I hope you didn’t miss out on Pirate Day festivities in WoW. But my guildie @glyneth perhaps more fittingly dubbed it Pug Like a Pirate day after encountering me and my beloved pug battle pet, Puggles, above.
I took the Pirate Day festivities a wee step further, thanks to the Dread Pirate costume I bought Puggles on the Isle yesterday afternoon. You see, this gentleman named Whizzig, Merchant of Time, turned up on his giant snail and had them available for a few timeless coins. And I simply could not resist.
Those of us not at Blizzcon at the moment are thankful to have Hallow’s End activities to keep us busy. And pleasantly, there are even a few *new* features and activities in which to take part. And thus, today’s Friday Five, Five Hallow’s End Faves.
Creepy Crate. Don’t let its clumpity clump clumping behind you fool you– there’s a shadow priest trapped in there! Park yourself next to a critter and you’ll see what I mean. Those are SHADOW ORBS you see before you…
Feline Familiar. A cute kitty with glowing green eyes and a witches hat, who pops out onto a broom to follow you as you fly around and about. My only compliant here, is the kitty doesn’t really have as wide a range of animations/activities as some of our other pets. But it is adorable so I’ll live with it.
Stink Bomb Runs. The fun of PvP without all that pesky danger! You hop on the back of a witch’s broom (as per above, which I did while posing as one of those humans’ ghostly ancestors) and are whisked away to your enemy faction’s city where you are able to merrily toss stink bombs wherever you’d like. Now that’s fun!
Tons of Guild Rep via the candy buckets. Due to having a number of high level characters, I’ve yet to max out my guild rep on any of them. I slapped on my Renowned Guild Tabard, got myself a wickerman buff, and then set off to collect enough tricky treats from candy buckets to buy the Feline Familiar, and earned a ton of guild rep along the way.
Hallow’s End Vendors. Pet and toy vendors, wand vendors and mask vendors. Not only do tricky treats finally have a use, those folks who have been perpetually a few masks short of an achievement can take care of that at their leisure, no longer dependent upon RNG.
Hasten ye to Orgrimarr and Stormwind to embark upon a new adventure, which will eventually result in this creepy crate following you home. He will clatter behind you all clickety clackety, occasionally popping up an eye– or a tongue– for a quick look around. Get him too close to a critter and ZAP! purpley lightning will wrap around them and suck them into the crate.
Watch out tho– I haven’t found a way to get rid of the foul stench from his green gaseous emissions…
BREAKING NEWS: There seems to be a shadow priest lurking within the creepy crate! the shadow orbs do not lie!
For most of us, September is devoid of holidays other than Labor Day (a day upon which many of us labor.) But not so in Azeroth– it’s the kickoff of the prime holiday season:
It’s nice to have them all bunched together in the midst of the pre-expansion doldrums. Inevitably, the holidays bring the recently MIA back online and provide great opportunities to get the guild together to do something that all can participate in regardless of level and gear.
Harvest Festival
Not just an excuse to sit down at the enemy’s table and eat their pie, this holiday is the single best way to power level an alt’s neglected cooking skills. The bountiful tables outside the major citites make a good place to hold a guild party, especially if you are PvP inclined. Tons of achievements are attainable, including one of my favorites, wherein you get the Turkinator buff and run around like mad, shooting turkeys. Mwahahaha. *cough* But I digress.
No, wait, as Moober reminded me this really is a holiday just about sitting down at a table and eating strange conjured foods. Oh well. We still have Pilgrim’s Bounty to look forward to for the above. Need moar coffee.
Pirate’s Day
Last yer, my horde guild had a small dance party on top of the Booty Bay inn, to hang with the pirates, yo. I think my favorite part of the event is the long-duration pirate outfit it gives you. Last year, this was basically an ahicevement in search of a holiday. Too soon to know if Blizz has anything up their sleeve, given the Cataclysmic changes incoming.
Brewfest
Who doesn’t love a holiday that features pink elekks and tossing pints of ale at Dark Iron dwarves? And a chance at the sexy mounts you see in the above screenshot? It should be easier than ever this year to get your shots at Coren Direbrew, thanks to the holiday bosses being in LFD. And it also means you won’t have that same stingy guildie taking everything that drops, unlike two years ago *i’mlookingatyouyoungpaladin*.
What did your guild do last year? And what are you planning to do for the holidays this year? I’d love to swap ideas. And expect to see some more on these holidays here as we get closer to them.
You were probably expecting to see a screenshot of my shadow priest mindflaying away on the new holiday boss, weren’t you? But I don’t have any screenshots of that run due to a funny little glitch. You see, I was talking to my SO as I queued in the dungeon finder to go fight Lord Ahune. And although I am positive I queued as a DPS (I have never ever queued her as a healer as I have never healed as a priest despite having forked over $1k G for dual spec holy), I got sent in as a healer.
o.O
The group, 4 guildies from another server, didn’t remember anything about the boss. I took that opportunity to tell them I’d never healed and had not intended to heal but would give it my best shot. The ice stone was melted, and then I watched the adds run around and eat the rogue. And then the other melee, DPS, then the shadow priest, myself, and the tank.
Uh, that didn’t go so well.
We briefly discussed what it was exactly that folks should be doing (melee should hit what the tank is hitting not tank mobs), and take 2 was so flawless we killed Ahune in our first pass of his ready to be damaged state (yes I DoT’d and wanded my bony undeaded arms off during that phase.)
I was so pleased that we all survived and killed Ahune that I felt just like the jumping for joy murloc suited me above.
I went on to kill him on two other characters with two to three friends plus some LFD peeps to round out our party. And this is coming from someone who stubbornly 3-manned most of the holiday bosses last year with my and my SO’s army of alts and was not excited about having to go with a full 5-man party via LFD.
So far I haven’t seen any of the shiny new fun loot (the shaman did get a cloak upgrade for her healing set though), but am crossing my fingers that at least one of my ladies gets to take home a frosty elemental pet. Several could also use the Frostscythe of Lord Ahune.
For reference, here are the possible ilvl 232 cloaks obtainable from his chest:
How’s your Summer Fire Festival going so far? I’ve only toe-dipped with Ahune at this point, but hope to get further along with the achievement this year than I did last year.
Slowly but surely, I keep pushing my alts up that leveling hill. My warlock hit the big 4-0 on Monday, which meant…PONY!! The druid actually hit 78 too, but all she got were some feral talent upgrades she’ll never use.
😉
Anexxia got her Love Fool title while my shaman got started on it, and I tried to make a small dent in the Elders achievement as well. I get a little restless doing an achievement as unwieldy and far flung as the Lunar Festival with its trekking across the globe to honor the Elders. So I have combined it with outstanding area exploration and herbing. I do need to give props to Blizzard for replacing the TB Elder with Ezra Wheathoof. It was a classy touch.
Raiding
Raid-wise, we had a good attempt on Putricide in 10 (40% when most of us in the team had not seen him), and in 25 we got Festergut to 9% which far exceeds our prior attempts. It took a while to get the spore management flowing properly, and we had to suspend attempts while a raid member had an extended work-related AFK. But our final attempt showed we can do it if we get folks to show up and focus next week. It was a positive end to a week that found folks expressing frustration in our forums RE: the lack of progress in ICC over the past month.
Personally, I would, of course, like for us to progress more quickly. And I also get frustrated when folks haven’t come to raids prepared (i.e. both knowing the strats and having their flasks/food.) And I understand how it can feel annoying when folks get caught up on fight mechanics that seem simple.
To be frank, given the turmoil we had earlier this month with all of our raid schedulers quitting that task, a healer and DPS giving themselves a multi-week time out from raiding and a tank and DPS leaving the guild entirely, I am happy we have tread water. And I am confident as things have stabilized that we can and WILL do better.
Furthermore, the guild’s charter is to be inclusive with the raiding, which is always going to mean a slower pace. But since we don’t even have a Cataclysm BETA in place, we are looking at not having another raid to conquer for what? 6 months? Thinking back to the end of BC, folks got to where they could get in BT (or not as the case may be) then defaulted to running their myriad alts through Kara. I personally ran and geared up 4 toons through there and made myself thoroughly sick of it.
We’ve got plenty of time to conquer the Lich King. And unlike Ulduar, which only 1 10-man in our guild completed, and only one time at that, we won’t be running up against an easy loot pinata raid with better ilvl gear.
We have time to work on this and to improve. Folks just need a little patience.
Despite the terrible lag that’s made raiding — and everything else — a pain this week, it’s small things like the love boats (seen here in Undercity but also available to visitors in Stormwind) that have made this holiday fun.
Go to your faction’s primary LiitA city (Orgrimarr or Ironforge) every day to get your daily (5 tokens), and turn in friendship bracelets to your faction leaders daily (20 bracelets total) to make your love tokens grind go faster.
The Apothecary Trio in SFK are a blast, and are finally a holiday boss my power team couldn’t easily do as a trio with my SP heals. Trying to be not bitter our only toxic wasteling drop thus far didn’t make it into my pet window.
This is not the week to try to do an AB. We are all there to Pity the Fool at the Blacksmith. Sorry! You can gank us as we hearth out tho.
I did the candy achievements last year, but so far, it seems that everyone in my guild got their achievements with their first bag of candy/box of chocolates. So don’t let last year’s bad experience with it keep you from doing it this go ’round.
