What I’m trying with my Patch 10.0 Talents and UI, for now

After a couple of hours (cumulative) of fiddling around with my UI and Talents, here’s what I’ve settled on for now. This might last for all of Dragonflight, or it might last only until next week. Click on the scaled images to see the full-size images.

Elemental Shaman

Balance Druid

Whenever Kaurinka manages to move on from Ardenweald, she’ll rearrange her talents to grab the Talent version of Convoke the Spirits. As long as she’s still there, however, the original Covenant version will be superior.

Fire Mage

Frost Mage

Arcane Mage

I’m happy to see Radiant Spark in the Mage Talent trees, but I would rather have had Mirrors of Torment in there, too, instead of Shifting Power.

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out with the last ten years’ Talent rows, in with the new-old Talent trees

As much for my own reference when choosing new Talents in the new trees as anything else, here are the talent layouts I’ve been running with my Mains in Shadowlands — but really more or less since… when was it? Cataclysm? Mists of Pandaria?… the time when the three-talent rows were first introduced.

Elemental Shaman

Restoration Shaman

Balance Druid

Fire Mage

Frost Mage

Arcane Mage

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Arkelios’ Solace: Are you Safe or Speedy?

When you’ve finished picking up Arkelios’ foci, which path do you take back up? The safer, but longer, path over the bridge (marked in green) — or the shorter, but more dangerous, path up the root (marked in red)?
I usually take the root — but I’ve learned that I have to be on a fairly small mount to be able to judge the turns correctly. Even the Wildseed Cradle is a little too wide — I almost always fall off the root when I try to use that mount!

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“This looks like Tauren country”

After school was over for the year, BTH took a week of vacation and we went to see some national parks that are within reasonable driving distance from home, considering our small children. We checked out a suitable number of volumes of the How to Train Your Dragon series on audiobook CDs to listen to during the drivetime; of our local public library’s selection of audiobooks for kids, these were the books I thought would be most enjoyed by both the kids — our five year-old loved them! — and the parents.
The Barrens:

Thousand Needles:



Stonetalon Mountains:


I didn’t get any pictures of the grasslands on the interior of the top of the plateau, as I would have had to take them out the window of the moving car, but they put me in mind of Mulgore.

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Kaelinda and Salandria’s Marvelous Adventure

A story in screenshots. See also Kaprikka and Dornaa’s marvelous adventure
~*~*~

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Kalaneia and the Blade of the Primus

For all that she detested the physical environment of Maldraxxus, by the time she had completed the restoration of the Blade of the Primus and opened the door to the Seat of the Primus, Kalaneia knew that the Necrolords were the Covenant where she belonged.
Also, WTB cosmetic Blade of the Primus that can be Mogged over any and all weapon types.

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Kaelyla in Ardenweald

This weekend, I finished leveling Kaelyla. By the time she’d seen the vision of Ysera’s death and done the next two quests, she was 98% through level 59. At that point, I took her to Oribos and activated Threads of Fate. After completing next couple of quests to talk to Lady Moonberry, she was so close to dinging that I just went and did a little gathering to push it over instead of working on the “Aiding Ardenweald” fill-the-bar quest. I got her through Chapter 1 of the Night Fae campaign; now she’s gathering Renown, Souls, and Anima and waiting for Patch 9.1 to arrive so that she can not have to go to Torghast.

One reason I chose the Night Fae for Kaelyla — or Kaelyla for the Night Fae — is because of the aesthetic similarities I saw between the Void Elves and Ardenweald. I created her “Full of Stars” outfit (#37) to highlight those aesthetic harmonies —

— and specifically to coordinate with the animacone backpack that is an on-quest visual effect for the quest “Tending to Wildseeds” at the Tranquil Pools adjacent to Tirna Vaal.

There are a number of other nifty on-quest visual effects during the Ardenweald main storyline, so I ended up taking many, many screenshots of this outfit. I’ve put the ones from “Tending to Wildseeds” in the outfit listing on the appropriate “Things My Void Elf Mage Wears” page. To keep that page from getting overcrowded, I’ve gathered the rest of my favorite pictures of this outfit in this gallery — click through the cut to see them all!

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busting out of Torghast

I suppose I’ll go rescue Thrall, too, sooner or later. Not so much for his own sake, however, as for the sake of Aggra and their children.

I still might just go watch that Anduin and Sylvanas cinematic on Wowhead, though. Doing layer 1 in fully upgraded Covenant gear means that Torghast isn’t difficult, but I do still find it rather tedious to have to clear all the mobs and smash all the jars so that I’ll have sufficient Phantasma to buy stuff from the Brokers. Six floors of that is quite enough. I don’t know that I want to crawl through eighteen.

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Welp, I guess it’s time to get the Sanity Cloak now

If I’m understanding the changes to Echoes of Ny’alotha in today’s updates correctly, they won’t drop anymore unless at least one character on the account has the Sanity Cloak. Guess I’d better go get that now, so that’ll be how I spend my WoW session this evening, after the kids are in bed.

The Sanity Cloak is Wrathion’s project, which reminds me of this thing that I observed during the 15th Anniversary Event, but don’t remember seeing commentary about at the time*:

During the 15th Anniversary event, which began during Patch 8.2.5, with its “Where’s Wrathion?” questline**, I observed Wrathion, in whelpling form, accompanied by Medivh in arcane raven form, flying around in the Caverns of Time. They aren’t there now, so I wonder if they were just there during Patch 8.2.5, or even just during the Anniversary event? What is Wrathion not telling us about what Medivh and/or Khadgar are up to these days? He must know something…

* at least in the main body of posts on Blizzard Watch or Wowhead, though it may have been mentioned in the comments

** which now seems to be unavailable — I haven’t seen it pop up for any of my recently dinged 120s

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Walking With The Spirits

An RP Story with dialog mostly (though not entirely) directly quoted from the Heritage of the Shu’halo questline. You might want to skip this story for now and come back later if you intend to play through this questline yourself.

Kamalia awoke on a hard, cold, damp, sandy rock floor with the taste of brine on her lips. For a moment, she struggled to recall what her purpose for returning to the Maelstrom had been. Then a pair of greenish-blue webbed feet flip-flopped past. Oh, right. Nazjatar. With a portal open to Dazar’alor, the real question was why had she chosen to sleep here instead of going somewhere more comfortable? A better question than that might be had she really helped Saurfang, Thrall, and, of all people, Jaina Proudmoore and Spymaster Shaw rescue High Chieftain Baine Bloodhoof from imprisonment by Sylvanas Windrunner in the chambers Garrosh Hellscream had built underneath Orgrimmar? Or had that just been a dream or a vision, seeing through the eyes of someone else who was actually there?

When Kamalia returned from her morning scouting & foraging run with one of the Kelfin, she noticed that Spiritwalker Ussoh was not sitting in his usual place by the bonfire. Had he been there earlier in the morning? She wasn’t sure. She asked Regent Lord Theron where Ussoh had gone.

“He said he had urgent business in Mulgore,” Lor’themar replied, “and he requested that you join him as soon as possible. He also asked that you stop by the Embassy in Orgrimmar first, however, to meet with a colleague of his. I think this is probably a genuine request, but still… Go with caution, champion.”

Kamalia took the portal to Dazar’alor, and from there to Orgrimmar. She approached the Embassy with trepidation… Why was Ussoh needed so urgently back home? Was Sylvanas already beginning her punishment of the tauren for Baine’s actions regarding Derek Proudmoore and his subsequent rescue? She relaxed a bit when she saw another Spiritwalker standing outside the Embassy.

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