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.

I know this is nitpicky but I’m a little mad every time I log onto a Horde toon in BfA that is not just clicking the mission table on the ship.

Boralus – fly 10s from missions to the portals, even 20s on a horse were fine. It’s also situated on the north end of Tiragarde Sound, so Stormsong Valley is near. And Drustvar isn’t far either. Easy access to the WQs or anything you might need, incl the Horde zones

Azar’Alor – now this is a mess in itself already. Until flying you couldn’t even reasonably get down from the portals to the prof trainers and back up. I mastered the jumps so I could at least get down quickly without dying from fall damage when not on a Rogue. And then the freaking mission table is in another town. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

There’s been talk of Horde or Alliance being favored by Racials or Shaman/Paladin in Vanilla. You know what? I don’t care a bit. That’s peanuts. But being mad every day because the ways in the major town are so far, when you don’t even leave the town on some toons? That’s horrible. And I didn’t even mention that it’s in the total south/south east corner, so the way to Vol’dun is damn far and getting to Nazmir is also worse

In between all the FFXIV crafting and return to EVE I did play a bit of WoW as well.

I managed to get to 120 on Blood Elf Priest and Horde Pandaren Monk at the same day, I guess it was Tuesday as I’d been working on them in parallel. Didn’t do much after the ding, just grabbing a few easy gear upgrades with WQs, easy enough with flying now. They both felt kinda weak while leveling – especially from 117-118 on.
So the only classes I’m missing are:

• Death Knight – Horde 113, Alliance 70
• Mage – Horde 111, Alliance 56
• Hunter – Horde 111, Alliance 100

Joar has an interesting post called Favorite Classes and Specs in BfA and while I counted 18 120s on his sidebar, and I’ve only got 11 I still wanted to chime in.

• Outlaw Rogue – Overall I really like Outlaw better than Combat. Don’t even remember when they changed that, but it’s a little better. It’s the easier spec to play over Assassination, but just a little quicker and more oomph
• Assassination Rogue – I was a big Dagger fan up until at some point in some expansion I didn’t get any daggers to drop in raids, so I went Combat, since then I also like it. I liked Assassination more in BfA, although it was weaker when fighting several mobs
• Elemental Shaman – It was good. Didn’t have any problems, although I also wouldn’t rate it as one of the fastest. It’s definitely more fun these days with the procs
• Affliction Warlock – started this at 110-111 and it was ok but I felt a little squishy and I’m not a big fan of dotting up 5 mobs.
• Demonology Warlock – switched to this at around 113-114 and been quite happy since. I’ve not yet fully mastered it I guess, the random procs still confuse me a little. But overall average and ok. Best of the caster classes.
• Shadow Priest – Ugh. I think this was the only class where I was already dying all the time at 110-113. Nope.
• Discipline Priest – also weak, but a little better than Shadow. WTF, Blizzard? Been healing a few dungeons as well and I find it really hard. I used to love it around the end of WotLK with the 3 last dungeons. The spec felt strong and fun. Now it’s just frantic and I’m not such a fan of atonement.
• Windwalker Monk – Reasonably fun at the start, also had problems with dying from 117ish on. Now with just a little gear at 120 (think around 290 it began) it’s kinda ok. This is funny because the Monk had been sitting at 85-90 for ages because I didn’t have any fun playing. Was that in MoP? Now maybe the 5 years of pause were good, but I enjoyed the journey from 90 to 118. And the last 2 levels were bearable (No pun intended).
• Retribution Paladin – This is the class I leveled first and I think it’s so strong in BfA that I now retroactively (retriactively?) wonder how anyone can play any other class for soloing. Even with mediocre gear I could do the 5man WQs solo and everything else dies in record time. Fun!
• Balance Druid – Was kinda ok, but a bit slow (notice a pattern? I’m not so good with casters).
• Fury Warrior – I actually have 2 of those and I love them. They’re only one notch below Retri and even with bad gear you don’t feel too weak.
• Havoc Demon Hunter – the class I leveled first in Legion and it felt super strong, basically so overpowered like Death Knights back at WotLK release. In BfA it felt noticeably weaker, but still above average. Had a lot of fun leveling it and am a little pissed how some other classes can feel SO weak compared to others, like this one.