Valour Failure

Since my guild started our holiday raiding break (which is now looking to last until MoP, although that's another story...), I haven't been getting my usual quota of Valour Points.

Last week I'd realised that one week of points could get me over the line to the Arena bow I'd been wanting for transmog purposes, so I thought, "Great! I'll just do a quick Raid Finder Dragon Soul and be done with it".

Yeah, not so much.

Whilst RF used to be a quick and easy source for VP, I'm pretty sure that anyone and everyone - including me, really - who is actually capable of running the place has long finished farming it and is nowhere in sight.

Not to mention, the healers left at the slightest hint of a non-optimal group (stretching the queue time and leaving us with only the desperate hangers-on), making it incredibly difficult to finish the run once you wiped.

A few attempts later and I decided it was sadly much easier to run 5man heroics for VP, much to the delight of more than a few undergeared PuGs who /boggled at my ilvl 398 DPS.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, really, considering that everyone is feeling pre-expansion lethargy, but still. LFR is supposed to be easymode raiding, dammit! What happened? :(

Aspect of the Dragonhawk

No, we aren't getting that spell back; I'm talking about this:

Yep. Because you can change Aspects whilst mounted, you actually get a cast animation if you change Aspects whilst transformed into a dragon via Vial of the Sands.

It does look a little odd, since the dragon looks like a chicken sticking its neck out really quickly... but pretty amusing as well!

Bubble-o-flage

After running through the Well of Eternity and getting Tyrande's Hand of Elune buff, I realized that not only does the buff put a clear bubble around you, it also changes Camouflage to put a second visible bubble around the first one:

Reminds me a little of those Alien eggs for some reason, even though they don't look the same... but in any case: definitely not stealthy to be walking around inside a double bubble!

Outfit Complete

Finally! After more than a few runs through Sunwell (much thanks to my guildies!), the Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas dropped for me and I have my complete elven ranger outfit:

Unfortunately my dark ranger outfit (which I use for PvP) needs 3 more items with extremely low drop rates, so I'm still using placeholder items (which really aren't too bad, considering).

I'll still have to run Sunwell for Thori'dal, of course, but at least I have my PvE set done! :)

Hey guise, new hat!

Sometimes I don't know why I keep these items, or even make the effort to get enough tokens to get the items in the first place... and then, of course, I remember that I'm an OCD collector and Achievement hound, and I guess my head being on fire is kinda cool :P

In other news, I also managed to finish Frostbitten:

Found Dirkee in the spawn point far, far away from any Time-Lost Proto-Drake paths, unsurprisingly.

I have to say, I didn't think I'd get those rare Achievements... but parking an alt at spawn points instead of going AFK in town really does help a lot!

I've Seen You Before...

I only need Dirkee and Terror Spinner for Frostbitten, so I've parked an alt at one and set my hearth to the other, and log out at a spawn point.

It is, however, rather disconcerting to see someone else parked close to you when you log out... and in the exact same position when you log back in the next day. Do these people not sleep or work?!

Anyway, I've been trying harder to get this Achievement done because I was reminded recently that come MoP, zones will be cross-realm... meaning more people in the zone and therefore less chance of you seeing rare mobs. Great for questers, not so great for Achievement hunters like me! :(

Here's hoping I manage to get the Time-Lost Proto-Drake and the Camel Hoarder as well... although if the dude I see when I log into Storm Peaks is still there for the rest of the week, I'm not holding my breath!

The Minions of Hell Grow Stronger

...and the minions of Azeroth grow lonelier.

My guild has jumped on the Diablo 3 bandwagon, plus we've had illnesses (it's getting into cold 'n flu season here in the Southern hemisphere, don't forget!) and people taking holidays, so it's been a little quiet in WoW lately.

That's not to say we haven't been progressing, though - we consistently kill 3 heroic bosses in DS and we're working on a 4th.

Not to mention, we're finally at the last few runs of Firelands for our guild leader to get the legendary staff - an epically long hard slog, if you ask us. Our rogue got his legendary daggers with much less group effort.

I was actually a little surprised that we all keep turning up to raid, considering. I guess Diablo 3 is more of a solo game or with a small group of friends, so WoW is still the only way we can all get together in a big group and have fun.

Well, that, or perhaps the core raiding team of 11 or so that we have left are the more motivated group - after all, Southern Wardens hasn't traditionally been a heroic raiding guild, but I think we can safely say we are now! :)

Solo Pit Fighter

I know I'm not the best PvPer. Far from it, in fact. However, I do like being the underdog - sometimes you can sneak your way to the finish line purely because you're not the most obvious target.

With no extra buffs, under-par PvP gear (still less than 3500 resilience) and not a single party member to back me up, I almost didn't step into the Darkmoon Arena ring tonight because I knew it'd be tough. However, there were enough people fighting that I figured I'd have a chance of ninjaing the chest...

...which is clearly what happened, because I've just come away from the Darkmoon Arena with my second Pit Fighter trinket - and this one I managed solo!

All it took was waiting for the right moment. In this case, a mage put up a Ring of Frost on the chest, clearly expecting to catch everyone and have the chest be safe for a few seconds. I deliberately run in, trinket, FD to make everyone lose me as a target, drop a Freezing Trap and start opening the chest.

Meanwhile, of course, everyone else is still either frozen in the mage's ring or staying out so they don't get caught. I send my bat to stun someone coming close, a warrior charges into my trap... and bam. Cast finishes, I get the trinket. Epic win! Only 10 more to go.... :P

Failands Raiding

We've been trying to get one of our guild members a legendary staff from Firelands on our off-raiding night, which is actually quite a long slog.

You'd think it'd be an easy raid for a guild in heroic DS - and for the most part, it is - but Ragnaros actually gives us more trouble than regular progression content, to the point where we almost always finish at Domo.

We also tried heroic Shannox once or twice tonight for fun; it wasn't pretty. It's a little difficult to catch Face Rage when the only shot that works for me is Chimera and the other ranged don't have great shots either (we unfortunately don't run with a mage/warlock regularly). Saving Chimera for Face Rage doesn't quite work when you're the one getting swiped, funnily enough....

I'm starting to wonder if Firelands might not be more difficult now that DS is progressively getting nerfed - even if it isn't, it certainly feels that way sometimes!

Heroic Dragon Sorrows

I've mentioned before how much I hated when I clicked the button on Ultraxion, got the cooldown, and still died (presumably from latency issues).

It's still happening, and this time I got pic proof:

We were sitting on 4% as our best attempt for the night on heroic Ultra.... and tomorrow night it'll be nerfed at the reset. Tad disappointing not to get the kill before then :(