Onto Gorgrond and Professions

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm thankful that you continue to check in on the blog from time to time to see how I'm doing.

I continued questing through Frostfire Ridge. I enjoyed the interfamily politics of the Frostwolf clan with Durotan and his brother.

My favorite quest was the final one in the zone where you are tasked with defending a pass against an Iron Horde army while Drek’thar (this version apparently won’t be in Alterac Valley anytime soon) works on bringing down the mountain on them. You enter seamlessly into a single player scenario. I really like this implementation. It reminded me a bit of the excellent SWTOR class stories.

For the first time in Draenor, I really felt like a hero. There was no Khadgar to come save the day this time. While Drek’thar would bring down the mountain, this time it felt more collaborative with me, Gan’nar and Durotan helping to hold off the Iron Horde while Drek’thar did his thing. I love the giant Eleeks that the Iron Horde brought to bear.

It gave the fight the impression of a mini-Raid and especially on the heels of Siege of Orgrimaar, it reminded me a bit of the Galarkras fight. The interplay between Durotan and his brother comes to a climax and it was a strong and poignant moment in the story.

Sidebar II: I realized that Alternate Azeroth, the Azeroth the Horde from Alternate Draenor was supposed to invade before Garrosh messed up the timelines likely doesn’t even exist anymore. Algalon the Observer showed up, and there were no heroes to stop him since they had all likely been lost to the Burning Legion invasion. Algalon triggered the re-origination of that Azeroth. The Cairne, Zul’jin, Sylvana and all the others of that world who we knew are no more.

Over the course of questing, I upgraded my Garrison to Tier II.

I built my Gem Boutique, Mine and an Enchanter’s study. I love being able to disenchant all the green BoEs I get questing. I’m not entirely sure what to do about the work orders. I can get fragmented Temporal crystals, but I’m not sure what I would do with them. The mine reminds me of a mining plot from Wildstar. Mining nodes spawn every so often and I go into there and harvest them. I haven’t gotten a quest for the Herb Garden or Fishing shack yet.

Flattery will get you somewhere with this commander.

I was a little on the fence if I was going to stay Jewlecrafting for Warlords. There isn’t a real combat benefit to Jewelcrafting and supposedly very little gear will have sockets. I've always loved Engineering and if professions are supposed to be about choosing something you like, I think I would choose Engineering for the 3rd (or would it be 4th?) time in Honors career. My very first follower was a Tauren Jewelcraft so I went ahead and started the chain for Jewelcrafting to see what it was really like. At the end of the chain, I was able to make a toy.

Check out the flavor text. When I’m tanking, I go into battle with my battle cry “Hey Bossman, it’s HAMMERTIME!” It was inspired by Ben Grimm aka The Thing and his battlecry of “It’s Clobbering Time!” With Hammertime, the old MC Hammer references always come into play which makes this the BEST. TOY. EVER.

I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing with JC at this point. I’m making some Taladrite crystals. It’s cheaper to make them through the Gem Boutique than it is through using the raw materials. I've made one Secret of Draenor Jewelcrafting and bought a recipe for a sweet neck that I could already equip but it needs a bunch of crystals plus some other materials I don’t have yet. I’m not seeing the benefit of buying a bunch of stuff of the AH yet especially when I’m still plowing through everything with relative ease thanks to my 550 iLevel. The only thing I've replaced from Mists so far is my Throne of Thunder tier pants.

I do wonder if some of the people currently playing will once again leave WoW in 3 months and some tank jobs will open. Love it or hate it, there’s really nothing incredibly different between Warlords and Mists. I may end up being wrong (be far from the first time), but I think I will stick with WoW for a while. There is just so much potential between Garrisons, Raiding, Brawlers Guild, Archaeology, Professions, and Pet Battles. The biggest reason I left WoW was to try other games and devote time to other hobbies. I didn't enjoy the other games as much as I thought I would and I’m working WoW around my other hobbies (instead of the other way around). Hopefully I can find good groups that will let me do some tanking for them while at the same maintain a better balance between time in game and out of game than my previous times raiding.