Four weeks in

Yesterday's post was about my experience of the first two weeks of Mists of Pandaria; the ecstatic excitement I felt, confusion about which character to play, and frustration about Lae suddenly feeling unfamiliar.

The excitement is still here. :-) It's a few levels lower, not because I encountered a bad game, but because I got used to all the beautiful things. (Note to self: Need to fly through Kun-Lai Summit and just look at it again!)

Everything with Lae has improved a lot! I pushed myself into heroics and raids, got better gear and saw through my talents. Who could have known that good gear and knowing the rotation and buttons better would increase my DPS? ;-) Lae isn't as optimised as I always kept her in Cataclysm, but I don't feel like feeling bad about that, I'm having fun! I tamed a beautiful black tiger for when I eventually start playing a non-BM-spec. I also tamed a rare porcupine that has the cutest sleep animation. I tracked it together with my hunter buddy Simelda, and I really really liked this new taming experience. :-)

It's working quite nicely playing my [Dynamic Duo]. Lae gets to raid (Stone Guards and Feng down, the troll soon!) and Kinlai (my monk) gets to do pretty much everything else. Both run Raid Finder, Sha of Anger, heroics and Headless Horseman. The other day there was a hotfix to amount of Valor Points gained from heroics and scenarios that I appreciate a lot. Doing both the Raid Finders, one heroic a day and one scenario a day would give me 810 before the hotfix. With this change the same effort will cap me. If I manage to cap one of mine, the next one gets 50 % more Valor Points.

I mentioned Relic of Xuen in my last post, which is the BiS-trinket for both Lae and Kinlai. After making cards with two scribes and doing some "last hour trading", I was able to make the trinket last Darkmoon Faire. I kept it in my bag several days, before I finally decided that it was the right thing to do to give it to Lae. I'm still making cards though, and in a week Kinlai will get hers too. :-) After the next Darkmoon Faire I think I'm going to stop making cards, as the milling is no fun and I expect that the trinkets will be less in demand.

In my untrained eyes it seems the winner on Auction House is cooking mats! So I have all my level 85 alts tilling, planting and harvesting according to the weather report, and my gold is almost back up where it was when I started buying herbs to make cards.

With my new life here in Pandaria there are still new things I'm looking forward to. I spend quite some time exploring, fishing, looking for things for [Lost and Found] and taking part in what happens around me, like the Wanderer's Festival. There's unkilled raid bosses and unseen raids, pet battles (which I've deliberately postponed with all the other things going on, but I think I may start soon now!) and Brawler's Guild which just looks so cool and AWSOME. Judging by the rares I've killed in Pandaria, Brawler's Guild seems like a place where Lae should be strong.

I managed to get the Hopling companion pet, and it's definitely my new favorite! Kobolds have nothing on virmen as the quirky mobs. :)