A Pandaren Abroad!

Hi,

Well, most of my week was spent leveling my Pandaren Rogue. She made it though Redridge Mountains, Nothern Stranglehorn, and Cape of Stranglehorn. She then used the portal to Western Plaguelands and then hit Eastern Plaguelands before taking the rocket to Badlands. Then, after finishing the Badlands and the first few quests in Searing Gorge, she decided to see what things are like in Kalimdor.

So, she boarded the boat for Teldrassil. She then flew to Moonglade and rode to Felwood to do the last few quests involving the Timbermaw Hold, before heading off to Winterspring.

Stealthy in Winterspring

So, that's where things stand. She did all the questing up until getting to Everlook, and is now level 51. The reason I do Felwood -> Winterspring is that I really enjoy questing in Winterspring, and the last few Felwood quests. I much prefer them to the Searing Gorge/Burning Steppes quests.

Another thing Stealthy did while questing in the evening, was to queue for dungeons. She did quite a few, and that's where the increase in Achievements came from this week. I do dungeons because in the evening it's slow going questing with all the damn players around because of CRZ. I get a good chunk of questing in the morning before going to work, and there are far less people 6am->7am.

Other than that, I've actually completed the Blasted Lands Iron Horde quests on a few characters. It's not bad at all. A nice little questline, with a few nice rewards for my lower geared 90s.

Of course, I've continued to do farms on Gnomey, Fengsui, and Pally, and continued to do Timeless Isle on Blizzy, Unstable, and Pally. When I get the Vision in Time quests, I can just load up a second version of WoW and get on my second account to form a Raid group to enter SOO.

Oh yeah, I also transferred Bambood over to Draenor, so there are no more transfers to bother with any more. I will start deleting all Venture Co characters once they've transferred Hierlooms over, and will probably delete all my Ravenholt characters too.

Alliance (Brits United) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (90) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600) - iLvL 552
Draenybrit (90) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 600/Blacksmithing 600) - iLvL 528
Gnomeybrit (90) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 600/Enchanting 600) - iLvl 546
Flictionbrit (90) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 600/Engineering 600) - iLvL 519
Fengsuibrit (90) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600) - iLvL 532
Blizzybrit (90) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 600/Jewelcrafting 600) - iLvL 510
Boomybrit (90) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 600/Inscription 600) - iLvL 505
Unstablebrit (90) - Human/Warlock (Mining 600/Skinning 600) - iLvL 523 
Pallybrit (90) - Human/Paladin (Mining 600/Tailoring 600) - iLvL 515
Bamboodbrit (90) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600) - iLvL 506
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter

Alliance on Echo Isles:
 
Shaolinbrit (85) - Pandaren/Monk (None) 
Slealthybrit (51) - Pandaren/Rogue (None)
Smashbrit (5) - Pandaren/Warrior (None)

Achievements went up to 4630 this week, with the last 3 being: Iron Invasion, Mauradon, and Razorfen Downs.

The plan for next week is to get Stealthy to 60 and boost. Then to continue to level Smash, I guess, while I continue to do farms and Timeless Isle.

Only a few weeks until WoD now!

Opinion Time: The In-Game Quest UI

I have been using Carbonite Quest ever since I found out about it, about 3 or 4 years ago. Well, it wasn't updated for 6.0.2, so I had no alternative other than to use the in game quest UI.

I must say, after using it for a couple of weeks, I find it fairly intuitive, and really good. I turned on auto quest tracking, meaning that quests automatically get tracked when you accept them. This is excellent, and it's easy to find out where things are, from the small map with the arrow, or by looking at the larger map.

A good test was the new Iron Horde quests in Blasted Lands. I hadn't done them before, but it was really easy using the quest tracker, especially in the place where you need to kill 3 mobs, plant flags, and recover some items.

Nice one Blizzard. I really approve of your quest UI, and I will use it for WoD and not bother with Carbonite any more.     

Leveling again!!

Hi,

Yep, back to actually leveling characters, instead of just doing the farms on multiple toons. This is because my back is feeling better, and I'm sitting down playing a lot now. 6.0.2 dropped last week, and I immediately filled up Shaolin's bag and bank with tons of stuff from the Venture Co. guild bank. Then, I transferred her to Echo Isles. Once she got there, I was leveling her furiously to get to 85 and then pass all the Heirlooms to Stealthy.

Well, I did accomplish that task. I got her to 85 on Sunday, and now I will be leveling Stealthy like crazy, to get to level 60, and use the boost. I actually got Stealthy to level 20 this morning.

One other thing I should mention is that, because Carbonite is not ready for 6.0.2, I've been using the in game quest UI. It's actually not bad. I'm really getting used to it, and may continue to just use it. I'll have to use it at the start of WoD anyway, because Carbonite is never available for some time after a new expansion release.

Now, I said that 6.0.2 dropped, and with it came new models. Here are the new Flaying and Draeny.

Flaying

She looks pretty much the same. I like the new model, but not as much as:

Draeny

She looks even more awesome. I'm very happy with what they did to the Draenei model.

However, I'm not happy with what they did with the female Gnomes:

Gnomey

What on earth is with all the blackness around the eyes? Also, all her former cuteness is gone. I just don't like this new model at all.

As I said last week in the opinion piece, the inventory improvements were the best thing about 6.0.2. The mats stacking to 200 was brilliant. Especially for my Tailors and Leatherworkers, who had tons of stacks of Bolts of Windwool Cloth, and Exotic Leather, respectively. Gnomey had enough Celestial Cloth to craft the belt for Unstable.

What I've be doing with my 90s is to do the farms on Gnomey, Fengsui, and Pally, for the daily Celestial Cloth, Imperial Silk, and Magnificent Hardened Hide. On Blizzy and Unstable, I've been doing Timeless Isle. I got to 50K coins on Unstable and decided to gamble with them. In the cave, I got 2 Burdens of Eternity (yay!), 3 Bonkers (sold for 25g each), and 25 pieces of Timeless Gear. Not bad at all.

Another thing I did was upgrade all the (higher than level 500) gear I could with Lesser Charms of Good Fortune. I had plenty on each character, and nearly all of them improved in iLvL this week.

Oh, and I also started my Pandaren Warrior. I got her to level 3. I'll be creating a Pandaren of each class and leveling them all up to 90.

Here's where things stand:

Alliance (Brits United) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (90) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600) - iLvL 552
Draenybrit (90) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 600/Blacksmithing 600) - iLvL 526
Gnomeybrit (90) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 600/Enchanting 600) - iLvl 546
Flictionbrit (90) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 600/Engineering 600) - iLvL 519
Fengsuibrit (90) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600) - iLvL 532
Blizzybrit (90) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 600/Jewelcrafting 600) - iLvL 509
Boomybrit (90) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 600/Inscription 600) - iLvL 505
Unstablebrit (90) - Human/Warlock (Mining 600/Skinning 600) - iLvL 514
Pallybrit (90) - Human/Paladin (Mining 600/Tailoring 600) - iLvL 505
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter

Alliance on Echo Isles:

Shaolinbrit (85) - Pandaren/Monk (None)
Slealthybrit (20) - Pandaren/Rogue (None)
Smashbrit (3) - Pandaren/Warrior (None)

Alliance (Brits United) on Venture Co:

Bamboodbrit (90) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600) - iLvL 502

Achievements didn't move this week.

The plan for next week to level Stealthy. Level Shaolin also, might as well get her to 90. Continue doing the farms, and Timeless Isle. Oh, and I haven't done the Iron Tide quests yet, or the new Dungeon. I might actually try those next week.

Opinion Time - Two bad things about Warlords of Draenor

So, I've read up a lot on Warlords of Draenor, and there are two aspects that I really don't like. Here they are:

1. Professions

Look on wowhead to see what they've done to professions. They've got a crafted material for all crafted professions that you get on a daily CD, or from Garrison Work Orders. This is then used to craft some high level gear and upgrades to that gear. Note that you can only equip 3 items of crafted gear though, really limiting the usefullness.

My issue is that there is nothing to craft with base mats. There is nothing not tied to daily CD and Work Orders. I can't just take 100 Bolts of Windwool Cloth and make 25 cloaks. No, I have to accumulate the mats over days and days and eventually make 1 piece. I really think this is a step backwards.

2. Dailies

At level 100, I think there are 2 Dailies available. That's it. You don't grind faction rep by doing dailies, you kill mobs. They seemed to think that having all those dailies in MoP was a bad thing.

It wasn't a bad thing. Gating gear behind rep behind dailies was a bad thing. They've really gone overboard in cutting back the number of dailies available.

Cheers.   

Getting ready for 6.0.2

Hi,

Really looking forward to it. I'll be transferring Shaolin over to Draenor and will actually start some leveling again. I've also been able to run quite a few Heroics on my toons, getting tons of JPs and VPs which will each turn into 47s tomorrow. 120 JP from each Heroic boss. That's an extra 55g or so from each kill (as long as you're below the 4000 cap). That's insane.

Unfortunately, I'm still not without a lot of knee pain, so can't play at my main computer that much, and I can't do Heroics lying down in bed because I'd mess up too much. I just do the farms on my Laptop in bed and run the Heroics on my main computer every now and again. I have it so I use it standing up (because of my back), and I can only stand with my bad knee for short periods.

Anyway, enough of my issues. I've been doing the farms each day as I detailed last week. I've been doing the non combat dailies too and so I'm building up cash, because Warlord of Draenor is going to require a lot of it :)

I thought I'd just let you have a look at a couple of my characters. Here's Flaying, looking very bored and in mid-yawn:

Flayingbrit

And here's Draeny, looking awesome:

Draenybrit

Now, I'm not into Transmog at all, but I may start paying attention to it now I'm putting pictures in my blog :)

I've also been leveling up Stealthybrit. She's now level 12 and holed up in Stormwind City, waiting for the Heirlooms once Shaolin's finished with them. It's was DMF week, so I did get two Balanced Heartseekers for Stealthy this week.

Alliance (Brits United lvl 25) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (90) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600) - iLvL 546
Draenybrit (90) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 600/Blacksmithing 600) - iLvL 522
Gnomeybrit (90) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 600/Enchanting 600) - iLvl 539
Flictionbrit (90) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 600/Engineering 600) - iLvL 515
Fengsuibrit (90) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600) - iLvL 526
Blizzybrit (90) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 600/Jewelcrafting 600) - iLvL 508
Boomybrit (90) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 600/Inscription 600) - iLvL 505
Unstablebrit (90) - Human/Warlock (Mining 600/Skinning 600) - iLvL 502
Pallybrit (90) - Human/Paladin (Mining 600/Tailoring 600) - iLvL 504
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter

Alliance on Echo Isles:

Slealthybrit (12) - Pandaren/Rogue (None)

Alliance (Brits United lvl 12) on Venture Co:

Bamboodbrit (90) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600) - iLvL 502
Shaolinbrit (74) - Pandaren/Monk (None)


Achievements got up to 4660 this week. The last two being Cleaning Up (from a Heroic Dungeon) and Explore Silverpine Forest (I did some exploring on Flaying while waiting in a Heroic queue).

The plan for next week is to transfer Shaolin and start leveling her again. Also, I'll be upgrading tons of equipment with Lesser Charms of Good Fortune (I have tons saved up, and at only 50 an upgrade, it's going to be sick). I guess I'll be figuring out all the class changes once 6.0.2 hits too.


Opinion Time - The Best Things in 6.0.2


As I said, here's my new section, where I'll be giving my opinion on stuff in WoW. This week, I'll tell you about my personal favorite things about the patch tomorrow.


It's got to be the Inventory Improvements:


Items in the inventory now have a colored border around them to indicate their quality from Poor (grey) to Legendary (orange).
Tradeskill materials now stack up to 200 (up from 20).

Toy Box

Fun items accumulated through the course of travels now have a new home in the Toy Box. Eligible items can be learned by right- clicking on the item in the inventory. Once learned, the item is available account-wide and accessible to all characters on the account.
Want to complete the collection? Like the Mount and Pet Journal, items that haven’t been unlocked yet will show information on how the item can be obtained.
Toys awarded from quests will be automatically added to the Toy Box.

Bag Sorting and Cleanup

Bags can now be assigned to a specific item type (Equipment, Consumables, and Trade Goods). The bag will display a mini-icon showing what type of item it's assigned to.
Added a "Clean up Bags" button to automatically sort items in the character’s inventory, moving all empty slots to one area, and automatically sorting items to the correct bag. There’s also the option to ignore a bag from cleanup.

Reagent Bank

A Reagent Bank tab has been added to the Bank providing storage for raw materials.
Characters can now craft using the materials stored in both their Reagent Bank and Bank from anywhere.
Characters can visit the bank to unlock the new Reagent Bank tab providing additional storage space for profession materials.

New Void Storage Tab

Characters can now purchase an additional tab for Void Storage. That’s an extra 98 spaces!


The stacking to 200, and Reagent Bank tab are my personal favorites. But the bag sorting and Cleanup is also sweet. In one of my MoP tabs in my bank, I have tons of stacks of cooking stuff. It will be awesome once these stack to 200 and then I can put them in the Reagents tab too. I'm ambivalent on the Toy Box, although it will be nice to get them out of bags. I'll be much more interested in the Heirloom Tab once it is implemented. And I really don't care about Void Storage at all.

I know 6.0.2 has tons of other stuff:


http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/15682579/602-ptr-patch-notes-sep-18-9-18-2014


But the Inventory Improvements are what really impressed me, and are one of the main reasons I came back to WoW :)


Cheers.

Formulating the New Plan!

Hi,

Well, I've been back playing for while now, and need to come up with a new plan, what with CRZ coming to Venture Co., and with Warlords of Draenor on the horizon.

So, I've decided to stop playing on Venture Co. But, I will transfer a few higher level characters over to Draenor and then totally forget about Venture Co. I've transferred Unstable (90) over, and will transfer Bambood (90) and Shoalin (74) over. I'll re-create the others from scratch over on Draenor/Echo-Isles. In fact, I've already started Stealthybrit on Echo Isles and she's level 9 already. That will be the Rogue I boost to 90.

So, once 6.0.2 hits (for the extra stacking of mats), I will transfer Shaolin over, and level her in the morning. Get her to level 81 or so, and then transfer the heirlooms to Stealthy, and then get Stealthy to 60 and boost for Skinning/LW.

Meanwhile, while I'm still laid up (in be mostly playing on my laptop after my knee operation) I'm just doing non combat stuff on all my 90s.

They each do:

1. Sunsong Ranch
2. The Sunsong Ranch non-combat daily (unless it's Chasing the Chicken)
3. The two non combat Golden Lotus dailies (Bloodied Skies and Mantid under Fire)
4. Stormwind Fishing and Cooking Dailies (unless Cooking one is Feeling Crabby)

What I'm harvesting at Sunsong Ranch:

Flaying: Windwool Cloth
Draeny: Windwool Cloth
Gnomey: Windwool Cloth for Celestial Cloth and Imperial Silk
Fliction: Windwool Cloth
Fengsui: Exotic Leather for Hardened Magnificent Hide
Boomy: Herbs for Scroll of Wisdom
Blizzy: Windwool Cloth
Unstable: Windwool Cloth
Pally: Windwool Cloth for Celestial Cloth and Imperial Silk

In fact, Unstable hadn't opened up all the plot on the farm yet, so she's working on getting Exalted with the Tillers.

So, this is a very common sight at the moment:

The farm

And, while doing the Golden Lotus dailies at Setting Sun Garrison:

Shooting Mantid

So, why all the Windwool Cloth? Well, it's the highest gold yield, if you're just vendoring stuff. 4 bolts make a Cloak that vendors for just over 17g. With all the cloth sent to Gnomey, she can make about 22 of them, netting about 374g per day.

Oh that reminds me, with all the valor that my characters had when I started playing, they used it to upgrade pieces now that you can upgrade 4 times. Unstable bought the neck piece too.

Alliance (Brits United lvl 25) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (90) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600) - iLvL 546
Draenybrit (90) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 600/Blacksmithing 600) - iLvL 522
Gnomeybrit (90) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 600/Enchanting 600) - iLvl 539
Flictionbrit (90) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 600/Engineering 600) - iLvL 515
Fengsuibrit (90) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600) - iLvL 526
Blizzybrit (90) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 600/Jewelcrafting 600) - iLvL 508
Boomybrit (90) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 600/Inscription 600) - iLvL 505
Unstablebrit (90) - Human/Warlock (Mining 600/Skinning 600) - iLvL 502
Pallybrit (90) - Human/Paladin (Mining 600/Tailoring 600) - iLvL 504
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter

Alliance on Echo Isles:

Slealthybrit (9) - Pandaren/Rogue (None)

Alliance (Brits United lvl 12) on Venture Co:

Bamboodbrit (90) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600) - iLvL 502
Shaolinbrit (74) - Pandaren/Monk (None)

The plan for next week is to continue the dailies and stuff on the 90s. Also, to hit up DMF and get two Heirloom daggers for Stealthy. I also need to transfer all my other heirlooms from Venture Co. to Draenor. I hope to be back on my feet properly towards the end of the week, so maybe I can even do a bit of Timeless Isle, or Dungeons, or Scenarios.

Cheers.