MMORPG Archives - Page 383 of 399 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Veritech Pilots Unite!

January 24, 2014 by Belghast

Profundity is Gone

For those that followed me during the recent couple day bump of new readers… I am rarely as cogent or pointed as those topics come off as. Most of the time the Tales the Aggronaut spins are yarns of faffing about and doing scattered things in the games I play. That is not to say that I won’t again be overcome with feels and post something dreadfully important, but most of the time I just ramble on about whatever is in my mind. This is the side effect of my whole “blog every morning” crusade I embarked upon nearly a year ago. So if you have a limited appetite for game ramblings, I apologize ahead of time.

My office right now is like a magma chamber, and I am not really sure how long I can keep up this mornings post before I wither and melt away. The heating and air system in our house is pretty horrific, and for some reason there are two heat vents in my very small office. As much as I have tried to block them off completely… the heat continues to radiate through the wall. So the rushed feeling I am having is likely going to cause this to be one of my extra “special” mornings. Right now all I can say is thank god it is the weekend… and even though I have to pull a wi-fi miracle out of my hat tomorrow… I am ready to be done with work for the week.

Veritech Pilots Unite!

One of the side projects that has been underway for roughly a month is the coordinating of my crafting cooldowns each day in order to eventually produce the amazing Sky Golem mount. I realize I am way behind the times in getting it crafted, but hell it is news to me. Last night I managed to make the last two components and then went on an absolutely giddy flight around the Vale. I loves it so much in all of its mechanical glory. I feel like a Veritech pilot from Macross/Robotech. For the next few weeks every single character of mine will be zipping around on this goblin machination. Then I am sure like always I will get bored and pick a new mount for a few weeks.

I have already set my sights on the next big crafting project. I am a horrible engineer… or at least I have traditionally been a very poor one. I never raised the bankroll to get my chopper back in Wrath, and during the expansions after I simply lost sight on it as a goal. Now my intent is to farm up everything I can farm and then raise the required monetary commitment to craft one of these puppies. Not that I think I will ever actually use it… I have so many cool ground mounts like the Fiery Warhorse’s Reins or Rein’s of the Swift Spectral Tiger that I am always anxious to break out when I am in a flight limited area. I feel like getting a chopper is just one of those things I want to do moreso than really have a reason to do.

Blackwing Descent

Finally on the silly activities front, several of us were hanging out on mumble last night. The question was posed… how many people would it take to clear the old raids, namely Blackwing Descent. I surmised that we could probably limp by on three, 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 dps. Next thing I know we are on our way to blackrock mountain and giving it a try. Thing is… I remember nothing about this raid at all really. Granted while we were doing it several things came back, but I had literally not see any content past the first two bosses. I left WoW shortly after the launch of Cataclysm and at that point we had only managed to down Magmaw and Omnomitron (yes I know that isn’t the name). So for the most part it was a completely new place for me.

We of course entered for the purest of faffing reasons… the druid in our party wanted these shoulders for transmog. I myself would not have minded getting an Ashkandi 2.0 to drop, simply because the fidelity of the weapon is so much higher than the one I keep in my bank for transmoggy goodness. All in all the run went pretty smoothly. We struggled a few times, including several attempts at Chimaeron just trying to figure out how to work the fight mechanics. For whatever reason my purgatory talent seemed to be glitching out the key fight mechanic, so I popped outside real quick and summoned my vendor mount and changed that talent.

The trippy fight honestly was Nefarian because I was the only one to survive the initial flood everything in lava phase. So for the most part I solo’d a good chunk of that fight, namely the swimming around the room in lava killing the guys on the platforms phase. Then the monk healer and I duo’d the final kite him around the room phase. Since it was a 10 man fight, we only had one battle rez, and as such it seemed like a better idea to rez the healer than the druid dps. It was a fun night and I could see myself doing it again. I am really hoping that we can mostly trio the rest of the content. Funny enough we managed to get an achievement during the process without really intending to. I really want to go off and do firelands so I can hopefully get my druid friend his fire kitty.

On Wings of Nether

January 21, 2014 by Belghast

Low Graphical Fidelity

Since this is a patch day that happened to start super early… aka 5 am my time… and I don’t wake up until 5:30 I will not be having any screenshots that are not recycled or otherwise blatantly borrowed. Since I was off yesterday I simply did not think ahead. For me at least it feels like Monday… even though it really is legitimately Tuesday. Maybe this is the way my Aussie friends feel since they perpetually live in the future. Today’s post is going to involve a whole lot of faffitude, so be prepared.

For those who have not been following the news of all that is faffing about… you have potentially mentioned that @AlternativeChat has declared that 2014 is the “Year of Faff”. Tales of the Aggronaut is one of the many blogs that now proudly sport the badge on our sidebars. While I am proudly participating, for me at least 2013 will be the year of Faff in that it was the year that the Godmother of Faff brought the term front and center in the collective consciousness that is the “blogosphere”.

Faff is a term that has been in my vocabulary for some time, and not always in an extremely positive context. When my friends and I had to jump through a whole bunch of meaningless hoops to accomplish something it would often be described as a “whole lot of faffing about”. What has changed during 2013 and the start of 2014 is that “Faff” has become a proper destination for the evening. Realizing this has added greatly to the overall enjoyment of games like World of Warcraft that are so chock full of fluff that you cannot go more than a few in game feet without encountering something that could be worth achievement points or something that you have yet to collect. If for no other reason, I salute @AlternativeChat for realigning our vocabulary and taking what used to be a negative and turning it very much into a positive.

On Wings of Nether

Over the last few weeks I have been working feverishly each night on completing my Netherwing Dailies. As I have said before for whatever reason, during the Burning Crusade this is a grind I never participated in. In truth more than anything it is likely thanks to the fact that during Burning Crusade I lived in a perpetual state of broke. As a raid tank, pretty much every spare gold I had went to my volumes of repair bills. These repair bills have decreased greatly over the last few expansions, but back then it was not unheard of that I would rack up 100-200g in repairs a night, and in BC money that was quite the little fortune. As a result I never really had the money to get my epic flight training, which was required to start the Netherwing quests in the first place.

To be truthful, I likely never would have gotten it were not for a contrived scheme to get me my epic training. A friend of mine started a guild lottery, where we would send him raw materials and he would turn around and auction house the materials and pool it up to fund epic flying mounts for people. The first one apparently was universally rigged, as everyone colluded behind the scenes to give it to me. Thankfully through this welfare flying program we managed to buy at least a half dozen epic flying mounts, and I believe the final number was a bit closer to ten. However this was pretty late in the expansion and I never ended up going out and starting this grind. In part I was a bit slowed by the fact that my main at the time had no harvesting skill, and as such had no daily quest for turning in that.

War Bear Time

Needless to say yesterday mid evening I managed to finish out exalted and got the On Wings of Nether achievement. You get one mount free for completing the achievement, but I quickly flew out to Shadowmoon Valley and snatched up the other 5 for what now seems like the extremely cheap price of 180g. This puts me I think a a half dozen mounts away from We’re Going to Need More Saddles. There are so many farmed mounts that I am lacking, that I need to just buckle down and start farming away. Over the course of the weekend however I did manage to get one of these mounts that have elluded me.

Back in Burning Crusade we farmed more Karazhan than I really care to think about, but after we had used up all of the Medivh goodness, we set our sites on the newly released Zul’Aman. Over the course of the expansion we got better and better at this dungeon, but never quite had the gear and strategy needed to get through a successful bear mount run. We got really close a few times… I remember one time we were less than a minute away from the mount. Something would always go wrong and fate conspired to keep me from my prize. During Wrath of the Lich King, I really have no clue why but I never went back and attempted getting the mount.

When they redid the dungeon during Cataclysm, I was unfortunately not playing the game… so I completely missed my chance to get the mount legitimately again. For fear that they might eventually simply do away with the mount I decided that I needed to set my sights on this mount and just get it over with. I realize there are subtle differences between the mount you earned at 70 and the mount you can get today… but I don’t really care. It is a big freaking bear with horns and spikey bits. I will likely be proudly riding this mount around for awhile, as it has officially offset my Spectral Tiger as my normal mount of choice. Now I just need to pick a new victim, and start working towards farming up that mount. Starting to thing the Barons Charger is a likely candidate.

All About Mounts

January 18, 2014 by Belghast

Do A Barrel Roll!

This week the previously announced Iron Skyreaver mount found its way to the in game store… and I simply could not resist picking it up. The mount is amazing, but it seems that it seems to be one of those love or hate situations among my close friends. Some of them absolutely love it, some of them completely hate it. The pure win of the mount is the fact that every so often it does a roll… I have been informed by one of my pilot friends that it is NOT a barrel roll. Quite frankly it doesn’t matter because every time it happens… I hear Peppy say “Do A Barrel Roll!”. Thanks Star Fox for misappropriating that term!

In truth in game it is a bit smaller than I had originally expected, or at the very least it doesn’t scale as much as I would expect it would for a Worgen. Some of my friends have called it sickly looking, but really if you think about the background of the mount it makes sense. This is a chimera that the Iron Horde has captured into slavery… likely abused and mistreated… and then augmented with badass armor and JET THRUSTERS!!!! You have apparently rescued it from Garrosh and his evil evil machinations. Now you and your mechano-chimera can rule the skies together!

All About Mounts

Another project I have been working on is chewing through the crafting cooldowns to make my own Sky Golem mount. Unlike most engineering mounts in the past, this one is actually usable by all of your characters. Which has made it a high priority for me to obtain. At some point I need to go back and build some of the other engineering mounts, as I never actually obtained my Mekgineer’s Chopper. Since I stopped playing Belghast as my main somewhere during Crusader’s Coliseum it just stopped being priority for me to get one. Additionally I got the recruit a friend two person rocket, which filled the need of being able to transport people with me. If they made it so all characters on your account could use the chopper… I would prioritize making one.

The big slowdown for the Sky Golem is the engineering cooldown, which at face value is really easy to craft. Jard’s Peculiar Energy Source takes only ten ghost iron bars, which is next to nothing… however it is on a daily timer and unlike all of the other cool downs out there… it is lacking a “speed up for more materials” option. The sky golem requires 30 of these, and 30 living steel. The living steel component however is not terribly bad since if you have a transmute spec alchemist you can get extra bars from time to time. At this point I am 6 days including today away from my sky golem mount, so I will keep you guys informed as I finally craft it.

Flight of the Netherwing

One of the last things I want to give an update on is my quest for exalted with the Netherwing. Essentially this has been one of those semi-casual things that I do every night. I go out to Shadowmoon Valley, complete all the quests… gather up all of the loose eggs that I happen to see while doing those quests and then move on for the night. I am sure if I wanted to seriously grind this out, I could do so in a single afternoon doing nothing but collecting eggs. However at this point I am at about the halfway point through Revered. At this point I figure I have a few more days until I have crossed the exalted threshold. I am bad at estimating these things, but given I tend to find a half dozen eggs each day I think this might be viable.

Mostly I have been doing this because I want the count of six more mounts. I have never particularly liked the look of the netherwing. I love the fact that they have a whole series of colors available, but it is the whole shark nosed dragon thing that gets to me. I have actually enjoyed the grind because I miss Draenor. I am looking forward to Warlords in part because I am really wanting to see Draenor as a viable place again. Burning Crusade was the expansion that I really came alive in, and grew into the role of raid tank and large-scale guild leader. While Wrath of the Lich King was the expansion we saw the most success during, I feel like Burning Crusade is my “golden age” of WoW gaming.

Myth of Melee Hunter

January 17, 2014 by Belghast

Long Weekend

Most of this week I have been recovering from whatever flu like respiratory crap I managed to catch along side my wife’s flu. So now that it is Friday, I have to say I am more than ready for it. I have been crashing suspiciously early each night, or at least early for me. Last night it was around 10 pm, and the night before closer to 9. Granted some of that time was laying in bed watching Netflix, but resting nonetheless. So when I realized I was heading straight for a three day weekend, I was absolutely pumped. Not that we have any major plans, but just stringing three days in a row is a pretty glorious thing.

Yesterday during a back and forth on twitter with MMOGC, we both talked about our proclivity for playing melee characters. For me at least if there is a melee option, I will be playing whatever it is. My 90s to date… Blood/Frost Deathknight, Protection/Arms Warrior, Protection/Retribution Paladin, Enhancement Shaman (second spec doesn’t really matter here), Combat Rogue, and the icing on the cake… Feral/Guardian Druid. Hell I even consider my Discipline Priest to be “tanky”. Essentially if there is a tank option I will be doing that, and if there is not I will at least be doing melee in some form of another. I am woefully predictable in my likes and dislikes when it comes to games.

Myth of Melee Hunter

I have made this admission before in the past, but I was a melee hunter. Granted at the time I didn’t realize that survival was NOT a viable melee spec… since back in vanilla it did actually boost your melee damage. More than that however it was a thing I WANTED to work. Something about ranged dps just bores me, and on the converse something about standing toe to toe against the boss exhilarates me. The above is a picture of me playing Lodin, my first real main in World of Warcraft. My love of the WoW Hunter… initially started as my love of the D&D Ranger. In D&D I played two things the Dual Wield Melee Ranger, and the Mace and Board Melee Cleric. When I came into wow I tried to create both of these with limited success in the form of a Survival Hunter and a Protection Paladin.

I love the mechanics of the hunter when it comes to taming pets. This was the real thing that kept me playing the class for most of vanilla… that and I got sucked into a raid group that needed hunters. As some point I tired of standing back and firing at things, so midway through Vanilla I began transitioning to Belghast my tanky warrior. But I never really gave up hope that someday, somehow being a dual wield hunter would be a viable thing. While leveling and raiding… I was always far more interested in a nifty polearm or twohanded weapon dropping that could viably be identified as “for hunters” than any of the available ranged options. However I still count getting my Dragonbreath Hand Cannon as one of my greatest raiding moments. Thanks to getting this awesome drop… I never actually finished the hunter epic.

The Beastmaster

Funny thing is… there is a game that has a melee pet class that could in theory be termed the “melee hunter”. The Beastmaster soul in Rift for the Warrior class was essentially a pure melee dps class that also had a pet. It was one of those specs that I really used to enjoy dpsing in, when the pet was actually behaving. The problem is that Rift pets are boring. As a beastmaster you got a large cat… and despite them changing the graphic of it… it is still the same boring pet every single time. The piece of the hunter that I always found interesting was the ability to switch between pets depending on the situation and your present mood. If you got bored of a pet, you could run off into the world and tame a new favorite.

So static pet is a major strike against the Beastmaster soul, but in Storm Legion they took another big one. They essentially transitioned the spec from being a very soloable melee dps, to being pure support. If you have only played World of Warcraft, then you are used to the holy trinity Tank, DPS, and Healer. However several other games like City of Heroes, Everquest and Rift to name a few off the top of my head… had a fourth role of Support. These classes buffed the party in some way or provided some critical crowd control mechanic that overall made the fights go smoother. With Storm Legion they moved the Beastmaster into one of these roles, and while it is probably my favorite support class next to the Rogue’s Bard soul… it became something that you just really could not solo as.

Yes I Know I’m Crazy

Yup the sub heading says it all… I realize that this request is crazy. I realize that Blizzard will never give me a melee hunter. All that said it doesn’t make me want it any less. While I am not going to go to the lengths that some players have gone… when I play Lodin I still want to get up close and melee things down. Initially I think I thought it was just my way of keeping from paying for bullets, but now that bullets are a thing of the past… I realize I just wanted to get up close and person with the mobs. For the most part I know that each and every one of my ranged characters will be something I did just to say I had one at 90. Once I have finished with my Discipline Priest I will likely cycle back around to Lodin and finish leveling him to 90. However it won’t ever be a beloved character until I can bash stuff in the face with a mighty hunter polearm.