Just Had to Try It

Someone had to. It's a beautiful view, and it doesn't kill you, just ports you back up to safety, so I'm sure I'll be doing this a lot more once I replace my cloak and can finally use my engineering glider again instead of keeping stacks of Goblin Glider Kits.

Why Am I Even Here?

 I was disappointed to learn that I hadn't been called to to the Argent Tournament Grounds because of my status as a jousting Champion. Yeah, I can just kill Scourge, but where's the fun in that? The rack of lances is still there, the mounts are still there, what gives?

 

Upon getting the Sprite Darter's Wings, I immediately logged on every character to put together a transmog. Unfortunately, the characters that I left in Legion still have their artifacts equipped, so I had to go to their order halls in order to change the artifact's appearance. Khadgar is still in Hindsight's Order Hall, "trying something new" and generally making it difficult to evaluate my outfit.

More Farming Fun

 

While farming the Nightborne carpet on an alt, I took a flight path from Dalaran, which puts you on a favorite flyable mount, and I was delighted to discover that unicorns had magically acquired the ability to fly in the pre-patch! Then I had to look through all the different models to see which one best matched each outfit, and discovered a beautiful blue one that I didn't have. The Pureheart Courser is a reward for 100 exalted reputations, and I was only at 65. I started going through my revered reps to bring them up to exalted, and I'm now at 69. All my revered reps will only bring me to 73 and I'll still have 27 to go, so I think this will be a long-term project, but at least it gives me something to work on. 

I'm a couple Throne of Thunder raid bosses away from exalted on Shado-Pan Assault, but this also gives me a chance to try to get the snail shell toy, and I got to meet this guy finally:

I was excited to finally meet/fight Ra-den on my elemental shaman, so that was pretty cool. I also took advantage of the Magic Broom from Hallow's End to zip around Ordon Sanctuary and get exalted with Emperor Shaohao. Then I had more than enough Timeless Coins to buy the Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent.

                                                                                                   ***************************

My brother mentioned that reps were account-wide now, which I had somehow missed. If Rocksy had been my main all along, it wouldn't have mattered, but my Druid was my original main and has a lot of the early reps that Rocksy doesn't. They are also different factions, and the reps that are different for Horde/Alliance count as one, so I ended up having to make a spreadsheet to figure out which reps I needed on which character, and it was way more confusing than I thought it would be to figure out which one counts as what on the other side. I think I've got it pretty well figured out now, though, and I'm going to be playing my Druid a lot for a while. I'm glad I made the spreadsheet, or I would have been really confused when I got a rep to exalted and it didn't increase my count because Ezriann already had it or the equivalent one.

Be Careful Who You Trust

They may spend fucking forever giving you shit items before they finally give you what you wanted in the first place. 

I have to admit, though, that I don't regret wanting this mount at all. It is absolutely gorgeous. And I just found out that Goblins can have purple hair in the pre-patch and changed my transmog to match, and then got Sprite Darter wings as a 6-month subscription bonus and they just happen to match my mog perfectly! So I guess it's serendipity that I finally received the mount. It actually was my Gnome that got it, these last couple of weeks I've been running Nightborne and Kirin Tor emissary quest on the four characters that are able to get paragon chests, and I am so glad I don't ever have to see the Withered again now. According to Rarity it was the 62nd run, but I think it missed a few chests during the period after pre-patch when all of my addons were broken.

Helping

51 paragon chests opened, no flying carpet. Thank goodness the rep buff came back, I panicked when I cleared all the WQs in Suramar and barely had any rep gains the other day. It's going to be so much more difficult to make myself quest for the Nightborne after the buff is gone. It will be sad not to see Rehgar anymore when I finally get the damn mount, but I'm getting so much bonding time with him now I feel like we're glued together at the hips. And I think it's going to be a long, long, long time before I start to miss him.

The Miracle Worker

This week I'm working on opening my 50th paragon box from the Nightborne, and I'm not holding my breath expecting it to contain a flying carpet. Instead, I was thinking about the first time I saw my Withered troops do this ^. I thought I was doing such a great job of teaching them that they had learned chain lightning like proper Shamans-in-training. I was so proud! Then I unlocked Withered training with my Warlock and got to the point that they were using spells, and, lo and behold, they still cast chain lightning. Oops.

Although maybe I can take credit for this? I have no idea where they learned to line up like this, I've never seen it before.

The best recent event, though, marks the end of visiting Argus for any reason ever again. I finally got Blistermaw's mount! The "Found after 6 attempts!" is adorable, I just love losing my addons and starting all over again fresh. Of course, it would be better if it could erase the memories of the first 40-50 attempts in my mind so I could be surprised and delighted, too. Although delight is a bit much, this mount is ugly as sin and really only worth having for the count.

Cozy Camprire

 

Rares in Darkshore pop up so quickly the corpses don't even fade out before they reappear. I thought I'd sit and pose for pictures while I waited, but when I checked my screenshots I saw that I'd caught Gren Tornfur mid-respawn, and apparently his eyes are first to arrive. So ominous!

I only have one mount left to get in Darkshore, all the toys, and multiples of the pets. I'm still farming the tokens, through, and probably will be for a long time. I've bought the toy, pet, and cheaper mount, but 750 medals for the bat will take quite a while. 

I've also been taking advantage of the 100% rep buff to grind paragon boxes with the Nightfallen. During the last Darkmoon Faire I opened two paragon boxes in a day and one the next day. No carpet. I'm up to 45 attempts but I keep reminding myself that at least I don't have to wait for a holiday to have a shot at the mount. Eventurally I will have the mount and I will never, ever, ever, ever, EVER return to Suramar again.

Small Wins

 I like farming rares and Honorbound Service Medals now that I can solo them for the most part. I am always happy when someone jumps in on the ones with million+ health, though. It's nice to get little drops (pets, toys, the occasional mount) fairly often and breaks up the more tedious grinds. I was happy to get the bear in Darkshore this week! Although I'm a bit disappointed his mount special isn't a little dance. At least I'll always have my Darkmoon Faire bear.

 I got the donkey in Arathi last week, and I was pretty pleased with that, too, although I still prefer my bouncy alpaca for ground travel. 

But the biggest surprise this week happened while I was working the Kirin Tor emissary for my Nightborne rep token. I always do whatever Kirin Tor quests are in Suramar so that I get Nightborne rep as well, and this time the only quest was the Arcway dungeon quest. I've run it dozens of times any time it comes up during Nightborne/Kirin Tor emissary weeks and I'm pretty used to clearing it and vendoring all the drops at the end (or dropping Jeeves if my bag management was poor that week). 

But this time, I was surprised to get a Tome of Hex: Spider. Even though I didn't anticipate using it instead of the Compy one I already have, I was still amazed to actually get something new in an expansion-old dungeon during the endless slog for the Nightborne flying carpet. And I will never get tired of hexxed mobs-now-critters wielding tiny spears menacingly.

 

 

Toys on Parade

I've been farming the toys/pets/mounts each week in Arathi Highlands/Darkshore, but this is my favorite so far. I was bored waiting on a rare in Mechagon and discovered that the ogre head stacks with other costumes while going through the toy box. The green tint is from the irradiated shirt Rocksy's wearing. There's a pet to collect from it, but the shirt goes away and I'm kind of fond of the green so I haven't done it yet.

And it was also fun to use on my Druid while I waited for the Uldum alpaca.

Ivory Cloud Serpent Pink Pain-in-the-Neck

I mean, I like that it's pink. But, holy shit, is this mount ever not worth the trouble. I should have kept better track of the amount of time I wasted on it, but at least after the last mogu invasion ended, followed by several days of Black Empire assaults and Mantid invasions, I thankfully was able to get it this cycle instead of waiting days just to sit around and wait for hours.

This is a screenshot from a group I was in last night. No, it doesn't get that dark in Pandaria at night, but I used an Inky Black Potion to see if the Ivory Cloud Serpent would show up better against this background. "Does it?" I don't know! I waited below the worm's range, planning to join the others when the serpent spawned, but I saw them yelling in chat during one of my breaks from spamming the macro, and I never even saw it! Haha, so fun. By the time I joined them (within seconds, as I didn't have any worm debuff) it was already gone and they were congratulating each other on their new mount.
Today I had a different strategy: stay in the group gathering worm stench, keep spamming the macro, and just hope the spawn point is within range of someone in the party.

Incidentally, I never did see the worm this time, either. My addon announced it, I clicked the macro and waited for it to channel, noticed it wasn't channeling and panicked, then saw the mount was already in my bags. I'm guessing someone else lassoed it and everyone in the party got it? I don't know. I'm still kind of mystified by the whole thing. This guide linked on Wowhead was useful, but I do definitely recommend joining a group. I've been in groups twice now where most* people got the mount.

*Wah, wah, wah.

Hey, Ivory Cloud Serpent*

 Spawn right here for me,

Worm stench is stacked, there's no way I'll catch up to you,

 Hey, Ivory Cloud Serpent, won't you spawn for me,

When the Mogu are invading, I'll be waiting for you

Just let me get close to you, within the lasso's range,

Don't let your spawn point change,

My patience soon will wane,

It's driving me insane,

I don't know why I want this mount I'll never use.

I wish the lasso hadn't dropped, 

this chore's not a "reward".

But I'll do it 'cause I'm bored,

And it frees one bag space more, 

I want this to be over with.

Hey, Ivory Cloud Serpent, c'mon and spawn for me,

When the Mogu are invading, I'll be waiting for you.

*Not pictured. Obviously. But isn't this Great Worm From Beyond with a freaking ivory stripe down the side just a punch in the gut?

If you need the tune: Mr. Tambourine Man, Bob Dylan

Da Ba Dee Da Ba Daa

I got the Void-Touched Souvenir Totem in a chest from running a Horrific Vision of Orgrimmar. I'm a fan of any critter-related toy, and the first place I thought of to try it out was the patch of hillside in Thunder Bluff with oddly violent critters running around.

Pros:

1.  Works anywhere. So many Pandaria toys were nerfed to be usable only in Pandaria, so I was really glad that I didn't have to use this only in the Heart Chamber, or something stupid like that. I'll have to try this in Pandaria, though, so I can use the Panflute and see if the void-blue critter becomes my minion for ten minutes.
2. Makes regular sized critters larger and combative. 

Cons:

1.  30-minute cooldown is a bummer, particularly for setting up screenshots. The cooldown wait could be mitigated by making the totem effect last longer and/or increasing the area affected, especially given the critter's pathing swath can be large and difficult to predict for totem placement. 
2. The large violent critters in Thunder Bluff don't seem to increase in size from the totem (beyond their enraged growth, that is), as far as I can tell. 

We're off to See the Withered

Apologies. But this post just came together beautifully. How did I never come up with this before? (I'm not going back through posts to check if I did or not.) I was going to change the title to "I'm" when I realized that I always have a companion in the Broken Isles, and I just love that Rehgar's mount looks like the Cowardly Lion.
I've been avoiding the Nightfallen ever since my computer crashed and I had to reload my addons from scratch on my new one. I was just sure that even if I did happen to manage to get the flying carpet in my paragon cache, the "on your 1st try!" message from Rarity was going to make me murderously angry. With the 100% rep bonus, though, I had to try. Now I'm up to 30 (2) paragon caches with zero flying carpets, so now at least I'm back in a comfortable failure grind.

Lightning Bolt

I don't know what I did to get this vantage point in a recent pet battle, but it allowed me to get a really good view of the pet's spell effects, and I thought the lightning in the Cyclone ability was a nice touch. I don't know how to ever get this close up view again, but it was pretty cool.

You Don't Say?

I just realized the other day, though, that if Coronavirus had happened at the end of Warlords of Draenor, during the lull before Legion when the garrisons began to feel like prisons, I would have lost my mind. The Horde garrison is so depressing anyway, and I just remember at the end feeling trapped and isolated (hearty LOL) in the garrison day after day. Which isn't to say Warlords was a bad expansion, the questing experience was one of the best, or that Battle for Azeroth is such an amazing expansion, it's been pretty meh for the most part. But for me, the garrison depression would have been unbearable coupled with the reality of isolation/social distancing, compared to the feeling of having places to go and things to do in Azeroth.

Pretty Fishy, If You Ask Me

That's it. That's the post.

That's Not How Sidesaddle Works

Nothing works correctly on a Druid in shapeshift form, though, generally. I'm mostly done playing my Night Elf Druid now that I have my bee, but I started leveling my Zandalari Druid, when I'm not doing chores on my Shaman.

Queen Bee

And her pretty princess bee! I wish the hat was a toy box item, though, so I didn't have to keep a stack of them in my bags.

It really felt pretty pointless having to do this grind on an Alliance character, especially since I had to level her to 120 to start the rep grind. Also, earning a mount on a Druid always feels pointless, since my Druid is only ever going to use the mount for a screenshot, and then never again. But, it was nice getting to Druid again. Flight Form in Kul Tiras/Zuldazar/Nazjatar (I never made it to Mechagon) was suuuuuuuper easy-mode. Interacting with nodes in the air without dismounting is the Best. Thing. Ever. But it will be nice, if I ever get around to leveling my little Warlock, to have a buzzy bee mount.

When I was going through the leveling part, I was going to use this picture for a post:

...because I though it was funny that I instinctively hit Flight Form when a bomb from a quest sent me flying, although I should have known that there would be a contingency plan for non-Druids/Engineers/Demon Hunters. But then when I tried to think of a title for the post, I realized I missed an opportunity by going bird form when I could have used the title "Bearachute". I'll show myself out.

They Grow Up So Fast

I think I'm a few more bags of expensive food away from my baby Direhorn friend growing into a mount! I'll probably never use him as a mount, since he seems awfully large and bulky, and, of course, ground mount. When he was a mid-size dino, though, he would have made a perfect mount for my Goblin:

There really needs to be some mount equipment that normalizes the size of mounts for Goblin/Vulpera/Gnome/Mechagnome/Dwarf/Dark Iron Dwarf. Of course even a miniaturized version of the mount wouldn't be the same as the adorable pet model, but it would at least make them more useful.

I Can Fly, I Can Fly, I Can Fly!

I didn't bother to get a screenshot of my character flying in Zandalar/Kul Tiras/Mechagon/Nazjatar, since it didn't seem like a particularly new or novel feat, but I did immediately return to Zandalar to fly around because it was such a long time that I went without flying there. And the first thing I saw was a couple quests that I missed, including the follow-up to the quests I did with my little Direhorn buddy, and I was so happy to see him again! Apparently I was also supposed to do some stuff with Magni, so I tried to get all caught up on that as well.

"Uhh, yeah Magni, that happened a lot in Mists. Did you sit that expansion out or someth...oh. Right. Sorry."

And the other thing I immediately did when I got flying was to fly to Vol'dun to get my very own Alpaca mount!

She's adorable and I love her so much! I kind of wish I had her before I got flying, but I have a feeling that finding the spawn would have been a lot more time-consuming before I could fly.

Squeaky Surprise

I got an email the other day that said I had a new mount, and I recognized it as the 6-month subscription mount I'd seen advertised on the launcher. I was confused because I'm normally on a monthly subscription, but I looked up my account and saw that apparently in September I'd bought a 6-month subscription, and since it was still active for another month, I'd earned the new mount, Squeakers, the Trickster!

When I tried out the mount special in Orgrimmar, I was surprised to see that it sprouts wings and flies. I guess that makes sense but I hadn't thought about whether it was a flying mount or not. I love the way its little paws hang uselessly while flying. I also love its little hat. But the best part is the mount special. It floats up in a whirlwind, sprouts its wings, and flutters back to the ground. I'm so glad I unknowingly earned this mount, I think I may stick to the the 6-mount subscriptions from now on.

Third Time's the Charm

I am really inordinately pleased with this, although I didn't get my first or second choice of spelling. I am also incredibly pleased with this...

...because I'm surprised I actually finished the quest to get my Deathwing mount. When I found out the anniversary events went on until January I laughed at what a ridiculously long time that would be. But over the next month I barely logged on, aside from a couple tries queuing for the raids and opening my gifts from Greatfather Winter. The outland raids were over and done in no time and I thought the whole thing was going to be easy, but then I ended up wiping on the Lich King more times than I could count. I did enjoy the novelty of the tier gear and taking screenshots the first few times around:

but it quickly became tedious and I didn't bother getting screenshots of my last (several) attempts. Oh, well, it was all worth it in the end! Other screenshots I took but didn't end up posting include buying the Shadowlands expansion with the hearthstone and pet (naturally): 

And circling Orgrimmar in Greatfather Winter's sleigh:

I can only conclude that my shaman is now Greatfather Winter. 

The quest to allow Vulpera into the horde took a lot more time than I wanted to spend, because I couldn't wait once I realized what I needed to name my new Warlock. I was also disappointed that I couldn't use Nomi's useless carcass to smash grapes, even though I tried my hardest to offer him that position. Apparently the UI wanted me to realize that Nomi was best suited to come up with a new recipe for wine. 

These are the results of my administration over the process, supposedly working out perfectly:

Did anyone else notice that the vat of grapes seems to be on fire? Because obviously this is fine. I can't wait to taste Nomi's dumpster fire wine. It sounds delicious. I'm just gonna keep it here in my toy box and let it age a couple years, or centuries.