crazy for Crackers

After I made a pirate outfit for Kerithian to express my delight and gratitude for Alunaria’s generous gift of a Cap’n Crackers, a few of my other characters wanted to have pirate parrot outfits, too.

Hai Hai Birdie

First Mate Hat, Buccaneer’s Vest, Captain Sanders’s Sash, Vileweave Leggings, Exiled Dabbler’s Gloves, Buccaneer’s Boots, Stagheart Staff
I never quite caught on to the Pepe mania during Warlords. Nevertheless, I had to find out if it was possible to have a bird on one’s shoulder and a bird on one’s head.

Avast, Ye Lubbers

Puncture-Binding Spaulder, Burnt Leather Vest, Batskin Belt, X-52 Pilot’s Leggings, Bandit Gloves & Boots, Stagheart Warglaives
Because I wasn’t sure when I’d manage to get Kiralaira out to Zandalar, I watched the AH carefully for awhile to be able to acquire a set of Kul Tiras warglaives that could be used at level 110.
Cap’n Crackers suggested that I shouldn’t wait any longer to make a kit with them.

ARReady Got Enuff Crackers

Fleet Commander’s Hat, Gargantuan Mantle, Fierce Gladiator’s Leather Tunic Belt & Legguards, Bard’s Gloves & Boots, and Zorbin’s Mega-Chopper
Cap’n Crackers has to be Cap’n Crackers because there was already a pirate parrot pet named “Crackers” who would come sit on your shoulder when you /whistle at him. Crackers was originally the companion of Fleet Admiral Tethys. After Crackers defected to the Shadowblade during the Legionfall segment of the Rogue Order Hall campaign, Tethys replaced him with a monkey.
As awesome as the shoulders for the Antorus Rogue Tier set look, I had to trade them out for something a little smaller for this kit. They were too big for Crackers to perch on comfortably — though he’d sit on my shoulder when I first /whistled at him, as soon as I started moving, he’d start hovering over my head and would only come back to sitting on my shoulder if I sat down.

I didn’t go all out and make a complete collection with outfits for all the armor types because I haven’t a) leveled my Dwarf Paladin in Kul Tiras so I can use that armor style for the plate set or b) got a Kul Tiran Shaman to wear the mail set… yet.

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capy-capy-capybara! *boing boing*

The Patch 8.1 PTR is turning up some cool stuff already — upgraded Blood Elf Guard armor that may or may not be the Blood Elf Heritage Armor, a Boomkin form of their own for Highmountain Tauren Druids, new Night Elf stuff — but what has me most excited is that there will be capybaras!

I’m rather fond of capybaras. I think they’re funny and cute. Guinea pigs are my favorite small animal pet; we had a series of them when I was growing up, and by the time I was in college, the guinea pig was my special pet. I keep telling my toddler that when he gets big enough, I’ll get him some guinea pigs — but they will really be for me, and I’ll just be sharing them with him. And capybaras look kind of like gigantic guinea pigs.

I sure hope the capybaras will be tamable — both as big ones for Hunters and as little ones for Pet Battles. I haven’t tamed any new Hunter pets for quite awhile now — I’ve been meaning to tame a manasaber and to make the Mecha-Bond Imprint Matrix and then go tame the purple-gold-blue mechanostrider in Gnomeregan, but because I rarely actually use any pets other than the faithful cougar who’s been with me since level 10, adding new pets to my collection always seems to be so low down on my priority list of ways to spend my game time that I never get to it. I think I’d go out of my way to tame a capybara, though 😀

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come on a Safari with me

Outfits to wear with the Safari Hat.

Desire to look ruggedly attractive: required.
Actually being a dedicated Pet Battling alt: recommended, but not required.

Safari Khakis

Han Ibal’s Epaulettes, Journeyman’s Vest, Arcane Sash, Durable Pants, Riding Gloves* + Marsh Bracers, Walking Boots*, Captain Sanders’ Shirt, Vile Branch
Because it vaguely reminds me of the long khaki vest with many pockets, I’ve had the idea to use this extra-long tunic in a cloth Safari Hat kit for a long time.

Bushwhacker

Shredder-Salvage Spaulders, Shattered Hand Breastplate, Salt-Scorched Girdle, Stonebound Legplates, Riveted Gauntlets*, Grom’gar Plate Stompers, Captain Sanders’ Shirt, Lobstrock Slicer, Portable Lap Desk
This kit may not have been so matchy-matchy to begin with, but after weeks of tromping through dust and mud, everything looks about the same color: dirty.

Crocolisk Hunter


Boulder Pads, Overgrowth Cutter Vest, Batskin Belt, Ranger Pants, Guardian Gloves, Marius’ Soles of Slaying, Deckhand’s Shirt, Beasthunter Dagger*
Between the chestpiece from Draenor and the boots from the Broken Isles, this isn’t a kit that a low-level Pet Battling alt could wear. It’s quite nice for a high-level alt who is finishing out their leveling using Pet Battles, though.
Fortunately, the place where Kelisanna had left off in the Sholazar Basin questline when she was leveling from 70 to 80 was right at the breadcrumb to start the chain leading to the croc-surfing quest.

Safari Expedition

Cloth: Elementalist or Archmage sets; Leather: Expedition or Dragonhawk sets; Mail: Talhide or Netherstorm sets; Rustic Workman’s Shirt
For a dedicated Pet Battling character looking for something to coordinate with the Safari Hat, this style of gear is just about “one size fits all” — it’s available in every armor type except plate. Your character will have to be at least moderately leveled to wear this kit, however, as these sets are Outland drops. Furthermore, each of these sets has an odd piece or two that doesn’t match all the rest, so a complete set will probably have to be assembled using items from both set names.

Big & Little Game Hunter

Lo’ap’s Muck Diving Pads, Veteran Armor Legguards & Gloves, Marksman’s Girdle, Marauder’s Boots, Deckhand’s Shirt, Hemet’s Elekk Gun
A more complete version of the Veteran Armor is avaliable in plate, from quest rewards that were originally mail, but were converted to plate in Patch 7.0.

The pith helmet motif is also associated with explorers (and archaeologists, and paleontologists); any of these outfits would also work quite nicely with the Tabard of the Explorer.

Happy Hunting!

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Thas’dorah; Titanstrike; Aldrachi Warblades

Since the last Battle Pet Bonus Week, my Hunter has been methodically leveling all the remaining level 1 pets in my favorites list. It feels kind of creepy to be camping out on Ashlei’s hill, because of how she’s just a kid and all, but her two-pet team makes her the easiest to reliably beat — and I’m too lazy to travel around and battle more than one trainer per day. Anyhow, pet-battling having gotten Ketura to level 102, it was time to go get the Artifacts for her other specs.

Knowing that the Marksmanship weapon is Alleria Windrunner’s bow, I hoped that I wouldn’t be taking it from her dead body after having failed to rescue her. Fortunately, that was not what happened. But if she is still alive, why would she have left the bow behind?

It didn’t seem quite right to claim Thas’dorah as a Tauren; that bow rightfully belongs to the children of the Sunwell. So I used the Orb of the Sin’dorei before I picked it up.

I guess my camera angle was bad right at the moment when I clicked on Thas’dorah, because this is the best screenshot I got of the triumphal moment. I didn’t feel persnickety enough about getting a really good screenshot to abandon the quest and do everything over again, though. I had really struggled to get through the scenario. I’d died several times. Partly that was because I didn’t have a very good ranged weapon equipped — it was the reward from the Broken Shore scenario, and I’d forgotten that I’d bought a better one from the Trueshot Lodge quartermaster after I picked up my first Artifact. I also hadn’t played as Marksmanship enough to have figured out the synergy of the abilities very well yet. Furthermore, I’d gotten DC’d halfway through and had to start over from the beginning once already.

I hope that my future actions do not cause Vereesa to decide that her trust in me, and her decision to allow her sister’s bow to be taken by a member of the Horde, were foolish.

~*~*~

I equipped my better ranged weapon from the Trueshot Lodge quartermaster and had a much easier time with the Beast Mastery questline. It took me to the same place as the Protection Paladin questline — just a different tomb in the same complex. I think I can guess which tomb in that complex the Warrior questline will visit…

I enjoyed the subsequent visit to Mimiron’s workshop in Ulduar — and getting to ride in Mimiron’s Head.

The master of beasts part seems a bit tacked-on, though — it makes sense in the same sort of sideways way that the Fist of Ra-den being the weapon for Elemental Shaman rather than Mistweaver Monks does.

I’d farmed the Rifle of the Platinum Guard to Mog over Titanstrike, but I like its appearance better than I thought I did from just seeing the previews on Wowhead during the beta. So I guess I won’t be Mogging over it right away. For the time being, I’ll also just leave Hati as Hati, rather than getting the item that lets you change Hati’s appearance to match your regular pet.

~*~*~

My Demon Hunter was very very close to 102. She had some skinning & leatherworking quests, so I went out to Azsuna and farmed bears and hippogryphs. I thought that perhaps turning in those quests would tick her over; as it happened, just the farming did the trick.

Even though I don’t plan to try to tank for groups, or even to play solo as Vengeance very much, I’d decided to get the Artifact weapon for that spec to see the story and to honor the memory of a race that had so valiantly resisted the Legion.

After having gone to Niskara for the Marksmanship Hunter weapon, I wondered if perhaps the Vengeance Demon Hunter would go there, too — if maybe Niskara was a fragment of the Aldrachi world. But I was disappointed in this; the questline did not reveal anything more about who the Aldrachi were; the Vengeance Demon Hunter goes to the Broken Shore. Along the way to the final boss fight of the scenario, I saw some dead Argent Crusade types. Hmm, I guess that location must also be where the Retribution Paladin questline goes.

~*~*~

Like Mardum, Dreadscar Rift, and Netherlight Temple — and the Remains of Xandros, where we battled Mongrethod at the end of the Talador storyline in Warlords — Niskara is a fragment of a world destroyed by the Burning Legion. These Legion zones are all so tiny — about the size of the Broken Shore. The more of these miniscule shreds of worlds I visit, the more chilling the power of the Legion becomes — and the more vital that Azeroth’s people save her.

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Warlords pet battle goals accomplished

As of yesterday evening, I have:

Defeated all of the Draenor trainers (thanks Lio!)

Upgraded my Menagerie to level 3

And collected all of the Draenor wolf puppies.

Although I still have many pets that are not level 25 and many pets that are not rare quality, I think I’ll take a rest from Pet Battling (except when it’s Pet Battle Bonus XP Week) and work on one of my other alts’ Warlords goals.

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What happened to my battle pets?

A few days ago, I opened my pet journal, reordered it to sort by level instead of by name (as I always do), and noticed that some of my battle pets seemed to be missing. Scrolling down the list, I found the missing pets with the pets that cannot battle. They were greyed out and, when I selected them, unsummonable.

Have any of you been experiencing this with your battle pets recently, too? Any ideas what’s going on here?
I thought that maybe I had too many pets favorited, as I’d recently promoted several more pets to Favorite status, but de-favoriting some of those pets didn’t restore the greyed out ones to activity.
I’ve submitted a bug report about it, because I am really puzzled about what could have triggered it and I have no idea how to fix it.

Update (Friday night): Looking at my pet journal again just now, I discovered that all of my disabled pets are are not tradeable, Unique, and from the Blizzard Store (except for the Dread Raven Hatchling, which is from the Warlords deluxe edition)… but I have pets that fit all of those categories that are still active, too.

Update 2 (Saturday night): Well, whatever the bug was, I guess it got fixed. Apparently it affected my mount list, too, because the first character I logged in with today had mail from Mei Francis containing all my mounts from the Blizzard Store, plus the Dread Raven mount. (I had been puzzled by one of my mount macros failing last week, but it only happened once, so I hadn’t investigated the problem further.) When I then checked my pet list, my disabled pets were all restored to activity.

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the Pet Battling Monk returns to her roots

When at length the Peak of Serenity dailies had gotten her to level 96, the Brewmaster-Bagmaker Monk took the Timeless Isle portal to Draenor and set about establishing her Garrison. She specifically collected the followers that she would need to support her professions — Ka’la the Leatherworker, Pleasure Bot 8000 the Tailor, Shadow Hunter Rala the Herbalist, and Dark Ranger Velonara the Skinner — and built the appropriate buildings. She’s mostly ignoring the rest of the followers and missions game. I also decided to build her a Mage Tower for convenient travel to Nagrand for trapping. Between the quests to establish outposts to get the flight points, the quests to get the followers she wanted, and a few quests dealing with Ogres to collect Waystones, she soon found herself halfway through level 98.

She wasn’t always a Brewmaster-Bagmaker, though. My secondary Monk gained most of the XP for her first 60 levels as a Pet Battler. Once she reached Outland, however, she started doing more and more questing and more and more dungeon healing and less and less Pet Battling. Eventually she decided that she wanted to try out Brewmastering (though only for solo play). After unsuccessfully lobbying the Underpowered Death Knight to take up Pet Battling, she eventually handed over the Pet Battling leashes to my Hunter.

The Sign of the Critter last week inspired my secondary Monk to use Pet Battles to get through that last level and a half of XP to get to 100. First, though, she needed to be properly dressed…

Safari Expedition

Cloth: Elementalist or Archmage sets; Leather: Expedition or Dragonhawk sets; Mail: Talhide or Netherstorm sets; Rustic Workman’s Shirt
For a dedicated Pet Battling character looking for something to coordinate with the Safari Hat, this style of gear is just about “one size fits all” — it’s available in every armor type except plate. Your character will have to be at least moderately leveled to wear this kit, however, as these sets are Outland drops. Furthermore, each of these sets has an odd piece or two that doesn’t match all the rest, so a complete set will probably have to be assembled using items from both set names.

My other two Tailors hadn’t bothered to make an Elekk Plushie, but the Pet Battling Monk needed one (well, duh!). With the Sign of the Critter up, the Kalimdor trainer circuit plus the first few trainers in Outland got the Elekk Plushie almost to level 25. It seemed appropriate, somehow, to get the last bit of XP for it by battling Ashlei and Doodle…

Although I got too late of a start last week to actually get her to level 100 while the Sign of the Critter was up, a few more Pet Battles this week got her over the wire:

Now I have 6 level 100 charaters, with 10 more active alts still in the leveling queue.

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cute is as K’ute does; done with the Shipyard

A minipost double-header!

~*~*~

During the past several months, I’ve been running Sunwell and Black Temple with a series of alts for a laundry list of items for Transmogrification. I’ve spent some time in the Battle of Mount Hyjal, too — not nearly as much, but enough that this happened a few weeks ago without me even having to try for it specifically:


Not sure she’s as cute as my kitten, though:

(if you’ll pardon the terrible Photoshopping of a low-quality selfie…)

~*~*~

The third Heirloom ring mission was for me also the last of the six special reward bearing rare Shipyard missions, so when it popped up last week (or thereabouts), I got an Achievement, too.

I said I’d keep playing the Shipyard until I got all three Heirloom rings, so I guess I’m done with it now. I dunno, there might be a Baleful token or two of which I haven’t got enough for all of my active alts quite yet.

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three, four, open the door

Here are Ketura the Hunter and Katewatha the Monk dinging 100 from the past-expansion dailies that have given them much of their 90-100 XP.

After dinging 100, they went off to Pinchwhistle Point to get the plans for their Salvage Yards and the LAZ-TRON Disc Reader, then flew around picking up the other parts for the Jukebox. They’ve been very busy the past day or two spending their maxed out stockpiles of Garrison Resources and most of the gold they’ve been raking in from Follower missions to expand and upgrade their Garrisons.

Once she had her Jukebox installed, Ketura promptly went to Northrend to pick up the Grizzly Hills theme:

Katewatha is using the “Way of the Monk” theme in her Jukebox, naturally.

Neither of them has built a Shipyard or gone to Tanaan yet. Ketura will go to Tanaan eventually because she needs the Fel-Proof Goggles, precious, oh yes — but I don’t have any particular item or goal in mind that would motivate Katewatha to go to Tanaan.

Each of them got a different quest from the 6.0 Garrison Campaign. I’m glad to see this, because I know that I want to do the whole 6.0 Garrison Campaign with my Druid so that she can recruit Choluna as a Follower, and I’d been a bit worried that I’d have to get all of the zone completion achievements with her to unlock the Garrison Campaign. As great as the leveling story was to play through with Kamalia, I’m finding myself surprisingly reluctant to play through the entire story again with my alts. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it’s because I want to replay different parts of the story with different characters (as has been my usual alt leveling pattern in the past), without having to replay the same part of the story very many times? (I am so tired of Frostfire Ridge, and I’m sure I will get equally tired of Pinchwhistle Point.) Although I’m probably not going to play through the whole story of any of the rest of the Draenor zones with Ketura or Katewatha, I do plan to go do some specific zone questlines with each of them to recruit certain Followers for their Garrison teams. Speaking of recruiting certain Followers, as soon as Ketura upgraded her Fishing Shack to level 3, she got the quest to recruit Nat Pagle. I’m so glad that the Draenor Angler achievement being account-wide allowed this to happen, so that I didn’t have to spend hours and hours fishing with her to get that quest!

Next in line are my two red-headed Mages, and after them, most likely the Druid.

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bitty battle bonanza

After a few months of sparring with Kura Thunderhoof whenever she showed up in Kamalia’s Garrison and paying frequent visits to Stone Cold Trixxy, Lydia Accoste, and Blood Knight Antari with alts, I’ve managed to level enough pets to 25 that I could attempt the Celestial Tournament — if I thought I had the right assortment of level 25 pets, which I’m pretty sure that I don’t. The Sign of the Critter therefore encouraged me to try my luck against the continental trainers I hadn’t beaten yet — although despite the XP bonus from the Sign, I didn’t care about actually getting XP for lower level pets, just about winning the battles. I did most of the battles with all level 25 pets, only using lower level pets when I didn’t have enough level 25 pets of the correct family to counter the trainer I was facing. I went through a lot of battle pet bandages…

By the time I got to Pandaria, I had to beat only two more tamers to get my Safari Hat — the Pet Battling reward I’ve wanted all along. Would I want to continue and attempt the rest of the Pandaria trainers after I’d beaten the first two? Hmm… Yes — unlocking the Pandaria tamer dailies would give my secondary Monk something else to do besides just tending Sunsong Ranch and visiting the Peak of Serenity — battling Farmer Nishi. It only took me two attempts to defeat Aki the Chosen, but after all that pet battling, I was tired!

I visited the Draenor trainers with Kamalia just to finish filling out the “Master Pet Tamers” page in my Note-Book of Faffing — but actually battling them could wait for another day.

The main reason why I’ve wanted the Safari Hat all along, though, is to give my Bankers more options for looking stylish…

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