Archive for the ‘Mounts’ Category
Flying Death Trap and Engineering in 3.2
To commemorate earning my epic flyer, I went out and gathered/bought the parts for a Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, which you can see here. It’s nice, but I’d rather have a drake or something. lol It doesn’t feel as slick as my gryphon does.
In other news, I spent part of this morning in Sholozar Basin, mining Saronite Ore, snatching up gas clouds I passed and hoping for the odd Titanium node. I left, about an hour or so later, with 25 bar’s worth of Saronite, one bar’s worth of Titanium, a couple of Eternal Earth, Eternal Fire, and an Eternal Air, plus a handful of gems and crystallized elements. I’d call that a successful trip. I’ve now got 45 bars of Saronite that I have nothing to use on. Oh well. The Titanium, on the other hand, I want. I need seven more bars of Titanium, an extra Eternal Water and and another Crystallized Air to make a second Eternal Air by the time patch 3.2 hits. Why, you ask? Because the new Wormhole Generator: Northrend thingy for engineers will require eight Titanium bars and two units each of Eternal Fire, Earth, Water and Air. It’ll sit pretty in my inventory next to my Ultrasafe Transporters for Gadgetzan and Toshley’s Station, which, by the way, will no longer have to be swapped into trinket slots in the new patch. You can just use ‘em right from your bags. Nice, huh? Another perk that nearly slipped by me is that the Nitro Boosts that I have on my boots will last a full five seconds come the patch, vice the current two. I’d not have known this except for I was tooling around on the PTR and engaged them for the heck of it, and they lasted so long I thought it was a glitch. Funny how five seconds can feel like an eternity. The two second boost wasn’t really worth the effort, but five seconds is much more useful. Now if they’d only cut the cooldown some.
Am I Blue?
Well, there she is. My new Swift Blue Gryphon. Nice, huh? Man, this thing is sweet. I’m dashing through the skies with no problem now. Shed no tears for the death of the econo-mount.
It was between the blue and the purple gryphon, but I figured less people would laugh at me with a blue one. lol
Anyway… I’m going to go play with my new toy for a while. I’ll check back in later.
…
Maybe.
Thank You, Random Purple Drop!
Have you ever had a time where you’ve waited for something, talked about it allot, but by the time it comes, you don’t need it anymore? Yeah. That’s going to be me with the econo-mount speed boost. I was doing a ton of quests in Icecrown on Saturday night for the Blades of the Ebon Hand when I came upon Wapach’s Spaulders of Solidarity. These things are sweet, and I was about to put them on when I noticed that my Auctioneer mod said that they would sell for a good 4k gold. I stopped, read that about four times, and promptly went to Ironforge to put them up for sale. Well, someone bought them. I already had over a thousand gold on me, so that, plus the 4k+ I sold the spaulders for, and I’m finally gonna ditch my econo-mount. Yes! What color Swift Gryphon will I opt for? I’ll let you know when it happens.
On the PTR, At the Tournament
I paid a visit to the new Argent Tournament grounds on the PTR last night, and here is a pic of them. I cruised around and snooped, but not allot got done. I really couldn’t do any quests, since I wasn’t even a Valiant with the Tournament yet. Why? Well…
I’m kinda not playing as Gav on the PTR right now. He’s yet to make the transfer, so I opted to test drive a premade level 80 Draenei Hunter, who came complete with a kick-ass set of gear and a Spirit Beast pet. Oh, and a Bronze Drake. Man, this thing is sweet. It’s really, really fast compared to Gav’s current gryphon (280% speed increase on the Drake versus 60% on the gryphon). The gryphon will be up to 150% once I get Gav into the PTR thanks to included changes, so I’ll be a little over half as fast, rather then just a third as fast. Add my Crusader Aura and it’s 20% speed increase to the equation, and I’ll be just 110% slower, rather then 200%. Yeah… makes it sound all better, doesn’t it?
*Sigh*
In other PTR news, there seems to be a little glitch at the Tournament.
Fordring! What the hell happened to ya, man?!
Mount Up Much Earlier
Ok, I’m more then a little miffed now. There’s a huge change in the upcoming patch 3.2 that I don’t agree with. Mount training levels are being altered. Here’s a rundown.
- Regular land mounts will be trainable at level 20 instead of 30
- Epic land mounts will be available at level 40 instead of 60
- Regular flying mounts will be available at level 60 instead of 70
- Regular flying mounts speed has been buffed from 60% to 150%
This irritates me on a number of levels. I understand the concept: help people level their alts faster and remove tedium from the early game, getting people to the new content faster. However, I dislike this concept. Mounts being trainable at 20 is a little early. I thought level 30 was perfect; halfway to the Outlands, you get your mount. I also think that level 70 was ideal for a flying mount. I don’t see how anyone can enjoy the Outlands when they’re just flying from point A to point B, skipping all of the sights and sounds below.
I can hear people crying now; “I’ve done all this before, and I don’t want to have to slog my alt through all of the old content again! This is a great change that will speed this up!” However, it takes out of account those who are just beginning. What of those for whom this would be how they would first experience the Outlands? As much as I love flying, I think having to go by land for your first time through content is paramount to getting the most out of it.
Here’s my compromise. Make these level changes something akin to the Death Knight. For example, once you hit a certain level, say level 70, you trigger a flag that allows you to enable the rushed mount level changes. Prior to getting your first avatar to that level, you have to go the old way. I think that this solves both problems. It’s probably not perfect, but it’s a start. Does anyone have a better idea?
Made it in 28 Minutes, 45 Seconds!
That’s how long it took Gav, with his Charger mount and Crusader Aura to ride straight through from Booty Bay to Light’s Hope Chapel (including a quick flight from the Burning Steppes to the Searing Gorge, where there’s no foot path). I made the entire journey, more or less on foot, in under half an hour. I was curious how long it would take, and I’m both surprised and disappointed. Surprised in that it was a long, long ride and disappointed in that it was shorter then I had guessed. I started my timer as I entered the tunnel leaving Booty Bay in Stanglethorn Vale and ended it as I hit the steps at Light’s Hope Chapel. 28:45. Not bad, considering I took the road almost the entire trip, rarely skipping overland for shortcuts (mainly in the Western Plaguelands). Anyone want to best my record?
Flying Machines FTW
Gav’s up and away! Again! This time though, it’s in his own personal flying machine. I built it myself after finally hitting 350 on engineering and collecting all of the parts. It looks rickety as hell, though.
In the end, I spent about 150g on this machine, not including the 15g for the plans. Not bad, since it was estimated (by a mod I have) that it normally would have cost my nearly 300g. I was able to procure some sales at the AH, scrounge for some of the parts and build the rest myself. Yay!
The Great Alliance Stand
I was in Ironforge this morning, taking a much-needed break from the stress of Dragonblight, when stress of another kind arose. The Horde was amassing a humungous raid in the Deep Run Tram, readying an attack on Ironforge. I was going to ignore it and continue my trip to the lower level areas to buy up some racial mounts I didn’t have yet but… I couldn’t. I had to go look. What you see above is the raid rebuff, prepared in Tinkertown to hold off the attack. Hold it off we did, too. I didn’t see any losses on our side, and no Horde made it in to Ironforge proper. We held a little celebration, killed off a few rezzing stragglers, and I helped by going to the front lines of the battle (as seen to the right). I didn’t get credit for my efforts though, which was frustrating. My hammer of wrath helped kill a few hordies, but no credit came my way. Oh well. I went into the tram for a scout, and when I came out I got caught off guard by a few coordinated resurrecting hordies and was killed. I grumped and griped about getting no kills and then dying to boot, all the way back to my corpse.
Once rezzed, I healed myself up and took part in some random banter. I again went to check in the tram, and there were some hordies in there, unflagged. I went and grabbed a few more allies and we tried to taunt them into attacking us. Haggle, the NPC leper gnome was doing a fine job on his own, though, sucker punching Roshi (a lvl 80 fury specced Tauren warrior) with aplomb. We laughed about it until I noticed a problem; each punch by Haggle, while doing almost unnoticeable damage, was building up Roshi’s rage meter. As I told everyone he flagged and we lay waste to him and his Blood Elf hunter partner. This time I got some credit, to the tune of 16 honor points, and after exchanging buffs with everyone I went on my way.
It was quite a time, to say the least. I’d never seen the Alliance organize and mobilize like that before. I was impressed, and at the same time proud to count myself among them (even if I didn’t get much credit). For the Alliance!
Take to the Skies!
Gav’s got his Flying Mount! It took a whole night’s work, with allot of dailies and a ton of mining, but hey! Gav’s airborne! In case you can’t tell, I’m proud of myself. lol As I write this I’m flying back to Shattrath from Shadowmoon Valley, and I’m enthused at how easy this makes mapping out zones. It’s also making my attempts at the Gaining the Advantage daily much easier. Flying mounts FTW.
I also discovered the Isle of Quel’Danas, which rocks. I’m going back there soon, too.
Quick complaint, though: I just flew over Stonebreaker Hold, and not only did those SOBs knock me out of the sky, nearly killing me (thanks again, bubble!), they flagged me for PVP as well! Why no one thought this worth warning a novice aviator of, I know not.
Mining, Riding and Buying
My new Swift Stormsaber and I chill in Darnassus. I ended up here after a quick cruise through the Search for Incendicite Ore quest with a guild member. I ran it once myself long ago, twice with guildies in my last guild (the late Champions Legion), and now once with one Scottlez in my current guild, Art of war. He was level 27 and would have been able to solo it but for one small problem: he wasn’t a miner. That’s where I came in. I recently learned to mine Fel Iron ore in the Outlands, so Incendicite ore was no big deal. I also one-hit most everything in there (a few took a sword swipe and one Retribution Aura hit, but that was rare). I also liked using my Divine Storm spell to nail a few at a time. In any case, he got his quest, a treasure chest and a piece of auctionable chest armor along with completing the quest. We had to hike to the wetlands from Ironforge because he was broke (which he didn’t tell me until we were almost there), so I gave him 40g after the quest and suggested he just fly home.
Back in the Outlands, I recently picked up the Halaani Claymore for about nine or so gold in Nagrand, which was a fraction of what a lesser weapon would have run me at the AH. I mean, 80.3 DPS? Improve critical strike? Sign me up! Much better then the Darkened Broadsword I was swinging (by almost 13 DPS!). This sword is almost cheating, it’s so easy to get. Not that I’m complaining, obviously.