Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Chaitee Takes a Walk

Chaitee Takes a Walk

Level 24 Hunter Chaitee was both excited and a little overwhelmed when Tiphaine sent her off to earn some of the guild credit she was long overdue for. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd been outside the Stormwind gates.That's where she was headed. Her pet, Tazzy, was with her, of course. Her new gear pinched a bit. The gear included both leather and mail that didn't quite fit together. She felt comfortable with her usual polearm, but she strapped it to her back, determined to re-learn how to use a bow. It was strange not to have a single quest to work toward. Chaitee expected that wouldn't last long, once she left the city.

Her first foray into the wilds around Stormwind was interesting but only modestly productive. Looking for more action, she took the stormwind flightpath to Duskwind. There she went on a very satisfying killing spree, eliminating many dangerous forest dwellers that were bothering the good folks there. She attained level 25 quickly.

She had to return, however, for some AH work. Only then did she discover that her hearthstone was still set for her homeland of Exodar. Chaitee was very young then. Many memories. Chaitee shook them off. Time for reminiscing later. She found the local flightmaster,  headed back the city, and changed her hearthstone to the Gilded Rose in the Trade District of Stormwind. And what about her guild status now? Still neutral, but at least she's on the board at 750/3000.

Later . . .  Chaitee was back at it and taking over Raven Hill for her next set of victories. It's amazing what can be accomplished by a powerful pet and a woman with a bow.

Chaitee finished her evening at Level 28 and in the process reached guild Friendly reputation status (1000/6000). Oh, and her bow is now a blunderbuss.

Monday Night: Chaitee pushed herself to Level 32, 5250/6000 guild status.

Note: Chaitee is taking advantage of the 12th WoW Anniversary benefits, such as the one hour buff increase to leveling experience and guild rank. Not sure how often the one hour buffs can be used.

Tomorrow is maintenance - it may be gone after that.

Update - The Tuesday maintenance is done and the anniversary benefits are still in place. Chaitee and the rest of the family can still take advantage the 12% increase in leveling.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Juggling Sista's

Juggling Sista's

Chaitee is one of the family sisters that doesn't get much notice, despite being on the job every day. She took a rare moment away from the Auction House to take the Historian's Challenge, a short test which she passed. The experience boosted her to Level 24. Congrats Chaitee! She's also changed her wardrobe slightly, slipping out of her Ceremonial Leather Harness and into a more comfortable Wound Dressing, a cute courtesy from Sista, who made it for her.

Rakta and Java are officially part of Legion now but have yet to crack level 101 and will likely not get much time for the foreseeable future. Both have professions they want to get moving on, but accept that they are not on the front burner.

Keya, already level 110, continues to work on her artifact weapons and improve her gear. She will have to bear a lot of the work getting Legion Pathfinder organized and completed.

Most of the time available is going to Sista. Her focus is on leveling (currently at level 108 plus 28%). Sista's been trying to help Chaitee at the same time, using her leveling time killing murlocs for silk while earning some modest leveling. Chaitee made her first 10,000 gold weekend take thanks in part to Sista's farming.

Sista has started to struggle with her many projects, which include working on leveling both enchanting and tailoring professions. While that isn't going as well as she'd like, Sista remains upbeat, pointing to the fact that she's been pretty successful with her First Aid profession (644/800).

Her latest foray took her into a new zone, Stormheim, where she has a tailoring quest to get to called "The Right Color." She's had to put aside the enchanting quest "The Gamour Has Faded" because there seems to be too many complications involving a place called the Darkheart Thicket, a dungeon, and a lost book. Sista will get it untangled, eventually.

Chaitee's new level uncovered an oddity that everyone in the guild completely overlooked. If Chaitee was aware of it, she kept silent. Tiphaine blames herself for the unintentional slight. The problem? Despite her lengthy service, Chaitee's standing with the guild is still listed as "Neutral." Chaitee has never been given any time to work on her guild status.

Tiphaine was determined to rectify that immediately. Chaitee was given permission to take some time off to get started on her guild duties. Tiphaine also gave her a blank check on a gear upgrade to fit her new level 24 status.

Below, Chaitee shows off her new Auction House ensemble as well as her recently purchased Leveling garb.





Chaitee in her AH Garb

Chaitee and Tazzy on Guild Business


Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Legion Pathfinder

Legion Pathfinder
(And you thought Draenor Pathfinder was hard?)

When Tiphaine was plowing through Draenor, her biggest, most onerous, challenge was the "Draenor Pathfinder" achievement. This long series of quests and achievements took months to complete. The purpose? Learning to fly in Draenor.

Based on what I've read so far, completing "Legion Pathfinder" will be far harder to achieve in almost every aspect. Wonderful.

In Legion's Broken Isles, not being able to fly hasn't been much of a problem most of the time. It's a pretty small island. Now that she's been max level 110 for awhile, the lack of flying has started to chafe. Without flying skill, getting to remote areas when needed is becoming an obstacle. Without flying skill, acquiring enough artifact power to maximize her artifact weapons will be nearly impossible.

Flying is a must. It's time for Keya to begin Legion Pathfinder.

Keya had a somewhat innocent idea that on such a small island, she might have already done much of the work already. In a word, No. Legion Pathfinder is patterned exactly like Draenor Pathfinder, with all of the same obstacles to overcome - and then some. There are five main categories with sub-categories of varying size and difficulty. In all likelihood it's the sub-categories that will give Keya the most trouble.

Keya checked her Achievements to date: Getting off on a good note, she does have one of the achievements already in the Explorer category.

Broken Isles Explorer:
Explore Val'sharah: Complete.
Explore Aszuna: Almost done, 10 of 11. That should be quick to finish.
Explore Highmountain: 7 of 14 completed
Explore Stormheim: 15 of 20 completed
Explore Suramar: 7 of 11 completed.

Variety is the Spice of Life:
4/100 World quests completed. I don't remember this one, but Tiphaine likely had to do this one too. I will have to do more reasearch on it.

A Glorious Campaign: Complete an Order Hall Campaign. Barely started. It includes completing all research on class hall upgrades.
Includes: A Classy Outfit: 1/8 class outfits (she's completed her helm, but it was purely accidental).

Loremaster of Legion: 4/5
    Includes: Good Sumaritan (0/11) in Suramar

Broken Isles Diplomat: 0/6

And that's just the bare bones beginning. Tiphaine eventually learned enough to craft a plan covering all of the things she had to accomplish. Keya will have to develop her own plan once she understands enough of what needs to be done.

Keya has a very long road to travel. On foot and ground mount.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Another Shot at Explaining Artifact Weapons

Another Shot at Explaining Artifact Weapons

Makakeya is a max level 110 Vengeance Demon Hunter. She wields ilevel 793 Aldrachi Warblades (main hand and off-hand warglaives). She is the most dangerous and deadly member of the guild, which includes guild leader Tiphaine. But even she doesn't really understand how to acquire and use this arsenal of traits and relics that can enhance her skill and weaponry, or even how they work.
At it's most simplistic, upgrading an artifact weapon requires artifact power, traits, and relics. Traits increase the strength of warblade abilities, and relics do the same while increasing the item level of her weapon. Artifact power is a commodity to consume or collect.

She starts with three empty relic slots - one each of iron, arcane and fel. I assume she will fill these slots with something.

She is given one artifact Ability - Soul Carver. Keya added this to her warglaive, filling one of the slots, and it also appears in her spellbook. She can now use that ability in combat. It's a start.
The Soul Carver is one button on the Artifact trait tree. Artifact Power (AP) is basically points that she can use to get more traits by spending AP. With me so far?

Keya goes to her Order Hall, on the Fel Hammer Ship. At the Order Hall, she has access to the Cursed Forge, which is where she can make changes to her artifact weapon. Keya can't add anything at the moment because doesn't have enough AP. She needs 6,840 AP to slot a new item or add a rank to an item already installed. Each time she makes a change the AP cost of the next change is even greater.

The main thing Keya wanted to know is how to best use those traits and relics. In what order should they be used? Should they be used as soon there are points available? Should she be saving points? Is there a "best pattern" she should follow, or is it all just the luck of the draw? None of these questions are answered.

Going back to the simplistic, the objective is to find, unlock, and use all of the 34 slots  available. And then, guess what? You'll get a bonus trait with twenty more ranks that can be used to increase damage (of course, this takes AP). She'll need a great deal more points to buy those twenty ranks.

Now, after all that, I get to the most important answer I've been after. Here it is: There is no magic way to get to 34. Random chance and the whims of quests will determine what you get and what you don't. And here I quote: "(1) you will eventually unlock every Artifact Trait on your weapon; (2) And the path you take to do so will not make a significant difference in your performance.

In other words, it's all blind luck. Just try to make the most out of the artifact power earned. PS - If Keya does everything perfectly (oops, she's already made mistakes), she'll need to earn 5,216,130 artifact points. Yes, that is more than FIVE MILLION points. Happy hunting.

Keya couldn't go through all that boring stuff above without catching some air and doing a little killing. She went hunting exclamation point (!) tags on the map showing where all the action was on the Broken Isles. She fought her way to one of the dungeons. There was only her at the opening, though, and she would have had to jump down a deep hole to get any closer. Not wanting to die, she just took a pic instead. Keya later helped two other players that were trying to kill a super elite. Keya weighed in. The kill got her a very nice i810 trinket that raised Keya's overall gear score from i793 to i796.


Thursday, November 17, 2016

Rakta and Java Heed Tiphaine's Orders

Rakta and Java Heed Tiphaine's Orders

Rakta thought she had it bad against the elites in Bastion of Twilight. They were nothing up against an array of elites required to storm the Broken Shores. Back when Legion first launched the Broken Shores were awash with battle and the killings were easy due to the sheer numbers of players participating. Even as things began to simmer down, there were plenty of participants still making their way into Legion.

Now? The shine is gone. Rakta had to make that journey mostly alone. Instead of a field full of helpful friends, there was just Rakta and whatever single sidekick was provided. Rakta died three times, costing her over a hundred gold in repairs. She got through it, though, and did what she had to do to reach her base at Skyhold. She got it done. Rakta proudly wears her Scaleshard sword and board artifacts now. Still only level 100, with just minted i705 gear, Tiphaine welcomed her back to the fold. The rest will come with time.

Next up - Javajoo

Java's experience went much smoother than Rakta's. She died only once and got a king's welcome into the paladin realm. Still level 100, with i707 gear. Her artifact weapons are Oathseeker and  Truthguard.

PS - Tiphaine doesn't really expect either Rakta or Java to be out killing high level elites in 25 man heroic dungeons . . . at least not right away. Both are now primed for leveling, though.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Shout out to Martin!

Shout out to Martin!

Not sure if you're still following my adventures in the World of Warcraft, but I can't blame you since I failed to respond to your last post in September. My bad. How are your two kittens doing? We've added one more to our household. She's under a year old, all white, with one green eye and one blue eye. She was supposed to be a catch and release but well, you know the story. Her name's Miley and she's still more feral than not, but she'll fit in I'm sure.

Sadly, we lost one of ours recently. Mr Creme passed away suddenly last month. He was sixteen. Mr Creme was one of seven cats in Jezzibell's litter. Out of that litter, only Lexi survives. Mama Jezzi is still around, as mean and ornery as ever at 17 years old.


Take care,
Charlie and Judi

Heroic 25 Man Solo Raiding

Heroic 25 Man Solo Raiding

When Tiphaine agreed it was a good idea to run BoT for cloth and hypnotic dust, she went herself to check it out. At level 110 and a full two expansions ahead of the BoT level, she knew that slaying the poor critters in the first, open chamber was child's play. After the last run, Tiphaine swept through the rest of the dungeon, killing all of the elite bosses with minimal effort.
That seemed easy enough, so Tiphaine sent level 107 Sista in for another round. Same purpose, same results.

Tiphaine then gave her blessing to level 100 Rakta. Go do good things. Rakta did fine clearing the open chamber, although it took many seconds longer and she actually took some minor damage, like 3%, but it was irritating just the same. On her final run she, too, looked forward to a full clear. Her first challenge was Halfus Windbreaker. Rakta waded in, supremely confident, and found herself struggling to survive. The battle took a long time. Rakta did eventually kill Halfus, but the battle was exhausting and her health, at the end, was at 6%. One lesson learned is to know the battle. Clearly, Rakta didn't have the raw power to overwhelm the encounter.

Rakta is stubborn. She read up on the next encounter, the pair of dragons, Theralion and Valonia. She fought the dragons. And lost. Twice. It was close, give Rakta some credit for trying, but it was not to be. She's level 100 and can't kill a pair of level 85 elites? Though admittedly at 25 player Heroic level.

What's the problem? Well . . . To start with Rakta has yet to complete the quest, Return to the Broken Shore, which allows Rakta to start gaining experience. She does not yet have her artifact weapon, either. In effect, her level is at the Draenor level of skill, not Legion level.

What about level 100 Javajoo? Where does she fit in? Java hasn't even started. She has reached Dalaran, and that's it. She's still waiting to talk to Orik Trueheart. No artifact weapon, and she hasn't even seen the Broken Isles yet. Java probably couldn't defeat BoT's first boss, Halfus Windbreaker, though Java swears she could. Tiphaine didn't give her that chance.

Tiphaine ordered both Java and Rakta to "get their chores done," which includes getting onto the Broken Isles, start getting experience, and earn their artifact weapon.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Further Lulling - Try to Stay Awake

Further Lulling - Try to Stay Awake

Sista talked Tiphaine into helping her get more hypnotic dust to make embersilk bags. The farmers all point to the Bastion of Twilight as the best place to farm the dust. The first room of the dungeon is full of mobs that might drop shardable gear. Clear the room of mobs, then reset the instance. Sista and Tiphaine each can clear that room up to ten times. On the tenth run, the entire dungeon is cleared because that tenth run triggers the weekly lockdown.

BoT is definitely a great place to farm embersilk, gathering over 800 between the two of them. Getting hypnotic dust, however, remains very much the luck of the draw. First, shardable gear has to drop. Sharding that gear "might" create hypnotic dust, but it mostly drops celestial essences and maelstrom crystals. Luck did not go Sista's way. She got a grand total of 17 hypnotic dust, enough to make only one bag.

Keya added her own support. She improved her leather working skill to 711/800 by crafting gear that Sista can shard. She was able to contribute 24 pieces of gear to shard, getting 24 leylight shards worth a minimum 70 gold each (do the math, that's 1,680 gold).

Another option is to sell the hypnotic dust, which is running about 29g apiece. Selling 15 dust would get Sista 435 gold (going price for the bag is 448g, but that varies). Chaitee weighed in, commenting that unless the dust gets a lot cheaper the family would be better off just selling the dust directly on the AH. She didn't bother asking permission. Chaitee put all her hypnotic dust on the AH.

Chaitee is pestering Java and Rakta to make BoT runs, too. Bored and restless, they may take up the offer. Yep, it's time to level up some toons and then hit the Auction House. Again. :-)

Monday, November 14, 2016

In A Lull

In A Lull

First, a quick question before getting to the usual reports. I saw in Chat recently that groups are now raiding the new version of Karazhan, looking for players with at least i850 gear. Wow. Has anyone you know ventured into that raid/dungeon yet? Pics? Thoughts? I'm very curious.

For the past two weeks the most active player has been Chaitee, who handles the Auction House. She's been able to keep up with the demands of the rest of the family while still managing to add forty thousand gold to the coffers. Not bad.

On the other hand, the rest of the family hasn't been doing much. Sista mostly farms shal'dorei silk along the river in Aszuna. When the silk was selling at 4g each Chaitee was buying up every piece that hit the market and doing great business crafting the silk bags. The unfortunate backlash drove the price of silk above 6 gold each and has stubbornly remained there. Which is why Sista has to farm the silk now to make the silk bags Chaitee had hoped to sell. Sista still farms the silk, but stopped making the bags. Now she sells the silk, at least until the price drops down enough to be worth making the bags.

The embersilk bags aren't in any better shape. Hypnotic dust is a pain to farm and the bags require 15 of them for one bag. Chaitee is under orders not to buy hypnotic dust for more than 15g each. Current pricing for hypnotic dust is 30g plus, which won't sell. Always looking for an edge, Sista has been crafting frostweave bags which are currently cheap to make right now and are selling at high prices (316g each vs the usual 250-280g). Prices will continue to veer back and forth and Chaitee will continue to roll with the changes.

Chaitee is waiting until the lockout of The Bastion of Twilight (BoT) ends and the family can farm gear to make hypnotic dust again. Hopefully Sista will be able to get in by Tuesday. The plan is to get every family member into BoT, sending all gear that can be sharded to Sista.

I haven't figured out how to make a profit on the new enchanting mats, Arkhana and Leylight Shard. One leylight can be broken into three arkhana. It takes an enormous number of these mats to produce anything useful, and that has stymied both making a profit off them and leveling the profession. Sista has managed to get her Tailoring to 734/800, but her enchanting is at a very disappointing 710/800.

On the personal front, Sista is now level 107 with an overall gear score of i753. She's not actively trying to reach level 110, just letting it come naturally as a result of the rest of her work. Her major regret is the mess she's made of her artifact weapon, Claws of Ursoc at i774. Her relics are poor quality and because of mistakes I've made there is no continuity in the relic thread. She has 5200 artifact power she can use, but that's not really much to work with. I don't know how to fix that.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

And Now For My Next Trick

And Now For My Next Trick

Sista is back in the news. She stumbled across the quest thread for the Enchanting Profession and has been going gangbusters for the last couple days. The girl can't focus on just one thing at a time, though, so don't expect that to last. She managed to work her way to Level 105, though, so that's something. Keya was also a beneficiary of Sista's enchanting, sending her a pair of Legion level ring enchants and a speed enhancement for her cloak. Sista has worked her way into Highmountain, having mostly cleared Aszuna and much of Val'Sharah. Sista's gear level is i740.

Keya also popped up recently. Since she and Sista both use leather gear, Keya figures she should work a little harder on leveling her Leatherworking skills. She's made decent progress already, with 653/800 skill. Her aim is to get access to the imbued patterns that will allow her to craft gear at i800 and better. Keya is at i793 gear level.

Even as Keya marches toward 800 leatherworking, she is still flummoxed by the maddening process of crafting the special items required to get access to the better crafted gear. She's been handed two quests and related recipes, "From Head to Toe" and "Playthings." The first is a recipe for Sturdy Stonehide Boots. The second recipe is for a Pet Bed. Knowing how many cats are around the house, I'm constantly being bothered by one group of cats trying to purr their way into getting a bed, and another group who'd rather ignore all that work and just go outside and play. Yeesh! So much pressure! I am again at the mercy of Namha Moonwater and her workbench, tanning rack, her vials of tanning mixtures and six different types of leather, all of which are needed to make just one of the damned things. If there is an actual linear process to complete the items, she can't find one. It took a small miracle, but Keya finally unraveled the recipe for the Pet Bed. The plain ugliness has wrung all enjoyment out of Legion leatherworking, but she was finally able to complete the Pet Bed.

She doesn't even want to think about crafting the boots. Completing the quest to get that recipe used up all ten of the Shaved Stonehide Pelts, and there doesn't seem to be a way to get more. Eventually she'll figure it out, but yuck.

Opinion on The State of Weaponry: Kind of Sad, really. I know that artifact weapons are now the be all weapon for all classes. I know that in my head, but my heart still wishes for the days when choices had to be made. The two hander, which is no longer available above i100, although the Sword and board is still around. The Hunter and his great bow - sorry, ALL ranged weapons die out at i100 as well. Even the hunter class have been reduced to melee only. Ranged DPS now belongs exclusively to spell casters (and pets if you count them as ranged). Sure, we can now pile all kinds of things on our one singular weapon. I envision players needing carts to hold all the attachments and short classes like gnomes disappearing from view under the shear number of gadgets on their weapon. On second thought, gnomes disappearing wouldn't be such a bad thing. :-)