Happy 16th Blogoversary!

My 16th blogoversary was actually a week or so ago, and, like most years lately, I was busy with the kids and their summer sports, so I missed it.  Although I'm not sure I'm writing much more, I feel a bit more invigorated about the blog lately.  

In terms of gaming updates, I've been focused on leveling alts in World of Warcraft when I've had the time.  I finished up the Alliance mage that I mentioned in my last post, and also finished an Alliance Monk and another Horde Druid since the last update, bringing my grand total of max-level characters to 30.  The leveling times now seem to be running pretty consistently in the 8-10 hour range from level 50 to level 80.  

I'm now working on another Alliance Rogue.  Since rogues haven't been my favorite for quite a while, I'm using the new one-button rotation functionality to see if that helps.  I'm not yet in the 70 to 80 range, but at least in the early stages, it seems to be helping quite a bit.

For the Monk, I tried using Chromie time and running him through Warlords of Draenor because I'd heard that was faster than Dragonflight.  Maybe it's because I've been doing Dragonflight a lot so that I have a lot of muscle memory around it, but it didn't end up working out that way for me, so I've switched back to just doing Dragonflight with this rogue.

I've still been dipping into ESO and Guild Wars 2 periodically, but my play time definitely has a heavy World of Warcraft emphasis right now.

I also completed the new Arathi Highlands content that was released and really enjoyed it.  It was nice to revisit an older zone in a way that made some sense, especially now that the leveling process doesn't ever have you go back to any of those places.

After I finish up this rogue, I have another druid in queue, so I may level that one in bear form to see how that goes.  If I hate it, I can always switch back to something else.

Cheers,

Joar

Finishing Up Janthir in Guild Wars 2

Last week, I finished up the new Guild Wars 2 content on my Mechanist.  There wasn't a lot to the new zone, but it was a pretty satisfying way of wrapping up essentially the last two expansions' worth of content.  It wasn't a particularly challenging final fight either, but I was okay with that.  Overall, the connection with the story made it a decent finish for me.

I'll continue to putter around in Guild Wars 2 off and on until the new expansion releases.  I wouldn't mind working on gearing up my Ranger a bit, because I'm generally still too lazy to just move my Ascended gear between characters.  I also need to finish gathering berries for an Ascended back for my Reaper.  

I'm still also working on leveling my Alliance mage in World of Warcraft.  I think he's sitting around level 75 now, so getting fairly close.  Switching to Frost definitely helped with the speed of leveling in general.

I've also been dipping in and out of Elder Scrolls Online a little bit and have now moved on to the Clockwork City on my zone completion journey.  That's one is a small one, so won't be long before I move on again.

That's the update for now. 

Cheers,

Joar

New ESO content

Yesterday, I ran through pretty much all the new Elder Scrolls Online content related to the Worm Cult on the island of Solstice.  The new story, while typical ESO fare, was pretty engaging and well done.  I also ran through all the side quests and delves in the new zone, which I also enjoyed.  They held together well and also made sense in the context of the overall zone story.  The zone itself is truly beautiful, and I particularly enjoyed the new city of Sunport, although it feels somewhat similar to several other ESO cities in terms of overall layout.  The crafting center is almost identical to one of the other recent expansion cities.

I'm happy with this content cycle so far.  I also picked up something like 70 Champion points while running through the new zone, which felt pretty good, too.

From an overall gaming perspective, May was more balanced.  The bulk of my play time in May was still focused around World of Warcraft, at 22 hours, but ESO contributed quite a bit at 9 hours, and Guild Wars 2 came in at 4 hours total played.  I'm guessing that June will see even higher contributions from Guild Wars 2 and ESO with their new content releases.

I'm also running out of energy on the alt leveling front in Warcraft.  I'm currently working on character #28, who is sitting at level 72.  This one is an Alliance Mage that I've been leveling as Arcane so far, but it's not working very well now that I've moved on to the War Within zones, so I may switch him to Frost for the rest of the way to 80.

Yet another druid is up next after this mage, and I haven't really enjoyed leveling druids either this expansion, so that will likely keep my progress slow also.  But, there's lots of new content in both Guild Wars 2 and ESO to enjoy.

Cheers,

Joar