Alt Appreciation Week: Priests

Day 30: Found

 

Look what Thera the rogue found while questing in Townlong Steppes.Yeah, I don't know.

Laeleiweyn over at World of Lae has come up with the idea for several weeks of Alt Appreciation. And this week it's Priests. So I looked through my roster to see what I had. I don't have many priests. Two, actually, and neither of them is anywhere near max level. The other surprising thing I noticed is that they're both Alliance. I play mostly Horde, but I do not have a Horde Priest! Without further ado, meet my priests:

Corbin

Level 42 Shadow Priest
     I made Corbin at the very tail end of Cataclysm when I was looking for something to do and decided to  help out with leveling in a friend's guild. Decided to try something I hadn't played before. I was having fun with him for a bit, but when the new patch hit just before Mists I didn't bother figuring out what his new rotation was like. I still don't know, really though I did try to do a little pvp on him very briefly with the husband's ally rogue one day.

Ysolde

Level 27 Discipline Priest
     Arthurian names again, can't seem to resist sticking those on my human characters. Ysolde was made to level with my husband's paladin tank. They got in a few days worth of questing and one or two dungeon runs and that, so far has been that. I do like Ysolde, priest healing does seem like it could be kind of fun.

     Which leads me to what I'm considering for this week. I might make a Horde priest. It seems wrong that I don't have one, and well I always enjoy having an excuse to make more alts, even though I really don't need them. If I do, they'll get a post later in the week, but in the mean time... enjoy my priests.

Paladin Week Recap

Day 29: Gold

Rim is very gold and so are parts of the Vale, still. I love these golden trees.

     Today was a fairly busy day. One of my battletag friends was looking for people for a world boss group so Seish got in on it. Smoothest Oondasta group I've ever been in on. I don't think there was a single death! Nalak worked out fairly smoothly, then we did all four of the Celestials to help some people with their Legendary quest. Seish got a nice new pair of gloves from Yu'lon: Gauntlets of Winged Triumph. Nice being a jewelcrafter, cause I switched to them and gemmed them right on the spot between Celestials. After a couple more item upgrades he's up to 520 and that might improve some more when I figure out what to use the burden of eternity he's carrying around for.
     Laen got to run two dungeons today, and got up to level 26. No new gear, but still no fatalities, even with yet another warrior tank that would not stop moving. It wasn't that they were at all hard to heal, but when they were moving so fast that the mage and lock couldn't really cast and the rogue couldn't stealth and people kept getting left behind so I had to choose between healing the tank or them... it got frustrating. And I laughed because I asked them to slow down, they said 'sure' and didn't do a thing different at all. Oh well, I'm still enjoying paladin healing and plan on continuing to level Laen even now that paladin week is over.

     He's already had to give up on a shield for now because this off hand had better stats. Hopefully Tai will get in gear and get him an heirloom shield soon.

And to finish up my recap, here are (in not particular order) 10 things I love about paladins in WoW:

1. The concept. Holy knights fighting evil and protecting the innocent. I love that. I particularly like in WoW that it seems like they serve the Light and combat evil, but don't really spend a lot of time trying to convert people to their chosen way.
2. Versatility. Tanking, Healing, DPS, paladins can do all of that. Yeah, apparently I'm pretty much a fan of hybrid classes.
3. Armor. Paladins have some of the best looking plate armor in the game. At least I think so.
4. Survivability. Compared to other classes paladins seem to have some of the best. Even Seish, my ret pally, often manages to survive stuff that surprises the heck out of me.
5. Righteous Fury. I love this. I call it paladin cologne, and one day filled guild chat with nonsensical slogans for Righteous Fury cologne ads. (Righteous Fury: Your priest will thank you.) It's amazing for all kinds of situations, if a tank drops in an instance the ret pally can pop it on and try to get control of the fight (depending on the healer this might be short lived, and so might the ret pally) Running low levels through stuff in any spec. The only time it's not amazing is if you're the tank and forgot to put it on. Rim's done that a time or two.
6. Lay on Hands. Who doesn't like a 'Get out of Death Free' card?
7. Paladin mounts. Need I say more? Oh yeah, free riding at level 20.
8. Heart of the Crusader. Passive mounted speed boost is nice, though I do miss when it was an aura and I could share it with my friends.
9. Avenger's Shield/Exorcism/Holy Shock. Especially Avenger's Shield for prot pallies. Has to be one of the most fun abilities in the game. But Exorcism is fun too, especially now that it's an instant. Holy shock is my favorite holy ability so far. We'll see if that changes.
10. Bubbles. So many uses.

     I could probably go on. There are a lot of things I love about paladins, a few things that were changed to that I miss (and some that I really don't.) I miss relics, just because I liked the idea of them carrying a holy relic around that increased their power. I miss Auras too, it was fun coordinating them in a multi-paladin group to get as many as possible up. But on the flip side I love the changes to retribution paladins that have let me main my main this expansion. I still miss him having consecration but it was well worth losing it for having multiple abilities generate holy power instead of just Crusader Strike. (I never could luck out enough in LFR to get the two piece tier bonus that let judgement do it too.)
      I love that inquisition now lasts twice as long too. Those were the two things I complained about on retribution paladins in Cataclysm, and they've fixed both of them to make the rotation so much more fun. Playing Seish in Cataclysm I felt bad and gimpy. Playing him now, I feel powerful, but more than that I'm having fun when I'm hitting things, spending a bit less time thinking about inquisition and a bit more time watching health bars drop very quickly.
     Overall it's been a pretty good paladin week for me. I might have liked to accomplish a bit more on Seish or get Laen a few more levels, but I plan on leveling Laen all the way up anyway. Paladin week was just a very good excuse to get started on it.
     Thanks again to Laeleiweyn at World of Lae for her Alt Appreciation idea! I've been having so much fun with it.

Paladin Week Continued

Day 28: 10 o'clock

Where Seish was around 10 am server time. Waiting in a queue.

     And speaking of queues... why is the queue for the newest content 46 minutes long and the queue for Throne of Thunder only 15? It ended up being the Pinnacle of Storms LFR I did today rather than a second shot at maybe getting all the bosses in the second wing of Siege, so I'd have the achieve for next week. I just didn't have the time or inclination to sit in another 40+ minute queue. Got one more Secret of the Empire from that wing, from Lei Shen. Wondering if they nerfed the drop rates on them. Seish is at 10/20 on those and 40/40 Trillium. The rep part is done and handed in already.
     Last night I noticed that Os' rogue was doing some dungeons so I offered to join in. Laen healed two runs of Shadowfang Keep and one of Blackfathom Deeps that got him to level 24. And nobody died. Not a single person, not even the warrior tank who ran off ahead of the entire group through the entirety of Deeps and never bothered to look back. Laen was grateful for the rogue and shaman that helped peel stray adds off of him as they all ran to try and keep up. Not sure I'll ever understand why people queue for an instance as a group if they don't actually want to work together with anybody to do it.
     But that aside so far I'm enjoying paladin healing, though it's low level and relatively low stress so far. We'll see how I feel about it as Laen keeps progressing. I'm really looking forward to leveling him some more.

More Paladins

Have two days worth of Screenshots since I was lax on getting a post out yesterday
Day 26: Curve

This wasn't what I originally meant to use for this but I forgot to get screenshot of what I wanted, and this is pretty so here it is.

Day 27: WTF?

Seriously WTF?!

Random paladin week happenings:

     Wednesday night Seish spent a little time on the Timeless Isle. Not a lot happened except that once again I helped take down Zhu-Gon the Sour. Only this time he was nice enough to drop a pet. :D Now I've only got about a million more rare drop pets to get.

     Yesterday afternoon I finally queued Seish into the second wing of the SoO LFR. After a 40 minute queue...I came in on the trash before the last boss. I really wish there was some way the Raid Finder could check things and make sure you at least get a fresh run on your first time through. I won't say I'm not there for the shiny loots but I'm also really there for seeing it and was disappointed that I didn't get to see any of the first three bosses. We wiped twice on Nazgrim but then got him down. I was still standing on the final go because I hadn't stupidly stood in anything... or run into flying axes while answering the phone like I did on the second wipe.

       Last night Laen hit Level 20! He got riding and a key to Seish's extensive stable for his journeying enjoyment. He finished what I wanted to do in Ghostlands (Mostly the Dar'khan quests since I don't think I'd done them since Seish.)

     He left there at level 19 and had picked up a quest to talk to Lor'themar. About the time he was heading off to Silvermoon for that I saw Os' rogue alt asking for help on a quest in guild chat. They're about the same level and being the warm-hearted and helpful paladin he is Laen made his way straight to Orgrimmar and sprinted across Durotar and Barrens to help out. That got a bit more xp and then after all the back and forth between Lor'themar and Sylvanas it only took a couple (rather low level quests) in Barrens to get him level 20! The rogue reached 20 soon after so perhaps Laen will have some occasional company on his journey.

     

     And then even though it was late and I really should have gone to bed I popped over to Tai for a bit because I was still talking to SprYte on WoW and wasn't quite ready to sleep. In between conversation I flew over to give a shot at Proving Grounds again. I'd done them shortly after the patch, managed not to do any better than bronze on the heals. I'm still not very good at group healing due to learning in two-manning so I'm having to reteach myself some stuff. But last night on my first go I managed this much at least: 

     It's not very impressive compared to people doing waves of Endless but I worked hard for that and between my last attempt at it and this attempt I had drastically improved my technique. So it makes me proud. Later on some time I'll be going back and banging my head on gold until I manage it.

In the Ghostlands (More Paladin stuff)

Day 25: H is for...

Heroes. And Horde. Seish being overly pleased with himself in Orgrimmar.

Laen's Journey Continues.

     I can be kind of a slow leveler. Then other times I rush right through and level very quickly. Laen is moving a little on the slower side. I've been futzing around with his professions. (Both are coming along nicely.) And questing my leisurely way around Ghostlands... with a side trip to Orgrimmar for a tabard. He's hit level 16 as of this posting though, and can do dungeons now, and he will, though probably not until I feel done with Ghostlands.
     I did a lot of the quests in Ghostlands with Seish when I was first leveling and then on most of my blood elf alts since I've either moved onto Barrens or Silverpine to continue. Or just jumped straight into dungeons and done nothing much else to level. But feeling a little nostalgia, poking around stuff I remember from leveling Seish and it's fun, so I'm going slow with it. Probably won't do all the quests in the zone, but there are a few I definitely want to hit.
     I did Windrunner Spire,  Laen wandered around looking at things and finding chests and nifty places to screenshot.

     Then I suddenly decided that Laen's leveling pet friend should get some levels so it was straight down to the beaches to fight spirit crabs until Dawnglow the Phoenix Hawk Hatchling hit level 6. Didn't take long.
     After turning in that quest Laen headed back down to the Dead Scar where he engaged Luzran in fearsome solo combat. After a hard won victory and a few pats on the back for himself, Laen, flush with confidence went in search of the hideous Knucklerot intent on bringing him to justice...
     Knucklerot did not play fair. He tossed Laen into a bat and well... On Laen the overly self-confident's second attempt at Knucklerot, a couple of lovely blood elf ladies came along to help out and it went much more quickly and smoothly. And turning in that quest was enough to give him level 16, and a ring with intellect! Thank the Light. Though by now he's picked up a pair of mail gauntlets that miraculously have some and a shield of the gorilla with intellect and strength but hey beggars can't be choosers.
     It may be fairly obvious by now that I'm having a lot of fun leveling this little paladin. When I'm done with Ghostlands he'll be heading into dungeons for most of his journey, since the point in leveling as Holy is to learn to heal and the best way to do that is to practice on a group. But I have to admit for now I'm enjoying questing too.

And for nostalgia's sake, here's one of the very first screenshots I ever took. Of a level 20 Seish in Ghostlands. Oh that stylish leveling gear.

   

More Paladin Week

Day 24: Space

I love how the sky looks like space when Rhonin announces an Algalon kill in Dalaran.

     Seish Transmog Post

     Seish got a new transmog in honor of the patch. Well, not entirely a new transmog, it's mostly the same outfit I had him in at the end of Cataclysm with a few tweaks and improvements. It's not particularly creative, but I really like the look so I thought I'd share it here.

 Head: Symbolic Crown (I like plate circlets. Seish's red hair is one of the things that helps me keep track of him in really chaotic fights, so I like being able to see it.)
Shoulders: Relentless Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders
Chest: Relentless Gladiator's Scaled Chestpiece
Waist: Belt of Living Obsidium (This could stand some tweaking. I'm still poking around for a better choice.)
Hands: Relentless Gladiator's Scaled Gauntlets
Legs: Relentless Gladiator's Scaled Legguards
Feet: Crafted Dreadful Gladiator's Warboots of Alacrity (Supposedly there are actually boots meant for this set that drop from Vault of Archavon. Supposedly. Luckily Rim could make these boots that matched pretty well.)
Back: Twilight Cape (I actually think Duskwoven Cape is a slightly better match but haven't picked one up yet.)
Sword: Quel'Delar, Might of the Faithful (This is the most Seish sword I can possibly imagine. Kind of wish the enchant didn't make it quite so sparkly but what can you do?)
Tabard: Tabard of the Explorer (Mostly just because it matches really well, but Seish is the one who earned the achieve so he might as well boast about it.)

Continuing saga of Laen
     Laen's level 13 now. Most of the time spent on him so far has been on farming piles of metal for him on Khaelyss and letting Laen turn it into armor to disenchant. But he's done some questing around in Ghostlands. Wasn't sure how I'd like questing as a holy paladin, but so far it's not too bad at all. The Light answers Laen's call and Holy Shock is really nice for both damaging and self healing. My main problem is that poor Laen lives on Tai's server so the only heirloom he has access to at the moment is the cape, though Tai's farming up some jp to buy him another one. And there is no intellect mail at low levels. None. At least there is none I've found to be had from questing or crafting. What is a baby holy paladin supposed to do?
     And that's another thing. While shopping for heirlooms I'll pick up when Tai has the jp I notice. No int plate heirlooms. Why? Poor holy paladins, seems like they get the short end of the stick in a lot of ways when starting out. Oh well, for now Laen's making do with his cape and a hodgepodge of strength mail and int cloth which makes me cringe and him sadly lament how ugly his clothes are. (It will get better, Laen. Look at all the pretty transmogs I'm designing for you.)
     Overall I'm having a lot of fun with Laen and it seems like starting him out has been really lucky for me. Yesterday when farming more copper for his blacksmithing I decided to let Khaelyss fly around Darkshore for a bit since Durotar was getting a bit crowded. Being lazy, I flight pathed as far as Felwood, and then intended to fly over. I almost didn't bother to check on the Minfernal. It doesn't exist, they are never up. Except that I did go check and there was one! And if it hadn't been for Laen I'd never have happened upon it.

Laen's not sure what to think of the creepy demon pet that's almost as big as he is.
 

Alt Appreciation Week: Paladins

Day 23: From my childhood

Knightly archetypes. I read lots of King Arthur. Also horses because I grew up on a ranch. And Seish on Argent Tournament dailies. I still love those.

     And Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation weeks are still going. This week it's paladins and I'm very excited. Paladins are my class. Though you probably already knew that from the name of this blog. First in my heart in WoW (though monks and hunters run close behind) and out of it. I play paladins in our weekly D&D sessions probably 50% of the time. I had a paladin in Everquest. I played one in Diablo II.  As I write this post I'm drinking tea from a mug that says Paladin on it.
     As you can imagine... I've got a horde of paladin alts. (Pun kind of intended. They're almost all Horde.) My main's a paladin and a bit further down the post I'll introduce you to the rest of them, but I've decided to do something a little different for paladin week. Instead of setting goals for all my alts (that I may not manage anyway because Seish and Tai and Rim and sometimes Tyl have a way of stealing my time.) I've decided to make a new alt for paladin week with the intent to keep leveling him even after it's over.
     I've got two level 90 paladins. On the same server even, because it used to be pretty much the only one I ever played on. Seish is Ret and Rim is Prot. I love playing both of them and this expansion they've both had a lot of attention. Seish has a holy offspec, in Cataclysm and now in Mists it's actually ended up with a fairly decent gear set. but I have never used it. I don't know how to play Holy. I've read lots of guides but they only help me so much. I tend to find that the way I learn to play something best is leveling it. So meet Laen:

     He starts off pally week at level 10 with an heirloom cape, 1k gold, a full set of bags, and a thermal anvil for his blacksmithing. And he'll be my holy paladin, if all goes well. Going to see how far I can get him by the end of paladin week, in both leveling and in his professions. Blacksmithing/Enchanting, he's on Tai's server and their guild has an enchanter gap so Laen's bravely offering to fill it even though it is one of my least favorite professions ever. I'm already getting attached to this one, so we'll see how it goes.

A Crusade of Paladins.*
(Otherwise known as 'Are you seriously rolling another paladin?!')

Seish

Level 90 Retribution Paladin.

Mining/JC

     He's my main so he technically probably doesn't belong in an alt post. And he'll probably get a whole other post to himself sometime this week, but I couldn't leave him out of the list. Seish is my ret pally. He's working his way slowly through the legendary chain and is up to an ilvl of 517 which I am telling myself isn't too bad for somebody that doesn't get to raid even Flex.
     Seish was my first paladin on WoW. I started him the day I got BC because an elf paladin was what I most wanted to play. He was retribution for character reasons before I knew that it was the dps spec, or even really what dps was. It fits him, I still love playing him as ret and I flatter myself that I'm not half bad at it, though I'm certainly not great. But when Seish hits things, they mostly die in a big freaking hurry.

Rim

Level 90 Protection Paladin
Mining/BS
     Rim's not my main, though for part of this expansion he's acted like one. Rim, along with my husband's mage Syri, is the one who did all the Pandaria reps. He'd easily hit an ilvl of 485 before Timeless Isle without ever setting foot into an LFR. (Yeah, I'm afraid to tank LFR, but I've promised myself I'm going to give it a try this patch.) On our guild's failed attempts at raiding in Cataclysm Rim was main tank. He tanked most of Blackwing Descent, and even tanked a pug of Bastion of Twilight back then, which is as close as I've ever come to actually raiding.
     Unlike Seish, who changes suits of plate regularly Rim is always mogged like this (though the weapon has changed a few times). In fact my husband is so used to seeing him like this that a day or so after hitting 90 when I'd been too lazy to transmog him yet, my husband turned to me during dailies and said. "Where's your shiny gold armor? I can't keep track of you like this." Needless to say I went right off to transmog after we'd finished for the day. This is the suit of armor I first saw in WoW and went... wow I want a paladin in that. And the Golden Lotus tabard looks gorgeous with it in my opinion.

Gawaine

Level 68 Protection Paladin
Mining/BS
     My lone Alliance paladin. Remember the mention of King Arthur? Yeah, he's named after that Gawaine. Galahad was taken on his server. Gawaine was made to level with my husband's Alliance mage, so he's hanging out at 68 until his beloved mage gets pulled back out and dusted off. I like Gawaine. The human animations kind of bug me, but I like the character and hope someday he gets a chance to hit level cap.
     Character wise Gawaine is a warm, kind hearted man and he's devoted to the mage he travels with and hopes to marry her someday. My husband and I laughed over the fact that of all the characters we play together Gawaine and Jessa are really the only two we could see being an actual couple.

Maeth

Level 35 Holy/Protection Paladin
     Maeth is played with my friend SprYte's prot pally because I finally talked her into trying one. She's been healing and has maybe taught me the beginning of what Laen will hopefully teach me, but she only gets played when SprYte's available so leveling is a slow process. Maeth's my only female blood elf paladin mostly because I hate how small weapons and shields are in their hands. Especially shields. Some of them look more like oversized bracelets than anything. It also bugs me that when they face enemies they hold their shield extended behind them instead of between them and the bad guy. Yeah, I get fussy over animations.
     But I like Maeth. She may take ages to level, but when she does she not only has a transmog set picked out, but it's already all sitting in her bank waiting for her to use it. Aside from the weapon and shield because she's not high enough level to get those for herself. Character wise she's a tough, no nonsense kind of woman. Still gentle hearted, still loyal to her friends, but tough. Right now she's leveling holy but at heart she's a tank.

Kelantheies

Level 14 Retribution Paladin
     Kelantheies was mad as sort of an experiment. SprYte and I had decided to make a set of twin paladins with really similar names. Well then husband got in on it, so Kel, Kul, and Kal were born and leveled to 14 which is where they sit at the moment. Sometime we were intending on doing some dungeons and I really hope we get around to that some day. It would be fun.

Sylrothan

Level 15 Protection Paladin
     Sylrothan is special to me. He's had more love as an RP character than as a WoW character but I'm hoping someday to fix that. He lives on an RP server, though most of the RPing I've actually done with him has been text based with friends rather than in game. Still due to the nature of his character I'd come up with an interesting leveling challenge for myself and when I continue leveling I still intend to try it that way. You see, Sylrothan in my head is a High Elf rather than a Blood Elf and he's Alliance. There's a long story about why he's horde side at the moment, involving his older brother Seish, but I won't get into that. The challenge I'd made for myself was to see if I could level him without doing any quest that involved killing Alliance NPCs. This might be a problem if he ever gets to Pandaria but...I'm hoping I'll find a way around it. :)
     Leveling wise Syl's largely on hold because he was supposed to level with a friend's druid.

Laaryn

Level 10 Protection Paladin     

     Laaryn was based off a D&D character. He was made to level with Yavi's priest alt, but since there hasn't been much playtime for them, Laaryn has now turned into the bank/pantry alt for Tai. He's waiting for his leveling buddy when they're available but in the meantime he's making himself quite useful.

     Obviously I love paladins and can't get enough of playing them, though a lot of the poor things seem to get stalled out waiting for leveling friends. I've very excited for this week of posting and hopefully seeing a lot of fun paladin posts. :D With any luck the rest of mine won't be this late coming.



*Because what else would you call a group of paladins? It's like a murder of crows or a gaggle of geese only with more smiting and heavy armor and all around righteousness.

Monk Week Recap

Day 22: Made me smile

Perhaps I'm easily entertained, but the new animation for eating the noodles you can get from noodle carts make me smile. So does the view from the Shrine of Fellowship. Had a hard time deciding what to do for this screenshot, there are a lot of little things in WoW that make me smile. In the end I went with a thing that made me smile recently.  And it's Tai, because it's still monk week.

     When it came to my goals for monk week,  I didn't meet all of them so far. Didn't do much with transmogging for the monks I play with others. Haven't got Rothorin into tanking those dungeon runs, but the day isn't over yet, could still happen. Still I spent a lot of time on my monks this week. Vaelanys did get to level 70, got the last piece he needed for his transmog set, and moved to Northrend.
     Tai mastered two more of the Ways of cooking and is well on his way to Master of the Ways(only two left to master!). I've spent a bunch of time on his cooking and fishing the last few days. He also made his way up finally with Os to get the blazing chest on Timeless Isle and ended up with a 535 ring that pushes his ilvl up to 500.
     Tai and Os did another Karazhan run, but the boots for his new transmog set still didn't drop. Maybe next week. So at least a couple of my monks saw a lot of playtime this week.
     And to wind down my recap here is a list of ten things I love about monks(in no particular order). I think I'll end all my Alt Appreciation Week recaps this way from now on:

1. Roll/Chi Torpedo This has to be one of the best abilities ever. Every time I log from one of my monks to another class it seems like I spend a few minutes looking for my roll button.
2. Polearms. When Tai isn't using a one hand off hand combination I love being a healer with a spear.
3. Animations. I love that monks got a few unique animations for their abilities. They look awesome and add a great deal to the flavor of the class. As you can probably tell by my screenshots I have a lot of fun playing with these.
4. Mistweavers. Punching and kicking things in the face to make yourself (and your allies) feel better. This is a pretty awesome way to heal.
5. The spec names.
6. Class Quests. I really wish all of the classes got some flavor of these. Not only are they fun, but they give you a nice xp boost, some good gear to look forward to every ten levels, and they teach you about how to use some of your class abilities.
7. Spinning Crane Kick. Running through old instances to farm something? This makes it nice and fast.
8. Martial Arts. I studied Martial Arts when I was younger and I like that the flavor of the arts are incorporated into the class.
9. Playing around with leather gear for transmog. I like playing dress up and there's some awesome leather gear.
10. Being able to fill any role.

     I'm kind of sad monk week is over actually. Monks are probably easily my second favorite class in WoW. This is the first class I've ever healed on that I felt confident in what I was doing, and I just have so much fun when I'm playing my monks. It's been a lot of fun seeing other people's posts with their monk alts and mains. Apparently I'm not the only one with a monk that wants to steal my main's job. ;)

Screenshot Day 21

Day 21: Rule of Thirds

Looking through my folder of existing screenshots, I think I'm not very good at this rule, since this is one of the best examples I could find. From Tyl's leveling days in Jade Forest.

     This was a lazy playing day for me. Aside from all the cooldowns I haven't done much other than working on Tai's fishing and cooking. I'm slow at it, but he's going for Master of the Ways in addition to eventually making a noodle cart. Spent a bunch of time at Sri-La Village fishing up the Reef Octopus, then a bunch of time moving stuff from various low level alts until I've got one with all the cooking stuff in his bank. Yay for pantries. Tai got Master of the Oven, and now it's time to farm up lots more mats for his cooking.
   

It's still Monk Week!

Day 20: In the Morning

There was a monkless version of this shot, because the view was lovely. Then I thought, hey it's monk week and Tai's my only character who is a serious morning person. So enjoy Tai doing his morning exercises.

     And because it's still monk week I talked myself out of doing LFRs on Seish this morning and went to focus on Vaelanys instead. (It's paladin week next week, Seish. You will get your turn.) Besides healing five mans is easier on my very sleep-deprived brain this morning than LFR would have been anyhow. And then there was the queue. Over half an hour long... then two declined invites before I finally got in.
     Vaelanys had already hit 69 from doing his monk daily and flying over to Netherstorm (exploration) and then doing a quest chain to pick up the last piece of armor I wanted for his transmog set. He is on an RP server, these things are important! So Mechanar got me well over halfway to 70. And partway through Utgarde Keep...

     And though I may have waited in the queues for what felt like aaaages. I got two groups full of nice people who all seemed to be very good players :) That's definitely worth the wait. Vaelanys' hearth is now set in Dalaran and he's ready for the next phase of his journey. And Mistweaving? Yep still fun!
     Hopefully I'll manage to get in some time on Rothorin later, see if I can hammer out what I'm doing as a Brewmaster again. (You better believe he's wearing that title too. :D) That, aside from the morning cooldown parade has been my WoW day so far.

Screenshot Day 19

Day 19: What is this?

Presumably a portal to the Emerald Dream?

     This screenshot comes with a story. Not a very exciting story, but one of my WoW memories. The first time I came across this I was still pretty new to the game. Seish was still leveling and flying around one day I saw this strange circle on the map in Duskwood. I landed to see what it was. I was floored. What was it? A portal to some place? But where?
     I approached very very cautiously, it looked like there should be Night Elf guards around it somewhere just waiting to jump out at an unsuspecting Blood Elf. But there were no guards, no mobs at all, just little harmless critters. I wandered around the whole area, looking at everything and getting more and more curious. Slowly I worked my way up to the portal and stared at it for a long time. I wanted to know where it went.
     But what if Seish stepped through it and couldn't get back. I debated for a long time, but finally mounted up and flew away again without trying. But it bugged me. Later I thought of hearthstones. (Yes, I was still very new to the game XD) I could try to go through the portal, see what was on the other side and if it was something way too scary for a little paladin then I could hearth right back to the safety of Orgrimmar. That decided I flew back out there, and excitedly ran up and through the portal.
     And on the other side... was the trunk of the tree and nothing else. What a letdown. I had been so sure it must go somewhere really interesting and possibly terrifying.  I tried a few times, and then left. There are a few other portals like it. I always try to go through them, even now. It never works, but I still try. And I still try this one every time archaeology or something brings me to the area again. Who knows. Maybe someday it -will- work. They must be there for some reason, right?

Screenshot Day 18

Day 18: Vintage

Can't help wondering if the wine they've got out on the Isle of Thunder is a good vintage or just okay.

     And the Isle of Thunder is where Seish spent some time today. Still grinding up the last little bit of rep for the Black Prince. Yeah... I'm behind. Currently Seish is at 9/20 Secrets of the Empire and 30/40 of the Trillium. If I actually do what I should and hit every wing of Throne of Thunder this week I'm hoping I can finish this quest. Probably only a few days of rep grinding needed. Less if I just went out and farmed kills for it, but I prefer structuring that around the dailies. Makes it feel more manageable and has the lovely side effect of netting Seish some pocket change while he's working at it.
     Seish did the first wing of Siege of Orgrimmar LFR last night with Divi and Taiki. It was interesting. I'm glad we get cut scenes in this one! I love getting the gear and that's part of the motivation for me, but I also love the story so I'm happy when there are cut scenes and NPCs talking. Seish got a new sword! Apparently he's finally broken his bad luck trend from Cataclysm. He never did get Gurthalak.
     Tyl spent a little time on the Isle of Thunder today too. Had popped over to the Timeless Isle to pick up his Blazing Chest and when I'd finished someone was putting together a Nalak group so I joined in. It ended up being a pretty small group, so it took us a while to get him down, but everybody was really well coordinated and it did get accomplished. :D I think I had more fun in that run than I've had in a lot of the bigger group kills I've been in on. But this has only reinforced my awareness that Tyl really, really needs a new bow. His weapon and one trinket are really the main things holding his item level down, so he'll probably have to hit Throne of Thunder to have another shot at Tortos this week.
   

Monk Week: Tai's post

Day 17: In Front of Me

Oh Tuesday Maintenance Day, why must you thwart my screenshotting plans and lead me into big long rambles about my favorite characters? (You have been warned. The big long ramble is below. Fear the ramble.)


Tai's Story

     No, this isn't Tai's in character story, though there is one of those too. Rather this is the story of how I ended up with a level 90 Mistweaver almost by accident.
     One of my best friends and favorite WoW players had left the game for a while toward the end of Cataclysm. I fell heir to the guild she'd run and those of us who still played soldiered on for a while. I started rerolling a few characters on a new PVE server with a higher population for a change of environment. And then one day that friend decided to come back, with a new account to just start fresh. I was ecstatic. She leveled a Mistweaver on our old server intending to main her.
     Next in the plans was leveling a druid, and I had a prot pally on another server that we intended to cross realm with so she could level resto. But then I left town for a week (with no net access), and when I came back she had decided she wanted to level a new prot pally. Her old main had been one. On a whim I looked at my roster with the low level Mistweaver that had never been leveled and I said: Hey I've been meaning to try a Mistweaver. I'll make one to level with you.
     So I made Tai on the new PVE server and we grouped up by battletag to start leveling. When we hit 15 we started queueing up for dungeons with vent up. Here's a confession: I can't heal. I tried playing Tiuli as resto in a few dungeons in Cata and it just felt like full blown panic to me the entire time, people died, I was fail and it just made me not want to do it any more. I'd tried a few times on low level healers, but the first dungeon queue usually saw them respecced as dps if not entirely abandoned. I fully expected that after a dungeon or two I'd find out that I couldn't heal on a monk either and he'd respec into Windwalker and that would be that.
     But I had underestimated my friend's prot pally. I had underestimated monks, and maybe I'd underestimated myself. Healing was fun! At least it was when I had a tank I was talking to in vent who'd listen when I said I needed mana and not blame me if she ran off without me and died. We took our inst-queues and we ripped up through the levels, a couple dungeons a day. After a while she decided to transfer Os over to Tai's server and we got a few other friends to sign a charter so they'd have a guild to live in. And we kept leveling.
     We'd complain in vent when the dps did silly things, when the hunter wouldn't turn growl off no matter how many times he was asked. And then one day after the rest of the run had dropped group we went to pick up one more more sanguine hibiscus so we could both finish the quest. We two-manned down a pack of mobs to do it. The off hand comment was made. 'You know I bet these two could just two-man these things.' The next day we tried it. It was not only possible, it was fun! We had to work twice as hard, we had to really stop and think about mob mechanics and how to pull. I had to pull out all of Tai's utility to keep us alive.
     That was around level 60. We stopped queueing altogether and just started two-manning dungeons we could get quests in. We hit 70. Sure enough we could still two-man the Northrend dungeons. At level 80 we tried Forge of Souls. It was only after we'd finished it that Os' player realized it had been the heroic! These two characters could do anything together!

(In Dalaran while leveling)

     We did a few quests and some crafting to get our ilvl a bit higher and then started walking into Cataclysm dungeons. Couldn't do Blackrock caverns without a third because of a mechanic on the last boss, though we were able to do the rest of the dungeon two-man. Throne of Tides was easy. Stonecore took some thinking the first time but the second time we laughed the whole way. We hit 85. There were less dungeons we could level in in Pandaria, but we managed to two-man the Temple of the Jade Serpent shortly after getting there and then switched to questing and taking down rares. Things that had been awful and deadly on some of my other characters were just fun challenges with Tai and Os. In Dread Wastes we managed to pull about 12 of those mobs that fear and some of the blade flurry ones and then run into one of the big elite giants that pats up and down. But in the end it was Tai and Os who were left standing and hey... our quest was done.
    Shortly after 90 we went back to Temple of the Jade Serpent in Heroic to see if we could. We did. We did Warbringers. We've geared up and though I'm still trying to get better at healing big groups of people on Tai (rather bad healing habits from just worrying about the two of us for a while. lol) I'm still loving it. I love playing on him and healing on him. Still not sure I can play a resto druid but I feel like I know what my monk can do. I haven't been afraid to queue for dungeons all alone as heals on my lower level Mistweavers because I feel like I know what I'm doing and that, it turns out, is at least half the battle.

     Here's Tai and Os on one of their semi-weekly Kara runs in hopes of mounts and pets for Os and transmog gear for Tai.(Because there's another awesome leather set I want to put together for him.)
     Their guild is level 19 and counting and a few of my other favorite WoW buddies have rerolled to live in it with them now. Tai and Os finished their Glorious Achievement the other night, next they'll be working on the rares on Isle of Thunder and when the commotion dies down some we're hoping to get a chance at taking on the challenge of two-manning some of the nastier rares on Timeless Isle. So that's Tai's post for monk week. The rest of the monks will probably have to share theirs.

Screenshot a Day 16

Day 16: Frame

The farmhouse door frames a really nice view. Have to admit that would be pretty awesome to wake up and look out on in the morning.

Alt Appreciation Week: Monks

     Laeleiweyn over at World of Lae had this brilliant idea for appreciating our many alts: Alt Appreciation. Each class gets its own week for us to spend a little time focusing on them and this week, it's monks.
     I love monks a lot more than I expected to, and that's saying a lot since I was really excited when I found out they were coming to the game. I had commented a friend before Mists was announced that the two classes that were missing from WoW were bards and monks. Well we got monks. (Don't see how bards would really work in WoW but I'd still love to see them XD)
     Since monks came into the game I've made my fair share of monk alts. Here they are in order of precedence rather than chronologically.

Tai

Level 90 Mistweaver   

     Tai is my favorite monk 'alt'. In fact I play him enough and enjoy it enough that it doesn't even seem right to call him an alt. He wasn't the first monk that I made, in fact Tai was almost an accident. A very happy accident. He'll get his own post later this week with the full story of how he came to be, but basically I created him to level with a friend's prot pally when she returned to the game with a new account, and now he's at 90, third best geared of my characters and happily looking forward to punching Garrosh when SoO LFR opens.

Rothorin

Level 65 Brewmaster
     Rothorin was the first monk I intended to make. I had a character with the same appearance and name saved and waiting on his server from the time MoP was announced. I love tanking and I've at least tried tanking on every class that can do it, so I knew I'd be making a Brewmaster. Rothorin's appearance was based on what my prot pally looked like in the Well of Eternity dungeon before they changed it so that everybody looks alike.
     Personality wise he's a very mellow, cheerful, guy. Likes a good brew, some good company and is generally easy-going. He's had some interesting adventures, the most recent of which was my husband popping onto his alliance dk to give tanking a shot and saying "Hey you got any healers on Ally side at this level?" To which, of course, the answer was no. Then he noticed I had a monk and said. "Hey heal me on that." Me: "But he's a tank. He doesn't have any healing gear or a Mistweaver spec." Husband: "So dual spec. Don't worry about the gear, you're good at monks, it'll be fine." So Rothorin healed 4 or 5 dungeons in agility gear. (Thank you random players for not giving me crap for my obviously wrong spec heirloom cape.) Luckily husband is a good tank so I had no trouble with keeping the group up or managing mana.

Vaelanys

Level 68 Mistweaver

     I mostly play Tai with his prot pally so I wanted another Mistweaver to play solo. I also wanted to try out an RP server. So Vaelanys was born. He's trying out a few different talents in his build than Tai has and since there was a giant patch that reworked a lot of Mistweaver stuff when Tai was about 60, Vaelanys has helped me smooth out Tai's rotation by helping me relearn a few things as he levels. 

     I've put a lot of work in to Vaelanys' character and backstory, got him into a really fun RP guild and have been having a blast with him. Though he's been rather sadly neglected since the patch hit.

Ukyou

Level 17 Mistweaver (Horde)
     This was the first monk I actually made! She was supposed to be my Mistweaver so I could give a shot at the class for healing. The night the expansion released husband and I stayed up really late (early?) to level her and his Brewmaster out of the Pandaren starting area. I think we were a couple of the first out on our server! She got stacks of heirlooms sent to her and then she and the Brewmaster set off for Silverpine forest, where they basically stalled out while we leveled Rim and Syri to 90. There's a lot to do at 90 and in the meantime Ukyou has languished while Tai took over her job. XD

Gwenllian

Level 17 Brewmaster
     Gwenllian was made to level with my friend SprYte's Mistweaver. They haven't managed to get very far yet, but I've been having lots of fun with her. I don't play as much alliance side so the leveling can be kind of fun and different :D.

Vanydor

Level 15 Windwalker
     Cause I really should try out the dps spec. Because it looks like it would be kind of fun. Vanydor is supposed to level with some character of either SprYte's or husband's. Right now he's hanging out in Ghostlands waiting on somebody, but from what little I can tell at level 15 Windwalking seems pretty fun too.

     I've got a few goals for these guys, we'll see how many of them I can manage to touch :D
Tai: Is supposed to work a bit on grinding up Shaohao rep and coins with his best pally Os.
Rothorin: Needs to get all squared away back in his Brewmaster spec and try tanking an Outlands dungeon or two.
Vaelanys: I want to get him to 70 and move him out of Shattrath and into Northrend!
Ukyou: Is waiting on her buddy so I might try hammering out a mog for her :)
Gwenllian: Also getting a mog since SprYte won't be available for play. Might get a bit of profession work done.
Vanydor: Would like to get him one more level at least and maybe design him a mog.

Looking at this post and my hunter's week posts I'm starting to think this blog should have been called Plenty of Paladins, Monks, and Hunters.

Mage Week Recap

Day 15: Season

This looked like Spring. And I'm not a fan of pink at all, but I really love all the pink flowers in this.

     My poor mage alts. Their week fell on the new patch week, so not only was I mostly too busy for playing them but even if I had squeezed in the time well the people I'm playing them with were also mostly busy and enthralled with the new patch. So I really didn't do anything for them other than giving them each their nice screenshot and blog entry.
     On the bright side though, Fal got some cloth gear from Timeless Isle mailed to him by his brother(Tai) in case he ever reaches a level where he can use it and Murasaki got some from Tyl. Poor Malyn will have to wait and see if the Alchemist who also happens to be a warlock has any left over after he reaches 90. (Largely because he's much closer than she is and I intend him to be one of my next projects.)
     So mage week was not very good to my poor mage alts. Though I did show my mage love by having Rim squire Syri around the Timeless Isle since she doesn't really like running around without her personal tank.

Thundering Onyx Cloud Serpent!

     I'm kind of obsessed with mounts. One of the first things I loved about the game was the ability to get different kinds of mounts and when I was leveling Seish the first faction I started working on was the Darkspear because I wanted to ride raptors. He was my mount collector all through Cata and I was always just a little sad when a mount dropped for one of my other characters because I wanted them all on Seish. Well, now he has them. And this morning he got another one.
     I had seen Euphyley's Timeless Isle Rare Spawns post and found out that there was a Blazing Chest that I had entirely missed. So first thing this morning after all the various profession cooldowns I popped on Seish and headed over for the Timeless Isle to catch an albatross. But when I got there I thought, well I better go see if Huolon's up first, because if I'm on an albatross when they get the kill I'll be bummed at losing another shot at the mount. So I galloped on up there and futzed around for a little bit. No Huolon, well might as well go catch the bird, but then I took one last look around and saw that he'd spawned and shortly after that a few people had pulled him down, so I hurried over to get my tag.
     He dropped when I was dead, and as soon as I rezzed I ran over to grab my loot.

    Oooh he'd dropped a purple! Then I realized it was the purple I'd been desperately wanting since just before the patch when I found out there'd be a dragon that dropped a mount! I squealed. And then learned it before thinking to take a screenshot of the loot in my bag. Did remember to grab a dead dragon screenshot at least. Then I promptly hearthed out, Blazing Chest forgotten, so I could go get on my shiny new mount and stare at it!

     So pretty! And the day before my birthday. There were few things that could have done more to make my day! Still going to have to go over and get the Blazing Chest later, but I am contented and not fussed for rushing it.

Screenshot a Day 14

Day 14: Liquid

Things look different from under the water. Gives the whole world a liquid look.

     There will probably be more activity tonight. Early early this morning before I went to bed Tai and Os went around and killed a bunch of rares for their Glorious! Achievement. They only have one left to finish it. The pandaren rare took a stupid long time because it was late and my brain was not with it and it seems that there's been a change and paralyze no longer works to stop spinning crane kick. This resulted in a bunch of us dying to something we really shouldn't have because at that hour I could -not- wrap my mind around it and kept trying something that didn't work.
     For today though there hasn't been much yet. Daily cooldowns, I'm up to four characters that are doing them on consistently now (And there would be more if I wasn't so lazy about tailoring). Rim's BS cooldown, Tai's LW cooldown, Aug's LW cooldown, and Khaelyss the warrior engineer's cooldown. Then it was off to the Isle for a bit with Tyl. Got a new bracer which was one of the pieces he really needed replaced and managed to pick up the Azure Crane Chick. Finally! I've been looting every nest I come across on every character I've had over there for days! It's cute.

     Now I just have to get some of the rares to drop their goodies for me, and get around to catching a bird up to catch the Skywisp Moth. Oh... and level a few more pets to max and find the courage to try the Celestial Tournament. I'm a little afraid of that. I'm not a very good pet battler, and I don't have a very well rounded roster leveled up. Might have to make that my next project for when I'd ordinarily be sitting AFK. Level more pets. Even then the Tournament might be beyond my skill but maybe I'd feel more courage for trying it. :D

Screenshot a Day 13

Day 13: Unexpected

One day Rim returned to the Shrine to find this fellow just hanging out. That... was unexpected.

     And this screenshot is late. And there's not really much of a post to go with it. Tomorrow Later today screenshots and posts will hopefully return to their regular schedule.
     Did run around on the Isle a little bit this evening. Aug finally got his LW cooldown so now I've got that to do every day. Then he got to run an LFR with Syri and Dust to help them get sigils and in the hopes of getting him a better bow than the 450 one he'd been carrying around forever. He got one! Only 476, but still a pretty drastic improvement. He's now eligible for ToT as well.
     And he's also running around with the title 'Crazy Cat Man' and a stampede of nothing but felines, because, well for one thing he already had five different cats hanging around in the stable that hadn't been out for a while. And for another thing it makes me giggle every time I call them out.
     Then Seish went to run Temple of the Jade Serpent with Roz so Roz could finish his noodle cart quest. Seish has been doing this a lot since he helped Divi with it a few nights ago too. Temple itself isn't too bad. Noodle boss at the end is full of pain and ouch. But in the end Roz went home with a completed quest and I add another name to my list of people who owe me when it comes Tai's turn to try and do that quest :D.

Playing around on the Isle

Day 12: Shadow

Interesting tree shadows and part of the now destroyed Vale, which from some angles and in the night definitely still has its own kind of beauty.

     Been spending a lot of time on the Isle. Seish has done his share, Rim has been running around with Syri and sometimes Divi (the purple cow ret pally of awesome), and Tai's been spending some time over there with his best prot pally, Os. Seish was already at 510 when the patch hit so he hasn't really picked up anything on the isle he can use, though he did replace a chest with the cheaper Shado-Pan Assault gear to jump up to 512. Rim and Tai are both up to 496+ now and now I'm starting to put gear on characters I wasn't even worrying about.  Nyv and Aug are both up past 470 from gear others have sent to them and Thera the rogue who is only leveled for her lockpicking is wearing probably the first purples she's ever had.
     It is a very easy way to gear up alts and it's really kinda fun poking around for stuff. Aug still needs to pick up his leatherworking cooldown pattern so he'll get to slog around over there some more later but today Tyl finally got to head over. The goal is to get him up high enough to take part in killing Garrosh Alliance side and he's not far off. Probably going to have to save the coin to shell out for a new bow unless he gets lucky in the Throne of Thunder this week. But it seems manageable.
     In battle pet news, did a pet battle on Tai over there yesterday, caught a rare moth and got a battle stone that finally let me upgrade my Unborn Val'kyr to rare quality (she was poor). So now I can finally level her up and use her for battles! Then despite earlier terrible luck with Kukuru's chests I decided to let Tai invest in one of his Cache Keys 'cause Os had just told me they could drop a pet! I didn't expect any luck. Every key Tai had tried the day before had cost him 500 coins and gotten him back 50-350. But on his first key yesterday he looted Bonkers! And it's actually kind of cute!

     Still hunting for some of the other pets from there and hoping for a mount drop from Huolon, but so far no luck on anything else. And here's a bonus shot of Nyv in his brand spanking new set of untransmogged Isle gear with the now upgraded Val'kyr. It's been a pretty good week for my characters so far!

     I pretty much never mog Nyv. He wouldn't care so I don't bother. But dang I love the look of this gear on him so I probably wouldn't have mogged it anyhow.