(How ridiculous do I look?)

Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Winter’s Veil! Hope everyone has a good day! As this is posted, me and my younger cousin will probably be fighting like cat and dog. Ahhh, the fun of family a get together!

It’s also worth noting that today marks a year since Faulsey was created, as WoW was a gift last Christmas. Also, I’ll take this as my blogiversary (or however you spell it!) for simplicities sake. Blog in theory started a couple of days before I got the game (trial and previous blog about FFXI ftw.)

Random seasonal musings: I hate christmas music. Fortunately, for some reason my work was spared from the horror of it this year, we just played our normal (but still dire) music.

I love Christmas dinner. Best part of Christmas. The presents are nice, seeing your family is nice, but a big turkey dinner? Win. … Honestly, I’m surprised I’m so thin.

Leaving a haircut till the 23rd means long queues.

I’m sorry, but are were you a butcher before you were a barber? You’re meant to be cutting my hair, not lacerating my skull with your comb, or trying to rip my hair out. -rubs scalp- I’ll have one of the female staff cut my hair next time, I think. They never try to compromise my cranial integrity.

Not seasonal, but how amusing is this? – The spellchecker on a blog does not have the word blog in its dictionary, and flags it as an error. Epic fail?

Had my first decent nights sleep at a decent hour last night, and thus got up at 8AM today feeling a lot better than I have been the past couple months. Probably my body going, Hurrah, a proper sleep pattern, I can function again!

Spent today leveling cooking, which, despite finding it frustrating from 1-135, just seemed so incredibly relaxing the rest of the way to Grand Master. Bought stuff up to 215 from AH, and took my time farming the rest of the stuff I needed, and it was just nice to level it at a steady pace, listening to some music, instead of trying to race through it. Well, that and I was on as soon as the servers were up, and it was rather quiet, even in Dalaran.

Earned a lot of cooking related achievements today. I earned all the achievements from Artisan to Grand Master, of course…

Ah ha! Victory is mine!

Other achievements earned today were Short Order Cook, Dalaran Cooking Award, and a seasonal cooking one, The Winter Veil Gourmet.

Used my new cooking recipes from Northrend to cook up “Christmas dinner” for a few friends – I tried to pick foods that would improve their main stats, but I can’t make any tanking food, so my prot paladin friend had to make do with some attack power stuff, and gave everyone some Hot Apple Cider. Not much, but I thought it would be pretty cool. They also got something shiny and a few gold, cause I’m just wonderful like that. ^.~;

Speaking of Winter’s Veil achievements, I think I’m going to go for the Merrymaker achievement. I need about 4 more achievements. The mistletoe one, which will just take a short trip round the world to get, the toy one, which obviously can’t get yet, the Outland Bombing one, which I’ll be doing the pre-req quests for at some point soon (plus opens up the Skyguard dailies in BE ), and the PvP achievement, which I’m… 9 kills towards. (Interestingly, I also earned the Victory and Perfection achievements for WSG, too. Heh. I have done WSG on Faulsey since 3.0.2… but I must have lost every time!)

Doing those bit by bit, and Hyldnir Dailies will probably be the only WoW stuff I’m doing for the next week or two. Pretty busy IRL, and am getting Rock Band 2 and Red Alert 3 for Christmas, so when I’m gaming, I’ll be playing those. So, until I get Merrymaker, or I manage to get my Polar Bear, there won’t be another post up here, beyond one scheduled for tomorrow!

This christmas, I would like more stable slots. I feel that at least one more would be appreciated by the Hunter community.

By giving Hunters a total of 6 pets, it allows Beast Mastery Hunters to keep their three normal pets of each spec from leveling, as well as take three exotics, one of each spec, and thus, it makes more sense.

Thank you in advance, Faulsey (Age 26,732.)

-
I want more stable slots.

Not for the above reason though.

I have an evil little voice in my head – a voice many BM Hunters have heard, and some have heeded.

I want a damn Spirit Beast.

You can’t deny it – Loque’Nahak is gorgeous. Plus, he’s basically a magical snow leopard – he goes well with Erethia!

However… I don’t want to camp and level him. Yawnfest!

And I don’t have any free stable slots. I’ve grown very attatched to Moko, so he is not going anywhere. However, there is one pet that no longer has any real use…

“Go on,” says the evil voice in my head, “abandon Akshiran. You don’t need him! You get by fine with no Tenacity pet, and if you really need one, you can just pull out Vetr!”

‘No,’ I respond, ‘I wanted a Warp Stalker since I was a little nooblet, and I love him and he’s not going anywhere.’

“But you never use him, and he’ll be so much effort to level to 80 just so he can languish in the stables.”

‘I know, but… I can’t abandon him! What kind of heartless bastard do you take me for?’

“One who really, really wants a Spirit Beast.”

-sigh-

I can’t find a party for heroics to save myself. Save myself from extreme boredom that is. Now that I’m 80, I’ve really only got my dailies to do before I’m bored, and if I don’t get a heroic invite in that time (mostly looking for Old Strat), I go off onto another character. Then get bored cause Old Azeroth is a yawnfest, and do stuff like blogging instead!

Cooking… is soul destroying. Especially given I ran around Arathi Highlands, killing spiders for Crisp Spider Meat, and ignoring everything else, only to open my cookbook back at town and find out that I had a recipe that was still orange after the one with Crisp Spider meat that used Gooey Spider legs, which I saw quite a few of. At 135 right now, and not really feeling like leveling it at the moment. Stupid secondary professions, having to travel halfway across the world to advance your skill cap.

Only thing I’ve really achieved on Faulsey over the past couple of days is this:

... which isn't particularly exciting.

-

However, I have been having a bit of fun on Ellaria. I did a couple final WSG and AB matches for marks to buy a Private’s Tabard. It looks rather snazzy, and Ellaria’s little bio on the Characters Page has been updated to show it off. On my final AB match, I earned the Disgracin’ The Basin achievement. When I saw it was for assaulting three bases in one match, I was rather surprised that I hadn’t done so already. Oh, and we won that match with a spectacular 5-cap. Ellaria finished off her PvP with a bang!

As soon as I had my Tabard, I went to find a trainer to re-spec myself back to full Enhancement. Thinking about respeccing yet again to get rid of Improved Ghost Wolf though. It was handy for PvP, and pre-30 to reduce travel time by a few seconds. Now that I’ve got a mount, its only real use is to escape from combat, though I’m not sure where I’ll put those points.

The WSG and AB matches I won had also been the dailies, so I got a little boost to leveling again from PvP. Wandered over to the Wetlands, and hit level 30 fairly quickly. Hurray, ugly mount time!

Ever mentioned how much I dislike Elekks?

Isn’t he just the ugliest mount ever? Yeah, I thought so. Just 30 more levels and a mass of AVs and I’ll have sleek Black Mechanostrider. Level 30 also brings a lot of other goodies. I get Astral Recall, which is basically a hearth on a 15 minute cooldown, which is delicious. Windfury Weapon is awesome, and when I’m getting badly beaten, throwing Earthliving Weapon up means I can get out a couple of good heals with a chance at a HoT. Totemic Call is pretty nice, alleviating some of the annoyance of maintaining totems.

Shamans also get their final totem at 30 – the totem of air. The quest for it was exceptionally easy, as it was just a walk n’ talk, and you get the fun of floating down from the top of a mountain inside a tornado. I’ve yet to actually deploy an air totem though. I imagine that before agility was folded into the Strength of Earth totem, you got given a spell for an agility totem after you finished the quest, but these days there’s nothing worth dropping every fight when you first get it.

Uhh... is this entirely safe?

Ellaria is already level 31, and I’m having a lot of fun playing her again. Nulinator has sort of stalled in Stranglethorn. I think it’s really a problem inherent to what I call Old Azeroth – you get tired of the endless repetition of kill x amount of mobs, collect y amount of items, and so on. Outlands introduces a bit more variety, the rewards are so much better, and I’ve only been through the place once, rather than four times (well, I’ve been through pre-30 content four times.) I’m thinking of taking Ellaria to 80 before Nulinator, though I’m not sure. It really depends on what I feel like doing in instances.

Nuli is going Feral shortly after he gets to Outland – I’ll do the initial quests as a Boomkin to get myself some nice Feral gear, then respec Feral. I’m expecting Dual-Spec to be in the game by then, and I think I’m probably going to have them both Feral – Cat and Bear specs, obviously. Ellaria will be Dual-Speccing Enhancement as her main spec, and Restoration for instances. I prefer the idea of Tanking to Healing, but I think healing will, at least to begin with, be easier.

-

Speaking of Dual-Spec, I’m slightly worried about the idea. On Nuli, I have no objection to shifting over to Bear spec every instance if it guarantees a place, as I really enjoyed tanking as Ninja in FFXI, which was pretty difficult, so I relish the prospect of Bear Tanking. On Ellaria though, Enhancement is the spec I enjoy most. I’d be happy to shift to Restoration for instances if I have to, but would rather instance as Enhancement. However, with the introduction of Dual-Specs, I’m slightly worried that I will have to go Resto for every instance. I mean, why should people in a PUG take a shaman as DPS, when there are plenty of other DPS seeking, and they can just have them shift to Resto for free?

For Faulsey, the Dual-Spec dilemma is fairly minor. I’ve got a few options. One, is two BM specs – PvE and PvP, the PvP spec shifting most of the Marksman skills over to Survival, and taking the survivability BM talents. The other is to have a BM spec and a Survival Spec. I really want to give Survival a try, it looks quite interesting. However, then I have to PvP with a PvE spec. I suppose a third option would be to take full BM “click” for me in PvE, respec for PvP for my second spec.

I don’t really PvP all that much (indeed, I haven’t tried it since I hit 80), and I have no intention of trying Arena, so really, I should just try the Survival Spec.

Actually, I’m going to try Strand of the Ancients now. I should really have tried it before Season 5 started, I’m probably gonna be facing people properly geared for PvP.

-25 minutes later-

I… what the… ha-buh… eh… What the hell was that?

I WAS NOT PREPARED!

Alliance lost. I had no idea what was going on. There were explosions and people and death and cake and oh my brain it was so sore.

Roflcopter.

Two days after joining the guild, it seems that the leaders chucked it and joined another guild.

So I’m guildless again.

Whoops.

Ah well, I’ve decided that unless I get a nice offer elsewhere, I’m just gonna do heroics now, and leave the issue of a guild till after the New Year.

-nervous-

So I PUG’d Heroic: Utgarde Keep tonight, or rather, I got picked up by four people who were in a guild with each other. I was hugely nervous about  doing a heroic, and I let them know so, and they all said it was fine.

After I overcame the nerves enough to actually play properly, I started doing some decent damage, and was complimented… which again made me nervous.

By the first boss, the leader had asked me how my current guild was. I explained it was just a social guild with some RL friends, and he asked if I would like to join their guild. Now, I’d only been with these guys for about 15 minutes at this point, but they seemed experienced and friendly, so, what the hey, I said yes.

To me, this new guild seems pretty huge, but I think there’s perhaps 25 people when you take into acount alts, so it’s just running 10 mans atm (phew ). So, we’ll see how this goes. Did I mention that I was nervous?

Continued on through the instance with ease, and the last boss was incredibly kind, and dropped the Drake-Mounted Crossbow! First Heroic, and I got a nice shiny Purple, which made a wonderfully quiet replacement to my shotgun!

Oooh, new crossbow!

Pretty ugly, though!

I could be running Naxx soon, though I would feel a lot more comfortable getting some more Heroic gear first. Might get a heroic done in the afternoon tomorrow, but working and staying over at friends house (Christmas FTW!), so won’t be on then.

To be honest, the idea of running Naxx petrifies me. It really does. I’m gonna have to swot up on all the strategies ASAP, and the cost of consumables… Oyy! In an effort to alleviate that somewhat, I’ve picked up Cooking. Like first aid, I’m really wishing I’d worked on it whilst leveling, but, alas. I need it to about 400 to be able to make half decent raid food, and pet buff food, unless I get lucky and get Kibler’s Bits recipe sometime soon.

-

On a lighter note, I ground up my last few AB marks on Ellaria. On a whim, I decided to do the spec change – went for 7/13 in Enh/Resto, so I could maintain my Ghost Wolf, but also take the 11 point Resto talent (boosts crit rate of heals when used), as well as a pushback reducing talent. It seemed to work pretty well, combined with my AB trinket, as there were a couple of times I was able to survive a massive onslaught by spamming Lesser Healing Wave, giving time for reinforcements to show up.

AB was rather successful – opened with a loss,  had a few wins, then closed on a spectacular 5 cap loss. Had a lot of fun, as a lot of the same people were in the matches, and I’m easily amused by my new Parachute cape.

Listening to the distant sounds of battle...

One of the matches we won so quickly with a 5 cap, I got the Let’s Get This Done achievement, which was rather snazzy! If we’d been slightly more cautious, we’d also have earned the perfection one, as the horde only got 50 resources.

Obligatory Randomness for this post: Hide and Seek in Stormwind!

Me, Kazura and Kiaara started off a massive game of Hide and Seek, that had about 10 rounds and lasted for a good few hours. Was a load of fun, especially given the wealth of places I was able to hide in! (Yes, we’re about 5 mentally. But seriously, WoW is the perfect mmo for hide and seek games ~)

Hiding underwater in between wooden beams and a wall...

The traditional Curtains (I wouldn't have been found had I not cast Water Shield for some stupid reason!)...

And finally, when you wish to hide and sleep, a comfortable coffin!

As I’ve mentioned, Ellaria has been revived, as it were, and I’ve been PvPing on her again. She’s an engineer. I only need to do AB matches now. AB has some excellent opportunities for those with slow fall.

Engineers can make a Parachute Cloak at 225. Ellaria was 203. Ohhh yes, you can bet I rushed her up 22 levels and made me one of those babies. I had to gather all the mats to level her on Faulsey, but the Mithril in particular was easy – I ran into a very nice Paladin who was mining for skillups, who gave me all the ore I needed for cheap. I always feel kinda bad in such situations, but then they threaten to hurt you if you give them too much money.

Whoosh! (Exodar is the best place to test aerial things - no ground traffic, nevermind air traffic.)

Gave it a test run in an AB match, and it made for a fun way to move from the LM to the BS, or the BS to the GM. I actually used it in an awesome sort of pincer movement at the GM, where one team mate was going down one side, another couple coming down the other side, and me floating down from above.

It’s absolutely genius! <3 my cloak!

-

Speaking of leveling professions, I finally got round to leveling First Aid on Faulsey. Linen, Wool and Silk was a breeze, as it was all mega cheap from the AH. I then went and farmed the Mageweave, because I’m a cheapskate, and 16g per stack? Pass! Runecloth I farmed up soloing Ramps for a laugh, and of course, Netherweave is incredibly cheap. Was a few boring hours, but it means I’ve got another nice heal for myself.

Ah! Something that I’m sure everyone else but me has at least a couple of: Zone achievements. I am a completionist when it comes to quests, but, at the same time, I wanted to see and do everything and level my rep and do this that and the next whilst I leveled, so I did a bit of everywhere. I decided on a whim (I’m a whimsical person, you may have noticed.) to round off Dragonblight, since I really need to level Ella and Akshiran.

-

First oracles egg hatched today – didn’t get the mount, unfortunately. However, I did get the next best thing. A white tickbird Hatchling! I guess the game has learned that I really like white animals?

A tiny white eagle to go with a huge white owl!

-

Random finishing note: Still no Polar Bear. When I get one, I’m gonna use Eyes of the Beast and have Moko eat her.

Until I get my bear, this will have to do for revenge...

Two things: firstly, when you hordies are raiding a city, bring lots of healers.

Because if I see you only have one healer left, I am going to be a jerk and blitz them.

Second thing, I only do such things once, and let them continue on with their second try relatively unharmed, beyond sending Rhino in to Stampede them for the fun of it.

I then put on aspect of the beast and hid underwater.

I then started talking on MSN.

I drowned.

Lesson Learned.

No, this isn’t about season 5.

Seriously. Arena? Me? Hell no. BG’s are stressful enough, thank you so very much. I don’t even want to try Arenas. I’m not a small team person. I’m a big team person! Largely because the bigger the team, the less likely they are to focus on me. So no, no Arena!

However, Ellaria has been dusted off and has been tearing up the BGs.

Well, kind of. Despite being Enhancement spec, I’m not really doing much in the way of damage (probably due to my love of one handed axes, rather than using a big two hander), but instead am churning out a lot of healing. It’s working OK though. I’ve considered shifting over to a dual enhancement/resto spec, so I get to keep my Instant Wolf, but also have slightly better heals, but decided just to leave it as is, given I’ve only got a few more matches.

Tonight was loads of fun. I think I did eight matches total. One AB, seven WSG. I won eight matches. Wooha! The second through sixth WSG I had mostly the same people on my team (fully and semi twinked Hunters, mostly, as well as an awesome gnome warrior), and destroyed the Horde 3-0. In fact, the horde started taking losing so badly, that in the sixth match, when we had 2 flags, they left, en masse, leaving 10 allies and 2 horde. Yeah, we won. Final match was more difficult, and was a 3-1 win for us after an eternity of turtling.

So I’ve now got 12 AB marks and 32 WSG marks. I’m aiming to have 30 of each. So just 18 ABs to go. Then, I’m gonna start leveling her again. I had a look at the level 30 skills, and there’s some really nice stuff, like Reincarnation and Astral Recall. Mmm. Scrumptious.

Reason for farming up marks instead of just leveling is that I can’t be bothered grinding up rep for a tiger, so will be stuck with an Elekk for 30 levels. But come level 60? AV, ahoy! 30 marks there, and get me a shiny Black Mechanostrider.

Ohhh yes, a mechanostrider. Ellaria is an Engineer, and the restrictions will be removed by then, so, hell yeah! Mechanostrider! -does a stupid dance-

What’s that? Stop slacking and go do Heroics you big jessie?

-whimper-

I’m… I’m going to look for groups to run AN, Ahn-Kahoweveryourspellit, VH and Drak’tharon Keep. I haven’t done them on normal, so I want to do so before I try on Heroic.

What do you mean “procrastinating?” Sorry, I have no idea what that word means.

(I shouldn’t even joke about that… I did Hamlet two years in a row at school. I have heard the word procrastinate so many times it makes my ears bleed.)

Armored Snowy Gryphon

What do you mean “unnecessary purchase?”

What is this “could have saved 200g” nonsense?

“Patience?” What’s that? Some form of “virtue?” I’m sorry, I don’t understand.

“Charitable donation?” What, like to “Fund Kazura’s Epic Flight Form?” What is this donation of which you speak?

-

You know, I’d feel bad spending 1800g on a Mount, but at least it wasn’t 18k on a Mammoth.

You have no idea how tempting the idea of the Bear is, too, but really, the only time I use ground mounts is on my jaunts into an Alliance capital for the AH, and if I need to move around Dalaran in a hurry. Otherwise I just run around on foot, because I like Dalaran.

Plus, Hyldnir Dailys! 1% chance of a Polar Bear per daily! That’s a white mount! Those dailys confuse me, though. For a few days, I got one. Then there was a day I didn’t get ANY. Then today I got 2, got told I wasn’t able to take another quest after I finished the second one, so did a proper quest, and that opened up a THIRD daily for the day.

Dailys are soul crushing though. Sons of Hodir I do cause the dragon one is AWESOME, and I would like the better Shoulder Enchant. I gave up on Ebon Blade. I don’t do the treasure collecting Oracles quest, because it makes me die a little inside. Hyldnir ones are done out of a need for a free mount. Timear! You dirty bastid! Stop giving out dailys to the Oculus! Blah!

It’s a shame that mining is even more soul crushing. But, it makes sense – more monies, more soul destroying.

Terrified at the prospect of Heroic PUGs. Going to be Heroic Death, I think.

Random musings are random.