Good Morning Folks! I feel like it is important for me to take a brief moment to marvel at just how damned active the Guild Wars 2 community is. This was a screenshot of me waiting on Shadow Behemoth to spawn in Queensdale at like 6:30 this morning. By the time the event spawned, there were even more folks that had shown up. Granted this event happens to be on the weekly wizard chores that reset yesterday morning, but still… it is pretty freaking impressive. It doesn’t really matter what event I happen to show up for, this is pretty much the same story everywhere. Granted if you are trying to show up last minute you might get shunted off to an overflow map where there is not quite the critical mass of warm bodies, but by showing up early you are almost certain to find this kind of outcome.
Today is kind of an important day for Guild Wars 2. Last week they dropped a teaser trailer that set the GW2 pundits aflame with possibilities. This will be the second release in their new expansion model that promises something smaller in scope but delivered in a more reliable cadence for a cheaper price. With Secrets of the Obscure, they managed to land the release cadence of a new expansion and all of its relevant patches landing within a single year. At some point today we will see the full announcement of this next expansion… which they are calling their 5th but I quibble a bit with their numbering. I am guessing they are not referring to Icebrood Saga as an expansion, which would then make this the 5th as per their advertising. If you count living world seasons as expansions it would be something like the 12th.
I am not fully caught up on Secrets of the Obscure because in Guild Wars 2 terms I am woefully behind on pretty much everything. I’ve been doing my wizard chores and had to spend down some of the currency recently to buy some more mystic clovers. My focus has largely been on trying to regenerate my legendary materials enough to the point of being able to craft The Juggernaut, which is a weapon I have wanted since I first started playing Guild Wars 2. Mostly a lot of it is just going to be spending a few hundred gold, but clovers are one of those things that feels rough to brute force. I also need to spend some more time in World vs World and farm up another Gift of Battle.
The major time commitment is going to be doing another 100% Tyria world completion. When you do a full exploration of the old world you get two Gift of Exploration. So the last two Legendary weapons that I crafted, Bolt and Frostfang, ate those up. I did my last full world exploration on my Necromancer when I was leveling that, but I was technically closer to it on my original Warrior character. That is sitting at 91% currently and while we recorded the podcast on Saturday night I attempted to knock out some progress. This was only minimally successful as I got sidetracked by a group of folks doing champion rifts. Guild Wars 2 is pretty much a constant distraction engine.
Anyway, there has been a heck of a lot of discussion in the Guild Wars 2 community about what the teaser trailer the other day might mean. There is a lot of hopium surrounding a return to raiding… which I am not sure is super likely given how few players tend to engage in raiding. Since I personally have not raided in the game, my own brand of hopium is placed elsewhere. What I would love to see is some sort of meaningful rework of the “home instance” to turn it into proper player housing. I would love to see this tied into some sort of a progression system so that you can earn items for your home instance with others that traditionally lived on the gem store being available through bundles on the astral store. I have purchased some items from my home instance through world vendors and a few from the cash shop, but it feels like a woeful mess. I would love to see some measure of agency added to this system because for now… I always go to Rata Sum because it is the most efficiently laid out.
As I am sitting here writing this blog post, I happen to look over at Mastodon and notice a conversation going on between two Guild Wars 2 folks about how they are going to abbreviate the new expansion. This is coming from Reddit so take it with a giant bucket of salt but… apparently at some point the account page seemed to be leaking information about the new expansion including logo and name. So in theory, if this is true the next expansion will be called Janthir Wilds, which honestly makes a lot of sense given that is an area of the map we have not explored and one that has been clearly delineated for a bit.
So in theory we should then have a reason to start seeing zones popping up to the north of Divinity’s Reach. I wonder if they will be free floating as it were, or if they will connect back up to zones like Lake Doric. However, it seems like there is not a really good place in Doric to put a zone boundary. My guess is it will be a disconnected region as we have with some of the other expansion areas and that we will either arrive initially by boat or airship. Whatever the case I am looking forward to the announcement at some point today. I don’t believe there is any sort of an official announcement stream, so I guess I will be watching news sources for when the press release drops.
What are you expecting from Expansion 5? Drop me a line below.
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Good Morning Folks! Or at least I hope to finish writing this and publish it within a timeframe that could still be referred to as “morning”. Here in the United States, it is Memorial Day and as such I would normally count this as part of my weekend and not blog. However, I found myself feeling weird about it being a Monday and not blogging so here we go! Since I last blogged I’ve hit a few milestones, the first of which is dinging level 100 for the first time in Diablo IV. Sadly I think it also probably denotes the end of my involvement with the game for the time being. I might max out my seasonal reputation but I am not feeling terribly driven to push further into the endgame. I am just not bossing motivated and the “mapping” experience in Diablo IV is sort of boring.
I’ve been actively doing The Pit since around 95 and I gotta say it feels worse than Greater Rifts did. The above is a picture of having cleared a Greater Rift in Diablo III and the comparative loot explosion that you got at the end. Clearly, The Pit just feels lackluster because generally speaking you tend to get four items and it does not seem to scale heavily as you go up in difficulty. Maybe there are breakpoints where it starts to feel more rewarding, but for the most part, it feels like it is a system that entirely exists to get the materials needed to masterwork your items… which again is a system that only really exists so that you can go deeper into The Pit. If The Pit already feels unrewarding… doing more of it so you can do more of it… does not feel like a good experience to me. I am not driven to prove how hardcore I am… I play these games to get cool loot and when I stop getting that I tend to bounce.
On the other side, I have been playing a huge amount of World of Warcraft Pandaria Remix lately and dinged 70 on my first timerunner character. I gotta say this setup is extremely sweet for setting up a character and preparing it for the next expansion. Just creating a character gives you maximum flying speed and a full inventory of 36 slot bags, then you can pick up those same bags for 10 Bronze each and outfit your bank in them as well. From what I understand when the event is over this character will exit the other side as a normal level 70 character with one of those high item level gear cache bundles as though it had been boosted allowing for it to essentially start War Within on a strong footing. Given that every character gets a boost from the current level of my timeless cloak, it is honestly a great way to seed various servers with max-level characters. I’ve always had a slew of friends who play on Drenden so currently planning on leveling a Tauren Paladin and maybe some sort of a Hunter over there.
Here is a crudely photoshopped mess of me attempting to show off all of the stats of my cloak at the same time. I am not sure how to read the cloak rank number, but I think that means I have collected 15k threads so far. I would potentially believe this based on my stat hits, and this is all through legitimate means. By the time I started my first character the “frog farm” had been nerfed, so this is just through normal play patterns. I have enough survival through my gem choices and my cloak stats that I can pretty much roll around in Titan Grip Fury mode. I need to work on earning my rings and necklace which are associated with achievements. Basically doing all the dungeons in Heroic Mode gets one ring, another is associated with doing all of the Heroic Scenarios, and the last is from running all of the raids in Normal Mode. I wish they would nerf this a bit and change it to Raid Finder mode because it is way easier to queue for Raid Finder than to use Group Finder for raids.
All of the World Bosses and Raids are on daily lockouts so that they can be farmed constantly. In fact, one of the popular leveling methods for alts involves getting to 25 and then queueing for LFR wings on each character daily to get a huge boost in XP and threads. I’m focused on this main character though and trying to unlock all of the things I need to unlock before shifting to alts. Given that I am queuing as a DPS, getting into raids should be relatively straight forward. I contemplating tanking them but honestly, I am not sure if I want the responsibility of trying to remember how all of this content worked. Maybe after running through various content a few times, I might shift over to my tank gear and give it a shot.
I did not in a million years think I would be falling back in love with World of Warcraft. If anything I thought I would be limping through the remainder of the story content in Final Fantasy XIV and preparing myself for the launch of that expansion. Early Access for it starts on June 28th which will be here before I realize it. I essentially need to make some hard decisions about whether or not I am going to hop on that train or not. There is a bare minimum amount of work that needs to be done if I am going to attempt to play at all. Essentially I need to get through the MSQ and then do a massive amount of retainer maintenance. Every class is level 80 or higher and as such I really need to spend some time cleaning out gear that I will never wear to free up room for new gear. This would involve a lot of grand company turnins… and probably is a week’s worth of effort at a minimum.
At one point I was pushing up a number of jobs to level 90 and managed to complete Paladin which I leveled during the campaign and then Monk, Dragoon, Samurai, and Machinist through doing daily quests and pvp content. I was pretty close on Red Mage as well so I could probably easily push it up as well. Basically, the new jobs will probably start at 80 which means the only gear I would care about keeping that us below that are things for Sage and Reaper which I could probably easily push to 80 as well. The problem with all of this is that I just need to make the decision to get started. I think at some point I will be in a daily maintenance routine with Pandaria Remix which would leave some room for maybe dipping my toes back into FFXIV.
This is of course on top of any time that I am spending in Guild Wars 2, because I would also really like to finish out the Secrets of the Obscure content there. I picked up my next Legendary starter kit and this is one that I have wanted for ages… so I need to start working towards collecting a bunch of Mystic Clovers and knocking out another Gift of Exploration and Gift of Battle. I need to see which character is closer to 100% World Exploration and then finish that out. I will probably have more fun doing it on my Ranger thought. I would really like to have a Legendary Hammer because it is a weapon that I really enjoy on a bunch of different classes.
Anyways… I got a lot of gaming on my plate. The positive is that I will definitely not be bored for a while.
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Good Morning Folks! I realize that I have been talking a lot about Diablo IV and Path of Exile, but I have also been playing quite a bit of Guild Wars 2. I dinged 95 last night in D4 and then treated myself to some super chill Tequatl game time in Guild Wars 2… that ended up being an entire evening of “faffing about” doing random things. I feel like first it is very important for you to encompass the majesty of this cat chair that I got from the wizard chore currency. I did not expect that each of the cats would be animated individually. The void kitty in the chair in the upper left quadrant for example arches its back and yawns periodically. The Siamese below them spends most of the time peering directly into your soul. It truly is a wonder of gaming kind and I feel like I might never use any of my other equally amazing chairs while waiting for events to spawn.
Yesterday I crafted my second legendary weapon, but admittedly it feels a bit like cheating. For those who do not know the Wizard Vault has been selling these seasonal boxes for 1000 astral currency that gets you most of the way to crafting a legendary weapon. I missed out on the first box but I picked up the second and crafted the legendary sword named Bolt. This time around I picked Frostfang the Axe from the third starter kit set because I could see myself using an axe on several characters more than the other options. This box gave me the precursor weapon, a Gift of Frostfang, and a Gift of Might. That meant that in order to finish things up I would need to craft a Gift of Magic which cost around 300 gold worth of components and then assemble it with the Gift of Might, 77 Mystic Clovers, and 250 Globs of Ectoplasm into a Gift of Fortune.
The last step would be assembling a Gift of Mastery which requires 1 Bloodstone Shard which costs 200 Spirit Shards… something I have plenty of, 250 Obsidian Shards, a Gift of Exploration, and a Gift of Battle. The Gift of Exploration comes from getting 100% exploration on all of the old world zones and thankfully when you complete this you get two copies… so I had one sitting in my bank. However, I probably should go ahead and finish up World Exploration on my Ranger so I can get a pair to replace the one I used. That left the Gift of Battle which can only be obtained through the Gift of Battle Item Reward Track in WvW. I was about halfway through the reward track as generally speaking it is my default choice when doing WvW content, so over the last handful of days I have knocked out the rest of that reward track.
The thing that always floors me about WvW is how much I really truly do enjoy it. I spent most of Sunday afternoon hanging ut with a group of folks and taking down objectives in the Eternal Battlegrounds. It is one of those activities that I always enjoy, but because of my mental block against all forms of PVP in other games… I just rarely think to do it. I am way more likely to ride the World Boss train on any given evening than to pop into the battlegrounds and see if there is a group rolling around. Realistically it is an activity where you absolutely need a group, but they are common enough that you can pretty much port between realms until you find a commander tag and then seamlessly blend into the nonsense. Some groups will claim that you need to be on Discord or be kicked out of the squad but I have never personally had this happen and for the most part… you don’t REALLY need to know what is going on. Stay on the tag… and play your role which for me is Longbow Ranger and harassing the enemy from long range with AOE volleys targeting the entire team.
One of the things that I don’t love about Guild Wars 2… is that it has probably my favorite kit from any game, but it is rarely considered the optimal way to play that character. I love Longbow/Greatsword Ranger and specifically of the Soulbeast variety. While this is a great build for the open world and for world vs world… it is generally frowned upon for any serious group content as it does not provide useful buffs to the party. Longbow just feels so damned good because it does great ranged damage, has good AOE, and some fun buffs with good mobility. Unfortunately, it provides neither Quickness nor Alacrity which makes it “selfish” in the eyes of squad builders. I have this problem where in order for me to enjoy something the weapons have to “feel” good… and honestly Longbow and Greatsword feel the best and as a result, I will keep playing them no matter how bad they might be. I sort of feel like this is a problem that Guild Wars 2 needs to solve… so that every weapon combination can provide something that party play would actually want.
I got my “Catmander” tag in theory as a way around this… I thought maybe if I organized my own groups it would not be that big of a deal that I was the “selfish” player given that I was the one taking the time to organize things. Unfortunately, I have just not been able to push myself forward into taking that level of responsibility. I feel like there are just too many things that I don’t fully understand about the game and would end up just making a mess. Guild Wars 2 is a game where people give blind faith to whoever is wearing the tag… and I don’t want to feel like I am leading folks astray. Maybe at some point I will become the Catmander of my dreams… but for now I am still taking a backseat and watching.
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Morning Folks! I completed what is probably the last of the challenges that I am going to face in this league. I am happy to sit at 34/40 because other than the memories challenge everything else is T17 or Uber Boss related. I took the lame way out and just bought some bulk constrictor maps at 21 of them for a Divine Orb which allowed me to grind out the last few guardian maps that I needed for this challenge. I feel pretty great with the progress that I made during the Necropolis League and would be perfectly fine at this point if I did not play again until the start of 3.25. I am not saying for certain that is going to happen but that I would would feel accomplished for the progress I’ve made.
Today is the launch of Diablo IV Season 4 and I know that I will be spending at least a bit of time playing it. Generally speaking… I tend to start a Barbarian since that has been the last that I have enjoyed the most to date. They feel a bit weak at the start of the game but once you start gearing them they feel great. Earlier this week Raxx released a Tier list video and apparently… Necromancers especially of the minion variety have been significantly buffed. This is making me consider a Necro start given that I do love me some minion gameplay. I am not sure which class I will spend most of my time playing, and really how good the state of the game feels is going to be what determines my level of engagement. I had a heck of a lot of fun during Season 2 so here is hoping that Season 4 feels equally good.
Other than that I have been spending quite a bit of time playing Guild Wars 2. Kodra has been back and active a good deal lately, which has prompted me to want to go back and explore Tyria. I would love to be able to find a time when I can be online with various folks that I know and actually do some of the content. Fractals are probably the lowest common denominator, but I would love to get more engaged in Strikes and potentially even Raids now that there is a training wheels mode. I have a commander tag so that is pretty much what is required for doing multi-group activities.
My favorite aspect of the game is just how easy it is to engage in open-world group activities. I had a Wizard’s Vault challenge that asked me to kill 100 Risen. I figured I would pop over to Orr and do some gathering while slowly completing that challenge, and before I knew it someone was calling out that the Arah event was starting up, so I joined the crowd and made my way to the legendary High Wizard easily soaking up enough kills along the way. It is moments like that which really sell me on Guild Wars 2, because it is so easy to start doing one thing and get wrapped up in a bunch of other things along the way that you were not planning on doing at all.
Later in the evening, I wound up in WVW because I had cashed in my Wizard’s Vault tokens in order to get the third legendary weapon box. This meant that I needed to farm up another Gift of Battle, which meant following around and helping a group of folks take objectives. I had not really played WvW since the most recent round of changes but pending you are going there to actually do the combat, it seems like you gain progress faster than you did previously. I’m about halfway to my next gift of battle and figure in the coming weeks I will poke my head back into WvW a bit more as I tend to find it shockingly chill.
Unfortunately, when I cashed in my Wizard’s Vault tokens I did not pay attention to the other rewards. This chair is amazing and I must have it, which means I need to be fairly active each day to make sure I am gaining enough progress in order to pick it up. Why yes I do want to be surrounded by lounging cats while I am waiting on World Events to start. Chairs in this game are such an odd pastime, but I am happy to see a really great one available that is not in the cash shop.
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