Patch Day: Almost Painless, But It Brought On Many Changes

The Echoes of Doom were very faint at the Aerie last week. Patch day was relatively uneventful, even with rebuilding the UI. Still a few minor bugs there, but no show-stoppers.

Plenty of play time over the weekend, and on Sunday night, Kestrel was patrolling the skies over Netherstorm in search of a particular chimaera I discovered at Mania’s Petopia: The rare Mardis Gras chimaera, Nuramoc. I’d spent between an hour and a half and two hours searching for this beast throughout the day, and was on the final leg of my final pass for the night, before joining a couple friends for some Achievement hunting.

Almost at the very end of my route, I saw him! I immediately dropped to a safe distance and fired off an [spell]Arcane Shot[/spell]. This dismounted me…right in the middle of three elementals. Normally, they’d be no problem, but normally, I’d have a pet with me. I hit the [spell]Feign Death[/spell] key and starting [spell]Tame Pet[/spell]. Unfortunately, I was already at about half-health, and Nuramoc’s attacks were taking me down the rest of the way. Luckily, at about ten percent health, I was able to feign again.

I immediately popped up, mounted, and rode off in pursuit. I was able to catch Nuramoc at the end of his patrol range, as he was turning. Again, I dropped, fired Arcane, and started taming. Ten interminable seconds later, Nuramoc was mine!

Now I’ve seen a LOT of Core Hounds on Kul Tiras in the past week, including Uvuros, whom I tamed earlier in the week. But chimaerae have been scarce, and I know I haven’t seen another Nuramoc. I just may have been the first on Kul Tiras to tame him! In any event, I was thrilled, and I especially like the chimaera’s dual breath attacks: The slowing frost attack is all win for solo and small group play!

On Monday, I finally got around to assigning Falken’s talent points. I settled on a 5/5/51 Subtlety build, and was able to put it to practice that evening in a full guild clear of Karazhan. Doing Kara as a melee character, rather than healing or ranged attack, is quite an eye-opener. Having changed my targeting key-bind that day was also a bit of a change. Nonetheless, I got a pretty good introduction to my new skills.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t very lucky with drops. The two leather pieces that dropped were strictly Druid gear; the cloaks were for casters. Besides Moroes’ pocket watch, which I received, there was one drop I could have used, but it went to our new hunter (who was on his main, not his second alt). Disappointing, but at least I’ve now seen Kara as a melee. Hopefully, I can get back in this week for another shot.

Before assigning my talents, though, I got Falken to a barber shop for a much-needed hair styling. When created, I’d opted for the topknot style, which I never really liked. I just didn’t want all my Night Elves to look alike, I guess. So this time, I chose what I believe is a male Belf style, not as long in the back as the Nelf styles I normally pick. Just for Matticus (and others), here’s the "before ‘n’ after":

Today, being a maintenance day, I’ll update some add-ons and track down a few bugs. One, especially, has me flummoxed: When I inspect another player, more often than not, I’ll only get the slot names (Head, Shoulders, Hands, etc.). I use EquipCompare and RatingBuster, among others. I had this bug pre-patch as well, and I thought it was associated with Enchantrix. However, if any of you have a suggestion on what I might look for, it would be appreciated!