Glory of the Firelands Raider!

We cleared the rest of the heroic modes for the other two who needed them and ended up calling it early to take screen shots of us on our new mounts at Shrine.  Apparently created a little stir too… had a couple people standing on top of us and asking about the guild so all in all, not too bad

After that, I got a note from Endyme of Unholy Randomness [whom I happen to know in Real Life] and got invited on her guild’s alt run of Mogushun.  We cleared the first three bosses on heroic mode and ended up doing a few attempts at Spirit Kings.  Ven and I both ended up getting heroic Jasper Clawfeet for our offsets but the look at the four heroic modes was fantastic… can’t wait to bring that back to our raid.  Endyme’s guildies are completely psychotic… but in a fun kind of way.

Apparently I’m not the only one who likes the in game toys!

The first tank died once from reaching attacks… I rezzed him on the platform.

He died again.  Someone else rezzed him.

He died again.  Someone else rezzed him.

They finally convinced the other tank to stand in the light but we were out of battle rezzes.

“IT’S A WIPE!”

I’m sitting there thinking that I absolutely do NOT feel like wiping, throw on Dark Apotheosis and step into the light when the other tank is crackled.  To my amazement… I didn’t die.  In fact, I tanked the boss until the other tank came back and stepped into the light… he then got crackled again.  So I tanked the last 50% of Sha of Fear on LFR… as a lock.  Props to the healers for the amazing heals

That is Carlyn in tier 4… [which I got at level and was so proud of!  I couldn't mog her in anything else ]

1. Treasure trove keys drop like candy off the rares.  Bring your alt over and kill a rare [took 2 rares on a few alts] and get a weekly easy treasure trove key.  Run the solo dungeon and focus on looting every chest in the first room for Elder Coins.  A bad run nets me 10 Elder Coins.  A good run gives me at or near 20.  These are fantastic to gear up your alts through the old raid finders!

2. Run the island progression scenarios!  These net 25 valor straight up.  If you still aim to cap a toon, wait until you have as you will then get 37-38 valor on alts.  That may not seem like much, but I know it can make a difference between getting a piece and having to grind one more dungeon/scenario, so well worth it.  Also, if you die in these scenarios due to lack of gear or practice on the alt?  It doesn’t reset!  You can literally die through the scenarios, though that’s obviously not the ideal way

3. Treasure trove runs also net historical documents that you can use to buy BoA Kirin Tor Rep insignias and the Burial chests can often contain BoA Shado Pan Assault insignias that you could send to your main!  Besides, getting Honored with Kirin Tor Assault can provide a 476 ilevel belt for one or both of your specs with the only cost being gold!  A fantastic way to gear up an offset or an alt who hasn’t managed to get a belt yet.  Simply doing the progression scenarios and Treasure trove for a couple weeks has gotten several of my alts over halfway through friendly [having bought the commendation for double rep on my main].  A little questing and you can easily hit honored in a day or two.

4. One other thing… they increased the time you have to spend a coin in a raid.  You DO have time to swap specs and blow a coin.  If you’re having a bit less time and have the ability and gear to queue as a tank or healer, consider it!  You will still be able to swap specs after the boss dies and roll for offspec.  I realize that’s not as attractive to queue in an offspec, but when I have extra coin rolls on my healers, I’ve actually been swapping to try and get gear for my off-set and I’ve won a few things so it does work!

Anywho, favorite part of the night… we end up waiting at a Warbringer spawn with another ally group and at least one horde group.  Randomly, the horde group PVP flags.  The other ally group then begins to do battle with them and eventually the ally group gets stomped.

Warbringer spawns, horde has the tag… and they’re still flagged.  I figure that they’ll probably be toast, so I put an icy touch on the mob and watch and wait while the other ally group and the rest of my group goes to town on the horde.  Horde dies.  Big shock.  Not sure why you would PVP flag while hunting these mounts… just sounds like a bad idea to me [of course I believe that PVP flagging ever is not a good thing].  Next thing I know, the warbringer runs over and says “HAI!  I like you now!” and I realize that we have the tag.

Everyone else is still battling each other like crazy… but the tag was ours and since I wouldn’t PVP flag… well… they couldn’t exactly kill me.  Did I mention we’d been running without a healer on the warbringer hunting?  And I instructed the rest of my group to not heal me [windwalker monk, feral druid, dps warrior].

So we got it… all because I refuse to PVP flag.

For once I didn’t feel too bad about leaving comrades to die who chose to PVP flag.

1. Jade Forest to 86.  If DPS sit in queue for the 2 lower level dungeons while I quest.  If tank or heals, queue when I want to do them.

2. At 86 go to Valley, remain in queue if I haven’t completed both dungeons.

3. At 87 get the quest in Halfhill to go to Kun-lai.  Do the quests on the Veiled Stair to get there.  Quest through Kun-lai until completion [I love this zone].  Should get me well into 88 but perhaps to 89 depending on how many instances I do. Queue once again for the two new instances available at 87.

4. Once Kun-lai is done or at 89, hit Dread Wastes till 90.

I have varied on this once, finishing Jade forest to completion and then hitting Krasarang, but I typically like the familiar path to do it more expediently.

My son is the mage [the blue line].  I’m Askevar [tank] and a friend was healing on his pally [Thanks again Kan!].  I’m not bragging so much on my son’s dps [which did come up by 1k since his foray into the Valentine's dungeon yesterday] but the fact that he did such a stellar job of staying out of “bad” [and he wasn't using either the perfume or cologne]B.

Mini-Ven:  Can I come Mommy?

Me: Sure *sends him an invite*

My son then promptly flew up to where people were gathered near the Sha – all by himself, put out a table and did the mage buff on the raid that was there.  When that table disappeared, he did the same thing again.  He also sat down at one of the banquet tables and ate the food for a buff.  I was very very impressed!  He did all that without my direction meaning he’s listening to my advice when he plays.  The first time he killed the sha with me, he got scared because the guy was soooo much bigger than his gnome that he ran out of the room. Now he’s starting to understand that he’s part of a team and that the team together can do it!

He also asked if he could do the special instance with me this morning [aka the Valentine's instance].  I’ve never let him queue with other people before but I figured that if I were on Askevar, I could probably pick up any slack [and it IS a holiday boss].  He got a little flustered getting out of the puddles and lost some dps but ended up with 15k overall… which isn’t bad for a four year old on a fire mage where he’s mainly hitting one button [Fireball].  Yeah, I know, that’s not the rotation but he’s four!

Ven and I also occasionally do a scenario with him [yup, I get kicked off my computer to the laptop for it] so he’s learning how to do group content pretty well… though his attention span isn’t super great.  But again – four years old!

Oh, and he’s learned to read a map already.  Anywhere I go in game, he can find me between looking at the terrain on my screen and the maps on his.  As someone who was an anthropology major with quite a few geography classes taken, I approve.

Burning Pandaren Spirit – Townlong Steppes
Rapana Whelk to counter Pandaren Fire Spirit
Anubisath Idol to counter Crimson [Dragonkin]
Anubisath will likely be able to face off against the third Glowy [Flying] as well, depending on luck but any dragonkin in the third spot would be good or a Flayer Hatchling

Flowing Pandaren Spirit – Dread Wastes
Disgusting Oozling is immensely effective against the first two – Marley [Aquatic] and Tiptoe [Critter]
I usually tack on both the Anubisath Idol and the Flayer Whelpling to pick up when the oozling dies.

Whispering Pandaren Spirit – Jade Forest
Deathtalon Whelpguard to counter Dusty [Flying]
Anubisath Idol to counter Whispertail [Dragonkin]
Lil Tarecgosa to counter the Pandaren Air Spirit

I usually only need two of the above, but I have the third just in case

Thundering Pandaren Spirit – Vale
Dancing Water Skimmer to counter the Pandaren Earth Spirit [Press Pump 4 times and he's dead - first press amps damage, second hit him]
Egbert to counter Sludgy
Flayer Whelpling to counter Darnak the Tunneler

Egbert usually survives long enough to do a little damage to Darnak and eat his first burrow.

5.2 Stuff:
1. Achievements on Isle of Thunder
2. Farm the Tome of Dinomancy on my hunter alt

Pet Battles:
1. Finish collecting as many pets as possible… I’m at 506/522 according to warcraftpets.
2. Try to get rid of my poor and common wild pets. [0 poor/2 common]
3. Work on upgrading all uncommon pets to rares. [91]

Alts:

1. Level my bank alt. [Level 89]
2. Get my other death knights to 90. [90 and 85]
3. Level my other 85s to 90
4. Level my monk. [Level 42]
5. Bank Guild to Level 25 – [Level 17 now]

Retro Raids
1. Keep running AQ40/Naxx/MC/BWL for the pets
2. Keep running Tempest Keep for a shot at the Phoenix [running it currently on both death knights]
3. Keep running MC on Askevar to try and get the other binding.

Mounts:
1. Work on continuing to craft one panther mount a month.
2. Look at eventually getting the new engineering mounts
3. Fish up a Sea Turtle

RNG Hates Me:
Sea Turtle Mount
Second Binding from Garr

I may add more later

Pets I still Need:
Argent Gruntling
Cinder Kitten
Crawling Claw
Darkmoon Eye
Gryphon Hatchling
Ji-Kun Hatchling
Qiraji Guardling
Son of Animus
Spectral Porcupette
Sumprush Rodent
Sunfur Panda
Tiny Blue Carp
Tiny Green Carp
Tiny Red Carp
Tiny White Carp
Wind Rider Cub

Gonna try and whittle down that list bit by bit.

Now I’m not a PVPer.  For the record, I dislike PVP.  However, because there are a number of achievements in that category, the hubby and I have been talking for a couple months now about starting some PVP and getting at least a few of those achievements.  We’ve even talked it around with some of our guildies.

Now that my perspective is clarified, here’s what I see.

Blizz: OMNOMNOM *banhammer falls*  All of those banned are guilty and there can be no doubt because we’ve investigated this thoroughly.

24 hours later

Blizz: Oops our bad… we banned people wrongly and innocent people who got queued into wintrading battlegrounds got banned.  We’ll restore their rating, gear and accounts by Tuesday.

Okay, so they banned and removed the gear and rating of innocent people…  Now, false positives happen and while I’m not an example in this case, the system has indeed locked my account before for no reason.  Nothing was taken… nothing was gone, but it still took a day of sitting on the phone to get it resolved and get my account working again.  That was a royal pain in the rear too as we had a raid that night and I spent the day not knowing whether I’d be able to help Ven lead the raid and what were they going to do missing a tank?

Blizzard is composed of humans – humans who make mistakes.  But it seems to me that if this was thought out as well as they seem to initially indicate, that more legwork should have been done to insure they minimize the false positives as it seems there were a number.

Granted it’s all speculation on my part, but the real fact is, whether the false positives were involved in PVE or PVP teams, them being banned can affect more than just themselves.

The real issue seems to be that there is a very real problem in the PVP realm of the game… PVPer friends tell me that botting is rampant and with this whole win-trading business that spells out a very real problem in the game.  And let’s not even discuss all the PVE nerfs that have been suffered in the name of PVP.  Perhaps the solution would be to further separate the two sections of the game?

Eh, that’s a discussion for another post I suppose… but as for me, if my account is at risk if I did queue into the wrong rated BG with friends, perhaps it’s just best to stay away?