January Month In Review

January was a much more balanced month in gaming for me than what has been typical lately.  My total play time of about 33 1/2 hours comes in above my average from last year.  

As usual, World of Warcraft takes the top spot as I finished leveling all of those alts, and also jumped into the pre-patch content with my core group of characters.  I've also been dabbling a little more in housing, adding some furniture to my now slightly larger house and turning the exterior into a bit of a garden.  

I also resubscribed to FFXIV in January and have started catching up on the content there.  I'm about two patches behind on the MSQ, but I have finished the Cruiserweight raid tier, so I think I'm ready to plow through to 7.3 and 7.4.  

I also played the new content in Elder Scrolls Online, worked on a few Golden Pursuits, and started working on map completion again.  Finally, in Guild Wars 2, I started running a 2nd character through the new content and am pretty close to finishing it.  After that, I plan to run my Ranger through.

With Midnight early access starting at the end of February, I'll probably be spending more time balanced across games like this until that begins, after which there will be a lot of focus on leveling and getting up to speed on the new expansion.  After all, I only have 52 max-level alts to level!

That's it for now!

Cheers!

Joar

Initial Thoughts on the Pre-Patch

I've been playing a decent amount of World of Warcraft for the past week or so and wanted to provide some of my thoughts on the pre-patch so far.  I'm looking forward to the event starting later today and whatever gear catch-up mechanic is coming down the way.

I've been playing all of the characters I consider my core, running them through delves and other content to get a feel for how the classes play.  This core group for me includes demonology warlock, BM hunter, ret paladin, blood death knight, frost mage, elemental shaman and balance druid.  At this point, they all feel pretty decent to me, with DK, paladin and frost mage probably being my favorite at the moment.  Balance druid feels the most off.  I haven't tried my demon hunter yet, but he's probably up next.

More of my addons are working than I was expecting.  The ones that still aren't include my favorite nameplate addon, an addon I use to quickly gather mail from my mailbox, and my casting bar addon.  The default UI seems fine for the casting bar now, so I'm not sure I'll miss it much.

I've been messing around with delves on various characters so much that I'm going to have vault rewards on 5 different characters to grab this week, so that should be fun.

In FFXIV, I finally finished the Cruiserweight raid, so I am ready to move on to the 7.3 MSQ content.  I still have three more weeks of the last boss to go to complete the weapon, which I'm not really looking forward to, but I'll struggle through that.

Beyond that, I've played a little bit of ESO and Guild Wars 2, but not a ton at this point.  The rest of this week will probably be heavily focused on World of Warcraft with the new event, but then we'll see how long that holds my attention.

That is the update for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Back to World of Warcraft for Now

My playtime has been pretty limited over the past week or so because of out-of-town swim meets and various appointments associated with getting the house ready to put on the market in March.  After the update from last week, I found myself mostly focused on going back and gearing up some of my other core Warcraft characters. 

None of them are probably geared enough to really make much progress on delves at max level right now.  We'll see what the catch-up event looks like in the next week or so, but in the meantime, I may focus on weeklies and world quests to try to get them caught up.

I have continued to play a little bit of Elder Scrolls and Guild Wars 2 as well, so it's been a pretty balanced past week.  I need to put together some kind of spreadsheet to help me track my progress on zone completion for ESO, because that's another thing I'd like to get done while there is some downtime.

I'm definitely interested in seeing what the next piece of the story line looks like as we get into the Warcraft pre-patch.  I tend to use a lot of addons, so I'm also anxious to see which ones are borked and which still work.  I probably could have researched this in advance, but I'd rather just be surprised. 

It is also still my plan to keep trying with FFXIV to get caught up on the content.  I know it's going to be a long time before a new expansion comes, so I feel like I have plenty of time to work on it.

Not much of an update this week.  Next week, I'll have my initial thoughts on the pre-patch, so I may do this post later in the week after the event goes live.

Cheers,

Joar

Drifting Between Games

I reinstalled and resubscribed to FFXIV and started trying to catch my character up, but then fairly quickly remembered why I had stopped playing in the first place after spending several hours in queue for various dungeons, trials, and raids to try to advance the story or just gear up to be ready for the next patch.

This isn't as bad when you're doing things as current content, and the queues are not as long because everyone is doing those particular dungeons, but it's definitely a lot worse when you are trying to get caught up.  I do love the characters and the story, but I just don't think it fits my play style very well right now.

I also started leveling a Barbarian through the new season in Diablo 4, but I found there wasn't much to get me very excited, so I put that down as well.  One can only do so many Helltides before it starts to get a bit dull, especially now that the rifts from last season are gone.

In Elder Scrolls Online, I started finishing up the remaining quests and other tasks for the Solstice zone and am almost done with it.  I never did finish the main story quest for the zone, as there is some kind of one-hit mechanic on the fight at the very end that kept getting the best of me.  I tried it about 7-8 times, following the advice I saw on various threads to always keep moving, but it didn't seem to make a difference for me.  If I see that they've adjusted the fight down the road, I might go back and give it another try; otherwise, that one is just going to sit there for a bit.  The other piece of the Solstice zone story has been good, though!

I've also noticed that my Magplar doesn't seem as strong as he used to be, so I'm not sure if something got nerfed there while I wasn't playing.

In Guild Wars 2, I've also started running my mechanist through the newest expansion, which has been going really well so far, so I'll keep at that until the latest World of Warcraft content hits shortly.

That's the update for now.

Cheers,

Joar

2025 Year In Review Part 2

Thanks to Kevin Brill and the TempusGameIt app, I'm now able to provide more detail about how my gameplay broke out over the course of the year.  In 2025, I played for a total of 18 days and 17 minutes, which works out to about 36 hours per month.  

World of Warcraft was my most-played game with 324 hours total, and the rest was split pretty evenly between Guild Wars 2 (43 hours), Diablo 4 (33 hours), and Elder Scrolls Online (30 hours).

Because my weekends tend to be dedicated to swim meets, my days with the most playtime were Monday and Friday, while my least were Saturday and Sunday.  

For the actual month of December, my game time totaled 28 hours, with 26 of that in World of Warcraft and the rest split among the other 3.  

Since my last update, I also managed to get that Gnome Hunter to max level, and so I've now switched over to playing the last of the Worm Cult storyline on Elder Scrolls Online.  The last boss of the new content seems a bit over-tuned for quest content, so I'm struggling to finish that one up. I'm going to take a few more shots at that today and then move back to working on Diablo 4.

That is the update for now!

Cheers!

Joar

2025 Year In Review

 I just hit level 73 on my Gnome Survival Hunter. It's the last of my World of Warcraft alts to be leveled to max level.  Once it is done, it will make 52 max-level characters. I've enjoyed playing him as Survival. I've not done that spec in a pretty long time. It's changed quite a bit since I last played it, and I'm enjoying it a lot this time around.

After the World of Warcraft stuff is done, I'm going to finish up the new content in Elder Scrolls Online, and then run a new character through the latest season of Diablo 4. By the time all of that is done, I'm guessing the pre-patch content will be out for Midnight, so that will at least take some of my attention.

My leveling tracker

After that, I'm going to run two characters through the new Guild Wars 2 expansion, and if I still have time left after that, I'll probably get started on yet another WoW alt.  

For this year overall, I managed to level 42 characters to max level in WoW. A few of those were already sitting at level 70, but there was a really huge slug that were sitting at level 50, and then I've had a handful of low-level alts to knock out. I also spent a little time in Legion Remix and in both the old and new expansions in Guild Wars 2. his year also saw the introduction of the "Fractal Finder" in Guild Wars 2, so I spent a decent chunk of time doing a lot of those to get my first-ever legendary in Guild Wars 2.  

Finally, I also spent a decent amount of time in Diablo 4, getting two characters to max level, including my first-ever seasonal character. The first was a Necromacer, and the second was a Spiritborn.  

Next week, I'll share some insight into my gaming goals for 2026 (hint: I now have 52 alts that need to be leveled up to max in Midnight).

That's it for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Almost Down to One

There's not much of an update this week, so I'm going to keep it short. I'm almost done leveling the Earthen Warlock, who is currently sitting at level 78.   leveled this one as Affliction, and did Warlords of Draenor for the early part.   That worked out fine, but I'm not sure it will prove to be faster than just doing Dragonflight. I might do Battle for Azeroth for the next one, because that's an expansion that I haven't touched in a while.

I've been doing enough timewalking dungeons to make sure that I'm on track for the achievement and maintaining the xp bonus, but I haven't really been doing much beyond that.

After this, there is just my Gnome Hunter to go, and then we'll be all done. I may do this one as Survival, because that's a spec that I haven't really messed with in a long time.

Despite continuing to hear great things about the new Paladin class in Diablo 4, I'm pretty sure that I'm still going to just level a Barbarian for my next character in the new season.  

That's about it for now. Next week, I'll try to get out here with a regular year-in-review post, so we'll see how that goes.  

Cheers,

Joar

Only Two to Go

Because of various swim meets and other commitments with the youngest Joarling, I did not get the chance to post last week. More on that in a bit. 

Since my last post, I managed to finish up that Vulpera warlock and also get a Mecha-gnome Hunter to max level. The leveling time from scratch on the Hunter was about 8 hours and 45 minutes, so it was pretty quick.  

I have gotten a house and done a bit of decorating, but I haven't spent a ton of time on it. Because I've been playing so long, I have quite a bit of decorating stuff already available to me, so I've been able to fill up and level my place a decent amount already. I'll very likely return to that at some point.

That leaves me with only two existing characters to go - an Earthen Warlock, which I've already gotten to level 28, and then a random Gnome Hunter that I don't even remember creating.

After that, I'll probably finish the new Elder Scrolls content, run a new character through the new Diablo 4 season, and then maybe run a few more characters through the latest GW2 expansion. But who knows!

On the personal front, last week, the youngest Joarling competed in the "Winter Jr. Nationals" swimming meet, which is basically the highest-level meet available to 18-and-under swimmers in the US. He had a really outstanding meet, earning bronze in both the 50 Free and the 100 Breast, and making it back to finals in the 100 Free.  He and his teammates also won gold in the 200 Medley Relay and 200 Free Relay, and silver in the 400 Free Relay. In the 200 Free Relay, they broke a 12-year-old meet record set by a group of four kids, three of whom would go on to be Olympians, two of them gold medalists.  

It was a pretty good week for him all around!

Cheers,

Joar

November Month In Review

 I was back to a more typical level of game play during November, coming in at right around 45 hours. For the first time in quite a while, World of Warcraft was not my top game, as I spent a bunch of time playing Diablo 4 this month, which came in at a total of 25 hours, as I got a Necromancer to max level as well as a Spiritborn and started working on gearing them up through Torment levels as well. Diablo 4 may continue to get a decent amount of play time for a bit as I'll likely play a new character through the new season coming up next week.

I haven't decided between Rogue and Barbarian yet, although it sounds like Rogue isn't supposed to be as strong for this coming season as it was last season, so I may be heading the Barbarian route.

The next game in the stack was World of Warcraft, where I continued to work on leveling the alt army. That may take up a bunch of my time starting later this week, as there will be some new content and the much-anticipated player housing dropping. I will definitely be getting that sorted out and equipped with all the comforts of home before going back to finish leveling those last four toons.

I've gotten my Vulpera Warlock to level 75, and then I have two hunters and one more warlock to go. With the new leveling bonuses also coming out this week, those won't take long once I really focus.

Then last was Guild Wars 2, coming in at 9 hours as I ran the new expansion activity on my Reaper. I haven't really started it on my Machinist yet, but I will probably do that if I get some time in December and January.

I've also just picked up Elder Scrolls Online a bit today, as I have new content there to do with the 2nd part of the Worm Cult stuff, having dropped a while ago, so you may see that one get added to the list starting in December.

That's the update for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Back to WoW Leveling

I finished getting my Spiritborn to max level and unlocked Torment 1 on him, although I haven't done much beyond that. With the season ending in the next week or two, there's probably not much point in doing a hard press now. I switched back to my Necromancer to finish up the Deeds of a Champion quest line because I might find having all that stuff unlocked handy for the next season.

With Diablo 4 mostly done for me, I've switched back to leveling alts in WoW for now. I have now finished that last rogue and have moved on to the leftover allied race toons from expansions past. Right now, I'm working on a Vulpera warlock. He's currently sitting at level 68, so he's almost ready for the push through War Within. After that, I have a Mecha-gnome hunter, an Earthen Warlock, and then a random Gnome hunter that I'm not even sure where it came from. And then I'll be done with alt leveling until Midnight.

I'm doing this one as Demonology. While I don't usually level as Demo, what the heck, why not? I haven't made it around to going back and running any more characters through the latest Guild Wars 2 expansion, but if I finish up my WoW alts, the new ESO content, and then get a new character through the seasonal Diablo 4 content, I might do that next.

That's it for now.

Cheers,

Joar

Leveling a Seasonal Character in Diablo 4

 I settled on my Spiritborn as the class I was going to level through Season 10. So far, it has worked really well. I'm using an "Evade Storm Leveling" build that just chews things up. You can find it here:  https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/builds/spiritborn-mr-ronit-spiritborn-leveling

I mainly started doing stuff in Helltides, and then as my gear got better, I started mixing in some Nightmare dungeons. Then I needed to work on my renown in each zone a bit, so around level 45 or so, I switched to doing Strongholds and Dungeons and stuff to unlock the first three renown bonuses in each zone. I'm at level 56 now and have two more zones to finish, so I'll probably need to hop back into Nightmare dungeons to finish off the last two levels.

This is my first time playing seasonal content in Diablo 4, so I don't really have anything to compare it to. The Chaos Perks and similar things are fun. I'm still leveling, so I'm not playing higher-level content to try to get Chaos Armor and stuff like that, but the storyline and extra perks definitely spice up the leveling experience a bit.

I've been struggling with whether I want to do much at endgame in Diablo 4 once I'm finished.   I've watched some videos and looked at a few guides, and I've got the basic gist of what I need to do to progress through the difficulty levels.  

One of the things that is hard to figure out is that so many sites have different tier lists of what the best builds are for endgame right now, and they are all over the place on what makes sense. That's a good thing because it may mean there are lots of strong viable options. It could also mean that a few of the sites that I'm looking at don't know what they're talking about. I've been looking at Icy Veins, Wowhead, Maxroll.gg, and Mobalytics. They all have good stuff and interesting guides, but, like I said, not a ton of consistency.

So I may try a bit of endgame on either the Necromancer or Spiritborn while I have time in between WoW alts. And at least I have two different characters to try out.

Cheers,

Joar