Eleenha Newbury, how I have enjoyed leveling you

As I had run a good number of heroic dungeons on one of my 90s on Argent Dawn, I ended up with a silly amount of justice points. I had nothing to spend them on, so I thought I'd buy some heirlooms. Why wouldn't I expand my loomed empire to that server, too, after all? I bought cloth shoulders and later a chest, since I have two or three clothies to be leveled sooner or later. When Eleenha, the holy/shadow priest received those looms in mail, I felt very hesitant about equipping them.

Recently I've put a lot of value on not taking the easiest way up to the top level. Leveling with heirlooms is faster, for sure, and things die a lot quicker than with those quest greens... but I find that I become much better at a class, when I have to use a wider variety of my abilities to survive; when I don't just one-shot every mob I come across. After leveling so many characters, I feel like I want the leveling process itself to be more rewarding and more of a training, instead of a necessary evil. As usual, I've got a bit bored of the character after hitting 90, but I expect I will feel more inspired about gearing up after a while.

Her transmog is currently one item away from complete. I've been rather lazy with my Hillsbrad runs, but the awesomeness of Lordaeron Medical Guide keeps making me go back there until she gets it. Eleenha was also my fourth character to get her own Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade.

So apparently they have buffed something for once

The cannons at Domination Point used to tickle at their best, but now they appear to be a tiny bit more potent. This pleases me greatly. I love it when there is something I should fear, something I really want to avoid.

This is a rambling post about mixed subjects, mostly achievements that I and we have been up to of late. First off I will present you with the Darkmoon Rabbit one, That Rabbit's Dynamite! - a smooth midday kill.

On Wednesday we got around to doing the achievement involving Elegon trash in Mogu'shan Vaults. To do the achievement you must have a warden throw you, and anyone else that desires to get the achievement, through the rings aloft the pit. Stand on the control device that Lorewalker Cho stares at before talked to and face the mob towards the giant hole in the floor.

A very annoying part of my WoW life is the need to have a leveling project. I quite enjoy leveling, particularly classes that I haven't played that much before, but it's frustrating when trying to find time for daily chores and alts who are in desperate need of gear. Regardless, I made my warrior Aleksej (comrade Aleksej!) blonde and spent a pretty penny on guild vendor heirlooms to make the journey smoother. After changing his spec from protection to arms I queued for Warsong Gulch, and after playing an arms warrior for the first time in my life, I have a good feeling about it when it comes to PvP. Alek may just be the one to bring my PvP inspiration back, but it's too early to say yet.

Last, and also least in a way when it comes to achievements, but definitely not least when it comes to other aspects of the game, I have a screenshot of an awesome raft party in Krasarang Wilds.

Lanfranco the naga.

May Elune grant us strength for I am hooked on pet battles

After making a new year's resolution regarding daily quests and reputations in the previous post, I am proud to let you know that I have done half of the necessarily dailies once this year. Instead of still attempting to improve my gear for raid progression, I've focused on important things like making cute little creatures fight for the glory and honor of the Alliance. I've battled through Northrend and am about to continue my trek to Pandaria. Some of the more notable things I've caught along the way are a rare quality Clefthoof Runt, Nexus Whelpling. Water Waveling, Imperial Eagle Chick and Fjord Worg Pup, while the Scourged Whelpling remains out of my reach for now. Things don't look all that grim with a certain piece of cloth with me, though. Hail the Argent Crusader's Tabard! Wilba the Sprite Darter Harchling was the first one of my battle pets to reach level 25, while the Nether Faerie Dragon Indiga and Aqil the Dusk Spiderling are right behind him at level 24.

While spending wasting my time pet battling, I picked up one thing. My pets leveled slightly too fast compared to the exploration process. Wilba hit level 25 halfway through Northrend, which is very early considering the pet levels of Pandaria start at 23. If this is intentional, it might be better if people are leveling the whole team, but I found it relatively easy to keep the entire group of three within a couple of levels from each other by having them take part in fights as equally as possible.

I feel like it's been ages since I updated the blog. And it's true, it has been ages. I just haven't felt like there's been much to write about - apart from pet battles, heh. Nevertheless, I've been busy on and off WoW. With the return of a close friend, I made my boosting record of practically throwing him through the entire Cataclysm content in one evening. Boosting levels 81-85 with dungeons took around eight hours. I justly took credit of any "grats" that appeared in the guild chat.

I also managed to level my fourth character up to 90 - around three months after the release of Mists. Leveling the monk was definitely a more enjoyable experience than I would have thought, after having done it three times already. The monk-exclusive experience buff Enlightenment made things a bit faster for an hour each day, but the most important part of any leveling process is enjoyment. I've loved brewmaster all along, but windwalker became a lot of fun after learning Rising Sun Kick. The most incredible part of it all were Jester's amazingly high crits: they were equal to the epic-wearing Nicasia's Lava Burst at level 87.

All in all, I'm looking forward to a couple of future post ideas I have began working on. I'm particularly excited about the fact that they are not about pet battles like pretty much every second post lately... Which is, no doubt, quite unusual of me. /cough

85-90 in screenshots: Part III - Townlong Steppes & level 90

Here's the final part of leveling screenshots with a few level 90 things included. There will be more of that: we're getting started with challenge modes and raiding, and I'm going to be doing more solo attempts with Vlad.
I don't like how I've been so unfair towards some zones, for example the Dread Wastes. It was there, in Klaxxi'vess that I hit level 90, but I only had one very bad screenshot from the whole zone. Hmph.

Hieno juttu, Hermanni!

Hieno juttu, Hermanni! II

My old enemy and I meet again... -- The moment you realise you've been running to the wrong direction the whole time.

Start of legendary thingies with Wrathion.

My overall feelings regarding leveling in Pandaria? I think it's been great. I've enjoyed the quests - of course not all of them, but generally. I'm not sure if the questing experience itself was anything awesome compared to, say, Cataclysm or WotLK. In fact I've never had anything against the start of Cataclysm. It was amazing. Then it got a bit... flappyfloppysloppy. And nothing can ever beat WotLK for me, so that's the end of that.

During my leveling process I really tried to get into the sha concept and realised that it's the worst possible enemy one could face - oneself. One's negative feelings in a physical form. The concept is definitely different from what we've seen previously, but not at all less devastating. And this, if something, isn't inspiring at all, right? Wink wink.

Now how do I go forward? I'm going to get into the legendary quest chain. I've been very lazy with it so far... We're getting into our raiding stuff in Menagerie and challenge modes with some. I'm leveling Vlad and Ral up to 90, then having a look at monk and other alts. I feel positive about the future, I think it's going to be good.

Here, have some music.

85-90 in screenshots - Part II: Valley of the Four Winds, Krasarang Wilds, Kun-Lai Summit

Thing is, Nicasia has been 90 for ages now, I've just been lazy with the blog and updating this leveling screenshot series. Anyways, here's part two with some shots that I chose among the bunch that I took!

My first pet battle! I got pwned by that bunny.

Divine yaks or something. I don't know.

85-90 in screenshots - Part I: Stormwind City & The Jade Forest

Most of them feature my UI, but you'll just have to deal with it. I wanted to capture those moments as accurately as possible - not to mention as fast as possible. It's basically my first and therefore most memorable journey from 85 to 90 in the form of screenshots.

Menagerie "base" highlighted. :D

This is where our server froze.

This quest took me/us at least 30 minutes to complete due to server lag.

Loads of gyrocopters!