Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Level 120 #5 Complete and #6 Underway

I hit level 120 on the paladin last week.  As seems to be the case with my last few max level toons, there is no way he's going to get to the required item level in time to be able to do the Warfront this time around.  Oh well.

The gearing process is slow, at least the way I'm doing it (which is just looking for WQ upgrades every day), but not particularly time consuming, since it's usually just a matter of doing a WQ or two every day - or maybe the emissary if it looks like it will be an upgrade.  It's definitely not the fastest way to rise your ilvl, but it works for me.

I've now started working in earnest on the druid.  I'm leveling as balance, which I've enjoyed for the last few expansions (I was not a fan of leveling Boomkin in Cataclysm or MOP, but that seems to have changed starting with Warlords)

I was originally planning to do the monk after the druid, but I might change that up a bit.  Haven't decided yet.

Still not particularly close to being Exalted with all the factions.  I'm really not doing anything beside the daily emissary and there doesn't seem to be any great rush.  Should probably get there within the next couple of weeks either way.  I'm mainly interested in whether unlocking the Allied Race at Exalted on Horde side will also unlock it Alliance side. 

I keep hearing yes, but I'm doing the same daily emissary alliance side just in case that turns out not to be true.

That's about it for the updates.  I have a feeling, once I hit exalted on both Horde side and Alliance side, that  my leveling efforts will get a lot more focus.  This is different from Legion where there was all the Class Order Hall stuff and Class Mount stuff to be done across every toon.  There doesn't seem to be a similar issue with BfA.




Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Gearing Up Alts - Patiently Avoiding the Grind...Or Not

Battle for Azeroth has introduced an interesting dynamic with Warfronts,  With the new 320 item level cutoff for entering the warfront, there is some time pressure to get fresh 120's geared in time to be able to participate in the Warfront.  I hit 120 on my death knight in the early days of the warfront. 

For most of my 120's, my plan has been to do the weekly world boss, do the Arathi gear quest and otherwise look for world quest upgrades, and the item level seems to steadily creep up.  With the death knight having a limited amount of time and neither the Arathi world boss or gear quests available, I was trying to do it a little bit faster than normal.

I almost got there too.  But not quite.  Grabbing the cloak from the first faction to hit honored helps, but beyond that and the regular check for world quests, I ended up running a few dungeons to try to get myself over the hump.  Those were all generally good experiences, but the loot RNG gods were not kind, so I came up just short, finding myself at 317 when the Warfront ended.

Today, I'll be running all three max level Horde toons through the Arathi world boss and also doing the gear quest there hoping for some nice juicy upgrades.

The paladin finished up his first zone, and has moved on to Zulduzar.  So far the leveling process has been pretty smooth.  Some of the harder "you may need help" elite quests have required help, but that's probably why they say that (although they didn't on the warlock, hunter and death knight)

I also managed to get Pathfinder on Joar, so that piece is done until the next major patch.  I'm also close to having the War Campaign done on my alliance toon as well.

Cheers,

Joar




Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Level 120 #4 Complete

I managed to hit 120 on the death knight yesterday.  I leveled mostly as frost, although found myself switching to blood for many of the harder elites.  That's probably my biggest frustration with death knight leveling the last few expansions, is that frost doesn't really tend to have as much survivability as I'd like until higher gear levels, but blood just tends to be a lot slower at killing things.

The leveling time for this guy was about an hour and a half longer than it was for the hunter, which is not unexpected.  The death knight came in at right at 15 hours played time, versus 13 hours and 50 minutes for the hunter.

The warfront also unlocked Horde-side yesterday, but I probably won't be able to get the death knight to 320 in time to take any meaningful advantage of it, so it'll mostly be an activity for the hunter.

Next up on the leveling front will be the paladin, which may very well have the same issues as the death knight (ret vs prot).  I tend to be a little more comfortable with ret while leveling though.

I only have Champions left to get to revered before finishing up all of the requirements for this initial stage of pathfinder, and I'm working through a similar path on the alliance side in order to finish up the war campaign there and be in a position to unlock both of the allied races there.

Cheers,

Joar






Elder Scrolls Online Updates

Elder Scrolls Online is where I'm investing most of my playtime.  I finished up the Dragonknight yesterday.  Like the Nightblade before,...