Mend Pet

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have been hearing my ever increasing complaining about not getting this achievement.

For some, it was the elusive Tooth Pick.  Others, the Helm.  For me?  It was that cute little Sinister Squashling that became my source of frustration as the end of this holiday grew closer and closer.

As you can tell by my *cough cough* frequent posting, I’ve been a tad busy lately.  So trying to find time to run the headless horseman daily was a bit of a chore… but I still managed to get it run at least half the days of this 2 week holiday.  I also trick-or-treated any hour I was at home and not asleep, just hoping to have that dear little Pumpkin pet.

I managed to finish every other part of the Hallowed meta last year, and I was not going to let this one pet hold me back from getting my drake for a whole year!

In fact, you can see how diligently I trick-or-treated by looking at my progress on A Mask for All Occasions.  15/20 masks found… and still no Squashling!

Last night, the second last day of the holiday, I was almost ready to give up.  But I pulled together a PUG composed of 3 hunters, a disc priest and some DK who said he “can probably tank it”.

I make sure to mention that the Squashling is the only thing I need to finish my achievement.  Everyone else, except the DK already has the pet.

Then the DK asks, “So what does this guy drop anyway?”  Followed by “Where do we go? Scarlet Monastary?”  And even a “Oh look, a pumpkin with a quest!” when we got inside.

The Squashling is going to drop, I tell myself.  And he’s going to win the roll.

Wouldn’t that just take the cake?  Well… we pull.  Mister DK-in-quest-greens can’t hold aggro even with 3 hunters misdirecting.  He doesn’t know how the fight works, he just runs around in circles, really.  But we take him down anyway.

Oh look!  It’s the Squashling!

Brajana rolls 65 (1-100).
UselessDK rolls 57 (1-100).

OMG I WON!!! Isn’t that quite the plot twist?  I even had a whisper ready to send to him saying “Please don’t use it!  I will pay you to trade it to me!”

Well, I’m glad I didn’t pay him for it… because we proceeded to get another 2 Squashings to drop.  Apparently the Horseman was saving all his Squashlings for actual Halloween or something.

But I got mine.  And I’m happy.  So happy.  Now I just have to become an Elder and I’ll get to join the Pink Purple Violet Proto-Drake Club!

Have a fun Halloween everyone!  Dress up in fun costumes and party!

In nearly 5 years of playing this game, I’ve gone through many different stages.  There have been times when I’ve come home after school/work and played WoW until nearly bed time every day.  Then there are the times when I’ll go two weeks without playing and not even notice.  Most of the last few months has been somewhere in between: I’d log on to my main for most raid nights, and then on days when I find a few spare hours I’ll level an alt.

I realized I was no longer Brajana, the Troll Hunter.  I was a group of alts of various faction and level. (As evidenced by my ever growing blog banner)

There’s nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to figure out what changed and to go back to being a Hunter full time.  Unfortunately, I also haven’t been able to commit to raid times lately.  Some days I find the time to log in, but with my hectic student life, I don’t know when I’ll be able to log in most days until it’s time to raid.

So I began logging into my Hunter, day after day, but not at raid times.  I opened my social tab to see which guildies were on, and it was empty.  Almost every time.  So I ran circles in Dalaran, and then logged off and switched to playing on a server where I have friends to talk to.

Unemployed has been my home for two and a half years.  I’ve been an officer most of that time, and I’ve even organized a guild trip to Las Vegas!  You make great, lasting friends playing a game with people for such a long time.  That’s why I couldn’t leave.

But then it hit me – out of all the people I feel I’ve made lasting, meaningful friendships with… only a handful still log in on a regular basis.  Of those, they are almost only online from 6:30-10:00, raid time.  However, they’re all available and easy to get in touch with through things like Facebook or Twitter.

And that’s how I realized they aren’t my guildies anymore, they’re my friends.  Sure, the guild is how I met them… but I don’t need to be in the guild to keep them as my friends (hopefully, at least).

And so when I was approached by some former guildies and friends eager to start a new 10-man raiding guild with a relaxed, flexible schedule, I got quite excited.  It was something new.  They wanted my help to organize it and get it up and running, and that seemed like a really exciting prospect for me.  So I jumped on it.

And the moment I made the choice, I felt myself drawn back to my Hunter, almost as if I’d just hit the level cap again and realized there is so much for me to do! I began running dailies again!  Finishing up achievements!  Getting my leatherworking those last 6 points!  RUNNING BATTLEGROUNDS!  (Ah, how I’ve missed the BGs!)

It’s a whole new world for me, and I hope the feeling lasts.  I will miss my guild, but I don’t feel as if I’ve truly left it.  It’ll always be a part of me, and I’ll always picture that flaming badger burning brightly across my chest!

Look what I’ve got!  Yep, my dear boy got me my very own FigurePrint for my birthday.  He had it made on my actual birthday though, so while that was nearly 2 months ago, I just got from him last weekend.  Still… worth the wait!

While I do prefer bows, and I loved my Siren’s Cry… I must admit my newly acquired (at the time, at least) Death’s Head Crossbow has a pretty cool look, and came out really well!  Look at those teeth!  Rawr!

Even her earrings have holes in them.  This thing has super detail, and I’m really happy with it!  I just wish I could take the cover off so I could get pictures without all that glare.  Oh well!

Thanks sweetie!

Also, TROLL FEET PRIDE!

Close up!

If you hadn’t noticed by my lack of ‘This Week in Raiding’ posts lately, I haven’t been raiding much.  There are many reasons for it, school and work have been keeping my schedule unpredictable, and our guild has lost many key members, and we can’t pull together much on our own anymore.

Well, a friend of mine tired desperately to get me to faction & server transfer to raid with her…

AND I DID IT!

Just kidding.

There’s no way my Troll could ever be anything but a Troll!  It just isn’t right.  And I’m just too cheap.

So instead, I rerolled a new Dwarf (yes, a female!) Hunter on Skullcrusher to quickly level up to play with her.

Meet Ailsa, and her fuzzy bear friend Righneas (it means Tenacity in Gaelic or Scottish or something.  I’m that clever.)  And yes, she uses a bow. Remnants of my Trollish tendancies, maybe?

Observations

It’s been a long time since I leveled a hunter… nearly 4 years, actually.  And a lot of things have changed.  But it’s interesting to level a class you already know very well, and I’ve discovered a few things:

• With the removal of the dead zone, leveling 1-10 with no pet is so much easier.
• Kiting is your best strategy for 1-10, not melee.
• Make sure you keep those ammo stacks at 1000!
• Not having Feign Death, Intimidation or Misdirect makes me much squishier, and there’s a lot less room for aggro.
• OMG HOW DID WE EVER LEVEL TO 40 WITHOUT A MOUNT?!  MADNESS!
• Blizzard seriously needs to add Hunter loot to quest rewards, I’m sick of all this cloth and plate or spirit leather crap.
• Female dwarves have extremely bouncy boobs.  Every heard of a bra?  Seriously, ouch.

As of writing this, I’ve just hit level 36.  That’s 36 levels in only a week and a half! Not too bad for me.  Now just another 44 levels to go!  *sigh*