Tides of Vengeance Live: Day 3

The next portion of content is consumed with pleasure.

Faction Assaults

Jellica the Priest saw an invasion going on in Drustvar, and she immediately went to help (and also get some credit through her last 1k towards Embers exalted).

The good thing about invasions is that, unlike Legion, the quests add up to the running world quests, not replace them. I guess it’s good if you are farming rep on purpose. Also you may opt to do invasion instead of normal quests if emissary is up as well.

The next best thing is that I didn’t have to roll across the whole zone – the Horde strikes at a very definite point (in this case – Arom’s Stand, the heart of Drustvar and House Waycrest), so all the quests were concentrated within a spit distance. Also a great thing.

Out of 5 quests of choice I obviously did group rare kills as our favorite WQ option, kill the troops/heal the fallen quest, and also something unique. They give you rocket boots to jump on the Arom’s Stand buildings and hunt down the spies there along with collecting their gear. It was simply amazing, and it also required learning how to operate the gadget – took me a while, but it was very immersive.

Btw, there is an exciting trivia. The rocket boots are labeled as Grizzek’s invention… and Grizzek was one of the main characters in Before the Storm novel, a goblin inventor who was working on azerite research under Gallywix’ gunpoint. Presumably the inventor is dead, but it’s not certain.

After you complete the four world quests, you are given the final task to blow up the Horde’s assault airship. Wildhammers drive you to the top, you disable blight bombs, kill some troops and a couple of leaders during one and the same quest, and you’re done. It’s a lot better than Legion’s scenario, which required a couple of raving idiots other players to complete it. Now you just do it with your own pace, and it’s very quick, not annoying.

The whole thing is a work on Legion assault mistakes, and it certainly came out as a tense, vibrant and cool content to do. I’d say: good job, Blizzard!

Horde War Campaign

My next endeavor was the Horde’s war campaign. As with the Alliance, they have a four-step lore achievement, and we are able to complete three of them (now come the Horde spoilers).

Step 1

For the first step, we travel to outskirts of Norwington Estate and meet Rexxar, Thomas Zelling (the former tidesage – now undead) and an assault Horde force of orc grunts. Our goal is to steal a load of azerite. For reasons unknown, Norwington Estate, a serene party place, is used as an azerite warehouse and a training ground of Alliance troops. The assault is a quick success, we battle through the Alliance troops (many Lightforged are present here), claim the azerite and then we fight a tank. Trivia: it was Rexxar in person who killed Daelin Proudmoore, and if you played Warcraft 3 (why, you should), you did it with your own hands. So the background is really important here as you listen to the conversation between Rexxar and the tank driver.

Before we leave to report victory, Zelling asks Rexxar what has happened to his wife and daughter. Rexxar responds that they now live in Arom’s Stand, bought a house and all. Zelling asks how they did it cause they haven’t got enough money… and Rexxar says that miss Voss took care of it. This was the most disturbing piece, because we all know how miss Lilian Voss takes care of anything. Shall Zelling backfire at some point if the truth is what I’m deducing?

Step 2

The second plot is a Gallywix plot. The whole thing is testing his new mecha, G.M.O.D. First it needs to be powered with both azerite we just acquired and the azerite from Bilgewater Bonanza on the coast of Zuldazar. We then board the mecha and fly to Drustvar to deal with Mekkatorque the High Tinker of Gnomes.

The whole questline is simply hilarious, you get to drive the overpowered mecha with Gallywix comments that made me smile throughout the whole thing. We lay waste to the gnome clocwork machinery which attacks the goblin outpost in Drustvar. An attempt to deal with Mekkatorque himself ends up badly. Only because of Gallywix’ devil-may-care attitude :) Yet, a great deal of gnomish robots is dealt with, and it can be considered a local success.

Step 3

The third plot is Sylvanas’ idea to free Lady Ashvane and make her an ally. We storm the Ashvane Foundry now occupied by Proudmoore forces to get our disguises, and then sail to Tol Dagor with Valtrois and the hero disguised as Kul Tirans, and Rexxar disguised as himself – the valuable prisoner. We free Lady Ashvane easily along with her people and just fight away to the exit. There a stunning Sylvanas’ ship is waiting for her – a ship we have never seen before, a royal thing. We are left on the shore with Rexxar and Valtrois, discussing what we did.

I need a small rant about Sylvanas. So, what are her aces in a sleeve? Lady Ashvane, a formidable villain, but now devoid of her influence, wealth, industry and forces within Kul Tiras? A corpse of Derek Proudmoore which is supposed to morally destroy Catherine, Tandred and Jaina to no recovery? Indeed, we not only have many woman heroes during the expansion, but many idiot woman heroes as well.

======

I have a good aftertaste from patch 8.1. initiate days. The war has finally come. We have solved the local problems, and now the real fight begins. Surely enough, November felt stale to many people, and December is suddenly not. A lot is happening on many fronts, and we are to solve it. Msot important, I’m eager to solve it.

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Tides of Vengeance Live: Day 2

My next step was completing the available war campaign on Micromantica and entering the warfront on the Horde side.

The war campaign is the strangest design from Blizzard. I presume the Horde has the same, as the Alliance has the new lore achievement composed of four steps, and you can immediately complete three of them.

With people lacking the new content, why did they decide to implement it like that? The achievement questlines are totally independent from each other, and the best (and the only) possible way would be time-gating them for now, giving them out week after week. They are climactic, a good story is told, and it would be quite enough to suffice a lore fan. But what they did is giving out 3 portions at once with an uncertain schedule for the fourth. Why, Blizzard, why?

The stories themselves are amazing (spoiler alert).

First we cooperate with Jaina to protect Anglepoint seagate from the invading Horde, and it’s an overwhelming success, the whole piece of fleet is spectacularly destroyed. We fight off the invaders on the ground, we shoot the landing boats from cannons, while Jaina clears up another coast and blocks the gate with ice. Then we kill goblin sappers, take their azerite bombs… and Jaina just teleports them to the ships. The hero and Jaina then walk away not looking at explosions, badass as hell – it’s even in the achievement’s name :)

The second plot is a gnome content (yes!) in Xibala. Gnomes have invented an ’embiggifier’ which converts a creature’s intellect to physical size and strength. The subject of the invention is a Da’kani gorilla who willingly sacrifices itself to be able to fight the Horde. Because goblins trapped those kaja’mite-clever gorillas and thus revenge. The story is both amusing and sad. I think this gorilla will be a boss in the upcoming raid for the Horde side.

The third piece is stealing back the scepter of tides from Rastakhan’s treasury which could destroy the whole fleet. Void elves teleport us there – Mathias Shaw, Flynn Fairwind and the hero. It’s an amazing Indiana Jones-like adventure of solving traps, fighting the golem/ghost guards and finally fleeing from a gold-gem elemental (also a would-be raid boss). We succeed though, so our fleet now can siege the city without a danger to be incinerated.

The stories are quick, fun, immersing and highly replayable, so I’m doing them on all toons. If only they gave them away week after week )

The next step was warfront for Schlitzchen the goblin shaman. Introduction questline takes you to Darkshore to investigate the strange black moon phenomenon. There is nothing quite new to the story: we participate in almost the same events as the Alliance, but on the other side, and see the same cinematics.

Warfront itself offers three normal quests – like killing 12 rares (a good one!) or killing 12 common mobs. Normal world quests are also offered, including the world boss. It’s not a bad thing to be busy with, and I will definitely try to collect the transmog and the new mounts there. I think it will be a nice daily activity instead of emissaries which will be gone soon.

So far, so good. Day 3 will take me to the Horde war campaign.

Tides of Vengeance Live: Day 1

By a good Blizzard tradition, servers were up way before scheduled maintenance – it was supposed to end by 1 p.m., but I was able to login at 8 a.m. with absolutely no worries.

The patch brings us multiple little things. I’m sure I will need to visit Magni, quartemasters and profession trainers, but these household chores would be put for laters. I’m excited to see this new stuff though.

What have I seen so far?

Reputations are beyond Exalted, so we can farm them for extra toys and pets. At some point I just got sick and tired of toys – they are just too many, and I barely use them if at all. Not much of a pet battle thing too, but acquiring pets is kinda: why not.

For what it’s worth, Legion absolutely killed my desire to grind reps beyond Exalted. So I’m not farming them on purpose – my tries for pets and toys will only happen in case if they come naturally.

The next activity was Tyrande Ascension storyline. Long story short, she comes to Wrynn and wants Darkshore back asap. Anduin says that they lead the war on two fronts already, they don’t have resources. He says that they will retake her home before the war is over, but she says fuck it, I’m doing this myself. Now.

…which proves once again that night elves have a stupid bitch in command. I mean, what the fuck, you know the situation. You are participating in the high strategy council. The Alliance leaders tell you that they are ALREADY stretched very-very thin, and what do you do? You withdraw the night elven elite forces from the war effort, worgens follow, and the Alliance also has to spare the most precious elite champions (us) for the cause.

And what this is all about? A thin stretch of a Cataclysm-ruined terrain at the edge of the world, pressed across the impassable mountains. With a nostalgic value, but nothing apart from that. There’s your true leader thinking.

Who even left her in command after all the massive mistakes we were observing from Legion? And why does Malfurion not talk some sense into her? Really, these ‘decisions’ – well, should I better call them ‘child tantrums’ – are NOT fitting a leader in the very least.

Ugh.

Anyways, as you follow the rogue leader, swearing under your breath, the effort itself is quite cool. The ascension itself was more funny than epic, but by all means Tyrande has dinged several levels towards badass (too bad they don’t give out brains along the ritual too).

I’m surprised to suddenly like Maiev in this scenario. I’ve hated her ever since she was the hero in Warcraft 3 – where you personally led the chase after Illidan, and throughout Legion. Now she’s still grumbling, but what do you know, one of the most sensible and likeable persons in the whole theatre of madness.

The following scenario offers a piece of revenge effort – with a moderately nice result in favor of the Alliance.

Then comes the Darkshore warfront where you can queue.

Overall impressions are mixed. There are not much changes from the game mechanics if at all: collect resources, build the base, grab checkpoints, wait for the catapults to clear the defenses, and kill the final boss. I’d say it’s good rather than bad – we haven’t got to learn anything new, and the warfront was cleared in a breeze.

The bad thing is the scenery. Well, you know, it’s Darkshore. A patch of bleak and dark woodland. Unlike Arathi, there are no any serious constructions and/or valuable, well-mended resource sites. Just field camps and broken carts. Which proves my point: we’re doing it to ease the night elf tantrum, not for any strategic goals. And thus it feels totally anti-climactic.

Well, I need to say some good words about goblin constructions in the end of scenario. First you assault something at least remotely reminding an outpost. And in the end there is a massive, high-tech floating sea platform – an awesome example of goblin engineering. The mechas which play the role of defense towers are also very impressive, and it proves that goblins are providing one of the most valuable contributions for the Horde, and they definitely are not idle. This machinery is nothing like we’ve seen before. Well done!

As an Alliance player, you may find pleasure in killing the other side en masse. While Orc/Troll/Blood Elf vs Human/Dwarves/Gnomes in Arathi version is a fair battle, which feels like a decent challenge from both sides, Darkshore is about Worgen/Night Elves vs Undead/Goblins fighting for mutual brutal eradication. No mercy, no prisoners – just death coming on tips of blades, guns and claws.

This is an excellent way to execute your revenge for Teldrassil, or – on the Horde side – take pleasure in blighting the hell out of the woods (we were having this fun leading Arthas troops in Warcraft 3). Apart from that, from strategic point of view, the warfront is a meaningless bloodshed.

The reward for winning a warfront is 385, also the tmog sets are very beautiful – in fact, the only beautiful sets from group content in BfA so far. I’ve won a headpiece.

Speaking of rewards, emissary cache now offered her a 370 piece. Would I even have any gear upgrades in Dazar’Alor LFR with their 370? At least I go there for transmogs.

The next part is war campaign. Apparently the Horde’s story comes first, because the Alliance is briefed about a succesful Horde attack at Norwington Estate. Now they are aiming at Anglepoint, an access to the heart of Kul Tiras via western seagate, and that is where the hero, Taelia and Jaina head for repelling the first assault while the Kul Tiran military is assembling the strike force.

Even on your way you see Jaina in action, as her water elementals drive the boat to the assault point, and I’m thrilled to fight alongside her.

What happens next? We’ll learn today in the evening.

There are also faction assaults which I’m eager to participate in, and the Horde side of the patch – seeing Darkshore world quests and bosses, and of course war campaign.

The patch so far surprisingly doesn’t seem scarce in content – we shall see how it works.

Lorewise, the war is entering the active stage, and I’m pleased to continue the plot from the prior checkpoint – wherever it leads us…

WoW Progress Check-In & First Steps in Allods

Exalteds are on the way, and Schlitzchen will soon be parked for good with emissaries, free from all activities but weekend raiding and warfronts.

Uldir dropped a couple of items, but they were few. I’ve added three more columns to have a picture of what bosses are to be farmed on weekends. The saddest thing is that LFR wipers, Zul and G’huun, are still on the list. The good thing is that my toons share several items: for example, winning a shield transmog takes a boss off from both Schlitzchen and Fearella.

I’ve completed many profession achievements, but most of the exploring/questing I will put off until flying, as in Legion.

I’m not in the mood to level alts – my demon hunter did a couple of hubs in Stormheim, got 105, and got tired. I actually want to play a demon hunter, so I’ll leave her until I’m in the mood. The mere thought of driving Dark Iron/Mag’har 33->110 is exhausting.

I’m looking forward to see the new warfront this week. It is interesting to check out what differences there will be from Arathi apart from visuals, what world quest rewards will be there. Of course the Tyrande storyline is intriguing – I’m not sure I will go completionist with all alts, only if I want to replay it. And the Night Warrior track is of course a lure – I devoted a whole post to it.

And still, the emissary playtime is dwindling, as is raid time with each new Exalted and each new transmog acquired. Even with the two warfronts running, I’m not expecting it to be enough for my scheduled gaming. This Sunday I logged in with a cup of coffee at 11:40 a.m., and by 2 p.m. I had all activities for the week completed. Which brings us to Allods Online.

Trivia is actually very interesting. I’m the fresh player, I haven’t seen any endgame or even midgame, so I’ve read and watched some youtube videos on the game. People say that the amount of players drops significantly – well, likely as in most mmos nowadays. The most interesting thing is – and it concerns WoW too – that 10.0. version of Allods introduces a massive catacysm which destroys most of the allod world shards. The survivors… enter a completely new game.

They are introducing massively reworked classes, and race roster has shrinked. In fact, it will be a completely new game – in the same universe and in continuity of the main storyline. The original game doesn’t go anywhere, it stays – but you will choose what game to play in your launcher.

Isn’t this brilliant, and could this work for WoW too? We could have an old game for nostalgy and farming the old achievements, but the next version could be completely changed to something completely different – like a space opera many years in the future. You’ll have gun and technician classes, you’ll find the remnants and hints to older civilazations. WoW is quite old, and developers simply cannot go on with the Light/Void themes forever as the only remaining evil. We deal with cosmic powers already, so it’s a fork: we care for Azeroth, not other planets, but you can’t do too much with it without ruining the experience that players care for. We must go to space to solve the Void Lords, and is it what fits WoW?

Well, enough for fantasies :)

On weekend I’ve rolled multiple toons in Allods to try different classes, and I picked the three I want to level: a mystic (psionic caster), a mage (frost – obviously), and a paladin.

My psionicist is a Xadaganian – Djeli:

My paladin is also a Xadaganian – Anibell (yes, it came from my WoW ex-character name):

Their armor is both leather yet, so it looks identical on earlier levels ) Paladin would change for plate armor of course later on.

My mage is a Kanian – Studenitsa (derived from ‘studenyi’ – an archaic Slavic word for ‘cold’, ‘chilly’, which fits the Kanian style)

Leveling here is linear, it takes you with no variety through one and the same zones and quests (except for initiate 3 faction-only zones), so I don’t feel like I want to level any more characters.

There is one exception though. Local Pandaren are Priden, the awesome felines. My one is Kadja, the druid/shaman – well, a nature mage with a pet. They have three specs – I guess it can be compared to WoW’s resto druid/shaman healing, elemental shaman and a beast master.

Much like Pandaren, they have a unique starting storyline and a unique allod where it happens – with a later choice between League/Empire. I will choose League for it to make the number of toons per side equal. For one of the storylines they copied the whole experience from Mowgli story, it was amusing :) WoW does this too.

There is an amusing craft system which is more like a game. You have alchemy / leather / cloth / blacksmith armor / blacksmith weapon craft to choose from, and with alchemy you automatically learn picking herbs, while mats for armor come from world drops. Creating an item is tricky. You click on your tool item in the bag, and a craft window opens. You pick the required item, and then the craft begins:

For example, you want to craft an item of green quality. Click on the green rolls to lock them, then press hammer icon to try and make the other rolls green too. You can press the hammer three times per 1 craft. The higher the skill, the better is the chance to craft a good thing. If you haven’t collected 5 rolls of the same color per three tries, you receive a grey quality item. RNG as it maybe, it depends on your skill and is interesting to do.

Questing so far is smooth and not too dangerous – although aggroing two mobs is already a challenge, and three may kill you. At level ten you open talent trees – there is no strict one and only spec solution as in WoW, you invest skill points to the spec one by one instead. So you may actually divide the points equally between all specs, but it will influence the efficiency for what you do of course: damage, tanking, control etc. So it’s better to stick to your major path and spare the extras later to enhance the others a bit.

So far, everything is new and engaging. Looking forward to move on through the storylines.

P.S.: I forgot to show you the travel through Astral!

Our Plans for the 8.1.

It is time to acknowledge this simple thing: alas, 8.1. will be scarce in content.

I’ve revised my goals, and there are few.

• I may want to level my mag’har/dark iron to 110 for achievement sakes.
• I want to get Exalted on my major alt roster for all BfA factions.
• I want to see and play the new warfront.
• I want to farm the Uldir and upcoming Dazar’Alor transmogs.

And this is it. Island expeditions still don’t look good to me, so I am definitely devoid of anything else to do until Nazjatar. Even now I’m logging in for a couple of hours on weekdays for emissaries, and this is it. With reputations reached throughout December – January, I’m having enormous amounts of time free from any activities. For the first time to me WoW may enter weekend-only mode of playing – you know, raid transmog farm. New alts, which have always been my lure during lulls, somehow lost their attraction – cause I’ve literally got overfed with them in the passing years.

Strange, isn’t it? The key problem, as I’ve already said before, is the new systems of islands and azerite necklace. They simply don’t serve as a carrot we feel the urge to be chasing – not the thing that could keep us busy enough. It’s not a grave sentence to the game in whole – but certainly is for the current expansion state. Which is a shame – like Draenor, one of the most beautiful scenes in WoW, Kul Tiras and Zandalar are certainly places where I’d like to spend a lot of time. But even with the new raid coming and required for the story progression, I simply want Nazjatar playground going upstairs no later than February-March :)

Which brings me wondering about my new poison during the unexpected lull – and my choice is trying Allods Online.

The game is quite old, I remember playing it in OBT as far as 2009. From what I’ve seen today, it’s a huge difference. The game certainly has expanded a lot through the years and was polished to an almost excellent state.

For those unfamiliar with the game, it’s a high fantasy setting with astral travels. ‘Allod’ in the universe means a shard of the world. The initiate planet was destroyed by magic overuse, so only shards are left floating in astral, a hostile and predator environment. Travel between shards is possible via specially equipped ships or teleports.

Two factions battle for dominance here: the local ‘Alliance’ Kania (the League), and the local ‘Horde’ Xadagan (the Empire). Both are led by humans – Kanian visuals are losely based on ancient Russia (wooden architecture, clothes, fairy tales and such), and Xadaganians are visualized as 1930s totalitarian USSR. This is very cool how the designers managed to make both styles quite fitting the fantasy setting:

Obviously, Kania believes in person before state, and Xadagan believes in state before person.

Kanian League also includes:

Elves – I think it’s the only MMO that offers elves with butterfly wings, and yes, they’re hovering all the time! Despite that, they’re very cold and spoiled brats, totally plunged in chic lifestyle and arts.

Gibberlings – the small furry explorers, somewhat a mix of straight-walking puppies and kittens at the same time. Cheerful and happy, as most small races are, they have a unique thing among every MMO. They come in threes – that’s right, you guide the group of them as a single character. Lorewise, they are born in threes, so they always go together since birth – it’s called a ‘sprout’. For example, if your gibberling ‘sprout’ is a warrior, one gibberling would swing a sword and the other would protect the rest with a shield. It actually works perfectly.

Xadagans, beside Xadaganian humans, also have:

Orcs – your normal orcs, but colored from light blue to white and gray. They are brutes, of course, and in this world they are a mix of street thugs and football hooligans at the same time – no ‘honor’ bullshit.

Arisen (‘Zem’) – a race of undead. Mechanical undead – super cool range of masks, influenced by Egyptian culture.

Customization is quite ok – like in WoW, it’s not too much to create an utter freak, and we choose from pre-designed nice versions:

The range of classes is quite perfect. By the way, depending on the race, every class is called differently. For example, a druid class, the nature magic person, will be called a Druid for Kanians, a Pagan for gibberlings, a Shaman for Orcs, and a Jaeger for Xadaganian humans. This helps with the immersement too :)

• Druid – a pet class, nature magic and all. It reminds me of a BM hunter only without a bow.
• Mage, Warlock, Warrior, Paladin – quite archetypical.
• Priests – they can wear plate armor and actually be a melee fighter if they wish so.
• Scout – a mix of rogue and hunter.
• Bard – yes, they have bards.
• Engineer – yes, they have engineers with mega cannons and bots.
• Demonologist – is a mix of WoW’s demon hunter and bestial druids. They shapeshift into a demon to tank or damage.
• Psyonicist – is one of the most complex and interesting classes. It’s kinda what shadow priests in WoW failed to be – the gameplay is centered around direct psyonic attacks and is heavily relying on mind control.

I’ve chosen my first toon to be a Xadaganian psyonic girl. For the League side, it’ll be gibberlings of course.

The gameplay on the starting zone is obviously not chalenging and very user friendly. You complete a small scenario, then launched into the starting zone to get acquainted with your faction more closely. UI interface is common to any WoW player, so you don’t have to get used to it a lot.

A mount is granted to you very soon, although its speed is not a lot faster than normal running. The innovative thing is you could click on a quest in your quest log, and the character will automatically start running in this direction, including automatically mounting and usage of in-zone portals. Same works to return to your quest giver. That’s quite fresh and saves a lot of initiate time, spent on struggling with the unknown map and environment. This could prove fatal in further dangerous zones, but so far it’s helping a lot. Transmog system is present, but I haven’t deducted how to use it yet – well, all gear looks is new and interesting so far.

Further on, the character will have an access to complex talent trees, banding up with other players to build their own astral ships, and even making their own allod shard (housing). But it happens a lot further in the game, presumably at top level.

So: visuals, music, UI, humor, atmosphere, the overall setting makes the game an excellent poison during a sudden WoW lull. Between emissaries and raid runs during 8.1., find me there. I’m not planning to invest too much dedication to Allods, but definitely I’m eager to explore the plot of both factions and see where it takes me.

P.S. The game is either free-to-play, but with almost necessary in-game shop at high levels, or subscription-based without game shop. I go for a relatively cheap sub not to suddenly find myself very underpowered at some point.

Winter Check In

Just a small trivia post.

My journey to Exalted continues. And this week’s highlight is Schlitzchen the Goblin Shaman who is hitting Exalted one by one:

She has won Voldunai this weekend, and got an awesome hyena mount – the one that vulpera are riding in Vol’dun. In the coming days she’ll hit Champions and Talanji, reducing the daily pool of quests to four toons on 5/6 emissary days. Jellica the Priest is also not that far with some of the emissaries.

The warfronts for the Alliance are up, and I will see if I’m lucky to cover the missing slot for the transmog set – I need only cloth cloves for the achievement.

Not much luck with Uldir – I think I got only two missing gear pieces, and none of my four toons has won any weapons (spoiler: there are plenty to get). What do you know, people are still wiping at four chokepoints: obviously G’huun, then often at Zul encounter, then – always – at trash before Zul and trash before Fetid Devourer. The trash ones I simply wait out until it’s clear that a group is winning, cause I’m sick of paying my repair bills due to others’ overconfidence.

I drove my Mag’har and Dark Iron to 33 level each, but frankly I was not that busy with them, it was an occasional random dungeon run with no questing. I’m putting it off until the new patch experience buff. It’s no use leveling in the areas that I know by heart (and this makes it ALL of the WoW questing).

In Uldir I keep noticing the great amount of demon hunters, especially in tank division, and I kinda grew to miss my one. At the same time I grew to acknowledge and make peace with the class continuing its journey through Azeroth. You know, by the end of the Legion it seemed that their job is complete. Luckily its not a long way, so I’ve added a new toon to my Horde’s roster.

Yes, I’ve missed the gameplay. This time it’s Horde’s side, and I’m playing her as a warmonger, capricious, bloodlusting creature. She’s definitely ok with the whole faction war thing, and, unlike my goblin toons, she walks among the undead with ease and does their bidding with barely a shrug of her shoulders. Not a zealot, but a devoted member of the current Horde – aaand she’s ok with Sylvanas the Warchief too (common blood elf legacy or whatever the reason). It’s interesting to explore this attitude.

So far, she’s 103 from 98 in one day, and I’ll skyrocket her to tops in no time.

Waiting for the new content to drop, but before January’s raid, it’s a new warfront which is not much of a time spent. December is the time to dig Exalteds, level my new toons and carry out the Uldir gears. Nothing too new.

P.S. I’m still not missing the monk, the paladin and the death knight :)

Empty Quest Log: Is This a Lull?

My stride towards Exalted is on and on, and yet this takes barely an hour of my daily routines. More so, every next Exalted will automatically dismiss a toon from this emissary later on.

Uldir took me little time this weekend. Despite the obligatory wipes at Zul and G’huun, it doesn’t even take one full day to drive all the alts. There is not too many gears and weapons left to collect, fewer and fewer bosses to run weekly. An Uldir drop is never an upgrade for any of my alts, so I just put everything on a roll if not a missing transmog.

I’ve covered all the normal quests during weekend – including killing fat rares which I put off for laters. Now even a rogue can solo them :) Forgotten Cove questline is solved, gathering quests done… and we’re left with emissary runs.

I’m putting off most achievements till the flights, and yet I gained some:

Cooking is complete:

A sneaky achievement is done:

I just noticed with Schlitzchen that Utaka school is up, and launched my Alliance rogue Pins to sneak into the city and catch one :)

Pray all the loa altars in the city, and you get this:

Of course there is a warfront which is blown through once it’s active to collect the resources. There are island expeditions – which I need to explore considering achievements and pick the ones I’d like to do. But generally I’m in a solid lull state.

Which brings us to leveling alts :)

Jagda the Elemental Shaman and Kargash the Fire Mage are my lull project until December 12. Well, at least I want the achievements and legacy armors :) I’m having fun with them though, and growing to like the toons as characters. We shall see if they stay. Just in case, I picked jewellery/mining for the dark iron and enchanting/tailoring for the mag’har – the professions my toons don’t have yet in these factions.

I’m not very eager to quest – it appears that I know EVERY leveling questline by heart. So I just login and queue to dungeons, not leaving the capital. When flights are opened, I’ll add up exploration activities.

I’m confident that I don’t like the brown skin color on the orcs – it’s just blending with hair and armors. So I picked the ‘gothic’ option of the Shattered Hand Clan – you know, the pale, heavily scarred Kargath’s followers from the Arakkoa lands. Luckily you can pick two versions of scars in barber shop beside a clean face :) So I’m roleplaying her as a brutal one.

Note that she wears a tattered fiery dress. It’s a fresh drop from Ragefire Chasm, and I didn’t have this appearance. Despite all my multiple alt leveling, there’s just an enormous number of dungeon transmogs to be obtained yet. Crazy.

So, I’m in a lull :)