Features I like(d)

I like some random, inane stuff.  Tiny cute things.  Anything green.  Completely extraneous Easter-egg stuff.  So over the course of WoW there's been a lot of random stuff I've like from each expansion, regardless of whether there were other things that drove me batty (like gated profession stuff and losing both ships on a 92% mission fail).

But this is about stuff I like, so here's some of them:

Fished up bosses.  The first of these (as far as I know) was Gahz'ranka in the original Zul'Gurub.  Unlike later fished up bosses, like the Lurker Below and the Pandaria fishing quest bosses, Gahz'ranka required a process to fish up.  This is also why I was a bit irritated about Nat Pagle forgetting who I was every expansion - he taught me 225-300 fishing skill.  But yeah, I liked that having done what a lot of people hadn't in Vanilla (maxing fishing) was useful for something besides obscure food.

Yes, I still have my Mudskunk Lures.

Long quest chains with both strong emotional payoff and decent equipment rewards.  The Major Windsor escort through Stormwind (and Bolvar's subsequent badassery).  The Cipher of Damnation (Burning Crusade edition).  Alas, Andorhal.  The Battle of Darrowshire.  Drakkuru.  Zul'Drak's troll gods quests.  Terokk's story in Spires of Arak.  When I specifically seek out these zones to quest through again, it means they're doing something right.

Zapthrottle.  So I'm still carrying around my mote extractor.  As an engineer, I loved suddenly having resources that only I could gather.  I may have occasionally frustrated people by being en route to some group thing and getting distracted chasing down balls of gas.  It was worse than ore tracking.

Floating islands in Nagrand.  They're so full of Easter eggs, and they were fun to go hang out on if you had to afk for a bit.

Water with currents.  After how many years of waterfalls and such, Pandaria finally gave us water that would pull us around!  I especially liked the currents off the southern coast of the Dread Wastes.

Phasing that lets us change zones over time.  One of the things I was a bit sad about until phasing went in was that, no matter what we did in WoW, nothing changed.  You go help someone out and as soon as you leave, it all resets.  But in Mount Hyjal, we helped beat back the Twilight's Hammer and start the healing of the fire-scorched areas.  In Pandaria, we contributed to the devastation of some of their pristine areas.  In Deepholm, we repair the World Pillar.  And Gilneas!  Oh, Gilneas.  One of the things that impressed me most in the Cataclysm beta, playing through Gilneas for the first time, was that the moment of the cataclysm itself - so bluntly shown in Kezan as Deathwing disrupts a sports game - you feel it when the devastation hits, and your village begins sinking into the ocean.  It was visceral and amazing.

So, uh, sorry, west coast of North America.  It's going to be devastating when you fall into the Pacific, but it's going to be amazing for your narrative.

Tol Barad.  I liked that some PVP opened up some basically PVE daily quests with mount and pet and gear awards for the related currency.  The zone was interestingly creepy, as well.  I suppose Winterspring was also in this vein, but Tol Barad felt more polished.

The Seahorse in Vashj'ir.  The only thing I didn't like about it was that you could only use it in Vashj'ir.  Going fast underwater was almost better than flying.  It didn't hurt that the place was gorgeous.

The turtle boats in Northrend.  It was slow, but it was a nice thematic touch for the Tuskarr, and when you forgot which zeppelin went where as frequently as I did, it made schlepping over to the other end of Northrend prior to having flying much easier.

Garrison followers.  I love my bird-buddy Ishaal, and a lot of the followers just make me more connected to Draenor in general.  I may hardly leave my garrison, but I do have cool people hanging out with me.  When I'm not making them do random menial tasks.

NPCs that use class-specific skills.  The last boss in Nagrand's Ring of Blood shaman-popping.  Yrel in that Talador cutscene.  Anytime I see NPCs we're interacting with behave the way I'd expect someone of that class to - it's just awesome.  (Seriously, I kinda teared up when Yrel popped wings in that video, because Yes! That is a paladin!)

Rexxar's rat innkeeper.  Because it's cute and adorable.

Pet biscuits.  Because rats bigger than gnomes are awesome.

Spires of Arak

I love Spires of Arak.  It is far and away my favorite thing zone-wise of all of Draenor: the ambiance, the story lines, the puzzles.

You get introduced to the stories in Spires through two routes: aiding the Arakkoa, and helping out at Pinchwhistle Gearworks, where attempts to start an outpost have gone awry.  Along the way you meet various members of the Arakkoa Outcasts, find out what Wrathion has been up to in Draenor up to this point (not-spoiler spoiler: no good), and fight more plant zombies like you ran into in Gorgrond.

Into the woods to help my bird buddies...

I like the Arakkoa story here the best, but the two kind of side-plots with Pinchwhistle and Admiral Taylor's garrison are both engaging as well (and the former will land you the Salvage Yard plans).  Ultimately this is where my alts have been hitting 100, working towards getting Talonpriest Ishaal, their Salvage Yards, and Admiral Taylor's sword (where applicable).

The Arakkoa Outcasts have had a difficult time, basically on the losing side of an Arakkoa civil war.  They've fled from the spires in the sun down into the shadows, and you both help them against the Laughing Skull, who are hunting them, and against the Arakkoa who still live in the glory of the sun above, following Terokk's story as you do.  Depending on how well this Draenor's Arakkoa parallel our own, this story line helps flesh out the bits we got in Terokkar Forest in our broken Draenor.

Spires in the sun...

... banished to the shadows.

I vastly prefer getting around this zone grounded compared to Nagrand, and despite the rope puzzles making my palms sweat, I also appreciate most of the puzzle rewards here more - the archaeology fragments, the various items at Terokk's shrines.

Bear-okay puzzles

Bear-not-okay puzzles

Arakkoa are interesting; those following Rukhmar have sun and air magic, and they also make much use of wing-blades.  The Arakkoa Outcasts make heavy use of shadow and illusion magic - sort of the flipside of Rukhmar's followers.  They are closer to Anzu, the raven god, and Terokk, their former king.  Prior to Spires I didn't understand why people wanted to play Arakkoa, but now that I've got Ishaal and Kurekk hanging out in my garrison, and Reshad and Percy visiting?

I don't know that I want to play one myself, but I wish they were a bigger faction back in our home timeline.

In the meantime, I've retired Bloodsail Admiral for awhile.

Hearthstone Interlude: Daily Quests

So today's daily quest popped up, and it's "Destroy them all" - you know, the destroy 40 minions quest.  And immediately I thought: mage quest.

I'm not great at Hearthstone - I hover around rank 19 or 20, occasionally flirting with 18, but I don't play enough to get that good at it.  I am starting to favor particular classes for particular quests, though.

Seven of the daily quests don't have a class requirement, so you can complete them with whichever deck you want to play.  Here are the ones I like for each; if the first class seems to be having bad luck that day, I'll switch to one of the ones down the list.

3 Victories!: Win 3 games with any class.

1. Hunter
2. Warrior
3. Mage

Beat Down: Deal 100 damage to enemy heroes.

1. Mage
2. Warrior

Destroy them All: Destroy 40 minions.

1. Mage
2. Warlock
3. Warrior

Only the Mighty: Play 20 minions that cost 5 or more.

1. Priest (customized for high-cost minions)

Spell Master: Cast 40 spells.

1. Druid
2. Mage
3. Warlock

The Meek Shall Inherit: Play 30 minions that cost 2 or less.

1. Rogue (my murloc deck)
2. Paladin
3. Priest (customized for low-cost minions)
4. Hunter

Total Dominance: Win 7 games in any mode.

1. Hunter
2. Warrior
3. Mage 

For the "X or Y class wins" quests, I basically have a priority:

1. Hunter
2. Warrior
3. Warlock
4. Mage
5. Rogue
6. Priest
7. Shaman
8. Paladin
9. Druid

The priority lists aren't necessarily which deck is the strongest, but a mix of how much I enjoy the class and how like the deck's playstyle and how likely I am to win with it.  It's not a perfect mirror of my WoW class preferences - my WoW #2 is priests, and mage is one of the three I don't have at 90 (yet).  Hearthstone Jaina plays like Jaina from the books, though, and I appreciate that quite a bit.

Do you have different deck preferences for the quests?

Cataclysmic Ladies

There are a handful of female NPCs I enjoyed questing with or around during Cataclysm; some of them will fade into the background now that we've moved on to the Mists of Pandaria, but I'm hoping we get to see some of them again.  (Especially Lorna, because Lorna is cool.)

The ladies:

Lorna Crowley - We first meet Lorna during the initial battle for Gilneas, when she saves your nascent Gilnean from death at the hands of a worgen.  We see her consistently through the zone, assisting in or leading efforts to combat the ravaging worgens, helping flee the flooding from the Cataclysm, and fighting the invading Forsaken armies.  (I have to say - one of the things that impressed me when I first played through Gilneas in the beta was that there is a distinct moment in the starting quests when the Cataclysm happens.)  Lorna is often seen toting what is one of the prettiest gun models in the game.  Eventually she trades in her rose for armor, and when we last see her (for now, I'm sure), she's going back into Gilneas with her father to continue the resistance against the Forsaken.

Matoclaw - Matoclaw is basically the organizer who makes sure the rivets are ordered and arrive on time to make the invasion of the Firelands happen, on schedule.  Her quests all basically revolve around making sure the supplies and people get where they're supposed to be and do what they're supposed to do.  I think of her kind of as the Pepper Potts of Firelands:  Malfurion and Hamuul are calling the shots, but she makes it all work.

Fiona - Fiona drives a caravan around the Eastern Plaguelands, ferrying members of the Horde and Alliance and the Argent Dawn alike.  She takes the responsibility for her charges very seriously, and when push comes to shove, she carries a sweet-looking rifle (same model as Lorna's, actually - must be a Gilnean make) to take care of trouble.

Zaela, Garona, and Lady Cozwynn - Zaela starts out in Twilight Highlands as an opposition leader amongst the Dragonmaw, and you help her become their Warlord.  Garona is much older than Cataclysm in terms of lore, but you meet her in the Twilight Highlands and help her fight Cho'gall and his cultists there.  Lady Cozwynn helps coordinate the assault on the Twilight cultists in the Highlands.  Taken together, though, these three ladies are your support for taking on Skullcrusher the Mountain.  (The Alliance are stuck with three guys.  Much less awesome.)  When the three were assembled together, I had a FFX-2 flashback.

Beta Mists, 3

Back in the Jade Forest...

Cliff gilders (wind serpents) currently track as humanoid.

Even on the beta I'm getting questions about where to get my purple tallstrider mount. >.<

Crowded for some quests - a few the phasing is bugged and need to be done one at a time.

OMG BEAVERS.

Waiting in line for Wisdom of the Ages - took about an hour for the line to get through.

 
Hey, the right-click > report menu has been expanded - now has name/cheating/spamming/language.  I like!  It'll make reporting offensive names and such so much easier.

The report menu when you right-click on someone's name has been expanded

Yay, done with the line!

Done with Wisdom of the Ages!

Haha, I can summon crows under water.

Ok, now that I'm past the long line and the immediate follow-up, it's time to make brownies.

Unexpected delights

Hm... I was especially emo yesterday, no? Today, something more positively reflective!

With the change to focus, et al, that hunters underwent, quite a few changes didn't become apparent until I'd started playing a while with them. Many of these were awesome.

You can Multi-Shot while moving! For the longest time, Multi-Shot had a built in cast time of .5 seconds, which meant you had to stand still for it. Now you can spam the button as long as you have focus while desperately backing up and hoping that the pet-targeted Misdirect you just cast will eventually stick one or more of the bazillion mobs you're trying to get at range with back on your bear/crab/etc. Multi-Shot is one of my long-time favorite skills, and I was including it in my regular rotation in Burning Crusade before an Arcane Shot/Multi-Shot/Steady Shot rotation was de rigueur. There is nothing quite so satisfying as being the unorthodox player whose methods suddenly become, for your spec, the orthodoxy. True, enchanting my 2-handed weapons for Int, or getting +mana librams on my T1 (more mana = less feigning to drink mid-boss), never caught on, but leveling in "of the Falcon" (agility/intellect) gear was more appreciated once the Int -> Attack Power talent went in. Of course, those days are gone.

That green and orange cat in Felwood is tameable! No, seriously! I've named him Octavian, and he's currently my DPS pet in 5-man's just because the color scheme is so hilarious. I need to team him up with a troll feral druid for something...

Glyph of Misdirect is amazing. I mentioned this in my macro post a couple weeks ago - if you're soloing without Glyph of Misdirect, you're missing out on the awesomeness of sending your pet into a pack of a gazillion mobs, dropping Mend Pet on it, and alternately spamming Misdirect and Multi-Shot. If you are like me, you will forget the first two Misdirects and end up in the scenario described under the Multi-Shot entry above.

Trap Launcher is surprisingly fun, if still clunky to use. I have not yet developed good macros for making Trap Launcher more stream-lined, but being able to toss an Explosive Trap on a tank for non-elite adds, or to throw my Snake Trap over at an add on a healer to hopefully pull the aggro off onto the snakes, is really handy. I wish Trap Launcher + Freezing Trap were more useful for something besides crowd-controlled pulling, but it seems like every loose add I want to trap is bleeding or poisoned or burning or in the throes of agony from a curse. Hence the substitution of snakes for adds on the healers.

Camouflage is quite fun, although I've yet to use it for its supposed strength, PVP. Mostly I pop it on in 5-man's as we're moving towards or around groups to avoid my huge cow ass pulling something. (I had problems with that in Nexus for a long time. >.>) The additional bonus of cloaking my pet is great if I don't have the cat out.

The fox pet dances! I got a Black Fox a couple weeks ago (from Redridge) and named him Hawkins. If you don't get that joke, I am disappointed in your movie tastes. "Play" + "Move To" was highlighted by someone else, but for especial hilarity, go to Thunder Bluff and dance your fox back and forth across the pond. I was giggling way too much.

Scatter Shot is a baseline skill! This wasn't a surprise, but despite having it sitting there on my bars, I had mostly forgotten about it until I went to Tol Barad the other day (successful defense, woo!) and oh, God, Silencing is still on cooldown there it was! It was a favored shot while leveling, and having it around again is great. Hawkeye, the other talent Survival stole from Marksman years ago, also sort of went baseline - most of the damaging hunter shots have longer range, although Multi-Shot, Silencing Shot, and Tranquilizing Shot still seem to have the old base range, which means on fights you're going to need them, you have to make sure to move up enough for them. Basically, the two formerly Markman talents that made me put points in Survival in Burning Crusade and Wrath are now mine for free.

Hey, I can get Improved Mend Pet! I don't know if I'll keep it when I put together a raiding spec (and my devilsaur and worm are doomed to a life in the stables), but it's been coveted for a good four years, so it's definitely staying in my soloing spec.

A non-huntery unexpected delight were the quests in Uldum. I love Vashj'ir - it's gorgeous, and the ecological details were greatly appreciated. The ultra-violet canyon is beautiful, and for some reason the secluded emptiness of the Abandoned Reef makes it one of my favorite places. (It is also where Ghostcrawler roams - beware the Nerfbat.) But Uldum - it took a little bit to get into, but as soon as I ran into Harrison Jones, the quest chain just skyrocketed in its level of awesomeness. The end of the chain (spoiler) was unexpected but had me laughing. The reworked Silverpine and Hillsbrad are also amazing for their quests - Siliverpine for the drama, Hillsbrad for the comedy.

There are always disappointments with changes (Aimed Shot's more or less neutering is one of them - if it's going to be only for opening or a proc, at least make it hit hard enough for it to be special - it's our friggin' specialization skill), but I am enjoying most of the changes.

New Familiar Friends

If you're not familiar with the Plaguelands, this is probably spoilery. Beware.

Tuesday night I headed into the Eastern Plaguelands because I had a headache and didn't want to run any more PUGs for Goblin reputation. I figured I would get my Mr. Grubbs, and it would be relatively mindless during the officer meeting. While I was there, I ended up getting one of the gorgeous new plaguehound dogs (green), and named him (her?) Zuul. (There is no Dana...) I'll probably finish off the zone this weekend.

Getting Mr. Grubbs requires starting Fiona's caravan quests. The caravan is a fantastic device for plot movement for the zone, both because it physically moves you from tower to tower around the zone, and because the interplay between the two paladins riding with the caravan gets you invested in the zone.

I had Loremaster for the "old world" finished before Wrath launched (~2400 quests complete when 3.0 went in), but quests have all changed, and existing story lines which I had completed popped up again. This was awesome, because the Plaguelands have always had my favorite quest chain - the Battle of Darrowshire. (My favorite zone overall is Duskwood, because Stitches is awesome, but the Plaguelands, Eastern and Western, are a close second.)

With the changes in Anderhol, Chromie is now found at one of the Argent Crusade's towers, and the quest line has been shrunk down a little - no more chasing down Joseph Redpath's wedding band or venturing into the Anderhol town hall for the Annals of Darrowshire. It's about the right size for the 40-somethings who will be inhabiting the Plaguelands as they level. You're still getting the lore, gathering relics of the heroes and villains, and later in the zone, still freeing the souls of the Darrowshire residents from their ghoulish forms. Pamela still makes you tea.

Joseph still comes home to Pamela, and it still makes me cry.

There's an added bonus to doing the chain if you're doing Fiona's caravan quests, as well. Recruiting people into her caravan allows you to carry a buff zone-wide, and if you fill the caravan, you have eight buff options. Fiona's lucky charm lets you find Mr. Grubbs, but once you're done with that, fighting the Battle for Darrowshire means Pamela Redpath can be your constant companion throughout the zone. (A little creepy when you go to fight Baroness Anastari and she's just standing there, watching... But overall pretty awesome.)

One notable absence in the zone is Nathanos Blightcaller - because he's now a hunter trainer in the Undercity. I miss him in the Plaguelands, but having an undead hunter, that's so awesome. She can be trained by the Forsaken hunter! I was also encouraged by the presence of Argent Apothecary Judkins, because the whole New Plague thing Sylvanas has going just creeps me out. The idea that you can play a Forsaken (or rather, former Forsaken, now independent undead allied with the forces of Light) not bent on killing off the entire rest of the world and that it's basically canon that Forsaken like that exist is comforting for me.

Biggest downside of the zone? Those towers blind me every time I go up to the top to get whatever quest is up one.