Alterac Valley - Again

A while ago I swore off battlegrounds because QQ Premades were screwing up the queues so bad you couldn't get an evenly matched BG. Most the Alterac Valley's I was in would start off with 10 Alliance against 40 Horde. Out of the 10 Alliance 6 would be AFK so you were basically starting off outnumbered 10 to 1. The reason for that is QQ Premades loading up the battleground queues then not accepting when the queue popped. I started doing dungeons after that and liked those. It has been about a year since I was in a battleground and I didn't think I was missing it at all.

Last night I went into Alterac Valley (40x40) on Brieanna just to see how the battlegrounds were now (I was bored). It wasn't too bad actually, I had a great time and did another one after that. In my first battleground in a year I came in 4th in damage and 5th in killing blows, I guess I didn't forget too much in the year I was away.

I am going to do a few more to get the honor I need to upgrade one of my rings, my last piece of 333 gear. Once I have that I probably won't bother with any more BG's, but it was nice to get in there again for a little while.

Wranngar - Level 83 Feral Druid

I worked on Wranngar for a little while today and got him to level 83. Wranngar is the last of my 80's I need to get to 85.

I was questing in Deepholm when I hit 83 and headed right over to Uldum to start questing there. I am more interested in getting to 85 than I am with rep or achievements at this time, I can always go back later and finish up all the quests to get the achievements later. I will get more XP per quest in Uldum and get to 84 quicker there which will then allow me to start questing in Twilight Highlands which will get me to 85 pretty quick.

After Wranngar is to 85 I will have to start working on getting them all geared. Right now my Hunter, Brieanna, is the best geared with an item level of 344. My Shaman, Breeonna, is the next best geared with an item level of 336 and my Priest, Brieonna, is next with an item level of 330. My Warlock, Gomorra, is coming in last with an item level of 320. It is gonna take awhile to get them all geared and I was more interested in getting them to 85 than getting them geared right away. Once they are all 85 there will be time for that.

Since they changed the armory around none of my character links were working. The ones in this post are updated and I will work on getting all the other links on this blog updated in the next couple days.

Rock Lobster

Rock Lobster is one of the new daily fishing quests obtained from Catherine Leland (55,69) on a dock in the canals in Stormwind. For those without coords it is the dock between Trade District and Mage District.

Description:

If I could choose my last meal, it would definitely be fresh lobster tail. Something about that tasty crustacean is just irresistible! We recently started trapping lobsters here in Stormwind. Would you mind heading out and checking the traps for me?

One more thing, watch out for the sharks. They can be viscous down there.

This is a really fast and simple one. You will be heading to Stormwind Harbor. Once there all you need to do is dive down and collect 6 Rock Lobsters from the traps scattered around on the bottom of the harbor. You can usually use 3 of the traps and just do 2 laps around them to get the 6 Rock Lobsters you need, they respawn fast. When you have the 6, head back to Catherine Leland and turn it in. You will receive 7g40s and a Bag of Shiny Things, which so far has just had useless junk and an average of 1 silver in it. You will also get +1 to fishing skill which makes this quest worth it right there as you need to catch around a dozen fish to get one skill point in fishing when you are over 450 fishing skill.

Good Luck,

-Wrann

Wranngar - Level 81 Feral Druid

I have started working on getting Wranngar, my last level 80, to 85. He has one advantage over the others in Vashj'ir, he can breath underwater and also has swim form which greatly increases his swim speed. I think it is faster than the seahorse mount you get from the quest in Vashj'ir but other people have said no. Until I can find someone to race I won't know, but it seems faster.

He is currently questing in Vashj'ir and will be there for a bit still. I had a bunch of gear that I sent to him from my other toons, drops mostly, and some gear he made so he is not doing too bad on gear. His dps is pretty low but I am writing that off to my not having played him in over a year. I think the last time I played him was to get him to level 80 and then some PvP to get 100000 Honorable Kills. After that I pretty much lost interest in him.

His skinning is around 480 now and his leatherworking is 501. He is making good gold off quests and drops and I am thinking about dual speccing him to Feral/Balance, so I have been keeping the caster gear he gets from quests and drops too.

I am working on him on and off so he won't be 85 tomorrow but he will get there eventually. I did have one bad moment when I hearthed from Vashj'ir and found myself in Dalaran which is a ghost town now. I had to fly back to the shore then take the boat back to Stormwind where I made sure I reset my hearth stone to.

Hitting A Walleye

Hitting a Walleye is one of the new daily fishing quests obtained from Catherine Leland (55,69) on a dock in the canals in Stormwind. For those without coords it is the dock between Trade District and Mage District.

Description:

Sometimes, I fish for fun. Other times to relax, but sometimes I want a challenge. That's where the hardened walleye comes into the picture. This prized fish is not caught for us to eat, but for the challenge. You can find the walleye in Stormwind Lake just north of the city. Think you are up to the challenge?

For this one you will be heading to Stormwind Lake. This is not the lake with the island, it is the lake between Dwarven District and Cathedral Square. Once there all you need to do is fish up 8 Hardened Walleye. As you get one pretty much every single cast this does not take long at all. Once you have the 8 you need, return to Catherine Leland and turn in for your reward.

You will receive 7g40s, a Bag of Shiny Things and +1 to Fishing Skill. The +1 to Fishing Skill is what makes it worth doing this daily. At fishing skill 450+ it takes about a dozen fish to get 1 skill point, so it is worth it to do this daily for the point alone. Your Bag of Shiny Things will contain around 1 silver (on average) and a couple useless items. That's really all there is to this one.

Good Luck,

-Wrann

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.