Uphill battle(grounds)

Another three weeks of mostly battlegrounds. A quick update on my status: up to 40+ wins in each of the 5 battlegrounds, with the following win ratio:

	Full games	Part games	Overall
Win	122	8	130
Loss	85	29	114

40% of the way in, and I am losing enthusiasm. I'm still really enjoying doing battlegrounds when queueing with other people, but not so much when solo queueing, so my progress has definitely slowed down. I even did a raid on my alt just to break the monotony. But I am happy with the win/loss ratio even if - as per my last post - it is definitely influenced by winning/losing streak bias.

I'm considering trying enhancement again to see if that reinvigorates the motivation. I calculated that I'd need 10250 conquest to swap my weapons and intellect pieces for agility gear, and I've got just over that much banked. But I'm not confident it will change anything.

As elemental, I constantly need to remind myself that the people I'm beating soundly are most likely ungeared. In many situations, ele can be useful - for example, if you are lucky to get instant empowered earthquakes around large flag fights, they can turn the battle - but geared, skilled players of other classes can make you look silly at current damage levels. I think the most frustrating comparison is lack of escapes, even temporary ones. If you get set upon by a number of people, your defenses are inadequate, compared to the effectiveness of immunities or stealths that other classes can utilise to escape death, receive heals and reset the fight. The primary defensive you have is kiting, which just doesn't work with the abundance of slows, or when trying to defend a flag out in the open.

From what I've read elemental continues to be fragile in Legion, but may get some more damage potential, numbers pass pending. If it is bottom of the heap again, I'd be really disappointed, but would definitely prioritise changing spec over changing class, as I did in WoD.

Between queues I have been camping the Timeless Isle, hoping to collect the remaining pets and finish off the bigger bag achievement. I'm happy to say I've finally got the Gu'chi Swarmling, Ashleaf Spriteling, and Death Adder Hatchling, and I am down to one item left for the achievement: the Rain Stone from Zesqua. Hopefully I will get that very shortly, because I'm tired of camping that too.

With those pet gets, I'm sitting at 676 unique pets, 25th on the server on Warcraft Pets. I still have a few to obtain or level, but even with those I won't be able to get much higher on the ranking without dropping a lot of money, which I am not willing to do, unlike some as Dark Legacy illustrated well this week.

Off season

Obviously not finding much to write about at the moment. My WoW time has been decreasing and not particularly interesting; completing nemesis in Ashran again, this time on my shaman, and a lot of pet collecting and levelling. I've finally caught all the old world pets, and there's now less than 100 pets I don't have, but most of those are store bought, promotional, recruit-a-friend rewards, and collector's edition pets that I simply won't be getting. So I'm waiting for the next pet bonus week to get back to pet levelling, and in the meantime I've run into a progression brick wall. Most of what I need to do is in battlegrounds, and trying to accomplish anything there solo is not enjoyable (especially as Horde), so I'm sticking to our one PvP night a week.

In the meantime I've been playing a fair bit of Pinball FX2 - I simply love this game. I'm not brilliant at it, but with persistence and time, can get respectable scores. I've also played a bit of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for the first time in a couple of years. By the time I'd ranked up in freeplay (as I found out, now required to play competitive games) and played ~15 matches, I'd started losing interest. You need to play a lot to improve and rank up, and playing the same few maps with (at my skill level) a fair share of unpleasant people, it gets boring.

WoD pet levelling circuit

This is the circuit I take when levelling pets on the Draenor and Pandaria trainers. It is intended to take a maximum of 1 hour, to match the length of the pet food buffs, and because 1 hour is a nice, fixed time commitment. It is possible even with mistakes or lucky crits requiring restarts, to complete the circuit within an hour. It doesn't include the western Pandaria trainers (Burning, Flowing, Zusshi and Shu), which I have found to either be less reliable or take longer, but of course you can go on to them if you wish.

That makes 13 trainers per day. On a normal week, this will raise a level 1 pet to 14, and a level 14 pet to 20. On a bonus week, this will raise a level 1 pet to 19, and anything 14 and above to 25. So, it is possible to level a pet in 2 dailies, 1 to 14 at any time, and 14 to 25 in a bonus week. I have done this at times, but generally your pet levels are all over the place, so I just get them close to 25 (say 21 and above) and finish them off with battle stones. Some prerequisites:

• Safari Hat and 1 of each pet food - you easily get enough Pet Charms to buy them every day.
• Hearth set to Shrine in Pandaria.
• Admiral's Compass (could also use Vivianne follower).
• Spirit Lodge with portals to SMV and Spires.
• Rematch addon with teams saved.

Starting off at the Horde garrison (sorry Alliance, but easily adapted):

• Fly to Gargra (use pet food buffs here prior to battle).
• Fly on to Cymre.
• Garrison hearth.
• Portal to SMV, do Ashlei and portal back.
• Portal to spires, fly to Vesharr.
• Fly to Taralune.
• Admiral's Compass to Shipyard, Fly to Tarr.
• Hearth.

This can be done in 20 minutes so if you are short on time you can stop here.

Then just fly around the Pandaria trainers as indicated by the red arrow. If you have the Path of the Jade Serpent CM portal, you could start there instead and follow the blue arrow, avoiding the longest flight segment.

There are plenty of guides as to how to level off these trainers so I haven't gone into that detail here but feel free to ask, or offer improvements below.

Alpha avoidance

It's hard to keep a good balance when it comes to being informed about the alpha. I don't want to be completely out of the loop, as that can result in uninformed decisions you later regret, but I also don't want to spoil the game for the playing once it arrives. It's hard because that's all people are talking about - perfectly understandable, but I've already read or seen a couple of things I wish I hadn't. If I need to choose between one of two extremes on Legion alpha/beta, I'm starting to lean towards crawling under a rock for a while. I've got other things to focus on without getting caught up in all the speculation and worry that accompanies an alpha, and that will allow me to enjoy exploring the game live, even if that makes me a slow leveller.

I'm glad to say that I've now got all of the Draenor rare spawn mounts - completed over 4 weeks with Poundfist obviously taking the longest. I also got the Ashes of A'lar from Tempest Keep (43 kills in WoD, unsure beforehand as I wasn't tracking. Estimate 120 total). The guild has been doing Highmaul and BRF achievement and mythic runs, whilst raiding Mythic HFC 2 hours a week, getting the first 3 down. I've been doing a lot of Ashran again, finishing the 2000 bloody coins achievement, and I started doing nemesis a second time (this time on my main) to help out others and have been sucked into completing it again.

But what I've been doing more than anything is levelling pets. This has seen me go from 238th to 72nd on wowprogress pet score, although it doesn't update reliably so I've started using warcraftpets.com instead. I've still a lot to go, but after seeing how effective it is to level during pet bonus week, I'm doing the bare minimum until that comes around again (17th Feb) so I don't burn out. I'll post a follow up explaining my circuit.

It's also a good time to be levelling alts. Not that I really need more alts or that I'm enjoying the levelling process, both topics I should write about. But I took a self-RAF during the sale so I'm taking advantage of it. There's always reasons cropping up to have alts on the opposite faction/another server/another account.

Taralune

I hadn't had much luck with other people's 2 pet teams for Taralune. Then I saw this post from a blue, and thought surely it would be more successful. Unfortunately it seemed unreliable like the rest of them. But this helped me actually come up with something that works for me.

The problem with starting with your leveller is you switch into a cocoon, and cop a second effective counterspell in round 4. For example, using the Azure Whelping goes like this:

2: switch in, Cocoon strike
3: Breath to remove cocoon
4: Get Counterspelled
5: Arcane Storm, 197 damage
6: Another cocoon, so Breath
7: Counterspelled, but ineffective. Surge of Power. Does not kill.

You only get 2 rounds of damage in 7, so I went defensive with a mech instead. The Sunreaver Micro-Sentry (1 1 2) is perfect for this.

1. Extra plating, Counterspelled
2. Extra plating, Cocoon strike
3. Ignore Cocoon and Supercharge
4. Laser until dead.

This will easily defeat Serendipity, and you can switch your leveller in when Atonement enters, as it will always buff itself the first round. But even doing it this way, I'd be defeated by lightning storm and moth balls.

Nether Faerie Dragon (2 2 1) can moonfire to change the weather, and life exchange to recover after switching back in to moth balls. I'm sure it's not 100% reliable but it works best for me, and seems quicker than Emerald Proto Whelp healing.

TL:DR - Rematch import string: Taralune:87125:1178:482:392:208:0:0:0:0:557:421:277:595:

Keeping busy

On the one hand there's a whole heap of games I've never touched that I feel I should. On the other there's so much I want to get done in WoW, which a reduced raid schedule will allow. I can sort of do both, by rarespawn mount camping in the background.

Whilst on the home stretch of 100 arena wins, I was flying around Frostfire mining between games, and chanced upon the portal for the Voidtalon of the Dark Star. No camping required for that one - sweet. Since then I've also got the Swift Breezestrider from Pathrunner in SMV, but unfortunately I foresee a lot of camping in my future if I want to find Poundfist. I've already experienced 2 occasions where people kill these rare mobs in 10 seconds without announcing or waiting.

For now I persist with the garrison mine and herb garden as much as possible, because I've yet to see the Nightshade Sproutling and Ore Eater drop. They can be bought for 2-3k on the AH, but I am persisting, as a test of my luck but also because of the steady income.

My addon to track kill numbers but was giving confusingly low numbers for the Disturbed Podling until I realised there are actually 7 different mobs with that name, each for a different herb type. In total I've killed 633 of them. There's only one Goren Protector from mines, and I've killed 246 of them. At some point though I'll call it quits on these just as I did with the salvage yard.

I've been looking out for Blackfang claw groups whenever I can, for I Came, I Clawed, I Conquered and in turn, Rumble in the Jungle. A tank is necessary if you want to make any decent progress, but often the tank will either finish his rep or get tired/bored within 10 minutes, and the group dies as a result. End is in sight however - I'm currently at 4400/5000. Should only take another hour or two.

Archaeology... I am attempting to make progress, currently sitting at 35/49 pristines. Cymre recently posted stats on how many solves she needed to completion - a total of 1072 for Draenor. I've only done 245 - this completely demotivates me. Seems like too much effort for 70 achievement points.

Similarly for Pandaria, Cymre needed 1230 solves. I have done 782, and am only missing 5 normal and 1 Pristine solve. Working on this can feel like the biggest waste of time, because you get nothing out of it otherwise.

I am trying to manage archaeology motivation by aiming for 5 crates a day, so I can always complete an archaeology mission. This usually means only 3 or 4 dig sites, but at that rate, I won't be done by Legion unless I can do it every day.

I'm finding motivation for battle pets a lot easier currently. Wowprogress pet battle rankings helps, I'm currently sitting at 238th realm, which feels about right, but I'd like to be a lot higher so I'm putting more effort into it lately. Still only 382/2000 battles done in Draenor, however.

I also got my warlock to 100, which makes 7 at max level. This was primarily to help establish income on a 2nd server, to go towards TCG pet and mount purchases. I haven't pre-ordered Legion, yet, but there's another one there if I need it.

Finally, the new arena season and PvP gear has made Ashran relevant for me again. I've been playing BM since 6.1 but it feels weak in large scale combat, even with the Ancient Artifact. Not sure whether I want to go back to Survival, or try Marksman for the first time in many years. 1630/2000 bloody coins, I would love to finish this before Legion which will allow me to switch back to my shaman if, hopefully, elemental is in a better place then.

PvP pet battle levelling

I had been planning to level my warlock and mage, so that I could max out Herbalism and Tailoring, to complete Grand Master of All. I had put this off until we could fly in Draenor.

A guildy had been grinding out 2000 pet battles for the Draenor Pet Brawler achievement/garrison monument, and noted that progress was account wide. As pet battles give experience, he was able to level a character while doing this grind. He battled the pets outside the garrison in Frostfire. It wasn't an efficient way to level, but it killed two birds with one stone.

I thought it was worth investigating, which lead to the discovery that PvP pet battles also count. Imagine that, being able to level a character, progress on the garrison monument, AND make progress on:

• Master Pet Brawler and subsequent 1000 and 5000 achievements.
• Brutal Pet Brawler and subsequent 1000 achievement (Trainer title).
• Legendary Pet Battler.

So I dipped into it to see if it were feasible. I quickly found that not many people queue at this stage. There were times when it seemed no-one was queuing, and others where I'd just encounter the same opponent or two. This leads to the next problem, strength of teams. Those who are queuing seem to be mostly experienced battlers, using some powerful teams that unless you have an equally strong team and know what you are doing, or get lucky with a hard counter, you will not defeat.

An example team I encountered was Fragment of Anger, Graves and Zomstrok. I tried a few combinations of aquatic type and critter attack pets that I had, but he'd do massive damage to my back line pets. After 6 or so losses, I figured he needed to die quickly, and without evasive type manoeuvres, I could use Iron Starlette to nuke him, with aquatic back line pets to minimise damage taken. I scored 2 wins - but this was a hard counter that would fail against other teams. I stopped queuing at this point, somewhat satisfied that I managed to get a couple of wins, but dismayed with how.

I've done enough PvE battles to have a decent stable (105 level 25 pets), but am still overwhelmed at the number of pets/moves and possible teams/counters. I couldn't tell you what the strong teams are, or what the current metagame is. I try to maintain my own notes on what works but I'm just not invested enough to learn it all the hard way. That leaves two realistic options - look up strong teams and FOTM counters, and/or copy other strong teams I encounter along the way.

This will first require work on my collection, as a lot of the pets I might need either aren't levelled, or I don't have. For example, the Fiendish Imp looks like a good candidate (I ran Karazhan and killed Illhoof so many times trying to get that pet that I got sick of it and just bought it off the AH, but it remains at level 1). I'll have to make do without pets like Murkalot, as I don't do Blizzcon tickets or collector's editions.

Initial impressions are that it probably isn't feasible. My primary interest is not getting the PvP battle achievements, so between the queue times, and the investment required to make it work, I'd imagine I'll either give up, or make sufficient progress on the monument just working on my collection, such that I won't end up doing many PvP battles. A realistic goal would be completing the 250 wins for Brutal Pet Brawler to get a Stunted Direhorn.

Tiny Terrors

I've only just this weekend started looking at the Tanaan Jungle pet battles. I have some reservations about pet battling, but primarily it was just because I had other priorities, like the reputations and the shipyard. But I've long since cleared those up and the PvP pet battle event reminded me that I should take a look at them.

My doubts were confirmed when a guildie, who is a really experienced pet battler, said you can basically use one team of pets to defeat all of the new battles. It's less that one team can do so that is the problem, more that there are few alternatives that work. The encounters are made difficult by introducing abilities outside the base ruleset (like Elite and now Fel Corruption) that have the unfortunate side effect of rendering most pet teams incapable of defeating them, even if they counter the pet types. So pet battling to me just becomes an exercise in research - I don't enjoy it enough to self-impose a "no Google" rule. With an addon like Rematch or PetBattle Teams I don't even need to remember what works.

So I've done the circuit twice and it already feels like a grind. I started off thinking that if I could do these 15 battles daily, it would only take 4-5 months to get the Draenor Pet Brawler achievement/monument (laughs). But without flight, it takes at least 90 minutes to go around, making it unlikely I will complete the circuit every day.

The reward for defeating each pet is Fel-Touched Pet Supplies - the tooltip explains it. I opened all 15 at once and noted the contents:

• about 100 gold
• 13 Battle Pet Bandages
• 23 Pet Charms
• 2 Fel-Touched Battle-Training Stones

There are 4 pets to be earned randomly from the bags, and I suspect once I have got them all, I will stop doing the pet battles - the other rewards are not worth the time. The bandages in particular just seem to stack up, because the garrison menagerie bonus makes Revive Battle Pets a 4 minute cooldown, so by the time you defeat a pet and run to the next one, it is available to use again. The bandages may be useful once flight is available, however.

I don't know what could be done to keep these pet battles difficult, but require a more varied pet collection to defeat. But doing so would provide a lot of motivation to collect and level some of my other pets. It seems a shame that I have 533 unique pets in my collection but only need a handful for battling.

By the way, I used my Ultimate Battle-Training Stone from the weekend bonus event to level a Zandalari Anklerender, which happens to be a member of one of the Tanaan capable teams.