(This is part of a post series called 10 Days of Pet Battles, inspired by Navimie. I never said it’d be consecutive days.)

Day 5: What pet do you want more than any other pet? What would you do to get it?

The pet I want more than any other pet is the pet I’m never going to get - it’s actually three pets.

These three pets - the Panda Cub, Zergling, and Mini-Diablo - are the pets that came with the original World of Warcraft collector’s edition, which was well and truly gone even by the time I started playing. Finding one with an unused code is a miracle in and of itself, and can cost up to $1500 or more these days.

What would I do for them? Well, I certainly wouldn’t pay that much for them. It doesn’t stop me from looking at eBay every now and then, though. Maybe I can con Navimie into caging them up and trading them to me… ;)

I crossed the 13,000 achievement point threshold this weekend. Well, 13,100 really. It started with crossing off some low-hanging fruit on Friday - bowing to baby Kroshik for When in Ihgaluk, then finally finding the Dread Ambercrusher and crossing Over Their Heads off my list. Then while in a heroic queue (gotta get that Anglers rep), I caught a Shimmershell Snail in Darkshore and earned That’s a Lot of Pet Food.

There was idle discussion after of doing some achievement point things (mostly to help with Rades and Narci’s ongoing battle to be top nerdpoint person in TTGF) when Rades mentioned he needed a bunch of the troll heroic achievements - so off we went to ZA, earning Bear-ly Made It (finally got a bear!) and Tunnel Vision. Didn’t quite get Ring Out! (we weren’t all in to begin with), but we went back the next day and got it. There was also a surprise invite by a guildie for The Light of Dawn, which also earned us Neck Deep in Vile somehow - I couldn’t see it because I always, ALWAYS get blown off the platform by Arthas’ transition. Not the phase itself, but the actual transition between phases, he just explodes. Oh well.

ZA came after, and I think we got everything there - I know we got It’s Not Easy Being Green (turns out it is), Ohganot So Fast!, Here, Kitty Kitty… (which actually took us two tries, I think one of our rats got caught in AOE before the cats could eat it), and Spirit Twister. I wandered around afterwards completing quests and also wiped up Gurubashi Headhunter.

After the group broke up, I decided to do some more soloing. I’d had a lot of luck recently getting the achievements in the Hour of Twilight heroics that I had not managed to get previously - namely Severed Ties and Lazy Eye. (Still working on That’s Not Canon! - I got overwhelmed by demons last time I tried; it didn’t seem like Tyrande was doing much of anything at all.) So I decided to work on some more achievements that would actually count for the meta-achievement, and headed off towards Throne of the Tides. I was glad you can fly over Vashj’ir - my shaman has never been there! Fun fact: if you’re in no phase at all, the elementals from the Thrall/Aggra “Elemental Bonds” questline are hanging around the outside edge of the entrance of Throne.

So I headed into Throne, made my way through the packs of trash and the gauntlet (not TOO bad, although my attempt to skip the gauntlet led to me doing it backwards by accident), and pretty easily got Old Faithful. The second boss was a piece of cake - although now that I think about it, I probably could have skipped him, too - and then I got to Neptulon for a shot at Prince of Tides. The first time, I overestimated how many HP the Unyielding Behemoth had (and underestimated Neptulon’s heath) and so I used no AOE on the murlocs, which led to Neptulon dying, which led to:

The second time I knew what to expect and it was a cakewalk. It helped that when you wipe on the Neptulon encounter by Neptulon dying it just… despawns everything. Very easy, no time wasted.

After that, knocked out a couple more - Rotten to the Core and Don’t Need to Break Eggs to Make an Omelet - I don’t know how I didn’t have that first one. Insanely easy. Pull the boss, wait on the adds to gather up, drop a frag bomb on them all.

Onward and upward. I’ve got a couple more achievements in my sights - I have maybe 4 more days of dailies until I hit exalted with the Anglers, which will get me The Anglers (obviously), Pandaren Ambassador, and We’re Going to Need More Saddles. There’s also lots of low-hanging fruit left on my death knight - which I’ll probably tackle after she gets to 90! - and I finally built my Sulfuron Hammer, so now I get to farm for the Eye.

So, what’ve I been up to, besides not blogging?

• As I alluded to several posts ago we finished out T14, and we’ve been working on T15… sort of. One of our on-again off-again raiders is off-again because he’s been super-busy in real life; another quit WoW cold turkey to pursue his life’s dream, which involved a move to New York; a third had his computer blow up and while he’s reinstalled WoW, he hasn’t been on, and I’m sort of worried he’s quitting. So yeah, we’ve been getting crit by the attendance bug pretty heavily. A couple new people have stepped up, but gearing has to take place, and I hate to say this, but LFR is a really shitty way to gear new people, and the valor cap doesn’t help. Regardless, we’re still raiding.
• Banging head against Horridon. We got him down once, and then seemingly he’s gone back to being The Immovable Object. In LFR, people still haven’t figured out QUIT STANDING IN SHIT; in normal, well, this is one of those fights that’s harder on 10-man by far. That’s really all I have to say about that.
• Sort of been gearing my monk again. I am a little disappointed that fistweaving has basically been nerfed into the ground by the untenable mana cost of Jab, but I am still more comfortable doing ‘actual healing’ on my monk than on my shaman. I don’t get it either. As an aside, my monk came into possession of two sha-touched weapons in the time it took my shaman, my ostensible main, to get one. One’s even normal-mode, so he’s technically doing better than Haloraka.
• Putting Blingtron in places people can’t easily reach.

• Also, speaking to the power of work orders: my monk went from Neutral to Exalted with the Dominance Offensive through story quests, work orders, and doing dailies exactly twice. Oh, and a lot of cringing over the repeated misspelling of red blossom “leaks.” Blizzard? Do you need a copyeditor? I’m happy to apply.

(This is part of a post series called 10 Days of Pet Battles, inspired by Navimie. I never said it’d be consecutive days.)

Day 4: What was the most epic pet battle/capture you ever had?

I unfortunately have never really thought of any of my battles or captures as ‘epic.’ Maybe it’s just the overuse of the word, maybe it’s the fact that my wins and losses are never really close so much as they are a complete blowout for either side, but I guess the first time I beat Stone Cold Trixxy would probably count for me. It was the first time I felt like I was having some ‘real’ success at pet battling, and beating Trixxy really was the hardest step for me before going on to beat the rest of the master trainers. Even Bloodknight Antari wasn’t as hard for me as that blue-garbed goblin in Winterspring; I actually went back and leveled a humanoid specifically to beat her before continuing on with my first-to-25 pair of Dark Whelpling and Darkmoon Zeppelin.

I don’t know if she was epic, but the effort I had to put in to get past her certainly seemed like it. It’s a little sad now, doing the daily. I take my engineer portal to Winterspring (and then extinguish the fires that the teleporter causes), fly out to meet her, and then… usually beat her without switching pets. Alas. I try to at least bring a leveling pet so it’s not quite a total faceroll, but sadly Trixxy is down to just being an easy source of pet satchels.

(This is part of a post series called 10 Days of Pet Battles, inspired by Navimie. I never said it’d be consecutive days.)

Day 3: Who is your favourite pet? If you could bring it out into the real world, tell me what you imagine you would be doing.

Picking just one fave seems pretty hard. I’ll totally not play favorites (hah) and instead give you a few. (All screenshots courtesy of Wowhead, as taking a good companion screenshot is trickier than it seems.)

• Anubisath Idol, because I got him the first time I soloed Twin Emps (and that’s sort of tricky as an enhancement shaman, at least at first glance). Mostly in the real world I’d probably make him cart stuff around for me - he’s obedient and seems pretty tough, for a rock statue. He can take it.

• Atramentous, my Dark Whelpling, my second pet to 25. Without a doubt, in the real world, I’d probably have to get him to stop chasing the cat. He seems like a bit of a pest.

• My Gold Mini Jouster, Buzzard Bait, and my Blue Mini Jouster, Egg Wave. This answer’s obvious: I’d make them play a real-world game of Joust! (Outside. I don’t need bird poop in the house.)

(This is part of a post series called 10 Days of Pet Battles, inspired by Navimie. I never said it’d be consecutive days.)

This one’s easy: Elementals. They all look so cool, but they’re such a pain in the ass to level up until you’ve already got other high-level pets for them to sponge XP off of. As much as I’d like to have leveled Deiter the Dark Phoenix and ERMAGERD PERBLE, it’s not efficient to do so early on - although now that I can easily knock around some of the trainers in Pandaria, that may help a bit. (Although the fact you get hurt when you surrender is going to affect my ability to easily farm the Pandaren Earth Spirit trainer for XP. Oh well.)

There is one exception, who I recently leveled to 25 because he’s just so useful: Grumpy Gustavo, my Terrible Turnip.

(All kill shots doctored up all fancy by Rades except for Amber-Shaper kill shot #2 by Narci and one by me; you’ll be able to figure out which one it is, I think.)

Now some words:

We didn’t just overcome 16 raid bosses this tier: we also beat the attendance boss, the roster switch boss (guilty as charged), the holiday boss, and Elegon’s trash.

And it was absolutely bitchin’.

(This is part of a post series called 10 Days of Pet Battles, inspired by Navimie.)

I don’t remember a lot about my first day of pet battling (well, pet battling on live, as opposed to pet battling in the beta). As I recall, I didn’t pet battle as soon as the expansion went live (although I did hang out on Vent listening to some of my guildmates do so); I was too busy leveling my new monk. When I did finally get around to it, there was still a lot of competition for the Spiny Lizards and Dung Beetles around Orgrimmar, which made leveling at first a bit difficult.

I think the first pet I tried to actually level was my Dark Phoenix Hatchling, which I quickly decided not to do after getting it to about level 3 because leveling an elemental is still an enormous pain in the ass. So many of the creatures in the world are critters (which elemental attacks do less damage to) or aquatics (who do extra damage to elementals) that I decided to just shelve my poor Dark Phoenix for a while until I could find a more efficient way to level…

… which I suppose I do have now, since I’ve got all the master trainers unlocked, so I should probably work on that, huh?

EDIT: Looks like Blizzard, too, came to the conclusion that this didn’t make a single bit of sense. You now get to keep your valor in 5.2. Conquest will continue to convert to Honor, but there will be new honor gear, so all’s well that ends well.

Trying to comprehend what is going on in the collective minds at Blizzard is sometimes a struggle, but I think trying to figure this one out might take the cake.

Blizzard: Hey guys, in 5.2, we’re going to make all the Valor gear from 5.0 and 5.1 cheaper so that it’s easier to catch up in terms of gearing. It’ll still cost Valor, though.

Me: Okay, that’s pretty cool, I guess, I mean, earning Valor isn’t exactly fast, but considering there’s some good stuff for like 600 VP at that point…

Blizzard: Also we’re going to take away all of your Valor Points and convert them to nigh-fucking-useless Justice Points instead.

Me:

This is one of the most boneheaded decisions in a good long while - the JP battle-stones are not “new things to spend your Justice on,” and they’re horribly underwhelming at that, since they just promote a pet to uncommon. The new heirlooms are an even bigger JP sink since they require you to essentially buy an heirloom twice in order to get 5 more levels out of them. They’re not getting any stronger or conferring more experience beyond scaling to 85. Plus it’s not like Justice Points are going to be any easier to get in the first place.

I just

I don’t

Here’s three transmogs I’m using or have used recently (mostly preserved here so I remember how to reassemble them in the future).

Plate of the Faceless

A little outfit I threw together after receiving the Helm of the Faceless while helping gear lowbies for Herald of the Titans. The weapon is a new accessory thanks to Narci; come 5.2 it can be mogged onto any two-handed non-polearm, non-staff weapon. This is a plate transmog with no class requirements.

View the complete outfit on Wowhead

• Head: Helm of the Faceless (General Vezax, Ulduar 25-man)
• Shoulders: Gold Star Spaulders (Geen, Oracles Quartermaster, Sholazar Basin - requires Revered w/Oracles)
• Back: Cloak of War (Leatherworking 495, 60 Blackened Dragonscales, has many lookalikes with less onerous material requirements)
• Chest: Spiked Cobalt Chestpiece (Blacksmithing 385, 8 Cobalt Bars)
• Shirt: Master Builder’s Shirt (Fineous Darkvire, Blackrock Depths)
• Tabard: Argent Crusader’s Tabard (Dame Evniki Kapsalis, Crusader’s Quartermaster, Icecrown - costs 50 Champion Seals)
• Wrist: not visible
• Hands: Bonefist Gauntlets (G’eras, Shattrath City, costs 312 JP)
• Waist: Spiked Cobalt Belt (Blacksmithing 395, 12 Cobalt Bars)
• Legs: Spiked Cobalt Legplates (Blacksmithing 395, 12 Cobalt Bars)
• Feet: Spiked Cobalt Boots (Blacksmithing 380, 7 Cobalt Bars)
• Two-Handed Weapon: Quel’Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned (Quest reward from the Battered Hilt questline)

Fists of Molten Fury

I’m actually using this as resto now; I need to find a good staff to match since LFR decided to play a cruel joke and drop the sha-touched staff for my rarely-played resto set. Unspeakable Secret, maybe? This is a mail outfit with (surprisingly) no class restrictions - it uses the non-class-specific Burning Crusade recolors of Earthfury, so if you really want an elemental-looking hunter, be my guest.

View the complete outfit on Wowhead

• Head: Fiery Beholder Eye (Collidus the Warp-Watcher, a rare in Shadowmoon Valley)
• Shoulders: Pauldrons of the Furious Elements (G’eras, Shattrath City, costs 312 JP)
• Back: not shown
• Chest: Worldfire Chestguard (Dalliah the Doomsayer, both normal and heroic Arcatraz)
• Shirt: Red Workman’s Shirt by FABU (Tailoring 400 from a dropped pattern, 4 Bolts of Frostweave + 1 Red Dye)
• Wrist: not visible
• Hands: Grips of Nature’s Wrath (G’eras, Shattrath City, costs 312 JP)
• Waist: Runed Copper Belt (Blacksmithing 70, 10 Copper Bars)
• Legs: Molten Earth Kilt (Pathaleon the Calculator, both normal and heroic Mechanar)
• Feet: not visible because troll, but other races will probably want shoes
• MH/OH Fist Weapons: Fist of Molten Fury (dropped by Battle for Mount Hyjal trash, Claw of Molten Fury has the same source and identical appearance)

Claw of the August Celestials

This actually came about after envying Fabulor’s kickin’ August Celestials transmog:

I got pretty close, but the amount of blue mail that matches the tabard is actually surprisingly low! Still, I like the way it came out, although the low resolution on the boots still bugs me. I might change it up in the future. Anyway. This is a mail outfit, Shaman-only due to using a few pieces of tier gear. Please ignore the stupid way the armory and Wowhead draw off-hand fist weapons, I assure you they work correctly in-game.

View the complete outfit on Wowhead

• Head: Storm Master’s Helmet (G’eras, Shattrath City, costs 260 JP)
• Shoulders: Heroes’ Earthshatter Shoulderguards (Tier 7, 10-man version, dropped by Loatheb and Gluth in Naxxramas)
• Back: Arakkoa Sage’s Shawl (Quest reward from Veil Shalas: Signal Fires, but it has a few lookalikes)
• Chest: Heroes’ Earthshatter Chestguard (Tier 7, 10-man version, dropped by Gluth and Archavon or sold for 550 JP in Dalaran)
• Shirt: Blue Workman’s Shirt by FABU (Tailoring 400 from a dropped pattern, 4 Bolts of Frostweave + 1 Blue Dye)
• Tabard: August Celestials Tabard (August Celestials Quartermaster in your faction’s shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, requires August Celestials Exalted)
• Wrist: not visible
• Hands: Skyshatter Grips (Tier 6, dropped by Azgalor in the Battle for Mount Hyjal; has a lookalike dropped by Shade of Akama in Black Temple)
• Waist: Doc’s Belt (Quest reward from That Little Extra Kick; shares model with 2 other belts but both have different colorations)
• Legs: Dividend Leggings (Quest reward from Gazlowe’s Fortune, has 4 lookalikes)
• Feet: Nexus-Strider Greaves (World drop with 3 lookalikes)
• MH/OH Fist Weapons: The Stray (Trash drop in Naxxramas, has a lookalike from Kel’thuzad in 10-man)