Shadowlands Season 3 Week 3

Unlocks for this week was the possibility to learn to fly in Zereth Mortis. One of the requirements was doing this week's new campaign quest now at chapter 6, only one more to go.

Affixes were Tyrannical - Raging - Volcanic - Encrypted. Much like last week really, these affixes work well as long as people the pulls don't get too greedy. Makes a great pair with last week affixes if one wants to just get score when everyone the group is guaranteed to be geared. In pugs some nuked Wo for damage reduction and speed, but not sure it was intended. But it beats the Vy mob too at this point for me.

The campaign chapter was... ok I suppose. It had this revelation kind of plot, but the whole function of this afterlife thing doesn't work for me. The kill mob quests sorta made sense again, so there's that.

Stormlufser the Awakened

Prio 1, raid and 4 keys the intention.

Got a lousy vault, picked a 255 chest which was 3 iLevel upgrade just to have something to upgrade into tier. Got belt from ZM world boss. Upgraded IQD to 259. Got a 255 Haste/Verse weapon as a dungeon drop. Got a 252 trinket traded to me in raid that seems bugged? Decent week.

Raid (8)

Vigilant Guardian [Normal] (DPS: 6.4k [identical, wrong talents and gear])

Skolex [Normal] (DPS: 7.5k [+0.3k])

Artificer [Normal] (DPS: 7.2k [+0.7k])

Dausegne [Normal] (DPS: 7.1k [+0.4k])

Halondrus [Normal] (DPS: 8.4k [+0.6k])

Prototype Pantheon [Normal] (DPS: 7.5k [+0.7k])

Lihuvim [Normal] (DPS: 5.9k [+1.2k])

Vigilant Guardian [Heroic - Progress] (DPS: 7.8k)

Keys (6)

Theater of Pain +10 ** [Guild]

Mists of Tirna Scithe +12 * [Guild]

Sanguine Depths +10 *

Spires of Ascension +10 **

Necrotic Wake +10 * [Guild]

Theater of Pain +10 * [Partial Guild]

Keys cancelled (1)

Necrotic Wake +12 [Guild]

World/Other

ZM World Boss (with loot!)

Replenishing the Reservoir

1x Upper Reaches layer 9

1x Calling

Stats

iLevel: 255 [+3]

Legendary items: Doom Winds [r7], Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones [r7], Echoes of the Great Sundering [r3], Cloak of the Windspeaker [r4], Handguards of the Primal Tides [r1], Deeptremor Signet [r1]

Score: 1274 [+160]

Raid prog: 7/10 Normal [-]

Professions: Herbalism (max) and Skinning (max)

Valor total: 2250 [+750]

Wutteät the Cryptic

Prio 2. 8 keys intended.

Vault had minor iLevel chest upgrade I picked for tier upgrade down the road. Upgraded Scale to 272 and upgraded the haste/verse neck to 259 with valor. For the first time I got the Spires haste/verse legs at 262 from dungeons (or rather, Tara traded them to me). Had upgrades, and 3/4 tier upgrade slots has a valid item now.

Keys (8)

Theater of Pain +14 [Guild]

Spires of Ascension +13 * [Guild]

Mists of Tirna Scithe +14 * [Guild]

Plaguefall +15 [Guild]

Halls of Atonement +14 * [Guild]

Tazavesh Gambit +11 [Guild]

Spires of Ascension +15 * [Guild]

Tazavesh Streets +12 * [Guild]

World/Other

ZM World Boss (no loot)

1x Upper Reaches layer 9

Replenishing the Reservoir

2x Callings

Stats

iLevel: 259 [+2]

Legendary items: Scorched Soul Shackles (r7), Everburn (r6), Collective Anguish (r4), Darkglare Medallion (r1)

Score: 2128 [+96]

Raid prog: -

Professions: Leatherworking (max) and Enchanting (max)

Valor total: 2250 [+750]

Dominator the Seeker

Prio 3. 4 keys, revered with Enlightened and story campaign up to date intended.

The only character with a real vault piece this week; 16 iLevel legs upgrade with decent stats. Upgraded gloves from vault last week to 262 with valor. Got a 255 main hand with bad stats in a dungeon. Upgraded the main legendary from 225 to 291. Another good chunk of upgrades.

Keys (4)

Mists of Tirna Scithe +10 *

Halls of Atonement +10 *

Sanguine Depths +11 **

Theater of Pain +10 *

World/Other

Replenishing the Reservoir

Patterns within Patterns

Campaign Chapter 6

Revered with Enlightened

ZM World Boss (no loot)

1x Upper Reaches Layer 9

3x Callings

Unlocked ZM Flying

Stats

iLevel: 250 (+6)

Legendary items: Seal of Righteous Fury (r7) [+4]

Score: 1103 [+254]

Raid prog: -

Professions: Herbalism (max) and Enchanting (max)

Valor total: 2250 [+750]

Hollowfury the Faceless One

Prio 4. 4 keys intended.

Got a 3 ilevel upgrade legs from vault. Got a 252 Scale and 255 crit/mastery gloves from dungeons. Upgraded the Scale to 255 with valor. OK progress for low playtime again.

Keys (4)

Mists of Tirna Scithe +10 **

Sanguine Depths +9 ** [Guild]

De Other Side +11 [Guild]

Mists of Tirna Scithe +10 * [Guild]

World/Other

ZM World Boss (no loot)

Replenishing the Reservoir

1x Calling

1x Upper Reaches layer 9

Patterns within Patterns

Stats

iLevel: 249 [+2]

Legendary items: Waistguard of the Crimson Rune (r6), Rage of the Frozen Champion (r1)

Score: 900 [+238]

Raid prog: 0

Professions: Herbalism (max) and Mining (max)

Valor total: 2250 [+750]

Notes from this week

Raid

Keystones

The Encrypted affix is so dumb. The amount of bugs related to it spawning has been wild; we did Necrotic Wake where double sets spawned on the second boss - and the same boss has had none spawn. Same has happened in TOP on the minibosses that should have them. In pugs a lot of the time people only cleave the affix mob so it's a tossup what mob spawns. Some people don't understand why the healer is always out of mana if just doing Vy while they never are if doing Uhr. This will not be missed.

So far the assumed progress is what I expected. Could time 14s and 15s if nobody makes any mistakes this week. From next week could most likely consistently do 15s.

World/Other

Done with the Enlightened repgrind, but a problem I did not foresee has come on the table. Flux. Just doing the world boss + 4 keys a week is only 400ish flux. Wutteät and Stormlufser used tokens from preseason patch vaults on Flux so they are ok, but Dominator and Hollowfury might have to do some more ZM content for flux to be able to afford tier upgrades.

Have started the great expansion bank clearing, in an attempt to not sit with full banks with 2 days left before a new expansion. Cooking a bunch of haste and verse food, giving the gbank the rest or selling. Going through all the hoarded gear with a comb. Scrapping unwanted legendaries. All that kinda stuff. A good time to get money back for some crafted stuff too, and not just raw gold craft.

Motivation

Motivation gone. Not because of the game, but the built up group annoyances has finally gotten the better of me. I have put myself on a 7 day timeout and just play Lost Ark or something. When I return, I will cleanse some of this progress and goal oriented mindset and go back to playing WoW the way I used to before BFA. Was thinking of doing that from next expansion, but the time is now. Got rid of the spreadsheet tracker, will play more horde to get away from the current guild mentality and will do random tidbits instead of a gear, score and borrowed power systems tracker I have done in this blog posts. I no longer feel like I belong in the guild since my interests diverge from the others, but the people are nice so dabbling a bit in raid with the shaman and be yet another raid logger is a possibility however.

After the raid and uninstalling I am wondering what the reason will be for returning. My breaks have usually been like 10-14 days so far since the 3 month break in early BFA. I have cut the ropes on the bridges now so that the social lure is gone, so assuming no other games giving the m+ satisfaction leading me to reinstall. So 5g on that.

Planned for this week

Keystones

Wutteät 8x keys (nothing aimed for)

Dominator 4x keys (pugging 5-9s)

Hollowfury 4x keys (pugging 5-9s)

Stormlufser 4x keys (pugging 5-9s) [2 keys over]

Raid

Stormlufser attending guild raid

World/other

Dominator reaching revered with Enlightened & complete campaign chapter 6.

Plans for next week