Dragonflight Season 1 Week 1

I was about to say finally week 1 of season 1... But it feels like release went by in a blur.

This week had world quests as weekly event, and the reward was worth more than it was in the previous two expansions it felt like - 2500 rep which gives on renown with a faction of your choice. And rep bonus from world quests, so could chip away at the ones I need recipes from.

The m+ affixes were Fortified - Raging - Quacking - Thundering. It's hard to judge how hard or not this one is, since everyone is undergeared and I haven't looked at the other fortified weeks. I did not go hard from reset day, but it seems way easier than SL season 1 with the little I did do - and people timed a 20 in the first 3 days. So KSM seems to very realistic to pug to, and even easier to reach if I can play with the same people I did last season.

For the first time ever, I saw two 100s being rolled for an item. And I lost the reroll... Fun to have seen though :)

Personal Progress

Keystones

This was my intended character for personal score prog before xmas, and it ended up higher than I thought it would. LavaRaeSeaCha for a bunch of keys on saturday, and RaeSeaCha for a few more on sunday while others were busy raiding. The 10 was a bit hard, both because I was behind in gear (10-15 ilevels behind the dps in the group), the sheer amount of visuals effects in nokhud so it was incredibly hard to see quacking, dealing with thundering and all the dungeon effects at the same time was a crash after most of the other dungeons had been fairly easy. The 8s and 9s went really well, except the Life Pools one that was a struggle but had a lenient timer.

My intended long term personal key progress character was behind on gear, 15 iLevels to be exact, when the week started. Had to get some upgrades before I got into +2s, and then just did one of each for score and gear upgrades. Will do the same next week and then just jump up a few key levels every new fortified week and do one of each every week. Is the thought.

A last minute m0/m+ group led to getting more than 0 score and a pve loot option too. BM is still BM, but much like in pvp they feel kinda squishy in dungeons.

Gearing

All 3 characters got ilevel upgrades, but no vaults so no giga screenshot worthy gearing up moments.

Dragonriding

Like most of the non m+/pvp things this reset dragonriding was not done a lot. I did the world quests, and did this race again just to have a screenshot of a progress. But just a bit of progress every week to not exhaust the fun of it was also the actual plan so...

Pet Battles

Questline: On the quest "Bill Buckler". [Advanced one step]

# of pets: 497 [+1]

# of level 25 pets: 3

PvP pet battle win/loss: 0-0

I got around to trying to understand where in the questline I would be, and have any about what state my pets were in and so on. It was so much easier just to start on the alt account from scratch...

But found the quest, defeated the trainer that was the quest objective and also picked up a pet along the way.

Professions

Dominator changed Herbalism to Alchemy, and has changed professions for the first time since TBC launched. Every character saw some increase in skill and knowledge this week.

Except for the friday when I was horribly sick, I was bad at gathering however. So the crafting increases burned through my stockpiles of resources. Need to balance that out better next reset.

Also need to mass craft drums.

Need 11 renown with Iskaari on Dom for fish cooking recipes which is the biggest rep target at the moment.

PVP

I made Esmënet my pvp character, after playing healer and a it of melee in bgs all the time from tbc to when I stopped at end of WOD. The honor/conquest system this time around seemed much less of a hassle to deal with for someone returning, as it was easy to get on par with others with basic items and people with high rating wont simply stomp you from the start. Will see if that impression holds, however.

Cant remember ever seeing the Ashran boss die since it became a BG, so that was kinda shocking.

Solo queue for arena has arrived via Solo Shuffle. It did not go so well when at 1500 mmr, but after two matches my mmr had tanked a lot and felt I was more on par with these people. But not a game decider.

Managed to both conquest cap and earn enough honor in solo shuffle for my first ever pvp option in the vault.

If I keep at this, I think I'll stay BM in epic bgs and switch to survival in regular bgs and solo shuffle.

Another impression is that doing shuffles until 3 vault options would be best for gearing, but would eat up a lot of casual BG time. I don't know what I want out of this yet, so will be interesting to see what I end up doing.

Social Progress

Casual playmates

Did some normals and heroics with these duckheads.

Endgame playmates

New and old, RaeSeaCha with Lava added. 2 or 3 chested all the keys until the Nokhud Offensive 10 we depleted. The visual clutter, dealing with Thundering on top of both the bosses and a bunch of trash being hard made this messy, but it was real nice it was with friendly people and not a pug.

Character Summaries

Dominator [Social Dungeon Tank Progress Character]

Human Paladin [Level 70]

Did some of the weekly solo stuff like dragonspear, accord, citadel stuff etc at the start of the week that bumped my ilevel a little bit. And some dragonriding, including changing the appearance a bit. But didn't really do a lot of sidequests and such for reputation gains.

Did all 8 m+ dungeons on +2 solo, just to have a look before playing with people I knew would push. They seemed easy. Then did the tradition thing now and played premade on saturday, plus some extra keys on sunday when raiding went on. Some keys were really punishing, or in the case of Nokhud, just overly busy with the visual effects clutter. Next reset will see a lot of nerfs to some of the problem stuff, so maybe the dungeons end up being a bit more even.

Got to play with my friends, and I feel picking paladin was the right choice and got some gear and score while at it. A good week.

Character Stats

Guild: House of Small Gods

Main spec: Protection

Talents: BIEAwtJ2KpR8WbGzhz/jy2AP8USaikiodAtIJlWTSiERiEAAAAAAAAAAAAAA0EJJpJQSUSRkElDoEA

Professions: Enchanting 40/100 [-] - Alchemy 30/100 [+30] - Cooking 50/100 [-] - Fishing 100/100.

iLevel: 377 [+6]

m+ Score: 1035 [+1035]

Valor spent/earned: 0/1500 [+1500]

Wutteät [Personal Dungeon Tank Progress Character]

Night Elf Demon Hunter [Level 70]

Did dragonspear, obsidian key, accord and the weekly world quest thing for solo content. Got some profession stuff done.

Did all 8 keys on +2 to get started on m+ progress. That brought some upgrades. Still more fun to play than protection paladin, so my competition against myself is on!

Also did some normals and heroics as havoc at the end of the reset, with the idea of being able to trade gear to Tara and Wind, but only got to trade away a couple of pieces - and got one upgrade myself. I do not think I will bother playing Havoc in that group however, and play hunter if we do more dungeons during the xmas reset (and later).

Decent week, the only negative is that this character wasn't supposed to be level 70. Only 10 iLevels behind Dom now too.

Character Stats

Guild: House of Small Gods

Main spec: Vengeance

Talents: BUkACnvaHJn8GSPD6tpaeczPTBAgIIJRSAEJCQDQ0iEJJJJJJtkISSSokkEAAAAA

Professions: Skinning 100/100 - Leatherworking 51/100 [+11]

iLevel: 367 [+11]

m+ Score: 532 [+532]

Valor spent/earned: 0/1500 [+1500]

Esmënet [Dungeon/PVP DPS Progress Character]

Dark Iron Dwarf Hunter [Level 70]

My excuse for leveling this character is that I had the option of doing some normal dungeons with Ulve and Wind while leveling, then I was sick so I herbed and mined a lot. Finished all the dungeon quests, the new Ring of Blood thing and made a key for Wrathion, plus one heroic to round it off. Could at least queue random heroics, and hope to be keyready for when Wind is, or for groups where tanks are filled and I am not a motor.

Already completed the big goal of taming some new pets. Sadly the dragonkin and ottuks needs renown and some other unlock I have not managed to find out what is before I can tame any of them.

Started with PVP on this one since I had a craving, and being sick gave me more time in front of computer. Managed to get full honor gear and conquest, and a pvp vault option from it.

Ended up with a last minute m0 life pools, then a +2 life pools for some pve progress too.

Good and fun week, but this character should not have been level 70.

Character Stats

Guild: House of Small Gods

Main spec: Beast Mastery

Talents: B0PAIlFMjeNhnEouGfV8Ij2uS5ACaJAIEAAAAAAAAAAAaEpIhWEJSiE5AhWCRIJEJJhGJRA

Professions: Herbalism 69/100 [+69] - Mining 68/100 [+68].

iLevel/PVP iLevel: 350 [+50] / 411 [+111]

m+ Score: 50. [+50]

Valor spent/earned: 0/200 [+200].

Conquest spent/earned: 0/1350 [+1350]

Solo Shuffle rating: 569 [+569]

Rank log

While I dont take much stock in what rank I am on the server, region or world there's some very interesting info I can glean from it. Like, how many others are trying hard to equal ish score from every dungeon, how many are doing weekly no leaver keys for vaults at the start and so on. Currently, Protection paladins seems more popular on ED than Vengeance DHs, even though most tier lists I've seen put Vengeance above Prot. A bunch of the Vengeance DHs seems to be Havoc mains that has tanked some on the side, too.

Random weekly thoughts

Right now there is A LOT in the game that is fun. Not only because of new stuff, but that the devs seems to have thought "how to make this fun" and not "how to make this a hassle and keep people around for it". I don't think there is any part of the game that doesn't feel improved in this expansion in some way. The gearing process might be a tad convoluted now, but also easier to deal with if you dont think about the details too much.

The social bit has been a rollercoaster so far, but that is not the expansion's fault...