Out in It

Aenara decided to finish up Dinner Impossible. Needed Strand, Eye, and AV. Lost them all, of course, but it wasn't too bad. Was actually top damage in Strand, tied for second on kills. Sort of surprising yet maybe not. Moonkin are incredibly versatile and rather annoying to face.


Look at that. Horde had the rest of the damage. *sigh* Rated BGs are going to be wonderful. So tired of the slack-ass Alliance fools in our battlegroup. At least we still own Wintergrasp. *snicker*

Ready for Phase 2!

Took care of Tripping the Rifts on Aenara and Favor at the following spots in Northrend:

• Earth: Grizzly Hills, Zeb'Halak (15.7, 36.1) [lvl74]
• Fire: Zul Drak, Reliquary of Pain (32.3, 45.7)
• Water: Icecrown, Deathspeaker's Watch (60.4, 21.9)
• Wind: Sholozar Basin, Savage Thicket (48.1, 25.4)

Aenara the Seeker

Despite completing Tricks and Treats of Azeroth last year Aenara was getting credit towards 3000 Quests Completed when pocketing treats from the various Candy Buckets. For the final quest she returned to her initial questing area of Dolanaar where Innkeeper Keldamyr bore witness to that final quest.

Now for The Loremaster. Currently have 613/700 in Loremaster of Kalimdor and 526/700 in Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms so it's not too far away!

Oh Come On

Got done with the Headless Horseman on all the toons when Aenara saw some spam in Trade Chat for Black Temple. They were on council so it would be getting the achievement done pretty quick. Trying to zone in kept erroring out with a message: “You have entered too many instances recently.” Searching the forums there was a blue post that stated: “Five instances per hour is the current limit. Please note that this is per account.” *sigh* I understand they want to limit instance farming but there's obviously a bug. I'd done HH easily six times in 30min so whatever. Maybe the LFG system gets around it but if Blizzard is going to deny access, the least they could do is provide a “XX more min until you can enter an instance” message.

Thankfully they wiped on their first attempt due to lack of healing. *snicker* Might be able to get in while they try to fine more.

It's Over 7000!

Aenara got stuck at 98/100 on The Summit of Storm Peaks. EveryQuest's incomplete list showed a missing drop-quest started from a Dark Armor Sample. Didn't stick around to finish The Iron Colossus chain once the zone was done since there were still Tournament dailies waiting. Just have to finish up 87/140 Icecrown: The Final Goal for Loremaster of Northrend.

Aenara is now up to 7050 achievement points, with 661/1056 completed. Currently #8 in the guild.

Long, Strange #4

Finally! Picked up the only item Aenara needed for more than a year from the Inn Keeper in Westguard Keep… the damn Hallowed Helm for Sinister Calling. Picked up Hallowed Be Thy Name and What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.

Was down in Howling Fjord to finish up I've Toured the Fjord. Working on The Summit of Storm Peaks while watching 3v3 PvP at BlizzCon. Got Into the Basin done late last night so only Icecrown: The Final Goal remains for Loremaster of Northrend.

Two More Done

Somehow found the patience to grind out some more kills today, so Aenara finished up Oh My, Kurenai… which was also the last reputation needed to finish up The Diplomat. It did take some time yet it was sort of amusing running around camps of Burning Crusade mobs, dropping a single Insect Swarm on each, then circling back to collect loot. Which reminds me… I really need to see if Loot Filter is running again. It makes culling the loot trash so much more tolerable.

The mobs in The Steamvault didn't fare much better. Still spread IS around yet the new super-damaging Thorns made quick work of any melee mobs. The turn-ins were the most tedious part of finishing up Cenarion Expedition. Seems somehow right in an role play sense to have the druid astride a Cenarion War Hippogryph. Still have 72 Coilfang Armaments left over for the next toon that wants the rep. *rolls eyes*

This brings me up to 27/30 Exalted Reputations, 18/25 Tabards, and 77/100 Mountain o' Mounts. Thinking of targeting The Argent Dawn along with Deathcharger's Reins next while getting Hero of the Zandalar Tribe finished up.

Drop Rates or What

Trade Chat babble has mentioned that the drop rate on reins has increased. Naturally I took this with a grain of salt, yet Scheme's loot-filled pumpkin had The Horseman's Reins along with a Flimsy Male Undead Mask. Whoa! Would sure be nice to get the mount on one of the toons I'm doing Mountain o' Mounts on…

Surprise! Heroic Sindragosa

Was pleasantly surprised to get Heroic: The Frostwing Halls (10 player) done tonight. Faerune is in a casual guild that has few hardcore people in it, so our progress through Heroic encounters has been pretty difficult. Yet after an hour-and-a-half of face grinding we managed to down her on our last attempt for the night. If we can somehow pull the Heroic Putricide rabbit out of our collective hats, we might get some Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquishers before the expansion.

Having both raiding experiences does help me not take Aenara's progress for granted. For instance… tonight she cleared 10/12 of the heroic 25 encounters in two hours—all one-shots. The officers actually called it early to do the weekly raid so we'd have something to do tomorrow. Heh.

On a completely unrelated vanity note, I really love the Ninja DK on a Horseman's mount. Here she is waiting with Sindragosa circling and Peddlefeet keeping everyone company.

Shrooms + Wrathful

Aenara finished up The Czar of Sporeggar with relative ease. In three Normal clears I picked up 82 Sanguine Hibiscus. Ran Favor out with another 143 from the bank and done! The little spore bat is fun. This puts Aenara at 68/75 for Lil' Game Hunter, 16/25 Tabards, and 24/25 Exalted Reputations.

Figure that The Diplomat will be next. Aenara murdered her way up to 3198 in Honored with Timbermaw. Kept Favor on auto-follow to soak up the free rep. Pulled in 186 feathers along with the Deadwood Ritual Totem and the Winterfall Ritual Totem. Going to take a while to finish that.

Had to stop the grind when there was talk in the guild about the Wrathful PvP items. I'd heard somewhere that the gear was going to be purchasable without the Arena rating requirements. Sadly the requirement numbers where still there. Yet someone in the guild randomly tried to buy a piece and was able! So I hearthed up immediately to pick up Wrathful Gladiator's War Staff and Wrathful Gladiator's Wyrmhide Robes. Aenara was exactly ten points short for Wrathful Gladiator's Wyrmhide Helm but managed to get a 24 points in a horrible Warsong Gulch loss. Also dropped a Great Feast for Dinner Impossible. *lol*

The Drake With the Most Pink

Finally got On Wings of Nether completed this morning with the dailies and a couple extra Netherwing Eggs. This puts Aenara 2701/3000 Quests Completed, 60/100 Mountain o' Mounts, and 23/25 Exalted Reputations. Knocked out Crocolisks in the City really quick in hopes of picking up the last croc she needed, Chuck, but was denied. WoWJuju tells me another 225 Sanguine Hibiscus will get Sporeggar done so I might try doing that now.

Top Orc

Martini got Skyshattered done a year ago but I sure couldn't get it done on Aenara. Yet when I went out to get the dailies finished today I noticed I remained mounted on my Nether-Rocket, so I retained my 310% speed! Needless to say it was easy to complete this pesky achievement. Sometimes the patch bugs are good.

LFG Tool Success!

I have Aenara running around doing dailies when I get a whisper from someone named Rhialla asking if I wanted to do the Weekly. Took me completely by surprise because I'd queue'd up in the Raid Finder over two hours earlier. *snicker* Sadly I forgot to mark the Healer checkbox so I suppose I was lucky to get an invite at all. Was a bit rough as I out-geared the tank, Svennorsky, by a great deal and started pulling aggro around 80%.

It really isn't worth sitting in a city and enduring trade chat to find a raid yet I'm glad we got Anub'Rekhan Must Die! done. Aenara had 434 Frost Emblems and 188 Triumph Emblems so she doesn't really need any, but she only had 2304 emblems towards 2500 Dungeon & Raid Emblems. Sadly, when the quest was turned in, it didn't increment the count. Turns out rewards don't count as it's not looted. *sigh* Not sure I'll get that achievement since emblems will be going away next patch.

Argent'd

Scheme finally got done with the primary Argent Tournament grind. She was so far behind on Exodar reputation I kept her doing the dailies until she had over one hundred Valiant's Seals and almost ninety Champion's Writs. Worked out that I actually had a few too many yet she got it all done:

• Champion of the Alliance
• Champion of the Exodar
• 10 Exalted Reputations
• Exalted Champion of Stormwind
• Exalted Champion of Gnomeregan
• Exalted Champion of Darnassus
• Exalted Champion of Ironforge
• Exalted Champion of Exodar
• Exalted Champion of the Alliance
• Ambassador of the Alliance
• Exalted Argent Champion of the Alliance
• Exalted Champion of the Exodar

Thankfully I had 201 Champion's Seals so the Rogue now has both the Argent Crusader's Tabard and an Argent Pony Bridle for her squire.

Call in the Cavalry!

Did some late night PvP with the guild on Aenara. We usually win a bunch so I had to spend honor as I approached the 75k cap. Still don't want to break up my 2t10 bonus so I decided to grab a Black War Elekk and got Call in the Cavalry done. Hoping the honor grind in Cata isn't too painful as I'll need to get the other four mounts eventually.

Wasn't So Dark

Finished up the Ulduar achievement run from two weeks ago. We only had to drop Yogg-Saron left—who I'd never seen let alone killed. Went through the exhaustive tactics writeup on the Wiki so I felt confident, though I still watched Cassette's and TankSpots ten-man videos. Took four attempts with twenty-two people yet it felt a lot smoother than General Vezax.

Since Aenara hasn't done much Ulduar there was quite a number of achievements that scrolled by:

• Glory of the Ulduar Raider (25 player)
• One Light in the Darkness (25 player)
• Two Lights in the Darkness (25 player)
• Three Lights in the Darkness (25 player)
• The Descent into Madness (25 player)
• The Secrets of Ulduar (25 player)

Actually would have used Show of Faith for healing yet a pally beat me out. Took home Soulscribe as a memento. Of course the real pay off was the Ironbound Proto-Drake. I'm finding I like it more than the Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher.

Classic Cenarion!

Magmadar finally gave up a pair of Cenarion Leggings so Aenara was able to complete her tier one Cenarion Raiment set! It looks so corny and I love it.

Finally got enough trash killed to move the druid into Revered so she turned in Hands of the Enemy and completed The Fifth Element. Looks like she and Sloosh will be the only toons to earn that Feat of Strength.

That's a Rap

My Zul'Gurub run this morning finally involved a mount dropping.



Felt pretty good to have Martini sitting atop her new Swift Razzashi Raptor with Bloodlord Mandokir's form beneath her. It's really a fun mount with a lot of bounce. It will also be helpful in PvP, letting Martini blend with other Horde mounts.

The Armory feed does show the number of attempts it took, so I'm estimating around fifteen. I suppose that's reasonable. It does show twenty-seven Kael'thas Sunstrider kills and still no fucking bird.

Flame On!

The Midsummer Fire Festival started up today. Hate how these stupid events suck up my time; Blizzard really know how to keep me reeled in. Thankfully Martini, Aenara, and Sloosh already have it done. Dragging Decimate along as Favor does the Honor/Extinguish the flames things in the old world for the Mage ports. Followed the comments in Flame Warden of Kalimdor, getting them all done including Stealing Thunder Bluff's Flame. Going to save Stealing Orgrimmar's Flame for later when it's less popular and less active.

Only had one PvP encounter when Decimate and Favor got separated. Favor didn't have the flight path so she had to hoof it from the Exodar. Crossing the bridge to Bloodmyst Isle, some stupid cow warrior, Kuitrurah, charged my Pally in full tanking gear! Killing this pathetic Arms Warrior was easy. A Shadow Priest, Fynnlee, happened upon us as I dealt the killing blow. She did manage to get me to half health, but I ended up out running her with Pally speed.

The Lord Ahune encounter is the same once started. With the cross-realm LFG tool it was pretty easy to run on all my 80s except for tanking with Faerune. All of the adds are immune to Frost which is conveniently a Death Knight's primary form of threat. The cloak drops are mostly useless but it's any easy two Frost Emblems. The only character to get the updated Frostscythe of Lord Ahune was the Warrior. Of course.

Back in the Kitchen

Until today Sloosh was my only maxxed cook. Martini had been sitting on 163 Dalaran Cooking Awards for a couple of months so today she went in to pick up the Chef's Hat, earning that silly Cooking with Style achievement. I had gotten her skill to 425 so she was able to drop Fish Feasts as needed. About twenty minutes of fishing in Wintergrasp netted enough raw fish to be done with it. I must say… the Chef's Hat really speeds up cooking.

Martini will need to start doing the Fishing Dailies again to get all the Dalaran recipes bought. Guess Aenara and Favor will be next.