Raiding the Core

So, I dunno what the deal is with the queue for plate wearing dps to get into the Molten Core LFR. Over the weekend I spent well over an hour in queue several times without ever getting in, while a guildy would queue up on a non-plate character and get in within 10 minutes or less. Two other plate-bearing guildmates were also complaining about sitting in queue forever without it ever popping. Last night though, I queued up right away after sending my followers out on missions, and before I could figure out how to beat the pets visiting my menagerie, the queue popped. I almost fell out of my chair. Wuhhhhhh? I mean, I seriously was not expecting it.

I had heard plenty of horror stories in guild chat about how horrible it was. I know from experience that LFR itself can be all sorts of frustration. I also know, however, that it can be a hilariously good time. It just depends on the group you get. This group, fortunately, fell on the fun side. We cleared up to Baron Geddon with little to no difficulty. There was laughter and joking about dps = dispels per second. There were comments that we would surely wipe unless everyone had their molten corgi out, so of course, we had a virtual army of fiery little dogs dragging their butts through the raid.

Things did go a bit sideways once we passed through the tunnel to the Baron’s area, though. Once we managed to clear trash without pulling the boss at the same time, however, we got through it alright. Until we got to the next little bridge with the pack on the other side and the core hound that patrols. Eventually we managed to get everyone to hang back while the tank waited for the dog to pat away, ran halfway across the bridge, tossed his shield into the pack, and drew them all to our side of the bridge. The rest after that, as someone in raid chat pointed out, was cake.

One of the other paladins had some toy that puts a beam between himself and another player. So of course, he put one on every single person in the raid. It made for quite the light show as we traveled to Rag’s chamber.

And then we were there. I gotta admit, Rag’s speech seemed a lot more impressive with 39 other people there, compared to when I solo the original version.

At one point, the fight paused, and I thought it was over until all of these sons of flame came out. Wait, what? I had never fought him at the original intended level, I had always been there on a higher level character and killed him before he summoned adds, so I totally forgot that even happened. I mean, I should have known, given all the time we had spent working on him in Firelands, but I just didn’t make the connection until it actually happened. Soon, though, he really was down.

I didn’t get the pet, but I was happy with my new helm and mount. Maybe I’ll go back again to try for the pet.

Ding 100

Yeah, so, WoD is so engaging that I didn’t even get a shot of Van dinging 100 because I was so caught up in the quest text. So I give you a shot of him and his girlfriend Vivianne instead.

Our server is low enough population that it wasn’t affected by queues, although of course it was still affected by the lag and other issues that happened. I was quite surprised by how fast the leveling actually went, but it’s not a bad thing. I mean, it did take me four days of 8 to 12 hours of playtime each day. And I finished dang near everything in Frostfire Ridge, maxed my archaeology, and collected enough pets to get the 600 unique pets achievement. So I wasn’t straight-up focusing on efficient leveling at all.

Things that I like about WoD …

The rare mobs that drop garrison resources and other items are very cool. That fact that everyone who helps kill it gets loot is cool. Personalized loot is so very cool. And if you get there too late, well, they respawn fast.

Randomly upgraded quest rewards and drops. So awesome.

Riding. Yes, I said it. I picked out a couple of favorite horses to put on my bar, and then changed one of them out for the ocher bone pony once Vivi started travelling with me so we would match. Flying is good and all, but I am thoroughly enjoying being grounded. I’m sure I’m in the minority here but so be it.

Garrisons. I love collecting followers. I love sending them out on missions. I love visiting them at my garrison.

I love all of these things so much that they make me want to level more characters so that they, too, can collect rare mob kills, and gear upgrades, and followers. So I’ve already gotten my second garrison up and running. Yeah … and I haven’t even started an Alliance one yet, either! I will have to force myself to play one of my newly uglified humans.

I haven’t really put any effort into professions yet (aside from archaeology, which they made EVEN EASIER) so I have no comment on those right now.

This is it!

Only hours to go now before Warlords of Draenor. I’m … well, I’m excited, but not in the same way as I have been for past expansions. I’m taking a more relaxed approach this time, much as I did back when Wrath dropped … before I got involved in that whole raiding business. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed raiding, and made a lot of friends through it. But I am completely ready to just be casual and go at whatever pace I want to set for myself.

I don’t even know who I am going to level first. Van has been my main for something like an expansion and two-thirds now. If I was raiding, well, he would almost certainly be the no-brainer choice. Since I’m only going LFR now, I’m not locked into a choice. And, honestly, even if I was, it seems like they have healers already and I would be reasonably free to choose another dps character if I wanted. So the choice now is really … who do I want to do ALL OF TEH THINGS? You see, even though I am very much an altoholic, I do tend to have one character who gets played the most and goes through all of the quests and reputations. Like for instance, I only had two characters out of 15 at max level who finished unlocking all of Sunsong Ranch. Van was the only character who finished every quest in Pandaria. I only had one character on each faction who completed the Warsong Offensive/Operation Shieldwall storyline. So it’s a bit of an important decision in some ways.

Ok, so Van seems like a good choice. He’s got the best gear, he did the most in the last two expansions, I know I like playing him. But … the blood elves don’t have new models yet. So I’d be playing an old one. And what if, when the new models DO come out, I don’t like them? It could happen. I mean, look at what they did to humans. If that happens, well … I already plan to make one of my three male blood elf paladins into a female tauren. But I will wait until the models come out to decide which one, if it’s going to be the one that I play, or one that’s further down in the alt hierarchy.

Junahu, my Tauren huntress, would be a good choice too. She was my first character, leading the way into Wrath, my first expansion. She did Loremaster back before Cata revamped it and made it easier to accomplish … or at least made it easier to track and eliminated the travel between continents to do a single questline. She collected all of the trackable pets in Mists, has all of the spirit beasts from Wrath, and certainly has her eye on some new hunter pets in Draenor.

Of course, I don’t HAVE to choose someone that I have played a lot. Heck, I could do something crazy like let everyone else go jam up the starting areas while I go back to Pandaria and get the last two levels on Vorta so that she can prowl around Draenor in cat form.

Camouflage kitty!

After all, if I’m not raiding, I have all the time in the world to level. I just have to get one character to 100 by the end of the year so that I can do Molten Core LFR and get a core hound mount. Priorities! 🙂

Rainbow Goblins

So, last night, after getting my daily win in Hearthstone, I decided I felt like chewing through some demons. So I loaded up my seasonal D3 character. She was somewhere in Act II at like level 24 or thereabouts. I was having so much fun by the time I finished Act II that I decided to keep going. It was near the end of my playtime when, as I was descending towards the Heart of Sin, I saw a bright, rainbow-coloured treasure goblin. Wuh??? When I killed it, it left a portal behind!

You know where that goes, right? Pony smashing tiem!

Those fancy goblins must be new as of the last big patch or something. I think it’s really awesome that there is a way to get there without having to craft that staff.

I’ve had a good time with the seasonal thing. I’m going just on normal difficulty because, well … MY enjoyment of the game comes from the simple pleasure of grinding through mobs. I don’t want it to be challenging, I don’t want to die, and I don’t care if that means I get a smaller chance at drops. That’s not really what I’m there for. I may try to finish leveling her over the next two nights so that I can call her done before the next season starts up and I have to start over.