My Pre-Cata Goals

Cataclysm is coming ever closer. We have some time yet (afterall, the ICC buff is only up to 10% of a possible 30%) and, of course, we haven't even seen a beta start. Nonetheless, time is growing short.

There's a short list of things I want to have done before Cata falls upon us. Or even before 4.0 comes out, really.

1) Get my Mountain o' Mounts achievement

I picked up mount #95 from the Argent Tourney Sunday (the Ironforge Ram). Nine more days of Tourney dailies (less if I do my ToC runs and/or find extras in the prize bags) and I can be done with them for good! Then I need to find four more mounts from somewhere.

Leading candidates include:
Turtle from fishing nodes
Skadi's Blue Proto-Drake
Black Drake from Sarth(10)
Rivendare's Steed
Green Proto-Drake from Oracles

Lesser likely but still possible options are:
Midnight (Kara)
Zulian Tiger (ZG)
Razzashi Raptor (ZG)
Twilight Drake from Sarth(25)
Mammoth from VoA
Time-Lost Proto-Drake
Onyxian Drake
Brewfest Kodo
Horseman's Mount
Dark War Talbuk (I'd have to camp Halaa like woah to farm up battle tokens, though. And I hate picking on people 15 levels lower than me who are just trying to level.)

All else failing there's also:
Traveler's Tundra Mammoth (16K Gold)
Grand Ice Mammoth (8K Gold)

The problem with the last two is...well...some people might call me a cheapskate. That's one way to look at it. I prefer to think of myself like a dragon. Gold is good for hoarding. Pile it up in some corner and sleep on it. I hate doing anything that makes my pile smaller.

I learned on Sunday I'm not awesome enough to solo Heroic Skadi. I can stealth all the way to him and I can live a pretty long time once the fight starts, but I can't put out enough damage to keep up with the trash and eventually get overwhelmed before I can even shoot him down. So I'm still gonna have to hope to win a /roll if I'm in a group that sees it drop.

2) Get my Exalted achievement

I'm up to 38, so I need 2 more.

Possibilities include:
Scale of the Sands (11433/12000)
Ashtongue Deathsworn (5462/6000)

These two reps go up pretty quickly. I'd just need to find a way to run MH and BT each week for a little while to cap them off.

Booty Bay (5007/21000)
Gadgetzan (2940/21000)

I can grind out about 1000 rep per hour of each of these by killing the pirates south of Ratchet. So I'd need just over 18 hours to complete it this way. The problem is that I can do this for about 15 minutes before I'm bored, 30 before I'm losing my mind, and 60 before I want to smash my head into my desk rather than continue.

3) Get my Master of Arms achievement

Being the awesome Feral druid that I am, I pretty much never actually use my weapons. But this is technically an easy achieve to get, and I'd like to do so because it's going to be removed (become a Feat of Strength) when Cata drops (since they're removing weapon skill).

4) Kill the Lich King

Pretty obvious. This is the first expansion where I've actually had the opportunities to kill every boss (save Algalon) without coming back when I outlevel and outgear the raids like crazy. I've cleared all the pre-ICC Wrath content and I want to finish the job.

We did a mixed ICC 10 run on Saturday night. About half was comprised of core progression members and the other half from some other vets and fresh ICC rookies alike. We cleared up to Putricide and got in a few attempts on him, our best being 50%. That's the best attempt we've had on him yet (I think it makes a grand total of 8).

Need to find more raiding time...

5) Get my Priest to 80

I don't care if he doesn't step foot into a Raid or even a Heroic before Cata comes. I at least want him at 80 so that when Cata does come, he's in good position to start making his way to 85 alongside San and Dal. I hope to get a lot more use out of him in the next expansion. He's the first caster-type I've ever really enjoyed.

This past Sunday was spent leveling like crazy. We (my partner on his Warlock and I) ripped through HFP and got our toons from 58 to 62 before parking them in Zangarmarsh and logging for the evening.

It's funny how quickly things die when they have umteen-thousand DoTs on them from a Shadow Priest and an Affliction 'Lock. I never get to use my Shadow Word: Death. By the time something gets low enough in health that I can cast that without worrying about damaging myself, it's dead in the next fraction of a second anyway.

So, yeah...there you have it.

What are you hoping to get done before Cata comes?