As I have now started to level up several new characters, decided that I would not be too overly concerned about completing achievements as I go, but would make a note of the ones that give rewards that I would be more interested in completing due to the reward they offer, hopefully others will find this useful.

I have made an effort to list horde and alliance versions of all achievements, where only one achievement is mentioned then it is the same for both horde and alliance, in most cases the reward is the same.

Mount Achievements :-

• For The Alliance! & For The Horde!
  Reward: Black War Bear
• Glory of the Hero
  Reward: Red Proto-Drake
• Glory of the Ulduar Raider (10 player)
  Reward: Rusted Proto-Drake
• Glory of the Ulduar Raider (25 player)
  Reward: Ironbound Proto-Drake
• Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player)
  Reward: Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher
• Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25 player)
  Reward: Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher
• Leading the Cavalry
  Reward: Albino Drake
• Mountain o’ Mounts
  Reward: Blue Dragonhawk (Alliance) & Red Dragonhawk (Horde)
• What A Long, Strange Trip Its Been: Alliance & Horde
  Reward: Violet Proto-Drake

Pet Achievements:-

• Higher Learning
  Reward: The Schools of Arcane Magic – Mastery
• Shop Smart, Shop Pet…Smart
  Reward: Stinker
• Lil’ Game Hunter
  Reward: Little Fawn
• Pilgrim: Alliance & Horde
  Reward: Plump Turkey

Tabard Achievements:-

• Explore Northrend
  Reward: Tabard of the Explorer
• Twenty-Five Tabards
  Reward: Tabard of the Achiever
• Brutally Dedicated
  Reward: Tabard of Brute Force

Title Achievements:-

There is several title achievements and will update this post once I have been able to research them all.

I have started to play my mage once again in end game raiding, and made a few macros that some people may find useful and/or beneficial for them to use or alter to suit there individual playing style.

I have a deep fire and a frost spec for my mage so you will see that some macros can be used for both specs with the [spec:1/2] conditional.

Clones: (all specs)
#showtooltip Mirror Image
/use [spec:1] Icy Veins; [spec:2] Combustion
/use Mirror Image

This macro will work regardless of what spec you are currently using, saving 1 slot in your macro interface, this should be able to use be used in all specs as you will either have Icy Veins and/or Combustion.

Polymorph: (all specs)
#showtooltip
/focus [modifier:alt/ctrl/shift,harm] target; [target=focus,harm,exists,nodead] focus; [harm] target
/cast [target=focus,exists,nodead,harm] Polymorph; Polymorph

Every mage or cc class should have a focus macro so here is one for mages.

CS: (all specs)
#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Counterspell

For those times when you have to interrupt during a cast of another spell.

AE: (all specs)
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:alt] Arcane Explosion(Rank 1); Arcane Explosion

Macro to spam rank 1 arcane explosion with use of the alt key to find those pesky stealth classes in battlegrounds and arena, and to use highest rank at all other times.

Cycle: (fire spec)
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=target/nocombat Fireball, Living Bomb, Pyroblast, Scorch, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball, Living Bomb, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball

This macro only applies for fire builds, it will reset when you change target, and when you leave combat.

Cycle: (arcane spec)
#showtooltip
/castsequence [nochanneling] reset=8/nocombat Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Blast, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage

This macro only applies for arcane builds, it will reset after 8 seconds, when you change target, and when you leave combat.

Boost: (arcane specs)
#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=200 Icy Veins, Arcane Power, Presence of Mind, Arcane Power, Presence of Mind, Arcane Power


I made this macro so I could easily spam my boost type buffs, and keep them always on cooldown, it works well for me maybe it will for you too.  The final last Arcane Power in most cases will never be cast as the macro should reset before you can get to this, but have noticed on odd occassions where Arcane Power has come off cooldown but Icy Veins hasn’t so am hoping this will cure that so can cast another Arcane Power.

Flamestrike: (arcane spec)
#showtooltip Flamestrike
/cast Presence of Mind
/cast Flamestrike

I read somewhere that for arcane builds flamestrike and then blizzard should be there aoe rotation, cant quite remember where I read it at now tho, but this macro was copied from wowwiki on there useful mage macros article.

Blizzard: (arcane spec)
#showtooltip Blizzard
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Arcane Power
/cast Blizzard

The blizzard macro for arcane builds to be used after flamestrike macro for aoe spell rotation.

Frostbolt: (frost spec)
#showtooltip Frostbolt
/cast Icy Veins
/cast Frostbolt
/cast Deep Freeze

Not really a rotation spell macro like the ones for fire and arcane, but use this with my frost spec when farming and doing the odd daily quest, works for me can kill pretty much most things before they get to me.

WE: (frost spec)
#showtooltip Summon Water Elemental
/cast [nopet,harm][nopet,target=targettarget,harm] Summon Water Elemental
/petattack [harm][target=targettarget,harm]

This will cast your water elemental spell and also make it attack your current target, if you have no target the spell wont cast.

IB: (frost spec)
#showtooltip Ice Block
/stopcasting
/cancelaura Ice Block
/cast Ice Block

To save your ass in those near death experiences, and to get you back into the thick of it as fast as possible.

IB: (frost spec)
#showtooltip
/cast [modifier:shift] Fire Ward
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Frost Ward
/cast Ice Barrier

I do use this macro but cant remember why I made it probably just as a space saver on my action bars, mentioned here just for reference.

Spell Rotations:

Pop the “Clones” Macro mentioned above, followed by the “Boost” and “Cycle” macro’s also mentioned above.  Should Hot Streak proc during the rotation, use Pyroblast.

Talent Builds:

Deep Fire Spec 20/51/0: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage#_7oE3ZbVllDnzUY,,11159

Arcane Spec 57/3/11: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage#B20yFCO3dHu5t,,11159

Frost Spec 20/0/51: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage#_CNgvVlO7cSU9TL,,11159

After failing my trial with “The Brethren” guild have started a trial with Memento, seems like a sound bunch and the GM is really easy going. Really hope will pass the trial with them.

My DPS is yoyo up and down a bit and Memento have been really nice about it and have tried there best to help me out with it looking at the combat logs and so on, but so far we haven’t discovered why its high on some fights and low on others.  I think it all comes down to for fights where I have to move my dps drops as a result, whereas fights where I dont have to move at all or very little my dps is really good.

Update: I have failed my trial due to the dps yoyoing thing, have tried to get help on this via various forums but sadly lots of people viewed my post but equally sadly none of them choose to reply to my post to offer any help or assistance.

Update 2: Memento‘s GM got hacked and the guild was disbanded, and all his characters transferred off the realm as currently Silvermoon has a free transfer available.  We only just found this information out recently and the GM is getting a blizzard authenticator something which I already have and I think there great, and would recommend them to anyone that asked.  So his account is currently locked and under investigation for 30 days until he receives his blizzard authenticator by which time he will be allowed to transfer all his characters back and have them restored to there original state and hopefully we will also get the guild bank and its contents back too as we had loads and loads of flasks all ready for when Icecrown patch was released.

I have been an avid user of the auctioneer addon for world of warcraft for a very long time that I can recall, I am a bit of an addon freak/junkie so to speak love my addons.

So when I went to download the latest beta from the auctioneer website and noticed they was recruiting, for developers, QA engineers and a few other things, I looked at the list and thought hmmm I have to apply for the QA engineers job as I first throught I would be good at it, and second wanted to put something back into an addon that I love and to help others at the same time as I have been helped in the past, through use of the addon and via the official auctioneer forums.

Its thats time of year again in wow land, except with a different with the new achievements to get.

Greatfather Winter from what I can remember gave us the same usual presents, except for perhaps one of two differences, still a present is a present most of which my alts were grateful of, and all in all helped Rince and them get one step closer to the Skunk companion pet.

Rince did manage to get the merrymaker achievement, although out of all my alts he was the only one to do so manly due to level and reputation requirements in order to get the achievements.

Have just recruited a work colleague into world of warcraft and there levelling at blistering speed, a lot faster than I levelled when I started to play, and we haven’t been taking up the advantage of the triple xp either.

But I now have a new mount but its a really hard decision to know which chracter to give it to.

Update 21/02/09: My friend/work colleague has now hit the dizzy heights of lvl 80, but sadly is finding it difficult to get into groups willing to accept him for instance runs as everyone so well equipt at the moment in world of warcraft, I think that once I have levelled up my mage that I too will experience the same problems no doubt.

Am really looking forward to the release of the new expansion Wrath of the lich king, so much so that I have cancelled my pre-order and I’m going to a 24 hour store at midnight to pick up my copy, sadly I’ll only have one full day to play due to work, but it’ll be overcrowded with people levelling anyway so probably a blessing in disquise.

Update: so much for getting my copy at midnight got there about 20 mins before and there was already a long queue, didn’t get to leave the store until 20 mins past midnight and sadly was empty handed had all been sold out.

This is a by no means what you must do to get exhalted with each of the outland factions, its just what I did and what i’d recommend to make it that little bit easier to get there.

Outland

Honor Hold

1. Run Hellfire Ramparts and/or Blood Furnace on normal til they stop giving rep at the end of friendly.
2. Start doing the quests in Hellfire Peninsula.

Cenarion Expedition

1. Hand in 360x [Unidentified Plant Parts] for quest [Plants of Zangarmarsh], Run Slave Pens and/or Underbog til they stop giving rep at the end of friendly.
2. Now is the best time to start doing the quests in Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, Terokkar Forest, Blade’s Edge Mountains and Netherstorm. It is also the time to turn in any [Uncatalogued Species].
3. • Finish leveling to 70 and run Steamvault.
   • There is a Repeatable Quest from the Steamvault to hand in [Coilfang Armaments].
   • Underbog runs; Hungarfen gives you 70 reputation. Swamplords and Giants are worth 7 reputation each.
   • You may also run Slave Pens, Underbog, and Steamvault on Heroic Mode once you are Honored. Regular mobs are worth 15 reputation, 2 for non-elites, and 150/250 for bosses.

Sporeggar *complete*

1. Hand in [Bog Lord Tendril] til Neutral for quest [More Tendrils!].
2. Travel to Sporeggar and get the following quests into your log but do not do them: [61] The Sporelings’ Plight, [64] Sporeggar (must be neutral)
3. Get, and turn in, before you reach friendly (as once you hit friendly, you cannot turn it in for XP or gold): [64] Glowcap Mushrooms
4. Return to Fahssn and continue doing the repeatable quest you chose until you cannot anymore at friendly.
5. Kill any of the mobs that give rep (Bog Lords (and Withered, Starving, Hungry), Giants (Fungal, Withered, Starving Fungal)) if you plan to reach exalted. If not, skip this step.
6. Turn in the 4 quests ([61] The Sporelings’ Plight, [64] Sporeggar, [64] Now That We’re Friends… (R), [65] Bring Me A Shrubbery! (R)) that you have not done yet.
7. Other questing in Zangarmarsh and The Underbog will naturally push you into honored.
8. After this all that is left is the repeatable quests to get you to exhalted: [64] Now That We’re Friends… (R), [64] Fertile Spores (R), [65] Bring Me A Shrubbery! (R)

I stumbled across this website mamadruid.com in search for some inspiration over a name for a character, I still have yet to think of a name but I thought this was a great little post enought to blog about it.

It’s a reputation calculator that tells you what you can do to reach your next level of reputation with a faction. Currently only supports outland factions, but does have more features planned.

http://www.wowreputationcalculator.com