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.

Accomplishing goals

I guess I don't have to worry about posting too much. Whoops. I kept thinking about stuff but thinking isn't doing.

But I've gotten several of my nebulous, unwritten wow goals accomplished this past month.

First off I've managed to figure out how to level pets on the pandarian trainers. I have no hope I'll ever catch up to others who have been pet battling for much longer. But I'm enjoying it now. I also managed to get the many pets leveled to complete the celestial tournament. This week has been my third week beating it. I'm pretty stoked about it. I did a lot of prep work for the tournament, making spreadsheets of the pet teams used by different strats from different guides and than piecing together the teams that I had the pets for and than making a list of what pets I still needed to level. I than checked to see what trainers were up that week and made sure all the pets I needed for that strat and the celestial bosses were leveled first.

 And I was really happy to finally get my first celestial pet. It was the cat one of course.

I've also done some hunting on OpenRaid for a group on Saturdays to try and get my infusions. I've found a group that gets all achievements and will do infusions but my connection was spotty the first night so I didn't want to waste the groups time trying to get the blood infusion and last Saturday I wasn't able to attend. I'll have to keep trying and at least it's a really nice group. And I did get the last achievements I needed for the 25 man drake.

My level 70 twink druid has been doing pretty well. The guild has just been running Kara because they're still trying to build the rosters. When I first started with them there was maybe 3 people running Kara but there's usually 6-8 people in the raids now. There's hope that we'll soon be able to start on the next raid.

I'm at the point where my druid has all the Kara gear she could want. There's only really two pieces she needs but what she has is fine. When I was recruited the guild had plenty of people to be healers and tanks so they were just looking for dps. And feral dps is pretty decent but now they are starting to look for tanks. Unfortunately the guild leader decided that guardian druids weren't going to be allowed because that spec didn't exist back in BC. Instead druids will have to tank as feral. I've done some tanking and I have to say I'm a squishy and the crits those bosses make are no joke. So I'm working on leveling up a paladin. But in the meantime, my druid is looking pretty sweet though.

Spoiled Milk's has been plugging along with our raiding. Last week we downed Dark Shaman and Nazgrim. It's still in a muddle about what we're doing. We wanted to raid Tue, Wed, and Fri but unfortunately there's many who can't make it on Fri so we've been finding pugs to finish the runs on normal. There's some fuss about not continuing to work on heroics on Friday but it doesn't work out. It has been decided that every other week we'd extend our lock-outs and try to get more work on bosses instead of wearing ourselves out trying to make it back to our starting point. There's been some grumbling about that but there's only so much that can be done. I don't know how it happened but I've found myself promoted and put in charge of the guild bank. /sigh. Oh well, I have some ideas but I need to get the guild leader and other officers in on them before I mess around with stuff. But I did remove and vendor any grey items I found in the guild bank and organized it. I've only kept track of all the gold that's gone in and out of the bank. It's been fascinating to see who is using the repairs and how often. As to what I'm going to do about that... who knows. I think my role is one that I'm going to have to carve out myself. Scary thought that.

Finally, on a last, note. I've gotten a new mount! It's one I've wanted since Wrath. I was very excited when I realized I had the gold to finally get the final pieces for the crafting of my brand new Mechano-hog! Horray!

RAVEN LORD!

Anzu dropped his reigns of the Raven Lord for me last night! I'm really, really happy to finally have this mount. I've been farming it off and on since Wrath. Mostly off. It takes dedication and focus to keep putting attempts in. After several months, I'd give up and than return to farming a few months later.

I've been feeling a bit blue, trying to figure out what it is I want to do next. Where I want to go, what server, what character, what guilds should I apply for or should I even apply to one? I'm pretty indecisive. I'll hem and hah about my choices until I finally make it. Anyway, I tried to do some leveling, actually tried to pug some runs (tried, not succeeded), and than remembered that Tyle was parked outside of the instance to try for a second attempt for the mount. I almost didn't. But she was there and I figured, why not? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the mount. It couldn't be. There was no way it was going to be that easy. But there it was.

It was nice to end the night with a smile.

Collecting pets and mounts

I've continued to run SSC and Eye on both my death knights and I've managed to get two more of the pets collected. The Pocket Reaver and the Tideskipper were nice enough to drop but I'm still looking to get a Coilfang Stalker and a Phoenix Hawk Hatchling.

I also finally got around to doing the new quests on my human death knight and getting her the amazing Hordebreaker title. And I was finally able to get Gahz'rooki since I've been spending all of my Horde death knight's mojo on supplementing her tank and dps gear. 

For a few weeks now I have been obsessed with one thing. Getting my new little death knight better gear! I've felt that I couldn't play unless I was doing something to improve her gear, professions, rotations, or just getting better. I've even considered that I should spend time leveling something else. And than it hit me. Tyledres was already valor capped, she couldn't buy anymore gear, had already completed the weekly Barren's quest, and had maxed her main professions, cooking, and fishing over a week ago! There was nothing else that she has needed to do. I didn't have to do anything! I could go faff! So I thought about some of the things I wanted to do and one of the things that I wanted to do was to finally get a Magical Crawdad. I had made one brief attempt during Wrath but I've never went back to try again. I headed to the spot I
thought it was supposed to be and began fishing. After a few pools I began doubting that I remembered where I needed to be so I did a quick check at El's Angling, realized I was in the right spot, and so continued fishing. A few casts later and OMG!!!! Mr. Pinchy!!! Holy Crap that was fast! So I clicked and What?! No Way!!! OMG! OMG! OMG! That was an achievement! The magical crawdad was now mine!

Pets weren't the only thing I've been collecting this past few weeks. I've also managed to snag a few new mounts. A few weeks ago I had duoed most of Uld with a friend. We managed to clear everything except for Yogg. I had managed to previously get the Uld 25 achievement mount but I was one achievement short of getting the Uld 10 man mount. The only achievement I had left was Iron Dwarf, Meduim Rare so I decided to try and get that last achievement. It took several tries before I got all the dwarfs flamed and I had to resort to equipping my pickaxe so I didn't end up one-shotting the dwarves with a regular hit. But I eventually managed to get all 25 dwarves killed and I had a pretty new drake.

I also managed to get the last of the three cloud serpents. I had picked up the blue one on my orignial death knight and the yellow one on my paladin. I had thought to get the last one on my new death knight but ended up picking a yellow one instead of a green one so I was still a serpent short. So I put the time in on my druid and managed to nab my last cloud serpent. Thank goodness for the account-wide rep bonuses

The last mount that I got was a red panther mount! Even though I had learned the recipes for the panther mounts on my jewelcrafters I never really thought I would actually own one myself. About a week ago I had a realization. I had around 20k gold on my old server spread amoung several toons but since I was now spending my time as Horde on Drak'Tharon I didn't really need much gold on my toons anymore. So I decided to take what I've earned and buy something that I would never buy otherwise. My original thought was a pet or a bike but after a look at the auction house I saw that there weren't any pets in the right price range and I was a bit short to buy a mount. But I thought about the panther mounts. A quick look showed that I could buy the expensive item and I had an alchamist, jewelcrafter, and miners to gather the rest of the supplies I needed! So what color to get? I decided I wanted the mount as quickly as possible so I'd make whatever color of panther I could get the necessary gems for first and red won! Red flying awesome panther mount now belonged to me!

Holiday WoW Play Update

Been awhile since I've updated about what I've been up to in WoW and I've been up to a bunch of different things. Warning! Long post ahead!

I've been in my new guild for a few weeks now and I've noticed some things that I'm really happy about. First there's a ton of people in guild. Leveling, pvping, grouping, etc. and there seems to be guild chatter going on. I've been a bit shy about joining in but it's nice to be in such a vocal and active group. The other thing I've noticed is the officers are setting up guild runs.

The guild would like to start raiding the MoP raids but we don't have enough geared people with interest to accomplish those goals yet but last week we did put in some attempts on the dogs. The tanks got some good practice with the swaps but it mostly came down to just not being geared enough. So the run was called after a few attempts and we went to get some more guild achievements runs done.

The first place we hit was Firelands and it gave us a lot of trouble. Most of the group hadn't been there before and the mechanics in Firelands are brutal. You can't brute force your way though most of the fights. We finished about half of the raid before calling it a night.

We came back the next day and finished up pretty quickly with renewed energy.

Since that didn't take much time we went to Dragon Soul. Dragon Soul was laughably easy. The only trouble we had was spine because we had people zerging all the tentacles at first and the agalomations before we managed to get them to stop. The raid leader was also a bit confused about how the fight was supposed to work but we managed to muddle our way though. The last fight went well and the guild got the achievement and many of the group got the new title Destroyer's End.

Since the night was still early and I had achievements on my brain I thought I'd head back to Lost City and see if I could snag the Kill it with Fire, the last achievement I needed for Cata Glory of the Hero. I suppose if I had thought about it I wouldn't have tried it by myself but I got there and was heading for the boss when I realized this might not be doable. But since I was there I figured I'd give it a look. My first attempt I thought it might be possible but I did wipe. Second try I paid more attention to my health and snagged the achievement.

Pink Volcanic Stone Drake!

It was still pretty early yet so I actually did some dailies. And I managed to reach exalted with my third MoP Rep. Golden Lotus!

Guess I should get to work on those other reps. like Cloud Dragons.  I like how having the secondary professions gives you extra dailies. Tyledres is becoming quite the fisherwoman. Her skills only at 300 but she's working on it.

I've been spending quite a bit of my WoW time playing Aritâ, my new 90 druid. She's been flying around the world searching for artifacts and pets when she's not inflicting her heals on random dungeons groups.

I really enjoy playing resto again and admiring Arita's mog when she's not bouncing around in tree form. I should dig her Dartol's Rod of Transformation out of the bank so I can run some dungeons as a healing furbolg. She even got a new achievement for her healing! Ok, that was more the group was awesome than that I was healing but it's still pretty cool.

With the pet battling she's finally managed to catch one of each type of pet and...

 ... And she's managed to catch 50 rares! And not a one of them is over level 16. Yet.

Last year ended with JD posting about a new transmog contest so I took Aritâ out to Zul Drak to visit Har'oka and begin planning an outfit to enter. I plan to post about my entry later on along with a few of the options I considered and discarded.

The new year started pretty well and I actually took Tyledres down to the Tillers again where she finally managed to make a friend. Jogu the Drunk. He's such a great friend he gave me booze.

I also made a new WoW friend. I was on earlier than usual for me so I thought I'd see if this person was on. And Holy Smokes they were! Spaz that I am I forgot to take pictures. Ah well. Was still pretty cool. Although I will keep secret on who this person is for a bit longer.

At about Midnight the guild got together a group to run LFR. Tyledres won her 4th belt. Wonder if Blizzard thinks my DK's pants are falling down. She also won a 1-handed weapon. If I can get another I can use my amazing axe for blood and go back to DW frost. When I first got the axe I was a little reluctant to relearn frost but it was more like remembering frost from Cata.

Before the guild runs I'd been at the Black Market Auction house trying to snag an invitation. The prices have finally gone down to a point where I feel like I can buy one. Although I did recently buy a crimson whelpling for twice what I bought that invitation for. Arita wouldn't leave Wetlands without one. Having moved over 5000 wool, linen, and silk cloth along with a slew of greens I figured she came pretty close to making the 9000 gold she spent on that dragon.

But 4500 gold later and I was the proud owner of a Invitation to the Brawler's Guild

Which meant I had to stay up even later so I could get this. 

Looks like I'll be keeping pretty busy in the new year. Guild runs, Brawler's Guild, Pet Battles, Contests, and, of course, all the wonderful peoplel that I've gotten to meet.

Duplicate Pet Week

It's Tuesday which means another chance to nab the pets needed to get Mr. Bigglesworth. So Tyledres headed off to run her dungeons. Naxx was a bust but AQ40 started on a high note. First pull and the red qiraji mount drops! It's awesome! Why? Because it's Red! :D

In total I had four pets drop but they were all ones I already had. Four pets are a good haul but I do feel a little disappointed not to get at least one more pet knocked off my list. But it gave me a good idea that I'm excited about!

I was a little worried about choosing to give away a sea pony. I guess I'm just worried that people won't have much interest. So I'm changing the prize to the winner's choice of a Sea Pony, Fungal Abomination, Chrominius, Corefire Imp, Mini Mindslayer, or an Untamed Hatchling.

Guess I'll have a good month's worth of pets to give away. Although I do wonder if the raid pets make a decent prize but it's worth a shot to see. I'm also working on a guide for Razorgore that I do hope to get up this week. I feel like I'm doing too much work for it to be Winter Break :P