WoW

Guess it doesn’t take long until I find myself some new goals in the form of boxes to tick.

Not sure how much sense it makes, but I’ve been pushing a lot more characters through the Zereth Mortis story now, and also leveling up the Cypher for gear, doing the World Boss every week and so on.

Just got my legendary belt on the Mage, which makes her the 11th toon to finish the story line, only Monk and Priest missing. Incidentally she also hit Renown 80, also the 11th. Which means there would technically be 7 classes where I’ve not brought the Cypher to Level 6 of 6, so there would be 252 gear drops from WQs and dailies. That is a thing I am not sure how long I can stomach, but the first 2 alts (besides my main) don’t need anything from ZM anymore (just Trinkets below 252/or part of 246 Tier set pieces) and two more only need one item each, so on those I’m only filling the weekly bar, doing the puzzle daily WQs (or other very quick ones) and going for a 252 weapon. “Only”, still a ton of stuff to do but right now it’s soothing and maybe my brain needs the rest and the mindless grinding away.

I’ve also done a few more M+ on my Shammy, healing and going Elemental. After the lucky 275 Main Hand and completing the 4 set Tier bonus it’s now only down to practicing… and on my main I’m now 90ish points away from the mount, slowly edging myself closer with 10 points here and there until I can get one of the two missing keys in a Fortified week…

For no particular reason besides the whole CurseForge/Overwolf Launcher thing (and Wowup stopping to work) I recently dug deeper into my list of installed addons, something I’ve not done since Shadowlands launched.

So here’s a list I guess, and while writing down and sorting it I’m hoping to get rid of a few. Maybe it works.

• Prio 1: UI and stuff I simply can’t play without
  • Bartender4 (Bars)
  • PitBull4 (Unit Frames)
  • Bagnon (one bag that works just like I want it to work)
  • BagBrother (where are all the items on alts?)
  • BugSack (no error popups)
  • MoveAnything (move stuff around, esp. the talking heads)
  • Prat (chat)
  • Scrap (sell all grey items)
  • SexyMap (cleaner minimap)
  • SimulationCraft
  • StatBlock_ZoneText (where am I?)
• Prio 2: Raiding and still very important
  • BigWigs (raid warnings)
  • Details (damage meter)
  • Examiner (inspect people!)
  • ExRT/MRT/MythicDungeonTools
  • Grid2
  • HandyNotes + HandyNotes_Shadowlands
  • Mapster (better map)
  • Masque/Masque_Caith (this is just how my WoW has to look)
  • OmniCC (better cooldown display)
  • Quartz (could be replaced by some WeakAuras)
  • WeakAuras
• Prio 3: I’d hate to lose this
  • Altoholic
  • Bazooka (a bar at the top to collect icons and show info)
  • Broker_PlayedTime
  • Broker_XPBar (Fan update) (I like it while leveling)
  • LittleWigs
  • nivBuffs (Masque skin + better time display for buffs/debuffs)
  • Quester (coloring completion of quests)
  • TomTom (sometimes stuff is hard to find and Wowhead has coords)
  • VenturePlan (not a fan of the command table)
  • WorldQuestTab (just a quicker overview over World Quests)
  • BetterWardrobe (a bit undecided on these 3, but I hate to lose out on missing transmogs)
  • CaerdonWardrobe
  • CanIMogIt
• Prio 4: Nice to have
  • AstralKeys
  • ChampionCommander
  • GoGoMount
  • MasterPlan
  • MazeHelper
  • NomiCakes
  • StatBlock_Coords (they’re on the minimap after all)
• Prio 5: Not strictly necessary, I might just get rid of them now
  • Ara_Broker_XP
  • SavedInstances
  • StatBlock_XP
  • WorldQuestList

Yes, that’s a big list. After playing this game for over 15 years I have opinions on how stuff should look and where it should be on the UI though. Also some choices of the default UI just drive me nuts. And some systems are just not fun without some addons (command table and its predecessors in other expansions).

Then again I wouldn’t classify too many of them as really complete modding, or immersion-breaking. IF this was FFXIV I could get rid of the most important ones, Bartender, Bagnon, MoveAnything, and PitBull. And Altoholic because not every item is strewn across 20 alts.

Also this is not a recommendation, it’s just how I run. Interestingly I am not 100% sure if the above list is correct, because a lot of addons put multiple folders into the Interface\Addons directory, so I might as well have missed a few, especially the DataStore ones. After cleaning out it should be around 42, such a nice number.

Last night I wanted to log into WoW and the launcher helpfully said: “14 minutes of subscription left”, which ended my three month experiment of using WoW tokens bought with ingame gold. I still have around 750k-1m, but spread over 3 factions on 2 servers, so I actually resubscribed with money again because I don’t want to go out of my way to grind or feel even a little pressure to save up money from callings or other weeklies. I wanted to go three months first, but then I chose six, I’m having fun right now, raidlogging through the summer is a feasible way of playing (as I found last fall/winter in out in 9.1) and it’s a buck less per month, also a free mount that I forgot to look at yesterday 😛

The more devious deal is that they have 8 character transfers for 80 EUR on sale right now – one is typically 25 EUR, which is complete bonkers, but it’s often marked down to 17.50 EUR and there’s a 3 for 35 deal I haven’t seen. So the thing is, since I transferred my Warrior main and Shaman alt last summer I’ve not really logged back in to the old server, I only ran three toons through Zereth Mortis last week. And while I did talk to my old guildies again for the first time I don’t really feel I belong there anymore, so I could take this chance to move the bulk of my chars to the new server without breaking the bank or rerolling even more.

I have 5 60s in decent gear here on the new server and so there would be 7 missing classes, which is kind of a good match as well, I only regret leveling and gearing a new Paladin, but I like my new Hunter more than my old one 😛 I could also finally move my original classic Rogue off of the server with all my Horde toons, but I already have a Rogue on the new server. So in any case a few toons would stay behind, but that’s not a problem. 50 Void Elf Rogue (for Heritage), 60 Dwarf Hunter I don’t have a huge connection to, said 60 Dwarf Paladin which could still get the last free ticket… It’s a hard choice! DH, Druid, DK, Mage, Priest, Monk would be a given. Not 100% sure about the Mechagnome Warlock (I regret that race choice a bit) and the Paladin, but she used to be my main in BfA. Then again it wouldn’t be completely unreasonable to have 2 Paladins and 2 Rogues, right?

Also some guildies wanted to run M+ with us on their Horde toons and despite some “who can invite whom because of BattleTag” that also worked flawlessly (not only getting randoms from LFG) and it’s really nice, my old guild also started a “WoW community” so people could join on their Horde toons for cross-faction communication outside Discord, also a nice feature – now if only they’d done that many years ago!

With the 13 Plaguefall we did last night I edged ever closer to the magical 2500 rating, with a bit of luck we can do a 12 De Other Side tonight, then I just need Streets and hopefully that’s enough, otherwise there’s next week where I have a choice of like 5 dungeons that could bring a few points if we time it – I love this new system where it’s not “you need everything at +15” but “oh, you have timed a few at higher than +15, so you can slack off with the others”, but I never really looked at the old system, it just sounded less lenient.

Why did I not post this for a few weeks? no idea.

Week 9 saw us killing Skolex, Xy’mox, and Pantheon, week 10 was Lihuvim. Then no “kill” progress in week 11 and 12, and last Sunday (week 13) we finally got Halondrus, and on Tuesday we got to 41% on Anduin, so now we’re gonna extend more and hopefully that will help.

Last week was also kinda slow in M+, only got one +15 done, but today after reset I managed to heal a +14 Mists (over time though, and a lot of deaths) and then we timed a +18 Spires with exactly 3s spare.

The Vault gave me a 278 chest, so that means I have 5 slots of the absolute maximum iLevel – and then 5 more fully upgraded at 272. Feels weird if you’ve never really done M+ before and it’s not just a single lucky drop from the Vault, but the majority of your gear. Then again, no luck with weapons at all.

And the “Let Horde and Alliance play together” patch finally went live today, we already had some Horde randoms in a +7 Spires.

Just dinged 50 on the Zandalari Troll and the “I want to get those levels” project is done for now.

• One of every class on the Alliance side to 60
• One of every class on the Horde side to 60
• Unlock every Heritage Armor currently in game

So this leaves me with 3 Rogues, 3 Hunters, 3 Paladins, 3 Death Knights, and 2 of every other class at 60, and then 2 more Rogues, 2 more Warriors, a Paladin, and a Priest at 50 – that’s 28 max-level chars and 6 at the last max level and I barely want to type it out… and 28 is such an odd number, kinda makes you want to make it a round 30, doesn’t it?

Gear on the other hand is a joke. On my old Alliance server (with 10 of the classes at 60, missing the two that I transferred) the average gear level is 185 – that’s below Season 1 Raid Finder. The Horde server (12 chars) is even worse at 141 average and a single one at 186. But sure, you could easily send them a full set of 226 ZM gear, but what for?

On my current server the three toons without Legendaries are at 240-243, but I’ve not put a ton of effort except doing some ZM.

Guess I need new goals, except for the M+ mount for this season…

This week (real one this time, not the raid week) was uneventful in a bigger sense, but I got some things wrapped up.

The Nightborne Priest is finally Level 50 and I have the Heritage Armor unlocked – that was the last one missing. The Demon Hunter reached 60, which means I only have the Blood Elf Priest to go, and only less than 4 levels. And I was kinda unhappy with my Zandalari Troll Paladin at 45 (nearly 49 now thanks to a random BfA dungeon group sticking together and blasting through 3 instances), so I’m gonna push those last few levels although I already have the Heritage armor from dinging 110 back then. Then I finished the Zereth Mortis campaign on my Hunter and I guess I should do it on Paladin and Rogue, if not for the 265 Legendary Belt alone.

Levels are meaningless, but it’s still fun to have milestones for me, I guess.

The penultimate week was wild, I didn’t originally plan t0 chain run M+ again but we were online and so I tagged along and managed to have 8 or 9 done until Friday night, and then I even healed a +10 Gambit on my Shammy, on time. Was super happy with my 21xx rating. So I even could have upgraded everything to 272 if I had had enough Valor, but I’m still working on that. Also the 2500 rating for the mount doesn’t seem to be unobtainable anymore – I’m not sure if +15 for everything on Necrotic and Tyrannical is enough, but we’ll see. Right now I have 2 at +16, 2 at +15, 1 each at +14,+12,+11 and 3 missing completely on time and I’m already so unexpectedly far above 2000.

Then my Gnome Rogue managed to have some drop luck and trade in some Sandworn stones for items, then on to the Catalyst and I have a 4-set bonus of 239/246/246/259 (total iLevel 241). And then I started ZM on the Retri Paladin and she’s at iLvl 232 already and I only have 1 sub-229 item left to replace.

On my Horde server I have only 2 toons left to get to 60, 3 levels on the DH and 7 levels on the Shadow Priest, then I’m set with all classes on both factions – and I started some work on the 2 missing Allied Races for the Heritage armor again as well – 4 more levels for the Nightborne Shadow Priest.

The only thing I’m absolutely not doing is acquiring gear for any single toon besides the ones on my main Alliance server right now. On my old Alliance server they’re all 170 -205 (so nothing from 9.1/Korthia) and on my Horde server they’re 129-186, so all but one or two are just like they dinged 60, and that is completely fine. Still feels a little weird having 25 chars at Level 60 now, and 2 more planned.

And then this last week I blasted through the levels on my Pandaren Alliance Hunter – I got to 42 on Friday and then, despite being outside and enjoying the good weather and running some M+ in the evening, I got her to 57 on Saturday and then (because I couldn’t sleep anymore and got up at like 7) I dinged 60 at 9 in the morning and sent her a set of 226 Anima items – so iLevel 218 already (missing neck and one ring). She dinged 60 just shy of 17h /played. This is nuts.

And then finally, after again going outside for lunch and hanging out in a park I pushed my Highmountain Tauren to 50 in MoP Chromie Time and grabbed my Heritage Armor. Only Nightborne left now!

But yeah, overall it’s a little silly how fast leveling goes, I’m at *checks notes* 26 chars at Level 60 now, 2 more at 5x dinging “soon” and then 5-6 at 45-50 I don’t plan on moving through Shadowlands right now, and I still have one Level 50 boost left!

My only gripe right now is how expensive transmog is, so I guess I’ll be waiting for the next Trial of Style for all those “meh, ignore them for now” alts with very bad leveling gear/early 60s gear. It’s just not worth it 🙁

This week in WoW has been a little weird. The weekly was “Do 4 Mythic Dungeons for a 265 item” – and because my iLvl was decidedly below 265 that sounded like something to be tackled. (This may sound weird to people who do M+ all the time, I know).

So the guild was doing some runs and as luck would have it we had 10 people for 2 groups, so we ran 3 – that may have been Friday. So I needed only one more, which we also did, and then they roped me in for more. I was pretty surprised to time a +14 Streets of Wonder despite me never having been there and the healer having done it once when it came out. And then nearly timed a +15 So’leah’s Gambit… Then today I was just missing a little bit of rating so we did my +15 Necrotic Wake and timed it… followed by a +16 Halls of Atonement which we didn’t time, but still easily cleared. Finally a +11 Theater that was just getting one healer alt a key at all and me my 8th key of the week. So yeah, no comparison to the +15 Plaguefall last week.

It’s kind of a shame how good the loot is. I got a Necklace yesterday and a Chest today, so that was my 4-set Tier bonus. And then there are some gloves I could still upgrade and replace my 252 Tier gloves with, and I got new helm.. Not all drops were mine, for example the necklace was a hand-me down and a huge upgrade over my 252 raid one. So yeah, gearing in raids is kinda dead – not only normal, even Heroic.

Sunday of week 7 saw us first killing the 4 middle bosses for some last chance at missing Tier set pieces (Pantheon, Lihuvim, Halondrus, Anduin), then we reset and killed Guardian for the skip and on Tuesday we planned to do the last three and that worked after a few wipes on Jailer.

Sunday of week 8 was Guardian again, then the skip, then Anduin, Lords, Rygelon and then a few wipes on Jailer because the composition was weird and we were only 13 I think. Tuesday went better, Jailer on the first try, then Guardian and a first kill of Dausegne on the third try, then 5 wipes on Pantheon.

So I guess we’re only doing Heroic now and only go back to normal if we have 2/3 attendance with the wrong roles present again.

Somehow this week was bad. Didn’t sleep well, wasn’t enthusiastic about anything, not a lot of progress.

I guess the biggest downer was opening the Great Vault chest on Wednesday after work and, surprise, no Head or Chest piece so I could complete my 4-set Tier bonus. Got some nice 278 Boots but they’re a 114 DPS upgrade according to the sim. I already ranted on Twitter how not fun gearing is if a jump from 252-non BiS to 278 (max iLvl)-non-BiS is a mathematical 1% increase in DPS, especially if your class simply doesn’t seem to click with you this raid tier.

See tomorrow’s raid post for details.

What was a little more positive that I’ve been running some old raid instances for transmogs again for the last three weeks and last night I actually managed to get the belt for the Warlock Corruptor’s set, the last missing piece! Still trying for the Rogue Deathmantle T5 chest from KT in The Eye on 2 Rogues per week… And a Plate belt from Morchok in Dragon Soul, and one Paladin item from Trilliax in Nighthold…