Took Anythe out for an abbreviated session (had to get Ashley's college orientation set up) and still managed to completely finish off Nazril, the Swampy Northern section, land of Blood Trolls. It also happens to be the location of the prison of the Old God, G'ruum (this is the set up for the first raid, as he is what is being "contained" in the Halls of Containment), who is responsible for all the general corruption and undead going on.
I'll be honest, I picked this zone as the first because I thought it would suck the most. I. Hate. Swamp. Biomes. But the whole area had a good cohesive story arc: you're off to stop the blood trolls and recruit lesser sprit gods ("loas") to your cause… and things simply don't go as planned. By the end, I even found myself more sympathetic to those damn turtles.
Anythe's now 114, has two footholds on Kul Tiras, and is starting the Zula-something southern zone. Having an absolute blast. This has gone from a "let's try something new" to me HIGHLY recommending playing one Horde-side character for what is effectively double the content and giving CONTEXT to a lot of the crap we never see Alliance-side.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Monday, April 15, 2019
FOR THE HORDE!
Plinked Exexelle through Legion and between Highmountain and…um…that zone to east with all of the 'Trials', got to 108.5. A guildie helpfully noted a Legion invasion was about to start, so I flapped back over to Highmountain (seriously, I cannot overstate how NICE flying is for leveling up alts), and cleared 6 missions, which gave me the 1.5 levels I needed. Woohoo!
Entering BfA as a Kul Tiran was "kinda neat" and I ran through the starter missions. Ended with boarding the ship in Stormwind and telling Jaina to "take me home". After getting my Kul Tiran bearings, I had an unexpected surprise: I was awarded the Heritage Armor for leveling up all the way without boosts. I had though the armor came at 120, which was kind of the reason for all of this. I finish up a couple of missions and, at 111, am just sitting and staring.
I don't need another level 120 DPS. The whole Exexelle was sort of a joke character and now that the punchline has been delivered, there's not really much sense in it. The pain of leveling another character through Drustvar, et al., held no enthusiasm. It's one of the reasons my druid, Onsunshine, has been sitting at 110 herself.
That's when it hit me. I needed to see how the other side lives. It's been a long-standing theory that the Horde has better writing and seeing their campaign would allow me to "fill the gaps" and get the whole story. I've been sitting on a level boost since the expansion dropped. Time to use it. So I created a Blood Elf mage (I'm not interested in anything but the story, so another arcane is 100% fine and I could set up all of the hot keys the same way as my main).
Enter NEGA-STREV! No, just kidding, although it would've been a fun name, I went with the comparatively boring "Anythe", and hopped right in to BfA. The only down side so far is that the capital city is a serious pain to navigate. You have to take flight points between the portal room , the war area, and the crafting terrace.
Otherwise, I gotta say it's a blast so far. The summoning of Bwasamdi (sp.), liberating prisoners from Stormwind, seeing the battle for Lordaeron from the other side and, of course, a crap ton of zone quests I haven't been privy to.
Best of all? No spamming from "Mature Content" every half hour or so.
Entering BfA as a Kul Tiran was "kinda neat" and I ran through the starter missions. Ended with boarding the ship in Stormwind and telling Jaina to "take me home". After getting my Kul Tiran bearings, I had an unexpected surprise: I was awarded the Heritage Armor for leveling up all the way without boosts. I had though the armor came at 120, which was kind of the reason for all of this. I finish up a couple of missions and, at 111, am just sitting and staring.
I don't need another level 120 DPS. The whole Exexelle was sort of a joke character and now that the punchline has been delivered, there's not really much sense in it. The pain of leveling another character through Drustvar, et al., held no enthusiasm. It's one of the reasons my druid, Onsunshine, has been sitting at 110 herself.
That's when it hit me. I needed to see how the other side lives. It's been a long-standing theory that the Horde has better writing and seeing their campaign would allow me to "fill the gaps" and get the whole story. I've been sitting on a level boost since the expansion dropped. Time to use it. So I created a Blood Elf mage (I'm not interested in anything but the story, so another arcane is 100% fine and I could set up all of the hot keys the same way as my main).
Enter NEGA-STREV! No, just kidding, although it would've been a fun name, I went with the comparatively boring "Anythe", and hopped right in to BfA. The only down side so far is that the capital city is a serious pain to navigate. You have to take flight points between the portal room , the war area, and the crafting terrace.
Otherwise, I gotta say it's a blast so far. The summoning of Bwasamdi (sp.), liberating prisoners from Stormwind, seeing the battle for Lordaeron from the other side and, of course, a crap ton of zone quests I haven't been privy to.
Best of all? No spamming from "Mature Content" every half hour or so.
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Burning Wrath of Pandaclysm Warlords
Over the past week and change I've been taking Exexelle, my Kul Tiran rogue, out for a few hours here and there. After hitting 60, the expansions started opening up-- two at a time. From 60 to 80, you have a choice of leveling in Outlands or Northrend and 80 to 90 is spent in either Pandaria or the assorted Cataclysm zones. Garbed in heirloom gear and using a little rest xp here and there, it's been shocking how fast the levels flew by just questing. I avoided dungeons altogether post-60 because you lose the xp bonus if you select specific dungeons to queue for and if you don't pick specifics, you're stuck with only queueing for one expansion's dungeon and difficulty level. Bad design led to prohibitive queue times and honestly, killing 10 rats a few times over was a more productive waste of time.
There was no prohibition on flight, so I made the most of going hither and yon. Actually, thanks to pathfinder I won't be grounded until I hit Kul Tiras.
60-67 was spent entirely in Hellfire Peninsula, a zone I rather liked enough to 100% it again. I have a fondness for zones that are mostly flat and barren: I can quickly get to objectives and there's little mucking about with weird terrain.
68-73 was Terrokar Forest and Zagamarsh, pretty much just doing quests until I tired of the zone. Replaying these zones underscores just how tedious questing in BC was. Very little innovation and the number of rats to kill per quest is almost always 12-25. Consequently, I moved to Northrend.
74-78 was the entirety of Borean Hills, which moved really quickly.
79-80 was maybe 35% of Icecrown. The Northrend zones still hold up after all of these years, even if the textures are a little dated.
81-81 was most of Jade Forest in Pandaland. Varying quest mechanics keep this region fresh.
85-89 At this point I tried to do Mount Hyjal, but after a few quests, it sent me to Uldum and I decided to stay, because it is everything I really like about Hellfire Peninsula. Finished every quest there.
Finished the last half level to 90 with that Twilight Something Cataclysm Zone.
90-92 Finished the introduction to Warlords of Draenor. I was a little disappointed I was denied my flapping around privileges until ridiculously long expansion intro quest line is completed, but I now have Garrison started and am ready to stab my way through alternate-timeline Outlands.
Otherwise, Strev gets a few minutes of maintenance a day. Since the Darkmoon Faire arrived (and you MUST do the rollercoaster once before you have to wait another month), I was able to cap my Enchanting finally. As an unexpected surprise, this unlocked a crafting questline that apparently got released just a couple of weeks ago. Basically it culminates with "gather a bunch of crap and you can make a new enchanting rod that gives you bonus mats when you disenchant". NEEEEEEEAT! I'm about halfway through material gathering-- it could all be ground out in one night if I weren't so lazy, but I'm just chipping at it when I happen to think about it. The old necklace is level 42 or so; when it gets to 44 I'll actually be able to use all of its powers.
Still haven't done the Jaina LFR fight yet-- been saving that for a run with IRL friends. Should be a blast.
There was no prohibition on flight, so I made the most of going hither and yon. Actually, thanks to pathfinder I won't be grounded until I hit Kul Tiras.
60-67 was spent entirely in Hellfire Peninsula, a zone I rather liked enough to 100% it again. I have a fondness for zones that are mostly flat and barren: I can quickly get to objectives and there's little mucking about with weird terrain.
68-73 was Terrokar Forest and Zagamarsh, pretty much just doing quests until I tired of the zone. Replaying these zones underscores just how tedious questing in BC was. Very little innovation and the number of rats to kill per quest is almost always 12-25. Consequently, I moved to Northrend.
74-78 was the entirety of Borean Hills, which moved really quickly.
79-80 was maybe 35% of Icecrown. The Northrend zones still hold up after all of these years, even if the textures are a little dated.
81-81 was most of Jade Forest in Pandaland. Varying quest mechanics keep this region fresh.
85-89 At this point I tried to do Mount Hyjal, but after a few quests, it sent me to Uldum and I decided to stay, because it is everything I really like about Hellfire Peninsula. Finished every quest there.
Finished the last half level to 90 with that Twilight Something Cataclysm Zone.
90-92 Finished the introduction to Warlords of Draenor. I was a little disappointed I was denied my flapping around privileges until ridiculously long expansion intro quest line is completed, but I now have Garrison started and am ready to stab my way through alternate-timeline Outlands.
Otherwise, Strev gets a few minutes of maintenance a day. Since the Darkmoon Faire arrived (and you MUST do the rollercoaster once before you have to wait another month), I was able to cap my Enchanting finally. As an unexpected surprise, this unlocked a crafting questline that apparently got released just a couple of weeks ago. Basically it culminates with "gather a bunch of crap and you can make a new enchanting rod that gives you bonus mats when you disenchant". NEEEEEEEAT! I'm about halfway through material gathering-- it could all be ground out in one night if I weren't so lazy, but I'm just chipping at it when I happen to think about it. The old necklace is level 42 or so; when it gets to 44 I'll actually be able to use all of its powers.
Still haven't done the Jaina LFR fight yet-- been saving that for a run with IRL friends. Should be a blast.
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