Mu’sha’s Sickle

I’ve been taking small breaks from Shadowlands to level with Kasheena. I’d gotten her to level 60 and Old Dalaran before Patch 9.0.1 arrived. After Patch 9.0.1, shortly before the Death Rising event began, I Chromie Timed her to Draenor and established her Garrison, so she could camp out there during the zombie invasion. During the past week, I returned her from Draenor. Then I Chromie Timed to Pandaria and played through just enough of the opening sequence to get to the village, so that I’d have that portal open in the Orgrimmar Portal Room. Next, I dropped out of Chromie Time and did the Battle for Azeroth opening sequence — skipping the Stormwind Extraction scenario — so I’d have that portal open. Then I was ready to Chromie Time to Legion. I discovered, somewhat to my dismay, that I didn’t have the option to skip the Broken Shore scenario and go straight to New Dalaran. Oh well, it had been long enough since I’d done it that it wasn’t so bad to do it again. With Balance as my favorite Druid spec, of course she chose the Scythe of Elune first. I might also get her the Fangs of Ashamane at some point.

I think it’s rather silly that Highmountain Tauren PCs don’t get that campaign marked as completed and their reputation set to Exalted, the way Nightborne PCs get the Suramar campaign and reputation flagged as already done for them. At any rate, she’s questing through Highmountain and shaking her head at being treated like an ignorant outsider. When she’s finished with Highmountain, she’ll probably do Val’sharah, too. She’s currently level 33; if she’s not level 50 by the time she’s finished Val’sharah, well, I guess I’ll figure out what I want to do next when I get there.

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one more level 50

About a month ago, I got a bee in my bonnet about using the Hidden appearance of Tu’ure, Staff of the Lightborn, with the Kyrian gear.

Kaohana had the Rod of the Ascended in her bags already, so I loaded her up with +XP Heirlooms and sent her off to level up. Brewfest was just beginning, so I did the ram riding Brewfest dailies. I ran a few Island Expeditions, did the quests to open up the Stormsong Valley and Drustvar bases, and then got bored of Island Expeditions. RL stuff got in the way, too, so she was at level 116 — which converted into level 48 — when Patch 9.0.1 arrived. After the patch, doing a a few Hallow’s End dailies, about half a continent worth of Candy Buckets, and the Tiragarde Sound foothold were enough to get her to level 50. I kitted her out in Benthic gear and sent her off to Halls of Valor to bully Hyrja into giving her the Crest of the Lightborn. It took 7 tries on Normal.

That’s all I’m going to do with her at level 50, though. I didn’t get her a Shroud of Resolve; after doing that questline 8 times, I just don’t have it in me to do it again. If she goes to the Shadowlands at all, it won’t be until the tail end of the expansion.

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the Alterac Shepherdess and her Brewfest companions

Because there isn’t anything new for Brewfest this year and I’ve already got all of the previous stuff from it that I want, I was going to ignore the holiday. Then I remembered that I’d been wanting to make a set of Brewfest outfits pairing each of the armor types with one of the colors of the Brewfest Hat.

Alterac Shepherdess

Purple Brewfest Hat, Mystical Armor, Dreamer’s Belt, Gossamer Pants, Zaetar’s Gloves, Brewfest Slippers, White Linen Shirt, Aluneth (hidden, default tint)
When I acquired the Hidden appearance for Aluneth, I made a mental note to make an outfit to go with it when Brewfest came because the Brewfest Slippers were the shoes I wanted to use.

Brewfest Brawler

Blue Brewfest Hat, Pauldrons of the Touched, Durotan’s Battle Harness, Frostwolf Stalwart Girdle, Dalaran Warden’s Legplates, Gloves of Brawn*, Sabatons of the Endless Vigil, Chain Link Towel, Tuxedo Shirt, Tremendous Tankard O’ Terror
A half-baked attempt to mimic the appearance of the Brewfest Regalia lederhosen in plate.
Maltendis’ Handguards are the same model as the Gloves of Brawn, in a slightly darker, richer shade of brown.
This chestpiece has a lime green contrast color area on the back that I find quite distracting. Fortunately, this little cloak is just perfect to cover that up.

Brewery Apprentice

Brown Brewfest Hat, Murkblood Chestpiece & Belt, Shard-Covered Leggings, Barrel-Aged Gloves, Stolen Talrendis Boots, White Linen Shirt, Fu Zan (upgraded, This Side Up tint)
This outfit is a cross between the outfits worn by the competing brewery apprentices — the Thunderbrew/T’chali’s version has the brown chestpiece and belt (the Barleybrew/Drohn’s version is golden) and the Barleybrew/Drohn’s version has the green shorts (the Thunderbrew/T’chali’s version is brown).
I also like how this looks with the Misthide Shoulders—

— and the Netherstorm Eyepatch combined with the Antiseptic Soaked Dressing would bring to mind the beleagured Battered Brewmaster who recruits adventurers for the Coren Direbrew encounter.

Bright Brewmaiden


Captain’s set with Green Brewfest Hat, Golden Scale Shoulders, Knuckle Down, and Professor’s Sandwich Plate
An outfit mimicking the appearance of the Bright Brewmaiden summoned by the Bubbliest Brightbrew Charm dropped by Coren Direbrew. The NPC wears shoulders that are a unique recolor of the Priest T5 model, but the rest of her outfit is just the mail Captain’s set. Not having any decent maces to hand to Mog into tankards because I haven’t gotten around to doing the Doomhammer questline with Kjerstin yet, I chose the most inconspicuous fist weapon and the simplest platter-like shield from my collection to Mog over the Elemental Artifact.
A more accurately Brewmaiden-like hat would be the Thunderbringer’s Guard —

— but I wanted to wear the Brewfest Hat.

And here are my other two Dwarf lasses in the standard Brewfest apparel, just because.

Brewfest Lederhosen

Brewfest Regalia, Cobalt Legguards, Maltendis’ Handguards, Brewfest Boots, Tremendous Tankard O’ Terror, Professor’s Sandwich Plate
To Mog with this holiday item successfully, the pants slot must also be mogged into shorts that are short enough to hide under the shorts that are part of the chestpiece. These gloves are just about the only plate gloves that will display underneath the sleeves of the chestpiece.

Brewfest Dirndl

Brewfest Dress, Ritual Gloves + Ritual Bands, Brewfest Slippers, Wand of Separation, Seer’s Fine Stein
It’s Brewfest! Let’s dance some polkas!
I think that maybe “dirndl” isn’t actually the correct name for this style of folk dress, but I’m not sure what the correct name is.

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2 weeks until BfA

After finishing up the Warrior campaign, I did Priest & Paladin in parallel, alternating between them. Despite the dire circumstances, the twins were delighted to be able to work together for their Order Hall Campaigns — and the members of their orders observed and recognized the special synergy between them. Then I pushed through the rest of Death Knight because I just wanted to be done already with Order Hall Campaigns. I got spoiled on how the DK campaign ends long ago — one reason why I was saving it for last — and it was as epic… and troubling… as advertised.

I’m feeling kind of burned out on WoW now — having a 5-day break while I attend this chemical education conference is actually rather refreshing!

My Priest also picked up the Hidden appearance for her Disc Artifact. So far, I’ve gotten the Hidden appearances for Arcane Mage, Fire Mage, Frost Mage, Brewmaster Monk, Holy Paladin, Enhancement Shaman, Beastmaster Hunter, and Guardian Druid.
Interestingly, though Kamalia hasn’t obtained the base Hidden appearances for Elemental or Resto, she has the 200 WQ tint of those appearances available for her to use.
I’ll have to come back at level 120 to farm the dungeon drops for the Hidden appearances for Balance Druid and Holy Priest.
I’d thought about getting the Feral Druid one for Kerisa, but I decided instead to get it with my Highmountain Tauren Druid.

Niskara, Niskara, Niskara… Marksmanship Hunter, Blood Death Knight, and Holy Priest all go there at the very beginning of things to get Artifacts. Warlocks go there for Chapter 2 of their campaign. Paladins and Priests have an intersecting storyline there near the end of Chapter 3 & beginning of Chapter 4 of their respective campaigns. Demon Hunters and Warriors conclude their campaigns there. From a meta perspective, I recognize that this place is a hub to answer the common complaint about art resources being created that only a small fraction of the playerbase will ever see (locations such as Kezan, the Broken Isles, Gilneas-before-the-Cataclysm, and the Wandering Isle, for example) and to reduce the load on the art team. From an in-universe lore perspective, though, why is this scrap of a world such a central location? Might that have been explained in some bit of quest text that I have long since forgotten?

I was greatly relieved to read Gnomecore’s report that the gear from the Darkshore WQs uses the new character selection screen/Boosted/Warlords Salvage Yard models — I have all of those already, so no need for me to run myself ragged trying to collect them. Between missing 5 days of play time and wanting to finally do the Argus campaign when I get back, I may end up doing all three chapters of the War of Thorns back-to-back with just one character per faction on the night of August 12th. On the Alliance side, it will be Kerithian the Night Elf Druid, of course. On the Horde side, I’m thinking it will be Kelisanna the Rogue, to observe and report on Sylvanas’ operations for Regent Lord Theron.

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sheep-shape

Not too long ago, there was a hotfix that said something about fixing a bug that had prevented some Mages from being able to acquire the Hidden appearance for Aluneth.

I must have been one of those Mages, because on the day that the Explosive Sheep spawned inside the Hall of the Guardian for me, I looked all over the Runewood, at all the spawn points pinned by Wowhead, for the Extremely Volatile Stormheim Sheep and did not find it.

Several weeks passed.

The other day, there was a World Quest I wanted to do in the Runewood, so I thought, what the hey, I’ll look around and see if I can find that darn sheep*. I did find it, and was then annoyed that clicking on it was another of those twitchy catch-the-rabbit/chicken games that I’m so terrible at. Eventually, I managed to get it.

“How should I get to Elwynn?” I thought. “Should I hop back to Dalaran and take the portal to Karazhan?” And then I remembered, “Duh! I’m a HORDE Mage!” and teleported to Stonard**.

I knew that there would be an event at the Tower of Azora, but I didn’t know what to expect. What happened was… rather tragic.

But now I have my Woolamancer’s Charge — and the Hidden appearances for all three of the Mage artifacts.

Expect a “shepherdess” Transmogrification kit sometime in the future — but perhaps not until Brewfest, as it strikes me that the Brewfest Dress and Slippers are the most “Heidi”-like items in the WoW wardrobe… Ah, if only I could use the Dwarf/Gnome/Night Elf/Tauren braided loops hairstyle on a Blood Elf…

* I hadn’t seen the explosive sheep in my order hall again, but I hoped that maybe the one that was supposed to be in Stormheim would still be out there somewhere from the earlier occasion.

** Is portal roulette, prominently featuring Stonard (or Theramore Crater, if you’re Alliance?), still a Thing at the end of a night of organized raiding?

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procrastination pays off

So here I am, with two level 110s and no flying because I haven’t completed Suramar yet on either one of them. Kamalia has 35 traits in all of her Artifacts and Kaelinda is closing in on having 35 traits in all of her Artifacts, but neither of them is working on Concordance because they haven’t gone down to the Broken Shore yet. Kamalia is getting close to Revered with Legionfall, though, simply from sending her Champions on missions that reward Legionfall tokens and choosing Legionfall when the Kirin Tor Emissary is up. Kaelinda has all of her followers — five, because she hasn’t yet completed her Order Hall campaign — to 900, one of them Titled, and the others rapidly approaching Titled. Kamalia has most of her active followers to 900, and she hasn’t gotten any of them to Titled yet. I haven’t done any LFR yet.

I’d say I’m pretty woefully behind the curve at this point. *shrug* Even not having flying yet isn’t particularly bothering me, because I know I’ll get there eventually.

Fortunately, when Patch 7.3 comes, it won’t be nearly as hard to catch up anymore — except for getting flying.

So Kaelinda will finish Suramar. And Kaelinda will do the Broken Shore/Legionfall Campaign, because she really wants her Class Mount and Kamalia doesn’t. Kaelinda might be the one who trailbreaks on Argus, or it might be Kamalia. Or it might be one of my other characters who hasn’t reached 110 yet.

As they trickle through to level 110, my other characters will all do their 7.0 Order Hall Campaigns, and they’ll all do Legionfall at least through getting their additional Champion. Completing Legionfall to get their Class Mounts, however, will most likely be something that I leave as a “go do this old rep because I need a break from current content” thing for the next expansion. The Demon Hunter will do the Xe’ra questline because it seems most appropriate for her, and the Paladin will do the Deaths of Chromie because she’s the one who most wants the cosmetic armor reward. The Mage and the Druid need to run Emerald Nightmare/Nighthold LFR, the Mage and the Warlock and the Priest should run Trial of Valor LFR, and I haven’t decided yet who wants to run Tomb of Sargeras LFR.

But school starts three weeks from yesterday, so Patch 7.3 can just take its sweet time in getting ready to launch.

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frost-fire? fire-frost?

Upon teleporting back to the Hall of the Guardian to put some new traits into Aluneth and Felo’melorn after doing some questing in Suramar, Kaelinda observed something odd…

When she went to investigate, the portal to Suramar had an unusual green glow around it. She hadn’t used the portal to Suramar yet, so she was curious to see where it would go anyway. (I forgot to take a screenshot of the green glow before I clicked it, though.)

It didn’t go to Suramar.

Apparently she was somewhere in Frostfire Ridge? On Draenor?

What a strange experience…

I’m not particulary keen on this appearance (or any of Ebonchill’s appearances, really), but now I am reminded that I should take some time to go get the Hidden appearance for Aluneth. Hopefully the Hidden appearance for Felo’melorn will just drop while I’m working my way through the Suramar storyline and I won’t have to come back and grind for it.

I’ve got a couple of other things to do in Suramar besides the zone storyline itself that I think I’ll clear up before I continue much farther in the mainline questchain. I need to go visit that tailoring guild guy in Suramar City, and I’ve got a Mage Order Hall Campaign quest to make some trouble in Felsoul Hold with Kalec.

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This Side Up

By a combination of ignoring Archaeology for most of the first couple of months of the expansion and picking and choosing which of the most recent Archaeology quests to do, I completed “This Side Up” by acquiring the Spirit of Eche’ro.

In the process, I also managed to complete my collection of Pristine versions of the five common Highmountain Tauren objects.

Kamalia has now obtained the eight easy Artifact appearances.
default, Pillar of Creation, Light’s Heart, level 103 Class Campaign chapter

Complete Class Campaign, 35 Artifact traits, 25 Artifact Knowledge, This Side Up

I think I remember reading somewhere that because so many of the Rare items from Archaology are account-bound, the devs decided to make the Artifact appearance unlock for completing “This Side Up” account-wide, too. That’ll be very nice for my alts if it’s true!

Will I ever finish the rest of the Broken Isles Archaeology quests? Yeah, I’ll probably do the ones that I’ve skipped the next time they come around. With how easily I’ve managed to complete the set of Highmountain Tauren Pristines, I’ll probably be able to get all of the Highborne and Demonic Pristines, too — though I might not work quite so diligently at it.

But will I ever go back and finish collecting the Draenor Pristines, or the Pandaria Pristines? That’s doubtful. I think it would have to be the end-of-expansion doldrums, I’d need to be done with all the stuff I want to do in the Broken Isles with all of my alts, and I’d have to have finished fishing up all the coins in the Legion Dalaran fountain before I got bored enough to do that.

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Kamalia’s done with World Quests… for now

With today’s Kirin Tor Emissary quest, Kamalia reached Exalted with the last of the 7.0 reputations and got enough Artifact Power to put the 35th trait into Doomhammer. She now has 35 traits in all three of her Artifact weapons. I would like to be celebrating that I’m done with her Artifact weapons… except that come patch 7.2, I won’t be.

/headdesk

This is a great system for people who have an OTP relationship with their Main. For me, though, spending all my playtime with Kam farming Artifact Power is a rabbit hole that I’ve already spent too long falling down. If I want to accomplish my goal of playing all twelve of the Order Hall Campaign stories, I need to be able to let Kam rest.

So, I won’t be doing any more AP farming to put any further ranks into the Paragon traits of Kam’s Artifacts, and I will try to resist the lure of new content when Patch 7.2 comes out to focus on completing the 7.0 and 7.1.5 content first.

At Artifact Knowledge 25, it’s really only the last 5-ish traits that really take awhile to get. Kamalia can quickly boost each alt to Artifact Knowledge 20 as soon as she reaches level 110. Reaching Artifact Knowledge 25 is necessary to get the lore stories about all the Artifacts. Getting AK ranks past 25 will certainly speed my alts along the way to getting all of their Artifacts (or at least the ones for the specs I actually play with them) to 35, though, so I’ll probably end up doing it.

When I’ve gotten my alts’ Artifacts up to 35 traits, then I can think about doing the questlines to open up the Empowered traits. I must admit that I would like to do each of the seven Empowerment questlines at least once, just to see what they’re about.

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in which the Nightfallen love Kamalia (even though she hasn’t really done all that much for them)

Kamalia hasn’t progressed any farther in the Suramar storyline than completing “Nightfallen but not Forgotten“, activating all of the leyline feeds to Shal’aran, and doing a few random side-quest chapters of “Good Suramaritan“. Nonetheless, through always choosing Suramar when I turn in a Kirin Tor Emissary quest and through doing Suramar Emissary quests when they are available, Kamalia dinged Exalted with the Nightfallen when she turned in today’s Suramar Emissary quest.

The Artifact Power she received in the process was enough to get the 34th trait in the Fist of Ra-den, too. Just one more trait in the Fist of Ra-den, and then I can start filling out the Doomhammer. Seeing how fast filling up Kam’s off-spec Artifact has gone since she reached Artifact Power 25 has made the prospect of filling up Artifacts for my alts much less daunting. The most important factor in that, of course, is that, my alts won’t have the same long hard slog up to Artifact Knowledge 25 that Kam had. Kam can just spend 11000 Order Hall Resources to boost them all up to Artifact Knowledge 20 as soon as they hit level 110, after which it won’t take long for them to get to Artifact Knowledge 25 — and then they can just blast through filling out their Artifact weapons. I like that!

Getting Exalted with the Nightfallen also means that Kamalia has managed to earn her entire Order Hall set. Even though I don’t much like the set as a whole (though the pants, gloves, and boots have some mix-and-match potential), I figured I ought to wear it, just for a little bit (meaning, I might Mog it over with a black and purple kit to go with the Nightfallen tabard as soon as tomorrow :P), because I might not manage to get the entire Order Hall set with any of my other characters.

Raiment of the Farseer

Raiment of the Farseer with Blue Workman’s Shirt, Theldurin’s Fist, and Shield of the Barrens

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