World of Warcraft Archives - Page 43 of 109

Magical Moose

February 14, 2016 by Belghast

Luck and Friendship

Over in World of Warcraft, there has been an item that has lovingly started to be referred to as the Friendship Moose…. and there are good reasons behind it. The mount itself is pretty damned majestic, and makes me feel like Santa Claus when I ride it. It comes from getting the Ahead of the Curve achievement for Heroic Archimonde…. well in truth Archi drops a quest but same basic difference. The reason why it has become known as the friendship moose is the fact that there have been an extremely large number of people in the WoW Community who are going out of their way to try and get people the mount. To the best of my knowledge it was originally @Thomicks that started the #FriendshipMoose hashtag, and then it kinda just went out of control from there. I know @Zelse007 for example has been really knocking these out and as of last night he has gotten 639 Folks their moose. I won’t lie that the thought of getting a spiffy mount is partially what drove me back into raiding in World of Warcraft recently, but more than anything it was to be able to hang out with Horde friends that I had never really raided with. Quite honestly I never expected to get the Reins of the Grove Warden.

The thing is… I have some really amazing friends. Earlier in the week I was pinged by Damai to see if I wanted to join in with his raid for a farm run. The plan was to clear a bunch of bosses on Thursday and then pop in really quickly early in the evening on Saturday and take down Archimonde. Generally speaking I cannot participate in this raid because it happens to coincide almost exactly with our podcast recording session. However this time they planned on being in and out of the raid roughly two hours before our podcast was set to go. I ultimately had to beg off on Thursday, because I kept going into uncontrollable coughing fits, but I was however able to attend yesterday…. which was good enough to get me a moose. I was carried extremely hard last night, the above image is of me being the only dead member of the raid…. from when I tried to run my fixate to the edge and happened to run right in between two folks firing their lasers. Not only did I walk away with a moose but I also picked up a couple of sweet upgrades, one of which is REALLY amazing for my special snowflake Gladiator spec [ Worldbreaker’s Resolve, World Ender’s Gorget]. I gotta say I am happy beyond reason… because I absolutely thought this was far beyond my reach. I want to give a special shout out to Damai, Errya, Pugnodeum, and the rest of the Praetorian Guard crew for dragging my but along.

No AggroChat

So now that the warm and fuzzy bits are out of the way… I have to tell you that right now I am feeling like a complete and total failure. Sure being the only person to die on Archimonde should have done that already, but this is something different. We’ve been recording AggroChat for a little over two years now I believe, and during that time we have missed two episodes. This week being the second episode, and for the most part…. this time is completely because of me. While raiding last night, I was on listen only mode because I quite honestly had no voice to talk with. Throughout the day yesterday, as it went on my voice kept getting weaker and weaker until the point where I simply became a squeaky whisper. On top of this… Tam is out of pocket this week, Grace is out of pocket this week… and yesterday was Kodra’s birthday… leaving it up to Thalen and Ashgar to hold up an entire show. As a result throughout the day we simply decided to call it, and I really hate the fact that it was my fault for doing just that. This crud that I have picked up is driving me insane… I am so ready to be “better” but as the weeks go by it keeps dragging on.

I know last week when I went ahead and recorded… it was probably a bit of a set back. Because prior to last weeks show I was feeling a bit better…. and then afterwards I was pretty much dead to the world for a few days. What is killing me the most is that when I am in this condition I just don’t want to do much of anything. As a result I have been focused heavily on Elder Scrolls Online, which is a game that I am largely playing by myself. Sure there are a handful of awesome people playing with me like Ammo and Sol, but even then my interaction is mostly that of answering the sort of questions that new players have…. and not so much active grouping. I can zone out and zone into the storyline… and as a result I am probably enjoying it more than I have since I first played alpha. Part of me wants to at least push through the rest of the Aldmeri Dominion content before resigning the game to the back burner again. Another big thing that I want to do at some point is pick up where I left off in SWTOR, and play through the Reven content that I never actually got around to doing. I have this feeling at least in the near future that I am going to be focused on story games, less than I am going to be on raiding and grouping activities. The Final Fantasy XIV 3.2 patch might change that, and in part I hope it does…. because I would love to feel the drive to play that game again. However in the meantime I am going to quietly be piddling over here without my voice.

Old-Lady Suit

February 12, 2016 by Belghast

Best Intentions

I had psyched myself up yesterday to go off and do some raiding last night. Some friends of friends had graciously offered to drag me along with them for the first part of Heroic Hellfire Citadel. I thought to myself that this was an excellent opportunity, that could lead to gear and maybe even a moose at some point, so even though they raid PST, I figured I would make the good college try. The problem being my body is still conspiring against me. This is officially the sickest I have been in years, as we are now going on thirteen days for this crud. Admittedly my wife had something super similar weeks before we went to PAX and while she got over the bulk of it… almost a month later she still has the constant cough. The thing that is killing me at the moment is the sore throat, only exacerbated by the constant body shaking coughing fits and drainage. So by the time the raid was starting around 9:30 my time…. I was already taking NyQuil and planning to slip into bed. I politely begged off as best I could and if any of them are reading today… I sincerely thank them for the opportunity. One which I kinda hope will still be available when I am not feeling like shit.

The problem I am in with Belghast is the fact that my item level is artificially low, because there are four pieces of gear that I simply cannot afford to get rid of. I have the four piece normal Blackrock Foundry set, and every time I try and sim out swapping out of it for higher item level gear… it is a major dps loss. The problem being that I am playing a special snowflake class that will be going away in Legion. Gladiator just works strangely, and it feels like Blizzard inadvertently gave use the most perfect class set ever. The two piece bonus is “Shield Slam has a 8% Chance to Automatically Cast Shield Charge” which is massive, and helps fill in those spots where I could not normally have Shield Charge up for the damage bonuses. The four piece is essentially “Shield Charge increases the damage of Heroic Strike, Slam, and Revenge by an Additional 20%” which is the single best damage booster that I can get right now. So I simply cannot abandon this set bonus, and the only real option right now would be to try and find a Mythic Blackrock group so I could get the Mythic four piece set. Because of the way the Hellfire Dungeon set works… I can also squeeze in the two piece of that set giving me “Bonus Armor Increased by 145” which while not insane… is a decent dps boost since every point of armor translates to 2 attack power for Gladiator spec. So needless to say I am stuck in a corner where my 686 gear score does not exactly equate to my performance… but I don’t really have access to the upgrades that would actually help. I mean as much as I hate to see it go, I totally see why Blizzard is getting rid of this special snowflake spec. It is extremely hard to itemize for and gear for.

Madness and Cheese

So after getting frustrated that there was very little I could do to improve my lot in life on my Warrior, I ended up logging over into Elder Scrolls Online for some nice and peaceful questing. I actually managed to catch Solaria on at the same time, and I spent a little bit of time attempting to help her get started in crafting. The only problem being that during prime time it seems like all of the ore is heavily farmed down. Since I have the insane “see it from a distance” glow effect, I am wondering about dropping down to Betnikh and helping farm up a bunch of ore for her. She decided to go with a Heavy Armor Two-Handed Templar…. which was one of my favorite paths from alpha testing. It feels a little bit like a WoW Retribution Paladin in the burst damage department, and has some really high survival when running around questing. It also greatly simplifies the crafting, since Blacksmith can literally make everything they would need to use from the weapon to the armor. The problem there is Blacksmithing honestly seems to be the most useful profession, and as a result ore is always in high demand. I could in theory just pass over a bunch of bars, but she really needs the skill-ups from refining the bars right now, so I would be better served just going out and farming ore for her.

One of the things I had forgotten about Elder Scrolls Online was just how well written the quests are. I completed a sequence in Grahtwood where I ended up encountering my favorite of all Daedra… Sheogorath the Prince of Madness. You never know if he is going to attack you… or offer you cheese… and then attack you. What makes this sequence so great is the fact that I have tangled with Sheogorath in the past of this game. He remembers my interactions and even seems to comment based on my decisions…. in this completely unrelated quest line. The amount of time that they put into making sure that the dialog trees had little gems like this, is just awesome… and I am still really impressed by them when I find them. All of the content was designed knowing that your single character might be completing all three factions worth of it. There is just something warm and fuzzy about playing this game… and while at one point I was disappointed in it… I think most of that was really just me trying to make it into something that it was not. As a largely solo experience the game is exemplary, and honestly I look forward to trying to scramble enough people together to do a dungeon or two and see if that experience improved as well. Cheese for everyone!

Shamen and Pax South

January 10, 2016 by Belghast

Prepping for Pax South

Tis the beginning of the year, and we are now roughly three weeks away from Pax South, and I have to say…. I am a bit concerned. It is going to be an awesome time no matter what because right now I know of like a dozen friends that are going to be there… so going to have plenty of people to hang out with. What concerns me though is it seems like Pax South as a whole is a much less hopping place. By this time last year, all three days of the show were down to “low” rating, and Saturday and the Three Day Passes had been sold out for a very long time. Additionally they had already posted a picture of the convention floor and who was going to be inhabiting what booth space. As far as the passes, Saturday was still available on Friday… and just looking at the schedule there don’t seem to be as many “big name” presentations as there were last year. Last year after all we had the world announcement of Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns happening, as well as I believe the first real information about Sid Meier’s Starships. Now… what I see instead is very light on the game content and very heavy on the youtube and stream celebrities.

All of this said I am going to have the best time this year…. because what made last year so much fun was running around with Ashgar and Rae. This time around I will be running around with Ashgar, Rae, Thalen, Dallian, Damai, Lonrem, Helkim, Paragon, Tick, Rylacus, and hell probably several others that I am failing to rattle off on the top of my head. It is the people that make the place awesome, and it is my hope to meet up with as many people as I can over the two days I am going to be there. So if you are planning on going to Pax South please let me know. I did a poor job of actually connecting with people last year and I hope to fix that. The other thing that is going to make this year awesome is that I am no longer going to have to worry about somehow abandoning my wife. Last year she went running around during the day, utilizing the hotels shuttle service, and by all accounts had a lot of fun, or at least enough fun to want to come back again this year.

The problem being that I always felt guilty for leaving her at the hotel and felt the strong pull to rush home at night so we could go out to dinner and such. This time around we are also bringing one of her friends so she now also has someone to run around with and wander San Antonio. What is hilarious is… she feels like I am being awesome, and I think its awesome because I will feel less guilty all the time. This also means I will probably experience a lot of the nighttime content of Pax and go to the concerts and such, and maybe some of the after parties. Granted on Saturday night I don’t want to be out too late… given that I will be driving the eight or nine hours home on Sunday. In any case…. if you read the blog or you listen to AggroChat, drop me a line and it is my hope to catch up with as many people during that weekend as I can. I will be getting into the hotel room late Thursday night, and I am staying about six miles away from the convention center out by the airport… in part because we had a great experience there last year…. and the whole free shuttle service to various destinations thing was awesome for my wife. So yesterday we did a bit of juggling to change our arrangements, and now have a double suite so it should be awesome. There was talk last night about maybe trying to get in together and see Force Awakens as a group while down there… since supposedly there is a theater a few blocks away.

Shamanism

One of the things I am really enjoying about World of Warcraft right now is the ability to fly. I realize that I was heavily in the “no flight in draenor” camp, and for the most part I still am. That said… having it makes everything so damned much easier, and questing through the zones is greatly improved. I feel like WoW content however desperately needs the grounding of players at the beginning of an expansion to keep folks from just blowing through everything instantly. In the past once you had a single character at the new level cap you could purchase flight for your other characters, and that was a great option…. but an extremely expensive one. I think personally I like the Draenor Pathfinder option because even though it was a pain in the butt to complete… now that I have done it the benefit can be used by every single character on my account. As a whole I am a huge fan of account wide unlocks and they actually make it far more likely for me to play other characters. In Final Fantasy XIV everything that I have exists on a single character, and as a result I am completely disincentive from trying any more characters. Same goes for games like Rift that while I have alts… I always tend to play the same main character because he has the best toys.

I feel like playing an Enhancement Shaman is a little broken…. in a good way. After having leveled several other characters, this one seems to be the easiest. I can just straight up shred most mobs without my totems, or heroism…. but then I always have those things waiting in reserve for big mobs and elites. The speed of killing things is just so damned fast, and since I have crafters that can feed me gear…. walking around with a pair of level 630 blue weapons really makes a huge difference. I still don’t fully understand why the crafted blacksmith weapons start at 630 unlike the 640 that all of the other gear seems to start at, but in any case I am fine with it…. it is a huge dps boost over the weapons I am getting in the zones. The thing that I cannot wait for in WoW however is the new transmogging system. WoWhead, being the awesome folks they always are has put up a preview system to show you all of the transmog gear your characters are going to get granted from quest completion. I am really really hoping that the new system is account wide like Diablo 3, because there are certain characters like this shaman that simply don’t have a lot of cool gear to work with yet. I guess I should farm more old world content to get him a decent set to run around in.

The Pathfinder

January 2, 2016 by Belghast

Flying Again

Wow-64 2016-01-02 09-20-57-69

Not being able to fly in Draenor has been an interesting experience, and mostly one that I did not fully realize what I was missing until recently. I had got so used to NOT flying… that it always felt strange when I entered the old would and could suddenly take to the skies again. I would lift off the ground in Stormwind or Ironforge and have this momentary pause where I couldn’t quite remember what I was supposed to do now that I was up above the world. I can’t say I gnashed me teeth wanting flight, in fact I think it was probably a much more enjoyable experience for me because I was forced to be on the ground. I made me actually learn the lay of the land in these zones, and it also got me using the flight point system again. However over the last few weeks I have been working on the final requirements for Draenor Pathfinder, and being shuttled around by one of my friends on her rocket makes me realize just how much easier everything is with flight. Why clear your way through a camp when you can just drop down on top of your objective? But it also has made me realize exactly why they disabled in the first place. Flight is overpowered when it comes to questing, and there is nothing more frustrating than working your way to a treasure chest in Tanaan only to have someone swoop in from above to snatch it from you before you can get to it. When I was wrapping up the last bits of faction yesterday I had this happen three times in the course of a ten minute period.

DraenorPathfinder

I honestly don’t so much care about flight for my max level characters, but instead for my characters that I have yet to level further. This means that I can pretty much chain quest my way to 100 by doing ONLY the objectives, and while this means I will be skipping a bunch of content… it is also content I have seen several times. The biggest boon to me is that it will make collecting treasures so much easier, especially the ones that involve a jumping puzzle. The negative is… that I will no longer be cycling through my collection of ground mounts, but in the grand scheme I think I will live. I realize this is months late, but it is still exciting to me to be able to return to the skies. While Draenor Pathfinder was kind of a pain in the ass…. I got lucky and managed to get several medallions from the current Christmas event that helped me leapfrog 1000 faction at a time. The problem is…. now that I am done with this achievement I am not really sure what to do with myself. I could either start pushing the rest of my alliance characters from 90ish to 100…. or I could return to working on my Orc Warlock to hopefully have a second 100 to play with Horde side. In any case… I topped a big goal off of my list and am pretty happy.

Last Gen Destiny

My Great Capture Screenshot 2016-01-02 09-14-03

Over the week I have had a friend of mine talking about picking up Destiny now that he realized you could get it for the Xbox 360. I myself have considered picking it up on that console for awhile, especially since I feel bad that my 360 doesn’t see much love. I had been trying to use PSTV to play PS4 downstairs where we have the exercise bike set up, and the lag is just enough that it makes Destiny largely unplayable for me. The answer on all of the forums seems to be to hard wire your PSTV into your network…. but I don’t have the ability to have Ethernet downstairs, and I question how well powerline adapters would work in my house. Which moves me to potentially relocating my Xbox 360 to downstairs and playing some Destiny on it. I ended up picking it up and I have to say… I am pretty impressed. The game for the most part “feels” the same… just at a much lower resolution. To some extent playing on the 360 feels like you are squinting while playing it on the PS4. Everything is just slightly lower resolution, which would make sense considering that Destiny runs at 1080p 30fps on the PlayStation 4 and it runs 720p 30fps on the Xbox 360. The difference is noticeable when you are standing still but for the most part in the heat of the battle I don’t really notice it that much.

The only negative of playing on the Xbox 360 however is that I am starting completely over. I’ve read that apparently you can log your characters in on either Xbox 360 or Xbox One… and the same goes for PS4 and PS3. So if I ever get a Xbox One at some point all of the effort I have done on the 360 will port over. Interestingly enough though that means that I guess I could have picked up a copy for the PS3 and played my existing PS4 characters on it. That said… I have heard some really bad issues with Destiny on the PS3. Everything I had read about the 360 made it sound like it was just a downgraded resolution… but I’ve heard the PS3 version is only running at a strange 624p and also has some framerate dip issues. Mostly I am still amazed at just how well it runs on last generation hardware, and while I won’t have that constant desire to take screenshots because the game is so damned pretty…. it will give me something interesting to do while riding the exercise bike. I have a woefully small number of people on my XBox Live account so feel free to add BelghastStern, and especially if you play Destiny on the 360 please let me know!