Already?

In a big surprise, Nialedd, my Demon Hunter, reached 60 just before week 3 started. I was definitely not planning that, but there where reasons.

First, for someone whose primary objective is raiding, there is almost no other endgame. I did some Mythics, but M+ is not for me, as said many times before. PvP is something I try to completely avoid. So Mardah is now basically doing some weekly stuff on Wednesday, and some daily stuff, like miss..rr..adventures and emiss...rr..callings.

So last week, Mardah was mostly done after an hour or two, and I started levelling some alts. The main reason Nialedd made it to 60 as first alt, is leatherworking. I need a piece of leather boots for the Leggo I am going to make next Thursday. 

Nialedd follows Kyrian

I also used the Path of Faith option for Nialedd, and random dungeons actually give a decent amount of XP, so, between dungeons, doing some worldquests and stuff, 60 was reached  quit easily... maybe my Tankadin, who is 55, will follow soon, that one is actually doing the normal route, think he is in Maldraxxus on the third sword.

On the profession side, Mardah is max JC and Enchanting, Nialedd is max Skinning and LW, and my little noam rogue can make the missives. Oh, Lurche is max tailoring because cloth drops everywhere for everyone.

The first week in the afterlife

Smooth.

That's how it went this week. I didn't experience big problems or lags anywhere. I did heard some horrorstories from other realms, but Argent Dawn - EU seemed to have no problems.

Explosive entrée into the maw

Last Tuesday at midnight, Mardah stepped into the Maw, and an hour later she was in Oribos. Next day she continued and before I set foot in Bastion, she was 51. In the next two nights she did all the quests she could find, and ended up in Revendreth with 82% to go till 60. That was quickly reached the next evening, after which I found out that she had to finish the whole main story line before continiung...which lasted almost 4 hours.

So after dinging 60, I still had to play 4 hours to really start 'The End Game'. I'd better not do any sidequests on alts I guess. After choosing Night Fae, the next day was mostly spend in Torghast and in normal and heroic dungeons.

Mardah finishing Night Fae

Mardah had no problem in Thorgast, except the last boss in Upper Reaches Layer 3, utterly destroyed by him... oh well, I guess I don't need those 85 ashes, I can play slow. One thing, I did try this before starting Heroics, so maybe later in the week.

I started adventures, and here is an Important Tip, no where it says you can actually use your minor troops more often. It seems like you only have 1 of each (for NF that is a dps and a healer), but there are infinte minor troops. Just put troops in every slot!

The maw itself is boring, Thorgast is fun, but the maw itself is just..mweeeh... I will try to skip that as much as possible.

There is a mushroom network in Ardenwaeld!

Beam me up, Scotty.

Sunday was Mythic day, yes, on Sunday we already had guildgroups doing M0, before Tuesday evening I finished 6 of 8, and Mardah was sitting at Ilvl 171.

There is this Turtle that you have to feed directly under the Bastion place. It will drop an eternal Shard, which normally only comes from disenchanting purples, of which you need alot for Enchanting... so..my alt-army plus some more went through the maw and to Bastion to get this free shard.

Mardah is no Jewelcrafting 100 and Enchanting 100...of 115.. at least it is not Alchemy which has to go to 175.. why is that all over the place? My Tailor is already max on 100 due to all the cloth Mardah gets. Nialled is farming leather like hell and still isn't 70 of 115? That's all a ..well.. also..Darkmoon Faire this Sunday for free skillpoints.

The Eternal Shard Turtle

Also..the Maw intro is not skippable... why... it takes about 70 minutes minimum to actually open the portal to Bastion because of the endless RP going on... 

Tuesday Evening, Mardah went back to Upper Layer 3, both for a worldquest, and to look if she could take down the endboss with her shinier gear. Making sure to pick up as many ST-extras along the way, to burn him down before his stacks got to high.

Mardah engaged the endboss... and basically obliterated him... and that's when I noticed this was not the same endboss as Friday...so those change to.... rrrright

I now have started week 2, something about a garden, not getting my best Legendary, more champions, more renown... yeeeesh...all the different currencies...

The last days of battle.

Choice is made, I will start Shadowlands as Balance Druid. Every expansion I think about playing another class as main, and every time Druids are to much fun. I was a little weary of the New Balance, but I found out it wasn't that bad during pre-patch. The things that actually bothered me was the interaction with the azerite traits, but those will be gone in two days. 

Covenant also has been chosen. Now, I am not in a high end Mythic Guild, but that does not mean I am going to choose a route which is bad. Not the best is an option, but outright choosing a route that leads to a bad road is..well..actually, something I might do in real life, but not in a numbers game. And I don't mind a small loss for a more fun ability, but for a long time there was like a big gap between the top covenant and the second. For a long time it seemed Venthyr was the way to go, just macro the ability to Incarnation and forget about it for the next two years. Then Kyrian topped out, by a lot, till they nerfed a conduit, which made Night Fae almost on par, and probably better on Single Target. So, I will go Night Fae, and completely expect that the one, no Moonkin is talking about, Necrolord, will in patch 9.2 be the heart of some silly combo. 

The most famous place in WoW at the moment.

I also had some thoughts about the professions. Mardah is Enchanter and Jewelcrafter. I thought about going back to Skinner/Leatherworker, but I think that it would be better to have Enchanting on my main, a more steadily source of purples. I am dependent on my alts for Jewelcrafting, but I don't recall being that a big problem in BfA. 

Bagjam, when all hell break loose

So, during this 'Where is the Scourge' Invasion, I decided on my main army of alts, and ran them through Icecrown for some gear ups. 

Stonetamer, Beastmaster Hunter, Mining/Engineering, Night Fae 

Meddwyn, Protection Paladin, Mining/Blacksmithing, Venthyr 

Nialedd, Vengeance Demon Hunter, Skinning/Leatherworking, Kyrian 

Lurche, Frost Mage, Tailoring/Enchanting, Venthyr 

Stoneheart, Arms Warrior, Herbalism/Alchemy, Kyrian 

Tiramuria, Assassin Rogue, Herbalism/Inscription, Necrolord 

That seems a lot, but is actually a smaller army that I had in TBC and Wrath, when transmutation masters still where a thing. My idea is not to leave them to far behind, especially the two miners to fuel my gems.

The other big spot during pre patch, for the mount!

In two days, we all be crossing over to the Shadowlands, and for the coming months everything will be fine. The first raid is already on the calendar, and in two years we will know who the End Boss of this expansion was, if we take down Sylvanas somewhere, or that it was all a scheme for something different. Time will tell, time to meet some old friends in the afterlife.

Roll Call

Stop playing

Write something

And ...it's bedtime... great.

That is how it normally goes.

But now I have screenshots... from 2 weeks ago.. 

Just after the news that Shadowlands was delayed and the evening before the pre-patch hit, I made some quick screenies from all my characters. Somewhere in the last year or so, it seems I cleared all non Argent-Dawn and non Sha'Tar/Steamwheedle characters. Argent Dawn for the Alliance, and the merged Sha'Tar/Steamwheedle for the Horde...almost.

Argent Dawn - EU // 13 October 2020

A lot of max levels, almost all in Innovation, except Lorinthe and Doiral, they are in When Elekks Fly. Aneth may also still be part of that on that day, currently in Innovation. Solenai was my last character that reached 120...and may have been my free 120 character. Compare that with current, 14 days later:

Argent Dawn - EU //  28 October 2020

Yup, I have been busy. Both Yekaterina and Arkto, my two Panda's, are now max level. There is a trio in their 30's, a trio in their 20's and a trio in their 10's?? Yup, I made 3 new alliance characters. At the moment I am levelling them with the rested xp idea. If they are 70+ rested I can play them. The new Characters are levelled sans heirlooms, the older ones do use them, although I am actually trying to get Aneth of them.

I am trying to level my alts in different Chromie zones, and with Arkto reaching 50 and no alt in Northrend..well.. I may have to make a new alt....

FOR THE HORDE

Sha'Tar/Steamwheedle //  13 October 2020

Only 2 max characters here, lost of 100+, lots of lower levels. There is also a sneaky gnome rogue in the list. Not much has changed here, except that I made four new alts, no idea why four, two are even paladins... all of them on Sha'tar.. 

The Sha'tar - EU //  28 October 2020

I did figure out... that I do have a max level character.....and for completion I probably should include those two realms.. so here they are:

Pyrewood Village - EU  //  28 October 2020

Hydraxian Waterlords - EU  //  28 October 2020

As a guildie said.... your endgame is levelling alts... maybe not completely untrue.

The Long Wait has started

Simple, this is what I did last two weeks, it gives a nice summary. I think two weeks ago, we had a week long extra reputation from the weekly, and the Darkmoon Fair was active. Combine that with a contract, and luckily two emissaries. Gwaednerth (a.k.a. Gowron) was on the hunt, and managed to do it. I now have unlocked all the allied races....  only to be greeted by the message that starting Shadowlands, they would have been unlocked anyway, ah well.

I also concluded all of the heroic vision talent tree. So I can now farm stuff for free gem slots... maybe.. problem is, I don't really like the visions. Above two masks it basically becomes a half hour boss-fight where you cannot make to many mistakes. I did a three mask run a week ago, where everything went fine. I still had two orbs left when I went for Thrall. I forget one moment that you have to stand in the yellow circle, and poof, attempt gone, half an hour of work gone.. it is just to draining for me. And..well..do I need those gem slots (hint: see top achievement)

Newid gets his Artifact.

I am leveling some alts again with the current XP-buff, and Newid (Welsh for Change) actually made it to 110 to unlock the heritage armor. He is now in the Assault/Invasion phase, basically meaning that I do the assaults, and the three quests-chains for the campaign.

Leveling plan is simple for my alts. Do dungeons till you get tired of the Pandaria dungeons, do some questing till you hit Warlords of Draenor. Build garrison, find some followers, do some area-quests/mining/herbing till Legion. In legion, get an artifact, fly around exploring and doing all the area quests, maybe do a little normal questing. Done

At the moment I have 3 alts leveling in BFA, 2 in the TBC/Wrath Bracket, and several below 60. I may get some of them higher, but I am not in a hurry. I am looking forward to Shadowlands leveling, where it is said you can do one expansion and level up. At the moment you can probably do one or two zones before you out-level the expansion, so... looking forward to that.

Gaze upon all the eyes and tentacles

And last part of this blog, Innovation downed Heroic N'Zoth 2 days ago, starting our long wait till Shadowlands. We did it in 16 pulls, which actually makes it an easy end-boss. Most of our first pulls where spend learning to not panic with the bonding mechanism. I think around pull 12 we made it solidly to the Final Phase and wiped at 23%, followed by a 31% and 25% wipe. So that didn't seem to progress.

Eva called for the last pull of the evening, with intent to get back here Tuesday, what followed was a 3% wipe....there is some progress, but flask where now running out. I think I had 7 minutes left. But with being this close, people wanted to try once again... so we pulled really for the last time... 

Hey Blizzard, why am I NOT in Moonkin form  :(

So now Innovation can wait, we still have some members to get the Curve-Achievement for the next weeks. But basically we are done except for maybe some Mythic, but that has never been the goal. This Shadowland Expansion better come fast, or the Alpha/Beta. I have read some interesting things about it, although I am not that exited about the whole Tower of the Damned stuff yet. 

I leave you with Mardah turning into an old fiend of Gowron (SSC-throwback)