You had me at "zug-zug"

Mad and Lyr, ready to kick some ass.

During the holidays, the BF and I enjoy creating new alts and playing them casually. This year, we picked a prot warrior and a resto shaman. Mad wanted to make an Orc warrior, like the one he used to play back in BC. So I decided to create an orc as well, something I've never done before. I must admit I'm starting to grow pretty fond of her. I already have two shamans, but I never get tired of leveling new ones. It's my favourite class to level, and I lost count of all the shamans I rolled throughout my WoW career. This is my first orc one, though.

Since I have no room left on our main server for new characters, I had to create her over on Rexxar, since all my heirlooms are there. (This might be the only useful thing about CRZ's, being able to quest with people from different servers.) Apparently though, when I shipped my heirlooms over, I didn't think I'd roll a resto shamy, because the mail caster items are the only ones I didn't send. Which is why my poor orc lady has to wear leather heirlooms. Oh, the shame.

Please disregard the leather heirloom pants.

After three days of playing on and off, our little duo is now level 43. Mad likes to tank by aggroing huge groups of mobs and keep running to get more like his life depended on it. Fortunately, I'm the one healing him, and most of the times, all I have to do is keep Earth Shield up on him and throw a couple Riptides from time to time. It makes for pretty smooth, quick dungeon runs, and lots of fast xp. It's been a lot of fun, but playing with my boyfriend always is!

Mad and Lyr morphed into gnomes,
being naughty by the Christmas tree.

We wish you a...

Image courtesy of cuddly boyfriend.

Quick Post:The only time I play a male toon, this happens

99% of my characters are female. The only exception is my warrior, which is a male blood elf. Tonight, while trying to finally get him to 90, I was questing in the Dread Wastes. I had to kill a named mob and loot an item from it's corpse. I saw the mob in combat with a player, so I charged in to get credit as well, and then this happened :

Quick Post: Farmer Lyr

5.1 only just went live and already, 5.2 is coming on the PTR in early january. Holy shit, are they on speed or something? Not that I'm complaining or anything. New content is always nice. Weirdly enough though, all I really care about is this:  

• Players that have grown attached to working the land at Sunsong Ranch can now purchase the land from Farmer Yoon. Once the farm is owned by a player, it becomes a rest point like an Inn, where the player can bind and instantly log out. Work orders will pour in to the farm from factions across Pandaria, and completing a work orders will earn a reputation boost with the issuing faction.
• Sunsong Ranch
• Seed bags have been added, that allow planting of crops 4 plots at a time.
• Yoon's Mailbox has been renamed to Sunsong Ranch Mailbox.
• The yield from special crops has been improved to make farming them competitive with gathering these items out in the world.
• Running the Master Plow across underground Virmen will cause them to pop out of the ground at 30% health and stunned.
• Wild Crops will now occur less often.

I suspect it'll cost a shitload to buy the farm, but that's fine. What is gold good for if not to spend it on fun (and relatively useless) stuff like this? To me, it's totally worth it. I log on everyday to fix my five max level character's farms, and some days, that's the only thing I do in game. Enigma and Snakeroot seeds have become my primary source of herbs and ores, so the buff to the yield from special crops really is making me happy. Also, less Wild Crops? Thank you sweet baby Jesus.

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 : Paladin buffs are hard

I've been doing lots of dungeons lately while leveling my alts, and 90% of the time, something like this happens: There is a druid (or a monk) and a pally in the group. The pally gives kings. The druid/monk looks around, with a "what is this I don't even" look on his face. 

Now, in all fairness, I know it doesn't really matter. It's not a raid. We don't need every possible buff. But every bit helps when you have a clueless bunch of noobs new players in the group. More buffs usually means the mobs die a little faster, the healer gets OOM a little slower, and we just might make it out of there all in one piece. Just maybe.

There's only two paladin buffs now for crying out loud. There used to be a lot more of those, and they didn't last half as long as they do now. And you had to buff every single player individually. You guys don't know how easy you have it nowadays.

So for the love of God, please, pallies. Learn to buff.

Quick Post: I can haz serpent

Joining the ranks of the Cloud Serpent riders!

Today the mage did her last daily with the Order of the Cloud Serpent and hit exalted! It only took a couple days, not even a week, since the shaman has already bought the commendation when she reached revered last week. So now, the mage has her Azure Cloud Serpent which replaced her Twilight Drake. It felt weird, too, because she had been using the Twilight Drake since she won it in Obsidian Sanctum back in Wrath. But this dude is totally worth it.

This serpent is not amused.

Quick Post : Suddenly, I am 5 years old

I just went to the Darkmoon Faire to turn my deck into a trinket (item level 470 achieveved!) and I came across this :

How awesome is this?!

We get to ride a carousel! I didn't know until just now how much this was missing from the Faire. And the music is absolutely enchanting. The fact that riding this gives a 10% rep increase for up to one hour is just a bonus. 

And just like that, I want my very own mini-carousel vanity item. Please, Blizz, make it happen!