Been a few months I guess! So what’s been occurring?
Ooh, nothing much, except that in 3 months or thereabouts?
CROSS FACTION GUILDS BABEH!
I.
CANNOT.
WAIT.
Seriously. This is a lifetime (well, 17yr old) dream for me, as I’ve been pushing for cross faction, well, everything, for the entire time I’ve been playing WoW!
Cross Faction Guilds? The ultimate dream. Honestly. I’ve wanted this to be a reality for all of those 17 years, and it’s been announced that, unforeseen code apocalypse aside, Cross Faction Guilds will be introduced along with the next tier of raiding & content in Patch 10.1, which is likely to release either in late May, or more likely, around the 20th June.
Specifically this date, because Diablo 4, which I’ve pre-purchased because it’s looking AWESOME, is released on June 6th, and I’d reckon that Blizzard would want to give that particular big-ticket launch at least a couple of weeks to breath before launching the first major post-release content patch for Dragonflight.
If they were to release before or closer to June 6th, the considerable overlap of players from both communities (myself included) would not really have the time to dedicate to both franchises, so I reckon they’ll get the launch of D4 fulfilled, give players a couple of weeks to exhaust the majority of content, then hit players with Dragonflight 10.1, and all of the content that it brings with it.
As for me, I’m still Huntering, but I’ve gone Tauren for the meantime (until 10.1), and my raid team, Gargantuan Baguettes team 2, are now 5/8 Mythic! We got Kurog down week before last and are working on Mythic Dathea now, and so far are at around 40% on our best pull or thereabouts.
I managed to get a World Record DPS score on Sennarth as BM (without external buffs) at my iLevel, which was gratifying as hell, and parse-wise I’m currently sitting just below 94% overall:
Still need to bring up that Kurog score, but given we’ve only killed it thrice, 81% isn’t too bad.
Hunter is still the most brittle class in the game*, without any doubt, but at least it’s still the best Boss Damage spec in the game right now, and if that’s to be its niche for the expansion AND it is allowed to be the best (or close to it) for the length of the expansion? I’m more than happy to sit in that particular groove.
(*Even with perfect positional play, and avoidance of general mechanics, Hunter is still very vulnerable to ticking AoE damage, and ticking out because of it – Hunters still need better defensives!)
Alts! And Real Life shizzle!
Still haven’t levelled any alts! Multiple reasons for this, primarily because, I haven’t actually got playing much WoW over the past 5-6 weeks!
Main reason? My Wife broke her leg in work about 5 weeks ago, and I’ve been spending a LOT of my time looking after her in the interim. She’s finally getting to the stage now in the healing process where she’s more independent and can do stuff for herself now, thankfullly.
Secondary reason? Revising!
Not for an exam, per se, but I was up for a job promotion in work, and it was one I really wanted to get, as it would afford me a decent uplift in pay, but more importantly, meant I wouldn’t have to actually change jobs, as it was essentially going to be a straight promotion!
Now, where I work (local government), job interviews are less like interviews and more like oral exams. A lot of being successful in these types of interview is down to memorisation and learning competencies and examples of same by rote.
As someone with ADHD and autism, this isn’t exactly a disability-friendly process!
So I had spent several weeks “in the weeds”, going over and over and over and over my examples, answers, potential questions & scenarios, and then going back over them again. And again, and again…
Then the day of the interview came, and it was all over inside of 45 minutes.
I then had to spend a stress-filled day awaiting the result…
I GOT THE JOB!
So over the past year, my pay packet has risen by a meaty 37%, which is a huge relief, especially at the current moment, with the cost of living crisis in full effect.
More so after 15+ years of Tory austerity policies, which saw public sector pay like mine spending years and years frozen or capped at 1% rises at best.
So after putting up with minimal or no pay rises for over a decade, my take-home pay is finally starting to reflect the skills and knowledge that I bring to my job. Which is gratifying as hell tbh.
And finally, on top of all that, I had my 3rd assignment due in for my current degree module, which only got submitted during the week there.
So the past month or more has been pretty filled with drama, excitement and hard work on more than one front. But I’m out the other side of it all now, in a much better place than I was going into it (pay-wise at least), so all in all it was worth the effort!
And after a slow start to blogging this year (March already, wtf?), I’m hoping to be at least as “regular” as I was last year, and get at least one blog done per month.
There’s loads more I want to blog about this year:
- More WoW (obv)
- Stable Diffusion, AI Art & ChatGPT
- Other Games (couple of bangers I’m currently playing for a start)
- Privacy Rights, and the UK’s continuing descent into Fascism (light-hearted & fun filled article no doubt!)
- New GPUs, specifically the 7900XT and XTX
- Music Creation (I bought the Novation FLKey 37 Midi Controller, as well as the Image Line UVI Power Bundle)
- Social Media (still largely given up on Twitter, and now firmly settled on Mastodon on masto.ai)
So, hopefully plenty more thoughts to come this year. The above list isn’t exhaustive, nor is it in any order, but it should hopefully keep me focused on what I want to talk about in the near future at least!
