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Lightning Bolt - Earth Shock - Chain Heal

This is something I got the urge to throw together last night. I decided to make a cool logo for an eventual redesign of this site (yes, another one), but then I started thinking...it would look really cool on a t-shirt.

And to top it off, I decided to do 3 different versions, one for each Shaman talent tree. Of course, you can get whichever one you want to. IF you want to.

Proceeds go to the Feed Baluki Fund. I make a buck on each, and CafePress gets the rest.

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I finally managed to get the Gronn-killing quests done in BEM, which you have to do in order to grind rep for the Ogri'la faction, and more importantly, for more Skyguard rep quests. The bombing runs are awesome; even better than the egg-bombing quests in Skettis.

I was just thinking...in this quest, I was crowned King of the Bloodmaul and Bladespire ogres. I also recall being crowned king of the Gordok ogres in Dire Maul. So...I'm the king of 3 ogre tribes? Why, I could unite them and lead them into a new age of peace. Or, I could use them to destroy my enemies! Such choices...

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Jeez, look how much better this Murloc Suit looks compared to everything else on the screen.

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Ah, it's good to be back. Thanks to my student loans, I can now afford to play the game again!

That's not all. I also have a brand new uber laptop (also paid for with student loans) that lets me run the game with the video settings maxed out. And, of course, in Widescreen.

I haven't actually played Baluki at all so far. I've just been playing my 25 Tankadin and my 25 Shadow Priest. I'm still working on finding a new guild to join (everyone left my previous one) so hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of things soon.

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I've decided to take another break from WoW. Might just be a couple weeks, might be a month or two. I came to the end of another subscription cycle and, besides being broke, I decided that I don't really have any reason to keep on playing right now.

I still have fun levelling my alts, but I don't have any reason to keep working on Baluki. It's hard finding groups (and the time) for dungeons, which is my favorite part of the game. I don't really like to PvP, and to top it all off, my guild is basically defunct and I don't feel like starting with a new one right now. I also don't feel like grinding; this is a game, and I shouldn't have to do tedious, boring stuff.

Maybe in a few months, Blizz will have some improvements in place.

• Shamans (and off-specs in general) still need a lot of work. Blizz really needs to open their eyes and realize that hybrids aren't really hybrids when they've specced 41 points into a tree.
• Jewelcrafting needs improvement. I can only pop out 5g gems for so long, and I don't feel like spending 400g on new designs. And where the hell are more fist weapon designs?
• The end-game needs to be more accessible. They need to make Normal modes for the raid dungeons, because I want to see all the cool stuff end-game has to offer, but I've quit hardcore raiding for good.

My most interesting characters now are my Mage and my Paladin (and maybe my Priest). I just got my Hunter into Outland and realized that I have no interest in continuing with him; every single fight is the same: Hunter Mark -> Pet Attack -> Sting -> Arcane -> Auto-attack. Yawn.

I really hope that Blizz is able to breathe new life into the game sometime soon. I don't want to have to wait for the next expansion.

And is it just me, or does it seem like a whole lot of long-time players are quitting?

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Yes, I'm working on the site again. Bear with me.

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Finally got my Hunter, Inebrius, to 58, and I immediately sent him to Outland. I picked up a couple quests, saw the rewards that would be replacing the junk I've been wearing since 35, and wept openly.

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It's come to this. I'm posting pictures here to win an argument on a message board.

In a discussion on WoW Insider (posted here) I mentioned that it was weird seeing Draenei wearing Ten Storms (and the BC recolored pieces, which are listed in the above post) since TS is covered in Horde logos. Admittedly, I was referring to the Horde logo from Warcraft 3 (seen here) and not the updated one for WoW (seen here), but it's clearly nearly the same logo.

However, the symbol may be a shamanism symbol that the Horde adopted for their use. Note the wolves on the WC3 crest.

Either way, it still says "Horde" to me.

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So, I finally bit the bullet and started a Paladin. Well, that's not strictly accurate; I started her a couple months ago, got her to lvl. 9, got bored, and went back to levelling my other alts. But this week, I decided to dedicate myself to getting her levelled up, because there's a lack of tanks on our server. Yea, I intend to make her Prot eventually, but right now I'm taking some select Retrib talents for levelling.

I don't know what to think so far. I was initially turned off by the fact that their combat system is basically just "hit it with a sword" with a few embellishments, but naturally I keep picking up more spells and talents, and I think I'm getting the hang of it. There's a lot of stuff that they can do that I wasn't aware that they could do. Right now though, my biggest issue is my melee hit rate, so I guess I'll have to craft some JC items on Baluki to help her out until I can get into the Prot tree. (EDIT: I thought for sure there were some low-level +hit items that JCers could make, but I was wrong. The first one I could possibly get drops in Maraudon.)

How are my other alts? Let's see...

My mage is up to about lvl. 26 I think. I like being a caster (which is why Baluki is Elemental) but actually having crowd control options up the ass is a new thing for me. I can keep something sheeped forever, I can freeze everything around me, I can slow them to a crawl...it's almost unfair. Levelling is a much more active affair than it ever was on Baluki; I just cast Lightning Bolt until my target dies, and if they close to melee range, I just have to deal with the spell pushback. But on my mage, I can sheep to avoid pulling too many things at once, I slow my target WITH my primary nuke, and as soon as they get in melee range, I freeze them in place, blink away, and do it all again.

I've actually been having a lot of fun with my priest too. She's shadow (though she's only lvl. 22 or so) and I just grabbed Mind Flay, which is an unusual spell. I haven't quite figured out the best way to use it yet, but it's probably much more useful once I've got a couple other shadow spells.

I respecced my 44 warlock to full Affliction after being full Demonology since I started her. Man, what a trip. I've gotten pretty good at fear juggling, and with the increased range of my DoTs, I can just sit back and watch stuff fall over dead. Having my pet out is kinda a liability, actually.

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