To Do list.

This is gigantic if you read all of this congratulations and thanks! 

Zerohour recently wrote a post on his blog Locked, loaded, so why unsub? (he comes across as a total dickwomble but that man has a point.) While I agree with the sentiment of his post. I am one of those people who will likely unsub for a while until WoD but mostly because I want to try out WildStar. Given that I no longer raid the lack of new content doesn't really bother me, I am a bit disappointed as I was expecting WoD to be a lot closer than December ("or before").

Zero's post did spur me on to get my ass in gear though! There's a bunch of things I've had on a mental check list for a while. Some I want (or need) to get done before Warlords, some I can continue working on throughout Warlords.

Challenge Modes

The minute I heard about Challenge Modes I knew I would want to do them. However when MoP launched I somehow got it into my head that they couldn't be done cross server. I wasn't prepared to try and pug them because I'm both pretty shy and not entirely confident in my own ability as a player. My Fiance, ex raid team and the majority of my friends all play on other servers. So I resigned to the fact that I was never going to get a chance to do them nor get the awesome Priest challenge mode armor. However thanks to a comment left on my blog (<3) I found out that they could in fact be done cross realm! Since then they've been on my to do list but kept being put off until now.

We started doing them last week with the intention of doing one each week on a Wednesday night and spending no more than two and a half hours on them. We're running with a Prot Warrior who has no mic, Ret Paladin, Warlock, Hunter and me healing on my Priest. On the first week we got Temple of the Jade Serpent and Gate of the Setting Sun. This week we got Shado-Pan Monastery and Stormstout Brewery. We're only going for Gold as neither of us see any point in going for less. On our first night we were a few seconds away from getting Gold on Temple of the Jade Serpent due to a miss timed heroism. We stopped mid way though the last boss and reset the instance, porting us back to the beginning to start over.

On the first night I ran as Holy but I've switched to Disc and I'll probably continue to do the rest as Disc. They're incredibly fun, if you've not tried Challenge modes yet I urge you to do so. We're already planning a second set of characters to do Challenge modes on. Same group of people just different classes. I think I'm going to go with my Mage as the set is gorgeous. It does mean however that I'm going to have to grind some gear for my Mage to get myself some more gem stlots.

Which brings me to the second and third thing on my list. Also 2b on Zero's list.

Learn how to play

Ok so for me this isn't quite as extreme as the examples Zero points out in his post. I can comfortably do over 100k dps on the majority of my alts. However I'm not entirely confident in my ability on most of them.

I'm a good healer. With the exception of Druid I'm fucking terrible at Druid healing I think because I don't enjoy it.
I'm an OK tank.
I'm an OK ranged DPS
I'm a fucking awful melee DPS. I hate the play style.

My fiance and friends are always telling me I'm better than I think I am. Regardless I could be better at all of them.

Going forward into WoD I've decided that I'm only going to play five classes. I don't need 17 level 90's or the other 14 between 85-90. This ties into gold making. Ever since I started making gold I've always focused on having way too many max level characters to churn out daily profession cooldowns. I just don't enjoy that anymore. Cycling though each character doing their farm and daily CD + crafting for so long has taken it's toll and I've become completely bored of the entire thing. Throughout WoD I'd like to at least try to limit myself to five characters. Sure I'll still make gold but by only using those five. I've not decided on which five yet. Only two so far. My Priest and a Hunter. This will also give me an ample excuse to play these classes better.

One thing in this vein that I'd really like to do is the Warlock green fire quests. I'm not a particularly bad Warlock but I'm certainly not very skilled either! 

Re-roll Horde

I started out life in Vanilla as Alliance but the second they brought out the faction change option on the Blizzard store I was off. I loved being Horde it just felt right but I was convinced to return to the Alliance to raid with friends. We later as a group all returned to the Horde but during Cataclysm I went back to the Alliance in favor of better raid progression. Now that I don't raid except for the occasional casual run and with everything being cross realm, I can be whatever the fuck faction I want. And I want to be Horde! Lok'Tar Ogar!

The Godmother has welcomed everyone to join her in leveling a character from scratch without boosting it to 90. You can find information here if You'd like to join in.

I've decided to level a Hunter on my chosen realm destination once I faction change my Priest. I'll happily pay to faction change and server transfer my Priest as she's my main however I refuse to pay for any other characters as none of them are as important as Korla. I don't have the same bond with my alts as I do with her. They're really just classes to me, as apposed to actual characters. If that makes sense? I've decided to level my little Horde Hunter with only the BoA weapon as I felt the xp gain was far too fast. I'm probably going to level mostly though Kalimdor as I haven't done so in a while but I want to complete any zones tied to the Undead first as they're my favorite Horde race. I've done the Blood Elf quests far too many times.

Loremaster

I completed the original Loremaster which was a giant PITA but when they revamped the entire thing in Cataclysm I also went though and completed the new achievements for completing each zone.
I only have Desolace, Stonetalon and Feralas left to complete. My new little Hunter may be tasked with this.

Achievements

I went balls to the wall when achievements were introduced, I had a little bit of a competition going with a friend. But recently I've not really been chasing them. I got exalted with all of the Pandaria factions via dailies, I was one of the few people who actually enjoyed doing them at the beginning of MoP but never stopped to do the achievements tied to them Yak Attack, Getting around with the Shado-Pan for example. I've been working on some of these this week and it's been fun.

The hardest part is actually waiting for the exact daily you need to become available. At the moment I'm working my way though the Quest section of achievements. As I have almost everything in the General section complete. Missing 11 mounts for Mount Parade (200 mounts) and about 50k short from Got My Mind on my Money (loot 200,000 gold).

Within the topic of Achievments I have a bunch of things I need to get finished. I'm missing a load of Pet Battle achievements. I go though phases with Pet Battles where I get really into it then burn myself out on it similarly to archeology. I don't have many more to collect and level but I do have a few. I've also still not tried the Celestial Tournament so that's on the list.

The only thing I'm missing from Reputation is Emperor Shaohao. This is something I'm going to have to devote some serious time to as I don't do the weekly quests. So my reputation is so far behind.

I'm hoping to get a group together later this week or next week to finish off the Pandaria Heroic Dungeon achievements along with the Scenario achievements.

Brawlers Guild 

I've almost completely avoided Brawlers Guild since it's introduction. I think my Priest might be rank four. I'm terrified of being called bad from onlookers. The run back is also a pain if you do die. I'll admit that I'm a terrible Shadow Priest. I have a Shadow spec sometimes for doing dailies and such but for the most part I do them as Holy or Disc. Despite my Priest being my main since BC I've never raided as Shadow only doing the odd Heroic after well out gearing them. I'd really like to learn how to play Shadow and be able to do more than 150k dps. I could complete Brawlers Guild on another character, one I'm more comfortable DPSing on but I want to complete it on Korla. 

Stupid grindy shit

Giant Dinosaur Bone - One of the mounts I still need is from handing in 9999 Giant Dinosaur Bones. Currently at 2000. I've been doing this on my Hunter but not nearly as often as I should be.  

Domination Point Commission - After handing in 2000 of these Proveditor Grantley gives you a Rodent Crate which lets you summon and capture the Sumprush rodent battle pet. Currently at 1.3k.

20 Days of Gold Making - Day Sixteen/Seventeen

Nev from Auction House Addict has created a community project for the gold makers among us 20 Days of Gold Making You can find a list of all of the participants in this blog post at AH addict.  
The question for today is;

"Flipping! Do you flip stuff regularly or sometimes? Big ticket items or smaller high volume stuff?"
"Pets - Did you used to do the Vendor pet sales? How have pet battles changed things for you"

I'm going to combine these two questions. 

I'm a bit risk averse so I tend to stay away from big flips. At the moment I'm leveling a second Priest to 90 on my Fiance's server. I don't like relying on him for gold so I've been making my own by flipping leveling greens and a few transmogrification items. 

Caging a battle pet.

Something I do really enjoy is flipping pets. I play on a much quieter server than that of my Fiance so it's often easier and cheaper to buy pets off of his auction house. I not only pick up pets for my own use but the majority of level 25 pets on his server cost 2-4k whereas they cost between 6-9k on mine. When I'm not sneakily buying pets for my own use I buy a few to resell on my own server. 

Pets which you don't pick up in the wild via battles or pets from achievements can be put into a cage and sold on the auction house. After you buy a pet and take it out of your mailbox upon clicking it you'll learn that pet and it'll show up in your pet journal. From there you can log any other server and open up your pet journal, right click on the pet and select Put in Cage and then re list the pet on the auction house of that server.

This is a fantastic way to move gold between servers and great if you're looking to make some gold on a new server. The sales can be slow so don't be afraid to bark your pets in trade chat.

Before pets became what they are now I did often buy and sell vendor pets. They were always a fantastic market, people were either too lazy to find the pets themselves or didn't know about blogs or site such as wowhead but either way I was happy to profit off of them. I haven't looked into them for a while with the way that pets work now but it may be something worth looking into!  

Pet Foundry blogging carnival - September. Addons!

Rez from the Warcraft Pet Foundry has decided to start his own Pet Battle based blogging carnival. This months topic is Pet Battle addons.

Two of my biggest flaws are my memory (or lack there of) and lazieness. Team those together with Pet battle tamer daily quests and You've got a recipe for disaster!

I don't do my pet battle dailies every day unless I'm really focused on leveling a specific pet or I'm low on bandages. This is party due to being lazy and party due to not remembering to do them with so many other things to do! So when it comes time for me to do them I've usually forgotten which pet's I'd previously used to beat each of the tamers with. This is where Pet Battle Teams steps in.

This is an amazing addon which attaches itself to the side of your Pet Journal allowing you to create your own teams and give them names. This is awesome not only for the tamer dailies but also for easily switching teams in and out when doing pet battle PvP. 

The addon allows you to name your teams whatever you like so if you look at the screenshot you can see one of my teams is called "No-No team". No-No is one of the beasts of fable which I had the most trouble with when I started out. Even using the 'cheat' team you see in the Beasts of Fable team I still wasn't able to beat him. I finally found a team which worked for me but the next time I visited him I'd completely forgotten which three pets I'd used to beat him with! Thankfully now with this addon I've got that covered! 

It even adds two handy buttons to the bottom of the panel which allow you to heal and revive your pets. My bags are constantly messy with gear and profession mats so I usually struggle to find my bandages in between fights. This panel lets me quickly use a bandage without having to look for them! You can dismiss the additional panel when you're not using it by clicking a button at the top. 

I'm slightly averse to addons and I recently lost my hard drive. Once I reinstalled World of Warcraft I only picked up the few addons that I deemed need able to play! Pet Battle teams was one of those addons though I do keep meaning to pick up the pet breed addon. For now I just can't live without Pet Battle teams! 

Getting heavily into Pet Battles!

World of Warcraft has been felling a little bit stagnant recently. Leveling, reputations and even auction housing have become a bit tiresome. I began leveling what'll be my seventh character to ninety but I'm just not feeling it. The only reputations I have left to complete are August Celestials and The Anglers. AC are already part way though revered so it shouldn't take long.

I'm excited about patch 5.2 although I'm not expecting it this week. The new daily quest hub as well as the new raid content will make for a refreshing change. If you haven't already, you can read the 5.2 patch notes on Wowhead. 

Pandaren Water Spirit

One thing I have been getting into this week though is Pet Battling. Having never played Pokemon as a kid Pet battling wasn't something I was super interested in to begin with. Hell I didn't even like the cartoon! Although I do like the theme tune. 

Since the beginning of MoP I've done a little bit of dabbling but not a great deal. I began simply by just collecting pets. With a team of three I traveled across Eastern Kingdoms collecting any rare quality pet I came across. Up until my pets began hitting double numbers in level it became a little more difficult than just pitting my three random pets against both the trainers and some of the wild pets I came across. 

I raised my first pet to level twenty five last week. My faithful Shore Crab which was the first rare pet I found in Westfall and he's continued to be a really strong pet. Hitting twenty five opened up the ability to purchase level twenty five pets from the Auction House. I picked myself up a level 18 Anubisath Idol for 3k as well as a level 23 Pandaren Water Spirit for 6k because I think he's super cute.

Anubisath Idol

The Anubisath Idol has proven invaluable. He's been a fantastic pet! Throughout the week I've began battling the Grand Master trainers. Some of those fights have been frustrating! Grand Master Payne in Icecrown as well as Grand Master Mo'Ruk in Krasarang Wilds were particularly painful! Grand Master Aki the final trainer in Pandaria was surprisingly easy despite her having three legindary pets! 

Once you begin on Grand Master quest chain having pet types which counter the trainer's pets becomes important. It also means that with a lot of the trainers you can beat them using only two pets sometimes even one. Leaving your third slot open for a pet you're currently leveling. Using my level twenty one Masked Tanuki in a wild pet battle against three level twenty fives gave me 600 pet xp while wearing my Safari Hat. Using two level twenty fives my Pandaren Water Spirit and my Clockwork Gnome along with my still level twenty one Tanuki against Farmer Nishi's daily quest awarded my Tanuki 3713 xp while wearing my Safari Hat, getting him to level twenty three. Wowhead comments are a great resource for help if you're stuck on any of these tamers. Often in the comments section people will suggest pets which can help with the fights and which pets they used to beat each of the tamers. 

Taming Pandaria. Taming Azeroth. Pet Battles.

Aki was also beaten using only two pets, giving my Oasis Moth that last bit of xp to reach Twenty Five.

The pet battles are fun but it really appeals to my collective nature. I love achievements and I've always collected non combat pets so having so many more of them introduced to the game just makes them so much better. 

Once you complete the series of quests and defeat Aki the Chosen you're able to battle the Pandaren Spirit Tamers. I also beat the Darkmoon Trainer Jeremy Feasel for the first time today. Doing his daily quest gives you a bag which can contain a Darkmoon Eye pet.

Have you done much in the way of pet battles? What are some of your favourite pets? Any pets you can recommend that people absolutely have to level?

Vanilla battle pets, mounts and achievements!

I've had such a fantastic week in WoW! A friend I mentioned in an earlier post about my favourite WoW memory started playing again! When he logged into game I had to do a double take. He had stopped playing at the beginning of Cataclysm due to starting university I've been leveling my eighty five horde Warrior along side his Rogue. I haven't seen Mists of Pandaria from the Horde perspective yet so I've been really enjoying it.

Patch 5.1 introduced a whole load of changes to the pet battle interface as well as a new pets to collect! Along with the change came twelve new pets which have a chance to drop off of level sixty Vanilla raid bosses in Molten core, Blackwing Lair, Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (AQ40) and Naxxramas. While Naxxramas is a level eighty raid it was originally a Vanilla raid. You can find a list of the pets and their respective bosses on Warcraftpets. Each of the bosses have received some tweaks to make them soloable although some still require a little bit of patience, skill and knowing the tactics.

While in Ahn'Qiraj hunting down the pets I was lucky enough to come across a Red Qiraji Resonating Crystal from some trash mobs. A mount I've tried to farm with no luck on multiple occasions. Obtaining this mount nets you the Feat of Strengh Why? because it's red. I then proceeded to loot another two within a few hours on other Alts. It seems that the drop rate on this mount has been significantly increased whether intentional or not remains to be seen. Now might be a great time to go snag yourself one just in case it's been an accidental change!

Why? Because it's Red.

 I finally hit Exalted with the Golden lotus! I plan on never doing any of those daily quests again for as long as I live. I'm not even sure why I loathe them so much they're not exactly hard quests but I have been putting them off most days. I also hit 60 Exalted reputations! I already know which ten I'm missing and I plan to remedy that as quickly as daily resets allow!

60 Exalted Reputations!

The icing on the cake was finally finishing off my Glory of the Firelands Raider achievement. I had been missing two parts of the Do a Barrel Roll achievement for such a long time. The achievement requires you to kill Alysrazor in the Firelands raid without any members of the raid being hit by several of her abilitys. Thankfully you don't have to do all parts of the achievement in one fight.

By finishing off the achievement I also completed the Meta and was rewarded my Corrupted Fire Hawk which I think might be my favourite flying mount in game!

Corrupted Fire Hawk.

I'm one mount short of hitting 150 mounts. I haven't crafted any of the Jewelcrafting or Engineering mounts yet. Or reached Exalted with Shadow Pan, Anglers or August Celestials which I know all reward mounts.

How has your week been? What's on your to do list for the upcoming week? Have you tried soloing the old Vanilla raids yet for the new pets?