Oh, Go Fly a Kite!

Yesterday, when Sir Tiddlywinks awoke, sitting in his bank was the Azure Whelpling, purchased off the auction house for the low, low price of just 600g! Ok, so maybe the price wasn't so low, but it was the best deal I'd seen in a while and, even though I promised myself I wouldn't spend any money until I hit 1,000g, I did. And the Whelpling is currently in the bank vaults.

What? The bank vaults? Surely you jest. Hey, don't call me Shirley.

OK, sorry about that. But the Azure Whelpling is in the vaults because I have a toy that is much more fun and exciting to play with. My very own...Dragon Kite!


Yes, I broke down even further and bought a Dragon Kite. But it's just so much fun to tow behind you. The first place I went to fly the kite was Stormwind Park. It just seemed to me to be the logical place to fly a kite. Here are some images of me with the kite.

Occasionally, the kite can pick up an electric charge from the air and shock me, but I love it nonetheless. Oh yeah, it apparently can't be used in tow from a mount. That's kind of disappointing, but I guess the materials used to craft such a fine piece of goblin engineering (ok, maybe not so much engineering), may break up at higher speeds.

Either way, I'm in love with my new dragon kite and I am now rocking 57 of 79 pets (nota bene: 6 of those pets are coming in 2.4, so until then, I have 57 of 73). One more should arrive this weekend and two more in May with Children's week. But until then, I shall continue my neverending farming quest for my very own Firefly this weekend. I am determined to find this one on my own.

Also, with just two more pets, I will break into the Top 50 pet collections held by a single character at WarcraftPets.com. That will be an exciting day!

Is It Getting Too Easy?

The most recent 2.4 patch notes disturb me a bit. Here is what I'm talking about:

• Swipe: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
• Cleave: This ability will no longer strike any secondary target which is under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.
• Multi-Shot: This ability will no longer strike any secondary targets which are under the effect of crowd-control spells that break on taking damage. i.e. Polymorph, Sap, etc.

Are we just trying to make it so anyone and everyone can sit there and mash a button without consequences? Why not allow me to AOE without worrying about breaking crowd control? Or how about we just make it so you just need to hit one button and the game will calculate what your best attack is based on health remaining on the mob, the amount of mana you have, all your spells available to you, and the best way to maximize threat or damage?

These three changes do nothing but remove skill from the game. I see no positives to them. There's skill involved with swiping to generate aggro. There's skill involved with using multi-shot when mobs are crowd controlled. You should need skill when using cleave and make sure you only hit mobs you want to. Why eliminate this game mechanic?

Pet Update

As most of you know, I collect pets. I try and farm them myself, but I've been getting quite upset with the drop rates so I gave in last week and purchased a Tiny Crimson Whelpling from the auction house for 200g. Seemed like a good deal to me, and he looks great as I run through Kara with him.

Last night, I saw an Azure Whelpling up on auction for 600g with a 650g buyout. I didn't want to spend the money since I was low on funds already, so I compromised. I put in a bid for 600g, but didn't buy it out for 650g. If I win it, great, I saved 50g. If I don't, fine...600g back into my pockets.

Also last week, I received my Hippogryph Hatchling from the friendly vendor in Booty Bay. This pet wasn't cheap, but well worth it to me. Today or tomorrow, I should be getting my Rocket Chicken as well which will take me to 57 pets. In May, Children's week returns, allowing me to collect two more pets and then with 2.4, I'll be out fishing every day looking for the pet crocs.

Speaking of fishing, I'm almost at 375 and will be trying to fish up Mr. Pinchy this weekend.

My full collection list can be found here.

Three Hour Kara

Last night, the Gold Team ventured into Karazhan after the informative Darklight Resolution guild meeting in Stormwind Park and we completely tore the place up.

Our previous record was just under 4 hours for a full clear. First pull last night:
3/5 18:54:03.586 Aracely's Shoot hits Spectral Stallion for 113.
3/5 21:53:05.093 Prince Malchezaar dies.

We just made it in under 3 hours. It was close after a partial wipe and a full wipe on Prince due to some horrific infernal drops. But we did it. We were all awarded 22 badges for our time and effort, Dylana got some new gear. Hemnetcher also got a couple of pieces, and we got a lot of void crystals.

In the end, it just goes to show what some insane DPS will do for you when combined with teamwork and fun. Congrats Gold Team!

Brilliant Glass

Another nice new addition to 2.4 just surfaced. And I'm sure all the jewelcrafters out there will be quite happy. Now, all those green gems that are likely sitting in the bank can be turned into a blue gem.

Combine three of each green gem, and voila! a random blue gem. Hopefully this will bring prices of blue gems down a bit as well for us non-jewelcrafters/non-miners.

Speaking of blue gems, I need to go pick up my Consortium "bribe" later today. I could always go for some extra rare gems.

Massive DPS

This is what I love to see...


Just massive DPS by all involved. I took a couple cave-ins on me, but for the most part was able to stand and cast and do massive damage. It was amazing having Hemnetcher in the raid as I didn't have to use Mage Armor, but istead could use Molten Armor adding fire crit. I used all three of my mana emeralds and I think I had to evocate for a couple ticks towards the end, but in the end, having a shadow priest helps immensely. Not only did I have great mana regen, but I think I only bandaged once and even then it was a misclick. I was able to quickly regen all health after a cave in or shatter through the shadow priest.

In short, the 25 Man Gold Team Rocks!

Magister's Terrace Walkthrough

Curse-Gaming has a great walkthrough up of the new 5-man instance in the next patch. While there really aren't any gear items I'm looking for here, there is a new enchant I would love to get: Enchant Cloak: Steelweave. It drops in both normal and heroic modes (most likely a higher drop rate in heroic). I can also get a free Runed Crimson Spinel by clearing the Terrace once and completing a quest line. Click the image below to view their guide.

Magister's Terrace has become the residence of the Blood Elf Lord Kael’thas Sunstrider since his defeat in The Eye to the forces of Shattrath. His body has become twisted and deformed. He may be finally succumbing to his magical addictions and becoming one of the Wretched or it might be that he was resurrected by the Burning Legion using the power of the Sunwell.

Gold Team 25 Man One Shots Gruul

Another fun and interesting night. Rather than our usual Karazhan Tuesdays, we have rearranged our schedules and had a split Zul'Aman / Gruul night. The Gold Team quickly ventured into Zul'Aman, one shot Akil'zon, Nalorakk, and Halazzi earning two timed chests and then we got in a couple attempts on Jan'Alai before we headed over to Gruul's Lair.

We picked up the rest of the Gold 25 Man Team and we had a brief meeting as this was the first official Gold Team venture into Gruul's - a quasi-Gold Team went in last night and one shot Maulgar and took Gruul down to 5% the first try and down the second try.

After our quick team meeting, we rushed Maulgar, took him down despite a quick death of one of my healers as I was mage tanking - Lexten quickly shifted over and kept me up with Dylana quite ably. After Maulgar, we headed to Gruul and without a hitch one shot him. Much to my surprise, two Leggings of the Fallen Hero dropped. I didn't roll since they wouldn't be an upgrade for me. But hopefully we'll continue to see them and I'll get them on a need roll and work towards completing my Tier 4 set.

Congrats again to the amazing Gold Team! We will quickly conquer whatever lies in front of us!

((Locally hosted WowWebStats can be found here for Zul'Aman and here for Gruul's Lair. The WowWebStats site is down, but I am just itching to see what my DPS was for Gruul himself...))

Arena Layout and Letdown

On Sunday night, Panoply, Vetarra, Mercreus and I got in 8 arena games before we lost two people and our 3v3 team, Aspect of Frost Wrath had to call it a night. I had hoped to get two more games in to get my weekly points, but after waking up last night, both Panoply and Vetarra were in SSC and our 5th member was not online. So it seems that we ended up two games short of the minimum number of required games and I will stay one point short of my pants.

Speaking of arenas though, this is my new arena layout:



Not much changes from my standard raid layout as I have my grouping in the upper and lower left side, I have my trinkets and gems/pots in the middle with Decursive just to the right of those rows. The only thing that changes from my Raid UI to my Arena UI is the extra large buttons on the right side. I have my frequently used Arena buttons that I rarely use otherwise - including my PvP trinket and Escape Artist. And then, the best part of the whole thing, Proximo. Proximo is a must have and shows me the other team, allows me to quickly switch targets and also will allow me to set my focus for sheeping and then target my DPS target.

In the shot above, we won the game as we were able to lure the shamans (way too many shamans) away from their totem jungle. Of course, I'm sitting there with my Jubling out and antennae on my head.

Screenshots Finally

I finally got around to going through my last batch of screenshots and figured I would post a few. Most of them are from our Zul'Aman incursion last week where we downed two bosses within the specified time frame and also took Jan'Alai down. We started strong taking down Akil'zon then rushed over to Nalorakk. We then tried to get to Halazzi in time but didn't make it. After downing Halazzi, we went back and looted the first timed box and then the second one. The second box was guarded by a fearsome dwarf named Harkor. It just so happens we've been raiding with our beloved paladin healer, Harkor for a long time, so we took the time to take some pictures of the twins:



After looting the boxes, we quickly cleared over to Jan'Alai and with our practice the weeks before, we took him down! ((Click for larger view))



We then called it for the night as our run was quite successful and we shall be attempting Malacrass soon!

Coming later...my arena setup!

2.4 Epic Stones Make Me Happy

I found this over on MMO Champion and it looks like I'm going to need a lot more badges. I already plan on spending 210 badges when 2.4 comes out, but I could go for some gem upgrades too.


(Click the image to enlarge)

The thought of some Great Lionseyes, Veiled Pyrestones, and especially Runed Crimson Spinels make me giddy.