Causing trouble

Previously: Downtime, Plans
Next: Devious Design

"I'm concerned with the...logistics."

"Well, we would obviously have to stealth to the pen, but I think we could go safely most of the way outside of the fairgrounds. Then, we wait until everyone has closed up and left and make our move. If we can't flip Dubenko on our own I figure one of us can go bear form for the extra power. Then, we just have to drop by the bullseye and escape through the portal without being caught!"

Akabeko leaned over her project, eyes comically large behind her magnifying goggles. Her worktable was strewn with repair tools. "The plan I understand. What I'm more concerned with is the fact that my guildies have forbidden me from visiting the Faire anymore." She carefully removed a panel on the side of the mechanical rabbit.

"I...did not realize that. Did they put a spell to prevent you from traveling through the portal?" The other tauren looked on curiously as Akabeko puzzled over the tiny compartment underneath the panel.

"No, I don't think so, but I know they would be very upset with me if I did. Also, they would know I was involved if anything happened to Dubenko." She shrugged minutely and flipped a switch on the panel.

Suddenly, the mechanical rabbit gave a great shudder and began to beep. The green glass eyes lit up, bathing the small room in watery light punctuated by the flashing red lights installed in the tail. "H E A T - S E E K I N G - M I S S I L E S - A C T I V A T E D," the rabbit informed them, ceramic teeth clicking in the semblance of speech. A compartment on the back opened, revealing two bright red rockets. They twisted this way and that, hunting for a target. "A C Q U I R I N G - T A R G E T," the rabbit placidly continued.

"Oh dear," said Akabeko. Her companion merely watched with interest.

The rockets spun completely around and settled on Akabeko. "T A R G E T - A C Q U I R E D," the rabbit chirped helpfully.

Wire cutters in hand, Akabeko frantically began snipping connections inside the rabbit, hoping to deactivate it. The rockets began to hum. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," she muttered, snipping away.

Calmly, her friend leaned forward and flicked the switch off. The rockets powered down, withdrawing into their compartments, and the panels slid back into place with a snap.

"Thanks, Navi," Akabeko said, putting down the wire cutters.

The other druid grinned. "Anytime. Back to our plans, though. I heard something else through the wildvine that might get you in trouble with your guild and ruin our plans further."

Suddenly the picture of nonchalance, Akabeko contemplated all the wires she had severed. "Oh?"

"Rumor has it that a druid has been harassing inexperienced adventurers in Stranglethorn Vale." She watched her friend closely for a reaction. "The story goes that she stealths along behind them, revealing herself either to kill their target or pretend to be a wild beast herself." Navimie leaned forward. "Aka, the druid had your exact description."

Despite her scrutiny, the wires did not magically knit themselves back together. She sighed in resignation. "All right, I may or may not have gone to Stranglethorn Vale with the express intention of playing practical jokes on hapless adventurers." She glanced at Navimie's face, hoping for sympathy.

"To be honest, at just about any other time I would be out there with you having a laugh, but not now, not so close to our mission! You know they only let visitors into the Faire once during each moon!" Navimie sighed in amused exasperation. "I thought Dubenko was your real goal, but you've been doing things to get you in even worse trouble with your guild instead!"

The doorbell Akabeko had rigged up in her workshop chimed accusingly, and they heard the front door opened with a bang. Moments later, Katza stalked into the room, looking thunderous. Navimie gave Akabeko a meaningful look and stood.

"We'll be in touch," she said ambiguously. She nodded politely to the forsaken. "Morning, Katza. I was just leaving."

Akabeko looked pleadingly after her friend, then turned guiltily to her raid leader. "I don't suppose you came to talk politics?"

Downtime

"I think we should say something," Katza muttered, peeking at Akabeko around a display of frosted cupcakes. The shopkeeper glanced at her and irritably rearranged a plate of cookies decorated with the Darkmoon logo.

Mauren shook her head, not trying to be subtle. "We shouldn't. She can handle herself." They watched as Akabeko made some notes on a stained sheet of parchment before drinking deeply from her beer stein.

Iharu sniffed. "She clearly isn't handling herself. We should go over there."

"Fine, but leave me out of it." Maurene stalked away, presumably to play Whack-a-Gnoll again.

Katza gathered her skirts in her bony fingers and made a beeline for her tauren guildmate. Iharu followed close behind, and the shopkeeper gave an audible sigh of relief as all three stopped loitering.

Akabeko looked up from her document, remarkably sober for the amount they had watched her drink. "Katz, Iha. I didn't realize both of you were into the faire games."

"I'm not," Iharu replied brusquely. "And to be honest, I didn't realize you were either."

"Of course I am! In fact, the Darkmoon Faire hold me in high regard. Except for, well..." She grimaced, shook her head, and gestured to the other side of the picnic table. "Will you join me?"

Katza slid onto the bench immediately. She shot Iharu a look before lacing her fingers together with a dry rasp. "Listen, Aka, we've been wondering. What exactly have you been up to since Deathwing was destroyed?"

Iharu sat down beside Akabeko, who in turn looked back and forth between the pair. She casually placed an arm across the notes she had taken.

"I'm beginning to think this isn't a social visit."

"It is, because we are your friends and we want to be social with you! We're just a little...concerned. About your well-being." Katza's hands twitched apart, and she began to nervously click her finger joints.

"What, exactly, is concerning you? I've been fishing and visiting the faire. Relaxing. It's nice!" Akabeko made a show of nonchalantly rolling up her parchment.

Iharu shook her head vehemently. "That's just it! You aren't one to just sit around! There have been dozens of minor raiding parties leaving Orgrimmar each month and you haven't joined a single one!"

Before Akabeko could whisk away the paper, Katza snatched it out of her hands and unrolled it again. Akabeko made a grab for it, but the forsaken woman was already reading aloud.

"'Ways to Eliminate Dubenko. One: fireworks "accident." Two: Gun or crossbow misfire "accident." Three: "Accidentally" leave cage door open. Four--' Aka what the fel is this?" She slammed the parchment to the table.

Iharu looked incredulously at her friend. "This is what you've been working on? You want to kill the Faire's prize turtle?"

"You don't understand!" Akabeko bellowed in response. "He's so fast! Turtles aren't supposed to move that fast. The whole system is rigged! The ring toss game is a sham!"

Katza shook her head, disappointment plain on her face. "You've been out of the raiding scene for too long. Without goals to aim for you start making up your own!"

Iharu was nodding in agreement, but Akabeko wasn't having any of it. "You two just don't understand because you never play the ring toss! That turtle is up to something! I won't let you stop me!" There was a puff of air and suddenly a storm crow was perched on the bench.

Before she could fly away, Katza leaped across the table, upending Akabeko's beer and tackling the druid to the ground. There was a flurry of feathers, and then Katza stood up with a squirming crow in her arms.

"We should get her back to Orgrimmar and onto the Moonglade healer rotation. Then--ah, ow, she's pecking me!" Katza turned her face away from her guildmate's sharp beak.

illustrated by the wonderful Kamalia!

Iharu gently took the druid and stuffed her under her arm. "I'll take her; I'm wearing plate." She tapped her chin thoughtfully while Akabeko pecked at her side with a useless clang. "That new guy Had could probably help us set her up with some proper druid pursuits. Maybe she could mentor him?"

Katza created a portal to Orgrimmar, and together they stuffed their protesting friend back into respectable society.

Next: Plans, Causing trouble, Devious Design

My Arch Nemesis

Dubenko.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dubenko. He is my arch nemesis. Every month, we meet on the field of battle. I bring a borrowed set of 10 golden rings, and he brings 100 horsepower of pure, unadulterated turtle prowess. 

I hate Dubenko.

I cannot complete all of the Darkmoon dailies in one go. But the Ring Toss, I thought, was a solid bet. I mean, Dubenko doesn't ever even go farther than the radius of the green target ring. Of course, due to torture game mechanics, even if Dubenko is at the center of your target ring it's possible your ring will land just to his left. So it goes.

But the real problem is that Dubenko lures you into a false sense of security. How hard could it be to toss a ring on the back of an ostensibly slow-moving turtle? The snarky Jessica Rogers assures us it's a "simple game." It's not. Dubenko can remain unmoving for minutes, enticing players to toss all of their rings in one frantic button mash. Then, just as the rings are approaching his spike, he spurs into action! Like a rocket, he waddles back and forth between his three stopping points, dodging each and every one of your attempts.

I don't like it, and I'd really rather not put a ring on it.

Dubenko is greased lightning, wrapped in stiff gray leather, covered in a glossy shell, wrapped in an enigma. He has no greater pleasure than to torment me for 7 days out of every month, pretending to lounge and rest before zipping away from my rings. But I can't remain patient forever. One day I'll snap. Akabeko is a max-level chef, and she has a hankering for turtle soup.

Darkmoon Details

For your viewing pleasure, I present details of the Darkmoon Faire

Ahead of you, down the path

Darkmoon Faire

The Darkmoon Faire! I love those guys. And by the Earthmother, they sure love me too. I did bring them a whole cartload of cards and card accessories, after all. And now they have a proper carnival - their very own private island to decorate and populate as they like.

The atmosphere borrows heavily from the Tol Barad/Gilneas aesthetic, with and ominous purple filter overlay. The lighting and colors suggest a damp chill clinging to the place, and even at midday it's as dark as twilight. The haunting gloom is well-contrasted with the Faire's cheery strings of fairy lights, torches, and even fire breathers lighting the paths. If you leave the Faire to explore the island, you'll find shipwrecks, decomposing skeletons, woebegone ghosts, and a cook with a penchant for the Most Dangerous Game. Within the Faire, it's all business from the carnies. The brightly lit atmosphere puts an exciting, almost frantic veneer on the sinister undertones of the island, and makes me think that we'll meet a deranged wife in the attic or find out we could see dead people all along.

The monthly profession dailies are extremely satisfying on many levels (although you do need a minimum of 75 skill to see them, which discourages loading up all of your alts with cooking, fishing, and first aid). Only a few require extra materials from the player, and you can easily take the portal back to your home city if you forget to bring them. Then, collect a few items, skin or DE or craft them together, and bam! you get a couple tickets. At 85, the 250 Grisly Trophies can easily be farmed in any number of places if you won't collect them all during your regular activities.

What really bothers me is the daily quests. You have to pay for tokens, and receive only one ticket and no gold in return. Well, all right, that's pretty standard fare for carnivals. In keeping with the "screw the customer" style, most of the games cannot complete their associated dailies in one go. What's even worse is that you can almost finish your quest in the first round, meaning you only really need a few seconds at the beginning of the next. I typically turn in my quest after completing it, which always stops the game time. The NPCs tell me, "Don't stop now! You still have time to play!" Overwhelmingly, my response is no. Why is that? It's not like I'm unfamiliar with painful grinds or dailies that don't have time limits. And even fun dailies like pygmy smacking in Uldum aren't fun enough to keep me whacking after the quest objective is completed. It's just that, with the exception of Whack-a-Gnoll (I play a healer, go fig), my only reason for playing the Faire games is to complete a quest. Having to "queue" for two rounds of a game when I only need one and a half just irks me.

During February's Faire, the Hogger mobs spawned fast and thick, and I was able to complete my daily in one game round. It was incredibly satisfying! In March, they must have slowed the spawn rate because I typically get about 25/30 credits in the first round. In April, there were times I stopped and waited for several seconds for a gnoll, any gnoll to spawn. (BABIES EVERYWHERE) Having to replay just to get the last 5 is an excruciating annoyance. Doing it every day... In this case, I'd like for them to cut back on the spirit of carnivals in favor of being able to finish a quest all in one go. I don't mind the money for the tokens, but I do mind having to redo a game that isn't all that engaging to begin with.

Nowadays, we can join an anonymous collection of strangers and defeat Deathwing with little more than a fart, max out our professions using only vendor goods and quests, and buy mounts lovely enough they could be rare drops with cash money. I think the Darkmoon dailies should be tweaked until you can finish a quest in a single round of play!

Goblins at the Faire

After that stint in the Badlands, I thought I'd take a break from the wide world of contract work and spend some time in Orgrimmar to manage my monetary affairs more personally. My apprentice Myda is learning the tricks of the trade quickly, and knows her way around an auction house portfolio nearly as well as I do! She'll be a great addition to the Sparklefizz family, especially compared to my good-for-nothing brother.

Not three days after airing out my apartments did news of the Darkmoon Faire spread through the Slums like wildfire. Barkers were outside at all hours advertising, and banners on every corner directed me to the city's central plateau, where a Faire mage was giving ports to Thunderbluff.

I decided to give Myda the time off, so when the Faire finally opened, I ported us both to Thunderbluff and we walked to the actual portal to the island. What little history I gathered about the Faire is that it's led by a gnome called Silas Darkmoon, and after years of traveling and scraping together gold, he was able to relocated permanently to a private island. The only problem is that it requires a special portal to get to! I wonder how he found it in the first place...

When we arrived, I must admit I was surprised by the...atmosphere. Myda's pet began to yowl and pace, and she had to spend almost ten minutes calming her down! (She insisted on bringing her lion. At least my elemental can be dismissed!) But the pet's agitation was understandable. The arrival location is in a very dark forest. Even though it was mid-morning, the forest made it seem like night! It's made even worse by the thick cloud cover - I mean, it's a lot fresher than smog, but the whole island feels damp and cold and dark. Gloomy. Maybe a little ominous.

We followed the signs to the Faire proper. The flashing lights and moving parts made me think of Kezan. What I wouldn't give for an ice cold glass of Kaja Cola The Faire is massive - clearly Silas saved a lot of coin! It's much better lit than the path; there are bonfires every few steps, torches between those, and even firebreathers roaming the streets, entertaining the guests! It looks like a pretty demanding job; must be good money in that.

While Myda tried out the games, I just looked around. The contrast of bright lights and dark forest is familiar, but somehow manages to be way eerier than Kezan ever was. The carnies grin when they sell you tickets, but once the transaction's finished they go right back to serious, even grim. The trials of customer service? Maybe not. I spent some time talking with Aimee, who runs the pastry shop and got the impression that she genuinely loves her job. It seems that all Darkmoon's employees love the Faire. True employee loyalty can't be beat, but I'm curious to know how Silas earned such devotion from them, and why they frown when no one's looking.

As it turned out, Myda was pretty good at the Faire games, especially target shooting and the ring toss. She won a good pile of tickets, but it wasn't quite enough to buy anything. Maybe I'll try some games myself, see if I can't earn enough tickets to buy her a treat. After all, I need to treat my employee at least as well as Silas treats his!

Fantastic! Meretricious. And a happy new year!

I thought about doing a "year in review" post, but as typically happens after a long vacation, I'm too out of sorts to manage it. Instead, you get a rare roundup of what's been going on in Aka-land. Lucky you.

The greatest ornament

For the first time in two years, I returned to the US for the last two weeks of the year. The guy at customs asked me how long it had been and I honestly couldn't remember (it came to me several minutes later - December 2009!). I'm a citizen okay, just let me in the freaking country DX The flight from Kansai to San Francisco was so empty that I had an entire row of 3 seats to myself, including all the pillows and blankets they had prepared! I made myself a little nest an even managed to sleep a bit on the flight. Then it was a 5 hour layover in California, followed by a long flight to Orlando and they didn't even feed us dinner. US Airways, you are on notice.

No gaudy Winter Veil sweater this year!

I had brought my laptop with the hopes of doing my Greench daily at least, especially after I was reminded of the Lump of Coal pet, but in the end I only did it about 4 times over two weeks and mostly used it to check email and manage the Furtive Father Winter business. And I did get my gifts on Aka on Xmas day, but my other alts will just have to wait till next year! It's been a long time since I played WoW on Lappy, and I must say that my Desky has really spoiled me. I can't believe that I used to raid on a macbook that barely manages more than 5fps in Org!

My dad likes to catch lizards.

It was great to see my parents and brother again; the last time was August 2010 when they toured Tokyo and Kyoto. One of my mom's brothers and his family dropped in from NY and I got to chat with my extremely cool aunt. It was ridiculously, blessedly warm. I forgot how totally oblivious Florida can be when it comes to "winter". I took my brother and little cousin to Universal Studios and IOA on Xmas Eve, and not only was it totally empty, it was hot! They even went swimming! The biggest highlights were hanging with my mom, getting a Kindle (books beware!), and playing my piano for hours every day.

The view from my bff's parents' backyard.

Then it was off to Huntsville, to visit my BFF, her GF, and my future home! Since they also had the week off, we did a ton of cooking, drinking, and gaming. I made them watch the BBC Sherlock season 1 (if you follow me on twitter you probably already know that I'm a big fat fangirl, so uh, sorry. But seriously, watch it!) and we devoured season 1 of The Big Bang Theory. Why did I wait so long to start on that? Bad nerd, bad! Just like old times, we gorged on Vanilla Coke and "break and bake" chocolate chip cookies and played Pokemon. I restarted my Japanese copy of Black, and she gave me a walkthrough so I can have maps. Mapses, my precioussss. We rang in the new year bullshitting a poker game (her GF is actually an incredible player and has won a few tournaments; we on the other hand were far too tipsy and incompetent to play seriously) and enjoying a 7-layer dip.

Creepy Santa

I flew back to Orlando, met my family for lunch during my layover, then went to LA, on to Haneda, and finally back to Kansai. The good news is that I managed to avoid those creepy new scanner machines at all the security points! And, because I requested an aisle seat on the long flight, not expecting anything since the flight was so full, they generously stuck me in the "premium economy" section to remedy overbooking the economy section! You guys, they get real silverware, cloth hand towels, and the toilet sink is motion activated! HOW DID WE EVER LIVE BEFORE LUXURY?!

Happy New Year!

Now I'm back at home and trying to settle into the new year. My WoW resolutions are still undecided - I'd like to work on the Darkmoon Faire dailies so I can get all the cute new pets and mounts, and maybe fill out my tier 0.5 set, which was never finished and has mismatched colors! Other than that, I have a few achievements I'm still chasing on Aka, and I want to continue my questing and storytelling on my mage. There are other alts I'd like to keep working on, namely my Ally priest and goblin hunter, but since my meatspace resolutions consist of: eat, sleep, exercise well, I may have to leave them for extreme downtime. I'd also like to get back into raiding, which means actually showing up on Thursdays and Sundays. Balance is hard work!

Gratuitous Post of Yourself (GPOY)

Time for a gratuitous Beko post! I mostly disappeared under a rock in August, but now that the weather is (slowly!) cooling off and I no longer feel physically compelled to watch the next episode of TNG (just kidding, and now I am also engrossed in BSG) I have been getting back into my WoW groove.

I actually started doing my dailies again, which means I finally finished up my Molten Front chunk of achievements and got my sweet new mount! I really wish you didn't have to do so many intro dailies just to get to the final stage each day. I just wanna help my birdie buddies! (By the by, did you know that if you jump off the edge near the Talon druids, they will catch you and fly you to the other side? Don't ask how I know this!)

ALTS

I am nearly finished leveling JC on my paladin, although it is someone hampered by the mountain of items I craft and then need to DE, AH, or straight up vendor. Now I'm scrounging for more blue WOTLK gems to push myself into Cata levels. I saved a lot of grief by having some honor lying around which I used to by patterns from Wintergrasp - although I did have to wait days for it to change hands. On my bank alt, I'm trying to keep up with my humble bag and pet business, which is a slow and steady sort of race. Especially when every other month or so some asshole crashes the netherweave bags market! I also have been wanting to play my mage, but since I'm so behind on the Goblin Journal entries, I'm holding off.

TRANSMOGRIFABULOUS

What an interesting and long-awaited development! It's definitely teamed up with Void Storage to cause me plenty of heartache. A guildie asked me what I would do with Beko's outfit; to be honest, I have no idea! I do have a fair amount of sets in my banks, lovingly collected and assembled into the most fashionable of druid leathers. But which to wear? Whatever I don't wear will likely go into storage along with my rare tabards and priceless artifacts. But, knowing me, I'll want to change my look more often, since I'll still be wearing my actual gear anyway. Then again, will I be able to appreciate the current tier's look if I cover it up with T3? DECISIONS. Even more troubling is the wealth of nontier gear sets available to me. There are so many blogs providing good resources and lists for gear. Too many options!!

The one thing I don't understand is the ban on legendaries. I get that legendaries are freaking hard to get. But so is grinding old gear! Most of my MC rep grind was done alongside gear and legendary chasers - we both spent a bajillion hours grinding various drops. I even helped them with other parts of questlines! So why can I show off my Cenarion duds, and the guy with Thunderfury has to leave it in the bank?

TIER 13

Speaking of tier gear. So I know that the inspiration this time around is "wear your new Cataclysm class spell." Unless of course you're a warrior in which case it's "look like a total fucking badass because YOU ARE DEATHWING." It's not that I think the spell being translated into gear is a bad idea, and in fact it could be a very awesome idea, but when you're compared to THE DESTROYER himself it comes up a little short. Warriors get to look like they ripped off Deathwing's armor plates and bolted them to their bodies, and druids look like they just got dug out of a lakebed in Zangarmarsh. I don't know. Tell me how to like this new tier!

HORSES...NOW WITH MORE ARMOR!

Worgen are getting some horses to ride! I guess that means they don't have to do that awkward hunched over running business anymore. I think you know how I feel about mounts, so I have no problem with this addition. I am a little disappointed in the model they used, however. Sure, worgen are former humans, but couldn't their horses be even a little different? Maybe I can finally get my worgen past level 13 and get her a mount too.

RAIDS

So it looks like I will still be missing Wednesday night, the first day of our weekly raiding schedule, due to scheduling conflicts. That sucks a lot, but at least I think I'll be able to make it to Thursday, Sunday, and Monday if everything works out. Having missed so many raid nights for the past few months has left me feeling a little overwhelmed with my character progression. Although I did take the time to make myself a gear list, I haven't been paying very close attention to it, so even when I finished my dailies grind I had to be reminded to check for gear upgrades. Bad Beko, no cookie. :( At least we are very close to downing Rags (having 2-shot Majordomo, which felt a little cheap to me) so hopefully I can be present for that.

The new raids, however, hnnnggg. The pictures look so ominous and amazing. I really love that we are returning to Northrend, especially since all of the changes to the world took place on Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. Despite, you know, Northrend being part of Azeroth. A few bosses have pretty good backstory, as well. In Firelands I felt genuinely interested in Alysrazor, Staghelm, and Ragnaros, and all the other bosses were just fiery pixels with sweet loot. Reading the stories for the the new raid, however, I feel like a higher percentage have a good story or reason to be involved. I'm looking forward to doing the new heroics as well! (Nozdormu wants us to destroy a "mysterious dragon known as Murozond"? GEE WHATEVER COULD THAT MEAN)

One thing that feels unfinished, however is a final encounter with Neptulon in some capacity or another. So far, we have taken care of the air and fire elemental lords, and made an ally of the earth. We need some conclusion with water! Especially since the last time we saw him, he was being carried off for who knows what nefarious purposes! Maybe the Neptulon conclusion can be the awkward little raid that will be smushed in the downtime between Dragon Soul and the next expansion.

DARKMOON FAIRE

OMG. YOU GUYS. First off, I expect a bottle of champagne and some complimentary minipets the moment I get to the Faire, due to my exceptional relationship with Darkmoon. I'm so so glad they decided to expand this fun little flavor event. The Faire always seemed like this random, forgotten event that cropped up every once in a while and was important to the small percentage of people who either want to go Insane or get their fleeting BiS trinket. Now, there will hopefully be more intriguing and consistent reasons to visit, and it's fun carny atmosphere can last all year round!

Akabeko the Insane

Insane in the Membrane

Last week, I became officially Insane. I made sure my Insane buddy was online, then turned in the last of my lockboxes. He really deserves a ton of thanks for not only providing advice and motivation, but generously donating his leftover Darkmoon card mats and even farming lockboxes for me!

I wish I had kept track of fun tidbits like gold and time spent doing things. (It's probably good that I did not) I can say that I bought librams for 50g or less and Pristine Black Diamonds for around 100g; I installed Gathered specifically to farm Blood of Heroes, although now I use it for more typical farming.

Bloodsail was my first rep, achieved on September 24, 2009. Then, even though my plan had been to salvage goblin reps first, I procrastinated and had to avoid goblin towns. Gadgetzan bruisers are particularly persistent, for the record. I got frustrated running Dire Maul and switched to pirate massacre, which was not a good idea. Soon I was back in Dire Maul and finished Steamwheedle in record time. Of course, by then I didn't need librams anymore, so I sent them to my Insane buddy and felt like I was helping him at least a little bit.

I leveled inscription and herbalism on a DK to make me Darkmoon cards, and a rogue to farm lockboxes. I made quite a bit of gold from pickpocketing and remember, that's only half I had to farm for myself! I tried one round of half-looting the lockboxes, but I don't recommend it.

My buddy sent me a fun emote macro he made to randomly emote something indicative of his mental state after completing the grind. Although it's old news for a lot of other "the Insane"s out there, I'm still really excited I finally finished this grind! It took over 1 year, 7 months to complete, so I feel like I kind of avoided the Insane-making part. Still, it accomplishes a goal that I planned and executed, and I join the good company of others who have it.

I wonder what the grind is like post-Cata? :)

So long, bearded lady!

Now that I've had a good introspective mope, it's time to smother you with squealing glee (is that where squee comes from?). To begin, I GOT EXALTED WITH DARKMOON FAIRE!!!!!!!!!!

Because I stupidly kept trying to complete decks without seeing how many completed ones I already had banked, I ended up not only with lots of leftover cards, but at least 5 completed decks! But I'm maybe a week away from The Insane so I don't even care. I've offered the leftovers to other guildies looking to go Insane before I start auctioning off my remaining cards. Check out my guildbank (I had already extracted a ton of cards before taking this shot but I didn't want to put everything back in and take it out again...)

If I had to give tips, I would say keep your spreadsheet updated with how many of each card you have, and be mindful of your completed decks and the next Darkmoon Faire for turn-ins. Having a mailbox is incredibly useful for sending away those unique cards without having to leave the questgiver. If you have any guildies who are getting their Cata trinkets, do their turn-ins for them! Don't be afraid to buy ink and primals on your own, Darkflame Ink in particular is very cheap on my server, and I can generally get either motes or primals for less than 10g total. Also, if you get towards the end of your grind and see that one card of a deck has an extremely low droprate (we meet again, Ace of Beasts), stop buying more cards for that deck and focus your gold on more expensive cards to build other more regularly-completable decks. Check out this helpful spreadsheet I made to keep track of your cards!

If the major deck market is total crap on your server, don't reject the minor decks! Rogues Decks are the easiest to make, needing only three cards to make a full set, although I've found that Two of Rogues has an abysmally low droprate. It's incredibly slow going, but you can rest assured that you'll get some rep and be able to sell the rewards. I always alternate between the cloth and leather chestpieces, and typically auction them for around 5 or 6g. If you get a windfall of the blue minor decks, those rewards can be sold for 30 and 40g.

When it comes to auctioning the major deck trinkets, run an auction-scanning mod like Auctionator and keep track of the going rates for each trinket. It takes a while, but I have been able to sell all of my trinkets with prices from 70 to 400g (depending on what trinket it is).

I've seen some calls for a new guide to the Insane title. Removing Shen'dralar saves a ton of time and gold, and Darkmoon and Ravenholdt basically haven't changed. I'd be interested to look into how to grind Steamwheedle rep while maintaining Bloodsail standing (especially since Free Knot! has been removed), or if it's even possible.

Now, for something completely different!

I want to learn more about computer hardware! There is, of course, the general education I have received due to simply being around computers for a long time, and also doing lots of gruntwork for my dad while he plays Age of Empires and sort of directs my 13-year-old self to install a new harddrive or what-have-you. I would love to take a class, except that there aren't any places around that could give English-language instruction (as much as I would love to talk about disuku doraibu and debaisu joutai). So, denizens of the internet, where have you gone to learn about the flashy bits that make up the inside of your PC? How do you learn what type of processor jives with your motherboard, or what a solid state drive is?

Darkmoon Faire, Resto raid gear

Darkmoon Faire spreadsheet

I did a huge overhaul on my Darkmoon Faire reputation calculator and card-collecting spreadsheet. It now has the four new trinkets in Cata and reflects the changes to the materials requirements for making cards. In the gold section I revamped the calculations - I included sections for average prices of Volatile/Eternal/Primal Life, which are in my opinion the hardest to acquire, and subtracted that from your price maximum before calculating other appropriate costs. It also calculates how much crystallized/motes of life would cost; I often find that it's cheaper to buy bits and bobs and assemble the Eternals/Primals myself.



The download is here. Please tell me what you think!

Resto raid gear

I updated the resto druid raid gear list to reflect the increased importance of Mastery over Crit in patch 4.0.6. This affected the rankings of Head, Neck, Cloak, Waist, Legs, and Rings pieces. Please have a look at the updated post here!

New patch, new me

Before Magmaw

Time for another summation of my healing experiences, this time regarding how raids have gone before and after patch 4.0.6. To begin, I was getting raid invites for most of the nights I signed up for (due to spotty attendance lately we have been running the same lockout with different raid comps based on availability, rather than 2 lockouts and 2 groups). Some nights were learning nights, or as I like to call them: "wipe fests" and other nights we got 1 or 2 bosses down, usually with the magical "Last attempt, guys" buff.

Then, last week we got 3 bosses down on Wednesday, and 3 more on Thursday, a new record and our 6th progression kill. That brings us to Magmaw, Chimaeron, Omnitron, Atramedes, Halfus, and now Theralion & Valiona. The twins fight is really fun. I'm surprised at how quickly we got them - 3 steadily improved attempts and finally a kill! That fight is sort of like controlled mayhem...I think I like it. I also really like tank healing on Chimaeron. The worst part is struggling to get everyone topped up in the stack phase because it's so mana intensive, but I do enjoy my lol-dps time in the final phase.

T&V kill shot

I find that I increasingly enjoy tank healing, especially on Chimaeron and Atramedes. Rolling Lifeblooms, tossing around Rejuves and clearcasting Regrowths, spamming Nourish if I have time... it's really fun. And the buffed Wild Growth is really helpful now, too. Heroics are starting to feel *gasp* easy! Last night I pugged 3 DPS with manfriend and we had such a good run that we even got an achievement unintentionally!

SPEC, aka FAREWELL, EFFLORESCENCE

I really wanted to keep it - I put it in my spec and used it in raids and was mostly pleased by it. Looking at my raid parses, on some fights Eff. was doing as much as 5% healing. I do like it, and my raid came to love the green puddles too. There's a certain pleasure in seeing Healing Rain and Eff. layered. But the talent tree change meant reassessing, and I decided not to take Efflorescence again. The reason is simple - because it's linked to Living Seed it costs 6 whole points, not 3, and Living Seed consistently sucks out loud. I can't justify those 6 points when I could be using them elsewhere (and I am). Please unlink Living Seed and Efflorescence! I'll gladly spec back into it, but not with Living Seed!!

Talents here

GEAR

I realize that pants are usually covered by robes (*grump* even though female Tauren look totally rad in pants), but I'm a wee bit disapointed at this tier's look. The pants are wholly unexciting, although the shoulders and helm are quite nice. Of course, I don't have the helm - instead I have the very exciting Engineering helm. I love the eccentric look :) I was also able to buy my epic shoes, although I'm not willing to shell out for Lavawalker quite yet.

Aloof. Genius.

THE INSANE

I know what you're thinking. Shouldn't I have been done with this like a year ago?? Well, I put it off due to general laziness, the drive to get Cata quests done, to get exalted with all the reps, to do heroics, to get geared, to raid, to do friggin Archaeology. But a lot of that has been taken care of and that's kick started my Insane grinding again. I powered up my lock's enchanting and have been actively listing scrolls and bags in addition to the card trinkets I've accumulated, so I have funds to buy cards and mats again. I trawl the AH daily for cards - including non-epic ones!! My major deck card limit has increased to 50g and my minor card limit is around 2g. I'm frankly surprised at how successful I've been at selling the rewards of both. Because Cata decks are all the rage now I can finally afford Northrend cards as well, so I've been making more of those and putting all those Eternal Life and Frost Orbs to use. It's progressing nicely now - I just need to stop doing archaeology long enough for my rogue to finish farming lockboxes!

The guild standard does not increase quest-related reputation gain.

UPDATES INC

While I get the last of my zone achievement guides out, I'll also be updating my raid gear list to reflect the increased importance of mastery. Then I'll overhaul my Darkmoon Faire spreadsheet to include the new decks, the new rep bonuses, and the recipe gold breakdowns. When I finish the achievement lists I'll be putting them up on a new Guides page, along with others I've done. Look out for a few more posts inspired by my sudden feverish need to write guides, followed by some cheesy stories that I wrote in my free time at work.

I know it's a bug, but...please please let me keep my little sproutlings the way that they are!! I want mini-mes to remember the way I used to be :(

Darkmoon Faire Reputation Calculations

Having finished up the massive chore that is Steamwheedle rep, I have turned my attentions to Darkmoon Faire and Ravenholdt. DMF definitely seems to be the more painful of the two, what with the high cost of materials (particularly the most in-demand herbs and Northrend cards) and the unpredictable drop-rate of cards.

I made myself a very elaborate spreadsheet to keep track of what cards I have and answer various questions about rep and pricing. Some of the sections came specifically at the request of my fellow Insane guildie. You can check out the spreadsheet here. If you have a gmail account, you can easily use that to log into the zoho site and save a copy to input your own values.



At the moment, my method is searching the AH and buying up any reasonably-priced cards (cheap decks are a pipe dream, sadly), then searching for motes/Primals of Life. I have decided to farm Outland herbs (a few mobs in particular). I get the feeling that I need to expand my purchases to everything falling under the price ranges I so helpfully worked out for myself, but for the moment I don`t have the addon to facilitate those searches, nor the gold resources willing to be spent.

The closer I get to the end, the faster I want to be doe, but considering how long I`ve had this in progress (I won`t say "working on" because I have taken many breaks), I can wait a bit longer. Especially when I`ve got a million other projects (see [Cata] Bucket List above) in the works. And although I have the heart of a grinder, I have been known to grind out other reps to avoid working on more cumbersome tasks. Just last night I found myself in UBRS trying for the Wildheart chestpiece instead of farming Primals!