Cooking Surprise, Valiants, Old Ironjaw, LFD and Battlegrounds

Chef’s Hat

Finally saved up the 100 Cooking Awards required to purchase the Chef’s Hat that will reduce cooking time and gives the “100 Dalaran Cooking Awards” and “Cooking with Style” Achievements.

I decided not to use it until I snagged the Recipe: Delicious Chocolate Cake as a little reward for all the times I’ve banged my head on the keyboard never getting the recipe.

I put the Chef’s Hat in the bank, completed the Northrend dailies then took the portal to Shattrath City for the fishing and cooking quests.

Turned in the fishing quest and picked the “Crate of Meat” for the cooking reward.  I received the usual meat and junk including another Large Hoof (what is it with all these hooves?) and lo and behold, up pops the Recipe: Delicious Chocolate Cake!

The Infamous Recipe: Delicious Chocolate Cake

I had already started to bang my head on the keyboard so for a moment I thought I was seeing things.   Checked my bags and sure enough, there was the recipe.

So….back to the bank to get my Chef’s Hat, picked up all the ingredients and went to Dalaran to cook up my Delicious Chocolate Cake and finally complete “The Cake Is Not A Lie” Achievement and the last recipe I needed for “The Outland Gourmet” Achievement.

Chef's Hat and Delicious Chocolate Cake Achievements

I believe I now have all the “goodies” from the Outland Daily Cooking and Fishing quests so I can drop them from my dailies and pick up more “important” daily quests from Northrend.

An Argent Valiant

Since my Hunter was in a good mood from the “happy” buff scarfing back the Delicious Chocolate Cake, I thought I’d try to defeat the three Argent Valiants – again – in The Grand Melee.

Okay – so it took me two days to defeat three – at least I have some idea of how to win this thing.

First, all the strategies and advice I’ve read didn’t work very well for me but a combination of everything did work.

Stack up 3 Defend, take the challenge, use the lance until the the Valiant runs off then try to use Shield Brake and Charge before the Valiant uses it on you first.

I found that sometimes running after the Valiant and positioning my mount in front while using the Lance would often knock more points off, but the key to winning was using the Shield Brake and Charge as often as possible.

Those sneaky Valiants have a nasty habit of running right out of the circle and if you’re not careful you will get a “must stay inside tournament grounds” message.

Eventually I managed to defeat The Exodar, Ironforge and Stormwind Valiants.  I thought I was finally done with this until I returned the next day and along with the usual random dailies what do I get?  The Grand Melee.

Oh well.  At this rate I’ll be lucky if I get those 25 seals by Christmas.

Fishing up Old Ironjaw….again

Logged in with my Priest and decided to work on my fishing skill at the Forlorn Cavern in Ironforge.  I figured as long as I was fishing I could “kill two fish with one stone” so to speak, and perhaps get Old Ironjaw.

My poor Hunter spent about 30 or more hours in that cavern before fishing up Old Ironjaw – it took my Priest about 20 minutes.

Old Ironjaw

Gotta love that Random Number Generator…

Priest with Old Ironjaw Equipped

Looking For (a good) Dungeon

Leveling with Battlegrounds and the Looking For Dungeon (LFD) tool is certainly a lot faster than questing alone.

I queued up as a Healer and got the Deadmines and Wailing Caverns a few times.  This was okay because I was hoping to get at least one of the drops I had missed on previous runs – particularly Cookie’s Stirring Rod wand or the Skycaller wand and the Deep Fathom Ring.

This time the Deadmines went along at a much better pace but everyone wiped once at the ship (this must be a very difficult part.)  We defeated the final boss but didn’t get to Cookie.

Before everyone left one player mentioned Cookie dropped a nice wand if anyone was interested.  I said I was hoping the wand would drop so everyone agreed to get Cookie and passed the wand to me – thank you!

The Wailing Caverns also went well and the Skycaller wand dropped twice.  First time I hit “Greed” by mistake instead of “Need” and lost.  The second time myself, a mage and and rogue rolled on it and the rogue won.  Needless to say, the mage was a little upset and the rogue just “LOL” and quit the group.

I wasn’t too concerned because the Skycaller seemed very familiar to me and I was almost sure that my Hunter had picked it up at some point while running the instance for the Deviant pet and I had it in the Bank.

After we completed the instance I logged on to my Hunter and sure enough, there was the Skycaller.  I sent it to my Priest and now she has a lovely wand – I’m just sorry the mage didn’t win the one that dropped.

If I had remembered I had the wand before the roll I would have passed, or if I won the wand I would have passed it to the mage.  Every caster needs a decent wand.

Deep Fathom Ring

During one run of the Wailing Caverns the Deep Fathom Ring dropped.  Since I was the only one interested, I won and accepted the Bind on Pickup notice.

After the instance was over, I looked through my bags to equip the ring and no ring – not anywhere.  I was sure I won it.  I checked back through the chat logs and and there was the notice I had it, but it was gone.

I put in a ticket and the next day I received a response with the ring attached.  I’m not sure what happened but the email stated that the logs had been reviewed and it was decided to restore the ring to me – I wouldn’t be surprised if I had clicked “Decline” instead of “Accept” – I’m just glad I had it returned!

Shadowfang Keep

At one point I got the Shadowfang Keep instance.  I had never run this instance before and still never had a chance to see it.

Apparently by the time I arrived the group had already wiped a few times and from the “chatter” the tank and one DPS were swearing about “the bad healers.”  The group hadn’t progressed past the top of the stairs right at the start so this set off a few alarm bells.

Sure enough, the DPS kept pulling mobs off the tank and “lol sorry” until the group wipes.  Run back from the graveyard, start rezzing, tank is swearing at me and I get kicked.

I say “thank you” as it was obvious this was going nowhere.  Another DPS whispers me to say he’s sorry but those guys were [insert expletive here] blaming everyone for their own mistakes and he was quitting as well.

He suggests we both put them on “ignore” to make sure neither of us gets grouped with them again – a great idea.

I wonder if that tank and DPS are still in there, trying to get past the first set of stairs…

Stormwind Stockade

This was the last instance I did and was certainly the most….strange.  Everything went fine, got the Achievement but the group wiped at the very end.  By the time I ran back from the graveyard I was suddenly “Dungeon Guide” because everyone else had left.

Throughout the entire instance not one player typed a single word.

No one was taking much damage except that tank so that made my job a little easier, but the few times I typed “oom” I don’t think anyone noticed.  Good thing I packed some potions because no one was waiting for me to drink.

I almost was beginning to think the party chat wasn’t working but everything looked fine.  It felt as if I was the only “real” person in a group of pre-programmed bots.

Arathi Basin – A New Battleground

Leveled up enough to get new spells and open up the Arathi Basin Battleground.  This was more challenging than Warsong Gulch because of the size.  Healers also seem to have a big “Kill Me” sign painted on them so I spent a lot of time in the graveyard.

Arathi Basin

We must have won at least one because I received the “Arathi Basin Victory” Achievement.

Warsong Gulch

Queued up for Warsong Gulch a few times hoping my new spells would help more with healing.  Lost a few, won a few but one battle in particular was quite interesting.  Everyone was working together and well-coordinated but the Shaman saved the day by throwing totems and helped get a 3/3 victory.

Warsong Gulch

It’s good players and teamwork that makes battlegrounds fun!