Advanced Solos are amazing, they let you complete a lower version of a heroic six-man with two people or just yourself. We did Advanced Solos this week and got gear upgrades, or rather Valhakar got Cryptic gear upgrades and Benedicta added tanking gear to her shared bank. While it is nice that you can trade gear in for appropriate gear for your class, seven pieces of the wrong gear for the single piece of the correct gear is more than a little frustrating. Also, being unable to trade adornments to the other party member is highly annoying. We tend to trade off on opening chests and it never fails, I will get tanking adorns and he will get healing/dps adorns.
The updated Bixie models are gorgeous. They have lost some of their bee/wasp identity true, but they have gained personality and adorability at the same time. Fractured Hive is beautiful and relaxing on Advanced Solo setting, at least with our set-up.
Chamber of Statis is another beautiful zone even if the Chamber Warden (final boss) completely kicked our rears the first time. We got a new strategy late yesterday and now we know how to fight him and win and for once it requires me to heal Valhakar more than dps.
Now for the grumble, gear grind is horrendous. No seriously, I’m close to losing interest in improving Benedicta’s gear. I’d much rather go play an lower level character and lose myself in the story than run the same stuff over and over again for gear. 7 slots, just counting armor not anything else, times four yellow gems per slot (for the player crafted lesser quality gems) at a cost of 16 etyma (currency) to fully upgrade the gear to turn in for the next tier of gear to start the cycle all over again is insane. So per piece of equipment, that is 112 etyma to upgrade what is in essence crap gear. Sure there is a quest that results in bracers being upgraded with three yellow gems so that reduces the grind a wee bit but otherwise yeah, no thanks.
That’s Benedicta taking a dirt nap next to a goblin who is getting pool balls thrown at him. Real life intervened and I ended up dead, but it was totally worth it because of the goblins of High Keep and Pickclaw Depths. Both of those zones make me smile immensely, so while I’m not a huge fan of the gear grind I am glad I got to see the zones. Doesn’t mean I won’t continue to so the Advanced Solo zones or try heroic zones with guild members with much better gear, but I won’t be climbing onto the gear treadmill.
Gear grinding and progression are not everyone’s cup of tea and it definitely feels like the last couple of expansion have fallen into that trap. I hope and pray that the dev team meant it when they said the wanted off the gear grind as well and that the next expansion won’t have one. I want to have fun and encounter new quests and odd little things rather than run the same zone, for the same gear, day after day.
And finally, my favorite screenshot of the week HAMMY! No seriously, I love the giant pig in High Keep. It made me laugh and it was a blast.
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