Trivia: World Quests and Antorus Plate Armor Sets

The week started just cool with Anibell acquiring her set cuirass from Eonar encounter. And this means that plate armors from Antorus are now all done!

I have only 3 leather sets to collect now. Demon Hunter lacks a pair of things, I also need wrists for Rogue. And the worst of all – I have only 2/9 pieces for monk. Bad luck for Paitsu :)

My theory still is that you get mostly secondary items on your first runs for the toon – like trinkets, relics, rings, capes and wrists. On her latest run Paitsu has got 3 relics and a ring. We shall see what the current week brings us.

My 110 toons are all in world quests, frantically completing 20 WQ quest for 5k order hall resources which will signify at least a month of sitting on their butts in order halls and earning rep tokens :)

I still need to get many mounts from paragon rep: Farondis, Dreamweavers, Nightfallen and 2/3 Army of Light.

Like official Blizzard public pages reminded us, it’s also a good time to boost your rep to acquire allied races – for 50% increase in reputation earned. But you all are probably exalted by now :)

 

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Two More Sets Collected!

With Anibell the Paladin’s run, she didn’t win a single piece for herself, but she effectively covered the missing helms for Warrior and Death Knight!

Of course I’m missing the wrists for the Death Knight, but I won’t be hunting them. They drop from trash only, and Tomb experience shows that it’s futile to farm on purpose. So I consider the set complete.

Backston and Oulu will try to win the belt from Hasabel in return this week – they owe Anibell a favor :)

By the way, the warrior helm came from Imonar kill quest, out of order hall mission. And it’s not even at his loot table. So if you’re hunting for tmogs, these quest items may help.

Anyways, Mage, Priest, Warlock, Hunter, Shaman, Warrior and Death Knight are covered. It’s 7/12 and a little more to go :)

Antorus Sets & Leveling

I will start the post with my next step towards Legion goals.

Baisa the Hunter was not lucky this week – literally no drops during her raid run. Compensated by Schlitzchen the Shaman: she finished both chainmail sets, and without extra coin drops!

Well done, and no more Antorus runs for them both :) Legion is officially on standby mode for Baisa and Schlitzchen, waiting for the next expansion.

My next goal is plate armor toons – Oulu, Backston and Anibell have not so many items left to farm. And then to catastrophic leather-armored: for example, Paitsu the Monk has only two items so far.

As planned, those items that are trash-drops only will be skipped. Luckily these are just wrists for a Death Knight and for a Druid – which don’t influence the looks at all.

Leveling

The notable events happened in Ghostlands with Arkeona, the Nightborne Rogue. First of all, I did some cool screenshots and recalled Warcraft III experience :)

Yet again, and I never cease saying that, these are not merely background – but the buildings with a meaning. Could be that I built that ziggurat myself, carving Arthas’ path to Sunwell! These ziggurats, the soul-collecting buildings, serve as farms for Undead army (enhancing the number of units you may have), and could also be upgraded to serve as the main defensive building for the Scourge. This crystal appears above the building when you arm it, and it’s ready to fire at every approaching enemy, hurling the howling spirits at hostile forces.

Guys, playing earlier RTS does enhance your WoW experience!

Second, I came across amusing Amani trolls models:

Just look at their faces! I know that there’s a huge difference between top-notch today’s models, but these do have a certain charm, and are kinda unique. There were also some interesting high elves.

This model is also exactly inherited from Warcraft 2 RTS. Back then I thought that trolls are red-faced, and wear some sort of a jumpsuit. It appeared to be a warpaint :)

Third – I failed to do the last quest of the zone, and this would be my first time in the revamped 7.3.5. when I came across a real difficulty. It requires killing a major villain, and the quest actually advises you to gather a mob of 5 people.

Yes, it’s impossible for a rogue to do that solo. I’ve cleared the trash in his room dying 2 times, and even if the boss was now alone, and all my resources and cooldowns fully charged, it was merely impossible. He had some 52k, and my best shot was leaving him with 29k. I may have struggled with a hunter or a warlock, but it’s not an option for a rogue. Shame :)

I’ll return later when I’m really above him by my level. It’s a vendetta now :) I remember having that sort of a thing with my fire mage, who couldn’t kill a werewolf boss in Grizzly Hills – I returned after 20 levels to finish the job. Now it’s personal :)

For all the leveling toons, several more zones are covered, and I’m closing in to 50. I really need to queue the dungeons, as zones grant 2-4 levels now. I’m already eager to go into the next expansions to level, and much yet to be completed.

Trivia: A Streak of Achievements

It was quite a week of my vacation devoted to WoW mostly. And I’ve advanced significantly on my way in different directions. Let’s talk one by one.

Holidays

No mount this year – again. 13 tries daily, and no result. People advise to just quit trying any holiday mount! Not my thing, it provides some distraction from routines, so I’ll be running it and Halloween nevertheless.

For the Lunar Festival, there are 3 new toys which allow you to make a chinese festival dragon with your friends, and four awesome wreaths as a holiday attire.

I’m not sure I’ll be farming them all, but at least I did one wreath :)

Raids and Mogging

I had some free time to drive all my classes through Antorus. I’m glad to report that mogging slots get gradually covered. This is just awesome how every next earned item means less runs and less bosses every next week.

And lo! I’ve collected the missing two items for my priest:

This means that all my cloth toons are now officially on standby mode! Their job in raids of Legion is done. Faari, Micromantica, Faerella and Aurinko are enjoying their well deserved rest from the hard campaign.

Myde, the new leveling mage, will still run Antorus when she gets there, but merely for ilvl sakes. I think I would drive her to 915-925, and this is gonna be it. I just want her to be on the same level as my other toons for pre-patch.

Long Term Achievements

Of course my cloth girls happen to have another goals to do. There’s Archaeology and Fishing acheievements to complete for Micromantica. There’s 20000 eyes to farm in Underbelly for Faerella (she has 8500 on her now).

Yet I devoted a pair of hours to farming goals already. 5000 Argus demons were slain, and 5000 saberon claws collected in Tanaan. The thing is that you don’t acquire them little by little, no. One great effort, and you close the achievement which would not loom over your head ever since.

Now I have a scarlet butt Pumbaa:

Leveling

And of course, there is leveling of my four new Allied Races. I happen to push them forward equally: they are now at 37-39. If it were just one toon, it would already be mid-Draenor.

It’s dungeon queueing while questing, and it’s pretty fast if you are really into it. For example, Kalaari the Paladin, upon finishing a quest hub in the morning without dungeon runs, is up by 2 levels.

I’m totally enjoying the leveling pace and variety, along with mob scaling. An option to return to Loch Modan after Arathi is awesome. By 40th level, I will have another gorgeous choice of zones, and neither of my 4 toons will have to re-run the same zones on their way to the top. And at 60, they will split to Outland and Northrend!

My toons have just entered their new zones, and their leveling rolls as such:

Myde, 38: Duskwood – Redridge – Northern Stranglethorn, entered Southern Stranglethorn

Kalaari, 39: Wetlands – Arathi – Loch Modan, entered Eastern Plaguelands

Arkeona, 38: Hillsbrad – Arathi – Hinterlands, entered Western Plaguelands

Jammu, 37: Ashenvale – Desolace, entered Feralas

I presume there should be a couple of zones for each of my toons until 58-60, and they will be chosen due to character lore attunement:

Arkeona, as an assassin and a spyblade, will solve Western Plaguelands and most probably issues in Burning Steppes. Then she continues to Outland, craving to go to Terokkar and Nether.

Jammu will continue enjoying the wonders of Kalimdor and learning about Tauren druids. Her plan are the lush grounds of Feralas and Un’Goro, then she will go and see Taunka in Borean Tundra!

Kalaari will do the paladin cause in Eastern Plaguelands, then she travels to Blasted Lands and continue to Outland to see her draenei homeland.

Myde will explore the troll civilizations in Stranglethorn, then it’s most probably Swamp of Sorrows, followed by Northrend (most likely, Howling Fjord).

I’m having lots of fun at this point of expansion, and I foresee quite relaxed months of enjoyable gameplay :)

P.S.: the yak won’t pass under certain bridges :) You’ll need a detour.

Tanking Argus

My yesterday’s small raiding was covering up the un-killed yet bosses with Melaris, the Demon Hunter. And while she went in Havoc, as planned, something snapped when she entered Seat and got straight to Argus.

We had both tanks. Which failed 4 times just in the most epic ways. They were collecting stacks like hell – both of them, they didn’t get a clue what to do with the shiny thing, and they dragged Argus the Unmaker throughout the battlefield, delivering every debuff to the rest of the raid and flooding the field with death cone in the most unsurvivable way.

We tried and explained the drill to them after every failed pull. And it just didn’t work. They just kept failing and failing. Then one of the guys says, tanks, if you don’t know anything about your role, you’d better switch to DPS. And one of them actually did.

I’ve already respecced to Vengeance to serve as a supporting third tank, but I didn’t manage yet to announce it, and the other tank says: well, whoever is the second tank, support me. Understand it right: she didn’t even know whether we have another tank, and she pulled again, which would mean a certain and quick wipe if not for me.

Argus encounter is actually VERY simple for tanks. It’s one of the easiest fights in Antorus. You keep swapping for 3 scythe stacks and don’t turn him anywhere to keep the raid intact. When you’re not an active tank, be behind his back. For the first phase, you hold him in the middle, and that’s it. For the second and fourth phase, you usher him to the wall and keep him facing the wall. For the third phase, you tank an add. This is it. It’s simple as fuck. DPS and healers have really hard day, but tanks don’t.

And we did it with the first pull. The other tank totally failed every swap, not allowing herself to get rid of the debuffs, so she died four times during the encounter, and the last 200k I was tanking all by myself, eventually having 7 stacks or more, with my underpowered artifact of 62 or so. We did it!

The important thing is that I was a bit reluctant to tank the last wing even with my tank-assigned toons. Now I suddenly don’t :) Tanking appeared to be much easier than the other roles here.

Hero of the day:

Antorus: A Peep into Seat of the Pantheon

So, the fourth wing is tested and farmed by several toons, and here’s my quick review.

I think it would be the easiest expansion-end last boss streak. Both of them fall with a little effort, and as soon as people learn to follow the certain mechanics.

For Aggramar, there’s nothing too deadly except his 4 blows which require attention from all raid. As soon as people learn the easiest thing of run TO him, it’s no worries. And if tanks don’t fail to bring these to blows into the raid. I was a bit surprised by his health pool which is too low for the boss-before-last: seriously, less than 4 million to single target while Coven has over 5 and lots of adds. Piece of cake even on the first week.

Argus the Unmaker poses some trouble. Although it’s not too hard too if people follow the ridiculously easy movement requirements with the first 2 phases, thus having sufficient DPS to enter the third and fourth. The only big trouble here is the last phase with massive AoE and VERY punishing spheres which are kill-an-add-or-else thing. Even so, you have a tree cheat there which resurrects every one careless enough to die.

I really liked the environment, so different from the fel which we were dealing with during both Tomb and Antorus.

I’m not happy though with the lore beyond Argus himself. Is he really a warped Titan, or something else? Isn’t he too small in size for a world soul? A strange choice for the last boss, and not really immersing, as – I’ve said it previously – we didn’t have a strong build-up during our questing on Argus.

Now that we see the raid in whole, it appeared to be quite logical. We breach to the High Command, killing the eredar generals. We dispose their factory to smithereens along with their lead engineer. We cut their reinforcements with portals. And we finally thwart their plans to resurrect Dark Titans, which in turn drag Sargeras from Azeroth surface and end the crusade. If not for the deus ex plot in the first place: Sargeras killed them all, but somehow they could still be reborn and stop him? And one of them got away? There are so many questions here.

From all the raids of Legion, I would name Emerald Nightmare and The Nighthold as the best ones. There was a perfect build-up via questing and story, it was a place we wanted to enter and finish the main bad guys.

Trial – oh come on, proving ‘worthy’ for the tenth time to Odyn sucked.

Tomb – as I wrote previously, in Legion Blizzard totally failed to grow a hated villain out of Kil’Jaeden, with all his background. And there were so little demons in the Tomb – namely, three infernals, Goroth, a pair of Inquisitors and Kil’Jaeden himself. By the time we entered the Tomb, the battle was already won. It didn’t feel like threat already.

Antorus – was a tedious work rather than an excited path to the main villain, and also in the fel environment. And thus it appeared to be quite boring.

Now, to farm transmogs until I literally puke :)

P.S. And yes, Argus scythe already dropped to my death knight for transmog!

Healing the Third Wing

The third wing of Antorus, being the most brutal nowadays due to its deadly mechanics and people still figuring out what to do with them, was a big trouble for my DPS runs. But not so much for a healer.

Schlitzchen the Shaman entered Antorus yesterday, expecting to have some real trouble. And she didn’t.

The thing here are these very same deadly mechanics :) Kin’Garoth’s death ray, Coven’s ‘torment’ issues give no troubles for a healer… at all. And it’s very simple: either people follow the mechanics, and you have no worries, or they don’t follow them, and die in an instant, so there’s nothing you could really do :)

There are only two things that require a healer’s attention. First, when Kin’graroth empowers its robots, there’s a massive AoE to the raid, but for a shaman it’s just healing rain pool under melee camp, and a healing totem by the platform entrance to help when they come out from the platform. I managed to keep track on all the death rays, so I was on guard during the fight and didn’t die, except for the last 5 seconds, when he unloaded all his might right into my face, and I miscalculated the direction. So I followed the ray and died – and a pair of seconds from that did the boss.

Second, it’s Aman’thul ghosts, but it’s just the time when you sport your most potent cooldowns, and the rest depends on whether DPS guys manage to focus on the certain ghost, or they fail, and we all die.

Varimathras is a piece of cake – apparently for every role.

I can’t stop admiring how the very same boss experience is different for each of the four roles (tanks, healers, melee DPS and ranged DPS). So if you haven’t tried it, you may do :) The very same boss that you hate could be your favorite in another role.

Next: tanking.