Grimmtooth's Troops

One of the benefits of having multiple max level toons on the team is that each contributes in his or her own special way.  I make flasks and potions, and do transmutes for sale.  Illume makes glyphs for sale and our own use.  Jas runs the auctions and provides bags.  Each of us provide armor and weapons as we can make them.

Illume has some pretty sweet items in her bag of tricks -  the fan is already mine, but the staff requires Spirits of Harmony, an item you can’t just go buy or mail to an alt. 

So, what to do other than start grinding with the mage and get her inventory full of Spirits.  The goal is to get her to 90, then get her grinding the Tillers so she can plant songbells. This will keep things moving along for future stuff as well.

The point of this is to get my iLevel up to where I can queue for things like daily heroic scenarios and stuff. I’ve been grinding the Darkspear weekly when it makes sense, but weapons are not part of the rewards, alas.

It’s kinda weird going at it from two fronts like that, but whatever works, works.

I was saying just the other day how the game can catch you unawares with little things that make you chuckle or simply laugh out loud. I’m going to classify the quest Hozen Love Their Keys as one of those. I can help but wonder if the end of the quest was a subtle nod to the ending of a certain movie that came out this year.

Between Grimm in DS and my own undergeared butt in Heroics, we’ve finally – as of last night – gotten to see all the threads in the endgame story for this expansion¹.  It’s gratifying to see that the endgame has a more solid narrative than ever before.  Only twice does it succumb to what I call the "Gallery of bads" syndrome.

If you remember the pilot movie for Babylon 5, you no doubt remember the Gratuitous Alien Gallery, a venue that Sinclair and Alexander cut through on the way to somewhere more useful.  The Alien District, as it was called, resembled more of a toxic petting zoo than a place where aliens lived and carried out business – glass booths with aliens standing in them, cubicles with aliens standing them, empty spaces with aliens standing in them – you get the picture.

A lot, it might be noted, like Icecrown Citadel, and many other raids. Just dudes. Standing around. Doing standing around dude things.

Some examples.

• Karazhan – you have to beat up the stable boy, the castellan, and a travelling group of troubadours to even get close to the guy that’s making the place go bad².  And even then, there are rooms off to the side with a couple of dragons, a bereaved father, and a studious demon that you can go beat up just for funsies.
• Icecrown Citadel – With an airship at your disposal, you can just fly to the spire and take care of business. But instead we go the long hard way through a gallery of bads, none which even matter, and some which were plain made up – had no previous connection to lore – for this instance.
• Naxx – For this gallery of bads to even make SENSE, they had to force you to clear each wing as part of unlocking a portal to the one guard dragon that stands between you and the big bad.
• The Eye – Aside from Alar (and who doesn’t want a shot at a flaming mount?), you can walk right in to Kael’s throne room and start beating on him. And speaking of dudes just standing around. Don’t belfs own chairs?
• Ulduar – After taking down XT and Kologarn, not much stopping you from just jumping down into the pit and getting jiggy with Yogg. Well, aside from the invisible barrier that forces you to go the long way, but it is not mentioned as part of the lore.

The common thread here is that you have a bunch people standing around scratching their butts, doing nothing but looking decorative until a bunch of mercenaries comes along to rob them.  You don’t have to kill off Moroes³ – he doesn’t drop a key. You don’t have to kill off Putricide ⁴ to get to the Lich King. Notwithstanding game mechanics, why exactly is Ignis standing around? What is the purpose of Aran, other than fleshing out some lore that didn’t, really, exist? 

While this is coming off as a rant against how artificial and contrived the circumstances of most raid bosses are constructed, it is intended as praise for Dragon Soul.

The five-mans leading up to it, while somewhat contrived and confusing at times, do actually link up to the raid elegantly.  The escort quest at the end exists for a reason (as any raider knows, the front door is blocked). And, granted, the "echoes" do fall into the "contrived bad dude just standing around thinking bad dude thoughts" trope, but the next instance in the chain more than makes up for it in integrating the bosses into the story. ⁵

The only raid-related boss issue in this case are Zonza and Ballchucker.  They exist only to be beaten and looted. They serve no part of the story other than to stand around and look lootish. Had they been integrated better⁶ I’d have no complaint, but they weren’t. They block nothing, unlock nothing, drop nothing related to the story⁷. They are Miscellaneous Bad Dudes. In holes.

But, overall, the endgame for this expansion has proven to be far superior to what we’ve seen before.  I don’t know how much of an actual story that MoP will have. If it does, I hope they improve on the linear story-based raid instance over the collection-of-loot-piñatas rogues gallery approach. It was a lot more fun and a lot more interesting.

1. Minus Deathwing, which Grimm is working diligently on. [↩]
2. Oh, and before a "fix" in 3.0.2, you didn’t even have to do any of the lower castle stuff – you could go straight to Curator if you didn’t want loot. [↩]
3. Within the story line – I’m not counting locked doors suddenly popping open, which isn’t the case here anyway. [↩]
4. Ditto. [↩]
5. Plus, bare-chested Nelf Illidan has to count for something in somebody’s scorebook. Flora like. [↩]
6. "To get to the temple, you must take this tunnel, heroes! And beware the Faceless Ones!"  I dunno, that was too easy. Should Fargo send me a check? [↩]
7. While I love it so, loot doesn’t count for this discussion. [↩]

This past evening I achieved level 85, on the very last quest of the very last quest line in Uldum. Well, barring the questlines that go into the instances there.  That was pretty spiffy, actually, one of those precision landings you usually hear about over a cup of mulled wine in the tavern.  So, the next time I start questing, I’ll be jumping straight in to Twilight Highlands, rather than dealing with loose ends.

Hey, by the way – Flora informs that there are Deepsea Sagefish pools up there now. Casters rejoice!

Speaking of questing; Meta observes that after hitting 85 in a Hunter, Warlock, and Mage, that questing with a priest just seems lonely. Aside from my mana beastie and my evil clones, ’tis true, I don’t keep much in the way of company out there. I wonder if this is true of other multi-classed altaholics out there?  Is this a common feeling, that something missing when out and about as a pet-less toon?  I personally don’t get it; the fuss and mess seems like it would be a pain.

I’ve availed myself of the Transmorgrification services now being offered. While it is true that this is the same robe that The Dark Father was wearing when we caught him swinging for the other team, it has also long been the regalia of followers of the Light for decades. I wear them proudly.¹

The great thing about this service is that you have it if you want it, and if you don’t, then you can ignore it. Oh, some people couldn’t manage to keep quiet if anyone was enjoying themselves, but we have the word troll for a reason. As Flora says, haters gonna hate. I dig it, so do a few of us. Grimm’s not so thrilled, but at least he can replace that horrible helm with some stylish engineering goggles. He says it’s Engineering Pride. Best to just nod, smile, and call for another pint.

Side note: I have a theory that if the game artists would spend more time wearing the ghastly things they foist on us as "tier gear", we’d see a lot more realistic patterns emerge. The elegant simplicity of the Black Ash Robe or the Robe of Power stands out as a far better pattern than anything I’ve seen on the tier vendors’ racks for years. 

And don’t get me started on head pieces. You know what? Guys, don’t eliminate the ranged slot. Eliminate the head slot. Because you guys just can’t do it. Again, try wearing the T8 Turtleneck of Doom. Just for a day. My private theory?  All helms are designed to scare the bejeezus out of other players in PvP.  Only that joke got old real fast and now they’re stuck trying to service the same tired ideas that never worked in the first place.

Incidentally, I’d like to thank the interface designers for the "hide helm" flag. You have no idea.

Anyway.

I’ve been working on and off on a long post about how to succeed at the Glyph business without being one of those annoying "gobbo" types, but it keeps meandering off into a step by step how-to.  Got to go back to formula on that one. Soon, I promise.

So, we’re a bit content-free at the moment, apologies for that.  Grimm’s full of gloom and woe, Flora’s all excited about Firelands, and I’m just now making 85. Until I get my big project finished, I don’t have much to talk about.

Looking forward, I might heal if I can get some guinea pigs lined up for instances.  It’s been over a year since I last healed, and last night marks the first time I even logged out as Disco.

Time may not heal all wounds, but it at least makes you forget where they came from some times.

1. And, yes, the signature image is now horribly out of date. [↩]