Battle Stance

On the one hand it’s kind of a bit of work, on the other hand it’s too easy and too good to not take advantage of, so right now I’m trying to run at least one mission per day per 120 character as long as I have resources. Not that I need all of the followers at artifact level, but the rewards and the rep especially are kind of worth it. If only it weren’t 15 toons…

I’m also trying to take advantage of the Darkmoon Faire 10% XP buff. My Horde Paladin finished Legion this week and right now I’m working on Dwarf Hunter and Gnome Rogue in Legion and Dwarf Shaman in BfA, because the max level count is already highly in favor of the Horde (10:5).

What I’m not doing is grinding gear – why would I? I don’t raid, I hardly run Mythics. When I ding 120 I try to grab a full set of Benthic gear and then upgrade the missing pieces (usually rings + trinkets) to around 385 as well, that’s enough work for all the toons. A few select ones are doing WQs for real upgrades, but overall I guess I’m not really bothering.

One goal I still have and that I’m missing is Flying in Legion. Maybe I should get to work on that. Also not Exalted with Mechagon and Unshackled, also something to do.

While the above screenshot might look like your average “I reached max level” screenshot, it is not.

For the first time since Cataclysm (and a mere 5 levels off in Mists of Pandaria) I have managed to have a character of every class at max level!

1. Orc Rogue & Human Rogue
2. Troll Warrior & Night Elf Warrior
3. Dwarf Paladin
4. Night Elf Demon Hunter
5. Worgen Druid
6. Orc Shaman
7. Blood Elf Warlock
8. Blood Elf Priest
9. Pandaren Monk
10. Orc Hunter
11. Undead Death Knight
12. Undead Mage, as of today

Sure, it didn’t help that I had 2 classes maxed twice already. Or a second Druid at 117, a second Shaman at 112, or a third Rogue at 101 – but that doesn’t matter now. This project is finally done.

After I dinged I did what I usually did for the last few: instantly equip all but 2 pieces of 8.2 Benthic 385 equip, go to Nazjatar, grab another 2 385 pieces and a 370 weapon, and upgrade one piece to 400, then unlock World Quests there.

What was different today that I decided to do the dungeon daily because the reward was a 400 cloak, it happened to be Atal’Dazar and I had just finished the quest line for that dungeon at 119.9.

So I queued for Heroic while mopping up some of the easy Nazjatar intro quests and proceeded to have a very uneventful quick Heroic run. Just that after the last boss the tank, the healer and one dps left and the Hunter and I regretted not saying something about the additional boss. To be fair this was the first time this has happened to me, that a group didn’t automatically do the daily dungeon boss, even on Heroic. So we set out to look for this boss, and hoping we might be able to two-man it, as I had only one person on my friends list online who was not playing Classic, but in a dungeon as well.

So this Shadowblade Razi seemed to be a stealther who either had some adds or spawned them and was patrolling the area left of the instance entrance, where nobody ever clears. He found me more than I found him and that’s when I died. Then my Hunter companion came and we kited him around for a bit until he reset. Bummer. Then we rebuffed, looked for him again, found him… and suddenly we had 3 adds, a normal mob group. After some wiping and kiting we got them down, then we had him again. Long story short, after around 7 deaths and spending all cooldowns we managed to take him down. 500g in repairs for a simple 385 -> 400 cloak upgrade, but I regret not a single gold. It was the most nerve-wracking 10 minutes I had since I stopped raiding. Also the most YES WE DID IT since a first kill in a raid, years ago. Also kind of a Vanilla WoW moment just in the time where everyone plays classic. Spontaneously trying something ridiculous and seeing it through, even with a lot of wipes and no rushing, gogogo, and abandoning ship at the first hurdle. And yes, it was only Heroic and maybe a Hunter+Frost Mage duo makes this a lot easier, but as I wrote above I had dinged an hour ago, I suck at Mages, my item level was around 360 (with 0 Azerite traits spent) and the Hunter was 395 item level.

Was home sick at the end of last week so couldn’t do much but when I felt better on Friday evening/Saturday I remembered that putting a character through the Nazjatar intro quests gives quite some nice gear upgrades, so I set out to get shit done while I wasn’t feeling so well to really enjoy anything but well enough to sit and do some mindless grinding.

There were some of my characters that had already started and/or completed the Nazjatar story lines:

• Dwarf Paladin, iLvl ~400
• Orc Rogue, iLvl ~398
• Troll Warrior, iLvl ~355

But in the meantime I had gotten quite a few more 120s and the Benthic gear tokens were already piling up a bit so I devised a strategy how to best spend them. Unfortunately I didn’t write down the exact item levels, but I remember them mostly…

• NE Demon Hunter, ~370
• NE Warrior, ~370
• Worgen Druid, ~360
• Human Rogue, ~350
• BE Warlock, ~340
• Pandaren Monk, ~340
• BE Priest, ~330
• Orc Shaman, ~315

So I started, first running all the 4 Alliance toons through the intro quests, grabbing the 370 weapon, 385 Head/Shoulders/Chest piece, then finally the 400 Benthic Legs/Feet/Hands piece. Then the 4 Horde toons.

And then I handed out the Benthic tokens I had banked. And then I did all the Nazjatar WQs that gave Benthic tokens or Manapearls (haven’t spent those yet). And then I did most emissary quests that were up over the whole weekend and grabbed all the WQs with gear upgrades. Now I have too many Benthic Chest and Feet tokens spare, but whatever.

This is the final outcome now:

• Dwarf Paladin, 406
• Orc Rogue, 403
• Troll Warrior, 382
• NE Demon Hunter, 395
• NE Warrior, 391
• Worgen Druid, 383
• Human Rogue, 382
• BE Warlock, 378
• Pandaren Monk, 369
• BE Priest, 375
• Orc Shaman, 383

So now I’m just unsure what’s the best strategy to upgrade with Manapearls is – get one item really high (430), get a few to medium high (400 to 420ish), or get the 385s to 400? I tend to think getting a few to 420 is the best bet, because then there are still some lower level slots where upgrades can be found easier. W e’ll see.

I did mention this very rare grinding mood, so there’s a few more things I did

• Did “The Missing Crew” for the Champion on all missing toons (9?)
• Herbalism to 175 on 3 Alliance toons and 1 Horde toon
• Mining to 175 on one Alliance toon
• Did the “Pick 10 Akunda’s Bite without being shocked” 4 times
• Found 9 Anchor Weed nodes on one toon for the quest
• About 5-8 other Herbalism/Mining quests
• Got Alchemy from 70ish to nearly 140
• Got Jewelcrafting from 60ish to 130

And oh my, I love Flying so much. I think I wouldn’t have done *any* of those things without it.