Wow, the new Argent Tournament content looks great to me!  As I posted just this week, my stubborn-headed refusal to be beaten by the Argent Tournament recently paid off with a new title, Crusader.  I’ve also become the proud parent of 4 new pets from the tournament (5 if you count the squire, but I try not to because it’s just… creepy); and I’m saving up seals for pet #5.  As pet collecting has become a pretty big priority for me (read unhealthy fixation… 3 away from 75 and the little deer I just gotta have!), I’ve stayed active in doing Argent Tourney dailies, long after they’ve lost interest for me.  I’m not alone in my weariness over the offerings at the tourney, I’ve been hearing it repeated all over the place.  But… new tourney awards, quests, and all around coolness is coming in the next patch, and I can hardly wait!

I just read over some blue posts outlining the new content and loot surrounding the Argent Tournament in patch 3.2 and was really excited not only that there is more to see, do, and get, but that the rewards they are offering are so unique and cool! 

First, if you’re a Crusader, you can get your hands on a tabard that ports you to the tournament grounds, which is, of course, just a hop, skip, and jump from D-Town.  I’m sure all the mages in the world are underwhelmed by this, but it sure is exciting for me!  Even with the half hour hearthstone I still find myself wanting to hearth much more often than that on some days.  And I don’t have to fork out 1000 g for the ring in Dalaran either.  mwahahahaha!

Also… the new improved squire is just badass!  It’s going to have a mount and every 8 hours can be called on to offer bank, vendor, or mail services.  That, for a non-engineer, non-20,000g-mammoth-mount-owning druid is just too cool for school!  Woot woot! 

Plus another pet, a Shimmering Wyrmling just in case I haven’t reached my 75 pets and baby deer by the time the tourney comes out (I will have it by then.  I must.  A little deer pet?  With a druid?  It just must happen.  /eyes glaze over unhealthily).

And there are also new mounts and other tabards and stuff.  Sorry… you’ll have to seek out info on them on your own if you’re interested.  I haven’t ever cared much about mounts.  I turn into a cheetah and a bird, for heaven’s sake.  lol.

It is the new squire and tabard that have me most excited and most impressed.  I don’t think we’ve ever seen loot quite like this.  Both of them clearly identify inconveniences and irritations for the average player and make available a solution if you’re willing to put in the work for it.  I like that the squire delivers services and conveniences.  That’s what squires do, after all!  I love the thought that went into their creation and can’t wait to get these rewards for myself.  It will give my tired “1. General – [Syll] lfg threat and citadel” a little more spring in its step and raison d’etre. 

“…and there was much rejoicing.” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

One of the responsibilities that raiders take on is to raise their reputation with various factions in order to obtain items or enchants from them that will buff their performance.  Some of them also offer just cool perks, like achievements and titles, that you might be interested in picking up.  However, it is often hard to find out or remember what factions offer reputation rewards that are beneficial for you as you go through the game.  I thought I’d give just a quick run through of the reputations that offer rewards worth farming in Wrath of the Lich King for Restos.

Cenarion Circle - This faction makes its home in the druid city of Moonglade, but most of the ways to gain reputation with them are in Silithus.  The main reason to farm reputation with them at this point in the game is to get the title of Guardian of Cenarius, which is the coolest title ever for druids to have!

Cenarion Expedition is the other reputation you will need to grind to exalted in order to become Guardian of Cenarius.  Rep is most easily obtained for this faction by running the instances in Zangarmarsh.

Argent Crusade rep can be gotten from doing a number of daily quests in Zul’Drak and Dragonblight, as well as from doing champion level quests in the Argent Tournament.  You might consider raising rep with this faction if you are gearing up and needing a ring upgrade, as the the Signet of Hopeful Light becomes available once you reach exalted.  you can equip a Argent Crusade Tabard while running level 80 instances to gain rep with this faction.

The Kirin Tor reputation can be gained by doing the cooking or jewelworking dailies in Dalaran, by doing quests in Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Coldarra, and by doing the heroic instance dailies.  In addition, you can equip a Kirin Tor tabard while running level 80 instances to gain rep with this faction.  For someone with revered reputation they offer the Arcanum of Burning Mysteries, a head slot enchant that serves up crit and spell power, two stats that benefit Restos.  Also of possible interest is the Ghostflicker Waistband, available at exalted, which has Int, crit, spell power, and a blue socket, or the Robes of Crackling Flame, offering Int, haste, spell power, and a generous 26 mp5.  Those last two items aren’t specifically tailored to resto, but might be good choices regardless if they offer stats that you are trying to build for one reason or another.

The Knights of the Ebon Blade don’t offer a lot for Restos, but you might be interested in the Belt of Dark Mending, which has Int, Haste, and Spell Power on it for the exalted with this faction.  Reputation with them is gained largely through daily quests in Icecrown, and by wearing their tabard in level 80 dungeons.

The Sons of Hodir offer the best shoulder enchants in the game, so you really should focus on building rep with them.  There is a long, epic quest chain to open up rep with them, starting with They Took Our Men in K3.    Eventually you will open up 6 daily quests with this faction, and can also turn in Everfrost Chips or Relics of Ulduar for more reputation.  The payoff is the Greater Inscription of the Crag, available at exalted, which adds spell power and mp5 to your shoulders.

The Wyrmrest Accord offers another head slot enchant at revered, the  Arcanum of Blissful Mending, this time offering spell power and mp5.  In addition, you can pick up the Sandals of Crimson Fury from them at exalted, which offer Int, haste, spell power, and a blue socket.  There are a large number of quests in Borean Tundra and Dragonblight that will boost your reputation with Wyrmrest, and a tabard as well.

And that’s it for now.  Unlike in the Burning Crusade, Blizzard has not tied reputation to specific instances or raid instances in Wrath of the Lich King, so all of the needed or enticing rep items in this expansion can actually be obtained before ever stepping foot in a raid.  If you are a raider, you should absolutely work to gain the rep needed to obtain the head and shoulder enchants discussed above, if nothing else.  Even prospective raiders should do so, as guilds will look over your reputation to ascertain how deep your commitment to raiding actually is based upon whether you’ve worked to get these enchants.  So if you haven’t already, work these reputation quests/dailies/tabards into your routine and knock them out to be/become the strongest raider you can be.

As you can see by my post below about making Tasty Cupcakes and Delicious Chocolate Cakes in preparation for Children’s Week, I’ve been doing what I can to prepare now for this holiday.  If you have participated in the holiday in the past, you will know that there is a LOT of running around involved, showing your orphan sites in Old World and Outlands, and it seems that there will be yet another string of quests this year taking you around Northrend starting with Orphan Matron Twinbreeze in Dragonblight!  There is a lot you can do in advance, however, to cut down on all of the activity that will be needed to complete the quests and achievements next week.  Here’s the scoop:

Many of the items that you will need to complete Children’s Week quests and achievements can be done before you ever pick up your little wards.  In addition, there seems to be some money to be made on this holiday if you are willing to play the market.  Hooray!

In terms of what you can gather up now, here’s a list of items and where to find them:

Tigule & Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream – you will need to get two of these if you intend to complete both the Bad Example Achievement and the I Scream, You Scream quest, which is part of the Children’s Week questlines that start in Orgrimmar for Horde and in Stormwind for Alliance.  Although this ice cream will be available for sale from special Children’s Week vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind, you can pick it up early from Caregiver Isel Nagrand, the Telaar innkeeper in Nagrand located at coords 54.2, 76.  It is also available in the Shimmering Flats of Thousand Needles from Brivelthwerp at 77.4, 77.  If you miss picking this up early, though, it is not a big deal at all because during Children’s Week you will find it is being sold by Emmithue Smails, a Children’s Week vendor in Stormwind City who you will find in the Trade District of Stormwind just to the right of the large tree next to the mailbox in front of the bank. Alowicious Czervik will be standing near the bank in Orgrimmar during the holiday, and will have this for sale, as well.  A word to the wise, pick this up before you start running all over for the Children’s Week quest chains, whether you get it now or you wait until Children’s Week has begun.  Both the alliance and horde quest chains will have you running all over the place and you will be glad to have saved yourself a trip.

There are a number of food items that you can pick up in advance from Aimee at Pie, Pastry and Cakes, located in Dalaran near the barbershop at coords 51.2, 28.4.  From her you can obtain a Red Velvet Cupcake, a Dalaran Doughnut, a Dalaran Brownie, and a Lovely Cake that can be divided into Lovely Cake Slices.  Go visit her with 4 of your friends who want to participate in the holiday if you can, as most of these items are sold in stacks of 5.  You will need to eat one of each of these confections in front of your orphan to complete the Bad Example achievement. 

In addition, you are going to need to eat a Delicious Chocolate Cake and a Tasty Cupcake for that achievement.  These items, however, cannot be purchased from vendors.  They can only be made by people with the cooking skill who have the recipes.  If you cannot cook or do not wish to gather the ingredients yourself, you can look for these on the Auction House.  If you can find them now, you’ll probably save yourself some gold, as the price is likely to skyrocket once the holiday begins. 

However, if you are a cook, or if you are frugal and want to save yourself some gold, you might want to farm the ingredients ahead of time for these two items. 

The ingredients for a Delicious Chocolate Cake are:

8 simple flour – sold by cooking suppliers in all major cities
4 ice cold milk – sold by food and drink vendors and innkeepers in major cities in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, as well as in low level towns on these continents.  Also drops off of low level mobs.
8 small eggs - dropped by low level birds in many areas.  The highest drop rate appears to be from Dire Condors in Redridge Mountains, located both to the north and the south of the lake in the middle of this zone.
Flask of port - sold by many, including bartenders and barmaids in the major cities of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor.
3 mageroyal - available as a drop off of numerous low level mobs (visit link for list) or can be gathered by herbalists.

 Tasty Cupcakes require fewer ingredients:

 2 simple flour – sold by cooking suppliers in all major cities
Northern Egg - drops most frequently from Goretalon Rocs in Sholozar Basin

 If you are a cook, you might consider making up extra cakes and cupcakes for sale on the auction house.  Even if you are not, however, it might be well worth your while to farm the ingredients for these recipes for two reasons.  1) you will probably be able to find a cook who will make what you need for nothing more than a tip if you have the ingredients already.  2)  the ingredients themselves will likely skyrocket in price over the next week as people seek them out to have their own recipes made.  Mageroyal, for example, is already selling for twice its normal cost on my server’s auction house. 

In addition to selling the food items that can only be made by cooks on the auction house over the coming week, and the ingredients of those cooking only items, you might also consider buying up extras of the items sold by Aimee at Pie, Pastry and Cakes in Dalaran to try your luck with them on the Auction House.  There are always players who lack resources, ambition, or time to go seek out items like this.  Not knowing where to find them, or not wanting to bother to make the trip to get them, they might seek them out on the auction house.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look on your local Auction House at the non-combat pets.  I bet you will find dozens that are available from vendors throughout Azeroth.  People buy them from the vendor, listing them on the Auction House for twice their value, and make a profit every day this way.  These food items that can only be found in one shop in the whole game should be no exception.

Lastly, as this is a PVE druid blog, I’m guessing that most readers here are not heavily into PVP.  I know I’m not.  So part of what I will be doing in preparation for Children’s Week is studying up on the battlegrounds that are part of the School of Hard Knocks achievement.  I’m dubious that I will get this one done, but it is possible that I will give it a shot.  Therefore, I’ve done a little work to gather some resources for the uninitiated:
How to capture the flag in World of Warcraft
WOW:  Master of Eye of the Storm
Warsong Gulch Battleground Guide
Alterac Valley Battleground Guide
Arathi Basin Battleground guide
Eye of the Storm Battleground guide 

Good luck out there!  I hope you and your orphans have the time of your lives!

Edit:  although there was speculation that there would be a Northrend component to Children’s Week this year, Orphan Matron Twinbreeze does not offer any related quests.

/yawn
/stretch

In the wee hours this morning I finished up the Noblegarden meta achievment.  Sylly the Noble at your service!  I must admit that as time went on, I lost some of the delight in the event that I posted about yesterday.  It became much more of a grind for me.  I think that it might have been better to space it out over several days, but I don’t have much time during the week days for anything but raiding, and next weekend is Children’s Week, so I decided to get it all out of the way as quickly as possible.  In doing so, I picked up some tips on how to get all of the eggs you need to complete the achievements or to purchase the goods that you are interested in. 

Overall, I picked up  164  eggs with chocolate in them yesterday.  100 for the Chocoholic achievement, 4 for Noble Garden (5 to buy the Noblegarden egg, but you can loot it after you hide it, so you get one back), 10 for the daily quest, and 50 to buy an Elegant Dress.  I actually didn’t farm 50 chocolates just to buy the dress.  I was farming them go get the Spring Robes to complete the Desert Rose achievement.  The robes dropped for me when I had about 38 chocolates, though, so I farmed 12 more for the dress since I was most of the way there.  In addition to those 164 eggs, I opened two with Tuxedo shirts, one with Tuxedo pants, two with Spring Flowers, and two with Spring Circlets. for a grand total of 171 eggs to complete all Noblegarden achievements with the exception of Dressed for the Occasion, which is not part of the meta achievement for the holiday.

Here is some advice on how to make this process as painless as possible.  First, if it makes sense for you to do this in the very early morning, than by all means do so.  When I was camping eggs Sunday morning I was camping one spawn at a time.  At 4:00 on Monday morning, I was camping 4 spawns at a time, and scooting around occassionally to pick up others, too.  I know this isn’t possible for everyone, but if you can gather eggs when there are very few people on, the process will go much more quickly.

Along the same lines, go to a place that isn’t very heavily trafficked if you can.  I did a lot of gathering at Azure Watch in the Draenei starting area, as the Exodar is easily Alliance’s least visited and most out of the way city.  There were people there, sure.  You had to go out there for the Spring Fling achievement, and others had the same idea that there might be less competition there.  But at 3 a.m. it was mostly a ghost town.

If you open an egg that turns you into a bunny, by all means stay a bunny!  When you are a bunny, the egg spawns are at eye level, making them much easier to see and to snatch up.

If you are gathering during a high traffic time on the server, find a spot where there is at least one spawn, or ideally two or three, within reachable distance of one spot.  Plant yourself there and stay put!  While you might find eggs if you go running around looking for them, there is a high chance that they are being camped by someone patient who is waiting to pounce on them the instant they appear.  You’re much better off being one of those patient people than you are being a yahoo running all over the place hoping for someone to be snoozing.  So find a spot, hunker down, throw on a movie or your favorite tunes, and wait. 

Yesterday at the height of the frenzy I was camping a one egg spawn spot.  I turned on autoloot to snatch the eggs as soon as they appeared on my screen.  I was in bunny form, hiding under a bush outside of Darnassus that had a spawn point that was pretty well hidden underneath of it.  Was it slow going?  Yes.  But it was steady.  Eventually someone directly behind me camping another spawn in an identical way wandered off and my one egg spawn hiding spot became a two egg hiding spot.  While people yelled around me about how it was impossible to find eggs, I collected them by the dozen by being still and patient and listening to some of my favorite music.

Eventually, I ended up zooming in my camera as far as it would go, so that my whole screen filled up with the egg spawn area.  It allowed me to block out the chaos of people running all over the place around me, of spawning bunnies, and so forth.  I also put away my own bunny pet after she had had her little love connection in each area, because when I did not, bunnies were jumping around having baby bunnies all over the place.  Once I cut down on the visual noise, I could be less attentive, for any movement on my screen could pretty much only be the spawn of an egg.  I held my cursor over where the egg would spawn, and right clicked the second the pointing finger turned to a gear shift.  I stymied many a potential egg stealer in this way, by being patient, still, and quick to react.

Also, open your eggs as you go.  There is always a break of some seconds at least between spawns at the same point, and you might as well spend some of that time opening the eggs, which you will have to do, anyway.  You never know… something you are waiting for might be inside one of them.  If you don’t open them, you might just go right on gathering eggs for longer than you actually needed to!  The horror!

Finally, I took breaks.  When the monotony of egg camping became too much for me, I’d go off to do another part of the achievments, hiding an egg in Stormwind or gathering a group of guildies to go to Un’Goro to lay eggs at the hotsprings.  I would recommend spacing out the achievements of the holiday so that you can punctuate your egg watch with some of the fun silliness that is also part of Noblegarden.

I’m now really happy to have accomplished everything that I needed to for the holiday in one day.  There is a chance that I might go back to do the daily a couple of times to see if I can’t get that elegant dress out of an egg for that last achievement.  I would not say that the egg sitting was the best time I’ve spent in the game.  However, I was able to get through it very well, sanity in tact, by approaching the task as I have described.  Best of luck!  Now that I’ve gotten all of my eggs, the field is all yours!

Although I’ve been playing Warcraft for almost two years, this year marks my first participation in Noblegarden.  I don’t know how I missed it last time around, but it completely slipped past under my radar.  I’ve always been sort of hit or miss with the holidays, really enjoying some, while finding others to be boring at best, and obnoxious at worst.  Noblegarden, however, I find to be so lighthearted and fun that I suspect that Bugs Bunny may have personally scripted it!  There are some aspects of this holiday that have just made me giggle right out loud.  Here are some of my favorites:

1)  My… er… prolific Spring Rabbit.  Don’t let looks fool you.  This sweet, innocent looking pet is more amorous than a frat boy at a strip club with a fake i.d.  I’m considering calling a vet just to make sure it’s healthy for her to keep reproducing so much.

2)  Big, burly male toons donning Elegant Dresses to be kissed so that someone can get the Blushing Bride achievement.  I saw one this morning in Stormwind yelling, “Kiss me!  Kiss me!” and almost wet my pants laughing.

3) Orc chicks in bunny ears.  There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that bunny ears are now the best fashion accessory for female orcs, ever.  EVER!

4)  Laying eggs – I logged on this morning and my guildie Dwyn immediately whispered me to come look for eggs.  Delighted, I hightailed it down to SW.  I was promptly turned into a rabbit and, to my utter surprise, started laying eggs.  Wonderful, tiny, colored eggs.  Added bonus that there is an achievement for making a journey to Un’Goro crater with a friend to lay eggs there.

As a side note, I thank Blizzard for making some of the items needed to complete the achievements available on a vendor, so that eventually you can get what you need to complete them in a non-random way, even if it takes you a long time to do so.  I personally am not trying to complete the What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been achievement for the protodrake, but I do get weary of the understandable frustration of others when the random number generator goes against them.  The added vendor for this holiday helps the whole atmosphere to remain as it should be, light and fun.

So get out to the starting areas and take a look around if you haven’t yet.  Even if holidays aren’t high on your list of things you enjoy about playing, you might find that this one brings enough chuckles to make you glad for participating.

As some of you may recall, I was very excited before the patch about the goodies coming out of the Argent Tournament and couldn’t wait to get started.  More than anything in the game right now I really, really, REALLY want the baby tree pet.  Because of my enthusiasm, I thought that The Argent Tournament was going to be something that I just adored.  I was wrong, so very, very wrong.  Therefore, I now present to you the 10 reasons I loathe the Argent Tournament…

1.  Vehicle combat can be fun.  But when you get it, you get it.  When you don’t you don’t.

2.  Although I understand perfectly what I am “supposed” to do, I am simply not dextrous enough to do it.  My left hand does not speak “WASD.”

3.  No amount of practicing has improved my ability or my mood.

4.  No amount of helpful advice from guildies and friends has improved my ability, although the sweet encouragement of others has momentarily lifted my mood.

5.  Returning to jousting with temporarily lifted mood from the support of others has only set me up to fall from a greater height, as my mood again crashes down over and over because of my inability to freaking joust.

6.  One daily that doesn’t require me to challenge jousters and joust them still requires me to go out and joust in Icecrown, where dozens of asshats wait for me to wipe out the guys on foot so that they can swoop in and joust the guys I just cleared a huge area to joust, leaving me not only incapable of jousting, but with no one to joust.

7.  I fail at jousting at an intermediate level.  I am a Valiant.  It is inconceivable that I will improve my jousting enough to reach the next level to even get to the dailies that I would need to do to get the stupid currency I would need to buy my baby tree.

8.  Those NPCs snicker about me openly amongst one another.  I do believe that one called me a pansy yesterday.

9.  I have had to bribe my husband, who loves me but hates WOW, to try and joust for me, thus sucking him into my dimension of utter fail.

10.  My Draenei friend, Hummy, has already told me he’s going to get a baby tree before me.  He taunts me.  Plus he already has a little squire to follow him around and announce his greatness.  What follows me is a little rain cloud of fail.

Suck it, Argent Tournament. /sob!