Alt Leveling Plans

So I've got nine toons at 90 right now, one hovering at 88, one at 85, and a slew of lower ones.  Someone linked this (plans for no flying at all in Draenor) today on an alt guild's Facebook page, and my gut reaction to it is that my druid is going to be abandoned.

I love flight form.  Seriously, it was my impetus for rolling a druid at all.  If you've seen the most recent Captain America movie, the scenes with the Falcon pretty much epitomize why I love it for my druid.  (Sitting in the theater, going, "That! That is what I love about my druid!")

But she's 90, and, well, high level alts get leveled.  It just happens.  Some of them will be through questing, some through dungeons, some through... other means.  But not being to to use flight form in post-90 content, basically ever?  Druid's probably getting leveled through dungeons and then probably parked unless I like the new druid healing enough to do raid finder on her.  Sure, all my characters will be grounded, but travel form isn't as fast as ground mounts.  Cat stealth is weak compared to rogues'.  Since soloing content isn't what I like about her, it's not what I'm going to do on her.

This train of thought led to other alt leveling thoughts.  My main had all the pre-Wrath Loremaster pieces done before Wrath (and achievements) hit, and she got Seeker before hitting 80; it's kind of obvious she's going to be questing out all the zones.  But my alts get narrower subsets of content.

(In the order they're on my character screen):

Alliance (Original) Hunter:  Will get leveled through the Alliance quest content, to see what's different

This was taken before I know about alt+z

Rogue:  I may see what I can do with leveling her through archaeology again, probably combined with herbalism.  I used to stealth through Azshara picking herbs for hours on her in vanilla.  There's a reason she's Subtlety.  (I maxed her herbalism at 85 long before I started actually leveling her to 90.)

This is how I leveled 85-90

Warrior:  Mix of questing and probably trying dungeon tanking again.  The warrior is usually the 3rd or 4th I level.  She's a swordsmith.

Questing as Prot

(Main)

It's not like I don't have ground mount options

Priest:  More dungeons (healing), some questing, because I always like seeing how well Disc solos in the questing environment.  Plus disenchanting quest rewards helps for enchanting materials.  The priest is usually the 2nd leveled.  (Although 4th in Mists.)

I swapped her offspec back to Shadow, alas

Baby Hunter 1:  This is my jewelcrafter & scribe, and she tends to get leveled in parallel with the warrior.  Because of how well hunters solo, I frequently quest again on her.

She does have the coolest cat

Shaman:  Probably mostly dungeons as Elemental and some questing to open up phasing/zones.  Since she's a leatherworker, I'll likely open up content I need for skinning, too - I went back and did Vashj'ir on her at 85 because I needed the skinning there.

She has the best orc hair!

Warlock:  I did all of the Lorewalker discoveries on her pre-90 (which means yes, on a ground mount), then found out I couldn't get the quests from the scrolls until 90.  This is the character that got taken on the road trip to Dalaran at 43 (to be parked there to summon people there until I got around to leveling her).  She tends to get leveled around 5th or 6th, in parallel with the shaman, so I'll probably do more map discovery/herbalism/some question/some dungeons with her.  She's my transmuter.

Apparently goblins have problems with Pandaren furniture

Baby Hunter 2: This is my flask alchemist; I'll probably level her alchemy long before she's leveled.  She's 88 right now.  I'll finish getting her to 90 probably in the next couple months.

I took ALL my 85+ through Karazhan for the pets

Paladin (bank):  My bank is 76; I've hardly touched her in terms of leveling since Mists started, partly because she's not in my main guild, and partly because I haven't gotten around to learning the paladin changes.  One day!

Stalled out bank toon? You get the BEST ride

Druid:  Like I said before: probably mostly through dungeons.  She was leveled mostly through mining, herbalism, and pet battles from the 60s on, with some dungeons thrown in.

In the Zangarmarsh

Death Knight (on a connected realm):  My death knight is 85, my second transmuter, and I've leveled her mostly through dungeons, with a smattering of herbalism and pet battles.  I really like tanking on her; I just have to get back into it for Mists content, which is a bit intimidating despite doing it on my warrior.

They took my scourgestone :(

I have a lot of baby alts (Catnome, goblin & troll hunters, orc mage) that I want to level, and have started slowly doing so, but I don't know where they're going to fit into the mix.  I also want to make an orc hunter after the new models come out.  Then I'll have one of all of them Horde-side except Pandaren, because I'm not doing the Pandaren starting zone again.

I really wish all my alts were on connected servers, because I've got about 15 others I want to level, but just am not as likely to get to without my guild.  Maybe one day.

Timeless Armor

The Timeless Isle was an interesting addition to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid patch - non-raid content (mostly) that included parts of the legendary cloak quest, some world bosses with current tier for both PVE and PVP, and a reputation grind for another Pandarian dragon mount.

It also brought us Timeless armor tokens, account-bound tokens that we could use to gear up alts and fill in gaps until we got something better.  Lots and lots of Timeless armor tokens.

And you know what?  That's okay.  Timeless armor tokens have some uses beyond just vendoring once you've kitted out your alts.

New character on a new server?  No cash?  Send them a couple tokens!  Five gold a pop.

Short on sha crystals?  Send your extra tokens of the appropriate armor type to your enchanter, make a piece of gear, crush.

Now I'm working on the Bigger Bag achievement, so I'm getting tokens more again.  I should be able to restock my sha crystals, and I can gear up my death knight when she finally hits 90.  It's going to take a while - I got Huolon's mount on the wrong character.

Bait & Switch

I was driving to work yesterday when I realized, "[swear words], this was another Old God end boss expansion!"  We were all so excited to be getting rid of Garrosh and fighting Sha that the bait and switch of handing us another Old God to defeat initially didn't register on my radar.

Now, I like the Old God plotlines, really, because there's so much ambiguity about whether they're good for, bad for, or just there with regards to Azeroth.  But four out of five expansions?

• Vanilla WoW: C'Thun
• Burning Crusade:  Woohoo Outland!  Sticking it to the Legion!
• Wrath of the Lich King: Yogg-Saron
• Cataclysm:  N'Zoth, though we never confront ... him? it? directly
• Mists of Pandaria:  Y'Shaarj

You know what?  I think we're due for another Burning Legion expansion.

Loose Threads

With the Siege of Orgrimmar out, the end results of the raid (what happens to Garrosh and who will be the next warchief) are readily available on the various fan sites, videos included.

So... what hasn't been wrapped up?  I'm not a story or lore expert, but these are some things I was thinking about this morning when I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep.

• Wrathion's Burning Legion obsession.  If the baby dragon is as right as he is certain, the Legion is coming back.  When?  In what form?  We don't know yet, and we don't know which of Azeroth's various lore figure will be marshaled against them, but I wouldn't be surprised if Wrathion is pulling a lot of the strings to fight them.
• The Zandalari.  We took the Thunder King away from them again, but Zandalar is still, so far as I know, sinking into the ocean out there somewhere, and the Zandalari trolls still need a new home.
• Sylvanas.  I can't be the only one nervous about Sylvanas having been relatively out of sight for most of the past... how many in-game months?  Last time we really saw her do anything that I recall, she was draggin Koltira off to Forsaken re-education camp.  I love my Forsaken characters, but I really don't trust her, regardless of how far I can throw her.

I don't think any of the pre-existing loose ends got wrapped up, either - Alleria/Turalyon are still out there somewhere, etc.  I don't know what the next expansion is going to aim for, but I'm going to guess it's not any of these.

Lil' Oondasta

Lil' Oondasta is a new daily pet battle on the Timeless Isle.

Just like the big Oondasta, he's got a Frill Blast, Spiritfire Beam, and Crush.  Frill Blast will deal a large amount of damage to your active pet and swap it for your highest health pet.  (Woo forced tank swap.)  Spiritfire Beam is like a chain lightning, dealing moderate damage to all pets, and Crush is a single target attack.

It took me several combinations to find a group that worked for the fight, and ultimately, treating him like Dos-Ryga and opening with a Stampede-style ability worked best.  Lil' Oon isn't particularly fast, so most of the pets I tried got to go first in a round vs. him.

Thlayli

I started with the Tolai Hare after realizing flying pets were probably a bad idea (Spiritfire Beam and Frill Blast do additional damage to flyers).  Sure, he's a critter, but Oon doesn't have beast abilities despite being one.  He's got the Stampede I wanted, and he's wicked fast.  Of course, being such a speed-heavy little rabbit, Oon's Frill Blast one-shotted him.  This is not surprising: Frill Blast one-shots a lot of things.  If you pop Dodge your first round, the Stampede will get off a bit extra damage, as well, because you'll just dodge the first Frill Blast.

Anapa

A Frill Blast death pulls in the Anubisath Idol, since he's the highest health pet in this group.  Even if the Hare dies from other damage, I swap him in second.  I had included him for this fight because a) he's got a decent amount of health and b) he's got a wicked hard Demolish vs. Beasts.  Stampede's armor break allowed the Demolish to hit basically for full damage, and as long as you don't miss, he's going to get in probably two, three if you're lucky and Oon misses one round.  If you want to try for a chance to do a bit more damage before Lil' Oon eats him, you can try to get a stun off Rupture.

Bolts

Once the Anubisath Idol is dead, Oon will probably be low enough for a mechanical with Wind-Up to finish him off, even though the armor penalty has worn off by now.  I went with the Mechanical Squirrel; I know a lot of people like Brooms with Wind-Up, but the Spiritfire Beam does less damage to mechanical pets, so it's more likely to survive the fight on the back lines.

The first time I tried this combination, they one-shot Lil' Oon.  The second night it took I think three tries, and I played a slightly more careful match (using Dodge and Rupture) to improve the odds of it going through.  If you haven't got three strong mechanicals (I don't; I have three 25s, but two are middling), you've got other possibilities if you play towards what you've got that will hit him hard, debuff him, or doesn't take extra damage from his abilities.

Castsequence Macro Update

It isn't really an update.  I'm still using it; it's doing surprisingly well.  After 5.4's possible changes I may need to tweak the number of Arcane Shots in it, but until then, it's still:

/castsequence Chimera Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot

I still do Murder of Crows, Glaives, That Wolf Icon That Regens Focus, Rapid Fire, Readiness, and Army of Sporebats manually when they come off cooldown.  As a Marksman hunter, I'm still average on AOE packs, but I'm generally competitive against similarly geared folks for single target DPS.

Other things recently...  I've been trying to get my shaman up to the point she can be an alternate healer for our raids on nights we can't find one, and I'm liking shaman healing better than I did back when I last tried it: a.k.a., the Burning Crusade.  I still prefer my priest, but we have plenty of priests available usually.  I also like my baby druid healing more right now than I do shaman healing, but she's in her 40s, so that's going to take longer to do.

We're into Throne of Thunder!  Currently on Tortos.  My husband has done an amazing job both at finding us recruits, as well as finding us some casually allied guilds and friends who fill in when we're short two healers.  Perhaps somewhat ironically, the only thing we're missing post-exodus is a full complement of healers, and that's exactly who left us for a bigger server environment.  5.4 and Connected Realms can't come soon enough.

Quality of Life Addons

I don't run with a lot of addons.  I use the default interface for most things, including raid frames and healing.  I have the standard minimum for raiding - a boss mod (DBM), a threat meter just in case, and a DPS meter (Recount) to make sure I'm not entirely useless.  Most of what I use is for minor quality of life, things, though.  Here are the ones I absolutely can't do without:

• Altoholic:  Keeps track of what I've got on who, when the last time I logged everyone on was (I do a full log-on of my random little alts about every three weeks), who has auctions I should check on, and so forth.  It also keeps track of what my toons are wearing, so when I log over to a crafter, I can easily see who needs upgrades in which slots, or which slots aren't enchanted.

• AuctionLite and AuctionLite Improved Search:  I love love love the purchasing interface for AuctionLite, and I appreciate the searching/pricing options on the selling tab.  The improved search purchasing interface lets me search specifically for Battle Pets, and all the various entries for each pet are smooshed into a single entry in the big list, so I can easily see if any of the handful of auctionable pets I don't have are listed.

• BattlePetCount:  There are other similar addons out there; this is the one I use for the mouseover information and quality flagging (it tells me if what I'm fighting is better than what I've got with an asterisk).  Given that I occasionally try to up my standing on my realm on WarcraftPets, it's been fairly handy.
• CT:  I'm using three parts of CT: MailMod, MapMod, and PartyBuffs.  MailMod is nice for opening a lot of mail at once and having a log of just who you just mailed that 500g to, and it's the one that makes me realize a patch has disabled my addons (because they're now "out of date"), because it's the first one I notice missing.

I run others, but these are the ones that I miss the most if they're broken or if I haven't yet re-enabled addons.

Durumu's Maze

I'm going to tell you something for which you can hate me:  Durumu is my favorite boss in Throne of Thunder.  One of the things I'm good at is situational awareness, so I notice a lot of the visual cues for the fight.  For example, when the red, yellow, and blue beams first pop out, circles of the corresponding color flash where the three mist beasts are.  You can save yourself a lot of running as one of the beams if you notice where they are.

What kills most people, though, is Durumu's maze.  When Durumu pre-casts his disintegration beam, it will always be pointed at the entrance of the wing, so if you remember where you came in, that's where he'll be facing.  If at all possible, immediately move to stand behind him at this point, where the blue circle is on the first graphic:

Durumu's disintegration beam pre-cast

The maze will start forming on either side of him.  It is important to note which side the maze starts forming on to minimize the damage you take during this phase.  He won't start moving the beam until the floor has filled with fog, so you have a bit of time to get in position.  The following two graphics are laid out for if the maze starts forming on Durumu's right; if it starts forming on his left, just flip the following two images.

The maze beginning to form

When the maze begins to form, a purple cone of fog will appear on the floor to one side of Durumu, at a 90-degree angle to the disintegration beam precast.  The fog will then begin filling the floor, moving in a circle around the room.  Regardless of which side it starts on, it will go in the direction which moves away from the beam pre-cast and behind Durumu.  So, as shown above, it it forms on Durumu's right (illustration left), it will move clockwise around the room.

In this case, the raid will move counterclockwise to get in front of where the maze fog began forming.  Never run through the beam pre-cast.  This will kill you.  Ideally you will be somewhere behind Durumu when he begins forming the maze, and you can just run through a bit of fog to get to the starting point.

Once the floor fills with purple fog, the maze will start forming.

Moving through the maze

The path for the maze will not open up all at once, but will open up in three paths as Durumu rotates the disintegration beam.  Basically, the floor is divided into six concentric rings; the inner (melee) path uses the two inner rings, and will zigzag its path between the two.  The middle path uses the third and fourth rings, and the outer path uses the fifth and sixth rings.  Avoid the outer path unless you have speed boosts, because the disintegration beam will move faster than you can run otherwise.

The maze path will move in the direction the maze formed, so if it formed going clockwise, you need to run clockwise.  Whichever way the maze fog filled in is also the direction the beam is going to move.  You must stay ahead of the disintegration beam, or you will die.

The full maze won't spawn at once, so you'll just want to stay at the furthest extent of your currently spawned path.  Try to avoid any puddles left from the lingering gaze attack.  If you need to, in the LFR difficulty, you can cut over to a closer path to stay ahead of the beam.  Just don't do this too often, or the fog of the maze will kill you.

Remember, the maze's fog can spawn on either side of Durumu initially, and the side it spawns on determines the direction you run.

Beasts of Fable

The initial pass on the Beasts of Fable took a couple tries for some, but for most of them I guessed pretty well.  I love my Infinite Whelpling.

• No-No: Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling
• Lucky Yi:  Infinite Whelpling, Mr. Grubbs
• Greyhoof:  Infinite Whelpling, Mechanical Squirrel
• Skitterer Xi'a:  Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling
• Gorespine:  Anubisath Idol
• Ti'un the Wanderer:  Infinite Whelpling
• Kafi:  Fluxfire Feline, Robo-Chick, Mechanical Squirrel
• Dos-Ryga:  Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling
• Nitun:  Cinder Kitten, Disgusting Oozeling, Infinite Whelpling
• Ka'wi the Gorger:  Cinder Kitten, Disgusting Oozeling, Infinite Whelpling

Even with the nerf to the Anubisath Idol's Deflection (it was Reflection), he's still pretty strong.  There are several aquatics, and the Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling's Quills are really useful even when it doesn't go first.

I excised the Cinder Kitten from the second pass through, mostly because he makes such sad, sad, mewing sounds when he gets hit.  He's a total glass cannon, too - you'll get to hit hard with him maybe twice before he's dead on these guys.

One fight I haven't figured out how to do differently is Kafi - I'm still having to stack mechanical pets for him.  He eats the Anubisath Idol too quickly, and even with the critter's stun duration reduction, they still didn't make a dent like Wind Up or the Fluxfire's Supercharge + Pounce combo does.

Spirit Tamers

There are a lot of combinations of pets you can use to beat the spirit tamers; some rely more on the random numbers coming out in your favor than others.  These are some of the combinations I've had decent luck with.

Thundering Pandaren Spirit:

• Critter: Mr. Wiggles or a Tolai Hare.  Mr. Wiggles has the health and a hard-hitting attack to survive and pummel the Pandaren Earth Spirit, and the Tolai Hare just as the speed to ignore the crowd control and usually dodge enough to get the job done.
• Beast or Dragon:  Mr. Grubbs or the Infinite Whelpling.  I've had good luck with both beating the critter-family ooze.  Set up Mr. Grubbs with Leap to flip the speed advantage and you'll get to hit hard twice in a row.  (In the screenshot, the Cinder Kitten is filling in for Mr. Grubbs.  Adorably.)
• Mechanical:  Mechanical Squirrel or Fluxfire Feline.  Really, anything with Wind-Up is going to get the job done.  Stone Rush is going to hit hard, so something that can get back up afterwards helps.

Whispering Pandaren Spirit:

• Critter: Mr. Wiggles again.  The moth can be taken out by a lot of things, but Mr. Wiggles seems to be surviving best right now of what I've got available.  It's a critter-classed moth, rather than a flyer.
• Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  The dragon pet does mostly air attacks, which are weak against dragons, and the Infinite Whelpling generally hits hard, especially when going second, and can heal if needed.
• Dragon or Magic:  If the Infinite Whelpling didn't survive the dragon for some reason, the Disgusting Oozeling or another dragon (Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, etc.) can finish off the Air Spirit.

Flowing Pandaren Spirit:

• Dragon: Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling.  Quills is strong against the fish, even if you don't get to go first.
• Critter or Beast:  I've found Mr. Wiggles to be quite nice with his combination of Headbutt and Crouch.  Hoof is a solid filler attack.
• Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  A solid closer in most cases, the Infinite Whelpling will have few problems with the Water Spirit.

Burning Pandaren Spirit:

• Critter:  Mr. Wiggles.  The Fire Spirit gives me the the most trouble still, but I've been going with Mr. Wiggles, against whom his attacks are weak.  Headbutt plus a self-heal make a decent combination here.
• Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  The Infinite Whelpling can handle the dragon pet here without many problems.  Just know that the dragon will do Lift-Off after Cyclone, so don't waste a cooldown skill on that round.
• Magic:  Disgusting Oozeling.  The Disgusting Oozeling puts flying pets to shame.

There are other pet combinations that will work, but with a half a dozen pets, you can comfortably cover all four.

Farmer Nishi

This probably isn't new news to anyone who's been battling Pandarian pet tamers for a while, but... Farmer Nishi is amazing for leveling up your low-/mid-level pets.  You can take two low-level pets up against her; they just need enough health to survive up to about four castings of Sunlight.

Farmer Nishi has two elemental pets that mostly heal and have weak damage options: the Singing Sunflower, set up with Photosynthesis, Inspiring Song, and Sunlight, and the Terrible Turnip, set up with Leech Seed, Inspiring Song, and Sons of the Root (yep, she's cheating on her skill set ups).  Her worm is a beast set up with Consume, Acidic Goo, and Burrow.  I think he's supposed to be a silkworm, but his skill set is more like Mr. Grubbs.

The key to making this fight easy, I think, is an aquatic pet with a) a moderately strong, often available damage spell (the sunflower is going to heal ~200 hit points a round) and b) a self-heal, because you're going to need to keep it alive through all three of Nishi's pets.  As you can see in the screenshot, I'm using Jubs, a Jungle Darter.  Most frogs and toads have this same skill set.  Other aquatic pets, or pets with aquatic abilities, may work just as well; aquatic is strong versus elemental, and the extra damage helps with the sunflower's healing.

Whatever pet you're using for killing things, you want to start with your low level pets, doing one ability with them before swapping them out to make sure they get credit for the battle.  Neither the sunflower nor the turnip is likely to kill them, as long as they have about 500 hit points, and the worm will always go last.

Nishi will open with either the sunflower or the turnip, but usually the sunflower.  If you get the turnip first, that's great; just kill it straight through.  If you get the sunflower first and you're using a frog, you want to use Frog Kiss on it until you get it frogged; Nishi will then swap it out for the turnip.  You're doing this because her worm has a very good chance of killing your pet if you take it on without the extra hit points from Sunlight.

The sunflower will open with Sunlight, then do nothing but heal itself until Sunlight is down to two on its counter, then cast it again.  The turnip generally starts with Sons of the Root, which should give you an opportunity to heal yourself once before you can actually damage it.  Sons of the Root is an eight round cooldown, so if you don't miss, you'll probably only see it once.  It usually follows with Leech Seed, which is a four round cooldown, and then Inspiring Song, a three round cooldown.  This means you will have rounds where the turnip does nothing.

If you've managed to get the sunflower second, either through chance or Frog Kiss, once the turnip is dead, you can kill the sunflower.  At this point, if you're  using the frog, you do not want to use Frog Kiss, since you're going to want to use it heavily on the worm, and you don't want to risk swapping the sunflower and the worm back and forth, because the sunflower will heal them both like mad.  If Sunlight is going to run out soon, it may be worth passing to keep the sunflower alive long enough to cast it again; you want it for at least two or three rounds on the worm, if not longer.

The worm tends to open with Acidic Goo, then will Burrow and alternate Consume and Acidic Goo until Burrow is back up.  If Burrow connects, it hits hard, easily 500 to 800 points, depending if it crits.  Luckily it does miss often enough that it's not a guaranteed game-over.  Spamming Frog Kiss and using Healing Wave on cooldown usually keeps a frog alive if it's got a couple rounds of Sunlight for extra hit points.

Depending how low level your pets were to start, you're usually looking at two to three levels when the battle's over.

If you don't have an aquatic pet with a heal yet, there are frogs, turtles, and water striders throughout Pandaria, which will start at level 22 or 23 depending where you catch them.  Any of those should take you just a few tamer battles to max out, and they're plentiful if you want to farm for a rare one if you haven't got an aquatic stone.

Pandalock update

My mage has upgraded her warlock cosplay.

I may have a problem

Here I am, camping for a Minfernal.  I spent at least eight hours in Felwood Saturday, broken up between flying around Shatter Scar Vale killing Tainted Rats, Tainted Cockroaches, Tainted Moths, and occasionally Tainted Oozes (because, let's face it, Disgusting Oozeling is spelled G-O-L-D) and flying around the zone as a whole wiping out battle pets to, theoretically, free up some to spawn elsewhere.

Saturday went badly, since, well, I didn't even see a spawn.  I did finish off my fifty rare captures (and have two to three each of the tainted pets and the toads rare).

So today I made a death knight on a low population PVP server, figuring I'd see how their Felwood camping was.  I got it about halfway through the death knight starter zone, and then my husband wanted to run Ahn'Qiraj on an alt, so I went along to help kill Twins.  I logged back over, and, since I had logged out in Felwood, as soon as he invited me, it popped me into his server's CRZ mix of Felwood.

I don't really know what server I actually popped out on, since CRZ is anything but obvious, but I joked to him that I would be right there... as soon as I did a flyover of oh my God there's one spawned.  Eight hours on Saturday, an hour and a half invested in a (green cow) death knight, and the bane of rare campers everywhere, CRZ, gets me a Minfernal spawn.

He's common quality, but I really don't care.  A Qiraji Guardling in March and I'll be a Zookeeper.

Raiding!

We've been hacking away at the Stone Guard for a while, killing them the first time two lockouts ago, and again last night (this time with chains up!).  Feng will fall soon - probably this week or next.

I've been raiding as Beast Mastery since 5.0 went in, but with 5.1's last minute buff to Aspect of the Hawk and the change to allow Steady and Cobra Shots to be cast on the run, I went back to Marksman last night.  The change is good!  I'm posting decent numbers (for me) and finally not feeling like a deadweight.

I'm switching back and forth between Spirit Bond and Iron Hawk for soloing/raiding, as well as between Barrage and Glaive Toss.  I shouldn't love Barrage as much as I do, given how much it tries to get me killed, but let's face it:  40 yard range, hits everything in front of me?  It just makes some of the dailies go so much faster.  On the other hand, I don't dare bring it into an instance, because I don't know what it's going to pull.  (Also, randomly accidentally killing critters that may or may not be capturable battle pets... ;_;)

I'm not sure if I'm going to push to finish reputations first, to hit 150 mounts, or if I'm going to hit up the old raids for the battle pets contained therein, but so far 5.1 has been good for me.

PS: cloth heirloom panda is creepy:

Those eyes!

Battle Pet Theme Teams

My initial pet battle team was formed a bit haphazardly; I had played around with it on the beta (for about three days exclusively), and from that I knew that mechanicals were strong against beasts, beasts against critters, and for most of my early fights, the third pet was going to suck if it was something else.  So my initial team looks like:

• Mr. Grubbs
• Mechanical Squirrel (Bolts)
• Rustberg Seagull (Sully)

There wasn't really any rhyme or reason other than that Mr. Grubbs is my favorite pet; Bolts seemed good as an engineer, and the random third pet is strong vs. aquatics, and I keep running into Toads.

Beta Team

But, as I've been assembling themed stables for Stampede (Aesop for Dusk, undead for my Forsaken, August Celestials when my Pandaren is higher level... and I'm not sure yet what for the other two), I've also been thinking about some themed secondary and tertiary pet battle teams, preferably ones that don't use two of the same pet.

I can't do all of these (I'm missing a handful), but I can do most:

Aesop again:

• Jade Crane Chick
• Fox Kit
• Gilnean Raven

Watership Down:

• Spirit of Summer (Frith)
• Rabbit (El-ahrairah or Thlayli)
• Sea Gull (Keehar)

Valley of the Four Winds:

• Black Lamb
• Chicken
• Feral Vermling

August Celestials:

• Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
• Jade Crane Chick
• Winterspring Cub

Obscure Star Trek:

• Shimmershell Snail
• Bombay Cat
• Fishy

Jungle Book:

• Panther Cub (Bagheera)
• Dun Morogh Cub (Baloo)
• Emerald Boa (Kaa)

Rudolph/Island of Misfit Toys 1

• Winter Reindeer (Rudolph)
• Tranquil Mechanical Yeti (The Abominable Snowman)
• Father Winter's Helper (Hermey the Misfit Elf)

Rudolph/Island of Misfit Toys 2

• Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm (Spotted Elephant)
• Guardian Cub (King Moonracer)
• Tiny Snowman (Sam the Snowman)

Offspec

I'm a marksman hunter, yeah?  I have been for what, 7.5 years now?

And since the 5.0 patch, I've been doing raids and dungeons as beast mastery.  *shudder*

The results were pretty marked: an 8-10k increase in DPS on Zon'ozz probably says a lot at just how bad I am at marksman sometimes, especially when I'm macroless as BM and have been running with a cast sequence macro on MM.

It also suggests that maybe it's time for me to try running without the macro as MM and see how that goes, as well.  I really like Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot, and I miss them - especially Chimera Shot - in the BM spec.  I could get a self-heal through talents, but it's not the same - it's really just one more thing to cram onto my bars somewhere.  Sure, there's a trap pull-out now, but that's not particularly handy for keybinds.

On the BM front, I've picked up one of the gorgeous green cranes (Lucius) and a black goat (Aurelius - there is a pun there, but it's not really explainable outside my marriage).  They're not exotic pets, but they're pets.  I have four exotics at the moment - Skoll, a devilsaur, a worm (named Larry, because he just seemed like a Larry), and the cat from Hyjal that I'm probably going to dump because I really don't care about it and it's taking up space.  I kinda just tamed it because it was there while I was getting tokens to try for a scorchling.  The devilsaur is pretty, but he may get axed, as well.

In other news:  I spent the first... day and a half? of Mists doing pet battles to get to 250 pets.  Then I finally went off to leveling.  I'm up to 88, and I've discovered that Stampede will just make extra copies of pets if your 5 active slots aren't full.  (Good to know if you want to keep an empty slot to tame something pretty.)

Professions have been much less painful to skill up, other than the Spirit of Harmony requirements for damn near everything I actually want to make.  The engineering pet takes two - two - when you can make the inscription pets for some paper and ink.  I've gotten inscription, engineering, and alchemy maxed, and enchanting and blacksmithing are close.  Jewelcrafting is also close and is currently restricted mostly by my lack of blue gems to bump it up the rest of the way.  I'm not appreciating the inability to mine for gems without a rare-spawn pickaxe.  Cooking is maxed!  Well, the Way of the Oven is maxed.  Working on the others.  Overall, the guild just needs fishing and archaeology to get its heirloom pants.  I've been working some on fishing - it's at ~555 - but got distracted by clearing out the map in Krasarang.  I've caught one rare fish so far, but I'm still a Stranger to Nat Pagle. :(

Despite having played in beta, I'm still impressed by the size of the map and the sheer quantity of stuff to do crammed into it in Mists - the minigames add interesting layers, and the farm makes me want to get all my toons into Valley of the Four Winds.  I need either scallions or leeks for my next recipe. >.<

Beta Mists, 8

Okay, back to the beta!  D&D was canceled tonight, so I have some time to kill.

Which is good, because I'm in the Valley of the Four Winds now, in the area with the Turtles of DOOM.  I think I crashed out... ten times?  About that, to kill five turtles.  Erg.

Macros work if you put an ! in front of spell names.

Krasarang is still closed, but I've found a couple quests that point that way.  I'm gonna guess it's the next zone open.

Hm, looks like another 'you need to kill five things but they're way overfarmed' quests.

New favorite quest!  "Crouching Carrot, Hidden Turnip."

Fast forward a week:  I spent most of the week disconnecting every five minutes.  It's more stable now, and more zones are open, so yay! more to take pictures of.

Hadrian finally has a spec!  Of course, misdirection is still broken.

I rolled a Pandaren until he puked. o.O

The Jade Witch is finally fixed... and apparently there were more quests after that one that I couldn't get to before.  I guess I'm questing in the Jade Forest again.

Woo, crashed again.

New cave maps!  But, um, the map doesn't actually show up yet.

The Jade Serpent is beautiful!  I'd imagine that, like the green drakes, I'm never actually going to get that color for a mount, though.  (Still waiting on my green drake, dammit.)

Tried Temple of the Jade Serpent; group fell apart.  (Come on, people, it's beta, we're all still learning it. >.<)

But I hit 87 (current level cap), and got Stampede.  Which I can apparently cast while moving.

Valley of the Four Winds has the Tillers faction, which will, among other things, let you have your own little farm mini game, which isn't yet implemented.  Krasarang Wilds has the Anglers, which have fishing poles, a (slowly sinking?) raft, and a water bug mount that lets you walk on water.

Lots of NPCs have little notes (I'm a girl, NEEDS HOE OR RAKE, temp model) that are presumably for the developers, but I find them quite amusing in the meantime.

Beta Mists, 7

I've mostly been trying to get through quests in the Jade Forest, but I've run up against a couple buggy ones that I just can't do right now (the Jade Witch and Getting Permission).  I finally hit 86, though, and the Valley of the Four Winds is open, so I headed over there to see what it's got.

So far:

• OMG huge birds.
• The cutest little pig farm.
• New giant lizards.
• MOTHRAN. 
• Birds flying around with sacks of grain. o.O
• Stormstout brewery.
• The Cliffs of Despair over the KrasarangWilds, and New Taurajo.

Huge birds!

Cute pig farms!

Mothran!

Birds... carrying sacks of grain?

The Stormstout Brewery

The zone itself is pretty: rolling hills, nice trees, quaint little farms.  Oh, and stills.  This is Pandaria, after all, and for the longest time all we knew of them was Chen's Empty Keg.

Pretty trees!

New Taurajo in Krasarang

Whoops, got too far to one side for a screenshot.  Let's see where it ports us.  (Back to the wreck in Jade Forest.)

I haven't seen any quests yet, but that could just be the two bugged quest chains from the Jade Forest keeping me from moving on.  (If so, that's quite annoying:  previous expansions you could move on when you were high enough level for the next zone.)

Running around Jade Forest looking for any extra quests... There are cats that walk on water. o.O

Waterwalking cats

Accidentally ran into the Alliance's allies.  Whoops.  Now PVP + resurrection sickness.  Running on, a rogue sapped me, tried to kill me, but didn't dismount me.  Jump off a cliff into water, feign, camouflage, equip fishing pole that allows water breathing.  Now to just re-camouflage until PVP wears off...

Ended up in an archaeology site, and the fragments are in!  Pandaren's special fragments are oracle bones.  Hm... attacked by an Ancient Haunt after my last Survey, which dropped Mogu fragments.

Oh, hey.  If I go across the bridge into the Valley of the Four Winds, there's a quest.  From Chen Stormstout himself.

Okay, the Virmen are adorable.  Like rat murlocs.

Virmen