[Screenshots] Galakras

Another mount I finally finished! This is the Siege of Orgrimmar meta achievement mount. I’d been missing only a couple of the achievements for a long time, the raid group I’ve been running with finally did them last night. I’m very thankful for finally getting them!

[OOC/Screenshots] Etheralus

I got the last bit of valor to purchase my crystallized fel upgrade today. As it’s not looking too likely that my raid group is going to continue much longer, I wanted to finish my ring up because I was only two upgrades away.

It’s just kind of underwhelming, I mean you don’t get any title or mount or achievement for finishing it. I don’t feel accomplished, I just feel relief that I don’t have to worry about it anymore. In Mists, it was an awesome feeling when I finally got my cloaks, and they had a great visual effect as a reward. (And, later on, a title.) I got cloaks for five characters in Mists, and I could have done more if I’d had the incentive to do so. LFR was generally enjoyable and the rest of the quest wasn’t too bad either.

This time around though, I’ve not even started the ring quest on any alts. Part of this is the really terrible long grind — the 900 whatsits being the worst offender, but far from the only one. Then there’s the shipyard requirement, which has been improved but is still really terrible, and mandatory. Whatever happened to garrisons being optional? Worst, I think, is that to even begin the quest you’re gated by stupid hoops. Like, you need to complete some heroics. Enjoy those DPS queues, but oh wait, before you’re even allowed to do them you need to do the proving grounds. On every single alt. It’s something I haven’t seen brought up often in criticisms of WoD, but for me personally it was a huge damper on alt play. Maybe if it was at least updated, but it’s the exact same proving grounds I already did in Mists. They weren’t exciting or fun then, and they aren’t now. Worse, they’re now mandatory if you want to do any heroics. So I just don’t do heroics on any alts.

Oh yeah, I forgot to rant about the completely useless (and for Alliance characters, completely head-scratching) Garona follower. I’m all orced out. I don’t want yet another orc follower. It’s hardly an incentive to do the quest chain on alts.

Hopefully some kind of reward will be added in later, similar to the “Legend of Pandaria” one.

[Screenshots] Moooooose

[OOC/Screenshots] A Sicky Hare

Sorry about the lack of updates, I started coming down with something Friday night and it’s been kicking my butt since then. Nothing too serious, just a cold, but it’s made it really tough to do anything more taxing than stay awake. (And I’ve not done so well at that, either.) Hopefully tomorrow it’ll have let up a little.

I did feel okay enough for raid this weekend though, which was good because we finally got Normal Blackhand down. We finished up Heroic Imperator too, which was nice. I’m not sure if we’ll get Heroic Blackhand or not — I shudder to even think how awful that one is — I guess it depends how far out patch 6.2 is.

I think Orny’s eyes are closed. I feel you man.

[Screenshots] Molten Core

After running some dungeons, I was finally able to squeak into Molten Core. The run I joined was already in progress, and it still took about 2 1/2 hours. Yikes! I never got to raid MC at 60, so I missed out on the true experience of it.

Which, apparently, is decursing 40 people by myself. See how many druids there are in our raid?

So every time we fought a single stupid core hound trash mob I had to do it, all the while people in chat yelling “omg decurse!1!!” like they don’t know there’s a cooldown on it. Fun!

But honestly, it was kind of fun. I wish they’d added some drops to the bosses, or a new version of the hunter’s bow and Benediction. I never had a hunter high enough to get that, though Vajarra does have a Benediction.

I didn’t get the pet, so I’ll probably be trying again. I’d also like to get Sath (my hunter) geared up enough to go since it’s running for a while. There is a guaranteed 640 head drop which looks really awesome! And of course, the awesome and HUGE mount:

[Screenshots] Best in Show

I recently learned that it’s possible to “farm” Precious in ICC for her ribbon. As long as you don’t kill her associated boss (I think it’s Rotgut), she will respawn along with the rest of the trash after 30 minutes or so. (Some guides say an hour, I didn’t time it exactly.)

I got lucky on my fourth kill! Orny is looking pretty good in his new pink shirt.

You may also notice that Orny has changed guilds, for the first time since Cataclysm launch. It was a little sad, but there aren’t too many people left in our old one and the folks in the new one seem really awesome. I’m looking forward to doing things with them and hope some of my old guildies will join up too (hint hint!)

[Screenshots] Hunter Heirloom… Finally

After three evenings — tonight’s run being an hour and a half — Sath FINALLY got his heirloom bow. It’s from normal, but it was hard enough getting into one of those as DPS, so I really can’t complain. I have a lot more sympathy for you pure DPS right now!

I was pleased to be in the top 5 on all the bosses we did, and I finally learned how to dodge Annihilate. Better late than never!

[Screenshots] Beta Stuff

They opened LFR on beta! It went about as well as you would expect. Mostly I just wanted to get used to the new spells and talents, and learn the fight. I have no idea how well or badly I was doing, didn’t have recount on. It feels pretty similar, overall.

We were fighting a mushroom guy.

Also, we finally got garrison visiting to work — for level 100s. We weren’t able to check if it works for lowbies yet — my 90 at the Shrine didn’t have the “view leader’s garrison” option. It may only work if you’re on Draenor. I hope it won’t be restricted to level 100 characters only!

[Screenshots] The End

Finally got the time to run the last part of LFR today, and we killed Garrosh! (Took a few tries, but we got there.) So of course I had to go and visit everyone, I liked Cho’s cinematic.

Guess which one is me.

“Fighting is bad, unless Xuen says so”

Wrathion was pissed! Well excuse me little dragon! At least he gave me some candy though.

And something I didn’t know — once you complete the last quest, you can buy the other cloaks from the quartermaster, wow! So I now have a Yu’lon cloak as well! I don’t really go DPS spec that often, but it will certainly make dailies a lot easier! (Plus it looks awesome.)

 

[Screenshots] Blackwing’s Dragonslayer of Sumprush Rodents

Tonight was a productive one in game! I haven’t used OpenRaid in ages, but I attended one tonight for Heroic BoT. The same group ended up doing BWD afterward which I also needed! And the one transmog item I wanted, the brown heroic shoulders, dropped 3 copies. There were 3 druids in the raid, so we all got one! I only need 2 more BWD achievements for the meta drake, so I need to try to get into one of those runs. It was a relief to have a nice OpenRaid run, some of the ones I’ve gone to either don’t happen or are kind of a mess.

I also finished up collecting the last points for the Rodent Crate in Krasarang. I know, I’d been kind of slacking on that. I’m really eager to use it, but there were quite a lot of people out so I’m going to wait for a quieter time — like Monday morning or something.

Our kills were kinda messy and chaotic so I forgot to get screenshots, but here’s one of my achievement panel 🙂