Screenshot Sunday

Happy New Year!

It's been so long since I posted, I apologize. I hope everyone had a fantastic time over the holiday season.

With it being a new year I've been cleaning up, even around my computer. So I'm dumping some SS's from Beta so I can get rid of the files.

I'm not sure that's how you're meant to ride it Korla but, whatever, you're the boss!

Vault of Light - Shadowmoon Valley

Vault of Light - Shadowmoon Valley

Vault of Light - Shadowmoon Valley

Vault of Light - Shadowmoon Valley

Vault of Light - Shadowmoon Valley

Recruit a Friend phase one, complete!

Yesterday marked the end of my Recruit a Friend project which I spoke about in this post. 

Phew! I'm glad that's over! Now I'm tasked with getting them all to level 90 although I'm in no immediate rush. For the most part I leveled via questing with the odd boost from my lovely boyfriend as the instances combined with the quests inside gave a great amount of xp. Questing though Outland felt incredibly slow. So from 60-70 I stuck to mostly boosts as it could be done in around 5 instances! 

Northrend and Cataclysm questing seemed to be really fast. I got my Shaman from 67-83 in about two hours. Keep in mind though that I have leveled around 20 characters to level 80 without RaF so I've got most of the quests down pat.

After all of the leveling came the granting levels and thankfully I had my boyfriend on hand to help out with that too, as tabbing between the two accounts would have been a nightmare! When granting levels the recipient has to click accept for each level. That could have taken me hours. 

Now What?

Now it's down to settling into the characters, leveling them to 90 and working on those all important transmogs! I'm currently working on my Monk as she's been sat at 85 for more than a few months and has racked up two levels of rested xp. From there I plan on switching between characters while I use up their xp. That's going to be an odd change for me. Usually when leveling a character I focus on that one and nothing else until they get to max level regardless of whether or not I have rested xp or not. 

I'll also be taking a bit of time out to level up some professions, I've not worked out all of them yet and I'm waiting to hear a bit more about profession cool downs coming in WoD but I know I at least want one of each profession regardless of the CD situation so I'll be working on that over the next few days. 

While I still have RaF active I'm going to take advantage of it to level up a Priest on another server to level 80. My boyfriend and I have been putting together a group to do Herald of the Titans, which requires you to kill Algalon in Ulduar at level 80 with gear that has the same ilvl obtainable from Ulduar. However being the alcoholic and completionist that I am none of my alt are below 90 or at least 85! 

It's going to be a busy few weeks by the looks of things! 

Planning professions!

I mentioned in my last post that I've been doing RaF with myself. The end result will be seven new characters at level 85 which I'll then level to 90 as quickly as I can. What this means is I'll have fourteen new profession slots. I'll also be using my free level 90 from pre ordering Warlords of Dreanor to give myself a Rogue. Meaning another two profession slots. While I've been leveling I've been sending everything I pick up to an alt to store in a guild bank. 

The cloth I will be using to level tailors. I'll use what I craft to Disenchant for materials to level a second and third Enchanter. I've been buying any herbs / ore under market price to level Blacksmithing/JC/Alchemy and Inscription. Here's what I'm hoping to end up with by the end of this. If you think I'd be better off with different professions on different characters then feel free to chime in! Any suggestions are more than welcome!

Priest - Enchanting - Jewelcrafting

Hunter - Engineering - Leatherworking

Monk - Blacksmithing - Alchemy

Shaman - Enchanting - Jewelcrafting

Warlock - Inscription - Alchemy

Death Knight - Enchanting - Alchemy

Warrior - Tailoring - Alchemy

Paladin - Mining - Alchemy

Druid - Leatherworking - Alchemy

Mage - Tailoring - Alchemy

Rogue - Skinning - Blacksmithing

My Priest is my main and has JC/Enchanting with all patterns however because she's my main it means she also seldom has much in the way of bag space! So having a second character capable of shuffling ore is a must. 

I've tried to double up on all crafting professions which currently have a cool down and hopefully will continue to do so in Warlords, Blacksmithing, Tailoring and Leatherworking. I'm not 100% sure about the Tailoring on the Warrior although I've had it in the past. Getting that extra cloth on a class which can quickly blitz though instances or mobs is great. Although it's rare that I actually farm. The ability to learn patterns quicker is a huge bonus. 

Ideally my third Enchanter would be my third most played character, being able to DE your gear once you're done with it has always worked out well. Drops in LFR/Flex you don't need? DE them! In terms of third most played I think that'll end up being my Monk or Mage. But at the same time having Enchanting on a character who runs older content has always been a favorite of mine, I'd really like a Plate wearer with Enchanting as they'll be doing a lot of Transmog runs, I adore Plate mogs!

Anything that I'm not sure about I've coupled with Alchemy because Alchemy always gets neat transmutes each expansion.

Alt Appreciation Week Six - Paladin

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. 

Paladin Week

Paladin.

I have numerous Paladins, four to be exact at various levels. Two Alliance and two Horde. One of my Alliance Paladins is level 90 the other is 81. My highest Horde Paladin is 82 the other being 72.  

My first shot at Paladin was on a friends account during Vanilla. He had a level thirty something Dwarf Paladin  Holy moly there were a lot of buttons and abilities! At that point I only had my little Warrior so it came as a bit of a shock how full his action bars were. The class itself seemed fun though. Much later I created my first Paladin, a Draenei during The Burning Crusade. She somehow got stuck around level 39 for the longest time until Wrath of the Lich King. 

During the expansion there had been several changes to Paladins and I decided to pick her back up. She was later changed to a Blood Elf. I raided a little bit on her though Icecrown Citadel.  

All of my Paladins are Protection although I really enjoy healing on them. I'm a bit surprised as my goto spec for most classes is Holy. I have literally no idea how to play Retribution other than "hit thing in face!".

Alt Appreciation Week Five - Monk

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. 

Monk Week.

What do you mean it's not Monk week anymore? Shhhh..

Monk week didn't go to plan for me. I kept putting it off in hopes that my boyfriend would want to level with me. We had been leveling our Monks together but he started to lose a bit of interest so I stopped playing mine too! I had hoped that during Monk week we'd be able to get them to level 90 but boyfriend just didn't seem too keen. I did a few instances on my own today and got mine to 85 - that's something at least. I do plan on leveling her to 90 soon with or without the boyfriend!

I made a cute little Pandaren Monk within the first few weeks of Mists and while I enjoyed the starting area once I left I pretty much abandoned her in Westfall. A few months ago inspired by Draynee and some really cute leather mogs over on her blog I decided to remake my Monk but as a Draenei! 

Mistweaver Monk.

 As I mentioned above I've been leveling her along side my partner who has been playing a Brewmaster Monk. My goto spec when playing almost every class is any verity of healing spec. Monk healing feels very different to Priest which is my main, I was a bit iffy about the channeling aspect of the class when I first started but now I love it! She has a heal for every situation and the Healing Spheres are super cute! 

I'm really looking forward to getting her to level 90 but I'm not sure of how I'm going to do it yet. She has leveled exclusively though instances. I took a dps spec to try out once I hit 85 and I got my face kicked in multiple times in Jade Forest as I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, Needs more investigation or I could only do instances while I have rested and see how long that takes! 

Lealah. 

Shoulder - Cured Mammoth Hide Mantle
Chest - Leather Tunic of Eminent Domain
Belt - Red Belt of Unspoken Warning
Legs - Leggings of the Broken Beast
Hands - Vellum-Ripper Gloves
Feet - Monastic Boots
Weapon - Aspirant's Staff of Harmony

The ups and downs of having a bit too much gold.

Blizzard have thrown a bit of a spanner in the works this week offering 50% off of some of their services. This could be my opportunity to get off of my quiet server and actually meet people.  The biggest problem in transferring is the 50 thousand gold limit. First world problems, I know, right?

When moving from a small server to a larger server it's often difficult to find items which will retain there value when you get to the other side. Coming from a smaller server also means there are fewer things to buy. There are no TCG mounts on my AH no crafted mounts either.

There is currently no Living Steel. Not a single cut or uncut Primordial Ruby nor any Sha Crystals! Of course this isn't a typical representation of my server but it is typical of my luck when I need something!

Yesterday I started out with 900 thousand gold. After buying a few things, crafting a few mounts and splurging on some over priced pets I'm almost down to goal of 100 thousand gold. I'm transferring two characters and after I do I won't likely return to the serve. My alts will become completely abandoned and I'll start over again on my new server. The gold limit on transfers is 50 thousand per character.

In an attempt to get rid of some of my gold I bought my Boyfriend and I both a Grand Expedition Yak. 108k Each with guild perks

I have been meaning to buy one for a while just for the achievement but I never seemed to get around to it. That's one bonus to having a fair amount of gold to play with. Being able to treat other people. Sadly I have no other friends on the server so I had no one else to off load some on!

I bought a pet off of a Mage in trade he was asking for 6k saying that he was selling it cheap because he was desperate for the gold to buy his epic flying and no one else would buy the pet. So I gave him 10k for it. In retrospect I should have given him more.

I feel a bit shady just randomly trading gold to people. I don't want Blizzard to ban me or the recipient thinking either of us is buying or selling gold.

Have you ever transferred server having a bit too much gold? How did you get around it? Have you taken advantage of the 50% off of services at the moment?

Edit:

Depleted-Kyparium Rocket.

I bought myself a Depleted-Kyparium Rocket for 99k because, fucking cannons man. Fucking cannons. 

Armored Bloodwing.

Last week WowProfitz started his own Cotton Candy Screenshot Competition. I decided to enter with one of my favourite screenshots which I'd taken a while ago. Lo and behold I won! I was given the option of three prizes and I chose the Armored Bloodwing mount. The second I saw Blizzard release this mount I knew I wanted it having always been a bit of a spooky kid! The Undercity is my favorite city and I've always wanted a bat mount. Sadly it wasn't something I was willing to pay for so winning it makes it even sweeter!

You can view the screenshot and winning post here!

Armored Bloodwing - Also now known as Profitz.

Bloodwing Transmog.

Of course no new mount is complete without a new matching transmog, right? I decided to go with this robe from around T10 content from Justice Points as it's similar to that of Blood-Queen Lana'thel. I bet she'd ride a Armored Bloodwing if she could.

Robe - Meteor Chaser's Raiment
Belt - Belt of Omission
Staff - Suen-Wo, Spire of the Falling Sun
Gloves - Heroe's Gloves of Faith
Shoulders - Malevolent Gladiator's Mooncloth Mantle

While I imagine that I only won because I was the only entry what we're going to do is pretend that there were at least 4000 other entries. We're also going to pretend that Korla was added to the Dedication of Honor statue in Dalaran for her contribution to the competition. Statues of Korla should soon start appearing all of Azeroth. Look out for one in a city near you!

Clearly part of this statue.

Believing my own lies finally cost me 92k - Onyxian Drake.

For as long as I can remember I've lied to myself about things I'm going to do in WoW. I don't lie on purpose. It's not a lie when I say it. I just get really distracted and I'm pretty forgetful. That right there is also a lie. I know damn well it's a lie when I say it. I know I'll never follow though!

When Blizzard announced account wide mounts and pets I was stoked. I've always had to obtain mounts and pets on my Priest. I was gutted when I got Reins of the blue drake on my Druid from Occulus during Wrath of the Lich King. I hated doing raids or instances that had a chance to drop a mount on any character besides Korla just in case! However once the account wide announcement came it meant I could do those instances on any character and ultimately it wouldn't matter.

Here are some of the mount related lies I've often told myself;

I'll do Onyxia every week on at least three characters - Haven't done it once.
I'll do ZG HC on my Hunter every day for both mounts - Did it for three days then never went back despite loving that Panther!
I'll do Kara on at least five characters per week. (I have around 30 capable of Soloing Attune) - I did it for the first two weeks then stopped.
I'll do Stonecore normal five times until I get locked out every so often - Stone-what? Stone-where? Yeah I've never done that either. 

On Monday night after tending to my crops I ventured over to the Black Market auction house as I often do if I'm in Valley of the four winds. To my surprise there was an Onyxian Drake. I've never seen one of these on the BMAH. As it was on a very long bidding and knowing it'd still be there in the morning I decided to go to bed and check on it when I woke up. By Tuesday morning the price hadn't moved much so I placed a bid and went offline, when I returned I'd been outbid but the auction was now on between thirty minutes and two hours I decided to bid again and spent the next two hours leveling six battle pets to twenty five around the BMAH area.

I won the mount in the end for ninety two thousand.

This gives me something I won't do to cross off of my "I might do" list and I've made the gold back since then. So my Warrior gets to enjoy a new mount!

Onyxian Drake - 92k gold worth of lazy!

Have you bought anything off of the Black Market auction house? Ours rarely seems to have anything of much interest on it. I'd love to see an Ashes of Al'ar but that's another thing I promise to farm every week and then don't! Are you good at sticking to your own plans?

Screenshot Sunday

Woooooosh!

A week of winning!

I've had a pretty good week in WoW. Neri over at Neri Approves hosted a trashy transmog competition asking readers to send in a screenshot of their trashiest transmogrification. She announced that the three people with the highest votes would win a Soul of the aspects pet. I stumbled upon the competition a bit late but I decided to enter with my little Protection Paladin wearing the Saltstone set. I'd managed to pick up a couple of pieces from the Auction House at ridiculous prices, justified only by the fact that I'll be able to keep the set forever. A long term investment, yeah, that's right. I think the idea of skimpy armour is hilarious, especially on tanks.

Stop judging me.

Low and behold I won. I've never won anything before (albeit I've never entered anything before but still.) I was stoked! I wanted this pet when it was first released but I don't really want to buy any of the pet shop pets. I've given Blizzard enough money over the years from transfers and faction changes, besides I'm a total cheapo.

Thank you so much Neri. I adore him! <3

Uh, thanks Breanni

If that wasn't enough the WoW Factor visited the EU for the first time last night on the Chamber of Aspects server. Nev from Auction House Addict sponsored the event with 100 thousand gold which was given away to participants! I had a level 74 Priest knocking around on the server so I decided to tag along. I've been waiting for these events to come to the EU since they started so I was super excited! I took some screen shots during the event.

Have you been lucky enough to have a WoW factor show on your server or have you ever thought of setting up your own fashion show? I'd love for them to come to my main server! If you would like to sponsor an event on your server you can contact the WoW Factor crew.

My first Real ID friend

When Blizzard first announced the Battle.net and Real ID feature I'll admit I didn't quite 'get' it. I never fully understood what purpose it could serve not being a Starcraft or Diablo player.

My Real ID friends, for serious.

From Vanilla wow though until mid Wrath of the Lich King I had never even created an alt on any server other than my main server. "Why would people need to talk to people on other servers?" I wondered. I had never known any of my friends or raid team to play on multiple servers. I didn't realize that it was a thing that people did!

Once the system was implemented I of course used it although I've always been a bit weary of who I give my information to (as I use a completely separate e-mail address for my Wow accoun). There haven't been many people in game whom I felt the need to share my Real ID with. If I needed to speak with someone I could simply wait until they came online, on an alt that I knew. I can understand it being an incredibly useful tool for a guild or raid leader. The friends I have on there at the moment are either real life friends or friends I have played with or raided with for a long time.

With the release of Diablo 3 Blizzard has come up with a new way for people to connect within their games which allows players to add each other to their Battle.net friends lists using a username rather than their Battle.net e-mail address. While the Battle.net Battle Tags aren't currently in effect within World of warcraft it is something they are hoping to achieve in time.

I decided on Friday that I'd had enough of leveling my Shaman (currently 83) and that it would be a good idea to accumulate some rested experience so I switched over to my level 80 Warrior for a change of pace.

I had leveled my Warrior earlier on in the year with recruit a friend. I'd gotten her to level 40, then granted her levels up until 80. She's been sitting abandoned ever since. When I logged into her she was wearing a wonderful selection of level 20-30 greens in the very few slots she had actually filled.

What's green and yellow and looks like a buffoon?
You. 

Having just completed the Mount Hyjal quests for the 7th time with my Shaman I opted for leveling though dungeon finder instead of questing. I figured the best way to do that would be to spec Protection! I grabbed a spec, glyphs, bought a whole Hardened Obsidium set from the AH (crafted by Blacksmiths), set up some key bindings and off I went! The first two instances were a little shaky since I haven't Warrior tanked in such a long time. Setting up key bindings two minutes before entering an instance may also have been a silly idea but you live and learn!

I started to feel more confident after having done Blackrock Caverns three or four times when I bumped into a really awesome group of people. It was the first instance I'd done that night with a group of really good DPS (damage dealers) who seemed to actually know what they were doing. The Shaman healer was fantastic! Once the run had ended we did a couple more instances together and I had a great time. When we decided to call it a night I gave the Shaman my Battle.tag (unbeknownst to me that they had not actually been implemented into Wow yet) and went downstairs for a few minutes.

When I got back to my desk I had several messages from a level 1. It was the Shaman healer! He stated how fun it had been to have played with me and asked me to add him to battle.net. Since he gave up his e-mail address first I felt slightly less hesitant about adding him. Since then we've done lots of dungeons together. Although we don't tend to talk much when not in an instance he's a great healer and I feel really confident having him around. We keep a fast pace through the instance, we're both helpful and patient if anyone asks a question or has to nip away for a minute. Once we both reach level 85 maybe we won't play together anymore, maybe we'll even remove each other but for the moment I'm having fun with my new friend.

He's the first person I've added to my Real ID friends list who I hadn't previously known and now that I play on a different server from most of my friends I have a better understanding of why so many people like the Real ID function!

What about you do you openly add people to your Real ID? Do you think you might start once they introduce Battle.tags into Wow? Leave a comment or send me a reply on Twitter @SocoWow