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The Most Gleeful Mount In Northrend

Valdesta — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:25:27 +0000

Being an alt-o-holic in World of Warcraft at its base means one thing: You've got a lot of characters that you play.

I like to think of myself as a "uniqueness" alt-o-holic, however, which differentiates me from those who value sameness in their famly of alts.

What's This "Uniqueness" Thing About?

Well, what I mean is this:

All of my toons over the level of 15 are unique in a few ways:

They're all of different classes
They span all the crafting professions
They each get a unique mount at 30, 60 and 70

When it comes to Achievements that bring titles, such as the Seasonal Events, I choose one toon to chase after the title with, and the rest of them, I don't worry about it.

My Hunter is the Elder, while my Priest is the Merrymaker and "the Hallowed". I didn't get the Kwee Peddlefeet pet this year so NOBODY is the Love Fool :(

And yes I know about the special mount if you get all the titles on one character, but I don't care :) (the mount for those who don't know is a drake with 310% speed vs the normal 280% epic flyer speed)

The Challenge Of Unique Mounts

Initially, having unique mounts between all my toons was easy... I didn't have very many toons that could mount up, after all.

But as the Toon Family grew, it became more of a challenge. I had to PvP to get the Frostwolf Howler for my Hunter, and then PvP some more to get the Black War Kodo for my Mage.

I ran the Halloween event in Blackrock Depths every day on at least two or three of my top toons when that event released, and that helped ease the mount situation a little bit - the Hunter got the Ram mount while my Priest got the Kodo mount (Black War Kodo being different from Brewfest Kodo), which frees up the Frostwolf Howler for another toon coming up, and gives room for the regular Undead mounts too.

Joyful Mount Walks On Water

When I hit the capital city of Dalaran in Northrend, I immediately solved the "priest and mage both have a kodo mount, even though they're DIFFERENT kodo mounts" problem by purchasing the Armored Brown Bear.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

And wow, is this Armored Brown Bear the HAPPIEST mount I've ever ridden! It's run is a gleeful gallop and the look on its face is pure joy while you run around on its back.

Initially I felt like I was riding a Druid, and I got real joy out of that thought for quite a while, but now I get a lot of joy out of the JOYFUL look on its face at any one moment.

The One Thing I'd Fix

Unfortunately, the Armored Brown Bear has one huge drawback that grates on my nerves so much I might actually post on the World of Warcraft suggestions board...

It makes so much noise when it's just standing still!

I mean, I know the bird mounts preen themselves and the others shift around a bunch, but this guy makes noises every 10 seconds, which really sucks when I have WoW in the background of another window and still want to hear other game sounds.

Gleeful mount, but too noisy to be AFK mounted on!

PS: I've got some new videos and raiding and gearing guides coming out these days. If you're interested in being notified, sign up today!

How To Get a 10% experience bonus for one hour

Valdesta — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:52:11 +0000

The Midsummer Fire Festival is here!

This entry is about one of the many neat things that have come along with this festival celebrating the arrival of Summer in the northern hemisphere.

How To Use This Special Event To Powerlevel Your Lowbies

Any level of player can use some of the magic of this festival to gain a 10% premium to the experience they gain killing mobs, for a full hour!

You can easily use this to help power your lower level toons through levels a bit faster - but make use of it now before this bonus is removed!

How do you do it?

Simply find the Midsummer Festival Ribbon Pole near the Midsummer Bonfire major city in World of Warcraft (I did it in Undercity on my way to Scarlet Monestary with my 33 druid)...

Hovering over the pole's top half will reveal a cog to click - when you click it, you'll get a "ribbon" attached to you from the pole's top, and as long as you don't run too far away from the pole the ribbon will stay attached.

If you wish, you can run around the pole, but it's not required. Just something to do to entertain yourself ;)

After a few moments of having the ribbon attached, your character will start to spin around and around in a squatted position with its arms extended, with the ribbon still attached. You can still run around, jump, do whatever, while this is going on, and it won't disrupt it unless you go out of range of the Ribbon Pole.

Once you've been spinning for a little bit, you should be able to see a buff applied to your toon, displayed to the left of your minimap with the other buffs!

Unfortunately, this buff is removed upon death, so be careful - but charge up whenever you're in a city!

Weird Terrain Glitch in Tempest Keep Raid

Valdesta — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:44:41 +0000

Life's busy these days but whenever I have a free evening that coincides with a raid night within my guild, I sign up and bring along my extensive collection of consumables and a great attitude about doing my best no matter how many times we die or whether there's a chance of a gear upgrade on my part. My joy is not in progression, exactly, but in being able to do something cool when I actually have the time to go.

In my guild that regularly fields 25-man raids in an evening, or breaks down into occasional multiple 10-man raids for badge runs on less-populated nights, we're currently working on the boss "Al'ar" when it comes to Tempest Keep. Of course, we've already downed Void Reaver multiple times as well, but recent raids had us putting up attempts on Al'ar and learning new strategies to beat her.

In heading through the hallway which leads to Al'ar, there are some difficult pulls with Tempest Falconer humanoids and their swarms of Phoenix-Hawk Hatchling flying beasts... the beasts interrupt spells with a strong knock-back effect and are a major pain in the butt for a Mage who is trying to cast a channeled AOE spell to burn (or freeze, in my case) the flying beasties down.

I don't recall if this happened before, but this recent run I noticed that the knock-back effect was blasting me up onto the walls, and I believe after I got blasted up high enough, I was out of the range of the AOE knock-back effect and could Blizzard away quite freely.

Unfortunately, between pulls I was to exit the hallway to let the tanks get aggro on the swarms before I joined in, and therefore I didn't stay up on the wall to test my theory about being out of range of the knock-backs.

Does anyone know?

And hey, I finally figured out how to highlight a certain portion of my pictures in a useful way - go me who isn't used to Photoshop at all... ;)

Ode To Blackrock Depths

Valdesta — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:56:14 +0000

Well, I'm sure this won't be a proper "Ode" since I'm not sure what that would be. In my world, it's just about giving reverence to something that has influenced you in some way.

Blackrock Depths is a HUGE instance that, before the expansion pack hit with its extra 10 levels and huge improvements on gear, was a "player barrier" for me in my leveling guild. The difference between taking a group into Sunken Temple and into Blackrock Depths was quite noticable, to the point where I actually had to think about a little bit of class balance when forming groups to go in.

It made sense, however, because Blackrock Depths and the whole Blackrock Mountains instancing areas were End Game raiding zones or preparation for End Game raiding, and there had to be SOME kind of transition between easy-to-zerg dungeons and the ones that required 10+ people to tackle.

These days, however, BRD isn't near the challenge it was. Between improvements to the strength of equipment and the nerfing of the difficulty of the dungeons and bosses, players can be much lower level and survive in BRD where before the small guy would have caused a wipe of the entire party (at least in the guild I was in) prior to expansion.

But, it's still a great dungeon for getting experience through mob murdering and quest turn-ins, along with upgrading gear for your 50s characters so they can be dressed in pretty blues and occasional purples before they hit the Outland where a lot of greens are huge upgrades over those dungeon blues and purples.

But with how much easier Blackrock Depths is than it used to be, it makes me wonder - what level should I start considering taking my healer into the old 60s dungeons of Dire Maul, Lower Blackrock Spire, Strat and Scholo?

What's The Longest Corpse Run Back?

Valdesta — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:16:02 +0000

So, the other day a friend and I exchanged dungeon runs. I took his little Rogue through a few arms of Scarlet Monestary and he took me and another of his friends through part of Blackrock Depths.

At level 53 and 50 respectively between myself and the other friend receiving benefit from the dungeon run exchange, we didn't do much but stand back for the most part, although for most of the grouped battles, I put a few heals out on my friend and his pet and had to fade and shield a few times.

I was fine with the healing as long as I waited long enough from the start of the fight to send my first heal out, but on occasion I would send that first big heal out too soon and no amount of fading or running towards the pet "tank" could save me.

Faced with the run back, I had a lot of time to contemplate corpse retrieval runs I've done to various instances over the past few months. Now that there's a new graveyard super-close to Razorfen Kraul and Razorfen Downs, is the graveyard run to Blackrock Mountain (which houses Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire and Molten Core) the longest corpse run in the game?

WTB a shorter corpse run back to BRD...

Things That I Find Entertaining

Valdesta — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:29:43 +0000

I've been doing a bunch of AFKing on World of Warcraft lately, while I work in another window typing something out or editting some video or still frame I had recently taken...

While I've been doing my thing in the other window, occasionally interesting things happen in WoW and I come back to it on my screen in time to take a screenshot.

Entertaining Photo #1: What Does AFK Mean To You?

Don't even ask me about the character name I chose here... I just needed to log in and watch the Video Compressing window do its thing before I closed out of WoW to do editting on yet another video.

So, I logged in a brand new character and moved it away from the starting spot and then proceeded to AFK. I guess to this guy, AFK just means "don't just duel, send an invite, too".

Entertaining Photo #2: Quick Shutdown After Restart

I do find it entertaining that even though there isn't a patch/code update that we players have to download, there are times when extra shutdowns/restarts are needed after the Maintenance day, in order for everything to get back to running smoothly again.

Is it the sudden onslaught of pressure on the various servers as everyone re-logs in and stresses a lot of the same systems what's causing it? (authentication is the first to mind, but once I'm already logged in, those problems cannot be seen by me anymore)

At any rate, sometimes Admins starting shutdowns can't give you the full 15 minutes warning they'd like to before it goes down, and this past Tuesday was one of those days on Zul'jin.

Entertaining Photo #3: Ursius The Evasive

Ursius sought me out while I sat, AFK, on my Frostwolf Howler mount after I had taken some winter-scene pictures that I ended up not even using in my wee video about the Frostwolf Howler and where to find its vendor in the Alterac Mountains.

Ursius, the named bear in Winterspring, just HAPPENED to stumble across me when I AFK'd on a hill still within sight of the town of Everlook.

Ursius, who I hunted and hunted and hunted for, using Beast tracking even, to help my friend take him down for that stupid Winterspring quest.

Ursius, who we NEVER FOUND when we were actively tracking and exploring for him.

I find such ironicisms highly entertaining.

Azeroth In The 50s – Rogue and Priest

Valdesta — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:18:37 +0000

Both my Priest (disc/holy) and Rogue (combat/swords spec) are now in their 50s and advancing through Azeroth dungeons.

I mainly PUG with them both, using the LFG tool or LFG line as my resource, and on occasion I'll get into a party that needs another person, and I'll be able to ask a guildmate to come along. Most times, however, my guildmates aren't of the correct level range or are working on something else, so I just LFG it and end up in a party with near-complete strangers.

I do find that I run into the same people more and more now that I've progressed past level 45 or so - there's a lot of us "alts" being levelled up at a slower, more relaxed pace, especially through the 40s and 50s.

Which Toon Gets Parties More Often?

I thought for sure that my Priest would outlevel my Rogue just because of the constant demand for healers and less constant demand for DPS in groups. So far, this hasn't been the case, however - if I just relax and go with the parties that are forming when I have time to commit to them, I'm finding that I'm burning off both my Priest and Rogue's rest bonus pretty much equally, and they're staying about the same distance away in terms of levels.

I wonder if this will change once I hit Outland?

Hard To Find Sunken Temple and Blackrock Depths Groups?

I find watching the LFG channel to be very interesting, whether or not I'm able to commit to joining a party destined for some particular instance or not.

Some nights it's like all the Tanks have gone on strike, but the next night, or in an hour, it will seem like the Healers thought this was a good idea. Then sometimes everyone's looking for CC/DPS. And of course, whether people are looking for members for Outland instances or Azeroth instances is another factor that waxes and wanes, too.

Since I'm really just advancing my lowbie toons in a "let's spend your rest bonus" way, going without a dungeon on them for week or more generally isn't a big deal. On the weekend (if Real Life doesn't interfere) I can be assured to find at least one party for each of them, and with the recent gear changes and dungeon nerfings in Patch 2.3, most parties that wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell a year ago are quite able to handle themselves without constant deaths.

That being said, I haven't joined a level-appropriate PUG for Stratholme or Scholomance with either of these toons - the one time I DID go into Strat, we had a level 66 healer and only two of us were under 60 and still wearing Azeroth gear. I think those instances might still provide a decent challenge for those who wish to go in with an at-level team.

Gear Collection From PUGs

One of the great things about how I'm advancing these toons is that now, at this level, I'm able to go into dungeons that drop gear I'll be able to wear in a level or two, instead of only dropping gear that is 3+ levels below me already. I was able to gather things for my healer from Maraudon and Sunken Temple a level or three before I could use them, and I've just begun running Blackrock Depths which promises to have gear to hold me through until I can put on a set of Outland Greens I buy from the Auction House in preparation for my 57th or 58th level.

Gah, I remember the days when Blackrock Depths was a sizable enough transition from Sunken Temple's level of difficulty that I started to require proper diversity in the guild groups I was leading, since going in with four hunters and a healer wasn't near as viable anymore (none of us hunters were particularly skilled, including myself). Now, it's just another dungeon to progress through, except it's huge and has a billion bosses to drop loot, and doesn't make sense to players who forget there used to be 40-man raid instances that BRD and the likes served as training grounds for.

I'm looking forward to hitting Outland with these two toons, but haven't figured out how exactly I'm going to level them - dungeons only, still, like they've been doing since mid-30's? Or will I actually QUEST with them??!

Investing In Professions

Level 50 is always a great level for my lowbies - it means they can finally do something with their professions again and actually get some kind of levelling credit for it.

My Rogue is an Engineer with a minor in Mining, and was stuck at 300 Engineering since before he hit level 40, so I spent a bit of time advancing up skills based on the Thorium I had gathered while levelling my Mining to Outland-ready levels. I got high enough to use the [Field Repair Bot 110G] (325) and lucked into buying a couple stacks of 5 repair bots for a total of 10g. Then, I continued to advance Engineering so I could make some [Crashin' Thrashin' Robot]s for those nights that my guildmates field a partial PUG and want to have some fun.

My Priest is a Tailor/Jewelcrafter and was locked at 300 for those for quite a while, also. I've actually had a ball advancing her Jewelcrafting from 300 to 340 or so because I was able to use a bit of cash and a lot of prospecting to fund the journey without it costing an arm and a leg! I'll write about that one in a different entry, however.

So, now my toons are around 350 in their professions, and I will continue to create things out of materials I happen to have laying around, but largely I'll go back to not worrying about their professions until they start getting to a level where they can get some of the Bind on Pickup recipes that drop during dungeon runs.

Good thing, too, because I have two toons coming up to the point of needing Epic Land riding training (150) right away!

What To Do With Your Ethereum Prison Keys (Daily Dungeon Reward)

Valdesta — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:25:24 +0000

At level 70, there's a whole bunch of things to do to keep yourself entertained. Way more things to do than used to be the case at level 60, in fact.

Daily Dungeon quests are one of the many dailies a level 70 player can get involved with, and each day there are two daily dungeon quests - one for a dungeon on regular mode, and one for a dungeon on Heroic mode. The "regular mode" daily dungeon quest can be done in Heroic or Regular and count, whereas the one requiring Heroic mode cannot be done on Normal mode.

Generally, the reward for completing a Heroic mode Daily Dungeon quest is a chunk of pocket change (ie: nearly 25g) and two [Badge of Justice] (which can be turned in for nice epic gear when enough are accumulated).

The reward for the regular mode daily dungeon quest is slightly less pocket change (8g 80s) and one of these [Ethereum Prison Key]s.

A Place To Use Your Ethereum Prison Key For Lewts And Rewards

I think there's a few things you can do with your key, but I went for the easiest-to-solo option, which was to fly to Netherstorm and find a specific spot (54,40) that had a bunch of Ethereum Prisons on the ground in their pink bubbly format, and use my keys to unlock the prisons and free that which was inside.

From what I had read about it, the keys would unlock the bubble and either a "friendly" or an "aggressive" target would emerge. The aggressive ones would require killing but would drop loot of uncommon and higher quality. The friendly ones... I don't remember. The first four keys I turned in gave me Aggressive targets to kill and loot.

Have you used your keys for other things?

Discovering Arcane Vortexes in Netherstorm

Valdesta — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:15:06 +0000

Where do they come from?

Why are they here?

Who sent them?

Can Engineers extract motes from them?

Arcane Vortex - Netherstorm

I found this cloud-like thing in Netherstorm when I was farming for [Mote of Mana] for my [Primal Mooncloth] cloth transmute - I thought initially it was just another mote-extraction cloud waiting to be captured, but it behaved differently than the ones I've seen in Nagrand - this one would recharge my mana in little bits when I was close to it - multiple times a second, too.

So, I hung around it and had my pet do the scouting out of the Phase Hunters I was downing.

The cloud stayed there as long as I did (about an hour), and while it seemed to move a little bit, it never really did move very far, which made me wonder if it had spawned there instead of wandering there as I had originally suspected it had.

I'd never seen this kind of cloud in this place, and haven't seen it again. Does anyone know if it's one of those Mote Extraction clouds waiting to be extracted, or not? :)

Beware of Blackscale in Blade's Edge

Valdesta — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:34:13 +0000

I got a good shot of Blackscale the Dragon in Blade's Edge at one point, and just wanted to share it.

Blackscale is one of the many "hazards in the air" in Outland. Some zones are free of these flying menaces, but Blade's Edge is certainly not one of those zones, especially if you're anywhere near anything crystalline in structure.

Check out how Blackscale is fighting with a Raven, chowing down on him. Soon the Raven will be like the other corpses on the ground, which were there when I arrived so I can only assume the Dragon got them too.

I beetled out of there before confirming the Raven's death, however. One screenshot and I went on along my way.