All The Posts I Wrote In My Head You May Have Missed

Transmog Tank 

I’ve three characters on BWR below 100 and I’ve been questing and running dungeons with them to try to get them to 100 before BFA.  Unlikely I’ll make it but, it’s a good distraction, and gotta have goals.

The lowest level of these is my Elemental Shaman, who was at 63 when I started these runs and is now a powerful 66.

In the Mana Tombs last night, we had one of those runs.  The tank pulled pulled pulled.  Everyone died died died.   In the first hallway.   Poof, he was gone.  One of the group said not only was he terrible, all his gear was Transmog.  Transmog Tank!  It was a rough dungeon, with only a DK and I making it all the way through, lots of personnel changes besides the tank.

The Other Terrible Two

My other non-100s are a Warrior (in Draenor) and surprise! a Hunter.  The Warrior is undergeared and can’t fight a noodle.  The Hunter feels like she’s shooting cotton balls.   They do ok in dungeons, but solo, yech.

LFR Raids

I’ve been trying to slog through the endless Broken Shore Questline with my Druid, which includes some required Raids.   I carefully watch the videos then queue up, and they are not so bad as I feared.

They’re PUG-A-Licious, as it turns out.   They feel like dungeon groups with more people in them.

All except Kil’jaeden.   What a royal, nasty sob.  I will never do that one again.  So I say now.

Beta

A slow slog.   Trying to get to 115 to try the Island Adventures again (just did once, was meh).   Lots of problems with quests and disconnects this week.

Kind of hate my new armor, though I guess Ath looks like a sort of Ghost Pirate which does fit in with the world.

Worth the price of admission is, as soon as I got a new weapon the godawful Lion King/Scar cat form went away and there is my beloved cat form back.   I didn’t even want to play the character for a long time in Legion because I hated the ScarCat.   Die, ScarCat die.   Hello my Kitty!

LOTRO

Sufficiently twitchy for Battle For Azeroth and leaving the Broken Isles that I updated my LOTRO client.   Didn’t play, but my Rogue character is calling me.

ESO

Bought Summerset Isles, and haven’t stepped in, but any day now.

Classic Wow Dev Water Cooler

I thought the water cooler was great.  I’m not familiar with the chosen patch, but found the explanation of how they chose it and the issues they’re facing updating it to work with current day systems fascinating.    Nothing I’ve read makes it seem any less appealing. 

Fallout 76

My first thought was disappointment and the thought “It just looks like a shooter”. 

I spent some years in West Virginia, and that’s a beautiful place.  I can’t picture a huge environment with “dozens” of players being anything you can ever just play through solo.   I wouldn’t mind at all cooperating building a community or venturing out in groups, but with no npcs, just other players, you know the antagonist of the game is those other players in some big shooter-y pvp fest that has zero appeal to me.

I’ll wait for the full fledged MMO.

The Sinking City

The trailer for this upcoming game kept popping up on my Facebook timeline and it looks really intriguing.   It is supposed to be Lovecraftian exploration and investigation.   They have the creepiness factor right on.   I liked the making of video where they show how they’re crafting the city.

https://thesinkingcity.com/en

BFA Time To Level That Gnome

I was enjoying moving my cadre of characters through beta, when all of a sudden it seems time is running out.

My plan at first was to narrow down to playing just three characters in the beta, so I could finish all the quests in Drustvar and Stormsong Valley (covered the Tiragarde area in alpha).

Now Battle For Azeroth seems to be teetering even closer, and I have so much to do with my live characters…I’m picking just one.

And the winner is:

How she got the job as The Soloist:

Ranged fighter.  Better chance of not being forced to step in #%!* in dungeon fights, just because she’s melee.

Her Blink ability gets her where she’s going fast and out of harm’s way.

Before the last patch she was pretty powerful.   Now she’s getting kicked in most fights, but this too shall pass.  Fire Mage seems reliably well suited to most fights, after everything is sorted out.

She can shoot while moving on several skills, doesn’t have to be interrupted every time she tries to cast.

The ability to float from a height.  Invaluable in getting around strange terrains.

She’s my Tailor character, always my favorite craft after Alchemy.

She’s a Gnome!   Adorable is always an asset.

Her only drawback is she hasn’t a self heal, and no, Ice Block isn’t a heal.

I’m going all in with her, and did the unthinkable, I looked at the Guild recruiting list and requested to join a guild.  Eeep!   

Draenor Diaries: Strawfigure Queues Up

I thought I might queue Strawfigure up for the Bloodmaul Slag Mines to see how she did on that Beginner Dungeon.  My live Shadow Priest is now level 70 and the skills gained in those next 20 levels weren’t particularly significant so I think I can play her through a dungeon as well as any other class.

I waited 22 minutes in queue. Sent some Followers on Missions. Because I am Insta-100, these characters haven’t been leveling with me, and they don’t have the array of Counter Skills needed for many missions.  I’m sending these poor things out with 0-22% chance of Mission Success.  They still get the XP.

I don’t have the group of Followers I’ve earned on the Leveling Realm because these were Insta-Assigned via Garrison Ford, the garrison guru on the 100 Realm.  I always Choose Onaala, for instance and I don’t have her.  She counters many of the things I can’t counter with this set.  I wonder if I can swap for my real Follower set with the NPC at my Garrison who snares your Followers away when you get over  the allowed number.

When my Leveling Realm character got to 100, I went back to my garrison, upped it to level 3 and voila, happiness.  There were new quests waiting, I could pick a couple of new garrison buildings, and I could go through and complete any achievements I hadn’t done.  I hadn’t worked on crafting much and I could work on that now.  I thought, “there is so much fun stuff to do at level 100”.

With my Insta character, I don’t have that feeling at all.  She was given Skinning and Alchemy as her Professions.  Not the best combination.

There are quest lines to go places I’ve been and done, but meh, are they really worth spending time on for her?  So what can I do with this girl while she waits in an interminable queue?  Hmmpf.

Things To Do In Your Garrison

I’m seeing comments now and then about people “spending all day alone in their garrison”.   This has Basement Mouth Breather written all over it, right?   Scummy low people HIDING FROM OTHERS in a multi-player game. Gasp!  So icky!

You really wouldn’t spend all your time there unless you are the sort who sits around Stormwind and never plays, but you’re just snacking and chatting.  There do seem to be a few of those in the live game.

Here in a nutshell are the things you’d drop into your Garrison for:

Pick up quests
Turn in and pick up work orders
Repair
Fly to other locations
Mine Ores
Pick Herbs
Craft
Use Bank
Start and complete Follower Missions
Start a Garrison invasion
Mail items
Upgrade Garrison buildings
Get Daily Fishing Quests
Snooze safely in front of your fireplace

Booted!

Aha, don’t log into the game in a day or so to Beta, and as promised, I have been booted from the Pseudo Beta Guild.   I must say it makes me mostly happy because now I’m just representing me again and a teeny bit Cone of Shame-ish that I was ejected.   Hmmpf.