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Jaedia the Draenei Mage is now level 90 and ready to Mage things (again).
Ding! (Again)
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Move Aside Apathy
I promised one Miss Kaitz that I would blog on the Menagerie. Okay so that was a week ago and I was supposed to tell you about the adventures of Pinky but I thought it might be nice to talk a little about what I’m upto right now, because what I’m upto often seems to elude many.
Honourary picture of Pinky on the fish bike
I suppose I’d grown bored. Dailies had killed my spirit and all there was was raiding and the endless grind so I’d backed away a bit. Again. I’d even considered cancelling my payment until I wanted to play again but thankfully I didn’t and over Christmas I actually did a few dailies because I felt like it. When I got back home in January I was all ready to carry on watching through Supernatural and I figured why not farm Skyshards while I do that? So I did. I got one then decided to do dailies with that time instead. Then I had a brief addiction to the Walking Dead game.. I say brief because I played it until I reached the end (I still owe you guys a blog post on this game, it’s absolutely amazing). Then decided I really should level my Death Knight if she’s going to be doing transmog runs.
Levelling
Soupdragon had almost gotten to 86 before being pushed aside and abandoned for the apathy so it was only natural that I came to her first of my two 85′s. I ran through Jade Forest, Krasarang Wilds (which finally netted me Loremaster of Pandaria yay!), Valley of the Four Winds and finally, Dread Wastes where I died.. died.. and died again. I had to force myself but I got her to 90 and then decided I was happy and wanted to gear my Hunter.
Huntering
Kaitz runs a fair few transmog runs on her wolf-lady Death Knight and asked me one night if I’d like to come along for the Illidan bow so I did. It was a lot of fun! Kait met Snowflake and Baskilisk, we talked about politics and cookies, and discovered that I am in fact a glaive magnet. (Grats Kait on your glaive! Our mine, if Toman’s gtmod is to be believed xD) Yep, a glaive dropped! Woo!
Dan has the offhand, Kait has the mainhand, I was there for both. I am.. the Glaive Magnet
We did Naxx 10, and on the next reset did it all again along with Mogushan Vaults LFR where I got a hat. It’s mucho fun, but see.. Reliq wants a Mage for raids and I have a Mage.. I would have stuck with my Priest who is very well geared considering all that apathy (aside from her hat) but I believe another lovely guildy is wanting to reroll to her Shadow Priest and there are many Hunters everywhere as is *sad*.
Maging
So next up, I decided to speedy-level my Mage. You have no idea how glad I am to be rid of frickin’ Twylite the Blood Elf Mage who on entering random groups I had to inform them that I named her before I’d heard of the crappy sparkly vampires.. but that Jewelcrafting daily with the sparkles? Yeah, she was often glittering. Sigh. Anyway! Jaedia the Draenei Mage is much cooler. She was never abandoned, her professions are all levelled up and useful, she has some wicked transmog pieces and I really enjoyed levelling her the first time (hi Steve!). She has good memories.
I forget whether I started her in Jade Forest on Thursday or Friday.. Actually I think it was late on Thursday night, I didn’t do very much but I got started then Friday dinged 86, today she’ll ding 90. That might be the fastest I’ve levelled a character from 85-90 without going without sleep and other vital things! The Darkmoon Faire roundabout definitely helped.
“Time for bed,” said Zebedee
And Frost has somehow become an amazing spec! It’s as fun as Fire with all its crits and procs, and I get to play around with transmog again. I was way too happy with my Fire Mage transmog to change it. Dan and Rip helped me through Black Temple and Mount Hyjal for tier 6 a few days ago and I (*cough* jammy git) picked up all 5 pieces and my Draenei Mage looks wicked in it! Last night a few were doing ICC for transmog fun and.. well.. I know I should have been levelling but I can’t say no to ICC sooo I went along and picked up a few weapons including a mad looking wand which I think possibly scares Reliq going by his reaction, so I’ll definitely be using that if I have a wand.
Left to right: Ysaera, me, Rippur, Severiti and Splish
As for now, I’m hoping to give guild raiding another shot. I picked up a bunch of BoE stuff for my Mage when she gets to 90 and she had about 3500 Justice Points leftover from Cataclysm that I’m fairly sure I had been saving up, plus come tomorrow I’ll get in a Sha group pretty easily so I think she’s going to be geared. Note: If any Ghostlands folk notice the intellect Darkmoon Faire trinket for a decent price (less than 9k), please let me know! And can start joining back in with guild raids sooner rather than later. 
Goodbye Cataclysm!
Here we are. The last day of Cataclysm. Finally! I’m sure you guys know that I wasn’t Cataclysm’s greatest fan. I quit for 3 months and barely played for most of it. It wasn’t until I found Harvest Moon that I fell in love with the game all over again. From what I hear, Mists will change a lot of the things that I didn’t like and I am very excited to see what’s new.
But Cataclysm wasn’t all bad. The new 1-60 quests were really cool if you stuck around long enough to see them (very difficult with current levelling speeds) and I loved that you could actually just get instance quests from inside the instances rather than traipsing around Azeroth and doing hand stands just to get a couple of dungeon quests like before. I liked the new zones before they got tedious and samey. The Molten Front dailies were actually a lot of fun and the new mounts and pets across the board were awesome. I loved the new ZG and ZA instances, despite never getting my tiger mount. And the introduction of LFR was a great one for people like myself!
I’m looking forward to exploring Pandaria with the Moonies and have been taking a look at Shadow Priest things today. We have my talent spec and glyphs here. Pre-raid gear list, followed by an example of BiS and some playstyle tips. And this MMO-C post is going to be so useful to me! I double checked my stat weights on HowToPriest.com and yes, haste is still ahead of crit and mastery by a mile. Now to double check my priority system and enjoy the goodbye Cataclysm party tonight!
Farewell Cataclysm, you won’t be missed but thanks for all the fish! *watches countdown timer eagerly*
What did you like most about Cataclysm?
You Shouldn’t Need to Log Out for Mists!
I keep seeing a lot of people saying that they won’t be playing on Monday night (Mists release) because they likely won’t be able to log back in. I feel I should share this particular blue post with you guys:
Source.
As soon as we activate the new expansion content on launch, players who already have a Mists of Pandaria license with the data installed will gain instant access. If you’re in the game when the clock strikes midnight, you don’t even have to logout!So, what happens at midnight for those of us with Mists ready to go?
- A yellow System Message will appear in your Chat Log telling you to visit Orgrimmar or Stormwind to start your travels.
- Level-85 characters will receive a new quest, no matter where they are in the world, which will guide them to Varian or Garrosh for further orders. If you’re online at midnight you will receive the quest even if your Quest Log is full — or you can visit Varian or Garrosh to get started on your journey to Pandaria.
- Level-85 players will notice their experience bars automatically change so that experience can once again be earned.
- Players who are at the Character Creation screen at midnight will notice the button to create a pandaren character will be enabled. (Reminder: This also applies to players who don’t have a Mists of Pandaria license, as all races are now included with a base copy of World of Warcraft.)
- Players who are at the Character Creation screen at midnight will notice the button to create a monk character will be enabled.
We’ve been very hard at work on this new technology with the goal of ensuring that players can enjoy a more stable and seamless transition into the next expansion than ever before. Our staff will be monitoring realm stability and gameplay issues around the clock, as we want to provide you with the best experience possible.
*Touch wood* we shouldn’t need to log out at all!
Allow Me to Say Something Controversial for a Moment?
I like Theramore’s Fall. I quite enjoyed this quick burst of new but easy content with this epic twist of lore, story explained or no. I did it hating the Horde, scared for Jaina and excited to be so close to more of this: new content!!
Okay so the loading screen itself looks very much like something you see zoning into a battleground in my honest opinion but it was new and shiny and it told me that new things were loading up and that is much cause for excitement!
And sure, at this point the scenario bugged on us meaning that once we’d killed the boss we didn’t get progress for the “protect Jaina” part, but it did allow me to take this awesome screenshot and eh Spongeflaps snuck into the picture. Damn you Flaps trying to steal a moment in the spotlight!
Overall.. the music made me swoon. The brief exchange between Jaina and the Orc Guy gave me chills. And hey, random pointless loot and a nice little tabard? Yes please.
At the end of the day, this is not a pre-expansion event, it is a brief look at what scenarios will be like and at that it is successful. Just perhaps needed a little testing before it was thrown out there given the amount of bugs people have been having! Remember what’s important.
That’s right, Jae’s achievements. 
Cataclysm 2012 Bucket List: Part 2 – Mopping Up
Having been working on my Bucket List and progressing nicely, I have a few more things that I’d like to MoP up before the Mists part. Har har.
Tier 1
- Banks and bags need to be cleared and tidied! My bank alt is trying to shift a lot of crap that isn’t budging, this needs to be passed on, vendored, disenchanted. Got rid of. Alts need bank space for new profession and transmog items, as does the main. I shall have to make use of brutality to tidy up things that I won’t need, and Void Storage where needed.
- Seithir still has quests in her log. These need to be completed and cleared up. The only quest I want left in my log when Mists comes is the one for the Firelands legendary staff because there’s no way I’ll complete that in time, and maybe a few dailies to hand in if we can still do that.
- Dailies as frequently as possible. Trying to get Just Another Day in Tol Barad as for some reason that completely reset when I faction changed (only needed one before) and the drake. Molten Front I’m trying my hardest to get the achievements (only need 5 more), two pets I’m missing (bear and lasher) and the hippogryph. Argent Tournament for many mounts I never bothered with but my word I can rarely be arsed. Frenzyheart I need the exalted for 70 exalteds. And cooking and fishing for Bunch of Lunch and Gone Fishin’ and my last few Cataclysm cooking recipes.
- LFR Dragon Soul on my Mage. I’ve been very good in doing this but it’s slowly killing me inside. Only a couple more weeks’ worth.. I can do it.
- Professions! My Priest is after Iron Chef so I’m trying to get as many missing recipes as I can and should be able to get 199/200 before Mists assuming I remember to do my cooking dailies, then I’ll need 41 more for the next tier of that achievement. My Death Knight still needs to max out Enchanting and Blacksmithing and my Mage her Jewelcrafting which I’ll hopefully focus on pretty darn soon in Mists because I really want to have a nice source of income. Hey, I want my Yak, okay?
Tier 2
- I started a Hunter. Yes, another one. I cannot *sadface* afford to transfer one of my two over, especially seeing as my priority is on Paladin and no still can’t afford it, so I started a new one. There’s a lot of fun items and transmog gear and professions I’m missing out on by starting anew but alas. Faelysia the Draenei Hunter is taking names and kicking arse and she’s just a bit awesome. She made it to 40 in two days and honestly? She really could be closing in on 55 today if I’d played her yesterday. Trying to level her as quickly as I can because I really want to have a Hunter alt to enjoy in Mists. I miss them! In the meantime she’s currently a Herbing Alchemist, herbing only taken because herbs are freaking impossible on this server’s auction house, eventually it’ll be dropped for Engineering as my Druid is my gathering alt.
- Speaking of, need to level my Druid and her Herbing and Mining.
- Limnologist and Oceanographer on my Priest. I started them yesterday following this (now quite old) guide and I’m getting pretty close to finishing.
- Start a guild bank for my bank alt, fill it up with profession mats, lowbie levelling/transmog gear, things that will sell like hot cakes when the pandas enter the world. Ideally, I’d like to invite some noobs to level it up enough and start earning me some sneaky gold but that takes effort I don’t think I can be arsed with.
- Molten Core and AQ40 weekly on my Priest.. well.. we’ll see. AQ40 still needs some folk for Twins (awkward fuckers that they are) and Molten Bore… yeah. But I need the reps.
I also need to get some posts written and scheduled on the book blog to ensure I don’t vanish off the face of the book blogging world for the first few weeks!
Squee I’m excited!
You guys planning any last minute pre-Mists spring cleaning?
Archaeology All the Things!
With my Mage finally 85, my next priority is to work through achievements and collect those last few pets I never quite got. This means hammering the old Archaeology and oh god are there any mods I can grab? I mean of course I already have Archy which makes the life of an Archaeologist so much simpler but is there anything else? I did find a few bits and pieces that actually made me squee a little bit with their usefulness.
For those who don’t know of Archy, it looks a little like this.
It tells you where your next digsites are, what you are working on and how many more fragments you need, when to solve an artifact, you can double click to survey and if you have TomTom as well it uses the waypoint arrow. I’ve been using this one since the start of Cataclysm it is fantastic.
But I’m always having to check between the map and the flight plans to see where I need to go next, which is why I tend to manually fly everywhere and then I bump into Hyjal and start angrily grumbling about this stupid high place in the middle of all the Night Elf digsites. In comes Homing Digeon.
This one highlights the closest flight point to each of your digsites and my word is it helpful! It’s such a great mod for lazy people like me to plop myself on a flight plan and alt tab to check my reader, write a blog post or waddle off to plop a pizza in the oven.
And while I’m in the area, wouldn’t it be wonderful to know where to go to pick up BoE recipes that might sell for a little on the auction house? After all, we all need gold. While installing GatherMate2 to make life easier for my Druid and my future Camel farming, I came across RecipeProfit which tells you where certain NPCs are in the zone you’re in and which recipe they sell. This one is going to make me a lot of on the side gold.
As I’m working on achievements and my pet and mount collections while I’m doing Archaeology, I wanted a mod which would show every artifact for each race, which achievement the artifact might be for and how many times I’ve completed it. Artifact Finder is absolutely perfect for this.
And I also wanted to try out Rarity which takes account of how many times you’ve tried for a certain rare item and thus how lucky you are with that item. I won’t likely keep this one but it’s a bit of fun for now.
I also picked up Steve’s MogIt addon – Highlighter. It pretty much highlights when an item on your MogIt wishlist pops up.
So my Archaeology has become a bit easier to follow now but you still might find me somewhere in Stranglethorn Vale going insane in the middle of a digsite.
The Day I Read The MMO Champion Forums
So I popped over to watch this:
and saw…
I just wanted to know – why does everything always have to have a group of haters? Okay, the trailer won’t be for everybody but by no means does it signal the end of WoW and surely the arguing is a little unnecessary?
And then I got all curious over “Why do HC raiding guilds say ‘no’ to females?” and clicked on it and I honestly have no idea what went through my head because I know what the vast majority of male WoW players say to this sort of question. I know. And I still clicked. And I was still disgusted.
And they’re just from page 1, I couldn’t bring myself to read any more and risk seeing anything worse. The state of gender inequality within the general World of Warcraft community drives me insane. And I love that two of those comments were so bad that they had to be edited by a mod…
So there’s my daily doseage of hate. But isn’t the trailer amazing at least?
03/08-10/08 in WoW
Wooee! This past week I’ve got quite a lot done. We worked out the terrible lag issue I was having (we switched the USB wireless thingies and I’m fine now, doesn’t seem to affect Dan so much) which is fantastic even if I did miss Bastion of Twilight because I physically couldn’t play. *sob* Will definitely plan a run of that again at some point.
Priest
The big news of the week is my Priest’s successful faction change and transfer to Human and Ghostlands. I was terrified after some bad race change experiences in the past and what with Seithir being the character I’m most attached to but in the end I adored it. I spent ages squeeing over my changed mounts and getting on with Darkmoon Faire dailies and doing a couple of instances. I didn’t realise she could still benefit from Valor Point gear!
I also finally got the Sea Pony on her and the Darkmoon Turtle. Decided to speed up the DMF pet gaining process by also doing the dailies on my Mage and Death Knight though I’ve been slacking with Soup. My Mage, however, got the Darkmoon Cub so that’s 3 more down and I might be able to get one more tomorrow. I’m still undecided between the monkey and the balloon.. I’m not a big monkey fan.
Mage
Well we’ve really done well with our levelling in the past week! (SPEED LEVELLING! WOO!) We were just starting Wrath content this time last week but at the time of writing this post we’re very close to 83 which is amazing. I can’t wait to finally be 85 and able to get on with working on the LFR Time Lord set for transmog in the future. Any help obtaining that one appreciated!
Professions
I’ve worked on Jaedia’s professions as much as I’ve had time for. The economy on Ghostlands is a bit worse for wear but I’m struggling along. Enchanting is up to 382, just hoping Infinite Dust becomes less than 12g a piece soon. Starting to regret snubbing it at 9g a piece on Twitter earlier. And Jewelcrafting is up to 100 which allowed me to do the Darkmoon Faire Jewelcrafting quest. Okay, so 105 then. I don’t believe I’ve touched Soupy’s professions the past week but there’s a bit of ore and dust floating around after all of the transfers recently.
Gold
Brought over 50k and a few bits to sell when I transferred! So this is on the rise though I’m no where near ready to start getting back into the market properly. Having close to 60k gold is nice though.
Guild
Dan’s transferred his Paladin over and a mutual friend seems to be planning to bring his over as well. Also, Reliq seems to be a little scared of poor little Soupy. She only wanted a hug!
A Sidenote
I just found my bucket list summary from just before Cataclysm hit and it made me a little sad. I had achieved so much at this point and I was so very excited for the prospect of Cataclysm and I ended up so disappointed that I don’t think I hit many of the new goals I had set at all. It’s a shame but I’d like to keep my goals realistic and maintain a calm enjoyment of Mists with an awesome group of people. That is, after all, my main goal in this game.
27/07-03/08 in WoW
The past week in Jae’s world.
Recruitment:
I invited a social who’s pretty friendly and sent another guy over to the forums to apply as a raider. I also invited a friend of Dan’s as a social. Doing good! It would be nice if folk who portrayed interest in joining to raid would actually apply when sent to the forums but hey ho. We’ll get there.
And just a note: If you happen to be looking for a friendly and mature (well.. as mature as can be) guild for either social players or casual raiders on Alliance EU then please do check out Harvest Moon! I promise we’re lovely and a lot of fun.
Stuff to Do:
Naxx run a-go-go. We ran Naxx on Monday night and it was a lot of fun despite myself running on the spot most of the run. I believe the others went ahead to Sarth 10 3D and Malygos afterwards but I had to call it a night there. Next week we’ll be running Bastion of Twilight!
Priest:
Well I completed Blasted Lands quests which was cool but still no progress on transferring. I spent a while worrying I’ll end up quitting if I do it and Dan decides he really doesn’t want to, then I remembered how much I just want to play with the Moonies and started worrying over money issues. I’d very much like to move her for the Bastion run in the week.
Mage:
Myself and Ethan (Steve? Ys? :p) did a lot of levelling! Sometimes we’ll just group up and chat while we quest at the same time. We can’t quest together being cross realm but that’s not a problem. We’re still levelling together which is the fun part, and I prefer questing solo anyway. Other times we’ll queue up for dungeons, kick some arse while singing songs. I’ll lag like mad (which is annoying but eh) and we’ll ding away. We’ll be up to LFR to get my LFR Time Lord set in no time.. gawd I want that set for transmog. *fingers crossed* But yes, we’ve made it upto Wrath level content now which is awesome and I have finally out-levelled my Horde Mage too. I’ve been working on her Enchanting and I think she’s going to become my Jewelcrafter on Ghostlands.
Gold:
I have actually made a start on gold making again. Though I have very limited resources at the moment, I’ll auction anything I can, work out what’s good for transmog sales and what’s best to just disenchant based on prices. I’ve been selling what I make to skill up with and working on skilling up professions too. Though it’s a slightly weird one, I’ve decided to keep Enchanting on my Mage and Death Knight despite moving my Enchanting/Tailoring Priest over soon because then I am guaranteed to have a disenchanter for quests and dungeon runs. I’d like to move my Paladin over some time as well as she has all of the currently available glyphs for Inscription and then I need to work on levelling Alchemists, a gathering character, a Jewelcrafter and at some point a Leatherworker as well.