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.