Lil' Buddy abandons me!

So, there I am in the middle of the basin working some dailys for my oracle friends, in particular, killing off a bunch of the puppy people. My little oracle companion decides the heat is too much and abandons me, shouting as he heads for the hills, "that one hurt, I'll be back later!" It's ok lil' buddy, I understand. As I'm standing in the midst of about 30 of those puppy people tossing out AoE's and self-heals as quick as I can. Dang puppies are rezing faster than I can loot and get away. Must have been 50 at my feet when I finally decided to shadowmeld and pop flight (get me out of here) form. I had looted what I could just before that, and what pops up center screen.......

Just what I needed to know since I just got done spending 2900g! *hangs head in disgust Heck, I only today broke 5k gold on hand, once again. At least my little companion finally showed up, after the battle. I think he was the smart one.


* * * * *

Thought I'd toss in a recent SS of self today, been some time since I did this and much of the armor has changed since last time. Finally broke that 5k gs point, and not looking too shabby at that. And I actually did remember to add the extra belt buckle and gem!

Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

"Keep yer feet on the ground"-area flight master

MumbleJumble

Mostly just a few pics this time around. Showing off that Winterspring Frostsaber that took soooo very long tedious hours to get. Then there's the Colbalt War Talbuk, many many warbeads worth of rep grind. Added in are a couple of rares found along the way. Just never know what is going to pop up in the middle of your path. :)

Enjoy! Have fun working those achievements. ~Sol

Sometimes, Elune smiles

I made a stop over at the AH yesterday to gather up another batch of mats for my gem transmutes. In doing so, I also made the ususal browze of available armor just in case something good might have found it's way there. Low and behold! Sheer luck or more likely Elune smiled upon me. But there sat the Professor's Bloodied Smock! This is a rare find as not too many ilvl 264 items make their way to the AH on my server. And when they do, the price is....breathtaking to say the least. I think our AH prices are so inflated that they border on the outrageous. (I've seen basic herbs like silverleaf jump as high as 10g a pop for example) None the less, there was the Smock. An item I most likely would not be able to obtain through any random pugs, and the buy-out price was only a mere 2900g! After I caught my breath and gave this some pros and cons thought, I pryed open my wallet and gave up the gold. /ouch! Now I just have to remember to add the extra gem socket, and gem, and I'm good to go until the next item finds it's way to me.


* * * * *

I cannot stress enough to any newcomer to World of Warcraft, to get out in the internets world of game related blogs, websites and forums. Especially those pertaining to your particular class. There is just so much information available, and truly helpful people willing to answer your questions that you will discover many ways not only to make your character better, but find yourself enjoying so many more aspects of the game. A lot of which you could easily miss out on by not taking the time to read about it all. By far, I am not the best example of a well-played class, but even I have made great leaps and bounds simply by reading much of what is freely available. Just in the past day of reading, I've gained knowledge of two assets available to me which have gone un-noticed all this time. So, you just never know when or where Elune will be smiling upon you. Sometimes those small things can make a world of difference for you.

* * * * *

Well, Sol is still grinding out some faction reps and farming some instances for gold value. (have to make up the 2900g expenditure!) He is also still busy in the off-time formulating the ground work for his guild, slowly putting all the pieces together to ready for Cataclysm. Sol has many visions for his guild, hopefully Elune will keep on smiling. Sol will most likely stop by in the next few days to talk a bit about his guild and visions. So if you would like to see a little background about it before then, stop by the guild website, Elunes Chosen. Feel free to ask any questions about the guild here at Moonkin Journeys.
* * * * *
Until we meet again...
Sol

Winterspring

Approximately 27 hours over 4 days, the same quests repeated again...and again...and again...Sol finally got that Winterspring Frostsaber mount.


This was the longest, most tedious grind I believe Sol ever attempted, and actually finished without spending weeks or months just poking around at one. To remain focused upon one thing only isn't exactly within my nature. I accepted long ago that Sol would most likely never possess any of those fancy flying mounts, the drakes, netherwings, etc. So, this beautifully colored frostsaber now ranks number one within his stable of 13. One good part of this grind, was that all the loot vendored and occasionally AH'd added up to enough gold for the 80g required to purchase the reins, plus about 20g left over.

* * * * *

What with everything I've been reading about Cataclysm (scores upon scores of webpages), keeping up with all the news and changes coming is another project all together. I find much of it confusing to say the least, even though I find myself generally excited about all the new experiences forth-coming. One comforting thought lately is that when it does arrive, it will most likely be easier for Sol to double back into WotLK, finish his gear upgrades and gain more PVE experience. The thought here is that the majority of the elitiests and jerk-butts will have moved on and there will be a new community of players available. For a short time, Sol might even have a small advantage, hopefully.

* * * * *

Sol gave up the thoughts about attempting the ZG tiger mount, simply cannot get into there without a group status. He does solo farm Strath and Scholomance enough that the rare mount gods in Strath might favour him, might, maybe? He also decided to take a run through Dire Maul late the other day. Interesting place, he'll have to visit again soon.

* * * * *

One last note on Winterspring and the mind-consuming grind. While turning in the three quests and picking up the next run worth, Sol got himself turned about somehow. Probable all those up and down trips on Frostsaber Rock. Anyway, he took a fall off the high point of the rock. About died, under 200 hit points of life left. He said that being mounted was probably the only thing that saved him from certain death. Un-expected achievement though, "Going Down". Fall 65 yards...and live to talk about it. After all the times he's tried jumping off various high points, including Wyrmrest Temple, he got this one quite by accident.

Until next we meet..."keep yer feet on the ground!"

Weekly Recap

During the latter part of the past week, I woke up those sleepy kids of mine and ran them through their next level, including that lazy city camping banker rogue. They've mostly been waiting around for the Xpac and new quest lines, which I have read to understand, have been totally revamped for the better. Some even say they are more story-line in nature, and I happen to enjoy such things. Back to the rogue though.


Oneshadow is not only different from my preferred spell-casting kids, he also comes with two gathering professions which were originally meant to assist his elder siblings with keeping the lower end stock of mats supplied as they moved upward. Sol figured that this was a good plan of action for him to follow, but now he must progress and not let the age gap widen too awful much. Right now, his closest sibling he assists is probably three times older, a blacksmith by trade, and with not much use for the copper and tin ores anymore. Hence, Oneshadow is now charged with stock-pileing what he can for any siblings to come along, and move himself into higher zones of mining to keep up with Netherone.

Kaimara is the lone female sibling, and kind of stuck in the middle between Netherone and Oneshadow. She is also kinda-sorta out of the loop for gaining any real profession help from her brothers as she chose enchanting and tailoring trades. Now, it's easy enough for her brothers to send her low level greens and such for dis-enchanting, and even some of the various cloths they loot for her tailoring. Beyond that though, she depends upon daddy to keep her leveling experience financed. Kai is still very much a "glass-mage", it don't take much for her to break down as yet so daddy still needs to watch over her more than her brothers. Her eldest brother, Bubblegumtwo (the rebellious one), is usually close enough in zone distance to protect her during those ugly horde ganking sessions. (a common occurance on a horde-heavy server) Just like her daddy though, she is a survivor and will make it. She is also wiser in the ways of the world and has learned well from daddy's experiences, so she will be all that much stronger.

And, just where the heck is daddy? Well, Sol decided, (in his ways of ADD/OCD spasmatic occurances), to grind out all the kill quests for that Winterspring mount. Somewhere along the line he found out that this mounts' quest line will no longer be available in the Xpac, and since he has collected an array of mounts (one from each home city faction, etc.) this particular mount has become his current obsession. In six hours, Sol went from being nothing to the Winterspring Frostsaber Trainer to 1/3 friendly. Quite an accomplishment for the old one. Sol now knows why he don't see any of these mounts around even though he's sure they are, the grind is a long tedious one.

Sol is also working on putting back a bunch of extra mats and gold for the future. He will probably sell off most of the transmuted gems he makes as he goes, keeping a small stash for Bubblegums' use (jewel crafting). He's also gathering up tourney heirloom gear for the kids. The elder three already have the benefits of some gear he's aquired, now he'll need to send the baby rogue something.

That pretty much covers the events of the past few days, except that Sol feels that there must be some kind of horde bounty on his head lately. Don't know why, but it seems that every horde in whatever area he's in just has to come by and gank him, numerous times. /shrug Such is life on Spinebreaker.

Sooooo got to have!

Road Map(s)

I read a lot of different blogs and WOW websites for just about as many different reasons. I'm not a theory-crafter/numbers cruncher, so I read up on what I can from those who are, and not just from my own class specifically. Sol has developed and evolved into a better druid this way, not particulary good or great, but better.


Then there's the social and game news to follow up on. Plenty of blogs and websites to read here also. Some are quite well-known, some aren't, and some are really enjoyable and fun to read. Even with the 'fun' reads, I usually still come across something informative or note-worthy to meld into Sols' world.

I've noticed a bit of a trend lately in my reading list. Besides all the Cataclysm news which normally floods my google reader list, there's been more postings about personal player experiences and what people are doing to prepare their mains for the Xpac. Without actually being consious of all the possibilities, in these readings I've found that Sol seems to be following a sort of natural road map in this direction.

Over at  Druid Main: A Rep Grinding Masochist  I read about rep grinding. Sol has been into this since he dinged 80, I guess because it's easier to do now, or or more likely I probably just didn't see it as all that important at earlier levels of questing. Either way, taking several days to grind a particular rep for one reason or another is kind of like a personal quest for Sol.


Then there's the gold issues. A lot is being written about how important it will be to have a fair amount of gold on hand going into the expansion. How the cost of everything usually sky-rockets during the early months, etc. Gold has always been an issue for Sol. It comes and goes rather easily, usually sent off in lots to the 'children' for their training or profession leveling. Only on rare occasion will Sol buy something for himself that isn't on his need-this list. (like that 600g armored bear he got a month ago) Sol's gold mostly comes from quest rewards along with some minor AH sales, so he don't have a whole bunch of it. Right now, it's at it's highest amount ever, slightly over 7k. A comfortable amount for Sol, although probably not really enough to handle all the coming changes I've read about.

So now, the great quest for shiny gold is about to begin. Along with the stock-piling of mats, not only for himself and the children, but for the expected arrival of adopted worgens and goblins. Sol will also set aside some BoE gear from the dungeons and instances he solo's for the kids. Anything to make the leveling life a bit easier for them.

These are all things I've read about lately, and all are worthy of consideration and trial runs. Who knows what will come of it. I do know that there's no harm in giving everything a tryout now and then, and if it works for you, all the better.

Stalled-grinding rep-etc.

Kind of like when the engine stalls out in your car. I was crusin' along with focus on gear, acceptable gs, mixing pve and pvp along the way. Doing the 25 dailys allowed for the gold, tapping into the AH market and all the usual things lvl 80's do I guess. Then it hit...engine stalled out. Don't know why. Everything just started to fizzle out in chunks. Even my alts are on vacation since they are still on this side of Outland and Cata will dramatically change their 1-60 leveling. So I decided to take a break from it all.

I have been reading a bunch of lore lately and visiting the 'old world' quite a bit. That get-away from Northrends' fast pace. So I popped into the Plaguelands and decided to grind out the Argent Dawn rep I've been needing for that title. Several days of quests, soloing Strath and Scholomance (mostly the latter), and in general leaving everything else behind. Got the exalt and title today, adding to the growing list of achievements. It felt good to visually see a new acomplishment flash up on the screen for a change. Hopefully the other three I've been working on here and there will succeed before the Xpac comes out.

I found a listing of realm servers by timezone the other night. Not that I'm considering a server transfer in spite of my usual frustrations on Spinebreaker, but in looking to find one in my own eastern time zone that was also fairly equal in Ally/Horde population. I browsed through the PVP servers, not much of a shock that most were Horde favored, but found a few that were relatively close in numbers. I decided to try something off-beat for me though and chose a 'normal' server to try out. I'm sure most know that normal servers are fairly PVE orientated, and that you can choose when to flag your self as PVP when you desire to do so. (BG's and such) The other little nuance here is that you can create both an alliance and horde character on the server. This has its' plus side for me. The ability to create and level both my balance druid ally and his horde counterpart in the same place. Hmmm...the wheels are grinding away again. The best of both worlds? Not only a local server, but one I can have ally and horde on equally? This seems good.

I started with my druid of coarse, Solthesecond. Right off, I noticed the increased number of new level 1-6 druids in the starter area. By the time I reached Dolonar, there was also quite a few 80's moving about as well. The over-all atmosphere seemed much more relaxed and friendly. People were actually being helpful towards one another. All this is quite a change from my original server. I've invested a lot of time in Spinebreaker and still call it home along with all its' challenges and quirks, it'll always be that way. But for now, I'm thinking that this new server choice will be just the "get-away-from-it-all" place I need to balance my inner self out.
Sol