So my Warrior is still at level 14 and waiting for the full group to catch up, but I did play my Undead Rogue. I might have a Rogue problem, but who cares?
Cloth shoulders with AGI, yeah!
Level 24.95 now, just finished Shadowfang Keep with an all-23/24 group with zero problems. Before that (also today) I had to run Wailing Caverns a second time because:
The group didn’t do the 99 year old port (ok)
I only got 10 of 20 Deviate Hides (meh)
I got ZERO Serpentbloom (WTF?)
I forgot to loot one gem (this one was my fault, bags full I guess)
But now I got all quests done, had to camp Mad Magglish for “only” 15mins in a group of 3, had to solo 3 mobs for my 20th hide – but it worked. Except for the tank with zero orientation, guess we could’ve shaved off 5mins easily if he had listened to our directions. Ah well. Also marking mobs seems to be not a thing. Also CC is unheard of. But I can make Poisons now.
Being fed up with the queues in WoW Classic and just waiting for most of my group to catch up (I did level my Rogue alt to 14 and Blacksmithing on the Warrior to 9x though) I played some retail WoW.
I still have this plan of having one of every class to max level, and the classes missing were Hunter and Mage (after the DK dinged a few days ago). So 1 or 2 days ago I finally logged in the 111 Orc Hunter again – was standing at The Great Seal – emptied the bags a bit, flew to Vol’dun and… kinda killed it. I don’t remember any of my toons to just do every quest in record time, not even close to dying once. So I did 111.x to 116 on the first day and then 116 to 120 on the second day without really playing a lot. Mobs only hurt at 118+, before that I was just murdering groups of 3.
Anyway, only Mage left if I didn’t miscalculate. Started Vol’dun as well, dying multiple times. Hmpf
… and I was there. Stayed up until midnight, logged in without problems 3 minutes late and managed to get to Level 6 after 2:30 hours. Today I also mostly played WoW Classic and finished Mulgore.
WoW Classic Tauren Warrior at Level 12
And because there is one Ragefire Chasm quest in Undercity a sensible person would just take a zeppelin there and grab it. Others decide to level their alt because they want one anyway. 4:18 h for Level 1-10 in Tirisfal Glades.
I didn’t only play WoW, I also made some sort of progress in FFXIV.
Paladin to 50
Dark Knight to 50
White Mage to 65 (.9)
Warrior to 65
Also, crafting and gathering, mostly through GC turnins via “buying cheap and crafting myself what’s not cheap”
48 Culinarian
41 Weaver + Goldsmith
40.95 Blacksmith
40 Leatherworker + Alchemist
39.95 Armorer
39 Carpenter
53 Fisher
52 Miner + Botanist
And honestly I would’ve crafted those 2 items for BSM and ARM, but I’m tired and will be traveling tomorrow and then not be playing any games for a few days.
The only thing I didn’t do is progress in the MSQ. All the other stuff is just too much fun right now.
Was home sick at the end of last week so couldn’t do much but when I felt better on Friday evening/Saturday I remembered that putting a character through the Nazjatar intro quests gives quite some nice gear upgrades, so I set out to get shit done while I wasn’t feeling so well to really enjoy anything but well enough to sit and do some mindless grinding.
There were some of my characters that had already started and/or completed the Nazjatar story lines:
Dwarf Paladin, iLvl ~400
Orc Rogue, iLvl ~398
Troll Warrior, iLvl ~355
But in the meantime I had gotten quite a few more 120s and the Benthic gear tokens were already piling up a bit so I devised a strategy how to best spend them. Unfortunately I didn’t write down the exact item levels, but I remember them mostly…
NE Demon Hunter, ~370
NE Warrior, ~370
Worgen Druid, ~360
Human Rogue, ~350
BE Warlock, ~340
Pandaren Monk, ~340
BE Priest, ~330
Orc Shaman, ~315
So I started, first running all the 4 Alliance toons through the intro quests, grabbing the 370 weapon, 385 Head/Shoulders/Chest piece, then finally the 400 Benthic Legs/Feet/Hands piece. Then the 4 Horde toons.
And then I handed out the Benthic tokens I had banked. And then I did all the Nazjatar WQs that gave Benthic tokens or Manapearls (haven’t spent those yet). And then I did most emissary quests that were up over the whole weekend and grabbed all the WQs with gear upgrades. Now I have too many Benthic Chest and Feet tokens spare, but whatever.
This is the final outcome now:
Dwarf Paladin, 406
Orc Rogue, 403
Troll Warrior, 382
NE Demon Hunter, 395
NE Warrior, 391
Worgen Druid, 383
Human Rogue, 382
BE Warlock, 378
Pandaren Monk, 369
BE Priest, 375
Orc Shaman, 383
So now I’m just unsure what’s the best strategy to upgrade with Manapearls is – get one item really high (430), get a few to medium high (400 to 420ish), or get the 385s to 400? I tend to think getting a few to 420 is the best bet, because then there are still some lower level slots where upgrades can be found easier. W e’ll see.
I did mention this very rare grinding mood, so there’s a few more things I did
Did “The Missing Crew” for the Champion on all missing toons (9?)
Herbalism to 175 on 3 Alliance toons and 1 Horde toon
Mining to 175 on one Alliance toon
Did the “Pick 10 Akunda’s Bite without being shocked” 4 times
Found 9 Anchor Weed nodes on one toon for the quest
About 5-8 other Herbalism/Mining quests
Got Alchemy from 70ish to nearly 140
Got Jewelcrafting from 60ish to 130
And oh my, I love Flying so much. I think I wouldn’t have done *any* of those things without it.
The Level 50 Fisherman quest is supposed to be time-consuming, catching a Mazlaya Marlin after a double mooch. I needed 6 catches, that was kinda nice.
The Level 50 Botanist and Miner quests seem to be really annoying, only at fixed times of the day (same zone, but 30 real minutes apart) and I didn’t find more than one now. meh.
I know this is nitpicky but I’m a little mad every time I log onto a Horde toon in BfA that is not just clicking the mission table on the ship.
Boralus – fly 10s from missions to the portals, even 20s on a horse were fine. It’s also situated on the north end of Tiragarde Sound, so Stormsong Valley is near. And Drustvar isn’t far either. Easy access to the WQs or anything you might need, incl the Horde zones
Azar’Alor – now this is a mess in itself already. Until flying you couldn’t even reasonably get down from the portals to the prof trainers and back up. I mastered the jumps so I could at least get down quickly without dying from fall damage when not on a Rogue. And then the freaking mission table is in another town. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
There’s been talk of Horde or Alliance being favored by Racials or Shaman/Paladin in Vanilla. You know what? I don’t care a bit. That’s peanuts. But being mad every day because the ways in the major town are so far, when you don’t even leave the town on some toons? That’s horrible. And I didn’t even mention that it’s in the total south/south east corner, so the way to Vol’dun is damn far and getting to Nazmir is also worse
In between all the FFXIV crafting and return to EVE I did play a bit of WoW as well.
I managed to get to 120 on Blood Elf Priest and Horde Pandaren Monk at the same day, I guess it was Tuesday as I’d been working on them in parallel. Didn’t do much after the ding, just grabbing a few easy gear upgrades with WQs, easy enough with flying now. They both felt kinda weak while leveling – especially from 117-118 on. So the only classes I’m missing are:
Death Knight – Horde 113, Alliance 70
Mage – Horde 111, Alliance 56
Hunter – Horde 111, Alliance 100
Joar has an interesting post called Favorite Classes and Specs in BfA and while I counted 18 120s on his sidebar, and I’ve only got 11 I still wanted to chime in.
Outlaw Rogue – Overall I really like Outlaw better than Combat. Don’t even remember when they changed that, but it’s a little better. It’s the easier spec to play over Assassination, but just a little quicker and more oomph
Assassination Rogue – I was a big Dagger fan up until at some point in some expansion I didn’t get any daggers to drop in raids, so I went Combat, since then I also like it. I liked Assassination more in BfA, although it was weaker when fighting several mobs
Elemental Shaman – It was good. Didn’t have any problems, although I also wouldn’t rate it as one of the fastest. It’s definitely more fun these days with the procs
Affliction Warlock – started this at 110-111 and it was ok but I felt a little squishy and I’m not a big fan of dotting up 5 mobs.
Demonology Warlock – switched to this at around 113-114 and been quite happy since. I’ve not yet fully mastered it I guess, the random procs still confuse me a little. But overall average and ok. Best of the caster classes.
Shadow Priest – Ugh. I think this was the only class where I was already dying all the time at 110-113. Nope.
Discipline Priest – also weak, but a little better than Shadow. WTF, Blizzard? Been healing a few dungeons as well and I find it really hard. I used to love it around the end of WotLK with the 3 last dungeons. The spec felt strong and fun. Now it’s just frantic and I’m not such a fan of atonement.
Windwalker Monk – Reasonably fun at the start, also had problems with dying from 117ish on. Now with just a little gear at 120 (think around 290 it began) it’s kinda ok. This is funny because the Monk had been sitting at 85-90 for ages because I didn’t have any fun playing. Was that in MoP? Now maybe the 5 years of pause were good, but I enjoyed the journey from 90 to 118. And the last 2 levels were bearable (No pun intended).
Retribution Paladin – This is the class I leveled first and I think it’s so strong in BfA that I now retroactively (retriactively?) wonder how anyone can play any other class for soloing. Even with mediocre gear I could do the 5man WQs solo and everything else dies in record time. Fun!
Balance Druid – Was kinda ok, but a bit slow (notice a pattern? I’m not so good with casters).
Fury Warrior – I actually have 2 of those and I love them. They’re only one notch below Retri and even with bad gear you don’t feel too weak.
Havoc Demon Hunter – the class I leveled first in Legion and it felt super strong, basically so overpowered like Death Knights back at WotLK release. In BfA it felt noticeably weaker, but still above average. Had a lot of fun leveling it and am a little pissed how some other classes can feel SO weak compared to others, like this one.
A few nights ago I stumbled over this video on YouTube, wasn’t even sure what I was watching before that, but for once the “you might be interested in this” was accurate.
So I watched a Diablo 2 speedrun and thought: I might like this, let’s check some of this guys’ other videos. Then the next day I watched another recording of him doing another speedrun (Assassin) and then I noticed: No, this doesn’t really interest me at all. The speedrunning itself was quite interesting once, but zero interest in watching a third run. The guy seems ok as well, but apparently the first video being live at an event was really good, and when he was doing it with his usual home setup I again noticed that streaming is just not for me. And by that I mean watching, I have no plans to do it myself, it would also probably label me as a proper hypocrite 🙂
First of all I guess it’s people just narrating what they’re doing on stream. Yes, I do sometimes watch Let’s Plays if I’m interested in the game. But unlike with other videos I’m skipping all the time, I’m only doing this for the game and the host needs to be ok. Don’t think I’ve found someone yet who I find awesome.
But I think most of all I really disapprove of this kind of hero worship with people becoming fans (in itself a good thing) but then kinda seem fighting for attention of the host in chat most of the time? Also I mean, sure, give them your money if you do want to support them but if I was sending money or even just subscribing I sure as hell didn’t want to be called out on stream. Take my attention or take my money, but this isn’t giving alms where I expect or even want a huge thanks. Maybe that’s me being weird though. Another point might be though that I’ve been part of various open source communities and sure, some people who started or lead popular projects are kinda in the spotlight, but I’ve mostly seen them all as peers all the time. They contribute, I contribute. Sure, it may be their project and I just file a bug or fix a typo or even do a feature, but there’s hardly any “Senpai noticed me” going on (not only for me, I know many people see this). So yeah, maybe I’ve grown old and grumpy and it seems I don’t get fandom anymore. This might be true in the case of sports clubs or fainting at a concert because I see the boy group live 😉 I like and even love a lot of things and I’d even sometimes say I’m a fan of X – but maybe I’m just not a rabid fan of anything or elevating any podcast hosts or streamers to any heights and I feel so out of place when watching Twitch channels. Much more because of the viewers than because of the streamers.
Maybe a valid criticism is that I just need to “git gud” to grasp on what high level some of them are playing, but I just don’t care. I know that everyone who even wins at a backyard tennis/soccer/curling tournament is better than I am, but I don’t see a point of accepting their stardom for it? Not sure, maybe it comes back to being involved so much in open source communities.
End of rant, but I’m still confused all around. People did tell me a few times in the last few years I seem to be not so easily amazed by anything. I guess that’s true, but there’s still a lot of things I like doing, and certain games I like enough to be playing them several times per week, and not just because I didn’t think about it and never stopped the routine. I guess I was there with WoW somewhere between 2009 and 2014, just logging in because you log in.
I see this a bit the same with podcasts, but it is kinda different. I try out a lot of different ones and stick to relatively few ones. I seem to be very, very picky about topics, the hosts, and their voices. Any people who know me from Twitter and who know I listen to their podcasts are of course the exception, and I’m not saying that because I’m a nice guy but because I might have known one or two of the hosts even before they started their podcasts, liked the podcast and then also followed and interacted with the other hosts. Also I wouldn’t compare them to celebrities like the big streamers.
One final point, I hate watching e-sports as much as watching normal sports – but not more. I’m happy for people who like it, but if I could mute all your tweets about e-sports in a sensible way, I would. There are a few occasions when I do watch sports. That is the world or European soccer championship, if I am in the mood. One month per 2 years is exactly the healthy dose. I am not rooting for my team at all, but for a different one, fwiw. Also I sometimes used to watch ice hockey, but that’s getting less and less and involves a lot of frustration about the team licenses in the German league. But I’ve been to a lot more live hockey games than soccer games. (5 versus 0 in the last 15ish years).
PS: MrLlamaSC was just an example that happened to make me realize some things. His knowledge of the game is astounding and I can see how you can be a fan and watch him play and be amazed how he’s mastered the game. I wouldn’t even say it’s a less cool skill than playing the world championship in any accepted sport. Probably a lot less profitable, and depending on your view on life, thus a lot less useful 😛
PPS: I also did watch Kripparrian for quite a while a few years back, but I think that was his earlier phase, still playing WoW, and that was mostly YouTube videos with commentary, edited – not real live streaming, but going into the direction of vlogging. Once he went full on streaming and vlogging I kinda checked out pretty soon, but that was also when it was more about Hearthstone and other things (D3 was still kinda ok).
