So That’s Pandas…

Now that pandamonium has officially begun, Kalil has already hit level 90, and I have the daunting task of rep grinding and trying to get geared and ready for raiding while at the same time level a new monk.

I’m pretty slow when it comes to leveling, but Kianlor has a good chance of becoming the new main.  I’ve been playing Kalil for the better part of four years and something new and fun (but still a healer because we need healers right now – and I still like healing) is definitely appealing.

I’d like to get Kian to 90 as soon as humanly possible, but until I do – and until I gear him up – Kalil will have to be filling the traditional “main” role so I don’t hold up the guild when we start raiding.  Given that I have four days off coming up, that should let me get a good chunk of the way there even if I’m getting dailies done before hopping over.  Once he hits 30 (probably tomorrow) I’ll duelspec dps and quest in addition to the dungeons.  Leveling in dungeons will let me figure out the healer toolkit, but I’m in a rush here.  I’ve got a couple dps heirlooms and with the new Enlightenment buff, this shouldn’t be too painful.

I hope.

Anyway, looking back over the bucket list from pre-MoP, I’m pretty proud of myself.  While I didn’t get ALL the things done, I did I get most of it.

• Level that EXPLICATIVEDELETED shaman to 85.  Done.  I haven’t logged into him yet (I should do that to build up some rest xp) but he’ll be a panda after payday.  He’s on the backburner right now though.
• Once Dorky Orcy hits 85, get him some gears.  Eh, he’s got a couple BoE purples on him.  I didn’t really go into dungeons after he dinged.
• Level leatherworking on said shaman.  Whoops.  To be fair, 475 isn’t too bad.
• Rebuild the nest egg. Done…ish.  I didn’t have a definite goal in mind, but I’ve got more gold than I’ve ever had before to my name now.  I’ll call it a win.
• Replace all of Kalil’s 22 slot bags with 26 slot bags. Done!
• Replace all of Kalil’s 18 and 22 slot bank bags with 26 slot bags.  Yeah… Hell didn’t freeze over.
• Clean out the gear in Kalil’s bank and void storage. Done!  …And now I need to do it again.
• Finish gearing up Verandin and Kellidan. Verandin kinda made it.  Kellidan… not so much.
• Elliaesin needs a new bow and polearm.  Nope.
• Level an Alliance toon.  Kierien hit 81 before pandas dropped.  He’s now collecting rest xp.
• Pets and mounts.  I have a sparkledragon.  Therefore, I am happy.

So that leaves me with an entirely new list.  Ugh.  One of the things that I both love and hate about WoW is the constant grinding.  I hate, loathe, despise – and other synonymous that describe dislike of something – daily quests.  Leveling in Pandaria was amazing.  I don’t think I’ve been quite this engaged in a storyline since Wrath – and even moreso now than I was in Wrath.  That is enjoyable.

Dailies, amazingly fun story aside, are still dailies.  Getting rep in order to get gear is still a grind.  The best part is that while I’m doing this on Kalil to get him ready while I level up Kianlor, I’m going to have to do it all over again on the monk if I do decide that main swapping is a thing I’m going to do.  On the one hand: boo.  On the other, if I want to raid – and I do – I’m going to have to do this.  Ergo:  Suck it up, buttercup.

And all this while trying to not be distracted by pet battles (which are way more fun and addicting than I anticipated), or various alts.  I have… a lot of alts sitting at 85 ready to run into the Jade Forest and I have professions to level (and in order to get patterns I have to have rep and AHHHHH).

But… babysteps.

Step one: Level Kalil is done.  I even let myself spend a couple hours flying around Pandaria getting achieves for the Lorewalkers rep – turns out this is a FUN rep grind, because it involves NO dailies!  I also have a flying cloud, so I win.  There are several guides on the internet but I used this one and a map I found via google.  This rep will also make the Archeology grind much less painful, which is definitely a plus!

On the days I have to work my playtime is limited, so I focus on the Tiller’s quests because a steady supply of mats will come in handy.  I also poked around the Anglers, but I haven’t started anything beyond a couple of the quests and I haven’t seen any of the special fish or whatever that raise your rep with Nat Pagle.  Really, the Anglers will probably be last.

Once I’m off work again, I plan to finish off the Dread Wastes (and work on the Klaxxi dailies) and dive into the Golden Lotus chain so I can get that done and get the Shado-Pan rep grind started.

Apparently all these dailies only take about an hour to do, but this is me we’re talking about, so double that time – at least.

And there’s Kianlor.  Once he hits 90 and starts on the grinds, things might be less spastic in game and I can slow down again.  One of the better parts of the end of Cata was the fact that I didn’t feel at all rushed – didn’t have to do dailies – and I could take my time and just level alts and hunt for achieves and transmog gear.  *sigh*

Oh.

Annnnd November is NaNoWriMo, which I usually try and do.  I’ve “won” the past two years I’ve done it but this year is going to be more difficult.  Not only is MoP a huge distraction but I’ve got… nuffin.

Oh well.  I’ve got a month to come up with something.

I R Riter. I R Profesnal Heelr.

We can cross this off our list:

He’s still got some gearing to do.  I ran a couple dungeons this morning.  One went just fine.  The second landed me with a pair who thought their raid finder gear meant that they could pull entire hallways, let aggro go everywhere and then yell at me for going OOM trying to keep everyone up.  When I said something about having to spam my largest, most expensive heals to try and keep everyone alive, the genius gave me the following advice:

“Lawl, don’t roll a healer then.”

This might be just me but new healers don’t ding 85 and instantly become geared in DS heroic epic gear.  We have to work for it, same as everyone else.  (And had I gone with my elemental dps offspec, I can bet they would have been yelling about my poor dps… Mind you, he would have been right, because I use it for questing between dungeons, and haven’t actually focused on figuring out what the rotation is supposed to be.)

This isn’t my first rodeo, kiddo.  This is healer #4 who has spent a good 85-90% (figure may have been made up, but it’s still a lot) of his leveling time in dungeons.  I think I know what I’m doing.

It goes without saying that, in my fantastic blues and greens, not everyone stayed up.  This was a normal dungeon by the way, not even a heroic – even though Ertek’s ilvl says he can hit heroics.  I generally avoid them until I can hit the HoT dungeons.

So the two numbnuts dropped after I refused to drop (they could have kicked me, but apparently they tried and it didn’t work, or they were just really that dumb – there was no way I should have had a timer since the last time I got kicked was several months ago, after refusing to drop and take a debuff to appease the ego of a tank who couldn’t hold aggro… hmmmm).  We got a new tank and his guildie and – surprise!  Even though the tank was in starter gear, he was a much better tank than the previous.  The rest of the run went smoothly for the most part.  One over pull that would have been fine had I been on any other healing toon.  But the tank had just barely there gear.  I had just barely there gear.  You can guess what happened.  It was a DPS who pulled, then apologized.  And because things like that happen, nobody screamed or yelled and the dungeon was done ten minutes later.  No sweat.

Patience: It’s a good idea.

But anyway, I now have every class that can heal at level 85.  I R Professional Heelr!  In MoP, that means I’ll only have to worry about leveling a Mistweaver.  Yay!  The ‘looms are in the bank and waiting!

Anyway, moving on…

Every once in a blue moon (by the way, there’s a blue moon happening this month – neat huh?) I’ll sit back and take inventory.  I like to pretend I’m a writer in a caped crusader sort of way.  I have my computer set up in the cat-cave where I pen mighty – nay, legendary – epics.

…Yeah, that’ll work.

I really like character building and while I’m getting better at this plot thing (my muse is plot – what plot wants, plot gets), I’m still pretty good at creating the victims to toss into the hungry maw of the plot monster.  Sometimes it’s for RP purposes and sometimes it’s for this story thing because if I call it a novel I have to take it seriously and I just can’t take anything I do seriously.

(I should really be working on that story thing now but oh no, here I am waxing poetic about… stuff.)

So I thought I’d give my brain a little exercise and see if I couldn’t go through the list of toons and characters that inhabit my brainmeat.  The challenge?  You have two sentences, describe the characters.

I can’t help it. I love this freaking thing.

*cough*

Anyway.

Name: Kalil Sunsong: Blood Elf Paladin Source: World of Warcraft Description: Recovering alcoholic, recovering thistle-head, healer, and life’s punching bag. He’s been fucked over from day one.

Name: Esrah Tolaran: Blood Elf Priest Source: World of Warcraft Description: Lecherous holy priest with an ego the size of Northrend. Also a devoted and loyal lover, father, and extreme kinemortophobic.

Name: Zachary “Zeikren” Bartholomew, Illuminati Agent Source: The Secret World Description: Recovering addict (substance is classified) who suffers from minor delusions of grandeur with an unsubstantiated belief in his own immortality.  Also father to a three year old boy who is in the custody of his sister due to Zeikren’s, ah, issues.  His wife is currently missing and presumed dead (no, he didn’t have anything to do with that, but it might have set off a chain reaction that led to his current situation).

Okay so technically that’s three sentences. Sue me.  Moving on…

Name: Ixtael (last name unknown): Blood Elf rogue Source: World of Warcraft Description: Reformed thief and street-rat with a bit of a memory problem… in that he has no memory.  Also probably not an assassin, but that may be just a cover.

Trying to find good smallish pictures of my other toons (the ones I actively RP) is turning out to be a lesson in futility, so we’ll leave it there for now.  Also: I’m lazy.

Lastly I had a friend geek out at me over facebook.  I immediately logged in and went looking for what she was geeking out over because I was geeking out over it too and had to see it for myself omg.  If you can tell me what the following screenshots mean, you win the imaginary cookie award (you also love the 80s):

Outrageous!

Eh heh.

So WoW is boring at the moment.  Rather, it was right up until they announced a release date for Mists.  Suddenly, my interest in getting the bucket list done is revived!

In the interest of keeping myself sane, I’ve decided that my human priest is getting the boot.  My shaman will be a panda, and I will be rolling a second panda (class undecided but probably a mage) to be the Alliance alt.

In other news: I found The Secret World.  It’s like if HP Lovecraft and Neil Gaiman and Stephen King and the alien guy from the History Channel all had a baby and that baby was a creepy horror story that was turned into a game where you play as a secret agent who wants to rule the world.

It’s really awesome.

It hasn’t addicted me the way Warcraft has, but it has taken up a good chunk of my free time and managed to give me interesting nightmares.  Since nothing really awesome has happened in WoW (Ertek is now level 82, which – while close – is not quite 85 yet), have a screenshot of TSW and my character, Zeikren.  My husband (who is more a TSW addict then I) made the following comment.

“Only you would find the most unintentionally homo-erotic moment in the game to take a screenshot of.”

I dunno, I was just liking the way the shadows hit Zeikren’s face.  I wasn’t thinking about slash (which is rare, I know).

*shrug*  You tell me:

Hmmm….

I’ll have more interesting things to say later, probably.

Long Time, No Post: Bucket Lists, Diablo 3, and Writing Stuff

I haven’t been on the beta much at all in the past month so there hasn’t been much for me to post about regarding that.  Usually towards the end of an expansion, I get this intense urge to finish ALL THE THINGS that I’ve been meaning to do for, like, ever now.

So I’ve been working on that in between working (like, at a job and stuff) and writing stuff that has nothing whatsoever to do with Warcraft, etc.

Speaking of writing, a guildie pointed me in this direction.  I figured “Eh, why not?” and I’ve got a little something mostly finished.  Needs some tweaking though.  Azeroth doesn’t have many fairy tales, so I decided to fix that.

I want to go on record as saying that Diablo 3 only managed to distract me for less than a week.  Once I beat the game, I found no reason to go back into it.  WoW excluded (it’s the people), the story is what holds me to most games and Diablo’s story was… not very good.

Not very good at all.  I was told it wouldn’t be, so it wasn’t a shock, but I am a little disappointed.  I mean, angels and demons and nephilim?  OH MY!  That’s Kalil!crack you guys.  That is MY THING.  THAT I LOVE.  ENOUGH TO TYPE ABOUT IT IN ALL CAPS.  It wasn’t a bad game overall.  In fact it was pretty fun the first time through.  The level design in Act IV was absolutely stunning.  The demon hunter was a LOT of fun to play omg you guys machine gun crossbows and turrets and omgalsdkhfjaslhdga;lh.  But!  It really is just the same thing over and over and over and over… and when you’re playing by yourself, that gets old and tedious really fast.  It will, however, be my go-to “I need to make a lot of things go boom to make myself feel better after a shitty day” game.

But Kalil you have seven level 85 toons and over a hundred mounts and pets and all the titles and by the way how many times have you played though FFVIII and gotten to the end with every single character at level 100? — shut up.

Anyway.

I am not an organized person.  I want to make that very clear.  I’m even less organized in the game.  My bucket list consists of things like “Do this thing” and “level this guy” and “Clean out those things” and “gear that alt up” and “Don’t forget to use the dreamcloth CD because bags.”

That last thing comes once a week unless I have orbs.  I’ll let you guess exactly how many bags I’ve managed to make (hint: 1).

So it should come as no surprise that, when I actually sat down to figure out a bucket list (of sorts), it turns out to be really long.  I’m notorious for despising daily quests and farming, so it’s no surprise that a lot of the things I want that require me to do either of those activities are still on the “do want but don’t have” list.

So here we go. 

Kalil’s Big List of Things That “Should” (but probably won’t) Get Done Before Pandas

1. Level that EXPLICATIVEDELETED shaman to 85.  The shaman is the last class capable of healing that I haven’t maxed out yet.  I have a paladin (main) and the priest and druid are both geared enough for the raid finder – and to fill in for guild runs in normal mode stuff.  Ertek the Dorky Orcy (soon to be a Pretty Panda) is sitting in Outlands – where alts go to die.  He’s 65 oops 64.  I just need three four more levels.  *sob*
2. Once Dorky Orcy hits 85, get him some gears.
3. Level leatherworking on said shaman.  The end result will be a max level everything (and two alchemists!)
4. Rebuild the nest egg.  I made a mechano-hog for a friend and, uh.  Heh heh heh.  She deserved it, okay?
5. Replace all of Kalil’s 22 slot bags with 26 slot bags.  One down, four to go.
6. Replace all of Kalil’s 18 and 22 slot bank bags with 26 slot bags (hahahahano).
7. Clean out the gear in Kalil’s bank and void storage.  No, seriously, you do not need to keep the bunny ears.
8. Or the flowers.
9. Why do you still have the spring branch of bunny making?
10. It doesn’t have any charges left!
11. Finish gearing up Verandin and Kellidan.  They’re the last two 85 alts who don’t have the ilvl to run the raid finder.  I don’t know why it’s important that I do this.  It’s not.  I just want to.  Also, they both have tank gear in their DPS sets.  Fix that because no way, no how, am I tanking pugs.
12. Elliaesin needs a new bow and polearm.  Forget that Mists will take away his need for polearms because GIANT ELF COMING THROUGH.
13. Self, you should probably get around to leveling an Alliance toon all the way to level cap.  I know, I know, but seriously.  Pick one.  DO NOT ROLL A NEW ONE I WILL HURT YOU.
14. Acquire the following:
    • Originally there was a huge list of pets and mounts here.  I said screw it.
    • Pets to get are here.
    • And the mounts are here.

Oh. Alright then.