One of my many secrets to surviving the time of pandemic has been spending time in World of Warcraft. No matter how long I am away from the game, coming back to it always feels like coming home. We shall not look at the /played time for all of my characters because it would probably frighten me, but needless to say I have spent many an hour poking around in this game since it launched in November of 2004. I go through these periods where I attempt to be super serious about content, but my happiest times are always when I am just poking around and doing casual stuff on my army of characters. I find leveling to be exceptionally calming and before the pandemic I had two characters at 120, and now I have 1 Alliance side and 10 Horde side. Leveling is just something that gives me an opportunity to turn my brain off and relax, and stop worrying about everything that is going on and every possible interaction that I might encounter.
Most recently I had been working on my Mag’har Orc Shaman and I had a really fun time leveling it. Always in the past I have focused entirely on melee characters and as a result I have always leveled Shaman as Enhancement. This time around I decided to mix things up and leveled from the very beginning all the way to 120 as Elemental. I have to say Elemental is exceptionally fun with the way the play style factors around various procs. I think what I enjoyed the most is the fact that I didn’t feel squishy in the same way that I attribute to casters in general. I usually had time to heal myself back up when I was taking damage, or hit one of my “oh shit” buttons like Earth Elemental to take the heat off of me for awhile. The only negative is it felt a little weak in the AOE department, and shocks were really the only viable means of tagging mobs especially when it came to world quests. I finished the Shaman on Friday and then turned around and immediately started working on the next character in sequence.
That would be my Vulpera Rogue, because it just seemed to fit given they are a small and tricksy race to start with. I am leveling Outlaw because I still don’t like daggers at all, and am having a great time of it. Tam would be proud as I use the various rogue tricks to whittle my way through camps of mobs. I’ve also learned the joys of Sap and Pick Pocket used in sequence. I am not sure if I have ever leveled all the way through Stranglethorn Vale since it was changed drastically in cataclysm, so I am absolutely enjoying that as well. I should ding 60 before I finish the area and at that point I will likely jump over to Outlands. I’ve recently developed a taste for the Burning Crusade content and it seems more efficient than running through Wrath of the Lich King for that level block.
Now I realize that all of this is going to be meaningless shortly when the pre-patch lands. I don’t expect to make it all of the way to 120 on the Rogue before that happens, which means I will likely be leveling my last character under the level squish. The only remaining character I have horde side is my Nightborne Shadow Priest, and it is currently wearing heirlooms in Ashenvale. I was not entirely certain how well I would do at leveling a pure caster, but at this point I have leveled the Elemental Shaman and the Warlock, so maybe just maybe shadow will feel natural after those. At least in the case of Shadow Priest I still have a bunch of ways to bring my health back up… which is not a thing you have on a Mage which is why I ultimately used my boost on that character.
Other than that I have been running Coren Direbrew each day on my army of alts, mostly just to farm a few trinkets and that I guess it feels like the thing to be doing. I really enjoy World of Warcraft when we are in these in between times and there is zero pressure to be leveling or gearing. My hope as is always the case is to go into this expansion without feeling the need to chase other players in level or in gearing. However I also know that once I get in the thick of things that the old instincts will kick in and I will apply pressure to myself to rapidly move through the levels and be “ready” for things I am not likely going to do. Right now my plans are to do some Mythic+ key pushing, but for that I need to figure out a viable group. Right now we have my Paladin and Grace’s Monk, so I need to sort out who else we might have access to. I am targeting a EST/CST friendly time frame so apologies to my West Coast friends, but yall need to operate way the fuck too late for my old ass. Hopefully I can make something happen, but for now I am happy leveling my alts.
The post Leveling is Relaxing appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
I am not sure exactly what it is about World of Warcraft that causes me to constantly return to it. It could be the fact that I know the expansion is impending, or the fact that my friend Grace is back and leveling again, or it could just be that I find the rhythm of this game comforting in this time of uncertainty. Whatever the case I am largely focused on trying to get this elemental boy to 120 before the impending pre-patch. It is starting to look more and more like said patch is landing next Tuesday the 22nd, and with that disappears the Winds of Wisdom buff that I have been abusing to level all the things. I will truly miss you nonsense leveling speed because it was super fun to run up an army of alts horde side.
I still am not sure what bit flipped in my brain that suddenly allows for playing a caster to be enjoyable. I have long chided the “finger wigglers” of the world, claiming that it was not a thing that Bel’s do. However I am finding the pace and flow of leveling a caster to be terribly enjoyable of late. I don’t think it is enough that I will probably swap to one as a main, but it is still an interesting diversion. Right now I can legitimately say that I enjoy both the Elemental Shaman and various specs of the Warlock. I think Mage may still be a bit too squishy for my tastes, but the fact that I can heal myself up mid fight I think is what adds to the love of this Shaman.
With the pre-patch comes a slew of activities and a return of the scourge trying to invade Azeroth. Unfortunately gone are the really cool Judgement reskin armor sets from the Wrath of the Lich King event, and in its place are a bunch of reskins of the existing Warfront gear. The Alliance are getting brand new colors, and it appears that the horde are getting the same damned set we have had previously which sucks a little bit. Mostly for me I am looking at this as a way of gearing out characters prior to the patch since I have a feeling even with the squish this is ultimately going to be better gear than my alts are currently wearing.
WowHead has a guide to everything that has changed with the pre-patch and more importantly a guide to all of the Scourge Invasion events that I have been snipping images from. I have to admit the part that interests me the most is hanging around in Icecrown and farming the various World Bosses that are available. The base armor available for the event is item level 100 which is supposedly the “squished” version of 430 gear that comes from Normal mode Ny’alotha. I’ve heard that some items can be obtained at a 110 level, but I am not seeing this in the Wowhead Guide. The item that is probably going to be of the most interest is that Bronjahm is dropping an updated version of his bag that is 34 slots.
I am a sucker for pre-patches. I ground the hell out of the one that came with Legion and loved doing those Burning Crusade invasions. In that cause they also served as a really damned fast way to level a bunch of alts, and I remember doing this to catch up all of my Alliance characters at the time to level 100. It does not sound like the Undead Invasions are going to have this fringe benefit, but I do want to spend a little bit of time on my Alliance characters if for no reason other than to try and collect some of the unique armor appearances. As it stands my goals this week are to finish the shaman and prepare myself for a bunch of event nonsense starting next week. The launch of an expansion always brings out a sudden mania, but I will do my best to keep my cool.
The post My Shaman and the Pre-Patch appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Before we know it, the new World of Warcraft expansion will be upon us. It is roughly six weeks away and my mindset has just not really been prepared for that. This post is going to be a little bit of a reprise of a twitter thread from last night, but I have been mulling over what exactly I wanted to play as a main for this coming expansion. I’m actually looking forward to Shadowlands because it seems to be a move back to the sort of storytelling that I particularly enjoy in World of Warcraft. I am happiest when we are focused on big threats and not the stupid red versus blue narrative that has been fed to us over the years. Since making the switch to Horde, I have become even more disillusioned with factional conflicts in part because there is zero nuance there. Not everyone is going to be a rampant nationalist, and there is very little room in that experience for anyone like me that just could not care less about fighting the other faction.
Saracell, Lodin and Ailah
I’ve been on a bit of a mental journey as I unpack the various phases I have had in World of Warcraft. I largely think of myself as the character I pulled my name from… Belghast, but in truth I have hopped around quite a bit between lots of different “mains” throughout the years. In Vanilla I spent most of my time as a Dwarf Hunter named Lodin, and this was in part because I had a death in the family and when I came back to the game found that everyone had leveled well past me. I started playing the Hunter largely due to the extreme solo capabilities and the fact that I could catch up to my friend group relatively easily. I stayed playing the Hunter because a friend and leader of the Late Night Raiders really wanted to replace a frustrating hunter, and that created a neat slot for me to fall into. Once I started accepting gear I largely felt obligated to keep playing this thing.
Babby Belghast in Zulgurub Gear
Towards the end of Vanilla, I wanted to play a Warrior Tank and my friend Ailah wanted to roll Finni her Holy Priest. We leveled the duo together and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. As I hit the level cap and started to get gear, I found myself tanking for lots of the LNR “alt night” activities like Zul Gurub and eventually started tanking Molten Core and Blackwing Lair for NSR aka No Such Raid. With the death of Late Night Raiders and the gear reset that came with The Burning Crusade I made the transition from Lodin the Hunter to Belghast the Warrior with relative ease. This was ultimately my main for all of Burning Crusade and the vast majority of Wrath of the Lich King. This will probably always be the character I identify with the most, because I did decide to transition from using Exeter as my internet handle to Belghast.
Belgrave the then Worgen Death Knight
Near the end of Wrath of the Lich King I was feeling really burnt out from the position I had found myself as being responsible for not only the Guild but as the primary tank for Duranub, our non-guild based raid. In an attempt to freshen things up a bit I switched over to maining the Death Knight that I had been playing with on the side and chose to do so sometime during the tail end of Trails of the Crusader and beginning of Icecrown. I loved how Blood felt, and I really enjoyed DPSing as Unholy… so it gave me two fun things to do and the Warrior more or less took a back seat to helping other teams out as needed. As I entered Cataclysm I found myself disillusioned with the game more than any particular character, but Belgrave served as my main all the way through Pandaria.
Belghast the Gladiator
I remember getting into the beta of Warlords of Draenor and not liking at all the changes that had been made to Blood Death Knight. I can’t put my finger on it, but something just felt off. At this same time Blizzard did some true nonsense and introduced Gladiator Stance… aka DPS with a Sword and Shield which has long been a fantasy of mine. So you can absolutely bet that as I came back to the game to play the new expansion I was focused heavily on dpsing with a shield. I even got back into raiding again and did so all the way through us clearing Heroic Blackrock Foundry. I also played as Belghast for most of Legion up until the point that I started to dabble heavily with playing Horde Characters and ultimately made the transition there. Even then I rolled an Orc Female Warrior also named Belghast and just transitioned from one Bel to another.
Belblight the incidental Main
With the launch of Battle For Azeroth, I had every intent of playing Belghast the Orc as my main. I even leveled her to 120 first, but I was not happy in the least with the state of Warrior tanking. So I rapidly poured effort into my Demon Hunter alt and quickly got it up to cap and started tanking dungeons on it. Belblight served as my main for pretty much all of BFA, but I have to admit while it was super enjoyable to play around on, it never really felt like “me”. It was a crazy fun thing, and felt extremely overpowered… but I missed the sword and shield game. There is just something about that fantasy that will always be significant to me… I like bashing things with a big plate of metal.
Belgrace Ascends
Towards the end of BFA I went on a mission to level as many Horde characters to 120 as I could, and of these… my favorite is Belgrace my Blood Elf Paladin. I am not sure exactly when it happened, but I started to view the WoW Tank Paladin as one of my other favorite classes the Diablo III Crusader. There are so many parts of the kit that feel similar, and once I made this connection playing as a Paladin started to feel more natural. The only healer I have ever enjoyed playing was a Paladin back in Vanilla, and I have always has an affinity for playing Retribution as DPS. So in theory Belgrace seems like a pretty likely option for who I am going to main going into the expansion.
Exeter fighting Exeter
The funniest part about this decision is that back in Vanilla I had ever intent of maining a Paladin. I loved the class in beta and duo’d it a lot with a Holy Priest. Then I found myself deeply disillusioned with the change from the strike system to the seal system. I was stubborn as hell and wanted to level as a Paladin Tank, meaning that I really needed to be leveling with other people. When the death in the family hit, it just became too damned hard to progress at a reasonable pace so I latch onto the hunter and that was that. I did push the paladin up, and this is a picture of Exeter the Paladin killing Twilight Keeper Exeter and dinging 60 shortly afterwards. The frustrations of trying to tank as a paladin during the Seal of Rage era ultimately lead me to create Belghast the Warrior. It just seems like the cycle has completed that I now look at playing a Paladin once again as we move into this new expansion.
The Covenants of Shadowlands
Now the only real choice is which covenant to play as on which characters. Right now I am trying to decide if I want to main Revendreth of Kyrian. Style wise I am drawn to Revendreth, especially as a Blood Elf Paladin. However the Kyrian Paladin ability seems like it would be damned solid for tanking and generating AOE threat. Also the Kyrian armor feels mighty Paladin-ish. The only Covenant that I have no real draw towards is Ardenweald. The whole Druid and Night Elf vibe is just not me, so I am going to resign that to my third string alts. Right now I am more or less expecting to at least level three classes on the first pass and here are the tentative choices.
Belgrace – Paladin – Kyrian
Belblight – Demon Hunter – Maldraxxus
Belghast – Warrior – Revendreth
I have no clue what I will play for characters after that, but the Night Fae abilities for Hunter and Warlock both seem compelling so it is likely going to be one of those two. The main reason why I am going Revendreth as a Warrior is that Condemn seems really good. Since Protection warriors can execute once again, it seems really good that this can be used as an opener and a closer at the same time and refunds some of the rage as well as applying damage reduction. I absolutely expect to charge in and condemn immediately. Demon Hunter and Maldraxxus is largely just a choice of giving him some really badass looking armor, and the brand applied seems pretty solid as well.
So as we sit on the precipice of another World of Warcraft expansion, what are your thoughts? Are you planning to also shift things up and choose a new main, or are you going to keep doing the thing you have always done? Drop me a note in the comments.
The post A Main For Shadowlands appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Hey Folks! There is a thing that I occasionally do on my blog where I run down what I have been playing lately. There are games that I spend time in that don’t necessarily make it to the level of writing about. Regularly Playing has always served as a time for me to update the good ole sidebar of the blog and talk about the things that I am spending time exploring. It is also a time for me to push aside the games that for whatever reason I am just not that into right now. You have a lot of games that make their way back into the rotation, so when I say goodbye it is very rarely forever.
In theory this is a thing that I intend to do every month… but we are living in this time where it still feels like it SHOULD by all rights be March. I think this is going to go down in history as the “Lost Year” because it feels like we are all still very much on pause waiting for things to improve. I expect a significant amount of shake up given that it has been a little over two months since my last update.
To Those Remaining
Diablo III – PC and Switch
Oh Diablo, my sweet Diablo… I can’t ever seem to quit you. This game probably spends the most time on this list, especially now that it exists in switch form. While I am finished with the current PC season, I do still fairly regularly pop it open from bed on the switch and chip away at the achievements there. What can I say that I have not already said a dozen times. I just hope I like Diablo IV even half as much as I love Diablo III.
Final Fantasy XIV – PC
Oh precious baby, you are hanging by a thread. I’ve been back a bit of late for the Yo-Kai watch event, but even that has mostly just been something to do while watching something on television. I know there is a whole new story arc that I need to play through since the 5.3 patch has landed finally. I will do that at some point but I am just not overly excited about Final Fantasy XIV right now. I wish I was because it truly is a wonderful game, but I am not sure what changed in me that struggles to latch onto the MMORPG gameplay experience for very long. I find myself being a strict soloist in the MMO space right now, and as a result I never quite fully buy into the good aspects of the culture and the gameplay offerings. I wish I could get over my fear of doing content with other human beings that I seem to have developed.
World of Warcraft – Retail and Beta – PC
I am not what you would call actively playing this game, but every so often I decide to poke my head in and work on leveling some of my alts. During this lull in the expansion I have leveled one of everything horde side by the Shaman, Priest and Rogue. I’ve been most recently working on the Shaman who is in Pandaria and I believe a few levels away from 100? This is often times the character that I play while we are podcasting, or if I am watching some show because World of Warcraft requires a bare minimum of interactivity to play it on the level I am playing it. I still get a stupid amount of enjoyment from its simple mechanics and my ability to just turn my brain off and rely entirely upon muscle memory.
To The New and Returning
Avengers – PC
I super did not expect to be playing this game right now. I had a lot of issues early on with it, but it turns out that I was more or less bit in the butt by my own shenanigans. There are still some minor issues of mouse and camera not exactly working in the way that I would prefer but it is extremely playable and the story is really solid. In fact I think at this point I am mostly playing because the story is extremely enjoyable. The game hits a deep uncanny valley at times because I think they are trying to shoot halfway between the more traditional comic appearance of the characters and that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’ve gotten used to it however and once I did the story being told has become pure joy.
Ghosts of Tsushima – PS4
I have been on a bit of a single player narrative game kick of late, and I have been playing a significant amount of Ghosts of Tsushima. I’ve not made it past the first part of the game, because I keep roaming around and killing baddies. I am more or less following the Samurai path where I present a challenge and then proceed to whittle down the rest of the masses after taking out their strongest. I love this game a lot, and the only thing that would have made it better is if I were playing on the PC with a Mouse and Keyboard. I’ve been a bit distracted the last week or so, but I am hoping over the extended weekend that I can return to this and keep moving forward.
Hades – PC
I am not entirely certain that this game has ever made the list, but I have had it in my arsenal for awhile now. I have a deep love for the types of games that Supergiant creates. Even when I don’t mechanically enjoy the game like was the case with Pyre, I really appreciate the story that is being told. Hades is effectively a blend of Diablo and a Rogue Lite game and involves escaping from the underworld, and powering yourself along the way to make that possible. It is a game or repetition because you are absolutely going to die over and over and over in your journey, each time starting back at the start and each time carrying some progress along with you. This has been in early access but we are starting to near an official launch, so I have been playing it again in anticipation. Really solid game.
New World – PC
I’ve not participated in two test events of New World and I am super happy to finally be able to start talking about it. The last long preview event that is wrapping up I believe today had no NDA and as a result I have been able to openly discuss it on the blog. As it stands I am so ready for this game to launch and to start being able to play it in earnest. I am hoping the next event is an Open Beta so that folks who did not pre-order can give it a shot and see if it works for them. This is definitely the type of game that I am going to want to find an active company to play in, and that does not mean that I am sold on the notion of leading one. I’m good at recruiting people, but I don’t seem to be good at keeping people engaged… myself included. So more than likely I will be looking for a company to join that would be open to any friends that I have who are also interested.
Retro Games – Retro Freak Console, PC, and Switch
This is going to be a bit of a generic heading because I have been poking around in a lot of “retro games”. The thing is… I find it weird calling these game retro, because they are from my childhood. It is moments like this that I remember just how damned old I am at this point. Whatever you want to call them I have been back on a kick of trying to get my closet full of older systems and cartridges up and running on modern display technology. I’ve also purchased a Retro Freak console, which allows me to do a bunch of nifty things including dump rom and save games from cartridges and apply translation patches on the fly. The next project is to try and get my Neo Geo CD system up and running again and maybe apply the mod that replaces the very slow CD Rom with an SD Card interface.
To Those Departing
Destiny 2 – PC
I am not sure where we went wrong boo, I’m just not playing you. I have no clue what is up but for whatever reason I just haven’t been interested in playing Destiny 2 in this current season. I am not sure if it is the impending gear sunset or the fact that they are “vaulting” content to remove it from the game, but whatever the case I am just turned off right now. I think games should get larger over time not shrink constantly, and I hate the FOMO aspect of seasonal play. The truth however is just that I have not been interested in playing a shooter lately, and this last few months has been largely marked by me playing more single player and narrative driven content. I am sure I will be back when the expansion launches in November and have a grand ole time.
Guild Wars 2 – PC
You know that mission that AggroChat folks have been on about playing Guild Wars 2 and getting others to play it as well? For whatever reason it never sunk its hooks properly into me. I still don’t fully understand why this game that on paper should be something I am deeply into… never quite seems to work for me. There is just something about the gameplay loop that I don’t find as enjoyable as I should. The story content also never really hooked me, so while I keep trying to revisit this game… it never really does it for me. I am sure I will be back at some point because I am a glutton for punishment with a very short memory.
Phantasy Star Online 2 – PC
I can’t fully explain what happened here and why I stopped playing this game, but it happened. I am not even sure what distracted me. I just know that I have not logged in for a long while other than to convert to the Steam client. I am sure I will return because I was having quite a bit of fun with it. I also know that I was only a few levels away from hitting the cap at the time, and that there is a raised cap now that we have entered Chapter 4. I think I mostly got distracted by a string of single player experiences like Death Stranding.
Torchlight III – PC
I really do want to like this game, but I have not been all that into of it late. I think the core problem I have with the third iteration is that there just isn’t really a class that I enjoy. In Torchlight there was the Destroyer that I played a ton of, and in Torchlight II it was the Engineer. Both were big and bashy melee characters and right now in the third game there are two characters that CAN be played that way… but they both sorta feel fiddly. So I have been splitting my time between the Forge and the Railmaster…. and to be truthful neither of them feel the way that I want them to feel. I know Torchlight is a game that tries to cast aside the traditional Mage, Rogue, Warrior, and Cleric blend of classes… but I mostly just wish they had proper representation of those archetypes. My preference is to play something akin to the Diablo Barbarian or Crusader and they just don’t really have that represented.
Ships Passing in the Night
Death Stranding – PC
Death Stranding was a phenomenal experience. I legit get emotional just thinking about it. This is the game that I needed to play at the time in which I played it. It has become this extremely relevant allegory for the time that we are living in. I am not sure this is a game that everyone would enjoy, because the whole courier aspect of it that I found enjoyable could be pure tedium for someone else. The story being told though is really good and if nothing else you should probably watch a play through of it at some point.
Horizon Zero Dawn -PC
I had been anxiously awaiting the release of Horizon Zero Dawn for the PC, and when it came out I burned through it like wildfire. I think I put in a solid 50 hours in a very short period of time and cracking this open and revisiting it all was truly magical. I love Aloy and the world of Horizon, and I am anxiously awaiting the sequel. This is pretty much the reason why I will be buying a PlayStation 5 as soon as the pre-orders open. If you have never played Horizon Zero Dawn, you owe it to yourself to experience the game and the bow combat just works so much better with a Mouse and Keyboard.
Summary
I guess this is what happens when I wait almost three months between updates, there is a lot of change. I’ve bounced a few things off the list that I am almost certain I will revisit. Hell to be truthful what usually happens is just writing about them ends up making me want to log back in again. I know we have the launch of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 that will be eating some of my time, and I would really like to restart Jedi Fallen Order but this time play it with Mouse and Keyboard. Additionally I really want to play through Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which has been on my list for awhile. In between those I will be wrapping up Avengers main story and seeing if I like the group content or not, and probably poking my head into New World each time a new test event opens. All the while the backlog continues to grow, but I have gotten fairly used to knowing I will never quite conquer it.
The post Regularly Playing: September 2020 Edition appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
