106 Miles to Highmaul

I’m hopping into Highmaul when it opens tomorrow. I have to say that I felt more prepared of Moshu’gan Vaults than I do for Highmaul. I don’t know the exact timing on everything, but I’m pretty sure I had another week of preparation under my belt when we started MoP raiding, and I’m sure if I waited another week, I’d be better off. That said in MoP we started with what was the equivalent of today’s heroic difficulty. This time the starting difficulty bar is a bit lower. So me and my 633 ilvl are going in.

Neck and trinkets are my biggest gap right now. I’m working towards getting a Skull of War, but I’m hesitant to pay for one. In fact I’m hesitant to pay for anything right now because the prices on many things are extremely high. As such, I’ve been pushing myself to be self sufficient via alts. and their Garrisons. It’s a lot of work, and a lot of work orders.

Looking at my AH, prices on basic enchants are falling into the realm of reasonableness. These are all the “Breath of…” enchants. The prices on the “Gift of…” enchants are still through the roof. Unless you’re doing high-end progression, have lots of gold or are fanatical about squeezing every ounce of DPS out of your Hunter, there’s no point on picking up the “Gift of…” enchants and using them on disposable gear. I’ll make what basic ones I can, purchase the others and start out with a full set of enchanted gear.

Flasks and potions are affordable, but over the long haul it will be hard not lose gold just buying them alone. I’ll probably bite the bullet and purchase what I need for this week giving my Garrison operation a chance to get up to speed. Right now I’m trying to manage four Garrisons. One is level three and the others are level two. I have all the professions I need covered – Inscription, Alchemy, Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Herbalism, and Skinning.

I have one level three mine, three level two mines, and three level two herb gardens. Yeah, I’ve been busy.

Three of the Garrisons have an Enchanting building, and I’m giving serious thought to putting one in Dark’s Garrison. This would mean getting rid of my Engineering or Leatherworking building. I’m considering crafting legs for Dark, so I still need the building for mats. Scopes are sell for pretty high prices, so that’s a good reason to keep the Engineering building. I’ve already crafted a cloak as my first piece of gear, and the Skull of War will be my third.

My thinking behind the crafted pieces is I wanted to focus on items I thought would take longer to replace. If the Engineering gun had started out at ilvl 640 I would’ve made that, but upgrading it to 640 was more effort than I was willing to put in.

I don’t have any gear with gem slots, but Jewelcrafting is a train wreck right now. Prices for the the basic gems vary wildly, and the higher level gems are absurdly expensive. They’re absurdly expensive to make by the way.

Seals of Tempted Fate become available from the quest vendor, and they too will be expensive to acquire. No more stockpiling a six-month supply of coins. Now they cost gold, honor, Apexis Crystals or Garrison Resources. The free one from a level three Dwarven Bunker didn’t seem like that big a deal, but it kind of is. I’m low on Garrison Resources so my first seals will come from gold, honor and crystals. My Bunker is still level two. In the future I just might have to the spend some time in Ashran doing PvP, as honor is the least valuable currency for me.

It’s 106 miles to Highmaul, I’ve got a full tank of gas, half a six-pack of Darkbrew Lager, it’s dark, and I’m wearing sunglasses, well goggles – hit it!