Upon the Eve of Dragonflight

With the recent decision to play Dragonflight after all, tomorrow now holds a little more interest than it did previously. Rather than being noteworthy as ‘The day other people start a new expansion’ it has become the day I get to play a new expansion. For perhaps the first time I’ve played a WoW expansion from launch day though, I won’t have the day or any other time off around it. Generally, I would take at least a couple of days to get the levelling part done and ready for dungeons!

My excitement level is not at an all-time fever pitch, but it’s certainly not ‘just another day in the office’, either. I think tempering my excitement somewhat is that there really is a literal ‘another day in the office’ to go before I get to play. With just making my decision to play last week, and how busy work is in the lead-up to end of year — there just wasn’t any way I could justify taking the time off on such short notice.

So I’ll be curious to see what level my guildies with days off are when I get home.

…

Maybe the WoW servers will have terrible issues tomorrow at launch and no-one will get to play until I come home anyway.

Bahahaha!

…

No, no… I don’t really wish that… Well… Only half wish that, perhaps. And besides, I think for whatever other faults Blizzard may have, crashing servers on WoW expansion launches hasn’t been among them in a long time.

I also landed on my main!

Druid!

Resto, specifically. When last I posted the healing role was locked in, but I had a bit of a lean toward Mistweaver Monk.

Mistweaver looked fun, and if I was considering more time spent as DPS Offspec, then Monk wins hands down on that front. Balance has been smoothed out a lot it seems with the Dragonflight patches, even allowing for back-to-backing of the same eclipse type rather than forcing cycling between them which is pretty huge. But… It still doesn’t really resonate as much with me.

So that being what it is, what are the reasons for choosing Druid anyway?

• Initially, when I was considering Monk, we didn’t have one — so we would’ve been missing the 5% Increased Physical Damage taken debuff on enemies. Now we do have a Windwalker monk though, so that reason is gone.
• Monk is on the same tier token (Zenith) as Evokers, (Rogues and Warriors) — of which we have several. By far, even after my switch, the highest demand will be for the Zenith token.
• Mythic+ performance for Mistwalker Monk was questionable, while Resto Druid was as strong as ever. While I’d still say raiding is my primary PvE content — I am at least interested in being able to push for KSM this time around.
• And finally, it’s a bit of a comfort pick. Druid has been my main off and on (but mostly on) since the latter half of The Burning Crusade. I wandered off to Mage DPS land last expansion, and it seems time to ‘come home’ as it were.

It is looking like Blizzard have learnt some lessons though, and will be addressing much of what really drove me wild with previous expansions — Shadowlands included.

It seems like there will be less requirement on doing things other than raiding, in order just to raid, if that is your desire. When I inevitably reach the point of ‘raid-logging’ (i.e., logging in only to raid, and then log out again) if I can actually feel like I can do that in Dragonflight without dragging my team down, I’m much, much more likely to stick around for a longer period overall.

I might even level some alts during the expansion itself! (Monk would almost certainly be first up here. :))

In any case, looking forward to playing tomorrow — hopefully the queues when I get home aren’t several hours long. … Which they probably will be. xD

Inform: (As this post mentions or talks about an Activision Blizzard product, or the company)

While I have chosen to break my self-imposed exile from Activision-Blizzard titles, I still feel it important to acknowledge the troubled status of the company, so you can make your own decision.

Activision Blizzard has become subject to multiple sexual-harassment lawsuits. Of note, in particular, is that it has been alleged that Bobby Kotick (current CEO) has not only been aware of, but also attempted to suppress word of, such incidents — even going so far as to intervene to keep a perpetrator hired with the company.

Even so, support for a long-term boycott was never clear cut, even amongst those affected.