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!

Northrend Pets

Trying to consolidate Northrend pet information...

Albino Snapjaw, Hawksbill Snapjaw, Leatherbill Snapjaw, Loggerhead Snapjaw: No one really knows where these snapjaws come from, but a logical guess would be to assume they come from the Northrend fishing daily (probably have to catch a snapjaw for a daily fishing quest).

Baby Blizzard Bear: The Big Blizzard Bear came from Blizzcon and is a mount. No information on the baby.

Baby Shark: Sold for 60s in Lake Wintergrasp by Morgan Day.

Chilly the Penguin, Mr. Chilly: A reward for creating a Blizzard.com account, presumably only in the Beta, not in Northrend.

Cobra Hatchling, Proto-Drake Whelp, Tickbird Hatchling, White Tickbird Hatchling: Hatch from a Mysterious Egg which requires revered status with The Oracles. Each egg takes 7 days to hatch and can be any of the for pets above or Aged Yolk - basically a failure. Note, if you gain reputation with The Oracles, you lose reputation with the Frenzyheart. The Frenzyheart sell a Disgusting Jar at revered. So far no pets have been found in the jar, so I would probably go for Oracles reputation at the start of Wrath. However, the developers have stated that they want to make it easy to switch rep between the Oracles and Frenzyheart, so it most likely won't be an insane grind like switching from Scryer to Aldor.

Ghostly Skull: Skull that follows you around. Sold for 40g in Dalaran Sewers by Darahir.

Giant Sewer Rat: Caught by fishing in the Dalaran Sewers. Reportedly takes hundreds of casts.

Kirin Tor Familiar: Reward from Higher Learning achievement (sort of). To get access to Archmage Vargoth, you must have the Higher Learning achievement and it is presumed you will learn it from him or he will sell it to you.

Pengu: Requires exalt with The Kalu'ak. I would guess you either just buy it or it is a random reward from the Nurtured Egg.

Tiny Green Dragon, Tiny Red Dragon: No information yet.

White Tiger Cub: No information yet.

In addition to these pets, Wowhead also lists a lot of "Summon" spells that could turn out to be pets of some sort - no real information on any of these.

Summon Baby Murloc (Blue, Green, Orange, Pink, Purple), Summon Baby Pink Elekk, Summon Blue Racer (snake?), Summon Bronze Whelpling, Summon Cockatoo, Summon Cottaintail Rabbit, Summon Dart Frog, Summon Eagle Owl, Summon Elven Wisp, Summon Faeling, Summon Green Water Snake, Summon Island Frog, Summon Ribbon Snake, Summon Scarlet Snake, Summon Snowy Owl, Summon Spotted Rabbit, Summon White Plymouth Rock (??).

Hopefully I can keep this updated as I get more information. Most information was culled from WowHead, a little came from the great site, WarcraftPets.com.

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.

OT: Good News

Received the following today from Amazon.com:

We are writing to you today because you purchased a pre-order copy of 'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition.'

We are now able to offer Release-Date Delivery for this video game. This special delivery option is available to you for no additional charge and has been automatically applied to your order. Your copy of 'World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition' will arrive on Thursday, November 13th.

We realize that many of our customers are huge World of Warcraft fans, and we're happy to offer Release-Date Delivery to get this title to you even faster.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.

I Just Can't Wait

So the currently accepted timeline has the major patch coming out mid-October and Wrath is scheduled for November 13. This next major patch will introduce quite a few changes, including pet and mount "stables." And while browsing the new achievements and blue posts on the forums, I saw a post that references a unique mount if you have a certain number of mounts collected. At the current time, I don't have free bag space to go and start collecting these mounts - my pets take up that space. But with the patch, my pets will go away and mounts will be stabled. All I will have to do is go around finding them.

Since I'm already exalted with 22 factions, that means I can get the following mounts:

• Great Blue Elekk, Great Green Elekk, Great Purple Elekk, Brown Elekk, Gray Elekk, Purple Elekk
  
• Cobalt Riding and War Talbuk, Silver Riding and War Talbuk, Tan Riding and War Talbuk, White Riding and War Talbuk
  
• Swift Frostsaber, Swift Mistsaber, Swift Stormsaber, Spotted Frostsaber, Striped Frostaber, Striped Nightsaber
  
• Winterspring Frostsaber
  
• Swift Brewfest Ram, Brewfest Ram
  
• Swift Brown Ram, Swift Gray Ram, Swift White Ram, Brown Ram, Gray Ram, White Ram
  
• Swift Brown Steed, Swift Palomino, Swift White Steed, Brown Hose Bridle, Chestnut Mare Bridle, Pinto Bridle
  
• Swift Green Mechanostrider, Swift White Mechanostrider, Swift Yellow Mechanostrider, Blue Mechanostrider, Green Mechanostrider, Red Mechanostrider, Unpainted Mechanostrider
  
• Blue Riding Nether Ray, Green Riding Nether Ray, Purple Riding Nether Ray, Red Riding Nether Ray, Silver Riding Nether Ray
  
• Azure Netherwing Drake, Cobalt Netherwing Drake, Onyx Netherwing Drake, Purple Netherwing Drake, Veridian Netherwing Dake, Violet Netherwing Drake
  
• Swift Blue Gryphon, Swift Green Gryphon, Swift Purple Gryphon, Swift Red Gryphon, Ebon Gryphon, Golden Gryphon, Snowy Gryphon
  
• Plus any Battleground Mounts I might grind.
  
• Plus the Zhevra refer-a-friend mount I plan on getting soon.

So that's a total of 60 plus any battleground mounts and the zhevra. I wonder what the number of mounts will need to be for the special mount? 60? 70? It's a lot of money to go buy all those mounts up, but something I'd definitely love to do once I have the space.

Plus, being able to possibly create a macro to summon a random land or flying mount would be amazing.

Achievements, Part II

Rohan shared his thoughts on the subject already, but I thought I'd chime in as well. I absolutely hate the "World First" feats. At least they're not achievements, but I don't think anyone should be rewarded for these feats.

First gnome to 80? Who cares. First tailor to 425? Whoop-de-do. First player on the server to 80? Way to prove you can either a) take a week off work or b) take a week off school or even worse, c) share your account with others and power level.

If I see anyone running around sporting one of the "server first" titles, I'll just laugh a little on the inside. All the other achievements I have no problem with. Exalted with the Timbermaw? Sure, it takes time (a lot of time), but you can do a little here, a little there, but it doesn't take a week of straight playing.

Also, what does happen if someone gets seriously injured from sleep deprivation or too many energy drinks? I have an energy drink here or there, and when seeing the latest Batman film, I drank too many in a short period of time and I swear I thought my heart was going to explode (why I still continue to drink even a single one is a mystery...). So what does happen if someone drinks too many, goes into cardiac arrest, and dies - while trying to accomplish a feat that Blizzard set up in game? Could they be sued? Maybe. They are officially sanctioning the race to 80. They are saying - go for it - we know you'll play 24x7, but we don't care. You want to be the server first, congrats.

I doubt they'll change their mind about this, but in my opinion, it's probably one of the stupidest things they've done in a while. Let's hope they do go back and realize the mistake they've made.

An Update

((While I'm assuming readership of this blog, I figured I'd update it quickly. The move went off pretty well and I'm almost settled in. I'm figuring that once I finally get my computer set up in my room rather than it being in the spare room, I'll be playing more, but as it stands, I really haven't much time to play - it's been split between general household chores and fixing the house up.

In game, our Gold Team 25 man raids have been canceled permanently I believe as we had too many people saying they'd show up and then never make it. We also had a hacking issue which held us up and I'm not sure the group will get back together. From what I've heard we're going to go back to 10 mans and hopefully I'll be kept apprised of that move as I would love to be in a competent 10 man group once Wrath comes out.

From what I've been hearing, the good news is that when Wrath comes out, mages will return to their former glory days as the glass cannons, putting out the highest amount of damage on multiple targets (rogues supposedly can do the most damage to any single target foe).

On the pet front, I did not achieve my goal of getting the pet from Ahune. I was just too busy to have time to kill Ahune five times a day (I barely made it on more than a couple times over the past few weeks). New testing is now going on for the Hallow's Eve event and hopefully this year I can pick up my Siniter Squashling. Also, the pet from the World Wide Invitational in France is simply amazing - a pet Tyreal! Unfortunately, it's going for a bit too much on eBay. But now is my only chance if I want one. Murky and Gurky have passed me by...but how can I justify the cost??

Stay tuned, I'm hoping to get back into the game prior to Wrath, but it's just tough to find any reason to play. My gear cannot be upgraded outside of 25-mans, there are few recipes available to purchase on auction and only a couple pets I could grind and no faction rep to grind. Hopefully something will come along before Wrath to keep me interested. I've got thousands of gold and other than checking the daily fishing quest, there's just not much to do.))