Moonshine Mansion – Page 16

Season 14 Guardian

July 3, 2018 by Grace

I wasn’t that excited about D3 season 14 until I heard about the double treasure goblin event. I’m a sucker for treasure goblins. The season got off to a slow start, but I still haven’t lost interest in it. One reason for that is the free demon hunter set for the season (Marauder’s), which has several fun variant builds that mesh nicely with my playstyle. I started off with a grenade build, then switched over to the multishot version once I started really pushing greater rifts.

Once I made that switch I was enjoying myself so much I decided to make an attempt at full completion of the season. Since several of the conquests and season requirements overlapped it went very quickly. I didn’t take a screenshot when I completed the Guardian chapter, so I took one when I did this GR80 instead. I went back and checked my non-seasonal characters, and 80 is the highest I’ve ever done. I feel pretty proud to have done it with seasonal gear, most of which isn’t ancient yet. I still have not even seen a single primal ancient drop.

Now that I’m done with the season journey I’m not sure how much longer D3 will keep my interest. I’m really happy I was able to do the full season so easily this time though. I believe this is only the second time I have ever completed all the way up through Guardian.

July 2018 Gaming Goals

July 1, 2018 by Grace

I can’t believe it is July already. That means it is time to find out how I did on my goals for last month and make some new ones!

June Goals:

WoW: Finish at least 2 more priest transmog sets. I think this is a yes? I actually didn’t make a note of exactly what I still needed when I wrote this goal. But now I’ve finished everything from MoP except for one pair of boots from SoO.

Level the new mage to 100. Done! She’s actually 110 and ready for BfA!

Heroes of Hammerwatch: “Beat the game”. Nope. I only ever made it as far as the last boss (before NG+). Then a new D3 season started and I got distracted…

July Goals:

WoW: Finish one priest transmog set from WoD and the last one I need from MoP. The WoD raids are harder to solo but I think I can do this.

Level one allied alt to 50. It will probably be my highmountain monk. Leveling these alts when I already have 110s of every class feels sorta pointless, but the completionist in me won’t let me stop.

Figure out who my main will be for BfA. In my heart my forsaken priest will always be my main, but I haven’t enjoyed the playstyle in ages. Lately I prefer monk, but they aren’t in the best place in terms of group utility and I don’t know if that is getting better in BfA. Druid is great and always useful, but I will have to level a new one as soon as zandalari become available because DINOSAURS. I also need to decide if I am going to rejoin my alliance friends, join a new horde guild (which means rerolling on a new server again), or just go solo and skip raiding this expansion. So many decisions!

Once again that’s not many goals for the month. The really big one is figuring out my main, because it relies on answering so many other questions about how I want to play in the new expansion.

First allied alt leveled!

June 16, 2018 by Grace

Working on this nightborne mage has been on my goal list for a couple months. I finally finished leveling her this week. Once you get to 90, the rest of the levels just fly. I wish the whole process had been like that. I got her to 100 mostly collecting treasures and doing the occasional WoD “world quest”. From 100 – 110 I relied on invasions and one zone worth of questing. I don’t know why they decided to make the leveling so uneven, but 20 – 80 and 80 – 110 feel like completely different games.

So now I have another 110 mage. The problem I have with her is that she’s too much fun! I want to try to get at least one more alt leveled before BfA gets here, but I’m not excited enough about any of them to push them through. Frost mage is a good fit for my play style and “class fantasy” enjoyment, plus she’s been surprisingly survivable, even on Argus. I even ran part of Antorus with her. My dps was terrible, but then again, my gear was the minimum to get in the door. At least I wasn’t bad enough to get booted after a wipe (several others were kicked that run).

If I want to make my goal I need to set her aside and choose between my highmountain monk, lightforged pally, or velf priest. I love the look of the velf the most, but priest always feels like a dead weight to level. I still sort-of consider my disc priest my main, but I don’t like the way the spec plays right now. On the other hand, I enjoy the monk playstyle quite a bit, but I already have 3 max-level monks sitting around. The pally is just a giant question mark. My belf pally was my first real main, waaay back in TBC. Since then I’ve always leveled her with each expansion, but I’ve never done enough to really understand the class and how it has evolved. Basically I have no idea what I’m doing on a pally these days, and no sense of whether I would enjoy it or not.

So those are my options for my next alt to level. I would flip a coin, but I can’t seem to find one with 3 sides. Which one would you choose?

The New New Mouse

June 4, 2018 by Grace

I’m a gaming mouse user. I’ve been a convert to the Razer Naga since back in my “hardcore” WoW raiding days (circa 2009). The side buttons take some getting used to, but once you do there is no going back.

Sadly, although the design and functionality of the Naga is fantastic, the actual craftsmanship doesn’t hold up to my use. I end up needing a new one every 1-2 years. At $70 – $100 a pop, that adds up. My current Naga had been doing a little bit better than the average. It was over 3 years old and just starting to get a little flaky on me. I thought I might get 4 years of use out of it, right up until my cat decided it would be a fun time to chew completely through the cable.

I decided to use this cat-astrophe to try something new. Since I can’t imagine gaming without my beloved thumb buttons there were only a few options. I know from trying them out in the store that the Logitech version is a bit big for my hands, further narrowing my choices.

My final pick was the UtechSmart Venus. It has a ton of bells and whistles that I probably don’t need, for less than half the price of my beloved Naga. One bonus that I do like is the adjustable weight. I’ll probably be playing with that over the next couple days until I find the right fit. It also has the requisite number of buttons, and the ability to tune the color to match my keyboard. Fashion is always important, people.

The default settings were overly sensitive, but configuration was pretty fast and painless. As a bonus, I don’t have to register for an online account like with the Naga software. So far I like it quite a bit. Even though it is wider than the Naga, it isn’t much longer, so it is still very comfortable in my small hand. Much of the extra size is simply giving me more comfortable places to rest my fingers. I especially like the thumb rest. It’s the sort of thing you don’t realize you need until you try it.

So far no regrets with this purchase. I look forward to putting it through its paces!