I know that I need to do stuff in Suramar for the flying meta achievement. Lots of stuff in Suramar — so far, I’ve barely completed the first two parts of Nightfallen But Not Forgotten and I’ve only done two or three parts of Good Suramaritan.
It’s a gorgeous zone. I especially love the Moon Guard and Tel’anor areas, and I was delighted by the Vashj’ir-like underwater scenery of Azuregale Bay when I went there for a World Quest the other day. It’s superb worldbuilding on the part of the Blizzard art team that the global map is aligned in such a way that it looks like the most elfy parts of Vashj’ir just broke right off of the most elfy parts of the Broken Isles.
And yet I’ve been choosing to do other things — usually World Quests in other zones. Last night, Archaeology was up in Highmountain, so I went to do my first digging in the Broken Isles there. Archaeology is different this expansion. Instead of four sites distributed randomly across the map that sit there until you clear them, all the sites are in the same zone for a few days… and then it changes and all the sites are in a different zone for a few days. When you clear a digsite, the next one pops up somewhere else in the same zone. So if you want a specific type of digsite, you wait until that zone comes up in the rotation and then dig like crazy for a couple of days — and if you don’t want a specific type of digsite, you just have to wait a couple of days for that zone to rotate away. I kind of like that! It would be great if the devs retroactively applied that tech to the other continents, too, so that you wouldn’t have to dig all those boring Night Elf sites when you’ve found all the Night Elf stuff already and what you really want to dig is Tol’vir sites😛
I’d been sitting on the the Tauren Tanning leatherworking quest for awhile, so I did that while I was in Highmountain last night, too. I’ve quite liked the quests for my Professions so far. I like getting the Rank 1 patterns as quest rewards, and the little stories along the way are fun. I’ve gotten to the point with the patterns for leather gear that the quest to go to the Underbelly to get some Rank 2 patterns has popped up (not quite there yet with the patterns for mail gear). Thanks, but no thanks; I’ll pass on subjecting myself to PvP. Because I am primarily interested in the appearance of crafted gear (for Transmogrification) rather than its stats (for combat), I’m just fine with spending the piles of mats to make the Rank 1 version of the patterns. I also don’t think I’ll be pursuing the Obliterum Forge questline, for the same reasons.
Anyhow, so, just why is it that I’ve been avoiding Suramar?
Perhaps my aversion to Suramar comes from feeling even squishier than the Underpowered Death Knight when I’m there. I did finally remember to assign Stormcaller Mylra (because she’s the Most Best) as a bodyguard, equipped with a Fruitful Bauble, and that has made doing World Quests much easier — so maybe I won’t feel quite so squishy the next time I am in Suramar. Remembering to use Stonehide Leather Barding helps, too (note to self: make a stack or two of this and bung it in the guild bank for alts to use).
Perhaps it’s because I’m dreading getting to the point in the Suramar questline where I’ll have start doing the Withered Training scenario. From what I’ve read about it and listening to BTH running through it, it sounds like I will probably find it to be rather obnoxious and un-fun.
Perhaps I’m just avoiding Suramar because I can — because there are plenty of other things to do, and I’m reveling in my agency to play however I want to play.
I can’t keep ignoring Suramar forever, though. I’ve finally advanced my two primary Professions, Skinning and Leatherworking, to the point where the trainers and the questlines are in Suramar — so I might as well work on the main Suramar questline and do the Professions stuff when the main questline brings me to the requisite areas of the zone naturally.
