15 Exalted

Sithi did get her 15th exalted reputation last night in a quick Drek Theron heroic. Another achievement so yeah happy for that! But I don't find Wrath reputations as worthy or that they hold as much meaning since wearing a tabard can earn rep. It's just too easy. I was happy to get Hodir done, pre-tabard. Like earning the albino drake before the Argent pet availability - it was work!!!

It's not the horrid grindy stuff of the past!

Since I'm going back and working on the BC reps, I still get the daily grind that makes me scream, but will be so much more satisfying when that Exalted is achieved!!!

A month later . . .

I've been playing WoW more than thinking about writing about it!

So quick update -

Sithi -

Received a wonderful gift from GM - Black Tabby Cat that I've been lusting after but too cheap to buy as it's Horde only. He also happened to locate and help me tame Gondria (now named Ender for Ender's Game).

Passed the 10k pvp kill and have been trying to hit as man WG's as possible and have enough for another PvP piece or two. I did get the Black War Mammoth yesterday (300 stone shards ... gulp!)
Finally did part of 10 man Ulduar - Flame Leviathan and XT-002 Deconstructor (love his exercise regime!!. Seven Ulduar newbies in the group, including yours truly!! We'd been playing most of the day, and did heroics, a 10 man OS, etc., so quit at Auriaya as we were all TIRED! It was fun though.


Lots more achievements down - including Argent Crusader - w00t finally! Now doing the dailies for the pony. I want the squire mobile and running errands!!! Plus the tabard and all the pets and . . . keep the carrots coming Bliz!

Sithi's also working on Loremaster and the fishing/cooking achievements and very very slowly the Netherwing, just shy of Revered right now. I hate going out there, but lust for those mounts! They've been on my list since the first time I saw them. Much nicer than the proto drakes IMHO!


Sassrani - working on her achievements/rep grind. Currently Hodir quest chain and Argent Tournament. She's far behind Sithi, and doesn't have a good revenue stream yet, but working on the girlie!

Greaf's been herbing and glyphing but not much else as of late. The rest have been on a bit of a vacation other than the Hollows End stuff. Achievement chasing takes time!

Three down two to go!

Slowly getting closer to Crusader title. Fighting on the Elekks ... argh! Next up the dwarves, then the gnomes.

Lil' Game Hunter Achievement will be easier

The upcoming addition of more companion pets with patch 3.2 will make getting the Lil'Game Hunter (75 pets) achievement easier. I'm not overly thrilled with Little Fawn - definitely not on my 'oh gotta get it list' but I'm sure I'll work at getting that achievement too!

The complete list of all pets - wowvault.ign.com

These 3.2 world drop mobs (taken from wowvault list) all seem appealing, and will have the rest of the 'gotta get that pet' crowd running around Azeroth. Heads up PvP servers!

• Darting Hatchling from Dart, Rare spawn in Dustwallow Marsh.
• Leaping Hatchling from Tak the Leaper, Rare spawn in the Barrens
• Razormaw Hatchling from Razormaw Matriarch, Rare spawn in the Wetlands
• Ravasaur Hatchling from Ravasaur Matriarch, Rare spawn in Un'goro Crater
• Razzashi Hatchling from Razzashi Raptors in Zul'Gurub
• Deviate Hatchling from Raptors in Wailing Caverns
• Gundrak Hatchling from Raptors in Zul'Drak near Gundrak

While checking out the Vault list, I found a few vendor purchasable ones, that I've overlooked while waiting for the next patch.

Plus a few quest ones that I need to grab -
I never have had the Outland daily fishing quest drop a pet and the darn OOX mechanical chicken has been borked for me as well. I know I've done at least one part of that, but after an hour or so killing low level guys I can't get the other two parts to drop. Maybe try it again.

Also need to get an engineer make a mechanical yeti and . . . I'm wondering if I'm a bit OCD about pets and mounts!

Track your collection - WarcraftPets.com

Colecting Keys

The other day the GM & Co-GM of our guild were discussing getting the Karazhan and Arcatraz keys so more guildies would have them, and they were also completing the Key Master Achievement. Lusting after achievements and keys myself, I waiting for an opportunity to see if others could get in on this too, without whining or begging!

As they were already through most everything short of the Caverns of Time instances, I assumed I would be out of luck, but then mentioned they wanted to take any of the guild this week to get keys too! W00t!! Me! Me! Me!

The GM said as long as I did all the pre-quests up to the first instances they’d include me! Oh yeah! Now mind you, this is 2 a.m. and I really need to go to bed...but I want this DONE! So, off I go to bang through those quests. Shat-SW-Kara-Dalaran-Shat, Netherstorm and all the prequesting accomplished! Love my gorilladin tank!

Last night I log in, the guild is in a funk. Bad Nax 10 raid, that is on the verge of breaking up. I sit quietly in vent, going about my dailies (working for $$ still). The raid finally is called. Moods are not very good and a few people log off. (I found out later one of the raiders was having more fun with Peggle then raiding! : O) Not good!!

The guys are discussing what they're going to do - ah ha opportunity - I mention “I got the pre-quests done whenever you guys go this week.” Now hold breathe.

Not a terribly enthusiastic response. The Co-GM who's normally very jovial in a M-rated way is dead silent, but the GM said we’ll run you through the instances and then continue on the CoT. Yeah! I do make the token, we can do it another time, if you'd like while crossing fingers they'll still want to go!

The GM says no, we'll go! Yippee! They invite another guildie that will get xp (lvl 70) so he can practice healing. Off we go to burn through those instances, two shaman, a druid and my hunter.

Shadow Labs is first up. Fairly smooth - I get turned into a frog by Blackheart the Inciter which was better than when he turned the tank against the dps and healer - lol!

Fortunately he's down fast and we’re breezing through it, except for the healer (lvl 70) that keeps pulling aggro as he’s jumping around. Finally I asked him,

“Do you have ADD?”

“No! But I can’t just stand here, nothing to heal.”

I’m thinking I don’t care if you jump but jump AWAY from the mobs that are so attracted to your level 70 goodness! Fortunately I'm watching him and keep the wolf pulling mobs off him.

We had one wipe, when he uses one of his AoE spells. I feigned, but accidently ‘moved’ (I need to practice when feigned hands OFF mouse and keyboard!) so died.

We ran back, killed Murmur and on to Steam Vaults and then to Netherstorm to Arcatraz. We blew through those too. A couple of remarks by me to the two draenei shammy's on the welcome home /sigh - they didn't get it! We were in out of there so quickly, it literally took longer to get there than the time spent in each instance!

Now to Caverns of Time.

Segue here –I must admit CoT is one of my favorite places to go. I’m a bit of a WoW lore junkie! The more I learn about the ‘whys’ of what we’re doing the more I enjoy questing, visiting areas and listening/reading NPC dialog. I particularly love going to Southshore in Old Hillsbrad just to watch the NPC’s interact. Freeing Thrall from Durnholde is fun for me. The whole story of Thrall, the slave, and Taretha, his only friend, bridging the human/orc hatred. It make questing alive to me and explains more of the whole Thrall/Jaine relationship - although I've wondered at times about those two ... I mean, Horde players go to Tarren Mills and do the Durnholde quests, but I doubt many realize why it’s rubble, and why you’re collecting Taretha’s necklace. Interesting stuff!

Back to our adventure - so, the Co-GM’s brother joins our group for more firepower, so the group is Druid tank, two Shaman dps, Shaman heals and my Hunter/wolf. Needless to say this went very quickly, as the ‘new shaman’ is 22K health unbuffed – scary hits! Everything died so fast and there were so many totems strewn around it looked like a party! The druid tank couldn’t build rage effectively it went that fast! But it was fun. The healer had no healing to do so more jumping and totem tossing was his role.

Off to Black Morass. At first I thought we were in the Swamp of Sorrows as I’ve never been in the Black Morass instance, so didn’t know exactly what to expect. Surprise, we get to meet Medivh at the Dark Portal and found out this was the Blasted Lands before they were blasted, dried out and ugly!

From a strictly lore basis, you have to question why we’d want to help Medivh open the Portal, but the Keepers of Time hint at it being the lesser of two evils. The orcs wouldn’t have arrived on Azeroth, but would the Burning Legion have arrived anyway? Hmmmm…

Good times! Kara key in hand, Arcatraz key later this week!

GM has his KeyMaster achievement, so he’s happy too. They want to see how fast we can run through Kara this week too. I’m willing, as I’m still new to this guild, they’re fun in a casual/relaxed way so it makes WoW so much more enjoyable.

I may actually enjoy raiding – won’t that be a kick?

Achievement time

Sithi has moved to a new guild. We're crossing fingers/toes this one will be fun, as this is a stretch - she may actually start getting geared for raiding. No promises, but going to try and push our comfort zone a tad!

A well guarded secret was revealed to the guild on the first day - I don't duel. I know heresy, especially from someone so in love with pvp. The person that recruited Sithi to the new guild, is a death knight. We have grouped together a few times, he's a very enthusiastic player, while we were waiting for the rest of the group to do our daily summon Ahune, he asked Sithi to duel.

We did. He won - barely.

I didn't say we're bad at dueling, just not something I seek! He asked again while we were outside Coilfang - not a good idea DK! I have room to move now - bwaaaha.
You could have heard a pin drop in guild chat. Level 76 (at the time!) and you've never won a duel? Someone finally asked.

I said well in truth this is the third or fourth duel she's been in and the other two were pre-achievement time!

The downside to our duel. We had just recovered to full health and a level 80 pally from the Horde came along caught the DK, he was almost dead when I sent my wolf on him. Apparently they hadn't seen me, but being the supportive guildie that I am I jumped in - lol! Now it's dead wolf, and a pissed of pally! I tried dropping a trap as death was approaching
oh well, score two for the pally!

I didn't have vent up so missed the dialog there, but this led to an invitation to group with some of the guild. The group ended up being the GM, co-GM, and two senior officers. Not to bad Sith! We blew through three instances in Coilfang, Underbog, Slave Pens and Steam Vault, performed at best adequately, definitely wasn't beating the level 80's in dps! But also kept my pet in control, managed to not get lost, die or anything else very lame - all while trying to get my vent working. A new weird one - I'm in vent but no sound. Argh!

Three more achievements under the belt as - you're right - the first time in any of those instances! I'm sure they're in shock, but I did tell them I had solo'd on this hunter most of the content.

Apparently Sithi did okay as she was promoted after only three hours in the guild! LOL! A good day.

She's sitting right now at level 77, frantically working to make money for her artisan/cold weather flying skill (1500g to go) with two swift gryphons in the bank waiting. The albino drake is getting closer!!!!

The big question after this will Sithi NEED to go for the mountain of mounts? 100 mounts - oy! It would be only for the achievement, not that keen on the dragonhawk!

Busy Day

MIDSUMMER FESTIVAL
Sithi finally bought the sandels to complete the outfit - just to do a pole dance achievement! She did the King of the Fire Festival last summer solo at level 40-50. Playing both sides helps to know the different city's layout and had honored/desecrated most of the fires too. It was sweet when Bliz reset to get to do them again! Definitely enjoy the XP and $$!

The achievement that I'm sure will be /fail for Sithi - throwing torches. I haven't tried it yet, but going to. I'm sure it will be a frustrating and irritating experience!

BATTLE BOT PET

Sithi's Battle-bot pet seems to have taken some growth hormones! I don't know why it was so large, do they grow? I couldn't find a 'normal' size one to compare or fight!

KARAZHAN
While questing through Borean Tundra I got a whisper to do a Kara run. As I was getting ready to take a break from Wow-ing, I declined and wished them well.

Breaks over. I really need to get the current flavor-of-the-month raid pet a wolf as I keep getting whispers for instances and the gorilla isn't the ideal pet.

Petopia time as I'm not overly thrilled with the Northrend wolves at least what I've seen! Level appropriate but a bit on the ooglie side for me. The one in Hinterlands, the rare spawn Old Cliff Jumper - that's the ticket! It won't look like every other wolf, if I have to have a wolf.

Off to The Hinterlands!

Stop in Aerie Peak at the Stable Master with the Gorilla. Storage problem - two cats and a wasp. The next slot 150g and I'm saving for flying. The cats (I don't really need two, but....), boot the wasp! Store the gorilla, grab the wasp and off we go to find the Jumper!

Note to self: You are on a PvP server at a time when lots of the opposition are running around. Not a good idea to stand around reading wowhead notes on new pet while out in the open with pet on PASSIVE!!!! Death by warrior - argh! My fault - hunters can see them coming so know excuses except stupid!

Regroup.

What? The Jumper is on a 10-16 hour span timer? Back to Petopia. Ah Ironjaw! I always did like the look of that one in Terrokar Forest, the same model at Halycon in Black Rock Depths - the gianormous one - and it's a rare model too.

A lovely trip later - Dalaran-Shat-Terrokar off on my bird to get Ironjaw! Find him, dismiss the wasp, trap 'n tame. New wolf pet. Now I need a good wolfish name. Feed him - we need to level him 5 levels as he's only level 70. Hearth is not up, so Shadowmoon is just a hop over the mountains. Off we go.

As I'm landing in Shadowmoon, I get a whisper. Can you come to Kara now? (same group) We need DPS. Hmmm, I've never been. How bad can it be? If it is I can leave! So, I agree. I wanted to get back to town to restock arrows, food - no come now! What pet do you want? We don't care. Oh joy! Well the wolf can go then. That's why I got him, right?

Off to Kara! They're right befor Curator. This is a PUG, level 70-80 DKs, pallys, locks, one mage and me. Okay! The pally that was tanking is no healing as one healer left. The RL says he'll tank (70 DK). Do you need any CC? No just DPS. So away we go. Wipe one on all the adds with Curator. Back up. Adds down, Curator down.

Free rolls on gear - w00t! I win the gloves. If I'd known my PvP set were better I would have passed, but hey I'm a noob raider and totally ignorant on gear! : P

We take down Terestian Illhoof and again win!!! Girdle of the Prowler Nice! Time to start passing on stuff!

We're going along well until we meet Shade of Aron who nicely kicked us to the curb. The raid basically fell apart then as they'd been at it for quite a long time.

So, for a first raid and a pug at that - not bad! No screaming or whining which is a rarity - lol!!! Especially as we were not in vent.


Still need to name the wolf though!

The gang

It's been 15 day +/- since I last wrote anything. I've been reading to many 'blog' how-to's which kind of freezes you in place wondering why do I write and how boring am I?

Anyway the WoW gang -


The Alliance. I'm still playing them the most, much to the dismay of my Horde friends.

Sithi -
Working on the Kurenai rep still. How many ogre's does a night elf have to kill to get a Talbuk? Apparently alot! Argh! At least the drop on the darn necklace has been fairly good, as well as the stacks of netherweave that will help pay for all the talbuk mounts!! As Sithi's just shy of 73 they're still green so some XP too! The albino drake gets closer! I'm really contemplating leveling her to 80 as I want to try the tournament so badly, I can almost taste it!

I've been combining this very boring/tedious task with the daily Fishing and Cooking quests along with a few other Outland dailies. It breaks up the Ogre slaughter.

Sithi is also, only 3 pets shy of the 50 pets achievement too. And only Northrend left for the Explorer title. Finished the 'It's Happy Hour...' one after reading drink 25, didn't mean alcohol. The coffee seller in Lower City was the ding!

I've also with all Sithi's exploring, found an appreciate for Netherstorm. Sassi never went past Area 52 and did no questing there, so it's a totally new area to me. The pink is overwhelming at times, but I love it in general, especially after Blades Edge, which I hate. The sharpness and dead dragons - one of my least favorite places. It makes Hellfire and the dang fel reavers seem fun!

Now the question, quest there to level, or save it for money later after 80 questing? I'll probably quest as it's dead empty! I don't think I've even seen anyone Horde or Alliance in Netherstorm, Blades Edge or Shadowmoon at all. Call me weird, but I'm going to see all those areas before Northrend! It will be there, just full of more 80's waiting to kick my butt out of boredom -lol!!!

The Druids are stalled out at 33/34 as I've been working Miss Sithi. Gifted the RAF levels to Zadril she's almost 33 now and now have a brand new level 17 warrior, Deva wearing starting gear - lol. I've never played a warrior so thought another class to learn.

I've been doing Warsong Gulch with Keg, he's not fully twinked, but close. It's fairly enjoyable, even getting beat by far better hunters, I'm having fun! He's trying to get the Arena Grand Master, but only has one AM now, as it is an achievement now, so Gurubashi is filled with level 80's most of the time. He was opening the chest and received the first two items before the serve shutdown, so no joy on a second AM. I have him living there as all he does otherwise is WG.

Took Frothe in a BG too. I haven't played anything but a hunter or shadow priest in PvP in so long it felt weird. She did okay considering she's only a level 14 LOL!

Had the three Death Knights running thru Hellfire - boy does that go fast with three of them! I do have to say a gnome is a PvP magnet. A Horde DK attacked Greaf, while I was loading Jeall and Landrel. Bad idea as the blood elf went down fast. LOL! She never rezzed either once all three were loaded and standing over her body.

I've also been spending time with various low toons in Wailing Caverns getting gear for them, and collecting deviate scales for Sithi. The belts sell well on the alliance side for twinks.

Finally broke down and bought the Deviate Fish recipe for 500G on the neutral AH. It's been 1-2K on the alliance side. Considering the fish sell for 2g each, it will make $$ long term. Found fishing inside WC she fished up 40-45% deviate fish and no worry about a lvl 80 beating her up while she fishes. For some weird reason, I've actually been enjoying fishing as of late. Maybe it's the changes to fishing up junk versus nothing or travelling all over to level. Although I do love to fish the pools of debris, like finding a chest - lol!

The Horde side -

I have been on there a bit. I even was in vent the other day - lol! I have a hard time just popping in if I'm not playing. Just seems like cheating or something, especially if I'm playing alliance seems wrong to be in the horde vent!

Actually took Sassi out and working on the explorer title for her. A few Azeroth areas left, Outlands is done. She's actually now 6% towards level 71!!! I'm not hating it, but not loving playing her either!

I did work on the hunter gang. Started a new one for the 19's on the horde side. Actually two, a blood elf and an orc, although the orc will likely be the one I'll use. BE's I like to play, but they're a bit weak at that level.

How is that for a bit of a rambling state of the toons! LOL

89% to Level 70

Yes I'm at 89% to level 70 - use to be an achievement dinging 70, but now its just another level on the road to endgame . . . or so I'm told! I've been slowly leveling as there have been other things to do.

• Farming low level leather for alts gear (SFK for leather and greens works well)
• Running instances for the enchanter to have stuff to d/e (Why am I leveling an Enchanter I keep asking myself!!!)
• Exploration - Eastern Kingdom almost done (STV left)
• Farming mats for a few leather upgrades for Sithi (knothide/clefthide . . . argh)
• Battlegrounds - they're definitely more fun when you're in the '9th level of a bracket! Even with the overabundance of Death Knights - which have really imbalanced BGs - I'm grinding AB/WG! Yes I said grinding (I normally enjoy BG's, but lately . . . argh), as I want the last two mounts for yet another achievement! I need 45 more AB marks and 24 more WG ones for those two. I repeat albino drake, albino drake while I play/die/play/die! Sitting at 35 mounts right now, with the flying ones to come!

I also had a lucrative pet selling business, until last week, with Kreliss, my horde shopper/bank as he went to toon heaven.  Having Krel buy and put on the neutral AH, buy and resell on the Alliance side started not to make money but to get the darn pets for the Pet Achievement (43 companions and counting!), but when I found out how much I could make and how easy . . . well its turned into a nice money-maker this past month on a second account! 

It also has been nice to access both sides AH - Darrowmere the low pop server I transferred to - is NOT Wildhammer by any means! But that's another long QQ post!  Between WoW's laggy performance and my fitful DSL line, there have been many #$%#$% moments!!!

Krel's other parting gift to my Alliance hunters - I ran all three over to tame Echaykee as I do think it's a pretty kitty and as it's a Horde only quest line to summon him, I tamed him on ALL three just in case!!!!

So here I sit at 89% to level 70.  I've been collecting gear and enchants for the day I ding.  Money's in the bank for flying skills and mounts.  But I want to finish the Explorer portion of Azeroth before dinging - flying will make Outlands easy to finish.

Then the decision - do all the Outlands quests or off to Northrend and save Outlands for later . . . decisions, decisions.

Exploring WoW

I have to commend Blizzards creativity on zones - I didn't really appreciate all the detail until I started poking around in the corners!  Some places I'd been before, but learning more about the lore and history has really enhanced my enjoyment . 

As I mentioned I'm actively pursuing the Explorer achievement for the title (it will be awhile as I've not stepped foot on Northrend and still 30% from level 70 for the flying mount!). But I've found some really interesting places that I'd never been before.

Bloodcurse Isle - Statue of Queen Azshara

Inhabited by naga (they use to be night elves way way back!) that love and worship Queen Azshara.  Which now makes so much sense as to why they're are so many in Azshara!!!

Azshara, Ravencrest Monument - a statue in honor of Lord Kurt'alos Ravencrest.

More naga - lol!! I actually find Azshara fascinating.  Mind you I hated it the first time I went and could not believe someone made such a horrid zone.  But having quested there a few times, I really like it.  It's challenging - just remembering how to get around - but no so hard as to be impossible.  

This is looking up at the Loch Modan dam from outside Grim Batol (Wetlands).

Stepping out on these rocks you have great views out over the Wetlands, but beware Grim Batol is heavily guarded by dragonflight (elites).

Exploring these areas, you can really see there is quite a bit of future expansion potential!  I'm hoping for something with the dragonflight and all the Emeral Dream portals!

WoW Achievements

Way back when the achievements were announced I thought what a ripoff of Warhammer's ToK (Tome of Knowledge) as the ToK is a wonderful resource as well as a way to track your progress in the game, etc., I still feel WoW's achievements fall short of the ToK, but it is a nice record of your achievements for those of us that aren't all about arena/raiding!


I still wish WoW (and other MMO's) would have a 'quest completed' section like EQII has, as this is a nice record of all the quests you've done and you can quickly tell if you've exhausted quests in an area.


That said - I'm actively pursuing the following fun achievements -

• Explorer (World Explorer gets the Explorer title) This is proving to be alot of fun and seeing areas that I hadn't before - separate post to come with some interesting screenies!
• Ambassado of the Alliance (Exalted with all five races - the gnomes are killing me . . .62 rep per quest now - ARGH! 2000 to go!) Started this one only as I need the mechano-striders for the Albino Drake!
• Leading the Cavalry (5o mounts and I get the albino drake - this has a new layer too - GAWD I'm behind things LOL!!!)
• Shop Smart, Shop Pet ... Smart (they've increased this from 50 to 75 for the next achievement and I'm still sitting at 43!!!)

There are a bunch of other fun one's (Did Someone Order a Knuckle Sandwich, Its Happy Hour Somewhere, Master of Arms, Pest Control, Tastes Like Chicken, To All the Squirrels I've Loved Before) that are on the list too as I'm traveling about exploring the Azeroth classic world content. I mean to do a run through each dungeon too to knock out those acheivements - pick up a few BoE for alts too!

Gosh, I wonder if I'll ever see level 80 finding so many none leveling things to do - LOL!!!

Reference - WoW achievements