I finally completed the fourth chapter of Wrathion’s legendary quest line. I’m glad this one was short while still having a bit of challenge. The quest tasks you with receiving the blessings of the four Celestials. They give wisdom to Wrathion as well; Wrathion, in comparison to the Celestials, is actually pretty stupid, but he is just a child.
I completed Chi-Ji’s healer challenge. Unfortunately it took me a few tries, but I still got it, and now I have my nice, new cloak. I’m looking forward to putting it to use!
After collecting all those darn Titan Runestones, I’ve finally completed Wrathion’s Chapter III: Two Princes. Later this week, hopefully Monday night, I’ll complete Celestial Blessings and earn my delicious new cloak. I’m looking forward to it. The Wrathion questline has been one of the best in the game, and I love how it’s unlocking over the course of the patches. And boy, I love what happened when I turned in this quest. I won’t spoil it in case you haven’t done it!
By the end of tier 11, I was 5/6 BWD, 2/4 BoT, and 1/2 TotFW. I completed Bastion of Twilight later in the expansion, but I never completed Blackwing Descent or Throne of the Four Winds. I was recently in a strange PUG for BWD that I was sure would fail. The leader was advertising a 25-man, but 10 minutes later he gave up and decided to make it a 10-man. We started, and things went okay. One odd thing was that I was near the top of the DPS charts. (I’m a discipline priest.)
When we reached Nefarian, people started bickering. A few people dropped group after a wipe. I repeatedly interrupted the argument to ask “where do you guys want to stand at the start” and things of that nature. Eventually I got people to start talking about something I asked and to stop focusing on the argument. I just wanted to finish the raid. Luckily we made it through, and I finished Blackwing Descent for the first time.
Nefarian’s a rather fun fight. I like that after trying not to fall in the lava in vanilla, now you end up in lava during this fight. I imagine the fight was a little more interesting when you’re the correct level. Although, I’ll admit that Nefarian took a lot longer than any other fight in the raid. I didn’t win any gear, but at least I completed the raid (and earned a couple achievements on the way)!
After getting three new bosses down the week before last, last week we defeated Iron Qon on Wednesday. We wiped thirteen times but got it on the fourteenth. I especially like the last minute or so of the video in which the guild decides to be mean!
One boss just wasn’t enough, so we defeated the Twin Consorts as well! It took us three attempts, but I swear, the first attempt didn’t count! We pulled by accident with people outside the fight.
On 7/9 we downed Durumu for the first time. Yes, we wiped fifteen times first, but those wipes aren’t important! What’s important is the kill! I also finally figured out why my videos have stuck frames. I don’t know how to solve it, but it only happens when I trim a clip down to a few seconds. I usually put the last couple seconds of each wipe at the beginning of my kill videos, and I make them short enough, that entire clip will be a single frame. I’ll figure it out.
Primordius went down the following night. It was after only five wipes, so that’s an improvement over Durumu.
Why settle for two bosses when we could complete an entire wing? After killing Primordius, we continued to Dark Animus. After seven wipes, we killed it on the eighth attempt!
You’ll have to wait until next week to learn how we did this week. (Uh, because I haven’t done the videos yet.)
This weekend I hit exalted with The August Celestials! That’s also the last reputation that needed farming, so there’s another thing I won’t need to do. I still need to gain reputation with the Order of the Cloud Serpent, however.
The August Celestials also marked the 40th reputation with which I reached exalted! Hooray!
We’ve had some good raid weeks the past two weeks! On Tuesday we cleared to Megaera and put in some good attempts. On Wednesday, we managed to kill Megaera for the first time!
Okay, yes, we had 22 wipes before we killed her on our 23rd attempt, but we still did it! It had been 15 days since our last kill; I think two weeks is fine!
Luckily for us, the progression didn’t end there. We killed Ji-Kun on our second attempt! Here you can see almost all of us. Justin took the portal by accident.
Here’s all of us, I think. It’s hard to get everyone in the shot when we’re flying. Three-dimensions are too hard for my feeble mind.
And here’s our kill video! I can’t believe it was only two attempts. It was a good week!
I got to use the Orb of Control tonight! I don’t understand why I made Horridon bash the gate though. He’s so cute. I would have made him come hang out with me. We’d be good buddies.
While waiting for our 10th raider, we had some time to kill. Nate challenged me to a pet battle. I’d done some pet battling, but I’d never dueled another player. I was high level, so it was unfair but still fun. Here Musterbear (named after the stuffed Mr. Bear) defeated Nate’s Sunreaver Micro-Sentry.
In fact, Musterbear defeated Nate’s entire team. Yay, Musterbear!
Next up, Mushkin and Zetzu battled. That’s Zetzu’s Cinder Kitten, Nova! He kicked butt, but only because Mushkin didn’t use his A-team. I’m glad he likes his Cinder Kitten; Moogle got it for him for our Secret Santa last year.
We asked Fiirnok to fill in for Meto because Meto’s Internet was having problems. I hadn’t raided with Fiirnok since Wrath because he only recently rejoined. Fiirnok loves cats, and Moogle had the idea for everyone to bring out cats. She also had the idea of feeding them pet biscuits. I have a bunch as well, so after asking everyone to summon their cats, we enlarged them! You can see Fiirnok on the left in this picture near the water. I hope he liked the first ever Fiirnok Cat Party!
On Wednesday Carpe Flux Capacitor killed Tortos for the first time! It was only our second time reaching him, and it took us 28 attempts across those two nights. It was a hectic fight at time (as they all on first kills) but definitely fun. Hopefully next week we get him down faster!
Poor Gamon. After getting in many bar fights, attempting to protect the city against Death Knights, being put under martial law by Thrall during the coup of the Undercity, and helping at the Molten Front, his bad luck continues. He appears to be under arrest by the Kor’kron! The Kor’kron say a variety of things to him: “Where do you think you’ll run to? The Kor’kron control this city.” “You don’t want to force the hand of the Warchief.” I enjoy seeing the changes with the Kor’kron and some minor development of Gamon. Will Gamon be there for the Siege of Orgrimmar. I certainly hope so!
Similarly, the Valley of Spirits isn’t seeing much business. While the shopkeepers and trainers appear to be okay, they claim that doing business is too dangerous, and there are Kor’kron that seem to be guarding them. First, Garrosh puts the goblins upriver from our section, and now imprison us! That Darkspear Rebellion better kick it up a notch!
The Darkspear Rebellion was very exciting. Yes, it was pretty short, but I like that. You can see all the content in the day, but you can grind some more if you’d like. You can watch me experience it in the video below. Of course, the video and this post contain huge spoilers. I’ve also cut a lot of the repetition from the video. Below I first explain the lore and story involved before giving my opinion and feedback. Click here to jump straight to my feedback.
After witnessing events elsewhere on Azeroth with Lorewalker Cho and his dream brew, I was sent to Sen’jin Village. Vol’jin is there planning a rebellion against the Warchief, Garrosh Hellscream. With him are Thrall and Chen Stormstout. You’re tasked with collecting some supplies from the new Kor’kron camps in the Northern Barrens.
After completing this task, I returned to talk with Vol’jin, Thrall, and Chen. The Warchief, or at least his Kor’kron, figured out what was happening and led an attack on Sen’jin Village. Unfortunately for them, we were able to defeat them. As they fled, Vol’jin suggested we let them run because they’d be executed by Hellscream for doing so.
Vol’jin’s next move was to plan on attack on Razor Hill, using it as a staging ground before laying siege to Orgrimmar. Thrall parted ways with the rest of the rebellion at this point, believing that some of his previous advisers, such as Eitrigg and Saurfang, must not support Hellscream. Vol’jin told him that he’d be killed upon setting foot in Orgrimmar, but Thrall felt he had to try anyways. He told Vol’jin to watch over Aggra and his boy if he’s killed. gem watches from her direhorn, propped up cutely on the stairs.
After taking Razor Hill, the rebellion sets up camp at a watchtower just north of the city. Baine Bloodhoof arrives, happy to see Vol’jin alive. He offers to join the rebellion. I was tasked with two new objectives – to steal many more supplies from the Kor’kron and to speak with the Old Seer currently climbing Mount Neverest in the footsteps of the last emperor.
First, I went to the Northern Barrens to collect materials from the Kor’kron and to kill the Kor’kron commanders. Once that was done, I headed to Kun’Lai Summit.
I helped the Old Seer, Seer Hao Pham Roo, climb the mountain, during which he explained how when he was young he would have had trouble performing the climb. For example, he says, “My, you are strong! When I was young, I might have doubted that we could do this. But now, I have no doubts at all.” In fact, he mentions overcoming anger, violence, doubt, despair, hate, and fear.
Upon reaching the summit, he explains. “You see, when I was young… when I was young… when I was young… I was EMPEROR.” He transforms in the spirit of the last emperor, describing his remaining vice – his pride. He explains that his pride cloaked Pandaria in the mists. He thought they could solve their problems without outside help. Now he believes that old enemies must work together, and that proud races must admit that they need help. He then disappears.
Upon completing all the tasks of the Darkspear Rebellion, I became Darkspear Revolutionary Devee. (If I was a member of the Alliance, I would gained “Hordebreaker!”)
My opinion and reaction
I’m incredibly happy with the Battlefield Barrens event. The lore was fantastic, and experiencing it was a ton of fun. The only grind is collecting supplies for the weekly, but that really only took an hour or so. Of course, if I choose not to do it again, it wouldn’t even be that big of a deal. The conflict rose at a great pacing as well. First, we attacked the Kor’kron haphazardly. Next, they attacked Sen’jin Village, and we defended. Finally, we led a full assault with a marching army upon Razor Hill. Very cool!
All three leaders of the primary Western Horde were there – Vol’jin, Thrall, and Baine. They even mentioned that Lor’themar agreed with the rebellion but was still busy and that Sylvanas agreed but was too far away. It was nice to see Baine show up despite there still being tauren within Orgrimmar. The dialogue between Thrall and Vol’jin was also touching. I know I’m a sap for lore and story, but I really enjoyed it. I hope Blizzard wasn’t foreshadowing Thrall’s death, but in all honesty, I was expecting his death at the end of Cataclysm already. Many people love Thrall, and many people are sick of seeing him. Killing him could be a fitting solution. The people who are sick of him won’t need to see him anymore. The people who love him will have him go out at a high point in his life and can remember him as a great hero.
The quest with the Old Seer was simply amazing. I didn’t even realize he was talking about defeating the sha as we climbed until I went back to watch my own video. And when he transformed into the Emperor, I was at a loss of words. I know that sounds silly, but I have a low tolerance for “awesome,” and this was super awesome. A lot of people were expecting a final Sha of Pride, but it’s nice to see it confirmed. And it’s definitely true that Garrosh has been acting more prideful and much less honorable than previously. When did the mists part, anyways? Could the Sha of Pride have left Pandaria, parting the mists, near the end of Cataclysm – right around the time Garrosh Hellscream began planning the destruction of Theramore? It could explain his change of behavior!
Patch 5.3 Escalation brought four new scenarios with it, two of which are required to progress into the Darkspear Rebellion quests. None of them involves the actual player characters; they’re stories told about others on Azeroth through Lorewalker Cho and his dream brew. This is a very cool way of telling stories about other characters while still allowing all players to see them.
Please note that this post will contain spoilers!
The first scenario, Blood in the Snow, is about the Alliance. The Zandalari have instigated the Frostmane trolls in Dun Morogh to lead an attack on Ironforge. When Varian asks the dwarves to send troops to help him fight off the trolls, the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer both refuse. The two clans are scared to turn their backs on the Dark Iron. Meanwhile Moira Thaurissan, Queen-Regent of the Dark Iron clan, shows that she’s willing to contribute to the Alliance and defend Ironforge by leading her troops into battle alongside Varian Wrynn. (Why does Varian have to lead the effort? Why aren’t the dwarves taking the initiative to defend their own city?)
Mechanically there was nothing special about Blood in the Snow. However, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I think it might have been my favorite scenario. Now, do consider that I only played each scenario once. It’s fairly likely that I won’t play any of them again for a long time. While some of the other scenarios had awesome things happen, it’s not every day that I get to see character progression of Alliance faction leaders. Moira’s a cool character, and it’s exciting to see her step up. I hope they three clans don’t unite any time soon. I’d like to see Moira turn into the more honorable one while the other two bicker.
The Dark Heart of Pandaria puts you in the shoes of goblin engineers excavating the Vale of Eternal Blossoms under orders of Garrosh Hellscream who hopes to find an ancient power. The goblins find a large chest, but when they open it, Norushen, a Titan construct of a Mogu yells, “Containment failure. Active defense matrix enabled.” A goblin is transformed by sha energy into the Echo of Y’Shaarj, and the other goblins defeat him.
Grizzle Gearslip, Malkorok, and Kor’kron enter the room, claiming this is exactly what they wanted to find. Malkorok pays Grizzle Gearslip, but Grizzle Gearslip replies that it wasn’t the full amount. Malkorok says that Grizzle Gearslip is only paid for the workers present, not the ones who died. He grabs him by the neck and proceeds with a racist tirade about the weakness of the lesser races before leaving.
This is another very fascinating scenario. Of course, we get some nice progression about the Old God Y’Shaarj. Not only did we discover this presence, but we find that Garrosh not only knew of it but also wanted it. I think everyone on Azeroth who isn’t part of Garrosh’s ideal Horde thinks harnessing the power of an Old God is a bad idea. Lastly, this scenario seems to act as a tipping point for the goblins. It’s obvious what the orcs think of the goblins as well.
I actually ran through Battle on the High Seas last, but as it was my least favorite scenario of the four, I didn’t want to end this post with it. Horde and Alliance ships meet in the ocean en route to Pandaria and open fire on each other. You’re tasked with boarding the other ships both by swinging over with ropes and by shooting yourself with a cannon. Besides killing enemy sailors, you also place explosives to destroy the ships.
I thought this scenario was rather boring although it did have its moments. Swinging from the ropes and using the cannons was fun, but the instructions weren’t always clear. The third person in my group at one point jumped overboard and swam to the other ship, not realizing we needed to do something on the previous ship before being able to swing to the next. We also got caught on an enemy ship when the explosives went off, killing us. It told us to get off the ship, but we weren’t sure exactly what we were supposed to do.
The biggest problem with the scenario is that it doesn’t progress the story. Yes, yes, I realize the Horde and Alliance are at war. I guess they just wanted some scenario, any scenario, to show that conflict. What we get here is some random sailors dying. Was there anyone important on either side? No. Did we learn anything new (like we do in all three of the other scenarios)? No! I’m sure Blizzard could have reinforced the Horde-Alliance conflict while actually using some characters that mattered.
Lastly we have the Secrets of Ragefire. Citizens in Durotar have been disappearing, and the Gob Squad believes it has something to do with Ragefire Chasm. You’re placed in the roles of the Gob Squad, who previously had adventures in Azshara and the Twilight Highlands, to learn what’s happening. The Gob Squad works to create a bomb to blow open a door. The Dark Shaman Xorenth tries to stop them, but the Gob Squad defeats them. They find a large number of proto-drake eggs as well as Kor’kron supply crates, making them think Garrosh plans an invasion, including orcs mounted on proto-drakes. They also find discarded Pandaria artifacts. These are likely discarded because they’re not the source of power of Y’shaarj for which Garrosh was searching. The Gob Squad creates another bomb to blow open the next door.
Yes, that’s the bomb in the upper-left of that picture. Why yes, that is a pool pony, and no, we don’t know why it’s needed. The bomb detonates early, hurting some members of the Gob Squad. Soon after, Overseer Elaglo enters, claiming “The true horde, the pure horde, cannot be stopped!” While Grit sets up a teleporter, the other goblins defend him and defeat the racist Overseer Elaglo before escaping through the teleporter.
This is another great scenario. It’s a ton of fun to explore an area that Horde players explored for the first time so long ago. In true goblin fashion, the Gob Squad is a bit silly but still manage to kick butt! The scenario shows the pride and arrogance of Garrosh Hellscream’s Horde. I love the line about the true Horde. I also like the usage of Dark Shaman. An expansion ago, I hadn’t heard of the idea of Dark Shaman. I believe the first I heard of them was in Tides of War. With the release of Mists of Pandaria, Ragefire Chasm was updated. Gone was the concept of warlocks; in its place were the Dark Shaman, and the Secrets of Ragefire brings the problem to a head. It’s time we do something about the Old God harnessing, shamanic arts-abusing, “true Horde” led by Garrosh Hellscream! Maybe it’s time for a rebellion, and maybe I’ll be posting about the Darkspear Rebellion next time!
After collecting my Secrets of the Empire and trillium bars, I finally got to proceed with the legendary quests. I headed to the Thunderforge for my solo scenario, which was actually a bit more challenging than usual. As a healer, I got through it, but Mooglegem struggled a bit as DPS. Afterward, Wrathion was nice enough to give us our legendary meta gems! The Courageous Primal Diamond is sure sweet; I hope I actually get to use it soon! I don’t want to put it in my helm when I’m likely to upgrade it soon.
There are two more quests in the 5.2 chain before completing chapter three. Why put the legendary reward in the middle of the chain? That seems very odd to me, but I guess it didn’t really matter because people will continue into chapter four regardless.
During the interaction to receive the reward, Anduin Wrynn sits on the wall. Mooglegem decided to sit with him and have a nice chat. He’s a great character. I wonder if the Alliance get to see much more of him than we Horde do.
If you haven’t done the scenario and are curious, you can see it here!
Patch 5.3 hits today. Every time there’s a patch, I ask myself if I’m ready for it. So far this expansion, every patch has come a bit early in my opinion. Yes, I do feel a bit burnt out lately, but that’s because there’s too much to do, not because it’s boring.
How am I doing in patch 5.2? I’ve finished LFR of course and am 3/12 in Throne of Thunder. I’ve done all the activities on the Isle of Thunder although didn’t get all the achievements, I’ve killed the two world bosses, and I’ve explored the Isle of Giants. I’m exalted with the Sunreaver Onslaught and revered with the Shado-Pan Assault. I’ve finished collecting Secrets of the Empire and Trillium Bars for Wrathion and am working on his quests.
I suppose now is as good a time as any. There’s still more to do, but this isn’t a raid patch. Because I’m no longer doing much besides raiding, it seems like the perfect time for a non-raid patch. I just wish I was caught up with Wrathion! Patch 5.3, Escalation, should be exciting. I have no idea what’s going on with PVP, and I wish I did, so I can’t say much about the new BG. Scenarios have been pretty boring so far, so I’m not very excited for that either. However, I love where they’re going with the story and look forward to helping Vol’jin’s rebellion!
What’s this? A giant exclamation mark in the raid? Oh, a quest! Seriously, how did I not know there were raid quests in the Throne of Thunder. Admittedly we’re not very far in the raid. We’re only 3/12, so I suppose the randomly quest has always been further in the raid. Still it seems surprising to me that I wouldn’t have heard about this.
It was a nice change to have something a little different to do between the first two bosses. Maybe we wiped once, sure, but things always go wrong on trash. It wasn’t the only time we wiped on trash that night either.
Of course, all I received for completing it was 26 gold. Even so, I enjoyed the change of pace and look forward to running into more of these in the future.
The other day I hadn’t really intended on playing WoW much. I got online to do something really quick, and my friend and guildmate Zetzu announced that Oondasta was up, and that people were about to engage him. Within minutes, Devee and Mooglegem were standing on the beach of the Isle of Giants.
No one was attacking him. Minutes passed, and people were still arguing and trying to group up. I got distracted and ended up downstairs talking to my roommate. About twenty minutes later, I walked into my room. On Mooglegem’s screen, I see that Oondasta is almost dead. Mooglegem casts one spell, and the spell hits just before Oondasta dies. I didn’t even get to enter combat with Devee.
Of course, Mooglegem gets some loot. I forget what it was now, but after looking at the loot, she used a Mogu Rune of Fate.
Reins of the Cobalt Primordial Direhorn.
Too awesome! I think she looks good on it though, don’t you?
On Wednesday we defeated the Council of Elders for the first time! It was a really fun fight in my opinion. I love seeing the various troll tribes act as individuals even while acting as a group. Just as with Horridon, the Council of Elders showcases representatives of each troll tribe (especially if you consider the Darkspear representative in opposition).
We had thirteen failed attempts before our successful kill; the video shows the last few seconds of each failure before the full success. Now it’s on to Tortos!
I think I’d look good riding on a Horridon. Sadly, the mount didn’t drop. It would pretty nice to have one day.
It only took us 13 wipes to down Horridon for the first time! That seems like a lot, but I guess it wasn’t so bad. I think it was only two nights. We put some attempts into the Council of Elders as well but didn’t get far. Maybe we’ll progress more next week!
I had very little time this week to play World of Warcraft. Of our two raid nights, one never got going, so we ran LFR instead. Someone in our guild still needed to go through LFR for the first time, so we ran the wing that he needed next before bed. The next raid night we got into Throne of Thunder, downed the first boss, and attempted the second. After spending three days from WoW, I returned Monday night with the goal of doing the final wing of Throne of Thunder for the first time.
When Mooglegem and I zoned into the raid, we had three stacks of Determination and were on Lei Shen. Might as well take advantage of the three stacks, kill him, and then re-queue, right? Well, we wiped two more times. In the others’ defense, there really are a lot of abilities, and you have to know when to run and when to stack. After we finally killed him, Mooglegem and I left and re-queued. We zoned back in to find ourselves about to pull Lei Shen. We pulled, wiped, and dropped group. Time to re-queue, and then we were back at Lei Shen again, although this time there was trash between me and the boss. People seemed to just run past the trash, hoping to reach the teleporter before dying. Fine! But this time, we decided to try dropping group.
Deserter.
Thanks, Blizzard. I wouldn’t say I’m a deserter though. I’d say I’m someone who needed to go to sleep.
We did, however, fight Nalak, The Storm Lord. I didn’t notice at first, but Darkdk was in my raid! Darkdk #1! For people not from Kil’jaeden, Darkdk is a… local celebrity? That’s what I’d call him. Some people might call him a trade troll. I suppose “Darkdk #1” is sort of his catchphrase, and according to my meters, he really was #1.
The Isle of Thunder is now fully unlocked, and I recently defeated Shan Bu in the solo scenario, Fall of Shan Bu. It was a relatively simple scenario with a few plot development points of interest. The Horde and the Alliance almost clashed but focused on defeating the Mogu and Zandalari first. However, once Shan Bu was defeated, things escalated.
Regent-Lord Lor’themar Theron demanded that Lady Jaina Proudmoore free the Sunreavers. She responded that they were led an assault on an Alliance city from her own city. Lor’themar said that the Sunreavers didn’t know about that. What I particularly enjoyed was Aethas Sunreaver’s emote at this time. “Aethas Sunreaver shift uncomfortably.” No mention of this by the characters, and if you weren’t looking at the chat, you would have missed it.
After Taran Zhu told them to break the cycle and walk away, Lor’themar told his rangers to stand down. Soon after, Jaina told her followers to leave as well. I just want to point out that the Horde forces put their weapons down first, leaving them vulnerable. That’s because not everyone in the Horde are jerks!
The scenario ended with Nalak still waiting. We couldn’t just let her live, so Mooglegem and I hunted her down. Unfortunately, as she fell out of the sky, her open mouth landed around a terrified Mooglegem!
Last week Carpe Flux Capacitor managed to enter Throne of Thunder for the first time (besides LFR). It took us eight attempts, but we defeated Jin’rokh the Breaker before calling it. We considered pushing forward to see the next trash at least, but we got a late start and had to end early that night so decided to stop there.
For the first time, I decided to include short clips of the end of each attempt leading up to the successful attempt in the video. I thought it’d be kind of funny.
Sadly, Jin’rokh didn’t give me any loot, the jerk. It was a fun fight though. I’m looking forward to Horridon next!
In the Throne of Thunder LFR this week, I noticed something odd. My Divine Star shoots directly behind me rather than in front of me. I wasn’t the only one with problems either. Mooglegem’s Frozen Orb behaved the same way, and I saw it happen to other mages as well. I have no idea what’s causing it, but it only seems to happen in Throne of Thunder.
The Horde has finished stage 4 and infiltrated Stormsea Landing! This was a fun scenario in which we used smoke bombs to clear sentries and then knocked out targets sneakily before attacking more directly. It went okay for me, although I didn’t understand how to knock out the enemies at first. When Mooglegem did it, her extra action button refused to display, which caused some problems.
We obtained a few Isle of Thunder achievements this weekend too. First, we earned Speed Metal for defeating Metal Lord Mono-Han with 10 stacks of Power Surge. We also earned These Mogu Have Gotta Go-gu for defeating the summoned mogu in the Court of Bones. After defeating all of the bosses summonable by ritual stones, we earned It Was Worth Every Ritual Stone.
Lastly, we earned Platform Hero. You can see me earn in the video above.
I’ve been hoping to fight Oondasta but have always missed it for some reason. This weekend I noticed he was up. [Thank you, Balkoth, for pointing out that Oondasta is a male!] I played Xbox for an hour or two with the game open, continually checking to see if there was a group forming, but there wasn’t. The next day I finally saw people getting together to fight Oondasta. Seeing her approach the edge of the hill to come to the beach to fight us was a joyous occasion!
While we were waiting to pull, someone decided to organize the raid by class. Once people noticed it was happening, others tried to rearrange it just to stop the organizer. There was a little raid frame war, which was surprisingly fun actually.
We had a few wipes, but eventually we killed her! Thank you for the Girdle of Dimorphodontics, Oondasta!
I hit exalted with the Sunreaver Onslaught recently. I haven’t been dailies everyday, yet now I’m exalted multiple stages of the Isle of Thunder still ahead. Of course, many people are already exalted. It’s nice to see a reputation grind that isn’t quite so… grindy. I’ll still be doing the dailies when we unlock new stages, but I’ll probably go back to doing Shado-Pan and August Celestials dailies too. I’ve been impressed with the Isle of Thunder and patch 5.2 in general!
Last week we broke through the walls of the Thunder King at the end of Isle of Thunder’s Stage 2 in the scenario Tear Down This Wall!
This week, we continued our assault. At the end of Stage 3, we mounted an aerial assault in the solo scenario To the Skies! We now control of the Thunder Forges!
I love the use of these scenarios to progress the story. However, I believe that they should be repeatable some how in case we want to see the story again. The stages are unlocking at the perfect pace. I still have time between stages, but they’re unlocking fast enough that they make me want to do dailies another couple times to see what’s changed.
We might be a little late, but we recently completed tier 14. In the screenshot above, we’re standing next to the body of Grand Empress Shek’zeer, our last t14 boss.
Previously we had finished Mogu’shan Vaults, gone 4/6 in Heart of Fear, and entered Terrace of Endless Spring a grand total of zero times. We started off our new adventure with Terrace of Endless Spring, skipping the end of Heart of Fear. Protectors of the Endless were pretty easy, and I didn’t even take any video or screenshots.
Tsulong was a fun fight, but maybe I’m biased being a healer. I’m glad to see Blizzard incorporate healing in odd ways. Hopefully these types of fights become a little more common than Valithria Dreamwak and Tsulong.
You can watch our kill above.
Lei Shi is my least favorite boss of this tier. She’s so annoying! Does Blizzard want certain bosses to have terribly annoying voices? I don’t understand.
And here’s her kill video.
Here we killed what’s supposed to be the final raid boss of the tier, the Sha of Fear. It was a fairly simple fight, but I still enjoyed it. As an aside, it’s one of the more enjoyable LFR fights as well because there’s something to do.
We actually posed in this one, but the body had already despawned. Oh well. I don’t have a video because I forgot to delete a large number of old videos, and my HDD filled. Whoops.
We moved on to Amber-Shaper Un’sok. This was a surprisingly difficult fight. I think the main problem is that everyone can’t practice at the same time. You might get the hang of being in the construct, but then you might not get put in it next time.
Once again, our kill video is here.
You can see our kill video for Grand Empress Shek’zeer here, and our kill shot is at the top of this post. This was a fun fight. This was going to be our final attempt whether successful or not. In fact, we had already called the raid but decided to give it one more try. I won the pants on a bonus roll, which I’ll only use once I break this tier set, and I won the mace, Kri’tak, Imperial Scepter of the Swarm, off the boss herself. Good bye, tier 14!
I’ve had an Ominous Seed sitting in my bad for a while now. I wasn’t sure of it’s purpose, but I was always busy with something else. When I finally got around to looking it up on wowhead, I was surprised to find out that it grows into the Terrible Turnip!
The Terrible Turnip is a terrific pet for those interested in pet battles. It has an ability that can’t kill enemies. That means that the Terrible Turnip is actually the Perfect Turnip to use when trying to catch low-level pets! This makes me want to work on my pets more.
Earlier this week, the Horde completed phase one of the Isle of Thunder. I enjoyed what I saw of phase one, but the Horde needed a base on the island itself! When I showed up for my dailies that day, there was a single quest instead of dailies. This quest queued me for a solo scenario that tasked me with flying to the island, locating a Zanadalari outpost protected by a magic barrier, slaying the Zandalari inside, and taking down the barrier. It was a great of telling a story! You can watch me go through it in the video above.
With the Zandalari threat removed, Lor’themar was able to set up an outpost in the northwest section of the Isle of Thunder called the Dawnseeker Promontory. My favorite part? Well, my good friend Uda the Beast!
Uda the Beast was the Sunreaver innkeeper in Dalaran. I spent a lot of time with her during the War in Northrend because I loved her two wolves! I helped her evacuate with many other Sunreavers during the purging of Dalaran, and luckily she escaped with her wolves! Now she’s the innkeeper in Dawnseeker Promontory on the Isle of Thunder! You can see Mooglegem and me spending some quality time with her and her lovely wolves!
After checking out the Isle of Thunder, I decided to pay the Isle of Giants a visit. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew that a bunch of dinosaurs sounded like fun. The Isle of Giants is an island off the northern coast of Pandaria. Unlike almost everything else in World of Warcraft, there are no quests or hints telling you visit the island. You can’t fly on the island, but you can fly to it, and there’s a flight path on the island. What else is on the island? Dinosaurs, of course.
The dinosaurs are all large. The hatchlings look to be normal size, and the adults are huge. To take an adult dinosaur, you’ll likely need a group. I can solo the hatchlings, but I wouldn’t want to take on a group. I spent most of my time there with Mooglegem, which made it easier.
There are Zandalari on the island who have a chance to drop new raptor pets. They don’t drop them every time, but they do drop them regularly. If you spend the evening farming the Isle of Giants, you’ll probably end up with all four. In addition to pets, enemies drop Giant Dinosaur Bones. Zandalari drop one each, and dinosaurs drop multiple. The bigger the dinosaur, the more bones they drop.
You can turn the bones in to Ku’ma on the island for some neat rewards. For 10, he’ll give you a Mote of Harmony, and for 100, he’ll give you a Spirit of Harmony. You’re probably wondering why I said “neat rewards” but then talked about boring motes and spirits. There’s more. If you turn in 999 Giant Dinosaur Bones, you can get the Spectral Porcupette pet. It’s adorable, and I want it. Unfortunately, I won’t be saving for it; I’ll be saving 9999 Giant Dinosaur Bones so I can purchase the Reins of the Bone-White Primal Raptor. I want it!
Normally I’m against grinds, but I love the Isle of Giants. Consider Valor Point capping, my most hated grind. It has quests, story, and varying situations. That all sounds good, but it’s also needed. If I’m not Valor capping, I’m letting my raid team down. There are weeks during which I don’t quite cap, but I get close. Valor Points are tied directly to rewards that help me excel in raiding. In addition, a weekly cap gives me a set goal I have to make lest I don’t reach my full potential. If there was no cap, I wouldn’t feel the need to cap it. Yes, some people would get thousands in a week. I would probably say “I can always get more next week” and do less overall. Back to the Isle of Giants. No required PVE reward is tied to the grind, so it’s a grind I can do whenever I want. There’s no feeling of obligation. There’s just slaying enemies on a lost island filled with dinosaurs – a fun fantasy trope that fits well in World of Warcraft. I love it, and I hope Blizzard puts more content like the Isle of Giants into the game.
I managed to find a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen recently, which allowed me to access the Troves of the Thunder King. I like Blizzard’s use of the scenario mechanic here. Going forward, I think it’ll be a cool system.
The idea behind the Troves of the Thunder King is a good one. You have a limited amount of time to open as many chests as possible. It’s a simple enough concept. You’ll see in my video that I had a bit of a problem. Since 5.2, when I receive currency my game locks up for a few seconds. This wouldn’t be a huge problem, but the Troves of the Thunder King is timed. I lost a significant amount of time due to this bug. I need to do some troubleshooting to learn what’s causing this.
Despite that problem, I’d consider my plundering successfully. I got a decent handful of Elder Charms of Good Fortune, which were what I was really after. I plan on running Terrace of Endless Spring LFR repeatedly using my charms on Lei Shi and Sha of Fear so I can finish my tier set. I might need to do the same on Will of the Emperor in Mogu’shan Vaults LFR for my trinket. Additionally, it’d be nice to be able to use a charm on every 5.0 raid boss kill that has poor I need. I’ll be happy when I don’t need to worry about any of this old gear!
Devee here! There’s a lot happening lately, mon, and I wish I could be more places at once. (Yes, I’m a troll who can speak correctly!) First, Nana Mudclaw asked Farmer Yoon to take over her spot in the Tiller’s Union. Not having time for both, Farmer Yoon gifted his farm to me! As I had just harvested enough pink turnips to make Jogu the Drunk his Mad Brewer’s Breakfast, I wondered what to plant next. However, I began to receive work orders! I wonder why organizations never did this before I owned the farm? Regardless, I accepted work orders from the Shado-pan and the August Celestials because I’m still trying to prove myself to them.
Having proved myself valorous, dominating in Krasarang Wilds, and victorious in the Silvershard Mines and Temple of Kotmogu to Wrathion the previous week, I followed his next direction by slaying High Marshal Twinbraid in Lion’s Landing. With the help of my fellow champions of Carpe Flux Capacitor, I managed to slay him. Meeting with Wrathion again, he reminded Mooglegem and me that he had previously asked us what the soul of the Horde was. He wondered if it was an instrument of vengeance, showing us Garrosh, a refuge for those who need shelter, showing us Thrall, or an alliance of convenience, showing us Sylvanas. Well, it appears he has his answer. He told Mooglegem and me that it was us! Maybe he meant all heroes, but I’d like to believe he meant us specifically. You can see Mooglegem above with visions of the Horde leaders (exclusing Ji Firepaw, Master of Houjin). Some other Horde hero decided to get in the picture with Mooglegem, but oh well. He then gave each of us what we’re calling an Eye of the Black Prince, which allows us to fashion an additional gem to our sha-touched weapons or Armaments of the Thunder King, whatever those are.
We went upstairs to talk with Wrathion and his guest, Prince Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind. I was excited to see Sunwalker Dezco as well. Wrathion seems to be putting together quite the exclusive group, as I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Prince Anduin and Sunwalker Dezco before and am quite fond of them. I’m happy to learn that Prince Anduin is recovering after the tragedy at the hands of Warchief Hellscream. Wrathion feels he might be too soft to lead the Alliance, but I disagree. Prince Anduin would do what needs to be done.
Of course, almost every time I meet with Wrathion, he seems to have a task for us. He wants Mooglegem and me to travel to the Isle of Thunder and prove ourselves by fighting the mogu, Zandalari, saurok, and Alliance there. I found it very disrespectful that Wrathion would ask me to slay Alliance in the company of Prince Anduin, but Prince Anduin held his tongue. Wrathion also asked us to collect tablets with the history of the mogu from the Throne of Thunder.
We then spoke with Lorewalker Cho who told us a story called A Little Patience. Apparently it happened when war first broke in Krasarang Wilds. The Lorewalker told the story from the perspective of the Alliance, and it seemed so real that it felt like we were experiencing it. Varian and Tyrande disagreed about how to fight the Horde occupying the Temple of the Red Crane. Tyrande wanted to assault it directly, but Varian wanted to think more strategically and set traps, avoiding a direct fight. He sent heroes to help set up camps filled with traps. With that complete. he taunted the Horde forces, causing them to rush to fight. Most died in the traps. This allowed the heroes to kill the Kor’kron bodyguards and fight Commander Scargash, leader of the Horde forces at the Temple of the Red Crane. The Commander fell, and Varian proved to Tyrande that a little patience can indeed be valuable. It was interesting to hear things from the Alliance perspective, but I also found it odd that as a hero of the Horde, I didn’t know about our occupation of the Temple of the Red Crane. Sometimes I think that true Horde heroes have seen too much and that our Warchief likes to use lesser soldiers for tasks that heroes would question.
Mooglegem and I learned that the Shado-pan are leading an attack as the Shado-pan Assault on the mogu forces on the Isle of Thunder. Lor’themar is also on the Isle of Thunder leading the Sunreaver Onslaught. He informed me that Jaina Proudmoore and her forces, the Kirin Tor Offensive, are also on the island. Lor’themar said that Mooglegem and I “have served the Horde nobly across many campaigns,” and that he feels he “can take [us] into confidence.” I believe I can take you, readers, into confidence as well. Please don’t repeat this. He said, “Our Warchief’s campaign across Kalimdor and Pandaria is pulling the Horde apart at the seams. We are here to fight the Thunder King. Justice demands it, and Hellscream is too preoccupied at Domination Point to pay attention here. Bun, in defeating him, we must seek out the source of his great power. We must claim it for ourselves, as leverage against our ‘Warchief.’ In the event of an uprising, we must be prepared.” He took a break from his speech here to shoot down an approaching flying dinosaur of some sort. It was an impressive show of archery skills considering he has only one eye.
We ventured to the island itself and found three bases of sorts. There are a multitude of dangerous enemies here – the mogu, the Zandalari, the saurok, and the Alliance. The Alliance seems to be the most dangerous of the four. It’s too bad we can’t work together. There’s much more work to be done. I want to continue securing the Isle of Thunder, assault the Throne of Thunder, and explore the mysterious Isle of Giants. There’s only so much two heroes like Mooglegem and me can do, but I look forward to a future in which we can eliminate the threats to our life and happiness. I just worry that one of those threats is our own Warchief.
I knew that we were getting Feats of Strength for completing 5.0 raids before 5.2 hit, but I was under the impression it was run Feat of Strength for completing the entire tier on normal and a second for completing the entire tier on heroic. I was quite surprised to find this Feat of Strength when I played last night.
When you earned an achievement is, in many cases, as important as whether or not you earned it at all. In my personal tracking here on Kor’kron 501st, I always note what patch I downed a boss. I’ve been hoping for a while that Blizzard would add the patch at the time of earning the achievement next to the date, but they don’t seem to think it’s important. Giving a Feat of Strength for completing a raid when it’s current fulfills the same role (at least for raids).
I hope Blizzard will continue to award this type of Feat of Strength. I wouldn’t mind seeing similar Feats of Strength for the Glory of the Raider achievements and Loremaster achievements at the end of each expansion.
Over the last week, I decided to finish the few heroics and scenarios I hadn’t done. It seems strange that I missed some, but I guess that’s just the way random queuing works. I completed the Crypt of Forgotten Kings earlier in the week, leaving one heroic and one scenario for the weekend. Yesterday Mooglegem and I ran a couple randoms of each in hopes of getting what we needed, but it just didn’t happen. After capping our Valor Points for the week, we queued directly for heroic Shado-pan Monastery and Assault on Zan’vess. It was strange not being familiar with a heroic, but I suppose I had only done it once previously, and that was on normal.
Now we’ve completed all the heroics and Horde scenarios. We’re as ready as we’re going to be for 5.2! (Hm? Normal and heroic raids? Well, don’t mind those. The other faction reputations? Shh. Wrathion’s 5.1 quests? Those will be done Tuesday!)
Note: There will be spoilers for the Golden Lotus reputation and quests in this post.
Recently Mooglegem and I had successfully retrieved three powerful artifacts once belonging to the mogu ruler, the Thunder King, and locked them away with the Golden Lotus standing guard. This past week the mogu hit the Vale very hard, and when we went to check on the artifacts, the guards were all dead and the artifacts were missing!
We began cleaning up the Vale by killing the mogu we encountered. When we approached Mogu’shan Palace, I saw a huge barrier of some sort. I joked that there must be a powerful discipline priest near because it looked like my Power: Word Barrier. Of course, what discipline priest would be strong enough to do this?
Apparently I forgot that there was one strong enough! We ran into Anduin Wrynn keeping the barrier stable. You know your in good hands when you encounter the Prince of Stormwind.
We assaulted the remaining mogu from the barrier Anduin provided and successfully drove them from the Vale. Returning to the Golden Pagoda, we were greeted with fireworks and congratulations. Despite how successful we might have been in killing the mogu, they did succeed in reclaiming the Thunder King’s artifacts. What do they have planned with those? I guess we’ll find out soon…
We managed to kill Garalon last night! I have a lot of videos of us failing, but near the end of the raid night we managed to kill him. Hopefully we have the strategy and skill to continue killing him in the future. We actually did a quick attempt on the next boss too before calling it.
You can see our success above! Funny that I just posted about Garalon, too. I’ll consider this a birthday present from Blizzard and my guild.
My guild, Carpe Flux Capacitor, has been stuck on Garalon for a couple weeks now. It seems very frustrating, but really we only downed the previous boss on the 12th. Regardless, I can tell people are getting frustrated.
Last week, I noticed a poll on WoW Insider called “Poll: The worst boss of tier 14” by Olivia Grace. As of writing this, Garalon is winning by a huge amount. Of the 16 bosses, you’d expect each boss to be hated by 6.25% if things were equal. Well, 28.6% of the votes were for Garalon.
The long story short is that we shouldn’t be too worried. Apparently everyone hates Garalon, not just us.
We managed to kill Blade Lord Ta’yak last week! I’m pretty happy about that. Of course, the time we actually succeed is the time I start the recording late. Whoops. We had some trouble with the fight, but hopefully we’ll get through it quickly in the future.
On Saturday we decided to raid Mogu’shan Vaults because our normal raid nights are now only Heart of Fear. When we got to Elegon, we decided to try to earn “And… It’s Good!” for flying through the rings. We got it, and now you can share in our joy by watching the above video!
Afterward we went to complete “A Change of Command,” a quest for the second chapter of Wrathion’s quests. If you’re worried, the video doesn’t have any spoilers. It’s just a fight, but it does take a group of people. We did it with 10. It was a pretty fun fight especially considering it’s a mob out in the world!
Last night was the second time we saw the Will of the Emperor in normal mode. It was a pretty easy fight, and we downed it quickly! No gear from this, although last night while clearing through Elegon I got a raid world drop trinket, Jade Magistrate Figurine (replacing a Coren Direbrew DPS trinket, actually), and necklace, Zian’s Choker of Coalesced Shadow from The Spirit Kings.
You can watch our kill above! I hope we didn’t chatter too much or say anything stupid.
Last night was then our first time entering Heart of Fear (not counting Raid Finder). On our first attempt of Imperial Vizier Zor’lok, he glitched and didn’t despawn after our wipe. We ended up resetting the raid, which means we had to clear trash again. Bad news, right? Wrong! I got a raid world drop, Gleaming Moth Cuffs. They replaced rare quality wrists, so this was a huge upgrade.
The fight wasn’t too bad at all! Again, you can see our kill video above. I apologize again if we say anything stupid… such as me thinking my raid leader gave me loot when it was actually from the Elder Charm of Good Fortune I stupidly used. But I did win Gloves of Grasping Claws! I also used valor to upgrade my Kri’tak, Imperial Scepter of the Swarm (raid finder) once. Lots of good upgrades this week.
After earning Over Their Heads the other day, I can finally say good bye to the Klaxxi. Over Their Heads is an achievement that tasks you with attacking different rare spawns during the daily quest Dark Skies. I’ve been checking it everyday, and it’s now complete!
What a fantastic raid week! We had cleared up to Elegon on Tuesday, giving us Wednesday to work on Elegon. We had to work out some changes to our raid team due to scheduling, but we found a solution and proceeded with the celestial dragon slaying. It took us a number of attempts, but this is the kind of raiding that I love. It was challenging, but we got better with each attempt. We learned, changed our strategies, and eventually killed him!
Elegon was probably the most fun boss I’ve done yet this expansion, but maybe I’m just still happy we killed him. It was also one of the first times in a while in which I stopped casting altogether so save mana. Now we just have one more boss to go in Mogu’shan Vaults!
Mooglegem and I have been doing pretty well with our faction reputations recently. Last week we hit exalted with the Lorewalkers. As most people probably know, this really just takes a couple hours of work. As you travel around Pandaria, you can click lore objects to read about them. When you read every lore object on a given subject, you’re sent mail by Lorewalker Cho inviting you to come learn more. This additional learning is done through watching a small play, basically. It’s very cool! I hope they include more things like this in the future.
Wrathion is an interesting character, and I’ve been dying to see more of his legendary quest line. Unfortunately, I’ve been stuck for a few weeks now. Sure, I have a ton of Sigils of Power, but that last Sigil of Wisdom just didn’t want to drop.
This weekend my final Sigil of Wisdom dropped for me at the end of Terrace of Endless Spring. Wrathion sent me right back into the raid again to defeat the Sha of Fear for a second time in a row, but it was worth it. While I had already seen Wrathion’s actions and dialogue when he creates the gem, it was great seeing him do it for me. I think it felt powerful, and I love the line, “Make no mistake: the Black Dragonflight lives on!”
Wrathion proceeded with a dialogue about what it means to be in the Horde. “Is it an instrument of vengeance, hellbent to carve out a future for its people? Is it a refuge for those who need shelter, a commonwealth of the downtroddon, built for mutual support? Or is it an alliance of convenience, a confederacy of unlikely partners free to pursue their own agendas?” He brings up great questions. Of course, the answer is simple. Yes. Yes, it is all those things. He then spoke of valor before tasking me to grind reputation with him off Alliance forces in Krasarang Wilds and to earn 6000 valor points. Well, the end of February should be fun!
Hot on the heels of Tuesday’s first kill of Gara’jal the Spiritbinder, we one shot the Spirit Kings! We had never even attempted this boss before ever (because we had just killed Gara’jal for the first time). It was definitely a good night! No loot dropped for me, but I’m happy anyways!
After our one shot, we went to try Elegon. We wiped twice on the trash. Apparently trash is more difficult than bosses. We got one attempt in on Elegon before we had to call it, but next week should be great!
Mooglegem and I were late to the raid because she had to work overtime. We didn’t make it online until 8:05 or so even though the raid was supposed to start at 7:00. On top of that, one member had to leave at 9:00. That means our normal 3 hours was cut down to 55 minutes. I’m amazed we still made some progress!
earthwormgem
Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 