Now I feel it.

Got several serious hours of MoP time since Friday. It’s been fascinating and I finally feel like this expac has started.

Carrying on from the other night, Mab cleared out some pesky Alliance and was greeted by one of the strange Pandarians who inhabit this continent.

New continent, new spirits and new races, Mab meets a Pandarian for the first time.

After helping out the local village, Mabaho moves deeper into the continent. Its a very beautiful place.

Serenity Falls.

His fellow Horde have some more silly ideas… no Safety regs here!

Mabaho’s father taught him not to fear anything, except when a Goblin says “Trust Me”!

I spent some time bonding with even more new allies, the Hozen.

A bunch of guys, some fireworks, what could go wrong….

Before learning more about these mysterious Pandarians (and some more about myself too)

Meeting the Lorewalker.

His people overthrew their oppressors. I’m sure we will have to deal with them eventually.

Not nice guys apparently. Though Garrosh might like them.

I’m enjoying the quests so far. Levelling seems super slow, especially after running Dasal and Mabango since I finished Mabaho. My gear is holding up ok, though it won’t be long before some of my purples will be replaced. I’m guessing those with top tier gear would hold it for more, but I have enough that mobs aren’t a threat.

Not sure how her holiness, can’t kill a fly, Dasal will go with levelling. Might have to try Shadow again for her to get through. I also noticed that the Goblin Rivet Clutchpop sells some serious gear if you haven’t gotten yourself kitted up prior. Cheap too.

The expac has breathed life back into guild chat and guild life abounds at all hours. That’s a nice change too, it was getting pretty lonely sometimes!

Onwards!

Leaving Nagrand. Onwards.

Mabango hit level 66 yesterday morning and after handing in a few quest items was a good 20% on her way to 67.

Farewell Nagrand

However in keeping with the plan I farewelled Nagrand and headed north over Zangermarsh to Blade’s Edge Mountains. Somehow I feel like I’ve just left somewhere nice and things are about to get serious.

Into the Blade’s Edge

I started questing and soon found that the mobs were very manageable. So a good choice. However I was unimpressed with one of the first quests… kill 30 Ogres (and 10 Ogre’s Raptors)… 40 in one quest! Are they serious, better be a nice reward as that’s a lot.

BEM till 68 then to Netherstrom for the run to 70. I’m considering testing the waters in Northrend in 68 or 69. See how things go.

 

Navigating Nagrand

Mabango has been busy in Outlands. She hit level 64 and abandoned Zangermarsh for Nagrand. Its a similar process I took with Mabaho way back in 07/08. Up two levels and move zone. Its working well for Mabango as it means that the mobs are still fairly easy to kill but give good xp.

I had forgotten just how impressive a zone Nagrand is. And with my settings on this iMac at Ultra, I’m sure I’m seeing more than my old 6600GT card could cope with.

Approaching Garadar

Questing has been going well here, and although suffering several deaths and tragic  losses of my demon, has already reached level 65. It took Mabaho from Oct 07 to May 08 to do Outlands. Mabango has done from 58 to 65 in just less than a month. I am certain I played more then as well.

With guild xp bonus, better gear (including heirlooms and their xp bonus), a pet, flying mounts and I’m certain they have increased the xp per hand in and decreased the xp per level (I vaguely remember that in patches in late WotLK or so) its made a huge difference.

So 66 soon, and it will be time to move on. Maybe Blades Edge Mtns, then Netherstorm, then Northrend.

I’ll leave you with a couple more pics if you haven’t been here in a while.

King of the Mountain

With my new list decided, I hit the road.

First up I sorted out the bank alts. Mabango had been the herb holder, but that wouldn’t work if she was to eventually level up. So another was sorted out with a collection of bags and a lot of mail later, the herbs were moved. Similarly each of the others were checked through, tided and organised.

Next on the list I decided to tackle tailoring on Dasal. I emptied the cloth bank alt and spent 90mins sewing and d/e. Eventually Mabango scored a few pieces before I ran out of runecloth just before the switch to netherweave. So Dasal will have to get out there farm some. Prepare to be Holy Nova’d!

The real man Mandorugas

I also stumbled across the fact that Worgen are actually able to change to human after a chance encounter in Winterspring (where Mabango was questing). Went back and got this stylish individual…. oh dear.

I did try sending Dasal into another Heroic but it fell apart shortly after starting. So I switched over to Mabaho.

Mabaho was almost finished Twilight Highlands and still had some quests in his log. Got busy with helping the horde at Crushblow.

Bashing some Twilight Cultist.

Fire the Cannon – Lord Cannon is next up.

What! Me… swim???

Hey watch out, it’s the Temple of Doom….

This lead him on a few adventures, before finally getting Fading in the Twilight achieve. But that didn’t finish the quest chain I was on so a little bit more work and

In the immortal words of Admiral Ackbar, “It’s a trap!” 

The fight is on. Skullcrusher the Mountain is going down.

King of the Mountain achieve too. Twilight Highlands done and dusted. Only Vash’jir to go. Going to have to scour the zone to find out where my last quest giver was.

So the PrePandaPrep is well under way.

Garona channels General umm.. somebody from RotJ (read the final sentence) The lady who opens the briefing. Hmm links nicely with the trap shortly after reading this too.

In a thousand years

Finished up the Harrison Ford quests. I scored two achievements, “In a thousand years” (the Harrison Jones one) and also picked up “Unearthing Uludar” as a bonus. And its no surprise that there are more links to the first three Indiana movies in the quest chain.

The bad guys are about to open the Ark.... um no the what was it called again?

With those out of the way a check of the log and I still have the Rescue Thrall chain partially complete. So I dove straight into that finishing Air, Water and Earth elements. Then it was work time, so left Mab standing in FL ready for Fire.

Thrall, rescued from his stone prism, just before he disappears into the Fire element.

It would be nice if he came back to being Warchief. Perhaps him and Jaina could calm things down a bit.

Questing again – been a while

Some months ago I ran into a small roadblock with questing down in Uldum. I had been running the quests out of Schnott’s landing and when I stopped my quest was motivating the slacking workers. It didn’t seem to matter what I did I couldn’t get any to get off their butts. At the time, I was a bit tired of questing Mab so I switched over to Mabango.

One of the Schnott's quest has you acting as tank gunner

Yesterday morning in a rare flash of genius, I checked thottbot. I think I had been motivating the wrong mobs, and hadn’t ventured far enough from the cabins to find the right ones.

An untimely demise

So the quest chain played itself out ending with Schnott about to execute Mab only to be dramatically rescued by Harrison Jones (I was wondering where he went after we explored Obelisk of the Stars). Of course if he hadn’t turned up, I would have just rezzed myself so I’m not sure it was a big deal.

My Saviour <3 (lol)

Anyway, my run in with Harrison Jones linked me to a new quest hub, in the NW corner of Uldum, where the Oasis is.

I’m currently questing up there right now, but the first couple this morning were capture quests. The camels went without a hitch (except it appears that they adjust your aggro range when you are towing the camels), but the pygmies were dropping fast and would be corpses very, very quickly after getting into the range where the cage was active.

Got One!

This can be a problem when you start to seriously out level (or in this case, out gear) the quests. In this case I simply turned off Lightning Shield, Windfury and Flametounge weapons enhancements. I think WF was the most important as it made my DPS slower and more consistent. With the pygmies captured, I was off to the Obelisk of the Moon to do some work for Harriosn Jones.

Finally, here’s an odd shot, Miss 4 managed to walk Dasal off the Zep tower and not fall down. I apologise for her state of dress, Miss 4 also discovered the Equipment Manager in this session. I really don’t know why she wanted her in her knickers, but there you are.