Shared Topic – Herculano The Love Fool

Let’s do this.

World Event – Love is in the Air

I think it was Brewfest of last year that got me on the road to What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been.  I’d been sitting on the Brewfest achievement for almost a year.  All I had to do with drink the final Brewfest brew and the achievement was mine.  Once that was done, I noticed the next World Event was almost completed as well.  I’d done bits and pieces of various Events, but never bothered to put it all together.  Eventually it became my mission to complete them for the Meta Achievement.

We are now getting into Crunch Time.

I had only three events left to complete:  Love is in the Air, Noble Gardner, and For the Children.  Piece of cake, until I realized that I was going to be on a week long vacation during Love is in the Air.  I finished off as much as I could, and before I left on my vacation I only had to Pity three Fools and find some Flowers.  However, I’d only have maybe a day to do it, and if Murphy’s Law had his way it wouldn’t be easy.

My vacation was exhausting – from Canada to Las Vegas, then Arizona, then California, then back to Vegas before flying home.  It was a family affair with my parents, and if you follow me on Twitter you know why having my Mom there was such a big deal.  But once the holiday wrapped, it was time to get some business taken care of.

First:  Run the dailies, use the tokens to buy the three remaining Love Fools that I needed for the achievement.

Second: Coffee.  Okay, this was actually first.  I am only mostly a machine; I still have human frailties like sleepy and sore from days of walking more than I drove (and I drove over three States – you do the math).

Third:  Start Pitying some Fools.  I thought the Gurubashi Arena was going to be tough since the odd time or two I’d been there before, I’d been jumped by an Alliance Rogue who had no business being out there other than to be some special flavor of dick.  Luckily there were no such hiccups this time.  Culling of Stratholme was cake, leaving only Naxxramas for the win.  Despite being part of the largest guild in North America, I felt like I should be able to get into the raid instance without asking for help.  This is called being anti-social, kids.  Don’t be this.  It’s something I’m working on.

Protip: Until you get over being socially inept, create a FREE starter account and level a character up to 10.  This is the minimum level that a character can be to get into a raid instance.  Once you have your raid toonie, have you main invite him and form a raid.  You can then get into the raid zone.

I asked for help and actually got a couple of offers.  Who knew that interacting with people could be so beneficial!  I zoned into Naxx, dropped my Fool, /pitied the bastard and got the achievement.

Fourth: More coffee because.

Fifth: For the Bouquet of Red Roses, I hit regular Blackrock Caverns.  The second boss dropped the flowers, so if I didn’t win them I could quickly drop the group and re-queue.  Nothing like running through a zone that you over-gear and over-level.  That suited me fine since I hadn’t run a 5-man in months, and had never run Blackrock Caverns.  So we burned through the instance, killed the boss, and I rolled /need on the flowers.

Bam.  Herculano the Love Fool.  One step closer to my purple proto-drake.

Shared Topic – Love is in the Air

At Blog Azeroth, Effraeti posed the following as a Shared Topic:

With the in-game World Event “Love is in the Air” and its correlation with IRL Valentine’s Day next week, I have been thinking about character love interests (and also because I am a hopeless romantic).

Who is your main character’s love interest? Are they involved with someone, do they pine for someone?

Many bloggers lately have been discussing playing with IRL couples who raid together. How would this transfer to the characters they play? Why would their characters slay dragons together?

I am curious on everyone else’s thoughts! I will post a response to this over the weekend, in time for Valentine’s Day, and link it when it is live.

Love interest?  Well, maybe once upon a time…

The ground had disappeared far below him, hidden by clouds and distance, and still Herculano urged his Netherdrake even higher into the sky.  The air was thin, cold.  Every breath was like struggling to inhale molten steel, scorching every inch of his throat and lungs.  But that was merely physical pain, and physical pain he could deal with.  It was the deeper pain that pushed him beyond his limits, time and again, much to the dismay of anyone around him.  Today, that included a mighty Netherdrake.  The beast could finally take no more, and the Orc felt the muscles in his mount’s back tighten and twitch.  They were as high above everything as they could be, but for Herculano it wasn’t high enough.

It wasn’t high enough to reach beyond.  Reach where She was.

Staring across the vast blue emptiness, he couldn’t remember exactly when he’d lost her.  Perhaps a part of him didn’t want to remember it.  He was a mighty warrior, slayer of Gods and Dragons, yet there were still some doors he could not bring himself to re-open.  On rare occasions he would allow himself to think back to a time when She was with him.  They had grand adventures and faced down many a foe.  At night they would lay together in the cold and their love, their fire, would keep them warm.

And just like that, in that brief moment of happiness, he would remember that She was gone.

And just like that, he would destroy whatever was in front of him.  With blade.  With fist.  With teeth.

Demons feared his rage.

Dragons feared his destruction.

All because She was gone.

Herculano watched the sun slowly sink into the clouds, and embraced the pain of the icy chill stabbing into his flesh.  The light was giving way to darkness, just as his mount’s strength was beginning to give way to fatigue.  Grudgingly he jabbed his heels into the Netherdrake’s hide, signalling for it to begin its descent.  As he watched the clouds gently rise to greet him, he knew there would be no love to keep him warm on this or any night.  It was that knowledge which fuelled his ever-burning rage, an inferno that would never be extinguished.

Until She was with him again.

Shared Topic – What Is Your Best Grind?

On Blog Azeroth, Dangfool proposed this shared topic:

Normally the words “Best” and “Grind” are not found this close together and there are plenty of grinds to hate. However, I’m interested in the flip side:

Was there something that required sustained and prolonged effort that you found interesting or rewarding? Was there something that was not just a chore to work on?

I’m assuming most grinds are for Reputation, but maybe you have a novel definition?

* * * * *

Zin’rokh, Destroyer of Worlds is one big-assed sword.  It’s huge, it’s nasty, it looks cool, and it is not easy to get.  Which makes having it all that much sweeter.

I’d scanned my roster of characters to decide who would best make use of this Final Fantasy-looking blade.  It boiled down to my dwarven death knight (having recently become my new main focus of interest at that time) who was going to be the lucky owner of this sword.

All he had to do was level up Archaeology.

I know.  I’d heard the stories too.  Read about how Archaeology was about as much fun to level as watching paint dry. But Zin’rokh called to me with its epic coolness, and so my mind was made up.

Besides, it’s not like there weren’t other upsides to leveling the profession.  There were excellent Archaeology addons I could use to help simplify the procedure.   I could get not one, but two titles out of the deal.  Along the way there were plenty of companion pets I could get, as well as a slick mount or two. Oh yeah, and blah blah lore something something.  But I had to admit, it sure looked like there’d be quite a bit of upside to leveling Archaeology.

I also had a strategy.  I would only grind the Eastern Kingdom, since it had the most Troll digsites and I’d need a metric shit ton of Troll fragments and keystones to improve my chances at Zin’rokh.  Using a DK also made the process easier – I’d use Death Gate to start off at Ebon Hold, then simply fly south and hit every digsite along the way.  Once I reached the southern tip of Stranglethorn, I’d hit Death Gate, port back to Ebon Hold, and start the procecure all over again.

Armed with a plan, and motivation, my DK began the leveling process.

The process was… painful.  I’ve leveling fishing to max level before, and that was easier to do than skilling up Archaeology. It wore me down like nothing, and I’ve done my fair share of mindless rep grinds.  I’ve even done fishing to skill cap.  The difference between those grinds and this one is for Archaeology, you have to pay attention.  You have to know where to fly, and once you arrive at your digsite you still have to scamper around and repeatedly drop your spyglass thingie before you dig up your first of three finds per site.  Fishing you could just click, cast, pay attention somewhere else until you heard the splash, then focus back on your floater.  That’s what made Archaeology so different – it kept you more aware of what you were doing, and what you were doing was mind-numbingly BORING!

I saw achievements pop up and I didn’t care.  Blues and purples formed in my bags and I ignored them.  I felt like a mental marathon runner, willing myself to make it just a little further, just to the next checkpoint, the next mile.  I just had to hit 450, then start solving the Troll fragments and hope to unlock Zin’rohk.  That became my mantra, my goal – reach 450 in Archaeology.

And I did.  I got to 450 and started solving Troll artifacts.  Two things happened after that -

1) I reached 525 in Archaeology.

2) Zin’rohk was not mine.

To say I felt like I’d been kicked in the balls is a disservice to actually being kicked in the balls.  There are time sinks in World of Warcraft, and then there’s the pit of time quicksand that is Archaeology.  It was like having teeth pulled with pliers, and being very aware of every second of it – the pressure on your gums as the metal bites down on the tooth, the pressure of the roots being dislodged, and then the pain.  It was like all of that, but without the sucker the dentist/butcher would give you for being a good boy and not spitting blood all over.

I don’t log on with that DK very much anymore.

Now you might be thinking that this little rant had very little to do with the Shared Topic question.  In fact, it sounds like the opposite of what was being asked.  But to that I say this:  Archaeology became the bar that every grind would be measured against.  Thanks to the Archaeology grind, I had no problem with my Netherdrake rep grind, or the Fireland Daily grind.  In a way, my Archaeology grind made everything else better.

In case you’re wondering, I don’t miss not having Zin’rokh.  At least I didn’t, until Blizzard introduced Transmogrification in Patch 4.3.  Can you imagine a Fury Warrior dual weilding Zin’rohk?  Sadly, I can.

*Twitch twitch*