A tip for leather farming

If any of you who read this are skinners, I've got a tip for you that you may or may not know about, depending.

There is a cave at 46,55 in the Storm Peaks, containing both Jormungar and Cavedweller Worgs. The Worgs in particular are on an exceptionally fast respawn timer. You can literally kill and skin without stopping.

These mobs are also sufficiently high level that, unlike many others in the game, they exclusively drop Borean Leather, and not the scraps. I got six stacks in a bit over an hour.

Naxx bores me

The last couple of nights, my guild either hasn't been raiding, or I haven't been able to log in until after the start of it, so I've been focused on levelling my professions and playing the Auction House instead.

As embarassing as it might be to admit, I honestly find that a lot more enjoyable. After the initial, "Wow, I'm in Naxx!" factor wore off, (about the first half hour or so) the instance truthfully became boring.

About the only fight in there that has really stood out as being enjoyable so far, is Noth. Some of the voiceover theatrics with the Four Horsemen was also fun, but the rest of it has been a sleepwalk, pretty much. Some people might also consider Heigan's novelty to be entertaining, but truthfully I just considered him a pain in the neck.

I think one of the main things which has always motivated me where the idea of raiding is concerned, has truthfully been to try and get more credibility with forum trolls, if I'm really honest...and it's not like that is ever going to happen, anywayz.

Getting a nether drake, (yes, I still want one of those rather than the red ones if I can get it) maxing Engineering when I have the money, and maybe eventually buying a mammoth; these are things I can feel motivated about, as well as eventually still getting the Conqueror title.

I want to get a lot of money in this game, eventually; that is something I can really feel excited about.

Raiding on the other hand? It feels way too much like something which other people expect me to do.

Instance farming in WoTLK, Part 1

Although I don't necessarily think that Part 2 is going to immediately follow after this post, I'm calling this Part 1 because I will almost certainly write more about this at a later point.

I am still in the process of assessing which instance is going to be most lucrative for farming. At the moment, I'm leaning towards the Hellfire Ramparts. There are a couple of reasons for this.

• Ramps has more boss fights, and correspondingly a greater number of blue drops, (and thus a higher gold yield) than the Blood Furnace.


• It is a relatively small instance, and can thus be cleared comparitively quickly. With Beast Mastery and Viper up at all times, (even while fighting) I can do a single run in around 30 minutes. I have no idea about other people, but for me, that is extremely fast.


• Given the close proximity of Thrallmar, it is also the closest instance I know of to a mailbox, and repair/resupply facilities. This means that if I do not mind using lower rank ammunition and water, I can do repeated clears without having to hearth back to Dalaran to resupply.


• Although per-run yield is about the same as Scholo, (100g, give or take) there is one very important difference. In the case of Ramparts, that 100g comes entirely from material that can be directly sold to vendors. In the case of the Scholomance, a lot of it was dependent on the Auction House, and whether or not Kali was feeling kind where the RNG was concerned, in terms of Dark Rune drops.

Hence, while 200g/hour may seem exceptionally low, (especially compared to the profit that can be made from skinning/Mining) the upside is that it is 200g immediately in the hand. No fighting people for ore nodes, no time lag waiting for people to buy from the Auction House, and no worry about whether you're pricing AH stuff too high.

I do, however, still need to level Mining, and intend to do so at some point.

Bikutanda added to my blogroll

Just found a link to me on Technorati from "Liming" in WoW, the blog of Bikutanda of Nazgrel, so I thought I'd share the love. ;-)

He seems to have quite a lot of stuff on how to level a Hunter and such; lots of guides. Go look, and give him traffic. ;)

Alterac Volley added to my blogroll

Rilgon's already added Alterac Volley to his blogroll, but considering that I like trying to help new bloggers get some traffic when I can, I thought I'd add it as well.

The site is also interesting; its' author seems fairly thoughtful, and also has spoken about doing some video stuff soon as well, which could be good. Go and have a look. ;)

Addicted to WoW?

I just saw a post in the Customer Service Forum where someone was essentially asking to be banned from the game because he couldn't trust himself to stop playing, and he needed to study for school.

If I'd been able to reply, I would have asked him; what are you really addicted to?

I ended up leaving my Naxx guild last night, because my old GM invited me to his new guild. That guild is just starting up, though; so we may not be doing Naxx for a while, again.

So instead of raiding, I went and ran a level 25 Hunter through Gnomeregan. After that, I went to HFP, and was about to do some instance farming when I was whispered by a level 63 Hunter who wanted to run Ramps for a particular drop. I ended up running both Ramparts and BF with him.

With both of these two individuals, I ended up having two of the most stimulating conversations I've had in this game for a long time. They also expressed a lot of gratitude for the run through, which was nice.

So what am I addicted to, in terms of this game? I'm addicted to experiences like that. I'm addicted to the fact that even though I'm still not really, this game is one of very few things which I've been able to feel as though I have a vague degree of competence with.

I'm addicted to the fact that although a lot of the time I truly am an utter, abrasive jerk, with few friends offline, I can go into the game, get together with one or two other people, and in a no risk scenario, let them see my positive side.

I can be altruistic, I can be empathetic, and I can prove to someone that although maybe 95%+ (notice I didn't say 100%, so do not fear ;)) of the people that I've seen playing this game are sociopathic @#$^&*(s who don't care about anyone, that at times, at least, I'm not like that. That really feels good.

I know I've mentioned this before in Pike's case, and maybe I go on about it too much, but I do really love Pike, Rilgon, Lienna, and Kordwar, as well; the four of you have managed to continue to accept me when a number of other people haven't, and have been alienated by me. I also know that there are a lot of others who are still reading who I haven't (and in some cases, can't, because I don't know names ;)) mentioned; but you know who you are. :)

I hope Mama Druid is still here sometimes, as well. I also really appreciate Santyn having given me a second chance, also. To him, I say that the assessment of whether or not I am genuinely redeemable is something I must leave to others, but it is my hope that, as he apparently has already, he can find something of value here.

It might seem like I go on about that excessively, but there are few people in my life who do exert a genuinely positive influence; so when I come across some who do, I now consider it very important to make sure, that such people know that I appreciate them.

Blood Furnace on LOL mode

The two first HFP instances are almost embarassingly easy for me to solo with Beast Mastery now, although I'm assuming they probably won't be all that much more difficult with Survival, as I managed to get Gargolmar down with Surv almost immediately after 3.0.

So if anyone wants to use either Ramps or BF for farming, take your pick. BF is much simpler, (less bosses, and less complicated trash pulls) but Ramps has a correspondingly larger potential gold yield.

Except for the last few pulls, though, I sleepwalked through with Viper up. The only part of it which comes close to being difficult is the four wave Orc endurance test before Broggok, and as long as you keep Viper up, keep the mobs on your pet, and kite a bit if you pull, you'll be fine. Broggok himself however no longer needs to be kited, either; he's now pure tank and spank.