Death (Knight) Comes to Maldraxxus

 I don't think I'll write up each character's journey, but as long as I have notes about them I like, here they are.

Kat is my "main" Death Knight. As a  Worgen, she has a couple of skills I have other names for I always have wanted to share, but just didn't have the right spot.  At Atheren's Azeroth, all things are considered.

 

The DK ability "Death Grip" wherein you pull your enemy towards you as if they're on a rope is called

"Rope A Dope."   There you are.

Darkflight, which gives the character a little speed boost is called "Scooty Foot".  I really miss that ability on my non-Worgen Death Knights.

Kat was feeling "squishy" early on in Bastion.  The term squishy has been in my mind with various characters as I've played through.  Usually you hear the term in dungeons.  The Healer is telling the Tank they're squishy (cruddy armor, hard to heal) just before they leave the dungeon.

She made it through the Theater of Pain intro faster than any other character so far, and is having no troubles in fights, so her squishy days are over.  She's Frost, not Blood.  In the old days, I used to run my DK's as Blood through the world but switched to Frost in dungeons because I didn't want to tank.

Now I just work with Frost, no matter how they tweak it up and down.

This is the third character I've run from the Theater of Pain to Plague Watch.  Already I'm twitching at the doing the sequences in the House of the Chosen.  

 

I cannot stand the layout of the place.  It's possible I missed them, but there aren't what I call "amenities" here. No mailbox, flight point (it's nearby but not in the House), vendors, places to craft.  There's a Blacksmith supplier for repairs and selling junk.  As the first place you land, it could have more.

 

Once you're out of the House, it's all good.  The character can gather resources, kill beasties, look for fish!  Kat gathers minerals and herbs.  I've no Marrowroot Alchemy Recipes, but that spawns in Maldraxxus like mad.  Next most frequent is Nightshade. There's very little Death Bloom so far, which is used in everything.  I have to consider not sending a character here who is an herbalist if they can't find what's needed.

Kat found fish!!!!

Some Lost Sole Fish, a couple Elysian Thade, and the ever desirable Pocked Bonefish! At last.  Cooking advanced with her nice catch.

This green slimy water looks like all the green slimy water in the area, but never give up, never surrender.

Maldraxxus: On The Hunt

 

My Hunter was the next to work her way through the initial quests of Maldraxxus.  She's got Skinning and Herbalism.

Her glamour shot.

 Tell me a story, Primus.

Cool remnant battle. What is that ray gun like effect coming from her weapon?

I've got more than the usual desire to collect pets, so I've been checking creatures as they're encountered.

Right away there's this cool skeletal dog called a Darkhound Hunter.  Agh!  "You can't tame Undead".

https://www.wowhead.com/news/tame-undead-pets-with-the-simple-tome-of-bone-binding-from-maldraxxus-319411

First it was the Mechanicals in Elwynn.

Then some Feathermane type beast in Bastion.  Apparently you had to get this in Legion as you worked through your Order quests!

 

Here's the thing with Legion.  You have to start it at low level or you blast right through it.  I had another Hunter who was working in Legion at level 106 before the squish.  She got squished to level 42, right.  Despite this, in order to get Legion dungeon queues, she had to go to Chromie to pick Legion as her time period.  How maddening that the game doesn't realize where you actually are in the world doing your quests.  In any case, she barely made progress on her Order Hall when she leveled past the area and off to Shadowlands.

I've set a low level Hunter on Blackwater Raiders to go to Legion and try to get the needed pet tomes.  Hope it works! 

There has to be some mechanism to slow things down so you can actually complete  the content for the eras you want to work in.

I really enjoyed Not All Hunters run through the various expansions.

https://notallhunters.wordpress.com/2021/03/02/neighborhood-of-warcraft/

I'm running characters through various areas of content, including just the classic starter areas.  I did not realize your progress slows to a stop at level 30 and you have to pick an expansion to play. Why?  I assumed you could, if you wanted to, just play through the game, including "the old world" any way you wanted.  That should be looked at.  It's false freedom if you can't play through the game anyway you'd like.

Back to my level 56 Hunter in Maldraxxus.

Cool undead dogs aside, you can tame quite a few things.  Ashen Wasps.  Virulent Pests (ugly bugs, but they do come in a variety of colors and patterns).

I tamed a Galescreamer Pup which was immediately renamed a Chimaera.  Why the rename?  This happened as well with a larger version, the Ravenous Galescreamer.  Of course the larger one immediately shrunk.  I wish they wouldn't do that either.

My Hunter went right over to fight Pestilence, that elite bug with the nice helmet drop.  So, my Cloth wearing Priest gets the helmet she can't use and it's Item Level 128.  My Mail wearing Hunter gets it, and it is Item Level 116.  Stink stank stunk.  Very frustrating!

The Hunter found no fish in this area of Maldraxxus either.  She did pick up Marrowroot as a new herb, and lots of leather bits from those leathery Virulent Pests.  How do they choose what creatures drop what?

Speaking of Pets, whenever I drop back to my early level characters I have them doing Pet Battles, but I'm a long way from taming anything high level.  Just think, this Maggot could be mine!

I've run into two small creatures that aren't Battle Pets that are just adorable.  Why couldn't they be Battle pets?

Run, tiny bird, run.   He's like a little Road Runner.

This Larion Cub! Look at that face!

Meraine Conquers Maldraxxus (sort of)

 This Priest was actually the first character I created on Blackwater Raiders, and she was meant to be the main character there.

That didn't happen, but thanks to my decision to keep all my characters together way back in BFA, she was second to last to finish Bastion, but she has forged ahead of everyone else in Maldraxxus.

Easy peasy victory in the Theater Of Pain (where it turns out your character is invulnerable).

Not much trouble in The Iron Trench.

Got her newly forged weapon in a trice.   So fierce.

I like her zone and class abilities here, better than Bastion.  I had thought she was thematically a good fit for Bastion, but maybe she truly does have a warrior within.

One of the exciting things about being in a new area is, new meaty meats for cooking (Creeping Crawler Meat, yum), and I was hoping for the Bonefish for a recipe earned in cooking while in Bastion, but no Bonefish there.  This joint is full of bones.  Naturally I tried the first thing that looked like a watery pool (though green and slimy).  No fishable water in that slime.  Boo hoo!

There is also a new metal to be found: Oxxein Ore.  Prospectors R Us.

I still love the skellies in green flesh suits here in Maldraxxus.  So does Meraine, as it turns out.

I'm liking she can handle everything she comes across.  She even handled an elite bug called Pesticide all on her own, and was disappointed to see the reward was a 128 Mail head piece. Waahhh. Why couldn't it have been something dropping for your character's class?

Korrim the Weasel below.  Blah blah blah he said as he was dying.  Go go go!

She is stopping at Plague Watch, and everyone else will move along to that spot.  Konga line play ftw.

Maldraxxus or Bust

 

 I keep thinking I should wait till all my Blackwater Raiders characters have moved on to Maldraxxus from Bastion, so I don't write anything.

Nine of the twelve are all set up in Maldraxxus, with three about halfway through Bastion.  The last three are my Priest, Shaman and Monk.

The only class I've found to be challenging to play is my Rogue (Assassin).  She has such tough fights.  I haven't had any problems playing that character in ages.

The Frost DK was a little fuzzy too until I changed her talents and rotations to match my Proudmoore DK. 

The strongest characters are my Destruction Warlock, Fire Mage, Feral Druid, Retribution Paladin, and my Windwalker Monk. 

All the crafting characters go through first.

I bounce to other characters and servers so I don't go buggy with repetition between leveling these.

At first I had a grand plan to play various time eras with sets of characters elsewhere.  Now, however, I find I like so much having all of my characters working together, in the same era, particularly in the current era.  So I've moved all of my Proudmoore and Earthen Ring characters to Boralus, and I'll level them to 50, then off to the Shadowlands they go.

Except for a level 17 Warrior on Proudmoore I leveled to 35 in a couple of days just doing classic dungeons, I'm doing no dungeons.  

Leveling is too fast already, I can't afford to zoom anyone along any faster.  We'll see if I crack later.

Going through my head all the time is which characters to send to what Covenants.  I have to have at least one in each, as they said at Blizzcon...to see the stories play out in each one.

I confess by now I'm curious to see how the Forsworn are taken down or re-instated to the Purpose. I'm now fond of a few characters in Bastion. Dunno.

Blah blah, that's all I got.  Pictures next time.