Busy weekend!

So, after finishing off what I could of the DK's cooking and inscription, as well as what I had mats to do with my rogue's alchemy and the priest's tailoring and enchanting, I spent pretty much the entire weekend focused on Dusk.

Saturday I spent almost entirely in the Howling Fjord, with a couple side trips to Dragonblight for 'go talk to that person' quests. I did run Utgarde keep with guildies at one point; it looks amazing on the outside, but the inside? About as interesting as Blackrock Depths, without the benefit of the bar. Oh, and there was the incident with Frostblade Peak... I equipped my parachute cloak (I have +12 agi on my current cloak, and I don't want to lose that), but hit it too soon, and landed somewhere I couldn't reach to rez. It had popped me into the Grizzly Hills graveyard, so after spirit rezzing, I ran over the entirety of the Grizzly Hills for the exploration achievement. I got into a couple random groups for things like March of the Giants and Megalith, but mostly ran around solo. Whisper Gorge is also visually amazing.

Sunday I finished off the last 4 quests I needed for the Howling Fjord quest achievement, plus one extra that pushed me to 72. I then transported to Everlook and flew down to Orgrimmar for training. This was strategically planned so I could take the zeppelin up to Borean Tundra. I don't really like Warsong Hold - it's confusing to get around in, and the quarry made finding my way back inside confusing. The seige tank quests are fantastic, though - I was cackling. And Saurfang's rescue was awesome. The mist I initially didn't like, partly because I ran into it by accident, and got sidetracked into a different chain of quests, but it is, overall, pretty neat.

By and large, running around in the gear she is, things feel easy. I haven't upgraded anything yet - I probably could have swapped out the ring and necklace from the Utgarde quests, but ultimately decided not to. The ranged rewards are all still 20 points below the badge crossbow; but I haven't gotten out of the two starting zones yet, except for...

My trip to Sholazar Basin! It was getting late, and I decided to run around the rest of the Borean Tundra for the exploration achievement and the flight paths, and when I got done, I was right by the entrance to Sholazar. And I thought, hey, maybe I'll get the flight path there while I'm so close. I never found a flight path, but... the place was practically deserted. It was just me, my hammer-pick, and enough nodes of saronite to net me 44 ore. I can smelt it, but my engineering isn't to where I can use it yet. I did hit 73 off the quests in Coldarra, though, and I think when I get there, I can use the saronite arrows. It'll be nice, since I'm out of fel iron bolts, and I'd rather not have to buy more.

The only new skill I've picked up is Kill Shot, which has not impressed me. Yeah, it hits hard, but I tend to have to finish off stuff in melee range, and the old-style execute (requiring health below a certain %) means that I've actually managed to use it... twice. Most of the time it lights up as available right about when I've pulled aggro off my pet and the mob has hit melee range. For grinding, I'm not going to hit Disengage just to pop a Kill Shot. Arenas are another matter - that might be a good macro, actually...

Current Wrath to-do list

Right, so after having my DVD-RW drive crashing my system twice, the old DVD-R drive that hadn't worked for... two years? let me install from it, and I finally got into Wrath at about 6:30. A disconnection bug or so later, and I took Duskhawk up to the Howling Fjord to see the engineering, cooking, fishing, mining, and first aid trainers. Once she was all trained up, I parked her in an inn, and rolled my death knight.

Yeah, yeah... this blog is about my hunters. And the death knight by far isn't going to take their place. The mechanics are very different from what I'm used to (I'm still figuring out what of what I can do applies my diseases, and I kept forgetting to spend the talent points as I got them), but my DK is my scribe, and I wanted to get that out of the way. I did, after all, spend a lot of time farming herbs for her to go straight to 300. And, um, probably 300 cooking. After 3 hours, though, the DK was 58 and sitting in Orgrimmar with her cooking at 225 and her scribing at 120, and I wanted to play Dusk some before I had to go to bed.

So I logged back over to Dusk, got a couple of the initial Vengeance Landing quests, did the plague cannister collection, and then went up the elevator. I wandered along the road a while, marveled at the shoveltusks, went down another elevator, wandered up the coast, found myself in an excavation. Going up that elevator took some doing, and I found an Explorers' League camp. Alas, I'm a cow, and they weren't friendly.

But! There was a flock of turkeys by the road there, and remembering the General Achievement list, I quickly got 15 of them in the bag. Their corpses look like roasted turkeys, but alas, you cannot loot or eat them. (I was subsequently swarmed by a flock of angry turkeys. Go-Go Gadget Volley!)

By this time, I had decided to do the exploration achievement for the Howling Fjord and pick up all the flight paths there. So I spent the next forty-five minutes or so picking up every quest and flight path I could find, drooling over the Underwater Breathing on the Tuskars' (sp?) reputation fishing pole, and accidentally getting too close to another Alliance settlement (and getting flagged while mounted... yet again >.<). I found Arctic Clouds from which to extract air and water crystal thingies, as well, and they came in swarms! Well, like, six of them. And then subsequently got ganked by an Alliance mage riding past while I was blissfully extracting motes. (I thought I had aggroed an elemental, maybe, and kept extracting, figuring puppy would pick it up, and then I realized, wait, those are pink-purple arcane bolts... and then I was dead.) Wandering through the wolverine-men like village, I got swarmed by about 8, and took down 5 with Volley and puppy before getting killed. They have nets. >.<

And! I saw a Storm Giant - they're huge.

After I finished off the map, I hearthed back to Vengeance Landing, and I swapped out puppy for Hadrian, since I figure I'm going to want the bear for leveling. I had acquired 10 cobalt ore in my trip, which is a vast improvement from the nothing I managed to mine for the first few days of the Burning Crusade. I even have a whole water eternal, and over half an air one.

That was nothing about my to-do list, though. My to-do list for Duskhawk is entirely: Howling Fjord quests + mining right now. But what I need to squeeze in so I can do that without it nagging me:

• Take the rogue & the priest to Northrend & train professions (probably as soon as I get home)
  
• Finish grinding inscription on the death knight (tonight or tomorrow)
  
• Send leftover herbs to the rogue (right after the previous)
  
• Get old world flight paths for the death knight (maybe Sunday)
  
• Do the 225 Cooking quest on the death knight - Giant Egg (12), Zesty Clam Meat (10), Alterac Swiss (20) (whenever I do the previous)
  
• Auction leftover cooking mats (after cooking is at 300)
  
• Level death knight's Herbalism to 300 (while getting flight paths)
  
• Take death knight to Thrallmar (after finishing Herbalism)
  
• Buy first aid books for death knight (probably before I take the rogue to Northrend)
  
• Send leftover cloth to the priest (after previous)
  

I'll see what points of tailoring, enchanting, and alchemy I can grind with the materials I have on hand. I have a stack and a half of void crystals for ring enchanting, as long as that lasts me, and I'll see what I can do with the Arcanoweave Robes. Alchemy I may need to invest in some Nightmare vine, since I have enough Mana Thistle to do quite a bit of Fel Mana potion crafting. I also have a crapload of Felweed right now. But I really want to spend time on Dusk and her engineering. And... reputation for the mechano-hog. Mmm, hog.