Zen Professions

In an effort to work a bit on all my professions today, I decided to go do some Archaeology while the boyfriend was sorting out his bank. (What a mess, the guy just keeps everything for transmog! ... Who am I kidding, I do that, too.) After only a couple digs, I saw I had a rare coming up next! A few minutes later, I had the Umbrella of Chi-Ji!

It's absolutely gorgeous, and quite powerful, I reckon. Not that I actually need powerful items all that much (even though it never hurts). None of my characters are over level 87 yet and I don't know when any of them is going to hit 90. I'm happy to work on professions for now. I have tailoring, jewelcrafting, enchanting, mining, skinning and fishing maxed out so far. The rest are slowly getting there, considering ghost iron and herbs are pretty expensive and require a bit of luck (must get to that node first!) to farm in large quantities. But I'll get there! I just need to farm some more and be patient. Speaking of which, the skinner/leatherworker has been quite busy today in Valley of the Four Winds where she skinned all the things. 

Skin all the things, Pandaria style!

She now has enough materials to reach 600 easily. She just needs to pay a visit to the recipe vendors in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, which she can do now that she reached level 87. And I plan on doing just that first thing tomorrow.

I find it hard not to skin all the dead beasts on the ground, especially now that everyone and their mother is out there questing. But I swear I would never get anything done (in and out of WoW) if all I did was follow questers around all day and skin the dead mobs they leave behind. And I thought the Jade Forest was the Skinner Heaven!

Coming back to the surface

Only four slots, for now.

Mists of Pandaria has been live for two days and even though I have been playing for the better part of those two days, I feel like I have done nothing yet.

Monday went by so fast my head was spinning. I had feared time would pass slowly but I've been so busy with Real Life Stuff that I didn't have time to be impatient at all. Although, once I tried to take a nap until 2am (MoP was going live at 3am my time) time started to be a real bitch. I slept a little but woke up at 10pm and just couldn't sleep anymore. I got up, finished tweaking last minute details and watched some shows to pass the time. When 3am came around, it actually caught me by surprise. Inexplicably, when the quest to go see Garrosh popped up, the first word that came out of my mouth were : I'm not ready. I had a small moment of panic, then the excitement took over and I turned in my dailies for what I hoped to be some good XP. I was disappointed to get only 2-3 bars in, but decided that it was better than nothing and went on my way to Orgrimmar to start my adventures. At first, I logged on all my characters, turned in all their dailies, learned the Zen Master rank of all their professions and used some mats I had to get a couple skill points for some professions. Lucky for me, my characters were all in Tol Barad, so I didn't experience all the lag in Orgrimmar. By the time I had cycled through all my characters, it was almost 4, and mostly everyone had already left for Pandaria.

I don't know exactly how long it took me but Tuesday night, when I went to bed at 5am, my mage was level 87. She had done every quests from the Jade Forest, had explored it all, had a lot of fish in her bags, multiple Windwool cloth stacks and a decent amount of Motes of Harmony, which makes me really happy. But it's only one zone! There's still so much to do and that's awesome! 

I had planned on trying to hit at least 89 by Friday in order to be able to do the Brewfest holiday boss, but later changed my mind. I really don't feel like rushing anything right now, and just want to enjoy myself. I have at least six characters that I want to level to 90 in the next couple weeks, so it's really not worth it to burn myself out on the first one. It will take more time, but that's alright. Pandaria is so pretty and so lively, I don't mind one bit the fact that I still have most of it to explore. 

So here are, loosely, my plans for the next couple of days:

• Questing and exploring. I'm leveling my mage alone, without the boyfriend, so I'm taking my time and doing every quest I can get my hands on. I want to try and get the achievements for all the quests in each zone, along with the exploring ones. The boyfriend has no patience for such things, and that is why I'm leveling another characters with him so that we can do things his way. I still have a couple "loner" characters with which I can just stop and smell the flowers/fish/gather raw meats whenever I feel like it.
• Farm farm farm! As in, plant seeds and harvest ripe and plump vegetables and fruits the next day. I've really been enjoying messing around in my farm and harvesting some delicious cooking ingredients. Six of my characters are presently parked in Halfhill, watering, tilling, spraying and waiting for things to grow. Everyday, I gather a little more goodies and stockpile them for future use. 
• Working on professions. Mats are a bit hard to come by right now, and pretty expensive on the auction house, so whatever/whenever I can gather myself, I try to. I try to fish as much as possible while I'm in queue for dungeons, and whenever I need to kill animals for quests, I kill some extra ones just for the raw meat they provide. Herbs and mining nodes are in very high demand and it's not easy to get there before everyone else, but I'm slowly gathering some in order to level my multiple professions.
• Moslty, just have as much fun as possible. I've tried to stick to only one character and failed. My mage is still sitting at 87 in Valley of the Four Winds, and my hunter is almost 86. I took the shaman to the Jade Forest to skin all the things the people doing quests have left behind. Leather heaven is fun, and I want to take advantage of it while I can. And it's okay. Trying to play only one character at a time just doesn't work for me, and doing so only takes the fun out of everything. Being able to switch  from one toon to another as the mood strikes me is something I enjoy, and one of the reasons why I have one character of each class. I'll get to 90. Eventually.
• And the rest. I haven't done the Panda starter area yet, nor have I rolled a monk or tried Pet Battles. But those will have to wait, as there is a lot on my plate at the moment, with all the questing and the exploring. 

I wanted to write about this sooner, but I simply couldn't pry my eyes off the game long enough to do anything else, except sleep. Also, I needed time to let it all sink in. I've been avoiding Twitter and most blogs in order to just appreciate the game at my own pace. Everything is gorgeous, the quests are a lot of fun, there's many new things to do to keep me busy for months and I don't miss Cataclysm one bit!

When you're ready, there's nothing left to do but wait

All I've been thinking about, ever since I saw those posts over at the Godmother's blog, was getting ready for the pandas. I've never done that before, for any other expansions. Back in BC, I managed to get two max level characters by the time WotLK came out, but I didn't have a plan. I wanted to play my mage, and that's what I did. I had almost no gold to my name, because I'd spend it all on professions and pets.

But in WotLK, I leveled a shitload of alts. I gave them professions, and today, I have all of them. On a single server. Which means I can farm for gems, enchants, and everything I need instead of buying it. It makes a huge difference. When Cata was released, I didn't stockpile gold. I didn't farm until my fingers bled. I just waited. And blew all my gold on obsidium ores to level Jewelcrafting when the expansion launched. But this time, I'm pretty much ready. All thanks to the Godmother and her precious advices.

Most of my characters's professions are maxxed, and they have enough mats to gain five skill points from both their primary professions when MoP launches. Except the gathering ones. They all have a nice little nest of gold, plus some more stashed on my banker alt. They all did 21 dailies from Tol Barad plus the cooking and fishing dailies from Orgrimmar, for a total of 23 dailies to be turned-in as soon we can get xp again.

I've cleaned all my character's banks and bags in order to make room for all the new stuff, and dumped everything in the AH, making some decent profit in the process. My personnal guildbank was full to capacity with herbs and ores and leathers and enchanting mats until recently. I had planned on putting it all on the AH next week, in the hopes that some pandas might need it for their professions, but I used most of the ores I had to level engineering on my death knight, and my boyfriend suddenly decided he wanted an enchanter/tailor warlock, so there went most of my cloth and enchanting mats. Which is fine. More professions, the better!

I did have a moment of panic a couple weeks back when I realized that patch 5.0.4 meant cross-realm zones were becoming a reality. No more farming for hours alone in a lowbie zone. Which is a shame, because I really enjoyed that. So I did what I had been putting off for weeks and I finished all the farming I wanted to get done before the patch hit.

I had a lot of fun preparing for the big day, and I feel as ready as I can be to welcome the pandas and explore their world. It's really exhilarating for me to feel so connected, so focused on a precise goal. I used to just let things go, and even though I was excited for previous expansions, this time it feels different. It's even better. I just hope I'm not getting my hopes up, with expectations so high that they can't possibly be met.

I'm anxious to work on my professions again and craft new items, pick new flowers, cook new foods and kill new enemies. There are five days left before the gates open. And it's getting harder and harder to be patient.

Luckily, I still have Tides of War to read before Tuesday.

The Mists of Pandaria Bucket List

In an effort to pass the time until next Tuesday, I've updated my bucket list with new in-game goals. The list is massive, and it's still missing some things I wish to do in the next, well, two years most likely. It's a work in progress.

I want of course to level all my characters on the main server to 90, but I am not necessarily in a hurry to do so. I've picked the order, more or less, in which my main characters will be leveled in the next couple of weeks/months.

First off is my mage. She will be the first to set foot on new territories, and explore Pandaland. Since she does not have any gathering professions, her alchemy will have to wait. Although, as far as I know, cloth is fairly easy to come by, so her tailoring will benefit from this early on. 

The hunter is next in line. I won't be able to work on her jewelcrafting for a while, but since she's an enchanter, she can disenchant gear she doesn't need. I have a list of pets I want to tame for her, and will be working on that as soon as possible.

The herbalist/scribe druid, miner/blacksmith pally and skinner/leatherworker shaman will follow soon after, in order to gather the necessary mats to work on most crafting professions. I will also have a dedicated gatherer character out there (with mining and herbalism) as soon as possible, but it is unclear at this time whether that will be my priest or my rogue.

I have several more characters that will require my attention, but they will have to wait. Oh and I have to fit "start a monk" somewhere in there as well.

In the bucket list there's also titles I want to get, rep I want to gain, professions I want to max and much much more. I feel it is still incomplete, so the page will most likely change throughout the expansion. There's just so much I want to do! It's all so exciting. I suspect the Tillers farm, the pet battles and the rep grinding with various factions will keep me busy for quite some time. And I can't wait!

The final countdown

One short week left before the Pandas arrive. One short week which I suspect will seem to last an eternity.

Until then, the flailing will go on overdrive. On Tuesday I will be running Kara again in the hopes of scoring the belt I've been after for a couple weeks now, the one that matches the Aldor Regalia. Other than that, I'll be naming more pets, learning my last glyphs recipes through the Northrend Inscription Research, leveling the rogue some more, hunting some last minute transmog items, and reading the Tides of War novel in order to try and make sense of the Theramore's Fall Scenario, which I will keep running on a couple characters after I've read the book. 

At first I was very disappointed by the scenario, but I believe that can be explained by too high expectations on my part. I, like many others, was expecting some kind of big event like we've had in the past before new expansions were released. I thought the Theramore's Fall Scenario was going to give some sort of introduction to the new expansion. But that was never the intent it seems. The scenario in itself is fairly entertaining, even though it is quite short. It took me and two other dps about ten minutes to complete it.

We killed alliance people, we set ships aflame, destroyed tanks and released a prisoner from the keep's basement. Who was that prisoner? Why was he captured? Who started the hostilities? Why are we attacking Theramore? I don't know. There were no indication of what was going on, or if there was, I missed it.

Some people on Twitter seemed to think that those of us who didn't read Tides of War had no way of knowing what was going on, which doesn't make sense to me. The game in itself should give us a minimum of information to help us make sense of what we're doing.

My point is, in my opinion, a big event like this deserved more than a 10 minute mini-instance like what we got today. But maybe that is only the tip of the iceberg. Time will tell.

Rant incoming : read at your own risk

Back when I raided, there was a thing that really annoyed the hell outta me.

There was this guy, whenever he got an upgrade, he'd hearthstone to Orgrimmar to gem, enchant and reforge. Talk about wasting time. Then we'd have to summon him back. And run back to wherever we were. At some point, our Raid Leader threw a fit. "We have an hour left to the raid, you can do all that shit later. For now, keep your old piece and get your ass back here." It worked, but the guy was way too grumpy after that.

That was before. Now that we can have access to a mount which provides a portable reforger, I'm worried this will become the norm. Everyone who gets a new item will want to use the mount to reforge. Of course, no one will have to HS back to Org or SW. Now, they can just mount up and reforge. 

But how much time will be wasted on this between pulls, making wipe recoveries last that much longer. Reforging is not like repairing. You don't just click on a button and it's done. Sometimes one piece changes some other pieces' reforging as well. There's always one dude taking his sweet time making the rest of the raid wait. Don't be that guy. Wait for a break, or for the end of the raid.

That said, the Yak really is cool. I don't think I'll buy it simply because I'm too greedy and don't want to spend my whole "fortune" on one mount, but I can't deny it's usefulness. I think it's nice you can reforge in whichever zone you are. If there are no reforgers in Pandaria, then it's awesome to be able to carry one around with you.

Today is a good day

I thought about it for a very long time. Hell, it's been so long, it was two expansions ago! (Yes, Cata is over. IT IS!!)

I finally bought the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth. I always told myself I didn't need it. And I didn't. I was fine without it. There were times while farming when I had to delete stuff in my bags for lack of room. And it didn't really matter.

But I also kept looking at my 99/100 mounts, and thought : Fuck it.

So now, I have my red Dragonhawk. Yay me!

But the best part is that I also have the blue one!

I wish the Horde could use it, too. Because it's gorgeous. But I guess the red will have to do!

Today is a good day.

Let's see what happens

After joining SiB last week, I seriously considered transferring some characters over to their server. I've started a draenei mage over there, and it's slow as hell without heirlooms. But since it was a faction change plus a server transfer, I decided against it. Also, I was stressing a bit over the fact that I couldn't possibly take all my family of alts on the new server, so I'd have to level all the professions I'd need all over again. Now that I've made my decision, I feel a lot better. I'll keep leveling the mage casually, hit 85 before or after MoP is live, and maybe, eventually, I can raid a bit with them if they'll have me. If not, I'll just hang out and chat, because those people are awesome.

In other news, on the Horde server, the BF and I still don't have a raiding guild. We're both in our vanity guild, just enjoying the perks and leveling/gearing characters until the big day. September 25 is two weeks away now, and we've decided to wait before even looking for a guild. We have absolutely no idea what we want to do, and are in no hurry, even though we both want to eventually raid again. We've talked about starting panda monks, or leveling at least one of our 85s to 90, or even start something else completely, like a rogue for me and a druid for him. (Yes, yes, I did create a rogue, don't look at me like that. Let's just see what happens.) I kinda want to rush a couple of 90s as soon as possible so we can queue for the Brewfest boss which is coming on the 28th or 29th if I remember correctly. But whatever we pick, I know it'll be fun. Exploring Pandaria and the Panda's starting zone will be lots of fun, I'm sure. I'm done with my all character's UIs and they all have at least one viable spec. They're all ready to have new adventures and discover new wonders.

*Edit: Corrected typo.

New friends

Last weekend, I was on twitter when I saw that the guild Stands in Bad (SiB) was recruiting. Now you may not know this, but I'm a huge fan of a lot of bloggers from that guild. People like Kialesse, Achloryn, Dhevon, Kat and Pixelated Executioner. I had been talking to some of them from time to time on twitter, but when the occasion presented itself, I decided it would be fun to actually join their guild. I haven't been in there for very long, but it's been very fun so far! Everyone is nice and welcoming, and also very funny.

But that's not all!

Not long after I hit publish on my post Wednesday night, I was whispered by Navimie who wanted to take a picture with me!

I was nervous, though I can't explain exactly why. I'm pretty shy, and meeting new people is always a bit stressful for me. Even though Navimie insisted she wasn't new, since she often commented on my blog. And it's true. But I have to admit I was pretty starstruck! However, Navi was so sweet and adorable that soon I felt completely at ease! 

The fun part is, she was actually trying to find Kialesse, Achloryn, and Pixelated Executioner! I just happened to be on the server at the time, leveling an alt also named Lyrestra! What a lovely coincidence!

Navimie and Lyrestra =D

So Kia, Achloryn and Pix came to meet us in the Exodar where we took a couple pictures and chatted a bit, but Navi was lagging a lot, so we took a portal to Darnassus to see if it would be better. And it was!

Kialesse, Achloryn, Lyrestra, Navimie and Pixelated Executioner

It was pretty fun to all be there together chatting with Navimie. Thank you for your visit Navi! <3

And thank you people from Stands in Bad, you guys are awesome!

Smells like Pandas

In less than three weeks, the Pandas will be here. And in less than two weeks, we'll have access to the Theramore event. /squee

It's almost here, guys. We can almost smell it. New expansion, new world to explore, new race, new class. We're gonna need more coffee, chief. But until then, there's some things I must do. I've been very busy just relearning everything so far. Now, I need to make sure everything is ready.

I had planned on doing a full post about my bucket list and all, but I don't think it's necessary. (I mean, if you're curious, you can just go check out my Bucket List page.) I've done most of the things I wanted to do before Cataclysm ended. The things I didn't are now on the MoP Bucket List. There are only a couple things I need to take care of in the next week or two :

- Finish spec'ing and glyphing the DK, Druid, Paladin, Lock and Warrior. I'm almost done with the warrior, but the others need more work.

- Finish adjusting everyone's UI. Most characters are playable, but some need more tuning.

- Do one more round of cloth farming in TB with a potion of treasure finding.

- Get 2 more mounts. So I can get the dragonhawk! So pretty!

- Make some missing glyphs for various characters. Only a couple glyphs missing here and there. 

- Name some of my pets.

- Level the alliance mage to 85.

Since I joined SiB last weekend, I started leveling a mage to eventually raid with them. I haven't decided yet if I'll transfer one or many or any characters at all to this new server. But just the thought of leveling alts and professions without gold and heirlooms is discouraging. I have plenty of mats on my horde server. I just don't know what I want to do, at this point. But the guild is worth it. I just need to decided whether I want to pay real money and choose the easy way, or just start over from scratch. Decisions, decisions.

Patch excitement

I've been bad, oh so terribad. Almost two weeks since my last post. How terribly rude of me. Apologies, to all two of you who read this blog. I've just been super busy. And also, words are hard.

The patch hit the live servers last Tuesday, and ever since, I've been doing the Kermit flail.

At first, when I was finally able to log on, I jumped from one character to another, too excited to settle on anything in particular. There was just so much to do! New glyphs, new talents, pets and mounts and achievements! I'm proud to say I've hit the 10k achievement points threshold. It might not seem like a lot to some but to me, it's a big deal. I'm also two mounts away from getting the red dragonhawk, so I really need to work on that as soon as possible. I also need to finish spec'ing and glyphing all my chracters. So far, I've managed to glyph and spec five of my characters. The others are still awaiting some much needed love and attention. But so far, I must say I'm super happy with a lot of the changes to the classes. I'm also very satisfied with the new Raid Finder loot system. There is no more drama over loot, which makes the experience a lot more enjoyable!

So for the last couple of days, I've been tweaking my interface, downloading addons, relearning classes, glyphing, spec'ing, and discovering all the cool things the patch brought.

Oh and I joined an amazing guild. But more on that later.