Guild Wars 2 Map Completion....Complete

Since my last blog update, I managed to get 100% map completion in Guild Wars 2 on my Necromancer.  I also knocked out the first two zones of Heart of Thorns along with Dry Top and Silverwastes and at that point decided to go back to leveling alts.  I found using BlishHUD and it's pathing module to be pretty critical to completing this efficiently.  

On alts, my Warrior is now level 62, so in the home stretch for him.  Not sure which one I'll do next - possibly Mesmer.  Although I had quite a few that I had started that I enjoyed.

Through doing all this World Completion stuff, I also managed to get enough hero points to fully unlock the new Harbinger elite spec, but I have yet to try playing it.  I considered setting it up and maybe knocking out some zone events.  I still need to farm up some trade contracts for the jackal mount, so that might be a good thing to try out while doing that. 

In FFXIV, I've done a couple of runs through the new raid to gather tokens for all the latest gear.  So far, I've enjoyed all the fights quite a bit.  I struggled with the 12th circle a bit the first week, then didn't have any issues at all on week 2.  I managed to grab enough tokens for a chest piece pretty quickly, so I've started to piece together the gear look, at least.

Beyond that, I'm continuing to work on the Paladin and Monk, sitting at levels 64 and 54, respectively.  

Switching to World Completion in GW2

First, my interest in the new patch for World of Warcraft lasted only briefly.  I did knock out the first wing of LFR.  The bosses were good, but no loot drops for me (although I will get something out of my vault at least).  I may keep at it a little bit more, but with the new FFXIV patch dropping next week and me still having a pretty high level of interest in GW2, I don't see myself spending much time on it.

GuildWars 2

So I decided to switch from leveling alts to working on World Completion on my Necromancer.  I've also started working on crafting a bit on them as well and have gotten Tailoring up to 150 or so.  I didn't really spend anything other than on thread from the vendor at this point because everything else was sitting in my material storage.  One of the advantages of never having done any crafting I guess.

The World Completion bit is going a little bit better.  I'm starting with the original zones first, and I just have the Charr areas and the whole Orrian area to knock out before I have that done.  After that, I'll just work through the expansions in order.  Because of the way I leveled this particular character, I have more of the zones done from more recent expansions, so these older zones are where most of the work is for me anyway.  In most of them, I only have a waypoint or two.

I'm at 72% right now, so I'm in pretty decent shape. The next few weeks will mean a reduced amount of play time because of some real-life things.  Combine that with the FFXIV patch next week, and it may be a while before I make significant progress on this again.  I've gone from around 31% to 72% in about 2 weeks, so that seems pretty decent.  I'll need to find a HoT Hero Point train at some point too.

There are so many things that I'm still trying to figure out about this game - it may be another blog post to list the questions I have in the hopes that someone is reading!  And one of these days, I'll figure out how to clean up my bank and other bag space.  There's a ton of stuff that I'm saving, and I've got no clue if I need any of it.

FFXIV 

So despite probably being my "main game" at this point, I haven't touched it much in quite a few weeks other than logging on periodically to make sure I don't lose my house.

I'm looking forward to the patch next week though and will definitely be setting everything else aside for that and for the new raid each week.  I may go back to leveling the last four jobs if I get caught in that FFXIV mood.

 

Leveling Alts in GW2 and Warcraft Patch 10.1

GW2

I finally managed to complete my Skyscale last week.  After completing the saddle, which I discussed in my previous post, the rest was pretty simple.  It involved a lot of running around the world but was not overly complicated aside from that.  With that task done, I've started leveling alts again.  I currently have a Necromancer, Ranger, and Revenant at max level.

For the next profession to level, I tried all of them, but it came down to a choice between Warrior, Thief, and Mesmer for what I wanted to do next.  I picked Warrior and now have him up to around level 51 or so.  I'm playing a Charr, which I haven't done before, so that aspect has also been interesting. 

It's been a while since I did the basic leveling process.  I don't know if the Adventure Log in the Achievement pane is new, but there is undoubtedly a ton of experience available from getting those things done, plus it's all things you should sort of be doing as part of leveling anyway, so I've found that to be a helpful way to go.  The extra experience it grants also removes the need to constantly hunt for hearts to complete.  At Adventure Log Level 2, each one also requires the completion of a world boss from the zones of those levels, which also grants a ton of xp, so both of those things have really helped move things along without feeling like I missed out on learning the character like I would if I just used Tomes.

After the Warrior, I will likely do either Thief or Mesmer next.

World of Warcraft

So despite some brief considerations of unsubscribing again, I downloaded the latest patch and started playing around with it a bit.  The story so far is at least interesting enough to probably keep me engaged for another month or more, so I will likely stick with it a while longer.  I still need to finish up renowns on the original factions, and there seems to be quite a bit to do in the new zone.  And, of course, I'll also give the new raid a look.  This will likely continue to be on my warlock as I remain uninterested in returning to my altoholic days with WoW.

FFXIV

With everything else going on, FFXIV is the game that has been suffering an altogether lack of attention at this point.  I only have four jobs left to have absolutely everything at 90 - Paladin, Monk, Dark Knight, and Dragoon.  I think part of the problem is that none of those four really excite me.  I could see myself knocking out the dps jobs, but I'm just not that interested in tanking to feel motivated for the other two.

However, when the new patch comes out later this month, I will dive back in with both feet.  At least enough to gear up my Summoner and maybe to work on some of those dps alts a bit.

That's it for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Continued Adventures In Skyscales

 For the last couple of weeks, I've been playing Guild Wars 2 almost exclusively, working on finishing up the requirements to get a Skyscale mount.  It's a long grind, but I've really enjoyed the process.  

I will comment on the various collection pieces I've done since the last blog update, but really in reverse order.  

Skyscale Saddle

I just finished purchasing the Skyscale Saddle, which required getting components from various vendors.  In addition to about 35 gold and some volatile magic, it also required 250 of the currencies from each of the Living World 4 / Path of Fire zones and 500 Trade Contracts.  

250 Kralkatite Ore - Domain of Istan
250 Kifluorite Crystals - Sandswept Isles
250 Inscribed Shards - Domain of Kourna
250 Lump of Mistonium  - Jahai Bluffs
250 Branded Mass - Thunderhead Peaks
250 Mistborn Motes - Dragonfall

When I started the process, I had almost none of the zone currencies but had about 280 or so Trade Contracts, so almost halfway there.

You would think that grinding out all of those currencies a bit of a time would take forever, but after a considerable amount of research, I discovered that there is an Achievement in each of these zones that awards - wait for it - 250 of each currency.  The achievement is called "Return to [Zone Name]" for each zone and generally requires you to do, or have done somewhere between 6-9 things in each zone.  The easy part is that in each zone, three of those things are harvesting, gathering lumber, and mining - generally 15, 30, and 30.  When you mine something and get 3 ore from a particular node, that counts as 3 for purposes of this achievement, so it doesn't take too long in each zone. 

For about half the zones, having done the story quests and then these three gathering pieces was enough to get the achievement.  In a couple of zones, I also had to do a race of some sort - just complete it - not win.  In Thunderhead Peaks, I also had to open 3 Dwarven Chests, which are pretty much all over the place, and there were a couple of zones where I had to kill the end boss for one of the metas - which was easy enough with a group.

I also found a shortcut for getting the Trade Contracts.  Getting 100% map completion in any of the Crystal Desert zones awards 50 Trade Contracts.  So you'd think I'd need to finish at least four of them, but as it turns out, I managed to pick up enough by opening chests or as rewards for other things that I was doing as part of the map completion, that I only ended up having to do the map completion for two zones to go from 280 to 500.

Skyscale Lost

This collection happens right before the saddle and involves finding your Skyscale at the end of 21 different jumping puzzles around the world.  There is a shortcut available where you can purchase Extra-Pungent Skyscale Treats that will bring the Skyscale that you're hunting to you as long as you're in the general area of the jumping puzzle.  I could easily complete about half of the jumping puzzles, so I only purchased 9 of the Treats to circumvent the rest (you get one for free at the beginning of the series).  There are two that involve a Jackal mount, which I don't have, two that include defeating World Bosses, and one that consists of a meta event that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention, so there were only 5 puzzles that I couldn't get through.

Saving Skyscales

This is the one that comes right after the searching for eggs phase that I mentioned the last time.  It basically involves running all over the world and doing various things with your Skyscale egg.  There are a lot of guides out there with decent descriptions of the most efficient order to do this in (I used the one on Metabattle, which seemed okay).  The only piece that was complicated was that you had to have unlocked a bunch of doors in Derelict Delves to get a few of the pieces for this one.  I highly recommend watching a video to get through that if you haven't already unlocked all the Runestone Doors in Derelict Delve.  The other two pieces that are a bit complicated on this one are that getting into Joko's palace in the Desolation can be a bit challenging (use the spiral stairs way off on the right), and you have to complete the Path of Ascension event in Elon Riverlands for another portion.  A bunch of people were doing this one, so it wasn't bad once it started.

After all that (and all the stuff in Dragonfall that I described in my last blog post), I only have one set of collections left - sealing 21 different rift tears with a loaner skyscale - again, probably scattered all over the place.

FFXIV

While I haven't been playing much, there is an update on FFXIV.  I finished getting my Black Mage to max level and have started working on the Paladin, which is currently at level 56.

Dipping Back Into Guild Wars 2 A Bit

It has been three weeks since my last blog post, so I apologize for the delay.  There's no reason other than laziness, and maybe not too much to write about, although the list below would call that into question.  So here is the update:

Guild Wars 2

With the release of some new content in Guild Wars 2 recently, I decided to dip my toe back in a little bit.  I finished up the storyline to date in the new zone, and after doing that, I decided it might be an excellent time to work on getting a Skyscale mount.  Getting around some of these newer zones is easier with one, and participating in some of the groups for large meta-events almost requires it now.

For those unfamiliar with Guild Wars 2, the skyscale is the closest thing in the game to an actual flying mount.  It's more like one of the dragonriding mounts in World of Warcraft in terms of actual mechanics, without anywhere close to the speed or the range.  There's a Griffin mount also, but it's more of a glider than anything.

Acquiring a skyscale mount is a reasonably grindy endeavor, requiring you to complete 30 zone events, grind up a bunch of currencies, and complete many different collections that involve flying around various maps collecting stuff. However, you can't fly yet, so getting around to all of this stuff can be a challenge.  

I'm still in the early stages.  For those of you familiar with the grind, I just finished up the Injured Skyscale part, which I think means I'm about to start collecting eggs next.

World of Warcraft

I also spent some time in the new Forbidden Reach zone in World of Warcraft.  It's an interesting zone, and the campaign storyline through there was pretty decent, but at least for me, there's not much in the zone to keep me coming back.

I am getting even closer to having all the various factions at maximum renown.  I'm only one level away on both Dragonscale Expedition and Valdrakken and at least in the single digits on the other two.  That puts me behind most people, but I figure it's not bad, given how little I've been playing.

FFXIV

I don't know why I'm putting this piece of the update last since FFXIV continues to be the game I play the most.  I did manage to get my Sage to max level, which now means I have all of the healer specs maxed.  I think Scholar and White Mage are still my favorites.

I'm in the home stretch on the Black Mage, sitting at level 86.  I should finish that job up this week, at which point it will be on to the Paladin.  The Black Mage has been fun to play, but I still prefer Summoner of the casting classes.  Black Mage will give me all the casting classes done (except Blue Mage, but /shrug)

I've continued to also beat my head against the wall each week in Euphrosyne.  I've now had so much bad luck on caster gear that I think all of my other play specs have an equivalent amount of Euphrosyne gear as my main (I'm greeding on whatever drops on the last boss if there is no caster gear that I need that drops on that boss)

Caldwell's Gold and More FFXIV Leveling

ESO

The first update for the week is related to Elder Scrolls Online, where I managed to finish up Caldwell's gold.  Ebonheart Pact was the last faction that I had to get done.  When I finished the main story quest, I discovered that I didn't actually have everything fully checked off in the almanac for all zones except one, so I had to go back, do some quick research, and knock out one more "non-main-story" quest in each zone to get the final achievement.

The reward for this achievement is a helm appearance that looks just like Caldwell's, which comes in handy if you ever feel the need to wander a major city looking like a crazy person.

I also opened up the Wrothgar / Orsinius zone because that's where the crafting station for the Julianos set is.  I was able to craft two pieces to start and will work on the rest.  I either didn't have the trait that I wanted to be unlocked on other pieces yet or, for gloves, didn't have enough traits in total unlocked to make the piece at all, so more work to be done there.

FFXIV

I'm continuing to work on my Sage and Black Mage.  The Sage is sitting at level 83, so I've gotten quite a bit done there.  The Black Mage just hit level 60.  After these two are done, Paladin will be up next.  I may initially try doing this one without simultaneously leveling a dps spec.  I'm also running the 50/60/70/80 roulette on my summoner each day to accumulate the tomestones that I'm assuming I'll need for the next relic weapon stage, and also doing Euphrosyne each week.  

This past week, I completely screwed it up, though.  Three pieces of caster gear dropped, but two were pieces that I already had.  Gloves dropped on the last boss, but I clicked on Greed by mistake on a piece of tanking gear and ended up getting that instead of the Caster gloves that I'd rolled Need on.  So that sucked.

Beyond that, it has been a while since I set foot in Warcraft.  I'll probably give it another shot when the next patch with the new zone drops because I haven't entirely given up on it.  Just other stuff that I'm more interested in playing right now.

That's it for now.

Cheers,

Joar

On To Black Mage and Sage and Maybe Some ESO?

As you probably could have forecast from my last post, I managed to finish my Ninja and Warrior on their respective paths to level 90.  I have picked up both Sage and Black Mage and am working on both.  I've made decent progress; the Sage is around level 75, and the Black Mage is around level 56.  I'm enjoying both jobs so far.  The Sage initially felt a little underpowered to me, but as I've gotten the hang of it more, I'm getting a lot more comfortable handling damage spikes.  I've even run some of the Stormblood Alliance Raids on the Sage and have done just fine.

Once these two jobs are done, the next ones up are Paladin, Monk, Dark Knight, and Dragoon, probably in that order.  There is no particular reason Dragoon is going to be last.  It just seemed to roll out that way.

I also managed to get the next level of my relic weapon on my Summoner.  I've added the daily 50/60/70/80 Dungeon roulette to my routine just to ensure that I'm adequately stocked on the appropriate Tomestones for the next round.  I'll cut that off as soon as I've maxed those out.  I continue to have absolutely no luck in Euphrosyne, having now gone something like 4 weeks in a row without a single piece of caster gear dropping at all in the entire run, now even counting my chances of winning the roll.

In Warcraft, I've continued to do basically nothing.  I may try the new zone out when the next patch drops, but I'm still not feeling it right now.

There are two other games that I've dipped my toes back into over the last few weeks.  With new content out in Guild Wars 2, I did start that process.  I've also gone back into ESO with a new Chapter coming soon.  I only have one zone to finish now to wrap up Caldwell's Gold, so I'm working on getting that knocked out.  I hadn't been focused on crafting as much, but I somehow got my clothier skill up to level 50, so the next stop after Caldwell Gold will be the zone with the good crafting recipes for Magicka Templar - it's the Mother Julianos set, or something like that.  I don't remember what zone it is, but I know it's one I haven't played yet that's not part of the main storyline.

That's the update for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Home Stretch for both NIN and WAR

 I have played almost no World of Warcraft in the last 14 days.  Not even just logging in twice a week to knock out world quests on my main to keep his renown levels progressing.  My attention has swung back to FFXIV, and I may even pick up my Reaper in GW2 with new content available there.

In FFXIV, I'm in the home stretch on leveling my NIN and WAR to max level.  My Ninja is at level 87, and the Warrior just hit level 81.  The Arkasodara dailies are giving the Ninja a nice boost, which is why he is pulling ahead.  I managed to hit Sworn reputation level for them, so I grabbed my styling new hippo cart mount.

I've also started going back and making orchestrion rolls out of all the faded copies I had in my bags.  It took me a while to figure all that out and how to get the needed books, but now I seem to be on a roll.  Taking the time to gather ingredients and do the crafting has been a nice distraction.

Finally, I'm continuing to run Euphrosyne each week on my Summoner.  I think I've now hit three weeks of the 6 or 7 that I've done it that not a single piece of caster gear has dropped in the entire raid.  A bit frustrating, but I'll keep at it.  I assume they'll lift the one-piece-a-week gear limit at some point, making it slightly easier.

That's the update for now.  I should have more play time again starting next week, so hopefully more to report.

Cheers,

Joar

Shaman Hits Level 70

 As is normal lately, this update will be broken into two pieces, World of Warcraft updates and FFXIV.

World of Warcraft

As the title mentioned, I hit level 70 on the Shaman yesterday.  This is the first character that I leveled almost entirely through dungeon runs.  At 8 hours and 17 minutes played, it was about an hour and 20 minutes faster than my previous record holder and significantly faster than the average has been so far.  So that appears to definitely be the preferred approach.  And that's with dps queues.

The demon hunter is up next, and it goes without saying that I'll be following the same approach.

FFXIV

I'm continuing to work on both the ninja and warrior in FFXIV.  The rogue is now at level 78, and the warrior is at level 77, so I've made solid progress on both.  I'll be able to use the new Endwalker beast tribe quests on them starting soon, so that will speed things along a bit more.  After these two are done, the next up will be a combination of Sage and Black Mage, and those two will be followed by Paladin.  I may try including the leveling roulettes on the Paladin and doing that one straight instead of mixing it with a dps class.  Everyone tells me the leveling dungeons are okay with a tank, but I've always been so bad at it in WoW that I'm hesitant to try it.

That's it for now!

Cheers,

Joar

Thoughts on Some New Things in Both Warcraft and FFXIV

 I've been able to get through a few of the new things that have come out in both World of Warcraft and FFXIV recently.  On the Warcraft side, I had the chance to visit the Trading Post and also complete this month's challenge to get the mount on offer for the month.

It's a cool-looking mount.  As it turns out, you can get about 75% of the monthly points needed to obtain it just from completing various Love Is In The Air activities, none of which take terribly long.  Of course, you get quite a few points just from doing your regular stuff each month, so not sure using the holiday is all that necessary, but it ended up getting it done for me quite a bit faster than I likely would have done otherwise.

The other mount on offer from the Trading Post this month, for purchase with the coins you get, was the Celestial Steed, which I already have, so I can save those coins up for next month.

In other World of Warcraft news, I've mostly been doing World Quests and weekly quests on Joar to continue to work on faction renown.  I did dip back into leveling my Shaman, although I've been mostly running dungeons to avoid the higher-level squishiness issue.  I'm currently sitting at level 67, so getting pretty close.

FFXIV

On the Final Fantasy front, I finished the latest installment of the Tataru questline.  I also got a 2nd piece of gear from the alliance raid, so hopefully, that's a sign of better luck in the coming weeks.  Beyond that, I continue to focus on leveling the Ninja and Warrior, who are sitting at levels 71 and 70, respectively.  

With Square's most recent earnings release making it clear that the next FFXIV expansion won't be coming in 2023, I'm confident that I should be able to level all of the remaining combat jobs to max level before the next expansion hits.  Besides the Ninja and Warrior that I'm currently working on, the others that I still have to go include Sage, Black Mage, Paladin, Monk, Dark Knight, and Dragoon.

More Balanced Play Time Between FFXIV and WoW

I had very little play time last week because of some work-related travel, so this update is delayed by a week.  Despite those limitations, I have had some exciting developments in both games.  

In World of Warcraft, I managed to get my four-piece set bonus on Joar.  Three of the four set pieces came from my Vault rather than as raid drops, but I'm okay with that.  I'm mostly doing regular world quests and other activities for more renown, and I may go back to leveling the shaman and other alts now that the Joar gearing process is pretty much done.  The only downside to those plans is that I really don't enjoy leveling in this expansion as much as I have in the past.  The warlock, hunter, and tank classes have generally been acceptable, but most of the other classes end up feeling a little too squishy to me to be all that enjoyable.

While I still enjoy Warcraft, the leveling process was always the thing I enjoyed most about it, and they seem to have killed that.  It definitely hasn't been the case since Battle for Azeroth, and that makes me pretty sad.

In FFXIV news, I also managed to get a house finally.  With the extra wards, it seems that everyone wanting one was finally able to close the deal.  Mine is in Shirogane.  I probably should have tried for Mists if I had known it would be that easy since I spend most of my time in Gridania, but I enjoy it just the same.

I've also spent more time leveling some of my alt jobs.  I've gotten the Warrior to level 66 and the Ninja to level 65.  Still a ways to go on both of those, but I'm trying to do a split of roulettes each day between the two now, so hopefully, it starts going a little more quickly.  The plan is to start leveling Sage after I have both of those done, and I will probably do BLM through the leveling roulettes simultaneously.

I also finally got my first piece of gear out of the new Alliance Raid.  It doesn't fit with the last Pandemonium set, so I had to glam over the whole thing.  Hopefully, that will mean better luck with the new raid going forward.

Cheers,

Joar