It’s rainin’ cats and.. cats. Hehe. See what ah did there? … don’t look at me like that… No even a wee laugh? Bah.

Ugh, I’m always soooo late about posting stuff. Ergh, oh well. So, I was reading Bre’s post on the competition and noticed a name left by Fikkle. Monsoon. Monsoon… Totally fell in love with the name and, handily, Bre decided to go for something else so I just damn well pickpocketed it right from her comments! So, Dryn’s new kitty-cat is now named Monsoon. Thanks to everyone else who suggested names!

And she’s level 63! What a pretty kitty - look at those eyes (and yay for transporter Malfunctions). Also, I’ve found a very fun place to level her - I need Fel Armaments / Marks and I can fight the mobs for them without my kitty having to get squished! It’s a nice spot in SMV at Legion Hold and normally a good grinding area because of the fast respawns and 8 out of the 12 mobs (around the three pillars) can be killed by a hunter from the ramparts around them - more if you have the range boost talent. Just remember to take lots of bandages!

After a night in Mount Hyjal, beating the unmentionables out of some over-confidant demon types ah’m feelin’ a wee bit better. In fact, a got around tae processin’ some pictures ah managed tae take this week…

So, some shiny pictures since the last post lacked them and possibly because I currently have the writing capacity of a badly trained gecko. A series of vignettes we’ll call it and that’ll make it all proper and fancy…

What could possibly be better than three shamans kicking ass together? Why, four of course!

Surely nothing could beat that? Oh wait, how about four shamans in a group where one is your tank?

The illustrious “A” has made a project of grabbing all of the tanking gear he can when noone else wanted it and was keen to test it out - ok, so it was only BF but bigger things shall come soon enough! He is a man-with-a-plan (he’s the one at the very bottom of the picture here).

On that note - see those shoulders? They make me cry because of their oogleh-ness. /cry

And bestest for last…

Softi has been drafted into Lightwalkers! /hugs for the doomkin!

4 comments

Wow, this week feels like it’s been hellishly busy…. and it’s only Wednesday! I feel like I’ve abandoned my poor little blog (despite posting a long post only a few days ago) and feel like I could use some writing therapy. I can’t even bring myself to do a little starter blurb or images this time so it’s just text-spam I’m afraid. I’ll try and make it pretty text-spam though.

So, what have I been up to?

Raiding, instancing, boosting, buying.

First of all, though, you’re going to get some recruitment spam!

Recruitment

Lightwalkers on Bloodhoof (EU) are actively looking for the following:

• 1-2 Resto Druids
• 1-2 Mages
• 1 Warlock, possibly 2
• 1 Holy pally, possibly 2

We would consider a good application from:

• 1 Elemental Shaman
• 1 Boomkin Druid

To quote the guild recruitment post:

“We’re looking for people that enjoy both raiding as well as the social aspect of the game in a stable, mature guild community, who are interested in reliably attending 3 progress raids every week, know and like their class, can handle constructive criticism when it’s needed, and come to the raids with the neccessary preparation (buffs, tactics, etc)”

You can find the website and more information at lightwalkers.net. We’ve lost a few raiders due to summer attrition and general game-apathy so we’re looking to bolster our ranks with some eager new members!

Raiding

This week my schedule looks like this: Mon: SSC, Tues: ZA, Wed: Kara, Thurs: MH, Fri: who knows. ._.! I’ll be exhausted. I usually only raid 2/3 nights so this, plus the fact I jumped in as backup last Sunday means I’ve been raiding a bit above my normal limit. Ah well!

Instancing / Boosting

Well despite my diatribe about boosting I’ve been doing and taking a lot of it this week. Myself and A (previously mentioned!) have been boosting each others alts - sometimes with the pleasant company of Softii - Softthistle’s new ferlol druid. Almost every night we’ve been hitting ZF / SM / RFD and my little druids gear is quite spiffy considering her level!

Buying

I couldn’t sleep last Sunday night so I was reading up on gear for my new baby-druid. I’d been looking to buy a few things ahead of time as no doubt when I wanted something later it’d be pricey or non-existant on the AH. I was trawling through Wowhead and found this little pretty: [Warden Staff]. OMNOMNOMNOM. So, feeling a little tired and icky I did myself some retail-therapy and hit the AH. I was in luck - 200g buyout. *yoink* Mine! It’s a pretty staff and I’ve stuck +35 agi on it (cheaper and easier to get than the pre-tbc one for me…) so my little druid is looking very twinked out. Add to that some very nice boost drops and craftables and my little tank is sitting pretty with a hefty chunk of def / armor / stamina.

Now I just need to find some groups. *ahem*

Grinding

Have you ever heard anyone complaining about not having enough grinding time? Well, that’s what I’m doing now! Because of all the extra raiding etc. I’ve ended up low on consumables, crafting mats etc. I also haven’t had time to touch my hunter and kitty or level my druid outside of boosts. Today, though, I spent a long time fishing and shooting at some bog giants to replenish my stocks and get the primals I still needed for my shadow res cloak.

And on a totally different note..

I’ve been made a guild admin in Lightwalkers. I’m happy but somewhat terrified - new responsibilities and a lot of learning in my future but I love the guild dearly and I hope I can make them proud of me!

Each an’ every place I’ve been to has it’s own unique flavor. Some seem harder for me tae do, some harder for mah friends. It’s all aboot what skills ye can utilise at the time, ‘ken? Some o’ us are blessed wi’ sneakery and skills which are useful - others bring a solid, big lump o’ ‘presence’ tae any adventurin’ party and yet others, well, they bring ways tae benefit the group. Now, in mah mind, ah’d rather go wi’ someone ah knew and trust than just someone wi’ a trick up their sleeve but maybe that’s jist me.

This is not a whine, nor a ’screw you instance designers’ post - it is simply a look at how Blizzard have been moving forward with their instance design, how that can affect which instances are ‘unfair’ given certain class combinations and what ways there are to get around this. Initially this was, as you might suspect, a post I had started thinking about when Magister’s Terrace first came out but I believe it is, has been and will continue to be relevant for The Burning Crusade and Wrath expansions.

First of all, we have to look at what instances are for. They are there to give us a challenge, to go beyond the level of the world quests and grind and, with a group, have some fun or at least experience something different.

So, what’s the ‘problem’? Well, first of all a group comprises of five people. Out of 9 (soon 10) classes you can only have a small selection - which means lacking the key abilities of any classes you do not bring with you. This, to get rid of the big loomy thing, includes, but is not limited to, crowd control (including off-tanking) as well as AoE (tanking and damage), anti-crowd control (fear ward, tremor totem), HoTs, specific damage reduction (heavy melee dmg versus heavy magic encounters) and debuffs (wounding poison, mortal strike abilities).

Some examples where class-specific abilites are extremely beneficial:

• Shattered Halls - Paladin AoE tanking.
• Mana Tombs - Tremor totems / grounding totem.
• Steam Vaults - Multiple crowd control.
• Magister’s Terrace - Multiple crowd control.
• Slave Pens / Underbog - Nature resist + anti-poison abilities.
• Botanica - Fire resistance auras / totems + cleansing totems.

These are mostly what I can remember off the top of my head and kind of focussed around the classes I personally play (druid, shaman, rogue) as they’re, obviously, easier to remember for me but there are plenty more instances of certain utility spells, abilities or class mechanics making certain instance runs easier.

Now, you might be thinking: I totally don’t need that stuff, it’s easy to do it without! Think back to when you weren’t overgeared, or when you run a harder heroic etc. i.e. Where you’ll be when you first hit those Wrath instances on your way to 80. Heroic Underbog, way back then when it used to be a pain - I remember just standing back and abolishing / throwing hots as my feral druid as it made the fight far easier than me clawing at the arse end of Hungarfen. Utility over raw dps!

In fact, the five man setting is really quite different to that of the raid setting. Ten or twenty-five man bosses are supposed to take a long time, test your healers mana pool, your tanks avoidance / stamina and your dps’s pewpew. But, in a five man, the fights have to be a lot shorter and a little simpler. Why? Because you can’t be guaranteed some things which you might get in a raid - synergy in raids is what makes them able to last much longer than five groups of five would if all were split into the same structures as a five man.

As an example… in a raid my shaman might be in a group with other healers and a shadow priest. He’d get the benefit of paladins blessing, druid buffs, and mana regen from the priest, whilst giving his own totem buffs to them. In an instance he may get these but often he won’t. His mana totem has no use for the tank and the LotP aura does little for him as he’s not doing damage (ok, so it might make his work easier but you should get my point). Synergy is not guaranteed in five mans.

So here comes the rub. Blizzard wants to make encounters more challenging but are faced with the decision or trying to make it so that everyone can be useful. This is, obviously, entirely possible but the problem comes where there is a mechanic which makes one class far more preferable to another. People are fickle and will try to maximise their groups so as to take the least time and to run the most smoothly.

Magister’s Terrace was a big example of this. I’m glad I’ve waited some time to come around to this article as things have settled down enough to see how it’s panned out. From what I’m seeing in LFG and in guild normal MgT has become a little looser - people are willing to take fewer crowd control classes if the class in question has some other utility (i.e. shamans). I still see dps warriors and crittycats/boomkins being snubbed as they’re not seen as being useful enough to warrant one less cc. I have actually seen groups break up because there was no cc available even when there were plenty of non-cc available. Multiple melee are also still seen as a disadvantage as they make the healer’s job much more difficult. The third boss is easy if you can control all of the adds and burst them down in turn, for instance. If you don’t you can expect a dead healer most of the time. Crowd control is simply what makes this instance harder for it’s level than most other instances in TBC.

Heroic is even worse - one of our enhancement shamans ended up respeccing to resto just so he could have a shot at gear from MgT.

The thing is… this is probably one of the few instances I’d say is really nice and challenging now. Even on normal if you’re not paying attention a slip can cause a wipe. Good gear really doesn’t help much if you miss-pull or don’t kill the orbs or get charged by the warrior-mob etc. It is, in my mind, a sort of five person raid instance.

In vanilla wow, half of the ‘challenge’ was in the length, interesting pulls, big pulls, special debuffs etc. They’ve already said they’re intending non-heroic’s in Wrath to take around an hour or less - no more long slogs! However, this increases the need for more gimmicks to make the places challenging. If you can ‘breeze through’ it in 45 mins to one hour then are you really going to feel like it was a challenge? Now, MgT feels like a challenge even if you do complete it in one hour so I can see the designers plotting things with more intrinsic difficulty but how are they going to do it without over-reliance on one set of class abilities?

• Some mention has been made of using flying mounts within the instances - a gimmick (and not I do not use the word entirely negatively) which will, at least, make the place more interesting. How they implement it will very much depend on how much people end up feeling about it - too complex and people will dislike it, too simple and it will just be plain gimmicky (in the bad sense). Changing controls is not a thing a lot of people like to or are able to do quickly (i.e. Construct handling on Teron). If they ‘teach’ people how to handle it outside the instance, with quests, as seems likely given the interviews then we might see it working better. Of course, this is all speculative until we see what they do with it.
• Time trials are another thing which makes an instance more challenging. We’ve seen it in Zul’Aman and with some quests within five mans but it would be another way to make things more interesting or challenging. Of course, it’s a way to make it more frustrating, too, but it gives the place more replayability and that’s a big plus in my eyes. If the ‘time trial’ is limited to extra loot or extra benefits then I’d say it’d be a good mechanic to add to more instances.
• Wave instances - that is, where you are swamped by wave after wave of mobs and then get to a boss monster. Hate them or love them they certainly make an instance challenging. Think of the first few times you ran BM? It’s another way to keep the instance short too.

I’d certainly like to see them expand upon what they have as well as innovating something that I probably wouldn’t have even dreamed of. Utilising methods such as the time trials and wave instances make things more challenging without making it imperative to have one class type. More instance design like this will help work towards ‘fairer’ five mans and is something I certainly hope to see in Wrath.

Now I’m going back to shiny spam posts for a while… /ded

Ye see some weird things in Outlands, ye really do..

A pic I had in my folder from a while back. Just one I think is pretty. *ahem*

I mentioned a while back ( though I cannot find the post) that I always end up getting shiny things when I just head along to help people out. “Can someone come help Q do his Kara attunement in SLabs?” “Sure, I’ll bring my hunter, y’never know I might be lucky.” So, the huntard who breaks sheeps, leaves aspect of the pack on and had to take a tank pet into an instance (no dps pet high enough level) gets the vaulted [Sonic Spear] on his very first trip to Shadow Labs. I hear the howls of furious decent hunters baying for my blood… *ahem* (At least, I know Softi seemed to be - she told me I should blog about it!)

Learning!
However, I did not only come away from it (and the other instances, we ended up doing the whole chain) with just a shiny new spear! I done had me a learning curve. The last time I’d instanced was in Ramparts - that was about it in the whole 1-70 grind except when I was being boosted. I had to suddenly contend with dps cycles, crowd control, misdirects, pet management and watching where I was standing all at once! I had warned my guildies of my nubbishness before we went in and they were forgiving of the couple of big faux pas’ I made (hitting a sheep, leaving wrong aspect on). They lol’d at my weedy dps (I was doing less than the tank - our t5/6 equipped feral druid) but were generally helpful - we had two hunters with us - one as their hunter and another on his mage alt - who I asked quick questions of (do hunter’s marks overwrite one another? was one I remember).

By the time we had gotten a little ways into Shadow Labs I was getting used to the dps cycle so I could free up my concentration to do other stuff - I had a go at misdirecting the tank on the ‘Time For Fun’ boss and was managing my pet well enough that it only took one sonic boom on murmur. *ahem* A quick blistz through the first half of arca and then onto Durnholde. Ok, I’m getting into it, I can chain trap, misdirect and my dps has increased a bit.

Into BM we go. Lets start! Oh, wait, where’s the other hunter? The one taking care of the adds?! Ohcrap he’s not even in the instance yet! Well, I learned very quickly how useless I was at kiting multiple mobs. However, I managed to hold most of them off until he had scooted into the instance and took up the job. I got into the habit of laying a frost trap at each portal to slow the mobs more for him and happily pulled a few off the healer which had gotten loose. By this time I was feeling a lot more slick (yes, I know I’m still a nub) and a little more confidant in my huntering.

In the end I gained 200dps just by getting less flustered about all my buttons (and, my goodness, hunters have so many!) and I learned some valuable lessons for if/when Dryn ever instances again. One of the hunters also let me copy his BM spec auto/steady/kill command macro (he’s surv at the moment) and recommended some others I should go get if I wanted to do more instancing.

Still can’t believe I got that spear first run. On my grind-auto-shot-bot. *cackle*

7 comments

The earth has granted my wishes and bestowed upon me a plethora of items which enable me to bring life back to my cohorts. However, it also seems to be bestowing on me an awful lot of things with which to pound the Burning Legion into the ground. The elements work in mysterious ways…

I don’t like to put too many ’srs bsnss’ posts right next to each other so you’re getting gear spam whilst I finish writing up my next long post *ahem*.

First of all the typical problem with hybrids had occurred for me on Avarix. Not only had I kept a pile of stuff ‘just in case’ for my main spec but also for both off-specs! I had been running around with three empty bag slots to my name and nothing I could dump for fear of abandoning something which ‘might be useful later’. So, time for a major clearout! I ended up dissing about a bag (20slot) and a half full of gear - yay for lots of LPS’s / essences / dust.

Kara

A while ago I posted about not really being able to do Kara’s frequently and this making gear a hard decision. Well, it’s no longer so much of a problem! The main issue I had is that I share a pc with my other half - we both have our own laptops but the PC is all that can run Oblivion as well as WoW on max graphics settings. Our newest laptop is pretty decent, though, it just has to have most of the graphics minimised. So, two weeks ago, a Kara group starts up and then another. Two groups can be made if they can find another healer. I warned ‘em I only had the laptop in case of a bit of laggyness but I’m happy to say it went pretty smoothly! So, Kara for me whilst the other half Oblivions! Bwuhahaha.

Phat Kara lewts the past few weeks for me in the last few weeks have been -

Restoration
[Jade Ring of the Everliving], [Stainless Cloak of the Pure Hearted], [Heart-Flame Leggings], [Cyclone Headdress], and [Cyclone Gloves].

Elemental

[Nathrezim Mindblade], [Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran], and [Boots of the Infernal Coven].

Plus some enhancement stuff. You can tell I’m really enthusiastic about enhancement, can’t you? Maybe once I have a full gear set I can grind some pvp axes and have a go but, for the moment, I love resto way too much!

I’ve also picked up a [Vindicator's Pendant of Salvation] and got enough badges to purchase the [Wave of Life Chestguard] I had my eyes on!

The problem with fast gear-progression? I’ve spent ages on grinding enchanting mats! D’oh! After sending my hunter-auto-grind-bot and his new kitty out to get some primal life, I enchanted everything I could with healing / mp5. I swapped my trinkets around and ended up with:

• 1996 healing
• 157 mp5
• 10.5k mana

  

Not bad - though I wants more mp5!

Healing / Kara Whining Rambling

Last night’s Kara started out with just two healers - first time I’d tried it that way as alt runs often take three. I was getting really worried - people were going down far more often than usual and at one pont the tank got insta-gibbed. “Sorry, guys, wasn’t really paying attention, was on the phone” was not what I wanted to hear from the second healer… I am not well geared or confidant enough yet to even think about Solo-healing Kara and our tank is not over-geared and a Paladin to boot. One of our other shamans (GL) respecced resto and the rest of the night’s healing was a bit of a yawn fest. Bah.

It didn’t help that one dps warrior who had refused to tank (which meant not being able to do two groups that evening) kept pulling before our pally tank or healers had finished drinking. Now, that wasn’t a huge problem for me with my regen slowly getting higher but our pally tank was having a hell of a time generating enough aggro to pull them off said dps warrior and keep them whilst we were spamming heals on the idiot who’d pulled them without a shield. Suffice to say we decided it was better for all if we didn’t heal him next time he did it *ahem*.

It’s odd running with a group you’re not used to - we’re usually a one-shot, blast through, imba group even with mostly alts. Ah well.

Regen

Speaking of regen… I had two sort-of proud moments concerning my mana. Only sort-of because both of them came out of things I’d buggered up. On Prince I died to an infernal landing on my head. I was kinda tired and it was my fault - didn’t move nearly fast enough. However! Self res, pot, water shield, mana spring. Half my mana back and the regen did the rest - I didn’t run oom until he was down. That had happened one week previously and I’d come back and barely been able to scrape my mana back off the floor.

Something had struck me as odd, though. Why was the mana I got back from my pot so low? I have an alchemist stone so using a put is often overkill mana-wise for me unless I’m down to 20-30%. Simple. For some unknown reason I’d managed to switch my trinkets around and was wearing my prayerbook instead of my alchemist stone. So, I’d done the whole evening with no stone - and my regen had still been fine! That was kind of a happy moment for me there. I’m not even past the ‘magic’ 200mp5 yet and had salv buffed instead of wisdom due to some weird bug going on with misdirects / aggro.

Realisations

I’ve come to the odd realisation that my ‘baby’ shammy isn’t a baby any more. He’s all grown up… In fact he’s so grown up he’s been given tier 5 approval and signed for an SSC run next week (for the s-res quest line). Scary. I really hope I can be worthy of a spot - I’ve been reading tactical guides for SSC for shammy healers by Anna as well as refreshing the SSC fights in my mind.

Well, ah like tae get from A to B in style and there’s nothin’ better than gliding along on the back ‘o a nightsaber or, if ye feel like takin’ tae the skies, a nether drake. Tae be honest wi ye, ah think ah’m gonnae huv tae start my own stables wi all the mounts I have!

Blame Fim for this post… and the title. It’s his fault. No really. He’s ‘the man’ when it comes to post-title-jokes which invariably make me groan. Go check out some of them here.

Mounts are our companions, always with us and taking us to places we wish to go faster than we could on foot. They are a cornerstone of the WoW economy - with many people spending the majority of their gold on getting one. They can be a status symbol, a roleplaying companion or simply a fast way from A to B but for a few people one is not enough!

Personal Mounts
I loves them all even though I don’t really have any special ones. A while ago I posted about getting my mist ’saber - a mount I’ve wanted for quite some time and was asked if I had named it. I haven’t yet, but I’ve not been averse to doing so in the past when I’ve been so fond of a mount or worked hard to get it.

Mharai, my first druid, was on an RP server. Her ’schtick’ was that she was an avid collector and breeder of oversize mounts for the use of Tauren. I’m not really into ‘epic’ roleplaying, can you tell? *ahem*

I’ve never owned a kodo on Mharai and set out to get a wolf for her at 40. It took me until level 43 to get it (not sure why) but I was happy and that wolf was the first mount I ever named: Ice. She was a brown wolf but I named her for the glacier-ice green/blue of her eyes. At 60 I got myself a white wolf and then set out towards Outlands with a greedy eye on all of the mounts I could now work towards.

I was always sorely disappointed that Tauren couldn’t ride some mounts - with a happy moment coming when I found that pvp raptors were Tauren-approved. I spent some time in battleground and came out with a rather huge lizard. If you’ve never seen a Tauren on a raptor you’re missing out. Doubly so as you’ll never have seen them on a raptor with the Sen’jin village buff, Winterfall Firewater and Bloodlust! (and, I’ve been told, the cookies from the Halloween Event also stack).

Collecting
Anyway! Like many others I enjoy collecting mounts and will go to silly degrees just to get myself one. I really do like how Blizzard has noticed the love of new mounts and made them available by, for instance, relatively easy rep-grinds. It’s something a little easier than pet collecting (though I do that too) but with more of a presence (I mean, who doesn’t gawp when someone rides by with the Anzu mount?)

Prior to patch 1.something it used to be the mount which cost (for example) 80 gold and the training was cheap. When this was changed (and subsequently the riding skill was changed to be across the board for all mount types) it meant that mount collecting was within the reach of more than just a rich few.

Mounts are something which you can get by yourself, with a group and pvp-ing - they have been integrated into all the common aspects of the game and something relatively rare is available to pretty much any level of player. They are not just a creature / flying machine to get around on but, like our gear, are status symbols. They also have the added benefit of increasing individuality in a world where often everyone is wearing nearly the same thing within their class!

The Burning Collectors?

Burning Crusade has catapulted mount collecting to a whole new level, in my mind. Before TBC, you were limited to your faction’s mounts and even getting some of those were hard (Troll and Nelfen mounts come to mind). PvP ones weren’t so easy to get and there were only a few rare dropped mounts in high level instances / raids (Tiger and Raptor from ZG, Baron’s Mount from Stratholme).

Burning Crusade changed all of that. Blizzard seem to have tuned into the fact that mounts were coveted and people would grind / pay rather a lot for them. Ok, they knew this already but half of that was a speed issue. What they had discovered here was the fact that people would pay or grind for a visual change rather than just a speed one. TBC saw an explosion of mounting options, not to mention a whole new category added - flying mounts.

Netherwing drakes were some of the first previewed (or, at least, some analogue thereof - I think they used the old drake model for the announcement) and I was terribly excited at the thought of riding around on a huge dragon! It felt so damned fantasy. Then, when I finally got to Outland, (rerolled at the start of TBC, mind) I realised this was in no way my only option. They had added not only the drakes to the basic selection of gryphons / wyverns but also Nether Rays and a plethora of ground mounts.

The talbuk seems to have been a huge hit as do the Amani Bears and players seem to love the inclusion of the other low-drop-rate mounts (Anzu bird, Midnight, Phoenix, White Hawkstrider). For some reason people didn’t seem to ‘click’ so well with the Cenarion Expedition hippogryphs, but maybe their expense is why I see so few!

Of course, there was also the addition of new racial ground mounts - Elekk’s and Hawkstriders. Both seem to have taken some ribbing (eww ugly huge mount and chooocooobooo or chicken) but I think each has their own loyal supporters.

Back to the Future?
I’m shying away from writing anything about Wrath at the moment as I really don’t think it’s worth commenting on stuff which hasn’t even gotten past alpha yet and will likely change a whole lot but some of the things concerning mounts piqued my interest. The following quote comes from the official website, for instance.

“Certain types of vehicles and mounts can now carry passengers, making it possible for players to, for example, break a prisoner out of a tightly guarded compound by attempting a daring escape on horseback… Even beyond the ability for vehicles to hold passengers, Wrath of the Lich King introduces an aerial combat system that will add a new dimension to gameplay.”

Looking at this and thinking in general terms I was wondering how Wrath might affect the ‘mount scene’ and what the new tier of riding skill would give us. I had, at first, assumed that we’d simply been given a riding ‘pass’ to allow us to ride in Northrend - some crazy quest thought up by gnomes which meant we had to have some type of license. However, it seems the next ‘tier’ will be one which effects not only ourselves and our speed but also our gameplay. Mounts, in Wrath, seem to have become more integral to play than ever before.

I’m also looking forward to seeing what WotLK brings by way of new mounts looks-wise. I’ve seen pics here and there of polar/grizly bear mounts and zhevra mounts. Both of these would be awesome (I mean, c’mon, a dwarf on a bear? That right there is win) as would being able to ride those new Shovel Tusks - hell, I want to know why I couldn’t get a Clefthoof mount!

An awesome resource for mounts is Mania’s new project Warcraft Mounts. Go check it out and see if there’s anything you fancy working towards!

Bloody dragged me intae the jungle. The Jungle! Wi’ trolls and snakes and all that sorta thing. Tae get… a tiger. A big, bloody, toothy tiger. If ah had known whit it wis he was ‘wanting a hand with’ before he dragged me tae Stranglethorn Vale I’d have told him tae go jump off a waterfall! He says it’s fer a competition wi’ the rather tasty dwarfette, Breana. Big skinny git has nae chance against a good dwarf woman!

Bre paraphrased the conversation she and I had rather well here. Basically we both wanted new kitty pets for our hunters (Without gettin’ the black-with-silver-stripes one from Terrokkar that everyone and their aunt has) and decided on Zul’Gurub ones. Ick! levelling them through to 70 is boring but not… if you’re competing! Arharhar! Starting today (Monday 2nd Jun) we’re going to see who can get their kitty to max level fastest.

Now, I went to get my kitty on Friday knowing I’d be out all weekend and that often Monday is a quiet guild day (hard to grab someone to form a raid). I told Bre and she conceded she’d trust me not to cheat but I likes to have my proof so this morning I asked the following in the BA chat:

So, Noobie and Softi are my witnesses! As you can see in the screenie there be no xp and no loyalty gain. I fed the kitty enough to make her hapyness go green so she’d not run away if something odd happened. Yay for goldseller spam. *Ahem*.  Yes, I do use grid on my hunter. And I have no macros. I am a huntard! What more do you expect from a grind-bot!?

Naming

I also have the usual problem of needing a name for my beauty! Any suggestions are appreciated - I’ve decided my kitty is a ’she’ so female names or, rather, no majorly masculine ones. Like Bob. I would like something jungle-ey or troll-ey or exotic-ey. She’s a tiger, for goodness sakes! Of course she needs an exotic name. I was vaguely thinking of Suma but it doesn’t quite come off the tongue ‘right’.

Anyways, Bre, you better get levelling fast! *wink*

Yer tryin’ tae mine yer own business and suddenly ye feel the hair on yer neck stand up, a shadow loomin’ over ye and then ye suddenly find yerself facin’ the spirit healer with nary a clue aboot whit just happened. Well, luckily this time ah hud mah camera in hand tae record exactly what went wrong…

Sitting outside BT, figured I’d take a pic of the pretty ‘architecture’ for this weeks screenies. Flew down, zoomed in fully, turned off interface, aligned the shot. SUDDENLY HUGE FOOT. You remember your first time in Hellfire when you met a Fel Reaver? Yeah, it was like that. Squish goes me. Ah well, I got a nice shot of Doomwalker coming back to squish my poor wee body further into the ground as he pounded his way around the forecourt.