A Shanker’s Tale: Wasting Away

The last stretch, for posts tagged “leveling”, at least! Welcome to the Dread Wastes, where everything is either a bug, a tree, or an elder horror themed for a negative emotion. An eclectic bunch, all in all.

The storyline here focuses heavily on the Klaxxi, a council of Mantid formed to protect their race’s interests by any means necessary, up to and including deposing their ruler. In this situation, with Empress Shek’zeer apparently

having been corrupted by the Sha and running the Mantid’s swarms in to the ground, it seems pretty necessary!

These guys have seen better days.

Through the zone you’re tasked with freeing the various Paragons, powerful Mantid who have been literally trapped in amber, preserving them for a great crisis in the future. I must say that I love the idea of a culture putting it’s mightiest heroes away for a rainy day, on the off chance that they’ll be needed to fight a mighty foe in the future. It’s basically the ultimate in crisis planning. All of the Paragons have a signature ability that they grant to you as a buff, ranging from the ability to mind control enemies, to being able to double jump. For bonus points, all of the abilities are named after heavy metal songs, mostly from the 80s. Stay cool, Klaxxi. Stay cool.

Having freed most of the Paragons, you’re sent off to a Pandaren settlement in the area. There, you meet back up with Chen Stormstout, who has come to the wastes in search of more Stormstouts. Unfortunately most of the ones he locates have been killed by the Mantid, though he does eventually locate a survivor. One of the questgivers here, a brewmaster, also manages to mistake a prophecy for a beer recipe. The beer it makes is predictably awful, though the Pandas don’t seem particularly bothered by it!

Overall, questing through Pandaria was excellent. It’s by far the best questing experience to date – lots of interesting quests, and the little quality of life improvements have made finding your way through a zone to completion much less stressful than it ever used to be.

 

Yeah.

Illirica is now level 90! I’m very much enjoying Roguery, and the level 90 talents have added to it noticeably. Marked for Death is my favourite so far, though Shuriken Toss is proving excellent in PvP, allowing me to keep damaging enemies even while rooted. Hitting level 90 also allowed me to address what had become known as the Junkbox Situation: the Pandarian junkboxes (acquired by pickpocketing) require a level 90 Rogue to open. Luckily they’re worth the wait, with each one containing several gold, rather than the handful of silver from previous junkbox types.

This is the end of the super-frequent Shanker’s Tale updates. I’ll probably relegate it to every couple weeks, or only when I have something notable to document. Thanks for joining me and Illirica on the trip from 1 to 90, folks!