First allied alt leveled!

First allied alt leveled!

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

The New New MouseI’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.

The New New MouseMy 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!

AggroChat #206 – Heroes of Hammerwatch Show

Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

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Tonight we talk about the May AggroChat Game Club game…  Heroes of Hammerwatch. This was Belghast’s pick who largely though we needed a much more relaxing game after the deep feels that A Night in the Woods gave us.  Additionally the first one was a lot of fun and it was well worth exploring what the indirect sequel had to offer. This leads us down a path where we talk about the differences between Rogue-lite and Rogue-like as well as some discussion about procedural generation versus hand built maps.  We also talk a bit about the June game of the month Evoland 2.

Topics Featured:

  • Our New Battle Royale Mode
  • Heroes of Hammerwatch
  • Rogue-lite vs Rogue-like
  • Procedural vs Hand Built
  • Evoland 2
  • Final Fantasy Four Job Fiesta

June 2018 Gaming Goals

May has passed us by and I don’t feel like accomplished much of anything. Losing our air conditioning has really changed the amount of time I’m willing to spend locked in a tiny room with a heat-generating PC. But I did manage to meet some of my goals for the month despite the heat.

May Goals in review:

WoW: Keep playing in the M+ nonsense group. Nope. Between losing interest and the temperature in my office, I just couldn’t make it anymore. This makes me super sad.

Finish all the priest transmog sets up through the first tier of MoP. Done! I managed to get the LFR sets done for all of the Pandaria raids last month, in addition to finishing off all versions of the sets from the Terrace of Endless Spring / Heart of Fear tier.

Level the new mage to 75. Done! Switching from TBC to Wrath zones and throwing in a few dungeon runs to speed things up really saved my sanity.

Destiny 2: Check out the new expansion. Done! I played through the story on 2 characters but that’s as far as I got.

Stardew Valley: Try multiplayer. Not quite – I tried some of the other beta changes but not the multiplayer part.


June Goals:

WoW: Finish at least 2 more priest transmog sets. Soloing is getting harder as I keep creeping closer toward the current expansion, but I should still be able to finish off the MoP sets without help.

Level the new mage to 100. I’m being ambitious on this again because I finally got out of the TBC/Wrath stage and the leveling is going much faster again. I finished off May right around 84, and once I get to WoD it should go super fast.

Heroes of Hammerwatch: “Beat the game”. I put that in quotes because I’m excluding NG+ nonsense. This was our Aggrochat game of the month for May and I really enjoyed it. I think I made it to the last boss but haven’t beaten it yet. I want to do so before I move on to other things.


That’s it? Just a couple simple WoW goals and finishing one game I’m almost done anyway? Yep.

I’m in a real gaming lull right now. I just don’t feel very excited about games in general at the moment. Combine that with my lack of climate control and it is really hard to spend time in my office at all. Hopefully that will turn around in a couple weeks when our new system finally gets installed. In the meantime I’ll be chasing my simple WoW goals in very small doses, and focusing on my crafty projects instead. Downstairs in the basement, where it is nice and cool.