Wildshard Joins Plumrosefist at Level 90
Wild reached level 90 on Thursday morning, 19 September, 2013. Wild began the effort on September 1st. He was 2% of the way to level 86 at the time, having gotten that little bit of experience doing the initial questing for the Mists of Pandaria expansion. The remaining 98% of the work was done by doing pet battles. It took Wild 19 days to go from level 85 to 90. By way of comparison, Fist's march from 85 to 90 began on November 4th, 2012. It took her 7 days just to reach level 86, taking on the challenge of learning the land of Pandaria. At the time, it marked the first time that Wild was NOT the highest level in the family, since he remained at level 85 while Fist moved on.
Fist made it to level 90 on 7 December, 2012. So, Wild accomplished in 19 days what it took Fist to do in 26 days. Both took a steep commitment in time to make it happen.
Happy had put away several pieces of gear for Wild's level 90 coming out party. The new gear increased his gear level from i427 to i455. Fist's gear level is i453. Wild still has to get all of his enchants and gems, and then it will be time to take a peek at the Timeless Isle!
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
The New/Old Auction House
The New/Old Auction House
Before eyes start to glaze over, Wild wants everyone to know that he is 91% of the way to level 89. Wild might have made it to 89 last night but I started falling asleep at the computer. Expect Wild to get started on grinding toward 90 today (Monday).
San Diego sports had a great weekend. The Chargers football team pulled out a stunning upset, beating the Eagles 33-30 on the last play of the game. The Padres baseball team stunned the team with best record in baseball, the Atlanta Braves, beating them twice in three games and coming within a run of sweeping them. The two games were on at the same time Sunday morning (both east coast games) so I had to keep switching between the football game, the baseball game, and the pet battle game. :-)
Happy was only away from the Auction House about three weeks during the "I quit but not really" period when I thought I was done with the game. That absence didn't have a major impact, but the release of the 5.4 patch certainly has. The Timeless Isle, where players have a new, vast playground to run around in, has completely consumed players. Raiding, which has already been dwindling on our server, seems to be out of favor. Many of the materials that Happy sells are used with gearing up and preparing for raids, and the prices of those items have seriously tanked.
Happy, usually very decisive in making buy/sell decisions, is having trouble gauging the current sell off. The patch didn't introduce another set of new mats, but the falling prices are very like the process when new mats are introduced and the old mats begin to get phased out. For example, a Sha crystal could be sold for close to 300g apiece just a couple of weeks ago. They are selling at under 100g right now. Will that price keep falling, or is this just a bump and prices will start climbing again? Happy, for once, isn't sure. The other prime mats - greater celestial essence, ethereal shards, and mysterious essence, have seen deep cuts in price, particularly the ethereal shards. Older mats, which have always had a modest but consistent level of demand, are not selling at any price.
Happy is still making ends meet, but most of his profit now comes from gems. Gems got a massive boost from the patch. Demand skyrocketed. The price of the key ingredient in making a gem from jewel crafting (JB makes all of Happy's gems) went from 50g each to an average of 70g with spurts as high as 100g. Great day for gem sellers, right? Well, yes and no. The miners out there saw gold in their eyes, too, and they began digging up gems as well. Yes, there was a lot of new demand, but it didn't take long before the supply of gems began to outpace the buying. The big boys who do this for a living started dumping large quantities of gems at cut rate prices. Prices on many gems, usually priced in the 70-100g range, depending on the type, fell to 50g and sometimes lower. At under 50g Happy started buying, since that was less than JB's cost of making them. Happy is still riding that up and down wave and making gold, but it's a feast or famine kind of thing to catch the market in between the big dump fests.
On average, sales are down, but Happy still makes a little from bags, herbs, and healing potions. Healing potions were once not that great sellers, because raiding guilds generally provided them to their members for free. Raiding is mostly LFR and the new flex raids with random players not associated with a guild raid, so they have to make or buy their own healing potions now. It helps that they are very cheap to make and almost always sell.
One surprise seller are the five types of volatiles. These are old mats from an earlier expansion. Happy kept a very large stock of them, and he's now selling them off at a tidy profit. That will last only until the stock is exhausted or Happy's regular price hikes finally dampen demand. It's a finite market, though, since few farm those mats anymore.
Finally, here is a test to see if you read all the way down (you masochist, you).
Wild has collected a few battle-stones during all this leveling and is trying to figure out the best way to use them. Battle-stones can be used to upgrade a lower quality pet to Rare quality, which is the best type to have. Battle-stones are random drops, and they don't drop that often, so I want to get the best value out of them that I can.
Pet battles can include as many as three pets on each side, so having at least three max level pets available is necessary. Out of the ten categories of pets, I have at least three rare, max 25 level pets for all but three categories: Humanoid has just one (Peddlefeet), Undead only two (Lil' K.T. and Lost of Lordaeron), and Magic only two (Arcane Eye and Twilight Fiendling).
Wild isn't quite sure. yet, how he will use the stones. For the moment, anyway, he's still focused on leveling, so the pet battle decisions will have to wait.
Before eyes start to glaze over, Wild wants everyone to know that he is 91% of the way to level 89. Wild might have made it to 89 last night but I started falling asleep at the computer. Expect Wild to get started on grinding toward 90 today (Monday).
San Diego sports had a great weekend. The Chargers football team pulled out a stunning upset, beating the Eagles 33-30 on the last play of the game. The Padres baseball team stunned the team with best record in baseball, the Atlanta Braves, beating them twice in three games and coming within a run of sweeping them. The two games were on at the same time Sunday morning (both east coast games) so I had to keep switching between the football game, the baseball game, and the pet battle game. :-)
Happy was only away from the Auction House about three weeks during the "I quit but not really" period when I thought I was done with the game. That absence didn't have a major impact, but the release of the 5.4 patch certainly has. The Timeless Isle, where players have a new, vast playground to run around in, has completely consumed players. Raiding, which has already been dwindling on our server, seems to be out of favor. Many of the materials that Happy sells are used with gearing up and preparing for raids, and the prices of those items have seriously tanked.
Happy, usually very decisive in making buy/sell decisions, is having trouble gauging the current sell off. The patch didn't introduce another set of new mats, but the falling prices are very like the process when new mats are introduced and the old mats begin to get phased out. For example, a Sha crystal could be sold for close to 300g apiece just a couple of weeks ago. They are selling at under 100g right now. Will that price keep falling, or is this just a bump and prices will start climbing again? Happy, for once, isn't sure. The other prime mats - greater celestial essence, ethereal shards, and mysterious essence, have seen deep cuts in price, particularly the ethereal shards. Older mats, which have always had a modest but consistent level of demand, are not selling at any price.
Happy is still making ends meet, but most of his profit now comes from gems. Gems got a massive boost from the patch. Demand skyrocketed. The price of the key ingredient in making a gem from jewel crafting (JB makes all of Happy's gems) went from 50g each to an average of 70g with spurts as high as 100g. Great day for gem sellers, right? Well, yes and no. The miners out there saw gold in their eyes, too, and they began digging up gems as well. Yes, there was a lot of new demand, but it didn't take long before the supply of gems began to outpace the buying. The big boys who do this for a living started dumping large quantities of gems at cut rate prices. Prices on many gems, usually priced in the 70-100g range, depending on the type, fell to 50g and sometimes lower. At under 50g Happy started buying, since that was less than JB's cost of making them. Happy is still riding that up and down wave and making gold, but it's a feast or famine kind of thing to catch the market in between the big dump fests.
On average, sales are down, but Happy still makes a little from bags, herbs, and healing potions. Healing potions were once not that great sellers, because raiding guilds generally provided them to their members for free. Raiding is mostly LFR and the new flex raids with random players not associated with a guild raid, so they have to make or buy their own healing potions now. It helps that they are very cheap to make and almost always sell.
One surprise seller are the five types of volatiles. These are old mats from an earlier expansion. Happy kept a very large stock of them, and he's now selling them off at a tidy profit. That will last only until the stock is exhausted or Happy's regular price hikes finally dampen demand. It's a finite market, though, since few farm those mats anymore.
Finally, here is a test to see if you read all the way down (you masochist, you).
Wild has collected a few battle-stones during all this leveling and is trying to figure out the best way to use them. Battle-stones can be used to upgrade a lower quality pet to Rare quality, which is the best type to have. Battle-stones are random drops, and they don't drop that often, so I want to get the best value out of them that I can.
Pet battles can include as many as three pets on each side, so having at least three max level pets available is necessary. Out of the ten categories of pets, I have at least three rare, max 25 level pets for all but three categories: Humanoid has just one (Peddlefeet), Undead only two (Lil' K.T. and Lost of Lordaeron), and Magic only two (Arcane Eye and Twilight Fiendling).
Wild isn't quite sure. yet, how he will use the stones. For the moment, anyway, he's still focused on leveling, so the pet battle decisions will have to wait.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Cheating at Motes
Cheating at Motes
Philly has the Inscription profession, and one of the things she can make is an i476 staff. The staff is Bind on Account (BoA), so it can be passed to any other character that wants to use it. The ticklish part of the process is that Motes of Harmony are required. These motes are soulbound when received so Philly would have to earn them herself. Overall, she'd need 70 motes to make the high end staff.
I thought I could trick the system. Philly hasn't even started the quests at the beginning of the Pandaria expansion. Philly's plan was to get to Pandaria with the entry quests and then simply farm bad guys until enough motes dropped. Well, Philly got to Pandaria just fine. She actually did better than Wild's first trip to panda land. Wild fell off the ship and had no idea where he was! Unfortunately, Philly wasn't that smart, either. Apparently, the mobs Philly can kill in the first zone of Pandaria, the Jade Forest, don't drop any motes. Philly killed quite a few, doing a couple of starter quests. None dropped. Ah, well.
Wild kept himself busy. On 13 September (Don't say it! You know, Friday's not over yet!), Wild went to Outland just to go somewhere different. Over the course of several hours Wild picked up a few more pet achievements:
Zen Pet Hunter (capturing 200 pets in pet battles)
World Pet Mauler (winning battles in 60 different zones)
Grand Master Pet battles (1000+ pet battles)
Win Streak (25 consecutive wins without a loss)
Wild now has 217 unique pets. I've collected a total of 301 pets, so I am almost halfway there (367 to go). My main focus, though, is collecting the 135 still at large pets that I can acquire through pet battles. Oh, and I now have 31 max level 25 pets.
On 12 September Wild reached 59% of the way to level 88. On 13 September, Wild DINGED! to level 88. I really, really, like leveling by doing pet battles. The last two levels take the longest, but I still think Wild can reach level 90 within a week.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
The Vale of Eternal Sorrow
The Vale of Eternal Sorrow
Wild has a bit of news, but this post mostly belongs to Lao, who had a very busy couple of days.
First up is Wild. Wild is leveling to 90 via pet battles, and while he isn't actively chasing achievements, it's nice when one pops up, such as the "Pro Pet Crew," awarded for getting 30 unique pets to level 25. Wild also DINGED! his way to level 87.
Wild may have to alter his gearing approach, though. He's aiming at a minimum ilevel of i460 in order to get into the beginning Looking for Raid (LFR) groups once he's at level 90. However, he needs i490, I believe, to get into normal raids. Based on Unbleach's i496 for flex raiding (see below), Wild will have his work cut out for him. From what I'm hearing about the Patch 5.4 Timeless Isle, a new area of exploration, it's a lot of fun. Wild's guildies are all over it earning great gear, some of it Bind on Account (BoA) so that it can shared by all my characters.
Now for the news from Lao:
The last 24 hours has been eventful for Lao.
I can be an impulsive creature, which usually costs me money. I want to kill Hellscream – this means I need to raid. I laid out the options in the last email: stay put and work it out, or move to another server and join my raid group there. I chose the latter.
So Lao ($55 later) is now Unbleached, a taller goat version of herself, poor lass.
Lao, before the switch, was able to check out the new Isle that popped out of the clouds, as they are want to do. She ran around and got several account bound cloth purples: cloak, gloves, shoulders (2), chest, and pants. She decided to give all the gear, minus the extra gloves and the chest, to Narcissus. Narcissus is in need of gear in a bad way.
*Note: Be sure to “open” the gear while in the spec you want it to complement
Lao then packed up her bags and went on her whirlwind switch. The guild invite was easy, no wait like Wild had to suffer, and she was almost ready for the raid.
Unbleached decided to do healing for the raid. She has only pvp gear for heals, which is fine, but the trinkets (at least impair-movement-remover one) really do not belong in a raid. So she hit the AH and plopped down 12k on a new trinket. This may not have been as painful had it occurred 3 hours before, when she still had 125k in gold, but you are only allowed to transfer toons with a max of 50k gold, and it had to be done.
So, with her new shiny trinket she went off to the Vale of Eternal Sorrows, which is the prelude to the Siege Orgrimmar.
First Boss up: Immerseus. This is a boss who has a corruption bar, at 100. Once he hits 0 health becomes unstable and explodes out in slime balls. These balls need to be either healed to remove corruption (the blue ones) or killed (the black ones). For each ball healed or killed it removes 1 point of corruption and health to his reformed self. This is repeated until he is at 0 corruption and health.
We divided the room up into pie wedges and randomly spread out. It was a wipe. Next we decided to be a bit more logical about it. We did a better distribution of heals and damage. Immerseus went down.
Next up were The Fallen Protectors. These were the Golden Lotus quest givers that became corrupted when Hellscream did his thing. The mechanics of the fight are simple but busy. Each protector at 66% and 33% does a Desperate Measure. You want to avoid having more than one Desperate Measure going on at the same time. Once they are below 33% you want to bring them down about at the same rate. At 1%, if the others are in combat, they will heal up the one at 1% to 20%. The goal is to get them all at 1% at the same time (within 15 seconds). If you are able to bring them down to 1% at the same time they will have Clarity and snap out of it. We were able to, surprisingly, one shot this and Bleach got new 540 bracers.
Next boss is Norushen. This is a boss to prove you cannot be corrupted before moving on. When engaged you start out at 75% corrupted. There are orbs that appear around the boss that you can click on and enter a different realm where you prove your skill. Meaning healers heal ppl, tanks tank, and dps kill things. When you are done you return to the main fight and are fully cleansed of your corruption. The boss spawns adds that need to be killed but when killed they create pools of corruption that damage everyone. To stop the pools from spreading and doing aoe damage someone needs to stand in them and “soak” up the corruption. Once you get too heavy on the corruption you do the orb thing again.
After about 6-7 tries we got him down.
The last boss is the Sha of Pride. Even just clearing out the trash in this area killed a few of us off. This is basically a tank and spank but you have to be quick about it. As you take damage you get 5 Pride. At 100% pride you give massive aoe damage and it triggers other levels of pride to do damage as well; which means pretty much a wipe, as we found. Also, cleanse cannot be cast without getting pride unless you get a Titan buff. We did one attempt and found that 100% pride is deadly quickly. Raid time was up and we will start again tonight on the guy.
Since the patch Lao/Unbleached has gotten a lot of new pve gear: Bracers (from the raid), gloves, chest, trinkets (one bought), chest, and pants (the latter gear from the Isle).
Like I said, it has been a busy 24 hours.
The Second Night:
Last night we started on the fourth and final boss, The Sha Of Pride.
We did several attempts, however many fits in 2 hours, 3 of which were pretty good. We were getting some of the mechanics but had two possible issues, either not enough dps (just guessing this since I have not gotten recount yet) or missing enough of the buffs (falling in if you have the titan buff to get the additional buff it gives) that we kept just missing the mark.
At the last two fights two of the heals, myself included, switched to dps. We finally got him down. No new loot for me but another healing priest in the guild got a very nice staff.
I will have to look at the dungeon breakup. The guild raids Tu, W, Th. Thursday I cannot do because I volunteer at the hospital those evenings. My concern is that they will clear up to Hellscream on Tu, and W, and kill him on Th. I am going to check to see how many bosses will need to be cleared to get to him. If we get close to him I will have to see about maybe swapping my shift if we run into an issue.
Wild has a bit of news, but this post mostly belongs to Lao, who had a very busy couple of days.
First up is Wild. Wild is leveling to 90 via pet battles, and while he isn't actively chasing achievements, it's nice when one pops up, such as the "Pro Pet Crew," awarded for getting 30 unique pets to level 25. Wild also DINGED! his way to level 87.
Wild may have to alter his gearing approach, though. He's aiming at a minimum ilevel of i460 in order to get into the beginning Looking for Raid (LFR) groups once he's at level 90. However, he needs i490, I believe, to get into normal raids. Based on Unbleach's i496 for flex raiding (see below), Wild will have his work cut out for him. From what I'm hearing about the Patch 5.4 Timeless Isle, a new area of exploration, it's a lot of fun. Wild's guildies are all over it earning great gear, some of it Bind on Account (BoA) so that it can shared by all my characters.
Now for the news from Lao:
The last 24 hours has been eventful for Lao.
I can be an impulsive creature, which usually costs me money. I want to kill Hellscream – this means I need to raid. I laid out the options in the last email: stay put and work it out, or move to another server and join my raid group there. I chose the latter.
So Lao ($55 later) is now Unbleached, a taller goat version of herself, poor lass.
Lao, before the switch, was able to check out the new Isle that popped out of the clouds, as they are want to do. She ran around and got several account bound cloth purples: cloak, gloves, shoulders (2), chest, and pants. She decided to give all the gear, minus the extra gloves and the chest, to Narcissus. Narcissus is in need of gear in a bad way.
*Note: Be sure to “open” the gear while in the spec you want it to complement
Lao then packed up her bags and went on her whirlwind switch. The guild invite was easy, no wait like Wild had to suffer, and she was almost ready for the raid.
Unbleached decided to do healing for the raid. She has only pvp gear for heals, which is fine, but the trinkets (at least impair-movement-remover one) really do not belong in a raid. So she hit the AH and plopped down 12k on a new trinket. This may not have been as painful had it occurred 3 hours before, when she still had 125k in gold, but you are only allowed to transfer toons with a max of 50k gold, and it had to be done.
So, with her new shiny trinket she went off to the Vale of Eternal Sorrows, which is the prelude to the Siege Orgrimmar.
First Boss up: Immerseus. This is a boss who has a corruption bar, at 100. Once he hits 0 health becomes unstable and explodes out in slime balls. These balls need to be either healed to remove corruption (the blue ones) or killed (the black ones). For each ball healed or killed it removes 1 point of corruption and health to his reformed self. This is repeated until he is at 0 corruption and health.
We divided the room up into pie wedges and randomly spread out. It was a wipe. Next we decided to be a bit more logical about it. We did a better distribution of heals and damage. Immerseus went down.
Next up were The Fallen Protectors. These were the Golden Lotus quest givers that became corrupted when Hellscream did his thing. The mechanics of the fight are simple but busy. Each protector at 66% and 33% does a Desperate Measure. You want to avoid having more than one Desperate Measure going on at the same time. Once they are below 33% you want to bring them down about at the same rate. At 1%, if the others are in combat, they will heal up the one at 1% to 20%. The goal is to get them all at 1% at the same time (within 15 seconds). If you are able to bring them down to 1% at the same time they will have Clarity and snap out of it. We were able to, surprisingly, one shot this and Bleach got new 540 bracers.
Next boss is Norushen. This is a boss to prove you cannot be corrupted before moving on. When engaged you start out at 75% corrupted. There are orbs that appear around the boss that you can click on and enter a different realm where you prove your skill. Meaning healers heal ppl, tanks tank, and dps kill things. When you are done you return to the main fight and are fully cleansed of your corruption. The boss spawns adds that need to be killed but when killed they create pools of corruption that damage everyone. To stop the pools from spreading and doing aoe damage someone needs to stand in them and “soak” up the corruption. Once you get too heavy on the corruption you do the orb thing again.
After about 6-7 tries we got him down.
The last boss is the Sha of Pride. Even just clearing out the trash in this area killed a few of us off. This is basically a tank and spank but you have to be quick about it. As you take damage you get 5 Pride. At 100% pride you give massive aoe damage and it triggers other levels of pride to do damage as well; which means pretty much a wipe, as we found. Also, cleanse cannot be cast without getting pride unless you get a Titan buff. We did one attempt and found that 100% pride is deadly quickly. Raid time was up and we will start again tonight on the guy.
Since the patch Lao/Unbleached has gotten a lot of new pve gear: Bracers (from the raid), gloves, chest, trinkets (one bought), chest, and pants (the latter gear from the Isle).
Like I said, it has been a busy 24 hours.
The Second Night:
Last night we started on the fourth and final boss, The Sha Of Pride.
We did several attempts, however many fits in 2 hours, 3 of which were pretty good. We were getting some of the mechanics but had two possible issues, either not enough dps (just guessing this since I have not gotten recount yet) or missing enough of the buffs (falling in if you have the titan buff to get the additional buff it gives) that we kept just missing the mark.
At the last two fights two of the heals, myself included, switched to dps. We finally got him down. No new loot for me but another healing priest in the guild got a very nice staff.
I will have to look at the dungeon breakup. The guild raids Tu, W, Th. Thursday I cannot do because I volunteer at the hospital those evenings. My concern is that they will clear up to Hellscream on Tu, and W, and kill him on Th. I am going to check to see how many bosses will need to be cleared to get to him. If we get close to him I will have to see about maybe swapping my shift if we run into an issue.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
A Guildie Once Again
A Guildie Once Again
Wild, at last, is back in the Meitha guild. As I do every time I log in, I send JB out (who is a member of Meitha) to see if anyone in the guild is online. Usually there are no guildies in game, and when there are, it is nearly always Fenn or one of his alts (Fenn can't do guild invites) and once it was Diablessa (who also can't do guild invites).
I got lucky on Saturday, though. Grommash was in game. He knows Wild, so I whispered him and asked if he could guild invites. "Weren't you already in the guild?" he asked. Attempting to explain the process of switching accounts and consolidating toons into one account proved daunting for Gromm. His comments were peppered with Hic! Hic! Well, it was Saturday night, so a few - or maybe many - beers could be excused. The good news was that Gromm was happy to invite Wild back into the guild.
I figured that Wild would have to earn back guild rating, but I was very pleasantly surprised that Wild is still rated as Exalted with the guild. Wild will get all of the guild bonus advantages, including a 10% increase in gaining experience points.
Wild is now 15% of the way to level 87.
Wild has also been accumulating gear to use when he reaches level 90. The plan is to be geared well enough to be useful in flex raids. Once Wild gets to level 90 I'll explain all the mechanics of that. In short, though, flex raiding allows for a varying number of raiders (so there is no forced requirement to have exactly ten) and varying levels of gear (instead of a minimum requirement). The raid leader has complete control over who, and how many, raiders are invited. Wild has purchased eight pieces of gear so far, at pretty good prices. There are three or four other interesting items that are stunningly expensive, and likely worth considering, but Wild is going to wait until getting much closer to level 90 before buying anything too pricey.
As of 8 September, 2013 Wild is 39% of the way to level 87.
Wild, at last, is back in the Meitha guild. As I do every time I log in, I send JB out (who is a member of Meitha) to see if anyone in the guild is online. Usually there are no guildies in game, and when there are, it is nearly always Fenn or one of his alts (Fenn can't do guild invites) and once it was Diablessa (who also can't do guild invites).
I got lucky on Saturday, though. Grommash was in game. He knows Wild, so I whispered him and asked if he could guild invites. "Weren't you already in the guild?" he asked. Attempting to explain the process of switching accounts and consolidating toons into one account proved daunting for Gromm. His comments were peppered with Hic! Hic! Well, it was Saturday night, so a few - or maybe many - beers could be excused. The good news was that Gromm was happy to invite Wild back into the guild.
I figured that Wild would have to earn back guild rating, but I was very pleasantly surprised that Wild is still rated as Exalted with the guild. Wild will get all of the guild bonus advantages, including a 10% increase in gaining experience points.
Wild is now 15% of the way to level 87.
Wild has also been accumulating gear to use when he reaches level 90. The plan is to be geared well enough to be useful in flex raids. Once Wild gets to level 90 I'll explain all the mechanics of that. In short, though, flex raiding allows for a varying number of raiders (so there is no forced requirement to have exactly ten) and varying levels of gear (instead of a minimum requirement). The raid leader has complete control over who, and how many, raiders are invited. Wild has purchased eight pieces of gear so far, at pretty good prices. There are three or four other interesting items that are stunningly expensive, and likely worth considering, but Wild is going to wait until getting much closer to level 90 before buying anything too pricey.
As of 8 September, 2013 Wild is 39% of the way to level 87.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Rules of PVE Pet Battle Engagement
Rules of PVE Pet Battle Engagement
Wild has still not found a Meitha guildie who can invite Wild back into the guild, but he did have a very nice and productive chat with a long time friend, Diablessa, on a Sunday morning. I was on Jezzibael (JB), who is in the Meitha guild. The advantage of having JB in the guild is that I can see which other guildies are online. That's how I tracked down Diablessa. She was the only guildie on and was happy to have someone to chat with. We caught up on the personal news, first, and then I asked about the guild. Is Talatiana and Bloodknuckle (my closest friends in the guild) still active? I hadn't seen them around much, I mentioned. She replied that they were in the process of moving and haven't been in game for some time. That wasn't much of a surprise to me. Real life has thrown them a number of curves over the years and long absences from the game are not unusual. She went on to say that the guild leader, Porkkchopp, has been away from the guild on another server, helping a friend set up her own guild. He is an east coast player and works odd hours, so good luck with finding him in game. Sigh.
There are only six players (and their alts), based on guild rank, that can invite players into the guild. I have yet to see a single one of those players in game since Wildshard returned.
On the PVE pet battle front, Wild ran into problems earning experience from those battles. Apparently, there are have been a lot of back and forth changes in an effort to fine tune the rules. For awhile Wild was getting great gobs of XP for every battle. Then, it seemed that Wild couldn't get any XP at all. It was Erik who came up with the right answer. The rules turned out to be a single rule: When doing PVE pet battles, the pets on the team must all be within five levels of each other. Once Wild started making teams that followed that rule, he started to get XP again.
If Wild was interested primarily on leveling up his battle pets, he would take on high level opponents, with one of his own low level pets on his team. That one low level pet would then level much faster since the pet was facing high level opponents. Wild wouldn't get any personal XP that way, though. The method Wild is using is to maintain teams all within five levels of each other in order for Wild to get XP for every battle he wins. One pet would be five levels below the other two to aid in leveling. His battle pets will advance slower, but they do still advance.
As of September 3rd, Wild is 60% of the way to level 86.
Wild's next test of pet battles was in Tanaris. Wild has been doing battles no higher than around level 12 and has been getting XP of 15-20K per battle. I wanted to know if higher level pet battles will provide more XP. The test was quite a success. For whatever reason, pet battles in Tanaris stayed at around 20k each. In Un Goro Crater, however, the XP jumped into the 67K range and often as high as 83K. The max XP received for one battle so far is 87,150.
As of September 4th, Wild is 71% of the way to level 86. His secret was Dragonbone Hatchlings in Northrend. They were level 21/22, easy to kill, packed in groups with fast re-spawning, and rewards above 70k for each victory. Wild barely had to move.
As of a bit past midnight on September 5th, Wild DINGED to level 86.
Wild has still not found a Meitha guildie who can invite Wild back into the guild, but he did have a very nice and productive chat with a long time friend, Diablessa, on a Sunday morning. I was on Jezzibael (JB), who is in the Meitha guild. The advantage of having JB in the guild is that I can see which other guildies are online. That's how I tracked down Diablessa. She was the only guildie on and was happy to have someone to chat with. We caught up on the personal news, first, and then I asked about the guild. Is Talatiana and Bloodknuckle (my closest friends in the guild) still active? I hadn't seen them around much, I mentioned. She replied that they were in the process of moving and haven't been in game for some time. That wasn't much of a surprise to me. Real life has thrown them a number of curves over the years and long absences from the game are not unusual. She went on to say that the guild leader, Porkkchopp, has been away from the guild on another server, helping a friend set up her own guild. He is an east coast player and works odd hours, so good luck with finding him in game. Sigh.
There are only six players (and their alts), based on guild rank, that can invite players into the guild. I have yet to see a single one of those players in game since Wildshard returned.
On the PVE pet battle front, Wild ran into problems earning experience from those battles. Apparently, there are have been a lot of back and forth changes in an effort to fine tune the rules. For awhile Wild was getting great gobs of XP for every battle. Then, it seemed that Wild couldn't get any XP at all. It was Erik who came up with the right answer. The rules turned out to be a single rule: When doing PVE pet battles, the pets on the team must all be within five levels of each other. Once Wild started making teams that followed that rule, he started to get XP again.
If Wild was interested primarily on leveling up his battle pets, he would take on high level opponents, with one of his own low level pets on his team. That one low level pet would then level much faster since the pet was facing high level opponents. Wild wouldn't get any personal XP that way, though. The method Wild is using is to maintain teams all within five levels of each other in order for Wild to get XP for every battle he wins. One pet would be five levels below the other two to aid in leveling. His battle pets will advance slower, but they do still advance.
As of September 3rd, Wild is 60% of the way to level 86.
Wild's next test of pet battles was in Tanaris. Wild has been doing battles no higher than around level 12 and has been getting XP of 15-20K per battle. I wanted to know if higher level pet battles will provide more XP. The test was quite a success. For whatever reason, pet battles in Tanaris stayed at around 20k each. In Un Goro Crater, however, the XP jumped into the 67K range and often as high as 83K. The max XP received for one battle so far is 87,150.
As of September 4th, Wild is 71% of the way to level 86. His secret was Dragonbone Hatchlings in Northrend. They were level 21/22, easy to kill, packed in groups with fast re-spawning, and rewards above 70k for each victory. Wild barely had to move.
As of a bit past midnight on September 5th, Wild DINGED to level 86.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Making Arrangements
Making Arrangements
Since I ended up having to activate the second account for a short period, I figured I'd better make the most of it.
First on the agenda was the transformation of the alliance character, Raktajina. Rakta is a level 13 hunter. She spends all of her time in Booty Bay. Her job was to handle transactions between the Horde and Alliance Auction Houses. She's now out of a job. Rakta the hunter is no more. The new Rakta is an Alliance Worgen druid. Rakta will have the many advantages of heirloom gear and the support of the Tea Green Guild. Her sister in arms, hunter Chaitee (and her faithful combat pet, Tazzy), has taken Rakta under her wing.
It is also time to say goodbye to Ezuh. She is a level 47 shaman that never really connected with the Wild family. There are some very dark memories in her past which continue to haunt her. The Wild family wishes her well.
Wildshard is going to take it "slow and casual" in working on leveling from 85 to 90. Wild spent an hour and a half chasing down and defeating the eleven Pet Battle Tamers in Kalimdor. He started yesterday at 15% of the way to level 86, and finished at 25%. Each victory earned Wild about 69k experience points (XP). I'm not sure if some areas have higher XP rewards, or if all of them offer the same.
Wild hasn't been able to attract the attention of a Meitha guild officer yet, so he is still unguilded.
30 Aug, 2013: Wild continued his languid leveling via pet battles. Wild learned that he gets pretty decent XP even doing non-Tamer battles. The minimum seems to be 5K XP for the very low level pets. He took on whatever Pet Tamers he came across but focused mostly on capturing new pets to complete his collection. Wild is now 44% of the way to level 86.
31 Aug, 2013: "Languid" has turned to "slothful" as Wild only moved up to 45%. Wild did finally catch the eye of one of Meitha's senior guildies, Fenn. Fenn is a good friend. Unfortunately, he does not have the rank to invite players into the guild. Sigh. Given how few guildies are online this may take awhile. In the meantime, Wild gets on average 2-4 requests a day from other guilds wanting Wild to join them.
Since I ended up having to activate the second account for a short period, I figured I'd better make the most of it.
First on the agenda was the transformation of the alliance character, Raktajina. Rakta is a level 13 hunter. She spends all of her time in Booty Bay. Her job was to handle transactions between the Horde and Alliance Auction Houses. She's now out of a job. Rakta the hunter is no more. The new Rakta is an Alliance Worgen druid. Rakta will have the many advantages of heirloom gear and the support of the Tea Green Guild. Her sister in arms, hunter Chaitee (and her faithful combat pet, Tazzy), has taken Rakta under her wing.
It is also time to say goodbye to Ezuh. She is a level 47 shaman that never really connected with the Wild family. There are some very dark memories in her past which continue to haunt her. The Wild family wishes her well.
Wildshard is going to take it "slow and casual" in working on leveling from 85 to 90. Wild spent an hour and a half chasing down and defeating the eleven Pet Battle Tamers in Kalimdor. He started yesterday at 15% of the way to level 86, and finished at 25%. Each victory earned Wild about 69k experience points (XP). I'm not sure if some areas have higher XP rewards, or if all of them offer the same.
Wild hasn't been able to attract the attention of a Meitha guild officer yet, so he is still unguilded.
30 Aug, 2013: Wild continued his languid leveling via pet battles. Wild learned that he gets pretty decent XP even doing non-Tamer battles. The minimum seems to be 5K XP for the very low level pets. He took on whatever Pet Tamers he came across but focused mostly on capturing new pets to complete his collection. Wild is now 44% of the way to level 86.
31 Aug, 2013: "Languid" has turned to "slothful" as Wild only moved up to 45%. Wild did finally catch the eye of one of Meitha's senior guildies, Fenn. Fenn is a good friend. Unfortunately, he does not have the rank to invite players into the guild. Sigh. Given how few guildies are online this may take awhile. In the meantime, Wild gets on average 2-4 requests a day from other guilds wanting Wild to join them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
