Wednesday (10 Oct) - Waterworld Didn't Cut It

Wednesday (10 Oct) - Waterworld Didn't Cut It

Fist followed her plan as she went to work on Wednesday. She had exhausted all of the quests in Ferelas. The next stop was Thousand Needles. She took the flight path to the tall, thin spire where the horde were barely hanging on to one bit of dry land in a zone that had been flooded by the Cataclysm. When Fist had done all she could to help, they offered her a boat, which she took, having no other option available to her. That boat raced all over the entire zone, the driver apparently wanting to give her the full tour, and then dumped her on an anchored gambling boat. The first thing she did on arrival was get into a bar fight. It was quite a large bar, and there was a lot of fighting. Fist tiptoed out of there (having started the fight, she decided not to be in on the finish).

After that, though, things were pretty boring, and she kept having to get wet. Bad for her gear. Still, she did enough to fill up her bags and decided to hearth back to Org to empty them and dry out her gear. Later, Fist realized she didn't know how to get back to the boat in Thousand Needles. Rather than trying to figure that out, Fist changed direction. Instead of Thousand Needles, she headed to Tanaris.

Fist did remind me to mention one quick fact before she got started again. Fist reached the halfway mark toward her goal of level 90 when she achieved level 45. Of course, the first half is a whole lot easier than the second half will be.

Wild's two strongest memories of Tanaris are odd ones. For reasons that escape me now (and Wild won't stray from his hammock to check on it), Wild needed the herb Purple Lotus on a regular basis. There was a small camp of hostile mobs not far from the Tanaris town of Gadgetzan that dropped the herb. Every single day - sometimes several times a day - Wild would farm those mobs to get the purple lotus. Wild also spent many, many late nights out on the beach to the east of Gadgetzan. Wild was fishing for stonescale eels. On the weekends Wild would be out there until the wee hours of the morning. Stonescale eels were Wild's best selling item, and most of Wild's gold came from fishing those eels. There are days Wild felt he spent half his life there, hooves dug into the wet sand, watching the turtles wander by, talking with whoever was online, not a care in the world beyond the tug of the fishing line.

Fist doesn't mind fishing, knowing she can make useable stat food by cooking them, but really, Wild, that's the best you can do in the wide, diverse zone of Tanaris? Fist decided to visit that beach Wild spent so much time at, and check out those purple lotus loving mobs. Both are gone. A deep lagoon now laps almost to the walls of Gadgetzan. The purple lotus mobs moved on or drowned. The stonescale eels are still around, but Fist has no use for them.

The town of Gadgetzan seemed mostly the same from Wild's description. There is now a half built ship just outside the gates, but there was nothing going on there. The only oddity was that the local inn seemed to have lost it's walls and roof - ie, it was gone. The benches and tables are still there, now looking more like a picnic area, and the butcher that worked there was still about doing business. Well, Fist couldn't get any rested xp standing at a picnic table under an open sky. Where did the inn go? Fist eventually found it in the northeast corner of the town, two of its' sides sharing the outer wall.

Fist started off with a number of animal hunts and graduated to the trolls and their many small camps. There was a monster spider kill - not elite - and then a very nasty level 48 elite that Fist might not have been able to beat. Fist got lucky, though. When she arrived at the quest site, a level 49 player was already engaged with the elite and he was not winning that fight. Fist weighed in and helped the player kill the elite. Fist then had to wait for the elite to respawn, and the level 49 was very nice to stick around. The two of us killed the elite a second time, and we both got our quests done.

Then there were the Pirates! Lots and lots of pirates at Lost Rigger Cove. At level 47-49 they out leveled Fist, and for the first time she starting seeing her health bar start to drop against multi-mob fights. Fist has typically needed only her three main attack abilities for just about any fight of any number. Now, she has started extending herself, still pulling groups, but now using all those other protections that allowed her to keep up the assault. Fist had to storm three ships to locate ever more dangerous ship captains. The third captain was an elite rated so high Fist could not see his level. Really? Fist stormed the ship and engaged Captain Dreadbeard anyway. With Fist's first hit she revealed the deception - the Captain was not an elite at all, only pretending to be. He didn't last long one on one against Fist.

There was more to come. The bug zone, Noxious Lair, now has a horde base to work from, instead of that very long ride south and back to/from Gadgetzan. With all this activity and higher level mobs (not to mention dry sand instead of water), Fist is glad to have skipped the lower zoned Thousand Needles in favor of Tanaris.

After more animal and bug kills Fist called it an evening. She received two new abilities that she hadn't noticed getting before. One is called Spinning Fire Blossom. This spell shoots a ball of fire up to 50 yds. Most ranged weapons are good for at most 40 yds, so this is a really long range spell. The trick seems to be aiming it. It can't be aimed at a target, only in a direction, and it explodes on impact with the first enemy target it hits. I can see Fist now: "Dang it, I missed again! Wait, was that an elite I just clipped? Run!" Well, it's the only ranged DPS ability Fist has, so I guess she'd better figure out how to use it. It also expends a Chi, which means Fist has to prime the pump so to speak before it can be unleashed, so it seems to be most useful shooting at fleeing targets.

The other is Spinning Crane Kick, which is an AoE attack of up to three enemies within 8 yards, or something like that. This one Fist needs practice with, too.

Fist continues to make progress. She is now level 48.