Old Crafty & Chuck

This morning, I woke up early and did my daily Dalaran cooking quest only to be whispered by a fellow guild mate that today's fishing quest was Crocs in the City (my guild knows I need to get my pets from that so they are looking out for me which is awesome). So I quickly ported to Shatt, got the daily quest and then ported to Theramore. Took a flight to Ratchet, hoofed it to Orgrimmar and easily made it past the guards, hit invisibility, and arrived at my fishing spot with nary a nick.

After about 10 casts, Old Crafty was mine! I ported to Ironforge, looking now for Old Ironjaw, but couldn't catch him in about 15 casts, so I took the Crocolisk, ported back to Shattrath and turned in the quest. Perhaps Old Man Barlo is in a better mood with fewer people visiting him, or he's lonely and wants me to visit more because not only did he reward me with Chuck's Bucket for returning the crocolisk to him, he also gave me Spun Truesilver Fishing Line. I'm going to save it for when I obtain my Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole from the Tuskarr (currently at 5,000/21,000 revered).

So it was quite a nice morning for me with both cooking and fishing done. Last night I was finally able to get the Oracles to start giving me daily quests. The final quest in the line was bugged as the lich just stood there and refused to let us attack. After a couple of hours, a GM finally reset her for us and my pick up group quickly took her down twice as the first time the other four people wanted to help the Frenzyhearts out. Luckily they all stuck around and helped me complete her again as I wanted to get on good terms with the Oracles. So now my dailies consist of the Kalu'ak and the Oracles. I'm also just getting somewhere with Sons of Hodir, so they'll probably be on my daily sweep as they have the really nice new shoulder enchants.

Level 80 and More!

Quite a busy day yesterday. First and foremost, ding 80!


It all started yesterday as I cleaned up the final quests in the Sholazar Basin. I had only about 30 more to do and quickly earned my Into the Basin achievement. But while completing my Sholazar Quests, another achievement I had been traking for a while finally popped up - I am now Tiddlywinks the Seeker! 3,000 quests completed (which also pushed me over 3,000 achievement points). After 3,000 quests and the Basin complete, I headed for the Storm Peaks. K3 was my next destination and after questing there for a while, earning the vaunted Mine Sweeper achievement, and having some fun up in the sky and the mountains, I hit 80.

So what to do next? Well continue questing of course. I'm going to finish off the Storm Peaks and then move to Ice Crown to get my Loremaster of Northrend achievement (unfortunately, Kalimdor remains unconquered). But after questing a little longer, I decided to go explore, and earned the title of The Explorer!


So now what? Well bright and early this morning, I earned my 10th Dalaran Cooking Award, and I have much reputation to grind with certain factions that reward pets. I also need just one more reputation at exalted to earn 25 Exalted Reputations and of course, I'm fishing for my Giant Sewer Rat and also for the coins in the fountain.

I also put of leveling engineering this whole time, but with stacks of cobalt going for 100g each right now, getting my engineering up will take quite a while when I finally decide the market has stabilized. However, I did raise First Aid to 450. Enchanting sits at 410, cooking at 415ish, and fishing at around 395. Last night with my Tabard of the Explorer, I also received my Tabard of the Achiever for having 25 Tabards.

There's so much more to do, so many more quests to complete, so many more achievements to seek out. I think I'll head back to the Storm Peaks tonight, fish a bit, and try and finish up the Oracles questline so I can start earning rep with them.

3 Days to 76

((Quite an interesting weekend. Thursday Amazon delivered Wrath, I installed it, got to run around a bit and then went to see Quantum of Solace midnight showing. This is what happened over the next three days...))

I started in the Howling Fjord. An absolutely gorgeous landscape greeted me with an assortment of quests like I had not seen before. I thoroughly enjoyed the opening quests and once I was out of Valgarde Keep, I loved the Fjord even more. The explorer's camp was fun to quest of of and the Kalu'ak are great to work with. The Fjord was just amazing with the lush landscapes, the varying greenness, and just the overall scope of the Fjord amazed me. I quickly worked my way through over 130 quests, earning the achievement, I've Toured the Fjord. Of course, while doing that, I also Explored the Fjord. I am quite certain that I gained two levels in the Fjord, if I wasn't at 72, I hit 72 quickly after moving to the Tundra.


After I completed all the Howling Fjord quests I could find, I started making my way towards the Borean Tundra. To do this, I took a turtle to Moa'ki Harbor. There I quested as I am working on Kalu'ak reputation for my little penguin pet. After finishing their quests, I took another turtle to the Tundra as I arrived in Taunka'le Village. They didn't have many quests to do there as I hadn't been properly introduced to them, so I made my way to Valiance Keep. On the way to Valiance Keep though, I met up with D.E.H.T.A. I did their quests, though I do not agree to their standards and completed D.E.H.T.A's Little P.I.T.A. If you ask me, DEHTA is the PITA. More on that later.


I hit up Valiance Keep, and quested from there before exploring the rest of the Tundra. Except for Coldarra, I was not a fan of the Tundra - I found it bland and boring. The terrain was just dry and uninteresting for me. I had a little fun out at Fizzcrank Airstrip, but in the end, I found the Tundra vastly inferior to the Fjord. That didn't deter me though as I earned both Nothing Boring about Borean and Explore Borean Tundra. While questing in the Tundra, I do believe I hit 74.

On a side note, when I hit 71, I made a quick trip to Star's Rest to pick up my Teleport: Dalaran spell. I quickly ported there and fell in love with the city. It is gorgeous! Of course, being one of only a handful of people there made it even more brilliant. It was peaceful, quiet, and seemingly, all mine. I explored all over, found a rat mentoring four turtles in the sewers, and bought a Glowing Skull. Along with Frosty, I now have 81 pets.

So...after the Tundra, I went to Dragonblight. Having already visited Star's End for my portal, I returned there to quest again. Dragonblight is interesting, but in the end, empty. I guess it's a blight for a reason. Wrymrest Temple does nothing for me, though the quests at Wintergarde Keep are epic. The Wrathgate event is nothing short of downright amazing. For completing the epic questline, I was rewarded with Veteran of the Wrathgate. In the end, I powered through Dragonblight and just did the quests required of me for Might of Dragonblight and Explore Dragonblight. Here I am with King Varian and Lady Jaina as we battle through the Undercity:


Prior to entering the Dragonblight, at the young age of 71, I grouped with some old friends and we ran Azjol-Nerub which was amazing - short, sweet, and fun (though a little creepy) - so far my favorite instance (though I haven't run the Nexus yet). After we ran Azjol-Nerub twice back-to-back, we hit up Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. That was a little more difficult as we had one 72 and 4 71's. We powered through though and basked in our glory. The next day I ran Utgarde Keep. It's a fun, quick instance, but a bit simplistic. A nice introduction to dungeons for some though.

As for the fun stuff I did while powering through three zones completely, once I hit Dalaran, I did the daily cooking quest and achieved Dalaran Cooking Award. I've now done three daily cooking quests, have 5 cooking awards, and with my first three, I immediately bought Critter Bits. I cooked up 40 critter bites right away, returned to where I was questing (Amber Ledge I believe) and used 10 critters to achieve Critter Gitter (this actually was my 15th cooked food earning me The Northrend Gourmet. Here I am with the critters:


So, with three zones down, I have moved on to Zul'Drak. This is quite an interesting zone. There's two distinct parts it seems. When you first enter, you encounter the Argent Crusade fighting out of little outposts against the scourge. You then move on to The Argent Stand where they have made a permanent base, though you continue fighting the scourge. I completed the full Betrayal questline, made a quick visit to the Grizzly Hills (which I am in love with) and I have only to Cleanse Drak'Tharon to achieve Guru of Drakuru. I forgot to mention that I had visited Zul'Drak prior to my "official" arrival as I was searching for Manual: Heavy Frostweave Bandage. I had already risen my First Aid skill to 410 via regular Frostweave Bandages and they turned grey to me and I had Frostweave to spare. I quickly killed some trolls at about level 73 (they were level 75) and found the manual, allowing me to achieve Ultimate Triage. I also earned The Keymaster when I hit level 73 (or maybe 74) and I picked up the quest to go into the Violet Hold in Dalaran.

I currently sit at 2,895 achievement points (working hard towards 3,000 - though leveling comes first). I have not earned any more titles, though I believe Chef isn't too far away, nor Argent Champion. I am almost to 435 first aid, while engineering and enchanting have fallen by the wayside. Though I'm currently working to clear Zul'Drak, one other quest line has called me away from there tonight. Tonight, I will exact my revenge on D.E.H.T.A. by working for my guy, Hemet Nesingwary. As you can see, I'm ready to go blow stuff up!

Shall I Switch?

Currently I'm a 375 Enchanter/Tailor. I picked them initially because they offered the greatest bonus to me as a mage. I could enchant my rings and I could tailor the Spellfire set. As we go into Wrath, I hear more and more about how there won't be as many reasons to continue with the professions I've chosen. Almost all high-level items made via crafting will be Bind on Equip (BoE) in Wrath. So no more Spellfire sets, no more high-end blacksmithing weapons. Instead, each profession gets it's own little perks.

Blacksmiths can add sockets, leatherworkers get furs for their bracers, tailors get embroiders for their cloaks, enchanters keep ring enchants, scribes get shoulder enchants better than the faction enchants, alchemists get increased effect and durtion from flasks and elixirs, jewelcrafters get BoPickup gems and trinkets, and engineers get their own aresenal of fun. (Most of this was culled from this great WowInsider Post)

Now, to break it down for me, as a mage.

Blacksmithing - add two sockets, one to bracers, one to gloves. Socket with 2xRuned Scarlet Ruby = +38 spell power.

Leatherworking - add "fur" to bracers. Add Fur Lining - Spell Power = +67 spell power. Minus out a bracer enchant = +37 spell power.

Tailoring - Early theorycrafting puts the gained DPS at about 24.4 for Lightweave Embroidery. And you have to give up a nice cloak enchant such as Greater Speed. As of now, this profession seems to be the weakest.

Incription - Enchanting the shoulders with Master's Inscription of the Storm adds 61 spellpower and 15 crit. Subtracting out Greater Inscription of the Storm, we get a net gain of +37 spell power.

Alchemists get increased effect and duration of flasks and elixirs along with Mercurial Alchemist Stone, +50 haste, +59 spell power, +40% effect from potions (however, you lose a trinket spot, so net effect is yet to be seen) - it is quite powerful when you hit level 75 though.

Jewelcrafters get their BoP gems and trinkets. Three Runed Dragon's Eyes gives you three +13 (after subtracting out rare quality gems), or +36 spell power (plus BoP trinkets - like this sweet Twilight Serpent, which not only increases hit by a great amount, but it has an on use effect and two sockets, which have a bonus of +7 spellpower. Not too shabby.

Engineering gets their sweet Visage Liquification Goggles which have consistently been upgradeable to the latest tier equivalent in Burning Crusade via v2 or v3. These liquification goggles are amazing and probably wouldn't go out of style for a long time and would probably only be replaced if there were a tier set that surpassed it with set bonuses.

So right now, I'm seriously considering dropping Tailoring and leveling Engineering. I won't miss the cloak enchant as I am currently in love with haste and while not having a flying carpet will be tough to deal with, I will be able to craft an amazing pair of goggles and my own flying and riding vehicles. Add to that the availability of another pet that has eluded me thus far, and I'd be sitting pretty. It'll be very tough to drop tailoring after all that I've spent on rare recipes, but I feel that Engineering will be more beneficial to me in Wrath and now is the time to start working on it.

Unprepared

As stated previously, we went back to 10 man raiding this week and I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was unprepared. I had no Wizard Oil. I had one flask and I ran out of mana pots. I had to ration my food. I was not ready at all. So this weekend will be spent getting back to raid-ready status. I will be doing the cooking dailies, grinding mats for pots, flasks, and oils. I will not be caught off-guard again. It really was pretty sad when a friendly warlock came up to me to bum a hit of Wizard Oil, only to find I had none...at the beginning of the raid...I had none!

We did manage to take down Halazzi, Akil'zon and Nalorakk, almost getting the third chest (probably needed 5-8 more minutes). Jan'alai continues to frustrate us, but we had a few new people with us this week and I'm sure when everyone gets the fight down, we'll do just fine. Last night, it was an alt run through Kara. I showed up late, so I subbed in at Curator and we almost cleared the place by the time we had to call it. Unfortunately, Aran continues to withhold Sunfire from me.

On a completely unrelated note, I bought an enchanting pattern yesterday for 1500g. Enchant Boots - Vitality are mine. However, with the purchase of the formula and the firefly, I'm very low on cash, so it's back to doing dailies. I thought 5kg would last me for a while. I guess not.

Fire Festival!

Today the Midsummer Fire Festival began in Azeroth. There were some new quests to do involving torch tossing and brazier lighting. After doing those, I set out to gather Burning Blossoms. After trekking through the Outlands, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, I managed to visit each and EVERY flame. That includes the flames in Undercity, Thunder Bluff, Orgrimmar, and Silvermoon. Total possible tickets for an Alliance member after day 1? 617 blossoms.

Immediately went and spent 350 of those blossoms on my latest pet, the Spirit of Summer! (I now sit at 67 pets, #34 on the top 50 single player collections). I attempted to get the new pet that Ahune, the Frost Lord drops, but we only attempted him on regular, not heroic, so I had no shot at the latest pet. He also refused to drop the new enchant I want.

On a side note, while finding flames in Desolace, I hooked up with the Super-Seller 680 to buy the Lean Wolf Flank Recipe. I also stopped in RFD while I was in horde territory and learned the recipe for Goldthorn Tea. That now lands me at 113/115 cooking recipes (98%). Just one more that is easily attainable, then the only epic cooking recipe available...

More on Zanza

So yesterday I mentioned about hitting honored with the Zandalar which then allowed me to turn in my four Arcanums of Rapidity for Savage Guards. The reason I had the arcanums in the first place was for Shen'dralar reputation, and now that I am honored with Zandalar, I can turn them in for more Zandalar reputation. They all start from Librams of Rapidity which I haven't seen on the auction house recently, so I might have to start looking into other libram turn-ins which require Frayed Abomination Stitchings instead of the Blood of Heroes that the libram of rapidity requires.

Anyways, here's a wonderful shot of me and Zanza, who by the way is a Loa, more powerful than elementals, but just a step below the gods. As you can see, I also took Toothy along and we got close, but didn't have to kill any of his crocolisk relatives within Zul'Gurub.


As a side note, the easy way to get to Zanza as a 70 mage is as such: Enter Zul'Gurub and jump in the water on your right. Follow the stream to the waterfall - but be careful not to fall down. Jump out of the waterfall to your left and drop down to the first bridge you see (watch out for the patrol). Cross the first bridge and second bridge and pop invisibility. Invisibility will almost take you all the way to Zanza's staircase (I will try to make it next time in one shot). But if you stay to the left against the wall as you head up to Zanza, when you come out of invisibility, you will see Zanza's staircase in front of you and some snakes guarding it. I waited here until invisibility was up again and then easily made it to the top of his pyramid.

I also got a nice picture of my new Blade of Vaulted Secrets with Potency on it. It's a very cool looking sword and I've been wielding it often (and subsequently finding out that my sword skills are quite low - though I did take some time to level them up in Stranglethorn Vale). I'm a little bit worried that th Potency enchant may be a bit too strong and obscure the beauty of the sword. Here's a picture:

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.

Random Updates

A few quick random updates.

Bought some epic gems with Badges. 2xRuned Crimson Spinel, 1xGreat Lionseye. Since I was 2 over the spell hit cap, I replaced a Great Dawnstone with the Lionseye and I was 4 over the cap. With that, I was able to replace a Veiled Noble Topaz with a Spinel. Also upgraded a Runed Living Ruby with a Spinel. So I'm perfectly on the spell hit cap and gained 10 spell damage.

Heading through Kara last week, I picked up the T4 glove token and purchased Gladiator's Silk Handguards. Threw a +20 damage on it and last night Mercreus and I went 5-6 in arenas. We're just barely staying above 1,500 rating at 1,520 right now.

Last week, the Gold 25 Man Team quickly took down Gruul and headed to Mag. We were short one of our regular clickers so we assigned another warlock to the cube. First time through, he tried clicking the wrong cube so no one was on his. Next time through he got disconnected. Third time through I clicked and we took Mag down. We then went and only had time to clear trash up to Lurker. As the only mage, I had fun sheeping and watching who broke my sheeps.

Tonight we once again go to Gruul, Mag and Lurker.

No new pets or recipes. Enchant Boots: Vitality was on auction for 2000g and didn't sell. Seller lowered it to 1600g. Still too pricey for me.

I logged out last night in my PvP gear which is odd for me, but I can see that I have almost 10k health and 201 resilience. With the new gloves I got, they break the Spellfire bonus, so I went out and purchased Evoker's Silk Raiment and Evoker's Silk Amice. I haven't run the numbers, but I will lose damage in the trade, but gain 68 resilience (or more depending on how I socket them). Once I run the numbers, I will post again.

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!

Gold Team 25 Man

We made a little progress last night as we continue our attempts in Serpentshrine Cavern. After quickly downing Maulgar, Gruul and Mag, we set off to kill the Lurker Below. We only had one shot at him the week prior, so we didn't expect to get him this week, but we got close.

After the first two attempts at him, everyone seemed to have gotten the hang of it and we were doing quite well on our third, and final attempt. We cleared two waves of spawns and were DPS'ing the Lurker quite well when all of a sudden a spout got the tank. He was submerged properly as the spout went by and came out of the water, only to get hit by the spout as it came by him the second time.

I am confident we'll get that damn fish next week though. Especially with the rate we clear through Gruul & Mag and the SSC trash.

On an unrelated note, this weekend I purchased Enchant Chest: Major Resilience. I took screenshots of my progression in each of my tradeskills, but keep forgetting to cut them down to size to post here. A nice progression I've made is I am now at 100% of all first aid skills. I purchased Manual: Strong Anti-Venom to round out that profession. Cooking is probably next, though I'm unsure when I'll be able to make it into Blackwing Lair to get Recipe: Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops.

Lack of Updates

I know I've been slacking, there just hasn't been too much to write about. The Gold 25 Man Team went into Gruul's & Magtheridon's Lair and absolutely destroyed the place. With so much time to spare, we ventured into SSC, cleared all of the trash without any real effort (though nothing! dropped - no Marks of Illidari, Nether Vortices, patterns, nothing), and we got to the Lurker Below. We had just one shot at him, most everyone was new to the fight (I have seen it a few times, never seen it successfully done), and we got him down to about 70%. Next week he dies.

I had a chance to make it back into Karazhan after a few weeks off and picked up some badges. I'm approaching 50 badges now from Karazhan, Shattered Sun Supplies, and random bosses (Gruul, Setthekk Halls, etc.). So now I'm contemplating making more changes to my gear.

The one item I'm considering is the Boots of Incantations to replace my Boots of Blasting. It's a loss of 25 crit for a gain of 12 stamina, 1 intellect, 23 spirit, 4 spell hit, and 16 damage. I just need to get to 75 badges and I'll make the switch.

I'm also considering losing my Spellfire set, but I probably won't as I'd only upgrade two pieces and the stat changes don't really make too much sense at this time.

One other change I'm looking to make quite soon is to switch out Enchant Gloves: Spell Strike for Enchant Gloves: Major Spellpower. I'm pretty certain that with one more Great Lionseye, I'll be able to make the change. It's a huge upgrade as usually hit and damage are traded at a 1:1 ratio, so 20 damage for 15 hit is something I'll be looking into next week.

Should be interesting to be out of town this weekend. It's been a while since I haven't played at least a little on any given day. In fact Sunday will be the first day since the patch I won't be able to complete the daily fishing quest. That stupid quest is the bane of my existence. No good reward yet. No pets, no nothing. At least with the daily cooking quest I was able to get a recipe a week, whereas it's been almost a month now without anything good - no new line, no hat, no pets.

More Epic Gemming Goodness

Last night, while trying to figure out what to spend my gold from dailies on (I complete 20+ dailies a day during a normal trip around Outland), I briefly thought about getting the formula for Cat's Swiftness for 1300g. But then I decided to check for epic gems, and lo and behold, someone had flooded the auction house with them.

I ended up spending 1200g on new gems, including two Crimson Spinels for 350g each and two Pyrestones for 250g each (Wowhead pegs them at 450g each and the Spinels at 1000g each, so great deals!). I had a guildmate cut the Pyrestones into Reckless Pyrestones and I hired a mage I know to cut a couple Runed Crimson Spinels and I tipped him a nice amount.

The odd thing is, the uncut Spinels were 350g each while the cut Runed Crimson Spinels were trying to be auctioned at 700g each. I tipped 25g for two Runed Crimson cuts and briefly thought about auctioning them back off, but decided against it. I replaced two Runed Crimson Rubies with the Spinels and I replaced one Glowing Nightseye and I also replaced one of my new Forceful Seaspray Emeralds with the Pyrestones. In the end, I lost some stamina, but gained 5 haste (now at 103) and 18 spell damage. Some may call me crazy for spending my money this way, but every little boost I can squeeze out of my gear is worth it.

After all this re-gemming, I was asked to go to Heroic Magisters' Terrace. We had a small problem with Vexallus, but after figuring out how to handle his spawns, we quickly took him down (go go gadget Ice Block). We quickly dispatched of the 5v5 boss and continued on to Kael'thas who continually kicked our butt. We didn't have the burst DPS to burn through his shield so he kept killing our tank. We figured on our next run we could soulstone the tank so he could die and come back, but running over an hour late already, we just called it. The elusive Phoenix Hatchling still eludes me, but I was able to pick up a new enchant of Steelweave which makes me happy. All I need from there is the pet now. Oh yeah, even without downing Kael'thas, I earned 2,000 rep. Puts me almost 25% through revered. Exalted, here I come!

A Day of Firsts

Wow! What a day. I awaken from my slumber to run daily quests and I get a whisper from Nefernetcher that he needs my Soulfrost Enchant as he is off to Mount Hyjal. Of course, having never seen the place, I express desire to go, and lo and behold, there's a spot for me! So off to Mount Hyjal we went. We battled valiantly against wave upon wave of mobs and we were able to reach Rage Winterchill. Even though it was the first time in Hyjal for almost all 25 of us, we took Winterchill down to 33%. After a few more attempts at the waves, we reached Winterchill a couple more times and almost defeated (it?), taking it down to 8%.

Here's some wonderful pictures I took inside Mt. Hyjal (Coming Soon...)

After Hyjal, I took off to do more dailies to raise my reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive. While on Quel'Danas, the lovely Vetarra asked me if I would like to see inside the Magisters' Terrace. Of course I would! I replied. So off we went, Aracely, Nefernetcher, Mercreus, and Vetarra. We had a couple of interesting fights, but made it through without any major problems. Kael'thas refused to drop the pet I would love to have (the Phoenix Hatchling) and all the bosses refused to drop the enchant I am looking for (Steelweave). But it was fun in there and it gave me just enough reputation after I completed my quests to reach friendly! Hello Void Shatter and Enchant Chest: Defense.

But the best part of the night was the acquisition of my new shoulders. After contacting the guild leader of Fruit of Elune multiple times without a response, I gave up on trying to buy the Hearts of Darkness. But during the aforementioned Mt. Hyjal run, 7 or 8 hearts dropped from the trash we killed. It appeared that no one in the raid had a pattern that required them, so I was very kindly given two of the hearts and now I have my Mantle of Nimble Thought. Combined with my Shadowcaster's Drape, I have 63 haste which gives me 4% faster casts. My fireball already has dropped from 3.0 to 2.9 seconds (2.88 exactly), and my global cooldown is all that much shorter. So I'm quite happy with these two items and seriously considering picking up the Runed Spell-Cuffs.

So right now, I'm an extremely happy gnome. Though Kael'thas didn't drop his phoenix pet last night or this morning, I will get it at some point and my reputation with factions continues to rise - and my gear is even better than ever!

Once Again, Left in the Dust

Yesterday while completing the quests for the Shattered Sun Offensive, there was one quest I was not able to complete - Gaining the Advantage. Once again, similar to the Netherwing quests, there's a daily quest just for gatherers. So Tailor/Enchanters like myself get left out on a daily quest, left out on reputation gains, and just left out again. Why not have us turn in a special bolt of imbued netherweave that only tailors could create? Or enchant an item that the Offensive could use as they battle against Kael'thas?

Assuming all things equal, I'm sitting at 1,600/3,000 reputation on my way to friendly and someone who can mine/herb/skin is sitting at 1,850/3,000. I can only get 1,350 rep today, someone who can gather can get 1,600. They will be friendly and I'll be a day behind. Maybe two days behind when they get to Honored. So any enchanter/gatherers will be able to create Large Prismatic Shards from Void Crystals all that much sooner.

I guess it's just a minor gripe, but I don't see the point in having daily quests that can be completed by a minority of characters out there. Why not just add another one that can be completed by all?

20 Quests and Counting

After all was said and done tonight, I'm halfway towards friendly with the Shattered Sun Offensive, the Gold Team killed Gruul, and I completed 20 of the 25 daily quests.

Did the cooking quest, the fishing quest, the quests in Nagrand and Netherstorm, the Ogri'la quests, the Skettis quests, and a majority of the Netherwing quests. I did one PvP quest in Hellfire Peninsula and I also was able to turn in one of each of my PvP tokens for even more gold. After all the quests, minus the gold spent on large prismatic shards, I think I made over 200g tonight and it was all quite easy.

I should find out tomorrow if I won my Oozling and at this rate, I should be able to purchase a couple Hearts of Darkness for my Mantle of Nimble Thought sometime soon.

No New Dagger...

Well, I had forgotten that the new badge vendor isn't available during the first part of the siege on the Sunwell Terrace. So even after buying 5 prismatic shards for my enchant, I cannot buy my new dagger. But that's ok, I had fun over on the Terrace, did some extra daily quests, gained 1600 rep with the Shattered Sun Offensive (yay, already over halfway to friendly) and did even more daily quests.

I did the fishing quest, but did not receive a pet today - but I'm sure I will soon. I then did the Nagrand and Netherstorm dailies, did the cooking daily, went back to Shadowmoon to do more dailies there and as of right now, I have done 13 of 25 possible daily quests. We're getting ready for Gruul's now, so I probably won't do many more, but it sure is nice to be able to buy 5 large prismatic shards and make 60g on top of that with daily questing.

2.4 Today

2.4 came out today and while I haven't had the chance to play around with the patch, it will be relatively uneventful. I have the patch downloaded and burned, ready to install, and I've got my 150 badges sitting in the bank for my new dagger - the Scryer's Blade of Focus. I was swamped at work the last two weeks and didn't make it to Karazhan, so I didn't get the 60 badges for the Fused Nethergon Band.

Hopefully I can make it over to the Sunwell to pick up the dagger before Zul'Aman or Gruul's tonight and hopefully Large Prismatic Shards aren't too expensive on the auction house becuase I stupidly didn't buy enough yesterday and I would like to enchant it before I go.

Either way, the patch should provide a lot of fun over the next few days as we explore new areas, participate in new daily quests, and amass even more new pets! Speaking of which, I have a bid in on a beautiful Disgusting Oozling. If I don't win it, I'm tempted to bid on a Captured Firefly. There's one cheap on the Auction house now and even though I wanted to find him myself, I can't pass up a great deal.

Crawdad Count

Another night of fishing for Mr. Pinchy has gone by. I collected 40 more Furious Crawdads, bringing my total to 100 caught thus far. The count will continue until I get my Pinchy!

However, in Ironforge, as I was posing my crawdads for auction, I found a great deal on Enchant Weapon: Potency. It wasn't cheap, but it was the best deal I've seen in a long time (just shy of 600g). One step closer to to all my enchants!

Also on the auction house, another pet I did not own for a reasonable price! The Dark Whelpling is mine! I now sit at 58 of 79 pets collected. I am waiting for my Rocket Chicken to arrive from Booty Bay, and I will hopefully soon have my 60th pet! Will it be the chicken or Mr. Pinchy? Only time will tell...

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.