tWW season 2 #1: Value of time

Reached the point of nearly 3 full resets of the new season and raid tier, so time for an update...

Esmënet (Hunter)

• Cleared normal LoN in the Exiles social raid 3 times. Also killed the first boss on HC 2 times and Carnage 1 time.

• Have 15 completed m+ pug keys, and 2 disbands. Taken it slow and incremental key level increases as normal for me.

• Have done 13 tier 8 delves.

• Done a smattering of overworld events/quests for gold and some herbing and mining.

• 4-set, 658 crafted weapon and a fair amount of good champion pieces otherwise. Except trinkets and a neck, which is why the overall iLevel isn't very high. Have something like 6 copies of the worst possible delve trinket on champion track, and one of them on heroic track. Bit of a repeat of the first tWW delve season where I just got the same pieces over and over and over. Which made me stop doing delves, and I doubt I will keep up with 4+ delves a week next update on this character...

Esmë (Paladin)

• Done 20ish tier 11 delves, Gallywix on story mode, 2 m+ dungeons as Retribution in Epiphany guild m+ night group and 8 m+ dungeons as Protection in scheduled m+ groups with RaeSea.

• Has 2-set, a 675 crafted weapon and 658 crafted shield as the main highlights gearwise. Neck and cloak currently veteran track, rest champion or hero track. So the most stacked character I have at the moment.

• It's been fun playing with only friends and in a limited capacity again. I also enjoy the Templar hero talents more than the Lightsmith stuff which was very clunky.

Wutteät (Demon Hunter)

• Done 9 tier 11 Delves, Gallywix on Story mode and a single pug m+.

• Crafted a 675 and a 658 Warglaive from Delve crests and put two hero track items in the catalyst for 2/2 set. Not had much luck with gear from the content nor vault, but also small sample size.

• Vengeance seems pretty fun as usual, and playing without addons on the character makes games sounds less annoying so much more zen when playing.

Esmëralda (Mage)

• Pugged the first 3 bosses in LoN Normal, done 2 m+ pug keys and 8 tier 8 Delves.

• Has 4-set and a crafted 658 staff and has a general good spread of champion pieces. Just haven't farmed the crests to spike the overall iLevel.

• Frost seems more fun in dungeons this time around, not sure why. Might be because Frostfire is in the vogue.

• Not really having an aim with the character, but want to have reasonable gear at the end of the season, and keep in the Mage loop. Simply because it's fun to play.

Esmënehr (warlock)

• Done a bunch of undermine world quests, some overworld events and the weekly dungeon quest for rep, gold and tailoring/enchanting materials. Decent raw generation with not much time/effort needed.

• Done all the LFR wings once and the timewalking event last week. Got 2 tier pieces in the vault, but little in the ways of getting gear outside of it. Also did Gallywix in Story Mode for the Enchanted Crest.

• Mostly played Destruction with random talents as I haven't done anything that requires output. Watching Chaos Bolts and the low APM required is nice for the stuff the character is doing.

Content opinions with changed time frames

During the start of the season, I went from having a lot of spare time to having very little outside weekends. So besides the "I want to do what is fun" some amount of "is this content useful for character growth" entered the field. So here's what I prioritizing with limited time:

• 3 tier 11 bountiful delves (1 with bounty) on Esmë the Tank and 1 whatever delve I use the item that summons the Underpin (normally also an 11 bountiful). [Best value crest time in game, despite delves being boring for me]

• A scheduled m+ session on Esmë during the weekend, ideally 4 dungeons. [Weekly highlight]

• A round of herbing/mining of about an hour with an audiobook on. [For the chill part and prevents draining the coffers of gold]

• An LFR wing, all the world quests/dailies and the weekly dungeon rep quest on Esmënehr the Warlock. [Gold generation]

• Some tier 11 bountiful delves on Wutteät, pug m+ on Esmënet and maybe pug some normal raid on something if I have leftover time. For reaching some pve goals in the long run.

Currently I need the better part of a weekend to get all this, so I might have to go back even on this reduced scheduling...

War Within season 2 start and goal progress

Season 2 starts tomorrow, so here's the season start plans, goals and status:

Plans for the start

• Clear the raid on Normal on Mage or Hunter early on (still undecided).

• Check out the m+ dungeons on Hunter (as in do them all on a 2-3).

• Focus on doing m+ on paladin, and on scheduled groups instead of pugs.

• Keep up with professions and gold generation, and run a surplus.

Goals of the season

• Have Rae be in 15%+ of my keys and one of Sear's characters be in 10%+ of my keys at the end of the season.

• Get KSM on Wutteät.

• Get Curve on Mage and/or Hunter.

• Have one million warband bank gold at the end of the season.

Expansion status

Had some goals at the start of the expansion, let's see how I am progressing:

Main Goal

• Get Curve in all raids on the same character. [Status (promising): Esmënet and Esmëralda started a streak]

• Avoid having others rely on me tanking progress keys. [Status (promising): tanked less than 10 keys in scheduled group play, and don't think any of them gave me rating]

Bonus Goals

• Have one million gold at the end of the expansion. [Status (promising): 658 451 gold.]

• Have all "played with" spots on RIO review have a higher % [edit in numbers here when they become available] than in Dragonflight. [Status (grim): Low % on people in first Review, and not in control of who I play with during guild m+ nights, not played with Rae and Sea so far]

• Level Esmë-versions of Mage, Hunter, Paladin, Warlock and Druid to 80. [Status: Complete, see image above.]

• Less keys done overall than in Dragonflight. [Status (promising): Several hundred keys compared to same season in DF.]

• Get KSM all seasons on the same character. [Stauts (promising): Esmënet and Wutteät started a streak.]

I started the expansion with 1.5 million gold or so, but bought 5 tokens for gold when the gold cost was way lower than it is now. And then stopped doing stuff that rewards raw gold or sell materials on the AH, combined with crafting a lot of stuff and raid repairs racking up. The offseson week had no endgame content, so managed to actually put around 100 000 gold back in so it didn't turn into a complete disaster.

Offseason week impressions

Not interested in just doing quests and some overworld grinding, so I mostly logged for some professions and do some world content for raw gold and materials.

The car didn't really give me the same joy as the dragonriding upgrade, mostly due to how it handles. And the job system being the overworld grind that it is sapping any potential fun out of using the car as a mount. Oh well.

Music is ace, as it usually is. And theme is also great. I just don't really see myself going there much except get the crafting spark...

The War Within Season 1 Recap

The season of horrible dungeons is over... With next season going to give it a run for most horrible dungeons in a season, but regardless, here is the recap post!

This time they count both raid and m+, so it stopped being a useful statistic? But it's been a ret paladin season - good numbers and facerolling play style usually means a spec gets very popular. Been a lot of them in raids, and at least one in every pug m+ it feels like.

Started the season doing both the raid and some keys on druid. Then killed more raid bosses/week on Mage so it took over. After the 2 month I almost only raided and did keys on Hunter, so it ended like it has done every season for a while now.

I attended a lot of reclears after I came back, so this number jumped up a bit. First time we barely did normal raid skips, not sure why since the two last bosses had good loot.

So this stat seems broken as always. It claims my progression on HC Ansurek is 3 pulls, which is the case for my hunter. But I had maybe 50 attemps spread out on mage and druid before my break, so maybe it just counts for the first character that kills the boss?

Those 102 days includes ~56 days of break, so it's not really a useful metric.

7s max for KSM scoring, the 8-9-10 keys are from guild m+ nights. Very boring graph :)

5 specs on 4 classes, down from 6 specs on 6 classes in DF season 1. I did not enjoy m+ on the two classes I started with, so not that shocking. Would not have liked the BM hunter either considering how lousy the aoe damage was a the start, but they fixed that somewhat.

Did not play with a stable group this season, so the most played comped must be really random. Not one with ret paladin seems weird. Come to think of it this might have been that one night I played my Mage in an Exiles guild group, and we did like 5 keys?

Mists tops with 29 and Siege bottom with 13. Mists, Grim Batol and Ara Kara the big three in guild m+, not sure how Necrotic Wake ended up number 3. Besides Mists, not a terrible spread.

Some early score with no pushing, then late season guild m+ nights led to some score, and pugged some keys we never do with guild for some more. 2440 was the account score this time. 149 dungeons is not less than 100, but it's 205 dungeons less than Dragonflight season 1.

Zøne top buddy with 13 runs (8,7%) and Slimall number 5 with 6 runs (4%). All of these are from guild m+ night, with Zøne and Fenaii and Kitiara the ones that doesnt run alts. Fenaii has appeared another season for the reason. Zøne I have not played with outside raids for 2 years almost until the m+ nights started; he seems to be one of those people that play 5-10 hours a week every week 52 weeks a year and gets to cross off all the goals that way.

It's really weird with no Tara, Ruthe, Rae or Sear - or any consistent group at all. Once I stopped tanking the possiblities weren't there anymore though, so it's just one of those things of the past.

In summary

This turned into a raiding season with a big break, and then show up for one raid night and m+ night towards the end of the season that racked up the m+ and raid boss kills numbers to "proper" numbers.

I don't think the season was very good. The raid and dungeons were not tuned well. The raid was enjoyable from theme/mechanical standpoint, but the dungeons were not. I did not find an m+ group I enjoyed playing much with, which is also a good thing as there is less obligation issues.

Overall, just a forgettable season and can only impove from here.