Skyshard Farming and Boot collecting complete :)

Getting heaps of WoW gear or a lot of super-rare mounts in one week (which my friend still won't let me forget :P, and also excuse the bragging :S), is pretty damn awesome, but sometimes even the smallest bit of gear or one super-rare mount in one week makes me really happy ^_^

I finally got the boots I wanted for my Mage to use for transmog purposes - 'Treads of Liquid Ice', from the Bastion of Twilight Cataclysm raid, which I've been wanting to get for a few months now, and it feels great to see them in my backpack and know I've now got them YAY! Now all I need is the Helm and pants from various other raid bosses, and I'll be able to show off my cool looking Mage :P

And speaking of super-rare mounts, I thought I'd do something other than raids and dailies yesterday, so I took to doing some serious Skyshard farming and got the last 3 I needed! :D The 10 Skyshards can be combined into a Sky Crystal, which allows you to fight, and get, a crackling ruby Serpent mount :D Will post pictures of the mount when I get it ^_^

Frustrating Fights

Have you ever put so much effort into something, to try again and again and again, but come up with nothing to show for it? That's kinda what I felt a little bit today when I did the next part of the Pandarian Legendary quest chain.

Spoilers aside, it's an intensive and EXTREMELY tough fight (which I still haven't completed as of this post), that did nothing but frustrate me to the point that I had to go cool off and do some fun quests instead :D... until I got back to the legendary quest and my frustration started all over again ^_^

And to add insult to injury, of the countless times I have done this quest fight thus far and died, I've had to spend 300 gold. Doesn't help when you're trying to save up for something cool instead :)
Anyway, I'm sure I'll find some weakness to the fight that I can exploit, and when I do, this quest is mine to complete ^_^

My Astra-Illidan Transmog set :)

I see a lot of Transmog guides online - aka. Transmogrification aka. Armor / weapons you can use to 'overwrite' the look of what your character's gear currently looks like.

Thanks to transmog, friends helping me out, and many runs through heroic dungeons and especially one particularly annoying raid (I'm looking at you Dragon Soul), I finally got my main character Astragoth - a Blood Elf Warrior - some gear to look completely awesome ^_^

I'm a HUGE Illidan Stormrage fan, and until they bring out something that isn't for Warlocks and can be transmogged with Plate armor, this is the best I can do for now :D



My 'Astra-Illidan' Transmog Armor (with names and locations on where I got each piece from) :-

Helm - Yi's Least Favorite Helmet - (Valor or Shado-Pan Assault Quartermaster in Townlong Steppes, Valor Points required to buy)

Shoulder - Pauldrons of the Dragonblight - (Archbishop Benedictus in Hour of Twilight - Heroic mode)

Back - Shroud of the Highborne - (Illidan Stormrage in Black Temple)

Chest - Breastplate of the Imperial Joust - (Eadric the Pure / Argent Confessor Paletress in Trial of the Champion - drops in either Normal or Heroic modes)

Tabard - Purple Trophy Tabard of the Illidari - (Contained in 'Offering of the Sha'tar', by completing the quest 'Battle of the Crimson Watch' in Shadowmoon Valley)

Gloves - Gauntlets of Temporal Interference
- (Can be dropped from any of the 4 various Echo bosses in End Time - Heroic mode)

Waist - Girdle of Lost Heroes
- (Can be dropped from any of the 4 various Echo bosses in End Time - Heroic mode)

Pants - Unstoppable Destroyer's Legplates
- (Can only be made with the Blacksmithing profession, be bought from the in-game Auction House, or made from a friend who has the BS profession).

Boots - Chrono Boots
- (Murozond in End Time - Heroic mode)

Weapons - Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps - (Madness of Deathwing in the Dragon Soul Raid - the Item Level 416 version that only drops on Heroic mode)

My own, unbiased opinion on why I think Borderlands 2 is WAY better than no. 1

After a rocky start with the in-game menu's, I picked up Borderlands 2 where I left off, and have now played (and finished over a few months) the base game, and 3 of the campaign DLC's (playing Tiny Tina's Assault right now). I have to say, my impressions of BL2 and it's extra content have far exceeded my expectations. *Minor spoilers below*



For one, even though the BL2 characters are pretty awesome and have a new set of skills to go along with you on the road - I'll always be a fan of the Turrets that help, - it's really the first game's characters that make a cameo appearance that make the game great... not to mention adding to the overall Borderlands story. You've also got all the smaller (but awesomely) familiar characters back from BL1, like Moxxi, Scooter or Marcus, complete with new characters that bring their story (and quests, which are so ridiculous and hilarious) to the new game as well.



The locations themselves are brilliant, and are far more visually appealing than what BL1 had to offer, in terms of different landscapes like frozen tundras or volcanic-like areas. While BL1's landscapes were still interesting, they did get pretty dull after playing more than 20+ hours, but no matter how long you play Borderlands 2, the landscapes will change just as you're getting sick of the current one :)


But it's definitely BL2's story - both the main story quests and side quests alike - that give you the sense of what you're doing in the game is actually important and not just another 'Go here and kill 3 of those things, then turn that quest in, get a reward and a pat on the back...rinse and repeat.' True, some of the quests are like that, but the commentary from random NPC's (and there's a LOT more voice acting in BL2 than the previous game), make it more exciting and actually rewarding.

Anyway, I'm off to play more Borderlands 2 ^_^

Guild Nights and our CRAZY antics! :)

'Guild Night's' in World of Warcraft. Combining awesome friends with awesome (and most of the time insane) gameplay ^_^

When I first became a member of the Supershigi Forums - home to the talented composer Laura Shigihara, - I met a LOT of great people on there who had a love for playing WoW. Though I wasn't even a fan of the game back then, I finally decided to give World of Warcraft a shot after I saw one of Laura's music videos, 'Blood Elf Druids', in which she dressed up as a Blood Elf (one of the many races you can choose in WoW), and sang about wanting to combine Blood Elves with Druids, who in-game, Druids can shapeshift their form into any they choose, like for example a bird.

The music video, coupled together with various locations of gameplay, great singing, and of course, awesome goofiness in the way Laura dressed up as a Blood Elf XD, really got me interested in the story and just trying out World of Warcraft to see if it was any good.



I won't lie... part of me wishes I had never played WoW just 'cause I'm addicted (like many others) to the game haha! :) But I'm REALLY glad I did, since I got to meet and bond with a lot of people that I have talked to on the forums, and I've loved every second of it ^_^

So... this brings me back to Guild Night. The guild I'm a part of is a band of fellow WoW players on the forum who get up to crazy acts of insane feats, such as using a Mammoth mount (can seat 3 people), and jumping off the highest point of one of the in-game cities, using 'Slow Fall', an ability cast by the Mage class, to slow us to the point of catapulting our mounts from the highest point and seeing how far our Mammoth, or in some cases Mammoth's, will go ^_^

Last night's Guild Night however, we decided to do something equally as nuts - fighting a hard Boss for a cute little pet he drops when defeated...... but on the water :D

There are several items or mounts in WoW that will let you walk or fight on the water, such as the 'Azure Water Strider', or 'Anglers Fishing Raft' - the latter of which I think is hilarious even if you're not battling an enemy :)

The Boss in question was named G'nathus, a giant floating, ugly purple worm thing, who can one-shot you (meaning instant death), the only way to avoid this was to 'kite' the boss, meaning we had to quickly damage G'nathus and pull ourselves away before he focuses his attention on us, then rinse and repeat.

It was definitely a sight to behold, something which the picture below doesn't do justice for. This floating monstrosity of a monster, with this small bunch of people below him, on Water Striders and Rafts, strafing and attacking him, while the big dude tried in vain to swat the little insects that we obviously were :P

Here's the picture of us attacking G'nathus, though it was a hard screenshot to get in the heat of battle, since he kept turning around and attacking all of us in turn. Oh, and his kid says hi too ^_^