And Ding 80 #5

Yes, Daneck, my human mage, hit level 80 yesterday. And then I started the Wintersaber grind with him. Not sure why, just something to do. Inspired by seeing the Venomhide Ravasaur quest on the Public Test Realms(which looks insanely easy, even though it takes 20 days worth of dailies).


The Midsummer Fire Festival has helped quite a few of my alts level up. I've done nearly all of my 'under 60' characters, and just about all of them got at least one level. A few of my 'over 60' characters got quite a chunk of xp as well. Though I really don't do the "desecrating" of the other factions flames(except in one case, which I will discuss in a moment), so I really only get about 1/3 of the possible XP available. Fine with me.

I DID do a little bit of desecrating with my mage, Daneck, as he is working towards the 75 pet achievement, and the Spirit of Summer makes #61 for him. My druid and rogue had gotten this back way back when it was a quest to obtain him. They also got their Fire Festival Crown for stealing the opposing factions cities flames 2 years ago-before achievements. And even though I still have the crowns, I did not get credit for that achievement, and I am not interested in making that run again. So none of my characters will have the Flame Keeper/Warden title, and that is fine with me.

And then there's Ahune. A boss I never thought I'd see, but they left him at level 70ish this year. So my hubby's Paladin, kid's mage, and my druid have been 3 manning him. And after 14 kills we haven't even seen the pet drop yet. Sad panda. There was that one run where we wiped...because our power went out when we had him at 10%. I'm certain he would have dropped the pet that one time. Grrrr. So all cloaks and LOTS of them, 1 staff(my kid wanted it badly) and 1 enchant(for my druid) so far. And lots of those stupid cloaks. Grrrrr.

Ding 80 #4!

Yes, last night my Death Knight finally hit level 80, making him my fourth at max level. Druid, Hunter, Rogue and now Death Knight. And my human mage is one bar from 79.

Next up is my Blood Elf Paladin, who duos with my husband's Undead Priest.


Also, still leveling my new baby Dwarf Paladin. She hit level 46 yesterday!

I love Death Knights!

I know most people hate them, but I have to say that they have really been a boon to solo-ers like me. I also consider my time duoing with my husband as soloing as well, because we never group with anyone else and basically I do all the work. And this is where Death Knights come in!

Before Death Knights:

On all but my main realm, where I have high level characters- and some of those characters were duoing Scarlet Monastery at level 40 just to avoid groups- my little alts would flounder around in the worst gear, with no guild, avoiding everyone like the plague. Ok, most are still unguilded and I always avoid other people like the plague. But dealing with no money and worse gear made leveling those alts a pain. Until some of those alts got high enough to run new alts through instances for gear(like my hunter on Draenor).

After Death Knights:

But only after the change to allow DKs on any realm as long as you have a level 55 on any realm.

I started a Paladin, mentioned in the post below, on a new realm a few weeks ago. Except this time, different than those days previously, I was able to do this after rolling a Death Knight with my husband on the same realm:

• Send my new Paladin a little money for bags and to get started
• Run out and farm certain items or check certain vendors for items
• Sit in Stormwind and act as a bank alt

And the most important thing-my husband's Death Knight, even though they are still only level 59, is able to run me through Deadmines, Shadowfang Keep, Razorfen Keep, and Scarlet Monastery. And my Death Knight will be running any alts he might start through instances down the road.

I realize this will only take me so far, but once you get close to heading to Outland, the ball starts rolling downhill and gear becomes less important. Outland quest rewards are good enough to get you through solo to Northrend. And of course, soloing to 80 once you hit Northrend is also easy as pie. Seeing as how I have completely soloed 2 and almost a third to the top.


So my baby Paladin, at level 39, is looking good in her Scarlet Gear, thanks to Death Knights. And my other baby Paladin(Blood Elf) on a different realm, is rocking some good stuff at level 42. And my level 30 baby rogue on Moonguard will soon look a little better than the peasant I play him as-at least when it comes time to quest!

Thank you Death Knights! Thank you!

Deadman's Hand...woot!

I started a new Paladin recently. After just a few weeks, she is already at level 37(and just got exalted with Stormwind today!). Over the weekend, I had my hubby's Death Knight run me through Scarlet Monastery and much to my surprise, Doan dropped Deadman's Hand! I could not believe it-in one run! And to further my luck, in the first run of Herod, I got the Scarlet Tabard! I'm still in shock!

This is actually my 2nd Deadman's Hand, my first was gotten by my Warlock, many moons ago. He was still wearing it until his mid-60s! Makes me wonder if I will ever take this one off of my new Pally.

And speaking of my Pally, have you ever started a character and felt so comfortable playing them that it seems like you should have been playing this character all along? Yep, this little Dwarf Paladin is doing that for me. I actually have a level 12 or so Dwarf Paladin on another realm that I abandoned ages ago. Sort of wishing I had stuck with them. But this one, the name I like, the look, everything. And I am having so much fun playing her that I've played nearly all of her 37 levels on unrested time, which is something I just never do. No matter! Plus, I've always wanted to ride an Alliance Paladin mount, it was one of the only ones I'd never ridden on any character-and now I have(still like the Blood Elf version better though!).

Way to go Penguins!!

Just wanted to show my Penguin love(Stanley Cup Champions, by the way-that's hockey) this morning!

Mounts at 20?!?!

Holy cow! In the next patch, there will be some big mount changes. Namely: regular mounts at level 20, epic mounts at level 40(!), flying mounts at level 60-and being increased from 60% speed to 150% speed. Holy Guacamole! Epic flying will still be 5k gold, but at least you can get some sort of faction discount on it now. All other prices are changed accordingly(level 20 mount for 4g riding, 1g mount! What?!).

WoW. Just wow.

What that means for an altoholic? Well, it means I have I don't even know how many level 20-29 alts around that will be running to get a mount(even though I don't play them much, maybe I will now!). I have at least 4, almost 5, characters that are 40+ that will be looking at getting epics when the patch hits. But I wonder about Paladin mounts. You obviously can't do the epic quest at level 40! Will we get our Chargers free if we pay for riding? Or do we have to wait until level 61 like now? That means getting my Blood Elf to exalted with Undercity or Orgrimmar as quickly as possible(I refuse to ride that chicken). My Dwarf wouldn't have a problem riding the ram, but I'm close to exalted with Stormwind, so that won't matter soon.


WoW. Just wow. What a change! New druid forms and lower mount levels...BRING ME PATCH 3.2!!

I've never...

I thought it might be fun to make a post stating things that I've never done in World of Warcraft. I'm always talking about the things I do, this post is about the things I have never done.

I'VE NEVER...

• Stepped foot into Molten Core or Zul'Gurub and I don't even know where Blackwing Lair is
• Done Scholo or Strat with an appropriate level group
• Been in a raid instance, ever, anywhere(that one in WG I did once, but I wouldn't count that-and I'll never go back)
  
• Raided an opposing factions city
• Completed any Northrend instance
• Gotten the title "Jenkins" on any character-I don't even know where the place is that you can get it
• Been equipped in all epic gear
• Won the fishing contest-though I have certainly tried
• Killed an opposing factions NPC, anywhere(BGs do not count)
• Gotten a single Honorable Kill with my hunter, Wyl. Level 80 with 0 HKs
• Advertised anything in /trade chat
• Made any friends in game-oh sure I add people to my friends list every now and then, but they never speak to me again usually after that day so I just delete them later
• Killed Onyxia
• Fished up Mr Pinchy-thousands of lobsters later. Grrrrr
• Joined the Looking For Group thing, I don't even know how it works
• Been in any heroic dungeon, Outland or Northrend, not even stepped foot in one
• Leveled past 33 on a PvP server-I just don't get the fun there
• Been in a guild with more than about 10 people in it(my old PvP character is in a huge guild, but since I haven't logged in with him since about last November[and don't plan ever to again] I wouldn't really count him)
  

If I think of any more I will add them later.

Pathetic huh, why am I even bothering. :(

Isn't she cute?

Got my Chef's Hat yesterday! And I've added the tux outift that I got a million of during Noblegarden to complete my fishing/cooking outfit! Oh sure, I put on my Weathered Fishing hat when I need to, but I think she looks pretty stylin' when she runs around Dalaran hunting down half-empty wine glasses. I've donned the old Chef title for now as well-I really like "Crusader", but "Chef" just fits my mood at the moment.

Another fawn!

Yes, that's right. One week after my druid got her 75th pet and little fawn, I bought the Azure Whelpling off the AH with Rayak for 740g to make his 75th pet! I had been hoping not to spend money on it, but the fishing lady just won't give up a Crawler and I haven't had the time to do the Argent dailies with him to get his Sen'Jin Fetish.

No biggie, he now has the red and blue whelps and the little fawn!

Now to get Daneck up there-he has 57 pets!

Crusader Kickingbird

I was kind of hoping all 5 achievements would show up at the same time-blotting out my character! No dice, just got the 2 showing. But you can see all 5 listed to the left. Just managed another 40 Seals, will be buying a pet for my kid's character when she gets home from school!

Rayak-still 4 Seals from his first pet and stuck on his 3rd Valiant. Haven't played him much, was waiting for hubby and kid's characters to trio with and they haven't really been into it.

Wyl-Almost done with his 4th Valiant, only Thunder Bluff left after this. His first 40 Seals bought a pet for Kickingbird. He has 6 now, will be buying the Staff of Feral Furies for him when he gets to 25(which could be a week, could be longer, I'm kinda burned out on these dailies!)

Wyndampryce, level 30 Demon Hunter

Level 30 and mounted! Sweet. This will make exploring and herbing so much easier now. Still waiting for full levels of rest before continuing.

Little Fawn pet

On May 1, I got the last 2 pets I needed for the 75 pet achievement. The Mulgore Hatchling from the Argent Tournament was #73. The third Outland pet from Children's Week was #74. And then my hunter got the Durotar Scorpion with his Champion's Seals and sent it over to Kick for #75.

The fawn is very cute, and I do run around with the little guy out a lot, ya know just to say "hey I'm weird and I have a LOT of minipets!". I love the Mulgore Hatchling though. It is so cute and I love his running around.

I'm only a few tokens from 40 again, but I promised my daughter I would buy her a pet with my next purchase. She is at 69 pets with her mage. And in a few days, my druid will be known as Crusader Kickingbird(I'm behind a few days thanks to broken computers and a broken arm-my daughters-and laziness!).

Oh, and my rogue, Rayak, is 6 seals from getting his first AT pet-which will be #75 for him!

Wyndampryce, level 29 Demon Hunter

And he reaches 29th level, still having only killed demons!

It really hasn't been as bad as I had thought grinding might have been. For the last few levels I've been fighting the demons in Ashenvale. First were the Lesser Felguards and Felslayers(23-24) in Fire Scar Shrine in the southwest area. Then I fought the Felmusk Felsworn, Rogue, Satyr and Shadowstalkers(25-27) in the Nights Run area. The last level was fighting the Bleakheart Satyr, Shadowstalkers and Tricksters(26-28) in Satyrnaar. I will probably continue to fight those demons and the ones in Xavian(28-30) for the next few levels. I also have the option of fighting the Mannoroc Lashers, Roaming Felguard and Searing Infernals(29-30) in Felfire Hill and Demon Fall Canyon. After that he will move on to Desolace for awhile.

At this point, he has accumulated nearly 300g mainly by selling Glyphs, mostly the Minor ones. Stacks of linen and wool also sell well. He has had 2 blue drops so far, Skeletal Club from a Lesser Felguard, and Amy's Blanket from a Solid Chest in Nights Run(this one hasn't sold yet). So buying his mount at the next level will be no problem. And I look forward to moving up with him. Although, of course, he is only gaining roughly one level per week, so 30 more weeks until he hits level 60! And I don't look forward to figuring out how to get gear once he hits Outland without doing quests. And he will be stuck in Outland until he can't get any more Xp from those mobs, as there aren't many demons in Northrend. I'm not sure what I will do then!

One more note, I have allowed him the "luxury" of doing Holiday quests-as long as they don't involve killing anything. I did Children's Week, got the pet rat, "Whiskers". I gathered a few eggs during Noblegarden-but only enough to get the Spring Rabbit and the Bunny Ears. So far the only pets he has are from Holidays-Sinister Squashling, Peddlefeet, Spring Rabbit and Whiskers! The next holiday up is Midsummer Fire Festival-not sure he will be getting the Spirit of Summer-that's a LOT of torches to toss! And then to get Wolpertinger at Brewfest.

Got my Sea Turtle!

Yeah! I finally went out to attempt to fish up the Sea Turtle mount. I went to the lake just south of Camp Winterhoof in Howling Fjord. One trip around the lake, 29 catches later, and there he was! I could not believe it! What's more shocking is that I got it so easily with Kick-she NEVER has luck with fishing! She still doesn't have any Crocs or the Fishing Hat and has only gotten worthless glass from the new fishing quests(and I can't count the MILLIONS of stupid lobsters I've caught so far without Mr Pinchy coming up)! I wonder if my luckier fellas, Rayak(has 2 Crocs, the hat, etc) and Daneck(got the Bone Fishing Pole in his first fishing daily bag, and has Chuck!) will fair just as well if I take them out??

Explorer #5

That's right, I took an hour or so to finish running Daneck through Storm Peaks and Ice Crown to finish off his exploring, getting the tabard and title! He is one bar from level 74 now. Exploring XP just from the last few zones in Northrend filled up almost 2 bars. This makes him my 5th character with the Explorer title and tabard, and the 2nd one to get it before level 77(when you get flying in Northrend).


In other news, I got the Sprite Darter pet with Kick after about 2 hours and 10 minutes of farming. And then I went and got the Westfall Chicken putting her number of minipets at 70! Of course, the fishing quest in Shat was crocs but that mean old man just won't give Kick a baby croc. :(

Also, took my engineer on Kael'Thas, Tohopka, to Gnomer to get the recipe for Lil Smoky. Took about 6 or 7 Nullifiers to get the recipe and then back to Dalaran where I had all of the mats already. I never realized he was so small! And smoky! My engineer on Draenor couldn't get in to Gnomer for some reason, kept getting "Instance Not Found", so will have to wait on that one. And my third engineer will probably wait until next week as well.

And it goes down...of course

So the realms FINALLY came back up last night around 7pm my time. With HORRIBLE lag(due to either everyone and their dog logging on at the same time or hubby watching some tv show on hulu at the same time on his computer-not sure). I did get the following things accomplished before hitting the hay(and checking in again this morning to see the realms going down for another 2 hours!):

• Rogue, Rayak:

1. Talent points done
2. Logged out in Grizzly Hills, took about 20 kills to get the book Technique: Rituals of the New Moon; made 4 books(1 black wolf, 2 red, 1 grey-black for me, red for my kid's mage, other 2 for AH)-put one on AH for 275g
3. Fishing daily-Ghostfish, rewards-vile of poison which starts another quest to turn in to someone in sewers, awarded another 13g and 250 more Kirin Tor rep
4. Put lots of glyphs that have been gathering dust in our guild bank on the AH-logged in long enough this morning to see 2 full pages of money from AH!!
5. Bought black wolf mount in Orgrimmar

• Hunter, Wyl:

1. Talent points put in for him and pet(Briarsting is my boar from level 10, got in Westfall-look forward to doing some AoE Thunderstomp farming with him!)
2. Put 20 slot bag in place of quiver! Stacked up ammo and I have so much bag space now! YAY!
3. Bought black wolf mount in Orgrimmar

• Hunter, Windextor:

1. Talent points put in
2. Bought black wolf mount!
   
3. Equipped Travellers Backpack and have so much bag space!

• Druid, Kickingbird

1. Talent points put in(no dual for her, still kitty feral only)
2. Fishing daily-Ghostfish, rewards-worthless piece of orange glass :( btw, my kid also did the quest and she got the porcelain bell which sells for 100g!
3. Learned new cooking recipe, Black Jelly
4. Did cooking daily-Convention
5. Headed to Feralas to farm Sprite Darter. Lots of people on Warcraftpets.com said they had gotten it quickly. After an hour I hadn't gotten one, so my luck just sucks

• Rogue, Wyndampryce

1. Just put several glyphs I had extra on the AH

And that's about all I had time to do. I went to bed at 11pm last night(which is at the least an hour past my bedtime, hehe, I'm tired this morning). And I log in this morning to see that realms are going down for another 2 hours. Sigh.

Need to...get started on Argent Tournament! I tried the Sprite Darter farming for an hour, I think more of that will have to wait now. And since it is Bind on Pickup, there won't be any need to shell out loads of G on the AH for it-which is sort of good(eek, just spent 1450g on Dark Whelpling last week-somewhere around 1500 kills and no drop makes someone very needy).

Should...log in with everyone and at the very least replace talent points.

Oh and addons...XPerl-had to update; TomTom-probably not going to worry about it being gone right now; LeaveMeAlone-WANT UPDATE OR EQUIVALENT NOW!; Altoholic-update is said to be coming, will live without for now; Ackis recipe List-updated; AmmoFu-completely broken, don't really need it now though. Everything else seems to be working okay, especially AuctionLite and GatherMate and Cartographer. Excellent.

Patch 3.1 is here

So much to do, so much time to wait for realms to come back up.

Mini-pet news:

• Westfall Chicken available in Brill(my rogue has it, will be getting it now on all other toons)
• Engineering pets available from dropped recipes in Gnomer(I have 3 engineers)
• Crab pet available from new fishing dailies
• Sprite Darter drops from Darters in Feralas(YaY! another to farm)
• Many new pets from Argent tournament, 5 for own faction, 1 new "Squire" kid to follow you around, and finding the other factions pets in the AH(for tons of G I'm sure)(note to self: MUST level human mage SOON!)

New Recipes:

• Alchemy: low level +hit elixir
• Engineering: both pets available from drops in Gnomer
• Inscription: dropped recipe in Grizzly Hills for book that transforms you into a wolf
• Inscription: new glyphs from randomly dropped books(ick, I hate this)
• Jewelcrafting: a few new ring recipes
• Enchanting: some new ones, didn't really pay attention, my enchanting probably isn't high enough anyway
• Cooking: 2 new recipes, also need to save up 100 tokens for chef's hat!
• Fishing: new dailies in Dalaran! Chance for crab pet! Fish up turtle mount in pools! So much!

Re-doing ALL talent points!
Argent Tournament!
Three new low level Horde mounts!

Now I need to do some busy work so the day will go by faster!

Another Explorer

Not yet, but I plan on working on it this week. I was playing Geocacher and realized he didn't have a title. I thought "Ambassador" would probably be pretty easy, since he already has Darnassus and Stormwind to exalted. Then I thought, nope, how could a GEOCACHER NOT be an explorer!! I mean, the very nature of a geocacher is to be an explorer! And if you don't know what geocaching is, you can read about it here on wikipedia. I generally feel that playing WoW is like "virtual geocaching" for me. :) So...from levels 65 to 68 I will be working on exploring Azeroth and Outland. Once Geo hits 68, he gets flight form so I can finish any places in Outland that were unattainable. And then it is time for the death romp through Northrend. But I want this badly now that I've thought about it!


And Wormtongue has turned level 74. Learned the Dalaran portal. One hand good-I can port my kid's characters there now. Other hand bad-prepared to be bugged constanstly any time he is back in Old World. He may never see Undercity again(hey they have Mage trainers in Dalaran!).

Kickingbird, as of now

This is my main, Kickingbird, level 80 Druid. I just wanted to show a screenshot of how she looks now. I only log in with her these days to do the cooking daily(gotta have that cooking hat when the next patch hits! Only 60 more tokens to go). And she will do the fishing daily when it comes in the next patch. Sometimes I go out and mine with her, but I try to use other characters that are still leveling up mining to do that.

And that is probably how she will look one year from now. That's cool. I like the look. She spends most of her time in some other form anyway, so it doesn't make much difference! Well, I do ride around on that Green Proto Drake that I got from the Oracles at times. Just because it's so freakin' cool!

But I love her. I love playing her. She is me. Yep.

It's "Lost" night

Another reason why I don't raid! Yeah, I like tv shows. And no, I don't have tivo(and don't intend to get it anytime soon).

So here's the schedule...

Monday-Big Bang Theory, 2nd half of House, Monday Night Football in season
Tuesday-American Idol, The Mentalist
Wednesday-American Idol, Lost
Thursday-Bones, CSI,
Friday-this is family movie/pizza night
Saturday-nothing on tv, play WoW with family members
Sunday-Amazing Race

Any time not taken up when I'm not playing is usually spent watching something on The History Channel or Discovery Channel. And I usually go to bed at 9pm central.

There is no leeway in that schedule. The only nights there isn't something "concrete" planned is Friday and Saturday-and those are times I spend playing my characters with my husband and my kid. I could never agree to any guild's 'raid schedule' because I have my own more important schedule. :)