Last week week Navimie posted about wanting to hear all of our Pet battle Stories, and started her Ten days of Pet Battling series. With a different Pet Battle topic a day for 10 Days.

This is my first day. “Your First Day of Pet Battling”

I honestly don’t remember when my first day of Pet battles was. I had started on Beta and had lots of fun doing it, but I honestly think Maerdred was 90 before I ever tried battling once Mists went live.

What I do remember from my first day of battling is I just went for it. I found the trainer in Stormwind and went through the initial quest line pretty quickly since I had already done it on Beta. I then went around catching everything I could in the starting zones, leveling 3 or 4 different pets to 3 or so before taking on the first tamer. I then made my way through the rest of Elwynn capturing one of everything I could find, and battling everything I saw in hopes of a Blue pet.

My first pet leveled was my Moonkin Hatchling. I then grabbed Lil KT and I think it was Murky. I soon found out that Leveling 187 pets at a time was not a good idea, so I made one team, and stuck with them. My Druid Team of Awesome… which, as it turns out, was not awesome. Moonkin Hatchling, Withers, and Panther Cub. But on the first day, I think I went through most of the Eastern Kingdoms Southern zones collecting pets. I tried for rares as much as I could and spent hours doing it. I was well and hooked.

I had no strategy. I had no concept of what pets were more powerful and no real care about what pets were good against other pets. I just figured any pet can kill any pet. Let’s do this. Boy was I naive.

Soon I’ll go into Day two. “What pets don’t you like and why?”

This morning I logged in to finish up some achievements. I was looking to finish all of the Pet Tamers and finally get my Safari Hat. So I logged in to do my usual routine.

At this point my routine goes like this.

First, I Log into my character who’s camped at the Winterspring tamer. I’ll pull out a low level pet to get some exp. Probably something under 18 or so.

Next I’ll go log in to my character who’s camped at the Deadwind Pass Tamer and with the same pet, get some more XP.

Then I’ll log into my character in Shadowmoon Valley and using the same team, get some more XP.

After that, I have been logging over to Icecrown to bead Major Payne and do the Tournament Dailies, But today I skipped that. Major Payne is a Major pain.

Today, however, I logged over to Maerdred who has made his way up to the Pandaria tamers, so I could finish them off. When I started the process yesterday, I had actually taken some time to level a pet while attempting to get some more rares and finished the Achievement Pandaria Safari.

When I logged in to Maerdred today, I was in the Jade Forest, and made my way around to the rest of the tamers, finally winding up in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, where I Got my Taming Pandaria and Taming Azeroth achievements!

Just after that, I got I choose You by turning in the Aki quest. I wasn’t even expecting that one to show up!

Once that was done I realized that I had to go get the first Horde tamer to get Taming the World, so I logged into a Horde alt, got the quest, then logged back to Maerdred, ported to Moonglade and flew down to Durotar so I could take down the final tamer and get Taming the World.

With that done, I decided I wanted to see how close I was to 400 pets, and I was pretty close, but not close enough for my liking. I went over to the AH and bought every pet under 1000 gold that I didn’t already have, which took me to 398. I then went down to the Guild Vendor and got number 399, the Thundering Serpent Hatchling.

Looking at my pet lists, I realized that I didn’t have a Wildhammer Gryphon Hatchling, so I went to Twilight Highlands to get one. While trying to get that, I decided to finish off Rookie Pet Group by leveling another pet past level 10, which I did by leveling my Darhshore cub from 8-11 in two battles, both of which I was hoping to get that Hatchling. But it didn’t happen.

Finally, I found one as an additional pet and trapped him, getting me over 400 pets total and my achievement, That’s a lot of pet food and Venus, the pet that goes along with it.

I wasn’t done yet. Since I had already gotten the Rookie Pet Group achievement, and only needed one more for Pro Pet group, I decided to go for it. I grabbed a level 23 spider and battled every pet I saw until I got it. It took three battles, but I got it. I also got Time to Open a Pet Store  and the pet that comes with it, the Jade Tentacle.

Idiots will be idiots.

Last night, after creating a dual-boxing team of Tauren Druids, I was questing through the starting area. One of the quests requires you to loot an item from a specific mob, and when I killed him the first time I forgot to loot it on my secondary toon, so I had to go back and kill him again to be able to turn in the quest.

As I got to the mob someone was killing him, so I swiped at him once and helped the guy kill him, and proceeded to wait until he respawned.

Just as he respawned a couple of Troll druids came running up to the tent, getting there just after I tag and kill the mob.

Instantly these two mouth-breathers start berating me in /say

“FUCKING DICK”

“FUCK YOU”

For a second I’m a bit perplexed, and then I realize… Oh, they’re idiots.

One of my team was prowling so maybe they thought he sneaked up on them and stole their kill, but seriously, I was sitting there, with two cat druids, one stealthed, and one not… Was it not obvious that I was there waiting first?

So I typed in /say

“Right, because I wasn’t already here waiting for a respawn before you idiots walked up”

They then must have noticed the second druid was just following me, not moving on his own. That combined with how long it took me to respond (due to the confusion they caused by being idiots) caused them to think I was botting. While I was typing this, they piped up in /s and /y again…

“BOTTER”

“FUCKING BOTTER”

I stopped for a second, then I ran back to the quest hub and turned in my quests.

I call these two mouth-breathers(Why is that term an insult? I’m not sure, but the context It’s used in, fits here) idiots because: One, they got upset that someone stole their kill. Someone who was already sitting there waiting for the respawn before they ever showed up on the scene… And two, because they felt the need to call a multi-boxer a botter. Honestly, 10 minutes of research would tell you that multi-boxing is not botting and is endorsed by the devs as a perfectly viable play style.

In the end, I didn’t let these two idiots ruin my night, but I thought it was quite funny that they got so upset about someone actually following the rules. My assumption is they were entitled, idiot, pricks.

I realize that on the past month since picking up my Blogging pen again, I’ve kind of bounced around a bit. First it was RAF and my Warlocks. That never panned out. Next it was RAF with my Horde Priests, and that kind of fizzled when I found out that I liked Pet Battles. The Pet Battles have kind of stuck. I’m logging in each day to battle some Battle Tamers and level some pets. My stable has grown into the 380′s and I have over 10 level 25 pets at the moment, and the list keeps growing.

Since the last post nothing much has changed, other than my stable of pets growing. I’ve learned a bit by doing, and I’ve learned a bit by reading other blogs. I’m taking a single low level pet into a battle with two fairly powerful pets against the trainers, to help level the lower level pet. This is something I would have never thought of on my own. It was actually due to a suggestion from Effy, who mentioned power leveling pets in guild chat one evening. I have taken the power leveling one step further after reading Navimie‘s post about leveling a pet in 8 battles. I don’t have all of the pets outlined there, and don’t even have access to all of the trainers listed yet, but I’ve used the concept to level my past four or five pets to 25.

Currently, I am working on Magic and Undead pets, as I think I have one of each of the other types at 25 already. While My “All Druid” team is still my de facto favorite, I’ve stopped using those pets in most situations. I’ve moved to other pets more suited to the tasks at hand. My current duo used for leveling a lowbie is Fluxfire Feline and Spirebound Crab.  I love the Fluxfire Feline’s Wind-up for one-shotting beasts, and the Crab’s ability to tank is immense with the Shield and Three-turn heal. I think I would like a pet with the ability to Team-heal, but I’m not sure if that’s as valuable. The Crab’s heal can heal other pets if I swap after using it, as it persists for three turns.

My routine is as follows: I log into one of my alts, who is camped in Winterspring, and I pull out my team with the lowbie in slot one. I fight and win, gaining some amount of XP. I heal my pets, Log out, Hop on another alt who is out behind Kara, Battle, win, heal, Log out. Log in to yet another alt in Shadowmoon, Battle, win, heal, log out. I then log in to my alt in Icecrown. This character battles Major Payne, then does Argent Crusade dailies so I can get the last of the Pets on alliance side, without having to spend any gold. From here, I log into Maerdred who is farming rares in Mists zones and leveling pets. Once I have all of the pets I want at 25, I’ll do the Cata Tamers and then the Mists tamers. I could probably do them now, but with the pets I have at 25, I’m not sure which to use. so I’m getting a bit more diverse.

I’ve spent much of the past two weeks leveling pets and taming up a storm. It started as a whim, and it turned out to be really fun, so I’ve pretty much been focusing on it entirely for the past couple of weeks.

I started with a random pet and just kind of went through the zones picking up every pet I could. I leveled many pets from 1-5 before I knew it. I started in Stormwind and just followed the pet levels as I went. Elwynn Forest was first, and then I hit Westfall, and the Redridge Mountains. I not only attempted to get one of each pet, I attempted to get a rare for each pet. This had me in each zone for a very long time.

I realize now that this was not the most efficient way to go.

What I should have done was collect as I go, while leveling a battle team. That seems to be the smart way to do it. I didn’t even settle on a single team of three pets to level until pretty deep into my venture. I created multiple teams using an addon, Pet Battle Teams, or something like that. And I just put together teams that I thought were fun.

The team I wound up leveling to 25 though, was my “All Druid Team” It consists of my Moonkin Hatchling, a Ruby Sapling, and Panther Cub. While, it’s a great team, It’s not the best for high level fighting. So I started leveling other pets at random, not sure what to level to get me past some of the higher level Master Pet Tamers.

I’ve leveled the Terrible Turnip to aid in capturing pets without killing them. I leveled Withers before I though t to switch to the Ruby Sapling. He’s not 25, but he’s close. I have leveled multiple other pets partway up to 25 before abandoning them or moving on to other pets.

Needless to say, I’ve not been very efficient. What I need is to learn what I’ll need to compete at the 25 level, and focus there. I’ve started leveling my Fluxfre Feline in an attempt to start a true battle team. And as I level through Pandaria, I am picking up pets as I go to try to fill out my roster.

What pets are you using at the top levels? What resources do you use to learn about the pet battle system? Which pet do you think I should level next? What pet do you think I should capture next?

Leave your answers in the comments and hopefully we can all have fun battling pets together!

Late last week I purchased yet another Battle Chest and created a new RAF account for the purpose of leveling two brand new Warlocks. At the very subtle prodding of Poneria, from Fel Concentration, WoW Insider, @slowpoker, and from my very own Guild, I decided to give Warlocks another try.

In the past I had leveled a human Warlock to somewhere around 17. I was in Westfall, and I could not keep myself alive for more than 3 minutes. I tried killing the same pack of 3 or 4 mobs probably 15 times before I just up and quit. About three months later, after not having logged into him for about three months, I deleted the character to make room for another. So this time, With RAF in hand, knowing how simple leveling via RAF was with my Shamans and Mages, I decided to go for it. Maeriachi and Maerauder were born. It took me a few hours to get the setup down, as I had uninstalled the software and addons used last time I leveled the Mages.

For the record my setup is using ISBoxer for Dual Boxing as described on Dual-Boxing.com. I’m also using the Jamba addon for syncing things in-game. It always makes me want a Smoothie for some reason…

So, some time last weekend I started my two Warlocks and leveled them through Gnomer, Dun Morogh and parts of Loch Modan. The leveling is fast and furious, and the Experience comes in hand over fist. Teaming up on mobs makes it that much faster, and the 3x Exp gains from RAF are just a great boon to the process. It seems I turn in 3-4 quests and I hit the next level. At one quest hub in Arathi yesterday I turned in 6 quests and gained a level and a half.

With only a handful of hours played, I have both characters at level 39 and Hope to get them to 45 by mid week with my short play schedule. I’ll Keep you posted, and if anything interesting comes up, I’ll be sure to let you all know it.

Way back when this blog first started, I had no vision, no greater purpose. I was just hoping to do something that would fulfill my desire to write creatively. I looked at blogs such as Resto4Life and I saw people adding to the community with their knowledge and I wanted to do something similar. I’m nowhere near as prolific as Phae, and nowhere near as knowledgeable as she was, but I got some readers. I found a niche and some folks decided to read what I wrote.

As time went on, I wrote less and less, and even stopped completely for months at a time. During my times of absence from the blog I mainly just did other things. I kept playing the game, but I didn’t feel that anything I had to say was relevant. I didn’t want to become another news blog. We have plenty of those, and why would people come here for their WoW news? There’s plenty of other places to go for it. Why would I write something that was being written by 50 other blogs? I wouldn’t. That’s the long and short of it, so news posts were, and are, few and far between here.

What I do write is what I know. I learned that from, well, I honestly don’t know where I learned that. Probably lots of places. I spun tales of my life as a raider, or guild officer, or even just as a grunt in the trenches. I talked about me, and how things in the game affected me. I’ve done posts about gear. I’ve done posts about Boss mechanics, I’ve done posts about silly love triangles with famous Lore characters. None of these things ever stuck as a theme, and Honestly, I don’t think I ever needed a theme. I just write what is on my mind.

Apparently over the past 9 months or so, not much has been on my mind. I am hoping to change that. I give no promises. I’ve done that before, and well, I didn’t deliver. What I hope is this: I hope that I will write one or two new Blog posts a week that people will enjoy reading. I hope that I write one to two blog posts a week that I enjoy writing. Will they have a theme? No. Will they always be about Resto Druidry? No. Will they even all be about WoW? Nope. They won’t. Most of them probably will. I’m getting back into the game, and there’s so much new stuff coming around the bend, that I think I’ll have plenty to talk about. My life doesn’t revolve around the game, so why should my Blog? Exactly. It Shouldn’t!

This blog is starting anew. I’ve been there before, and here I come again. This Druid has some tales to spin, and I hope you stick around to read them. (that is, if they ever get written)

Yesterday, I stated in my post that “I love my guild,” and I have to tell you that I wasn’t just waxing poetic. I love this guild. I have been a part of many guilds in the past. I loved RD because they were the first and they were all great people, some of whom I have met IRL and continue to be friends with today. I loved Kohrruption, since most of my favorite cousins were in the guild, along with their friends who became my friends, and even some people we picked up along the way who are also great people. I loved being in the Sidhe Devils while it lasted. There were many friendships from the blogosphere, and many more made while I was in that guild. It was unfortunate what happened there. But this guild… Undying Resolution of the Elune server, is possibly the best guild I have ever been a part of.

In my time with UR, I’ve been a raider from the start. Raiding with this guild has gotten me some of the highest achievements I’ve ever had when compared to what was available at the time. With this guild, I killed the Lich King. With this guild, I killed Nefarian and Onyxia. With this guild, I killed Ragnaros. As long as I have been with this guild, I have killed the big bad boss of the day. I had never done so in any guild before. I hadn’t really even come close before. And while those are achievements unto themselves, they are not the reason I love this guild. I love this guild because of the people. I have raided with a great group of people who are always there, and always upbeat, and always ready to kick some butt. They’ve been great people to raid with, and I’ve loved my raiding career with them. Last night, a few days after I officially ended that raiding career, I logged onto the guild forums to find a post from our GM.

The post he made on the forums was to announce a new honorary guild rank for retired Raiders and Officers. In this post he made it clear that only the best and brightest among us would attain this rank. Many have come and gone, but few attain this rank. Two legends of the past were awarded this rank posthumously, and two current members have also been awarded this honorary rank. One of our founding officers, a man who helped shape the guild into what it is, with his leadership and tireless duty and his constant struggle to be the very best he could be.

The other? Well, that be me.

Renegade – Maerdred who, as a founding member of U.R., has raided consistently with us ever since. In U.R.’s early days, Maerdred’s feedback helped to directly shape the policies and goals of U.R. Maerdred also proved that some druids really can be great tank healers. We’ll miss you greatly and thank you for all that you have done along the way, we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

These may be simple words to most. They may not even confer any emotion at all. To me, this is one of the most fitting tributes I could receive. As a person who constantly questions his own self worth, and who constantly worries about what others think of him, to finally know what my guild thinks of me, without question… It was powerful. After having spent the past year+ wondering if I was good enough, or if I was just a placeholder in raids, it was powerful stuff.

I read this and I think back on what it all means. I remember the conversations I had with Ranico about leadership and I remember giving him advice, which apparently stuck with him. I remember fighting for respect as a tank healer, and outperforming some of our former Holy Paladins to retain the job (I really detested the concept of raid healing; it felt like being sent to stand at the back of the bus).

It’s always been a point of contention with me when people say Druids can’t tank heal. Tank healing has defined me. My personal mission at every raid is to keep that tank alive. My singular goal has always been to be the best I can at that one aspect of the game, and I appreciate that it’s been recognized. I appreciate that I was able to prove myself when we didn’t really have many other tank healers, and that I was able to keep the job once we got some.

I love this guild because it’s obvious that the people of the guild are real people who honestly do appreciate the others surrounding them within the game. This guild is not made of anonymous drones who can be replaced on a whim. It’s a guild full of people who I am glad to call my friends.

Thanks, UR for honoring me with the title of Crusader. It means more than you know.

The other day I made a decision. It was a decision that was a long time coming, and I’m sure some people weren’t very surprised by it. If you follow me on Twitter, you already know, I gave up raiding with my guild. I did not give up the game. I did not leave the guild. I just gave up raiding.

I’ve given up raiding before. I did so in TBC so I could level a brand new character and then started raiding with him. I did so again in Wrath because I was sick of raiding guilds falling apart underneath me. This time, It’s for a different reason, though very similar. Burnout. I’ve been raiding with the same group of people for 2 years at this point. We’ve been in our current guild for just over a year, and we have fun. I raid 25′s 2 nights a week, and that’s pretty much all I play. I Don’t log on for 10′s on Sundays most often. I don’t log in daily to cap VP. I never even finished Therazane Rep, or Firelands content. I have been skating along under the radar, and I felt that it was unfair to the guild to keep it up.

If I’m not raiding, they don’t have to support me. They don’t have to pay for my repairs and my enchants and all those other things. If I’m not raiding, I can be questing and farming and putting more into the guild that I’ve been taking. I can also do this on my time. I can log in and do 3 Daily quests before Beth gets home, and then log for the rest of the night and actually live with the girl I live with. I can log in on Sunday when she’s at work and I can farm herbs for 4 hours to restock the guild bank for the raiders. I can finally finish some of the questlines I’ve skipped out on. I can just play the game the way I like to play the game.

Will I miss raiding? Yes. Will I go back to it in the future? Who knows. Over the past month I’ve spent more time being sick than I have spent raiding. Over the next month, I expect to spend more time out with family than I will spend in any game. After the holidays are over, SWTOR will be here, and I’m sure that’ll be taking up a large chunk of time. Do I see myself back raiding any time soon? No. Is it possible in the future? Yes.

I love my Guild. I love my Druid. I love my Family. Which do I love more? That much should be obvious. World of Warcraft can wait, I have a family.

What does this mean for the Blog? I’m not sure. In a perfect world, I’ll be able to spend some of the time I had spent raiding, coming up with blog posts instead. Do I see this happening? Honestly, no. Do I want to write interesting topics for people to read? Yes I do. Do I have the time to do so? Not really. I’ll do my best. I feel I’ve neglected this blog far too long. I’d love to come back to it more often. If you want to read more from me, go ahead and comment. If nobody comments I don’t have incentive to write more.

As you could probably tell, This November hasn’t been the Flurry of posts from me that I was hoping It would have been.

When I made my coming back post a couple weeks ago I had a few ideas for posts and I was ready to sit down and start writing. Then Snowtober happened and I was without power for 7 days. As soon ad that debacle ended, I wound up getting sick. As soon as that debacle ended, SWTOR had a Beta Weekend, which I may or may not have participated in. I’m not sure What all their policy is on talking about those Beta weekends…

Well, All of that has been brought to you by our good friend Murphy and his ability to make everything go wrong at just the right (or wrong) moment.

Whatever. With Murphy hanging out, I have not been able to get ANYTHING done for the Blog, and I don’t see that happening until at least this weekend.

One thing. I promise not to be gone for months at a time again, and I promise to REY to post at least once a week for the duration.

If there’s anything Druid related that you want to know, or Guild related, or hell personal that you want to know, Ask away, and I’ll do my best to post about it in the near future.

In the meantime, I’ll probably get my feathers wet with a Blog Azeroth Shared topic or two.

See you soon!