out of the long shadow of the Shadowlands at last

As the story of Dragonflight advanced — and I had fallen behind because I hadn’t yet completed all the stories unlocked by the four launch faction Renown tracks — I increasingly wanted to just be done with Shadowlands — to not have my unfinished business in that expansion still nagging at me.

So, I’ve spent the past several weeks pushing hard to get through the things I hadn’t done in the Shadowlands yet. I did the 9.0 Kyrian Campaign a second time with Kaelyla to get the silver and blue version of the vesper staff. I finished the 9.0 Necrolords Campaign with Kaelinda — looking back on Shadowlands, I really should have just done all four 9.0 Campaigns with her to begin with. With that done, I was at last ready to finish the Korthia Campaign. I liked the Covenant chapters of the Korthia Campaign. It seemed like each Covenant got a meaningful advancement to their story, particularly the Kyrian.

Of course, while I was doing each of the Covenant-storyline-advancing chapters of the Korthia Campagin as a member of the relevant Covenant, having finished that Covenant’s 9.0 Campaign, so I could get the Covenant-specific extra bits of story, I also needed the appropriate Eversong Elf Mage persona, and an appropriate outfit for each chapter:

Bwonsamdi’s Watcher





Crown of the Seducer (LFR), Mantle of the Skyterror (LFR), Osteowings of the Necrolords, Divine Fury Raiment (LFR), Master Builder’s Shirt, Prime Conjurer’s Gloves, Prime Conjurer’s Cinch, Prime Conjurer’s Slippers, Staff of Earned Tranquility
I never thought I’d use the shoulders and robe from the Battle of Dazar’alor set — which I picked up while trying for the Crown of the Seducer — but whaddayaknow, they work really well with the Renown coloration of the Necrolords pieces.
The Crown of Autumnal Flora would coordinate nicely with the staff, but Mistcaller hadn’t coughed it up yet.

Although Bwonsamdi appears in the Ardenweald storyline, his aesthetics are rather more Maldraxxus. The use of Necrolords pieces in this ensemble made it fitting attire for Kateleina while finishing up the 9.0 Necrolords Campaign and doing the 9.1 Necrolords chapter as a Necrolord.
I liked how this chapter tied up some loose ends related to Kel’Thuzad and gave Thrall and Draka a chance to get to know each other.

Red is for Revendreth



Crown of Eternal Memorial, Soulbreaker’s Ebony Mantle, Burnished Crypt Keeper’s Mantle, Lovely Red Dress, Redeemed Inquisitor’s Handwraps, Vibrant Wildercloth Slacks, Sinful Inquisitor’s Slippers, Crypt Watcher’s Spire
After Kateleina finished the 9.1 Necrolords chapter, Kaelinda could do the 9.1 Venthyr chapter as Venthyr.
I liked how this chapter finally completed the crown of the medallions (a very obvious loose thread from the 9.0 Venthyr Campaign), gave Vashj and Kael’thas a chance to compare afterlives, and opened up a story thread for a future expansion (where have the Dreadlords taken Denathrius and will we see him as a boss again?).

Twilight Courtier



Night Courtier’s Regalia with Fae Revel Masque, Night Courtier’s Pack, Vestments of the Twilight Grove, and Meadow Guardian’s Staff
After Kaelinda finished the 9.1 Venthyr chapter, white-haired Khrysanthemina took up the baton to do the 9.1 Night Fae chapter as Night Fae.
I definitely appreciated how this chapter brought in some excursions to and interactions with the other Covenants, something which was lacking in their 9.0 story. I also liked how it gave a small measure of closure for Tyrande and the Kaldorei (a story which was further followed up in the Zereth Mortis and 10.0 Campaigns) and revealed new information about the relationship between the Winter Queen and Elune. Are the Winter Queen and Elune each others’ only sisters because they are from the diametrically-opposed forces of Death and Life, or do they also have sisters from each of the other cosmic forces? Is Eonar their sister from Order, Xal’atath their sister from the Void, and do they have sisters from the Light and from Fel/Chaos that we have yet to meet?

Selfless Seeker





Vestments of the Selfless with Crown of the Righteous, Selfless Sigil of the Archon, and Selfless Watcher’s Spire
After Khrysanthemina finished the 9.1 Night Fae chapter, Kaelyra took the opportunity to do the 9.1 Kyrian chapter as Kyrian.
I liked how this chapter finally brought the Kyrian who had been stranded in Maldraxxus home, gave souls assigned to Bastion the choice to keep or cleanse their memories, and clarified the nature of the Soulbinding relationship. I was intrigued that Apolon has a platonic, sibling Soulbind relationship with Artemede — and a romantic relationship with Kynthia.

When Kaelinda left the Shadowlands to move on to the Dragon Isles, she was halfway through Revered with Death’s Advance, with enough Stygia banked to get the Death’s Advance colorations for two out of the five Covenant 9.1 sets. I pushed that reputation to Exalted. I was dreading grinding the Stygia to get the Death’s Advance colorations for the rest of the Covenant 9.1 sets — until I discovered that, duh, farming Stygia from Maw star mobs was a piece of cake at level 70, with ilevel 402 gear.

With the goal of getting at least one piece of the Sepulcher of the First Ones Mage Tier set, I’d done the first four chapters of the Zereth Mortis Campaign so as to unlock the Creation Catalyst. After I finished the Korthia Campaign, I decided that I really ought to get the Shadowlands fixed up with a new Arbiter and Sylvanas sentenced to the Maw to retrieve all the souls who had improperly been sent there, so I finished up the Zereth Mortis Campaign (and all of its follow-up quests), too. I’m glad that I took the time to experience those stories for myself. I did the Zereth Mortis weekly & dailies until I had enough Sandworn Relics to get the purple Choral chestpiece from Rafiq and then upgrade it to the LFR version of the Sepulcher of the First Ones Mage Tier chestpiece using the Creation Catalyst. Along the way, I also managed to finish up Unlocking the Secrets. So when I was almost done with Zereth Mortis anyway, I finally got flying for the zone. Ah, well, that’ll make getting around there for Mog photoshoots easier to do 😀

I’d had Kaelyla hearthed at Root-Home trying to convince Mistcaller to just give me the Crown of Autumnal Flora already; yesterday, I got it!

I always hearthed or teleported out of the dungeon immediately after defeating Mistcaller — I didn’t continue on to Tred’ova — so I don’t have a count of how many tries it took me. At least a couple of months of doing it just once a day on Heroic (sometimes twice, with both Kaelyla and Kaelinda), I think.

Today, I finished the Stygia grind and got the last Death’s Advance Covenant 9.1 set. I also got the Anima-Siphoning Sword (its lavender color will be so perfect for Arcane Mage outfits!) after about two weeks of camping The Engulfer.

And now, at last, I am DONE with Shadowlands.

Read Full Post »

Dragonflight future patch wishlist: more colors for Dragonriding drakes

Now that I’ve gotten enough Renown with the first four Dragonflight factions to have all five colors unlocked for my Dragonriding drakes —





— I’m wishing that future patches would add ways to get a few more colors. Specifically, I’d like white (like the Albino Drake that was the reward for the very first Mount Collecting Achievement), purple, and pink.

Read Full Post »

in which Kaelinda Denys the Drought

Yep, well, despite otherwise completely ignoring the Command Table, I went ahead and upgraded Kaelinda’s Venthyr Command Table to Tier 2 to get the second extra Anima token from World Quests:

As she’s my primary Anima collector — and is starting to really rake the stuff in when I spend an evening in Korthia — I felt like it would be worth the investment for her. I do still have a laundry list of Cosmetics to get from the Kyrian one of these days…
I might do it for Kaelyla at Heart of the Forest. I probably won’t do it for Kaurinka; I’m just not playing enough with her for it to be worth the setback toward finishing her Queen’s Conservatory. And I definitely won’t do it for Kamalia; she hasn’t even upgraded her Anima Conductor to Tier 2 yet.

Read Full Post »

in which Kasheena rides the Winds of Wisdom to her Heritage Armor

Somehow, my Highmountain Tauren Druid, Kasheena, had managed to make it from her initial Allied Race level of 20 to a post-level-squish level of 42. She’d done the first few chapters of Highmountain, a little bit of the Druid Order Hall Campaign, Mulgore, a few years of Brewfest and WoW’s Anniversary dailies, and a smattering of other stuff.
Although I’d ignored the Winds of Wisdom buff last week because it was World Quest Bonus Week and I was busy with my level 60 characters, this week I suddenly realized that this was my chance to push Kasheena through to level 50 and finally, finally get her Heritage Armor. Finishing up the Highmountain main storyline, plus the Highmountain bonus objectives, opening up Suramar after she dinged 45, and doing some Legion Professions quests (she is an Herbalist/Miner), got her there in two play sessions.


I was very surprised to discover that the totems on the back of the Highmountain Heritage Armor are part of the chestpiece item, not a backpiece item.
~*~*~
Then I went and pre-ordered the Epic edition of Dragonflight and used the Boost on Kasheena; now she’s in Ardenweald with Kamalia and Kaurinka.

Kasheena just needs to get to Honored with Marasmius and Court of Night to be able to use the butterflymoth backpacks; Kaurinka will continue doing All The Things to get the other Shadowlands leather stuff I still want.
I decided to pre-order Dragonflight now and use the Boost on Kasheena (instead of saving it for my Tauren Mage) because I have for a rather long time in the back of my mind been thinking that for the next expansion it would be neat to be able to bring both a Mulgore Tauren (Kamalia) and a Highmountain Tauren (Kasheena, replacing Kerisa/Kaurinka in my roster of Mains) as well as both a Blood Elf (Kaelinda), and a Void Elf (Kaelyla).
~*~*~
(… now I’m so tempted — at this moment, at least — to buy Boosts for all my other sweet Mulgore Tauren girls, though I know that would be a tremendously gross expenditure… and when Shadowlands gets folded into Chromie Time I’ll probably be able to Mog with Shadowlands stuff with them without needing them to be level 60… and it would be better to wait to do Boosts until after the pre-patch goes live and I can roll my Tauren Rogue and Mage, anyhow…)

Read Full Post »

Dead Men Tell Some Tales

I finally finished the 9.0 Kyrian Campaign last night.

Bodhi Rana said he thought it was the best, and it was really good. I liked the check-in with Azeroth in which we find out that sure enough, the Scourge are running rampant now that the Helm of Domination is broken. I liked the reciprocal chapter with Maldraxxus. I liked the visits to Revendreth and Ardenweald. I was glad to be in ZM BOE catch-up gear for the trip to the Maw — that would have been so much harder in 9.0! I felt like it dealt with Uther in an okay way. Why Helya was involved, though — from her first appearances in the 9.0 Maw Intro scenario and the Bastion leveling story — seemed kind of shoehorned in (Helya’s gotta be in the Shadowlands somewhere, where are we gonna put her?). Although the Forsworn still have a point, and I still don’t want to be Kyrian, the Kyrian have grown on me over the course of the expansion. Mikanikos is still my favorite.

Overall, I rank my enjoyment of the 9.0 Campaigns as Venthyr = Kyrian > Netherlords > Night Fae. I wouldn’t have thought, at the beginning of the expansion, that Night Fae would come in last, but so it is. The Kyrian have reciprocal chapters with the Netherlords and visit Revendreth and Ardenweald. The Venthyr have recpirocal chapters with the Necrolords and visit Bastion. The Netherlords have reciprocal chapters with both the Kyrian and the Venthyr. The Venthyr and the Netherlords don’t go to Ardenweald. The Night Fae… do their own thing. They don’t make connections with the other realms. Looking back on it, the Night Warrior, Drust, and Bwonsamdi stories feel awkwardly braided together. The story has multiple downer moments, where we try to save an NPC and fail. And there are two trips to the Maw, one of which includes a trip to Torghast… I am not looking forward to replaying that with Kaurinka and Kamalia, though I will have to because I want the Campaign coloration of the Night Fae leather and mail sets.

I would say, On to Korthia and Zereth Mortis!, but now that I’ve reached the “stopping point” of having completed the 9.0 Campaigns, I’ve got to start spending my after-bedtime hours getting my Fall classes prepped. I felt like my Organic Chemistry lecture course needed a refresh, so I’ve switched textbooks, and my lab manual for my Organic Chemistry lab course is a few years overdue for an update.

Read Full Post »

in which the Forsaken re-establish their claim to Lordaeron, and there are Darkfallen Elves

By the time I was able to log in yesterday night, I’d decided to save doing the new Blood Elf-exclusive questline until after I’ve finished the Kyrian Campaign, so that Kaelinda can be herself and so that my screenshots won’t be all cluttered up with other players. Instead, Kamalia went to see what was up with Calia Menethil and Lordaeron. It felt good to have Kamalia take the lead on a world-story-advancing questline again. The questline was consistent with current WoW storytelling, with a fairly shallow story and a rather silly big showpiece moment leading to “yay we won!”.

Lillian Voss is probably my favorite Forsaken character. I was pleased to see, when we went to find Lillian Voss in Brill, that she had Amalia Stone and Derek Proudmoore with her. I appreciated that continuity with the BfA story, even though those two characters didn’t do anything in the remainder of the questline. With Calia and Derek we see a Menethil-Proudmoore alliance… just not the one those families originally imagined. But what, then, of Calia’s secretly-wedded husband and infant daughter who were killed by the Scourge — a part of her backstory described in the Before the Storm novel, but never referenced in-game? **sigh**

The part in Maldraxxus seemed like it was made with the expectation that everyone doing it would already have flying (which I don’t). I managed not to die while kodo-charging through perilous terrain to get to the NPCs we needed to consult, but I was sure glad that as a Shaman, I’d be able to Reincarnate if I did. It also helped that I use the Comfortable Rider’s Barding as my standard mount equipment. Protection against daze-and-dismount while riding through hostile territory is much more valuable to me than water walking!

The surprise of the new “Dark Ranger” customization for Blood, Void, and Night Elves (Delaryn Summermoon is also present at Brill) is a fun little thing, good on the devs for sneaking that past the PTR. I was somewhat disappointed to find that the new skin tone and the red eyes are linked, rather than separate options — if you choose the skin tone, you also get the red eyes; if you choose the red eyes, you also get the skin tone; you can’t have purple skin and red eyes or the new skin tone and silver eyes.

As a Mage, I see the “Dark Ranger” customization as a way to finally make the perfect San’layn cosplay with the 25H ICC Mage Tier set:

(though upon checking, the Darkfallen NPCs in the Blood wing of ICC have blue DK/Domination-magic eyes, not blood red eyes)

Or, with the shortest ear length option, the perfect Venthyr cosplay:
All My Sins II


Sinful Inquisitor’s Vestments with Sinfall Venthyr Hood & Slippers, Soulbreaker’s Ebony Mantle, Silver-Thread Sash, Kael’s Dark Sinstone Chain, and Damnation
A variation on an outfit I originally made for my Warlock (#78).

Read Full Post »

no more School of Hard Knocks!

I’m a bit surprised that this hasn’t already hit the front page of Blizzard Watch with a big splash — it’s something the community has been asking for for years. Update: ah, there it is!
The hotfix is already live:



And maybe Kaumaleia should go take Salandria out for Children’s Week this year, for old times’ sake…

Read Full Post »

Renowned! Covenant cavorting ensues

Kaelinda and Kaelyla both reached Renown 80 last week.

I ran them both through setting their Renown to 40 with each of the other three Covenants using Broker Marks of Distinction. Much to my disappointment, I discovered that the Renown 40 Covenant titles require you to be currently a member of that Covenant to use them. I also sent Broker Marks of Distinction to Kalaneia and Kamalia. Kalaneia is thrilled to now be able to style herself Baroness Kalaneia; Kamalia prefers to remain Farseer Kamalia.

Everyone who is at least level 50 — I checked with my Paladin and Priest, who are level 50 but haven’t been to the Shadowlands yet — now has access to all armor-type-appropriate Venthyr and Night Fae cosmetics that I have collected thus far. To get the rest, Kaelinda (as Kateleina) will need to get to Renown 80 with the Necrolords, and Kaelyla (as Kaelyra) will need to get to Renown 80 with the Kyrian.

In the process of getting to Renown 80, Kaelyla completed the 9.0 Night Fae Campaign. Although there were a couple of times when I kept dying, I quite enjoyed it — it was nicely very different from the Venthyr Campaign, and I liked the visits back to Azeroth locations (the visits to the Maw, not so much!). Getting that goal completed left me feeling energized to jump into the remaining two 9.0 Covenant Campaigns. So with this week’s reset, before I did anything in the Shadowlands, I took Kaelinda and Kaelyla to the Hall of Curiosities in Oribos, and Kateleina

and Kaelyra

emerged to begin gathering Anima, Souls, and Renown for the Necrolords and the Kyrian, respectively. I intend to build up those Sanctums to level 3 Travel Network, level 2 Anima Conductor with treasure box and extra world quest reinforced, and the other features activated but left at level 1.

Meanwhile, WoW’s Anniversary is on. Kasheena is once again camping out in the Caverns of Time for easy XP from Historian Ju’pa’s daily trivia quiz; for the last couple of years, Kaelyla was her companion in that endeavor, but this year it is Kamalia.

Read Full Post »

Job’s Done

I decided I might as well get it over with, so off Kaelinda went to Torghast. I did the first 6 floors of the Twisting Corridors three times in a row, then watched 20 minutes of cinematics and conversations between the faction leaders in Oribos, and now I’ll be ready to skip into the Patch 9.1 Campaign. With the content of these questlines being rather significant lore moments, not to mention required to unlock the next stage of the story, I was expecting their completion to be signposted by Achievements and was rather disappointed that they weren’t.
The cinematics were really very good, and I’m glad now that I’ve seen them for myself, so that I know the whole story — not just the key bits that were summarized in the beginning of the Patch 9.1 trailer cinematic.
~*~*~
So now that I’ve done this, I’m thinking maybe I want to hold off on doing Covenant campaigns with Kaelyla and Keliora and Kalaneia until Patch 9.1 drops and they can all skip Chapter 2. Kaurinka has already done Chapter 2 of the Night Fae campaign and is getting kind of tired of waiting to get started on the rest of it, so I’m thinking I’ll abandon my plan of running Kaurinka and Kaelyla through it in parallel and just get going with Kaurinka. If I can get Kaurinka through the Night Fae campaign and get the other three up to level 60 before Patch 9.1 arrives, that’ll be good enough. I’ll still want to do the other three 9.0 Covenant campaigns before I get into the 9.1 campaign itself, though.

Read Full Post »

the sleep from which some will never awaken

Kaurinka felt like she already knew Ardenweald. One winter when she was an adolescent, she had gotten pneumonia and nearly died. She remembered little of her illness, except that it had seemed that while her body lay delirious in her tribe’s longhouse, her spirit had wandered freely over the dark, snowy landscape around the camp. Out of the corners of her eyes, she’d caught glimpses of towering, sigil-scribed trees with swirling, starry canopies, and underneath them, smaller trees, or maybe bushes, laden with glowing blue globes — but when she turned to try to look at them straight on, she saw only the normal, familiar trees. What was that place?, she had wondered many times during all the years that had followed. And now, here she was. If I had managed to find that place, and walk between those trees, she realized, I would have died.

~*~*~

I felt much weaker in Ardenweald than I had in Bastion or Maldraxxus. Enemies were harder to kill and took off more of my health in the process. I was using Regrowth more-or-less rotationally just to stay alive, which makes me rather worried for the survivability of my other characters.

Although I did a couple of side quests in Bastion with both Kaelinda and Kaurinka, I ignored side quests entirely in Maldraxxus. I wanted to know the whole story of Ardenweald with Kaurinka, so she did all the side quests. In the process, I discovered that for each zone, there’s one Achievement for completing the main storyline of the zone and another Achievement for doing all of the side quests* — and that both Achievements are required for each zone to complete the Loremaster meta-Achievement. Unlike Legion and Battle for Azeroth, side quests are not optional for Loremaster**! Fortunately, Loremaster is an account-wide meta-Achievement, so I can continue with my original plan of having the character who will pledge to the Covenant of each zone do its side quests — Keliora will do all the side quests of Bastion, Kalaneia will do all the side quests of Maldraxxus, and Kaelinda will do all the side quests of Revendreth — while all the others just barrel through the main questline.

Between the Rest that I accumulated last week and doing all the side quests, Kaurinka was 58% through level 59 when she finished the main zone storyline. She’ll now slumber in Ardenweald until Kaelinda has activated Threads of Fate, then use Threads of Fate to select the Night Fae as her Covenant and level the remainder of the way to 60.

Lorewise, Ardenweald delivered on the themes of heartbreaking loss and sacrifice promised by its Afterlives short.

Read Full Post »