Melted Faces has moved!

We've set up shop over at http://meltedfaces.wordpress.com.

Please fix your feeds, and re-subscribe!

Tharon'ja is a Turtle... THARON'JA IS A TURTLE!!

You heard it here first, and right from the turtle - I mean, the Prophet's - lips. Tharon'ja is, in fact, a turtle. Perhaps related to Speedy, or maybe even Mr. Turtle. We may never be certain.

So, as you've probably guessed by now, we ran Drak'Tharon Keep a couple of times over the weekend. We also took a trip through Gun'drak, Halls of Lightning, and Halls of Stone, all on normal difficulty, in hopes of scoring some gear upgrades for D's friend. While we did get a piece or two of rogue-ish loot, most of what dropped was some type of spellpower gear.

Meanwhile, I've managed to get Mal her Dragonhawk flyer, and WOW is it gorgeous. It'll definitely do until I drop all the necessary cash to boost her number of mounts over 100 for the Red Dragonhawk.

Or should I say, IF I drop the cash. There's so much else I need worse. Hawli never even got epic flying, for god's sake. And Tehrawr's gear is pretty much atrocious. I could definitely spend some time in the AH helping her out.

In other, and completely unrelated news, I've officially abandoned Affliction. Yeah, I know, who saw that coming? Not I. But truth be told, the playstyle is ever so much more fun with Destruction, and my damage is considerably higher as well. Not even just during questing and trash-pulls, either, I mean it's better ALWAYS. And yeah, that was a total surprise to me.

I rather miss Bheelum, my felhound. But I've a had a good time re-connecting with Gaknam the imp, so I guess that's a wash. My only confusion at this point stems from whether to replace those haste gems and chants with crit. I probably should, but I haven't seen a definitive answer yet, so I guess I'll hold off. Anyone have a good flow chart, Nibuca-style, on the amount of haste vs. crit to stack as Destruction?

Warlock in Arathi Basin: A love story

While on the mission for my Red Dragonhawk, I noticed someone else's Black War Raptor. Hawt, no? Yeah, I'm rather in love with it. So I checked it out and realized that I'm already on the way to having that bad boy, since I have a few Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, and Warsong Gulch Marks of Honor.

So, off I go to Arathi Basin. Long-term readers of this blog will already know that I don't PvP often, and when I do, I don't do it well. It's just not a good fit for me, not the least because I'm a horrible sport. When I do manage to vanquish my foe, I'm often dead myself shortly thereafter. This is because I was jumping up and down, pointing at my screen and yelling, "Eat that, bitch!" at the top of my lungs, and someone else came along and just destroyed me. I judge the skill of others by how long it takes them to kill me, and actually the pity the poor souls who simply cannot.

What does a 'lock like me do while in the battlegrounds, you might ask. Well, I'll tell you.

• Run into a group fighting on the road and use my instant Howl.
• Sneak up behind an Alli healer and Deathcoil, then chain-Fear until someone notices me.
• Find a Priest, and wait for him to wind up a heal. Then I Spell Lock him.
• After Spell Locking, I start eating buffs off of him.
• Sneak up behind another group and start tossing Seeds into the crowd. The resultant explosions make me cry purply tears of evil joy.
• Talk D into being my own pocket healer, and then make his job as hard as possible by insisting on behavior as per the above.
• Make D homemade waffles to make up for all the stress I've caused him. As a life-long healer, he really takes it personally when he loses any group member and that's especially difficult for him when the lost member is his dear wife. It's a very special kind of love, y'all.

Aion's Priest is not WoW's Priest...

http://www.brighthub.com/video-games/mmo/articles/52264.aspx

There are lots of differences between the two classes, and in fact, I'd be tempted to say that the only things they really have in common are the name and the ability to heal. Starting out in leather, and graduating to chain armor, the Aion Priest is a much sturdier class than WoW's Priest which never gets out of her cloth gear. Additionally, Aion's Priest is encouraged to melee. In WoW, we like to call that 'stick-whacking,' and it's largely frowned upon by the better class of players.

Even though Aion's atmosphere is much less cartoon-y and fun that that of WoW, there is nothing there to compete with the outright evil-gasm a Shadow Priest gets from phasing into her purple form and stacking Shadow Word: Pain on everyone in sight, then Screaming them all to the four corners where they die slowly, in agony. And that, my friends, is the way Priesting was meant to be.

I'm filling up the barn

Patch 3.3 has revived a great deal of the love I had for WoW, and the biggest part of that has probably been the Dungeon Finder utility. I've been having such a fantastic time working my way toward the Patient title, the Perky Pug, gathering badges, new loot, and Heroic mode achievements, and gaining considerably on some other achievements, as well. I've managed to become exalted with all but the Hodir faction, I'm well on my way to championing a fourth faction in the Tournament, and I've satisfied my burning desire for the Albino Drake.

Just this weekend I've managed to score a new Robe, Sword, Hat, set of Shoulders, and the Bronze Drake. That's something for someone who hadn't logged in for months, and had even let her account lapse.

Meanwhile, D has been working his 70-ish Druid through the Netherwing dailies, on his way to a pretty drake to ride. He's found over a dozen eggs in the last 24 hours or so, so it's going relatively quickly.

Since I was working on dungeons, and achievements, I discovered that I only had two more Azeroth and two Outland dungeons to do in order to get the Dungeon Master achievements. Gnomereggan and BRD fell quickly, leaving only Arcatraz and Shattered Halls to be dominated. I was really surprised at the dungeons that didn't get done, but considering I have 2 80's and 4 70's, I suppose that I must have taken other classes in on runs those expeditions.

So, if you, too, are interested in stockpiling a bunch of ground and flying mounts and then using a random macro to cycle between them as a source of amusement, by all means, check out my article on Bright Hub. It'll be worth it.