the Oracle, the Enigma, and the Doomcaller

Out of all the bug-themed items from the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, by far my favorites are the cloth class set robes, which have a lovely insect wing design on the back of the skirt.

I used them to make these fairies for a blogging prompt five years ago.

Vestments of the Oracle (Priest), Enigma Robes (Mage), Doomcaller’s Robes (Warlock)

The Mage robe includes bracelets, whereas the Priest and Warlock robes do not — which is convenient, because the Priest and Warlock robes have matching gloves (the Gloves of the Messiah and Dark Storm Gauntlets, respectively), whereas the Mage robe does not.

I obtained the Vestments of the Oracle for my Priest not terribly long after she reached level 90 in Mists, but I didn’t get around to doing the Brood of Nozdormu rep grind with my Mage and Warlock until just recently.

Because my Priest is a Tauren, I used the Orb of the Sin’dorei when taking these pictures so that I could have the visual consistency of seeing all the outfits on Blood Elves. 😉

Oracle Moth

Nightvale Mantle, Vestments of the Oracle, Apothecary’s Waistband, Gloves of the Messiah, Infernoweave Boots, Scarlet Filigreed Doublet
This kit is quite similar to the first outfit I made with this robe for my Priest.

Enigma Moth

Arachnidian Pauldrons, Enigma Robes, Grasp of the Old God, Royal Gloves + Cuffs of Unrelenting Anguish, Slippers of Serenity, Cerulean Filigreed Doublet
I wouldn’t have been able to make this kit quite so satisfactorily before Legion, because until then, all the available bracer models obscured the bracelets that are part of the robe model too much.

Doomcaller Moth

Mantle of the Malefic, Doomcaller’s Robes, Sash of Mortal Desire, Dark Storm Gauntlets, Replica Dreadmist Sandals, Golden Filigreed Doublet
I originally designed this kit five years ago.
The different and very pretty coloring in the wings makes this my favorite coloration of this style of robe.

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Artifact acquisition accomplished! (and analysis)

Shaman, Restoration 31 August 2016

Demon Hunter, Havoc 9 September 2016

Shaman, Elemental 23 September 2016

Shaman, Enhancement 23 September 2016

Mage, Fire 8 October 2016

Mage, Arcane 15 October 2016

Mage, Frost 22 October 2016

Priest, Discipline 28 October 2016

Rogue, Outlaw 29 October 2016

Warlock, Destruction 12 November 2016

Monk, Brewmaster 23 November 2016

Death Knight, Frost 26 November 2016

Hunter, Survival 26 November 2016

Warrior, Arms 30 November 2016

Paladin, Protection 1 December 2016

Druid, Balance 2 December 2016

Hunter, Marksmanship 10 December 2016

It didn’t seem quite right to claim Thas’dorah as a Tauren; that bow rightfully belongs to the children of the Sunwell. So I used the Orb of the Sin’dorei before I picked it up. I guess my camera angle was bad right at the moment when I clicked on Thas’dorah, because this is the best screenshot I got of the triumphal moment.

Hunter, Beast Mastery 10 December 2016

Demon Hunter, Vengeance 10 December 2016

Monk, Windwalker 23 December 2016

Monk, Mistweaver 23 December 2016

Death Knight, Blood 29 December 2016

Death Knight, Unholy 29 December 2016

Rogue, Subtlety 30 December 2016

Rogue, Assassination 30 December 2016

Warlock, Affliction 6 January 2017

Warlock, Demonology 6 January 2017

Druid, Guardian 11 January 2017

Druid, Feral 11 January 2017

Druid, Restoration 11 January 2017

I didn’t get a very good screenshot of picking up G’Hanir because the camera swung around to be under the surface of the nearby pond… but I was feeling to lazy to do the whole scenario over again just to get a better screenshot of the triumphal moment.

Priest, Holy 14 January 2017

Priest, Shadow 14 January 2017

Warrior, Fury 15 January 2017

Warrior, Protection 15 January 2017

Paladin, Holy 16 January 2017

Paladin, Retribution 16 January 2017

~*~*~

The Artifact questlines that packed the most emotional punch (for me) were the Ashbringer, the Doomhammer, and Fu Zan.

Three Artifacts are found on Niskara: Holy Priest, Marksmanship Hunter, and Blood Death Knight. I wasn’t able to determine the “canonical” order in which these events occur.

Three Artifacts are found at Tyr’s Fall in Tirisfal Glades. To the best of my understanding the canonical order of events is as follows: Arms Warrior, Shadow Priest, Holy Paladin.

Three Artifacts are found in the Tomb of Old Kings on Shield’s Rest island in Stormheim. To the best of my understanding the canonical order of events is as follows: Protection Warrior, Protection Paladin, Beastmaster Hunter.

Three Artifacts are found in the Karazhan Catacombs. Because all three questlines end with killing the same boss, I’m not sure which order they would canonically go in, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Balance Druid, Unholy Death Knight, Affliction Warlock.

Two Artifacts are recovered from Felsoul Hold in Suramar. I’m not sure which event happened first, the Havoc Demon Hunter or the Demonology Warlock.

Two Artifacts are recovered from Icecrown Citadel. I’m not sure which event happened first, the Frost Death Knight or the Fire Mage.

Two Artifacts are retrieved from the Nexus. I’m not sure which event happened first, the Arcane Mage or the Discipline Priest.

Two Artifacts are retrieved from the Broken Shore. To the best of my understanding the canonical order of events is as follows: Retribution Paladin, Vengeance Demon Hunter.

Two Artifacts are found in the Helmouth Shallows of Stormheim. These two events, Survival Hunter and Fury Warrior, seem to be quite independent of each other and might have occurred in either order.

The locations for the Frost Mage (a Legion place that wasn’t Niskara), Destruction Warlock, and Beast Master Hunter were unique, but the other questlines for those classes went to shared locations.

The Druid Artifact quests go to one shared location (for Balance) and to three places that no other class goes: Grizzly Hills, the Shattered Locus, and Nordrassil.

Only Shamans go to Vashj’ir, the Temple of the White Tiger, or Deepholm.

Only Monks go to the Temple of the Jade Serpent, the Vortex Pinnacle, or the Terrace of Endless Spring.

Only Rogues go to the Temple of a Thousand Lights, Legion Citadel (it’s not on Niskara), and Stormwind.

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T’uure, Beacon of the Naaru; Blade of the Black Empire

After everyone had collected the Falling Star, it was my Priest’s turn to go get her other Artifacts.

The Holy quest took me once again to Niskara, though it started at the other end of the zone than the Marks Hunter and Blood Death Knight quests did. I haven’t been able to figure out what order these three questlines might have canonically occurred in, because even though they all went to or through the same central area of the zone, I didn’t notice in any of the questlines any obvious evidence of the events of the other two.

After failing the first boss fight of the scenario due to trying to do it without the aid of my addons, I set up Clique for my Holy spec and then it was smooth sailing. I had been worried that I would get errors due to having a Disc spell and a Holy spell on the same clickbind; fortunately, that didn’t seem to be happening.

The most surprising thing to me about the Holy questline was having the Demon Hunter Jace show up (to be the melee DPS for the party; we also rescued a Troll Mage to be the ranged DPS). It did make for some interesting banter between the party members, though!

After Alonsus Faol initially presented to Kaohana the three Artifact weapon choices, she made an agreement with Kazithra that the older woman would be the one to collect the Shadow Artifact.

Grimtotem Shadowtwister

Mantle of the Tribunal, Highborne Padded Armor, Ranger’s Sash, Colorful Kilt, Vonica’s Gauntlets, Staff of the Four Golden Coins/Tarnished Gutgore Ripper + Aboriginal Rod
This outfit for the ex-Grimtotem Shadow Priest Kazithra is inspired by that of the Grimtotem Geomancers, who are wearing the same chestpiece with the leather Mystic Sarong.
The Aboriginal Rod is one of a small selection of off-hand items that look like staves, thus allowing a caster to emulate Gandalf’s sword/dagger + staff combat mode.

The Shadow Priest quest went to Tyr’s Fall, the same place where the Arms Warrior quest went. My best guess is that canonically the Warrior was there first. When the Warrior goes there, the big boss appears to be dead, then wakes up when the Warrior tries to take Strom’kar and has to be beaten down, and is then executed with Strom’kar. And then the body just lies there, and doesn’t despawn or anything. When the Priest goes there, the big boss is not just already dead, it doesn’t even make a peep when the Priest stabs it with Xal’atah to drain its essence — it just dissolves into void and disappears.

I still don’t think that “Tauren” and “Shadow Priest” go together very well.

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if you go down in the woods today, you’d better go in disguise

I hadn’t originally intended to acquire all the Artifacts because some of them are downright evil… as in, Shadow Priest, all the Death Knight, and all the Warlock. I don’t want to be carrying those things around, let alone using them. In the case of the Death Knight and Warlock, the Artifacts that I consider to be the least of three evils fortunately align with my favored specs for those classes.

As I’ve been beginning to acquire Artifact weapons for multiple specs for each class — and have completed “Arsenal of Power” for Shaman, Mage, Hunter, and Demon Hunter — however, my Collecting bug is starting to itch to get all the Artifacts.

It’s been fun to see all the little stories — though some are certainly more interesting than others. Although I know that some of the Artifact quests revisit the same places and even, in some cases, the same bosses, I’m beginning to want to see them all… even the downright evil ones.

Additionally, I’ve read that in most (if not all) of the Order Hall Campaigns, a quest to begin one of the later stages of the Order Hall Campaign is given by the same NPC who gives out the quests to go get the other Artifact weapons. If you haven’t gotten the other Artifacts and are stubbornly ignoring the quests to do so, you might miss that Campaign quest and then find yourself stuck in your Campaign. Thus, it is to your advantage to just do all the Artifact quests, even if you don’t plan to play as any of those other specs.

I can kinda-sorta make an in-character rationalization/justification for picking up even the Artifacts I don’t really want in-character from the evidence I’ve seen so far that there is often another person or group — and usually a bad one — either in possession of or trying to obtain the Artifact, so it wouldn’t be the responsible thing to do, as the leader of my Class Order, to leave those Artifacts in the hands of those other persons or groups. I should at least bring them to the relative safety and protection of my Order Hall.

I don’t want to do the [Shadow Priest, Affliction Warlock, Demonology Warlock, Blood Death Knight, Unholy Death Knight] quests “in character” as my characters, though, if that makes any sense at all. I’d want to do them as, well, someone else. Some sidekick, a lesser champion of the Order, rather than my actual character herself. For my Priest in particular, I have been thinking that if I do go get the Shadow Priest Artifact with her, I’ll temporarily change her entire appearance at the Barbershop — with a Mog to match, of course — to be my short-lived Shadow Priest alt, Kazithra (Kregga’s mom), while I do the questchain. I’d also temporarily change the appearances of my Death Knight and Warlock to go get the other Artifacts for their classes, though I have less concrete ideas about what alter-egos I want to create for them.

But then once I have those evil Artifacts that I don’t really want to be carrying around with me, what do I do with them? Can Artifacts be stashed in Void Storage?

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Light’s Wrath; Dreadblades

As I mentioned in my previous post, Kamalia recently reached the point with her Leatherworking where she needs to buy the Rank 1 Dreadleather and Gravenscale patterns. These patterns are purchased with crafting mats, and some of the patterns cost enchanting dust or ore in addition to leather or scales. I suppose that I could just trade Blood of Sargeras for those things… but I’d rather use it as an excuse to bring my Enchanting alt and one of my Mining alts to the Broken Isles.

Kaohana’s bags were getting stuffed with Broken Isles greens that Kamalia had sent her, so she was needing to come to New Dalaran for profession training very soon anyway.

I’d read that the Discipline Priest Artifact questline was substantially similar to the Arcane Mage one, and I saw a Priest or two running around in the same areas when I was doing the Aluneth questline with Kaelinda. I’d thought, oh, well, maybe they just take place in the same area, but the quest givers and directions and motivations are different. Alas, no; the Light’s Wrath questline was, indeed, almost identical, with the only differences being based on the identity of the uncontrollable staff and its powers. I must confess that with Light’s Wrath being a Scarlet Crusade-created item, I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t have to Discipline my way through any of the Scarlet Crusade strongholds — like, say, Tyr’s Hand — to get it.

I’d also read that the Priest Order Hall is… underwhelming compared to some of the other class halls. I was trying not to be pre-biased by opinions from other players, but, yeah, Netherlight Temple does seem rather… plain… and… small… compared to, say, the Hall of the Guardian. It is much more sparsely decorated than the others, which is okay, I guess, for the austere aesthetic of many priestly orders, and it seems to have fewer notable NPCs — all of which make it seem like there will be less opportunities to be delighted by suddently noticing a detail that I’d overlooked before.

Of my Miners, I decided to bring my Rogue. Partly I chose her to follow my plan of bringing my alts to their Order Halls in inverse order of my longer-term interest in playing them. Partly I chose her because Stealth is a definite plus when one is a lowbie who just wants to run around mining. And partly I chose her because even though she is nominally my Gnomish Engineer, I haven’t really put a lot of effort into that crafting profession. She is, therefore, the least likely of my Miners to begrudge having to share the ore she collects with someone else.

Now the question is — how does Kelisanna resist getting corrupted by these blades in the same way that Dread Admiral Eliza was?

I’m also thinking that although I don’t plan to spend any time playing as Assassination, I might go get the Kingslayers when Kelisanna reaches level 102 just to see the little story about Garona.

Not having spent any time or effort on farming Ravenholdt rep with my Rogue, I am not particularly attached to the idea of Rogues Belong At Ravenholdt. In fact, I rather like the Hall of Shadows. It feels akin to the Thieves and Assassins’ Guilds of Ankh-Morpork.

Kamalia went to Azsuna first because I’d read that that was where all the early Profession quests were going to send you anyway.
Kiralaira went to Azsuna first because she wanted to check up on her Illidari.
Kaelinda went to Azsuna first because of her interest in ancient elvish language and magic.

Kaohana went to Stormheim first because of her fascination with the Val’kyr.
Kelisanna went to Stormheim first because as a Farstrider, she is my character with the greatest loyalty toward Sylvanas Windrunner.

I like most of Stormheim, with the vrykul and storm dragons and the Titan vaults and the grappling gun and whatnot, quite a lot. But, ugh, I dislike the opening sequence, with that ugly battle between the Forsaken and the Worgen, and the RAS and their chemical weapons — and I dislike even more being railroaded through it. I don’t like being Sylvanas’ toady any more than I liked being Garrosh’s toady. I won’t level my lowbies in the Forsaken zones; I won’t do the Forsaken questlines in Howling Fjord and the Dragonblight. So I did an experiment. I took my Demon Hunter, who had only been to Azsuna, and rode on her land mount all the way around the continent until I got to Stormheim. As I came down into Stormheim from Highmountain, I found a group of Kirin Tor mages… and they wanted to send me right back to Dalaran to talk to Nathanos Blightcaller. Blast! I’d been hoping that there was some way to skip that part of the zone, and just start at meeting with Havi at his hut in the Valley of Swords. *sigh*

Maybe what I’ll do is always select Stormheim first and push through the scenario and follow-up quests until I get the quest to meet with Havi — get all that nasty stuff out of the way ASAP, treating it, in RP terms, as purely a game mechanic and not something that anyone except Kelisanna actually participated in — and then go to the first zone that I actually want to do extensive questing in.

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cricket collection

Along with leveling a character of each class to the current level cap, one of my long-time WoW goals has been to raid-heal with each of the healing classes. Mists LFR has been an absolutely Golden Age for me in that regard. I have a healer of each class who has completed at least Terrace of Endless Spring from T14, all of Throne of Thunder, and Siege of Orgrimmar through the Sha of Pride.

As proof that I have indeed completed my Mists expansion goal of healing in LFR with each of the healing classes — and before Patch 6.0 wreaks havoc on my action bars and addons, too! — I now present a couture collection featuring that most charming of Siege of Orgrimmar healer loot drops, the Purehearted Cricket Cage.

Waterfall Cricket

Greenweave Mantle, Waterfall Robe, Councillor’s Sash, Replica Virtuous Gloves, Rejuvenating Scepter, Purehearted Cricket Cage
This Kun-Lai Summit quest reward robe matches the tailored Windwool set, which has a tunic chestpiece instead of a robe.

Hoodoo Cricket

Self-Reflecting Mask, Runetotem’s Mantle of Conquest, Jinxed Hoodoo Skin & Kilt, Hurricane Belt, Cenarion Gloves, Miniature Winter Veil Tree, Purehearted Cricket Cage
This outfit is based on Zazzy’s grand-prize-winning final round entry for JD Kenada’s Amazing Transmog Survivor competition. Kerisa already had the shoulders, chestpiece, and kilt of Zazzy’s kit — though as a Druid, she of course could not use the same belt.

Fire-Charm Cricket

Fire-Charm Mantle, Jinxed Hoodoo Skin & Kilt, Serene Yellow Belt, Grips of Slicing Electricity, Ethereum Phase Blade, Purehearted Cricket Cage, Veridian Cloak
A variation on Zazzy’s grand-prize-winning final round entry for JD Kenada’s Amazing Transmog Survivor competition. As a Monk, Koralyra could get the chestpiece, belt, and kilt easily — but she’d have had to farm for the lookalike T9 Druid shoulders, as Zazzy had. Fortunately, the glow of the T15-LFR Monk shoulders matches the Jinxed Hoodoo items just as nicely as the crystals on the T9-Horde Druid shoulders do!

Suncrown Cricket

Bog Pauldrons, Suncrown Hauberk, Myrmidon’s Girdle, Cenarion Reservist’s Legguards*/Green Iron Leggings, Green Iron Gauntlets, Tsunami Boots, Light’s Justice, Purehearted Cricket Cage, Xing-Ho, Breath of Yu’lon
So, yeah, I decided to get the Legendary Cloak for Kamalia’s DPS spec. Hopefully, it’ll make at least the first few levels of 90 to 100 a little easier, considering that I don’t (and won’t) have a Garrosh Heirloom weapon.

Jade Cricket

Jade set with Acid-Etched Pauldrons, Qon’s Flaming Scimitar, and Purehearted Cricket Cage
I put up with the Jade set being platekini because I love its unique coloration so much. I’d be much happier if it looked on my female character the way it looks on male characters, though!

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Mog the World in 80 Days wrap-up

After three intense months of mogging, Dragonray’s Mog the World in 80 Days competition has come to an end and the Grand Prize has been awarded. Dragonray, Navimie, Cymre, and I discussed at least three different methods of determining the overall winner, and Syrco came out on top in every analysis!

prize banner by Cymre

Bravo, Syrco!

Runner-up Plaid Elf came in a very close second in all the same analyses. Her winning set for Uruguay in Week 8 would make a totally boss outfit for Anduin Wrynn, dontcha think?

I spent quite a while trying to get the face to look right before I gave up and cheated by putting in the face from my WMV pose reference picture.

I had a blast helping to judge the competition. I was so impressed by the creativity of all the participants. I looked forward to seeing what fabulous new outfits would be up in the Judges’ Corner each weekend. Here are some of my personal favorite outfits from each week that didn’t win — either I gave my highest score of the week to this outfit but the outfit I gave my second-highest score to won instead, or I gave my second-highest score to this outfit on a week in which the outfit I gave the highest score to did win.

For everyone who participated, I’ve made this badge to display on your blog, if you wish:

Thank you, Dragonray, for hosting such a splendid Transmogrification event!

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