WoW

Edit: the post’s title should’ve been “I don’t think it’s too early to summarize BfA goals” but I messed up.

Another month has passed without a post but I’ve simply not had a lot of stuff I want to talk about or that I deemed worthy of writing down, but this is a post I’d postponed for a while.
I’ve not played WoW for a while now, first waiting for the date of the expansion then to notice it being delayed and in day-to-day life actually being busy enough with EVE and SWTOR.

So, the level squish patch happened, and while this isn’t the real end of the expansion I think I can truthfully claim that I failed my goal because I ran out of steam this autumn.

One max-level character per class, per faction.

There are 12 classes and 2 factions, so that would be 24 Level 120 characters. OK, actually it would be 24 Level 50 characters, as the expansion has not yet happened. So where do I stand?

Class	Horde	Alliance
Death Knight	50	50
Demon Hunter	50	50
Druid	50	50
Hunter	50	50
Mage	50	50
Monk	50	50
Paladin	50+45	50
Priest	50	31
Rogue	50 + 50	50 +50
Shaman	50	50
Warlock	50	37
Warrior	50 + 50	50

So while every class is a check and the number 24 is a check, Alliance Warlock and Priest were in their 80s, now 30s, and I don’t know if I will finish this before the expansion lands.

The other goal of leveling the Allied Races doesn’t look any better:

• Mag’har Orc: 50 – check
• Zandalari Troll: 45 – check
• Nightborne: 27
• Highmountain Tauren: 26
• Vulpera: 13
• Dark Iron Dwarf: 50 – check
• Kul Tiran: 50 – check
• Mechagnome: 37
• Void Elf: 28
• Lightforged Draenei: 0

With starting to get into SWTOR again and EVE still going strong I think it’s time to officially take WoW activity and goals down a notch and stop logging in for the sake of logging in. I think I’ve reached or am close to most of the goals I have set myself:

• 1 per class, per faction at max level
  • Alliance Warlock dinged 80 yesterday, Alliance Priest is 73
• get BfA reps to a certain degree
  • 7 chars have most BfA reps at Exalted
  • 2 are missing a select few ones, I’m waiting for emissaries here
  • might go for Ramkahen / Pandaria to Exalted, might not
• Class mounts
  • Rogue and Shaman done
  • Demon Hunter and Warrior are kinda close to class hall done?
• rest is probably out, might revisit later
  • Heritage Armor
  • 4 done
  • 3 leveling
  • 3 meh
• Professions
  • check what’s missing next time Darkmoon Faire is up but I got a good chunk done last Darkmoon Faire, e.g. leveling Cooking to 100 or even 170 on 20 toons, then grabbing the last 5

So I guess it’s down to use of rested XP and just get those 3 toons a level or two every week or so. It’s not that it is not fun, but I’m not in the mood to play for hours and hours, but every few days is fun.

I didn’t actually mean to not post for two weeks but I was kinda busy with EVE. Also a little bit with WoW.

Yesterday I managed to get the first Legion Class Mount on my Orc Rogue (mostly for forgetting about them completely), I just had to finish like 5-6 quests.

Then today I dinged 110 on my Zandalari Troll Paladin (3rd Paladin to 110+) an grabbed the Heritage Armor, which was the whole point of this.

Also I only mentioned in passing that I finished the Mechagon grind around May 21st and the last missing class (Alliance Warlock) already dinged 60 last weekend. So for the goal of 1 max-level per class, per faction I’m missing 60 levels of Mechagnome Warlock and 47 levels of Worgen Priest, that should be doable.

On the Heritage Armor project: Void Elf Rogue is 68, Nightborne Priest still 70, Highmountain Warrior still 61, Vulpera Hunter still 30 and haven’t started a Lightforged Draenei, but on the other hand the Paladin was number 4 of 10 finished already.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Shadowlands and my future in the game. Yes, right now I’d rather play more EVE but I’ve not put WoW away yet. So when I just saw Telwyn’s post… might as well write it down.

I may have written about this at length but from 2005 – 2014 I was mostly a Horde player, usually with a guild full of people and only had a single high-level Alliance Rogue in a guild that I had joined because 2 of my ex-Horde guildies originally came from there (same server) and also went back there. That was in 2009 and I’ve sometimes reached the level cap on that Rogue, sometimes not. When I stepped away completely from WoW in 2014 (end of MoP) and then came back to have a brief look at WoD, I was still 100% Horde. When I came back to play Legion, for the first time ever I set my focus on the Alliance, leveling a Demon Hunter and having a lot of fun, then adding some alts – all in the Alliance guild because the Horde guild has been completely dead for a few years. Again in BfA I leveled Alliance first (Dwarf Retri Paladin this time) and now I have nearly as many max-level Alliance toons as I have Horde. Still did all my rep grinds on my old Horde Rogue Main.

So, what about Shadowlands? Right now I really plan to raid again, at least the first tier. The expansion is supposed to launch in the winter, which absolutely suits me well (but I guess this year it wouldn’t have mattered anyway…), but what will I play?

The only I thing I absolutely hated about my Rogue was that it’s a pure DPS and I can’t have a tank or healing off-spec. So this time I also really want to focus on one main character, and still have an off-spec, so this eliminates every pure DPS class. On the Alliance side this is no problem for me, as my Orc Rogue isn’t available anyway, so I can just level him casually at some point.

What do I have available? I guess my raid main-spec will still be DPS. It’s what I do best and restarting raiding after all these years I am absolutely fine in not having the pressure of tanking or healing. Unless we’ll be short on either, of course, then I’m probably up for stepping up.

• Dwarf Paladin – Not sure I like Holy, but I’ve had fun tanking in the past, a possibility
• Night Elf Daemon Hunter – played both specs in Legion and loved them, likely
• Night Elf Warrior – didn’t Prot tank since MoP, but I loved it, likely
• Worgen Druid – didn’t Bear tank since TBC and didn’t heal since… WotLK I guess, unlikely
• Dwarf Shaman – while I like Resto a lot, I’m not sure I want to main this shammy, undecided
• Dark Iron Dwarf Monk – I haven’t tried tanking or healing on this, but I don’t enjoy Monks, very unlikely
• Worgen Priest – I don’t like Shadow and have never tried Holy, didn’t Disc heal since WotLK, unlikely

So this doesn’t sound like I’m about to use one of the three DPS+Heal classes, and I’m not sure about one of the DPS+Heal+Tank classes, but I’m in favor of both DPS+Tank classes. So right now it looks like a decision between Warrior and Daemon Hunter, with Paladin on 3rd place and Druid still possible. Sadly I don’t have a lot of attachment to this Druid, as I boosted her at the start of BfA and only played her this expansion. I at least “mained” the Paladin and also leveled her up properly (with a little help from the invasions before Legion though). I think I’ve actually raided once and did quite some dungeons on the Warrior and the Demon Hunter was my Legion main.

Similarly I don’t feel real attachment to the Priest and the Monk. The Shaman is different because it’s the one I killed Algalon with, so I’d say that’s proper raiding 😛

Also this means these toons are out, with the current plan:

• Human Rogue, the aforementioned original Alliance alt
• Dwarf Hunter
• Draenei Death Knight
• Kul Tiran Human Mage, I don’t like playing Mages anyway
• Void Elf Rogue, just leveling because Rogue and Heritage Armor
• Mechagnome Warlock, just leveling because of the Heritage Armor and because I don’t have an Alliance Warlock
• Gnome Rogue, would have to be transferred from a different server anyway

Also I didn’t really touch on the possibility of a Horde comeback, because I simply don’t believe in it. I’d need to find a guild whereas I have a perfectly fine and functioning one on the Alliance side. Also all the years have disconnected me enough that I’m ready to switch mains for good. Took a while, and I am still kind of determined to at least do the reps on my Horde Rogue, but maybe not all the other “important” Horde chars.