That the weapon I had taken up Blacksmithing for, at the expense of Jewelcrafting, was actually made by Inscription after all!
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Well alright then!
I finally got my mage far enough along that I can have a second small building in my garrison. Since he's actually got Inscription, I went with the inscription hut. And what did I discover?
That the weapon I had taken up Blacksmithing for, at the expense of Jewelcrafting, was actually made by Inscription after all!
That the weapon I had taken up Blacksmithing for, at the expense of Jewelcrafting, was actually made by Inscription after all!
Monday, December 29, 2014
Some Fantasy Football Analysis
Several weeks ago, my dad asked how many "elite" players there were at each position. This conversation led to an attempt to identify the "elite" players at each position. Now that the season has ended, here's what I came up with:
The first step was recording the scores of all the starting players - a starter in this case is any player that should have been started based on his points for the season. So, for example, there are 12 teams and one QB spot, so the top 12 QBs should have been started. Similarly, there are 12 teams and two RBs spots, so the top 24 RBs should have been started. We also start 2 WRs and just 1 TE, D/ST, Kicker, and a Flex.
Once I had all that information in excel it was pretty easy to analyze the data. I started off by setting my arbitrary "elite" line at 80% of the #1 player's point total. This worked well for RBs, WRs and TEs, but not so well for QBs (the top 7 QBs were considered "elite" with a cut-off of 80%). When I hiked the limit up to 90% for QBs, just 3 were considered elite. The final tallies for "elite" players by position were:
QB: 3
RB: 5
WR: 4
TE: 2
D/ST: 3
K: 3
General drafting strategies tell you not to draft a defense or kicker until much later in the draft so that leaves us with 14 "elite" players in the beginning of the draft. RBs tend to go off the board quickly in the first round while TEs rarely do so, so it certainly seems possible to end up with two "elite" players regardless of where you draft in the first round. Which positions should you target, though?
This is what I found most interesting about the numbers:
If you look at the difference between what the #1 player at each position scored and what the last startable player scored, the numbers make sense and are what I would have guessed ahead of time. The smallest difference is between the #1 and #12 QB; the largest difference is between the #1 RB and the #24 RB. However, the thing that surprised me is that if you look at that difference as a percentage of what the #1 scored (so, in effect, the percentage of points you lose if you were to get the last player instead of the first). RBs, WRs, and TEs were all around 50% (58.7, 47.2, 51.3, respectively). Quarterbacks, though, came in at 24.9% which is more in line with where Kickers (20.95%) and Defenses fell (28.5%).
So what does that mean?
It means that you should focus on drafting RBs, WRs, and getting a top TE early on and wait on QB. The difference between the #1 qb and #12 was just 5.5 points, where the difference between the #1 rb and #24 rb was 10.8!!
The first step was recording the scores of all the starting players - a starter in this case is any player that should have been started based on his points for the season. So, for example, there are 12 teams and one QB spot, so the top 12 QBs should have been started. Similarly, there are 12 teams and two RBs spots, so the top 24 RBs should have been started. We also start 2 WRs and just 1 TE, D/ST, Kicker, and a Flex.
Once I had all that information in excel it was pretty easy to analyze the data. I started off by setting my arbitrary "elite" line at 80% of the #1 player's point total. This worked well for RBs, WRs and TEs, but not so well for QBs (the top 7 QBs were considered "elite" with a cut-off of 80%). When I hiked the limit up to 90% for QBs, just 3 were considered elite. The final tallies for "elite" players by position were:
QB: 3
RB: 5
WR: 4
TE: 2
D/ST: 3
K: 3
General drafting strategies tell you not to draft a defense or kicker until much later in the draft so that leaves us with 14 "elite" players in the beginning of the draft. RBs tend to go off the board quickly in the first round while TEs rarely do so, so it certainly seems possible to end up with two "elite" players regardless of where you draft in the first round. Which positions should you target, though?
This is what I found most interesting about the numbers:
If you look at the difference between what the #1 player at each position scored and what the last startable player scored, the numbers make sense and are what I would have guessed ahead of time. The smallest difference is between the #1 and #12 QB; the largest difference is between the #1 RB and the #24 RB. However, the thing that surprised me is that if you look at that difference as a percentage of what the #1 scored (so, in effect, the percentage of points you lose if you were to get the last player instead of the first). RBs, WRs, and TEs were all around 50% (58.7, 47.2, 51.3, respectively). Quarterbacks, though, came in at 24.9% which is more in line with where Kickers (20.95%) and Defenses fell (28.5%).
So what does that mean?
It means that you should focus on drafting RBs, WRs, and getting a top TE early on and wait on QB. The difference between the #1 qb and #12 was just 5.5 points, where the difference between the #1 rb and #24 rb was 10.8!!
Friday, December 26, 2014
Just some quick updates!
I've managed to upgrade my Lumber Mill, Salvage Yard, War Mill, and Barracks to level 3. Getting the blueprint for the level 3 Lumber Mill required you to create 75 work orders, and this enables you to chop down Large Timber in the world. Upgrading the Salvage Yard required you to open 100 salvage crates; level 3 gives a higher chance to recover salvage boxes from missions as well as enables the ability to get player items from them (the highest iLvl I've seen from this so far has been 610 which, at this point, isn't very useful). The level 3 War Mill requires you to have 20 level 100 followers and gives you one free seal of tempered fate (this is essentially a bonus roll for gear for raiding). The Barracks upgrade requires you to have completed 50 patrol missions and allows you to have 25 active followers instead of just 20 (this helped with the War Mill).
I also managed to craft my first piece of leatherworking gear. I opted for the legs simply because they were my worst piece of gear at the time.
Along those lines I also went ahead and purchased two pieces of PvP gear: belt and cloak (again, simply replacing worst pieces of gear).
I've managed to farm enough Apexis Crystals for my epic ring upgrade, so my next goal will be doing the second part which is finishing three heroics. I used this guide to do UBRS for the first time and that was fairly successful, so I'm optimistic that the others won't be too tough. We shall see on Monday!
I also managed to craft my first piece of leatherworking gear. I opted for the legs simply because they were my worst piece of gear at the time.
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| New legs! |
I've managed to farm enough Apexis Crystals for my epic ring upgrade, so my next goal will be doing the second part which is finishing three heroics. I used this guide to do UBRS for the first time and that was fairly successful, so I'm optimistic that the others won't be too tough. We shall see on Monday!
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Weekly Wednesday Fitness Check-in
My new gym is closed for two weeks over the holidays (it's a University gym, so I suppose that makes some sense) so I've been going to Earth Treks instead. They don't open until noon, so I've been going after work which isn't so bad outside of the traffic. Due to Christmas this week, I flip flopped my normal schedule for lifts and my strength day is on Friday instead of Monday; so no PR updates this week! My weight continues to go up so that's good.
Earth Treks doesn't have some of the machines that I am used to using (Leg Press, as an example), so I'm taking this opportunity to work in some other exercises that I haven't done in a while. Nothing like lunges for the first time in ... months? years? to make you feel sore the next day.
On a positive note, I also tried jumping onto the highest box they have and succeeded! I had never tried that one because I didn't think I could do it. I'll update this later on with how high it actually is, but it's somewhere between 30" and 42".
Earth Treks doesn't have some of the machines that I am used to using (Leg Press, as an example), so I'm taking this opportunity to work in some other exercises that I haven't done in a while. Nothing like lunges for the first time in ... months? years? to make you feel sore the next day.
On a positive note, I also tried jumping onto the highest box they have and succeeded! I had never tried that one because I didn't think I could do it. I'll update this later on with how high it actually is, but it's somewhere between 30" and 42".
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Raidin' it old school
As part of Blizzard's celebration of World of Warcraft's 10 year anniversary, they re-did Molten Core. It's still a 40 man raid, but now the monsters are level 100+. As a reward for completing MC, you get a sweet looking mount, an epic hat (iLvl 640), and a tiny little fire elemental pet. Of course, to take part in the new MC, you need an iLvl of 615.
There are several ways to get there. Quest rewards from Nagrand that get upgraded are usually 615. Gear rewards from Garrison missions are usually 615 as well. In fact, once you get a follower's iLvl above 615, you'll start getting tougher missions that offer better rewards:
The third option is doing heroic dungeons. This requires ilvl 610 which took a while, but on Friday I realized I had finally hit that mark! I already knew I wanted to do Upper Blackrock Spire first, since you get an epic follower for completing this heroic. Of course, when I went to queue, I was met with this:
Turns out that you need to complete the Silver Proving grounds before you can enter a heroic. I was a little nervous about this because last time I had attempted Bronze it was really tough. Turns out that it was mostly a gear problem:
There are several ways to get there. Quest rewards from Nagrand that get upgraded are usually 615. Gear rewards from Garrison missions are usually 615 as well. In fact, once you get a follower's iLvl above 615, you'll start getting tougher missions that offer better rewards:
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| iLvl 630 robes from a 615 mission |
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| Woops! |
I actually found the DPS one to be tougher than the Tank, mostly because I kept getting stunned by the floating globules. I beat the tank on the first try, but the DPS took me three tries. I was pretty nervous about my first Heroic being one that I had never even tried on Normal before, but it went pretty well. I'm not sure whether if changed UBRS around a bunch compared to how it was in Vanilla, but I didn't remember most of what we went through. Likewise, the epic follower that you get for completing UBRS tugs at some memories in the back of my head, but I can't quite grasp them. I won a couple of items and hit the 615 mark. So Saturday I hopped into queue for MC. I thought it might take a long time, but after only about 5 minutes or so the queue popped. At first it was really exciting, just being back in MC brought back a lot of fun memories. I got a little crazy with the screenshots, you'll have to forgive me:
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| Don't worry, eventually I hid the Raid parties |
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| Poor Majordomo Executus. |
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| Correction: poor Ragnaros! |
We did wipe several times though. A combination of a bunch of people who have never played before doing content they had never done and trying to rush as much as possible. It took about 2 hours overall. And because I know you were dying to see the new mount:
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| Good puppy! |
Monday, December 22, 2014
I've stopped playing wow ...
And have started playing Pokemon:
One of the buildings you can have in your Garrison is the Pet Menagerie, but this can only be unlocked after completing a quest. The quest is to defeat three level 25 pets in your Garrison. When you first get a pet they are only level 1, so I knew I wouldn't be able to beat any of them. This led me to Orgrimmar, where you can talk to the Pet Battle Trainer and unlock the ability to fight with your pets!
When you first begin, you have access to just one Pet Battle Slot. As you unlock certain achievements pertaining to Pet Battles, you can unlock the second and third. This allows you to use three different pets in the same battle. Each Pet has a different Type and its abilities are more effective / less effective against one Type of Pet. Just like in Pokemon, where certain attacks would be better against certain types of monsters ("it's super effective!"). Additionally, at level 1 your pets have access to only one skill. At level 3 they gain a second and at level 4, a third.
You can see that the Adder's first skill, Bite, is more effective against Critter types and less effective against Flying types. I've unlocked all three battle slots and tried to fill them with a combination of different types (plus my Dark Whelpling, which was always a favorite). And because it wouldn't really be Pokemon if you couldn't capture the creatures you're fighting, once you get a pet below 35% health you can attempt to capture them with a Pokeball! Errr, I mean a box.
It's honestly been a lot of fun so far. Leveling up pets, collecting new ones ... all of it plays into that "completionism" desire a lot of people have. I think you can battle other people too, at some point, but I haven't tried my hand at that yet. They don't have any impact on the rest of your gameplay, but it's a fun little wrinkle in case you need a break from Raiding or Grinding or whatever else.
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| Fighting a level 1 Dung Beetle outside of Orgrimmar |
When you first begin, you have access to just one Pet Battle Slot. As you unlock certain achievements pertaining to Pet Battles, you can unlock the second and third. This allows you to use three different pets in the same battle. Each Pet has a different Type and its abilities are more effective / less effective against one Type of Pet. Just like in Pokemon, where certain attacks would be better against certain types of monsters ("it's super effective!"). Additionally, at level 1 your pets have access to only one skill. At level 3 they gain a second and at level 4, a third.
You can see that the Adder's first skill, Bite, is more effective against Critter types and less effective against Flying types. I've unlocked all three battle slots and tried to fill them with a combination of different types (plus my Dark Whelpling, which was always a favorite). And because it wouldn't really be Pokemon if you couldn't capture the creatures you're fighting, once you get a pet below 35% health you can attempt to capture them with a Pokeball! Errr, I mean a box.
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| Pokeball or Box? |
Adding to the similarities, the Pet Battle Trainer gives you a quest to defeat a Trainer located right outside of Orgrimmar. Once you defeat that Trainer, he gives you a quest to defeat another ... and so on it goes. Very reminiscent of traveling to different towns to defeat the different Trainers in Pokemon.
It's honestly been a lot of fun so far. Leveling up pets, collecting new ones ... all of it plays into that "completionism" desire a lot of people have. I think you can battle other people too, at some point, but I haven't tried my hand at that yet. They don't have any impact on the rest of your gameplay, but it's a fun little wrinkle in case you need a break from Raiding or Grinding or whatever else.
Friday, December 19, 2014
So ... apparently I should have done a liiiiittle more research on the matter
My brilliant plan for some time now has been that I would select a pair of useful professions on my boosted Mage. Originally I had planned on Inscription and Gemcrafting, but once I got into the expansion and realized how much ore I had, I decided it made more sense to get Blacksmithing instead of Gemcrafting. Blacksmithing allows you to create iLvl 630 weapons and then upgrade them to (at least) 640 - this seemed like a relatively easy way to get a nice weapon and then, if there was nothing else to do with BS, at least I could sell gear in addition to the ore.
So I got my Mage to level 91, killed the NPC that drops the profession quest items, completed the Blacksmithing quest (inscription, too), and then created the Forge in my Garrison ... and after an hour, I was finally able to figure out which weapon I would craft first!
And the answers, my friends, is none of them. Why none of them, you ask? Because none of them are usable by Feral druids! Well, I guess that's not technically correct. I could use a dagger. But that seems like a great way to ensure my druid hits like a wet noodle. Why isn't there a 2h mace?! Or a staff?! Or even a polearm!Gah!
So uhhh, yea. Back to the drawing board, I guess.
So I got my Mage to level 91, killed the NPC that drops the profession quest items, completed the Blacksmithing quest (inscription, too), and then created the Forge in my Garrison ... and after an hour, I was finally able to figure out which weapon I would craft first!
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| Blacksmithing Weapon Plans |
So uhhh, yea. Back to the drawing board, I guess.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Follower upgrades!
Followers can range from Uncommon to Epic and while some followers are guaranteed to be Rare or Epic, the only other chance you have is to hope you get a lucky upgrade when you first acquire them.
Wrong!
It might not be clear from this picture, but once your followers hit level 100, they continue to earn experience from missions. So even if you get really unlucky with bonus rolls on followers, you can eventually get all your followers up to Epic anyway. It takes a lot of experience though. You can see that Mulverick's experience bar is about 1/3 full. The guy who just leveled up to Rare had a special ability that increased experience earned by 35% so he leveled up pretty quickly.
In addition to upgrading rarity level, once your followers hit level 100 you can actually upgrade their gear! You can get some of these tokens from doing missions with your followers:
Uncommon is 3 ilvls, rare is 6, and epic is 9. You can also find the weapon/armor upgrades themselves from salvaging the crates you get if you have a Salvage Yard. You can get some really nice enhancements this way, even as high as this:
The crazy thing is that these enhancements stack. It seems like they only stack if you do them in a particular order though. For example, if you start off by using an Uncommon enhancement (+3) and then use an Epic enhancement (+9), you'll end up with only +9 overall. However, if you do the reverse, you'll end up with +12. I'm not sure if it's as simple as a larger one will overwrite a smaller or if there is more to it.
It's also possible to find re-training certificates which allow you to re-roll the Traits/Abilities on a follower. I've only found one (and already used it; in retrospect perhaps I should have saved it for an Epic follower) so far and I have heard they are pretty rare. They do re-roll all of the traits/abilities, so you cannot pick and choose ones you'd like to keep.
Wrong!
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| Leveling from Uncommon to Rare |
In addition to upgrading rarity level, once your followers hit level 100 you can actually upgrade their gear! You can get some of these tokens from doing missions with your followers:
Uncommon is 3 ilvls, rare is 6, and epic is 9. You can also find the weapon/armor upgrades themselves from salvaging the crates you get if you have a Salvage Yard. You can get some really nice enhancements this way, even as high as this:
The crazy thing is that these enhancements stack. It seems like they only stack if you do them in a particular order though. For example, if you start off by using an Uncommon enhancement (+3) and then use an Epic enhancement (+9), you'll end up with only +9 overall. However, if you do the reverse, you'll end up with +12. I'm not sure if it's as simple as a larger one will overwrite a smaller or if there is more to it.
It's also possible to find re-training certificates which allow you to re-roll the Traits/Abilities on a follower. I've only found one (and already used it; in retrospect perhaps I should have saved it for an Epic follower) so far and I have heard they are pretty rare. They do re-roll all of the traits/abilities, so you cannot pick and choose ones you'd like to keep.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Weekly Wednesday Fitness Check-in
Bumping my intake up to 500 surplus has done the trick and my weight is trending back up! That is always a hard thing to type/say by the way. Losing weight was so much harder and now I'm purposefully putting it back on? I have to keep telling myself that this is the right way to do it, heh. At any rate, last week ended up at around 178.3 and so far this week I'm averaging 179.
One of the things that is supposed to happen when you're bulking is that you progress in your lifts much easier/quicker. So far I haven't really felt like this has happened (though, so far I haven't really gained much weight). I did kind of sort of set some new PRs this week though. I had done these weights before but never for this many reps:
Squat 265 x3
Deadlift 315 x3
Next week will be attempts at weights I've never done before! Or at least, it would be if it weren't Christmas. The gym I'm going to is closed all week so I'm not sure what I will do. Take a week off? Drive down to Earth Treks and use their gym? We shall see how motivated I am during a holiday week.
Speaking of deadlift, when I was working my way up to 315 this past Monday I could feel my grip starting to loosen on the set before 315. So for 315 I tried using a mixed grip for the first time. It worked really well! I was quite pleased.
One of the things that is supposed to happen when you're bulking is that you progress in your lifts much easier/quicker. So far I haven't really felt like this has happened (though, so far I haven't really gained much weight). I did kind of sort of set some new PRs this week though. I had done these weights before but never for this many reps:
Squat 265 x3
Deadlift 315 x3
Next week will be attempts at weights I've never done before! Or at least, it would be if it weren't Christmas. The gym I'm going to is closed all week so I'm not sure what I will do. Take a week off? Drive down to Earth Treks and use their gym? We shall see how motivated I am during a holiday week.
Speaking of deadlift, when I was working my way up to 315 this past Monday I could feel my grip starting to loosen on the set before 315. So for 315 I tried using a mixed grip for the first time. It worked really well! I was quite pleased.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
My boosted alt has better stuff than I do
I didn't have much time last night so I wanted to hop on the Mage and see what that was like. As you'll recall, I boosted my level 1 mage to 90. The whole thing was rather interesting. When you first login, you're in the Blasted Lands in front of the portal to go to Draenor. You have a limited amount of spells/skills and you see a giant popup telling you what's happening:
You start with an epic flying mount that and the ability to ride it (something my Priest/Shaman didn't have). I'm not sure how they decided on purple, but he's pretty handsome so I won't complain.
Heck, boosted alts even have the ability to ride flying mounts in Pandaria, something I didn't even purchase on my druid because it costs a substantial amount of money - ~5,000 gold, if I recall correctly. They also start with full 22 slot bags! My druid is still using 18 slotters #sadface.
All their gear is green, but far better quality than what I had when I hit level 90 on my Druid. The blue quest rewards are still upgrades, but not the massive jaw-dropping ones from before. As you complete quests, you also gain additional abilities. I have no idea how they decided what skills to hand out when, but I've finally got Blink and Polymorph so now I feel like a real mage! I logged off before finishing the opening quest-lines so I haven't been able to pick professions yet.
One tip - make sure to log in on your boosted character after you boost him so that you start earning rested XP. I never did that before last night so I get no bonus XP!
You start with an epic flying mount that and the ability to ride it (something my Priest/Shaman didn't have). I'm not sure how they decided on purple, but he's pretty handsome so I won't complain.
Heck, boosted alts even have the ability to ride flying mounts in Pandaria, something I didn't even purchase on my druid because it costs a substantial amount of money - ~5,000 gold, if I recall correctly. They also start with full 22 slot bags! My druid is still using 18 slotters #sadface.
All their gear is green, but far better quality than what I had when I hit level 90 on my Druid. The blue quest rewards are still upgrades, but not the massive jaw-dropping ones from before. As you complete quests, you also gain additional abilities. I have no idea how they decided what skills to hand out when, but I've finally got Blink and Polymorph so now I feel like a real mage! I logged off before finishing the opening quest-lines so I haven't been able to pick professions yet.
One tip - make sure to log in on your boosted character after you boost him so that you start earning rested XP. I never did that before last night so I get no bonus XP!
Monday, December 15, 2014
Leatherworking as a picture book
In the Draenor expansion, you can wear three pieces of crafted gear at a time. Some of these crafted pieces seem pretty nice!
I'm kind of assuming that when you craft them they'll have some mix of the "extra" stats, like Critical Hit, Haste, etc. Otherwise they wouldn't really stand up to the other gear. Backing up that assumption is this pattern:
Heck, there's even a pattern to upgrade your crafted items once you've made them!
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| Leatherworking Shoulders |
Heck, there's even a pattern to upgrade your crafted items once you've made them!
Of course, the part that had me stumped until just a couple days ago was how to purchase them. If you look closely, you can see that the patterns cost 1-5 "books." Hovering over that says that it's an item called, Secrets of Draenor Leatherworking. I checked all the NPCs at my Leatherworking Hut, checked other NPCs in my garrison, flew to Warspear (main hub in Draenor) to check the NPCs there ... nothing! And then I just accidentally stumbled across it. You have to make them yourself!!
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| I am a dummy |
Boy did I feel dumb. It has a one day cooldown so I had wasted a lot of time before I figured that out. Fortunately, there are a limited number of patterns so I don't think it will impact me too much.
On my search for the elusive Secrets of Draenor Leatherworking books, I stumbled across a PvP vendor! Apparently I have ~3200 honor from the last time I played, which means ... I could buy a couple pieces of gear right now! Even for PvE, they'd be upgrades, as they are iLvl 625 (in PvP battlegrounds/arenas that scales up to 675) and most of my gear is 615 or lower. I was wracked with indecision about which piece would be best to buy though, so I bought nothing.
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| PvP Gear |
Even outside of which piece makes the most sense (rings? trinkets? cloaks? armor?), some of them had different dps stats - do I want Haste? Crit? Multi-Strike? Beats me! Shoot, I don't even know if I should be buying DPS gear or Healing gear! A decision best put off for the future after I've done a little research. (Honestly though, given that it's the entry level PvP gear, it probably won't matter too much. It'll get replaced by the time I figure out what I really want/need.)
Friday, December 12, 2014
Garrison level 3 - what do?!
So I finally managed to get enough resources to upgrade my Garrison to level 3, which meant I got to pick another Small, Medium, and Large building. Let's recap what I already have first:
Inscription hut ("Scribe's Quarters"): I chose this one because I read it was the best gold-making choice. Essentially you take the herbs you get from your herb plot, mill them into inks, and submit those as work orders. 10 of the work orders = 1 Dark Moon card. Dark Moon cards can be turned into very nice trinkets.
Ok, so with that in mind, here are the options which I think make the most sense:
Salvage Yard: This is one of two non-profession small buildings. It lets you discover gear, materials, and extra gold from missions. This sounds like it could be pretty good!
Enchanter's Study: This would basically just allow me to DE any items I get that are soulbound.
Right now I'm leaning toward the Salvage Yard. I think the Blacksmithing hut would be very useful, but I am planning on taking Blacksmithing with the Mage that I boosted and then I could just send leftover ore to him. Enchanter's study might be the "correct" choice for efficiency, but the Salvage Yard sounds a lot cooler! Another interesting option would be to get rid of the Inscription Hut (Mage's second profession) and get both the Enchanter's Study and the Salvage Yard. That way I could send my herbs to my Mage as well! So, definitely going with the Salvage Yard and maaaaybe the Enchanter's hut too!?
Barn: Trap creatures in the world to gain resources for LWing, Tailoring, and Savage Bloods. Savage Blood is one of the reagents used to upgrade crafted armor, so they will be in need and important. More leather would also be helpful because every 10 leather = 1 Burnished Leather (what you get for processing a work order) ... and most of the recipes for gear require 100 Burnished Leather!! It seems an almost impossible task to accumulate that much without either the Barn or the AH.
Lumber Mill: Collect limber while in zones, turn the lumber in as Work Orders and get Garrison Resources in return. Remember how it took me a while to get the 2,000 Garrison Resources to upgrade my Garrison to level 3? Well every building requires resources to upgrade and every follower quest takes a little bit too. This would help meet those needs.
Trading Post: This allows you to trade Garrison Resources for trade skills mats (and the reverse). At the top level, you get a 20% reputation boost in Draenor (I have read that there isn't any required raiding guild from reps though, meaning you don't necessarily need to be exalted with a bunch of factions). This would allow me to take all that extra ore I have lying around and convert it into Resources (and then into another mat if I needed), theoretically making the Lumber Mill unnecessary, though at the expense of gold.
Gladiator's Sanctum: This gives some world-PvP perks that, while I'm sure are nice on PvP servers, seems rather useless on a PvE server. However - this also gives you PvP GEAR!! I am unclear on the mechanism, I would assume it works on work orders as well, though I don't know what you're collecting to submit as the work order. I am also unsure what level of gear it gives out, whether it's just the basic ilvl 625 stuff (which would still be an upgrade over pretty much anything I currently have) or if you can get the higher gear from it, too. An interesting pairing would be this and the Enchanter's hut (DE the gear you don't need anymore). I have also heard that it can earn you a small amount of Honor points (or whatever it's called now) each week. This seems like a must have for a PvPer, at least at the beginning.
So yea, there you have. Basically each choice seems like it would be good for one reason or another. Eventually the Inn won't be necessary for me anymore and I can tear that down and pick 2 from among these. I suppose eventually the Lumber Mill wouldn't be too useful either, which would mean two of the remaining three. I suppose not the Trading Post? I guess it would come down to how useful Garrison Resources are long term.
Stables: Capture special mounts, no more chance to be dazed, the ability to interact with objects while mounted, and 20% mount speed. As nice as the no dazed is, this one seems like more of a flavor building than a necessity.
The other two large buildings are pretty meh, in my opinion. One is engineering related and the other allows for fast travel around Draenor. So I think given those options the obvious choice, at least at first, is the War Mill.
Any thoughts on what to choose?
Small
Leatherworking hut ("The Tannery"): this one is fairly straightforward, as I have Leatherworking/Skinning as my professions. There are several epic crafted items that can be made with Leatherworking so that seems like a good choice to keep. Supposedly there's also a LWer only mount?Inscription hut ("Scribe's Quarters"): I chose this one because I read it was the best gold-making choice. Essentially you take the herbs you get from your herb plot, mill them into inks, and submit those as work orders. 10 of the work orders = 1 Dark Moon card. Dark Moon cards can be turned into very nice trinkets.
Medium
Inn: Gives daily quests for dungeons and allows the ability to recruit followers with a specific trait/ability once a week.
Large
Barracks: At max level, increases the # of followers you can have active from 20 to 25. Apparently it also gives missions with higher follower XP and better gear.Ok, so with that in mind, here are the options which I think make the most sense:
Small
Blacksmithing hut ("The Forge"): I have an incredible amount of ore from my mine. Short of selling it on the AH, I have nothing to do with it. Since I imagine other people are in the same boat (way too much), I think I could make more money from using it to make things than just dumping it into the AH.Salvage Yard: This is one of two non-profession small buildings. It lets you discover gear, materials, and extra gold from missions. This sounds like it could be pretty good!
Enchanter's Study: This would basically just allow me to DE any items I get that are soulbound.
Right now I'm leaning toward the Salvage Yard. I think the Blacksmithing hut would be very useful, but I am planning on taking Blacksmithing with the Mage that I boosted and then I could just send leftover ore to him. Enchanter's study might be the "correct" choice for efficiency, but the Salvage Yard sounds a lot cooler! Another interesting option would be to get rid of the Inscription Hut (Mage's second profession) and get both the Enchanter's Study and the Salvage Yard. That way I could send my herbs to my Mage as well! So, definitely going with the Salvage Yard and maaaaybe the Enchanter's hut too!?
Medium
This is the most interesting choice, I think!Barn: Trap creatures in the world to gain resources for LWing, Tailoring, and Savage Bloods. Savage Blood is one of the reagents used to upgrade crafted armor, so they will be in need and important. More leather would also be helpful because every 10 leather = 1 Burnished Leather (what you get for processing a work order) ... and most of the recipes for gear require 100 Burnished Leather!! It seems an almost impossible task to accumulate that much without either the Barn or the AH.
Lumber Mill: Collect limber while in zones, turn the lumber in as Work Orders and get Garrison Resources in return. Remember how it took me a while to get the 2,000 Garrison Resources to upgrade my Garrison to level 3? Well every building requires resources to upgrade and every follower quest takes a little bit too. This would help meet those needs.
Trading Post: This allows you to trade Garrison Resources for trade skills mats (and the reverse). At the top level, you get a 20% reputation boost in Draenor (I have read that there isn't any required raiding guild from reps though, meaning you don't necessarily need to be exalted with a bunch of factions). This would allow me to take all that extra ore I have lying around and convert it into Resources (and then into another mat if I needed), theoretically making the Lumber Mill unnecessary, though at the expense of gold.
Gladiator's Sanctum: This gives some world-PvP perks that, while I'm sure are nice on PvP servers, seems rather useless on a PvE server. However - this also gives you PvP GEAR!! I am unclear on the mechanism, I would assume it works on work orders as well, though I don't know what you're collecting to submit as the work order. I am also unsure what level of gear it gives out, whether it's just the basic ilvl 625 stuff (which would still be an upgrade over pretty much anything I currently have) or if you can get the higher gear from it, too. An interesting pairing would be this and the Enchanter's hut (DE the gear you don't need anymore). I have also heard that it can earn you a small amount of Honor points (or whatever it's called now) each week. This seems like a must have for a PvPer, at least at the beginning.
So yea, there you have. Basically each choice seems like it would be good for one reason or another. Eventually the Inn won't be necessary for me anymore and I can tear that down and pick 2 from among these. I suppose eventually the Lumber Mill wouldn't be too useful either, which would mean two of the remaining three. I suppose not the Trading Post? I guess it would come down to how useful Garrison Resources are long term.
Large
War Mill: Doubles the chance of a quest reward to have a rare or epic upgrade. I think I've mentioned this before, but any gear you get from a quest reward (or rare mob) has some chance to be upgraded to rare or epic quality. I have seen multiple people recommend getting this before questing through the last zone, as doing so will give you high enough iLvl to start doing Heroics. For reference, my iLvl is still too low to even just do the Normal level 100 dungeons! This also gives you one free bonus roll token every week, out of the three that you need (and no, I have no idea what those do, just copy/pasting what this infographic says!)
Stables: Capture special mounts, no more chance to be dazed, the ability to interact with objects while mounted, and 20% mount speed. As nice as the no dazed is, this one seems like more of a flavor building than a necessity.
The other two large buildings are pretty meh, in my opinion. One is engineering related and the other allows for fast travel around Draenor. So I think given those options the obvious choice, at least at first, is the War Mill.
Any thoughts on what to choose?
Thursday, December 11, 2014
I know I said we'd talk about Garrisons, but ...
Ding!
Man, so much cool stuff happens at level 100 that I think I forgot to take screenshots of most of it! All of a sudden you have like 18 different quests in your Garrison (ok, I admit that might be a slight exaggeration).
The first quest I saw was to upgrade my Garrison to level 3. Unfortunately I did not have enough Garrison Resources to do so immediately, but I don't think it will take too long to acquire the rest - only need about ~400.
The second quest was to enter the Proving Grounds. I only knew what this was because I had read a bit about it on Reddit, though I'm still not quite clear on what purpose it servers. Essentially you have to pass certain levels before trying different raids, I think? Either way, I gave it a shot on the Bronze Tank level (Bronze, Silver, Gold are the levels that I know of). I failed the first time because, well, my gear sucks. I am largely wearing gear from questing through the 94-95 zone because I didn't want to skip anything. It also probably didn't help that I forgot to use one of my skills that increases Dodge by ~65%. Oh, and I hadn't even selected my level 100 talent either! So uhhh, yea. I managed to barely beat it the second time after selecting the talent that consumes three stacks of Lacerate and then reduces the amount of damage you take for, I think, 12 seconds? I don't really know what completing that will do for me, but just by entering the proving groups I was given a very nice upgrade for a weapon and then got even luckier when it rolled the weapon upgrade (the DPS went from ~160 to ~273!).
There was a third quest in the major Garrison hut that is a daily quest to collect Apexis crystals. There is a solo one for 800 and a group one for 1000. I believe these are used to upgrade gear, but I don't know how much it takes yet.
In addition to hitting 100, I finally managed to get a high enough ilvl to run Skyreach. I got two pieces of gear from the run (both great upgrades) and then a third when I handed in the daily quest from my Tavern. In addition to that, the long quest line for the epic ring starts in Skyreach, so once I finally got around to handing that in I was given this beauty of a ring:
All in all, a lot of nice upgrades in a short time. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to try and run Molten Core. For the 10 year anniversary of World of Warcraft, Blizzard re-opened MC and completing it gives you a sweet mount and an epic hat!
Man, so much cool stuff happens at level 100 that I think I forgot to take screenshots of most of it! All of a sudden you have like 18 different quests in your Garrison (ok, I admit that might be a slight exaggeration).
The first quest I saw was to upgrade my Garrison to level 3. Unfortunately I did not have enough Garrison Resources to do so immediately, but I don't think it will take too long to acquire the rest - only need about ~400.
The second quest was to enter the Proving Grounds. I only knew what this was because I had read a bit about it on Reddit, though I'm still not quite clear on what purpose it servers. Essentially you have to pass certain levels before trying different raids, I think? Either way, I gave it a shot on the Bronze Tank level (Bronze, Silver, Gold are the levels that I know of). I failed the first time because, well, my gear sucks. I am largely wearing gear from questing through the 94-95 zone because I didn't want to skip anything. It also probably didn't help that I forgot to use one of my skills that increases Dodge by ~65%. Oh, and I hadn't even selected my level 100 talent either! So uhhh, yea. I managed to barely beat it the second time after selecting the talent that consumes three stacks of Lacerate and then reduces the amount of damage you take for, I think, 12 seconds? I don't really know what completing that will do for me, but just by entering the proving groups I was given a very nice upgrade for a weapon and then got even luckier when it rolled the weapon upgrade (the DPS went from ~160 to ~273!).
There was a third quest in the major Garrison hut that is a daily quest to collect Apexis crystals. There is a solo one for 800 and a group one for 1000. I believe these are used to upgrade gear, but I don't know how much it takes yet.
In addition to hitting 100, I finally managed to get a high enough ilvl to run Skyreach. I got two pieces of gear from the run (both great upgrades) and then a third when I handed in the daily quest from my Tavern. In addition to that, the long quest line for the epic ring starts in Skyreach, so once I finally got around to handing that in I was given this beauty of a ring:
All in all, a lot of nice upgrades in a short time. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to try and run Molten Core. For the 10 year anniversary of World of Warcraft, Blizzard re-opened MC and completing it gives you a sweet mount and an epic hat!
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Weekly Wednesday Fitness Check-in
This morning's weigh-in was mildly alarming. 177.6! This represents a major step in the wrong direction. I'm not sure if it's just from a little too much revelry this weekend or whether I'm really just this bad at gaining weight, but I guess I'll just bump my calories up anyway. The estimated TDEE is, of course, an estimate so it being low is okay! That's the entire reason I try to get a good weekly average of weight, to correct for these sorts of things. Plus, now I get to eat more! Yay?
Actually I'm at a point where I rarely feel hungry anyway. I may need to start adding in more high calorie foods. You know I made a couple PBJ sandwiches last week and each one was 6-700 calories!? That's crazy! Makes it easy to hit your daily requirements though, that's for sure.
On Monday I had my first issue of grip strength being an issue on Deadlift. The new gym I joined has signs posted that basically say, "You can do Deadlifts, but don't drop the weights." So, of course, I was trying to lightly place the weight back down when my grip kind of gave out and it slipped. It was pretty embarrassing! This becomes an issue for most people eventually, and an easy fix is switching my grip from both hands being "over" the bar to a mixed grip with one hand being "under" and the other being "over." There are also wraps that you can get but I'd prefer not to do that since it seems a little like cheating.
Actually I'm at a point where I rarely feel hungry anyway. I may need to start adding in more high calorie foods. You know I made a couple PBJ sandwiches last week and each one was 6-700 calories!? That's crazy! Makes it easy to hit your daily requirements though, that's for sure.
On Monday I had my first issue of grip strength being an issue on Deadlift. The new gym I joined has signs posted that basically say, "You can do Deadlifts, but don't drop the weights." So, of course, I was trying to lightly place the weight back down when my grip kind of gave out and it slipped. It was pretty embarrassing! This becomes an issue for most people eventually, and an easy fix is switching my grip from both hands being "over" the bar to a mixed grip with one hand being "under" and the other being "over." There are also wraps that you can get but I'd prefer not to do that since it seems a little like cheating.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Lesson learned: whine as much as possible and you'll get your way
So after spending much of yesterday telling my sob story to just about everyone who would listen, the Packers and Falcons finally got around to playing. And let me tell you this, the Falcons have an atrocious defense:
Yep, I ended up winning after all! Onto the semi-finals to face the #1 seed in the playoffs. Given that I spent much of the night watching football, I don't have a ton to add to this post about World of Warcraft.
I did want to point out something that I just recently noticed in my Garrison:
Yep, I ended up winning after all! Onto the semi-finals to face the #1 seed in the playoffs. Given that I spent much of the night watching football, I don't have a ton to add to this post about World of Warcraft.
I did want to point out something that I just recently noticed in my Garrison:
That big dude, Tormmok, saying "This will be a glorious battle."? He's one of my followers. They pretty much just chill in various parts of your Garrison. It might be a small thing overall, but it's a nice touch, something that makes it feel like it's actually being used. Perhaps my favorite is an NPC that I just added (unfortunately his name escapes me at the moment, starts with an M though) who sits by himself off in a pretty remote area of my Garrison, overlooking a river.
I will likely hit 100 the next time I have a chance to play as I'm half-way through 99 currently. Then I have a tough decision on what final buildings to select for my Garrison. Let's talk about those on Thursday, shall we?
Monday, December 8, 2014
I hate Fantasy Football
A lot of leagues had their first week of playoffs this week, so if you've been subjected to whiny (or gloating) sob stories already, I apologize. Here's mine though:
Our league has 6 playoff spots; the division winners get byes in the first round and only the top 4 get money back. I entered the playoffs as the #5 seed, just a game behind the division winner despite scoring more points than anyone else in the league over the course of the season (Points Scored is a better indicator of a team's true talent level, as it does away with all the randomness of head to head matchups). I averaged almost 5 points more a game than the #2 in points scored! My team is behemoth. Over the past 6 weeks, I've failed to break 100 just once and have averaged 123.7 points a game.
My sob story actually starts last week though. The last week of the regular season, and the division crown (and the bye that went along with it!) was up for grabs. I scored 139.5 points - the second most points scored in a single week over the course of the entire season in our league. The only team to beat that number was, of course, the team that I was playing at the time - they put up over 150 points!
So, okay, no big deal. I am confident in my team's ability and I know that I have a pretty decent matchup in the first round. I'm facing the #4 seed who last broke 100 points in week 8 and has averaged just 83.6 points. In visual form:
Averaging almost 50% more than your opponent seems like a sure-fire win, right?
Wrong!
Heading into tonight I am down by 36.7 points, though I still have two players left to go and my opponent has just one. So I have a slim chance to win, but the two players I have left are averaging 23.4 and 13.7 points respectively, so if they just put up their average I would need his player to get blanked (and it's Atlanta's kicker, so that's pretty unlikely). I need my two guys to both have big days and his player to do close to nothing. So what went wrong?
My players basically put up the numbers they were expected to; I'm projected to score ~120 points which would be in line with my average. Instead, it's what did his players do:
Those 3 players alone add up to more than my opponent had been averaging! Needless to say, I am not happy with how this has played out.
Our league has 6 playoff spots; the division winners get byes in the first round and only the top 4 get money back. I entered the playoffs as the #5 seed, just a game behind the division winner despite scoring more points than anyone else in the league over the course of the season (Points Scored is a better indicator of a team's true talent level, as it does away with all the randomness of head to head matchups). I averaged almost 5 points more a game than the #2 in points scored! My team is behemoth. Over the past 6 weeks, I've failed to break 100 just once and have averaged 123.7 points a game.
My sob story actually starts last week though. The last week of the regular season, and the division crown (and the bye that went along with it!) was up for grabs. I scored 139.5 points - the second most points scored in a single week over the course of the entire season in our league. The only team to beat that number was, of course, the team that I was playing at the time - they put up over 150 points!
So, okay, no big deal. I am confident in my team's ability and I know that I have a pretty decent matchup in the first round. I'm facing the #4 seed who last broke 100 points in week 8 and has averaged just 83.6 points. In visual form:
Averaging almost 50% more than your opponent seems like a sure-fire win, right?
Wrong!
Heading into tonight I am down by 36.7 points, though I still have two players left to go and my opponent has just one. So I have a slim chance to win, but the two players I have left are averaging 23.4 and 13.7 points respectively, so if they just put up their average I would need his player to get blanked (and it's Atlanta's kicker, so that's pretty unlikely). I need my two guys to both have big days and his player to do close to nothing. So what went wrong?
My players basically put up the numbers they were expected to; I'm projected to score ~120 points which would be in line with my average. Instead, it's what did his players do:
- Russel Wilson has averaged 20.2 points this year and had scored over 22.5 points just twice before this week. He scored 29.3.
- DeMarco Murray has averaged 17.9 points this year and had scored over 21.5 points just twice before this week. He scored 28.8
- AJ Green has averaged 8.1 points this year and had not once broken the 20 point barrier. He had scored over 12.5 points just twice before this week. He scored 28.4.
Those 3 players alone add up to more than my opponent had been averaging! Needless to say, I am not happy with how this has played out.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Tanks for nothing
As you may have gathered from a couple previous posts, I've done several of the new dungeons. At first I didn't really plan on checking any of them out until I hit 100, simply because I was pretty nervous about trying to tank (and I had heard that queuing as DPS took forever). However, after getting a couple of the daily dungeon quests I decided to give it a shot, anxiety be damned.
As you can imagine, the first try was pretty rough. I didn't even have all my skills on my bar until I entered the dungeon (woops). In case you were wondering, yes, it is kind of difficult to read ability tooltips while you're tanking! Several people died along the way, but we managed to finish the dungeon, so I guess that worked out alright. I got better (and less nervous) the more I tried to tank, and at this point the only thing I get concerned about is when I try a dungeon for the first time.
One thing that has made running the dungeons immensely easier than when I last played is the Looking For Group tool.
I've only used this for dungeons, so I can't comment on how it works with PvP or Raids, but it's pretty straight forward for dungeons. You basically select what roles you are comfortable playing and then select your dungeon (there is also a "Random" option that gives you a small amount of gold). It selects your two current specs by default (from left to right the options are: Tank, Heal, DPS, Leader).
You'll notice in the screenshot that I am currently unable to queue for the highest level dungeon, Auchindoun. Each dungeon has a minimum iLvl gear requirement and mine was a tad too low! It's an interesting mechanism to ensure everyone is capable of contributing, and I've heard all the heroics / raids are like that as well.
As you can imagine, the first try was pretty rough. I didn't even have all my skills on my bar until I entered the dungeon (woops). In case you were wondering, yes, it is kind of difficult to read ability tooltips while you're tanking! Several people died along the way, but we managed to finish the dungeon, so I guess that worked out alright. I got better (and less nervous) the more I tried to tank, and at this point the only thing I get concerned about is when I try a dungeon for the first time.
One thing that has made running the dungeons immensely easier than when I last played is the Looking For Group tool.
I've only used this for dungeons, so I can't comment on how it works with PvP or Raids, but it's pretty straight forward for dungeons. You basically select what roles you are comfortable playing and then select your dungeon (there is also a "Random" option that gives you a small amount of gold). It selects your two current specs by default (from left to right the options are: Tank, Heal, DPS, Leader).
You'll notice in the screenshot that I am currently unable to queue for the highest level dungeon, Auchindoun. Each dungeon has a minimum iLvl gear requirement and mine was a tad too low! It's an interesting mechanism to ensure everyone is capable of contributing, and I've heard all the heroics / raids are like that as well.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
96 is an exciting level (or, Garrisons, pt 2!)
Oh man, so much stuff happened last night, I'm not even sure what to talk about! I guess since we had been talking about garrisons previously I'll update you on that.
Two things happened last night that had a big impact on my garrison:
1) I hit level 96
2) I finished a quest in Gorgrond that gave me a free building upgrade
Hitting level 96 unlocks all sorts of upgrades. First, it unlocks the Herb garden, allowing you to collect from 6 random herbs each day. This, in turn, gave me the ability to start filling the daily work orders at my Scribe's quarters. Second, once you hit level 96 you can upgrade your small buildings and gathering sites.
Level 2 buildings are great because you can assign a follower (if they happen to have that Trait) and get extra benefits (these vary depending on which building and can be seen in the garrison infographic I linked above). I was fortunate to have a mining and leatherworking follower already, though my leatherworker was already out on a quest so I couldn't assign him (woops!). The benefit for assigning a follower to the mine was the addition of Mining Carts - they basically have extra ore and a random green item. My mine today had two carts and the first one provided Miner's Coffee which increases your run speed inside the mine (woot!) and the second one had a special pickaxe that decreases the time it takes to mine a node. The blueprints for the Small crafting huts cost 750 gold each and then upgrading the building itself costs 300 gold and 100 garrison resources. The blueprints for the Mine/Herb plots cost 1,000 gold each and they cost 300 gold and 50 garrison resources to upgrade. The gold wasn't an issue at all, as I have made about ~5k since getting to Draenor just through questing and vendoring items. Garrison resources haven't been an issue yet, but I did spend about half of what I had just upgrading buildings. Looking through wowhead (to verify the costs, my memory is terrible), it seems as though I may have been able to upgrade my mine at an earlier level. Woops!
What I did with my free building upgrade was grab the blueprints for the Frostwall Tavern. At level 1, the Tavern is filled with a couple of ragtag explorers (or sometimes, a very "leet" explorer) who offer up daily dungeon quests. Completing the quests gives you a fair amount of gold, garrison resources, Apexis Crystals (still not sure what these are used for), and a piece of blue gear that is usually a decent upgrade:
However, once you upgrade your Tavern to level 2, you gain the ability to recruit a new follower each week with a specific quality. Since I didn't have any followers with the Inscription trait, I opted for that. I was able to pick from three different followers, each of whom had different other abilities (and I'm assuming the quality of the followers that you get to pick from is random? I ended up with 2 rare and one uncommon, but I can't imagine why anyone would pick the uncommon follower if you are always given the choice of a rare one). After I made my choice, I was immediately given that follower, who I then assigned to my Inscription hut.
I still don't have a follower with the Herbalism trait, so that's next on my list if I don't find one randomly before the recruitment quest refreshes. You can apparently find random NPCs throughout the zones that you can have join you, too. I stumbled across a guide on Reddit that gives a breakdown of some of the ones you can get and went and picked up two of them last night that were in my level range. I got really lucky with one of them, as you have a chance to randomly upgrade a follower's quality, similar to how items work. My first epic follower, Blook (yes, I did a bad job with the screenshots, here's what he looks like):
Two things happened last night that had a big impact on my garrison:
1) I hit level 96
2) I finished a quest in Gorgrond that gave me a free building upgrade
Hitting level 96 unlocks all sorts of upgrades. First, it unlocks the Herb garden, allowing you to collect from 6 random herbs each day. This, in turn, gave me the ability to start filling the daily work orders at my Scribe's quarters. Second, once you hit level 96 you can upgrade your small buildings and gathering sites.
Level 2 buildings are great because you can assign a follower (if they happen to have that Trait) and get extra benefits (these vary depending on which building and can be seen in the garrison infographic I linked above). I was fortunate to have a mining and leatherworking follower already, though my leatherworker was already out on a quest so I couldn't assign him (woops!). The benefit for assigning a follower to the mine was the addition of Mining Carts - they basically have extra ore and a random green item. My mine today had two carts and the first one provided Miner's Coffee which increases your run speed inside the mine (woot!) and the second one had a special pickaxe that decreases the time it takes to mine a node. The blueprints for the Small crafting huts cost 750 gold each and then upgrading the building itself costs 300 gold and 100 garrison resources. The blueprints for the Mine/Herb plots cost 1,000 gold each and they cost 300 gold and 50 garrison resources to upgrade. The gold wasn't an issue at all, as I have made about ~5k since getting to Draenor just through questing and vendoring items. Garrison resources haven't been an issue yet, but I did spend about half of what I had just upgrading buildings. Looking through wowhead (to verify the costs, my memory is terrible), it seems as though I may have been able to upgrade my mine at an earlier level. Woops!
What I did with my free building upgrade was grab the blueprints for the Frostwall Tavern. At level 1, the Tavern is filled with a couple of ragtag explorers (or sometimes, a very "leet" explorer) who offer up daily dungeon quests. Completing the quests gives you a fair amount of gold, garrison resources, Apexis Crystals (still not sure what these are used for), and a piece of blue gear that is usually a decent upgrade:
 |
| Gloves upgraded! |
I still don't have a follower with the Herbalism trait, so that's next on my list if I don't find one randomly before the recruitment quest refreshes. You can apparently find random NPCs throughout the zones that you can have join you, too. I stumbled across a guide on Reddit that gives a breakdown of some of the ones you can get and went and picked up two of them last night that were in my level range. I got really lucky with one of them, as you have a chance to randomly upgrade a follower's quality, similar to how items work. My first epic follower, Blook (yes, I did a bad job with the screenshots, here's what he looks like):
 |
| Blook! |
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Weekly Wednesday Fitness Check-in
So Thanksgiving happened. Let me rephrase: a week long out-of-state Thanksgiving happened. No gym. No calorie tracking.
All of that adds up to not having to worry about not gaining enough weight!
The week before I left I averaged 178.3 for the week (down slightly from the previous week). The first day back from our trip? I weighed in at a whopping 182.6!! Yes, that is indeed 4 pounds heavier than before I left. Fortunately some of this was water weight and my weigh-ins have gotten progressively lower, but right now I'm sitting at an average of 180.5 for the week (2 days left to go).
The first day back at the gym was rough. For whatever reason, doing squats after a week or so of off-time always gives me the worst DOMS ever. Upper body is generally fine, a little sore, but nothing that makes me cringe just moving around. Additionally, I just joined a new gym. Ugh.
It's significantly cheaper, but having to switch from a gym I had belonged to for almost 6 years to a brand new place is intimidating. I suppose I'll be used to it in no time and then it won't really matter. But on Monday it was enough that I almost skipped out altogether! The best part about the new gym is that the wife belongs there as well, so we've been going together and working out. She has a different program than I do so we aren't together the whole time, but we generally have at least one thing that's the same. It's a whole new experience!
On Monday I completed the following lifts:
BP: 215 x4
Squat: 245 x4
Deadlift: 305 x3
It was ridiculously busy so I wasn't able to do OHP. Instead I did incline bench but wasn't really paying attention to the numbers as, while it is similar, the movement is not exactly the same and I hadn't done it in a very long time (6+ months).
All of that adds up to not having to worry about not gaining enough weight!
The week before I left I averaged 178.3 for the week (down slightly from the previous week). The first day back from our trip? I weighed in at a whopping 182.6!! Yes, that is indeed 4 pounds heavier than before I left. Fortunately some of this was water weight and my weigh-ins have gotten progressively lower, but right now I'm sitting at an average of 180.5 for the week (2 days left to go).
The first day back at the gym was rough. For whatever reason, doing squats after a week or so of off-time always gives me the worst DOMS ever. Upper body is generally fine, a little sore, but nothing that makes me cringe just moving around. Additionally, I just joined a new gym. Ugh.
It's significantly cheaper, but having to switch from a gym I had belonged to for almost 6 years to a brand new place is intimidating. I suppose I'll be used to it in no time and then it won't really matter. But on Monday it was enough that I almost skipped out altogether! The best part about the new gym is that the wife belongs there as well, so we've been going together and working out. She has a different program than I do so we aren't together the whole time, but we generally have at least one thing that's the same. It's a whole new experience!
On Monday I completed the following lifts:
BP: 215 x4
Squat: 245 x4
Deadlift: 305 x3
It was ridiculously busy so I wasn't able to do OHP. Instead I did incline bench but wasn't really paying attention to the numbers as, while it is similar, the movement is not exactly the same and I hadn't done it in a very long time (6+ months).
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Garrisons, part 1
Before I talk about Garrisons, I wanted to show this picture:
If you open the picture up all the way, you should see the text of the scroll says, "The Joy of Draenor Cooking. Use: Teaches you Draenor Master Cooking and a number of recipes." These scrolls exist for, I think, every profession. I touched on this yesterday, but these drop randomly and do two things:
1) They bump your profession max up to 700 which is the Draenor max (I think)
2) They teach you several recipes that use reagents found in Draenor and can be crafted regardless of what your current skill is (i.e. you can level up from 1 to 700 in Draenor itself).
This is important because it means you don't have to spend any time grinding in old content just to be able to enjoy the new content! And that means you have more time for your garrisons. I thought they introduced this in a really cool way. You get a quest to mark a bunch of trees for your peons to cut down and build you a garrison. For those of you who played any of the Warcraft editions, this might be a familiar scene:
Once your garrison has been built, you get a follower and are able to start sending him on quests. I wish I had taken a screenshot of the interface because I think it's pretty cool how they did it [editor's note: pictures added!], but essentially all followers have randomly assigned Abilities and Traits Similar to how gear works, there are varying levels of follower quality - uncommon, rare, and epic. Uncommon followers have just one Trait and one Ability; Rare have one Trait and two Abilities; Epic followers have two Traits and three Abilities.
The Abilities are important for the quests that you have access to. Every so often (I'm not sure what the time frame is yet) you get access to a new quest in your Garrison. These have various rewards (gold, bonus exp, garrison resources - required to upgrade buildings in garrison, send followers on missions, and I'm sure other things that I'm not yet aware of) and have a randomly assigned "strength" that can be countered by a particular ability. If you send a follower on a quest that has an Ability that counters that quest, the likelihood of completing that quest is much higher.
Additionally, with the level 1 Garrison you will be able to build a small building. I found (or it was a quest reward? I can't remember) the blueprint for the leatherworking hut. I believe you will always find the blueprint for your own profession first, and then once the second tier of Garrison is unlocked (at level 93) you are given the blueprints for all the rest. At first glance, the profession small buildings don't seem to be of huge value at lower levels. They require Draenor ingredients to process a work order which then rewards you with actual materials you can use for professions. The problem is that the original ingredients are so few and far between (at this point) that I barely have enough to process one work order a day (the max you can have going at once is 7! and that number can be increased once the huts are upgraded). I imagine this won't be much of an issue as I become higher level and my skinning increases, as I'll be getting more leather scraps from each mob I skin.
Of course, that's just for my own profession hut. For my second small hut, I went with the Scribe's Quarters and I have yet to acquire any of the necessary ingredients so far. As I don't have Herbalism, I can't gather any of the flowers I find out in the wild ... however! At level 96, the Herb Garden in your Garrison becomes unlocked and I will be able to gather everything I need (I hope) from there. My mine is already unlocked and allows me to harvest minerals from 8 nodes a day. There is also a fishing shack that I unlocked at level 94 and finally a Pet Menagerie at 98 that helps out with a variety of Pet Battle stuff. An interesting option is selecting your second small hut as the Enchanter's Study as this gives you the ability to disenchant all those soulbound green items. I imagine the price varies depending on your server so this might not actually be a profit for some people.
There are bonuses to be had from the small huts by placing followers there, but they require level 2 of the huts and I haven't gotten there yet. Hopefully when I do I'll be able to talk a bit about how that works.
If you open the picture up all the way, you should see the text of the scroll says, "The Joy of Draenor Cooking. Use: Teaches you Draenor Master Cooking and a number of recipes." These scrolls exist for, I think, every profession. I touched on this yesterday, but these drop randomly and do two things:
1) They bump your profession max up to 700 which is the Draenor max (I think)
2) They teach you several recipes that use reagents found in Draenor and can be crafted regardless of what your current skill is (i.e. you can level up from 1 to 700 in Draenor itself).
This is important because it means you don't have to spend any time grinding in old content just to be able to enjoy the new content! And that means you have more time for your garrisons. I thought they introduced this in a really cool way. You get a quest to mark a bunch of trees for your peons to cut down and build you a garrison. For those of you who played any of the Warcraft editions, this might be a familiar scene:
The Abilities are important for the quests that you have access to. Every so often (I'm not sure what the time frame is yet) you get access to a new quest in your Garrison. These have various rewards (gold, bonus exp, garrison resources - required to upgrade buildings in garrison, send followers on missions, and I'm sure other things that I'm not yet aware of) and have a randomly assigned "strength" that can be countered by a particular ability. If you send a follower on a quest that has an Ability that counters that quest, the likelihood of completing that quest is much higher.
Additionally, with the level 1 Garrison you will be able to build a small building. I found (or it was a quest reward? I can't remember) the blueprint for the leatherworking hut. I believe you will always find the blueprint for your own profession first, and then once the second tier of Garrison is unlocked (at level 93) you are given the blueprints for all the rest. At first glance, the profession small buildings don't seem to be of huge value at lower levels. They require Draenor ingredients to process a work order which then rewards you with actual materials you can use for professions. The problem is that the original ingredients are so few and far between (at this point) that I barely have enough to process one work order a day (the max you can have going at once is 7! and that number can be increased once the huts are upgraded). I imagine this won't be much of an issue as I become higher level and my skinning increases, as I'll be getting more leather scraps from each mob I skin.
Of course, that's just for my own profession hut. For my second small hut, I went with the Scribe's Quarters and I have yet to acquire any of the necessary ingredients so far. As I don't have Herbalism, I can't gather any of the flowers I find out in the wild ... however! At level 96, the Herb Garden in your Garrison becomes unlocked and I will be able to gather everything I need (I hope) from there. My mine is already unlocked and allows me to harvest minerals from 8 nodes a day. There is also a fishing shack that I unlocked at level 94 and finally a Pet Menagerie at 98 that helps out with a variety of Pet Battle stuff. An interesting option is selecting your second small hut as the Enchanter's Study as this gives you the ability to disenchant all those soulbound green items. I imagine the price varies depending on your server so this might not actually be a profit for some people.
There are bonuses to be had from the small huts by placing followers there, but they require level 2 of the huts and I haven't gotten there yet. Hopefully when I do I'll be able to talk a bit about how that works.
Monday, December 1, 2014
And we're back
Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving.
Last we talked, I had just hit 90 and was debating which class to boost. I ended up boosting a Mage and then heading over to Draenor with my Druid. Let me tell you, the intro to Draenor is really awesome!
You go through the portal and find yourself fighting along side a bunch of well known NPCs, both Alliance and Horde. In addition to the likes of Thrall and Archmage Khadgar are a smattering of garden variety NPCs in the likeness of the different classes (I tried to take some screenshots of them, but I don't know how well that translates). I really liked the opening scenes and the quests to escape/infiltrate the new world were really cool. The NPCs I was fighting with and getting quests from kept moving along with me to new locations as we moved further in; it really gave it a feeling of intensity.
And gear decisions were no longer hard to make. The very first quest reward was ... well, you can see my reaction in chat:
Needless to say, all of the gear from quest rewards have been upgrades. It's been really exciting despite the fact that my Druid now looks like a hobo.
I'm also glad I didn't stick around trying to grind leather to level up my tradeskills. Regardless of your tradeskill level, you can make items in Draenor, allowing you to bypass all the old materials / patterns. There are also random items you can find that give you large skillups (up to 600) when combined with the proper reagent (which can be collected regardless of your gathering skill).
I just finished the first zone last night and I'm up to level 94. I've made ~3,000 gold just from questing though I've heard it starts going quickly once you get to the higher garrison levels. What are garrisons? We'll talk about that tomorrow!
Last we talked, I had just hit 90 and was debating which class to boost. I ended up boosting a Mage and then heading over to Draenor with my Druid. Let me tell you, the intro to Draenor is really awesome!
You go through the portal and find yourself fighting along side a bunch of well known NPCs, both Alliance and Horde. In addition to the likes of Thrall and Archmage Khadgar are a smattering of garden variety NPCs in the likeness of the different classes (I tried to take some screenshots of them, but I don't know how well that translates). I really liked the opening scenes and the quests to escape/infiltrate the new world were really cool. The NPCs I was fighting with and getting quests from kept moving along with me to new locations as we moved further in; it really gave it a feeling of intensity.
And gear decisions were no longer hard to make. The very first quest reward was ... well, you can see my reaction in chat:
Needless to say, all of the gear from quest rewards have been upgrades. It's been really exciting despite the fact that my Druid now looks like a hobo.
I'm also glad I didn't stick around trying to grind leather to level up my tradeskills. Regardless of your tradeskill level, you can make items in Draenor, allowing you to bypass all the old materials / patterns. There are also random items you can find that give you large skillups (up to 600) when combined with the proper reagent (which can be collected regardless of your gathering skill).
I just finished the first zone last night and I'm up to level 94. I've made ~3,000 gold just from questing though I've heard it starts going quickly once you get to the higher garrison levels. What are garrisons? We'll talk about that tomorrow!
Friday, November 21, 2014
Boom.
I got there surprisingly quick, too. Less than two hours for a level and a half and some of that time was even spent leveling my cooking. Why cooking? Mostly because I discovered you gain 5 skill points for a single orange recipe and that really itched my "max everything!" scratch. I'm not sure I ever worked on Cooking before either. To be honest, I only stopped leveling it at 200 because the next recipe required me to go fishing and even I have limits! Ah well. Perhaps there are recipes that provide lots of skill ups in Draenor!
I really did enjoy my questing time in Pandaria. The zones weren't as cool from a monster / visual standpoint (it was mostly just normal animals), but the quest lines were really interesting. In fact, the last quest line I was working on involved helping someone start his own brewing company! Yep, craft brewing has even invaded World of Warcraft. The variety of different quests was cool, too. One quest required me to rappel down a cliff to get some special barley. Another was getting revenge on the vermin that were plaguing a farm by ... collecting turnips, painting them the color orange, and then feeding them to the vermin. They were very upset when they took a bite and realized they had eaten turnips! One quest even had me train a variety of moves with an instructor and his class. I'm sure some people think these types of quests are annoying and just want to move on and kill more stuff, but I thought they were novel and fun.
Buying the expansion gives you a single use level 90 boost. You can use it on whatever class you like; if your character is at least level 60, their primary professions will be leveled up to 600 (if they're less than 60, you get nothing!). Now, I don't think that the profession bump to 600 is worth the time spent to level a character from 1 to 60, but I could be wrong. I have three characters that are 60 or above that I could potentially do this with (Death Knight 60, Priest 71, Shaman 70), but I think it makes more sense to do it on a level 1.
So then the question becomes what class do I boost? Druid, Death Knight, Priest, and Shaman are all out for obvious reasons. If I ever make a Monk, I'd like to see the Pandaren starting zone so that's out. I don't have much interest in a Rogue, Warrior, or Hunter (probably because my dad/brother played them). This leaves Paladin, Mage, or Warlock. I think I give a slight edge to the Mage over the Warlock.
Mage would be my first pure DPS class. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Paladin offers the ability to heal, tank, or DPS, similar to the druid. To be honest, I'm not sure what I would be using this class for. I think at first I would most likely only use them for the additional garrison (which I've heard is beneficial) and the professions (I plan on going with Inscription and Gemcrafting). I don't imagine actually playing the class very much until I ran out of things to do on my other classes which might even be never. Any thoughts on which class to boost, even if it's one of the ones I already have?
Thursday, November 20, 2014
The march to 90
I'm halfway to level 89 already, and it feels like the levels have been going by pretty quickly. It's been taking just 1-2 hours per level (probably closer to 2 now that my rested experience is gone) which is much quicker than I had expected. For some reason I remember the leveling process taking a lot longer; perhaps that's something they changed in the more recent expansions?
With 90 approaching rapidly, I realized that my tradeskills were lagging behind. Laktose is skinning / leatherworking and while I have been skinning every mob I can, I didn't get enough leather from 80-85 to get my LWing high enough so that I can use the leather I'm currently skinning in Pandaria. I have a similar issue with First Aid - I didn't get enough cloth from Cataclysm to level First Aid up high enough to use the cloth from Pandaria. This leaves me with two options:
1) Buy the necessary leather / cloth from the AH
2) Go back to an earlier zone and farm for the leather / cloth
My initial thought was to just go back and farm for the mats. I need (I'm guessing) about 200-300 leather. This would cost roughly 450-675 gold from the AH. I have about 5,500 gold on Lak and ~4,500 combined on my other characters so I could certainly afford it, but it's not an insignificant amount. If I go farm it though, how long would it take to kill 300 mobs (and that's being optimistic that you get a piece of leather, rather than scraps, from each one)? And, more importantly, how much gold could I make questing in that time?
I think that the answer is that it's probably not worth the time investment to farm the leather myself. I'm making 10-13 gold per quest, and while I don't know that I will complete 50 quests in that time period, we shouldn't ignore the vendor-able drops that I'll be getting or the fact that I'll be getting closer to 90 (farming level 83-85 mobs will be much slower experience wise). If we assume it'd take 4 hours to farm that much leather and 4 hours to get to level 90 ... I'd much rather be level 90.
With 90 approaching rapidly, I realized that my tradeskills were lagging behind. Laktose is skinning / leatherworking and while I have been skinning every mob I can, I didn't get enough leather from 80-85 to get my LWing high enough so that I can use the leather I'm currently skinning in Pandaria. I have a similar issue with First Aid - I didn't get enough cloth from Cataclysm to level First Aid up high enough to use the cloth from Pandaria. This leaves me with two options:
1) Buy the necessary leather / cloth from the AH
2) Go back to an earlier zone and farm for the leather / cloth
My initial thought was to just go back and farm for the mats. I need (I'm guessing) about 200-300 leather. This would cost roughly 450-675 gold from the AH. I have about 5,500 gold on Lak and ~4,500 combined on my other characters so I could certainly afford it, but it's not an insignificant amount. If I go farm it though, how long would it take to kill 300 mobs (and that's being optimistic that you get a piece of leather, rather than scraps, from each one)? And, more importantly, how much gold could I make questing in that time?
I think that the answer is that it's probably not worth the time investment to farm the leather myself. I'm making 10-13 gold per quest, and while I don't know that I will complete 50 quests in that time period, we shouldn't ignore the vendor-able drops that I'll be getting or the fact that I'll be getting closer to 90 (farming level 83-85 mobs will be much slower experience wise). If we assume it'd take 4 hours to farm that much leather and 4 hours to get to level 90 ... I'd much rather be level 90.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Weekly Wednesday Fitness Check-in
Let's see, where to begin. My average weight for the last week came out to 178.5, so not quite the half pound I was aiming for; and really, until now I hadn't noticed I was that far away from my goal! I will have to figure out how to adjust my numbers. I've alluded to the fact that logging exercise seems to be a crap shoot, and when I was cutting I went by the mantra of "underestimate on exercise" so I generally didn't log the full amount of time I spent doing non-running activities (e.g. sports, weight lifting, climbing). Running is fairly straightforward in terms of pace and distance, and most calculators seem to agree about the rate of calorie burning. But I always felt like it was a stretch to assume anyone knew how many calories I would burn playing softball (especially because so much time is spent standing around doing nothing!) so I generally erred on the side of caution. However, if I'm not gaining weight at the rate I want to I need to make adjustments and that is the most obvious place to do it. Backing up this idea is that, halfway through week 2 (unfortunately my weeks begin on Saturday which is inopportune for the purpose of this weekly update) my average is is just 178.4. Time to bump up my exercise logging and nom some more food!
For the third week in a row I skipped my long Saturday run. This time was not real-life obligation related, but rather was due to health reasons. I got back from my 6 mile run on Thursday and my hip was killing me. I'm talking 'hurts to walk' kind of painful. Yipes! So, I decided that a week off was likely a good idea. Since I'm not training for anything specific yet, there's no need to try and push myself through an injury. Honestly I'm not sure what caused it. I've never had any pain in my left hip before, so it's not like it's an old injury that I just aggravated somehow. My only thought was that perhaps my gait was slightly different for whatever reason? I suppose it's also possible that I hadn't been stretching enough with the colder weather and somehow that affected it. Either way, hopefully it goes away after this break.
It's very odd going from a purely strength based routine where the most reps for a single set was 5 to one that is aiming for some hypertrophy ... and where I'm doing 8-10 reps. Despite lifting much smaller amounts of weight, it's still really hard! My strength day this week was on Monday and, let me just say, I felt like poop. I had not fully recovered from the weekend but managed to drag myself to the gym anyway. I completed all my lifts, but didn't quite get the # of reps I was hoping for on the last set. I was so tired that night, I fell asleep at 9:30 with the lights on!
Next week I am out of town so I won't be tracking calories or lifting. It will be the first time in about 5 months I haven't done either of those things; I am curious how I will handle it, psychologically.
For the third week in a row I skipped my long Saturday run. This time was not real-life obligation related, but rather was due to health reasons. I got back from my 6 mile run on Thursday and my hip was killing me. I'm talking 'hurts to walk' kind of painful. Yipes! So, I decided that a week off was likely a good idea. Since I'm not training for anything specific yet, there's no need to try and push myself through an injury. Honestly I'm not sure what caused it. I've never had any pain in my left hip before, so it's not like it's an old injury that I just aggravated somehow. My only thought was that perhaps my gait was slightly different for whatever reason? I suppose it's also possible that I hadn't been stretching enough with the colder weather and somehow that affected it. Either way, hopefully it goes away after this break.
It's very odd going from a purely strength based routine where the most reps for a single set was 5 to one that is aiming for some hypertrophy ... and where I'm doing 8-10 reps. Despite lifting much smaller amounts of weight, it's still really hard! My strength day this week was on Monday and, let me just say, I felt like poop. I had not fully recovered from the weekend but managed to drag myself to the gym anyway. I completed all my lifts, but didn't quite get the # of reps I was hoping for on the last set. I was so tired that night, I fell asleep at 9:30 with the lights on!
Next week I am out of town so I won't be tracking calories or lifting. It will be the first time in about 5 months I haven't done either of those things; I am curious how I will handle it, psychologically.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Pandaria ho!
I decided to check out Pandaria, mostly because I want to get to 90 as quickly as possible so I can check out Garrisons. They sound really interesting.
Mists of Pandaria starts off with an Alliance / Horde conflict that ends up on the island of Pandaria. You're sent in to help take care of the Alliance that landed on the island; the fighting upsets the locals, who dislike warfare. On the Horde side, you're tasked with eradicating the remnants of the Alliance and then ... and then you have to befriend some monkeys. Yea, monkeys.
This is basically where I stopped last night. I made level 86 and was quite tired so I went to bed early. I feel like that alone should give me bonus points!
The basic green quest rewards early on have been better than the epic gear I have from level 80 ... except my gear is enchanted and has gems. So I still have yet to replace anything other than my rings and a trinket, but it's definitely getting closer to happening.
Mists of Pandaria starts off with an Alliance / Horde conflict that ends up on the island of Pandaria. You're sent in to help take care of the Alliance that landed on the island; the fighting upsets the locals, who dislike warfare. On the Horde side, you're tasked with eradicating the remnants of the Alliance and then ... and then you have to befriend some monkeys. Yea, monkeys.
This is basically where I stopped last night. I made level 86 and was quite tired so I went to bed early. I feel like that alone should give me bonus points!
The basic green quest rewards early on have been better than the epic gear I have from level 80 ... except my gear is enchanted and has gems. So I still have yet to replace anything other than my rings and a trinket, but it's definitely getting closer to happening.
Monday, November 17, 2014
I've heard the expansion has been popular ...
That was Friday night. Fortunately the queue didn't take too long and I was able to get in and play a bit. By the end of my play time on Sunday, I managed to make level 85, theoretically opening up the zones from Mists of Pandaria. I haven't finished any of the zones from Cataclysm yet though, so I'm not sure whether to try and finish up those zones or just move on.
Vashj'ir was the first zone I explored upon returning; this is the underwater zone I talked about previously. The art work for this zone was (is?) incredible. Every time I went to a new area, I'd pause, think how pretty everything looked, and take a screenshot. Getting around this zone is a little tedious though. Even playing on a Druid, having swim travel form available instantly, it's a little slower getting around than the typical zone. It's also a pain trying to find the entrance to the cave your quest givers are sitting in. There was one quest line in particular that I thought was very neat - essentially you end up playing/fighting as a naga!
The second zone I checked out was Deepholm which I think I may have enjoyed more, quest-wise. The artwork was really cool; not so much pretty as it was "oh man the world is going to end." I think there are three main quest lines there to get back three different fragments, and I've finished the first two.
I even got another quest from the Quest Board in Orgrimmar that directs me to a third zone, Uldum. I am torn between trying to finish up the quest lines I have in Vashj'ir and Deepholm, checking out some of the other Cataclysm zones that I haven't seen (Uldum, and I believe there is another one - Tol Barad), and just going to the Mists of Pandaria zones.
It seems likely that I will not be able to finish all the quests or zones from Cataclysm and Pandaria before I hit level 90. Upon hitting 90, I think I would be hard pressed to continue leveling in old content rather than check out the new expansion Warlords of Draenor. So, I think it probably makes the most sense to go to MoP at 85 and check out Uldum / Tol Barad on a different character. MoP will have better gear and better experience, I believe.
What would you suggest doing?
Friday, November 14, 2014
Mobile Banking
Something that I think was in the works when I stopped playing WoW before the release of Cataclysm was the ability to access the Auction House from your phone. Well, 5 years later, it exists!
I downloaded the World of Warcraft Armory app the other day and it's really cool. I have the mobile authenticator on my phone as well, and the Armory app automatically pulls your login code from that app - very easy.
Once you login, you've got a variety of options to choose from:
A lot of these options are pretty straight forward and I haven't tried others out yet. But I have used Browse Items to check out all the glyphs that are available, as well as the Profile page and Auction House.
The profile page actually shows all your gear, your gold, your achievement scores, etc. Tapping on an item even shows the exact details of your weapon in a little popup. Clicking Upgrade shows similar items that would be an upgrade for that item, and View Details tells you the iLvl, what it disenchants into, and how it is obtained.
The Auction House is, well, the Auction House. You can search by a variety of different categories and filter the results just like you can in the normal AH. Tapping on an item brings up an exact description as well as the same View Details ability. For these glyphs, View Details showed who made it, the Item Facts (Item Lvl, Item Cost, and Sells For), as well as the Required Reagents. Tapping on the Reagents allows you to search the AH for those.
I downloaded the World of Warcraft Armory app the other day and it's really cool. I have the mobile authenticator on my phone as well, and the Armory app automatically pulls your login code from that app - very easy.
Once you login, you've got a variety of options to choose from:
A lot of these options are pretty straight forward and I haven't tried others out yet. But I have used Browse Items to check out all the glyphs that are available, as well as the Profile page and Auction House.
The profile page actually shows all your gear, your gold, your achievement scores, etc. Tapping on an item even shows the exact details of your weapon in a little popup. Clicking Upgrade shows similar items that would be an upgrade for that item, and View Details tells you the iLvl, what it disenchants into, and how it is obtained.
The Auction House is, well, the Auction House. You can search by a variety of different categories and filter the results just like you can in the normal AH. Tapping on an item brings up an exact description as well as the same View Details ability. For these glyphs, View Details showed who made it, the Item Facts (Item Lvl, Item Cost, and Sells For), as well as the Required Reagents. Tapping on the Reagents allows you to search the AH for those.
All in all, very cool stuff. I'm sure this isn't new to anyone who has been playing for a while, but I'm pretty impressed!
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Have you heard that there's an expansion coming for World of Warcraft?
If not, you probably live under a rock. Not only have the commercials for Warlords of Draenor been all over the TV, but Blizzard did a fun publicity stunt in Times Square:
My characters haven't reached Mists of Pandaria (the last expansion) zones yet, let alone WoD zones, so I have no personal experience with the new features. One thing that sounds very impressive and cool though is the new Garrison features. I'm still a little fuzzy on how the whole thing works, but essentially each character you have can have their own Garrison. Garrisons are customizable and provide game play benefits in the form of crafting/gathering bonuses, bodyguards, followers that will complete daily quests for you (I may have misunderstood something for this one), extra chances for gear (raid level!), and a whole bunch of other stuff. I haven't gotten too in depth with research about WoD since I'm still easing my way back in, but I did come across this graphic the other day on Reddit. It breaks down all the different Garrison choices and what bonuses they provide: http://blog.askmrrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Garrisons4.png
It's definitely worth a bookmark, in my opinion!
My characters haven't reached Mists of Pandaria (the last expansion) zones yet, let alone WoD zones, so I have no personal experience with the new features. One thing that sounds very impressive and cool though is the new Garrison features. I'm still a little fuzzy on how the whole thing works, but essentially each character you have can have their own Garrison. Garrisons are customizable and provide game play benefits in the form of crafting/gathering bonuses, bodyguards, followers that will complete daily quests for you (I may have misunderstood something for this one), extra chances for gear (raid level!), and a whole bunch of other stuff. I haven't gotten too in depth with research about WoD since I'm still easing my way back in, but I did come across this graphic the other day on Reddit. It breaks down all the different Garrison choices and what bonuses they provide: http://blog.askmrrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Garrisons4.png
It's definitely worth a bookmark, in my opinion!
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Weekly Wednesday Fitness Check-in
I finally started my bulk this week (eating a caloric surplus in order to gain weight). The goal is half a pound a week, so I'm aiming for a ~250-300 surplus. I'm interested in seeing how this actually works out, because I don't plan on worry about caloric intake for special events (weddings, parties, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc). Counting calories is a rather inexact science at times (I don't have a scale and some physical activities are hard to log accurately), so it's entirely possible that I balloon up in weight with that philosophy, or I might just end up gaining a little extra weight than I anticipated.
At any rate, the last week before my bulk I averaged 178.2 lbs so that's my starting point.
In terms of strength, I ended up missing my strength day last week, so I'll just start with this week's numbers (from Monday morning):
Bench Press: 205 x 4
Overhead Press: 120 x 4
Squat: 225 x 6
Deadlift: 285 x 3
I should note that I dropped my strength day weights down a bunch from where I was before the marathon because I took a couple weeks off and wanted to build back up slowly rather than rush forward and hit a plateau sooner. I suppose it's also worth mentioning that I just recently switched to working out in the mornings. I'm not usually a morning person, but I've enjoyed how empty the gym is at least.
In terms of running, I've been getting my week day runs in (3 and 6), but have run into issues with the longer weekend run the past two weeks. So hopefully this weekend I'm finally able to go for a nice long jog.
Tonight is the final night of social sports for the year - kickball playoffs! We've potentially got a double header, assuming we win the first game. I'm looking forward to the extra free time; since we generally meet at the bar beforehand to eat dinner and grab a few drinks, it usually takes up the entire night.
At any rate, the last week before my bulk I averaged 178.2 lbs so that's my starting point.
In terms of strength, I ended up missing my strength day last week, so I'll just start with this week's numbers (from Monday morning):
Bench Press: 205 x 4
Overhead Press: 120 x 4
Squat: 225 x 6
Deadlift: 285 x 3
I should note that I dropped my strength day weights down a bunch from where I was before the marathon because I took a couple weeks off and wanted to build back up slowly rather than rush forward and hit a plateau sooner. I suppose it's also worth mentioning that I just recently switched to working out in the mornings. I'm not usually a morning person, but I've enjoyed how empty the gym is at least.
In terms of running, I've been getting my week day runs in (3 and 6), but have run into issues with the longer weekend run the past two weeks. So hopefully this weekend I'm finally able to go for a nice long jog.
Tonight is the final night of social sports for the year - kickball playoffs! We've potentially got a double header, assuming we win the first game. I'm looking forward to the extra free time; since we generally meet at the bar beforehand to eat dinner and grab a few drinks, it usually takes up the entire night.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Don't get overwhelmed
Despite feeling completely overwhelmed and lost when I logged in Sunday for the first time in almost 5 years, I managed to stumble across the Warchief's Command Board in Orgrimmar which pointed me in the right direction. I've been told that it essentially provides you with a quest to head to the right zone to continue leveling up. It wasn't until I got to the quest zone that I finally broke down and picked some talents and glyphs, something I had been putting off because I didn't know what to pick. I'm fairly certain I picked some of my talents wrong, but I just decided not to get bogged down in trying to make the perfect decision right away. There will be plenty of time later on to research the best specs and play styles!
Really I just wanted to get back into actually playing, do some quests. It was great. The new zone I'm in is essentially all under water. As a Druid with aquatic form (well, travel form under water) this wasn't an issue at all, though one of the first quests gives you under water breathing and increased speed. The landscapes are really nice, and I love all the wild life swimming around. I even saw a shark swimming around with a sea turtle in its mouth!
Once I started fighting monsters I realized that I needed to re-do the position of some of my skills. It's funny that despite having not played for almost 5 years I still have some muscle memory of old combos skulking around in the recesses of my mind. Some of the skills have changed though, and it was a bit hard adjusting to that. I was only able to play for about 45 minutes though so I am sure that will get better with time.
One of the first quest lines ends up giving you a new mount, a seahorse. I don't know if it's just the relative newness of the game or just some Pokemon style "gotta catch 'em all!" vibes going on, but I love this new guy. He's awesome!
Really I just wanted to get back into actually playing, do some quests. It was great. The new zone I'm in is essentially all under water. As a Druid with aquatic form (well, travel form under water) this wasn't an issue at all, though one of the first quests gives you under water breathing and increased speed. The landscapes are really nice, and I love all the wild life swimming around. I even saw a shark swimming around with a sea turtle in its mouth!
Once I started fighting monsters I realized that I needed to re-do the position of some of my skills. It's funny that despite having not played for almost 5 years I still have some muscle memory of old combos skulking around in the recesses of my mind. Some of the skills have changed though, and it was a bit hard adjusting to that. I was only able to play for about 45 minutes though so I am sure that will get better with time.
One of the first quest lines ends up giving you a new mount, a seahorse. I don't know if it's just the relative newness of the game or just some Pokemon style "gotta catch 'em all!" vibes going on, but I love this new guy. He's awesome!
Monday, November 10, 2014
I finally did it
Yep, on Sunday I finally resubbed to World of Warcraft. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but the biggest surprise was ... how much I had forgotten. Remember when I was trying to decide what character to play first, one of my three 80s or a new character? Well, as it turns out ... I don't actually have three level 80 characters!
I had actually come to this conclusion toward the end of last week as I spent more time trying to remember the previous two expansions. I have very clear memories of raiding and PvPing during TBC, but very few memories of anything from WotLK. Eventually I decided that I must not have played much in WotLK.
Sure enough, when I logged in I saw that I had just a single 80, and apparently had just started to level my priest when I decided I was bored and quit WoW altogether. Apparently I even started a Death Knight!
Then I logged in and checked the /played time on my druid and he had over 10 days played at level 80 and his bags were full of epic gear (both PvP and raid). So either someone hacked my account and spent a lot of time gearing him up or I spent more time playing in WotLK than I thought and still just can't remember it. Ah well.
The second thing I noticed was that my druid does not look at all like he used to. They updated the character models and apparently my old look no longer exists. Eventually I found the Barber in Orgrimmar and updated his look to something a little more pleasing to the eyes.
My actual play time last night was somewhat limited, so I mostly just logged into my different characters to get a sense of where they were and to try and remember what they had in terms of gear, mounts (apparently these are shared across characters now!), gold, etc. One thing quickly came apparent - everything was different.
The talents are all different (they aren't even laid out the same way), specs are different, some skills are different, some gear is different (apparently idols no longer exist for Druids), and you can apparently fly in the old zones now! Embarrassingly enough, it took me about 45 minutes to realize they had combined the Druid's Flying Form with Travel Form.
Perhaps the worst feeling of all was that I've forgotten how to get around. Thankfully, my Druid's hearthstone was set to Orgrimmar so it was easy to get back there. But my Shaman is in Shattrath and I have no idea how to get back to anywhere from there; ditto with my Priest, who is in the starting zone in WotLK. I'm not even sure they need to be going anywhere at the moment, but it was very disconcerting to realize you've forgotten so many basic things like that. It didn't help that they have changed the layout of Org, so even there I felt lost.
Fortunately, once I got back to Org a quest popped up for my Druid to head to what I assume is the area to level from 80 to 85. I hope that once I get back into actually questing I won't feel so lost. Looking at my characters again last night I waffled between who I wanted to play first. They all seem like so much fun! I may start with the Druid simply because he's the highest.
I had actually come to this conclusion toward the end of last week as I spent more time trying to remember the previous two expansions. I have very clear memories of raiding and PvPing during TBC, but very few memories of anything from WotLK. Eventually I decided that I must not have played much in WotLK.
Sure enough, when I logged in I saw that I had just a single 80, and apparently had just started to level my priest when I decided I was bored and quit WoW altogether. Apparently I even started a Death Knight!
Then I logged in and checked the /played time on my druid and he had over 10 days played at level 80 and his bags were full of epic gear (both PvP and raid). So either someone hacked my account and spent a lot of time gearing him up or I spent more time playing in WotLK than I thought and still just can't remember it. Ah well.
The second thing I noticed was that my druid does not look at all like he used to. They updated the character models and apparently my old look no longer exists. Eventually I found the Barber in Orgrimmar and updated his look to something a little more pleasing to the eyes.
My actual play time last night was somewhat limited, so I mostly just logged into my different characters to get a sense of where they were and to try and remember what they had in terms of gear, mounts (apparently these are shared across characters now!), gold, etc. One thing quickly came apparent - everything was different.
The talents are all different (they aren't even laid out the same way), specs are different, some skills are different, some gear is different (apparently idols no longer exist for Druids), and you can apparently fly in the old zones now! Embarrassingly enough, it took me about 45 minutes to realize they had combined the Druid's Flying Form with Travel Form.
Perhaps the worst feeling of all was that I've forgotten how to get around. Thankfully, my Druid's hearthstone was set to Orgrimmar so it was easy to get back there. But my Shaman is in Shattrath and I have no idea how to get back to anywhere from there; ditto with my Priest, who is in the starting zone in WotLK. I'm not even sure they need to be going anywhere at the moment, but it was very disconcerting to realize you've forgotten so many basic things like that. It didn't help that they have changed the layout of Org, so even there I felt lost.
Fortunately, once I got back to Org a quest popped up for my Druid to head to what I assume is the area to level from 80 to 85. I hope that once I get back into actually questing I won't feel so lost. Looking at my characters again last night I waffled between who I wanted to play first. They all seem like so much fun! I may start with the Druid simply because he's the highest.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Movember!
That's right! This November I'm growing out my mustache to raise awareness for Men's health issues (plus, c'mon, mustaches are hilarious). If you'd like to read more about it here are a couple of links:
http://us.movember.com/mens-health
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember
http://www.no-shave.org/#!what/cjg9
(is it weird that I consider "a couple" to be 2-3?)
http://us.movember.com/mens-health
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movember
http://www.no-shave.org/#!what/cjg9
(is it weird that I consider "a couple" to be 2-3?)
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Some company
I'm not entirely sure where that emotion came from; perhaps simply because I've talked a lot about it recently but still haven't resubbed? Or perhaps simply because going back seems so ... defeating in a way. You know, because for several years I thought I was done with World of Warcraft for forever.
And then this morning I woke up to a text from my brother saying he had spent an hour last night looking through old screenshots and reliving memories and was under full out nostalgia attacks. He's in his final year of college, so I doubt he'd have time to play now, but after graduation? Perhaps the band might be getting back together after all!
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Weekly Wednesday Fitness Check-in
Well that was a mouthful of a title.
My plan going forward is to bulk (eat a caloric surplus to gain weight) for the next ~4 months. If I do it slowly, that will be about 8-12 lbs. The goal is for most of that weight to be muscle rather than fat. So my lifting schedule will be 4 days a week - the typical hypertrophy focused brosplit (Push / Pull / Legs) and then one day a week where I do a full body strength workout (following the 5/3/1 rep scheme). I'd like to continue to run three times a week, and the current plan is one short (3), one medium (5-6), and one longer (8-10).
What's throwing a wrench into my plans is trying to fit climbing with my brother in during the week. Ideally, I'd do the PPL split Mon-Wed and then the full body routine on Friday. Running would be short run on Mon or Tues, medium on Thurs, and long on Saturday. Climbing is generally a 2.5-3 hour endeavor during the week though, due to traffic, so how can that be slotted in?
I'd prefer not to lift on the same day as climbing, so with the routine mentioned above, Thursday probably makes the most sense. I'd then have to switch my running days around, potentially doing either Mon/Wed or the short run on Thurs after climbing. Of course, this week my brother could only go on Tuesday, and in that scenario I'd need to flip the timing of the workouts (so strength is on Mon, PPL on WThF).
Needless to say, this might be an overly optimistic schedule on my part. My bulk begins on Saturday so I'll update next week with the starting weights.
My plan going forward is to bulk (eat a caloric surplus to gain weight) for the next ~4 months. If I do it slowly, that will be about 8-12 lbs. The goal is for most of that weight to be muscle rather than fat. So my lifting schedule will be 4 days a week - the typical hypertrophy focused brosplit (Push / Pull / Legs) and then one day a week where I do a full body strength workout (following the 5/3/1 rep scheme). I'd like to continue to run three times a week, and the current plan is one short (3), one medium (5-6), and one longer (8-10).
What's throwing a wrench into my plans is trying to fit climbing with my brother in during the week. Ideally, I'd do the PPL split Mon-Wed and then the full body routine on Friday. Running would be short run on Mon or Tues, medium on Thurs, and long on Saturday. Climbing is generally a 2.5-3 hour endeavor during the week though, due to traffic, so how can that be slotted in?
I'd prefer not to lift on the same day as climbing, so with the routine mentioned above, Thursday probably makes the most sense. I'd then have to switch my running days around, potentially doing either Mon/Wed or the short run on Thurs after climbing. Of course, this week my brother could only go on Tuesday, and in that scenario I'd need to flip the timing of the workouts (so strength is on Mon, PPL on WThF).
Needless to say, this might be an overly optimistic schedule on my part. My bulk begins on Saturday so I'll update next week with the starting weights.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Well this is kinda crazy
You'll have to forgive a fantasy football themed post, but, as the title says, I thought this was pretty crazy and was worth sharing.
Over the weekend, the one undefeated team in our league ("My Hittas My Hittas") had a rough day. He started Philip Rivers (-5.05) and the San Diego Defense (-3.36), so he was likely assured of losing regardless of what the rest of his players did. The other players he had going in the early games didn't step up to the plate, with 3 of them combining to score just 16.9 points. Around 4 pm, he posted a joking message on the message board of our league, apologizing for the shoddy performance of his players and vowing that there would be changes made to ensure that never happened again.
The typical fantasy league back and forth then occurred, which was humorous but nothing worth sharing. Until a long-time friend (also in the league) messaged me today. To paraphrase:
LTFriend: I think the message board has been more entertaining than the actual league this year. For me anyway [since I'm in last place].
Me: Yea, I like these new guys. (My Hittas is new, right?)
LTFriend: He is. That's former Orioles pitcher Steve Johnson.
... what?! WHOA!
Now, if you're not from Baltimore you may not know who Steve Johnson is. He didn't play for long, but I remember his performance in 2012 when the Orioles made the playoffs for the first time since 1997.
Thinking this was pretty cool, I immediately messaged another friend of mine who is probably the biggest Orioles fan I know. Reading that makes me sound like an excited school girl, which probably isn't too far from the truth.
His response? "Woah! I saw him tweet out his score!" And sure enough, he had!
Over the weekend, the one undefeated team in our league ("My Hittas My Hittas") had a rough day. He started Philip Rivers (-5.05) and the San Diego Defense (-3.36), so he was likely assured of losing regardless of what the rest of his players did. The other players he had going in the early games didn't step up to the plate, with 3 of them combining to score just 16.9 points. Around 4 pm, he posted a joking message on the message board of our league, apologizing for the shoddy performance of his players and vowing that there would be changes made to ensure that never happened again.
The typical fantasy league back and forth then occurred, which was humorous but nothing worth sharing. Until a long-time friend (also in the league) messaged me today. To paraphrase:
LTFriend: I think the message board has been more entertaining than the actual league this year. For me anyway [since I'm in last place].
Me: Yea, I like these new guys. (My Hittas is new, right?)
LTFriend: He is. That's former Orioles pitcher Steve Johnson.
... what?! WHOA!
Now, if you're not from Baltimore you may not know who Steve Johnson is. He didn't play for long, but I remember his performance in 2012 when the Orioles made the playoffs for the first time since 1997.
Thinking this was pretty cool, I immediately messaged another friend of mine who is probably the biggest Orioles fan I know. Reading that makes me sound like an excited school girl, which probably isn't too far from the truth.
His response? "Woah! I saw him tweet out his score!" And sure enough, he had!
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