Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Still Gearing Toons for the Siege of Orgrimmar

So I managed to get my fourth toon, my Death Knight, over the now official 496 hurdle and ready for the Siege of Orgrimmar LFR.  I've also got two more toons working their way through ToT - my hunter and my druid, and both are getting somewhat close, so there's a pretty good chance that I'll have as many as six toons all geared up and ready to go.

Finally, my last toon is getting very close to being ready for LFR.

Here is the official update on the 7 toons not currently sitting at 496 or better with the change from the last report on August 13th.

Druid - 488 -> 494 (just need a damn head piece to drop in ToT and he'll be in good shape)
Hunter - 479 -> 486 (still desperately needs a ToT weapon)
Paladin - 473 -> 475
Shaman - 471 -> 477
Rogue - 464 -> 469 (only toon that hasn't gotten the Barrens questline boots - so that should push him over the edge to HoF/ToES)
Monk - still at 464
Warrior - 442 -> 457




Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Toon #10 Geared for LFR - One More To Go

So I managed to get my monk to 460 ilvl pretty quickly, mostly through generous use of auction house drops.  That leaves just my warrior, who I'm going to go ahead and gear purely through heroics.

So right now, I've got 3 toons at 500 ilvl and all ready for the Siege or Orgrimmar raid - warlock, priest and mage.

I then have 2 other toons working their way through ToT - my druid and my death knight.

My hunter is desparately trying to get a weapon to drop either off of Will of the Emperor or Lei Shi in ToES, which will put him over the ilvl threshold for ToT.

My paladin and my shaman are now both over the ilvl limit for HoF and ToES as well and are going to start working through that.

So that leaves just my rogue and my monk working their way through MSV.

And my poor warrior still stuck on heroics.

So here's the quick ilvl summary including a comparison from my previous report on July 9th:


Druid - 484 -> 487
DK  483 - 494
Hunter - stuck at 479
Paladin - 468 -> 473
Shaman - 464 -> 471
Rogue - still at 464
Warrior - still at 442
Monk - new to the game at 464

So with two weeks to go until release of the new patch and the new raid, I feel like I have a reasonable chance of getting the DK geared up enough to become the 4th toon ready for the new LFR, but not thinking most of the others will make it, barring some incredible luck on drops by the druid.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Ding! Level 90 #11. A Max Level Toon of Each Class (Again)

So I finally managed to get my monk to 90 last night, so after a short delay caused by the creation of the new monk class in MoP, I'm now back to having a max level toon of each class.

My total played time to 90 on the monk was an unbelievable 2 days, 10 hours and 35 minutes.  Certainly the xp buff from the monk daily quest plays a huge role in that, along with a new piece of heirloom gear.

By way of comparison, the last character that I leveled straight through to max level was my warrior at the beginning of Cataclysm, and at that point, it took a played time of 3 days, 23 hours (and also with full heirlooms, other than the pants, which didn't exist then).

So they've clearly done a lot to further streamline the leveling process.

So the downside of the speed up in the leveling process, is I didn't have to quest anywhere close to all the way through Dread Wastes before hitting 90, so even with the shiny new ilvl 450 staff that you get from the level 90 monk class quest, my ilvl is still sitting at 426 or so.  So I'm not ready to jump right into heroics.

I've got a decent amount of JP accumulated though, so I'll see what I can do with that, craft some things on my leatherworker, and then see what 476 stuff is available for a decent price on the auction house, and hopefully that will do the trick.


Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Almost There on the Monk

So I managed to hit 89 on the monk last night, and am planning to just not stop until I successfully hit 90 on him later tonight.  No clue what my /played time has been as I haven't really been looking at it, although my general impression is that it's been pretty fast.

I also got to 11/12 Titan Runestones on my warlock last night, so I can limit myself to just one wing next week, and then I should be all caught up on the Legendary questline, after I finish the Celestial Blessings quest of course.

Not a whole lot of change in gear level on my other toons as I've really been focused on the monk outside of the requisite runs on my warlock.  I did do one half of MSV on my rogue, and managed to bump his ilvl up to 464, but other than that, not a whole lot of progress to report.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Trying a Little Mistweaver Action

So I've decided to go ahead and finish leveling my monk to 90 before finishing my work on gearing up my other characters.  I've been playing the monk as Windwalker throughout the whole leveling process to date, but the ability to buy a full set of gear upon reaching Pandaria prompted me to try a few dungeons as Mistweaver.

So far, I'm not entirely sure I like the play style.  I seem to have problems mostly with fights that require a lot of movement.  That an a problem with drawing groups full of people that like to stand in bad shit.

It feels like a spec that would be a ton of fun for raid healing, so I just have to decide if I'm willing to continue to plow through running dungeons for those last 3 levels and then see if I can auction house my way to a 460 iLvL pretty quickly after hitting 90.

I really actually enjoy the Windwalker playstyle a lot, but of the characters that I still have to gear all the way through MSV, HOF, ToES etc., they're all essentially melee, especially if I don't switch my shaman over to elemental or resto.

It may just be that I need some more practice at Mistweaver and it will start to feel a lot more intuitive.  So I may give it a few more dungeons next week on the way to 90 before abandoning it.

Not much other progress to report.  I continue to run the last two wings of ToT on my warlock to finish with Titan Runestones, where I currently stand at 8/12.

My mage and priest are now both fully geared for the next raid, with the DK and druid not far behind.  My hunter just needs to get a little luckier on drops in either MSV or ToES and he'll be ready to start running ToT as well.  Then the shaman, paladin and rogue are all working their way through MSV.


Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online Updates

I continue to balance my playing time between Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2.  I finished running my Reaper through the new Guild War...