Tobold's Blog
Thursday, July 23, 2015
 
iLvl 681

Just to give a short status of my World of Warcraft experience, the average item level of my main character (fury warrior) is now 681. Besides some iLvl 670 items from follower missions, and iLvl 685 items from ship missions, he is mainly wearing items coming from baleful tokens found in Tanaan Jungle. These tokens most of the time give just a iLvl 650 blue item, but sometimes result in a iLvl 675 epic. As you find enough of those tokens, you get chances for such an epic frequently enough. In addition there are upgrade items that upgrade either of those baleful items to iLvl 695. You get one upgrade item for finishing the 6th campaign quest series, or you buy the upgrades for 20,000 apexis crystals. Which isn't all that much any more, since apexis crystals now come in at a much faster rate.

My three alts (frost mage, shadow priest, demonology warlock) are a bit behind that, but not too much. With the warlock I made a costly mistake: Bought two baleful trinkets and upgraded them to iLvl 695 for a grand total of 50,000 apexis crystal. Turns out that half of that was totally wasted, as the trinket is "unique equipped" and you can't wear two. And you can't get refund on upgrade items you already used. Ouch!

What I'm not wearing at all is gear from raiding, as I neither raid nor run dungeons. One exception was doing a LFR raid with each character to get some blueprints for the shipyard. What I am also not wearing is crafted gear, which is a conscious decision to not spend that much gold. Each character could wear 3 crafted items, and fully upgraded each item could be iLvl 715. But that costs 60k+ gold per item, which times 12 would eat up most of my funds. And really, what would I need such a high iLvl for as long as I don't do raids nor dungeons?

However I was thinking of leveling another character, either a moonkin druid, unholy death knight, or retribution paladin. I'm accumulating a second sort of baleful tokens, which are limited to a specific class of armor, but only bound to account. So you can send a new character a bunch of those tokens and insta-equip him at level 100. Even weirder those iLvl 715 items have a minimum level of only 91, and I was thinking that at least an iLvl 715 weapon would be a good investment for a new character. But as the three characters mentioned are only level 80 to 86, I'll first have to decide which one to play and get that far.

Comments:
Meh, I'm 687 using the same route (Baleful + token upgrades plus the occasional LFR item) and I can't be sad enough knowing we still need a full year or more) before the next expansion. I wish I had the strength and determination to reroll multiple toons but I honestly can't do it, I have zero interest in seeing the same content again. Pet battles are done, PvP is not my thing... So I'm left with either serious raiding or daily garrison floor sweeping. Sigh.
 
I've lost interest in my alts, and what little gaming I do is to complete the legendary quest line.

Not for the ring (although it's a cute bonus), but for the story. At the launch of the patch I was annoyed that they seemingly told the story of how Gul'dan usurped the Iron Horde in a novella or a book or something like that, but lo and behold, completing the 6.1 legendary quests gave me a neat quest line and a cut scene that set up patch 6.2. If you got the patience for it, grab a healer and put him through some LFR for the legendary quests. Items drop frequently, and the shipyard gives you a nice catchup for the earlier stages. At this point you only need to do HM and BRF once on LFR to complete those stages.

I think the legendary quest line and the Garrison campaign are a good way to tell the story of Warlords even outside the raids.
 
My main is almost fully geared in 685 gear from raiding heroic Blackrock Foundry, which were hard won fights with the guilds I run with.

On one hand, it feels like a slap in the face to just wander into Tanaan in my offspec, whack on a few mobs with my hammers for a short while, and walk away with 600 oil and 2K+ apexis every day... but I do it for the oil. And as almost an afterthought, pick up a piece of 695 gear once a week. i don't even do it for the gear, I do it for the oil. On Timeless Isle, I had to try to get the timeless coins.

On the other hand, the gear helps the people in the guild that aren't all that skilled to raid better in that they are more survivable and do more damage (Not as much as if they would able to pay more attention and play better, but that's a different issue.) So it's a net gain. And... it's typical for these catch ups and gear boosts to be available this late in an expansion. I use them too... I'm running my alt through the legendary ring story too, it only took a week to do the Highmaul part because of the stone missions in the Shipyard. I'll blow through the BRF portion as well for the same reason.

I notice everyone else in my guild is all over Tanaan Jungle, chasing down rares every day and running ALL their alts through the big weekly boss that drops Felblight. Me, I don't like the place. I see it as the stepping stone for WoW going console. And I don't like that.

Tanaan's gear tsunami has affected my sales of 640 crafted gear (How I pay for my account) but only in a minor way. I've had to drop my prices 15%, but I still don't need to play the undercutting game or anything. People rolling alts still need the things so they can get to Tanaan to get the free gear. They just don't need the upgrade items anymore... as such I don't bother with Felblight or even Savage Blood.
 
Since you don't do group content there is basically no need to get a ceratin ilvl at all, other than to satisfy your inner hunter/gatherer.

I only do Tanaan dailies with two characters, and most days only the starting quests not the 2 bonus areas. One of them raids, the other gets all the baleful upgrades. A third char is tanking timewalker dungeons when available, the fourth I don't care at all what he wears.

You can do Supreme Lord Kazzak with every char, all of your 100s will get Felblight from him, 4 chars should be ~40 felblight. Also fish every school in Tanaan you come across, no fishing skill required. Chars lower than 100 won't get the felblight or bonus roll on Kazzak but still get a chance at his normal loot. Ride over the water from Stormshield and then stay on the roads it's easy to get to Kazzak.

Profession upgrades... still more expensive than the materials so just sell a few and make your own with the profit. If you have a smith: weapon upgrades give the most profit on my server.
 
Crafted weapon at 91 is quite nice; while you can afford it, 700 or 685 is much cheaper requiring 0 or 30 or 90 felblight respectively for 685,700,715. You can upgrade later when felblight become inevitably cheaper.

I have not used it yet but commenters were saying nice things about the new Heirloom trinket. And the ring adds another 5% XP if you want.

My worst experiences in WoW were pugging 5-persons so I don't, even if it means no Ring. But I did 2x5 WotLK TW dungeons and had a blast. So IMO, TW for LK or TBC were nice ways to level alts since gear is not an issue. You could even level an alt via Pet Battles during the TW Pet Battle event although only the pets are 300% XP.

Regardless, good luck.


 
Hagu said:

"My worst experiences in WoW were pugging 5-persons..."

Mine too. A lot of people act as if you're intentionally tracking them down and sabotaging THEM SPECIFICALLY because you had the nerve to pug THEIR heroic dungeon in 615 gear so you could do the 3 dungeons you need for your legendary ring.

 
If you want a decent 5-man experience you should do the mythics.
a) Not the same time pressure and requirements to be do everything perfectly.
2) Not the expectation that they will be a faceroll and tactics can be ignored.
iii) The extra layer of opt-in required (using group finder as opposed to LFG), removes a greater proportion of the worst offenders.
 
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