I went to see Captain America: The First Avenger with our visiting friends this weekend. It was pretty good, a decent action film, even if it was pretty predictable. I think "predictable" is what most fans of comic book heroes want, anyway. The ending was a bit of a surprise, if only because it seems to skip several decades of possible sequels and left me scratching my head on a couple of other things. Don't want to spoil anything by being specific, though.
Wildshard underwent his own transformation this weekend. Sunday morning Wild accumulated enough Marks (125) to open up the first, and most important, vendor for the Avengers of Hyjal. Her name is Ayla Shadowstorm. [Hmm, I wonder if they named her after the heroine of the book Clan of the Cave Bear?]. But first, let me back up a bit.
Late last week Wild bought the i365 elementium Hammer that can now be crafted. The guild is crafting at least two of the new weapons, but I don't think they'll be caster weapons. Even if they were, Wild had the gold to buy his own without having to make demands on the guild. I'd rather the guild weapons go to raiders who can then make Wild's healing job easier. The Hammer is a very modest upgrade to the i359 two-hand staff Wild has been using since he started raiding Cata. Wild enchanted the Hammer with Power Torrent, a much more powerful enchant than what Wild was using before, Heartsong, since Power Torrent procs +int instead of Heartsong's +spi. It will lower Wild's mana regen, but it's worth that.
Wild couldn't really use the Hammer yet, because I didn't have a good enough off-hand to go with it. With the 2-hand Wild didn't need an off-hand, so the best he had was an i346 that undid what little stats upgrading the Hammer got me. Wild had to wait until he could get the goodies from Ayla.
When Wild turned in his 125 Marks, it was not without a small amount of concern. I was "pretty sure" that it would open up the vendor, but the quest chain was just vague enough that I thought I might be required to do the Armaments quest (another 125 Marks) as well before the vendor would sell to Wild. Armaments wasn't needed, though, as that one opens up a different vendor. Wild also thought he'd have to do a boss kill quest, but that also wasn't necessary. He did get a boss kill quest, but didn't have to complete it to open the vendor.
So, on to the goodies. The first thing Wild picked up was [Globe of Moonlight], an i365 off-hand. It's not the perfect off-hand, but hey no complaints from Wild. It was far better than what he had in his bags. He then picked up an upgrade to his relic, replacing his i359 with the i365 [Relic of Elune's Light]. Wild had the +40 int gem ready to go into it's socket. Finally, Wild picked up the biggest upgrade of them all, [Moonwell Chalice]. The Chalice is a trinket with +340 int. It replaces Wild's i359 +spi trinket and gives Wild a very large increase in mana and spell power.
With that accomplished, Wild next had to do some reforging. Both +haste and +spi took some significant hits due to the type of stats on the new gear - all that extra +int does come at a cost, you know. Once that was done, Wild's haste was back where I wanted it, while I was able to keep +mastery above where it was before the gear change. The one thing Wild needs to watch carefully during next week's raids is his mana regen. There was no way to replace the over 200 spi just from dropping that +spi trinket, much less the other +spi losses on the gear. The rule of thumb for druids is a minimum 2000 spirit. Wild is at 1963 spirit now, a large drop from the over 2200 he had before (plus the additional loss of the +spi proc from Heartsong). Wild is hoping it will be good enough. Otherwise, more reforging will have to be done at the cost of haste and/or mastery.
Here are a couple of screenshots of Wild in his new gear. Note the changing color surrounding the Hammer - that comes from Power Torrent. Pretty cool.
Oh, Wild also picked up some fun stuff. He bought the Crimson Lasher, a companion pet that periodically shoots off a fireball. Wild also got erik's favorite pick, the Mushroom Chair. Frankly, it was a little disappointing - it's a pretty small, ordinary mushroom. But it does provide a nice place to sit. :-)
By the way, Wild's gear score is now i362.
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