My pain, let me show you it

Today was the beginning of the Children's Week, and I've been worrying about this particular achivevement for days. You know. That 'chieve that everyone hates. Except maybe a couple masochistic and profoundly disturbed individuals. (But then again, some people do this daily, without the promise of getting a shiny dragon for it. That is just beyond me.)

School of Hard Knocks. How I hate you so very, very hard.

I still needed to do five dailies with my orphan out, so I went and did that, in order to delay the inevitable just a little while longer. I saw a post from Kia over at Sisterhood of Kia which gave me hope. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. Maybe I would even have some fun in the process!

I was wrong. So very very wrong. But that's not Kia's fault. Her post just gave me the encouragement I needed to actually try and do it. 

I won't lie to you. SoHK was physically painful for me to do. At some point, I just /afk'd out of Eye of the Storm, thinking "Screw this. I hate Blizz. I hope they all choke and die." I may or may not have thought about ending my life right here and then. Just so I could go and haunt all the motherfuckers doing BGs during Children's Week and verbally abusing poor little noobs like me who just want their motherfucking achivement.

A couple hours later, after I had calmed down, I tried again.

My heart was beating pretty hard when I was finally able to grab the motherfucking flag and run to one of our bases. It took me one Arathi Basin, two Alterac Valley, three Eye of the Storm and one Warsong Gulch. I was pretty lucky. There were absolutely no skill involved, not on my part anyway. It might not look at much to you. I did do this in one evening. But for me, a girl who hates PvP, it felt like an eternity and then some.

There were some nice Alliance people in the second AV I joined that were re-capping towers so that we could take turns assaulting them. In AB, I let an alliance hunter assault a flag. Like, I just stood there, with my orphan out, and let him take it so that I could do mine after. But that ungrateful hoe sent his pet on me and left. 

That's what I get for being nice.

So after I died, I came back, fought those dirty, dirty Alliance bitches (no offence to Alliance readers. If you're not in my BG, making my life miserable, I heart ya.) and was able to assault a flag. 

EotS was the most crappiest, fun-sucking, unbearably painful part for me. We were all just fighting in mid, losing all our bases in some cases, just getting our asses kicked and watching others grab the flag while we were fleeing in terror, or falling to our deaths. Gotta love fear. And typhoon. And thunderfuck. Not.

Anyway. It was by shear luck that at some point I grabbed the flag AND RAN FOR MY LIFE! All the way there I was praying to anyone who could hear me to just LET ME GET THERE OMG!!1!!!1!!

Then there was only WSG left. It was the one I was most scared of. All for nothing. It took all of five minutes and I was done. Some dude came to grab our flag - in our base - alone. No backup whatsoever. Me and a warrior - who was also after the flag - beat the shit out of him, and I started spam-clicking the flag. By that time, I had stopped being helpful. Fuck him, he can get his 'chieve after I'm done. 

My heart stopped when I saw the achievement pop.

I'm so terribly glad to be done with this. I hate PvP'ing. With a passion. And being forced to PvP for a year-long meta achievement like What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been is pure torture. I don't know who had the idea, but the guy is a MORON. 

After I was done with that, I went and took my orphans for a ride, and got me two new pets. I (finally) got my third pet for Veteran Nanny. I was pretty pleased.

I'm just glad this is past me and that I won't have to redo this ever again. Hang in there if you're having a hard time completing this. It's hard. It's no fun. But if I can do this, so can you. 

Thoughts on account wide achievements

I am absolutely thrilled about account wide achievements. Why? Because I'm lazy. 

You know this Loremaster thing? Maybe I can do it on multiple toons. Jori - the mage - is 75 quests away from Loremaster of Cataclysm and three zones away from Loremaster of Outland. Naesa - the hunter - is three zones away from Loremaster of Northrend. Jori? She has one achievement for the Northrend quests, because like an idiot I did a couple quests in each zones and complained a lot to Mad that this shit was taking forever, and I was so impatient and obnoxious that he finally leveled my toon to 80 himself because he just couldn't bear to hear me whine one more second. Or just because he's the best boyfriend ever and can never (almost) say no to me. I mean come on, he farmed Darnassus rep for my human mage so I could get a Night Elf mount. And that was back when you had to do quests and turn in an incredible amount of various cloth. No tabards at the time, oh no. But I digress. The point is, I won't have to do all the Northrend quests on my mage. My hunter has done a good chunk of em already. If it works, it's going to save me a lot of time. What's not to like?

It does bug me a little that my mage won't be the only one with ALL THE POINTS. I'm trying to convince myself that it doesn't mean anything. I won't love my mage less. It just means I get shit on my other characters that I'm too lazy to farm more than once. Since we'll be able to know on which characters each achievement  was earned, Jori will still be the special snowflake! And whenever I get a "surprise achievement" on an alt I barely play, I won't throw a fit. (Oh yay! But wait, I'm not on my mage!  FUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!! ) 

I'm already not even getting my alts all the achievements they could get. I do them once, on my mage, because it's fun. But doing them twice? Not so much. So it wouldn't especially bother me to roll a level one who would have 8k + achievement points. I love leveling, that's why I roll new alts. But it's actually annoying to look at their achievements (or lack thereof) and think : "Crap, I gotta do it all over again!"  And then I just don't do it all over again. Because I got other achievements to get on my mage, and I never come around to my less played toons and go "Your turn now. Let's farm ALL THE POINTS."

So I'm excited about account wide achievements. Because I'm lazy. But your mileage may vary.

I think I've become a hoarder

I think I'm going a little crazy with the transmog thing. 

I blame Mad for this. Just a little. It all started when Mad decided to come back to WoW. He created a rogue, and ever since, he's been questing his ass off, or scanning the auction house a lot to find the perfect set for his rogue lady. Which made me want to do the same.

Except I have a shitload of toons already. And he has two. His priest is already mogged up in a way that he likes, and his rogue's set is almost complete. Most of the pieces he needed came from quests. Me? Well, I've been on the lookout for a lot of pieces to finish up my 10ish uncompleted sets. Which are mostly all rare and expansive. >.>

I've been going back and forth between the old and new server to try and catch the lowest prices. Because mogging really is expensive. I've farmed some stuff, either in the world or in dungeons (which is the very fun part btw, running dungeons that is) but mostly I've been buying it off the AH. I've been pretty lucky on some pieces that I got at really low prices.

I'm having fun picking which sets I want for each of my toons, but some part of me is yelling : Stop spending your munies!! Want moar munies!!!

I don't exactly listen to the voice anymore. Because I want ALL THE PRETTIES.

I'm not broke. Far from it. But I'm not rich either. I had finally reached 100k a while back, but when Mad came back to the game, I gave him half of my "fortune". Because I love him. And he had a sad face when he realized he had only 10k left.

I'm also starting to have some trouble storing it all. My banks are full, my bags are full, even my personal guild bank is full of greens and blues.So I started using void storage. OMFG this shit is expensive!! At 25g a piece, I've already spent something like 3k gold just storing items I didn't want to use anytime soon. Because I can't sell it. What if I need it for a transmog set someday?

Hi. My name is Lyr, and I'm a hoarder.

Identity

I was looking at "Breakfast Topics" over on WoW Insider and there is one in particular that caught my attention.

How do you decide which of your characters is your main?

Huh. That’s a frickin’ good question.

To me, a main is a character you put a lot of time and effort on. It’s the toon that probably has the most achievement points. It’s the toon with all the cool mounts, your favourite titles, maxed professions (even fishing and cooking and first aid, maybe even archaeology) and the most /played time. It’s also a toon for which you have a strong attachment, for whatever reason. Maybe it was your first toon. Maybe it was created to level with a friend. Maybe you just have a lot of good memories attached to this particular character.

The writer of the article mentions that even though she plays her shaman more now, she still considers her paladin to be her main. It was her first 85, and her second ever made toon. She also says :

But I think the idea of a main could be something quite significant in WoW. It’s how you identify yourself. It’s your positioning and your role in the big machine, and it’s who you feel you are online. Possibly.

I think not everyone has the same definition of what a main is, and that’s fine. I don’t think there is only one good answer anyway. I think her definition is interesting, and probably true for most of us. Maybe we just don't realize it.

My first toon ever was my mage. And for a long time she was my main. She was my second level 70 in BC. She was my first level 80 in Wrath, and my first 85 in Cata. I farmed mounts and achievements and companions and titles on her. I loved playing her. I took her everywhere I could, every chance I got. I switched toons often, raided with a druid, a hunter, a pally for a while, but I never got them the coolest mounts or titles or companions or achievements. Those were reserved for my mage.

But for a very long time in Cataclsym, my mage was just looking pretty in Dalaran. I  have not raided with her seriously since ICC. The reason is simple: I hate what they did to Arcane. Many people might enjoy it. But I don’t. Arcane has been my favourite spec since Naxx, and I swear I’ve tried Fire and Frost, but it’s no as much fun as Arcane used to be. For weeks now, I've been playing as Fire in LFR, and am enjoying myself. But things aren't what they used to be. And for two whole tiers of raiding, Jori was retired.

I did gear her in full 353′s in the troll heroics. I geared her in 378′s when Hour of Twilight came out. And she is now fully geared in LFR gear - except for one eluding trinket - but for a long time, I didn’t play her nearly has much as I did back in Wrath. Nowadays, I play her a lot, just not for raiding. I grind rep, I farm gear for transmog, I get her achievements. That's just as fun as raiding, without the commitment to a bunch of people counting on me. 

If I ever come around to do Loremaster, it will be on my mage. If I can get a new companion, I will try to get it on my mage first. I do enjoy doing stuff with her. Just not raiding, which for a very long time was mostly what my playtime was about. But not anymore. So is she my main? Of course she is.

Just out of curiosity, I went and checked my /played time on each of my level 85 characters. I also checked their achievement points. I obviously didn't include my most recent characters here.

Class	Achievement Points	/played (Total time)
Shaman	1850	10 days
Warrior	2995	21 days
DK	3675	34 days
Paladin	3495	34 days
Priest	3160	35 days
Druid	5580	48 days
Hunter	5970	56 days
Mage	8330	86 days

Most of my characters don’t have half as much played time as my mage. Even my hunter, which is the second most played, has 30 days less. And the achievement points speak for themselves.

My mage will always be very dear to me. It was with her that I first explored the world, with her that I ran my first dungeons, that I had my first raiding experience. My dear Jori. How could she not be my main after all we’ve been through together?

A lot of people who knew me back when I was raiding with my mage still call me Jori. Some of them know my real name, and even though my mage is on another server now, and has another name, they still call me Jori. It’s just who I am. To them, I’ll always be the inexperienced, quiet mage who, by some miracle or strange alignment of planets, outdps’d them in Naxx, and had a french accent on vent.

So what if I don’t play Jori as much as I used to, or if I don’t raid as a mage anymore. That’s not all there is to a main. And there’s no other toon I love so much. My hunter is a close second, but Jori remains first in my heart, and whatever happens, I think that’s where she’ll stay until the day I finally leave Azeroth.

Adventures in Tankingland

Be vewy quiet, I'm hunting dwagons.

I’m having a total blast tanking with my paladin. Avenger's shield is just so amazingly good. But as I level and get more tanking experience, I’ve come to realize certain things.

- I loooooove tanking. Like I never thought I would.

- Avenger's shield is one of my favourite abilities in game.

- I hate boomkins. With a fucking passion. Typhoon my mobs one more time and I swear I’m letting you tank them all. One of them was pulling everything in sight by typhooning half dead mobs into packs of mobs. The healer was frantically filling green bars while I was taunting all the mobs to me. Let’s do this again never, mkay?

- Same thing applies to elemental shaman and their thunderfuck of doom.

- I also hate frost mages that frost nova mobs before they can reach me, which makes it hard to keep aggro on all of them.

- I hate warriors that taunt off me. When they are dps.

- I hate mage and hunters (or any ranged class, really) pulling shit at random just because they can.

- I hate most people, period. The healer that tells me to pull half the fucking instance cuz he’s bored, the dps that pull ahead of me and bitch when they die (cuz I don’t taunt off you if you pull on purpose.), and I hate every single person rolling on gear they don’t fucking need just because they can.

And I’ve just realized that soon I’ll have to deal with noob Death Knights too, with their death grip and their DnD of doom. /shudder

Madly

Today's Breakfast Topic over on WoW Insider asks us : Do you play with your significant other?

Yes, yes I do.

When I met Mad, he had just started playing the WoW beta. I knew nothing about gaming. The only games I had played were final fantasy 7, 8 and 9. Mad talked non-stop about raids, and instances, and dps, and all sorts of things I didn't understand. He seemed to be having a lot of fun, and every friday night he would be raiding with his guild. He often told me about Onyxia and UBRS and I honestly wasn't interested in hearing about it.

For a long time, WoW was for me something that prevented me from spending time with my boyfriend.

And someday, I can't remember whose idea it was, but there was a human mage that was created. Her name was Joriany. I ran around the Northshire Abbey and I got lost! (For something like a year I got lost a lot in Azeroth. Everywhere. Anywhere. If there were more than one way to go, you'd know I would take the wrong one.) But then I killed some wolf by throwing fire at them. And I ran accross Elwynn Forest, killing things and collecting items and got clothes to put on my lady mage. And then I went to Stormwind. 

Oh. My. GOD!

Yeah, and just like that, I was hooked. Haven't stopped ever since.

By the time I started playing, Mad had stopped and restarted playing. Burning Crusade was in full swing. Mad had picked some new server for us to start creating new characters (because in a fit of "I'm not playing this game ever again", Mad had deleted all his geared level 60 toons, along with all the money he had. Fat lot of good that did.) Mad has stopped playing many times over the years (we lost count), but he always came back. Probably because of me shoving it in his face all the time. And I have to admit, it's a lot more fun with him around.

If I had to pick someone that I admire the most as a player, it would be Mad. He patiently taught me everything about the game, helped me find my way when I got lost. Crafted me gear, gave me gold to buy shiny things I wanted. Created guilds for me, just because I liked a name. Got me into Naxx runs and taught me how to raid. 

He is good at everything he does. Healing, tanking, dpsing, he does it all the best he can. And that's usually a lot better than me. I'm an average player, all things considered, but Mad has that little something more that makes him a great player (maybe even an exceptional one but I might be biased). He puts a lot of effort into what he's doing, simply because he wants to be the best.

I'd follow him to a hardcore progression guild if that's where he wanted to go. I wouldn't - obviously - raid with said guild, but I'd stick with him and support him anyway I can. And I know he'd do the same for me, because he did. He followed me to a new server to raid with new people, and he'd do it again. Because WoW is something that we share and enjoy together. 

So yeah, I play with my SO, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Planning the levelling

I was reading The Grumpy Elf's last post and it made me think.

When MoP comes, I'll probably level my mage first. She was my second 70, my first 80 and my first 85. It goes without saying by now.

But by that time, I'll (hopefully) have five or six 85's waiting to reach the level cap, and that's only on my "main" realm. I probably will level all my characters to 90 at some point. Because I love levelling.

Here is how I plan to level my characters. Most likely in this order.

Mage : Mostly through quests and dungeons. I'll probably run each dungeons at least once, for the quests. I'll also do as much Archaeology as I can. Because I hear it's good xp. And I can always go back and do the quests after I've reached the level cap. Moar munies. This character will be leveled up with one of Mad's characters. So I'll have to wait for him. 

Druid : Gathering plants until I get sick of it and then some more. Depending on which day the launch is, I might start this right away. If Mad is working, I'll spend every moment I can picking flowers.

Hunter : Mostly through quests and dungeons. 

Shaman : Questing. Maybe some dungeons. I want to skin ALL THE THINGS. So I guess questing is better than running dungeons.

Death Knight : Questing. Occasional dungeon.

As for my paladin, I'm not sure yet what to do with her. There's a guild on my server that is for 70's only. I might turn off her xp for a while. Whenever I feel like doing some BC stuff, I will have a toon ready! I've never really did endgame content in BC. This could be fun.

And the rest of my toons will be levelled after that, when I get bored with the ones I have, or just because I feel like levelling something. Of course, a panda monk will be rolled somewhere in there. At some point.

And following The Grumpy Elf's advice, the moment the expansion goes live, I will log on all my characters so they can start building up rested xp. It won't hurt. I don't know yet if I'll level multiple characters or just one at a time. It's a good idea to just switch whenever your run out of rested xp, but I want to have at least one 90 before switching to another toon. 

Now let's wait and see in a couple months if I'll follow this or not.

Thoughts on professions

One of the reasons I have so many alts, (one of them being that I can't make up my mind about anything, ever) is that I love having all the professions maxed out. 

I absolutely despise having to sit around and wait for someone to craft me something, or having to buy it off the auction house when I can make it myself. Having a lot of free time on my hands, I have the luxury of being able to farm all the things. Not that it's particularly fun, though it sometimes is, but I prefer farming mats over spending money on it.

With the new expansion coming, I had to stop and think about how to organize my professions on the new server. My boyfriend Mad and I have moved a character each already, and since I can't possibly transfer all of my characters over, I've picked two more that will be shipped there as well in the next couple of weeks. How did I pick those? Well based on their professions of course. 

Mage : alchemist / tailor

Hunter : enchanter / jewelcrafter

Druid : scribe /  herbalist

The fact that they are my three favourite characters had something to do with this, as well. 

So in the next few weeks, I have to level mining to 525 so I can start farming ores as soon as possible when MoP is released and level jewecrafting. I also want to level skinning so I can eventually help Mad level leatherworking. Since I've already created two characters on the new server, a paladin and a shaman, I'm thinking maybe I will take mining/blacksmithing on one and skinning/leatherworking on the other.

And if I'm lucky, Mad will take engineering on his rogue and save me the trouble of having to take it myself. 

As for secondary professions, all my characters get maxed out on first aid, cooking and fishing at some point, but as far as archaeology goes, my mage is the only character that will ever max it out. Because I'm an altoholic, but I'm not masochistic. While fishing isn't that much more fun than archaeology, at least I can sit somewhere and never move. 

Plus, I'd be devastated if I got one of the mounts on an alt.

Just enjoying the game

If you read my other blog's last post, you know that WoW is my favourite game at the moment.

I was very bored with WoW for a while. A pretty long while. After I stopped raiding right before christmas, I started playing Swtor and hardly ever logged on WoW. 

But when Mists of Pandaria Beta was announced, I suddenly felt the urge to play WoW again. 

Ever since, I've created new toons, switched servers and started getting ready for the new expansion, even if we don't know when it will hit the live servers.

I started by selling all the herbs, ores, gems, volatiles, fishes and pots I had on the auction house. That made a lot of room in my bags! I've also cleared my personal guild bank and my bank alt's inventory. I stored all the transmog gear I have either in void storage or in the guild bank, and gathered all my heirlooms on the same toon. I've finished maxing all my characters professions (5 points of jewelcrafting here, 200 points of archeology there, and some fishing/cooking as well). Fishing is so easy to level nowadays! I remember back when your cast could fail ALL THE TIME, and you had to be in specific zones, and it took something like 20 fish to gain ONE LOUSY SKILL POINT. Ahem. Now, it takes less than 5 fish to gain a point, and with the dailies, it's almost too easy.

But most of all, I've been hunting/farming transmog gear. It's so fun to make different sets for all my toons, trying different colors, different styles. 

It's funny how everything that seemed boring before is now fun again. Mad and I have left our current server to join a new and better one. We've each started an alt (him a rogue and me a prot pally) and have been having a blast levelling them through the dungeon finder this weekend.

I've also got access to the beta last week, but I haven't played it much yet, firstly because Mad plays it, and secondly, because there's just way too many people. I've tried running Temple of the Jade serpent, and as it had to be expected, it's bugged a lot, but that's not so bad. The bad part is that my game crashes every five minutes. After the seventh time, I stopped trying and went to bed. All I know is that the first boss sucks for melee classes. I was on a monk, and I have to admit, I'm not particularly in love with the playstyle so far. The energy/chi thing sorta feels like a rogue's combo points, except there's 3-4 of them instead of five, and I'm not a huge fan of rogues. But that's fine. Panda ladies are absolutely adorable, and I can't wait to have one. But I'm not sure yet if I'll bother making a monk.

There will be thousands of em running around, anyway.

[BETA] And so it begins

I got my invite to the MoP Beta, and I'm really excited and happy. I logged in and created a cutie panda and she looks absolutely adorable. The first hairstyle I had picked caused the character creation to fail. Lol? So I picked another and started my adventures in Pandaland.

There's sooo many people pandas out there! It was litterally a sea of pandas. The quests are hard to do because of all the fluffy, bouncy, chubby pandas stacking up (and even going afk) on items and mobs and quest givers, but that had to be expected. 

Mad didn't get in yet, and when I told him I did, he was more excited than I was. At first I couldn't start the download, as a Blizz Agent (Mad won't give me more details about this, except that it's BAD and that it's WAY TOO LONG TO EXPLAIN) was preventing my computer from connection to the internet or... well, do anything really. I had to turn off my computer then try again. It finally worked, and it started downloading. I logged in when I had about 25% of the data downloaded. I didn't have any framerate issues or anything, despite there being a freakin' panda convention in a tiny virtual space. 

My panda (Luluna on the Lost Isles) is still only level 2, and hasn't left the first quest hub yet.

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but the first quest has a typo. It says "the" twice in a row. I'm not sure if this is a test from Blizz (no one is reporting the typo from the first quest turn in! It's too obvious! GAHH! /shutdown ) or if anyone even took the time to report this, but I won't. 

Because it's a typo in the first quest. Chances are, 500k people reported this before me.

I will be posting screenshots as soon as I figure out where the fuck the beta screenshot folder is.

My mage's favourite transmog sets

My mage has the most transmog sets of all my characters, and she doesn’t have that many.  She has lots of pieces that look great, but not enough to form complete sets. These are my favourite sets so far.

The first one is the priest’s tier 10 heroic version. As I am a mage, I have to use the look alike items that drop from ICC 25H.  As you can see, I have no shoulders that fit with this set, as there are no look alike for these shoulders. Someday I will find something to complete this look.

The second set is the mage’s tier 7.5 that drops from Naxx 25 and Obsidium Sanctum 25. The belt isn’t part of the original set and can be farmed or bought on the Auction House.

The third set is the mage’s Relentless Gladiator PvP gear from WotLk. You can buy it from the JP vendor in Dalaran. The belt I use drops off Kael’thas in Magister’s terrace. There’s also another belt that looks fairly good with this set and can be farmed or bought off the Auction House.

The fourth set is the priest’s tier 10. Yet again, this is the look alike items, which can be bought off the JP vendor in Dalaran as well. The shoulders aren’t part of the original set, but the Warlock’s tier 9 shoulders look alike. They can also be bought for JP in Dal. (However, if you go Alliance, those shoulders change and no longer fit with this set.)

The fifth set comes (in part) from Black Temple. The helm and robes are spirit cloth that drop in the raid. I found the shoulders, gloves  and belt on the Auction House. The gloves are black and small, and can be used with other sets that require discreet gloves.

The last set consists of the mage’s tier 5, except for the gloves and bracers, which I bought on the Auction House.

There’s a lot more set I want to get, like the mage’s tier 4, which looks like this:

The chest’s token drops off Magtheridon’s Lair, the shoulders drops from Gruul’s lair, and the gloves can be found in Karazhan. (I haven't figured out which belt I will be using with this yet, so in this screenshot, Jori is wearing the one that drops from Tempest Keep and matches the mage's tier 5.) Happy transmogging!

Where it all starts

Yay, first post!

I’m Lyrestra, and I’m an altoholic.

I’m french-canadian.

I love to write, I enjoy playing World of Warcraft, and I’ve decided to get my own corner of the internet and share my experience in Azeroth.

I also love most classes, and I switch from one to another depending on my mood.

I love being a ranged, a melee, a healer and a tank. Just not equally.

I love to run old school raids for transmog gear, achievements and giggles.

I love to collect non-combat pets.

I love the winterspring mount and Talbuks.

I love taming spirit beasts.

I’m nostalgic about the WotLK era.

I could never level a warlock past level 40.

I’m currently horde and miss being a Night Elf/Draenei.

For a long time I was a dedicated raider, but now, while I eagerly wait for an invite in the Mists of Pandaria Beta, I just do whatever I feel like doing.

I level alts, I do random dungeons and I suffer through weekly LFRs (Looking For Retards).

I play Star Wars : the Old Republic on the side.

I can’t wait to roll a cutie panda lady because they are adorable!

I don’t know if I’ll level a monk to 90, but I’ll try it out for sure.

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t leave this game.

So yeah, I’m Lyrestra and this is my blog about World of Warcraft.