Gosh, I hate betas. I wish there was some way to test expansion betas kinda like they test new cars, with lots of stuff so that nobody can really tell what the testers are driving. As I've lamented before, by virtue of not beta testing, I'm weeks behind on learning what to do once Cat hits. Someone was asking an honest question about Cat via Proudmoore's capital Trade channel a week or so ago and one of the unhelpful answers was, "That's what playing the beta is for." /sigh
So, my guild officers asked everyone to look into what their pre-raid gear options are. So, I spent several hours one day looking at all the instance drops, reputation items, and badge rewards. I thought that I would post it here on my blog for other people to benefit from, rather than only posting it on my guild forums. Since moonkin & resto share caster leather gear, I’m including both in this gear list.
Below she lists the gear that makes the GS cut and the sources for each, as well as another page on faction rewards. Honestly, though, in RP-land, nobody should know this stuff yet. Like Spinks said recently, iirc, it's not like I want to RP, but I would prefer a little consistency in the game, whether that's timeline (the post I'm talking about concentrated on how new starting zones act like LK events, etc, hadn't yet happened, even if you were running back to do low level quests with your main) or other players' knowledge.
So these guides are still not as good as having already scoped everything out, but a great benefit over starting from scratch. Seems like I just did this for LK, but there you go.
At times, it feels like theorycrafting gets in the way of playing the game. Oh well. Thanks for the info and work, Lissanna!
The best pilgrim's bounty guide I found was The OverAchiever's at WoW Insider. Here's the bit for finding Horde tables for the Pilgrim's Peril achievement.
Orgrimmar Southeast of the main gates (just south of the path to the Undercity/Grom'Gol zeppelin tower). Alliance players will not flagged here on PvE servers.
Undercity In the Ruins of Lordaeron courtyard immediately inside the main entrance to the city. Despite not being located far into the complex, this is the nastiest area for Alliance to reach, as there's steady Horde traffic from both the zeppelins and Silvermoon teleport, and the entrance to the Ruins is an unfortunate choke point. Don't go at server high time.
Thunder Bluff Directly below the western elevators [note that that isn't the western mesa, but the elevator on the western side of the city -- Jal]. Despite appearing to be outside of the city, the feast area is still within it and will get Alliance players flagged.
Silvermoon City South of the city's main gates. Alliance players will not get flagged here on PvE servers.
Silvermoon was easy to aggro if you came in the back to the table and not from the path. Stay on the path.
Remember that you only have to sit down at the tables for Pilgrim's peril!! I ate five of each item in Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff. Luckily the only curious Horde in Thunder Bluff, where you do, sure enough, get flagged for PvP when you approach the table, were all well below 70. Kinda wanted the three obviously watching to give me their best shot, but no luck.
For Turkey Lurkey, I got everyone but the Dwarf, Orc, and Troll rogue turke-i-fied without trouble, but had to get the dwarf from a level one near the flight master in IF and the orc from someone who was politely dancing outside of Stormwind. Several people are putting n00b rolled PCs for easy featherings within shot of the Alliance city tables.
For the troll, I finally gave up waiting for a hand-out and went to the troll starting area, remembering Malone's advice about not going to the barrel (though I did waste some time hovering over Dalaran) and heading to the tree. Remember that the troll rogue starting area isn't on the mainland but on the small island to the east. Picture of me feathering a n00b troll rogue in the starting area below (check minimap).
And then, to find Talon King Ikiss. Reports seem to suggest you can gank him whenever you want, not just during the Pilgrim's Bounty event (which ends tomorrow), so I saved this until last.
1. In Stormwind coming from main gates turn left out of trade district cross bridge go through tunnel to mage corner. Climb the ramp going into the mage tower and its right inside the door. 2. Darnassus go to the middle bridge and straight ahead in the Temple of the Moon 3. Iron Forge[sic] from the front gate turn left its in the Mystic ward in the hall of mysteries 4. Exodar the center of the city take the middle ramp it is in the Vault of Lights
Then you'll want the Sethekk Halls Map from WoWpedia. And don't forget to put on your pilgrim gear (hat and outfit) before waxing Ilkiss. Yes, I forgot too the first time. If you do forget, exit (a tedious process) and right-click your portrait to reset all instances. That'll bring him back to life. I was able to stealth in without incident and all but walk on top of the patrolling mobs. I did accidentally aggro once, and lots of Avian Rippers had heck to pay.
For Turkey Lurky, I had some trouble getting 40 turkeys 30 seconds apart until I went to Tirisfal Glades. And note that the Turkey Caller does not give a legit wild turkey. The turkey it summons is, however, killable (and lootable) for other quests.
And man, does travel form made hunting turkeys a heck of a lot easier. Run, smack once, loot, run some more.
Worth it? I don't know. Probably not. The pet is cute. I didn't have any title to date, so I figured I'd go for this one. It was fun-ish, and without any clear direction for WotLK until Cata really busts out, it was something to help get me used to playing again.
And here's some requisite video of the pet reward getting a little too close to the cooking fire. Start about 30 seconds in.
I'm giving the Pilgrim title a run this year, and Pilgrim's Peril is a bit of a pain. Getting to Orgrimmar was straightforward, but I was scared that Nijel's Point might not get me to Thunder Bluff directly; too many mountains and I couldn't remember if there was a good pass through them.
This page at World of Warcraft Pro has maps for getting to Thunder Bluff. It's explaining how to get to Thrall (isn't he in Nagrand now?), but the map would likely work for us too.
Getting to Him: Have your raid assemble in Astrannar, Ashenvale and then ride the road east and then south into the Barrens. From there ride east along the northern Barrens until you reach Orgrimmar's side entrance. The goal is to take the significantly less guarded side entrance that leads directly to Thrall's room.
There seem to be many more flight points closer to The Gate now, like Fort Triumph, below, but I guess I'll hoof it from Theramore, since I don't have any of those flight points active/discovered.
This will be much easier in a week, when we can get to level 85, throw gold down a gold sink, and fly around the Old World.
Well, I can say 4.0.3 ain't real stable. I had two hard lock/crashes while compressing movies, and the screenshots are still wacky. When I took this shot (and the blank shots I mentioned yesterday), there were folks on the screen. Honestly, it's bizarre. That's my Blood Boil Lancet pulling a Fantasia in the middle of the shot.
I think I brought down the Crown Princess four or five times today as folks mined a shield. These elemental bosses are much too easy. I haven't played for gear in months, yet we're downing these things with 79s, poorly equipped 80s, and even, during yesterday's screw-up, a boomkin holding a fishing pole. It's a joke, really. At least add some strategy. These are all, so far, eclipse spam events. Flamelash at least had a more impressive background.
And finally, as I mentioned in the last post, the below is A Bad Idea.
Does the question 'where the hell is entrance' sounds ridiculous? Actually it is not. Everybody should know where Icecrown Citadel is - if not, it's easy to see on the map. But entrance to new 5man instance set is cleverly placed on ridiculous place and hard to find. Well, here is easy� help - see the picture.
I was dumb enough to try and watch the scenes around Sword's Rest and, well, didn't get out of there quickly enough. In case you're wondering, Barkskin doesn't prevent your hearthstone from being interrupted. /sigh
Dropped back into WoW. As a guildie said, there's something about it that calls to you, even if I resisted 10 months.
Finally got The Right Stuff after running a few quests. I only have about 100g now, but wow, can I fly fast. Why didn't I do this earlier, again? It did help that running some elemental quests got me to Revered with Stormwind, which cut the price to 4250.
I also cleaned out the bank, selling stuff I'd been holding onto just in case I wanted to panzer/up haste/max gearscore, etc. Now I'm down to one set of gear, boomkin. If BC was any indication, the quest rewards for 81-85 will quickly outstrip the stats of the stuff I've got now.
Also lucked into a Prince Sarsarun run. Strangely, the screengrabs I took of the battle didn't come out. They're black. No kidding. I did need roll a Cloak of Mocking Winds. I always feel badly when I need, but this thing was such an upgrade on what I was wearing, it immediately hit my back. I figured everyone had 2 hours to complain if they needed it, and was happy I won.
Was embarrassed to see I'd used a graphite fishing pole during the fight. I'm rusty. In related news, that photo of my Cloak and fishing pole also has someone in SW milking a tiger. Must be tough to get supplies during the invasions. The kids are still running around the town like clockwork, however.
Show me your papers was another one of those painful ethics-on-rails quest. I think it's possible that the cultists are "venting" elements, and stopping them might speed up the Cataclysm. Arresting everyone at the gates is also painful, both in that I don't know that I'd do it, myself, and that it's a pretty transparent attempt at commentary on the TSA.
But ain't those the happiest cultists you've ever seen? I'm also impressed that they can find and mount horses even when handcuffed. (start around 1:12)
Anyhow, I'm playing now for the world events. I suppose I'll expansion up when it comes out. Right now, there's not much to do that's too exciting.
I'm on the phone, waiting for Blizzard to let me back in (to see if I can't bag the Gnomeregan Drape before Cat) after having lost my iPod touch this summer. Thanks, authenticator! The on-hold warnings make things sound dire. If you don't have your authenticator serial num or [something I didn't hear about another serial number], they might ask for a picture id. Blizzard is Blizzare. Thanks Blizzard qua police.
Looks like I might be on a while and will hear what I might need lots of times. Here's the list. * serial from the back of your [stand-alone] authenticator or * serial code to your mobile authenticator * blizzard key from your classic World of Warcraft
Digging up the last of which scored me a 60 day game card I forgot I'd grabbed. Score! Hope they don't expire.
In any event, I stumbled over this snippet about character transfers while waiting.
- Characters carrying too much gold are not eligible for transfer, as follows: - Level 10-30: 300 gold limit - Level 31-50: 1000 gold limit - Level 51-69: 5000 gold limit - Level 70 - 80: 20000 gold limit
Makes sense, of course. You don't want to enable gold farmers any more than you have to. And $25 to move 20000 gold is a little steep.
But on the other hand, the alternate, implied message is that you need about 20,000 gold to support a good 70-80. I'm not taking this as the most a character should have, as it's easy to dump your holdings before moving to a new server. Hello Mr. Alt; it's your lucky day! Instead, what they're saying is that they understand that a level 80 character could need at least 20,000 just to get around. This is sorta like when folks were smuggling fuel out of Iraq in giant tanks ostensibly for the tractor-trailers' tractors. "Oh, um, this gold is just for my favorite character, XygGHETdss!"
How much gold does Jal have? Sheesh. I don't know. I haven't played since January, and I don't see anything in my fairly recent posts. I do know I haven't looked much north of 1000g since I paid to dual spec -- which I've paid but haven't actually spec'd out, and which I see now costs 100g. THANKS, Blizzard! Nor did I have enough for artisan flying or what have you. I tend to live pretty hand-to-mouth and haven't found a good, dependable, and fun means of making money. Leatherworking takes forever to farm up the mats and grab the pattern of the week. I guess I'm just not a patient farmer, though I put in a fair bit of time farming motes of air in BC... Usually I just hack up something for myself and keep running. Pots, repairs, and the occasional gear splurge (Graylo had plenty of goldsinks) seem to keep me close enough to zero most of the time.
But the bottom line is that Blizzard suggests a good 80 will have 20,000 gold, and Jal's lucky to have over 1000. As Keith sings, sad sad sad.
