After becoming a Crusader on my Priest, then my Rogue, and then my Mage, I must admit…I was/am TIRED of the Argent Tournament.  I really wanted a hippogryph, but didn’t think I’d have the ability to keep grinding seals after getting the titles.  Fast forward and ta-da!  I finally got my Silver Covenant hippogryph.   My mage looks very cute on it and I love the idle animations it does.

I’m also working on Loremaster for my Rogue – I’m done with Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, and Northrend…which leaves Kalimdor.  Ugh!  I think I’m at about 575/700 for that zone and seriously losing motivation to try to find that many quests to finish.  I want the title and tabard, but I had no idea when I started working for them that this achievement was going to be such a HUGE time sink!  The quests in Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor are the worst!  GO here, now GO there, make sure you run from one end of the zone to the other, over and over again.  Bleh.  Hate it.

In other news…I got my Rogue a few upgrades the other day.  I don’t have any ilvl200 gear on her anymore!  I did Lower Spire in ICC10 with her and I pulled very respectable numbers.   (Sometimes as high as 7k!)

Woo hoo, fun stuff!

There’s always something to do in game…I have four 80s now and should never really be bored, but the prospect of badge grinding (again) for my newly 80 druid is just not an attractive option for me.  I would love to get the Salty title, OS103D title, and Loremaster for my Rogue, but I lack the motivation.  Loremaster is going to be a major pain in the rear (track low level quests only goes so far!) since it’s been so long since I leveled my Rogue to 60.  I have no idea what zones I may have skipped or glossed over and riding around each zone to “find” the quest givers is just MEH!

I’ve started another alt to give myself something “to do” when I don’t feel like grinding badges, quests, or pvp’ing.  I guess at this point, I’m going for one of each class to 80.  I doubt I’ll make it, but I think I’ll save Death Knight for last, lol.  I am kicking myself for not using RAF…that would’ve saved me a ton of time.  Ugh.

I’ll try to be better about posting, but no promises…just know that I’m still playing and trying to find little “projects” to work on.

My Druid is finally 80!

She’s been sitting idle in her 70s for quite awhile because I was just unable to gather the motivation to level her.  I’ve already done the Triumph gear grind on three other 80s and I wasn’t looking forward to starting over again on the bear.  Aside from that, I couldn’t decide what I was going to do with her once she hit 80 anyway.  I already have a ranged dps (mage), melee dps (rogue), and healer (priest), so the only real option without overlapping would be to keep her as a tank.

I’ve found that tanking can be a lot of fun.  I’ve also found that it can suck frozen orbs, too.  It all depends on the other people in the party and their ability/inability to focus fire.  I try not to be a lazy tank – I’m tabbing through targets to make sure that I’m #1 on Omen by a fair amount, I’m taunting if a mob pulls off, I’m paying attention to my positioning and everyone in the group’s whereabouts…but sometimes it’s just not enough.

For example, I ran a regular random Northrend dungeon last night for the Triumph badges.  It was me, a 79 resto druid, and three 80 DPS.  I figure I was totally boned on trying to keep aggro from any of them, but I tried my hardest.  Only one of them was actually trying not to pull off of me and the whole experience was TANKING HELL.  I had to remind the ret pally several times (and in increasingly abrupt ways) that I was not 80…only 79 – look at my character portrait on your screen, I’m not lyin’!, that I needed him to attack the target with the skull if I was going to have ANY chance in keeping aggro off of him, and to stop rushing me/condescending me/Caps Locking me (oh yeah, I verbed it) various comments.  I was nervous enough as it was!  All in all, we defeated Loken, I looted his tongue (gross!) and everyone went on their merry way…but I felt like I was sitting at a crossroads.  I was kinda pissed and nervewracked with tanking and felt that if I let it get to me, I may never want to tank again.  I had to pep talk myself into letting it go and shifting back into bear.

I jumped back into the dungeon finder with 1/2 of my XP bar until 80 and wound up tanking Gundrak, Halls of Stone (the Brann part is a P I T A!!), and Culling of Stratholme.  Everything went smoothly and I had a good time.    I’m gonna keep giving tanking a shot and see where it takes me.  It’s pretty far outside of my comfort zone, but I think I will feel pretty good if I am a good enough tank to tackle heroics.  That’s all I really want…oh and maybe tanking Ony’s whelps once or twice for a shot at the moose ears…. M O O S E!!!

I just got back from a great trip home to visit family and while I was there, I found myself with a little time when everyone was at work to play a little WoW.  I realized that I am totally spoiled by my gaming mouse, small keyboard, all of my add-ons, and my awesome UI.  It was really hard for me to run heroics or put out the type of DPS that I know I can do on a different computer, so I decided to work on a solo project that I’ve wanted to finish for awhile now.  I ‘ve been exalted with Sporeggar and the Kurenai since Burning Crusade, but I just hadn’t quite found the time (or the motivation) to grind my Timbermaw rep up from Friendly to Exalted.

The grind wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be…I think I got it done in about 6 hours of feather farming.  It was kind of annoying to wait for respawns and to loot every body for the feathers, but I’m happy that I finally set the time aside to get it done.

Next on the Achievement To-Do List is Bloodsail Admiral, me harties!

I finally got it!

[Glory of the Hero] was a background achievement I was working on with the Priest.  The journey to my red proto started with [Oh Novos!] on March 11, 2009 – the same day I hit 80 with the character.  The majority of the achievements that I have were done with all guild groups.  There were a few “lucky” ones that I got with pugs like [Volazj's Quick Demise] and [King's Bane], but normally when that “BWONG!!” sound and achievement box was popping up on my screen, I had four Ordonians standing beside me.    Friday night, with the help of some awesome guildies (thanks again, guys!) I was able to do Heroic Oculus and complete the last three achievements I needed… [Ruby Void], [Emerald Void], and [Experience Drake Rider - Amber].

I’d have to say that the toughest achievements for me were: [Watch Him Die], [Less-Rabi], [Make it Count], and in a way, [Volazj's Quick Demise]…and in that order.

[Watch Him Die]
My gear has come a LONG way FAST since completing this one on 9/18…we could probably do it now with little issue.  But back when we got this achievement, it was INTENSE!  On both tries, four of us were dead and the fifth person’s mirror images or dots or whatever finished off the boss before the boss could kill them. This was the biggest challenge for me and it was a BLAST!  Free action potions are GREAT here…no webbing ftw!

[Less-Rabi]
This one was ALL about timing.  You couldn’t count on Vent or Warcraft to be accurate, so everyone in your group had to count 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Counterspell in their heads.  This took awhile because we needed the right group composition and everyone in the group to understand what to do to stop him from turning into a mammoth.

[Make it Count]
Sadly, easy now – back before all the gear upgrades and Oculus nerfs, not so much.  Basic strat – don’t pull too many dragons, know the correct path to follow and blow cooldowns any and every time they’re up.

[Volazj's Quick Demise]
This one proved difficult for me, as a Disc Priest with no back-up Shadow spec (because I’m stubborn about it.  I have a Rogue and a Mage, my healer doesn’t get a dps spec!) because I just didn’t quite have the OOMPF! needed to kill the images quick enough.  The try that I got this achievement, I had a VERY well-geared PUG tank who told me not to heal him (scary, I know!) and go all out dps on the adds and boss whenever possible.  He said he could save himself and he did.  Go Go DPS Disc Priest, lol!

I was still using a vendor purchased epic flying mount because I knew one day I’d have a proto.  Now I get to farm for herbs in style.  :)