Before this season I had a goal about cutting down on dungeons, but haven't managed to find the post with what the goal was due to all of my spam on here :)
So just another ponder post here.
I pugged a lot, so it's not that surprising every spec appeared. The trinity of holy priest - destro lock - surv hunter comes from pugs, showing off how popular they were when they could compete with specs often seen in the guild.
Fury warrior always in groups I join, resto druids always in groups I make.
Dominator, my poor ignored paladin these last few seasons got a spike in upgrades early and kept getting an upgrade from doing a single key a week for a while. Due to the valor cap a lot of this gear evolution is artificial, same with tier pieces. The game just feels a lot better on alts since you can play the actual game and not just feel like the game devs are being dumb for no reason.
TH spent forever getting normal cleared, so that one Skrillex kill was after the normal Jailor run I think? Then the one Pantheon kills as a prot pala tank with HoSM.
I was not a big fan of this tier. The whole expansion they dropped the ball on heroic raid scaling, and then they do a giga nerf of the last 3-4 bosses something like 4 months into the patch... So it's even more of a "just dont play for 3 months and get stuff for free" feeling, just like with m+ score, tier pieces and valor.
Not quite 2 months to clear normal, but... For the first time since I started season 1 BFA I did not get curve, and glad I didn't stick around for it either.
Oh boy. So the first few weeks had the progress I've had in all SL seasons more or less. After a couple of weeks of the patch I had my first meltdown with the "regular" m+ group.So I stopped doing premades and avoided guild groups for a while so progress flattened out. Then I played in guild groups without being on voice for a while and it was still flat. Then another small peak where I was doing guild group as normal after I was on easter vacation in an attempt to go back to normal guild relationships, only to instantly regret it. Left TH since I didn't see it as fixable anymore. Then an extended period of time where I just pugged (mostly horde). Then I played with people on friends list for a few weeks. But that ended up causing problems for people not me, so I cut back on it and went back to pugging on alts that caused another sharp drop.
Can't say it ever felt like I got to test my "limits" this season. I am so far away from that point the score is a bit meaningless. But the moment I am alone I don't even think about pushing keys, it's mostly been because everyone else has been so motivated it's been infectious. For example, on Dominator I have a 6 depleted Tazavesh Streets tyrannical key from week 1 of the season. I had a +17 last tyrannical week for that dungeon but never did it, and it would have been massive score. I had a bunch of 13s as best runs on Wuttëat until the last couple of weeks where I randomly got 15s on them, when doing a couple of half pugs.
Getting a stable group, that is on the same page about going for score at the same time, and ideally when everyone is geared is the best way to get score in my opinion. Especially if that happens on the easier weeks. Which simply didn't happen at all for me this season, and just barely the last 2 seasons.
Reaching said "limit" just seems like an utopia anyway. Someone in my current guild simply can't get into groups that gives score. The people you like might play the wrong roles. All kind of nonsense.
Prot pala (152) beats Vengeance (148). Simply because I did not play Vengeance at all during necrotic weeks.
As for the rest of the specs, at least I reigned in the altoholism some from last season. Guardian was only to try the set in a couple of dungeons. Havoc only because I was trying to help Urzien get a chestpiece. All three monkspecs because I was doing HoSG m+ groups and wanted to be able to do all three roles - but then I was away from the game for some time twice.
My raid main the enhance shaman I mostly pugged 4 keys on after the tank I mostly played with in guild keys annoyed me like no other wow person has done I think. Combined with people wanting to do as high as possible no matter who was in those groups, so we had several non-completes in guild, more than I've had in pugs the entire season I think.
After Ulve went on a break, this was more or less the group I played with for a few weeks. So not so weird.
As I am allergic to skips, the rogue was lost on me as usual. Not a big fan of the comp in general, but the results were still ok.
79 Sanguine runs, 30 Plaguefall runs. Sanguine, Mists and TOP have been really easy to get groups for, so if I just wanted to play or get vault options that's what I've done.
Gambit is a nice and quick, so that's sorta the default if I just want to get a key in while in a hurry. But I had to pug early in the season to like figure some stuff out so it wasn't until end of season I started doing the place a lot.
Plaguefall is dead last as usual, no fan of puging the place still. Even if I can't remember the last time I had hickups there, besides some REALLY weird skips/big pulls that went to hell but was done normal after.
In line with the gearing and highest key done each week thingie. I stopped playing much if at all with TH groups and stagnated at one point. But got the odd point from pugs and the few friends list groups towards the end.
Also cut in the number of dungeons, think it's been over 600 the last few seasons? Mostly because the back half of the season had a more "reasonable" amount of dungeons done. The start was horrible when it came to doing too many as usual however.
And here is the reason everything changed. For posterity, Taralei was in 67 runs this season, out of 474 runs.
I did not enjoy playing in this setup much. When the season started, I had a favorable impression of all these people. But the group dynamic became highly annoying to me. As in it's the worst organized wow stuff I've ever been a part of. And at the time, it was the only guild group in town, so was longer any point to try to get something else sorted.
Since that point I blacklisted one person, got blacklisted by one, and played a bit with the other two. And I fully expect to have none of them to appear on my m+ buddies next season. It's actually a bit sad writing this... But I had years of fun with some that have appeared on these m+ buddy lists and done hundreds of dungeons with them, so not so weird friction happens in the end.
EDIT: As an interesting tidbit, I've played with everyone bar 1 again outside that constellation. And it was back to normal then, enjoyed it a lot. Just goes to show that people alone and people in groups are two different beasts.
The key points from this season (as with the previous two seasons) has been communication stuff:
If I voice my opinion, it gets laughed away, and then later get told it's not really what I want, just leave whatever it is I am doing, WoW or not.
If I voice my opinion in a group setting a few times and it doesn't "stick", I should voice it directly to someone. It might not have an effect, but at least it will clarify things. And I can point to it later.
If I am the only one in the group that wants to do X, while the rest wants to do Y - don't bother. The other seasons I felt like the others wanted to do higher stuff, but wasn't THAT fussed about doing things my pace. So I felt a bit bad for making people do things slower. But this season it was 4 people wanting to do X, while I wanted to do Y, but was willing to do Z - that left everyone a bit miffed.
If the guild doesn't want to do things I want to do, and I get shit for then doing what I want apart from guild, LEAVE. No matter how much you like the people in it. There are nice people other places, too.
What I want to see in SL season 4 recap:
Play less than 300 dungeons.
Play less than 10 specs.
Have a least someone be in more than 10% of my runs, ideally someone from HoSG or Ulve if she plays a lot.
A smoother rio growth. Not the quick rush into stagnation.
Not end up in any drama that upsets the stats :)
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