My WoW server, did not apparently.

I’m a jewelcrafter. I’m a casual player. If I don’t get to play a lot (more than 30m) on a given day, I do like to do one thing at least and that is my JC daily.

I’m normally able to wake up, get showered, shaved, dressed and eat some breakfast and then I’m able to squeeze in my JC daily, all before I have to leave for work. I wake up around 5:30 or 6am EST. The JC daily usually takes less than 5 minutes to complete.

I woke up this morning, logged in to WoW and went directly to Timothy Jones (the JC daily quest giver) and … nothing. There was no blue exclamation point proclaiming “Hey! I have a quest for you to do today!”.

The dailys reset at 6am EST on the server that I play on. It was 6:42 am when I strolled up to him to accept my quest. My guess is that at 7am, he will offer me a quest that I won’t be able to accept unless I log in tonight.

QQ

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: daily, daylight savings time, jewelcrafting, quest

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, boe, drop, jewelcrafting, professions, world

The 25-man Naxx/OS runs were very fun. I was the 3rd tank or the off-tank to the off-tank. Effectively, that means that I got to main tank Patchwerk (in Naxx) and pick up random adds in Naxx and OS! MTing Patchwerk was intense and full of awesome. Initially, a hunter misdirected him onto me and Patchwerk came running towards me. Something weird happened and he changed directions and began running to the dps and healer group. No worries, I just tossed an Avengers Shield and he was back onto me and the other two tanks. I blew every cooldown I have. Offensively, I used Avenging Wrath and Lavanthor’s Talisman on every CD. Defensively, Divine Shield and my Monarch Crab were my friends. I did die just as Patchwerk went down but other than that, it was a great fight.

My many hours in Heroic Naxx paid off as I ended up walking out of there with 3 drops! Some new hands, Gauntlets of the Disobedient, new belt (to replace the Emblem of Heroism belt that I’d only been using for a few days), the Ablative Chitin Girdle, and some new boots, the Inexorable Sabatons. I also walked away with 14 more Emblems of Valor. I tossed a few gems in there and I was good to go. I haven’t had a chance to re-enchant the gear however. For the gloves, I’m going back to Armsman and for the boots, Tuskarr’s Vitality (over Greater Fortitude).

Earlier in the day, I tanked Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle with my guild. The run was smooth until the last boss. I pulled the two mobs in the room and over vent, someone said “pull them back, they fear” and just as my finger touched the ‘S’ key to walk backwards, we get feared. The warlock’s felguard aggro’d the boss, who I taunted and picked up. The healer called for a wipe but I said “we can do it!” and we did! King Ymiron didn’t cast Bane once and I didn’t even have to kite him around the room like my first and only ever H UP run did. Best of all, I got my heavily coveted new JC meta-gem pattern, the Austere Earthsiege Diamond, and my Red Sword of Courage! I couldn’t believe the sword dropped on my first successful run through there.

Just yesterday, I MT’d 10-man Vault of Archavon. I was having issues knowing when to move him out of his fart cloud and also when I needed to taunt him off of the off-tank. As a reward for my role, I got my first tier 7 gear…the Heroes’ Redemption Greaves for my awesome holy set that I may or may not ever use.

I was also the lucky recipient of the Essence of Gossamer trinket from Heroic Azjol-Nerub. With the essence, my monarch crab and self-buffed with kings, I have just under 31,000 health!

After tanking so much lately, I have grown to really love it! I have noticed that I tend to watch my ability cooldown timers too much instead of focusing on the boss or trash. I need to change that. I have also gotten much, much better at keeping Holy Shield up 100% of the time (unless the charges run out before the CD is up).

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: defense, heroic, jewelcrafting, naxx, obsidian sanctum, prot, Tanking, trinket

I added a Solid Sky Sapphire gem and a Solid Dragon’s Eye gem to it and with the stam bonus, received an extra 137 stam from that trinket alone! Right now, I have 24,544 health. These numbers are based on the rules of 3.0.3.

Health Pool

Since 3.0.8 was [finally] released today, I get a few buffs to my gear. For my tanking helm, I currently have the Tempered Titansteel Helm.

3.0.3 helm stats

In this patch, this helm gets a new blue gem slot AND a meta gem slot. The blue gem will be filled with a Solid Sky Sapphire gem and the meta gem will be filled with a Austere Earthsiege Diamond. These two gems will give me 56 more stamina, for an additional 560 health.

3.0.8 helm stats

Also in 3.0.8 is a new bracer enchant that gives 40 stamina. So now I’m up to 96 more stamina or 960 health.

3.0.8 bracer stam enchant

Yet another change for prot pally tanks is that the prot talent Sacred Duty now gives 8% stamina (up from 6%). I don’t know the exact number that works out to in my current gear but I’m sure it will be enough to give me over 100 extra stamina (or 1,000 extra health).

All of these stamina increases will put me over 25.5k health, unbuffed! Whatever problems I had with my health pool are now over. I feel very good with the amount of health I have for tanking heroics.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, enchants, gear, gems, heroics, jewelcrafting, pally, prot, stamina, Tanking, tempered titansteel helm

I want my health to be 24,000 unbuffed.  I’ve been looking over the spreadsheet I made yesterday, trying to determine what I can get that will bump my health to at least 22k but much closer to the 24k mark.

After about an hour, I have created yet another spreadsheet that notes how I can almost reach my goal. I’ve found 197 extra stam, 41 extra defense and some other stats as well. I have a net increase of every stat across the board (I believe). The mats for these upgrades are very cheap in my opinion, especially for what I’m getting in return.

Notice that none of the gear I’ve listed includes either of the major stamina trinkets that jewelcrafters can create! Once I get that, I should be over 25k health!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 20000, 20k, gear, health, heroics, jewelcrafting, prot, stamina, tank, trinket, upgrades

I have a very decent set of tanking gear (including the Bolstered Legplates from Heroic Violet Hold). I just got the 16 expertise JC pattern,  the Precise Scarlet Ruby and I have enough JC buy the 41stam Dragon’s Eye pattern, the Solid Dragon’s Eye. I can make the stamina oriented trinkets as well.

Right now, my biggest problem with my tanking gear is that I was still under 20k health! Now that I have my JC up and can make all those wonderful things, my health should be fine.

My defense might suffer a bit since I’ll have to drop my two BC defense trinkets (Dabiri’s Enigma and  Adamantine Figurine) but I have the Argent Dawn head enchant (Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector) and the Son’s of Hodir shoulder enchant (Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle) to help make up for it. I can also put on some defense enchants/gems if I fall below the 535 defense rating required for being uncrittable by Heroic bosses – level 82. You need a 540 defense rating is required to be uncritabble by raid bosses – level 83.

My most immediate gear goal will be a tanking weapon. Right now, I have the Warsong Punisher, which has very little stam (36) and some dodge (and no defense rating). My immediate choices are from running heroic Utgarde Keep (which is ultra easy) or from the last boss of heroic Utgarde Pinnacle (which I’ve run once – as ret, got to the last boss and proceeded to wipe over and over again). From H UK, I can get the Infantry Assault Blade. From H UP, I can get the Red Sword of Courage.

In regards to the focus of this blog, I’ll still be talking/posting about being ret, but will post more and more about being prot specced in the future.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: dual spec, jewelcrafting, pally, prot, ret, staminna, Tanking

A LOT of people told me that I was stupid for doing that. Some pointed out that I should have waited until I accrued enough money to level JC from 1-375 in one day. I can agree with that last statement, I probably should have waited.

But I was excited about jewelcrafting! The exciting part for me is the JC only gems and trinkets. Being a ret pally, I was very excited about equipping the +27 strength gem (Bold Dragon’s Eye). When I go holy, I’ll very excited about the +27 int (Brilliant Dragon’s Eye) and +32 spell power gems (Runed Dragon’s Eye). If I ever go prot again, I’ll be even more ecstatic about the stam bonus from equipping the JC only trinkets and slapping on some +41stam (Solid Dragon’s Eye) and +27 defense (Thick Dragon’s Eye) and +27expertiese (Precise Dragon’s Eye) gems.

The excitement faded though. I spent a lot of gold leveling it from 1-285. I got stuck at 285 for a long time because I was being pig headed about buying the Azerothian Diamonds off of the AH for 25g. I needed a bunch and didn’t have the funds to support it, mostly because of all of the gear upgrades that I was getting from running heroics needed to be gemmed and enchanted. I am unable to complete a bunch of dailys due to having a wife and two kids, both under 5 and one is only 9 months old.

Since I was stuck at 285 for so long, JC became a major drag for me. I took a few days off from running heroics and started questing again. I amassed a small fortune in gold and off to the AH I went, buying the Azerothian Diamonds and the Huge Emeralds that I needed. Now that I was over that hump, I started to get excited again! I had a few green gems saved up from back in BC.

I used those gems to get me to where I am now, happily sitting at 337. The next milestone for my JC is 350. At 350375 (see update below), I can begin doing the JC dailys and start buying the Dragon’s Eye raw gems from the NPC in Dalaran, Tiffany Courtier. As of patch 3.0.3 (current version of the game as of this writing), I have to wait until my JC is at 375 to begin using the Dragon’s Eye gems. When patch 3.0.8 is finally released, I can begin using the Dragon’s Eye gems when I get JC to 350!

3.0.8 is turning out to be a nice patch (read: buff) for my ret pally!

Update: Your JC skill has to be 375 in order to start the JC daily. I learned that the hard/disappointed way this morning. I have my JC up to 350, but now I need 375…unless the patch is released today while I’m at work!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, dailys, dragon's eye, gems, jc, jewelcrafting, pally, patch

In other news, I’m going to transfer back to Ner’zhul (where I first started 2 years ago) to join a guild so that I can start seeing some raid content. I probably won’t be in the guild’s cutting edge raid group, but I’ll be able to see some 10-mans and a LOT of heroics with my pally. I’ll most likely be able to start them as ret and if need be, respec holy for runs.

The guild I’m in now only has 4 other 80s and the rest are only around level 75ish. I’d like to experience more of the heroics and raids than I did in BC.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2008. | Permalink
Post tags: jewelcrafting, transfer