BBB post causes fatality off Borean coast

Popular druid tank blogger Big Bear Butt was the cause of a fatality this afternoon, about 10 miles off the southern coast of Borean Tundra. Undead deathknight Tehrawreyes had just mounted her Steed when, after tabbing out of the world to check her Reader, she noticed an intriguing title.

"I just had to know what he meant!" she exclaimed. Who could have possibly had the chutzpah to accuse BBB of slacking? I mean, seriously?"

The gargling Undead death-rattle .wav brought her back to the game, just in time to see her dead body dismount and fall into the ocean - far to the south of her intended destination.

"Yah, I was just so absorbed in that post, I totally forgot I was on my own mount and not the Air Taxi's Wyvern," Tehrawr giggled. "Lucky for me - I just took the Spirit Rez and it popped me right at the Kalu'ak guy I needed to turn my quest in to! It's like I planned it!"

In other news, an unguilded Night Elf Hunter is looking for 2 tanks and 3 healers for a fresh Naxx 10 run; he states that achievements will be checked against the Armory and that only geared and experienced players need apply.

The Pet-aholic - Part Two: You’re Gonna Have to Work for It

Last week we explored the beginnings of a true pet collection, and hopefully brought your character up to the "Plethora of Pets" achievement. If not, review here to catch yourself up to speed.

Most higher-level characters are grinding reputation with various factions for one reason or another, and if you're already doing the work you might as well reap all of the benefits. So, what factions offer non-combat pets as a reward?

Outland Factions (2)

• Sha'tari Skyguard: Open this faction up for dailies by picking up the quest from Nutral , the Flight Master in Shattrath. Once you reach 'Exalted' level, the Nether Ray Fry becomes available for purchase.

• Sporeggar: The little mushroom-people of Zangarmarsh; after much Naga-slaying and Spore-looting, you can earn the right to buy a Tiny Sporebat .
  

Northrend Factions (4)

• The Kalu'ak offers one daily quest in each of the Kamagua, Moaki Harbor, and Kaskala settlements. They will let you adopt one of their Pengu pets after you've earned Exalted status with them.

• In Sholazar Basin, you can choose to quest for the Oracles which allows you access to the Egg . There are 3 different pets that could be spawned from the hatched egg: Cobra Hatchling, Proto-Drake Whelp, White Tickbird Hatchling, or the Tickbird Hatchling.
  

Quested (4-8)

• Mechanical Chicken : Remember questing in Azeroth, and having those stupid homing beacons drop over and over and over? Make sure to actually DO those quests in Tanaris, Feralas, and The Hinterlands; once completed, the engineer in Booty Bay will present you with your own.
  
• Worg Pup and Smolderweb Hatchling : These can be had with a couple of simple quests in LBRS. Pick up the quests in Blasted Lands.
  

• Miniwing : Find the bird in the western part of the Bone Wastes, Terokkar Forest. If you can successfully escort him out, he's yours to keep!
  
• Chuck , Muckbreath, Snarly, or Toothy: These little guys are rarely part of your reward from Old Man Bartow's fishing dailies in Shattrath - but only when he offers the "Crocolisks in the City" quest. Other rewards - gold, lures, perhaps a lucky hat or gem - are also totally worth doing, so there's no reason not to pick this quest up every day that it's offered.

With some dedicated attention to daily quests and a good dose of luck with the Oracle Eggs, the strategy above should bring you up to at least 30 non-combat pets. Congratulations!

Next week: Do you feel lucky?

I have fallen behind

but I promise, I'll be catching up soon.  Got a lot to follow up on, here, so I'm making myself a little reminder list.

 

 - Check with fellow GM re: guild alliance and 10-man Naxx runs

 - Post something about recent achievements

 - Catch the guild site up with recent news on dungeons

 - Work on the Baby Warlock article; post here / guild site

 

 

In-game goals:

 

 - Mal needs only 2 more dungeons for the Wispcloak recipe:  go go go!

 - Tehrawr needs to move on to questing in Zul Drak for the Ebon Blade

 - Take D's shammy to Grizzly Hills for the PvP quests

 - Take D's priest up to Storm Peaks to start on the Hodir chain

 - Continue dailies and heroics for Mal; 15 more Emblems until her belt, 12k more Wyrmrest rep til the Red Drake mount!

The Pet-aholic - Part One: The Easy Part

So, you want the Non-combat Pets achievements, huh? Not a problem. Malarea, Principessa, Tehrawreyes, and the rest of the gang are here to help you. You've come to the right place.

There are achievements at several different levels of collecting. The first is "Can I Keep Him?" which rewards collecting just one pet. You'll gain "Plenty of Pets" once you have adopted 15 unique friends, and "Plethora of Pets" is earned at 25 pets. Once you have managed to collect 50 pets, you'll earn not only the "Shop Smart – Shop Pet Smart!" achievement, but also a bonus pet! Stinker is more than just the cutest little skunk around; he also has an adorable animation and script whenever he's in the presence of a Bombay Cat.

If you've been playing awhile, chances are you already have at least one pet. Now is a good time to look at your pets tab and take stock. Non-combat pets can be purchased, earned, and looted from rare drops, depending upon the type.

PURCHASED FACTION & ENGINEERING PETS

• Horde Pets
  

Each race has at least one pet available for purchase at or near the starting area. Undead can find a Cockroach (1) vendor in the Undercity, while Tauren can pick up a Brown Prairie Dog (1) in Thunder Bluff. Orcs and Trolls alike can buy one or more of several different colors of Snakes (3) in Orgrimmar. Blood Elves can choose from (3) different colors of Dragonhawk Hatchlings. (8 total)

• Alliance Pets
  

Dwarves and Gnomes can pick up the Snowshoe Rabbit in Ironforge (1), while Humans get an array of Cats (4) from which to pick out side of Stormwind. Draenei have some Moths (3) and Night Elves can pick up an Owl (2). If you are Alliance, and are very lucky, you may catch Timmy in Stormwind with a White Kitten for sale! (11 total)

• Neutral Pets
  

Players of either faction can purchase a few different types of pets from either the Goblins of Booty Bay (2) or from the Consortium Ethereals (4) in Netherstorm. In addition, there are (3) three different frogs you can obtain from the Darkmoon Faire. The Jubling is the reward from a quest requiring you to provide Dark Iron Ale. The Tree Frog box can be purchased from Flik, who will also sometimes have the Wood Frog box available for sale.

• Engineered Pets
  

Pets created by Engineers run the gamut from very common to incredibly rare. You should be able to easily locate an Engineer with at least the Mechanical Squirrel and Tranquil Mechanical Yeti recipes. (2 Easily)

Take stock of what you already have, and what you can purchase from faction vendors or on the neutral auction house. By gathering all of the purchasable pets, you can put your count well over the 25 mark.

Next week: At this point, you can begin thinking about how to pick up the other 22 pets required.

Where is Prin?

I know you're probably wondering. After all, this blog was originally ALL about Principessa and her sisters in Shadow.

I am saddened to say that Prin, like many of her Blood Elf relations, has fallen to the siren song of addiction. Just last week I caught her running through Scarlet Monastery spamming Arcane Torrent at every cooldown. She's scratching the insides of her forearms, wracked with Mana Tap withdrawals.

So we packed her toothbrush and some crayons and shuttled her off to the Sin'Dorei version of the Betty Ford Clinic. While she spent the first couple of nights rocking herself and muttering in Thallasian, she appears to be a much stronger and more stable little Priest now. It's our sincere hope that by the time 3.1 goes live, she'll be back and in action, better than ever.

Of course, as a result of that little Hawkstrider accident, Prin is going to be doing some Community Service. I can't think of a better, and more useful, contribution than having her become a party healer for Northrend. She'll be dual-speccing Shadow and Disc healer as soon as she's back on her feet.

Chasing Talikya

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a Troll Warrioress was born.  As she prepared to leave her home in The Den and embark upon her many adventures, she was joined by two close friends; fellow Trolls Bonegrinder, a priest, and Petownah, -wait for it- a hunter.  (Petownah's parents had a really messed-up sense of humor about names.)

 

Soon it came to pass that this Warrioress's best friend, (another Troll named Grinelda who was studying the Shamanistic arts) joined her on her travels.  Bonegrinder proved redundant in his clan of many healers, and Petownah was killed off to make room for yet another Warlock whose only purpose is to hold Warp Burgers.  Before long, another Shaman Troll (D) and the Undead Warlock Malarea were questing and exploring profitable dungeons with our heroine Talikya and her best bud, Grinelda.  They were very often joined by a highly-skilled Undead Rogue named Wolfshade.

 

And Talikya, being the only plate-wearing class in the group, was beaten and bullied into taking the brunt of the damage.  Her heart yearned to dps; alas, it was rarely meant to be.  And time and time again she was chided by her group-mates, "Four Sunders, Talikya!  Four Sunders!!"

 

</rp>

 

Okay, what's the point to all this?  The point is, as you already know, that I have an Unholy DK who is gearing up and training to be a tank.  She's working on her rotations, gathering the gear...  and all too often finds herself looking towards to high-dps cooldowns on her hotbar, instead of the high-threat ones.  That's a mistake, and she knows better, and now more than ever she understands the plight of poor Talikya. 

 

It's easy enough to KNOW that your job isn't to kill the mob; it's just to keep the mob busy while the 3 sneaky people behind you kill it and the 4th guy in the back heals you.  Sure, it's easy enough to KNOW that.  But it is hard, hard, HARD to keep on task, especially when the first five toons you leveled to near 70 and beyond were dps. 

 

I'm getting a little better at reminding myself to save those runes for taunting, Pestilence, and my bubbly-bloody-circle-of-doom, but I'm still not great.  At this point, what I need to say more than anything is,

 

"I'm sorry, Talikya.  Where ever you are.  This shit is harder than it looks!"

 

 

 

If anyone ever told me I'd use a Kevin Smith movie and Warcraft-themed RP in the same post, I'd have had them committed.  Seriously.  And yet - here we are, huh?

It's like Christmas!!

What do I have for you today?  Oh, just a wish-list of sorts.  Things I'm excited about, things I'm looking forward to, and some things that are just too amazing to come to pass.

 

1.  Fishing dailies!

2.  Two new pets - the Westfall Chicken quest to be available in Brill for the Horde, and Sprite Darters will soon drop a rare pet in Feralas.  Hear that?  That's the sound of D's pet-farming shaman looking for the first Wyvern out of Swamp of Sorrows.  That's where he's been of late, opening flying green lottery tickets. 

3.  The end of Arena Season 5.  I don't Arena, I just want them to give us more welfare epics purchasable with honor.  I'm addicted to Wintergrasp, see, and I've got nothing left to spend my honor on.

4.  A sleeker, more refined Affliction rotation. 

5.  Dual-specs, so that I can rock a Felguard when I grow bored of that new, dumbed-down Affliction rotation.

6.  Seriously - my first dual spec is earmarked for Prin.  Can't wait to try healing as Discipline.  D's priest makes it look so fun!

7.  Only 4 more Northrend dungeons to do on Mal before I get my Wispcloak recipe. 

8.  Possible guild alliance with one of the best bunches of people I've ever met in-game.  Their GM whispered me the other day - imagine how delighted I was to see that they'd made the migration over from Aggramar as well! 

9.  Old friends, new friends, borrowed friends, and blue friends.  Okay, I'm not excited about the blue friends, but here's wishing the "blue" of you some sun-shine-y yellow. 

10.  Speaking of yellow... getting back to the RL house-remodel pre-selling it project.  I can't wait to see the kitchen when it's done. 

 

Hold the G**D**** Phone!!

What. The hell. Is. THIS!! For how long have I been insisting that Hunters needed a "Shadow Shot?" And there, my friends, it freaking is. Of course, Hawli would have to spec SV to get it...

What am I ranting about? Oh, just the PTR, which means "here's your grain of salt." But in the current build, that little baby is the 41 point Survival talent. I'm not all that thrilled about the SV tree, but who knows? It might be worth a shot.

Get it? Shot?

bwaHAHAHAHAHAHA

/Hawli gets yanked off the stage.

Captain, it appears that the spammers have found us...

I hated to do it, I really did. I LOVE getting comments on my blog, and the last thing I wanted to do was to implement that "retype these letters" authentication setting. Please don't that that dissuade you, lovely commenters. Gentle commenters, without whom I would be so lost and alone.

But - the spammers have recently found me. And while there is some unintended comedy, it's only fun for the first few broken-english, flowery, complimentary instances. I see no other alternative.