Korthia and Maw Assaults

I've continued working on Korthia. I'm not really farming anything, just casually doing dailies and the Maw Assaults.

 The first Assault was Ardenweald. This was pretty good for the most part. The sneaking section was a little weird because other people were in there with you. There were a couple times where someone else redirected the searchlights right on to me.

The second Assault was Revendreth. This one was a bit unusual because it had a kill 30 mobs quest combined with a "feed corpses to a critter". But then there were two other "vehicle" quests where you couldn't activate the critter, but could still kill mobs. It wasn't too bad, but it kind of felt that the quests were fighting each other. Like you didn't want to kill too many mobs while in a vehicle, because you'd have to kill extra to feed the critter.

Also the last boss of the Assault must have been terribly annoying if you didn't have an SSD, as there were 8 loading screens!

I also took a couple of alts to Korthia. The skip is really nice, taking you right to the dailies.

The story is getting a bit more interesting too, with the introduction of the Nathrazeim. Be interesting to see where this goes. I hope it doesn't go too far into "The Jailer was responsible for all the the previous Evils in Warcraft!" It's already pushing into that territory with the Lich King and the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne.

The Old Republic: Legacy of the Sith Announced

SWTOR has announced it's latest expansion, Legacy of the Sith, coming at the end of the year. It also kicks off the 10th anniversary celebrations of the MMO, which seems to be mostly flying under the radar these days.

Legacy of the Sith has the standard SWTOR expansion features: a new planet, some new instances, 5 new levels, and a new raid or operation.

However, the big announcement is that Bioware has managed to separate mechanical classes from stories. Apparently starting from Legacy of the Sith, you will first pick a story, and then pick a class to use. The classes are separated into Force and Tech, but you can use any Force class for any Force story.

So for example, you could play the Jedi Knight story with the Inquisitor theming and mechanics. I imagine it will make more sense with the Tech classes. For example, a Sniper in the Republic Trooper story does seem reasonable.

Bioware has also been vague about this, but they're hinting that you can switch classes on one character. Maybe you can take your Sniper and switch to Commando. Shades of FFXIV's character and class situation. This isn't confirmed yet, but it's certainly possible. All the work that went into separating out class and story might have been enough to make switching classes easy from a technical perspective.

Finally, the other interesting possibility is that Bioware can now introduce new mechanical classes. Before, any new class would require a new 1-50 class story, with all the requisite cutscenes and voice acting. But now a new class could just attach to the existing stories.

In any case, it looks interesting, so we'll see what future reveals bring.

First Impressions of Patch 9.1

Patch 9.1 in World of Warcraft came out this week. I've been going to some lengths to avoid spoilers, so it was pretty much all new to me.

It looks like it is continuing the Shadowlands max level content strategy of having several areas of content with separate currencies, and the bulk of the rewards coming from weekly quests. I like this strategy a lot, and the resulting pacing, so I'm happy that 9.1 continues with it.

The new story line still isn't that good, but it's serviceable, I guess. We'll see if Blizz manages to improve in the next few chapters.

The new zone, Korthia, is interesting. It's not as bleak as the Maw, but still kind of drab. So far the quests seem okay. It feels a lot like Rustbolt from BfA. Though there seem to be a lot of unusual complaints on Reddit. Today everyone was complaining that doing one daily where you had to pick up some animal was impossible. I logged in and it seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

I did try level 9 of Torghast solo. I scored 2 out 5, but I died twice. If I hadn't died, it would have been 3/5. I guess I need to go faster to get the better scores. But then there's also this Deck of Many Things which boosts you as you fill it out. Probably end up like Horrible Visions where it gets significantly easier to score higher as you fill out the talent tree.

All in all, Patch 9.1 looks good so far. Nothing really stands out, but it continues the steady pace. I'm looking forward to the new raid and dungeon.

Sire Denathrius and the Lack of Titanforging

As one raid tier ends and we look forward to the next one, I've been thinking about the end boss of Castle Nathria, Sire Denathrius.

I think Sire Denathrius was an excellent end boss for a raid. He was a difficult fight, which took us many attempts to learn and master. But at the same time, Denathrius was a predictable fight. Abilities happened on schedule, and there were definite marks the raid aimed for and tried to hit. Once we killed him once, and knew we could kill him, we repeated the kill every week. If we failed to kill him on an attempt, it was always because we made a mistake somewhere in the fight.

At the same time, though, Sire Denathrius never really became easier to kill. Killing him every week felt as difficult as killing him the first time. We would always switch from alts to mains and make sure we had the full complement of healers. Heck, one of our tanks switched classes after the first kill to take less damage and make repeating the kill easier! We couldn't really carry anyone on the kill. We only got AOTC for our two casual raiders (who don't come for progression night) in the second-last week, even though they had been faithfully attending every week.

I think the primary cause of this was the lack of titanforging. As a raid group, we killed Sire Denathrius near the peak of our gear level. Obviously we got some better gear from Denathrius and filled out holes, but we didn't improve enough to really put him on farm. In the two previous expansions, titanforged pieces or corrupted items would continue to drop. The raid's power level continued to increasing, making farming the end boss easier and easier.

I think that aspect of titanforging was useful. It made farming less stressful and more casual. People could bring alts, or we could carry friends, or take non-optimal compositions. I'm pretty sure we were two-healing an 18-person heroic N'Zoth by the end of the tier.

Maybe taking advantage of the Vault would work. For example, if you killed Sire Denathrius, your vault would guarantee one piece of gear from the next tier. So if you killed Heroic Sire Denathrius, you would get a Mythic item in the Vault next week. A Normal kill guarantees a Heroic piece. I think that would be enough to preserve the challenge of the first kill, but still allow the raid to improve enough in three to four weeks to make farming the end boss more relaxing and allow for more slack.

Updates

This move has really caused me to fall out of the habit of posting regularly. Not that I was doing a great job before, but still.

Life is a little weird at the moment. I'm still working on Pacific time with my current company, so that's really 12 noon - 8 pm. Ontario is also still locked down, so the grocery stores close at 8, and most other stores are not open. So mornings are my time to get non-work chores done.

I'm also still raiding with my guild, which means 10 pm to 1 am on a couple nights.

Gaming-wise, nothing much is going on. I'm actually trying to avoid playing new games, as I have a couple other side-projects I want to finish. I'm just adding games to my Steam wishlist, and hopefully I'll remember about them in a couple of months.

I also feel like I missed some important news in the MMO space. Crowfall is coming out next month, which I found out about through a Kickstarter backer email. Then I went over to /r/mmorpg on Reddit--usually a mistake--and everyone there is claiming that it is a mistake to launch at the same time as so many other launches. (In addition to pronouncing the game dead-on-arrival, which is normal for that subreddit.)

I thought we were in an MMO drought? Where did all the other launches come from? Actually, what are the new MMOs launching?

Gaming Log - May 12

With the move and everything, I haven't been playing a lot of games lately.

World of Warcraft

My guild got Ahead of the Curve: Sire Denathrius while I was away. So I got it when I was able to rejoin the raid. It's a pretty interesting fight and one where it seems relatively easy for things to fall apart quickly.

Heh, on one attempt, the raid leader called a wipe in P2 and we all jumped off the side of the platform. Just then Sire did his death grip, and pulled us all back to him.

Diablo

I'm casually leveling a Demon Hunter in Seasonal to try out the companion changes. The big problem is that I don't particularly like Lyndon the Scoundrel. I would prefer to use Kormac the Templar or Eirena the Enchantress. But the Scoundrel uses Dexterity, like the Demon Hunter. So almost all the gear that drops has Dexterity, and most of the weapons that drop are bows or crossbows.

Now, most of the time the D3 change to have most gear drops tailored to your character is a good decision. It's only the solo player who wants to use a different companion who has issues.

One amusing thing is that the armor inventory graphic changes based on your character's gender and class. It doesn't change when equipped on your follower. (The in-game character model doesn't change with gear.) So Lyndon's character sheet looks like he is wearing a leather corset!

The Burning Crusade Classic

Blizzard announced the launch details for The Burning Crusade Classic. June 1st launch, May 18th pre-patch.

The weird/interesting part is this:

Before that, however, every hero must make a choice. Beginning on May 18, after each regional scheduled maintenance, the Burning Crusade Classic Pre-expansion Patch will be released, and each character must choose whether to advance onward to Burning Crusade, move to a Classic Era realm, or use the Character Clone service to play in both games.

I have to say that I don't really understand the purpose behind this. People have played Classic for a couple of years now. They've gone through all the phases of content. I rather imagine that most players are ready for something new.

So splitting the playerbase seems like a bad choice. The classic servers will probably be pretty empty. Classic is a numbers-intensive game. Maybe all the guilds that have 5 or so people left on a Classic server will band together, and be able to farm content.

If it was up to me, I would have done something like:

1. All current Classic Realms advance to The Burning Crusade Classic.
2. Six months later, open a handful of fresh Classic realms (maybe with #SomeChanges) and start the content release cycle over again.

The other contentious part is the Deluxe Edition for $70, which many people think is too much. For me, I've already discussed the issue in Cosmetic Versus Content Pricing. Expensive cosmetics and cheap content makes the game more accessible, but offends our sense of value.

In any case, I didn't get very far in Classic, maybe level 30 on one class. I'll probably give TBC Classic a whirl, maybe with a Blood Elf Paladin. I kind of expect to end up stopping at about 30 as well.

Player Choice and Power in Shadowlands

In Shadowlands, there's a lot more player choice which has to do with power than in the previous couple of expansions. We have:

• Covenants
• Soulbinds
• The path through the soulbind tree
  
• Conduits
• Legendaries

In contrast, Battle for Azeroth pretty much had:

• Azerite powers
• Corruptions (at the end of the expansion)

Legion had:

• The path through the artifact weapon tree. This was a temporary choice, however, as you could fill in the entire tree.
• Legendaries

If you look at what people are complaining about in Shadowlands, the biggest complaint I believe is about these choices, especially covenants. By and large, all the extra choices aren't really doing anything as most people are following the main theorycraft and guides.

I wonder how Shadowlands would have looked if Blizzard had offered less choice. For example, suppose your class dictated your covenant. All paladins and priests get sent to Bastion, all druids and hunters join the Night Fae, etc. 

Blizzard would only need to focus on tuning one ability. The soulbinds could have functioned more like Legion artifact weapons, with a temporary tree that could be completely filled in.

I don't think the results would look all that different from what we have now. Most classes have one definitive covenant, and people use alts to see the other covenant stories.

Of course, in that alternate reality, we'd probably be complaining that Blizzard should have allowed us to choose our own Covenant.

Moving Back To Ontario

It's been quite a while since I last posted. After spending around 15 years in Vancouver, British Columbia, I decided to move back east to Ontario. I took some time off work, and made the journey by driving across Canada, stopping at various motels (usually a Motel 8) for the night.

It was a pretty interesting trip. Here's a Google Maps showing the route I took. Mostly following the Trans-Canada Highway.

Day 1 - The moving company came and took my belongings around noon, and I left Vancouver shortly after that. I started in my old 2003 Nissan Sentra. I made it to Kamloops, BC.

Day 2 - Just after leaving Kamloops, the "Service Engine" light came on. When I got to Salmon Arm, I searched for the nearest Nissan dealership. There was one in Vernon, so I detoured south and asked them to take a look at it. They said there was leak in the fuel system, and it might catch fire. They also didn't have parts to fix it, and the parts were on back-order across North America.

In the end, I bought a new car! A rather unexpected purchase, but the old car was 18 years old, so it had a good run. I was debating between another Sentra and a Kicks (compact utility vehicle). In the end I went with the Kicks. Compared to my old car, it has a ton of gadgetry. I do like Car Play though. It is interesting how the car companies just let the phone take over.

Day 3 - I picked up the new car from the dealership at noon, and continued on. Pretty much lost a day and a half. I ended up having to take a detour down to Radium Hot Springs and then back up to Banff due to construction. Radium Hot Springs has some gorgeous scenery. Actually all of this part of British Columbia is quite beautiful. I ended up stopping for the night in Canmore, Alberta. This amused me because I used to watch Royal Canadian Air Farce back in the day, and one recurring character was "Mike from Canmore."

Day 4 - I drove to Calgary, and then stopped to visit with a friend from high school for an hour or so. Calgary is a really weird city. It has like a grid of "arteries", main roads which traverse the entire city. However within each square it's very suburb-like, with lots of curving roads and cul-de-sacs. For a stranger, it's kind of hard to tell if a large street is an artery, or just the entrance to the grid.

After Calgary I drove to Swift Current, Saskatchewan. I really should have stopped at Medicine Hat, but I pressed on. One of the hard things to judge on these long drives is when to stop, especially as the towns are so far apart.

Day 5 - I drove to Winnipeg, Manitoba. This drive was all prairies. The element you notice here is the sky. It dominates the view, as the land is so flat.

Day 6 - The stopping point here was Thunder Bay, Ontario. Northern Ontario is really big. As well, the speed limit was lower up here, around 90 km/h, where it had been 110 km/h for most of the western provinces.

Day 7 - I went around Lake Superior to Sault Ste. Marie. This part is all Canadian Shield, with the lake on your right, popping in and out of view. Quite pretty, but might be better in summer, rather than just coming out of winter. I probably could have kept driving to Sudbury, but stopped a little early.

Day 8 - Drove to my parent's place in Brantford. Toronto traffic was a less than pleasant experience after the previous seven days on the Trans-Canada Highway. Still, it was good to finally make it to my destination.

That was my trip across Canada. I've always wanted to drive it, so that's one item crossed off my list. It was very enjoyable. Sometime later, I would like to drive to the Maritimes, or maybe across the United States.

Having to get a new car was a bit disconcerting, but I really like the Kicks, and I think it worked out well in the end. Maybe I should make more decisions quickly, rather than contemplating for a long time.

Heroic Stone Legion Generals Down!

My guild killed Heroic Stone Legion Generals tonight! 9/10 Heroic Castle Nathria!

Actually, it was decided to drop Normal entirely, so we started on Heroic Tuesday. We got through the first 8 bosses fairly smoothly, even with a couple new people on Council and Sludgefist. We even got a few attempts on the Stone Legion, and laid down our strategy.

So tonight we went in focused on them. It took a few pulls, but we killed them after an hour or so. In Heroic at least, it's just a matter of doing all the mechanics, and making sure to clear the various bleeds that you can get.

Then we started doing Sire Denathrius attempts. Phase 1 is very finicky, so it took us quite a while to get that smoothly and start seeing Phase 2. On the last attempt of the night, we had a very clean pull, and ended up pushing him into Phase 3. Three-quarters of the raid was dead at that point, though, and the rest followed shortly.

Still, quite good progress. A couple more weeks of practice, and we should get him down.

Magic: Universes Beyond

Magic: the Gathering is introducing "Universes Beyond", a new initiative to go heavily into cross-overs with other franchises. The first new products will be Warhammer 40k and Lord of the Rings.

Here's the announcement.

Such cards will be mechanically unique, look exactly like regular Magic cards and will be tournament-legal, at least in the non-rotating formats. Wizards did this last year with a special package of 5 cards from the television show The Walking Dead.

Needless to say, the enfranchised fans on in the internet are not happy.

I don't know, maybe it will work out for Wizards. Maybe they'll get more new people to buy in on the strength of the external IP, and most enfranchised players will stick with it.

Personally, though, this feels to me like the moment Magic jumps the shark.

A funny comic from Cardboard Crack:

 

Heroic Sludgefist Down!

So last raid night we were working on Heroic Sludgefist. Our raid leader used Exorsus Raid Tools to make this neat note with a list of healer cooldowns and the time to use them. What was particularly cool is that times in the note would count down as the fight went on. Then they would grey out as the time went past. So you'd see the who the next CD was, and how long it would take.

Still, though, Sludgefist was pretty hard. The thing is that almost every death is from chains in some fashion, so every death actually takes out two people. It's also a fight where it comes down to whether you have enough people survive to the end. We had some heart-breaking wipes. We wiped at 5%, 2%, and 1%, among others.

Finally on our very last attempt of the night we got him down. We had most people survive past the fourth pillar, and that was enough to kill him even as we lost many people in that last phase. I was chained to another healer in that phase, and we both moved in opposite directions and broke the chain. Must have given our raid leader a heart attack to lose half the healers at the very end of the fight. Luckily, the raid was able to hang on for another 30 seconds and kill him.

Diablo 3 Follower Revamp

In a complete surprise, Diablo 3 is revamping Followers next patch:

Follower System Revamp: The Follower system for Diablo III has been revamped and will be made permanently available for Seasonal and Non-Seasonal play! Players can now equip Followers with a total of 14 different item slots which include the Follower Relic Item, Helm, Shoulders, Chest, Gloves, Bracers, Belt, 2 Rings, Neck, Pants, Boots, main-hand weapon, and off-hand. We're introducing a new Follower feature into Diablo III called Emanate, which allows the player to gain the intended effect of certain Legendary Powers and Set Bonuses when equipped on the hired Follower.

It's a pretty big buff to solo play, as well as getting a lot of use out of secondary or utility items. Blizzard is also revamping many of the Follower abilities.

As someone who plays D3 solo, I'm quite looking forward to the next patch. The only real issue remaining with followers is that it is difficult to use a follower with a different main stat than yours. D3 loot revamp meant that if you're a Strength class, most of the loot that drops for you is Strength. Personally, I like using a follower which is different, like Crusader + Enchantress, so gearing them well is always a pain.

The most amusing thing about this change is how it took the forums completely by surprise. It's a bigger change than expected for such an old game with 2 new entries on the horizon.

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.