20170315: The Return, Part 3. Early Legion material.

1. The biggest differences between Legion and previous WoW material.
1. Artifact Weapons.
1. Earlier WoW weapons could be leveled and improved, but this is a step beyond that.
2. Your artifact weapon will be your last weapon, in Legion, anyway, levels 101 to 110.
3. Artifact weapons allow for leveling, from the initial iLevel 750 to well over iLevel 900.  This helps your average armour level grow significantly.
4. Beyond the iLevel, the artifact weapons have an associated large tree of nodes that can be grown by the player.  The nodes have levels.
5. The levels of the nodes strengthen or alter existing skills, and sometimes create all new skills that are few but extremely powerful.
6. Buying a traditional WoW weapon that is similar or better just will not happen.
7. One evolves the artifact weapon through joining artifacts or relics to the weapon.  Such artifacts are obtained at the end of hard quest changes, from boss drops, or from raiding treasure chests.
8. Smaller quest drops or field drops allow increase of node levels through 'artifact power.'  As one spends artifact power on node level increases, the cost for the next bump goes up.
9. The first bump cost is 300; the next is 325, after that 350 and so on.  At level 13, the cost to level up goes from 1000 artifact power to 6875.  Later on there are even bigger jumps.
10. Each artifact weapon allows for the installation of 3 relics.  The relics enable level increases of the weapon itself, plus an increment in a single node.  For instance, a relic might increase the iLevel  of the weapon by +2 (early acquisitions, when the character is around level 101) to +56 (later in the game, character at 110, tougher quest chains or raids).
11. The relics come in types: Frost, Iron, Storm, Blood, Holy, Life, Fel, Shadow, Fire.
12. Relics can occasionally be purchased at the Auction House. Look under 


2. Armor improvements.
1. Each class/specialization has a primary statistic: Strength, Agility, or Intellect.
2. When a character switches specialization, say Monk/Mistweaver => Monk/Windwalker, the primary statistic might change. In this example, Intellect => Agility.
3. In Legion, the statistic (Strength, Agility, Intellect) for most armor pieces changes when the specialization changes.
4. This is true for (head, shoulders, chest, wrist, hands, belt, legs, boots), but not for the decorations (neck, shirt, cape, tabard, rings (2), trinkets (2)).
5. When making weapon sets for characters, one good piece of armor for the head will work for any specialization.  However, a trinket, for example, might have a fixed primary statistic, say Agility.  When switching to a specialization using Intellect, one needs to get a piece of armor with Intellect or just use one that has neither.


3. Specialization switching is easier and cheaper.
1. When switching specializations, the artifact weapon is switched automatically in your armor set.
2. The primary statistic (Strength, Agility, Intellect) is automatically switched on eight pieces of armor (see above).
3. This makes it unnecessary to have separate armor for the eight most expensive pieces.
4. However, take care with the choices for the decorations.  If you have a trinket, for example, that has only Agility as a perq statistic, switching to an Intellect or Strength specialization renders the trinket almost useless.
5. If you have all three artifact weapons (two for Demon Hunters), and you have chosen decorations carefully, selecting the specializations automatically accomplishes the full armor set change.


4. The game recommends pursuing more than one specialization for a given single character.
1. I took my lead monk to level 101 as a Mistweaver (healer).  I chose Windwalker (DPS) for the second artifact weapon to pursue.
2. The game suggested I look for a second artifact weapon.  The second go was easier since I started at a higher rank and was familiar with the process by then.
3. After playing with the Windwalker for a while, I noticed that the quest giver offered a quest to start looking for an artifact weapon for the third Monk specialization, Brewmaster (tank).
4. I had not played a tank for five years or so, but I thought, why not.  See what it's like.
5. I got through levels 106 to 110 as Brewmaster faster than I did levels 98 to 105.  Brewmaster is really good for quest chains in the Broken Isles, where mobs tend to gang up on you, and are fast relative to what I was used to from Mists of Pandaria.
6. Keeping separate artifact weapons of Mistweaver, Windwalker, and Brewmaster approximately equal in strength has been challenging.  Still, this seems a good idea, since I might start dungeons and quests again.  I'm not sure whether to go with DPS (probable for dungeons) or healer (most of my WoW experience) or tank.


5. As in Warlords of Draenor, Legion characters get followers that one can send on missions.
1. The followers are more configurable in Legion.
2. One of the followers will, at your choice, follow you around on the Broken Islands to assist in your questing.
3. Some of the rewards in the follower quests are armor upgrades to the followers.
4. After level 110, followers get a listed iLevel, which starts at 760.  The armor upgrades increase the iLevel of the followers.  Some quests will not start unless the followers are above a certain level.
5. Followers, as opposed to your character, continue getting experience after level 110.  Followers are first green (ordinary), then progress to blue (kinda special), then progress to purple (more special).
6. After a time, your followers have to be purple with iLevel 830 or more, then 850 or more.
7. All missions cost order resources.
8. The missions give better rewards after a while, but never great.


2. Early tasks that one must do to continue.
1. Do the Alliance or Horde quests that lead to the Broken Isles.
2. Do the return quests. By this time, you'll have some significant armor upgrades.
3. Get the quest that lets you observe the teleportation of Dalaran to the Broken Isles.
4. Do the quest sequence that allows you to get your first artifact weapon.  This quest is class-specific, and on the difficult side.  The artifact weapon is likely a big armor level boost; the weapon is usually iLevel 750, a big jump up from WoD levels.
5. Also, the artifact weapon has an entire tree within it that allows improvement through getting rewards that include 'artifact power.'
6. Your single artifact weapon grows with you for levels 99 to 110.


3. Around level 102, one might get the option of pursuing a second artifact weapon.
1. For example, I got my first artifact weapon as a Mistweaver Monk, around level 99.
2. I got some advancement through artifact power.
3. Later I got a summons to the home region of the Monks, which was updated from the Pandaria expansion to the Legion expansion.
4. Then I got a chance to do quests to get an artifact weapon suitable for Windwalker or Brewmaster Monks. I chose Windwalker.
5. After completing those tasks, I was asked whether I wanted to get a Brewmaster weapon. I passed on that.
6. After attaining the second weapon, it is a good time to configure a second armor set in the Character pane.
7. After I equipped the new fist weapons, I went through the talent tree, and chose talents for Windwalker, then ordered the skill bars.
8. Fortunately, the Intellect rating I had for Mistweaver was automatically switched over to Agility when I activated Windwalker.
9. That represented a huge savings in not purchasing new armor.
10. Also, to interchange Mistweaver to Windwalker, I only need to activate the specialty and switch armor sets.
11. The choices in the Talent pane and in the skill bars are remembered and returned.
12. In DPS only classes (say Warlock), one can still choose among different specialties, such as Affliction versus Destruction versus Demonology.  There are separate Talent choices, skill choices, and weapon choices that can be interchanged quickly.

20170228: the return, part 2

The Return. Comments on changes, part 2.

Characters, Antonidas Realm, 2016-1228 to 2017-0216

Character	Class	Sub-Class	Level	Sub-Class	Level	Armor Level
Kronoszero	Druid	Balance	37	Balance	38	n/a
Kronosten	Priest	Discipline	53	Discipline	56	n/a
Kronosnine	Warlock	Affliction	64	Affliction	66	n/a
Chronosnine	Mage	Fire	86	Fire	86	n/a
Chronosone	Warrior	Arms	86	Arms	86	n/a
Plutozero	Hunter	Marksmanship	85	Marksmanship	86	n/a
Chronosten	Death Knight	Blood	86	Unholy	92	565
Kronosone	Paladin	Retribution	34	Retribution	100	648

For the Realm Uldum, same period:

Character	Class	Sub-Class	Level	Sub-Class	Level	Armor Level
Kronoshunter	Hunter	Marksmanship	52	Marksmanship	54	n/a
Chronosmage	Mage	Fire	86	Fire	88	n/a
Chronospriest	Priest	Discipline	90	Discipline	93	542
Chronoslock	Warlock	Affliction	90	Destruction	96	541
Chronosmonk	Monk	Mistweaver	90	Windwalker	95	550
Chronosdruid	Druid	Restoration	90	Balance	98	550
Chronoslycan	Death Knight	Blood	90	Unholy	100	596
Chronosmwone	Monk	Mistweaver	90	Mistweaver	102	696
Chronosdh	Demon Hunter	dne	98	Havoc	101	683

Qualitative changes:

1. New planet: Draenor; new player levels 91 to 100; new regions and many new quests
1. Moonshadow Valley--levels 90-92
2. Tanaan Jungle--level 100
3. Gorgrand--levels 92-94
4. Frostfire Ridge--90-92
5. Spires of Arak--96-98
6. Talador--levels 94-96
7. Nagrand--levels 98-100


2. Transition Activity: Pandaria expansion to Warlords of Draenor expansion
1. My level 90 characters from 2013 started my 2017 experience with this.
2. As part of a quest with Khadgar at the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands/Eastern Kingdoms/Azeroth...
3. ...go through the gate to Tanaan Jungle on Draenor
4. Dozens of quests.  One gets improved armor and lots of XP.
5. Shift to garrison site in Northern Shadowmoon Valley.
6. Continue the quest for armour until one can quest easily and use LFG for dungeons.
7. All that once fine 476, 483, 522 level armour from Pandaria raids and reputation: replace all of it.  You will need an average of around 520 just to get started on WoD dungeons.
8. Professions: if you were 600/600 before, you are nowhere now.  Start doing quests, killing monsters, and finding the right professions merchants.  Instead of trainers, most professions upgrades come from dropped scrolls that allow you to learn levels 601-700.


3. Alternate Transitions: Demon Hunters and straight to level 100 upgrades
1. Demon hunters start at level 98 and have an alternate route (through 75+ quests) to start in the Battle Isles.
2. In the Antonidas Realm, I used the Blizzard gadget (obtained by buying digital version of the Legion expansion) to promote my retribution Paladin from 34 directly to 100.
3. Demon hunters are heroic characters that have excellent armour and weapons.  Their quest line provides further excellent armour choices.  The skill set gets a nice workout during the 75+ quests.  Gliding is a nice borrow from Guild Wars II, and the eye-beams are fun for mass destruction of enemies.  Demon hunters start with average armour level at 660.  After the 75 or so quests, my Havoc (DPS) DH had armour level 683.
4. In similar fashion, the Paladin upgrade forced me to re-learn the typical Paladin skills. The initial new level 100 armour was rather nice as well.


4. Garrisons:
1. Do a few initial quests to get to Shadowmoon Valley, then build the first stage of your personal garrison (fort).  Upgrading the fort and getting new followers continues through level 100.
2. Get a new hearthstone for the garrison in addition to the original hearthstone.
3. Get your own fishing daily quests.
4. Get your own mining daily quests.
5. Get your own herbalism daily quests...all the harvesting sources.
6. Keep building as your accumulate garrison resources, gold, and followers.  Send your followers on garrison missions to level them up and get occasional armour rewards.
7. Cooperate with other parts of the Alliance (or Horde) to fight the Iron Horde.
8. Build (option) your own bank.
9. Build (option) your own auction house.


5. Transition from WoD (Warlords of Draenor) to Legion.
1. I have only four level 100+ (100, 100, 101, 102) characters, so my experience here is limited, to say the least.
2. WoD ends at level 100.  At level 98, WoD characters can start the Legion quests, which often yield armor fit for Legion environment.  Newfangled armour starts showing up at the Auction House at levels like 685 and 715.  Levels 98 to 101 are great for upgrading your average armor score.  Do the main quests.
3. Early on, a level 98+ character gets a quest that allows witnessing Dalaran's move to the Battle Isles.  In addition, one gets a third hearthstone, used only for returning to the new Dalaran, which is mildly re-designed from the old one.  In addition, one gets quests that enable flight paths from new Dalaran to the Battle Isles.

20170131: The Return. Comments on changes, part 1.

The Return. Comments on changes, part 1.
I first started WoW in 2007, after The Burning Legion (2nd expansion) was released.
I left WoW in August of 2013, while Mists of Pandaria (4th expansion) was still current.
Since I left, two new expansions came out, Warlords of Draenor (5th expansion) and Legion (6th expansion).

1.  What did I miss most?
1. Flying.  Yes, it's a video game, but I love flying in WoW.
2. Exploring: seeing new areas, or finding nooks and crannies I missed before is great fun.
3. Running dungeons: free armour, defeating nasty monsters, seeing other players in combat action.
4. Questing: another source of armour, a great stimulus for exploration, gaining familiarity with the new material.
5. Raids: My level 90 characters had mostly raid armour, which let them be competent for most tasks in the game.  
6. The armour iLevels here were around 476 to 522; this includes some high-end quest and reputation based armour.


2.  The changes I've seen with Warlords of Draenor include:
1. Draenor as a separate planet, and a new large area to explore and quest in.
2. New dungeons peculiar to Draenor.  These all seem serviceable, and provide a supply of armour upgrades.
3. Garrisons.  Hm, both pluses and minuses here.
4. Raids: I've pretty much missed the boat on WoD raids, since Legion is already out and established.
5. Armour iLevels up into the 500s, 600s, and the 700s.
6. Crafting levels had a ceiling of 600 in MoP.  In WoD, this was raised to 700.


3. The changes I've seen with Legion include:
1. The Broken Isles as a new land mass in Azeroth, the base planet for WoW.
2. The Demon Hunter heroic class for Night Elves and Blood Elves only.
3. Armour iLevels up into the 900s.  Oi.
4. The character GUI widget (press C on keyboard), has added lists of attributes the character needs most in the top-down proper order.  This beats looking it up to make decisions about what armour to pursue.
5. Dalaran was moved from the Crystalsong Forest region in the continent of Northrend to the Broken Isles.  When a character reaches level 98, quests take the character to see this move.
6. New dungeons for Legion.  I have made a new Demon Hunter character, which has progressed from level 98 to level 101.  I have not done any dungeon runs yet.  I'll likely start with this character.
7. New raids for Legion.  I have not started this cycle either.  My DH qualifies, but just barely.  I'll need to do some reading to see the pitfalls for the various raids.
8. Crafting levels had a ceiling of 700 in WoD.  In Legion, this was raised to 800.


4. Adjustments.
1. My good and competent level 90 characters from MoP, despite all their raid experience, could not qualify for a single dungeon at first.
2. I had to get the armour average levels up over 500 to even get started in dungeons, then rise to 520, 540, 560 to progress in the WoD dungeons.
3. Garrisons take a lot of effort for paltry returns.  Perhaps I'm not doing it right yet. I have more garrison work to do with my eight lead characters, so I might change my mind on this issue.
4. I used the 'elevate an existing character to level 100' feature from buying Legion to change a level 34 paladin to a level 100 paladin.  The changes in armour, weaponry, and spell set were rather impressive.
5. I have a fair number of characters in the 80s levels.  Moving them up to 110 is going to take forever.
6. I changed my Restoration Druid to Balance Druid to make questing and dungeon runs easier and more enjoyable.
7. I changed my Blood Death Knight to an Unholy DK for the same reason.
8. I used the attribute order in the character GUI for my Windwalker monk (Agility > Critical Strike > Haste, and so on) to improve the character's effectiveness.
9. I have a reasonable familiarity with the Warlords of Draenor material, but I have barely found my footing with the Legion material.

cancelled the account

20130710, mercredi

I have found no reason to continue, and have had a lot of fun elsewhere.

If WoW gets rid of

1. pandas (unlikely)
2. Pokemon (unlikely)
3. endless dailies (unlikely)
4. et cetera, see previous posts

I'll think about returning.  It was mostly great fun, 2007 jan to 2013 aug (when subscription runs out; I won't be playing in the meantime).

20130521, mardi

Working on Guild Wars 1 for a while.

20130508: character developments

20130508, mercredi

The rule of six: why WoW looks like it's being sent into the sunset as a product.


Here are some examples to get us started.

A. Mistweaver monk.  The six skills are

1. Renewing Mist.
2. Uplift.
3. Soothing Mist.
4. Gift of the Serpent.
5. Revival.
6. Surging Mist.

When I run an LFR, I often have the WoW add-on tinyDPS active during the entire proceedings to catch statistics about the effects of my healing efforts.  My top six most productive skills are usually the six above.  Sometimes the order (first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth most heals delivered) changes, but it's almost always the six above.

Before the disaster called 5.2 came out, I used Enveloping Mist instead of Uplift.  Now mana costs are too high, and I switched to skills based more on chi.   Occasionally, Spinning Crane Kick weasels its way onto the list when there are many, many multi-mob trash enemies to defeat.  Still, 99% of all my heals are done with six spells.

B. Restoration Druid.  The six skills are

1. Wild Growth.
2. Swiftmend.
3. Rejuvenation.
4. Lifebloom.
5. Tranquility.
6. Wild Mushroom: Bloom.

The order may vary from LFR to LFR, but it's always these six. When I switch off to other skills to any extent, I have always seen a drop in HPS.

C. Affliction Warlock.  The six skills are

1. Corruption.
2. Agony.
3. Unstable Affliction.
4. Curse of the Elements.
5. Malefic Grasp.
6. Drain Soul.

As before, the order may change, but it's always these six.  When I deviate from these six, my DPS drops.

D.  Discipline Priest.  This is slightly more complicated.

1. Penance.
2. Cascade.
3. Smite.
4. Power Word: Solace.
5. Mind Sear.
6. Power Word: Pain.

When time is not tight, I join LFRs as DPS since I cast spells on enemies for the most part.  On a good day, I'll rank around #15 in DPS, but #7 to as high as #3 in healing even though I try to cast few if any direct healing spells.

Discipline Priests proc Atonement (often 66% of my healing total) and Divine Aegis (another 20% or so of my healing) when they cast the first 4 skills listed above.  That is, there is no skill called Atonement, but when Penance is cast, it damages the enemy, and heals the Priest's allies.  This healing is attributed to Atonement.

When I get my spell power considerably higher, I intend to keep to this strict model.  I've seen Discipline Priests come in #1 in healing with only Atonement and Divine Aegis...so they've cast zero healing spells the entire LFR.  That's my goal for Kronospriest...as well as to be in the top ten consistently in overall damage done.

In the mean time, I use

1. Power Word: Shield
2. Power Word: Barrier
3. Desperate Prayer
4. Hymn of Hope
5. Shadowfiend

as stop gap measures to keep my character alive and to restore mana.  However, the more I use these, the more my productivity drops.

E. Fire Mage.  This is very direct.

1. Fireball.
2. Living Bomb.
3. Inferno Blast.
4. Pyroblast.
5. Molten Armor.
6. Combustion.

One should keep Molten Armor on all the time, and cast Fireball repeatedly.  Pepper enemies with Living Bomb.  Wait for Inferno Blast to light up, then invoke it.  (One sees 'heating up' on the screen.)  This usually makes Pyroblast an instant invocation rather than a slow one.  Use Pyroblast as often as possible.  Hit Combustion now and then, and you've got some great DPS.  Blizzard messes with this rat's nest of spells now and then, but those are most of the basics.

Repeat.

There are many other Fire Mage skills, but using other ones means a drop in productivity; that is, drop in DPS.

=========================================================

In MoP, these small skill sets are made strongly attractive.  That is, once you've found them (either by yourself, or on the internet, or from your friends) it's hard to move away from them to anything else because your DPS or HPS will drop.  Since the pattern repeats itself across classes, this seems to be by design. So what's the goal behind the design?

Since one can accomplish almost everything by using just 6 spells, why not simplify the WoW action bars?  I usually have 48 spots in my deployed action bars.  Clearly I don't need this.  One could drop the GUI down to say 12 spots total...so that WoW could look like a more fully featured version of Guild Wars.  I would guess this will start being bandied about sometime this calendar year.

When your company starts driving the product into being an imitation of an inferior rival, it usually means that the product is slated for the dust bin.  WoW has had a good run, but the direction the product is taking is not one that I find encouraging.

Anyway, have a good think about your characters...

1. Blizzard has decided which spells are your best choices.
2. Blizzard reduced the glyph system from 9 to 3 (the minor glyphs are meaningless).
3. Blizzard reduced the talent system from one talent point per level (before Cataclysm) to one talent point per two levels (Cataclysm) to one talent choice per 15 levels (the disaster of MoP). Often 4 or 5 of the six talent choices are useless or detrimental to the character...why choose any?

I suppose if one is 8 or so years old, these are 'good' changes, just like placing a copy of Pokemon inside WoW is a 'good' addition.  It's all easy to learn and fun to do...just six buttons to push, and little of that pesky configuration to do.

20130506, lundi
posted 20130508

A. Character status, armour: I have 6 characters left in the Dungeon Crusaders guild.  All of them are level 90.  So what is left is armour, crafts, and gold.  Let's look at armour changes first.

1. 498 Chronosmwone, Mistweaver monk
2. 482 Chronosdruid, Restoration Druid
3. 481 Chronoslock, Affliction Warlock
4. 480 Chronoslycan, Frost Death Knight
5. 475 Chronospriest, Discipline Priest
6. 467 Chronosmonk, Mistweaver/Windwalker monk

I've resorted to PvP to increase the rankings of my armour for the Druid, the Warlock, and the DK.  This was relatively quick for getting to average iLevel ~476.  Above that, I use LFR drops and valor point purchases.  For the 498 Mistweaver, I've stayed with only PvE armour, as I've done with the priest and the MW/WW monk.

The Windwalker armour is all based on agility, but advancement comes a lot quicker with Mistweaver.  So I'm going with 2 different sets for Chronosmonk: a pure agility set for DPS, and a mixed set for doing LFRs as Mistweaver.

For one reason or another, Chronosmwone remains my lead (most advanced) character, and I am aiming to get the average iLevel above 500.

I dropped the Shadow spec on the priest in favour of Discipline, which is where the character was most of its career.  Discipline is particularly good in LFRs, where I operate as DPS, but score well with healing due to procs to Atonement and Divine Aegis.

B. Crafts.

Both Kronospriest and Chronosmonk are leatheworking/skinning.    As I saw in the Darkmoon Faire, the monk still needs to do some finishing in both.  Chronosmwone and Chronoslycan are both 600/600 in herbalism/inscription.  The Druid is 600/600 in tailoring/enchanting, while the Warlock is 600/600 in mining/engineering.  So I've covered only 6 areas in crafting.  In retrospect, I wish I had planned that better.

Most of the characters are at the place where they can purchase recipes for the 'higher order' products, such as 458 leather armour and the like.  I have a lot to do there.

C. Gold.

I could use more of this before the next expansion to make the transition easier.  So I need to do more crafting and selling in the auction house.