This one’s for you, Clevins

I am a sucker.  And the Nether Rays look ABSURDLY cute and silly to ride on…
 

So…gnome on a ray, here we come.  It’s all your fault Clevins!!!  I definitely won’t be working as intensely on this one though.

Done! Fini! No more! Exalted!

 

Yep.  All done.  Hit exalted this morning.  Yes I woke up at 5:30 to do it.  I should have done it more often, because wow did I find a bunch of eggs in the span of half an hour.  I got three eggs – which helped push me over so I did not have to do any more quests (in fact it should have been four, except I got ganked by those stupid little ravagers right in front of an egg…).

So here’s the story.  Get to exalted, and you get a new quest called “Bow to the Highlord” – go inside and speak to the Overlord, who gives you another quest called “Lord Illidan Stormrage” to meet Lord Illidan himself – who actually wasn’t very happy to see me:

He incapacitates me – I thought I got turned into a chicken, but, it was just me in real form, turned green and made to bow down:

Then I almost get pwned by everyone surrounding me, but Yarzil the Merc turns into a dragon and sweeps me off to Shattrath City.  Hooray! Be warned, it’s quite a long ride from the Dragonmaw Camp all the way to Lower City Shattrath. 

When you finally land, you speak to Barthamus and there you may select one of the drakes as your mount.  Sadly, they’re all pretty much the same shade of purple and blue, except for two green ones, one of which looks a wee bit sick.  If you wish, you can go back to the Dragonmaw Camp in Shadowmoon, speak to Drake Dealer Hurlunk, and purchase more netherdrakes at 200 gold each.  Yep. 

I had hoped that once you got to exalted, you could use the (broken down looking) mailbox at Dragonmaw Camp or set your hearthstone to the innkeeper there – but he yelled at me and said “You no make dis your home.” Well fine!  And the mailbox still doesn’t work either.  Boy would that have come in handy.

Now, back to sleep and spending all this week on final projects.  Yay!

I sense my Netherdrake coming to meeee!

I found an egg today!  Whee!  I also completed all of today’s quests, which brings me to a grand total of 18425/21000.  *bursts into tears*  I’ll have to wait until the server reset at 5am tomorrow to get my Netherdrake.  I half contemplate waking up at 5am to do so.  Ha.

What will I do with this blog after tomorrow?  *ponders*

Day 12: 18425/21000 Revered

Almost there!

Saturday at midnight, got lucky with what I take to be a bug – all the Netherwing quest opened up for me again, but the 10 quest limit did not reset – so I was able to sneak in an extra quest for the day.  Come 5am I was able to do the rest of the quests, but it was nice to be able to get an extra 500 rep that night. 

The eggs elude me!  Still, however, from yesterday’s 3 eggs, I’m definitely on track to get the netherdrake on Monday (HOORAY!) – unless I happen to loot 10 eggs today or something (ha ha).  There isn’t really a great way to get more eggs – you could spend your evenings inside the mine farming everything (and if you’re a skinner, filling up your bags crazy quick) – and also the overmine flayers (over the mine, oh I get it now) outside where Barash the Den Mother is also has a decent drop rate.  Sometimes eggs spawn around where the elites are by the ramp for Dragonmaw Skyway.  I have yet to see an egg spawn elsewhere on the Ledge…but that doesn’t say much.  Friday night I made a half hearted attempt at spending quality time in the mine to farm for eggs – but all I got was a ton of useless hides and a bunch of strange objects from the Sludge-Covered Objects (like vials of tears…).  Poop.

Mulverick is conveniently bugged again today (and last night), which gives me more of an excuse not to race him.  It irritates me that I have no desire to complete these race quests, go figure.  I guess I have better things to do than to fail over and over again.

Group up with your friends (or anyone, really) and get the poisoning and Booterang quests done quickly.  The Fel Glands have a strange drop rate – some days you can get 12 glands in 15 kills, others, I can’t get one in 20 kills.  (Just like yesterday, I had 11 glands, needed one more, and I swear it took a good half hour for the last one.)

This morning I completed four quests (I have so much flayer hide…) – so after work tonight I won’t have too much to do for the rest of the day.

Day 11: 15125/21000 Revered
Day 12 @ 11am: 16175/21000 Revered (the day is young!)

Day 10….Chugging Along

With all 9 daily quests turned in, you get exactly 3,000 rep a day.  The last two days I’ve been quite lucky and found two eggs (that’s major for me – I usually get NONE) for 250 rep each.  I figure if I never get another egg (lord I hope not) and without completing the final two races, it will take me 4 more days – we’re aiming for June 4th, the 5th at the very latest!  That will be perfect timing, as I’ll have to spend all next week dedicated to my final projects for school. 

While I was in the mine last night I saw an egg right at the entrance, but I blinked into a crate, took too long to get out of and watched my egg get taken by some punk.  I was very sad.  I also came across another egg outside, but it was about three feet away from two very large and very angry looking elites.  Silly me, I did make an attempt at it (yes I died).  I was going to try to ask a friend to lure them away while I gathered the egg, but no one was nearby and I didn’t feel like making someone fly all the way out for me. 

Wing Commander Mulverick’s been bugged for two days, and plus I really don’t feel like falling into oblivion, so I haven’t really made an effort to defeat him.  Mochamiss, being the lucky druid that he is, has already defeated Captain Skyshatter.  He’s got a serious advantage being a druid and turning instantaneously back into his epic flight form, so if he’s ever knocked out of his mount form, he can jump right back into it.  Boo!  I think I’ll try to get my riding crop made today (it gives a boost to your speed, and you’ll need it with Captain Skyshatter, as he flies at 310% speed!), and then make a renewed effort into completing these races.

Day 10: 8025/21000 Revered

Revered with the Netherwing!

Hooray!

A few zillion deaths later…I finally got through “Subdue the Subduer“ - there happened to be someone else on the quest and we breezed through it quickly enough.  There are in fact, a few ways you can get around him pretty easily, which is 1) don’t be a moron like me, or, 2) using the dark portal pillars to break his LOS to you.  I tried method 2 a couple of times but I would break my own LOS to him, and he would reset, and then I would fly towards him, and he would disappear and show up right on top of me where he’d whack me some…rinse and repeat.

At Revered, you get a new quest and a new badge, called “Hail, Commander!” and the badge is called Commander’s Badge.  Not unlike the Captain’s Badge, but there’s an added bonus of +45 stamina to it.  Still can’t use it inside.  Also a new quest called “Kill Them All!” – (I’m a little fuzzy on the following details, since I didn’t write anything down…bad gnome, I know.) – you go and speak to your affiliated faction (Scryer or Aldor) and hand them the Dragonmaw Flare Gun quest item, and thus begins a new repeatable quest called “The Deadliest Trap Ever Laid” – in total you should have 9 repeatable quests by the time you are revered.  (8, if you have no gathering professions, I think.)

Because of the stupid bug on most of the racers, including my Wing Commander Mulverick guy, I haven’t attempted to race him since Sunday or Monday.  Last night he finally unbugged, except it was nearly 1 am after finishing a heroic Sethekk Halls run (ouch.), and there was a group of us who attempted Mulverick together.  It’s actually kind of fun to do it as a group, except the first time I tried, I lagged out.  Boo.  It’s also a little tricky to try to keep after a guy flying at full speed throwing rings of lightning at you while being surrounded by 4 other people – your screen gets a little cluttered.  The second try I actually got further than I’d ever been, so I think there’s hope yet.  And then the server crashed, and I figured that was a really good cue for me to hit the sack.

Day 9: 4475/21000 Revered

Weekend Fun

Okay.  As I mentioned earlier, I made it to honored with the Netherwing, and a whole brand new pile of quests opened up.  First, there’s “Stand Tall, Captain!“, where you get a new trinket called a Captain’s Badge – which is just like the earlier Overseer’s Badge, but you can call the Netherwing Ally anywhere, instead of just in Shadowmoon Valley.  They only work outside though, so you can’t call them in instances or even underground in the mine (stinky pants).  What’s cool is you don’t have to turn in the first trinket you got, so theoretically, you could call out two Netherwing Allies to your aid in SMV.  I should try that.

There’s a new daily repeatable quest called “Disrupting the Twilight Portal” where you go waaaaaaaay far west to the western edge of Nagrand to a tucked away place called the Twilight Portal.  There you kill 20 of the deathsworn mobs.  There’s a bunch of elites roaming through, so be careful.  I found hanging out on the edge of the world is a safe area, the elites don’t come all the way to that edge.

Two new chains open up, the first being “The Soul Cannon of Reth’hedron” – you must collect 2 Felsteel Bars, 1 Adamantite Frame, 1 Khorium Power Core, and 1 Flawless Arcane Essence.  The Felsteel Bars you can just buy on the AH for like 4g each.  The Adamantite Frame and Khorium Power Core, like I mentioned earlier, you can buy from Qiff in Area 52 as a limited supply, or just beg an engineer to make it for you.  As for the Flawless Arcane Essence, you must go to Lake Jorune in Terokkar Forest – which is just north of Stonebreaker Hold – Horde Territory.  Speak with Sar’this, who has you kill a few elementals (one each of water, fire, air, earth).  He sacrifices himself (awwwww) and then you get the Essence.  After this turn in, you get another quest called “Subdue the Subduer” – which totally sucks and I have not yet completed because I’m a moron.  You get something called a Soul Cannon, and you go back to the Twilight Portal and you have to use the cannon on the big huge 73ish elite named Reth’hedron.  It takes forever to kill (the cannon only does 500ish damage and he has about 170,000 hit points).  You have to avoid the big fat rocks that come hurling at you, along with avoiding his physical hits, and then he shoots shadow bolts at you.  I’ve figured out the avoiding the rocks thing, but I seem to dip too low when I’m flying around and usually get hit for 3k or so (I’m afraid if I fly too far up, I break the soul chain and he’ll reset), and the shadow bolts do about 800 damage…tonightish, I’m going to borrow Lexx and see if she can keep tossing renews on me from the top of the portal.  Bleh. 

The next new chain starts with “Earning Your Wings” – this started as a whole lot of fun in the beginning but now I’m really cranky about it.  Basically there’s 6 races you do.  For each one, you chase after an NPC on your flying mount, try to avoid all the crap they launch at you and stay on your mount.  You can’t fall too far behind either or you’ll fail the quest.  They get significantly harder with each new race…by the way, if you don’t enjoy spending tons of money on repair bills, I would get nekkid for each of these races…
The Ballad of Oldie McOld – it’s not very long, and he launches fiery rocks at you.  Or was it just big boulders?
Trope the Filth-Belcher – he launches icky green blobs (does he belch them out?) at you…
Corlok the Vet - he launches several groups of little green exploding rocks at you.
Wing Commander Ichman – ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it took me a bajillion tries – he shoots fireballs at you – and this is where the tricks start – he will shoot straight up in the air or back up and turn around and stuff – I’ve lost sight of this guy SO many times.
Wing Commander Mulverick – after defeating Ichman I didn’t feel like attempting Mulverick too many times – but he shoots these really pretty (and deadly) swirly bolts of lightning.  Those seem pretty easy to avoid so far – but then he does some crazy manuevers – he zips around, back, forth, left, over, upside down, left and right - I lose him somewhere around where Barash the Den Mother is, and I’ve still yet to figure out where he goes…

Quests repeatable at Honored:
Disrupting the Twilight Portal (20 Deathsworn mobs in Nagrand)
The Booterang: A Cure for the Common Worthless Peon (hooray for the Booterang!)
Nethermine Flayer Hides (35 hides)
Netherwing Crystals (40 crystals)
A Slow Death (poison 12 camps)
The Not-So-Friendly Skies (10 Netherwing Relics)
Picking Up the Pieces (15 Nethermine cargo)
Dragons Are the Least of Our Problems (15 Flayers and 5 Ravagers)

Day 7: 9125/12000 Honored

Lame!

So I’ve discovered there’s a few people already exalted and flying around with their netherdrakes.  How?  Because there’s that stupid egg hunting quest that is fully, completely repeatable with no daily limit.  250 rep per egg turn in.   I WAS enjoying this rep grind (not that I usually don’t, since I’m insane) because of the fact that I could only do so much per day – I spend a couple of hours and move on – but the fact that you could keep farming for eggs all day long just irritates me.  Why bother putting in a limit to the rest of the quests if you allow people to farm all day long for the eggs and work around the daily limits?  I had assumed the eggs were part of the daily 10 quest limit, but noooooo.  You can have 100 eggs and turn it all in in one day.  Blizzard wanted people to NOT get the drake so fast?  Then they should have limited the egg turn ins too.  Instead, there’s people farming 24/7 for the eggs anyway.  Fan-frickin’-tastic.  Freaking lame I say. 

Honored with the Netherwing!

Bah, just a quick update for the morning before I run off to Mohegan Sun and gamble a bunch.

Finally found the Chief someone guy who gives “The Oversee and You” quest.  You have to collect 10 Knothide Leather, and then go kill this enormous (non-elite) level 71 dinosaur way the hell up in Netherstorm – as far away north as you can go from Netherwing Ledge.  His name is Tyrantus, up in Eco-Dome Farfield in Netherstorm.  Very easy to kill.  By the way – while you are up in Netherstorm, you should go check with Qiff, the engineering supplier at Area 52, for a couple of limited supply items that you’ll need for another quest.  One is Adamantite Frame (which I saw on AH for 70g!) and another is Khorium Power Core – engineers can make them, but if you can get them off the vendor, they’ll cost you no more than 5g.  When you finish killing Tyrantus, go back to the Chief in the Dragonmaw Camp, and you’ll get the coolest daily quest ever – called “The Booterang: A Cure for the Common Worthless Peon” and a Booterang in your inventory.  It’s hysterical and SO much fun.  Basically you fly around looking for peons that are slacking off (“Disobedient Peons”) and you chuck this boot at their heads, and they go back to work.  (The boot comes back to you…hence…booterang…get it?) After these two quests I made it to Honored – hooray! And a whole host of more quests began.  More details whenever I get back. 

Day 6:  5575/12000 Honored

Moving right along…

In case you’re wondering, the timer on the daily quests reset at 5am, so you can get your allotted 10 quests for the day in when you’re a late night owl (or when a heroic Shattered Halls or Shadow Labs run takes you well over 4 hours…). 

After I got to Friendly, a whole host of new quests opened up, which is just great.  Both “Picking Up the Pieces” (gathering 15 Nethermine Cargo) and “Dragons Are the Least of Our Problems” (killing 15 Flayers and 5 Ravagers) are both daily repeatable quests – and are SO easy to knock out.  There’s also a drop from the black blood blobby thingies inside the mine – inside a Sludge-Covered Object you can get the Murkblood Escape Plans.  That is a turn in quest called “Great Murkblood Revolt” – and you can turn it in to either of the Mistresses outside the entrance of the mines.  She’ll then give you a quest called “Seeker of Truth“, where you have to go have a chat with one of the Murkblood Overseers that hide inside the mine.  You talk to him for a bit, and then he hacks off his hand and gives it to you (ick?!) to return to the Mistress.  There’s also another quest I discovered, somewhere in the middle of the mine near one of the elite NPC dragons, called “Crazed and Confused” – you have to venture deep into the mine (I got SO lost looking for it the first time) and kill 5 Crazed Murkblood Miners and 1 Crazed Murkblood Foreman.  Sadly, it is not repeatable.  *sniff*

I wasn’t sure at first, because the NPC said you could only turn in one gathering quest a day, but you CAN in fact turn in 40 Netherwing Crystals AND 35 Nethermine Flayer Hides in the same day.  I think the Hide/Pollen/Ore turn in is the one gathering quest you can turn in.  By the way, as much as I hate killing the Black Blood blobs (which – if you again take too long to kill, they run away and morph into a big ickier blob with full health….), but the Sludge-Covered Objects can also drop the hide/pollen/ore stuff.  They’ve come in groups of 4 and 5 which is a really big help!  So I always try to bash a couple of those in the mine.

So right now, at Friendly, I’ve got these daily quests:

Picking Up the Pieces
Dragons are the Least of Our Problems
Netherwing Crystals
Nethermine Flayer Hide
A Slow Death
The Not-So-Friendly Skies
and the ever-elusive The Great Netherwing Egg Hunt

Sometime today I’ll do the poison and relic quests, and pray that somewhere along the way I get an egg so I can make it to Honored tonight!!

8:30 am Day 5: 5475/6000 Friendly