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