The Queue: I should’ve played Diablo tonight

Sometimes you get the dragon and sometimes the dragon gets you. After spending all night working on Mythic Kezzara she proved too strong for us and feasted on our — apparently delicious — cries.

This is one of those times that what initially seems like a tiny change going from Heroic to Mythic wound up being a lot stronger than we anticipated. On Mythic if you cross the streams at all the raid takes big damage. So all of a sudden positioning and communication are way more important. There was a level of personal responsibility there to not just instantly kite your laser beam into the nearest puddle and instead make sure that you were going to the best puddle for yourself, which our raiders just weren’t prepared for.

Next time I’m sure!

While I get a quick dungeon in on Diablo to be killed by a different kind of hellfire, it’s time for — The Queue!

It’s a fork clearly.

You’d have to have a really soupy mac and cheese for me to consider using a spoon. There are so many different noodle shapes in the macaroni family too that sometimes a spoon isn’t the right tool for the job even if it’s larger. Maybe you need to be able to spear a bunch of cavatappi together for the perfect bite! A spoon you’re getting like two of those at once. Chopsticks are more likely the play in that situation I’d say.

Plus a fork lets you try and get a noodle on each fork tine, and that’s always a fun addition to your meal.

Siege isn’t that bad to do by yourself, sure there are some things there that a fresh character might have more trouble with, but I feel like everything is at least scaled low enough to start with that you’ll be able to make a good showing of yourself even in just Primalist/World Quest gear.

Now the Zaralek Caverns and Forbidden Reach rares on the other hand. Those are just way too beefy to start with. It’d take me 10-15 minutes of play in my geared Bear to get just one of them down! To say nothing of just not being able to do the Researchers Under Fire and Tuskarr soup events to any satisfying conclusion without a full raid of people.

I get that these are things that take place in a massively multiplayer game but even making groups in the group finder isn’t turning up the bodies I would need for top success all of the time. Especially playing at off-peak hours on a smaller server.

Events like that really need some sort of built-in power modifier that goes down as more people show up for them. When you’re by yourself you’re a big unstoppable juggernaut, but as soon as five more people show up you’re back down to nearly baseline powers.

Or for the Tuskarr Soup event when you’re cooking by yourself, you’re Gordon Ramsay, but as more cooks arrive you’re MasterChef Junior cooking for Gordon Ramsay.

It’s as always a tough line to walk. I just wasn’t expecting to walk into Aberrus and have 8/9 Heroic by the end of the second week. With only a handful of pulls on Zskarn and Echo of Neltharion — Magmorax we one shot. Which for the 7th boss in Heroic shouldn’t really happen I think. Now sure my guild is above average and definitely Ahead of the Curve when it comes to these things, but I don’t think I remember a Heroic raid that we bopped through that fast in a long while.

At this rate, we’re going to get fairly deep into Mythic before we get stopped by an execution boss. We didn’t get through Halondrus or Painsmith in Shadowlands because none of us wanted to put the work in on learning those fights.

So I’d say that’s the line, would it feel satisfying to get through Painsmith on Mythic after 150+ pulls? Sure, but I don’t think it would be satisfying enough to warrant the time spent there. Same with pushing further in, I’m fine not getting Cutting Edge Mythic kills on end bosses because they’re too hard for me!

I’m happy with my above-average raid team and getting to mess around and not take things too seriously. Give us the reasonable challenges and some of the shiny loots and I won’t complain. We don’t need it all, or to be highly encouraging players to play certain specs and talent builds.

I love a good portmanteau! In my opinion, I’m not sure that “Costmetics” is that though — sorry.

It took me a few readings to realize what you were going for, even with the quotation marks! I just assumed that you had made a minor typo spelling cosmetics and my eyes slid over it.

I do agree that it is getting a little out of hand with the cost though. Even if the rewards are purely cosmetic I don’t like paying big money for a game, and then have to keep paying money for some of the coolest looks in that game.

I understand that all of these persistent games as a service need a way to ensure that the team is still being paid for their work, but I wish that more of the shiny loot would eventually wind up in the game without having to pay for it.

I can’t believe it’s coming up on 20 years! That’s too many years!!

• Vanilla: The sense of exploration and getting to see all of the things from Warcraft 3 up close and personal.
• Burning Crusade: My first raiding and my first raid loot!
• Wrath of the Lich King: Finally making the right decision and going Horde, also getting my Rusted Proto-Drake and Frostwyrm Mounts from Ulduar and Icecrown Citadel.
• Cataclysm: Killing Heroic Deathwing and starting my own guild!
• Mists of Pandaria: Server first Ra-den! (During Siege of Orgrimmar shhhhh don’t tell anyone). Mists is my high watermark for Warcraft. I had the most time to play the game and found the content to really complement myself and the group of people I played with.
• Warlords of Draenor: I really liked the garrisons and the mission table. I wish that the system was iterated and developed more.
• Legion: Class Halls and a still pretty great mission table system! Such great story content and a unique class experience, also when we finally killed Heroic Kil’jaeden after 200+ pulls that was extremely satisfying.
• Battle for Azeroth: Starting to raid with my new guild! Corruption was a really good system too and I miss my big beefy Twilight Devestations very much. I also miss the Horrific Visions of Orgrimmar and Stormwind scenarios.
• Shadowlands: All of the Venthyr stuff. Give me more of that please and thank you!
• Dragonflight: Dragonflying! I’m also interested to see where all of this Old God story content goes.

Rampaging Bear!

Guess what class I’m playing.

Just a regular old cat, sitting on a regular old dip in the couch so it looks like he weighs a bunch. Hopefully, you get some heavy luck this week for your vaults!

Today’s Anna Earworm™: Love From The Other Side

Have a great week everyone! It’s hard to believe we’re in June already, that’s too many months! What happened to March?!