Trivia: As Planned

It’s all the same routines, and they go as planned.

As for reputations, I’m at the finish line. everyday I’m hitting one or several Exalted. As planned, the most reputations will be ready by the end of May:

May 16

May 22

Tip: if you completed 4 quests for an emissary, and you have over 20k Revered, be good and grind extra WQ for the faction before giving in emissary quest. When you hit Exalted, the extra points “burn”, and you basic Exalted reputation becomes zero.

For example, you have 20935 Revered points. You do a quest for 75 reputation, and you lose only 10 points (20935+65=21000). But if you give in emissary quest, it’s still gonna be (20935+65=21000), your Exalted is still gonna be 0. But this way you will lose 1435 points.

This works only at Revered/Exalted border.

Legionfall

Yeah, naturally I need the class mounts, so I’m bound to complete the whole grindy campaign for all toons. Micromantica is picking every next available quest every week, and the rest are lazily farming Sentinax badges. When I’m done with my Exalted journey, I will properly devote myself to Legionfall questlines.

Race Changes

Yeah, so once again the toon stopped resonating with me. This time it’s Night Elf Balance Druid.

1. Casting looks silly: she stands on one leg during casting Wrath. At some point it just irritates.
2. I’m not happy with outfits, I can’t find cool transmog for her. The ones I’ve acquired are merely acceptable.
3. I’m not happy with faces and hair colors.
4. I’m not glad that she cannot stand straight: if you look from the side at her figure, it’s not a line, it’s half a circle bent forward.
5. Balance is a powerful slow caster, and my Night Elf feels like a swift creature which lacks patience.
6. Tyrande and Malfurion in Legion killed every awe I may have had about night elves.

Worgen was an option, but I looked at the casting animations, and no-no-no, there’s too much hand waving in circles, it didn’t look practical.

And I don’t see Trolls as druids… well, maybe feral or guardian, but never as casters.

So, the only option I see for myself is female tauren. Balance druid is not a swift caster, it’s a mortar, and tauren fits nicely. I did a test drive, and all the casting animations are awesome. Not hasty, not a single bad animation, and the hand movements are so cool. I still have a week to think about it, but I think I’ll go for it.

How’s your week?

Lull? Lull

Yes, this is probably it.

1. Reputations. We’re heading to Exalted at top speed. Got few bonus chests, but no mount luck yet.

2. Legionfall. The Loremaster campaign appeared to be extremely grindy – each and every step now is this. Farm 2500 nether shards (tip: invasions), farm 100 Sentinax shards, do 12 world quests, kill 100 demons (tip: imp pits in upper Faronaar), this week it’s finding 10 wyrmtongue caches. I’ve spent 15 minutes and flew over the whole Broken Shore – found one, and one that I couldn’t detect even if I found a cave nearby. I will do Loremaster achievement, but I’m not sure I want to complete this campaign on all alts despite the AP rewards. Maybe I will while waiting for raids.

3. Transmogs. Yes, as for raids – it’s transmog runs through Emerald Nightmare for me nowadays. Bosses pop like rotten tomatoes, they’re just zerged. People don’t even bother to clear the trash before assaulting Cenarius himself – it’s just killed through cleaves.

I had not much luck with gear though. Many items dropped, but not the ones I need. Well, I need to be trying.

Older raids are much more rewarding, although when it comes to the last tier piece – it’s pain again :) My mage Micromantica lacks 2 pieces from Molten Core, 1 piece from Ulduar, 1 piece from Trial of Crusader and so on. It’s a pleasant and relaxing activity. I’m not on fire to collect every set, but I need these achievements at least on one toon, and I want nice tier pieces for other alts – mainly chests, hands, legs and feet. I mean, who cares about the wrists?

4. Achievements. I’m slowly closing the long-delayed achievements. I’m Legion Master of All, I performed Mass Obliteration, I cooked The Legion Menu, I’ve found all treasures in Suramar and killed all elites there. I’m doing every Archaeology quest for This Side Up, tracking fishing dailies for Fishing ‘Round the Isles. I am one step from Higher Dimensional Learning. And Faerella – as a warlock – is occasionally farming sightless eyes for Underbelly Tycoon – damn, I need this rat!

So, here’s my week. As will be the next one. Nothing really exciting to post, just routines :)

 

Z and Cinder’s Blog Challenge: Best Dressed

Topic 17 is about transmogs, and I’ll be glad to share some of mine :)

Transmogs have become relevant with me since Draenor. Before WoD I was quite happy with my current items, and used transmog only as a tweak here and there. But WoD armor and weapons were ugly. So since May 2015 I’m spending much gold for transmog itself and transmog items in auction house.

Changing Sets for Class Fantasy

I like to think about class fantasy, and if a certain one stops resonating with me, there goes a complete revamp from head to toes:

Aurinko was a Shadow Priest with a badass torture dungeon style. Pretty Black Metal:

Then she tried healing, and she liked it. Her current mogging is based on Legion raid sets, and it perfectly fits what I call a Battle Medic. Medic is important, because there’s not much spirit involved – just science:

Bons went for a barbaric style in Draenor – an all-exposed berserk:

Her current incarnation, influenced much by Legion invasion, is totally “For the Alliance” – up to eleven. The greatest catch was a dwarven silver hammer which made her image complete:

She’s sharing the looks approach with Anibell, my paladin. For now they’re both Alliance fighters, and they’re both paladins in classic meaning: the warriors in shining armor. The core element is the lion-head cuirass from Trial of Crusader:

Special Designs

In WoD I went through special mogging designs which could take me weeks of tuning this or that item until I was finally happy. The best were:

Kellers – my ex-mage. The theme is cinders and ash, charcoal black and orange flames:

Hedersen – my ex-rogue

Her theme was pirate, so my current rogue Hexen inherited the looks. The basic element are these wavy pants, and color red:

Salash – my ex-hunter – had probably the craziest transmog ever – Satanic Firebat from Hell:

Rottenshield – my ex-warrior – had moderately successful composition of sewer-drained, rusty and molded armor, straight from the depths of Undercity:

Oluu – my ex-monk – was the designer of this awesome Outland-themed monk set:

…which is happily used by Paitsu here and then:

This is War

But I’m not for the shiny, decorated and outstanding outfits nowadays in Legion! My modern mogging is mostly based on being comfy. I want to convey class fantasy, and at the same time not to be a shiny hero in diamonds and flames, but rather your next-door working horse. Like they said in Terry Pratchett’s novel – if you can’t milk goats in your witch cloak, it’s not a witch cloak.

It’s war. It’s dirty, and you have to be practical, and not be afraid to lose a diamond off your cape:

This is it for transmogrification talks for today!

Trivia: Professions, Mogging, New Armory & Reputations

A quick weekend summary is starting… now!

Reputations

• Blue: Honored
• Cyan: Revered
• Orange: Exalted & Counting
• Italic: current emissary to complete

I’m on fire with emissaries :) The chase to Exalted is very exciting, and I think I’m gonna be there by the end of May. Then I could split my toons into teams and slowly farm the chests for faction mounts.

I’m not doing Broken Shore dailies except main story quests. Micromantica will hit Exalted and more when the storyline will be complete with not a single extra WQ in Broken Shore. The other toons are now bound in Sentinax part.

I’ve did at least one invasion on every toon, and I have Cathedral dungeon to run yet on two toons – for the quest.

All in all I plan Broken Shore to be my relaxed activity between raids in June.

Mogging

Suddenly I’ve realized that The Nighthold’s class mogging set could – and should – be composed of both Emerald Nightmare and The Nighthold itself. And what is better: I could farm for certain items on several toons of the same armor type. For example, my demon hunter lacks wrists, so my monk, druid, rogue and demon hunter would run the same boss – which makes it 8 attempts if you count coin tosses too.

So, the last cooldown was dedicated to leather & mail toons, and this week it’s gonna be the same. When I’m done with them, then cloth and plate toons come into action.

I’ve realized that I don’t need the set bonuses or gearing up. I’m more than ready for the next LFR with my 860-880+ ilvls, so it’s just hungry wardrobe that makes me run these raids :)

Talking about mogging, there’s a brand new armory which you have probably checked out already.

It makes perfect sense to enhance the class rather than race. Many people prefer to play just elves, or mostly tauren, or humans, or gnomes of course. But people mostly roll a new toon to try a new class, so here’s variety for you.

I’ve checked out every armory of course as I have every class. My personal favorites are monk, shaman – and I could never believe it – the fel colors of demon hunter.

Profession Bonanza

It’s Darkmoon Faire, and it was time to revise the mats I’ve collected during the month and level up.

I’ve led toons through many dungeons on profession quests – the long forgotten ones. Obviously I’ve done profession quests in DMF. And I’ve spent enormous amounts of mats, mercilessly for raising my skill level.

I got Resourceful, Working the Isles, and Legion Cook achievements.

What is left is First Aid – which is a separate thing. And there’s Blacksmith to do to get Legion Master of All. It’s only 5 points to go, and what do I need: Mindebad is less than 1k from Exalted with Valar’jar – who will grant her the next stars – which will allow to go through those 5 points :)

My profession goals today are learning as much schemes and recipes as I can, craft whatever mogging, toys and stuff, and have a rest. I love crafting, but it’s been awful in Legion. I want to end it, and I see the finish line.

Touch in the Night

There will not be many words today, just these amazing shots of Schlitzchen in her class order hall.

Don’t forget to buy your night potion in the coming Darkmoon Faire!

I’ll be off now for a long weekend – reputations won’t grind themselves :)

It’s Mayday

The weekend of Labor Day was devoted to many-many things.

Karazhan!

Micromantica went to visit Karazhan!

She had a pair of quests there: covering the bag-making for Tailoring, and getting a toy.

Bags are useless, because they are worse than Draenor’s, still I got this covered. Now I need to learn only the legendary craft recipe, and my Legion tailoring list will be complete – if not for 3-star ranks.

The toy is precious. It’s a cube which you can launch and watch every Legion cinematic – much like your Draenei/Troll historian for Draenor cinematics in your Garrison. It’s awesome that it pops on demand, you don’t have to go anywhere to relive the memories. The starting quest item drops from Chronomatic Anomaly in The Nighthold with great chance.

The dungeon itself went nice. I went with two different PuGs, and we’ve blasted through all the bosses. We even earned an extra achievement on our way. There was a pair of delays: of course I wanted to see the pictures from Medivh past! Even if I know his story well. And then I got lost a bit, because people ran forward. Still, the PuG was nice, and they even returned for me once. And there also was a strange thing when we got to figure out that spider web is actually a stair you could climb, so this time two of us were confused and lost: it was like a portal leads to a dead end.

Reputation Grind

On weekends I manage to clear the emissary lists on all toons, and with flights it’s a mere pleasure. My goal is Exalted with every faction, and I’m on a finishing line now. I’m not working on Legionfall now, because I want to get its rep through weekly plot quests.

• Cyan is Revered
• Blue is Honored
• Green is Friendly

And I’m already starting to hit Exalted.

Hidden Appearances

Backston suddenly discovered that she could simply buy a raven crossbow hidden thing for her Marksmanship! All you need is just Revered with Farondis.

Mayluna hit Exalted with Dreamweavers, and bought a hidden appearance for Balance… although it apparently requires a second element which I will have to grind at Darkheart Thicket ever since.

Raids

Yeah, so I finally went for LFR after my big pause. Ran The Nighthold on a pair of toons – Backston got two tier pieces, woop! And I also went for Emerald Nightmare to grind the mogging – no luck. It’s not that I didn’t get any loot – I didn’t get the loot that I wanted.

Maximillian!

Yeah, so Anibell quickly finished the Un’Goro questline for Maximillian of Northshire, and upon return to Dalaran she got a letter from him.

The questline is easy enough and pretty hilarious. Yet again it’s Don Quixote thing. Only this time he doesn’t mistake dinosaurs for dragons, but rather crabs and murlocs for demons.

It’s at least understandable, but then he mistakes a goblin in a Dalaran tavern for his dame, so she had to hide from him under mask. I felt sorry for him. So when he became my follower, he was immediately sent into Light Hope’s Asylum for Tragically Insane. No adventures for him.

Older Things

On one evening Micromantica soloed every Mythic dungeon in Draenor and got achievements. It’s very easy nowadays, and you just burn down that cannon on the train with your normal dps. Mark you, I found the lack of content a bit discouraging, but I liked Draenor very much. It’s nice to get back.

It’s time to do heroic runs now and get the achievements.

Yes, it’s most probably my favorite dungeon.

Z and Cinder’s Blog Challenge: Which Zone Reminds You of Your Home?

So, which zone or area in WoW reminds you of your home?

For me it would be several places.

First, it’s my native city of Kirov (Vyatka) where I’ve spent the first 17 years of my life. Kirov is located in the middle of European part of Russia. It’s surrounded by thick woodland, and it’s also characterized by hills. When you walk in the city or in the nature, there seems to be no flat surfaces: either you go up or down.

We have continental mild climate there, mostly comfortable weather varying from +23 Celcius in Summer to -10 in Winter (sometimes there are peaks of +30 / -30, but it’s kinda extreme and doesn’t last long).

One of my best moments from childhood could be winter walks and forest skiing with my parents and brother. The snows are abundant, and the fluffy white boughs are an eye candy. It’s a sunny weekend, our cheeks are red from little frost and winter fun, you’ve just skiied few kilometers, it’s quiet, and the sounds are muffled by the snow. You’ve stopped in the woods for a break to drink some hot tea from a thermos flask you have on you, and feed a wild titmouse with crumbs and seeds from your hand. Happiness!

You know where I’m leading here, don’t you?

But of course it’s Dun Morogh!

If not for mountains, but forests, hills, and snow paths among the trees covered in fluffy snow.

Micromantica knows how this dry grass feels when you touch it :)

In Summer, nature activity was concentrated on the banks of the river Vyatka, natural lakes and sand quarry lakes.

It does remind me of the river between Elwynn Forest and Duskwood.

After I finished my high school, I’ve moved to Saint-Petersburg where I live ever since, first studied in a university and then working. Wow, this year it will be 17 years since I moved, so it will be exactly half of my life when I consider Saint-Petersburg my home.

Most of all I like Saint-Petersburg itself for its granite clad embankments – which are a trademark of the city:

Of course I like Stormwind for the same reason! I think I could never live in a city which is not attached to some great amounts of water – lakes or rivers.

And if we speak about nature around Saint-Petersburg, we must remember that we are just a two-hour drive from Finland. So, the nature here is also famous for its vast forest lakes:

I’ve played WoW first in WotLK expansion, and I played it until I reached level 76 or so. Then I quit for no particular reason. You know what made me return to the game?

The Cataclysm video where Deathwing destroyed Loch Modan. I came back with a very particular purpose: kick his ass for destroying the lake, my most favorite spot.

I wonder if the dwarves could finally fix the dam :) It’s been a while.

P.S. When I read this post, its no wonder I’m more of a For the Alliance person :)