Mend Pet

Disclaimer: This post was accurate as of patch 3.0.9.

To get most of these achievements, you need to know the basics of the Love is in the Air event.  Here are the key steps to mastering the event:

1. Buy [Perfume Bottle] or [Cologne Bottle] and a ton of [Love Token] from an innkeeper in a major (old world) city.
2. Put on some Cologne or Perfume.  With Perfume, you can interact with male NPCs, with Cologne, you can interact with females.
3. While wearing Cologne or Perfume, talk to NPCs to get [Pledge of Adoration: {Cityname}] from City Guards and [Gift of Adoration: {Cityname}] from any other NPCs.
4. When you’ve gotten an Adoration gift, you’ll receive the debuff called [Adored], and you cannot receive another Adoration gift/pledge for an hour.  However, you can continue to talk to NPCs and receive [Pledge of Friendship: {Cityname}] and [Gift of Friendship: {Cityname}].
5. You may also receive a debuff called [Heartbroken] which lasts for 1 hour (of game time, logging out pauses the timer!) To get rid of this debuff so you can continue getting gifts, find someone who is willing to mend your heart.  Large cities should have lots of people willing to do this.
6. Friendship and Adoration Gifts/Pledges contain an “item”.  Each city has 3 “items” to collect. Pledges of Loyalty and Cards are only available from City Guards the third item is only available from non-guards.
   • Orgrimmar:  [Freshly Baked Pie], [Grunt's Card], [Pledge of Loyalty: Orgrimmar].
   • Thunder Bluff: [Freshly Picked Flowers], [Bluffwatcher's Card], [Pledge of Loyalty: Thunder Bluff]
   • Undercity: [Romantic Poem], [Guardian's Moldy Card], [Pledge of Loyalty: Undercity]
     
   • Darnassus: [Handmade Woodcraft], [Sentinel's Card], [Pledge of Loyalty: Darnassus]
   • Stormwind: [Homemade Bread], [Stormwind Guard's Card], [Pledge of Loyalty: Stormwind]
   • Ironforge: [Dwarven Homebrew], [Ironforge Guard's Card], [Pledge of Loyalty: Ironforge]
     
7. When you collect 5 of an item, you can combine them.
8. When you have done this for each of the 3 items, you can combine those to create a [{Cityname} Gift Collection].
9. When you’ve done this for all 3 major cities, you can combine them to create a [Horde Gift Collection] or [Alliance Gift Collection].
10. Take this faction gift to a Peddlefoot NPC standing near your favourite faction leader (Thrall, for example!) and turn in the quest [Gift Giving] (Horde/Alliance) .  You’ll to choose a reward and you’ll also get a [Box of Chocolates].
11. Repeat until all achievements are completed!

Now that you know how most of the event works, here are the specifics of the achievements!

Occasionally your Adoration Gifts/Pledges will contain [Unbestowed Friendship Bracelets].  These are used to remove the Heartbroken debuff from other players.  My advice when you are looking to use some of your Bracelets is to stand in the middle of a city and wait for people to ask to be mended, or watch people as they come by and check for the debuff.

[Flirt With Disaster] Get completely smashed, put on your best perfume, throw a handful of rose petals on Jeremiah Payson (Horde)/Sraaz (Alliance) and then kiss him. You’ll regret it in the morning.

If you have a [Bouquet of Red Roses], you can use this for your petals, but the [Bouquet of Ebon Roses] will not work.  If you don’t have one, you can use [Handful of Rose Petals] which can be found in Adoration Gifts/Pledges or received as a reward from the Gift Giving quest.

1. Make sure you are wearing perfume (not cologne!)
2. Bring enough alcohol to get you good and smashed.
3. /kiss, and then use your Pedals on him.

Sraaz is a gnome who wanders around the Great Forge in Ironforge selling pies, and Jeremiah Payson is the cockroach vendor in Undercity.

EDIT: There is NO alcohol vendor in Undercity.  So you will have to bring some with you from another city, or use a [Brewfest Pony Keg] if you’ve got one!

[Nearest and Dearest] Complete the Love is in the Air storyline quest beginning with the Dangerous Love quest.

[Dangerous Love (Horde)] starts in Undercity near the bank or [Dangerous Love (Alliance)] starts in Stormwind.  The quest line is pretty easy, mostly just running around and talking to people.  Make sure you click the cauldron at the end, or you won’t get the achievement!

[Nation of Adoration] Obtain a Gift of Adoration from each of the cities listed below.

The cities for each side are the three major old world cities.

In Step 3 of my list above, you must talk to the non-guard NPCs to receive a Gift of Adoration for the achievement.  This can only be done once an hour, so it will take you 3 hours to get these.

[Sweet Tooth] Sample the Love is in the Air candies listed below.

[Box of Chocolates] can be a reward from the Adoration Gifts/Pledges, and you will also receive one each time you complete Gift Giving.  It will contain some (if not all) of the candies needed!  They have some pretty nice buffs… bring them along to raids!

[My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose] Obtain a Bouquet of Red or Ebon Roses during the Love is in the Air celebration.

The [Bouquet of Red Roses] is NO LONGER AVAILABLE.  If you have it from a previous year… great!  Otherwise, you’ll need to kill one of these bosses in Northrend to get [Bouquet of Ebon Roses].  Normal and heroic modes both work.

• Maiden of Grief (Halls of Stone)
• Prince Keleseth (Utgarde Keep)
• Prince Taldaram (Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom)

[Shafted!] Shoot 10 players with the Silver Shafted Arrow.

[Silver Shafted Arrow] is a possible reward from Adoration Gifts/Pledges, and you can also get 5 from the Gift Giving quest.  Here’s a little trick though: you only need ONE arrow to finish this!  If you interrupt the casting on the arrow, it’ll still count, but will not use the arrow.

[Lonely?] Join someone in Dalaran at their Romantic Picnic during the Love is in the Air celebration.

[Romantic Picnic Basket] is a rare reward from a Adoration Plege or Gift.  When you or someone else uses it, it’ll set up a little picnic tent.  if you don’t have one, hang around in Dalaran for a while, and someone will surely set one up!  Just click on the little basket that’s on the floor to sit, and hope someone will join you.

[The Rocket's Pink Glare] Shoot off 10 Love Rockets in 20 seconds or less.

[Love Rocket] can be a reward from Adoration Gift/Pledges and also a reward from Gift Giving.  I advise you to put it on your action bar temporarily when you get enough of them, because these rockets require you to target an area.  This way you can use a keybinding to make sure you do it quick enough!

[Fistful of Love] Use a Handful of Rose Petals on each of the race/class combinations listed below.

• Gnome Warlock
• Night Elf Priest
• Tauren Druid
• Undead Warrior
• Draenei Paladin
• Human Death Knight
• Orc Shaman
• Troll Rogue
• Blood Elf Mage
• Dwarf Hunter

[Handful of Rose Petals] can be a reward from Adoration Gift/Pledges and also a reward from Gift Giving.  Hang around in Dalaran and keep an eye open for these race/class combinations.  If you’re looking for someone in your own faction, you can query to see if there are any around and maybe whisper them to meet up.  For example, “/who Troll Rogue Dalaran” will list all Troll Rogues in Dalaran!

[Be Mine!] Use the Bag of Candies to create each of the hearts listed below.

The [Bag of Candies] can be a bit tough to get your hands on. Like the Love Fool or Romantic Picnic,  the only way to get it is a chance from a Gift/Pledge of Adoration.  However, you must use your own to complete this, you cannot share your Bag of Candies with anyone else.  It will create little candies with cute sayings, and these can be traded – however, trading them will not count towards the achievement – you must actually create them yourself!

[I Pitied The Fool] Pity the Love Fool in the locations specified below.

The [Love Fool] can be received from a Gift/Pledge of Adoration.  However, you don’t have to use your own Love Fool – if someone else has one you can /pity on it just the same.  Also, you can still get the achievement if you use it on the remains of the fool, after it’s exploded!

Congrats!  With just a lot hourly gift getting, you should hopefully be a Love Fool with hardly any effort!

I almost don’t want to show these results, because my DPS has been so sad for the last few weeks.  Last night I tried out the ‘new’ BM, after patch 3.0.9 unnerfed some things.  I tested out on the target dummy first, and it wasn’t looking good, but I decided to see how it held up in a raid.

What I was expecting from the raid: Low DPS, but above last place. Mana regen problems, because my BM spec is less efficient.

What I got from the raid: Moderate DPS, quite viable when compared to Survival.  Still not back in first place (where we belong! hehe) Very few mana regen issues, I ran out of mana on a few of the fights, but usually only right at the end of the fight.

Here are 4 Noth attempts.  This was the only fight that I felt was a good measure of stand-there-and-shoot DPS that I could get multiple examples of.  I would have liked to use Patchwerk, but I wasn’t there for him a couple of times.

Keep in mind, my gear has improved over these weeks, so some DPS can be attributed to that. Also note these are sorted by damage done rather than by DPS.  The raid composition is almost identical each time.

Make sure to look at the other Hunters too, their gear is comparable to mine.

Pre 3.0.8 – BM (with cat) – 2975 DPS

This was the hay-day of Beast Mastery in Wrath… I generally kept to the top of the charts, and I quite liked it there.  All hunters in the raid are BM at this point, and we’re all doing pretty well.

Shot Priority: Serpent Sting > Steady Shot.

Post 3.0.8 – BM (with cat) -2481 DPS

Beast Mastery after the massive nerf.  about 500 DPS less than I was doing before… boo!  As you can see, the overall raid DPS had increased, but all the hunters had decreased.  I believe the other hunters had switched to Survival already, but I can’t remember for sure.   Their DPS wasn’t very nice either though, as you can see.

Shot Priority: Serpent Sting > Arcane Shot > Steady Shot.

Post 3.0.8 – SV (with moth) – 2534 DPS

My one and only raid as SV.  My DPS still wasn’t much better as Survival, but it’s still better than nerfed BM at this point.  I wasn’t completely used to SV yet, so there was also that.  The other two hunters were also SV at this point, and they were both doing more DPS.  Not sure why mine is so low at this point, but I wasn’t much higher than this the whole raid.

Shot Priority: Serpent Sting > Explosive Shot > Aimed Shot > Steady Shot

Post 3.0.9 – BM (with moth) - 2838 DPS

Ha!  How ’bout that.  While my target dummy tests showed a solid decrease in DPS compared to Survival, BM doesn’t seem to be faring badly when it comes to practical testing in a raid environment!

I apologize for not using WWS, the WWS hasn’t been posted yet.  I’ll try to switch the pic when it does get posted.

Shot Priority: Serpent Sting > Arcane Shot > Steady Shot.

Conclusion

I’m sticking with Beast Mastery.  Maybe it’s not the #1 DPS spec, but I like it a lot, an now that it’s not marking me as lowest DPS in the raid, I don’t mind so much.

This may not be how the results look for everyone, but this is what seems to be working for me.  Survival was fun, but I didn’t like my squishy useless pet.

If anyone else has given a try as BM since 3.0.9, please let me know how it goes!

Patch 3.0.9! Time to fix Beast Mastery!

Well, not quite.  As you may know, I want to get back to BM as soon as possible… so first thing I did when I got on after today’s patch was run some Target Dummy tests.  First, I ran with my current Survival spec.  Then after a couple of attempts, I switched to a Beast Mastery spec.

Some conditions of the tests:  My glyphs are spec’d for BM still. I used all my cooldowns whenever I could. Because of how long (or short) it took me to OOM in BM, I still only had time to use BW once.  Also, this is taking advantage of the 3/3 in the Sniper Training talent, which isn’t always applicable in raid fights.  No kill shots were used.

Brajana & Ambrose VS Heroic Training Dummy

As you can see, Survival is still quite the master. More DPS and better mana efficiency. But the numbers for Beast Mastery have improved for sure, most notably pet DPS (as to be expected from the changes).

But is it enough for BM to be viable in a raid environment? I’m sticking with it for tonight’s Naxx-25, and I’ll be sure to update with results when I know how it’s doing!

Inspired by Unemployed’s trip to Vegas!

Many guilds come to a point in their duration where they consider themselves a group of friends, not just a group of raiders or a group of players.  I’ve been part of Unemployed for nearly 2 years, and spending about 3 evenings a week with the same people… you build connections.

If you reach this point, you may start to consider – wouldn’t it be cool to meet up in real life?

Yeah!

This is the hardest Guild Event to co-ordinate by far.

First, you need to pick a destination.  There are a lot of questions to consider.

• Do you want to go somewhere to see the sights, or to just hang out?
• Does anyone have a cottage or house they are willing to put people up in?
• How much is everyone willing to spend on hotels/flights?
• Is there somewhere central to most members, so the travel costs can be evened out?

You may want to ask yourself and your group all of these questions before you pick a destination.

Or, you could just say “LET’S GO TO VEGAAAAASS!!!” and skip all the important questions, like we did.

Here are some tips for planning your trip.

1. Make sure you can get a rough estimate of the people interested first, and then throw it out the window.  Remember, there will be lots of people who change their minds, or aren’t actually willing to put in the money, or can’t get the time off… so your first estimate will probably be exaggerated.  For example, our first estimate of people coming to Vegas was 21 people.  We ended up with 7.  So make sure you set deadlines for when people MUST decide and commit somehow.
2. Try to pick a hotel (if applicable) that doesn’t require a deposit on booking (such as all hotels on the Las Vegas Strip).  This way, no one (Brajana) is stuck with putting several rooms on their credit card and trying to round up the deposit from everyone, while working with the ever fluctuating exchange rate (that is, if you’re Canadian (Brajana) and everyone else is American).
3. Make sure you can coordinate roommates easily. You might be like us, and have a majority of females going.  Some people may not want to share a room with the opposite sex.  Some people will be willing to spend extra and have a private room.  Others will want to save as much money as they can, and will share a room with as many people as the floor and couch permit.
4. Find activities you’ll want to do, places you’ll want to see, and try to make an agenda.  Then throw it out the same window as your guest estimate, because no one is gonna read it and no one will follow it.  It’s a vacation, people will just want to wing it.  You’ll have to learn to be okay with that if schedules and spreadsheets are very important to you (Brajana).
5. Try to figure out a way to explain the trip to people who do not play World of Warcraft. “Vegas, eh?  Who are you going with?”  Answering “friends from across the US” often brings strange looks.
6. Don’t bother trying to memorize everyone’s real names. You ARE going to call them by their in-game nicknames, no matter how hard you try not to.
7. Make sure you have everyone’s real names and phone numbers. That way when someone (Tharaks) shows up who knows neither of these for anyone, you’ll be able to find them.
8. Have fun. When you get wherever you are going, enjoy yourself and your company.  This is a great opportunity to let your regular problems go, and build a stronger bond with the people you usually are busy stressing about raids with.  It might be a little awkward at first, but it’ll surprise you how quickly you’ll feel like you’ve hung out with these people for years (which, you kinda have).

Chocolate-Vanilla Swirl, to be precise!

If you don’t get the title of this post, then you need to start following me on Twitter.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post…

I know I usually only talk about my Hunter… but there are other characters I’ve been playing that I thought I’d introduce you to, or at least give you an update on.

Whenever I’ve got some free time between raids, I tend to spend that time on another character.  Not because I don’t like my Hunter, but it always takes me so long to pull a group together for anything, I usually spend more time jumping around Dalaran waiting than actually playing the game.  So I just do some leveling instead.

Click the banner to check each character out on Armoury Lite!

Brajana – 80 Beast Master (temporarily Survival) Hunter

We all know Brajana.  She is, and likely always will be my main.  And yes I still call her a Beast Master, even if she’s trying out a 2/18/51 spec right now.  At her heart, she’ll always be BM!

Right now, I’ve gone back to my moth, Ambrose, as a pet.  I was using a Stranglethorn Tiger (Rajah) for a while, but after realizing I was a noob for not adding Serenity Dust to my macro… I decided it was time for a little change.

Ferguson – 70 Undead Holy Priest

How I miss you, Ferg!  He’s that undead priest I stole from my brother at level 51.  That’s right, I skipped the first 51 painful levels as a priest!  But I promise I know what I’m doing now!  I’m trying to get him to 80… but I’d really like to pick up those nice EXP heirloom shoulders before I put in too much time.  So whenever I feel like playing him I go on Brajana and try to grab up some tokens instead.  Think I’m going to have to trade some of my Valor tokens, since I rarely have time for heroics.

Alouette – 67 Gnome Fire Mage

Formerly known as Brajana. Also formerly known as Pixxel.  She’s a mage of many names!  I think I’ve settled on this one… although whenever I see it I get the song stuck in my head for hours on end.

Alouette/Pixxel/Brajana has been Fire from her first talent point, and has yet to put a single point anywhere else.  I like making things blow up before they can even get to me!  I’ve contemplated switching to Frost, but from what I understand, that’s good for AoE grinding, and I’m just not into that.  Plus she has red hair.

Alouette is now leveling with the boyfriend’s Prot Warrior.  He’s a Night Elf.  It took some convincing to let him come along with me, seeing as my hatred for all things Elf runs deep even if I’m playing an alliance character… but it sure is nice to use one as a meat shield   I’m not sure whether Alouette or Ferguson will make it to be my second level 80, it’ll be close.

Ghugh – 16 Dwarf Retribution Paladin

Whhaaaa?  RET PALY?!  Noo!

Well, it’s true.  Until Ghugh (btw, 5 letter name with only one syllable – pronounced kinda like ‘Guh’) I’d never managed to get a paladin above level 9.  I didn’t like how the seals would expire after Judging and you’d always have to be refreshing them… I just didn’t get it.

But after much poking from a friend, I gave in and decided to give it a try again.  The original reason for this guy was to help me pick up the Alliance-only pets for my [Shop Smart, Shop Pet... Smart] achievement.  It was only after I spent much time getting to and subsequently dying at level 11 trying to get to Booty Bay’s AH that I realized it would have made a lot more sense to use a Death Knight… but ah well.

I am actually enjoying this character – and while this may jinx it, I think I might actually follow through with this guy.

It also took me a while to decide on which tree to take him down.  Now, I hate Ret Paladins almost as much as Night Elves (cuz of how they kill my mage aaallll the time)… I wanted to try Prot.  But with the help of the Twitterati, I learned that just isn’t the way to go for leveling!  So right now my points are a bit all over the place, but I’m focusing on Ret from here out.  If I manage to get this guy high enough to buy him a mount, I’ll probably transfer him over to Dark Iron, which has officially become my Alliance/PvP server.

Omaigosh – 10 Draenei Shaman

The name of this shaman is derived from my reaction upon seeing his character design.  It was late one night, and I just did not want to go to bed.  And when I don’t really feel like playing anything in particular, I often muss around on the Character Creation screen and do a few starter quests.

So I decided it’s been too long since I’ve tried a Shaman.  My second character ever was a Tauren Shaman, but I don’t think I’ve played one since.  So I hopped over to the Draenei screen, and the first randomization I was greeted with was perfect.  I’ve never seen such a goofy looking space goat!

Omaigosh has been put on hold while I work on Ghugh, but I swear he has not been deligated to the realm of abandoned alts!

Edit to add: Aliora – 56 Draenei Death Knight

How could I forget my Death Knight?  Okay, she’s only 56, and she’s not nearly out of the starting zone, and I don’t really know how to play her… but she exists for the soul purpose of me being able to play on my co-worker’s realm.  Everyone’s gotta have a Death Knight, right?