Gruul Down (With a PUG)

Last week, after finally seeing Gruul taken down, I received my Earthen Signet (it goes well with the Blazing Signet that had been sitting in my bank). Just as I was about to call it a night after running a few quick dailies, Aracely messaged me and asked if I wanted to go to Heroic Underbog. Since I knew he had a great group already put together, I obliged and forced myself awake for a little while longer.

So not only would I be able to complete the quest, The Cudgel of Kar'desh, but I could also gain a little more rep and get me a little closer to exalted with the Cenarion Expedition (one of the few factions in the Outland I'm not exalted with). After turning in all my Coilfang Armaments, I am within 1,000 rep of exalted. So close.

So while I was able to turn in the quest and get one step closer to being a Champion of the Naaru (Vetarra received her title last night with the quest turn-in - CONGRATS!), I also got rep, and...Quagmirran's Eye dropped. Now, I've recently been using Icon of the Silver Crescent when fighting trash mobs and during everyday grinding, as I don't need the extra +hit that the Scryer's Bloodgem provides. However, the Icon really doesn't get put to full use. I use the extra spell damage whenever I remember to activate it, but sometimes, that can be 5-10 minutes between uses...not very smart. So the nice thing about Quag's Eye is that it has no "use" requirement. It's all on equip.

The Icon of the Silver Crescent adds 43 passive damage while the Eye only adds 37, but the eye also procs to increase haste by 320! for six seconds. According to Lhivera's page, with my current stats, the Icon adds 3 more DPS over the Eye. However, those 3 DPS are conditional on maximum usage of the "use" of the trinket. Unfortunately, like I said, I don't use the trinket to its maximum potential. So I'm thinking I'm going to use Quag's Eye for a while and see how it stacks up. It'll be really tough to figure out how it does do in comparison to the Icon, but it will be one less thing I have to worry about activating during fights.

((Yes, I know you can put the Icon in a macro so it will activate if available during every fireball, and maybe that is a better option for me, but for now, I'll try the Eye. I like to save my trinkets for certain points where I know I can get full use of the "use" feature, but if I'm not using it as much as I could, then waiting for those times doesn't make sense. We'll see how the eye stacks up.))

Festival Tailoring

After a quick run around the southern part of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, I amassed 20 coins and bought two patterns of Festival Dress and Festival Suit. I now sit at 257 known tailoring patterns. There are 301 possible recipes I could know. A nice 85% of all recipes. A lot to go though...and none that easy to find.

JubJub!

((My apologies for the lack of udpates. I've been slammed at work and as such, missed Gruuls, Kara, and Zul'Aman last week and have already missed Gruuls and plan on missing Kara tonight - however, some stuff has happened...))

On Friday night, after taking a week off from raiding, I awoke with the need to set some things on fire. The lovely Amatsuterasu messaged me just as I awoke, requesting my presence as mage tank for High King Maulgar. I obliged since I knew it was the only time during the week I would be free for Gruul's Lair. I quickly donned my stamina set from the bank and received a summons and was ready to go. We had some problems with the initial pull as this new group I was with did things in an odd manner. They used a Paladin to go in and initiate the fight. He would then bubble and I would have to try and grab Krosh off of him. The first time it worked, but my heals were not enough as the only healer on me was having mana issues. After I went down, the attempt was called. The second time through, the pally pull didn't work as planned (I think a hunter jumped the gun) and Krosh was sitting in the middle of everything. I was able to keep aggro and stay alive, but with his fire novas, anyone near him was toast.

The third time through, we got it all down, and Maulgar went down without a problem. Our first attempt at Gruul went quite well as we had some people who had never seen the fight and they needed to just see what happens once to figure it out. Our second time through, we finally took down Gruul. And while he dropped two Leggings of the Fallen Defender (I do not have good luck with Fallen Hero drops), it was nice to see him go down. The only problem is, I couldn't figure out what they did right and what our raid does wrong. I'm thinking it's a pure DPS problem as we have more people who are focused on having fun and gearing the way they want, rather than understanding how their class works and how to maximize their DPS. There's always the same few people at the top of the DPS charts, and there's always the same few people who are contributing far too little. Gearing them up would help I suppose, but if they don't understand how to use their abilities to the maximum benefit of the raid or how to watch for multiple events and avoid certain things, it's tough to progress. Also, if you aren't willing to take the time to learn the fight, and have the add-ons that should be required, how are we expected to be able to progress in a timely manner?

After Gruul's though, we were polled to see if we wanted to continue on that night. So, I was able to see Serpentshrine Cavern! We didn't have the necessary tank gear to take down Hydross, so we skipped ahead to Lurker. For the majority of people in the raid, it was their first time seeing SSC, so we only had time for two shots at Lurker, and we didn't get him down. But I have now seen inside SSC and look forward to going back again.

On a completely unrelated note, though I have been collecting pets in my spare time, including the Spore Bat and my beloved Bananas, I hadn't really been going around and picking up lots of random pets. However, last weekend, I took it upon myself to travel to Netherstorm, Exodar, and all over to obtain as many pets as I could without spending a fortune. As of last night, I had collected 41 of the 73 pets available to me. I have excluded 8 pets as I cannot get EU only pets, Engineer only pets, or the Panda or Zergling as I chose the Diablo. And as much as it hurts to do so, I excluded the Blood Parrot. As I am already at maximum hated reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers and I am also revered with three of the Steamwheedle Cartel factions, there is no possible way for me to grind to friendly with the Buccaneers and then back again. If I had known about that option earlier in my career, I would have done that, but it is much too late to do so now.

But back to my pets. Yesterday, the Darkmoon Faire arrived in Terokkar Forest. I hopped over there, turned in the Dense Grinding Stones I had saved up and caught up to Flik as he chased his frog around. I bought a Tree Frog and a Wood Frog. I then made the trip back to the Grim Guzzler, a run I know all too well from grinding Thorium Brotherhood reputation, and bought some Dark Iron Ale Mugs. I threw one at the feet of Morja, her pet Jubjub arrived, and I was able to get a Spawn of Jubjub. In seven days, it will hatch and I'll have my very own Jubjub! However, this weekend, I was not aware that I could get Mojo just by blowing a kiss to someone outside Zul'Aman and now I'm quite upset. It may be a long time before I get to find Mojo inside Zul'Aman itself, but one can only hope.

Tonight, I might continue my search for a Firefly or start questing for a Smoldwerbeb and Worg.

In the realm of recipes, nothing too new to report. I bought a pattern for the Black Belt of Knowledge yesterday. Probably will never craft one, but I'm getting closer to all the recipes...

Today also begins the Lunar Festival in Azeroth. There are no pets to be had, but the important thing are the patterns. One year ago today, I was but a young mage and my tailoring skills were not high enough to earn the patterns. There is both a Festival Suit and a Festival Dress to buy. Oddly enough, these are not soulbound, but I have never seen them on auction...perhaps I will collect extra coins and sell a few of these throughout the year like the Green Winter Clothes pattern I'm saving.

Love is in the Air also begins in a few days and that will be my one chance this year to obtain Peddlefeet...let the grinding commence.