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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Things my Druid Wears, part 9 (outfits 81 – 90)

A collection of Transmogrification Kits actually worn in-game by my Tauren & Highmountain Tauren Druids. Outfits are listed from most recent to least recent. Items that are no longer obtainable are marked with an asterisk (*).

82) Feathers of Fire/Feathers of Frost

Orange: Jewel of the Firelord, Firekin Amice, Flamestrider Robes, Scouting Trousers, Tabard of Summer Flames, Spire of Coagulated Globules (H)

Blue: Crown of Eternal Winter, Hide of Chromaggus, Jinxed Hoodoo Skin, Mistspray Kilt*, Tabard of Summer Skies, Spire of Coagulated Globules (LFR)
This robe style is available in both leather and cloth, and both leather and cloth have feathery, firey shoulders to wear with it. Compare Blood Elf Mage #84 for the cloth version.

81) Kul Tiran Swashbuckler

Blue Tricorne Hat, Extravagant Epaulettes, Vest of the Azerothian Champion, Fairweather Belt, Flame-Seared Leggings, Antiquity Handler’s Gloves, Ooey-Gooey Galoshes, Pinku’shon’s Impaler
This is mostly one of the variations of the leather Kul Tiras dungeon set, with a few substitutions.

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Shrouds of Resolve obtained; remainder of BfA/pre-Shadowlands to-do list update

Alas, it was wishful thinking that misread the notes about the Echoes of Ny’alotha update to mean that if one character on an account got a rank 1 Shroud of Resolve, all characters would then be able to resume collecting Echoes of Ny’alotha.

Kinevra, Kaelinda, Kalaneia, and Kerisa have now completed “Beginning the Descent” and obtained their rank 1 Shrouds of Resolve. Kinevra has all of her rank 3 Essences; the others can now continue to gather Echoes of Ny’alotha to get the one or two Essences they still need. At some point, I’ll need to run each of them through the rest of the 8.3 questline, so they can cleanse Corrupted items and to decide which of them will take on the task of running Horrific Visions to get the rank 5 appearance for the Shroud of Resolve.

Some other things I still want to do before the Shadowlands pre-launch events begin —
* 7.1 Alliance War Campaign
* Pride of Kul Tiras questline
* recruit Kul Tirans
* Heritage of the Sin’dorei questline
* go back to Broken Isles with Kinevra to finish Order Hall campaign & get Archmage title

~*~*~

Kamalia hadn’t quite finished getting the Mechagon stuff she needed to buy the rank 3 Purification Protocol when the Echoes of Ny’alotha changes came out a couple of weeks ago. She’s now finished that, so bye-bye Mechagon — for good this time!

Kamalia and Karaelia are now retired, more-or-less. Kam will still go out to do Emissaries when the reward is 2K gold, and she’ll send her minions on money missions, but that’s all. I haven’t gotten the Shroud of Resolve with either of them, and I’m not sure if I will.

~*~*~

I’ve been ticking off Mogging goals, too —
* Kinevra & Kaelinda got all that I wanted out of Eternal Palace LFR
* between them, the three cloth wearers collected the Normal Zuldazar cloth dungeon set
* Kerisa got the partial recolor of the Kul Tiras leather dungeon set that comes from reputations and Heroic Mechagon
* Kinevra farmed enough more Seafarers Doubloons to get the other two colors of the Tricorne Hat

Here’s the Mogging stuff I still want to do:
* clothies run Heroic Kul Tiras dungeons to collect that armor set
* clothies LFR Uldir to collect that set
* LFR first and second wings of Dazar’alor to get Phoenixfire Staff and crown from Opulence
* Kinevra farm Darkshore Warfront when it’s up to finish collecting Moonpriest set (just robes & gloves to go!) and get the Sentinel’s Branch staff

~*~*~

And then, of course, I’ll want to level Void Elf Mage, Highmountain Tauren Druid, and Kul Tiran Mage to 120 to get their Heritage Armors. Kaelyla (Void Elf) will also need to get her rank 1 Shroud of Resolve and rank 3 Essences so that she’ll be ready to go to Shadowlands, too; the others may or may not, depending on how much of the rest of my to-do list is still unfinished when they get to level 120.

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Playable Quel’dorei (more or less)? YES PLEASE!

Blizzard has just announced that in Shadowlands. not only will Blood & Void Elves be able to have blue eyes, Void Elves will be able to have human-like (ie, palest pink to deepest brown range) skin tones!
I’m pretty excited about this 😀

Kaelinda will change her eyes to blue.
I will also change Kaelyla’s eyes to blue; the silver doesn’t really work for me (and is one of the reasons why I have a hard time connecting with my Draenei, Night Elf, and Nightborne alts, as well).
I’ve begun to get used to Kaelyla’s lavender skin, so I might only change her skin to pink when she is wearing outfits that represent her backstory — things she did before the Telogrus Rift Incident.

I haven’t commented yet on the recent preview of new hairstyles, ear lengths, and necklaces for female Blood Elves, so now is as good a time as any.
*The longest of the ear lengths shown appears to be the current ear length. I like the long, long ears as a distinctive marker of Blizzard’s interpretation of Elves, so I’m unlikely to change my characters’ ears.
*I’m most likely to use the necklaces and new earrings on a situational basis, when they are the perfect finishing touch for an outfit that I’m designing, rather than as a permanent change to any of my characters’ apperances.
*I love all three of the new hairstyles! The pixie cut is cuter than any of the current super-short styles, the queen style is stunningly gorgeous, and the femme Lor’themar style is about time. I’ll probably also use these on a situational basis, to complement an outfit — though the femme Lor’themar just might become my Blood Elf Paladin’s new default style.

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Gotta Catch ‘Em All!

Kinevra hit Exalted with 7th Legion and Proudmoore Admiralty this week, which prompted me to finally go finish the last two chapters of the 7.0 Alliance War Campaign. Then I could go recruit the Dark Iron Dwarves — because no matter how much I tried to talk myself out of recruiting all the Allied Races, I just couldn’t resist pairing up each of the Minor Mages with an Allied Race counterpart:

Kivrinne: Undead Mage, 46, Frost
Kymberlea: Worgen Mage, 32, Fire

Kaoling: Huojin Pandaren Mage, 31, Arcane
Koralyra: Tushui Pandaren Mage, 20, Frost

Keriluna: Night Elf Mage, 32, Arcane
Koralythria: Nightborne Mage, 20, Arcane

Kaprikka: Draenei Mage, 92, Arcane/Frost
Krystaliza: Lightforged Draenei Mage, 20, Arcane

Kelilla: Gnome Mage, 42, Frost
Katrinka: Mechagnome Mage, 20, Frost

Kermione: Goblin Mage, 33, Fire
Khariba: Vulpera Mage, 20, Fire

Kikimaia: Troll Mage, 36, Frost
Kilauea: Zandalari Troll Mage, 20, Fire

Kenosha: Orc Mage, 33, Fire
Keshona: Mag’har Orc Mage, 20, Fire

Khrissalys: Dwarf Mage, 30, Fire
Kronakka: Dark Iron Dwarf Mage, 20, Fire

I have yet to do the 7.1 Alliance War Campaign so that I can recruit the Kul Tirans, but my Kul Tiran Mage will go in with my major characters, like my Void Elf Mage did.

Now that I’ve done (almost) all of them, I think that the Highmountain Tauren, Zandalari Troll, and Dark Iron Dwarf recruitment questlines/scenarios were the most epic, and the Vulpera one was the most fun.

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farewell to the junkheap

As it turned out, I just wanted to be Done with Mechagon. I started picking up some of the other dailies on the island. I ended up doing “fill the bar” and passing on “kill three star mobs”, though I’d still do some of the other dailies on a “kill three star mobs” day. I finished the mechaspider mount questline, even though I don’t care for the mount and won’t use it, just for the rep that doing so would provide. A little bit of a boost from the Darkmoon Top Hat last night, and…

If I ever have the whim to do so after Kaylynda reaches 120, now I can go recruit the Mechagnomes.

~*~*~

Now that she’s finished Mechagon, Kamalia is officially in retirement. I’ll be doing the Patch 8.3 stuff with Kaylynda, or maybe Kaelinda, or maybe Kerisa. I know that I want to at least get the Orthographically Obnoxious Cloak to Rank 5 for the first appearance upgrade. That might be all I do of Patch 8.3 content, though.

This won’t actually be the first time that I’ll have let Kamalia sit out an endgame zone and done it with another character. At the end of Legion, I did Argus with Kiralaira (my Demon Hunter) because it felt more thematically appropriate to do so.

~*~*~

As I get other characters to 120, I plan to bring them out to Mechagon at least once. I like to have all areas of an expansion accessible for my “major” characters just in case I ever want to use some of the scenery in those areas as a backdrop for a Mog photoshoot.

~*~*~

I’m teaching four different lecture classes and two different lab classes this semester, and I’m feeling like I’m just barely keeping my head above water. So, now that I’ve finished this goal with Kamalia and I haven’t yet gotten any other characters to 120, I think perhaps I’d better take a bit of a break from WoW — at least for the rest of this week, maybe next week, too — but hopefully not as long as until the end of the semester.

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Things my Void Elf Mage Wears, part 3 (outfits 21 – 30)

A collection of Transmogrification Kits actually worn in-game by my Void Elf Mage. Outfits are listed from most recent to least recent. Items that are no longer obtainable are marked with an asterisk (*).

26) Karabor’s Shadow


Blood-Cursed Shoulderpads, Anchorite’s Robes, Sage’s Gloves & Boots, Apostle of Argus; Tabard of Summer Skies/Aldor Tabard
When this combination of shoulders and robe was originally suggested several years ago by WoW Roleplay Gear, I planned to use it for my Tauren Priest. This was because the robe required Aldor reputation both to buy and to wear, and Kaohana was the only one of the cloth-wearers among my major characters to have chosen the Aldor rather than the Scryers. Because these shoulders are a recolor of a Warlock tier set, however, the combination never felt quite right for her (or for my Draenei Mage, when she was one of my active characters during late Mists and early Warlords). Eventually, the reputation requirement to use the robe for Transmogrification was lifted. When Kaelyla joined my roster, I knew that this outfit would be fabulous on her.
On a whim, I decided to see if the Aldor and Scryer tabards were reputation-locked. They aren’t, so to my amusement, my Scryer character can thumb her nose at the Aldor by wearing their tabard along with their robe.

25) Nether Tempest

Netherwind Mantle, Manaweave Robe, Netherwind Belt, Netherwind Boots, Ethereum Life-Staff
When my oldest child was a little baby, I spent a great deal of time farming Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. I collected most of the Netherwind set — then got tired and decided that, you know what? I wasn’t that fond of the Netherwind Mantle anyway, and maybe I’d try that robe with some different shoulders.
Recently, I found myself looking at the set and thinking, you know what? I’m not really all that fond of that robe, and maybe I ought to try the shoulders with a different robe… So back to Blackwing Lair I went, until I’d gotten the Netherwind Mantle.

24) Noble’s Spring Celebration


Pink Spring Circlet, Noble’s Robe, Gnomish Inventor Boots, Pink Mageweave Shirt, Wand of Happiness, Suntouched Flowers
The combination of colors created by using this shirt with this robe is like the hyacinths in the flower beds around the front steps of my house.

23) Sweet Summer

Crown of Boundless Courage, Vestments of the Shifting Sands, Native Pants/Red Silk Trousers, Ringo’s Blizzard Boots, Golden Filigreed Doublet/Amber Filigreed Doublet, Relentless Gladiator’s Cloak of Dominance, Wand of Happiness, Symbol of Transgression
This variation on the flower circlet + filigreed doublet + Slinky Leia Robe combination had to be done with an Alliance character so as to use this Alliance-exclusive off-hand from Trial of the Crusader.
There are four colors of the robe and five colors of the shirt. I couldn’t quite decide which of the two colors of the shirt that I hadn’t used yet I liked better, so I’ve shown both versions of the outfit. The yellow shirt makes this kit an inversion of sorts of my earlier “Queen of Sheba” outfit (Priest #46); the cuffs of the orange shirt look really beautiful in combination with the goblet.

22) Tranquillien Twilight

Crown of Everlasting Fortune, Robes of the Guardian Saint, Azure Silk Pants, Twilight Boots, Cerulean Filigreed Doublet, Relentless Gladiator’s Cloak of Subjugation, Grand Scepter of the Nexus-Kings
Once I thought of this palette-swap for Kaelydia’s “Eversong” outfit (Blood Elf Mage #78), of course I had to do it.

21) Arcane Torrents

Pauldrons of the Solace Giver, Carapace Robes/Mordant’s Travel Tunic, Laughing Skull Waistguard, Arcane Leggings, Gandling’s Gloves, Sigil-Laced Boots, Grand Magister’s Staff of Torrents
After making several outfits with the brown version of this robe during the 15th Anniversary event, I wanted to use one of the other colorations.
This outfit definitely benefitted from Kaelyla having leveled up enough to use Outland items.

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in from the dunes

I played through the Vulpera recruitment questline last night and it was AWESOME. So much fun!

Khariba is named after my graduate school mentor — not the professor who was my advisor of record, but the senior staff member with whom I worked most closely on my thesis project — who is originally from Iran — though she usually says “Persia” because of the political tensions between the US and Iran for the past several decades.

Voldunai Explorer
Resilient Cap, Bright Armor, Juju Belt, Godfrey’s Britches, Treads of the Survivor, Silksand Cape, Tabard of the Vulpera, Umbranse’s Staff
I liked the bottom half of the Vulpera tabard enough that this had to be a trousers outfit.
I’m not particulary fond of hoods, in general, because they cover up or clip my characters’ hair. Vulpera, however, don’t have hair to cover up or clip, so I think I might just use hoods more often with Khariba’s kits.

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back to Mechagon

With the Mechagon dungeon now available on Heroic, Kamalia picked up the quest to defeat King Mechagon (which she had been ignoring), queued up as a healer, and got a group that waltzed right through the place. Now she’s hanging out in Rustbolt again. If Prince Erazmin’s daily quest is “kill 3 star mobs”, she’ll most likely do it. If it’s “find 6 chests”, she’ll probably do it, too. If it’s “fill the bar”, she probably won’t. Although I doubt that I’ll do the Mechagnome recruitment questline anytime soon, I’d still like to have the Mechagnome unlock requirements completed just so that if I ever do get the whim to recruit them, I won’t have to come back for it.
(I’m much farther along with getting to Exalted with Nazjatar on account of going back there for Humming Azerite Heart and 2000 gold Emissary rewards — for those, I always do the Mad Mardivas puzzles.)

Maybe tomorrow I’ll go do the Vulpera recruitment questline.

Does anyone know yet how to access the cutscene/cinematic about the new Horde leadership? I still haven’t found a breadcrumb for it.

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Light and Magic; Horns, Hooves, and Tails

What was that I said about not making any more Allied Races alts unless I liked their Heritage Armor enough to level from scratch for it?

Well, I’m not all that keen on the Lightforged Draenei Heritage Armor — not for a Mage, at least — but I just haven’t been able to get the notion of having a Lightforged Draenei among the Minor Mages out of my head.

Meet Krystaliza.

I don’t know much about who she is, other than that she is a long-lost relative of Kaprikka. As far as Kaprikka was aware, all of her progenitors had perished in one Legion attack or another by the time the Draenei arrived on Draenor; her parents, too, were killed in the Orcish rampage. I’m not sure at quite what point in the 25000 years of the Draenei’s flight from Kil’jaeden that Xe’ra arrived and took those who wished to follow her off in the Xenedar, so I don’t know exactly how many generations back Krystaliza is a sister of one of Kaprikka’s ancestors — but for each of them to find that they do, in fact, have a blood relative still living was a delightful shock.

Part of my desire to have this character on my roster came from wanting to pair the Lightforged tabard with the Draenic Silk Robes, as seen above.

Part of it comes from a couple of occasions when I’ve made a white and gold outfit and wished that I had a blonde Lightforged Draenei to model it in the Dressing Room.

And part of it is that with the Orb of Deception, a Lightforged Draenei can become a Highmountain Tauren (or a Gnome can be a Mulgore Tauren), thereby allowing me to pretend — for five minutes at a time, at least — that I have Tauren Mages!


Come on, Blizzard! Some of the Crazed Mages in Blackrock Caverns are Tauren, and they’ve been in the game since Cataclysm! Because they use ice and fire magic already, I think that Tauren becoming Mages as a divergence from Shamanism could be just as valid as Tauren becoming Priests and Paladins as a divergence from Druidism.
But as much as I’d like this to happen, it’s not likely to happen. I’ll just go sit in the corner with the folks who really really want to play Gnome or Night Elf Paladins…

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