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.

Timeless Isle!

Slacked off on my screenshot of the day yesterday with the new patch. So here are two days:

Day 10: Sweet

Because I love donuts. And when I think of sweet things in WoW I always think of this cart.

Day 11: What You Did Today

Ran around on the Timeless Isle. A lot. That's what I did today and yesterday. I suspect it's what a lot of people did because I saw plenty of them. :D

     Timeless Isle is pretty awesome. A bit crowded and a lot of painful sometimes. Seish didn't do too badly over there yesterday, died several times, helped down lots of rares. Mailed off four bits of plate to Rim, Two pieces of mail to Aug, two bits of cloth to Tal the warlock who really needs to get leveled so I have some use for cloth, and a couple pieces of leather to Zakuli to stash in his bank in case there's a leather wearing person who needs them at some point on their server.
     Tai went a while later with his best prot pally and they did most of the quests, but not too many rares because theirs is a busier server and most things died before they could get anywhere near them. Still they found a few chests and Tai managed to get three upgrades for himself and some pieces of mail that he sent of to Varrega... who is about a million years from using them, but maybe someday.
     Rim went with his mage later. They managed to do a fair portion of the questline and get a bunch of upgrades. Rim started off the day at 485 and between the gifts from Seish and what he found himself he ended the night at 491. Not bad for a guy who has never done an LFR!
     This morning though Seish's looting was glitched so after helping down two rares and not getting anything from them at all because the looting wasn't working. I switched to Aug. Aug is mostly doing it in hopes of getting his leatherworking cooldown, but like Rim looking for the BS pattern last night he's had a couple hours of just no luck, and has taxed the guild bank with his repairs :P Good thing he'd donated a bunch the night before or I'd have to feel bad.
     So overall, I'm enjoying the patch so far. Except for the Vale. Looking at it just kind of breaks my heart. I'd taken a bunch of screenshots before the patch, but now I wish I'd taken a lot more. I took some just scenic shots, like the one that's background for my blog at the moment, and then some of Tai there because of all my characters Tai is the one who loves Pandaria most. And as soon as he gets a chance he'll be punching Garrosh in the face for what he's done to it.

     And you know... I'd griped a bit about the Golden Lotus dailies when Rim and Syri were doing them, but I didn't actually mind them all that much. I didn't want them to ever be gone. :( The thing I minded the most about them really was that they were a gate for the Shado-Pan and August Celestials at first. But the dailies themselves, I didn't mind so much. I wish now I'd taken some good close shots of the pagoda.

Alt Appreciation Week: Mages

      Laeleiweyn over at World of Lae has come up with the fun idea of Alt Appreciation. Weeks dedicated to our alts of each class. This week it's mages. That works out fairly conveniently for me, with the new patch hitting this week and the likelihood of me spending a lot of time on Seish, Rim, and Tai it's just as well that I don't have a whole lot of mage alts. I've been trying to level one. I'd really like to have one, but I can't seem to find the courage to try leveling one on my own, so I've got three and they're all bound to leveling with someone else's characters.
     Still hopefully I can squeeze in a little love of some kind for my mages. They have portals after all. And two of my favorite players play them. Without further ado. My mages:

Murasaki

Level 64 Arcane Mage (Alliance)

     Why yes, she is named after a character from the Tale of Genji. I couldn't resist. In my head she's a delicate, refined lady of a Pandaren, do not let the skimpiness of her leveling attire fool you. When she's finished leveling she'll be very nicely covered in lovely purple robes. At the moment though she's running around in Outland with my husband's rogue.

Malyn

Level 26 Arcane Mage

     Malyn lives on the same server with Seish and Rim and a great number of my other characters. So she doesn't have to do plebeian things like having gathering professions or leveling without heirlooms. She's an alchemist/engineer and I picture her constantly tinkering with one thing and another. She's a bit snooty and overly impressed with herself, and has many many fancy transmogs planned if her leveling ever manages to go anywhere. Currently she's following my husband's paladin around in dungeons when she's not fiddling with gadgets or potions and transmutes.

Fal

Level 26 Arcane Mage

     Fal is Tai's younger brother. Not that you'd know it to look at them or to be around them. They're about as different as two people can possibly be. Fal's currently leveling with a Priest that belongs to one of my best friends. They run around in lovely robes and fabulously kill things together. I really love this character and have put in so much time with him on the side that I can't even work on leveling his professions any more (Tailoring/Jewelcrafting) because he's entirely maxed out in both for his level.

     Ideally I'd like to spend at least a little time on all of them this week, but since they all rely on leveling partners I can't really do much solo. Think I will try to talk the husband into a few quests or a dungeon for the pandaren girls, and maybe design a new transmog for Fal. Malyn will hopefully get a shipment of mats from some loyal henchmen and level her professions a bit more. But we'll see.

Screenshot Day 9

For Tycertank's Screenshot of the Day
Day 9- On the Wall

It had to be Tai on the Serpent's Spine with the Shado-Pan. It just did.

Hunter Week Recap

     Hunter Week was awesome! I managed to meet all my goals for my hunters, even if I didn't exceed them like I'd hoped. I had a lot of fun seeing other people's blog posts and hunter stories and some really amazing thoughts and ideas for the class. I've got a few of both of my own, though they aren't as in-depth as a lot of others.
     Hunters aren't my main class though they are one of the three classes I love best and spend the most time playing. They're my go-to for ranged and leveling another alt solo? Good chance it will be a hunter. I love the archery aspect, and I adore the pets. I've only been playing since just before Cataclysm so I never had to deal with pets leaving me because I didn't feed them, but I did have to feed them to keep them happy so their damage would be at it's best, at least for a few levels. I was sad when they took that away. It added a flavor to the class.
     I never played when ammo was in the game, and I am kind of glad for that. It just sounds like one more thing I'd inevitably have forgotten to bring with me. At the same time... having a quiver would be pretty awesome.
     I'm possibly the only hunter player who was sad to see minimum range go. There were some stuff it was really obnoxious for. There was one quest in Storm Peaks when I was leveling Tyl that took me multiple tries and what seemed like ages to get because Tyl's Beast Mastery and the quest was one where I couldn't have a pet and couldn't use my bow. It was mildly awful, but I managed it. I liked the feeling of minimum range, I liked that it made me think more about what I was doing and plan things. Though the truth is it doesn't actually make much sense.
     I kind of miss aspect of the fox for the same reason. It made me think, deciding when it was worth using it for casting cobra shot on the go, and when it was better to just stand still. I liked that. And I liked feeding my pet. I could still do that, but I usually don't remember to now.
     Some things I'd like to see change for hunters, maybe like a lot of others have said, it would be nice to see a little more difference between the specs, but preferably without changing them into something other than hunters. I wouldn't want to play a spec that couldn't have pets and I'd be a bit sad if I couldn't shoot bows.
     I hope they never give exotics to all specs. Though it might be a bit neat if each spec got certain pets they could tame that others couldn't. Not sure what those would be but  maybe a pet family or two for survival and the same for marksmanship. Basically I'd like to see the specs get to be just a bit more different from each other than they are now.
     I've got a taming wish or two also. Ever since I saw the stags in Ashenvale I've wanted to tame stags. I really wish we could do that. We can tame goats now, why not stags? I wouldn't say no to a hydra either.
     I want to see more rare trackable pets like the ones in Pandaria. Tracking them was some of the most fun I've had and following those tracks the first time I came across them in Kun Lai really made me feel like a hunter. It took me ages to figure out what I was doing and flare the beast up and by the time I'd finished the tame my hands were shaking.
     Hunting up a rare pet is something I still love to do on my hunters on days I'm feeling a bit down. I love that feeling like I've made a new friend and even though my hunters' pets are all just pixels, I'm very attached to some of them. And I think that's really what I love most about the class. I get to have all the pet tigers I want, even if in real life it would be a very bad idea. :D

   

Screenshot Day 8

Day 8: Made by me

It's good to be a jewelcrafter! Jade panther and Sapphire cub. Made by Seish. Pile of dead bugs in the foreground? Also made by Seish.

Of Hunters and Mogs

Day 7: White

I knew I'd take this one in Storm Peaks. It's one of my very favorite zones and there's a lot of white. But this isn't what I had in mind for the shot. I'm not sure what it is, actually. But it's neat and white and had little floaty snowflakes in it and I sat and watched it bounce around for a while.

Hunter Week: Crescënt and Thierrel

     I almost forgot about poor Thierrel. I've done so little with him since he and his leveling buddy made it out of Gilneas. But luckily for him I was looking over my hunter list and remembered I'd promised him a transmog design. I use Mogit. It's an amazing add-on that makes flight paths interesting and periodically distracts me from doing anything at all constructive in game. So I hopped onto Thierrel and used Mogit to whip him together a transmog.
     There's something about having a transmog in mind for a character that makes it more exciting for me to level them. I can imagine what they'll look like at max level, and sometimes in picking out a mog, a character like Thierrel who hasn't spawned a full fledged personality in my head will get one. So here's the mog I picked for Thierrel. A list of items can be had by asking for them in the comments but for his I'm being lazy.

     I think he looks awesome and vicious and feral and now... I really want to get in touch with my friend SprYte and make her get out his buddy so we can level them.

     Crescënt also got a transmog goal added to her goals for the week. I'm still working on farming leather but I decided that since she's already wearing her mog she really needed a bow, preferably one she could get at level 54. And I found the perfect bow. A few quests in Felwood later and Crescënt is entirely outfitted. And she can't even fly yet! Since I'm relatively proud of her mog and she's actually wearing it: Here's a full-fledged mog post for her:

Head: Lord's Crown
Shoulders: Ironpatch Shoulderguards
Chest: Chestpiece of Returning Strength
Waist: Knight's Girdle
Hands: Finder's Keepers
Legs: Sea Legs
Feet: Boots of the Deliverer
Back: Ebonhold Cloak
Bow: Moonbow

I'm not entirely happy with the boots, but can't seem to find a better match, and overall I'm pretty proud of this set.