Turtles All the Way Down

While fishing for Highland Guppy in Twilight Highlands tonight I caught a Sea Turtle. That earned me the achievement Turtles All the Way Down and got me a mount that pretty much crawls along on land but moves along pretty well in the water. It is funny too because I was just thinking about it about a half hour before I caught it. I was wondering if you could catch them in the new areas or still only in Northrend. As Twilight Highlands is in Azeroth I guess the answer is Northrend and the new areas.

I got it on my Hunter Brieanna. She is the luckiest when it comes to fishing. She is the only one of my toons that has the Jeweled Fishing Pole and Giant Sewer Rat and she has most of the other things you can get from fishing and the fishing daily's. Sea Turtle is BoP so you own it as soon as you catch it. All in all it was a pretty good day of fishing :)

More Cataclysm Random Heroic Dungeons 1/9/11

I did some more random heroics on Brieanna tonight and completed Grim Batol and Halls of Origination. Halls of Origination wasn't bad, the tank had an attitude and I was thinking about kicking him but he said he was having a bad day and apologized. We got through that one ok, but I didn't get anything out of it. I also queued into heroic Lost City of the Tol'vir to see if my new heroic weapon would drop, it didn't.

Grim Batol was another story, it is brutally hard. The third boss, Drahga Shadowburner, is anyway, the others aren't too bad. Drahga Shadowburner starts off pretty much the same as in normal but in heroic the fire adds he calls will one shot you, so you have to kill them before they get to their target and kite them if you are the target. In normal they hit for around 60,000 damage. Make sure you are not near anyone if they are going to make it to you or it will take them out too. The other thing he does that is different than normal is the dragon he gets on in phase 2 has an ability called Flame Breath that shoots out 180 degrees in front of him, you don't want to get caught in that either.

Being a ranged melee I usually stand way back when I am fighting, but that is not a good idea here. You want to stand close enough to him so you can get behind him quickly when he does flame breath. You can not outrun it. You will want to stay out of any clouds on the ground too.

The only real difference I saw with the last boss was he has an ability called knock back that isn't there in normal and he summons 2 adds at a time, after Gale Storm, instead of just the one in normal. Of course the fights last a lot longer in heroic than they do in normal but that is to be expected.

I got a new pair of boots out of Grim Batol so I guess it was worth the 26 gold repair bill.

Now I have Heroic Grim Batol, Halls of Origination, Lost City of the Tol'vir, Shadowfang Keep and The Vortex Pinnacle out of the way in my Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement.

Heroic Dungeons 1/8/11

I did some heroic dungeon runs on Brieanna. I completed Shadowfang Keep, Lost City of the Tol'Vir and The Vortex Pinnacle. They were not bad at all. They are a lot tougher than the normal dungeons which are hard enough but with a decent group it is not too bad. I would say the heroics are as hard, if not harder, than the Lick King 10 man raids.

I got into a Grim Batol heroic but didn't complete it. The group started out with a tank that didn't seem to be wearing any gear. I figured he had the naked buff but no, he wasn't wearing any gear. We got past the Troggs at the beginning then the tank pulled the next 3 mobs, elites, and ran out of the dungeon leaving everyone else to die. We tore him a new one and he said he would put his gear on but did it again. Then the healer and one of the DPS left. We re-queued and I told the other DPS that we would kick the tank as soon as we had a group again which we did.

We made it to the third boss in there before the group fell apart again. I decided to call it a night after that. You know how there seems to be one asshole in every group? Well, after someone else dropped we got this guy, Worgasaur. This asshole was shooting his mouth off like he was someone, you get losers like that on occasion and the best thing to do is just kick them. Other than that it was a learning experience and with a little better group I think we will have it next time. Hopefully we will get enough people in the guild to start doing guild dungeon and heroic runs then move on to raids.

Random Dungeons 1/7/11

I have been doing a lot of random dungeons on Brieanna, Brieonna and Breeonna lately to get rep with the various factions I want to buy gear from.

It seems like I end up in Grim Batol on Brieanna 9 times out of 10 that I queue on her. I am getting so sick of GB. I have gotten everything I can out of there, I still need one more trinket before all my items on her will be 333+, but the rep is good because there are so many mobs to kill. I am currently working on Guardians of Hyjal rep on her so I can buy a pair of boots they have. Her Item Level is 334 and I will start doing heroics on her soon.

Brieonna ends up in GB a lot too. She gets The Lost City of the Tol'vir a lot too but I haven't seen the cloth bracers drop in there when I am on her. They drop almost every time I am in there on my Shaman, Breeonna, and Hunter, Brieanna though. Of course they are BoP (Bind on Pickup) so that does me no good. There are a few items in Halls of Origination too that she could use if they would only drop when I am on her and not on another one of my toons. Her Item Level is 329 right now, high enough to get into heroics but I don't think I am doing the DPS on her for heroics yet.

I haven't worked on Breeonna in a little while now, I have been concentrating on the others because they have a lower Item Level. All of her items are a minimum of 333 and she has a few pieces that are 346. Her Item Level is 336. I have tried a few heroics on her but the groups usually fall apart, the main reason I stopped doing dungeons back in Vanilla WoW and went to PvP.

I can only hope that the groups in heroics will get better as time goes on. I remember the Lich King heroics seemed pretty tough the first time in there but they are nothing compared to the Cata normal dungeons now.

I have not really worked on Gomorra since getting him to 85 so I still have him to gear up too.

Wranngar is still 80. I have his Leatherworking up to 501 and that is about all I have done on him so far.

Brieanna and Brieonna Level 85

I finally got Brieanna and Brieonna to level 85 over the last couple days.

I got Brieanna to 85 first, then the next day I got Brieonna to 85. I left Uldum too early on both of them and thought I was going to run out of quests in Twilight Highlands and have to go back to Uldum to quest at much lower XP, but it worked out.

I made a lot of gold leveling Brieanna's Herbalism to 525, over 2,000. That was the same with Breeonna's Mining, that made me a couple thousand too. I am not selling the leather from any of my toons as my Druid, Wranngar, is going to need it for Leatherworking. His Leatherworking is currently 501 so he is coming along. Getting him to that level took almost all the leather I had sent him but I am not worried, I still have him to level up to 85 too and he will get a lot of leather doing that. Wranngar is the only 80 I have left to level.

The Road To 85

As posted earlier, both Gomorra and Breeonna are 85 now. Brieanna and Brieonna are both a few bars away from 84 and should be 85 this week.

I have been doing random normal Cataclysm dungeons on Breeonna to get her geared. It sucks that they were all pretty well geared before the expansion came out and I either had to sell or destroy their 245 and 264 gear, but it is garbage now. You get green quest rewards that are better than the 264 gear.

I am working on rep with one of the factions now on Breeonna so I can buy a belt they have. I got their Tabard so all rep I receive in Cata dungeons goes towards their rep. That should take me a couple days at most to become revered so I can get the belt and not much longer after that to be exalted.

I will keep plugging away on Brieanna and Brieonna to get them to 85. I am not sure what I am going to do with Wranngar, I sort of lost interest in him after I stopped PvPing.

Merry Christmas

I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from A World of Warcraft Blog.

Now I need to go see what Greatfather Christmas left under the tree :)

Brieonna - Level 82 Holy/Shadow Priest

I got a little bored leveling Brieanna, and I really wanted to try out Shadow Spec on Brieonna, so I started working on Brieonna.

Instead of going the usual route, straight to Vashj'ir then to Deepholm, I decided to start at Mount Hyjal. That was a mistake. I didn't like it there and there was nothing I was killing that I could skin so that wasn't working out. I did about half of level 80 there then headed over to Vashj'ir. I think knowing where all the quests are and knowing what to do in Vashj'ir had a lot to do with it. I got to level 82 no problem in Vashj'ir.

From there I headed over to Deepholm and started questing there. I will stay there until I reach level 83, then I will be off to Uldum. I discovered the entrances to The Throne of the Tides, Blackrock Caverns and Stonecore so I can start doing random Cata dungeons on her. I might switch back and forth between Brieonna and Brieanna, as a matter of fact I am almost sure of it. Get bored in one place switch and quest in another place for awhile.

Gomorra - Level 85 Demon Lock

I took a couple hours today and got Gomorra to level 85. I was going back and forth on whether I should finish my Hunter Brieanna first or not. I finally decided to just finish him off and get it out of the way.

I got the final half level I needed done in Twilight Highlands, that is the 84 to 85 area. There are a bunch of good quests there and a couple pretty funny ones. One of them was the dwarf's wedding you have to help set up. You help a song writer make a song for the wedding and then walk the blushing bride down the isle. To top if off you get to kill the minister who turns out to be a twilight guy and transforms trying to kill everyone.

I got no sense of completion when I finished Gomorra though, and I think that is because I still have 3 more to go so I am not really done, just a little closer to being done.

Red Winter Hat and Green Winter Hat - Seasonal Dungeon Drop

Some people like to get the Red Winter Hat and/or Green Winter Hat to complete the Full Winter Garb set. I guess you can get achievements by doing quests wearing it. This is the first year I have gotten the Hat. They only drop in dungeons and I wasn't doing dungeons last Christmas. This year however I have gotten the Red Winter Hat on Gomorra, Brieanna and Breeonna to complete the set. Breeonna also has the Green Winter Hat.

The two dungeons I know of that are dropping the Hats right now are Stonecore and Grim Batol on normal. I am sure other dungeons are dropping them too, but these are the two that I know are dropping them. They are a 100% drop rate. In Stonecore it is dropping off the last boss, High Priestess Azil, and she is dropping the Red Winter Hat. She is actually wearing the Red Winter Hat. In Grim Batol it is dropping off Forgemaster Throngus, and he is dropping the Green Winter Hat.

This is a seasonal drop and will be gone right after Christmas, until next year, so hurry and get yours now.

Gomorra - Level 84 Demon Lock

When I had the problem with Brieanna not being able to fly anywhere I worked on Gomorra. I got him to about half way through 84 now and don't know if I want to finish him off or get back to working on Brieanna, who is 83 now, and get her to 85.

I started off questing on Gomorra in Vashj'ir and got him to 82 there. I got a couple achievements while questing there, one from doing a certain amount of quests and another for finishing an entire quest line that is with you pretty much the whole time you are there.

From Vashj'ir Gomorra moved on to Deepholm, after getting the quest from the Hero's Call Board in Stormwind, skipping Mount Hyjal altogether. Deepholm is a pretty good place to level and is also the home to Stonecore, one of the Cataclysm 5 man dungeons. I have run that one quite a bit on all 3 of the toons I am working on. I stayed in Deepholm until I reached level 83, then moved on to Uldum.

Gomorra was in Uldum until 84, just one level and it went pretty quick. I picked up the quest to go there from the Hero's Call Board in Stormwind. This quest has you flying to Gadgetzan in Tanaris then heading over to the entrance to Uldum to meet someone. Once there you start a cinematic that takes you into Uldum and starts the quest line. As soon as I got there I made sure I physically visited the entrance to each dungeon so I could start running them.

At level 84 Gomorra moved on to Twilight Highlands, once again getting the quest from the Hero's Call Board in Stormwind. That is where he is now, about half way through 84.

To be honest I am getting a little bored of leveling and did dungeons yesterday on Breeonna, who is 85, instead of working on the other two. I got Breeonna's item level up to 331 so I can run heroic's now, but the few I have been in didn't turn out too well so far. They are brutally hard compared to LK dungeons. It is going to take some getting used to I guess.

The Vortex Pinnacle Entrance (77,84)

The entrance to The Vortex Pinnacle (77,84) can be found just off shore in Uldum. This entrance is floating in the air. For those without coord's you will want to follow the river down to the sea and head southeast (about 5 O'Clock) once you hit the sea. At that point you should be able to see the entrance floating in the air. There are three buildings out there, one is where you rez if you die inside the instance, the other is the entrance and I am not sure what the third one is.

There are some other sets of buildings floating out there to the west so if you can't find the entrance in the set you are looking in, you're in the wrong set, just head east. The buildings off to the west are the Throne of the Four Winds (38,80) which is an entry level raiding dungeon.

The Vortex Pinnacle is one of three, 5 man dungeons found in Uldum. There is also The Halls of Origination and The Lost City of the Tol'vir which I will be providing locations to in another post.

Blackrock Caverns Entrance

The entrance to Blackrock Caverns is pretty easy to find. You will want to head to Blackrock Mountain (Burning Steppes/Searing Gorge) just like you were going to go into Blackrock Spire. From the meeting stone at Blackrock Spire you will want to head up the passageway just like you were going to BRS. On the way in you may encounter a couple mobs by a bonfire. Right after the bonfire you will see some broken crates and stuff, you will want to look to your right. The entrance to Blackrock Caverns is right there. This is a pretty quick one to find and flying in Azeroth only makes it that much faster and easier.

I am not sure how I feel about this new process of finding the entrance to a dungeon before you can do it. On the plus side, if you queue in through dungeon finder, which most people do, and you die inside the dungeon you will be able to find your way back. Also if you have to meet there at least you will know where it is. On the minus side, it is kind of a waste of time while you are trying to quest.