Ding 62 / 300 Artificer & 250 Tailor
The end is in sight. I’ve done AC and CM story modes twice each. I’m plugging away at these last two professions (Tailor and Artificer). They’re the last I intend to level for quite some time. For now, it’s something I do when I want to play but not in the mood to run around. It’s more costly following the “just buy the component” guides but it’s easy. I don't even take the time to dissect what I have mats for that I could make myself versus purchase. This time around, I’m stockpiling the supplies I harvested. I what I can for my Mesmer's armor, weapons and trinkets. But as far as leveling the professions, this time I'm following guides.
Inspired by Making it to End Game Zones
Amazed how far I got on my bid to open up waypoints at 55, the idea of going back to fighting against mobs my own level felt uninspired. I know that I don’t need a fraction of the remaining content to hit 80 so I’ve decided to revert to how I added spice to leveling in my later days in WOW. I’m cherry-picking zones with mobs that are 4 to 6 levels above me and fighting them 2 to 3 at a time. Sometimes its more since the level disparity creates a wider aggro radius. More often, it's that my careless strafing skills will pull more mobs during combat. This is especially true in areas with high mob density and fast respawns. Damn but the undead resurrect quickly!! A few seconds after I put one down, they're back in the frey while I'm still killing their other brethren.
Mesmer, oh my!
The Mesmer is something else. Especially considering that my gear is generally up to 5 levels behind because I do en masse upgrade every 10 levels. I don’t kill quickly, but I can sustain/kite for a very long time. Sometimes I end up fighting waves because I’m still killing one or two when my aggro radius or careless strafing pulls more adds. There are also some areas with unusually fast respawns which can catch you unawares.
It’s not fast. It’s probably not efficient either. I could kill faster in my own level range. It’s just more exciting and fun. There’s more of a sense of adventure, higher stakes and risk. I’m basically setting my own bar and goals. I make a conscious effort to complete hearts if slaying nearby creatures satisfies the requirements. I’m buying stock piles of the Karma account bound cooking ingredients as I unlock the associated vendor. Figuring out at the end of my leveling on the first pass through the content, that I needed to go back and unlock these NPCs for their wares was annoying. I unlocked just enough of them to max cooking and then only the ones I needed for exotic and rare food recipes.. Makes sense to capture more of them as convenient, while I’m out doing hearts again.
What’s Next
New role at work that will require a bit more travel which will curtail some of my gaming. I’ll be out of town next week but am confident I’ll be 80 before or shortly after my return. From there I’ll complete tailor and artificer. After that, I want to continue crafting for profit and start playing the Black Lion market.
Ravious has an excellent post on Kill Ten Rats - Black Lion PVP. I’m exploring more of the offline tools players have created and have a plan to work on dumping data from GW2 Spidy into a visualization tool I use for performance management projects at work.
I want to create a template dashboard to view and analyze trading post data that will support overwriting the existing data store with a new dump from GW2 Spidy. The tool I use, Tableau, has a free reader available so I’ll be sharing the end result for others to use if you're interested.
Beyond crafting in GW2, I’m waiting for and crossing my fingers for player housing. I can’t seem to motivate myself to play other games. GW2 fits my personal style the best of any MMO to date. If you're new to my ramblings, here's my 2009 manifesto on why I tend to solo MMOs and why people who insist it should only support grouping, should burn in hell! :-)
More EQ2 Housing
It’s almost certain I’ll be making a return to EQ2 to decorate my “hobbit hole”, Vale of Halfpint Delight prestige house. I purchased it several months ago but haven't been back. I need to resubscribe for at least a month to unlock my bag space so I can move out of all the huge rental homes I maintain. I want to make a warehouse of sorts in the Halfpint property where I can place my inventory. This way I can return to F2P and still have access to all my items and only needed the reduced bag space.
I might buy the ship recently released as a prestige home, Galleon of Dreams. The idea of building out my own version of a shire and connecting the wharf to something visual that ports you into a real ship sounds SQUEELICIOUS!!
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