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.

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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.