At first, I thought that perhaps I hadn’t gotten any Tauren alts to 90 yet because I wanted my Human Mage to be my second character to 90 so that I could score Dynamic Duo and Double Agent simultaneously. So I took Kinevra to Pandaria and found that I didn’t particularly want to play with her, after all. She’s back in Stormwind with early Paw’don Glade quests in her log.
After I’d thought about it a bit more, it occurred to me that BTH and I were making good enough time with our Monks (relatively speaking) that perhaps I’d subconsciously decided that I wanted my Monk to be my second character to 90. Once I’d consciously acknowledged that, however, I began to feel like maybe I was holding back some of my other high-level characters unfairly.
Perhaps what it really comes down to is this: I don’t feel the need to be out-and-about in Pandaria with alts because Kamalia, my main, still has so much to be doing out-and-about in Pandaria.
I confess that after I reached Revered with the August Celestials and the Shado-Pan, the only faction I continued to regularly do dailies for was the August Celestials — and even then, it was almost exclusively when it was Cradle of Chi-ji. Even so, I’ve reached Exalted with the August Celestials without finishing the Cradle of Chi-ji storyline, so I’m still visiting Sage Lotusbloom to see which AC wants my company today. Perhaps I shouldn’t have bought the August Celestials Grand Commendation, after all.
Also contrary to what I said previously, I did continue to run LFR after obtaining my Sha-touched gem. I still wanted the shield that Gara’jal drops, so I queued only for Guardians of Mogushan by myself each week until he finally coughed it up for me last week. I’d kind of like to make a Transmogrification kit to go with that shield, but mini-Kam is the one who has most of the pieces I think I’d want to use in it… sigh.
Wrathion’s quest for 6000 valor points gave Kamalia the stomp on the tail she needed to start doing dailies for the Shado-Pan, the Golden Lotus, and the Klaxxi again. After completing my Dominance Offensive dailies, and if the AC dailies weren’t Cradle of Chi-ji, I’ll go do one or two of the others, depending on my mood. On a couple of very ambitious feeling days, I’ve even done all three! By the time I’ve earned those 6000 valor points, I think I’ll probably have managed to finally reach Exalted with the Shado-Pan, the Golden Lotus, and the Klaxxi, too.
After three weeks of diligently capping out Kamalia’s valor points, though, last week I just didn’t feel like it. My semester (which began in the first week of February) was finally kicking into full gear. My upper division biochemistry lab class students had turned in their first lab report for me to grade. My general chemistry lab class had had its first meeting. And I had to prepare, give, and grade the first quiz of the semester for my general chemistry lecture course (a literally last-minute addition to my teaching contracts — the department chair decided to split the class and give the new second lecture section to me on the Friday before the Monday when classes began). So, I didn’t. I did play WoW, and I did do some dailies and some dungeons and get some valor points, but I didn’t expend any effort at all toward trying to cap my valor points. I suspect that this week will be much the same.
I reached Revered with the Dominance Offensive last week. Although I’ve purchased Grand Commendations for all the other factions, I decided not to buy the Grand Commendation for the Dominance Offensive just yet. I will wait until I’m Revered with Wrathion, too, before I do that. I’m about halfway through the Landfall storyline, having completed six of its twelve sub-achievements. Ideally, I’d like to reach Revered with Wrathion at about the same time that I finish the plot; I definitely don’t want to be coming back to Domination Point to grind Wrathion rep after I’ve completed the story. But any alts that I may decide to take through the Dominance Offensive/Operation:Shieldwall stuff? Yeah, I’ll want them to be able to do it at double speed.
And even when I do get to Exalted with the Klaxxi, the Golden Lotus, the Shado-Pan, and the Dominance Offensive, well, by then Patch 5.2 will be well underway and there will be a whole new faction and a whole new isle o’ dailies to keep Kamalia busy.
Most tellingly, though, when I haven’t been playing with Kamalia, the alts I’ve been spending the most time with have been, well, not in Pandaria.
My Paladin tanked LBRS from level 57 to level 60 without seeing the Plate of the Shaman King drop even once; while she wasn’t dungeoneering, she was running around doing Pet Battles. After I’d defeated all the Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdom trainers (minus the ones in Cataclysm zones, of course) and gotten my lead team of Kiamore the Brilliant Kaliri, Ariel the Pandaren Air Spirit, and Navie Chan the Pandaren Monk up to level 20, however, my enthusiasm for pet battling petered out. Partly this was because I wasn’t ready to take my Paladin to Outland yet. But mostly, I think, it was because the upcoming changes to pet battling on the PTR sounded like they’d be worth waiting for.
It’s my DPS Warrior who’s really been getting the love. After reaching level 68, she hung around in Netherstorm for another few levels callously slaughtering blood elves until the Scryers at last agreed that yes, they liked her, they really really liked her, and allowed her to buy their tabard. She’d decided that she wanted it for a Transmogrification kit, which I shall have to get together and display sometime soon. She’s now in Northrend, doing all the Kalu’ak questlines — I needed a change from my usual Northrend questing sequence, it had been awhile since I’d done anything for the tuskarr, and I remembered that I liked their quests. By the time my Warrior finishes helping out the Kalu’ak, she ought to be level 77 and ready to become an Argent Aspirant. I’ve done a few pet battles with her, too — enough to get my lead pets all up to level 21. Perhaps while my Warrior is goofing around with oversized toothpicks in Icecrown, my Paladin will go to Outland and start working down that “Master Pet Trainers To Beat” list again.
And then there’s my Tanking Warrior, who wants to get to level 40 and be able to wear Plate, finally… and my Priest, who wants to get to level 60 so she can start tagging along on LBR runs to AQ to collect scarabs and Brood of Nozdormu rep and other bug junk so that someday she can get the Vestments of the Oracle… and my Feral Druid, who wants to level because making new Transmogrification kits for my Monk is spinning off other ideas for leather sets that I think would be better for a Druid, and….
Oh, and speaking of AQ and scarabs and Brood of Nozdormu rep and other bug junk, I don’t generally care much for bugs, but the two bugs I got this past week are pretty cool indeed.
I was happy to give one of Navimie’s Imperial Silkworms a good home.
Not one but two Red Qiraji Resonating Crystals dropped in LBR. I got the first one by default because Repgrind and Helke both had one already, and the second one went very sadly unused.
