Honor's Code

Happy New Year's Eve! Please stay safe out on the roads tonight. I want you to be able to enjoy my adventures in the new year. Standard Disclaimer: As with all my Warlords posts, spoilers abound. I assume everyone has already completed this content so it isn't a huge deal. Ring Thing I had started the chain to get my legendary ring and like the Mists of Pandaria legendary, you get a lesser epic to start with. I needed to loot a Pure Solium Band from High Sage Viryx, the end boss of the Skyreach dungeon. I could get it from Normal or Heroic and I figured Normal was the safer bet to PUG.  I queued up and as soon as I got in I told the group this was my first time in the instance. I was surprised when one of the DPS said it was their first time as well. I was a little nervous, but it turned out I didn't need to be. For the most part the bosses were fairly easy. Some of the trash pull got a little hairy, especially as we neared the end of the dungeon, but some time

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I spent a few days surrounded by people who fill my heart with joy. I hope you did the same. As with all my Warlords posts, spoilers abound. I assume everyone has already completed this content so it isn't a huge deal. Back in Azeroth, or more accurately, Draenor, I only had a few quests left in Nagrand. One of the first ones I did was for little Mankik. I was tasked with finding Makrik's girlfriend. Of course I was . Well played, Blizzard. Well played. The last quest I had was the assault on the Grommashar. It was another single player scenario and it put a wonderful cap on the initial story for Warlords. I joined with Durotan and Aggra and made the march into Grommashar itself. The only problem I had was with the wolf packs. They can take you down in short order. I found it better to single target them down rather than AoE. After the initial attack, I was standing with Durotan facing down Garrosh Hellscream. There wou

Whereever you are and whatever you celebrate, I hope you are surrounded by the people who love you most. Merry Christmas from the Hammer family.

As with all my Warlords posts, spoilers abound. I assume everyone has already completed this content so it isn't a huge deal. When I hit 100, my iLevel was 604. This was too low for the 10th Anniversary Molten Core run or queuing for heroics. I crafted a neck from Jewelcrafting, the Glowing Pendant, a 640 epic that can be upgraded even further. It took almost every Taladrite crystal I had made up to this point, but with my Gem Boutique at Level 2 and Olim working it, I should have my supplied restocked soon. I knew I would have to complete the Proving Grounds if I wanted to queue for Heroics. I talked to my general in my Garrisons and was whisked away back to Pandaria. The Proving Grounds had indeed been updated to Level 100, but they were essentially the same fights as before. My performance didn't change much. I one shot the Bronze trials for Tank and DPS easily and knocked out the Tank Silver in one shot as well. But the DPS trial took me three tries to get it down. Ta

As with all my Warlords posts, spoilers abound. I assume everyone has already completed this content so it isn't a huge deal. Unlike other zones where you establish your Outpost and then get a turn in for a set of plans at the end of a long, zone wide quest chain, in Nagrand, you get the plans after a relatively short quest chain with Lantestor the Blade. I enjoyed his quest line in Burning Crusade and it was fun to see this guy again on Draenor. It was even cooler when he offered to be a follower. I opted for the Corral, even though I really loved the idea of the Tankworks. From what I had heard, the siege engine you get from the Tankworks isn't that powerful and the speed boost from the always on mount is nice even if it does look a bit silly at times. I've recently found the addon Garrison Mission Manager which help you build teams to go on missions. It has been a big help putting my missions together. I did the quests at the Ring of Blood and didn'th

As with all my Warlords posts, spoilers abound. I assume everyone has already completed this content so it isn't a huge deal. Spires provided the hardest Outpost choice so far. I really liked both the option of the Smuggling Run and the option for the Brewery. I'm behind the curve already so the Brewery's experience point boost and extra hearth were appealing. The Smuggling Run offers a Follower, a bag, and a toy. It didn't really seem like much at first. But it came down to looking at a short term versus long term benefit. The bag was a huge boon. It is a 28 slot bag and as much as I like to hoard old armor bag slots are welcome. The extra Follower was something that would help me for the rest of the expansion. I didn't think the experience point bonus would make it that much faster. One of the first chains I did was to open up the blueprints for the Salvage Yard. After I could build it, I decided to replace my Enchanter's Workshop with the Salvage Yard. It

I started by my making some minor changes to the Garrison. I swapped my Barracks for a War Mill. The War Mill is one of the buildings I planned for my max level Garrison. It provides "a better chance for quest rewards to get a rare or epic upgrade and it increases the potency of the upgrade." Thank you Wowhead ! I also swapped my Lumber Mill for a Trading Post. Once I got back into the field, one of my first jobs was cleansing the Tomb of Lights. There was a similar quest in the Tomb of Light in Burning Crusade. I'm not sure what it is about the Tomb of Lights that attracts the bad guys, but if you ever find yourself working as a Vindicator and you get assigned to the Tomb of Lights, ask for a transfer post haste! That led to a series of quests chasing down Teron'gor, one of the Gul'dan's lieutenants. If I don't miss my guess, this Teron'gor is none other than Teron Gorefiend, one of the bosses in the Burning Crusade's Black Temple raid.

Shattrah turned out to be even better than I expected. When I finally arrived, I was put into one of the single player scenarios that have become synonymous in my mind with something awesome about to happen. It happened. The Battle for Shattrah was on. I was a little confused when the NPCs started talking about an Iron Horde super weapon. Either I missed a quest chain somewhere or that’s revealed in the Alliance side of the story. I rolled through the Iron Horde and made my way down to the docks. An earlier quest had me help Durotan confront Ogrim Doomhammer. Thrall is always saying “FOR DOOMHAMMER!” so I assumed Doomhammer would be a good guy but when you first met him he tried to kill Durotan and me. That’s definitely puts him in the ‘bad guy’ category in my book. But when we reached Blackhand, Doomhammer had had second thoughts and the battle was on. The cut scene at the end of that battle with Yrel, Maraad, and Durotan was just amazing. It’s right up there with Wrat

I got the quest to open my Fishing Shack and decided to give Prot leveling a try. It wasn't bad, but I could tell it was slower than Ret so I switched back. Out of all the zones I've seen so far in Warlords, Talador is the most similar to its Burning Crusade look and feel. It appears this area was the least affected when the original Draenor broke apart. It turned out the flight to Talador didn't take me to Shattrah. Instead I found myself in the Talador Outpost and facing a decision on what to build. There really didn't seem to be much difference between the Arsenal or the Arcane Sanctum. In the end, I went with the Arsenal. While Honors uses spells, he's much more a warrior than a spell slinger. When I finished Gorgrond, I was awarded Outpost Building Assembly notes and was told to take them to Ashran. A goblin there offered to trade them for various Level 2 blueprints. I really want to spend this well, so it's high time I come up with a plan on what

I found a tunnel through the landslide Drek’thar had brought down and made my way to Gorgrond. The questing here was good and I really liked the introduction of the Botani. They are a new twist on the undead and I liked the quest lines surrounding them. At one point, I found a Genesaur fighting what looked like some kind of rock creature. I never did find out who they were or why they were having a battle. The elephants were dancing and I wanted to be sure I wasn't around when they stopped. I chose the Lumber Mill Outpost instead of the Sparring Arena. The Sparring Arena sounded like it was connected to the PVP centric Gladiator’s Sanctum. Me and PVP don’t get along anymore. Actually, we get along just fine. It stays over there on PVP servers and Battlegrounds. I stay over here on PVE servers and Raids. Working with the Laughing Skull felt really weird and I like how Draka was waiting the whole time for the "sudden but inevitable betrayal" that never came. I als