WoW Journal - 11-April-2005

A very strange weekend, full of ups and downs, and sometimes I had problems telling the ups from the downs. So maybe it is just me being a bit confused for the moment. But the main series of events went like this:

On guild chat some people are looking for help to do the Scarlet Monastery. I'm *still* looking for that Aegis of the Scarlet Commander shield, and so I join that group. To get all the quests for the others done, we do all three parts of SM. And in the end I come up empty again, the stupid shield just doesn't want to drop.

Instead I group with two other guild members to finish my quests in Dustwallow Marsh. I only need to get stuff from the fireman elite dragonkin cave, but the other two also need to kill the much easier dragon whelps. No problem, I can always use the small flame sacs, and I'm happy to help. We kill, and kill, and kill dragon whelps, because the quest needs quite a lot of hearts and tongues, and a full supply for two people takes a lot of time. And then suddenly *bling* one of the dragon whelps drops the Blackskull Shield, and I win the roll for it.

Wow, the first purple drop I see, and I win it. Allakhazam says that this shield can drop from many different level 40+ mobs, but with something like a 0.01% chance, one drop every 10,000 kills. Allakhazam also reports an average price of this shield on the auction house of 70 gold. Not that I plan to sell it, I'm using it. In fact it is doubtful I will find a better shield before I reach the mid-50 levels. This is like winning the lottery.

And I hate lotteries.

I mean, I go *four* times through the Scarlet Monastery and fail to get a decent shield, and then a much better shield just drops on my feet from a random mob, which isn't even elite? My whole concept of a MMORPG being a series of goals and accomplishments is being overturned here. Dumb luck rewards me richer than any intelligent planning. So I don't really know if I'm happy or sad about this purple drop. I feel more comfortable when the rewards come from me actually having done something dangerous, fought elite mobs, or entered a dungeon.

Besides this, I don't do very much this weekend. I finish the Morrowgrain quest and ding 48. I make a guided tour with my wife's level 24 druid through the Wailing Caverns, which means that I practically solo the place. Things like that make one realize how much more powerful one's character has become. Our only problem there is not having enough inventory space for all the loot. :)

I also do some grey and green quests in Desolace, killing demons there. Mainly because that is the only place I know which grows Gromsblood, which is used for the Mighty Rage potion. I'm still not a big fan of rage potions for warriors, because they are on the same timer as the healing potions. That makes them hard to use in solo combat, if the rage boost doesn't win you the combat, you die because you can't heal yourself.

Another event where potions failed to save me happens while I am standing on top of the zeppelin tower in front of Ogrimmar, waiting for a ride. A level 53 shaman wants to duel me, and I accept. It turns out that shamans have a spells named Frostshock, which both damages and stuns me, and is on a very short cooldown timer. So I never get out of the stunned state, the shaman just runs around the outer ring of the landing platform, and I can never hit him, because I'm running at half speed. I drink a free action potion, but it doesn't seem to help, and then I can't drink a frost protection potion, because of the 2-minutes cooldown. I might be able to win a duel against a shaman who is not 5 levels higher than me, if I drink the frost protection potion well in advance, and we fight on flat ground instead of a circle with a hole in the middle. Or if the rumors come true that frostshock will be nerfed. But as it is, that PvP combat was utterly pointless, because I never had a chance. PvP in WoW is not well balanced, if you can permanently stun, root, slow, fear, kite your opponent, so he can never hit you. Where is the fun in a combat which is totally one-sided?

I do some quests on the coast of the Swamp of Sorrows, killing crawlers and murloc. But somehow I have problems finding more than 2 or 3 quests in the same zone that are for my level and soloable. There are over 4,000 quests in the game, but I have the impression that the supply is getting thinner in the higher levels. Lots of quests for dungeons or elite, but finding a good quest for solo play needs more running around than before.

The last quest of the weekend starts with me finding a quest item on a vendor in Undercity, a field testing kit. After buying that kit, I can accept a quest from some alchemist in the apothecarium, to collect samples in Tanaris. I first need to kill some bandits in the desert to persuade a goblin in Gadgetzan to make the field testing kit work. Then I have 2 hours to collect 8 good samples each of hyena, scorpions, and basiliks. Of course less than half of the samples I find are good, and so I need over 1 hour of the 2 hours given to me to finish the quest, although the monsters I need to kill are green to me.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:34 AM Permanent Link