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’s been awhile since I’ve participated in one of these challenges (which is pretty hilarious given I’m one half of the team that runs these things… ) I’m aiming to do better with these challenges, though, so here I am.
I chose this topic for the challenge because I wanted to see some more positive posts around the place. Pre-expansion patches are always difficult; people are upset about class changes, addons stop working for awhile… the general sense of upheaval can really get to people, and it’s been showing in the community. My hope was to see some posts that focused on the good stuff. And here is mine.
The topic is in two parts – My Top 3 Legion moments, and then What I’m most looking forward to in Battle for Azeroth.
Part 1 – My Top 3 Legion moments
Ok firstly can I just say that Legion has been absolutely incredible with the amount of content it had. We had artifacts that had class customised scenarios to go with them, class order halls and class mounts and customised quests to get them. We had 5 raids, 13 dungeons, 7 new zones, and world quests on all of them. There were pet battle dungeons, and the whole mythic plus system, and secret mounts and pets and toys to discover… there was so much to do! And it was all incredible. So choosing only 3 favourite things is really hard, guys, just know that.
Shameless plug, but a couple of weeks ago I was a guest on Rolling Restart with Rho, and we talked a lot about the amazing things Legion gave us. It was a really fun show! You can check it out right here.
But I must stick to the topic, and choose 3 favourites. So, this is what I’ve come up with.
Cutting Edge Argus
This is easily one of my highest rated moments in game. Cutting Edge kills usually are for me, because we invest so much time and energy in to getting these kills. We work our butts off and argue and cry and get frustrated, but we keep trying. Cutting Edge, for me, has always been about overcoming all of that to succeed. To kick butt. To feel accomplished. Doing that with a ridiculous and hilarious bunch of people fills me with joy, and makes me super sappy. (For what it’s worth, I re-watched that kill video again just now and it still makes me tear up. Such a good feeling!)
Cinematics
Without a doubt, a huge highlight for me in Legion has been the cinematics that were so effortlessly weaved into so much of the game, from creating new characters, to levelling in each zone, and taking down raid bosses. The cinematics did such a wonderful job of pulling together all of the pieces of story in the expansion, helping us all make sense of what was happening.
I found this fantastic video on YouTube that shows all of the cinematics in Legion, from beginning to end. All up it’s nearly an hour long – how incredible is that?!?! Really puts it all in to perspective. And also reminds me of just how many times I’ve cried my eyes out in this expansion, holy moly!
Uuna
I’m going to preface this by saying that there were SO many NPCs and stories and side stories that I got attached to in Legion. Runas the Shamed in Azsuna, Ysera’s demise in Val’sharah, Thalyssra in Suarmar and Mayla Highmountain in… well, Highmountain. All of them were so beautifully portrayed in this expansion, and made it such a wonderful story to play through. So in a way, this section is for all of those characters.
But really, one did stand out a lot. Uuna. I know I have written about her before, but this little quest line really was such a highlight for me.
I loved that this wasn’t compulsory- that it wasn’t part of the main story. Though in a way, it really was. She was just one of the countless victims of the Legion. A tragically sweet and innocent victim at that. And so we go on a completely heartbreaking journey to save her from never ending darkness. Oh my gosh, it really is just so, so beautiful. I’m so glad I was able to save her. And I can’t wait to take her on my next adventure.
Part 2 – what I am most looking forward to in Battle for Azeroth
This is always a tough topic. New expansions hold so much promise. We know there’s going to be a whole bunch of new content coming. This pre-expansion content and story has already ripped our hearts out and caused so much divide in the community (not just Alliance vs Horde, either!) There’s so much to look forward to! Here are a couple of my favourite things…
Leading ladies
Like everyone else, I have been living for the Warbringer series. Seeing the stories behind these kick ass women has been so wonderfully heartbreaking. I’m terrified, but I have faith that Blizzard are going to do these ladies justice by having amazing stories for them in Battle for Azeroth. And I can’t wait to experience it!
New Allied races – now with curves!
I am absolutely with Ann here– I simply cannot wait to see the Kul’Tiran race – these ladies have curves! They got booty!
We don’t know what classes the Kul’Tiran can be yet, although it does look like they will be able to be druids given all the druid forms that have been datamined. I am really hoping they can be shaman. Firstly, so few of the allied races can be shaman at all, which is really frustrating. But more than that, I WANT TO BE KUL’TIRAN! I’ve never considered race changing from my pandaren. I love her dearly, and always will. But the Kul’Tiran… they’ve got something going on that just really sits so well with me. Maybe I will change my mind once I’ve played through the story in BfA… but for the time being, I would just love to be a kick-ass Kul’Tiran restoration shaman. *fingers crossed*
New raids
This one really goes without saying, doesn’t it? I’ve been so restless these past few weeks as the expansion has come to a close and raiding has ended. I miss it so much. I miss the challenge and the learning and fighting and tantrums. lol I cannot wait to see what Blizz has in store for us in raids in BfA!
So that’s my list! Do you agree? Check out what other people have put on their lists over on the main post at https://zandcindersblogchallenge.wordpress.com/2018/07/28/topic-36-farewell-to-legion/.
There’s nothing better than getting your guild mates together and taking down some bosses.
Here’s a collection of Realm’s team kill shots and videos for each of the raids in Legion. (Check out the gallery to see pics from other expansions)
Antorus
[11] Mythic Argus the Unmaker – CUTTING EDGE!
[10] Mythic Aggramar
[9] Mythic Coven of Shivarra
- Mythic Coven of Shivarra
[8] Mythic Varimathras
- Mythic Varimathras
[7] Mythic Kin’garoth
- Mythic Kin’Garoth
[6] Mythic Imonar the Soulhunter
- Mythic Imonar the Soulhunter
[5] Mythic Portal Keeper Hasabel
- Mythic Portal Keeper Hasabel
[4] Mythic Eonar the Life-Binder
- Mythic Eonar
[3] Mythic Antoran High Command
- Mythic Antoran High Command
[2] Mythic Felhounds of Sargeras
- Mythic Hounds of Sargeras
[1] Mythic Garothi Worldbreaker
- Mythic Garothi Worldbreaker
Tomb of Sargeras
Here’s a collection of Pit Crew’s team kill shots for each of the raids.
Nighthold
Trial of Valor
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
– Emily Dickinson
I’ve had this poem swimming around in my head ever since I read the latest official Warcraft novel, ‘Before the Storm’ by Christie Golden. Every time I think about the book, I keep thinking about hope, and what it means to lose it. And what becomes of the person who does.
~*~*~SPOILER ALERT for ‘Before the Storm’ and some Legion-end specific content.~*~*~
It was the latest episode of the Rolling Restart podcast during which Rho and Ben Bumhoffer talked about their opinions on the book that I got to thinking about my own thoughts and where I thought it was all going. (Side note: Rolling Restart is one of my favourite podcasts, by the way. Comes out every fortnight, and Rho gets some awesome people on to talk about random things.) And it was during that podcast that I realised I had ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’ in my head since finishing the book.
For me, ‘hope’ was such a prevalent theme throughout the book: Sylvanas’ hope for the future of her people, the forsaken, and Anduin’s undying hope for peace between the factions are the two first obvious instances. But it went so much deeper than that. Magni’s hope that Azeroth herself would survive; Grizzek and Sappronetta’s hope for each other… everyone’s hope that Azeroth might survive, and the people living upon its earth would see out their days in peace.
Isn’t it hope that keep us going each day? That gives us a reason to wake up in the morning and go about our day? Hope that, if things are not good, they will get better; or if things are well, they stay that way? I feel like every part of this book played with the notion of hope; what it means to have it, and what happens to those who lose it.
And I suppose that’s why I keep coming back to this poem.
Anduin
One of the criticisms I have seen of the book has been the character of Anduin and his relentless pursuit of peace. As if peace is a weakness, a youthful innocence that is not becoming of a king, and something to be ashamed of. As if wanting to be good and happy and kind, and wanting that for others, are character flaws. They are not. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. How strong must your heart be to believe everyone is capable and worthy of happiness? How sturdy your soul to know peace is possible? And how brave must you be to feel all of this, when your own heart has just been broken in the most horrific way. The fact that Anduin is still capable of love and compassion and hope after everything he has been through (not just the recent obliteration of his father) is a testament to his resilience as a human being.
There’s a nobility in being able to see past the darkness around you to give light to others. And it’s for this reason I believe Anduin is one of the strongest people in the Warcraft universe. But it is also for this reason that I am terrified for him.
Until now, Anduin has embodied the theme of the poem- his hope is deep inside him, and it sings, sings, sings. But it’s this line that troubles me:
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
‘Sore must be the storm’. In a very literal way, we know a storm is coming because the book is quite literally called Before the Storm. We also know a storm is coming because it’s what triggers events in Battle for Azeroth. But what else will it trigger? Will Anduin’s little bird of hope be ‘abashed’? Or worse, silenced?
There were so many times that I cried during the reading of this book. I felt like my heart kept getting broken over and over again. Most of the time it was because it seemed like Anduin was being repeatedly punished for his hope. I cried as he publicly said goodbye to his father, and then as his servent, Wyll, passed away, and especially so when he watched in horror as the hopes of his people were destroyed and their family members murdered. Each betrayal would be enough for most people to crumble. But he just.kept.going. And still, at the end of the book, there his hope is, singing away.
But what if what is to come is too much? What if it’s the last that his hope can take? What becomes of someone like that? Well, I think they start to become like my other favourite character…
Sylvanas
I am not saying Sylvanas is without hope. Far from it. In some ways she is almost just as hopeful as Anduin. Maybe even more. Because if you want to talk about a survivor, Sylvanas is the Queen of them. There are few people in Azeroth who have been through and seen what Sylvanas has. She has literally been born and reborn and reborn again, and that changes a person. (Quite literally in Sylvanas’ case). Sylvanas could never have become the Queen she is today if she were without hope.
But Sylvanas has a different kind of hope. To go back to the bird analogy, I think Sylvanas’ hope is a screeching bird- Loud. Constant. Desperate. It’s a bird that’s weathered the storm.
One of the things Ben said in the Rolling Restart podcast was about Sylvanas being protective of her people. Almost like a mother. It’s a great thought, because what is more fierce, more determined, than a mama bear protecting her family? It’s this protective nature that seems to drive so many of Sylvanas’ actions. She wants only to keep her people safe. The difference with her hope, though, is the way she strives to achieve this. That desperate bird calling inside her is why she takes such drastic, and sometimes cruel actions to do what she believes is right for her people.
In a way it even explains why she was such a cold-hearted bitch to her own people as they prepared to meet their still-living family members. She wants to help them, to let them ‘live’ forever. To give them a future better than the extended rot they face. She knows that if her peoples’ families reject them, they will have to live with that for the rest of their lives… and she doesn’t want that for them. She is desperate to protect them from their own hope. The trouble will be if she becomes desperate for them to love her… but that’s another topic for another day.
When we talk about criticisms of Before the Storm, most of them are around how Sylvanas is portrayed in the book, as being another villain; another Garrosh to defeat at the end of Battle for Azeroth. I find it disappointing that people are not looking deeper than this… but again perhaps another topic for another day. Suffice to say, if people believe Sylvanas to be so one-dimensional, they are missing some of the most interesting parts of her character. We need to remember- she’s not human. Her reasoning is different. Her motivations are different. Her hope…
It’s Sylvanas’ hope for her peoples’ future that makes me believe that it’s entirely possible for her to talk away from them so that they may be lead by the new ‘undead-but-in-a-pretty-way’ Calia Menethil. I don’t know how this would happen, but I believe it’s possible. I believe Sylvanas could sacrifice herself, knowing her people could be taken care of by Calia, who is now one of them.
Or maybe I’m wrong, and Calia’s situation will be the final straw for Sylvanas, and will tip her over the edge of being protective, and becoming all out vindictive instead. (An Undead divided, even?)
Regardless of what is to come, what Before the Storm did for me was show me just how much Sylvanas loves her people, and how her hope for them and their future is what motivates her. And even though I don’t agree with her methods, even though I cried my heart out as she had her own people murdered… I understand. Her hope still screams.
After Before the Storm
I feel like I could write about this book for days. How I became an emotional wreck reading it. How I loved the interracial relationship, and how I held my breath as they fought to survive. How I felt like I was being punched in the gut over and over again.
But I won’t.
Instead, I’m going to read it again. Because I really, really enjoyed this book. But most of all… most of all I felt proud of my King, I felt a better understanding of the Banshee Queen and I am full of hope that Battle for Azeroth is going to rip my heart out again with an amazing story.
I’ve been wanting to do something for my guild for quite some time. Sure, we’ve only been together (in this form) since the end of Tomb of Sargeras (so since around November/December last year? And to be fair, I’ve been raiding with some of them for the whole of Legion. ), but in that time I’ve grown so fond of my guildies. And I wanted to say thank you.
Thing is, the past few months have been a bit rubbish. Well, truth be told, the past year hasn’t been the greatest (work situations are just the worst for making you feel crap!) and raiding with these folks has been one of the few things that has kept me sane (that, and of course, Thor). Raiding with Realm is something I look forward to each week. I love these guys to bits. Even when we yell at each other. Even when we’re apes (ok, maybe especially when we’re apes). When we’re killing bosses together, or playing hide and seek in Dalaran, or fudging our way through mythic+ dungeons & bgs… it’s all just been so much fun. Pulling together and getting our Cutting Edge on mythic Argus the other week really was the icing on the cake of what was already an amazing expansion.
So I’ve been wracking my brains for what to do. And for the longest time I knew precisely what I wanted to do. But… well, I don’t have the talent to do it. (I maaaaaaayy have re-written the lyrics to ‘Part of your World’ from The Little Mermaid to tell the story of someone who wants to raid with us 😀 But I can’t sing for shit!) So I was back to square one.
Then the other day, when I was doing my WoW screenshots archiving, it occurred to me that I have a lot of screenshots. (Seriously… a LOT). And I had already been asking guildies for pics of themselves for me… so I decided to make a mosaic of all of us (and a whooooole bunch of pics from Antorus) into a wallpaper using our guild logo.
And so with the help of AndreaMosaic I made this…
UPDATED: added some more raider pics to it cos some people were missing in the first one 🙂
The original is big enough that you can zoom in and see all the individual pictures pretty well (not perfect, but well enough!). If you want to have a look, check out the fullsize version of the wallpaper here. Here are some snippets:
I know I’m a giant sap, but I’m an older lady now, and I’m very fond of the people that I chose to spend so much time with each week. I just want them to know how appreciative I am that they put up with my cranky moods and my nagging for screen shots and silly wee wee songs and inappropriate jokes (though, I’m the tamest of them all, I swear it!). I am so thankful for these people who have stood up for me and come to my defence when trolls came to my stream; who have become facebook friends and not run away screaming when they see pics of me; who don’t make fun of my terrible kill videos; who are there for a chat in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep; who are just good fun people to be around (even when I’m not).
So Realm – thank you for being amazing. I am so looking forward to kicking ass with you all in Battle for Azeroth. ❤
xo
P.S. Here are some closeups of the guildies who sent me selfies ❤ (All the pics below are in the mosaic)
Well, we have officially “finished” Legion. Last weekend our guild finally killed mythic Argus, giving us the Cutting Edge achievement. It took over 600 pulls and countless frustrations, but we made it. We are now Titanslayers (a title we now use to brush off dozens of wipes during re-clear…)
I’m proud of our team, though. Even though it took us longer to get this than expected, we got through it all with no rage quits. Sure there was bickering and frustrations and nagging and complaining, but we didn’t have to cancel any raids because we didn’t have enough people show up, and we didn’t have massive blow ups or people leaving. We came out the other side of this still a team, and I’m extremely thankful for that.
I put together the kill video for the fight. We had FOUR points of view for this one, which was really awesome! I still have so much to learn when putting these things together, but hopefully this still managed to capture the heart of it all. (The chimp sounds at the start are because we eventually became apes during this progression… 🙂
Now we are just going back and trying to get people the mythic kills they are missing, and getting out as many mounts as we can to people.
I’m proud of our little team. Here’s to new bosses to defeat in Battle for Azeroth!
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.
One of the more recent secrets discovered by the amazing Secret Finding Discord is a story line involving a pet from Argus named Uuna. Instead of giving a mount or a pet or achievement, this quest line is simply story. Utterly gut wrenching, heart breaking story. It’s beautiful and tragic and hopeful and perfect.
Here’s my adventure.
~*~*~This post contains spoilers. If you want to discover the Uuna storyline on your own, please do not proceed~*~*~
The whole process, outlining all of the steps to complete this story line is on wowhead right here.
Uuna is a companion pet that drops from a rare mob on the Antoran Wastes on Argus, called The Many-Face Devourer. Unlike most other rares, the Many-faced Devourer is spawned with a ritual that you perform by combining a bunch of bones found around Antoran Wastes. (see the guide) She’s not a guaranteed drop so you might need to try this multiple times (thankfully you only need to get the bones once! Each other time you just perform the ritual).
Once you do get lucky enough for Uuna to drop, the story begins. The quest line starts when Uuna starts talking to you. And it’s heartbreaking immediately…
Mama? Mama! Why is it so dark? It’s scary here…
Can anybody hear me?
C-c-cold…
After a few emotes are performed with Uuna, she says the following…
Are you sad too? Are you lost like me?
At least we’re together now. We just… don’t know where we are.
But you’re my friend, and I know it’s gonna be okay.
I wish I could see better. It’s always so dark here!
I mean twist my heart much??
So we are off to take her somewhere there is light. First attempt is to visit A’dal in Shattrath City, but A’dal is a little too bright…
We instead find a better place in Ashenvale…
Off we go to find Nuu. This one took me a few times, because we had to goblin glide to two islands in the air off the edge of Mac’ree. I died a lot hehe. But I got there in the end, and Uuna got her sweet little bear, Nuu.
Next we went to Bloodmyst Isle to get Uuna a magical wand, because “Bad guys really hate that.” Too cute!! ❤
And then lastly it’s a flower crown, because that’s essential for fighting the dark. 
I mean, look how freakin’ adorable she is!! ❤ ❤ ❤
But then things started getting pretty dark. Literally. Void tendrils come and take her away.
After Uuna is taken away, she can’t be summoned again. We have to find her. To do so, we go have a chat to the spirit healer who gives us the ability to see into the spirit realm. (I got confused here- there is no actual buff, and nothing looks like the spirit realm. This step just needs to be followed in order to do the next one).
We now go to Dragonblight, where a Shard is in the eye socket of a dragon skull in Dragonblight. Upon clicking this, we are taken to a scary spirit realm that is extremely dark and ominous. In the distance I can see Uuna, though, so at least I know where she is!
We learn that this happens to Uuna a fair bit. No matter how hard she tries to get away, the darkness keeps taking her, over and over again. She’s completely alone.
Until now. I have never been so protective of a bunch of pixels in my life, and I am determined to save her! Out of nowhere, the fire goes out, and Uuna becomes terrified… the darkness is coming for her. I have to protect her.
Guys, this part was genuinely terrifying. Look at what is hunting her down!! 😥
These hideous beasts are circling around, getting closer and closer to Uuna. I’m running as fast as I can to keep them back… poor Uuna is getting more and more terrified, but is bravely fighting them back with her sparkle wand. But they just keep coming…
But poor Uuna just gets so scared (and holy crap so am I, these things are terrifying!!!)
Friend? Are you still there? I’m scared!
I–I can’t do it! I just wanna go home!
Uuna wraps her arms around herself and begins to cry.
It’s at this point that I stop everything, run to Uuna and /hug her. It’s knowing that she’s not alone that gives Uuna the courage she needed to kick some serious butt…
She obliterates them all!!! And I’m so proud of her.
And then this happens…
This is the full dialogue of what she says:
F-friend, you’re here! You didn’t leave me!
Mama told me the Light would always find me. That’s you, friend. You’re my light!
And as long as my light is with me, there’s no way the darkness can win!
My light is super strong!
I’M NOT GONNA BE AFRAID ANYMORE!
I am ready. Let us begin the ritual.
The darkness is gone! I can see!
Oh, friend! We did it! We beat them!
What… what’s happening?
The light… it’s telling me to follow it…
Mama! Papa! They’re waiting for me!
Wait a sec…
There’s so much I never got to do. So many places I never got to see…
Is it okay if I stay with my friend? For just a little while longer?
Friend! The Light says I can stay! Woo-hoo!
Tell Mama and Papa I miss them, and… and I’ll see them soon!
Okay, friend, let’s get outta here! We have so many places to go!
Uuna hugs you.
Right in the damn heart.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Uuna chose to stay behind so that she could see the world. So of course we needed to make that a reality for her. And so begins a world tour of Azeroth (and beyond) with our new best friend. Who is just the sweetest darling. ❤
At the end, Uuna is so grateful for the time we have spent together. She’s so happy, that she gives me a hug. And this is the reward. Now, when Uuna is out, if I /hug her, she will hug me back. And it’s beautiful.
The whole storyline is amazing to do, even if you’ve read all of the text of the story line, it’s still worth doing. It will pull your heart to pieces. Just beautiful, and very well done by Blizzard.
xo
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’m not very good at saving money in real life, but I’m a little better at it in WoW (mostly because we don’t have to pay rent or anything in game hehe). I’m not the greatest at making gold at all; I don’t have the time or the patience. But I do make enough to support my raiding requirements, and every now and again am able to keep some extra aside.
There’s a world quest on the Broken Shore that Khadgar gives us, to find some Kirin Tor Coins that he’s managed to drop on the ground. When we find one, we get a very short buff that leaves a sparkling rainbow trail behind us when we walk. It’s the most beautiful effect, and have wished for a toy that would give that same buff. Turns out there is one.
The Mad Merchant is a rare NPC spawn in Dalaran, and oh boy does this guy clean out your bank. He only sells 4 items, the cheapest of which is 250,000 gold (yes, a quarter of a million). Thankfully, that cheapest item is the Prismatic Bauble, and it gives that same buff from the world quest, only this time it lasts a little bit longer, and can be used every 2 minutes.
I LOVE IT.
I took my little Void Elf Warlock out for a run in the snow with it- isn’t is beautiful?!
So now I’m broke again… but I think it’s worth it 😀
xo
How is it that a month has passed since I wrote in here? Usually this happens when I’ve spent a lot of time out of the game and have just been busy with work, but that’s not the case this time (although the being busy with work is definitely true!).
Anyways, it’s been awhile, so I thought I’d best do a catch-up post to let you know what I’ve been up to and what I have planned.
Alpha
So first up, probably the biggest reason I’ve been writing less in here is that I have been streaming quite a bit. It initially started to stream our raid nights, which was fun and all. But then this happened:
For reals! This was me at work when I got the email. Followed shortly after by tears.
I’ve been spending a bit of time in the Alpha running around and seeing how things are, reporting bugs and typos in quests and what not. And I’ve been streaming it, which has been quite fun. I don’t have a lot of viewers on raid nights because it’s a silly time in the US, but when I stream on weekends there are more people around, and it’s really enjoyable. I’m not a great streamer; I don’t show my face (because no-one needs to see that!) and I ramble a lot and get distracted, but hopefully it’s a little entertaining to people.
The other weekend I had a great time hanging out in alpha with some lovely friends in chat. We go to experience a terrifying quest line that just freaked me out so badly. It was scary and hilarious. I made a video about it, which was fun! It’s over here on YouTube if you’re interested. (WARNING: contains Alpha spoilers).
Streaming
Between streaming all the raids and now the Alpha as well, I’ve been clocking up a decent amount of streaming time. And somehow have managed to get a reasonable number of followers and viewers… enough that this ended up happening the other day:
This basically means I’m able to have subscribers and stuff, which is kinda cool! I don’t actually expect this to go anywhere, but it is kinda fun 🙂 I celebrated by setting up a new overlay for my stream and making some new panels to match. I’m trying to get better at streaming, but I know I’ll never be anything interesting. I’m just doing it for the fun 🙂 If you want to stop by I’m over at twitch.tv/cinder_streams. (note: I will always say if I’m streaming Alpha so that if you’re not wanting spoilers, you can avoid them).
Podcasting
I KNOW! This was completely random, but we’ve started up Battletagged again. This time it’s going to be a lot more casual, with episodes being recorded when we have something to say (rather than trying to stick to a strict schedule). It’s just me and Neuro at the moment. We talk about it a bit more in our first episode back. We’ve got a new website address – Battletagged.com.au – but everything else should be the same. We’re back up on Stitcher and iTunes. Have a listen! And if there’s anything you’d like us to talk about on the show, let us know. 🙂
Raiding
Raiding has been going ok. We had a rough time with Kin’garoth as well… for awhile we just weren’t really using a strat that worked for us (one of the challenges of there being so many different strats available for a boss!) In the end we got there though, with a strat that seems weird, but it’s what works for us, so that’s good!
After that it was Varimathras which we managed to get down really quickly actually. (I still need to make a kill video for it- oops!!) This week we went back to do a re-clear which took us awhile, but we do have a whole night to work on Coven tonight, which is going to drive us up the wall, but should be do-able either this week or next week.
Work
So real-life stuff. Well, I got a promotion- huzzah! That was nice. But I has also meant that my workload has increased quite substantially. At the moment I don’t mind tooooo much.. it’s been really great the past week actually because part of my work requires us to do public consultation to get feedback on what we’re doing, and then check in again with everyone at the end to make sure we did what people wanted. I’m at that end part now, with checking in, and I’ve been getting some really lovely messages back, saying how impressed they are with our work etc. It makes all the extra hours worth it, you know? (That and I do honestly feel like the work I do has the ability to do some good in a small way, so that’s great too). Anyway, all of this has meant super busy days at work, which some people have noticed because I’ve also been neglecting twitter!
Anyways, that’s where things are at at the moment. I have to finish off my bucket list blog post (which is part way written… but might be December by the time I finish writing it! lol) I also want to do some posts about the alpha and the class changes and things like that… I just keep running out of time to do all the things I want to do. Gah! Why is sleep a thing, eh? Or maybe I could just be younger so I could deal with having less sleep. I hope everyone reading is doing well. I promise to keep trying to write more often!
xo
~*~*~ Warning: this post contains spoilers about early Legion storyline, and end of expansion story line. If you have not defeated Argus yet and don’t want to be spoiled, please do not read any further.~*~*~
I have to preface this post by saying that prior to Legion, I hadn’t really given Malfurion and Tyrande much thought other than Tyrande’s dress is super pretty, and Malfurion sleeps an awful lot. I always found their relationship a little odd (possessive? super co-dependant?), but that was about it. Come Legion though… well, I think they’re just some of the most selfish characters in Warcraft and really don’t want to be helping them with anything else in future.
I know, unpopular opinion much?
Here’s the thing- I find both of them immensely hypocritical, self-involved twits. The pair are so far up themselves that they don’t see there’s a whole world of existence outside of their tree and the Emerald Dream. I pretty much blame Malfurion for what happened to Ysera in Val’Sharah, Tyrande spends most of her time pining for, or trying to find, Malfurion, and both of them have done catastrophic things that have changed the fate of hundreds of thousands of beings.
Which is what it is (which is in the past), but you’re probably asking me what tipped me over the edge. Well, I’ll tell you- it was their complete and utter disinterest in Illidan’s departure that really got to me. Oh and boy did it get to me.
~*~*~*~
We spend a fair bit of time with these two in early Legion. Malfurion continues to marvel at how amazing the world around him is (oh and did you know Cenarius is a demigod and his mentor? I mean he’s just so freakin’ humble about it /sarcasm). Well it turns out Cenarius has gross corruption coming out of him, and Malfurion doesn’t know what to do (how does he not recognise this, btw?!), so let’s get Ysera here to sort stuff out. And that’s ok, things aren’t looking good, we should probably get some help.
So we do a bunch of stuff to then summon Ysera who tells us we need to get the Tears of Elune (which is what we were here for anyway). Anyway we go get the Tears but surprise surprise, Xavius beat us to it.
And then Cenarius disappears. And this is the point where Malfurion is an epic hypocrite, and I get mad. Instead of turning to the grove that is literally full of some of the most powerful people available to him in the moment, including the being responsible for the Emerald Dream itself, he runs off. He literally gets up, and runs in a random direction where he thinks he can find Xavius. Good one, mate. Don’t bother to consult with anyone about what might need to be done. No, off he goes, testosterone flailing all over the place. It is this action, right here, that sealed Ysera’s fate. I mean, Malfurion and Tyrande have been in this exact situation before and they did the same damn thing. And this time, Ysera paid the price.
Perfect summary of how stupid Malfurion is
This is but one (more recent) example of their self-important behaviour. But what does that have to do with Illidan?
Everything.
Illidan spent his entire life finding a way to defeat the Burning Legion. Every. damn. second. And some (many) of his actions were questionable (at best). But his motivation and goal never, ever wavered. Defeat the Burning Legion.
Malfurion was a terrible brother to Illidan. His high and mighty attitude belittled Illidan to no end. And instead of telling Malfurion to shove it, Illidan just wanted to impress him (and Tyrande, of course) even more. It’s for this reason that I hold Malfurion and Tyrande a little responsible for everything Illidan did. You don’t have to be blind to see that all Illidan wanted was to be accepted and loved by them. Well, maybe not blind… maybe just too far up themselves to see.
Don’t get me wrong, Illidan really made it difficult for those around him. In many ways he was just as stubborn and pig-headed as Malfurion in his bid to rid the world of the Burning Legion. It required absolute blind faith and trust in Illidan to see his actions being for the greater good. And I don’t blame people for questioning Illidan’s actions- they were not always what one would consider “good”. But for Malrfurion and Tyrande to say they are not as culpable is outrageous.
Apparently it’s ok for Malfurion to take it upon himself to render night elves mortal by destroying the Well of Eternity. Guys, it’s like, totally ok for him to literally rip the world to shreds in the great sundering because he, like, did it for the good of all Azerothian kind, ok? Sometimes we have to think outside of the box.
Oh but wait, no Illidan- well Illidan he apparently went about things the wrong way. He said he was gaining power to defeat the Legion, but you know, we don’t like how he’s going about it. See, Malfurion screwed the world over the “right” way. Illidan is a danger to us all and should be locked away forever.
COME ON.
Even Tyrande, for one shining moment, takes a tiny peek outside of her own little bubble to release Illidan from his prison because, believe it or not, maybe there’s more than one way to annihilate a universe-destroying horde of demons. But then Malfurion got mad at her, so she took it all back. (Thank goodness someone else figured out he was needed to get this done.)
Despite all this; despite everything that happened between these three characters, one truth remains: Illidan is the only one of them to follow through on his actions.
At the end of the Antorus raid, after Argus is defeated, Sargeras is finally revealed, and captured. And Illidan was there every step of the way. He did everything he promised he would do- he fought with us and stopped the Burning Legion. But no only that, oh no- Illidan went one step further. He knowingly sacrificed the rest of his life to watch over Sargeras to make sure he never comes to power again. He gave his damn life, and any remaining shred of possibility that Illidan did everything he did purely for selfish power was obliterated in that moment.
For all his faults, Illidan did it. It was touching, and a worthy ending (and yes, I cried my damn eyes out).
It felt like everything Illidan had done had been worth it. It made me feel, as a person (not my character) that even if I’m trying to do what is right, I may not always get it right, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Illidan’s actions gave me hope for the underdogs, that we can do it.
So you can imagine my utter disgust at what followed next.
The first time we defeat Argus, a short quest line is started – Moments of Reflection. Here we have a crystal with parting messages from Illidan to Malfurion and Tyrande. (You can read/listen to all of the messages on wowhead here.)
To Malfurion first. And here Illidan speaks of the different choices they made in their lives, but for the common goal they shared- to keep the world safe. Illidan acknowledges he wasn’t easy to trust, but hopes his actions show the truth of his words. It’s very moving.
And you know what Malfurion says?
My brother made selfish choices, brought pain to so many. His transgressions are difficult to forgive.
This coming from the guy who literally tore Azeroth a new one?!?!!?!? Holy hell dude. Illidan hurt people, yes! He made mistakes, yes! But you know what he did? He kept on fighting to defeat the Burning Legion, because that’s what he said he’d do. What did you do? You went and had a bloody nap!
*deep breaths*
Alright, there’s still another message to go. Tyrande once saw the potential in Illidan. Surely she will understand.
NUP!
Contrite words, yet I must wonder whether he truly meant them….
Seems he has a duty to fulfill…
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?! Illidan is literally not on this planet anymore after having saved it (and the rest of the universe). And instead of coming home to revel in the celebration he deserves for saving us all, he stays in who-knows-where for the rest of eternity to make sure that Sargeras never comes back. And she thinks he’s lying? That says a lot about who she is and what she thinks of people. Where was she while we were fighting the Legion? NOWHERE. (To be fair, she did come to Suramar, which is a darn lot more than Malfurion did. Probably too busy licking his wounds. But for the rest of it, where were they?) Illidan was there every step of the way, and they abandoned us.
Even in his final moments, this very last goodbye, Illidan wanted nothing more to love and be loved by Malfurion and Tyrande. And they shrugged him off. Absolutely jerks.
I am glad there was a third message in the crystal for us champions. I will gladly defend Azeroth in Illidan’s place. Malfurion and Tyrande can go take a nap, because it’s quite clear they truly don’t care about anyone else. And I certainly do not care about them.
I mentioned in my 2017 wrap up post that raiding had gone a bit weird for awhile with yet another guild disruption and shifting and all that. I’m not going to dwell on it- the past is in the past. And since Antorus opened, I’ve been trying to keep a positive attitude towards everything, because I just want to have a good bunch of people to play this awesome game with.
So far, things are going really well.
As of tonight, we are 6/11 mythic bosses down. Tonight especially was amazing. We have been working on Mythic Imonar, and were kinda in a slump. People were feeling a bit crap, and were getting tired so making silly mistakes. It wasn’t looking great. But somehow, on the last pull of the night, magic happened. Somehow, everything came together, and not only did we get further than we had gone before, we completely winged it for the whole last section and killed the guy. It was amazing. And even better- I was streaming when we got the kill.
Hey by the way, I stream now hehe I decided with Antorus opening and the new guild happening that I would start streaming. I have a good computer that can handle it, decent internet connection- why the hell not? So I stream our raid nights. I don’t really have many viewers because most of the time it’s stupid o’clock in the US, and Aussies are usually raiding themselves. But I do have some lovely people who come along now and then who I am extremely grateful for. And when people sit mythic fights, they sometimes pop in to watch how we’re going and how we’re doing a fight in case they get called in to do it. So it’s not always too quiet.
So anyway tonight, I somehow managed to have about 5 people in my stream cheering us on while we got the kill. It was really great. 😀 I can understand how people get addicted to the streaming thing. It’s a great feeling having an audience to cheer you on while you do these things. Really helps with the whole buzz.
Anyways, I just wanted to say that I’m really loving my guild. We seem to have a really good bunch of people who can all be really stupid together (like, really bloody stupid) but still get along really well and pull our shit together when it comes to raiding. And we can be cross with each other for awhile without it resulting in people leaving or getting too fed up. It’s hard to stay cross in this team when you’ve people being Pokemon’s and what not (thanks Advo!)
All of our kill shots are up on my raiding gallery (and below for now). And if you happen to want to come along one night while I’m streaming, I’m usually on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights, 8pm-11pm AEDT (so Melbourne time) over at twitch.tv/cinder_streams.
~*~*~*~*~ This post contains spoilers for collecting the Retribution Paladin hidden appearance ~*~*~*~*~
During the Christmas break I had made the decision to get the Corrupted Ashbringer skin for my retribution paladin artifact (the hidden appearance). I looked up on wowhead what I needed to do. I knew it was quite a detailed expedition, so was not surprised at the number of steps involved.
The first step, however, involved collecting 2 books- one that was a random spawn in a dungeon, and the other from a pvp battleground. I was immediately put off from my mission. I’m not great at pvp as it is. The thought of having to try and do something else during that pvp experience made me nervous. I mentioned this in guild, and was delighted to find out from a guildie that the book required (Nat Pagle’s Guide to Extreme Anglin’ ) was not bind on pick up. I was able to buy it from the Auction House! So off I went. Unfortunately, there were none available. I put a pin in my plans, and vowed to check each day to see if a book would appear on the AH. And the promptly forgot.
Then on Saturday, I remembered again that I wanted to do this, so off I went to the AH, and there is was! It wasn’t too expensive either, so I bought it immediately. The guide I was followed mentioned the next book I needed to get, A Thoroughly Read Copy of “Nat Pagle’s Guide to Extreme Anglin'”, was a rare spawn in Dire Maul. Paladins are so slow, so the guide suggested farming for this on a toon with lots of speed boosts, so I took my little Demon Hunter in, just for fun. I looked on the map to see some spawn points, and chose one at random. So off I went, and wouldn’t you know it, the book was right there!!! I found out afterwards that the spawn of the book had been made more common, so I felt a bit less lucky after that, but it did make things go faster.
Next up was a trip to Blackwing Lair for Nefarian’s Head. Unfortunately I didn’t score any pets or transmog, which was a little disappointing, but it passed quickly enough.
Next up it was back to my order hall, to speak with someone who might know about the books and what they’re talking about, Sister Elda. (The whole purpose of the chain is to figure out the story in the book, to find the Shard of Darkness that will corrupt Ashbringer (and give the appearance)). Of course she sent me back to Dire Maul, where I spoke to Prince Tortheldrin. HE then sent me off to speak to someone else (I’m noticing a pattern here…)
As an Alliance I was sent to speak to Alexia Ironknife at Chillwind Camp.
No surprises here- she doesn’t know anything either, and send me off to read someone’s journal (bit personal, really!)
Guess what? Still no answers! All we get is a clue as to where the remains of someone may be found… in a grotty slime. Now this is the part where I expected to have to wait some time. I’d been told the spawn timer on the slime was really long. Despite that, I headed off to Thondroril River in Western Plaguelands. As expected, the slime wasn’t here. By this time my alt run was due to start, so I left her sitting near the spawn point, and off I went.
The next day I went about business as usual for quite awhile before remembering I was working on getting the skin (I really am getting quite forgetful!!). I logged on to my paladin, and wouldn’t you know it, the slime was right there in front of me!! I waited a few minutes and looked around to see if anyone else was waiting for the slime to spawn, but it appeared I was alone. So I (very slowly!) killed it, to get the next piece required.
The item the slime dropped was Timolain’s Phylactery. I used it be the river and spoke to Timolain the Accursed who revealed (dun dun duuuuunnnnn!!!) that the Shard of Darkness we were looking for was right there in the river somewhere! All we had to do was fish for it.
Now I had heard nightmares about this fishing part of the questline. I expected to be at this for hours, if not days. So I set myself up with some Netflix on one screen, and set about fishing. In a way I was almost a little disappointed when, less than 15 minutes later, the item dropped for me. Almost 😉
From here it was smooth sailing. I went back to my order hall to speak with Lord Maxwell Tyrosus (who was not at all impressed with my request to corrupt Ashbringer, let me tell you!!). But being obedient as he is, we went on a journey to the Death Knight order hall, Acherus, to undertake the corruption process.
I really liked this part of the quest line. Firstly, there’s something naughty about being in another class’s order hall, so it’s a bit of fun. Secondly, it was just really nicely done. Tyrosus is just not happy throughout the whole thing, and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Me, on the other hand, well I was determined to get my light-ridden hands on everything hehehe! We meet with the Four Horsemen and convinced them to create the final piece – the Heart of Corruption.
They were a bit reluctant, but we convinced them in the end. I roamed around a little to try and explore, but the floor was blocked off and I couldn’t go anywhere else, which was a little disappointing, but not unexpected.
In the end I got Tyrosus out of there and back to the safety of the paladin order hall, where I learned the hidden appearance.
Of course the first thing I had to do was come up with a new transmog to match the appearance. I found some bright green pieces that I thought would work well…. and yeah there we are. Corrupted Ashbringer acquired.
I know I had it a lot easier than those who were working on this when it first came out, but I still had a lot of fun with it. I’m not sure that I’ll keep using the appearance. It’s great an all, but honestly I prefer the original. 😀
Now to figure out which appearance to get next.
~*~*~* This post contains spoilers for the Hunter class mount quest chain.~*~*~*
One of my ongoing goals in game to have completed before the next expansion is to get all of the class mounts. I’ve been slowly but steadily making my way through levelling each class, then getting their mount/s. Today, I unlocked another, my hunter, bringing me up to 7 class mounts so far.
Levelling my hunter has really been quite the mission. Once I had finished levelling my priest and getting her mount, I was pretty much done with the classes that I play somewhat regularly (i.e. I’ll play them for fun, too, not just for mounts/achievements). Everything after my priest has been difficult. The toons themselves don’t have great gear (just baleful gear from WoD) and because I don’t know the classes well, they’re slow to level, and well… boring. But, I want all the mounts! So I persevered.
I decided my hunter would be next, not because I like the mount (it’s honestly one of my least favourites), but because the novelty of gnome hunters was still alive and well, so off Cinderling went. I started out levelling as Marksman because I like the weapon appearance, but to be honest it was pretty rubbish to level with, so I swapped over to Beastmaster, which proved to be a LOT better.
She dinged 110 a few days ago. Then it was off to the Broken Shore to get going on the Legionfall Campaign that would ultimately give me my mount. Cinderling had a much better time getting through this than other classes, because the pets just tanked for daaaays, so it all passed very quickly. Once I was done (earlier this morning) it was time to get my mount!
The quest line for the hunter mount was actually quite great. We receive an invitation from Odyn to take part in a great hunter feast (where hunters get to have a feast, not be the feast!) that takes place in the Field of the Eternal Hunt (where you go fight Fenryr in the Halls of Valor dungeon). The feast is by a beautiful warm fire and it’s all lovely with food everywhere. But then a “chosen one” (guess who!)is to go out into the darkness to hunt for spirit beasts to earn their favour.
So off I go.
The area is in pitch black darkness of night, with a sky full of stars. So pretty.
We need to track the beasts, so hunter tracking is on, and picks up some dots nearby. Rather than these being beasts, they are clues to take us to the beasts. Each of the clues glowed this translucent spirit-green colour.
So I followed the clues to each of the beasts. It felt a bit weird having to kill them… as if the spirit of the dead animal wanted to go through all of that death and pain again. So initially I wasn’t sure what to do when I saw the stag. But yes, kill him, I did. As well as the others.
Even though it was weird, they made for some really beautiful screen shots.
Once the first 4 beasts gave me their “blessing” another 2 “rare” beasts spawned (because I’m just that good at being a hunter!)
These fights were a little more difficult. In fact, they were a bit of fun, really! The beasts died… and then the super-ultra-rare beast appeared. And he was actually quite beautiful.
He also needed to be defeated (though I was quite glad that he didn’t actually die!). Odyn called me back and we had a giant piss-up for the rest of the night.
When Cinderling awoke in the hunter’s lodge a little while after, we went outside, and there was a saddle, sitting on a rock.
Clicking the saddle gave me the mount, Trust of a Loyal Wolfhawk, but not before we had a mini-cinematic (I’m really quite fond of these!)
And there we have it! Hunter class mount acquired! I actually swapped back over to my Marksman spec to do a quest for Artifact Power to get one of the other versions of the mount, the Trust of a Dire Wolfhawk. I haven’t even touched Survival, so will need to get that artifact weapon and level it up at some point in the future. But for now, I’m happy with these two 🙂
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).
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! 🙂
This week one of the most anticipated micro-holidays finally rolled around- the Trial of Style. A micro-holiday all about transmog!!! It really is a lot of fun. It does help to go in prepared, so I thought I’d give those who haven’t had a go yet a quick run down of what to expect, and some tips to help you along.
How does it work?
The Trial of Style is a very short scenario with a random group of 6 players, during which everyone plays dress-ups and we vote on who wore it best.
To get started, go visit your friendly transmog vendor in a capital city (the transmog vendor on the Grand Expedition Yak does not seem to know about this event… poor fella). Choose the option to queue for the scenario and wait a couple of minutes.
You’ll be teleported to one of the rooms in Magisters’ Terrace. A timer will immediately start counting down while the hosts introduce the event. At the end of their introduction, they will announce the theme for the competition. Once you know the theme, you have 2 minutes to create a transmog to suit it.
Transmog vendors and barber chairs can be found to the left and right of where you zone in. (Changing your appearance doesn’t cost anything in this event, so don’t worry about going broke!) Everyone is dressed in smocks so you can’t see what other people are creating in advance.
Once the two minutes are up, it’s a round-robin of fashion, as you go up in pairs to show off your creation. Those who are not in stage vote on who they think matched the theme best. In the end, three winners are announced and brought up on stage (although everyone gets some form of prize for being there).
Here are some pics of some of my placements (forgot to get any for my paladin!)
The rewards from the event are tokens that can be used to purchase transmog sets for your armor type, so one each for cloth, leather, mail and plate. There’s also a shirt that you can purchase if you manage to win one of the scenarios. If you don’t manage to place in your scenarios, don’t worry- it only takes 4 attempts to get enough to buy one of the sets. Note: you can only purchase a set that you can actually wear. For example if you are a mage, you can only buy the cloth set. You cannot buy a different set type for an alt.
Tips
There are a couple of things that might be handy to know in advance of going into this.
- One of the themes is called “Tabard Time”. Make sure you have a tabard available in your bags so that you can use it as part of this theme, otherwise you’ll be a bit stranded (though not all hope is lost. My druid got 3rd place in the Tabard theme without having a tabard, because others did have one either!)
- Remember you can transmog your weapons, but only to matching weapon types i.e. one-handed swords can only be transmogged to other one-handed swords/axes/maces etc (depending on what your class can wield)
- If you want to transmog to a different weapon, grab yourself a very cheap weapon from the AH to keep in your bags. That way you can quickly equip in the scenario to give you more transmog options.
- Toys can be used! I used the “Stolen Breath” to make my breath all frosty to help finish off my “Winter Wear” transmog set, and I think it worked nicely. I never got to do a theme that would have made my Blazing Wings useful… maybe next time 🙂
- If you are so inclined, you can pre-plan your transmogs, making it a lot less stressful. The wowhead guide for the event has a full list of all of the possible themes you can get. Create and save some sets in advance to help take some of the pressure off.
My biggest tip, though, is to just have fun! I had some really amazing groups that were such a laugh. There was one group in particular who was really chatty which was nice, and they all had bloody awesome transmogs! It was so hard to choose who to vote for! It’s also a great way to get some transmog ideas. 🙂
I was pretty happy with out how I went in the end. My shaman got third, second then first for the 3 that she did. My paladin got a third and a second. My mage got a second and a first place. My druid had the hardest time because I have so little leather gear, but she managed to get a third place in one of hers, which was nice.
Good luck to anyone entering it! It’s still going for a couple more days yet, so you’ve got a little time, but don’t leave it too late!
~*~*~*~*~ Potential spoilers ahead.~*~*~*~*~
EDIT: adding more pics of little things like this as I find them. See them at the bottom of the post.
This latest reset has seen a few new things appear in game. For those who have not yet killed Kil’Jaeden on Normal or higher difficulty, the skies would have been empty for them. Until today. Today, Kil’Jaeden became available in LFR difficulty, and to coincide with that, Argus appear in the skies for everyone to see. And the world has responded.
Today when I logged in, I noticed the Doomsayers were back.
They are handing out their pamphlets again (though not sure if the achievement is still available). They seem a lot more smarmy than usual, too.
But then I noticed other things. On Krasus’ Landing there were clumps of NPCs hanging around Kirin’Tor guardians, demanding answers.
There were clumps of draenei huddled together…
Investigations were being held on the edge of the platform, and Kirin’Tor Guardians were on high alert patrolling the outskirts of the city.
I wandered into the main areas of the city, and there are draenei everywhere. (That dude walking around with the book- I wish Cinderstorm could do that!!)
The citizens of the city are afraid, and as a leader, they are coming to me for answers. Which right now, I don’t have.
We know we are headed to Argus soon… Very soon, judging by what’s happening in game right now. But other than that, I don’t really know what’s going on. And I LOVE it. It’s been really great not looking at PTR patch notes- for the most part I don’t know much at all about what’s going to happen when we get to Argus.
It’s fun speculating what will happen, knowing I’m probably completely wrong. One of the things that I found really interesting about the Draenei NPCs is some of the wording they have been using. One said to me “By the Light’s blessing, our path begins anew.” And it made me stop and think…
I was reminded of the scenario in the Exodar with Prophet Velen and Rakeesh and all that unfolded there, with us ultimately destroying Velen’s son. At the end, Velen announces he is done, and he is going home. Home, being Argus. And I just couldn’t help but wonder… did Velen know what Illidan was up to? Did he help Illidan?
It’s interesting times, for sure! For me, I love this part, where the whole world around me is responding to things that are happening in game. It really adds to the immersion. Their sense of doom and fear is driving me to keep fighting. We’ve all come too far to just roll over and let the Legion win. I can’t wait to see Argus!!
EDIT 1: So I just went to the Alliance bank in Dalaran and came across two goblins, Pixxy and Shnivel, emptying out their loot from the bank…
Well, I find myself here once again where the team I’m raiding with has crumbled. We had been losing a few people here and there over the past couple of months for a whole bunch of different reasons. I’m not sure what happened, but this last week something snapped, and we were done. Through a combination of real life issues and people wanting a change, we dropped enough to not have enough people on the team to raid anymore.
It’s not a new story, and it’s not a story that we’ll never hear again. This is what happens. And even though I’ve been here so many times before, it doesn’t get any easier. Before raid on Wednesday we all logged on and had a chat about what everyone’s plans were. There was talk of server transfers to try and rebuild the team on a more populated server (and then further discussion about what the server might be); there were talks of staying put and pushing through it; there were talks of finding other teams, of going our separate ways… and of disbanding entirely. In the end, some people decided to move on, which in turn made other people also decide to move on to other teams rather than waiting for the numbers to come back up again.
There were no hard feelings towards the people who decided to leave for other teams. I totally understand it. Things weren’t perfect, and some people had really good reasons to go, but it still makes me sad. *shrug* It is what it is, and I truly hope everyone is happy wherever they end up.
In the meantime, there are 10-13 of us who have decided to stay and try and rebuild, rather than moving the guild to another server. Our team is 5/9 mythic… past the halfway mark of Tomb of Sargeras… so hopefully we will be able to attract some good players in time to get mythic Kil’Jaeden down. (Shameless plug! Here’s our recruit thread on the forums.)
For now, I’m just feeling sad. I know it’s (hopefully?) not my fault, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling like rubbish. Being in a guild and raid team like this always feels like a second family. We all spend so much time together, and we argue and celebrate wins… so it just feels weird everyone not being together any more. But like I said, it is what it is, and it will probably happen again. In the meantime, I’m holding out hope we find some more awesome players so we can get back to killing internet pixels. 🙂
Cast your minds back to Blizzcon, November 2015, when Legion was still in our future and we were grabbing at any and all sneak peeks at what was to come. During one of the presentations we learned about artifact weapons, and some of the appearances were shown. And me, well I fell in love with what they showed for restoration shamans:
That one on the right- that’s the one! ❤ (image from Wowhead- http://www.wowhead.com/news=249811/legion-artifact-weapon-guide-early-alpha)
I absolutely adored that appearance on the far right. So when Legion came out I eagerly looked to find out how I could get it. And it wasn’t there. It wasn’t the hidden appearance… it wasn’t even a pvp appearance! I’m was disappointed, but figured that it would come into the game eventually; I’d just have to wait.
Then patch 7.2 came out, and with it, the Mage Tower challenges. And there it was- my appearance! Gated behind a challenge. And a bloody tough challenge at that. But it was a solo thing that I could work on by myself and in my own time, which is just how I like it.
So I went in there when the challenges first opened, and had my ass handed to me. It was *hard*. But that only made me more determined. So I kept trying over and over again, getting a little further through each time. Then things got to busy and I missed the last 2 times the Mage Tower was up.
Until this time.
I went in last night to see if a new trinket I got would work on the NPCs (side note: this was worth testing because a trinket from Nighthold, Perfectly Preserved Cake (which gives a shield to nearby players), didn’t actually work in the scenario. The new trinket I got is The Deceiver’s Grand Design, which allows you to put a shield on a player that does some good stuff.) Turned out, the trinket not only worked, but it kicked BUTT. (probably aided by the fact that I got extremely lucky and got a 940 version of the trinket…). I got pretty close to defeating it last night, but I was too tired, so went to bed.
This morning I got up and went straight back in there. First pull is always crap as I get back into the swing of things (and I wake up lol). Then second pull I made a big mistake in the middle section of the fight. I recovered well enough, but it shook my confidence a bit so I ended up not doing so well in the last phase with all the adds.
And then the last pull. The last pull I was doing pretty well. I remembered to put on my healing rain legendary boots (because I just personally found them really helpful with the Tier 20 4-set bonus) and I just took my time with it. I got through the first phase really well with some a lucky fixate going on one of the NPCs instead of me. And I didn’t get hit by a mana sting in the last phase, so I got through it well. Then I sat around for a little bit while I waited for the heroism debuff to wear off.
The on to phase 2. The dps boost we got in 7.2.5 really helped this not be such a panic. I was able to get through it all with about a minute to spare, and that was with me really taking my time and healing myself to full between each mob. Then I waited again to make sure all my CDs were available going in to the last phase.
The last phase was the hardest for me, I think. Not the boss, but the bit before that, where the boss is drawing in mobs from around the edges and you have to heal them up before they get to him. I had issues with line of sight, so they were more almost halfway to the boss before I could start healing them, which made it trickier. But I paid attention to the advice on wowhead and used my Ancestral Guidance for the first wave, and my ascendance for the second, and I was able to heal a bunch of them up. So when that phase ended, I only had 4 mobs to deal with. As soon as they spawned I dropped a cap totem to stun them all, then AOE’d my butt off to get the bad ones down. Then it was left to just the two guys that fixate and hit the crap out of me, but a spirit link helped manage that a bit better.
And then before I knew it, I was facing the boss for the first time. By this point I still had healing tide available, and even better – my resurrection ability. I was glad to have done the Nightbane fight previously as well, so I was able to manage it quite well. I popped hero, then hit the crap out of him. I died right at the end, but ressed in time to hit him one last time and he died. And I had done it! And I squealed with joy.
Honestly, there is nothing more satisfying than being pushed to frustration and anger over a challenge, and then defeating it. It sounds strange, but I tell you, it just makes the adrenaline that much sweeter.
Now… about that elemental appearance… 😉
So the secret finding community has been at it again, and with the launch of 7.2.5 they discovered how to get the gorgeous Sun Darter Hatchling pet. It’s quite the puzzle, and incredible of them to have figured it out!
If you would like to get your very own Sun Darter, check out the comment on Wowhead with all of the instructions. I took a few screenshots along the way.
So before you head off to start this adventure, you need to be prepared with a whole bunch of random consumables. The comment has the full list. Most can be purchased from the Auction House, but some required some adventuring. Thankfully I already had the Gordok Ogre Suit on an alt, so I only needed to get me Scotty’s Lucky Coin, Noggfenfogger Elixr, Winterfall Firewater, and some Dire Brew. Most were straight forward (although Scotty was tricky to find!) But the Dire Brew… argh. I have always gotten so damn lost in Blackrock Depths, and this time was no exception. I was running around that place for almost an hour just for this. I was most frustrated! But I got there in the end.
The other sticking point for this was the Major Nature Protection Potion. All of the other potions were available on the AH for a reasonable price, but the Nature potion- well that one was selling for 10k and up. I just couldn’t justify it. I understand the reasoning- you need to be exalted with Cenarian Expedition to purchase the recipe, and some of the mats can be tricky to get… but still. 10k was a bit excessive. So I looked in my guild list to see if anyone in guild had the recipte. There was 1 person, but they weren’t on very often. Even still, I went off and sourced all the mats for the potion, and waited for them to log on. They did not. In the end I looked on the AH and saw the price had dropped to 5k, so figured stuff it, and bought one. lol
So off I went on my adventure! I had never ever been to the part of Azeroth that this cave was found in. I personally found the area really magical. There was just something about it that said “adventures happen here”. I think I’ll just go back every now and then to sit around. It’s a beautiful spot by the sea.
Once inside, you are immediately stopped by a wall of fire, shortly followed by a wall of fel. This is where all of your potions come into play.
Once you are through the fel wall, it’s time to turn into a skeleton. I had bought 20 Noggenfogger Elixrs in case it took me awhile to change to a skeleton, but wouldn’t you know it? Got it first go. So I snuck past the first gargoyle…
I then came to a fork in the road. The instructions said to go to the vined wall first, so that I did. Using Scotty’s Lucky Coin I turned into a sprite, and was able to freely pass through the wall, to collect a stone from the puddle inside. Once back out and in front of the blue wall, I used the stone and got all wet! But I was able to pass through onto the next area.
This is where the Dire Brew got used, and I turned into a Dark Iron Dwarf. I was able to dance right past that guard with no worries at all!
The path then split into 3 options. First we had to go up a ramp to a purple wall. Using an Ethereal Oil, I was able to pass through the wall to what lay beyond. This part was the part I was most impressed with. Inside this room was a strange stone with a hole in the middle of it. The idea is that you need to put your arm in the hole to get a special buff. But your arm has to be the right type and size. The secret finders figured out that if you use the Gordok Ogre Suit and Winterfell Firewater, you’re just the right size! And shove my arm in, I did.
Out I went, and this time faced a caged wall. I drank Pygmy Oil until I turned into a Pygmy and could run through the bars. Inside was a myterious cube that wanted to see “an amusing heir”. Well my perky pug in a princess outfit would do just the trick! Second buff received.
Then it was through the last wall that was now opened up. It was kinda creepy inside. There was a plaque to the right which I clicked on. Then swapping a few buffs over, I walked across the water to click on the Oddly-Colored Egg- and the Sun Darter Hatchling was mine! 🙂
This was just so much fun to do. I hope that the secret finding community had a great time figured it all out! 🙂
~*~*~*~*~Spoilers ahead. If you don’t want to see any of the Tomb of Sargeras stuff yet, please turn away now.~*~*~*~*~
This week the Tomb of Sargeras opened. For me, it was a bittersweet time, as my partner Thor had made the decision to stop playing WoW. It would be the first time we weren’t raiding together in years. In addition to that, I was having all sorts of dramas with a new PC (more on that in a later post!) and generally being less prepared than I would have liked. So I went into Tomb, well, flustered.
But in we went, a much stronger team than we were going into Nighthold. And oh, how amazing this raid is. It’s always nice to see some new fights, of course. And for the most part, we powered through normal (with a shut down in the middle of our first night!). On our second night we cleared 6 bosses on heroic, and last night a few of us went in again to get the 7th down.
After we called it for the night last night, I ran around the Tomb to take some screenshots. It’s an amazing mix of beauty and terror. Especially in the real Nightborne areas- things look beautiful, but upon closer inspection, and down right horrific. In one of the pics below you’ll see a statue of a beautiful female night elf holding a large pan. And the light and colouring is so beautiful and serene. But then when you get closer to her, and you look at her face, you see her eyes have been gauged out, and she has an eerie grin that says she’d love to do the same for you… So creepy.
~*~*~*~*~ Post raid spoilers ahead! ~*~*~*~*~
I’ve put the spoiler tag just in case, but there have been loads of pics of this around absolutely everywhere. As many people will know, Argus comes to Azeroth, thanks to some tomfoolery from Illidan (of course). Getting to that point, though, was absolutely incredible. Seeing battles with Kil’jaeden in the background of the Fallen Avatar fight was really great. It was nice to see the other NPCs doing something other than standing there watching us fight.
Once the Avatar is down, we portal up to Kil’jaeden’s ship, and in doing so, we are treated to a mini-cinematic featuring our own toons! It was hands down one of my favourite parts. The Kil’jaeden fight alone was really interesting (ok so I was definitely unprepared for this fight! Kinda winged it!) Afterwards, when Argus was in view around the world, I popped an Inky Black Potion and took pics of it, because it looks so bloody intimidating. It’s amazing seeing the world change like this because of our actions.
The end cinematic for Tomb was bloody brilliant. I had been so busy in the lead up to this that I’d had no spoilers at all, and really no idea of what was to come. So I spent a lot of it just going “OH MY GAWD!!” Here it below if you want to see it. (Goes without saying, massive spoilers!!)
The last thing I wanted to mentioned about Tomb was some random runes I found around the place. The first one I noticed was on a wall as we headed in to the fight with Mistress Sassypants (that’s totally her name, guys). I didn’t want to click on it during raid in case it did something bad, so last night I went back down there to see what happened. Here’s what happened:
Yes, I turned into Gul’dan. Not only that, but I got a new spell bar, with 3 of the spells he used in the fight with him in Nighthold. And boy are they fun to use!! One of the runes even set off a short roleplay scene, but I couldn’t hear anything, I just saw Gul’dan kill a bunch of people.
I looked it up on wowhead, and there’s 5 entries for orcish runes in the database, but no other information. I found 3, so I’m curious about where the other 2 are, and what they are all for. Do they need to be clicked in a certain order for something to happen? I really don’t know. But you know, it’s weird. Even though Gul’dan was a giant dick, running around as his ghost for awhile was, well, kinda sad.
Anyway, those are my adventures in the Tomb of Sargeras so far!
Well, it took us three weeks, lots of tears, frustration, swearing and hysteria, but we did it – Mythic Gul’dan is defeated! We got our Cutting Edge achievement, and new title Vengeance Incarnate. And my partner, Thor, was very lucky and won the mount (it looks AWESOME!!)
I’m even more excited about this because we came into Nighthold as a new guild. As many of you know, we’d had some dramas with the last guild and it disbanded, leaving everyone to go their separate ways. A bunch of us like-minded types ended up forming a new guild – Pit Crew. And we worked our butts off to recruit like mad and build a great team.
Working on Gu’dan himself was an adventure in patience. We had a lot of PC and internet issues (including my computer absolutely packing it in in the middle of a pull last night), some attendance issues of key players, and a general issue with being numpties sometimes. But we got there. And we got there by one-shotting him on our first pull of the evening tonight! We all were laughing and cheering at the end – it was awesome.
Our clicker hunter (he clicks to play… we’re all baffled, but he does it very well!!) caught it all on stream. You can find Tombstone’s stream at http://twitch.tv/whiteronnie
I’ve uploaded a copy of it to my YouTube channel so you can all see it here. The good bits come in at the end around 12 mins where our rogue starts getting excited and says “Fuck yeah bois! … and girl!” I cracked up. 😀 (please excuse my dodgy attempt at making this presentable for youtube! I have no real editing software for fancy intros and stuff, so just did the best I could.)
We need to get as many people in who missed out on the kill tonight in for it next week so they can also get the achievement.
Anyway, we are all so excited to have gotten him down. Now to start getting ready for Tomb of Sargeras!!
I’ve spent a bit of time this weekend attempting the mage tower artifact challenge yet again. I put in about an hour or 2 each time the tower is up in an attempt to get the artifact appearance that I have been wanting since I first saw it on beta.
This weekend I got the closest I’ve ever been to getting it done – up to the very last boss – before I failed miserably. I’m progressing a little more each time. Truth be told, I was sure I’d get it this weekend. I was able to get through the first stage easily each time I tried yesterday, and everything that I had read and watched for Resto shamans indicated that the first phase was the hardest for us. So I felt really good being able to push through that multiple times.
But such is the way when you’re unwell, I had to stop and rest when I was on a roll yesterday. I figured it would be ok, I’d be able to pick things up again today, (Sunday) and get it done. I felt even more confident about it because I had managed to get my 52nd trait last night, which unlocked the final new Concordance trait (woot!). I also managed to pick up a few great pieces during our heroic farm clear last night, including a tier helm that managed to titanforge AND have a socket! This was really great news because the only gem slots I had in my gear were on a couple of legendaries, meaning I was locked in to having one or 2 set legendaries so I could have the 200+stat gem. But now, I can have that in my tier helm, and can swap through whatever legendaries I like. Huzzah!!
Anyway, given all of that, I had another crack at the challenge this afternoon and I *sucked*. Like, terribly. I don’t know what was going on, but I just couldn’t push through that first phase again. So I’m sitting here sulking and feeling sorry for myself. I only gave it half an hour because I just wasn’t doing any better. I’m just marvelling at how one day I can be doing brilliantly, and the next, sucking super hard. Here’s hoping after dinner I pull my shit together, because we’re onto Mythic Gul’dan progression now! SO exciting!!
Anyways, this was just a bit of a ramble really. Just reflecting a bit on how much my performance can change based on how I’m feeling.
Truth be told, I’ve been feeling pretty lost in WoW lately. No, it’s not from lack of things to do, or not enjoying the game (because there is plenty to do, and I still completely love the game!). Once again it’s how I’m performing in raids. And it’s at the point where I’m seriously at a loss as to what to do, and wondering if I should even bother.
I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong anymore. Previously there would be all manner of excuses as to why my performance as a healer sucked – I didn’t have the right legendaries, group composition really makes a difference, I’m not using the right stats, I just need more gear blah blah blah. But whilst I don’t have all of the legendaries that I want to be using on my resto shaman, I do have some very good legendaries that should do just fine. And I have plenty of gear with the right stats on it (not that stats are supposed to matter all that much any more). I’m working my way to my 51st trait, which isn’t as high as others, but it’s still pretty high overall.
I’ve looked at logs and seen what talents people are using. I do know one big problem is that I don’t use Cloudburst Totem as a talent. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that it makes my framerate drop to 3 (and given my UI settings are already set to 3 in raids, I can’t drop it any lower – I have difficulty seeing some abilities as it is). So I can’t use it without it causing some issues. (I’m really hoping I’ll be able to buy a new PC in the near future!!) Might just have to try again.
I look at logs and I suppose a consolation is that Druids just seem to be kicking ass at the moment. And it also doesn’t help (me) that the other healers are just fucking awesome. I guess my problem is that I don’t know if it’s just me doing the wrong thing, or if it’s my class being lacklustre. It just feel like my heals don’t do a lot unless everyone stays low for an extended period of time. But they all get topped up so quickly, so my mastery doesn’t get a chance to kick in. This expansion was supposed to be about bringing back triage healing, but instead it seems the fights are just unforgiving – if people fuck up they get one shot, rather than just getting really low, allowing us to heal them back up again. It’s just back that old ping pong healer bars again, and as a shaman I just feel useless. I’m back to being a walking CD.
And I’m not writing this to get anyone to “fix” things for me or say things to make me feel better, I just need to get it out of my head. I can’t figure out if it’s going to get any better for me. And if it’s not, what does that mean? Do I just stop healing and go hit things instead? Or do I heal on a different class? What? I really am just feeling awfully lost. I found myself going back to this post where I was hypothetically thinking about what class I’d play if I couldn’t play my main and I landed on druid or mage. But what if it’s not the class? What if it’s just that I’m shit? Do I just stop raiding? I keep coming back to moments like this, and Bume is really lovely and helps me out, but I don’t feel like I’m getting any better. Instead I just feel like a burden.
It makes my brain hurt. And in the meantime I just feel really blah. So instead I’m bumming around levelling up an Alliance priest because their spells are pretty and it makes me feel better.
I’ve said quite a few times how wonderful the WoW community can be. From organising fundraisers, to helping each other out, to just being super awesome people. This week I was lucky enough to be the recipient of some generosity from the WoW community.
Coolidge approached me, asking if I’d like him to draw a picture of my character, Cinderstorm. Of course I said yes, please! He was very patient with me, asking what I wanted and if I had any special requests or anything. I just said I wanted FIRE! And boy did he deliver. Check out my cutie!!!!!
Cinderstorm artwork by Coolidge
I love her so much. She’s absolutely adorable. I am so, so grateful!
THANK YOU a million times over to Coolidge for my gorgeous girl. Go check out more of his amazing artwork at DeviantArt, or go visit his twitter and let him know how awesome he is. 🙂
My lovely friend Zeirah and I have turned our weekly blog challenge into a public blog challenge for anyone to participate in. Each week there is a new topic for everyone to write about and share. This topic was put up to help get some great positive posts out there, to remind people why the love WoW. You can read everyone’s thoughts about this on our website here.
It’s funny, I’ve put off writing this post for awhile. Not because I don’t have anything to love about WoW, but because there is so much to love and I’m finding it difficult to pin down only a few things to talk about. Like Ann, I just love it all and could go on for days. But I won’t! I’ve chosen a few things to talk about, but this by no means is everything I love. Hands down one of the biggest things is obviously the people I have had a chance to meet through WoW. And the characters and the story will keep me coming back for years to come. But I want to talk about some of a couple of other reasons. 🙂
The music
The music in WoW constantly breaks my heart with its beauty. I went looking for a favourite piece to share with you guys for this post, and here I am crying my eyes out just listening to it already! (I know, I’m a sap!)
Some of my favourite memories from WoW are because of the music. I loved all of the music in Mists of Pandaria, but the moment that stood out for me randomly happened the day after the Vale of Eternal Blossoms had been destroyed (good one Garrosh!!). I was kinda just afk-ing in the zone, just looking around at all the beauty we had had a part in destroying and feeling really awful about it. And then the music came in… the music had changed. When the Vale was pure and alive, the music was sweeping and beautiful and generally what you expect from such a stunning zone. When it got destroyed, the music changed. It still had similar themes, but they were sad and quiet, like a wounded song bird. I cried, I truly did. It was just a small thing, but it was the final straw for me. I felt so terrible about what had been done there – it was destroyed in so many ways.
More recently… well, we’ve had quite a lot of heartache already in Legion, haven’t we? So of course the music is just going to rub salt in the wounds of our already breaking hearts. The first time I knew the music was going to kill me in Legion was in the Broken Shore was of course during the Legion cinematic trailer. But the real clincher for me came in the Broken Shore cinematic…
It just… oh man, it just gets right in there. It starts out well enough, all dramatic and action-y while everyone is fighting, but it starts to change as everything goes downhill, getting more and more tense. That moment when Varian realises he’s not going to get on that ship to freedom, and music softens as Varian asks Genn to give his son the letter… and then it sweeps up into this huge damn heroic moment as Varian lets go, and falls to battle to the death. It’s heroic as fuck, there’s no other way to describe it. But then, he defeats the demon, and the music stops, and in that tiny breath of silence we have hope, a tiny feather of hope that maybe, just maybe, he might survive, even as we hear the motors of the ship flying away. And then the demons come, and he’s a hero again, fighting until his very last breath until we’re at the feet of Gul’dan, and he’s saying that Varian has died for nothing, but we know otherwise, and Varian shouts “For the Alliance!” and the music confirms it – he’s a hero until his dying breath. And god that music, the way it works at that moment… my heart feels like Varian does as he shatters into a million pieces. #cries
We get to hear bits and pieces of those themes throughout Legion as we run around the world and to the raids and experience the important quests and what not, and every time my heart twinges.
I mentioned the original Legion cinematic earlier – re-watching that again to write about this music I realised that the other music I wanted to write about was actually featured very briefly in that! The other big music moment I had in Legion happened quite by accident again, and it made me cry as well (I’m sensing a theme here…) Obviously the death of Varian has hit me pretty hard, so I have a soft spot for this.
It happened shortly before Legion launched, and I was flying in Stormwind from the Keep to the Mage area where the Demon Hunters were hanging around at the time. Those who know Stormwind well will realise that in doing so, I flew right over the memorial to Varian, Lion’s Rest. I stopped to look and pay my respects. And then this happened:
I don’t know what it is about this piece, but it pulls on all the heartstrings. (And those darn lyrics don’t help, either!) It seems a beautiful farewell for a fallen warrior. ❤
Anyway, as you can tell, I have a thing for the music. It’s always so fitting, and really helps me feel so immersed in the game. One of my favourite parts of any new expansion or zone is hearing the new music that comes along with it. If you haven’t done so, I recommend turning the music on in game while you’re running around doing your World Quests and what not.
It’s beautiful
I mean, come on…
Shadowmoon valley.
Being a hero
This is a big one for me. One of the questions that Leeta asks her guests on Behind the Avatar is whether or not they play male or female characters, and why that is. When I first read that question it got me thinking about why I always play female characters. Of course part of it is that I’m female, so I want to play someone like me (hence a chubby pandaren suits me just nicely!) But it’s become more than that.
For me, in my real life, I feel like a lot of it is out of my control. I feel like I’m not good enough, and I feel like I’m not talented or useful in any way (hello anxiety and self doubt!). But in WoW I am so much more than that. I am strong. I’m (somewhat) intelligent (why did I have to set Gul’dan free again at the start of WoD?!?!). I am a hero. A hero! I get to wield strong weapons and use the elements to hurt or heal, and I love that. And despite it not being real (I promise I’m not throwing buckets of water on people in real life in an attempt to heal them!!!) I have found that as a result of me being a hero in WoW, I have more confidence to try things in real life. I feel empowered, and sometimes I even feel strong. And that to me will always bring me back. That and to me, there is no better sound in the world than the quest completed sound!!
So those are some of the slightly different reasons why I keep coming back to WoW. To be honest, I’ll probably end up doing posts about my thoughts on the other reasons as well, but for now, this is it. 🙂
What are your reasons for coming back to WoW time and time again? Why do you love it? Leave a comment below, or join the blog challenge!
About 2 weeks ago I managed to pick up a casual job thanks to an old boss and some awesome friends. Getting back to work has been really great – knowing I’ve got money coming in again to pay bills is a big load off my mind! But it does come with the downside of a lot less game time. Even less than last time because I actually care about this job, so I’m not being cheeky writing blog posts and what not during work hours! But even with less time in game, I’ve still had a really successful couple of weeks.
Mythics
We’re doing pretty well with our progression, getting 1 new mythic boss down per week. Since getting Krosus down a couple of weeks ago, we’ve successfully managed to continue getting him down each week, which gives us 4 mythic bosses on farm. From next week we’re stoping the heroic runs altogether and starting mythic from scratch so that we have more time to spend on progression bosses when we get to them, which is great.
We got Spellblade down the week after Krosus, and then last weekend it was Tichondrius’ turn to go down.
We should have had Botanist down tonight as well, but thanks to Easter and WoW server crashes being the attendance boss from hell, our raid night didn’t end up happening at all. Hopefully we’ll get him down on Wednesday so we can start the long slog on Star Augur.
Team wise we’re doing really well. We’ve got the numbers which is awesome, and we’re all really gelling together quite well. There’s tense time of course, but that’s part and parcel of mythic raiding, I think. It’s just about making sure that at the end of the night we’re all still mates. We’ve got a great little healing team as always, though really need a strong swing healer to fill gaps for us when someone is away. But otherwise, things are going really well.
Riding around
I’ve been pretty lucky with some new mounts lately. Firstly, I finally got my fox mount! I do love it so much, though I think my pandaren shaman is a little too big for him, so I think I’ll use him on my night elf toons instead. 🙂
Then after raid last week I was so lucky!! Thor was flying over Azuna and asked me “what’s an Ephemeral Crystal?” I spun around and asked if he’d seen one. I immediately flew to where he saw one, and off I went. (Thor wasn’t really interested in the mount, and he knew how much I wanted it, so I hunted with his blessing!). It only took me about half an hour to find all 5 crystals needed to get this beautiful mount!
Then of course there was a Mind-Riddler’s Worm, which the WoW secrets discord group had been hunting for since Jeremy Feasel sent out a series of cryptic tweets. It was really fun to watch the whole thing unfold. I had joined the server just to follow along – people are amazing!!! I knew they’d figured it out when my notifications for the server started going bonkers. It was such great work on their part! There’s a great guide on how to get this mount for yourself – shouldn’t take too much time, especially if you have some friends with you to help make the old raids part faster. It’s such a funny looking mount, but I had to get it! I loved that when I got the final piece that rewarded me a mount, there were loads of people just hanging around on them, floating on these strange worm things in solidarity. So much fun.
And then lastly there was of course the unlocking of flying on the Broken Isles. And so now I have a whole other level of exploring to do from up in the air! 😀
March of the tadpoles
Another micro-holiday came along. This was one I was really looking forward to – March of the tadpoles! Seriously, is there anything more adorable than baby murlocs?!?! No, I didn’t think so. 🙂
So for this micro-holiday, we were able to go see a whole bunch of the more adorable little baby murlocs running around. And best of all, we got to befriend one for the day! Every single baby murloc that was there had a different name, and it’s very own little personality. I had such an awfully hard time choosing which murloc to adopt – I wanted them all! I didn’t want any of them to feel left out! There were some running around really fast like hooligans, having so much fun; there were others there were just hanging out chatting; there was even one little guy that just kept “fainting”! He was hilarious, and I nearly chose him… but then I thought a lot of people would choose him, so I didn’t. I wanted to choose one that no-one else would. (I blame this song that my Mum used to sing to me as a kid for this whole feeling sorry for the “runt” of the litter thing I have!)
In the end I found a little guy hiding in a corner under water. His name was Bloop, and I loved him straight away! He seemed like me – too shy to hang out with everyone else, but still kind wanting to be a part of things… at least from a safe distance.
We went on some adventures together, and in the end he gave me a little present – a Wet Rock. I’ve kept it in my bank for safe keeping. ❤ It was a wonderful little holiday!