Arakkoa Outcasts Exalted

 

 69th Exalted Faction is Arakkoa Outcasts

 

After the initial questing in Spires of Arak, the remainder of the Arakkoa Outcasts reputation was earned my garrison. On McTacky and my alts I did the The Bloodmane Scrolls garrison mission for Relic of Rukhmar (which give 2500 rep each). At last I hit exalted.

 

Not a thrilling story, but I am still grinding out the other WoD reputations.

 

Arakkoa Outcasts & Mangle of the Talon King 

All about the Pet Battles

In the lead up to the new Pokémon remakes of Sapphire and Ruby, I have been doing a lot of Warcraft Pet Battles.

Pro Pet Mob - I kept levelling and levelling pets. My first dozen pets were levelled to level 25 the old way of grinding random fights. The next dozen were powered by random world fights in Four Winds with the higher level pets there to do the actual kill.

During the lead up to my [The Longest Day] a month ago, I started levelling up teams of pets to deal with the Tamers in Pandaria. After [The Longest Day] was done, I ended up with a collection of pets that could defeat the tamers around Pandaria and levelling my other pets became much faster.

Even with [Pro Pet Mob] completed, I am still levelling pets.

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[The Celestial Tournament] - This took longer to prepare for than Longest Day. I found it to be a nice strategic challenge. Find the right three pets for each fight and use the right moves at the right times without the ability to heal. My favourite pet the [Phoenix Hatchling] didn't end up on any of the teams, but I ended up having to level up a lot of pets I hadn't levelled up yet.

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Grey/White Elimination - I no longer have any poor quality pets and only have two common quality pets. I've been traveling Azeroth collection Uncommon/Rare versions of all the pets I have and releasing my old Poor/Common pets. Once the last two Common Pets are replaced, there won't be much time before WoD, but I plan to start hunting down Rares to replace Uncommons.

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Breeds of Pets - So far I haven't cared about collecting certain breeds of battle pets. All I have worried about so far is the quality. Then I ended up with a pile of [Iron Starlett] over all my alts and I can only keep three as learned, the only difference between them is their breed. For the quest time I had to consider - which was the best [Iron Starlett]s for me to keep? Health/Health, Power/Power, Health/Power, Health/Speed, Power/Balance? I had levelled a P/P to 25, only to realise Power+ was overkill and perhaps more Health or Speed would be better to level next.

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Friendship - I've had a lot of help with my Pet Battles with Crooked, Luxy and Navi. Beyond strategies, they put me onto the PetBattle Teams addon to help manage all the large number of pets I now have.

6.0.2 Impressions

I waited to experience this patch a little before writing down my impressions.

 

Left - Just Before 6.0.2. Right - Just After 6.0.2

1: Stat-SquishI like it. I actually feel stronger than I did before the patch.

But I think it should go further. A level squish. Make the ding mean something again!

I have said for a long time there could be a level squish as well because there are so many empty level between 1 and 60. 5 levels a zone no longer makes sense. Sure the 'ding' looks pretty, but it isn't progress and you don't get something new every level anymore.

2: Ability Pruning
I am very happy with this. Many old redundant Paladin abilities were removed. Before I had a macro to use my cooldowns (Avenging Wrath, Divine Favor and Guardian of Ancient Kings) at the same time. Now I only have Avenging Wrath instead (which is Divine Favor and old Avenging Wrath put together.)

Flash of Light was made useful to Holy again, while Holy Light was removed. Two heals I hadn't used in a while. Divine Light was renamed Holy Light, so everything is cool.

Overall I need to practice some more with the Holy Changes, but I like them!

On Retribution? I guess we don't have Inquisition to punch ever time it is about to wear off anymore. This is a positive change.

3: Storage
Wonderful, wonderful Storage Solutions! New Void Storage Tab! Reagent bank! Toy Box! My bags haven't been this empty in years! Wonderful. Just wonderful!


Bank is so Empty now! So crazy.




4: Pre WoD Events in Blasted Lands:
The new Blasted Lands quests were short and easy as expected, but it did make the Iron Horde look rather weak and not much of a threat to Azeroth. On the upside, it didn't have us running though Nethergarde Mines like the 54-60 Blasted Lands quests.

5: Pre WoD Event Upper Blackrock Spire:I ran old UBRS many times during Classic WoW. I am not the fan of the new UBRS. For the longest time I couldn't articulate why. Was it nostalgia?  The lack of loot? Lack of achievement?

At last I figured it out: It felt incomplete.

With the last two bosses locked off, every run ends in the Rend Room (like people abandoning the group doing the old For The Horde! quest in the Onyxia Chain). It feels like a loss, not a win.

TLDR - Liked gameplay & storage changes. 3 out of 5 Phoenix Insignias.

Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider

Pretending to be Alliance. Luxy got mixed up and went as a Arakkoa!

For Frostwolf Friday Fun-run™ we ventured into Heroic Dragon Soul! At the end we end up doing the platform I needed for my last achievement for Glory of the Dragon Soul Raider!

Spine was the one that caused us the most dramas. First we ran out too early and were throw off by the turn. Then the next time we weren't decursing enough. I went holy and with three of us decursing we were able to push forward with spine.

So in the end I got my Reins of the Twilight Harbinger!

19k Achevement Points... wait

So before 6.0.2 hit, I had to finish off Brawlers Guild. With the support of Crooked, Luxy and Navi I did it!

And I hit 19k Achievement Points!

 

KABAM Patch 6.0.2! Down  to 18k again! Boo!

The Longest Day!

McTacky Vs Neri of Mama Needs Mana

This week I have been levelling up some pets to make some teams. Teams with a purpose. The purpose of defeating the various high level Pet Fights around Pandaria. This morning I decided it was time. Time to do the [The Longest Day]. With Luxy and Crooked and Navi's advice I  dived in.

After hours of Pet Battling it was over! [The Longest Day]!

Glory to the Cataclysm Raider

I had four achieves left. 2 in Throne of the Four Winds, 2 in The Bastion of Twilight. With a guild group of Sars, Luxy, Faithless, Ksret and someone's friend Lickslol, we conquered them, and I obtained Glory to the Cataclysm Raider!

Gold Challange Modes: Complete

With Aza, Exray, Lushen and Windwalker I did all of Challenge Conqueror: Gold!

 

Thanks heaps for the group! I really didn't think I'd get this done before the patch 6.0 deadline!

Glory of the Pandaria Hero

 

With Luxy, Sars and Crooked, I finished off the last 17 Achievements I needed for my Glory of the Pandaria Hero.

For older achievements I earned in 2013, I had teamed with Navimie, Aza, Zwingli, Xyn, Moopie, HK, and Sev.

Master of Tol Barad

Who wore it better?

For a long time (over two years) all I needed for Master of Tol Barad was to win it 12 more times.

Recently I started doing Tol Barad again and I've been having Guildies join me in these capture battles. Now I have those twelve wins!

I'm not done with the Tol Barad Peninsula, I still need the Fox Kit that costs 200 Tol Barad Commendations. But one victory at a time!

 

Brawlers Rank 10 & Training Camp

"I can't do it coaches!" said McTacky, slumped at the edge of the ring, his face all bruised and beaten up, "Ahoo'ru is too powerful. He is the better Paladin. He knows how to Divine Circle!"

"Don't be a quitter," said Coach Crooked, "now put some enchants on that gear!"

"You are moving around too much out there! Take control of your movements!" said Coach Luxy, "Here are some better strength gems and a belt buckle!"

"In Phase 2 you need to stop dumping all your cooldowns at the start. Escape the first Divine Circle THEN beat him down." said Coach Crooked, "you need to macro those cooldowns all together so it is a single spam button!"

"You just think you need more time than you do. Deal with the three guardians at a good pace first then worry about doing damage!" said Coach Luxy, "stop taking stupid risks!"

"You are right coaches! I can do it!" said McTacky, determined, "I am the better Paladin!"

"He's one of our veteran Rank 9 brawlers here in Brawl'gar. It's McTacky!" yelled Boss Bazzelflange.

Then McTacky stepped back into the arena.

McTacky defeated the other Paladin and finally earned I've Got the Biggest Brawls of Them All!

The feedback I got from Crooked and Luxy at the end of each attempt I did helped me enormously. Thanks heaps!

18k Achievement Points + Rank 9 Brawlers

With Brawlin' and Shot Callin', I hit 18k Achievement Points!

 



Luxy was there when I achieved this, she was there helping me with Haters Gonna Hate.

 

"Tacky! Do the next fight now! Don't even look it up!" said Luxy.

 

"Alright then," I said.

 

 

It was Hexos!

 

 Luxy thought her little joke was very funny. I suppose it was.

Two days later at 4:52 am I finally defeat Hexos. I was queued for Tol Barad at the time so the Queue Window appeared for the last 40 seconds of the fight!

 

I didn't win Tol Barad. I had no chance attacking them on my own. I return to Brawlers.
At 5:14 am I hit Rank 9. 

So just a little to go and Rank 10 and the Mount will be mine!

Nat Pagle's Best Friend

 

Finished up fishing rare fish for Nat Pagle. So I obtained my [Nat's Hat] and [Nat's Fishing Chair].

 

 

Learning from the Best was my 201st achievement in the Professions Category.

17k Achievement Points + Glory of the Cataclysm Hero

With the Glory of the Cataclysm Hero, I hit 17k Achievement Points!

 

I managed to solo a lot of the achievements for Glory of the Cataclysm Hero but I grouped up for a few of them:

 

 

Navimie, Corael, Aurii, and Crooked helped me with Crushing Bones and Cracking Skulls. Didn't remove all the Heroic Cloaks before hand so we were AoE Damaging by accident. We had to leave the adds alive so the boss could kill them We reset the boss and did it again easily.

 

 

Nathamanz was with me for Straw That Broke the Camel's Back and Kill It With Fire!. We just DPS Earthrager Ptah down while avoiding things that could dismount us. Then just waited for the Burning Souls to appear during the High Prophet Barim fight and killed them.

 

 

 

I Hate That Song took several attempts with a few groups, including an attempt with Nathamanz again which didn't work out. Muppeteer (Vinyl) and Chihako were with me when we finally got the achievement down. Navimie was in the group for a few of those attempts before having to head off.

 

The strategy that worked in the end was this: I ran down and agroed all the snakes then ran up to solo the boss. The snakes wouldn't respawn because I didn't kill them. I used single target on Temple Guardian Anhuur. Vinyl and Chihako then stood at the switches and used them when Temple Guardian Anhuur started to sing. 

For Glory of the Cataclysm Hero I earned my my Reins of the Volcanic Stone Drake!

Thankyou everyone who helped me out!

Pristine Archaeology

I finished all of the Pandaria Pristine Archaeology tonight. Just lots of grinding archaeology to get it done.

 

But my question now is what goes in the last spot on that stand in the Seat of Knowledge? What have I missed?

 

Long Road to Shadowmourne... (Part 5)

 

 

 

 

Three months ago I started the quest The Splintered Throne where I had to collect 50 Shadowfrost Shards as covered in my post Long Road to Shadowmourne... (Part 4).

Each week I'd run Icecrown 25 Heroic with Azadelta, Lushen, and Owl. Some weeks I'd get 9 Shadowfrost Shards, one week I'd get just 1 Shadowfrost Shard. The quest itself needed no real skills, it just took time and having a group of friends willing to drag me though Icecrown Citadel.

Then at last the quest was complete. I handed it in to Highlord Darion Mograine.The next quest was called Empowerment.

Empowerment is one of those quests where you stand around watching a scene play out. In this case Highlord Mograine used the Soul Forge near him to turn Shadow's Edge into Shadowmourne.

Then when I hit Complete Quest I had Shadowmourne!

Next time I'll get into the various other toys you get for getting Shadowmourne, including the Tabard of the Lightbringer you can see in this screenshot.