The raptor companion pets

With patch 3.2 eight new raptor pets were added to the game. Some drop from rare elite raptors and others from the raptors in dungeons. Check out MMO-Champion for an overview.

I haven’t invested too much time looking for those baby raptors, but I’ve managed to get a few of them. A Leapling hatchling from Takk the leaper (rare) in the Barrens, a Razzashi hatchling from Zul’gurub and a Deviate hatchling from Wailing Caverns.

I was missing the dungeon achievement in Waling Caverns so I decided farm the raptors at the same time. After three resets I got the little guy.



At a later time I went there to finish up some quests when it suddenly dropped again. Naturally I put it up for sale, prizing it just below another one listed. And to my surprise it sold for 430g. I couldn’t believe anyone would buy it for that amount of gold. The reason is that the Deviate hatchling is by far the easiest hatchling to get. Even though it’s a rare drop, clearing the room will only take you a minute. I don’t know…maybe I just got very lucky, but everyone else I know didn’t spend a lot of time farming for it either.

The Razzashi hatchling happened to drop on one of my regular runs through Zul’Gurub. According to Wowhead it goes for 1300g, so If you’re level 80 of any class you should be able to farm the raptors there too.

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Exploring guild life in WoW

It’s been a while since my last post, and the main reason is that lately I haven’t been very active with running dungeons alone.
After some thought I decided to join a guild, and leave my hermit life behind. It was just time for a change, and after searching for a while I found a great group of people. A purely social, very friendly and no pressure guild. With an age requirement of 25, it suits me perfectly since I’m 32 myself.

Although the guild is very casual, it’s fairly active so I’ve had a chance to do some guild runs which has been a lot of fun. But being a complete noob when it comes to tanking in a group, I’ve learned a few things, like discovering I had an ability called growl, hehe. No seriously, most of the time I don’t have any problems with my role. However, aoe tanking can be a challenge sometimes.

The other day I ran heroic Utgarde Pinnacle, it was my first time in there as tank and I have to say I’m not feeling the love with Skadi the Ruthless.
Waves of trash kept pouring out, and there was always one that slipped by me it seemed. Although we didn’t wipe, it just didn’t feel fun and I basically felt like I did a lousy job. Anyway we got through it, but I remember thinking to myself; !@#$ this!!!.. not tanking this again. I hope the encounter will grow on me in time, because Skadi the Ruthless drops a really cool mount; Reins of the Blue Proto-Drake.

My boyfriend used to talk about duo-ing skadi the ruthless and farm for the mount. I’m hoping he will get off his butt and level (or change faction for that matter) an ally toon so we can do this sometime in the future. I haven’t tried to solo anything in Wrath besides the Nexus, and Utgarde Keep, but just saw a paladin solo Skadi on youtube. That’s pretty impressive to be honest.

So, what else is new…Brewfest went by, and even though I insulted Coren Direbrew every single day I never saw either of the mounts drop. Instead I ended up with a lot of trinkets and the best part, Direbrew's Remote, which truly made me a happy bear (I’ve recently started working on Molten core, but more on that another time).

Again, I watched paladins soloing direbrew, but unfortunately never got around to actually trying it myself.

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Drop by Onyxia’s lair before patch 3.2.2 hits

In the upcoming patch you will no longer be able to solo Onyxia because the dungeon will permanently change into a level 80 raid dungeon. So if you want the level 60 achievement, now is the time to do it. She’s fairly easy to solo, will drop 50 something gold plus a good amount of items for 15 minutes of work. All you need to do is create a raid and head over to her cave in Dustwallow March.

There’s not much to say about the strategy other than....you know, try to stay away from the whelp tunnels. Her attacks will barely touch you, but I’ll list them all the same.

Phase 1 : Flame Breath, Cleave, Wing Buffet, Knock Away, Tail Sweep

Phase 2 (65% health) : Flight phase, Fireball, deep breath, will also spawn whelps

Phase 3 (40% health) : All the abilities from phase 1, but also Bellowing Roar, lava eruption

Feral druids and other melee classes will have most trouble with the flight phase. It’s not really hard, but more awkward in the sense that you will have to constantly flip your camera to see her position. You can still hit her even though she’s airborne, just make sure you position yourself right below her. Every so often during this phase spawned whelps will be coming for you, swipe should suffice to get them out of the way. And “deep breath” can be avoided by running to the side. Anyway, if you’re getting low on health simply finish off the wave of whelps and heal up before you continue on.

That’s about it!

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Hyldnir Spoils

After eating Gretta’s salted yeti cheese, drinking her mountain water and throwing snowballs in her face for only about a week, she really surprised me today with the sweetest gift, a white polar bear mount. I usually don’t get that lucky, so this definitely made my day.

So, if you too want that warm and fuzzy feeling, be sure to pick up her daily quest whenever you’re in Storm Peaks. The quests are very easy and will only take a few minutes to complete.

To start working with the Brunnhildar, you need to do this quest first, They Took Our Men!

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Feral druid glyphs

As soon as you reach level 15 on your druid you’ll have access to 1 major and 1 minor glyph.

The only option here really is Glyph of Maul, but it’s such a great glyph and something you will want to keep all the way to 80 and beyond. For your first minor take Glyph of Thorns. It’s a big duration increase on thorns, pretty neat if you ask me and definitely a keeper.

At level 30 you open up another major slot and since you won’t have mangle yet, Glyph of Claw would be a solid option to take.

At level 50 you’ll learn mangle which you’ll use instead of claw, so it’s time to replace the glyph and also add another minor.
Depending on your play style and whether you frequently find yourself in dire need while questing, you could enhance the bear (cat) “oh shit!” abilities with glyph of survival instincts or glyph of frenzied regeneration, however I don’t think it’s necessary until level 80.
So my recommendation would be to take glyph of rake for now, or possibly rip if that’s part of your rotation.

The minor should be Glyph of Aquatic Form. Very nice while swimming, doing underwater quests or just exploring. If you find yourself spending more time in the water than on land, by all means get it as soon as you can (lvl 16).

you won’t get any new glyph slots at level 60, but you’ll get access to glyph of berserk if you have it talented. Replace it with rip or rake.

Once you reach level 70 the last minor glyph will open up. Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth is not too useful flying solo obviously, but if you ever find yourself in a group setting I’m sure it will come in handy. Alternately you could go with Glyph of Dash while leveling.

Finally at level 80 you get your last major, and if you like the thought of running instances alone it’s time to replace the major glyphs for ones with more survivability. When Glyph of survival Instincts is combined with glyph of Frenzied Regeneration, your selfhealing becomes even more powerful. So be sure to always use those two abilities at the same time.

My suggestions in short:

Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Thorns (lvl 15)
Glyph of Aquatic Form (lvl 50)
Glyph of Dash (lvl 70) or Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth (lvl 70)

Major Glyphs - leveling
Glyph of Maul (lvl 15)
Glyph of Claw(lvl 30-50)
Glyph of Rip (lvl 50) or Glyph of Rake (lvl 50)
Glyph of Berserk(lvl 60)

Major Glyphs – solo dungeons at lvl 80
Glyph of Maul (lvl 80)
Glyph of Survival Instincts (lvl 80)
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration (lvl 80)

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Flying in Dalaran

We all know you aren't supposed to use your flying mount in Dalaran, but lately I’ve been seeing so many flapping wings all around town that I decided to get to the bottom of this exploit.

In the past you would get dismounted even if you flew really high over Dalaran. Now you can actually get pretty close to the ground, but if the purpose is to /flex, read on!

Apparently there are certain spots you can fly over to without getting kicked off your mount. I managed to get close to the well on the horde side one time with trial an error. However, there was one spot where I never got the debuff at all, and that was on the grassy area outside Violet Citadel.

After watching a few youtube videos on the subject, one popular method was to run inside Violet Citadel, up the stairs and through the portal on the right. This takes you all the way up top, where you can fly straight down without getting dismounted.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure how it all works, but it was fun to test on a boring day like this one...

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Climbing Karazhan alone, part 3

Continuing on with my adventure through Karazhan, I walked into a huge room with thousands of books all around me; it is known as the guardian’s Library. As I was climbing the library I came across strange bookcase that revealed a hidden passage. And waiting for me at the end, was Terestian Illhoof, a corrupted satyr.

Terestian Illhoof



This encounter was surprisingly easy compared to everything else I have been through so far. He is hanging around with his minion Kil’rek. (2 Kil’rek appeared when I aggroed him for some reason, a bug maybe?) A few seconds into the fight Terestian Illhoof will summon imps and continue to do so throughout the fight. Swipe them down. The main priority in this fight is to kill Kil’rek for the simple reason that when the minion dies it places a debuff on Illhoof that causes him to take 25% more damage. At least that makes sense to me. The debuff lasts until Kil’rek is summoned again.

Back at the bookcase following the path upwards, you should remember to pick up the book, Legacy of the Mountain King from the floor. Keep throwing out every other book until you get the legacy of the mountain king. It’s going to be useful for what’s coming next.

Shade of Aran



This fight was incredibly difficult with my current gear, but really fun and exciting. There were a few things I could have prepared for a little better. For instance I’m sure feral charge would have been useful; I was also missing a food buff…

Anyway, use the book you found earlier, bring a Lesser Flask of Resistance, and if you have any gear with magic resistance; use it!

I went in as bear since I would last longer, but if you feel more confident as a cat, by all means go for it. I’ve seen it been done before. Personally I prefer bear though.

Aran will cast fire, frost or arcane spells at you. Don’t try to heal (unless it’s an instant cast) during his regular attacks, or he will counterspell. About every 30 sec, he will use his special abilities, and this is where you need to pay attention to his castbar to see what’s coming next. If it’s Flame Wreath, stand still and quickly throw regrowth on yourself. You will be surrounded by a ring of fire for 15 sec so don’t move an inch while this is going on or you’ll trigger a nasty debuff/ explosion.

Arcane Explosion is another special ability with a fairly long cast time, so what you absolutely need to do is run to the wall and stay there until the blast. This is a perfect time to heal up, so throw rejuvenation, lifebloom on yourself as you run, then regrowth. If there’s time and mana left you can throw in a nourish/ healing touch, as long as you don’t go oom, that is :p.

Circular Blizzard is the third possible special ability, creating a blizzard moving clockwise on the edge of the room, just ignore it.

When he’s at 20% mana he will polymorph you while having a drink, thankfully this will get your hp back up.

At 40% health he summons 4 water elementals around the room, take them down quickly in cat or bear. I saved my bear heals specifically for this phase, as It usually was a critical point in the fight for me.

Beyond this point it’s just a matter of following the same strategy explained further up. And always remember to use barkskin.

If you manage to take him down it will enable you to take a portal to his room by talking to Berthold the doorman standing by the stairs right as you enter Karazhan. Saving a lot of time not having to run all the way up there again, should you die or decide to continue exploring at a later time.

This has turned out to be a lot of fun, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a challenge ;).

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