Good Morning Friends! I hope you all had a delightful weekend. I spent most of my in Last Epoch and a shocking amount of it grouped up with friends doing some multiplayer shenanigans. That is really the piece of this game that works so much better than Path of Exile… grouping with my friends does not feel needlessly punitive. In fact, if you happen to die while grouped with friends… you can res up and port back into the instance just fine. I’ve mostly shifted back to playing my Void Knight but I will talk about the reasoning for that a bit later. Kodra has come back from his trip and recently we have been trying to get him caught up and through normal monoliths. Originally my Fire Bro was an attempt to keep a character at his level… but then it was just too damned fun and I rushed through to empowered monoliths without really meaning to.
As far as my Void Knight goes, I have added a few levels but have not really made any major gear changes since I last talked about the character. I keep farming 120+ Orobyss but have had zero luck in finding another Apathy’s Maw Axe… specifically one with legendary potential and have not yet seen a Shattered Chains belt. Similarly, I’ve farmed God Hunter Argentus a number of times and have yet to see another Wings of Argentus chest-piece let alone one with legendary potential. I have levers that I can pull to keep trying for better get, but have simply not been lucky. I did find an LP1 copy of Darkstride boots but didn’t exactly get lucky on the craft, but wound up with something better than nothing. If you are curious I’ve dumped a build over on Last Epoch Tools for the current state of my character.
One thing that I had to do this weekend was create a significantly more strict loot filter. I had been using one that started out as something that came from Maxroll and that I kept tweaking. I decided I just needed to blow that away completely and start out on my own. I’m essentially hiding all normal, magic, rare, exalted, and idols and then only showing very specific stats that I care about. I have a broader rule that shifts things to pink that I specifically want to keep track of for sharding. Then I have some super specific rules for the Sceptres and Two-Handed Axes that I am looking for on both Void and Fire builds. Lastly, I have a rule to show ALL Tier 7 Exalted items, and then the one I am showing in the above screenshot in an attempt to catch any Exalted item with two Tier 6 affixes. This was made more important since I am just about to ding Rank 8 with Circle of Fortune where EVERY Rare drop will have a 25% chance of upgrading into an Exalted.
As for Fire Bro…. in truth right now in its current state, this build is just not good enough. I was able to get all the way to Empowered Monoliths… with some help from Ace in killing Elder Gaspar. However in Empowered Monoliths I either need more damage or more survival… because the combination of what I currently have is simply not good enough. I could tweak this build in a number of ways but I was trying to stay pure to the original goal of using the Torch and lighting everything on fire. I want to spend some time pouring over the character sheet and playing with it a bit in Last Epoch Tools to see if I can find a way forward either through gearing or respeccing points. I need to spend some time looking at other ignite builds to see how they are working and what sort of gearing they are going for. I’ve not given up… I just would rather focus on my Void Knight for the time being.
I also have a bunch of alts waiting in the wings that I am probably going to level a bit as well. I have a Falconer, Bleed Wolves Beastmaster, Flame Reave Spellblade, and a character that I plan on trying to yolo my way into a Fire Damage Earthquake Shaman build. Still having a heck of a lot of fun with this game and trying out new characters that I have not played before.
The post Fire Bro On Hold appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Well friends with the help of my friend Eliyon, we figured out where I fell off the Main Story Quest. It does not in fact end at Valdrakken but instead spins off with a few quests inside of the city, that then lead out into what is the fourth zone of the game Thaldraszus. So I have a bit more questing to go before I can wrap things up and finish out the story… and then proceed onto gearing through World Quests. I remember having this issue as well with Shadowlands where I dinged the new level cap and still had one and a half zones to complete before I could join the open-world “reindeer games”. I remember it was during this chasm that my friend Ace bounced from Shadowlands never to return, so I can’t say this is a super great design decision. It would be nice if World Quests just unlocked whenever you hit level 70 no matter how far you were progressed in the story.
Feeling somewhat deflated I spent most of my evening in Path of Exile. I had converted my attempt at a Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Chieftain over to Righteous Fire and so far… I think this might be the closest to the glory that was Juggernaut Righteous Fire. If you are so inclined here is a POB of where I am currently. The thing is the Chieftain comes with a bunch of really nice perks for Righteous Fire, some of which I had overlooked or at least written off as less good than they actually are. Namely Ramako, Sun’s Light is something that I had skipped on my previous attempts at an RF Chieftain during the Blast from the Past league, and this was a mistake. You spend a surprising amount of time “stationary” as Righteous Fire and if you frostblink from pack to pack you can maintain this “stationary” state. All of that time everything just has -20 Fire Resistance which seems to override all other modifiers and while in theory you can get a resistance much lower than that… this just always works.
This allows me to run a curse that isn’t either Flammability or Elemental Weakness and have it feel like I am double cursing without needing to fiddle with the nonsense that is involved in making that happen. Of the other options, I went with Punishment which causes cursed enemies to take more damage when on low life… meaning that things die faster and hopefully proc Hinekora, Death’s Fury and clearing the entire damned screen. I went Primalist with the hope of eventually using charms to get more chance to explode but for the moment I am running two Percent Strength and Life Regeneration Rate modifier charms. In a perfect world, I would find something that gave me explode and life or regen but I will have to keep fishing in the forest to make that happen. I’ve also still never seen the ACTUAL King in the Mists fight so none of my characters have unlocked their final doodads.
My defenses are also extremely solid and quite honestly… now that I have equipped a Lightning Coil I don’t feel that much less tanky than the Juggernaut version did. What I bring to the table is roughly 25k armor, almost 5000 life, 2500 life regeneration, 90% to all elemental resistances, and 50% of all physical damage is taken as lightning damage… as well as 30% crit damage reduction and some things to limit damage over time which I don’t believe the Lightning Coil applies to. Now that I have the lightning coil I am going to try my hand at juicing some T16 maps and see how that goes. Essentially the gameplay is a bit odd in that you are trying to kill enough small stuff so that you proc an explosion and then the entire screen around you evaporates before moving on to the next big pack. It feels better than it sounds.
All told it is fun to map on albeit a bit slower than Lightning Arrow. Lately, I have been alternating between Cemetary and Tropical Island because both are fairly enjoyable maps and relatively open. I should run some of the crappier and less bow-friendly T16s that I have rotting in my bank and see how that goes. Mostly right now I need a good deal more levels. I am working on getting a Fan the Flames gem up and running while trying to roll a slightly better version. If this works like I think it will… my ignites will proliferate among the packs of things that I am killing, and then also “proliferate” again when one of those things dies thanks to Berek’s Respite. If nothing else this should be fun as hell to watch happening. If I could somehow manage to keep my resistance high enough… I would love to have a set of Maven’s boots as well to only further add to the nonsense explosions.
One of the things that has gotten me down in Path of Exile lately is the frustration of trying to link things. Essentially I had a 900 DPS bow that I was working on getting linked, a Lightning Coil in RF colors, and more recently I finally got a Fourth Vow to drop which I am trying to link for my Boneshatter build. After spending about 1000 fusings trying to get the Bow linked, this morning I had gathered up another hundred or so and managed to get both the bow and lightning coil to six links. That alone has helped increase my enjoyment of the league. I still do not love being isolated from the trade environment, but finally getting some of the things I needed up and running is a significant improvement.
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Whelp friends… I have finished the main story campaign in Dragonflight and for the most part, I enjoyed it. I think it might be one of the better World of Warcraft expansions as a whole, but I also think that maybe my tastes in games have shifted a bit. I ran into this a bit when trying to ease into Final Fantasy XIV as well… my brainwaves seem not to flow along the traditional MMORPG patterns as much these days. Guild Wars 2 scratches the ARPG itch so that I can flow seamlessly between it and something like Path of Exile. World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV are so much slower-paced than I am used to now that I had to keep trying to make the combat more active than it was to stay engaged. I think the design pattern of the MMORPG feels a bit dated, and I still wish that someone would come along and create the Destiny of MMORPGs with tight action combat with really enjoyable feedback. I am looking for Arcade gameplay, whereas too many people seem to be leaning into the more slow and prodding Dark Souls feel.
I think what makes Dragonflight really stand out is the world design. The Waking Isles are phenomenal and have these nostalgic ties to so many other “favorite” World of Warcraft zones. There are also just some really cool visual setpieces like this cave full of spiders that were frozen in the state of descending. The team that created the flow of these zones deserves some massive credit because leveling through each area felt extremely enjoyable. So much is focused on the narrative story… but the mechanical flow through zones is super important and often treated as an afterthought in games. Dragonflight created this enjoyable ride from the moment you set foot on the docks of your capital city, to the moment you arrive in Valdrakken for the first time. Technically the expansion had three zones, but it feels like each zone is multiple zones at once with a lot of regional biome shifts and cultures.
Every time I have complained about Shadowlands, I get some diatribe about playing it at launch… I did play it at launch. I still did not really enjoy the experience at launch. The Shadowlands feels like a number of disconnected content islands that have radically different themes to them. Dragonflight instead feels like a place you could actually visit with a natural feeling flow to the transitions between zone boundaries. Shadowlands instead felt like a bunch of post-launch patch zones where narratively they did what they needed to do… but structurally were a bit of a mess. I am hoping that this same cohesion flows through to Dragonflight’s post-expansion zones because I know at a minimum at some point I will be stepping foot into the Emerald Dream. Now I just need to figure out what I need to do in order to get some starter gear. The transition from leveling to endgame has never been as smooth as it was during Legion, and I’ve not really seen much in the way of world events yet so I am wondering what I need to do in order to unlock those.
I think I am going to spend some time burning down the backlog of quests that I have sitting in assorted zones. I’ve reached the point where I can no longer accept quests and exclamation points are screaming in my face everywhere I go. I need to reconcile all of the junk that is in my bank as well so that I can figure out what I want to do with it. I should probably just Auction House the bulk of what is saleable. I kinda hate the WoW Auction House system and wish it was something more akin to FFXIV or GW2 where you could list an item and forget about it. I always sell items in those games because it is so painless… but I really hate managing failed auctions and the fees that rack up with them. I get that this is a flippers game and for “financial pvpers” but it sort of feels miserable for someone who wants nothing to do with that nonsense and just wants to convert “bag bloat” to liquid currency. I mean it is better than it used to be, but it is still pretty far off from what I would consider ideal.
Last night I bounced though after dinging 100. There was just too much to do and no real sense of purpose where I needed to start. Instead, I finished out the evening doing Delve in Path of Exile. I’ve gotten my Righteous Fire Chieftain to the point of comfort down in the mines. I still need levels so that I can socket in a bunch of jewels into my tree but I have managed to gather up three or four that will work beautifully. This is a far cry from how comfy RF Juggernaut felt, but it isn’t half bad. I’ve got two items that I have been trying to get linked… a Lightning Coil that I am going to swap to for this character and a new Lightning Arrow bow that should almost double my damage output. For now, I have been trying to link the bow because it will help me farm Sulphite more efficiently, but in either case, I just need a bajillion fusings to make this happen.
I am still shocked at just how fast the leveling goes in Dragonflight because I started on the 30th and now on the 4th I have effectively gone through two expansions. I just need to sort out how best to gear my character. I might throw myself at the LFG system and try and knock out some dungeons for gear. I am not sure if this is the case… but the community of begging for private loot gear really turned me off during Shadowlands so I am hoping that is less of a thing than it was then.
The post Dragonflight Done-ish appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
This is one of the last screenshots that I took from World of Warcraft around the launch of the Shadowlands expansion. It is dated 12/9 of 2020 and represents the last time that I played World of Warcraft in either Retail or Classic varieties. It was shortly after this that I canceled my subscription and started the longest period of time I have ever not played WoW since the launch of the game. While I spent some time helping with the alpha testing of Dragonflight, I’ve been gone from the game for roughly three years and in that time a lot of things have changed. Honestly, I am not sure if it was the Shadowlands expansion, the game as a whole, or my general dissatisfaction with Blizzard as a company. So much came out to tarnish those memories I had built up over the first decade of Warcraft and I was not really certain I could ever get back to the state of joy that I found in the game in those heady days prior to the launch of Cataclysm.
When I tested Dragonflight, I remember saying that the game felt better than it had during Shadowlands and that while I never got to see it start to finish… testing was divided up into little single-zone vertical slices without any music or cutscenes… that I thought it would be a much better World of Warcraft expansion than we had seen since Legion. The thing is… as good as it seemed it just was not enough to get me over the hump of angst that I felt towards Blizzard as a whole. I never would have played Diablo IV had someone not graciously gifted me a copy of that game, and my good friend Ace has still not played the game since its launch. I had said though that if Bobby Kotick finally left the company, I would take that as a sign to lay down my pitchfork and torch and give World of Warcraft a proper revisiting. I had heard enough from friends at the company that the culture did in fact seem to be changing bit by bit… but I wanted the figurehead gone as well before I would feel like maybe things COULD change permanently.
Bobby Kotick’s last day at ActiBlizz was the 29th, and on the 30th I was firing back up World of Warcraft. I took advantage of one of the bundles that purchased The War Within expansion and included a copy of Dragonflight as a result. Since I had been gone so long… I decided to give the game a shot with fresh eyes on my BC/Wrath raid main… the original Belghast, my Human Warrior on Argent Dawn US. This is still the character that I identify with the most in Warcraft and it seemed like the best option for a comeback. I’ve grown to love The Horde, but it never felt as true for me personally as playing the Alliance did. I love my Horde family however, and now that factions really do not matter in the least I figured it didn’t really matter which side of this server I played on… since Argent Dawn and Scryers are connected and all of my Alliance characters are on AD and all of my horde on Scryers.
House Stalwart is a guild in World of Warcraft that I founded with some friends on November 23rd, 2004. I will always regret the fact that our guild charter no longer says that date because I got hacked in the middle of Wrath of the Lich King and said hacker nuked the guild before transferring me off the server. I still think it was a personal attack, to be honest, but I have no clue who it might have been. While my time in Stalwart represented some of the best times I had in this game or in gaming in general… I also suffered quite possibly from the worst depression I have ever had while trying to lead this guild. I feel like I have been running away from it for years, scared to touch it for fear that it brought me back down to those deeply negative lows. While suffering… I made decisions that I am not proud of and struggled with the need for the guild to transform and change without me. The thing is… this group of folks never forgot who I was and even have this dumb note calling me out as “The Real GM”.
I need to forgive myself and realize that my downfall was not caused by the guild or any of the people in it… and that I have grown a lot since that time. I am hoping coming back and commiserating with the same folks will help to close those wounds a bit and maybe let them scab over. I apologize to Elnore, Rylacus, and Kylana for not always supporting them fully… and in the case of Elnore outright attacking her for the decisions she felt needed to be made. I should have fully supported your decisions when I stepped down, and been less of a flake when I picked up the mantle again during Pandaria. So similarly I apologize to Rylacus for unceremoniously dumping this mess in his lap. I apologize to Kylana for never really supporting him fully or telling him how much I appreciate the way he just ran with the guild and tried his best to keep the same sort of spirit. I also apologize to House Stalwart as a whole for never really being there for them even though they have offered me nothing but support through all of the bullshit phases that I have gone through over the years. They’ve always welcomed me back… even though there are I am certain a lot of people now who have zero clue who the hell I even am. I was always so careful to keep one foot out the door so I could run away again… and that was not cool.
This blog post has somewhat developed a life of its own. This happens sometimes when I start writing and is if nothing else proof that I really don’t script these ahead of time. I was going to talk about my adventures and instead, I have devoted this post to dealing with the anxiety and depression of the past. Talking about why I am enjoying Dragonflight and why I still really did not enjoy Shadowlands is a topic for another day. I hope you all had a great holiday break if you managed to get one. Today is my first day back so I need to wrap this up and actually start with some proper work. To any Stalwart folks that might be reading this… thanks for being chill and not overwhelming me as I start trying to figure out how the hell this game works. Huge thanks to Errya and Bleddwen for trying to welcome me back and letting me know that I was more than welcome to join in the activities. I appreciate you both greatly, but I am not quite there yet to where I can even think about doing any sort of activities, I might start joining yall on voice every now and then. I also appreciate Kylana for warning folks that I might be showing up once the deed was done, because that seems to have halted a lot of the “whoa, what the heck” moments.
If you’ve made it this far in the post thanks for reading, and thanks for always being here for me as well no matter what level of nonsense I am getting up to. If you are reading this and from Facepull my Horde home… I still love you all and I am certain my next character with be a Hordie. I just needed to stretch my legs this time on the original Belghast.
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