Dragonflight: Gathering

Dragonflight: Gathering

My main is a miner (and engineer) and has been working at it since the expansion began. My fresh-and-simple Evoker is an herbalist, chosen for her racial, and is intended to feed my other alt who is an inscriptionist and alchemist.

There are goods and bads with the gathering professions. I’d say that my biggest gripe is that it loads up my reagent tab. Each type of ore (or herb) has three levels or stars that reflect its quality. The good part is that it is fun to do.

The difference is huge between my miner and herbalist. My miner has a lot of knowledge points applied to the different talent trees and also has high-end support gear like a fancy pick that is enchanted with finesse. My miner loads up on ore in a brief time and the ore is usually high-end top-grade stuff.

My herbalist is still coming along with green support gear and filling out the talent system as best I can. Because of my Mining experience I know how to behave. I can land and pick herbs now amongst the mobs and fly away because I have Deftness or speed.

The support gear matters. A lot! I am saving my mettle to be able to put in work orders for better herbalism gear. I already have the fancy sickle and, it may be an illusion, but I can “feel” that I am doing better at the job.

Finding Knowledge points comes from gathering in a random way. The Dirt and the Scout Packs also can give some. I wish that I could filter it all. The Tuskaar Tackleboxes are treasures too and so they have the same icon as the Dirt and Packs, but I don’t want fish. Same with the ores and flowers, I’d love a filter for coloring maybe so I can choose what to pick or mine — know that I am speeding along on my dragon and trying to mouse-over on my mini-map.

It is fun to do, gathering. There are blacksmithing items that can boost your finesse for two hours (applied to your profession tool) and phials to jack up your perception, for example. I’ve done those things because they do help. But: I typically only gather for about twenty minutes at a time.

I don’t understand it all, the systems are still new to me. My intention is to over-play so that I have tons of materials and can make whatever I want, whenever I want. There are no Public Work Orders for my stuff in Engineering, Inscription or Alchemy. None. It has been a few weeks since I saw a Public Work Order — so, Blizzard, your system doesn’t work. It is a flat-out fail. Maybe on a High-Pop realm but not on my realm (which is two realms merged).

Pairing Inscription and Alchemy on one character has proven tough. It takes Artisan’s Mettle to do the Experimentation on potions and phials, so I have not been able to upgrade my profession equipment. I will stop the gameplay for a few months until I have the profession gear, which is not fun. Still, my main does raid and gets Howling Runes and Elemental Chaos phials from my own guy and I’m not buying them, that works very well!

Fishing is gathering too. I have all the cooking recipes except one. I have plenty of feasts for raiding and could make many more. That is done and done! Yay.

I’d say that they’ve designed the Gathering professions very well. It takes time and gameplay to get better and that is designed to happen over time. I like that, it is encouraging me to do it more but not go crazy on it.

Dragonflight: The Trading Post

Dragonflight: The Trading Post

The Post dropped yesterday, I am 150 points from the end-the-bar mount today. I have a month to finish it off, likely done this week.

When this feature was announced, I thought I’d pass on it. I don’t collect a lot of cosmetic gear (unless you look at my collections, I’m loaded). I knew I’d go for the pet, and I already had the Celestial Mount.

So, I bought the pet. And the flowers-off-hand and the flowers-wrist. Oddly, I was thinking that Kamalia-et-alia would approve. And, again, I thought that I was done with it. I wish we had more days of free transmog or that the whole thing was cheaper.

Then, doing the everyday things in the game, I began getting achievement-like flashes that I’d made some Post currency. So, I read the list in my Adventure Guide, and it was easy to /love the Aspects.

Then I went back to Stormwind and bought the cool looking stick-chain-spiked-ball mace that is on fire. That thing looks wicked cool.

Now, to my glee, I am wishing I knew next month’s list. I’d like to know if I might save up some currency to roll over. In all, my best guess is that I’ll be able to buy everything offered each month. It is hard to really know yet.

I’d like to see some new or old toys. Flashy sparkly toys that say, “I have this, don’t you wish you had it”.

Judging from the huge crowd in Stormwind when the game came off Reset, I’d say that the Trading Post is a success and WoW is certainly not dead!

Dragonflight: Progress

Dragonflight: Progress

My resto-druid has an ilevel of 381 and our raid team has downed five bosses on normal. It is fun to learn new bosses, we have one boss with a new mechanic that has you sliding! I expect that most of us will get our two-piece tier set completed this coming week and things will get easier.

I have not done all of the dungeons yet. I leveled slower than the big kids and listened to them on Discord figure out every boss and trash set, so they know, and I do not. I’ll never be a big key person I think but I do like the company.

Let’s appreciate the fun of the Tuskaar! The community feasts are a hoot, silly and fun; I like them but tracking timers on Wowhead sucks. Lunker Parties with the guild is fun; my nets are maxxed out with a four-hour timer, but I have all the fish I could ever want by getting there. My harpoon is almost maxxed too.

Tuskaar Renowned Twenty-Seven was a big disappointment. It offers Tuskaar Tackle Boxes. These are treasure chests along the shores of any water. My assumption, after Expedition Packs and Disturbed Dirt, was that they’d be the same with rep tokens and potions and good stuff. No, it is fish! They have the same icon on the mini-map and at this time: unwanted. You can’t “lure” me with the hope of copper, silver or gold coins — I’ve fished (and fished) enough of those.

Crafting Orders are a big expansion feature. On my smaller realm, they don’t work. There is rarely an order for any Engineering stuff, so I am not getting the designed free skill points. I don’t like how you can only order up one thing at a time (Empty Soul Cages) when you want them in bulk, like ten or twenty; tedious. Maybe they are trying to spread out opportunity, I don’t know.

For me, Crafting Orders are very clumsy. If I want something, I look it up at the station and see a list of five to six items needed and how many of each. Then I go to the Auction House, I have learned to take notes outside of the game (maybe I’m missing a handy feature). Then I buy the stuff and hopefully remember to buy the upgrade stuff like a missive. Then I go back to the station and place my order and pay a commission, twenty gold (I have no idea what is respectful, I assume they want skill points or make a lot of the item). And then I wait!

The professions UI feels clumsy too. For one, it is huge and dominates the screen. It closes quick if you want to check your bags or bank, you can’t have them open side-by-side. And there are too many check boxes that you can miss easily and are super important.

Still, my Engineering is at 80. I need Knowledge Points and they’ll come in time. Going through the Unlearned list is tedious, but I don’t mind that, hunting down how to get what I want to eventually make. In all, I’m pretty happy with my progress. Waiting for enough skill or knowledge to show up, I have materials stacked up waiting.

I have an Evoker Alt who is an herbalist. She’s 65 and enjoying my trail-blazing main’s perks. And I have a level 62 hunter who is exploring alchemy and inscription. At-a-glance, inscription doesn’t look too promising. Alchemy is a hoot with exploding experiments. The design is pretty good because you can make stuff and then trash it for more experimenting materials. As always, the specialization system is a mystery with no information on your hard-earned commitments. I think that is supposed to be fun, you have to guess. I am learning to look at Unlearned, that is the place that tells you where to put points (obscure and opaque, but there it is).

I think that this is the fourth week of the expansion. Timing over the Christmas-to-New Year’s break brought a lot of players all day long. Players are interested in playing, our raid team can balloon up to twenty; for us that is astronomical. If the raid design continues to be good and accessible, we’ll continue on. If it gets too hard to do, people will start dropping; it is all on Blizzard.

So far so good, I’m ready to log in again and play some more!

Dragonflight: Increased Perception

Dragonflight: Increased Perception

In trying to keep up to date with my Tuskaar Renown, I was faced with the need to fish up three battered nets and three draconian nuggets. The offer is improved nets. The new version of the net will reduce the timer from ten hours to six hours and increase the number of fish collected.

I have to say that I’m glad that they’ve kept it casual. And, once you’ve spent the time fishing the upgrade items, you’ll have enough fish to not need the nets! So, while they’ve added some fun stuff to fishing, there is no need to obsess on it.

So, the deal is that you are trying to get rare items. The upgrade pieces, the nets and nuggets, are rare. And so are the bottles with recipes and the coins which are very nice to find. I have the low-grade fishing pole, but I have enchanted it up to 40 perception. Spending a few hours yesterday, it was an odd blend of relaxation and frustration. I had earned only one net (which may have been a quest item?) and one nugget.

Last night I learned about Crystalline Phial of Perception. The Alchemists are finally learning how to make them. Curious, I put in a work order (my second ever) and was glad that I somehow already had the materials. I offered a 20-gold tip on the assumption that their crafting would get them points in improvement.

So, this morning I checked my mail and found that I had ordered up ten phials! These are the lowest order of phial with thirty increased perception for thirty minutes. The fancy ones will offer up forty and fifty perception but not seen yet via work orders. These are Bind-on-Pick-up so they cannot be sold in the AH or even handed over.

In ninety minutes, I had my nets and nuggets. I had fished up the materials for future upgrades on my harpoon. Maybe five copper coins and two draconian bottles. Now I feel like I will never want to fish again without the perception boost from the phial. I am eager to eventually learn the fancy fisherfriend pole for my engineering. And, most likely, I’ll be done and sick of fishing for a while!

I have over 100 Ominous Conches. Our raid team spends some time after raiding to pull some of the giant fish and rares but everyone has these things. My guess is that I’ll toss some of them out. And it is very fun to use these in a big group.

So, now that the players are catching up on their crafting stuff with rods, enchants and phials; I’d suggest to not even start fishing without being jacked up on perception! They’ll be pretty cheap soon.

Dragonflight: Everyone is Fishing

Dragonflight: Everyone is Fishing

Well, everyone was fishing.

Today the raid starts and mythic plus starts and the pvp season. The enormous focus on exploration and professions and gearing up will shift to the new things. The players in my guild, they offer dungeon runs at 7am and all day long.

This past week I was amused to see players fishing and getting the 25 fish achievement. Some have not fished and some just hate it. There are recipes to be had and the professions tab “unlearned recipe” points straight at fishing. My experience has been cooking, inscription and alchemy recipes. It takes lots of fishing to get the rare drops, so players are fishing! At least until today, these recipes are not the most important thing ever.

The other thing that changes with the addition of dungeons and raids is that players won’t be burning hard on Renown gains. Recipes are there too.

The game is designed to last a long while. We asked for less grind and less importance on logging in to do required tasks every day. The World Quests reset twice in a week now, for example. So, will it work? If m+ remains as popular as it is, I’d guess so.

Me, I didn’t have a problem with WoD and the lack of end game content. I played all the way through and was happy. With the Renown system, dailies and weeklies, LFRs and the many things to be discovered, I think players will be happy if there is a robust patch system.

There is an arcade-style mini-game that has you climbing rocks up the side of the cliff. I just started yesterday. Little bits like this can be fun to do because they are different. Let us hope that there are more odd bits in the game to come.

Okay, enjoy the new shift in the game play! It will be less crowded at those fishing pools now.

Dragon Flight: Pesky Modifiers

Dragon Flight: Pesky Modifiers

I am loving my professions. They are fun and rewarding and irritating and all of the stuff that you might want. I am maxed in cooking but I do not have the recipes. Some are locked behind renown and feel far away. Will I remember to go back and look again?

I have found cooking recipes by way of fishing. You can fish up a bottle that might get you lucky or some coins to take to the very big frog. By my vague count, five inscription recipes (which I am not) and one cooking recipe that took me past 50 and then I “discovered” two more while crafting up my sweet haste AND crit food.

In the fishing profession panel, there is a slot in the upper right to add a modifier. For fishing it is only two; weak and strong. The weak one is the one I have and it gives “perception”. This modifier will give me a greater chance to catch the rare stuff. Without it, I’m just fishing up mundane fish, over and over. The strong one is simply not available yet, it comes from deep in the engineering stuff.

So, I want the stronger slot piece and then I’m done. Kinda. You can also enchant these pieces for even more perception from the enchanters. These are available now but at quite the cost. So, I’ll wait a week or two and that is a-okay.

Still, when I need it most is early and now. When I finally get it, I won’t need it.

It is a lot to keep track of for me. My main professions, mining and engineering, have three slots. So I want those slots filled asap but now I might need “finesse” or “deftness”. I think that there might be five or six different modifiers to choose from. Does one go all finesse? I simply don’t know but as prices drop, they can be fixed.

I can mine now without dismounting. My slots are cheap stuff and I’m not proud of it. I feel that I must be leaving a lot behind that could be fixed with best-in-slot modifiers and enchants. But, it is early. That is the theme, really, I need in now.

The professions are designed to take months. Then we’ll get a patch and new stuff, I hope. I’m glad that we can’t finish it all in one week. With one exception — I need gear for raiding.

Raid starts in one week-and-a-day. I don’t think I’ll be ready. I’m counting on my speedy guildies for some carries but loot drops are sparse. So, I’m gunning for my crafted helm from engineering and needing primal chaos; will I get what I need in a week?

That is why I’m calling the slotted pieces and their enchants pesky. I want to bring over my Evoker for gathering herbs and ores but I’d not even start without kitting out my character. Same with my alchemist/inscriptionist. Starting without that stuff is foolishness, we know that now.

I might have five Wowhead pages bookmarked, going back over and over again for each profession!

Contemplate and move on.

Dragon Fight: Week One

Dragon Flight: Week One

The expansion dropped on Monday, today is Friday morning. The game is currently down for fixes and stuff. Otherwise, I’d be playing.

Let’s see …

The game is fun and worth the purchase.

My path was to follow the campaign quests and to ignore the side quests but I’ll admit to doing some of those too. They are fun and challenging and, can I say, reasonable.

I dinged 70 last night and finished the campaign at 69 which had opened world quests and an easy path to 70 at the end. The players in our guild all finished days before me and it was hard not to be streaking ahead like they were, today we call it fear of missing out. I’m a grown-up, being two days behind in a two-year expansion is nothing. Some of the campaign quests were laugh-out-loud funny.

Dragon Flying is a major feature and totally fun and sometimes hard. It was super frustrating to start and to learn. Getting the glyphs was major for me and I spent hours on Day One getting a bunch of them and my life-syle was much better.

There are no Callings. I was bummed about that because they rewarded gold. I was counting on some daily feature but there is none. The WQs just change over every day and why would you do them except early on for some gear upgrades.

My professions are Engineering, Mining, Fishing and Cooking. These are very complicated and challenging. The same fear of missing out pushes me to try to get that stuff leveled when the design is for it to take months. I need to let the game come to me but I can see the hurdle right there and want to get over it!

I have not even looked at Work Orders yet. My instinct is to look at them if I want to buy something before I’d look at the Auction House. So far: I don’t want to buy anything!

We raid in two weeks. I really don’t want to chain dungeons for gear but I think I’ll be doing that. I’ve done one so far (on normal), the bosses were easy and the trash can kill you. So, typical design and I expect the same in raids.

In some ways it is over-whelming to me, there is a lot. I mentioned the difficulty in something in Discord and got, “Oh? I did that first try. I didn’t see a problem in that”. So, for a while I hated Discord.

Ultimately, I’ll bring over my Army of Alts, gatherers and alchemists and skinners. Stepping right into dragon flying is the lure. Rested bonus goes fast I’m told. Since the Alts don’t need to be competitive in dungeons and raids it is really tempting. But, like I said, the professions are very complicated (at least, to me, right now).

To sum up: when the servers come back up, I’ll be eager to play. Maybe some mining and fishing for a while and to clean up a zillion side quests!

Dragonflight: It is the Professions

Dragonflight: It is the Professions

We start on Monday! Like a lot of players, I have my main and alts hearthed at the inn in Stormwind. And, I want to remember to re-set that hearth once I reach the Dragon Isles.

Let us stop obsessing on our Talent Trees until we ding 70. Several of my amigos in the guild are planning marathons and have taken time off from work. Adding our talent points as we level up will be strange yet fun.

Professions are one of the expansion features. There is quite a bit of information out on it now, including animated calculators. It will be fun for all players to dabble into the new systems and learn about the different ways to make goodies. We will be spending a lot of time with our professions because that is the game as designed. Yep, you can skip the whole thing and not be hurting; which, I think, keeps it fun. Targeting a recipe, whether a cosmetic or a raiding phial (flask) or high-end gear; that is was the draw is for me.

The game is designed to be Alt Friendly in that it already has catch-up mechanics built in. If your main has 10 or 20 Renown, your Alt will have a 200% buff in earning Renown. If your main has all the dragon flying stuff, your Alt can fly as soon as she lands in the new zone. So, there is the temptation right there — Alts and Professions.

Professions look to be intense and so I’m a bit fearful right now. I don’t understand it yet. The volume of different materials needed for a single recipe is big and typical. At-a-glance, it looks like there is four of everything: herbs, ore, fish, meat, skins and so on. It’s gonna be c-r-a-z-y! We will have slow but steady gains over months and months of play.

……………………..

December fifth is our ten-year anniversary for our guild.

We’d like to celebrate in some fashion but it will be hard to do with everyone wanting to be leveling at that time. We are brain-storming ideas right now. Trying to gather together at night would only represent a few of our many players who play at all times and days. So, what to do?

The ideas so far are looking at the Achievements under Expansion Features and Exploration and picking one and let people race for a title maybe. Some reward, maybe a stack of gold for the winner.

Maybe investing early in a Cooking Accessory and loading the guild vault with them and let people get a present that advances their crafting. Again, hefty materials and profession advancements will hinder that idea; but it’s possible.

Unlimited guild repairs for a week. That will probably happen and since no one is progression raiding and our whole guild wiping, it may be a good gesture.

The new profession pets take special materials that you can only get rarely. The new profession design has really impacted on our ideas.

I understand that it is a big deal to keep a guild going for ten years. But it mostly matters to our leaders who’ve been invested for so long. The bulk of our roster may not even care.

A dragoning we will go!

Soaring to Iron Forge

Soaring to Iron Forge

Well, I blew through all the pre-patch stuff. Bags, toy, pet and even that funny coin achievement from our adventure guide. I have the tmog stuff for the four sets from the elemental invasions and so the heirloom piece and that achievement too!

The Evoker is fun. There is a kind of mini-game with Soar. This spell launches you up into the air and you can glide. With two supporting spells, you can get pretty far.

So.

I Soared from Stormwind to Iron Forge. It took me five Soars with a three minute cooldown, so I idled in some place waiting. It was and is fun. I Soared down the rivers by Westfall and Duskwood. I’m not very good yet but I think you can get pretty far if you do it right.

Practice, grasshopper.

Underlight Angler: Dragonflight

Underlight Angler: Dragonflight

A friend pointed this out and since I’d not heard of it before, I’ll pass it on to you.

One of the cool things about the Underlight Angler from Legion is that it gives you water walking.

If you are long-time player, you probably have this fishing pole.

Open up your professions tab and click on Fishing Journal. In the upper-right hand side, you’ll see a slot. Drop your Angler into the slot. It is no longer taking a bag space!

You will now see two buffs; one is water-walking (surface tension) and the other is equipped for fishing (fishing for attention).

Notice that your weapons have not been replaced. You are still ready for battle at any time.

With the water-walking buff, you can mount up on your Choppa and take off on the surface!

The buff goes away in battle. All you have to do is a cast in water to get the buffs again. And, off to the races you go!

Very excited, totally fun.