Project Lore

As I recently lamented, questing in Zul'Drak has brought out a huge need for healing my leather-wearing rogue. The other day after a particularly close call, I called up a Heavy Frostweave Bandage, and my screen lit up as that familiar, lovely sight of an achievement flashed across my bandaged figure. Ultimate Triage. Apparently, it was a closer call than I had realized, and just through that simple action of healing my character that had less than 5% health, I had earned an achievement. It was easy. Perhaps too easy. And if I was as big of an achievement whore as some of us out there *cough* Juggynaut, I certainly would have already completed it, even if it meant intentionally waiting until the last second possible to make a killing blow on a mob while it beat me senseless. But, like many aspects of WoW, achievements are like candy. And once I got the one easy fix, I started searching for more. I've come to expect certain achievements - exploring areas here, completing X number of quests there. And I'm sure you have, too. So I won't detail those. The achievements that seem a bit more random, and still relatively simple, are what I'll focus on for now, since those are the ones I'm going after myself. For one, there's It's Happy Hour Somewhere. I had seen this one on the list before, but I didn't look too much into it previously. Turns out not to be too tough if you've made it to Outland. A quick trip to the Shattrath bar yields 13 different drinks from the two different barmaids. While your there, buy coffee from a roaming vendor in the Lower City. If you have any mage friends (or are a mage yourself), each of the 9 conjured waters counts. Find any remaining drink needs from a general goods vendor. Cha-ching. One warning: I do not recommend drinking and riding (your mount). The simulated dizzyness can make you feel sick IRL (or maybe I'm just too sensitive!) Another achievement that I didn't intentionally go for but was happy to get was a while back when I visisted the barber in the Undercity. Style your hair, and you get Shave and a Haircut. So simple. Then, there's Going Down?, which you get for falling 65 yards without dying. I got it a while back after an accidental fall, but as you can see from the WoWhead page, players have figured out plenty of high spots to jump off of for the achievement. And regardless of whether you like tabards as a fashion accessory, buy one and you get the Represent achievement. Of course, if you collect 10 tabards, that's another achievement. But if you're just starting out with achievements, you may not want to jump for that one just yet. I would consider these at the bottom of the difficulty scale for achievements, but a good place to start if you want to up your achievement points. WoW may make an achievement whore out of me yet. So who else out there loves achievements? What other achievements would you recommend for someone starting out? Any achievements you're stuck on? I'm still /love-ing and then killing all the critters I see in hopes of one day getting them all!

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Up until recently, most of my questing was done in pairs. My rogue teamed up with my husband's warrior for a while as we leveled together. And when he out-leveled me, I started questing with his DK. Either way, I essentially had a tank as we took on quests and easily progressed through the game. But over the past few weeks as I ventured through Dragonblight and now in Zul'Drak, Locomomo has gone solo. So now I've got no tank. Combine to that the fact that many areas within this zone have a high concentration of mobs that like to attack you in twos and threes, and I was in a heap of trouble. But it's been a good learning experience; I've adapted my play style a bit, and that alone has been a fun challenge. Being a rogue, I've been able to escape the multiple mobs with Vanish, and when that's on cooldown, a combination of Sprint and Evasion paired with some strategic weaving through mobs so I don't draw more fire. When I have multiple mobs I can handle, Adrenaline Rush and Blade Fury work nicely together. But there's still the problem of the sheer amount of damage I've been taking. I'm running low on Frostweave needed to make bandages, and also need to restock on foods - both for the buffs they give and for their healing properties. What's been saving me there is the Medallion of Heroism trinket I picked up as a quest reward from the Battle for the Undercity. I love the critical strike bonus, but more importantly at this point is the healing capacity. I've been hitting that trinket as soon as it goes off cooldown. As I said, it's been a fun challenge and really reminds me of some of the awesome rogue abilities that I wasn't using as much when leveling in pairs, simply because I didn't need to. As for the healing issue - I look at this as a good reason to go for that Stocking Up achievement! So have any of you found a reason to alter your play styles recently? Do you prefer soloing or questing in pairs? More importantly, anyone have some Frostweave to spare? :)

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