Have put in some serious new patch hours on this character to make it be up to snuff for raid these past couple of weeks. Generally been lots of fun and done varied stuff, with progress in raid, m+ and gear.
Since last time in world content
Korthia, Campaign and other patch content
Did the renown/anima weekly quests and caught up with the campaign quests to cap out renown. Since next reset will have the capstone Dreamweaver ability having renown sorted for the raid that week is important. The Draka campaign quest was tedious and the emotional impact sorta drawn out, so it didn't do much for me. The Guests campaign quest felt shorter and had interesting lore tidbits so was more to my liking.
Did Tazavesh for the first time, with a guild group. Some of it was pretty fun; the boss mechanics were as new and innovative as they looked in the research vids I watched. The bugs and trash mechanics not as fun. But hard to get a solid opinion on the place before it gets released as an m+ dungeon. Also the gear is not really useful...
Torghast
Did one layer 11 and one layer 10 run for cinders, to set me up for next reset. So now only need the Tormentors event and layer 11 to craft the rank 6 next reset. Also got into Adamantine vaults when doing a run with Muffin and Tara, but it had nothing I wanted so can safely not bother in future.
Crafting
Used up the rest of the gold I had to buy up Lightless Silk on the AH to be able to craft the rank 6 cloak legendary base item on Navarim. After I had drained my stock of silk on all characters just to find out I needed 400 more for the vestige. But at least I can craft rank 4/6 cloaks for the alts that needs them now.
Gold
From drowning in gold in BFA enough to buy the expansion, a few months of game time and sit on capped tokens with some gold left over to buy BOEs at the start of Shadowlands, my "bank" character now sits at this massive hoard of gold....
Less spending on mats, more farming needed. Or something.
Since last time in m+
Status
Affix sets were Fortified/Inspiring/Grievous and Tyrannical/Spiteful/Necrotic. Neither sets I enjoy much. During the Fortified week I had a couple runs in a guild group with Grongle tanking, including a 12 that bumped vault some, and had all 3 options available. The Tyrannical week I got 2 guild runs last minute for a 15 as highest vault piece, but will only have 2 options next vault.
Scoring runs
Fortified had scoring runs in all dungeons, Tyrannical had 4:
De Other Side 12 (Depleted) [Fortified] & 10 (+) [Tyrannical]
The fortified run had a lot of hickups from damage intake which led to depleting. Guildgroup.
The 10 tyrannical was pretty smooth, in spite of the fury warrior being an obvious "get me boosted" guy. Pug.
Plaguefall 12 (+) [Fortified] & 10 (+) [Tyrannical]
The 12 Plaguefall was with a streamer; it was a showcase of tiers of ability. The tank was the alt of some cutting edge raider with pretty good score on main. The healer and the other hunter a few key levels above me so had some tricks I was not accustomed to. And the DK did not seem used to his role at all. Glad I do not do keys like this normally, being a streamer doing keys must be hella confusing. Streamkey.
The 10 PF was 3 people wanting to take charge, and as usual it was a mess at the beginning with one person missing the shroud because there was another plan. But the rest of the dungeon somehow went fine anyway. So I dodged the endless aborted PF runs on tyrannical this time... Pug.
Mists of Tirna Scithe 12 (+) [Fortified]
Did multiple Tirna runs the fortified week with incremental gains, this one was last minute I guess. This place is just weird with inspiring as the maze has some really nasty pulls or very slow pulls depending on what you do with those mobs. Guildgroup +1.
Halls of Atonement 11 (+) [Fortified]
I have no recollections about this key. Pug.
Spires of Ascension 11 (+) [Fortified] & 15 (Depleted) [Tyrannical]
The fortified run was clean, but there was some reaction to using lust on pull on the last boss. I tried asking why that was so bad, but the response was "just used to having it used when landing on p2", so it didn't turn into a flaming contest. Pug.
The tyrannical run was a last minute guild run after a night of waits, and I was intending to get the last dungeon I needed for a third vault option for my DH. But since it was a 15 and a dungeon that has 3 of my good pieces, I managed to sneak in with hunter. The run was fairly clean, but the bosses taking so long on Tyrannical now has made the timer pretty tight so didn't make it.
Necrotic Wake 10 (+) [Fortified]
No real recollection of this run except the tank commenting every time someone got hit by mechanics. Pug.
Sanguine Depths 10 (+) [Fortified]
No recollection of this run except it was pretty smooth. Still don't know how people seem to be so skittish about the place. Pug.
Theater of Pain 10 (+) [Fortified] & 13 (+) Tyrannical
The Fortified I have no recollection of, other than it was a pug.
The Tyrannical was a guild group, and was silky smooth but even still didn't have too much time left.
Overall
Score last post: 1193
Score now: 1743
Change: +550
Pretty happy with score after just 3 weeks and mostly pugging. 1700 is the breakpoint to upgrade stuff with valor to 242, so can now in comfort just cash in vault and upgrade any drops with valor. While the first week had quad digit score change and the second week a triple digit score change, the third week was down to double digits. Which means less spam of progress keys going forward unless guild group happens I assume.
When it comes to m+ gear it has been a mixed back. I got really nice boots the first vault, but that is a domination gem slot in raid. The second I got the haste neck, which would be another placeholder item that could be upgraded with a lower ilevel neck from either heroic raid or a drop in Spires. I got some good gloves, a ring and pants as drops however, so I have something to spend valor on.
Going forward need to try to get into Spires, Plaguefall and Theater runs for drops to upgrade... Unless vault decides to help out at some point. And quit m+ once I start getting two options from heroic raid and let some other character push rating.
Since last time in raiding
Status
So far I've stuck to just doing the raid with the guild; no pugging nor LFR. The raid team also seems to have stabilized after the lack of signups the first week into the 12-15 range we had most of the time in BFA. Progress has also so far been about the same. And generally a good mood. So it's been very nice.
Progress
Progress has only happened in Normal so far:
Normal Tarragrue (normal). Wonder if this is still a gimmick fight on heroic and mythic, or just free lack of loot there too?
Odin's eye (normal)... Kinda feel like it needs the missing mechanic from heroic to have something going on.
Nerzhul (normal). No wipe this time. Also feels like it is missing some complexity which I assume heroic will have some more of.
Soulrender (normal). I need to be better at watching the goo buildup.
Painsmith (normal). The best boss in this tier, a contender for all time favorite raid boss for me. Fairly basic but also clever use of space with lots of stuff going on AND no camera crap since it's open space.
Guardian of the First Ones (normal). This one was a real struggle the first few pulls, but what felt like a small detail change made it doable. Not the biggest fan of this one.
Fatescribe (normal). This is another fight I liked a lot, but perhaps a bit lengthy. The voice acting that makes it sound like the Doomsayer from Darkest Dungeon and having to do runes with adds and other regular mechanics up is kinda fun. Just a small spin (pun intended) on fairly normal mechanics again.
Kel'Thuzad (normal). Adds, glacial spikes, phylatecary, all the trappings - also decent length compared to some of the other late raid bosses. Fine, but not at the heights of some of the other bosses in here.
Also defeated The Nine (normal) which was kinda boring.
Overall
Raiding has been pretty fun; normal at least doesn't have any super annoying bosses. And most of them are some of the better raid bosses I've been to.
Performance wise I am not exactly popping off, but not terrible as on some bosses in Castle. Something as easy as getting a better weapon would help a lot.
The first week I still didn't get any shards, but got a trinket and a ring - both decent placeholder items. The second week I got another trinket, a belt (that has a domination socket) and an unholy shard - even if it's just the speed one at least I am getting 1/3 of the way to the setbonus. Doubt I will pick a raidpiece from the vault with m+ loot available...
Think the plan is to go do normal sylv next week and then start heroic, which might make vault choices harder in the future depending on how we do. And it might also mean I might need to do LFR for the bosses we don't do in heroic for a chance at more shards...
This week in alt projects
Dominator (Human Protection Paladin [Venthyr])
Did Korthia for crystals, upgraded some gear with research and valor capped for mats... Except saving the valor instead of spending it on mats (again).
Navarim (Human Destruction Warlock [Kyrian])
Did Korthia for crystals and upgraded some gear with research. Also did LFR but got nothing. And learned rank 4 cloak base item and vestige of origins.
Stormlufser (Dwarf Elemental Shaman [Venthyr])
Did Korthia for crystals and valor capped for mats.
Mimara (Lightforged Draenei Protection Paladin [Kyrian])
Did Korthia for crystals and valor capped for mats.
Adagabo (Night Elf Guardian Druid [Night Fae])
Did Korthia for crystals and upgraded some gear with research.
Serwaswathan (Draenei Frost Mage [Night Fae])
Did Korthia for crystals and upgraded some gear with research.
Ihnanna (Human Windwalker Monk [Necrolord])
Did Korthia for crystals and upgraded some gear with research.
Hollowfury (Human Frost DK [Venthyr])
Leveled to 60, opened some of the catch up gear boxes and was iLevel 192 and had a legendary 1 hour after hitting 60. Also did one epic bg that netted me a honor trinket and neck that was missing from the gear boxes. And did LFR and got shards from 3/3 bosses, now having 100% of the shards between all my characters.
It's almost as if the zones were made to be viewed while flying, or generally be played through with flying... Became a lot more fun just to play in them, and enjoy how nice they look after the flying unlock.
Ghoset (Blood Elf Vengeance DH [Kyrian])
Selling off crystals on AH, otherwise unplayed since the plan b to play horde is not needed.
Thought of the week
I think the assaults is the worst incarnation they have made so far. At the start having quests instead of random bar filling was nice. But when the assault comes back again with the same quests, and the same finale, it gets stale. No real reward except a drop of cinders if you are grinding for the rank 6 legendary makes them lack a carrot too.
So it's the second content part after dropping the world boss I am skipping going forward.
Lesson of the week
This week's lesson is as old as time itself. Should do more research before executing crafting plans. As most people my jaw dropped to the floor seeing the rank 6 cloak base item price at the AH, and decided to skill up cloak crafting to rank 6 to make it myself.
And then you learn the Vestige of Origins for clothing seeing what you need to craft.
Buying a rank 6 and some rank 3 cloaks for alts instead might have been the better option. Or picked up tailoring on the character that have leatherworking...
Mount of the week
Goal Progress
m+ goals
1743 rating out of 2000 goal (+550 rating) - progress.
Raid goals
9/10 Normal Bosses killed out of 10/10 goal (+7 bosses) - progress.
0/10 Heroic Bosses killed out of 10/10 goal (+0 bosses) - no progress.
Soft Goals
0 rank 6 Beast Mastery Legendary out of 1 rank 6 Beast Mastery Legendary goal (+0) - no progress.
Night Fae Renown 51 out of Night Fae Renown 80 goal (+6 renown) - progress.
230 Beast Mastery iLevel out of 246+ Beast Mastery iLevel (+7 iLevels) - progress.
Stats
Covenant: Night Fae (Renown 51)
Main Spec: Beast Mastery (230 iLevel) [1743 score]
Offspec: -
Main Secondaries: Critical Strike (26%) & Haste (25%)
Legos: Cloak of the Master Rylakstalker (rank 4)
Soulbind: Dream Weaver (Podtender - Resilience of the Hunter - Spirit Attunement - Soothing Voice - Bloodletting - Rejuvenating Wind - Faerie Dust - Field of Blossoms - One With The Beast - Waking Dreams - Reversal of Fortune)
Raid Prog: 9/10 Normal Sanctum.
Professions: Alchemy (172) & Engineering (75)
Going forward
Plan is to:
*Do raid each week.
*Pug 4 keys in the 10-12 range - if a guild group appears try to get in.
*Do campaign until Dreamweaver capstone and then not bother with that either unless the end reward is big.
*Pick vault items and upgrade drops with valor that are not in the domination socket slots, or trinkets.
*The 2k score goal can wait until late season when interests fracture among guildies and people do more of their own thing.
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