Happy Hallow's End!

     There are a lot of awesomely creepy things in WoW. So I decided to take my creepiest character to visit a couple of my favorites today.

     Deadwind Pass is one of my favorite zones in WoW at any time of year. What can I say? I really like creepy things, and it's always got such an eerie feeling to it. Sometimes when the mood strikes me I take a character over there, saddle up a ground mount and just gallop around looking at things. Nyv borrowed the Headless Horseman's mount for this shot even though he's got a creepy undead horse of his own.

     Then it was on over to Duskwood. I quested all the way through this zone when leveling Tyl and I loved it. (I really like creepy things.) One of my favorite parts of the zone is the cemetery, and more specifically the extensive crypt underneath it. Tyl explored the whole thing at level, even before he had quests for it just because I was thoroughly enjoying the creepy feeling of wandering through it and not knowing what might lie in wait. Tyl had gone in through the backdoor on the other side of the cemetery. Nyv, however, decided to control the guardian and stroll through the front door. It's just how he is.

     I wandered through all of it again taking screenshots here and there just for fun. There's the creepy lab full of experiments.

     And this hallway, which is mostly empty but just looks wonderfully eerie. I took lots more screenshots, but these were the best and eeriest I think. This one in particular makes me feel like there should be a story attached to it, about some nervous explorer wandering into a place they really shouldn't be. Maybe someday I'll write it.
     In the meantime Happy Hallow's End/Halloween!

Alt Appreciation Week: Warrior

     Things are winding down for Lae's Alt Appreciation weeks. Warriors get the last week. Warriors are a class I just can't get into. Tchulin was one once, actually that's the first thing he was and that settled me in to my long history of not getting along with warriors. Mind you, I know warriors are a decent class. My guild had an amazing warrior tank when I first started playing and Ret used to tear it up on his warrior alt  when he wasn't dying to purple stuff. And SprYte, well I think warriors are one of her favorite classes, at least they're one of her signature ones. I think she's got at least as many warriors as I have paladins and they're her go to class for ripping through leveling an alt.
      But I just don't get them. To me playing a warrior (though granted I've really only tried protection for any amount of time) feels like playing a gimped paladin. Maybe a little of Seish's mindset leaks in here. Seish figures the only reason you'd be a warrior would be that you didn't have what it took to be a paladin. (Have I mentioned he's kind of an arrogant jerk?) Tchulin was my first warrior, fairly early on. He got forty levels into fury before I threw up my hands, decided I really didn't like it and rerolled him. For a long time I didn't have any warriors at all. So maybe it's a little surprising that I ended up with a level 90 one. Meet Khaelyss.

Khaelyss

Level 90 Protection Warrior

      Khaelyss leveled to 80 through Recruit-A-Friend with my buddy's mage, Yavi. I wanted to make a tank for Yavi and felt like I didn't need another paladin. Also the original Khaelyss in D&D was a fighter so warrior seemed appropriate. They managed alright, though I always feel like Khaelyss dies to stuff Rim would have survived. At 90 Khaelyss doesn't do much. I don't see myself ever doing much tanking on him because I'd rather tank on a paladin and I keep meaning to get around to trying Arms but haven't done it yet. So for now Khaelyss is mostly my engineer and the miner for everybody on Tai's server. 

     He supplies Laen with metal for his blacksmithing and Fal with metal for his jewelcrafting and Os' hunter alt with some extra metal for his tramsutes. Most of the time I'm playing him he's mining. He gets to kill rares when I come across them hunting ore, though and he hasn't died to one in a long time. It just takes him ages to kill them. Khaelyss and Os' hunter alt are currently working together on a second Sky Golem (so we each get one. We rolled on the first one and it went to Os so mine's next. :) )

     Character wise Khaelyss is a warm-hearted, hard working fellow. He's got all the magical aptitude of a rock which is why he's an engineer and a warrior. If he can't do it with his own hands and brain he can't do it. He's fairly humble, possibly even has some issues with self-esteem, but is generally an all around good fellow who's willing to help out with whatever anybody asks of him. 

     Even though I don't really enjoy playing him much, I do very much love the character. And engineers do make the very best miners. He can stop at any point in his ore farming drop an anvil to smelt everything and then drop a mailbox to send it all off before he continues work. And that's just handy :D

     This should be my last post for Alt Appreciation week, but since I missed out on Death Knight week at the beginning I think I'll throw out a post for my Death Knights next week, just for the sake of completion.

Old Ladies Raid! (And Warlock Week Recap)

Since I entirely forgot to get a screenshot of what this post is actually about enjoy this random shot of Tyl and Snowthorn in a tree on the Timeless Isle.

      Yesterday was the opening outing of the Old Ladies Raiding Guild. I was a bit late getting online for it but they were amazing enough to summon Tyl right in for the rest of it. It was so much fun! And I was a little bit starstruck being around all these bloggers I read. In fact I was so flustered that it took me a while to remember how to get into vent and I completely forgot to get the screenshot I'd wanted of everybody. But maybe next week, because it's in the plans to meet up once weekly and kick ass and take names.
     I might have to put in a little more time trying to get Tyl a better weapon so he'll be a bigger help when we get to some of the newer content. And now, aside from the fact that I just love him I've got another reason to be very happy for having a level 90 Alliance side. I helped out with the second half of Blackwing Descent. It was nice to finally get revenge for all those times that Nefarian killed poor Rim when I tried to tank it last expansion. Next week Bastion of Twilight is the destination and I'm so very excited to go!

     Today Tal got a break from leveling because I wanted to put in some time on Seish. And little did I know just how much time it would end up being. Seish had managed to down Malkorok in Wing 3 of SoO last week, but then the group he was in stalled out on the trash after, and several wipes and quite a bit of time later I felt like I couldn't justify spending any more time in there. This time the group was better on the trash but we wiped three times each on Spoils and Thok before downing them. It took hours. But Seish got two rings (only one of which he needed) and a pair of new pants for his pains.
     I really wish people in LFR would not be such jerks about recount. Recount's a great tool. I like  it a lot for seeing where I am on things, but I also know that it's not always completely accurate. Seems like the further you are from someone the less you see of their actual damage, and the group spent a bunch of time harassing two people they said were pulling under 30k who showed up at 50+k on mine. Still not great dps, but two people with slightly low dps were not why we were wiping. Still in the end they didn't get kicked and we finished, so hopefully that made up for some of it.

Tal's sitting most of the way to 89 so it shouldn't take too much longer for him to hit 90, though it hasn't been in time for the end of Warlock week after all. Still taking a bit of time off from him today to work on Seish means more rested XP when I get back to him. My plan is to keep pushing on him until he gets to 90, deck him out in the Timeless Isle stuff he's got waiting and maybe try an LFR. There will be a post when he gets there. Warlock week's been fun for me. I forget every time I take a break from playing him just how much fun it actually is. Hopefully this time it will stick just a little better. And hey, he'll actually be at cap when the next expansion rolls around. That'll make it easier for him to level his alchemy which is all he really cares about.

Tal progress (Warlock Week)

     This made me laugh today. No, not Tal's leveling gear, though that's pretty funny too, but the fact that this fellow finds the guy on the flaming demonic horse with the big blue demon following him around to look 'trustworthy'. Some of the NPC dialogue in general just seems a little off when applied to things like warlocks and death knights. But that just gives me something to laugh at.
     Tal's about halfway through 87 now. And he has had one death in Pandaria but that was entirely my fault. He's been doing so stinking well that I got a little cocky and decided he could totally handle that Zandalari Warscout. The Zandalari Warscout didn't think so. Still no deaths to mobs he's supposed to be questing on or anything he could actually reasonably be expected to handle yet. He might actually make 90 by Sunday, or certainly a day or two after.

     This cave has caused many a death on my other characters while leveling. Going in to retrieve those turnips is something I'd kind of come to dread. The mobs like to run off and pull yet more mobs and there are plenty for a leveling character to begin with. But Tal just waltzed in, set everything on fire, picked up his turnips and walked back out over the smoking bodies. Warlocks are pretty darn fun. Not as much fun as paladins, but pretty darn fun. Of course I have no idea if I'd be doing that well dps wise in group content since I really haven't tried any in a while. I might have to try to work in a random dungeon next time I'm working on him.

More Warlock Week.

     It only took an hour or so Monday night for Tal to reach level 86, even with all the little breaks and pauses in the process. And I remembered the thing that I seem to discover with him every time I play him for a while solo, that he's incredibly fun to play! When he's not getting ganked and camped because my absolute awful pvp ability makes him a target on the pvp server he's on, he's just fun. I've got a new goal for myself with him, not going to kick myself if I don't manage it but am going to give it a try. I want to see if Tal can quest his way through Pandaria, all the way to 90 without dying once. So far, at 86 and 1/2, so good.

Here he is shortly after hitting 86, in really crazy looking quest gear.
     He's heading to Valley of the Four Winds soon, and his herbalism is coming along nicely, it should finally be capped even before his level is. And the questing, I was afraid he'd be super squishy, but the voidlord is a really good tank and after getting warmed up Tal can pull huge groups and just burn them into oblivion with the help of his crowd of wild imps. He's got an entire entourage following him around most of the time, and like I said, it's just loads and loads of fun. It kind of makes me wonder why I waited this long to get around doing more with him.

A few initial thoughts on connected realms.
     Wow, this doesn't look like my Orgrimmar/Shrine is one of the first things I keep thinking when I log into one of those places. I guess I hadn't realized just how quiet they were on Seish's server until I started seeing them crowded with people. The Auction House is far fuller than it used to be and some stacks of Cata herbs Tal had been posting on the Auction House for weeks finally all sold.
     You can invite people from the sister realm into guilds on your home realm and you -can- mail heirlooms as well between the two, so effectively you can double the characters you have in  your main guild. And trade chat is considerably more active, not just with people chatting about random things but with people looking for crafted gear and pugs and the like. So far... I don't mind it, but I'm going to give it a few weeks before I really finish forming a full opinion. Time for it to sink in on me and time for me to really see what things end up looking like. But at least so far I don't hate it.

Alt Appreciation Week: Warlock

     It's Warlock Week! We're almost at the end of Lae's scheduled weeks of Alt Appreciation. And we're toward a tail end of the list where I don't have many characters. I've only got one Warlock, but I'm very fond of him and I've got big plans for him this week.
   
Tal: The Alchemist who is technically a Warlock.

Level 85 Demonology Warlock
     Tal is technically a warlock, that's his class and it's the thing that (mostly) keeps him alive when he's out wandering around, but in his head and in mine he's an Alchemist first. Not because I leveled him entirely for the profession but because Tal has a story of his own in my head and Alchemy is really at the root of it. I originally made Tal a few years ago. I was still newer to the game and a warlock sounded kind of interesting and I had a name I liked, so Tal. He leveled for a while with a friend's shaman, did some questing and worked on his alchemy.
    He capped his alchemy in Cata, and when Mists launched I eventually got around to leveling him up just enough to let him cap his skill in it again. He's never been at level cap. In fact until a week or so ago he was still level 82. But he lives on Seish's server and Seish and Rim picked up an entire set of cloth gear on the Timeless Isle. Here's the thing: apparently I don't like to play squishy characters. I looked at the cloth gear and realized I didn't have a single cloth wearing character on any server that's at level cap. In fact Tal at 82 was as close as it got. And I'd been meaning to level him up eventually. I just hadn't got around to it. He didn't really care. As long as he can do all the Alchemy he wants he's perfectly happy.
     When I realized Warlock week was coming up I spent a bit of time poking around on him here and there until he finally managed to get this done (very belatedly):

     And now he's got the quest to go to Pandaria sitting in his log ready to go, so this week I'm going to see just how close to 90 he can manage to get, so he can finally enjoy all the goodies Seish and Rim have been sending him and maybe even do an LFR or a dungeon or something. Because as little as I've played him I still feel much more confident of my ability to warlock than I do of my ability to rogue.

A bit about Tal's character (just for fun).

     Tal was a bit older than one would normally be when he set off adventuring. Not old really, not quite middle aged(though he's pushing it), but not a strapping, green, youth out to conquer the world. He never intended to go out and see the world. In fact if he'd been given his way he'd have been perfectly content to spend his entire life in Silvermoon doing alchemical research in his laboratory and reading ponderous old tomes on demons and their ways. But fate has ways of doing things that we don't plan and the bookish alchemist let his witty tongue get the better of his sense at the wrong time and within earshot of the wrong set of pointy elven ears and the next thing he knew he'd been sent out of Silvermoon on important 'field assignments' (otherwise known as revenge).

     So he's had to try to learn to adapt, to learn to do more with demons than read about them and try to keep himself alive out in the world. He's not really doing half badly for himself, and it has been interesting for him to see the herbs as they grow out in the wild rather than just having them delivered for his research. He's taken up the study of herbalism as well, though he is not yet as skilled with it as he is at alchemy. He's been dabbling a bit in archaeology as well, which mostly consists of him meandering through digsites and constantly shuffling through maps and papers and artifacts and mumbling to himself while his voidlord handles threats he only half notices.

     As warlocks go Tal really isn't particularly evil. He's more bookish and a little bit nerdy than anything else. His interest in demons was originally more academic curiosity than anything, though it has sense developed into something that's practical and useful for keeping himself alive. He still doesn't particularly want to conquer anything or be a hero. He really just wants to finish up his tasks and learn what he can learn and redeem himself with the powers that be enough that they'll let him go back home to his nice cozy lab to resume his research.

     The goal for Tal is to get him to 90 or close enough to it that I can easily finish the leveling before the next expansion. If I feel particularly bold afterwards I might make the attempt at getting him green fire, but I don't particularly hold out much hope for that. I don't know warlocks very well at all, and from the sounds of it the quest line tasks even some of the people who main warlocks. Still, I doubt I'll be able to resist giving it a shot. After all green is my favorite color.

     And Tal is on Seish's realm so that will give me an opportunity to have a real look at what the realm connection has done. So we'll see. There may be more Tal posts this week. There might even be some in character scribbles from his traveling journal (notes are important to any researcher, so Tal is a writer of copious notes and things) because I enjoy doing things like that. It should be fun.

Shaman Week Recap

     In some ways this has been the best week of Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation for me so far. Hunter week I met all my goals, and paladin week I made Laen, Monk week well I met most of my goals there too, but shaman week did what I think this exercise was really supposed to accomplish. It got me in touch with a character that I really didn't think I'd ever play and it feels a bit like I've rediscovered her.
      I don't know if poor Naneeri would have managed to get played at all this week despite all my good intentions if it hadn't been first for Kamalia taking the time to comment with a really helpful basic rundown of shaman healing. Thank you so much. :) That set me in order enough that I sat down and got Vuhdo and her bars all configured. I looked over her armor and realized that at some point I'd apparently already started trying to convert her into int gear so she was wearing sort of 50/50 int and agi gear. (She still is. It's terrible.)
     But there's some int there and I had the bars set up and went and did a few quests in resto to try and get some of the basics down. Killing things was painfully slow, but she survived very well and I started to feel like I had a handle on it. And that's where my friend SprYte came in. She has handy warrior tanks scattered throughout the levels on both factions and it just so happened that a Night Elf we'll call Sefy was just the right level to bravely volunteer to be Naneeri's healing guinea pig and escort her through dungeons.

 

     That went surprisingly well. Not only did we not wipe, but in the first dungeon I had been a complete ditz with nerves and excitement and entirely forgot to change what I was queuing as. The shaman healer already in there kindly pointed out my mistake and then switched to elemental to let me give it a go. There are a lot of terrible people in random groups sometimes but that was an amazing reminder that sometimes there are some really nice ones too. He gave me a couple more tips and we were on our way.
     After a couple of dungeon runs Naneeri was well into level 49. Doing the Hallow's End quest chain this morning was enough to manage this:

     So Naneeri met my goal for her. She's now a level 50 resto shaman and I had enough fun that I've pulled one of Seish's surplus rare pets out and caged it for her to sell on her server so hopefully she'll have the coin to buy flying  in ten levels.
      And speaking of her server, it's the other one I play on that's getting merged Monday. I'm waiting very anxiously to see how all that turns out.

     Seish did yet another LFR today. Got in for the last two bosses of the Forgotten Depths, purely in hopes of getting some more of those elusive Secrets, but of course there were none to be had. If I can squeeze it in tomorrow I'll try another wing of it, even thought at this point it feels a lot like banging my head on a wall. I need nine more of the things but I just can't get them to drop. Oh well, nothing for it but to keep trying.

Connected Realms and stuff

Random screenshot of Seish on the Huolon mount above Vashj'ir. Because.

     So it looks like two of the realms I play on are listed for the next batch of realms to be connected. One of them is the server that Seish and Rim and most of my other 90s are on. I'm a little nervous about this, but also a little excited. It's a low pop pvp server. It was a low pop pvp server when I joined the guild all of the RL friends who'd talked me into joining the game were in. I don't like pvp, and had it not been for that guild and all those awesome people I probably would never have rolled on a pvp realm. But it really wasn't a bad server. I became very attached to it.
     The population of the server's only declined. The guild that used to be full of random chatter and have a person or two in it every time I logged on is usually deserted now. Seish is the GM now.  Between the declining population and CRZ it stopped being a very fun place to play on a while ago. So I can't help hoping that being Connected with another realm will pick things up again, bring some life back and make it a bit more fun.
     I also can't help being afraid that Connected Realms will make things permanently worse too. There are things I still really love about the server, like recognizing guild names and names that I see in trade chat and knowing vaguely who those people are even though I've never actually met them. I can't help being afraid that some of that will go away. Theoretically the Connected Realm would also mean more character slots on my main server effectively, but though I plan on rolling a character temporarily on the Connected server to check out how that all works I don't have any plans of actually taking advantage of those slots. Now... if they were on Tai's server? I'd probably already have them filled.
    There's nothing to do really but wait and see, and no real point to this post other than some thoughts I wanted to get off my chest. But well, I guess I can make an update post when the connection has been done and I see what it's really like. Here's hoping it will be wonderful.

Alt Appreciation Week: Shaman

It's Shaman week over at Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation. So it was time for me to dig through the roster for shamans. I have... one. I have had others. Macangus the druid was originally a shaman. That's even in his character story. But then I decided tauren druids were better so he got rerolled. Tchulin... he's a long story for another time... was a shaman once, or twice. I lose track. But Tchulin has finally settled on being a  monk when I get around to him and Macangus is definitely better as a druid. So the only shaman I have left is:

Naneeri

Level 48 Enhancement Shaman
I have a lot of reasons for wanting to love Naneeri. For one thing, she's gorgeous. For another thing I know two people who just love shamans and enjoy playing them. So it must be an amazing class. So after Macangus decided to be a druid and Tchulin decided to be several different things and finally a monk I made Naneeri.
She's a draenei which is a race that I like a lot more than you'd think when looking at my character roster and seeing a grand total of one. And here's the thing: I just can't figure out what to do with Naneeri. I'd sort of hammered out her enhancement rotation right before all the big changes rolled out and I switched to all of my other classes to try and sort them out. I didn't ever get back to her. She's been sitting in Stormwind for ages waiting for attention. A few weeks ago I logged onto her to have a look. I thought... you know I was having a really tough time with enhancement before the changes and SprYte and Divi's shamans are both resto, I feel more confident with healing since Tai. Maybe I should give resto a go.
Naneeri galloped over to find the shaman trainer and promptly got herself a shiny new resto spec. She switched into it... I opened the spellbook and just stared at all the spells. Then realized she had all the wrong gear for healing and that on her server I don't have any characters that can help her out... and all the spells. I don't know what any of them do or what they're for. I gave an exasperated sigh and logged over to play on Seish.
Well it's shaman week now. Naneeri's time has finally come (maybe). I think I'd like to try resto. And that means that sometime this week I need to sit down and go through her spell book one spell at a time and try to figure it out. That means she's going to have to go quest in enhance and try to pick up at least some bits of the right type of gear. But maybe, just maybe, I'll learn to shaman.
I have some reservations about this... I've given it a try several times and for some reason I just haven't managed so far to figure out just how shamans work. To me it feels like there are too many things to do and I can't figure out which ones I'm supposed to do at all, or first. But it's shaman week. I'm going to give it another shot. It would be nice if by the end of the week she could at least be a level 50 resto shaman.

     In other character news Tai spent probably two hours Thursday running scenarios until he finally had the jp to buy Laen his heirloom shield.

     And that is it. Unless the guild gets achieves that open up more heirlooms for gold Laen gets no more. Tai refuses to run any more scenarios for the sake of little blood elf holy paladins. And it's not that the scenarios were bad, though I was surprised at the one where the ret pally tried to insist Tai should switch to a dps spec. Tai does not have a dps spec. Tai does not actually have any spec other than Mistweaver. But he pulls his weight, and in the end the scenario, even with what I think was a healing priest for the third, didn't take any more time than they usually do.
     Still Laen's pretty happy with his shield. And I really can't wait to keep leveling him. I'm having immense amounts of fun, and healing gear is still kind of hard to come by for holy paladins, but he's got three heirlooms with the right stats now, so that should help a lot in covering for other pieces that are a bit less helpful.

Laen, LFR... and Hearthstone

    Laen happened to be turning in professions quests at the Darkmoon Faire when Moonfang spawned. So he mounted up and rushed right over to throw judgement and a denounce at her. Then a bunch of the big wolfpack noticed him. So by the time he got back from the dead she was dead. But there were loots for him! I'm not going to lie, I find it kind of funny that my little level 30 holy paladin can earn loot from a boss that much higher level than he is. A pretty temporary mount (still sad about the temporary part) and a quest item he can't turn in for who knows how long.

   
     Seish queued for the first wing of Throne of Thunder today. Set his Loot spec to Holy and decided to make a go at getting some Secrets for that demanding dragon. (Not sure he'll ever even equip the holy gear he ends up with... but it makes me feel happier putting together a set of it than getting duplicate or lower level ret gear to just vend.) First boss went so well I figured the whole thing would just be smooth sailing. Then there was Horridon. Apparently I've never actually seen people be bad at Horridon because I somehow didn't realize the LFR version of it (which is all I've done) could be hard. We wiped hard. Got all four gates down, but as we were doing it, I was watching more and more bars in my frames grey out. And then it was just Horridon... and Seish and a druid. Shortly thereafter it was a wipe.
     A couple more wipes later it became pretty apparent that someone was troll pulling Horridon before people were ready. Like at one point when there was only half a raid there with half full health bars. I don't think I'll ever understand why people go into something like LFR just to be a jerk to 24 other people. I don't get to do regular raids. Probably don't have the skill. I don't know enough people to put together a flex (which makes me so sad, because I'd love to try it.) so LFR is what I get to do for raiding. And when I go in I put in my best effort. I have limited queue time because I won't go in if I can't put forth that effort. And sadly after we got in a bunch of new people and kicked the jerks I just had time to finish off Horridon before I really needed to pop back out. Did get one more Secret off the first boss, though: 11/20. More LFRs later.

     And yesterday I finally got my Hearthstone Beta invite... and promptly unlocked the paladin deck and have been playing that a whole bunch. It's fun. Simple and fun. Don't see it being something I'll enjoy as long term as I do WoW but I do like it. I'd opted in for the Beta but wasn't really all that excited to get into it until husband got his and was having so much fun with it. Of course he'd super good at games like that and so thrashes me at it just like he does when we play Magic. Luckily I'm a good loser.

Alt Appreciation Week: Rogues

     I've really been enjoying Laeleiweyn's Alt Appreciation Weeks! Forces me to look through my many many alts and see what I've got. Seems like we've reached the end of the alphabet list of classes where I don't have a whole lot. This week is rogues. Rogues are a class where I just love the concept, but when it comes to the execution I am terrible. I just don't seem to be good at sneaking around. I've got a grand total of two rogues, and well, here they are.

Thera

Level 90 Combat Rogue
     Thera is a character I have a love/hate relationship with. I love her. I love the idea of her, I even love her transmog (though she needs a new sword.) I hate playing her. I am so very very bad at it. And yet, you say, she is 90. Well that's largely due to Recruit Friend and my stubbornness. It doesn't hurt that she's the only semi active rogue in her guild and Rim gets tired of wasting his ghost iron on keys. Thera was created way back when I still had free slots on my main server. Meant to play her and level her with SprYte's warlock, but the warlock didn't really get off the ground and my husband had gained a lot of levels via RAF so I just had him give Thera enough to get her to 80 figuring I'd figure out how to play her using a guide. I quested her up to 85 in Cata, farmed up leather for a full set of pvp stuff and set off to the battlegrounds in subtlety spec.
      After a few queues Thera set up shop in Orgrimmar until Mists hit. A few weeks ago I went ahead and finished slogging her up to 90 so she could finally open Mists lockboxes. She got epics... her first at level epics from Seish and the guys when they went to the Isle. So she's having a pretty good time, shiny purple gear and she doesn't have to work for it because I'm too bad to punish people by going into random things with her.
     Character wise Thera's modeled after a D&D character. In retrospect I probably should have known better. In D&D she was a bard and was, predictably, pretty terrible at combat.

Tav

Level 22 Combat Rogue
     Tav's been made mostly as an attempt to actually learn how to play a rogue. I think part of the reason I'm bad at Thera is because I really do learn classes best by leveling them and I skipped most of that with her. So Tav. He's supposed to be leveling with SprYte's priest and Os' warrior, so between everybody's schedules he doesn't see a lot of play time. Still what he has seen is interesting. After all, not every level 22 can say he walked into Stormwind Stockades with two friends. (It took much much longer to get into the dungeon than it did to three-man it.)
     Character wise, Tav is Tai's uncle, and he's really pretty much a jerk. Being me, I like him anyhow.

     On other notes. Seish finally got his achieve for wing 2 of the Siege of Orgrimmar tonight, and a shiny new pair of plate shoulders. But no Secrets. Apparently I'm not actually going to get those from doing stuff he can get gear in and am going to have to go run ToT until he gets ten more. This is the closest I've felt to actually roadblocked on this quest since I started it. Maybe next week I'll forgo new gear in favor of trying to get more Secrets with my limited LFR time.
     Still was an awesome run at Siege. I was afraid running it late Monday night was going to end up being a terrible idea but I got a really amazing group that easily downed the first two bosses with no wipes. I like to think that they did the same to the last two but since I'd already done them this week and I was tired I didn't stick around to see.

Wolves and stuff!

     I don't have anything to recap for Priest Week. My Priest Week was almost entirely that post I put up of my priests. That and the slowly germinating determination that at some point there will be a horde priest. But unlike Laen who had been decided upon and thoroughly thought over (and leveled to 10) before paladin week rolled around, this priest has just been dreamed up and it will take me a while and some deliberation before they actually come into being. When they do they'll get a post of their own no matter what week it happens to be.
     Last night on his fifth... or was it sixth... consecutive run of Gnomeregan Laen did this:

Only sixty more levels to go! He picked up an off spec, which will be ret, but he's forbidden to use it until 85 because he's supposed to be learning how to heal. And so far... it really is fun. Now that I've got a bit more confidence thanks to Tai I think I might actually manage to be half decent at this.
     This morning though looking at other people's blogs reminded me that it was the Darkmoon Faire, and that the new boss was up. So rather than popping over on the characters that need it for their professions or to hand in their quests I went straight over on Tai to see if I could sneak in a Moonfang kill.

    Why isn't this a real, permanent mount? Why?! It's gorgeous. I would ride the heck out of it and probably come up with some silly rp story for some character or another tied to it. (Like I did with Tai's Blue Shado-Pan riding tiger). But after that Tai needed to go and accomplish his chores for the day so I sent Khaelyss the warrior over to log off near the spawn site and check back in from time to time throughout the day.
    On Khaelyss' second kill he got the lucky drop!

I didn't think to screenshot it until he was in Plaguelands later mining for Laen's blacksmithing habit, but oh so cute! I love this pet. It's already level six and will probably be one of the next ones I level all the way up because I need more beasts and he dances and there's a moon and.... I can't quite control my squee! Well worth poor Khaelyss' undergeared self dying multiple times to all the wolves because I don't know how to warrior very well. I'll probably leave Tyl camped over there on his server all week hoping to get another drop because I want to give one to a friend. Maybe tomorrow I'll remember to take Fal and Laen and a bunch of others over to hand in grisly trophies and do professions quests, though.

Of Kodos and Kegs... and Timeless Isle Mishaps

     I'm a little ashamed of myself that my last post was ranty. Just a little bit ranty for me, because really and truly I can get worse, but still. This one isn't. It's been a decent week for the most part... but WHY can I not get in on a fresh run of SoO Wing 2? This is Seish's current lament. Still he did manage to win a new ring off one of the bosses he did get to kill and between that and a burden of eternity his item level is still steadily climbing.
     Brewfest is on. Since I'd finished the achieve for my violet proto-drake a while back I don't always take much notice of the in-game holidays any more, but then  someone reminded me about the mounts. I got the ram the first year I did it, but I still didn't have the kodo, so Os' player and I have been diligently running the boss every day on several characters. And today Tai got the lucky drop. So here he is on his shiny new brewfest kodo. Of all my characters it does seem oddly appropriate that Tai would be the one to win this mount. He does like his beer.

     And speaking of beer I had nipped over there to see about getting Tai into the Brew of the Month club (which I still need to do) but then I got distracted by checking out the souvenirs and seeing that they had this:

     A Pandaren brewkeg. I had to have one for Tai and I've already had a bunch of fun running around with it and getting people drunk. Tai's in a new mog too, his fancy leathers, because it seems appropriate to dress up for killing your Warchief.

     And there's the Timeless Isle. Tyl's still hanging around over there off and on, slowly trying to see about grinding up coins for a new bow because RNG hasn't been kind to him and it would be better than what he has. And well, SprYte's Alliance Death Knight just hit 90 so I talked her into getting herself some new gear on the Isle with promises of Tyl for company.
     We decided to catch some birds up so she could get her blazing chest and that's when things got interesting. She'd caught her bird and Tyl and Snowthorn waited somewhat impatiently for another one to fly by. Eventually one did and Tyl shot it. Only instead of picking up Tyl the albatross scooped up Snowthorn and started to fly away with her. Tyl was forced to chase it down and shoot it out of the sky to get his cat back. Darn birds. Luckily the next one he tried shooting behaved much more as expected. Still I laughed really hard and wished I could have managed to take a decent screenshot of the experience.

A mini rant about Gnomeregan

Tycertank's given us another Screenshot a Day list for October. I'm not sure if I'll do all of them but for today it makes something fun and pretty to put at the top of my post.

Day 1: Something Colorful

Taken on Laen's journey to level 10, because it was pretty.

     Today, after all the cooldowns and Tai running three scenarios to try to get some more jp for Laen's shield I decided to switch over to Laen himself for a couple instances. Nobody else on in guild then so it was just Laen queuing up solo. And it was Gnomeregan. I hate Gnomeregan!
     I don't think I'm the only one. I don't usually mention in instance chat that I do, but if I do, I never fail to have at least one person agree... and often enough it's somebody else who pipes up to mention their undying distaste for the place. It sucks to heal in. Gnomeregan has been the rock upon which many of my attempts at healer leveling have broken.
     Today first instance was Gnomeregan with a warrior tank and hunter from the same guild. Can't remember the name of it, it was something about twinks and they were all in heirlooms. Their names were borderline offensive but whatever, I just wanted to run the dungeon. We wiped right off because of the jump.      Why does the stupid dungeon have to start with a gigantic and painful jump off the side. Sure they give you parachutes now, but inevitably somebody can't figure them out, or somebody misfires and part of the group ends up in one spot and the people who used them end up in another then the boss pulls and quite often people die. Then there's the inevitable hunter pet that wasn't dismissed that tries to run the long way around and brings half the instance with it.
     This time I'd used it, the hunter was dead right off and I couldn't run into range/line of sight of the warrior before he followed. Well the rest of everybody died shortly after. So at least the mobs the hunter's pet would have brought probably reset. I don't think that hunter used a parachute once in the instance and he died every time there was a jump. And when I randomed in with the same two a second time... he still wasn't using them and was still dying.
     I'm not actually complaining so much about these players. I didn't like their names so that made me slightly predisposed to be less understanding of their mistakes, but really they weren't that bad. What I'm really trying to get my complain on about is Gnomeregan. I'm glad there are parachutes, but if you're horde side there's nothing at all to tell you they exist if your party doesn't, or you don't already know. So you can't even expect people to know to use them really.
     And I guess maybe the rationale behind starting with the big jump is that people are actually supposed to run around the long way and do the other stuff, but nobody does and the instance is left feeling really annoying because of that big fall at the beginning. Honestly I don't think I'd even mind the place if not for that. Anyhow, Laen persevered. The hunter kept dying but as a healer I refuse to take responsibility for preventable falls. I won't stop leveling him,  I won't even stop doing it via dungeons, because I am learning. But I will be really glad when he's too high level to queue into Gnomeregan any more!