Mounts x6

I had a really productive week with mounts.  I had decided after finally attaining Ji-Kun, that I would work on the Hatchling mounts next [the questline you get from the little orphaned pets in the Warden quest Swarm areas.  After a few days of completing the quests on Askevar, I discovered that I could do more quests if I accepted them on level 110 alts!  So I pushed that for a few days and lo and behold, I now have four additional mounts

Raiding as a Couple from My Perspective

It’s always been amazing to me that the simple fact that my husband and I want to raid together is always taken as a sign that one of us [usually me] doesn’t deserve to be there.  I’ll fully concede that having space for two tanks is not always possible.  And we’ve paid our dues before and sat out together plenty of times.

For years, World of Warcraft has been our thing together.  It’s what we do and what we enjoy.  At first that didn’t include raiding but it eventually evolved to that point.  And the reality is that raiding without my husband is ridiculous.  It’s asking us both to give up our evening together [which is our time together].  And while I don’t mind one of us filling in every once in a while, I truly resent someone telling us that we’re going to raid separately and like it or else.

The other assumption that we get is that we’re demanding to go on every raid.  We don’t. We’ve been truthful in being up front with guilds we’ve joined about what we want and what we expect. If they can’t give us what we’re looking for, we’re quite happy to look elsewhere.

In truth, we didn’t expect to be in progression with our new guild. Being the new kids on the block and both being tanks didn’t exactly put us in the number one choice spot, but we’d been given the alt run to co-tank and do with as we pleased. They didn’t have tanks for it or a raid leader to organize it and we could provide both those things. Circumstance happened and we ended up co-tanking the progression run and bringing a pair of alts to the alt group.

I’ve dealt with rostering couples before and while not easy, it can be quite rewarding if you’re able to get it done. You get two people moving in sync and that can be a pretty powerful advantage to the raid [one of my previous ten mans had 3 couples working togther and we could be an impressive crew if I do say so myself]. The underlying assumption we’ve always worked with is that both people in the couple will do their best to maximize and continue to earn their keep, as it were. That’s how we did it in our previous guild… if one wasn’t qualified and they wanted to raid together – they’d both get sat and told why.

As for ourselves, we’ve always taken running as a couple as challenge to do better and better. We both need to deserve it and, not to be conceited – we both do. Back in Burning Crusade when I was a lock [hubby was still a paladin], we actually raided very little, because they seldom had a spot for the two of us. It was all good – truly.

I’ve been asked before how I can stand to co-tank with my hubby… that fulfilling the same role as their S/O drives them batty… Well the reality is that it’s quite easy for us. Being co-tanks and having been co-tanks since Naxxramas days, we’re incredibly in sync with each other. Our raid and guild leading experience only enhanced that connection. You could even say that we push each other to become better tanks. It also doesn’t hurt that hubby is the one who taught me how to tank. Yes, I learned to tank as a death knight from a paladin. [I learned the specifics of dk tanking on my own of course].

A lot of the “most annoying” or “most challenging” aspects of tanking are gone – out the window with a tank couple. Tank swaps? Not a problem. No ego to worry about on the other tank who might not be willing to share aggro. Sudden tank death? Not an issue. Hubby goofed one week and fell off Beth’s web. I hop up to manage Beth between drones while they battle rez him – just in time for him to pick up the next drone. Perfect complementing each other, magical timing, anticipating the other’s moves… And it actually feels that good. 🙂 We don’t have to mark on trash, we know who’s going to pull what, when and have known for quite some time. We each have fights and areas we excel at – and one class might be better than another on some fights. We try and optimize that where we can.

Our rhythm is so good and so second nature in fact, that on our first run with the new guild we had to throttle it back… actually make some of the calls on vent and let them get a feel for how we work.

The most common question we get, to our amusement is who the main tank is. We actually don’t have one between us. When we started in Naxx, we would have agreed that hubby [Venoym] was unquestionably the main tank. But we maintain our toons so evenly that neither is “better” geared. And again, we both excel at different fights. Venoym also has at least a year on me in tanking experience. It honestly depends on the fight regarding who is actually the main tank… some fights a block tank is more of an advantage in a certain role – whether that be “main” tanking or “off” tanking.

I’m not saying we’re the best – by any stretch of the imagination. But we ARE good. We ARE solid. We’re good alone and even better together.

On another note – Please feel free to check out my husband Venoym’s blog – Holy Necromancy. His updates will probably be much more spaced out than mine as he’s not a big blogger but I’m trying to get him to blog more frequently.

SW:TOR and WoW

Just a point of note, for that that read the blog [I know, a meta post for once!].  Venoym and I have already preordered Star Wars: The Old Republic.  It’s our Christmas present to each other in fact.

We also did the Access Pass for WoW a couple weeks ago – so we do intend to continue playing WoW for the moment as well.  We have a raid team depending on us and we’re enjoying raiding again – likely because we aren’t leading.  We still want to finish that last 38% on Rag and we want to kill Deathwing.

I honestly can’t make guarantees about the content of the blog.  I suspect it’ll more likely be slanted to WoW… but then again I haven’t seen the Star Wars game either.  In likelihood, it’ll end up a blended version… or if I have a lot of Star Wars things to talk about I may create another blog, much like I did whilst testing the Cataclysm Beta.  Then again, I don’t know what’s going to happen or how time will end up split.  Basically, you’ll know when I know 😀

Call me a geek, but I can’t wait to see Askevar the Jedi Knight 😛  Maybe she’ll even make dark side choices… who knows?

ETA: After some discussion with Venoym, I’m likely just going to allow this blog to expand.  I haven’t kept strictly to 100% WoW topics anyway

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.

Askevar, the Camel Hoarder

Hubby was leveling his rogue out in Uldum and his NPCscan went off indicating a camel figurine nearby.  He summoned me over to help find it and had me take it since I’d brought my main over.

I clicked it and got teleported.  And voila!

I now have a title and feat of strength and a mount I never expected to see 😀

Naturally I was so excited I had the NPCScan thing up during the screen shot… silly me 😛

On Leveling a New Mage:

No, I can’t give you food until level 38.

No, I can’t buff int until level 58.

No, I can’t spell steal until level 70.

No, I can’t teleport yet… I get my first self port at level 24.

No, I can’t decurse until level 30.

No, I can’t time warp until level 85.

No, I don’t have an aoe yet – I get arcane explosion at level 22 and blizzard at 52.

No, I’m not lying about not having above things yet.

This alt MAY be more trouble than it’s worth…

I SO DID IT! Boooya!

 

Screenshot Spam

Thought I’d spam some screenshots since I have a few to post:

Spontaneous RP and Retro Raids

The last couple days have been busy!  We ended up leaving our guild and joining another on Azuremyst.  We immediately got pulled into working on the last ICC heroic modes they need – we one shot BQL and two shot Sindy.  Had a few tries at LK but with the raid starting late, had to wait to kill him the next night.  Heroic LK is a crazy wacky fight!  From there we went to Ulduar to hit some hardmodes – Thorim, Freya, Mimiron.  We killed the general the easy way and took a couple shots at Yogg – No lights.

They’ve asked us to come tank for their alt team on Friday and we’re excited 🙂  They’re going to take a shot at Shannox with mostly alts and see what happens.

After the raid last night, my best friend [Endyme] logged on her Death knight over there and I hit a DK on another server and we did a couple instances, catching some guildies on the second one.  BTW, they’ve made lower level tanking worlds easier with the threat buff… or so it seems.  I was able to focus on survivability a lot more rather than fretting over threat constantly.

We then zoned back to Stormwind, expecting to wind down and log off, but apparently spontaneous RP happens – even on PVE servers :P.  I had hopped to my pink haired gnome toon and Endy’s DK was a pink haired gnome.  We ran across a few more pink haired gnomes, discussed conquering the world with our cuteness around a campfire where a nice dwarf supported our cause, had a pool party in the Stormwind fountain, then all accosted those silly Pandaren monks trying to bounce around and look cuter than us.

Cheese Mints!

Today I did a little achievementing and ended up with over 11k achievement points…  not that I’ll catch up with hubby but I did close the gap… he’s only a few hundred ahead and that’s because he’s a rep grinding fiend… and I HATE rep grinding.

Anywho, I finished grinding Kurenai [oh the pain] this morning getting diplomat in the process and and therefore bought the 8 mounts they had for me to reach the 100 mounts.

And then this afternoon, a friend of ours was on and he hopped into raid with us and we three manned five bosses in AQ40 and got the rep I needed for Nozdormu.   I was really close anywho, but it was nice to finish!

Next on the plate:

–150 pets [I’m 6 5 3 short currently]

– Exalted with Keepers of Time, Kaluak, Netherwing, Shatari Skyguard, Ogrilla, Hydraxian Waterlords, Stormpike, Oracles [over time of course – some of these I’m not interested in starting just yet]

-Finish redoing the zones for the post Cata achievements – I have 9 zones to go, all in Kalimdor [Ashenvale; Darkshore; Desolace; Dustwallow; Felwood; Feralas; Stonetalon; Southern Barrens; and 1000 Needles – at least one of these will provide a pet].

– Do more work on Archaeology if I can… ugh.