Nogamara

Raiding Undermine – week 7


So on the Easter weekend we accidentally timed our first +10. I tanked a Cinderbrew +10 and everything went wrong (maybe don’t let someone tank a 10 on their 4th dungeon in the last year) and then I thought we’d do a +9 Rookery, but it was a 10 key, and with me as DPS.. we just did it. Nice. First portal!

And after some bag cleaning on all the alts I dug out my old list and updated which toon has which bags and now I need to go out and grab those easy to get 3 x 34 and 1 x 28 slot bags… many of them.

Oh, and the raid. First 4 in the first hour (3 wipes on Lockenstock), then a Stix rekill on the third pull, then we called it early. One-Armed Bandit will be hard, but we’re finally stopping to do Normal now next week.

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Attack of the Alts

As it’s the Easter weekend, no Sunday raid is planned.

But leading up to the weekend we mixed things up a bit with me tanking M+. Only did one each of +7/8/9 but at least we got the two lower ones in time and the last one wasn’t strictly my fault. We’ll see how this continues. And then I tried healing on the Shaman. Still in meh gear, but it works, in very low keys at least.

Also got the Horde Rogue and Blood Elf Warlock and Alliance Evoker to 80, that’s 20 done and 12 missing, if I count all 70s, but I guess I shouldn’t. Only 5-6 on the two servers I actually play on.

On Wednesday we’re supposed to get an XP buff for a month, so I already prepared a couple more characters that I had a) planned to level next and b) held off this week – Kul Tiran Mage, Tauren Druid, Orc Shaman, and Blood Elf Demon Hunter, so the last remaining Alliance class and 3 of the 4 remaining Horde ones (Priest is last, and Evoker is missing). They were mostly in terrible 350ish gear, but the Shaman in 220 seems to have skipped the whole of DF, I probably leveled her with either Archaeology or the Caverns of Time anniversary event.

And yeah, apparently right now I’m in a bit of a WoW spree, but also many vacation days.

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Raiding Undermine – week 5

Sunday had us do the 3 on normal with the skip, then the first 3 on Heroic, then a couple of wipes on Stix (up to around 15 probably). Tuesday we switched to Lockenstock and wiped 16 times.

One of those weeks I managed to get to 2000 M+ rating, now we’re working on 2500, but slowly.
I’ve also continued leveling chars, Orc Rogue, Blood Elf Warlock, and the Alliance Evoker. With these 3 done I’d be at 20 Level 80s.

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Raiding Undermine – week 4

Sunday had us short a couple people, but at least we were 10 with the right composition, so we cleared Normal in 1:50h and called it a little early.

Tuesday had us kill the first 3 on Heroic without problems, and then our best try on Stix, 1 or 2%, but no kill.

I did manage to finish those 8 M+ (one of each) and got to 1500 rating in the progress, so 2000 for the mount shouldn’t be a big problem now. So that’s 3 Vault boxes ticked for M+, then 3 for the raid, and then I apparently did enough +8s to also have those 3. Bit much this week but eh, weather is still bad.

On the weekend I somehow got the idea that I might want to play an Alt after all and so I spent some hours to get my Resto Shaman up in iLvl from 597ish, as apparently people expect you to be over 620ish to do M0 now. And then I queued for 2×2 bosses in LFR after our raid to get exactly zero pieces of loot.

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Raiding Undermine – week 3

Last Sunday we managed to clear and kill the first boss on Heroic, then continued with Heroic on Tuesday. Second boss (arena) on the 5th pull, third boss (Rik) on the third pull, then five wipes on Stix. Not too bad.

Today that one regular M+ team of our raid was lacking their 5th, so I was invited and we timed a +6 Theater, my +5 Motherlode and then nearly made a +8 Priory, finishign with a quick +2 Mechagon. As usual in some late-ish week I’m grabbed for the ride, get a quick mechanics intro and we time some key, at least in this case I’d known most of the dungeons already (minus the new changes or M+ vs Heroic).
Horde Hunter is nearly 80, and I’m iLvl 645 on my main, which was a nice boost today. Still haven’t tried +11 Delves for the gilded Crests, but I’ve already done 4 Tier 8 ones for the vault.

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Back to WoW

Yeah that was a little weird. When we knew the new patch with the new raid was coming I posted in our guild Discord and asked about the raid start, got no answer, so I stayed unsubscribed. Then on Sunday, 1h before the raid someone noticed I wasn’t signed up and by chance I saw it half an hour later, while busy with dinner. And then I actually managed to finish dinner, subscribe, patch up, get my addons in order and hit the instance portal on the minute and wasn’t even the last person.

Anyway, week one we managed to get 7/8 normal and then the second week we got to 7/8 on the first day and then killed Gallywix and also the first boss on Heroic on Tuesday. I’m the lowest item level player in the raid, so I guess I should get a bit of gear. Had a vacation day today though so I managed to run some Delves and get some pieces, now I’m maybe only the second lowest item level.

I briefly wrote about Timewalking in December, I had gotten a couple chars to max level, and my Horde Hunter to 74, Horde Monk to 76ish, Horde DK to 75 and Horde Priest to 71 – I played the Monk for a bit, so she’s 80 now as well. That makes 15 max level chars (no Evoker, 2 Warriors, 2 Paladins, 2 Monks)

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One hundred seventy million

Last post in November.

Skill category             Points     No. of skills
===================================================
Spaceship Command         53,247,373  71 *
Gunnery                   26,270,043  54 *
Missiles                  17,171,531  26 *
Drones                    14,084,257  24 *
Navigation                11,235,607  13 *
Engineering                7,970,708  15 *
Shields                    6,446,588  12 *
Fleet Support              5,643,516  15 *
Armor                      5,257,098  12 *
Electronic Systems         5,035,494  15 *
Subsystems                 4,096,000  16
Targeting                  3,840,000   8
Neural Enhancement         1,913,570   7
Scanning                   1,899,374   7
Science                    1,824,280  19 *
Rigging                    1,237,885  10 *
Trade                      1,066,275   8
Resource Processing          976,960  10
Social                       434,510   6
Planet Management            394,040   4
Production                   276,743   4
Structure Management         141,515   7 *
Corporation Management           250   1

Skills at Level 5:   178
Skills at Level 4:   127
Skills at Level 3:    24
Skills at Level 2:     4
Skills at Level 1:    31
Skills at Level 0:     5

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Not feeling it

Not sure what it is with FFXIV and me not really vibing for long stretches. This time it lasted for 4 days + 1 month but I find myself just grinding away at duty roulette and checking boxes, having some amount of fun but not really. I have about 36h more to decide if I should unsub again, but I’m leaning towards it. I’ve done zero “endgame” content and I’m not missing it one bit. With me checking in and out of the game it feels like grinding gear (even if it’s fast) is pointless. Maybe I just suck at being a normal casual player. Either I go raid and give 100% or I’m so ultra casual that I level stuff and do (easy) achievements and not even do the raid at max level.

But I guess it’s better to pull the plug now and just… come back when I feel like it, even if it’s in 2 weeks or 2 months and not when the next big patch hits.

Also WoW’s 11.1 patch should have launched this week and I guess we’ll be raiding again, not that I’m particularly enthusiastic about that, but I’m looking forward to playing with my guild and seeing the new content, at least.

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That fresh car smell

I’ve been playing FFXIV since February 2019 now – and 95% was spent on a single character, my Miqo’te. At some point (probably 2022) I got nosy and started a Lalafell on Cerberus (same DC) and played him for a bit, Level 30 Summoner/Scholar and Level 30 Warrior, but have not really played him since.

Some time ago they changed how characters and realms work though, so with the cheaper subscription I can now have several characters on my main realm – so I deleted a Level 1 Viera I had made (and never logged in) at some point and remade her on my main realm (the Save Character thing is so handy!) and played a bit, in like 3 sessions. Pugilist to Level ~8, then Pugilist to Level ~14, and today Gladiator from 1-16 and Pugilist to 16.

All in all just like 2 hours, I think – but it just feels like a completely different game at those low levels.

I mean, most MMOs work like this that you start out as a complete noob, have mobs around you that aren’t even aggressive, you get a level up every couple minutes… and yet it feels even more different in FFXIV. I think it’s because if you get some bonus XP (even before the 30% XP earring), and so some quests, you really need to pay attention to not completely overlevel everything – much more than in WoW. I’m talking “do 1 quest, kill 5 mobs, new level” at Level 14, not at Level 2.

And on the other hand once you’re past 50 (or even after your earring expired at 70 or 80, as I don’t have the 90 one)… all I do is trying to minmax my leveling time – like 5 random duties here, three good dailies there, hand in some stuff for Crafting and Gathering (usually 2-3 per day, whatever is cheap) – and then the weekly chores like Deliveries and Wondrous Tails. But it feels pointless to go out in the world and just do all zone quests, you need to like 50 of them for a level (at least it feels that way) – even if you include FATEs.

Yeah, sometimes it’s nice to just start a new WoW character and also rush through levels, but I think the band is much narrower. It’s the same game, just quicker. You would still either chain run dungeons, or in my case blast through zones questing and doing World Quests.

I don’t know, it’s kinda weird. On the one hand it feels close enough and yet completely different, on the other hand it feels a little pointless, as I’m happy with my main, but I have no jobs under 50 left.

I think I’m just glad I don’t even like the looks of most FFXIV races, so I’m not even tempted to have many alts, or meaningful alts at all. I just wish I could do more things in one 4h block and less “I could spend 2h every day”, but I guess that’s the way it is if you don’t enjoy doing all the things that give good XP.

That fresh car smell Read More »