I am back - stronger, faster, metal-ier...

I am recuperating from surgery on my arm. One plate and seven pins/screws are in me holding my repaired arm together as it heals. The worst of the pain is over, and now I have 3 weeks or so until I regain regular mobility, and then a couple months of physical therapy to follow. My left arm is pretty immobilized for now, but I can change/shower/eat/play WoW with a little effort and care.

I haven't played WoW much recently due to my injury, but I have found a great site to link. The site is Elitist Jerks. Some of you may have heard of it, its where the geekiest players in WoW get together and math out pretty much every aspect of the game, to maximize optimal gear sets, gems, dps rotations, tanking rotations, profession combinations, etc etc. If you like spreadsheets and formulas as much as playing the game, you will love reading EJ.

Personally, I don't like reading EJ. It's a little esoteric for my tastes, I'd rather play and try different things out in-game. But the site has one section I love looking through from time to time. They call it 'The Dungheap'. Here you can see all the posts that violate EJ's strict forum rules, often savagely commented on by moderators. If only the WoW forums and other popular sites had similar enforcement! Dare I dream in-game chat channels get similar oversight! Reading EJ's Dungheap is like forum moderation porn. If you are tired of seeing lines like "LFM Naxx ned dps and helz must no fights." spamming trade channel, reading a page or two of the Dungheap is a cathartic experience. Its a great way to pass the time after you break your arm.

Update and Injury Alert

Short and sweet update:

1. My mage Sterculius got totally pimped out with all kinds of nice gear from Heroic Trial of the Champion, including getting 2-piece T8 thanks to some incredibly lucky Vault runs...on the same day! I really enjoy going into battlegrounds and spamming living bombs on a crowd of folks. Working on getting a PvP set, from scratch for my mage.

2. I got some Emblem of Conquest gear for Msmoo, and fleshed out my cat and bear gear sets. Getting close to 40k health in bear (with buffs, but still!).

3. My alts are coming along nicely, my priest is at level 72, and my rogue is up to level 28. With 20% bonus experience, and rested experience, my rogue is leveling faster than my gathering professions. And flying in Northrend at level 68 makes quests so much easier. You just fly in over everyone, kill the one guy you need, then fly off and boom boom boom, quest after quests completed in no time.

4. This is the big news, and also unfortunate. I broke my arm last week, near where it connects to the shoulder. I can type and do most things, but there is pain and I can't raise my arm at all. I will have an operation on Thursday, and they are putting a metal plate and 10 screws or so into my arm. Its gonna suck,and I will be taking a break from WoW until I get a little better. How's that for "long story short". Catch you all on the other side!

Please, sir, may I joust some more?

A couple posts back I wrote "I actually like dailies for once", as I got involved in the Argent Tournament Grind-o-rama. Well surprise surprise, now they are the bane of my existence. When I started I didn't quite get that you had to repeat 5 days of dailies 5 times, and get exalted repuation with every city faction to 'finish'. That was more than I expected. But it was a nice project to get into while waiting for 3.2 to come along.

I loathe them and am counting down the individual jousting matches I have left before I'm done forever (6 more to go, as well as any citadel jousting). After earning two city titles I was ready to finish, but they got their insidious claws into me and now I may as well go all the way. Funny, apart from the title itself, the reward for getting Crusader is...access to more dailies! It's like spending your years shoveling manure, and your retirement present at the end of your career is a bucket of the same crap. I will enjoy being able to buy the heirloom chestpiece for champions seals, but that's about it. 2 more days and I am done with the Argent Tournament. Luckily I finished most of it before patch 3.2 made some of the dailies a bit harder, so I'm glad I started ahead of time.

Now, for the new 5-man dungeon, both heroic and normal, its...a mixed bag.

The Good:
-Short n' easy
-Nicely itemized loot
-Hogger (If you're lucky)

The Bad:
-Jousting required
-The transition from Jousting to fighting in the first phase is very conducive to a wipe, especially on Heroic. It's also a little buggy still, I've had npc's stay stuck on the ground requiring us to hearth out and come back in.
-Jousting required
-Kinda ho-hum encounters, the best of them is the Paladin/Priest bit.
-JouSTiNG REQUIRED OMFG&#@"#&!"#

I am also rich now, at least by my standards. I ended up hoarding about 1000 titanium ore, buying them up at 5-10g each (getting more expensive as the patch approached). After the patch I was able to sell most of them back for 15-17g apiece. It was an easy investment, spending a couple minutes each day cherry-picking the cheapest ore auctions over two months. So now I have more gold than I have ever had before. This is nice, I can afford mount training, cold weather flying, and dual specs for any of my alts. Not to mention gems and enchants. (And I have to admit, doing 4-8 dailies a day adds up). Now I need to work the magic of the neutral AH and get some money to my alliance alts.

I have tried out the new druid forms, and I have to say I don't like the bear too much - the butt is too big! The body is shaped like a teardrop, it seems a little off. I do like the assymetric bangles and markings, and the cat form is nice, too.

We tried the new 10-man dungeon, but the first boss pwned one of our tanks, who doesn't have any ulduar level gear yet. I am looking forward to tackling it again soon with a properly geared raid.