8 weeks until BfA

…But how many weeks until Patch 8.0?

Kamalia and Kerisa finished the Trial of Valor quest. Yay, I only have to listen to Odyn and Helya griping about each other once next week! Emerald Nightmare gave me only Artifact Power… sigh.

Monk dinged level 110. Only Rogue and Warlock remain. Somehow those two are always the last two to get leveled, even though I do rather have fun playing them when I do play them.

Keija reached Exalted with Valarjar. Now she can work on Suramar and Highmountain.

Katewatha got the Legend of the Monkey King to unlock the Hidden appearance of Fu-Zan on only her second day of tapping the Bubbling Keg. She would switch that Order Hall upgrade over to the other choice that buffs her troops… except she doesn’t have enough Order Hall Resources on hand to do so.

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9 weeks until BfA

Although I didn’t get any of the things I was going in for from Emerald Nightmare this past week, Kerisa did get the lookalike of the Rogue pants, a legendary trinket (Kil’jaeden’s Burning Wish), and Mark of the Glade Guardian — the Hidden appearance item for the Guardian Artifact. Another Druid in the raid asked if I needed the Mark of the Glade Guardian, and because I don’t play Guardian, I replied that I didn’t. Unfortunately, the item was already soulbound and I couldn’t trade it 😦

I’m still plugging away at Trial of Valor and Helarjar Landings. My Paladin got the LFR gloves this week, to match the boots she got last week.

I sent an Abundant Cache of Order Resources care package to Kaylynda, allowing her to upgrade her Order Hall to the point where she can get the Insta-WQ item. I’ve been using it exclusively for gear items. If I can just get her gear up to 800, hopefully that will be good enough to survive the Void Elf recruitment scenario — and the first several quests in Kul Tiras.

Even though I knew that I didn’t actually need to have a level 110 character on Duskwood to be able to create Highmountain Tauren characters there (once I get around to recruiting them, that is), I’d been leveling mini-Kam anyway by Garrison flower picking and Order Hall character XP missions. After Kaylynda dinged 110, mini-Kam picked up the Safari Hat. She’d reached about 70% of the way through level 109, so when I saw that there was a demon invasion up in Highmountain on Friday evening, I decided to finish off her leveling that way. Lemme tell ya, trying to do demon invasions in sub-700 gear is painful. I couldn’t really accomplish anything unless I was tagging along behind a Horde level 110 or two. By being patient and persistent, I got the ding. I’ll probably make her some crafted gear… but first, I’ll have to farm up the Stormscales.

My Death Knight did Highmountain and part of Stormheim on her way to 110. On a bit of a whim, I put her in Blood spec to do Highmountain. I used the Broadaxe of the Ebon Blade rather than the Maw of the Damned, but even without the ilevel, relics, and traits of the Artifact, the spec felt easier to play than Arms Warrior or Enhancement Shaman. I did spend a fair amount of time waiting for runes to refresh, though, which the relics and Artifact traits probably smooth out.

Death Knight is No. Nine of the Twelve Classes. Just… three… more… to go! Monk, Rogue, and Warlock… Having all my alts already at level 106 has definitely made pushing another one through to 110 each week much more doable than it would have been otherwise!

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10 weeks until BfA

Kaylynda reached level 110, but I can’t just run off willy nilly to recruit the Void Elves. For one thing, I haven’t yet gotten anyone out to Argus. For another, because she leveled by Garrison flower picking, Pet Battles, and Order Hall XP missions, the state of Kaylynda’s gear is… rather dreadful. Kaelinda didn’t have much trouble with the Nightborne recruitment scenario, but her gear was in the high 800s already when she did it. I worry that if she tried the Void Elf recruitment scenario at her current gear level, Kaylynda would just get squashed, repeatedly.

Kerisa got her Emerald Nighthold Tier shoulders from Tichondrius — yay, no more running that LFR wing! She got the belt from Cenarius, but she still needs the robe. Kaelinda got the lookalike of the Priest robe from the Dragons of Nightmare, but she still needs the lookalike of the Priest shoulders from Cenarius.

My Priest worked her way through the main story questlines of Highmountain and Stormheim. With the boosting of the Blue Team, she is technically my 12th level 110 character. But they are all doubles of classes I’d already gotten to level 110 the hard way, so they kind of don’t count. Kaohana is the 8th of the Twelve Classes to reach level 110. Four more to go…

My Warrior had three quests for Maw of Souls more or less right when she got to level 110. My Priest had three quests for Halls of Valor: the end-of-zone quest for Stormheim, the next step of Chapter Three of her Order Hall Campaign (a quest she’d actually been sitting on for awhile), and an Enchanting quest. So on Monday night, I went and did it. Then I decided to queue up for Black Rook Hold (on Normal) to get the book for the Hidden appearance of the Disc Artifact that is found in that dungeon. I got a group really fast because there happened to be a World Quest up for that dungeon. So then I queued up for Black Rook Hold (on Normal) again with my Paladin because she had an Order Hall Campaign quest for that dungeon. I hated that place the first few times I did it with Kamalia because the layout is so confusing when one is just chasing a tank, because those circular stairs are awful for line of sight for healing, and because I am terrible at movement challenges like dodging boulders rolling down said circular stairs. Somehow, it wasn’t so bad these times… perhaps it was because everyone else in my groups was overgeared, so the bosses died without performing their major mechanics and I barely had to heal at all?

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11 weeks until BfA

As you might have observed from Sunday on the Promenade this week, Kaelinda finished her Trial of Valor quest and Kerisa got a lucky drop of the LFR version of the ensemble. Kerisa will, however, continue farming Trial of Valor to get the Normal version of the ensemble. Alas, no luck in Emerald Nighthold.

Kerisa reached Exalted with Val’sharah. Now she can use Kirin Tor Emissary for Suramar.

Kaobeka has finished making the bags that my Highmountain Tauren alts will need. She’s got enough extra materials to make several more bags, though, so I’ll keep logging on with her to do those tailoring CDs and the surplus bags will go on the AH and make me some gold.

My Warrior dinged 110 after completing Stormheim and about half of Highmountain. Shortly thereafter, she had three quests for Maw of Souls: one from having done the Tideskorn Harbor/Helmouth Shallows sidequest area of Stormheim while leveling (something the rest of my alts so far have skipped), one from the next step of her Order Hall Campaign, and one from the Blacksmithing questchain. Well, then. My other relatively new level 110s have been sitting on dungeon quests for their Order Hall Campaigns, waiting for me to finish leveling everyone else, but I figured I’d better just go and get my Warrior’s Maw of Souls run done — mostly for the Blacksmithing questchain progression, to be honest. I actually had to run it twice, because there was a Warrior Order Hall quest item that dropped from Ymiron that I wasn’t fast enough picking up the first time before the go-go-go group leader blew the horn…

OK, now this countdown is starting to make me feel anxious, too. This suddenly doesn’t feel like very much time to finish leveling 5 more characters and complete 9 more Order Hall Campaigns — especially because I will be taking a week off in late July to attend the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education.

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12 weeks until BfA

Not a lot of either leveling or Order Hall Campaign progression happened this week because it was World Quest bonus week. Doing 20 WQs with all my level 110s — especially the three newest ones, who are all starving for Order Resources — took priority over anything else.

Well, I did do some of that WQing while sitting in LFR queues. Although I forgot to go get bonus roll tokens with my Druid before she went to LFR, she did get the lookalike of the Monk tier chestpiece from Emerald Nighthold. I remembered that I had some high ilevel plate items that I’d purchased off the AH sitting in my guild bank. With those, plus chasing WQs with equipment rewards, my Paladin was able to get her ilevel up enough to queue for Trial of Valor. So I’ve run Trial of Valor four times this week (once with each armor class), which is quite enough!
My “things to do in LFR” list just keeps getting longer. Gnomecore’s Aurinko reminded me that the LFR coloration of the Emerald Nighthold Priest set is quite nice, and checking the availability showed that the lookalikes of the shoulders and chestpiece are possible loot drops for a Mage from the Tormented Guardians wing. So Kaelinda did that, albeit with no luck. And I remembered that a while back, I designed a “pink” outfit for Navimie that used the lookalike of the Emerald Nighthold Rogue LFR shoulders. Both my Druid and my Demon Hunter went and tried for those, unsuccessfully.

I did get some leveling done — my Warrior insisted. She didn’t want to look like a poncy blood elf while doing it, however, so she went back to her Ymirjar Battlelord outfit (#53). She managed to complete the Thorignir chapter of Stormheim. That wasn’t enough to tick her over to the next level, but any progress is progress.
My Death Knight, who was almost but not quite level 106 after the Darkmoon Faire at the beginning of this month, and was the only one of the Twelve Classes remaining at level 105, wanted to get to 106. With only 7% of the level left to go and not feeling like doing any serious zone questing, I pursued the Alchemy questchain instead. “You have to work with Deucus Valdera?” Kivrinne said. “Oh, Kregga, I’m sorry.”

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13 weeks until BfA

My Druid got the cloak that matches her Tier set on her first run through Emerald Nightmare. The wing she’ll need to farm is Tormented Guardians because Cenarius drops the robe and the belt. She’ll need to farm Tichondrius in Nighthold, too, because he drops the shoulders (and there isn’t a lookalike for that piece).

My level 108 Paladin had been sitting on an Order Hall Campaign quest to run Legion Violet Hold since level 104 (before she could even queue for that dungeon). I originally leveled her as a Tank, but I hadn’t tanked for a group with her since she hit level 90 back in Mists — she LFRed as a Healer. But I hadn’t put as much AP into her Holy Artifact as into her Prot Artifact, so I steeled my nerves and queued as a Tank. I figured that Violet Hold wouldn’t be too bad to noob tank because the trash is waves on a timer and there’s no special path through the landscape that needs to be learned. I warned the group when I zoned in that I hadn’t tanked for a long time, and it went okay — the Demon Hunter DPS kept stealing aggro from me, but I think that it wasn’t deliberate, it was just that I was screwing up my threat generation. After turning in the Order Hall quest and its follow-up, I got her to level 110 by doing a little bit in Highmountain and completing the main storyline in Stormheim.

Six classes leveled to 110, six left to go. At this point, I am thinking that I will push through the leveling, then work on the Order Hall Campaigns.

When the Trial of Valor sets first showed up on the PTR way back when, I looked at them and thought that the cloth set was quite nice, the plate set was okay, and the other two were kind of meh. It occurred to me now, however, that I really ought to get the leather set, too, because shoes that show on Tauren hooves.

So my Druid ran Trial of Valor and got started on collecting the whatsits to get the Normal-mode version of the set from the quest. Then it occurred to me that I might as well pick up the mail and plate sets, too, even if it’s just for the sake of being able to use isolated items for mix-and-match later on. So Kamalia went to Trial of Valor, too, and my Paladin will start doing Trial of Valor as soon as I can get her geared up enough. I should have enough time to complete those quests before BfA launches by LFRing, but if I don’t, it’s no big deal because the quest whatsits also drop from Helarjar Landing WQs.

(Oh, hey, I just noticed that the Paladin boots from Tomb of Sargeras and Antorus also have pieces that show up fitted over Tauren hooves! Are there any others…?

While several sets of boots from this expansion have 3D pieces over the knees, the Shaman boots from Tomb of Sargeras were the only others that I found that had over-hoof pieces.)

During the past few weeks, I’ve also been making good progress on my RL summer to-do list. I’ve finished overhauling the homework assignments for the first semester of organic chemistry and have started working on re-doing the homework assignments for the second semester of organic chemistry. I’d been neglecting the front flower garden and the rosebed during the last few hectic weeks of the semester and they were full of huge weeds; I finally managed to get the weeds pulled, too.

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following through on that pre-BfA to-do list

I thought that killing Gul’dan was what had triggered the appearance of the Whispers of a Frightened World quest for Kaelinda, but when I queued up for the last wing of Nighthold LFR with Kamalia, completing it did not cause the quest to appear for Kamalia. Hmm… Ah, Kaelinda had already been to the Broken Shore before she did Betrayer’s Rise LFR. So I went to the Broken Shore with Kamalia, and then Khadgar had the Whispers of a Frightened World quest for her the next time she went to Dalaran.

Wow… that little bit of the Maker’s Perch installation that we get to see during the Sholazar Basin zone questing is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Next, Kamalia had to deal with a problem at the Heart of Azeroth called Magatha Grimtotem. Now that she is one of the Farseers of the Earthen Ring, Kamalia didn’t find Magatha nearly as intimidating as she once had. Instead, she found herself trying very hard to not laugh aloud at the condescending, patronizing way that Magatha treated her. In real life, I’m sure I would find someone like Magatha incredibly difficult to put up with. From the other side of the screen, however, I find her characterization to be quite excellently done. And though Kamalia shared some of Muln’s outrage at having to cooperate with one who had caused so much harm to Thunder Bluff, she agreed with Nobundo that it was better to have Magatha and the Doomstone where the Earthen Ring could keep an eye on them.

Then it was Kiralaira’s turn to go to the Broken Shore. Kiralaira agrees with Lady S’theno that the Illidan is the one true master of the Illidari — the current Illidari Council, herself included, are only standing in until Illidan can be restored. And as much as she likes Kor’vas as a friend and respects her as a fellow leader of the Illidari, she’s secretly amused by S’theno’s snide commentary about the other woman.

The next time Kiralaira went to Dalaran, she checked in with Khadgar, and I discovered that the only thing needed to unlock the Whispers of a Frightened World scenario is going to the Broken Shore.

Meanwhile, Kaelinda finally managed to complete her Nighthold LFR tier lookalike set (or the major, visible pieces of it, at any rate), thanks to the generosity of a Warlock who got the lookalike shoulders from Chronomatic Anomaly and asked if anyone would like them. I’d never have begged for them, but when they were offered freely, I spoke up and said I’d like them — giving the qualification that I only needed them for Mogging, as I had a better item stats-wise already. I should remember to show the same generosity the next time I get a duplicate of an item I already have.

Kaelinda has now moved on to Trial of Valor LFR. I hadn’t been running Nighthold LFR every week (just when I felt like it), but I’ll want to run Trial of Valor LFR every week until I’ve got all the oojimies to get the Normal mode ensemble from the quest — and hope that the chest and pants for the LFR version drop while I’m at it.

My Hunter had been sitting at 109 for quite some time — she gained quite a few levels early in the expansion from doing Battle Pet leveling during Sign of the Critter bonus event weeks — so I took her out and pushed her through to level 110. She’s now plugging away at her Order Hall Campaign.

Hmm, as it is now Sign of the Critter week again, perhaps I ought to send Kaylynda out to get an easy level or two from battling Ashlei.

There are now 16 weeks remaining until August 14th, and I have eight of the Twelve Classes remaining to get to level 110. So I guess that means I should try to get one additional character up to level 110 in each fortnight from now until then — although trying to get them through a little faster than that, maybe in a week and a half each, would give me more time to also get them through their Order Hall Campaigns before everyone else in Azeroth runs off to Zandalar and Kul Tiras.

Though really, if I don’t manage to make it into Battle for Azeroth content until Patch 8.1 because I’m still trying to finish up all the stuff I want to do from Legion content, that might not be such a bad thing — I’ll catch the first wave of catch-up adjustments 😛

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