"My kingdom for a Runed Copper Rod!"

"My kingdom for a Runed Copper Rod!"

I have to admit that I completely blew it with non-gathering professions when transitioning Tiphaine's family over to the Alliance faction. Specifically, the plan to have Sista pick up the Enchanting and Tailoring professions. Wild should have helped them get as far along as possible before passing them over to the alliance. These two professions are the bedrock of Happy's successful Auction House operation - a steady source of revenue, particularly when the flashier sources start to lose value. Like now, when the Draenor expansion is winding down and most of the world is waiting for the next expansion, Legion, now only four months away.

Tiphaine planned to use the same strategy with her own guild. Sista took on the project. Note that it has been ages since any family member has ever started a non-gathering profession. Sista found the Enchanting Trainer and picked up the profession. There was some confusion about getting the mandatory Runed Copper Rod which officially designates one an enchanter. Sista sorted that out, got the ancient materials to make it (who even remembers strange dust and magic essence?), and she was all set.

Sista is now a budding Enchanter. She has a Level 3 Enchanting building in her garrison. She produces goods every day. She crafts the daily temporal crystal and Dreanor Secret recipe. All seems to be in hand. Sista's leveling strategy is a combination of using old enchanting mats that may be lying around where possible. For the rest, Sista will do her dailies and Chaitee will keep an eye on the Auction House for bargains on temporal crystals, luminous shards, and dreanic dust. She can also disenchant items to get additional dust. It will still take considerable time to reach 700. Sista is also beginning to look at Tailoring, too.

Meanwhile, Rakta got a large boon from Tiphaine, crafting her a full set of steelforged weaponry including shield. Tiphaine can also craft trinket upgrades, which is her next project.

Overall, things are going well. By comparison, the Wild Family was trying to keep up a garrison supporting six level 100 members. Honestly, it was too hard to maintain. Tiphaine's garrison is supporting three level 100s (including herself), but eventually Java will reach level 100 as well, and then there will be four. The trick is to find a way to keep the garrison running at full capacity without sacrificing the needs of the four level 100s for which this whole thing is for.

As for Legion, Tiphaine has a plan. She and Rakta will open Legion and take turns leveling. In that way rested xp can be maintained. Tiphaine and Rakta have different needs in gear and such so there shouldn't be too many issues over who gets what gear. Once those two reach level 110, Sista and Java (who should be level 100 by then - I hope) can do the same thing.

However, if Legion requires an achievement process to unlock flying and other critical things like we have in Draenor, then Tiphaine will most likely take the lead to go after all the achievements required so the rest of the family can take advantage of it.

Dreanor is not quite done with us, yet. Things are slowing down. Important things are going to get costlier. Gold is still flowing out of the guild coffers and very little is coming back in. Why? Because all those folks who spend their time gathering mats have slowed or even stopped gathering since the demand for mats is declining fast, which raises prices. It's a sinkhole. And it will only get worse.

The sort of silver lining to all this depends on understanding why the Alliance team was established in the first place. The Wild Family had/has it good. But they were running out of reasons to get out of bed every day. The dangers and challenges were few.

Tiphaine has made her stake. She has given her girls a chance to make something of themselves. Tiphaine may have said this before, but it bears repeating. She's not going to coddle them. Survive or die. It's up to them.