Warlords Closing Thoughts

The Legion prepatch is upon us and Warlords of Draenor came out 11/13/14. Perhaps a more relevant piece of information to note would be that the most recent major patch came out 6/23/15, or over a year ago. Just wanted to start out with that.

Legion is set to release August 30th, 2016. Last year, er, a year and a half ago, I was prepped, ready, and roaring to go. I had enough of Mists and while I was still playing nearly every day, I was ready for some new monsters to kill and pixels to loot.

While I am still very ready for some new monsters to kill and pixels to loot, the "preparation" for this expansion has been dramatically different. I have not been playing every day, I am very much not prepared, and I haven't exhausted every possible piece of playable content in Warlords. The reason being that Warlords was rather disappointing.

especially this thing

The Grand Garrison Mistake

As of this moment, I simply cannot stand my garrison. Just a few moments of walking around in my garrison reminds me that I'm sick of it and I'm sick of Warlords.

That's just how I feel. I'm sure not everyone does, but I'm definitely not the only person. But why? What did they get wrong?

Garrisons were a decent idea that got implemented poorly. There is one particular aspect of garrisons that is not only a problem on its own, but caused a huge problem in Warlords entirely.

Jungles, Shipyards, and Orcs Oh My

So 6.2 came out yesterday. This was me, today, on Wednesday.

zeroed in on the druid changes

Yesterday, I went on a day trip and played MH4U, forgetting there was a huge patch. So, I dove in today.

I updated my addons, - except for Master Plan since it wasn't updated and doesn't work and my life is in shambles - half assed some of my garrison chores, and built a shipyard. I'm killing orcs in Tanaan Jungle, and vaguely remembering that there was something about being able to fly.

pigeons?

I didn't read up a lot on the new patch. Honestly, I haven't been keeping up to date with what's coming in and going out in patches for awhile. This is the biggest patch of Warlords so far, and here is an exhaustive list of what I knew about it before today:

• A meta-achievement to grant flying but apparently not yet or something
• Timewalking and relevant weekends (which I wrote about)
• Tanaan Jungle, supposedly kinda like Timeless Isle
• New raid instance
• Shipyards are a thing

Funnily enough, I've really been looking forward to 6.2. Not for anything in particular really, since I haven't been paying that much attention, but for a dive into some (hopefully) exciting new content.

The Flying Scapegoat

The flying restriction in Draenor is one of the biggest controversial topics in the game to date. From the moment it was announced until now and guaranteed into the future, there has been heated discussion on the topic.

this thread was started in March of 2014 and was only just recently locked at 2241 pages

One of the opinions I see that a lot of pro-flyers share is that not being able to fly keeps them cooped up inside of their garrison. They feel that without the freedom to soar over inconsequential enemies and mountains to head to their exploration or farming destinations, they have no desire to leave their garrison at all.

It's my amateur opinion that being flying restricted isn't actually the cause of this garrison-hermitism, and I'm going to tell you why.

I Think I Hate Garrisons

Garrisons, as a functional mechanic, are pretty cool. I am the commander of my own little army of duders who go out and get me gold and loot, I can make them work for me or follow me around, and I build workshops and gardens in my own little outcrop of Frostfire Ridge.

I am master of my domain

I found no fault with garrisons as Warlords made its first impressions. I wrote before about how I actually love follower missions. I thought garrisons were cool and I found that they were entirely optional if you wanted them to be. I was in favor of them as a non-stressful daily activity that gave you access to a lot of cool stuff.

I haven't been playing a lot lately, but I've started to notice something when I do log in.

I hate my garrison.

Warcraft - Obligation Free

I've been playing WoW infrequently lately, so when I do log on, I don't "have time" to do my garrison chores on all my alts or make sure I go get all my seals for the week on my 100s. I don't want to sit in queue for LFR for my runes and looking for heroic raid pugs is usually too much of a pain to even consider as an option. Instead, I just do whatever I feel like.

ooOoOoO I'm the ghost of Thunder Bluff!

It feels odd.

Minion Swarms - Call an Exterminator Today!

So, I've been really into my garrison and, particularly, very interested in my followers. I've already discussed why I find them so entertaining, if you'd like to take a look here. In short, I enjoy the idea of putting together a good team full of various ability counters and traits, along with leveling them all up to epic and gearing them to be a formidable force to destroy my enemies.

As such, I've been timing my availability around being able to do the most amount of missions. I won't start long missions until I will be gone for awhile or asleep and I'm using garrison resources pretty liberally to put followers on every mission possible, even when the resource to experience gain ratio is pretty bad. I've been putting a lot of effort into leveling these guys and getting them to epic quality. However, I've come across a particular issue each time one of them becomes epic quality.

Addon Highlights - Master Plan

Addon Highlights are back! I originally stopped writing these due to the upcoming expansion release, not wanting to suggest any addons that would end up being abandoned or non-functioning after WoD release. Now that addon developers are on track, it's time to start it up again!

Today's feature is my favorite new garrison related addon, Master Plan.

Edited to note: Master Plan has changed a lot since I wrote this. It's being constantly updated, which is great! But that means it doesn't quite look or operate the exact same as when this post was written.

World of Clash of Clans - Now on Android!

put your follower tokens into the loot slot machine!

I've noticed a lot of discussion about follower missions being uninteresting. The whole process is reminiscent of a time-gated mobile app game that doesn't actually require you to "play" or interact with the process in any way other than setting it into motion.

While I can see where they are coming from with their opinion, I think that one of the biggest things keeping people from enjoying the aspect of follower missions is that they aren't looking at it from within the game.

What I mean from this is people are looking at follower missions as a drag and drop UI function that spits out gold and loot rather than what it represents.

A Healer's Best Friend

As I've mentioned before, I play a balance druid - and have for quite awhile. From the release of the dungeon finder tool until a bit before patch 6.0.2, I used my offspec to tank and get instant queues, but I decided to switch things up this time around, so my dedicated Warlords offspec is restoration.

It's more convenient - I can use all the same gear and consumables - but I also have to remember what mana is and get used to remembering to carry water. On that note, though, there is an amazing item that I just can't get over how good it is.