October 2018 Gaming Goals

It’s another month and time for another round of gaming goals. September started out optimistic but I got pretty derailed from what I intended to accomplish. Luckily it’s a fresh month which means a fresh start with new goals.

September Goals in Review:

WoW: Level an alliance-side character to 120. Nope. I barely touched my alliance characters at all this month.

Run each available dungeon on mythic difficulty at least once. Nope.

Run available LFR. Nope. I did the first wing but still haven’t run the wing that released last week yet.

Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. Nope. I am beginning to hate ICC at this point. It needs to give up that last pet.

D3: Unlock adventure mode on a HC character. Yes! The only goal I actually met this month. I’m not a total failure!


October Goals:

WoW: Run available LFR. The rest of Uldir LFR should be out this month and I do want to see the whole thing.

Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. Someday this pet will finally drop. Someday.

D3: Help Belghast get a stash tab. I don’t know if I will want to push much farther into the season for myself, but if I’m helping out a friend I’ll be way more motivated.

Dragalia Lost: Finish the story. I’ve become a bit addicted to this mobile game, I really enjoy it. It seems like most of my friends are playing it right now too. I want to see the whole story before I get distracted by something new.


I scaled back my WoW goals this month because honestly I’m not really feeling into WoW at all right now. Likewise D3, where I got super invested in the season for about a week and then my interest faded again. I’ve been easily distracted by mobile games, that let me chill on the couch with the spouse instead of hiding away up in my office. I’ll be losing more than a week out of October for work travel, so there’s no sense setting ambitious goals this month.

October 2018 Gaming Goals

It’s another month and time for another round of gaming goals. September started out optimistic but I got pretty derailed from what I intended to accomplish. Luckily it’s a fresh month which means a fresh start with new goals. September Goals in Review: WoW: Level an alliance-side character to 120. Nope. I barely touched my alliance characters at all this month. Run each available dungeon on mythic difficulty at least once. Nope. Run available LFR. Nope. I did the first wing but still haven’t run the wing that released last week yet. Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. Nope. I am beginning to hate ICC at this point. It needs to give up that last pet. D3: Unlock adventure mode on a HC character. Yes! The only goal I actually met this month. I’m not a total failure!
October Goals: WoW: Run available LFR. The rest of Uldir LFR should be out this month and I do want to see the whole thing. Complete “Raiding with leashes IV”. Someday this pet will finally drop. Someday. D3: Help Belghast get a stash tab. I don’t know if I will want to push much farther into the season for myself, but if I’m helping out a friend I’ll be way more motivated. Dragalia Lost: Finish the story. I’ve become a bit addicted to this mobile game, I really enjoy it. It seems like most of my friends are playing it right now too. I want to see the whole story before I get distracted by something new.
I scaled back my WoW goals this month because honestly I’m not really feeling into WoW at all right now. Likewise D3, where I got super invested in the season for about a week and then my interest faded again. I’ve been easily distracted by mobile games, that let me chill on the couch with the spouse instead of hiding away up in my office. I’ll be losing more than a week out of October for work travel, so there’s no sense setting ambitious goals this month.

Another D3 season

Blaugust took a bit more out of me than I had realized, and I’ve been pretty scarce around here this month. Whoops. I have been busy gaming, mostly focusing on stress reduction and occasionally doing random dumb things with my friends. That includes old raids for transmog and mounts/pets, running LFR and snarking about how terrible it is, and my main focus in the past week – killing demons in D3.

Season 15 is about a week old, and I’m much more engaged than I expected to be. It is hard for me to tell whether I’m going to bounce or not in any given season lately. Sometimes I just do the minimum to get the cosmetic rewards, other times I’m pushing all the way through the season journey ranks. I think this time around the combination of the luster fading from WoW’s new expansion and growing Diablo hype surrounding Blizzcon have made me much more excited to play than usual. I am really hoping for a big announcement this year, either a major new expansion or an entirely new D4 would make my Blizzcon.

As for this season, I think the fact that I arbitrarily chose to level a necromancer instead of a demon hunter is also helping keep me more entertained than usual. I don’t know the class as well so I have to focus a little more, and I don’t have all the builds and gear memorized so getting legendaries feels more exciting because I’m seeing new things. I’m also more motivated to farm good gear because I don’t have a completely ancient, augmented necromancer waiting for me in non-seasonal like I do with DH. The things I get this season might actually not get broken down for parts when the season ends.

I went with the Rathma + Jesseth build since Rathma’s was the free set this season, and it’s quite powerful. Once I finally got all the pieces for the build I rocketed through greater rifts and pushed up to 70 with no problems. Well, I died a lot, but I killed things so fast that I still had no trouble beating the timer. It did take me an unusually long time to get all the key legendaries I needed for my build this season. The two necromancer-only rings were the most elusive, which was frustrating because the circle of buy-one-get-one-free skeletal mages is really crucial. I finally had to resort to some degenerate behavior to force it to drop. Specifically, that ring has a minimum level requirement of only 11, which allows a nice trick to work. Instead of gambling at Kadala at level 70 and having a chance of every ring in the game, I leveled a new baby necromancer to 11 and gambled with her instead. That meant I was drawing from a pool of around 3 possible rings, instead of whole endgame loot table. This technique works best for items that can drop at very low levels, but if you find yourself in the situation where that one thing you need just won’t drop, it might be worth it to try.

Now that I’m all decked out (and have unlocked the possibility of primal ancients) I’m working my way through the season journey. I’ve cleared through Champion and just need one conquest to finish Destroyer. I definitely plan to get through Conqueror, and hopefully drag my buddy Belghast through with me since he still has a few stash tabs to unlock. The conquest choices this season are not some of my favorites. I plan on grabbing avarice first, since with the double bounty box event this season it will be very easy to cheese that one. The next easiest is probably the thrill, since I’ll have lots of paragon levels and high level gems to make GR45 less painful with or without a set. After that the realistic options are either masters of the universe, which requires leveling and farming gear with a second class, or boss mode, which will be very hard with only one or two people.

We’ll see if I keep my momentum this season or fizzle out before finishing. For now I’m still having lots of fun!

Another D3 season

Blaugust took a bit more out of me than I had realized, and I’ve been pretty scarce around here this month. Whoops. I have been busy gaming, mostly focusing on stress reduction and occasionally doing random dumb things with my friends. That includes old raids for transmog and mounts/pets, running LFR and snarking about how terrible it is, and my main focus in the past week – killing demons in D3. Season 15 is about a week old, and I’m much more engaged than I expected to be. It is hard for me to tell whether I’m going to bounce or not in any given season lately. Sometimes I just do the minimum to get the cosmetic rewards, other times I’m pushing all the way through the season journey ranks. I think this time around the combination of the luster fading from WoW’s new expansion and growing Diablo hype surrounding Blizzcon have made me much more excited to play than usual. I am really hoping for a big announcement this year, either a major new expansion or an entirely new D4 would make my Blizzcon. As for this season, I think the fact that I arbitrarily chose to level a necromancer instead of a demon hunter is also helping keep me more entertained than usual. I don’t know the class as well so I have to focus a little more, and I don’t have all the builds and gear memorized so getting legendaries feels more exciting because I’m seeing new things. I’m also more motivated to farm good gear because I don’t have a completely ancient, augmented necromancer waiting for me in non-seasonal like I do with DH. The things I get this season might actually not get broken down for parts when the season ends. I went with the Rathma + Jesseth build since Rathma’s was the free set this season, and it’s quite powerful. Once I finally got all the pieces for the build I rocketed through greater rifts and pushed up to 70 with no problems. Well, I died a lot, but I killed things so fast that I still had no trouble beating the timer. It did take me an unusually long time to get all the key legendaries I needed for my build this season. The two necromancer-only rings were the most elusive, which was frustrating because the circle of buy-one-get-one-free skeletal mages is really crucial. I finally had to resort to some degenerate behavior to force it to drop. Specifically, that ring has a minimum level requirement of only 11, which allows a nice trick to work. Instead of gambling at Kadala at level 70 and having a chance of every ring in the game, I leveled a new baby necromancer to 11 and gambled with her instead. That meant I was drawing from a pool of around 3 possible rings, instead of whole endgame loot table. This technique works best for items that can drop at very low levels, but if you find yourself in the situation where that one thing you need just won’t drop, it might be worth it to try. Now that I’m all decked out (and have unlocked the possibility of primal ancients) I’m working my way through the season journey. I’ve cleared through Champion and just need one conquest to finish Destroyer. I definitely plan to get through Conqueror, and hopefully drag my buddy Belghast through with me since he still has a few stash tabs to unlock. The conquest choices this season are not some of my favorites. I plan on grabbing avarice first, since with the double bounty box event this season it will be very easy to cheese that one. The next easiest is probably the thrill, since I’ll have lots of paragon levels and high level gems to make GR45 less painful with or without a set. After that the realistic options are either masters of the universe, which requires leveling and farming gear with a second class, or boss mode, which will be very hard with only one or two people. We’ll see if I keep my momentum this season or fizzle out before finishing. For now I’m still having lots of fun!