Timeless Isle Thoughts for Altoholics

While my play time has been somewhat limited this past week, I've been spending a fair amount of time on Timeless Isle since the patch, initially focused on getting my legendary cloak, and then more lately just as a way to pass the time while having some more alts wait in queue for LFR.  It's been an interesting experience so far.

It seems to be a great way to get additional gear for alts that you don't play a lot, or for a character where you're looking to change specs (playing a holy paladin and want to switch to ret, playing a resto druid and want to switch to feral, etc.).  I was able to accumulate a rather huge amount of gear in the short time that I've been on Timeless Isle that has provided a decent benefit to my alts.  And it's definitely something different to do other than running dailies or doing pet battles while waiting in queue, which I appreciate.

For my, while it has had a reasonable impact on my alts, it hasn't necessarily been huge, primariliy because, as a result of the process of trying to get everyone ready for SoO, most of my alts were already pretty well geared.  So it's had the most benefit for the one character that I had that wasn't at least geared for LFR.

A lot of people have correctly observed that you seem to get a disproportionate amount of drops for armor class of the character that you're playing on.  This has actually been a bit of a problem for me as my warlock main is getting mostly cloth drops, but my other two clothies are already very geared and don't really need many upgrades from Timeless Isle.  So I've had to be a bit more strategic about who I was playing Timeless Isle on to maximize the potential benefits.

It's likely going to impact the order that I run characters through SoO as well as I'm going to want to accelerate my plate and leather wearers (as that's where I have the most needs for upgrades), so it might push my mage and priest down the list of the weekly order on LFR runs.

The larger benefit was what was apparently a short term boost to drop rates in ToT during the first couple of days in the patch.  As a result, my shaman was able to gain an unbelievable 15 points of ilvl during the course of one clear of ToT.  In later runs on my monk, that drop rate has been significantly reduced.

So here are the changes in ilvl since my last post (ranked in descending order by current ilvl):

Warlock 519 -> 520
Priest 500 ->501
Druid - 494 -> 499
Mage 496 -> 498
Hunter 486 -> 498
DK 496
Shaman 477 -> 496
Monk 464 -> 490
Paladin 475 -> 481
Rogue 469 -> 478
Warrior 457 -> 473

The Shaman and Monk have obviously been getting most of my attention the last two weeks and the warrior has been getting the most help from Timeless Isle.

Still Gearing Toons for the Siege of Orgrimmar

So I managed to get my fourth toon, my Death Knight, over the now official 496 hurdle and ready for the Siege of Orgrimmar LFR.  I've also got two more toons working their way through ToT - my hunter and my druid, and both are getting somewhat close, so there's a pretty good chance that I'll have as many as six toons all geared up and ready to go.

Finally, my last toon is getting very close to being ready for LFR.

Here is the official update on the 7 toons not currently sitting at 496 or better with the change from the last report on August 13th.

Druid - 488 -> 494 (just need a damn head piece to drop in ToT and he'll be in good shape)
Hunter - 479 -> 486 (still desperately needs a ToT weapon)
Paladin - 473 -> 475
Shaman - 471 -> 477
Rogue - 464 -> 469 (only toon that hasn't gotten the Barrens questline boots - so that should push him over the edge to HoF/ToES)
Monk - still at 464
Warrior - 442 -> 457

Toon #10 Geared for LFR - One More To Go

So I managed to get my monk to 460 ilvl pretty quickly, mostly through generous use of auction house drops.  That leaves just my warrior, who I'm going to go ahead and gear purely through heroics.

So right now, I've got 3 toons at 500 ilvl and all ready for the Siege or Orgrimmar raid - warlock, priest and mage.

I then have 2 other toons working their way through ToT - my druid and my death knight.

My hunter is desparately trying to get a weapon to drop either off of Will of the Emperor or Lei Shi in ToES, which will put him over the ilvl threshold for ToT.

My paladin and my shaman are now both over the ilvl limit for HoF and ToES as well and are going to start working through that.

So that leaves just my rogue and my monk working their way through MSV.

And my poor warrior still stuck on heroics.

So here's the quick ilvl summary including a comparison from my previous report on July 9th:


Druid - 484 -> 487
DK  483 - 494
Hunter - stuck at 479
Paladin - 468 -> 473
Shaman - 464 -> 471
Rogue - still at 464
Warrior - still at 442
Monk - new to the game at 464

So with two weeks to go until release of the new patch and the new raid, I feel like I have a reasonable chance of getting the DK geared up enough to become the 4th toon ready for the new LFR, but not thinking most of the others will make it, barring some incredible luck on drops by the druid.

Ding! Level 90 #11. A Max Level Toon of Each Class (Again)

So I finally managed to get my monk to 90 last night, so after a short delay caused by the creation of the new monk class in MoP, I'm now back to having a max level toon of each class.

My total played time to 90 on the monk was an unbelievable 2 days, 10 hours and 35 minutes.  Certainly the xp buff from the monk daily quest plays a huge role in that, along with a new piece of heirloom gear.

By way of comparison, the last character that I leveled straight through to max level was my warrior at the beginning of Cataclysm, and at that point, it took a played time of 3 days, 23 hours (and also with full heirlooms, other than the pants, which didn't exist then).

So they've clearly done a lot to further streamline the leveling process.

So the downside of the speed up in the leveling process, is I didn't have to quest anywhere close to all the way through Dread Wastes before hitting 90, so even with the shiny new ilvl 450 staff that you get from the level 90 monk class quest, my ilvl is still sitting at 426 or so.  So I'm not ready to jump right into heroics.

I've got a decent amount of JP accumulated though, so I'll see what I can do with that, craft some things on my leatherworker, and then see what 476 stuff is available for a decent price on the auction house, and hopefully that will do the trick.

Almost There on the Monk

So I managed to hit 89 on the monk last night, and am planning to just not stop until I successfully hit 90 on him later tonight.  No clue what my /played time has been as I haven't really been looking at it, although my general impression is that it's been pretty fast.

I also got to 11/12 Titan Runestones on my warlock last night, so I can limit myself to just one wing next week, and then I should be all caught up on the Legendary questline, after I finish the Celestial Blessings quest of course.

Not a whole lot of change in gear level on my other toons as I've really been focused on the monk outside of the requisite runs on my warlock.  I did do one half of MSV on my rogue, and managed to bump his ilvl up to 464, but other than that, not a whole lot of progress to report.

Trying a Little Mistweaver Action

So I've decided to go ahead and finish leveling my monk to 90 before finishing my work on gearing up my other characters.  I've been playing the monk as Windwalker throughout the whole leveling process to date, but the ability to buy a full set of gear upon reaching Pandaria prompted me to try a few dungeons as Mistweaver.

So far, I'm not entirely sure I like the play style.  I seem to have problems mostly with fights that require a lot of movement.  That an a problem with drawing groups full of people that like to stand in bad shit.

It feels like a spec that would be a ton of fun for raid healing, so I just have to decide if I'm willing to continue to plow through running dungeons for those last 3 levels and then see if I can auction house my way to a 460 iLvL pretty quickly after hitting 90.

I really actually enjoy the Windwalker playstyle a lot, but of the characters that I still have to gear all the way through MSV, HOF, ToES etc., they're all essentially melee, especially if I don't switch my shaman over to elemental or resto.

It may just be that I need some more practice at Mistweaver and it will start to feel a lot more intuitive.  So I may give it a few more dungeons next week on the way to 90 before abandoning it.

Not much other progress to report.  I continue to run the last two wings of ToT on my warlock to finish with Titan Runestones, where I currently stand at 8/12.

My mage and priest are now both fully geared for the next raid, with the DK and druid not far behind.  My hunter just needs to get a little luckier on drops in either MSV or ToES and he'll be ready to start running ToT as well.  Then the shaman, paladin and rogue are all working their way through MSV.

Rogue Hits MSV - Toon #9 Geared for LFR

Well, quite a bit of progress since the last post.  I managed to get a Lei Shen kill on my 5th toon, the Death Knight, the Hunter is now the only toon working on HoF and ToES, and the Paladin, Shaman and Rogue are all working their way through MSV.

Here is the comparison of ilvl's from my last post to now:

Warlock  512 -> 513
Priest - 500
Mage - 492 -> 495
Druid - 482 -> 484
Death Knight - 479 -> 483
Hunter - 473 -> 479
Paladin - 468
Shaman - 460 -> 464
Rogue - 449 -> 461
Warrior - 440 -> 442

Also managed to get my monk to level 75, so he's coming along nicely as well.  Even after how many years, I can only stand so many runs of Utgarde Keep before the place starts to drive me nuts.

Gearing Alts for LFR

So I've started the bat shit crazy process of working through gearing all of my alts through various levels of LFR.  I've currently got 8 toons working through various stages of LFR, with 2 toons already geared enough for the new raid coming out in 5.4 (warlock and priest), 2 toons working their way through Throne of Thunder (Mage and Druid), 2 more working through Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring (Hunter and Death Knight) and then the final two working through Mogushan Vaults (Paladin and Shaman).

My poor paladin just can't catch a break.  He was one of the first 4 to get geared enough for LFR in general, but can't seem to get a drop in MSV to save his life.  Poor guy is just stuck there.

My rogue and my warrior are both geared enough for heroics at least but I haven't really had the time to start gearing them up for LFR.

My monk just hit level 68 and is heading to Northrend.  He's hoping just to hit level cap before the next expansion hits.

For most of these characters, I've been gearing them strictly through random drops.  No running dailies for valor gear.  A lot of them have finished the leveling process at Revered with Klaaxi so they've had access to at least belt and pants from there.  Add that to the 522 neck from Shado Pan Assault, and it's a pretty good way to spend valor early on for some quick ilvl boosts.

Before 5.3 dropped, I was also going after rares on the Isle of Thunder trying to get keys for Elder Charms, but now the Isle of Thunder is a ghost town, so there's really not many options for that any more.  The Isle is now a neglected hulk, hanging out with other neglected zones like the Molten Front, the Argent Tournament and the Isle of Quel'Danas.   They get together for canasta every couple of weeks, talk about their gall bladder ailments and discuss old times.

So here is the current ilvl parade for my ultra casual group of LFR raiders and wannabes:

Warlock - 512
Priest - 500
Mage - 492
Druid - 482
Death Knight - 479
Hunter - 473
Paladin - 468
Shaman - 460
Rogue - 449
Warrior - 440

Gearing More Alts for LFR

It seems odd not to have posted in a while, but there just isn't really anything all that interesting to talk about at this point.  I've continued to work my various toons through the Throne of Thunder instance.  My shadow priest managed to get a new weapon out of there on his first run.

My warlock on the other hand, has killed Horridon a total of 10 times, and used his bonus roll each and every one of those times, and still hasn't gotten the weapon to drop. I've also got 7 total Dark Animus kills without the weapon dropping there either.  I have something like 4 different off hands available to use with that weapon at this point...but no weapon.

Ah RNG gods, I hate you.

So I have two toons that are running through ToT, two more (mage and hunter) that are working their way through HoF and ToES to try to get geared for ToT and a total of three that are working their way through MSV (druid, death knight and paladin).  The mage only needs one drop (or some quick August Celestials rep after this patch) to be geared enough for ToT, but the hunter is a bit farther away.

I've also started working on heroics on both the rogue and shaman in an effort to get them geared enough to start running LFR.

Finally, my monk is still working his way through Outlands and is sitting at level 63, still pounding through Hellfire Peninsula.

World PvP

And now for something completely different, I went ahead and moved my shadow priest over to a PvP server and have been participating in a decent amount of World PvP.  Raiding each other's shrines and capital cities, battling on the Isle of Thunder.  That kind of thing.

It's something that I haven't really done before at all, so it's been a nice change of pace.  There seems to be a huge amount of drama between the various guilds on the server that do a lot of World PvP, but it's more entertaining than anything as long as you try not to get too caught up in it.

I'm continuing to run LFR each week on my warlock and am anxious to see the final wing of Throne of Thunder when it opens up later today.  I'm just hoping there's no Durumu equivalent where the whole raid dies at a certain point in each fight with everyone left wondering what the hell just happened.

New LFR Wing

So I tried the new LFR wing as soon as it was released last week.  Like most people, I found the Durumu fight to be utterly frustrating.  My group finally got it down after accumulating 8 stacks of determination.  We essentially burned him to the point that the 4 or 5 people that were actually able to see the safe spots on the floor were able to get him the rest of the way down.  After a quick poll, we determined that those five people were all running very current machines with super upgraded graphics cards, so they were somehow able to make out the purple discs of death, within the purple smoke on the purple floor and find the spots where none of that stuff was. 

The rest of us just got to stare at our release buttons.

Primordius and Dark Animus ended up being totally fine.  Of course, no gear for me, but that's OK.  It's just fun to see the content.  I'm really hoping Durumu gets fixed somehow.

In the meantime, I've been doing more PvP on my shadow priest.  I've moved him over to an actual PvP realm to try my hand at some world PvP.  So far, that's going pretty well, and I'm finding I still enjoy the PvP side of things a lot.  Especially after the frustrations of LFR.

My monk is still stuck in Outland and not feeling any love at all.  I will finish him up at some point, but no big rush.