What I've been up to

I'm going to put a break in this post because yesterday I got invited to the WoW Beta and I'll save my little bit of discussion about it for after the break.

So I'm still raiding with Spoiled Milk. There's been no new boss kills. We've been having small issues with our kills, but those mistakes mean wipes, which means more time killing bosses. Immerseus is probably the worst one. It's the boss we've been killing the longest and yet... each week we seem to have some issues with the fight. Last week was particularly rough with and we eventually gave up on Galakras because we were having issues with people in the towers being teleported back to the ground. After some research we learned that this was happening because of getting aggro with the mobs on the ground. So this week we did eventually get Galakras but we were still having so many other issues. And we didn't finish the raid on Friday. I think I'm going to have to search open raid for a group that could use a hunter. I really want as many chances to get more heirlooms as I can get.

I've also been working on the cape quest on my shaman. I've really been able to take advantage of the two buffs. She was working on the valor part of the quest when there was the valor buff and now I've been enjoying the rainful of extra runestones and secrets.

My level 70 twink druid is getting some better gear but I really need to give her some love. She doesn't have any professions and her gear is unenchanted and ungemmed. And I can't look at her bracers. They really need to be replaced. The guild she's in has strict rules about what I can and can't do and what I can use and can't use. Sometimes the rules seem silly but the guild leader has his reasons.

I've also done some pet battling. One of my guildies in Spoiled Milk is obsessed with pet battling. He's still fairly new to the game so he doesn't have an incredibly large collection yet, but he's getting there. He's also really good at leveling pets and has even leveled a few for me. I felt that since I now have these level 25 pets I should try to pet level and battle the trainers. I finally managed to beat all the tamers in Pandaria and my friend has even given me advice on how to use the battle against Aki to help powerlevel some pets. I know that there's methods for all the other trainers but I'm still working on figuring out how to do so. My friend is working on the Celestial Tournament. Occasionally he wants to use a pet that he doesn't have so he's been borrowing some of my pets. It works well for me because when I get them back they've been leveled.


Yesterday when I checked my mail I discovered that I had a beta invite. I couldn't believe it but a check of my battle-net account showed me that I was, indeed, in beta. I spent yesterday downloading it when I wasn't running around on my level 70 twink druid.

I have mixed feelings about the new models. On the one hand, they look really amazing, but on the other, they are a bit different. It's a bit jaring. I had planned to just make some instant 90 Alliance characters and see the questline from the Alliance side. But I also wanted to see all the new features. When I logged onto my new night elf monk, I saw this announcement about some of the new features, including the toy box. I wasn't sure where to find it so I began opening up panels. It's on the one with the pets and mounts. But the premade characters don't have any toys. They also don't have any pets but they do have close to every single mount. I enjoyed running around on a spectral tiger. Anyway, I copied Awoi, my hunter, and Arita, my night elf druid. I figured my druid would be a good choice for finding toys and she had some fun ones. But I was surprised by some of the items that weren't toys. It seems Arita will remain my only toon able to play with Dartol's rod of transformation.

I looked at her gear. While her healing gear didn't add agility when I switched her specs, it did turn off her intellect. The gear on the premade toon had agility, intellect, and stamina and switching the spec would turn the agility and intellect on and off. It was pretty cool. Than I realized that my druid's cape only had a total of 6 armor. Yikes! I took a look at my hunter's gear and while her legendary cape had more armor, it still wasn't as large as the numbers I'm now used to. But the gear's item level remained the same. And you really don't notice it except to notice that the numbers are different.

I than realized that my action bar seemed empty. I was than reminded of the ability prunning. It's really different to see the results of it rather than just read about it. But my hunter's rotation didn't feel any different, even though there no longer was serpent's sting. I ran her though the dark portal event and I had no trouble with any of the mobs. But thinks look different. The selection system has been changed a bit and something is wrong with the fire sounds. I have the sounds down low but whenever I went by a fire or had a warlock casting rain of fire nearby I thought the sound was going to make me deaf.

Overall, I'm really looking forward to the next expansion. I still have some more beta to explore but I have to say it's looking good. And I'm really looking forward to what Yrel, the female dranei that I rescued will be up to.