Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Netherlight Crucible Gives and Takes

Netherlight Crucible Gives and Takes


Yesterday Keya was ecstatic about the rapid advancement of her weapons and gear, going from i905 to i916 in less than two days. Apparently, that was a depressing mirage. During the process of buying the 60th warblade trait and purchasing two traits from the Netherlight Crucible, Keya's overall gear score of i916 mysteriously became i910.

The insertion of the Netherlight Crucible was the only significant change in the normal process. Unfortunately, there is no hard evidence (ie, pics of Keya's gear) to show when it happened. What she knows is this: Her last verified check of her gear showed her at i905. Her gear score did not change when Keya purchased the three warblade upgrades (traits 57-59). Keya can also confirm that she twice earned gear upgrades purchased with veiled argunite: a necklace (i885 upgraded to i895) and gloves (i885 upgraded to i910). Finally, she upgraded her leggings from i940 to i970. Keya wasn't watching her overall gear scores while all of that was happening.

Keya believes something changed or readjusted. Her gear score scooted from i905 to i912. Keya was learning the Crucible, she'd taken the 60th trait, and she socketed two traits on the Crucible. With that done, she then checked her gear and discovered her i916 gear score had somehow become i910. No idea what happened. Nothing to be done about it now. However, Keya will be taking pics each time she gets a gear upgrade from now on.


9/27/2017 

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Return to Argus

Return to Argus

Frustrated by the lack of progress on her mount and class requirements, Keya turned to Argus. There she found what she wanted - quests and kills and progress.
More importantly, her work on Argus opened up a new set of traits! On the Vindicaar Keya now has access to the Netherlight Crucible that adds six unused slots. One of those slots are open, but Keya has been unable to slot it. Which means spending Artifact power. Keya is holding just over 10 BILLION AP. However, her artifact level is only 56, and if I have this right, it has to be at least 60 to use slots in the Crucible. At the escalation rate of trait filling, one wonders how much AP is needed to fill traits up to 60 AND slot the open trait.

Well, artifact power is there to be used. Keya returned to her Mardun base. She was able to upgrade her traits from 56 to 59. That essentially burned all ten billion AP. Back to grinding. She has to make enough AP to finish trait 60 and then slot a trait in the new Crucible.

That didn't stop her questing though Argus. She has twice now upgraded her gear and her overall gear score is now i905.

In between Argus runs Keya growls about the mistakes she made on the Emerald Nightmare raid. She was able to kill Xavius, but failed to retrieve the purified essence she must have. She learned that the purified essence is in a pot near Cenarius at the end of the run. Waiting for the raid to unlock has Keya short tempered and dangerous.

Monday - Keya started her day using the Rift Cannon to pick up more argunite. She had enough to upgrade an 880 item to i895 on one of her majot traits. The upgrade increased her overall gear score far more than usual, from i905 to an astounding i912! Keya is loving Argus. Keya then did it again, earning another 650 veiled argunite and upgrading her gloves. Keya's overall gear score rose to i914. On a roll, Keya plundered her gear and found a legendary upgrade to her trousers frpm i940 to i970. That brought another overall gear score jump to i916.

Not bad for a Monday, heh?

Below are a few pics from Keya's wandering and killing.

Aldrachi Warblades


Netherlight Crucible

Xavius SLAIN!



Saturday, September 23, 2017

The Emerald Nightmare

The Emerald Nightmare

Keya is out of excuses. Since her return to action earlier in the week her sole focus was to get her Nightfallen reputation to Exalted. It was one part of her class mount progress, which she was happy to have completed, but she also had hoped that it would complete the Good Surumaritan and open up the many things that are still denied her.

It didn't. So, she is back to working on the two pieces still incomplete, "A Growing Crisis" and "A Change Of Seasons." Which brings Keya to this morning. Her next step is to open the group finder and select The Emerald Nightmare raid. Once there, Keya must find and kill Xavius.

The details are kind of confusing, which is the status quo from Keya's perspective. The quest associated with the raid is specifically called "The Emerald Nightmare: The Stuff of Dreams." However, when Keya looked up the raid in the raid finder, the title was a bit different. It reads only: The Emerald Nightmare, and three sections within the raid. The part of the raid of importance to Keya is "Rift of Aln," where Xavius lurks. She has to kill him. She also has to collect a Purified Life Essence as well.
Armed with that limited information, Keya set up shop at the Raid Finder. This being a Saturday, her wait was only about fifteen minutes.

Keya really hopes this raid gets her back into the mainstream of her class hall and quest threads. Her i899 gear score was good enough for the LFR dungeons. She hopes that her now i901 gear score is sufficient for the raid. Soooo, here goes. Keya selects the Emerald Nightmare raid.

So.  It was done. Keya ran the Emerald Nightmare raid, all three sections: Darkbough, Tormented Guardian, and Rift of Aln. She saw only one Purified Life Essence created which was won or acquired by another raider. She killed Xavius, but received nothing to show that she had even been there other than the usual stuff.

Now for the why. The first run helped Keya get a feeling for the raid (which was a large one), how to get around, who to follow, how much damage she was taking and giving, and, to be honest, gawking at the raid for the first time. She quickly learned that she had little to worry about protecting herself at the LFR level. I doubt she dipped below 95% the whole run, even during the heavy melee periods.

What she learned. Keya learned after the fact that trying to loot Xavius after killing him won't work. Instead, you will go into a dream (I remember that, but then there were a lot of dream sequences) and next to Cenarius is a pot thing. The pot thing is what she should have taken. Somehow she missed it. Also, the Purified Life Essence is on a pedestal next to Cenarius. Missed that, too.

So. Keya learned some things. Time to try again.

Second Try. The group slid through Darghbough without trouble but fell apart in the Tormented Guardians. Waste of forty minutes. She did get some information on her DPS, which she'll admits is laughable. It was a 25 person LFR raid. Subtract two tanks and five healers, the raid had 18 DPSers. She did 4.3% of the damage and managed to reach 11th place among the 18 DPSers. Most of her damage came from Immolation Aura (32%). Fel Devestation (19.8%) was second on the list. She crit 31.5%.

Third try: Another wiff. Sigh. All three parts of the raid show as "already looted" now. I suppose that means Keya will have to wait until next week to try again?

Keya is disappointed that she is still not in sync with her advancement. However, she had fun on the raids. There's little chance she'll earn a gear upgrade on these raids. Gear up to i895 is possible, but unlikely. She has to be very fast on the take, too, the loot was grabbed pretty quickly. Keya's main needs are upgrades for her i880 pieces: neck, wrist, legs, finger, and trinket.

So, Keya now figures she'll take turns between Argus and dungeon runs for practice and the small probability of loot. And maybe check out some other raids. This is starting to be sort of fun.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Crazy Quilt of Gear

Crazy Quilt of Gear

Well, I had a great time the past two weeks visiting my Mom in Virginia. Both of my brothers were able to spend some time with us as well, and other friends and relatives in the area. I got back yesterday and am still a bit fogged at the time difference.

We kept a close eye on all those hurricanes (five if you were counting - Harvey, Irma, Maria, Jose, and Lee). Locally we got some wet weather, but we were far enough out of the line of storms we had nothing to worry about.

I even had some time for Warcraft. Mom never deletes anything from her computer, so I gave warcraft a try one evening. I got all the patches installed and the game loaded, but the PC wasn't up to doing much more than running the Auction House. Chaitee was happy, and Keya managed to stay busy collecting argunite by way of blasting the rock with the Rift Cannon.

Keya and company are now slowly getting their feet back on the ground. Keya was anxious to spend her 650 veiled argunite to buy a relinquished 910 chest piece to replace her i880. Unfortunately it could not be equipped and she had to give it back. Why? Keya didn't have an answer to that, but she tried again the next day and this time it worked. Keya received a very ugly Fel-Treated Chestguard of the Aurora. Ugly as it was, Keya accepted it, replacing her i880 with an i910. Keya howled with joy to see her overall gear score rise from i899 to i901.

On the other hand, who got the crazy idea to make equipping a piece of gear so darned complicated, particularly when relinquished gear is used. What are the rules on what gear can be equipped and under what circumstances?

Take a took a look at the crazy quilt of various types of gear worn by Keya.

Head - 910 relinquished titanforged
Neck - 880 relinquished
Shoulder - 915 Heroic
back - 885 Heroic
Chest - 910 relinquished Fel-Treated Chestguard of the Aurora
Wrist - 880 relinquished
hands - 885 Legion Season 4 warforged
waist - 970 legendary
Legs - 880 dauntless titanforged
Feet - 940 legendary
Finger - 880 relinquished
Finger - 885 warforged
trinket - 880 titanforged
trinket - Legion Season 4 relinquished warforged

And that is only on one character. Fitting gear together is like hunting puzzle pieces. With all these differing versions of gear, one would think there must be some guide that explains what gear is compatible with other gear in order to buy the right piece. Right? Maybe.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Eye of Azshara

Eye of Azshara

Keya is both elated and mystified. She took on the Eye of Azshara and survived, killing all five of the dungeon Bosses she faced. This was Keya's first look at this dungeon and it was fun. Nearly all of it was outdoors, the Bosses spread across a large, mostly flat area.

What mystified and disappointed Keya was that she did not receive any sovereign souls. From what I read each Boss kill dropped one soul. So now Keya has done two dungeons and still has no souls!

Definition: "Sovereign Soul is a quest item. It is looted from Hatecoil Oracle."

I don't get it. What am I getting wrong? Keya stayed for the entire encounter, looted all five Bosses, and then waited until she was the only person left in the group. She did not recieve any souls. Frustrating! Keya now wonders if she should have looted the trash mobs as well as the Bosses. The group was going so fast she didn't bother with the trash. Do the souls drop from trash mobs instead of Bosses?

Keya checked her Recount stats after the battle. As expected, her DPS lagged behind the other two. Among the three DPSers, Keya was last in dealing damage at 17.5%. The other two did 29.8% and 34.2%. But she made it through the dungeon and didn't die. Keya considers that a win. Now she just has to figure out why she isn't getting souls . . . that's the whole point!

Keya will attempt the "Vault of the Wardens: Vault Break-in next. It is clearly part of the demon hunter campaign and should drop five souls for the Boss kills.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Crashing a Dungeon Party

Crashing a Dungeon Party

I sent the retired Wildshard to the Blizzard General Forum today. I wanted to hear about other active players anxious about entering dungeons and raids. Wildshard got a lot of crazy stuff, which is expected on an open forum like this. More surprising, though, were the many throughtful replies. Quite a few were similar to Tanis and Erik comments (when Erik decides to be serious).

The most telling was a player named Severuss. He told Wildshard that in 95% of the groups he was part of he could have gone afk for the whole run and no one would have noticed. That was probably exageration, but others on the forum said the similar things. When I mentioned that the gear score of my main character was i897, he laughed and said that score is absolute overkill for any pathfinder dungeon.

So, will Keya "be fine" heading into an LFR? I think Keya is soon going to find out. Is she ready to take the plunge and accept a random Legion dungeon? Afterall, she has to do this enough times to get the 15 soveriagn souls required to meet the criteria for "A Very Special Kind of Fuel."

Havoc Spec Expections: Let's take a leap of faith and state that Keya decides to take the plunge into a LFR (dungeon). Her main spec is Vengeance, which is a tanking spec. Keya, however, would be in the DPS role. That would be Havoc spec. Keya quickly found out that Havoc spec is very, very different from Vengeance.

Gotta start somewhere. Starting slow on the Broken Shores, she waded into the felstalkers that are always hanging around and had no problem killing them. She was not comfortable with the spell rotations at all, however. Hoping to gain some better control with a tougher target, Keya went after the elite in the same area. As Vengeance, Keya has killed that demon dozens of times. In Havoc spec, she only escaped death by leaping into the water and swimming away. Very embarrassing. And she just didn't like the way Havoc worked.

If Keya is going to get into an LFR, it will have to be in Vengeance spec. Night falls. Keya finishes all of her chores. There are no quests to follow up on. The Rift Cannon has been covered. Sista has bedded down in The Dreamgrove for the night. Chaitee is counting coins.

Keya taps the Group Finder. Just fooling around. It asks if she wants a random Legion Heroic. No. Keya changed it to random Legion dungeon. She watched the Group Finder. She tried not watching it. Bed would be good. Yet she still stood on the same spot where she opened the Group Finder.

Then the well known sound of a dungeon coming to life sounded around her. Accept or Reject? If she goes, will she be accepted as a DPS in tank gear? What the hell, Keya accepted.

Keya didn't know where she was at first. She was focused on seeing what kind of "Legion" dungeon she would face. Would she be accepted into the group? Does she have the faintest idea what she'll have to do? Two players who didn't like the dungeon they wound up in left. The other three of us stuck around, killing minor elites and hoping. Keya was so focused on trying to look like she knew what she was doing, she didn't see that she already knew the place. Wildshard was suddenly channeling Keya - and Keya realized she was in the Violet Hold. Upgraded, of course, to Legion level and now called Assault on Violet Hold: Purple Pain.

Violet Hold is perhaps the most played dungeon in all of Azeroth. It's been years, but it all came back, just like that. We got our five players, including a healer. No one noticed or cared that Keya was in Vengeance gear. She had signed up as melee DPS, and that is what she is. No more worrying about that.

Nobody died, and everyone had fun, even Keya - or at least got done what they needed to get done, and we finished the run. Violet Hold has always been a confidence maker, and it shined again tonight. Keya also should have received acknowledgement for completing the first of 15 dungeon runs she'll need. Keya took stock after the run finished. Officially the group had a tank, healer, and three DPS, but Recount only shows the two "official" DPS. What I can state is that Keya did 38% of all damage, vs 28% from the other  DPS. Charred Warblades did the most damage (67%). Our healer was very good and Keya's health never went below 90%.

The Violet Hold is almost home for aging Wildshard, the batan now passed to Keya. Kinda puts a hitch in the throat.

PS - It is with considerable irony that the above was meant to follow the "Death of Solo Progression" post. Amazing how things can turn completely around. Keya is far from out of the woods, but there has certainly been a breakthru. The "Death of Solo Progression" was never released.







Sunday, September 3, 2017

Court of Stars Dungeon

 Court of Stars Dungeon

Keya was doing quests in Suramar when she came across the "Court of Stars" Dungeon. I believe this is part of the Emerald Nightmare raid/dungeon group. She was curious, having never seen the inside of any of the dungeons of Legion. She pictured bare rock, bloody pools of Fel, and dangerous monsters and elites ready to devour her.

It wasn't like that. When Keya stepped through the portal she was standing on a quay in an area very much like the rest of Suramar. It was nice, actually. A small, unmanned boat puttered over and stopped. Keya stepped in, and the boat took her a short distance to another small landing. So far so good. The whole area had a soothing, calm atmosphere. There was no one around. 


 

Well, almost no one. A demon stepped out from one of the many arches. He apparently didn't see her, but Keya could tell the demon sensed something. The demon was a 112 elite. Keya had killed many such demons. She wondered if a dungeon level demon would pack a larger punch. Theoretically, there should be a group of five in here. There was only her. Well, the demon was still standing there, so she went over to say hi. And then killed it. It wasn't even that hard.
 

She decided to check the inside of the arch where the demon had come from. There was a set of stairs that went up a couple of floors and to an open doorway. Keya could see numerous demons and other of their kind. A voice in her head said something about disguising herself "by disabling the arcane beacons." She had no idea how to that, however, and the disguise she wore in Suramar was not available to her here. To her right were two elite demons. To her left were other elite creatures.

Killing a single elite demon is one thing. Getting the attention of a room of elites in a dungeon designed for five heavily armed adventurers is suicide. She took the sane approach and hearthed back to Dalaran.


 

Still, Keya can now say she did a dungeon run. Sort of. Of a practical matter, Keya's little adventure got her to 14k Nightfallen rep toward the 21k she needs. It's a slow slog.

PS - Keya will continue the motions of getting her Pathfinder completed and pursue her class mount. She even spent a considerable amount of time getting another piece of the "Good Suramaritan" by completing the "Tidying Tel' anor" segment. She'll work on getting The Nightfallen to Exalted. She still has to finish "A Change of Seasons" and "A Growing Crisis." I believe she will run into raid/dungeon blockades soon. Keya will keep at it until she reaches the dead end. Even then, she still has a few tricks to play.

Saturday, September 2, 2017

Sista Is A Wreck

Sista Is A Wreck

Chaitee and Keya now have competition. Sista intends to become more active. It will be a steep climb and she will have to push hard to get the time she needs to bring her gear and skills up to par. Sista has made every mistake possible and she may never get everything straightened out, but she's going to try. First off she is working on getting her Claws of Usoc relics and artifacts back on track. She had anough stuff lying about to get her gear level from i826 to i829 to i832. Sista had amassed over 60 million AP that she had never bothered to use. She put that AP to work, filling 24 ranks and her relics.

She is still slow moving and awkward, but her kill rate has gone up considerably. Focusing on the Broken Shores, she continued to improve her gear, raising the bar again to i846. She has been working on raising her order resources in order to restart her Missions, which have been seriously neglected.

Back to Keya, she went to her forge and tested the Concordance of the Legionfall. She spent two billion (yes, TWO BILLION) to upgrade the Concordance to Rank 4. Her overall rank went from 53 to 55. Apparently, there is no limit to how many ranks of Concordance you can have - if you have the AP to buy it. The benefit is a random proc that Keya can't control, so while it is nice to have, she didn't want to spend any more of her AP on a proc. As far as Keya has been able to discern, there is no other way to add more ranks other than the Concordance.

Keya's fear that she wasn't good enough for Argus also proved false. Her first foray happened to lead her into an all elite area. After getting out of that area she has been travelling all over Argus except for Mac' Aree, which hasn't opened for her yet. The new portal system is also pretty good,. Huge sections of Argus are still out of reach, though. There is an invisible wall that cuts across a large section of the planet. Players, including Keya, run right up to it and bounce off. One day that barrier may fall. It's not only a long fall, it looks to be full of fire. Beware.

Argunite is the new nethershard for Argus. It takes 650 argunite to buy a 910 relinquished piece, vs the 5000 nethershards to get i880 level gear. Keya has 94 argunite so far.

Keya would like to immerse herself in Argus, but she still has elements of Pathfinder that she has to keep plugging away at. Most of that time is spent in Suramar. Keya hates big cities, and she gets lost in there endlessly. Trying to figure out what is ground level, underground, or over her head is maddening. If Blizz ever wanted to make a whole world happy, give us a way to know from up and down and level. Her immediate goal is to get the Nightfallen rep to Exalted.