Aedos, Sweeper of Mines

My favourite achievement so far?

Teehee!

I couldn't get out of the darn mine field for about 5 minutes! Worth it to hear the laughs in guild chat though ^^ Oh and Ding, 79!

How Aedos Got Her Bird Back

Strictly speaking this should have been easy. However I neglected to take into account that Whoopi Goldberg is a much better motivational speaker than Radio One. Hence why after 4 hours I had only progressed half a level and couldn't get a Ting Ting's song out of my head. That's not my name. That's not my name. That's not my name. That's not my name. And now it's in yours too "Get out of that one fatty"

Back to the task in hand. I've been telling myself "It's not a race, It's not a race" However the cruel green eyed monster in me has been eyeing up the new shinies of our level 80 instance goers and has been nagging at me to get myself in gear and start playing more!

So yes, it should have been easy, do some quests, do some instances, you know the drill. But there has been the lure of Death Knights, the gathering of leather, the copy of "Little Big Planet" sitting on our games shelf.

I have been levelling up as full resto, it gets me into instances quicker, the damage isn't too bad, no 7k crits but I can cope with that. I was moonkin for a while but somehow that feathery soul felt like an imposter, a pretender to my healing throne. I didn't look upon it as myself, but merely a tool to get the job done slightly quicker. So it's back to caster form for Aedos. She's much happier this way and so am I.

So this is level 78...and what have I done? Well the first thing was I got my bird back! I had forgotten the simple joy of zooming around, picking up a quest item, then changing back to flight form and flying away from impending doom.

Some of the more interesting things. I met Bambina, with Flora and Thudder, his poor mother was killed and he has sworn to avenge her, I wonder how that will turn out...

I have been a Scourge, a big Blue Lady and an Iron Dwarf.

I have Toured the Fjord, been Bored in Borean and pretty much done every single quest in every area I've been to so far.

I helped Mr. Floppy make his way safely home.

I have been strangely addicted to this weapon...I wonder why....

I have fought a huge pair of legs on a Giants back.

And I have dressed up in some new blue items, and as such I am now looking slightly like a dominatrix.

And now I am half way to 79! Now where did I leave my social life?.....

Busy Little Druid

Well it's been a couple of weeks again since my last post. I'm sure it's been a very busy time for all of us! Not helped by the fact my memory needing replaced on the PC and having a very uncomfortable time playing! It's been a time of getting reacquainted with new talents, new spell rotations in raids and soloing, a time for new titles (jealous of Brennus!) and new haircuts.



So far I haven't done any of the new Argent Dawn quests, I haven't downed the new boss in Kara, I haven't been off getting every achievement I can think of (Going Down? with Loukya was a complete accident!) I haven't even been raiding that much. I was trying to decide whether to level my shadow priest who is at 41 at the moment and very fun, or to do something which I had been needing to do for months. The Latter won, and I now proudly present:

Whoohoo! Just in time for the expansion when I wont be able to use it again for ages ^^
It was our last official guild raid last night and as well as getting a chance to spend the last of my DKP on a set of Tier 6 bracers I also didn't need to log 20 minutes early in order to fly very slowly to our destination! To me this is the best achievement I've gotten so far. After starting off in 2005 with my rogue, not doing any end game raiding up until last year, switching raiding mains from a rogue in epics to a Druid raiding end game content in blues and greens, it's been an interesting time!

Never in my WoW playing career did I think I would get to see Archimonde, Illidan and two Sunwell bosses down. So a great big thanks go to Soldiers of Azeroth, especially our Guild and Raid Leader Kay ^^ May the guild have many more fun times to come! Also I never thought I would have two mains who could zoom around at 280% speed!

Top 10 Screens 5-1

Well it's been a little longer than anticipated in my posting the last of my favourite screens but here are the rest, and just before patchy fun, nice.

Number 5 - Guild Birthday - On Guild Birthday's it is tradition for the majority of us to go to Goldshire, get drunk, and have a dance. This was from our 2nd birthday back in May, with Loukya in a pretty dress. The guild have become true friends to me over these years and it makes me all fuzzy inside to still be with them all!

Number 4 - Party Like a Troll! - When Aedos had been 70 for a few months, Brennus and I decided to do some exploring of lesser known areas. He's been to present day Hyjal and a few other places, but I wanted to go meet those trolls that are always partying when the gryph flies through Darkshore! So after a lot of fall damage I final got to dance with them all.

Number 3 - Romance is Dead - Well I couldn't put pics up of my favourite screens without including one of my other half Brennus. We do have some nice romantic moments in our time playing together. During a visit to BT for example we even managed to die right beside each other, how sweet ^^

Number 2 - Cosmopaladin - This is a 2 step screen, the first picture is that of our Illustrious guild leader, during a ZA run in January she picked up a stylish new healing helm. After persuading her to show helm, I quickly formed an idea in my head and managed to take this sneaky pic:

Which was then turned into this:

Various members of our guild made it onto those headlines and it provided a lot of laughs on our forums ^^

Number 1 - Picturesque - Definitely one of my favourite pictures. Aedos while she was still young, basking in the sunset of Darkshore. I just loved how the lighting was in this pic and again it shows what a pretty game WoW can be when you stop for a minute just to look.

So there we go, some of my favourite moments captured, before the rush to get to 80, gathering more loot, spending more money, it's definitely been nice to stop and reflect on what I've done so far.

Top 10 Screenshots (10-6) Long Post!

With Wotlk fast approaching, a lot of people are taking stock on what they have been doing up until now. Some are looking forward to the new expansion, new areas, new quests etc, while a lot are also worried about talent changes, the difference there is going to be with their "main class" I've been trying not to read to much about all the new changes and haven't looked at any screens from Wotlk yet, I can't wait to get into Northrend and see it all shiny and new and have fun levelling both my main toons to 80.


I decided it was time to step back from playing for a day to compile a list of my favourite screenshots. These are from both Pre-BC and afterwards. It's really just a way of looking back at fond memories of the game, before I get lost in the new expansion. They're not about shiny gear, inflating my ego, or anything like that, just fun times spent in WoW with friends. Unfortunately I lost a lot of my older ones, but have gone through them all again and selected a few. Here are numbers 10-5. I decided not to make a ridiculously long post, but possibly with my explanations of the screens it will get that way!


Number 10 - WoW Art. An arty looking pic that I took of Loukya when she was doing a quest in BEM, I think I had some funny helm on at the time which made the special effect. I chose this pic because I loved the eeriness of it, and how the people at Blizz do try to make an effort sometimes to do something a little different.

Number 9 - Onyxia! This is the only Raid picture I have of the Pre-TBC raids. I just remember how thrilled I was to be there back in the old 40 man days. She was so scary!

Number 8 - Nommy Fish! Chosen purely for comic value, I just love the way Aedos looks like she's about to take a big bite of that yummy fish in Kara! Letting a kitty eat the masters dinner Moroes? How terribly clumsy of you!

Number 7 - Imp In A Ball How I love my Imp. I was lucky enough to get a loot card in one of my trading card packs and Loukya went and collected her Imp in a Ball. He's come out with quite a few hilarious things over the past 2 years, I simply chose this because I am a rogue, and yes I will sneak up behind you and kill you. I cropped it down a bit to make the writing stand out more.


Number 6 - Do the Dead Pally Dance! Oh Poor Lion, our "chocolate teapot" tank. How we all enjoy revelling in your disastrous, hilarious deaths. We enjoy them so much that it has become Guild tradition to dance merrily upon his corpse. Just a fun screenshot to remember the things that make being with your friends worthwhile!

So there are my first five favourites, the rest will come up tomorrow I think. I know this is an unbearably long post, but it definitely gave me a lot of fun looking through all my old stuff!

*Is Happy*

An hour of boredom = Two Tiny Crimson Whelps for each of us!
Also more boredom equals one worthless post on Blog, oh well, it's keeping me entertained for a few minutes!

Oh What a Night...

Late September down in Mount Hyjal....

Soldiers of Azeroth defeated Archimonde for the first time, and I'm very glad to say I was a part of it :D

I was intending on posting about my recent adventures with my Rogue, but I just had to do this instead, Roguing can come later.

The night started off...badly for me. It seemed to be "Be Mean to the Tree" night, being bullied by a hunter and rogue determined to set my branches on fire *sniffle*

Thankfully some people still were nice to me

After a few wipes at around 30% and myself being silly

To Brennus: "This tear thing when you fall is really easy!"

*splat-dead druid * Oops....

We managed to get him down in 8 minutes, and my word he dies dramatically! I was excited about seeing the loot, but most excited about getting my last 3 badges for new shoulders! Grats again to all my guildies who got nice shiny new helms, especially the two 'Locks!

So since we had an hour and a half left we went for a little jaunt to Sunwell, I picked up my new shoulders on the way and as we cleared through some trash (with no wipes I might add) I got my little paws on some new gloves! *sniff* Goodbye to my only piece of Tier 6 ^^ All gemmed and enchanted they give a lovely 174 +healing, so I'm a very happy Druid all in all.

And since she has been feeling neglected, Loukya asked her Imp In A Ball if she would ever raid again...His response?

Yay!

Getting Back Into The Swing of Things

Well here I am, back again, after an impromptu break for the past week and a half. Real Life's gotta come first over a game but I've missed it. With Wotlk just around the corner I've been re-assessing my goals and the best I can come up with is, learn as much as I can about the changes in my class the expansion will take me, and continue to have fun with the guild in raiding till then. I also seem to have a lot of blog reading to catch up on and I'm trying to make a start on that now! I started back raiding on Friday night with a Mount Hyjal trip and got to /cuddle up against my other half and his creepy new Kodo mount.

I also got a new chest which from the back makes me look slightly nekkid!

I still can't help but be ever so pleased when I continue to get new gear, even with the expansion so soon and I won't get to strut around in it much *sniff* And today, with my hard earned Badges ~I am eventually going to get those gnarly shoulders to replace my Kara ones (at last) With Aedos as my new main and levelling her first I should start off the expansion raiding on a much more even footing with the rest of the raiders, I can't wait till the day where I don't think think "My gear is so bad!" when dieing for the 10th time ^^ For now, blogs call and I must go catch up on the ones I have missed!

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

A Druid in Tree form being chopped through the middle and in the throws of death? Well yes that just about sums up last nights raid!

Last night Soldiers of Azeroth descended upon the Black Temple, our objective was to defeat Shade of Akama, Teron Gorefiend and possibly more. But some bad luck was thrown our way and although we got Akama down (with only plate loot I might add *sigh*) We continued to spend the rest of the night wiping on Gorefiend.

I have to admit, last night my mind was elsewhere, during the very long trash clear from Akama up to Gorefiend I did in fact use one hand for healing the raid, the other for tapping my DS as I gathered fruit in Animal Crossing *blush* Even with my giant buttons and timers on UI I let a few of my Lifebloom stacks fall off, but that's what happens when you don't pay attention! The trash clear was no problem, lots of nice gems dropping , and eventually we got to Gorefiend.

As any BT raider will know the biggest problem of this fight is the Shadow of Death Debuff which any member of the raid can get. The fight is a simple DPS race with the awful Shadow of Death, which when you die, turns you into a ghost, responsible for killing "Constructs" who, when they get into the raid can cause scary damage. There's also an Incinerate which if it isn't dispelled quickly enough can easily one-shot someone who isn't at full health. When I first tried Teron Gorefiend on the very first time we killed him we had wiped a few times, but by the time of our last try a lot of people had got the hang of killing their ghosts before they got into the raid and we managed to get him down in a last minute special. I also died at the very last moment!

However I never got the debuff and so had never had a proper go of killing the Constructs. I've tried the flash game and was awful at it, I've watched video's on how to defeat them but there's nothing like practice to get you truly prepared. The flash game scares me since I'm so bad at it I figure there's no way I could kill the constructs in the real raid. Brennus assures me the real version is much easier, but I'm not convinced.


Again last night, I never got an attempt at them. This was both a good and a bad thing. A good thing because I didn't have to face being embarrassed and saying "Honest, i killed my constructs!"

I had already planned that if I DID get the Debuff and got my constructs into the raid my response was going to be this :

"Ok, I'm the only person all night who is admitting - Yes those were my constructs in the raid, I didn't manage to kill them all, I knew I would be rubbish"

But sadly I never got a chance ^^

I'm a bit of a shy person, even in guild where I've known most of these guys since I started playing. I admit I'm scared of being the one to wipe a raid!

Eventually, after many wipes, we called it a night since we had respawns and no one up by gorefiend to res or summon the rest of us.

I've already mentioned why I'm glad I didn't get the Shadow debuff, but the bad thing is that I still haven't had a chance for real to manage to kill these guys. There's only so many times I can whisper Brennus saying "Argh! What do I do when I get them again?" before he gets annoyed at me. I'm going to try the flash game some more until I manage to get them all down.

Flash Game is here for any person that wants to try it ^^ This is going to be in between me preparing to move in 6 weeks time, and also Loukya and Aedos both doing dailies. I'm really determined again to get my Swift Flight Form. I finshed last night with some dailies on Loukya but after sitting for 5 hours I couldn't do too much. I'm praying for another Epic World Drop to sell that helped Loukya get hers!

Things I've never noticed before

Well yeah, exactly what it says in the title! Before the raid tonight I thought I'd do a few quick quests on my ickle gnomie Louksie, when I found that I didn't have any quests in my log, and this is the thing I've never seen before:



The Quest Log minus quests!


I've been playing this game since 2005, rolled countless alts, and yet had never seen the funky spider web and pattern on an empty quest log!


Eep, must run now, Black Temple awaits! Will post later and report on my encounter with the scary ghostie things during Teron Gorefiend!