Monkey Shines

Ahh good ol fishing in STV... I believe we got attacked as we were fishing here too.

PS. Click [Original] to view the full-size picture.

If you've ever wanted an easier way to track down quest objectives, this post is for you.  I'll be discussing a great mapping addon that Penutty introduced me to, called Cartographer.

First, allow me to apologize for the extra button bars floating around in the UI.  I took this screenshot on Tueur, my level 37 warrior.  I don't play him very often, and am still working on getting the addon to work properly on Doodiehead.  Once I get the waypoint working on Doodie, I'll replace this image.

One of Cartographer's features is that it displays coordinates on the map.  If you search thottbot.com for the quest name you need help with, there's always a comment that lists the coordinates where your objective is located.  For reference, the top left of the map is the 0,0, and the bottom right is 100,100.

With Cartographer and it's Waypoint module installed, you can control-right-click on the map and click the "Set as waypoint" option.  I'll expand this post later to detail the work needed to get waypoint working properly.  With a waypoint set, you'll get a handy arrow marker over your character when you close the map window!

Blizzard has decided to update Professions! This is a list of changes that will be upcoming in the future, with more revisions to come. It's good to see Fishing being retooled to be easier/quicker to do. :D

Alchemy
Elixirs now stack in two categories, Battle (Offensive) and Guardian (Defensive) Elixirs. You can only have one of each type of Elixir up at a time. As a result Elixirs now stack with class abilities such as "Arcane Intellect."

Four new defensive elixirs have been added. Two are on trainers, one is in Halaa and one is in Cenarion Expedition.

"Flask of Petrification" can no longer be turned off during its duration, but it now will clear all threat from all monsters for the duration of the effect. Though monsters may reaquire you after the effect ends.

The cost to purchase Imbued Vials has been reduced.

Enchanting
Enchant Bracer-Spellpower had its primal costs reduced slightly.

Enchanting recipes that increase spell damage now also increase healing as well.

The "Major Defense Bracer" enchantment has been moved from Ethereum Researchers to Ethereum Nullifiers.

Engineering
A recipe for "Frost Grenades" and the "Icy Blasting Primers" needed to make them are now on engineering trainers.

Engineering recipes can now be placed in engineering bags, as can engineer made fireworks.

Many engineering recipes will now give skillups for longer than the previously did.

"Seaforium" now opens locked chests as well as locked doors

The Poultryizer and Nigh Invulnerability Belt now cause mishaps less often.

The Goblin Rocket Launcher cooldown has been reduced significantly.

11 new epic goggles have been introduced at 350 engineering skill and are available from the trainer. They range from cloth to plate, and have a variety of stats to appeal to most talent specs.

Fishing

Tfarcraw & I did some hunting in Nagrand yesterday and accomplished two missions:

1. We tamed several different animals (ravagers and spiders) in order to get the best possible mix of Bite & Gore for my new pvp pet (I settled on this rather handsome, purple, yet-unamed ravager seen in this picture), and
2. Finished leveling me to 66.

I've included a full-screen shot here so I could highlight a few things -- my attack power's getting higher & higher (nearly 1200 in this shot, even w/ shoulders that I've been wearing for 14 levels, now), and a new skill I got at 66 in the "0" button on my menu bars, "Kill Command". Since I also just got Guitar Hero II and Super Paper Mario, however, I logged off a little early last night in favor of getting some console time in. :)

Unfortunately for me, my 360's actually on the passenger seat of my car, in a shipping box, scheduled for a UPS drop-off today. It's broken :( I'm sending it off for repair, today.

For those who may be curious, Super Paper Mario for the Wii is pretty fun so far! It presents itself as a 2D platformer, but you have the power to press a button to rotate the world on it's Y axis so that you can see the previously hidden Z element of the world. It's a fascinating mechanic and reminds me a LOT of the old days of Mario games where you'd have to spend HOURS of time uncovering all of the hidden secrets of each Mario level.

Silly me.

I looked in the site's configuration settings and it turns out that time zone support was there already. I simply had to configure how I wanted them handled.

I changed the settings in the following two ways:

1. When you create an event, you can choose the time and zone that the event will occur. In the case of the Sunken Temple run Tony scheduled for this weekend, he's in the Central Time zone (I changed the event to reflect that), so he chose 11:30 as the start time. Now that I've picked Central, the Event reflects it, appropriately.
2. When the site displays an event, it will automatically adjust the displayed time based on the zone you choose in your profile (under the My Account link).

Problem solved! \o/

Wow. I think this is the best looking hunter set of them all. It's gonna be really difficult to get (of course), but it looks so amazing!

Join the attack on the sunken temple Saturday at 11:30 CDT.

HamSandwich & I have been wreckin' fools for over 40 levels now.  He's been an incredible asset, and a GREAT PVE hunting partner.  As I close in on 66, however, my interest is starting to turn towards the PVP arenas.

Hammy's a boar, which is classified as a defensive pet.  He has high HP, medium AC and low DPS.

For reference, here's a quick table demonstrating the difference in stats for each class of pet:

To further detail Hammy's PVE build stats, I'll talk a little bit about his talents skills. When I first tamed him, HamSandwich started life as Bellygrub, the level 24 quest pig that was terrorizing the locals of Lakeshire.