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!

PANDARIA IS NOT PREPARED!

First of all I'll say sorry for not posting anything for days! You know, this thing called Mists of Pandaria was released and it's not like awesome or anything like that... Yeah... Woaahaowou!
I could talk about the expansion itself endlessly, but I'll spare you for now and do that later sometimes. Instead, this post focuses on RP things. To me it's obvious who are the first of my characters to take on the war in Pandaria. Nicasia (who was the first one to get to 90), Raleigh and Vladan alike all travel to the long lost continent, but with different ambitions. I think I can pretty much promise we'll hear from each one as the expansion progresses. Here's a taste of where they started and are starting.

Nicasia, although not sure about her loyalty to the Alliance, joins the war, but most of all out of curiosity. Looking to expand her knowledge and power, she comes to the conclusion that the Alliance is her best bet at setting foot on Pandaria. It hasn't yet struck her that her endless curiosity and recklessness might cost her her life one day, so the Hex Machine continues to adventure alongside her loyal companion Reth'rek.

The ginger is taking Pandaria - in a retributive state of mind! Resulting from the attack on Theramore, Raleigh has experienced increasing rage and revulsion towards the Horde. Despite swearing he'd never pick up heavy weaponry again since he returned from the cold north, the ever so silent and calm paladin has decided to grab his emerald swo-- mace once more, and storm Pandaria. Known mostly for staying in the back rows, taking care of the injured and supporting the battle; how is the pissed medic going to make it in the unforgiving outback and jungles of Pandaria?
(P.S. He did get an actual, long desired emerald sword, too! More about that later.)

Vladan never fully "joined" the Alliance; his presence, like most death knights', is merely tolerated around Stormwind, and he remains aligned with the Knights of the Ebon Blade. However, due to his blacksmith background and therefore, his wide and deep knowledge of weaponry, combined with his unusually perfected combat skills, he was hired as a mercenary to aid the Alliance in the war in Pandaria.

My other characters will make their way to Pandaria later, too, but I'll be focusing on this trio intensively for the first months. As I get into my panda routines with Nicasia, I'll get to leveling the other two. See you in Pandaria!