WoW

That Retail and Classic bundle

It’s good to read about people liking the bundle of WoW Retail + Classic (Shintar in this case) because I agree that it’s a really good deal for both the company and the players. I don’t even want to imagine how numbers would look for each of the games without the other, guess there would be huge dips, depending on the patch cycle. And I’m saying that while not being sold on XBox Game Pass, but for other reasons – but multiple MMOs by the same studio? Good. Multiple versions of the same game? Mandatory.

Anyway, I’m just getting that out of the way, because there’s no way I would have been paying a single Euro for Classic in the last months (or a year?), but on the weekend I actually logged in my 69 Druid (stranded in Area 52) and maybe make a little progress towards 70. But when I had patched up again and logged in I saw that I was only at around 10% towards the final level and then it hit me again how tedious I found Classic. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if I had anything to look forward to, but I don’t. I don’t plan to play WotLK Classic, I don’t want to raid at 70 (if I made it), I don’t even want to collect gear, I especially don’t want to grind reps. If I could have an old backup copy of my toons at a WotLK savepoint I’d maybe go try raiding, but no way I’m falling into this trap a third time…

So, maybe I will work up some motivation to do those last 90% with the 50% XP buff, maybe I won’t.

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #9.

That Retail and Classic bundle Read More »

Random grouping

This week there’s this weekly quest up where you need to run 4 “Mythic” dungeons, M0 counts though.

When I got roped into an M+ by the guild they of course did not tell me, but we ran an M0 after that, so my Shammy is sitting at 1/4 now at least.

This afternoon I wanted to run those with my DK, but opted for Unholy. First one was Taza’vesh and today I learned a few things. First of all that the “Forged Credentials” thing makes it a little harder, but you get a mount in the end. And for the dungeon to count you need to do Streets and Gambit, not sure if Gambit alone counts. But I got a mount, even if it took an hour – and doing the Hylbrande console thing for the first time is actually hard, messed it up somehow.

Second run was Halls with an Outlaw Rogue with unbelievable damage, but the rest of us was kinda bad and they tried to skip trash that we then still pulled. Onto the boss.

Third run was Necrotic Wake and was quick and uneventful, the last one was Plaguefall and kinda ok, except a weird near-wipe because we had Tentacles where I’d never seen them, maybe a M0 thing?

Maybe I was lucky that I didn’t meet any real idiots but it was still more tedious than running a +15 with the guild (last season’s +15, maybe +11 now).

Anyway, I’m not actually sure getting this 291 item (meh item as well) was worth the 2-2.5h. I mean, on the upside I could replace 2 252 rings with 262/268 ones and got Head/Shoulders/Chest, but don’t have enough flux to upgrade them all, especially 259 -> 262 isn’t worth it. If the 291 had been a Tier slot piece or a Weapon however… It did dampen my enthusiasm to run 7 or 6 more of those, but let’s see how I feel about that tomorrow or if we’ll run some after the raid tonight.

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #8.

Random grouping Read More »

Previews and Alphas and excitement

Everyone who is mildly interested in WoW might have noticed that the Alpha has started, talent trees are being released, new Alpha builds are released, and so on.

On the one hand I’m following the topic with a low amount of interest, but for example last night I looked at the Warrior Talent Tree and my interest instantly vanished. So many talents, I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to spec out a good build – but then again history has shown that not all talents that sound good are indeed good and ones that sound bad aren’t secretly good. Maybe I simply can’t muster up the hype for any of this anymore. If I read about this, I want to play it, but I don’t like playing Alphas or Betas either. Maybe I should simply stay away from the topic?

That said, I’m moderately looking forward to the new expansion – but I wouldn’t say I’m excited or even hyped. Maybe I’m old and boring but I guess I’ll just take a cookie cutter spec and then change the 2-3 things that annoy me, more of a top-down iterative approach over a bottom-up creative one.

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #6.

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Season 4 M+ – First impressions

I hadn’t actually planned to do much last night, just weekly login of all toons, grab the quests, maybe have a go at the new old world boss with supposedly higher iLevel loot… when I got messages on discord to log my main and then being told I shouldn’t log through all toons so quickly when they want to message me 😛

Anyway, my +12 Streets keys was waved away and they really wanted to do that +16 Mechagon Workshop. Wasn’t fun, so we switched to +15. Still wasn’t exactly fun and took a lot of dying and trying out things, but we made it through with a lot of overtime, but that’s one 304 item in the vault secured. I had warned them that I only ever did the instance once, overleveled, but it’s not like I was the only one bumbling. Took like 80 minutes, but it wasn’t wasted time… but I think I should stick to a lot lower besides one weekly +15 for the gear, for now, at least until I know the fights. Also I guess we were criminally undergeared at our 273 to 278. And I think they only took me with them (it’s the +20 crew) because 3 of the big pumpers are on vacation, but I’m not complaining.

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #4.

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Shadowlands goals, part 2

I’m not sure it was exactly a good idea, but I did manage to finish off 2 more WoW chars to 60 last night, even if it took until 1:30 my time. I hadn’t originally planned to take advantage of the 50% XP buff (and I’ll only find out if it’s really gone when I will login later today), but with my main goals reached it sounded like a fun challenge. Goblin Warrior (my third) and Void Elf Rogue (my fourth) are now at 60 and it’s a nice round number of 30 toons. In a totally random twist of fate I now have two of each class at 60, and then 3 Hunters, Death Knights, Paladins, Warriors, and 4 Rogues. I’ve never been a huge fan of Paladins and especially not DKs, but it kinda happened, mostly because of different servers and the sale on transfers coming much too late. Then again I kinda covered most of favorite classes this way, the only outliers being Shaman, Warlock, and Druid. Is it weird to have 6 favorite classes out of 12? Maybe.

Sounds like it’s time for a ranking, shall we?

Rogue/Warrior > Shaman > Hunter = Paladin =~ Warlock > Druid = Demon Hunter = Death Knight > Mage > Monk > Priest

I guess Retri/Prot Paladins have always been ok since TBC/WotLK, I only hated them in Vanilla. Warlock and Druid are classes I really like, but I feel I’m not as good without extensive effort, so they’re a little more tedious. DK and DH are not great, but solid most of the time. Frost Mages are either fun to play or meh, depending on the expansion. And I don’t think I’ll ever warm up to Monk or Priest (WotLK Disc was cool tho). Rogues would be perfect if they weren’t sometimes so squishy/not able to solo elites anymore. Also can’t tank, so I guess that’s why I’ve gone more towards Warrior for many years. I’m not sure I ever want to main a Hunter but I always enjoy playing them. Maybe stuck with Warrior for now…

Kinda funny how the one number (Level 60, yay!) is meaningful to the point that I level so many toons and the other – more important – number (iLevel, boo!) I don’t care at all. Never in the mood to grind out gear, especially not on alts. Catch up is fine, but actually putting in time and effort? Nah.

Also managed to sneak in a last M+ after the (short) raid and could upgrade my MH to 272 with 1000 of my 1035 Valor. Will be a win either way – either I will now have a 272 MH until a good one drops, or it will drop just because I upgrade. But the Valor would be converted to gold anyway, so nothing lost. Kinda shitty that I lose all my Valor on the Shaman, but she’s just not reached a high enough rating to upgrade stuff above 255.

Season 4 is starting today, and we’re only gonna raid on Sundays. Despite hardly missing a raid the last 3 tiers this expansion and the summer still going I’m probably not gonna try to schedule other stuff around the raid, but with it only being one day, me still not being keen on a lot of events with tons of people… and my friends basically never going out on a Sunday… I’ll probably still be able to attend most nights. Kinda glad it’s only one night as I’m not overly enthusiastic about repeating the content.

I have a low key plan/desire to heal more and also tank a little this season, but on the other hand I’m in a bit of a WoW lull right now. The Jailer AOTC kill wasn’t the grand finale I’d hoped for, with all the nerfs and then the “we gotta go fast” and then also not being able to rekill him (for lack of an ID) for our tank who missed the kill. Interestingly the tank itself seems to care the least for the missed achievement, but some of us still feel bad about it.

This was supposed to be a very short “yay, 30th Level 60 and made it just in time for S4” post, but sometimes you write a few words and your lunch break is over…

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #3.

Shadowlands goals, part 2 Read More »

Shadowlands goals

During the run of WoW’s 9.2 patch cycle (let’s call it the Zereth Mortis season) I ran quite a few chars through this daily zone. I mean, I also did a lot of other things, raids and M+, and so on – but for some reason I wanted to see this campaign done on all classes, and get my 265 Belt Legendary as a reward. Also the world boss dropped some items (better for Cloth and Plate, worse for Leather, worst for Mail) and with the Sandworn Relics you could buy low-level Tier pieces (or to be more exact, 246 items that could be converted to Tier pieces of the same level). Some hotfix patch just before Season 4 made them Bind-to-Account, so on Friday I could finish the last pieces.

  • One character per class (and faction) to Level 60 – long ago
  • One character per class to Renown 80 – done
  • One character per class completing the ZM campaign and get a Legendary – done
  • One character per class with the 4-set tier bonus – done
  • One character per class unlocking all 6 levels of the cypher – done **
  • One character per class at item level 252 or above – meh, only managed 8 of them

Yeah I know it’s kinda stupid, but I somehow enjoy some mindless grinds, often only 20 minutes after work for a very quick tour. I’d say I’m basically done with the alts for this expansion. We’ll see how Season 4 actually is and how many toons I want to actively play (it’s summer now after all), but I guess it won’t be that many.

  • Raiding: Warrior, unless we do alt runs, then maybe Shaman
  • M+: Warrior and probably Shaman, maybe tanking as Blood DK or Demon Hunter
  • collecting gear: not sure, no plans really.

I’m at 28 Level 60 chars and we have an XP buff running, so maybe getting to a nice round 30 would be an idea.

Maybe I’ll use the Sandworn Relics I have left to finish a few transmog sets, but unfortunately the LFR level ones are all some meh tone of mostly greens. The normal versions look so much better. I think I got all the reputations to Exalted on my main, but there are a few of the covenant special things I haven’t spent a lot of time with, although I’m 2/3 towards Exalted with the Stitchmasters, but I mostly ignored Revendreth and Bastion in that regard. I think I did all quest lines and I definitely unlocked all Heritage Armors that are ingame. I should have all professions at max level once as well.

**: ninja edit: 30 minutes after publishing this scheduled article I actually managed #12. Talk about timing.

This is Blaugust 2022 – post #2.

Shadowlands goals Read More »

Raiding Sepulcher – week 22

As I wrote before, this turned out to be a very close call. August 2nd (a Tuesday) is probably the last day for EU people to get AOTC, and we’re not sure if we’ll get a raid together this Sunday or on that Tuesday, but… we did it!

Last night at 21:40, so 20 minutes before the scheduled raid end, we had a really good try with less deaths at the start and actually killed him just after the 9 minute mark. AOTC number two done, I’m so relieved. We’ll try to grab another ID and do a rekill on Sunday for one of our tanks, who missed this night, probably one of 2-3 nights this whole tier :/

Not completely happy with my damage (46 Green parse, 35 adjusted for iLevel, 97% active), but didn’t die and 7th place out of 11 in a single target fight.

Wipe counter for Sepulcher of the First Ones Heroic:

  • Jailer 61
  • Rygelon 57
  • Lords of Dread 25
  • Halondrus 36
  • Anduin 24
  • Pantheon 13
  • Lihuvim 15
  • Xy’mox 18
  • Dausegne 3
  • Skolex 7
  • Vigilant Guardian 0
AOTC: Sepulcher
The mount for AOTC: Sepulcher

Raiding Sepulcher – week 22 Read More »

Raiding Sepulcher – weeks 20-21

Rygelon didn’t turn out to be a big problem after the nerf, so he fell on like the 5th pull on that Sunday raid, since then we’ve been working on the Jailer, but some raid nights had to be called off for tanks missing, and even more people missing. I think we’re down to 38% – when the adds come, but not very consistently. I guess we have 2 raid nights left, if they happen – then it’s over, AotC or not. Not happy.

Raiding Sepulcher – weeks 20-21 Read More »

Raiding Sepulcher – weeks 14-19

Oh boy, again forgot to post about this and need to try to puzzle it back together from logs…

Sunday the 5th Anduin fell, then we continued extending but still sometimes killing Pantheon for the Trinket if time allowed.

Week 16 on Tuesday we managed to kill Lords of Dread, getting up to 9/11 Heroic.

Just before Blizzard announced that Season 3 (and with it the AOTC achievement) would only last until August 2nd, we kinda cancelled our Tuesday raid for lack of interest. This is a bit of a shit timing in my opinion. Like many others I was kinda looking forward to Season 4 as a fun diversion, but only after we got AOTC – and announcing there’d only be a month left for this kinda hard tier was a bit of a letdown.

Week 19 saw us continuing progress on Rygelon, best try is 36% with 17 people in the raid, but unclear if Tuesday would happen, at least it was put back on the menu and not outright cancelled.

Tuesday was a bit of a letdown, with some nerfs announced for tomorrow we voted close to 50/50 to raid at all, despite 16 people there. In the end we tried Rygelon for an hour, went to 20ish percent and then called it after the break and did two M+ groups instead to get a few people more Great Vault chests. Not a waste of time, but I would’ve preferred to raid.

Let’s see what Sunday brings, we’ll have 4 full weeks now it seems and two bosses are missing.

Raiding Sepulcher – weeks 14-19 Read More »

Keystone Master in Season 3

Totally forgot to post about this when it finally happened – but I managed to sneak my way past 2500 M+ rating and have got my mount.

Yay!

Many thanks to my guildies who brought me from a nervous trainwreck when joining a key to playing a +17 relatively casually. I don’t want to say carry, I think I needed about 2 runs per dungeons with detailed instructions (like what is different and important in higher M+ than in low keys where you can ignore everything) and then I felt like doing things in a normal way, in the end actually topping the meters from time to time. Feels good! So I’d say until 1800 rating I was either trained or carried, however you want to phrase it, but the rest of the time I simply played – sometimes helping out when they needed a stronger DPS when going on alts as they’re in the +20 range on their mains now, something I’m currently not really interested in.

It was an interesting experience anyway. In season 1 we were mostly dying our way through finished a single +10/+12/+14 over time for a chance at Vault loot and now for the last 8 weeks or so I’ve managed to do 4 +15s most weeks, at least 1 every week and even doing 8 of them in 2 weeks. I think I’ve never actually been that close to the iLvl cap for a tier/season.

Keystone Master in Season 3 Read More »