WoW Weekly: Dormant

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing inside the game and out. From mount farming and raiding, to music, movies, books and other games.

Ch-ch-changes.

That's what we all saw last Tuesday with the arrival of the Legion pre-patch. How's it been going for you? I had a pretty busy week leading up to the guild's Thursday raid night, so I wasn't able to put in a great deal of time into learning my enhancement shaman's new rotation. Bosses fell in record time, but things still felt a bit off. While the enhancement rotation looks different on the surface---no more totems, no more Maelstrom x 5 Lightning Bolts, no more shocks---the spells we see now have parallels in the old rotation. 

Instead of Unleash Elements, I've talented into Frostbrand with the aim to keep the buff up 100% of the time. Instead of keeping Flameshock active, we now maintain the Flametongue buff. The main difference between the old and the new is the concept of "building and spending" abilities. We definitely have a lot more control over Maelstrom accrual, though right now the rate of acquisition seems a bit slow. Currently, I'm noticing a bit more down time in combat compared to the old rotation. I've been told the artifact weapon come Legion will smooth some of this out. 

After spending some time with target dummies, setting up some WeakAuras, and killing a half-dozen raid bosses, the rotation is beginning to feel natural. Phew. For a while I felt like I might have to bid farewell to my main since the Burning Crusade. 

Thanks for All The Resources
Now that the lucrativeness of the garrison is all but gone, the call to log in on a daily basis to gather gold has gone quiet. There's still quite a bit I could finish up in Legion, like collecting missing toys, pets, and mounts, but I generally leave a chunk of content unfinished for the inevitable down time that will happen in the new expansion. For example, once the guild had Heroic Archimonde on farm status, I started going after old-world mounts as well as achievements on the Timeless Isle. 

Falling to My Death, Over and Over Again
This makes no sense, I thought to myself, as I plummeted from the skies over Orgrimmar towards the ground where certain death awaited. I repeated this several dozen times in order to satisfy the requirements for the Feat of Strength It All Makes Sense Now over the course of my lunch hour earlier this week. Can't say it was fun, but it's done. 

Climbing the Mount(ain) Runs
After landing two mounts I'd been after for some time, as mentioned in my last post, I set my sights on Alysrazor in the Firelands. However, the prospect of setting up six more characters under the new changes feels too daunting at the moment, and for now, I've ceased mount runs until I can get a better handle on my enhancement shaman.

Making Grandpa Proud
This will probably get the Gaming Affairs treatment at some point, because I've sunk a lot of time into Stardew Valley over the past month and a half. I was turned on to the title by my step-brother, and at first glance it looked pretty dumb. Never played Harvest Moon or Farmville but that's what Stardew looked like to me. Essentially, you inherit a farm in disrepair from your grandfather, and it's up to you to rejuvenate it. 

While it's very similar to those other games in many aspects from what I'm told, I've had a good time in-game. There's a lot of character depth that took me by surprise, and at times the game highlights some quite serious and deep problems, like corporate business running mom & pop shops out of town, townsfolk struggling with depression and self-image, and soldiers returning from war with PTSD. Admittedly, it's beginning to feel stale, especially as I edge closer to "beating" the game (I'd liken this to earning all of WoW's achievements, but on a much smaller scale). That said, the staleness only began to creep in after I logged more than 70 hours. Normally $15, I nabbed it for a discount during the Steam Summer Sale. It's been a while since I put that much time into WoW over a two-month period, so I'd call it money well-spent.

Check out the title for yourself on Steam.

Watching Winona Freak Out
Netflix Originals, man. They've got a good thing going. I've plowed through Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Ranch, and Bloodline. With Vikings, Game of Thrones, and the Walking Dead on hiatus I started looking for something new. Which is when I found Stranger Things. It's set in the early 80s in what could be almost any small, rural town in America. I won't spoil anything, but the basic premise is that a boy goes missing, a strange girl with powers shows up and the people involved try to make sense of it all. It has a strikingly nostalgic feel and reminded me of some classics: E.T., Goonies, Stand By Me, and so on. Winona Ryder plays the missing boy's mother, and offers an authentic performance that involves a lot of screaming and yelling. 

I binged that in about a week, so I'm back in the running for a new show. Heard quite a bit about some of the other Originals I haven't touched yet (OITNB, House of Cards, etc.)...any thoughts? 

Getting the Band Back Together
The group I've been playing with since 2007ish has started to book shows again. We had a couple-year hiatus due to marriages and babies and those sorts of things. Now that things have settled down, families have gotten comfortable with their new routines (/target Child, /cast Silence), we're looking to write, record, and play a show from time to time.