Weekly Update: Happy Winter Veil

Tuesday 20th of December

Achievements

I have 12285 achievement points now! Autumn 2010 I got my "It's over nine thousand!", so that would make this an average of 3k a year. This week I've actually tried out some things I've never ever ever done before. Yes, even after 4 years of playing I found unspoilt territory to try out. :)

Earned the achievements Step Into The Arena and World Wide Winner! I went with my friend Marilill the feral druid into the unknown territory that was arena. The thought of arenas always got me a bit very nervous and shaky, but she managed to convince me this time. We came out of it with 11 wins and 10 lost games. I would of course prefer to have won them all. ;) But it was my first time trying, we met some pretty tough combos, and I knew already that I'm not maximizing my spells when I PVP. I use a lot of them... But there are two I haven't got used to yet when doing battlegrounds; Wing Clip and Master's Call. Not because I don't see their usefulness! I just don't think of them when there's stuff going on. I promise I use Scatter Shot, traps, Widow Venom, Intimidation, trinket, Bestial Wrath, Deterrence, Disengage, Concussive Shot etc etc etc on every cooldown if they're needed. We hunters have a lot of things we can do in PVP situations! I just need to get used to using those last two as well. But I hope this wasn't the only reason we lost the 10 matches. We might have used some bad judgements on who to kill first etc.

I got the achievement Stormtrooper too, also together with Marilill (sooo much easier to do battleground achievements if I have someone with me!) and I spent some money and made a lot of bandages for Preparing for Disaster.

As most other bosses, Madness is way easier second time around. We got it on second try this week. :) Which meant we had a lot of spare raid time. So we went back into Firelands to start working on our meta achievements. We did Maybe He'll Get Dizzy..., Death from Above, Not an Ambi-Turner and Bucket List, and the raid group is now only 2 achievements away from the Firelands mount.

Loot

After a tip from Verg I found out that the world's most beautiful bow was still obtainable, so I went to Area 52 and bought myself a Vengeful Gladiator's Longbow for 750 honor points. :)

I also got 3 pieces of PVP gear, and bought my second Valor Point item: Emergency Descent Loop.

The Guild

Recruiting sucks. We lost one of our two tanks 2 days into the patch, which we pretty quickly filled with someone already in the guild. Then this week we lost one of our four healers. We're a 10man raid group, and this bumped us down to 12 people. With 4 raid nights a week, and not everyone being available all of those 4, we're suddenly finding ourselves cancelling raids or settling with normal modes when we normally would be working on heroic modes. It's not a good thing. Over the past year we have kept a core group, but we keep losing people here and there.

Of the applications we get, perhaps 10 % are accepted as trials. Of the trials, probably 80 % are promoted when the trial ends. Of those new people, I guess about half eventually end up either leaving cause of not fitting, wanting to prioritize other aspects of the game, not wanting to raid as much as we do, or they get demoted cause of lack of attendance or other things. It's a bit tiring, always looking for new people, when all you want is a nice little crowd to have fun with. :/

Naanei

Draenei hunter Naanei in Azuremyst

Naanei is a new draenei hunter I made, on the server Silvermoon. I picture her as Lae's little sister. I don't really roleplay, but I sometimes make up a background for my characters in my head, just for me. :)

Naanei means New One in my head. It's also a wordplay in norwegian, Naanei = NåNei, which means No like someone would say it in a jokely tone.

I'm gonna try level Naanei without heirlooms and guild, and also by only doing quests given by draenei quest givers (quest item drops and posters are also ok). The background for this is that she is a very young adult, about to travel out in the big world, kind of going by a list of names of draenei people that Lae met, which will take care of her and give her things to do. I'm playing with ideas in my head about only answering whispers from draenei players, only doing dungeons where I have quests, and only doing the battleground Eye of the Storm (camping Draenei Ruins?). Perhaps she only understands the draenei language? Perhaps she can only set her Hearthstone at draenei innkeepers? I'll see how many limitations I'll give myself as I go. I think that I might not be able to follow my plan to 85, as the redesigned zones have a more linear questing experience.

So, why would I do this? Well, I needed a new project. Doing achievements and PVP are fun, but I get tired of it from time to time. I'm also developing a tiny interest for roleplay (but I have no idea what it's about really).

Draenei hunter Naanei in Bloodmyst

So far Naanei is level 17. She still has her moth with her, she's wearing the Exodar tabard, and she hasn't chosen spec yet. The reason for this is that I feel like she should go MM, since I rarely touch that spec... But I want to go BM as usual. So while those two sides of me are figthing, she won't have a spec. (Will have to choose really soon, I realize that. People will laugh of her if they see this.) Also, I think I made my first (well, second if you count her not having spent talent points yet) error; a true draenei would probably be Jewelcrafter, as it's their racial, and also they're using crystals a lot; for example for healing. While she is Skinning/Enchanting. I will have to think through this again. :)

She's met a couple of non-draenei so far, it's difficult to ignore them and their big shiny exclamation marks! She also met the hunter trainers Keilnei, Acteon and Shaniri.

Happy Winter Veil everyone! May you have a nice holiday with your families, and may the dailies in Ironforge give you the new companion pet Lumpy. :)

Lae

Guild Release and Run on Aerie Peak EU