Battle for Azeroth: first alpa impressions

I'm not sure how I got invited to the F&F alpha for Battle for Azeroth, but I'm going to try to be useful and not just run around mining.  This post will probably be super spoilery if you don't want to know anything about quests and whatnot, it's just going to be a running commentary as I run around Zanchul.

Mid-Legion Transmogs

Okay, sometime before Legion actually hit, I did a post about transmogs and what I thought would end up changing or not, which weapons I'd probably mog, and so forth.  It occurs to me I'd never updated with what I ended up doing, so...

(These are roughly in the order I leveled/am leveling them.)

Duskhawk has ended up in level 40s-ish mail, a lot of it from Arathi Highlands and thereabouts.  The pants technically don't match, since I'd have to do an Alliance quest for the mail version, and I haven't gotten around to it.  I'm still using that belt with pouches, and the Golden Bow of Quel'thalas, because, damn, that bow.  I like how this turned out because it matches the guild tabard pretty well.

I loved Elsa's blue mog and that staff from the garrison, but between this version of the discipline staff and those robes - I really like the greenish runic band running down them.  I don't have all the color morphs of this since I didn't raid much on her.

I don't like any of my rogue transmog options.  I'm going to have to do just enough of Antorus to get her the badass rogue hat in there, if I can.  I'm not great at rogue dps.

Okay, so I just kind of randomly made this mog for my druid when Legion hit, before I'd even gotten the staff, and, um.  Then I went to the herbalism trainer.  Yeah, that was awkward.  That said, this goes with the handful of colors I have for the druid staff, so I'll probably keep it a while.

This is not Emerald Plate.  As much as I loved her in the Emerald Plate, I really like the way this came together as a sort of utility set.  The shoulders are shiny, and I'm a bit disappointed I can't get that same kind of metallic sheen on more gear.

It was weird for me to be leveling my warrior this late compared to my other alts, but I wanted to get at least the basic parts of alchemy, inscription, and jewelcrafting opened, and she just has blacksmithing, which... eh?  She's back in her Pandaria mog to go with the purple accents in the prot shield.

I leveled my shaman so I could level leatherworking, got through chasing down the Elderhorn, and... I haven't maxed leatherworking yet to actually learn how to make the mount.  This is the set that says "shaman" in my head.

So, uh, yeah.  My death knight.  I picked her first out of the "classes I haven't leveled" group once I was through leveling an alt for each profession.  This plate chest is a recolor of the Gothic plate, I think; I like it because the matching boots don't look super clunky on a tauren or troll.  I don't haven't the matching pants, and I was originally trying for an overalls look to go with the shovel, so I went with a basic blue plate.  I've got a skimpy red mog that matches the blood weapon, but red just doesn't look good on her.  Since they redid the models, she's not the right shade of green to match the Warleader set anymore.

Next in the "classes I haven't leveled" group is the frost mage, who will probably hit 110 during the next invasion I'm awake and home for.  This may be the only mog I've done with the old Wrath frost resist crafted gear that I've actually liked.  I haven't found a cloak I really like for this set, though.

I haven't found a mog I like for the warlock that really matches the destro staff.  She's going with "meh purple" right now.  I'm sorely disappointed in the lack of void-colored armor now that we've seen the patches of it on Argus - it's gorgeous, the black-black with the purple highlights, and it really should have shown up in the warlock gear, dammit.  Or at least some shadow priest stuff that wasn't class specific so my warlock could use it.

Prior to getting her artifact, I had my demon hunter in the Bard's leather set.  Once I got them, though, I poked around and found another low level leather set that worked with them.

Yeah, so I had the Night Watchman drop, and someone had to get it in their mog.  Once I got the windwalker weapons, I knew it was going to be the monk, with these pants that I really like.  I have no idea what I'm doing on my monk, but she looks pretty cool.

I'm not sure I can ever change this mog.  I didn't realize how much of this set I had till I started poking around with something for her, and...  Yeah.  I need to get a Thas'dorah color that matches this, since I like the way the quiver looks on her.

This is leveling gear from the Barrens, plus the base disc staff and probably mid-40s dungeon gear accents.

My troll hunter has a raptor, too, but the bear was out when I took the screenshot.  I figured I should try playing BM on at least one of the hunters.  I don't really care for the gun, but I have plenty of models I can switch it to.  This is the actual Talhide set... except the shoulders, which I used in Duskhawk's mog.

This is mostly level 30s quest gear, and I love it on my undead hunter.  She gets to try out Survival, so I mogged her with Gul'dan's staff, since my warlock isn't using it.

Guess which spec this mage is!  Mages have some of the best spec-themed mog options.

I've started sending Mabs my extra Argussian Reach and Army of the Light rep tokens in case I need it to get the new races in the next expansion.  I think she's wearing PVP gear, since it matched her hair.

Blizzcon Thoughts

I don't do crowds, so the virtual ticket is pretty much the best option for Blizzcon for me.  Some of the main themes of the next expansion - Kul Tiras, Zandalar, Queen Azshara - were all things I was expecting to see.  Which is weird - I never guess right about what's coming next.

I wasn't really expecting the sub-race options, but I pretty much know what alts I'll roll to probably leave unleveled for all the new ones:

• Zandalari druid (replacing an existing level 8 troll druid)
• Lightforged priest (to take the place of the level 1 draenei priest)
• Dark Iron warrior (if it's an option)
• Nightborne mage (or race change the night elf I've been debating making Horde)
• Highmountain hunter (or race change my existing tauren druid or blood elf monk)
• Void elf rogue (because I only have one rogue out of 30+ alts of various levels)

I'm curious how many other sub-races/allied races we'll acquire in the long run.  There are some obvious possibilities already:

• Mag'har or Draenor orcs
• Taunka
• High Elves
• Forest trolls
• Wildhammer dwarves
• Broken draenei
• Ogres or half-ogres
• Those adorable fox people in the new zones
• Hozen
• Jinyu
• Yaungol
• Leper gnomes

There are also less likely possibilities:

• Naga
• Mantid
• Withered elves
• Harpies
• Mogu
• Centaurs
• Tuskarr
• Tol'vir
• Arakkoa (either model)
• Those stone dwarf dudes
• Mechagnomes

I don't know just how much work it takes to convert an NPC race to a PC one - I'd imagine there are emotes and animations to design and map, adjustments to make for armor, and in some cases updates graphically to bring the models up to current game standards.  You may have noticed with some polymorphs and costumes that some models lack things like swimming animations.  They do at least have existing territories and lore.  Hopefully these first six go well and they can expand on it going forward.

So far as the increased focus on the faction divide... eh.  I'd like to play more with my mom, but she plays a lot of humans.  I play a lot of tauren and forsaken.  I'm hoping the changes in PVP/PVE server stuff means that eventually you'll be able to communicate and group with people of the other faction outside the faction capitals if you're not flagged for PVP, but that's not this expansion.  Years ago I had a literal dream about being in a cross server queue for running a dungeon, basically standing around in a room with various other characters waiting for them to call five of us to go in next.  Maybe next time?

About the only interest I have in Classic servers is to go see Auberdine again.  I... can't really quest in Darkshore anymore, which seems kind of silly, but I spent so much time there.  It took me something like 28 days /played to level my first night elf.  I hearthed to Auberdine for probably 8 months.  It also took me till level 48 to get my first mount, so other than Auberdine tourism, they don't hold a lot of appeal for me.

I'm looking forward to the zone scaling, though - I've stranded more than a few toons at the Outland/Northrend boundary, maybe because Outland is more removed in memory.  At this point I wouldn't mind mostly skipping Cataclysm for Pandaria, as well.  I haven't enjoyed zone quest set-ups where you basically have to unlock the zone to wander around and find quests.  Let me wander in and do random crap, especially on alts.  I do pretty much everything on my main, but after that I just kind of want to get the toon through to get to leveling up trade skills.

Sidewinders/7.1.5

I've been poking around in my guild's raid logs since the patch, partly because I'm so glad to be rid of Sidewinders, and partly because being rid of Sidewinders didn't make me worse.

Pre-7.1.5:  ilvl 870, average DPS for boss fights in heroic Emerald Nightmare: 209,635.1 (log)
Post-7.1.5:  ilvl 876, average DPS for boss fights in heroic Emerald Nightmare: 240,105.2 (log)

My ilvl has only gone up a little, but that's about the same kind of boost in raw numbers that I saw from initially switching to Sidewinders a few weeks into normal Emerald Nightmare.  I didn't like doing it; I like the on-demand instant shot that Arcane Shot has become, and other than kind of switching Marked Shot for Serpent Sting, it's the same three shots that were the core of my Molten Core rotation.

I realize a lot of hunters are disappointed in Marksman (and Beast Mastery) right now, but playing at the level I am (where that 308k on Nythendra is kind of a personal non-trash best), I'm really happy with my numbers.  I'm also really happy to have some traps back.

After this long, I had gotten used to the Sidewinders/Marked Shot AOE, but by the time we got to Dragons trash I was pushing out relatively decent numbers again.

Overall, across our raid group, the patch was good.  We steamrolled through H-Emerald Nightmare, beating our record times for both Cenarius and Xavius, andwent for a couple easy kills in normal Trial of Valor, but no one wanted to go through then minutes of Helya after all that.  Sunday we're going to look at heroic Trial of Valor and see what it looks like now.

Still want some kind of really AOE (either damage or heals) for my discipline priest, but that doesn't seem likely at this point.

Artifact Transmogs

So now that I've started getting artifacts on my alts, pretty much the first thing they all do upon getting out of the artifact scenario is get out the transmog yak.  (That thing is worth its weight in gold.  Also I want to see some kind of series now involving the adventures of Cousin Slowhands, Mystic Birdhat, and the yak.)

Anyway, here's where things stand so far.  I still need to get artifacts on the demon hunter, second priest, second mage, and hunters three-five.  My rogue's got her artifacts (subtlety), but I haven't found a transmog I like for her yet.

Disc priest

 

Prot warrior

Windwalker monk

Prot paladin

Resto druid

Blood death knight

Destro warlock

 

Fire mage

Resto shaman

Marksman hunter #2

Alting in 7.0

So I've been running all my alts through the Broken Shore scenario since I got the troll hunter to 100 (that's five now).  Doing this is letting me get their bars set up, figure out a bit how they work, and all that.  It's also let me see how I like where the specs I usually play are at now.

Marksman:  I think I wrote about this at length in the post-macro... post, but I'm liking the Hunter's Mark/Marked Shot interplay.  I'm using Patient Sniper but not Sidewinders.  I'm also mostly using Murder of Crows because it's harder to switch back and forth between that and Barrage on the fly.  I'm having a bit of trouble judging "safe" distances for Barrage with the mastery range increase - which I like, but I'm just not used to it yet.  I miss a nice reliable crowd control like Freezing Trap that doesn't necessarily put you in combat, and I miss Spirit Bond for its survivability and less downtime while soloing.  I'm thrilled to still have my pet, and I've been doing invasions with Puppy (KitTabik), Cuddles, PangurBan, Jack, and Kitty.  Oh, and Inle, because I wandered out of the Kharanos Inn on my level 3 gnome hunter... who's now level 11.

Discipline:  Disc wasn't bad for invasions, but I'm finding group healing without the cooldown you get from the artifact to be... missing something.  It's going to have to be reworked after Legion to account for this, which seems like an oversight to me.  There's no good sustainable area healing or damage.  I'm using Halo for both right now, since you either have to spread out some Atonement and then do damage or put up Purge the Wicked and then have the target live long enough for you to be able to Penance it - and if Penance is on cooldown you have to wait to start AOE damage.  Applying Atonement is awkward with the area-based Power Word: Radiance, and too expensive to just blanket with Plea after six applications.  There's also no good way to heal up that one person who died during combat that you've resurrected and want to get back up quickly - I used to spam some Flash Heals on them, but I've got nothing without a cooldown strong enough to really do that now.  Easiest fixes?  Give us back Mind Sear, and make Power Word: Radiance target like Prayer of Healing did and adjust the mana/cast time/healing done for five targets to let us apply Atonement in a more predictable way than just where someone is standing.  It would make LFR less infuriating to try to heal.  Doesn't fix the out of combat healing, but there's food for that.

Restoration (Shaman):  Haha, I have no idea what I'm doing on my shaman.  This isn't entirely true, but I'm not even sure why I have her spec'd Resto because I didn't like healing on her that much before.  She seems to have a decent toolkit for both AOE and single target heals, a couple of good big-heal cooldowns, and that added totem-based battle rez.  I need to switch her back to Elemental, though, because I want to play her as a lightning-zappy shaman rather than as Resto.

Destruction:  I was a little worried when I was setting up my warlock's bars until I realized I'd talented Incinerate to hit everything.  Destruction seems fine from a casual point of view, and hella fun.  Keep Immolate up to generate some shards, hit Conflagrate when you can, Incinerate all the things, and Chaos Bolt for mana regen.  Life Tap and Drain Life's return was very welcome, and my infernal has a name now and I  apparently talented to keep him this is amazing.  Super pleased with my little burny goblin.

Subtlety:  I feel like I'm not completely incompetent on my rogue again.  I can just Backstab now and don't have to rely on Hemorrhage for soloing since they changed the positioning stuff on Backstab.  I also discovered that I have crap for leather transmog.

Protection (Warrior):  Invasions probably weren't the best place to judge my tanks, since the healing is so sporadic.  I miss Charge, but other than that and not always being sure how to get rid of all the excess rage, it's seemed okay.  She's got some new melee animations, which seem neat.

Protection (Paladin):  I actually felt more survivable on my pally, but that might be because I was doing the invasion a week later and there may have been healing going on.  I actually feel like I have buttons to push on her now, which is a change; with the removal of holy power (just for prot? I don't know), I did have to move buttons around so I wouldn't hit things that I need to save the cooldown for rather than just smashing them because they were available.  I'll still run through the holy spec artifact quest at some point because I really want to see it, but I think she's going to stick with prot as her main spec.

Restoration (Druid):  The druid has always been my second favorite to heal on, and for the most part she feels like she still has a complete healing toolkit.  HoTs, AOE, single target, some defensive cooldowns, and Tranquility still seems pretty great.  I really hope Disc feels okay with the artifact or I may have to switch over for dungeon healing this expansion.

Blood:  This is the only spec I've really played on a death knight in... a very long time.  It's changed a bit, but I still muddle around in it okay.  I think I spent more time making a new mog for her than actually doing the scenario and invasion.  I didn't feel as comfortable as on my warrior or like I had as much wiggle room for muddling around as I did on my paladin, but I didn't feel so lost that I won't play her in this spec (like my shaman).

Fire:  I switched off of frost for two reasons:  I had always preferred playing fire but kept dying while leveling, and I made an awesome fire mog for my mage.  Other than being frustrated by Flamestrike's super slow non-Hot Streak cast and wondering if I should talent differently so I feel like I have useful AOE, the crit-crit-Pyroblast rhythm of fire is fun.  I don't play the mage enough to know if I'm doing badly at it.

Mistweaver:  I've been lost on my monk since 6.0 when I boosted her to 90; that hasn't really changed, but I've somehow managed to complete the healing proving grounds on her, so I guess it's not a lost cause.  After running the Broken Shore scenario, I went through and renamed all her healing macros - her spells are now hot, +hot, chan[nel], 3heal, and bubbl.  I've played my other healers long enough to mostly know what their spells do by name, but I don't know my monk well enough to keep them straight.  I think she's got a decent healing toolkit if I ever play her enough to get used to it.


So overall - there are some specs I feel kind of lost but not helpless on.  Since discipline is one of the ones I play the most, I have some frustrations with it, but I think I'll get by.  Marksmanship has lost a few things I miss (Freezing Trap, Spirit Bond), but overall it feels okay.  My warlock may move up in the alt leveling rotation because destruction feels so fun.  Most of my toons are 660+ post-invasions, and my primary toon in each role (Duskhawk, priest, and warrior) are all 690+.  So I feel pretty set for Tuesday when my collector's edition box shows up.

The Return of Hunter's Mark

So I've been using a shot macro since like, Karazhan or Wrath sometime, when I realized I was not effectively using Steady Shot in my rotation.  The macro has changed a bit over the years, as shots available changed, haste plateaus affected it, and so forth.

So, Steady Shot is gone for me.  I don't really miss it - I like having Arcane Shot back, on demand, free and on the move.  I do miss the Aimed Shot mobility, but that's just a matter of retraining myself to stand still for it.  I've got Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and Marked Shot for core shots now, with Bursting Shot as an interesting kind of combination of Barrage and the old Scatter Shot.  I went with Murder of Crows for my regular set up, which I've been occasionally regretting when I go to farm old raids and forget that I can't just change it on the fly when I remember, after I'm there, that I kind of want it for that.  I love the crows, though, and it feels safer in raids and dungeons since my mastery increases my range now and I don't have as good a feel for how far back is safe to Barrage yet.

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.

Pre-Legion Bucket List: Update

I forgot to post this back in February.

Transmog Weapons

So as I'm logging around my level 100 toons today, when I got to my shaman, I suddenly realized I didn't know if she was going to have a spec that she could transmog into Gorehowl with the artifact weapons.  I don't play enhancement, and I remembered that elemental is getting a fist weapon (cool enough), but... Gorehowl?

Not all of my toons have weapon transmogs that I care about; my mage, for example, has the basic Draenor staff because all the staffs I like to go with her transmog are bound to other characters, and at this point I'm not buying duplicates when the looks are going to get shared so soon.

Some of them, though, I'm probably going to have to change.

Hunter (main), marksman
Currently:  Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas
Changing?:  Nope, hunters have been able to transmog between ranged weapon looks for a while, and Marksman is getting the bow artifact, anyway.  The Windrunners are cool, and all, but I'm a Tauren.  My alt hunters by and large don't really have a preferred mog weapon, although my original Night Elf is tranmogged into the Gorewood Bow (Blightcaller raids, heh) right now; most of them may use the artifact looks.

Current Transmogs

I've got fourteen toons at level 100 now, and most of them have set transmogs at this point.  I've discovered that the races that it doesn't matter if you can see the bottom of their feet, their names don't obscure them, whereas ones that can wear whole boots get the name/enter world button overlaid on them.  The goblin is the most boggling in this regard.

Anyway...

Duskhawk is in mostly Axeclaw, with the Golden Bow of Quel'Thalas, the requisite straw hat, and the awesome, awesome belt with 3D pouches (Girdle of the Legion General).  I'm going to be mogging this bow forever.

Legion sounds awesome!

Okay, for once I got to watch BlizzCon streams at home in real time!  All in all, I'm excited about a lot of the stuff they talked about.  I'm not super-stoked about playing Marksman without a pet, but it's for sentimental reasons, not mechanical ones, so I figure I'll just swap over to Beast Mastery when I want to visit my pets.

But what I am looking forward to...  (If you don't have livestream access, try Blizzard Watch for info and lots of pictures!)

Things I didn't notice in Draenor until flying

This is going to be an image heavy post.

The spires of light in Talador:

Artifact Weapons: Speculative Concerns

If you've done a lot of raiding over the years, you know that it seems like there's always someone in your raid group who just can't get a weapon to drop.  That was me, for the entirety of Wrath Naxxramas, stuck using my engineering gun until an Ulduar-25 PUG landed me the gun off Kologarn.  It sucked - I literally couldn't crit high enough to pop the constructs on Ignis until I got a weapon upgrade.

So Legion is going to bring us artifact weapons, and no one will need to worry about weapon drops (because there won't be any).  The various skins you can unlock and the ability to transmog the artifacts mean you aren't visually stuck with it for the whole expansion.

Pre-Legion Goals

I'm not gonna lie, I'm not surprised that we're looking at a Legion expansion, even with Wrathion mostly m.i.a. in Draenor.  We've had so many Old God expansions that we've been due for some serious Legion action, and even with Gul'dan mucking about in Draenor, it hasn't really been a Legion expansion yet.

But before the Legion gets here, there's stuff I want to get done.  The list isn't terribly long:

1. Emerald Drake.  I want to get the Drakes achievement finished so I can be flying around the Broken Isles on the loveliest of drakes that isn't a fey dragon.  I just need Deathwing to cooperate...
2. Tiger Cub.  I want to finish off grinding enough Blackfang Claws for the Saberstalker pet, because it is adorable.
3.  Level the remaining alts.  Not all of them, but the remaining nine that were also at 90 in Mists.  These are three hunters, a mage, a warlock, a shaman, a druid, a paladin, and a monk.

Pet Battles of Tanaan

Over the past week or so, since I finished Draenor Pathfinder and don't feel compelled to do grindy stuff for reputation, I started working on the new boss battle pets in Tanaan.  These are all boss pets with a kind of nasty surprise - they all come with two additional pets.

Direflame

Many of these pet battles wouldn't be nearly as troublesome if you didn't have to deal with two buffed extra pets after knocking them out; the boss pet will cast Fel Corruption throughout the fight while they're up, and in addition to being a fairly hard hitting AOE (and making it hazardous to have mechanical pets in your lineup), it turns the backline pets on their side into minibosses for up to 10 rounds.

Most of these battles I was able to get through with some experimentation, though for a few I had to hit the WoWhead comments for ideas on pets to try.  It should be obvious from the chart that, although some of the commenters frequently push the Anklerender and the Emerald Proto-Whelp, I don't have the former leveled, and I only found the latter helpful once.  I also tried out suggested strategies involving forced pet swaps (to minimize the Fel Corruption), but those gave me no success.

Due to the back line pets, setting up a traditional "Howl Bomb" (Unborn Val'kyer/Pandaren Water Spirit/Chrominius) frequently meant that the Fel Corrupted pets would finish off the AOE-damaged remaining pets even if the boss pet was dropped.  Using 1.5-2 pets to get the boss pet down and cleaning up the remnants with the Anubisath Idol was ultimately more reliable.

Teams 

The numbers after the pet name are the ability slot choices - particularly with Chrominius and the Anubisath Idol, who saw heavy use, there are some fights where not swapping out an ability really hurt.

Pet	Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Bleakclaw	Chrominius 2 1 2	Disgusting Oozeling 1 1 1	Crimson Geode 1 2 2
Chaos Pup	Iron Starlette 1 2 1	Pandaren Water Spirit 1 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2
Corrupted Thundertail	Pandaren Water Spirit 1 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2	Emerald Proto-Whelp 2 2 2
Cursed Spirit	Tolai Hare 2 2 2	Mr. Wiggles 1 2 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Dark Gazer	Lil' Deathwing 1 2 2	Infinite Whelpling 1 1 1	Anubisath Idol 2 2 2
Defiled Earth	Dancing Water Skimmer 1 2 2	Magical Crawdad 2 2 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Direflame	Garden Frog 1 2 1	Dark Phoenix Hatchling 2 1 2	Crimson Geode 1 2 2
Dreadwalker	Fel Flame 1 1 1	Infinite Whelpling 1 1 1	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Felfly	Chrominius 2 1 2	Disgusting Oozeling 1 1 1	Crimson Geode 1 2 2
Felsworn Sentry	Pandaren Water Spirit 1 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Mirecroak	Crow 2 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Netherfist	Unborn Val'kyr 2 2 2	Ghostly Skull 1 1 1	Anubisath Idol 1 2 2
Skrillix	Pandaren Water Spirit 1 2 2	Chrominius 1 1 2	Anubisath Idol 2 2 1
Tainted Maulclaw	Sprite Darter Hatchling 1 2 2	Darkmoon Hatchling 1 2 2	Anubisath Idol 1 2 1
Vile Blood of Draenor	Infinite Whelpling 1 1 1	Anubisath Idol 2 2 2	Crimson Geode 1 2 2

Pet List

Anubisath Idol: The Anubisath Idol saw heavy use in Tanaan, making it into the lineup for 10 of the 15 battles.  Sandstorm is the big boon here - the damage reduction and its humanoid healing allow it to survive the Fel Corruption-buffed backline pets.

Chrominius: Chrominius makes it into 7 of the teams in Tanaan, although in one he was a barely-used third pet.  He is frequently paired with the Pandaren Water Spirit for the "Howl Bomb," buffing the Whirlpool/Geyser combination, but for the two flying pets, he can simply Howl + Surge of Power to one-shot them.

Crimson Geode: The Crimson Geode makes it into four of these fights, not so much for the boss pets but because it's a strong candidate for cleaning up flying pet adds.

Crow: Crow makes one appearance in Tanaan, using the Call Darkness/Nocturnal Strike combo on Mirecroak.

Dancing Water Skimmer: The Dancing Water Skimmer was brought in to handle the Defiled Earth.

Dark Phoenix Hatchling: The Rebirth ability helped make the Direflame fight doable for the team I was using.

Darkmoon Hatchling: There are other pets with the Predatory Strike ability, but the Darkmoon Hatchling is a Critter, which is less susceptible to Fel Corruption, so it survived on the backline to be brought in as a finisher on the Tainted Maulclaw.

Disgusting Oozeling: The Disgusting Oozeling was put into two lineups in case Chrominius couldn't for some reason handle the flying boss pets, but it turned out to be handy for cleaning up the back lines for them, since Fel-Corruption-empowered pets make fast work of a recharging Chrominius.

Emerald Proto-Whelp: The Emerald Proto-Whelp only turned out to be useful for me for cleaning up the Corrupted Thundertail's back line pets.

Fel Flame: Fel Flame was a trial pet in a lot of battles, but it only ended up on the final team for Dreadwalker - albeit as a starter, not on the bench.

Garden Frog: Garden Frog softened up Direflame enough for the phoenix to finish off - and the crowd control from the Frog Kiss didn't hurt to keep down the Fel Corruption casts.

Ghostly Skull: Bob was brought in for Netherfist; Ghostly Bite is lovely for how hard it hits, even with the boss damage reduction.

Infinite Whelpling: The Infinite Whelpling made it onto three teams; with its mixed bag of abilities, it's useful both on magic and mechanical pet bosses.  The heal doesn't hurt, either.

Iron Starlette: Iron Starlette was one of the suggestions I got from the WoWhead comments; the Chaos Pup was giving me fits, and it turned out to be the mechanical for the job.

Lil' Deathwing: Dark Gazer was Lil' Deathwing's first appearance on a pet team for me.  He is the hardest hitting dragon I've got, and many team combinations went down to this fight before he joined the team.

Magical Crawdad: Magical Crawdad is another pet you see touted a lot, and it can be quite good in some lineups, but for me it only helped with Defiled Earth.

Mr. Wiggles:  Mr. Wiggles was brought in, as he not infrequently is, for an undead fight, the Cursed Spirit.  Being a critter, he could take the Fel Corruption on the back line better, and he hit especially hard following up the rabbit.

Pandaren Water Spirit:  The Pandaren Water Spirit made it onto 4 teams, most often as a truncated version of the "Howl Bomb," i.e., with no leading Val'kyr.

Sprite Darter Hatchling: The Sprite Darter Hatchling was brought in for Life Exchange versus the Tainted Maul Claw; it helped set up for Predatory Strike from the Darkmoon Hatchling.

Tolai Hare: The hare, like almost all the rabbits, can be wicked against undead pets, and it made the team for the Cursed Spirit as an armor break before Mr. Wiggles.  Dodge and critter resistance to elemental damage didn't hurt.

Unborn Val'kyr: The Unborn Val'kyr made it onto only one team, versus Netherfist.

Alternate Teams

I'll update as I find additional combinations that work.

Direflame: Jungle Darter, Pebble, Crimson Geode
 

Prot Warrior Deck

So the caveat with anything Hearthstone is that I'm not that good - the best I've done is rank 15, once, and I did that on the back of Oil Rogue and Mech Mage decks.  That said, I do enjoy playing around with random decks.

This warrior deck is okay - it works well enough for quests, but you're unlikely to get anywhere on the ladder with it.  It's all weapons and armor for the most part, with some warrior spells thrown in to flesh it out.

The problems I've run into most frequently with this deck is the card draw hitting a patch of all weapons, or getting stuck with a freezing minion in a mage deck with no removal or minions.  When it works out, though, it can be quite fun - build up armor, smash things with axes.

Card list:

• Inner Rage x1
• Execute x2
• Shield Slam x1
• Upgrade! x1
• Whirlwind x1
• Fiery War Axe x2
• Cleave x1
• Slam  x2
• Armorsmith x1
• Ogre Warmaul x2
• Bouncing Blade x1
• Shield Block x2
• Death's Bite x2
• Mortal Strike x1
• Arathi Weaponsmith x2
• Defender of Argus x1
• Arcanite Reaper x2
• Brawl x1
• Siege Engine x1
• Shieldmaiden x2
• Gorehowl x1

A Shot in the Arm

As I mentioned in the mount post, chasing mounts is a pretty big motivator for me in terms of content; heck, I did Long Strange Trip on three characters for faster flying prior to the achievement (and mounts) becoming account-wide.  So flying in Draenor?  Well, I just needed to finish three of the apexis areas for Securing Draenor for existing requirements.  But the carrot of flying is going to have me in Tanaan working on the new reputations, for sure.

So what am I looking forward to with flying?

• Leveling my druid.  I love flying on my druid, and taking her to Spires of Arak, after all the druid flight quests in Outland?  That's going to be pretty cool.  Anzu used to be part of the quest to get epic flying on druids.
• Flying around in my Sky Golem.  Maybe I'll farm herbs on my death knight; maybe I'll just track down all the followers she missed while leveling.  I don't know, but I'm gonna enjoy flying around in my green goblin iron man suit doing it.
• Archaeology!  It's going to be so much less painful to farm for unfinished rare relics.
• Pet battle dailies!  There are a few pets I only have lower quality ones too.
• Maybe farming?  I used to swap over to farming ore, or fishing, when I had bad brain days and wanted something mindless today.  In Burning Crusade it was Nagrand; Sholazar in Northrend; Uldum or Deepholm in Cataclysm;  Vale of Eternal Blossoms in Pandaria.  I need a lot of lunkers for Nat Pagle still...

In the meantime?  I finished Grand Treasure Hunter back in November, but I'm going to try to get them all before the patch drops.

Favorite mounts

I just did favorite followers, and I think I ended up with seven out of seventy-three.  When I was drafting  posts I apparently thought limiting myself to five mounts was a good idea.

Five was not a good idea.  I have two hundred sixty-two mounts in my log, not including warlock, paladin, or death knight mounts.  But I think I've got it down to seven, including only mounts I actually have.  (One day, Emerald Drake.  One day.)

#7 - Dark Riding Talbuk

Way back in the Burning Crusade, when mounts we no longer items you had to keep in your inventory, I started... acquiring.  Mounts drove my reputation grinds - Netherwing, Sha'tari Skyguard, the Mag'har.

And then there was Halaa.  I was one of those people who got the first mount, and then... sat on languishing research tokens while vainly trying to acquire battle tokens in later expansions.  But I had the first one!

#6 - Azure Drake

So when the Emerald Drake was announced, I started farming Malygos for the two blue ones he drops.  The Blue Drake isn't anything terribly special, but the Azure Drake?  The Azure Drake is covered in arcane symbols and a variety of blues.  This is a mage's mount, for sure.

 #5 - Sea Turtle

This is the mount you get from fishing, originally in Northrend, but over time it got added to the new waters, as well.

I got it in Pandaria.  I wasn't even trying for the turtle - I had gone on dedicated turtle-farming fishing binges in the past.  No, I was trying to get a Flying Tiger Gourami for the Nat Pagle daily quest.

Bam, turtle.

#4 - Black War Raptor

Once upon a time, Tauren could only ride kodos.  Then Tauren could only ride kodos and wolves.  Then they added PVP mounts, and they decided that the raptor would be Tauren-tough.

I did a lot more PVP back in Vanilla, but it was still a bit of work to have the honor banked to purchase the raptor the day it went live - not to mention grinding out the gold for fast riding.  I did it primarily via Felcloth.  In the old Azshara.

This raptor is made of blood, sweat, and tears, for sure.

#3 - Sky Golem

I built the Sky Golem myself, because, you know, mount count.  I didn't think I was actually going to use it... until I leveled my death knight, an herbalist.

This was shortly after I leveled my druid, also an herbalist, and druid flight-form herbing is hard to beat.  Sky golem Tauren death knight comes pretty close.  And it matched her 'mog.  And her hair.

Sky golem for my death knight is one of the things I miss about level-cap flying.  I loved flying around in it on her.

#2 - Enchanted Fey Dragon

Back in Vanilla, I did the sprite darter hatchling pet quest chain on my original Night Elf; it was one of the handful of pets I had on her (along with the white kitten, which was my husband & I's introduction to limited-stock vendors).  Since then, I've been pretty sprite darter/fey dragon gung-ho; I have this in plush, as well.  This may have been my first mount-store purchase.

#1 - Swift Shorestrider

This is the mount Duskhawk is running around Draenor with; it was a birthday present, and I love it.  I like the striders the best of the ostrich-type mounts; they feel sturdy enough for a Tauren, and they aren't too flashy.

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.