A Sand-Filled Vial

Today, this happened:

Wait...did I just drink a vial filled with sand?!

It took me ages to gather up the necessary materials, but thanks to some very good deals on flasks on the Auction House and my relentless determination to annoy all my transmute-capable friends, I managed to obtain a Vial of the Sands. Since I know no one who is willing to be recruited into World of Warcraft for the purposes of getting me an X-53 Touring Rocket, this was my only real option for a passenger-carrying flying mount. Now, I just need to find a passenger to carry around. =P

Do not anger me, for I have plenty of BBQ sauce!

Well, That Was Weird

I just got out of one of the weirdest Zul'Aman runs I've ever been on. The group consisted of 3 guild members and 2 pick-ups (I was one of the pick-ups) that decided at the outset to attempt a bear run. Things started out really rocky right off the bat during the Akil'zon fight - I died once because I was too far away from the ranged DPS who got targeted by the Electrical Storm, was immediately combat rezzed, and then died again instantly because Akil'zon decided be a jerk and target me with Static Disruption before I could even heal myself. Fortunately, we had a second combat rez that got me back up on my feet and let us finish out the rest of the fight without issue.

Nalorakk and Jan'alai were not noteworthy at all, and we managed to get to Halazzi with a good few minutes to spare on the timer. I don't know exactly how much time we had left when Halazzi went down, but it couldn't have been more than 10 or 15 seconds at most. It was pretty close. I didn't win the bear, but I got my Bear-ly Made It achievement as well as completing The Captive Scouts quest, which is definitely good enough for me. (Not to say I don't want the bear - I definitely do - but I feel like I was the weak link in that run due to the several deaths, so I'm not going to begrudge the person who won the mount their victory.)

Anyway, you're probably wondering right about now why I think that run was weird, and there were several factors that contributed to it:

1. It was a semi-PuG run that actually managed to get the bear without too much difficulty and without any character in the group having done that accomplishment previously (all 5 of us got our achievement for it).


2. Aside from some small bits of advice here and there and the initial "Let's go for a bear" conversation, the 3 guild members all spoke in nothing but question marks. I doubt it was a UI error since there were some important statements here and there that displayed correctly, but the rest of the conversation in party chat looked something like:
   

   ?
   ???
   ??
   ??
   ???
   ?

   I have no clue whatsoever was going on there.
   


3. After completing the bear run and getting a bear for one of their guildmates, the three just left abruptly. I can understand if they didn't need any more Valor Points and just wanted to go on another bear run without bothering to complete the instance, but they didn't even bother to go back and loot the previous chests, either. Just rolled on the mount, got it, and left. Oh well, all that meant was a very quick Valor Point payoff for their replacements and more loot for me and the other original pick-up member at the end of the run.

Last Stop: Victory!

I nabbed the above this past Saturday while doing Wintergrasp with some friends. It just so happened to also net me the below, too. =)

Now I shall never have to do Wintergrasp again! By which I, of course, mean I will continue to do Wintergrasp at every reasonable opportunity. =P

I'm really looking forward to see how Blizzard plans on making Tol Barad more awesome than Wintergrasp, though I'm somewhat apprehensive about the upcoming queuing changes that will make it more difficult for Alliance on Feathermoon to be able to participate.

I Think I Can

...I think I can.

Just gotta keep on chuggin'. /train

Beep Beep!

It's most definitely not a Jeep.  =P

Cathedral Cruisin'

Glory of the Hero, part 2

Last night, my Glory of the Hero group was on what can only be described as an epic roll.  Six achievements knocked completely out of the park!  Collectively, we nabbed:

• Make It Count
• Split Personality
• Snakes.  Why'd It Have To Be Snakes?
• Less-rabi
• Share The Love
• A Void Dance

Of all the above, Make It Count and A Void Dance had to have been the most frustrating.  Every prior Make It Count run would be spoiled by some relatively minor difficulty, such as dismounting too early, accidentally aggroing an extra dragon, forgetting to take Evasive Maneuvers...(yeah, that last one was all me  >.>).  As for A Void Dance, well, that was just a complete RNG crapshoot.  The Azure invaders seem to hate that voidwalker almost as much as I do now...they were quite contented to let him rot in his cell for ages.

As for Less-rabi, believe me, it's not nearly as hard as various sources try to make it seem.  The best strategy seems to be to just beat him down as fast as possible while having a few interrupts on hand.  In our case, we used a 1 tank 4 DPS strategy and managed to down him before he even attempted to transform a 3rd time.  And all of this without a Rogue of Shaman with 5/5 Reverberation to act as a dedicated interrupter.  I've spent more time worrying about this achievement than any other, and we managed it in one shot in less than a minute.  o.O

And, of course, a screenshot of the drake:

Huzzah for nerdpoints!  =P

And They Just Keep Rolling In

Achievement-wise, this has probably been my most productive week since the system initially launched.  =P

Yes!

So Close....

...Yet so far away.  ='(

Glory of the Hero

For the longest time now I've been wanting to try to get the Glory of the Hero meta-achievement for completing various achievements in the heroic dungeons of Wrath of the Lich King, as well as the Reins of the Red Proto-Drake it awards. In truth, I've been after any proto-drake mount ever since I first found out they were obtainable, but they've all managed to elude my grasp thus far. The Mysterious Eggs the Oracles sell me always seem to hatch into White Tickbird Hatchlings or Cobra Hatchlings rather than Reins of the Green Proto-Drake, Skadi the Ruthless in heroic Utgarde Pinnacle never seems to drop his Reins of the Blue Proto-Drake when I'm around, and the Time-Lost Proto Drake rare spawn that drops the bronze Reins of the Time-Lost Proto-Drake seems to be camped 24/7 by other players after the mount. Plus, since I doubt I'll ever have the stable free time necessary to earn any of the raiding or PvP achievement mounts, the Red Proto-Drake from Glory of the Hero is essentially the only option that does not leave me at the mercy of the RNG gods.

Sadly, until recently my progress towards actually obtaining the meta-achievement was extremely limited, especially considering that I only ran about 1-2 heroics per week, and that about half of those were pick up groups put together from the LFG system. Even the ones I would run with friends, raiding associates, and acquaintances all seemed to be focused on getting through the instance as quickly and painlessly as possible, to the point where many times one or more players in the group would just outright refuse to even attempt any of the achievements.

Thankfully, it seems I'm not the only one who's run into similar experiences. I've managed to get a group of folks together who are also interested in completing Glory of the Hero, and now we're really tearing through the various achievements that seemed fairly impossible not even a month ago. The group's first run was this past Wednesday, and since then I've managed to lead several groups, nabbing On The Rocks, Watch Him Die, Gotta Go!, The Party's Over, Volazj's Quick Demise, Respect Your Elders, Volunteer Work, Consumption Junction, Better Off Dred, Oh Novos!, and Zombiefest! along the way. We also would have managed to get Hadronox Denied if the boss hadn't bugged out on us. Plus, some folks in the group have also managed to get Less-rabi, Make It Count, Ruby Void, Emerald Void, and Amber Void (with myself amongst those who managed to get Ruby Void and Emerald Void).

It's nice to have a goal to look forward to again. Since raiding is nearly impossible due to my erratic schedule, and earning Champion's Seals/Dalaran Cooking Awards can only amuse me for so long, I was really beginning to lose all interest in even logging on when I had the chance. Hopefully, these new Glory of the Hero runs will keep me occupied and engaged until I can get my schedule stabilized and start raiding again.