Settling into the new guild

I've been pretty happy with my new guild so far. They raid two nights a week but they don't raid too late since they finish at 11 pm for me. It's not a hard-core guild and we've been working though heroic content. Currently 7/10 and have to finish Blast furnace, Kromog, and Blackhand.

It definitely feels odd to be a healer, there's so much stuff to watch out for, along with healing everyone! The other day, I actually thought about my raiding history and realized that I haven't had a main healer since Ulduar came out. There's only been one raid that I mained as a healer. Since then, I've either tanked or dps. I've done some dabbling with healing and I loved being a holy pally during dragon soul lfr but I mostly just stood still casting my aoe healing. I'll admit that I have quite a learning curve to adjust to healing raids now. It's also really different from healing heroic dungeons. I have to remember that I don't have to do all the healing. I can rely on those others healers, especially that disc priest. Ugh, Disc priests and their bubbles make my heals almost unnecessary. They are the only healers I can't beat up on the healing meters, except on the trash pull right before gruul when there's lots of aoe damage, the group pops lust, I use my wings, and just go to town with the aoe healing. Bwahaha, so much healing. I might be too competitive to be a great healer.

When I haven't been raiding, I've been working on my newest obsesssion. Zeetai, is a warrior. One of the only classes I've never had at max level in any expansion. There are several guildies with warrior alts and they have made warriors sound fun, so I figured I would try again. So I made Zee. Zee is currently level 75, the highest level warrior I've ever had. I've been having a lot of fun as a fury warrior.

I've also been spending gold. Not on tokens... although I probably should. But on things like mounts and pets. I didn't expect to ever have enough gold saved up for an onyx panther. I was planning to get the yellow or green one... but the onyx one was at a really good price on the auction house... and so I made it mine. I've made several rather large purchases lately. It seems whenever I start building up gold, I find something on the auction house that I have wanted for some time and can now actually afford to buy. Not only did I get the onyx panther, I also picked up a sandstone drake, and a crawling claw. No more crying because after finishing yet another tol'var artificate  I still haven't gotten the pattern for the claw! Nope, I broke down, I bought it and I have named it Thing. Sigh, I swear, the next big thing I'm buying is a token... possibly.

Gastalon the Mage

Last night I really wanted to level but I didn't want to run dungeons. I was actually feeling like questing. It's a rare feeling and I'm sure it'll go away soon. But it left me with a bit of a problem. The toons I'm currently leveling have been sitting in their capital cities this whole time and haven't gone out into the world at all because I've just been running dungeons using dungeon finder. I knew if I tried to take them to an appropriate place to quest I'd get bored along the way and end up running dungeons again.

So I found myself staring at my character screen and wondering what to do. Then I had a brilliant idea. New toon! As I looked at the full screen I thought about switching to Firetree or another connected realm when I realized the toon at the bottom had never actually been started. Gastalon has been patiently waiting since Febuary for some love and a chance to wear the Gaston mog I came up with for Matty's Oscar party. It seemed like it was fine to go and level...a mage.

I've never managed to level a male toon so I'm feeling pretty excited. Gastalon isn't very certain that being a mage is manly. He thought that a warrior or hunter would be better. I'm still not sure how I won this argument. But he's definitely mad about wearing the dress. He can't wait to wear a shirt and pants.

Which means running around and blasting stuff in the face. He managed to reach level 13 last night. Gastalon didn't particularly care what spec he was. He didn't think any sound particularly macho so he left the choice up to me. I had a hard time choosing. I've leveled my last mage as frost and she raided Dragon Soul dungeon finder as fire and I was trying to decide if I wanted to try arcane or stick with something I was familiar with. Gastalon finally made the decision when he declared that he wasn't following in the holves of some draenei bimbo. He's words. Not mine. I decided that he might be right. About playing arcane that is. My Azilem is hardly a bimbo.

Now I just have to keep Vaunt from finding out that I'm spending time running around as a mage istead of throwing green fire and chaos bolts at stuff. It's never good to get on a warlock's bad side.

Leveling and Achievements in WoW

I've started to think that focusing on one class to the exclusion of all else isn't the way I really like leveling. I'm sure I'll still focus on one over another but I decided to set some smaller leveling goals to try and get some rested xp on my toons.

First up - Druid

It's druid week! And I decided to get my druid up to level 15 so that she can start enjoying the dungeon finder. It was only 3 levels but they are 3 really difficult levels for me to get. I have at least three toons sitting at level 12 because I really don't want to do the quests to reach dungeon finder. Ah well.

I've already picked my spec, which is feral, so I just needed to go head out and quest. One of the quests requires that you haul in a goblin that has been turned to stone. You can't pick one up as a kitty so I finished up the other quests in the area before picking up a goblin that was close to the exit.

I was really starting to have fun with my druid. I even took her into a battleground. It didn't end well. But it was still fun. I'm thinking I'm going to have to do what I can to deck her out and start running some more at level 16 when she gets travel form. 

I'm also debating whether I should change her to guardian and try tanking dungeons. I've seen a few troll bears and I think that the green and blue combo is one of the prettier ones. And I might decide I like guardian better if I see it from the ground up.

Second - Monk

I've been wanting to get my monk off the Wandering Isle and into Orgrimmar so that she can get a haircut. I keep thinking of that style as Awoi's hair. And I really wanted off the Wandering Isle.

She's now level 12 and has quite a few heirlooms. My death knight had to cough up the jp and gold to purchase the shoulders, helm, and pants. The shaman has the agility cloak boa equipped and I was not buying another one. No matter how much whining I could hear from the monk. I'm also trying to ignore my druid who feels that she should be the one decked out in boa glory.

Achievement!

Since Tyle shelled out so much to outfit my alts I decided to see if I could push her further though the ranks of the Brawler's guild. I needed just one fight to get to rank 8 and get a cool title. The fight was pretty easy although the first time I blew it because I thought I needed to avoid all the crap being thrown around not collect it for a dps buff. After realizing my mistake the second round went pretty well. I'm now Brawler Tyle!

What I've been up to when not raiding

It's been quite awhile since I've made a post to talk about what I've been up to when I haven't been raiding. The last one I had was when I was first leveling my hunter Awoi back in July.

First off I made a shaman to level named Kirkzel. I'm using new names for my new alts instead of old ones. It's probably a good thing for the shaman. My draenei one was called Mnementh. Just try and say it. I dare you. Anyway, Kirkzel is much easier to pronounce, although I realized her named gets shortened to Kirk in my head. Which makes me think of Star Trek. hmm.... I've think Zelkirk would be a better name but I didn't come up with it until she was level 50ish. A bit late to restart her. Well... I could still restart her. But I'm starting to like calling her Kirk. And killing her with Felreavers.

Anyway, I made Kirk so that I could have a max level Horde healer. I started her as elemental and resto and leveled though a lot of dungeon finders. I don't know how I ever leveled a toon before dungeon finder. I'm pretty happy just sitting in Org or Stormwind just waiting for a que. But I have to start taking them out into the world when they reach level 58. I quickly realized that I still really hate being a caster. I can do it. I have a warlock. I can cast. But I knew I wanted to be enhancement so when I reached Northrend I switched.

I've been really happy with it. She still needs weapons. And gear that doesn't have intellect on it. But that doesn't stop her from being a wreckingball of pain. When she was still level 69 and out questing a level 74 Alliance death knight tried to gank Kirk. I think I shocked him when not only did I survive the initial assault but that I then dropped totems and began to tear him apart. I oomed myself casting heals but he died! And I stayed around to kill him once again when he rezed. What? If you go around trying to gank lowbies you deserve whatever pain I can dish out.

While leveling Kirk has been fun I've been feeling a call to level my hunter. Awhile back I had made a list of some of the pets I would love to get on my Alliance hunter. Since I'm now focused on being the best Hordie I can be, which to me means having a ton of horde alts, I figure my worgen hunter will sit at level 69 for quite some time. But that just meant that instead of collecting those pets on my worgen I would be collecting them on Awoi. And one of the pets I really wanted was a lightening worg.

picture from Wow-petopia.com

To get a lightening worg a hunter has to be level 90. These wolves are found in the Vale of Eternal Springs. Which is going to be blown up in the next patch. While I don't know that this pet will be gone I figured I'd better be safe then sorry and since my hunter was sitting at level 73 I thought she could put in a good push to get to 90. Which I managed to do this week!

What's this? I thought I already had 5 90s? Let's see... death knight, druid, paladin, warlock, death knight... see 5! Oh! Wait! 2 death knights. Hmmm... So the hunter puts me at 6 90s and 5 classes, half of which are less then six months old. I think I just like leveling too much XD

Anyway, I got Awoi her lightening wolf and named it Blitz.

I've also settled on Awoi's look. I won't be messing with her haircut anymore although I could change the color in her hair. But I'll be leaving her as a black panda instead of a red one. Now I just have to get her a good looking mog. Anyway, getting the wolf wasn't enough. I had to get Awoi geared to run lfr. Why? I don't know, I just do. But she ran scenarios

Look! I'm a goblin! I really want a monk to run that scenario on. For a brief shiny moment there will be goblin monks. I ran enough dungeons and scenarios to get rather sick of them. I also took Awoi to the Barrens to start the weekly and pick up the ilvl 502 boots.

I originally started with buying her gear from the jp vendor and forgot that in Org I could turn her jp into honor which I could use to buy much better rewards. I did remember in time to get her a pair of gloves. With that and a purchase of the vp Klaxxi belt and upgrading a trinket she got from the dungeon finder she was at an ilvl of 460. Exactly. Time to hit lfr! She picked up a new chestpiece ...aaaaaaannnnnnnndddd a belt... damnit. It was too late to return the Klaxxi one so there wasn't much to do but laugh at how predictably that turned out. I just knew it was going to happen. Ah well. All that's left is to finish the Barren's weekly and get a piece of gear... ugh, Barrens. Ewww.... maybe I'll go level something. 

Like my priestly shadow cow Serna who's level 12

Or this level 8 monk named Lemissa. I love that name, it's an anagram of my real name. My Missy needs a new haircut! That's Awoi's hair! Which I can't change until she finally gets off the Wandering Isle. Anyone else think it's unfair that the pandas start out with white quality gear? When goblins and worgen leave their starting areas they have green and even one blue piece. The other starting zones give you green gear as well. So why don't they have any on the Wandering Isle?

Or I could do stuff on Tyle. Like achievements. I look like such a slacker in the guild. Not even 5000 achievements showing on the guild roster. I know I have 13,000 but poor Tyle is still new and is lacking in achievements. But she did get a nice new one recently.

I've finally finished all the cooking stuff! For the first time on any toon! Go Tyle! Now let's go get those other cooking achievements...No? What do you mean, no? It's not that bad... fine! I'll go level a healer!

Oh, wait... that's right. There's this new game I'm supposed to be leveling in. It's called Final Fantasy something or other. Some people are pretty excited about it. I get to be a cat person so I'm happy. Ish. Managed to get to level 10 as a lancer. I've run out of the quests that Zug showed me how to do. Now I'm trying to figure out how to read the map. But that's when I get to play. I swear it's got some kind of radar. Soon as I get in and try to level the servers come down. And I'm not even going to mention the painful process of trying to get the game. It was painful. I can't see ever doing anything like that again. Pain. Anyway, the world is beautiful and I wish I could figure out where my screenshots go. Although I might be stuffing that up. But so far the games been pretty interesting and I could spend forever just playing with the character maker. Which is actually about all I've really done. I'm not sure why I wanted to be in the early release. Something about getting a jump on leveling. Yeah... been doing that... not. Anyway, once I figure out how to get screenshots I'll try and get another post about the game.

New Obsession

My newest leveling obsession was going to be a goblin warrior. She was adorable with her sassy little red ponytail and she had all three of the boa's that you can buy from the guild vendor. I had even gotten her invited into the guild.

But then I made a hunter. 

A Panda hunter. It's all Slice's fault. A few days ago when I posted about my favorite races he had left a comment asking why panda's wheren't on that list. The thing is, I do like pandas but I just can't seem to play them. But I've only tried to play panda monks. I knew the problem wasn't that I don't like monks since I have a night elf one at level 60 so I figured the problem is that I just couldn't play a panda for some reason. But they have some really awesome hair. So I gave it some more thought and decided to try another panda but this time with a different class. Hunter has been calling out to me for some time and it felt perfect. I wasn't too thrilled with the pet turtle but I knew I could get a cat soon enough. Besides it's better than the dog worgen start with and I still have that pet buried in my hunter's stable. So Awoi the hunter was born. For those looking to figure out how to pronounce that it's eye oh wah. I'm far too easily amused.

As Awoi leveled up and got new abilities she decided she liked her little turtle and named it Soup. He's a great companion when traveling solo and filling in for tanks who weren't so great and left before a single boss is killed. But Awoi definitely needed more companions because switching Soup's talents and remembering to turn taunt on and off is a lot of work. It's far easier to have another pet just for dpsing. And the perfect pet for that is a cat. My first thought was to head north and pick up a ghost saber but after some thought and a quick look at petopia I remembered a really cool cat I have never been able to catch before. The white lion Echeyakee!

Two pets is a good start but I remembered running across a rare while questing with both my warlock and my warrior in Stonetalon Mountains that I really liked. So a quick check and Awoi had a new pet.

And a pet that she knew just what to do with. Pvp! Just a little bit of pvp. 

Ok. Fine. Awoi did a fair bit of pvping. It's a lot of fun as a low-level hunter. Wearing the heirlooms that I just had to get because, honestly, why does all the leather gear have intellect on it? Heirlooms were the only way to get a decent set of pants! Upon reaching level 35 sometime after midnight I figured it was time to call it a break. But I think Awoi is definitely going to be sticking around.

Apologies and More Leveling

I wanted to apologize because I didn't get a pet puzzle up this weekend.  The short of it was that I was feeling pretty crappy all week. I'll write more about it after I recount the adventures my warlock was having.  Happy stuff first and then you can skip all the terrible but I can still write about it. :)

The warlock made it though Northrend pretty quickly but she still managed to have a bit of fun.  The questlines in Stormpeaks were particularly fun such as being turned into a giant lady who couldn't actually fit onto her flying saucer.  That cloud must be strong.

And battling on dragonback is always fun! Here's my warlock showing off her dragon-riding skills.  Unfortunately I haven't figured out what to do with the quest when you finished all the battling and have to go meet with Thorium. The only thing I've figured out is how to get off the dragon's back which results in falling to my doom unless I'm a druid which this time I wasn't.

And after leveling through Northrend Vaunt, my warlock, spent a few days leveling in the Catacylism levels.

And also leveling pets.  I have finally managed to get a pet all the way to level 25!  The Grell was the first but I now have 5 level 25 pets. Now I should probably figure out how to beat all the battle trainers.

My warlock hasn't had all the fun.  I finally got around to spending some time on my poor neglected death knight.  I wanted to finish up Operation: Shieldwall and while flying through Karasang Wilds I saw a legendary pet to battle.  I lost the first try but came back and won the second time.

I finally managed to finish the dailies and now own a pretty new grand gryphon and bought a grand armored gryphon. I did take a look at the grand wryvn and grand armored wryvn.  I'll admit that I definitely like the gryphons much better than the wryvn.

I also finally saw a Zandarlari rare! It lept out and attacked my poor leveling warlock while she was traveling to a quest hub.  It was quite an epic battle but eventually the npcs won and beat the troll.  I might have died. Twice. I'm a warlock not a healer afterall.

Alright now for my long story. Awhile back the doctors decided that my gallbladder isn't working right and they arranged for me to have more tests to determine how much of my gallbladder is still working and to make sure the rest of me is still good. So they gave me painkillers to help in the meantime. At first I was feeling pretty good but then it became obvious that I was having an allergic reaction to the painkillers. Then I started feeling a little miserable. Which probably wasn't the best way to be feeling when you have to go take a stress test.  Actually, on second thought,  the reason to be taking a stress test is because you feel miserable.  Anyway, I went in with a bit of a sore throat and left with a massively painful sore throat.  My mom was gracious enough to be my driver for the day and I most have sounded as miserable as I felt because she stopped and got me a chocolate shake even though I shouldn't have been eating it.  It contained two of the foods I shouldn't be eating: chocolate and ice cream.  Lucky two days later I had another test.  This one was much easier. I'm not sure what it was called but it involved injecting me with something that acted as a dye and they  wanted to see my gallbladder working.  After a rather boring two hours they sent me back to the waiting room while they went though the results.  I was told that my gallbladder didn't show so they decided to give me morphine.  I'm not sure how that helped but I do know that I sure felt good that day.  Anyway, I still have what feels like a bit of a cold but I think I might be starting to feel better because I'm starting to notice how much my side is hurting again.  At least at this point I'm not worried about surgery anymore.  I just want to feel better.

Rocking the Lock

I've been obsessed with leveling lately.  I think it's because I haven't been feeling good and the side effects of all the medications I'm taking to manage my pain make me dizzy.  Anyway, all I've been wanting to do is level and the only toon I've been wanting to level is my little baby goblin Warlock.  Thankfully the kind people of Shadow Rising have given my warlock a home in their guild.

Here my little warlock is just starting on her adventure.  We have reached the end of the questline in Stone Talon Peaks.  I'll just say that Garrosh managed to surprise me and to react exactly how I expected.  But this is a zone you should attempt to see from both the Horde and Alliance side.  Here are some of the highlights from my warlock's leveling so far.

Once Vaunt, the goblin warlock, finished Stone Talon she headed to Desolace where several really awesome things occurred.

She did battle with some cultists whose blood burned.  When you got enough stacks it turned you into a giant purple demon.  Vaunt wasn't too impressed with this at first until she realized it would also turn her ordinary blue voidwalker and her swarm of imps into purple demons as well.  Here three of the imps and the voidwalker got turned into demons and Vaunt has used Metamorphis.

Vaunt also got into a fight with a night elf druid.  The cat won but Vaunt was better prepared the second time and managed to make her first honorable kill.

That's when Vaunt remembered that she could run battlegrounds.  The Horde did really well and stomped the Alliance into the ground.  Wait a min! Do I see people fighting in the road? Stop! Stop that! No fighting in the road!

Vaunt eventually made her way to Felwood and made friends with a Demon Hunter.  The Demon Hunter allowed Vaunt to see the events of the past and even hang out with Illidan.  Winged demons FTW!

She eventually headed to Outlands and reached level 60 and immediately learned how to fly.  No one rocks a flying saucer better than a goblin

In Hellfire, Vaunt spent some time trying to cap the towers so she could get a free pvp trinket.  While waiting for a tower to cap she was attacked by a night elf death knight.  Soon Vaunt had her first death knight kill and the achievement for killing one of each class. Horray! Death by warlock!

Vaunt didn't spend all her time questing and killing things.  Sometimes she took part in pet battles.  One find in Netherstorm netted Vaunt the achievements Outland Tamer and Ultimate Trainer

And speaking of pet, look at this beauty!  Early this morning Navimie appeared on Drak'Tharon and she told me that I had some mail.  It was a Zandalari Anklerender! A baby pet dino! It's gorgeous! 

Well, time to stop chatting and to get leveling! Only twenty more levels to 90!

Leveling the Hunter before it's too late

Something all the bloggers keep mentioning is the Green grub pet that will be going away in patch 5.2 and how they're all heading out to capture it.  My first thought was as cool as it sounded it was something I wasn't going to be able to get.  But I read up on it and realized that since it was in Un'goro Crater I actually did have a hunter with a high enough level.  Then I realized I needed Exotic Beast Mastery Training which requires level 69.  My highest level hunter was only at level 56.  But after some thought I figured those levels might be doable.  So off I went to run dungeons and quest.

Questing with the Ghost Saber

Dungeons with Wolves

And eventually the little hunter hit 69 at around 2 am Saturday morning.

And no time was wasted heading off to Un'goro Crater to wait for the rare.  She even had some company.

I'm the human.  The sniffing noise would have drove me insane.

At about 4 am the the spawns and the hunter is now the proud owner of a giant green slug.

Why did I want this thing again?

And rather then call it a night and go to sleep like a sane person the hunter instead decided to test the worm out by running one more dungeon.

Seriously, this thing is freaking huge.  And a little creepy.