A Geek's Cogitations, Conjectures and other Cortical Experiences

Category: World of Warcraft Page 3 of 12

Shadowlands: Torghast First Impressions

Torghast First ImpressionsThis is my first Shadowlands post since it’s launch. While it seems logical that I would first talk about leveling, instead I decided to skip to Torghast. This is a brand new game mechanic Blizzard introduces in this expansion. We saw something similar in the Battle for Azeroth 8.3 patch with the Horrific Visions. In fact, I almost suspect that the Horrific Visions were the “beta test” for the Torghast mechanic. I haven’t spent a lot of time in there yet but I thought I would share my Torghast first impressions.

An Ever-Changing Dungeon

There was a lot of build up about this place. Blizzard was pretty clear that it will be essential to our raiding progression. Initially I was skeptical. While the horrific visions weren’t terrible, eventually I became bored doing them every week (and, ultimately, I stopped doing them altogether). The engineers at Blizzard have definitely raised the bar with Torghast.

Basically Torghast is a type of dungeon divided into six wings, each with eight layers consisting of six floors per layer. You can complete Torghast solo or you can go as a group. Every trip into Torghast is different. Statistically you should never experience the same trip twice. As you progress each floor becomes more and more difficult until it becomes too difficult, for your current gear score, to complete. This has not yet happened to me so I don’t know if its actually true. If you complete the third layer on one wing, you can go immediately to the third layer in another wing. I’m not sure how this works when the remaining layer’s become available. Completing the layers awards you Soul Ash which you need to construct legendary gear. As far as I can tell, Torghast does not drop gear.

No Gear?? What’s the Point??

I, honestly, struggle with this concept. It’s probably the one negative to Torghast, especially for alts. Obviously, for my raid toon, this provides the ability to craft gear that will give me a significant advantage in the raids. The amount of Soul Ash you get is capped each week so going in weekly will help craft your legendary gear (and upgrades) sooner rather than later. I rarely, if ever, raid on my alts so getting a legendary for them is simply cosmetic. Does this mean I will still do Torghast on my alts? Probably, because the challenge could be fun, however its not going to be something I do every week on every alt.

So far I like Torghast; more than I thought I would. I’m glad there is a cap each week so I don’t feel obligated to do it every single day, each week. It would get pretty old, really fast if I had to do it that frequently. Granted we are just beginning week 3 so the question is will I continue to enjoy Torghast? Or will the interest wane over the next couple of months? It’s difficult to say. Perhaps I should consider a follow up post in the spring to discuss how its going. I’m also going to predict that something will change about Torghast in future content patches to keep it interesting. We’ll see.

What are your Torghast first impressions?

duke-nukem-sm If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!

 

WoW: The Battle for Azeroth is Over

The Battle for Azeroth is OverLast week the pre-patch event for Shadowlands began. As we embark on our journey into the afterlife, let’s reflect on Blizzards 7th expansion. Battle for Azeroth had a tough act to follow. Legion, in my opinion, is the second best expansion since Wrath of the Lich King. Unfortunately BfA didn’t quite live up to the same level as Legion and Wrath. Personally, I would rank this expansion around the middle of the pack. Now that the Battle for Azeroth is over, what ruminations do I have from the past 2 years?

Honestly, the first half of the expansion was pretty good. I enjoyed meeting Jaina’s family and restoring her people’s faith in her and meeting Taelia Fordragon and learning her story. I hope Blizzard will pursue a possible love interest between her and Anduin. It has been a long time since there has been a Queen in Stormwind. The real story is told by the raids and I’m pretty split on that.

Mount Farming Guide: Raid Mounts (Part 1)

farming raid mountsThere are so many raids that drop mounts and any raid that isn’t current content typically has a 1% chance, or less, of dropping a mount. So you should settle in for many attempts and become accustomed to disappointment. This is my current, weekly farming route for raid mounts. The route is subject to change as I acquire said mounts; thus the potential for multiple parts.

There are a few addons and weakauras you can use for mount farming. Rarity seems to be the most popular mount/pet/toy farming addon. It’s highly recommended by my guild mates. I’ve just started using it myself so I cannot provide too much feedback, or support (at the time of this post).

You will also need your Hearthstone (which you should always have) and I would also keep your Dalaran Hearthstone handy. Also, make sure you have lots of space in your bags and a vendor mount is super handy (such as the Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth). Since some mounts only drop from specific difficulties I suggest to always have your Raid Difficulty set to 25-Man Heroic.

Gaming: The WoW Hiatus Begins

WoW Hiatus BeginsAs I alluded to a few weeks ago, for the first time in 15 years I let my World of Warcraft account lapse. It was strange seeing the warning on the launcher that counted down the days until expiration. There was a small part of me secretly hoping Blizzard would release some kind of patch that would entice a stay of execution. Alas, that did not happen and there’s not a chance in hell I’m playing Classic. So as my WoW hiatus begins where did I leave things and what do I hope to get done when the Shadowlands pre-patch finally drops? I’m assuming there will be something to do during the pre-patch, however the contents of it is as elusive as the release date.

Farming and Grinding

I’m going to assume that whatever content is available in the patch, it won’t consume all my time. Therefore I plan to resume my mount farming and grinding out any rep that is left (if any). I’ll likely resume doing the invasions and emissary quests. Those paragon chests can have some really nice gold rewards. I’ve decided that I’m going to give up on the AH mount (Caravan Brutosaur). I’ll take my chances with the Black Market Auction House in Shadowlands. Besides my main is an Engineer and often has access to an Auction House in places where other players don’t.

I’ll wrap up any remaining profession tasks; by that I mean max any remaining professions and/or complete any Tricks of the Trade quests. The former being the higher priority. I’m not going to level any additional alts. I do have a couple that I’ve started, including a Mechagnome hunter but it’s rather pointless to grind out 120 levels when you only need to get to 60 after the expansion drops. I should also try to grind out some Island Expeditions; I regret not doing more of them (especially for the mounts).

It’s going to feel really strange when I can’t log into WoW, albeit brief. I am even expecting a bit of withdrawal. Have you ever stopped playing a game that you’ve played for 15 years? How did you handle the change?

duke-nukem-sm If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!

 

Trading My Sword for a Lightsaber

This is going to be a surprising announcement for some of you folks. In about a month my WoW subscription is scheduled to renew for six months. After nearly 15 years of consecutively renewing, I’m thinking about letting it lapse. My amazing raid team has completed the final Ahead of the Curve achievement for this expansion. Blizzard’s recent earnings call suggests that the next expansion isn’t due out until quarter four of 2020. So we are at an impasse.

What Are We Going To Do Now?

Anth Resting at the Garrison

We don’t have the numbers (nor the spirit) to attempt the Mythic raids in the current expansion. We’re working on raid achievements for the current content (and even a couple from previous expansion). However that isn’t 3+ months worth of work. I know I have my weekly mount farming and reputation grinding, which are my common end-of-expansion tasks. All of my base alts are at max level, I have a new one that is nearly there. I could probably finish the Rajani and Uldum Accord reputations in a week or two, if I diligently complete the daily quests.

It doesn’t make economical sense to spend $15 a month for 3 months simply to grind four raids and handful of world bosses for mounts with a < 1% drop rate. It’s a lot of monotonous work for very little to gain. So I think Anth is going to hang up his sword a shield and take a little rest in his garrison. He deserves it after saving Azeroth (again) from an olde god (again).

It’s Just Temporary

I pre-ordered Shadowlands so I am, by no means, leaving the game permanently. In fact as soon as the pre-patch goes live, I plan to activate my subscription again. The only uncertainty is the date of the pre-patch. My estimation, which is just a wild ass guess, is somewhere around August or September. Obviously I need something to do to pass the time between the expiration and the pre-patch. So I’m trading my sword in for a lightsaber.

Darth Haruun

My Sith Juggernaut – Darth Haruun

I started playing Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) way back in the beta. I continued playing it for a few months after it went live. I had to turn off my subscription because it wasn’t economical to have both a WoW subscription and SWTOR subscription (it’s always about the $$$). Most of my friends were still playing WoW so that’s the subscription I chose to keep.

I’m basking in the glory that, for the moment, my daughter likes Star Wars. We’ve also been introducing her to video games, including WoW and we thought she would like SWTOR where she can make her own Jedi. She enjoys the fact that she can make a character that looks like Ahsoka. Therefore I’m temporarily returning to SWTOR for a couple of months during the summer.

So rest assured, Azeroth, Anth will pick up his sword and shield again to defend her, again, against the Jailer. Until then I am literally and figuratively “going to the Dark Side”.

/MTFBWY

You don’t know the power of the dark side.

WoW: BfA State of the Raid

I feel like I use to write “State of the Game” or “State of the Raid” posts in the past, however I cannot seem to find one. I prefer “State of the Raid” as a subject because it’s more applicable to me (and my raid friends). It’s also the primary reason I log in every day. However, this post is about more than just our progress in Ny’alotha; it’s also about my progress with all end game activities.

Ny’alotha Raid Progress

Ny’alotha is the final raid of the Battle for Azeroth expansion. We are fighting to save Azeroth from N’Zoth, who has nightmarish plans for the world. In Normal we are consistently 11/12 within a lockout. N’Zoth, even on Normal, is a very challenging boss so we have made the logical choice to start working through Heroic content. The gear, hopefully, will help us to be successful against N’Zoth. We are currently 3/12 in Heroic.

We are also working on completing through Carapace of N’Zoth within a single night so we have more time to focus on Heroic. After the current lock out, however, we will have completed the quest to unlock the skip mechanic. Therefore we will likely focus exclusively on Heroic very soon. Ahead of the Curve is our goal, as always, which awards the Uncorrupted Voidwing, a freaking sweet mount! I’m a little worried though; N’Zoth seems perhaps a little over tuned and/or overly complex. I’m honestly kind of hoping for a nerf, however I have confidence in our raid team (Humpday!!)

Assaults, Visions and Alts

This expansion is one of the weaker ones. Probably not as weak as Warlords of Draenor. Perhaps more on par with Cataclysm. I was interested in the story through the previous patch, in which we faced off with Azshara, a baddie that dates back to Vanilla. Now we are facing off against another old god, who seem to be the antagonists behind all that plagues Azeroth. I don’t find the battle against N’Zoth as epic as it was fighting Azshara. The advantage this expansion has over previous weaker expansion is the non-raid end game activities that are available.

I really like the corruption visual effect

When I’m not raiding, my wife and I are completing Assaults and running Horrific Visions to upgrade our cloaks. We are current as of this post (i.e. Rank 12). The higher the rank we have on our cloaks the more corrupted gear we can have (which improves our survivability and contributes to our raid progress). After cloaks then it’s usually the alts I spend time on. Most things you can solo if you don’t want to group. I find that appealing as I’m not always interested in group activities (unless its with my wife). Granted I’ve only completed up to Rank 5 on an alt; soloing Corrupted Zones or *shudder* Lost Zones is frightening.

The Azerite system is OK. There are times when I feel its tedious to have to go to the Chamber of Heart to active a new trait. Also, getting a new piece of Azerite gear can be a little annoying, especially during raid when you are trying to bust through content to get to your progression point. Having to stop and plug in Azerite traits slows things down, especially if you have to look them up on icy-veins (or similar web sites).

Aside from getting the Ahead of the Curve achievement, I will have to start making my end-of-expansion goal list. Shadowlands is just around the corner.

duke-nukem-sm If zombies attack the world, everyone will run and hide. Except for us gamers, of course. We’ve been waiting for this all our lives!

 

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