Nogamara

While I did have a lot of fun playing Guild Wars 2 again (of course, otherwise why would I?), unlocking the Skyscale has simply cranked that up to 200%. I have often said that travel time is one of the worst things for me in an MMO, and this is no exception.

I played my Mesmer a lot in 2022 when I last actively played, and had unlocked the Chronomancer elite spec, but apparently the build I had had fallen out of style and more importantly, I couldn’t really play with it anymore when I tried last month – but there was a new Elite spec unlocked with Visions of Eternity, the Troubadour. Playing a “bard” sounded awesome and even what little footage I had seen I also liked a lot. So I took my Skyscale and just did a quick tour of the End of Dragons zones (an expansion I have not really played yet, but I had caught one Hero Point train a while ago, so at least I had seen something…) to grab 22 of the 25 Hero Points I needed (so 250 in total, as every one after the base game gives 10 points) and have been playing it since, and I really like it. The skills are fun and I don’t die all the time. Maybe it also has a little to do with the gear, but going from full Exotics to 6 Ascended gear pieces + Ascended main hand weapon should not make a huge difference. Anyway, I’ll take it.

Then I did a similar tour of the Path of Fire zones for my Ranger to unlock Galeshot. This is my PvP main that I use for structured PvP and also for WvW and I wanted some more ranged damage, although I wasn’t unhappy with Untamed.

With all classes except Elementalist at 80 there is not much to level (and I’m not currently in the mood to do it), but there are still some goals I’m currently working on, actively or “when I get time”

• The Seasons of Dragons meta achievement – currently 3/24
• Vision (the legendary accessory) – just started
• finish Icebrood Saga – 2/6

Yeah, this draft post sat as a draft and I was so busy playing that I forgot to finish it.

Icebrood Saga is done and I plan to finish End of Dragons tomorrow or on the weekend. Which means then it’s only 1.5 expansions left until the one that released a couple weeks ago.

I specced my first healer/boon support – got the Paragon Elite spec for my Warrior and slapped on (nearly) full Minstrel gear. Fun in WvW. Also finished the first collection of an Ascended weapon in PoF, working on the second one now.

Last Friday evening I finally got my Skyscale mount in Guild Wars 2. I don’t know how many hours it took, but it was a lot of time, especially as I had to finish Living World Season 4 first, and unlike a reasonable person who is mid-step 3 of 6 and would just continue there, I started fresh on a different character.

A “fun” detour was also noticing that the Roller Beetly might be needed (or handy) for getting some of the Skyscale stuff, so that was also done mid-Skyscale grind. Anyway, now only the Griffon is missing as far as mounts go (and the Skiff from EoD…), it’s just a few PoF mastery points now to finish the Mastery track for the Skyscale.

In terms of total “story completion” it still looks a bit grim:

• Base game personal story: 3x, plus 3x stopped in the last chapter
• Living World Season 1: 1x Step 1 of 5 done
• Living World Season 2: 1x Step 3 of 8 done
• Heart of Thorns: 1x done, 1x stopped at 14/16
• Living World Season 3: 1x done
• Path of Fire: 1x done
• Living World Season 4: 1x done, 1x 50% done
• Icebrood Saga: nope
• End of Dragons: 2x the intro to discover the new zone, aka: basically nope
• Secrets of the Obscure: 1x Step 10 of 17 done, so 50%, yay
• Janthir Wilds: nope
• Visions of Eternity: nope

Yeah, that will also take a while I guess. But I’m not playing this game only for the story. It’s fun enough to log in, do the dailes, work on the weeklies, grab some stuff, do some achievements – and in the midst of that, also progress the story. LWS2 is actively being worked on, but then.. no clue. I’m inclined to at least skip the Icebrood Saga, but maybe not End of Dragons, because of the Skiff and the Jadebot. We’ll see.

In the last weeks I played a lot more Guild Wars 2 than WoW, but sometimes progress is harder to describe.

I ended up buying the missing two expansions and investing in one more bank tab, so far. I also finally have some unlimited gathering tools and I did find some free Glyphs for them in some boxes in my bank.

That fractal event got me Legendary Gloves but I’ve not opened the box yet because I can’t decide which armor class to take. The “new” (probably since 2022) version of the dailies is curious. I bought some infinite Fractal potion for 1000, then a Legendary Weapon Starter Kit (already crafted it – Sunrise (Greatsword)), then 3 Ascended Armor Boxes and an Ascended Weapon Box (Longbow) and I still have one Legendary Starter Kit in my bank and I need to use those 3 Ascended Boxes, but I am not playing my Mesmer right now. And then I spent a lot more on gold and crafting mats.

I’m 1/2 through the Secrets of the Obscure story and restarted Living World Season 4 for the Skyscale mount (Guardian) and also started Living World Season 1 for the bags. My Necro is close to finishing Chapter 8 of the base story, finally. And then I did one chapter of Living World Season 3 on my Ranger.

Stuff I probably won’t manage to get into soonish: Icebrood Saga, End of Dragons, Living World Season 2, Janthir Wilds, and we’ll see how soon I will be able to start Visions of Eternity, which will release in 4 days.