It's all about the Gold....

Hi,

Sing it with me.

It's all about the Gold, 'bout the Gold, no trouble :)

That's right, with the announcement of stuff that they're looking to do in 2015 came the awesome news that they're considering allowing players to buy game tokens and trade them in the game for Gold. That means that it would be possible for people to finance their play time with in game gold (just like you can in Wildstar).

So, which that news, I immediately switched into make gold mode. I started using the AH again, and spent a lot of time here:

Auction House

I'm selling a lot of stuff. All the Ore and Herbs I don't need for the daily crafting stuff, and other things I've been getting out in the world, like Embersilk and Frostweave Cloth.

Well, I've been soloing old Raids and Dungeons. I started with ICC, and then moved on to Firelands, Dragon Soul, and Bastion of Twilight. I then did Grim Batol, Lost City, and Halls of Orig Heroics. Then I hit up the Well of Eternity Heroics. Then I went back and did 25 man ICC. I should go an do Firelands and Dragon Soul 25 man too :)

So, I'm raking in the gold now. I've gone (on Flaying) from just less than 50K last week, to over 63K now.

Other than that, I was leveling Draeny and got her to 98. I would have got her to 100 if the gold news wouldn't have broken like it did :) I also leveled Blizzy a bit. I want her to get the level 2 JC Emporium to assign a follower and get the gold quest. I also leveled Bambood to 91. Looking to get her to 92 for the next mine. BTW: I'm targeting all the gold making follower missions first now, also :)

I played Priesty only a bit, just getting her to 55. Oh, and I played the Horde Priesty too late in the evening, getting her to 43.

Alliance (Brits United) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (100) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 700/Alchemy 700) - iLvl 633
Draenybrit (98) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 700/Blacksmithing 679)
Gnomeybrit (96) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 681/Enchanting 632)
Flictionbrit (92) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 700/Engineering 708)
Fengsuibrit (93) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 665/Leatherworking 643)
Blizzybrit (93) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 700/Jewelcrafting 710)
Boomybrit (96) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 700/Inscription 664)
Unstablebrit (96) - Human/Warlock (Herbalim 618/Skinning 687)
Pallybrit (92) - Human/Paladin (Blacksmithing 102/Tailoring 614)
Bamboodbrit (91) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 618/Alchemy 604)
Priestybrit (55) - Draenei/Priest (None) 
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter (2nd account) 

Alliance (Brits United) on Echo Isles:  

Shaolinbrit (91) - Pandaren/Monk (Mining 594/Jewelcrafting 600) 
Slealthybrit (90) - Pandaren/Rogue (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600)
Smashbrit (12) - Pandaren/Warrior (None) 
Frostybrit (68) - Draenei/Death Knight (None)
 
Horde (Britannia) on Ghostlands:

Priestybrit (43) - Undead/Priest (Tailoring 176/Enchanting 196)
Elfybrit (3) - Blood Elf/Priest (None)
Shammybrit (14) - Orc/Shaman (Mining 21/Herbalism 25)

Achievements have shot up to 5740 this week, due to all the soloing of of the old Raids and stuff. The last two were Heroic: Well of Eternity, and Heroic: Hour of Twilight:

5740

The plan for next week is to keep making gold. Flaying will continue to do old Raids, and old Heroics and put up tons of stuff on the AH. I do think I may get Draeny to 100 next week, as I need another 100 to solo old stuff :) I will probably also look to level Blizzy and Bambood a bit more.


Before Opinion Time, I'd just like to take a moment to say something.


The will be the last Blog post before Christmas. So, Merry Christmas to all of you who read my blog. I hope the Holidays are very kind to you, and yours, and I hope you have a good time over the next week.

Opinion Time: Buying Game Time for Gold

There have been a storm of posts about this over on the main forums. Most have been in favor of it, but there are some that even say they're quitting over this. In case you haven't seen it at all. Here's a link:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/15688408873

I see this a incredibly positive news all round.

It's a win for players who buy the token from the store (let's say for $20), because they'll get a good chuck of gold for their $20.

It's a win for players who trade their gold for the token (like me :)), because they'll get Game time for gold.

It's a win for Blizzard, because they get $20 for it.

In other words, it's a Win/Win/Win.

The only valid concern I've seen is that there'll be inflation because gold stashed away by people will now be used to buy tokens, and they be used in the economy again. I say - So what? If there's a bit of inflation, it won't be the end of the world, and 50% of the players will be better off, because they will be doing the selling, not the buying.

Cheers.

LFR was rather easy :)

Hi,

Well, couldn't spend a lot of time playing this week. Had family in town staying with us and then traveled for a wedding on Saturday (12/13/14).

That being said, I did get to do LFR last Tuesday. First boss was fairly easy, and I watched the cut-scene after it. By the time it was done, no one else was nearby. I went towards where I thought they were, and ran into a pack of mobs that promptly killed me. I was dead and couldn't release during the whole Butcher fight :). I got loot from it though. The final boss was also pretty easy and I got 640 loot off it, too. Then, the next day I looked and saw I had mail from 'Postmaster'. Opened it up and there was 640 loot off the first boss that I forgot to loot too. So, 3 bosses, 3 640 pieces. Awesome. One bad thing I did though. These replaced two Apexis 630 pieces, and I then vendored them. Thankfully, my friend reminded me of the restoration process. So I got them back. Once they're upgraded, they will be better than the 640 pieces.

So, Flaying's up to 628 iLvL now. Not too shabby.

One other thing Flaying did this week was to look into how to get Lumber Mill level 3. It requires Legacy of the Ancients. You get this from a drop off Petrified Lumber. So she had to go around and find one. Eventually she did, and now has the quest. But that's as far as she got. She also upgraded the Bunker to level 3. She's got 20 followers now, and needs to up the limit to 25 to get another one this coming week.

I decided that I was getting enough Sumptuous Fur and Gorgond Flytrap to support two Tailors, so I decided to level up Pally. I got her to 92, and now she's in the Garrison profession rotation.

I also made a change to Pally's professions. I dropped Mining, and picked up Blacksmithing. I decided that Draeny could focus on crafting the weapons and shield (and upgrades), and Pally could concentrate on crafting Plate gear.

I was also trying to figure out a good profession building for Unstable, even though she's a double gatherer. I tried the Alchemy Lab, thinking I could craft Philosopher's Stone for a tidy profit, but then realized I couldn't. So I decided on Scribe's Quarters. She can craft Card of Omens and do some Gambling, while Boomy concentrates on Staves, and upgrades.

Other than this, I took all of them through the DMF for + 5 profs.

Also, I decided that I really need to level Draeny. She's my avatar on the WoW forums, so I want her to be level 100. I think I may actually take her to 100 next. She's currently in Talador, about to hit level 96:

Draeny in Talador

That's about it. Priesty didn't get my play this week, other than DMF and some Stormwind Dailies. And, it goes without saying, lots of Follower Missions and crafting daily stuff was still done this week.

Oh, and I nearly forgot. I cheated and actually used the AH. I got a 665 BoE on Flaying drop off a level 100 mob. It was Plate with Intellect, and so couldn't be used by any of my characters. So, I put it up for 25K (there was one listed for 30K) and it Sold!! No AH except in extreme circumstances. And this was one of them :)

Alliance (Brits United) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (100) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 700/Alchemy 700) - iLvl 628
Draenybrit (95) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 700/Blacksmithing 657)
Gnomeybrit (96) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 664/Enchanting 625)
Flictionbrit (92) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 700/Engineering 694)
Fengsuibrit (93) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 665/Leatherworking 631)
Blizzybrit (92) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 700/Jewelcrafting 710)
Boomybrit (96) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 700/Inscription 647)
Unstablebrit (96) - Human/Warlock (Herbalim 465/Skinning 682)
Pallybrit (92) - Human/Paladin (Blacksmithing 42/Tailoring 608)
Bamboodbrit (90) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 608/Alchemy 600)
Priestybrit (54) - Draenei/Priest (None)
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter (2nd account)
 
Alliance (Brits United) on Echo Isles:
 
Shaolinbrit (91) - Pandaren/Monk (Mining 594/Jewelcrafting 600) 
Slealthybrit (90) - Pandaren/Rogue (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600)
Smashbrit (12) - Pandaren/Warrior (None)
Frostybrit (68) - Draenei/Death Knight (None)
 
Horde (Britannia) on Ghostlands:

Priestybrit (42) - Undead/Priest (Tailoring 176/Enchanting 196)
Elfybrit (3) - Blood Elf/Priest (None) 
Shammybrit (14) - Orc/Shaman (Mining 21/Herbalism 25)

Achievements have bumped up to 5350 this week, as you can see below.

Achievements

The last two being Builder (Flaying upgraded all buildings to level 2), and Chopping Even More Logs (My gang submitted 100 Lumber Mill work orders).

The plan for next week is to keep leveling Draeny, and maybe play Priesty a bit, and then maybe work on getting others to 96.

Opinion Time: The Difficulty of LFR

This was a major topic over on the forums as soon as LFR was released. People were saying it was too easy, because you can actually ignore the boss mechanics. They want to at least have it that you can't ignore the mechanics, but have it still relatively straight forward.

There are 2 other camps that want to leave it as is:

1. The Raiders.

They're happy that it's now really 'Tourist Mode'. This is so they can brag about how they're the only ones doing 'Real Raiding'.

2. The Heroic Dungeon Crowd

They're happy because they want to be-little any one who can't, or doesn't want to, do Silver Proving Grounds. They're overjoyed that those people have easy content as it validates that they're the better players.

My opinion? It's too easy. They should up the difficulty (slightly) to make it that you have to pay attention to Boss mechanics. Come on, it requires higher iLvL to enter it than Heroic Dungeons (615 vs 610), and gives better loot than Heroic Dungeons (640 vs 630). So it should definitely be harder than it is currently.

Cheers.        

620 and climbing

Hi,

Yep, that's the iLvL I've got Flaying to at the moment. I don't think I'll be doing Molten Core (because I've heard of people waiting hours to get in and then wiping on trash), but she's certainly ready for when LFR opens up tomorrow. It's a mixture of Crafted (2 640s from Gnomey), Apexis Crystals (3 630 pieces), and some follower mission 630 and 615 stuff. Flaying has hardly done a dungeon (still need Skyreach for the 640 ring :)). I've had more fun gearing up at the start of an expansion than ever before.

Picture time. I realized that the Garrison picture for the heading was just a bit dark, so here's another to see if it's a bit brighter.

Brighter Garrison

Yeah, I think that will do for the new heading pic.

What else has been going on? Leveling in Draenor, that's what. Unstable made it to 96 and got her Herb Garden. Then, Gnomey got to 96 and got hers too. So that's 4 Herb Gardens now. A steady supply of Herbs. Here's what I do with them.

Frostweed - Flaying, for Alchemy.
Gorgond Flytrap - Gnomey and Fengsui, for Tailoring and Leatherworking.
Talador Orchid, Starflower, and Fireweed - Blizzy, to make Gems.
Nagrand Arrowbloom - Boomy, for milling.

With Alchemy, I'm making the Phil. Stones and vendoring them. With JC, I'm making the basic gems and vendoring them. With Engineering, I'm making the 30g items that cost 20 GS parts and vendoring them. With Tailoring, Blacksmithing, and Leatherworking, I'm making gear for my characters. With Inscription, I'm going to make a staff, and then switch to Card of Omens for gold. With Enchanting, I'm just collecting mats right now.

It's actually fun just vendoring stuff, rather than relying on the AH for gold. I know I could make tons more using the AH, but that's OK.

In other profession stuff, Dreany made a weapon for herself, Blizzy got to 700 JC making all the gems with herbs and ore, and a couple made it to 700 Mining. Also, Unstable leveled up Herbalism my mostly flying around Valley of the Four Winds picking herbs. This was a great way to level up. Much better than going back to the old world.
 
Draeny and Fengsui also got to 93 this week, as I tried to decide which would be the next to level. Now I've thought about it, it make be Fliction, to get level 2 Eng building for more GS Parts.

In the mornings, I've been playing Priesty and bit. She's now 54, and ready for Swamp of Sorrows and Blasted Lands.

In the late evenings, I've been playing Horde a bit. Ghostlands is actually East Coast, so there's not much completion after 9pm my time. Horde Priesty is now level 42 and questing in Eastern Plaguelands.
     
Alliance (Brits United) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (100) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 700/Alchemy 676) - iLvl 620
Draenybrit (93) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 700/Blacksmithing 643)
Gnomeybrit (96) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 641/Enchanting 609)
Flictionbrit (92) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 700/Engineering 673)
Fengsuibrit (93) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 668/Leatherworking 605)
Blizzybrit (92) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 694/Jewelcrafting 710)
Boomybrit (96) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 700/Inscription 623)
Unstablebrit (96) - Human/Warlock (Herbalim 465/Skinning 682)
Pallybrit (90) - Human/Paladin (Mining 600/Tailoring 600)
Bamboodbrit (90) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600)
Priestybrit (54) - Draenei/Priest (None)
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter (2nd account)

Alliance (Brits United) on Echo Isles:
 
Shaolinbrit (91) - Pandaren/Monk (Mining 594/Jewelcrafting 600) 
Slealthybrit (90) - Pandaren/Rogue (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600)
Smashbrit (12) - Pandaren/Warrior (None)
Frostybrit (68) - Draenei/Death Knight (None)
 
Horde (Britannia) on Ghostlands:

Priestybrit (42) - Undead/Priest (Tailoring 176/Enchanting 196)
Elfybrit (3) - Blood Elf/Priest (None)
Shammybrit (14) - Orc/Shaman (Mining 21/Herbalism 25)


Achievements have gone up to 5290, with the last two being Moving on Up (Flaying upgraded Alchemy Lab to level 3) and Salvaging Pays Off (Opened 100 crates of Salvage from missions).

The plan for next week is to continue doing all the profession stuff, and then probably level Fliction. Or maybe Draeny, or maybe Fengsui :) I'll also try to get Priesty (Alliance) to 60, and progress Priesty (Horde) a bit. Oh yeah, I hope to do a bit of LFR on Flaying too.


Opinion Time: LFR Opens Tomorrow


Well, not really an opinion, just happy that LFR is opening up, especially for people like myself who consider this their end-game. I'll have to read up a bit on it and then try it out sometime this week.


There are those who don't like LFR, but I really think it's a god-send for people who can't, or don't want to, do real Raiding. I think this is a large segment of the WoW population too.


So, bring on LFR!!


Cheers.

Herb Garden, Where Art Thou?

Hi,

Yeah, it takes such a long time to open up the Herb Garden compared to the Mine. Flaying has one of course, having passed 96 a long time ago. But, I wanted another one, now that I needed all the Herbs for Inscription, and also another use I'll get to in a minute. So, I decided to level Boomy like crazy to get to 96 and open up another Herb Garden. Phew, I made it yesterday.

The other use for Herbs is to combine with Ore to make Gems that vendor for 4g each. As you know, I don't use the AH, so this would be a good source of income, if I had a steady supply of herbs.

Since getting to 100, Flaying has been doing the Apexis Crystal daily every day, and has one 630 piece from it, and is ready to buy another. Gnomey also got to 100 Hexweave Cloth, and crafted the 640 Chest for Flaying. Flaying's also been working hard on followers, and now has about 23, 20 of which are level 100.

Fliction actually got 100 Gearspring Parts too, and made:

Blingtron5000 outside the garrison

It's cool. But I've heard reports that if you place one while another one's out, and they fight, they no longer give the quest. That sucks.

I got Blizzy and Unstable to level 92 too, so they've now got level 2 mines also. With 7 level 2 mines, I'm really racking up tons and tons of Ore.

Yesterday, I decided I better get my Leatherworking started, and so I leveled Fengsui a bit. Leveling a Hunter is just ridiculous. I remember all the times when other characters had trouble with stuff, and it's just a breeze with a hunter. Fengsui only got to 91, but will be 93 with a mine soon :)

Another thing I did was drop Mining on Unstable, and picked up Herbalism instead. As I've said, with all the mines, Mining is pretty useless. However, I'm not dropping it on Draeny or Blizzy, because who knows what Blizzard have in store for it in the future. Unstable will probably be the next one I'll get to 96, as she can get skill ups from the Garden, and get full plants from it.

I also leveled Priesty in the morning on several days, and she made it to 47 and is in the Badlands.

Alliance (Brits United) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (100) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 700/Alchemy 628) - iLvl 611
Draenybrit (92) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 695/Blacksmithing 626)
Gnomeybrit (94) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 624/Enchanting 601)
Flictionbrit (92) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 698/Engineering 653)
Fengsuibrit (91) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 645/Leatherworking 602)
Blizzybrit (92) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 674/Jewelcrafting 641)
Boomybrit (96) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 700/Inscription 618)
Unstablebrit (92) - Human/Warlock (Herbalim 31/Skinning 661)
Pallybrit (90) - Human/Paladin (Mining 600/Tailoring 600)
Bamboodbrit (90) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600)
Priestybrit (47) - Draenei/Priest (None)
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter (2nd account)

Alliance (Brits United) on Echo Isles:
 
Shaolinbrit (91) - Pandaren/Monk (Mining 594/Jewelcrafting 600) 
Slealthybrit (90) - Pandaren/Rogue (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600)
Smashbrit (12) - Pandaren/Warrior (None)
Frostybrit (68) - Draenei/Death Knight (None)
 
Horde (Britannia) on Ghostlands:

Priestybrit (40) - Undead/Priest (Tailoring 168/Enchanting 179)
Elfybrit (3) - Blood Elf/Priest (None)
Shammybrit (14) - Orc/Shaman (Mining 21/Herbalism 25)


Achievements have made it up to 5230:

Up to 5230

The last two being Working Some Orders (125 Work Orders), and Filling the Ranks (20 Followers to 100).


The plan for next week is to keep doing daily stuff on Flaying, level Unstable to 96, work on Priesty and maybe Frosty a bit, and continue to work on all the professions.


Opinion Time: Dailies in Warlords


This isn't actually a complaint. I did complain about the lack of dailies before WoD shipped, and before I got to 100, but I don't complain any more.


What they've done is basically give you one daily for 800/1000 Apexis Crystals, that is about equivalent to 5 old dailes for 160/200 each. The daily can take about 20-30 minutes, and once I have more than one 100, this is going to eat up plenty of time.


Yeah, I guess if I only played one character, this might be a bit limiting, but with all the Garrison stuff to do, and Dungeons, and all the usually stuff, I don't think the lack of dailies hurts at all.


Cheers.

My First Level 100!!

Hi,

Yep. Did it. About mid-afternoon on Sunday, Flaying got to 100 while questing in Nagrand.

100!!

And here she is, chilling at her Garrison, proud to be level 100.

Flayingbrit at her Garrison

Another reason for that picture is to make it the background for the entire blog.

So, a lot has happened this week, nearly all of it in Draenor. Flaying completed Shadowmoon Valley, and then did nearly all of Gorgrond. She went to Talador and did the first few quests there and hit 96. I read that you could get the Salvage Yard (to get some cool salvage while doing Follower missions), so I knew you had to go to Spires of Arak to do that.

Flaying abandoned Talador, and went off to Spires. It took a lot of quests to actually get the Garrison Outpost set up, and then the start of the quest chain for the Salvage Yard Blueprint still wasn't showing up. So, I went and did the Admiral Tailor quests, and boom, it opened up. A few more Golbiny quests later, and I had finally unlocked it.

Spires of Arak is pretty cool, and at the end of it, you're given a quest to kill all the bosses in the Skyreach dungeon. So, while questing in Nagrand, I queued for it, and got in a good group and did it fine (making sure I also had the quest for Skyreach from my Inn).

Nagrand is really cool. Lot's of Throwback to Outland quests (or is that Throw Forward? :)). Things like going to the Throne of the Elements, killing Clefthoof and Taibuk etc. I really liked it though.

So, Flaying is now 100. I was unsure where the daily for Apexis Crystals was, but went back to my Garrison and it was on the War table next to where you send your followers on missions. I got the PVE one (of course) and it was doing stuff in the area between Shadowmoon Valley and Spires of Arak. Not bad at all. Took about 30 minutes because of all the people there.

Flaying now has about 5 level 100 followers, and they've been going on missions to get gear and weapons tokens to upgrade. It's still a fun little game. I've stopped doing follower missions on other characters so that the followers don't level too quickly.

On the Profession side, my characters are swimming in Ore, with me having 2 level 2 mines, and 2 level 1 mines. Draeny is up to about 71 Truesteel, and will soon be able to make her shield. Gnomey is up to about 83 Hexweave Cloth, and will be able to make a Robe for Flaying soon. Fliction has about 35 Gearspring Parts now. Oh, and Flaying got to 700 Herbalism too.

I leveled Draeny, Gnomey, and Fliction to 92 to get the mines. And now that Flaying is 100, I'll be leveling Gnomey next (she got to 93 this week). Another thing I did was take many more characters into Draenor. I have now done 9, and only 3 remain.

In the mornings, I've also got a bit of time in on Priesty. She got to level 41 this morning and is questing in Eastern Plaguelands.

Alliance (Brits United) on Draenor:

Flayingbrit (100) - Human/Priest (Herbalism 700/Alchemy 613) - iLvl 596
Draenybrit (92) - Draenei/Shaman (Mining 683/Blacksmithing 605)
Gnomeybrit (93) - Gnome/Priest (Tailoring 608/Enchanting 601)
Flictionbrit (92) - Gnome/Warlock (Mining 650/Engineering 643)
Fengsuibrit (90) - Pandaren/Hunter (Skinning 606/Leatherworking 600)
Blizzybrit (90) - Draenei/Mage (Mining 600/Jewelcrafting 600)
Boomybrit (90) - Night Elf/Druid (Herbalism 600/Inscription 600)
Unstablebrit (90) - Human/Warlock (Mining 600/Skinning 600)
Pallybrit (90) - Human/Paladin (Mining 600/Tailoring 600)
Bamboodbrit (90) - Pandaren/Priest (Herbalism 600/Alchemy 600)
Priestybrit (41) - Draenei/Priest (None)
Raidbrit (10) - Doesn't matter (2nd account)

Alliance (Brits United) on Echo Isles:
 
Shaolinbrit (90) - Pandaren/Monk (Mining 591/Jewelcrafting 600) 
Slealthybrit (90) - Pandaren/Rogue (Skinning 600/Leatherworking 600)
Smashbrit (12) - Pandaren/Warrior (None)
Frostybrit (68) - Draenei/Death Knight (None)
 
Horde (Britannia) on Ghostlands:

Priestybrit (40) - Undead/Priest (Tailoring 168/Enchanting 179)
Elfybrit (3) - Blood Elf/Priest (None)
Shammybrit (25) - Orc/Shaman (Mining 16/Herbalism 23)

Achievements made it up to 5140 this week, with the last two being Level 100, and Skyreach.

The plan for next week is to keep doing the Apexis Crystal daily and Follower missions on Flaying. To also level Gnomey, and probably work on Boomy too, because I can't wait to get started on Inscription. I'll also work on Priesty in the mornings and maybe even Frosty too.

No Opinion Time this week. I think the blog post is long enough as it is. It will return next week.

Cheers.