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.

Old Dog New Tricks

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Old Dog New Tricks

Last night was a pretty chill night for me, in fact I honestly didn’t play that much Warcraft other than getting in and doing the Emissary quest for the day.  The sand fishing quest in Vol’dun can officially die in a fire… the only thing that managed to make it reasonable is that I happened to have a couple of other hordies doing it at the same time and we tagged each others spawns.  Effectively when you fish with the extra action button… you can either get a work or one of the angry trilobyte things… and it seemed like I pulled way more of those out of the ground rather than the worms I actually needed.  Not a fan at all… but it was a 310 azerite chest so figured I NEEDED to do it to see if I got anything interesting from it.  I am also trying to adjust to drastically changing up my play style with the warrior.

Ultimately I was operating with old data in the back of my head and also trying to play like I had played for most of legion…  when rage rained down from the sky like magic.  The entire time playing Battle for Azeroth I have felt rage starved, like I simply did not have enough of it to do all of the things I felt like I needed to do.  In Legion it seemed like I could spam revenge with impunity and still have plenty of rage left over to keep Ignore Pain and Shield Block active 100% of the time.  Additionally I seem to have missed the memo that Ignore Pain is now sorta garbage as compared to its original state that I was used to.  If I had to make a choice before I would almost always favor Ignore Pain over Shield Block because it seemed to buy me more leverage to work with.

That however is not the case anymore and additionally the Devastator talent that can be used to simplify the rotation…  seems to also be not that great.  So all through the leveling process I ran a build that looked a little something like this…

  • Impending Victory – having the heal was nice for regenerating my health
  • Crackling Thunder – because thunderclap radius meant I could hit more things
  • Unstoppable Force – because more thunderclap with Avatar
  • Indomitable – largely picked because I always used this before
  • Rumbling Earth – because I like shockwave a lot
  • Devastator – because it was one less button I needed to mash
  • Heavy Repercussions – because lazy and it is a simple pick

The build that I have shifted to looks a little bit like this.

  • Into the Fray – because apparently now haste is king?
  • Bounding Stride – more movement options is more better
  • Unstoppable Force – still because more thunderclap with Avatar
  • Bolster – because halves the cooldown of Last Stand and makes me block all melee attacks while up
  • Rumbling Earth – again because I like shockwave a lot
  • Booming Voice – because apparently Demoralizing Shout became my fastest way to get some rage
  • Anger Management – because thanks to bolster Last Stand is my best cooldown and it comes up more often

The problem with all of this is to make it work…  I had to shift around a ton of my keybinds and last night was largely me running around and killing things and trying to get used to the new places that things are in… and also learning to lean on Demoralizing Shout whenever I am rage starved to get back in the game.  I am old… and as a result I am starting to get a little set in my ways.  The keybinds I have been using for my warrior have been used in that configuration for probably three expansions now more or less apart from some minor tweaks.  It is going to take awhile to get to where I don’t feel like I am walking on marbles with these new keybinds.  Essentially I try and play my classes in a way so that I am not thinking about what I am hitting at any given moment… and I am largely just playing through muscle memory.  So I have to spend some time retraining said muscle memory so I can get back to just reacting to the situation on the ground as it is happening rather than hovering in my head trying to sort out what I should be hitting.

Tonight I will probably do more of the same, doing world quests to get used to the feel of things… and also because I am going to be at RiffTrax with work friends leading me to get home super late as compared to my usual schedule.  It is going to be Krull which has always been a bit of a guilty pleasure movie for me.  I grew up loving the weapon and tolerating the movie because the weapon looked badass.  It should be a good time and I am mostly hoping that I can keep my coughing down to a minimum in the theater as not to distract everyone else around me.

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!

The Magic Number

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The Magic Number

Last night was a good night.  First off I am finally starting to feel a little more like human, as it seems that whatever crud I have been fighting for the last week is starting to subside.  Second I think I found the source of my annoyance in Discord mysteriously turning itself from push to talk to voice activated all the time.  Finally I got to run some dungeons with Mor, Grace and a friend of theirs from the Star Wars the Old Republic days.  At this point I think there are a couple of dungeons I still have yet to see on normal, and it is my goal to remedy that before sitting foot into heroics.  There are still several items that I need…  namely a good shield, good main hand weapon, and another reasonable trinket.  Those are the slots that are dragging down my magic number down from what it could potentially be.

The Magic Number

Speaking of magic numbers however…  I have now hit 305 which makes me physical capable of queuing for heroics.  However this is not quite something I want to do yet.  I want to finish getting those missing slots and see if I can sort out why I feel so damned squishy.  It could be that Protection Warriors are just in a shitty place right now and one that will improve later as gear scales.  This has been the case in past expansions, but what I am going through at the moment is that I feel completely rage starved.  It is like I don’t have enough active rage to be using revenge and keeping up Ignore Pain/Shield Block.  This is completely new for me because always in the past I had all the rage in the world to play with.  So last night I shifted around my talents after the few dungeons we ran and I am hoping tonight…  I maybe see an improvement.

The Magic Number

The image may state that this is Lord Stormsong…  but in truth it is Squid Pope.  Originally we thought he was Fish Pope but he transformed over the course of the instance.  Squid Pope and his friends were very annoying, but we managed to make it through the effort and get some loot in the process.  So far I am thinking that the dungeons that the Alliance gets natively are maybe a little cooler than the dungeons the Horde gets.  The blood troll instance for example… is annoying as shit and I still have not figured out how the ticks work given that sometimes I die horribly to them exploding and other times I am just fine.  The end result is me running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to avoid standing near them as they die.

The Magic Number

My hope is that tonight in our adventures I manage to find a weapon and a trinket… and preferably a new shield so I can go forth into heroic land with great confidence.  It is taking me a little longer than normal to ease into my comfort zone with Battle for Azeroth content, but I am thankful I have a trusted healer to ferry me along in this journey.  She is showing great restraint in not just completely blowing past me and leaving me in the dust.  I am already feeling super behind the curve given how often people in guild chat are asking for Mythics…  and I have not even set foot in a Heroic.  They are on a vastly different trajectory to me so far, and that is okay.  I will get there eventually, and hopefully at some point I get enough gear to have offspec options.