Effraeti, the Noble

I have been playing World of Warcraft for over three years now.  One thing that has been looming over head that entire time is completing all of the holiday world events.  I was very passionate and excited about them that first year I was playing, but it seems those which got missed initially still haunt me.  They dangle that carrot of the Violet Proto-Drake just out of reach, taunting me.

Noblegarden and Children’s Week both came upon me as I was still leveling Effy, and so in the grand scheme of things, they seemed less important than seeing the wide world and discovering what this end game people talked about so highly in WoW was all about.

So it has taken me this long to get back to focusing on holiday achievements, along with much grumbling on my part, I have noticed.  heh

Noblegarden in particular was a lot of work.  So I have decided to inundate you with the screenshots of my accomplishments.  🙂

First of all, there was Brightly Colored Eggs.  And yes, I had never even started these achievements with Effy prior.  I do not believe any of my toons had ever looted a Brightly Colored Egg in all of my three years.

I set about gathering all the items Effy would need for the other achievements.  In the process, I came across some achievements that were nice to get but not for the meta.

My goal was enough Noblegarden Chocolates to buy the Swift Springstrider and whatever items I needed for the other achievements, but luckily, I only needed the 500 for the mount and another 100 for Chocoholic, since all the other items came to me in eggs – namely the Spring Flowers.  In fact, even though I already had one, and Sugar accompanied me while I searched for eggs, I received numerous Spring Rabbit’s Feet from eggs as well.

Oh, I also had to buy one Brightly Colored Egg…

After all that chocolate farming, it was time to jump onto Lazheward, who did some more farming for me.  All I wanted was a Blossoming Branch and an Elegant Dress, which he got enough chocolates for fairly quickly.

Ironically… Laz also got a Swift Springstrider from an egg!  Which I plan to sell soon, now that the holiday is over.

So I grouped up Effy and Laz, and set out to finish off my achievements.

Aww, he looks so cute in pink.  🙂

Don’t judge me!

Tanaris

Silithus

Desolace

Thousand Needles

The Badlands

Then, I headed off to Kharanos, which was the only Noblegarden hub I had not visited yet…

I had snagged a few Alliance females for the Shake Your Bunny-Maker achievement, but I was missing a lot.  I figured it best to get the Horde females out of the way first.  I created a tiny Orc, until I was reminded that the achievement states Level 18 or higher.  Really??  So I headed over to Orgrimmar.  There were crowds of people – both Alliance and Horde – but finding the females of the races I needed was proving tough.

It was then that Amo asked me to go do some battlegrounds.  He said I would be more likely to find my Horde players there.

So I went, and we did half a dozen battlegrounds with me wielding my Spring Flowers.  Surprisingly, it was not until our last one that someone even noticed.  heh

Oops, now it is out that I do not PvP very much.  lol

I was still missing some for my achievement, but a few people had to log off.  So I continued to hover around Orgrimmar for far, far too long.  There are so few Orc females…

But I finally got all the Horde I needed, and headed back to Alliance territory to finish up my achievement.

In the end, it was lil Priest, Brizaeyl, who assisted me in completing the achievement.

All in all, the Noblegarden achievement took me the better part of two days.  And now I know why I have been putting it off.  lol

A Small Army

One exciting thing that did come from this past week’s holiday was my invitation to appear in a guild group shot with Finalflame’s guild A Small Army.  I jumped onto my tiny toon, Aerora, over on Auchidoun and met them all in Kharanos.  (It is possible this was all done while I was tanking LFR Terrace with DK-Effy…  I admit nothing.)

~ Effy

Effraeti, the Noble

Dual-Boxing: Furthering the Obsession?

DK-Effy and Sifaol questing together – Level 89

Effy and Ireenia doing dailies

I have two accounts.  My second account sprung from a RAF creation.  I had fun for a bit with the idea of dual-boxing while doing that.  Though, with my old desktop, that meant one account on the desktop and one account on the laptop.  The funny part?  Most of the characters I leveled that way are on servers where I no longer play.  Pretty funny.

I have since updated my desktop and acquired and second monitor.  🙂  It is great for my multi-tasking needs – both surfing and dual-boxing.  I still use the laptop, though, it is usually an over-glorified boombox when I am not dual-boxing.  I prefer surfing on the desktop now whenever I can – bigger screen and it means not having to switch keyboards.  Yah, WoW on a laptop keyboard was never all that great.

When my Monk, Ireenia, hit Level 90, I let out a audible groan when I realized: Now I have to do lots and lots and lots of dailies with her!  Not only was the dailies part not appealing, but doing them in low gear all over again.  I remember the rough curve Effy had when she started.  Wait!  Effy!  I could pair them up, finish off Effy’s reputations and do dailies on two characters at once!

For the most part, this has made questing a lot easier.  Effy, even in Resto gear, is geared enough to plow through dailies.  The only down side?  Collection quests.    The bane of my dual-boxing existence.

Since the day Ireenia turned 90, she and Effy have knocked out dailies together.  In the process, Effy is finally finishing off some reps I slacked on.

Ireenia harnessing the power of the Jade Serpent

While grinding through quests with DK-Effy (yes, yes, I am leveling a SECOND DK to 90) I thought to myself what a shame it was she was not using her OP-ness to level another of my characters.  And so, I started questing DK-Effy and my Priest, Sifaol, together.

I tell you what – mobs with you-better-move mechanics are fun with one toon, but kind of tricky when you have to move for two.  lol  I think I am becoming a better tank for it, though.  It’s okie, Sif, you don’t have to move for Dread Webbing, I will just move the mob accordingly.  Being on auto-follow does mean that whirlwind abilities are still a concern though.  lol

This dual-boxing thing is unfortunately leading to a new obsession!  (Me?  Obsessed with something?  No way!)  I have started contemplating all of the leveling pairs I can make of my characters.  The problem?  I have discovered that at some point my two accounts became very lopsided.  I have all of my story characters as in-game characters in some form or another, and I have in general two of each class on Elune.  But somewhere down the line, the majority of story characters who are not really getting leveled ended up on my primary/Effy account.    How did this happen?

Well anyway, I am currently working on the details, but I do think there will be more pairs coming up soon.

Aerora ready to go and looking all Shaman-y

In fact, I think Toggle, my Gnome Warrior, and Aerora, my needing-to-be-restarted Holy Pally, are going to be the next pair.  So far, though, my first two pairs have story reasons for their being together.  Hmm, I wonder how Toggle and Aerora would meet up?

Can you tell I have entirely too much time on my hands right now?

I also finally, finally started pet battling again.  Honestly, until two days ago, I had not pet battled since I started heavily leveling Ireenia!  But I realized that since I am exalted with Cloud Serpents on Effy FINALLY, that means new battle pets were available!  I had to get one of each.

Qui

Qui and Ireenia – he’s still little

Ireenia has taken a liking to the lil jade guy, whom we named Qui (Draconic for “Jade”).  In fact, she decided to raise the lil guy into a Cloud Serpent mount.

The reason I bring up the whole dual-boxing thing is because I seem to be drawing some attention with it lately.  I had a lengthy conversation with a young Druid last night, who was interested what it takes.  Well, two accounts and the ability to somehow run them both at the same time.  And some patience.  I have a tendency to lose the follower on rocks and fences and hills, as well as from CRZ’s and phased areas.  Having both toons moving at the same speed is fairly important, otherwise, things get more tricky.  It also takes some practice to not get the follower killed as I mentioned above.  And remember to loot!  For a while I was passing on loot on my follower, and only picking up quest items with her, but then I realized she was not getting any Motes of Harmony that way.  So I am back to looting on both.

It takes some practice and some trial and error.  I don’t imagine dual-boxing is for everyone, but it works well for me.  🙂

~ Effy

Totally off-topic: Wanna push the button!