A Rotating Tour Of The Broken Isles

I’m reading with interest everyone’s reactions to Legion.  In truth, after playing through the beta, I didn’t like it, though I couldn’t put my finger on why.  I’m still not sure.  I don’t feel that way at all now that I’m working my way through the Broken Isles, rotating one level each for nine characters.   They get the level and I move onto the next.

I’ve never done that before, and I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying it.  There isn’t any burnout for me, no grind of any kind.  All of the characters play differently, have different Trade Skills, and I’ve placed them all over the map.

Even if two characters are working in the same area, they aren’t played one right after the other, and I just send one in another direction so they aren’t doing the quest lines in the same order either.  And, rather than anyone being low geared and left behind by the end, they’ll all be geared and at max level pretty much together.

The Rotation

Feral Druid Alchemist/Herbalist                      Aszuna

Retribution Paladin   Blacksmithing/Mining    Stormheim

Assassin Rogue  Leatherworking/Skinning      Val’Sharah

Destruction Warlock    Inscription/ Herbalist    Aszuna

Havok Demon Hunter      Herbalist/Mining      High Mountain

Frost Mage     Tailoring/Enchanting                  Aszuna

Beast Master Hunter   Tailoring/Skinning         High Mountain

Feral Druid   Alchemist/Herbalist                     Val’ Sharah

Elemental Shaman    Mining/Herbalist            Stormheim

Frost Mage Adventures

My Frost Mage finally completed the Artifact Quest Sunday.    First though, I had a wily desperate thought.   I’d see if I could just sail her off the edge of Dalaran and get to the ground below.

I slunk around the edge of Dalaran till I found what looked a good place to jump that would take me to dry land.   I got out a Goblin Glider (I’d never used one before) with its 2 minute timer –plenty of time to get to ground!  And jumped.

I kept waiting for some fakey–oops you’re dead for no reason message, or the despicable “Fatigued” notice but no.

I made it!  Got out my Water Elemental and headed down the hill to slowly and patiently build up some xp, maybe get an armor drop.   That last is actually sillier than the rest. I have seen zero cloth armor drop as loot.  Leather, Plate, Mail only.

I was unable to take on more than one mob, dead.   It took forever to kill even a single mob.  Discouraging so I gave up the plan and ported out.

Around midnight, your close personal friend The Gutless Wonder went in after Badassbadoopie or whatever his name is.  He killed me once then, mofo nasty boy, he was DOWN.

The Mage Hall is right up there in coolness with the Paladin and Rogue Halls.  Lots of ancient tomes, balconies you can jump over and float down from, paintings with eyes that move.  Note the painting looks like a certain Game of Thrones character.

Transmog This Stinkin’ Thing Off Me, Please

I pay no attention to Transmog, and never have.  I have a couple of nice dresses from events in the bank, that’s it.  This means I hate having to go to the Transmog guy to get bovine and other headwear the heck off.   Mooooo.

How Big Is It?

I noticed a guy next to me at Darkmoon Faire with a really large fishing bobber this weekend.  Did I say Big Bobber Big _______?   No.

Nor did I say:  “My, that’s a Mighty Big Bobber you have there”.   Clearly I thought it, but see, this is why you don’t want mic chat in games where something like that could pop out of your mouth.

I found my own Bobber Of Unusual Size at the fishing supplier in Stormwind.  They’re great.

Love My Wurm

You know how it is with a Hunter, you have to get a new pet as soon as you get to a new world area because your current pet can’t handle anything.   I grabbed a worm thing.  As it turns out I love him.  Great pet, looks huge compared to my dwarf Hunter, and in battle he gets bigger yet and glows like fire and looks kind of majestic in a wormy way.

The Rogue Plot Thickens

Who writes the Rogue stuff? They are just the best.   You have to investigate a report of a body in the class hall.  Yikes.

Elder Scrolls Online: Here, Kitteh Kitteh

Tuesday is ESO day.

Except for an early play through of Morrowind, I always play a Khajiit in Elder Scrolls.  That tail, swaying in the breeze!  That adorable cat face!  Love my kitty cat cat cat.

I wanted my Khajiit to specialize in Bow as a weapon.  She’s a Nightblade Assassin with her bow specialty.  She isn’t intrinsically built to be a powerhouse, she’s built to be my adventurer in Tamriel. 

This may explain why just about every quest chain she does ends with a level 11 Boss with Adds!!!!  that I can’t defeat.   I’ve been thinking about this and I think it is a poor idea to even have a solo quest chain at such a low level even have a Boss, let alone one with adds.  But it is what it is.

I’ve been trying to read up on builds and rotations and just simply combat.  It seems clear I don’t understand how I should be playing this character to be most effective.  If my choices are the flaw, and the flaws are so great at this really low level, then something is wrong.  It shouldn’t be possible to make such a completely bad character build.

Part of what I’ve had trouble getting my head around is, I have Assassination skills that are melee and I haven’t a melee weapon equipped.  I found out last night though, that it doesn’t apparently matter, those skills still work and they made random fights end more quickly and in my favor.

So I re-did my toolbar of active skills with a mix, not just bow skills, and fights went far far better.  I’ll have to go test one on one of those bosses.

Like this guy who killed me in 2 seconds flat last night.  I bet I can take him now.  Roar!
 

I got discouraged after yet another bad Boss fight, and started wandering around.  Bemoaning my quest log and the like 5 quests now that ended in death and ignominious defeat of the worst kind.  There was a vague plan to look for more quests or just random things to kill to level up.  I found a ghost ship with level 10 ghosts.  Two bozos showed up out of nowhere and started killing my guys.  Sigh.

Also along the shoreline I found this pretty Khajiit.  I would have hugged him but don’t know how to in ESO.  Love M’aiq.

 Pouring over my quest log, I found that the Prophet wanted to talk to me at the Harborage.  Yo, a few ez points.  Nope he had a solo instance for me to go and save Lyris, the poor woman who sacrificed herself early on to free him from the clutches of Molag Bal.   I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to assuage my guilt at leaving her behind, so with my newly rearranged skills in hand, in I went.  Though I hate that both of them call me “Vestige” like I’m a greasy old rag.  Call me Hero, if you would.

 One of the skills that a Khajiit specializes in that I don’t think to use much is stealth.  I decided to practice my sneakiness in the Foundry.

I made it handily through the instance.  I have much more confidence now.  I’ll test it next time on my nearest previous failed Boss.

Feeling rather beat up after all my adventures, I decided to stay in town for the night, curling up in the flowers as a kitteh likes to do.  Spot the Khajiit for 5 points!

Before I head out again I’m going to try to do some cooking and potion making, it could help.

 

Rift Monday

Monday is Rift Day on my loosely imagined gaming schedule.   I spent some time with my Warrior and Ranger, mostly questing around the Argent Glade area.

I’m gathering resources like a fiend with both.  How I love gathering professions.  There are little treasures everywhere when you work on them. 

I’m always keeping a sharp eye out for Artifacts as well, those shiny little points of light that when put together will someday reward me with something, I know not what.  I just enjoy looking for them.

My higher level characters are currently just feeding these two potions and Silken Bags and other things I’ve gathered over time.   I’ll get twitchy at some point and send those two into Instant Adventures.

Speaking of, I took both my level 10s into Instant Adventures last Week.  It used to be you’d get shuttled around the Silverwood area and the Defiant low level area (I can’t think of its name) but nooo.  My poor things were sent to adventure in level 50 areas that my high 40s level characters have never seen.

Criminy, there they are, absolute newbies to their classes, with just a few spells/skills to cast trying to keep up with the big guys.  I needed to rest up from the IA’s for a bit after that.

Rift new armor piece (or is it a codpiece?) of the week:

Legion: So The Plan Was…

I meant to just start out in Legion with my Tailor and Alchemist from the two servers where I have high level characters.  Those are usually the most useful crafts in any game, in my experience.

I’d have a Feral Druid and a Frost Mage in one place, the other would be a Hunter and a Druid. 

Once I started the Artifact Quests aka the Class Quests, I found them to be really interesting, and different from each other so I’ve been working on the quests for each class where my characters are at 100.  Only two of them went in with ilevels over 680.  One was around 650, a couple in the 620s.

The plan then was to get them through their quest series, establish them in their Order Halls, set them in place all over the Broken Isles.

Two characters had a pretty easy peasy time of it.   Others, not so much.

Druid

My Druid sailed through–the one at 680.    I like the Emerald Dream area, it suits the Druid well.  Bad news, in addition to her Aluminum Mask Face, in Feral form she now looks like Scar from the Lion King.  I just can’t look at my character anymore.

Warlock

My Warlock with only 654 hardly took any damage.  It was over so fast I thought something was missing.

The Warlock Class Hall looks like hell, literally, and I’m not happy the entrance is in the Underbelly.  Why not a portal or some other location?

Paladin

My Paladin with an iLevel of 625?  Did get killed a couple of times, but her healing abilities, though not feeling as powerful as they once were, kept her alive and she made it.

I honestly thought it was odd to have the class order hall in the Plaguelands of the Eastern Kingdoms.  Why not somewhere on the Broken Isles?  However, when I walked into the vault, and saw the rather wonderful underground setup, I was amazed.  I thought the entire ceremony of induction, and the quest line for her were really quite touching.

Demon Hunter 

Not a fan of the Demon Hunter quest or the hall itself.   Lesson learned in the artifact part, you have to kill every single mob in the place before you get the Boss.  Zzzzzzz.

I dislike circular structures, whether they be buildings or in game cities and the Demon Hunter Hall is a circle.  I really really don’t like having to float over to the place from the edge of Dalaran every time you go there.

Hunter

The Hunter quest is good except for the middle part where you’re in Ulduar.  It just doesn’t feel like a Hunter-y place.  I would rather that she could choose a Bow over a Gun as her weapon.

The Hunter Order Hall area is great though, and really feels evocative of the class.

Frost Mage

My Frost Mage at about 625 has not been able to beat the boss in her quest yet.  In any other area of Azeroth, she could start questing in the new area, level up, get a few pieces of upgraded armor, and go back in after the (Redacted).  

 The Nasty Boy

No no. If you can’t complete this, no order hall, and thus no way to get to the Broken Isles.   I came so close a couple of times.  Changed my rotation and talents.  Used every skill she has.  She’s died at least ten times.  Soooo.  I sent her to Tanaan, cone of shame city.  Except, every objective area had people there and all the mobs were dead.  I got a single piece of useable armor.  Then I thought to look at her shards and went to the Stormwind Vendor and bought a few pieces and whoa now 647.  Babaloooey.   Additionally, my hard working alchemist gathered enough materials to send her a few Legion level Healing Potions and Rejuvenation potions.  I am hoping they aren’t on the same timer, as often they are not.  If she can get down to the nub with bad butt boy, and use one of those, she’s got his horsehairs in a snipper.  Hahaha.  Sorry, really frustrated on this one.

Rogue

The very best quest and order hall goes to the Rogue.  The entire thing is so well thought out and written just brilliantly.  My Rogue is an Assassination Rogue, also with a low ilevel.  She had no trouble though, except for figuring out the how of her quest.  It really was a puzzle, and it was a case of observation, and timing and use of her skills.   I was stuck at the last part trying to get into the Stormwind Keep.    I logged out and sent another character to fly around the keep to see if there was another secret type entrance I never knew was there.  Nope, you have to go right in the front door.

I really hated to see all the guards in my beloved Stormwind out to kill me, it was sort of jarring.

So you think that was super good as a quest and a tale and you get back to Dalaran and there’s more to the story.  So cool.

Also in the Underbelly, this has a secret entrance from a Dalaran shop with a door that swings out just for Rogueish types.  So immersive.

Onward into the Breach (I think that’s the phrase)

I still have a boosted Elemental Shaman to do.  I thought I should auto-level a class who has lagged behind forever.  Problematically, they’re level 100, but you still aren’t familiar with how to play them well, so she may get trapped in Class Quest Hell too.

Everyone is getting sent to various lands.  I think it is just great not to have to drag every character along the same path.  They’ll all get there eventually, but the game play for each of them is so different, we shall see.   I stop to fish with everyone.   I would like to start cooking quests, but am not seeing any available.  You can get Legion level Archaeology just by working a dig site.  Good to know.   I find myself switching between characters several times during the evening, so maybe they’ll all get to the top around the same time.