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.

CRZ Rawr

When we last left Madorsa, Averry had just run her through dungeons in Zangarmarsh so she could escape having to wait for respawns because of the overcrowded climate caused by Cross Realm Zones.

She moved over to Terrokar, and the questing was a little better at first. She had her choice of killing Arakkoa in two places, Blood Elves at Firewing Point, Orcs at a couple of different places, or wolves and warpstalkers in between. This goes well when you have so many options. Where it doesn’t go well, is when you have cleared up a couple of those and have no choice but to watch in despair as 5 or 6 other people camp spawns and tag everything as soon as it pops.

I managed to get her to 65 and then I just couldn’t take any more. I found myself looking at her on the login screen and just exiting the game rather than attempting to do anything. I had to find a way to get past this. I think if I had it to do over again, I’d have gone ahead and just leveled on Drak, PvP flag be damned. At least then I could take out my frustrations on the Alliance who are in my way killing my quest mobs.

So yesterday, I decided to take her back to Azeroth for some archaeology and pet battles. Hey, xp is xp. Averry has been trying to convince me that dps queue times for dungeons aren’t too bad, as his monk isn’t too far ahead of me in levels and recently went through all the same dungeons I would be doing. But … the thought of doing them as dps just … I mean … I *know* it doesn’t make sense to be more scared of doing dungeons as dps than I would be if I were tanking or healing, but … I never claimed to be normal.

I got almost a full level, plus got my arch up over 225 AND got a flawless battlestone. Then I had to log over to Kerick for LBR. So while I’m doing that, Averry starts texting me, asking what level I am now and when I tell him, he proposes hitting up the Auchindoun dungeons later. I’m like … yay! So after LBR I finished getting to 66 while I waited for him to log on, then we went and did all four of those dungeons.

That got me to 67, and I figured that we were done. But he’s all like … what can we hit next? Um … well, I just had Steamvaults and Botanica unlock. So he says ok let’s go to Netherstorm and starts to fly off.

Um … you know I have slow flying, right?

Just hit up the flight path.

Yeah … I don’t have any flight paths there, they removed automatic flight path learning in the last patch.

So he gave me a ride. But … we forgot about that fun little CRZ 2 person mount bug. As soon as we crossed the line into Hellfire, I was disconnected. When I reconnected, I was falling, and landed right on Razorthorn Shelf, amidst a crowd of level 70+ flayers. Not even a youngling spawn to make it worth it. Of course, I panicked and forgot all about my damage reduction abilities, of which there are many. So I died. I was ready after that to just fly on my own across the twisting nether, but he insisted we just go the long way around and, with him staying close to the ground as we crossed borders, we managed to not have me dismounted again, although I was disconnected twice more. Riding from Zangarmarsh into Blade’s Edge through the tunnel didn’t dc me though.

Finally we arrived at Tempest Keep, and hit up Mechanar, Botanica, and the Arcatraz. I dinged 68 before Arc, but since we were there we did it anyway. Plus, I think Averry was having fun gathering as many mobs as he could and seeing how nice of a pile he could make with them. I got quests to complete in every dungeon we did except for Shadow Labs. Now I’m ready to hit Northrend, and I think I got enough mats to level my professions up to 350 or so. I know I have enough cloth at least.

Cross your fingers and pray that Northrend leveling will be better. At least there I have more than one zone to choose from per level. I may bounce back and forth.
And thanks again Averry, that was a wonderful suggestion and a great time getting me through those levels. You rock. 😀

The Tranquil Master

Chalk up another server first for SR as we went in last night and cleanly put down the Sha of Fear (lol) on our second attempt.

As usual, Arv has a better writeup already posted, so go over there and check that out, too. 🙂

Left to right: Zarm kitty, Wok, Lyssianna, Liyhe, Vanicus, Shadeey, Arvash, Zugzuug, Sorak, and Adoe.

Don’t ask me about Horridon, just … don’t.

Just Hanging Around

I forgot I took these the other day when Kaly was on Isle of Giants. He found the vendor and bought some of the items that let you disguise yourself as a direhorn hatchling for 10 minutes.

Yeah, those devilsaurs are not to be messed with. I came very close to killing the one hatchling that I pulled, but they require some concentration and paying attention to mechanics and stacks and whatnot. The direhorn babies I can eat a sandwich, chat with friends, pet the dog, etc. and never have to move or worry about dying as long as the dog keeps rolling on the keyboard. (Note: this works best if you keybind death strike to most of the buttons.)

As far as warlock news goes, she is more than halfway through Outland. The pains of CRZ Zangarmarsh were quickly left behind on Monday … with a little help from Averry.

(awwwww I can *just* see Mortimer flying there on the edge of the screen trying to keep up with us)

One Slave Pens and a couple of Underbogs put her well into 63, and a few quests last night before raid easily got her to 64.