Good Morning Folks! I’ve been a bit frustrated the last few days, but that is only because I was trying to rush ahead to unlock my Homestead in Guild Wars 2. Out of all of the features coming with Janthir Wilds, that was the one that I cared the most about. Unfortunately, it is behind a few grinds and I already do not love the “fill the bar” mechanic when it comes to questing in modern Guild Wars 2, and the fact that it was holding back the feature that I really wanted to play with only served to make me a little hyperbolic. For anyone curious the order of unlocks that comes into the expansion is Warclaw which happens almost immediately, next up you have to learn how to use the spear, and then there is a whole ton of faffing about and learning the new Rift system for Janthir.
Finally, you get to visit your Homestead. I wish they had shifted up this order a bit because I personally do not care about the spear or at least don’t care about it right now. However, I am sure there is someone out there who really wanted to use it and was happy to get access to it so early. Also for reference immediately following the Homestead section you are going to be asked to earn a Mastery level with the Warclaw, so you might as well start chipping away on that in the time between learning that system and learning the Spear. Thankfully thought, Homesteads are well worth the wait and basically everything that I had hoped Garrisons would be in World of Warcraft back during Warlords of Draenor. Of note… if you are like me and have a ton of stuff that you have collected in your Home Instance over the years… you will need to leave and re-enter after completing the intro quest before any of that shows up.
One of my favorite dumb features of The Homestead is the fact that all of my characters are milling around doing random things. Granted in order to make this happen, you will need to get into the practice of logging your characters out in your Homestead. However, when you do so, they all show up and hang out there. The only thing that I really wish existed was a custom keybind just for popping up the instance portal. If you have it set as your active doodad, you can use the default keybind for that but I really don’t want to sacrifice my rift finder tool for faster access to The Homestead. Even though the Rift Finder tool appears to be broken… which in itself added a lot of frustration to the step between unlocking the spear and finally getting into your Homestead. I’ve honestly not dabbled in decorating that much, because I am also focused on leveling up the Homestead mastery so I can unlock the collection chests. At the maximum rank, you will be able to hit a single chest for each item type and collect all of the resource nodes that you have in your Homestead… which will greatly simplify my daily routine of gathering all the nodes. I am hoping we get something similar for Guild Halls.
I also love that all of my mounts with my chosen skins and dye jobs are milling around at the stable. It is sort of weird when you choose to mount up, because they will do a little spin and then disappear and reappear as your mount. Another really cool feature is the crafting bench for homestead crafting… works like ANY other crafting bench and gives you full access to your bank. This means if you have the Krait Obelisk you will be able to pull out Quartz Crystals without having to go find a bank. I WISH they would wire the Obelisk up to just draw from your bank directly, but given how old that is… who knows what that would require to make it work?
By default, the Homestead will have a day/night cycle, but you can talk to the Bear Bro at your teleport location in order to permanently set this to either day or night if you like. I have mine set as of this morning to perma-night largely because it has some amazing aurora effects up in the sky. I tend to be a night person anyways and there is more than enough light to navigate by. Eventually, I am sure I will utilize some lighting effects which will make everything look a bit more dramatic than flat ambient lighting. Mostly I am working on unlocking masteries before I fiddle around with anything too deeply. Each mastery rank you gain unlocks additional crafting options, and some of the later ones unlock additional areas of your Homestead that you can start using. However, that last rank and the collection boxes are my real objective. I am sorry Bearkin… but your nonsense is going to get leveled the last because I care the least about any of it.
One of the first things that I did yesterday once I found out it was a thing… was troddle off to go tame a Juvenille Warclaw, which can be found behind all of the buildings at the Warclaw paddock in Lowland Shore. I immediately named this Warclaw Josie after one of my cats, the one that is more “mine” than shared between the two of us. I can’t say the Warclaw is anywhere near as effective as some of my other pets, but I am very much using it by choice for the time being. I still have my Sky Chalk as backup, but how could I not use a cute Warclaw as a proper Ranger with a kitty-eared hood?
In the same paddock area, you can find a Warclaw Cub/Kitten in one of the pens and you have the option of petting it. Which of course is precious as heck and I did several times. I was hoping there was the option of feeding it… and inviting it back to my home instance and thereby my Homestead like you can with other cats in the world. I need to get serious at some point and collect the rest of these because while I have a handful of them… I by no means have them all.
Unlock order frustrations aside, I am having a heck of a lot of fun playing this expansion. The zones are really well designed, and the music feels like it is taking deep notes from The Witcher 3. There are a ton of Champion monster fights out in the zones and folks are regularly taking these down. A number of the fights require you to use your Warclaw in interesting ways. There is a lich/hag sort of monster that summons maggots and you have to charge around and stomp the maggots with your Warclaw to transition her between phases. There was a corrupted Reindeer that would charge off at various times during the fight and you would have to chain them down to fill a breakbar in order to transition back to a normal battle phase. Given that you are handed your Warclaw almost immediately upon entering the zone, this feels great… unlike mechanics that are centered around Skyscales and such in other areas when there is a clear dichotomy between haves and have-nots.
I’ve made it to the second zone and taken down the first of the big bads of this expansion. I have no clue how deep this initial foray is going to go. On the 20th ANet released a roadmap for the planned drops along the way during this expansion. Essentially the launch of the expansion aka this week, and whenever Update 1 happens… I figure in three months roughly… are going to focus on the story surrounding these first two zones. When Update 2 drops we will get a third map and then Update 3 a fourth map and the conclusion of this story arc. Lowland Shore and Janthir Syntri are both pretty large zones and have good layouts which should make them fun to bip around and run events. As far as I can tell there is no Meta for Lowland Shore and the major boss is the Lich/Hag thing I was talking about earlier. I am not far enough into the second zone to really know what the lay of the land is there, but I think there is a big World Boss there from what I have heard.
For now, I am focused on getting map completion, collecting all of the mastery points, and then obviously leveling said Mastery tracks. At some point, I need to finish up another World Completion on one of my alts so I can get the Gift of Exploration that comes with it. I also need to dive back into WvW and farm up another Gift of Battle, because those are the only things between me and crafting Twilight. I guess I now have a clear focus in Guild Wars 2 for the first time in a while. I am pretty freaking happy about that.
The post A Better Garrison appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Yesterday was a rather rough day, and I never actually got around to writing a blog post. So this morning you get a bit of what I would have written about yesterday and a bit about what I would have normally written about today. So on Monday, I spent a lot of that post talking about how I was largely done with my alts in Path of Exile… then proceeded to spend a bunch of time leveling my Widowhail Deadeye and liking it quite a bit better. The heart wants what the heart wants I guess. Basically, I did some super chill yellow maps… got a bunch of levels… which started to fix some of the issues with the character. I still have awful defenses… and I wasted a ton of regret orbs trying to flip to a more crit-based version… but I am back and happy with precise technique and trying to keep my life totals below my accuracy.
I currently have the weirdest passive tree I have ever had for a bow character. I’m getting a lot of mileage from an Unnatural Instinct jewel currently, which is in part what has prompted some of the weird pathing. My hope is to respec things a bit, gain some more levels, and add in another elemental cluster jewel down in the lower quadrant, freeing up one of my other jewel sockets to maybe add in a Light of Meaning Jewel wherever it will have the most benefit either going for Life, Evasion, or Fire Damage. This build is a bit like trying to make “Fetch Happen” but I am having fun doing my own thing here that again… far as I know no one is actually trying. My life and defenses are still awful but it is softcore and I am mostly okay with dying occasionally on my alts.
In other news, I am creeping ever closer to my shiny pvp mount in Final Fantasy XIV. I have not been doing the daily roulette as religiously as I should, and I might spend some time this coming weekend just grinding it out the rest of the way to victory. I have to be honest… as often as I have run PVP Roulette for leveling… I really wish I had been cognisant of this rewards track before now. There is no telling how many things I just failed to collect and missed out on along the way. I am looking forward to raiding again this weekend because last Sunday we had the original four of Ashgar, Grace, Thalen, and me but then picked up Solaria who was piloted by Ammo because world travel was disabled. In theory maybe this weekend we can get Ammo on her off-server character giving us six of eight total players.
In Guild Wars 2 news, I am largely resigned to not making it through Secrets of the Obscure for the time being. I am basically at the end of the 5th chapter and then had a whole other chapter in Nayos on top of that to finish before moving on. This was such a weird content drop because some of it I liked quite a bit… and other bits I was not feeling at all. I feel like we were supposed to care about the Kryptis, but it reminded me entirely too much of the whole Vampire Courts thing from Dresden Files. In those books, Harry ends up aligned to the White Court at times for reasons that are deeply spoilery, but also in part because they are only sexually and emotionally abusive… as opposed to just straight-up murdering, devouring, and/or potentially wearing victims like fashion accessories. Guild Wars was trying to do something with this story of having a redemption arc for monsters… that just never really landed for me.
Janthir Wilds on the other hand so far seems amazing. I am all about hanging out with a delightful group of furries… err I mean Bearkin. I have a type when it comes to favorite zones… and this is absolutely playing directly into those interests. Grizzly Hills for example in World of Warcraft was such a pure joy to quest through, and I would go so far as to state that maybe Lowland Shore is one of the best zones Guild Wars 2 has at the moment. I’ve not gotten terribly far into it because I spent way too much time being a short-order cook last night for a bunch of hungry bears. I was hoping to get far enough to unlock player housing… but I did not even get far enough to unlock spears.
That is honestly probably my only complaint thus far is that the main story quest chain hits a brick wall when it asks you to level up the mastery that unlocks spears in order to continue. I was already working on the mastery that allows you to do more things with your bouncy kitty mount. So I closed out the evening hopping around the zone doing events, and hunting down a few of these mini-boss tundra beast encounters. I have no clue what the zone meta looks like if it exists, but I have heard it was pretty “spicy”. I am in no massive rush, but I would really like to get player housing as an upgrade to my home instance. I had enough Astral currency to pick up the next Legendary Weapon box… which has Twilight in it… which is probably the next one that I will craft because pretty much every character that can use a Greatsword is currently using one. I am building up a backlog of these because I never crafted the Juggernaut. There is also a weapon quest up on the Astral store, that I will probably devote the next 1000 points towards because from what I understand there is a really cool interaction between the weapon and the gloves that it comes with.
All told though, I am already feeling way more positive about Janthir Wilds than I did about Secrets of the Obscure. The zone design so far is just better. I get what they were trying to go for with SOTO, but flight-required maps are a bit frustrating given that it was not like they just handed you the Skyscale. It still took a lot of effort to unlock it, whereas from what I can tell here… you are pretty much just handed a Warclaw in a similar manner in which you were just handed the Raptor in Path of Fire. I already had my Warclaw from the WVW Track so this mostly amounted to me just getting a new skin to play with. It was cool that I got some cosmetics given to me for having already completed that before Janthir dropped. I will probably be back playing quite a bit of Guild Wars 2 in the coming weeks.
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Last Epoch – Fire Warpath Auto-Smite Paladin
Friends… I had a weekend where nothing was quite right. It was one of those weekends akin to wandering into your kitchen and knowing you want something… but you cannot figure out what it is. I was all over the freaking place. For example, I played some Last Epoch and got to Empowered Monoliths on my Fire Warpath Auto-Smite Paladin, and even took down my very first Harbinger. However, shortly after that I just lacked the will to keep pushing forward. Not that there is anything wrong with Last Epoch, but after playing a lot of Path of Exile during this league it just felt lacking. I wasn’t sure why I was trying to push forward, because I wasn’t sure what I actually wanted to accomplish. The moment-to-moment gameplay is fun enough, and there are brief chucks of excitement when you find a nemesis device on your map, but that is quickly over once you realize that you are killing monsters to fill bars so that you can fill other bars. Don’t get me wrong I love Last Epoch, but I think Path of Exile has just spoiled me.
Path of Exile – Widowhail Deadeye and Bleed Gladiator
Then there was Path of Exile, which has its own problems. I have my Righteous Fire Chieftain main that I have largely taken as far as I really can save for completely redoing my entire tree and diving further into the madness of cluster jewels. I have two alts my Widowhail Deadeye and Tanky Bleed Gladiator that are both fine, but both have their own problems that will need to be solved. The problem is, I am just not sure if I am willing to stick around and solve them. Widowhail Deadeye has NO defenses which means if anything looks slightly in their direction they fall over. Bleed Gladiator feels like a worse version of Righteous Fire in that I am plenty tanky… but also have to hit a bajillion buttons to make anything that feels like optimal progression. I was having more fun when it was just a Two-Handed Sunder build… but that had significant survival problems. Both of these characters can be fixed with an investment of time and gear and levels… but I am just not sure I am willing to go through the motions.
Path of Exile – Settlers of Kalguur Shipments
The League Mechanic has also become a bit stale. I loved it while leveling and gearing because so much of the gear that I am especially wearing on my alts and to a lesser extent my RF main… came directly off a boat. The problem is we were given a bit of a bait and switch when it came to the shipping mechanic because the reveal trailer promised three screens full of loot… and even when folks are shipping over 50 million in value they just end up with a single screen. I’ve not maxed out my workers but I am not sure I am willing to spend the gold prices that it would cost… or farm enough content in order to get said gold. Right now I am sending shipments to Riben Fell for 100k to 120k value and getting a reasonable amount of stuff back… but it is nowhere near as interesting as the giant loot pinatas we were promised. Acquiring stuff just seems to take more time than I am currently willing to put into it.
Diablo IV – Season 5 – Level 55 Barbarian
My friend Ace had been having a really good time with Diablo IV so I figured… what the hell since I seem to be floundering anyways I might as well give it a shot. I started off another Barbarian because of course I did… and I was originally going to go Whirlwind and I still might… but it felt MISERABLE to level as that. I fell back on good ole reliable and comfy Upheaval and as of last night was sitting at level 55. The leveling went extremely quickly, and in theory, I could probably even limp through the dungeon to convert over to World Tier 4 at this point. The problem is… I find the loot uninteresting in this game, and the tempering system is a bit miserable. So I am not sure what I am grinding towards save for completing seasonal achievements and progressing the Battle Pass.
Diablo IV – Tier 1 Infernal Hordes
Infernal Hordes is rather enjoyable. I am glad they are making this an evergreen part of the game going forward because it adds yet another thing that players can focus on. So far it doesn’t feel terribly rewarding given the amount of time it takes to complete one. The final boss phase can also be pretty miserable depending upon which negative affixes you choose along the way. That is probably my biggest problem… you only ever get to choose negatives. It reminds me of a worse version of the Red/Blue Atlars in t14+ maps in Path of Exile. With those you get some negative thing that is going to happen but also some massive bonus… either in the form of specific items dropping or the ability to duplicate loot or increase the quantity and rarity of drops. The carrot to this particular stick is just more aether… which lets you open more chests… which themselves feel rather anemic when it comes to rewards. Maybe these get better as I move into World Tier IV, but for now, mechanically they are a lot of fun up until the boss wave and seem to reward a lot of experience so just for fun’s sake they are worth doing.
Since coming back to Final Fantasy XIV, I have been entering the housing lottery again in the hopes of maybe winning back a plot after losing mine due to my own negligence. I realize it is kind of silly for me to do this given that I have already had a home and lost it, because I got distracted and busy around Christmas time. However this past period the same plot that I used to own was up for grabs, and I thought maybe just maybe fate would smile upon me and let me have it back. I did not in fact have the lucky number for the plot and yesterday I got back my deposit once again. I will once again try in a few days to find another housing plot, because what else am I going to do with the money that I have saved up? It is a bit frustrating, but I am largely resigned to doing this song and dance and never being the lucky winning number.
The thing that probably shocked me the most this weekend is that I actually booted up Warframe and played through a few missions. Of all of the games I have played over the years… Warframe is the one that I really wish that I could get into. It has such an amazing community and really some significant support from Digital Extremes. It is essentially Path of Exile levels of complicated but for a genre more akin to Destiny… and I would love to get into it, but I still find it largely obtuse and incomprehensible. I wish I could reset the progress and play through the game with the updated new player experience, but given that my account is 11 years old and I have all manner of legacy items… that is not going to happen. I might try and find some sort of new player experience guide to see if I can limp my way through unlocking whatever I have not unlocked.
What I should have been playing this past weekend was Guild Wars 2, because tomorrow the new expansion drops, and with it comes a glow-up for the Warclaw and what appears to be an amazing housing system. I’m about five quests away from completing Secrets of the Obscure and probably if I really set my mind to it tonight I could push through it. The biggest problem I have is that I essentially ground to a halt when I hit Inner Nayos. That zone is miserable, full stop. I was playing through it the night I had my little retina detach freak out and all of the shit floating in the air… really seems to aggravate me being able to see the floaters shifting around in my left eye. It does not help that at times it has Heart of Thorns levels of aggro and density just making it extremely unfun to play through. Secrets of the Obscure did some interesting things, but across the board, it is probably my least favorite expansion content from Guild Wars 2. I will be happy to move past it.
So basically where I stand currently… is that I have zero clue what I will be focusing on this week. Hell, it might be something that I have not even mentioned here. I’ve had a rough few weeks and continue to struggle with insomnia issues, so right now I just want something comfortable that can alleviate my frustrations. I am not sure such a thing exists. Hopefully, things chill out so I can get back to normal, but for the moment… I am not even really paying attention to everything going on with Blaugust. I am extremely thankful for the mentors who are largely keeping things running in my absence.
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Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! After taking a week off from it, we are returning to our Dawntrail full spoiler show. This week we say hi to Tam and Kodra… before they boop out of the show given that neither has actually played FFXIV recently. We pick up where we left off with the coronation of the new Dawn Servant and then dive into all of the “things” that happen after that. We also talk a bit about the story surrounding the first raid of the expansion in the Arcadion. It is a bit of a long show clocking in at almost two hours.
