Pet Battle tips, Pet Battle Bastard tricks and more 5.2 updates

Have you ever seen those pets stuck in a tree?  And you can't click on them?  Or those ones inside a rock?  Those terrain bugs are annoying!  But there is a keybind that can help you get interact with them - as long as the terrain isn't obstructed.

In Key Bindings, you can set Interact with Target, and use that for pet battling.  It's great because now I don't have to kill those Widow spiderlings stuck in the trees in Duskwood, the Minfernal stuck in the tree in Felwood, or the Stunted Shardhorns stuck in the trees in Sholazar (seeing a theme here!!) or those Gilded Moths stuck in the mountain.  (Thanks Veluxia for teaching me moar cool stuffs!)

And of course, I have been wondering what to do about those people with nasty pet battle teams.  Things like... 3 Fluxfire Felines, which is not horribly bad as the attacks are avoidable... but 3 Turkeys is a pretty crappy combination because it's sleep sleep sleep and hope the other person forfeits because the game is too long!  I am wondering if it would be good to have my Nordrassil Wisp out so that a lot of the attacks miss... and not to mention it's a magic so that's strong against flying types anyway.  Will have to battle someone to see!  Perhaps I'll go ask Josh... he's a pet PvP expert!  

Did you see the other things that are changing for pet battles in 5.2? (from WowInsider)

• Reflection has been replaced with Deflection, an ability that always attempts to go first and causes the pet to avoid all attacks for that round.
• Thunderbolt has been redesigned. It is now a powerful team-damage spell.
• Mr. Bigglesworth's Prowl has been replaced with a new ability, Ice Barrier, which blocks two attacks.
• Fluxfire Feline's Wind-Up has been replaced with a new ability, Flux, which deals damage to the enemy team.
• The Tuskarr Kite has a new set of abilities that's more appropriate for a Tuskarr Kite.
• Pets that had been affected by a crowd-control ability will now be granted Resilience, making them immune to crowd control for a short while.
• Arcane Explosion's damage to back-line pets has been increased by 20%.
• Frost Shock now properly chills targets of 2 rounds (was 4).
• Deep Freeze now has a cooldown of 4 rounds (was 3).
• Blocking abilities that last for 2 turns like Decoy, now have a cooldown of 8 rounds.
• Feign Death now has a cooldown of 8 rounds (was 5).
• Sprite Darter Hatchling and Nether Faerie Dragon: Evanescence and Arcane Blast have swapped ability positions.

Wednesday raiding - Falln tanking! - and other chit chat

Fue's hurt his back again!  Sigh, so that puts our guild leader and main tank out of action.  Falln has bitten the bullet and decided to step up to tank, and he went and tanked MSV tonight.  I unfortunately FELL ASLEEP AGAIN but they weren't short on heals as Bish and Bladewind were both there and they managed to do up to Elegon but I think poor Falln had difficulty dancing for Will of the Emperor.  A great job though Falln!

Moo finally got his weapons from Elegon - not just one but TWO.  Thank god no complaints from him for a change.

In other news, Aza got an ASHES OF AL'AR!  I didn't grab a pic but there will be one incoming!  Grats Aza!  I can't say he was the first to get it, because Gutsy also has an Ashes, but it is very exciting nonetheless!

After my levelling escapade on Eldre'thalas, I have been inspired to play my alliance mage a bit with Lushnek.  I think it's only tolerable because we're questing together.  Made it to 79!

Since it was AB is the BG of the day, me and Shab went in as it's one of our favourite BGs.  It was good, we won all our games and I feel like it was a nice finish to the day.

I'm not sure what is happening with me lately.  Not feeling the compulsion to pet battle that I used to - probably that's a good thing - nor am I wanting to do LFR much and cap valour, though I should be for the quest.  I am still super lazy with my farm, I just can't get into it, and I really don't like digging weeds.  I'm still happy to go around upgrading my pets (yay, caught a rare Arctic Fox Kit tonight!) and working hard on that Stunted Shardhorn - since when did the all get farmed?  Perhaps I need to work on something else that needs attention - like levelling my cooking or doing more archaeology... a change of pace might be just what I need.

Navispam: Working hard for my Apotheosis Souvenirs

It's been a while since I visited Jasyla - usually I have lousy timing and she's raiding, but that day I didn't really feel like pet battling and I can maybe catch a few of her Apotheosis guildies for a pic.  Besides, I am at work so I'll be half AFK anyway, so it's even better if they're busy.

I logon and yep, they're raiding.  It's exciting, though, to just sit in guild chat because before long there is heroic Wind Lord kill spam for some of the guildies, and that was quite cool!  Serrinne, Tikari and Kaleri all said hi and I thought, this time I'll wait for them to finish so I can take a pic with them.  And shock horror, I decided to level a few levels too, while waiting.  I don't know what had gotten into me.

I think I made it to level 5 when Tikari appeared beside me.  Tikari's pretty cool, for a rogue.  He writes really intelligent posts on his blog, Tikari's Tricks of the Trade, like How to Steer Lord Rhyolith and his latest post on Soloing Chess in Karazhan.  I'm more used to those rogues who can't kick the boss to interrupt him because they haven't got enough energy as they're busy DPSing... /grin

Tikari was server first Fangs too!  Not surprising since it IS Apotheosis after all.

We dragged Serrinne along for pics as well.  Serrinne has droolworthy achievement points!  Number one on the server! Actually, come to think of it, 6 of the top 10 are from Apotheosis, so I should be congratulating them as well :P

Jasyla stealthed her way over and they showed me some of the awesome stuff their guild has - look at those beautiful mounts from doing gold challenge modes!  Serrinne is sitting on her LK mount /more drool.  And I asked them both to bring out their fave pets - Tikari brought out his Murkimus the Gladiator and Serrinne couldn't decide... she brought out her Withers who is named Jasyla, so I brought out my Teldrassil Sproutling named Jasyla!  I wonder what Jasyla thinks of all these people naming their pet after her and being so famous and cool LOL!

And THEN Serrinne brought out her Yak!  Ooh, I want a ride!  I've never ridden a yak before and I don't know if it's me or it just seems to run like a rabbit - giving it the illusion of going fast.  I won't be getting a yak anytime soon but boy it looks cool :)

Tikari asked me what my favourite pet was, and it's hard to choose, but I brought out my most special pet and Jasyla got on her Charger to match it.  He felt right at home!

Tikari and Serrinne said I should level an alt, and in all honesty, I couldn't think of anything worse than levelling anything!  But I was browsing all their cool guild achievements and stuff, and I saw they had a Thundering Serpent Hatchling - maybe I could level and get a guild souvenir of my visit!  Whew, that's going to be hard work though...

Roshii and Souglyy had recently levelled alts in another guild to get that pet and told me that it takes only a couple of hours - they got the pet at level 17 or so.  Ok that sounded cool, but I should know better than to listen to alt-levelling veterens who have the Quintessential Quintet, because for someone like me, it will take me ages.  But I took them at their word, and decided I would do it.

So, off I started on my levelling adventure.  OMG I am levelling an alt.  It's obviously a blue moon, and look, I see a pig flying, and it's holding my winning lottery ticket.

I have this to say - 2 hours MY ASS.

I only logged in a little bit each day to do some levelling, and sometimes I had a burst of a few hours, but it took me a WEEK to get to revered.  But it was an interesting journey to say the least!  One of my friends, Cavendar, was teasing me, saying I should get off that server and go and level on his server, because he would invite me and give me the gold so I could get the pet.  But I had already started a little bit (I was level 8) and I said I was going to do it, and it didn't matter about the gold, I could sell one of my pets hopefully and scrape up the 300g I would need for it.

Look what I learned!  This may sound funny, but I never knew what Hogger was, really.  I see Deaths to Hogger and everyone thinks how funny it is but I didn't quite understand it - I thought maybe it was a bit like stealth Reaver or something.  Anyway, now after questing in Elwynn, I know what Hogger is!   But I didn't know why people would die to it... I was enlightened by my Apotheosis guildies that Hogger used to sneak up on people, and it was really hard, and you needed a group to kill it.  Obviously it's no longer like that because I was doing it by myself, and I don't know when it changed.  I guess Hogger to hordies is a bit like Gamon is to alliance - though Gamon is harmless until you attack him and got buffed into something that really hurts, whereas Hogger has gone the other way and gone docile from something really fierce.  He's still in Stockades though - I didn't go in there, however.

Then I was onto Westfall and I really was interested in this Defias storyline.  I got to see young Vanessa VanCleef witnessing the death of her father at the hands of the Alliance and she comes back and recruits all the homeless and unhappy Stormwind outcasts into the Defias and they sack Sentinel Hill and burn it.  Wow, I never see that on Horde!  And I get to see all her cronies too, all the bosses in Deadmines.

Then I was onto Redridge Mountains.  OMG I HATE AND LOVE IT THERE!  I was having a hard time with buggy quests and lots of dying which was sucking up a lot of hours.  There was an Ettin quest where I had to get a rock off someone, but I tamed the Ettin, brought him to the rock, and couldn't do anything.  There was no action bar, no pet bar... so I took my Ettin to the inn to buy him a drink but he disappeared and then when I tried to tame another one it didn't work.  So I abandoned the quest and tried again and then the tamed Ettin didn't show up at all!  I gave up after that.  REMOVE FROM QUEST LOG *click*

(Edit: OMG I just looked it up on Wowhead and you're supposed to use the controlling orb again to make the ettin do stuff!  #$%@!!!)

However, after that, were all these AWESOME quests with John J Keeshan.  It only clicked with me when I did the quest They Drew First Blood, that it was all a Rambo reference!  John J Keeshan is supposed to be John J Rambo, and his commanding officer, Colonel Troteman is a throwback to Rambo's CO Colonel Trautman.  I LOVE Pop culture references in WoW!  This has made my day.  Keeshan even puts on a red bandanna later, and you even GET the red bandanna as a quest reward.

(I didn't wear it though.. You cannot PRY my Safari hat off my head!)

Thank God I wasn't questing with Catwynn.  I would never finish questing while she flirted with my quest giver.

Keeshan says things which are similar to the Rambo movie!

• "They asked me to fight in those wars. I didn't ask them! I did what I had to do to win. So I end up getting captured by those filthy, crap-swilling, maggot orcs and for five long years they used me as a toilet. Finally I break out and head back to my hometown and what do I get? People spitting on me, protesting me, calling me a baby orc killer and all kinds of vile crap!" 
• "I CAN'T FIND YOUR LEGS JOEY! I CAN'T FIND YOUR DAMNED LEGS!"
• THERE ARE NO FRIENDLY CIVILIANS!

Then I got stuck.  I had to go and do another poop picking quest and get some leaves and make some stealthy gear, and then I was stealthing into Blackrock Orc camps trying to free POWs and plant bombs in strategic targets.  And that guy I was with, Jorgensen, would agro stuff and get me killed all the time.  I think I was about to throw the whole thing in - but I ended up persisting and that one quest took me about 45 minutes to do I think.  Phew.  Once I had finished, I flew to Stormwind to clear out my bags and decided to help the little girl there get her balloons.  As I watched her flying away, I realised I didn't want to go back to Redridge, no matter how awesome or sexy Keeshan was.

I had hit 20 by then, and I could now mount!  However, I kept forgetting I could ride, because once I hit level 15, the frustration of not being able to fly or mount had faded, and I was just running everywhere.  So silly me ran all the way to Duskwood before I realised I could have mounted. DOH!

A couple of quests there, and I was revered! Yay!  Back to Stormwind I went, and I was standing at the guild vendor and beside me was the new recruit Aussie-living-in-US who joined the guild about 1 hour beforehand.  I waved to him as I bought my hatchling - taking up the very last bag slot!

A big thank you to Serrinne!  She sent me the gold to buy my pet (and then some) and that was such a lovely gesture!  Big hugs and a little surprise coming your way!

Thank you Apotheosis!  I always imagined that top guilds are full of Nazi-like raid leaders, elitist jerkoffs and hardass cullers who look down upon us regular folk who just like to do normal stuff and bum around like idiots every now and then.  But it just goes to show that big guilds can have big hearts and be lovely and pleasant - even to a someone who acts like a nooblet and chats non stop about silly things (like Hogger), and I am not only impressed, but I am humbled.  Big hugs to Jasyla, Tikari, Serrinne and sleepy Kaleri (who I can never find because she logs off so damn quick), a wave to Jaymz for being so friendly,  and a big cheer to Apotheosis for putting up with me levelling like a snail for the past week :)

Minipost: #&$% you internet gremlins

I had a lovely post all typed up and I made the mistake of hitting the back button and it deleted it all, and then Blogger decided to SAVE the blank post on top of my original post so here I am staring at a blank page and mad as all hell because I spent AGES fixing all the links and putting all this quest stuff in with pics.. and now Wowhead is broken and I'm going to go and eat some chocolate because I should be sleeping but this blog post has to be written!

BLAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH

Here Navi, some chocolate.  That will give you the energy to start all over again.

Navispam: Admiring Jojo

I had a few minutes spare when I logged on one morning and I thought I'll see if I can pop over and see Jojo of Admiring Azeroth - she was sad I'd missed her each time I visited EU.  The last few times I had been to her server only one guildie had been on - the same guildie each time - and I had enquired about her once.  But hopefully this time!  And lucky me, when I did a /who of her toon, there she was!  She was doing dailies but she managed to sneak over to me on Azuremyst when she was done.  In fact, she was standing next to me as I was running along the road, I didn't see her at first - I was concentrating hard on not getting killed!

She showed me her gorilla, Gary, named after Gary Gannon of the Legendary World of Warcraft show.  I didn't know who that was so thank goodness for Google.  Google is my friend!

She showed me her favourite pet - in fact, this is how I was certain this toon was hers!  I noticed that one of the pets in her favourites was this Cinder Kitten called Xsinthis, and I remember Jojo's post on that!  I love that Jojo loves pets, and she is starting themed pet teams - something I like because I also have themed pet teams, though mostly all very dorky (like... My TNMT team Donatello, Michelangelo and Leonardo with subs of Raphael and Splinter)...

Oh no, this is me saying I have to go!  Kids were calling and I had errands to run and hubby nagging, making me a sad Navi!

But I will see Jojo again!  Now I've found her, I will visit again the next time I pop onto EU- though she did say she was at work when it's server maintenance on my end...

Look forward to meeting you again sometime soon Jojo!  I had a lovely time visiting - and I'm happy you were just as glad to see me :)

Minipost: Brawler Fallnapart

Falln got his Brawler title the other day from Now You're Just Showing Off. He was stoked, and had been trying hard to get it for a few days.  He said he even used flasks to get him the extra DPS.  I think he's the first Brawler in our guild so far - only Aza would be ahead, I think!

He told me that he had to do 100k DPS for the final rounds!  Woah!  Wish he could do that in raid all the time! :D  Here he is with his Clock'em pet as well.  Though I did nag him about buying the fist weapon to show off...

Grats Falln!

When Ghostcrawler's away Dave Kosak comes out to play

I have been laughing at Dave Kosak today, his tweets are hilarious!

These guys must have the coolest job in the world :D  I want to be that cool!

New Rares This Week

This week I managed to update some of my old rares pictures and also slowly work towards my Glorious!  Still got a long way to go!  Thanks to everyone who has given me rares pics - don't be offended if I update them with better ones, but I will always keep yours in the collection until I find a better one :)

This one was bugged!  Somebody had hit him and run away and he was just standing there, evading.

At least I don't have to kill him anymore!

Mantids... I hates fighting them. The're always surrounded by adds.

It's almost a shame to kill Go-Kan as he sits there quietly in the boat minding his own business...

I got a good picture, but yet again, someone stole my KILL - it could be worse I suppose, they could have come in before I took the picture and ninja'd it...

It was 2 am and I died about 8 times trying to kill this.  In the end I gave up because I was too tired.  That and I got called into work when I forgot I was on call.

Sauroks at least are easy to fight.  Omnis comes with a whole horde of adds patrolling with him.

Navispam: A Touch of Nyxrinne

It was server shutdown.  I'd fallen asleep and didn't get to do any dailies or pet battles so I was a bit sad.  Now I had a good 4 hours of sleep under my belt and I was wide awake!  What should I do.... I know, Ill get on EU!

The people I had planned to visit were not there.  Ohhh, Nyxrinne of Touch of Death was sick yesterday - I wonder if she will be at home today?  I sent her a tweet.

It wasn't long before she replied saying she was feeling better, and I asked her to get online so I could chat to her.  I was actually camping her other toon, not her main!  Whoops!

She came to meet me as I wandered over from Tirisfal Glades, and I had Darnell with me.  I think he has a crush on me... he was quite happy to have two ladies to protect, so to speak.

Nyxrinne didn't have a flying mount for two so she had to navigate Orgrimmar on the ground.  Oof, that's almost as hard as Stormwind!

Oh, I know what we can do!  I can cheer her in Brawler's arena and help her get an achievement by throwing rotten stuff at her!  However, little did I know, you can only throw that stuff at 90!  Booooo!  It's quite a levellist place.  I can't eat the food until I'm 90 either.  Nor can I queue as a fighter.  And of course Angry Spectators will one shot me for just standing around minding my own business.

Temptation... is a cruel thing.

Wait till I'm 90 and you'll get your just desserts, nasty, angry spectator... thank goodness Nyx can rez me.  That other bozo just stands around flexing at me and showing off.  Annoying little blood elf.

Navi: "Why don't you go in to the pit again Nyx?  I'll cheer you!"

Nyx: "Hmm, well I've had my weet-bix today, yes, I'll give it a go!"

Nav: "Well, I'd be scared of you!  Go on!"

Nyx: "Don't cower, you look hilarious!"

Navi: "I think it's our racial, you look hilarious too :P"

So in went Nyxrinne, and she did well, lasting much longer than her previous record of 2 seconds.  I didn't realise she was rank 7 already, that's awesome!  However, no kill.  Awwwww :(

I see what she's talking about now.  I can see sky through her bony leg hole.  Not a good look.  You could say it provides ventilation but undeads don't sweat....

We chatted for ages about pet battles, and in game-goals and about her blog in general too.  Clefthoof Runt is her favourite pet!  So I'm going to name mine after her.  She told me that she would like to raid on Nyxrinne again one day - that was her ultimate goal.  I hope she's successful in finding somewhere she can raid without having to resort to server transfers!

Time flies when you're having fun.  I had to go to bed (it was getting close to 3am) but I had such a great time in the Brawler's with Nyx.  We watched others battling, and it was a nice place to hang out.  Thanks Nyx for letting me visit!  She even mentioned my visit on her blog :)  Nyxrinne you have been Navispammed!

How to Look Like Scotty the Sprite

Who doesn't love the cool hidden things in WoW? Arvash had to show me where Goklokk's Shell was (after I saw Roblyn prancing with it on my visit to EJ), and Veluxia showed me today where to get Scotty's Lucky Coin.  Which has 3 charges, and makes you look like Scotty the Sprite for 10 minutes.

Don'tcha wish your girlfriend was hawt like me?  Well, you don't have to wish no more!  You can be hawt like me!  And yes, I realise, it's a male sprite.

This is where it is!

We flew to this tree.  "It's in the tree," Luxypie said (Veluxia's horde toon).  And silly me flew into the Sra'vess house thing before I realised what she meant was go where that purple bush NEXT to the building was, between the root and the edge of the building.  After a LONG DRAWN OUT BATTLE with a bunch of mantids who kept healing themselves (and I was in heal spec) we went into the bush...

... and there was Scotty!  I went to take a picture... as Luxypie said "Wait.. he agros..." and damn it, he was on me.

It didn't take long to kill him and I got his lucky coin.  So here we are, looking like Scotty the Sprite!  I love things that make you look like something else!

So I went to take a picture of us standing over Scotty's dead body and OMG, Scotty's dance is epic!  I had to FRAPS it because I think it was so cool.  Luxypie was surprised!  She hadn't seen the dance!



So what are you waiting for?  He respawns quickly, and it's fun!  Get your Scotty's Lucky Coin today and waste some more precious bag space on useless junk!

And, I realised, I should read WoWInsider more often because Anne Stickney wrote all about Goklokk's Shell and Scotty last year :P