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All the Fel

August 15, 2016 by Grace

My garrison was feeling left behind so I brought the demon invasion to it.

When the 7.0 patch hit I was surprised how much I still stayed in my garrison. There was cloth to make and missions to run to stock up on resources so I could buy fur so I could make more cloth…it was still almost as tedious and exhausting as it was before the gold missions got nerfed. I was starting to worry that I’d end up spending Legion still hearthing back to my garrison just so I could keep working on professions and making bags to sell. Fortunately last week’s demon invasions have thoroughly cured me of my garrison addiction. When I bother to check in on them, my garrisons are full of resources and waiting for me to restock everything. In between, I’m not thinking about them at all and that’s 100% fine by me. My baby mage is 92, she’s going to hit 100 this week, and the stretch from 60-100 will have been fueled largely by invasion events instead of questing. I’m going to squeeze all of the leveling goodness out of this that I can because I know it is going away at the end of the month. The only other question is, can I level another alt to 100 before it goes?

Elevator to Top

August 15, 2016 by Belghast

This weekend was a weekend for many things, not the least of which was some interstellar exploration in No Man’s Sky. However an even larger portion of the weekend was spent with the Legion invasion event in World of Warcraft. I am not exactly sure why Warcraft is so sticky for me right now… but whatever the case it absolutely is. I am probably having more fun playing this game than I have since long before Cataclysm… and potentially even before the launch of Wrath. I am actually looking forward to coming home and playing, and this event is a large part of that. At face value the event is an easy way to get characters decked out in item level 700 gear, and additionally a source of a new pet. However the way this invasion works makes it so much more enjoyable for me than the previous ones. I’ve already talked about this in previous posts but two zones open up around the world and every four hours these swap. The only somewhat negative part of this is that I have apparently swapped logging into all of my characters to fiddle with the garrison, to logging in all of my characters to try and get both invasions in before the zone timer runs own. There however was an eventual end to this madness and that was collecting a full set of gear on every character. Friday however the game was patched and it all changed.

Now in addition to getting two chests worth of gear… you also get a significant experience boost every time a phase completes. In the high 90s each zone invasion is worth roughly half of a level, so each set of two invasions is a little more than a full level of experience. As a result I have been using and abusing this event to level up those characters that I was never likely going to level on my own. In this case that is my Priest and my Mage, both classes I have not had a whole lot of interest in playing, but would still like to add to my stable of 100s. When I started this process my priest had seen enough leveling in Draenor to unlock the Garrison, and then from that point onwards was nothing more than a profession character. I managed to get to level 92 through doing the various XP missions that came available as part of the daily Garrison queue. Over the course of the event it took 14 full events to go from 92 to 100, and I literally dinged moments before sitting down to write this post. Now as I ran this event I held onto every chest, apart from one I opened just to see if my theory was going to be correct.

The chest loot is assigned at the moment you open it. That means by holding my chests I was able to open them as soon as I dinged 100 and get a fast infusion of item level 700 gear. In the bags I had 3 weapons, 5 chests, 3 boots, 4 gloves, 4 helms, 2 pants, 2 shoulders, 1 belt, and 4 bracers… as well as two of the weapon infusion items and 657 Nethershards. So I was able to level up without worrying about my gear at all… and then go to instant reasonable levels upon dinging. I am absolutely going to use this elevator for as far as I can take it to push up some of the character that I never really got around to leveling. Once I finish off the Mage I am probably going to try and see where I can get with my sub level 60 monk, and at least push it levels out of the old world. If you have some of those characters that are sitting in the 90s that you never really got around to leveling in Draenor I highly suggest you take advantage of this. If nothing else this has been an amazing way to pull up those gear levels for the various characters that I leveled to 100 but never really raided much on.

What I’m Playing: August 14, 2016

August 14, 2016 by Grace

We’re almost halfway through Blaugust and I’ve managed to keep up with things so far, woo! This week my play time has still been pretty focused.

FFXIV: Once again the only time I played FFXIV this week was during raid. Once again, the time I did play was phenomenal. This game’s raiding is so fun and satisfying, and even old content still requires some thought and attention. I’m just too distracted by other things right now to give it the attention it deserves.

Steven Universe Soundtrack Attack: I almost forgot to mention this one, but I was talking with the Aggrochat folks about it last night before we recorded the podcast and figured other people might want to know about it too. I’m playing this fun little rhythm game on iOS. I like it because you can create and customize your own new gem (mine’s a Ruby!), and it has music from the show. Unfortunately it moves pretty quickly from “hey this is fun” to “furiously mashing at the screen not being able to keep up.” Maybe that’s a thing this type of game does? I admit I’ve not played any other rhythm games on my phone. Some of the songs are even sped up a bit from the show. I suspect it is because they want you to watch more adds and buy powerups that let you slow down the songs. Also not all of the levels are songs directly from the show, a lot of them are instrumental tracks, so don’t expect to hear all of the songs from the show right away when you start playing. In any case it is a fun enough little game and worth checking out for yourself if you are interested, just don’t expect a lot of depth.

Diablo 3: I’m still working away at my seasonal character. I’ve completed GR60 and the view ahead is all grinding for tiny upgrades and praying for ancient legendaries with good rolls. I have no idea if I will stick around long enough to finish another chapter of the season, but I’m still having fun for now.

WoW: Once again this is where I’m spending the bulk of my time. The demon invasions have gone from fun distraction to pretty great way to level, so I’ve been trying to hit them on my baby mage whenever new ones are up. between invasions and dungeons I’ve gone from 60 to 77 while barely setting foot on outlands or northrend. I actually like both of those expansions just fine, but it is pretty neat to have an alternate leveling pathway open up like this, even if it is only temporary. I suspect I’ll have at least one more character to 100 by Legion at this rate!

Regularly Playing: July/August Edition

August 14, 2016 by Belghast

I just realized the other day that it had been a long while since I had done one of my regularly playing posts. The general idea is to true up my sidebar list of games and bring it into alignment with the games that I am actually playing on a fairly regular basis. Some of these might not be every day occurrences but they represent the regular rotation of games you are likely to see me talking about. At some point however I fell off the wagon and went the entire month of July without any form of an update. As a result I am doing this to cover both July and August and get me up to date.

To Those Remaining

World of Warcraft

I am legitimately playing World of Warcraft more actively than I have in years. More than likely this is the most seriously I have played since before the launch of Cataclysm. I am really enjoying the game, and the changes to the various specs… and even enjoying the Legion launch event more. Over the last few days I have been using this event as a bit of a springboard to help level up some of my sub 100 characters because every two events you participate in seems to be roughly a levels worth of experience, even in the 90s. So I took my Shadowpriest last night for example from 92 to 94 in two full rounds of the event. As far as the rest of the game there is still a ton of stuff I want to do, that mostly centers around running older content and collecting appearances. To say I am looking forward to the Legion Launch is a bit of an understatement.

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV on the other hand has fallen a little bit by the wayside. It is that game that I am logging into only to raid… which ironically is traditionally my stance with World of Warcraft. I am loving the Monday night raid team, and we are now starting to do more serious content. I still have little to no drive however to level or gear, at least until the content we are doing requires it. That might be a thing that happens soon because we have pretty much defeated all of the “easy” end game content and are now starting down the path of the more difficult stuff. However it feels amazing to have “the band back together” and doing raids together as a team.

Rift

At the very least right now I am logging in every day to participate in the Starfall Prophecy launch event, which is namely collecting prophecies that I can then later turn in for rewards. The pre-order bonus means that we will get access to some awesome stuff like the artifact finding mount, and I want to make sure I don’t miss out on any of that. Otherwise I need to really hunt for a group of players that are more active. I don’t want to disband the House Stalwart guild or anything, but I might consider moving Belghast off to another guild, because I would like to see Comet of Ahnket before the expansion lands since the lore seems like it will give me a headstart into understanding what is going on. Additionally I want to spend a sleepy afternoon at some point doing more Intrepid Adventures. Those things are just absolutely fun as hell and it is a style of “LFR” that I wish more games would look into implementing.

To The Returning and New

Diablo 3

As stated when I originally removed it from the list, I knew that it would be a limited time thing. With the beginning of this month came the launch of Season 7 of Diablo 3, and a return of several of us to actively playing again. This time around we do not have nearly the throng of players that we did with season six, but myself, Grace and Thalen are all fairly active. This time feels a little cheap though because we all seemed to opted for the fastest possible clearing class… or at least our view on that. The Demon Hunter is a powerhouse and one that you can get up and running insanely quickly. By the time we dinged 70 we were already pushing content hard and fast, and after roughly a weeks time I am now clearing greater rifts in the 50s like they are a cakewalk. The only question now is just how serious I am going to be on trying to get that extra stash slot. Right now there is so much going on, that I am afraid Diablo 3 is going to fall by the wayside.

Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go is something that did not even exist on my radar when I did the last “Recently Playing” and has been something that has dominated my life since. I have gone through the stages of grief with this game, and have reached a point where I continue to play it without really understanding why. I wrote the other day about some of my frustrations, and they are very real. However still… anytime I leave the house I check for nearby Pokemon each time I stop and get out of the car. As the heat starts to chill the hell out… and we no longer have 100 degree days I will probably start resuming my evening pokestrolls. However when it is 100 degrees at 9pm at night… it is just too damned hot to go out roaming too far. I hope this game gets some much needed changes, because the ones thusfar feel like they are taking it in the wrong direction. Niantic Labs still does not seem to understand that they made a MMO.

No Man’s Sky

This one is seriously brand new… but I have a feeling that over the coming weeks it is going to be a new obsession for me. I called it Interstellar Skyrim, and it invokes the same sort of feelings in me. The problem being… all of this is pending you can actually get it running on your machine. There are lots of problems ahead of this title before it reaches serious mass adoption, and I hope that in the coming weeks they can push through them. To say it has performance issues is the understatement of the century right now, and I am questioning my original plan to get this on the PC. That said I am committed at this point and still very much enjoying the experience.

To Those Parting

Destiny

I have so much love for Destiny, but for whatever reason I have drifted away from it in the last few weeks. In both the month of July and August I have not really played much, so I am temporarily removing it from the list. I know without a doubt in Mid-September when Rise of Iron hits, that I will be back and actively playing it again. In the meantime however I feel like I have gotten it out of my system for the moment. However if my friend Grace suddenly decides to start playing again, I will likely be right back there with guns a blazing. I think a huge part of it is that I really have not been spending all that much time up in my office where my Playstation 4 is, and instead hanging out on the sofa playing on my laptop. Much like when I remove Diablo 3 from the list… this is absolutely going to change in the coming months and I am sure I will have yet another resurgence.

ArcheAge

I feel like ArcheAge is a casualty of simply too much other stuff going on right now. At the beginning of July I had a bit of a renaissance with this game and managed to push through to fourty six… and then the content seemed to dry up a bit. The quests are still there, but they seem to be generally less plentiful, and the progress I was making felt a bit bogged down. As a result this sort of just fell by the wayside, and I am sure at some point I will reignite my fires for this game because at the end of the day I still very much like it. The biggest thing that came from this last journey is that I realized that PVP isn’t as big of a hurdle as I was expecting. I have technically spent the last dozen or so levels in pvp enabled areas… and really did not run into a single issue. Flagged players avoided me, and I avoided them and we continued questing along happily. At some point I am sure I will return, but for the time being I am removing it from my list of “active” games.