Hello, fellow Travelers! In marathon play sessions, I brought both my Human Frost Mage and my Earthen Pally to level 80. I also made my guild cross-realm for the first time. Read on for “The Details Within.”
(Click here to read last week’s installment)
WORLD OF WARCRAFT RETAIL: THE WAR WITHIN
I spent some time, “going around the bend” with my many alts. Meaning, I logged each one in to check their mail and progress their leveling at least a little bit. That mostly involved moving through more of the Dornogal Councilward Merrix storyline for the umpteenth time.
It also entailed some Isle of Dorn world and story questing. I like to choose the weekly “complete 6 World Quests” for my characters and hack away at that through the ensuing days. It’s generally fun and you can earn gear upgrades and a bit o’ gold.
My Human Frost Mage, Snowburst, worked her way through various stories in Dorn and Ringing Deeps, such as clearing Kobolds out of The Waterworks, and climbed to level 79. Later, she ran the Darkflame Cleft Follower dungeon for XP and to grab Knicknack’s Knicknacks for him. After downing the Blazikon boss, she dinged level 80. That gave me the “Five Warband Mentors” Achievement and made me realize I’d forgotten there was even more to the alt experience buff. I thought four level 80s and a 20% buff was the maximum. NOW, I’ve completed five 80s and my alts will receive a 25% XP buff.
Snowburst dousing the flame and hitting 80
Additionally, Snowburst is my Tailor and I realized that running dungeons is a good source for cloth materials. Soloing current dungeons isn’t something we could do previously, and I’m averse to PUGs. Thanks to Follower Dungeons, profession mats just became a little easier to obtain.
Over the weekend, I put way too many hours into The War Within and took my Earthen Protection Paladin all the way to 80. After hitting level 68 in Iskaara, “The War Within” push-quest popped up and I hightailed it to Silithus (via helpful scroll), beginning the Dalaran invasion. It took Rubblerock ages to chew through the attacking Nerubians as his gear, and weapon especially, weren’t really up to the task. But I pushed on and made it to the Isle of Dorn. It felt great to bring a new Earthen back to his homeland. I just wish the other Earthen would stop calling him “Outworlder.”
Rubble rockin’ Heritage Armor and a fresh level 80
The Earthen Heritage Armor quest was a simple turn-in in Dorn and that provided a groovy transmog to slip into. I also had lots of Radiant Echoes event armor and such in the Warband Bank and that got Rubble quickly up the iLevel ladder and into a good starting place.
Rubblerock threw all of his Dragonflight mats and junk on the Auction House and that brought in over 3k gold. He went down the Lightsmith Hero Tree at 71 and, so far, that feels fine.
He quested across the Isle, hitting 74 while killing seagulls for a World Quest, and 75 wiping out Kobolds on Mourning Rise. It was 76 in Boskroot Basin and a move into Ringing Deeps got him to 77 and 78. I journeyed into Hallowfall for some fresher questing, eventually hitting level 80 on a Disturbed Dirt Wax Beast. Whew!
Looting The Great Vault – so that’s what that’s like!
Lastly, in other character news, tank Rootbeard soloed a Tier 5 Delve without too much trouble, so hopefully Blizzard’s fixes are getting close to the right place. I’ll need to check on that with a non-tanky class to be sure. I enjoyed grabbing my first loot out of The Great Vault too, thanks to the new “World” track.
Also, with the help of my buddy and guild mate, Ceredoric, we figured out how to make our long-running, 2-person guild cross-realm. After that was accomplished, we invited my first ever character, Varlo, who lives on another server, into our guild. Wow! It felt so nice to have my 2004 initial character in the same guild, connected via cross-realm and Warbands. And it only took 20 years!