MoP Bucket List

We've had a rather drawn-out end to this expansion, haven't we? Siege of Orgrimmar recently celebrated the anniversary of its addition to the game, which means many of us exhausted progression content months ago. I might be in the minority here, but I don't mind these content lulls late in the expansion. It allows plenty of time for circling back to complete objectives I might've missed, level alts, even visit previous expansions for items and achievements of interest.

I have the Warbringer mounts, the mounts from the Primal Egg, my Challenge Mode armor and mount, I collected 9,999 bones, got the Siege of Orgrimmar achievement mount. I've maxed rep with all but two Pandaria factions (see below). I was there, man, I was there. And I have the cloak(s) to prove it.

Still, there's always a point during these lulls where I stop and ask myself, "What else could I do?" What follows are areas I'm working on and hope to complete before Warlords of Draenor releases.

Brawler's Guild

I knocked out as much of the Brawler's Guild challenges early on in the expansion, and just recently circled back to work on some of the additional challenges that were added in patch 5.3. I'm missing an item needed to complete Collect Your Deck, the one players have a chance to find when harvesting vegetables on their farm. Once that materializes, I'll focus on the final achievement, Deck Your Collection

Legendary Cloak

I'd gone back and forth as to whether I'd go for a fifth cloak with my warlock. After earning green fire, and thanks to the news that the Black Prince buff would be active til Warlords, I've decided to give it a go. I'm currently stuck on the PvP part of the chain; Silvershard Mines was rather painless, but Kotmogu won't be so easily won. It was amusing to see how many of the battleground participants were there just to progress on the chain.

#kotmogu pic.twitter.com/D9fbHAgOvA
— Kotmogu Russ (@elepheagle) September 29, 2014

Celestial Tournament

Tucking this confession here so I hope it will be missed: I beat the Celestial Tournament last week for the first time. And I call myself a pet battler. Truth is, I'm impatient. I had 40+ pets at max level when the Celestial Tournament dropped. Of course I'd be able to handle it, I thought incorrectly. I'd engage, lose horribly, start to level a suggested pet and then get bored. That said, it amazing how easy the tournament becomes once you follow a tried-and-true guide. There's not enough time left in MoP to earn the right to purchase all of the Celestial pets, but I'd like to acquire as many as possible before the Warlords release.

Level 90 Alliance

I have an Alliance shaman sitting out there on my main server, level 84 if I remember correctly. I've been slowly leveling her up throughout MoP solely because I've heard the Alliance story in Warlords is not one to be missed. The final installment of the Lords of War miniseries only strengthened this desire. I'm anticipating the stories on both sides of the aisle to be full of emotion and strife.

Emperor Shaohao

I'm barely into Revered, and that's because I have a slight aversion to world PvP. In all likelihood I'll chip away at this as much as I can stand, then circle back at level 100, which should trivialize much of the experience, and hopefully make it less painful as well.

Archaeology

I got into archaeology pretty heavily when it was released, and then lost interest in MoP for the most part. That I found myself scurrying from digsite to digsite last weekend signals to me that I'm ready for new content. Don't get me wrong, I'm a collector and a completionist, but archaeology is pretty low on that list, given I have most of the "cool" items. I'd like to ensure I have all of the rare items from Pandaria, but really this isn't a high priority, and one of the three items from the Bucket List that I won't push for too hard.

Nat Pagle

I find Nat Pagle's grind to be much, much worse than any we've seen in Pandaria. For a while, I was fishing to kill three birds: Nat's grind, the item you can fish up for the Brawler's guild, which I acquired last week, and the ever-elusive Sea Turtle. But I've been after the latter since Wrath of the Lich King, so I'm not holding my breath. I'm simply hoping to make a dent in Nat's reputation, because once I hit Draenor and he lands in my Garrison, it'll be quite some time before I make the trek back to Pandaria.

What's on your MoP Bucket List?

related: Things to do Before Warlords of Draenor

WoW Weekly: Treasure Island

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

Oh, Timeless Isle, you. A wide-open, unexplored expanse. Grounds of the ultimate pet battle tournament and frustrated alt-gearer's wet dream. TI. Your parallels are not lost on me.

Since I'm still LFW, I was able to hop online just after servers came up on Tuesday. First thing on the list: acquire legendary cloak. After speaking with Wrathion, everything was falling into place. Then I arrived on the Isle and became horribly, horribly distracted. I could knock off the quests one-by-one, but why would I do that when there are giant Celestials battling massive parties of fellow Horde right there in the courtyard? When I finally wrestled myself away after besting our four wise guides in order to quest, I was distracted by treasure chests, rare spawns and random events. 

After finally acquiring the cloak, I'd spent a good part of the afternoon on the Timeless Isle, each of my max-level toons having 496 gear in nearly every item slot for both specs. Yikes. Almost seems too easy. Especially when you find this---an in-depth guide to the location of ALL of the island's lootable chests---something I used when I returned to the island on an alt. However, the level of cooperation between players and factions on my populated PvP server that was brought on by the novelty of the content quickly faded and the island devolved into a everyone-for-themselves bloodbath. 

I'm glad to have finished most of the Isle's content on the first day. In other non-news:

• Unsurprisingly, the RNG gods have moved on to help someone else. Then again, I'm really only still after Ashes, which has more do with endurance now than luck.

• Found a group to kill Ordos, the boss accessible to only those with the legendary cloak, through Open Raid. Simple fight---a DPS race more than anything. 

• Failed miserably at the Celestial Tournament. If you want to see how far along pet battling's come, check out the tourney (assuming you have the requisite 15 max level pets---though you'll never win the tournament with just 15). This is serious stuff, and pet battlers will have to be cunning in order to progress---but look no further. Lio has a comprehensive guide that will help get you through over at Battle Pet Roundup. 

• Put together a new transmog (pictured in the header) for Elepheagle, mainly because of the legendary cloak effect animation. The "blue wings" were really clashing with the burnt orangey-yellows of my previous set. Consequently, I've abandoned the quest for two other sets simply because of the time involved---going to take a break from fashion design for a while.

Have you been enjoying your time on the Timeless Isle? 

WoW Weekly: So long, Malygos, and thanks for all the fun

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

I'll admit: farming low drop-rate mounts isn't a huge challenge at level 90. I saw a comment on Twitter this week from someone who claims they see no accomplishment in acquiring one of those RNG mounts, but instead take pride in amassing enough gold to buy a rare mount off the auction house, or perhaps snipe one from the BMAH. As a person who has spent over 500,000g on rare mounts, I'm not sure I completely agree.

With gold-making, someday you're guaranteed to get there. If you play that game---auctioneering, I like to call it---you're going to take the time to learn some tips and strats. Eventually, you'll reach whatever milestone you're after. Simply put, if you want to, you will see your gold readout at 999,999g99s99c. And then you can buy anything you desire. In a game of pure chance, as is the case with mounts and low drop rates, your odds lie in the low single digits, or in some cases one more decimal place to the left---you're never quite assured that prize. I don't think one reward is any better than the other at the end of the day. It's all up to you, the player, and what you get out of it.

That said, I've seen Malygos at least twice each week since November. And this week I've gotten lucky enough to never, ever have to go back.

The rest of the Weekly after the break.

WoW Daily: tying loose ends

While my weekly list is rather lengthy, I have a more difficult time compiling a list of things I could do daily, outside of the rep grinds and the like. I say could because if one were to do these things daily, there wouldn't be much time left for other activities. These activities require a high tolerance for boredom, as most of them involve low probabilities and drop rates.

Of course any achievement hunter will be slowly chipping away at achievements. This list isn't for those. This one is for those handful of things I'm after and could attempt daily, if afforded the time and the patience. At first glance, this list may seem short, but one could literally engage in some of these activities non-stop until the desired outcome is achieved. But eff that. Because pet battles.

Kaitz asks: What's your daily routine?

WTB manicure. And pencils w/ erasers.

Community blog topics. I'm very much digging them right now. If it weren't for them, the ratio between my drafts and posts would be even greater. I found Kaitz over at Memoirs of a Pet Collector via Nev and her 20 Days of Gold Making community blog topic.

I think I might do too much on a daily basis, and some of it for naught. The idea that I need to maximize my profession CDs, the yield from my farm(s), the amount of active auctions...where did it originate? Can't remember. Truth is, I don't do this daily. But if I had the time, this is what I would do.

At minimum, my quick-and-dirty version takes about 40 minutes.

WoW Weekly: Battle Pets

(click to enlarge)

Happy Tuesday! It's hard to believe it's been over a month since I first posted my in-game to-do list. I figure now is as good a time as any to revisit the list for a quick progress check.

In the last month I've won most of the gear I could win from LFR for the Main aside from head, shoulder and chest tier tokens. To be honest, I've grown rather tired of LFR. Most of the previous weeks have looked like this past one: run Terrace for a chance at tier tokens to round out the enhancement set, the healing set and remaining wings be damned. I also have not been good about running the Sha.

Pet acquisition seems slower than it really is. I've been bringing guildies along for those runs and while pets have been dropping regularly, I'm not getting the /roll support I've been looking for. I still have yet to see the Dusty Cluth of Eggs drop from Maexxna.

What about you? What is on your weekly list, and how has progress been?

In Azeroth: Weekly To-dos

All hail Google docs.

Some people attribute the creation of lists as the reason behind being able to get anything done at all. I'm not so great with lists and most often opt for organized chaos, though I'll admit that lists can be quite helpful for organization's sake. What about a list as it relates to tasks in Azeroth?

Recently, Cosmic Geek posted a list of personal goals she has for her characters. The Gold Queen has a list of tasks you can complete daily to maximize your profit in gold. Now, I've been inspired to create my own!

My first list---yes, look at me all grown up and planning on more lists---is titled "Weekly WoW." It consists of all of the tasks I'd like to accomplish within a given week. Clever, I know.

This list grew naturally around the tasks I could easily identify along with their associated rewards: LFR runs, world bosses, old raids for xmog gear, etc. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done.

Know of anything I should add?

(Click to enlarge)