Presenting my 3rd Level 80 - Sohma

Here she is! With the Armory's new model viewer, I figured I'd link to her through there. I couldn't wait for her to reach full rested, and just ground out that last level doing Dungeons. I've since been doing dungeons like crazy and have bought her 3/5 T9.

I can't believe I enjoy healing so much with her. It's, dare I say, more fun than dps. Okay, back to more dungeons. That is all.

Wait, one more thing. So, the new Random LFG has you locked from the "newer" heroics, including ToC. I had upgraded ALL of my gear, except my bracers and boots (which were i187) to at least i200, that means WotLK Heroic drops, and I still had ToC locked for me. I than proceeded to get 2 pieces of T9, and ToC was STILL locked. It wasn't until I got the 3rd piece that the game decided I was okay to run H ToC, and in one fell swoop H PoS too. I, find that to be a bit of a jump. I would think I could attempt H ToC with Heroic gear, that I wouldn't be expected to have Tier Gear. Guess I was wrong.

Waiting for Rested

Why oh why when I'm waiting on Rested XP to build does it seem to take forever? I'm only a level and a half away from 80 with Sohma, and I decided that since I'm pretty much only doing Dungeons with her, might as well wait for Full Rested so I can make that last level and a half go twice as fast. However, all I want to do right now is get her to 80! So the wait begins. Every day I check and it's a smidge more rested. *sigh*

While waiting, I've been doing things on Madge to get some Achievements done that I have had waiting in the wings for a while. These 3 are Needy, which my previous post was about (and I still haven't gotten), 25 Tabards, and a Winterspring Frostsaber (for 3 achievements, one for the mount, another towards my 100 mounts, and Exalted Reputation).

I've been doing the 3 repeatable quests for the Frostsaber while waiting on Battlegrounds to become ready. Why Battlegrounds? Well, I only needed one tabard to finish the 25, and I looked over all the ones I didn't have and getting the Knight's Color's was the easiest. I only need 20 marks from WSG, AB and AV, and the best part was I could sell the tabard back and get my marks back (which I will need for those PvP mounts in the future) So, as of last night I've finished that and now have the 25 tabard achievement. Now, instead of waiting for Battlegrounds to queue up, I'm doing the same with Random Dungeons and my Needy Macro.

Even though I feel I am making some progress, all I want to be doing is playing my Druid. C'mon time.... hurry.

What do you do while waiting for Rested?

To be Needy you have to be Greedy.

I still have a handful of General achievements that don't require a mountain of gold. One of those is the Needy Achievement. This requires you to win a Need roll on an item above level 185. For the record, this is pretty most all Rares that drop from WotLK Heroics and up. Maybe a few of the level 80 Normal Dungeons too. So, 1) You have to be in a group. 2) You have to roll need. 3) You have to get 100. Doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Now take a person who is geared out from Emblems and low end raids and High End Heroics. There is NOTHING that will drop in a Heroic that I can feasibly Need, unless it's from the 3 new Dungeons. So, in order to get this Achievement, I have to roll Need on things that I don't Need which by the way I slice it, just doesn't feel right.

I decided that I had two courses of action. 1) Play with 4 of my friends for every Dungeon, set the loot option to Group Loot, and roll Need on everything until I get the Achievement. Now for some people this isn't a bad idea. Some people can get a group of the Guildies and friends and keep that group rolling through many, many random dungeons, every day. Alas, this isn't me. So, I'm left with option 2) PuG it, and be forced into the new Need Before Greed System. For my mage, I don't mind much, being on the bottom rung doesn't make me feel like I'm missing out, unlike my Druid. So, I chose option 2 and made a macro that says "/p Hi everyone! I'm working on the Needy Achievement. I will be rolling Need on CASTER ONLY (I put that part in for those who may not know the new system won't let me roll Need on anything else) items. If the item is an upgrade for anyone, you can GLADLY have it. I don't need the Loot, only the Achievement." I was real hesitant to go into the LFD and spam my little macro. I really feared that I would be kicked from every group from the start, but I couldn't honestly do it any other way. I would have felt like scum for rolling Need on every caster item, when who knew if it was an upgrade for someone. I didn't want to be that person who rolled Need, just because they could.

The results? Well, I did about 5 randoms in a row, and no one said anything mean or disparaging. I got a few "okay" or "that sounds fair". Even on one of the end bosses when all the items that dropped were caster items, I didn't get anyone giving me gruff. I am relieved. I know I will probably get that one group that can't stand the idea of me doing this, but knowing that most probably won't mind has made me feel a lot better about it. Edited to add: I did the first dungeon today where someone had an issue. They were upset cause it would mean less shard opportunities, since we had a Disenchanter in the group. I don't know if they were the Enchanter or not, but I told them that anything I won, I would gladly give to them for disenchanting. They didn't reply so I assumed they were okay with it, and I didn't have to roll Need anyway.

Here is the kicker. In the first group I chose to try this with, on the first item that dropped that I could roll Need on, I rolled a 99. I will be glad when I am done with this one.

Simple Winterspring Frostsaber Mount Guide

So, I'm working on getting my Winterspring Frostsaber mount on Madge, as I still need 17 mounts to go to get my Dragonhawk. It has been a slow and tedious process, since I don't really have the time to sit and grind the whole thing out at once. I made a little guide for those of you who, like me, want the mount but can't get it all done at one shot.

First things first, set your hearth for Everlook so you can get back there on a daily basis. (Getting back to where you were after, that may prove a bit more problematic.) Also, keeping your hearth here will remind you that you are working on this grind if you slip and start to not do your set rotation, giving your more incentive to come back and finish. The only Quest Giver is in the north of the zone on Frostsaber Rock. The chain of quests are pretty simple. You start off Neurtal with the Frostsaber Trainers. You get one quest: Frostsaber Provisions to start with. It gives 250 rep and is the only quest you have until you reach 1,500 / 3000 of Friendly. Then you get your second quest: Winterfall Intrusion. This one gives another 250 rep. These two quests will take you to Honored. At honored you get your 3rd and last quest: Rampaging Giants. This quest gives 350 rep. This is a quest to kill level 59-60 elites, so be warned you might not be able to do this grind solo if you are too low of a level. So, unless you are human (than the numbers change), you would need to do the quests in this order:

FP - 6 times

than

FP and WI - 15 times

than

FP, WI, and RG - 38.8 times

See the small map to show the general locations of all the quest objectives. Once you've done the quests a few times, you can know how long it will take you to do a round of quests. I would suggest setting aside time to do 1-3 "rounds" of quests per day until you get it done.

Some notes, I've seen some people say to skip the gathering quest once you get the other two, but imho, it's on the way to the others, so why not do it? Also, WI, the kill quest, also uses mobs for another quest in the area AND for drops for Rep for a different faction, so you may have to compete for mobs.

I would suggest 2 days (3 quests per day) to do the gathering quest, than 5 (3 "rounds" per day) days for the next set, than 13 days (3 "rounds" per day) to do the last set. This would get you your Wintersaber in 20 days. Though that last set is pretty long going from top to bottom 3 times. So if you don't have the time, you can drop it down to two, or even just one round per day. This will make your grind longer, but will be less stressful per day of grinding.

I know there are probably more in depth guides to getting this grind done, but I wanted to post a little simple one that shows that you don't have to sit and grind away for days at a time to get it done. Just a little every day, and soon, you will have your own Wintersaber Mount.