Hello, fellow Travelers! The ol’ day job kept me busy this week, but I still managed to put a healthy number of hours into The War Within. Season One arrived, I got my fourth character to level 80, and I picked up the excellent new Packmaster Mount for nearly free. Read on for the juicy details.
(If you’d like to read last week’s installment: you can do so here)
WORLD OF WARCRAFT RETAIL: THE WAR WITHIN
Starmace – the Human Ret. Pally (who I originally made over a decade back to play with my daughter’s Warrior, Starblade) was my current, highest level character. Starting the week at 77, she got lots of questing attention. Her base of operations was Hallowfall and there was plenty to do.
She helped a Peculiar Fish in the Sunless Strand by slaughtering a large amount of Kobyss and made level 78 for the trouble. She also grabbed all available World Quests, and at one point, earned the very cute baby lynx pet “Vanilla.” Later, she hit 79 and unexpectedly unlocked Steady Flight with “The War Within Pathfinder” Achievement.
Eventually, she maxed out at level 80 while assisting The Brothers Braunpyke in killing even more Kobyss. That brought me to four max-level characters and I’ve now got the full 20% experience point bonus active for my “army of alts™.”
Rubblerock at 64 – awake in the machine
That XP bonus has made leveling my Earthen Pally, Rubblerock, a good deal easier. The only issue is, he’s questing in Dragonflight and that feels old and tired at this point. And that’s not a dig at the quality of DF, it’s just that I’ve already spent far too much time in that expansion. Still, the pull of bringing a fresh, new Earthen character into The War Within zones has kept driving me forward.
Rubble, with his double-gathering and XP bonus, managed to go from level 40 last week to 64 by today. Most of his questing has been in the Ohn’ahran Plains. He ran the Brackenhide Hollow Follower Dungeon on his own and managed to secure two level-ups and “The Vegetarian Diet” cheevo and Happy Tuskarr Palooza toy. When he hit 50, he unlocked the Earthen Heritage Armor quest, but since you need to turn that in to Dornogal in Khaz Algar, it’s going to have to wait for a while.
The Level 80 Quartet – stay awhile and rest your weary bones
In dueling main character news, Tipton and Rootbeard, ran Weeklies, World Quests, a World Boss, and a few dungeons as I worked on raising their respective gear levels. At the end of the week, Rootbeard was one iLevel point higher (576 to 575) than Tipton for the first time in, I think, ever.
With the arrival of Season One, it was time to run some higher level Delves and begin that journey properly. Except…them Delves is hard! Well, hard to solo. I’ve been grousing about this for awhile and I’m actually pleased to see that player consensus seems to be with me on this. It’s not just that I suck!
When I’ve run Tier 4 and 5 Delves with my buddy Ceredoric, we zip through them pretty quickly without issue. But, on my own? Fugetaboutit! And I’m over the recommended gear level. Since Delves have long been billed as content for solo players – a bit of difficulty balancing would be very welcome ASAP.
Brann and Rootbeard – brothers with different mothers
Overall, it’s been another fun week with this glut of new content and I’ve also worked on various character’s professions; Blacksmithing, Alchemy, Tailoring, Enchanting, and Jewelcrafting. And let’s not forget about Cooking and Fishing. I’m not very far along the main profession paths but I’ve enjoyed inching forward.
I’m still making decent gold on the Auction House and yesterday I bought a Wow Token with in-game gold and picked up the new Grizzly Hills Packmaster Mount (see top pic). I had six bucks hanging around in my Blizzard balance, so the mount was basically free. I love having the repair, sell, and transmog capabilities at hand and the bear is much smaller than those damned Grand Expedition Yaks. If I see one more of those AFK Yaks on top of an NPC I need to interact with I’m going to scream!
All right, I’m not really going to scream, but I know you’re with me on this. Everyone needs to switch to Bears. Perhaps Blizzard can encourage this with some kind of friendly Yak trade-in reward?
S’all for now, ‘Traveling pals. Keep your feet on the ground!