Alt Appreciation Week Seven - Priest

Lae from World of Lae has come up with awesome idea of celebrating all of the classes in World of Warcraft one by one, each week! You can find out more about it and a list of participants in this thread.

Priest Week 

Priest hanging out at the Timeless Isle

It's finally rolled around to what I'll be honest was the week I was most looking forward to! Unfortunately the week so far hasn't gone as planned with my boyfriends HDD giving way he's been raiding on my computer and I've felt a bit bad playing WoW while he's not been able to! However every week is Priest week for me as my main is a Priest so it's not all bad. 

My first attempt at the Priest class didn't go so well. I'd spent a fair amount of time watching a friend play a Hunter when the time came for me to learn the Fade spell I was pretty stoked. I somehow got it into my head that it was the exact same as Feign Death. It's not. I died a lot, decided Priests were terrible and ditched her instantly. That was some time pretty early in vanilla, thankfully it wasn't the end of Priest for me. 

A few weeks before The Burning Crusade released I decided to start another Priest, Korla. 

I had no idea then that she would become the heart and soul of my account. She started life out as a Human but I never really got around to leveling her. With the first expansion coming all of my focus was on gearing up my Hunter who had just become my new main, since I'd gotten a bit tired of my Warrior. After a few weeks of BC and deciding that I hated raiding on  / was awful at my Hunter my little Priest offered me some solace and respite. 

 

Sadly not the original Korla.

Something happened while questing in The Badlands, I fell in love. Completely head over heals in love with Korla. It just hit me. I was having so much fun with her. I don't know if it was due to making some kind of break through with the game - up until that point I'd been a bit of a noob. I think it had a lot to do with me really enjoying the game for the first time. My Warrior had been my first character and everything was pointing to getting to level 60 as quickly as possible to begin raiding. That seemed to be the only point in the game in many people's opinion. My next character was my Hunter who again I rushed to level 60 as quick as I could so that she could become my new main for the expansion. 

With Korla I took my time, quested though a lot of zones I'd never been to on my leveling path with my previous characters. 

I had several friends who played healers, specifically Priest healers. Healing was an aspect of the game I was really interested in after having tanked and DPS'd in dungeons and raids. There was no such thing as LFG at that point so you had to look for people to join your group for instances. This was usually done either in the city or in the zone which the instance was located Westfall for Dead Mines, Hellfire Peninsula for Hellfire Ramparts for example. By the time I was level 60 the Armory existed but inspecting in game didn't. Duel spec also didn't exist so when I while I leveled as Shadow - when I saw someone looking for a healer I'd drop out of shadow form in order to lose my buff and tell them I was a healer. I loved healing so much more than Shadow. 

In my mind she was my main even before she hit level 70 but once I got there I started the gear grind and began raiding on her and I continued to do so until the last tier of Cataclysm. I decided to take a break from raiding after clearing Dragon Soul, I just didn't have the heart to go back though and do it on heroic. 

 

Firelands Priest Transmog

For most of my raiding career Korla has been Holy, during Wrath I raided along side a Disc Priest and there's no point in having two in a ten man raid. I finally took a Disc spec during Firelands as it was favored for a lot of the fights and I was no longer raiding with another Priest so I was free to do what I wanted. Throughout Mists I've stayed Disc as it's quite fun being able to pew pew and heal at the same time but this week I've gone back to my much loved Holy for a bit of a change and I'm really enjoying it again! It's even viable in PvP! 

About two months ago my hard drive broke. Gone. kaput. I lost all of my screen shots from Vanilla - MoP and I'm gutted. I've lost the SS of Korla completing the ICC meta achievement, I've lost the SS of Korla grinding reputation in Dire Maul when my fiance first whispered me to tell me he liked me before we'd met. I've lost the SS of Korla hitting each of the level caps and all of the adventures we've been on and that makes me pretty sad but I still have the memories. If Blizzard decided that they had to make cut backs and everyone had to delete all character bar one Korla would be the one I'd keep. I really do love her. 

Transmogs used;

First picture;

Shoulder - Hallowed Pauldrons
Chest - Fel Conquerer Raiments
Belt - Maletic Girdle
Hands - Heroes' Gloves of Faith
Weapon - Starshard Edge

Second picture; 

Shoulder - Wrathful Gladiator's Mooncloth Mantle
Chest - Brutal Gladiator's Mooncloth Robe
Belt - Wrathful Gladiator's Cord of Alacrity
Hands - Setaphic Handwraps
Weapon - Wand of Eternal Light

Third picture; 

Shoulder - Mantle of Closed Doors
Chest - Robes of Smoldering Devastation
Belt - Maletic Girdle
Hands - Heroe's Gloves of Faith
Weapon - Ko'Gun, Hammer of the Firelord

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?

I decided to treat myself.

I recently wrote about my daily gold making routine. People make gold in Wow for various reasons and there are different types of players who make gold. 

I started making gold out of necessity when I wanted to complete the Insane in the Membrane feat of strength. After I got my title I continued to play the auction house because I enjoyed it. I enjoyed sitting on a pile of gold knowing I could buy anything I wanted. I treated friends and my other half to presents over the years. I gave away six Vial of the Sands, I've paid around two-three hundred thousand gold for my boyfriend to gear up multiple characters. I've given away several Mechano hogs because while it's nice to look at that sexy total of gold it's nicer to make friends smile.

This week however I decided to treat myself to something I've wanted for as long as I can remember. I knew at some point I'd buy one I had just never gotten around to it until now. With Mists of Pandaria introducing account wide mounts and the fact that characters will be grounded until level 90 I figured now was the ideal time to pick one up. I think I deserved it. 

While the epic was only a little bit extra I don't like the leg armour on it. So I went for the normal version. 

LJFDJALKFJAFJLS!!1 I can't tell you how much I love this mount.

If you're a gold maker have you ever bought anything you really wanted in Wow? Do you prefer to hold onto your gold instead? Even if you're not a gold maker what would you love to be able to buy yourself?