I am not a noob by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe that there is nobody who plays this game that knows everything there is to know about WoW. Yet again I am left bewildered by my lack of knowledge, which now I am informed and knowledgeable I will of course share with you.
I have recently levelled up character number 8, a Ret Pally (for levelling purposes). The 3rd of my Plate wearers, and due to the reduction in the amount of XP required to level, means that I only got part of the way into Townlong Steppes. The result is that rings and trinkets and some gear is only iLevel 414 or 429 if I was lucky. My first step when hitting the level cap is to buy the iLevel 458 PvP gear and then start from that point in the quest for more gear.
My Warrior Blacksmith seemed to be a little off the pace in terms of recipes, with no Epic iLevel 478 recipes or the iLevel 458 PvP gear. A quick glance at Crafters Tome revealed that the recipes for the Epic gear resided with the Klaxxi Quartermaster. Originally the rep grind for the main character was bad enough without having to do it again on an Alt. Of course now it only takes 45 minutes to do a handful of Klaxxi quests to get to Honored status. The Klaxxi are a weird bunch who prefer Sapflies to real currency and the Quartermaster likes the unusual Kyparite as payment for his secret recipes. You may have seen them, but if you are like me you would have no idea what it was used for.
Living Steel Belt Buckle
Ghost Reaver's Breastplate
Ghost Reaver's Gauntlets
Living Steel Gauntlets
Living Steel Breastplate
Gauntlets of Ancient Steel
Breastplate of Ancient Steel
Also there was the Masterwork iLevel 463 Weapons which I did not know existed:
Masterwork Forgewire Axe
Masterwork Ghost Shard
Masterwork Ghost-Forged Blade
Masterwork Phantasmal Hammer
Masterwork Spiritblade Decimator
All the recipes cost 20 Kyparite (12x20 = 240 Kyparite) + 40 Kyparite for every weapon.
Suddenly I was looking at 18 stacks of Kyparite for 3 weapons and all the recipes, and this is a resource that I have seldom seen. This was confirmed by the Auction House only having 3 stacks available for sale.
Further research was needed to discover the spawn points for Kyparite and then a long old fashioned farming expedition across 2 zones was required.
One of the early problems with crafting in the Mists of Pandaria expansion was the shortage of Spirit of Harmony. This was easily supplemented early on by the Sunsong Ranch, but with the awkward micro management involved in running a farm on multiple characters, means that once the farm is fully functioning, most people actually stop using it. I have bucket loads of Spirit of Harmony but not all on the character that might need it, and for this reason alone the Spirits should be Bind on Account not Soulbound. I have argued on many occasions that the introduction of Bind on Account was a good move by Blizzard, it as not been expanded as much as it should have.
I am only just discovering a part of the game that I should have been aware of 9 months ago, but this is due to the difficulties that have been faced by players with multiple characters.
One aspect of Blacksmithing that I have not been able to access is the new discovery system. Leatherworking and Tailoring seemed to have got lucky with the drops appearing on the day of the patch, Blacksmiths on the other hand need to kill a boss on the Island of Thunder. Not exactly fair, and even worse considering that I play my Warrior like a total noob. Hunter, Mage, Shaman, Death Knight would have no problem but I do not get on with Warriors at all.
I read lots of sites about WoW but I am still unsure at what steps I need to do to face the boss Itoka and the game gives no indication of what I should do. I am not asking for easy mode, just some in game guidance would be a start, and sometimes go to WoW Head is not an adequate answer.
How much outside research should we have to do to play this game?
Itoka's just a quest mob, albeit an uncommonly strong one. You can walk over to the forge and kill him. If you don't know where he is and don't feel like exploring, just do the daily quest chain on the Isle of Thunder. You'll always be sent to kill him after a few sets of quests.
ReplyDeleteYour post brings to mind the PvP vendors in Mists. No icon on the map, at launch. No breadcrumbs. Hidden inside two out of a dozen nearly identical and otherwise empty buildings on the Serpent's Spine. At least, with the integrated JP/VP vendors there was a quest that'd send you to where they stood around. Not to *them*, of course, because why would anyone care about the vendors?
Different Anon.
ReplyDeleteYep, I've struggled with this very question quite a bit lately based on comments others have made... should you HAVE to do research outside of the game to play it competently? For normal gameplay purposes like yours I'd hope not and I do think Blizzard has more work to do in that direction. Mind you, they'd probably tell you to just ask in General if you don't want to consult outside resources and that's probably a valid response... that is what General should be for.
In the case of your particular situation, that wouldn't happen to me because the first thing I do when I encounter a new faction is to find their Quartermaster and to see if they have anything of interest to me (on that toon or others). I might have to track down the QM outside of the game but generally it isn't hard to find them. I also quest through all of the zones during the leveling process the first time through to try and make sure I do touch all of the factions... finishing up zones is a task I leave to subsequent toons.
Itoka can be a bit of a pain, you might ask someone in-game to help you out with him... once you kill him and loot the quest item (no quest required, it just shows up on his body for a Blacksmith and, last I checked, keeps appearing on subsequent kills even if you can't loot it anymore), from there just follow the quest that you're given. Then do daily transmutes for 3 months to get all of the PvP/i522 recipes. Buy up cheap Ghost Iron whenever possible, you'll need quite a bit, at 10 bars a day it adds up quickly. :)
Thank you very much for the advice.
ReplyDeleteI was vaguely aware of a cheat that allowed people into the area by climbing up the hillside from the coastal side, before all the areas were opened during the Isle of Thunder patch. From this point of view I was aware of the existence of Itoka.
Nothing in game informs you of this fact, and if you have Blacksmithing on your main character then you would probably encounter Itoka from just progressing your character. In my case, it is just another alt, with incomplete recipes, and the way the game is going, I would not be surprised to see Crafting removed from the game.
In Cata I learned every Epic gem cut, and never saw the uncut gems in order to cut any. That is a lot of dailies for no extra benefit. I would love to craft some i522 Leatherworking gear, but the raid drops/ingredients required are in such short supply and hugely expensive that it is not worth crafting something that cost 30K Gold just to buy the materials.
Thanks for the tip about Ghost Iron, most it is being transmuted at the moment, so I need to maintain my stockpiles.
Thanks for all the advice, I will complete in the near future, now that my gear is better.