Tanking Uldir!

As expected, on the second day of her 120 Arkeona became attuned to Uldir raid and all warfronts – 325, yay, through world quests alone :) Catching up is great.

I queued for all Uldir wings as a tank – my god, this was fast. Barely a minute at 10 PM.

I did two last wings, and it went fairly smooth. Not without a couple of my deaths – Zul’s knife does some insane damage which I didn’t know how to shake off. When he joins the melee fight, he manages to take away my health in 3-4 blows, and god forgive if you’re linger for an extra second in a blood puddle. Yet we managed to do it on our first pull.

The other trouble boss was G’huun. On the first pull people learned to do the orb runs – literally no clue, it took forever, and in the end they just died before the first beam :) On the second pull they still learned, but we got to phase two. My deaths were at this G’huun wipe – it required figuring out how to swap to drop his stacks with the other tank, yet the reason were still the orbs, we didn’t get to the second beam. The third pull was a kill, and a smooth one with 95% survival rate – despite the BL/Time Warp on pull. One Old God down!

I’ve won a trinket, and any 340 item is welcome nowadays.

All in all it wasn’t a bad run, and the problems are of course the LFR problems: ninja pulls from DPS and lack of tank coordination (due to lack of experience, but it’s cured after or even during the first try). I cannot tell that it was a mess in any encounter – I perfectly controlled my movement and situation. Now, some feeble 23 ilvl left to step in Dazar’Alor and the next week’s Crucible.

By all means I’m keeping the tanking toon among my alts – it’s always a brand new perspective, and it gives an incomparable sense of importance :)

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Mechagnomes!

The most precious datamined material are mechagnome looks!

Without further ado, here are the datamined apperance options:

Dressing room: boys and girls.

Just random looks:

The hairstyles are a shout-out to reroll (I think no one doubts them to be an allied race?). I would consider this, because currently I have 5 gnomes (again).

The only troubling thing is their mechanical parts. As of preview, you cannot hide the palms at all, you cannot hide feet, and pants cover only the crotch/butt zone. Any chest pieces leave cog-shoulders open, but shoulders apply.

Obviously the whole point is showing off their “improvements”, but it would require some struggle from me to stop thinking of them as prosthetics. I’ll have to think about it hard.

Those royal hairstyles tho.

 

Ding!

Hails to Arkeona the Nightborne Warrior and her 120!

All it took with heirlooms was Zuldazar in full and a half of Vol’dun. I never even arrived at the northwest sethraki hubs to proceed with the major questline.

I’m planning to play through all the main questlines nevertheless to ramp up reputations and also get azerite rewards for dungeon quests. Besides, I’ve got a feeling that more world quests open up if you played through the zones – it requires a check.

My immediate scouting for free gear didn’t prove that successful. An available Arathi warfront patrol didn’t give a single piece of gear from any rare mob, world bosses were greedy as well. Still, somehow I brought her from 284 to 310 in the first day. There’s no rush, just checking out the gear world quests on a daily basis and adding up incursions / raids / warfront runs as soon as they become available. I’ll be punching G’huun’s face this week, no doubt :) Arkeona is in leisure mode today – half an hour daily would be sufficient for leveling her gear.

My next goal is Myrki the gnome warlock who has already started her journey in Stormsong and already hit 112.

I’ve collected the Inscription tool of trade – the blood quill. Bonuses are fine: you could scribe contracts to summon a personal companion with healer, tank or dps perks in the open world. Not something that I want in normal circumstances. Also using a quill would suck the blood out of your fallen foe and heal you for some amount – this needs testing.

The process of gathering crafting mats was insane actually. Two crafting items were usual: one drops from any world boss and one drops from King’s Rest serpent with 100% chance. The fun (not) part is collecting 50 x Coagulated Miasma. This drops from trolls in Underrot dungeon… if you do it solo. A group run dropped NONE.

So, here goes Fearella the 377 Fury Warrior. After multiple trials and deaths I’ve designed the safe routine: enter Underrot, kill the first warmother and then the next pack of four trolls – this is easy if you destroy their healer first and interrupt her spell. This will provide you with 5-6 items. Rince, repeat. I had to make a break because I queued for too many dungeons in a short period, but all in all it took me an hour.

I can’t help but point that this is the worst design ever. Say, you’re actually SUPPOSED to solo dungeons, because there are no drops in group version, and you could barely get 5 from 40-50 minutes grind in the open world. The idea of rekindling more interest in dungeons is great… just why are we supposed to perform it solo?

And as long as it’s possible to take out the first packs in Underrot for Inscription, there is no way my shaman could get to the Ashvane mobs in Tol Dagor for Jewelcrafting: this will require slaying 2 bosses solo. Where’s any logic in that?

Alchemy, Enchanting and Blacksmithing are still awaiting to be 150 :) Hopefully no x50 options for them.

So… Eight Point Two!

I’ve only read the review of the presentation, and it all sounds grand on paper :)

Mechagon

It’s the prime of gnome content we were lacking for a long time. Surely BfA introduced them during war campaign like we couldn’t possibly hope, but this pushes the boundaries to the next level. A sandbox construction site – what could have been better?

The new dungeon I will see in heroic (read: queued) version, or in retrospective like I did with Karazhan in Legion.

I think it’s safe to say that mechagnomes will be the allied race counterpart to gnomes, so make sure you earn Exalted if you want to roll one :)

Nazjatar

Still split into two factions, we will finally fight the common foe. The Horde will befriend gilbins, sea giants and makrura, while the Alliance meets some Ankuran race.

I’m not a fan of ‘companion’ idea, it sucked ever since Draenor. The peak of my interest was gaining exalted for all WoD companions, and this is it. I never assigned any of them to mess along in Legion. This time there is some story involved, so I may run with them for a while. We’ll see how it plays out.

Raid

It’s gonna be a boss range of naga-naga-naga in all shapes, with a random sea monster in between. But you know what? There will be Lady Priscilla Ashvane as a boss! Hold me – I need to see this. Will Blizzard push it far enough to turn her into Little Mermaid’s Ursula – all mutated and with octopus tentacles? What does it mean lorewise, as she’s currently Sylvanas’ ally? Most intrigued!

Heart of Azeroth

Needless to say, any change here is most welcome. Personally I crave for its visualization, and Blizzard seems to acknowledge that. Basically we put it in a neck slot and forgot about it – we need a certain panel like with artifact weapons.

Flights!

All zones, yay: including Nazjatar and Mechagon. The Battle for Azeroth flight requirements are most simple:

• Pathfinder 1
• Explore Nazjatar and Mechagon
• Earn Revered with Mechagon/Nazjatar factions

A couple of weeks of lazy gameplay, and we’re there. Bonus: we will get a mechanical parrot mount!

War Campaign

The story makes baby steps so far – we need the revolution within the Horde, period. Asap.

Gnome Legacy Armor

More gnome content!

Heroic Warfronts

I will need to test the new mode – if it’s queued.

Finally,

Mount Gear

Kamalia has a point: Barding surprisingly feels like the best choice nowadays. It doesn’t bother me to save a slot for water strider on my bars, and it will totally feel weird to ride across the seas on a manasaber, a horse or a ram. Falling off the cliffs is not vital as long as we get flights. Maybe next expansion?

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Excited. I hope we will get the sandbox this expansion truly deserves.

Anything but Dull

The last couple of my vacation days were, as always, a couple of cozy days at home, and naturally in WoW. Now here’s what they brought:

Raiding

• Baisa has won the bow from Conclave, sending all my chainmail toons on standby.
• Pins the Rogue has won a headpiece from BoD, with feet remaining to complete the leather set. Also she did not forget to switch to Outlaw loot before Jaina, and Daelin Proudmoore’s cutlass wraps up the leather toons’ weapons!
• Melaris the DH won nothing.
• No GMOD yet.
• Fearella the Warrior to go on weekend.

All in all I have now only three toons left raiding, and they are effectively coping with it during the week.

Crucible is not to be ignored for farming as I presumed previously – at least my shaman see the unique stave in the loot table.

Leveling

I’m rapidly growing a couple of Gnome Warlock / Nightborne Warrior. Myrki has already got to 103 by today’s morning, while Arkeona finished Zuldazar, and arriving by Akunda Temple met her at 117,5.

It is interesting how I sacrifice using 280 azerite armor for heirlooms :) Experience is god in the current situation, so even if a tank spec is not that fast by default, I want to reach the endgame asap. Although leveling as a tank has that benefit of collecting 4-6 mobs and smashing them at the same time :) Completing Atal’Dazar was not too hard as well.

I have abandoned the dark iron monk for now – I let her hang at 40, yet no desire to login. We’ll see about that during lulls.

Tools of Trade

The first one I’ve got was an Engineering wrench, and it’s amazing! I like the casting animation, and it summons bots of choice upon use. We’ll check that in combat :)

It’s not the only one I’ve got already – I also collected mats and crafted Tailoring synchro-thread and Leatherworking mallet. Inscription questline awaits, and also I did the complete questline for Jewelcrafting. Jewelcrafting was the best story so far! It revolves around fixing the Earthen altars in Kul Tiras and then going to an underwater cave near Theramore:

Although no drama happens, it was somehow very comforting and touching.

The worst thing is that Jewellery Focus crafting requires possibly the most brutal grind so far. Among everything else, we need 50 handfuls of azerite powder which drops from Ashvane-associated mobs. Wowhead advises going to Tol Dagor dungeon – well, I got NONE there while some people claim to get 20 from a single run. I guess I’m bound to the open world – at least I’ve got 4 from Ashvane Foundry. It’s gonna be a long journey, but for a person who has got an albino raptor for 9999 dino bones… is it?

I’m gonna collect all Tools of Trade (probably it’s a Feat of Strength too?). Not for achievement or any practical use, but to keep as something signifying my character’s crafting skills and remembering the effort.

Xal’atath

If not for Leto’s post, I would have completely forgotten that the new lore awaits me!

I like that the quest comes from naga invasion world quests. You get the quest item as a drop from one of the mobs. Ergo, it is not hanging as a big exclamation reminder in your capital for all your alts, so you can replay it on characters of choice.

I’ve completed it on Micromantica, and I’m planning to do it again at least twice. The second time with Jellica the Priest, because I’m intrigued to see the class-specific dialogue, and the third time with some Horde toon, because I’m interested in seeing who will purge N’Zoth influence from the hero. For the Alliance, Brother Pike removes the corruption.

I would not describe the questline, but what surprised me: did the order hall champion priest actually THROW the artifact weapon away? Just like that? For a random Tortollan to find it in the mud?

Apart from that, the questline is amazing. The Old God threat is here, it’s brutal and dangerous, and it’s a bridge from our grim, sorrowful inter-faction clash to a common enemy. The questline itself is intriguing, and being accompanied by mesmerizing Xal’atath voice in the process is priceless :)

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Even if my leveling alts are still approaching endgame, I feel that I go in a very nice pace today. 8.2. in PTR soon, we cannot anticipate it earlier than June, and I’m confident that my goals will be complete by then. Good times in my camp!

Vacation Gift from WoW

It’s like Blizzard knows that I have a week off from my job, and here’s what my toons got in the last two days:

• Both items from Warlord Yenajz / leather
• Both items from leather/DH/Opulence – most precious crown and warglaive
• And this:

Funny enough, the leveling Myrki the Gnome Warlock died just before the dragon encounter. People went on, and a warlock, without instant speed buffs, fell behind just enough to catch a patrol of stone spiders, die to it, and spend the encounter dead & locked outside the wall :)

I think it’s the most beautiful of all Cata dragons! With all my normal irritation towards the drake mount family, I may even keep it on an action bar.

See you on the other side of the weekend – I’m off to see Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Leipzig and my toddler niece in Moscow in 4 days (yes, me and my wife are travel pros :)

April Trivia

It’s been one of the most productive weekends so far. I’ve played through many alts, and I’ve got a feeling there was a big advance on all fronts:

My chainmail set from Dazar’Alor is now complete!

And yes, even the crown from Opulence. What a relief! Moreover, I got the axe drop, so both of my shamans are now free to be on standby. A remaining bow drop will send Baisa there as well. I can now effectively pass on finishing plate and leather armors.

T’zane the world boss was freaking generous. I’ve got pants for chainmail and cloth sets, and both helmet and belt for Fearella the warrior! Now he owes us only leather shoulders (no luck this time). Uldir normal sets are now very close to completion.

As long as I were in Nazmir anyways, completed Magni’s necklace upgrade quest on a couple of missed alts.

An occasional run for Darkshore granted us a missing elven/undead hatchet. I need to make a loot table from warfronts and intensify its farming – the activity was a bit abandoned recently.

I’ve seen a naga invasion – too bad it’s not a story like faction incursions, but a single fill-the-bar world quest. Maybe they will add this later?

I’ve seen the new Tortollan quests. A calligraphy world quest… no, I’m not doing this achievement :) The crab quest is fun though! A lot more engaging than shooting the seagulls and the said crabs.

Micromantica needs 4 certain dungeon bosses to craft her profession tool – crossed out two of them, Rezan and Sethraliss. Siege of Boralus and King’s Rest final bosses to go. For what I experience, the drop is most likely 100%.

Aaaand the last, but not the least: reached round level thresholds on leveling toons:

• Arkeona the Nightborne Warrior: 110 and entering the Z-Empire
• Myrki the Gnome Warlock: 80 and entering Panda/Cata content with full flight speed
• Guldra the Dark Iron Monk: 40 and acquiring the last and important offensive spell, as well as ground mount final speed.

My gameplay now is so fun and diverse :)