THE LULLZ

It's been a couple of weeks, so you might be wondering what's going on. That's a fair question, so here goes...

CONSOLIDATION CONTINUES
As I mentioned in my last post, I've decided to really trim the fat. Instead of going all out on ten or more accounts, I've decided to just focus on five. With the introduction of Mythic 5 mans, and the reported expansion on this in Legion it seems like the best place to start. And if later I decide I want to expand to ten and make a real effort at raiding, the option is always there. First thing I decided to do was take stock of what I had, so there's the old reliable. Khaas and his merry gang of Horde on the disused battle.net account, this includes characters I've been playing since Vanilla (my Warlock for example is from when we decided to reroll Alliance on the Malorne server).

Remember me?

Yeah, there's a solid stable of level 100s there. They come with a load of Achievements, Feats of Strength, and goodies in general. Not to mention a pretty good guild for keeping things tidy. Two problems though, they're Horde and I've committed to playing Alliance. Additionally, they're also on a different server.

But most importantly this is a completely different Battle.net account. When I got in to take stock I realized I had 6 standard licenses, and 2 "Trials". So, first thing I did to save myself some real money was start the process of moving two of the licenses I've been playing Alliance on over to the main Battle.net.

Wait, what?

LOGISTICS, I HAS IT
First, you can only have 8 wow licenses on a single battle.net account. So, I had to contact Blizzard to remove those two Trial licenses. For this, you have to submit a ticket to Blizzard support, and they can only delete Trial licenses that have not already been upgraded to full retail copies of the game.

The next step is to have relevant licenses from the other battle.net account moved to the main battle.net account. This also requires contacting support with a ticket, and takes time. The entire process will likely take a weekend from start to finish if you contact them on Friday.

For me, this makes sense because as I've said I'm trying to consolidate my disparate game licenses. This is the most expedient way to do that. These licenses were created before the merge, so they don't have your standard WoW1 names. But for the sake of argument, let's go with Blizzard's default naming scheme so I can illustrate my point(s).

First, there is my main account, WoW 1 which houses the 11 level 100 Horde characters listed in the picture above. WoW 2 has been my "main" account while playing Alliance, Dazhbog and the rest of my tanking characters, as well as a full set of plate users that I've got waiting in the wings to complete Shadowmourne on Azuremyst are housed here. This was the first license I had moved over, why? Well since I'm going to continue playing on Staghelm/Alliance side I definitely would rather keep all of those characters if at all possible. But paying to transfer each of these characters, the very idea is the stuff divorce papers are made of. Just to do the math for you at $25 per character transfer, by 22 characters = $550 per wow license. Additionally, I'm talking about moving a total of 5 licenses worth of characters which comes out to $2750. And we haven't even talked about the elephant in the room, namely all those level 100 hordies on Blackhand. Not to mention a few I've got sitting around on Bloodscalp.

That's actually even more dire a situation, since not only do we have the server transfer to consider but also the faction change, which is another $35 per character ($605 to move the entire set if you're wondering). So the obvious answer is NOT paying out my ass to get these guys where they need to go. Hence, the battle.net shuffling shenanegans. A couple of emails ends up saving quite literally thousands of dollars. It doesn't address the hordies, but I'll get to them... in time.

DECISIONS
The first question I had to ask myself at this point was just how many of those Horde characters did I want to move over? All of them obviously, but I don't have the kinda cash necessary to move them all in one shot and I don't know if I would do it even if I could. So, who was most important? Obviously, Khaas would be making the move. He's my reputations guy, as well as having a bag full of old legendaries for the guild achievement and other goodies. I also want to move my old guild over, and take it over as my main guild (I have too many of these) as it's around 1000 more achievement points than the one I'm using currently. So, move it with Khaas, a bunch of gold, and items as a first move.

After that, it would be my Warrior and Hunter for the same reason. Blixxa has Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury, and Bheld has Warglaives of Azzinoth. However, since the guild I'm transferring already has those achievements unlocked, I'd then be more interested in my priest since he has the very old, very rare recipe for the Rich Purple Silk Shirt which is coincidentally and surprisingly very profitable to this day.

This also begs the question, do I want to stick with my "tank account, and DPS/Heals accounts" mentality that I developed since I started boxing again? In which case, I might actually transfer Dazhbog and Titus over to the new main account along with Khaas. Move my Monk and Druid over from Blackhand, and have a full set of level 100 tanks at my disposal. This is actually a pretty attractive proposition, I can then fill the accounts using a combination of RAF and transferring the odd hordie in to fill a spot as able.

This seems like my most logical/likely route. While I'm at it, I think I might earmark accounts on the secondary bnet for Horde, giving me the opportunity to boost myself through the Nemesis achievements, and others... for a nominal fee of course.

So, with that settled I decided I should probably make some room for the impending transfer. With the real Khaas en route, I needed to name change my Dwarf DK. And in the spirit of being broke, I used a little trickery to accomplish this. First, I deleted Dwarf Khaas, then I created a placeholder on the account where the original would be going. This also let me determine my appearance settings for when I do actually move him over. With the new Placeholder Khaas in place, I used the monthly character recovery/undelete option to bring back Dwarf Khaas, now flagged for a rename.

The grave indignity...

Text With that out of the way, I decided to go ahead and start levelling some people that were milling about at 90. Dwarf Khaas, err Erythnul as he's now named is following Dwarf Blixxa who just made 100 by accident basically. Erythnul is now 96, and I've already got Bleys to 92. I think I'll go through the list in fact and run through the starting quests of WOD to get everybody at least in their garrisons generating resources for later.

This is basically how all of my 90s look.

While I'm on the subject of levelling, I'd like to take a moment to address the gear these alts are using. Heirlooms are obviously the biggest consideration. I give them each a crafted ring, give them a belt and boots, then let them upgrade their gloves and bracers as they go. I was surprised at how quickly I got the heirloom rings, and now I'm thinking I might want to try for the fishing one, simply because it's one of the few looms I'm missing now.

Pictured: Easy Mode

Those levelling characters don't take long, right now I'm focusing on plotting out where I want to move everybody before I commit, it's worth it I find to take your time and do it right the first (or in this case 2nd) time. Meanwhile, I've got other diversions... like the Legion Alpha.

BURYING THE LEAD
Yeah, I got an Alpha invite. And I had it knocking around for a bit while I decided if I really wanted to give it a go or not, of course the first thing I did was lock in my Demon Hunter. Actually a fun class to play so far, and I intend to spend more time with it.

What's in a name?

Of course, I've got loads to say about Legion, and will likely be talking more about it here and elsewhere, the biggest revelation however is one you might have guessed earlier in this post. I thoroughly enjoy the absolute shit out of playing a Death Knight again. Further, I fully intend to run the Khaas as my main again, as the tank in my main boxing group SRS Business.

But wait, wasn't I playing Warrior before? Yep.


Then I played the Alpha...

Just for you, here's a love song! Which sums up exactly how it feels to be a Death Knight again.

Warriors are actually working just fine on the Alpha, but playing through the Maw of the Damned questline and seeing how the new abilities work actually got me excited about the class all over again. Which is actually exactly why I'm doing all of this shuffling in the first place, if I'm going to be playing a Death Knight good and proper, it's going to be on the original - there is no substitute.

There's obviously plenty more to talk about, but I've been rambling for a significant amount of time already, so this is probably as good a place as any to call it. But if you've got questions, feel free to ask. And keep an eye out on Twitter and Twitch in particular, as I'm streaming my Legion experiences regularly. When I'm not generating mass quantities of gold on Staghelm of course.

K