Tonight is the night

So everybody is pretty excited because Legion is coming out tonight. I played a bunch this weekend and managed to level my warrior up to level 100 doing invasions. I checked out some Class Halls in the beta (they are all awesome but I think the rogue one is particularly fun). I also made last minute preparations.  I transmogged my toons so they look sharp when they arrive to Broken Isles. I got an appropriate weapon for my hunter who appears to have sold his gun and gone survival, a small mistake I corrected by doing the Broken shore scenario. I did Dragon Soul with my rogue to check out the new Outlaw spec. I also switched a couple of professions around since I ditched most of my gathering professions in Warlords.

Tomorrow I will level as much as I can. Since Cata I've always tried to level in one day but I never managed it. I'm a slow leveler: I read all the quests, I explore, I reflect about Alliance and Horde war strategies, I level profession and fight rares. Mostly I do the race to max level for fun because I don't plan to raid seriously this expansion. I've been away for so long I don't even know which guild I will be parking my main and toons. Some guild I was playing in are now deserted, others have become much more raid focused, I will see.

So I got my day off, my flasks, my potions, my snacks and my beverages ready. But there is one important question left: which class will I play at launch and which artefacts will I get first? It's not my DK this time. And the new artefacts gave me the incentive to try out new specs, I've changed my decision a couple of time, first retribution pally, then boomkin, then mage, then shaman. I had a blast trying a gnome hunter this weekend on the beta, I also messed around with rogue and warrior. With invasions even the toon I don't play much managed to gear up so it's not even a problem this time. 

But since I want to be semi-serious tomorrow with my rush to level 110, I'll play a class that I love and a spec that is familiar to me, the bear. I will probably do the dungeon quest that you get at the end of each zone but for your sake (and mine) I won't tank any of those and leave it to the professionals (who hopefully know what they are doing in those new dungeons). I'll switch to boomkin for those after I can get my second artefact. I've been Eye of Azshara once on the beta and it went pretty smoothly. There is some strategies with artefacts for leveling, the simplest one would be to use your main spec to level. But I've read that there is survival issues with some spec and I don't feel familiar enough with boomkin to learn as I level. So I will level my guardian artefact as I'm leveling and switch at max level.

Happy leveling in legion!

Back for legion

So a lot of things changed since my last post. I fought during the Siege of Orgrimmar, I obtained fel fire for my warlock, I got Shadowmourne, I conquered the Iron Horde in an alternate reality and last but not least my human death knight has faction changed to Horde!


Although at first I was pleased by the leveling experience in Warlord of Draenor and I was excited by the new garrison feature I burned out on World of Warcraft shortly after the release of Tanaan jungle. Let just say that the best souvenir I kept from that expansion was the nice pile of gold I managed to acquire.


I didn't think that I would resub to World of Warcraft but I was invited to the Beta and I was amazed at all the class lore that the new expansion has. The artefacts quests are short but fun and each class halls I have managed to unlock are beautifully stunning.  So I'm out of retirement to lead the people of Azeroth in the fight against the Legion. I might not take part in raiding aside from LFR but I intend to get a truckload of artefacts starting with the Scythe of Elune, the famed Ashbringer and the shard of Frostmourne. I currently have seven classes up to level 100 including a demon hunter, I have a warrior and a monk at level 90 and I have a boost that I will probably use on a shaman to get the iconic Doomhammer.


I've also tried out the class trial, which will be available as boost when the new expansion comes out. It's a mini tutorial that you have on your way to the Broken shore that teach you a basic rotation and a couple of key ability of the class. There is only one spec by class that you can use for the trial, for example, the spec for paladin is retribution. The talents are already chosen and the action bar is filled gradually. It's nicely done and get you up and running to jump into the action.


There much less ability to use in this expansion (around 15) and the rotation is simplified, which I think is for the best. I also tried out leveling a toon from 1 to 10 and its much smoother then what I remembered. Each class start with a default spec, for the druid that was feral, a spec I've rarely used (I've mainly leveled and raided as guardian). But it was much more fun and unique to quest as kitty then as a generic caster like it was before as a level 1. And the feral form is very useful to be familiar with regardless of the spec you choose. So I look forward to leveling a druid in the near future and I've planned to level in a couple of zones that are rich in night elf and druid lore, like Darkshore, Ashenvale, Feralas, Zangamarsh, Grizzly Hills and Mount Hyjal. I leveled in Teldrassil without experience heirloom (tough I kept my heirloom weapon, necklace and trinket) and I didn't outlevel the zone (although I skipped a couple of quest). It seems some time was dedicated to improve the leveling experience, which is nice for people who likes to level alt.

While I'm waiting for the expansion I've already decked out my paladin in full legion gear (very nice looking for transmog). I'm also planning to level my warrior and monk with the invasions. Since there is now six invasions every two hours and that I can beneficiate from Potion of Accelerated Learning, full heirloom and some rested XP I might be able to ding them to level 100 before next week without too much hassle.


Until next time enjoy your last week of Warlord of Draenor!




Update: I managed to level my monk from 91 to 100 last night and it was super fun. I got sweet gear and over 400 shards, enough to get me a pet, a cloak, a trinket and a BOA warglaive (other piece of equipment didn't have agility on them so I was kind of meh). Those invasions are action packed and there tons of neat stuff to see. I might have to try the siege engine with my warrior tough because the fight are a little rough for melee.

Warlock leveling

Another draft that I found in my blog, again that was during Mist of Pandaria:


"As a side project I'm leveling a warlock and I have a blast. I was motivated to try this class because I've seen one of my friend tackling the green fire quest at level 90 and it looked awesome. I was arguing with that same friend that leveling was too easy and that you always outleveled the zone before the story was finished and he said that it was because I was using heirloom. So I decided to level this alt without heirloom and without the guild XP bonus. I also decided to level only by questing and not queueing for dungeon or battleground, except if there is interesting lore in it. One of the only classic dungeon I've done was Ragefire chasm because it was revamped to reflect the change occurring in Org.


I've done the blood elf starting zone (1-5) then moved to the forsaken zone. Silverpine is an epic zone and it's fun to see the Forsaken side of the story, plus you get to save Sylvanas and piss Garrosh off. The zone story culminates in Silverfang dungeon. After this I moved to Hillsbrad wich has a very interesting storyline. The area moved from alliance to horde domination. You got to fight the Stormpike from Alterac Valley and help the Forsaken clean up after a chemical warfare on Southshore.


There is some group quest that are challenging like Yetimus and the Durnholde challenge. I managed to solo those group quest up to Bloodvenom before another questing warlock joined me. To solo Bloodvenom I stood on the ledge and if he killed my voidwalker I would drop down and try to kite him. There is also a hidden Plant vs Zombie minigame in the northwest corner of that zone. I found out that the best strategy in this game is to plant two rows of sunflower, one row of pea shooter and 2 rows of tentacles. For the final boss, I used pumpkin on cooldown and it was a piece of cake.


I am currently in my thirties and I've specced destruction as it looked like the most efficient spec to quest. But I can't wait to try Demonology spec in Outland where there is so much demons to tame.
I plan to quest in the adjacent zone up to Eastern Plaguelands then go to the Badlands, Burning steppes, Swamp of sorrows and quest near the portal before I go in Outland. I will surely quest in Outland because I like Hellfire and Zangamarsh zone. I will also do Hellfire rampart at least once, one of my favorite Outland dungeon, I can already hear the healer yelling "TANK PLEASE PULL MORE, MORE! I'll probably skip as much questing as I can in Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm so after Outland it will probably be a combination of heirloom, questing and dungeon queuing.


All in all, I like the warlock class and I feel like it's the evil ranged counterpart of the Death knight."


I had fun leveling this one, I stayed way past level 70 in Outland, completing almost every quest in Shadowmoon valley, which is chock full of sweet warlock lore. I also loved every bits of the Green fire quest. From farming the book in Isle of Thunder to the epic ending in Black Temple. The last fight in that chain quest was very hard, I did it in destruction spec and it must have taken me hours of tries and tons of consumables. Eventually I did it when I had more gear by burning him as fast as I could. After that, even when I had average DPS in Siege of Orgrimmar I felt like I was part of a very elite club shooting bolt of green fire.

I am legendary

When I logged back on my blog I noticed I had a couple of drafts that I didn't post back then, so here it is for your reading pleasure. It's in Pandaria so welcome back to memory lanes!


"Hello, I've been away all summer and couldn't play World of Warcraft but I'm back for patch 5.4. Last week I got the last Secrets of the empire token I needed for Wrathion legendary quest. I turned the quest and Wrathion told me to go kill Lei-Shen and take his heart. Duh, I had to do that wing again in raid finder after weekly reset.


The next part of the legendary quest was fun and challenging, I tried the melee dps challenge with my frost DK and got my ass handed to me. You have to kill the ooze pretty quickly using howling blast and blood boil because if they corner you while Wrathion cleave you or if he goes into mirror image while he oozes are still alive, it's game over. Even by talenting into Chillbains I couldn't do it.


I heard the tanking challenge was easier but the only tanking I've done in this expansion with this toon was Mogushan Vault on raid finder. By the way, Mogushan Vault was my favorite raid this expansion and I had tons of fun tanking the raid finder, especially the last encounter with the twins. I knew that raid rather well because I cleared it on normal difficulty with my hunter while it was current. 


For the tanking challenge I got help from Taoshi the rogue which I recruited in the Shado-pan. It took me couple of try but I finally did it. I used Army of the dead right at the start, I interrupted and taunted what I could, used Anti-magic barrier liberally and manage to down Deathwing before the spike phase where you have to position yourself between the spike and Wrathion.


All in all, it was fun and I'm finally catching up with the legendary quest, so when patch 5.4 comes out I can pick up the quest right there. From what I know it would involve killing stuff in Timeless Isle and fighting the Celestial as World boss. All things that I would have done anyway.


I might try to join a flexible raid group because I'd like to get my hands on the heirloom axe dropped by Garrosh. Since it scale to level 100 it would make leveling easier in the next expansion."

 

Update: I did join a flex group and we farmed Garrosh for months, and I got both his axe and an intellect staff for my warlock. Flex allowed to queue for the last wing and the group I had was super fast, so I had a blast farming Garrosh.