A New Tank Enters

Down to Goblin Town

A New Tank Enters

This morning I am having one hell of a hard time getting started, largely because it feels like I don’t really have a whole lot to talk about.  It was a Monday night, and that means raiding in Final Fantasy XIV.  However it was also a night that I was seeming to have a pretty frustrating migraine headache.  So in truth it was a good thing that we were breaking in a brand new tank… or at least one new to our group.  Pixel Executioner I am pretty sure is something that once upon a time I knew from the Blog Azeroth community, but thanks to the miracle of the fact that everyone seems to be connected on the internet I am getting to know him again thanks to Neph.  Pix had apparently never quite finished the original run of Alex so we started our evening there, with turn four otherwise known as “Burden of the Father”.  This went down in really short measure, and so long as you are tanking the boss…  you really don’t have a clue there are any mechanics that need to be dealt with.  The only thing as the boss tank that you have to worry about is Discoid which signals you are just about to take a ton of damage.   As a result this was the absolute perfect first tanking foray of the evening to break him into the rhythm.

After that we moved into the next part of Alexander and ran through the next four turns.  The awesome thing about this is that it gave me a nice little break between fights to kinda chill out and try really hard to forget my head was trying to kill me.  I am pleasantly surprised where we have come as a group, because I remember struggling a little bit when we first did Alex Midas, but last night it seemed really easy.  Well that is until we reached turn seven…  which has a significant amount of madness going on.  The awesome thing there is that we finally learned how to mechanic one of the phases.  Previously the answer to getting through the fire jail was just to have rez ready to go to bring back whoever happened to get locked in it.  Instead this time we learned that during the fire phase you just stand still and do nothing until your group brings you out of it.  If you move however… you die… and we were trying to do stuff and move…  which is apparently a bad idea?  The best part about the night is that we managed to actually finish the second Alex for Pix.  We were coming down the to the end of our normal run time, and I honestly thought we did not have anywhere near enough time to finish.  However we managed to pull a victory out on the final boss… having only gone about five minutes over our normal close time.

It was a really great night and apparently luck was on my side.  For awhile now I had been sitting on one of pretty much all of the items needed for the various armors that require two items.  Over the course of the evening apparently the game decided it liked me, because I won a significant number of rolls and suddenly shot up in item level.  I managed to complete the arms last week, but this week I managed to complete helm, boots and belt bringing my item level up to a respectable 113.  At some point I really need to spend some time getting back in game and finishing off my weapon in Palace of the Dead, because there were several moments last night when the fact that Pix my co-tank had one… made it harder to maintain threat.  In all honesty I have been struggling to remain interested in Final Fantasy XIV.  I am enjoying raid nights, but I am simply not wanting to put any of the other time in to make sure I am geared enough.  Which I know has to be frustrating to my raid mates.  I feel like I am fairly horribly geared as a whole, at least compared to what I could be.  The problem being when I sit down after a long day of work… I keep logging into World of Warcraft instead of Final Fantasy XIV.  Especially with the launch of Legion happening next week… my FFXIV time is likely to continue to be in Triage mode for awhile.

Listless

The past week was hyper focused on a single goal… getting Belgaoh my monk from 53 to 100.  The weird thing about this process is that once completed… I am finding myself drifting a bit without purpose.  The above screenshot is unrelated to anything, but I thought it looked cool so you are getting it with this mornings post.  Starting yesterday I begin finally running my stable of characters through the Broken Shore content.  I managed to snag all of the toys, and troll shoes transmog from my single leel 100 horde character, and on my second time through on an alliance character successfully got the bonnet cosmetic item.  I am assuming that tomorrow there will be a new step on the quest chain being patched in, and this time around we will actually do the moving of Dalaran to the Broken Isles bit.  Tonight is our Final Fantasy XIV raid, so that means I will go into this weeks patch not having run Broken Shores on the bulk of my characters.  At least in theory the content isn’t going anywhere so I shouldn’t feel that much of a rush to push through it.  I think this content will essentially be the “welcome to Legion” content for everyone from this point on wards.  I will say it was really strange buzzing right past the quest starter for Cataclysm, Pandaria and Draenor on the monk.  I think I have all of the quests sitting in my log, because they are given automatically when you zone into Stormwind, but I am not sure when if ever I am going to do them.  At this moment I am contemplating using the Timeless Isle port to get to Draenor, but then again that would mean I need to open up Pandaria to get to it.

Listless

Even though I have completed one journey to 100… I am finding that I cannot seem to quit the Invasion Event.  A good chunk of yesterday was also spent running characters through the event trying to get the last few 700 items for each.  I managed to finish off Lodin and Tallow last night, which leaves Gloam, Exeter and Belglaive all needing a single item slot.  Belglaive is a little more complicated because I used that character to purchase the pet, and as a result he is still missing several of the purchased pieces of gear.  I just need to run ANY instances on him to get that finished off.  I do have his Glaives upgraded to 725, and I have started a second set mooching off of everyone else’s spare tokens to upgrade them for my eventual Horde demon hunter.  I wish the other weapons worked like this, in that they were bind on account and you could pass them around as needed.  Some characters I have gotten more than my fair share of weapons… and then others like Exeter have yet to see a single one.  I have this feeling that ultimately it is going to be Ex my Paladin that I will continue to run events on, as I try and get three weapons for him.  The other big thing that I need to accomplish before this event is over is to try and find the Demon that spawns in Orgrimmar and Stormwind and get a Fel Spreader toy.  I failed to get one the two times I tried it yesterday, with the one in Orgrimmar bugging out and running back to the Doomsayer and fading.

Listless

The big thing I have learned over the years is that I have a lot of fun playing World of Warcraft, so long as I have a goal in mind.  For example this last week has been a blast as I leveled my way through to 100 doing events.  In theory I could pick a Horde character and start doing the same, but I don’t really have any that are nearly as close to finish as my Monk was.  Doing the event without flight was a pain in the butt, and I am not sure if I want to go back to that frustration right now.  If I was going to pick a character on that side of the fence I would probably pick my Warlock since I have really enjoyed playing my Alliance lock… and I have full cloth heirlooms.  Similarly I have full leather heirlooms, but of the leather classes the one I am most likely to play… is the Demon Hunter, which is easy as hell to get to 100.  I do however have the cash to just go ahead and outfit my plate heirlooms up to 100 and then push something else that I would likely play.  My Orc Deathknight is sitting at 60, so flight is possible, even if it is a slow version.  I might be fun to be able to use this event to play with one of the other specs like Frost or Unholy.  If the next goal is NOT the event however… I need to pick something be it Mount Farming or Dungeon Achievements because so long as I can keep a list of things I want to do… I will be able to stay engaged in this game.  I really am having a lot of fun being around all of these people again.  It is a bit like a reunion, because everywhere I turn on Argent Dawn I keep running into familiar faces from the past.  I know we have roughly a week until the official launch of Legion, and with that comes a whole new set of goals so I just need to keep busy in the meantime.

The Top Floor

Off and on throughout this event I have used the “elevator” metaphor to explain how the experience bonus of the invasions has felt.  It started off as a steady elevator, and then took a bunch of detours for maintenance.  However at the end the final version felt like it was picking up speed as I finished the climb towards the top.  The other day Devolore made a comment about this invasion that I think is worth sharing.

The Top Floor

While I realize the goal of the event was not to level everything to 100… that is precisely what I set out to do.  Before the initial change I managed to get my Priest from 92 to 100, and then turned around and got my Mage from 90 to 100.  That left only my little monk that starting last Wednesday was sitting at only level 53.  In the last four days I have finished the climb to 100, finally dinging off of an invasion last night after we wrapped up recording the podcast.  It was a wild ride filled with pure madness, but overall it was an enjoyable one.  This is the feeling I have been chasing for awhile, going into an expansion knowing that every single character on at least my primary server was ready to go and awaiting the next content release.  There are a bunch of things I learned on the trip, and I took care last night to log some of my findings.  The rest of this post is likely going to be a bunch of bullet points explaining what all I found out.

  • It took a total of 49 Invasions to go from level 53 to 100
  • I was wearing full heirlooms the entire way, so adjust accordingly
  • That makes it .95 levels per invasion completed
  • I saved 97 loot boxes while doing the even, 49 Blue, 48 Green.

The Loot

The Top Floor

This is what 97 loot boxes from the event looks like sitting in my bank.  I saved every single one from the moment I started climbing from 53 to 100, in a large part because I wanted a bunch of information to be able to draw conclusions from.  On a whim I ended up opening all of my Green chests first, and they my Blue chests… which caused me to notice a pattern.

Phase 2 – Small Legion Chest – Can Contain

  • Bracers
  • Gloves
  • Belt
  • Boots
  • Weapons

Phase 4 – Large Legion Chest – Can Contain

  • Helm
  • Shoulders
  • Chest
  • Pants
  • Weapons
  • Coalesced Fel

In the course of the events I ran I got 118 items to drop from the chests, and around 2000 nethershards… but I was not keeping as good of track on that number as I did the others.  As I opened the boxes I recorded the what dropped and divided up level 700, 710 and 720 drops in the hopes of being able to pull some percentages together on the chance of each.

Level 700 Item Drops

  • Helm – 9
  • Shoulders – 13
  • Chest – 10
  • Bracers – 11
  • Gloves – 11
  • Belt – 8
  • Pants – 9
  • Boot – 6
  • Weapon – 14
  • Coalesced Fel – 9

Level 710 Item Drops

  • Helm – 2
  • Shoulders – 1
  • Bracers – 2
  • Gloves – 1
  • Belt – 3
  • Pants – 1
  • Boots – 5

Level 720 Item Drops

  • Shoulders – 1
  • Belt – 1
  • Pants – 1

So in total I got 100 level 700 drops, 15 level 710 drops, and 3 level 720 drops.  Using some quick and dirty math that means that I got a Warforged 710 item 12% of the time, and a 720 item 2.5% of the time.  In any case… my Monk is likely going to be my best geared character once I complete the Broken Shores content and get my ring and trinket.  Leveling through Invasions was often times frustration… but overall it was an extremely enjoyable experience.  I would love to say I would do this same rough on my hordies… but with only nine days until the launch of Legion I just am not sure if I have that sort of grind in me.  More than likely I will be focusing on filling the gear holes in my various characters, and pushing them all through the broken shores and follow-up content.

AggroChat #120 – Can’t Go Back Home

This week Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tam and Thalen address a listener comment regarding our feelings about WoW.

aggrochat120_720

It feels like every week I say “something weird happened” when describing our podcast.  I might simply be that we have no real “normal” state to fall back on, and that everything is essentially new and strange.  That said I feel like this week is on an island of its own.  After last week’s podcast I had a listener pull me aside and comment that it sounded like it physically pained us to talk about Warcraft.  I personally didn’t realize this until I went back and listened a bit, and I can absolutely see how someone could have that take away.  More often than not we just have super confused feelings about the game, and  tonight we delve into this…  and it leads to a whole sequence of topics including the loss of “junk culture” and the businessification of things we love.  For some of us you definitely can’t ever truly go back home.

Topics On The Show:  Listener Comment – Conflicted Feelings About Warcraft – Why Tam Hates WoW – Loss of Junk Culture – Businessification of Comics and Games – Hobbyism and Creative Industries -Metal Gear Solid 5 – Overwatch – Last Bastion Cinematic