Twilight Harbringer, finally!

One of the great things about my new guild is their weekend achievement runs! Since I quit raiding during Cataclysm one of the things I've missed most is not the raiding itself but the atmosphere, comradely and friendship. The achievement runs my guild does during the weekend feels very much how raiding used to feel but without that little bit of added stress. The guild I used to raid with never took things too seriously during our raids and there was always a lot of banter between fights.

Last weekend I finally got something I'd wanted for a while but had never gotten around to doing since I stopped raiding right after we had cleared normal DS! I just didn't have the patience to continue raiding DS heroic as it was one of my least favorite raids. Reins of the Twilight Harbringer from the Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider achievement.

He's fucking glorious!

Twilight Harbringer.

The next post in the 20 Days of WoW blogging challenge asks "10 things we don't know about you" This ones got me stumped a little so I'll happily accept questions if you have any! Could make it a bit more interesting. Feel free to DM me on twitter if you don't feel comfortable leaving a comment.

Are there any achievement mounts you've got your eye on?

Day Seven. WoW Blogging Challenge - Blog Name.

We're onto the seventh day of the Soulbound - 20 days of WoW blogging challenge. Today Soulbound asks us;

"The reason behind your blog’s name"

Choosing a blog name was something that didn't come easily to me. It took weeks of umming and ahhing to settle on something I liked. When I started blogging I didn't really know what direction I wanted my blog to go in. I only knew that I wanted to start one. I talked about my reasons for starting my blog in the second day of the blogging challenge. I was heavily into gold making but I didn't want to chose a blog name solely around gold making. There are a lot of fantastic gold blogs out there and I didn't think I could really contribute much at least nowhere near their standard! I also didn't want to be pigeon-holed in case I moved away from gold making.

My main has been my Priest for a really long time so when I was looking at blog names I did have a look though my Priest's spell book and talent sheet. Again I didn't want to be locked into only writing about one topic plus a few of the Priest talents are hard to spell! I didn't want people who liked my blog to have trouble finding me. 

 While standing in Exodar one day taking some screenshots of my latest transmog I noticed part of the city called The Vault of Lights, it was perfect! Although I dropped the s from the end. I'd looked at zone names before but dismissed the idea because I couldn't find any I liked.

Vault spoke to me in part due to my gold making and also in part due to my collecting of things such as transmog gear, fun little vanity items, pets and mounts. Light represented my Priest and my love of healing. It's my go to main spec on any class which can heal.

Day Six. Wow Blogging Challenge - Your workspace/desk.

We're onto the sixth day of the Soulbound - 20 days of WoW blogging challenge. Today Soulbound asks us:

"Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)"

I'd love to show you a picture of some kind of amazing battle station. A computer with fancy flashing lights or a really cool wide screen monitor but the truth is I don't have any of that. I've had the desk I have since 2000 when I got my first computer bits of it have fallen off or been removed since then. It used to have a small shelf on it which I would constantly bang my knees against so it eventually fell off. It had these large CD shelves attached to the side. Sadly most of the games and DVD's I have come in those large plastic boxes rather than the smaller square CD cases so they just collected dust and I eventually removed them.

My desk is often littered with rubbish. I'm quite messy. There is currently ten empty soda cans, four Alpen Light bar wrappers, some Sominex, a fork(?) and an empty mug on it. I've no idea how long the mug has been there or what was in it.

I recently bought a new mic so that's found a space in between all my junk. Due to the mess I'm not going to show you a picture. Hah. I'll tidy it tomorrow, I promise.

Black Market auction house - Fiery Warhorse.

The Black Market Auction House got me again! I blogged two weeks ago about having bought myself an Onyxian Drake from the BMAH. This week a Fiery Warhorse showed up and I just couldn't resist the urge to bid on it. I decided pretty early on that I wasn't going to spend any more than 100k. I started to bid while it was on short (between 30 mins and 2 hours) and someone started to counter my bids! However I did notice that he had to keep running to the mailbox before placing another bid. My idea of limiting myself went out the window. I felt this fierce sense of competition. I wanted to win the auction no matter what. Betting that I likely had more gold than him we both kept bidding. Eventually he stopped and I won the mount for 95k. Boy was it exciting!

Fiery Warhorse.

Headless Horseman's Mount.

 These are pretty much two perfect Warlock mounts which is I think why I've started to level mine. She's currently Eighty Eight but I've just ran out of rested xp so I'm going to take a break and focus on something else for a bit. 

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?

Collect all the robes, ALL THE ROBES!

I'm a collector, I love collecting things. More so in Wow than anywhere else. I love non combat pets, mounts, exalted reputations and achievement points. 

Something I wasn't quite prepared for was how transmogrification would effect me. I've always kept my Tier gear. Some I held onto because I though it was pretty, some because it held some sort of meaning or special memory. My Tier ten in particular reminds me of my best and favourite time raiding in Wow. However transmogs release transformed my simple collection of gear into an obsession!  

I own the same pair of shoes in black, pink, grey and purple. I often buy accessories in multiple colours. So it's no surprise to me that this quirk of mine would rear it's ugly head in wow in the shape of robes.  

There are multiple robes in Wow which share the same model and I've unknowingly made it my job to collect all of them but I'm quickly running out of space!

What about you, do you have any habits in your daily life you find creeping into Wow or vice versa? Do you just have to collect certain things in game?

If you'd like details of the items used in any of the images above leave a comment or send me a reply @SocoWow on twitter.