12/8/13

Weapon Models: Top 5 Guns

Right now I'm transmogging everything to a bow, so doing the guns first may be a bit... incongruous?  But, as a Tauren and an engineer, these are my five favorite gun models in the game.

5.  Flawless Arcanite Rifle:  This is perhaps the most suitably Tauren gun in the game, and it's from engineering, which makes it that much better.

4.  Bodyguard's Rifle:  There are several recolors of this gun from quests in Pandaria that are equally attractive.  The details of the styling are nice, and they fit well with a lot of the expansion's graphical themes.  I like the sleeker barreled guns, as well, so it gets points for that.


3.  Nesingwary 4000:  I'll admit, I hated this gun for a while in Wrath, because I couldn't get rid of it.  I had this gun from the time I could first make it as an engineer all the way up through the middle of Ulduar, when I finally got Giant's Bane.  In retrospect, though, it's a nice-looking gun, very Kirin-Tor-esque and Northrendy.

2.  Fox Hunter's Rifle:  This is perhaps the only version of this model you can get Horde-side; it's Lorna Crowley's gun.  Have I posted about Lorna before?  I love Lorna, and I wish we saw more of her after Silverpine.  Awesome characters get awesome guns.



1. Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle:  This is probably the hugest of guns you can get on a Tauren, and once the new gun sounds go in, maybe I'll go back to it.  It has nice, clean lines, nice details, and you get it off the Opera event in Karazhan.  I got this so many times while trying to get the Lil' Bad Wolf pet.  Ahem.  Of course I still had it in the bank...



Next up: top five crossbows.  And I'll take the pictures outside the Shrine so you can actually see them. >.>

11/12/13

In Memorium

One of Straw Hat Pirates' longest-tenured members died this weekend.  In-game, he was best known as Mudcrutch, a warrior and a damned good tank, but he also went by Fwibid and, perhaps one of the most clever of funny names, Bwahaha.  (Imagine it in quest-giver text.)  A lot of us knew him as Steve.  He was Maklak's drummer until he moved back to Southern California, and you can hear him on their self-titled album.  (I recommend "Roseblood" - I listened to that a lot when my cat died a couple years ago.)

Mud was one of our officers during our last peak of raiding drama (ICC, wow), and he was the one who talked me down off ledges when I just wanted to say to hell with it and quit or disband.  He had just recently started playing Diablo 3 and was enjoying that quite a bit, and he had transferred a character over to his brother's server in WoW so they could play together more.  He was the guy who could freestyle riff Hozen lingo in guild chat, who joined one of those huge, invites-anyone guilds with a misspelled name just to see what their guild chat was like.  (Apparently anthropologically interesting.)

I'd known him almost eight years; when I first joined the guild, he was part of the group I hung out with on New Year's Eve to watch the fireworks in Thunder Bluff.  He'll be missed. :(

11/11/13

On classes

Why do I like the classes I play?  Why don't I like the ones I'm not?  A few bullet points:

Classes I'm playing:

Hunter

  • Independence: I'm a solo player by nature, and being able to do so when I want to is great.  Hunters are great for soloing.
  • Ranged: I have a ranged mentality; I like being far enough away to have a chance to run away if things go pear-shaped.
  • Manageable rotation: Okay, so marksman doesn't really have that reputation, but for me, it works.  I can macro the core of it (Chimera/Steady/Arcane) and work in all the specials (Stampede, Crows, Rapid Shot, etc.) as they're available.  I can't make that work on every class.

Priest

  • Multiple healing styles: A priest can go Disc or Holy, and within each, switch it up even more - single target, AOE, direct heals, indirect heals.  I love options.
  • Reasonable healer soloing: I can quest as a disc priest and just not die.  Is this what it feels like to be a pally?  I'm not sure.

Rogue

  • Stealth: I discovered the thrill of just walking by stuff to pick flowers way back in Azshara at level 50, and it's just wonderful.  I don't have to fight stuff unless I want to.  It's like flying before there was flying.
  • Survivability: Evasion tanking the 2nd boss in the Black Morass for the last ~20% was a rush, and not doable on every class.

Shaman

  • Chain Lightning:  I love elemental, and spamming chain lightning is a bit disturbingly satisfying, especially when it procs and you get double chains.
  • Ghost Wolf: Happy puppy dances!

Warrior

  • Shield Slam!  Shield slam is so fun it warrants an exclamation point rather than a colon.
  • Charge:  I leveled in Battle Stance way too long just to keep using charge.
  • Victory Rush:  Because hitting things makes you feel better!

Warlock

  • FIRE.  Uh, yeah, that's most of it.  BURN ALL THE THINGS goes a surprisingly long way with me.  And I love my little goblin destro lock.

Druid

  • Flight Form:  I'll admit it, I made the druid initially for faster herbing.  And then I discovered just how amazing flight form is: hop out of water, keybind, A BIRD!  As I said earlier today, such freedom.
  • Healing:  My second favorite healing playstyle; variety of buttons, instant heals, some AOE "oh crap" options.
  • Downside: I like the Balance playstyle, but moonkin form just does not do it for me.  If I could glyph to play Balance and still look like a Tauren, I would.   (Am I the only Resto druid not glyphed to look like a tree?)

Classes I'm not (really) playing:

Mage

  • Main server is full.  That's pretty much my main reason my mage got stranded at 40.  I was enjoying fire, then moved her to move some heirlooms when server transfers were cheap.  Then I rolled my druid on my main server...

Death Knight

  • Confusing rotations:  I don't know which buttons I'm supposed to push when.  I'm not sure which abilities really go with which spec.
  • Starting zone:  I've played through the DK starting zone... five times now?  It's like the Worgen, Goblin, and Pandaren zones - once was enough.  Having the option would be nice, but having the option to skip it would also be nice.

Paladin

  • Confusing rotations:  Same problem as the DK, really - I was okay until Mists, and then enough changed fundamentally that I don't know what I'm doing again.  There's even only one DPS spec and I'm not sure what buttons to push for AOE vs. single-target.
  • Healing not compelling:  I tried healing briefly, but stopped because I couldn't figure out how to not run out of mana.  That was really unfamiliar.
  • Upside: Since the paladin is my last character under 87 on my main server, I'm probably going to try her again when I finish my druid.  Maybe *gasp* tanking.

Monk

  • Late to the game:  The monk suffers from being a new class when I'm full on my main server.
  • Melee animations:  The monk animations override a lot of the best melee animations - undead female special melee attack, the flippy one.  I just... wasn't as interested when I saw that.

11/10/13

11 to go






9999 bones down, 11 mounts to go.  Bear & I are taking a break for today, I think.

11/9/13

Here be Spoilers

So I bought the virtual ticket for Blizzcon this year, partly because it went up for sale while I still had birthday money, and I figured, hey, I'll get a pet out of it.  The opening ceremony was free to stream, but subtitles only work on the main stage stream, which you only have access to with the ticket, and... I left my authenticator at home. >.<  So I watched the stream soundless at the reference desk at work between helping the occasional Friday afternoon patron, coupled with WoW Insider's live blog so I could actually get some context.

So we learned:
  • We're going back in time to Draenor because Garrosh.  Apparently Star Trek isn't the only franchise to fork time in the past to get new content; Garrosh plays the role of the Romulan who went back to destroy Vulcan, and we get to play elder Spock, or some such.  (Woo double franchise spoiler post.)
  • New level cap is 100.  All well and good, lets them add another talent tier easily.  The expansion after this, they'll probably have to redistribute them again.
  • When expansion purchase, you can boost a character to 90.  This is good for folks who have been out of the game a long time, or if you've got friends on the other faction or another server you want to play with more right away.
  • They're adding player garrisons.  We liked the farms so much, they're giving us a whole little town to play with, and we get to pick where to put it.  Collect NPCs; they'll do some crafting stuff for you.  Sounds like this is a partial answer to all those requests to make the gathering skills baseline.
  • Draenor was gorgeous before the Legion showed up.
Overall, I'm... okay, not really excited.  I geek out over different things, really, but I'm looking at this and thinking, when am I even going to have time to raid?  I'm a bit of a pet collector, sitting at 188 mounts, and given a whole garrison to flesh out?  Dude.

I've always wanted to see a lot of the places that we know were changed because of pre-WoW storyline events, and places like Netherstorm, that's getting ripped apart, and Zangarmarsh, that the naga have been draining - those were pretty high on my list.  (Please let sea horses work in the Zangar Sea.)  But really - it hadn't occurred to me that the changes in Shadowmoon Valley were so recent, really.  Auchindoun, Karabor, and such - I didn't think I'd ever get to see them pre-destruction/corruption.

So far as I've been able to tell, they've been avoiding telling us who gets Garrosh back in time, but really, who has power over time nowadays?  Bronze dragons to some extent, and certain Timewalkers.  Given the last vision that the hourglass gives us on the Timeless Isle, I have a short list of bets to make about that.

I keep wanting to say Wrathion is involved in all this somehow, but every time I look at his background, I keep saying, dude, this kid's origin is just as screwed up as Anakin Skywalker's.  I'm not going to bother.  But if Wrathion's visions of the Legion are because he's somehow from the forked time, rather than our own...  But I don't think the Black Dragonflight was there long ago enough for that to be true.

Anywho, I have a placeholder Draenei now.

10/10/13

Bait & Switch

I was driving to work yesterday when I realized, "[swear words], this was another Old God end boss expansion!"  We were all so excited to be getting rid of Garrosh and fighting Sha that the bait and switch of handing us another Old God to defeat initially didn't register on my radar.

Now, I like the Old God plotlines, really, because there's so much ambiguity about whether they're good for, bad for, or just there with regards to Azeroth.  But four out of five expansions?
  • Vanilla WoW: C'Thun
  • Burning Crusade:  Woohoo Outland!  Sticking it to the Legion!
  • Wrath of the Lich King: Yogg-Saron
  • Cataclysm:  N'Zoth, though we never confront ... him? it? directly
  • Mists of Pandaria:  Y'Shaarj

You know what?  I think we're due for another Burning Legion expansion.

Loose Threads

With the Siege of Orgrimmar out, the end results of the raid (what happens to Garrosh and who will be the next warchief) are readily available on the various fan sites, videos included.

So... what hasn't been wrapped up?  I'm not a story or lore expert, but these are some things I was thinking about this morning when I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep.

  • Wrathion's Burning Legion obsession.  If the baby dragon is as right as he is certain, the Legion is coming back.  When?  In what form?  We don't know yet, and we don't know which of Azeroth's various lore figure will be marshaled against them, but I wouldn't be surprised if Wrathion is pulling a lot of the strings to fight them.
  • The Zandalari.  We took the Thunder King away from them again, but Zandalar is still, so far as I know, sinking into the ocean out there somewhere, and the Zandalari trolls still need a new home.
  • Sylvanas.  I can't be the only one nervous about Sylvanas having been relatively out of sight for most of the past... how many in-game months?  Last time we really saw her do anything that I recall, she was draggin Koltira off to Forsaken re-education camp.  I love my Forsaken characters, but I really don't trust her, regardless of how far I can throw her.
I don't think any of the pre-existing loose ends got wrapped up, either - Alleria/Turalyon are still out there somewhere, etc.  I don't know what the next expansion is going to aim for, but I'm going to guess it's not any of these.

9/12/13

Lil' Oondasta

Lil' Oondasta is a new daily pet battle on the Timeless Isle.


Just like the big Oondasta, he's got a Frill Blast, Spiritfire Beam, and Crush.  Frill Blast will deal a large amount of damage to your active pet and swap it for your highest health pet.  (Woo forced tank swap.)  Spiritfire Beam is like a chain lightning, dealing moderate damage to all pets, and Crush is a single target attack.

It took me several combinations to find a group that worked for the fight, and ultimately, treating him like Dos-Ryga and opening with a Stampede-style ability worked best.  Lil' Oon isn't particularly fast, so most of the pets I tried got to go first in a round vs. him.

Thlayli


I started with the Tolai Hare after realizing flying pets were probably a bad idea (Spiritfire Beam and Frill Blast do additional damage to flyers).  Sure, he's a critter, but Oon doesn't have beast abilities despite being one.  He's got the Stampede I wanted, and he's wicked fast.  Of course, being such a speed-heavy little rabbit, Oon's Frill Blast one-shotted him.  This is not surprising: Frill Blast one-shots a lot of things.  If you pop Dodge your first round, the Stampede will get off a bit extra damage, as well, because you'll just dodge the first Frill Blast.

Anapa

A Frill Blast death pulls in the Anubisath Idol, since he's the highest health pet in this group.  Even if the Hare dies from other damage, I swap him in second.  I had included him for this fight because a) he's got a decent amount of health and b) he's got a wicked hard Demolish vs. Beasts.  Stampede's armor break allowed the Demolish to hit basically for full damage, and as long as you don't miss, he's going to get in probably two, three if you're lucky and Oon misses one round.  If you want to try for a chance to do a bit more damage before Lil' Oon eats him, you can try to get a stun off Rupture.

Bolts

Once the Anubisath Idol is dead, Oon will probably be low enough for a mechanical with Wind-Up to finish him off, even though the armor penalty has worn off by now.  I went with the Mechanical Squirrel; I know a lot of people like Brooms with Wind-Up, but the Spiritfire Beam does less damage to mechanical pets, so it's more likely to survive the fight on the back lines.

The first time I tried this combination, they one-shot Lil' Oon.  The second night it took I think three tries, and I played a slightly more careful match (using Dodge and Rupture) to improve the odds of it going through.  If you haven't got three strong mechanicals (I don't; I have three 25s, but two are middling), you've got other possibilities if you play towards what you've got that will hit him hard, debuff him, or doesn't take extra damage from his abilities.

8/7/13

Castsequence Macro Update

It isn't really an update.  I'm still using it; it's doing surprisingly well.  After 5.4's possible changes I may need to tweak the number of Arcane Shots in it, but until then, it's still:

/castsequence Chimera Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Arcane Shot, Steady Shot, Steady Shot

I still do Murder of Crows, Glaives, That Wolf Icon That Regens Focus, Rapid Fire, Readiness, and Army of Sporebats manually when they come off cooldown.  As a Marksman hunter, I'm still average on AOE packs, but I'm generally competitive against similarly geared folks for single target DPS.

Other things recently...  I've been trying to get my shaman up to the point she can be an alternate healer for our raids on nights we can't find one, and I'm liking shaman healing better than I did back when I last tried it: a.k.a., the Burning Crusade.  I still prefer my priest, but we have plenty of priests available usually.  I also like my baby druid healing more right now than I do shaman healing, but she's in her 40s, so that's going to take longer to do.

We're into Throne of Thunder!  Currently on Tortos.  My husband has done an amazing job both at finding us recruits, as well as finding us some casually allied guilds and friends who fill in when we're short two healers.  Perhaps somewhat ironically, the only thing we're missing post-exodus is a full complement of healers, and that's exactly who left us for a bigger server environment.  5.4 and Connected Realms can't come soon enough.

7/6/13

Quality of Life Addons

I don't run with a lot of addons.  I use the default interface for most things, including raid frames and healing.  I have the standard minimum for raiding - a boss mod (DBM), a threat meter just in case, and a DPS meter (Recount) to make sure I'm not entirely useless.  Most of what I use is for minor quality of life, things, though.  Here are the ones I absolutely can't do without:
  • Altoholic:  Keeps track of what I've got on who, when the last time I logged everyone on was (I do a full log-on of my random little alts about every three weeks), who has auctions I should check on, and so forth.  It also keeps track of what my toons are wearing, so when I log over to a crafter, I can easily see who needs upgrades in which slots, or which slots aren't enchanted.
  • AuctionLite and AuctionLite Improved Search:  I love love love the purchasing interface for AuctionLite, and I appreciate the searching/pricing options on the selling tab.  The improved search purchasing interface lets me search specifically for Battle Pets, and all the various entries for each pet are smooshed into a single entry in the big list, so I can easily see if any of the handful of auctionable pets I don't have are listed.
  • BattlePetCount:  There are other similar addons out there; this is the one I use for the mouseover information and quality flagging (it tells me if what I'm fighting is better than what I've got with an asterisk).  Given that I occasionally try to up my standing on my realm on WarcraftPets, it's been fairly handy.
  • CT:  I'm using three parts of CT: MailMod, MapMod, and PartyBuffs.  MailMod is nice for opening a lot of mail at once and having a log of just who you just mailed that 500g to, and it's the one that makes me realize a patch has disabled my addons (because they're now "out of date"), because it's the first one I notice missing.


I run others, but these are the ones that I miss the most if they're broken or if I haven't yet re-enabled addons.

6/20/13

Not dead!

Just, you know, busy.  With this:


And this:


181 and counting.

Actually I got Attumen's pony on my priest; I've been running ten characters through a week for about six weeks.  It apparently worked.

5/26/13

Durumu's Maze


I'm going to tell you something for which you can hate me:  Durumu is my favorite boss in Throne of Thunder.  One of the things I'm good at is situational awareness, so I notice a lot of the visual cues for the fight.  For example, when the red, yellow, and blue beams first pop out, circles of the corresponding color flash where the three mist beasts are.  You can save yourself a lot of running as one of the beams if you notice where they are.

What kills most people, though, is Durumu's maze.  When Durumu pre-casts his disintegration beam, it will always be pointed at the entrance of the wing, so if you remember where you came in, that's where he'll be facing.  If at all possible, immediately move to stand behind him at this point, where the blue circle is on the first graphic:

Durumu's disintegration beam precast; the eye beam points down towards the entrance, and red arrows point to either side where the maze will start forming.  A blue circle above him shows where you should stand to start.
Durumu's disintegration beam pre-cast
The maze will start forming on either side of him.  It is important to note which side the maze starts forming on to minimize the damage you take during this phase.  He won't start moving the beam until the floor has filled with fog, so you have a bit of time to get in position.  The following two graphics are laid out for if the maze starts forming on Durumu's right; if it starts forming on his left, just flip the following two images.
Illustration of the maze beginning to form; Durumu still faces the entrance; a purple cone of fog forms on one side, then moves to fill the floor in a circle moving behind him.  The raid should move in the opposite direction the fog starts forming.
The maze beginning to form
When the maze begins to form, a purple cone of fog will appear on the floor to one side of Durumu, at a 90-degree angle to the disintegration beam precast.  The fog will then begin filling the floor, moving in a circle around the room.  Regardless of which side it starts on, it will go in the direction which moves away from the beam pre-cast and behind Durumu.  So, as shown above, it it forms on Durumu's right (illustration left), it will move clockwise around the room.

In this case, the raid will move counterclockwise to get in front of where the maze fog began forming.  Never run through the beam pre-cast.  This will kill you.  Ideally you will be somewhere behind Durumu when he begins forming the maze, and you can just run through a bit of fog to get to the starting point.

Once the floor fills with purple fog, the maze will start forming.

Graphic showing the paths of the maze beginning to form
Moving through the maze
The path for the maze will not open up all at once, but will open up in three paths as Durumu rotates the disintegration beam.  Basically, the floor is divided into six concentric rings; the inner (melee) path uses the two inner rings, and will zigzag its path between the two.  The middle path uses the third and fourth rings, and the outer path uses the fifth and sixth rings.  Avoid the outer path unless you have speed boosts, because the disintegration beam will move faster than you can run otherwise.

The maze path will move in the direction the maze formed, so if it formed going clockwise, you need to run clockwise.  Whichever way the maze fog filled in is also the direction the beam is going to move.  You must stay ahead of the disintegration beam, or you will die.

The full maze won't spawn at once, so you'll just want to stay at the furthest extent of your currently spawned path.  Try to avoid any puddles left from the lingering gaze attack.  If you need to, in the LFR difficulty, you can cut over to a closer path to stay ahead of the beam.  Just don't do this too often, or the fog of the maze will kill you.

Remember, the maze's fog can spawn on either side of Durumu initially, and the side it spawns on determines the direction you run.

3/20/13

Beasts of Fable

The initial pass on the Beasts of Fable took a couple tries for some, but for most of them I guessed pretty well.  I love my Infinite Whelpling.

  • No-No: Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling
  • Lucky Yi:  Infinite Whelpling, Mr. Grubbs
  • Greyhoof:  Infinite Whelpling, Mechanical Squirrel
  • Skitterer Xi'a:  Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling
  • Gorespine:  Anubisath Idol
  • Ti'un the Wanderer:  Infinite Whelpling
  • Kafi:  Fluxfire Feline, Robo-Chick, Mechanical Squirrel
  • Dos-Ryga:  Infinite Whelpling, Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling
  • Nitun:  Cinder Kitten, Disgusting Oozeling, Infinite Whelpling
  • Ka'wi the Gorger:  Cinder Kitten, Disgusting Oozeling, Infinite Whelpling
Even with the nerf to the Anubisath Idol's Deflection (it was Reflection), he's still pretty strong.  There are several aquatics, and the Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling's Quills are really useful even when it doesn't go first.

I excised the Cinder Kitten from the second pass through, mostly because he makes such sad, sad, mewing sounds when he gets hit.  He's a total glass cannon, too - you'll get to hit hard with him maybe twice before he's dead on these guys.

One fight I haven't figured out how to do differently is Kafi - I'm still having to stack mechanical pets for him.  He eats the Anubisath Idol too quickly, and even with the critter's stun duration reduction, they still didn't make a dent like Wind Up or the Fluxfire's Supercharge + Pounce combo does.

2/3/13

Spirit Tamers

There are a lot of combinations of pets you can use to beat the spirit tamers; some rely more on the random numbers coming out in your favor than others.  These are some of the combinations I've had decent luck with.



Thundering Pandaren Spirit:
  • Critter: Mr. Wiggles or a Tolai Hare.  Mr. Wiggles has the health and a hard-hitting attack to survive and pummel the Pandaren Earth Spirit, and the Tolai Hare just as the speed to ignore the crowd control and usually dodge enough to get the job done.
  • Beast or Dragon:  Mr. Grubbs or the Infinite Whelpling.  I've had good luck with both beating the critter-family ooze.  Set up Mr. Grubbs with Leap to flip the speed advantage and you'll get to hit hard twice in a row.  (In the screenshot, the Cinder Kitten is filling in for Mr. Grubbs.  Adorably.)
  • Mechanical:  Mechanical Squirrel or Fluxfire Feline.  Really, anything with Wind-Up is going to get the job done.  Stone Rush is going to hit hard, so something that can get back up afterwards helps.

Whispering Pandaren Spirit:
  • Critter: Mr. Wiggles again.  The moth can be taken out by a lot of things, but Mr. Wiggles seems to be surviving best right now of what I've got available.  It's a critter-classed moth, rather than a flyer.
  • Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  The dragon pet does mostly air attacks, which are weak against dragons, and the Infinite Whelpling generally hits hard, especially when going second, and can heal if needed.
  • Dragon or Magic:  If the Infinite Whelpling didn't survive the dragon for some reason, the Disgusting Oozeling or another dragon (Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling, etc.) can finish off the Air Spirit.

Flowing Pandaren Spirit:

  • Dragon: Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling.  Quills is strong against the fish, even if you don't get to go first.
  • Critter or Beast:  I've found Mr. Wiggles to be quite nice with his combination of Headbutt and CrouchHoof is a solid filler attack.
  • Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  A solid closer in most cases, the Infinite Whelpling will have few problems with the Water Spirit.
Burning Pandaren Spirit:
  • Critter:  Mr. Wiggles.  The Fire Spirit gives me the the most trouble still, but I've been going with Mr. Wiggles, against whom his attacks are weak.  Headbutt plus a self-heal make a decent combination here.
  • Dragon:  Infinite Whelpling.  The Infinite Whelpling can handle the dragon pet here without many problems.  Just know that the dragon will do Lift-Off after Cyclone, so don't waste a cooldown skill on that round.
  • Magic:  Disgusting Oozeling.  The Disgusting Oozeling puts flying pets to shame.
There are other pet combinations that will work, but with a half a dozen pets, you can comfortably cover all four.

1/20/13

Farmer Nishi


This probably isn't new news to anyone who's been battling Pandarian pet tamers for a while, but... Farmer Nishi is amazing for leveling up your low-/mid-level pets.  You can take two low-level pets up against her; they just need enough health to survive up to about four castings of Sunlight.


Farmer Nishi has two elemental pets that mostly heal and have weak damage options: the Singing Sunflower, set up with Photosynthesis, Inspiring Song, and Sunlight, and the Terrible Turnip, set up with Leech Seed, Inspiring Song, and Sons of the Root (yep, she's cheating on her skill set ups).  Her worm is a beast set up with Consume, Acidic Goo, and Burrow.  I think he's supposed to be a silkworm, but his skill set is more like Mr. Grubbs.


The key to making this fight easy, I think, is an aquatic pet with a) a moderately strong, often available damage spell (the sunflower is going to heal ~200 hit points a round) and b) a self-heal, because you're going to need to keep it alive through all three of Nishi's pets.  As you can see in the screenshot, I'm using Jubs, a Jungle Darter.  Most frogs and toads have this same skill set.  Other aquatic pets, or pets with aquatic abilities, may work just as well; aquatic is strong versus elemental, and the extra damage helps with the sunflower's healing.

Whatever pet you're using for killing things, you want to start with your low level pets, doing one ability with them before swapping them out to make sure they get credit for the battle.  Neither the sunflower nor the turnip is likely to kill them, as long as they have about 500 hit points, and the worm will always go last.

Nishi will open with either the sunflower or the turnip, but usually the sunflower.  If you get the turnip first, that's great; just kill it straight through.  If you get the sunflower first and you're using a frog, you want to use Frog Kiss on it until you get it frogged; Nishi will then swap it out for the turnip.  You're doing this because her worm has a very good chance of killing your pet if you take it on without the extra hit points from Sunlight.

The sunflower will open with Sunlight, then do nothing but heal itself until Sunlight is down to two on its counter, then cast it again.  The turnip generally starts with Sons of the Root, which should give you an opportunity to heal yourself once before you can actually damage it.  Sons of the Root is an eight round cooldown, so if you don't miss, you'll probably only see it once.  It usually follows with Leech Seed, which is a four round cooldown, and then Inspiring Song, a three round cooldown.  This means you will have rounds where the turnip does nothing.

If you've managed to get the sunflower second, either through chance or Frog Kiss, once the turnip is dead, you can kill the sunflower.  At this point, if you're  using the frog, you do not want to use Frog Kiss, since you're going to want to use it heavily on the worm, and you don't want to risk swapping the sunflower and the worm back and forth, because the sunflower will heal them both like mad.  If Sunlight is going to run out soon, it may be worth passing to keep the sunflower alive long enough to cast it again; you want it for at least two or three rounds on the worm, if not longer.

The worm tends to open with Acidic Goo, then will Burrow and alternate Consume and Acidic Goo until Burrow is back up.  If Burrow connects, it hits hard, easily 500 to 800 points, depending if it crits.  Luckily it does miss often enough that it's not a guaranteed game-over.  Spamming Frog Kiss and using Healing Wave on cooldown usually keeps a frog alive if it's got a couple rounds of Sunlight for extra hit points.

Depending how low level your pets were to start, you're usually looking at two to three levels when the battle's over.

If you don't have an aquatic pet with a heal yet, there are frogs, turtles, and water striders throughout Pandaria, which will start at level 22 or 23 depending where you catch them.  Any of those should take you just a few tamer battles to max out, and they're plentiful if you want to farm for a rare one if you haven't got an aquatic stone.

1/14/13

Pandalock update


My mage has upgraded her warlock cosplay.

1/13/13

I may have a problem


Here I am, camping for a Minfernal.  I spent at least eight hours in Felwood Saturday, broken up between flying around Shatter Scar Vale killing Tainted Rats, Tainted Cockroaches, Tainted Moths, and occasionally Tainted Oozes (because, let's face it, Disgusting Oozeling is spelled G-O-L-D) and flying around the zone as a whole wiping out battle pets to, theoretically, free up some to spawn elsewhere.

Saturday went badly, since, well, I didn't even see a spawn.  I did finish off my fifty rare captures (and have two to three each of the tainted pets and the toads rare).

So today I made a death knight on a low population PVP server, figuring I'd see how their Felwood camping was.  I got it about halfway through the death knight starter zone, and then my husband wanted to run Ahn'Qiraj on an alt, so I went along to help kill Twins.  I logged back over, and, since I had logged out in Felwood, as soon as he invited me, it popped me into his server's CRZ mix of Felwood.

I don't really know what server I actually popped out on, since CRZ is anything but obvious, but I joked to him that I would be right there... as soon as I did a flyover of oh my God there's one spawned.  Eight hours on Saturday, an hour and a half invested in a (green cow) death knight, and the bane of rare campers everywhere, CRZ, gets me a Minfernal spawn.


He's common quality, but I really don't care.  A Qiraji Guardling in March and I'll be a Zookeeper.