Five thousand Alliance have fallen before me in battle on Draenor, earning me the Defender of Draenor achievement. A monument now commemorates this, standing next to my Gladiator’s Sanctum!
Speaking of the Gladiator’s Sanctum, I finished Nemesis: Worgen Hunter this weekend and have continued to Nemesis: Draenei Destroyer. I have four more races to slaughter, counting the draenei. I also became exalted with Vol’jin’s Spear. It was a productive weekend.
Ashran was incredibly fun at the start of the expansion, but eventually people stopped PVPing, opting to do events. Luckily the group finder makes it easy to find a Nemesis group – perfect for direct PVP. I’ve been having a wonderful time in Ashran, although part of that has to do with my own circumstances. I hurt my wrist a few months ago and didn’t like prolonged computer gaming. I wish I could say it got better, but actually, I just bought a wrist brace. Regardless, I can now spend hours in Ashran again. I’m not looking forward to the rarer races, but I’m definitely looking forward to “Warlord of Draenor.”
I’ve been running a lot of old raids recently in an effort to collect old tier gear. While i Was in Molten Core, I got this Core of Hardened Ash, which teaches the Ashstone Core. Pretty cool. Not done with this tier yet though.
I also obtained the Jewel of Maddening Whispers from AQ. It teaches a Mini Mindslayer. I particularly dislike gathering gear from the AQ raids. I don’t like having to deal with idols and scarabs. Ugh.
While I was in there, I did manage to hit exalted with the Brood of Nozdormu though. Yay! I’m almost done collecting gear from the AQ raids.
By this point, my bags were super full. I had to figure out a way to free up some bag space. One thing I did was spend my Spirits of Harmony on archaeology. I earned the What was Briefly Yours is Now Mine achievement for finding enough rares, but more importantly, I got this cute little Pterrordax Hatchling!
Warlords of Draenor sounds very cool and seems to be bringing a lot of great things. I don’t intend for this post to rehash all the news released at BlizzCon, but I still want to talk about my reaction.
The story
I love the direction of the story; Garrosh escapes and, with the help of the Timewalker Kairoz, travels back in time to Draenor. He stops the orcs from becoming corrupted by the Burning Legion and forms the Iron Horde. He then builds his own Dark Portal connecting that Draenor to our Azeroth. I know that anything relating to time travel can be confusing to people, but I kind of like that Blizzard basically told us not to worry about it and that there wouldn’t be any time paradoxes or consequences. I like it. It’s just an excuse for us to visit Draenor and interact with all the old orcs. Of course, this gives us a lot of potential. Seeing ruthless, old-fashioned orcs should be fun, and of course, experiencing Draenor will be great.
It could also be a vehicle for some interesting character development. What if Garrosh finds his father’s not what he expected? What if Grom thinks Garrosh is a failure? It’ll be fascinating. I also think Blizzard has a chance to do something great with Thrall. Thrall never had the chance to know his parents. We know Durotan is going to side with our Horde, but what if he’s different than Thrall imagined? Even if he’s a good guy, what if he’s still ruthless? What if he thinks the Horde is too soft? In addition, some characters could stick around after the end of the expansion. For example, Durotan could come through the Dark Portal to live on Azeroth.
I’m also fascinated by the idea of circumstance shaping a person, and I hope Warlords of Draenor examines this. I’d like to see some characters act very differently than they did in the original timeline due to the changed events in their lives.
Stats and itemization
Hit was always a boring stat to me. There was no strategy or choice. You just had to get hit-capped. I’m glad to see it and its fellow not-fun stats removed. Movement speed could be a fun stat on gear as well. Plus, being able to move quickly and get back to DPSing or healing means a DPS/HPS boost.
Having gear change to match the wearer’s current spec is very interesting. It means you can use more gear but that there’s more competition. Ultimately, I think it’ll make the game much more offspec-friendly.
Reforging seemed more needless than useful. On the other hand, it is nice to be able to change from a haste build to a crit build without changing gear. I almost feel like it would work better like changing specs. When you’re out of combat, you can could change builds. Oh well. We’ll have to see what it’s like for gems and enchants to be less common as well.
Garrisons
Garrisons are effectively the Sunsong Ranch farm crossed with the companion mission system of TOR (or other games) with a dash of Warcraft RTS. Sounds intriguing. I liked the farm even though it felt like a grind at times, so I’m optimistic about this. Honestly, it’s more of an evolution of the idea of keeps and followers from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It could be pretty fun.
Updated character models
Honestly, I don’t really care about this. I don’t understand it. My character is a pretty portion of my screen. When I play D&D, my representation is, at most, a small metal figure that isn’t even using an accurate weapon half the time. However, a lot of people do care, so I’m glad Blizzard’s doing it.
Boost to 90
I completely understand how some people are bothered by this, but I’m not at all. I’ve never had two characters at the level cap. With the character boost, I’m more likely to get a second to level 100. It’d be nice to check out some other styles of play, because I’ve only ever had my priest at endgame. In addition, being able to boost to 90 combined with updated character models mean that people who haven’t played WoW before can immediately begin playing what is effectively a new, modern game. That’s great.
Collections and quest items
These might be my favorite changes. Currently, mounts and pets are in collections rather than items. In Warlords of Draenor, toys, heirlooms, and possibly tabards will be in collections as well. That’s so much bag space I’ll be regaining. In addition, quest items won’t take up bag space. Finally. I’m pretty excited. The only downside is that I lost all those toys I earned previously. Maybe Blizzard could check that I did those quests and award me the toys. Please, Blizzard?
Raid changes
LFR is still LFR. Flex will be called Normal. Normal will be called Heroic. Heroic will be called Mythic. LFR, Normal, and Heroic will all be flexible (1o to 25 people) and cross-realm. Mythic will not be cross-realm and will be 20 people. As a normal-mode raider currently (so a heroic-mode raider next expansion) in a guild that struggles with attendance, this is great news. We recruit so we have 15-20 people, and then we take everyone every week. Awesome! I do feel bad for current 10-man heroic guilds, but it won’t be my problem at least.
Dailies and dynamic events
Dailies will not be widely used. Great. Dynamic events like those from the Timeless Isle will exist in the world. Also great if not overdone. In addition, they talked about wanting to combine the ideas behind the Isle of Thunder and the Timeless Isle. I think Blizzard is on to something, and I like to see them iterating on the way content is delivered. A combination of these two is exactly what I want.
Story quests
The map will tell you where the next story quest is, and it also indicates how many story chapters you’ve completed. This is awesome news. In Mists of Pandaria, I finished all the zones before I started raiding, and I only did a dungeon once I got to it in the story. It made for a nice, cohesive experience, but it also meant I took longer to get raid-ready. In Warlords of Draenor, I’ll skip all the non-story quests and come back to them. This should speed up the process significantly.
PVP interface updates
I don’t know how anyone could have a problem with being able to see capping progress on the map and on the flags themselves. This is a welcome change.
Warlords of Draenor
I’m pretty excited about all the aspects of the expansion. I’ll admit, things could go wrong. The quests could be boring, or the new content delivery mechanisms could be boring. I won’t know until I see the content. But I’m feeling hyped to experience it. Of course, I’d like to defeat Garrosh in normal-mode first!
A few weeks ago I became exalted with the Frenzyheart, my 45th exalted reputation. I would have posted about it at that time, but that wasn’t the end goal with the Frenzyheart. I wanted to become a Wolvar, and to do that, I needed to obtain Frenzyheart Brew.
Last week, I waited for my Disgusting Jar to ripen, opened by Ripe Disgusting Jar, and was rewarded with a Frenzyheart Brew, allowing me to transform into a Wolvar! I’m very excited, because the Wolvar are one of my favorite races in WoW. They’re so cute!
Now, sadly, I suppose it’s time to sever my ties with the Frenzyheart Tribe and begin to work for the Oracles. I’ll miss you, friends. (I’ll switch back later!)
Recently I’ve been finishing some reputation and profession grinds in Mists of Pandaria. You can see him chilling with Nat Pagle in his boat in my nice, new Nat’s Fishing Chair.
Of course, that’s because I’m best friends with him. No more fishing for his three rare fish every day.
Once I convinced Fish Fellreed to be best friends with me, I was best friends with all the inhabitants of Halfhill. Now that we’re best friends, I can say that I hate them all.
Speaking of Halfhill, I’ve mastered all of the Ways! I do still need to teach my own apprentice, but I’m putting that on hiatus. I’ve had enough with these grinds for now!
I recently hit exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent. My baby cloud serpent grew into the glorious Azure Cloud Serpent you see here! I was very excited to ride him, but honestly, it’s kind of an annoying mount. It’s huge, and while its movement looks fluid and pretty, it’s also distracting. This was the last true reputation grind for Mists of Pandaria (outside of two remaining friends) except for Huojin Pandaren.
I couldn’t have that! I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Because I wanted to run all the BC heroics that I never did, I threw on my Huojin tabard and got into those dungeons. It didn’t take long to hit exalted and earn Pandaren Ambassador.
For my trouble, I got this beautiful Pandaren Kite mount. It’s pretty nice! However, I still prefer my Disc of the Red Flying Cloud. It’s very small and can be used as both a land and flying mount. But the Pandaren Kite is very nice as well!
Now I just need to become best friends with Fish Fellreed and Nat Pagle.
This weekend I hit exalted with The August Celestials! That’s also the last reputation that needed farming, so there’s another thing I won’t need to do. I still need to gain reputation with the Order of the Cloud Serpent, however.
The August Celestials also marked the 40th reputation with which I reached exalted! Hooray!
I hit exalted with the Sunreaver Onslaught recently. I haven’t been dailies everyday, yet now I’m exalted multiple stages of the Isle of Thunder still ahead. Of course, many people are already exalted. It’s nice to see a reputation grind that isn’t quite so… grindy. I’ll still be doing the dailies when we unlock new stages, but I’ll probably go back to doing Shado-Pan and August Celestials dailies too. I’ve been impressed with the Isle of Thunder and patch 5.2 in general!
Earlier this week, the Horde completed phase one of the Isle of Thunder. I enjoyed what I saw of phase one, but the Horde needed a base on the island itself! When I showed up for my dailies that day, there was a single quest instead of dailies. This quest queued me for a solo scenario that tasked me with flying to the island, locating a Zanadalari outpost protected by a magic barrier, slaying the Zandalari inside, and taking down the barrier. It was a great of telling a story! You can watch me go through it in the video above.
With the Zandalari threat removed, Lor’themar was able to set up an outpost in the northwest section of the Isle of Thunder called the Dawnseeker Promontory. My favorite part? Well, my good friend Uda the Beast!
Uda the Beast was the Sunreaver innkeeper in Dalaran. I spent a lot of time with her during the War in Northrend because I loved her two wolves! I helped her evacuate with many other Sunreavers during the purging of Dalaran, and luckily she escaped with her wolves! Now she’s the innkeeper in Dawnseeker Promontory on the Isle of Thunder! You can see Mooglegem and me spending some quality time with her and her lovely wolves!
Note: There will be spoilers for the Golden Lotus reputation and quests in this post.
Recently Mooglegem and I had successfully retrieved three powerful artifacts once belonging to the mogu ruler, the Thunder King, and locked them away with the Golden Lotus standing guard. This past week the mogu hit the Vale very hard, and when we went to check on the artifacts, the guards were all dead and the artifacts were missing!
We began cleaning up the Vale by killing the mogu we encountered. When we approached Mogu’shan Palace, I saw a huge barrier of some sort. I joked that there must be a powerful discipline priest near because it looked like my Power: Word Barrier. Of course, what discipline priest would be strong enough to do this?
Apparently I forgot that there was one strong enough! We ran into Anduin Wrynn keeping the barrier stable. You know your in good hands when you encounter the Prince of Stormwind.
We assaulted the remaining mogu from the barrier Anduin provided and successfully drove them from the Vale. Returning to the Golden Pagoda, we were greeted with fireworks and congratulations. Despite how successful we might have been in killing the mogu, they did succeed in reclaiming the Thunder King’s artifacts. What do they have planned with those? I guess we’ll find out soon…
This weekend, Mooglegem and I became exalted with the Klaxxi. I enjoyed seeing their story unfold, but I was also very glad to put it behind us. I was very happy with it for a while, actually, but eventually it just got so repetitive. Once I’d done every daily 10 times, how exciting could it be to see it again? If you continue reading, there are some slight spoilers, but I’ll avoid the “big reveal.”
It was cool to see the story culminate in a fight between the Klaxxi and the queen’s forces. It was leading to it, and I was afraid Blizzard would neglect to show it to us. It was never explicitly stated as far as I can tell, but I wonder if the fight outside is why there aren’t Klaxxi with us in the Heart of Fear. We’re the representatives of the Klaxxi pushing inside while the rest of them hold back the bulk of the her forces outside.
I wonder if Blizzard knows they need to keep these reputation grinds more exciting? The Klaxxi was interesting, yes, but it was also about three times too long. You know what they could do to improve it? They could give me more non-daily quests that progress the story, say once every two days or so. Oh, yeah, they did that with Dominance Offensive. The Dominance Offensive is quite the grind as well, but I enjoy seeing the story play out as often as it does.
And now it’s time to get started with the Golden Lotus.