On Saturday, we had our memorial for Vinny. Over 25 people showed up at the Shrine of the Fallen Warrior in the Barrens and we spent a couple hours recounting stories about him and giving a “KungalooooOOOOooooOOOooosh” salute. It was very nice.

My shammy Zulrea is level 78 as we speak, as well as Kazi’s warlock Basia. A destruction warlock and an elemental shaman are a scary combination. We keep lamenting about how we can only get 2 spells off each before a mob dies. >.> On that note, having Lava Burst always crit is awesome. Also, she dropped skinning and took up inscription…partially because I wanted a scribe and partially because Basia is a tailor/enchanter. So Kazi gets all my weapon/armor vellums.

Saraku is finally exalted with Netherwing (with much help provided by Kazi searching for eggs). So now he can transform back to his original drake form in character. Still working on Crusader dailies with him but not with much enthusiasm. He also has his complete T9 tanking set. I started getting his T9 healing set together but then I found out that I like healing on Zulrea better anyways.

Niqo has 4 pieces of T9, the Orca-Hunter’s Harpoon, the Felglacier Bolter, the Pauldrons of the Devourer,  the Crusader’s Dragonscale Bracers (a Christmas gift from Kazi), and the Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape. In short…she looks like just about every other hunter who’s done a ton of randoms. I’m quite satisfied about my 3.7-4k dps with a BM spec in heroics, with it spiking on the bosses when I pop my cooldowns and trinkets. Also, the redesigned Misdirect + Volley is sooooo nice. It really helped tanks in H-HoR before they nerfed the damage. Oh, and she got her “the Patient” title which is quite suitable for her RP-wise.

I rolled a fury warrior called Tuyok who now is level 25 and has 4 pieces of heirloom gear equipped. In character, he is Mysthowl’s and Niqora’s adoptive teenage son and his full first name is Issorartuyok. Try saying that five times fast. It’s the Inuit word for “leader dog”. He’s pretty much the character that I play solo when I’m not doing something with the people of BR.

Kazi and I have been talking about what characters we’re going to roll when Cataclysm comes out. I’m going to roll a worgen druid to be paired with his worgen hunter (with a wolf pet of course!) and a goblin hunter with his goblin priest/mage. We decided to reserve our names and because my 10 character slots on Wyrmrest Accord where already taken…I needed to clear up two spots. The first one to go was Fawnel, my tauren druid who wasn’t getting played anyway. My hope is that the worgen will have some sort of wolf-like cat form which will help me enjoy playing a druid more. Choosing the second character to delete was tough but I finally settled on Brighit, my draenei hunter. I play her even less than Fawnel and once I do start playing a little bit on Alliance side with the expansion, my focus is going to be solely on my druid. So it was hard to let her go but at least I’ll be making a goblin hunter, right? Right? >.> I’m currently debating between a raptor or a bear for her. I do love raptors and they have similar personalities to goblins. On the other hand, a giant bear with tons of explosives strapped to it does make a rather intimidating and funny image. Have I mentioned that the goblin is going to be half out of her mind?

Bloodriver as a guild is working on making our way through Ulduar and we’ve dipped our toes in TotC and Onyxia. We’ve come up to Freya on our last Ulduar run and we haven’t tried to get Ony down again since 3.3.0 came out. So I think that next time we go in there, we’ll be able to take her down. We also have a sister guild on Alliance side called Obsidian Phoenix that is slowly filling up with people who have Ally characters. That’s where our worgens will find their home.

And last but not least…I got a Logitech G11 keyboard. The blue LED lights are so very pretty and shiny. Plus the macro keys have given me a noticeable improvement in Niqo’s dps. I’d be completely pleased with it if the keys didn’t seem to randomly stop working when I switch characters (I blame the program, not the keyboard itself).

Patch 3.3.2 is all loaded up and I’m eager to get home for work and see what new things await for me. I heard there’s been a buff for elemental shamans.

Now hopefully my next update will come before Cataclysm is released. >.>

Instead of doing one big update that would look very daunting right now, I’m just going to say a couple of important things and then go into detail in a later post.

First of all, I’ve moved all my characters that were on Moon Guard to the new RP realm, Wyrmrest Accord. That includes Niqora, Anuniaq, Brighit, and Tkasha, as well as my new DK Githinji and my baby shammy Zulrea. Yes I know, I actually made some non-hunters. I’ll explain those later.

Secondly, Niqora has reached level 80! Woot! And…she’s engaged to be married! Screenies and details to come.

Thirdly, all my hunters are staying Beast Master. I have nothing against other spec, BM is just what I like. After all, I am a petoholic.

And lastly, I have had a lot of pet changes for my hunters which I will need to post and talk about.

Oh! And I command you all to visit A World (of Warcraft) Apart, the home of my esteemed and wonderful guild leader (and Niqo’s betrothed <3).

Ha! I dare you to tell me that I need to update now!

I especially like the roaring bone dragon. Very nice touch. I don’t suppose I can tame one…

Unfortunately all the realms I play on are still down. So I can’t log in and get Niqora a nice new chimera or core hound. I’m not really interested in any of the other new pets. Okay, maybe the moths. Brighit might get one of those. And possibly devilsaurs too. I suppose time will really tell.

I am really looking forward to the new pet skills and talent trees. Every family gets a focus dump and its own special skill, Dash/Dive/Charge is now universal, pets have their own talent tress, new pets are auto-leveled to within 5 levels of your hunter…and last but not least, no more traipsing all over Azeroth to find that rank of whatever pet skill you need.

I remember not so long ago when there was a certain rank of Dash Blacky needed, but the lowest level beast with it was in Blackrock. Niqora tried to venture in there on her own, and then later with a druid friend…only to die repeatedly. I decided it was easier just to wait a few more levels. But now I will never have to do that again!

In other news, I reserved my copy of WotLK a couple days ago. It turns out that they don’t take pre-orders for the Collector’s Edition which I want. They sell those on a first-come-first-serve basis. So I’ll be hanging outside my local EB Games come November 13. With the expansion, I’m looking forward to new areas to explore and, as always, new pets! I’ve basically been glued to Mania’s Arcania for latest pet updates. Will I be trying out the new Death Knight class? Most likely but I doubt I’ll stick with it. After all, I’m a hunter and pet lover at heart!

Niqora

Has reached level 65. At level 64, she tamed a Warp Hunter who she named Grakoth. I just took a screenshot of them in Elwynn Forest (because it’s funny to bug the Alliance). Unfortunately it’s night now so the lighting is horrible.

Here’s a better picture taken from the character chooser screen.

I am loving the Warp ability. Only a 15 second cooldown and it instantly takes Grakoth to the mob…it’s really great for grinding or farming. He’s already up to Loyalty 5 because I’ve quested with him all through level 64. Luckily he likes his fish so it gave me an excuse to work on Niqora’s fishing skill, which is now over 300. And I think he’s just the cutest thing when he tilts his head up and sniffs at the air. It reminds me so much of a dog’s behaviour. Grakoth won’t replace Blacky but he is definitely going to be staying around.

Brighit

Brighit is level 24 as of today. A while ago, she moved to the Moon Guard server to join Wolfrider’s Alliance warlock. He also created a baby NE druid and she’s been waiting for him to catch up so they can level together.

Khaja

Quite a while ago, Khaja tamed a Ravager Specimen from Azuremyst Isle. You might remember that Khaja has gone through quite a few pets so I was hesistant to mention the ravager in case I got rid of him. But I think (don’t quote me on this)…I think this companion might be sticking around the little troll. I’ve named him Xiuhcoatl, which is an Aztec name meaning “weapon of destruction”. Quite an appropriate name for a ravager, wouldn’t you say? Definitely a tongue twister…I’m not even sure how to pronounce it so his nickname is going to be Xi.

Machalor

Yay! Machalor is level 40 and now my second character to get her mount. Of course, this happens just shortly before the announcement that we might be getting mounts at level 30…*grumble grumble*. Oh well, it will make it easier for my other 7 hunters.

After running around all of Azeroth during the Midsummer Festival, she got the 350 flowers she needed to trade them in for a Spirit of Summer, which can be seen next to her in the screenie below. It was quite an adventure that involved a fair bit of dying and dashing through areas that she really shouldn’t have been in. I did try to capture the flame in an Alliance city (Exodar in particular) but it was just too much work so I decided to stick with the little towns instead.

Fhionn

Not much has happened with Fhionn, except that I was bored one day and went around killing the Blood Elf Bandit again until he dropped his wonderful mask. I may or may not be moving her to Moon Guard (she and Brighit are a bit of a team, it doesn’t seem right to separate them like this).

Tkasha

What is it with my troll characters and constantly switching between pets? Tkasha was going to have a crab as her pet…but then I had to go to Petopia and browse through all the pets. I kept going back to the golden maned lion one, which is very strange because that model had never appealed to me before. So I tamed one and named him Rajesh, which is East Indian for “king of kings”. Then…I saw Humar. Of course I had seen and heard much about him before and I had never really paid much attention to him. But at that moment, I realized that Tkasha had to tame him. If you were to look at it RP-wise, Khaja began to notice that Rajesh’s coat was growing darker with each passing season, until his 23rd season where his fur was as black as night. I’d say that taming Humar was difficult but that part wasn’t. It was waiting for him to spawn. After spending about 2 days logging in and having no luck at him spawning, I woke myself up at about 5 am to tame him and sure enough, there he was. I was even going to have a little fun and make a movie out of the taming but alas, in my sleepiness I somehow managed to shut off FRAPs right before I tamed him. *sigh*

I do think that he is just gorgeous and I’m pretty sure he will be at Tkasha’s side for a long time (again, don’t quote me >.>)

Here’s some pictures of Rajesh when his coat was still golden. In these screenies, he’s with Tkasha in the old Lordaeron throne room above Undercity.

Nicora has Blacky, who was originally Snarler. I tamed him because he’s black (one of my favorite colors) and he’s a wolf (one of my favorite animals) and because he reminded me of my RL dog, who passed away in May. Nicora also has a ghost sabre (just like everyone and their mother) who’s named Tonrar, which means “ghost” in Inuit. I tamed him because…well…he looked cool

Machalor has a thing for hyenas. They didn’t really appeal to me at first and I had tamed her first one, Chuckles the bluish-purple hyena mostly for the novelty. But then he stuck to the orc hunter like glue. And his strange aura of fierceness bordering on hysterical laughter really drew me in. And his bouncy run! And how could I forget the way his tiny tail swings around as he lopes along. This led to the taming of Machalor’s second hyena, Snickers the Scarlet Tracking Hound. Chuckles is enjoying his retirement in the stables (he might come back out again one day) while Snickers bounces along side Machalor wherever she goes.

Jorthwyn likes anything to do with Norse mythology, especially Odin. She has two pets right now, Freki the prairie wolf and Muninn the red and black carrion bird. Freki was named after one of Odin’s wolf companions and Muninn after one of his ravens. I know a carrion bird isn’t exactly a raven but it was the closest thing in the game. Freki is really neat because he’s one of those that barks every time you click on him but since Nicora already has a wolf, Jorthwyn needed something different. Which is where Muninn came in. I don’t really like the look of the carrion birds or flying pets in general but for some reason, ol’ Muninn is growing on me. His beautifully colored feathers sure help.

Aithne has gone through a lot of pets, including a ravager, a dragonhawk, and a pink tallstrider. Only two pets have stuck to her: a blue crab named Lapis and a dark blue raptor named Rath. Strange pets for a blood elf, I know, but they fit with her. I love Lapis for her shiny blue shell that just gleams in the sunlight and her name. Her name fits her beautifully. Unfortunately I know crabs don’t get much love in the skills department so I decided to get Aithne something else. A few tames later, I settled on Rath, who was a pain to tame but is too handsome and powerful to turn away. His name just popped into my mind at random but I love it and it suits him.

Brighit’s pretty much a one-pet Draenei. There was a brief time when she was going to tame cats exclusively but then I decided to create my night elf and make her my cat lady. Now Brighit is named after Brigid, a Celtic goddess of fire, who had a boar named Triath as her companion. This made my choice pretty obvious…Brighit was to tame a boar! I had shied away from boars before because it seemed like everyone had one. But then I decided that you can’t knock it until you try it and tamed a black one from around Ironforge and called him Triath (how imaginative). And he is awesome! He holds aggro better than any pet I’ve seen and his Charge and Gore skills makes killing things so much faster. Also, I will admit that he is cute and has lots of personality.

Fhionn is my cat lady. Cats are so popular in the game because they come in such a variety of skins that are all beautiful and they’re also known for some of the best damage. I too like the cats so it only made sense to have a character who had them as pets. Fhionn currently have two brightly coloured cats, Irusan and Neala. Irusan is an orange Durotar tiger that she traveled all the way to the Echo Isles for. He’s named after the Celtic king of cats. Neala, whose name is Gaelic for “queen” or “champion”, is the first yellow-leopard-skinned cat that you can tame in the game, a rare spawn called Dishu who, might I add, was a challenge to tame.  Why did I choose orange and yellow cats when they’re such a great amount of equally beautiful whitish or purplish cats? Because it seems that everything having to do with night elves is either white or purple and I was getting sick of it. When Fhionn runs around with her cats, they seem to glow brilliantly in the low light of Teldrassil.

Last but not least is Khaja, my newly created troll hunter. I’ve decided to have her tame some of the “colder” beasts, like scorpids and windserpents. She tried playing with a very cool-looking black-and-red scorpid but it just didn’t work out. Now she has one of the yellow serpents from Wailing Caverns and as soon as she’s high enough level, she’s going to tame one of the red-coloured ones. I haven’t decided which one exactly yet. Her current windserpent is named Blit (I don’t know why) and he’s beginning to grow on me. He’s quite graceful, except when he’s “running”. In addition, his ranged Lightning Breath attack seem to grab aggro fairly well.

…Wow, good thing that I didn’t actually post that in the comments of Mania’s article. It was long enough as it is!

The ram mount came from a place that’s obvious if you’d kept up with current events: Brewfest. It’s over now but I had a blast with it. I invested more time in Brewfest than I had with any other event, mostly because of the great items you can get and the silliness of the whole thing. I got [item]32233[/item] for 4 of my characters, a [item]33969[/item] for Brighit (also would have purchased a [item]33863[/item] if she had had enough tickets), and of course the [item]33976[/item] mount for Nicora. The ram took me about 8 days of keg runs and yelling in Orgrimmar to get. The daily yelling for breweries was easy enough but trying to log on every 12 hours on the dot to do the keg runs wasn’t a cake walk. I’m sure I had dark rings under my eyes for walking up early to do the quests. But it was well worth it. The ram is so much more elegant and graceful than a kodo, which lubbers around jerkily from one area to another.

Once getting the ram, I became interested in playing Nicora again, who hadn’t really been touched for a while. At the suggestion of some guildies and the GM, I decided to try battlegrounds for the first time. I had never had any interest in the BGs before so I had never touched them. My first run was Arathi and I sucked but we won and I learned a lot of PvP just from that one run. I tried it again, this time in Warsong, and we lost to the Alliance and I sucked even more than the first time. My playing had actually improved but the Alliance were actually harder to kill in Warsong, the whole flag-running wasn’t as easy as capture bases, and a level 49 warlock kept fearing me and then blasting me to death. All in all, not a pleasant experience. I went back to Arathi one last time that day, Horde won, and I had a blast. So I’ve been back to Arathi quite a few times and so far I’ve only seen Alliance win once (he he he). My BG playing has greatly improved, although there are times when I’m still searching for the right skill to use when someone’s hacking away and killing me. And I can only play 2 or 3 BGs in a day before I get too wound up and antsy.

My reward for playing Arathi was [item]20156[/item]. I had been looking to replace [item]16977[/item] forever. Yes, Nicora was level 44 and still wearing lvl 30 boots. I couldn’t even use [item]8173[/item] on them. So I’m very proud of my new greaves. And since I’ve been informed that BG armor scales with level, I’m eager to get some more Next on my list is [item]20153[/item].

So now Jorthwyn and Fhionn are the last two that need to be levelled to 20. These two are the last probably because they are the least favorite of my characters and they’re both in Darkshore, which is not the most interesting area IMO. But I still like playing them and eventually they will be played.

As a side note, I haven’t been posting much for a number of reasons. School takes up a good chunk of my week and the rest of the time has been spent actually playing the game. Normally, I would post on the weekend when I’m working but things have actually picked up there and I spend most of the time running back and forth serving whiny kids and potheads. (That’s what I get for working at a gaming place.) For the record, working in retail is the best birth control ever. After spending 26 hours a week dealing with kids who have the attention span of a goldfish, I sure don’t want any myself. And added on to all of this, the one website that I’ve created and update for a small business has been flooding me with updates. Yeah, so now I’m going to catch up on everything and you’ll get a flurry of posts to read

That’s right. Brighit has the Purple Brewfest Hat. Check out the brilliant blue feather. Awesome. Only took a few Brewfest quests to get the 50 tickets needed for it. And she’s also got her Wolpertinger’s Tankard.

As for character progress, I’m just trying to level everyone except for Nicora and Machalor up to level 20. I will post about Aithne’s tame of Rath, and I’m in the process of writing a beginner’s guide to the hunter class based on my experiences. So more to come soon!