Weekly Updates: No Love for Lag

Just a short update for this week, since my RL is busy and I've also been having some difficulties with latency this week (again).

Aenur got 150 Marks of the World Tree, and managed to get the Shadow Wardens to join in the fight against the forces of Ragnaros in the Molten Front. Aedruyn is now Champion of Silvermoon and is now fighting on behalf of the Darkspear trolls - I may need to find another way to snag faction city reps and get him Exalted with Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon soon. And the rest is still business as usual... when there's no lag =(

Hope to be able to present a better update soon... and lag, please go away!

Weekly Updates: One week after Patch 4.2

It's been one week since Patch 4.2 goes live, and I've had the opportunity to run both of my mains through the epic Thrall/Go'el questline. It's very entertaining, and except for the fact that Alliance seems hell-bent on flagging and trying to net a few Horde kills on various stages of the questline, the questline itself is pretty decent and the rewards are very cool.

I got Aenur started on the Firelands dailies since she has finished the grind with Hellscream's Reach and gotten both the land and flying mount. I'm still debating whether to make Aelyra do the same (she's close to the Hellscream's Reach land mount) or continue the grind for the mounts and go to Firelands later. If I do that, she'll be left behind quite substantially since she has to unlock quite a bit of progress later.

I'll have to think about this more =(

Aenur - Currently working on the Firelands dailies - at 93 Marks of the World Tree now. She currently has Mantle of Fury from the World-Shaman questline and the Fireheart Necklace from the Firelands dailies starter vendor. At the current rate of Marks, she should be able to unlock the next set of dailies in about 4 days.

Also, with the JP she currently has when the patch hits, she managed to snag a Reinforced Sapphirium Battleplate and a Reinforced Sapphirium Gauntlets, her first T11 items. Gotta love this new patch =)

Aelyra - Currently doing... nothing >.< But seriously, I have been so busy with Aenur I haven't taken Aelyra out for a spin until a few days ago. She still need another 40 TB Commendation to get that sweet spectral wolf mount from Hellscream's Reach, but I've been putting that off in favor of lots and lots of PvP on Aenur.

But anyway, with the new patch I have found a good reason to once again return to the Hunt! So after finishing the World-Shaman questline, Aelyra now has Mantle of Doubt and soon after unlocking the Firelands dailies, she should be able to get a nice +Agi ring from the Firelands dailies starter vendor. Afterwards? I'm not sure, lemme just think about it first...

The rest of the gang has done nothing much - Aedruyn is still grinding Argent Tourney stuffs, Aergor with his usual daily transmute, Aerdread with his two dailies a day (Fishing and JC), and Aerjin with his Cooking daily. I may run Aerhandor through the World-Shaman questline so he can get the epic cloak, but I probably will not push him to do the Firelands dailies soon.

Patch 4.2: Rage of the Firelands

According to speculations, Patch 4.2 will become live on June 28th 2011.


So, what will this mean to me? Quite a lot actually.

When Blizzard implemented Patch 4.1, one of the changes that came along with it was that Honor points can now be traded for Justice points at the rate of 375 Honor = 250 Justice (you can also trade Justice for Honor but I'm not interested in discussing that today). What this means is that I can now do PvP for Honor, trade them in for Justice and then use those Justice points to buy better PvE gear from vendors! Which is wonderful news for me, since I'm unable to get Justice through standard means (instances and raids) ever since Cata hits... well, except for the one or two times doing normal Cata instances with guildies.

So now, outside of dailies I find myself doing a substantial amount of PvP-ing... and most of that is done in Tol Barad. On a good day Horde would OMGWTFBBQROFLSTOMP the Alliance and I'll be bringing home about 600-700 Honor... or usually Horde would get crushed by the Alliance and I'll only net about 300 Honor. Since doing this, I have accumulated enough Honor to buy the Bloodthirsty Gladiator's Vindication on Aenur and am now working to stockpile Justice points.

Why stockpile Justice, you may ask.

Well, this brings us to Patch 4.2. Blizzard has stated that the new patch will open up the next tier for everyone - new raids, new epics, more dailies... but most importantly to me: The current tier gear, Tier 11, will be purchasable with Justice points. Currently Tier 11 gear is only purchasable with Valor points, which everyone can get either by running heroics or Cata raids.

With Tier 11 being available for purchase with Justice points, and if the value for the pieces does not change, I should be able to get all three pieces of them with a full stock of Justice and Honor (4k Justice and 4k Honor). Which means that I'll finally be able to get my first epic Cata tier gear (sounds weird, no? Epic Cata tier gear...).

Here's to hoping for more Horde wins in Tol Barad - Fight better you lemmings! FOR TEH HORDE!!

The Return of BD

It's been about seven months after my last post - and that is mind-boggling. It's like having a seven-months gap in your diary, or memory... or in this case, your adventures. All those excitement, the highlights and achievements missing. Sigh... that'll teach you not to slack off, BD.

Anyways, I'm back (in blogging, at least). To be honest, I didn't stop playing WoW all this time - on the contrary, Aenur, Aelyra and Aerhandor has dinged 85 with Aergor, Aedruyn and Aerdread following not far behind. My toon priority's been shifted around, but currently it looks like all the mains will remain as mains. Only the question of which alts deserve a better position and attention remains.

To be honest, Cata is a bit of a let down for me, and maybe for a lot of casual players out there. With instances being an intensive time-consuming activity with random strangers who may or may not be friendly and helpful, and with barriers all around epic gears and achievements, we are reduced to spectators and minor participants of the so-called "hardcore" and "elites". Do I mind? Not so much. It rankles a bit at times, though.

That did not stop me from trying though. I've reluctantly entered PvP with Aenur, trying to get better gear through honor and PvP instead of instances and PvE. It's working, but the stress of all those matches is horrible - like trying to eat a whole, unopened durian. Thankfully, once patch 4.2 hits I should be able to get some nice T11 gear due to Blizzard's new honor-to-Justice arrangement and due to T11 now available with Justice points instead of Valor points. Which then would mean the same grind with Aelyra... =(

As for the alts... I've been spending a lot of time with Aedruyn, making him go through the Argent Tournament so he can get his Argent Charger and Hippogryph - it's easier now that he's level 81 and armed with Cata greens, gems and enchants (he 3-shots most mobs now). Aergor is now level 82 and is doing the Org's Cooking dailies as well as daily Truegold/Living Elements transmutes. And Aerdread is level 82, doing the Org's Fishing and JC dailies. I will push Aedruyn out to 85 once he finishes the Argent Tourney objectives... if the others doesn't ding 85 first.

The rest of my alts are the level 37 Shadow Priest Aerjin, who I recently become fond of, and the level 20 deleted-then-rerolled Combat Rogue Aerlyn (previously known as Aeyrin). Not doing much with them other than the Org's Cooking dailies, which is a slow but steady way of leveling them.

So, that is in short my progress in WoW. With this post, I hope to kickstart my weekly updates as well as putting my thoughts and opinions of my adventures back into the blog. With a few bloggers already deciding not to continue their blogging forth, I feel compelled to at least light up my own candle against the night.

SQUEE!!

... I haz mai Tauren Paladin! No one touchie - all mine!!

Imma name him Aedruyn, imma dress him all up in nice shiny armor and shoulder-cover, and imma give him the shiniest pointiest stick, and imma make him go kill some poor defenseless critter...

(I'd link the Polished Breastplate of Valor, Polished Shoulder-armor of Valor and the Reforged Truesilver Champion, but WoWHead is down for some reason, so no linkie atm... maybe later)

Squee!!!

EDIT: Link is up!

Weekly Updates: Last Minute Achieves

With Cata only weeks away, I've been trying to nab what few easy achieves there still is for Aenur and Aelyra. The easier ones would be the lowbie dungeon achieves which is currently being pursued by Aenur, and Aelyra is doing all she can to get the Fishing and Cooking ones. I have Aerdread running the odd heroic or two and netting some achieves during the process, and Aerhandor is still running regular FoS once every day for the chance at the nice DPS staff from Devourer of Souls, and he's only a few Champion's Seal away from the Argent Pony - should be able to get it by Wednesday I think.

But on the whole these feels like fillers, something to fill my WoW time while watching the horizon for the inevitable arrival of Deathwing. I've done the Elemental Invasion questline on all available toons, including the lowbies; I've gotten the Feat of Strength on Aenur for closing the elemental rifts (almost got it for Aelyra too, but the darn Fire rifts just won't spawn when I need it)... so now it's just a matter of waiting.

And waiting, as the local saying goes, is torture.

Weekly Updates: New and Improved

From now onwards, all posts regarding character and other updates will be titled "Weekly Updates: ". This is to better differentiate between normal, general posts and the updates, and also because I got tired of thinking of a witty "Of Something" title lately. Though I suspect that a lack of breakfast may have something to do with that today...

Anyways, I've got just a scant few things to mention in this week's update - most of it trivial, a couple are big though. Here we go:

Aenur - Has gotten extremely lucky to be able to get into a competent PuG that's farming Justice Points (or JP) at the time when I actually have nothing in the house to do and was set on doing a couple hours of WoW! So she tagged along for heroic UK, VH, Oculus and UP before disbanding after a successful HoS run. Got a Frozen Orb, a few blues and a couple of epics from the run plus she finally netted enough JP to be able to purchase the final T10 piece - the Lightsworn Legplates! At last, now she can step into Cata with a content heart and a complete tier set =D

...oh, and did I mention she's gotten her Bear Mount too? =)

Aelyra - Is skilling up on Fishing nicely (if you can call 278/300 "nice") and has also gotten her Bear Mount. Aside from that and the Cooking dailies, I don't feel like doing anything else... Okay, I 'fess - I'm thinking maybe I should try and do a few random heroics, get enough JP for the two cheaper T10 pieces (shoulder + handguard)...?

Aerhandor - Is now at the 123 Champion's Seal mark. Another 27 and he'll have his Argent Pony! And after that, the Bear Mount! And next... umm... well, actually... on second thought, I still need that staff from normal FoS, so maybe a few dungeon runs before I can actually be content.

Aerdread - Officially, I've given up on getting him the "Ambassador" title and getting Exalted with the relevant Argent Tourney factions at this point. Unofficially, I'm still trying to net that. But dailies' burnout are a serious obstacle now, and I'm not sure I can muster the inner will to push ahead. By rough calculation, even if I stick to the schedule it'll be at least 40+ days before I can accomplish this goal. And that's not even counting the effort needed to complete his T9 set.

I'm sorry Aerdread, but apparently your status as an alt has inconvenienced you =(