Gliding through the Dragon Isles

Well, that was easy.
Even with spending a couple of days away from Azeroth while I attended an academic conference last weekend, I still got the Trading Post all done in the first week.

I did go a little out of my way to /love the Dragon Aspects in Valdrakken and /love things at the Trading Post itself — but even if I hadn’t done those things, I’d have picked up the final reward for the month in another week-ish just from going about the activities that I ordinarily do in the game. I think it’s probably tuned about right. I like that there’s such a good variety of things to do that can contribute to getting Trading Post points; that really helps it feel like a reward for just doing whatever you’d be doing anyway — with nudges to do one or two things that are off-routine, just for fun. Having all four of my mains in Valdrakken doing this and that definitely helped the Trading Post go fairly quickly; they all contributed something to it. I approve of the extent to which it is, in fact, an account-wide progression system. I’ve delegated one of my alts who is chilling in Orgrimmar anyway to hang out at the Trading Post and be in charge of picking up currency from the chest and buying things with it.

I’d put the Swashbuckling Buccaneer’s Slops, which are 650, on layaway. I kept being tempted by the Shattered Voidspire seeing it being carried by casters all over Valdrakken. Thinking that it was 750, I thought that maybe I would put it on layaway and just buy the pirate clothes. Then when I went to look again, the Shattered Voidspire was actually just 500, so I decided to just get it. I still have a little over 1100 to carry over to next month.

A downside of the Trading Post being account-wide, however, is that I did have to tell my 5-year-old quite sternly that he is NOT allowed to buy things from the Trading Post. I don’t want him spending all my Trader’s Tender on stuff I don’t want, so that I end up being unable to afford something that I want very much!*

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Kamalia is at 12/11/14/13 with the Major Factions and 5/6 with Wrathion.
I am really liking how Reputation-Renown — and Reputation in general — is working in Dragonflight. I am so glad that it is linear — the same increment from one rank to the next — rather than exponential — twice as much work to get to the next rank as it was to get to the previous one.
My other three co-mains have been leveling from gathering, first crafts, and the occasional World Quest with surprising speed; I do want to do at least the Main Storylines again with each of them (I liked them that much!), but I’m getting a bit concerned that I might ding 70 before I manage to set aside the time for serious questing! Kaelinda is level 65** and 2/2/3/2; Kaelyla is level 65 and 1/1/1/3; and Kaurinka is level 64 and 3/1/3/2.

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*He plays on my account and has filled up all the remaining character slots with a revolving door of Zandalari Trolls, Darkspear Trolls, Nightborne, Vulpera, Allied Race Death Knights, Demon Hunters, and Dracthyr (I went to un-delete a toon the other day and was astonished at the number of deleted Dracthyr on that realm). Several times, I’ve considered the idea of RAFing an account for my son so that I can get the Renowned Explorer’s transmog set, but I haven’t quite yet been able to bring myself to do what would essentially be paying $180 for a Mog, and so he plays on my account.

**Well, actually, they’d all gotten to level 61 or 62 already doing stuff in Shadowlands by the time I got them out to the Dragon Isles. And yes, though I’d been saying that I was afraid that if I moved on to Dragonflight, I’d never go back and finish my unfinished business in Shadowlands, a couple of things happened. One, Kaelinda completed her Kyrian Cosmetics shopping list, so she wasn’t feeling tied to doing Shadowlands WQs and dailies for Anima anymore. Two, Kaelyla started working on the Kyrian Campaign and almost immediately got stuck on the Spires of Ascension dungeon quest. She was already too high level to LFG queue for it, so she was going to have to level to 70, then come back and see if she could solo it on Normal.

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my wardrobe overfloweth

With white, gray, and starter gear becoming Moggable in Patch 10.0.5 this week, a fervent wish from years gone by has at last come true! I have so much old-become-new stuff in my wardrobe that I am feeling quite overwhelmed.

I suppose I had just ought to get over the notions that I ought to wear a new outfit for at least a week before I change it and that I shouldn’t put more than two new outfits for the same character in the same installment of the Sunday Mog Show…

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Ok Wrathion, we’re good now

During Battle for Azeroth, I pushed the Shroud of Resolve to rank 6 to get the first appearance upgrade, but once that was accomplished, I just didn’t want to keep going. I spent all of Shadowlands feeling envious every time I saw someone wearing the second appearance upgrade for the Shroud of Resolve, which occurs at rank 12. So after finishing the 9.0 Night Fae Campaign, I took my Druid back to Battle for Azeroth to raise her Shroud of Resolve from rank 6 to rank 12. It only took a few weeks. Doing Black Empire Assaults and Horrific Visions at level 60 as a Druid was a good choice; Boomkin AOE is my favorite AOE of all the Classes (though Elemental Shaman is pretty fun, too), and when I’m in the Horrific Vision, Stealth gets me through the trash in the entrance area without needing to spend excessive time or Sanity.
But once again, now that I’ve got the Shroud of Resolve appearance upgrade, I just don’t want to keep going for the Black Dragonscale Backpack. The grind for Corrupted Mementos is too much and too slow. sigh If the devs made a recolor of that item — perhaps in a less-exciting brown color scheme? — and made it not too terribly difficult to get — such as putting it on the new Trading Post or even in the Store for $5 or $10 — I would go for it.
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Meanwhile, Kamalia dinged 70 (again) on the 18th at halfway through the Azure Span main storyline. We’ve finished the Azure Span by now, but we haven’t gotten started on Thaldraszus quite yet.
With the Titan constellations appearance of the Shroud of Resolve now in my Appearances collection for real, Kamalia no longer feels any need for Wrathion’s Armoire of Endless Cloaks — and thus no need to choose between Wrathion and Sabellian or pursue Friendship with them at all. The Cobalt Assembly, on the other hand — it has the fun part of Torghast — stacking up OP power-ups — without the tedious parts. BTH and I had a blast one evening running around there. When we feel like just smashing stuff, that’s where we’ll go. And Kamalia wants the Cobalt Dracthyr Battlegear, of course.

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first week of Dragonflight

After sitting out Shadowlands, BTH decided to give Dragonflight a try. A few weeks ago, he reinstalled the game, subbed up for six months, and blasted through the Shadowlands. Now, for a short time, at least, we can play a game together again while we level through Dragonflight with Kamalia and his Bear Tank.
Due to a confluence of RL factors, we’ve only managed to play Dragonflight for three nights so far. We’ve reached level 63, so BTH thinks we must be mostly done with The Waking Shores by now, right? Um, no, sweetie. He has a tendency to pick a cardinal direction and go do whatever in our quest log is in that direction, then move around the compass clearing out quest markers, and with that approach, we’ve been doing so many side quests that we haven’t even finished Chapter 2 (of 4) of the main storyline yet. From past expansions, I’ve learned that when I am leveling together with BTH, I can only look at quest text long enough to identify the objectives as we barrel along; I’ve learned to save savoring the lore unfolding for my second, solo trip through the leveling experience.
There was no place in the Shadowlands that I really truly loved; it is such a relief to be back in Azeroth. I’m enjoying the sappiness of the side quest stories we’ve been doing. I’m liking Dragonriding, though we haven’t made any effort to collect glyphs and so my poor drake is still so easily tired out. I think my Druid might sit out Dragonflight in protest of not being able to fly with her own wings, however, and if I want to collect Dragon Isles leather transmog, I might have to end up leveling my Monk or my new Rogue (during the end of expansion lull, of course).

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chipping away at Shadowlands goals

I picked up the last item I wanted from the Soulbreaker’s Burnished Vestments set last week. I don’t have the full set, but I do have all the pieces I most wanted for Mogging mix-and-match. So now I am Done with Venthyr Travel Network Broken Mirrors. Hooray!
I only need two more pieces from the Night Fae Korthia set and two more pieces from the Necrolords Korthia set. In other words, I only need a Cosmetics quest to show up one more time for each of those Covenants, because with both Kaelinda and Kaelyla on the job, I can get two pieces each time one of those quests is available.
Kaelinda and Kaelyla paid back earlier gifts of Anima from Kaurinka to help them finish upgrading Covenant Sanctum features, thus allowing Kaurinka to get her Queen’s Conservatory fully upgraded to Tier 5 and to purchase the Queen’s Conservatory recolor of the Oakheart set. Now I just need to push Kaurinka through the rest of the 9.0 Night Fae Campaign…

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Covenant Twisting

Kaelyla got her Queen’s Conservatory fully upgraded to Tier 5. As the only activities she is doing that generate Spirits for the Conservatory are Fair Exchange for a Soul and Return Lost Souls (which gives 1x Greater Spirit at Conservatory levels 1-3 and 2x Greater Spirit at Conservatory levels 4 & 5), she decided to take the skip through the first three Chapters of Korthia so that she can ride and not have to worry about the Eye of the Jailer while she’s doing her weekly Maw run. Then I did the skip with Kamalia and Kaurinka, too.
And then Kaelyla got the Spirit Tender’s Bulb! Hooray! Now I just need to get the Queen’s Conservatory recolors of the cloth and leather 9.0 Night Fae sets, and then I’ll be all done with it.
I completed Chapter 4 of Korthia with Kaelinda and am reveling in being able to fly!
I am still undecided about continuing the Korthia storyline with both Mages in tandem or having Kaelinda backtrack through the Necrolords and Night Fae before continuing Korthia solo.
Now that Kaelinda and Kaelyla both have the Special Features for their home Covenants at Tier 3 or higher, I’ve been contemplating upgrading the Mission Tables in their home Covenants to Tier 2 for another Anima token from WQs. Would it really be worth the setback to saving for Cosmetics, though?
It occurred to me that I now that I’ve got flying, I ought to try, after Kaelyla had done her Night Fae special stuff for the day, swapping her over to Venthyr to go search out Broken Mirrors. So I did it, and O Hey! I could do the Anima Conductor Treasure and World Quest for both covenants! I’m sure other people discovered this as soon as Patch 9.2 made Covenant-swapping so easy to do… So then Kaelinda went and hopped from Venthyr to Kyrian to Night Fae and back. Then I tried round-robining through the Covenants until I discovered which one had a Korthia Cosmetic piece available. Although as a Mage, hopping back and forth between Korthia and Oribos is trivially easy to do, it was rather tedious.
Speaking of Korthia, its ambiance is a little better than the rest of the Maw, but I’m still not a great fan. Zereth Mortis, though! Those rich, saturated greens are so refreshing after the fetid haze of Maldraxxus, the gloom of Revendreth, the twilight and decay of Ardenweald, and the washed-out brightness of Bastion.
But doing All The Things with even just two characters is becoming rather exhausting. In Dragonflight, I’ll level Kaelyla to keep my Alliance Main caught up, and to experience any differences between the Horde and Alliance, um, experiences that might exist, but I won’t try to do all the endgame stuff with her… except perhaps the Black Dragonflight, so Kaelinda can pledge to Wrathion and Kaelyla can pledge to Sabellian to get the Cosmetics from both of the rivals.

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new computer happy dance

Normally, I try to save Sundays for Sunday on the Promenade. Sometimes, it’s nice to make exceptions 😀

This is the computer I’ve been using since January 2020:

My preschoolers broke the right lid hinge after I began I letting them play Bloons Monkey City during Summer 2021 as a babysitting device when I wanted some mid-day quiet time (both before and after Baby’s birth); then I busted it further while toting the poor thing back and forth from home to campus and from one building to another on campus to use it for teaching during Fall 2021*.
It only has a 256 GB harddrive, so after it began continually complaining of being out of memory during the past several weeks, I decided it was time to buy a new computer.

After nearly 20 years of using a laptop exclusively, I decided to buy a tower, hoping that it would be more robust toward use by small children. It arrived mid-week, but I saved setting it up for Saturday night as a treat for myself after getting my classes fully prepped for the First Day of School** on Monday.
The laptop I was replacing was an ACER and I’d been happy with it, so I bought a $1K pre-built ACER with a 1 TB harddrive:

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* I began using my personal computer for school in Spring 2020 when Covid threw education into disarray; the sound card on my 5-years-old campus laptop had died in Fall 2019, and I couldn’t teach over Zoom without a working sound card! Late in Spring 2022, I finally got around to asking my Dean to buy me a new device for school use. I got a Microsoft Surface because I have loved writing directly on my presentation slides using a Wacom Tablet with my laptop — and because all the Cool Kids among my colleagues are using Surfaces to do that.
** For me and for my Kindergartener! My stress levels are going to be sky-high tomorrow!

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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.
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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).
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(… 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…)

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Perfect for the Promenade: a wrist corsage!

Datamining from the Dragonflight alpha has uncovered a lovely new Transmogrification item: a wrist corsage!
Currently, it only seems to be available in purple — the no-brainer Mog for this would be with the Lovely Purple Dress during Love is in the Air. Of course, I think it would be wonderful in all the colours, and I hope there will be at least a few more colour variations by the time Dragonflight launches.
I hope it’s not too difficult to get.
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Speaking of lovely flowers and the difficulty of getting them, I wonder how challenging it will be to solo Normal Tirna Scithe in Dragonflight‘s second-tier Crafted/Primalist LFR/10.1 catch-up gear? The drop rate for the Crown of Autumnal Flora is ridiculously low, and I’m not even managing to queue for Tirna Scithe every time that Challenges in Ardenweald or Trading Favors: Tirna Scithe or A Valuable Find: Tirna Scithe is up, let alone every day until I get it.

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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…

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