After starting with the incursions like everyone else I really quickly lost interest. SoD to me was mostly: Experiencing Vanilla again, with a new twist, and especially faster leveling that was not completely braindead and too quick like in Retail, but… just a nice leisurely pace.

Incursions were 100% the “ignore the way, get to max level and so endgame” and in this case, even if the endgame is just a single raid. I’ve not logged in for days, just did a bit of duoing to get to 50 (not me, I’m 43, or 44, I don’t even know) and it’s been kinda miserable.

Maybe I’ll get back to it but I kinda let the sweaty nerds on Reddit get to me this time “You’d have to basically been offline since launch to not be 50 already” – that was on like day 5. Yeah, no. I had played for a few hours but did not minmax doing just incursions in a group of 5 or do 40 runs of Zul’Gurub. I usually don’t really care how easy or hard other people judge the content I am doing, but in this case it was not even fun and I objectively didn’t do it the correct way, because I was neither fast nor was I having fun.

Bit of a letdown though. Yes, high engagement as everyone races to 50, but for the game is done for. Why play out in the open world if the majority of people managed to skip the leveling with a broken system? I’m writing it like this because in every expansion there will be a handful of people who manage to get to max level in the first night, or first 48h – that’s fine. But not 50%.

We did it! The Hunter/Warlock duo made it to 40 just in time, one day before the new phase hits.
To be quite honest it was a bit of “oof, finally” after pushing so hard, not even sure I’m excited to continue tomorrow, on the weekend maybe.
Also that Warlock mount quest. Instead of paying 45 gold I got 38 silver for collecting my mount. Not bad!

So first of all, yes I know that everyone has too much gold compared to vanilla but boy are prices broken.

I just visited the AH on my 34 Warlock. With my spec I’d take any of the following stats: +Fire/Shadow/Spell damage, Int, Spirit, Stamina.

The only sensible but meaningful upgrade I found were pants for 70s, for most slots I’d pay 1-3g to get 2 more intellect.

This is simply not fun. Some friends were kind enough to take me through Shadowfang Keep at Level 22ish and there are several items I’ve been wearing for 10-12 levels now, and nothing I can buy is better. Or affordable if it’s just a small upgrade.

• Roobes of Arugal (drop)
• Odo’s Ley Staff (drop)
• Seal of Sylvanas (quest reward)

So because I know it doesn’t make *that* big of a difference I’ve been mostly buying cheap options, spending more on solo melee chars (esp. weapons) and less on this caster that is leveling with a hunter, but you might as well rely mostly on quest rewards.

It sucks. In Retail on the other hand gearing has become so unimportant that you still do 10 or 20 levels with the same gear, but mostly because it’s not worth visiting an AH instead of continuing to quest. How about a middle ground where you can sometimes upgrade stuff a little? As I wrote, my Warrior dinged in mostly 24-27 gear, I did have time to visit an AH and I did search for a bit, how about I could have spent a little on upgrading a couple pieces instead of going “+6 Strength to +8 Strength is not worth it”.

Not as much progress as I’d hoped with the Warlock but my SoD Warrior just dinged 40 after 1d 19h of mostly soloing. Was fun up until 39, then I tried to kill Level 37 mobs instead of 34 😛

Had just enough money for the mount, now let’s see how much I’m doing before phase 3 hits, probably just grabbing a few easy quest rewards so my gear is not like 14 levels behind. Last shopping trip gave me 27 greens, still wearing a couple 24 greens, and I bought 3 blue weapons in total, at 21, 24ish, and 31.

Funny that even with the artificially capped Level at 40 you can still do quests and get gold instead of XP, at least I think so. Time to earn back that mount money.

I’m only missing one Timeless Isle Rare now (an achievement actually 10 years in the making) and I am sat camped in its lair whenever I am browsing the web. Also trying to grind out all the “kill 200 enemies in X elemental storm in zone Y” on my Hunter, and a few other achievements (also I did in fact get Vyragosa in Northrend at some point).

The Shadow Priest has been 70 for a few days, working on the 64 Evoker now (a sliver below 67 already), it’s about as much fun (read: not a lot) but at least it’s stronger than the Shadow Priest for complete noobs who don’t know how to play it.

In SoD the Warlock is at 32 and we’re making our way through Thousand Needles, and I started an Undead Warrior on the weekend on a whim and he’s 27 now… more fun than expected, after I’d said I’ll stick to one toon just this week.

The big news today was that they’ll be releasing Phase 3 of SoD on April 4th, at a time when we’re not really prepared. A bit soon for my liking, but I suppose most people raiding at 40 are becoming a little bored already. A bit of a shame, really.

So we did a bit more M+, I have all the portals from +20 in season 3 on my Warrior now, and thus am a little less motivated, but some people have some goals, so I’m coming along – it’s not like I hate it, just not let’s gooooo.

Also they announced some (maybe big) changes for M+ in Season 4, and probably also in the next expansion then – Heroic will be like M0 and queuable, M0 will be like a +10, without a timer or afficxes and M+ will be lowered by 10, so a +20 in S3 will be a +10. Really good change for alts and people who only do M0, but maybe it will be a pain if you suddenly have people in a +10 who have absolutely no clue and had failed in a +5 before…

We also played quite a bit in SoD (even if I’m still sub 20h), Level 25 now, did Shadowfang Keep with 2 40 friends and are slowly (in normal speed for Classic) through the Barrens. The runes are fun but I like the XP buff more. I’m Tailoring/Enchanting, as proper Classic Warlocks are.

And finally I went for some more achievements, and I noticed I actually did the Hearthstone launch event 10 years ago, with mount and all.

Also played a round of Hearthstone again after so many years for the WoW mount… Also finally trying to finish my Horde Triceratops mount in BfA Zandalar with dailies, and leveling my Shadow Priest to 70 by doing one random dungeon per day and a couple quests. Nearly 69, so then it’s only the unfun Dracthyr Evoker from 64 to 70 and I am done with all classes.

For some reason I started doing achievements again in WoW retail. I suppose it was talking to someone from my raid group who boasted a little bit about having finished so many.

I got 2 or 3 factions to Exalted (Laughing Skull Orcs, Steamwheedle Preservation Society), I looked for rares and treasures in Tanaan Jungle and the rest of Draenor. I did some random achievements in Draenor and BfA, I still have 2 toons parked in Revendreth and Bastion to do some dailies ten times…

I finished the TBC “Bloody Rare” achievement by positioning one toon per Outland zone and flying circles several times per day, for a week, I killed all but one Northrend rares for “Frostbitten” and now I’m camping Vyragosa, who unfortunately seems to share a spawn with the Time-Lost Protodrake that everyone’s still farming a decade later…

I should have written down where I started but I’m less than 100 points away from 25000 now, which may not seem like much but it’s ok if you look at like I’ve ignored PvP for about 15 years and had an 8 year break from raiding. Still annoying if I look at some other people in guild.

For M+1, 20s seem to be no problem, but we failed a 21 Atal’Dazar to then 2 chest a +20, a bit silly. Still missing Throne on +20 for my port.

And I started a Warlock in Season of Discovery, duoing with a Hunter. Tried a Rogue to Level 6 first, but melee and ranged… been there, done that.