Reflections approaching 100

[Cryptoengineer]

My lock is at 99.44, ilvl 592

Somehow, this levelling run seemed almost too easy. Maybe 'locks are OP.

With the Voidlord as a personal tank, very few fights have been
challenging. Some of the big set-piece battles - up at Iron Docks,
Shattrath, and Grommashar took a lot of concentration, but were doable.

My gear didn't start to get replaced till 97, but I still have the
BoA weapon from Garrosh, the legendary cloak, and two trinkets left
over from MoP. I'll be really sad to let the cloak go.

Rares are all over the place, and definitely worth the effort. They
tend to drop nice blues.

'Bonus goals' areas are a quick XP boost, but don't reward gear, so
I've stopped doing them. I don't want to outlevel my gear.

Instances vary - they don't give enough XP, but Skyreach gives some nice
items. I'm continuing to run it, hoping trinkets drop.

I've got the legendary ring, but can't wear it yet. I think I may go for
the Apexis Crystals quest to upgrade it, worried that I won't be able to
get into the heroics for a while - my DPS is kind of mediocre (5k-6k).

I still haven't sussed out garrisons - it looks like I may be able to
take some of my followers to help fight, but haven't figured out the
mechanics of doing so. My garrison is at level two, and I have a
storehouse (giving bank access), and enchanting (letting me shard stuff).
But handling work orders, missions, etc, remains a bit of mystery.

Sharding is big deal; it's always bugged me that I have to vendor gear
that my mage could have DE'd. Since I didn't need money, I also tended to
shard BoEs. Now, I can do so, though I'm saving the BoEs for alts.

Still liking the greeness of most of the zones.

Wish my toon could fly.

pt

[Cryptoengineer]

Post by Cryptoengineer
My lock is at 99.44, ilvl 592
Somehow, this levelling run seemed almost too easy. Maybe 'locks are OP.
With the Voidlord as a personal tank, very few fights have been
challenging. Some of the big set-piece battles - up at Iron Docks,
Shattrath, and Grommashar took a lot of concentration, but were doable.
My gear didn't start to get replaced till 97, but I still have the
BoA weapon from Garrosh, the legendary cloak, and two trinkets left
over from MoP. I'll be really sad to let the cloak go.
Rares are all over the place, and definitely worth the effort. They
tend to drop nice blues.
'Bonus goals' areas are a quick XP boost, but don't reward gear, so
I've stopped doing them. I don't want to outlevel my gear.
Instances vary - they don't give enough XP, but Skyreach gives some nice
items. I'm continuing to run it, hoping trinkets drop.
I've got the legendary ring, but can't wear it yet. I think I may go for
the Apexis Crystals quest to upgrade it, worried that I won't be able to
get into the heroics for a while - my DPS is kind of mediocre (5k-6k).
I still haven't sussed out garrisons - it looks like I may be able to
take some of my followers to help fight, but haven't figured out the
mechanics of doing so. My garrison is at level two, and I have a
storehouse (giving bank access), and enchanting (letting me shard stuff).
But handling work orders, missions, etc, remains a bit of mystery.
Sharding is big deal; it's always bugged me that I have to vendor gear
that my mage could have DE'd. Since I didn't need money, I also tended to
shard BoEs. Now, I can do so, though I'm saving the BoEs for alts.
Still liking the greeness of most of the zones.
Wish my toon could fly.

One last thing to add - in the absence of flying, the engineering Goblin
Glider tinker on my cloak ROCKS! - there are frequent cases where I am
at the top of something, and want to get down. The GG saves a lot of
time and aggravation.

pt

[Peter T.]

Post by Cryptoengineer
My gear didn't start to get replaced till 97, but I still have the
BoA weapon from Garrosh, the legendary cloak, and two trinkets left
over from MoP. I'll be really sad to let the cloak go.

When you hit 100 you can buy two 615 trinkets in Stormshield. 500g
each. I have them on my mage:

<eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/darkmoon-faire/kvast/simple>

Both summons a bodyguard. Not big damage dealers though. but its okay
as the trinkets boosts your ilvl with a few important points closer to
the important 610 if you want to do heroics. :)

[Cryptoengineer]

Post by Peter T.

Post by Cryptoengineer
My gear didn't start to get replaced till 97, but I still have the
BoA weapon from Garrosh, the legendary cloak, and two trinkets left
over from MoP. I'll be really sad to let the cloak go.

When you hit 100 you can buy two 615 trinkets in Stormshield. 500g
<eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/darkmoon-faire/kvast/simple>
Both summons a bodyguard. Not big damage dealers though. but its okay
as the trinkets boosts your ilvl with a few important points closer to
the important 610 if you want to do heroics. :)

Thanks for that! I've got them both now, and after dinging 100 yesterday
and equipping the legendary-to-be ring, I'm at 607. Gettint close.

pt

[Catriona R]

On Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:16:54 -0600, Cryptoengineer

Post by Cryptoengineer

Post by Peter T.

Post by Cryptoengineer
My gear didn't start to get replaced till 97, but I still have the
BoA weapon from Garrosh, the legendary cloak, and two trinkets left
over from MoP. I'll be really sad to let the cloak go.

When you hit 100 you can buy two 615 trinkets in Stormshield. 500g
<eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/darkmoon-faire/kvast/simple>
Both summons a bodyguard. Not big damage dealers though. but its okay
as the trinkets boosts your ilvl with a few important points closer to
the important 610 if you want to do heroics. :)

Thanks for that! I've got them both now, and after dinging 100 yesterday
and equipping the legendary-to-be ring, I'm at 607. Gettint close.

Nice :-) I had both of them but then got an upgrade on a quest reward
in Nagrand that turned out better (crit isn't meant to be good for
holy priests and I got an int one instead!), I love these random
reward upgrades, got a staff upgrade itself to 625 as well :-) I'm
exactly 610, but not planning to try heroics yet, I'll explore normals
a bit first I think....

[Catriona R]

On Mon, 17 Nov 2014 10:14:37 -0600, Cryptoengineer

Post by Cryptoengineer
My lock is at 99.44, ilvl 592
Somehow, this levelling run seemed almost too easy. Maybe 'locks are OP.

Quite possibly ;-) It was easy for me in the early zones due to my
gear, Spires of Arak got tougher though, luckily for me by then I had
my Barracks upgraded and got a bodyguard, which makes a huge
difference, I really feel it when I leave him at home (treasure
hunting doing jumping puzzles is rather easier without a huge ogre in
my face :-P)

Post by Cryptoengineer
My gear didn't start to get replaced till 97, but I still have the
BoA weapon from Garrosh, the legendary cloak, and two trinkets left
over from MoP. I'll be really sad to let the cloak go.

I replaced my trinkets first, surprisingly, at present I'm still
wearing legendary cloak and all my Ordos drops, have replaced
everything else. Haven't quested Nagrand yet or done dungeons higher
than Auchindoun, so there'll be more upgrades to come soon!

Post by Cryptoengineer
'Bonus goals' areas are a quick XP boost, but don't reward gear, so
I've stopped doing them. I don't want to outlevel my gear.

Fair point, I did the lot as I'm a completist, and figured that as
I'll do a whole zone and then move on, outlevelling is more of a good
thing, as I'll be higher lvl than the mobs. Although the ratings decay
maybe made that thought backfire a tad, I feel weaker now than I did a
few lvls ago, against the same mobs.

Post by Cryptoengineer
Instances vary - they don't give enough XP, but Skyreach gives some nice
items. I'm continuing to run it, hoping trinkets drop.

I actually enjoyed the levelling ones, a big relief, I'd got so used
to healing pugs being an enormous nightmare that I was very scared of
trying them. By all I hear heroic is tougher but I'm in no hurry for
that, I'll try the normals over the coming days though, and gear up a
bit. (Btw it's not toughness I'm scared of so much as the "blame the
healer" attitude, I always expect a ton of abuse if anyone dies, even
if they stood in the fire...)

Post by Cryptoengineer
I've got the legendary ring, but can't wear it yet. I think I may go for
the Apexis Crystals quest to upgrade it, worried that I won't be able to
get into the heroics for a while - my DPS is kind of mediocre (5k-6k).

How much needs to be done for that? Just the normal Skyreach run? I'm
hoping that's the case as I'm well away from heroics at present, would
be awesome to get the ring without those.

Post by Cryptoengineer
I still haven't sussed out garrisons - it looks like I may be able to
take some of my followers to help fight, but haven't figured out the
mechanics of doing so.

Barracks lvl 2 lets you assign a follower with the Bodyguard trait to
it, then you can talk to that follower and tell them to come out with
you. I've got a massive ogre as mine at present, figured if I don't
have a tank spec follower (I did on alliance during beta, don't seem
to have found one on Hose now), I may as well have a bodyguard who
looks the part!

Post by Cryptoengineer
My garrison is at level two, and I have a
storehouse (giving bank access), and enchanting (letting me shard stuff).
But handling work orders, missions, etc, remains a bit of mystery.

The quests when you first build your building tell you how to do the
work orders, basically, you hand over materials, and a few hours later
the crate beside the building is filled with better materials! Each
order has a 3-4 hour cd (I'm honestly not sure which but suspect 4
hours), but you can queue a load of them up and they'll be done one at
a time, even if you're not there. So say I queue up 14 Taladite orders
at my JC hut, and go away, every 4 hours one order will finish and the
next will begin, no need for me to be there. When I next log on I'll
pick them all up and queue a few more.

Post by Cryptoengineer
Sharding is big deal; it's always bugged me that I have to vendor gear
that my mage could have DE'd. Since I didn't need money, I also tended to
shard BoEs. Now, I can do so, though I'm saving the BoEs for alts.

Yeah I took the enchanting hut for levelling, once I'm done with
questing and have got my enchanter alt levelled enough to have her
recipes, I'll bulldoze it and replace with a Storehouse I think, the
amount of reagents clogging my bags up is incredible, so not having to
port to Ashran to use the bank would be a big help (I have the Argent
Gruntling and make good use of him but I want the bank more often than
his cd is up!)

Post by Cryptoengineer
Still liking the greeness of most of the zones.

I love the looks of all the zones, even Frostfire Ridge, which had
potential to look a bit barren, is so dramatic that I love it,
something of a relief, as I loved SMV so much on beta, I was expecting
the Horde zone to be a letdown.

Post by Cryptoengineer
Wish my toon could fly.

I'm not missing it at present, all those jumping puzzles for treasure
would be trivialised with flying, and it makes the whole world seem
bigger (seriously, on beta I couldn't believe how BIG SMV is, yet I
assume it's the same size as the Outland SMV... which ofc, I've always
flown in, given I was already 70 when I got there in TBC), love it.

That said, it has its annoyances, especially in zones with hills and
mountains, the number of times I see something on the map/minimap and
find there's a hill in the way are a bit irritating, especially if
it's a tiny little step I can't quite jump up (I love that shredder
from my outpost in Gorgrond, it can fly for a few seconds, just enough
to jump annoying cliffs/gaps!). But overall it's an improvement, at
least for now, I reckon it'll get old after a few months, but it's a
good change to have it disabled as a temporary thing.

[Fvert]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Cryptoengineer
Still liking the greeness of most of the zones.

I love the looks of all the zones, even Frostfire Ridge, which had
potential to look a bit barren, is so dramatic that I love it,
something of a relief, as I loved SMV so much on beta, I was expecting
the Horde zone to be a letdown.

I haven't been to other zones yet but the Horde starting zone has too
many ups and downs and zigs and zags for my liking. I spend a lot of my
time seeing the exclamation mark or the question mark on the map but not
seeing how to get there.


Brian