Old School Weekend

There wasn't too much happening this weekend so I worked on my Dungeon Set 2 and then got an invite to Molten Core Sunday morning. Needing more rep, I agreed to go and made out like a bandit with 3 pieces of Tier 1. We then continued to AQ40 where I racked up over 12,000 rep with the Brood of Nozdormu, picked up my yellow bug mount, and some other miscellaneous items. So that was a very nice end to my weekend.

Today, I did my standard daily quests (now up to 185 saved Champion's Seals) - will need 190 to get the two pets when 3.2 hits - and switched from Frenzyheart back to the Oracles. I really need to get that mount...I'll probably end up with a lot more yolk, but them's the breaks.

New Mounts?

Last night, someone in guild chat mistakenly thought that I had over 100 mounts (I have over 100 pets, not mounts). I lamented the fact that reaching 100 mounts is a pretty tough feat as I don't have any of the PvP mounts nor any of the AQ40 mounts. Then I received an interesting whisper - right when you enter AQ40, there are 4 giant guys sitting there. Kill 3 of the 4 of them, run out, and they reset. They all have a pretty high drop rate for three of the four resonating crystals and a low drop rate for the red crystal.

Of course, we had so much fun fighting them, we killed all four along with the patrol that came along. So we then went on and found two more pats down the stairs which we killed and another set of four of those giant guys. So we killed them too. From those, I was able to get a Blue Qiraji Resonating Crystal and a Green Qiraji Resonating Crystal. So I was pretty happy with the run. We of course tried to kill the boss, just the three of us, but had many failed attempts (his mind control is devastating).

So we were just about to leave when the first five enemies respawned - so we killed them, but no more crystals dropped. In the end, I got blue and green while Weser got blue and Xenoxa passed on them all. Thanks guys! They look especially cool when they jump. Unfortunately, their use is restricted to AQ40 only :(

On another note, they reset the fire festival fires yesterday so I was able to quickly zoom around Northrend and Outland collecting the burning blossoms and was able to get enough for the last part of my midsummer fire festival set, dance around the pole, and receive my new title, Flame Warden Tiddlywinks.

Also last night, I was able to get a huge upgrade to my belt. On our Friday night raids of Ulduar 25, we put all of the Runed Orbs into the raid bank. When we have enough, we pass them out to be made into belts. As we had stocked up over 18 orbs, we handed them out last week and only three people had the materials ready to go to have the belt crafted; me, Jizo, and Hemnetcher. So the orbs were passed out and I am now the proud owner of a Sash of Ancient Power. It works perfectly with my set as it has the same amount of hit as my old belt, and though it has 7 less spellpower, it comes with two gem sockets, so it more than makes up for that loss. Best in slot, woohoo!

2 Days, 2 Titles

On Thursday, our rag-tag bunch of adventurers stepped into Naxxramas looking to clear as much as possible, little did we know, a full clear was within our grasp. Taking about four hours, we cleared the whole place in one night, leaving Friday night open for Sartharion and Malygos. We quickly down Sartharion (after a couple of attempts with one drake up) and then made our way to Malygos.

We had seen Malygos one week before, but only got to the final stage a couple of times. But this week, we had over 3 hours to work on him, and we would not leave without him going down! So after about 5 or 6 wipes, including a couple of tries at his last phase, we realized, we didn't have the stacks working for the last phase and we'd never get him down. So we took a break, stepped outside, and went to practice on the daily quest, Aces High. After a bit of practice there, we stepped back in, revitalized, and ready to go. We had a couple of missteps, but in the end, Maylgos was defeated! And there were quite a few people in our raid who obtained the awesome title, Champion of the Frozen Wastes.

Skip ahead a day and the Lunar Festival had returned to Azeroth. I awoke at 7, ready to go get my coins. After collecting about 40 coins, Aravic and Eleazarjr awoke from their slumber and we set out to rescue the elders in the Northrend dungeons. After four heroic dungeons, I was left to go back to coin collecting. I quickly snapped up the rest of the coins throughout Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms and then looked for a group for some other instances. I found a pick up group going to Nexus and we quickly found the elder in there and I was left with just a couple of elders left. I took a quick side trip to Moonglade where I defeated Omen and bought a nice pant suit. I ported back to Dalaran and quickly found a group for my remaining coins in my wonderful guild. We got the coins, and in just under 12 hours, I was Elder Tiddlywinks.



The next morning, I woke up, started fishing for a sewer rat, and was waiting on the last book I need for Higher Learning to spawn when Rylara asked me if I wanted to go kill C'Thun. Heck yeah, I wanted to kill C'Thun! So I ported to Theramore, flew to Cenarion Hold, and made my way into the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. We quickly dispatched of C'Thun (even though I died in his stomach), and I was finally able to complete my Classic Raider achievement!



In all, it's been a crazy couple days. Two titles received, Malygos and C'Thun down, and over 230 achievement points. I'm hoping my book spawns soon so I can receive another pet and my weekend will be complete!

Raider Tiddlywinks?

Last night was pretty fun. After clearing the four bosses in Zul'Aman on Wednesday, it was a nice change of pace to head into Ahn'Qiraj with the guild to earn the achievement Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. I was also hoping to pick up my Band of Vaulted Secrets and Drape of Vaulted Secrets to go along with the Blade of Vaulted Secrets I already have in my bank with a wonderful glow from Potency on it.

After quickly blowing through AQ and getting Flamehelix his blacksmithing recipes, I took some time to do the Outlands dailies, earned a bit of gold, and then was summoned to finish Zul'Aman from the night before. We quickly annihilated Malacrass and Zul'Jin and I got the achievement, Zul'Aman. Two of the tougher raiding achievements down, quite a few more to go. I just have AQ40 and Ony to complete Classic Raider.

Tonight, I will get 1,000 Fish as I went to bed last night sitting at 999/1000. Still no Ironjaw for me though after well over 1,000 casts in Ironforge. Going to keep working on it though. I'm also at about 600g and plan on achieving My Sack is "Gigantique" once I have 1200g for the bag. I also hope to be able to complete Loremaster of the Eastern Kingdoms at some point this weekend after I run Uldaman and BRD (where I have about 10 quests through chains to complete). Then I'm not sure what I'll be doing - there's a couple low level dungeons to explore, and then some level 60 dungeons that Phosphorex and I want to conquer. Also, the drop rate on the Deathcharger's Reins have been increased, so Phos and I might be in Scholo quite a bit this weekend.

Ahn'Qiraj Fun

Last Thursday, Flamehelix organized a guild run of AQ20 which was mainly put together to get him the blacksmithing patterns from the Lieutenant. Unfortunately, during a knockback, the boss took out the lieutenant, but we carried on. While inside, I was able to pick up a Blade of Vaulted Secrets which I threw Potency on for the glow.

I think we'll be going back to work on those blacksmithing patterns again and perhaps I can complete the Trappings set.

On an unrelated note, I have been buying bijous and coins off the auction house since I can't seem to get Zul'Gurub runs going and I have acheived honored status amongst the Zandalar tribe. And while this now allows me to turn in my Arcanums of Rapidity, it more importantly allows me to buy Pattern: Bloodvine Leggings and Formula: Brilliant Wizard Oil.

Recipe Progression

The wonderful Ackis Recipe List has kept me on top of my game and I finally got around to documenting how far I've come with my professions. We'll start with the easiest and best looking list of the four - first aid - 100%!



It wasn't too tough to get to 100% as there are only 15 recipes and most are trainable, but hey, I made it. Next up is cooking:



I've got a few recipes to go there and until I can organize a raid into Blackwing Lair, I will be unable to obtain the recipe for Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops. With a little more work though I should be able to get to 114/115 cooking recipes. Now, to tailoring...



As you can see, I'm at 88% of all tailoring recipes. However, this doesn't take into account that there are recipes I will not ever be able to learn (of course, without switching to exalted Aldor). There's a few recipes I still need to search down - some from Zul'Gurub rep, one in Karazhan still, and then just random other recipes from around the world. I still need to keep on raiding Knot Thimblejack's Cache and hope for some patterns from there as well.



For enchanting, I'm at 199/221 recipes or 90%. A few are from the old world, Ahn'Qiraj which no one raids any more and some others from Zul'Gurub reputation. And then there's just a ton that drop in Outland instances which I really don't want to farm, but will at some point. And the last ones on the list are really expensive rare drops which I'm still saving up for.

So there you have it. Not too shabby - 88% tailoring, 90% enchanting. Cooking should be close to finished soon and first aid is done. Next...on to pet completion!