One fish, two fish....

...dammit, lost the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza again.

Being the one day in summer when I'm actually free (ie. not going to work), I decided to try the new version of the STV fishing comp.

I had actually thought it might be easier this time around - after all, there are 3 winners now, right?

Wrong. Unfortunately, it seems to be a lot harder, since you're competing for pools with cross-realm people and it's harder to gauge the number of people in each zone since you can't use /who to find them.

In fact, now more than ever you need to find a quiet place to fish... and because I rarely do the comp, I don't tend to know where the best places are.

Looks like I'll have to wait until daylight savings is over in the US for me to get another chance.... oh well. One day :)

Arena Mastered

I'd posted way, way back when that I had needed 10 Darkmoon Faire trinkets to go to be a Master Pit Fighter....

...and I've finally done it.

Granted, a lot of these wins were me in the Arena by myself, but a few of them weren't (I still have as much ease killing casters and as much trouble surviving melee as I have always had), so I feel as if I've earnt my title!

Next aim: Wait patiently for a Monday when I'm either not working IRL or daylight savings stops in the US so that I can actually try for Master Angler again...

Ding: 89!

No, I didn't make this post 1 level early.

I have, in fact, been rushing to level this weekend - not to 90, as you'd expect - but to 89, the lowest level that you can do Coren Direbrew at.

I'm generally not a race-to-level-cap kind of person, being a fan of RL/gaming balance (a few hours ago I felt like I'd just come out of a late night LAN session), but I did pretty well considering I've only missed 2 chances at the kodo.

It was also rather amusing when I finally did queue how long the fight took - we were all level 89 and pretty undergeared where most years the group would be overgeared... it was almost like a raid boss!

Thankfully, I got through it well enough... and I'm now going to take it easy with levelling.

After all, I have all these pet battles to catch up with!

The Traditional Bag Cleanout

And so commences what I call the pre-expansion bag cleanout: making as much space in my bags as possible so that I don't need to make extra trips to the vendor between questing/dungeoning, all while cursing the fact that void storage is so far from the bank.

Not really an easy task for someone who is a bit of a hoarding magpie.

Or, you know, a lot of a hoarding magpie :P

In any case, I managed to free up 47 bag slots after 2hrs of sorting through items; more than enough for general questing and a few profession mats. I doubt I'll find too many rare/interesting items that I'd want to keep until level cap either... and by that time, I'll probably have got rid of a few more things (eg. holiday food I've been stashing away for times when I don't have access to mage food).

I haven't filled up my quest log ready to hand in yet either, but then I'm getting my copy of MoP through the mail, so I may not be able to start levelling tomorrow night anyway.

Plus, trying to play on the first day has always been a fairly dismal experience - competition for quests, lag, queue times.... I'm not in a hurry. Besides, I'm a hunter - you can't beat us for fast levelling! :D

Theramore's Fall Faction Tip

I'm probably a little late to put up a post like this since most people would have done the event already, but just in case:

If you're planning on viewing both sides of the Theramore's Fall scenario, I really recommend doing Horde first.

Unfortunately, I'd already done it on my hunter before doing it on my druid and realised too late that the cutscene right at the end of the Horde version is exactly the same as the one right at the start of the Alliance version.

In any case, I'm going to miss Theramore. I've always quite liked that Jaina had her own town to run, especially as she was a little more neutral towards the Horde than the rest of her Alliance counterparts.

I'm not sure I'll like her as Wrynn's sidekick in Stormwind, either, if that's what happens after her town goes kaboom - doesn't seem right when she's such a powerful mage herself. I'm hoping she gives Wrynn the flick and follows her own agenda elsewhere - maybe not a leader, but at least a strong female Alliance character to rival Sylvanas.

Who needs men? :)

Fishing Fail

I've been trying to win the STV fishing comp for awhile now.

However, for the past couple of weeks, there have been issues with cross-realm zones: some people are fishing up Tastyfish in realms in an earlier time zone and then going back to their own zone to hand the fish in as soon as the competition starts.

Since I have absolutely no chance of competing with these people, I don't think I'll bother trying to fish until Blizzard fixes it... not a happy situation, but what can you do? Props to the people that managed to figure out "creative use of game mechanics", but I hope it gets fixed soon!

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!

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

Swiftest Springstrider Ever

Yeah, I really couldn't believe I'd got it that fast either. Very glad I didn't have to camp for ages this year - it gets a bit old when someone standing next to you has better latency! :P

Bull#$%# Eye

"Bullseye" on Thursday:

"Bullseye" yesterday:

There were more people around on Thursday; Saturday I did it at a time when the Faire was less busy. Aint latency grand? :P

Lucky Red Envelopes - Now Spam-Free!

This year's Lunar Festival has thankfully been updated to include the Lucky Red Envelopes as a quest reward instead of what happened in previous years, where your mailbox got spammed the following day with a red packet from every Elder you visited the day before:

Hooray for progression! :P

*Crickets*

I don't know about anyone else's guild, but mine is rather empty at the moment due to SW:TOR and the Christmas break.

At times like these, I of course turn to PuGs... and the LFR tool is making it easier than ever to get loot.

The encounters themselves are also quite fun - the Spine of Deathwing is probably my favourite, since it actually feels like the way a dragon should be fought (seriously... why the hell would Onyxia, Nefarian, all the green dragons, Azuregos, Vael or any other frickin dragon that I missed fight us on the ground or in a cramped room when they can fly?!).

I am also rather amused by the tank queue - yes, there is one! - in LFR; it's a switch to have to be waiting for healers rather than tanks for a change (although sadly, the DPS queue is still the same 10-20min wait it usually is).

Anyway, as I'm not likely to post again before Christmas, I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Winter Veil - don't forget to open your Winter Veil presents come Sunday! :)

Tis the Season

From Phyllixia, Shadow, Tails, Seismic, Koopa, Malice, Shardik, Venom, Quickblade, Riptooth, Slimer, Bullet, Skitter, Cerberus, Myth, Crawler, Vampyr, Celestia, Nightshade, Razor, Hydrastorm, Fenris, Dynamite, Talon, Sting and Galaxy:

Wishing you all a Merry Winter Veil and Happy New Year!

Something you don't see every day

It was probably 3-4min before another DPS joined, too!

(If you're wondering... it was for one of the elemental boss spawns, immediately after the portal opened)

AQ Scepter Quest Chain - Get it done!

One of the most (if not *the* most) epic quest chains in WoW, the AQ Scepter chain, will be scrapped in Cataclysm.

I highly recommend you do this chain if you haven't already; most of the steps will be fairly easy to get through with a small group of 80s (as opposed to the full raids of 60s they used to take).

There will probably be no Achievement or Feat of Strength for completing the chain, but being able to say you've done it is a reward in itself :)

Brewfrost

If you haven't been killing Coren Direbrew during this Brewfest, start doing it.

You'll have to queue through the Dungeon Finder this time around instead of finding your own group (the queues are quite short, even for DPS).

Even if you don't want any of the epic loot that comes in the once-daily Keg-Shaped Treasure Chest reward, you'll still want the 2x Emblem of Frost - easy for what can be less than a minute's work!

Battle for the Under-Gnomer-City

So apparently Blizz threw me a bone to alleviate my boredom by implementing the re-taking of Gnomeregan event.

Sure, it didn't take long to complete, but at least it was something different. Besides, it's about time those gnomes got proactive about their irradiated home town; even Undercity, built in the sewers of Lordearon, is a cooler hangout.

I will also likely be doing the equivalent event on my tauren druid, 1) for the troll lore, and 2) just so that every 4hrs I can actually fit through doors properly (why I felt the urge to make my druid a male, I have no idea).

Hooray for new content! :)

Master Jouster

Although I tend to get bored doing daily quests, I've been forcing myself to do the Argent Tournament ones again lately because I currently have 98 mounts and need 2 more for the Achievement (my only other option is to hope for a rare mount drop... so I'm not holding my breath).

In an attempt to make things more interesting for myself, I've been doing things like soloing Chillmaw, trying to gather and mass AoE as many cult members as possible, and... racing the timer on jousting.

My previous record (before the jousting buffs):


My current record (after the jousting buffs):

I wonder if it's possible to get it under a minute?

Unfinished Business

I got bored doing the daily grind of Random Heroics and Raiding, so I thought I'd finish something that I'd been meaning to do for ages:

I hadn't done it at 70 because there was always a queue for the the Shartuul event and I only ever did the quest sporadically, which meant I never learnt how to kill the bosses.

This time round, it only took me a few tries to get the hang of it - Shartuul went down without me having used any of the "emergency" abilities and my minion was close to full health.

Yeah, there's no Achievement for it, I don't get any epic loot out of it (unless you count the level 70 blue that dropped off his corpse), but I had heaps of fun doing it so that's all that counts! :)

Love is in the Raid Buffs

Even if you don't participate in World Events usually, make sure you do the daily quest "A Gift for the High Priestess Elune".

All you have to do is collect 10x Lovely Charm (which collect automatically in your inventory when killing green or higher level mobs) to make the Lovely Charm Bracelet.

You will get a Lovely Darnassus Card and 5x Love Token, which can then be used to purchase "VICTORY" Perfume.

Both the card and the perfume stack with flasks/food etc (see below), so are basically a free 30Agi + 75AP for your raiding needs until the Love is in the Air event ends.


Of course, non-hunters will want to do the equivalent quest in either Exodar (Spirit), Stormwind (Intellect) or Ironforge (Stamina).

For Horde, Silvermoon (Spirit), Undercity (Intellect), Thunder Bluff (Stamina) or Orgrimmar (Agility) are your choices.

Too easy! :)