Merry Xmas! Oh What A Busy Week!

Christmas Dragon Baby

I hope everyone had a lovely Xmas & I hope you have lots of parties arranged for New Years Eve too. I had a very quiet Xmas so I've had a lot more playtime than usual and how did I do with my To Do list from last week? Not so good actually but only because I got sidetracked into stuff I wanted to do but hadn't put on the list! I didn't move the DK along at all & only did a few pet battles although I did manage to get the Big City Brawlin' achievement once I noticed that I was only missing Ironforge & Father Winter was there anyway!

The Winter Veil achieves for my Paladin still elude me. I was kissing revellers to get a Handful of Snowflakes but the RNG was against me. I have holly & mistletoe in abundance but no snowflakes for her until I read somewhere that I could trade them. Luckily my banker had been kissing revellers too so I roped in my ever patient & helpful guildie Setesh to hold my snowflakes whilst I logged my Paladin. It still took me until late last night to get the last class/race combo I needed though.

So off I went to my void storage, convinced I already had the winter hat & clothes but no - so today's task is to get those sorted out  for the eating achieve & hit up the battlegrounds dressed as a helper to get the last 2 parts I need for the Winter Veil achievement.

Two great achievements did come my way this week though - I finally hit Exalted with the Golden Lotus & that gave me my 40 Exalted Reputations achieve & I did manage to finish off the Dread Wastes quests which gave me my Pandaren Loremaster achieve! Yay, go me :P

So did I get my Paladin into a Heroic dungeon? Nope! I chickened out again this week but I did take her into some scenarios & wasn't too disappointed with her progress. I picked up a couple of Epic gear items this week - there's an Epic necklace for finishing the final Golden Lotus quests & all those dailies gave me enough Valor Points to finally get the Dawnblade's Chestguard from the Golden Lotus Quartermaster. With a couple of Rare quality items from the scenarios my ilevel is upto 453 now so that has helped her DPS a great deal. I still need to gem & enchant her though but that can wait a while.

Now my Hunter has been going great and this week she has just continued being lucky with gear drops! Two Blues & a Purple piece of gear from running scenarios on Saturday as well a whole bunch of achieves but not the Scenaturday one unfortunately. I've been doing dailies for Golden Lotus, Klaxxi & Tillers on her as well as a few heroics here & there.

Yesterday, Cold persuaded me to join a Sha of Anger group & talked me through the basic strategy. Unfortunately neither of us had taken into account how rubbish my PC is when it comes to a 40-man raid! I think I died within 30 seconds as I couldn't see the black stuff until I was already dead! damned lag! After a few more deaths, mainly from lag, it has to be said, they finally got the Sha down (without much help from me at all!) & I got my Epic boots from the quest item he drops. I used one of my Elder Charms for a bonus roll & guess what? Yup, my first attempt at any sort of 'raid' & I got lucky again - the Yaungol Slayer's Legguards dropped for me - ilevel 496 no less!

So all in all, I think this has been a great week for me in game. I'm definitely gaining some of my confidence back, getting used to using keyboard for spells rather than mouseclicking them & trying stuff I never would have just 3 months ago. I'm off on my travels again in a couple of days so my Paladin & DK will have to wait for my return but my Hunter will get a lot of playtime over the next few weeks. I may even resurrect my level 40 priest project I started earlier this year too.

This Week's To Do List - Pre Xmas Panic!

Last week's To Do List was a bit of a hit here at Casa Nev so I'm going to make another for this week. I do spend a lot of time in game just mooching around from one alt to another, doing stuff as it strikes me. This means that things do get done - eventually but by making a list last week, I found that I really focused on those things more than all the other stuff I usually do.

I think that having written it down in a public place made me want to get that stuff done & not let my readers think badly of me. I know no-one really cares if I get it done or not, it just feels more important in my head so I knuckled down & did it - well most of it anyway.

The only thing that didn't get done was leveling my DK a bit more. I did get my warrior to 87 & with a big Thank You to Soco for giving me a lift to the Shrine of Seven Stars to get my Blacksmith recipe, I managed to max my Blacksmithing too.

I was pretty good at getting my Golden Lotus dailies done & finally hit Revered with them on Sunday evening. I bought the Grand Commendation straight away and last night I got to around 6k/21k so just another 3 or 4 days to get to Exalted I reckon.

My biggest time sink this week has been pet collecting though - not only did I get to the 200 unique pets target I set myself, I actually made it to 206. I think I have most of the wild pets below level 12 now so I need to level up my team a bit more before I tackle the next zones & the next Pet Trainer Battle. I'm going to add that to this week's list I think!

One thing I did do this week that wasn't on my list was to take my US Hunter into a Heroic dungeon - we actually did a couple although that last boss in Shado-Pan Monastery kicked my butt at 2am! Cold popped his Blingtron 4000 to cheer me up - I didn't know I could party with it & I didn't know it would transform me into a human either. I did a couple of screenshots just for fun & managed to catch Cold in his John Travolta impersonation! He's gonna kill me for this one I think!

Cold Goes Disco!

The one thing I didn't put on the list was Winter Veil - I'd forgotten that it was starting so I added that in to my list. I only needed 5 of the smaller achievements to get the title, Merrymaker & so far I think I've managed to get 2 of them. I'm still kissing Revellers to get a Handful of Snowflakes, I need to make the Winter Clothes for myself (or find them in my alts banks of course!) & the dreaded PvP one - 50 honorable kills doesn't sound too bad but I have no PvP gear & I don't want to spend out on a set. I can see a frustrating evening in my near future!

So the list for this week isn't that long, just a few bits left over from last week & a couple of new bits.

• Level the DK to 89 (I will get this one done this week, I am determined!)
• Raise Unique Pet count to 225 or more
• Get Exalted with Golden Lotus on Paladin (will give me 40 Exalted reps & a title too!)
• Finish the Winter Veil achievements on Paladin
• Finish the Dread Wastes quests - not only reputation points but I want to get my Pandarian Loremaster finished too. That will be my 1 year anniversary since I completed the old Loremaster title.
• Take Paladin into a Heroic dungeon - I must do this one - It's bugging me now.

Can I do all this by Xmas Eve? Maybe! I hope so anyway because I'm off on my travels again just after Xmas & I possibly won't have access to my EU account although I'm working on that. I miss my girls and all my professions, gold & heirlooms when I'm on my US account but my Hunter there is coming along nicely so that will keep me busy if I can't access my EU account.

My other big thing this week is my 2nd birthday on my goldmaking blog. If you haven't popped over, I'm running a little giveaway to celebrate & it's really easy to enter. All the details are in my Happy Birthday AH Addict post over there so if you'd like a Blizzard Store pet, go have a look & leave a comment to enter. I look forward to seeing you there.

Winter's Veil Is Here

When I wrote my to-do list for this week, I totally forgot to add in the few remaining achievements I need to complete the Winter's Veil meta-achieve & title of Merrymaker. I only need 5 more so this morning, once I realised the holiday had begun, off I went to get my achieves.

• 'Tis the Season - eat Graccu's Minced Meat Fruitcake whilst wearing 3 items of holiday clothing - great, got all the plans to make the clothes but no Fruitcake - apparently it turns up in the mail after you complete one of the other holiday quests. Finish that tomorrow then
• Let It Snow - sprinkle various race/class combinations with a Handful of Snowflakes - knew I should have kept them from last year - now I need to keep kissing Revellers to get them then I have to find alts for all the various race/class combos - also not getting done today then.
• Fa-la-la Ogri'la - complete the Bomb Them Again daily quest whilst mounted on a reindeer - ok - off to Blades Edge Mountains - where's the quest giver? Took me 10 mins to find her but yay! one achievement completed today!
• Bros Before Ho-ho-ho's - need mistletoe for this one - back to kissing Revellers everywhere again! With a 1 hour cooldown, this could take a while.
• & my most hated one - With a Little Helper from My Friends -  get 50 honorable kills whilst dressed as a Little Helper. I'm not a big fan of pvp so this one will be done with gritted teeth & probably lots of swearing!

So this morning has been a bit of a non starter to be honest. I did go to Hillsbrad to kill the Greench but he was already dead so all I had to do was pick up a Stolen Present & free Metzen the Reindeer. Judging by all the skeletons laying around in the snow, that Greench puts up a heck of a fight! I'm almost glad I missed it!

Luckily I had been looking at which pets I was missing so as I was in Arathi Highlands for the flightpath anyway, I popped over to the Wind Elemental Circle there & found not 1 but 2 Tiny Twister battle pets - I managed to trap an uncommon one so yay! another pet for my ever increasing collection.

Once I got back to Ironforge to hand in the Greench quest I got lucky again! I had a Clockwork Rocket Bot in my Stolen Present & when I learnt it, I got the Feat of Strength achievement too. Maybe this morning hasn't been so bad after all but I still haven't touched my DK or Warrior this week so that's my task for the rest of today & probably most of tomorrow - get them leveled!

This Week's To-Do List

I've been very unfocused recently - both in game, in blogland & pretty much everywhere else to be honest. I thought I'd make myself an in-game to-do list just as a kind of motivator to actually achieve certain things, rather than wandering aimlessly, doing a bit of this or a bit of that!

I'm not going to make a huge list of everything I want to do though - just a small list of stuff I think I can achieve given the smallish amount of time I've actually been playing recently. If I get other stuff done as well then that will be a bonus & I won't have to do it later!

So where to start? Leveling, goldmaking, dailies, dungeons, pet battles, achievement chasing all come to mind but that would be too much for this first list so I've narrowed it down a bit.

• DK - currently level 88, needs to get to 90 but aim for 89 this week at least
• Warrior - currently level 86, definitely needs to get to 87 & into the Capital city for the Blacksmithing recipes
• Blacksmithing - get warrior to city, get a recipe & finally get Blacksmithing maxed! (done! thanks Soco xxx)
• Paladin - Golden Lotus dailies - I must do these every day as I've only just got to honoured & I want to get started on the Shado-Pan dailies for the tiger mounts!
• Enchanting - I have loads of green armor drops that need disenchanting & I haven't leveled enchanting at all - get some skill points this week at least!
• Pets - I have 176 unique pets right now - not all rare by any means but for now I'm just aiming for 1 of each, I'll upgrade them later over time. I'd quite like to get to 200 by next week - shouldn't be too difficult as I haven't even left Eastern Kingdoms yet on the Pet Safari & the Pet Tamer achieves.

The other good thing about getting back to questing & leveling is the chance to reinforce my new found keyboard-using playstyle! I'm still struggling a bit - my little finger keeps missing the Tab button for targeting for starters & anything more than 1-5 number keys is a stretch (literally & figuratively!) but I'm getting there, it's just going to take a while I think :)

So there we go - a nice short list for me this week. I'll pop back & mark them off as & when I get them done - I'm sure I'll think of other stuff to be doing or will get sidetracked by something but at least this way - it's in black & white & maybe I won't feel so annoyed at myself next week for getting nothing done!

Getting Braver! Dungeons & Scenarios - Oh My!

A couple of days ago, I finally dinged level 90 on my US Hunter. With rested XP all the way & starting the session with about 15% done, it took just 4.5 hours to hit the max but I have to say, I wouldn't have got there so quickly without help from my friend Cold (from Cold's Gold Factory, in case you don't know his blog). He was kind about my lack of DPS & very patient as I swore & cursed my way through the quests & a couple of dungeons using my still very new keyboard skills!

Not only that, as soon as I dinged, he made me a nice new shiny gun, a scope to go with it & the correct gem too and then he logged his main & we hit up a couple of scenarios! I managed to get myself killed in the first pull of the Greenstone Village one & couldn't resurrect. I had the little window pop up on my screen but the button was greyed out. I tried reloading my UI but all that did was to lose the greyed out button. Eventually, I thought about him ressing me as a ghoul & hey! I managed to carry on then but I have no idea what happened. Luckily the other player in our group had the same problem so he was patient & eventually we got him ressed too.

It was hectic but fun - very different feel than a dungeon for some reason but once it was over & I looted the treasure bag thingy at the end, I was super happy - 1 Stormbrew Bracers of the Zephyr ilevel 463 - thank you very much!

I decided I had time for just one more scenario & this time we ended up with Dagger in the Dark - I really felt like I messed up this one - but we got through & after opening the treasure bag thingy at the end - I was even happier than before! Stormbrew Spaulders of the Windstorm - also ilevel 463 meant that my hunt for gear upgrades had started really well.

After Thursday's success, I decided it was time to stop faffing about with my Paladin & actually get her moving again. I checked Ask Mr Robot for reforging help as my hit & expertise were both pretty low then I got really brave & queued up for a dungeon. Not a heroic one though - just a normal level as I've been struggling to stay alive just doing dailies! I guess I should have looked at Ask Mr Robot earlier though - my item level on my Paladin is awful! After buying a new weapon earlier in the week & nabbing 2 pieces of new gear off the Auction House this week, she's just about at 440. My US Hunter - ilevel 441 already! Yeah, no wonder I've been struggling!

Anyway, with 40 minute plus queue times, I only managed to get three normal dungeons done. But I did start the Klaxxi quests as the Dread Wastes is the only zone I didn't get to with my Paladin. So my task this week is to get the Dread Wastes quests completed which will give me the Pandaren Loremaster achievement & possibly will give me some better gear too! I may even be brave again & actually try a heroic dungeon but don't go holding your breath on that one, will you?

Cooking - Done! Now We're Getting Somewhere!

Well, it's taken me absolutely ages but I finally managed to finish off leveling all the Ways in Cooking & as a bonus, I also got the Ironpaw Chef achievement. I tried to get the previous Iron Chef achievement a while ago but was 1 or 2 recipes short & no idea where to get them from. With all the new recipes in Mists of Pandaria, I got Iron Chef almost as soon as I started this cooking marathon but when this achievement popped up on my screen, I was completely & pleasantly surprised as I hadn't realised there was a new one for Pandaren levels!

As soon as I finished all the Ways, I then picked up the quest 'To Be A Master' from Sungshin Ironpaw in Halfhill. That required me to cook 6 more items (one from each Way). In doing so, I got the Pandaren Gourmet achievement & then as I was checking that out, I saw that I only needed to eat 1 each of those 6 foods & hey presto! another achievement popped up on my screen!

I still have a few Cooking profession achievements to get - I haven't done all the dailies in all the old cities yet & to be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to get those any time soon! Mists has so much stuff to do & not only did I start late but I've also spent a lot of time poodling around in game. I am beginning to feel that I'm way behind on everything including my gold-making but now that cooking is out of the way, I'm retiring my 4 plot farms (x5) as a way of saving a bit more time for leveling & of course, dailies!

I finally managed to get to honored reputation with the Golden Lotus faction on my only level 90 - that's how far behind I am! I did treat my Paladin to a Masterwork Spiritblade Decimator from the Auction House & that has made a huge difference to her performance - she still feels very squishy but she's hitting harder now so it's easier to survive. I also started the Operation: Landfall dailies - I kinda like them so far but I've only done them for 2 days so who knows how long I'll keep that up! lol

So what's next? I have my DK at level 88 & my warrior at 86. I definitely need to get my warrior moving - she is my Blacksmith & we need a max level Blacksmith for the guild achievement to get our Heirloom legs. I also need to get my main to Revered with Golden Lotus so both my DK & Warrior don't have to grind dailies quite so hard for their reputations. My warrior needs to get through Golden Lotus & Klaxxi to get her blacksmithing patterns & my DK is my Jewelcrafter so she needs the Order of the Cloud Serpent reputation to get access to the beautiful JC mounts recipes.

I have a lot of dailies to get through over the next month or two but as I promised myself at the start of the expansion, I have been running some dungeons too. I'm not quite ready for heroics yet & I still haven't run a single scenario but I'll get there, eventually!

Down on the Farm - Nev's Luck

Today was one of those days where I wished my dragon was real & I could just fly away somewhere calm! It all started late last night - I've been kind of slacking in the leveling alts department over the last few weeks so these three girls have only 4 farm plots each so far. I only tend them when I remember as well so not exactly the most productive of my in-game time either! But last nights farming was a good example of how today was going to turn out - did I ever mention how much of a love/hate relationship I have with RNG in game?

Pinkie's Farm

Pinkie's farm - she was my 2nd ever alt to max level - a combat rogue I struggled with all the way to 80, then 85 - she's not going to 90 any time soon though unless I just herb all the way! Three out of four plots with 'occupied soil' - that means she gets the crap beaten out of her 3 times in a row!

Q's Farm

After that beating, I logged my hunter next - this one is still 85 & marksman spec. I'll probably not level her for a while yet as I'm leveling my US Hunter first. She also got three out of four plots with 'occupied soil' but her bear, Cuddly (named after my very first ever in-game friend, a druid tank at the time) takes good care of her so although it takes a little time, she doesn't usually get beaten up.

Xan's Farm

And then I logged Xan my DK - I harvested & tilled my soil quite happily - such a relief after fighting so much on the other two farms & then this happened! Plant four seeds, three needed some fighting done! What on earth did I do to deserve such crappy luck on my three farms?

Well I don't know but today, everything I have touched in real life has also gone the same way - 55 mins on hold with one company, only to be told I failed the security questions (my birthday & phone number FFS!) & I would have to call again to speak to a different advisor. Then I tried to order a printed bank statement - sorry, error message - my name was not on the account at that time - WTF! It's been my sole account for 3 years now. Anyways, it kinda went downhill from there so I'm going to bed early tonight, in case I touch something important & that falls off or something!


Main image © Uildrim via DeviantArt, available to purchase as a print