Millhouse is mine! Muahahahaha!

I have wanted Millhouse Manastorm for my Alliance Mage’s gathering of Follower Mages basically forever. I had given up, though, on ever actually getting him for her, because, quite frankly, I was too lazy to push her through Silver Proving Grounds — and it didn’t help that getting Millhouse requires running UBRS, one of my least favorite of all the Warlords dungeons (probably the only one I despise more is Grimrail Depot). I had even reactivated Millhouse in Kamalia’s Garrison, figuring that Kam was the only character who would ever recruit him.

Then when I was reading through the latest hotfix notes at Wowhead the other day, I noticed this lovely bit of news:

Removed the requirement to have completed Silver Proving Grounds in order to queue for Warlords of Draenor Heroic Dungeons.

I’d been thinking that Blizzard ought to do this eventually, to make farming Warlords Heroics for mogging and stuffs at level 110 easier to do — I’m glad that they did it now and not in a later patch!

So I hopped in LFG and managed not to get kicked for my incompetence, and here we are!

Now Kaylynda will be able to leave her Garrison for the Broken Isles without feeling like she has unfinished business on Draenor.

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back to business as usual…

Now that my guild bank and active character inventories are cleaned up and I’ve chosen some talents and set up action bars for my currently active specs, it’s back to business as usual in my Garrisons, more or less.

Having a stage 3 Warlords crafted item didn’t automatically bring the appearances for the stage 1 and stage 2 items into the Appearances tab as well, so I’m revving up my Alchemists and other crafters again to backfill the Warlords crafted gear sets.

I found that one of my characters had forgotten to bring in her Followers on Monday night. When she opened up the crates that they brought her, she got some Follower gear, some crafting mats, and an item from her Salvage Yard set. This was an important discovery to me, because none of the characters that I leveled in May had managed to complete their Salvage Yard sets. All of them are still missing at least one piece; a few are missing two or three pieces. So after I’ve let my Garrison Resources build back up a bit, I’ll be sending out my Followers on missions for XP, their own gear, Primal Spirits, and Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry chests (if those missions still exist) at least until I’ve completed all of the Salvage Yard sets.

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Ready to Roll Out!

After liquidating all of my characters’ Garrison assets in preparation for Patch 7.0, Kamalia personally had 151354 gold and the rest of the characters on my primary Horde server had a combined total of 295023 gold, with another 96164 gold in reserve on the linked server where my Retired/Banker Tauren alts live (and, to complete the tally, my Alliance Mage had 38754 gold). That’s the most gold I’ve ever had!

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that much money:

Now I’m ready to travel the Broken Isles in style!

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Rulers of the Warchief’s Navy

So landsmen all, wherever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree:
Stick close to your desk and never go to sea
And you all may be rulers of the Queen’s Nay-vee!
— Gilbert and Sullivan, HMS Pinafore

Captain’s Ringmail

Captain’s Hat, Crusader’s Pauldrons, Felstalker Breastplate, Veteran’s Ringmail Girdle, Wasteland Ringmail Leggings, Talhide Lined-Gloves, Railwalker’s Ratcheted Boots, Steelforged Dagger (1-630), Sharptusk Shield
Alas, the most perfect shield to go with this hat is an Alliance-specific quest reward!
And while I am willing to do there-and-back-again faction-switching shenanigans with my other characters, I won’t do that with Kamalia. sigh…
I guess I’ll just have to make do with this Draenor shield, which looks vaguely nautical — kinda-sorta like a broken porthole cover.
Savage Blood required: 0

Sea Wolf

Fleet Commander’s Hat, Pauldrons of Wild Magic, Wayfaring Tunic & Belt (1-640), Kiraser’s Gloves of Precision + Oran’s Cuffs of Malice, Patroller’s War-Kilt, Knight’s War Hammer, Sharptusk Shield
This fancier version of the Shipyard hat is an account-wide reward for completing any three of the rare Shipyard missions. This kit is less nautical in flavor, choosing instead to play off of the red color. I hadn’t planned to make the Wayfaring tunic at all until I was building this set and realized how nicely it would fit with the rest of the items. As an added bonus of how nicely this kit came together, it will look great with Jina-Kang, Kindness of Chi-Ji, if and when I ever get around to going Timewalking!
Savage Blood required: 0

A hotfix in December 2015 quietly made the achievement that awards the Fleet Commander’s Hat account-wide, meaning that I could create the rest of these kits without having to actively play the Shipyard with my other characters.

Commodore of the Cavalry

Fleet Commander’s Hat, Enumerated Shoulderpads, Sorcerer Drape, Laughing Skull Waistguard, Astralaan Pants, Coldwraith Handwraps + Sorcerer Bracelets, Saltarello Shoes, Brilliant Hexweave Cloak (2-655), White Tuxedo Shirt, Tower of Theramore*
Savage Blood required: 15
I’ve been waiting to make this kit for a long time — I originally designed it about three-and-a-half years ago for the Equestrian event of the Mogolympics. Oddly enough, it works equally well as an equestrian or a nautical theme, probably because the competition equestrian costume has its roots in cavalry uniforms — which share aesthetics with naval uniforms.

Captain Azeroth

Fleet Commander’s Hat, After Hours Pauldrons, Protectorate Assassin’s Tunic, Burning Blade Devotee’s Cinch, X-52 Pilot’s Leggings, Bandit gloves & boots, Zorbin’s Mega-Chopper
Given the origins of most of these items, however, perhaps this kit should be called “Captain Outland“.

Dread Admiral

Fleet Commander’s Hat, Dread-Rider Shoulders, Nobleman’s Coat & Pantaloons, Burning Blade Devotee’s Cinch, Bandit Gloves, Rapscallion Boots
This rather formal outfit will be just the first of many pirate-themed kits inspired by the Outlaw Rogue Artifact weapon, the Dreadblades Fate & Fortune.
Although the outfit looks nice without shoulders, it somehow didn’t feel quite right for an Admiral to not have epaulets.

Lord High Admiral



Fleet Commander’s Hat, Stockade Pauldrons, Overlord’s Chestplate & Legplates, Girdle of Uther, Gauntlets of the Vanquisher, Obsidian Greaves, Martial Shirt (any color), Forgotten Champion’s Blade, Admiral Taylor’s Greatsword
At the time that I made this kit, Horde characters couldn’t use the appearance of Admiral Taylor’s Greatsword for Transmogrification, but they could equip it — so Keija kept it equipped from the moment she solved the mystery of Admiral Taylor’s Garrison in Spires of Arak right up until she got her first Artifact weapon at the beginning of Legion.
An Alliance Protection Warrior or Paladin should use Revilgaz’s Cutlass and Wheel of the Lost Hope with this kit.

~*~*~

So there you have it: how I spent my Warlords of Draenor expansion.

I’ve also been working on one or two smaller, not specifically Warlords-content-related Transmogrification projects that aren’t done yet, but I’m sure glad to have these two big projects out the door before the Legion pre-patch!

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is it Patch Day yet?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starting to get really itchy for the pre-patch to arrive. Of course I’m looking forward to the questline — which I will probably do with Kamalia, then my two Mages, and then with other alts as I have time and energy — and the unfolding lore reveals and so forth. What I’m anxiously awaiting, though, is the inventory cleanup and Garrison wind-down that the patch will bring.

I’ve already got what I need to do on the evening before the patch drops all planned out:
*Bring in all Followers and don’t send them out again that night
*Trade all Garrison Resources for gold
*Turn in Primal Spirits for Savage Blood and dump them in the Guild Bank, just in case I want/need to craft a Warlords item in the future
*Open up Big Crates of Salvage, put stuff I do want for Transmogrification in the mail as a temporary storage, and vendor stuff I don’t want for Transmogrification — I seem to recall reading that Salvage Crates obtained before the patch will be unchanged after the patch, but I don’t want to risk my accumulated crates turning into junk
*Move alts who are Retiring to capital cities

Then on Patch Day itself (and probably for the next several days) I will be systematically logging on with each of my characters in turn (including the low-level toons that I haven’t actually played for two or three years), loading their clothing inventories into the Wardrobe, binding all the stuff I’ve been hoarding all these years, and vendoring just about everything once it’s bound. After that’s done, then I can jump into the actual patch content…

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Too Many Tigers?

Ketura the Hunter finally finished the mount training quests and upgraded her Stables to level 3. Ketura is currently a Beast Master Hunter… but when she mounts up on one of the Stables mounts-in-training, her pet disappears. She’s managed alright without her pet for the ordinary training quests, but I think she’ll probably need more DPS to get through the Black Claw of Sethe and Garn-Tooth Necklace mounted combat challenges. So I’ve decided to wait to do those until the pre-patch arrives and I can switch her over to Lone Wolf Marksmanship more easily.

I spent some time curating her pet collection for use with the Dire Stable glyph, taming new pets and abandoning releasing others. Of her 46 pets, 20 are cats, and 13 are striped cats, including all 9 colors of the “grand tiger” model introduced in Mists. “Crazy Cat Lady” much? *shrug* I’m definitely a cat person, not a dog person. There are even more tigers out there that I could tame… but I do like the non-cat pets that I have, and I need to have room for a kodo and a mechanical pet, too.

Meanwhile, Kerisa the Druid finished the 6.0 Garrison Campaign and recruited Choluna this week. I also took her back to Tanaan until she got her Vol’jin’s Headhunters rep up to Revered and could acquire the “Battlegear of the Frostwolves” transmogrification kit that is only available to leather-wearers. I figured I might as well get that now, rather than having to come back for it later.

That just left Kregga the Death Knight’s Laughing Skull rep grind… and although I had gone out to Everbloom Wilds several times to work on it, I just couldn’t stand how slow it was going. Garrison gold to the rescue — because what is gold for, if not to spend it on things that I want or need? — I bought a pile of Medallions of the Legion off the AH to get her to her target level of Revered.

Speaking of rep grinds, I took Kaylynda the Human Mage back to the Isle of Thunder and finished off the series of introductory solo scenarios. Then I burned the whole big heap of Isle of Thunder rep tokens I had, which got her just barely into Revered. So she’ll have to spend a week or so doing the quests there to get up to Exalted — and that’s definitely manageable. And then she’ll have a proper violet and white Kirin Tor-of-Dalaran tabard to wear when she is summoned to the floating city to begin the campaign on the Broken Isles.

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the Underpowered Death Knight takes the bank

Having read that on the PTR, not only are gold missions gone, but also the Smuggled Sack of Gold is no longer available from the Trader, I decided I ought to make hay while the sun shines. This evening, I began taking my alts to the Trading Post to exchange all their Garrison Resources for gold. I’m leaving alts who don’t have an active Shipyard with under 1k resources and alts who do have an active Shipyard with around 3.5k resources.

I’ve also seen the idea of stockpiling Big Crates of Salvage until the pre-patch drops mentioned in a few places. I must admit that I’m not quite sure why one would want to do that. Is there something about the Salvage Yard being changed in the pre-patch that I’ve missed?

Anyhow, while I was cashing in the Underpowered Death Knight’s cache of Garrison Resources, out of the blue she informed me that as she is Retired, when the pre-patch drops and it will no longer be of any benefit for her to stay in her Garrison, she would like to become my primary Bank Alt.

AND, said she, she therefore required an appropriate Hat:

(You know, I’m really glad that Blizz put a swimming pool at the Gallywix Pleasure Palace, because it’s such a fun set piece that it would have been very sad to leave it completely behind on Kezan.)

Previously: the Underpowered Death Knight in the Homestretch

Next: the Underpowered Death Knight in Patch 7.0

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the clock is ticking…

So the pre-patch is on the PTR, eh? Well, then, I guess it’s time to check in on how my characters are doing with their Warlords goals.

I am almost done with my massive “Savage Blood” (Warlords-crafted items) transmogrification project. I finally have all the items crafted, so now it’s mostly down to finding time and figuring out good places for screenshot sessions, then processing the pictures. I hope to get it all wrapped up and published during July.

The Druid is steadily working through the 6.0 Garrison Campaign. Checking the achievement tracker for the thing, with this week’s episode, I have completed 8/12 and will now be heading into the home stretch of the four episodes about Azuka Bladefury that always go in the same order. So I might be able to finish that up before the pre-patch drops (depending, of course, on when it does arrive).

The Druid went to Tanaan. When she got to Honored with Vol’jin’s Headhunters and the Saberstalkers, she burned the small pile of Medallions of the Legion that Kamalia’s followers had collected to get to Honored with the Order of the Awakened, too. The followers she wanted thus recruited, she hasn’t been back. She tried to kill the rare who drops the glyph technique I wanted… but it is an elite and it wiped the floor with her. So I looked for the glyph on the AH and discovered that not only was someone selling it for cheap, they were selling it for less than the price of the one Felblight required to make it! So I just bought a Glyph of Ascendance for Kamalia.

Then I decided to take the Alliance Mage to Tanaan, because I wanted to see how the dialog of the introductory quest series differs between the factions. So I now have Shipyards running with the Alliance Mage to maybe get an item or two of HFC cloth, with the Druid for HFC leather, with Kamalia for HFC mail, and with the Warrior for HFC plate. My other characters are all completely ignoring Tanaan and the Shipyard.

I also ran the Alliance Mage through the first of the Isle of Thunder solo scenarios. One of these days I need to sit down and finish the solo scenarios — and then I’ll probably just burn rep tokens to get her to Exalted with the Kirin Tor Offensive. I collected a big pile of Sunreaver Onslaught tokens while doing the Isle of Thunder with various Horde alts; because they are BoA, I sent one to the Alliance Mage as an experiment and was pleased to see that it converted to a Kirin Tor Offensive token when she took it out of the mailbox.

The Monk grabbed a Huojin tabard, picked a Wrath Heroic to farm, and cleared it every day until she reached Exalted with the Pandaren. The mog item that had been my reason for choosing that dungeon didn’t drop while I was farming the place for rep, but I haven’t bothered to keep farming the dungeon for the item since she got the Pandaren guards for her Garrison.

Most of my alts have only the Amulet of Rukhmar left to obtain before Harrison will join their Garrison staff. After I’ve finished that project, my next priority will probably be chipping away at the Laughing Skull rep grind with the Death Knight. In theory, I’m also working on the Sha’tari Defense rep grind with the Alliance Mage, but uuuuuugggh I hate pure grinding reps and the fact that that one starts at neutral is just so discouraging to me.

The Hunter has been working on the mount training quests here and there. I think I’ll probably be able to get her Stable upgraded to level 3 by the time Legion launches, but I might not have gotten around to doing the mounted combat challenges for the “Stable Master” title.

The Hunter is also curating her collection of pets in anticipation of the Dire Stable that will be coming in Legion and fretting about how there are more pets that she’d like to tame than she has empty spots in her stable (let alone leaving an empty spot or two for a kodo and a mechanical pet).

And I’d really like to find some time to do the Green Fire quest chain with the Warlock. I’ve chosen the “Black Temple” track for her jukebox because I know that the final scenario of the Green Fire chain takes place there. I’ve discovered that I’m really quite fond of my Warlock because for all that I’m not keen on the lore aspects of Warlocks, the gameplay of a Destro ‘Lock sure is fun!

My summer class has been competing pretty intensely for my time and attention. I often bring work home with me, and if I try to do both work and WoW in the same evening, I end up staying up to 2 or 3 am… Plus, I was out of town last week for the first of the teaching workshops I got into and I will be out of town again for the second one next week. I left my play computer behind for the first workshop and will probably leave it behind for the second one as well. It was actually rather nice to have a break from the pressure of profession CDs and mission/shipyard tables.

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We’re all level 100! …now what?

With only the Warlock and the Rogue remaining, I knew that I wouldn’t want to wait long to get them up to level 100. All the little boxes in my Warlords Garrison progress spreadsheet needed to get filled in.

With my Rogue, I used an Elixir of the Rapid Mind in the “recommended” way — I went through a few of the bonus objectives in Talador and most of the bonus objectives in Gorgrond and completed everything but one kill or object interaction. Then just before pulling the last kill of the last bonus objective area, I popped the Elixir and ran back through them all, hitting that last kill or interaction, to get lots of XP very very quickly.

I wanted to get all that leveling done this month, and I did. *whew!*

All of them are now busily collecting class gear sets from their salvage yards and acquiring relics for Harrison Jones and hiring follwers to fit a theme from the Inn and making as much money as they can from Treasure missions A few of my characters have additional things they’d like to do in Draenor. These are not necessarily objectives I intend to complete before Legion launches. I’d like to complete each character’s Warlords goals before she heads out to the Broken Shore, though.

KAMALIA: go fishing now and then to keep Alchemists stocked with Crescent Saberfish and to collect lunkers with which to eventually get the Sea Calf pet

Kerisa (Druid): Garrison Campaign so she can recruit Choluna; Tanaan Jungle for followers from factions there and for Ascendance minor glyph technique that drops from a rare there

Kaylynda (Alliance Mage): Sha’tari Defense rep grind so she can recruit Vindicator Heluun

Ketura (Hunter): mount training quests & mounted combat challenges for level 3 Stables and Stable Master title

Kregga (Death Knight): Laughing Skull Orc rep grind — the Skulls’ attitude toward death amuses her, and I think it might be fun to make a Mog for her with the blue version of the cosmetic helm

Kalaneia (Warlock): Steamwheedle Preservation Society rep grind and Patch 6.2 Garrison Campaign because Warlock followers

Kaelinda (Horde Mage): considering doing Tanaan Jungle and leveling up her Shipyard to 3 for a chance at HFC raid stuffs for Teh Moggingage

And a few of them have some past-expansion objectives, too…

Kaylynda: Kirin Tor Offensive rep on the Isle of Thunder for that pretty violet and white tabard

Kalaneia: Green Fire quest chain

Katewatha (Monk): Huojin Pandaren rep by farming old dungeons with tabard so she can get Pandaren Garrison guards

You’ll notice that these are all things that can be done solo. Partly this is because I didn’t really like any of the Warlords dungeons running them as a healer with Kamalia. Partly this is because of the Silver Proving Grounds barrier — not that I think I couldn’t do it, more that I don’t want to spend the time figuring out how to do it with every class. And part of it might be that maybe I burned myself out on doing group content with multiple alts when I was LFRing with all of my healers during Mists. Together, these factors have very effectively shut down my motivation to do Warlords group content.

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eight done; eight to go

The semester being over, I took some time off last week to play.

On Monday, I finished Nagrand with my Alliance Mage.

Yrel has definitely grown on me as I’ve gone through the Alliance storyline. I thought she was a bit bubbleheaded at first, but when she pranked Thaelin back in Nagrand, I was glad to see that her growing seriousness and responsibility hadn’t completely extinguished the playful part of her personality.
That leaves Kaylynda with only one major To Do item: Silver Proving Grounds, followed by a trip to UBRS. My confidence that I’ll actually get that done, however, might be judged from the fact that I’ve reactivated Millhouse Manastorm in Kamalia’s Garrison…

During the middle of the week, I did a bunch of things with a bunch of characters, with the primary objective (which I accomplished) of getting the rest of my active alts (the ones with whom I would like to do Artifact weapon questlines in Legion) who are in Draenor at least to level 96.

Friday was Kerisa’s big day!

I had stocked up enough Relics of Rukhmar from follower missions that Kerisa could get to Exalted with the Arakkoa Outcasts as soon as she finished their questline. I had forgotten that I actually had to get the zone achievement for Spires of Arak to get Talon Guard Kurekk, though, so then I had to go finish establishing Axefall and check out Admiral Taylor’s Garrison and clean up Pinchwhistle Point before I could do this:

I still want a minor glyph — or book or codex or whatever the cosmetic minor glyphs are getting coverted into in Legion — that will make Moonkin form look like a High Arakkoa.

Back at Hallow’s End, I picked up a Seer’s Invitation and sent it to Kerisa. When she used it in her level 2 Garrison, however, nothing happened. I was pleased to see that when she upgraded her Garrison to level 3, the invited arakkoa seer finally showed up:

Kerisa’s not quite sure how she feels about the ghostly guests he brought with him, though.

Kerisa kept a Lumber Mill up just long enough to capture a Botani to study —

— then replaced it with a Trading Post to help her reputation grinding in Tanaan to pick up the third Saberon follower and fourth Arakkoa follower. She’s kind of fascinated by the races that are similar to Druid shapeshifts: bird-people, cat-people, tree-people.

Now that my Balance Druid has reached level 100, I have capped eight characters out of the sixteen I plan to carry forward into Legion. Seven of the remaining eight are already in Draenor. Lagging far behind is my Feral Druid, who is currently in Outland. I’m also considering reviewing the DEHTA storyline in Borean Tundra with her — and then she’ll get the Legion pre-purchase boost up to 100.

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