It is New Year’s Eve. 2019 is on the other side of this day, and as is customary, people are making resolutions in the hopes of making the most of the year to come. I am one of those people.
2018 was a pretty ok year for me. It was tough, but I won’t complain. Resolutions-wise, I did quite well (check it out). Outside of myself, though, I noticed a trend that just got worse and worse as the year wore on. 2018 seemed to be the year of negativity. The year that it became “cool” to be a dick. The year of entitlement. Of focusing on the negatives, abusing people because of them and arguing “accountability” to justify their actions. Honestly, it’s been sad.
It has been a really hard year to be a Blizzard fan. Even more so in the last 2-3 months, where it seems that if you don’t hate everything Blizzard does, you’re wrong, and either an idiot or a shill. Which is such a sad mentality to have, and one that has honestly been getting me really down lately. I’m seeing it in popular personalities who have been long-time fans, I’m seeing/hearing it in other podcasts, and I’m seeing it all over twitter from random followers to friends. It has honestly been making me really, really sad. (And personally, I think they are wrong.)
What does this have to do with my 2019 resolutions?
This time, I’m not making an arbitrary list of things to do in game and calling it ‘resolutions’. I want to do something more than that. I want to do something that can help other people who may be in the same situation as me – who are bogged down by the constant negativity; who may not feel brave enough to be a small voice of positivity in a crowd of hostility. And that starts with me.
So, my only resolution for 2019 is this:
Be the positivity you want to see in the community.
I know it sounds wanky. I’m not actually very good at motivational speaking/typing 😉 But what it means is this – if I want to see more positivity in the world (both in gaming communities and the world in general) then that needs to start with me being more positive, more often, and loudly.
How am I going to do this? Well this is where a list comes in:
1 – Celebrating successes – loudly and often
This is about giving credit where credit is due. Pointing out the positives and celebrating them. I need to be doing this every day.
2 – Take “problems” for what they are
I think the most important thing about what I’m wanting to do is really reiterating that this is not about just rolling over and ignoring things that are “not right”. It’s not about turning a blind eye and pretending everything is ok. This is about looking at problems for what they are, and weighing them up against everything else.
Game lagged for a sec? Not really a huge drama.
Someone wants to bomb a country and kill everyone in it? Yeah that’s definitely a problem.
3 – Being constructive with criticism
Linked to number 2 above, this is about recognising when something isn’t right, and finding the best way to express our issues. It’s about gauging an appropriate response- the proportional response– to a problem. It’s speaking in a way that is respectful to the people the problem involves to help find a solution, not to embarrass, humiliate, bully or threaten. Avoiding escalation – trying to solve the problem, not make it worse.
4 – Be patient, be kind
Sounds like a no-brainer, but this one is going to be the hardest. Because this isn’t just about being nice about the things you like- it’s about being patient and kind to the people you disagree with. Seeing a message telling someone to “go kill themselves” over a bug in a game is enough to rile anyone up. But me telling that person to “fuck off” (as much as I would like to) isn’t going to help. Maybe reporting them on twitter and telling that person their behaviour is unacceptable is a better response.
I know it sounds fluffy and silly, but I really need this. There are so many things in the world now days that are worthy of our anger and frustration. And that alone is exhausting. But it seems like that’s all we know how to do now. We know how to complain. We know how to be mad. We know how to fight. What we’re losing sight of is how to be thankful for what we do have – how to appreciate the good things with the bad and expressing that gratitude.
So that’s my goal. I know it’s hard to measure, but that’s ok. I’m going to try, and I hope others do, too. I hope that I can help other people feel confident about talking about the things we love, and I hope that infects everyone. I want to be drowning in positive vibes! I will be doing my part on twitter and in my streaming and gaming in general. 🙂
I wish everyone a 2019 full of happiness and love.
xo
Blog header photo by Roven Images on Unsplash
Another year is coming to a close. It’s always a time for us to look back and reflect on the year, to celebrate our achievements and say goodbye to perhaps some of the sadder moments that have happened.
For this post, I’m going to take a look back at my 2018 bucket list to see how I did. And of course for the next post, I’ll set myself some goals for 2019.
Looking back on 2018
I tend to get to this time of year feeling a bit sad. Sad that I probably didn’t accomplish or achieve nearly as much as I would like to have. But that’s not the best way to think about things, is it? Because when I look back on my bucket list for 2018, I actually succeeded quite well indeed, despite the roller coaster that was my guild in 2018.
Let me touch on that quickly, actually. Those who have followed my blog or twitter this year will know that it has been quite the year of ups and downs when it came to my guild.
The short version is that after the high of getting Cutting Edge with mythic Argus, we made the decision to push harder going in to Battle for Azeroth. Looking back now, we all agree this decision was our downfall. I wrote a lot about this in this post, and then this post. What I didn’t end up writing about is how we came back together again.
What I didn’t end up writing about is how we came back together again.
As I wrote in my last post about all this, I moved servers to a new guild to trial as an elemental shaman. And I have to say, I got damn lucky. The team I trialled with were so lovely and kind, and extremely patient with me while I tried to figure out how to be dps instead of heals. They were extremely kind to me, and I’m so grateful for that. But in the end, as tragic as it sounds, the lure of old friendships called, and I ended my trial to try, yet again, with Realm.
Looking back on this past year, as tumultuous as it has been, there is one common thread throughout – friendship. Oh I know, it sounds so lame. but it’s true. The people in Realm are people I consider to be friends. I am glad to have them in my life. A few weeks back we had an in-game Christmas party that was loads of fun, and really struck home how much I enjoy spending time with these fine folk. It turned out, for me, friendships were far more important that raiding, and I’m completely ok with that.
The 2018 bucket list
At the beginning of 2018, as I do most years, I wrote a bucket list of things I wanted to achieve. You can see this post right here. I didn’t write it at the time, but in the back of my mind I’d had the bucket list from the previous year in mind, and wanted to make things a bit easier on myself. Although looking on it now, I really failed at that! This list wasn’t nearly as easy on myself as it could have been… but it was definitely fun. So let’s see how I did.
Make a list of every pet and mount available in Legion and get any that are missing (That are not RNG dependent).
Well I suppose technically I fail by default because I never made that list! BUT, I’m pretty sure I did get a lot of them. I got Uuna and finished her quest line, and then later go Baa’l when he came out in BfA. I finished the Family Familiar achievement as well as the Family Fighter achievement, getting pets from both of those as well.
I found Lost Mail and felt like Harry Potter as I got the Mailemental pet (and Katy Stampwhistle toy!)
I was also really lucky with mounts, getting the Shackled Ur’zul mount from Mythic Argus! AND I managed to complete the Lord of the Reins achievement! I was very fortunate all around, I feel.
Were I did fail (other than failing to make the list at all, haha!) was not getting the pvp mounts. They were easy gets, but I didn’t do them. There’s still a chance of going back, but to be honest, I can’t see myself doing that any time soon. But overall, I think I’d call this a pretty successful bucket list item complete. 🙂
Finish getting all of the class mounts
DONE! You can read all about it right here. This was an epic undertaking, but one that I’m glad I did in the end (not just because it helped a lot getting Lord of the Reins done!) It gave me a chance to play around on all the classes, to see if any of them really tickled my fancy for an alt. They didn’t… but I’m still glad I had a go at them all again for awhile 🙂
Get more Mage Tower appearances
This was tougher than I expected it to be. My original list of appearances that I wanted to get were:
- Enhancement shaman
- Discipline priest
- Holy paladin
- Frost Mage
- Arcane Mage
- Retribution paladin
- Restoration druid
- Protection paladin (though I honestly don’t see this one happening at all)
- maaaaybe affliction warlock
What I ended up getting….
Shaman – Restoration, elemental and enhancement
(these were no-brainers – I absolutely had to get all of these.)
Mage – Arcane, fire and frost.
Yep, I got all three! I was pretty pleased with myself for that one 🙂
Druid – Balance and feral.
Yeah you heard me, feral. How could I not get disco kitty? It’s easily the best appearance out of all of them. I didn’t, however get the restoration appearance. I’ve never healed as a druid, and that darn scenario is hard.
Priest – Discipline.
This was tough. I’d never played Disc properly before. But I pushed through, because I really loved the appearance.
The Disc priest appearance was the straw that broke the camel’s back, though. It was a tough fight, and by that point I had started to resent the amount of time I was spending trying to finish these, so I stopped. But, I had set myself a goal of getting 8 (maybe 9!) appearances, and in the end, I actually did get 9 appearances. So I’m going to call this one a win, too. 🙂
Stream more
This one was very generic, but I needed it to be (for this year at least).
I managed to get Affiliate status a few weeks after making my bucket list, so that was a nice bonus!
Overall, yes, I technically streamed more. And to that end I can call it a win. But I certainly have a long, long way to go. Will all the raiding dramas this year, I was unable to have a regular raiding/streaming schedule because I kept associating one with the other. It has taken me awhile to separate the two, and branch out to stream other content. I’m still getting my feet with this, but I will get better.
What I have really enjoyed about my streaming, though, is finally settling on an identity. I love my little unicorn self! I’m really enjoying updating my graphics for the year… helps to keep things interesting 🙂 It also helps me to focus on the streaming itself, and not necessarily the games that I’m streaming (if that makes sense).
So, that’s my year! Honestly, I can’t complain. I know that I am a very fortunate person. So for all the difficulties and struggles I face, I know there are people who have it so very much harder than me, and I need to remember that.
I’m pleased with what I’ve managed to achieve this year, both in game and out. I hope you all have had a great year, too! Keep an eye out of my 2019 bucket list post, coming very soon….
It has been a very long time coming (thanks my slow-ass levelling skills) but this weekend I finally finished collecting all of the class mounts. I’m officially finished! All up there are 32 class mounts, with some classes having only 1, and others having 4. So whilst I was able to unlock the main mount for a bunch of classes, it meant getting the artifact and getting Power Ascended on it in order to unlock other colour variants. Not overly difficult, just a little time consuming.
Gotta say, even though there were some class mount quests that I didn’t like at all, the whole concept of getting a unique class mount has been AWESOME and I’m so glad Blizzard implemented it. Even though the levelling took a little while, I still enjoyed it all.
As for favourites? I’d say Death Knight, Shaman, Priest and Mage had some of my favourite mount quest lines, for sure. Oh, Hunter was quite good, too. Least favourite was easily Warrior. Just felt really boring to me (but that could be because I think Odyn is a giant penis and I don’t like having to do things for him!).
So this is the end result! Feeling pretty chuffed to have gotten through it all with plenty of time to spare. That’s another thing ticked off my bucket list – woo hoo!! Now I’m working on collecting the missing pets, which are from the pet dungeon and the Argus pet battle achievement (thankfully have managed to get all the other).
Death Knight
Demon Hunter
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Monk
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior
What a big weekend! Achievements and mounts and pets – it all happened!
~*~*~*~Note there are some class campaign and class mount story spoilers in this post for Death Knight and Rogue.~*~*~*~
This weekend I managed to tick of a lot of things from my bucket list, and even a few that weren’t there.
First up, my little warrior dinged 110.
She’s still got a long way to go to get through her campaign, but at least for now the “hard” part is done. This just leaves my demon hunter to get to 110, then all classes will be at max level!
After completing the Death Knight campaign last weekend, it was time to get the class mount. I have to agree with the general cohort here and say that the Death Knight campaign is definitely one of the best, if not the best campaigns of all the classes. They nailed the class fantasy with this story. I felt down right evil throughout most of it, and was squirming in my seat when I was being asked to do some pretty wretched things. It was brilliant.
Then yesterday I went off to do the class mount story, and that was also brilliant. I really enjoyed it! It’s down right creepy having the Lich King constantly pushing me to do evil things in my ear… but do them, I must. For the mounts, of course!
I really enjoyed the scenario for this quest, as it took us to a place that we’ve not really been to before (whereas most other mount stories just take us to old world places. Which is great! But this was a nice change). The cinematic at the end was absolutely BRILLIANT. I got some amazing screen shots of my DK in that! The Death Knight stuff really is excellent, so if you’re even a little bit curious about it, level one up and go for it!
Today (Sunday) it was my rogue’s turn to complete her mount quest. The Rogue class campaign was ok… the trouble is that I just really don’t like rogues as a class, so the overall experience was tainted for me. Levelling her was so painful because I died a lot, and I just didn’t find it fun. Don’t get me wrong, it was still interesting, but let me put it this way- I didn’t take any screenshots of the campaign at all. That’s how uch fun I didn’t have doing it.
I did, however, take some screenshots of the mount campaign because that was quite good. Although truth be told, felt a little rushed. The basic premise is that we go do a favour for Ravenholdt, and he gives us a mount in return. The quest line really has nothing to do with the mount (whereas most of the other campaigns make the acquisition of the mount a big deal). Still, the quest line had me sneaking in to Horde cities to kill random targets. Which was tough because I don’t pvp, and these were not instances of the capital cities- it was live. So not only did I have to sneak past guards and what not, I had to dodge other players, too. I did alright, though, and got through it relatively well. Which is great, because truth be told, the rogue class mount is right up there on my list of favourites. I absolutely LOVE the raven models. And the fact that there’s four of them makes it even better!
It was after getting the first rogue mount that I started looking at my mount count, and adding up how many I had left. With the first raven, it brought me to 294, and the second raven (for having concordance on my outlaw spec) brought me to 295. Only 5 mounts needed to get to 300 for Lord of the Reins achievement and mount. Ok, I can do this! I quickly did a world quest for some Artifact Power to get my Assassination artifact concordance as well. Done – 296. The fourth was subtlety, which I didn’t even have the artifact for. So off I went to unlock the artifact, then went an killed the world boss for enough AP in one go to get concordance rank 2! And that made mount 297.
So then I had a think about which other classes had mounts for specs that I didn’t play. First one that came to mind was paladin – I didn’t have the tank artifact or mount. So off I went to get that artifact. Killed the world boss again and bamn! Concordance and mount for ret paladin done- 298. (I also discovered there are glyphs that allow me to change my Divine Steed ability to use one of the class mounts instead of the racial mount. This was an AWESOME discovery as I really hate the giant elek I run around on mid-fight!)
My next thought was my warlock. The mounts were a little different for this one- the first mount you just get for completing the campaign. The second you can buy with order hall resources, and I’d already done that too. The last mount, however, was a drop from a rare on the Broken Shore. I’d been stopping by each day waiting for him to spawn without any luck. Figured I’d see how I go again today… wouldn’t you know- there was the rare! I killed him and BAMN! Mount 299 acquired! ONE TO GO!
I was thinking and thinking and then I remembered my hunter! I still hadn’t unlocked the Survival artifact, nor its mount. So I went to unlock survival. I did it as BM as much as I could before swapping over. Was a little tricky in some parts, but got it done. Again, went and killed the world boss for 5 mil AP and there it was- mount 300!! Except for some reason it didn’t ding on my hunter. It happened when I swapped over to my paladin instead. Lord of the Reins is finally complete! I really didn’t think I’d get this done for a bit longer yet. But I’m very pleased that I have. 🙂
LORD OF THE REINS!
Because I was on a roll with everything, I went and unlocked all the artifacts I hadn’t done yet that awarded a toy or pet from Power Ascended. The best one was the Death Knight, as there was an adorable whelping for each spec that I picked up!
All in all it was a very busy but productive weekend. I only have the warrior class campaign and mount campaign to do, as well as finishing off levelling my Demon Hunter to 110 and doing all her campaign and mount quest line. I’m almost there! 😀
By the way, if you’re wanting to find out which classes have bonus pets or toys or have more than one class mount, check out the Class Mounts guide on wowhead.
For the past few weeks/months a few people in guild have been trying to get a group together to work on getting The Chosen achievement. For this achievement, you need to complete the Trial of Valor on mythic difficulty without dying. That is, defeating Odyn, Guarm and Helya on mythic, and still being alive at the end of it to tell the tale.
We decided to try this when we outgeared it a fair bit, to give us a better chance of succeeding. Which brings us to today. Tonight was the 3rd night we had tried to complete (my second night, as I missed the first one). Most of the time people died to silly mechanics like orbs on Helya which, even with loads of gear, can one-shot people if they’re not careful.
Tonight, we lost one person to Guarm (I believe they just got a bit too close to the boss and got one-shot), and we lost another to Helya (got hit by an orb that hurt for a bucket load). 18/20 isn’t too bad, though!
From this achievement, we received the title “… the Chosen” and a transmog set. I’m not the biggest fan of the transmog set, to be honest. But you know me and transmog- got to have them all!
For me, it was more about getting that title. I’ve wanted it since I heard it, and am awfully glad to have gotten it. There will be more runs in the future for alts to get the transmog sets on other armour types… I’ve just got to decide which one I want next! 🙂
Content from cindersays.net.
I have been working on this darn post for weeks now and haven’t gotten around to finishing it. I should have added “write my bucket list post” to my bucket list. Lame.
So 2018 is a big year for many reasons. The most obvious being that World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Battle for Azeroth will be coming out. awww yeah!
BfA’s release this year actually makes a bucket list a little tricky to do, because the release date will impact just how much I can get through. For the purposes of this bucket list, I’m going to assume that BfA will release on September 21st (which is the latest it can release, according to the pre-order). Obviously if BfA comes out a lot earlier, I’m not going to be able to achieve everything I want to… but we’ll see how I go. So, on with the list!
Make a list of every pet and mount available in Legion and get any that are missing (That are not RNG dependent).
To be fair, I think I’m most of the way through this, though there are obvious mounts that I am missing. Namely the pvp prestige mounts. There is at least 1 that I absolutely definitely have to get, and maybe even a 2nd if there is time. With the pets, I need to get Uuna and do her little quest line. I also need to get the new Mailemental pet, and need to finish the meta pet battle achievement on Argus (which thankfully is a lot easier than Family Familiar, but will still take a decent amount of time).
Finish getting all of the class mounts
At the time of writing this I have warlock, warrior, rogue, demon hunter and death knight left to go. The warlock is at 110, she’s just very slowly making her way through the rest of the order hall campaign, and will then move on to the class mount quests. The Rogue is at 108, so not too far off dinging (slow as she is) but my warrior, demon hunter and death knight I’ve not even started. And given how busy I’ve been lately, this is actually going to be a bit of a challenge to get done. But I will!
Get more Mage Tower appearances
When Battle for Azeroth launches, most of the artifact skins will remain. That is except for the Mage Tower challenge appearances, and the 15+ mythic keystone skin. Which means I have some work ahead of me! Below is a list of all the challenge appearances I want, in order of preference. The enhancement shaman one I’ve just been lazy about. Disc priest I’m just crap at… the rest I haven’t even bothered trying yet. But I do love their appearances so would really like to be able to get them done before they go away. The 15+ skin I’m less concerned about- that one would just be nice to have. 🙂
- Enhancement shaman
- Discipline priest
- Holy paladin
- Frost Mage
- Arcane Mage
- Retribution paladin
- Restoration druid
- Protection paladin (though I honestly don’t see this one happening at all)
- maaaaybe affliction warlock
The one thing I am very glad about is that the Balance of Power appearances don’t appear to be going away, so I’ve decided that I won’t focus on doing those on any toons yet. That will be a future Cinder problem.
Stream more
I’m cheating a little with this one, because technically I’ve already “achieved” this, but I do want to stream more. I also want to be putting together more videos (though I would also like either some decent video editing software for my PC, or a better place to put my Mac so that I can do my editing work more easily!). I’m enjoying streaming, even though it kinda goes against all of my personality traits. But it’s nice having people around when we kill bosses 🙂
So that’s my list. I looks short, but each of those things is pretty time consuming. I’m genuinely concerned about my ability to get through all of these, given that March is hot on our heels, and let’s face it, Battle for Azeroth is more than likely going to come out earlier than September 21. But we will see how I go!
We’ve put up two challenges for the rest of December over at Z and Cinder’s Blog Challenge. Partly because we couldn’t decide what order to post them in, and partly (ok mostly!) because we’re just so busy these days that we didn’t want to miss the topics entirely because somehow 2 weeks passed by and we didn’t even realise it… SO! The first topic is the one I’m taking on today, and that is Return to Your Bucket List.
Back at the beginning of 2017 we had a challenge for everyone to make a bucket list for the year. It could be as big or as small as people wanted, as long as it had a goal people wanted to achieve for the year. So let’s see how I did with my list, shall we?
Cutting Edge – all raids* – not quite
(The * disclaimer on this is if 7.2 dropped in December. Well, 7.2 didn’t drop in December, but 7.3 with Antorus released November 30, so it’s fair to say that one doesn’t count towards this.)
This shouldn’t have been as difficult as it was… unfortunately 2017 turned out to be the year of the guild dramas. Technically I’ve been in 3 different guilds this year. Though to be fair they have consisted of a lot of the same people. But all this guild instability meant that raiding took a hit, and we just didn’t get the progression that I wanted this year.
Having said that, we didn’t do terribly. We did get Cutting Edge for Helya in Trial of Valor, and Gul’dan in The Nighthold. But unfortunately we were too far off getting it in Tomb of Sargeras, only getting 7/9Mythic bosses down. Still a really great achievement, but disappointing to miss out on Cutting Edge.
So far in Antorus we’re doing alright. Again, we’ve been plagued by guild dramas (why can’t everyone just be nice to each other and get along?!?!?!) so we’re only sitting a 2/11Mythic, but we’ve got time, and I have hope.
Get my class mount* – yes!
(The disclaimer for this one was based on not knowing when the mounts themselves would be available. Class mounts came out in patch 7.2, which dropped at the end of March).Â
This one was easily achieved. Shortly before the patch came out the requirements to get the mount were lessened, making it even easier.
The questline to get the shaman mount really was a lot of fun. And the mount itself is AWESOME!! I love that there are different colourings of it for each spec.
But, not only have I got the shaman class mount, I also have the class mounts for my mage, paladin, druid, priest and monk- huzzah!
There will be a bit of a lull now as I start to level the classes that I don’t enjoy playing so much. I currently have my hunter at 107, my rogue at 103 and my warrior at 102. My warlock, demon hunter and death knight have only opened up their order halls. I should really get in there and get them at least one champion to help do some missions… might try and get that done over Christmas break.
Complete Family Familiar Achievement – yes!
I did it! At the end of May I finally finished this achievement. It was a hard slog, especially at the end when it came down to waiting for specific battles to spawn, and they just wouldn’t! But I got there in the end, and this little treant fellow became my newest companion. 🙂 
Attend all the micro-holidays – almost
Unfortunately I missed the Thousand Boat Bash. But I did manage to make it to all of the others! It’s hard to choose a favourite, because each one had something fun and unique about it. I suppose Call of the Scarab had the least appeal to me, having not played when AQ40 opened up and what not. The Hatching of the Hippogryphs was flippin’ adorable, as was the March of the Tadpoles! Oh that one was so much fun. And Trial of Style was loads of fun, too (I see that’s coming back in March, so might have a more regular rotation than once a year!)
As expected, the micro-holidays are as much fun as I’d hoped they would be. They’re just a really fun thing to do every now and again. I had lovely moments with some new guildies recently doing the Moonkin Festival- we ended up having a moonkin dance party in raid! It was great 🙂
Most of all, though, what I really love about the micro-holidays is seeing so many large groups of people hanging out and doing silly things in game. It’s just awesome.
Level 3 more toons to 110 – yes!
When I set this goal, I was actually thinking I was going easy on myself at the time. I honestly expected pretty much all of my alts to be at 110 by now. What I (and many others!) didn’t know at the time was just how fast Blizzard would be bringing out new content this expansion. It was been a regular stream of content thrown at us. And whilst it has been AMAZING having all these things to do, it has meant that my poor alts have suffered.
Even still, I have do have 5 alts at 110- they’re the 5 classes I mentioned above that have the class mounts, too. But I’m a long way from being done. Having said that, I exceeded my goal of 3, so I’m happy with that!
Get the Brawler’s Guild mount – yes!
Surprisingly this was one of the first things I managed to tick off of my bucket list, completing this in February. I’m always really nervous about going in to Brawler’s Guild because I’m scared I’ll get laughed at for being rubbish (which has never happened, by the way!). Anyway, I just said to myself I had to get over that, and went in there and worked through all the fights over the course of a weekend. There are some really great fights in there. I’m not good at going in to those things blind, so I did a little bit of reading before each fight which helped. The last boss was fantastic- Ray D. Tear was his name and had every ability from the Hellfire Citadel raid. It was completely bonkers, but SO much fun!
And that’s it! Overall, I’ve been a lot more successful with my list than I expected. The only thing that really let me down was the raiding situation, and in a lot of ways that’s just out of my hands as it relies on so many people to get it done. But I’m happy with my year. 🙂
How was yours?!
The alt that I have been working on lately has been my priest. I’ve never been very good at being a priest. Shadow just doesn’t mesh well with me, and I didn’t really like holy last time I tried it either. Same for Discipline, really. But I *really* wanted the priest class mount. And the hidden appearance for Disc is a book, so I just had to get it. So I got to it.
~*~*~*~*~Warning – priest campaign spoilers ahead!~*~*~*~*~
Turns out, I quite like playing Disc! I’m absolutely terrible at it, but I can do it well enough to get by. The recent changes to Artifact Knowledge also really helped- having a powerful weapon made hitting things a lot better! I was also really lucky to have some kind guildies who were very patient with me and took me through the dungeons I needed to do… they gave me tips on what to do, and were very kind when I accidentally died to everything in the world.
I did things a bit out of order. I went off and grabbed my hidden appearance for my priest as soon as I remembered I wanted it again (it’s been a busy time!) Getting this appearance was one of the more positive hidden-appearance-collecting experiences. I grabbed all the info from wowhead, but essentially you have to run around Azeroth collecting missing pieces from a book. I was quite lucky in that most of the pages spawned when I went to them… except for one. Unfortunately it didn’t spawn any time I was looking for it, and so my collecting activities ended up going over the weekly reset, which meant some of the pages I had collected previously would not count, and I would need to get them again. (There’s a great macro on that link above that lets you know which pages you have available).
Anyways, I ended up finding all the pieces, and this beautiful appearance is mine!
Next up to get done was the campaign. The Priest campaign itself was fine. Because I had already done the paladin campaign, I knew what was coming. Whilst it was a wee bit disappointing to have so much crossover between the two classes, it made sense, and I still enjoyed it. I also really like the artifact appearance you get for completing the campaign, too. (but the hidden one is still my favourite!)
So that left me with just getting my class mount. I got myself up to the point where I had to do a Legion Invasion to proceed, but unfortunately there wasn’t one up while I was awake for a little while! Thankfully we had one from 9:30pm last night, so my lovely friends Mel, Leeta & Natanie went along with me and did the invasion so I could keep going through the quest line. Afterwards, I pushed through all the required quests right up until I needed to complete a Broken Shore order hall mission. I had one up, so I sent some followers off on that and went to bed.
This morning, my mission complete, I only had a few more quests to do, then it was time to go get my beautiful mount.
Now, I have said time and time again that I think the shaman campaign is amazing, and getting the class mount was also a lot of fun. But I think getting the priest mount is the new winner. This experience was so different to anything else I’d done! It was wonderful.
~*~*~*~*~AGAIN SPOILER WARNING IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE SPECIFICS ABOUT THE PRIEST MOUNT QUESTLINE~*~*~*~*~
You’re still here? Ok!
Acquiring our mount starts with a visit from The Speaker himself, Magni Bronzebeard!! He has stopped by our Order Hall because he has a message and a mission from Azeroth- to find a hidden Titan Vault. And we’re going to get there BY SUBMARINE!! I was irrationally excited about the submarine adventures… 😀
So off we went. We head towards the Maelstrom where the vault is said to be. I may have taken way too many screenshots at this point, because it was just really awesome. There was also really great banter between Magni, Brann and Betild as we travel through the ocean, and we learn a bit more about how Azeroth communicates with Magni.
We arrive at the entrance to the vault. I giggled as Brann ran around like his usual excited self, as he tried to find levers and buttons and switches to open the doors. Of course The Speaker didn’t need any levers to get in…
Once inside, the room looked like other titan vaults we have seen before. But this one was under water, so the view outside was really cool.
I won’t go into the specifics of what happens in there, but seriously, Brann cracks me up so much. It made for a really enjoyable experience.
With the mission complete, it was time to head back to Dalaran. But I just could not resist going for a wander back around to the cave where we entered. I love exploring new places! I didn’t expect to find anything, but it was still really beautiful. One of the best parts though, was that the lighting in the area was really quite dark, so it gave me the opportunity to take some really nice golden-priest screenshots.
Then it was back to my Order Hall for a ceremony where everyone (rightly so!!) bowed to my wonderfulness, and the beautiful mount was mine.
Overall, I really enjoyed the campaign. And I just adore the mount- it’s smushed up face is adorable, and I love all the sparkles and feathers and stuff that float around it. It’s gorgeous!
So that’s now five campaigns done. I can’t quite decide who to level next. I had started my hunter, but I’m just not feeling it yet… I played around on my warrior last night, and whilst she’s loads of fun, the mount doesn’t really appeal to me. I think I need to work on my monk next. The mount is up there as one of my favourites, and that class has the added bonus of getting a pet when you get the Power Ascended achievement. So I’m thinking that should be my next goal. But with the schedule I have ahead of me, she won’t be levelled any time soon, unfortunately.
In the meantime, I’m really glad to have my priest mount! 🙂
Today I finally got off my butt and did the Field Photographer achievement. I had been putting it off for the longest time because I wanted to be smart about it and not waste my time zigzagging all over Azeroth. Then I came across this splendid guide on wowhead – http://www.wowhead.com/guide=2952/field-photographer-achievement-a-guide It has both a text version and a version with the locations marked on maps, which was immensely helpful to me.
So of course the first thing I did was make myself a new transmog for the journey. With that done, off Cinderstorm went to explore the world.
You know what? It was the best. It really was. I got to see places I hadn’t seen in ages, and in some cases I hadn’t even seen at all. I had the music playing while I was flying and it was so nice to hear the different pieces as I moved through the world. I really love this game – it is so, so beautiful.
To me, this was a day well spent. 🙂
I am still in a bit of shock as I write this.
This evening I managed to get the “Proven Healer” title for completing 30 waves on endless difficulty in the Proving Grounds. I have been working on this achievement since Mists of Pandaria. This has been about 3 years in the making. And today I finally did it.
I know so many people have done this and found it a piece of cake. Not me. I always had mana issues (in that I had NONE), I had nothing that would keep the tank alive when he was getting wailed on, and it just seemed that the dps would stand in everything in the world and die at the drop of a hat. Today I figured out why. I was always too over geared and the scaling was screwing me over.
Like I said, I’ve been working on this since it was available in Mists. Back then I was trying mostly on my paladin (which should have been a lot easier by default) but could never get it, no matter how hard I tried. I tried for awhile on my shaman as well during Mists but still failed. I tried again in Warlords briefly – still failed. I had looked at guides, I had tried all different stats, gear sets, talents/glyphs etc. Failed every time. I got in the 20s a couple of times but always fell flat. It was a very disheartening feeling, because so many people I knew managed to get the achievement without any troubles at all. Even people who didn’t main a healer. It was demoralising and I felt that I must just be the worst healer. It honestly made me question whether or not I was good enough as a healer to raid at all, and more than once had me on the verge of calling raiding quits.
selfies during the down time between waves 🙂
I was inspired to try again today by this post on reddit from a user who has managed to get endless wave 30 on every single class, on every single spec. Amazing. I figured it had been some time since I’d tried again, so why not? I read through this guy’s advice. The way proving grounds works in Warlords is a bit different to Mists – in Warlords the mobs scale to your gear rather than your gear scaling to the instance. The goal is to get gear as close to about 615 ilvl as possible (some people say you can go as high as 635 – it’s whatever you can get really). In the end I was at 627, which was a bit on the high side, but still worked for me. The other trick is to use your legendary ring (the proc won’t work but the stats should be good) and use 2 great trinkets.
Gear
For most of my gear, I actually ended up using the Shaman set from the Salvage yard. It’s at 610 and suited me just fine. Also, I already had all of it for transmog (except the legs) so that was easy. The rest I either crafted or got from the Auction House. (And of course I transmogged it all, because everyone knows you heal better when you have a new outfit!)
My gear was as follows:
Helm: Streamtalker Coif
Neck: Heirloom – Eternal Horizon Choker (has an on use heal ability, however I didn’t realise this was a shared cooldown with healthstones, which are a stronger self heal, so you may prefer something else here)
Shoulders: Streamtalker Pauldrons
Back: Embroidered Wolfsfur Cloak
Chest: Streamtalker Tunic
Wrists: Streamtalker Armbands
Hands: Streamtalker Gloves
Waist: Streamtalker Belt
Legs: Packrunned Leggaurds of the Fireflash
Boots: Streamtalker Boots
Ring 1: Whispering Blackrock band of the Feverflare
Ring 2: Etheralus, the Eternal Reward (legendary ring)
Trinket 1: Corrupted Egg Shell (from a Timewalking Dungeon. Has an ilvl of 660. Has a mana regen ability)
Trinket 2: Demonic Phylactery (heroic) (Reduces mana cost of all spells)
Weapon: Soultwisting Staff
Talents
I got a bit ahead of myself and started the event before I had changed my talents or eaten any food (silly me!!), so I didn’t get a chance to change my talents. I figured I’d wipe pretty quickly and could change them after so went ahead anyway, but I managed to get this on my first attempt tonight. Here’s what my talents were:
If I were to do it again, I would probably keep most of it, however I’d change the level 100 talent to the Cloudburst Totem, as I was trying to avoid using chain heal as much as possible to save on mana. Elemental Blast is a brilliant talent for this, especially if you have mana shortages. It also helps to buff up some of your other stats for a bit which is nice 🙂
Glyphs
Glyphs weren’t anything special, although the one that I would definitely recommend is Glyph of Healing Wave, which also heals you for 10% of the heal you do on an Ally. Free heals for yourself means you’re spending less mana.
Other stuff
Don’t be a dunce like me and forget to eat – I’m sure it will help! Also, I realised part way through that I (still!!) hadn’t put a Chomp! identifier on my vuhdo bars. I highly recommend doing this as the target with Chomp will take constant damage until they are healed to full. It helps knowing who has that on them as soon as it goes out.
Don’t be afraid to use your cooldowns. People have set times in the fights that they prefer to use them, but I just used them as I needed them. There were times I would have been using a CD when it wasn’t needed if I had have done them at specific times and would have gone to waste. I also threw out my Fire Elemental to help out with DPS to push the wave through quicker.
So I just went for it. I managed to get through the first 10 waves no worries at all. Which I thought was a little weird but figured it was only the first difficulty so it would get harder and I’d fail soon. When I was at about wave 17 I thought that I might actually be able to do this. Going in to the 20s and I start getting nervous that I’m so close and I could really get it. And so I did. I started crying when I hit wave 30 (relatively easily in the end, mind you!) and it all fell apart at wave 32 because my eyes were all welled up. But it didn’t matter – I had finally done what I had set out to do so many years ago. And I worked my butt off and I did it.
The end!
I know it’s stupid to be emotional about this, but this has really been playing on my and my confidence as a healer. Tell you what, I’m never taking this title off. Ever.
Today I finished the last battle in the Celestial Tournament! It took me awhile, but I got there in the end. I doubt that it will happen, but it would be nice if there was another similar type tournament in Legion. I like this PVE-style of pet battling, where it’s just me against a series of pets. (I’m really not a fan of the PVP pet battling at all!)
All in all, it took a LOT of work to get through all of this, and an awful lot of patience. But it was worth it. All 4 of the pets are gorgeous and unique and I love them.
If you’re interested in taking on the Celestial Tournament, you’ll need 15 pets at maximum level just to enter, and a lot more than that to be able to complete the fights. In the end there were 2 guides that I used, both from wowhead. The first, and the one I used the most, is the A Pet Battler’s Guide to: Defeating the Celestial Tournament. I found this guide really useful because it has multiple stats, and best of all offers a series of alternative pet options if you don’t have what the guide suggests. The second guide I used is Celestial Tournament with 18 pets. I only found this guide towards the end of my attempts, but it has some great strats for the Celestials themselves. The guide does make use of the “healing pets up” strat where you have a pet with an AoE who can heal up any pets who haven’t died. The guide explains it well, and it works well, too. I used it as a backup for any strats that didn’t work out for me in the first guide. Both guides are great, so check them out!
I took all 4 of my little pets around to their parents’ temples for a visit and to get some family pics. 🙂
Best of all, this ticks off another item from my bucket list!
(yeah I feel dirty about the title, too!)
So this weekend I found myself drawn once more to my mage. This always happens – when I feel a bit lost for something to do, I fall back on to my mage. I’m pretty sure it’s the portals – it makes getting around the world so easy! But also, she’s super pretty and I like blowing things up with my spells.
At the moment she’s playing as Arcane, which is super easy. Her gear is still low so she’s not very strong, which means she does die when I pull too many mobs in Tanaan. But the rotation is quite straight forward and gets the job done.
This weekend I did my Tol Barad dailies with her each day (still got a little while to go yet, and will lose about 4 days because of my holiday this week). I ran her through Dragon Soul (still need the Ultraxion mount!) and will do ICC tonight. I then decided that I’d get her the legendary ring. I haven’t really been too bothered with it on any of my alts yet. My warlock is up to the point where she needs to get the from Hellfire Citadel; my paladin has all of her Abrogator Stones, but still needs the tomes from Highmaul; and my mage is now up to the Abrogator Stone collecting stage and the tomes.
I really should finish the quest line on my warlock – she’s not far away from finishing it at all. It’s just that I’m soooo bad at playing her that it makes the experience a bit more harrowing than it needs to be.
Anyway, back to my mage. I think I’ve been playing her a lot more lately because I still haven’t really decided what my main alt will be in Legion. My shaman will always be my main, but I usually have a “main alt” that’s not too far behind her. For WoD is was my warlock, but I’m just terrible at her. I feel like I’ve really let her down.
I find myself always falling back to my mage and my paladin. They were my first 2 toons so it makes sense that I do this. And I do love them. I think I’m leaning more towards my mage at the moment because the Fire Mage Artifact Weapon – Felo’melorn – is absolutely gorgeous. **POSSIBLE SPOILERS – wowhead have some images of the variants of Felo’melorn right here. (These were seen during the Blizzcon presentation, too.). Don’t click if you don’t want to see theses!! The model second from the left is right up my alley!**
Also, as fire mage, they have an ability called Cinderstorm!! (which was like, totally named after my shaman hehe) But seriously, I’ve always really enjoyed playing fire, I’ve just always been very unlucky with critical strike so my numbers were always low. And it’s a lot slower to play, so hasn’t always been practical for levelling (which may still be the case in Legion!) but I just really like fire so it suits me well.
So with all of that in mind, I’m going to work to get my mage kitted out in at least LFR gear in time for Legion so that if I do decide to play her, she’ll do alright.
Anyway, those were my magey adventures this weekend! Got a bit of work to do with her, but she’ll get there 🙂
This weekend I’ve been having a bit of trouble with my back so have been taking it easy. Which means a lot of time in WoW. This week’s bonus event is one of my favourites, the Pet Battle Bonus. It’s a brilliant opportunity to level up some of your pets very quickly. I have two pet related items on my pre-Legion bucket list. One is to get the pet battle monument by completing 2000 (argh) pet battles in Draenor. The other is an equally stupid goal of my own to get all of my pets to 25. So why not kill 2 birds with one stone while also levelling up one of my toons at the same time?
One of the best places to level up pets nice and quickly is actually right outside the Horde garrison. There are loads of little Icespine Hatchlings that respawn very quickly. That and with my little team below, they are perfect for levelling pets very quickly from level 1.
My super levelling pet team
Here’s my team:
Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
Breath
Thunderbolt
Decoy
(note: Decoy is really the only ability you need from this pet, so if you have another with Decoy that you would rather use, go for it. Just make sure your other 2 abilities will be useful in the rare event that Xu-Fu will go down).Â
Xu-Fu, Cub of Xuen
Bite
Feed
Prowl
Levelling pet – any pet that you want to level, even level 1
The strategy:
- open with Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling and drop Decoy
- switch to your levelling pet. Don’t do any abilities – the decoy will take the hit so your low level pet doesn’t take any damage
- switch to Xu-Fu and take the hit
- do prowl
- do feed – generally this should bring you right back up to full health
This is how your level 1 pets will survive the fights – that decoy!
From here it’s a straight forward rotation of doing bite until prowl is available again, then doing prowl, feed and repeat. Xu-Fu does most of the hard work here, but he’s a brilliant little pet. His self healing is what makes this so easy to get through. I work it so that the last hit on the opposing team is Feed which usually bring Xu-Fu back to full health, ready for his next team to fight. It means you don’t spend a lot of time having to heal up your pets outside of the battles. Also, if you’re very lucky, you’ll get 2 critters on the opposing team – each can be taken down with just 2 hits from Xu-fu (sometimes even just 1 if he crits well!).
Sometimes you will get unlucky and Xu-Fu will go down, especially if the other 2 pets are Twilight Wasps (flying), but following the above I’ve only ever had that happen on the 3rd opposing pet, and the mechanical dragonling does just fine to finish off the battle (drop decoy, thunderbolt and breath and you should be done).
You can make the pet levelling process WAY faster if you wear our Safari hat, and use both a Lesser Pet Treat (25% pet exp. bonus) AND the Pet Treat (50% pet exp. bonus) – both will treats will stack, so with everything combined with the pet battle bonus experience, you’re looking at 275% pet experience bonus. VERY nice. 😀
It’s quick and easy. My priest dinged 100 today having essentially the very basics in Frostfire Ridge to give her a garrison, and from then on she did pet battles. It’s definitely a slow levelling process, that’s for sure, but it was something different, and is another alt to cross off my list to have to max level before Legion.
If you try this team out, let me know how you go. Hope it works well for you, too 🙂
Even though Legion is probably still quite some time away, many people are already in the end of expansion wind down. Some people are unsubbing temporarily, whilst others, like myself, are making a bucket list of things to get done before Legion comes out. (By the way, if you’re looking for ideas of things to do in WoW during the downtime, check out Girls Gone WoW’s latest podcast – they cover off a bunch of great stuff).
So! Here’s my bucket list of things to finish before Legion comes out:
- Field Photographer achievement
This one is pretty straight forward. My biggest issue though is that my geography is terrible! I don’t know where anything is in game, so I spend a lot of time looking things up. It makes for a very slow process, made even slower by the fact that I’d take the longest way to get places. It would be nice if there were an addon to assist with this. In lieu of that, I just need to sit down and do the research of where I need to take the selfies and make a plan.
This ended up being a really lovely achievement to get. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was made so much easier by a guide someone put together on wowhead. Check out all the pics! - Full Discography achievement
Draenor Pet Brawler achievement – all done!
These two I’m a bit cross about. I’m doing them because I want to do them and am a completionist about some things. But I’m not happy with the rewards they give. In the case of Full Discography, you don’t even get a reward. However you do have a jukebox filled with lovely music from different parts of the game…. that I can’t use anywhere other than in my garrison.
The issue I have with both of these achievements is that they give me things for my garrison, which after WoD I’m highly unlikely to go back to again. I’ll do them because I want to (though the pvp one is going to be a right drama), but I’m not overly thrilled about it. - Level an Alliance toon to 100
- Master of the Seas achievement
- Charting a course achievement
All done! - What a Strange, Interdimensional Trip it’s been achievement
The is one I’m regretting not having completed sooner, as it will only get more difficult to get this done as people leave the game. Unfortunately I still have a world boss to do this achievement with, and no-one is doing it anymore. I will have to try and convince my guild to help me with it, I think! But I really want the Pepe toy! - Get all my toons to 100
On the Horde side I still have my Druid, Priest and Hunter to get to max level, and as I mentioned above on the Alliance side I have my DK. It will be a lot faster levelling these guys now that we have flying, as well as the Elixir of the Rapid Mind which grants 300% extra experience while you level.
All done! My last toon to get to 100 was my hunter. In the end she levelled from about 98 to 100 with pet battles. Figured it made sense to multi-task my bucket list items! - Get the Graves pet from levelling in Heroes of the Storm
I’ve read in quite a few places that the Graves pet is fantastic. Graves is an adorably ugly little pet that you get as a reward for reaching level 20 on a character in Heroes of the Storm. I actually really like Heroes of the Storm, but I am very bad at it. My favourite character is Li Li (forever the healer!!) But I’m not very fast and I’m not very good at playing with other people, so my levelling of her has slowed down quite a lot. I think I need to spend a solid weekend just levelling her in practice mode (which takes a LOT longer than if you play with other people). But I really do want this little pet! So I’ll do the grind soon. - Level all my pets to 25
This one is going to take some time, though with the Pet Battle bonus weeks it should make things a lot easier (especially if I remember to wear my darn Safari Hat whilst doing it!) At the moment I have 537 unique pets, with only 69Â at max level 25. So a fair way to go. But not entirely impossible. I’d like them all to be rare, too, but I think that might be asking for a bit too much… - An Awfully Big Adventure achievement
I started working on this achievement a little while back but stopped when raiding picked up again. It’s definitely one I’d like to finish, because I think it’s quite cute. And it’s a nice challenge! There are a few guides out there to help with this, so again it’s just something I need to pre-plan to do. And entirely possible. - Finish getting all of the Celestial Tournament pets
I spent a lot of time at the end of Mists of Pandaria collecting and levelling all the pets needed to get in to the Celestial Tournament. It took quite some time, but it was worth it – I got my gorgeous Chi-Chi pet, then got the Xu-Fu pet because he’s both adorable and a strong little pet to have. But I never went back for the last two pets. So I’d like to get both of those.
All done! I now have all four Celestial Pets, and they are lovely. - Emperor Shaohao rep grind and mount
I didn’t do this during Mists of Pandaria because the bloody coin farming groups annoyed me too much! Pvp with another faction is bad enough – pvp with your own faction is worse. Especially when you’d have the debuff and they’d still try to kill you! Hopefully with fewer people around this will be easier to grind out. - Endless healer proving grounds achievement – I DID IT!!!!!!!
The is one of the few achievements that I really really want, and that I don’t think I’ll actually get. I have spent a lot of time working on this achievement in the past, both during Mists of Pandaria when it first came out, and a little during Warlords of Draenor. I haven’t been able to do it. I’ve been close a few times, getting to the mid-20’s for the waves, but have never achieved it. It’s an achievement that makes me sad not to have, and makes me feel “not good enough” as a healer. Sure it’s easier for some classes than others, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling like I should be able to do it. Especially when other people seem to be able to get it so easily. But I will continue to try. - Sort out my screenshots folder
Ok, this isn’t an in-game task I want to complete, but it will definitely make my WoW blogging easier! At the moment I have hundreds of screenshots just sitting in a folder, and when I want a picture I have to search my memory for a screen shot I think I might have that would be suitable, then try to remember when the screenshot was taken, and then search for the darn thing. I need to sort through them all and add tags so that I can make this process a bit quicker.
So that’s the list! I may add more things to it over time, but right now it’s quite a long list. Which is probably good if Legion is as far away as we think it is! 🙂
What’s on your bucket list?
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