Argent Tournament Pets

I now have all the Argent Tournament Pets.. and all thanks to friends 🙂

A friend gave me the Enchanted Broom quite some time back, a little while after we got our chars up to 80 and he started on the Argent Tournament dailies.  Yesterday, another friend gave me the Tirisfal Batling..

Today, I was given the Durotar Scorpion, the Mulgore Hatchling, and the Shimmering Wyrmling!

I can’t learn the summon for the Shimmering Wyrmling until I’m exalted with The Sunreavers, but I wasted no time at all taking a look at the others..

I was shocked and amused to find that he stings!  I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Mulgore Hatchling, as neither the Broom or the Batling had attacked me, but I kept an eye on him too.

He randomly scarpers.. off round the corner, to do who knows what before running back.

I don’t know what the Shimmering Wyrmling does..
I assume he shimmers, of course, but otherwise I don’t have a clue.  I’m not going to check the net either.. just leave it till I’m able to summon him 😀

Boris and the Batling

Meet Boris, the Razzashi Hatchling..
Apparently this is what you get when an Orc gets his tentacle stick on.  Ahem. :3

He has a tiny roar!  Also discovered tonight that others’ pets will make a sound when you click on them.

Another friend sent me a Tirisfal Batling!
This one was less lazy than Boris at keeping up with me when we went flying off 🙂

Not quite sure what I’ve done to deserve these friends. <3

While wandering around Dire Maul the other day, I missed the opportunity to grab a screen of Vorlak’s Guardian Thornling.
I got one today though!

He grows from a Thornling Seed and attracts nearby enemies, or is supposed to.. he didn’t seem to during our Dire Maul run, and we were glad he didn’t tonight, as the naga were bitey 😉

More Pre-Cata and More Pets!

Three more pets have been added, bringing my total to 56!  Last weekend, a friend added the very cute Leaping Hatchling to my pet collection!
He does actually do what it says on his nameplate too.. 🙂

Aside from the pre-cata events, we’re really not taking the game too seriously at the moment.. instead trying to explore areas of the map rather more unpopulated than most.  I think this post might end up a little image-heavy 😉

On top of the world.. and then back down again.  Coming down was harder than I thought, and as I cancelled Levitate to avoid being floated out too far, I ended up not putting it back on before crashing into the side of the mountain.  Fairly thankful for Erilas 😉

This weekend was a mixture of rep-grinding and chasing pets and mounts; I picked up the Phoenix Hatchling from Kael’thas Sunstrider’s dead body on one run 🙂

Auchindoun also received rather a lot of attention, for rep and to try and get the Reins of the Ravenlord.  I mentioned that we weren’t taking things too seriously..

Later a party member decided to run out of Line of Sight a few too many times, and instead of chasing after him I hit /dance.  I then realised the Inner Focus affect looked rather like pom-poms, so decided to stick with it, and leave Vorlak to play with his new friends a little longer 🙂

We were a bit more well behaved during the next bit.. arresting cultists in and around Orgrimmar.  Like with the trolls all the way back in the earliest pre-Cata events, I rather liked having a group of NPCs following me around.

After taking my five arrested cultists to where they needed to be, I realised I still had the shackles, and there was a nearby Cultist.. Pet Cultist!  Sadly he was crushed by Vorlak’s mean kodo, Rufus, on our way out of Orgrimmar.*

*He despawned 🙁

We also went for a run around Karazhan to pick up loot, including random stuff such as the ‘tentacle staff’.  Why an Orc Warrior would want one of those.. corrupt much!

As a friend hadn’t done Shattered Halls, we took a little detour round there too.  I thought this throne was rather cool 🙂

Last night we did the Elemental Invasions in Thunder Bluff and Orgrimmar.  Placing massive windbreaks around Thunder Bluff was easy, but fighting the elementals was surprisingly hard as they just would not die.  Dealing with the Fire elementals in Orgrimmar was easier as there were plenty more people to kill them more quickly.

Then after all this, my friend gave me another pet – the Winter Reindeer! <3

So very tiny, and so cute 🙂

The Shattering

After the destruction of the World as I knew it, a run around just to take in the sights was in order.  A friend turned up to show off his new trike..

Aren’t you just a li’l big for that trike? 🙂

Orgrimmar looks so different now.. and very much more ‘at war’.

It feels much more like a city with all the additional NPCs, and there are just so many more details laying around too.

After I’d looked around a little, I was taken to Azshara for a Joyride.. an awesome rocket trip around the area.  Gotta love Goblins! 🙂

Taking the rocket for the full tour gives an achievement called Joy Ride too.
Azhara is now much easier to get to.. previously I found it a complete pain and really only visited the second time to clear it for the Explorer title.

We also took a helicopter, the new flightpath, to Bilgewater Harbor for a look around.  This area is just full of cool Goblin things, including a cannon aimed straight at Stormwind!  I can see I’m going to have to explore this whole area properly with a new char..

Not so Serious

This week has mainly been about exploration and messing around, with the exception of a rather painful first visit to the heroic version of Halls of Reflection.  We made it through, but I had to take lots of help from a friend’s off-spec to heal it, and I’m still not particularly happy about it. 🙁

Anyway!

The patch brought new talents, which I’m starting to get used to on Kirria, at least.  I like the Smite-Evangelism-Archangel thing.. letting me hit enemies, when there’s time of course, and getting mana back while having pretty lil wings is rather cool.
I stuck the halo on for added effect.  Had to be done! 🙂

I found a fun quest in Hammerfall while Trick or Treating.. Triage.  This is a First Aid quest, which was originally the only way you’d level up your skill.. rather than just buying the skill.

Injured soldiers appear on the six beds, and you have to bandage them in order of priority; Critically Injured, Badly Injured, and Injured.
This was definitely more fun than buying the skill could ever be.. I would rather more skills had to be earned in some way.

Some friends found a slight bug in Dalaran a few nights back.. After being dismounted in the no-fly zone, you get a parachute so you don’t fall to your death.  My friends found they were able to keep hold of the parachute once on the ground, at least for a little bit.

Very little use, but looks funny floating along the ground.

Something else that looked funny was the Trick played on me by the Innkeeper..  I was turned into Diablo!

I think I look rather more like a pet than anything here..

This disguise doesn’t last long.. just one minute.  We managed to get me on the back of the rocket before I was returned to normal. 🙂

I’ve been working towards full exploration of the world for a while now..  I cleared Kalimdor at the weekend, and finished off Eastern Kindoms with a friend this week!

I know I’m going to get mocked by another friend for this.. but I now have the Explorer title.  “Durrrp!”.

Coincidence maybe, but I managed to find my laces untied themselves six times during the workday after getting this title.

Hmmmm.

Hallow’s End

Hallow’s End is another world event in WoW, involving pumpkins, trick or treating and the Headless Horseman.

Since the recent patch, there have been bugs, and it’s in the dungeon for the Headless Horseman that I notice it the most.  The first two attempts had me crash out of the game, only to return once the fight was over.. this turns out to be a problem with mouse-over on the pumpkin to start the event, which doesn’t seem to affect everyone.

I managed to pick up another pet; the Sinister Squashling!  I think he’s rather cute 🙂

Back during the Midsummer Fire Festival, there was the option of interfering with the Alliance bonfires; this time there’s a quest to mess around in Southshore.. by throwing stinkbombs in the town and planting rotten eggs in their beer kegs!  As expected, I was attacked by a few Alliance players, but they weren’t able to get through my shield as easily as in the past.. whether through changes in the patch, or just that I’ve learned to defend myself better.

I’m linking the trick or treating with exploration, as you have to visit each inn for this one.  I’ve had tricks played on me in the form of costumes, such as the bat..

Otherwise I’ve had treats, including candy, masks, and Hallowed Wands which you can use to turn party members into various other forms, such as the Leper Gnome..

We decided such a tiny gnome would look funnier on a massive mount..

The disguises don’t last too long, and disappear if you take damage, but they’re still fun.  I need to find people to use theirs on me, as there’s an achievement for being turned into each type.

I’ve also managed to pick up a broomstick or two.. these aren’t the fastest, but are rather fitting to the event.  We managed to get a stray random following us from Razor Hill, and I was tempted to try and get more people just to see how many we could get in a line 🙂

Naxx

After getting used to heroics over the last few weeks, there were few places left to go..

Naxxramas was suggested as the weekend destination, and so began half a week of reading up on tactics, being confused about tactics, and stressing about whether I’d be able to play well enough to avoid being yelled at.

After assembling our group, we started off in the Arachnid Quarter.. where we wiped in fairly short order thanks to some very weak DPS.  We tried again, and the bad DPS were still putting out no damage, with one running around in the way instead of following tactics!

These two were then kicked out.  Once we had some replacement players in, we had no problem.  Even with the wipes, this actually made me feel a lot less worried about my performance in the group and I started enjoying it.

The next part of the dungeon was the Construct Quarter, filled with toxic slime rather than spiderwebs.  The first boss here was the Great Unclean One.. oops, wrong game.. Patchwerk!

Patchwerk wasn’t too much trouble, despite a bugged row of slimes coming to join in.
While fighting him, I was told about “Frogger”, a series of slimes crossing the path, which kill instantly.  I was also told that only the idiots die here.. no pressure, right?

I didn’t die, but plenty others did :>

More brilliant dungeon design.. to get to one of the bosses we had to walk along a pipe full of slime, overlooking an earlier part of the Quarter.

Gluth was more trouble for the group, with lots of Zombie Chow running around.. as well as hurting us they were providing food for Gluth!

I’d been asked to read the tactics for Thaddius, so I was expecting him to be quite hard, but in fact I found him and his minions rather fun, apart from my jumping fail.  After dealing with Feugen and Stalagg, we had to jump off our platforms onto Thaddius’ platform.  I managed to land just short of it, on the supporting column, and had to run round.  I then missed again, landing in the same place 🙁

It was a case of third time lucky, though, and I joined everyone else running back and forth with their positive and negative charges.  I really like the varying mechanics between bosses, and I found this particular one really easy to deal with.

When I read up on Naxx during the week, some things seemed more confusing than others..

One of these was Heigan the Unclean and the “safety dance”.  I was surprised how fast the second phase dance was, with no time to really do anything but make sure of running to the right place, and stopping there.  When reading up, this one seemed horrendous, but in practise, he wasn’t bad at all and I felt fairly good.

Loatheb, on the other hand, made me feel awful as I couldn’t always get my heals out in the three second window and ended up relying on other healers.
Looking back at this, I could have given less attention to bubbling people, and paid more attention to watching the timer to know when I could get my heals off.

The Four Horsemen were a set of bosses which sounded nasty, with stacking marks dealing increasingly massive damage.. I was dreading this section, but once we started I realised it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I’d expected.  While the marks stack up, the ones you get from each boss are all independent of each other, and fall off over time.  There was a little bit of confusion when it was time for groups to swap places, but I stuck to the tank and healed or bubbled those who came within range and at least felt useful.

Another awesome looking place.. with a dragon to kill!

This felt a little more disorganised.. though after a few hours attention starts to fade.
I managed to avoid the head and tail for the most part, but Sapphiron killed me after I stood too far round an iceblock and in his line of sight.. around 130k of damage.  Ouch.

Finally we came to Kel’Thuzad..

I was surprised to find he wasn’t a lot harder to deal with than previous bosses.. although I was focusing on the tanks more than anything else.

Iceblocks were painful, especially when two came at once, but of all KT’s abilities, I really don’t like his Mana Detonation!  I was running out of mana by this point, so to have the enemy steal my mana and hurt me with it.. I wasn’t happy 😉

Again, I ended up needing rescuing by another healer, who was actually pretty damn awesome, as were the rest of the raid.. as well as playing well, there wasn’t any nasty stuff which normally makes me want to avoid randoms.  Maybe by the time you get this far in, the idiot randoms have given up through being kicked?

The throne was begging to be sat in for a screenshot.. I only wish I’d asked all the raid to come and sit with us too!

For the Horde!

Sunday morning.. a good time to do something peaceful?  Nah! 😉
We joined a nice big group to try and grab the “For the Horde!” achievement.. the challenge being to get into the Alliance cities and kill their leaders!

Aside from Wintergrasp, where I tend to run around after a friend, this was my first proper attempt at dealing with a large group and I was a bit worried about what to expect.  I think I’m good enough in a group of five now, but keeping track of this many?

I’ve also only just got the raid frames out, so that’s another thing to get used to.  I dragged the raid leader and my friend, both tanks, out separately from the groups so I could see them more easily.  I figured that if I can’t keep up with the whole raid, at least I can keep on top of those two..

The first thing I learned was that a big group means disorganisation and complaining.  Some wanted to hold out for a massive group of 40 and others wanted to have already set off.. then there was some discussion about which Alliance leader to go for first, and more complaining about how long things were taking.

The eventual attack order decided on was: Darnassus, the Exodar, Stormwind City and then Ironforge.  We flew from Orgrimmar, with some of us getting split up as we didn’t have the required flight path.  There was then more complaining from the impatient types in the group, but a few summons later and we were running down the road to the first enemy city..

Darnassus was a lot easier to get into than I expected, and we killed High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind very quickly.. one down, three to go!  This kill got us the “Immortal No More” achievement.. one per Alliance leader and “For the Horde!” for getting all four.

We all headed to the boat, where I decided to stay rather more still than usual for fear of falling off and getting yelled at.. I shouldn’t have worried though, because somebody did manage to fall off.. and then repeat the trick on the next boat trip too.

The Exodar was almost as quiet as Darnassus, but there still really wasn’t any time to sight-see..
There wasn’t a lot of resistance with just guards and NPCs present, but a few of us got feared over a low wall and found ourselves stuck, unable to jump back over the wall!  After Prophet Velen went down, somebody found the way out for us.  “Putting Out the Light” was the second achievement in the set.. so far so good!

Back to the boats..

Stormwind City was next on the list, to kill King Varian Wrynn and grab “Storming Stormwind”.

This wasn’t as easy as the first two stops.  I got stuck in combat as we got off the boat, along with a couple of others, while the main pack shot off to find the King.
Killing the guards so we could mount up would have taken far too long, if it was even possible, so we had to run and hope for the best.  I chased after a guy who seemed to know where he was going, while bubbling us both and throwing out a few Psychic Screams for the guards.. and we arrived to the main fight just in time to see the King go down!

The tram was our next form of transport 🙂
I vaguely remember being taken for a tour around all the cities when I had my trial week all those months ago, and the tram is the only one I’ve not seen since.

I’d passed a couple of Alliance players along my run through Stormwind and had been relieved when they didn’t jump the two of us who were on foot.

With the raid having taken three leaders down, the Alliance players knew exactly where we were headed..

The group went down, and the whinging started up again..questioning the decision to leave Ironforge till last, and more disagreement over whether to res and try again.. how long to wait for, and whether it was worth trying at all as the Alliance players were now alert and waiting for us to come back.

In the end we went for a second try, but the remaining Alliance players were too strong and we couldn’t beat them back let alone take down the dwarven King.

So.. another day, Ironforge, King Magni Bronzebeard, and the achievement”Death to the King!”.. *shakes fist* 😉

I will be going back, and not only for the fun and the achievement.. there’s a Black War Bear to be had!

A Pink Elephant and a Skunk

Brewfest is nearly at an end and I won’t quite be able to make enough tokens to buy the last item of clothing required to disturb the peace in Dalaran.. ie, get smashed and dance while wearing Brewfest clothes.  I did manage to get my 50th pet, though.. the Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm.. a little pink elephant 😉

This meant another achievement (Shop Smart, Shop Pet…Smart) and another pet, from the Reeking Pet Carrier.

He’s called Stinker.. maybe best not to get too close..

Raiding and stuff

Normally there are just two or three of us running around, but this week we’ve actually managed to get enough guildmates on to make up a group, so instead of grouping up with a few stray randoms, we’ve been with friends and having a bit more fun 🙂

We went to see The Tauren Chieftains perform in Blackrock Depths..

Back on our level 60 alts, we tried taking on Arazzius the Cruel as part of a quest.. but he minced our mage and priest 🙁

It feels like a rather large step down from my level 80 character.. I know I could take this guy all by myself even though I’m only specced to heal, but here with my fire mage? Not enough firepower..

Fortunately another friend was able to join us, and we took him down 🙂

We’ve also been seeing some old raids, which I’ve found to be ridiculously good fun.

I especially wanted to get through Zul’Gurub, as it’s going to be removed in Cataclysm.  We were unable to manage with just two of us – as a squishy little healer I couldn’t stand up to a mind-controlled Vorlak.  With our group, though, we managed to take him down 🙂

We also took on Zul’Aman, which was a little harder but only meant a greater sense of achievement when we took down the boss.

After this, and very late at night, we took on Molten Core.  Fire.. awesome stuff 🙂

The end boss here was rather more difficult, and I really didn’t think we’d manage him because he kept sending us flying.  Several tries later and we eventually killed him.. just in time to get away to bed to avoid sleeping on my keyboard.  I discovered that you can hearth while doing the sleep emote, which was rather amusing.

I managed to grab a screen the following night, after another very late session!  I’ll catch up on sleep eventually, right?