Master of Arms, the easy way

I respecced my retadin prot on a whim and blew a silly stack of gold to gear her up. I've long suspected I just don't have the temperament to tank, so I'm not sure where this urge came from. Still, here we are, 25k health, still crittable, an utterly baffling array of spells and abilities, and a sword skill of zero.

One thing at a time. Last night, I set out to raise my weapon skills.

I spent a couple of minutes chasing mobs around but this quickly grew tedious. Then I remembered reading somewhere that the elite constructs in Icecrown don't hit very hard. What the hell, I thought, can't hurt to try.

And I can confirm they really do hit like my grandmother. Between the shield thing that increases block chance and the shield thing that absorbs damage, my health barely shifted. (Don't ask me what they're called. Everything on my cast bar is holy, divine or righteous.) Judging light was enough to keep me fully topped up, even missing as often as I did.

I'm sure I must be the last person alive to discover these mobs, but they're a revalation all the same. It took me only four or five of them to max out maces, and I'll finish off swords tonight. It would have been less if some well-meaning allies hadn't decided to 'help me out'. As a former junior charades champion, I thought I was quite good at unspoken communication, but there really is no way to mime 'don't kill this thing I'm hitting, I'm levelling my weapon skill' while getting stomped on by a three-storey ball of dead flesh. 'Fuck off' had no effect, either.

(Incidentally, these things are level 82, so perfect target dummies for testing your performance at heroic level.)

The Master of Arms achievement requires you to raise four weapon skills to 400. For some classes, these elites are almost as good as the blasted lands mobs in achieving that.

When my paladin's done, I'll be right over there with my priest, properly disc specced, to tickle them with staves, daggers and maces. It's just a shame we can't learn enough weapons to max them all out this way.

Just call me Merlot

There was a time when I thought having only one name, like Cher, was terribly chic.

That was before I started playing WoW and was rather disappointed to learn that everybody had only one name (Cher wasn't available, either). Chic no longer.

But then titles came along and an elite few got to stick some extra words above their head. Oo look, he's a hand of someone (that's like a tool, apparently), and she's some kind of soldier.

I was singularly unexceptional in my failure to garner any of these accolades, but at least I wasn't alone.

Now though, thanks to achievements, there's a title for just about everything. You can't swing a mechanical toad without hitting half a dozen longwinded nameplates (Toadswinger sadly not yet among them).

And I still don't have one.

God forbid I should cave in and grab Jenkins, or one of the other common ones. That's now the fantasy equivalent of Smith. No, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it properly. How do you like the sound of Loremaster Merlot?

I've already got Northrend loremaster for the deathchill cloak (that I never crafted, what a con that was). And there are a few holes in Outland that I'll have to plug up. Apparently I didn't spend long in Blades Edge Mountains.

So that just leaves Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. How hard can that be?

Wait... how many quests? Surely that number is wrong? Did I do any quests before 60?

Loremaster is going to take a bit longer than I originally envisaged. In the meantime, you may call me Merlot. Just the one name, like Cher.