Wednesday (11 Nov) - Wild Family Shakeup

Wednesday (11 Nov) - Wild Family Shakeup

I guess you can blame JB for this. As Wild's guild problems mount, and his raiding nights dwindle to just two, JB has stepped in to fill the vacuum with conquests of vanilla WoW instances, lots of Wintergrasp battles, the Argent Tournament, and two manning anything JB and DER can get into.

Another core guildie and good friend if Wild's, Lady Hunter, has left the guild. A large part of that decision had to do with real life issues that have taken a heavy toll on her game time. Another factor was that many of the players from her raiding group are now raiding with the MM guild, and on nights when she can raid (which is still not often) she will likely run with them. Wild still holds out hope for his own guild's raiding, even though Wild has a standing invitation to the MM ten man raids. Wild's guild did run ten man Ulduar Wednesday night, but I had a real life commitment and couldn't make it. Sadly, I realized I didn't miss it that much. Wild is not giving up on the guild, though, and has signed up for Friday's run. In addition, though, Wild is going to check with MM raid leader Bd and see if he has a spot for his Thursday night raid if they are doing something other than Ulduar.

JB achieved her goal of winning over 200 Stone Keeper Shards, and purchased the heirloom shoulder piece [Aged Pauldrons of the Five Thunders]. Heirloom items are account bound and can be shared between all characters on the same account. Wildshard was the first in the family to earn an heirloom item, a trinket, which eventually went to EZ. EZ wasn't on the same account as Wild, but Level 10 Dulcetruin volunteered to do an account transfer. Dulcetruin got the heirloom trinket from Wild, then transferred to the account EZ was on, and sent the trinket to her. Everything worked just fine.

The shoulder heirloom item was also destined for the other account, but things were a little more complicated this time. The account was at it's max of ten characters. Someone would have to go. Two of those toons were low level Alliance toons, and normally Wild would have no reservations about deep sixing an allie toon. However, one of them happened to be Mrs. Wild's toon, and even though it has been months since she's played, she still has to be reassured periodically that all is well with her and her pet (she's a hunter). The other allie is an important go between in cross faction transactions when I need to do that, and so he earns his keep as well. It seemed unfair to give Dulcetruin her walking papers right after spending hard cash to switch accounts. Plus she wasn't the lowest level horde toon on the account.

Wild turned to Rheebah. Rheebah is the family's second oldest toon, after Wild. Rheebah introduced Mrs Wild to the joys of Warcraft. She picked a druid to play because she liked the shape-shifting idea, and because a very young Wild didn't know anything about playing anything but a druid at the time. Mrs Wild made it to level 6, and went no further. Stranded and asked to leave her home starting area before she was completely trained or ready, Rheebah was asked to embark on what was then a long, perilous journey to Orgrimmar. Since her arrival, Rheebah has been anchored in Orgrimmar, doing duty as a bank alt for stuff that no one else wanted to store or carry around. It's a quiet, somewhat lonely life, but she has been content in her own way, padding around Org in her pretty black dress, a modest staff slung across her back.

Wild left the final decision to Rheebah, who revealed that what she really wanted was to return to Bloodhoof Village, the starting area where she was born. So the decision was made.

The account transfer took barely an hour, moving a rogue from Wild's account to what had once been Rheebah's. Everything looked good. All money, items, and gear transferred as well.

It was only when the heirloom shoulders were sent to Philly that a problem developed. The shoulders were originally worn by JB and it equipped properly as mail gear. Sent to the leather wearing rogue, it appeared correctly as leather gear. Sent to Philly, who wears cloth, it stubbornly insisted it was mail gear, and Philly could not equip it. I had to put a ticket in to a GM for resolution.

Meanwhile, JB was discovering some new alchemy transmutes that she had not known existed. She has the max skill of 450 in Alchemy, and thought she had every trainable spell. But a quest giver in Dalaran showed JB a quest that when completed would allow JB to create a cardinal ruby out of lesser materials. Cardinal rubies are a highly sought after gem, that when properly cut by a jewelcrafter provides the highest spell power gem (+23) in the game. Every caster needs this gem, and even uncut it sells for around 150g each. What really excited JB was that in order to learn this spell, she had to transmute several other gems, and lo and behold, there was a trainer next to the quest giver that sold the transmute spells. JB had no idea alchemists could get transmutes that created high level gems. Happy wanted to bonk her on the head, because he'd been having to BUY the gems every time JB or Wild needed them. JB will be in Happy's doghouse until she finishes the quest and starts producing cardinal rubies (one a day max).

That got Wild to thinking. Wouldn't it be great if the Wild family had a high level jewelcrafter (JC) as well? Melasahnd was the lone JC in the family, but she had only gotten to skill 123 (out of 450). To really get full benefit from the JC profession, not only would the skill need to be greatly increased, but someone would have to level up.

A while back Wild faced a similar question, and had to decide between JB, Philly, and Melasahnd on who would get a chance to level. JB, of course, won that debate, and is now level 80. Philly had gotten a lot of consideration at the time, but she was still fairly active in level 59 bracket pvp, and levelling past that would, of course, end that. Things have changed since then. There is EZ, Ando, and Lao for level 19 pvp. And with DER closing in on level 80, DER and JB (and Wild) have a lot of options for pvp at it's highest levels.

So the decision has been made. Philly gets the nod to level past 59. Thursday morning she paid the 1,000 gold (out of her inscription money) for dual specs in DISC and Shadow. She will keep her Inscription profession, and once she hits level 60 will be able to start skilling up again. Philly will have to give up herbalism in order to take Jewelcrafting. Most of the mats she needs to get to the same level that Melasahnd is at now are already available, so she'll get off to a good start. Melasahnd will switch from JC to picking flowers, which she can combine with the mining profession she already has to become the family's super gatherer. Melasahnd did a modest talent respec to get "On a Pale Horse" which is a talent that gives death knights the fastest ground mount in the game, which will speed up her ore and herb gathering.

So there it is. Philly gets to start levelling as she skills up in both inscription and jewelcrafting. Melasahnd does the main work of gathering. JB gets to push forward in pvp and in group/raids.

And Wildshard - well, Wild isn't going away. But he does have a few things to think about.