Well since it’s the end of the expansion, this is of course the time wherein a lot of people scramble to finish long outstanding achievements. I’ve actually managed to finish several the last few weeks.
Category: Argent Dawn
Zookeeper Askevar!
Been meaning to make this post for a few days now… but got caught up with events over the weekend….
I logged on last Friday not truly expecting to have a real shot at the pet. I mean, at 9 AM on my main server there were probably about 15 people milling abouts. Within about twenty minutes the spawn next to me popped and three of us somehow managed to get the achievement off it… Apparently we all clicked right at that same milli-second or something? And it was even a green quality to top it off.
Since I had such luck with that spawn, I then took myself over to Northrend and did a few circuits on a couple different servers and managed to snag an Unborn Val’kyr – poor quality – but I got a stone to bump it up to rare as well.
One thing that I found interesting was the comparison of low pop server versus low pop CRZ. Thorium Brotherhood, my old server, is rather… low pop but the spawns were hideous there [farming one for the hubby]
On Azuremyst, which has much more people than ThoBro, there were fewer people camping and the spawns seemed more frequent.
And while I didn’t check out Argent Dawn with this pet, which is a high pop server, it’s also the one where I went over to Felwood and found two Minfernals just sitting and waiting for people to come by. I also got my Giraffe Calf and Spawn of Onyxia on there, just flying through the zones.
The Oppression in Orgrimmar
I’m sure a couple other people have discussed this, but I went on an exploration mission to see just how Orgimmar is affected based on what I’ve heard. Evidence of Garrosh losing it is out of control even in the Valley of Strength [the front of Ogrimmar where most horde hang out].
Until he was updated to elite level 90, Gamon was a mob that most horde ran into and one shot [a loved punching bag]. Now he’s elite and 90 and surrounded by Korkron threatening him.
But the worst of it is the area where the trolls hang out, the Valley of Spirits. Every trainer has Korkon standing over him. There are snipers ready to fire on unsuspecting troll citzens. Anyone who proclaims that Vol’jin lives is shot on the spot. That area is literally shut down – no business allowed. It would be the equivalent of the dwarven district being shut down in Stormwind, so it’s kinda important.
I’m sure there are other little things I missed because I don’t do more than dabble horde side, but I know a lot of people may not even see this much.
Mists of Pandaria
Askevar is 90… hit it Friday in fact [with Venoym]. This was the fastest and hardest we’ve ever pushed to level. I know a lot of people like to savor initially, but we both prefer to just get our main to 90 and worry about savoring later with alts. That’s why they exist after all? Anyway, Askevar’s main set is going along well. I do a couple scenarios a day as well as a heroic or two in the evening. All my pieces, save a 442 blue ring, are 450 or better, with several 463 items. I’m doing my daily rep grinds and I’ve maxed all my professions both primary [Inscription/Jewelcrafting] and Secondary [Archaeology, First Aid, Cooking, Fishing] and I got access to the end food for the Way of the Oven [aka the tank tree]. I also have all my on server alts parked at Halfhill to farm various veggies to max the other ways or to create the max Oven food. By the way, if you do this, the Outpost Zhu flightpoint in Krasanger is the one that connects the Jade Forest initial town to Halfhill.
For that matter, I’ve now maxed out every profession on my account except Blacksmithing and Skinning. Suffice to say, our guild has the heirloom legs already, and not just through my efforts either. Sadly they are only good through 85, which I think is a little silly, but I was able to buy a pair for my level 20 monk. Oh, we also have the guild shirts because a group running scenarios last night saw we were only two away and decided to finish. They’re kinda cute but you can’t see it with my armor on [as it should be for a tank].
My offset gear is crap [its unholy now, gave up frost] and a quarter to half the pieces are still level 85 stuff that I need to replace, but, on the flipside, I’m quite a hardy tank right now.
Honestly, I don’t see any of my alts getting to 90 very quickly. I’ve got 2 at 86 – my bank alt/gatherer and my horde pally [the horde pally would net me 2 account achievements]. With our guild not even discussing raiding for another two weeks, I might get one leveled but who knows? My main priority, as always, is going to be getting Askevar’s tank set raid ready – everything else is bonus.
Sundays have become achievement night and due to lack of interest from our guild [a lot of people are still busy leveling and that’s alright], we’ve been pulling from cross realm friends. We’ve gotten a lot done though and we’ve had a blast doing it. We even managed to 9 man Heroic Chimaeron just before MoP hit – with 3 healers, 2 tanks and the rest dps – and that’s what we managed to get… we had intended to 2 heal, but with everyone wanting to try out their mainspec, extra heals never hurt :D.
I will admit, at times the dailies feel almost endless, but once I get the reputations to max, I’ll be gold. I’m already revered with Order of the Cloud Serpent and well into honored with most of the rest so it’ll get there 🙂 And I’m not finding these dailies near as painful as some have been in the past either.
Goldwise – I’ve already spent a ton between buying the Grand Expedition Yak and speed leveling some professions. Despite that, I’ve actually managed to make money on Askevar and I’ll make back the rest and then some when I level the alts, so it’ll all work out. Hey, don’t look at me that way… I saved and ground for that Yak for several months before MoP dropped and I’m darn proud of it! There is nothing like achieving a goal you set out to complete.
Speaking of achievements, for the first time since I was maining a warlock, I have finally passed my husband in total achievement points. Now, so it’s said, that won’t last as he’ll do all those achievements and catch right back up… but for once it’s nice to be ahead!
My Transmog Successes and Fails…
Here are a few of the other transmog sets my toons have. Some have full sets and others just a few pieces I have yet to tie together:
State of the Toons:
Time for another sporadic “State of the Toons” post 😛
Askevar – Is right at the place I’d have wanted her to be. She’s cleared normal Dragon Soul [and we got that Rag kill too] and we’re poised on the edge of working on heroic modes. She’s the best geared she’s ever been [proportionally in an expansion] and I still love playing her.
Alika – Is my decently geared primary alt. I usually run her through LFR and I still enjoy pally healing, though I’m not nearly as comfortable with it as with death knight tanking.
Tsali [Enhancement Shaman] – Rerolled on Azuremyst and my current enjoyment. Still gearing her in HoTs and she’s been quite blessed by LFR RNG. She hit 85 and within 2 days was LFR ready.
The rest of my Azuremyst toons get played sporadically aka whenever I get the notion. My dk alt and fire mage get played more often. My hunter, feral druid and resto druid get played less often.
My Argent Dawn toons are played even more sporadically… with the most often played of them being my tauren pally. She has a new guild that I’m frankly not sure I like, but the last guild dried up and well… the person who got GMship transferred it and kicked everyone out of the level 1 guild that got left behind or maybe kicked us all out beforehand… eh it doesn’t matter.
My Thorium Brotherhood toons get played during holiday events and other than the fire mage over there, that’s about it.
SWTOR: Askevar is still level 47 and stuck there for the moment… questing has become a bit of a grind and I’ve been doing it in very limited doses… at most 30 minutes in a day. I’ve just found the questing increasingly frustrating the higher I get. I also enjoy my bounty hunter but yeah same deal.
Posts in Progress:
SW:TOR: Why I’m Not 50 Yet.
Glyphing for Blood Death Knights
Raiding as ‘Angelfish’
Things in WoW that Puzzle My Three Year Old
NaNoWriMo
42020 / 50000 words. 84% done!
Well… I’m in the home stretch of NaNo. The story has come to me faster than I could have dreamed – I wrote my daily goal today in about 45 minutes and I even wrote extra. I’m still aiming for the 1667 daily target [I like that blue bar to be full] and I’ve met it all but a 2-3 days. I’ve even exceeded it significantly a couple times. Each night instead of just laying awake trying to go to sleep, I’ve been plotting out some of the next day’s story [and I usually fall asleep before I’m done]. So eh 🙂 I’m actually enjoying it quite a bit and it’s not taking over my life.
This progress was probably helped along by the fact that our guild took a couple weeks break from raiding [we’re now back and working on Raggy again… just a hair from phase 3].
The lock I’m leveling with Endyme’s baby priest hit level 60 last night. The undead hunter I worked on a bit during the 2 week break is level 50 [heirlooms and guild xp really is sick]. Askevar [my main] got the 378 tanking boots crafted the other day. Hubby should be getting them tomorrow with luck.
So it’s actually been a quiet month.
Screenshot Spam
Thought I’d spam some screenshots since I have a few to post:
State of the Toons:
It’s been a bit since I’ve posted so I thought I’d give a “state of the toons” post. I have a few other posts in mind and some of those should get developed soon 🙂
My Main
Askevar – I’ve been busy. 🙂 Hubby and I actually ended up changing servers and now we’re on Azuremyst in Eff the Ineffable. Askevar’s been capping her VP most weeks, or near enough and she only needs two more pieces of VP gear for mainset. She’s tanked in Firelands once and is scheduled to go again tonight. We also managed our Defender of the Shattered World titles. We’ve gotten to see downings of Shannox and Beth’tilac as well as the Effer’s first Baleroc downing! I’m currently working on all the new Loremaster achievements and edging toward hubby’s 11k achievement points :P. I’m 6 pets shy of having 150 – so I really need to get on that too!
Toon Army
Askalaphos, Alika, Allixie, and Arica [now Aricaa] all came to Azuremyst as well. Alika and Allixie are still my primary alts and Askalaphos and Aricaa I enjoy playing on occasion but want mostly for their professions. Hubby also insisted I xfer my mage, Aulao, to our third account for free ports yo. Most of the rest of my toon army have gone into what I call “semi-retirement” on Thorium Brotherhood.
New Alts
To be honest, I’m playing less and getting more done, or at least that’s how it feels. We raid – we’ve done t11, t12 and also some retro stuff in the last few weeks and hubby and I are leveling a couple new toons each. I’m leveling a resto druid which is paired with this fourth pally on this server and I’m also trying to catch up a new shaman to his rogue [he’s leveling that to help with the insane title]. So in the evenings we often run a random or two on either those or our mains for VP.
Thorium Brotherhood
While I said truthfully that most of my Thorium toons have gone into some semi-retirement state, I did roll another Askevar death knight over there, named Askevar [but who I’ll dub Askevar3] who is already level 60. And I also got a level on my resto druid over there – Poem [mostly because waiting for hubby on the other druid is a pain at time :P].
Argent Dawn
I still log onto Holykau over on AD – very occasionally. I got invited by a guild group in that horde guild to do a ZA run and then got ditched after the second boss when one of them apparently didn’t get the item the wanted, so I’ve honestly had less time for that guild due to that rude behavior – Kau has always had better luck pugging than guild groups. I’ve actually started working on the AD disc priest a little more ally side. She was stuck at level 80 for months and months… well, really since Cata hit. She’s now 83 and I’m catching a random on her once a day or every other day rather than questing, so she’ll eventually hit 85. Askevar2 will probably be sitting till Brewfest hits and we have that holiday dungeon to hit.
That’s pretty much it. Life is good, both in and out of game 🙂
You Yank It, You Tank it: Blog of a Tanking Death Knight Lady 