I didn’t spent much time in WoW today, but I did manage to get the Oracles in Sholazar basin to exalted. Nothing really useful for doing so though, as I could already buy the pet-hatching eggs before, but it’s an achievement.

And I did a few more Icecrown quests and got to Honored with the Knights of the Ebon Blade, which let me buy a nice pair of defense boots. I might not need the titansteel boots after all…

The last couple days in WoW have been pretty eventful. First I finally made my Titansteel Bonecrusher, giving me a pretty healthy upgrade in DPS. Then, while doing the dailies, I hit exalted with the walrus-guys, letting me buy a penguin pet and a fishing pole that lets me breathe underwater, and I also hit honored with Wyrmrest Accord, getting me a very nice defense cloak. I should work on Wyrmrest faction a bit more since there’s a fairly nice BP at revered, too.

I also engaged in a bit of PvP in Arathi Basin alongside a friend. It’s the first time I’ve actually done PvP in WoW, and I’m not sure if I really like it. In the end I didn’t do very much damage, died quickly too much before I could even do anything, and felt like I was just holding the team back. I just don’t have any idea what to do there, tactics-wise.

Ah well, I went back to Icecrown and finished off some more quest lines, which unlocked yet more dailies… If this keeps up I’ll be able to do the entire quota of 25 dailies in a single zone.

Today was a bit more relaxed, though. I primarily worked on an alt, getting his jewelcrafting skill up to 150 and enchanting up to 87, and then I rolled through Blackrock Depths on my warrior, to finish off some old quests.

I just did the round of dailies in WoW today, not even reaching the ones in Icecrown, but I did hit Honored with the Sons of Hodir and that unlocked…two more dailies I can do for them.

At least they’re not the usual collect-‘n’-items quests though, and one of them is fairly tough. You have to tag a flying drake with a spear, and then once you’re pulled on it you have to keep stabbing it while dodging its attack and keeping your grip meter up, using a set of vehicle-like hotkeys, and then after that there’s a second stage where you have to pry its mouth open and go in for the killing blow.

It took me numerous tries to get past the first stage, and if you fail there you get to plummet to your death a long ways below, and usually in an inconvenient spot. I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of it, but the second stage feels like it depends on luck too much. If you take the time to pry the mouth open the maximum you can, you still only have a 50% chance of landing the killing blow, and by this point you probably only have enough health left for one or maybe two shots at it. I wound up spending at least half the reward money on armour repairs…

One more day until I can make my Titansteel mace. I panicked a bit when I started reading some discussions about good tanking weapons, but after reading some more, there isn’t really a true consensus against it and a lot of people seem to do just fine with it, so I’ll stick with making one. It’s a huge increase in DPS over my current weapon anyway, if nothing else.

Another day of mainly just doing the round of the dailies, but I did discover…yet more dailies I can do in Icecrown. Ack! Eh, I’ll get around to them later…

I did also at least hit 448 in blacksmithing, and only need two more titansteel bars to make the mace. The price of titanium ore suddenly went up a lot, though. My pet egg from the Oracles finally hatched and I have a new birdie pet. And I finally got around to buying my dual specialization, though I haven’t filled out the talents for it yet.

I only got a small handful of Icecrown quests done in WoW last night, since most of my time was taken up doing daily quests. It takes me at least two hours to get through all the ones I’ve found so far, and it’s getting to be a bit of a grind. When I get to Exalted with the Oracles and walrus-guys, I’ll probably stop doing theirs and focus on the Storm Peaks and Icecrown ones instead.

I did get lucky and find a fair bit of saronite and four titanium nodes, though. I’m up to 447 blacksmithing now and have two bars of titansteel stashed away, so I only need four more to make that rather nice one-handed titansteel mace. Now that I’m building up my cash reserves again, I could just blow it all on buying up the rest of the titanium I need…

I couldn’t stay away and spent a bit more time in WoW tonight, making it through a good third of the Icecrown quests. Icecrown is a lot more interesting than other zones since it uses phasing a lot to create the impression of a moving war front. You actually go out and liberate areas, setting up new bases from which new quest lines are launched, etc. There’s a lot more vehicle-based missions, too, and a lot of dailies.

I also hit 445 in blacksmithing, though all of the saronite recipes have gone green now, so getting those last five points is going to be…painful. I also hit 450 in fishing, which lets me…uh. Hmmm.

I finally got the Loremaster of Kalimdor achievement today, managing to squeeze eight quests out of Dire Maul (though I had to rerun each wing twice, since I wasn’t really fully prepared) and then the last two in Silithus. Now I just need to finish off all the Loremaster achievements for Outland and Northrend as well… At least I got these ones done before Cataclysm will potentially change everything.

I also just realized today that I paid too much for my artisan flying skill. I’d come to think of it as a Northrend thing, like Cold Weather Flying, forgetting that I could have gotten a faction discount on it back in Outland. Oh well, I’m up to almost 500 gold again anyway, and from here on out it’s all gravy.