Hitting a plateau

The last time I posted, it was patch 4.1 still and I was completing the revamped reputation quests for my Winterspring Frostsaber ride and grinding my way through the heroic Z's. That was literally months ago; what now?

I feel like Dawg has peaked.  Not in terms of gear, mind you. When I run an analysis on AskMrRobot.com (awesome site by the way!) there are still plenty of upgrades and best in slot pieces that I do have access to (pre-Firelands). So I'm not all pimped out in terms of gear.

However, I have reached a plateau of desire; I'll log Dawg to run daily Firelands quests. When I'm free, I'll join my raid team (we've dabbled in Firelands but are concentrating on clearing up BoT, BWD and ToFW). I have yet to down the new boss in Baradin Hold. But, I'm barely running heroics despite the fact that I know I earn Valor Points from them to get new shinies.  I just don't have the desire for all the grinding.

From a progression standpoint, I am comfortable being behind the vanguard. I play WoW to experience the content. Hell, I still want to go back and clear out Wrath raid content like the achievements in Naxx, Ulduar, ToGC and ICC! My raid team handles Tier 11 content, but we need to coordinate and increase DPS a bit to be competitive in the Firelands, but I'm not in any rush to do so.

So how am I spending time in WoW?  Alt nation! I'm rediscovering the zones and instances using different classes and roles.

My stable of alts includes:
85 Priest (Holy / Shadow)
85 Shaman (Enhance / Resto)
85 Warlock (Destro / Affliction)
83 Death Knight (Blood / Unholy)
59 Druid (Feral [Bear] / Resto)
44 Paladin (Prot / Holy)
44 Rogue (undeclared)
06 Mage (undeclared)
13 Warrior (banker)

In the last two months, I leveled the Priest from 81 to 85, the Warlock from 59 to 85, the Shaman from 56 to 85.  Next will be the DK, followed by the Druid, the Pally and the Rogue.

I'm really enjoying taking a break from the hunter and learning more about the other classes. As I spend more time on these toons and actually get them to max level and even geared for heroics and the alt raids, I will likely include some posts to share my thoughts on the other classes.

My hunter is my first love. We had a guild chat discussion the other night -- on my hunter I've played 128 days (26 days at level 85). He's my primary guy.  But, a bit scarier, is that across my alts I've played WoW for 261 days.  Yeesh!

But, like anything else, a break can strengthen the enjoyment... so Dawg will cool his heels a bit while the Alts get leveled up.

The side benefit of this?  Auction House speculation with all the main tradeskills!  I look forward to seeing how that goes!

Best Laid Plans...

The best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!-Robert Burns

Well... I had every intention of banging away on the daily Winterspring quests for the mount and continuing to grind out heroics to actually reach the cap of 7 randoms in a week.  It wasn't to be.


I just completed my Winterspring mount the other day -- a full month after I hoped to.
I've had to miss a few raid nights: hotel WiFi latency kills you, as does unexpected visits to the ER for a child.
What was a frightfully empty business schedule has all of a sudden overflown, and I'm working first-year associate attorney hours again.

Where's WoW in all of this?  Backburner, sadly.

I keep hearing rumbles of a new patch -- and I've not had any time to read up on it to see what's coming.  Illidian has me pegged -- I am NOT prepared.


I'm hoping to get things straightened out. I'm hoping to get time online - in blogs and in the client.  I'm hoping against logical thought to queue for a random heroic as DPS and not wait 50 minutes for a fail group that disbands on the first trash mobs.


Hoping your game is treating you better than mine is me!

Frostsabers!

Patch 4.1 seems to have some goodies that continue to give long after the frenzy to explore the 5m heroic Zuls.  I totally missed (looks like it was added on May 2nd notes) where the quest line to get exalted with Winterspring (as Alliance, obviously) was changed. Gone are the days when you roam around the zone slaughtering bears, chimeras and owls for hours on end...

For me, this is a good thing.

While it wasn't difficult to get exalted before, it was pretty mind-numbingly boring to do so. Now, it's a daily quest that you do with your future mount that will get you the reputation and the ability to actually ride a purple tiger. For pure bonus points, grab the Winterspring Cub companion pet from Michelle De Rum in Everlook. Hunters? Even more bonus: tame a Frostsaber Pride Watcher.

It simply makes me giggle to run around as a wolf-man with a stable of cats.

How do you accomplish this?
1) Get yourself to Winterspring (take the portal to Mount Hyjal and fly North!)
2) Locate Rivern Frostwind at the far north end on top of Frostsaber Rock
3) Grab Get Them While They're Young.
4) Run around and collect critter-like cubs (think cooking crabs from Stormwind daily)
5) Turn in and get They Grow Up So Fast
6) Settle in for 20 days.

When you're on They Grow Up So Fast, you'll receive a Winterspring Cub. Once you summon it (in Winterspring!), that cub (the quest one, not the one you bought from Michelle) gives you a daily quest with rewards you with both reputation and a whisker (part of the requirement for They Grow Up So Fast).

Why is this cool?  Well, so far, it's not boring. The old way -- I'd rather watch paint dry.  This way, I just need to pop in for a nice easy daily.  For fun, your cub grows with you as you quest.

16 more days to go until I can sport my very own Reins of the Winterspring Frostsaber!

I've been Bitten!

Last week (before Frostheim posted his review of racials on WoW Insider), Peashooter was transformed from a Dwarf to a Worgen.

I could get all creative and sappy and paraphrase An American Werewolf in London, but I'll just stay out of character for a second and admit to forking over the $25 to Blizzard for the race change.

Why?

First, weapon choices. Don't get me wrong, I love guns. However, I get the sense in Wrath as well as in Cata, Blizz rolls more with Bows and Crossbows (the only i359 is Crossfire Carbine optimized for tanks!). As a Dwarf, I got a boost with Gun Specialization -- but only for guns.  As a Worgen, I get that same boost regardless of the ranged weapon via Viciousness, which opens up a wider range of possibilities on my weapon choices (especially when Valiona drops the Dragonheart Piercer!)

Second, Darkflight is addicting! I knew I'd love it, but little did I realize how often I would use it. It's simply amazing for getting out of deadzones or flames.

Finally, Flayer reduces my skinning time. Yay! Now I can still farm up leathers without slowing down my groups!

The last thing to address, however, was my name.  "Peashooter" was great for a Dwarf, but didn't seem to fit on a Worgen. I liked the pun of little shooter for a little hunter... and it wasn't right on a big wolfish human. With my new form, I'm rolling with a new name...  Say hello to Dawgdaze.

That's Alot of Eggs

I was offline for the weekend. For an amazing change of pace, no office or work duties required my time yesterday and I spent a very wonderful day getting reaquainted with my children.

Monday, I found myself running around Kharanos hopped up on leftover  Peeps and Jelly Beans collecting hundreds of virtual eggs. That's right, Noblegarden is here!

Though the holiday has been around for several years, this is the first year I've really given an egg about it. Sure, I tried a few years back. But the competition for egg spawns was (and remains) hellacious. That kinda killed the holiday for me.  However, aside from Noblegarden, my single remaining obstacle to the Violet Proto-Drake is now Children's Week (more specifically the PVP element of Children's Week), so I figured I could spend a day gathering eggs and still complete What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been.

Anyway, Monday was mission Noblegarden.  The result?  Success!

Now that I did it (and made some mistakes), please consider some advice...

First, accept the A Tisket, A Tasket, a Noblegarden Basket quest for your Egg Basket.  Save yourself 10 chocolates by not turning in the quest unless you'd like the extra gold.  Next, settle into collecting a few hundred Brightly Colored Egg. I did the majority of my egg collecting in Kharanos -- mainly because it's not Goldshire and I didn't want to travel too far from Stormwind. Goldshire made my skin crawl; it's so camped that you have to camp a camp (or ninja-loot the eggs being camped, but that's a 50 DKP minus in my book).

So, I settled in for Kharanos. As I progressed, I got into a rhythm. I basically made circles around the village (in front of the Inn, weaving back behind the warlock trainer, past the flight master, crossing the road to the hunter trainer,  looping back in front of the trade building towards the mountaineer on the hill by the crossroads, and then back across the road to complete the loop. Once you make a few loops, you get to know where the eggs spawn and then it's simply a race to clickie.

Oh, yeah... make sure you've equipped your Egg Basket.  I used this macro (bound to F1) to assist my collection and inventory management:

#showtooltip
/use [mod:alt] Brightly Decorated Egg; Egg Basket

When I wanted to open my eggs, ALT-F1 did the trick.  When I wanted egg-powered rocket boots, F1 did the trick.  I felt pretty fancy, and I didn't even need to ask a gnome to help me with the macro!

Word to the wise: do the Chocoholic achievement first, not last. I saved that one to the end, and in the process of farming up the remaining chocolates, I received two duplicates of my Spring Rabbit's Foot that I had already spent 100 chocolates purchasing.  Items needed for other achievements also drop randomly out of the eggs, so if you get really lucky you may only need to collect 105 chocoloates (100 for Chocoholic and 5 for Noble Garden).

My recommendation: collect eggs until you have enough chocolates for Chocoholic and you've looted either the items required or you've gathered enough chocolates to purchase the items from the vendor.  Once you've got it all, start the achievement spam!

While you're heading to Stormwind for Noble Garden, don your White Tuxedo Shirt, Black Tuxedo Pants and Elegant Dress. Now you can kiss or be kissed for Blushing Bride while you're there!  

Also, equip your Spring Flowers so that you can stalk female characters of the various races (except Goblins and Worgen) for Shake Your Bunny-Maker. I was able to knock out the alliance requirements fairly easily with a few stalks of the Auction House in Stormwind, but for Horde requireements, I flew over to Razor Hill in Durotar and hung out for a while.  When you do that, just watch the guards because you will get pegged as PVP if you get close to them (unless that's your thing).  Another option -- to the detriment of your battlegroup team, is equipping your flowers in your BGs and tossing ears on players before you swap weapons and re-acquaint them with the spirit healer.

Hard Boiled requires you becoming a rabbit in Un'Goro. I did this one the hard way (instead of having a buddy zap me with the Blossoming Branch already in Un'Goro. The hard way consisted of getting a random bunny buff from looting an egg, then popping my Kirin Tor ring (because hearthing or porting doesn't break illusion like flying does!), hopping my way to the Caverns of Time portal in Dalaran and then hopping across Tanaris into Un'Goro while avoiding all the bad guys (because damage kills the buff!).  All told, took me 10 minutes to get the achievement once I was transformed in Kharanos.  Be smart... bring a buddy with a wand and just transform when you're already there!

Desert Rose requires Spring Robes (looted from eggs or purchased with 50 chocolates) to be activated in 5 zones.  I could have nailed this after I did my Hard Boiled, but I didn't think to purchase the robe first!  So I wasted some travel time back and forth.

Once you get your companion from a Spring Rabbit's Foot, he needs to get frisky in each of the four starting areas. Not hard (especially with other players there farming). If it's late or sparse, you may need to bring a pre-arranged partner for your love-bunny.

All in all, Noblegarden is one of the easier holidays. There's not much strategy to it besides collecting eggs and seeking out females of the opposite faction (especially now that neutral cities like Dalaran and Shattrath City are ghost towns). Still, a pretty easy way for the "Peashooter the Noble" title and one more notch in the Meta!

Besides... with 4.1 dropping today (according to rumors), who wants to spend all their time on holiday achievements!