making plans for Pandaria Remix

Now that we’ve got some dates for Pandaria Remix — start May 16 and end August 19 — I can think about refining plans for what I want to do with it.

The May 16 start date for Pandaria Remix is offset from the Patch 10.2.7 release on May 7, giving me a week and two days to do the War Within bridge questline before jumping into Timerunning. The full duration of the Timerunning event runs right up until about a week before my Fall semester will begin — and suggests that the War Within pre-launch event might drop right when I’m in the middle of the high-crunch time of preparing for and getting through the first week of classes. Oh, joy.

All of my lecture courses need some level of iteration this summer. All of my courses are losing a couple of lecture days due to a change in the academic calendar, so I have to figure out which lessons to cut and how to adjust the rest of the course content to compensate. I switched textbooks for my sophomore-level majors class two years ago and I haven’t quite gotten my unit review sheets fully caught up to the differences in content organization of the new book compared to the old book. My GE physical sciences survey class is moving from a 75 minutes 2 days per week format to a 50 minutes 3 days per week format, so it’s going to need a lot of work.

Thus, I think it will be best to go into Pandaria Remix with a very limited set of goals:
1) Level ONE character, probably a Kul Tiran, to at least 50
2) Do the Landfall Campaign (becomes available at level 20)
3) Max out the faction reputation associated with the Landfall Campaign for the Landfall meta achievement to get the Sin’dorei Magister’s Regalia.
4) IF I’ve made adequate progress on my preparation for Fall semester and there’s enough time remaining in the event, level a Vulpera to 50

I’d like to someday acquire Heritage Armor for my Kul Tiran and my Vulpera. Blizzard has confirmed that leveling an Allied Race toon to 50+ in Pandaria Remix will allow the character to pick up their Heritage Armor as soon as they get ported into the regular game at the end of the event. Back in the day, I only did Landfall from the Horde perspective, which makes running a Kul Tiran to see the Alliance perspective on that sequence of events more appealing. I’m also somewhat more interested in the Kul Tiran Heritage armor than the Vulpera, particularly because I want to see if I can make some good mashups with the Plunderlord set.

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so, I did some stuff in Patch 10.2.5 last night

Kaelinda was honored by the Aspects.

(even though in real time, she hasn’t yet done the Blue Dragonflight storyline because I decided I needed to go back to the Firelands and get Dragonwrath first…)
Kaelinda felt rather uncomfortable being in Bel’Ameth as a member of the Horde, but since she’s the only one who’s done the Forbidden Reach, Zaralek Cavern, and Emerald Dream Campaigns, she’s the only one who even had the epilogue quests available. Iridikron’s conversation with Vyranoth hinted that we may not see him again until The Last Titan. In Valdrakken, I found some “stay awhile and listen” dialogs that foreshadow War Within.
~*~*~
My Eversong Elf Mages helped Tess Greymane liberate her City from the squatting Scarlet Crusade.

It was a rather tired plot, but not quite as silly as the cleansing of Lordaeron questline — perhaps because it stayed in Gilneas instead of taking a side-trip to anywhere else in the known WoW cosmos. I liked how it used the Legion Rogue Order Hall connection between Tess Greymane and Lillian Voss to hook in the Horde participation. Although the boss fight was not a big silly kaiju, it did provide another entry for the “the Light is not synonymous with Goodness” clue/tinfoil hat list for speculating about future expansions. My favorite thing, though, was seeing the Gilnean citizens in the city afterward carrying around green umbrellas. It’s about time they got something to keep the rain off!
~*~*~
I was SO disappointed that my level 14 Worgen Mage can’t wear the Gilnean Noble’s Suit — it requires level 58.

Ah well, perhaps when Dragonflight gets the Chromie Time treatment later this year, she’ll be able to don it.
~*~*~
I haven’t done much of anything with the Azerothian Archives yet. I don’t intend to grind for All The Things from it, just a few select items, so there’ll be plenty of time to get what I want before the War Within pre-patch.
~*~*~
I haven’t tried Follower Dungeons yet, either. When I have finished most of the other stuff I still want to do in the Dragon Isles, though, they’ll let me run Nokhud Offensive and drop group without feeling guilty after the second boss if said boss doesn’t give me the Thunderous Downburst Ring. I’ve had the Unstable Arcane Loop and Platinum Star Band sitting in my bags for months since I got better rings…

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Tentative Dragonflight alt priorities

Thankfully, the Dragonflight Quest armor and Dungeon armor sets are not the same as the PvP armor. I like the both of the Cloth sets, the Dungeon Leather set, and the Quest Mail set, but I don’t find either of the Plate sets particularly inspiring.

Even better, that Dracthyr Battlegear is just the kind of awesome-looking new Mail armor that I was hoping we’d get with a new Mail-wearing class joining the game! Kamalia is really looking forward to wearing it… if it’s not ridiculously exclusive to Dracthyr Evokers, that is.

With that in mind, and keeping in mind that any alt management plan I concoct during the beta phase of a new expansion never ends up being exactly what I actually do with my characters — at the moment, I’m thinking that for Dragonflight, I’ll lead out with Kaelinda. Mages have unparallelled world mobility with their capital city teleport, and Invisibility is a pretty good aggro drop and run away ability. It’s okay for reconnaissance sneaking around, too, on occasion. Kamalia will go next; I missed her too much in early Shadowlands, and I’m excited about the new Mail armor. Then either Kerisa or Kasheena; I love being a Balance Druid AOE Goddess and a sneaky kitty to get from one place to another, but although I like the Leather armor, I want to get the Mail first. Then Kaelyla, to keep my Alliance Main caught up. And then… maybe Kamalisaura the Dracthyr Evoker, just to see how the new Class plays? She will be Alliance, so that I can put her in the “Blue Team” category on my Characters page instead of having to make a new category just for her.

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Warfront: Darkshore

I refused to participate in the Darkshore Warfront as Horde, but by participating in it as Alliance, I also gained the appearances for the Horde counterpart set.

Moonpriest’s Vestments (A), Plaguebringer’s Raiment (H)

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Moonpriest’s Vestments

Moonpriest



Moonpriest’s Vestments with Sentinel’s Branch/Crescent Wand + Urn of Lost Memories

Wrathful Moonpriest




Ceremonial Crown of Karabor, Wrathful Gladiator’s Silk Amice, Imbued Netherweave Tunic, Felcast Cord, Moonpriest’s Legwraps, Sunfrost Handwraps, Inferno Breath Sandals, Moonpriest’s Cloak, Steel Bladebreaker, Urn of Lost Memories

~*~*~

Plaguebringer’s Raiment

Epic Wicked Witch

Wicked Witch’s Hat, Magnificent Aeroglide Shoulderpads, Plaguebringer’s Robe, Mana Cord of Deception, Plaguebringer’s Gloves, Pulverizing Felsoles, Ashjra’kamas, Shroud of Resolve (rank 1), Electrowing Dagger (H) + Ledger of Revolting Rituals (H)/Baleful Spire

Voidbringer

Mish’undare, Voidheart Mantle, Selis’ Silk Shirt, Mana-Cord of Deception (N), Plaguebringer’s Legwraps Gloves & Boots, Ashjra’kamas (rank 1), Inkgill Blade, Uldir Subject Manifest (LFR)

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Warfront: Arathi

I only visited the Arathi Warfront once or maybe twice with Kinevra just to see what it was all about. The gear set appearances were available from other sources, including, if I recall correctly, War Campaign chapters and 7th Legion/Honorbound Emissary reward chests.

7th Legionnaire’s Vestment (A), Honorbound Artificer’s Raiment (H)

The Argent Conscript’s set was rewarded from the limited time Shadowlands pre-patch event.

Argent Conscript’s (A), Argent Conscript’s (H)

The Expeditionary Cloth set is rewarded from the Exile’s Reach level 1-10 tutorial experience.

Expeditionary Cloth (A), Expeditionary Cloth (H)

~*~*~

7th Legionnaire’s Vestment

7th Legion Wizard


Arathi Warfront Alliance Cloth with Hidden Gloves, Crafted Cloak of War and 7th Legionnaire’s Stave

Seventh Legion Mage-Priest

Mountainsage Hood, Shoulders of Foaming Fluids (N), 7th Legionnaire’s Raiment, Healer’s Belt of Final Winter (N), Warmongering Gladiator’s Gloves of Prowess, Kimbra Boots*, 7th Legionnaire’s Stave

Blue Queen




Crown of the Righteous, 7th Legionnaire’s Amice, Sorcerer Robe, Shadowlace Cord, Sea Sculptor’s Cuffs, Eelskin Flippers, Crafted Cloak of War, Blue Linen Shirt, Court of Farondis Tabard, Replica Lion’s Fang, Sinister Combatant’s Etched Vessel

~*~*~

Honorbound Artificer’s Raiment

Honorbound Wizard


Darckli’s Dragonfire Diadem, Honorbound Artificer’s Amice & Robes, Fearless Gladiator’s Silk Cord, Slippers of the Forgotten Heretic (LFR), Argent Conscript’s Drape (H), Bloodfire Greatstaff

Queen of Blood and Embers

Crown of the Seducer, Honorbound Artificer’s Amice, Sanctified Bloodmage Robe (25H), Embersilk Cord, Primal Combatant’s Gloves of Prowess, Noble’s Fancy Boots, Vindictive Gladiator’s Ironskin Cloak, Stylish Black Shirt, Starrgo’s Walking Stick

Archmagi’s Will




Faemoss Amice, Expeditionary Cloth Robe (H)/Embroidered Gown of Zul Drak, Delaris’ Gloves, Mana-Cord of Deception (H), Starion’s Slippers, Ebonchill (PvP, first tint)

Professor of Transfiguration II


Dazzling Spectacles/Hat of the First Sister, Mantle of the Tribunal, Horde Expeditionary Cloth Robe, Aqu’sirr’s Swirling Sash, Duskhaven Boots, Arcanist’s Wand, Shadowtome (stage 3)

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BfA: all done but the mog farming and the alt leveling

Since reaching 120, Kinevra has done the Alliance side of things all out of order*. She did Mechagon first, so I could do the Mechagnome recruitment questline. Then Nazjatar, then the 8.0 War Campaign, then the Shroud of Resolve, then the 8.1 and 8.1.5 chapters of the War Campaign, then the second Siege of Orgrimmar and its small follow-up quests. I ended up doing the Pride of Kul Tiras storyline last — I’d heard that it was most excellent, perhaps the best story in all of Battle for Azeroth, so I suppose I was “saving the best for last” — and indeed it was as magnificent and moving as promised.

Having properly saved Jaina, I could finally recruit the Kul Tirans. At last, my roster is complete with a character of every race as Kayliddia the Kul Tiran Mage joins The Blue Team of my major characters.

Kayliddia’s parents were retainers on Lord Norwington’s estate. As a child, she showed promise as a magic-wielder, so when she reached the appropriate adolescent age to be apprenticed for a trade, Lord Norwington sponsored her training as a Tidesage. When her training was complete, she served as a Tidesage in Lord Norwington’s shipping fleet**. When the Horde raided Norwington Estate, one of her parents was killed, and the other parent and one of her younger siblings who was still at home were seriously injured. Kayliddia requested to be released from her service as a Tidesage to care for her wounded family members. When they had recovered, she further requested to be allowed to fight the Horde alongside Kul Tiras’ renewed allies, the Alliance***.

Before I did the Kul Tiran stories, I did the Heritage of the Sin’dorei questline with Kaelinda. I greatly enjoyed it and intend to write an RP story about it for her, like I did with Kamalia and the Heritage of the Shu’halo questline. First, however, I have to figure out where Kaelinda was and what she was doing when the Fall of Silvermoon originally happened.

With these major lore goals accomplished, all that’s left of my rest-of-BfA/pre-Shadowlands to-do list is mog farming and alt leveling:

* obtain the robe and belt of the Normal and Heroic versions of the Kul Tiras dungeon cloth set (the other pieces will be nice to have if I get them along the way)
* obtain the belt, gloves, and boots of the Uldir LFR cloth set (I already have the robe and shoulders)
* obtain the Phoenixfire Staff from the first wing of Dazar’alor LFR

* finish leveling Kaelyla to 120 and prep her for Shadowlands (rank 1 Shroud of Resolve, four rank 3 Essences, ilevel above 430)

* level Kasheena for Highmountain Tauren Heritage Armor

Although I want the Kul Tiran Heritage Armor very much and have all kinds of other Mogging that I want to do with Kayliddia (and I think I might want to take her to the Shadowlands, too), I plan to hold off on leveling her until Shadowlands so that I can do her leveling entirely in Kul Tiras and do all the quests and learn all the Kul Tiran lore that I skipped with Kinevra#.

* if I finish all these other things before the Shadowlands pre-launch events begin, do more Horrific Visions with Kerisa to get the second upgraded appearance of the Shroud of Resolve

The most significant thing to me about having completed my big Battle for Azeroth lore goals, though, is that hopefully now my brain will be able to shift out of “it’s summer and all I wanna do is play WoW” mode and into “Fall semester is coming up fast and it’s time to focus on getting my classes organized” mode.

~*~*~

* In-character, though, of course she would have done all these things in the proper chronological sequence.

** Or that of one of his business partners; it’s not clear if he would have a fleet of his own

*** Hmm… Kinevra, Kaelyla, and Kayliddia all have cause for strong grudges against the Horde, so I’m going to have to think about if/how they can still be able to work amicably with Kaelinda.

# Because the BfA Loremaster achievement is accountwide, Kamalia’s completion of the Zandalar storylines meant that Kinevra didn’t actually have to do everything in Kul Tiras. In fact, because she gained several levels during the WoW’s 15th Anniversary event from the trivia daily, she did little beyond the main storyline of Tiragarde Sound.

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Victory in Darkshore

This time and the last time that the Alliance was on the offensive in Darkshore, I ran it as many times as I could with Kinevra — at least once per day in the previous cycle, once during naptime and twice after bedtime for the past couple of days during this cycle. My goal was to obtain the Moonpriest’s Vestments and Sentinel’s Branch. I got the last couple of pieces of the armor set that I needed early in this cycle, and on my third run of the day yesterday, I finally got the staff.

Hooray, now I’m done! That marks off one of my remainder-of-BfA/pre-Shadowlands goals!

Along the way, I also picked up the Sentinel’s Spellblade and the cloaks for all three of the other armor types.

Looking at the Apothecary Spellstaff, the Horde counterpart of the Sentinel’s Branch, I think I might actually use it, eventually. I’m envisioning my Warlock using it with the Necrolords stuff from Shadowlands.

I’ve so far ignored the Arathi Warfront, as that set can be obtained in other ways. Maybe next time the Alliance is on the offensive there, though, I’ll do it once just to see how it compares to Darkshore.

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things I still want to do in BfA before Shadowlands

Now that we know what 9.0 will be, it’s time to think about my priorities for the remaining duration of Battle for Azeroth.

1) Kinevra needs to get to 120 and do the Alliance War Campaign while there will still be enough folks in BfA LFR for there to be reasonable queue times. This is a primary goal partly for seeing the Alliance side of the story and partly for being able to recruit the Kul Tirans and roll a gorgeous curvy ringlet-haired Kul Tiran Mage.

2) Kaelinda needs to get to 120 and get the Sin’dorei Heritage Armor.

3) Kerisa needs to get to 120 so that she can wear all of the Island Expeditions stuff I’ve collected off of the AH for her and to be in position to potentially be my first Horde character to level in 9.0 (because Balance Druids, with their self-heals, are more robust than Mages).

4) After reaching 120 and kitting themselves up in Benthic gear (they all already have full sets of tokens awaiting them), Kinevra, Kaelinda, and Kerisa need to go smack the Jadefire Masters and Opulence around until they cough up the Phoenixfire Staff and the crown, respectively. A lesser degree of LFR priority is collecting the Uldir and Eternal Palace LFR cloth sets.

5) Kamalia needs to get her Heart of Azeroth to level 70 (currently at 65) so she can see all of the dragon stories currently available, and then to whatever level is required for the additional bit(s) of dragon story that will be in 8.3.

6) Kinevra would like to collect the Darkshore Warfront set. Kerithian may not need to get to 120 if the Night Warrior customization option unlocks for her when Kinevra does the Darkshore Warfront introduction questline.

7) Void Elf, Highmountain Tauren, Kul Tiran, Vulpera, and maaaaybe Nightborne alts will eventually want to be leveled for their Heritage Armors, but this will remain a low priority, long game project. Between limited space remaining on my account and alt fatigue, I’ve decided that I will only create additional Allied Races characters if I like the Heritage Armor of that race well enough to want to level from scratch to get it.

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A Sound Plan

Kinevra finally finished the Loremaster plotline of Tiragarde Sound. She’s left almost all of the side quests undone — the Roughriders, the Tortollans at Norwington Estate, the hunting lodge, the steam springs resort, the guard tower, the Explorer’s League camp, what else? My plan is to go through Drustvar and Stormsong Valley doing just the Loremaster questlines as well, ignoring anything that’s obviously a side quest. I’ll come back to the side quests if I haven’t reached 120 by the time I finish the Loremaster questlines.

With the War Campaign no longer being gated by 7th Legion rep, I think I’ll have Kinevra contract for the Proudmoore Admiralty first after she reaches 120 — the sooner to be able to recruit the Kul Tirans.

As much as I conceptually like playing a Mage, however, I die so much when I’m playing one of my Mages! My Balance Druids feel more robust…

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a few thoughts on Patch 8.2.5

On Tuesday night, I needed to put together an organic chemistry exam. I also really really wanted to play the finale of the War Campaign. So I did both, and didn’t get to bed until 2 am.

Before I talk about my thoughts on the War Campaign (such as they are), here are some before-and-after pictures of my Goblin and Worgen Mages to give those of you who are still trying to avoid spoilers some buffer space to click away.




When the first round of model updates came out with Warlords, I had to change the faces of my Gnome and Night Elf. Eventually I will take these gals to the Barbershop to look through all the updated faces. I’ll probably end up keeping the same face for the Goblin — though I liked the old version better. It’s more likely that I’ll change the face of the Worgen; I liked the extent of the white pattern on the muzzle better on the old model. I also liked the more subtle gray in the hairstyle of the old model better. *sigh* Now I understand the feelings of people who were disconnected from their characters by the previous model changes better (something that seemed, among the bloggers I read, to be most prevalent for Night Elves and Draenei).

So, about that conclusion of the War Campaign…

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