Being Saleh: Longer and Harder

Oh, hi!!

So it's been a long time since my last post, being a dad is one of the cause but I'm kinda jumping between games this past year, most of them are JRPGs, several FFXIV, WOW, and ESO sessions and on some month: not playing anything at all.

But enough all that, today I want to talk about WOW, you know, yes it's still exists :D

As Legion expansion entered it's final chapter as of the release of patch 7.3.5, and the end of the third invasion of the burning crusade: I finally leveled up my paladin, my sixth level 110 toon

The most controversiaI thing in this patch and subject to most debate on online forums is probably the world zone scaling, it basically a guild wars 2 type of character syncing only this time it's the world that leveled up with you instead of you leveled down to match the zone's recommended level. Blizz initially did this for the Legion expansion area but now it's live for all WOW area: So what's this thing did for the players?

Basically it gives freedom for new characters to choose where they want to go to level up, the wow vanilla zone (Eastern Kingdom and Kalimdor) is designed for player level 1-60, the Outland and Northrend is now a level 60-80 zones, Cataclysm and Pandaland is 80-90 zones, while the dreaded Draenor is still a level 90-100 zone. The scaling also means the level 1-100 dungeons are now also scaled to player's level, making them more challenging a.k.a as my lazy self said (without any body part references): longer and harder, making players leveling is now a return to the classic way: questing.

As I read the patch notes I realized this is the thing that I can get behind to, but I still wonder... so I decided to tackle them out, I started a mage, the class that I avoid like a plague, decked him with full heirloom gears, I rolled a goblin which can't leave their initial area until the storyline is completed (btw this is my third goblin) my goal is of course: max level -- with this much handicap

I (finally and blisfully) left lost isle when my mage reached level 20, then I browsed the war board on ogrimmar, the usual route for goblins on this level is aszhara but since I have the quest achievement I decided to go to stonetalon instead, skipping ashenvale (which I completed on my warlock many many years ago). From Stonetalon i continued to Desolace, completed them both, then I hightailed to Feralas, Felwood, and a bit of Winterspring, after I dinged 60 with some help from dungeon quests (they gave decent exp but the dungeon itself is not) I decided to quit... at least for now

So what did I get to level the worst class (for me at least) on the worst looking race from 1 to 60? The leveling process itself is a mixed bag, but remember that those area is from cataclysm era so the story felt a little outdated, I mean I still love them and find the forgotten little bit of the story, like uniting the centaur on desolace is great, but still... it's somewhat off... I can't really put my finger on what's wrong, it just feel... odd, could be because I'm playing a mage though.

But nevertheless i dinged 60 so let's mix things a bit, I have a level 60 pally from... I can't remember actually, on this level I can choose outland or northrend content, and because outland kinda sucks i decided to go to northrend, so Howling Fjord is next and the next thing happened I blew my way to level 75 completing it and lo!! it feels great, but then I made a mistake by choosing Icecrown as my next leveling field, it was exhausting since the quests required you to fly back and forth across those walls, although it feels epic but it was tiring, i dinged 80 without completing it and decided to go to Pandaria instead of Cata zones.

I have all the loremaster title for the xpacs started from cataclysm, so I'm completely familiar with them, my 80 to 90 is spent most in Jade Forest and some Valley of Four Winds, my 90 to 100 is spent on the dreaded Frostfire Ridge and a little bit of Gorgrond, garrison helped out a bit. From this experience I saw that 80 to 100 is faster than my other leveling process, and it's not too bad after all, all the nostalgia is strong within this process.

I also decided that my not-to-feel-good leveling process from 1-60 is because I'm not good with ranged casters :D

So what's the overall conclusion from all this all-new-butsomewhatold leveling process thingie? I honestly don't have one, but I'd like to try again on my all new fresh void elf/zandalari troll toon when Battle for Azeroth rolls in, that might be a proof that this patch is good enough for me.

And yes I dinged max level on my pally, I already told you on the first lines of this post :P

Being Saleh: Trading Places with Patch 2.2

Patch 2.2 won't be news again when I publish this, but it's still worth mentioning, beside making everything worthy again by implementing challenge log, patch 2.2 is a turning point where everything becomes less chore and more fun

FUN??!! BLASHPEMY!!! Well okay, enough of jokes, you know what? What's the point of leveling my chocobo to level 50? Nothing, but with challenge log everytime you defeat a foe with him/her (i'm not picky) it'll be counted towards your progress of the challenge log, and if you complete that challenge you'll be granted significant amount of xp and money. And yeah, what about grinding those rep for the new sahagin faction? Boring! Well ok how about if it also counted towards your progress on this challenge log? Well ok, two bird in a stone I guess.

Challenge Log is a series of work order that can be completed which rewards titles, money, and xp. It lessened but not eliminated a series of 'useless grinding' chores on Final Fantasy XIV like running hests and leveling your crafting, they resets once a week so you can complete your five hests run on five days or less, oh yeah there's a challenge for dungeon too, that way you get your xp, mytho, soldiery tome, and much more money, all in one run, can i have an instant gratification, please?

Well for altholic challenge log is a blessing since it gave major boost to leveling process, for casual dungeoneers it gave more reason to run multiple dungeon a day, for gatherer and crafter it gives you money for each and every challenge completed for rare and plain items, and you do know that gil is everything a crafter can dream of, so yeah challenge log is for everyone, except maybe coil-dwelling hardcores. They have five more turn of no-ability-lag-dramafest implemented in this patch

Also i decided to move on from being a tank, the patch has created more group content benefits that the dps on duty finder only got several minutes of queue times, convenient. Also leviathan has interesting mechanic and it was more fun to dps than to tank