Today's Progress on Draenor Pathfinder Part 3

Today's Progress on Draenor Pathfinder Part 3

Jocy was thrown off her plan to double up on the Assault quest because the War Planning Map only offered the same quest that Jocy had already completed. That meant waiting a day to see if a better quest was offered that would work toward her Patherfinder goal.

Jocy went after other ways to make progress. To gain rep with Vol'jin's headhunters, she took on an assault of Iron Hold Harbor. As she finished the quest, the game crashed and all of that progress was lost. Undeterred, Jocy repeated the quest and got full credit, raising her rep standing with the headhunters. She also gained Honored status:

Voljin's Headhunters:    Honored, 700/12000 to Revered

During the battles Jocy picked up two pieces of gear, baleful trinket and baleful neck. The neck piece wasn't up to par with her current piece, but all "baleful" gear have a chance to gain upgrades, and it's a good idea to hang on to baleful gear for that reason. The other piece, the trinket, is an i650 as compared to what Jocy had, which was only i621. There was concern, though, because the i621 trinket had +128 str on it, but the higher level trinket had no +str, it had +191 multistrike and bonus armor (because of her protection spec). Despite the loss of the +str, Jocy went with the i650 trinket as the better gear. I hope she got that right.

As to those laggards at Vol'Mar who were asking for "pictures of the hot lady couple unleashing carnage," Jocy responded that there was no time for selfies while carnage was being dished out. The power couple did agree to pose for pictures after the battle, though, still spattered in gore. They are with two other friends, and readers will have to figure out for themselves who is who.

Jocy, Viviane, and Friends

Today's Progress on Draenor Pathfinder Part 2

Today's Progress on Draenor Pathfinder Part 2

Jocy doubled down on the "Assault on Socrathar's Rise," her targeted Pathfinder quest for the day. She learned that she could accept the daily quest in addition to buying the same quest as a Missive, so she got credit for doing both and collected double the reward. Jocy has now completed three of the twelve Assault quests required to complete Secure Draenor. Jocy plans to double up on her Assaults every time now.

Completing the quest was made a lot easier when Jocy made a long overdue decision to bring a bodyguard with her. Solo Wild never bothered to use one, but once Jocy started getting into the heavier quests and the bonus battles that required vast killing, it was a no-brainer to order her follower, Viviane, to accompany her. Viviane's main attack is a multi-target Blizzard that complements Jocy's other multi-target spells. Jocy only recently began building up follower gear and weapons (thanks for nothing, Wild), but Jocy was able get Viviane the basics. Her armor is currently i642 (compared to Jocys i659), but Viviane's weapon is i639, slightly better than Jocy's i630. They make a good pair.

Today's Progress on Draenor Pathfinder Part 1

Today's Progress on Draenor Pathfinder Part 1

Jocy was very busy yesterday, but not much of that effort was reflected in progress on Pathfinder. Jocy spent most of the day in the Tanaan Jungle completing quests for reputation with Voljin's Headhunters. Jocy began the day with 3700 reputation and finished with 5950, just fifty rep short of earning Honored. Jocy wanted to get those extra 50 rep, too, but so far all of the rep has come from quests, and Jocy simply ran out of quests, which are mostly (it not all, now) dailies. Jocy completed all of the single player dailies and spent even more time doing Bonus killings in various hotspots around Tanaan.

Voljin's Headhunters:    Friendly, 5950/6000 to Honored

Jocy also finally completed the quest at Vol'Mar that gave the shipyard plans for battleships. She ordered a battleship built, and it should be available for the next ship battle. Jocy now has over 900 barrels of oil, and if she continues to do the dailies for the rep grind I think she'll keep getting gobs of oil. She still doesn't really get the point of ship battles in terms of how it improves her skills, but, eh, I once thought apexis crystals were useless, too.

Apexis crystals are Jocy's new favorite mat. She'd amassed over 17,000 and had no idea what to do with them. While on a break from killing things, so she rambled around Vol'Mar until she found a vendor willing to show her what she could buy with them. Jackpot! Included among a lot of stuff, the vendor sold gear. Good gear, better gear than she had. Wasting no time, Jocy spent 10,000 apexis crystals for two pieces of gear that she was having the hardest time upgrading. She upgraded her chest armor from i621 to i650, and leggings from i640 to i650. Then she got really, really lucky. Among the piles of junk choking her bags was an item upgrade. Using it, Jocy further upgraded her leggings from i650 to i695. Wow.

New Gear levels: Protection Spec went from i653 to i660 and Holy spec from i660 to i666. That's a very nice jump. She even received a welcome from the Dungeon Masters, telling her that she is now eligible for Mythic level dungeons.

It was a pretty good day.

Jocy's New Plan for the Draenor Pathfinder Achievement

Jocy's New Plan for the Draenor Pathfinder Achievement

Note: Some of the information below has been mentioned in previous posts, but much of it was wrong or had to be fixed.

Assuming that the gods of WoW will allow it, Jocy is going to make a concerted effort to complete the Draenor Pathfinder achievement and earn the right to fly in Draenor. Understand that even after earning the achievement, a new patch is required to turn the feature on. There are five sub-achievements that Jocy has to complete:

(1) Explore Draenor. Mission: Visit every area of all five zones. Wild completed this achievement but it didn't carry over to Jocy. Jocy, on her own, completed Frostfire Ridge and had worked through much of Nagrand. As of this morning, though, Jocy has been given full credit for exploring all six zones: Frostfire Ridge, Gorgrond, Spires of Arak, Shadowmoon Valley, and Nagrand. I guess it took some time for the achievement to be recognized. One sub-achievement down, four to go.

(2) Securing Draenor. Mission: Complete twelve Assault quests. Wild had already lost patience by this time and turned the mess over to Jocy. She originally did two of the twelve quests, but was only given credit for one. The quest not given credit for was a daily she picked up at Vol'Mar. The quest she did get credit for was purchased (with 200 garrison resources) at her garrison from Sergeant Grimshaw. The quest is called a Missive, and all twelve Assault quests can be purchased in this way. I've given up trying to understand why the same quest can be completed by either method, but only one way (the Missive) grants the achievement. Jocy has since completed a second Missive and got credit, so that is the method Jocy is using to complete the rest. She can do the quests are her leisure and they can be done in any order.
Completed Assaults:
    "Assault on Stonefury Cliffs" done 7/26/15 (took a long time, a grind)
    "Assault on the Broken Precipice" done on 7/27/15 (18 min and done - ogres)

(3) Tanaan Diplomat. Mission: Earn Revered reputation with three factions. It appears that the faction grind must be done by a single character (ie, it isn't account bound). There are daily quests and other means to earn reputation for each faction. From what Jocy has seen so far, it's mostly endless killing.
    Voljin's Headhunters:        Friendly, 3700/6000 to Honored
    Order of the Awakened:    Neutral, 1500/3000 to Friendly
    The Saberstalkers:        Not yet encountered

(4) Loremaster of Draenor. Mission: Complete five Loremaster achievements. Four of them are already listed as completed. However, within each of the quest achievements there are individual quests that are incomplete, so I'm not sure how much work there is here yet.

(5) Expert Treasure Hunter. Mission: Discover 50 treasures of Draenor (excluding Tanaan Jungle). Tally: five so far, but I don't know how I got them. There may be more to this than the 50 treasures, too. There is a Jungle Treasure Hunter achievement for Tanaan that may or may not be included as part of the mission.

I will update progress as Jocy works through them.

Happy's Rebound and Other News

Happy's Rebound and Other News

Well, spending time on the shipyard finally paid off, earning Jocy a pair of i685 boots to replace her i670s. The new galoshes raises Jocy's ilevel from i652 to i653 (Protetion spec) and from i659 to i660 (Holy spec). Woo hoo!

Jocy is a gear hoarder and a clothes horse, but it's been a long time since she's created a new set of clothes. Well, she recently picked through her many closets and chests and came up with a new look when away from her garrison. If she gets in the mood, she may also pull out some of her earlier favorite ensembles. Pictures to follow. Maybe.

Jocy continues to torture herself over the Draenor Pathfinder achievement, taking over the role that Wild started. Jocy picked up "Assault on the Iron Siegeworks" from the War Planning Map in her garrison, one of the twelve daily quests required for the achievement. She completed the quest (earning 600 oil), but did it recognize the completion under achievements? No. I must still be missing some pre-requisite to turn on the Securing Draenor part of the achievement.

Update: This time Jocy ignored the daily. Instead, she discovered that all of the twelve Assaults can be purchased right inside her own garrison with a Missive. No need to wait for it to appear as a daily. The cost is 200 garrison rescources, which is very cheap. Once more Jocy chose a quest, "Assault on Stonefury Cliffs." She completed the quest and turned it in at the garrison, and this time the achievement was properly logged. It's stupid, but taking the same quest from the War Planning Map (ie, the daily), the achievement isn't logged. But if Jocy spends 200 resources and does the very same quest, she gets the achievement. Sigh.

On another part, Exploring Draenor, Jocy completed Frostfire Ridge and Talador. She made a dangerous oops in Talador, riding into Shattrath City (the last area she needed to explore) like it was still in the hands of the good guys. It isn't in the hands of the good guys, and she found herself in the middle of an army of level 100 elites. She'd like to brag about her prowess in combat at that moment, but that would be hard to do, having been flayed and flattened into bloody paste. That was one time Jocy regretted her heavy armor and defensive spells - it took a long time for her to die. Surviving her reincarnation was also pretty exciting, but she managed to evade the beasties long enough to portal away.
 
Now on to the Auction House. Happy predicted dire outcomes for the weekend as prices plummeted and buyers stayed away. However, things started to warm up once the raiding groups got more active, and Happy had no problem selling high end weapon enchants at good prices. Luminous Shards, which had fallen from their average of 50g to 29g early in the weekend, had edged back up to 47g by Monday morning. The key Temporal Crystal market bounced around but when things settled its price was right where it usually stood at 100g. Embersilk and frostweave bags sold briskly and Happy even picked up some bargains. As for the four sorcerous mats (air, fire, water, and earth), those prices remain depressed as expected. Garrison production can be blamed for the overstocking. Overall, the feared crash of the Auction House didn't happen.

Happy's fall from grace was short lived. The weekend take: 26,488 gold. It's Happy's largest weekend take. Ever.

Happyface Falls From Grace

Happyface Falls From Grace

A very unhappy Happyface has been forced to admit he failed to predict a complete collapse of the Auction House market for enchanting, which began with a downturn two weeks ago, intensified into a panic and is now in free fall.

Savage Blood, routinely selling at 300 gold each, can be had in gross for 90g apiece

Sorcerous Earth, once snapped up at 60g each, are trading at 25g now. The three other types of sorcerous mats (air, water, fire) are trading at under 15g each.

High end weapon enchants costing as much as 2000-3000g each are being undersold by frantic sellers for 1500g and less.

The continued resilience of temporal crystals is the only faint positive, which traded all week at a strong 100g plus price. As the markets open on Saturday morning, however, prices have already fallen to 84g. Happy snapped all of those up. Price are still hovering in the 88-93g range, but should the panic spread to temporal crystals, enchanting mat prices may descend to worthless.

The always volatile bag market has also been affected. The hexweave 30 slot bag typically sells at 1500g plus but over the last two days has fallen to under 1200g and will likely continue to fall
.
Embersilk (22 slot) and Frostweave (20 slot) bag prices are jumping all over the place, but Happy has been modestly successful at keeping profits up due to a large hoard of mats to make the bags. The up and down of bag prices also benefits Happy since he can still buy up low ball sellers and resell them at a higher price as the market veers back and forth. As this is being written, Happy sold three embersilk bags for 425g each. The buyer didn't notice that Happy had recently dropped his price to 370g to counter another seller.

Happy is also predicting that as the weekend raiding starts to ramp up, weapon enchant prices will rise. Happy took advantage of the current drop in prices and has several of the four key weapon enchants (Bleeding Hollow, Frostweave, Warsong, and Thunderlord). Even the lower level enchants could make a little extra gold since the key cost, Luminous Shards, have dropped from 50 to 40g. Ten minutes later, the price dropped to 29g.

It will take the full weekend to assess Happy's response to the sell off.

I'd Rather Walk . . . aka The Big Fail

I'd Rather Walk . . . aka The Big Fail

Earlier this week Wild completed parts of Draenor Pathfinder, a required achievement that ultimately grants the ability to use a flying mount in Draenor. Wild was having trouble figuring out another element of the achievement - Securing Draenor, which requires completion of twelve quests called Assaults. Assault quests are presented randomly, but there seems to always be at least two available. Jocy, with her heavy armor and weaponry, offered to try the Fell Forge Assault quest, which was offered at the Tanaan base of Vol'Mar.

Jocy spent more than an hour killing and collecting things. There were a few other players doing the same thing. For awhile Jocy just stood in one place, killing mobs as they appeared. Mobs die and reappear fairly rapidly so no area is ever really "cleared" making it impossible to even get a sense of accomplishment. There are no specific objectives other than killing and destroying enough stuff until the tally of blood reaches 100%. By the time Jocy got past the halfway mark (54%) she was numb. It's beyond boring even once, but as a repeatable quest? Yuk.

Being a glutton for punishment, Jocy went back a second time and managed to complete the Fel Forge achievement. Now here is the great irony. When she checked her achievements it didn't appear. Guess what? The Assault on the Fell Forge is NOT one of the assaults listed in Securing Draenor. It doesn't count. It never occurred to me that there would be other assault quests that didn't count toward the achievement. Stupid me.

Maybe it doesn't matter. If all of the Assault quests are like this . . . Screw the flying mount, I'd rather just use a ground mount. Or walk.

Retirement is not out of the question. Even Happy is bored. Wild is at gear level i653 and Jocy is at i651. There isn't anything left on the Auction House to buy, and there seems no point to garrisons or shipyards.

Is there still life to raiding? In Wild's Meitha guild there are only three druid healers, the best being Songbird at i658, which is within range of Wild. Among the Holy paladins, the guild has just one healer - Wild's friend Katarias (aka Lady Tala), who at i650 is on par with Jocy. Of course, Meitha isn't raiding. On their own, Wild/Jocy would probably have no trouble getting into a lower level Highmaul raid, which Meitha has already completed. Blackrock Foundry would be a tougher challenge, which Meitha hasn't bothered to attempt. The newest raid, Hellfire Citadel, would be out of the question until Wild/Jocy was blooded in the other raids.

It's most likely a moot point. Until Wild or Jocy steps into the Proving Grounds and learns how to heal again, this is all just campfire fodder.

Flying in Draenor

Flying in Draenor

Patch 6.2.1 is currently in beta testing. When it goes live, players will finally be able to use their flying mounts for what they were intended - flying. Players will no longer have to travel on foot or on a ground mount to get around in Draenor. There is a very large caveat, however. Players first have to complete the Draenor Pathfinder Achievement.

Wildshard recently took a look at what it would take to reach that achievement. To begin, there are five major sections: Explore Draenor, Securing Draenor, Tanaan Diplomat, Loremaster of Draenor, and Master Treasure Hunter. They can be acccomplished in any order.

Wild was able to complete the first leg of the achievement, Explore Draenor, in a few hours by visiting every region in Draenor and physically visiting every labelled spot in each region. For example, there are 15 areas in Frostfire Ridge that Wild had to travel to in order to complete that part of the achievement. Six regions averaging about 15 areas each adds up to about 90 places that Wild had to visit.

Next, Wild happily discovered that he had already accomplished the Treasure Hunter achievement (find ten treasures) simply by doing quests. But there is more. There is Expert Treasure Hunter (50 treasures) followed by Master Treasure Hunter (not shown, but guessing 100 treasures). Again, Wild could have made things simpler by grabbing treasures as he explored.

Wild then decided to see what he had to do for Securing Draenor. There are twelve items listed, all of them tied to various assaults in various areas. Wild hadn't bothered to do his homework (again), because he could have been doing the assaults while getting the exploring parts done. Sigh, Wild is going to have to return to all twelve areas to earn that achievement.

Next is Loremaster of Draenor. I thought this would be the most difficult, but Wild was very happy to see that he had already completed four of the five requirements. All that is required here is to complete the storyline in Nagrand. Wild reached level 100 before completing Nagrand and never finished. There are eight things to accomplish, and Wild has done three of them so far.

Tanaan Diplomat looked relatively easy, with only three things to accomplish. However, those three things were Faction Reputations, and that is going to be a lot of work. Wild is friendly with Voljin's Headhunters, but needs to be at Revered. Wild is only neutral with The Order of the Awakened, and a quick glance at their requirements is extensive. Wild hasn't even encountered the third faction, The Saberstalkers. Faction grinds can take a lot of time to complete, particularly if there are daily quests that by their nature can't be hurried up.

Overall, Wild can set his own pace to accomplish all of the requirements except for the faction grinds.

Wild does have one question to ask himself. Does it really matter if Wild can't fly in Draenor? So far it hasn't been an issue. That's when Fist raised her hand. Flying in Draenor is account bound. Once Wild can fly in Draenor, all of Wild's family will be able to fly, too. That would make leveling a lot easier for Fist. Then again, Wild and Jocy may enjoy making Fist level on a ground mount, just like they had to.

Too Stubborn to Quit

Too Stubborn to Quit

Jocy and Wild both are a determined pair. They don't care one bit about the incomprehensible mess that is Tanaan. They've gone beyond frustrated and into pure cantankerous refusal to quit. Wild ran out of oil before he finished the quest to complete fifteen shipyard missions that would get her to the next level of shipyard. He's stuck until he finds a way to generate oil. Jocy learned from Wild to husband her oil, and over the weekend was able to complete the quest and earn the resulting achievement. Of course, now she is out of oil, too.

Jocy's satisfaction in completing the achievement was very short-lived. Her "reward" was a new quest to do 25 more missions. Talk about a mind-numbing grind . . .

In the meantime, Wild was pouring over information about Tanaan on how to acquire the oil that everyone else on the trade channel said they were literally floating in oil (Wild believes everything he's told about the trade channel, too - NOT). Bottom line, the first and best way is to do the two daily quests available from the command table in Vol'Mar. What could be simpler? Well, it would be nice if there WAS a command table in Vol'Mar. No such table appears to either Wild or Jocy.

So, I'll be putting in my third trouble ticket.

Back in Business

Back in Business

Jocy got a blessing from the WoW gods yesterday. She went to bed in her garrison. When she woke the next morning, she found herself on a transport ship docked in Tanaan. Not wanting to test the patience of the gods, Jocy immediately went to work, completing quests and establishing herself at Vol'Mar. She then took the Vol'Mar portal to Ashran to make sure she would be able to port back to Vol'Mar from Ashran. The previously missing portal is now back in place at Ashran. Jocy is back in business.

Jocy found two quests that earned oil which Wild didn't know about. Those two need to talk to each other more often instead of independently trying to figure things out for themselves. There are a number of daily quests called the "Apexis quests" that also supposedly reward with oil, but neither have figured out yet how to get those quests. Apparently, the most reliable way to get a consistent source of oil is to work on reaching revered with [faction], when an oil rig can be built. If the two adventurers can get in sync with each other (fat chance) they could pound those quests quickly and get their oil rigs up and running.

With relatives visiting with us for the next week (they'll be here in, oh, about two hours), there might not be a lot of WoW going on. Happy will still get his game time, though, count on that. :-)

Lashed to the Hull

Lashed to the Hull

Despite claims by both Wild and Jocy that they have no interest in ships or ship building, every day one finds them hanging around their shipyards. Inevitably, they are also being drawn into the fracas in the Tanaan Jungle.

Wild has completed the necessary steps to get his shipyard operational and has already maxed out on the initial number of ships he can have. Ship battles are more perilous than the missions Wild's followers do. On missions, followers don't get killed if they fail a mission. In ship battles, ships can be sunk and destroyed. Wild is working on getting the achievement for completing 15 ship missions, and has gotten 12 done so far. But he's run into a problem. Doing missions with followers requires the expenditure of resources, which Wild always has an abundance of. Playing ship captain requires the expenditure of oil, and that resource is in very short supply. In fact, Wild can't send any of his ships out right now because they lack enough oil. Unlike mission resources, which automatically replenishes itself over time, oil does not. Wild is looking into other ways of acquiring oil, which requires spending a lot more time in the Tanaan Jungle than he anticipated. Wild has made it to the Vol'Mar base in Tanaan and has done several of the quests there. Frankly, its a tougher challenge than Wild expected, and his bull headed stubbornness keeps him hacking away in the jungle.

Jocy, on the other hand, is stymied by bad programming. She's also completed the necessary steps to get her shipyard operational and participated in the invasion that brought her to Tanaan. But there things unraveled. Part one involved the Iron Docks, which is NOT in Tanaan, but is part of the assault that leads to getting to Tanaan. Jocy has done all of the same quests there that Wild did, and there are no quests left for her to do there. She also got as far as picking up the Obstacle Course quest in Tanaan. While on that quest, however, Jocy needed to hearth back to the garrison. When she tried to return to Tanaan, she found out that she couldn't.

What happened? Well, here is how Wild gets to Tanaan. From his garrison, Wild goes up into his tower and takes a portal directly to Ashran. In Ashran, there is another portal that ports players to the Vol'Mar base in Tanaan. Jocy can port to Ashran just fine, but when Jocy goes there the Vol'Mar portal is missing. The spot where Wild takes the portal doesn't exist for Jocy. She's crawled all over that island, has found portals to Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff, but no portal to Vol'Mar. She can't get back to Tanaan.

There are rumors of a way to sneak into Tanaan without the portal. That might even be an interesting adventure. She's considering that option, but has also prayed to the gods of WoW to FIX THE DANGED PROBLEM! By way of a trouble ticket.