A New Mount

Last night, after my friendly rogue ally finished his Shattered Sun daily quests and finally reached exalted, he sent me a large sum of money. With this new influx of cash - I had two choices - buy a Gigantique Bag or a Cenarion War Hippogryph. I chose the latter. The bag can wait, but the new mount cannot! I love my new mount and wish I had purchased it earlier. The drakes are so common these days and the Nether Rays are too bumpy and the gryphons are just too old. So I'm quite pleased with my purchase and the Cenarion War Hippogryph achievement is complete.


On Thursday our guild is venturing into Molten Core and I'm hoping we can get Ragnaros down so I can complete the Molte Core Achievement. To make sure I complete the achievement, I need a piece of loot from him, so hopefully I can get lucky on one of the rolls or bribe the raid to give me an item. It would be great to get the Netherwind Pants to give me a third item in the set.

On another note, I returned four books to the Shen'dralar last night. After running Heliox through Stratholme a couple times, I had a few Frayed Abomination Stitchings to turn in with the Librams of Protection. I also ventured into the Plaguelands for some Blood of Heroes to use with Librams of Rapidity. Now I have 5 arcanums to return to the trolls in Zul'Gurub for 2,500 reputation with them. With those turn-ins, I'll be halfway through honored with them. With one more book return, I'll be halfway through friendly with the Shen'dralar. I also think I need to recruit the friendly rogue Tockett to hunt down Heavy Junkboxes for me so I can start working on my Ravenholdt reputation.

The Return to Zul'Aman

Last night, the Gold Team assembled and led by Eleazarjr and Vetarra as our fearless tanks, we quickly took down two timed bosses and just barely missed the third. This time though, we went in the order you need to go in for four timed bosses so we're making progress. We took down Akil'zon easily then went and one-shot Nalorakk. After that we ran out of time on our way to Jan'Alai who we one shot as well. After switching out Eleazarjr for Aracely, we one shot Halazzi and proceeded to the Hex Lord. Unfortunately, we ran into some issues here - bad breaks of sheeps and banishes, poor timing of spells cast by the Hex Lord and just other little things that you just can't help (and many little things that need to be fixed as well).

But we did manage to get him down and he dropped two completely worthless items for our group. A plate healing item (our tank pally had left, and I doubt he'll ever go healing) and a druid staff (which neither druid really wanted, but it was forced upon Dylana). With such a great loot table and many great items that could be put to use - including the amazing Hood of Hexxing and Hex Shrunken Head.

We eventually moved on to Zul'jin and got to his last phase a couple of times, but once again, we had some people there who had not seen the fight and it took us a long time to get the eagle phase down. We made progress and hopefully we can get most of the group together tonight to take another shot at clearing Zul'Aman finally.

Other than that, Tockett ventured into Karazhan last week and has been doing Shattered Sun dailies every day when time permits. He's up to 25 badges and with another Karazhan run, he will be able to buy a new offhand weapon and then must start saving for a new main hand. Tiddlywinks created him an amazing cloak - Vengeance Wrap which received a Bright Crimson Spinel and Greater Agility. Tockett is now working on getting Leatherworking to 375 as he has two epic patterns to enjoy at that level and two Heart of Darkness ready to use in his bank.

Achievements

Earlier today, Matticus talked about achievements that will soon occupy my time. As of press time, there are 694 listed achievements and I look forward to completing as many as I can. I have no more reputations to grind (though I have a few left I can complete through some instance runs) and I only have one pet left to grind (that damn Emerald Whelp will probably never be mine), and there's just not much to do these days.

I've been spending much of my time helping out my friendly backstabber, Tockett (yes, I couldn't get Tiddlywinks.com, but I did get Tockett.com). Tockett was the first of us gnomes to reach level 60 and also was able to obtain the rank of Knight Captain back in the day. He also heavily raided ZG, MC, and AQ20. Oh, the good ol' days. So while there's not much to do with Tiddly, Tockett is going strong. However, once he reaches 70, I fear there will be little left. What's the point of gearing up as it will all be obsolete in a few scant months?

Back to achievements though, some are insane...

40 Exalted Factions - I'm at 22...could probably hit 25 to 26 if I tried, there will be some added in the expansion, but 40!? Dang! Luckily I'm already past the levels of 10, 15 & 20.

100,000 Honorable Kills - Wow...I've got 2,200. I plan on getting up to maybe 5,000 by the time the expansion comes out as I want to stockpile some honor points so I can get some nice honor rewards at level 80. So maybe I'll stay on defense more in AV rather than going to the front like I enjoy.

Complete 3,000 Quests - I love this one. I'm pretty sure I'm already over half way there as grinding all my faction reps (including the Goblin reputations) has had me go all over to quest. Add in the fact that I plan on exploring more locations prior to Wrath, I should probably focus on picking up any quests I see. Luckily, they are thinking about adding in grey ? so we can more easily find quests we have not completed. In fact, I did two quests last night from the Area 52 wanted board. Nice to have that section clear.

Master of Alterac Valley - This one should be fun! Some of the individual achievements within this grouping seem tough, but it will be a challenge. I'm not sure how you can assault & defend a graveyard and assault & defend a tower in the same game.

Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart - Already done! (Obtain 50 pets) Yay, pet skunk, here I come.

World Explorer - I've been working on this one already. I hope to have every place explored. Sometimes though, there's areas on a map that you don't know you haven't explored as they aren't "shaded" on the world map. Not quite sure how they'll handle that.

My Sack is "Gigantique" - Great, I have to spend 1200g on a bag. Guess I should buy it soon so I can actually get some usage out of my 1200g...

Twenty-Five Tabards - If only I had room to start collecting them now, I would. But once I can stable my pets in Wrath, I will have room to collect tabards and since I'm exalted with 22 factions and have some unique tabards as well, 25 should be no problem.

Skills to Pay the Bills - Easy! I'm already 375 of fishing, cooking, and first aid. No problem to level them come Wrath.

The Cake Is Not A Lie - HAHA. Love it. Need to go bake me a cake. Already have the recipe.

The Diplomat - Reach exalted with Timbermaw, Kurenai & Sporeggar. Done and done!

The Justicar - Wow, this will be tough. Granted, I would love to get those three reputations to exalted as it is, but AB and WSG are just so painful to grind. I think I just need to put more time into them during their respective weekends. Plus I can rack up some HKs while doing so.

Well Read - This should be tons of fun. I've read a few, but there's a lot more I have to go find.