After leveling in Pandaria, you’ll want to go to Draenor. If, like me, you have a pretty much full set of Heirlooms, level to 91 before you go so you’ll take advantage of your heirlooms. When switching campaigns, they need one more level to catch up. But with the XP boost they give, putting on a level or 2 is easy. I only did about 1/2 of Pandaria and it was mostly to get the gear styles for transmog. So I took a Death Knight at 91 to Draenor, and he did fine in terms of survivability. But, it’s a drag to not fly.
I built my Garrison and using the Wow-Pro guides was able to finish Shadowmoon Valley. But then Legion went on sale and I went for it.
Draenor Pathfinder
Well, why not get flight? It’s called Draenor Pathfinder. Account wide flight in Draenor from the git-go for all your toons. But’s gonna be much easier to get it with a Demon Hunter, isn’t it. I had started a Demon Hunter and they are Over Powered Killing machines. I had one that I’m leveling in Azuna, but it seemed best to build a second one and leave right away for Draenor.
So I did the starting area with a Blood Elf DH and then just enough quests to get my Avatar Weapon. Not even 101 yet, so I wasn’t wearing the Heirlooms yet. That’s ok, I should be good at 100 with Demon Hunter starting gear. Now for Dranor Pathfinder:
I decided to get Explorer out of the way by itself. So that took about a day and a half. Then I decided to work on Loremaster and Master Treasure Hunter at the same time. So with Wow-Pro for the quests and DranorTreasures addon for the treasures, I polished off those two in about three days. Questing and finding treasure is fun. And having all the flight points or almost all of them since Explorer was already done was a big help. Draenor is lovely, as you can see.
You’ll want to get Archeology for some of the treasures. But that’s no problem. The TalonPriest that is showing you around in Spires of Arak when you get there is a trainer and you can just pay some gold to train up to max level of Archeology. There are a few interesting jumping puzzles to get the treasure. Be sure and look up how to do them. Don’t waste a lot of time trying to figure them out. You’ll soon get the hang of how to walk on ropes. Demon Hunter is great for the jump and glide mechanics of the class as well as the Spirit Sight to see those treasures that are hidden. Demon Hunters are the best class to get Draenor Pathfinder.
The Assaults
I was nervous about doing the Assaults. I had already done Bonus Events that you run across. So I was familiar with the mechanics of those. Progress bar and lots of flexibility. Demon Hunters can pretty easily solo all but the heaviest Elites. I looked at an elite and if it’s HP was 2 or 3 times mine I could solo it. But watch it. There are some that are 10 times you HP. And there is one place that two heavy weights are fighting each other. So you need a bunch of folks to taken them down. Just move on. There are plenty more.
But back to the Assaults.
Turns out that they are no big deal. And with 7.3, you can purchase all of them, even The Pit, from your quartermaster. Just get the missive and go do it. They are all soloable at 102 on a DH, which is where I was when I did them. Just be careful in the Pit. It’s the only one where there are a bunch of mobs together and if you aggro too many, you’re dead.
But there is plenty to do in the Pit to avoid those groups. And the rest are no problem at all. The mobs are so spread out that you don’t need a tank. They are all easily done, probably by any class solo. We’ll see. Assault on Skettis was the only one with a strange mechanic. You’re saving Outcasts not really killing lots of mobs. Just kill for keys and let them go. That’s the easiest one.
All the Assaults in less than a day. More time worrying about them and doing research, that was no help, then it took to do them.
But I’m Out of Garrison Resources
It costs about 2400 GR to do the assaults and I started with 3700 or so. So I am down to 1300. Not enough to upgrade my Garrison to level 2 to progress to Tanaan. Bummer.
Grind? Quest? How do I get those GR? at 30 or less for follower missions it’s gonna take forever. Bonus? No redo on those and they don’t drop them. Dailies? Those drop Apexis Crystals, not GR. So I’m screwed.
No wait! Huge Ogre Cache? 1000GR? only 1100G or there abouts? No Problem!!!
These are rewards for some kill or daily or something. And there are lots on the Auction House. So no problem. I bought them in Undercity where I had a toon standing around near the Heirloom vendor and then mailed them to the Demon Hunter in Draenor.
Wheew… Time to build a ship and head to Tanaan!!
Wait? What? Now the guide is pointing to something 6500 yards away? I thought we were going to assault the shore on a ship? After all, we went there and fought to find a shipwright to build the ship. Aren’t we gonna use it?
Turns out not. We are going to fly directly to the jungle. And the flight isn’t even free like most are that take you to a new quest area. bummer.
And after landing, fighting the bad guys in a “bonus event” then running around in the dark jungle to find our scouts, we find our Garrison in Tanaan and can begin the dailies to get the Revered with the three factions to get Draenor Pathfinder. More on that later. Research indicates that I have about 3 weeks work to get Revered with the three factions.
Sigh.
Woops. Wait. Fly where?
So now we have to fly all the way back to Shattrath and kill someone? I don’t know. That’s for tomorrow. But I made it to Tanaan. I guess. And if I never use that ship before I get flight, I don’t care.
Features of Draenor with No Future
My Alts are only gonna do as much of Draenor as they need to level up and move on to Legion. And they are soon going to be able to fly while doing that. No more treasure hunting, no more Assaults etc. Just some questing and bonuses. No Real Replay Value. Just like Pandaria. Blow By It on the Way Up. I was at level 90 and running for the Shrine of the White Tiger shortly after the Jade Forest with several toons. That’s what Heirlooms do. I did some other areas in Pandaria for the Transmog appearances, but once you’ve done that, you have them. No reason to go back.
Unfortunately the same is true of Draenor. It’s a shame that the game designs in WoD have no longevity for future Campaigns. Just like all the complexity of Avatar weapons in Legion too. What’s going to happen to Avatar Weapons in Campaign 8.0 whatever they call it?
IMHO, Blizzard needs to think ahead to what will happen to the shiny new feature when the next Campaign comes out. It seems that they didn’t think about whether they wanted to continue with Garrisons beyond Draenor. Now we are beyond, and they are useless. No way to carry all those followers forward into Legion or the buildings or the ships. No reason to build them or grind them or level them or whatever. Sad. They might be cool if I had any reason to use them to help in the future.
:ww
Windy Weather 