A Weekend Resumed

Looks different around here, I know. But so does Azeroth. No, not in the private sector where you’ve occasionally heard me from. The real deal. I resubbed on Friday…for a month. Who knows, I might wrangle enough gold to buy a free month as well. But in the short term, we’ll see how it goes. It doesn’t mean I’m back for Shadowlands. Much as I have to have the Collector’s Edition at some point for my collection, I’m in no rush. Instead I came back to see what everything else is like.

The first thing I did was putter about on a couple of toons. Elcombe still has a 6-tab Guild Bank full of pets. So, guess no one hacked me at any point. After checking that, I took him to the barber shop to see what the new options looked like. He ended up looking like Stephen Baldwin apparently.

After that, I did what I do most. Maybe best. Took a bag full of pets over to the auction house. It’ll take me a little while to get settled into the market. But if I can sell a lot of what I’ve got in stock, that free month might not be all that difficult to achieve. Heck, if I put all my toons in one place it would be mission accomplished. But, that’s not the case, though I do still know how to move money around to some degree if I so desire.

Then it was time for familiarity. Over to Zarahi and druid adventuring. She was sitting at the top of the toons at level 42. So I puttered in Warlords for 1-2 levels and then made my way to Azsuna. Apparently I had some quests there from the last time I logged in…a couple of years ago. So I went through a few of the storylines.

Then decided to take her to the Barber Shop. Holy crap, I can be a Druid of the Flame. Permanently. Didn’t see that one coming at all…and nope, didn’t even look at Bear Form.

At this point, I decided to go to Zandalar. Figured her last few levels would get me on track to unlocking Allied Races. Of course, I didn’t put much research into how to do so and was disappointed when I completed the Zandalari stuff and it turns out that’s just the beginning of what was needed. Oh well, still hit the level cap in no time at all.

When I realized I wasn’t unlocking the Trolls just yet I thought I’d visit a place I’d been dying to see: Siege of Orgrimmar. If I can’t have what I want, at least I can go kill Garrosh, right? Well, not so much. Despite researching the issue, I just could not solo the Scrolls of Pandaria. After dying about a half dozen time I gave up. Between the trolls, Garrosh, and this site causing me grief (hence the new look), I wasn’t in the best of moods by Sunday night. So, I needed to remedy that. Went to a favourite place. No, not Karazhan oddly. Instead it was off to Sunwell Plateau. Wasn’t long after I paid Kil’jaeden a visit and felt better. Even had the Chaos Pup and Wretched Servant drop.

So I experienced some of the new and some of the old. We’ll see what the next 30 days brings. I know Shadowlands hits this week and as I said off the top, I’m in no rush to get it. I haven’t played the game in a couple of years so there’s lots for me to do for my dollar (which, yes I was fairly certain I would never again give Blizzard…eh, times change I suppose). I’ve certainly built up a few thoughts on how things are in Azeroth now. We’ll see if I can get them out here with some semblance of frequency. No guarantees, but for now we’ll do our best and enjoy the ride.

30 Days (April) – Favourite End Game Boss

I haven’t had the chance to sucker punch Garrosh yet, so I can’t include him in the equation (don’t even know if I would).  I couldn’t tell you what the actual end boss was in Vanilla as I wasn’t there.  So these things quickly reduce our choices.  Now I’m not certain whether we’re talking “end of expansion” or just who was the most badass at the time of their patch going live.  I’m going on the end of expansion theory and while various posts might suggest the Lich King as a no-brainer for this one, he’s actually not my choice.

Kil’jaeden is far and away the best end boss for several reasons.  First off, getting to him was hard enough at the time.  Sunwell Plateau was just an incredibly challenging raid as I remember it.  Now the trick is not to glitch the Kalecgos fight and you’re pretty much set.  Also, we didn’t necessarily see him coming.  We knew Deathwing and Arthas were the endgame of their respective expansions (sorry, but Ruby Sanctum doesn’t count for Wrath).  In the case of the Burning Crusade, we got our fights with Illidan, Kael’thas, and Lady Vashj. Then this Eredar decided to return, with some help from the “I’m not dead yet” Kael’thas Sunstrider.  His entrance is still one of the best in the game.  I love taking players there for the first time so they can see him come up out of the floor.  At 90, it’s no big deal.  At 70, there’s a feeling you’re in for a fight for sure.

Perhaps it’s because I came in not long before this patch hit that I’m so fond of KJ.  Perhaps I simply felt like choosing Arthas was taking the easy way out this time and I don’t want to come across as Wrath is the “be all and end all” of World of Warcraft, because it’s not.  For all the great things that came with that expansion, there were other things that were done just a little bit better.  And for my tastes, Kil’jaeden takes the cake when it comes to end bosses.

Laid Back Sunwell

As the title suggests, the latest Laid Back Raid was off to Sunwell Plateau last night.  When we got going we had a full dozen of us on this night, including fellow bloggers Jai, Matty, Navi, Shoryl, and Tome.  That meant an equal number of friends, including newcomer Mavgret!  She had contacted me a few weeks ago about joining in on the fun and was able to make her first run.

We had a few rough moments early on with the trash.  Part of that was on the technical side.  Someone had a storm, someone had to run off briefly, and Shoryl was having a nasty case of sun glare.  Still, we did alright to Kalecgos.  That’s where in true fashion, something went wrong.  We didn’t portal in to take on the demon and ended up getting Kalecgos down to 1%.  Guess what?  If you don’t kill the demon, you don’t kill Kalecgos, as he becomes banished.  So we all left the raid and returned.  Second time in, no problem.  It was one of those things I didn’t know about, but some quick research saved the day.

The rest of the raid was literally problem free.  Alas, Navimie had to leave about halfway through as parenting took precedence.  We had a couple of deaths here in there, partly due to levels and partly due to fluke, but I don’t recall more than 4 people needing to be rezzed after a fight.  So we went in to the final room, and in what is still the best entrance in the game, Kil’jaeden showed himself.

I think why I enjoyed this fight as much as I did, there were a large number of people who had never been to Sunwell (heck, I’ve only been twice before tonight), so this moment was new to them.  It is one of those things you should go see at least once.  I also love the Reflection mechanic, but it has no effect on the game at this level as you just burn him down.  We did just that, and then posed for the obligatory group photo.

Kil’jaeden didn’t drop the Legendary Bow, unfortunately.  The raid as a whole did have a great collection of gear and even a couple Tailoring patterns (sorry Navimie, the second one dropped right after you left).   The Sword Breaker’s Bulwark was well received, though I don’t recall who ended up with it.  I do knowwho ended up with the Golden Bow of Quel’Thalas, though, and it wasn’t me.  There was only one other person in the place who could even roll on it.  While my Space Goat Hunter turned green with envy, I’m still happy for Matty -though I made her promise me she’d put together a transmog outfit to show it off.

Property of Sugar & Blood

As it was still early and we didn’t have anything else scheduled for the night, a few of us decided to go kill Gruul quickly.  We were down to five when we  got there, so I flipped back to Tumunzahar to heal.  We had myself, Mavgret now on her Druid, Shoryl, the Mrs. and fellow Claws gents Magik and Killthryn.  The council got a little crazy as we didn’t really decide an order to kill them, but eventually they went down and then ‘ol One-Eye himself was pretty easy and folks got the Gruul achievement on their respective toons.

From left to right: Shoryl, Magik, Killthryn, Mrs. Amateur, Tumunzahar, and Mavgret

Definitely another enjoyable Laid Back Raid night.  Was glad to have Mavgret along for her first encounter with the group.  Hopefully she’ll be another regular as we enjoyed having her.  Also, I’ve been a bit lazy this past week (well, busy, too) and finally posted the next two raid nights.  I did look into  Vault of Archavon, however it can’t be done cross-realm.  Partly due to folks having to have control of Wintergrasp all at the same time, but even more logically the fact the Real ID raid system can’t tell how much time a server would have left before the next Wintergrasp.

Another nice thing about wrapping up a bit early last night was being able to catch Kamalia on the Twisted Nether blogcast!  I was disappointed yesterday morning when Navimie had asked me if I listened Saturday night.  I was nowhere near my computer, and then found out yesterday that it had been moved a day (to what is now the new day for the TNB).  As always, it was a great show (Laid Back Raids got dropped, too!).  Unlike when Tome was on, for whatever reason Kamalia didn’t sound as I had expected. I can’t describe how so, simply different.  She also makes a pretty mean Sunday.  The cast should be up later today, so give it a listen if you get the chance.