While the world was raging outdoors, we were celebrating New Year’s eve at home, in our PJs. Comfortably installed in front of our computers, we were participating to the mayhem that was taking place at Orgrimmar’s auction house.
What better time to tell a story than Christmas? It’s cold outside and cozy inside, we’re celebrating with our loved ones… But do we think about those who, secretly, work hard to make the magic happen? Well, this story is all about them.
Dragondoe
Finally, the last week-end before Christmas, I can’t wait to celebrate. Unfortunately, all this fighting against the Burning Legion got me delayed on my preparations. There is still so much to do, gifts to buy, cards to send and a feast to cook. It’s going to take me all week-end but I can’t postpone it anymore, I must go shopping.
Normally, I love going shopping with Madstag, but only two days for an entire Christmas shopping is too short, I won’t have time to go chat at the fishing store or spend a half day around a bonfire, I must go alone. I’m sad for my man, he’s gonna have to spend an entire week-end alone, but this is not the time for romance, shopping is serious business.
I woke up early, took my breakfast and silently got out of Moonglade’s inn. Madstag is still sleeping, the poor thing is exhausted after weeks and weeks spent on that dreadful planet. This end of the year holiday will do him good…
First stop, Orgrimmar. Our ornaments got destroyed last year after our tree caught fire when I tried to make a flaming ice cream. It was totally not my fault, I just tripped over the cat. Anyway, I was tired of the white, it’s time to go multi-color! After an hour or two touring the shops, I’m already walking with more bags than I can carry, it’s time to go deposit all of this at the bank.
As I pass in front of the tavern, I can’t help but notice a sad Orc. He’s crying and no one seems to notice him. I walk to him and hand him a cinnamon roll, he accepts it and gives me a smile that means “thanks, but it won’t help much”. I ask him if I could do anything to help but he just shakes his head… Men and their pride, sigh.
I sit beside him and notice that his leg is in plaster. I ask him how it happened, but he burst in tears. After sobbing for a while, he finally explains me that he’s part of Greatfather Winter’s helpers and that he’s in charge of the distribution of the gifts this Winter Veil. He has spent an entire year collecting them but, as he was getting ready to place them under the trees all over Azeroth, he broke his leg and he won’t be able to do it.
What a dreadful situation! No gifts? We may as well cancel this year’s holiday, I won’t let it happen! I tell him that I’m more than willing to help, I’ll still have plenty of time for my shopping during the week.
He tells me that the gifts are hidden in a cave he rented. I ask him to draw me a map, but he obviously drowned his sorrows in more beer than he could hold, I’d better draw it myself. He tells me that the cave is located in Winterspring. The place is easy to find when you’re on the right path, which starts in Everlook.
No time to waste, I’m gonna take care of the gifts. I drop my bags at the bank, dreamwalk to Moonglade and fly to Winterspring. After a short flight, I finally land at Everlook. I take the path East, just as Arnok told me. I walk for about an hour when I finally see the entry of a cave.
I prepare a torch and walk in. The cave is pretty deep, which is weird for a storage place… As I reach the end of the path, I enter in a large circular room. The only light comes from a huge blue pearl on a pedestal located at the center. I can see a Night Elf lady screaming things in a language I don’t understand, then I hear a crack behind my head and everything gets blurred then black.
Madstag
An entire month spent healing troops on Argus (and rescuing Dragondoe from the perillous situations she got into), I think that I’ve deserved a week-end of rest in Moonglade. I wish I could spend it with my lady, but, let’s be honest, I hate going to town. All that noise, all these people, it’s definitely not my cup of tea.
As Dragondoe is getting ready for her shopping trip, I pretend to still be sleeping. She’d probably look at me with her soft eyes and, as usual, I’d change my mind and go with her. I can’t take that risk, I’ve bought a ton of fishing bait and I can’t let it go to waste…
As I hear her leaving, I open an eye and inspect the room, it seems empty. I stay in bed a bit longer, to make sure that she didn’t forget anything. The coast is clear, I jump out of bed, get dressed and pick up my bag.
It’s gonna be a good one, I can feel it. I make my way to the border of the lake, install my fishing chair, make sure that no one is around and finally take off my boots. You see, people may think that I’m an adventurer, but where I belong is here, in the middle of the forest, with the squirrels and my slippers.
I ready my first cast, that’s usually when some catastrophe happens and I have to leave everything behind. The bobber is bobbing and nothing happens… Could this be real? Could this be THE week-end where I finally get to enjoy the calm and the peace of the nature. But it would be too easy… As I ready my second cast, an orc comes out of the bushes and asks me if I’m Dragondoe’s husband.
I loose it and start yelling “Let me guess, she tried to help someone and ended up in trouble? What is it this time? A sad dragon? An ancient warlord? A long forgotten prophecy? A devilsaur with a toothache? WON’T I EVER BE ABLE TO CATCH A BREAK?”
The Orc looks at me, half puzzled, half terrified… After a few minutes, I calm down and ask him what happened.
He tells me that his name is Arnok and he explains me that he’s one of Greatfather Winter’s helpers. He tells me how he has met my wife and how good a person she is, he also tells me that she’s gone to save the presents but that she might be on her way to the wrong cave. He was, apparently, a bit drunk when he gave her the directions and the zone where the gifts are hidden is also know to host many cultists and pirates lairs.
Afraid that such a good hearted person would end up in danger because of him, he asked around to see if anyone knew Dragondoe. Finally, it’s the owner of Orgrimmar’s fishing shop who told him that I was gone fishing and where he could find me…
After making sure that I have the correct location, I leave the Orc behind and fly to the rescue. From far, I can see Arnok taking my place in my fishing chair… At least someone will enjoy it. I fly straight to the right cave. It is indeed filled with presents, but, as we feared, Dragondoe is nowhere to be found.
I fly the to next cave on the right, it’s full of bandits and there’s no sign of my wife. I decide to check a third cave, this time on the left.
After walking down a long dark path, I can see a huge round room with a gigantic blue pearl in the middle. I shapeshift to cat and prowl to see what’s going on. A Night Elf lady is yelling things in a language I don’t understand to a crowd that seems to be worshiping the pearl.
Far, in a corner, I notice a few cages and Dragondoe is in one of them. Unnoticed, I make my way to her. She tells me that the cultists, led by that mad druid, are about to sacrifice her to the pearl.
There are too many cultists in here, we can’t risk getting both caught, I need a diversion.
I can see a few hay stacks on the other side of the room, I get closer and set them on fire. A thick white smoke quickly fills in the room. The druid and her followers try to put the fire out and, meanwhile, I get the pearl and run out of the cave.
The last time I felt this nervous, I was carrying the flag in Warsong Gulch…
I make my way to the other cave where the bandits are. I leave the pearl at the entry of their hiddeout and let out a huge growl. When the cultists finally arrive, decided to get their pearl back, the bandits already took possession of the oversized jewel.
I discretely make my way back to the cave where Dragondoe was kept prisoner.
As I enter the main room, I notice the evil Night Elf lady, she lays on the floor, where the pearl was before. She’s in tears and my wife is trying to cheer her up “don’t worry, there are plenty of other pearls in the ocean”.
The cult leader makes her best to talk in our language. We don’t understand everything but we get a few words “my precious”, “will not stop swimming”,… Then, she gets up, tidies up her robes and leaves the cave as if nothing happened.
We spent the rest of the week-end flying over Azeroth, dropping gifts at the foot of each Christmas Tree. Winter Veil was saved and I could finally enjoy the rest of my holiday in Moonglade.
As for the cult leader, we can sometimes hear the tale of a crazy druid lady who never stopped searching the seas for her beloved pearl…
Where the hell have we been? Well, we’ve been chasing butterflies and enjoying the change of seasons. We had a great Halloween, filled with good (and less good) horror movies.
We’ve also been reflecting on a way to enjoy WoW without being constantly burned out. Spending our entire WoW time hunting achievements was easily getting tedious. We needed to enjoy more of what the game has to offer, and we really didn’t enjoy instancing with our hunters. So we went back to our druids. Don’t worry, we’re still brutal, only a bit softer (probably because of all the feathers).
Sardoken
My first character in WoW was a druid… It was the time when only Taurens or Night-elves could be druids. I remember that morning, Soforah was about to join me at the office for lunch and we were going to buy games for our Easter holidays… Instead of working, I had spent my time reading the descriptions of all the classes and races, trying to choose which character I would create. I rolled a druid for a few reasons:
I wanted to be Alliance (I know, silly choice);
I didn’t want to be a human (already enough of it IRL);
I wanted a class that could fill all roles.
So, for a year or two, until The Burning Crusade, I healed in raids and I was pretty happy. Until the day I decided to see what the other classes had to offer. From that moment on, I’ve only been switching characters: rogue, warlock, mage, shaman and, finally, hunter.
I kept playing with my hunter through Cataclysm, Pandaria, Draenor and almost all Legion, but I’ve never been really happy with my class. I thought that the strong ability of the hunter to solo almost everything would open all doors to me. Unfortunately, it did quite the opposite, I didn’t have fun in dungeons, raids or PvP anymore, so I kept hunting achievements.
Most of the time, I would play for a few months, then get tired of doing the same things all the time, quit the game, then come back for a few more months… This has been my WoW pattern for the last 6 years.
During my recent break, I thought that the day I would come back, I would change radically, I would go back to a class that would give me fun in raids and dungeons: the Druid. So, without further delay, I present you Madstag, my Tauren druid:
It’s been a few weeks that I’m trying to catch back on the expansion, mixing instances and quests, and I’m having an absolute blast! Not only have I found back the pleasure to heal in raids and dungeons but I’ve also found back the drive to gear my character, to perform as good as I can. My game time is more balanced which greatly helps preventing the burn-out.
Soforah
When Sardoken told me that he wanted to main back his druid, I thought about leveling mine to keep him company. But, as I was playing with my moonkin, I realized how much more fun I had than with my beast master.
Eventhough the DPS of my balance druid isn’t as big as my hunters’, I just have more fun casting spells and shapeshifting. Also, I’ve missed my Tauren and I’m glad to find her back, meet Dragondoe.
I’ve practically caught up on on almost all Legion content, I’ve even started “Balance of power” which I didn’t with my hunter. I ran an heroic, a normal raid, a few mythic dungeons and had fun doing these! Now that’s something I thought I’d never say!
Until a week ago, I always thought that LFR and LFG were more than enough for me. I guess that playing the wrong class never motivated me to get out of my comfort zone. I dreaded running dungeons and raids, grouping up in general was like a stressful nightmare. This made me feel left out in the game for years. My moonkin, on the other hand, made me realize that all these things are actually fun and make me look forward to my next gaming session.
At the moment, Sardoken and I are in the middle of our 3 week Christmas holidays, which means that we have more time to game! Here’s a list of all the things that I wish to accomplish in WoW before the end of the most wonderful time of the year:
Getting exalted with Ravenhold so, I finally get the title “The Insane” (nothing new, but like that it will be official :p);
Finishing all quests in Suramar to get the “Insurrection” achievement;
Getting the fishing artifact
Leveling my Legion reputations, including the fisherfriends;
Getting my classmount;
Progress in “Balance of power”;
Getting a cool transmog because Dragondoe looks like a homeless gypsy.
There’s a lot more that I would like to do, but what would be the fun in completing all at once, right?
Three weeks ago, Sardoken and I were highly praising Grim Dawn in this blog, and yes, we had a lot of fun until we had reached the end of Act 5. While the game is beautiful, it quickly becomes very boring due to the new system of “resistances” they’ve implemented.
We’ve both been playing a character with the same build, practically the same gear, except for some difference in our resistances (fire, chaos, life,…). Yet, I could run the Void’s Edge (end of Act 5) without dying once, while Sardoken’s character died about a million times. So, we did a test, I equipped gear with other resistances and went back to the same place, and guess what… Where all went smooth before, I now got killed over and over again. This means that no matter the build or the gear, all that counts is the right resistance. It didn’t only become frustrating in the end, it was also extremely boring because it’s a huuuuuge run back without any possibility of placing a portal in the Void’s Edge.
Once I had reached Act 6, I understood that the resistances on my gear that helped me flawlessly through Act 5, were obsolete. This time I needed gear with Aether resist, and due to the lack of that, I was dying all the time.This was a complete turn down for me. The game would normally score super well, but this extremely boring grind for gear with the right resistance is just horrible. I’ve quit the game in the middle of Act 6, and I can’t even bother to go back to see the end of the story. It could have been so much fun, I actually love the Cthulhu-esque and witchy theme that they have going on there. Too bad they’ve completely ruined it with that “resistance” grind, maybe one day I’ll feel courageous enough to go back there, but I don’t think that will be any time soon.
The first expansion of Grim Dawn is out and it brought a lot of new stuff to this already great Hack’n Slash: new class masteries, increased level cap, 2 new chapters,… You can check the complete list of new features here. After having spent most afternoons of our first week of Halloween holidays fighting our way through the game, here are our thoughts about it:
Sardoken
I had a few weeks of fun last year playing Grim Dawn, but the unoptimized graphic engine broke the game for me. In some zones, the game couldn’t get above 20 fps on a last gen PC with a 1080GTX…
The first thing I noticed with Ashes of Malmouth is that the graphic engine has been updated and never goes below 60 fps no matter the zone. To me, that’s a big green light.
Also, the classes I rolled back then were too squishy (dual handed soldier with 0 physique) or too boring (summoner). This time, like Soforah, I went for a balance between resistance and offense, a Witchblade (soldier + occultist). So far (almost level 40), I’m having a blast. Leveling in heavy armor with a two hand and arc as main skill is insanely fun.
I know that I’m nowhere near the end game and that everything will change in ultimate but leveling is a big part of my experience, I’m not rushing, I’m on holidays and I wanna take it easy 😉
Soforah
Before the release of “Ashes of Malmouth”, I was playing a summoner in Grim Dawn. While I had a lot of fun leveling my character before this expansion, I’ve grown tired of summoning things and letting them do the job for me. Let’s face it, nothing’s more satisfying and rewarding in a hack ‘n slash than smashing all and everything around you with a bad-ass weapon. So, I went for another build this time. No more “cast and run”, but a “come at me bro” type of character that can take quite some damage before dying.
The last time I went for a melee class was in Skyrim and Diablo, and man, did I miss it! I’m having so much fun, I can’t wait to see how my character will perform in endgame content.
At the moment, I’m following a Cadence Witchblade build, partially from a build Sardoken found on the Grim Dawn Forums, the other part by improvising.
Until now I’ve followed most of his advise though… I needed to start somewhere, right? ;-p
Start soldier, rush mastery to blade arc, max it, then rush to laceration, max it. 1 point in blitz for gap closer, then rush to oleron’s rage, max. then pop a point in occultist and max CoF. Afterwards get soldier passives then more points in occultist for the passives as you see fit.
Basically pop CoF and bladearc away.
Start with falconswoop/hawk, then lizard to get kraken. afterwards slowly work ur way up to oleron, getting dryad/assassins blade on the way to level those skill.
Get a high dmg 2hand mace from vendor on a high lvl char , or do the best you can if its ur first char, attackspeed isn’t that important, just high base dmg, a white one is fine. when choosing gear, make sure to get decent armor values and get armor absorption up with scaled hide/field of command. use ectoplasms if you need mana, if its your first char you can farm those from ghosts in A2 spined cave or something like that.
Go all physique early to use high lvl armor/weapon.
At lvl 75 spec to real build. devotions are straight forward and no backward speccing required.
So far, I’m having a blast! I can’t wait to see how this build will work when running higher difficulties, I’ll write a new post with my thoughts and ideas later on.
I don’t really have a background story for Sardoken… He doesn’t come out of a tale filled with heroism… Instead, I always pictured him being a mix between two different personalities.
His first half would be Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for his heroic image and his muscles. No challenge seems big enough for such a character, he’s always ready to jump of a cliff to rescue his old neighbour’s cat…
The other half is Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter, not for his cowardice, but for being a total jackass. Always smiling to the ladies, he walks down the streets as if he was leading the parade. His favourite quote would be “It’s not because you’re not as fabulous as I am, that you’re not fabulous at all!”.
You mix these two guys and you get Sardoken, always looking for a challenge, always ending up in perillous situations and, eventhough he always gets rescued by the fearless Soforah, he always manages to get out of the danger with a charming smile, as if he just saved everyone. A real hero…
This time Z & Cinder wonder whether “Blizzard nailed it on the head, or is it just leaving you cold and wanting to re-write the way your toon’s class is portrayed”. Blog challenge accepted!
I’ve always been a die hard fan of class specific lore so, my answer to the question is most definitely: “Yay, Blizzard nailed it on the head”!
Beast Mastery: Among the most gifted hunters, there are those who have from birth felt a profound bond with the creatures of the wild. These beast masters are drawn to the perilous primal world, invigorated by its dangerous and untamed nature. Primitive landscape becomes home. Ferocious predator becomes kin. Whether in the thrill of the hunt or the heat of battle, beast masters call forth a litany of vicious animals to overwhelm prey and gnaw at their enemies’ will. – Blizzard
Pet Taming
The taming of beasts is reserved to hunters only, and has always been one of the things I truly enjoyed about that class. I remember, in Draenor, the secret quest chain to tame Gara… The day that I discovered that there was such a thing for us, beast masters, I went ecstatic. Class specific lore adds so much more to your character. Sardoken and I eagerely jumped into this taming adventure to obtain the magnificent ghost wolf, Gara.
With the release of Legion, Blizzard started implementing more and more “special” tameable creatures throughout the entire game. Imagine our suprise when we heard about this awesome news!
The first to be introduced were the mechanical pets. If you’re not a Gnome or Goblin, you must acquire the engineer-crafted Mecha-Bond Imprint Matrix to begin with. Once crafted and learned, you can tame about any mechanical hunter pet available in the game. Some are quite easy to obtain like the mechanical sheep Tekton, while others remain a little bit more challenging, like the Arachnodrones found in Alcaz Island.
The new Hunter pet family added in patch 7.2: the Feathermanes. My favourites being the Wolfhawks, that’s why I’ve tamed all three of them. The possibility of taming this new pet family requires the completion of certain achievements and quests. Wowhead, as usual, has a really nice guide that you can follow blindly.
Then there is the most ultimate challenge: Fenryr, whom you can only tame by soloing Halls of Valor mythic. Yes, you’ve read that right: you have to solo a mythic. I’ve never tried it myself, but I will… soon… one day ;p
As you can see, the range of tameable pets seems to grow day by day. It’s a hunter only thing and I’m very, veeerrrryyyy happy that Blizzard has put so much effort in our taming experience.
Class Order Hall
The Class Order Hall for the hunter is the one and only “Trueshot Lodge”. There is no place better for hunters than the Lodge. I love this place… It’s beautiful and cozy with bonfires, snow, pinetrees, and it has various bows, guns, and polearms on display from the history of World of Warcraft.
Trueshot Lodge is the home base of an ancient order of hunters known as the Unseen Path. The Lodge was originally built by night elves and tauren working together on Talon Peak in Highmountain. It serves as the order hall for hunters. Talon Peak was known by another name that has not been mentioned. The site was blessed by Ohn’ahra herself through [Talonclaw] and thus inspired the change. – WowpediA
As you can see on the map, there are three watchtowers: the southern, northern and northeast tower. Only the southern tower has survived the centuries, the other two were apparently damaged beyond repair, and were replaced by smaller towers that are, currently, seen around the Lodge.
We also have a portal to Dalaran and the flight master has a unique set of flightpaths only for hunters. Inside the Lodge, we can imbue our artifact weapon and consult our command map for missions and objectives.
The artifact researcher is named Holt Thunderhorn. He is located near a large book at the east side of the lodge. The tome starts blank, but will grow to hold the “Tales of the Hunt”.
Around the Lodge there’s the Gladiator’s Sanctum, the stables, and a hidden cave where Ogdrul is trapped in a rune circle.
I could have never imagined a more beautiful Class Order Hall than the Trueshot Lodge. I’m happy that my hunter can call this her home, but I’m also a bit sad when I think that, after this expansion, I’ll be spending less time in this beautiful place.
Class Mount
The scenario to obtain the hunter class mount was amazing! It starts with a cinematic where everyone is gathered around the fire and celebrating. Then, the scenario begins…
First, you have to go out into the night and must use your tracking skills to find four great beasts, which you have to defeat. After that, you have to put the spirits of the Wolf, Fereki, and Hawk, Vetholnir, to rest to be able to proceed to “Challenge the Wolfhawk”. Haukenulfnir, the wolfhawk, is an elite and a bit harder to defeat than the other NPCs. Once she/he is down, the final stage can begin: “Revel the Night Away” – Return to Odyn and feast the night away.
After the scenario, you return to the Trueshot Lodge, where a wolfhawk flies into the camp and chooses you!
The Feathermane mount has a different color for each spec. To get all three of them, you must unlock Concordance of the Legionfall with all three specs. I did and it was totally worth it! This is one of my most favourite mounts throughout the entire game so, once again… I can say that I’m a happy hunter 🙂
Artifact, gear, talents,…
Before Legion came out, I wasn’t very happy with the hunter changes they had announced. In fact, I was very negative. Once Legion was released, however, I rapidly became aware on how ridiculous that was. I love the changes they’ve made. Each spec is more distinct from one and other. Granted, I’ve never been a fan of Marksmanship or Survival so, needless to say that I couldn’t care less about these two specs. I’ve always played Beast Master, and I’m glad to see that everything that Blizzard has done until now, made me love my favourite class (and spec) even more.
Beast Master feels more than ever like a real master of the beasts… We have two pets, thanks to the artifact weapon, which I really love. I sincerely hope that Blizz will continue focusing on more than one pet in the next expansions. I would feel too lonely without my entire zoo around me 😉 The thing I like is that our talents are more focused on the damage done by our pets. We still have Cobra and Multi shot, traps, and some really cool utility spells/abilities like “Flare”, “Tracking”,… All in all, when it comes to the talents, I am a happy BM hunter.
Our artifact weapon, Titanstrike is pretty cool. Eventhough I may not like every appearance, there are plenty of great looking ones. Overall, I like the artifact system. It adds a lot to each class lore, which must be very refreshing for altoholics or lore nerds. If I would have more time I would love to level all classes and specs, only to see all the different stories.
Talking about stories, I loved the entire Hunter Class Hall Campaign! From the most simple quest to the night with Rexxar, the entire campaign has been a wonderful adventure. Not to mention the title “Huntmaster”, that we gain after completing In Defense of Dalaran.
Last but not least, I think that, in this expansion, the gear for the hunter has made a bit of an upgrade. I mean, look at the Hunter Class Order Hall set: Guise of the Unseen Path. Sardoken has transmogged his last gear into this set, which proves how great the hunter set in this xpac really is.
TLDR, I’m very happy that Class Fantasy took such an important place in Legion. It adds so much more depth to each of the classes, which makes me love the game even more (if that was even possible ;-)).
Both Soforah and I have been reading Lovecraft’s books since we were kids. We love everything related to the Cthulhu mythos: novels, comic books, video games,… The idea of ancient beings, hidden in the dark corners of the earth, manipulating the mind of the humans, has always been one of our favourite plots in fantasy. So, when Blizzard inspires itself directly from Lovecraft’s world (Yogg-Saron, C’thun,…), we are instant fans!
There are not a hundred ways to say this: We love Cthulhu!
Yesterday, Soforah was wandering around the Eye of Azshara when she stumbled upon Kosumoth the Hungering. I had already read that he was the boss that could drop the Fathom Dweller, an aquatic mount, but I didn’t know that it was already available.
After a quick research, I’ve found this guide on Wowhead: Kosumoth the Hungering. It’s pretty straight forward and feels very much like the hunt for the Riddler’s Mind Worm.
I really enjoy those secrets, it adds another level of depth to the game. I can’t help but wonder how they find all those hidden items? Do they explore each map, each cave, each ocean in the game? Some of the caves in this chain are very hard to find and I don’t think that I would have ever seen them without the guide…
One of the caves was even hidden behind a toothless shark.
When you finally have clicked all the items in the right order, you can go back to an NPC, Drak’Thul, and unlock a world quest where you are to slay Kosumoth. Apparently, the loot alternates weekly between the aquatic mount and a pet, the Hungering Claw.
We both obtained our very own tentacle, but we’ll surely come back next week for the mount.
With a possible next expansion themed around the old gods, we are both super hyped. Please, Blizzard, make it happen!
Another community challenge from Z & Cinder. This time the topic is about the reason behind our blogging:
“Everyone who has created a blog has done so for a reason. For all of you WoW bloggers out there, what was that reason? Why did you choose to put fingers to keys to write about a computer game? What type of posts do you like to write? Does your blog have a theme to it, or do you just wing it and write whatever you want? We’d love to know!”
So here is why we blog about WoW:
The main reason why we blog is because we want to keep remembrances of our adventures in World of Warcraft. We spend an incredible amount of time in Azeroth, fighting, exploring, fishing,… It would be sad not to have anything to remember those moments by. In fact, our WoW blogging started with separated blogs where we were keeping our screenshots, without text. Then, we started giving our opinions about quests and dungeons. And, finally, Navimie gave us the idea to blog together, that’s how The Brutes were born.
Creativity would be the second reason. Developping this blog gave me a reason to get better at CSS, I coded the entire theme of The Brutes and it was an amazing experience. That’s not all, it also gives us a place to write our stories and to work on little projects like creating funny comics or videos about challenges like the Ironman. The blog is a great motivation behind our creativity.
Finally, we really enjoy the blogging community. Even if the first reason behind our writing is nothing else but our own remembrances, we do enjoy our little corner of the internet. Big sites like MMO Champion and Wowhead are filled with guides and objective posts. We don’t want objectivity, give us the people’s experience, what they do in Azeroth, what they love about it, what they hate… We feel closer to the real people, those who have a job or a family or both, who have to create their own adventures based on the time they have in the game. It feels more real to us than reading about pro-gamers and how long it took them to down the last boss.
Voilà, what we wish to the WoW blogging community is to grow and to get closer to each other, each with thousands of posts to remember our goofy adventures by.
Before Legion came out, PvP had never been a big priority of mine. I usually give it a try at the end of an expansion when my to-do list becomes shorter and real PVP’ers are much more geared. Which means that I was standing no chance in any battleground or arena. It always leads to a certain frustration that makes me give up on this part of the game.
In Legion, however, the entire PvP system has changed. First, you’re less dependent on your ilevel. Second, there is this whole new system with Honor talents and Prestige which grants really nice rewards.
Prestige
Each time you earn 50 Honor ranks, you hit another level of Prestige. By working your way through the first 50 Honor Levels, you unlock your talents. These will remain permanently. After that, each Prestige level will reward you with pets, mounts, achievements,…
I first thought that it would be impossible to get anywhere with this system when you’re not a hardcore PvP’er. It levels pretty slow despite the decent amount of Honor you gain with the PvP World Quests. Like I’ve said before, I may have started very late in this expansion, so I’m only Prestige level 2.
Now, seen from a big PvP’ers perspective, it must be well paced. If this is all you do in the game, you want to take your time and enjoy each minute of leveling your Prestige. Things that are done in the blink of an eye are too short to truly enjoy, right?
Something I really love are the new Honor talents. My favourite is most definitely the “Dire Beast: Basilisk”. You summon this very slow Basilisk that does quite a fair amount of damage. He’s huge and pretty funny because he arrives with an attitude like: “ok, ok, I’m coming, hold your horses”. I tried to pick up another talent, but I just couldn’t get rid of him. I guess that I love to have an entire zoo around me. The more, the merrier!
World Quests
The first time I saw PvP World Quests, I had no clue on what they were about. I remember one day, arriving by accident at a Warden Tower Assault… I ran out of there like my pants were on fire, not knowing what it was about.
Once Sardoken and I decided to check out what these quests were about, we discovered how much fun they are. A few weeks later, we’ve become the two unstoppable brutes in both arenas and Warden Tower assaults. My favourite quests being the Black Rook Rumble and the Bareback Brawl.
While doing the Bareback Brawl, I stumbled upon this rare dragon… I started killing it, and at a certain point he submitted to me and I could fly around on his back, using these really cool abilities. It also came with an achievement, which are always more than welcome ^^
One of my first times in the Black Rook arena, I was being ganked by a Rogue… I died one second after each jump down, over and over again… the frustration *grumbles*. I’ve been chatting with Mr. Rogue afterwards and it turned out to be a nice guy who was just having some fun. Granted, too many people see these WQ’s as PvE events. What’s the fun in that… right? Now, it’s Sardoken and me who are doing the exact same thing. Not that I’m any good at PvP, but it’s quite funny seeing all those people flee/disappear upon our arrival with a “oh no, not these two again”. Not that I like to be anyone’s living nightmare *evil grin*.
On a funny note: upon your arrival at a Warden Tower Assault, Lady Sylvanas says: “Greymane’s forces hold this Warden tower. Break their ranks! Show no mercy!” I always understood: “Break their LEGS! Show no mercy!”. Until I repeated her out loud one day and Sardoken started laughing so hard… “What a Warchief we have, breaking all our enemies legs” xD So, “breaking legs” it became… we still laugh about this one.
PvP Brawls
I had read that there wouldn’t be any new battlegrounds in Legion, but that they would intoduce other versions of the existing ones instead. The first PvP Brawl I tried was the Warsong Scramble.
The only difference between the Scramble and the original Warsong Gulch is that there are three flags intead of one. I had so much fun doing this, it was the only thing I did that entire weekend. This is, by far, my most favourite Brawl. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in my role as flag carrier that I forgot to take any screenshots. I’ll never forget that beautiful weekend though.
Another one I really loved was the Arathi Blizzard. Not so much for the experience, but for the snowy landscapes. Snow always makes up for a lot of things…
Anyway, I’m a big fan of these PvP Brawls, and I sincerely hope that they will go on in this direction.
This is the first expansion that I enjoy PvP this much. There are goals to achieve, which counts a lot for me. When I play my character, I love to have the feeling that I’m working towards an aim. Thanks to the new PvP system, I’ve finally found that aim.