The other night in raid, Fayle commented again how he never sees his sword proc so I said I could fix that for him. So here, exposed in front of the entire intarwebs, is Fayle’s worm.

Don’t like that one? Here, have another.

Buncha pervs.

Yes, I made a conscious effort last night to remember to use my Angry Man. Unfortunately, I concentrated so hard on Moorabi that I was too slow on the interrupt. Oops.

Either Brann is wimpier than I remember or I completely missed a mob .. or two, or four .. because the little bitch went and got himself killed. It’s hard to pick up lots of adds when you can’t really use consecration (it’s got a long cooldown and takes half your mana as ret) and you can’t throw your shield. So I have holy wrath every 15 seconds and divine storm, which is also a bit of a mana hog. It’s doable but I need more practice at picking up adds in that spec … I could do it with my eyes closed on my DKs! I said fuck it and hearthed out after he was dead.

The guide I was using had two sections, one for Northrend which mentioned the dungeons in it, and one for the dungeon dudes separately. Well, I was going by the Northrend section and it had left out Utgarde Keep, so I had to go BACK to the Fjord to get that one.

Yay. Two paladins down, one to go. And now Van only has one more holiday to do to get his Violet Proto and Master Flight.

I called it after getting that last elder and didn’t bother to finish UK. Hope that didn’t bore you too much. I promise to have something special for you tomorrow!

I started in Nexus, and since the elder is over by the crystal giant guy, I ran it counter-clockwise like we used to do back on Earthen Ring. I figured I’d get the elder first, that way if heroic proved to be too much of a challenge, I could just leave after that. Well, apparently my ret skills have improved since I was in here getting a winter hat during Winter Veil, because I remember it being harder than it was last night.

I missed Split Personality but it should be easy enough to get. I just managed to knock off one of them right before the other did a time stop. Oops.

Was that always here? I don’t remember it.

Keri was a pushover, thanks to my ability to remove movement impairing debuffs from myself. On to AZN!

I first tried Watch Him Die by just bum rushing him and throwing everything at him. I came close. On subsequent tries, I worked on killing the little dudes before pulling the boss, but it was apparent that I would be web wrapped and killed before I could accomplish that. In retrospect, I should have just tried bum rushing him again and tried to eke out even more dps. I always forget about my Guardian. It might have been enough to push him over. Oh well. I also didn’t get Hadronox Denied and I’m not sure why, because I was certain I pulled her fast enough.

Remember when that achievement was one of the most difficult ones to get?

UP. Svala is a … well, there doesn’t appear to be a way to even defeat her when you get chained. I’m sure there probably is but I wasn’t up for researching methods. So I skipped her, and skipped past the trophy room as well since I didn’t need it. I can come back later with a helper.

Yeah! I showed Skadi who’s the boss, and nabbed both achievements off of him. No drake though, of course.

Yeah, missing the achievement for heroic since I skipped bosses. Sigh.

End the night laying some smackdown on some trolls in DTK? You betcha.

I wasn’t sure I could do Novos because I didn’t know what the Crystal Handlers would do when he summoned them. As it turns out, they just come strolling on up the stairs to greet you, so it was easysauce.

Dred, on the other hand … maybe if I was holy I could do it. But the multiple bleeds from pulling all the small raptors with him and especially the Grievous Bite that causes you to bleed until fully healed were too much to handle at once. I came back and of course the little ones stay dead so I just killed him without the cheeve.

There, that should fulfill my quota of screenshots for the week, eh? I still have to do elders in Gundrak and Halls of OmgBrannHurryTheFuckUp, so there will be more coming.

Well, for starters, you replace the rogue permanently with a well-dressed, meter-topping shadow priest.

(Insert screenie of Bocat here. HOW is it possible that I have NO screenshots of her? Really?? Must rectify soon.)

And, at least for one weekend, you replace the missing dorf chick with … another hot dorf chick!

This isn’t just any old dwarf though … it’s our favorite Mohawk Troll moonlighting on the Alliance side. Hey, if I can have multiple paladins, he  can have multiple shaman!

We actually had a pretty good week, despite the holes in our roster.  Friday night our OT/dps was sick, but Grom handled those duties very well.  So we got another spriest to cover the open dps slot. Then Ado’s computer got sick, so we had a ret pally from the guild fill in. Now, if you’re keeping count, we already have 2 priests and 2 paladins on the regular roster … so adding another of each meant we had SIX slots on the same token for the night.  There’s a reason I always joke that we should change the guild name to Priests and Pallies. We got to Ultradragon but called it there for the night.

Saturday we got Ado back. Still had Grom OT. But we got Cael to bring in his lock. We made quick work of Ultra and moved on to our progression fight of the gunship. We didn’t get it down, but we made steady progress and were getting to phase 2 regularly. So I think it won’t be long before we manage to kill it. We actually were one tanking it, which seems to be doable with a bear tank who can dodge a lot of the stacks.

(…wanders away to look at the armory for a minute … Arv, you have 171 pets? WTF dude?? …comes back)

So last night I logged on and did my usual routine … JC daily, collect my gold and unsold auctions, repost stuff to keep the gold flowing, and check for CtA. Afterwards I was like, what the hell, yesterday’s conversation got me thinking about getting this mount thing done, so let’s head to Outland. When Anzu doesn’t drop, I can always go grind ogres in Nagrand, amirite?

Dude, I can’t even make this stuff up. It’s too crazy to be true.  But … well, here …

Yes, Arv is my witness. I can almost always count on him being online when something awesome happens.

And ya know … there really couldn’t be a more appropriate mount for magic number 100 … after all, the whole ‘going to not get Anzu’ has been a running joke in SR for as long as I’ve been there. Cayle and Ado both used to do daily runs to get one. Arv and Cayle would drive the entire raid nuts sitting in front of Beth on their birds hitting spacebar simultaneously so the damn things would both let out that horrid screech in stereo.

Screenshot taken. Let’s go collect our prize. I suppose I could have hearthed, but I’m glad I didn’t, because I think he looks pretty awesome flying above Shattrath.

Okie doke. We’ve got our Mountain O’ Mounts. What next ? Hmm …. Arv you have way too many cheese points. I’m not gonna try to catch that. Maybe I can beat you to Loremaster though! Ewww… ouch. That’s gonna take serious work, you have a humongous head start.

You guys remember how I insisted that my shield be crafted by Arv way back when Van first hit 85? (zomg I totally forgot Van used to have red hair!) Well, I’ve missed having my Arvash Awesomeness equipped since Beth dropped her shield somewhere in mid-Firelands. So the other night Lyssi and Fayle were talking about getting things crafted before selling off the guild’s supply of .. whatever the purple crafting thing is from Dragon Soul. Essence of Destruction? Yeah, that. And despite the fact that I have 397 bracers already, I know that there are crafted ones that have an extra socket and will give me more intellect. So I’m like .. uh … me me me! So they hook me up with mats and an enchant and I go begging to Arv to please make them for me.

Lovely. It’s quite nice to have <Made by Arvash> stamped on my gear again. Wut? …. yes, I know I’m weird. Shut up!

… and Mount 99

So last night after calling it at Madness, I twisted a few arms and got Ado, Arv, Cayle, and Chewy to go with me to HoO to get my last Cata heroic achievement for the meta. They deserve extra thanks for patiently enduring several near misses resulting in called wipes. But we managed to finally get it done.

Having two tanks certainly helped, although it’s not entirely necessary. They do get the snakes to stick to them a lot easier though.

Not pictured is mount number 98, which was acquired earlier in the evening when Van blew some gold on a Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth. Yes, that’s right, he made back the money from his Sandstone Drake mats so fast that I went and spent again. Not sure what 100 is going to be. It’s going to take either luck or work to get. I think I will make enough tickets at the next Faire to buy a bear. I could also do more Tourney Dailies or TB Dailies, or grind out some Mag’har or Cenarion Expedition rep. Or not get Anzu some more. I’ve kinda slacked off on that. At least that stuff is all in Outland, so I can be working on rep and drops at the same time. Or I could keep fishing for the Dark Herring and maybe get a Sea Turtle. Ooh, or I could dig up a Fossilized Raptor. Or I could just  be lazy and hope I get something in a CtA bag.

Navimie over at The Daily Frostwolf recently celebrated her blogiversary. As a part of that celebration, she sent a gift to everyone who wished her a happy one. Hey, wait a minute … shouldn’t WE be the ones sending gifts to HER?

Anyway, being the silly goose that she is, she has to be different, and I’m certainly not going to complain about that! She sent me this really awesome poem, and I got permission from her to post it. I am not changing a thing, so here it is, word for word.

Ode to the Grind

Reputation Grind is a blog I read,
It’s quirky fun, oh yes indeed
If it’s your first time, you will be amused
But you also might get a bit confused

So many alts, I don’t know who’s who
There’s Arelin, Rozjin, Kerick too
Dyle, Junahu, Futura, Vanicus
Ragle, Sanbec, Kalyon, Karyus.

And then all his guildies!  So many stories!
Arv is that one who prances like ponies
Sorak’s a tank, And so is that Cayle
I wonder why, his nickname is Fayle?

If you go look what’s on his side bar,
He’s listed all loots, that he’s got so far
From Call to arms – my god, there are heaps!
Guess he queues heals, and not as a deeps.

This week he got TWO green proto-drakes
Gimme his dice, for goodness sakes!
He’s got a seahorse, a Vial of the Sands,
If only I could take them off his hands

You might not know, but coz u dropped by
On my birthday post, I pledged that I
Would make a gift for every one
Who left a note.  It’s just for fun.

So this silly rhyme I made for you
Just my small way to say thanks too
Keep up the work, I would like to hear
What other stuff u get up to this year.

EPIC. I had to stop reading at that line about Arv and roll on the floor for awhile. And yes, I did clarify the gender thing after the fact, so don’t make fun of her for not knowing. It’s not like I make it obvious, with all my boy toy toons! ^.^

The real question is …

Does Kerick look better on THIS side of the doorway …

or does he look better on the OTHER side …

?

Dear Slice, Sorak, Ado and Shady … you guys have NO idea how much fun you missed out on Saturday night. We had a blast. (Pun fully intended.) And no, this is not me being sarcastic (for once). We really did have a great time.

Zone in to find myself standing at the top of the stairs to Baron Ashbury in SFK. I like to use the ‘random Cataclysm heroic’ choice instead of just doing the new ones because I get tired of the same three dungeons. It will oftentimes throw me into one of those anyway, but sometimes I get some variety. So we stand around for a bit while the tank does .. whatever he’s doing in Dalaran with his 126k health pool. Apparently he swapped specs somewhere in there because he had 145k by the time he zoned in. The lock and I are trying to summon cookies, and the others stand around with their fingers in their noses even when we say ‘click please’. The tank says ‘we ready?’ right after that (without clicking) and promptly runs down and pulls. You can see where this is going ya? No one interrupts Stay of Execution and the tank himself pipes up ‘you need to interrupt that.’ Orly? ‘You have an interrupt too’ I point out. SO on the next one, he interrupts it right away. Genius.

Anyhow, we kill Baron and move back up the stairs. The lock and I are patiently waiting for dude to pull a big guy up the stairs to us when I see that he is dying. I run to the door and he is halfway across the courtyard fighting half the room. WTF?? I get feared before I can get him healed back up and he dies. We wipe. On the way back in I say ‘You need to pull the big guys one at a time back up the stairs into the room so they don’t fear everyone into other adds.’ A vote to kick is initiated and fail DK goes bye bye.

We wait in queue for almost 10 full minutes. Seriously. I can understand having the new dungeons be queued separately, but man, if you need to run something below it … the queue sucks! Finally we got a bear. A very good bear. Who pulled the courtyard, then paused and said ‘You guys aren’t doing enough dps. This is going to take too long.’ And dropped group. Fuuuuuuuuu………..Ok sure, the lock and hunter are doing 5k each. I know that’s crappy. But the rogue had been afk for the entire time the bear was in the party. Oh well. Queue for a replacement!

This time the wait is very short, and we get a troll warrior. He takes one look at the doorway to the kitchen and says ‘If you want this boss I know an easier way. Follow me!’ and heads up the ramp. Okie doke! One trash pull before the stairway down to .. what’s the second dude’s name again? I’m blanking. Is it Silverlaine? Oh well … we finally kick the afk rogue and pick up a kitty. Tank pulls the boss up the stairs to us and we’re on our way. The hunter wanted to do all the bosses, so … yeah, Commander Springvale when the dps is low and they only kill the first set of adds is … sigh. I think there might have been 5 adds up at one point. Fight took 5 and a half minutes and I used every cooldown I had and used all of my mana but we won. The tank was excellent, and I joked later about him not letting me have any fun with Holy Wrath because he always kept everything stunned himself with Shockwave.

By the time it was over it was raid time and I had been in there a full hour. But this time … the satchel was worth the effort I put in. It had this in it …

So yeah, in the course of three days, both Kerick and Van have their green protos and I can forget about the eggs.

The raid was called an hour early, so afterwards, I suggested working on the heroic achievements I still need. It’s great to have helpful friends. I got four other people to go and we banged out three of the four that I needed. We tried the fourth but did it wrong, so we’ll have to go back, but now we know what to do. We wiped up three times on the first one trying to get it right, and they still wanted to do the rest! So … Arv, Cayle, Stunnah, and Zari … Thank You! You guys are awesome.

I used to beg Arv to buy me a bike. One day I caught one for a good price on the AH though and that put an end to that.

So I switched my wish list to a sand drake and have been bugging him for one of those ever since. I constantly tease him about it, and he counters by telling me he can’t afford it .. and follows that with how close he is to getting a million gold. >.<

Van's little bit of pocket change has been growing steadily … actually, it's been increasing ever so much faster now that the mule and his other cronies are off playing in space. Arv and I have the gem market to ourselves now more or less and we've taken full advantage of that fact. So when my 'huge' bankroll hit 60k, I decided to see just how close I was to getting the mats I need. Let's see … I have the recipe. I have 10 truegold. Over the course of another week or so, I checked the AH for cheap volatiles to transmute another truegold, and bought the final bar when some showed up for only 400g each. Then it was on to the flasks. I bought a few herbs, but I sent my mage out to grab most of what I needed. Not paying 50g for a stack of herbs when I can farm a stack myself in 10 minutes. I had a stack of albino catfish stashed away, so I turned all of those into Deepstone Oil and am selling the leftovers on the AH.

I made the flask on Sunday and saved it to use last night before the raid, when everyone was on to see it. And of course, to make sure that Arv got the first ride.

Ouch! Hey, are those spurs you’re wearing?!?

Sooo …… now that I’ve got my sand drake, I need something else to try to get Arv to buy for me. Hmm ……oooh, I know!

ARV .. buy me a seahorse ^.^