Saturday Night’s Alright For Yoggin…

I won’t lie.  For selfish reasons, this weekend and next I scheduled Laid Back Raids for Saturday night and I never know how that is going to turn out.  Some folks have plans and some simply don’t notice.  With Algalon on the schedule for the Alliance last night, I knew for sure that Healblade was out. After that was a crap shoot

We ended up with about seven of us, eight when Zwingli was able to join us early on and then again for the final two bosses.  In 10-man, that was serious zerg.  Well, except for the fact that I wanted an awesome screenshot of Algalon, but instead targeted him and interrupted his little constellation speech.  We wiped when I think he removed the entire floor.  No fight, just more of a “how dare you” as we all died.  So we regrouped and hoped that didn’t happen again.  Well, us Claws of Nature folk…despite “thinking” we were within the platform for the fight, were in fact not.  But at least I got to watch them whoop the star-crossed boss.

I think if you look close you can see Repgrind’s Mage getting off a spell.  I can’t remember if we still had two alive at that point…I know Magik was dead beside me.  I was fine with dying, but disappointed I didn’t get the shoulders to complete Liouxpold’s current transmog.  However, I did win the roll for Avalanche when it dropped from Hodir. It would seem after years of being a crossbow only guy, Liouxpold is turning into quite the bow collector.  Which is probably good.  Man did I get heckled on his behalf last night.  No Guild Page, not Exalted with my own guild, no Cold Weather Flying, “Turn off aspect of the pack,”"turn it off again please”…yeesh, it was never ending!

The good news was that we rolled on and I had forgotten Magik had never finished Ulduar, in fact Cat Lady was as far as he had gotten (back when it was current).  So to be able to show him the whole place was great.  To be able to down Yogg-Saron at the end was perfect as well.

Also during the raid, Magik, Mrs, and myself got a pleasant surprise as one of our other guildies (Grexinimi) was on and kinda doing his own thing…

So, needless to say when the raid was over…Magik went straight to Stormwind, while Mrs. and I switched to toons that were Exalted with the guild and we were all proud owners of Dark Phoenix pets.  Magik and I captured the moment…that prissy Hunter Naeda was too good for us, I guess.

Forty Thoughts On A Friday

Saintvache, with Navimie and Cymre

1. Despite my lack of fondness for the whole Fall of Theramore, I’d still like to take Saintvache and see it Horde side.
2. It can’t be any worse.
3. I’m hoping to do a post on “how I would have done it.”  If you’re going to criticize, it’s always nice to present an alternative.
4. Speaking of Saintvache, he’s got a date with Arthas Saturday night.  8pm EST time.  Kingslayers indeed.
5. I’m also looking forward to Sunday’s LBR on Alliance side.
6. Farming a BoE green that has a 0.5% chance of dropping sucks.
7. I had to explain to someone once that killing 200 of said mob will not guarantee the drop.  S/he didn’t understand the idea of individual random results vs. cumulative.
8. I’ve got two more Posthumous chapters almost ready for publishing. 
9. Once again, I surprise myself with where things go.
10. Now I just need to work on the in-game version of Liam.
11. He’s 30, after 5 levels of farming the same rare in Wetlands. 
12. Man, do I have a plethora of hatchlings to sell.
13. Speaking of which, anyone trying to auction cut gems at this point is just throwing away gold. 
14. Unless someone asks for it, don’t bother.
15. I just remembered Tome reserved a name on my Server for her Panda.
16. That’s assuming at this point she chooses Pandaria over Tyria.
17. And speaking of which, I forgot to tell my Mac friends that Guild Wars 2 is now available to them. 
18. I owe Matty for that one.
19. All Mogolympics prizes have finally been awarded.
20. Now I just have to work on the site some more.  Thank goodness for Draynee’s help because I’ve done very little myself.
21. This is the last weekend of WoW Cataclysm.
22. Even those of us not buying the expansion will feel the effects from Mists.
23. People are just frothing for pet-battles.
24. I should’ve gathered more pets to sell.
25. If you’re buying pets, and you’re on multiple servers…do the smart thing and compare prices.  The realm with the most money doesn’t mean you need to spend the most. 
26. Same for mounts. 
27. Learned this week the Choppers are considered two different mounts and can’t be shared cross-faction.  Understandable, but disappointing.
28. I’ll be getting a Jewelcrafting Panther before I get another chopper.
29. I determined this week Formula: Enchant Chest – Greater Stats has finished paying for itself.  It was 19k I didn’t really miss.
30. I was hoping to be back over 200k on my one server by now.   Damn recipes.
31. I wonder how far I’ll be able to level my Jewelcrafting when Mists goes live.  If I don’t have to go to Pandaria to train, I’ll be “all over that.”
32. The same could be said for all my Professions, really.
33. I’m glad the “Stay Classy” guild achievements stayed at 85 (including the Monk).  Just Pandas need to make it to 90.
34. After Liouxpold hits 85, I have no idea who will be next.
35. I wish VoA wasn’t server restricted.  When we have Wintergrasp, no one is interested.
36. Just remove the Wintergrasp requirement already.
37. Speaking of annoying…if cross-realm zones weren’t bad enough, I had the “Confection Sugar” quest in Stormwind today.
38. That Cooking daily takes an hour at the best of times.  Having three times the people running around the city doesn’t help in the slightest.
39. At least the powers that be were smart enough to remove the fishing tournaments until that gets sorted out in the cross-dimension nonsense.
40. Oh well, should be dead again on Tuesday.

500th Post

I thought it fitting that since I hit a blogging achievement, I would share some from in-game.  Last night I noticed Claws of Nature still needed Leatherworking for Working As A Team.  I think I’m the only one with a maxxed Leatherworker, so today I decided to get to Honored.  I had this fear that when Mists hits the achievement would require the next Tier of profession skills.  It would be much harder to achieve if that were the case.  Thanks to the Renowned Guild Tabard now, we’re getting 350 guild rep per quest (at least Lioux was).  So I knew it wasn’t going to take long.  In fact, less than 20 quests later…

Now, as part of those 20, I did some of the easy ones…which includes fishing.  Tells you how hard I’ve worked at it based on this shot, right?  The Stormwind one was just dumb luck…

Now while fishing, I managed to scoop up a Magic Eater.  I figured, what the heck.  I’ll eat it just to see what happens…

So, not too shabby right?

If that all weren’t enough for a decent night, there were even more impressive performances than mine.  Navi’s guildmate Roshii snagged the Lifebinder’s Handmaiden, Dragonray got the Zul Aman Bear, and on top of that….Khizzara got Ashes of A’lar!!!  I’m incredibly happy to have gotten the achievement for our guild, but am equally as excited for each of you and your mount wins this week!

Weekend Update

Well, I’m back to the land of Windows.  I won’t say too much negative about it, other than I forgot how slow it is by comparison…and it took some time to get my video card active .  Up until this morning if you saw me on at all, it’s been on Mrs. Amateur’s computer and I thank her for that.  So now that World of Warcraft runs, Guild Wars 2 is soon to follow.

Yeah, so much for waiting until Christmas.  I didn’t even make it two weeks after release.  As I suggested on Saturday, it was just one of those days.  There were additional factors outside the computer problems I was having that resulted in a day that I was more than happy to move on from.  I spent most of it trying not to shut down, or absolutely explode.  It sounds materialistic, but picking up GW2 cheered me up.  However, I won’t even crack the plastic on it until I get Warcraft running.  If for whatever reason I get grief and can’t actually sort it out (which I doubt horribly), then I can return the sealed copy.

In the time I played WoW, I managed to get Liouxpold almost exalted with Netherdrake.  If I login today then I should succeed just fine and end up with another mount.  Speaking of mounts, I’m enjoying the cross-account mount feature for my toons…and yet I am seeing things like the Ashes of A’lar way too much now.  It’s uniqueness is fading, even though it’s probably the same person I’m seeing it on.

On the flip side, Claws hit level 11 as a guild -thanks entirely to the new system.  Granting rep and xp to lower level toons was seriously long overdue.  After I finish up the Netherdrake rep, I’ll hopefully be doing my part again.

That Poor Belf

Shhhh….pretend we’re Avon calling.

For this week’s Laid Back Raid, we had a solid turnout, including at least four new players with us -which was awesome in itself.  Don’t know if it was timing or if people just really don’t like Kael’thas all that much as I had scheduled Tempest Keep for the night.  We just blew through the place, not surprisingly.  I believe Liouxpold got a Leatherworking recipe out of it, but can’t recall for certain.  I know I saw a few need rolls for Mog items, so that always makes me happy.

With such a large group to tear through the place it was evident from the get go we would be hitting more than one raid on this night and my first suggestion was well received and we headed off to a certain Temple in Shadowmoon Valley.

Honestly, there were a fair number of achievements that went off at the end of that raid, which again made me happy.  Always nice to see people hit a raid for the first time.  I joked when we got to Illidan that he needed to drop a glaive, the bow, and his shield (hey, we got a glaive and shield one night, why not be a bit greedier?).  Well, he did drop one of those items, and I was quite happy.

Unfortunately now is the matter of building an outfit for him.  My first two designs involved Yogg-Saron (10N) or Freya (25N).  Barring some pug somewhere, Lioux’s not hitting Ulduar any time soon.  I have other toons that will go first.  Then again, should I really be working on Mog outfits when I’m in the middle of a Mog contest?

Thursday Thought Patterns

Another musings post if you will permit me.

• Mists of Pandaria launches July September 25th.  The average response seemed to be “finally” from those I spoke with last night.  The next eight weeks should be interesting.
• Laid Back Raids is updated through most of August.  I managed to get a few requests in there.
• I wonder what LBR’s success will be like after Mists launch?  I can’t imagine it too different from what it is now.  Some will pass, some will come.
• Others might just want a break from whatever Mists content they’re on.
• Some will just want to take their Panda into old content.
• Or their Monk.
• I’m ashamed to admit I’ve considered rolling a Gnome Monk named Junkshot.
• The deadline for the Mogolympics is coming Tuesday.  Then the real fun begins…so to speak.
• I wonder if the other judges will speak to me when this is all over?
• I need to put a confirmed section on the Mogolympics information page this weekend.
• Posthumous isn’t on hiatus or anything.  The next chapter is in the works, but my time to dedicate to it has been sparse.
• Yes, I’m writing it as I go.  I have a few key points in my head, but the rest is more like que sera sera.
• Tome got Anzu a little while back.  Mrs. Amateur the Baron’s Reigns to drop.  Ratters had double mount luck recently.  Me? (NSFW)
• Glad most people seem to understand my “not buying Mists philosophy.”
• Someone else told me last night they’re in the exact same frame of mind (minus Guild Wars 2).
• I think Blizzard needs to come through on this one.
• Cataclysm wasn’t terrible, but it turned (quite?) a few people off.  Two in a row wouldn’t be good.
• I expect them to have that in mind, and deliver a better expansion.
• I expect games like Guild Wars 2 and Secret World to force them to knock one out of the park over the next year.
• Working on another Transmog outfit for Tum.
• Got everything but the shoulders.  The two options I’ve chosen are from Molten Core and Naxx.
• I think I should have considered this before scheduling LBR this week…
• I still want my Red Proto.
• Tum’s the closest on that, as I think he needs about a half dozen achievements yet.
• Speaking of mounts, I’m in the process of determining what land mounts and flying mounts each (eligible) character wants.
• No good can come of it, but account-wide mounts might just make it easier.
• Siori’s Exalted with the Cenarion Expedition and Liouxpold’s already got the puppy dog eyes going…which looks really creepy on a space goat.
• I wonder if everyone who’s geared up in the last month feels a sense of “why did I do that?”
• Not saying they should, it’s just an observation.
• Once again, greens will replace epics in the first two days.
• Am I seriously the only one who sees a problem with that?
• Linear stats is still the way to go, far as I’m concerned.
• Hrm…work break’s over.

Shared Topic: Three Items

At Blog Azeroth this week, Cymre asked the question of what three items, for whatever reason fancies you, you would hate to lose on your main.  Now, as I don’t collect everything on one toon I’m going to cheat a little bit.  I’m simply going to share my top three items, period.

Is there a place where this mount doesn’t look majestic?

1. Liouxpold’s Frostsaber
I started doing the quests for this back when the rep was still absurd for the quests. Also before it was a daily. However, I will openly admit that once I found out the daily was coming I just waited and then did it that way. Recently, I paused to consider faction/realm transferring him until I realized I would lose the Frostsaber. As that immediately put an end to that idea, it made me realize how important the mount is to me.

2. Siori’s Quel’Dalar
I maintain to this day everyone should try to snag a Battered Hilt and do the quest chain to obtain the weapon. It’s a great piece of Lore for certain.  From start to finish it is just an incredible chain of quests that sends you around Dalaran and Icecrown, as well as a phased version of the Sunwell Plateau ( which is one of the most beautiful raids in the game). I still have all of my screenshots from doing the chain and love to go back and look at them.  Not all of the “end-result” weapons look as nice as Cunning of the Shadows (made more badass by the Berseking Enchant), but as I say it’s worth having just to experience it all.  I would be incredibly disappointed to have that “undone” on me.

3. Horrux’s Skulflame Shield
My only epic world drop in over six years. Back when Liouxpold was grinding Frostsaber rep this dropped off either a bear or Chimera. I was in awe, and as Cataclysm had been announced I had planned on making a Worgen Warrior. So I hung on to it until I had created Horrux and the rest is history.

I would be incredibly disappointed to lose any of these items and I’m sure I could think of one or two more. What brought up the question, was Cymre was recently hacked and so it had spurred the thought process while waiting for the items to return. I wrote a post earlier this year about not having been hacked myself and I would be frustrated if I was…to say nothing about how I’d feel if these three were gone.