World of Warcraft: Legion.

So, it will be launching 12am Tuesday (meaning no reset or shutdown) and the EU launch went pretty smooth, so I’m hoping it will be the same for NA realms. I’ll be doing Unholy Death Knight, Assassination Rogue, Vengeance Demon Hunter, in that order with off specs Blood, Outlaw, and Havoc respectively. I’ve found the updated Icy Veins class guides very helpful for specs and artifact traits. Using it as a guide only and a starting point for each spec.

I may end up just leveling as blood for now then at around unlocking the 13 trait, then boosting the Unholy artifact Apocalypse to match the current level. I’ll probably end up PVP’ing as Unholy and doing PVE as Blood for mythics, mythic+, and raids using the group finder.

For my Rogue, it is much simpler as I plan to be mainly Assassination for PVE and PVP but I would like to have Outlaw as an offspec.

With my Demon Hunter, I may just end up staying mainly as Vengeance and then boosting the Havoc artifact for PVP and an offspec.

After these 3, I may do some other alts just to see the the other class’s order halls and artifacts. These will probably be Frost Mage, Feral Druid, Marksmanship Hunter. I may also have a Paladin for Retribution and Holy.

Definitely excited for legions and can’t wait to get started.

Audible for August/September.

With my 2 audible credits, I decided to continue the Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwell because I enjoyed the story and characters. I enjoyed Lords of the North as it payed off on the blood feud between Uhtred and Ragnar the younger with Kjartan the Cruel and Sven. My only real complaint is the change in narrators from the first 2 books to the 3rd book, I felt that the Keeble really nailed the aspect of an older Uhtred retelling his own story. After these 2 books I will have 4 books left in the series.

So far the series is very entertaining and I thought it was compelling, the Danish characters in particular were the most interesting especially Ragnar the Fearless and Ragnar the younger. I also particularly enjoyed the Danish warlords like Ivar, Ubba, and Svein.

I’ll definitely finish off the series as quickly as possible, I’ll possibly pick up 3 more credits to finish the series by the end of September.

I’ll probably start listening to Sword Song and The Burning Land early September.

World of Warcraft – Demon Hunter Early Access.

So, having had about just under a week of access to Demon Hunters, I found that I like the DPS and Tanking role and performance of each, at least in PVE. In PVP Demon Hunters are the most easily CC’d class because they do not have access to the full row of talents yet. This also means that Damage is also mid tier but it still impressive considering the lack of full talent spec.

Tanking is also decent, feels like a more mobile version of a Blood DK, especially since Soul Cleave works similar to Death Strike, in that it heals you but you have to use your main resource in order to do it. Tanking damage is also very high like a Blood DK and survival cd’s are more also limited just like a Blood DK. This is impressive because Vengeance Demon Hunters do not have full access to talents yet.

So, in short, PVE wise Demon Hunters are about mid tier and impressive in PVE but lackluster in PVP, this is Legion Pre-patch mind you and Demon Hunters do not have full access to talents yet nor an artifact weapon. I am impressed and like the class/specs to make this 1 of the main 3 toons I’ll be levelling in legion. Death Knight, Rogue, Demon Hunter, for the curious.

What I am playing/listening to/watching/reading/looking forward to for August.

The World of Warcraft Legion Expansion drops on August 30th, but the pre-patch is already here and Demon Hunter Early Access is on August 9th. That is basically what I’ll be playing, the legion changes have been more hit than miss, with some rough adjustments to classes like Hunters and spec’s like Discipline but so far I like the changes. I’ve posted my own personal run down of my toons and my preferred specs, so I won’t repeat here and I still have not made a decision on what the 3rd toon I’ll level or if Demon Hunters are that good, if it will dislodge my current Unholy Death Knight main.

I still have a backlog of games and I have a strategy I have previously mentioned to deal with them (1 week on, 1 week off) and it worked pretty well for The Witcher DLC. I plan to continue doing it, however, with the legion changes and WoW being pretty fun to play at the moment, backlog games are on hold. This is an ideal situation because my next backlog game/DLC is Fallout 4’s DLC (Automatron, Far Harbour, Vault Tec Workshop, and Nuka World) and I’d prefer to wait until they are all out and downloaded. I have already started a game and gotten to the point of finishing off the main story but I will wait for the last DLC Nuka World to be released before I go back to complete them all.

I have also gone ahead and pre-ordered Civilization 6, mostly because I have over 300+ hours time spent playing Civ 5. So they basically did not have to sell me on the game at all.

There are other games I’ve been looking at as well. They are: Total War Warhammer, Dishonored 2, We Happy Few, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, Rise of the Tomb Raider. As well as the lingering desire to get an Xbox One S to play a backwards compatible Red Dead Redemption or a PS4 Neo so I can try out Final Fantasy 15 or Horizon Zero Dawn.

Audiobooks this month are also set, I’m ALL FUCKING IN on Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom series, which I’ve started and immediately like. I am seriously considering picking up 3 extra Audible credits for Sword Song, The Burning Land, and Death of Kings. However, I may also just take it slowly and enjoy it over time as well.

I am planning to watch Netflix’s Stranger Things this month as well as HBO’s The Night Of. I’ve read and heard a lot of good things about Stranger Things, and was impressed with Night Of with only just 1 episode despite it being a slow starter.

I’ve mentioned some games already in the post I’m looking forward to but really the only games I plan to pick up for sure are Civilization 6 and Battlefield One. I’ve played over 300 hours of Battlefield 4  during the height of most people’s LOLBROKENGAME meme type comments as well as long after most people’s issues were fixed, so picking up Battlefield One despite the rough launch of BF4 is a risk I’m willing to take. I am mindful of The Division and getting the Season Pass, and how fucking burned I got. Still, Battlefield One’s worth the risk. The Action is the Juice, if you know what I mean and what I’m referencing.