it’s like the Sparkle Pony all over again, only more serious this time

Darn it if that Celestial Observer’s set that just got added to the cash shop isn’t pretty. It might even be just the thing to encourage Kerisa to get her feathery Boomkin bum back into Horrific Visions of Orgrimmar to get Ashjra’kamas upgraded to its final appearance — that set and that cape look like they’d go together quite beautifully. If the ghastly news about Blizzard’s internal culture hadn’t broken open over the summer, I’d have bought the Celestial Observer’s set and be showing off new Mogs with it in this post already. Now, though, it seems like a money grab and an attempt to distract (or something) from the increasingly bad PR, and I feel rather conflicted about giving Blizzard anything more than my sub.

The “Baby Murloc Satch-Shells” that have also just been released seem like an attempt to ride the coattails of the popularity of The Child from The Mandalorian. Apparently they’re tied to a 6-month sub, so I’ll be getting them by default. I’d rather have the Celestial Observer’s set by default.

Wowhead has some early datamining of the Mythic Progenitor Tier set models. The Mage set looks really bland to me; I think I might be more interested in collecting the lookalike items for the Priest and Warlock sets (from the LFR colorations, of course). The Warlock robe I think looks especially nifty with the ribboned panel with the design that goes across all the ribbons on the front of the skirt.

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a tepid reception for the “End of Eternity”

Like the bloggers I read, I was not particularly impressed or excited by the Patch 9.2 preview announcement.

The realms of Death should be otherworldly, and the existing zones of Shadowlands are suitably otherworldly while still retaining some familiarity (at least the leveling zones are)… but Zereth Mortis is waaaay out there in strangeness. Pretty, yes, but also uncomfortably wierd.

Although I feel engaged enough by the Covenants and their stories, the grand story of this expansion lost me a long time ago. Thus, I’m not feeling motivated to explore Zereth Mortis for the story progression because it’s leaving the Covenants behind (or so it seems from what we know so far).

In another set of RL circumstances, I might be excited by the return of class-specific Tier sets and by the sets that were previewed. I am very checked-out of raiding right now, though. Even with a sort-of goal of having either the shoulders or the chestpiece of at least one of the recolors of every Mage Tier set (including PvP recolors, for Black Temple and most of the Legion sets, yay for being able to get Marks of Honor from PvE content during that expansion!), after I finally got the chestpiece for the Castle Nathria set back in late June/early July, I haven’t managed to drag myself into Sanctum of Domination LFR to get the chestpiece for that set.

And with no new non-raid PvE Mog stuff to chase after — except maybe a questing/zone drop set which might show up from datamining/testing by Wowhead folks on the PTR? — I just am not feeling a great need to be ready to go running off to Zereth Mortis as soon as it becomes available.

I dunno, maybe the puzzle aspect of the Cipher of the First Ones will be an intriguing enough game to play? If I don’t let myself get spoilt by the datamining, etc, from the PTR?

I think the most interesting thing to come out of the Patch 9.2 news is the idea that the end of the Shadowlands story “closes a book” on the overall story of Warcraft/Azeroth. This makes me quite curious to find out how 10.0 will change what we know about Warcraft/Azeroth to “open a new book”, so to speak, of its story.

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more Anima? it’s a drop in the ocean — but yes, please

Yesterday, Wowhead reported a hotfix that gives increased Anima income for having activated all four of the Sanctum Features, then another increase when they’re all upgraded to stage 2, and final increase when they’re all upgraded to stage 3. The first level, at least, seemed worth spending a couple thousand Anima on before I purchase any more Anima cosmetics, so Kaelinda and Kaurinka have both invested in the first stages of the Command Table and the Ember Court/Queen’s Conservatory. Having done so, I will henceforth continue to ignore the Command Table completely, and the Ember Court/Queen’s Conservatory until I’m ready to sink the time into them that they apparently demand.

This also changes my plans for my remaining three characters. I’d been planning to activate stage 1 of the Anima Conductor, then to activate and fully upgrade the Travel Network, then to upgrade the Anima Conductor to stage 2. Now, I’ll be spending their first 4000 Anima on activating all four of the Sanctum Features. After that, I’ll probably continue with the original plan.

Kaelinda and Kaurinka both already had fully upgraded Travel Networks and stage 2 Anima Conductors. The investment of 2000 Anima (4000 Anima for my remaining characters) to get the first achievement definitely felt worth it. The investment of 10000 Anima (20000 Anima for my remaining characters) to get the Command Table and Special Feature to stage 2 doesn’t seem like it will really be worth it, considering the small increment of the Anima income, but I’ll probably do it anyway. The investment of 30000 Anima (40000 Anima for my remaining characters) to get the Anima Conductor, Command Table, and Special Feature all to stage 3 definitely will not be worth the additional small increment to Anima income, particularly since I have no interest in the Command Table at all, no interest in the actual benefits of the third stage of the Anima Conductor, and my interest in the Special Feature varies by Covenant (yes for Ember Court and Queen’s Conservatory, maybe for Path of Ascension, nope for Stitchyard).

In other Shadowlands progression…

I got another couple of chapters of Ardenweald done with Kaelyla and she is now about 30% through level 58. She’s getting really bored of her current outfit, but she needs to keep wearing it until she’s all the way through the Ardenweald main storyline because Ardenweald has multiple nifty on-quest visual effects that this outfit was specifically created to coordinate with. I already have an outfit idea in mind for proceeding into the first chapter of Revendreth…

I decided to stop trying to push Bastion and Maldraxxus rep with both Kaelinda and Kaurinka and just focus it down with Kaelinda. I’m almost done with Bastion and am about halfway through Revered with Maldraxxus.

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taking the Castle Nathria tour

This weekend, I finally got myself into Castle Nathria LFR. I did Leeching Depths and Blood from Stone on Saturday night, then Reliquary of Opulence and Audience with Arrogance on Sunday night.

Those are some pretty hectic, crazy fights even on LFR! I can’t even imagine how much crazier Artificer Xy’mox and Sire Denathrius must be on Heroic or Mythic! Doing these fights made me miss raid healing with Kamalia a little bit. Not enough to go through the introductory Maw experience again, though, or to add one more character to my leveling, etc queue… at least not until a skip for that intro experience gets patched in… and not until I’ve completed my primary expansion objective of playing through all four of the Covenant stories.

I held onto the quest from defeating Sire Denathrius until today, so that I could turn it in after reset and get Kaelinda’s 1K Anima quest for the week done in one fell swoop.

Having done a full Castle Nathria clear also meant that I could loot the Great Vault today!
These were my choices:

I took the trinket, because it was an upgrade and I already have an ilevel 194 weapon.

Although I’ve said previously that I’d probably only do Castle Nathria LFR once, I’d like to go do the Reliquary of Opulence at least one more time. I failed the Dance Intermission because I didn’t recognize what I was supposed to be looking for to find my place — for some reason, I was looking for ordinary raid markers to pop up, or something — so I’d like to give it another try and do it right this time. I’ll also be running Blood from Stone again, likely for some weeks to come; I’ve decided that I want to have the robe version of the chestpiece, which drops from the Stone Legion Generals, for the sake of having something from every raid set (or its PVP recolor) — though maybe it will be my Warlock who wears it, not my Mage! And hey, that’ll give me more chances at Great Vault loot, too!

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thrice more through the Maw

I didn’t play on Monday because I was busy doing other things, nor on Tuesday because the authentication issues prevented me from logging it. That still left plenty of time to bring Kaelyla, Keliora, and Kalaneia through the Maw into Oribos. That will do, for now.

I also took those three characters, as well as Kaelinda and Kaurinka, to the Darkmoon Faire. It’s been many months since I last visited the Faire, because beyond making the first set of crafted gear for each of the armor types, I ignored Professions during Battle for Azeroth. But with Professions being, by all reports, more reasonable to level and more genuinely useful in Shadowlands, I thought it was worth my time again to get those 5 free Profession skill points. My Druid is an Herbalist and Scribe; all my other Herbalists will funnel their herbs to her to craft Staves and Missives. Kaelinda is an Herbalist and Tailor; all the rest will send her their cloth so she can craft the Shrouded Cloth and Shadowlace sets. Kalaneia is an Herbalist and Alchemist; I’ll work on leveling her Alchemy after my Druid has reached her crafting goals. Keliora is a Miner and Engineer (because Goggles); leveling her Engineering will be slower because no-one else will be feeding her ore. Kaelyla is an Herbalist and Miner, but she’s Alliance, so all of her materials will go on the AH and make her rich!

I’ve been contemplating what I might do about raiding in this expansion. I sat out LFR entirely in Warlords and did very little in Legion and Battle for Azeroth. It sounds like just getting ready for raiding — even at the LFR level — is a long haul of dungeon running and shelling out gold for crafted gear, plus running Torghast to craft whatever Legendary is BIS for one’s class & spec. Of course I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m not sure if I’ll like Torghast very much. After all, I only did as much of Horrific Visions as I needed to get the first Shroud of Resolve appearance upgrade. Even though I think the second appearance upgrade for the Shroud of Resolve is very pretty, whenever I have thought about doing more Horrific Visions — and more Black Empire Assaults to buy those attempts — I end up saying, “meh, I don’t feel like doing that.” So I think I only want to raid with one toon at most, if I can even manage that. That toon will probably be my Druid because I like the leather set from Castle Nathria ever so much more than the cloth set.

But then how to get all of the different Covenant weapons? Hmm… If I pick up a Castle Nathria weapon token and use it for one Covenant, then change Covenants, I know that I won’t be able to use that weapon appearance with that character anymore — but will I still be able to use it with other characters in that Covenant? So could I get a Castle Nathria weapon token, spend it with the Covenant I’m currently in, change Covenants, get another Castle Nathria weapon token and spend it with the new Covenant, and so on until I’ve gotten the Castle Nathria weapons for all of the Covenants? I would just try for all of the Staves, I think — though that Night Fae Harp is lovely and after I’ve gotten all the Staves and come back to the Night Fae, I’d want to get one more Castle Nathria weapon token to spend on that. From an RP standpoint, Kaurinka will want to stay devoted to the Night Fae, but Kaiuna might be up for some Covenant-hopping….

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spring fever

My college’s Spring Break is officially next week. Classes were cancelled this week, and I should have spent the time practicing with screencasting and web-conferencing software to get ready for taking my courses online after Spring Break. Spring Fever hit me hard in the middle of the week, though, and I spent an afternoon playing Kinevra through chapters 4 – 6 of the 8.0 Alliance War Campaign and doing the Tyrande’s Vengeance questline instead of working. While doing those things, I was sitting in LFR queue for the second wing of Dazar’alor — trying for the crown, of course. Since she reached level 120 a few weeks ago, Kinevra has also achieved Friendly with both Mechagon and Nazjatar to get the Rank 1 versions of those Essences. Kinevra’s ilevel and Heart level have both surpassed Kamalia’s.

Now with Blizzard implementing double XP gain for the next month, I’m sorely tempted to finish leveling Kerisa, Kaelinda, and Karaelia to 120 instead of doing schoolwork…

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Sunday on the Promenade 72

Faction dichotomy takes the stage in this week’s installment of the Sunday Mog Show.

Druid of the Talon

Dragonhawk Hat, Preened Ironfeather Shoulders, Vest of Sobbing, Narf’s Explosiveproof Strand, Oil Gush Leggings, Discarded Slaughterhouse Gloves, Scourgebane Treads, Fordragon Blades
I first saw this glaive carried by the Druids of the Talon at the Shrine of Aviana. I’d never noticed it as a player weapon before, so I assumed that it was an NPC-exclusive model. When the Wardrobe came out, I searched for it in the array of polearms that I hadn’t yet collected, but couldn’t find it, so I continued to think that it was an NPC-only model. Recently, Alunaria tipped me off that it is an Alliance-exclusive model from the Trial of the Crusader. My Horde Druid still can’t imitate the Druids of the Talon, but now my Alliance Druid can!
The NPCs are wearing a brown recolor of the Feralheart hat that isn’t available to players. The Dragonhawk Hat seemed like the best substitute.
Some of the other Druids of the Talon, most notably the female Tauren, are wearing the Phantasmal Headdress, a recolor of the shoulders that is only available to players in mail, the Vest of Restraint, and pants that match the vest but are unavailable to players.
The Druids of the Talon found at Skysea Ridge on Draenor-of-the-alternate-timeway are wearing different armor, but carry the same glaive.

Paku’ai or Raptari?

Coarse Leather Armor with Chieftain’s Headdress and Warmongering Combatant’s Battle Staff
The Horde version of the Battle for Azeroth crafted leather gear (also the Jambani quest set from Zuldazar and the Brutohide BOE set) is the outfit worn by the Paku’ai flight masters of Zandalar. These devotees of the pterrodax loa Pa’ku are led by Hexlord Raal. This armor is also worn by Wardruid Loti, the leader of the followers of the raptor loa Gonk. Given that Loti and Raal are Zandalar’s version of Beatrice and Benedick and that Raal incites his followers to an intense (and rather juvenile) rivalry with hers, the shared armor appearance leads to all manner of annoyingamusing confusions.

Tidespray Linen


Tidespray Linen set with Fangcaller’s Staff (H)/Tidespray Linen set with Lord Aldrius’ Greatstaff (A)
The crafted gear from Battle for Azeroth has faction-dichotomous appearances. For Horde characters, the tailored Tidespray Linen set has the same appearance as the Loa Speaker quest set from Nazmir. For Alliance characters, the Tidespray Linen set has the same appearance as the Wickerwoven quest set from Drustvar. If Horde characters want the Alliance appearance, they should look for the Heartsbane set on the AH. If Alliance characters want the Horde appearance, they should look for the Bloodhex set on the AH.

~*~*~

This series of posts began because I set myself a goal to document new Transmogrification outfits in a more timely fashion. As soon as I create a new outfit, I write it up in a draft post. As the weekend approaches, I start working on taking fashion screenshots, processing them, and updating “Things my [Class] Wears” posts. On Sunday — though not every Sunday — I publish the collection of my recent efforts. Then I begin the next “Sunday on the Promenade” draft post.

Occasionally, I have ideas for themed Transmogrification collections that take several months to completely assemble. Thus, some of these outfits might get re-posted at a later date as part of such a themed Transmogrification collection.

If any of you, my dear readers, have kits that you’d like to share, I’d be happy to add you to the show! Just email me your picture(s), along with a list of the items in the outfit. I don’t regularly check my blog email, though, so if you’ve sent me an outfit, please make a comment on the most recent Sunday Mog Show post so that I know to check my blog email for your contribution.

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4 weeks until BfA; 0 weeks until Patch 8.0

Cenarius finally coughed up the lookalike of the Emerald Nighthold Druid tier robe for Kerisa. Hooray!

My Warlock finished her Order Hall Campaign. Five done, seven left. Can I manage to get seven more Order Hall Campaigns completed in only four weeks — three and a half, really, because of this conference I’m going to at the end of the month?
I was surprised that compassion — albeit in the somewhat limited sense of even if you don’t give a damn about the rest of the world, you should still take care of the people who are part of your own community — emerged as one of the main themes of that story. I wasn’t expecting that from the Warlocks. Good job, devs!

I went and did the Wound quests in Silithus with Kamalia and Kaylynda, just in case they might go away in Patch 8.0.

I had been under the impression that one had to complete the Broken Shore campaign to do the Mage Tower Challenge, and I just didn’t have time energy or desire to do that. Reading posts about the imminent end of the Mage Tower Challenge, I realized that I’d been mistaken. So Kaelinda hurried to do the questchain that leads up to the Mage Tower Challenge, and do to the Wound quests in Silithus to get her Artifacts to be OP, and then I started trying the Frost Mage challenge. It is a kiting fight, and I am rubbish at kiting. After making a half-dozen-ish rather feeble attempts in which I felt like I was making little to no progress, I decided that I had other things — both in-game and out — that I’d rather spend my Monday evening doing. Specifically, my Rogue finished Chapter 3 of her Order Hall Campaign.

Many many thanks to Coffee Cakes & Crits, who tipped me off that the Tabard of the Lightbringer is BoE and can sometimes be found on the AH. I looked, and there it was. The list price of 255 K might not be much for some folks, but for me, it took a bit of pooling cash — with Kamalia and Kaelinda, who have been level 110 the longest and thus have had the most time to rake in gold from Order Hall missions, being the major donors — to be able to afford it.

Now Patch 8.0 is here, but there’s another week before the pre-launch-event quests begin. I’ll need to do those with the characters who will eventually be heading off into BfA content.
For the Blue Team, we have Kaylynda the Human Mage, Kerithian the Night Elf Druid, Kjerstin the Dwarf Shaman, and Kyraleia the Dwarf Paladin.
For the Red Team, we have Kaelinda the Blood Elf Mage, Kerisa the Tauren Druid, Kamalia the Tauren Shaman, and Keija the Tauren Warrior. Kaelinda, Kamalia, and Keija will have to go to Zandalar eventually because the only Professions I care about any more are the ones that make me things I can use for Mogging and they are my Tailor, Leatherworker, and Blacksmith, respectively. The leather-wearer position for the Red Team is theoretically flexible, but it will probably end up being Kerisa because of my four level 110 Horde leather-wearers, I am the most attached to her.

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5 weeks until BfA; 1 week until Patch 8.0

I’m still trying for that Druid robe from Emerald Nighthold.

It was Darkmoon Faire week. Normally I do the Darkmoon Faire on Sunday, or maybe Monday, but last week I was more interested in pushing the Warlock and the Rogue through to 110. So I didn’t do the Darkmoon Faire until Wednesday. About half of my alts will get to 800 skill points in their primary professions next month, just before BfA launches. The rest will get to 800 skill points in September, just after BfA launches and the profession skill cap goes up again…

It was World Quests bonus week. Thirteen alts was too many; I didn’t get it done on all of them… let alone the ones who actually needed it the most.

I was distracted by re-mogging all of my characters who’d gotten dressed up for the Midsummer Fire Festival and needed to change their clothes after the holiday ended.

And there was some more RL family stuff, too.

End result: I didn’t get any Order Hall Campaign advancement done.

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6 weeks until BfA; 2 weeks until Patch 8.0

Kerisa was so close to completing the Druid campaign that I decided to just finish it up — including going to the Broken Shore and recruiting Thisalee Crow. I’ll probably do this — go to the Broken Shore to recruit the 9th champion as soon as I finish up the 7.0 campaign — with my remaining characters, too. Cenarius still didn’t give her the Emerald Nighthold Druid tier lookalike robe, though.

By queueing up for LFD while doing zone questing, I managed to get both the Warlock and the Rogue to level 110. Whew!

So now that everyone is finally at 110, what next?
Finishing eight more Order Hall Campaigns, of course.
I’m debating whether to try to focus them down one at a time or do a little bit with multiple characters each night. The first method would probably help me keep track of the stories better — I confess that with over a year between when I pushed everyone through Chapter 2 of their Order Hall Campaigns shortly before we got our baby and now, I don’t really remember what’s going on in any of them.

My Paladin and Monk also need to run 8 different dungeons to get their Order Hall pants. I’m keeping track of which dungeons they have to run as part of their Campaign so that then I can just run the ones they haven’t already done for the pants. I’d also like to get the Order Hall pants for my Warrior, Death Knight, Hunter, and Priest — but they can come back and solo Legion dungeons at level 120. It’s only the Paladin and Monk that I want to get done while Legion is still current content, because those are the Order Hall sets that I’m the most interested wearing as complete sets.

And I really need to go to Argus with somebody. When it’s Kirin Tor Emissary, I’ve been picking up Argussian Reach tokens with my Demon Hunter and Army of the Light tokens with my Alliance Mage. Because I’m more interested in the Void Elves than in the Lightforged Draenei, it’ll probably be the Demon Hunter who goes to Argus first.

Meanwhile, in the world beyond Azeroth…

One of my colleagues took a job at another institution in the state, so I spent a couple of weeks of June in search committee meetings finding his replacement. Our new faculty member has a lot of experience teaching general chemistry, but the person she’s replacing didn’t have any standard general chemistry in his courseload. To help her feel more comfortable in her first semester at a new institution, I decided to give her the option to take the section of general chemistry that has been “mine” for the past four years. She took it, so now I am rearranging my schedule and preparing to teach the rest of the courseload that had been assigned to the person who left: general education chemistry and physical science. These are two classes that I’ve never taught before, and I have a month and a half to prep them… So as much as I might like to daydream about tackling the Mage Tower Challenge with Kaelinda to get that beautiful Challenge apppearance for Ebonchill, or with Kelisanna to get those amazing rapiers for the Dreadblades, I really can’t afford to let myself get distracted by that…

We got our adoption legally finalized in April. We then waited until BTH’s parents returned from their mission to serve in the Bern Switzerland Temple before getting our adoption ecclesiastically finalized by having our son sealed to us in our local Temple this Saturday. Now we can finally say that our little boy is 100% ours!

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