Catching Up!

Oh geez, where to start...

Rheugan is 86 and a half and still going. His herbalism is nearing max, though his skinning has a little farther to go, considering the worgen racial bonus. He's been a lot of fun, too- both because he seems to be killing stuff as fast as/better than Pitch did at the same level, and because he's FINALLY starting to sort stuff out in his head, which is making him a more "comfortable" character to play. Not necessarily easier, but more comfortable.

Speaking of Pitch, he's now cleared Moshu'gan Vaults and the first half of Heart of Fear in LFR, and gotten a number of drops already from both. I'm honestly surprised he's had this much luck in there, although I'm expecting Rheu to have his usual luck (i.e., none >.>) once I get him to that point.

Alaaaaaaaniiiii

He's gotten exalted with Order of the Cloud Serpent and the Tillers, though the latter was almost by accident. I hadn't even been keeping track of his Tiller rep, just did whatever dailies I felt like doing, and tried to make friends with as many NPCs as I could. (He's best friends with Jogu the Drunk, because Jogu is win. XD) He's also gotten revered with Golden Lotus, and has been trying to do his August Celestials and Shado-pan dailies faithfully.

I've avoided the daily burnout so far by only doing the dailes I want to do, when I feel like doing them. If I go a day or 2 (or 3!) without doing any, I'm not gonna stress over it. It's been working quite well so far.. although I'm not planning on doing ANY dailies with my next toon to cap until they put in the 5.1 changes.

There's also been pet battles.

I've now caught every capturable pet except the Arctic Fox Kit, Minfernal, Silithid Hatchling and the Scourged Whelpling. Note that those are all rare-spawn pets in zones that are now cross-realm, and I'm sure you can guess why I don't have them yet. I'm starting to think that besides competing against people from who-knows-how-many other servers, Blizzard screwed up battle-pet spawns as well, cause I've never seen any trace of those pets, and I've sat through 2 Tanaris sandstorms.

But anyway, I did manage to snag the shiny achievement. The pet it gives you looks... interesting?

I named it Flytrap. >.>

Now I'm just going to be leveling things and look to upgrade some of my pets- I wound up catching a lot of grey/white quality pets just to fill out my journal. I've gotten 8 so far to 25, and still have a lot to go!

My shammy Laoden is coming along nicely. Here he is, along with Zhei Ping the yak. :D

He's up to 28 already, and I want to get him to Pandaria ASAP. I blame the last Rheu-story I wrote. I'm going enhancement with him, since that's the spec I know, and he's been a blast so far.

Lark is up to 87 now, and Booggah and Taurros are both 86. Only one new pet so far, but I think he's definitely worth mentioning.

I still need to think of a name, it's being difficult. Boo loves him to pieces. Also, I am now 2/2 with Pandaria rares, as far as finding them when I start looking for them. Boo's tracking was a good bit more interesting than Lark's tracking Savage, since Patrannache's tracks are much harder to see, and his path is a lot longer. I lost the trail a few times, and was waylaid by mobs more times than I could count. But he got him!

And finally, I got inspired to start artsing again. This was kind of "mood art," which generally helps me feel better when I'm not feeling that great. Rheugan, because he's becoming my "therapy cat". This was also one of the quickest pictures I've ever done - sketch took about 15 minutes, and the inking/coloring/finishing touches took maybe a little over an hour.

That's all I can think of for now, anything else I remember is gonna have to wait for the next post. Til next time, Happy Hunting!

Catching up!

Oh dear, where to start?

Rheugan and Roebar have been continuing their gradual conquest of ALL THE DUNGEONS in Outland. They finally wrapped it all up with a couple achievements.

Which resulted in this! (After a bit of archeology help. >.>)

I have a feeling my alt-itis is going to pop up again soon. Going to take advantage if it does by trying to get Taurros leveled before Mists comes out, though I'm not sure whether I'll succeed. Besides that, I may be rolling more baby alts, like this guy.

Zuuluu has been reincarnated as a troll druid and is now on Cenarion Circle, although I may roll him a double on Wyrmrest Accord since my brother only plays Horde there. I'll probably wind up keeping both of them, unless I get a pressing reason not to. >.>

I did find a distraction for the next couple weeks... LotRO is having their summer festival, which means new mounts!

I've already decided Elgo needs the white one, it'll go well with Ilfariel's perlino Max. I'll be trying to get as many horses as I can on the others, as well as some house furniture and cosmetics. We'll see if my enthusiasm holds out long enough. ;)


Wrapping up with the biggest thing we did this past week. The Riders and Co have been trying to get achievements in ICC and Ulduar done for people that want mounts (myself included), and we finally got into ICC and finished up in there. Naturally some hilarity ensued, led by Lorelli and Kyraine's death knight, Serguis.

The actual fight was complicated by trying to do achieves in heroic mode, but finally we just set it back to normal and attempted things that way. Fight mechanics were being obnoxious, however. At some point we were trying to stack up the disease, and Arthas' health was getting kinda low, so Pitch- who was tanking him while Serg got the adds- had to stop hitting him completely. So since I had nothing better to do...

/dance

The uproar of laughter over vent when the others noticed what I was doing was totally worth it. XD

We did eventually have to call the cheevoh-attempts quits, and just killed him normally. Most of us had finished our metas, though, so...

 

Pitch will probably not use the drake much, but with mounts going account-wide, I think Barraccus will be putting it to good use. :D

Still have a few goals to keep me busy until Mists is fo'reals, such as leveling Alanon's archeology and starting his hunt for a dragon-recipe, as well as Taurros, and getting Kaled and Khaotic moved to Wyrmrest. Plus the baby alts, LotRO mounts, and my newest addiction (*sigh*), Star Wars! So til next time, Happy Hunting!

Rill's transmog complete!

I've been trying for ages now to put something together for Rillian, and while it's been almost more trouble than it's worth, I think it's finally finished now! Pictures:

Chest, pants, and gloves are all from the Scouting set. I could have used the belt too, but it was annoyingly absent from the AH, so I went with a Bandit cinch, which uses the same design. For the boots, I'm just using his Bloodthirsty leather ones, which I'll probably keep even after he gets better. His daggers are from the Bravo Company questline in Redridge. And his shoulder is from a quick, easy quest out in Desolace.

Rill's cloak, now, almost needs a post all its own. I knew I wanted this design for him, but there are only 3 cloaks that look like this in the game. One of them drops from a rare spawn in Zul'Farrak. Another comes from the North Dire Maul tribute chest (the one you get when you leave all the bosses- except the king of course >.>). And the third is a drop from Terestian Illhoof in Karazhan.

Rill is fairly well geared now, but I still didn't think much of his chances in Karazhan, so I tried ZF first. The rare spawn was actually up the first time I checked, but he didn't drop the cloak. I did a lot of "run in and check, run out and reset" before he spawned again- no cloak. After a long run of no-shows, I decided to try Dire Maul.

I have no idea what was up with Dire Maul, but the cloak just didn't seem to exist on the loot table... which is funny, because Davoss actually has this cloak sitting in his bank(got it on a dungeon run while he was still leveling). I never kept track of how many times I ran the instance, but saying that it must have been between 20-30 times would not be an exaggeration. It refused to drop.

I kept running through it, killing the King and looting that chest for several days, pausing only to run back to ZF and check for the rare every now and then(only seen him once, and he dropped a sword for me, no cloak), before I gave up. I still tried 1 or 2 runs now and again, but Rill's cloak moved to a back burner for a while.

So. Tonight. I was out doing stuff with the family until late, and when I got home it was too late to do anything, but still too early for bed, so... I decided to just try Karazhan. If it was too hard for Rill, at least I'd know, right? I logged on Rheugan on the other account for a raid group, then went on in. After spending several minutes trying to remember my way around, I finally got to the opera event... and had to backtrack because I needed to kill Moroes first. I got him down pretty low my first attempt before Rill's health got too low and I made a run for it. Second attempt I actually remembered poisons(*cough*), so it went much better. Moroes never even vanished.

I skipped Attumen and Maiden and went back to Opera, and wound up with the Wizard of Oz event. I was really uncertain about this one, but they all went down ridiculously fast, even the Crone at the end. Curator was the same way- I even pulled a group of trash by accident, and was able to kill them off and get Curator down with no trouble. He didn't even evocate until the end of the fight.

I nearly got lost again trying to find the bookcase, then killed the trash and jumped Illhoof. By this time I was feeling pretty good about Rill's chances, not enough to get cocky but I felt that he wouldn't have a problem. I was right, too, and was even able to keep the imp numbers down with regular Fan of Knives thrown in. Terestian hit the floor, I clicked him to loot, and....

Cloak. I will admit I squee'd.

So that's how Rill got his transmog cloak. I like the way the set looks even if all the pieces don't match exactly. The cloak... well, I'm a nerd, and I read in a book somewhere that if you're being stealthy, you don't necessarily want all-black gear, you want dark - but not black! - gear that will blend into the shadows better. That, and I think the pattern would help break up his outline enough to make him harder to see. Maybe I put too much thought into it. XD

Disclaimer!: I didn't run through the whole Kara adventure just to be like "I'm so awesome I killed all these bosses so easily". If you're 85 and even somewhat decently geared, I think any class would have just as easy a time of it, so long as you're patient and know the bosses/your class. So, yea.

I need to get back into the MoP beta and take screenies of all the new pets... when I went to look for pics before it appeared that I had, uh, forgotten to take any. >.> So, til next time Happy Hunting!

So about that dragon....

Last week Lark and co. were getting so stinking close to finishing Deathwing, we went ahead and extended the raid lockout after we finally called it quits. So this week, there was nothing standing between us and a Really Big Dragon, and without having to deal with the other bosses, we were all fresh and ready to go. And in fairly short order...



Rawr! Felt good to get him down, too, no matter how many times we've killed him in the Raid Finder. And Lark has yet another shiny title to boot.

It was still fairly early, so we decided to go knock out Baradin Hold while we still had it. Rheugan got to come along on that, since there's nothing there I want for Lark or Pitch, but no druidy stuff dropped. Then we decided to go poke at Rags. >.>

We'd never gotten him down before Dragon Soul was released, so it felt a bit like unfinished business. So, since we were (much) better geared and had a nice warm-up, we went to tackle the Firelands once again.

The other bosses were almost ridiculously easy, even with several raid members switching to alts. Once we reached Rag, everyone got back on their mains, and we started in on him. Took us a few tries, just because it had been so long we all needed a refresher on what to do, but we quickly got back in our normal groove, and...



So now we've officially cleared all of Cataclysm! Woot!

On top of that, I got Pitch the ilvl for the raid finder, so he got to participate in an In-Character run last week. So that's 3 toons that have killed Deathwing, and Rheugan's only 2 points off from joining them.



* * * *

Other than raiding stuff, I haven't been up to much lately. Still afflicted by the Tired As Heck bug, and daylight savings just starting has NOT helped. I'm starting to wonder if I should just buck up and go see a doctor... ugh.

I have still been playing Roebar quite a bit. He's up to 43 now, with a new, speedier horsie. And yes, I know his brown one would be fast too, I just like the black one better.



He's also got company now. I felt like starting a leather-worker, but didn't want to change Roe's professions, since he's my gold-maker on Arthas. So....



That is Disappear. She has a bit of history herself- I actually rolled her on another server ages ago (before I even had a blog!) but had Stuff happen and wound up deleting her and leaving the server. I've suddenly been missing her lately, and this was the perfect excuse to go ahead and recreate her.

They both started out in a level 25 guild, but a few friends decided to start their own guild, so Dis and Roebar went with them. Best guild name ever, IMO.



Unfortunately, no one else liked the name, so it's going to be changed to something stupid. But I have that pic at least. Also secretly hoping Blizzard won't allow the name-change, for whatever reason. *fingers crossed*

Dis has been questing for the dwarves so she can get a ram, and while she was out in Loch Modan I came across a certain somebody.



Arthas is a PVP server, so I had to debate with myself for a bit first. But it didn't take much debating before I switched over to my troll hunter Narzabeki, and trekked her across the unfriendly Alliance lands to catch herself a fox. It was actually a pretty uneventful trip- hurray for most low-level zones being deserted! She got a bonus wasp, too, as Nix was out. I was tempted to look for Lord Condar too, but she only has 2 pet slots open right now, and the stable master was pretty far away. >.>

That about sums up what I've been up to lately. I kept meaning to scratch together a blog post before now, but the Blahs are not conducive to blog posts. There's been RP stuff as well, but the Blahs have also kicked up my writer's block, so yea. I will try to put something together for Rheugan, who's had so much stuff going on that it's beginning to make my head spin, so stay tuned for that.

And that's about it for now. Til next time, Happy Hunting!

Stuff 'n Things!

I am being bad and distracted by in-game "Oooh, shiny" so haven't gotten any writing done. >.>

The Riders have been doing some old-school raids lately, so Pitch has gotten almost all the ICC achievements he needs for a frosty skelly-drake... which he'll probably never use. Oh well.

Lark's gotten in some Ulduar stuff too, and now has her Starcaller title. Pitch likely will too, now that we've found out how simple it is to get to Algalon. I'm still hoping to someday get Lark an ironbound proto-drake, too. *crosses fingers*

Her normal raid is still going strong- in fact, we chalked up another kill to our total for Dragon Soul. Ultraxion down, finally!

He doesn't leave a body, so I had to take a screenie of his loot chest. Also, ignore all those skeletons there, kay? >.>

It was so late when we got him dead that we just hammed around with the next fight, just to get a look at it.

I got a bit of a present when we reached Hagara, the 4th boss- Rill got to come in and do a little thievery. I couldn't do anything else with the questline until the raid was over, but he did start his ring charging before I logged, so by morning he was all set.

I'm not really sure how to describe the questline. All the stealthy bits were fun, especially after I found some video guides on Youtube. My only real problem came with the boss fight itself. Rill just could not get Creed down before he enraged and smashed Rill to bits. After dying to the fight all day, and getting him agonizingly close a couple times, I finally got a break and teamed up with another rogue, and we got him down at last. Woot!

.... and then I transmogged them. >.>


My only excuse it that Rill just wouldn't want to carry around daggers that look like most of the Cata models. Combat knives, on the other hand, are totally diggable. Shush.

My altitis has slowed down, though I still want to get Rill and Pitch (and maybe Turron, but he needs work) ready for the raid-finder. And Rill needs to play with his new shinies anyway.

Other than that, I've been tinkering on LOTRO again, and Basten the burglar is now level 38! He's still my highest toon, though I want to get Ilfariel up to match, plus a couple of my other toons (Elgo and my new guardian Raedbor at least). Rift has been meh lately, but that might change as well- mostly because the server my sister and I were on is being changed to a trial server, so we'll be moving our toons to higher-population servers.

And that is all I can think of for now. Til next time, Happy Hunting!

This has never happened before

That is Rheugan's valor points, in case you couldn't guess. Dungeon running is crazy.

He's gotten the ilvl to run the 4.3 instances, although I'm still doing other heroics for gear/points before I risk the dungeon finder for those. He's had stupid luck as far as good groups so far, though a Blackrock Caverns run earlier today almost made up for it. His only problem has been his even stupider loot luck - nothing wants to drop for him. I've seen a lot of plate, mail, and caster gear, but the only drops he could actually use so far were some agility leather gloves from Vortex Pinnacle and leggings from Beauty in BRC (different run than the failgroup), both of which he got today.

I am going to run the new dungeons as much as I can when I can get a group of people I know, so we'll see how that goes. (Edit: got a run in tonight and he was able to upgrade both his trinkets, woot!) And luckily his VP will reset tomorrow, so I can start over again. XD

I have to say, this has been the most un-grindy-feeling grind I've done. Maybe it's just playing a character that I like and enjoy, I dunno. We'll see how long this keeps up. And Pitch still needs work too, if I get bored with Rheugan but still want to play a druid.

Last post I forgot to mention one little bitty thing. A bunch of Feathermoon people decided to try the raid finder, and I took Lark along for the ride. It was... surprisingly quick and easy, which I didn't really expect despite what I've heard others say about it. I wish I could say Lark got some goodies out of it, but despite having 5 hunter tier tokens drop, plus a ring she could have used, she lost the rolls on everything there. Oh well, there's always next time. And the entire raid was pretty interesting, with some fun fights. It'll be nice to see how we do when her regular raid group gets that far in.

I think that was it for now, so til next time Happy Hunting!

This is how we roll- I mean raid

It's been a while since I mentioned anything about Lark's raid, so figured I'd give an update on how we're doing. Well, see for yourself.

For no particular reason, I decided to go in order.

Shannox

Beth'tilac

Rhyolith

Alysrazor

Baleroc

Majordomo Staghelm

Ragnaros

That's right, buddy. We're coming for you next.



Most of these guys we already have down, Shannox for example has been on farm for several weeks. Last week saw our first Alysrazor kill, and we got her down easily this week, along with our first kills of Baleroc and Staghelm. Baleroc, I am proud to say, was a one-shot on our first attempt ever. Staghelm was a 2-shot. Boo. Yeah.

To all the nay-sayers.... Yes, I know the raid's been nerfed. It still feels good to be getting these bosses down, so bite me.

Dang but this feels good...

Remember when I said that Nef was still defying us, but we'd get him down? Well, see for yourself!


We had a lot of trouble at first with the first phase and add control and positioning, but eventually everything came together, and he went down pretty easy. No hunter loot, but Lark got a pretty achievement. :D

After Neffy we went back to a fresh Bastion of Twilight, and proceeded to one-shot everything, including Cho'gall. I forgot to take a screenshot last time, so got one this time. Also, Halfus gave Lark a very nice present!


I happened to glance at Recount after the fight and got another nice surprise. She was Marksmanship for the fight, but still.


Her new owl finally got a name. Thanks Domin!


I'm pronouncing it "Owen." He got to come along and help with the trash, though I pulled out Quiloe or Trev for the boss fights.

We went on to Throne of the Four Winds, and got the Conclave down on our second try. Lark got a new belt with some decent stats, so she is now fully epic-geared. She almost has enough JP for her second piece of t11, and we're going back to Firelands tomorrow night to try some bosses.

That's about all I can think of. Planning on camping for Ban'thalos until I get tired and go to bed (or until he spawns >.>), though not sure how long that'll be. Hopefully I'll get lucky and Lark will have a shiny new pet to take to the raid tomorrow. Til next time, Happy Hunting!

I don't know how this happens

I tamed this guy on a whim, because I liked the white owls around Avianna's shrine. He went immediately into the stables, so Lark could go on and camp for Ban'thalos as I originally intended. Banny was being a brat and never popped for the 6 or so hours Lark sat there, so I finally gave it up and went to do dailies. I remembered this guy and pulled him back out of the stable, just to get a feel for him and see if he was a keeper.

Long story short, I'm in love with him. Go figure.

He really is a pretty boy- he's got brown markings on his head and wings that aren't really noticeable until you look close. And he was grabbing and holding aggro like a champ, even with Lark and Pitch both whaling on the mob. And I've always liked owls anyway- that's one of the reasons I'm camping Ban'thalos, so I'd have an owl that's also a ferocity pet. Lark will keep looking for Banny, but until she gets him this guy will keep her pretty happy.

...he really needs a name, though.




The new 4.2 dailies are pretty fun, although I sometimes feel a bit guilty about punting the poor turtles. They have shells, I know, but still! All my guys are a bit behind the majority as far as marks go, since I think I've managed to skip a day or two's dailies on all 4 toons at some point, but I'm not in a terrible rush, so I'm fine with it. I do kinda wish the rest would all get farther into the Firelands, just so I'd have less competition when I'm pet-camping. >.>




Lark's raid group did manage to kill Cho'gall after the patch (yay nerfs? :P) We tried out Firelands, but weren't able to do any major progress on the bosses, so we just killed trash. We had some epics drop and most of us got to friendly with the Avengers of Hyjal, so it was still fairly profitable. We'll be heading back in later this week, after smashing some more BoT/BWD. Nef was still a bit beyond us last time, but we'll get him yet.




Pitch is doing pretty well, though he doesn't have a raid of his own yet. Honestly, I don't know if I'll be raiding on more than 1 toon at a time, so until I get bored with Lark or her raid calls it quits, he'll probably just sit out. He did have enough Justice points after the patch to pick up 2 pieces of his tier 11, which I gemmed and enchanted for tanking, so I finally feel like I can tank reasonably well with him. Still would like more tank-specific pieces, but unless I want to re-work his current kitty gear... well, yea. Ahune did decide to be nice and give him a frostling, and now he's up to 113 pets!

Can't think of much else. Rill is up to 84 now, so he might yet be my next to cap. I've been wanting to level Taurros too, so after Rill I may be back on Horde-side. I'm still debating seeing if I can improve Turron's tanking gear and instancing him the rest of the way (he's still 83), but haven't made up my mind yet. And honestly, I've been focusing so much on my main characters that I haven't been doing much alting lately. The other games I play have been a bit neglected as well, although I did briefly get back to Rift. For now, at least, I think my high-levels will be getting the most attention, although we'll see how long that lasts.

So that's about it. Til next time, Happy Hunting!

Couple things...

First thing... hurray! Quae has finally joined the 80+ club, and has merrily mind-flayed her way across Hyjal to 3/4 of the way to 81. Guild xp perk + heirloom cloak is awesomesauce.

Once I'm finished with Booggah I may just go ahead and try leveling her next. Then she'll be a higher level than Barraccus, which will be funny. Yes, it will, trust me.

Speaking of Booggah, he's 84 and working his way toward that last goal. He'll still need a bit of gear before he's really ready to hit Firelands and find his rare(s), but hopefully it won't take long.

Oh yea, and Ice says hi.
I love this cat so much. Samurai has been taking a well-deserved break- she's still in one of his active slots (and will never leave) but Ice here and his fire turtle Runya have been the only pets Boo's used since they were both tamed. I really ought to take more screenies of Runya, I just love him so much.

And yes, I've heard about the normal Terropene-skinned mobs that will be in the Firelands. Know what? I don't care. Boo's turtle isn't Terropene anymore, he's Runya, and I don't give a hoot whether he's a common skin or a "mine's-better-than-yours" rare skin. I will always remember how hard I had to camp to get him, and that's enough for me. Heck, if I get a fire turtle on any other toons, it probably will be a common one, simply because of how hard it was to get Terropene.

Still playing on LOTRO whenever I can pull myself away from WoW. Basten is up to 18, I've leveled a couple other toons, and I'm getting into the routine of the Saturday-night RP nights for Basten. Last one was especially fun, as we all went out fishing! Basten brought home a string of trophy fish for my characters' house. :D


I finished another horse picture, which I worked on longer than any of them yet. This is another scene from my story, which I am finally writing down for reals! Amadar again, who is teaching me just how hard it can be to do good shadows on a white horse. Also- dapples, urgh.


Supposedly the Firelands patch is coming this next Tuesday, I'm still hoping Boo will be 85 before then. Lark is as ready as she'll ever be, I think, and with the justice points she's saved up I'm hoping she'll be able to get some of her tier gear. Her raid group is still working on Cho'gall, but tonight we got him to 9% on our last attempt, so next week we will get him down! (Even if it's because he'll be nerfed. >.>) We might start a second raid night at first, just so people can finish getting their tier 11 and be ready for the Firelands raid, then we'll be going back to 1 night a week, which is fine by me.

Whew! Now I need sleep and stuffs, so til next time Happy Hunting!

This is what happens when I raid...

Before you start thinking horrible things about me, I only took about 3 seconds for the screenshot, so I wasn't exactly wasting dps time. And we pretty much have eveyrything up to Chimaeron (maybe him too, I dunno) on farm, so it's not like I needed to be paying attention....

So yea, this is what might happen when I get bored during a raid. I am seriously loving Lark's new(ish) Marksman offspec. With her current gear, she's pulling 15k dps easy. ^_^

And now our mid-raid break is over and I have to get back to it... *flees*