Diablo IV Rogue Reveal

At Blizzcon, Blizzard revealed the fourth class in Diablo IV: the Rogue.

The Rogue is your typical Dexterity-based character. Interestingly enough, it covers both ranged and melee, making it unlikely we'll see another class focused on one type. I think it looks pretty good, with a nice back-to-basics vibe, rather than something exotic.

The classes previously revealed are Barbarian, Druid and Wizard. So naturally enough, everyone is speculating about the fifth class. The two big archetypes missing are the heavy plate wearer with a shield, or a summoner class.

I'm hoping for the Paladin, or a similar class like Crusader or Templar. Alternatively, I'd like something new. Though not a Death Knight variant. So far Blizzard is playing it really safe with Diablo IV, and I would like to see at least a little bit of innovation.

Chains of Domination Trailer

Not a huge amount announced at Blizzcon this year. For WoW, we got the trailer for Patch 9.1: Chains of Domination.

So it looks like Anduin is being controlled by the Jailer into a quasi-Death Knight. The Covenants will be going on the offensive, attacking the Maw. The new raid will be attacking the Sanctum of Domination in Torghast. There's also a new long Mythic dungeon like Karazhan or Mechagon.

Nothing unexpected, but it all looks pretty decent.

Regarding the story, and Anduin being mind-controlled, I was amused to recall the start of Pandaria. In the Jade Forest questline, Anduin mind-controls Sully into letting him escape. Maybe a touch of karma there.

Short Raid Night

Apparently WoW is having server issues as we were having odd lag and delays during the raid tonight. Regardless we did the skip in Normal, killing the last bosses, and then went on to Heroic.

We got up to Lady Inerva, and then saw the dreaded "Server Restart in 15:00". So we pulled her.

Luckily the fight went well, we got her down on the first attempt. We looted quickly, ran out of the instance and logged out.

It looks like the servers will be offline for a while, so we called the raid early. None the less, we are in a good position for our next raid night. Hopefully this will translate into a lot of time to practice Sludgefist.

Slide Into the Void

I came across a really well done fan music video for Remedy's Control. It's by The Stupendium, called Slide Into the Void:

Heroic Xy'mox and Council of Blood Down!

 Two new Heroic bosses down this week! We killed both Xy'mox and Council of Blood for the first time.

Xy'mox was pretty funny. We started the attempt with a hunter misdirecting onto our top healer, getting a critical aimed shot, and Xy'mox killing the priest instantly, who then had to be battle-ressed. But after that, the fight settled down and we went through phase 1 and 2 really well, lost some people in phase 3, but had enough alive to finish him off. No fuss was made, as half the raid (including me) thought we had already killed him last week, but we had only gotten into phase 3.

Council of Blood took a few attempts, mostly to handle the partner mechanic properly. We did it in a slightly different order than Normal, going Stavros-Niklaus-Frieda, so that we got rid of the partner mechanic first.

Otherwise it was much the same as Normal, only with 2 more dance steps and adds for the ranged to kill in the second phase.

Then we tried Sludgefist and got wrecked a lot. It will probably take some time to handle the new chain mechanic. We have an unfortunate amount of people who kept using speed boosts on that part.

Still, now we're 7/10. We really need to look at shortening our time in Normal now.

The Return of Valor Points

Yesterday Blizzard announced that in the upcoming Patch 9.0.5, Valor points will make a return in Mythic Keystone dungeons and allow you to upgrade Mythic Keystone gear.

I have mixed feelings about this.

The one really good thing about Mythic Keystones is that there is a constant push to do higher and higher Keystones. Better gear from the dungeons, better gear from the Vault, a higher Raider.io score so you will be accepted into better groups, everything pushes you to keep climbing.

That is actually pretty rare historically. Whenever quality of reward scales with difficulty in repeatable content, players target the highest difficulty they can do. However, whenever quantity of reward scales with difficulty in repeatable content, players instead go after the easiest content they can do quickly, optimizing for reward per unit time. And Valor is pure quantity of reward.

We saw this every time Valor was introduced previously, from Mechanar onwards. We see it in Diablo III, where players farm the easiest Torment they can do in 5 minutes instead of the difficult ones.

The worst thing that can happen to Mythic Keystone dungeons is if players stop pushing high keys, and start running low keys incessantly just to get Valor quickly.

I think the Torghast model of rewarding Soul Ash might be a good fit. Let's say you get a 100 Valor per level of Mythic Keystone. So if you do a +2, you get 200 Valor, a +6 is 600 Valor, and so on. If you did a low level and then a high level, you only get the difference. So you only need to do the high level. You could do it for each dungeon, like Torghast does for each wing, encouraging people to get a spread of high keys.

I guess we'll see what model Blizzard goes with. But from my point of view, Valor points are dangerous, encouraging a spammy, non-challenging playstyle which brings out the worst in the playerbase.

FFXIV: Endwalker Announced

To the Moon! Apparently that's a tradition in the Final Fantasy series. 

The trailer is a bit opaque, as the main thrust of the story is more that it finishes the major Zodiark/Hydaelyn story that has been ongoing since launch. Apparently a new story will start with Patch 6.1. As well, I think what's actually going on is a bit murky in-game.

The new class is Sage, which looks like some sort of sci-fi Healer. I understand it will be a shield healer along with Scholar. Meanwhile Astrologian will be reworked to be closer to White Mage as a regular healer, giving two of each type.

There's another new class as well, but it will be revealed in May. I believe the expansion proper is launching in September.

Truthfully, though, I haven't played FFXIV since 5.3, so I'm probably not up-to-date on what is happening. On the one hand, it probably would be good to finish the complete story. On the other hand, I don't really like the current main villain, Zenos. I wish he had stayed dead in Stormblood.

Heroic Sun King Down!

It was our Heroic raid night, so we continued on from where we left off. We recleared fairly quickly and then settled down to practice Sun King.

Heroic Sun King is a lot more, well finicky might be the best word, than Normal. It seems to want pretty precise timing on things, as we try to transition phases at just the right time. We're doing a strategy where we move Kael down the sides of the room, side-stepping out of the cone and fire blast. Overall it works pretty well, though it took a fair number of tries before we were able to get out of that phase without too many deaths.

In the end though, we killed healed him up and beat the fight. 5/10 Heroic!

Then we moved on to Xy'Mox. I think we figured out phase 1 and phase 2 on heroic, so we just have to get the timing right on phase 3. We only got past phase 2 on our last try of the night. I think if we get a decent amount of time on him next week, we'll get him down.

In some ways this is the weirdest part of the raid tier. We have to decide on when we should drop Normal so that we can get enough time to focus on the last half of Heroic.

Gaming Log - February 2

Raid night again. We went through Castle Nathria Normal fairly quickly, with only 1 wipe on Sludgefist. We even had a flawless Sire Denathrius, where everyone did mechanics correctly and no one died. Pretty solid raid, all in all.

I got a i207 trinket off Denathrius which replaced my lowest piece of gear, an i184 trinket. The old trinket did have Leech on it, which is why I kept it for so long. Otherwise I did not get anything from the Vault. All three pieces were sidegrades or downgrades. I probably should have done a Mythic Keystone last week though. Oh well, I picked up the extra Stygia, which I expect I will lose by accidentally dying in some unreachable part of Perdition's Hold in the Maw.

Otherwise I'm mostly working on trying to get caught up on Renown on my paladin. I got 3 Renown from the raid, which unlocks more of the story. The plan is to finish that off this week, hopefully.

Oh, I also got the Chinese New Year mount today, the golden bull. I forgot I had a 6-month subscription. It's actually quite well done and looks very good. Not like the Bastion mounts which have a wider back than normal. My Paladin's legs stick out straight way to the sides, kind of like a Barbie doll forced on the back of toy creature. Looks wrong and rather painful, so I'm sticking with the Legion Highlord charger.

Gaming Log - January 31

Not much happened this weekend. I did another chapter in the Bastion story on my paladin, visiting Ardenweald this time. Decent enough. I'm about Renown 16 or 17. Maybe I'll be able to catch up next week.

On my priest I did some callings and some quests in the Maw. I've currently upgraded all my Covenant gear to Rank 6 of 7. On the other hand, I've built very little of the Sanctum upgrades. I wonder if the Anima drought will end in the next patch.

I also finished Maldraxxus on my Rogue. I went Night Fae with Threads of Fate. The Night Fae Rogue ability, Sepsis, is interesting. It's a DoT that, when it finishes, gives you a big burst of damage. If the mob dies before the DoT finishes, the cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds. It's a pretty good way of not penalizing you for using it on regular mobs, rather than making you save it for bosses.

PuG Bad Behaviour

Tonight, I ran a mythic Spires of Ascension for a covenant quest. I have pugged a handful of times this expansion, and every time it has gone badly. This time around the tank said that since he didn't need any items from the last boss, and he disliked the warlock in the group for some reason, he left right before the last boss. I think he disliked the warlock because the warlock didn't put down a summoning stone when the priest disconnected. Not sure why that was an issue, though. So I switched to tank (from DPS) and invited someone from my guild and we killed the last boss.

There are a couple of FFXIV discussion boards I follow, where there is a vocal contingent of skilled players who are unhappy that FFXIV severely punishes people for suggesting that other players are not playing well enough. They feel that this causes people to slack off and play badly (with the biggest complaint being healers who don't deal damage). While there is a grain of truth in that, the alternative seems to be how people behave in WoW, where they use elitism to justify bad behavior.

Given the two options, I would much rather have the FFXIV behavior in random groups.

Gaming Log - January 28

Raid day again. This time we were in Castle Nathria Heroic. 

We killed Shriekwing and Huntsman fairly quickly, but then wiped a bunch of times on Hungering Devourer. Not entirely sure why. We did have some people who had not been there last week. In any case, we killed it after a few pulls.

We took another couple of pulls on Darkvein, but killed her in the end. People dying on the triangle mechanic mostly, which is pretty much a wipe. I actually healed from range on this one, just so I could reach people going to the back of the room.

Ee spent the last hour learning Heroic Kael'thas. We're still trying to master phase 2, as it just falls apart quite quickly. Oh well, this one might take us a few nights. Or it could just click.

There is a Holy Light build that uses a different Legendary and Conduit that I am considering trying. You can play it more ranged, which might be useful on certain fights.

First Chapter of the Kyrian Covenant Campaign

 I did the first chapter of the Kyrian campaign today. It's quite good, but also kind of weird.

Basically you're following one of the Aspirants around as she prepares for ascension. The two of you go to Azeroth to escort a soul back to the Shadowlands. In Azeroth, you meet the soul of Ben Howell and relive his last day.

It's a pretty cool quest, one where you're just a good, average man with a family. I won't spoil how he dies, but it was pretty touching and tied in with the original story back in Azeroth. However, once you finish that part, you escort the Ben's soul back to Oribos where he is promptly thrown into the Maw!

It kind of illustrates how wrong the Kyrian are. If the Forsworn were a pure third-party faction, then it would be very tempting to join them. But instead they're allied with the obvious bad guy, which just makes them seem stupid as well.

I guess we'll see how Blizzard resolves this in future chapters, but so far I think the execution of the Kyrian parts of the story have been pretty poor, and greatly hurt the faction.

Gaming Log - January 26

Normal Castle Nathria raid night again. This was my first raid as Kyrian, so I was looking forward to see how it worked.

In addition to its raw power, Divine Toll feels very good. Light of Dawn to get to zero Holy Power, Divine Toll to 5 Holy Power and 5 Holy Shocks and 5 Glimmer of Lights, then Light of Dawn again, is super strong just on its own.

I parsed quite a bit better--well, blue and green parses, but better than grey--on several fights, though there's a few I still need to work on. I did manage to get chained every single time on Sludgefist, which was annoying. I never really used the Steward potions, but now that I think about it, I probably could have in Stone Generals to remove a bleed.

I'm up to Renown 7 or 8 already. I did get a couple renown ranks from the raid itself, which I wasn't expecting. I think the full catch up will take a couple of weeks, though.

Switching Covenants

I bit the bullet and switched my paladin to Kyrian. I didn't really want to, but I'm parsing so low that's it's probably best to follow the theorycraft exactly until I figure out and fix whatever the issue is. I do have an alt rogue which I will put in Night Fae.

Divine Toll is really, really powerful. Even on Retribution and Protection it's pretty insane. Full Holy power and large amounts of damage to start the fight. I tanked a Spires of Ascension +4 after I switched, and it was pretty awesome. Multiple shields bouncing everywhere on pretty much every other pull. Though I did accidentally pull one extra pack with it before the third boss.

It is a bit interesting what carried over from the previous covenant. Neutral adventurers like Meatball and Croman come over with their same level. Covenant adventurers that you've previously rescued in Torghast can be found in the central Torghast area, though they start at level 1. You can use armor from your previous covenant, but you can't use the transmog. You can't use the previous covenant mounts, though. You do keep your conduits and their levels, but you have to unlock the soulbinds again as you gain renown.  Otherwise, you pretty much start from scratch.

Oh well, I do like the Kyrian plate armor, mount and classical Greek aesthetics. Let's hope the story is interesting.

A Redistricting Toy Problem

This is a non-gaming post.

I've been thinking about drawing electoral districts and gerrymandering lately. I came up with a simple toy problem that I cannot decide on an answer for. So I'll throw it out for any readers to comment on.

Imagine we have a small, square town. There are two parties here, the Blues and the Greens. Most people lean Blue or lean Green. However, partisanship is not extreme, and some people will vote for a particularly charismatic or competent candidate from the other party. For various reasons about 2/3 of the people lean Blue and live on the west side of town. 1/3 lean Green and live on the east side. Like so:

B | B | G

B | B | G

B | B | G

The city has a council with 3 councilors. What's the best way to draw three districts for this town?

If you slice vertically, then you guarantee representation. There will be 2 Blue councilors, and 1 Green. However, the districts are not competitive at all, and there's no real possibility that Green will ever get a majority.

If you slice horizontally, then you guarantee competitiveness. However, it's quite possible that Green will lose all three elections, and have no representation at all. But if the Green party is particularly good one year, then they could take 2 or even 3 seats and have a majority.

So I don't know what the best solution is. Maybe the solution is to ignore district composition entirely and use strictly geographical borders.

Gaming Log - January 23

Not a lot done today. I woke up to find that one of the pipes in my apartment had sprung a leak, so my morning was preoccupied with cleaning up and getting the superintendent to fix it. Luckily it was a pretty small leak.

I did a couple of callings on my Paladin, then did the souls weekly and a Maw weekly + daily combo that was in the same area.

I then did a couple callings on my Priest, and upgraded another slot. It's kind of funny, I have almost none of the Sanctum upgrades on my Priest, as all my anima has been put into upgrading armor.

Finally I did a few more quests in Revendreth and got to level 53. Though, I have the suspicion that I'm getting more XP from mining than actual quests and combat.

An Interesting View of Gear in Shadowlands

Wrathofkublakhan at Coffee Cakes and Crits has an interesting way of looking at gear in Shadowlands:

Visiting the Wow Community Forums, I see all-in-caps complaining about the low loot drops in dungeons and raids. I think that they are looking at it wrong. The right way, it seems to me, is to look at your own ilevel. Mine is about 200 with a 9/10 clear so far of the current raid. That is about perfect.

I have gear pieces above and below 200 and a chest piece and/or weapon drop at 200 would be welcome. This is good. The game is working. I remember in BfA out-gearing the raid before we even started. The same in Legion, there would be times when we’d start a raid and all eyes were on the final bosses for chances of an upgrade.

I think this is a good way of looking at gear. I'm i205, and we're 4/10 Heroic Nathria. That's just about perfect. Loot is scarce, but every item that drops in new and challenging content is an upgrade. Most likely an upgrade for me, but guaranteed for someone in the raid. I have some high pieces (Legendary and rings, for some reason) and some pieces that could still use a Normal Nathria upgrade (bracers, as is tradition ever since Cho'gall).

I really like how loot is handled in Shadowlands. Loot is scare and thus valuable. I know there's a lot of complaints on places like Reddit, but I strongly hope that Blizzard holds the line.

About the only thing that might need a look is collecting raid sets for transmog. And even that might be fine after a couple more months.

Gaming Log - January 21

Raid night again. This time we're going into Heroic.

I changed my keybinds to more closely match last expansion. As well, I decided to lean on Light of Dawn instead of Word of Glory. I think those changes helped a bit, but I'm still parsing very low.

In any case, it was a pretty productive raid, as we killed Huntsman Altimor, Hungering Destroyer and Lady Inerva Darkvein, making us 4/10 for the raid.

On Huntsman we wiped 5 times, always at the same point when we had to switch to and kill the shades in P2. Sometimes we switched too late, so they became immune to CC and got their casts off. But once we got past that phase, it was a pretty clean kill.

Hungering Destroyer had 3 wipes, mostly getting used to the strategy. We set up in a box around him in the middle of the room, with 4 groups on the corners. Then we make sure one miasma person goes to each group. The wipes mainly came from multiple beams moving out to the same place.

Finally, we had 6 wipes on Lady Inerva Darkvein, including a wipe at 5%. This was mostly refining the strategy and making sure that everyone did the orbs quickly. Our kill was going well until the last 10% and then everyone started dying. I think we killed her with 5 people left alive. Though I was in a Podtender cocoon, and a priest was in angel form.

Still, a pretty good raid. This part of heroic raiding is still the best, where you wipe steadily until you succeed.

Wave to Gor'goroth

I'm a Guide on my main, and it's pretty interesting to see what questions pop up in Newcomer chat. The most common thing people seem to be having trouble with is using emotes. Or possibly that's just a mistake which ends up in chat, while other mistakes are invisible. The other major mistake, which is also visible, is talking in the wrong channel.

For background, one of the quests in the new introductory area of Exile's Reach asks you to /wave to an ogre (and then to /dance with him). It's very common to see newbies type "wave" or "wave to Gor'goroth" in newcomer chat (which appears to be the default for new players).

Slash commands are second nature to experienced players, so it's enlightening to see how foreign they are at first. It's possibly even more foreign nowadays in the age of phone and tablet apps, where everything is done through taps and gestures.

I wonder if WoW should follow FFXIV's lead and create an emote menu, with icons you can drag to your bars. You can do this now with macros (memories of /kneel macros to get the achievement for Fandral Staghelm in Firelands), but you can't expect a beginner to handle macros.

I do like WoW's implementation of the guide system a little bit better than FFXIV's mentor system. There's no visible marker for guides, unlike the crown in FFXIV. Guides can identify new players (murloc marker), and new players can identify guides (green flag marker), and both have access to Newcomer chat, but that's it. As a result, I think Newcomer chat is pretty helpful and sensible.

Gaming Log - January 19

Raid night tonight. We went through all of Normal Castle Nathria and the first boss of Heroic. There was only one wipe on Sludgefist, and one wipe on trash. We tried to get too clever and avoid one trash pack, but ended up pulling it and the next at the same time.

But otherwise it was a really good raid. DPS stepped it up a notch, and all of our kills were guild records my a significant amount.

I added a WeakAura to show me when Holy Shock is up, but I don't think it helped that much. Maybe I'll try adding WeakAuras for the full priority list.

Loot-wise, I got i213 shoulders from the Great Vault, and then an i200 shield from the raid. I also got two boots for transmog. One thing about the scarcity of loot is that it does make collecting the set much harder. I only have three pieces of the Castle Nathria set.

Other than the raid, both the world boss and the daily calling were in the same area of Revendreth, so I did them together. A cool 500 anima, half the weekly quest in one go.

Soulshape Quality of Life Improvement

The main Night Fae ability is Soulshape. It transforms you into the shape of a creature, and blinks you forward. The blink is on a four second cooldown. You also move faster while in Soulshape form. In the regular world, Soulshape lasts for a few seconds, so it's a temporary speed boost/blink combination. Soulshape is on a 1.5 minute cooldown.

There are many different shapes that you can collect or find. You get two more, stag and moth, through the story. I spent 1500 anima on a tiger shape from the mushroom network NPC. (In hindsight, perhaps not the best use of anima.)

The other interesting element of Soulshape is that if you use it in a rest area, it has an infinite duration. This is especially useful in places where you cannot mount. So you can freely run around Oribos or the Heart of the Forest in Soulshape form and it is faster than walking.

However, one issue with Soulshape is that if you go through a portal, it will pop you out of Soulshape. There are two such portals in the Night Fae headquarters, one to the mushroom network and one to the Queen's Conservatory. It's pretty common to go through the portal, come back out, and still have Soulshape still be on cooldown.

A small quality-of-life improvement would be for Soulshape to have no cooldown if used in a rest area. It already lasts forever, and this would just clean up the few rough spots where you get forced out of Soulshape.

Gaming Log - January 17

I played my priest for a fair bit yesterday and today. I finished the second-last chapter of the Maldraxxus campaign. It's a pretty good campaign, and seems far more focused on the main story of Shadowlands.

I also did a Layer 4 of Torghast with a beast companion, mostly to finish one of the daily callings. The beast companion worked pretty well. It could taunt and hold aggro, which made it a little easier to play a Shadow Priest. I rather wish this wasn't a temporary event, but a full-time one. Though really, I could always go with a group if I really needed to.

I think I'm going to stop at Layer 4 with my priest. It's easy enough, and you get the lion's share of Soul Ash. Given that I haven't even made one legendary for the priest, I'm not really worried about it. Right now my goals for the priest are to finish the covenant campaign and get enough anima to fully upgrade the covenant set.

I also started my Horde Warrior. This time I went for Threads of Fate, and started with Revendreth. Revendreth gives warriors an improved Execute, and honestly, I don't see how any of the other covenants can compete with that. Threads of Fate itself is interesting. It feels very much like Adventure Mode from Diablo 3. About the only complaint I have is that some of the area quests where you fill a bar are a bit too long. I was killing things, looked at my bar, and was a bit shocked to see that I was only at 40%.

Torghast Beasts

This week there's a special event in Torghast where you can get a beast companion at the start of the instance and then improve it with anima powers instead of your own. This is the regular wings, not Twisting Corridors

I did a couple of Layer 8s, and as I was the healer, I gave the beasts a whirl. They seemed okay to me. I got this combo where the beast did 100% extra damage, but lost health every second, and a power where if the beast dropped to low health, it would explode. When the combo went off, it did a lot of damage.

However, I think it might have worked better solo. With a full group, we were killing things pretty quickly, so nothing lasted long enough. The beast did do the majority of my damage. And I mean I was a healer, so it's not like I would have done high damage if I hadn't taken the beast.

I've done both wings, so I probably won't do Torghast again this week. But the next time it comes around, I might try doing a wing solo with the beast companion.

Gaming Log - January 15

I finished the daily Calling in Revendreth, then a weekly quest in the Maw, healed a De Other Side +7, and then did Torghast Twisted Corridors Layer 2 in a group of 5.

This is what I like about Shadowlands. A lot of bouncing around from place to place and activity to activity.

Sadly we didn't time De Other Side. We wiped twice, once on the Manastorms and once on the Broker, and that was enough for us to miss the timer by about a minute or so.

Twisting Corridors was a little insane. I was Retribution and I did 242k DPS on the final boss! Even so, I came in third on the meters. The final boss just fell over. We used a Ravenous Cell to get extra currency from skeletons, so by the end we had over 2000 currency to spare. Pretty crazy run.

Need to Improve My Healing

I'm not really sure what happened, but my healing in raids has suddenly become abysmal. Last raid tier, I could regularly parse about 80% of similar item level. Tonight, I managed 12%. 12%! That's like basically not healing at all! My other guild healers are carrying me at this point.

(It's not totally bad. We killed Sire Denathrius on Normal, and killed Shriekwing on Heroic for the first time.)

I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong this tier. As far as I can tell from the guides and theorycraft, the Paladin healing style this expansion is similar to last tier. Holy Shock, Crusader Strike, keep Glimmer up, etc. Maybe Holy Power and Word of Glory are throwing me off rhythm. Maybe I'm trying to use Word of Glory too much instead of relying on Holy Shock.

I know I'm losing a bit from not being Kyrian, but not this much. Still though, maybe I should change. Though one problem with changing is that I'm currently wearing three pieces of covenant armor, and I don't have replacements.

Gaming Log - January 13

A mage in my guild wanted to start Torghast Twisting Corridors, so I ran Layer 1 with him. I went as Protection paladin and he was a Frost Mage.

It went pretty well, though no absolutely crazy combinations of powers for me. Just steady build up of all the paladin powers and tank health. I did take the power that doesn't allow you to move backwards, which was kind of weird. I usually mouse-move, so it wasn't a huge deal.

I did die once, on the last boss at 1%. I think I had stopped paying attention, and then took his special directly instead of avoiding it. Luckily the mage was able to finish him off.

Twisting Corridors is pretty long. That run took us almost two hours. Though to be fair, we probably could have pulled more aggressively and done multiple groups at a time. I am glad Twisting Corridors is thoroughly optional, though.

Gaming Log - January 12

Raid night again. This time we got the first 9 bosses down, and even had time for 2 pulls on Sire Denathrius. We have some new people who need to learn the fight though, so it will probably take another few pulls on Thursday.

I did change up my build slightly. I switched from Holy Prism to Judgment of Light, and from Sanctified Wrath to Awakening. I'm not sure it really changed much though. I need to find or make a Weak Aura to ensure that I cast Holy Shock on cooldown, and not delay it a GCD or so.

I'm also considering switching Covenants to Bastion. I don't really want to, because I like Night Fae. But the Bastion paladin ability, Divine Toll, is extremely strong. The Night Fae Blessings of the Season are fun, but not very powerful and also a bit clunky to use.

It was also Vault day. I got a i213 ring, courtesy of that crazy Plaguefall run yesterday. I guess that made it worth it in the end.

Mythic Keystone Monday

Monday night, so everyone in guild was doing a few Mythic Keystones to round out tomorrows Vault. I healed a Mists of Tirna Scithes +4, then dps'd a Halls of Atonement +6. Finally I tanked a Plaguefall +7.

Or perhaps "attempted" to tank Plaguefall would be a better description of that run. The first two groups were timed, but that Plaguefall had 40+ deaths. Part of it was that it was unfamiliar to some people in the group, part was my noob tanking, and part was that it was Plaguefall. Quaking and Sanguine made it even harder, as there's not a lot of space and many mechanics encourage you to stay close.

Another problem was that I had forgotten I had got [Dreamer's Mending] last week some time, and had decided to try it in my tank set. Our most experienced guild tank had warned me against it, but it was an item level upgrade, and I thought it could be helpful. 

He was right, and I was completely wrong. 

All through the first half of the dungeon I kept wondering why I was getting stunned. Was this some special tank mechanic I never heard about? I realized what was causing it at the second boss, but you can't change gear in a Mythic Keystone. So we just struggled through it.

I vendored the trinket the moment I left the dungeon.

Profession Dailies

Profession dailies in Shadowlands really should reward the zone-specific material. That at least would make them worthwhile. Instead they just give the baseline material which is present in very zone, and thus very easy to pick up through your general playtime.

If you visit all four zones equally to do quests, you might end up with 4 stacks of baseline, and a stack each of the zone-specific material.

If a Maldraxxus mining daily gave 20 oxxein instead of 20 laestrite, they would be much more enticing, while not really being overpowered. It would also tie the daily to the zone more strongly, which I think would be good.

I think this would be a small tweak which would improve profession world quests significantly.

Gaming Log - January 9

I did the latest chapter of the Night Fae story on my paladin. This time it was all about Bwonsamdi, and trying to retcon Vol'jin's decision to make Sylvanas the Warchief at the beginning of Legion. As far as retcons go, It was pretty good. Having Muzahela be corrupt allows Bwonsamdi to be the hero (well, as much as Bwonsamdi can be). Since Bwonsamdi is extremely popular, this works out well.

One interesting mechanical note is that if you've be gaining renown every week, this week you complete the covenant armor set, and are able to upgrade all the pieces to be better than regular Mythic gear. That seems like a pretty good curve for more casual players who do not group.

On my priest, I got some more renown and did another chapter of the Maldraxxus story. Maldraxxus is very focused on the current Shadowlands situation, with quests involving first Bastion and now Revendreth. It's quite different from the Night Fae who are focused on finishing up existing Azeroth stories like Tyrande. I think I'm now one chapter away from being caught up. I might actually be able to catch up if I finish the 1000 anima quest. Not really sure that's going to happen.

Mechanically, I've been putting all my priest's anima into upgrading the covenant armor. It's worked out pretty well, with most pieces being around i177.

Also, I did the second layer of Torghast as a priest. I underestimated all the Psychic Scream powers. I was avoiding taking them because using Psychic Scream on trash just meant that they ran away and came back with friends. But it turns out that the final boss can be feared! So those are boss fight powers. 

I still think that the majority of priest powers don't flow very well. Many of them seem way too niche. Part of the problem might be that very few of the powers are spec-specific, and most seem to be class-specific or more general instead. For a class where a specialization like Shadow is very different from the others, this causes issues.

More Thoughts on Torghast

Today a couple of guildmates and I did Layer 8 of Torghast Skoldus Halls. Then, not knowing what we were getting into, we tried Layer 1 of Twisting Corridors. 18 floors is a lot of Torghast!

It was pretty fun, though. By the 18th floor I was doing almost 100k dps as Retribution. A buffed Wings, multiple charges of Hammer of Wrath, HoW extending Wings, HoW boosting Templar's Verdict, Forbearance buffing damage. It was pretty crazy.

It's interesting to look at how the community views Torghast versus what I think was Blizzard's original design intention. I think Blizzard wanted to make challenging solo content. The original complaint about Torghast was that the bosses were too difficult. That you'd spend a hour clearing to the boss, and then get nuked.

Blizzard responded by making the lower floors of Torghast more difficult. I believe this meant that Blizzard saw the difficulty of the end bosses as correct, and increased the difficulty of the lower floors to ramp up more smoothly to the end boss. That's the correct response for content which is meant to be a challenge. If someone is not yet ready, they should wash out earlier.

However, the community sees Torghast as a "Rextroy simulator". Rextroy is a content creator who finds crazy combinations of abilities, then makes a video one-shotting everyone in PvP, and Blizzard issues a hotfix.

Torghast is that for a normal player. They get crazy combinations of abilities and get to go hog-wild, while not really affecting anything of real importance. There's no gear, just Soul Ash, which is fairly easy to get. It's PvE, so you aren't even destroying other players. You can even do it in groups, so classes with less powerful combinations can still come along. Of course, it would be better for Blizzard to give them some interesting options too.

As a result, the players do not really want Torghast to be a true challenge. It's not really compatible with their Rextroy simulator.

To their credit, Blizzard backtracked quickly on their original goal, and made Torghast more in-line with what the community thinks it is. I imagine that when they expand on it in future patches, the emphasize will be put on new quirky and unusual combinations of abilities.

I don't think I'll ever do a huge amount of Torghast. But I think that doing one or two Layers a week is a fun change of pace, and is a great addition in Shadowlands.

Normal Castle Nathria Complete!

We killed the last two bosses in Normal Castle Nathria tonight!

Stone Generals

The Stone Generals took us about 3 pulls. Surprisingly quick, compared to Sludgefist. Not a particularly clean kill, I think we stunned the tanks and one of them died. So our other tank had to tank both for the last few percent.

Sire Denathrius

This was a pretty cool fight. We struggled a lot on the first phase, until we healers settled on a healing CD rotation and managed to stabilize it. We had 3 healers rotate CDs on the adds, and a druids use Tranquility after each Pride attack.

The second and third phases were much easier in comparison. Our only problem was that four or five of our hunters were Beastmaster, and their pets couldn't reach the ranged adds. We did cut it close, actually getting a second Heroism in, and Denathrius had shattered all four corners so we killed him while standing on the bad zones.

All in all, it was a pretty good raid. I'm looking forward to starting Heroic eventually. Maybe as soon as next week, if we manage to clear quickly enough.

Consols in Eve Online

Wilhelm at The Ancient Gaming Noob mentions that the Imperium (Goons, etc) have started issuing war bonds in Eve Online:

Then there was the fact that the Imperium began issuing war bonds to support the fight.  This has been viewed by PAPI as a sign of weakness, a last desperate attempt to stay in the fight, a sign that we were on the brink.  But it raised more than a trillion ISK in the first hours of issue, so it will sustain us for a bit.  One billion ISK will buy you one bond with a return rate of 10% per year, with payments due on the first of the month.  That one bond will earn you about 8.4 million ISK every time the first rolls around.

Spreadsheets in Space comes full circle!

These types of perpetual bonds are traditionally called Consols, famously issued by the British government from the 1700s to the early 1900s. An important financial mainstay of the Regency genre.

What's interesting to me is that the Imperium issued bonds at 10%, which is quite high. The British issued consols at 3-4%. Is the extra premium because it's a game? I confess I would have offered it at 6%, just to make the math easier (0.5% payment each month).

Also, if bondholders stop playing, then it's free money for the Imperium.

Of course, Eve being Eve, there's a reasonably large possibility that this is all a scam and the Imperium will default a year or two down the line.

I wonder if the Imperium will allow people to trade these bonds. Put it on the blockchain, Goons!

Normal Sludgefist Down

Today was our first raid of the new year. We still have quite a few people, with around 25 in the raid.

We went through the first seven bosses on Normal fairly easily, now that the majority of people understand the fights. Then we started attempts on Sludgefist. We had gotten to him last Tuesday, but really only pulled him twice.

This time he took us several tries, but we got closer and closer on each try until we finally downed him at the end of the night.

It's an interesting fight because there are a couple of instant-kill mechanics that interact. Two people are chained together, and if they move too far apart, they die. But there's also falling rocks where you have to move or die. The fight--on Normal at least--is really about how many people you lose to those mechanics.

My problem as a healer is that I'm usually chained to a melee dps when the crash happens and huge raid damage happens. I forget that the melee wants to run in for the damage window, and just start healing. Then the melee runs too far from me and we both die. I just need to remember to run in before starting to heal.

Still a pretty interesting fight. Looking forward to the next boss, which we haven't seen yet.

Gaming Log - January 4

I'm pretty much just playing Shadowlands these days.

World of Warcraft

I healed a Sanguine Depths +2 in a guild group. Our tank was a new guild member, a friend of another guildmate. This was his first Mythic Keystone, but he was a really good tank. Pulled cleanly and steadily. We wiped once on the easy third boss somehow, but otherwise the run was really smooth. We finished with a good 8 minutes on the timer, even with that wipe.

I've been working on my Shadow Priest on the side. She joined the Maldraxxi covenant, which is actually pretty neat. Lots of interesting NPCs, aside from Draka. It's been interesting doing the catch-up. A lot of the daily callings give Renown, so you speed through fairly quickly. Meanwhile the covenant gear (with upgrading) is quite good for keeping yourself geared while playing solo.

Shadow Priest Torghast powers are quite boring. The Paladin powers are also basic, but they build on each other and boost your basic rotation so it feels quite good. Shadow Priest powers meanwhile, don't seem to flow well. I find myself taking the general boosts more.

Shadowlands Max Level Content Strategy

Blizzard is pursuing a new strategy for max level content in Shadowlands. I think it's working quite well, so I'd like to take a look at what I believe the strategy is.

The main strategy consists of:

1. Multiple areas of content
2. Low, front-loaded weekly caps
3. Separate currencies for each area

 Let's take Torghast as an example. You get the bulk of the reward by running each of two open wings. The main reward is Soul Ash for legendaries, and Torghast is the major source. The bulk of Soul Ash comes from the lower levels, making it less necessary to run the highest level. Last week, I ran a Layer 8 and a Layer 4 (helping a guildmate who is still climbing). That's good enough.

The same pattern is there with the Maw. It's the only source of Stygia and Venari reputation. But the bulk of the reward is the two or three weekly quests. You can do the dailies and rares if you want, but the reward is much lower. Then there is also a soft/hard cap in the Jailer's Eye.

This even extends to story. Blizzard has been steadily releasing a chapter each week.

I think this is a pretty solid system. You bounce around the various activities trying to do the major items. The caps are very low, which allows you to spend minimal time in the areas you don't like. Having separate currencies for each area means that players can't just spam the most efficient content.

The biggest change is that Blizzard simply had to ignore all the players who complain about "gating", about being unable to spend more time to earn more power. Shadowlands has the strongest gating in WoW's history, and I think the majority of players seem to be happy with that.

We'll have to see if this strategy is good enough for the expansion's lifetime, but so far it seems quite good, and will probably be the model going forward.

Tanking Mythic Keystones

We have fair number of people in guild who are online these days. Our raids have regularly had 25 people or more. However, there's only two raid tanks. So on non-raid nights, we've been scrounging for tanks to run Mythics and Mythic Keystones. I've volunteered to tank some of the lower keys.

It's quite a change from last expansion. In Battle for Azeroth, I barely touched Mythic Keystone dungeons, even to heal.

I think the scarcity of loot has made a lot more people willing to run regular Mythics for gear and then lower Keystones, rather than jumping right into the deep end. I've been running +2 to +5 keys, pretty much with guildmates only. 

I've been using my healing armor--with healing Legendary!--and a couple of Ret/Prot trinkets, along with a Str sword. I've also just been using the simplest all-left-side Protection Paladin build and just trying to keep Shield of the Righteous up as much as possible.

I've healed for our raid tanks in Mythics, and they're pretty hardcore people who know skips and which packs you can pull together. Tanking was a little intimidating after watching them.

What I've found is that steady pulling of one pack at a time works pretty well. In Keystones especially, you need to kill a certain amount of non-boss enemies, so just clearing to them normally and avoiding fancy skips is good enough.

In my experience, wipes are what cause you to fail the timer, both from the time lost due to deaths and the run back and set up again. Pulling multiple packs, well, if you survive you gain some time, but if you wipe you lose a lot of time. One pack at a time, with minimal time in-between, seems good enough for now.

One tip is that some consumables, weapon oils and the lesser Desolate chest armor, are really cheap and last through death. So it's worthwhile just using those casually.

Tanking Mythic Keystones has been fun, and an interesting experience. I doubt I'd want to do it for randoms, but it's been enjoyable with guildmates.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I was on a decent posting pace until December hit. I did start a new job, so that probably didn't help. But still, I would like to do better this year.

Otherwise, everything seems to be going okay. My guild only raided on Tuesday these last couple of weeks, but we are now 7/10 in Normal Nathria. I think we'll make more rapid progress once we start our regular schedule next week.

In any case, I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and are prepared for a fresh new year of gaming!

Castle Nathria

Castle Nathria is the first raid in Shadowlands. It's Revendreth, so classic Victorian Gothic with gargoyles and vampires.

The first raid night was pretty rough. All of us were really undergeared, and we were going in more for fun than anything else. We got the first boss in Normal, Shriekwing after a couple of attempts. Then we wiped on Huntsman for the rest of the night.

The next raid night we killed Huntsman, put a couple of pulls in on Hungering Destroyer, then wandered off to find Sun King (it was merely a setback!) and wiped on him for a bit.

This week we were a lot more prepared. We actually had a lot of people show up, a full raid of 30 people, with possibly a couple people on the sidelines. We might have to split into two raids to accommodate everyone who wants to raid. The best thing about having so many raiders is that there are lots of people doing stuff on off-nights. Before we might only have one guild five-man running, but lately it's more like three or four. I've been able to avoid pickup groups almost entirely!

In any case, we killed Shriekwing and Huntsman again. We then got Hungering Destroyer and Artificer Xy'Mox down. Hungering Destroyer is pretty simple once everyone understands the fight and knows when they need to run out. 

Artificer is a more complicated fight, especially the third phase. There's a sword which pulls everyone to the center of the room and then blows up. You have to drop a portal at the sword, and another at the edge of the room. Then you have to time it right so that you go through the center portal to the edge just before the explosion. Too early, and you get sucked back into the explosion radius. Too late, and you just get blown up. I kind of think that in Normal at least, going through the portal should make you immune to the pull. Though maybe that would be too easy.

In any case, Castle Nathria is a really good raid so far, with very interesting fights.

Torghast

Torghast is an interesting experience, especially as I've been playing Hades lately.

Torghast consists of multiple wings, each wing with multiple layers, and each layer with 6 floors. Two wings are open each week. You unlock layers by completing the previous layer (though once you've unlocked, say, Layer 3, you can access Layer 3 on any wing). Torghast's main reward is Soul Ash, which you need to craft Legendary equipment.

Each run of Torghast involves you going through the six floors in a layer. The layout of each floor is more or less random, with a vendor on the 3rd floor and a boss on the 6th floor. You have to beat the boss to complete the run and get the reward. As you progress you get random "anima powers" which boost or alter your abilities, or give you buffs. Most of the time, you get to select a power from up to 3 choices.

Torghast scales from solo to a group of five players. I've done runs solo, in a duo, and in a group of five. Elites and bosses have stacking buff which increases their damage, so there is a DPS check which you have to meet. So you have to balance anima powers between offense and defense.

It's pretty interesting because different builds can focus you on different powers. But so far, the boons don't do anything too drastic. You still play your basic rotation.

I recommend always choosing anima powers which will help you with the end boss. In my experience, the end boss is the most difficult part of a run. The closest I've come to failing was a run where I took too much defensive powers, and had real trouble meeting the damage check.

Another tip is, that at least when you are solo, it's possible to pull carefully and only get a small number of enemies at a time. For example, if two elites appear to be sparring, you can pull one of the elites without getting the other.

There's one wing where an assassin spawns when you are out of combat. I kept a mawrat in combat with me most of the time, and that stopped the assassin from spawning. Blizzard did nerf the assassins later in the week, though, so it might be easier to kill them.

Torghast is a pretty fun experience, and Blizzard has done a nice job of allowing you to farm or progress. If you just want to farm, you only have to do two layers each week to get the maximum rewards. The anima powers allow you to construct weird, broken, or amusing combinations, without breaking the rest of the game.

Night Fae Covenant, The Maw

Night Fae Covenant

In the end, I turned my back on Holy Paladin theorycraft and joined the Night Fae Covenant. The abilities are mediocre, but the covenant itself is really enjoyable. 

The initial quests were amazing! The Fae put on a play explaining the events of the last two expansions, complete with audience reactions. It was hilarious! If you've played through the last two expansions, especially if you're a steady player, you have to take a character through this Covenant.

Otherwise it's pretty much been steadily unlocking facets of the covenant. I like the new adventure table. It's much more of a real game with strategy. I think it's based off "auto-chess", which is a genre I really haven't looked into.

The Maw

The Maw is okay. There are a couple of weekly quests, a couple of daily quests, and some rares and bosses. Not being able to mount is unusual, but you get used to it pretty fast.

The daily cap mechanic is interesting. Every major thing you do in the Maw (bosses, quests) increases the Jailor's Eye on you and adds more and more annoying mechanics. Level 1 makes some wandering monsters hostile. Level 2 periodically bombards your location, forcing you to move. Level 3 has assassins appear when you fight new mobs. Level 4 has Mawsworn swoop down and pick you up. I think you have to kill them before they drop you to your death. Level 5 is an auto-kill I think. I try to stay below Level 3, as I find the assassins very annoying.

It's a really interesting way of doing a soft cap on your activities (with a hard cap at Level 5).

The Maw is okay, I guess. It's not particularly interesting, but the game encourages you to limit your time inside the Maw, meaning that it doesn't become overly tiresome. It's pretty comfortable moving it down the list of priorities, but slowly working on the story.

Ardenweald and Revendreth

This post contains spoilers for Ardenweald and Revendreth,

Ardenweald

I loved Ardenweald. I've always liked the fae in fiction, and I think Blizzard did a great job with their version. The NPCs are great and likeable. The Winter Queen is appropriately powerful and mysterious. The story itself is excellent, especially if you played through Legion.

The quests with Ysera were very well done. I especially liked that, when you replay her death, your character shows up to attack, labeled as 'Hero'. I made sure to breathe fire on my character.

I really enjoyed playing through Ardenweald. It was my favorite zone this expansion. I'm probably going to go Night Fae for my covenant.

Revendreth

Revendreth is Victorian Gothic, with an interesting spin on punishment and redemption. It had a lot of interesting concepts, especially the idea of "sinstones" acting like true names and giving power over a character. It was also interesting that all the Venthyr NPCs, even the friendly ones, were once terrible people. The main villain was also quite good.

I liked Revendreth a lot. I'd rank it the second-best zone. Whatever alt I play next will probably go with Revendreth as a covenant.

Bastion and Maldraxxus

This post contains spoilers for Bastion and Maldraxxus.

Bastion

I didn't like Bastion all that much. You'd think I would like it, it being the obvious paladin covenant. But really, they came across as more cult-like than anything, with the whole erasure of memories bit and everyone being transformed into a blue human.

There's also a curiously chill and low-energy vibe, which is odd. I actually liked the bad guys a lot more, except that they sided with the obviously evil big bad.

It's really annoying that all the paladin theorycrafters say that the Kyrian Covenant is far and away the best covenant, especially for Holy Paladins. I don't really want to join that Covenant.

Maldraxxus

Maldraxxus was more interesting. I liked the different Houses, especially the House of Plagues. Lady Vashj showing up as a major player was quite fun.

The only problem was that ending was quite disjointed. I think one of my addons may have forced-canceled an important cutscene, because suddenly people were talking about being betrayed as if everyone knew it had happened. I disabled all my addons after Maldraxxus just to be safe.

The side-quest with the library was also quite fun. I missed a book on the very bottom floor, and had to go all the way back down and up, evading all the traps again.

Shadowlands: Intro to the Maw

This post contains spoilers for the intro to Shadowlands.

The introductory sequence to Shadowlands involves you and the Ebon Blade going to the Maw to rescue Thrall, Jaina, Baine and Anduin. It's a pretty good questing sequence, with some nice moments for all the cast members. Especially Thrall's search for a weapon.

The Maw has some very weird bridges too, with rows of pop-up spikes running length-wise along the bridge. That architecture doesn't make a lot of sense, but the AI programmers did a nice job of having the NPCs line up behind you as you run down the channel, and then spreading out again once you're off the bridge.

In any case, you escape the Maw, while the NPCs cover your retreat and are captured again. I guess rescuing them is going to be the main task at max level.

The one concern I have about the Maw is that it isn't very visually appealing. In the intro it was all rocks and grey metal, all browns and grays. If that's the palette, it might grow old fast if we do repeatable content at max level. Argus had a similar problem (though with added green for fel).

Shadowlands Pre-Patch Event, Week 2

The second week of the Shadowlands pre-patch event brought a continuation of the Icecrown scourge quest line, some additional dailies, the Scourge plague, and the reduction of rare spawn timers from 20 minutes to 10 minutes.

I liked the scourge quest line. It had some infiltration bits revealing the bad guy, some aerial bombardment from a gryphon, and a final fight against one of the new Shadowland enemies (I assume). Then back to Stormwind for turn-in and a Feat of Strength.

The Scourge plague is pretty fun. People become zombies and then attack other players. If you die to a zombie, you become one and can continue spreading the plague. There are lots of outbreaks in Stormwind and Goldshire. I went to Westfall to spread the plague there. I'm sure many people are unhappy about "interruptions" in their standard game-play, but I'm a fan of shaking things up for a week or so.

Regarding the new rare spawn timer, I think cutting the timer from 20 minutes to 10 minutes was a mistake. The servers have become noticeably less stable, especially around when Bronjahm (who can drop a 34-slot bag) spawns. 10 minutes has made it much easier to farm rares, and I think more people are staying online to do so, rather than going and doing something else when the next spawn is in 20 minutes.

I've collected the sets on my Paladin and Rogue, and have almost finished my Mage and Shaman. I think that will be enough for me.

A Reroll Guild in Classic

On the weekend I joined a re-roll guild in WoW Classic. Basically, everyone in the guild started a new character on one of the low-population PvP servers. I joined in, figuring that maybe it would be easier to get groups or level with.

The guild was Horde, so I made an Undead Warlock.

I have to admit that it was very nice to be in a leveling guild with lots of people. There was a lot of chatter, which was nice.

However, I think I just level too slowly for the main wave of people. I got to level 13 or so by Sunday, and attempted to find a Ragefire Chasm group. However, the main wave of people were already past that point, and doing Wailing Caverns and Shadowfang Keep. 

And because the server is low population, it was impossible to fill the group with outsiders.

So in the end, I gave up and deleted that character. If I play Classic, I'll just stick with the characters I have on the PvE server.

Shadowlands Pre-patch Event

The Shadowlands pre-patch event launched yesterday. Since Sylvanas broke the Helm of Domination, the Scourge are running rampant. The Argent Crusade and the Ebon Blade make another appearance. I broke out the "Argent Champion" title for this event.

The event is fairly short. A quick loop around the home territories and then you're sent to Icecrown in Northrend, where there are a few quests and a couple dailies. There's also a side-quest to go kill Nathanos Blightcaller in Eastern Plaguelands.

Also, a couple of the NPCs near Genn Greymane, Taelia and Shaw, have "Stay a while and listen" dialogues that are easy to miss. I also found a dialogue between Turalyon and Alleria at Alleria's statue on my paladin, but I haven't seen those two there on my other characters.

There are also about 20 rares in Icecrown, bosses from the raid and dungeons there, summoned outside. The implementation of these rares is pretty interesting. A rare spawns every 20 minutes, at 00, 20, and 40 of the clock. Once they spawn, there's a 2 minute grace period before they go active. So you have a bit of time to get to the current spawn marked on your map.

The 20 minute period is interesting. The people who are trying to farm rares are unhappy with it, because there's a lot of waiting around.

However, if you're not explicitly farming rares, it's actually a very good cadence. You get to Icecrown and pick up the dailies. You start on the dailies, and timer comes up for rare. You go and kill the rare, then back to the quests. You usually finish or just have a little bit more when the second rare comes up. Go and kill that, then finish up.

I rather like that half-hour mixture of rares and dailies. I find it also very alt-friendly, as it's better to switch to an alt for the next 2 rares and set of dailies rather than wait around on a single character.

But we'll see what the community thinks. I think the vocal farmers are going to drown out anyone who is happy with the system as is.

New Addon: MapPinAnnounce

I made a second small WoW AddOn: MapPinAnnounce.

It's pretty trivial. Mostly to make creating the new Waypoints faster when you want to signal your current location.

Typing "/pin" will send "Target Name - WaypointLink - (x,y)" to general chat. Typing "/pin text" will send "text - WaypointLink - (x,y)". Where the Waypoint is your current coordinates.

I haven't added it to Curse yet. If you use WoWUp, I think you can point directly to Github.

Legion Rogue Class Mount Quest

The Legion Rogue class mount quest is crazy!

All the other classes I've done were basically, "here's a random PvE solo scenario". Easy enough.

The rogue quest was "sneak into the Horde capital cities and assassinate an NPC". Not instanced, the regular cities with other players wandering about. And you're flagged for PvP since it's an enemy city.

I suppose it is rather appropriate for rogues, and genuinely gets the blood pumping. And honestly, it's not too hard to avoid players in Silvermoon, Undercity and Thunder Bluff.

But the final assignment was to assassinate one of the auctioneers in the middle of the Orgrimmar Auction House!

That was nerve-wracking, especially as there were so many players in that area. I did get the kill, but failed to escape cleanly. My Vanish didn't work or something interfered, and I was chased down and killed by guards and players. One newbie orc hunter got his first honor kill that day.

Oh well, hopefully my death contributed to an interesting story for him.

Got My Name Back!

When I transferred to Doomhammer last year, my one regret was that my paladin's name, Coriel, was taken. A Blood Elf paladin, last active in Mists of Pandaria, had it. I ended up naming my paladin "Corie".

With 9.0, though, it looks like Blizzard has freed up more names. I was able to snag Coriel, and name-changed my paladin back to it.

Pretty minor thing, all in all, but I am quite happy!

Gaming Log - November 5

World of Warcraft

I've been working through the Broken Shore quests to get the Rogue class mount. I'm on the last step at the moment, so I'll probably finish it shortly.

I also took the rogue through 4 regular Mythics with some guildmates in order to finish the weekly quest. A couple upgrades, and a nice trinket from the quest. No weapons though. My current weapons are definitely dragging down my item level.

I'm not sure what to do next. I could create another alt, but I'm not sure what race/class combo I really want to play.

World of Warcraft Classic

I haven't played Classic in a couple weeks. I think it feels like I'm just too far behind the curve now.

Hades

I escaped for the fourth time with the Heart-Seeking Bow, and then failed with the Stygian Blade. Honestly, that Stygian Blade build was very weird. I had a boon which boosted my attack by 5% of my coins, so I tried to get coins and not spend them. It worked decently up to Styx, but then kind of fell apart there.

I have a lot of Ambrosia, 9 in total, but haven't gotten to the point where I can use it. I'm debating trading some in for Titan's Blood, and upgrading some weapons.

Rogue Legion Class Order

This post contains spoilers for the Legion Rogue Class Order story.

Once my rogue got to 50, I took her to Legion and started doing the Rogue Class Order quests. The rogue story line is quite good and seems very unique compared to the other classes that I've played. There's a lot of sneaking around, and making good use of the unique rogue skills. Many of the other classes seemed to reuse sections of their quests.

Though, the story has a crazy body-count! A pretty big shock to anyone who doesn't play a rogue. The entire town of Darkshire got killed, as well as Amber Kearnan. They did bring Vanessa VanCleef back, though.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience, unique even among the other classes in Legion.

Hades: Escape at Last!

I finally beat the last boss of Hades and escaped from the Underworld! 

After 40 attempts, I turned on God Mode. God Mode in Hades gives you 20% damage reduction + 2% per failed attempt with God Mode. I failed the next couple of attempts, but then finally I was able to beat the last boss with the Adamant Rail. I think the key for me was getting past Thesus and Asterius the Minotaur with all of my Death's Defiance (extra lives). I forget exactly what boons I had, I think I had the Posideon dash and I loaded up on Boons dealing damage when I got hit or just missed.

Escaping, though, doesn't end the game. It essentially unlocks the next chapter in the story, raising more questions than it answers. It also unlocks Pacts of Punishment, which are disadvantages which you can choose, but which adds rewards when you defeat end bosses with them active. Each Pact you take gives you 1 Heat, and you get the reward when you clear with an amount of Heat for the first time (with each weapon).

I failed my next attempt, but then got through with the Eternal Spear with 0 Heat. This time it was a Zeus/Athena build with lots of boons that improved the Lighting Damage.

In any case, I'm still going through the story. I'm not sure how many total escapes are needed to see the full ending.

The New Leveling Experience

I finished leveling my new Rogue. I used Chromie Time and went through Mists of Pandaria. In total, I think it took about 20 hours to get to level 50.

I was able to do four zones of Pandaria: Jade Forest, Valley of the Four Winds, Krasarang Wilds, and Kun-Lai Summit. I was actually just into 49 when I finished Kun-Lai Summit, so I did a few quests in Townlong Steppes. If I remember correctly, this roughly matches the original leveling in Mists. Four zones leveling, and then two zones of questing at max level.

I'd actually forgotten a lot of the details of Pandaria, and it was very enjoyable to see it again. For the most part, the scaling worked fine and felt correct. About the only issue I noticed is that some enemy bleeds did an excessive amount of damage. I didn't use any heirlooms, relying instead of quest gear. I did one dungeon, Stormstout Brewery.

Automatically teleporting back to Chromie when you hit 50 was a bit weird. I don't think it's a huge deal, because you can just hearth back to wherever you were questing and continue on if you want. But it is weird that Blizzard did that instead of the standard automatic quest with a teleport item. Especially since Chromie Time is only for alts.

In any case, leveling the rogue was a lot of fun. Things proceeded at a good pace. I got to enjoy several older zones that I haven't seen in years. Your character gains a new ability or passive at almost every level. The level squish and new leveling is an unambiguous win for Blizzard, something that they really needed after Battle of Azeroth.

Equipment in Battle For Azeroth

I think Blizzard went into Battle For Azeroth with the goal of making equipment "more interesting". I think a secondary goal was for a player to be able to get to 80% power fairly quickly, but have it take much longer to go from 80% to 100%. To that end, Blizzard came up with Azerite armor and Corruption.

My evaluation of Azerite armor is colored by the fact that I play a Holy Paladin. Of all the specializations in the game, we probably benefited the most from Azerite armor. It gave us a completely new play-style, Glimmer, that worked really well with the Holy paladin archetype. Alternating Crusader Strike and Holy Shock melded both melee combat and large single-target heals. It was a very enjoyable play-style.

It was also a good high-end play-style. You played like a traditional healer while accumulating 3x Glimmer, and then got to switch to the new style, making it something to look forward too. So I think that in a lot of ways, Holy paladins got the best of the new equipment systems.

Playing Hades has also given me some insight into what Blizzard was trying to do. In Hades, each run plays out differently depending on what gods show up and what boons you get. You can influence things here and there, but at the end of the day you have to "roll with the punches". You get what you get and you try and make the best of it. Every experience is a bit unique that way.

I think Blizzard was attempting something similar with Azerite and Corruption. You get what you get, and you try to make the best of it. The problem of course, is that MMO players really do not like this. Especially when someone else is lucky enough to get the elements that the community has deemed the "best". We saw a similar issue with Legendaries in Legion.

With Corruption, Blizzard gave up on it quite quickly and turned the system into something to grind until you got 8x of whatever the best Corruption was. To be honest, I kind of liked Corruption before you could buy them. You got what you got, and erased worse Corruptions while keeping better Corruptions, all the while juggling your net Corruption.

I do wonder if there were things that Blizzard could have done to make Azerite/Corruption better, and reconcile players to "rolling with the punches". I think one major improvement would have been to not allow Azerite/Corruption to stack. With stacking, 3x of the best Azerite is much more powerful than a random selection of lesser Azerite powers. Same thing with Corruption.

But I don't know. I think that mixed secondary stats are the limits of what players will accept as "interesting equipment". Perhaps Blizzard would be better off just going with that, and then a stingier drop rate closer to Classic WoW. It would mean that character improvement would be steadier, with slower increases in item level, but no chasing of random powers.

Exile's Reach

I created a Human Rogue to test out Exile's Reach, the new starting experience.

Oddly enough, what it most reminded me of is TERA, and the starting island in that game. A very similar experience of doing small quests in a short linear story on an island that ends with a dungeon/boss fight.

I should note that I did Exile's Reach without addons or heirlooms, and with the basic stock UI. As a result, I didn't see any bugs. Pretty much everything worked smoothly for me, much as expect Blizzard intended.

I thought Exile's Reach was a good starting zone, introducing the basic elements nicely. The story was simple, but fun. There were lots of nice touches, especially introducing emotes like /wave and /dance. The dungeon at the end was pretty good. Some trash, a couple bosses, and a dragon.

I really liked the class-specific quest. For the rogue, it was about sneaking around an elite bear and then using poisons to kill an ogre. I kind of want to see the other class quests, but I'm not sure it's worth doing so many times over.

About the only criticism I have is that the first enemy should not have been murlocs. The point of murlocs is to instill fear and terror into new players. Attacking a single murloc should cause the entire camp to come chasing you. That is the true murloc experience.

Hades: Defeated Last Boss ... Or Not

I'm pretty bad at Hades. Everywhere I see people defeating it for the first time on attempt 17 or 18. Here I am at attempt 35 and I still haven't beaten the last boss yet. 

I've beaten the third boss about three times now. On my last run, I was doing really well. I had the Athena deflect dash and was slowly killing the last boss. Then I screwed up and lost a lot of my health quickly. With a sliver of health left, I managed to deal the final points of damage, reducing the boss' health bar to zero. I was so excited!

Then Phase 2 started.

It was chaos, with spinning beams of fire everywhere. I panicked and died a couple seconds into the new phase. 

Oh well, on to the next attempt.

Exile's Reach and Chromie Time

Here's a heads up if you are having issues accessing Chromie Time after you do the new introductory zone of Exile's Reach.

After you finish Exile's reach, you go to Stormwind. There you have the option of either taking a tour of Stormwind, or saying that you "already know your way around Stormwind".

If you take the tour option, you will be locked into the Battle for Azeroth starting quests. Chromie will not allow you to switch to a different expansion, saying that you have your hands full with Kul Tiras.

You will have to do the Battle for Azeroth starting quests until you get to Boralus. At that point, you can go back to Stormwind and talk to Chromie to switch expansions. I followed the BfA starting quests until the portal to Stormwind was unlocked, and then took that back.

To sum up, there are two paths if you want to access Chromie Time after Exile's Reach.

Path #1:

1. Do Exile's Reach
2. Take the tour of Stormwind
3. Do the BfA intro quests until you get to Boralus
4. Go back to Stormwind and talk to Chromie.

Path #2:

1. Do Exile's Reach
2. Decline the tour of Stormwind
3. Talk to Chromie

I imagine there will be a similar situation on the Horde-side.

Gaming Log - October 11

This post contains spoilers for Hades.

World of Warcraft

We did some of the Throne of Thunder achivements. Ji-Kun took us a long while, mostly because it was difficult to kill ourselves when we failed the achievement. We failed to get the Durumu achievement, but got all the others. Heh, it's been so long since I've been to Throne of Thunder that I completely forgot how to get there.

Otherwise it's just waiting for the Pre-Patch.

World of Warcraft Classic

I broke down and got the Questie add-on. It makes a huge difference being able to see where all the quests you can get are. Especially post-35 where they start to be scattered all over the world. It also shows you the quest item locations like modern WoW, but in some ways that is overkill. I rather think the sweet spot would be showing you where all the quests you can pick up are, but needing to rely on the quest text to actually finish them.

My rogue also hit 43 and I bought my mount. I had about 60g total at 40, and it took two levels to get the remaining 30g. I've also finished the Scarlet Monastery quests and even got the Scarlet Crusade tabard. The quest also gave a very nice sword, so my Combat Swords rogue finally has 2 swords for the first time.

Hades

I managed to beat the boss of the third zone, Elysium! I made it to the end of the fourth zone, Styx, who turns out to be Hades himself. I was actually doing quite well, until I called upon the aid of Zeus (basically your ultimate, can get different ones from different gods). Hades did not appreciate me invoking Zeus, and made short work of me. I wonder if he reacts to all gods, or if Zeus is special due to their history.

That's the only time I've been able to get past the third boss though. I did respec, to make my build stronger. I completely forgot there was an expensive ability to get a Defy Death once per chamber instead of once per run. I think that will make future runs easier, and allow me to use a different accessory other than Skelly's Tooth (+1 Defy Death).

Gaming Log - October 4

Haven't written one of these in a while. Here's what I've been up to recently.

World of Warcraft

We've been doing various achievements. Just waiting for Shadowlands really.

I've been doing some of the Brawler's Guild. The BfA questline for the Brawler's Guild was very enjoyable. And you get a crocodile mount at the end. If you haven't done it yet, I strongly recommend doing it in the next week. At current gear levels, you can power through a lot of the fights. You still have to do mechanics, but you don't need to worry about DPS checks. Wowhead and Icy Veins have decent guides.

World of Warcraft Classic

I've been trying and failing to get a group to do the Stromgarde elite quests with my rogue. I think I'm just going to have to give up on them (and elite quests in general), and do normal quests instead.

My rogue did get to level 40. I have about 70 gold total, and I need 90 for the mount and training.

Hades

Thoroughly enjoying this game. I've done about 30 runs, and can get to the third zone regularly. On my last run I got to the boss of the third zone, but got killed there.

I am debating turning on God Mode though. I think I'm behind the curve, and the third zone is difficult for me. I just take too much incidental damage. The main reason I even got to the boss in the last run was that I got a boon from Aphrodite which gave me +2 health on each regular attack (at the cost of 60% lower max health). I can't really count on that boon all the time, though.

First Impressions of Hades

Supergiant Games has released their latest game, Hades. I am a huge fan of their previous games: Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre. Hades has finally come out of Early Access, so I snapped it up.

I'm barely into it, but it's really good so far. In both Pyre and Hades, Supergiant is trying to weave defeat into the narrative, and it's really interesting to see their approach.

Hades is a "rogue-like" game. It's an isometric RPG like Diablo. You play Zagreus, Prince of the Underworld, son of Hades, as he attempts to escape to Mount Olympus. The basic game-play is you moving from room to room in a randomly-generated map. In each room you kill the monsters and get a reward. You keep going until you die.

When you die, you go back to Hades' palace where you pet Cerberus, talk to various NPCs, uncover more of the story, and spend resources on improving your character for your next attempt. Dying is part of the story, as various NPCs will comment on your last attempt. I got mocked for stepping in a spike trap.

Some resources exist only for the attempt, like gold and boons from the other Olympian gods. Other resources allow you to improve your character or unlock weapons or upgrade the underworld with new rooms. The gods' boons improves or alters one of your attacks, so each run plays slightly differently as you get boons from different gods.

That cycle of "attempt, death, conversation, improvement, repeat" is very well done. It makes dying become just part of the game. It also makes for nice stopping points for the individual play session.

There are multiple weapons. So far, I've unlocked a sword, a bow, and a shield. I'm not very good with the bow because it requires aiming, but I like the shield. It has a small knock-back which does extra damage if the enemy is slammed against a wall.

You also have a "Cast" ability which throws a projectile at an enemy. By default, the projectile debuffs the enemy and you can't use Cast again until you kill the enemy and pick up the projectile. It's an elegant way of allowing you a powerful ranged option, but keeping you from just kiting all the time.

So far, Hades is just superb. I'm playing on PC with a controller, but I hear that the Switch version is extremely well done.

Shadowlands Afterlives: Revendreth

There sure were a lot of jokes about Garrosh getting milked.

This video is very well done. It's always fun to get a video from the point of view of the bad guy being deliciously evil.

Revendreth seems interesting as well. It looks like the equivalent of a Hell, where evil souls are tormented until they repent. It is amusing that WoW cannot use demons for this traditional role, because demons occupy a completely different place in WoW's cosmology. Instead we have anima-drinking vampires (or possibly elves).

The only concern is that this story seems a bit like the Suramar storyline in Legion. Nobility hoarding a resource that everyone needs to live. There's probably going to be a revolution as well.

I just hope it doesn't end with Garrosh yelling "Revendreth is free!" at the end.

Shadowlands Afterlives: Ardenweald

Now this was excellent!

Apparently the WoW community is very fond of Ursoc, so they were saddened by this video. Despite (or maybe because) of killing him twice in qame. The video does an excellent job laying out the faction, and making them sympathetic.

I quite like the fae in urban fantasy, like Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series, and Seanan McGuire's October Daye series. I am looking forward to seeing Blizzard's take on the fae. Though from this video, the Winter Queen is certainly nothing like Butcher's Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness.

Honestly, I rather think this will be my covenant of choice for my paladin. Perhaps a bit of an usual choice, as it seems more for nature classes like druids, hunters and shaman. But I've always felt that the heart of the paladin archetype is sacrifice, and this video embodies that well.

Shadowlands Afterlives: Maldraxxus

The next covenant featured is Maldraxxus. This looks to be a martial realm, with several warrior houses.

The main character featured is Draka, mother of Thrall. Which brings up an interesting point. In most Western, Christian-inspired versions of the afterlife, it's a place to be reunited with your loved ones. Draka's husband is Durotan, who died alongside her. There's not even a mention of him. Instead, WoW's afterlife appears to be closer to the Norse Valhalla, where the dead have a job to do.

One really weird decision was to have Draka train as a rogue. There's already a famous female orc (or half-orc) rogue: Garona. It seems overly repetitive to have Draka become a discount Garona. I think it would have been better to leave Draka as a warrior.

Otherwise, I don't know. This video seems like you're supposed to go, "OMG, Draka is sooo cool!" But if you don't, there's really nothing else there. Kind of honestly, the most interesting bit was the mention of the House of Plagues. That seems like a pretty unusual martial House.

Shadowlands Afterlives: Bastion

This is the first intro video for Shadowlands. I guess there will be four, introducing the main factions.

I've been trying to avoid spoilers, or indeed any information about the expansion. But it feels like Shadowlands is making it harder than normal. Maybe it's just the extensive beta, but when this video dropped, all the discussion online was full of spoilers.

In any case, the video is decent. I'm a little tired of Uther and Arthas, though, so I was not particularly thrilled to see them again. In my opinion, that story ended, and it ended well, so let it rest.

This covenant, Bastion, seems like pretty typical angels. Paint-by-numbers, really. The standard "stay on the path" and ignore warning signs hierarchy that these sorts of quasi-religious factions usually end up being, followed by one going rogue and over-zealous.

I don't know, I hope Bastion is more interesting in the actual expansion. The thing is that we're supposed to be joining these Covenants, so I think these introductory videos should show what makes the Covenant attractive. I can't see anyone actually wanting to join Bastion after this video.

Horrific Visions - Mad World

 I've been working on the Horrific Visions over the last week or so. Today I got the [Mad World] Feat of Strength for successfully completing both the Horrific Vision of Stormwind and Horrific Vision of Ogrimmar solo with 5 Masks!

Mount and Title Rewards above Silithus

5-Masking both Visions (in a group or solo) awards a mount, the Black Serpent of N'Zoth. 5-Masking both visions solo gives a title, the Faceless One.

I actually did Stormwind last week, adding one mask a day until I did all 5 masks on Monday. Today I tackled Ogrimmar and went straight for all 5 masks. I did both visions as Retribution with 470 average item level, though it was my Holy Gear and corruptions (Ineffable Truth!) aside from my weapon.

Some tips if you want to tackle it in the next week or two:

• Adding one mask a run was good to get used to the vision and the path you want to run in.
• Add the 50% less Sanity mask early. It was the third mask I tackled. Adjusting for lower Sanity is the biggest thing you need to learn, as a couple of other mechanics don't happen until low sanity, so it's good to get used to the reduced Sanity early.
• I did it with zero net corruption. Having to deal with slows and extra circles is extra hassle.
• Use a flask and food. I used the food which increases movement speed in Stormwind and health regen in Org. In hindsight, I probably should have used health regen in both. I wasn't used to moving so quickly in SW. Also have a stack of K'babs and use them often.
• In Stormwind, I used the Sanity Orb before Mathias and Magister Umbric, and then before Alleria.
• In Orgrimmar, I used the Sanity Orb before the last elites before the Lost area bosses. Pull the elites into the Sanity Orb and start damaging them before it disappears. With the extra sanity from defeating the elite, you get to the boss at max or fairly high Sanity.
• Find the dead body near the start and identify the bad potion color. Drink all the good potions you can.
• Find the enemy that gives a buff in the first area early, then continue to the other zones.
  

I found Ogrimmar harder than Stormwind, though part of it might just be unfamiliarity. I found it a lot harder to dodge or avoid a lot of the Sanity-drain mechanics in Org, and ended up having to burn my last Orb early. My guild says you can avoid a lot of them, like the Void Torrent, by stepping into the bosses hitbox, but they only told me this after the run.

In any case, I feel like I've completed all my personal goals for Battle for Azeroth with this achievement. Looking forward to Shadowlands!

The Problems With the Battle for Azeroth Story, Part II

In the last post, we discussed the Burning of Teldrassil and Sylvanas Windrunner. In this post, I'm going to look at two more philosophical problems that the writers are having.

Fool Me Once, Shame On You

There is an old aphorism, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

In a nutshell, that sums up the problems with the Alliance side of the BfA story. This is the second time the Horde has attacked the Alliance out of the blue. And yet the Alliance cannot seem to learn any lessons. Thus they come across as foolish when they try to make peace, especially a peace without terms.

The story tries to portray (early) Jaina and Tyrande as wrong with their uncompromising stance against the Horde. But Jaina and Tyrande are right and sensible! Jaina's reversion in 8.3.5 to her previous stance is a huge mistake and erases all development for her character.

As for Tyrande, it feels like she's going to learn a "valuable lesson" about the dangers of vengeance in Shadowlands, completely ignoring that sometimes anger is justified.

 Battle for Azeroth turned out to be Garrosh 2.0, only this time the Alliance comes across as foolish. Not even a nod to Varian's declaration that "if your Horde fails to uphold honor as Garrosh did, we will end you." Nothing but paper tigers.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Perhaps the biggest problem with Battle for Azeroth, which ties into the previous point, is that characters' actions don't seem to matter. What matters is the words they say.

Take Sylvanas. The entire resolution of the story hinges on her saying, "The Horde is nothing". If she simply doesn't say that, the ending falls apart. All the actions she took, good or bad, none of them matter in the end.

As for Saurfang, he happily invades Ashenvale and Darkshore. Then he's sad and sorry, so obviously he's in the right.

There is a great disconnect between the actions taken and the words spoken. And the story comes down on the side that the words spoken are true and correct, and the actions are not. This is a major source of dissonance.

Maybe the WoW writers feel these aphorisms are old and outdated. But they're common wisdom for a reason, ingrained in how most people view the world. In my opinion, a writer ignores these and similar proverbs at their peril. It usually turns out badly, as Battle of Azeroth shows.

The Problems With the Battle for Azeroth Story, Part I

Unlike a lot of forum posters, I actually think WoW's writers are pretty good. There are a lot really well done small stories and small moments in BfA. For example, I loved the work they did with Jaina, at least until the aftermath of attack on Ogrimmar. However, the writers also have a tendency to make really big, bone-headed mistakes. These mistakes are so huge, that they wipe out all the good that has been done, has been built up. This series of posts is a discussion of what I see as the major mistakes in Battle for Azeroth.

The Burning of Teldrassil

I actually liked the Burning of Teldrassil as the initial move in the story. I thought to myself, "Well, the writers promised that this wouldn't be Garrosh 2.0, and now they certainly can't do a Garrosh 2.0 story." The joke was on me, I guess, as BfA soon became Garrosh 2.0.

The Burning of Teldrassil would have been an excellent opener for a story where the war between Horde and Alliance becomes hot, and stays hot for several expansions.

For the type of story BfA wanted to be, it actually would have worked much better without burning Teldrassil. The Horde pre-emptively sweeps through and conquers Ashenvale and Darkshore. The Alliance retaliates by attacking Undercity. After Undercity gets destroyed, both sides pull back and look for allies. Then the Horde attacks Brennadan. Next the Alliance escalates with the raid on Daz'alor and killing Rastakhan. Sylvanas then starts looking to weaponize Derek Proudmoore, and Baine intervenes.

In that story, you actually have an escalating cycle of violence, where breaking it makes sense. However, by starting with Teldrassil, there is no escalation. Everything the Alliance does pales in comparison. The story starts too big, and there's no place for it to go.

Sylvanas Windrunner

The writers clearly want to have Sylvanas to have a plan. To be a mastermind working towards some hidden goal. Unfortunately none of this is coming across. Instead, Sylvanas seems to whiplashing between good and evil, and it is really hurting both her character and the story.

Back when I played D&D, it was really common for me as a DM to construct this intricate plot and world in my head. It took me a long while to truly understand that the players couldn't see that plot. The channel between the DM and player is "lossy". If you're lucky, maybe 25% of what you want to convey will actually make it to the players. In this situation, you're better off being blunt and explicit, and repeating yourself several times. Especially when your story takes place over a long period of time, as players will forget the fine details of events which happened several months ago.

FFXIV is really good at this. If they want the players to know something about a villain or a villain's plans, they'll start hinting at it a couple patches in advance. Then they'll end up explicitly saying it in a few different ways. Maybe they'll show you the villain discussing things with a subordinate. And maybe you and your allies will discuss the villain. Sometimes it can feel like they're being overly blunt, but better too blunt than too subtle.

To Be Continued...

Gaming Log - August 28

World of Warcraft

We're continuing to try and get old raid achievements. We got the meta for Hellfire Citadel. Gorefiend was a huge pain because it requires at least one person to die during Feast of Souls. At max level it is very hard to die! We ended up removing all gear, and even then only one person died in the phase. Luckily she was able to do her part and spawned the achievement mob just as the phase ended.

We then returned to our nemesis, Thok. This time around we knew how to do the achievement so things went somewhat smoothly. Except two of our druids forgot they had the Resto affinity talent which automatically heals them. But we got past that, thanks to the stacking damage buff, and unlocked the snail and killed Thok. Sadly, someone was wearing a trinket which procced and killed the snail!

I guess we'll try again next week.

World of Warcraft Classic

I've been playing my Human Paladin and Warrior. I tried playing with the Horde Priest, but there was a lot of Alliance running around and I wasn't able to get anything done. I did manage to run away before being killed, though, so I'll count it as a moral victory.

Vikings: Wolves of Midgard

I set the difficulty down to Peasant (Easy). At this point, I really just want to finish the main story of the game.

I then finished sacking the Imperium Romana's port. The final boss fight was neat. Instead of a boss, it was a gauntlet where you had to run around and set ships on fire.

Now back to the underworld to steal a crystal from the dark elves so my blacksmith can make better weapons and armor.