Grace

Content by Grace

BfA dungeons (so far)

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I’ve officially done all of the dungeons I can queue for in BfA, on normal mode. That specifically leaves out a few things, because I haven’t run anything that is mythic-only yet. So far I’ve mostly enjoyed all of them, although there are a few things that concern me as I prepare to face the heroic versions. I do think the alliance got the cooler dungeon themes, but I’m glad we hordies get to see them too. Potential spoilers here for BfA dungeons and some zone stories.

I’ve ranked the dungeons from worst to best. This is based solely on my opinions after healing each of them on normal mode once. I suspect this might change a bit once I start getting into heroics and mythics.

The snake god (Temple of Sethraliss)
This was the first BfA dungeon I ran with my friends instead of pugs. It was not bad, but it makes the bottom of the list for a couple reasons. Firstly, it was the least interesting to me story-wise. I really enjoyed the zone story this dungeon wraps up, but I was disappointed that we don’t actually get to fight the big bad old god minion. Instead we’re going to wake up the snake people goddess to ask for help. This dungeon also suffers from two mechanics that make me worried for the harder difficulties. One is a room that reminds me of the brazier gauntlet room in blackrock depths, and the other is a healer gimmick boss. I am strongly opposed to these kinds of fights because they almost never play nicely with my UI. I hate having to fumble around with my targeting and keybinds to heal NPCs.

The allergy overload (The Underrot)
This dungeon is entirely, perfectly on theme, and it makes me feel like I need to take a shower and 10 benadryl. I can practically smell the mold spores through my computer. It’s made worse by gross exploding ticks, mutated monstrosities, and various worms and bugs. It is really well done, it’s just super super gross. The boss mechanics at least are not too bad. There is one section of the trash where some mobs cast a fear that is going to cause a lot of misery in pugs though.

The mechano-trashpile (The MOTHERLODE!!)
Goblins. So many goblins. I still am not entirely clear on why we were in this dungeon. I know I got a quest from Gallywix and queued right up. My initial impression of this place is pretty rough because I pugged it and my group sped through super fast. Some of the bosses definitely reminded me a lot of the Protogames bosses from WildStar. They were mostly fun, especially the last boss, but it didn’t overcome how much I dislike the goblin scrapheap aesthetic of the place.

The prison break-in (Tol Dagor)
This was the first alliance-side dungeon I did. It has a lot of floors, and we did get turned around a few times while we were trying to make our way through it. It has this spot in the middle of the pack for me mostly because I don’t have strong feelings about it one way or the other. I think it might be pretty enjoyable once I know where I am going.

The tentacle pope (Shrine of the Storm)
We get to see Queen Azshara! Does she play more of a role in the alliance-side questing? She sort-of ducks in and out quickly here. Also did I miss when she got tentacles? I thought she was a naga? Azshara sightings aside, I love the theme of this place. Creepy tentacle cultists is totally my aesthetic. There was one boss here with a mechanic that was pretty brutal to those folks who didn’t know it yet. That made it a rough time for me to brute force heal my way through. If it weren’t for that it might be slightly higher up the rankings. I want my in-game house to be this place.

The zombie dinosaur (Atal’Dazar)
This place was so cool-looking. Plus, I was invested in it because I really wanted a resolution to the zone story this wraps up. I was sad to have to fight zombie Rezan, but I was glad we got revenge on the lady who betrayed the king and was running around stealing Loa powers. It does sometimes feel very strange that we are now friendly with the Zandalari and dealing with so much troll lore from their perspective. Side note: the most annoying part of this dungeon was the screaming pterodactyls. Make your healers love you and keep them on lockdown if you can!

The haunted house (Waycrest Manor)
The theme of this dungeon is absolutely perfect. I love the creepy haunted house vibe. It definitely reminds me of the haunted house dungeon in FFXIV, in the best way. The creepy mansion thing gets in its own way a tiny bit, because it is confusing to maneuver around and camera angles sometimes become an issue. We got lost a few times but managed to get back on track quickly. Unless some of the mechanics get tricky in harder versions, I’ll be looking forward to running this place a lot in the future.

The pirate fun times (Freehold)
This one is another dungeon whose theme is perfectly up my alley. I enjoy pirates and mostly lighthearted fun. I especially enjoyed the “shark puncher” boss who had sharks on his arms, and punched us with them. He also had a Sharknado attack. This whole place felt like a breath of fresh air, a silly diversion from all the super serious, creepy evil stuff happening everywhere else.

I should say here that most of these dungeons were really interesting designs. I disliked some of the mechanics but they were all on theme and very pretty to look at (even when they were full of goblins or mold). I’m excited to see how to handle them on harder difficulties.

BfA pet battling

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BfA pet battling

I’m not sure why I suddenly got back into pet battling, but I’m enjoying it. I didn’t finish many of the pet battle achievements in Legion, and now I’m considering going back. At least I should probably go and capture all the wild pets I’m missing.

I did catch every wild pet in BfA for this achievement. I really like some of the new pet models, especially the bees and butterflies. The most annoying one was the glutted bleeder. Not only is it super gross looking, but it has the “burst” ability. That makes it hard to catch, since it would rather explode and kill itself than let you capture it. I ran around in Nazmir for a while until I found one that had a different ability in that slot so I could actually catch it.

I’m not worrying about making sure all of my wild pets are rare for now. I have such a huge stable of pets that I only worry about specific ones if they have a useful or unique skill set. I do want to be able to beat all of the pet battle world quests so I can get enough currency to buy all the vendor pets and toys. There are a lot of things to spend pet charms on this expansion!

Reading Challenge #74: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

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It’s reading challenge time again. After the months it took me to get through The Diamond Age, this one only took a couple evenings. This time I’m reading John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, published in 2005. I enjoy Scalzi’s work, which is often fairly light and humorous. I read this novel a few years back, and was curious how I’d feel about it on this re-read. Spoilers Ahead!

This story follows John Perry, an old man whose wife passed away. On his 75th birthday he enlists in the Colonial Defense Forces for a term of at least two but as many as 10 years. Nobody who enlists is ever heard from again, but the rumor is they will turn you young again so you can fight. That’s sort-of right. In truth they clone new bodies for all the recruits, and swap their consciousness from their old frail bodies into shiny new green super bodies full of patented technology.

There is a fun section of the book where John gets adjusted to space and the CDF, meets new friends, and they try out their fancy new bodies. This ends up being bittersweet, as throughout the book we see most of that group of friends end up as casualties of the sprawling conflicts the CDF is fighting on multiple planets. The book has a lot of humor in it, but it also doesn’t let you forget that it’s a military sci-fi novel where there is lots of war and horrible death. There’s even a moment where our protagonist is hit with the emotional weight of all the strange horrible things he’s seen and done. Instead of being removed from combat, or told to repress those feelings, he’s basically told “good, everybody goes through this sooner or later, and now you can start working your way through it.”

Perry keeps moving up the ranks through a combination of dumb luck and occasional quick thinking. It serves him well right up to the point where he is severely wounded. This is where the story gets more interesting. As he is nearly dying he sees what looks like his dead wife, Kathy, there to rescue him. It turns out that it wasn’t a hallucination. Ten years before John enlisted, he and Kathy went together to the recruitment office to declare their intent to enlist and do a pre-screen. It turns out that people who do this and die before they can actually join up still end up serving the CDF. Kathy’s DNA was used to make a clone. If she had lived it would have been set up for her to swap into when she enlisted. When she died they started making modifications to it to prepare it for the special forces “ghost brigade.” John was rescued by his wife’s clone, Jane Sagan.

It turns out the special forces of the CDF is made up entirely of these “ghosts.” They are independent people with no memories from their DNA donors, with extra upgrades. While the infantry gains value from the lifetime of experience their recruits come with, special forces soldiers have the benefit of never knowing what it was like to live in a fragile, normal human body. They do crazy, superhuman things in combat because they are superhuman and they never had any reason to doubt it.

The rest of the book involves John and Jane getting to know each other a little, and John having the unfortunate opportunity to repay Jane for saving his life by saving hers. While they never actually see each other again during the novel, they do still communicate and eventually plan to meet each other again, if and when they both retire.

I enjoy Scalzi’s style and I’ve read several of his other novels. Re-reading this book actually made me realize how he has grown as a writer. His newer works like Lock In and The Dispatcher have a bit more depth and subtlety while still bringing his trademark humor. There are a few places in this one where it feels like things could have been fleshed out a bit better, or the connective tissue between sections could have been a bit more developed. Still, Old Man’s War is a very enjoyable read and I would recommend it.

TL;DR: Military sci-fi with heart and humor. Definitely worth the quick read.

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Rating: 4/5 stars

Next up: The Legend of Drizzt Series by R. A. Salvatore

The height of fashion

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The height of fashionI haven’t had much time today to put together a post, but I don’t want to break my Blaugust streak. Therefore, please accept this screenshot of my character. I have found what is perhaps the most “me” hat in the history of hats. It may even be better than my scholar’s top-hat from FFXIV. Now I need to run a bunch of dungeons to farm the rest of this set.