Just a little one, 2.4.2.

It ain’t out yet, sadly, but the patch notes are pretty interesting.

WoW Insider posted the full notes, so I’ll send you over there.

The thing I like best?

All profession cooldowns have been reduced.

If you had a 23 hour cooldown (like, say, for a transmute) then it will now be 20 hours.

It may not seem like much, but I know there have been many nights where Cassieann wants to do her transmute, but it’s not up until 10:30 because she last used it really late. So she decides to wait until the next night rather than stay up just to do a transmute. Three hours will be a big deal.

The thing I DON’T like?

If you get sheeped by a bad guy, you no longer heal.

Now, maybe you don’t notice it so much solo, but there is one case that I can think of off hand that this will suck.

Shade of Aran.

If you’re a borderline team running Karazhan, and by borderline I don’t mean a bad group, I mean a group that is adequately geared for the instance and still working on getting upgrades instead of just running it for shits and giggles to farm badges, then this will likely suck.

If you’re a farm team, you go all out DPS on Shade, you keep his Health percentage 20%+ below his Mana, and he’ll be dead before he reaches the Polymorph/Pyroblast stage.

If you’re not that hardcore… then when his Mana reaches 20%, he Polymorphs the whole raid, and begins drinking to replenish his Mana. After 10 seconds, Polymorph breaks and he does an AOE Pyroblast that does around, IIRC, 7000 fire damage to everyone.

Now, this is fairly survivable right now, since everyone gets healed to full by the Polymorph. Standard tactic is for everyone in the group to save a Healthstone, and the second after the Pyroblast has gone off, use the Healthstone so you can’t be one shot.

Well, now… you’ll have whatever health you had before being sheeped… and it’s likely the Pyroblast itself will one shot you before you get to use your Healthstone.

Brutal.

I’ll be curious to see if this really goes live.

Oh… and many weapons listed as ‘Main Hand’ are now ‘One hand’… so players that dual wield have more choices for their off hands… Shammys, Fury warriors and Rogues should be delighted.

Cassie has made a Shaman alt, and dinged 10 last night.

I am not allowed to know the name of this secret alt identity, but last night she revealed that, while she’s hit level 10, she’s still not sure if she likes it or not yet.

She told me she is trying to get comfy with the whole ‘blast enemies from a distance thing’, but that she still prefers whacking things in the face up close and personal.

Also, she wants a stealth button. And Vanish.

I told her, “Just roll another Rogue…”

Somehow, she didn’t like that idea.

So here’s the dealio… she keeps asking me all these questions, about Shaman specs, and “Can they use two handed weapons? What specs are there? What talents do I take? Is it possible to play as a melee Shaman? If it is, what talents, what gear, what level do I start?”

Hell, I dunno. I know less than nothing about Shamans.

Now, while I could go try and research such myself, I think I gots a better idea.

If you write a Shaman blog, or if you have knowledge of some solid resources for noob melee Shamans, why not less us know here? Cassie would thank you, and I would thank you.

Seriously, I don’t know shit about Shaman style. Except they get this here Ghost Wolf form thingie… but I don’t even know if Ghost Wolf has a stealth component. I knows nuthin’.

This was the best thing I’ve heard in months.

I just HAD to share.

True story, now.

Now, I came into work today and chatted briefly with a friend here, who I think I’ve mentioned in past posts. Pete plays WoW during the bad weather season, but mostly he’s into racing cars, customizing them, the whole thing.

Today, Pete tells me one of his accounts got hacked over the weekend.

The way he tells it, he got an email from Blizzard notifying him his password had been changed. This is an account he hadn’t played in a while, so he was pretty confused.

So he calls Blizzard up, goes through the whole questions thing, and comes to find out that yes, his password was changed. As well as his billing.

He gets it changed to something new, and logs into his account.

His characters are in their boxers. He’s been wiped clean.

However… God, I love this… his max level character was a 19 PvP minor league twink. The only character on the account.

And the account itself? It had been shut down. He had stopped payment on it.

The hacker had gotten into the account… but couldn’t loot it because the account was closed. And the hacker clearly had an account name and password, but no character names to search on Armory, no way of knowing what was on the other side of that dead account.

So the hacker, no kidding, paid Blizzard to activate the account to loot it. He took the chance.

He paid a months fee. In advance.

And what did he get? About 4 gold in D/E’d mats off a character that was something Pete messed around with for fun.

When Pete talked to Blizzard, Blizzard told him about the Mastercard (a form of credit he doesn’t have) that was used to activate the account. After Pete changed it back to his own billing, Blizzard asked if he wanted to close the account immediately or let it run no for the rest of the paid month.

“Oh no”, was his reply, “I’ll play it for the rest of the month. Thanks!”

To whoever you are out there that paid $26 for Pete’s account to be reactivated in exchange for about 4 gold in mats, we /salute!

AH HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!

Just wanted to show you my new ride. I had the great good fortune on Sunday to accompany Nasirah of Alts Ahoy fame to help her get her Epic Flight Form quest completed.

In taking down Anzu, guess what dropped? And guess who won the roll?

Yep, I gots me a battle chicken!

And damn, does it look neat. Nasirah wrote it up in a lot more detail, but I am sad that a birdie overshadowed her Epic Flight Form. There is no single thing I can think of that makes me love my druid more than Epic Flight Form. Grats, Nas! Now you and Squirrelz can fly side-by-side.

I still think Nasirah should have rolled on the mount. That’s right, both she and Squirrelz passed. Personally, I love the mount, but I’d have loved to see a Moonkin riding a battle chicken.

Not as much as seeing me ride it, but still.

Now that itch I’ve had to farm undead Strat for the Baron mount is gone…  woohoo!

I mentioned my love of Dr Demento yesterday.

Today, the husband of Nas of Alts Ahoy, Squirrelz, joined Sidhe Devils.

And every time I see the name Squirrelz, it torments me.

It drives me crazy.

I hear voices.

High pitched little voices.

And if I have to hear the voices in my head, singing that damn song, then I’m going to spread the crazy.

Only in Dr Demento do you get to hear classics like that.

In other news, Cassie and I spent some time last night visiting friends that live up north, and chatting. They have kids too, some of them in the 12-14 year old giggly girl range, and the laptop was brought out while the kids browsed Youtube for stuff that is apparently ‘famous’ among the school crowd.

One of the Youtube videos sparked massive giggles, and repeated playing, and I thought I would share it with you. Because just listening to it cracked the rest of us up too. I present “The Mysterious Ticking Noise”