed the Ctrl Alt WoW podcast for quite awhile now, and thought I would take a moment to send you all an email. First off, thank you for doing the show. You all are fun to listen too, and share a lot a great stories and tips for us fellow altoholics.

I’ve been playing since October of 2006, and until recently had not really made many alts, but instead mostly just played my night elf druid “Maestoso” on the Undermine server for most of my time in WoW.

A quick story of love found in the World of Warcraft:

In May of last year, just days after joining a new guild, I went to go help a fellow guild mate with some quests in Hellfire Penninsula. As it turned out, another fellow guildy came over to help as well....a female warlock with a fun and feisty personality she was.

Well, some kind of magic occurred that night, as after doing some quests and killing the fel reaver, subtle sparks began to fly. A bit of joking and flirting between her and I led to a continued and growing relationship night after night as the druid and the warlock explored the world of warcraft together. One very romantic night in Nagrand led to the exchange of phone numbers and again magic happened. It turned out we had many things in common and ...well..over the coming weeks...we fell in love! I lived in California and she in Montana. I traveled to see her in person, and the connection was simply amazing and perfect. We packed her things moved her down to California where we now live and love together. I found my soulmate in Hellfire Penninsula...lol. Life can be so very incredible!

Since that time, my love and I have made many alts together on both Horde and Alliance (mostly on Earthen Ring and Undermine realms). We have our own guilds on each realm, so that we can have our own guild bank with lots of space to store stuff for all our alts. Her mom and son also play and are in our guilds as well, and often play with us questing, running dungeons or a bit of PvP. Her mom lives in Wyoming and her son is at an Army base in Georgia, so it is really nice for all of us to stay connected via WoW. It is great fun having many alts and professions, and they all help each other out...it never gets boring or monotonous.

Ok, don’t want to be overly chatty here, but I’d like to share one little tip that my lady discovered while out leveling her herbalism. As it turns out, if you come across an herb node while running around with a friend or loved one, you can both get a level up point for your herbalism profession off that one herb. Just make sure you turn off auto-loot, and then one of you picks the herb but does not loot it, then the other person picks it, and can loot. You both get a tick on your herbalism skill. Pretty cool, and I think this works for mining too. My baby and I spent an entire day recently leveling our Death Knights herbalism from 1-300 by doing this. I was still a grind, but because the both of us received points off each herb, it went well I think.

So that’s it for now.....love can be found the World of Warcraft, as it I and my soulmate have been so lucky to find out. May others be as lucky as well.

Thanks again for creating and sharing Ctrl Alt WoW with all of us!

Jeff

Email #2 from Valathilia

Hello again it's Valathilia
So I was playing Wow the other night and I was looking at my priest talent trees, currently I am holy and I only need 3 more levels for 80 and it's been hell, I am so close yet so far away :( I was thinking of respecing disc but I was afraid that I won't be able to heal the same, because like the most common dps-ers and there joy for crits I also get that joy for healing, I know weird
And btw how much spell power should the average priest healer have for heroics :) ATM I am at 1355sp and once I ding 80 I kinda just want to jump in and start getting geared for Naxx
Ty guys for the awesome podcast I look foward to your next one :)
And..
For the alliance... Jk I mean horde
<3 Valathilia

Email #3 from Brian

Good morning, afternoon, or evening everyone as the case may be,

First off, I'd like to mention that this is the Bryan that won the second place prize of the Collector's Ed. WotLK box. I love having it and it looks perfect next to the BC Collector's Ed. box amongst my many other Blizzard products on display in my office. The prize was great and I wanted to say a long overdue thank you.

Aprillian, your show has continued to grow and has come along way since the days when you "solo'd" CtrlAltWoW. It has become infinitely better since you decided to triple-box the podcast with Ashayo and Glanthur.

I thought I might share a tip or two that I have learned over the years playing WoW. First, don't underestimate the value of having a good keyboard and mouse. Your input devices should be as least as responsive as your computer is. I chose the Ideazon company's Zboard and Reaper combination. The keyboard places your directional keys and action bar keys in an easy to manage spot, off to the left hand side (sorry to all the left handed people out there). I tried playing on a traditional keyboard again recently and it felt like I was a caveman banging on rocks. A gaming keyboard makes a huge difference. The Reaper mouse from the same company gives you three extra thumb buttons on the inside of the mouse (sorry again lefties) and an "on-the-fly" button that can change your DPI allowing for fast, normal, or slow scrolling of the mouse. A laser mouse is a must regardless if it is meant for gaming or not. Traditional mice are too heavy and slow for the quick movements needed in WoW and other games. The three buttons on this particular mouse can be re-mapped to buttons such as "Home", "End", and "Insert" (on PC's) and then you can map those buttons to actions in WoW. I have the first button set to the "Send Pet" or "Pet Attack" ability. There is no need to click on anything in game this way. I can select Hunter's mark on my action bar while sending my pet via the extra mouse button. For my priest, I have the middle button set to "Focus Target" so I can easily focus on the tank while paying attention to the DPS that need healing separately.

Another mouse trick that I use is setting the scroll wheel button as the reverse camera angle view. This also can be done through WoW's button mapping. If I'm in PvP and heading somewhere, I can easily push down on the mouse's scroll wheel to see behind me instantly without having to move my camera view around manually. This is also great during close-quartered instances where trash mobs or patrols may be behind you. I can continue to DPS or heal in front of me, click the mouse wheel to see who might be getting close by, then click it again to be right back into view of the fight.

In the add-on department, I offer MobMap. I know everyone isn't fond of QuestHelper or feel it is cheating so I suggest you try MobMap. It is an external addon that allows players to collect information about EVERYTHING in game including where nodes have been found, where NPC's are, where to farm mats and from whom. In this way, if you're having a hard time finding something or someone, you can look it up in-game without being led by an arrow like QuestHelper. It can be found at mobmap.de - this is a German website but the program is offered in both German and English. I have been using it for about 2 years so I know it's not going to steal your password or account information. It is completely safe and an addon that I feel I couldn't live without!

Lastly, I hear people on many podcasts write in time to time wondering how to get involved with Blizzard or work in the industry. If you're a business professional looking to get involved with them and wondering how to at least make the first step, I came across Blizzard's profile on LinkedIn. LinkedIn (linked in) is a networking site similar to Facebook but without the social aspect. This site allows you to advertise yourself as a professional. You may have to actually create a profile to search - I'm not sure on that point, but you can search for Blizzard as a company and you may be surprised to see who is listed there. You can find the website at Linkedin.com


Keep up the great work.

For the Alliance.

-Bryan

Email #4 from Keelhaul

Like myself, I'm sure you have all played many different classes in WoW over the years. I have played the following:

Dwarf Hunter 78
Tauren Druid 77
Nelf Hunter 71
Troll Hunter 63
Gnome Mage 70
Human Pally 71
Nelf Rogue 60
Human Priest 55

It should be fairly obvious which class I enjoy the most ;) I really enjoy the hunter class as I solo quest mostly. They seem to hold their own in the battlegrounds, I really havent messed around in the arena though I hear they could use some love there. I really enjoy getting to choose my own pets unlike warlocks who are stuck with the various demons they can summon. How about you all? Sorry if this has been asked before.
-Keelhaul

Email #5 from Eranth

Aprillian, Ashayo, & Glanthur!

I keep forgetting to send you guys email over and over and over, and then Monday comes, and there's a new podcast out and I think as we're about halfway through, "Well, drat! I forgot to send them an email this week!"

Part of that, I suppose, is I should have something worthwhile to say, rather than just drop you a line to get in your contest. ;-) My trouble is, finding time to do something useful to send. I want to send an audio section, but I haven't had time to lay it down to send! Oh, the slings and arrows of being a busy Tauren in this day and age! (Well, mostly finding quiet time to be able to do it without interruption.)

And for those listening, don't forget to pop over to iTunes and leave a review for our fine hosts! (How's that for a shameless, un-prompted plug, guys?) :-) It's easy, it's quick, it's free, it helps our hosts out and makes them giddy to boot!

Alright, that's about enough blathering for me. This was a good week for me, got to do my first Heroic runs for UK and UP, but after two wipes in Heroic VH, we broken up to do other things. Now, I just have to sort out what to do with the currency I'm starting collect. (Which, I suspect isn't much with only a handful, right?)

Keep up the good work, gang!

--Eranth

Beastmaster Hunter of AIE

Email #6 From Josh

Hey guys,

I have some bad news. Beastcaller is missing and therefor unavailable for comment. I am sure he and fluffy are out on some adventure. I did want to answer your question about Beastcaller's audio clip. Yes he did actually capture that from Northrend, and yes it was the Lich King. Sorry that I cannot say that no gnomes were harmed in the recording of that clip. The encounter with the Lich King was not part of the quest, but one cannot interact with him without the incense burner that Beastcaller mentioned in the last message. In the normal world you cannot see him, but in the phased world you can walk right up to the Lich King, with deadly consequences. Glanther is the only one of you who could have witnessed it, do to the fact that I think it is an alliance only quest.

Thanks - Josh

'Till next week, when hopefully Beastcaller will have been found.
For the Alliance

P.S.

The actually name of the quest from which you receive the incense burner is "The Echo of Ymiron".

Thanks Josh

Email #

Thank yous

From Ginsue
Hi guys,

Nice roll Ashayo!!!!!

I looked on the cntrlatlwow.pobean.com site and I don's see the mini's. Am I looking in the wrong place?

Anyway an authenticator would be great and I don't mind waiting.

When they become available please send one to...
---

Thanks guys and keep up the good work!!!

/bow

Aprillian's Response:
It's on our official site which is http://ctrlaltwow.com

Here's the direct link

http://ctrlaltwow.blogspot.com/2008/12/ctrl-alt-wow-is-giving-away-wow-minis.html

I'm checking the Blizzard site every day, so as soon as they are available it will be on its way to you.

Thank you,
Aprillian

From Steve

Thank you very much! (for the Tabard he won for submitting to the Collector's Edition Contest)

~Steve

Latest iTunes Review, thanks Xandarr