Inscription is Facked.

I’ve been long delayed in my report on BfA inscription.  A large part of that delay has been Blizzard’s delay in implementation of a reasonable system for Scribes to create Glyphs.

Lemme essplain.  No. Is too much. Lemme summarize.

Starting in the expansion following (3.0) the introduction of Glyphs (2.0), Blizz offered a mechanism for Scribes to create glyphs that were introduced in every expansion. In short, the Ink Trader.  The Ink Trader allowed you to exchange whatever the current expansion’s primary ink for inks from previous expansions.  So, for example, if you were in the Cataclysm expansion, you could exchange Blackfallow Ink for any ink required to create glyphs in Vanilla, BC, or WotLK. In MoP, then you could exchange inks from that expansion for older inks. And so forth. I hope you’re keeping up.

Which brings us to the most notable absence from the current expansion.  Normally, at the introduction of the x.0 patch for an expansion, the Ink Traders in all faction hubs (Stormwind, Shattrath, etc as an example) would provide an exchange of whatever that expansion’s most common ink was for any other ink in the game. For example, in Legion, we could exchange Roseate Pigment for inks from previous expansions.

But now we’re in weird territory.

When BfA rolled, we expected an Ink Trader in the faction cities to accept one of the inks from the current expansion (we figured it would be Ultramarine Ink) for inks from previous expansions. But we found nothing. At that point, the previous expansion (Legion) still held sway. So the only way to create inks for all expansions was: farm Legion inks (Roseate Pigment) or go gather herbs on the continents from the previous expansions, and mill them. This was less than optimal. In a world where we expected to exchange Ultramarine Ink  for other inks, we were met with disappointment, at a massive scale. And now we are in 8.1.0, and there is still no sign of an ink Trader in Boralas, much less Stormwind.

So what we are doing, here in the first content patch of BfA, is farming Legion herbs.  BfA herbs are almost useless – there are three Druid glyphs in this expansion, and that is it – so we are currently either selling them off – a poor financial investment – or banking them against an expected future where they are actually useful.   At this point, I am becoming cynical.

So what is actually going on?  Those that are willing to attribute an  actual plan to all of this are welcome to comfort themselves in the actual market, but those of us that are embedded in the current market are doubtful. Currently, Dreamleaf (https://www.wowhead.com/item=124102/dreamleaf#comments) is the king of the Inscription market due to its secondary conception of Roseate and Sallow (especially Sallow) pigments. BfA Inscription is pretty much dead. And the WoW customer service accounts are pretty much silent on the topic after multiple pokes.

That is: currently. Aside from Cards of *, it is currently impossible to turn BfA herbs into a profit. And Blizzard doesn’t seem to care even so much as to stroke your ego. Sorry.

BtW: in case you were thinking of switching to Alchemy:

Herb-related crafting in BfA is, to be quite brutally honest, a cluster-fuck.  You’re best served in just selling the herbs (especially Legion herbs) than trying to make a profit at Inscription or Alchemy.

Burn, baby burn!

My mage has been, but for a brief time in Vanilla, Frost through and through.  But when Legion came around, Frost took a big hit in effectiveness. Reluctantly, I gave fire a try … and over the course of the expansion, got to like it – a lot.

When BfA came out the sims were showing Fire had declined and Frost was once again ascendant. Not entirely happy with the rotation, but I took it up and got into the swing of it again, and it was reasonably serviceable, and my numbers were not hideous.

But looking at the charts, I found that the sims seemed to be not entirely accurate – fire was, in the raid charts, far higher up on average than Frost. 

So here I am again.  The old rotation is  gone (that rather required that famous sword and its attendant abilities) but the current one doesn’t feel as broken now as it did at the start of the expansion.

And when those crits pop … so satisfying, I can’t really put into words how amazing it is when they string out one after another.

The downside is that this is a short-lived crit train … once the party’s over, I have to build up some procs again, and that’s usually boring old fireball after fireball.

The charts also show that Arcane is king of the Mage specs right now.  I tried Arcane once.

Never could get the hang of it.

But setting things on fire … that never gets old.

So about that thing

If you’re not up with the latest happenings of the past hours (i.e. the commencement of War of the Thorns Pt. 2 and the animated Sylvanas Warbringers story) and care deeply about spoilers, close this tab now and come back when you’re caught up.  There will be no further coddling.

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I want to say first of all a few words about some peoples’ reactions.

One rotten development of this is that a lot of people have been harassing Christie Golden and others associated with the writing of this game, the shorts, and related media. I don’t care if you don’t like the direction a character is taking, harassment is out of line.   It’s one thing to analyze the story without mercy, to call shit out, and express even disgust with the proceedings. Fine. Be as dramatic as you want about a video game.

(I don’t care how many years of your life you’ve “invested” in it. That just makes you look bad when you couch it in those terms. Stop making a fool of yourself).

But personal abuse of any sort is way beyond the pale. Take it down or get the Bitch Slap of the Apocalypse for your troubles.  That’s my personal promise.

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Back to the story.

We’ve known for a year that Teldrassil would burn. We’ve known that likely Sylvanas would be the burner, and that Azerite might in some way figure into all of this.

Blizzard assured us that Sylvanas wasn’t going full on evil, saying the world was “gray, not black and white”, or words to that effect.

Aaaand Sylvanas then turned full on evil.  She burned that tree down for spite’s sake.

I don’t want to hear how she was better off not fighting a Resistance so it was a good tactical move. She had full on planned to capture until Delaryn Summermoon sassed her, telling her she would never defeat hope. And Sylvanas, morally grey Warchief of the Horde, who until then had other plans, ordered the tree burned. AND forced Delaryn to watch it. Deliberately, sadistically.

This is not me RPing angry Alliance, this is me saying that the character they depicted shows all the signs of a sadistic, evil creature not too far removed from Garrosh Hellscream himself. Cruel, capricious, and, from what I can see, just plain greedy. She’s missing a moustache to twirl, but so is Elon Musk.

And that’s a problem for Horde players that have been “we’re not evil” for all these years.  Granted, this is the same Horde that Pearl Harbor’d Theramore and Scourged Gilneas, but otherwise a peaceful, pastoral group of people that were just trying to get by, farm grain, murder elves, same as everyone else.

The Horde now have a maniac in charge again, and I think this time it’s breaking them.  I have seen a LOT of people revolting. (I’ve seen some revolting people too, which we’ll speak of in a moment). They are not happy and they are making themselves known.

In a way it’s kinda comforting to know that some people, when confronted with what their nation has become, will not, in actuality, go along with it.  It feels like maybe we’ve learned something from the Nazis after all. Refrains of “Not our Warchief” reflect the real-world cries of “Not our President”. In a way, I wonder if Blizz isn’t making some sort of statement here.

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Sliding back into the story … it’s hard to take it all in.  I have two Kaldorei toons, both noob’d on Teldrassil back when getting to Stormwind was a harrowing journey through high-level dangers. I have a lot of memories associated with Darkshore, Teldrassil, Auberdine, and points beyond. A big chunk of my WoW history is literally up in flames now. Others are taking it even harder. Some people are tremendously attached to their gentle elvenfolk and feel as betrayed as the Hordies that can’t cope with their murderer-in-chief.

Right now the Kaldorei and Gilneans are camped out in Stormwind Harbor (seriously, Anduin, can we get some housing here?) and presumably they will be in search of new digs after all of this settles. Though, personally, I think, after they fill in that nasty basement, Lorderon would make a fine new home for our displaced friends.  And maybe they’ll team up and take back Gilneas as well – that’s a huge waste of a beautiful city otherwise.

Maybe once the Sindorei disavow the Horde and join the Alliance, they will reunite with their sylvan relatives, we can fire up the jets, and Kaz Modan can fly off to Mars like a rocket ship.

Hey, you never know. Haven’t you read ElfQuest?

How to Disco: BfA Prepatch Edition

Today, WoWHead released a guide to changes that will take place in each class in the BfA pre-path on July 17. Not all guides are created equal, and by that I mean that the rest of the guide owners are probably PISSED at Bendak, who pretty much overachieved on all levels for the BM Hunter guide.

The Disco Priest guide is a little less thorough.  I’m not hating – Bendak sets a high bar to clear on any occasion. That aside, I feel like a little bit of fleshing out is in order.

Say Goodbye

Light’s Wrath is gone, of course (I actually approve of this as it means we’ll get more choices on weapons and stuff), and with it are its abilities.  That means that our massive healing nuke is gone.

The other biggest change you will notice is that the Global Cooldown now applies to a number of spells. What this means is that you won’t be able to cast a spell on Global Cooldown until the Global Cooldown cools down. This is not true for all spells, so pay attention to the spell descriptions.

Spell Changes

Another significant change is that only three spells will lay down Atonement now.  We also lost one spell (Plea) that applied it instantly.

Before this expansion, my favorite rotation was more or less this:

• PW: Shield on myself; then PW: Radiance to spread out Atonement; then again, to get another 5 people covered, then Evangelism to extend Atonement for all 11.
• Keep DoTs up on the boss (SW: Pain and Shadow Squid), hammer the boss with Penance and Smite until it was time to lay down PW: Radiance again
• PW: Shield where it was needed, mindful of its cooldown.

It was a pretty simple rotation, but it got me through LFR fairly well.

The new rotation will be changed due to changes in the various spells used.

• PW: Radiance is relatively unchanged.  It is one of our Atonement spreaders.
• Evangelism is relatively unchanged.
• PW: Shield doesn’t have the limitations we had before; it is now our defacto spam. It applies Atonement to whatever it shields. In effect, Rapture got baked right in.
• Shadow Mend is relatively unchanged.  It also applies Atonement.
• Penance is relatively unchanged, however, is now generally better spent as a direct heal than Atonement healing. Unfortunately, it does not spread Atonement when used directly.
• SW: Pain (or Purge the Wicked) is relatively unchanged, and I think that Penance still spreads it when used for damage. This of course will also increase your Atonement healing.
• Smite is still Smite, with its damage component and its shield component.
• Halo is unchanged, and is still an optional damage / heal AE spell.
• Holy Nova is now also a Disco spell, giving us a ‘native’ AE spell that relieves us of having to choose Halo over something more interesting. It also applies to Atonement healing, but only the FIRST target struck does so – additional targets struck by Holy Nova do not provide Atonement healing.  I think this is rather shabby.
• Rapture now increases the duration of all bubbles by around 7 or so seconds. In my opinion, this improves it massively.

So basically it boils down to:

• PW: Shield on myself; then PW: Radiance to spread out Atonement; then again,
  to get another 5 people covered, then Evangelism to extend Atonement for all
  11.
• Keep DoTs up on the boss (SW: Pain and Shadow Squid), hammer the boss with Smite until it was time to lay down PW: Radiance again
• PW: Shield where it is needed. Cooldown isn’t so relevant now, so anywhere you see a need, drop it.  Use Rapture on CD to extend that.
• Save Penance for big heals unless fairly certain that it won’t be needed for that, in which case share the love via Atonement.

You may notice that Shadow Mend isn’t top of the list.  I tend to only use it in emergencies.  The long cast time and odd pain/pleasure dynamic makes it far less than a winner to me.

Stats

As before, Spell Power is the primary component of all of our spells.  Only PW: Shield varies on that, in that it also improves on Versatility. I’m pretty sure Crit will feature in a lot of the calculations, but those are your two main stats of interest.

Conclusionish

As has been the case for ever, my main concern is in how clumsy healing can be.  It requires a lot of direct or mouseover targeting, which means one hand mousing while the other is keying the commands required. During high-movement fights, healers are at a huge disadvantage when compared to others. PW: Radiance was a good step in the right direction in this regard, giving us a way to propagate Atonement without making it about as clumsy as an elephant on a high wire.

However, it appears that Blizz did not expand on that theme, and instead moved us away from that mode of operation. I mean, I’m kinda glad that we’re moving more towards bubblePriest mode, but it does require a lot of mousing around to get the shields distributed around, which is dependent on a lot of things, not the least the clumsiness of the wielder

I am also bitterly disappointed that yet again, Disco priests don’t have the Frisbee.   I mean, what is Disco without the Disc? In my mind, I see the Frisbee as method #4 for spreading around our Atonement Goodness.

But overall, this looks like a very viable spec going into  the new expansion. As always, it will require a bit of play time to learn for sure where we stand.

Oh, and also? New expansion, new mog. While I loved the look of the silver haltertop and skirt I affected in Legion, it had a couple of real issues.

1. It was a skirt, making running problematic. Remember, sometimes it isn’t whether you’re faster than the monster. But it matters if you’re faster than at least one other person in your party.  As Flora and Illume have proven before, nothing beats a good pair of jeans for adventuring.
2. No pocketses, precious. What is this, anyway?

New Associate Races!

Oh hai! The good news is that I’m still around. That is also the bad news. I just haven’t had a lot to talk about since the BfA announcement – that goes a while back, I know, but there ya have it. What was that, BlizzCon?

I’ve started a number of posts, but ran out of gas before I got them up to our usual low standards of publishability. I haz opinions, but really haven’t felt like any of them were worth your time.

I’ve even gotten in on the Alpha – hard to say who hasn’t – though I haven’t actually done anything with it.  Matters of theorycrafting and so forth seem to be beyond my grasp – I’ve barely figured out how to properly use the Best in Bags tool at AMR.   That’s assuming I am, of course. AMR agrees with my own calculations enough to earn extra side-eye.

So anyway, watching all the news about BfA and our new Associated Allied races has me wondering about future installments on this already popular feature.  We all know about the Zandalari Trolls, some sort of Orcs from Outland (?), Dark Iron Dwards, and Big Chin Humans from Jaina’s Home Island.  What else might they be cooking up? Here are some ideas!

Leper Gnomes

I think that we’ve all seen this one coming from a mile away. The only thing holding them back has been the rather insensitive-to-lepers name, but now that we’re in the second year of the Trump administration, sensitivity is for the birds!  Bring on the possibly radioactive Gnomes!

Probably still won’t end up in the next cinematic, though.

Vrykool

Similar to the Big Chin Humans, but these folk trace their roots back to when the Curse of Flesh was first weakening the races of Northrend.  Smart folks, these relatives of the Vrykul got out of there before it got too bad, and also stayed hidden for thousands of years before revealing themselves. They’re cool like that.

Racial Bonus: they use regular sized humans for shoulder gear.  Cool.

Crimbo Elves

Somewhat related to the Really High Elves, these folks only appear in Winter, spending the rest of the year in communes in Northern Kalimdor.

Obviously if seasonal Associated Races don’t work out, this will be the only ones we ever see.

Nasty Orcses

Nocturnal by nature, Nasty Orcses have a racial bonus when fighting stupid hobbitses. Precious.

Limited to Warriors and Paladins. Obviously.

Mostly Dead

A somewhat embarrassing chapter in The Lich King’s campaign in Lorderon; these are the people who’s relatives gave up on them before they were actually dead.  Arthas took them into the Scourge and never heard the end of it.

Made for some awkward war councils, too.

“I remember you. You told them I was dead!”

“Didn’t turn out so well, for me, either.”

“If you think that makes it okay, let me tell you …”

“People, can we focus on the counterattack from Alterac?”

Gitauren

An offshoot of the Highmountain Tauren, these folks really rock.

Probably hinting at the eventual introduction of the Bard class. You know how Blizz is.

Panteran

I’m guessing this offshoot of the Pandaran race will line up directly opposed to the Gitauren.  This might even be the basis for the conflict in the expansion that introduces the Bard class. I’m calling it now – “World of Warcraft: Battle of the Bands”.

Furbolgs

There’s no sound reason, lore-wise, for this to ever happen. Therefore it will happen.

You get a Furbolg, and you get a Furbolg …

Gobwins

The perfect cross-over from Erfworld, these highly avaricious and clever subterranean creatures will replace the mobile auction house.  Their native resource, Juice, will replace Mana / Energy / Rage / etc for all supported classes.

Battle for Azeroth

(Image from the WoW Trading Card Game, whose body is buried in Hearthstone’s back yard)

It’s a bit more than a week since the big reveal at Blizzcon – Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth will be a thing.  The theme to this expansion will be that of faction warfare between the Horde and Alliance.  I, on the other hand, just call it The Jaina Expansion.

(Image from Blizzcon 2017 key art. Cosplay by Taylor Swift)

The theme of this one is that for some reason, the Horde has decided, after working with us for some time to save Azeroth from countless nasty things, that the time has come to wipe  us out.  Word has it that Sylvanas has a thing for Stormwind, which is why she turns around and burns down Teldrassil.  You’d expect Silvermoon’s finest Ranger to have better aim than that, but there ya go.

(By the way, it’s been officially confirmed that Sylvanas shot first.)

As a result, the Alliance strikes back at Lorderon.  I won’t spoil it for you, but who won this one has also been officially confirmed.

(I’m not a member of the undead night elf fetish club, but the way, but the vice actor for Sylvanas has one of the most interesting voices in the genre.  I could listen to her read the phone book.)

Aw, hell, I can’t get away from giving it away a little … the upshot is that Alliance ends up with exactly one base in Kalimdor – the Exodar – and Horde with one in the Eastern Kingdoms – Silvermoon. Sorry, haters, but it’s kinda fundamental to discussing what we know, ya know?

(Image from Ulduar announcement cinematic. I always liked big-nose Jaina the best.)

First things first. We don’t know yet how much this affects contended areas like Gadgetstan or Booty Bay, but I seriously doubt it will affect them at all. They were contested before, they still are now. Fine.  That also means that I suspect that little outposts, such as what’s left of Theramore and Revantusk Village, will remain largely unchanged, though security might get beefed up.  I doubt there’s a good lore-related reason for this, but in terms of game mechanics, I imagine it would be a lot more work than they have time for, unless release date is sometime in 2020.

They already have enough to do.  The losses of two major capital cities is going to likely re-arrange the political geography of much of the two continents.

Teldrassil’s loss will likely lead to the loss of Darkshore and Ashenvale.   Which is a shame since it seems that all that Horde does with woods  is cut them down. Don’t get me started.

Lorderon’s loss will likely lead to re-integration of the two Plaguelands (already partially integrated, but maybe they’ll remain contested), Hillsbrad, Alterac, Silverpine, and Tirisfal. It is also likely that Gilneas will be fully restored, and I suspect that this will become the new capital city of the Worgen and Night Elves, since the Night Elves hosted the Worgen up to now. I have no idea where the Forsaken will end up hosting, but I suspect they might be pushed into the Ghostlands (somewhat appropriate), thought that might involve Blizz having to rework a BC zone, which they seem very reluctant to do (which is probably also why the Exodar and Silvermoon are left alone in this expansion).

(Image from BfA announcement cinematic. Is it just me or has she been working out?)

As always with these expansions, there must be land to … expand into. This time around, it’s Kul Tiras – Jaina’s homeland – and Zandilar – home to nasty trollses. As you can imagine, the former has me more interested than the latter, but there are a few things that the announcement cinematic revealed about both.

We know a few things with regards to Kul Tiras. (1) It’s Jaina’s homeland. (2) It’s nautical. (3) Jaina’s dad is dead (Jaina sorta let that happen). (4) Jaina’s mom is still alive, and they have probably had “one of those talks”.  (“Jaina, have we learned not to let ravening Orcs have their way with our parents now?” “:: sigh :: Yes, mother.”)  I really hope they don’t go for the all too predictable trope of “Jaina’s mom is mad with loss and will be a raid boss” or something like that.

Speaking of expanding, Stromgarde Keep is coming back, being rebuild, just in time to be repeatedly attacked by the Horde. This seems odd since I could swear we were kicking the bums outta our turf, but maybe Hillsbrad turns into a pocket of resistance or something?  Hard to say, but the fact remains that without a foothold, it makes zero sense to see Horde attacking someplace that is so far within the heartland. I mean, sure, there’s a pirate cove nearby (not gonna be touched, I can pretty much guarantee), so Southshore is the next closest point of entry.  (I wonder if there is a corresponding Alliance stronghold in the middle of Kalimdor?)

And this brings up the main gist of this expansion – the two factions fighting.  There will be a lot of focus on PvP-like activities, but there’s good news for us care bears.   All the PvP-like activity is against (apparently) NPCs. So they might be flying the flag of the enemy, but they’re really just innocent bots that take pleasure in being slaughtered by the thousands by us god-like players.

(Image from Blizz’s old fan art site, no attribution provide by them, sadly.)

And that brings me to what I don’t like about all this.  We’ve spent a couple of expansions now being told that we are the greatest thing since sliced bread by every friendly NPC that we meet. In Draenor we were elevated to military commanders, up to Admiral / General in the end.  In Legion we were given command of our entire order.  Set aside for the moment the massive danger there is in granting one supreme authority in both the military and religious spheres (that’s as close as I can come to describe what we are to our orders). The real issue here is that we keep getting more and more preposterously powerful amongst our peers.

And now – we’re foot soldiers in a number of PvP skirmishes?  What a downer.

The whole theme of this thing, really, comes across as some seriously weak tea. Even the reason is weak. Why would Sylvanas suddenly want to go after Stormwind? And why would she then go after Teldrassil instead? Seems kind of random. The Alliance’s motivations seem more obvious – looks like they’re retaliating for this random violence on their shores. But Sylvanas has never, even once, come across as being a randomly violent entity?  Did we get it wrong all along?  Is Sylvanas the Dreadlord instead of Jaina?

The more I look at the set up – and I concede that “set up” may be entirely too accurate – the less engaged I feel.  Many on the interwebz have called this a “filler” expansion done by “the B team”, and there are times when I have no ammunition with which to refute that. This seems to be rather drab and uninspired (even the logo is washed out).

I dunno, what do you think?

(Image from naptime (sometime in 2012))

Yeah, I’ll probably play, and hopefully rejoice in the restoration of our lands after all this time.  On the other hand, visiting Kalimdor is likely to be heartbreaking.

Jasra’s Excellent Legion Intro Adventure

One of the probable requirements of our guild raiding in this expansion is that I bring Jas as my main once again, so I’ve gone as far as to rearrange my login screen to reflect the reality of the situation. For the first time since I ever logged into WoW, Grimmtooth is no longer the first entry in the login screen.

But I’m okay with that.

So the story of the Legion launch is the story of Jasra and her excellent adventure.

A new home

The first step in the process is getting in touch with Khadgar and getting him to put Dalaran into warp drive to The Broken Isles. I have to say here that “we have to go to the Broken Isles” is the Captain Obvious moment of the expansion so far.  Good sleuthing, Khad. I bet you were the pride of your Hogwarts class.

While I was in Dal, I had to wander around to see what changed.

• The Auction House is gone. Not a big surprise. Blizz associates auction houses with … something incredibly unfair in favor of auction house barons. I’m not sure what they are bringing to this table other than GOLD BAD POVERTY GOOD but at least all other auction houses are one portal away.
• The good news is that the capital portals are back!  Instead of a single portal to your faction capital, you have portals to all of the major capitals for your faction.  This is a welcome move away from the Org / Stormwind bias of Cataclysm.
• Speaking of which, the Dalaran Must Move quest rewards you with a Dalaran hearthstone. This is in addition to your Garrison and regular Hearthstone. This is massive, folks.
• The Sewer is apparently a PvP area, and just entering will flag you.  I mean, yah.
• And while doing the Monochrome Marathon back to my Sewer corpse, I lost internets when a massive lightning strike occurred nearby. No matter how smoothly the server team rolls out the new expansion – and they did a massively good job, by the way – mother nature always finds a way to put you in your place.

Anyway …

Assembling your Staff

The first order of business is the artifact quest.  Now, I have no idea who this Faol guy is, but I bet you Hordies are full of the loves for this guy.  At any rate, he was The Guy for the Light’s Wrath quest line.

This quest line, without throwing too many spoilers out, required all of your Disco toolkit, though in many cases in a very contrived and blizzard-like manner. The hand of ham, it was very evident.

Azuregos was the token DPS in this run

But the fun part is that it took you back to Northrend and some old familiar stomping grounds, even if it’s somewhat difficult to associate the Blue Dragonflight with Discipline priesting.

It isn’t … awful looking, at least

Kids in the Class Hall

After getting the artifact in your sweaty Disco hands, it’s time to do the Class Hall thang.

The neatest thing about the Class Hall was who the avatars of the three disciplines were. Miora for Shadow, which I had no idea. Valen for Holy, because DUH.  And Faol for Disco, which, being Alliance to the core, all I have to say is WHATEVEVS, DISCO PRIEST GOY. I’m sure he’s a big deal for Horde. Good for them.

Naaru child, please don’t start quoting nursery rhymes.

The oddest thing is the voice of Saa’ra, a Naaru that we rescue with my magical fucking staff. She sounds like a cross between a sci-fi movie computer and a horror movie angel. Creepy as FUCK.

Also, Faol addresses me as “Cardinal”. Why the everloving HELLS is that not now a title for my character. BLIZZ U DISAPOIT MEH.

Starting the Levelling

Remember that lady from the Illidan graphic story thingy that questioned the difference between Demon Hunter and Demon?  Well, according to the lore nerds, her name is Kor’vas. And then you start questing, if you’re in Azsuna – and what Elf wound not be? (silently judging Elves that started in a different zone)

Guess who’s coming to dinner

And Then

Remember that earlier wandering around Dal?  Well, one thing I learned is that your profession providers will be providing entry level quests so you can start gathering stuff off of your victims and level up your crafting.

The neat thing about first aid was that I was able to accumulate recipes from all levels from Cataclysm forward. As a priest, I really didn’t need any of those, but it was neat seeing that they have a compensation process for, at least, secondary skills.

A nice new addition to Dal^2 is a transmorgrifier living in the Enchanting shop.

And finally, once I entered “the world”, I found that the Draenor “bonus objective” thing has been carried over, and, in some cases, incorporated into the main questing scheme. Good luck with that.

Also, don’t forget to visit your primary crafting trainers. They have fairly straightforward quests for you to fulfill before you can gain your new crafting skills.

Going forward

I like the job that Blizz did in forming a conduit into which you pour your toons’ essence. The moving-dal to artifact-weapon to class-hall progression makes perfect sense as you go along, and the point where you finally choose your entry into the Broken Isles is flawless. Four starting zones versus two, or, even, one, is a great idea and I approve with all of my thumbs.

Time to get some rested XP. Night all.

Legion’d

The Invasion event is almost over, and I’m glad for it.

Not to say that it wasn’t fun and productive, in a limited way, but it wasn’t three weeks worth of fun and productive in a limited way.

Sure, I only have all six pieces of warforged gear on one toon, but all of my 100s have at least four.  More than that is just a grind.

Invasion Gear Ain’t All That

If you get all of your invasion gear up to iLevel 710, you’re on par with some of the less well-developed WoD raiders, but I have to ask how long it’ll be good for. Traditionally, my epics are chucked just as fast as I can find superior questing greens when the expansion starts.

Broken Isles Event was Cheap

I won’t spoil the “surprise” but …

I don’t mean in the form of no expenses spared.  I instead mean, Blizz generated some tension between Horde and Alliance in a cheesy way. Instead of laying down a solid story that explains to you why you should be pissed (Alliance) or feeling REAL misunderstood (Horde), they chose to hide bits of the story behind the Iron Curtain, as it were.  And the joke of it all is that all you have to do is go up to YouTube to see the other side of the scenario, and that tension is instantly negated.  Hordesplainers be like “well actually” and this time it’s actually a valid defense.

Had the story been more expertly laid out, I would have given this event full marks. Having said that, it was still pretty damned good.

Getting Tired of Jaina’s Shit

In fact, the whole “Kirin Tor Takes Dalaran on a Field Trip” series of events is pretty thinly plotted, but the bitterest pill of all to swallow is how they have reduced Jaina to a whiney little jerk that spends a lot of time doing the Kylo Ren Stomp all over the place. So much so that I think most people were glad when she /ragequit the Kirin Tor – and not just on the Horde side.

Let’s go for extra points and point out how sleazily that Khadgar basically manspreaded right into her old spot in the council. I gotta say, people upset that Khadgar has basically preempted Jaina’s rightful place as the Mage of Mages in the past two or three expansions MIGHT be onto something.  And as a guy that named his cat after her, I’d like to see better.

I hope they redeem the character with some solid storytelling in this expansion, but I’m worried we’ll get the ragey version of “*sniffle* just proud of my king …”  (gag). I’d love to say that I know Blizz can do better … but I can’t.  The major character arcs seem to be in the hands of someone that really can’t tell a story that well (cough cough Metzen). They need to hand that over to Kozak.

Invasions were good for one thing, anyway

Getting out there and learning your new rotations is a good thing. For those of us not raiding, the only way to really test your mettle was against the major demons in at the Throne of Kil’jaden.

The invasions provided new and useful targets. They also taught me that melee in that sort of environment is no fun.  Let’s just say I’m glad for the opportunity to learn defensive cooldowns on an Unholy DK, but I would have preferred not to.

You’re gonna say “But Grimm, the Invasion Event was also good for leveling toons!”  Gonna say it again: I’m not getting why you’d bother playing a toon you don’t want to level in the first place. Let’s agree that that argument will never, ever carry water with me.

But this is from a guy that hasn’t used either of his boosts yet. So whatever.

Speaking of Raiding

Our GM has been getting more active in game and has actually canvassed us to see if we’d be interested in raiding this expansion.  Might have to bring Jasra for this, as we look to be replete with DPS, but that’s fine, I like to be useful.

I’m also seeing some old friends I thought I’d never be playing with again, and that makes me very excite.

I don’t know if we will actually get there, but I think we’ll at least be able to cobble together some consistent 5-mans. Jas made an attempt at that last night and brought the house down with her screwed up keybinds.  So we’re working on that.

Cautiously Optimistic

At the start of WoD, everyone was like OMG Cutscenes and proclaiming the storytelling to be the star of the expansion.  At the end of this content drought called 6.2, nobody’s wondering where the five million people went to – the answer is: away. They got bored and let down by the rest of the expansion not living up to the start of the expansion – or its price.

So, while I am hearing good things about the expansion so far, I’m also mindful that Blizz has a lot to make up for once again. Maybe they’ll deliver on the promise of a more content-ful expansion with a lot more to look forward to. You have to play to find out.

Tomorrow in the US, they roll out the demons in force. As always, I’m here first to have fun. Here’s hoping the rollout goes smoothly and it lives up to the hype.

I’ll see you on the Isles, fellow WoWheads.

Gaming Invasions without being a Jerk

Nobody notices, sure….

Been to any demon invasions lately? Notice anything odd, such as a virtual carpet of slackers hovering over the site of the invasion on mooses they got through charity runs?

It’s true. You can be totally useless and still get rewards for just being around and breathing (or not breathing) during a Legion invasion.

The Hinterlands finally proves to be useful.

Your natural and noble disdain for such crotch-rubbing weasels can be retained and yet you, too, can exploit a certain weakness of the invasion mechanic, earning you progress in an invasion event without having to, ya know, exert yourself for the entirety of the event. And yet hold your head up at the slackers meetings.

Here’s the deal – progression in Phase 1 of an invasion starts more or less when you enter a zone, not when you first engage.  Progression of Phase 1 starts as soon as you’re in the zone.  No matter what you do.

So the longer you are in a zone under invasion, the further Phase 1 progresses without your involvement.

The trick, then, is to maximize your time in an invasion zone prior to actually having to be involved.  In short, finding the longest traverse across an invasion zone to your target flight point.

Consider for a moment the Northern Barrens.

Cribbed from WoWHead

If you choose Ratchet as your embarkation point, then it makes sense to fly across the zone on its long axis. In one case, I was able to get all the way to Phase 3 before landing. The trick was to fly from Southern Barrens to Ratchet on the way to the Crossroads invasion.

There are other similar examples. For example, Alliance should fly to Sentinel Hill manually rather than take a flight path for the simple reason that you spend more time over Westfall that way, and thus more time in Phase 1 in transit to the site of the invasion.

Also cribbed from WoWHead

You could even maximize it further by taking the gryphon to Moonbrook first, then flying to Sentinel Hill manually.

Basically, this is all about plotting your entrance. I’m only surprised that Blood Elves aren’t involved in some way – they do love a good entrance.

Is this gaming the system?  Well, in this case, Blizz has created the system. They have deliberately set things up this way in order to waste your time and make your grind for Nethershards and Fel-Infused armor as long and tediously as possible. As far as I’m concerned, this is a response in kind.

Contempt breeds contempt.

Glyphageddon

“Back in the day” there was an event that Scribes around Azeroth fondly remember as “Glyphmas”. During this time, it was impossible to make a glyph that didn’t sell. And the money for said glyphs was being trucked in by the wagon load.  It was a heady time, and Blizz killed it with their dirty “game mechanics”, but it happened just the same.

Now we’re quickly approaching an apocalyptic cusp in the history of Inscription.  Legion is changing glyphs in a big way, or I should say many big ways. But, as glyph mongers¹, only a few of these ways concern us at the moment.

By far the biggest changes that affect glyph mongers are thus:

1. All Major Glyphs are being discontinued. Period.
2. All minor glyphs that do anything are being discontinued. Period.

This leaves us with just (roughly) 45 out of 425 glyphs, plus 61 new ones for a total of 104 Glyphs to sell².  All of these glyphs are cosmetic only. Heck, some of the purely cosmetic glyphs from WoD didn’t make it – they were very selective!

Click here for the full spreadsheet

(Note: click on the little arrow in the header to open filter options. Filter out “Charred”, for example, to just see the glyphs we’re gonna have in Legion.  You can also filter based on class, which is useful if you’re only interested in your class’ glyphs, though I have to say, if that’s the case, this is not the blog post for you.)

Now, the good news is that these cosmetic glyphs will have a higher demand, because Glyphs are once again consumable.  Right now, in WoD, when you use a glyph, it adds it to your permanent Glyph book, as it were, so these cosmetic glyphs would  have a very low throughput. But now, they won’t be permanent. Once replaced, they go away, and the only way to get that effect back again is to use another glyph.  Hooray?

There are a couple of other items that are of interest.

• Tome of the Tranquil Mind allows players to change talents wherever they are, such as in an instance. This is new since one may only otherwise change spec / talents in a “safe” location, such as Stormwind or Dalaran.
• Codex of the Tranquil Mind does the same thing, but for entire groups, so will bring quite a bit more on the AH.

I feel these may be a bit of a sop to Scribes to make up for the decimation of our glyph inventory.

Recipe ranks

Not entirely related to commerce, but kinda is. If this makes final implementation, then we’ll be able to craft things more efficiently as we gain recipe ranks. Not clear on whether this is per recipe or per profession.

Unlearned Tab in Spellbook

One thing that always bugs me is that data mining just doesn’t cover it when it comes to telling if you know all the recipes you can … so this is a welcome addition to the trade skill panel.

Shoulder enchants

Aside from Boon of the Scavenger, rumors of the return of shoulder enchants seem to be somewhat rumor-ish.

Equipment

From what I can see, Artifact weapons have removed a few sources of income (staves, wands, off-hands), but we still have our Tarot card trinkets.  In WoD, those wore out fast because you were allowed max 3 items of crafted gear, and anyone with a calculator could figure out that head + chest + weapon (or pants) was the best bang for the slot.  Does Legion change that limitation? If so, these guys will regain some popularity, like they had in previous expansions.

Waiting with bated³ breath

There are a lot of unanswered questions before I know my comfort level. How difficult will our mats be to get? Will recipe ranks have any real effect? Will the consumable nature of glyphs compensate for the fact they’re only cosmetic? Will the Tranquil Mind items take up the slack? Will the three-crafted-item limit be lifted?

I watched in horror as Alchemy and Enchanting and Jewel crafting got gutted in the past expansion, with the offerings of each reduced to a sketch of previous expansions. Looks like it’s our turn now, and I’m kinda hating it.

Plan of action

Forewarned is for-aremed, they say. Whoever “they” is.

At any rate, be aware that 380 or so of your current glyphs will be junk by the end of August, and adjust appropriately. Getting 1 GP for a glyph now is better than getting 1 SP for a  Charred Glyph after the pre-release patch hits.

Armed with the knowledge I have, I’m going to start dumping glyphs around June 20 or so. I plan to have all of the “Charred” items sold off by the end of July.  Don’t forget, the expected launch of Legion is the end of August, and the typical pre-expansion patch usually occurs 4-5 weeks prior to the expansion.  So the actual drop dead date is when patch 7.0.x will occur.

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1. My own term: those of us that make and sell glyphs for profit, ignoring all other aspects of the practice that aren’t reflected in Auction House trending.  We don’t care about what glyphs are most potent or what mechanics are in place. All that matters is how much gold we can get for the least amount of gold expenditure.
2. The current count of new glyphs is incomplete, because there are many that are currently missing, or apparently so. So while most classes have 10 or so glyphs available, some, like Mages, only have 7. Gonna go out on a limb and say that’s not where Blizz wants to land.
3. If I see one more person with “baited” breath I might fireball them right in the face.