A discussion of Nagrand, and Jeff Nash's exploits there in the past week as he levels his Blood Elf priest in the zone.

Newsletter

Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly.

Enter E-Mail Address Below:

Journeys in Azeroth XIV

As we get closer to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, I’ve been putting in some extra time with World of Warcraft. That being the case, I’ve decided to take up writing about my exploits in the game again on a semi-regular basis. In the last week, or so, I’ve blown the dust off of my old Blood Elf shadow priest, and been marching him up to 70. As of now, he’s just shy of level 65, doing a number of quests in Nagrand.

Of all the zones in the game, this is by far one of my favorite. It’s so open, and lush with vegetation and wildlife. The whole area is a welcome escape from the otherwise desolate landscapes found in Outlands. Terrokar Forest comes close, with all of its big, green trees, but then you hit the Bone Waste, and it’s like running around Desolace Mark II. As such, it was a welcomed change of pace to spend some time in Nagrand.

Advertisement

The quests in the zone are a lot of fun, and quite varied. I’m playing Horde right now, so my priest has mostly been running around doing stuff for the Mag’har orcs, while building a better reputation with the Consortium, and steadily culling the region’s wildlife for Hemel Nessingwary. Of all these quests, I’ve been getting a kick out

Advertisement

of helping out the Consortium simply because they’re such a bunch of bastards. Stealing gems, hunting Draenorian elephant tusks, and who knows what else as I get more and more into their good books, these guys don’t have a moral fibre in their ethereal bodies.

One group of quests that I have mixed feelings about are those handed out by the Nessingwary camp. First, one has to go on a trio of gruelling grind quests, each of which has players hunting 30 of a specific type of animal, then another 30 of these animals’ bigger, badder brethren. These quests are perfectly soloable, but they take a while, and it gets pretty darn monotonous killing the same thing over and over again. For the good of your sanity, it’s best to team up with others so to plough through the quests as quickly as possible. After these quests, things do get interesting, though. Next comes hunts for the boss mob of each species of animal previously hunted. These necessitate forming a party, as they have too many hit points, and hit way too hard to solo for most classes (especially my rather squishy priest). The early parts of the chain are darn monotonous, but the rewards at the end are very spiffy, so it’s leaving me torn on how much I actually like those quests.

The other bit of fun in the zone was fighting for control of Halaa, the neutral city in the centre of Nagrand that, if controlled by your faction, hands out a bunch of different rewards that one can get by trading in marks that they earn playing PvP against others in the opposite faction either trying to take or defend Halaa, combined with another type of mark that you can only get from a quest giver in the city. I couldn’t really get too much done, being a lowly 65 in a sea of 70s. Healing was doable, DOTing rogues was alright as long as they didn’t resist Shadow Word: Pain, and I’d try to Mind Flay when possible, but with a lot of high level players ensconced in PvP gear, going on the offensive was iffy. One moment that was funny, though, was when I died on one of the bridges leading into the city. When I went to do a corpse run, by the time I got back to my body, the battle on the bridge was particularly intense, so I waited until as many alliance players were around as possible before resurrecting. As soon as I was back in the fight, I used Psychic Scream, and feared a bunch of them off the bridge. There was water on the bottom, so they didn’t die, but I can only imagine the muttering under their breaths at their computers as they had to walk all the way back up, and around the hill to rejoin the battle.

Looking forward, though, I’m hoping to start doing the Greatmother quests, as I have a hankering to see the climax when Thrall visits Garadar at the end. Other than that, it’s a matter of finishing off this march to level 70. I’m hoping to have it done by the time we reach the next Alterac battlegrounds weekend. That leaves me with a few weeks, so hopefully I can pull it off.

Jeff Nash
July 10, 2008


PC \| DS \| Wii \| PlayStation 2 \| PlayStation 3 \| PSP \| Xbox \| Xbox 360 \| Retired: GBA \| Gamecube \| Xbox
News \| Reviews \| Previews \| Features \| Classics \| Goodies \| Anime \| Forums