Category Archives: Lewt
Don’t make me use this.
To my great surprise today, Jasra got a mace from a world boss that was an actual upgrade (coupled with a decent off-hand) over the staff she’d been carrying, like, forevar.
Unfortunately, the mace mog collection is unburdened by cool looking maces.
So we went with a two-by-four with a nail in it.
Don’t fuck with Discipline priests. I guarantee it’ll hurt.
Feature Fashion Victim
So, there was a lot going on at BlizzCon 2017. I wasn’t one of them, but that’s probably for the best. I’ll have more to say on other topics from that event, but if you’re impatient there are, well, about a zillion other actual blogs (and falling), and an exponentially increasing number of Twitch streams, you tube channels, and vlogs that will be more than happy to blurt out their thoughts, as well.
But one thing that jumped out me was at one of last night’s Q&As. Someone asked the very reasonable question, would Blizz be considering options for clothies other than robes going forward? The answer was something that sat me back on my haunches – “Whenever we find a way for clothies to look awesome wearing pants, we’ll do it.” Or words to that effect.
Well, okay, I’ll admit that they nailed it for healing cloth in Legion.
But there’s nothing wrong with a good pair of sturdy jeans, and warlocks can pull it off without even trying very hard.
As can fire mages.
One assumes that Arcane and Frost can pull it off as well.
Just because I haven’t found an outfit that screams “Disco” and isn’t robe-based yet doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. And I hate to say it, but what I heard in that pull quote from the Q&A was “We haven’t figured out how to make that happen”. Here’s a hint – try to move away from the clown suit esthetic. Imagine your wife / girlfriend / sister wearing it.
Which rules the Mageweave stripper pants out, and I’m good with that.
Ground Hog Day
Been several weeks on the fire mage spec, and so far I am liking it. The new mitigation tools built into the spec make it a lot less likely that I’ll die just for being the center of attention, and the new flame shield is, well hawt.
I have not been pleased with the transmog, though. The Robe of Power is pretty sharp, but better worn in a disco than tramping around in the muck. And while the Mantle of Three Terrors is, in fact, super-appropriate to the spec, it also makes me look like a hunchback. I have a problem with shoulders, all the way back to the second Scourge invasion – those shoulders and that head piece that dropped off the scourge bosses make me look like a bullet, or a torpedo, not a human mage with feelings. Feelings and wants and needs. A mage who …
… er, where was I? Oh, yes! Transmog! Fire mage transmog!
So, I got out my blue jeans from the frost outfit, some black-ish boots (nothing as good as mail wearers can get, but hey), and searched around for some more appropriate upper attire. First off was a nice shirt, the Corsair’s Overshirt, which drops off of of “Captain” Cookie in Deadmines (boy, was he surprised!). And while I absolutely love my Junior Technician 3rd Grade Goggles, the new spec had me looking for something a little more interesting. Fortunately, there’s the Circle of Flame, and it drops from Ambassador Flamelash. This guy, in Blackrock Depths.
He’s not exactly super cooperative.
It’s a low drop rate. We had several engagements. Flamelash went through the five stages of grief.
And finally …
At which point he just chucked all his stuff into the foyer, packed his bags, and went off to The Firelands for a vacation. Which is what he should have done to begin with, right?
That was the last of the shopping trip, however, so now I feel a lot better about myself and my chances of not getting annoying swamp stains all over that white robe’s hem.
It Kinda Grows on Ya
I’m not usually into the later expansions’ gear models, but, like Jasra, I’ve found something in the modern mix that has tickled my fancy a little bit. Namely, the Coif of Unstable Discharge.
Doesn’t show in this image, of course, but the arcing lightning kinda fits in with the whole Beastmaster motif, with Titanstrike and Hati in tow.
Note that the rest of my current transmog is a mess. It’s a cross between my classic blue and the new hotness. I’ll figure something out eventually. It really doesn’t deserve the name “transmog” at the moment.
It’s hard to beat Engineering goggles for style and functionality, but we may have found a winner, though.
The New Hotness
As countless happy people log into the beta, I’m sitting here looking at a bog standard login in battle.net. But there are compensations.
Once again, our internet angel Vidyala has reached out and provided me with a reason to be of good cheer, in this case a most excellent commission of myself and my favorite pet, Bumbles, in our favorite hunting grounds. She hadn’t been taking commissions, but for some odd reason accepted my moniez in exchange for this awesome artwork. As you can tell, no matter the price, I came out on top in this exchange.
I am not here to brag on my good fortune, but merely to a) explain why this image may appear in the headers from now on (it will), and b) to sing the praises of all things Vidyala.
And now, prepare to bask in the magnificence of my turbulence.
Thanks, Vid! As always, it is a genuine pleasure!
Madness … takes its toll (exact change only, please)
[…] our credo: Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc. ‘We gladly feast on those who would subdue us.” Not just pretty words.
— Morticia Addams
At this time, the upcoming (in Legion) resource for Shadow priests is labelled “Insanity”, which has made role-playing and mogging for my Shadow spec a lot easier.
For the longest time, I’ve had issues locking on to “the fantasy of” my class. Since they, too, seemingly wielded Shadow magic, I often looked to Warlocks as a handle to hold on to, however unrelated in origin they might be (Shadow Priests, for example, predate Warlocks on Azeroth. But they’re a lot easier to get a handle on from an RP perspective.).
But the new resource flipped some switches and caused the class to sprout all sorts of handles. So now, at least mog-wise, I have a bit of a role model.
Basically, I’m going for this.
One of the highlights of Morticia’s outfit is the low-cut slinky dress. To that end, the Warlock Arena Season 11 piece, (by way of Cynwise), would have been perfect. Unfortunately, it can only be purchased by Warlocks, much less worn by or used as mog fodder by. So back to square one.
The good news is that I did find the Thistlefur Robe via MogIt, and it is pretty much everything I want it to be. For the head piece, I’ve elected Circlet of Transcendence, and for my stat stick, Terestian’s Stranglestaff (There’s a similar looking quest reward in Vash’jir, but who has time for that nonsense?). That leaves the shoulder piece.
I was dearly hoping for some sort of raven-feather pauldrons, but to date all I’ve found are Druid (leather) pieces. There are a few spikey variants but I really don’t feel this addresses the Shadow idiom properly. Raven feathers would be ideal, given the one or two raven-oriented spells we have, but something tentacle-y would work as well. Until I find something more appropriate, though, I guess I’ll go with the Pauldrons of Transcendence piece, if for no other reason than it goes with the head piece and we all know Onyxia was a little wobbly in the attic. Her dad certainly was affiliated with the Old Gods, so it’s fitting.
Anyway, her’s the projected trajectory for the two selves of Jasra at the moment.
The RP-breaking part of WoW in this situation is dual-spec. Jasra the Disco priest inhabits the same body as Jasra the Mad. While many will agree that anyone that volunteers for healer duties is absolutely insane, that doesn’t really work well in this particular RP dichotomy. Well, that’s on me, I suppose, especially when you realize that even being able to swap specs at all is kind of RP-breaking.
So I should probably shut up and go back to grinding Apexis dailies.
So this happened
Well, we thought we had a handle on healers, but our guild ended up being so hard up for one that I got dragged back into the sunlight again. So I’ve been Atone-ing my little elvish ass off and sweating like a software engineer at a mixer party, but not having much time to hit the Island of Mucho Loot (The Elvish name is untranslatable).
So I replaced my iLevel 450 shoulders tonight. And this happened.
Cataclysm. Or, as I like to call it, The Long Hangover.
Rock out with your Lock out
Grimmtooth Actual’s first best love is Grimmtooth the hunter, no doubt about it, but one could argue that the Hunter is so second-nature at this point that it’s more like a Stay-cation than a true diversion. Grimmtooth’s existence at the moment is all about getting things done, from the scrupulous attention to gardening to the grueling slog of dailies.
Warlock’s what comes out when we want to play. I’m not a raiding main, Jasra is, so I’m free to indulge myself as I see fit. I’m not even level 90 yet. And with Grimm and Jas sucking up all the CPU they can, I rarely get to come out and play, so I make the most of it.
I’ve got myself a good adventuring outfit, for example. Black velvet robes are good for shaking down the locals in Stormwind, displaying a decadant sense of evil that the rubes truly appreciate. But they tend to snag on everything. Denim and forest leathers are a lot more appropriate for stomping around in the wild.
Also, I have horns from time to time. While I like the look, it was hell on hats until I figured out to punch a couple of holes in the right place.
But that does bring me to the part of this expansion that I dislike the most about the Demonology spec. Demonform has gone from a hefty buff to DPS to being a whole second spell rotation to learn. It plays hell with my rhythm, let me tell you.
But outside of that, Big D is a blast. I cut through mobs like a hot knife through butter. I use Hefty Voidwalker to gather them up and just beat them to the ground. Even Grimm can’t AoE that well. I don’t even use most of my rotation because the mobs die too fast.
There’s this green fire thing coming up, I’ve heard, once I hit 90. I have some nice prezzys from Jas to wear when I hit that level, too, so it looks like I’ll end this turn at the wheel on a high note for sure, since I’m 89.25 now.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Damn, it’s good to be a Warlock.
Addenum:
Been out front of Stormwind lately?
Yep, been patched right up!
Well, almost. The minimap still shows the glowing embers for the gate towers, though, as you can see, they’re just fine now.
Glad to see my tax money going into something other than blowing panda bears up.
Feeling crabby?
If you’re working on Tillers rep, then there will be a time you need Raw Crab Meat. Now, the conventional wisdom of WoWhead is that it drops best from Rockshell Snapclaw, hermit-crab-like humanoids found underwater on a shelf southwest of Soggy’s Bottom.
It’s underwater. If you don’t have a potion you have to surface to breathe from time to time. If you’ve already done a certain quest in the zone, you get your Sea Legs buff, but if you haven’t, you don’t. A bit of a pain, really.
Just northwest of there is another spot, The Briny Muck, in which turtles, crabs, some Sauroks, and some big elementals hang out. The crabs are of interest, as they have almost as high a drop rate as the previously mentioned Snapclaws, plus there’s a spot you can go to that has a nearly constant supply of them.
In one direction is a crab that spawns pretty much as fast as you kill it. Turn around 180 degrees, and there’s another one that does the same thing. So it’s kill, turn, kill, turn, loot, kill, turn etc.
One of the Sauroks will occasionally aggro on you, and there’s one group that will avoid you as long as you don’t pull them, but aside from that, it’s all gravy.
Here’s a couple of screen grabs to help you situate yourself, complete with piles of bodies to illustrate the incredible spawn rate.
Happy hunting!