Ask The Ancient — None of Your Business

Well I’ve got a predicament here, it’s Tuesday and I have nothing to do. I usually have work or plan stuff to do on Tuesdays so I won’t notice server maintenance … but yeah … I screwed up today. Yes, yes, I could clean but I’m not THAT desperate so I thought I’d look through search terms that brought people here. See if I could be of any help, probably not and I wouldn’t take any advice I give that seriously but let’s give it a shot.

Oh wow, seriously people? These are all legitimate questions mostly, where’s the fun stuff? I was depending on you! Oh, alright I’ll answer your questions.

can u solo chess event

Yes, you absolutely can. If I did it anyone can do it. I’m guessing it took about 4 or 5 tries but it’s been a while. Is there a method? I’m sure there may be but I never pay attention to stuff like that so be assured, you CAN stumble in there and muck about for a while and ultimately you will succeed.

wow you are in the wrong zone

I know. You’re in the wrong zone, you can’t use that here, yada, yada, yada. I have no idea. I’m just going to blame it all on Cross Realm Servers. They are responsible for so much pain in my life that I’m sure they’re causing this too. It’s damn lucky CRZ lets me group with friends on other servers or I’d be leading a pack of pitchfork-waving, torch-carrying, maniacs to burn the stupid things down.

mists of pandaria crucible of carnage equivalent

I would say the scenario Arena of Annihilation is the Pandarian equivalent. You should do it, it’s fun and if it’s early days in your Pandarian adventure there’s a quest in there with a iLevel 450 weapon reward that might be helpful. Go there. Do that.

whats the best pet to use against a flying pet wow

Magic pets or Dragonkin. While my magic pet packs a huge punch, he’s also kind of squishy so I only use him on teams with a healer, otherwise I use a Dragon against flying pets. They are kind of my go-to guy when I want a pet that will act as my utility player. Hope that helps, but again, I wouldn’t trust my advice. If your Dragon gets pounded to dust don’t blame me, this is just what I do.

wow wild crop doesn’t work

Well it does, but only after it’s annoyed you into the seventh realm of hell. Mash the 1 button repeatedly, and mash the 2 button to interrupt the stun or whatever the stupid thing does. Keep this up until the buff thingy reaches a stack of 50 and it’s over … until the next one and the next one and the next … don’t despair, I hear that in Patch 5.2 they will occur less frequently so hang in there, help is on the way!

what i don’t do is not in your business

Woo hoo! We’re mighty touchy here aren’t we. Had a bad week? I can relate. And seriously I don’t care about whatever it is that you didn’t do, since I don’t even know you so we’re good. But, it’s the wild crop isn’t it? No … no … I don’t CARE, I’m just asking. Your farm is an uncared for tangle of wild crops and virmen? Is that what you didn’t do? OKAY! OKAY! I’m sorry, just asking, geez.

Welp, that’s it. Yeah … I know. Everyone’s all serious business, no funny stuff. Aside from various requests for various Raquel Welch body parts that’s all I got. But on the bright side I think I used up almost an hour. Only six more hours left ……………… okay, maybe I’ll clean just a little.

That Kind of Week

Yes, the whole week was like this. All Cat wanted to do was take a seat on the bench and … this. Apparently accommodations at the Shrine of Seven Stars are only for humanoid shapes. And early in the week she had a horrible time with the shieldwall dailies. I don’t remember them hitting this hard, we almost died a couple of times. What’s up?

She was doing them in her Safari Hat and instant Dalaran ring … oh. We’ve been stalking Kar Warmaker and I assume everyone but me has figured out how to avoid Cracking Blow because there’s never a sign of him. Finally! There he is! There’s no one on to call for help, so let’s try this! We tried the strafe around him approach and I think we went too fast and got hit. Didn’t matter though as we weren’t doing any damage at all. We shadowmelded and went to heal up and didn’t notice the crab … who killed us.

So while returning for our body … AH HA … fishing pole equipped, could have something to do with the crappy damage and of course by the time we got back to old Kar he was dead. Oh well, let’s do some golden lotus dailies on the way to the Spirit Tamers. We finished killing the Crumbling Behemoth way down on the path, far away from the action and the phone rang. I moved off the path and left her in stealth. On returning I found someone fighting him on top of us and oops, we’re dead. So we fly over to the Shrine and try to repair but that Pera Firestone is too busy shooting off fireworks and running around like a nut to attend to us … sigh.

Okay then, we’ll go beat up the Spirit Tamers … yeah … what could go wrong there. I don’t know about your team but my teams CAN NOT miss their big money spell two times in a fight and win. Miss … miss … miss. Then FINALLY we are about to win. We are going to win! We won, he’s dead! Noooo … then we died. I hate poison.

Yup … that kind of week. So last night Amateur Azerothian whispered did I want to do OS25? Well yes I wanted to because I had missed the Laid Back Raid the night before because of poor reading comprehension but I was about to leave the house. Oh hell, let me see if I can make arrangements here, I want to go! So I did.

Yes that’s me! That’s me on that Twilight Drake! I’m pretty sure it was a set-up as I don’t win rolls, I usually roll an 8 or 11. We did it four times but were running out of alts to switch after a while. Thank you so much for a wonderful end to a crappy week! I’m going to start a new non-crappy week right now. Mounted on my Twilight Drake I’m going to roll up on those Spirit Tamers and astound them with my awesomeness, they won’t even see what hit them!

I’m Just Not That Into You

There’s my poor Death Knight. She used to be human, well, she used to be REALLY human then she became a Death Knight. Now she’s a Worgen, talk about a hard life. I do not know why we can’t bond. I’m just not that into her, I don’t know why. I HATE, HATE, HATE, melee DPS but my absolute favorite character is Catwynn a Druid kitty so I endure it for her sake. My favorite is ranged DPS but I can’t get a Mage past level 60 even if you did literally pay me.

I find it interesting that the characters I like, don’t seem to be based on how much I like the play-style. What in the hell is going on here? In an effort to try to salvage my relationship with my Death Knight I race changed her to Worgen. What? Yes, that’s really why I did it, why? No, I did NOT just do it to get the Gilnean Raven that was just a wonderful bonus. I’m really trying to like her and thought this might help.

Time will tell if this works, she has been my miner for ages. I don’t even have the vaguest idea how to DK, a couple of expansions ago I made a spamable macro for a rotation that was acceptable back then and I’ve never changed it because she doesn’t seem to die overmuch. She runs around in clothes that are an expansion old. I really feel guilty about this kind of abuse but just not enough to do anything until now.

I’m really interested in this, is it the voice? I do know I can’t level a female Blood Elf because of the voice. She was always yelling at me about something, I couldn’t take it. How do these characters take on a personality while I’m not looking. I’m not consciously making one for them, but they have them. Is it just me?

I have a million Warlocks but three I actually level. Cimmeria, an Alliance Warlock who I enjoy playing but she has no personality that I’ve been able to detect. I’m still hoping. Ironsally, my Ironman competitor who has LOTS of personality. Cimmeria and Ironsally are also identical twins but not the least similar otherwise. Weird. Sasche’s my Frosaken Warlock who has a personality that could only be described as taciturn, but it does exist.

In order of their birth a few of my characters:

Zorakar

The first, a Night Elf Hunter … yeah … it’s kind of a rule isn’t it. She was happy to step down as the main. She found communicating exhausting and really is happier communing with her pets and skirting the fringes of populated areas, picking flowers as she goes.

Lokkan

A fiery Draenei Shaman who is definitely pissed off about something. She took over for Zor in BC. She’s the most likely to be rude to you, she seems to be seething with something. Anger? Disappointment? Because she was set aside when she stopped carrying a big two-handed weapon? Yeah, I don’t think she ever got over that, poor girl, she wants to be the main.

Sophina

Human Mage level 53 bank alt. She’s a little embarrassed at her failed attempt at surviving out in the world, but secretly she’s thankful that now all she has to do is stand at the AH dressed in a lovely tux. The world is not a safe place for a Mage played by me.

Jannina

Newly Worgen Death Knight, will this help develop a personality? I’m hopeful I’ll find out who Jannina really is but it’s early days.

Cimmeria

Human Warlock, I really think the lack of personality I detect may indeed BE part of her personality. She IS a Warlock, she knows this bothers me, I think she’s hiding it purposefully just to get under my skin … typical.

Sheesh, it’s early … enough with the deep thoughts on my characters.

I feel kind of bad. I think those guys in The Stockade thought we were there to help them with the rowdy prisoners. Because of the CRZ no more than 3 time zones thingy Navi and I had to resort to hiding in there to compare skins on our pets. WHAT! Well come on, you knew I had to go there at some point. Pet skins are very important. We compared our Tundra Penguins and found that mine has evil little red eyes and hers has lovely blue ones. We could only conclude that mine came a little too close to Arthas at some point, poor penguin. Dangerous place that Northrend.

So now, what to do. Snakes come in various colors, should I collect one of each? Bunnies? Rats? Decisions, decisions … where’s my Safari Hat?

Bugs and Disatisfaction

First, I TOLD Cat to be more specific when she sat on Greatfather’s lap and told him what she wanted. Saying I want that really cool Tol’vir rare archaeology item just didn’t do it. I mean he’s not a mind-reader Cat, he doesn’t know you’re a big battle pet fan. Be happy with your little bug mount, sheesh, it’s always something.

And then right after that, this … I detect a pattern, not sure where it will end.

Anyway, long, long, ago in the days of yore which would be sometime like about last October I remember Cat and I hunting down our battle pets. Oh! Look! I’ve found a Silky Moth! Isn’t he wonderful! OH! And he’s a common! How lucky are we!

Yeah, you get the picture. We were squeeing in delight over everything we found, didn’t matter what quality it was. YAY! YAY! We found one.

Yeah well that sure has changed. Today I spent … I don’t even want to admit how long … just a really long time trying to replace my rare Whelk with a BETTER RARE Whelk. It’s come to that. Not even satisfied now with a rare, it must be the BEST rare ever. It was a mistake to find out about all the breeds. LOOK! LOOK! Formulas! Computations to be made! Aaarrrggghhh! My rares must be the BEST.

Yes, I really have gone batshit crazy here. Those wonderful carefree days of skipping through Azeroth happy with whatever pets I found are over. History.

Cat and I are dissatisfied now if our rares are not best in slot breeds! I KNOW, it’s all kinds of craziness!

So we took some of our hand picked, really SPECIAL rares and did a few PvP battles and had our hat handed to us more often than not. Hmm … where did we go wrong. I must recalculate. We must look for EVEN BETTER RARES!

OMG! Where will this end?

Okay, got to go. Cat and I must find the VERY BEST Dung Beetle EVER!

EDIT: OMG! Navi just linked me an Emperor Crab with INSANE POWER! Forget bugs, I must own the crab of unending POWER!

Contest! Win a Nasty Little Earth Spirit Pet!

Yes, my battle team smacked down that Thundering Spirit to prise that Earth Spirit out of its hands. After all the pain that Thundering Spirit has put me through I didn’t feel the least bit guilty either. HA! In fact I did it again and again and ended up with a surplus. This morning I received my wonderful poem from Navi and I had an epiphany!

I love all things (except you, Minfernal) battle pet related. Ratshag has a battle pet story that I’ve gone back and reread I don’t know how many times.

Matty told the tale of Mrs. Whitworth saving the day, I loved it. When I read Navi’s ode to Minfernal I thought selfishly, hey, maybe I can bribe people to write more for ME ME ME!

So if you have a tale to tell about your favorite battle pet, an epic tamer battle or anything related to battle pets I would so love to read it. A story, a poem, whatever you like. If you would link your post here so I can find you, or if you don’t have a blog just post your story or poem in a comment here.

Oh February 1st I will take all the names and /roll for each one. Yes, I’m taking the chicken way out. I am not going to pick because, if you know me, all you’d have to do would be write a dog story, and YAY, you won. See … I’m not that objective.

On February 2 (my dog’s birthday) I will post the winner and then endeavor to reach your server to mail your Earth Spirit to you. I am not a world traveler like Navi, so I don’t know how to get on European servers. So shipping only works to US or Oceanic, if you’re on a European server you’d have to slog your way to US Fenris.

My devious plot begins! Will I be able to get more battle pet stories and poems to read? Only time will tell, squeeeee, got my fingers crossed!

Thank you so much Navi! I love my poem, can’t say the same for Minfernal, BUT his poem I love!

Galleon, Third Time’s the Charm!

I guess that’s not strictly true, more like 3 1/2 time’s the charm cause the first time I killed him I was assisting the Horde … so yeah … no chance there. YAY! YAY! YAY! Facemask of Unrepentant Banditry! Thank you, thank you Galleon … oh sorry … guess he can’t hear me.

Let me tell you, Cat was overjoyed. I’ve never seen her so excited since she managed to best Major Payne. She called out Larry to admire her new hat. Yeah, okay so it’s not all that attractive maybe. Larry! Larry! Stop that, that’s not funny, turn around and look at me!

Larry replied that he wasn’t turning around until she did the decent thing and turned into cat form to protect his eyes. Or at the very least turn off display helm. Sheesh, Larry’s such a drama queen.

Anyway, this was a red-letter day for Cat. As Cat buys her gear by collecting valor 5 at a time from dailies and only groups for holiday or world bosses because of her fear of commitment to strangers, this was huge! She now doesn’t have to spend those slowly collected valor on a hat! Happy days!

I’ve never figured out the whole grouping comfort level thing. Let’s see, scenarios are okay, the possibility of enduring two jackasses for about 15-30 minutes seems acceptable, and that’s really never happened. Holiday bosses, four strangers for about (usually) under 10 minutes, fine. World bosses, 40 people, not sure how long. Guaranteed some jackasses, absolutely doesn’t bother her at all.

Waiting in a queue for upwards of an hour AND THEN getting thrown in an instance with rude miscreants for Elune only knows how long is her limit. Apparently there’s a time component involved in her ability to withstand abuse.

Cat has TinyDPS installed but never looks. She’s too scared. She was so chuffed about her new hat she even decided to take a peek. Twelfth place! Yay! Wasn’t too crappy … unless … unless … what if they were all healers?

Survivor Round Two — Mortal Who?

So I really didn’t think I’d survive the first round as my history with Mr. RNG is not very good so I wasn’t prepared when I made it to round two of Amateur Azerothian’s Amazing Transmog Survivor Contest. I know nothing about Mortal Kombat but JD supplied a link to characters so I just thought I’d go for it.

I decided on Kabal pictured above who’s wearing a respirator. All righty then. A little research later, the only transmoggable somewhat respiratorish helm is mail, Boundless Gaze. Here’s my effort at Kabal.

I was not very happy with him, I think leather may have been a better fit for him but alas, no leather respirators, so back to the drawing board.

After looking through Mortal Kombat characters I found Kira. Now that girl has attitude, I like that.

I thought about all the races of Azeroth and one always comes to mind when I think attitude, Goblins. They got it. They flaunt it. They are all about attitude to me. So the entry I sent JD is Kira portrayed by a Goblin.

The lovely and deadly Kira is wearing:

Primal Batskin Jerkin

Marauding Belt

Wolf Rider’s Leggings

Shadefiend Boots

Dire Wolf Handler Gloves

Silvermoon Royal Cloak

Razor Blade

Feral Cat’s 2013 Time Capsule

Yeah, I’m feeling really lazy today so screen shots! I just wanted to say I’ve been a fan of Jack Reacher for years so I was thrilled to learn a movie was finally being made. WAIT … WHAT? Tome Cruise is SO NOT Jack Reacher. This is Jack Reacher.

Oh and before I forget. Cain commented on the I’m In Your Base, Killing Your Dudes post.Thank you! Thank you, Cain!

I don’t use a lot of addons … what? Well yes I do have about eleventy billion pet addons but addons to improve your play, not so much. So part of what Cain said was … but other than that use your instant heals you get with Predatory Swiftness to keep yourself healed up enough to overcome his damage.

So I thought about it. I think I’m catching Predatory Swiftness. I think. Doesn’t seem to proc very often though. I reread the description and … hmmm, maybe I should try an addon that will make it EXCEEDINGLY obvious just to make sure. So I downloaded EventAlert and now I get a giant freaking visual cue and a sound to boot.

That damn Predatory Swiftness is going off ALL THE TIME, I barely have time to hit anyone I’m healing so much, lol. I HAD NOT been catching it. So thanks to Cain I finally found Ubunti one of the Horde rare elites and got him in no small part to all the healing Predatory Swiftness does. Still haven’t seen Kar Warmaker again though, must be hiding from me.

What else has Cat been doing? A picture is worth a thousand words.

That Minfernal makes Cat’s blood boil. And you want to know what’s almost as bad?

What the hell? I don’t see any damn baby dragon. I came here to level pets specifically because I knew a vet was on duty 24/7. What kind of con are you running here? Want me to up the price? Would 1 gold do? I mean it’s not like you’re doing anything else. What is this about?

Yeah … got my cooking student. Creepy. I wasn’t a fan of Li Li Stormstout either. I thought she was disrespectful and needed a good talking to. I guess I shouldn’t question Pandaren child-rearing methods because on a whole, the grownups seem to have turned out quite well. Especially considering the shitstorm problems our arrival on their fair shores has caused.

Sometimes you just want to be a level 1 again. I can’t help it. Meet Incredulor. He is my homage to that fabulous Fabulor and Reputation Grind’s Vanicus. These are characters he admires. Their perfect hair, their unrivaled manly, manliness. He will strive to … WTF! Incredulor, what’s with the Lucky Quilen Cub? Put that thing away. Geez, I mean your hair’s perfect (it’s there because I just wanted to listen to it) but you’re going to have a hard time with the manly thing with that pup by your side. Really, come on. Get with the program.

For a perfect end to her week, Catwynn attended a Laid Back Raid. If you look closely you will see why she soooo enjoyed it. All those good looking human males, mmm … she had a good time as always. And no she didn’t eat a one of them, she admired them.

That’s it! In a year I can come back to see what I was up to in early 2013. A little WoW time capsule. Now I’m going to Trader Vic’s to drink a Pina Colada.

Survivor Round One — Chibi Style

This is great! Something other than pet battling caught Cat’s fancy! Thanks to all the bloggers who brought Chibi Maker to her attention. Here’s her entry in Amateur Azerothian’s Survivor Contest! Yay! I think it’s healthy for her to do something different for a change don’t you? What? Oh, okay. Be that way.

Here’s her actual entry. Oh no. She did take time out to transmog, but look what she says! OMG! The outfit’s all about pet battling! Sheesh, there’s no hope for that Druid.

I am a Disciple of Har’koa, that Har’koa is still one very large dangerous Beast. So if anything were to go wrong and Har’koa decided to go all medieval on my ass butt Beasts have very weak defense against Flying, so I figured better to be safe than sorry just in case Har’koa decides what’s one less disciple give or take.

Cat’s Ensemble:
Helm of the Blind Seer
Passive Resistor Spaulders
Tunic of the Nightwatcher
Hydrolance Gloves
Tomb Raider’s Girdle
Vengeful Gladiator’s Dragonhide Legguards
Boots of Fungoid Growth
Greatstaff of the Nexus

I give up. Cat’s dressed herself up as Big Bird. She managed to make a transmog outfit all about pet battles. Sigh … what can I do. I’m not even going to fight it anymore. Good luck all you Disciples! I wonder if JD had a sleepless night!

Shocking Expose — Scourged Whelpling Cam

I have long had my suspicions. Then I’d tell myself … naw … you’re just being paranoid. But really, the evidence is mounting up to the point that it just can no longer be ignored. Look at the Scourged Whelpling footage taken by our intrepid reporter … yeah okay … it’s just Cat but work with me here. With the modern miracle of stop-action footage obtained at great cost, she’s captured the torment of flying a rental into the Argent Tournament.

Look at all those bloody Scourged Whelplings!!! Do you see how many there are? DO YOU SEE! Of course they aren’t really there once you land and return. You say, “Yeah, that’s just the CRZ craziness, get over it.” WELL I THINK NOT. I see a pattern emerging here. I think there’s something much more sinister going on here.

Navi had a post about WoW Lead Designers engaging in the community and of course I paid special attention to what Cory Stockton had to say. I carefully listened to his interview at Warcraft Pets. Oh yes, very clever. Talking about the elusive and (I think non-existent) very rare Minfernal. Making us want it even more. WHEN IT DOESN’T EXIST!

Oh yeah … people say they’ve captured it … sure. Navi says it’s real but I smell a rat. Look at her collection … she has a Mini Tyrael! That smells like a payoff to me! They roped her into their evil plan to perpetrate the myth of the Minfernal with payment of a Mini Tyrael. I’ll have to get my investigative reporter Ironsally looking into the collections of other defenders of the existence of Minfernal. I’m SURE we’ll see a pattern!

Why must they torment us so Mechanical Yeti, why? What is Blizzard’s evil scheme? Are they in league with the government to create nerdrage for some reason? Do you suppose there’s some possible weapons use for it? I was recently told my usual normal blood pressure was high. Go straight to your doctor. Huh? It wasn’t high before Minfernal, and Scourged Whelplings, and … in league with the drug companies? Could it be?

Ironsally will get to the bottom of their evil scheme! Mark my words! All will be revealed and …

Huh? What’s up you say?

In a further attempt to unhinge me, Blizzard didn’t take down the servers for maintenance today. Rolling restarts. I have work to do. I was depending on their help. I thought pet battles would be inaccessible to me for at least a few hours. Once again … they conspire.

But never fear, I fought the addiction. I have not logged back in to satisfy Cat’s never ending desire to battle, level and collect pets.

See, I resisted. Instead I’M JUST WRITING ABOUT THEM INSTEAD OF DOING WORK … NOOOOOooooooooo