Hunter Hits 90 and Thinking About FFXIV

I finally managed to hit 90 on my hunter over the weekend, with a leveling time that was about 5 1/2 hours faster than my warlock as the first character through.  It came in at 11 1/2 hours, which still feels very long.  I'm now moving on to starting on my druid, which I'll be doing as balance, as usual.  For this particular druid.  The 2nd character that I finished in War Within was 9 hours and 45 minutes, so it's not a ton longer than that.  And my 2nd character in Dragonflight was actually the exact same time, so maybe I'm overthinking things a bit.

By comparison, when I go back to Cataclysm, my 2nd character took over 25 hours of play time, so we've streamlined things quite a bit from there. 

I knocked out a bunch of the side quests in both Harandar and Void Storm, so there was good progress there.  At some point, even though it won't be super efficient, I'll need to go back and finish up the rest of the side quests to get Loremaster knocked out.

I'm hoping they do something to speed up the leveling process a little bit at some point, but I don't think I'm anywhere close to what I would consider a fast casual leveling speed yet, so we'll see.

I was also checking out the FFXIV announcements from FanFest.  I'm definitely interested in the new expansion.  With my play time being so limited right now, I'm hesitant to dive back into getting caught up on FFXIV, but I will admit that I'm intrigued.   Maybe once we've moved out of this house, I'll resub and get through the rest of the Dawntrail content.  

That's pretty much the update for now.  

Cheers,

Joar

The Tub Is In, The Ceiling is Getting Fixed, and I Have a Bat Door!!

 Quick update for anyone following the ongoing adventure of trying to sell a house while simultaneously dismantling a life in Ohio and rebuilding one in Arizona.

The soaking tub went in yesterday with one little issue around a missing part on the faucet, because nothing in this process can ever go right the first time. The drywall and ceiling repair is happening today. If that sounds fast, it is — we've been pushing hard to get the inspection clock moving again, and our backup buyers have been patient and cooperative throughout all of this. Once the ceiling work is done, we're looking at opening the inspection window as early as this week.

Closing has also moved. We're now looking at a May 15th closing date rather than May 6th, but we still have occupancy through May 31, so it doesn't really have a ripple effect on other stuff. 

On the driveway situation: we made an offer of a 50% credit to the buyers, which they have accepted, so that's good news. And it will be on them to take care of the actual driveway replacement after we're gone!

We also discovered bats. It's not a crisis, but enough that we brought in a remediation company. They sealed everything up last week and installed a "bat door" so the little guys could get out but not back in, then they're coming back on Thursday to clean up our attic from all the bat droppings. So that's fun.  My realtor didn't think we could charge extra for having a bat door, although I'm not sure she understands the coolness factor.

The bigger picture, if you're new here: this house sale is part of a full relocation to Arizona. We've got transitional housing lined up, AirBnBs booked across a few areas we're considering settling in, and a moving truck that needs a confirmed pickup date. Between DJ's graduation in Pittsburgh in early May and Jake's graduation here later that month, the next six weeks are as full as any I can remember. Moving is never clean. This one is particularly not clean.

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On to gaming news.

The warlock is my main focus right now. The gear is coming together though — starting to see the build perform the way it's supposed to, which makes all the work so far feel more worth it.  I'm still grinding out renown and doing delves when I can.  I need to try out the new Prey thing as well, which I haven't quite gotten too yet.

The hunter hit 88 and I'm working through Voidstorm. I tried to hit some of the side quests in the last two zones that I missed on the warlock, but I'm guessing I'll need a few more toons to finish them all up.  But I'll be interested in seeing what the hunter's leveling time looks like.

More updates soon, on all fronts.

Cheers,

Joar

March Look Back and Mostly Gearing My Main

I've mostly been doing all the required weekly stuff on Joar to continue to gear him up - so all the renown events in each zone, and all the weekly quests.  I'm not as big a fan of the weekly dungeon quest for rep in Midnight as I was in War Within, since each of the dungeons seems to take quite a bit longer this time around.  Maybe that will get better as gear improves, but so far they've been a bit of a slog.  I'm doing them in Follower mode, so queuing for a normal may be a better answer.

With all that, I haven't made a ton of progress on the Hunter.  He's at level 85 and has just gotten to the Harandar zone.  I'm trying to do all the side quests there since I didn't do them on my main.

I haven't covered all the delves yet, but the ones I've done have been good, and I'm looking forward to continuing that path for my various alts.

I also knocked out all the Darkmoon Faire profession quests this week, although I still continue to debate whether I shouldn't just switch everyone over to Mining and Herbalism.

Up after the Hunter will be the Druid, who I'm planning to continue leveling as Balance, at least for this particular Druid.

In March, I had a decent amount of playtime.  I came in at almost exactly 24 hours, all of which was spent in World of Warcraft.  That's still pretty far from my pace last year, when I averaged closer to 36 hours per month, but given everything going on right now, it's not too bad.

That's the update for now.  With any luck, next week I'll have finished the Hunter and can see how the leveling time compares.

Cheers,

Joar