A month later

It's been a little more than a month now that the Pandas have arrived. I thought it was time for a little recap of what I've been up to and how my characters are doing.

Death Knight - 86  

After Motes of Harmony to finish maxing Engineering. Also farming raw meats for cooking. Lately, mostly Raw crocolisk meat and Raw crab meat. Does some fishing on the side when there are pools nearby.

Druid - 86 

Pet battles! Doing daily inscription research to get all the glyphs. 8 to go.

Hunter - 90 

Tillers dailies. Enchanting and JC is maxed. Doing daily JC research for gem cuts. Doing some heroics and Raid Finder from time to time, but not focused on any particular end game activities.

Mage - 87 

Dedicated cook. Maxed out all six ways so she can make all available foods for all the family. Also maxed archaeology, but I'm waiting to be able to fly to work on it more. Maxed alchemy and tailoring. Didn't even start her daily cd's like Living Steel or Imperial Silk. Does some fishing on the side when there are pools nearby.

Baby Mage (Alliance) and Monk (Horde) - Both 47

Dungeon Finder. 

Paladin - 87 

Recently maxed Blacksmithing. Needs to hit 89 to start rep with the Klaxxi so she can get the Belt Buckle recipe.

Priest - 85 

Still in Orgrimmar. Occasionally goes to Pandaria to mine and pick flowers.

Rogue - 86 

Currently in Krasarang Wilds to finish Loremaster of Pandaria. Herbing and stabbing people right in the face.

Shaman - 90 

Harvesting Motes of Harmony every day. (The DK secretly hates her.) Does some fishing on the side when there are pools nearby. Skins every corpse she can get her hands on. Working on getting all the farmers to be her best friends.

Warlock - 85 

Bank alt still in Orgrimmar. Has a bunch of old mats in her bags and bank which I'm too lazy to sort and put on the AH.

Warrior - 85

Still in Orgrimmar, looking pretty. Disenchants some greens from time to time, when it's convenient.

So I didn't get all that much done since the game was released. I've been mostly doing Tillers dailies, doing pet battles (and working on pet battle achivements. Gotta have them all!) and slowly leveling multiple characters instead of focusing on one at a time. I've rarely been this slow at getting my characters to max level. At the beginning of Cataclysm, it took me about two weeks to get five or six toons to 85. I'm really slacking off this time around. I'm also thinking about transferring a character over to Rexxar so my poor alliance mage can get some heirlooms, which will slow me down even more in the "get all the toons to 90" process, but that's fine. For the first time in years, I'm not rushing to be ready to raid, and it feels good. I can afford to slack off. I don't miss raiding all that much so far, and my trips in the Raid Finder haven't exactly been exciting. I'm not in love with the Mogu'shan Vaults, but I look forward to trying out other raids as they become available.

What I've been up to

I have a cold, so my thoughts might be just a tad incoherent. So please just bear with me. 

Alright, here goes.

The shaman has been diligently doing her dailies every day ever since she hit 90 over a week ago. Although, she's only been working on two factions so far. She's been working on the Tillers since day 1, and she is now almost exalted with the farmers. She's got 12 spots available, and she's been gathering motes of harmony in  the hopes of someday being able to craft some gear for the hunter and/or rogue. Which brings me to the second faction, the Golden Lotus. You only need to reach honored to buy the leatherworking recipes, which is only a week worth of dailies. I didn't start those dailies until last Sunday though, so by next weekend, I should be done with them. And it's been a bit painful. I love the Tillers and the cooking dailies. I really do. Even when there are no untapped mobs available and that other people steal quest items right from under me. It's still fun. But the Golden Lotus dailies very much feel like a chore. There's just too many people there, being rude, stealing from each other, shoving mobs your way on purpose to make you die. And for a miserable 110 rep per quest. I can't wait to be done with it, and am very happy that I'm not raiding, because I know it would be a lot worse. Then again, maybe I just suck that much at elemental shamy and that's why I have no fun doing those quests. I'm not even doing heroics or scenarios or any of that with her. I do dailies, I mess around at the farm, and then I log on alts.

The hunter has made good progress this week and is now level 89. She should hit 90 in a day or two, as I have almost a full level in rested XP. The dk is almost 86 just by farming motes of harmony for Engineering, as well as raw meats for my cooking needs. My mage is still sitting at 87 in Halfhill, only sometimes bothering to plant some seeds when needed for other characters' needs. I still want to get her to 90 at some point, if only to finish Archaeology and work on the Lorewalkers rep, but I just don't feel like playing her right now. I'm having way too much fun with the hunter finishing up the Pandaria Loremaster. I tamed a goat last night, and she is now my favourite pet of all.

I also bought a yak mount from Uncle Bigpocket in
Kun-Lai Summit. So adorable!

I've also spent way too much time indulging in pet battles. I didn't think I'd like it so much, but it's surprisingly addictive and fun. It took me a while to pick my three favourite pets, but I'm pretty happy with my team.

I'm terribad and haven't named them yet, but I find it hard to pick names. Chuck will remain Chuck, because he already has a name, duh, but the other two, I'm still trying to find the perfect name for them. Once I tried the pet battles, I looked up the achievements related to it, and decided that I must get them all! Yeah, that'll take a while. I've also made a list of all the pets I want to cage, and it's a pretty long list. But they're all so adorable. I don't think I'll ever get them all, or even reach 400 pets for the achievement, but I think I can make it to 250 easily.

I haven't had so much to do in game in ages, and I'm really trying to take it slow to make it last as long as possible. And with all the things I want to get done, making it last a long time won't be a problem!

I used to hate rogues

I have been working on a rogue for quite some time. I haven't rolled many rogues in my WoW career, but most of them got deleted before they could buy their first mount. There was one who made it to 75, as Combat, and I was so bored with her that I deleted her too, despite her fairly high level. 

That's why I was surprised last month when my brain suggested I should roll a rogue again. But why brains, why? I hate rogues, don't I? Well, turns out I don't.  Maybe it's just combat that I didn't enjoy, because this time around, I started out as Sub and went Assass in the mid 50s, and I've had a blast the whole time. 

Although at the beginning of my WoW career, I was a keyboard turner, and stealthing and moving behind the mobs all the time was just beyond my beginner's abilities. That is why I went combat, thinking it would be easier and more fun for me. But I was wrong, and combat just bored me to tears. But that was years ago, and I haven't tried it since all the changes. Maybe I'd enjoy it this time.  I'll have to try it again some time.

The rogue took a break at 60, because MoP was released. I played my shaman, got her to 90, and then, instead of taking another character to 90 right away, I went back to the rogue. It took me about a week to get her from 60 to 85 and she is now in Pandaria, in the Jade Forest. I was worried at first that since she was a fresh 85, her gear wouldn't be good enough and that mobs there would just annihilate her, but the good people of Twitter assured me that it wouldn't be so bad, and some of them reminded me that there were gear vendors to help me out in Pandaria. Oh, right. Totally forgot about those. So I took the airship and started questing. I did die once, because there were three mobs on me and I guess I just suck at buttons. (Speaking of which, I really need to redo her UI. Leveling through dungeons has spoiled me and I didn't need much "oh shit!" buttons, but now I do need them, and I can't find them.) But mostly it was smooth sailing and it's been a lot of fun. She's also picking flowers as she goes, and her alchemy is coming along nicely. I know she will hit 90 someday, I just don't know when. I don't know if the honeymoon will end or if I'll still have as much fun with her in a couple months as I do now, but I look forward to eventually taking her to the Raid Finder. 

But I say that all the time. I often tell myself "oh this class is the best!" and then I stop enjoying it so much and just go back to my mage. I suppose time will tell.

Ding 90!

As of last night, around 3 am, I finally have a max level character. And it's my shaman. Not my mage. And it makes me a little sad. 

I'm super excited to finally be able to join the max level club, to FLY in Pandaria, (damn I never thought I'd miss it this much) and to get started on all the dailies. By the way, what the fuck was Blizz thinking? Sure, there's no cap for dailies now, but we still can only hold 25 quests at a time. With all the "Get Revered with X faction" my frickin' log is always full. Plus, I wanted to keep my breadcrumb quests from all the zones I abandoned halfway through, but no can do. No room for that with a gazillion dailies to do. Hot damn. My head was spinning at the amount of stuff I needed to start working on once I hit 90. I bought my flying licence or whatever, and just FLEW all the things. It felt so damn good. Fuck flight masters, I fly on my own, now. 

But as I tried to figure out what to do next, it hit me. My mage was always my first max level toon. And now it's not. And the reason for that is that my bf Mad wanted to play his warlock, and it didn't make sense to both be playing clothies. Mad loves gear. Like, really. So there was no chance in hell I'd ever be able to ever get my hands on any cloth gear. (It's his only flaw, I swear) He also insisted on me playing a class which could either tank or heal, so we could queue for dungeons faster. I picked my shaman because it was the only class with which I felt like healing, and because Mad had agreed to pay for a race change for her.

The Shaman; Before and After

The panda ladies are too damn adorable, especially when they laugh. I couldn't resist making one and don't regret it one bit. And the truth is, I don't really even feel like playing my mage right now. She's sitting at level 87, and she will stay there for a little while longer. The next character I take to 90 will most likely be my hunter. Then we'll see. I have a rogue in the early seventies who I'm itching to work on. But that will have to wait after I get some dailies done!

So in the end, I'm happy I started with the shaman. It was pretty fun to be honest. I quested as elemental and queue'd for dungeons as heals, and the levels just kept coming. When we could play, because RL is a bitch and we hardly ever could find the time to actually sit down and play together, until this weekend.

But now I really want to figure out which rep I need on which characters, gear and profession wise. I know I won't be raiding anytime soon, so gear isn't a priority. For now, I focus primarily on the Cloud Serpent and the Tillers, but as I get more characters to 90, I'll need to prioritize and plan accordingly.

I never thought I could ever have "too much" to do in WoW. Isn't it awesome?