Mio and Mal

Sorry it's been so long

2009-06-07T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, it's Caedmon. It's been a long time. Mio has decided to take it easy for a while and has been getting mats for the guilds upcoming start at Naxx. I've been super busy, along with Arat, in this down time and we've been really pushing ahead as you can see! Times have been interesting with many quests into BRD as a group and sometimes with help from a big bad 80.

I don't know if you can see Aerosrogue but he's there on the arm. I kinda feel bad for Moira, but she is a dwarf.....Anyway, I've had my hearth set in Shat for a good long time but I only did it out of convenience, I never went exploring, I would have died. So my first step through the Dark Portal was amazing! Anyway, adventure calls. I'll make sure Arat stops by and tells you want she's been going through. For me, the Cenarian expedition has been nice enough to late me stay here over night in Zangarmarsh as long as I do some chores, like killing Hydras and collecting random plant pieces. See ya later!

Forays into the old dungeons

2009-05-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

Lately, Mio and I (Mal, obviously) have been trying our hands at some old world dungeons, along with the help of our good friends Ranoe and Luminaya. Ranoe is surely handy to have around, since he tanks with his big bear face and all, and we know we can always trust Luminaya to heal us no matter the situation. Since we hit level 60 long after our people had made their way into Outlands, Mio and I had never had a chance to fight in any of these dungeons before.

First, we fought that legendary dragon, Onyxia. I knew of other fighters of the Horde who had bested her before, and had heard the tales of her terrible strength, so I braced myself as the four of us snuck into her lair. Little did I know that with the four of us at level 80, she would fall within only a few minutes! I managed to steal one of her teeth and put it on a pendant as a trophy, though these days it's not nearly as powerful as it would have been back in the good old days.

Our next old-world mission was to sneak into Molten Core through Blackrock Depths, so Mio could tame a corehound. He has always loved corehounds, and waited hours and hours to tame the Kurken, that unique corehound in far-away Azuremyst Isle, the first moment he was able to. Unfortunately, he had to let his first corehound go, but he found himself wanting some two-headed companionship once again. This time, instead of the fluffy puppy of doom, he wanted the drooling dog of fire. The giants in Molten Core were surprisingly strong, testing our four level 80 abilities in a dungeon that used to require a team of 40 well-geared fighters, but we found a giant fiery corehound after only a few minutes. Mio brought it to him and worked his magic like only a hunter can. The next thing we knew, the giant dog had shrunk down to pet size and was ready to pant behind Mio and follow him wherever he went. Mio was so proud! He named the corehound Houlihan after Hot Lips Houlihan that he heard about as a child. I don't think the original Houlihan had fire streaming from her mouth, but what do I know?

The Dwarf, The Legend

2009-04-30T23:14:00.001-07:00

So as I was grabbing supplies in Dal for a raid (that later would just not happen) I saw this giant colorful wasp fly in, and its name caught my eye. I recognized the pet and looked around frantically for its owner. As I looked down there he was, the great hunter legend BigRedKitty. Now I'm the first cow that you could come to for a good game of gnome punting and fun time picking on the shorter inhabitants of Azeroth, but that dwarf is the reason that I've become the hunter I am today. I have nothing but the utmost respect for BRK and would turn on a fellow hordie to protect the legend who has helped form so many hunters, like me, for the better. So of course I had to chase him down to get a photo. Please pardon my fanboydom but come on now IT'S BIGREDKITTY!

Hopping through the Garden

2009-04-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! After a long break the cow is back to talk about his favorite things, holidays! Ever since I found out I could get a protodrake out of the deal I've been staying on top of the achievements. I figured why keep my wealth of knowledge to myself? I should share it with everyone! The current holiday is Noble Garden and this cow worked his tail off to get it done in one day. So let the passing of knowledge begin!

Egg gathering: Ok this will be grindtastic and challenge even the most gentle priests to stop themselves from wanting to punch people for stealing their eggs. The best place I have found to farm eggs is Falcon Wing around the fountain. There are some areas where you can stand in place and have three eggs in grabbing range. I highly recommend having auto loot on as it will you able to grab eggs much faster. Also try playing during off peak hours, many more eggs for you and only you.

Chocolate spending: Now unlike other holidays with bad drop rates you can buy items from the holiday vendor. Now I don't recommend doing this with the dress and tux pieces because you need to get them from eggs for the achievements. What I would suggest is besides spending 100 of them on the rabbit, is to spend another 50 on the bouquet of flowers. I opened over 200 eggs and didn't get it so that helped me. I got everything else I needed except for the rabbit and an extra egg (which costs 5 chocolates) to hide in Silvermoon. You will most likely get multiples of all the other clothing.

Run Rabbit Run: The part I had the most difficultly with was laying the egg in Un'goro Crater. I'm not sure if I did it right but I know you can't take any damage in bunny form or you will lose it. I recommend using Tracker Snacks, this way you can run through areas and stay away from beasts that may want to eat you. Also the biggest thing I can recommend is to look for eggs in Bloodhoof until you get the bunny buff, it's makes for the shortest run.

So those are the tips I can give you for the holiday. I was able to knock it all out in a single day with just a bunch of grinding and a few failed bunny hops to Un'goro. You can figure the rest out yourself, good luck! At least you got 4 lucky rabbits feet to help you along.

Wrath Gate Adventures

2009-04-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Did you miss your favorite orc rogue while I was away? (Yes, this is Mal.)

Recently, I was running around and questing with our newest active guildie, Kelindra, as she made her way through Dragonblight. She happened to ask if I had gotten the chance to do the quest line leading up to the Wrath Gate event, and I said that I hadn't. Kel immediately insisted that I had to see it! We promptly finished off the quests that sent us up to the Wrath Gate in northern Dragonblight, where we saw something that changed our world forever.

I couldn't believe it! Just when we thought we had made some progress against the Scourge, Grand Apothecary Putress dropped some vile green plague onto the mass of Alliance and Horde forces, killing everyone in moments. To make things worse, Saurfang the Younger, son of the great Saurfang, was killed in one shot by Arthas. I can't say any more because it quite simply took my breath away! In the aftermath of the slaughter, we were sent to Warsong Hold back in Borean Tundra. I hadn't been back there since I was a mere 72 levels old. When we spoke with Overlord Agmar, he sent us to Undercity, where the battle began. We carried the flags of our people and fought at our warchief's side against the evil who had overtaken the Undead's home city. We were very proud of how well we fought, for not only did we survive, we killed many, many of our enemies. We can only hope that it made a difference.

I have really enjoyed going back to the parts of Northrend that I missed and helping Kel work through all her quests. There was one moment, though, that took me by surprise. We were on top of Wyrmrest Temple, and had just reported on our progress to the officials at the top of the spire. I mounted up onto my gorgeous horse that I stole from the Headless Horseman back during Hallow's End, when I saw tiny Kel leap from the edge with no mount! I panicked and flew down to her, only to see her gliding gracefully down to the ground. I called out to her and she assured me not to worry, since mages have a special ability that lets her jump from any height without getting hurt at all. Well, how was I supposed to know? Rogues can jump off of high places without getting hurt too badly, but there is no way I could have survived that jump. I followed Kel down to the ground on my horse, then gave her a good guilt-trip for making me worry. I neglected to mention that I was jealous and wanted to be able to do it myself!

The Love Fools

2009-02-14T20:02:00.000-08:00

So a little earlier in the week Sparky and I were talking over a pony keg after a heroic and he was telling me about his old guild. Apparently, in his old guild, they changed their tabard to correspond with the current holiday. I thought this was a fantastic idea! I also thought it might get us more noticed around Dal. So after we sobered up a bit I ran over to the tabard designers in Org and came up with the design for the next few days. Sure it costs gold to change it but it's a fun idea. So if you see use around Azeroth give us a wave. Just wait until the next holiday and see what we can come up with.

Bad things will happen

2009-02-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

The animals in the sewers are plotting together.....I'm scared....

Just too funny to pass up

2009-02-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

OK ok I know this isn't the best picture but I only had a few seconds to take it. If you can't quite tell who that is, that's Ingvar, you know, the plunderer, and that's right on the stairs past the furnace room, near the entrance. We killed Ingvar the first time, but then he came back as a zombie and most of us died. The thing is though, our amazing paladin healer and good friend Butters managed to survive. It is only now it dawns on me I know LOTS of paladins. That's beside the point, but she was running for her life towards the entrance and Ingvar hadn't gone back to his place at the top. I got the idea for all of us to chill outside the door until Butters got close then we could run in and kill Ingvar instead of having to start over from the beginning. So that's what we did, once Butters got to the furnace room the rest of us ran back in. We weren't sure Ingvar was still following but then we got knocked on our butts. He ran through the door to the furnace room and we took him down. It was a very special fight haha.

4 down 1 to go

2009-01-29T01:35:00.000-08:00

Hey there everyone, as you should know by now I've been working my butt off getting exalted with all the major cities. Today I got Undercity finished off, I am VERY happy about that. Now I just need to go take, oh 5 or 10 baths to get that rotting smell off of me. Kainda has been the most trouble trying to keep clean, at least she's well trained. The last city is Silvermoon, I have to admit though, as small as those Belfs are though they are kind of frightning. I always feel like they're going to pull my soul out by my nose.

Also I was able to get a great pug for the Vault of Archavon. It was a group of 25 of us including some well known names. There were 2 other hunters which always makes me a little nervous. I work hard to be the best hunter I can but it's difficult to get into enough raids to make sure I get the best gear so when I get into raids I'm praying to the Earth Mother, Elune, anyone who will listen for a drop for me. Fortunately someone was smiling on me today because I got this beautiful chest. Now I just have to give Sparkos or Mal the big sad eyes to cut me some pretty gems for it. Anyway time to go take another bath. I swear I'm never gonna get that rotting smell off....

Elders and Exalted

2009-01-26T22:20:00.000-08:00

With the start of another holiday comes many great oppritunities. The lunar fesitval is quickly becoming my new favorite holiday for one reason alone, reputation. That's right, reputation. Every time you honor an elder you gain 75 reputation with all horde factions. This has finally gotten me exalted with the Darkspear Trolls and the first thing I did was buy every raptor available. Ain't he perty? Anyway now I'm going to work on Undercity next. The odd thing is I'm not even exalted with Thunder Bluff but that is gonna happen soon anyway so I don't even have to work at that. Anyway time to ride this baby into the wild blue yonder to finish honoring my elders.

All heroics, all the time

2009-01-24T00:32:00.000-08:00

Hello again, it's me, Malrey. I've been going crazy with the heroics lately, so much so that I've been neglecting, well, everything else. Today I even managed to get myself into my first Obsidian Sanctum run, and awesome rogue (plus other classes, but who cares) gauntlets dropped. I closed my eyes, rolled, and what did I get? 100, baby! I rolled 100 for my first piece of purple gear! HELL YEAH!!! Here's what I got when I traded them in.
Aren't they gorgeous?

Just a little proof that I actually did OS, since it was my very first time:

That's the boss that dropped my gloves. Thanks, big ol' dragon!

After I got my new beautiful gloves, I realized I had 42 emblems of heroism, so I traded in my very last green for a beautiful purple belt - and I no longer feel completely ungeared! I'm now in all blues and two purples.

Soon after I hit 80, I did a long set of quest chains in Icecrown, where I got turned into a blue alien lady. What weird-looking people they are. Well, I was able to actually negotiate a truce between them and the Sons of Hodir - I've never seen such a battle between the sexes. Oh well, at least now they're starting to talk to each other again. I had to go to Thorim, the leader of the Sons of Hodir, and have his armor reforged so he could return to his people and lead him again. I certainly felt small when I stood in front of his throne at the top of an infinitely tall spire.

I was sitting around Dalaran one day, twiddling my thumbs and trying to sell some gems as usual, when I decided to go farm some thorium in Burning Steppes. Little did I know that it would lead to such an adventure. I ran into another rogue, who begged me to join him in running through Blackrock Depths, just to get the achievement. I refused the first three times he asked, but finally agreed to join him. It was actually surprisingly fun! When I ran through BRD as a level 60, I HATED it; but as a level 80, it was definitely a kick to be able to skip all the trash mobs and cut right to the chase. We kept getting lost, but we finally made it to the final boss, Emperor Dagran Thaurissan... and took him down in less than a minute! Just to gloat for a minute, we took turns posing in the emperor's throne.

Now, back to the heroics. I'm sick and tired of questing these days, so I'm ready to do just about anything else. Dailies? What are those?

Mio can ride a chicken!!

2009-01-21T00:37:00.001-08:00

Things have changed in the world and most not necessarily for better or worse, they have changed for the random. Now, before, my big butt could only fit on a kodo or a wolf. As of today I could ride a chicken if I wanted!! Not that I really want to ride a chicken but I shall fill my stable with them once I'm allowed to buy them. First though, I am very close to be exalted with the Trolls, and I'm looking forward to getting those raptors. The aggravating part is that I did all the quests in Durotar and then Zul'jin, or whatever that place was in the Outland swamp, that would get me rep with them. Unfortunately the quests ran out, so I started up in Ashenvale which has been going well but takes a while for travel. I wish I could I could ride my flyers out here, damn no fly zones, flight paths are trying to create a monopoly, but that's beside the point. I ended up in one of my most hated places in the world, Black Fathoms Deep. Even with me being able to kill everything outside with one shot the dang turtle boss took five shots to kill plus Kimoni smacking on him. I don't care if he's a turtle, how thick is that shell anyway?

Now earlier in the day I realized that many of the instances I had run in my youth didn't count in my achievements, something about not having the right paperwork.... Anyway I ran rage fire chasm again and decided to run BFD to the end. That thing is LONG. All the way down and all the way back, now I have plenty of stamina but it was just exhausting. In Northrend many of the places out there have exits near the back, or at least a shortcut to the front, oh how I wish BFD had one of those. Oh well, least I never have to go in there again. Made me feel claustrophobic...

See through Hydra!

2009-01-15T10:45:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone! This is a very interesting day for me as I've decided to try a new pet. Now I'm not one to try just any pet at a whim as I grow attached to the ones I have. I decided to let go of my puppy cause even though he was cute hes didn't really have his own niche anymore. This beauty though is gonna actually a fairly versatile pet. Instead of making him a straight up tanking pet I made him a PVP batlleground damage pet. Now, what does that mean to me. It means that he is spec'd to do as much damage as a tenacity pet can while mitigating lots of damage. He does 2,000 less damage per 20 seconds then Kainda (that's how I test my pets, every 20 seconds) but this is slightly flawed as it doesn't take bad attitude into account which makes him snap back at anything that attacks him. The big difference is that this guy survives longer. More armor, more stamina, and with blood of the rhino takes more healing. He won't be for arena which is what my wasp is for, but he's still good for out in the world as he is a multiple target tank, so he's gonna be the pet I use to running around while I wait for battlegrounds or for Wintergrasp. He's a cool dude but I don't have a name for him yet, come to think of it, I don't have a name for my wasp either.

One VERY eventful day

2009-01-08T12:33:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone. This is about the time I would like to apologize for the erratic posts and even most of the ones that have gone up have been short. I think this post may make up for it. As the title says, yesterday was a very eventful day. I figured that since I will once again be bust very soon I may as well have a couple days of fun! So the day started with me running four heroics, COS, VH, HOL, UK and Normal Old Kingdom. Yesterday just also happened to be my lucky day. I got two drops that I really needed, the first was the Drake-Mounted Crossbow and the second were the Handgrips of the Savage Emissary. I was so happy I started jumping up and down. I think my hooves smashed a dent in the floor on violet hold. The funniest thing however that happened was in Halls of Lightning. Now if wasn't outright funny but I thought it was worth a photo. Our tank was a druid named Bearfur and he's a good tank that pulled his weight in damage as well. Now for anyone who doesn't know the last boss he has a move that charge it's target with static electricity. Now when he targeted Bearfur it just got funny. I think the picture says it all.

Now all the really random stuff happened later that night. I finally got into a Kara pug and was excited as I had been in before, plus I was doing good damage. We tried the second boss a couple times and things just sorta fell apart but it didn't really bother me much as there were a few of us who ported back to Dalaran and decided to hang out and chat. A couple of them were running laps around the city and I was messing around in the guild bank since Alyxandir was nice enough to donate a lot of money for us to buy a third tab. As I was sorting things out we start talking about ways to get into the ally side of town without getting ported out and stunned. We all run over and immediately start trying to run headlong down the corridor. We could make it most of the way through but we would get ported out and stunned. One of the guys then informed us we can fly around and land on the roof of their building which is exactly what we all did. Anyway we all fly around, one of us fall, another landed on the wrong building, and me and one other guys made it on. It's at this time that I'm really happy I have eagle eye which allows me to look into the distance so I aimed it at the ground and took a look around at what's behind the door.

Now I know some of the readers may be allys but I for one am not so I find this interesting and all I have to say our side of town is better then yours. Oh and for some reason at one point during the night a random Dranei came up and hugged me then ran around in circles around me so I decide to go find him once he run off and decide to have a naked dance party with him.

Then we brought out our exploding race cars and had fun playing with them for a while. After about 20 minutes I hugged him goodbye and then realized it was late enough or actually early enough to start the days cooking quest which was infused mushroom meatloaf. So I run down to the sewers to grab the mushrooms and find a random bottle on the ground. I don't know if it was the sheer exaustion because at that point I had been going for about 12 hours, or maybe it was just the rush from the rest of the night, or maybe it was a combination of both but I picked up the bottle and shoved it in my bag. After I delivered the meatloaf I was running back to the inn and remembered the bottle in my bag so I decided to drink it. And here's what happened.

Fortunately it only lasted for a few seconds since Dalaran is a no fly zone. That when I finally decided to head up to a free bed in the inn and go to sleep. Man I don't know how I was able to do all that but man it was fun.

L and L RFK run

2009-01-04T23:56:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone, time for Caedmon to make another appearance. I know I haven't been around much but that's because I kinda sorta rang up a tab in the bar in lower city and have spent the last little while washing dishes. Anyway, the other lowbies and I from Leather and Lace decided to do an RFK run. We had another shaman with us in the beginning but he was a jerk and left part way through. We spent the rest of the time four manning it. I was the most experienced one there but we did incredibly well. It just took us a little longer to get through.

So we're most of the way through but we get turned around because Tonka, out tank, was trying to get to these guys behind a fence for a warrior quest. We take so long that bad guys start popping up again. We hadn't died at all the entire time but we end up snagging a group of mana draining pigs and we wipe. Anyway we decide to call it a night after that because we'd have to kill everything all over again. I didn't get anything good but everyone else did so I can't be too upset because them being better makes the group better. I hate that place, hopefully next time we do a run it will be Scarlet Monastery.

Our highest DPS ever

2008-12-30T22:31:00.000-08:00

Now, as a hunter I have always done my best to top the damage meter and optimize my DPS, but I have never seen it this high. While trying to free Undercity from demon control I started to noticed my DPS climbing ever higher. I grinned to myself and saw how high I could push it, and here it is 7211 DPS. I doubt I will ever see that number again or anything even remotely close but I have to admit that it was a blast to do. Sad thing was Kimoni kept getting smacked down. Oh well, at least he didn't steal the spotlight this time.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-25T21:47:00.000-08:00

To all of our readers, happy holidays, merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, and happy Winter Veil!

Word from Uzu

2008-12-23T12:07:00.001-08:00

Greetings everyone, this is Uzumati. I thought since I've been around more I would tell you what I've been up to. I have decided that before I start to start seriously questing in Outland I would level my professions appropriatley. Cousin Miorbhuil has told me how difficult it is to go back and start over when you've reached level 80. I've decided to go with mining and engineering. We have no engineers in our group plus I thought it would be fur to make my own flyers as well as the motorcycle later on.

The most interesting thing I've been able to create are explosive sheep. There is just something so amusing about a sheep running up to a mob and blowing up. So I will be heading seriously into Outland soon but I just need to tie up some loose ends first.

Trying out a new pet

2008-12-20T17:41:00.001-08:00

Hey guys, sorry it's been a while since I talked to you all last, been trying to clear out my old place in Nagrand and make room for Uzu, he's gonna be headed over there in a bit and I want to make sure things are ready for him. Those cobwebs are nasty after a month. Anyway, I've decided to try new things, one of which being a new pet. I've wanted things that match out guilds tabard as much as possible so I decided to try a purple wasp from Scholazar Basin. He has a really cool armor reduction skill which is going to be fun when I take him into battle groups and sick him on squishes. So that's enough for right now. I'll make Uzu stop by and talk to you all soon.

My name is Arat.

2008-12-15T22:28:00.000-08:00

Greetings, adventurers. My name is Arat. I am a Druid, born and raised in Bloodhoof Village. I spend much of my time in Orgrimmar and the nearby Barrens these days, though, because I wish to advance my skills. One day, I may join my friend Malrey in the cold reaches of Northrend, though I know that it will be quite some time before I achieve that level of experience. I wish to become a great healer, renowned among all who fight with the mighty Horde, but in the meantime I am perfecting my shapeshifting abilities so that I can advance to a higher level of combat prowess.

I reached my nineteenth level just yesterday, after receiving a message from Malrey that healers were desperately needed in Northrend. I headed directly to Warsong Gulch, for I had heard many tales from Miorbhuil and Malrey about their exploits there. I spent part of my time healing others and some of my time carrying the flag myself. It was definitely a learning experience, since it was my first time using my Druid abilities directly against the members of the Alliance. I entered the battleground from Undercity, so when the fight finished and I left the Gulch in triumph, I was in the war room in Undercity. I heard a loud boom and looked up to find that I was staring into the eyes of a dwarf with a huge shield. The next thing I knew, I had been struck down where I stood and an enormous mob of Alliance scum attacked Lady Sylvanas and her consorts. In the image below you can see my crumped body and the glow of the Alliance attacks against the great queen of Undercity.

I resurrected myself at the nearby Spirit Healer, since I knew that my puny level 19 skills would never stand up to a full-on Alliance raid. After I repaired my gear and dusted off my dignity, I emptied my bags and asked a member of our Leather and Lace guild, Alyxandir, if he would accompany me through the Wailing Caverns. He graciously said that he would, then proceeded to show the serpents, crocolisks, and evil Druids of the caverns exactly what a level 80 paladin can do. I replaced nearly all of my armor by taking it off of the foes killed by Alyxandir. The most breathtaking pieces of my new armor were the Serpent's Shoulders, Glowing Lizardscale Cloak, and especially the Armor of the Fang. As well as the Armor of the Fang, I also won the Leggings of the Fang and the Foodpads of the Fang, increasing the bonus that I get from the partial set of gear! This is the first time that I have had armor that was meant to go together, so I am looking forward to seeing how it will improve my abilities in combat.

This will all help me greatly as I make my way into a new region now that I have nearly mastered the Barrens. I have not yet decided which path I will take, whether it be to the Stonetalon Mountains or Ashenvale, but I hope that the path will become clear before long.

Questing, no healers, failed groups, and sissy fights

2008-12-15T22:01:00.000-08:00

Hi there, Mal here. I've been questing my rogue butt off lately, getting to know Dragonblight way too well. I do enjoy questing, but it gets boring to do it by myself so I usually look for people to group with for the local instances. Problem is, every time I finally get a group of four of us together, we can't find a healer anywhere. They simply don't exist anymore! Has every single healer over level 70 re-spec'ed to DPS? That's my theory, at least.

I decided to do something about this theory. I called on Arat, a Tauren Druid friend of mine, and told her that she needs to stop sitting on her level 17 butt and get out there more! Druids can make mighty fine healers when given the chance, and she'd be a hot commodity if she could get up to a high enough level to be useful. We'll see if she comes through.

I finally got a group together for Azjol-Nerub, that nasty spider kingdom underneath Dragonblight. It gives me the shivers just to think of all those spiders scuttling around right below my sexy leather boots. Anyway, we went down into the hole and and wiped on the first boss! So we tried again, and wiped again. Take three!...and another wipe. What was going on? Let's just say we had no idea. Finally, the tank and a DPS quit. We found replacements for them, and were about to tackle the first boss again, when I noticed I had been dropped from the group! Next thing I knew, a voice was telling me that I had 20 seconds to escape from the instance before I was teleported to Dalaran. I asked the tank what was going on, and after several minutes he responded by saying that he only does guild runs. I believe the exact wording he used was "Just say no to PUGs." Then don't join them in the first place, I say! What an idiot. He wouldn't even apologize for flaking on me and the other group members. I partied up with one of the others who got dropped, and we found some other people to run Old Kingdom with us instead. But man, that made me mad.

On the positive side of things, I met another rogue who gave me some great pointers. Since I have yet to find any good rogue websites out there, I've had to make my own way all this time and try to figure out how to use my moves in the best way possible. When this new rogue buddy thought I was ready to try out the things he had shown me, we stripped down and had a sissy fight out in front of Orgrimmar. Just check out our pictures to see proof of why I don't care how good of a rogue you are, Orcs are so much sexier than Undead! We turned some heads, but it sure was fun to get down to basics and have a fair fight with my big orc fists. My new friend was a good teacher, and I was so happy to learn some new strategies. Oh yeah, and I had some fun dancing naked in front of Org, too.

80 among other things

2008-12-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

Heck yeah, 80 baby! It's been a really interesting trip so far and there is still a long way to go. Now it's time to start focusing on other things. I need to work on faction rep with the Oracles and the Wyrmrest Accord. I want the two mounts from them. Oh I got really lucky the other day and got the Reins of the White Polar Bear in my bag of Hyldnir Spoils. I don't know what I'm gonna name him yet, also a weird thing is he seems to be smaller then other bears, he's awesome anyway though.
Speaking of mounts, I saw one today that I have never seen before. The Reins of the Raven Lord. I'd only ever heard of it and knew it was incredibly difficult to come by, as I beileve it's only available from a boss fight during a druids swift flight training. Sadly however it was being ridden by a human. Dang alliance having the cool things.
Also since I turned 80 I've been able to travel more and enjoy some of the more fun and less well know events in Northrend. While hanging out with some of the Oracles in the Basin, they showed me a cool sport that they having been doing for years. Since I've made friends witht them they decided to let me have a go. So I'm proud to announce the introduction of Northrends newest extreme sport Crocolisk surfing!I guess that's enough for now. You'll be hearing from me a lot more in the upcoming weeks as I'll have a lot more free time for exploring and adventures.

Catching up and having fun while doing it.

2008-12-09T09:33:00.000-08:00

I finally got my epic flying mount, I save up for a long time for it. I even got one with purple armor too match the guild tabard. It took me a long time to save up for it, mainly because I did leather working for most of my leveling. When it got to the last few levels it was taking me hundred of gold just to raise it one level. I realized I could make tons of gold by selling all the stupid mats instead of spending several hundred gold that I might be able to sell for 100. So I decided to drop leather working and switched to herbalism. It's taken me a while to level it up, since I decided to focus on getting to 80, but I've been easily distracted these past couple days so I decided to take a break from questing and level up my herb, and of all things, start doing Netherwing quests.I know you might think I'm nuts for doing Netherwing quests now but I actually figured now would be the best time. Everyone is in Northrend and Outland is filled with only Death Knights who leave the second they hit 68, so Netherwing Ledge was completely empty except for me. I was able to find 3 eggs within about 20 minutes. Once I knew what I was looking for that is. Anyway after finishing those quests I ran around azeroth a bit to get my herb up to 300 and then went to Hellfire. I have to say that leveling herb when you have an epic flyer makes life so much easier. As i was flying over Hellfire I spotted a Felreaver, the bane of every level 60's existence.I figured I was 78 now, with a 78 tanking pet, I can solo one. So, I did! And it went down like a sack of dung. I have to admit it was an amazing feeling. Well I'm gonna crank out the last level before I finish leveling my herb. Maybe I'll go back to leather working some day, but not until I get a mammoth.

Messin' around in Northrend - finally!

2008-12-07T00:13:00.000-08:00

You're probably wondering, what happened to Mal? I thought this blog was called "Mio and Mal," but all I see is Mio. Well I, Mal, have finally finished all my big projects for school (let's just call it rogue training) and am finally able to jump back into Northrend. I've been questing around Dragonblight these days, running instances when I can.

I ran through Utgarde Keep today, and this time I only died once against Ingvar (as opposed to the many times I died my first time through). It was nice to feel like I knew what I was doing!

I was hanging out in Warsong Hold the other day, and guess what happened? I took the elevator downstairs from the flight master, and the next thing I knew, I was hanging in midair! What the... Did one of those weird magic types cast something on me to make me fly? Not cool! I couldn't go up or down until the elevator came back to get me. Of course, my buddy Aero was sitting there laughing at me the whole time. It was probably him who did it. You know those warlocks, they enjoy other people's pain.

A while back (bear with me, I haven't been around much lately), I was questing in the snow with an old friend Kiho. It was the first time we had done anything together since arriving in Northrend, and now I remember why! We had been asked to release a bunch of ravenous rats on the bodies of every person we killed, so they could pick the bodies clean. Yuck! I know it doesn't look like it because of the havoc I wreak on the enemies unfortunate enough to be a victim of my stealth, but I'm a mild-mannered kind of guy and I'm not much into blood and guts. Kiho, on the other hand... well, let's just say that it's a good thing I'm not undead. He not only sic'ed the rats on the bodies, but he joined them in the feast! Blech!

New toys and a gear change

2008-12-03T11:22:00.000-08:00

Ok I have been questing and instancing my furry butt off and now have almost a complete gear change at level 77. This impresses me that I still have a few pieces of my old gear and it's taken me this to replace most of my stuff, means I had to be doing something right. Also I'm particularly fussy when it comes to my gear, I will not replace anything that makes me lose intellect as a general rule. You see I'm specced so my every point of intellect becomes a point of attack power so if I take away say +19 intellect for the sake of +15 ap I would be losing mana as well as 4 ap.

Anyway, as I was saying I've been doing lots of instances and I stick by my statements that all the ones I've been in are a lot more epic and fun then old stuff. Well, that's not entirely true, the real Old world stuff like AQ40 was just amazing and took my breath away, anyway back on topic! So only my trinkets and maybe a ring have been replaced by greens, everything else is blue or old purples. I finally replaced my beloved crossbow, which I'm keeping, and replaced it with the first gun I've had in a while. It dropped off of the big puppy from Violet hold, also the day after I got a new bow from the Golem/ elemental type boss in Gun'Drak, this is AMAZING luck as most mail drops have been shaman drops but now I'm going to lose a bag slot in the bank to hold a spare quiver.

Anyway, I'm most of the way through 77 and I still have my helmet, wrists and belt, lets see how long it takes me to replace those last few pieces.

The land of zombies and snow

2008-11-30T22:16:00.001-08:00

Ok so let me just start out by saying I hate hate HATE zombies. Don't get me wrong, the forsaken are cool a cool race and I have nothing against them, what I mean by zombies are the evil ones that go around trying to kill everything and look like they're put back together in 30 seconds with a hot glue gun. Also, large bugs running around tend to creep me out as well after a while, this is why I spent about 5 minutes in Silithus, you can there for imagine my groan when I had went in Zul'Drak and there were zombies and bugs everywhere in the first part. Needless to say I rushed through that place at an almost dead run, once I got to the snow area though it was a lot better.

Anyway I was sent on several quests, one of which sent me to Har'koa, to this great beast I had to show my respect. I am not the kind of quester that exhausts all quests in an area before moving on, I am always in search of a challenge so I do just enough to level and move onto the next zone. For Har'koa though, I did all she asked. First freed the spirits of her children and then went to the bear god and ending it's suffering life. How could trolls do such a thing to the spirits, keeping them in chains. I said a prayer over the bear spirits remains and continued on my quests. I was then sent to locate the serpent god, who had already been killed, after I reported this I was sent back and left my body behind to travel as a spirit. Does anyone else find it odd that my shoulders, spear and Kimoni could be clearly seen?Anyway, I completed several tasks for the spirit of the serpent god, included killing it's treacherous prophet and returned once more to Har'koa. There were a few more tasks that needed to be done, and for one Har'koa met me in the nearby town and asked me for another task. I accepted her request but I have not completed it yet, you see I heard there was an old hunter friend who needed some help. You got that right since I am now level 76, I went to go see Hemet Nesingwary. It had been a while and I needed a changed of scenery and some time to thaw from the ice and snow. Anyway, my adventures in Sholazar are a tale for another day if they're interesting enough.

Welcome to Hellfire

2008-11-27T09:24:00.001-08:00

Welcome, this is Uzumati and I am on my road to redemption. Once I walked through the Black Gate I knew Outland is where I could do the most good. People stared and sneered at me, and I heard mutters about all the former Death Knights running around. There were many quests for me there and I took them all willingly, killing demons and killing the red orcs that the demons tainted. I expected that my powers would wane once I left Ebon Hold, but I felt myself growing even stronger. Orcs and demons fell at my feet with little effort, at one point five of them were on me and they all went down. It has been lonely here and the road has been hard, my past haunts me, all the innocents I've killed in the name of Arthas. Frosty has been my constant companion, at least I have him and have saved him from a life in Arthas's stables. We shall over come together.

Now he's just getting cocky

2008-11-24T18:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, so last night I was running Drak'Tharon with a group of amazing people (I'm not used to being so far the damage meter) andit was a complete blast! This group made each boss feel like a tank and spank. The mage was even kind enough to let me skin everything, I offered to give him some gold but he wouldn't let me. Anyway, after we take down the last boss, some troll comes in and thanks us for clearing the temple out. After a bit of him talking a flaming gateway opens and the Lich King comes out!! I think he's just getting a bit cocky at this point, I mean just strolling up about 5 yards from us as if we weren't there. All I know is I can't wait to hit 80 and get some better gear so I can wipe that glowing grin off of his undead face.

Rare mounts galore

2008-11-22T12:43:00.001-08:00

Hello everybody, Mio here. I was just running around Northrend yesterday and saw some amazing stuff. Now this is something to behold, a spectral tiger. This is only the second time that I have ever seen one. Simply amazing, but it didn't even compare to what I saw next. I have NEVER seen one of these in the game, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared for a little bit, I just could believe it.

That's right people, the Phoenix mount. I could not believe my eyes. Really, all I need to see at this point is the Black Qiraji Battle tank and my life will be complete.

Epic battles

2008-11-21T14:59:00.001-08:00

I just have to say, one of my favorite things about Northrend is you actully see things fighting among each other. Worgs trying to eat stags and then there is this. A mammoth and Magnataur going at it hard core. There is only one word for this, and that is EPIC!

Slow and steady, but now it's time for a break

2008-11-20T23:42:00.001-08:00

OK so I dinged 73 today Woot! Of course Kimoni had to steal the moment with his big fuzzy butt *sigh* oh well. At least he's a better tank then most warriors I've met. Anyway I've been able to get somewhere between 1/2 to 3/4's of a level every day. I could be doing more but right now there's work to be done and I can't spend all day quest. Well....techinically I could....but that could have very bad results. Anyway it's time to take a break. Good thing Kainda and I found a hot tub to relax in.

Fire pretty

2008-11-19T14:25:00.001-08:00

Hey everybody! Mio here, right now I feel bad for Snowball cause his paws are killing him. We've been running all over Dragonblight trying to get things done. Now I've never really leveled in a conventional manner. I only spend the minimum amount of time in an area before moving on. Usually I'll go to several different areas just to get a change in scenery. I was out of Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord shortly after I hit 71, everything just seemed too easy. Anyway I'm most of the way through 72 and can't wait until 73. I'm gonna try to head to Sholozar Basin at that point and try and do those quests. I mean I was able to take down a 76 rhino at 71 so it shouldn't be too hard at 73. Anyway at this point I'm just trying to finish up the last few quests I have in Dragonblight, they've been fun though. I mean who doesn't love setting a ship on fire.Nothing quiet like a canvas and wood fire to warm you on those chilly mornings.

Northrend here we come!

2008-11-17T20:51:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's me, Mal. I can't believe the zeppelins to Northrend are finally open! Mio and I jumped on them as soon as we could this past Wednesday night. I'm surprised they were open that late, but they must have been expecting the rush. I even snuck over there between classes on Thursday. And wow, Howling Fjord is beautiful! Borean Tundra is okay, but it doesn't stack up to Howling.

Late Thursday night, I got together with Mio, Leet, Aero, and a tank we found over the local wires, to check out the local Northrend dungeons. First, we went to Utgarde Keep to fight the dragonmasters. We fought a Romeo and Juliet couple similar to the couple in Kara (or so I hear - I never made it to Kara before leaving for Northrend!) where we had to fight one of them until he was halfway dead, then move on to the other, making sure we killed the two of them at the same time. We got them on the first try, and look at the awesome fist weapon I got from them! I was proud to sport it around Howling Fjord later.

We did fine through the rest of UK, then got our asses handed to us by their leader, Ingvar. It took only two shots for him to incapacitate me, then I watched in pain as my friends finally took him down. Then, much to our surprise, he returned! Only this time, he was a ghastly undead creature who cast a curse on my friends. Every time Leet tried to heal someone with the curse on them, he took more damage himself, until the whole group wiped. We anxiously asked around to see if we could find more information on this Ingvar guy before he killed us for good. With some more tricks up our sleeves and after several more tries, we finally took him down, but it wasn't easy!

After heading back to town to repair our badly damaged armor, we headed to the Nexus. The Nexus is a beautiful blue ice dungeon full of crystal trees and dragonkin. We had a real hard time against the powerful mage who split into three halfway through the fight, but the real challenge came when the big boss dragon broke out of his ice prison. The room where we fought him was so cold that if we stood still for even a few seconds, we started to drop. We didn't kill him right away (it did take a few tries), but we finally conquered him in the wee small hours of the morning.

I'm enjoying playing around in Borean Tundra, clearing out the undead spider invasion and other pests, and I'm hoping to spend some more time in Howling Fjord as well. It's a challenge to stay alive in some parts of this exciting new land, but I can do it! I've already replaced several pieces of gear, and it's nice to know that I'll be on a more even playing field with the people who were at my level for years. They may hate it, but I love it!

I never wanted this...

2008-11-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

This isn't what I wanted. Pulled from my family and peaceful life to join his ranks. But I their I awoke, water thrown at my face, the cold dead eyes watching me. There on the ground, I was being judged, for my worthiness. Tears felt, hot tears, and they burned my open wounds. At that point all I knew was hate. My life had been torn away, leaving a hollow shell, full of nothing but desire for revenge. It was that that they sensed, and I was chosen. Forced into armor and thrown at the feet of the Lich King himself, I could only stare, and my will was barely my own. I was called to serve and I answered, for it was that or death. So there I followed his commands and those of others, forging my own blade, which I then was forced to use to kill one that was unworthy. His blood was pooled around my hooves and dripping from my blade, and it felt good.

It was then had to obtain my mount, as dark a thing as everything else in that place. At least what I had to kill wasn't alive. That first day there was much blood spilled, the ground was mud beneath my hooves from all the blood that was being spilled, guards and innocents alike. The peasants begged for the lives of their families but none listened, myself included, I had my own family to fight for. The lucky ones were spared the blade and became zombies, mindless things that would feel little pain.
I was starting to feel myself slip away. All that kept me grounded was a small frost wyrm that I had found during the slaughter. He had been lying next to an abandoned mail box, frightened and alone. Frosty was my last link to my formal self. With him beside me the Lich King could not have all of me. Much more blood was on my hands that day, including that of a friend, tears flowed from my eyes once more that day as I plunged my sword through his chest, to save us both. I went back to Arthas for more orders.I was to take a Frost Wyrm and kill over 100 men. What parts of my soul that had remained were slowly being destroyed, I barely had to thinks about whether or not I would take on this task. Once again it was the thought of my family and Frosty that pulled me through. After the slaughter Arthas presented me with the Helm of the Death Knights and I was sent to perform what had to be one of the most heinous acts, destroying Lights Hope Chapel. By this point I was almost to far gone to care. I mounted up and headed over the to commander in charge of the assault and prepared to destroy this holy place. It was in our loss that I found my salvation. I took arms against the infestation in Ebon Hold, with the Might of Morgraine behind me there was nothing I couldn't do.
Once the area was cleared, I realized what had become of me. I was inches away from losing my soul with innocent lives on my hands that nothing could ever erase. There was nothing I could do except seek forgiveness from the Warchief and pray he would except me and my newly released people into his ranks. Entering Org I was spat upon and had food thrown at me, but still I walked as proudly as I could, kneeled before Thrall and asked for forgiveness. It was granted. I pledged my devotion to him and headed towards the black gate, for in Outlands was where I could do the most good.
I stepped through the gate with hopes of a salvation, to cleanse myself of my wrongs. To find my cousin who had passed this way before me, to clear the road for my brother who will soon follow. I am not proud of my past, but I shall be proud of who I will become. I am Uzumati and I am a Knight of Ebon Blade.

Drenden is WHAT?!

2008-11-13T17:58:00.000-08:00

Ok so I have only ever seen Drenden full once before ever. And that was only for 30 seconds. I logged on earlier today, no issues what so ever. And now this! I can't say I'm surprised, but still! I've seen the time jump from 9 minutes to 35 minute wait. Ugh....I have other things to do soon, all I know is I am not logging out this weekend at all....ever...I will sleep with the game up! This is ridiculous...

Northrend baby BOOYA!!

2008-11-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

Ok so this is gonna be a very short post but I'm in Northrend baby!!! Spent a little time in Howling Fjord but then moved on to Borean Tundra to get my worm. This dude here is a flight master!! Why isn't my post very articuate? Because I spent the last 10 minutes before having to leave to run and grab my worm so I didn't notice the names of things. Fortunately Aero and Leet were with me and helped keep crap off me while I tamed him. There will be more pictures later but as I've actually been able to explore and quest for maybe 2 hours there isn't much to report. There will probably be small post over the next few days followed by a large one early next week.

The night of raids

2008-11-11T15:25:00.000-08:00

Greetings one and all, Mio once again. Sorry I've been slacking off a bit but RL things have gotten in the way but now I'm in the clear for a while. Except that I'll be taking a break for the weekend so I'll make sure Mal throws something on here to keep you all entertained. Anyway, Leather and Lace, the guild Mal and I run, is a VERY small guild. There are less then 10 of us who active, so it's very difficult for a hunter like me to find a PUG for a raid other then Kara. I was lucky enough the other night to be able to get into a group to that wanted to take down Gruul. I was all for this as I need better gear so I don't have replace stuff once I get to Northrend and it's easier for me to survive. Anyway, this is another time when vent is very useful. I beileve anything over a 5 person group needs to be able to communicate quickly, and talking works so much better.

Anyway we clear the first room fairly easily, well, about half of us died but it was easy for me because I kept misdirecting onto the tank and feigning death when needed. Haha sometimes it's REALLY good being a hunter. Anyway, once the first big boy drops it turns out he has 3 of the same T4 shoulders on him that I could use! Fortunately I got the second highest roll so I got a pair! I'm trying to build a PvE set for Northrend. Yeah yeah, I know I'm going to have to replace a lot of it soon, but it'll be a few levels so I still think it's good. Anyway Gruul goes down fairly easily as well, this is when I'm glad I'm ranged so I don't have to be in melee range off his ticked off butt. I don't get anything off the second roll but that's fine cause I'm happy with my shoulders. I thought we were done, but most of us want to go do Mags, I'm super excited, two raids I've never done before in one night!Wow that guy was ugly, it's nice to finally be able to try to take him down though. So annoying, all that yelling I can hear him from Blood Furnace. Anyway, no one there knew how to click properly so I volunteered. I decided to sacrifice my DPS and damage for the team, which is hard for me to do since I'm trying to build a reputation as a good hunter here darn it. Anyway I took my position in that back and had to stare at Mags butt the entire time, lovely....Well we wiped the first time and about 4 or 5 people bailed, I guess they just expected epics to fall from the sky with no work. It takes us about 10 minutes to fill the spaces since I think it was mostly DPS that left. I took up position again right behind Mags again and this time everything went well. We were clicking masters! Personally I just think it's kind of weird that Mags is being held in place by Rubicks cubes, but hey, whatever works. I don't think we lost too many people and there was a drop I could have used but didn't get. I was just relly happy I got not one run in but two! Anyway I think that's all for the next day or two. I'm trying to get everything done in my life by Wednesday at midnight so I ca spend most of my time in Northrend and reporting to you guys, feel loved.

Miorbhuil the Hallowed, I likes the sound of that.

2008-11-08T17:15:00.001-08:00

WOO!!!! Anyway, as you can probably guess, it's Mio. So the PTB's (powers that be), decided to fix a few things so I could get the title I really wanted. Before you would have to get lots and lots of masks from trick or treating, I was bothering the innkeepers so much they started shooing me away. Even after bothering them so much I only got 11 of the 20 masks, and many people thought that wasn't fair and apparently the PTB's agreed and fixed it. I worked on it from the first day of Hallow's End, and now I'm really excited to have it. This is probably gonna be the title I keep on for most of the time. Anyway, sorry for the short report but I is a busy cow this weekend and this is all I can muster.

I'm a big kid now...

2008-11-04T23:27:00.001-08:00

Well, I did it. I finally hit 70!

I started off last night with only 3 1/2 bars left in 69, so we got a group together to make our way through Shadow Labyrinth and see if we could get me those last few bars of experience.
We ran it with me, Mio, Leet, our new friend Aero, and a pally tank I grouped with to take down the Headless Horseman last week. The pally had that annoying tendency to pull before making sure everyone was ready (a healer doesn't need mana, right?) but I finally made it to right...about...here:

Then we took down two more mobs, and DING!!!! I hearthed back to Shattrath City to change into my much-anticipated level 70 gear and pick up the sword I took from the Headless Horseman. I couldn't help but take some before and after pictures:

Mal at 69

vs.

Mal at 70

Slight difference, eh?

Finally, a week before the expansion comes out, I finally hit the (soon to be defunct) level cap. At least I'll get a small taste of it before I have to start leveling again.

Oh, did I mention we beat the big boss in Shadow Labs?

It's not a wipe if the hunter survives, right? Feign Death = /cheat.

Time for a dose of reality and change.

2008-11-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

Today is the day for change. As much as this is a WoW blog this is a WoW blog based around the lives two gay men. This is the most important vote of our lives. Right now everyone is fighting for change and a better world and a few of us in the great state of California are fighting our right to marry and stay married to people we love. All I can ask of you is to get out and vote. As much as I'd like you to vote the way I'd like you to I really just want you to vote. It's the duty and privilege of all Americans to vote. Anyway, I'll get off of my high horse, you can tell who've I already voted for, just please go out and vote any which way you choose.

OMG 70!

2008-11-04T00:42:00.000-08:00

DING!!!!!

(more later)

Caedmon's turn to post

2008-11-03T12:25:00.001-08:00

Greetings one and all, the name is Caedmon and I'm the shaman of the group. Anyway, Mio thought I should start posting since I've decided to work on getting to 70 and then eventually 80. Can you even see me in the picture? That's cause I've jumped about 9 levels in a weekend and have gotten my ghost wolf form. Anyway, Leet has been nice enough to help me get my water totem and all I have to say that if it hadn't been for him and my scrolls of recall I might have just chilled at 19 for a while. Anyway I've been running around a combination of the Barrens and Hillsbrad trying to get things done. I'll be posting about shaman type things when I learn them but that's later. Anyway, back to work for me, now where are all those farmers?

Kicking it REAL old school

2008-11-03T12:14:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone, Mio once again, just trying to kill time time until I can make my way to Nothrend. So when I hear over trade that people are doing AQ40 I jump at the chance. Until the most recent patch I had never been in the old world raids and it's been something I really wanted to do so I was really happy to e able to join. I think we only had about 30 people but most of them were 70's and all of them were over 60 so we were gonna be ok. So I filled my quiver, repaired, grabbed Kainda and waited for a summon. One came in a couple minutes and I was ready to go. Anyway, I guess I was one of the first people to get summoned because it took abother minute or two to get everyine there, we all hopped on vent but I decided to not talk because there were at least 25 of us and I didn't want to identify who I was everytime so I just decided to type out my response.

Anyway, we all hope on our mounts and charge inside, this place looked amazing! I had no idea what to expect except for lots of bugs, what suprised me is there were these big dog looking guys included them. They drop easy cause, you know, they're supposed to be for tons of guys 10 seasons below us. So we make our way deeper inside and woah.... there was a big temple inside.

Now this right here is a pretty sight, you know, except for the big bug in the middle. The bug goes down in about 15 seconds. After him some crystals start to drop, they were different colors and once people got em these bugs with saddles on them came to them. Apparently they are only for inside this place but they were cool and I wanted one. Anyway we're fighting our way through and after a particularly difficult fight, I finally get a crystal and a green bug ain't he cute? For a bug that is.
Anyway the funniest thing happened right before we hit the last boss. Now, this boss has the nastiest habit do do a chain attack, you know, the kind that hits each person harder with each jump. You aren't supposed to go past the doorway until you're ready and then go in single file along the walls. Anyway since we were ready we were all just in a group right in front of the door when I guess someone got a little too close to the door when this happened.That's right, we all died. Someone got a little too close to the door and we got chained. Someone actually got overkilled by about 17 million. You read that right 17 million, no exaturating, should have gotten a picture for that one. Anyway, everyone runs back and we finally go after the boss. Boy he was ugly. Though I do have to admit it was the most interested boss fight I've ever been apart of. We clear him easy and suprisingly he dropped some pretty cool loot. A ring I could have used now when my rings are already epic. All I know is that when Caedmon gets to about 62 I'm making sure he get in there for some interesting gear and a good time.

Leveling my Herb and punchin' out critters

2008-10-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, your friendly neighborhood Mio here. So I used to be a leatherworker and it was something I really enjoyed but once I hit 365 it became almost impossible to level it the final 1o levels. It cost me almost 100g to get it up 1 level and this was just not ok with that. So I dropped leatherworking and picked up herbalism instead. With inscription ontop of alchemy herbs are in high demand, plus I have one of the twins who just started out being the groups inscriber. Ok so I never relly talked about the twins, They're Uzumati (Uzu for short) who's a druid and Caedmon who's a shaman. Caedmon is the inscriber in the family so I help suppliment what he gathers. Right now since he's such a book worm he's a better scribe then gatherer *sigh*. Anyway, back to me. Also I decided to level my unarmed because it seemed like fun. So while I was out gathering or running around Nagrand I would just sick which pet I had with me at the time on something and punch the living bejeezus out of them. I think meat eaters liked it the most because the meat was tenderized when I fed them.

The first day I leveled my herbalism to 150 in about 2 hours. Pretty much I just started punching my way through the barrens. Now when I was a less seasoned hunter there was nothing I loved more then taking on the packs of roaming kodos and stormhides. So I couldn't help but run up and punch a roaming stormhide. It only took a couple punches to knock them out though. It wasn't much of a challenge after a while.
Then after a while I moved onto Stranglethorn because I had gotten too good for the barrens. I realized then that there was a big island off the mainland I hadn't been to yet and GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY! There was a giant gorilla out that way!! Even though he couldn't really do much damage I just decided to leave him alone. Though I think he'd be amazing to ride around on.
Anyway, I'm still leveling my herbs but I've stopped punching things cause it got boring after a while. I may just go wail on a clefthoof or two, that should take a while and I won't have to run around. I just hope I get my herb skill up to the max before I leave for Northrend.

My decision on pets

2008-10-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, Mio here and in much better health. I've taken some time while I was sick I took some time to run some tests and crunch some numbers when it comes to pets. I would have done it slightly more in depth but the numbers just spoke for themselves. I've decided that cunning pets just aren't for me. While some of the talents in the cunning tree sound ok the damage is just too reduced for me to take one as a pet. So what I did was setup recount and sent DPS pets at the practice dummy for 20 seconds each. Yay for the handy new timer. Anyway, my 70 cat average around the high 7,000s, my then 69 Core hound averaged around the mid 6,000s, I then respecced him and he jumped to the low 7,000s. Then I took out my 68 Chimera and sent him to attack the dummy, he averages in the low 4,000s. Wow, that was a drastic drop, I then respecced him to do the most DPS he could flat out and he jumped to the high 4,000s. At this point I could see that even with all the buffs with both the boss and him being at low health it just wouldn't do the same kind of damage my ferocity pets were, so I made sure he was well fed and let him go.

Now I had two free slots in my stable and I knew which new pets I wanted to try. I knew I needed a non AOE tank, Kimoni is amazing for multiple mobs but he just doesn't do well for single tragets. I had already decided that I wanted to pick up a bear and a worm. I just hve to say I haven't seen ANYONE other than me for a little while running around with a worm. I can kinda understand that because I'm waiting for Wrath to come out to get a nice pretty fluffy worm. The ones out in Northrend look amazing. Anyway, I sent Kimoni, who's at 69, after the target dummy and he only did about 4,000 damage. This didn't worry me too much becasue 1 tanks don't nessicarily do a lot of damage and B he's an AOE tank, not a single target tank. Anyway, I then sent the Worm I picked up from RFC, level 65, after the dummy and he did damage in the low 5,000 range! I was very impressed. I know most people think they're ugly but I find the worms cute in an ugly sort of way. Next I sent in the bear, now you should know there is a bit of a back story behind the bear.

I've always wanted a bear but with only 3 slots in the stable I didn't have the space, I had Kainda, Reptar (who has been let free back in blades edge) and a free slot to tame pets for skills. Now that I have 5 slots and don't have to train for skills I was gonna get a bear, and not just any bear, but a cute little black bear. The only place to find ones that aren't rare are in Dwarf and Gnome country....well crap. I really wanted the black bear though so I flew over to Kargath and ran back up into Loch Modan and promptly tamed myself a cute little bear. I was trying to think of a name when the perfect one came to mind and I couldn't stop laughing, so I named him Devon. Devon is an RL friend who's a bear so I just couldn't resist. Anyway back to the numbers.

I sent Devon after the dummy and he did just as well as the worm. So I plan on keeping him as well as picking up a new worm once wrath comes out. So my stable is full and I'm happy with my decision, I'm keeping my bear and it'll take another REALLY good pet to replace the worm slot in my stable.

All Hail Hallow's End!

2008-10-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

Hi there, Mal here. I killed the Headless Horseman for the very first time last night, and look what I took from him! My first time and I get to take his horse! Amazing! Somehow he came back to life two more times, and we killed him two more times. I also got to take his ring, but I can't use it for two more levels. But hey, I'm more than satisfied with this gorgeous steed. I never get cool stuff like this! I've gotta say, Mio wants to kill me for getting it, but he'll get over it eventually.

Hallow's End has been half fun, and half a pain in my orc butt. Those zombies running all over the cities of Azeroth have been driving me nuts! I go to withdraw some important stuff from the bank or dump out the contents of my bags, and the bankers are dead. I go to auction off some useless green stuff, and the auctioneers are dead. I sit down outside the inn and stop paying attention for a minute, and I'm dead! What a waste of time.

But, there have been some fun highlights.

I finally got a studly new haircut. That double-ponytail thing I had going with my hair and my beard was just not working for me. At least they finally put a barber in Org so I could take the pumpkin off my head and look presentable for once.

I saw my first Devilsaur pet in the Scryers' Bank. You can barely see my ghostly little self down there in front of its right foot. I had gotten eaten by zombies and didn't want to come back to life while they were still taking over Shattrath City, so I was running around as a ghost. The Devilsaur is taller than the chandelier in the bank!

On our way through Underbog, our friend Lashmin died. *tear* Don't worry, the pretty priest Sybol brought him back to life... but in the meantime, there was a silver lining. The way Lash fell, it looked like he died choking on a fish! I don't know why I find this so funny, but I do.

Some kid at the refugee caravan out in Terokkar Forest gave me a remote-controlled Steam Tonk. Woot fun new toy! Who wants to race me??

And now for one last Hallow's End picture...for today, at least. I got transformed into a leper gnome (which meant Mio wouldn't even acknowledge me until I changed back!) and someone put a pumpkin on my head because they didn't like my new haircut. I didn't let that phase me, and played some good defense in Eye of the Storm. Standing here in stealth, I was one bad-ass little punkinhead!

Hallow's End is upon us!

2008-10-22T10:17:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, sickly cow Mio here. Sorry I haven't been posting as much as I usually do. I still blame the damn riding chickens for getting me sick. Anyway I know this post is a couple days late but Hallow's End is upon us! I wasn't quite sure what to expect but I've heard stories of the Headless Horseman and the awesome helm I couldn't wear anyway because it's plate. The one thing I've really gotten behind though are the achievements and the titles that come with them, the one the comes with Hallow's End is "the Hallowed". I think the title is sexy and I want it really bad. Because I haven't been feeling well most of my playing has been mindless busy work, I looked up what needed to be done for the acheivments for the title and decided to complete the Trick or Treats of Azeroth. I took me a few hours of really relaxing play but I got it all done. The one difficult part was finding the Lights Hope Chapel or whatever that place is called in the Eastern Plaguelands. I've never really been in there before and Cartographer wasn't working so I had to run around and find the stupid place. Anyway I've been taking down the Horseman everyday, I got the little Squashling pet and now I'm after the cloth helm. Also the other fun stuff is the hourly Trick or Treating, trying to get all the masks and the toothpicks, not to mention the candy you get that make you big and orange, a skeleton or a ghost. The Big orange part is my favorite because making a Tauren even bigger is funny to me. Esspecially when I have a pumpkin on my head.

I love pictures like this but I'm gonna throw another one up for actual size comparison. So Mal is a full grown Orc, and he just barely makes it to my waist lol. Now for the other extreme, as people who trick or treat often know, you don't always get a treat bag, in fact almost all of yesterday I kept getting tricked! Gah! I felt like I was gonna be smushed! I was smaller then a gnome! And that's just not right! On the other hand it was funny to run up behind people and scare them. All I have to say is thank Elune Kimoni is so well trained that he didn't stomp me into oblivion. Anyway I think that's enough for now. Hopefully within the week I'll be doing a post adressing what I feel are the best pets in the game now the patch has happened, but I still need to pick up a few more pets to try at my level and dicuss more with some lower level friends.

Welcome to the jungle

2008-10-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

If you can't tell from the photo, it's time for story time from me Mio once again. I'm trying to spread out my experiences over several posts instead of one super long one. That way I can take my time since I got sick. I just really hope I didn't catch the bird flu from one of the chickens our friends ride around on, as it turns out I know a lot of Belfs, or it could have been when I got turned into a Leper gnome. Which despite being a leper made me feel super dirty just for being a gnome. Anyway, onto what I'm actually gonna be talking about this time.

So on the same night as the Onyxia run, the raid decided to do ZG as well, cause why not? We can. Anyway, Kiho dropped out of the raid cause he had a bloody dragon head stinking up his bag and I saw Sybol was on, so I invited her to come along. She was low enough in the 60's that she might actually get something she could use. We still had the same tank as last time and I stayed behind for a few more seconds to summon people then headed inside myself. As usual the tank is barreling ahead full speed, I'm trying desperately to keep up and I've lost track of Sybol, who I'm usually super protective of. Now it's not that Sybol can't handle herself, she's a big girl and can take care of herself just fine, I'm just really protective of my squishie healer friends. We get to the first boss and she goes down easy, I think some random squishie glass cannon mage got stomped but I didn't know him and he should have been watching his aggro anyway. I think this is where Syb got a cape she could actually use. If i remember correctly, Kiho told me that these raids were where you got the best loot in the game before the dark portal opened up.Anyway, we're chugging through, drop a few more bosses, there weren't any other deaths I could see cause no one in my group died and I made sure to check in with Syb every once in a while to make sure she was doing ok. We get to the last boss and great googly moogly was the guy ugly. He looked like he was the offspring of an arrakoa and a wind serpent. He was harder then I expected, a bunch of people died because they weren't prepared, my puppy along with them (he doesn't usually die this much I swear). Anyway we got done with him and everyone hearths out fast because someone who tried to run out decided to run back to us followed by a group of gators. Anyway, I'm outta here for now, I swear those damn Belfs better take those riding chickens to the vet to make sure I didn't catch anything from them. /sniffle

Daaaaang, that's a big mama jamma

2008-10-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, your friendly neighborhood Mio once again. As you may or may not know, the attunements have been removed from the old world raids which means people are doing them all the time now, it's super easy to find a group. So because I haven't been playing very long I decided to join a group that was off to take down the bad mama dragon herself Onyxia. I was super excited. So I join a raid, invited Kiho to come along and we head over to Dustwallow. We have a group of about 30 at this point. This was the kind of run where there isn't really any sort of strategy and it's just kill things. The tank is someone who I've been in a group with before and charges head long in situations without making sure everyone is ready. He's a good tank though, a really good one, so I can forgvie the short comings. Anyway It's at this point that I just start opening fire.
Sadly, something killed my new puppy pretty quick and it was sad. Fortunately though I was able to start my super DPS sequence (which involves bestial wrath) a couple seconds before he died so I was able to get a little more out of it. Anyway, Ony goes down fast enough, less the two minutes if I remember correctly. Loot gets passed around, and Kiho gets lucky and gets her head which starts a quest. Turns out it's still good for experience once we can get into Northrend. Anyway, I'm not feeling to hot as of late and I may not be questing too much, I'll mostly be trying to complete the achievments to get the title The Hallowed. Never you fear though. I have at least enough material for 3 more posts over the next couple days. Oh, and I told Leet I would mention him in tonight post, Hi Leet! /wave

On your mark, get set, GO!

2008-10-16T01:09:00.001-07:00

Hello once again, it's Mio. Man I've been posting a lot lately huh? Well there's a lot to post about with the new patch. Anyway, I has an RL lady type friend who loves to play WoW as well (Yes, there are plenty of real women that play WoW, I have met some and heard others on Vent). She has two 70's and four or five 60's, she's a little crazy like that but it makes her super cool to me. Anyway, we were talking and I mention my 22 minute Blood Furnace run yesterday. She then tells me about running Ramps in 15 minutes!!! She also tells me that her group is WAY over geared and I think she said they were 70's but I may be mistaken. So, since I am a competive bull and all bulls love a good run I wanted to try to beat that time. So I whisper to Leet to see if he wants to do another speed run and try to beat my friends time, of course he's up for it but is with a group in Blood Furnace and will let me know when he's done.

I spend the time doing random quest for the Mag'har, helping people with their Nessingwary quests (They let me have the skinnables YAY SKINNABLES!) when Leet whispers me that he's ready. I have Kimoni with me, I had just recently repaired so I was set and had him summon me. Now, something he told me that I didn't know is that there is a new stopwatch everyone gets, so I start it up and we start killing things at a dead run. Now you should know that I was with Leet at 63 a 65 lock from the other day as well and a 60 and I think another 63, and they wanted the runs for the gear. We didn't start up to par with my friends group so Leet and I decided that breaking 20 would be amazing but we're gonna try for 15 anyway. We're going through and it's obvious we aren't gonna make 15 minutes but 20 is still doable. Kimoni is tanking like a proud and I'm so proud of my new boy /tear and he's pretty much the tank of the group even tough we have a Felgaurd and a ret paladin with a shield. We finish the run at 19 minutes 20 seconds YES!!

The group wants to do another run and I LOVE these speed runs so I'm up for it. The second run goes a bit slower, I dn't know why, but we finish at a respectable 20 minutes 43 seconds. I'm still happy with these times cause this group had some really low level guys and the best part is is that there wasn't a single death, which is a MAJOR accomplishment. I will be doing more of these speed runs as they are sooo much fun, but I will be taking Cerberus on some of these as well as he needs some action. I'm STILL gonna try to break that 15 minute time though.

This has gotta be some kind of record

2008-10-15T15:12:00.001-07:00

So this is my new gorilla, Kimoni, he is AWESOME! I picked him up right after my new puppy, Cerberus. I've been really excited about being a tank or an of tank since I heard it was possible in this patch. I couldn't wait to try Kimoni out. My friend Leet was online so I asked if he wanted to run Blood Furnace with me, he was up for it and he had a warlock with him from another run. So we get a group together It's Leet in the low 60's, a ret paladin and warlock with a succubus in their mid 60's and me with Kimoni and another lock with a Felgaurd at 70. No true tank just a healer and a bunch of DPS and a pet tank. So I get passed lead, start to mark and we go. First group is down in 5 seconds, and I stop marking we just go for it. Things are falling left and right and we are doing the instance at a dead run. Leet only had to stop to drink once and with the new aspect of the viper I didn't have to stop to drink at all. Also Kimoni is so awesome that with him at level 65 I only pulled agro off of him once. Pretty much we nuked everything in sight, we got a tight ball of mobs the Felgaurd and Kimoni held them, the succubus got any that wandered away from the pack and we AOE'd them into oblivion. According to Leet, we completed the entire instance in 22 minutes. We skipped no mobs and killed everything in sight in 22 minutes. That's gotta be some kind of record.

I waited two hours for this?! You bet I did!

2008-10-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

Hey All, Mio here. So I was tearing my hair out trying to get on and was able to finally get online at around 7:30pm, I have never seen Org so full. Hunter's stomping around with Devilsaurs and a couple with Corehounds. But I already knew what I wanted. I respecced 51/10/0, got training, dumped a pet I had in the stable I was going to replace and made my way to dark shore. I was on a quest to get The Kurken. For those of you who don't don't what that is, it is a single mob that is in the back of Stillpine hold in the Dranei starting area. It is the only one in the game that can be tamed with that particular skin. In my opinion it's one of the best looking pets in the game, if not the best looking. So I may my way to dark shore, thinking I can swim out to Azuremyst. No luck. I hearth back to Org and make my way to the ally boat place above Loch Modan. I waitied 10 minutes for that boat. No luck.

I'm starting to get frustrated. I pulled out a map I had that shwed the alliance transport area, apparently theres a boat in Darkshore that goes to Azuremyst /grumble. Ok, so I start, once again, to make my way to Darkshore and to the dock there. Had to run a couple laps around ally gaurds and got an odd look from a dranei or too but it didn't matter, I was on my way to get my puppy. I fially make my way to the cave and hour later and there was a group of people, dang it! And I'm still flagged PvP at this point since I had to run away from gaurds and one of the kills me. I had something to do at this point RL and logged.

I come back and hour later only to find, what the? A line?! That's right people, the ally and horde we're being nice and waiting in line. If anyone tried to tame out of line the animal was shot until they realized they would have to wait.Now, if you're wondering why most of us are flagged it's because this stupid little gnome rogue decided to gank the puppy every chance he got. One of the horde had an ally disguise they could throw on and found out the guy wanted his friend to go first and then they would leave /sigh fine. We let his dwarf friend go first and then they left. There were other jerks who came. Some of us reported them because there was one Belf in particular that kept us waiting and extra hour just cause he wanted to go first, if he had waited in line we would have been out in half and hour tops. Anyway, after waiting 2 hours, that's right 2 HOURS I finally got my shot at the The Kurken. I was shaking from fear that someone would kill him again but I got him! I gots my new puppy! Ain't he just the cutest thing you ever saw?!

Biting my nails and biding my time

2008-10-14T13:57:00.001-07:00

Hey all, Mio here with non existent fingernails, it's currently 1:56 pm Pacific time and I've been trying to log on every 2 minutes to get into the patch. Everything is updated and ready to go. I have plans since I only have 1 hour 15 minutes until I have to leave for a class I can't miss. So for the past few days I've been playing a lowbie and buying out all low level herbs I can in prep for inscription since I could never remember if it was coming out with the patch or with the xpac. But as I've right now I'm trying to plan the path I'm taking around and which new pet I'm gonna grab first (I'm beast master all the way baby) so I'm getting exotics. I know for a fact I'm grabbing a core hound, but not any core hound, the prettiest core hound ever , all I have to say is thank Elune for the level jump you get otherwise I wouldn't put in the work to level this bad boy. Other then that I'm gonna try out a few other tenacity pets like the worm, croclisk and a bear and see which I like best. I know for a fact I'm gonna be grabbing a gorilla for leveling, not sure if I'm gonna be keeping Reptar. I may need to replace him with tanks. The thing I was most exicted about with this patch is I can be a viable tank for some 5 mans or an off tank for others. Anyway as of right now I'm just staring at the clock, biting my nails and pulling my hair out. I MUST get on, wait....why am I talking to you people?! I sould be trying to log in again!

Edit: ARRGH!!! All the realms aren't up yet! apparently the latest they'd be up it 3:00pm which would elave me only 30-45 minutes TOPS to do the things I need!!! /pull hair That's it's I'm staying up all night to play this thing as I have a bbq later and a meeting later tonight. Looks like I'm staying up until 3am.

pantpantpant Slow down, crazy tank!

2008-10-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

Leet's friend moved into our realm yesterday, so Mio's little sister and Leet's little brother showed him around the local Durotar area yesterday. I (Mal) had to hit the books, so I didn't get to hang out with them. I did bring them some bags and money, though. Gotta help out the little guys, right? All those little siblings are now members of our guild, woot! The leather and the lace will spread all over the Drenden realm, just you watch.

Later on, Mio, Leet, and I decided to run around Slave Pens and see if we could get anything good. Unfortunately, the best thing we got were some unslotted pants for Leet, which weren't even as good as what he was wearing. Oh well. But man, was our tank pushy! He would sit there and watch as Leet drank up to restore mana after a big fight, then the moment he was full o' magic again, the tank would rush in to the next group of Naga while Leet was still sitting there on his butt. I don't know how many times we told him to wait, but did he listen? Of course not. Frankly, do bears ever listen when you tell them to chill? Maybe if he'd stopped moving for a second I would have had a chance to take a picture of our group, but noooooo. Oh well, at least I got to take a break from studying long enough to go on a short adventure. Maybe one of these days I'll get some sexy armor out of it.

Staff of Jesus FTW!

2008-10-12T01:26:00.000-07:00

Hey, it's Mal. I had quite the productive evening. When I signed on earlier, Lashmin and Syeira were in the middle of a Kara run, so I went to do some homework till they were done. Amazingly, when they finished, they weren't too bleary-eyed to push our way through the quickest Blood Furnace run ever. I think we were done in under half an hour! I got some kick-ass armor, too. The Vest of Vengeance dropped, and I got a Perfectly Balanced Cape as a reward for helping someone out after we finished.

With some perfect timing, right after I repaired and re-emptied my bags, my old holy priest buddy Leethealer signed on and we started to look for a group for Underbog. We had an easy time finding more DPS, but man, was it hard to find a tank! We saw a level 61 druid looking for group at one point, but figured they were too low so we didn't even bother to ask if they were feral spec. Finally, we found a pally whose spec was ret but wanted to respec to join us and tank. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, right? So we ran Underbog with me at 63, Leet at 62, a level 70 rogue, a level 68 hunter, and the level 63 pally tank(ish). We only died 3 times! /eyeroll. The problem with instancing with some higher levels is they get too cocky and pull a million mobs at once even though our tank and healer aren't as high as them. Oh well, we finally got through. No good drops for me or Leet, but at least we got to start the Underbog/Slave Pens quest to search for some random Cenarion guys.

After Underbog, we met up with Mio to help out some lady in Terokkar Forest. We heard she might be able to give Leet a kick-ass healing staff, and all we had to do was escort her out of a building. You would think that she would be more excited to leave, but she would just mosy her way down the path like it was no big deal while we beat off the elves with big swords who tried to kill us on the way down. But it was worth it, because Leet ended up with the STAFF OF JESUS! Okay, technically it's called the Healer's Staff of the Forest, but doesn't he look spiffy posing for the camera?

Epic mount WOOT!

2008-10-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

Hi there, Mal here. So, I had been saving up my gold for my epic mount, watching everyone else out-run me in battlegrounds and quests. I've gotta say, watching a level 60 run around on an epic mount they got the moment they hit the minimum level was not so fun...kind of like watching a level 30 run around on their first mount right after I dinged 40. Well, except that with the level 30s on mounts, it was much more frustrating! So anyway, I was running around in Zangarmarsh with my good buddy Ourindar, who was helping me power-quest my way through the zone (nothing like having a glass cannon mage along when you need to deal some crazy damage!) when I mentioned that I really wanted that badass epic wolf I should have already, but that I was way too poor to get it (as in, you need about 600 gold for it, and I had about 200). He asked how much it costs, and I told him. Next thing I know, a trade window opened up on my screen and he handed me 700 gold!!! I was speechless.

Okay, so I'm never speechless. That's what I get for being a natural chatterbox. But I was definitely flabbergasted. I thanked him over and over, and he said he just likes to help out his friends. What a nice guy. :) He opened a portal to Org and went with me to buy my pretty epic wolfie. I chose the dark gray wolf, and I'm already loving the speed!

I had been grinding Frostwolf rep in AV to get a wolf from them, but it was just taking so darn long. I'm not like Mio - I can't just spend all day every day in AV. I don't get what he sees in it! Sorry, but fighting in a battleground where my team tends to field half as many people as the other team and I get my butt handed to me over and over doesn't sound like much fun to me. Granted, I'm near the bottom of the level range for it, but still. Sometimes Mio is a mystery to me. And yet, I can't wait until I make it to his level so we can quest together. All I'll have to do is convince him that questing with another DPS can be fun. C'mon, rogues kick butt!

First look into Kara

2008-10-09T11:15:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, you're friendly neighborhood Mio here, I got my first look inside Karazhan and this is what happens, LOL! I usually try not to make my opening photos so large but you really need to see the detail in this. Ok, so I was just bumming around Nagrand last night with me looking for a Kara run passively. Meaning I was in the Looking for Group channel but not posting since it was late and I didn't think it would actually happen so I was just farming rep with the Mag'har. All of a sudden I got a whisper asking if I wanted to do a Kara run! All I could say was Hell Yeah! and joined the raid group.

Ok so I had been planning for this for a long time. I went to the bank to empty out bags and grab scrolls. But I had no room left in my bank so and I drop about 100 gold on new bigger bags, replacing smaller ones on me and in the bank and get everything set. Ok so I have tons of everything plus extras incase people didn't bring enough for themselves. So we're waiting for about 20 minutes to get everyone together and get summoned. Someone had vent so I was able to figure out how to get on (I'm new to vent) which made the evening a lot less lonely (Mal was away for the night), and made it 100 times easier to know what to do, since I didn't have to read lots of type.

So we start clearing the mobs in the entry way and all is going well, sure a couple people died....but that's to be expected, at least I expected it as one of our tanks didn't have Omen. We make is to Midnight and Attumen and we're waiting for a while, I think we're waiting for the other tank to install vent. It's taking a while and we're starting to get respawns. Ok Crap, we need to start this now. Ok so we decide to just start the fight without the other tank on vent. And with the pull comes 7 of the respawns!! and that is the picture up above. I was able to get a screen shot fast enough before we all wiped, I had a good laugh about it because really it was ridiculous. What was even funnier is that some guys rezzed inside and couldn't get back to the front of the instance so they just sacrificed themselves to midnight so they could get back to the front. One of the people decided to switch to their pally tank who's over geared for Kara which would make everything a lot easier. So take two, wipe out the mobs and make our way to Midnight, and this time no extra mobs. Goes down much better this time. No loot drop for me but I got a badge though.

At this point we lose a healer and need to replace them, we find one that's ungeared but our main healer is so over geared our main tank thinks it should be ok and I listen to what the main tank says. We start clearing mobs and make our way to Moroes. Something odd happened though, the Stewards killed about 3 or 4 of us, no idea how that happened. So we take on Moroes and we wipe the first time. We come back and we take im down, only 1 or 2 deaths this time. It's late now and we're tired but we're gonna try for one more boss, so it's off to the Maiden we go.

Now I had no idea what to expect with the Maiden of Virtue, it was also interesting that all the mobs that lead up to her were, well, whores. Something I didn't expect at all but I thought was really funny. So apparently the Maiden is really difficult without a Healadin, which we didn't have. Slowly everyone is getting nuked and we wiped. Oh well, it was almost 2am for me at this point and apparently it was 5am for our main tank yikes! So we call it a night and most of us want to try again later this week either tonight or Friday night. I really hope they want to try tonight as opposed to Friday as I have stuff to do that night until about 1 am. Even though the run was short and all I got out were a few badges I had sooooo much fun and can't wait to go again!

Bout Time!

2008-10-09T02:03:00.000-07:00

OK, so, looking at the clock it currently....2:09 am. And I just got done with my first look into Kara!! SQUEEEE!!! Anyway, I'm tired, the screen looks blurry even with my glasses on and I need to go to bed. Anyway, there will be a MUCH longer post tomorrow about my experience which had a rather hilarious start. Lets just put it this way, the picture for this post is the before shot. I'll just keep you wondering for a few hours until I post. Thank Elune I don't have anything to do tomorrow until 4 in the afternoon.

When you have nothing to write about, write something random

2008-10-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hey all, Mio once again. So I've been poking Mal with a pointy stick to post again but I think he's put on some thick padding and stop noticing. So I guess you're still stuck with just me for a while. So I've still been trying to get into a Kara run, I've almost made it twice on a LFG PUG but I get beat out everytime on sheer typing speed. As both times I've been in BG's and in the middle of being killed or killing things. So at this point it's something I'm only really gonna try for Kara on the weekends, during the week though I've decided to work on my healer alts (I have many alts), get rep with Org and the Mag'har (I want the mounts), and make LOTS of money through a combination of dailies and running instances. Also, out of the goodness of my heart, I've decided to help people out with their nessingwary quests in Nagrand. Ok, really I have an ultierior motive, skinables, SOOOOO many skinables. Hopefully by the time Wrath comes out I'll have my Leather Working maxxed out.

On with aightly more awesome news I was finally able to reach exalted with Org. Earlier today I realized that I was half way to exalted with Org and why not just go all the way? I figured it would be cool to have a pack of wolf riding mounts on random, and I play enough AV anyway it should be easy. So I decided to go for it. My thing with AV is I always strive to be the first out of the gate, first one to Bal and at the front of the offensive. This time though I was in it to farm rep, which means I had to stay close to the people where I would have to turn in the blood and scraps, this meant I had to play D /sigh. Anyway, i was part way through my first game when I realized that playing D was super easy and I didn't have to chase Allies, they would just throw themselves at us! Before long there was a pile of corpses at our feet, awesome. I realized a long time ago the best thing to collect for farming rep is blood, lots and lots of blood. A 5 pack of blood could get you 75 rep which was quite a bang for your buck PLUS you get the added bonus of possibly summoning the ice lord which is always awesome. Fortunately for me, the first game that I played was a long one where we won by playing defense, I was able to get about 3,000 rep out of that game! The second game after that we won on O and I got about 1,000 off of that game.

After those games I realized another way I heard of for getting rep, and that's to go back to the factions starting zone and do the lowbie quests. Sounds good to me, I'm level 70 and the highest thing I'd have to kill is level 10, I can one shot everything! I'm in. I make my way over to Durotar and do a couple into quests each one took about 5 minutes and got me anywhere from 150-500 rep with both the Darkspear trolls AND Org. Awesome bonus but I had to run around too much for my liking. Back to AV!! I love AV. At this point I'm about 1,500 rep away from exalted, come on, I can do that if I have about 20 minutes. So I went and started playing some hardcore D, usually I'm lazy and and let the Allies come to me but this time I went and hunted them down. It looked like it was going to be an O winning game wether it was them or us and I wanted the rep. I mean I had class to leave for in 30 minutes. About 10 minutes I was 3/4 of the way in and I was looking good but all of a sudden we were swamped by Allies and with 10 of us on D and I didn't know if we were gonna make it or is the people to turn the stuff into were gonna be killed, I start killing everything in sight, pet, gnomes, nelfs, bunnies, if it moved I killed it. We were able to beat them back to frost wolf graveyard and a bit beyond. At this point I looted every body I could find and ran back to the primalist to turn in all the blood I had and DING! Exalted baby!! I spent the rest of the the game on a high. We lost, but that's beside the point. I ran out and got a swift brown wolf to add to my pack. Up next, the trolls and Raptors!

FIrst trip to the Terrace

2008-10-05T00:15:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, Mio once again with my faithful cat Kainda, here to relate tail of our first trip into Magister's Terrace. So I love running instances, this is the last one that I hadn't done and I had the daily from a day or two ago and figured why not? Let's knock this last one out. So over trade chat I found someone who was looking for DPS and I sent them a message right away and was able to secure a spot for myself. It's the weekend so I wasn't busy,I was freshly repaired and was able to grab a few more arrows and empty out my bags in only a couple minutes. I then headed right over to the Isle of Quel'Danas ready for a fight. I wasn't sure quite what to expect so I grabbed a quick pamphlet on the guys in there, stuffed it in my bag and joined up with the group. Everything went fairly well except I was with a paly tank that needed pretty secure crowd control and I wasn't used to that. He's a paly for Elune's sake, I'm used to never having to cc unless something runs off towards the healer. Anyway, that's beside the point. We got to Selin Fireheart pretty easy, but it was hard to fight his goons in the crowded hallways. The fight with Selin himself was easy because I remember hearing he was kinda like Warlord Kalisomething in The Steamvault, and you need to destroy the crystals and fast when he try to get energy.

After Selin dropped like a sack of potatoes, we started making our way to this ghostie seeming dude that was supposed to be at the end of the next hall. All though he was surrounded by these pesky swarms of mana worms. Fortunately an explosive trap and a volley round was able to take care of them. And all the time we were fighting our way towards the end of the hall Vexallus just stood their, staring at us. I guess he didn't think we'd actually make it that far. Right after we started fighting he starts sending out electricity which fries us all in a manner of seconds and this time we're the ones that drop like a sack of potatoes. Once we get our bodies back I remember that pamphlet that I crammed in my bag and pull it out looking for an information I can on that ghostie. Turns out you get hit by the lightning if you stand too close together, ok, simple enough. Told my team mates about this and we stood further apart, guess what, it worked! Took a little effort and I almost died again but we made it.

At this point we start to make our way to the Priestess, we skip what we can and we fall apart at some points. The actual fight with the Priestess herself was fairly difficult, that tank died but he was battled rezzed. It seemed to me that the Priestess' goons had nothing better to do but pick on a random person and smack em around. We barely made it out of that one because the other hunter and I were setting traps and then others were breaking them and it was general mayhem. We took a minute to recuperate and started heading towards Kael'thas Sunstrider. I don't know about you guys, but the thought of trying to take down Kael after hearing so many things about him made me nervous and excited all at once. I took one last look at my trusty pamphlet, learned about the phoenix's and the anti gravity took a deep breath and headed in.

We start fighting and it's hard, I mean really hard, all of us died that first time, and one of the guys wanted to leave but we convinced him to give it one more try. We're able to get him down below half before most of us die, we're talking about calling it quits and then I realize, wait, the healer is still alive! I tell the guys to stop talking, and to rez and run, the healer is still up we may be able to do it! I start running back all ghostie like and once I cross the threshold of the terrace and end up immediately at the fight with Kael. I get flung into the air and start floating around, firing when I can and swimming away from bubbles, I die again but the others pop in and out doing some damage and then dying. I run in one more time, Kainda has been dead and REALLY upset for a long and I'm just about to die again, the healer is OOM and then dies, I'm sure we're done for, then, it happens. Kael goes down! I had less then 100 health, no mana and that sucker goes down after being super melodramatic. For all that work I get myself a shiny new axe for PvP and this awesome story, but Elune save me I NEVER want to PUG that elf again. I really just need to wait for Syeira and Lashmin to hit 70.

You've registered, right?

2008-10-03T14:33:00.001-07:00

So, on a serious non WoW related note, the elections are coming up faster then you realize and you need to register to vote. For some people the last day is tomorrow and then that's it. I know our country has problems and some times it may not seem to get better, but that is even more reason to register to be able to vote and be able to make a difference. I know this is a new blog and I doubt very many people read it as of yet, but, I feel it's my duty as an American to encourage you to care and to register. If you don't want to listen to me listen to these famous actors.

And I shall call you, Underfoot

2008-10-01T15:47:00.001-07:00

Hey all,Mio here and I thought I should share something random with you. Why? Because I can! So Mal ad I have an RL kitty who is probably the most awesome RL cat ever. She is incredibly odd and we love her for it. It dawned on me the other day though that she reminds me very much of what has to be my favorite in game animal npc. That would be Underfoot. Anyone who has played enough Arathi Basin should know about Underfoot and his friend Spike who run around the Blacksmith when the Horde has contol of it. And true to his name, Underfoot really is underfoot when ever you are trying to defend BS, I'm always afraid I'm gonna squash the little thing. My cat is the same way, everytime I'm trying to do housework, carry something heavy or fragile, or are just not paying close enough attention, there she is, right underfoot, meowing for me to stop whatever I'm doing and pay attention to her. Which I try not to do because she is not the queen of the household. Oh, who am I kidding, she is the princess, as hard as both of us try not to spoil her we can't help but give in sometimes. All I have to say is thank Elune that Kainda isn't that difficult or I may never get anything done.

Yes, I'm real

2008-10-01T01:39:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, it's me, Mal. Yes, I do exist and I'm not just a figment of Mio's imagination. I'm just the husband with way too many things on my plate. Mio's Brewfest shenanigans have definitely been fun to watch, though! Since it's my people's new year right now, I spent last night at my parents' house to observe the new year while Mio was back at our place. He says he had a great time full of friends and good brew while I was gone, so at least I don't feel too bad about being out of town the night before his birthday.

I've been spending a loooong time in Hellfire Peninsula trying to get up beyond 61. Man, this last home stretch to 70 seems to take forever! Not to mention that questing as a lone rogue is super slow, since I don't have time to get good instance gear, so I take a ton of damage from each mob I encounter. Maybe I should just respec subtlety instead of combat so at least I can kill off these guys faster. I did have some friends to quest with back in the Un'Goro days, but most of them have gone too far beyond me to have any interest in my primitive little Hellfire quests. I remember the day when it only took a handful of quests to advance each level. No longer!

Maybe one of these days I'll convince Mio to come help me power-quest through Zangarmarsh so I can get a little closer to 70 before Lich King comes out and my goal of 70 goes out the window.

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-09-30T14:05:00.001-07:00

Mio here once again and it's my birthday! This post won't be too long as I had a night that puts previous Brewfest shenanigans to shame. Now I know I'm not old but I'm used to running around with young bulls that make me feel old and last night was no exception. When you're the only one in your group who's married that adds a few years to your mental age. Last night made me feel young and I didn't have to throw down any gold, once people heard it was my birthday I had more drinks then I knew what to do with with others offering to buy me more, I'm suprised I wasn't seeing wolpertingers. Hell I barely remember falling into bed last night. Now I just need to have a few cups of tea (as I am a civalized bull) and get ready for the tamer party tonight.

Really, all day?

2008-09-29T00:10:00.000-07:00

Ok guys Mio is here and incredibly tired. So I just spent all day playing WoW. Where did the time go?! It's ok, I got a lot done. I ran the BRD Brewfest daily and saw the Swift Ram mount drop! First time I've seen it drop, I tried not to get my hopes up. I rolled an 80 yes! Oh, damn it! The tank rolled an 84 and he got it. I was so upset I almost wanted to cry out of frustration. You know the kind, where your eyes get red and hot and tear up to cool themselves down....I mean.....um...anyway. It was pretty much a PUG but I had Sarkos with me who rocked at healing. He got himself a healing trinket since he needs to update his gear. I got another broken bottle dagger and I'm thinking of going back to dual weilding but it would be a major downgrade from my Sonic Spear. I did get a new belt today though from comleteing the Arc key quest. I got the last key fragment for Kara and now just need to go attune it! I ran OHB with friends and then a Bot/Mech/ Arc run with a guild group that needed another DPS. I don't even want to know how many hours I spent playing today. At least 7 or 8, I really should have studied, but oh well, I've been trying to get my kara key for weeks but have never found an Arc group until today so I couldn't turn it down. So I'm gonna try and get a group for BM for the final attunement but from now on I'll probably play one of my many alts during the week when I don't have as much time so I don't neglect my studies.

Almost there

2008-09-25T16:00:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, Mio again. I bet at this point you're wondering to yourself, "This Blog is called Mio and Mal, but Mal hasn't posted anything. What's going on here?!" The simple answer is, is that Mal is a Grad student with a job. Meaning he works his butt off and doesn't have any time during the week to write something up for you people. So I guess you're stuck with me for now Muah Ha Ha Ha Ha! /Cough Anyway, I'm finally about Kara ready, my mana is a little low but a intellect gem should help with that, and I'd like my AP just a little higher but that's all I need. Sadly our guild is just a couple of our friends and I'm gonna have to do my first run with a PUG. That may either be very good, or very very bad. Technically I'm above all the the minimum requirements for Kara that I found for BM hunters but I'm scared about coming off looking like a huntard so I want to be extra careful and make sure I'm comfortable with my stats. I only have 1 green left and it's a trinket. Why haven't I replaced it yet? Because it's +22 hit and increases my AP by 140 for 15sec which is really good when I'm low on Mana and have to switch to AotV. But once I get my last piece of S2 gear I should be set, so I'll have to do a lot of BG's tomorrow and saturday to get it. But Elune save us I HATE that helm, it's usually never visible but I wanted to look really badass for the picture. I'm starting to feel like a real 70 now that I have my cool shoulders and I look kinda Epic and striek fear and awe into the hearts of the lowbies.

Anyway, it's time to introduce you all to my kitty Kainda. All my other pictures have Reptar in them, and while he's a good little dino I have a feeling he's going to get a MAJOR growth spurt come Novemeber 13th. Kainda is my baby though. She's been with me from thousand needles. It's just really sad petemote seems to insist that she's a boy. I must fix that, cause she is my pretty little girl. So anyway I'm hoping to do my first run on Sunday. I really wish I could do it with friends but none of them are 70 yet /grumble. And hopefully Kainda will be a real girl by then.

A Night at Brewfest

2008-09-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

Hey all, Mio here, woo! what a night of Brewfest! Kegs as big as my fuzzy butt on Snowball. The best part is the fact that it's all free. Beer after beer for as long as you want it! If it wasn't for all the dwarves popping up every so often trying to drain our kegs dry it'd be so much better. That's why whenever I can I try to make it back to Brewfest every little while, if I have nothing better to do, to try and kick their butts back to Black Rock Depths. I have to say though I don't think I've had so much fun during a fight. Chugging down beer after beer and throwing the empty steins at their big fat heads. WOOOO Doggy that's gotta smart, the only thing that would be more fun then throwing empty steins at dwarves would be throwing them at gnomes! Anyway, I've been trying to beat these guys back all day for the daily but there are never enough people to fight them off.

At the beginning of the fight all is well and good, only a few drills here and there with a couple guys in them and you can knock them all out with just 1 or 2 other people and each camp a barrel but the longer the fight goes on, the more of them pop out of the ground and man do those guys hit hard. One of them knocked me into the outhouses! There are at least a couple hundred of them that pop up during the fight and all of today we've lost but you have to drink sooo much to try to keep up that Durotar ends up all wonky.Woah! Durotar never looked so huge and spread out! Not to mention Org.
Woah...Org never looked so far away...OoOoOo look a jackalope!! Yay Jackalope! Uh....I think I need to go find those outhouses....too much beer....
Oh God why are they closed! Uhhhhhh.....Urp!....I just think I'm gonna go lay down until the world stops spinning...

Brewfest is here!

2008-09-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

All hail Brewfest! This has to be the BEST in game event of the year. Well, I haven't been playing for a full year yet, but I've been looking forward to this since I started playing many months ago. There is one thing I am very sad about though, and that's the mount, the Brewfest Rams. Now, when I first started playing I started two characters, Mio and an unnamed Dwarf that I use for cat smuggling, the whole reason I chose the dwarf (besides comparing Horde and Alliance) is because I loved the ram mount. After the first 15 levels I realized I hated playing alliance and switched entirely to Horde. While it was good for my mental health not being surrounded by underage twerp calling me a Noob because how dare I not know the answer to everything and getting called a fag. Now I know that's not everyone's experience, but it's been mine each time I gave alliance another try. But the one thing I was really sad about giving up was the Ram mount which has to be my favorite racial mount in the game. You can only imagine my joy at finding out that Brewfest had Ram mounts that you could purchase. Yeah they take 600 tickets but I was willing to put in the work for one.

Flash forward to the present, Brewfest is here! And I am Rarin' to go and plow through to get 600 tickets to get my mount. Except wait..they're giving out tokens instead of tickets....ok that's cool a minor change, but wait, where are the mounts? I'm looking through the vendor and I don't see a ram!!! At this point I'm just pissed, I want that mount! Ok ok ok, at least there is the new quest for 70's taking on a boss in BRD and when you defeat him the boss just might drop /groan. Ok so on the off chance that the mount MIGHT drop I have to roll 5 other people for it? And their are 2 mounts that might drop and I only want the ram! All I have to say is thank Elune or whoever there is to thank, that Brewfest is so long and I may get up to 5 chances a day to get it for the entirety of Brewfest. Oh well....at least I got my awesome little Wolpertinger to follow me around and that's good for now.

Who we are and why we're here

2008-09-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

Hello to everyone who has stumbled across our blog, Mio and Mal. The bloggers consist of Miorbhuil (pronounced Meer-will) or Mio for short, and Malrey. Mio, a Tauren hunter and Malrey, an Orc rogue. Together we run a guild, Leather and Lace, open to people of all genders and sexual orientations for Drenden server in World of Warcraft, Horde side. Some of te guildies that'll be mentioned the most are Sparkos, the Healadin, Kiho the Warlock and Kanday the Druid. The blog is mostly written by myself, Mio, about what's happened in the game, as well as random WoW related ramblings, some guild events that we're opening to everyone, with others making guest appearences. I don't claim to be an expert on the game, in fact far from it. Instead the blogs most imfomative parts will most likely be how one of use screwed up and how we won't do it again or how I just tried something for the first time and how it worked out. Also between us we have about 5 lowbie alts that we're going to level to certain points. Some will be twinks, while other are trying to reach endgame. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the blog!