I'm a slacker...

Catch-up post coming soon. Getting back into the routine of work and trying to get enough sleep and etc. has been a little crazy.

That is all (for now). /Wave

p.s. Have a (old) random screenshot.

I love Vacations

Been quiet lately because I've been busy with getting ready for vacation with my family. I am now in NC, the beach is awesome, and I'm already sunburned. :D (Not too badly though.) I've had some game time in the evenings, too, and have been trying to get stuff done on 3 different games. So far, Rift has actually been getting neglected (although I've finally got all my characters on one RP shard now), but LotRO is getting attention (I might even have a max-level character by the end of the year :P), and of course I've been doing stuff on WoW.

Kel is taking it easy with her dailies, mostly because I can't stand to do them more than twice a day, and I want my engineering toons to open up the recipe vendor. Rajji has been easier to do stuff with than Arien, so he'll probably be getting the shiny gun recipe first. And the scope. That scope makes me giggle every time I look at it. Blizzard does come up with some pretty fun stuff once in a while.

Speaking of Rajji, he has two new friends. First, I found Terropene wandering around his lava pool, and just couldn't help myself. I'm not sure how much time Fierro will be spending out of the stable, but fire turtle(!) is just too irresistible. Then I was herb-picking on Windstar one night, and she found someone wandering around Twilight Highlands-

I give up trying to keep track of how many cats he has now. Not even including spirit beasts. Paragon is his 4th lion, though. I think he has a total of 6 cats, with 2 cat-model spirit beasts. And he loves all of them. My troll is hopeless. :P

Side-note - I'm probably going to wind up taming Sambas on every hunter I have. :P Which is funny, because when I first saw him, I wasn't very impressed with his model, but I guess he's grown on me.

I've been tinkering on alts a lot as well, and I especially realized how neglected Max has been. So he's been getting some dungeon runs, and is up to 62 already. I wish I didn't hate questing in Outlands so much though, his gear is really pathetic. And the few things he could use from instances refuse to drop. /grumble He's found a couple new companions, as well. He finally has his first 2 tenacity pets-



I'm not sure if he's keeping the crab or not. I'm planning on getting him Jadefang when he's high enough (since Rajji's pretty much out of room), and he just hasn't been that big on tanky pets. The warp stalker may be turning blue later, too. I may be doing another post later, just to show off his pets and maybe have some RP background stuff, since I recently realized I have almost no screenshots of them and he's been so neglected lately. :P

And one last thing- my sketching has been a little slow lately, but I did finish a horse I've been working on. I admit the inspiration of this one (which I call 'Resting') comes from how tired I've been lately. :P


And that's it for now. Hopefully Warcraft maintenance is done, so Max can get another dungeon or two done. /Waves

Two days late, but..

Rajji has hit the magic number, and got a bonus surprise achievement to boot. He then took a pass over Karoma's and Sambas's spawn points on his way to the portal to go train, but with no luck. He's started on Firelands, and is going to do Thrall's quest chain today. He actually dinged on Thursday, but I'm showing it off late because just after it happened my brother wanted to hang out (yay) and then yesterday I was so tired after work that I crashed almost as soon as I got home (boo). Have I mentioned I don't like my job very much lately? :P

I think my leveling binge is still going, but now I really want to work on some of my alts on other servers. Most likely Shadepaw, on Nesingwary, will be my next goal. If I can keep away from my rogues on Feathermoon. Talia, at 47, is the highest I've ever gotten with a rogue, and it's so much fun I really want to get her to 85. And then there's also Max, sitting at 59 and needing some instance runs for gear pretty bad. Having the healer in his last (and only) Ramparts run pointing out that he was last on the dps meter was kind of embarrassing. >.< And since I really hate leveling in Outlands, I think Kel/Windstar are going to be instance-running him through to 68 as quickly as possible.

I'm starting to count down to my vacation in August. My work schedule lately has been hectic, and I'm just starting to get sick of being there. The weather isn't helping, either. This has been the hottest summers I can remember in a long time, and while it's great for me, because I loooove hot weather, it also means that the managers and supervisors aren't letting me go outside and do my favorite job very much. No one seems to believe me when I say that gathering/bringing in the shopping carts in 90+ degree weather doesn't bother me. :\

But enough ranting about that for now. I have today off to spend with my troll (and some alts), and I have been seriously slacking on Kel's Firelands dailies. I must go fix that. :D /Waves

Trollin'

In between doing Kel's Firelands dailies (and slacking off a day or two, work sucks), I have been steadily working on my next level 85. Really, it should have been Jahira, since she's my next highest, but all the fun hunter stuff has me working on getting Rajji up to cap. Currently, he's about halfway through 84, and hopefully will hit the big ding later today. If not, at least tomorrow I have a day off work.

In between questing and the occasional dungeon, I have also been filling his stable. Which is almost done, literally. He has maybe 4 empty stable slots, plus the one personal slot I keep open for if/when I find something special. He has a wider collection than Kel, although he seems to be turning into a bit of a cat person, er, troll. Along with his 3 lions (one of each color), he got Shango as soon as the mob was turned into that gorgeous tiger, and more recently got himself a frostsaber stalker. Drejan has clicked with Raj much better than I ever thought-

(Because troll + tiger is so full of win.)




He also got Hell-Hoot after the change that turned him lavender. Then, sitting in Orgrimmar one day, I noticed that Erthe seemed to be trying to perch on Raj's staff. It was kind of adorable. (And took a lot of timing and position adjustments.)



Rajji's been enjoying his new Sholazar pair, too. Although Snowcloud(Loque) has been getting a lot more attention than Azure(Aotona). (I need to fix that :P) And just today, he got his newest addition to the zoo-



Funny thing is, I was never that interested in Madexx before Blizzard started putting normal-spawn mobs with his model in various places in the game. I guess seeing the other versions of him made him sort of grow on me. Maxwill will be getting a non-rare version from Firelands when he gets leveled, but I wanted to get the 'real thing' for Raj. I had been hoping so badly for a blue version (favorite color ftw?), but Madexx stubbornly insisted on spawning green the last 3 times I know of; once when sis found him, once when I found his dead body, and finally when Raj finally tamed him. I did miss his spawn last night, but I'm almost willing to bet it was green too. Silly scorpid. :/ And if anyone's wondering, I sort of combined his name and color to come up with his new name. I think it fits. :D

I am getting a blue version of Madexx on someone, most likely Shadepaw whenever I level her up (which I'm working on as well). Rajji is more than happy with his new buddy though. Green pets seem to be sort of a theme with him, especially considering that he's likely getting Jadefang too, to go along with his green scorpid, chimera, warp stalker, and serpent.

And now one last screenshot: Doing the beginning quests in Twilight Highlands, Rajji was taking a boat back to the Horde warships, and I noticed Snowcloud actually following, instead of getting stuck on the shore like what happens going the opposite direction. It was kind of a 'awww' silly moment-


(Faithful pet refuses to be left behind.)

And now to go work on getting my troll to 85, most likely in TwiHighlands, since I'm a little tired of looking at Uldum right now (lol). /Waves

p.s.- In case anyone is curious, several of Rajji's pet's names I've gotten from a Drow translation website. Erthe, Elgcahl, Drejan, and Toryll have all come from that site. I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for something unusual. :D

Tinkering in the Firelands

First of all, I love this patch. So much new stuff to do. Kel got to run through everything first, of course, and I have been trying to keep Bearkat up with her, even though the chances of him doing anything like raiding are next-to-zero. He loves Tol Barad, though. The Horde winning 9/10 battles isn't nearly as annoying now.

So, today I was doing Kel's dailies, after missing Ankha spawning (no big deal, I want Magria anyways). (And thank you, Novikova, for being awesome and telling me so that I have the spawn timer. :D) Running around exploring afterwards, I discovered three things. One, the lava spiders in Fire lands are skinnable (yay new farming spot?). Two, surprise achievement-



And three, Deth'tilac had spawned, and was being kited by a human hunter, with a couple friends-



After making sure the other hunter had things under control, I happily watched them whittle Deth's health down to the tamable point. And I may have cleared a couple spiders out of their kiting path. >.> I was too afraid of screwing something up to help with the kiting, and it was the only other thing I could think of to help.

I didn't get a screenshot of Deth and it's proud new owner, but it was pretty awesome to see that huge angry spider suddenly turn friendly. And shrink. A LOT. The other hunter was happy and grateful to me for staying out of the way and clearing the extra mobs. She even tried to give me some gold, but I refused. Getting to see the most epic rare spawn of the patch being tamed was more than good enough for me.

And speaking of achievements-




The Fire Festival is almost over, but I managed to beat down my procrastination and get the one single achievement that Kel needed for the meta. I haven't taken advantage of the free xp/gold from the bonfires nearly as much as I wanted to, but all the new patch stuff kept me too busy. That, and work. Darn my job anyways...

Between Tol Barad dailies, rewards from the beginning Firelands quests, and finding a couple decent deals in the AH, Bear's gear is ready for heroics. Windstar is about the same gear-wise, and the difference is pretty amazing. Star is killing her mobs in about half the time it used to take, and no longer has to heal herself after every single fight. She even managed to solo Tank the shark with her bear spec. Bearkat is beginning to collect some tanking gear, and I might even try to tank a normal instance sometime, just for practice. He's got a long way to go before I'll be comfortable tanking heroics, though.

And I think that's enough rambling for me. Must go get some sleep before the next Magria (or Ankha) spawns. /Waves

And another...

I've been a busy leveler lately, it seems.



I may make myself stop leveling for a bit, to try to get my current maxed characters some gear. *Eyes Rajji* Uh, maybe...

Speaking of gear, a random blue trinket dropped for Kel when she was doing Tol Barad dailies, which she passed along to Windstar. It got her gear ilevel up enough so she can finally run heroics. The only problem is, she really hasn't been doing very well, even in normal dungeons.

It's kind of odd, comparing my two 'main' druids. Windstar actually didn't get much questing, after she finished Hyjal. Most of her xp came from farming herbs, for both her own inscription and my warlock's alchemy. (Both of which are maxed, even though my 'lock is still only level 82. /flex) She did do quests, but I hopped around the zones a lot, so she hasn't gotten many of the good rewards from the finishing quest lines. That trinket actually replaced a ilevel 272 quest reward from Hyjal. :\

Bearkat, on the other hand, has finished Hyjal and the main quest chain (the World Pillar) in Deepholm. He's also run more instances than Star. It's been easier to make myself quest on him, mostly because of all the unneeded rewards that he gets to disenchant. (Much more reliable supply of mats than getting random green drops from grinding or instances.) Also, I've noticed something that honestly confuses me a little. Everything just seems easier on Bear. He rips through quests and mobs that Star struggles with. Some of it might be that his gear is a little better, not to mention that he keeps all of his gear enchanted. But still, the difference is a little boggling. Poor Star struggles with dps in instances, seems to take longer to kill mobs, and dies at least once every time I do her Tol Barad dailies. Now, I haven't taken Bear to Tol Barad yet, but I'm not expecting any trouble for him when I do. He was also doing higher dps in instances at 82-83 than Star does at 85. I just can't figure it out. /scratch head

Well, at least part of the problem will be taken care of (hopefully) soon. Kel has been trying to collect the chaos orbs to make Star the epic leatherworking pieces. The only problem is the RNG hates me, but I figure if I run enough heroics, my luck has got to work out eventually. Of course, then other only problem is, that means I have to play Kel, when I really want to be doing things on my other characters. Thus, it has been going very slowly. So far, Kel has one orb, out of the 5 or 6 (can't remember >.<) that she needs for both belt and chestpiece. Argh.

Anyways, enough with the rambling/ranting. Time to do Bear's dailies, and maybe get a random dungeon or two. And wait for my latest attempt to download the PTR to finish. Hopefully it won't constantly crash this time.
/Waves

Another ding!

So, two new things. First up, Arien has mined/dungeoned/quested herself to 85, finally. And I might have stayed up until around 3 in the morning to get it done. *cough* >.>



When my leveling OCD kicks in, it is really hard to stop when there's less than three bubs of XP to go. :P

Second, Kel got into a group of fellow Feathermoonies for a troll heroic, which wound up being Zul Gurub. First time in there for me since Blizz updated it, so it involved lots of dying, as I relearned the fights. The last boss failed to give Kel a shiny bow, but she did leave the place with a new friend.



It was a major pain to get this guy. I finally wound up asking everyone to go outside the building where the last trash pack (with a cat in it) was. I forgot to hit my haste pot before starting the tame, but she still barely managed to finish before the extra troll killed her. It was pretty awesome. :D

On a final note, I may possibly be doing a more serious post sometime soon(ish). I've been running across some stuff from other bloggers over the last several weeks, not to mention a lot of RL stuff going on lately, and it's all starting to make me think. A lot. So, well, yea. No idea when I'll actually be writing it, since it's not really an easy topic for me. So, umm, you've been warned? :P

Anyways! That's it for now. /Waves

p.s.- I had a little bit of RP with Windstar and Jahira that I might post, as well. Just a short bit involving what little I know of what happens in 4.2. (Spoiler: Windstar meeting Malorne will be so fricking epic.)