Building a Celestial Tournament Team

I still don't see what all this fuss about pet battling is about.  Except I must managed to get the achievement for having leveled over 30 pets to maximum level, so maybe I in fact do at this point.

Since my last update, I managed to down all the Pandaren tamers, the Pandaren Spirit Tamers and the Beasts of Fable, and am well on my way to having my team fully constructed for the Celestial Tournament.  I think I have about 8-10 more pets that I went to level before being fully comfortable going in.

There are also quite a few that I still need to get upgrade stones for, so I may do some serious running of Grand Master Tamers over the next few days in the hopes of getting more stones to drop from bags.

I've also continued to work on Emperor Shaohao rep.  I'm at about 14,500 / 21,000 towards exalted at this point, so I really am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this particularly painful grind.

After I finish off the tournament, I will likely go back to working on my army of alliance alts to see how far I can get them before the next xpac drops.

Really? Pet Battling?

So having accomplished my Garrosh kill goal, in addition to a few LFR runs here and there (still trying to get the trinket off Dark Shaman on my warlock after all), what I have found myself doing the most over the last week has been pet battling.

On the one hand, I really don't see what the big deal is about and how people keep getting so obsessed.  On the other hand, I can't seem to stop.

I've been working my way through the various trainers and managed to take down both the Grand Master Tamer of Northrend, Major Payne, and the Grand Master Tamer of Cataclysm, Obalis, within the past week.

I'm sitting on a total of 7 level 25 rares at this point, and have 3 more that are in the 20's, that just need a little bit more work.  Those 7 are spread across different pet types.  I also have a level 25 elemental pet, but he's uncommon rather than rare.  Undead is the main pet type that I still need to get a good level 25 rare going on.  Although I may just finish up my Scourged Whelpling for now, who is in his 20's, and see if I can get a stone to upgrade him at some point.

So I've started to work on the various Pandaren tamers at this point, and and working on leveling my crab in order to face Nishi.  We'll see how that goes.

I'm of course, continuing to grind out Emperor Shaohao rep and am still no where even remotely close to being done with that, sitting at around 7,000/21,000 to exalted.

I've also been running a bit of LFR lately on my shadow priest, having completely forgotten how much I really enjoy playing as shadow.  Might give the hunter a bit more love as well.

So that's the update for this week.

Cheers.

Mission Accomplished, What Now?

So I did manage to finish up the Garrosh kill on my warrior last Wednesday, and have therefore fully completed my goal of killing Garrosh in LFR on a toon of each class.

So now I'm trying to figure out what comes next.  There seem to be a number of different options out there:

• A little bit more focus on pet battling.  Right now, I've got to level some pets to finish off the Northrend Grand Master and then work through the Cataclysm tamers.  Could be interesting to see how far I can get on the pet battling content currently available.
• Work on gearing my various toons in different specs.  There are a few that I've considered here and even started to work on a bit, including gearing the paladin for ret and prot, gearing the shaman for elemental, gearing the priest for shadow and maybe working on a feral set for the druid.
• Get the Legendary cloak on a few more toons.  Umm.  No.
• Finish working the Joar alliance army.  Right now my warlock is level 53, so not that far from being done, and would like do either the shaman or the priest next.  Maybe some druid love.
• Challenge modes.  Haven't tried them even once so far.  Could be interesting.  
• Achievement whoring.  I still have quite a few on Joar that wouldn't be that difficult to pick up.  Might be interesting.

I'm likely to work on some aspect of all of the above.  Not sure if any of them will get any particular focus, but we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, Ordos still owes me a neck on Joar, Shahao still has yaungol that he would like me to kill, and the Dark Shaman still owe Joar a trinket, so there are at least those short term goals to work towards.

End Goal in Sight - Two SoO Wings Left

So the little goal that I've been working on, similar to the one that I set for myself in Cataclysm, of killing the current expansion end raid boss in LFR on a toon of each class is almost complete.  I just need to manage to knock out Downfall on both my rogue and my warrior and it's all done.

As part of getting there, it's now also interesting to note that absolutely all of my Horde level 90's current have ilvl's over 500, which seems crazy.  Thank you Loot Island, I guess.

So I've started the process of regearing some of my other toons to run the current content in a different way.  I've put together a tanking set for my paladin.  The bar for a "decent" LFR tank has dropped so low at this point, that I start looking at it that I can't be any worse than quite a few of the tanks that I'm seeing in LFR these days.  Namely that I bring the following three advantages:

• I have a pretty solid understanding of the mechanics of all the fights, having run them multiple times as dps and healers.  So I won't be that tank in raid chat going "First time here, so don't know boss.  Pulling in 10, 9, 8..."  
• My gear is fully and appropriately gemmed and enchanted using the best help I can find from Icy Veins and Mr. Robot.
• I have actual tanking trinkets and actual PvE gear and am not trying to sneak in using PvP trinkets that provide absolutely no help when tanking an actual raid boss.  Hey, I'm really hard to kill in WSG, so I'm guessing that'll work fine here too.  

I've also started to regear my shaman as elemental and I may also work on running a few things with my priest as shadow, although he already has most of the gear he'll need as I was never fully committed to healing on him anyway.  So that should give me a few things to work on for the near term future whenever I don't feel like leveling the Joar alliance army.

So here is the update on ilvl for the various toons since the last update on 12/4:

Warlock - 540 -> 543
DK - still 526
Hunter - still 511
Druid - still 511
Warrior - 493 -> 511 (yeah, crazy lucky with drops in his first three SoO wings)
Shaman - 498 -> 508
Monk - 502 -> 506
Paladin - 491-> 506
Priest - 503 -> 505
Mage - 498 -> 503
Rogue - 495 -> 501

There is a part of me that feel pretty bad about my priest being so far down the list since he was a toon I raided quite a bit on during Cataclysm and even early MoP, so I may give him a little extra attention in the short run to rectify that.

I'm also almost essentially done with gearing the warlock.  He's got two more drops that I'm convinced he will never actually get off of Ordos - neck and bracers, and then still needs the trinket from Dark Shaman.  After that, he's completely done.

So that's it for this installment of my alt addiction updates.  Look for an announcement in the next day or two about finally completing Garrosh kills on those last two toons.

2013 Year In Review

So looking back on in game happenings in 2013, it was a fairly productive year.  I managed to level a total of 7 characters from 85 to 90 and made good progress on the other 8 toons in the Joar alliance army.

I've also managed to do some LFR raiding on all of my Horde toons, including killing the current xpac end game boss, Garrosh, on 9 of my 11 max level a Horde characters.  And the other two should be complete in the first couple weeks of 2014.

2013 also saw me do a little pet battling (which I may pick up again once my LFR goal is behind me).  It also saw me trying some world PvP on a PvP server - something I'd long avoided.  Finally, I made a concerted run at the 150 mount achievement, grinding out some BC rep to pick up the last few I needed.

I also kept after my various gold making activities.  Inscription, enchanting and jewelcrafting continue to be my go to professions for gold making, but I've also started to get more into blacksmithing and tailoring.  So far for 2013, I've found that doing a little bit, but doing it consistently leads to pretty sizeable profits.

Progress Towards Killing Garrosh on All Toons

So I managed to notch another Garrosh kill on another member of the Joar empire this weekend, with the priest taking him down.  That makes toon #5, and puts me approximately half way to having it complete across all 11 classes.  Except for an incredibly bad LFR group in the Downfall wing, I might have been able to get it done on my monk as well, but spent two hours watching a series of tanks wipe on the first set of trash in Downfall.  Apparently "don't tank lots of sentinels together" is way too hard to understand.

So after maintenance today, I'm going to take another shot at it on my monk which should make toon #6.  I also managed to finish the first wing on my Shaman this past week, so after the monk is done, the Shaman and Mage should be ready to start their way through.

I'm also hoping to make the blacksmithing healing belt for my paladin today, which hopefully will put him over the ilvl point of being able to run SoO as well, and give him a shot at being toon #9.  Then my rogue and warrior are both in the 490's and just need hopefully a single ToT run to push them over the threshold.

I've also been working on leveling my alliance hunter a bit, who will be my 13th level 90.  He's currently sitting about half way through 88 and working through Townlong Steppes.

With patch 5.4.2 dropping today, it's going to mean good things for all of my alliance toons.  Nice sets of Timeless Isle gear will be heading to both my DK and my hunter just in case I want to do anything further with them.

And my next toon to be leveled, the warlock, will now benefit from a full set of BoA gear, which should make his life immensely easier as well.

Leveling, More Garrosh Kills and the Rest of the Joar Empire

So along the way a couple of weeks ago, I managed to get my 12th toon to level 90, my Alliance death knight.  He managed to ding somewhere around November 25th or so.  I've decided to bag the process of leveling them all a little bit at a time in order to maximize rested xp and just do them straight through one at a time.  It's likely not quite as efficient, but it'll be easier on my sanity.  So the hunter is up next and is currently working his way through the Valley of the Four Winds.  After that, the warlock will probably be next.

I've also managed to get a total of four toons to kill Garrosh at this point, my warlock, death knight, hunter and druid have all taken him down at this point.

My monk has finished through the 3rd wing, and I'm about half way through the second wing on my priest, so those two will be next, making #5 and #6.  After that, it's just my mage and shaman of the toons that are geared, and then I'll be back to running ToT a time or two with my warrior, rogue and paladin to finish getting them geared.  I may end up able to make the blacksmithing healing belt for the paladin in the next few days, which would likely put him over the edge of being able to go straight into SoO.  I may also do quick burden dashes to the burning chest on both the paladin and warrior which should give both of them a little ilvl boost as well.

Here are the changes in my various character's ilvl since my last report in late October:

Warlock - 531 -> 540
Death Knight - 512 -> 526
Hunter 509 -> 511
Druid 504 -> 511
Priest - still at 503
Mage - still at 498
Shaman - still at 498
Monk - 496 -> 502
Paladin - 487 -> 491
Rogue - 485 -> 493
Warrior - 484 -> 493

I'm also grinding out Shahao rep on my warlock for reasons that completely escape me, other than PRETTY MOUNT!.  So I'm spending about 30 minutes every day killing the requisite 20 yaungol.  Still trying to decide if I want to bother with the dinosaur bone grind.

My Female Role Models in Warlords of Draenor

So I don't normally get involved in the various controversies swirling around the Warcraft community.  My blog posts tend to be primarily focused on my recommendations and thoughts around leveling and handling large numbers of alts, but I've read some excellent material lately on this topic and had a point of view on this that I wanted to share.  This may get me flamed I guess, but I'm going to jump into the fray anyway.

"Daddy, weren't there any strong female leaders in the past?"

"Daddy, weren't there any strong female leaders in the past?"

Strangely enough, when I got to thinking about it, the idea of a Draenor from the distant past not containing any front and center female leaders who got to be in the painting so to speak, didn't seem all that different from our own past.  But does that mean those female leaders and role models weren't there.  Clearly not.

But does that mean that when I decide to time travel to go back to old Draenor, or to the time of the American Revolution, does that mean I'm shit out of luck if I need to find a good female role model.  Not at all, because fortunately for me, I take my role models with me.

It's too bad for the writers and developers if they've decided to not bring Aggra, Tyrande, Jaina, Garona, Sylvanas, Keristrasza or any of our other strong female NPC's along and give them a key role in the next expansion.  I'm also going to add Aysa Cloudsinger and Yalia Sagewhisper of the pandaren to the list.

But when I look around at the World of Warcraft Community and the people that I follow and that play this game every day, I see plenty of outstanding female leaders who will undoubtedly be running through the portal into Draenor with me.  Members of the community that aren't afraid to stand up and hold Blizzard accountable and generate dialogue about the decisions that are being made.  They're doing it now as Blizzard begins fleshing out it's new expansion.  A lot of time has past, but I remember a lot of the same folks speaking up and holding Blizzard's feet to the fire when Ji Firepaw was getting out of line and behaving inappropriately during the MoP beta.

So Blizzard could decide to the fill the next expansion solely with Gelatinous Blobs, and I'll still have plenty of female role models.  So Daddy, where are the strong female leaders?  Well here's a list.  Watch these people.  Listen to what they have to stay.  Engage in a dialogue with them, and I'm confident you'll be fine.

(I apologize for the people that I'm sure I left off this list.  This wasn't meant to be by any means comprehensive, just a list of folks that I quickly cobbled to together that I look up to and respect)

@AlternativeGodmother
@Applecidermage
@DruidMain
@GGElaina
@HayFayFay
@hestiahdruid
@Jezi_Belle
@MageyCake
@Manabrownies
@MeaganTC
@NavimieDruid
@Nethaera
@noelove
@Oliviadgrace
@Perculia
@Restokin
@Lyrestra
@SerenitySaz
@Shadesogray
@ShaofHappiness
@slowpoker
@Veroicone
@WowAdoree
@zerenaa_hoofs
@_Laughter
@_vidyala

What I'm Hoping For From Blizzcon

Tomorrow is the official start of Blizzcon.  People are already starting to line up outside the convention center.  The Sha of Happiness and AngryOrc have already been spotted together in public.  It's quite a commotion already.

There's been a lot of traffic in the blogosphere over the last few weeks over what folks are wanting to see out of this Blizzcon, and out of the presumed announcements for the next expansion, fueled even more by the discovery that Blizzard had trademarked "Warlords of Draenor."  So I thought I'd add my two cents worth, overpriced though that may be.

One thing that I'm pretty convinced of, is that regardless of the actual geographic setting, what we are likely to get is lots of really gorgeous, interesting new content, new quests, new dungeons, new raids and likely other new shinies.  Whether it's going to be 10 levels or 5, I'm honestly not sure I care, because I'm assuming that Blizzard will be shooting for about the same amount of time to get to the next max level, regardless of the numbers in between - likely around 24 hours played.

Will there be new races, or new classes?  I'm honestly not sure I care.  Unless we further expand the character slots on each realm, I don't have room for another character in the existing Joar empire, which would lead me to having to make some hard choices.  We seem to be in the mode of introducing a new class every other expansion, which would seem to weigh towards no new class this time.  Given that, there will probably be two.

Don't get me wrong, if there are new races or classes, I'll be jumping right in, but it's not something that's going to drive me toward participating in the new expansion.

Most of what I'd like to see in the next expansion are really pretty minor game mechanic type items, so here they are:

• The ability to send BoA items cross server.
• Solutions to the bank and bag space issue.  More bank tabs, bigger bags, more void storage, and a system for storing tabards, similar to the key chain of old.
• A new primary profession.  It's been too long since we've had a new one.
• It would also be nice to give players the ability to do quick catch ups on professions similar to the way they handled cooking in this expansion.
• The ability to run old content at scaled down gear levels to give the feel of doing it at level.

So those are my hopes.  Pretty minor compared to some of the other things being thrown around, but I'm generally pretty OK with new and exciting stuff no matter what.  Even ended up getting into pet battles even though I swore I wouldn't.

400 Headless Horseman Kills, and Still No Mount

So I hit an interesting milestone last night.  Based on data previously reported on this blog and in a few spreadsheets I'd kept in various places, I was able to calculate that last night represented my 400th Headless Horseman kill across my various toons.  This number may be low by 10 or so kills, because in 2008 and 2009, prior to the introduction of the use of the dungeon finder tool for taking on the Horseman, I likely did defeat the Horseman a handful of times by actually assembling a group and traveling to the instance.  But I'm guessing it wasn't more than a handful, so we'll ignore it for purposes of this story.

So, 400 kills.  No mount.  Frustrating yes.  What are the chances?  Which of course prompted the follow up identical question, seriously, what actually are the chances?  And now it starts to involve some math.

I'm going to start with the assumption that the reported drop rate on wowhead is correct, or at least close to it.  They're reporting it as 0.5%.  To calculating the odds of "not" having something happen a certain number of times in a row is actually pretty straightforward.  You take 1 - (chances of it happening), which in this case is 99.5%, to get the probability of it "not" happening.  You then raise that number to the power of n, where n= the number of attempts.  So in my example, this would be 99.5% to the 400th power, which is 13.5%.

So if the drop rate is accurate, there's a 13.5% probability that I would kill the Horseman 400 times and have no mount to show for it.  Which is not as low as I thought it might be.

In any given year, if I'm running the Horseman every day on 11 characters, that works out to a 46.2% chance of not getting it that year (99.5% to the 154th power, with 154 being 11 characters times 14 days), or inversely stated, it's a 53.8% chance of getting it in any given year, so a slightly better than 50/50 shot every year.

Now let's say that wowhead has it completely wrong, and do a little sensitivity analysis.  What if the drop rate is only 0.2% instead of 0.5%.  (Based on personal experience so far, I'm going to assume the drop rate isn't higher than they've reported).  In that case, the probability of me not getting it at all after 400 attempts actually rises quite a bit to 44.9%.  The odds of getting it in any one year (again, running it every day on 11 different characters) drops to 26.5%.

So, back to our old scenario of a 0.5% drop rate.  If I want to be 99% sure I'm going to get the mount, how many times do I need to kill the Headless Horseman to have a 99% chance of actually getting it.  The answer to that, is around 900, or slightly more than 3 more years worth of runs.   I'll actually get to the point where I have about a 95% chance of getting it sometime during the 2015 event.  Maybe I'll just go buy myself a sky golem instead.

Garrosh, You Did Not Disappoint Me

So I managed to get Garrosh down on two of my characters this week, which I consider quite an accomplishment given how difficult the fight is.  My first attempt on Tuesday night on my warlock, I gave up after several hours and 9 stacks of determination.  I finally went back to it on Friday evening and was able to get him down.  With only 6-7 stacks this time.

I then went back with a guild group on Saturday night on my death knight and managed to get him down on the third try.  Go guild group!

So that's two down and nine more to go.  At the moment, only 6 of those 9 are actually geared enough to get into Siege of Orgrimmar, so I've got some ToT work to eventually do on 3 of them. I plan on taking a shot at it on my hunter tonight, who is the only other toon that I have that has also finished the third wing.

The fight itself is pretty interesting and there seem to be a few pretty simple keys to getting it done properly.

First, you need someone you can count on taking down one of the engineers.  It's a relatively easy job.  For my warlock, it's a one chaos bolt type of task, so I can portal over, blast him with the bolt, and get right back to helping with adds.

Second, folks with interrupts need to be focusing on the Far Seer's right away with strong AoE taking down the rest of the adds.  During phase 2, it's mostly being aware of the ramifications of the empowered abilities are, taking out mind controlled players as quickly as possible and interrupting their casts always.

Once people get the priorities on the adds right and really start hitting on the interrupts, it is actually a pretty straightforward fight from there.

For the other 5 toons in SoO, my druid and priest have both done the first wing but nothing more.  My shaman, monk and mage haven't done any of SoO at this point so will all be starting from scratch.     At this point, given the amount of time it is taking to run each of these wings, it will likely be a long time before I get all of this done.