Quintessential Quintet

There, I did it! Last week, I finally finished leveling five of my characters to 90. I wanted to get as many toons to max level by the end of the third month into the expansion, which would be the 25th of december, so last week, I started getting busy. The shaman, hunter and mage were already max level, so I only needed two more for the achievement. The druid hit 90 Thursday night, and the Dk followed soon after, Friday night, scoring me the Quintessential Quintet.

The rest of my characters are not too far behind. The warrior is 88, while the paladin, priest and rogue are all at 87, gathering rested xp. The paladin should be a priority, considering I still need to get her to 89 so I can start working on Klaxxi reputation with her and buy the belt buckle recipe. But I suspect the warrior will be next, and then the rogue. The level 70 monk is still parked in Orgrimmar, along with the Bank Alt Warlock, which is still 85. I am in no worry to play the warlock though, as she's way too busy selling stuff on the AH and sorting through all the herbs and ores I've been farming and not using, trying to make it all fit in the guild bank.

There is such a thing as too much farming.

I also want to get my alliance shaman to 90 for the Double Agent achievement, but I still have so many horde character to level, I don't know when I'll get to that. It's a good thing I'm not raiding, or I wouldn't have time for none of that.

Alt love

This has nothing to do with anything,
but look at all those Golden Lotus! LOOKIT!

Out of my eleven horde characters, eight are level 87 or higher, (the other three are 70, 85 and 86) and parked in the Shrine of Two Moons. This is good. I really want to get at least these eleven horde characters to 90, plus possibly two alliance ones, and I figure it will take me a couple months. Which is fine.

In the last week, my druid made it to level 89 just by healing random dungeons, and I must admit I had fun.  I still kinda suck at healing, but I did a fairly good job, and almost never let wipes happen. I did lose a couple dps here and there, and even the tank once, but hey, battle rez is there exactly for that. For a while now, my druid had been balance, but I decided to try resto again. It's a nice change of pace, and even though it's probably slower to just do dungeons, I really needed a break from all the questing.

On the alliance front, I faction-changed a lonely horde shaman I had on a server I never play on. She went from a goblin to a panda and it made me want to play her again. It's weird to see the alliance version of the Pandaria quests, but it's fun to be doing something different. This new panda lady joined Stands in Bad last night for their Old School Monday and we roflstomped through ICC. The only casualty: me. Because I was the only level 85. Heh. It was a lot of fun, and I scored two tier tokens and a killer axe. I think some people got their drakes, too, so it was pretty great. I was glad to be there with them!

Quick Post : Monk Awesomness

The bf and I used to play our monks together, but he completely lost interest in the class, so I can now level mine on my own. Our monks were level 48 when Mad decided he didn't wanna play his anymore, and now my little panda lady is level 60! I kinda enjoy the playstyle, now that I have most of my abilities. Handling the chi can be a bit tricky, but mobs die so fast, it's hard to tell what it's really supposed to be like.

First thing I did when my monk hit 60 today was to buy my flight license in Orgrimmar. Then, I picked up herbalism and mining and headed for Durotar.

Just as I had hoped, picking flowers and mining ore did not dismount me. (Even using my Hearthstone didn't!) Up until now, my rogue and druid were my dedicated herbalists, while my paladin was my miner. I also had my priest as my gatherer toon, which means she could both mine and herb, but I had absolutely no interest in leveling her aside for her professions. 

So now I have my solution. The monk is officially my new gatherer character!

Edit: It seems though that the Zen Flight is a lot slower than other actual flying mounts. I'll have to check it out further to see what's the deal with this.

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.

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.

Is it Tuesday yet?

We are less than a month away from Mists of Pandaria, and there are only a couple of hours left until the patch hits the live servers. 

omg omg omg.

I'm super excited for all the changed happening, and a little scared/worried. A lot of things are changing in the next 36 hours, and we don't know yet if we're going to like it or not. New talents, new abilities, new glyphs, new rotations. And we have four weeks to get our shit together before we go out in and explore a whole new world.  

I don't know about you, but first thing I do when I log on Tuesday, is check out my achievements, mounts and pets. I'm anxious to know how many achievement points I have total across all my characters. I'd also like to work on having 100 mounts for the red dragonhawk, so then I'll see how many more I need. Same for the pets and the 125/150 achievements.

Then I'll have to work on updating my addons. Tomorrow will be dedicated to making a list of all the addons I use, and see which ones can be updated, removed completely or replaced with better addons. I want to wait to actually log on to see which addons are broken before starting.

Then, once my UI is stable, I will be spec'ing my characters and then running some (many) dungeons. I'm really anxious to test out my mage, hunter and shaman in particular. I will most likely try out all my max level characters throughout the next few weeks, though. Then, hopefully, I will be able to determine which character(s) I will be playing in MoP. All of them will be leveled to 90 eventually, if only for professions, but it might take a while. On my main server, I have 9 max level characters, to which will be added a monk very soon. I only hope all those changes will keep me busy enough that the next four weeks will go by a little more quickly. 

Anyone got any special plans for Tuesday, or the following days?

Two months of torture

So we're getting MoP in exactly two months. Since it's coming in the middle of the Brewfest, I'm guessing the holiday boss will not be dropping the new gear. Which sucks really, but hey, there's always next years. Unless of course Blizz postpones Brewfest to a later date, which I don't think they will do. I've been disappointed in the past to see holiday boss still drop level 80 shit when the cap was 85. Can't remember which one it was, though. But, we might get lucky with Hallow's End, which comes a little more than three weeks after launch. Who knows? Brewfest and Hallow's end are my favourite in-game holidays, so I'm excited for it, no matter what kind of gear their holiday boss drop.

I'm done with most of my bucket list, except for Loremaster stuff which I kinda knew I wouldn't even touch. It was more of a "I hope I can get motivated enough to actually do it if I put it on my bucket list" kinda thing. Like I thought that I'd go "I said I'd do it, so I have no choice!" But no. I'm more lazy than proud, apparently. So there, I didn't do "everything" from my original bucket list, and I'm fine with it. The bucket list in itself has changed quite a lot over the weeks, but I think I'll make a post just for that in the upcoming weeks.

Now's the time to finish the couple things I have left, like level archaeology on the druid, level fishing on the warrior that just now came out of retiring, and maybe get some more gear for the freshly 85 lock. I will also be farming a bit or even run a couple dailies to make some extra cash. I'm quite happy with the gold I have now, but a little more can't hurt. I'm sure Mad will be asking for gold once he sees something he can't afford. XD

So now that we have a date, I can make plans. I can have Mad take a day (or two) off at work so we can play as much as we want when the game is released. Superfluous stuff like eating and sleeping will have to be taken care of in between leveling sessions, and I want to try and figure out how to do that in a "healthy" way while keeping the game time to a maximum.

When WotLK was released, we woke up early and went to the store to get the game. Then we installed it. Then we played for an hour or two before we had to leave. Me for shcool, Mad for work. It sucked. I thought about the game all day. (I have no idea how I passed my exams that semester.) When Cata launched, we had bought the digital copy a couple days before and I think we had downloaded some of it already. (Maybe?) Mad went to bed at like 7 the night before, so he could wake up at launch time (3 a.m. for us) and play until it was time for work. Lucky for us, there was a huuuuge snowstorm that night. So in the morning, it was like "Boss, I can't come in, I'm snowed in!" Which totally worked. We played for a couple more hours, then took a nap, ordered some take-out when we woke up and played, played, played. It was fun, but it was also very lucky.

This time around, I want to make sure everything goes smoothly. We will most likely buy the digital copy before the launch day, and download as much of it as we possibly can. (If such a thing is possible. I can't remember.) I think we will also try and get to bed early and wake up at launch time, so that we can get started right away. When we get tired, we can take a nap, but I'm pretty sure we can get at least a level or two before such a thing happens. As for the food, there will most likely be ordering some chicken or something, as we probably won't feel like cooking a meal when we can be leveling! Maybe we can stop long enough to put a pizza in the oven, but not much more than that.

I also have to figure out in which order I want to level my characters. It depends on a couple things. Whether or not we get a way to make our alts fly right away in Pandaria or not (kinda like the book we could buy in WotLK.), and which professions I want to work on first. I know I've already said in a previous post that I'd level them in this order, but I didn't really think it through. It's more or less the order in which I prefer my characters rather than an actual optimized plan. But whatever plans I make - about anything - will probably change. I might decide to level my paladin to farm ores, and then I'll feel like playing my warrior instead and I'll just play it, ruining the plan. But making plans is fun, and it's the only thing I have left to do while waiting.

Oh, now I'm all excited. And I gotta wait two months. This is torture.

Love all the wrong things

I've been horde for quite some time now, but when I started playing WoW, my first character was a human mage. I loved being alliance. I loved night elves and draeneis. I loved Stormwind, and Redridge and Westfall and Duskwood. I'm glad Mad made us go horde, because I love my horde toons a lot. But I sometimes miss having actual active alliance characters. So what do I do? Well I start over on a new server, of course!

The last couple of days have been dedicated to creating characters and leveling them. I have no plan at this point, so I just level whatever class I feel like playing. I started with a hunter a couple weeks ago which is now level 61. She's my highest character on the server and that's fine. There's no hurry. No rush. Just quests, dungeons, whatever I feel like doing. I'm also working slowly (feels more like crawling) on professions as I level more characters. I have no 85 toon to farm stuff, so I have to level more to be able to farm ores and herbs on the druid. I'll get there eventually, it's just kinda slow. Which is ok, I suppose.

But it's not all been just good fun. I have two (maybe even three) healers that I plan on leveling solely through the LFD tool, and DEAR GOD WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Some groups are actually pretty decent, but most of the time, there's someone rolling on gear they don't need, or the tank is so squishy that even pouring my whole blue bar into their green bar isn't quite enough to keep them alive. In Gnomeregan, you know a lock or a hunter will jump down without dismissing their pet first, so half the instance will run to us to hug us with their deadly mechanical arms. Good times.

But I'm still enjoying myself. My mage is almost level 36 and the shaman is 33, so I've been in Scarlet Monastery a lot lately, which is good because it's my favourite instance ever. I  remember the first time I went in there, back when I was just a wee little noob mage. I was impressed and fascinated by the Scarlet Crusade. In a "Jesus titty fucking christ those people are insane!" kinda way. Interrogator Vishas is and always will be my favourite NPC in the game. I remember each time he started talking, I would say it with him, which kinda drove Mad nuts, since we were on Ventrilo together.

The voice acting is perfect, as he sound like he's batshit crazy. A nutjob with a razor, on a holy mission. Not scary at all. I think this guy probably is going away in MoP, and it makes me sad. Scarlet Monastery will never be the same without him.

The world needs more Taurens.

I've been so terribly bad this week. No posts in over a week has never happened before. But then again, I've only been blogging for three months.

I spent some time this week getting the warlock to 80. She's been gathering rested XP ever since and will keep doing so until I feel like I can stomach Hyjal again. The DK is now running Magister's Terrace daily for a chance at the White Cock, as many call it. Not that I find this model particularly appealing, but more mounts is always good. My boyfriend's DK hit 85 this weekend and we are now in "run all the dungeons" mode. We've both got some gear out of it, and will most likely be able to hit the Hour of Twilight heroics soon. 

The mage has started doing some quests in low level zones in order to reach 3000 quests done and get The Seeker title. Yes, I'm that bored. I probably won't go as far as getting the Loremaster, but who knows. My goal right now is to knock out 750 more quests (probably while watching TV shows on my second monitor). That should keep me busy for quite some time. 

Also, I've created a second paladin, which will act as a banker. I've decided to level her to 40 so that she can get both her ground mounts (moar mounts!) for quicker travels from the bank to the auction house. Time is money, as they say.

I'm also thinking about creating an undead priest to do the quests in Tirisfal Glades and Silverpine Forest with. I'm still not sure if that will stick or if I'll change my mind. It's a pretty shaky plan to start with, but I've been wanting a priest on this server for some time now, and I don't see why I shouldn't roll one. At least, it's something to do until the Pandas get here. (Get here faster, dammit.)

I've also decided to level archaeology again, this time on my druid. As I know for a fact I'll want to get all my toons to 90 come MoP, I think it wise to find other means to reach said goal other than by questing. I reckon after I've done the zones on three or four characters, I'll be happy to do some digging and herb picking to break the monotony.

Yes, more achievements. And some fishes too.

The weekend has been pretty busy and productive for my characters! 

The lock reached level 75 last night and finished leveling engineering! Next month's Darkmoon Faire will give her her last five alchemy points, and my paladin's last three blacksmithing points, as I'm too lazy to farm more mats. I've farmed enough in the last couple of weeks that I'd rather wait a whole month to check that off my bucket list rather than farm it myself. Lazy Lyr is lazy.

I also maxxed out fishing and cooking on three characters Saturday night, which was both painful and fun. I fished mats and then cooked them, and it was nice, but the sun had come up when I hit 525 on the last character, and I only then realized what time it was and went to bed. 

Today, the mage got some easy achievements (she hadn't finished Classic Dungeonmaster before tonight, how weird is that?) and then queued for a BG and got her first Arathi Basin victory. I know, it's sad. I did have this achievement on my hunter, but that just shows how much I don't PvP. Despite my mage being my oldest toon, she didn't even have that. Anyway, all those achievements scored her It's Over Nine Thousand which I should be excited about, but I'm not. And I find it sad. It's a big deal for me to reach that threshold, but I wasn't as excited about getting as I thought I would be. Anyway, I'm glad it's done. I wonder how many achievement points I'll have in total once Mists merges all my characters achievements together. Hopefully somewhere close to 10k. *fingers crossed*

I transferred my Death Knight over to the server and haven't done much with her since, except farm stuff, like crocs tails to level cooking, because Howling Blast all the things is amazing to kill mobs quickly. Plus, Death Grip really comes in handy when you're lazy and don't want to run aallll the way over there. I think my DK is as lazy as me.

So the plan for this week is to keep leveling the lock as much as possible while the Midsummer Festival's XP buff is still around. I'll also be hitting the Raid Finder with the hunter for a trinket, and the shaman to get her a new weapon, as she is still rocking a blue axe. After that, I'll be pretty much done with the bucket list, apart from the Loremaster stuff which I probably won't even touch before MoP. Unless I get really bored. Which will most probably happen if Blizz doesn't hurry up already and give us something. Anything really. Just something new to do. Soon. Please?

Until then I guess I'll read, watch TV shows and hope for the pandas to arrive. 

Quick Post : It's mine

I've been farming Sethekk Halls for a little less than two months, and today, I was rewarded with this beauty. I'm so glad I finally got it. It's absolutely gorgeous. 

This has been a productive week for my bucket list. I think this weekend I'll slow down and just level the warlock some more, grind heroics to try and gear the shaman, and run the LFR on a couple toons. Which is a terrible idea, because it seems all the bads come out during the weekend. What can I say, I guess I'm a sucker for punishment.

Patience wearing thin

Cassie the pally finally managed to get some plate pieces to drop from random HoT heroics this weekend, and reached an item level of 374. She had no luck for days, and then one day almost everything dropped for her, and she was able to queue for the Raid Finder. Her dps isn't as good as I'd like it to be, but I didn't get thrown out of a raid so far, and she always managed to stay in the middle of the pack, dps-wise. We did wipe several times on Ultraxxion, which was totally sad, but it wasn't because of my somewhat low dps, but because of people not being able to press a button at the right moment. 

Nonetheless, Cassie got some nice tier shoulders and new boots out of RF Dragon Soul. Now all she'd need would be a trinket, a belt, and possibly another piece of tier so she can get her two set bonus, which makes her judgement give holy power as well. That would be a nice improvement, considering I still struggle with keeping Inquisition up (refreshing it too soon is something I'd like to work on) and using her cooldowns as efficiently as possible. (which I'm getting better at, but generating holy power faster would definitely be a plus.)

I was very happy when Pit Lord Destroyer dropped for her from Well of Eternity, as she was still rockin' an axe from Zul'Aman. Plus, I think it looks really good. I think I might start looking for a transmog set that will match with it. Her gear looks like hell at the moment, as I haven't transmogged it at all since level 80 or so. I'm waiting to see if I can get her some gear in the Raid Finder tomorrow before I go and transmog her, though.

Cassie has also started running Magister's Terrace daily to gain rep with the Shattered Sun Offensive, and for a chance at the mount. It's a lot of fun to gather whole rooms at a time and Divine Storm all the things.

The hunter is still running daily Underbog as well to try and get her last piece of the Giantstalker recolor set. The pants are the last piece missing, and it's been eluding her for days.Hopefully she will get lucky soon. I'm enjoying the daily routine of Sethekk Halls, Underbog, Magister's Terrace, cooking/fishing dailies that I'm rockin' at the moment with a couple characters, but I'm eager to get it all done and just casually level my lock or something for a while. My shaman still needs to reach level 85, and then the grind for gear and leather will start all over again. 

There really needs to be some kind of MoP announcement sometime soon. I'm trying really hard to keep myself busy with stuff in and outside of WoW, but I have very little patience to begin with. 

Keeping busy

I spend all my time lately working on my bucket list. So much to do! And it seems like the list is still as big as when I started. So here's what I did in the last couple days :

The mage is finally done with the rep farming (at least for now). She reached exalted reputation with the Keepers of time saturday and finally finished The Burning Crusader. She got some new tabards, for which I'd love to  find some nice transmog outfits to match. Right.

Keepers of time, the Sha'tar and Thrallmar.

The paladin is now level 83, her mining is maxed out and her Blacksmithing is at 517. Not bad at all! Out of the blue last night, when I realized the Faire was coming at midnight, I decided I had to farm all the things and level BS as much as I could. The DMF gives a free 5 points for your professions, and I wanted to use that 5 point for the last part of BS, those last omg-so-close-but-oh-so-much-mats! points, and not the easy turn-bars-into-X-amount-of-other-things part. 

I levelled her fishing to 300 as well, as she got a Bone Fishing Pole from a daily and couldn't use it before level 300. I'm still hoping the Jeweled Fishing Pole will drop for her, as it would fit better than the Bone one.

I also created a baby warlock this week, and finally decided to roll it as a goblin on a whim. I'd been asking myself for days which race it should be, and then I just picked one and ran with it. To get her ready for the Faire, I leveled all her professions to 75...and then kept going. Engineering and Alchemy are maxed at 225 and 240 respectively, as she can't get farther before level 35. I plan on farming the necessary mats soon, before we get the cross-realm zones and all the goodies get taken by people from other servers.

I had planned on levelling her to 15, so she'd be ready to do some dungeons and quests whenever MoP came out, but I wanted to keep doing the cooking and fishing dailies until then, so I levelled her to 20 and bought her mount. Running around Orgrimmar killing boars for their bacon or stealing rice from the trolls really sucks when you're on foot.

The shaman surprised me last night, as she decided she wanted the bear mount from the Darkmoon Faire. I had decided I would only go after the pets, but change of plans I guess! There's no way I'll get it this month though, but I'm confident I can get it in July. So I thought only the lock would need to do her dailies this week, but turns out I have two toons that will be running them! To get the shamy more tickets, I've decided to level her archaeology to 75 so she can do the monthly quest as well. It's only worth 3 tickets a month, but it's better than nothing. It'll save me 6 dailies somewhere!

Levelling Archaeology on a shamy really is no fun when you don't have insta-cast Ghost Wolf. At least on my mage I have blink. But I did get a rare, which is kinda cool even if I wish I had gotten it on the mage. (Sigh) It gave her a title (her first one), Assistant Professor. Doesn't quite fit, but it'll do for now.

It feels like I've done a lot, but the list still goes on! The druid is still running Sethek Halls daily for the Raven Lord, but no luck so far. The pally should be 85 this week, if all goes according to plan. I still need to work on professions a bit, but I need to get the pally and shaman to 85 asap, in part because I want to gear them somewhat before the next expansion (more gear means the mobs die faster!), and because I want to be able to queue for the Midsummer holiday boss in less than three weeks! I love how all those things keep me busy until we get new content, but I swear when I'm done, I won't farm anything for as long as I can.

Battlechicken's challenge - week 3

I was late to the party for the second challenge, and the first challenge didn't inspire me, but hopefully, I'll make it in time for the third one! This week's challenge is an especially tricky one for me.

"Your challenge this week is to tell me about your main (or the small handful of characters you feel most attached to). This might be their backstory as you’ve imagined it, or how you imagine their personalities. It could be how they relate to you–are they your flamboyant side, or do you channel your thoughtfulness through them?

Maybe explain why you chose them or why you keep coming back to them. What would they say if I asked them to tell me about themselves?

Whatever form or idea that takes for you, the challenge is this: Tell me about your main character(s)."

I've never really given any of my characters a backstory in WoW. I do have a somewhat vague idea of their personalities, but nothing elaborate. Playing WoW for me has never been about that, anyway. It's always been about the feel of the class, the shiny purples, the dungeons, the professions, the raiding. And deciding which character would be my main.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this over the years. For a very long time, I've searched for something. For the class that would be all that. That one class that I would say : "This is it. This is the one." I envied people who only have one character and are content. Complete. For years, I wandered off from a class to the next, never finding exactly what it is that I was looking for, but having fun looking for it. Every class has a little something I love, but not enough for me to settle on just one. I've finally come to the conclusion that  there simply isn't just one class that is all I need. I had looked all this time in vain. I could never have just one character.

However, I do have favourites. 

I have a lot of characters, and I love most of them. Others I just don't enjoy playing anymore, so they gather dust somewhere on a server far, far away. There are three of my toons that have always been my favourites, my mage, hunter and druid. I'm not sure exactly why, but they have a special place in my heart. I guess their playstyle just really clicks with me. Over the years, I've been a healer, a ranged dps, a melee, and recently, a tank. But I keep coming back to the "holy trinity". Mage, hunter, druid. I love my dk, my shaman, my pally, but it's not the same.

Whenever I transfer to a new server, I take my mage, hunter and druid with me. The others, I can reroll. I have no strong attachment to the character per say. I love the class, so I want one on my new main server, but not enough to actually pay for it to be transferred over. Although, with the transmog thing, I think I will actually have my dk transfered over, if only because she has the most awesome transmog set ever and I don't want to farm if on another toon. Because Firelands can die in a fire for all I care.

I've decided that my main is my mage, simply because she was my first toon, and I love her the most, with my hunter and druid being my two favourite alts. But there's so much stuff I love about my other characters that I made a list of all the abilities that make me love all my characters.

Mage : Being able to teleport almost anywhere I want. Blink. Mana cakes. Mirror images. Evocation. Mana gems. Invisibility. Ice block. Being able to play with fire, with ice, or with arcane. Scorch. Pyroblast. Arcane Missiles. Time Warp.

Hunter : Bows. Pets. Feign Death. Kill command. Watching my pet running full speed towards my enemy and biting him and clawing him to death. Being able to chose which pet I wanna carry around, choose it’s name, it’s color, it’s race. Shooting mobs from afar while my pet tanks them.

Druid : Bird form. Not having to “dismount” to loot, or farm herbs. Innervate. Mushrooms. Aquatic form. Starsurge. Swiftmend and the green circle of healy goodness that comes with it. Wild growth. Tranquillity.

DK : Anti-magic shell. Spamming Howling Blast. Dual wielding two weapons. Death grip. Army of the Dead.

Paladin : Avenger's shield. Crusader Aura. Lay on hands. Hammer of the righteous. The charger mount.

Shaman : Chain Lightning. Thunderstorm. Mana shield. Earth Shield. Riptide. Feral Spirit. Bloodlust.

I also have a priest and a warrior, and although there are things I do love about both those classes, I haven't played any of them much in the last months. I also plan on levelling a warlock soon, as they look like they're a lot of fun to play. And they just plain look cool. The only class I don't enjoy at all is the rogue, and that's fine. One less alt to worry about!

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.