Reservation Please...

Operator: "Icecrown Citadel, how may I direct your call."

Me: "Reservations please."

Operator: "One moment while I connect you."

*muzak version of Lament of the Highborn plays*

Operator: "Reservations, how may I help you?"

Me: "I'd like to make a reservation to see the Lich King this Thursday at 8pm."

Operator: "Let me see if he's available."

*keyboard and mouse clicks in the background*

Operator: "Yes he's available at that time. Your name please?"

Me: "Darkbrew."

Operator: "Okay Mr. Darkbrew, how many in your party?"

Me: "Mr. Darkbrew!? I feel like my father. Um, there will be eleven of us."

Operator: "I'm sorry we only accept reservations for parties of ten or 25."

Me: "Oh, but I was told that Highlord Tirion Fordring could join us."

Operator: "Ah, the Highlord has as standing reservation with us. He will be there."

Me: "Will he have the Ashbringer?"

Operator: "Yes, and he'll be wearing thermal underwear too."

Operator: "Okay you're all set. I have you down for Thursday, 8pm, party of ten. Will you have a Discipline Priest in your party?"

Me: "No, but we will have Wild Growth."

Operator: "Wild Growth?"

Me: "It's an inside joke."

Operator: "When you enter the Citadel proceed to the Upper Spire and head straight across the bridge to the center. You will access the Frozen Throne from there. Just be mindful of any Valkyries that might be flying around the bridge. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

Me: "Nope, I think I'm good to go."

Operator: "Very well then. Have fun storming the castle!"

And with that, it looks like our ten-man team will finally get to see the Lich King. Twenty-five is the real prize for me, but I am so looking forward to this.

MMQB: Vacation All I Never Wanted

Happy Monday folks! This was a busy and interesting week for me. My quest for the Violet Protodrake lives on, I'm now a Blacksmith, and I wtb ten people to take on Lich King. Here we go.

Noble Garden

I don't know how it is for the Horde, but Azure Watch turned out to be a great place to collect eggs this year. I tried all the locations, but this one was the best. Not much to say here. This is a relatively easy achievement and I had no problem completing it on day one.

All that remain are Midsummer and Children's Week. Midsummer looks to be a tedious grind, but nothing too challenging. No, the real hurdle for me is Children's Week. The good news is that I only have on achievement left to complete. That bad news is it's School of Hard Knocks. You know, the one where I enter several battlegrounds in my finest PvE gear and teach my orphan to place selfishness over teamwork and winning.

The really bad news is that this holiday overlaps with an upcoming vacation, and according to the "spreadsheet" sun, beach and Margaritas are all upgrades over WoW. Instead of having a full week to complete it, I'll have just one day. Any tips or suggestions for completing this achievement are welcome.

Blacksmithing

Last week I hinted at possibly dropping Engineering and picking up Blacksmithing. Last night I grinded from 1 to 400 and can now add an extra gem socket to my gloves of bracers. While this won't be a huge dps increase, it does give me more flexibility with itemization, and it was fun to see how long it would take to do it.

For those considering a similar move, here are some lessons learned.

1. I used wow-professions.com as my guide. It worked very well.


2. I was able to farm all of the mats in less than a week. Great for the wallet, but bad for one's sanity.


3. Thorium was the easiest ore to get. Two hours in Un'Goro and I had everything I needed.


4. Saronite was the hardest to get, and I still need to farm more to get to 450. The challenge with Saronite is that there are a lot of people who still farm it, and you need two ore to make one bar.


5. The path to 450 required plans sold by vendors and not trainers. Try to get these before you start skilling up. I wasn't able to find one of them and had to improvise.


6. Try to get extra mats. Skill points can be a little random and at some point you'll be making a green recipe to get to the next level. One of two things will happen. You'll get to the next level on you're last item, or you'll be one point short. It's usually the latter.

It's definitely late in the game to make this kind of switch, but I have no regrets.

Lich King Attendance

I'm not sure why but we haven't been able to field a team to fight the Lich King in ICC (10). I would have thought that people would be clamoring at a chance to defeat the ultimate boss in WoW and unlock heroic modes. Ponderous indeed. At least our 25-man team is back on track.

Good Hunting!

The Lich King Doesn't Have a Daughter

For if he did, he'd surely have a shotgun stowed somewhere in that giant citadel of his.  Loot from the Lich King can now be found on the Armory and on sites such as Wowhead.com.

Despite that fact that there is not gun in ICC (25), the Lich King does have some nice things for us.  Once again the crossbow and the polearm are king.

Lich King Hunter Goodies

25-Man

• Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas - Once again hunters will be carrying an x-bow into the next expansion.


• Oathbinder, Charge of the Ranger-General - Two gem slots and Crit, Ap, and ArP.  Sweet, sweet weapon.

10-Man

• Windrunner's Heartseeker


• Tainted Twig of Nordrassil

It's weird, ICC (10) has a bow, gun and crossbow.  Odd that ICC (25) should not.  Too bad Arthas and Jaina didn't have a little more time together.

Good Hunting!