Perfect Purple Plate - Part 2

Lightsworn Garb (Lookalike)
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 Faceplate of the Forgotten - Festergut
 Rusted Bonespike Pauldrons - Lord Marrowgar
 Rot-Resistant Breastplate - Rotface
 Waistband of Righteous Fury - Gunship Armoury (Icecrown Gunship Battle)
 Leggings of Dying Candles - Cache of the Dreamwalker (Valithria Dreamwalker)
 Boots of the Funeral March - Cache of the Dreamwalker (Valithria Dreamwalker)
 Crypt Keeper's Bracers - Prince Valanar (Blood Council)
 Fallen Lord's Handguards - Lady Deathwhisper
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Head - Faceplate of the Forgotten Dropped by: Festergut The Plagueworks

Shoulder - Rusted Bonespike Pauldrons Dropped by: Lord Marrowgar The Lower Spire

Chest - Rot-Resistant Breastplate Dropped by: Rotface The Plagueworks   Rotface also drops the cloak intended for this set.

Waist - Waistband of Righteous Fury Dropped by: Gunship Armoury (Icecrown Gunship Battle) The Lower Spire    **see note below

Legs - Leggings of Dying Candles  Dropped by: Cache of the Dreamwalker (Valithria Dreamwalker)
 
Feet - Boots of the Funeral March Dropped by: Cache of the Dreamwalker (Valithria Dreamwalker)  

Wrist - Crypt Keeper's Bracers Dropped by: Prince Valanar (Blood Council)

Hands - Fallen Lord's Handguards Dropped by: Lady Deathwhisper The Lower Spire
 
**Note: other things in the Gunship Armory -

• Primordial Saronite useful for Blacksmithing
• Shield:  Neverending Winter

This is the cloak that is intended to "go with" this set.
Cloak: Winding Sheet  Dropped by: Rotface The Plagueworks

My two favourite cloaks however are:

Used Bar Rag  and Cloak of Cleansing Flame.  I don't think either will go well with the dark purple plate, so the search is on for a dark purple cloak similar to the Used Bar Rag and the Cloak of Cleansing Flame!  It's hard to find a long purple cloak with dark blue on it instead of red.

Transmogrification Guide: All Cloak Styles
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Two weeks ago [mid-Apr/2015], Mr. Kitty and I did our first run of ICC [Icecrown Citadel] in my quest for my Purple Plate Transmog set.

While we were figuring out the where-tos and why-fors, we both found this "Look-a-like" set that drastically reduced the number of runs of the raid required!  YaY!

Mr. Kitty also expressed delight that the pieces come from the Heroic version.  I'm not so sure about that but .... .... I had been in ICC
once before but of course retained zero knowledge of it, Mr. Kitty said, "No problem, just follow me and kill stuff when you can, if you like".

Really, he's far too easy-going!  So the next amount of time passed by in a delightful blur of me concentrating very hard on keeping up, not doing stupid stuff [not being completely successful at that! lol], and having fun.

I did have an enormous amount of fun.  Truly, the pressure is off being that it is "old content", and we're at level 100 and the raid is set at level 80.

Plus, Mr. Kitty is too polite and kind, and reassures me that he's having fun too and isn't bored to tears.  So, for now, I'm taking him at his word and just doing my best to keep up and have fun.

It kind of reminded me of learning how to drive a snowmobile as a young teenager.  I was always afraid to drive one and one evening I confessed as much to a friend.  He suggested that the two of us should go out alone, and he'd teach me how, in private.

His "method" of teaching was, "Follow my lights, don't fall behind, don't get lost", and off he went.  In the dark, after we'd done a couple of on-the-river off-the-river turns and twists, I was completely lost and my only salvation and "survival" was to keep up to his tail light.  I was terrified, horrified that I'd lose him and be lost forever, but, man, did I ever learn quick how to drive!

Mr. Kitty was, of course, way more patient and forgiving.  He came back for me when I had trouble with an elevator!  I didn't know you had to jump onto the platform to activate it.  I'm still not 100% sure if I'm to jump onto it, as in stand aside and literally "jump onto" it as it arrives, or, if I can walk onto it and "jump" to activate it.  I'm sure I'll learn it and be bored by it by the time we've run the raid enough times to aquire all my stuff!

I hadn't read about the fight so was blissfully unaware of any scary bits coming up.  I just cringed my way through the icky spider part.  blech.

Near the end, of course, there's a bit where "don't stand [somewhere] because you'll get knocked off the ledge", and just as I'm reading that typed warning from Mr. Kitty in the chat log, and processing it, OF COURSE I got knocked off the ledge!

But now I'm completely comfortable rezzing and corpse-running back into the instance, and finding my way to where I left off!

Mr. Kitty has also perfected the timing of telling me where I need to get off the elevator just as I'm approaching it!

I'd also forgotten about the heart-wrenching end cinematic to this raid.  --sniff--

After we were done, we agreed that I'd make a list of who drops what piece of gear I'm looking for, and next time, Mr. Kitty will set the loot-
gathering specifics so he controls the loot and hands it out accordingly.

I was slowing us down considerably having to read all the loot descriptions on the loot rolls.  Plus I passed on a lot of things that weren't necessarily stuff I needed or wanted but that I could have vendored for a pretty chunk of gold.  But, not being sure what, if anything, he wanted/needed I figured it best to be safe and not sorry/greedy!

I successfully got one piece of the 8 pieces I need for my set.  As soon as I log in again I'll check my bank to confirm it but I'm pretty sure I have the Bracers.  One down, seven to go!

I have this sword in my bank, if I can find a high ilvl two-handed sword, I'd love to transmog it into this look:
Karabor Greatsword

I am currently working on collecting the Savage Bloods I need to upgrade my crafted Warlords Axe to the second level.  Then it will begin all over again to collect the crap needed to upgrade it tot he 3rd and 4th levels.  Once there, I need to decide if I like the look and if it goes with my Perfect Purple Plate.

I may decide to transmog it with this Axe: Stormedge comes from Ulduar Cache of Winter
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The spring weather in my part of the world has interfered for a bit.  I was down sick for the past week and am only now starting to feel well enough to get back in the game!

This post is the promised list for Mr. Kitty and a bit of a commentary on where we are, what we're doing!

Maybe Vier will blog about the lengths she had to go through helping me "Wrangle a Wolf" in Nagrand.  What a day that was, but I got it!  Thanks to Vier, there is no way on earth I would have wrangled that wolf without her!

Dungeons -- Brewfest -- Ret. Pally -- Flyin' High

In August, I took a week off from WoW to have company, Red Bear came to visit irl!  Then I took a couple of weeks off to recover from Red Bear's visit!  And then I got back to Wow realizing ... OMG only two months til WoD drops!

ACK!

OK, we're up to mid-September in the screenshots and level 74.

Vier was getting bored with my questing so for a few days she ran me through some dungeons.  Which was "Holy Crap" Scary at first.  Though, I was getting some sweet gear - like my glowy, shiny, big axe!  And rackin' up the gold ... gotta get to 5,000 gold so I can get Northrend flying and mount!

Here we are in one of my first dungeon runs.

In the Titan Place - very cool.  Very Mines-of-Moria.

At the same time, I was studying to take my Dual Spec live, something I was very nervous about.  Several times I had the thought "just sign in, and Do It!"  But, I'd chicken out.

When I started my Bank Alt, Soozuu, I even made her a Ret. Pally to see what that was like from the ground up.

[for the non-WoW readers: Retribution Paladin.  The damage-dealing specialization of the Paladins.

In Wow, whenever you get into a group, you can play one of three roles:

• a Tank [which I have no earthly idea what they do or how they do it], 
• a Healer [which I told Vier I wanted to be 'cause I had the naive notion I wouldn't be killing things, or killing a lesser number of things -- rolls eyes--], or, 
• a Damage Dealer.  

What I didn't know, and I don't think I would have listened if Vier told me, was that every group has at least One Tank, One Healer and Many Damage-Dealers [DPS].  When you're starting out, it's easier to hide your ineptness if you're one of many v.s. the One Healer - who, if she screws up - wipes or wrecks the whole group.]

So yes, I was makin' a bank alt and I figured I'd get some "sneak" WoW time.  Time when Vier wouldn't be looking over my shoulder and chiding me for not concentrating on questing and wasting my time fishing.  I even joined a different guild on a whim!

I didn't recognize Vier in this spiffy get-up!

Busted!

Might as well get back into my "real" guild!  And of course, do some fishin'!

Soozuu in Fists with her White Kitten Gift.

Holy Crap!  I caught Old Ironjaw!

Old Ironjaw is mine!  

"The legendary uncatchable fish of Ironforge"   According to El's Angling, catching him is a less than one percent chance! Wow!

Now apparently I have to sneak into Orgrimmar to fish up Ol' Crafty!  Not looking forward to that, go to the link and read the first comment by Dsc666.

I got my Holy Paladin up to the low-70s, healing all the way but during my reading on Ret. Pallies, I've been learning that questing as a healer is not as easy as questing as a DPS [damage dealer].  The tipping point came when I had done so much Ret. Pally studying, that it was interfering with my actions as a Holy Pally.  That was when I knew it was definitely time to switch.

So, there was a day lost trying to figure out how to switch back and forth between the two specs and setting up my action bars for the Ret. Pally spec.

I took a day to re-visit some low level areas and get used to being a Ret. Pally.

Nether Faerie Dragon

woo hoo!  I caught me a Sprite Darter thingy in Feralas!  Drat.  Nope.  I caught a Nether Faerie Dragon  in Feralas, which is cool enough.  But it's the Sprite Darter Hatchling I really want.  Next time.

Got some Explorer Achievements.

Cape of Stranglethorn fully explored!

Got my Brewfest Wolpertinger.

It's a Rabbit with Antlers!

Defeated the Dark Iron Dwarves.

No, my new computer isn't crapping out.  The screenshots are blurry 'cauze I bin drinkin' ... hic!

Drank a Lot!

that's a lotta brewskies

 
Ate my way through the Brewfest Diet!

and a lotta sausages!

Can't help but think of my Papa and the rest of my family out at the lake, eatin' sausages and drinkin' beer!

And saw some cool mounts and pets with other 'toons at Brewfest.

sobering up!

I was feeling pretty confident with my Ret. Pally skills after Brewfest, but just to be sure, I went over to Borean Tundra to do the Airport Quests that I missed the first time I was there.

Now I'm REALLY flying!

Fizzcrank Fullthrottle at the Fizzcrank Airstrip

Fizzcrank Fullthrottle started three sets of four or five quests that had me flyin' to Dalaran in a Gnome Aircraft!

Though why they're equipped with floats for a frozen northern zone is beyond me!

That was a LOT of fun!

Great STOL characteristics on this plane!

Vier dropped by on her fancy flyin' disc and ran me through the spider dungeons.

That was NOT fun.

 O.M.G.  

ugh  HUGE spiders and webs everywhere!

shudder

but ...  Ding 76!  YaY!

Now, I've been a Ret. Pally for a few weeks and I ain't lookin' back!

Beginning of Northrend and Sealybrooke in Dun Morogh

Good Grief!  It's the beginning of October and I'm still doing catch-up posts from the end of July and beginning of August!

I am a terrible blogger!

The plan for today was to do a quick blog post, mostly a little narrative of a few selected screenshots.  Just to make a blog post.  It took a bit of time to sort through my screenshots, and I discovered a blog post I had started but not posted, so, posted that and here we go: a select bit of screenshots to catch us up ... a bit.

Northrend:  For the most part, I'm loving sections of Northrend.  They remind me of my time spent up north.  Well, except for the big trees in the tundra-like landscapes and the penguins-with-polar-bears!  But, meh!  it's a game!

I just LOVE the Tuskarrs!

Side Bar: Labbattblue caught sight of me in Dalaran one day. Did a bit of a double-take and then a "Look at you go girl!"  It was so sweet.  A former guildy who was there at the beginning when Noritam was still RP walking 'cause "running" was too fast to navigate to! LOL!  Now, when I'm back "home" on Azuremyst Isle I'm bemoaning my inability to fly there, and having to "walk so slow" or be restricted to a ground mount.  We've come a long way boys and girls!

One night, I ran into Anataniya in Dalaran and she gifted me with some more pets.

Being gifted with more pets and receiving unearned achievements!

THEN she side-tracked me:  Anataniya-as-Tishiania had me questing with Sealybrooke in Dun Morogh and the Wetlands!

Tish has the coolest mounts!

A motorcycle with side-car for Sealy to catch a ride!

On her Mammoth going through a mountain pass outside Ironforge

Ding 23!

Ding 24!

Phew!  That's a lot of progress for Sealy.  Of course, we have to relax and do a little fishin' after a hard day of questing.  Though finding the fishing trainer and the Forlorn Cavern was a bit tricky the first five times I had to find it!  I think I have it down pat now.

YaY!  Sealy gets the "Find Fish" ability! w00t!

Meanwhile, Nor was questing the low 70's and running some dungeons in Northrend with Vier.  One night, after Vier had had enough of me for awhile, I headed back to Stormwind for some reason.  Got Totally Creeped Out with all of these Blue Dragons flying over the city!

Little Blue Dragons over Stormwind July 31, 2014

They weren't hostile, but the one was HUGE and I was a unnerved with all of these strange creatures that I didn't know flying over my city!

Big Blue Dragon

 Yikes!

I mean ... Really.  Frickin' BIG!

Okay, enough catch up for this post.  If you can clue us in on the Blue Dragons, I look forward to hearing from you in the comments.

Later 'gators, Nor.

Just a reminder:  If you want to view the screenshots bigger, right click on them and select "Open link in a new tab" or "Open link in a new window".

Crickets! It's been very quiet here ...

I'd like to think it's quiet 'cause I'm not making funny noob mistakes anymore, but I know that's not true!

For my part, I'm in so deep if I took the time out to blog about it, we'd never get Nor to level 90!

A bit of an overview about what everyone is up to:

Nor: is still slogging away at levelling.  She's now at level 70 and working on the things she desperately wanted to be level 70 for, namely Old Man Barlo's 5 Daily Fishing Quests.  What she hadn't counted on was learning about Marcia Chase and her Daily Quests, plus the "fishing coins out of the fountain in Dalaran" achievements.  One each for copper, silver, and gold coins.

Noritam Level 70

Nor celebrating lvl 70 and her new glowy axe with a new haircut!

Ah Dalaran!  What a beautiful city - what a place to get lost in!  I never thought much of learning about the city, I had it in my mind as the place where I could get some cool pets [The Sewer Rat anyone?]  Maybe a mount?  I can't remember, I'm not as attuned to the mounts as I am the pets.

For me, a mount is like a car, it gets me from Point A to Point B and I don't know what the fuss is about.  I use my Ebon Gryphon for most things.  When I need a ground mount I've found, of all things, the Springstrider I found in an egg during noblegarden to be the easiest to maneuver and the quickest.  I wanted the Dread Raven mount from the pre-order of WoD, because I love ravens.  Truthfully though, I almost never use it!  It's too big.  I love my Elekks, they were my first mount but I find them clunky to get around on so rarely use them either.  My Gryphon and Tallstrider are keybound and macro'd too so it's a lot easier to hit "z" or "shift + z" to get going than open my mount interface, make a choice and then go.  Like I said, a mount is for getting places ...

Back to topic: Nor, is levelling, and occasionally trying to get her mining and blacksmithing up a bit.  It's killing me not being able to mine as I travel along on my questing journeys.  Just as I got Nor's mining skill to the point of being able to mine in Outland, we moved on to Northrend!

Nor taking a break - fishing with Punky

Saelybrooke is sitting in Darnassus at level 20!  w00t!  Thanks to my lovely daughter and the Midsummer Festival, Saely really got through 5 levels or more very quickly.

Midsummer Festival:  similar to the Lunar Festival in that you travel along to every zone for a quick visit at a midsummer fire and gain points.  Points, gold, experience and ... wait for it ... ... yes!  a chance to get a dress!  Saely and Nor were all over that, need the dresses!

There are achievements for each continent "Flame Warden of Eastern Kingdoms"  "Flame Warden of Kalimdor" "Flame Warden of Pandaria" etc.

My first solo try was taking Sushel through Kalimdor and that didn't work out so well.  We couldn't find some of the festival tents and we kept getting lost or killed.

Nor made out better in Eastern Kingdoms, won the Flame Warden achievement on her own, collected enough tickets to purchase the dress and figured out one of the two flame tossing games.  She finallly figured out how to complete the Torch Tossing but was unable to coordinate her movements with enough finesse to complete Torch Catching.

Flame Warden Eastern Kingdoms!

Saely was lucky in that Vier acquiesced to pulling out the RAF-mount and flying her over Kalimdor to the Festival Tents and taking her to all the flight masters so she'd be able to travel Kalimdor more easily.

 What Saely and I didn't bargain for was Vier's intent not only to honour the Alliance flames but also to put out each Horde Flame we happened across.  Including the one in Orgrimmar!

OMG! She's taking me into the Horde Capitol City!  OMG!

I thought I might faint as we were circling above the city, looking for the festival tents!  "Piece of cake!" said Vier.   The trick is to look for the "open" side of every flame/tent.  Each one has an approach that is less guarded, you just swoop down on that side, put out the flame and bug out.  Which is exactly what we did!  Easy Peasy!

Lulled into a false sense of security we got into a spot of trouble in Thunder Bluff, the starting zone for Tauren, [Horde cows].  I don't recall exactly how we got separated, but I'm sure it was me bumbling into, or over, something I didn't see, then ... Vier's up there at the flame battling Horde and I'm down here trying to figure out the elevator and bridges to get back up there without getting killed.

A few times.  [seriously, go to the Thunder Bluff link above, click on the screenshot tab and have a look at the city!]

We did prevail however and Saelybrooke is my only character to earn a flame extinguishing achievement.  Thanks to Vier.  Thank you Vier.

Extinguishing Kalimdor!  w00t!

Saely got dropped off back in Darnassus to finish the Kalimdor Flame thingy and got wrapped up in the daily fishing and cooking quests til she finally found the last flame in Teldrassil to get the achievement.

Saelybrooke - Flame Warden of Kalimdor!

Midsummer Outfit on Saelybrooke in Darnassus

 That's where we left Saely, at level 20, doing daily fishing and cooking quests in Darnassus.

YaY! Level 20 and riding.

Saelybrooke sleeping in Darnassus awaiting our return.

Sushel, dear Sushel.  She's really given the farming dailies at Half-Hill an honest go of it but she absolutely loathes the Hozen monkeys.  We've just figured out that each and every daily there required interacting with those damn monkeys, so she's not so much into those.  We took a break to see if we could go find Pat Nagle, Quartermaster of The Angler faction.  Seems Sushel's the only one in a position to gain enough Angler reputation to get us the fishing raft!

Mr. Nagle is decidedly unfriendly and not very talkative and I was so looking forward to meeting him in that his hat, boots, fishing journal, raft, fishing chair ... everything fishing ... is related to him.  Humpf!

Sushel fishing with Punky and Punky - Achieving all the fishing dailies in Stormwind!

Instead, we've been counting on Sushel to be our resident gatherer.  She's the one to fly around and collect linen for advancing our first aid, ore to advance our blacksmithing and prospecting for gems that we need to blacksmith a few items.  Sushel's our go-to farming gal!  As she has no interest in dresses, I'm waiting to see what she will covet.

Sushel - the second of us to achieve all 5 Cooking Dailies in Stormwind!

 She's the least interested of us in pet collecting, [she kinda got soured on that looking for the frog pet on Timeless Isle] but she hasn't revealed her hoarding weakness yet.  She does want to go and get her racial mount, a ram, though so maybe she'll be the mount-a-holic of the bunch.

Time to introduce the newest member of our gang ... Soozuu.

Soozuu - Human Retribution Paladin - Bank Alt

[as an aside, for those of you that know me in real life - her name was an accident.  I can show you the notes in my WoW notebook with the lists of names I was going for, that were already taken.  This name ended up being a variation of a randomly generated name and I didn't realize what it was until I saw it in a chat window.  Honest!]

Nor's bank and bags were overflowing and we needed a Bank Alt.  Someone to sit in a city close to a bank and auction house to collect our treasures and sell our crafted goods.  Plus, since we're so into bags, maybe someone to learn tailoring to make all these bags for us while she sits in the city.  From our reading, we figured it would take a couple of hours to create a character, get her to level 10 and park her in an inn.  Ha!  12+ hours later, exhausted, with a very sore mousing arm we made it!

I read somewhere that if your account is hacked, only lvl 10 and above toons would be restored. Thus my ambition to get Soozuu to level 10.

Soozuu is a Human Retribution Paladin.  Someone to wear all of the dresses we collect with a bit of flair and we thought we'd learn about being a Ret. Pally from the ground up.

Apparently Soozuu doesn't care for fishing with Punky, she prefers the company of Cal!

Noritam is still working on learning how to set up her Ret. Dual Spec bars so she can DPS her way to 90 now instead of healing.

So much to do, so little time!  It seems everytime I find an answer to a question I find more and more things to do.  Which only makes sense seeing as how this world is ten years old and has been keeping millions of people occupied for those ten years.  I see now why they're introducing the boosted-90 ability with the new expansion this year.

 When Warlords of Draenor drops, the level cap will be 100 and with so much to do between starting a character and reaching the level cap, the casual player would be too daunted by it all coming in new.

I figure with the tail end of the Baby Boom retiring in real life now, and looking for something to do, a new hobby, this would be the most perfect thing.  Available 24/7, no travel, and totally mind-encompassing!

That's where we are, Nor in Northrend, Sushel all over gathering, Saelybrooke in Darnassus and Soozuu in Stormwind.  Onward!

Nor.