Last week I was fortunate to learn that I had been granted access to the World of Warcraft Classic Beta servers. Anyone who’s followed my blog knows I’m a bit of a nerd, and a big part of me loves to contribute to these early access servers. I like feeling like I’ve helped contribute in some small way to the game. So I was thrilled to be given the chance to do this again. Even more so this time because, in a way, playing WoW Classic is like playing a whole different game.
I’ll be doing multiple posts on my WoW Classic experiences and thoughts. This first post will just cover my initial observations – how things are different in Classic vs. Retail and what I found interesting. Expect future posts with more opinions and thoughtful discussion.
I started playing WoW at the end of Cataclysm, right around when Firelands was in full swing. I have only known Azeroth as it is now – broken apart and forever changed by Deathwing. I’ve always been curious to know how the world was before that time. How did it all look before it was ravaged and destroyed?
Knowing I’d be playing Alliance when Classic does go live (a simultaneous worldwide launch on August 27/28!!!), and knowing shamans were a Horde-only class, I decided to start my beta adventures as a Tauren shaman.
The first thing I noticed when making my tauren was the lack of choices in facial expressions. This wasn’t at all unexpected – it’s a super early version of the game, and this is part of it. Just one of the many luxuries we have in current WoW!
It was raining when I zoned in, and I have to agree with what I’ve heard from many people before – the weather effects were better then. I don’t know what it is, but the rain in that screenshot is just loads better than what it is in current WoW. The sound of it was incredible. It really helped add to the atmosphere of the zone.
There’s no guidance for the game. You zone in and there’s a person in front of you to do your first quest, but that’s about where the help stops. Quest givers aren’t shown in the map or mini-map. If you have to collect parts from mobs (like teeth from wolfs or something) there’s no indicator on the map of where these wolfs might be. Then when you (finally!) do get the parts, you don’t get a direction of where to go back to hand in the quest. The best you get is a small yellow dot (like how herb nodes are shown on the mini map in current), but even then that only shows up when you’re close to the NPC so isn’t reliable. What it all boils down to is this:
you actually have to read the quest text
And it’s fucking brilliant. It’s hard, but it’s so great having to read to figure out where to go to kinda be in the area of where some mobs might be.
And there’s so much running around. SO much running around. Which I don’t mind at all, because I just love to explore.
And there’s a lot of dying. Well there was for me at least. I didn’t mind too much because there was something really beautiful about the spirit realm. It’s different to live – it seems…. spookier? It’s hard to explain. But I find current corpse runs are beautiful, but the world is clear. In Classic, there’s less visibility – you can’t see a lot of what’s around you until you’re close, and there’s something really cool about that. It really does feel like you’re in the afterlife, frantically trying to reunite yourself with your body.
Combat is hard. For a couple of reasons. First one being that classes are completely different to how they are on live. I made a shaman, but you get spells from all specs, and you pick and choose where to put talent points in… it’s a big mash up of different (and customisable) builds. It’s really interesting.
The other reason combat is difficult is because everything costs so much mana, and you have no health. I’m used to pulling mobs with lightning bolts and dropping an earth shock and just spamming lightning bolt and lava burst until the thing was dead. In Classic, you can’t do that. There’s just not enough mana available to cast that many spells. You need to make sure you have enough mana available to heal yourself (god help anyone without a self heal!!), and if you’re battling humanoids, you have to make sure you have enough mana left to cast a spell when they run off, or they will run to their friends, and you will die. A lot.
With the abilities I have available to me now, I’m dropping a defensive totem that helps me take less damage. I’m casting a lightning bolt to hit them from a distance and get them running to me. They get a lava shock and a fire totem and then I wait. I right-click on them to punch them in the face until they die. (And that’s also making sure I’ve already got my lightning shield on and my weapon enchant on!)
And that’s another thing – you have to level up weapons! I started off being able to use a mace and a shield and that’s it. And I had to learn to use them. It’s an interesting concept because it means that your combat varies as you try to level up new weapons. To level up your defence, you have to literally get hit in the face (well, avoid getting hit in the face at least!!). To level the mace (or any other weapon) you need to be in melee range, right click the mob and just auto attack it down, and sometimes that will grant you levels on your weapon. This slows down combat significantly, but it also makes you think about what you’re doing, and making conscious decisions about what to do next. It’s very interesting.
I should also point out that you can use other weapons (for shamans we can still use 1h & 2h axes and maces and staves and daggers) but in order to use them you need to go to a trainer to learn how to use them. When you learn it, you start at 0, and sometimes you’ll just fail miserably as a result. It’s a very interesting concept.
Health wise, we have none. Same as mana, it’s a finite resource that you have to pay so much more attention to. You actually need to make sure you have food and mana water on you at all times, otherwise you’re pretty screwed. And don’t be surprised if you need to eat/drink after killing just 1 or 2 mobs. Don’t expect to live if you accidentally pull 2 or 3 mobs, either.. like I did… a lot >.<
The other finite resource is gold. It is really scarce. I don’t think I went over having anything more than 36 silver at a time (buying Iced Milk instead of Mana Spring water certainly didn’t help me there!!!) It makes for an interesting layer of complexity to the game. You have to make decisions about whether or not you’ll buy that health food to help save time between pulls, or will you just wait it out and save the money? Got 5 spells your class trainer can teach you – great! But you can only afford to purchase 2 of them. Which do you choose?
The hardest part that I’ve found about Classic is how fragmented the quests are. I don’t really know what the story is. I think I lost the thread somewhere and I’m not too sure where to go to pick it up again. Which is what it is and I’m not complaining 🙂
So instead of trying to figure out the “right” way of playing the game, I just decided to start doing my own thing and go exploring. It has been such a strong desire of mine to see the world “as it was in the beginning”, so I set off to do just that. I took a zepplin to Undercity to explore around there, and met a very different Sylvanas.
Then I headed off to Silverpine to work on a random quest I’d picked up in Thunder Bluff. Silverpine was absolutely beautiful. I don’t remember it looking as it does (I’ll have to check in live!) but I did like it. As I was walking around I noticed some magic looking effects in the distance so of course I chased after them to see what it was. I didn’t get far because there were too many mobs, but given where I was I’m pretty sure it was Dalaran. And not just any Dalaran – a Dalaran in a bubble still on the ground. Maybe?!?! I decided I’d try to get there… but failed miserably. Darn mobs 7 levels higher than me! I’ve got another idea in mind of how to get there next time I’m there, though… 😀
I know it wasn’t the “right” thing to be doing in the game, but it was what I wanted to do. It was how I wanted to adventure. I wanted to explore and see the world, and so I did. And that for me is what the root of all games is – playing the game your way. It’s something I’ll touch on further in future posts…
I don’t have the nostalgia that others have about Classic because I just wasn’t playing then. For me, playing Classic isn’t about reminiscing about a time in my youth that I’m longing to get back to. But that doesn’t make my excitement for Classic’s release any less valid or dim. I honestly cannot wait for this to be released. I cannot wait to experience the old stories, see the old world and just play the game because I want to, and how I want to, and not because I feel obligated to level fast to raid.
I know this won’t be for everyone, and that is how it should be. But this is right up my ally. And I can’t wait for August 27
xo
Tomorrow patch 8.1.5 arrives in World of Warcraft, and with it comes the much-anticipated allied races of Kul’Tiran humans and Zandalari trolls (along with a WHOLE bunch of awesome content!) I am beyond excited (as usual) for new WoW content. But I will admit I’m feeling bittersweet.
Since I first learned of the Kul’Tirans being added to the game, I’ve known I wanted to play one. The idea of having a larger sized female model in the game with hips and a butt and a thick waist, who is still strong and powerful was something I couldn’t pass up. I promised myself that if they could be shamans, I would race change my main character to be one. And as luck would have it, shamans were announced at Blizzcon as a class that Kul’Tiran’s can play!
In a way I have been dreading this day for awhile. It sounds melodramatic, but my pandaren shaman was my first toon that I ever really connected with. She has been so good at embodying what I wanted from a character in a game like World of Warcraft. She has been strong, but kind, fierce but lovable. But these aren’t traits that are unique to being a pandaren – they are what I want from a female with curves who isn’t just comic relief or “that fat friend”. So I guess in a way I’m taking this opportunity to make a point.
Maybe it’s stupid to make a statement like this, but right now, for me, it’s important. I need to see a woman in game who kinda looks like me who isn’t a complete mess, who gets up and kicks ass and fights for what she believes in and doesn’t let others’ opinions of her appearance stop her from doing what she wants.
So tomorrow, once I have unlocked the quests, I will log out from my pandaren shaman in the place that made her happiest – her little home at Sunsong Ranch, overlooking the beautiful Valley of the Four Winds.
But for now, it’s time to farewell my pandaren self. Here’s to some amazing moments 🙂
And look, I’m not silly. I know that if I’m too sad not being my pandaren any more, I can always change back. 🙂
Are you creating a new Allied race toon?
It seems the Warcraft development team are back at work, because this week the first official Patch 8.1.5 PTR went up. And there’s a lot of great stuff in there. As usual, Wowhead are going through and presenting us with a peek at what’s to come (and doing a darn good job of it, too!)
The highlight for me, though, is something I’ve been hanging out to see since they were announced – Kul’Tiran shamans! Since being formally revealed at Blizzcon, I’ve been waiting (im)patiently for a peek at what they might look like. Thanks to the PTR going up, I’ve been able to do a bit of exploring!
After a few dramas (mainly being unable to copy any characters on to the PTR OTHER than my shaman!) I was able to get my hands on a 110 shaman that I race-changed to Kul’Tiran so I could see the new race in action.
First up was taking a look at the Kul’Tiran totems. Comments on Wowhead’s post featuring the totems seems to be a mix of love and hate.
It makes sense that these would feature anchors. Of course there are anchors – the Kul’Tiran are the children of the sea, so of course anchors and other nautical themes feature extremely heavily in every Alliance zone in Kul’Tiras. It’s these themes that made me fall in love with the Kul’Tiran people. It’s fitting that totems follow this theme as well.
Whilst I like the body of the totems, I wasn’t a huge fan of the anchor on the bottom of the totems when I first saw them on wowhead. However when you use them you don’t really see it- it’s just how the totems stick in the ground. Which makes sense, and looks great.
The only thing I’m not thrilled about is the water animation in the water totems. It doesn’t feel “watery” enough – it just seems to behave like blue fire. I’d love to see it have a similar animation to the water effects in the tide sages totems. And I feel the green of the earth totems is just a little too “fel green” for me. But they are really minor things. Overall I think these look great, and I can’t wait to use them on a daily basis!
I played around a bit to see what their casting animations were like – I think I’ll be quite good at capturing many derpy casting faces haha! But I love it. I think she looks fantastic.
For me, 8.1.5 can’t come soon enough! I can’t wait to be a child of the sea! ❤
Another year is coming to a close. It’s always a time for us to look back and reflect on the year, to celebrate our achievements and say goodbye to perhaps some of the sadder moments that have happened.
For this post, I’m going to take a look back at my 2018 bucket list to see how I did. And of course for the next post, I’ll set myself some goals for 2019.
Looking back on 2018
I tend to get to this time of year feeling a bit sad. Sad that I probably didn’t accomplish or achieve nearly as much as I would like to have. But that’s not the best way to think about things, is it? Because when I look back on my bucket list for 2018, I actually succeeded quite well indeed, despite the roller coaster that was my guild in 2018.
Let me touch on that quickly, actually. Those who have followed my blog or twitter this year will know that it has been quite the year of ups and downs when it came to my guild.
The short version is that after the high of getting Cutting Edge with mythic Argus, we made the decision to push harder going in to Battle for Azeroth. Looking back now, we all agree this decision was our downfall. I wrote a lot about this in this post, and then this post. What I didn’t end up writing about is how we came back together again.
What I didn’t end up writing about is how we came back together again.
As I wrote in my last post about all this, I moved servers to a new guild to trial as an elemental shaman. And I have to say, I got damn lucky. The team I trialled with were so lovely and kind, and extremely patient with me while I tried to figure out how to be dps instead of heals. They were extremely kind to me, and I’m so grateful for that. But in the end, as tragic as it sounds, the lure of old friendships called, and I ended my trial to try, yet again, with Realm.
Looking back on this past year, as tumultuous as it has been, there is one common thread throughout – friendship. Oh I know, it sounds so lame. but it’s true. The people in Realm are people I consider to be friends. I am glad to have them in my life. A few weeks back we had an in-game Christmas party that was loads of fun, and really struck home how much I enjoy spending time with these fine folk. It turned out, for me, friendships were far more important that raiding, and I’m completely ok with that.
The 2018 bucket list
At the beginning of 2018, as I do most years, I wrote a bucket list of things I wanted to achieve. You can see this post right here. I didn’t write it at the time, but in the back of my mind I’d had the bucket list from the previous year in mind, and wanted to make things a bit easier on myself. Although looking on it now, I really failed at that! This list wasn’t nearly as easy on myself as it could have been… but it was definitely fun. So let’s see how I did.
Make a list of every pet and mount available in Legion and get any that are missing (That are not RNG dependent).
Well I suppose technically I fail by default because I never made that list! BUT, I’m pretty sure I did get a lot of them. I got Uuna and finished her quest line, and then later go Baa’l when he came out in BfA. I finished the Family Familiar achievement as well as the Family Fighter achievement, getting pets from both of those as well.
I found Lost Mail and felt like Harry Potter as I got the Mailemental pet (and Katy Stampwhistle toy!)
I was also really lucky with mounts, getting the Shackled Ur’zul mount from Mythic Argus! AND I managed to complete the Lord of the Reins achievement! I was very fortunate all around, I feel.
Were I did fail (other than failing to make the list at all, haha!) was not getting the pvp mounts. They were easy gets, but I didn’t do them. There’s still a chance of going back, but to be honest, I can’t see myself doing that any time soon. But overall, I think I’d call this a pretty successful bucket list item complete. 🙂
Finish getting all of the class mounts
DONE! You can read all about it right here. This was an epic undertaking, but one that I’m glad I did in the end (not just because it helped a lot getting Lord of the Reins done!) It gave me a chance to play around on all the classes, to see if any of them really tickled my fancy for an alt. They didn’t… but I’m still glad I had a go at them all again for awhile 🙂
Get more Mage Tower appearances
This was tougher than I expected it to be. My original list of appearances that I wanted to get were:
- Enhancement shaman
- Discipline priest
- Holy paladin
- Frost Mage
- Arcane Mage
- Retribution paladin
- Restoration druid
- Protection paladin (though I honestly don’t see this one happening at all)
- maaaaybe affliction warlock
What I ended up getting….
Shaman – Restoration, elemental and enhancement
(these were no-brainers – I absolutely had to get all of these.)
Mage – Arcane, fire and frost.
Yep, I got all three! I was pretty pleased with myself for that one 🙂
Druid – Balance and feral.
Yeah you heard me, feral. How could I not get disco kitty? It’s easily the best appearance out of all of them. I didn’t, however get the restoration appearance. I’ve never healed as a druid, and that darn scenario is hard.
Priest – Discipline.
This was tough. I’d never played Disc properly before. But I pushed through, because I really loved the appearance.
The Disc priest appearance was the straw that broke the camel’s back, though. It was a tough fight, and by that point I had started to resent the amount of time I was spending trying to finish these, so I stopped. But, I had set myself a goal of getting 8 (maybe 9!) appearances, and in the end, I actually did get 9 appearances. So I’m going to call this one a win, too. 🙂
Stream more
This one was very generic, but I needed it to be (for this year at least).
I managed to get Affiliate status a few weeks after making my bucket list, so that was a nice bonus!
Overall, yes, I technically streamed more. And to that end I can call it a win. But I certainly have a long, long way to go. Will all the raiding dramas this year, I was unable to have a regular raiding/streaming schedule because I kept associating one with the other. It has taken me awhile to separate the two, and branch out to stream other content. I’m still getting my feet with this, but I will get better.
What I have really enjoyed about my streaming, though, is finally settling on an identity. I love my little unicorn self! I’m really enjoying updating my graphics for the year… helps to keep things interesting 🙂 It also helps me to focus on the streaming itself, and not necessarily the games that I’m streaming (if that makes sense).
So, that’s my year! Honestly, I can’t complain. I know that I am a very fortunate person. So for all the difficulties and struggles I face, I know there are people who have it so very much harder than me, and I need to remember that.
I’m pleased with what I’ve managed to achieve this year, both in game and out. I hope you all have had a great year, too! Keep an eye out of my 2019 bucket list post, coming very soon….
This long weekend I said to myself that I would take things a bit easier, and get back to just enjoying WoW. Yeah, there are things I definitely need to do, but my goal for the weekend is just to make sure that I’m doing the things I love. Like explore and finish obscure achievements and what not.
One of the achievements I ticked off today was Cursed Game Hunter. I only had a goat and a shark left to kill for the achievement, so was on wowhead looking for where they were, when a related guide popped up – Hidden Secrets of Kul Tiras. I mean, of course I had to check it out.
First thing I ticked off in this guide was getting Taptaf. He’s an absolutely adorable little piggy!
The in the guide I saw that there were other pets that could be purchased if certain conditions were met. Turned out I had met quite a few of those. I decided to go get Greatwing Macaw because I just love the birds! This lovely pet was available to purchase from Dana Pull in a part of Boralus we don’t really spend a lot of time in. So off I went to find Dana. Not only did I find Dana, I found heaven.
Dana is found in Boralus:
Here’s the entrance to his shop…
And inside? PUPPIES!! PUPPIES EVERYWHERE!!!!!!
I went around and patted EVERY.SINGLE.PUPPERS in there so they would know that I loved them all. What a magical place!!! (And yes, bought the macaw pet, too).
The NPCs in there make my heart swell, too.
It’s things like this that make World of Warcraft such a beautiful game to me. I remember seeing tweets from Blizz employees in the lead up to launch saying that their pets had been found in the PTR. It was a surprise to them, too, which is just so lovely.
There are so many things like this in BfA, too. Whilst levelling I found a couple of houses absolutely PACKED with cats! And somewhere in Zuldazar (I think!) is a flight point for Alliance that has little baby dinos that you can pet, too! And there’s so much more. It’s nice to take some time meandering around and finding these things.
Last night, the first raid of Battle for Azeroth opened. Uldir is here! It’s a great looking raid. But more on that in a moment.
Before we headed off, I wanted to get a team picture of our starting team for the expansion (and thankfully my GM entertains my annoying screenshot-taking habits!). So we all got together for our first pre-raid pic. 🙂
You might notice that’s a lot of people. Well, you’d be right. One of the biggest challenges that we have as an officer team at the moment is reducing the team numbers down to a more manageable level. Mythic only needs 20, and normal and heroic cap at 30. We have almost 40 people. Thankfully I don’t have a lot to do with really choosing who makes it to mythic and who doesn’t (other than personal observations).
But on to the raid itself!!
Uldir is in Nazmir, on the Horde island of Zandalar. According to Blizz, it was an old Titan facility, where they were experimenting with the void energies that bound the Old Gods. Things did not go well, so they literally shut the door on the place and hoped no-one would notice. Genius!
I tried to get pics of all the bosses, but wasn’t always successful (darn rogues stealthing in front of the bosses!!), but here are some of them.
The overall aesthetic of the place is pretty cool. It has the titan feel that you would want and expect from something that the titans were involved with. It feels massive, but it’s designed in such a way that it doesn’t take a super long time to get from boss A to boss B.
Interestingly, the exit of the Underrot raid is apparently the entrance to this raid, so many of the Underrot aesthics are there, too. Lots of blood and decay. It really looks amazing.
So for our first night, our goal was to at least clear normal with as many people as we could. We managed to do this relatively easily, with the only real challenge being G’huun. That is a chaotic fight that did a bucket load of damage, even on normal. But it was a lot of fun, with some interesting mechanics.
Tonight we go back in to do it all again on heroic. Our goal is to clear out the whole raid on heroic to get Ahead of the Curve by the end of the lock out. I should be do-able… but we’ll see 🙂
Hope those of you stepping in to Uldir this week have a fantastic time. Let me know how you go!
Ok, ok I’m late for my own blog challenge. Oops!
For topic 37 we are sharing our first impressions of Battle for Azeroth in pictures. The challenge was 5 pictures… look, no-one thought I’d actually do just 5, right? I think I’ve done well to get it to 6, but boy have I ignored some great ones!
Before I get started, though, I will say this – the number of times I had to stop what I was doing and just look around in game because I was blown away by the experience is staggering. This expansion so far is everything that I wanted and more. It kinda makes me speechless… which does not bode well for a blog. So let’s do pictures instead!
I tried to choose the pictures that best summed up the things I loved while I levelled.
First up, the ferry system in Boralus. I am in LOVE with this! I wish the Flight Master’s Whistle could drop you off at ferry ports as well as flight paths. It’s a beautiful way to take in the city and the stunning views.
Speaking of stunning views… I mean holy moly! ❤ I’m glad I could share this with Uuna 🙂 (I had her along with me the whole time I levelled. That was the deal we made in the quests to get her, and it’s a deal I plan to maintain every time).
I love just how much water-themed magic there has been for the Alliance story. As a restoration shaman I’m really digging it 🙂
I’m also loving all the mini-cinematics that we’re getting that feature our characters. It’s such an awesome way to make us feel like we’re really part of the game. It also made the bad things just that little bit more terrifying and heartbreaking…
I also loved the little side-quests that remind us that we are living in a world where war isn’t the most pressing concern; where people still have their own lives and families to worry about. And they say ‘thank you’ in the sweetest ways.
And lastly, Norwington Estate. If I could choose to live anywhere in Azeroth, this is where it would be. It has everything I love – beautiful home, mountains and ocean. Not to mention that Lord Norwington is just delightful, and there are ponies, and fireworks!!!
Like I said – stunning.
Hope you’re all enjoying Battle for Azeroth!! ❤
It’s been awhile since I’ve participated in one of these challenges (which is pretty hilarious given I’m one half of the team that runs these things… ) I’m aiming to do better with these challenges, though, so here I am.
I chose this topic for the challenge because I wanted to see some more positive posts around the place. Pre-expansion patches are always difficult; people are upset about class changes, addons stop working for awhile… the general sense of upheaval can really get to people, and it’s been showing in the community. My hope was to see some posts that focused on the good stuff. And here is mine.
The topic is in two parts – My Top 3 Legion moments, and then What I’m most looking forward to in Battle for Azeroth.
Part 1 – My Top 3 Legion moments
Ok firstly can I just say that Legion has been absolutely incredible with the amount of content it had. We had artifacts that had class customised scenarios to go with them, class order halls and class mounts and customised quests to get them. We had 5 raids, 13 dungeons, 7 new zones, and world quests on all of them. There were pet battle dungeons, and the whole mythic plus system, and secret mounts and pets and toys to discover… there was so much to do! And it was all incredible. So choosing only 3 favourite things is really hard, guys, just know that.
Shameless plug, but a couple of weeks ago I was a guest on Rolling Restart with Rho, and we talked a lot about the amazing things Legion gave us. It was a really fun show! You can check it out right here.
But I must stick to the topic, and choose 3 favourites. So, this is what I’ve come up with.
Cutting Edge Argus
This is easily one of my highest rated moments in game. Cutting Edge kills usually are for me, because we invest so much time and energy in to getting these kills. We work our butts off and argue and cry and get frustrated, but we keep trying. Cutting Edge, for me, has always been about overcoming all of that to succeed. To kick butt. To feel accomplished. Doing that with a ridiculous and hilarious bunch of people fills me with joy, and makes me super sappy. (For what it’s worth, I re-watched that kill video again just now and it still makes me tear up. Such a good feeling!)
Cinematics
Without a doubt, a huge highlight for me in Legion has been the cinematics that were so effortlessly weaved into so much of the game, from creating new characters, to levelling in each zone, and taking down raid bosses. The cinematics did such a wonderful job of pulling together all of the pieces of story in the expansion, helping us all make sense of what was happening.
I found this fantastic video on YouTube that shows all of the cinematics in Legion, from beginning to end. All up it’s nearly an hour long – how incredible is that?!?! Really puts it all in to perspective. And also reminds me of just how many times I’ve cried my eyes out in this expansion, holy moly!
Uuna
I’m going to preface this by saying that there were SO many NPCs and stories and side stories that I got attached to in Legion. Runas the Shamed in Azsuna, Ysera’s demise in Val’sharah, Thalyssra in Suarmar and Mayla Highmountain in… well, Highmountain. All of them were so beautifully portrayed in this expansion, and made it such a wonderful story to play through. So in a way, this section is for all of those characters.
But really, one did stand out a lot. Uuna. I know I have written about her before, but this little quest line really was such a highlight for me.
I loved that this wasn’t compulsory- that it wasn’t part of the main story. Though in a way, it really was. She was just one of the countless victims of the Legion. A tragically sweet and innocent victim at that. And so we go on a completely heartbreaking journey to save her from never ending darkness. Oh my gosh, it really is just so, so beautiful. I’m so glad I was able to save her. And I can’t wait to take her on my next adventure.
Part 2 – what I am most looking forward to in Battle for Azeroth
This is always a tough topic. New expansions hold so much promise. We know there’s going to be a whole bunch of new content coming. This pre-expansion content and story has already ripped our hearts out and caused so much divide in the community (not just Alliance vs Horde, either!) There’s so much to look forward to! Here are a couple of my favourite things…
Leading ladies
Like everyone else, I have been living for the Warbringer series. Seeing the stories behind these kick ass women has been so wonderfully heartbreaking. I’m terrified, but I have faith that Blizzard are going to do these ladies justice by having amazing stories for them in Battle for Azeroth. And I can’t wait to experience it!
New Allied races – now with curves!
I am absolutely with Ann here– I simply cannot wait to see the Kul’Tiran race – these ladies have curves! They got booty!
We don’t know what classes the Kul’Tiran can be yet, although it does look like they will be able to be druids given all the druid forms that have been datamined. I am really hoping they can be shaman. Firstly, so few of the allied races can be shaman at all, which is really frustrating. But more than that, I WANT TO BE KUL’TIRAN! I’ve never considered race changing from my pandaren. I love her dearly, and always will. But the Kul’Tiran… they’ve got something going on that just really sits so well with me. Maybe I will change my mind once I’ve played through the story in BfA… but for the time being, I would just love to be a kick-ass Kul’Tiran restoration shaman. *fingers crossed*
New raids
This one really goes without saying, doesn’t it? I’ve been so restless these past few weeks as the expansion has come to a close and raiding has ended. I miss it so much. I miss the challenge and the learning and fighting and tantrums. lol I cannot wait to see what Blizz has in store for us in raids in BfA!
So that’s my list! Do you agree? Check out what other people have put on their lists over on the main post at https://zandcindersblogchallenge.wordpress.com/2018/07/28/topic-36-farewell-to-legion/.
It’s the eve of what is bound to be an incredible emotional day for many Alliance players (and maybe even some unsure Horde, too…). Tomorrow, Teldrassil burns.
I’ve managed to keep the story of how and why Teldrassil burns a secret- I’ve successfully avoided it in the beta and all the website, and I’m so grateful for that, because I really have no idea what’s going to happen. What I do know, though, is that it’s going to be pretty emotional.
I couldn’t go in to this pre-expansion event without saying farewell to the beautiful tree so many of us love.
Like many players, my journey in World of Warcraft started in Teldrassil. I was a night elf mage called Sylaera. It was running around those beautiful woods that got me immediately hooked on the game, and, as you can see, I’ve not looked back. So it breaks my heart that this beautiful, innocent place, is potentially being destroyed.
This is where it started
(Even as I took that pic, a new toon was being created 🙂 )
There was something about this starting zone that was just so… innocent? Maybe that’s just the memories that I have attached to the area. But it was beautiful, and sweet and such a lovely way to start the WoW journey.
Darnassus as a city was always a bit confusing to me. Everything seemed to be a bit all over the place. But I tell you, the first time I walked up to those gates, I was genuinely in awe.
The giant trees guarding the gates, and how small I seemed…
I remember laughing the first time I saw the grizzly bear bank, fiercely protecting the Night Elves’ possessions.
I loved the way everything just fit in this tree. This strange world seemed so foreign to me at the time (it was my first MMO, after all!). But I couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of it.
Even now, years later, I still get distracted by how gorgeous it is.
And now that’s going away. And all I can think of is “what will happen to all the people?” What about the guy digging holes, and the people having a party in the courtyard? Or all of those beautiful tree guarding the city with their lives.
I just want to hide it from everyone. Horde, you can’t see this! It’s not really here! The whole place is just so beautiful an innocent… and I know Malfurion and Tyrande are there, and in some ways that’s reason enough to set the place on fire… but like, couldn’t you just lure them out and take them down somewhere else?
Teldrassil, you are beautiful, and I hope that, even though danger is headed your way, there’s something we can do to salvage this beautiful home of yours.
Here’s where you will find the complete collection of screen shots and videos of Realm’s raiding adventures in Battle for Azeroth.
(Check out the gallery to see pics from other expansions)
Stream VoDs can be found at https://www.twitch.tv/cinder_streams/videos/all .
Kill videos can be found over on YouTube.
The Eternal Palace
[3] Blackwater Behemoth
video coming soon!
[2] Radiance of Azshara
[1] Mythic Abyssal Commander Sivara
.
.
Battle of Dazar’alor
[9] CUTTING EDGE! Lady Jaina Proudmoore
[8] Stormwall Blockade
[7] High Tinker Mekkatorque
[6] King Rastakhan
[5] Conclave of the Chosen
[4] Opulence
[3] Grong
[2 Jadefire Masters
[1] Champion of the Light
[0] AOTC Heroic Jaina Proudmoore
.
.
Uldir [3/8M]
[3] Mythic Zek’voz
[2] Mythic MOTHER
[1] Mythic Taloc
[0] Ahead of the Curve: G’huun (first week!!)
There’s nothing better than getting your guild mates together and taking down some bosses.
Here’s a collection of Realm’s team kill shots and videos for each of the raids in Legion. (Check out the gallery to see pics from other expansions)
Antorus
[11] Mythic Argus the Unmaker – CUTTING EDGE!
[10] Mythic Aggramar
[9] Mythic Coven of Shivarra
- Mythic Coven of Shivarra
[8] Mythic Varimathras
- Mythic Varimathras
[7] Mythic Kin’garoth
- Mythic Kin’Garoth
[6] Mythic Imonar the Soulhunter
- Mythic Imonar the Soulhunter
[5] Mythic Portal Keeper Hasabel
- Mythic Portal Keeper Hasabel
[4] Mythic Eonar the Life-Binder
- Mythic Eonar
[3] Mythic Antoran High Command
- Mythic Antoran High Command
[2] Mythic Felhounds of Sargeras
- Mythic Hounds of Sargeras
[1] Mythic Garothi Worldbreaker
- Mythic Garothi Worldbreaker
Tomb of Sargeras
Here’s a collection of Pit Crew’s team kill shots for each of the raids.
Nighthold
Trial of Valor
I’ve been wanting to do something for my guild for quite some time. Sure, we’ve only been together (in this form) since the end of Tomb of Sargeras (so since around November/December last year? And to be fair, I’ve been raiding with some of them for the whole of Legion. ), but in that time I’ve grown so fond of my guildies. And I wanted to say thank you.
Thing is, the past few months have been a bit rubbish. Well, truth be told, the past year hasn’t been the greatest (work situations are just the worst for making you feel crap!) and raiding with these folks has been one of the few things that has kept me sane (that, and of course, Thor). Raiding with Realm is something I look forward to each week. I love these guys to bits. Even when we yell at each other. Even when we’re apes (ok, maybe especially when we’re apes). When we’re killing bosses together, or playing hide and seek in Dalaran, or fudging our way through mythic+ dungeons & bgs… it’s all just been so much fun. Pulling together and getting our Cutting Edge on mythic Argus the other week really was the icing on the cake of what was already an amazing expansion.
So I’ve been wracking my brains for what to do. And for the longest time I knew precisely what I wanted to do. But… well, I don’t have the talent to do it. (I maaaaaaayy have re-written the lyrics to ‘Part of your World’ from The Little Mermaid to tell the story of someone who wants to raid with us 😀 But I can’t sing for shit!) So I was back to square one.
Then the other day, when I was doing my WoW screenshots archiving, it occurred to me that I have a lot of screenshots. (Seriously… a LOT). And I had already been asking guildies for pics of themselves for me… so I decided to make a mosaic of all of us (and a whooooole bunch of pics from Antorus) into a wallpaper using our guild logo.
And so with the help of AndreaMosaic I made this…
UPDATED: added some more raider pics to it cos some people were missing in the first one 🙂
The original is big enough that you can zoom in and see all the individual pictures pretty well (not perfect, but well enough!). If you want to have a look, check out the fullsize version of the wallpaper here. Here are some snippets:
I know I’m a giant sap, but I’m an older lady now, and I’m very fond of the people that I chose to spend so much time with each week. I just want them to know how appreciative I am that they put up with my cranky moods and my nagging for screen shots and silly wee wee songs and inappropriate jokes (though, I’m the tamest of them all, I swear it!). I am so thankful for these people who have stood up for me and come to my defence when trolls came to my stream; who have become facebook friends and not run away screaming when they see pics of me; who don’t make fun of my terrible kill videos; who are there for a chat in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep; who are just good fun people to be around (even when I’m not).
So Realm – thank you for being amazing. I am so looking forward to kicking ass with you all in Battle for Azeroth. ❤
xo
P.S. Here are some closeups of the guildies who sent me selfies ❤ (All the pics below are in the mosaic)
Well, we have officially “finished” Legion. Last weekend our guild finally killed mythic Argus, giving us the Cutting Edge achievement. It took over 600 pulls and countless frustrations, but we made it. We are now Titanslayers (a title we now use to brush off dozens of wipes during re-clear…)
I’m proud of our team, though. Even though it took us longer to get this than expected, we got through it all with no rage quits. Sure there was bickering and frustrations and nagging and complaining, but we didn’t have to cancel any raids because we didn’t have enough people show up, and we didn’t have massive blow ups or people leaving. We came out the other side of this still a team, and I’m extremely thankful for that.
I put together the kill video for the fight. We had FOUR points of view for this one, which was really awesome! I still have so much to learn when putting these things together, but hopefully this still managed to capture the heart of it all. (The chimp sounds at the start are because we eventually became apes during this progression… 🙂
Now we are just going back and trying to get people the mythic kills they are missing, and getting out as many mounts as we can to people.
I’m proud of our little team. Here’s to new bosses to defeat in Battle for Azeroth!
Well hi there, friends. Today I wanted to take on a little peak behind the curtain, and show you where I am when I’m writing/streaming/talking to you all. It’s take awhile… in fact, it’s take the whole time we’ve lived in this apartment, so about 4 years? But finally – FINALLY I have all my gaming/nerdy paraphernalia together! I’m pretty excited about it.
A few weeks back we finally had the extra cash (and time) to go down to Ikea and buy some more shelves. We then had quite the adventure moving old things out of the study to empty it so that we could build the shelves, and build my new desk, then move Thor’s desk back in (and toss my old one in the tip). Our apartment is quite small, so it’s a really strategic Tetris game at times, moving our furniture around. With things set up in the study, it was then a case of getting all the bits and pieces from the random boxes and shelves around the apartment, and bringing them together to their new home.
And now it’s done! This is my little corner! On the shelves themselves, the top shelf is for all the stuffed Warcraft toys (I’m determined to collect them all!). The tall black thing on the left is a fan… so it has to wear a fun hat hehe. The picture on the wall there is from a scene of one of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who (The Doctor’s Wife), which was written by Neil Gaiman (and also has Matt Smith, who is my favourite Doctor). On the far right of the top part is some beautiful artwork by the amazing Frenone, a token I got from the Australian Legion launch, and a Doomhammer necklace.
First shelf, top left, has more WoW goodies. Draped over the side is the amazing alliance scarf that the beautiful Natanie knitted for me ❤ ❤ Inside are collectables, mostly from Blizzcon boxes. To the right is the Star Wars shelf. To the right of that again is miscellaneous funko pops, including Wonder Woman, Thor, a Weeping Angel and Zoe from Firefly. And to the right of that again are all my theatre programmes (and a Singin’ in the Rain umbrella! <3)
Second row from the top we have my Collector’s Editions (just Mists and Legion so far- Battle for Azeroth will be added soon, though!) plus the 2 of the Chronicles books, and other Warcraft books. Also that long thin box in there- that was a Kris Kringle gift that I god a couple of years ago from a friend at work. Inside is Warcraft cookie cutters!! I haven’t used them yet… I really should.
To the right of that is more miscellaneous stuff, including a Harry Potter letter writing set (including wax seal!!), some of Thor’s Back to the Future collectables, a Doctor Who sonic spork (lol) and some Princess Bride cards. To the right of that is pretty much hidden by my monitors, and mostly contains random bits of nothing, although does have my Firefly – Still Flying book, and agraphic novel about Eminem (it’s freakin’ awesome). There are also two “books” that I wrote when I was in primary school. I’ll show them to you all one day 🙂 Lastly on that row are other stuffed toys, which are guarded by E.T. He’s currently wearing bunny ears… anyway, he talks what you squeeze his hand. He belongs to Thor, and even though we don’t really have room for him, I just can’t bear for him to be thrown away. So we always make room for him.
Lastly above my monitor is a signed print of the Firefly cast, and stuck to that is a pic of the amazing Joss Whedon (yes… I’m a massive Joss fan-girl). On my desk I have a replica Doomhammer, and because I am all about the Alliance, my Blizzcon Alliance coaster, and an Alliance notepad, which I use to make my raiding notes. And of course all my lighting is blue at the moment 😀
So that’s about it for the fun stuff. The rest of the shelves are stuff related to my writing (research books etc.) an old typewriter, and general storage. I’m pretty happy with everything. Under the desk I’ve currently got 4 big boxes full of stationery and shit. I’ve ordered some printed fabric to cover them… will show you when it arrives 🙂 But otherwise, I’m happy with it all.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed this peak into real-world Cinder 🙂
xo
It has been a very long time coming (thanks my slow-ass levelling skills) but this weekend I finally finished collecting all of the class mounts. I’m officially finished! All up there are 32 class mounts, with some classes having only 1, and others having 4. So whilst I was able to unlock the main mount for a bunch of classes, it meant getting the artifact and getting Power Ascended on it in order to unlock other colour variants. Not overly difficult, just a little time consuming.
Gotta say, even though there were some class mount quests that I didn’t like at all, the whole concept of getting a unique class mount has been AWESOME and I’m so glad Blizzard implemented it. Even though the levelling took a little while, I still enjoyed it all.
As for favourites? I’d say Death Knight, Shaman, Priest and Mage had some of my favourite mount quest lines, for sure. Oh, Hunter was quite good, too. Least favourite was easily Warrior. Just felt really boring to me (but that could be because I think Odyn is a giant penis and I don’t like having to do things for him!).
So this is the end result! Feeling pretty chuffed to have gotten through it all with plenty of time to spare. That’s another thing ticked off my bucket list – woo hoo!! Now I’m working on collecting the missing pets, which are from the pet dungeon and the Argus pet battle achievement (thankfully have managed to get all the other).
Death Knight
Demon Hunter
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Monk
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior
What a big weekend! Achievements and mounts and pets – it all happened!
~*~*~*~Note there are some class campaign and class mount story spoilers in this post for Death Knight and Rogue.~*~*~*~
This weekend I managed to tick of a lot of things from my bucket list, and even a few that weren’t there.
First up, my little warrior dinged 110.
She’s still got a long way to go to get through her campaign, but at least for now the “hard” part is done. This just leaves my demon hunter to get to 110, then all classes will be at max level!
After completing the Death Knight campaign last weekend, it was time to get the class mount. I have to agree with the general cohort here and say that the Death Knight campaign is definitely one of the best, if not the best campaigns of all the classes. They nailed the class fantasy with this story. I felt down right evil throughout most of it, and was squirming in my seat when I was being asked to do some pretty wretched things. It was brilliant.
Then yesterday I went off to do the class mount story, and that was also brilliant. I really enjoyed it! It’s down right creepy having the Lich King constantly pushing me to do evil things in my ear… but do them, I must. For the mounts, of course!
I really enjoyed the scenario for this quest, as it took us to a place that we’ve not really been to before (whereas most other mount stories just take us to old world places. Which is great! But this was a nice change). The cinematic at the end was absolutely BRILLIANT. I got some amazing screen shots of my DK in that! The Death Knight stuff really is excellent, so if you’re even a little bit curious about it, level one up and go for it!
Today (Sunday) it was my rogue’s turn to complete her mount quest. The Rogue class campaign was ok… the trouble is that I just really don’t like rogues as a class, so the overall experience was tainted for me. Levelling her was so painful because I died a lot, and I just didn’t find it fun. Don’t get me wrong, it was still interesting, but let me put it this way- I didn’t take any screenshots of the campaign at all. That’s how uch fun I didn’t have doing it.
I did, however, take some screenshots of the mount campaign because that was quite good. Although truth be told, felt a little rushed. The basic premise is that we go do a favour for Ravenholdt, and he gives us a mount in return. The quest line really has nothing to do with the mount (whereas most of the other campaigns make the acquisition of the mount a big deal). Still, the quest line had me sneaking in to Horde cities to kill random targets. Which was tough because I don’t pvp, and these were not instances of the capital cities- it was live. So not only did I have to sneak past guards and what not, I had to dodge other players, too. I did alright, though, and got through it relatively well. Which is great, because truth be told, the rogue class mount is right up there on my list of favourites. I absolutely LOVE the raven models. And the fact that there’s four of them makes it even better!
It was after getting the first rogue mount that I started looking at my mount count, and adding up how many I had left. With the first raven, it brought me to 294, and the second raven (for having concordance on my outlaw spec) brought me to 295. Only 5 mounts needed to get to 300 for Lord of the Reins achievement and mount. Ok, I can do this! I quickly did a world quest for some Artifact Power to get my Assassination artifact concordance as well. Done – 296. The fourth was subtlety, which I didn’t even have the artifact for. So off I went to unlock the artifact, then went an killed the world boss for enough AP in one go to get concordance rank 2! And that made mount 297.
So then I had a think about which other classes had mounts for specs that I didn’t play. First one that came to mind was paladin – I didn’t have the tank artifact or mount. So off I went to get that artifact. Killed the world boss again and bamn! Concordance and mount for ret paladin done- 298. (I also discovered there are glyphs that allow me to change my Divine Steed ability to use one of the class mounts instead of the racial mount. This was an AWESOME discovery as I really hate the giant elek I run around on mid-fight!)
My next thought was my warlock. The mounts were a little different for this one- the first mount you just get for completing the campaign. The second you can buy with order hall resources, and I’d already done that too. The last mount, however, was a drop from a rare on the Broken Shore. I’d been stopping by each day waiting for him to spawn without any luck. Figured I’d see how I go again today… wouldn’t you know- there was the rare! I killed him and BAMN! Mount 299 acquired! ONE TO GO!
I was thinking and thinking and then I remembered my hunter! I still hadn’t unlocked the Survival artifact, nor its mount. So I went to unlock survival. I did it as BM as much as I could before swapping over. Was a little tricky in some parts, but got it done. Again, went and killed the world boss for 5 mil AP and there it was- mount 300!! Except for some reason it didn’t ding on my hunter. It happened when I swapped over to my paladin instead. Lord of the Reins is finally complete! I really didn’t think I’d get this done for a bit longer yet. But I’m very pleased that I have. 🙂
LORD OF THE REINS!
Because I was on a roll with everything, I went and unlocked all the artifacts I hadn’t done yet that awarded a toy or pet from Power Ascended. The best one was the Death Knight, as there was an adorable whelping for each spec that I picked up!
All in all it was a very busy but productive weekend. I only have the warrior class campaign and mount campaign to do, as well as finishing off levelling my Demon Hunter to 110 and doing all her campaign and mount quest line. I’m almost there! 😀
By the way, if you’re wanting to find out which classes have bonus pets or toys or have more than one class mount, check out the Class Mounts guide on wowhead.
For the past few weeks/months a few people in guild have been trying to get a group together to work on getting The Chosen achievement. For this achievement, you need to complete the Trial of Valor on mythic difficulty without dying. That is, defeating Odyn, Guarm and Helya on mythic, and still being alive at the end of it to tell the tale.
We decided to try this when we outgeared it a fair bit, to give us a better chance of succeeding. Which brings us to today. Tonight was the 3rd night we had tried to complete (my second night, as I missed the first one). Most of the time people died to silly mechanics like orbs on Helya which, even with loads of gear, can one-shot people if they’re not careful.
Tonight, we lost one person to Guarm (I believe they just got a bit too close to the boss and got one-shot), and we lost another to Helya (got hit by an orb that hurt for a bucket load). 18/20 isn’t too bad, though!
From this achievement, we received the title “… the Chosen” and a transmog set. I’m not the biggest fan of the transmog set, to be honest. But you know me and transmog- got to have them all!
For me, it was more about getting that title. I’ve wanted it since I heard it, and am awfully glad to have gotten it. There will be more runs in the future for alts to get the transmog sets on other armour types… I’ve just got to decide which one I want next! 🙂
Content from cindersays.net.
~*~*~ Warning: this post contains spoilers about early Legion storyline, and end of expansion story line. If you have not defeated Argus yet and don’t want to be spoiled, please do not read any further.~*~*~
I have to preface this post by saying that prior to Legion, I hadn’t really given Malfurion and Tyrande much thought other than Tyrande’s dress is super pretty, and Malfurion sleeps an awful lot. I always found their relationship a little odd (possessive? super co-dependant?), but that was about it. Come Legion though… well, I think they’re just some of the most selfish characters in Warcraft and really don’t want to be helping them with anything else in future.
I know, unpopular opinion much?
Here’s the thing- I find both of them immensely hypocritical, self-involved twits. The pair are so far up themselves that they don’t see there’s a whole world of existence outside of their tree and the Emerald Dream. I pretty much blame Malfurion for what happened to Ysera in Val’Sharah, Tyrande spends most of her time pining for, or trying to find, Malfurion, and both of them have done catastrophic things that have changed the fate of hundreds of thousands of beings.
Which is what it is (which is in the past), but you’re probably asking me what tipped me over the edge. Well, I’ll tell you- it was their complete and utter disinterest in Illidan’s departure that really got to me. Oh and boy did it get to me.
~*~*~*~
We spend a fair bit of time with these two in early Legion. Malfurion continues to marvel at how amazing the world around him is (oh and did you know Cenarius is a demigod and his mentor? I mean he’s just so freakin’ humble about it /sarcasm). Well it turns out Cenarius has gross corruption coming out of him, and Malfurion doesn’t know what to do (how does he not recognise this, btw?!), so let’s get Ysera here to sort stuff out. And that’s ok, things aren’t looking good, we should probably get some help.
So we do a bunch of stuff to then summon Ysera who tells us we need to get the Tears of Elune (which is what we were here for anyway). Anyway we go get the Tears but surprise surprise, Xavius beat us to it.
And then Cenarius disappears. And this is the point where Malfurion is an epic hypocrite, and I get mad. Instead of turning to the grove that is literally full of some of the most powerful people available to him in the moment, including the being responsible for the Emerald Dream itself, he runs off. He literally gets up, and runs in a random direction where he thinks he can find Xavius. Good one, mate. Don’t bother to consult with anyone about what might need to be done. No, off he goes, testosterone flailing all over the place. It is this action, right here, that sealed Ysera’s fate. I mean, Malfurion and Tyrande have been in this exact situation before and they did the same damn thing. And this time, Ysera paid the price.
Perfect summary of how stupid Malfurion is
This is but one (more recent) example of their self-important behaviour. But what does that have to do with Illidan?
Everything.
Illidan spent his entire life finding a way to defeat the Burning Legion. Every. damn. second. And some (many) of his actions were questionable (at best). But his motivation and goal never, ever wavered. Defeat the Burning Legion.
Malfurion was a terrible brother to Illidan. His high and mighty attitude belittled Illidan to no end. And instead of telling Malfurion to shove it, Illidan just wanted to impress him (and Tyrande, of course) even more. It’s for this reason that I hold Malfurion and Tyrande a little responsible for everything Illidan did. You don’t have to be blind to see that all Illidan wanted was to be accepted and loved by them. Well, maybe not blind… maybe just too far up themselves to see.
Don’t get me wrong, Illidan really made it difficult for those around him. In many ways he was just as stubborn and pig-headed as Malfurion in his bid to rid the world of the Burning Legion. It required absolute blind faith and trust in Illidan to see his actions being for the greater good. And I don’t blame people for questioning Illidan’s actions- they were not always what one would consider “good”. But for Malrfurion and Tyrande to say they are not as culpable is outrageous.
Apparently it’s ok for Malfurion to take it upon himself to render night elves mortal by destroying the Well of Eternity. Guys, it’s like, totally ok for him to literally rip the world to shreds in the great sundering because he, like, did it for the good of all Azerothian kind, ok? Sometimes we have to think outside of the box.
Oh but wait, no Illidan- well Illidan he apparently went about things the wrong way. He said he was gaining power to defeat the Legion, but you know, we don’t like how he’s going about it. See, Malfurion screwed the world over the “right” way. Illidan is a danger to us all and should be locked away forever.
COME ON.
Even Tyrande, for one shining moment, takes a tiny peek outside of her own little bubble to release Illidan from his prison because, believe it or not, maybe there’s more than one way to annihilate a universe-destroying horde of demons. But then Malfurion got mad at her, so she took it all back. (Thank goodness someone else figured out he was needed to get this done.)
Despite all this; despite everything that happened between these three characters, one truth remains: Illidan is the only one of them to follow through on his actions.
At the end of the Antorus raid, after Argus is defeated, Sargeras is finally revealed, and captured. And Illidan was there every step of the way. He did everything he promised he would do- he fought with us and stopped the Burning Legion. But no only that, oh no- Illidan went one step further. He knowingly sacrificed the rest of his life to watch over Sargeras to make sure he never comes to power again. He gave his damn life, and any remaining shred of possibility that Illidan did everything he did purely for selfish power was obliterated in that moment.
For all his faults, Illidan did it. It was touching, and a worthy ending (and yes, I cried my damn eyes out).
It felt like everything Illidan had done had been worth it. It made me feel, as a person (not my character) that even if I’m trying to do what is right, I may not always get it right, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Illidan’s actions gave me hope for the underdogs, that we can do it.
So you can imagine my utter disgust at what followed next.
The first time we defeat Argus, a short quest line is started – Moments of Reflection. Here we have a crystal with parting messages from Illidan to Malfurion and Tyrande. (You can read/listen to all of the messages on wowhead here.)
To Malfurion first. And here Illidan speaks of the different choices they made in their lives, but for the common goal they shared- to keep the world safe. Illidan acknowledges he wasn’t easy to trust, but hopes his actions show the truth of his words. It’s very moving.
And you know what Malfurion says?
My brother made selfish choices, brought pain to so many. His transgressions are difficult to forgive.
This coming from the guy who literally tore Azeroth a new one?!?!!?!? Holy hell dude. Illidan hurt people, yes! He made mistakes, yes! But you know what he did? He kept on fighting to defeat the Burning Legion, because that’s what he said he’d do. What did you do? You went and had a bloody nap!
*deep breaths*
Alright, there’s still another message to go. Tyrande once saw the potential in Illidan. Surely she will understand.
NUP!
Contrite words, yet I must wonder whether he truly meant them….
Seems he has a duty to fulfill…
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?! Illidan is literally not on this planet anymore after having saved it (and the rest of the universe). And instead of coming home to revel in the celebration he deserves for saving us all, he stays in who-knows-where for the rest of eternity to make sure that Sargeras never comes back. And she thinks he’s lying? That says a lot about who she is and what she thinks of people. Where was she while we were fighting the Legion? NOWHERE. (To be fair, she did come to Suramar, which is a darn lot more than Malfurion did. Probably too busy licking his wounds. But for the rest of it, where were they?) Illidan was there every step of the way, and they abandoned us.
Even in his final moments, this very last goodbye, Illidan wanted nothing more to love and be loved by Malfurion and Tyrande. And they shrugged him off. Absolutely jerks.
I am glad there was a third message in the crystal for us champions. I will gladly defend Azeroth in Illidan’s place. Malfurion and Tyrande can go take a nap, because it’s quite clear they truly don’t care about anyone else. And I certainly do not care about them.
I mentioned in my 2017 wrap up post that raiding had gone a bit weird for awhile with yet another guild disruption and shifting and all that. I’m not going to dwell on it- the past is in the past. And since Antorus opened, I’ve been trying to keep a positive attitude towards everything, because I just want to have a good bunch of people to play this awesome game with.
So far, things are going really well.
As of tonight, we are 6/11 mythic bosses down. Tonight especially was amazing. We have been working on Mythic Imonar, and were kinda in a slump. People were feeling a bit crap, and were getting tired so making silly mistakes. It wasn’t looking great. But somehow, on the last pull of the night, magic happened. Somehow, everything came together, and not only did we get further than we had gone before, we completely winged it for the whole last section and killed the guy. It was amazing. And even better- I was streaming when we got the kill.
Hey by the way, I stream now hehe I decided with Antorus opening and the new guild happening that I would start streaming. I have a good computer that can handle it, decent internet connection- why the hell not? So I stream our raid nights. I don’t really have many viewers because most of the time it’s stupid o’clock in the US, and Aussies are usually raiding themselves. But I do have some lovely people who come along now and then who I am extremely grateful for. And when people sit mythic fights, they sometimes pop in to watch how we’re going and how we’re doing a fight in case they get called in to do it. So it’s not always too quiet.
So anyway tonight, I somehow managed to have about 5 people in my stream cheering us on while we got the kill. It was really great. 😀 I can understand how people get addicted to the streaming thing. It’s a great feeling having an audience to cheer you on while you do these things. Really helps with the whole buzz.
Anyways, I just wanted to say that I’m really loving my guild. We seem to have a really good bunch of people who can all be really stupid together (like, really bloody stupid) but still get along really well and pull our shit together when it comes to raiding. And we can be cross with each other for awhile without it resulting in people leaving or getting too fed up. It’s hard to stay cross in this team when you’ve people being Pokemon’s and what not (thanks Advo!)
All of our kill shots are up on my raiding gallery (and below for now). And if you happen to want to come along one night while I’m streaming, I’m usually on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights, 8pm-11pm AEDT (so Melbourne time) over at twitch.tv/cinder_streams.
~*~*~*~*~ This post contains spoilers for collecting the Retribution Paladin hidden appearance ~*~*~*~*~
During the Christmas break I had made the decision to get the Corrupted Ashbringer skin for my retribution paladin artifact (the hidden appearance). I looked up on wowhead what I needed to do. I knew it was quite a detailed expedition, so was not surprised at the number of steps involved.
The first step, however, involved collecting 2 books- one that was a random spawn in a dungeon, and the other from a pvp battleground. I was immediately put off from my mission. I’m not great at pvp as it is. The thought of having to try and do something else during that pvp experience made me nervous. I mentioned this in guild, and was delighted to find out from a guildie that the book required (Nat Pagle’s Guide to Extreme Anglin’ ) was not bind on pick up. I was able to buy it from the Auction House! So off I went. Unfortunately, there were none available. I put a pin in my plans, and vowed to check each day to see if a book would appear on the AH. And the promptly forgot.
Then on Saturday, I remembered again that I wanted to do this, so off I went to the AH, and there is was! It wasn’t too expensive either, so I bought it immediately. The guide I was followed mentioned the next book I needed to get, A Thoroughly Read Copy of “Nat Pagle’s Guide to Extreme Anglin'”, was a rare spawn in Dire Maul. Paladins are so slow, so the guide suggested farming for this on a toon with lots of speed boosts, so I took my little Demon Hunter in, just for fun. I looked on the map to see some spawn points, and chose one at random. So off I went, and wouldn’t you know it, the book was right there!!! I found out afterwards that the spawn of the book had been made more common, so I felt a bit less lucky after that, but it did make things go faster.
Next up was a trip to Blackwing Lair for Nefarian’s Head. Unfortunately I didn’t score any pets or transmog, which was a little disappointing, but it passed quickly enough.
Next up it was back to my order hall, to speak with someone who might know about the books and what they’re talking about, Sister Elda. (The whole purpose of the chain is to figure out the story in the book, to find the Shard of Darkness that will corrupt Ashbringer (and give the appearance)). Of course she sent me back to Dire Maul, where I spoke to Prince Tortheldrin. HE then sent me off to speak to someone else (I’m noticing a pattern here…)
As an Alliance I was sent to speak to Alexia Ironknife at Chillwind Camp.
No surprises here- she doesn’t know anything either, and send me off to read someone’s journal (bit personal, really!)
Guess what? Still no answers! All we get is a clue as to where the remains of someone may be found… in a grotty slime. Now this is the part where I expected to have to wait some time. I’d been told the spawn timer on the slime was really long. Despite that, I headed off to Thondroril River in Western Plaguelands. As expected, the slime wasn’t here. By this time my alt run was due to start, so I left her sitting near the spawn point, and off I went.
The next day I went about business as usual for quite awhile before remembering I was working on getting the skin (I really am getting quite forgetful!!). I logged on to my paladin, and wouldn’t you know it, the slime was right there in front of me!! I waited a few minutes and looked around to see if anyone else was waiting for the slime to spawn, but it appeared I was alone. So I (very slowly!) killed it, to get the next piece required.
The item the slime dropped was Timolain’s Phylactery. I used it be the river and spoke to Timolain the Accursed who revealed (dun dun duuuuunnnnn!!!) that the Shard of Darkness we were looking for was right there in the river somewhere! All we had to do was fish for it.
Now I had heard nightmares about this fishing part of the questline. I expected to be at this for hours, if not days. So I set myself up with some Netflix on one screen, and set about fishing. In a way I was almost a little disappointed when, less than 15 minutes later, the item dropped for me. Almost 😉
From here it was smooth sailing. I went back to my order hall to speak with Lord Maxwell Tyrosus (who was not at all impressed with my request to corrupt Ashbringer, let me tell you!!). But being obedient as he is, we went on a journey to the Death Knight order hall, Acherus, to undertake the corruption process.
I really liked this part of the quest line. Firstly, there’s something naughty about being in another class’s order hall, so it’s a bit of fun. Secondly, it was just really nicely done. Tyrosus is just not happy throughout the whole thing, and wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Me, on the other hand, well I was determined to get my light-ridden hands on everything hehehe! We meet with the Four Horsemen and convinced them to create the final piece – the Heart of Corruption.
They were a bit reluctant, but we convinced them in the end. I roamed around a little to try and explore, but the floor was blocked off and I couldn’t go anywhere else, which was a little disappointing, but not unexpected.
In the end I got Tyrosus out of there and back to the safety of the paladin order hall, where I learned the hidden appearance.
Of course the first thing I had to do was come up with a new transmog to match the appearance. I found some bright green pieces that I thought would work well…. and yeah there we are. Corrupted Ashbringer acquired.
I know I had it a lot easier than those who were working on this when it first came out, but I still had a lot of fun with it. I’m not sure that I’ll keep using the appearance. It’s great an all, but honestly I prefer the original. 😀
Now to figure out which appearance to get next.
~*~*~* This post contains spoilers for the Hunter class mount quest chain.~*~*~*
One of my ongoing goals in game to have completed before the next expansion is to get all of the class mounts. I’ve been slowly but steadily making my way through levelling each class, then getting their mount/s. Today, I unlocked another, my hunter, bringing me up to 7 class mounts so far.
Levelling my hunter has really been quite the mission. Once I had finished levelling my priest and getting her mount, I was pretty much done with the classes that I play somewhat regularly (i.e. I’ll play them for fun, too, not just for mounts/achievements). Everything after my priest has been difficult. The toons themselves don’t have great gear (just baleful gear from WoD) and because I don’t know the classes well, they’re slow to level, and well… boring. But, I want all the mounts! So I persevered.
I decided my hunter would be next, not because I like the mount (it’s honestly one of my least favourites), but because the novelty of gnome hunters was still alive and well, so off Cinderling went. I started out levelling as Marksman because I like the weapon appearance, but to be honest it was pretty rubbish to level with, so I swapped over to Beastmaster, which proved to be a LOT better.
She dinged 110 a few days ago. Then it was off to the Broken Shore to get going on the Legionfall Campaign that would ultimately give me my mount. Cinderling had a much better time getting through this than other classes, because the pets just tanked for daaaays, so it all passed very quickly. Once I was done (earlier this morning) it was time to get my mount!
The quest line for the hunter mount was actually quite great. We receive an invitation from Odyn to take part in a great hunter feast (where hunters get to have a feast, not be the feast!) that takes place in the Field of the Eternal Hunt (where you go fight Fenryr in the Halls of Valor dungeon). The feast is by a beautiful warm fire and it’s all lovely with food everywhere. But then a “chosen one” (guess who!)is to go out into the darkness to hunt for spirit beasts to earn their favour.
So off I go.
The area is in pitch black darkness of night, with a sky full of stars. So pretty.
We need to track the beasts, so hunter tracking is on, and picks up some dots nearby. Rather than these being beasts, they are clues to take us to the beasts. Each of the clues glowed this translucent spirit-green colour.
So I followed the clues to each of the beasts. It felt a bit weird having to kill them… as if the spirit of the dead animal wanted to go through all of that death and pain again. So initially I wasn’t sure what to do when I saw the stag. But yes, kill him, I did. As well as the others.
Even though it was weird, they made for some really beautiful screen shots.
Once the first 4 beasts gave me their “blessing” another 2 “rare” beasts spawned (because I’m just that good at being a hunter!)
These fights were a little more difficult. In fact, they were a bit of fun, really! The beasts died… and then the super-ultra-rare beast appeared. And he was actually quite beautiful.
He also needed to be defeated (though I was quite glad that he didn’t actually die!). Odyn called me back and we had a giant piss-up for the rest of the night.
When Cinderling awoke in the hunter’s lodge a little while after, we went outside, and there was a saddle, sitting on a rock.
Clicking the saddle gave me the mount, Trust of a Loyal Wolfhawk, but not before we had a mini-cinematic (I’m really quite fond of these!)
And there we have it! Hunter class mount acquired! I actually swapped back over to my Marksman spec to do a quest for Artifact Power to get one of the other versions of the mount, the Trust of a Dire Wolfhawk. I haven’t even touched Survival, so will need to get that artifact weapon and level it up at some point in the future. But for now, I’m happy with these two 🙂
Part two of Topic 29: the 2017 wrap-up double challenge bonanza!
The second challenge topic we had for December, to help wrap up the year, was to show one favourite screenshot for each month. I like this challenge, because I love taking screenshots (I have almost 3000 just from this year alone!!!) but boy is it a tough challenge choosing only one picture for each month. (ok so I may have cheated a little with the collage up top….). There’s so much exciting stuff that happens! BUT, a challenge is a challenge, so here we go.
January
There were a lot of beginnings in January (aside from it being the beginning of a new year). Firstly, this is when Pit Crew was born. It was supposed to be a new start for our raid team. And whilst things didn’t quite turn out that way, I do have fond memories of our first night in Nighthold, which also opened in January. My screenshots folder is PACKED full of pictures of the raid. It really was beautiful. January was also my first time in Karazhan, and also when we got our Arcanist’s Manasaber, for helping out the Nightbourne.
The screenshot I’ve chosen to share, though, is from my order hall. I chose this pic because it shows one of the things that I love most about WoW- the little things. These two NPCs are actually part of ~*~*SPOILER ALERT~*~*~ the restoration shaman artifact quest line. They’re not here all the time, they just stop by from time to time. And they are just adorable. Adelee is trying to teach Grash how to dance. It’s absolutely adorable. And like I said, is the little things that I love about this game. 🙂
February
February gave me Experiment 12-B, completed Brawler’s Guild, a ghost moose, and a bunch of raiding achievements. It was also the month I wrote about being harassed online, and was also the month someone in game randomly saw me and whispered me to tell me they enjoyed my blog.
The pic I’ve chosen to share is from when I get my Arcane mage hidden artifact appearance. This whole quest chain was hilarious. And I just adore farmer Cinderlily with her sheep followers!
March
We went back to the Broken Shore in March, I “discovered” places in Dalaran that have always existed (I’d just never seen them!), I got extremely lucky with loot drops (hidden appearances, legendaries and mounts, oh my!), and bought myself Yu’lei. I also spent a bit of time levelling my priest, got all my hidden appearances for my mage, and took a whole bunch of screenshots of the Cathedral of Eternal Night. I also wrote a few posts in March, my favourite being where I designed my own zone in WoW.
This pic for March, though, is of myself with 4 other lovely ladies I’m so fortunate enough to call friends. Each month (or as often as we can!) myself, Leeta, Natanie, Miggi & MrsO all get together just just hang out in chat and play some games together. Sometimes we run dungeons together, other times we’ll do invasions or old raid runs or even try our hands at Overwatch or Heroes of the Storm. But no matter what we do, we always have a great time, and I’m so glad to know them. ❤
April
April was “quieter” because I got a new job, so had less time to play. But I still managed to squeeze in an awful lot! It was the month of mounts: I got my fox mount, the Valajar Stormwing, the Leywoven Flying Carpet and I found the Long-Forgotten Hippogryph. We also got to solve some riddles to get a new (to be honest, pretty ugly) mount!
Other than all the mounts, we killed a whole bunch of mythic bosses in Nighthold, and I spent a looooong time bashing my head against the Mage Tower challenge (and not getting it at that time!).
The most fun thing that happened in April was the Inky Black Potion. Everyone went bananas for it, and it’s not hard to see why. I flew all around Azeroth and took a LOT of screenshots with that potion.
We also got to play with baby murlocs, in what was one of the most adorable micro-holidays of the year.
May
I spent a fair bit of time with my paladin in May, getting her levelled up and finishing her class hall story. We had two micro-holidays that I attended- the Spring Balloon Festival, and the Glowcap Festival. It was also the month I got my Ratstallion mount, and when we started working on mythic Gul’dan.
During this month, we also learned of a little murloc pet, Squirky, who could be captured off the coast of Azsuna, on a very small island full of very strong murlocs. I was extremely lucky when I went to get a Squirky of my own- the lighting was absolutely spectacular, leading to the picture below. I think it looks like a painting. Those cotton candy clouds are just divine!
June
Class mounts became available in June. I really enjoyed the quest line to get my shaman mount. Oh and what a mount it is! I also headed off to get my mage her class mount, too. I took part in the Running of the Trolls for the first time this year, and it was a lot of fun. Our raid team killed mythic Gul’dan AND mythic Helya – and all of this is just in the first 2 weeks of the month!
I spent some more time levelling a priest, brought Dog to Dalaran, and helped save Chromie. I also followed the clues to get my own Sun Darter Hatchling (which I wrote about here). Tomb of Sargeras took up the bulk of June, though. I took SO many screenshots of that raid. I really enjoyed everything about it. It felt like it had a proper story that contributed to the overall narrative of the expansion. I loved that completing the raid changed the physical world around us. The picture I’ve chosen, for me, represents everything we’re fighting for this expansion- our home (for me, Stormwind) and to stop the Burning Legion.
July
In July I got to raid with my lovely friends Zee & Neuro again for awhile (though the poor things really did not have a good time with us… things were not great at the time 😦 ) I got myself a Wild Dreamrunner mount and the Paladin and druid class mounts. I even went to visit Faeb, just to say hi. It’s also the month I got my beautiful new PC, Alice!
The highlight for July, though, was hands down *finally* completing the Mage Tower challenge on my resto shaman. I had given up for quite some time as I had gotten so, so frustrated with it. But I stuck to it, and finally got the darn thing. And I felt very accomplished indeed.
August
We had the Trial of Style in August, and it was a LOT of fun, and I managed to get the Remember to Share achievement, which gave me yet another mount.
However, without a doubt, the biggest thing to happen in August was going to Argus. Not only did we get to explore this world we have heard so much about… but we got to see a whole other side to Azeroth. It hit me right in the feels, this pic.
September
Another month of mounts, artifact challenge and hidden appearances, and of course, raiding. But easily the most defining moment in September was, after hours of running and and searching a seemingly endless maze, finally seeing this treasure box at the end of it all (and of course getting the Lucid Nightmare mount). I had intended to write about my experience getting this mount, but it was also around this time that my blog went down for extended maintenance, so I didn’t get to. For what it is worth- I absolutely LOVED getting this mount 😀
October
I ran with gnomes, got more hidden artifact appearances, and got my little priest her class mount. It was a lot of “alts” time that month, just ticking off the achievements.
We also had Hallow’s End, where I got to fly around like a sexy maniacal pumpkin! 
November
It’s always all about Blizzcon in November, with everyone flying around in their Blizzcon class mounts. It was also WoW’s birthday, so of course there was lots of alt-levelling here, too, including getting my Monk her class mount.
November was also the month that the guild fell apart. Again. It was particularly sad and painful this time around, because we wanted it to work so much. But some personalities just don’t mesh well, and we split up and went our separate ways.
But on a happier note, November had the Moonkin Festival, which was ADORABLE. I loved having my very own moonkin squad! 😀
December
And here we are at the end of the year. December has given us yet another stunningly beautiful raid, Antorus. Again, a fabulous raid that really brings the story together. It’s also the first raid with our rebuilt team, Realm. So far, things are going really well, I think. It’s not perfect, but the imperfections aren’t as sour as they were previously. The people are great. Just so great. I’m so fortunate to have such a wonderful group of people in my life. And it’s for that reason that, even though history shows otherwise, I think we’ll work as a team. I have to have hope that it will.
So I end this series with a hopeful picture for you all. 
Like I said, this was hard. There are far too many picture to choose from each month. But if I chose them all, we’d be here forever. I hope you liked the images I chose, though!
So that’s it for December, and 2017! Thank you to every person who has ever stumbled across my little blog, and an extra special thanks to anyone who has liked or commented. It means the world to me that you read my silly words.
May 2018 be full of love and hope and laughter, and all the things that make you happy.
xo
PS: Ok one last one because I can’t help myself! I just really love this pic!!
~*~*~*~*~SPOILERS AHEAD!! This post contains images and discussion about bosses in the new Antorus raid. If you do not want to know anything about this raid, please turn back now. ~*~*~*~*~
Anyone who has been reading my blog for awhile that I love a new raid. There’s always something so exciting about it. There’s a buzz that you can feel in the days leading up to it. I’m no different. Whilst I’m not as tired of Tomb of Sargeras as other people are, I have been looking forward to seeing some new bosses.
So you can imagine my disappointment in missing the first night of the new raid. You’ll have noticed I’ve been quiet here again lately, and that’s because for the past few weeks I’ve been travelling for work. It’s been busy and extremely tiring (I’m not a good flyer, so the anxiety really makes it exhausting!). I was on a flight from Perth back to Melbourne when my guild walked in to Antorus for the first time on Wednesday night. It was an odd feeling. It was the first raid for the new guild (more things I haven’t talked about here…) and I was really looking forward to it. But it is what it is.
I was, however, fortunate enough to step into Antorus on Thursday night, when we started the Heroic run. We managed to clear 8 heroic bosses for the first time on Thursday night, which I was really excited about. I had been terrified for most of the night because, due to being so busy with work, I had only really had a very basic look at each of the fights. But I actually did ok. My healing was trash (also didn’t help that we were overhealing things by a bucketload!!) but I didn’t die to mechanics, so that’s good.
Anyway, we went back in last night for our alt run on normal. Except I took my shaman so she had a chance at some more gear. And more importantly, so she could take some screenshots.
When I say Antorus is epic, I genuinely mean it. This is a level of epic that I think most people haven’t really felt since Ulduar. The raid itself spans from Antorus into space and the twisting nether. It’s incredible. It’s done brilliantly, so it doesn’t feel like you’re running for a long time to get to bosses (ground mounts are allowed for a lot of the raid, which is so helpful!). Instead, you get to use the Vindicaar and the portals you see on Argus to get around.
And the scenary. Holy moly. When you go in there yourself, look up. It’s just… amazing.
The bosses themselves are a lot of fun. I really like all of them. I haven’t had a look at mythic mechanics yet (which I will need to do given we will start mythics next week!) so my thoughts are based on normal and heroic at this stage.
~*~*~*~*~SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!!!!~*~*~*~*~
Yes, I’m going to talk about each of the bosses, INCLUDING ARGUS AND THE PHASES IN THE FIGHT AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTERWARDS. You’ve been warned!!!
Garothi Worldbreaker
This is a great little fight, and I think a nice way to start the raid as a whole. The fight is straight forward, but ramps up in damage over time, which helps speed things up a bit. The way we do it has ranged and melee stacks, which means I always have somewhere to drop my healing rain, which I’m always excited about (this will be even more important when I get my 2 and 4 piece sets from this tier). It’s good fun, though! I like it a lot.
Felhounds
I LOVE how these guys look! And what’s even better- the firey hound drops as a mount from this fight. One of my guildies was extremely lucky and got it on the first night. I’m very jealous. It’s not usually a mount type that I would go for, but I love the glowing colours.
This fight is another one that is quite straight forward, however the difficulty comes in when the abilities overlap in weird ways. For example one mechanic requires you to all stack up together, but then a different mechanic needs you to all spread out. And sometimes, those two mechanics overlap. So it makes for a really interesting fight. I think this one will be quite chaotic in mythic- I can’t wait!
Antoran High Command
This fight actually consists of 3 bosses. Only 1 is active at a time, with the two hanging out in their little pods bombarding us with random abilities. Because the active boss has vacated their pod, one of us can pop in there and use it to our advantage. It’s a great concept. We move around the room and deal with all the abilities. This is another one that ramps up in damage to the raid. It also requires a good amount of dps so you don’t run out of “death-saving” abilities. I like it a lot. I have a feeling this one will be a bit bananas on mythic too, though!
Portal Keeper Hasabel
This is another awesome fight (I’m sensing a theme here…). It’s got some great mechanics- being a portal keeper, Hasabel has a bunch of portals that open up, so the group needs to be split up to help deal with what’s in them. It’s a little like the Dragons of Nightmare fight in that way. Inside the portals there are orbs and things that look like they’re going to play a big part in mythic… we’ll see how that pans out. Again, another great fight with some simple mechanics that are easily botched.
Essence of Eonar
It’s no surprise here that I have lots of pics for this fight…
Eonar is a life-binder, so of course wherever she is, it’s going to be beautiful. This fight is quite different- there’s no one boss. We just need to defend Eonar from the onslaught of demons coming in. Because the room is massive, the team needs to split up. There’s a great ability that you get when you run into the room, that gives you wings. When you use them, you get shot straight up into the air. You can then glide around with your beautiful green wings, or you can use the extra action button again to land somewhere specific. So it makes getting around a lot faster.
I will admit, that even though this is a stunning area for a fight, it’s my least favourite in the raid. There’s SO much running around, so I can’t drop my rain anywhere, and I always seem to get lost. The changes to the fight on mythic have the raid splitting even further, so it will be very interesting indeed. but for now, not my favourite (at least it’s pretty!)
Imonar the Soulhunter
Silly bugger wouldn’t turn around for me to take his picture! So here’s a pic of his butt 😉
This fight has bombs and sleeping and racing through mazes… it’s chaotic and awesome!! It’s going to be bananas on mythic. It requires some good coordination with the team to make sure that bombs are placed in suitable spots around the room, and to make sure we don’t accidentally put each other to sleep. The fight starts on one side of the room, then he will jump over to the other side. We have to run across a bridge that is full of bombs and rolling balls and lines of death… yep, bananas. But I’m a sucked for punishment, and actually really love this fight.
Kin’garoth
This guy is AWESOME! We smash his face for awhile, then go kill some adds that spawn. Any adds that we don’t kill do a whole bunch of mechanics in addition to the boss mechanics, so it’s really important to get them down. My only issue with this fight is that I find myself out of range of the tanks a lot. I think I need to get them to have markers on their heads so I know where they are. But yeah, another really interesting fight.
Varimathras
This fight is scary. It’s a tank and spank kind of fight, which is probably pretty boring for dps, but there’s a healer mechanic in this which is terrifying. You need to always be near someone, otherwise you get a debuff on you called Misery, which makes you take 200% extra damage, but worse than that, makes you unable to be healed for its duration. Misery lasts for 7 seconds, but I tell you what, it seems so much longer than that. Watching peoples’ health go down and not being able to do anything about is excruciating!! It means people need to be sensible when they’re going to take damage- anything to help reduce the amount of damage taken is going to be really helpful for healers, because otherwise we can’t do anything until the debuff is gone.
This fight has a quick enrage timer on it, and it’s really easy to mess up. I know some people don’t like it, but for me, it’s challenging and really intersting. And bloody terrifying.
Also, it’s nice to see a male character with barely any clothes on for a change!
Coven of Shivarra
I mean, there’s so much ass here…
I’ve only done this fight (and the following two) on normal so far. It’s chaos. I’m not usually a fan of council fights, but this one has some really interesting mechanics that mix things up a bit. There are titan abilities that come in to try and hurt us, and they rotate randomly, so we have to be able to react quickly. There’s also a debuff that needs to be healed off, because if it isn’t the person with it gets stunned. It’s an interesting fight. I’m concerned I’ll dislike it on mythic, but so far, I enjoy it!
Aggramar
So again, I’ve done this fight on normal. It’s damn good fun. This one, to me, feels like a dance, and I really like it. There’s fire and explosions and smashes and thankfully at least a bit of stacking for my healing rain to enjoy. I’m excited to see this fight on heroic tonight!
Argus the Unmaker
Oh Argus. You can’t help but feel sad about how this all came about. But oh boy it’s hard to be sad when you’re surrounded by the freaking AMAZING zone. We’re in space and it’s just incredible. And this fight… this is a damn good final boss for an end of expansion raid.
The fight has 4 phases. The first phase has cones of void that need to be placed properly, and blobs of void that need to be put in the right place as well. There are also orbs of awesome that spawn that give you some buffs, which is a really great.
Phase 2 opens with a giant storm that gets rid of the void zones. We just hang out in the middle avoiding the storm. Then there are junk-rat-style tyres of void doom that make lines of death across the platform that we have to dodge. There are also bombs that get put on people that need to be dealt with… of course they have really similar names so it’s quite confusing!
Phase 3 comes to us with a WHOLE bunch of adds around the room. They start out really pretty as stars, then turn into evil adds of mean that needs to be killed ASAP. There are lines that need to be avoided and casts that need to be interrupted and adds that get specific debuffs on them to make them easier to kill.
Once the adds are all killed, Argus pulls us all in together… and kills us. Dead. RIP
It’s amazing. There’s a bit before the image above where we are pulled together in space, and locked in this big chunk of ice-like stuff… then Argus gets all cranky and smashes us in one hit. What a jerk.
But all is not lost. Eonar is here to save the day!!!
Thanks for the res, Eonar!
I forgot to take a pic of what it looks like when we’re dead! (There will be plenty of time for pics of it in later attempts, though!). While we are dead, we need to avoid running in to some little adds that are out blocking our path, and run to a tree where we can res. That tree stays up for the whole fight, which is really interesting, because it means we can die quite a few times without wiping. Death becomes a resource in a way. And it’s needed, because there are abilities that go out that will just plan and simply kill people.
The last phase is quite chaotic, and is definitely a dps race, because you will eventually run out of rezzes.
But then Argus dies, and the end cinematic begins…
I had watched the end cinematic before I went in to Argus. I knew that it would get spoiled for me before I would have a chance to see it for myself, so I watched it in advance. But watching the cinematic again after having completed the fight was something else. I cried. I really did. It was pretty emotional. Thinking about everything that had happened to lead up to that point… the people who have died (RIP Varian), and all of the battles we have had to face to get to this point, where Sargeras is finally being captured and brought to justice… it’s a lot. It really does reiterate my last post, too, about just how epic this is, and how difficult anything that comes after it will be “disappointing” to a lot of people. This was fucking EPIC. And I’m really going to miss Illidan. What an amazingly deep and interesting character. This was a really nice send-off.
So that’s it! Antorus the Burning Throne. Freaking AMAZING. Here are a couple of more pictures from the raid itself.
