Less than Legendary

Ok, I had to wait over a year before I could write up this post, but here it is.  My reaction to the WoD Legendary Questline. *queues dramatic music*

Annnnnd the long awaited reaction is…… mildly disappointed.

But like all things, it wasn’t all bad.  While I think the Warlords Legendary questline had its moments, I didn’t find it as compelling as it’s MoP predecessor.

First things first, I want to point out how I am actually unusual in that I LOVE raid drop grinds.  I’m currently working on the Legendary questline on each of my toons and it’s been giving me a great incentive to keep running those LFRs.  Raiding is my favorite activity and when I can get something extra out of it like a legendary questline drop, that is just awesome! Sure, there are moments when I found the various stone, rune, and book drops frustrating (like when I spent over a month getting one stone per boss) but on the whole I found that part of the experience fulfilling. I also had the fantastic luck of finishing up with tomes after 55 HFC boss kills instead of the typical 77 so that last phase went even faster for me.

In addition, I also enjoyed Khadgar.  Reading his snarky quest text and then having him accidentally kill me was pretty humorous.  I thought his fixation on Gul’dan and then Garona a touch odd, but other than that I generally enjoyed my quest dialogue with him.

However, outside of the actually raid grind and Khadgar’s snark, I wasn’t so much a fan of the questline.  The non-raid quests were typically a pain.  I remember spending the better part of two hours working on the infiltration quest with Garona as she bugged out multiple times.  The kill 10 nondescript mobs out in a cave and loot an orb seemed kind of random.

I’ve spent so much time here

Also, doing the quests on a purely healing character meant I was spending a long time Denouncing everything down.  There was only quest where I could pick my role and heal, the rest I was forced to create a shockadin build (I mean, I can’t say I was too upset by this, I do love me some shockadin).  Compared to the Mists iteration where almost every quest was  togglable between three roles, Warlords is sadly lacking.  I mean, the ring I was slowly upgrading me wasn’t even helping me with those intermediary quests at all.  It seemed odd.

And don’t get me started on the shipyard.  I remember people complaining about the PvP section of the Mists one, but I would take a thousand PvP quests just to have avoided that shipyard section.  I from the beginning haven’t been a fan of the shipyard at all.  It was like garrison missions except worse because I was constantly under threat of losing my ships.  You could level a ship up to epic, only to have it sink the next day.  In addition to this, the shipyard just feels so impersonal.  You didn’t do anything to get those ships other than talk to a dude out on the beach.  There was no quest to go find them.

And even more infuriatingly, there was really nothing you could do to aid them on a mission if they weren’t already epic.  I remember grinding my teeth as I prayed to the RNGods to take mercy on my ships.  My skill (or lack of) had absolutely no impact on the success or failure of those ships.  For a final climactic part of the legendary, it wasn’t very exciting at all.

The lore of the legendary was pretty good, but I honestly didn’t feel all that invested in the story.  With Mists, the legendary tied into the story.  With Warlords, the legendary WAS the story.  And that story on it’s own just wasn’t very compelling.  I’m still not clear if we were attacking the ogres because we wanted to or because Khadgar asked us to.  We went from killing Garona to saving her in the space of two quests.  The Cordana betrayal served almost no story purpose.  Everything just felt… flat.

Yipee, I get a green shield for a couple of seconds

And the ring itself was also a bit of a let down.  While I’m not complaining, I don’t every actually get to click my own ring because I’m not the healer in my guild who is in charge of activating it.   I wish the ring was an actual model on our toons all the time.  I wish the visual effect was bigger and flashier.  The wing thingies in Mists were honestly really cool.  You knew right away that this player had worked their butt off to get that cape.  But you have no clue if someone has the ring by just looking at them when they idle in Stormshield.  Its a legendary, I want it to be flashy gosh darn it!

The biggest reason why I didn’t like the legendary questline however, was none of these.  Throughout the whole process, there was no challenge. The legendary questline wasn’t legendary.  The raids could be done on LFR and thus were fast.  The quests could be easily soloed by a healer class doing 3k dps (that is really telling).  I never felt tested, never had to pull out any stops, never even had to pay attention too much.  I miss that.  I missed the Trials of the Celestials and the Thunder Forge.  I miss having to look up how to best heal through a certain mechanic because it was too hard for me to figure out on my own. Everything was just too easy.  The time that the quest took was the only thing that held me back.

Just like many things in Warlords endgame, the Legendary questline did have potential but it just fell flat.  The main draw of the quest for me was the excuse to raid and I would think that Blizzard would want folks to enjoy the process of getting that ring more.  As it currently stands, I have one toon done, one toon on tomes, one toon on runes, and one toon on stones so I am pretty evenly spread. I will probably complete all my in-progress rings, but more because I like raiding than any desire I have to repeat the quest.  However, Blizzard has shown that it is willing and open for feedback (just take a look at some of the proposed changes for Legion) and I fully believe that the artifacts system will become a far better version of the legendary questline. Let’s just try to forget about the less than legendary Warlords one. 😛

What Counts as Content?

This actually has nothing to do with the article, I just thought it was a cool screenshot

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past couple of days, you have no doubt heard about patch 6.2.3, the latest patch in Warlords of Draenor.  However, as indicated by the number and lack of name of the patch, this newest update will not be a ‘major content patch’.  You can view the full patch notes here.

The patch itself seems to be a smaller one, but after reading it I was struck with the notion that this supposedly small patch actually had a ton of content.  Patch 6.2.3 could arguable be bigger than Patch 6.1 in fact.  In order to explain this, we will need to look at a much bigger question.

What counts as Content?
Most WoW players would define content as stuff to do in the game.  Questing, Dungeons, Battlegrounds, and especially Raids would all be considered content.  Content is further divided down by old content and new content.  Old content typically refers to quests, dungeons, and raids from a previous expansion, but it can also refer to ‘outdated’ and older content in the current expansion (Normal Dungeons and Highmaul would be examples from Warlords).  New content is raids, battlegrounds, zones and whatever else is part of the current expansion and currently being played through by the majority of WoW players.  A patch with content is usually one that introduces a new raid/battleground/dungeon/etc to the game and it typically is written with two numbers as opposed to three (Patch 6.2 versus Patch 6.2.3).

With all this in mind, one would think that deciding what is a content patch and what is not would be relatively easy.  However, this has turned out not to be the case.  Patch 6.1, the first major content patch in Warlords of Draenor was surprisingly light on content for a major patch.  The only new things that the Patch brought were a continuation to the legendary quest, the Garrison Jukebox, some more pet battle stuff, new blood elf models, Garrison bosses, and Twitter Integration.  No new raids or dungeons or battlegrounds to speak of.  No new questlines (other than a short addition to the legendary), no new max level hubs, nothing.  In comparison, Patch 5.1 Landfall brought us the new quest hub in Krasarang Wilds with a host of dailies, story, and rewards, Brawlers Guild, a slew of Pet Battle changes, the continuation of the Legendary Questline, and four new Scenarios.

In reality, Patch 6.1 was incredibly light on content.  Compared to all the other major patches in recent history, 6.1 was more of a hotfix than a content patch. However, that would mean that Warlords only would have one real content patch, 6.2.  Every single other expansion has had at least three major content patches; having just one in Warlords almost makes Warlords an expansion-lite instead of a complete story.

When you look at the original content that patch 6.2.3 brings us, it’s almost as light as 6.1.  A new PvP Season, a new set of Timewalker dungeons (I would consider this new content because of the upgraded rewards), and a mount.  Interestingly though, Patch 6.2.3 brings both dungeons and PvP content, two of the kings of content.

Be without Doubt, this doesn’t really pertain to the article either

However, there are two changes that patch 6.2.3 brings that I would argue make it a HUGE content patch.

Item Upgrades and Valor are back!
Item upgrades are back! Players will be able to earn and spend Valor to upgrade items from Hellfire Citadel, items created from Baleful tokens in Tanaan Jungle, and all Draenor dungeon drops. All the items you’ve already earned are eligible for upgrades retroactively.
Characters can earn Valor in a number of ways.

• Completing the first random Heroic Dungeon of the day
• Completing Mythic Dungeons
• Completing weekly Bonus Event quests
• Completing a Raid Finder wing for Highmaul, Blackrock Foundry, or Hellfire Citadel for the first time each week.

Mythic Dungeon Loot Improvements
Mythic Dungeons now have a chance to award items ranging from item level 685 to 725 in 5-item-level increments, with a progressively lower chance as item level increases.
Mythic Dungeon bosses now also have a chance to drop a new Heirloom Trinket that will scale up to level 110.

Neither change is adding new things to do in the game.  But what they are doing, is creating a new incentive to run old content.

Valor points allow players to increase the power of their gear, making it very appealing as another path for gearing up.  The sources of valor points are Heroic Dungeons (first per day), Mythic Dungeons, weekly Bonus Event quests, and LFR wings (first per week).  Many of these sources are considered outdated and are less often run.  But now that there is an incentive to run these things, people will begin running Dungeons and LFR in floods.  Content that was once old will again be current because it once again will have a worthwhile reward. This also will have the added bonus of getting knowledgeable and geared players into LFR, which will improve the speed of those runs.

The second half of this was the increased rewards to Mythic Dungeons.  Again, this will get more players who might not be completing Mythic Dungeons anymore back into them.  Previously older content is made relevant once more.

In addition to all this, there is also the highly controversial moose mount.  Love it or hate it, the moose also acts as a way of keeping content relevant for longer.  The highly desired mount is available for a limited amount of time from a limited source (Mythic and Heroic Archimonde).  Basically, it is another version of the wolf from Mists of Pandaria Garrosh.  The moose will keep players raiding Hellfire Citadel up until the day that the mount becomes unavailable because of it’s desirability. While the moose is just a couple of pixels, it will have the effect of keeping Hellfire Citadel relevant for months and months.

Patch 6.2.3 isn’t bring much in the way of new content, however it is making a huge amount of older content relevant again.  And when you consider all of that content as part of the patch, Patch 6.2.3 starts looking like a major content patch.  I honestly believe that Patch 6.2.3 should really be 6.3.  True, it is missing the massive amount of class tuning that major patches usually have, but it also has more content than previous ‘major content patches’ in this expansion. And in the grand schemes of Warcraft, Warlords could certainly use another major patch to bring it up to par with previous expansions.

Now we just need it to hit live realms!

Waiting for the patch like….

Over Flying in Warlords?

Patch 6.2.2 has dropped and flying is now available to those who wish to fly.  Fussypants and I have debated the merits of flying for several months, but I did not join the commentary since opinions were very strong.  Looking forward to Legion, it appears that we will be grounded again until we complete a series of quests, grinding, stories, or something.

One of Yotaan’s goals for this end of expansion doldrums was to grind out the necessary parts to provide flying for the rest of our toons.  That way Fussypants did not have to worry about it and she could enjoy raiding and guild leading  For me, I like to have a finite goal to achieve, and this worked well.  Yotaan had already completed the daily quests, and finding 100 treasures was actually fun.  Getting revered for the 2 needed factions was not too much of a challenge either and it was completed just prior to the patch dropping.

So for the past 2 weeks, we can fly!  (cue Peter Pan music)

And it doesn’t matter, except when in the garrison, you can get to the shipyard faster.

Which is the point of this whole debacle.  Flying really isn’t that important.  We went the majority of the expansion without it and I really didn’t miss it.  Certainly, I saw way more of the landscape up close and personal and, more importantly, I encountered more danger directly.  Going to Nagrand for the first time was a challenge, because I was afraid to pull those big elites on the northwest portion.  I had to be cautious.  It made it more a more immersive experience.  Being grounded was more fun.

Now, Yotaan can go anywhere without a worry.  He can just fly right over that big threat.   However, at this point in the expansion, that doesn’t matter anyway.  Yotaan is endgame geared (not as much as Fussypants, but enough) and there really aren’t big threats anymore.  Flying now is simply a time saver, nothing more than a convenience.  We don’t care about the pack of mobs in the way at the endgame.  Before flying Yotaan would simply barrel thorough on the ground and most of the time they would be chasing him.  That’s not much different than flying over.  One could argue that a lot of time is saved flying, but that is typically not the case since there are flight points everywhere for the taxi’s.  Even with flying being faster, it really is only a marginal change from traveling by ground or flight points.

Back in Wrath, you had to jump thorough some hoops to get cold weather flying.  It was not something you got at the initial portion of the expansion, it was later as your character developed.  Further back in BC, flying was introduced and it was very difficult to accomplish.  In Mists, you did not get flying immediately either.  Only in Cata did you have flying right away.   This pattern of flying at the end of the expansion make sense to me and I am glad they are doing it in Warlords.  It’s a nice little carrot to entice you to play for more.  And, you don’t even have to do it.

So I am over flying in Warlords.  Blizzard has set the initial experience to ground Yotaan and Fussypants in the beginning of an expansion, and that is just fine.

 

This article was written entirely by Yotaan.

A Walk back in Time

I finally got to enjoy some good old fashioned Wrath timewalker dungeons this weekend (after missing the first weekend of timewalking).  And while my only memories of these dungeons are from leveling, I still found the experience quite enjoyable!

The first (and arguable the most exciting aspect for myself) thing that I noticed about timewalking was that it scaled down your gear to level.  Not only did this help the level the playing field, but this also meant that gear from earlier expansions suddenly became relevant.  I was taking Yogapants out for the timewalking spin, the character that I had done Herald of the Titans on.  This meant I had a set of gemmed, enchanted, and totally awesome tanking gear saved in my bank from Ulduar.
Even though I completed Heralds a few months ago, it felt pretty awesome to get back into my old gear.  My transmog was saved as well, so I looked pretty amazingly stylish.  I also pulled out my singular Warglaive of Azzinoth.  If you’re going to do it, go whole hog!

Now onto the actual dungeons.  I had not actually completed these dungeons in heroic mode, so there were new mechanics (and in some cases, bosses) for me to learn.  But they were the same dungeons that I had spent so many leveling trips through.  The familiarity was welcoming.

My gear and level was scaled down which also meant my health and damage were.  As a tank, I found myself having to bust out more cooldowns than usual.  I had to be on my toes for interrupts, CCs, and bursts of damage. While that took some getting used to, on the whole I enjoyed the increased difficulty.  If these dungeons had been facerolls I doubt I would have done as many as I did.

The gear dropped was admittedly rather boring.  Sure, it brought back the iconic Wrath look (fur, spikes, and brown!) but the stats were meh.  And everything I got was either critical strike (boring) or versatility (gross).   While some of the gear was an upgrade for me, the stats were poorly itemized for my spec.  I could just have been unlucky, but I would like to see some mastery, multistrike, or haste gear if at all possible.

But I didn’t run the dungeons for the gear, I ran them for the experience.  And on that front, they did not disappoint.  I will admit it felt a little weird to be running in places like the Nexus and not watching an experience bar for a ding.  On the whole though, I had a very enjoyable time.  Would I want to see Timewalkers be an all-time thing? Not particularly, but as a holiday weekend activity they were quite fun!

Wrapping up Warlords?

A recent interview between Mammytwink and Zecharia and Lead Game Designer Cory Stockton has revealed a lot of key details about future content in WoD.  Namely Hellfire Citadel is most likely the last raid in Warlords and 6.2 the last content patch.  While Blizzard gave themselves plenty of breathing room to add more content if it is needed, the fact remains that we are at the end stage of this expansion.
Before I dive into a lengthy explanation of my opinion on the matter, I think it might be wise to review what this expansion has been thus far.

November 8, 2013 – Warlord of Draenor, the 5th expansion of the Warcraft MMO, is announced at Blizzcon
Some lucky Blizzcon go-ers are able to play an early version of the game.  WoD is described as beautiful to look at, but not very far along development wise

June 27, 2014 – Warlords of Draenor begins closed beta testing
A large chunk of time passes and WoD finally opens for beta testing.

November 13, 2014 – Warlords of Draenor Officially Launches
The Dark Portal opens and players pour into the timey-wimey alternate universe world of Draenor.  First impressions are fantastic: questing is the best in game and the world looks beautiful.  However, a lack of endgame content, weak profession design, and dependence on the garrison burns some players out rather quickly.  The expansion costs $10 more than previous expansions.

February 24, 2015 – Patch 6.1 drops, the first major patch of Warlords
Despite being a major patch, 6.1 is rather light on content.  Twitter integration, the last of the new models, heirloom tab, and garrison changes are all added.  General consensus is that this is a minor patch at best, and the leftover cleaning up from launch at worst.
Shortly after, Blackrock Foundry opens up and the first raid tier is finished.

June 23, 2015 – Patch 6.2 drops, the second (and final?) major patch of Warlords
6.2 is the first patch with actual content added to the game.  The patch brings Tanaan Jungle, the Shipyard, Hellfire Citadel, Mythic Dungeons, and assorted Bonus events such as Timewalking.  Much of the content feels like final patch content and Tanaan bears many similarities to Timeless Isle.
When you look at the overview of WoD, it seems truncated somehow.  Almost as if we are missing a patch in between 6.1 and 6.2. On top of this, the endgame content and story has been rather weak.  When you compare with Mists, the expansion just before, Warlords seems rather… lame.

I think Blizzard’s attempt at pushing out content at a faster rate has seriously crippled the Warlords expansion.  There was huge potential for an epic remix of Burning Crusade but what we got was not quite that.  The WoD we got was a half finished ‘almost expansion’.

Warlords hasn’t been all terrible though.  I strongly believe that the leveling of this expansion is the best in game.  The storytelling in the 90 to 100 experience is truly amazing. Cinematics, treasures scattered about, and all the little details help to build a complete and fantastic experience.  And, the leveling experience is very repeatable.  I truly hope that Blizzard recognizes WoD’s leveling experience for it’s strengths and uses the same design next expansion.

The endgame unfortunately has been less successful.  This has been covered time and time again, so I don’t need to go into much detail.  The general idea was that there was little to do or nothing compelling, and after particularly strong leveling content this really showed.

6.2 being the last patch is slightly disappointing to me.  Not because the patch itself is light on content (on the contrary, this patch could easily last myself personally a year) but because of the track record of the expansion.  If we end Warlords like this, the expansion will feel unfinished and half done. No other expansion has felt this way.  Even Cataclysm, for all it’s faults, felt like a whole expansion.  Warlords as it is feels like it is missing parts.

So I sincerely hope that Warlords is not over with 6.2. Maybe we will still go to Faralon? Maybe we can deal with the fungus that threatens to swallow Draenor?  Maybe we can learn more about the titan influence on the planet? There are so many loose ends that Blizzard can pick from to tie up.  Warlords needs at least one more patch to ‘complete it’.

Because as it stands, Warlords has had exactly one patch with actual game content.  Mists, the expansion right before had four.  Four patches where new content, new dailies, new zones were added.  In order to hold up to a precedent like that, WoD needs at least one more totally awesome batch of content.  I suppose Blizzard could just cut their losses now and wrap up Warlords quickly but that will stain their reputation.  And while Warlords was an ‘almost’, it shouldn’t be a stain.

Patch 6.2 Impressions

6.2 has officially dropped, unlocking Tanaan Jungle, shipyards, mythic dungeons, a raid, and much more for the players to explore. Especially since the patch came after a long drought of content, the Fury of Hellfire has been the talk of the community. So what have Fussypants and Yotaan been doing?

 

Fussypants: I have been eagerly awaiting this patch! The new content is great fun to do together with my guild and I really enjoy the ‘Timeless Isle’ nature of Tanaan Jungle. My one complaint is, like most content, it is not really geared towards healers. So consequently, all of my exploration of Tanaan has been with others. Because of this, I am probably not as far along as others with the rep grinding and whatnot. This is of little important though; I am really enjoying exploring the zone. And finding all the hidden treasures has been one of the coolest thing.

 

On the shipyards front, I am less impressed. I wasn’t all that excited about shipyards in the first place and I’m just luke-warm about it now that I have one. My problem is two-fold. First, it seems so hard to get off the ground and start actually getting useful things from the shipyard. The rewards for the naval missions are rather boring and I often can’t get over 80% on the mission success rate. In addition, everything is so spread out! It’s a trek down to the docks, and then another trek between the ship making guy and the ship sending guy. I know this might sound like lazy complaining, but the time really does add up. All together, the shipyard hasn’t really been worth my interest, so I haven’t really done anything with it.

 

But the rest of 6.2 has been superb. I can’t wait to start running some mythic dungeons with my guild and really digging deep into the secrets of Tanaan. Oh, I almost forgot the best change! You can spacebar through the garrison mission animations. I don’t use MasterPlan (and was chuckling when it was down for those two days and y’all were dying) so I was using the default UI which used to take forever. But not anymore! *happy dance*

The most I have done with this place is give my ships silly names, honestly (Fussypants)

 

Yotaan: Well, my interest in WoW has been very low lately. I stopped playing for several weeks. Yotaan languished in his garrison, looking for something to do. He heard that Fussypants was busy, but he just didn’t care. Then, news of 6.2 came along. Hmmm, somewhat interesting, but nothing compelling, really. But one significant change gave Yotaan a goal, finally something to work towards. Flying. While I have not been a proponent of flying in the game, it was intriguing enough to go after. And Yotaan ventured out the garrison, doing Apexis dailies and gathering treasures. He even raided with Fussypants once!

 

Now 6.2 has dropped, and there is stuff to do! Honestly, I haven’t gotten very far, but it has been interesting. The on-rails feeling was there to get to Tanaan, but it was an enjoyable set of quests. I am not so sure about the shipyard, and why did have to rescue the rebel orc shipwright? The night elf dude is making my ships! My other quibble is that the story is disjointed if you don’t raid. All of a sudden Gul’dan is in charge, and I don’t know why. Anyhow, it has been great to finally do some new things and see new sights. Yotaan will be working on those reputations to get flying for him and Fussypants. Of course, he will explore all he can and get that flying mount!

 

Fussypants: Oh yeah, I forgot about that, thanks for reminding me Yotaan! I also thought that the ‘And Gul’dan said Let there be Fel, and there was Fel, and Gul’dan saw the Fel was Good’ switch was rather abrupt. We go from fighting the Iron Horde all expansion to suddenly hello! Burning Legion!

Also why did the Alliance have to go get that orc guy anyways? We have countless engineering feats (Stormwind Harbor, Deeprun Tram, Skyfire, to name a few) so why couldn’t we build a simple dock and some ships? We recruit the orc and then he just disappears? I think that might have been Blizzard’s way of showing the collapse of the Iron Horde, but they could have come up with a better reason for the Alliance to recruit the orcish shipwright.

 

So what did you guys think of 6.2?

 

Note: Fussypants and Yotaan are going on vacation for a bit, so there will not be a blog post next week. Us writers need a summer too!

Transmog Time: Fashion Fusion

I love mixing and matching different ‘official’ gear sets. And apparently, this is a cardinal sin of transmog but I especially love mixing sets from different expansions. Sometimes, one can really tell the age difference of those pixels. But every so often, I get it right. And what I create is a great fusion of two different eras of WoW.

Today’s sets aren’t entirely fusion sets but a good number are! I am featuring a lot of plate and cloth after the leather heavy last article. Without further ado, here they are!

Draenor Spellcaster

I always loved the cloth BoA set that the garrison Bunker/Mill sold. However, I was not as big a fan of the rather revealing nature of the robes from that set. And on the other hand, I’ve always loved this chest model from BC. So I took pieces from both and fused them together! I think this one turned out really nicely! Since both are from ‘Draenor’ of sorts, it keeps with the extraterrestrial and rugged theme. The pieces of set should be very easy and inexpensive to obtain, which is another bonus!

The chest piece can come in either robe or shirt model, which lets you choose if you want to wear a skirt or pants.

Chest: Eternal Chestguard (shirt)                or: Eternal Wraps (robe)

Pants: Shadowmoon Leggings                   Shoulder: Shadowmoon Shoulderguards 

Head: Shadowmoon Cowl                          Hands: Eternal Gloves

Feet: Eternal Boots                                     Waist: Shadowmoon Sash

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Iron Paladin

This set unfortunately is restricted to paladins only, which is a shame because it’s such a great plate set. I mixed WoD PvP gear with a personal favorite of mine- the Overlord plate set. The result was a more rugged (might I say… savage?) paladin set that works great for displaying tabards. I picked the Shado Pan tabard because the colors contrasted nicely, but any tabard would work well.

Chest: Overlord’s Chestplate                                      Pants: Overlord’s Legplates

Head: Overlord’s Crown                                              Wrists: Overlord’s Vambraces

Waist: Primal Gladiator’s Girdle of Victory                  Tabard: Shado-Pan Tabard

Shoulder: Primal Gladiator’s Scaled Shoulders (paladin only)

Hands: Primal Gladiator’s Scaled Gauntlets (paladin only)

Feet: Primal Gladiator’s Warboots of Prowess

 

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Aldor Sorcerer

I almost didn’t want to share this next set; I liked it that much. But since I love you guys that much, I will show you the Best Transmog for Draenei Mages Evah™. The set is a mix of BC tiers with a WoD staff added in. I absolutely love the colors and mageyness and I think the set actually looks good on any race! (But best on draenei). And excepting the head, the rest of the set is not class restricted!

 

Chest: Robes of Effervescent Light               Shoulder: Mana-Sphere Shoulderguards   

Head: Cowl of the Tempest (mage only)       Hands:   Energis Armwraps

Feet: Silent Slippers of Meditation                 Waist: Oracle Belt of Timeless Mystery

Staff: Sol’s Magestaff (Normal mode drop)

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Radiant Light

This was another one of those ‘I want to keep this all to myself’ sort of sets, but I decided to post it all the same. I’m sure versions of this have been done before, but I really, really like this one that I made. It’s everything that a paladin should be: radiant, glorious, and shiny. And you guessed it; it’s also paladin restricted.

Chest: Breastplate of Radiant Glory (paladin only)          Feet: Pillarfoot Greaves

Shield: Skyguardian’s Shield                                           Sword: Azuresong Mageblade

Pants: Vicious Gladiator’s Scaled Legguards (paladin only)

Shoulder: Vicious Gladiator’s Scaled Shoulders (paladin only)

Hands:   Vicious Gladiator’s Scaled Gauntlets (paladin only)

Waist: Vicious Gladiator’s Clasp of Cruelty (paladin only)

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Wizard in Blue

I’ve always loved the style of the Tier 4 Mage set, but I try not to transmog an entire tier. So I took bits and pieces of the PvP recolor, matched it with a classic robe, and voila! I like the simplicity and mystery as well as the color coordination of this one! (And yes, this is mage only)

Chest: Robes of Shame              Shoulder: Merciless Gladiator’s Silk Amice (mage only)

Waist: Veteran’s Silk Belt             Head: Merciless Gladiator’s Silk Cowl (mage only)

Hands: Merciless Gladiator’s Silk Handguards (mage only)

Feet: Veteran’s Silk Footguards

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Golden Fire

And last but not least, an oldie but goodie! Two versions for you to mix and match with! (And no class restrictions)

Chest: Conqueror’s Breastplate                      or: Hyperion Armor

Pants: Legplates of Blazing Light                   Shoulder: Replica Lightforge Spaulders

Head: Crown of Empowered Fate

Feet: Magma Tempered Boots                       Weapon: Blade of the Titans

Hands: Heretic’s Gauntlets                             or: Fiery Plate Gauntlets 

Waist: Hyperion Girdle                                   or: Girdle of the Fallen Crusader

 

 

Lots of paladin, mage, and PvP gear this time round! I think my next challenge will be to create some good mail sets since that is the one type of gear I haven’t hit yet.

What do you think of these? Any suggestions or improvements you would recommend?

 

The Apex of My Loathing

I don’t like apexis crystals.  In fact, it wouldn’t be untoured to say that I hate apexis crystals.  However I’m not one to rant without reason.  So let me tell you why I dislike those infernal little shards of the past.

First of all, Apexis crystals are really small.  Or they must be, because it takes so dang many of them to buy even the lowest tier of gear.  And because it takes so many crystals to buy things, there is a feeling that it is that much harder to obtain gear.  Back in the day of Justice Points and Valor Points, it required less of that currency to buy the comparatively same gear.  And while the rate of acquisition balances out, it certainly feels like it’s a lot harder to use currency to buy upgrades.

The second issue is that Apexis crystals are gathered differently than previous currencies.  With Justice and Valor Points, you could earn them from daily quests (which I’m glad is gone) or running dungeons/raids/scenarios.  But with Apexis crystals, you either do one daily for a large amount, you get lucky with work orders, you can do some garrison missions, or you grind elites for hours. I think this is the crux of the matter.  You can’t do instances to get crystals.

The way it used to work was you ran instances in hopes of getting new gear.  Then in case you didn’t what you needed, you went and used the points to buy gear that you couldn’t upgrade.  That way you always got something out of an instance, even if the bosses gave you no drops.  That also acted as an incentive to get those who might not need the gear from an instance to run the instance.  Meaning in LFR, there was always at least one overgeared person to pull you along.

But instead of grinding instances to get better gear, you now must grind mobs.  A grind is grind, right?  Wrong.  Grinding instances was an experience.  You could chat with other instances members (or fight with them).  You could help friends gear up by running them through.  You could stoke your ego and burn things down with your awesome gear.  But a mob grind? You mindlessly murder hundreds of mobs for hours.  Mob grinding is repetitive, dull, and anti- social.  Plus, tanks and healers especially can’t mob grind nearly as effectively as dps.  Instances, no matter how many times you do them, are more interesting than mob grinds.

As a healer (with a tank offspec) I can’t really grind mobs.  And besides that, I would way rather run an instance.  In effect, apexis crystals have destroyed alternative gearing methods for me.  And, they’ve taken away my incentive to run instances once I no longer need gear.

I know there are other methods of getting apexis crystals, but they are not as controllable.  The missions options change almost daily.  Work orders are completely random.  The daily is dependable, but you can only get your 800-1000 and you are done for the day.  I miss the flexibility of justice/valor points.

With the vast number required to buy a single piece and the time commitment and unenjoyable grinds attached, I definitely think that Apexis Crystals are a weaker aspect of this expansion. It’s completely possible that I’m doing this whole thing wrong, but they have been no use to my gearing up process.  I’ve bought maybe one or two pieces of gear.  Apexis Crystals just aren’t doing it for me.

All about that Base….

I was wrong.

 

And it’s a little tough to admit.

 

I’m playing WoW and it’s all about my garrison.

 

As you might remember, Fussypants and I wrote an article about garrisons wherein we discussed our thoughts and plans. I had written that it would be too much work, that Yotaan did not get very far in the farm, that it would be better if it all was account bound, and the mini-game aspect would not be engaging. I made a foolish Clash of the Clans comparison.

 

Cause of course, now, the garrison is the main reason I play any of my toons. I will log in and immediately check on those follower missions. Fat loot! Then Yotaan dashes over to the salvage yard (okay, some comments here – the salvage yard is the best thing since sliced bread but why is it so far away in Alliance garrisons? My hordie rogue does not nearly need to travel as far – Horde Bias?) and discovers more fat loot in those great crates. Yay!!! Time to level up the followers and boost their ilevels! All leading to the next step, more missions.

 

I have no idea why I enjoy the followers so much but that alone has kept me playing my max toons and even my ones in the lower 90’s. Perhaps there is just enough reward to entice further play. Certainly there is the feel of progression with leveling, and I think that feeling is multiplied with more followers – look, all 3 went up, at the same time!

 

Not all is perfect in garrison-land though. Sadly, professions are profoundly uninteresting and seem to be mostly useless. This is the first time that Yotaan’s leatherworking has barely advanced at all. I had thought that getting the Barn, initially as a way to obtain savage blood, would be fun. Trapping wildlife seems cool, but the actual process is a little tedious and very much a time sink. The leather production from the Barn is too slow as well. The leatherworking garrison options are just not enticing.

 

And yet, I am enjoying the stables, which I surprising. Catching new mounts is surprising fun. Yotaan is the collector of mounts of our cadre of alts, so that is biasing me a bunch. Plus, seeing a fat pandaren on the little talbuk is always funny.

 

Yotaan has become a bloodthirsty gladiator as well. I have leveled up the gladiator’s sanctum and have ran Ashran with Fussypants. If you join a group in Ashran and fight on the main road, then you become loaded in broken bones. Those bones are the currency for your sanctum for more, you guessed it, Fat Loot! Most of Yotaan’s pvp gear has come from there rather than vendors and you can see him in his finest in the picture.

 

So, shockingly, the feature I had the least amount of interest in, the garrison, has become my focus of play. I hope there will be added features in upcoming patches, cause it really is all about my base.

 

 

This post was entirely written by Yotaan.

 

No More Learning in LFR

The best way I learn things in video games is through experience.  Reading and watching videos can only get me so far; to really understand how to do things, I have to go out and try it.  That’s how I learned to heal, learned to raid, and learned to PvP.  I just went out and did it.

However with many things, its very hard to just throw yourself out there with little previous knowledge.  Queuing up for my first dungeon ever as a healer was pretty stressful.  I had no idea what to expect, but more importantly I didn’t know how the other people would react to my admission of this being my first time.  I’ve been in groups where people are totally supportive and I’ve been in groups where people tear me to bits because of my lack of knowledge.

A safe and hands on experience is the best way that I learn how to do something new.  I observe all that is going on without fear of being ridiculed.  Even better are the times when people explain portions to me.  Everything new I’ve learned to do in this game has been through trying new things hands on, not reading about it online.

The same notion applies to learning a new raid.

I used to be able to hide in the crowd in LFR and learn the mechanics by watching what was going on.  For SoO, I was able to take my LFR experience and successfully transition into actual raiding, getting all the way to Heroic (which was then called normal) Garrosh.  I picked up my knowledge from the hands on experience in LFR and then felt confident to move up on the raiding difficulty scale.

Unfortunately, LFR is no longer difficult, which is both a blessing and a curse.  It is a blessing because LFR is even more of a safe environment to get hands on experience in.  Because it is so trivial, LFR gives a lot of leeway for mistakes.  But on the flip side of the coin, the LFR experience is so different from the rest of the raiding experience that I can no longer learn encounters in it.  The only way I’ll know what to do, is if I join a normal raid.

You might think “Well, that’s not too bad! Normal raiding isn’t really hard!” and I would agreed.  Unfortunately, that is not the mindset of most normal groups.  They don’t want to bring along someone who is learning because it would slow them down.  I would be a liability, so no normal group wants to bring me.  And if they do happen to bring me, I get kicked almost instantly if I make any mistake, no matter how small.  Normal is not a safe learning environment.  It’s the real world, and all people care about it speed.

So this is where I’m stuck right now.  I don’t have the knowledge or safe environment to learn the raids.  And because of this, I have been completely unable to raid all expansion.  I really do want to, but I do not have a group that will take me.  My guild isn’t raiding for a bit (and besides, I’d want some experience going into that) and all my other friends who raid are horde.

I sort of guessed that this would become the case, I was just too blind to see that I would be affected by it.  So right now I’m kinda stuck.  I need what’s in the raids I can’t get into so I can get in said raids.  Wicked catch 22 isn’t it?  What would you guys suggest I try?  And is anyone else encountering this problem?

 

Addendum: There was going to be a massive garrison article on Thursday but unfortunately, after an hour of typing, the whole thing froze up and crashed as I was trying to save it.  Needless to say, I lost that entire article and the desire to rewrite it.  Hence the end of the week posting!