Pandaria Spirit Trainers

Partly so I can easily remember, and partly because I want to share how I defeated the trainers.

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.

Goals:

I’m a list kind of person so I thought I’d go ahead and make a list of my WoW goals.  Some of them are longer term than others.

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.

The Latest Banhammer Kerfluffle

Because I like the word “kerfluffle” and wanted to use it.

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?

Frustration.

I like the new LFR system… it’s nice and great and all that, but it’s also downright frustrating.  I’ve had a legendary gem sitting in my bags for well over a month now and I still have nothing to put in it…  I’ve had the 6k valor done for two weeks and I’m a Silvershard Mines victory away from getting the prismatic socket.

Every person I know that can use the 2h weapon off Sha of Fear in Terrace has it – including my husband for his offspec.  And yet, I still can’t get my hands on it… and other than blowing a coin on Elegon last night, all my coins have been going to Sha of Fear for weeks…

We cleared MGV for the first time last night and we’ll be going again Friday [healers work schedule permitting] to work on the second boss in HoF.  I’m really satisfied with our raid’s progress… but there again, I’m a long way away from being able to get the Sha Touched weapon on normal, even with the Terrace bosses being reportedly easier than the Heart of Fear ones.

Why not put it in my OS weapon?  Well… I do have a Sha Touched weapon for “offspec”, but it’s a 1h weapon and I’m a 2h frost dps for offspec with absolutely no interest in changing right now.  Two hand frost dps feels right to me and I’m actually making headway…  DPSing has long frustrated me and finding something I can make work and actually sustain nearly 45-50k dps in [60k sometimes in LFR] is pretty good for me.  Making that change now seems silly especially when I don’t like the aesthetics of dual wield dps.

Even worse, I’ve been using my tanking weapon for my OS…  That’s just how bad drop rates have been for me on two handers.  Then there’s the whole, ‘I’m not throwing a 10k gold gem into my offspec’.

I’ll be glad when the drop rate increases… and hopefully that will work for me within a week or two if I can’t snag the weapon beforehand.  Of course by the time I do, it’ll likely be useless…  That’s just my luck.

But the frustration has been bad enough that I’ve just had no drive to go through the PVP battlegrounds to finish the Wrathion questline.  I killed the boss in Krasarang when a guild group was doing it.  I won the Kotmogu when hubby finished the valor grind and wanted to queue…  and I’ve queued with him the few times he’s gone in Mines.  I know in the next patch we’ll get a meta gem for our troubles… but that’s a lot more work away as is.  And we likely still have a few weeks of this patch.

Anyway, one more coin to spend for the week… when I do my weekly Terrace queue with Ven.  Maybe RNG will finally decide to like me.  Or not.  Probably not.

ETA: I queued up with Ven for Silvershard Mines tonight and won…  So the Wrathion Part 2 questline is done and I have a socket and a gem sitting in my bags waiting for a weapon

Somehow I Forgot to Mention…

Not only did completing Shadowmourne get an achievement for me and the guild, but it got the Ultimate Collection Finished!

Yay!!!!

 

It is Done.

 

Yup, I finally managed to finish out Shadowmourne after what, three years?  I remember doing the infusions at level… well 2 of them at least.

 

I honestly don’t have a lot to say, other than that I appreciate the members of both my current guild – Band of Misfits and my old guild on Thorium Brotherhood – Wrath and Retribution, for banding together to help me finish it.  Almost everyone has their metas finished, with only a couple people who couldn’t attend regularly missing a few things.

 

Oh, here’s me in the tabard, glowing:

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 18,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 4 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.