Jade Serpent Statue

The Jade Serpent makes me more than a little sad. She is old and tired and ready to be reborn into another body.





There is even a nice new body almost ready for her.


Yu'lon says: A little more jade - the jade you helped to acquire - and it will be finished.
Yu'lon says: With my last breath, I will transfer my life essence into the statue, and a new guardian will be born.
Yu'lon says: Do not be saddened. The cycle is clear - it neither begins nor ends with me.
Yu'lon says: Someday, you may also be called upon to defend all that is dear to you.
Yu'lon says: When that day comes, seek the light and wonder of this world, and fight.
Yu'lon says: We live together, or we die together. All of Pandaria is connected.
Yu'lon says: I grow weary. I must rest now.
Yu'lon says: Good-bye, little one. I will see you soon enough.



But then the Horde and Alliance make trouble. They destroy the almost complete statue and release the Sha of Doubt.



Poor Jade Serpent, she has to wait to be reborn. And poor Jade Forest, it's rather sha infested now.

WoW TODOs

General:
Run TK for more pets, and possible Ashes of Alar.
Run SSC for pets.
Run Karazhan for more pets.
Vengeful Pet Brawler: total of 50 pvp pet battles won with level 25 pets.
Capture godsdamned Minfernal, the ONLY pet I'm missing for Zookeeper title.
Catch Stunted Yeti, Sumprush Rodent, and Unborn Valkyr. The only other battle pets I am missing.

Mornara:
Progress on Wrathion's legendary quest: need more Secrets of the Empire.
More ICC25, only have 9/50 Shadowfrost shards.
Complete the missing heroic dungeon achieves to get the Red Cloudserpent mount.
Various scenario achieves.
Get a weapon that isn't a polearm. Lack of good polearms is cramping my transmog style...

Teltanara:
More LFR, need better gear.
More H Scenarios.
Exalted with August Celestials: farming and quests. Then buy recipe and make giant bags.
Check what other reps are needed for tailoring and enchanting.

Khyrie:
More LFR, for better gear.
TK and SSC for T5 gear.
Start planting Songbells: need Spirits of Harmony.

Viljo:
Get some better gear, so I can get into LFR.
Figure out how to fire mage again.

Sucan:
Currently level 40, level up more.
Check what armor and jewelry can be made for him now he is 40.
More profession levels, particularly primary professions, but also cooking and first aid. NOT fishing or archaeology

Lich King's Heart

A while ago I took Mornara to finish up the quests in Icecrown. She had only done about half of them. Amonh other quests she was missing the really neat quest line with Arthas' heart.

There were a lot of fun vehicle quests where you got to see Arthas' journey to become the Lich King. He slaughters his soldiers and brings them back as minions. He binds Sindragosa into undeath. You even get to fight Illidan as Arthas.

But it all culminates when you discover that Arthas has moved his crystallized heart and is preparing a ceremony to destroy it and thus remove his last human weakness. Of course you let Tirion know and he organizes some paladins to interrupt the ceremony. However Arthas is ready for this too:


The Lich King says: I call your bluff. You're a paladin after all. Your obsessoin with redemption goes beyond the inane.
The Lich King says: You surely wouldn't destroy humanity's only chance to redeem it's most wayward son. You'd sooner die!
Highlord Tirion Fordring says: The heart... the last remaining vestige of your humanity. I had to stop it from being destroyed. I had to see for myself. And at last I'm sure...
Highlord Tirion Fordring says: Only shadow from the past remain. There's nothing left to redeem!
Tirion does his smashing leaping thing and strikes Arthas' crystallized heart with The Ashbringer. And then promptly falls over from backlash.
The Lich King yells: Arrrrgggggggggh!!!!
Disguised Crusader yells: Tirion's down! Defend him with your lives!
The Lich King yells: You... will pay for that, old man. Slay them all!
Knights of the Ebon Blade to the rescue. Koltira, Mograine, and assorted DKs run in to save the pallies.
Koltira Deathweaver yells: Take courage, crusaders. You do not fight alone!
Highlord Darion Mograine says: Quick, through the portal! He won't stay down for long.

It's nice to see the DKs rescue Tirion holyier-than-thou Fordring for once. I am not all that much of a fan of the utter dehumanizing of Arthas. As we see in his death scene he still is the prince who never really grew up and tried to do too much. Not that I have any sympathy for him, it just seems laying it on too thick that even Tirion is all "There is no hope for his soul. Make him dead!"

Merciless Pet Brawler

This weekend I messed around a bit more with my PvP Pet Battle teams. I had a nice relaxing Saturday morning eating scones and drinking Chai and slaughtering other peoples pets.

The first team I got working well was Anubisath Idol with Clockwork Gnome and Mr Bigglesworth. The Idol negates almost all periodic damage with Sandstorm, and both the Gnome and Mr Bigglesworth have a pretty strong delayed hit. I also set up Idol to use rupture, which hits pretty hard and has a chance to stun. If the other team had a bunch of small hits, poison or turret or whatnot then Sandstorm almost entirely negated it.

The second team I had good luck with was the opposite of the first one. I had my corefire imp, Clockwork Gnome, and Lil'Ragnaros. The basic idea here was to make sure that the corefire imp kept up wild magic (+70 damage to every attack) on the current enemy pet, And then just pile on the dots. It worked, but if my imp died I was a bit stuck. Still fun to see turret and immolation just melt an opponent while wild magic was up though. I do need to do a bit more experimentation with my third pet on that team though. Lil'Ragnaros can be pretty strong, but I think that Ghaz'rooki might fit in better.

Between these two teams and a bunch of others that I tried out I finished up ten PvP wins with a level 25 team. Not only did I get an achieve but I also finished the Pet Brawlers quest. The quest reward bag sadly didn't have any sort of flawless Battlestone, but I did get a Pet Treat, which was really nice for getting another 4 pets to 25 in the next hour.

Fun with Friends!

Once again Darkfall is racking up the guild achieves:

One hundred scenarios as a guild is pretty excellent. A lot of these are completed after Heroic Scenarios came out. Because you can't just queue randomly for a H scenario I see, almost every evening, at least one if not two or three heroic scenario groups forming up.

Stormstout Brewery Hilarity

Stormstout Brewery is often hilarious, but can be a pain. The painful part is based on the hoplings before the second boss. However, the hilarious part is almost entirely due to the Ancestral Brewmasters.

The Ancestral Brewmasters are panda ghosts that hang around in the main brewery. You'll pass by at least four groups of them on the walkways outside, plus a big crowd inside on the lower floor under Yan-Zhu the uncasked.

The Ancestral Brewmasters hang around in the area between the second and third boss. They are in the brewery proper and they heckle you as you go by.


Ancestral Brewmaster says: Whatzit... are they... what are they doin' to our alementals?
Ancestral Brewmaster yells: Hey... hey YOU! Those are OUR flying... beer monsters?

The first set of them whine at you as you kill the trash right after Hopitalus.

The next set of them are standing around inside before you go up to the final boss room. After you kill the set of four adds inside and head out to the ramp you pass some ghostly brewmasters that always make fun of the group. They have a large set of hilarious catchphrases. I'm sure I haven't gotten all of them but here are a bunch.


Ancestral Brewmaster says: Pay up, they made it through those alementals!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Double or nothing on the next group?


Ancestral Brewmaster says: Do you think that we can return to life after death?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Sure! That last group did about thirty times!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: You Know, I really envy these guys!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Why's that?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Because they get to spend so much time with that foxy spirit healer!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: This view is terrible!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: What, are you having trouble seeing the fight?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: No, I can see it perfectly!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: I think that driud had the hots for me!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: That last paladin offered me eternal salvation!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: What'd you say?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Kings, please.


Ancestral Brewmaster says: I, wonder if there's anything this healer isn't good at?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Sure! Choosing which group to be in!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: I liked that last group!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: What'd you like about it?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: I thought it was the last group!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: Why didn't that mage put intellect on his weapon?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Because he didn't want it to be smarter than he was!


Ancestral Brewmaster says: This group is awful!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Terrible!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Disgusting!
Ancestral Brewmaster says: See you here tomorrow?
Ancestral Brewmaster says: Absolutely!


I love these Ancestral Brewmasters. They just crack me up every time I run Stormstout Brewery.

Durumu and Primordius Dead!

This week we didn't extend our lockout. Instead we just blasted through the first five bosses on Tuesday. Due to a couple of turtle kicking issues we spent a little too much time on Tortos and didn't have time to get to Ji-Kun. So when Thursday came around we had all that annoying trash before Ji-Kun to clear. It was actually hilarious. There were more than a few butt aggros, but we did make it to Ji-Kun. The big bird died quite speedily again.

Then we moved on to Durumu. Last week we'd had time to do a few pulls on him. Just enough to get horribly murdered by the colored lights. Fortunately this week after a few messups with red beams we actually pulled out a kill. It was rather epic because for the last 10% of his health both of our dedicated healers were dead. The hybrid classes made it work by tossing just enough heals out that the raid lived and the boss died.

After Durumu was dead we moved on to Primordius. First Saurok Gollum was actually pretty easy. If we'd not had both me and the other tank lag out and DC during the fight, as well as the monk healer I really think we would have one shot him. As it was we had a 20 minute unplanned bio break as three people (who live near each other) all had their internet crap out. Fortunately they managed to get back online and we just slaughtered Primordius.

As I said before I am really surprised and impressed how fast we're killing bosses now that we're past Horridon. This is the second week in a row where we've killed two new bosses. And while I think that Darkfall is awesome I also am absolutely convinced that Horridon sucks dirty donkey balls.