a Demon Hunter’s priorities

So, that Demon Hunter starting experience was really quite enjoyable.
There are a few places where you are offered a choice between two options, and although the only one that really seems to matter is whether to spec Havoc or Vengeance, I think it might be interesting to roll another Demon Hunter someday and take the other choices at all of those decision points, just to see how the follow-up dialogue is different.

Upon returning to the normal world, Kiralaira had a few things she wanted to do right away.

First, she needed to go punch Kael’thas in the face —

— TWICE —

— for being a traitor and selling out to the Burning Legion.

Then she went to ask Illidan if, um, given that she’s, um, apparently the “alpha” Illidari, she could, um, “borrow” the Warglaives of Azzinoth for, um, “safekeeping” while he is, um, “indisposed”?

(This would feel significantly less awkward if she had chosen [this guy] instead of [that guy] at a certain decision point in the starting experience.)

Illidan replied, no, not right now, ask me again next week.

Next, she went to Tanaan to take a selfie or two with Yrel.


I do hope it wasn’t one of your relatives who gave me these horns, dearie

After not having gone through the Tanaan Invasion experience for so long, it didn’t seem all that tiresome or tedious. I found myself just zipping right along, all the way through to the end, and even having fun doing it. Imagine that!

Then she went to Pandaria.

Wait, what?

I thought I was done with the Shado-Pan, I really did. After I got the Shado-Pan Helmet with my Human Mage, I remembered that I’d never gotten one with my Draenei Mage, either. So I took Kaprikka out to Townlong Steppes, but after a day or two… nope, didn’t want to do that, after all. She went back to camping Onyxia, and I added “don’t want to do any given rep grind with any given Class more than once” to my list of reasons for Retiring my secondary Tauren alts.

(Because a) I don’t like the Felstalker and b) the Shado-Pan rep mounts don’t require the rep to use, the red Shado-Pan Riding Tiger is already her mount of choice.)

But Kiralaira insisted that because she is a new and different Class, she needs a Shado-Pan Helmet (and Transmogrification kit) — and, furthermore, she wants to make a Shado-Pan Helmet kit that also uses the Shado-Pan Tabard — something I haven’t yet managed to do.
And because she is level 100 and Fel Rush and Eye Beam are fun and powerful, she might even actually do the Sra’Vess (mantid) Shado-Pan quests, which I ignored on all my other characters…

Read Full Post »

Millhouse is mine! Muahahahaha!

I have wanted Millhouse Manastorm for my Alliance Mage’s gathering of Follower Mages basically forever. I had given up, though, on ever actually getting him for her, because, quite frankly, I was too lazy to push her through Silver Proving Grounds — and it didn’t help that getting Millhouse requires running UBRS, one of my least favorite of all the Warlords dungeons (probably the only one I despise more is Grimrail Depot). I had even reactivated Millhouse in Kamalia’s Garrison, figuring that Kam was the only character who would ever recruit him.

Then when I was reading through the latest hotfix notes at Wowhead the other day, I noticed this lovely bit of news:

Removed the requirement to have completed Silver Proving Grounds in order to queue for Warlords of Draenor Heroic Dungeons.

I’d been thinking that Blizzard ought to do this eventually, to make farming Warlords Heroics for mogging and stuffs at level 110 easier to do — I’m glad that they did it now and not in a later patch!

So I hopped in LFG and managed not to get kicked for my incompetence, and here we are!

Now Kaylynda will be able to leave her Garrison for the Broken Isles without feeling like she has unfinished business on Draenor.

Read Full Post »

the Underpowered Death Knight and the Doomsayers

A day or two after the new Wardrobe system was released, Kaelinda got a message from one of her Mage friends, a Troll named Kikimaia who was living in Orgrimmar:

Hey Miz Kae, I thought you should know dat I been seein’ some strange folks standin’ around in Orgrimmar. Dey’re wearin’ placards and givin’ out pamphlets. Dis makes me uneasy, mon, becoz de last time I saw strange folks wit placards, it was right before de Cataclysm. What’s more worrisome is dat dese “Doomsayers” seem ta be inspirin’ some kinda suicide cult. I’m no Soothsayer, but I tink dere be dark days ahead.

The Demon Invasions may yet be a few weeks off, but the pre-expansion Event has already begun!

Apparently the Doomsayers hand out twelve different types of pamphlets and there’s a Feat of Strength for getting them all — hence the craziness. I’d like to get the Feat of Strength, but I don’t need it RIGHT NAO!!! I think I’ll just send an alt to camp out by one of the Doomsayers and log in at the beginning and end of each play session to pick up a pamphlet. I’m sure that if I’m patient and don’t forget about it, I’ll manage to collect all 12 pamphlets by the time the Legion comes.

When Kaelinda told the rest of the guild about the message, the Underpowered Death Knight volunteered to keep an eye on the Doomsayers. She is, after all, very good at being Patient…

Previously: the Underpowered Death Knight in Patch 7.0

Read Full Post »

the underpowered Death Knight takes the bank

Having read that on the PTR, not only are gold missions gone, but also the Smuggled Sack of Gold is no longer available from the Trader, I decided I ought to make hay while the sun shines. This evening, I began taking my alts to the Trading Post to exchange all their Garrison Resources for gold. I’m leaving alts who don’t have an active Shipyard with under 1k resources and alts who do have an active Shipyard with around 3.5k resources.

I’ve also seen the idea of stockpiling Big Crates of Salvage until the pre-patch drops mentioned in a few places. I must admit that I’m not quite sure why one would want to do that. Is there something about the Salvage Yard being changed in the pre-patch that I’ve missed?

Anyhow, while I was cashing in the Underpowered Death Knight’s cache of Garrison Resources, out of the blue she informed me that as she is Retired, when the pre-patch drops and it will no longer be of any benefit for her to stay in her Garrison, she would like to become my primary Bank Alt.

AND, said she, she therefore required an appropriate Hat:

(You know, I’m really glad that Blizz put a swimming pool at the Gallywix Pleasure Palace, because it’s such a fun set piece that it would have been very sad to leave it completely behind on Kezan.)

Previously: the Underpowered Death Knight in the Homestretch

Next: the Underpowered Death Knight in Patch 7.0

Read Full Post »

My Little Talbuk: Sisterhood is Magic!

Every time I go to Draenor’s Shadowmoon Valley and see the talbuk herds galloping in what I’m sure was intended to be majestic splendor, I chuckle at the silliness of their flipping, flapping (not flowing) tails and think to myself that this should be a thing:

(Someone somewhere else on the internet — probably on DeviantArt — has almost certainly already done this with much more skill — but I haven’t gone looking for it.)

I can just imagine Dornaa or Salandria begging their Childrens’ Week patron, Oh please, please will you get one of those for me, please!

When I thought about drawing little girls playing with ponies, though, the two great pairs of sisters that Warlords introduced to us immediately came to mind.

Draka and her more reckless sister, Lokra, make a subtle foil to Durotan and his more reckless brother, Ga’nar, in the Frostfire Ridge storyline. Like Ga’nar, Lokra is headstrong and bloodthirsty, but she is also able to be reasonable and temperate. Where Durotan frowns at his brother, Draka is proud of her sister.

The way Yrel describes her older sister, Samaraa, it sounds to me like Samaraa was much older — perhaps even enough older to have been born on a previous world where the Draenei temporarily sheltered — and that their parents may have perished while Yrel was still a child.
I am a child of the ’80s, and I have fond memories of my mother teaching me to braid hair using the tails of my G1 My Little Ponies.

Read Full Post »

Spring Break Art Week

The other day I found myself wanting to sit down and color something. This prompted me to start reorganizing the downstairs bedroom that we have designated the arts-and-crafts room from a storage space into a somewhat more usable working space. In the process, I retrieved my WoW doodle books, and as I flipped through them, I found a handful of drawings that I’ve never posted. When I then looked at my Gallery page here on the blog, I discovered that my art posting has really slowed down over the past year and a half since I started teaching full-time. The last time I posted art was about ten months ago, for Childrens Week last year!

My college has Spring Break this week, so in between doing my taxes and grading that pile of organic chemistry lab reports that’s been getting higher and deeper all semester, I think I’ll catch up on my art posting, too. I’d like to get through all of my backlog of unposted art, so I might be making multiple posts per day.

To start things off, here’s a real blast from the past. One of the very first fully finished WoW art pieces I ever created was this joke comparing high school and game class stereotypes. I guess it wasn’t as funny as I thought it was, though, because it didn’t make the cut when I submitted it to the official WoW site comics. When I first began this blog, one of the first pieces of art I ever posted was the drawings for this piece — which, at the time, I thought I had lost. I recovered the finished file some time ago, then got busy and forgot that I had it until I was looking through my folder of ready-to-post art on my computer just now.

Read Full Post »

Party Time at Lunarfall

Upon becoming my fifth character to reach level 100, Kaylynda promptly traveled back to her Garrison to upgrade her Town Hall and celebrate!

Kaylynda’s level 100 To Do list (not in any particular order of priority):
*get Jukebox, collect additional tunes
*find Archmage Vargoth’s stuff
* wait for Oralius to show up at the Inn to get the quest for the Whispering Crystal, then do Silver Proving Grounds so that she can go to UBRS for the Whispering Crystal and Millhouse Manastorm
* do Apexis dailies that are in Ogre areas to collect Waystones until she can upgrade her Mage Tower to level 3
* go back to Nagrand to finish up Yrel’s story and find out what’s up with Vindicator Nobundo
* putter around in Tanaan until Revered with Lion’s Watch
* go back to Pandaria and do Lion’s Landing and the Isle of Thunder

Next up in the leveling queue to get to 100 will most likely be either Kaelinda the Blood Elf Mage (currently level 95) or Kerisa the Druid (currently level 97).

Read Full Post »