The Darkspear Dash was a couple weeks ago in World of Warcraft. It’s a new micro holiday based on the fan event, the Running of the Trolls. The fan event raised money for The Trevor Project, which focuses on suicide prevention for LGBTQ+ youth.
The event started with a beach party on the Echo Isles and then a run across Mulgore, through a portal to the Eastern Kingdoms, and then north to Silvermoon.
I did not show up for the official run time, so I wasn’t doing it with others. But I really enjoyed all the bright colors and fun and the fact that the game is acknowledging a long held fan event.
Dragonflight’s pre-patch event provided a nice way to level alts. I had 6 max level characters when the pre-patch released, and on the day of Dragonflight’s release, I had 18 level 60 character! And yet I still don’t have a level 50+ highmountain tauren to unlock their heritage armor.
Please note that I’ll be discussing quests in this post without regards to spoilers.
The expansion release was a mess for me at first. Apparently things were okay the first half hour or so, but by the time I tried to play, Orgrimmar and Durotar were empty, and I kept getting “instance transfer aborted” error messages. On the plus side, I got to ride my rocket indoors!
Eventually I was able to see everyone. Like most people, the zeppelin did not want to show up for me. Eventually I saw a reddit post suggesting you could summon people to a dungeon in the Dragon Isles, and it worked! Thank you to my guildmates for summoning me to the Isles!
The Waking Shores
Once we reach the Dragon Isles, we have to backtrack across the zone from the dungeon to where we should have arrived. Cool zeppelin!
Alexstrasza’s new model is detailed and looks great. I’m looking forward to helping the aspects more!
Bulleto and I are little whelps!
The lava mammoths are amazing enemies. I need to level a hunter because I want one, and I can’t wait to get a mount.
This was from a later zone, but I thought I’d include it here. These were just a temporary buff, but it was fun to ride them!
I don’t know what to think about Sabellian vs Wrathion, and I could write a lot more about them. Wrathion acts like he’s always acting in our best interest, but he’s made a lot of stupid decisions and then didn’t even show up in Legion. Are we supposed to remember that, or was that bad writing? On the other hand, Sabellian hasn’t even been around in years. Who should I hope becomes the new aspect?
Hanging out with Bulleto!
Did… did Bulleto transform into a whelp and take a little lava bath in that cauldron of lava? I think so!
I didn’t think I’d like dragonriding much because my friend and I use two person mounts a lot while questing.
I was quite surprised to see you can enable the ability to let someone ride your dragon with you. They even get to turn into a little whelp! Of course, we now know dragonriding is super awesome and amazingly fast!
Ohn’ahran Plains
I never really cared about the centaur previously, and I still wouldn’t say they’re one of my favorite races. However, their inclusion in Dragonflight just makes the world seem so much more grounded. I like seeing races that were present in classic. And I love the architecture and world around these Maruuk centaur!
Especially cool is Sansok Khan, the tall centaur on the right in this screenshot. She’s the leader of her clan, and she’s deaf. Okir, the centaur next to Sansok Khan, speaks on her behalf, translating Sansok Khan’s sign language. Sansok Khan’s quest text starts with As Sansok Khan signs, Okir vocalizes. The dog next to Sansok Khan is Basran. It appears you can pet him as you can other dogs in World of Warcraft, but when you click him, you get this: You extend a hand to offer Basran pets, but he stays stoically next to his khan. Basran is currently working and you should not pat service dogs on duty. How amazing is that? I really like the representation, and she’s a cool character in general.
This was one of the longest quests I’ve ever experienced – or at least it felt that way. You escort the caravan and listen to the centaurs tell their history. It was a little hard for me to focus, but I still like to soak up all the lore.
I love how green and beautiful the zone is.
Yay, we get to ride him!
I thought the green dragons’ area was pretty too.
The Azure Span
Who knew a powerful mage could control their mirror images independently? Kalecgos knows, apparently.
Seeing Sindragosa, or at least a simulacrum of her, is an amazing moment. We don’t really know how sentient this is, but she sure feels like a character in her own. I hope we interact with her more!
Finally, we get to the tuskarr! This is the best and cutest race in the game, and you better believe I would be a tuskarr if they ever made them an allied race. I can’t believe Blizzard said there are no plans for allied races in Dragonflight, but I’m still hoping.
I really thought the tuskarr for which we were searching was dead, but his feign death tricked me. Bulleto is so upset that he feigns death.
Relaxing with Kalecgos and our new tuskarr friends.
During a quest with some tuskarr and Kalecgos in which we’re battling the decay, the tuskarr Kaqiata dies. Her dying words are “Please, tell my son Rowie in Iskaara that I love him. And I’m sorry.”
We meet her son Rowie later and help him “defeat” this yeti. This was a such a cute quest!
We also helped the tuskarr say good bye to Chieftain Ponoliak and learn about their funeral ceremonies. It’s another sad yet touching quest.
The tuskarr children are just super adorable!
And so is this frog!
Some tuskarr children want to help this abandoned baby gnoll they named Scraps. I thought it was cute, and I’m looking forward to this being referenced again later I’m sure.
This quests tasks us with helping Elder Poa with her stories. Elder Nappa suggests we get Elder Poa a new story – even if we have to make it up! Elder Poa takes the quest answers and spins a story from it.
You can also read it here.
This one is Bulleto’s!
The zone ended with the blue dragonflight coming together to help Kalecgos. It was to be expected from the major story beats of the zone but was exciting nonetheless!
Thaldraszus
Eventually we reached Thaldraszus, the final zone and home of the dragon city Valdrakken. You’d think a city made for dragons would have chairs spaced a little further apart.
Due to some time shenanigans with the bronze and infinite flights, I met my future self here. Why does his armor look worse?
When I get sent back in time, I’m not expecting this. Camp Narache?! (Of course, when my character lived this, it was vanilla and not Cataclysm.)
A timeline where the Horde and Alliance are murlocs has to be one of the coolest things in the game.
Even the map is modified!
Here I am with Bulleto, Varian Wryngrrlgulgll, and Thrallgrulgulgul. Deathwingurlugull is in the background!
Who are those murloc heroes with us? Why, they’re Bulleto and Sotiros the murlocs of course!
We even found Baine Blrrgfin!
Here’s a clip of this awesome quest.
We’re sent even further back in time to before the titans ever came to Azeroth and the Black Empire ruled. Don’t worry, we make it home.
Bulleto and I fit better at this table even if Sumo hogs the camera while Chompsky stands nicely in the back!
Need a break from adventuring? Maybe you could get some cheese from Gorgonzormu.
It would go perfect with some wine from Zinfandormu!
Well, maybe I’m off to have some cheese and wine in Valdrakken. See you on the Dragon Isles!
Recently I went back to get my DK class mount from Legion. I had finished the order hall campaign and figured it couldn’t be too much work to get the mount. At one time you had to finish the Legionfall campaign, but it seems that’s no longer the case. I doubt it took me longer than an hour or two to get the mount. Spoilers for the quest series follow.
The quests involve finding the remains for a powerful red dragon and raising it in undeath. One quest has you enter the Ruby Sanctum. Originally, there was a feat of strength you could earn for slaying all the red dragons in the sanctum, but Blizzard removed it because they decided it wasn’t fair to give a reward like that for something you could miss. Since it was removed by the time I tried to do the quest, I took the opposite approach; I got in and out without killing anything.
Here’s a video I edited together of the lore parts of the quest series. Starting at 9:26 you can see the three forms of the mount. I mostly play unholy, but I think it’s the worst variation. I like the frost one!
We decided to clear normal Sanctum of Domination before heading into heroic. We defeated normal Sylvanas on our fourth raid night, which was in the second week of the raid. In heroic, we’re now three bosses into the raid with The Nine falling this week. As mentioned in the title, there will be some spoilers in this post.
I got the Sanctum Gloomcharger’s Reins on my second defeat of The Nine, which was actually in LFR. I’m not sure of the drop rate, but it doesn’t seem too high. It’s a pretty cool mount!
We’re struggling against Soulrender Dormazain in heroic for now, but at least we’re making progress and getting better. This is a pretty cool fight, and I really enjoy seeing Garrosh again.
Here’s the cutscene at the end of the fight courtesy of wowhead. I think this is a pretty good end to Garrosh’s arc. No redemption. He is who he is, and he does feel remorse for his actions. He goes out fighting and even screaming “for the Horde!”
And then I guess he becomes a pile of ash. Oh well.
And this is how I feel after wiping repeatedly to Soulrender Dormazain in heroic! Okay, actually things have been going well, but I thought I’d end the post there. Happy raiding!
Death Rising, the Shadowlands pre-patch, had some interesting story points, lots of gear for catching up alts and unlocking transmog, and a small but fun plague event. I enjoyed the bits of story and character development, and I farmed rares like crazy.
Calia Menethil is in the screenshot above; she’s an interesting character given her important bloodline and rather unique status of Light-infused undead. Plus, her character model! That outfit is sick!
Watching Taelia find out about her father, the former Lich King, Bolvar, was pretty cool too. It’s no surprise she wasn’t happy to have been kept in the dark, and I look forward to seeing what Blizzard does with her and Bolvar. I suspect I’ll find out relatively soon, but I’m not sure since I’m staying in the dark about Shadowlands.
The rare farming for drops was kind of crazy, especially around Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls and holder of bags! I managed to get one Papa’s Mint Condition Bag for Devee, my main. (Edit: I also just got one on Sotiros!) And I may have helped gem get some… including 1 duplicate by mistake. Oops. But 7 of her characters ended up with the bag, which is insane.
I also loved how for some reason, tons of people transforming into Gamon became a thing for Bronjahm! Apparently I didn’t take a screenshot, but I did take a photo of my phone once when I was the one to kick it off.
I also managed to get two Accursed Keepsakes!
I killed as many rares as I could. All 12 of my max-level toons managed to purchase all possible upgrades from the Argent Crusade and get everything for transmog. I also swapped characters per rare depending on what dropped and got a lot of drops even if I know a few ilvl doesn’t make a big difference.
I guess I got obsessive, but it was a bit of fun! It’s the little moments, like lining up on the Headless Horseman’s mount.
I posted about Nathanos previously, but he was a fun world boss that hit hard!
I think a lot of people underestimated him… look at all those skeletons!
The zombie event wasn’t very disruptive at all. In fact, I kind of wish it was more disruptive. It was hard to get infected and find battles between the living and dead. gem and I spent time claiming the Stormwind portal room for the Scourge!
Here’s a clip of me infecting and killing gem in Stormwind!
I think the weirdest thing about the event was the random dailies. I kept track of which ones I did and compared to lists online, and there were two dailies that I never saw pop up at all. Oh well, but I like to do everything I can.
All in all, it was nice little event. It gave the community something new to come together and do, helped gear up alts, and had some pretty cool little moments.
Thanks to a shaman with Glyph of the Spectral Raptor and a Reflecting Prism, my tedious Crucible of Storms LFR (hunting transmog) became a lot more fun. We were a raid full of spectral raptors!
So we finally get to go fight Nathanos! You know, I didn’t like him much during Battle for Azeroth, but this fight made him grow on me immensely. I think the arrogant attitude seems cooler when I get to fight him. I enjoyed the little callbacks to vanilla. And I especially enjoyed how he doesn’t hide from us. I should have seen it coming, but why would he care if he knows he’ll just get killed and be sent straight to the Shadowlands?
And Tyrande! I’m looking forward to her character. She certainly kicked ass in the cutscene. Did you see that little smirk as she killed him? It was amazing. I usually avoid story spoilers, so I don’t know if she has more character progression in the next expansion. I hope so.
Last week I finally finished the war campaign as a Sylvanas loyalist. Since my warlock, Voidgazer, is Forsaken and keeps the Gift of N’zoth, he felt like the perfect candidate to be a Sylvanas loyalist. I know it doesn’t offer much that’s different from the war campaign when siding when Saurfang, but it was still fun to see.
I stitched together the campaign in the above video. The cutscene at the end is the most interesting part with some dialogue between Sylvanas and Nathanos. It’s easy to look it up on YouTube, but it couldn’t hurt to record myself as well!
After completing the war campaign while siding with Saurfang, completing it on an Alliance character, and completing the loyalist war campaign, I can say that I don’t think I’ll play through the war campaign ever again!
After performing a solo 5-mask run in the Horrific Vision of Stormwind last week on both my shadow priest and demonology warlock, I did a solo 5-mask run in Horrific Vision of Orgrimmar this week. This was a big goal for me, and while I’ve been working toward it for a while, I’m also kind of surprised that I managed to do it. Now I have my Mad World achievement and “the Faceless One” title! Later in the week I’ll give it a go on my lock!
Last week I managed to solo a 5-mask Horrific Vision of Stormwind for the first time! There was something about the madnesses that week that made me think that was the week to do it. It did take my shadow priest a few attempts (maybe 4 or so), but I managed to do it. There wasn’t really any magic trick or breakthrough, although I did use Potions of Unbridled Fury and drums for lust. My priest was ilvl 466 in shadow when I managed to do it.
Next I set my sights on my warlock. My demonology warlock is only ilvl 460, and I don’t play it as well as my priest. This took a lot more attempts and a lot more breakthroughs. I think I ended up trying 8 times last week. Like with my shadow priest, I used pots and drums. This isn’t really some big innovation, but I didn’t use those when I wasn’t seriously thinking I’d be able to solo 5-mask.
I also really struggled with Umbric. My first time on Umbric, I use an orb on pull, so not only was I at max sanity, but I stayed at max sanity for the first few seconds of the fight while in the orb. I still lost all my sanity during the fight. I get polymorphed and then wander in circles, leaving void zones on the ground and walking through them. My felguard’s stun wasn’t so helpful. I also tried using the felhunter for silences. What I found worked best was using my imp. It removes harmful magic effects on a very short CD, so it can break me out of polymorph. That was the ticket to defeating Umbric!
And then I went back to felguard for Alleria and lost to the same problem. On my successful run, I had to use my imp on both Umbric and Alleria, and I had to be sure to have my self-resurrect for Alleria. You can see it activate near the end of the fight with Alleria in the above video. Glad I had it!
These were challenging, and I’m not super confident that I’ll be able to do it this week in Horrific Vision of Orgrimmar. I’ll give it my best shot though!
I befriended the Friendly Alpaca in January but never posted this video! I’ve been very excited about alpacas being in WoW, and I now have two of the three.
For this alpaca, you have find the Friendly Alpaca in Uldum and feed it Gersahl Greens for the Alpaca It Up quest. This can be done once per day, and once it’s done 7 times, you get the quest Alpaca It In. This one rewards the Reins of the Springfur Alpaca so you can bring this friendly alpaca with you on your adventures!
I finally got around to unlocking the Nightborne recently after the long trek through the Suramar questing. The experience in Suramar was great and yet at the same time, it really seemed to drag on too long. I enjoyed that it had a cohesive story and that the zone changed with the progress, but I think it would have been better if it was shorter.
As for the unlock scenario, I really enjoyed seeing more story surrounding the blood elves. I realize the scenario was arguably about the Nightborne, but I was too distracted by the Sunwell, Lor’themar, and Lady Liadrin. And Alleria. Come to think of it, was this scenario even about the Nightborne?
I finished the death knight campaign from Legion last month, and it was as excellent as I heard. I know this is content from last expansion, but I should note that this post will have spoilers.
Over the course of the campaign, the Knights of the Ebon Blade work with Bolvar, the new Lich King. In exchange for the Lich King directing the death knights to two artifacts, helping with the third (reforging the shards of Frostmourne into the twin Blades of the Fallen Prince), and keeping the Scourge contained, the death knights agree to act as Bolvar’s vengeance against the Burning Legion. Bolvar asks the Deathlord, the new leader of the Ebon Blade and the player character, to raise new Four Horseman.
The first, Nazgrim, is my favorite. I loved Nazgrim. Seeing him develop from a Sergeant in Wrath to a Legionnaire in Cataclysm to a General that we defeated in Mists was a great experience that made the world feel much more alive. Plus, he’s responsible for “Thrall’s balls!” And now he’s one of the Four Horsemen.
The second is Thoras Trollbane, who was a king of Stromgarde. Honestly, I don’t really care about this much.
The third is Sally Whitemane, who was High Inquisitor of the Scarlet Crusade. This is another cool callback.
Finally, Bolvar sends the Knights of the Ebon Blade to Light’s Hope Chapel to raise Tirion Fordring as the leader of the Four Horseman.
In the finale of the campaign, the death knights invade the Sanctum of Light, a secret underground order hall beneath Light’s Hope Chapel. It serves as the paladin order hall for the Knights of the Silver Hand, although the scenario is instanced so you don’t see players. After defeating Lady Liadrin, the Light itself stops you from resurrecting Tirion. Highlord Darion Morgraine uses a deathgate to escape but is killed in the process. Back in Acherus: The Ebon Hold, you resurrect Morgraine as the fourth horseman.
This was a fantastic finale to the campaign, and I loved experiencing the darkness after playing through the priest campaign. The priest campaign was really boring, and it never really felt like we did anything cool. In fact, the end of the priest campaign had the order hall, Netherlight Temple, get attacked by a dreadlord and the Knights of the Silver Hand come to save them. I like kicking some butt as a death knight over getting saved by the paladins. Although now that I think about it, I guess the paladins were the ones who really won!
The auction houses of Orgrimmar and Stormwind were overcome with the party spirit for Winter Veil and New Year’s Eve. Logrus, my orc death knight, is shown above in his gimpy clubbing finery.
Take a look at the party in the above video! Not too happy with the app I used, so I’ll have to switch it up in the future. And to see some quick screenshots of the outfits I put together for my characters, see below.
Devee, my troll priest and main, went with the Winter Veil sweater and some matching clothes.
Faiella still wanted to show off her blood elf demon hunter tattoos.
Illuminnae, my blood elf paladin, was sad that she didn’t have more revealing plate. Also, I didn’t even recognize her when I took her helm off. I usually keep her in a full plate set.
Voidgazer, my forsaken warlock, isn’t usually into the club scene. He’s more metal.
Spritzi, my goblin rogue was… you know what? Goblin women are pretty thicc.
Tyrse the tauren druid and banker extraordinaire just wanted to get silly.
Giving my alliance alts some love, Kavax the worgen hunter practiced his disco moves.
Sleepypaw, my pandaren monk was feeling extra jolly.
I was pretty impressed with the scandalous gnome mage transmog for Mooglepete.
I really didn’t have much for Petros, my night elf warrior and very first character.
I hope everybody had a happy Feast of Winter Veil, happy real life holidays, and great New Year!
I loved Dolly and Dot the alpacas so much that I had to share this later quest starring them. (If you haven’t heard the song, please see this post.) This is from the quest Knowledge of the Past in Vol’dun. There might be minor spoilers if you’re avoiding those!
No alpacas were harmed in the recording of this video. (They’re okay.)
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is definitely the best expansion, and it’s easy to see why – alpacas! Check out the cute song in this quest. Adorable! It’s from the quest On the Move in Vol’dun.
Here’s another quest about alpacas – Alpacas Gone Wild. It’s not nearly as cute, but I thought I’d include it too.
World of Warcraft: Legion, the next WoW expansion, was announced last week at Gamescom. After having a few days to think about the information, I wanted to talk about my initial thoughts. I’ll admit, I might not have anything completely novel to say, but I think it’s important for the community to be vocal. Plus, I enjoy the writing too!
Here’s a brief recap of what Legion’s offering:
The Broken Isles
Level 110
Honor system 3.0
Artifact weapons
Class Order Halls
The Emerald Dream and Emerald Nightmare
Demon Hunters
Queen Azshara
The invasion of Azeroth by the Burning Legion
And we can’t forget this teaser:
Story
The tomb of Sargeras is opened, and Azeroth is faced with the largest invasion of the Burning Legion ever. Okay, that’s cool. I don’t really have a strong reaction either way to the Broken Isles themselves, and while I would have preferred to fight the Burning Legion on a different world, this works too. Throwing Queen Azshara and the Emerald Nightmare into the mix seems like overkill a bit, but I assume it’ll be integrated nicely. I’m honestly a little surprised, but Blizzard has been getting better at running concurrent stories. In Warlords, I felt like we had separate stories that pieced together for a single narrative, and I predict (and hope) Blizzard’ll be even better at it in Legion.
Honor system 3.0
The new honor system is kind of strange. You gain honor to move from rank 1 to 50, unlocking PVP abilities. This allows PVP to be tuned separately from PVE. That’s cool I suppose, but does that mean that I’ll have abilities on my bars that only work in PVP? That kind of sucks. The ones I’ve seen have all replaced current abilities or are passives. If that’s the case, I’m good with it! It also introduced prestiging. Once you reach rank 50, you can prestige, earning cosmetic rewards while resetting your rank to 1. I like that system in general, but I wonder how that’ll change competitive PVP players. If you do arenas, you can’t really prestige back to being weak, right? That doesn’t matter to me, but I’m sure it matters to a lot of people.
Artifact weapons
Artifact weapons are special, lore-heavy weapons that every player will get. There’s one for each spec, and there will be no other weapon drops. You can increase their power through the expansion through something that looks reminiscent to the Path of the Titans (and to Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid). This actually sounds fairly exciting to me, but it has some interesting ramifications. In Warlords, I was the commander and eventually called a general by Vol’jin. In Legion, I’ll wield some powerful lore weapon. What happens next? Does this keep getting upped? Some examples they gave were frost DKs using the shards of Frostmourne to build two swords, ret paladins getting the Ashbringer, and enhancement shaman using the Doomhammer. Um, why isn’t Thrall carrying the Doomhammer? Why doesn’t Tirion have the Ashbringer? Are these characters going to die? Also, I have to add that Matticus on World of Matticus brought up the idea of priests getting Fearbreaker. Yes, please, please, please! That’d be pretty awesome.
Demon Hunters
I’m not all that excited to be a Demon Hunter, but I’m pretty excited to see their story. Of course, that means playing through their intro, so yes, I’m excited to play them in that sense at least! I think the Demon Hunter lore is pretty interesting, and Illidan has always been a fan favorite. This should be really awesome, I think.
Class Order Halls
Class Orders are the most exciting part of the expansion so far. Each class will get a class order hall, sort of like Acherus: The Ebon Hold was for Death Knights. It’ll be shared, but in the story, the player character will be the leader of the Class Order. This sounds incredibly neat and will really give flavor to each class. I love being a priest, and I never really felt like I had Horde priest lore figured that my character would respect and strive to emulate. I guess now that figure is me. While garrisons had way too many followers and only a few that seemed cool, Class Orders will have far fewer and much more important followers. Each class will have a different name for their “followers,” with champions being the paladins’ followers for example.
This seems like the progression of garrisons, although maybe more accurately the progression of Vol’mar and Lion’s Watch. Vol’mar is a shared location, but inside, the NPCs treat me as their leader. Regardless of how you see the evolution or whether you see them as related, Class Order Halls are what they are, and they sound fascinating.
Class identity is supposed to play a much bigger role in Legion, and I’m all for it. Even spec individuality is going to be explored. I think this is a fantastic idea, but one small thing seems odd to me. During the discussion of the new PVP system, Blizzard said that when you think disc priests, you think dispels – or something along those lines. If that’s the the most iconic part of being a disc priest, I wonder in what direction they will take discipline. To be fair, if many specs are getting overhauls, I’m not against the idea of switching to holy. We’ll see!
It really sounds like they’re giving us a lot. They’ve already dumped a lot of other interesting information that I didn’t even mention – Dalaran run by Khadgar and now floating over the Broken Isles? I’m really hopeful and expectant that the story is going to come together better than ever, and I can’t wait to see it unfold.
This post contains significant spoilers for the legendary quests in 6.1! Keep in mind that this builds off the current story of Warlords of Draenor, so if you missed other major lore moments or cutscenes, those could be spoiled a little too.
I recently finished the 6.1 parts of the legendary quests, which are fantastic. Obviously, there was a lot of grinding and killing raid bosses repeatedly, and that’s not included in my videos. I’ve recorded turning in the quests, picking them up, talking to Khadgar, and all the non-repeatable content.
I broke it into two videos because the final quest, the culmination (that is seriously awesome), is a lot longer. Sure, that probably has to do with me failing repeatedly, but I think it’s interesting to see failures as well sometimes.
What an awesome cutscene. It got a little choppy near the end because I stupidly ran low on disk space on the drive to which I was recording. Whoops. You can always search for the cutscene on YouTube if you want.
There’s an achievement called Time is a Flat Circle that awards a monument of Khadgar fighting Gul’dan. It’s description reads, “Everything we have ever done or will do, we are going to do over and over and over again.” It seems like we’re going to see that even with all the meddling of beings from our timeline, this timeline wants to naturally progress to the same state.
The cutscene at the end of the chain also leads up to the next raid that was recently announced – Hellfire Citadel, complete with the Legion’s Archimonde and the Iron Horde presumably now under control of Gul’dan. I can’t wait to find out what happens to Grommash Hellscream. Can I build by shipyard and launch a naval assault on Tanaan Jungle yet?
This post contains spoilers. If you don’t know anything about this, then don’t watch unless you’re cool with spoilers!
I enjoyed this quest although you can tell just by the length of the video that I struggled. Once I realized where to go hide to avoid that ability, things got a lot better.
Before doing the quest, I already knew generally what happened, but I particularly liked bits of the dialogue.
“Sorry for all the times you’re about to get killed,” says Chromie before beginning the fight. “If it’s any consolation, you won’t remember any of them.” Not true little Bronze friend, not true. While I did die a number of times, I totally remember them.
During the fight, Khadgar addresses Kairoz. “Kairoz! What did you want? Why did you need an army?”
He responds, “Not just one… An infinite number of armies, across an infinite number of worlds… I WOULD BE INFINITE!” I love it! The Bronze and Infinite dragonflights are the most interesting hooks in the game currently, and I’m glad to see a bit more about it.
This post contains spoilers for Nagrand in Warlords of Draenor. I know most people have likely finished it, but I know not everybody has. My guildmates should specifically take note that Mooglegem has not finished Nagrand. Please don’t spoil it for her.
I really enjoyed that the leveling experience felt like it’s own complete story arc. Obviously, Blizzard has been getting better and better at storytelling, but I was particularly impressed with how it went in Warlords of Draenor. Even if you don’t raid at all, you still get a exhilarating conclusion to the story by questing through the zones (and later the Garrison Campaign, but that’s a post for later).
The video embedded above is the end of the final quest chain. I didn’t include the cutscene that plays after that part because it’s easy to find (and you can replay it in your own garrison). Now I know that if you’re avoiding spoilers, you shouldn’t be reading this far, but I’ll still avoid saying exactly what happens. What I will say is that I’m happy that it happened in the quests and not in a raid. Leave the rest of the threats for raiding; close this chapter through quests, allowing us to move on as well as giving non-raiders the closure they deserve with this plot. Plus, that frickin’ cutscene. Wow.
Sometimes, Bulleto gets stuck above Orgrimmar and ponders his existence.
Actually, this happened a while ago, but I never uploaded it. I think it was during Hallow’s End. I had missed the zeppelin, so I flew toward, got above the deck, and right-clicked off my mount buff. I dropped to the level of the deck and stopped falling, but the zeppelin continued without me. I messed with the camera for a while for fun, but luckily the next zeppelin to come saved me.
This is the really satisfying part of the upgrade that no one ever mentions.
In all honesty, I do enjoy the Blizzard mousepads. When I get a new Blizzard game, I always enjoy switching mousepads. Sometimes I might find myself thinking, “wait, what was the latest release?” and then I can just look under my mouse. Okay, that never happens.
As for Warlords of Draenor, I don’t want to dwell too much on it here. I’ll probably talk about it more over the weekend. However, I’ll briefly discuss my initial thoughts. Despite server troubles, I’ve really enjoyed it. The introduction experience in Tanaan Jungle is sweet, and I love the cinematic way of introducing the warlords (or buildings in the garrison). I love feeling powerful and being recognized as a hero. The garrison is super fun. I’m very happy.
It’s been a while since I posted, but what kind of WoW blogger would I be if I didn’t talk about this cinematic? Like most of Blizzard’s lore-rich trailers, this really got me excited. I enjoyed the fact that in both the original timeline and the Warlords of Draenor timeline, Grom gets to kill Mannoroth. I also particularly like Garrosh saving him. And Grom’s last lines? “We will never be slaves. But we will be conquerors.” That’s a terrific line, especially the pause between sentences.
Not all of the dungeons jumped out at me, but two really did – the Iron Docks and Grimrail Depot. I guess I like industrialism, but how could you not like Grimrail Depot? Part of it is actually on a train. Now I realize that when it comes to gameplay, it’ll all likely feel the same. Similarly, the idea of fighting on Deathwing’s back was really cool, but when it comes time to do it, I’m so focused on mechanics and numbers that it feels the same. Still, I really like this.
The 10th anniversary event sounds cool too. Tarren Mill vs Southshore is a great PVP throwback, and I’m super interested to see a deathmatch-style battleground. All I really want to do when I PVP is fight, so why has it taken so long to get a deathmatch battleground? Temple of Kotmogu is close. I’ll be curious to see what this is like.
Molten Core is also a pretty iconic raid to reinvigorate also. It’s a 40-man LFR, so everyone at endgame should be able to see it easily. And a Molten Corgi? Adorable.
My only issue is that it’s for max level characters. Warlords of Draenor drops 11/13/14, and the anniversary event starts within a week and a half or so. Does that mean we’ll need to rush to level 100?
@Celestalon Hey celestalon when warlords hit are we going to be in a rush to get to lvl 100 for the anniversary? because it seems like it
Carpe Flux Capacitor, the guild of which I’m a member, defeated Garrosh on March 10. Since then, we’ve been inactive awaiting Warlords of Draenor. I realized that I might think to myself, “boy, remember all those good times I had raiding? It was always a positive experience.”
Now I have this video to remind me what it was really like. This is the last few seconds of every progression wipe we had in Siege of Orgrimmar.
We’re going to be recruiting for the next expansion, so maybe we could use this to remind new recruits what they can expect!
All kidding aside, wipes are to be expected. I just thought it was fun.
We awakened the Paragons of the Klaxxi, so it’s only fitting that we put them down too. Tuesday we fought the Paragons for the first time. On our eighth attempt we managed to kill them.
No loot for me, but as usual, I prefer progression over loot. We’ll be seeing Garrosh on Thursday hopefully. I might go shadow for the fight, which could be fun.
Alright! We downed Siegecrafter Blackfuse on Tuesday. Yes, maybe it took 21 attempts, but we killed him regardless. No loot for me, but I’m happy to be continuing forward. The Paragons of the Klaxxi seem complex yet, if LFR and flex’s trend applies in normal, easy. Will we get to see Garrosh Thursday? I’ll find out soon I suppose.
We killed the Kor’kon Dark Shaman as a guild for the first time yesterday! We extended last week’s lockout so we could start right on progression. I even managed to get a warforged mace off my bonus roll – Kardris’ Scepter.
I forgot how much I enjoyed this dungeon until I ran it the other day. It’s fairly straight forward but has amazing atmosphere. Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls, is an awesome boss, but even more awesome is his music.
Okay, his sounds are pretty entertaining too.
I ran it last week just for the achievements – Soul Power and Three Faced. I feel like I spend most of my time in WoW running things for progression, but I think I want to go do this again, and I just ran it a few days ago. It’s just too good.
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!
The Fallen Protectors went down again! It took us seven attempts, which isn’t too bad at all. The fight itself wasn’t too interesting, but I definitely like the idea of fighting sha-corrupted, fallen heroes.
I’m sure you really wanted to see us do it, and now you can! We did some attempts on Norushen – 10 it looks like if each of these Fraps videos is a full attempt – but we weren’t able to finish it.
I also completed the first flex wing, Vale of Eternal Sorrows. It was interesting. Yes, it was easier than normal, but we still had to pay attention to mechanics. I think I liked the difficulty. What really sets it apart though is requiring it to be pre-formed. I bet people would do their jobs better in LFR if you had to form your own group as well! I was a little stressed out joining a PUG because you never know what you’ll get. I guess it was kind of silly. Regardless, it went well, and I particularly enjoyed seeing the Sha of Pride. That’s a really cool boss to include. Afterwards you get some dialog between Jaina Proudmoore and Lor’themar Theron that I enjoyed.
Last week, we sang Happy Birthday over Mumble. It was… terrible. But it was also pretty fun! As people tried to compensate for Mumble’s lag, it just got worse and worse. Now, who wants to sign a record deal with Carpe Flux Capacitor?
Wow. I’m impressed with most patch trailers, but I loved this one. By talking about it, I’m spoiling it, so please watch the trailer before reading.
Okay?
Okay.
Taran Zhu’s back-and-forth with Hellscream was great. They seemed to take turns having the upper-hand. I liked when Taran Zhu brought up Grom Hellscream, although I’m not sure when he learned of Grom. I didn’t catch that he got impaled on Hellscream’s axe on my first watch. I also found it interesting that the trailer opened with butterflies and when the sha energies spread out from the heart of Y’shaarj, it corrupts a butterfly.
I’ve been wondering about something Hellscream said. Taran Zhu says “I have fought besides the tauren, trolls, and others. You are nothing like them.” Hellscream responds, “they are no longer part of my Horde!” Is Hellscream referring to those who are rebelling against him or to all tauren? Up to this point, it seemed like he was still accepting of tauren. He thought of them under orcs, but still felt they contributed. He seemed to consider them much higher than the other races of the horde. Hellscream tolerated the Blood Elves and goblins and largely ignored the pandaren and Forsaken. As far as I can tell, the Darkspear were no longer considered part of his Horde. By the release of patch 5.4, are we to assume that his Horde consists solely of orcs? It seems very plausible that he would have heard that Baine was working with the Darkspear Rebellion, so it wouldn’t be surprising.
The scene in which the navies arrive is also great. When was the last time we saw Horde (well, former Horde at this point) and Alliance forces so intermingled? I found the sails interesting. I see Horde sails, red with the black Horde symbol. The Forsaken are present with their purple sails. I assume both the blue and white sails belong to the Alliance, but I’m actually not positive. (Anyone who plays Alliance care to comment?) I wasn’t sure on black and red striped sails, but YouTube commenters pointed out that those ships belong to the Bloodsail Buccaneers. What are they doing attacking Orgrimmar too? Very interesting!
Blizzard does an amazing job with the story, and it’s in such an odd way as well. There’s really not that much story, and it’s usually not a huge deal in game. They’re excellent at creating background lore to hype people for playing. Escalation’s lore was also great in my opinion. There was a formal declaration of a Darkspear Rebellion led by my own racial leader – much deserved after Garrosh Hellscream declared martial law in the Echo Isles and rounded up the Darkspear in the Valley of Spirits. But in game, it just meant that I farmed Kor’kron in the Northern Barrens. That doesn’t change the fact that I was incredibly excited to be joining the Darkspear Rebellion just as I’m excited to come together with the other armies of Azeroth to bring judgement upon Hellscream.
We did it! Two weeks after first having killed the Twin Consorts, we attempted Lei Shen for the first time. After seventeen wipes, we managed to kill him! I’m very excited and extremely relieved. I still want to repeat it for the people who weren’t there, get more gear, and maybe push some heroic bosses for gear, but this was the big moment. Especially considering that there’s no way we’re going to finish heroic mode by the next patch, this was the big “end game” goal for us for this tier.
It’s also special for me. I’ve been raiding this tier with the guild, Carpe Flux Capacitor, since the beginning, and now it’s completed. During tier 14, we finished Mogu’shan Vaults, but we didn’t complete the other two raids. In tier 13, we raided Dragon Soul, but we stopped raiding long before the end. I did manage to complete the raid before Mists of Pandaria was released, but it wasn’t with the guild.
I was taking a break from WoW for much of tier 12. In my first time in the Firelands, I joined a PUG at the request of a guildie. They needed a healer for Ragnaros. I pointed out that not only had I never killed him, I had never entered the raid. They discussed it and let me join. I pulled him by accident before we were all ready. They didn’t kick me. We killed him, and I won loot. The next week, we finished Firelands as a guild. At the time, the guild hadn’t yet killed Ragnaros. When we killed the previous boss, my achievement suddenly popped for finishing the raid. While I completed the raid, I didn’t work for it all tier.
In tier 11 I was with a different guild, Playground Brigade, made of friends I knew from out of WoW just for that tier. We fell apart in the middle of the tier. We were 5/6 Blackwing Descent, 2/4 Bastion of Twilight, and 1/2 Throne of the Four Winds.
Tier 10 was my first current-tier raid. I had just hit level 80 and joined Carpe Flux Capacitor. I was an alternate, and my first boss was Deathbringer Saurfang. Maybe I wasn’t there from the absolute very beginning, but we pushed the entire tier, and yes, we finished the raid (as well as Ruby Sanctum).
I mention all this because it means this is only the second raid tier for which I worked the entire tier with my guild and still completed. Carpe, thanks for being a great guild (and taking me back after my one-tier stint with another guild). Here’s hoping next tier goes smoothly well. Let’s take back Orgrimmar!
I finally completed the fourth chapter of Wrathion’s legendary quest line. I’m glad this one was short while still having a bit of challenge. The quest tasks you with receiving the blessings of the four Celestials. They give wisdom to Wrathion as well; Wrathion, in comparison to the Celestials, is actually pretty stupid, but he is just a child.
I completed Chi-Ji’s healer challenge. Unfortunately it took me a few tries, but I still got it, and now I have my nice, new cloak. I’m looking forward to putting it to use!
After getting three new bosses down the week before last, last week we defeated Iron Qon on Wednesday. We wiped thirteen times but got it on the fourteenth. I especially like the last minute or so of the video in which the guild decides to be mean!
One boss just wasn’t enough, so we defeated the Twin Consorts as well! It took us three attempts, but I swear, the first attempt didn’t count! We pulled by accident with people outside the fight.
On 7/9 we downed Durumu for the first time. Yes, we wiped fifteen times first, but those wipes aren’t important! What’s important is the kill! I also finally figured out why my videos have stuck frames. I don’t know how to solve it, but it only happens when I trim a clip down to a few seconds. I usually put the last couple seconds of each wipe at the beginning of my kill videos, and I make them short enough, that entire clip will be a single frame. I’ll figure it out.
Primordius went down the following night. It was after only five wipes, so that’s an improvement over Durumu.
Why settle for two bosses when we could complete an entire wing? After killing Primordius, we continued to Dark Animus. After seven wipes, we killed it on the eighth attempt!
You’ll have to wait until next week to learn how we did this week. (Uh, because I haven’t done the videos yet.)
We’ve had some good raid weeks the past two weeks! On Tuesday we cleared to Megaera and put in some good attempts. On Wednesday, we managed to kill Megaera for the first time!
Okay, yes, we had 22 wipes before we killed her on our 23rd attempt, but we still did it! It had been 15 days since our last kill; I think two weeks is fine!
Luckily for us, the progression didn’t end there. We killed Ji-Kun on our second attempt! Here you can see almost all of us. Justin took the portal by accident.
Here’s all of us, I think. It’s hard to get everyone in the shot when we’re flying. Three-dimensions are too hard for my feeble mind.
And here’s our kill video! I can’t believe it was only two attempts. It was a good week!
On Wednesday Carpe Flux Capacitor killed Tortos for the first time! It was only our second time reaching him, and it took us 28 attempts across those two nights. It was a hectic fight at time (as they all on first kills) but definitely fun. Hopefully next week we get him down faster!
Patch 5.3 Escalation brought four new scenarios with it, two of which are required to progress into the Darkspear Rebellion quests. None of them involves the actual player characters; they’re stories told about others on Azeroth through Lorewalker Cho and his dream brew. This is a very cool way of telling stories about other characters while still allowing all players to see them.
Please note that this post will contain spoilers!
The first scenario, Blood in the Snow, is about the Alliance. The Zandalari have instigated the Frostmane trolls in Dun Morogh to lead an attack on Ironforge. When Varian asks the dwarves to send troops to help him fight off the trolls, the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer both refuse. The two clans are scared to turn their backs on the Dark Iron. Meanwhile Moira Thaurissan, Queen-Regent of the Dark Iron clan, shows that she’s willing to contribute to the Alliance and defend Ironforge by leading her troops into battle alongside Varian Wrynn. (Why does Varian have to lead the effort? Why aren’t the dwarves taking the initiative to defend their own city?)
Mechanically there was nothing special about Blood in the Snow. However, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I think it might have been my favorite scenario. Now, do consider that I only played each scenario once. It’s fairly likely that I won’t play any of them again for a long time. While some of the other scenarios had awesome things happen, it’s not every day that I get to see character progression of Alliance faction leaders. Moira’s a cool character, and it’s exciting to see her step up. I hope they three clans don’t unite any time soon. I’d like to see Moira turn into the more honorable one while the other two bicker.
The Dark Heart of Pandaria puts you in the shoes of goblin engineers excavating the Vale of Eternal Blossoms under orders of Garrosh Hellscream who hopes to find an ancient power. The goblins find a large chest, but when they open it, Norushen, a Titan construct of a Mogu yells, “Containment failure. Active defense matrix enabled.” A goblin is transformed by sha energy into the Echo of Y’Shaarj, and the other goblins defeat him.
Grizzle Gearslip, Malkorok, and Kor’kron enter the room, claiming this is exactly what they wanted to find. Malkorok pays Grizzle Gearslip, but Grizzle Gearslip replies that it wasn’t the full amount. Malkorok says that Grizzle Gearslip is only paid for the workers present, not the ones who died. He grabs him by the neck and proceeds with a racist tirade about the weakness of the lesser races before leaving.
This is another very fascinating scenario. Of course, we get some nice progression about the Old God Y’Shaarj. Not only did we discover this presence, but we find that Garrosh not only knew of it but also wanted it. I think everyone on Azeroth who isn’t part of Garrosh’s ideal Horde thinks harnessing the power of an Old God is a bad idea. Lastly, this scenario seems to act as a tipping point for the goblins. It’s obvious what the orcs think of the goblins as well.
I actually ran through Battle on the High Seas last, but as it was my least favorite scenario of the four, I didn’t want to end this post with it. Horde and Alliance ships meet in the ocean en route to Pandaria and open fire on each other. You’re tasked with boarding the other ships both by swinging over with ropes and by shooting yourself with a cannon. Besides killing enemy sailors, you also place explosives to destroy the ships.
I thought this scenario was rather boring although it did have its moments. Swinging from the ropes and using the cannons was fun, but the instructions weren’t always clear. The third person in my group at one point jumped overboard and swam to the other ship, not realizing we needed to do something on the previous ship before being able to swing to the next. We also got caught on an enemy ship when the explosives went off, killing us. It told us to get off the ship, but we weren’t sure exactly what we were supposed to do.
The biggest problem with the scenario is that it doesn’t progress the story. Yes, yes, I realize the Horde and Alliance are at war. I guess they just wanted some scenario, any scenario, to show that conflict. What we get here is some random sailors dying. Was there anyone important on either side? No. Did we learn anything new (like we do in all three of the other scenarios)? No! I’m sure Blizzard could have reinforced the Horde-Alliance conflict while actually using some characters that mattered.
Lastly we have the Secrets of Ragefire. Citizens in Durotar have been disappearing, and the Gob Squad believes it has something to do with Ragefire Chasm. You’re placed in the roles of the Gob Squad, who previously had adventures in Azshara and the Twilight Highlands, to learn what’s happening. The Gob Squad works to create a bomb to blow open a door. The Dark Shaman Xorenth tries to stop them, but the Gob Squad defeats them. They find a large number of proto-drake eggs as well as Kor’kron supply crates, making them think Garrosh plans an invasion, including orcs mounted on proto-drakes. They also find discarded Pandaria artifacts. These are likely discarded because they’re not the source of power of Y’shaarj for which Garrosh was searching. The Gob Squad creates another bomb to blow open the next door.
Yes, that’s the bomb in the upper-left of that picture. Why yes, that is a pool pony, and no, we don’t know why it’s needed. The bomb detonates early, hurting some members of the Gob Squad. Soon after, Overseer Elaglo enters, claiming “The true horde, the pure horde, cannot be stopped!” While Grit sets up a teleporter, the other goblins defend him and defeat the racist Overseer Elaglo before escaping through the teleporter.
This is another great scenario. It’s a ton of fun to explore an area that Horde players explored for the first time so long ago. In true goblin fashion, the Gob Squad is a bit silly but still manage to kick butt! The scenario shows the pride and arrogance of Garrosh Hellscream’s Horde. I love the line about the true Horde. I also like the usage of Dark Shaman. An expansion ago, I hadn’t heard of the idea of Dark Shaman. I believe the first I heard of them was in Tides of War. With the release of Mists of Pandaria, Ragefire Chasm was updated. Gone was the concept of warlocks; in its place were the Dark Shaman, and the Secrets of Ragefire brings the problem to a head. It’s time we do something about the Old God harnessing, shamanic arts-abusing, “true Horde” led by Garrosh Hellscream! Maybe it’s time for a rebellion, and maybe I’ll be posting about the Darkspear Rebellion next time!
After collecting my Secrets of the Empire and trillium bars, I finally got to proceed with the legendary quests. I headed to the Thunderforge for my solo scenario, which was actually a bit more challenging than usual. As a healer, I got through it, but Mooglegem struggled a bit as DPS. Afterward, Wrathion was nice enough to give us our legendary meta gems! The Courageous Primal Diamond is sure sweet; I hope I actually get to use it soon! I don’t want to put it in my helm when I’m likely to upgrade it soon.
There are two more quests in the 5.2 chain before completing chapter three. Why put the legendary reward in the middle of the chain? That seems very odd to me, but I guess it didn’t really matter because people will continue into chapter four regardless.
During the interaction to receive the reward, Anduin Wrynn sits on the wall. Mooglegem decided to sit with him and have a nice chat. He’s a great character. I wonder if the Alliance get to see much more of him than we Horde do.
If you haven’t done the scenario and are curious, you can see it here!
On Wednesday we defeated the Council of Elders for the first time! It was a really fun fight in my opinion. I love seeing the various troll tribes act as individuals even while acting as a group. Just as with Horridon, the Council of Elders showcases representatives of each troll tribe (especially if you consider the Darkspear representative in opposition).
We had thirteen failed attempts before our successful kill; the video shows the last few seconds of each failure before the full success. Now it’s on to Tortos!
earthwormgem
Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 