WoW

Battle Pet of the Week: Snowy Owl #WoW

stargrace January 13, 2014 2Comments

In my attempts to get at least one pet battle team to 25, I’ve been collecting a lot of pets. I always considered myself a collector even before pet battles came out, but of course now that there are over 600 different pets in game things have gotten a bit more extreme. I wanted to show off some of the pets I’ve gotten and while there may not be anything exceptional about them, each battle is an exciting attempt to further my collection (and experience) so I’m hoping to make this a weekly feature. We’ll just have to see. First up? The Snowy Owl!

The Snowy Owl is a seasonal pet that can only be found during the Northern hemisphere real-world seasons. That means you can start seeing this pet around from December 21st, and it lives in Winterspring. There are a lot of great technical details posted about the pet over at Warcraftpets, a site that I’m constantly using to keep my collection up to date. It is of course categorized as a flying pet, and if you click on it you’ll hear typical owl sounds.

Winterspring was full of neat critters to try to capture. The one issue I had was that I kept accidently killing the ones that I wanted to add to my collection. It can take a bit of patience to get a rare quality of the pet you’re after, but it’s certainly worth it in the end.

Thanks to my adventures in Winterspring and then a bit of time in Hellfire Peninsula, I was able to raise my team to level 21 and I’m currently working my way to level 22. It has slowed down quite a bit, but it’s incredibly relaxing and I’m in no rush.

Sometimes the Loot Gods Smile #WoW

stargrace January 10, 2014 0Comment

Every so often the loot gods smile down on me and I win something I can actually use. It’s rare, there’s no way I should let that one piece of gear entice me to thinking that I will constantly get something I want and can use, but it’s just enough of a tease that I keep coming back for more.

Yesterday I was headed off to the Timeless Isle in order to do my daily and as chance would have it there was a flex raid going on for the celestials. I’ve talked about them before, four giant creatures that roam around a center arena. You get an achievement for defeating all four but you only qualify for loot from one kill per week. Not per encounter either, just one total. It makes sense really. The loot that drops also comes from regular raids (there’s also PvP gear) and if players could attempt it every week on multiple encounters what would be the point in raiding.

I try to defeat at least one celestial a week but it doesn’t always work out that way as I’m spending less and less time on the island. Yesterday when I arrived I saw that a celestial was almost dead, and as luck would have it the group stuck around to take down a second one. I stayed outside of the raid but still contributed and decided on a whim to use my seal for an extra loot roll.

That’s when the loot gods smiled at me for a brief moment, and I won a pair of ilevel 553 pve gloves. Sure, they’re for my DPS priest spec and I spend most of my time healing unless I’m out and about on my own (I keep forgetting that I can designate loot to go towards any of my specs) but they were still an enormous upgrade and I’m really glad I won them. They’re my 2nd BiS (best in slot) and I couldn’t be more pleased.

I may spend an enormous amount of time working on pet battles, collecting silly mounts, and working on pointless factions, but I also enjoy being good at my class and one of the measures of being ‘good’ in world of warcraft, is gear. That doesn’t mean you can’t still be good without, but the game IS very gear driven (after all, you can’t even queue for some LFR without having a specific ilevel first, no matter how good a player you are). Is it the only qualification? Of course not, you can have the best ilevel ever and still be a really shoddy player. It just happens to be one more thing in an ever growing list of things that I enjoy working on while I play.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Factions and Busy Work #WoW

stargrace January 8, 2014 3Comments

In pretty much every MMO I have ever played, there is ‘busy work’ to keep you logging in. A few years ago it became dailies and with Pandaria (at release) pretty much ALL busy work was dailies. It became a boring grind for me and was one of the main reasons I quit. Logging in to complete 20-30 dailies was just not my idea of fun. These days there is a lot more to do – but I regret not doing those dailies back when they were relatively fresh.

There are a few factions I really need. One is Shado-Pan. I need this to purchase a few enchanting recipes, like the weapon ones I want. This faction isn’t too bad because I only need revered not exalted – but the dailies themselves are annoying.

Another faction I need is August Celestials, and that one is also for some recipes.

I have also never finished faction for the Anglers, nor for the folks that sell serpent riding (Order of the Cloud Serpent). That’s right, NONE of my characters, even my main, have this skill. The problem is I still hate dailies, especially when it comes to completing them on multiple characters. It’s a bother for me to remember to do my crafting dailies, let alone the multiples that are involved in farming and every other faction under the sun. While it may be a successful method in getting players to log in daily, it is one of my least favorite things to do in game. How about you, do you enjoy logging in for dailies, or are they something you could do without? Let me know in comments!

Still Catching them All #WoW

stargrace January 6, 2014 0Comment

Last night was another night I spent working on pet battles, inching my way to owning at least one team of level 25 pets. So far as you can see by the list above, my highest pet is level 17 (also happens to be my favorite pet, Lil’XT). I’ve been able to keep a team of three but what I’ve started to do is swap out the third pet to one that I capture so I don’t have to actually level it for battles. The two pets with stars are my ‘core’ pets, and then the third I swap to something I have captured. At the moment that is the adder. Leveling my team is still a bit slower than normal because I capture and upgrade any wild pets I come across (so long as they qualify) which reduces the xp you earn – but I’m very pleased with my collection so far.

I’ve got 196 / 615 and while I know I will never ever come close to ‘catching them all’ it’s still a fantastic way to spend some time when I’m done with my hack ‘n slash adventures.

In other news, thanks to leveling up alts the guild is just a smidge shy from level 24. We have also been running a daily heroic scenario which helps earn a bit of experience and gives the guild bank a bit of cash. Nothing extreme, but it is still nice to see. I’m excited about reaching level 25. At one point in time I had contemplated joining a different guild temporarily while leveling to take advantage of the perks – but now there’s absolutely no need. I’m content staying in my little guild of three members. Thankfully with flex raids and LFR and LFG, there’s no obligation to go out and join a larger guild in order to do end game content. This works out perfectly for players like me.

I’ve got three level 90 characters so far, but I still have at least two more I would like to reach 90. There is the 87 warlock along with my 85 druid. I’m sure the warlock will be next as she is already most of the way there, then I’ll attempt the druid. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing, and I still attribute that to the fact that I find there is a LOT to do, plus I’m playing other games in between so I don’t get burnt out (mostly Wurm Online).

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Dragon Flight Heads into Heroic Scenarios #WoW

stargrace January 1, 2014 0Comment

Some time between when I last quit and when I started playing again last month heroic scenarios were added to the game. They work exactly like regular scenarios except for one thing – you can’t LFG for them. I find this a bit frustrating because I don’t have too many people in game that I can bug to do these instances with. I know lots of people in game, sure, a big selection of my friends are playing – but I don’t want to bother them by dragging them through these scenarios. Thankfully both Bloodgauge and Kanad were online this last weekend and we were able to attempt a scenario all on our own (you can only go with three people).

They were tough, but we managed just fine as soon as Bloodgauge (a DK) swapped to tank spec. I stayed in heals (priest) and Kanad was of course DPS (hunter). I won a nice purple ring at the end of our first one from the weekly quest, but the ones we attempted afterward didn’t reward much of anything so I decided to call it a night and to try again when they reset.

I’m still looking for upgraded weapons. I’ve had absolutely no luck at all. Bloodgauge picked up blacksmithing last week and since he was on holidays he managed to reach 600 without too much effort. He’s working on discovering a staff for me to use but it will take a few days because of the daily craft timers. That will be more than enough to help boost my ilevel towards the 530 mark. I’m currently at 526 and looking forward to finding a few more burden to help raise that.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!