Bye Bye Bear-Bear, or "/tantrum"

Ok, so I'm not actually throwing a tantrum, but Blizzard is taking the Amani War Bear out of the game when the expansion comes out. People get to keep the ones they have, but level 80 makes the grind for bear mounts too "unsporting" or something, since they're a 100% drop rate in a timed instance event.

We've had tale of a polar bear mount in the expansion, but the Amani War Bear is an enslaved druid. Which is just plain more awesome.

Sign my petition and ignore the jerks I'm sure have replied trying to make fun of and discourage me. They're why I never revisit any forum post I make.

Children's Week 2008, or "The Outlands Pets"

May 1-7

Please refer to the 2007 posts on alliance and horde for how to do the pre-60 quests: Turtle, Pig, Rat, or 5g.

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Level 60 required.

Doing the horde version for now -- the Alliance version has a cute draenei orphan and different destinations. Next year I'll focus only on the Alliance version since I don't have an ally above 60.

Start in easternmost part of Lower City at the Orphan Matron, who will give you the orphan whistle.


Call your orphan (Blood Elf for horde, Draenei for alliance). Both are ADORABLE little girls. I wish I could just keep my orphan year-long.


The Outlands Children's Week quests are much much easier than the pre-60 ones. There's less running and flying due to Outlands being smaller, and the people doing the quests are more likely to have epic or flying mounts.

Alliance and Horde both have to go to the Dark Portal, which you probably came through to reach Outlands (if you didn't, it's the easternmost point of Hellfire Peninsula). Some have said they have trouble getting the quest complete here: make sure she's put away, get to the bottom of the stairs and take her out, then go up the stairs. She'll react in the middle of the staircase. If she doesn't, keep running around, put her back and take her out again, try different things. If that doesn't work, drop all the quests, destroy the whistle, and go get a new one.


Alliance goes to Auchindoun's Ring of Observance in Terrokar. Just fly or ride south of Shattrath until you hit the center of the burnt-out area.

Horde gets to go to Sporegarr, which is in the far western part of Zangarmarsh, to see her friend Hch'uu. (If you don't have flight paths here, there's one at Cenarion Refuge in the east and Zul'jin in the west.)

Speak to Hch'uu to finish the quest.


The Alliance orphan wants to visit her friend Jheel at Aeris Landing in Nagrand. Aeris Landing is the Consortium outpost where you pick up monthly jewel bags.

Next for Horde is the Throne of Elements in Nagrand, one of my favorite spots in the whole game for beauty. If you have the Garadar flight path, swim north across the lake and you'll hit the spot. She'll run up to the fire elemental and get zapped, which is adorable.


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Next Phase

Alliance goes to Exodar and keep going down until you get to the basement. There's a Naaru there she wants to see.

Horde heads to Silvermoon City and down, just to the east of the entrance. There should be a bunch of taurens on a balcony. Bring out the little girl and she'll try to impress them.


Both factions get to Tanaris and head to the Caverns of Time (the mountains at far east, center). The events here are the same. Go see the dragon in the middle. Something interesting will happen. Then go get the quartermaster and buy your kid a toy dragon.

Return to Shattrath and turn the kid in for something not quite as adorable as your orphan:

Pets

[Sleepy Willy] Not as cute, but has great novelty value because he'll zap and kill little level 1 critturs (like rabbits or frogs). He's one of the very few interactive small pets.

[Elekk Training Collar] As my friend said, an "UNBEARABLY cute" miniature elekk named Peanut.

[Egbert's Egg] Gives you Egbert, a gawky, COMPLETELY SPASTIC half-hatched pink hawkstrider. He'll race around you in random directions.

Tait & Sanaria, or "A Cautionary Tale"

Every good story begins with two people meeting.


In this case, a dashing hero down on his luck, just trying to make ends meet...


And a beautiful mostly-naked girl, willing to make his dreams come true...


But like most beautiful, powerful, almost-nude women who offer strange men the money to cure their woes, there was something fishy about Sanaria. She seemed a little too persistent about getting our hero out of the city.


I thought to myself "Why would she store her gold outside Orgrimmar with the bank right here?"

So I followed the pair, ducking behind bushes and edging around walls. My infallible instincts told me something was up.

She led him to the middle of nowhere....


And all of a sudden, WHAM! She pyroblasts him! And he's left fighting a vicious scorpion, alone and terrified, thinking of his wife, fourteen mistresses, and thirty-two children. Who on Azeroth will feed them when he's gone?


He falls, and she stands laughing over his corpse.


I am witness ... to MURDER.

The moral of the story, poor readers? Never trust a beautiful nude woman when she promises free riches. It can only end in tragedy.


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None of this was staged.

The Dumblist, or "When Friend and Ignore Don't Quite Fit"

There are plenty of addons for tracking the people you hate -- GankList and VanasKOS (my addon of choice) for example -- and Blizzard finally put notes onto your friends to keep track of where you met them, but what about keeping track of that percentage of the population that seems so prevalent when you need a PUG?

Where's our Dumblist?

I had the supreme joy of heading to Orgrimmar this bustling Sunday night to make a few Auction House purchases. I ran into a good guildie friend in front of the bank, as you tend to do with a guild larger than 1, and stood around for a moment listening to the mature banter being /yelled about ("how original" says one -- "says the guy with the stupid name" replies the offended -- "this is my bank character" is the witty comeback).

Then comes an orc. An everyday orc, and obviously lost because he opens a trade window with me and tries to give me several greens, two rare-quality gems, and some other junk I didn't notice because gems are pretty. And I start to wonder if I'll actually accept the trade if he just gives the stuff to me -- he's obviously looking for someone else, maybe one of my clones, but definitely not me. And if I accept the trade, he'll be embarrassed and have to ask for the stuff back when the real person he was supposed to give it to gets there.

So I'm pondering all of this in light of my love for the way gems sparkle and he whispers me: "80 g ok>" (spelling preserved).

I blink and, ignoring the fact that I was seriously considering taking his stuff if he was stupid enough to hit trade, said: "I didn't agree to this." And closed the trade window.

He comes quickly back with "60 g" and reopens the trade window and starts putting the items back into in it.

I close it. "That's considered rude."

I then recount the affair to my guild. My friend, beside me, replies to me in guild: "I got it for 60g. Can I borrow some cash?"

I think he was joking. >_> Not about being offered the same deal, but about taking it.

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Do you have anyone you've really wanted to dumblist? Those that aren't quite horrible enough to be ignored and nowhere near competent enough to be friended, so they're stuck in a noteless limbo that leaves you wondering "How will I ever remember how dumb this person is?"

Me, I just write blog posts about them and keep screenshots of their names. You know, in case anyone is really really curious.

Primals, or "Your Guide to Enchant Candy"

Sometimes when you kill things in Outlands, you find motes in your bags.

Motes drop off of elementals. The type of elemental you're killing (shadow, water, fire, etc) has a decent chance to drop its type of mote.

Combine 10 motes to make one Primal.

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Primal Shadow: Used for items and enchants that affect shadow damage.
What Drop Shadow Motes? Grind in Hellfire (60), Nagrand (65), or Netherstorm (69).

Primal Life: Most used for healer enchants and craftables, including Golden Spellthread.
What Drop Life Motes? Grind in Zangarmarsh* (64)

Primal Earth: Used for defensive enchants and armor (such as for tanks), most valuable when transmuted by an alchemist into Primal Fire.
What Drop Earth Motes? Profession grind by mining Fel Iron. Grind in Nagrand (65-70)*, Shadowmoon Valley (68), Netherstorm (68).

Primal Fire: The most sought-after primal, most loved by mages trying to tailor their +fire damage epic set. Used in +spell damage and fire-related enchants.
What Drop Fire Motes? Profession grind by mining Fel Iron. Grind in Blades Edge Mountains (68), Nagrand* (70), Hellfire Penninsula (70). Most of these can only be reached by flying.

Primal Water: Used in spellpower and frost-related enchants and armor.
What Drops Water Motes? Profession grind by fishing. Grind in Nagrand* (65), Terrokar Forest (70).

Primal Air: Most useful in agility-related enchants and armor.
What Drops Motes of Air? Grind in Nagrand* (64-70).

Primal Mana: Highly desired for caster epics and enchants, especially Mystic and Runic Spellthread.
What Drops Motes of Mana? Grind in Netherstorm (67), Isle of Quel'Danas (70).

Primal Might: Created by alchemists by combining one of each following primal: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Mana. Used in heavy-duty epic craftables.

Primal Nether: Used in heavy-duty epic craftables. Attainable through running heroic instances, at a badge vendor, or off the AH.

* My favorite farming spot.

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Farming Suggestions

Nagrand is your best bet for most elementals: the elemental plateau is only reachable by flight, but has a plethora of fire, earth, and air elementals just for farming. (Fire is just hard to get if you can't fly.)

In south-central Nagrand: you find shadow elementals, and earth and air elementals are everywhere in Nagrand but a good spot is south of the shadow elementals so that you can keep grinding all three.

Water elementals are all over the lakes of Nagrand.

The only place for life motes is to grind the bog lords and their friends in Zangarmarsh, which actually gives you lots of Sporeggarr reputation (cute pet at exalted).

Motes of mana fall off of all kinds of things in Netherstorm and are now available from erratic sentries when you do your daily Quel'Danas quests. Sometimes if no one else is around, I kill extra sentries for the motes and average a primal every 3-5 days. Still, Netherstorm is less likely to run out of mobs to grind for motes, just watch out for mana drain abilities -- melee classes should be especially strong farming these motes.

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Never vendor motes. Always give them to your guild bank, a friend who needs primals, or auction them. Never ever vendor. (I'm looking at you, Z. You vendored MANA! /glare)

Unaided, or "When Alliance and Horde are Friends -- But Not Yours"

On a PVP server, if you see horde surrounding an alliance person who's killed you, you think they're fighting and you'll have the upper hand.

So you go in and you attack, and you watch as the horde just stands there while you battle for your life.

And you think: WTF?!

(Or some nicer variation, like "What the Poo?")

We've discussed this from Alliance side, when a level 70 rogue refused to stop his friends from killing my group over and over again.

What is the etiquette when your friend on the other side is fighting in PvP? If you stay out of it, the horde gets ticked off. If you kill your friend, the friend gets ticked off.

Is logging the only acceptable response?

In my humble opinion, the proper response is stopping the fight and letting the people on your side know if you can't help them. If your friend refuses to stop, you kill them. If your faction refuses to stop, you leave them to their fate and possibly /ignore, based on how much of a jerk they are.

The worst situation, I think, is if the friend is a ganker whom the person attacking hates. If you don't ally yourself with your faction, why are you ON that faction? Switch, moron.

Thoughts? Personally, I've come up against this twice already, people not helping me fight folks who have, in the past, killed me unfairly, and I want to gouge out their eyeballs. I always /ignore b/c, really, anyone who allies themselves with a jerk ganker must be a jerk ganker themselves. And is therefore not worth my time.

Family Camping Trip, or "We Are Like Ants At Your Picnic"

Dramatization, Sort Of

Dustfire: Yay, I'm killing nagas and getting quest drops!
Nesme (Human Warrior): I have season 3 gear and a 2000+ 3v3 team rating! You do not get to kill this naga!
Dustfire: I am mortally wounded!
Nesme: Hahaha! I can kill cloth-wearers in worse pvp gear than me!
Dustfire: I shall sneak away and heal myself, then return while he is at a disadvantage! [CHARGE!] Oh, I am mortally wounded again!
Equilibrio (Druid Family-In-Law): I shall come heal you! I have great mana!
Dustfire: I cannot find him again. [bites lip] Well, let's quest.
Equilibrio: Why are you not getting hurt?! Give me something to do! [Gets hit] Found him! [heals] He has a friend! We shall kill her too.
Dustfire: Ha! Take that, vile healer! Take that, poo-face warrior! We are victorious! I spit on the ground where lie your broken bodies! BWAHAHAHA!
Equilibrio: Oop, here they are again. Let's kill!
Dustfire: Killing with massive JOY! [dies]
Equilibrio: [dies] A vile hunter came and saved them.
Shenoah: I am brave and true and love my wife! I shall aid you!
Dustfire: I love you! Thank you for helping me! [smooch smooch smooch smooch smooch]
Equilibrio: I'm going to be sick. >_>
Azuel (Friend Warlock): You are brave, my friends! Do you desire another ally to wreak havoc on these upstart alliance and protect the innocent questers of Azeroth?
Dustfire: [stops smooching husband] Yes, thank you! Teehee!
Equilibrio: I'm a bear! ROAR! Someone get hurt so I can heal. Hey, you random people, come here and let me heal and buff you.
Random People: Hurray! Long live Equilibrio!
Shenoah: They've rezzed! Let us destroy them with impunity for daring to mess with one of our women!
[Massacre of Nesme and Lul-something, who are on the same pooooowerful 3v3 team. Other alliance run by. Occasionally, we help them kill their nagas.]
Dustfire: Let us sit here for a long long time!
Dredskies: [rides up, sits 12 times on Nesme's corpse, then leaves, having said nothing]
Dustfire: [half an hour later -- bored] Let us move ahead and hope they assume we've left.
[In five minutes, Nesme tries to ride by on his pretty orange kitty.]
Shenoah: Frostshock! War Stomp!
Azuel: Curse!
Equilibrio: Moonfire!
Dustfire: Death!
[Great rejoicing and laughter. Ten minutes after that, Lul-something tries to ride by.]
Shenoah: Here! Destroy her!
Lul-something: /rofl /rofl /rofl /rofl
Dustfire: We are victorious!
Shenoah: Lul's body has disappeared. The coward runs! [takes Dustfire's hand] You are vindicated, dear wife.
Dustfire: My HERO!
Equilibrio & Azuel: We helped. >_>

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I like to think that Nesme and Lul-something were asking for backup in guild chat but everyone in their guild sucks so nobody would help them. See, when you mess with a family guild, we might not be individually strong, but we back each other up with numbers. Like ants at a picnic.