The Star of My Team

So … I’ve been doing the Fabled Pets daily … pretty much daily. I think I missed the first couple of days when I realized I’d have to kill the whole circuit each day, but once I got teams made up to deal with them and got a route firmly set, it’s not so bad. I ran it last night after raid with no stops for anything else (other than picking up an Ancient Jinyu Staff out of the Slicky Steam near the caterpillar) and it took about 35 minutes.

In making the teams, it seemed like, since we’re only fighting a single opponent, the best strategy is to just load up on a trio of pets who are strong against its type. This gives us three teams since there are three types of pets to face. I gave them appropriate, if unimaginative, names: Aquatic Killers, Beast Killers, and Critter Killers. One pet ended up on all three teams.

The Dragonbone Hatchling.

I put him as the anchor on each team, figuring there will be some battles where the third pet doesn’t even get called in, and then if I am fighting a different kind of pet for the next battle, I won’t have to heal in between since he didn’t take damage. This lets me use fewer bandages.

His placement on the aquatic team goes without saying. Flying pets are strong against aquatics. This is the team that it makes the most sense for him to be on.

(Um, yeah, sorry about the fuzzy screen there. I’d just fished up some Darkmoon Special Reserve over at Stormstout Brewery.)

But what about the other teams? Why would I use a flying pet on them?

Well, beasts are weak against flying pets, and I don’t have 3 mechanicals leveled. Most of the time, the Clockwork Gnome and Pet Bombling get the job done on their own. Gorespine, though, tends to put them down with the bleed, so my little buddy often comes in for cleanup on him.

For critters, I change out his first ability, replacing Slicing Wind with Thrash, which of course is a beast ability and is strong against critters. Nitun is a pain, but thrash can put him under quickly. As a bonus, Nitun’s abilites are .. beast abilities! So they are all weak against the flyer.

(Averry, don’t worry about Mortimer, he’s … resting, yeah … he ate too much and needed a nap. He’ll be fine.)

To get your own Dragonbone Hatchling, just head to Dragonblight. They can be found in large numbers on the plains surrounding Wyrmrest Temple. Other pets that share the same abilities include the birds from the parrot family, the mini jousters from Hyjal, or the Fledgling Buzzard from Redridge.

Now all he needs is a name, it seems silly to have him be so important to my teams and not have one. Any suggestions?

(Yes, I am showing off Kirgra’s almost-done transmog at the same time here) :p

Oh yeah, as for the results of all these dailies … I have gotten either a battlestone, a pet, or sometimes even both, almost every day. I think there have only been 3 days when I didn’t get either one. I have gotten 4 Snowy Pandas, 3 Sunfur Pandas, and probably 8 stones. I didn’t keep track and I should have. Oops.

Obligatory Dark Portal Post #13*

*the actual number of toons who have passed through the portal may be different than stated

Ok, ok … enough with the cracking of whips, I’m working on her! Madorsa quested her way through Un’Goro Crater this weekend, finishing up her time in old Azeroth. She had stayed in the Eastern Kingdoms up until now, but I hadn’t seen the changes to this zone and wanted to find out for myself why some idiot human is yelling about dragons all the time. Seriously, Maximillian is worse than the Sha of Anger. And that quest … well, it’s silly, but I can’t say she didn’t enjoy riding around with him, especially the last part.

She did have to spend the last level and a half in the Blasted Lands, which was ok because she needed more runecloth and a lot more enchant mats to get her professions up to Outland mats. Averry had sent me a full mail of mageweave to get me past that hump (thanks again that was super awesome!), but I didn’t want to bother him for the runecloth as it is easy enough to farm. So I sent the DK on a mission to Blackrock Spire. She ran upper to get the attunement for BWL, zoned out to sell things on the mammoth, then ran lower. That gave me a ton of cloth and, well, a few greens. I finished up the tailoring but was still far short on the enchanting, so I sent her back out … first to MC which was a complete waste of time other than one pet, and then to AQ easy. That was reasonably productive but geez … there just aren’t enough green drops. I gave up for the time being and sent Madorsa to Outland.

Kal’gore is shy and refused to face the camera. Voidwalkers … *rolleyes*

Hellfire was not too badly crowded and I wandered around doing quests until 60. Then I headed to Zangarmarsh and CRZ hit me square in the face. The first quests are rough even with no competition, but with at least 6 other characters also trying to kill the same mobs? Mayhem. Or, rather … a whole lot of standing around looking at a village full of corpses. I mean, the witchdoctors were always scarce compared to the other mobs. And once I did get through that, the next place is the cave where you kill bog beasts that are attacking sporelings. Yeah … I literally spent 45 minutes running circles in that place. Respawns died as fast as they spawned. Exactly WHY do they want the leveling process to be so painful? I don’t want the world to feel more populated, I want to be able to kill what I need and move on! Eff CRZ!!

*ahem* Anyway … I moved back to Hellfire for a little bit until I hit 61 and got a quest to head to Swamprat Post, where I could pick up several quests that weren’t concentrated in a small area. I think now that I have the freedom to move around the map it will be better. It was time for LBR though, and as luck would have it, the schedule this week was AQ! There were only 3 of us, but Flags and Cain were nice enough to carry Madorsa through the first one. I swapped to Kirgra for 40 though … it would be tough keeping a level 60 alive in there. I got a few mats, not as much as I was hoping but it did help. Supplemented by the AH, I managed to get Madorsa’s enchanting to 300 before logging for the night.

What’s Going On

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a rambly thing like this. Then again, it’s been awhile since I’ve felt like I had anything to talk about other than boss kills. It’s not like I haven’t been playing, it’s just not interesting to talk about grinding dailies, or document every single flawless battle stone that I receive. (Actually, that part wouldn’t amount to very many posts … those things just do not drop very often.)

On Drak, I’ve mostly just done dailies with Van, although recently he has ventured into LFR since it’s the only way he’s going to complete his Sigils of Wisdom. Kash drug me along a couple of weeks ago to her Friday night LFR, and I’ve sorta just made plans to leave Friday evenings open for that since we have so much fun together. Dyle made the trip to Pandaria, but he hasn’t gotten very far yet. I should really get him to the Valley so he can start making Imperial Silk … I need that moth!

On Winterhoof, Kerick finally hit the ilevel for LFR with the necklace from the holiday boss, so he’s been running MSV. He’s gotten the helm, several cloaks, and the shield so far. Kaly has been busy leveling and is halfway through level 88. I need to get him to 90 for a screenshot that I have planned, and he also needs to funnel some more ghost iron bars to Kerick so he can finish his blacksmithing.

Most of my non-raid time lately though has been spent on Kargath. (I really need to update the armory links on the sidebar eh?) Madorsa has been leveling steadily. She recently hit 50, and Averry sent her some shiny new glyphs, so now she can play locktank when she wants to. I’ve had so much fun with her there, that I took my baby mage and made a bank guild. (Special super big thanks to Grom, Bocat, and Lyssi for helping me out with charter sigs!) That’s not all though … I also deleted my level 60 DK and transferred Futara over from Firetree. She was renamed Kirgra and has been blasting full speed through the Cata zones. Last night she whirled through part of Uldum, moved on to Twilight Highlands, and ended the night at the Crucible of Carnage with Averry’s assistance. (I am kicking myself this morning for not taking a few screenshots) The weapon will literally only last for a couple of hours until she heads off to Pandaria (she’s at 83% right now) but it was a huge chunk of xp and a lot of fun. Oh yeah, there’s also a baby monk there that you will be hearing more about soon.

So that’s mostly what I’ve been up to. I’ll be out for the next week geeking it up in FL with the SR crew. (Florida, not Firelands!) So, no posts next week, but there will be awesomeness the week after so come back then!