6 Hours 40 Minutes – The Climb #631

Saturday 14^th November 2020

6 hours and 40 minutes.

This is my life right now. The Warcraft Prepatch event dropped last week and it was something I’ve been waiting for so I could gear up all my characters. With it came problems.

There’s a currency the even gives, either by completing daily quests, or killing rares who spawn every 20 minutes. The rares have a small chance of dropping good level loot on their own, but because upon killing one you have to wait twenty minutes for the next, progress is slow. Especially when you have multiple characters you need to gear.

On top of this, one boss has a chance of dropping a rare 34 slot bag. And because it’s one elite boss every 20 minutes, you have a chance against him every 6 hours and 40 minutes. Kill him and it doesn’t drop, you then have to wait nearly 7 hours for your next try.

As a result, my life currently seems to revolve around this elite. I’ve been going to bed late, or getting up early depending on their spawn time.

I’ve also worked out a system. Flying to the latest elite spawn, I look ahead to the next elite due in 20 minutes, and decide – based on the loot table – which character I’m going to take to kill them. I then kill the current elite, loot, fly back to the tournament grounds and log out.

I know the timings perfectly now. On my server, the elite spawns at 01, 21, and 41 past the hour. Exactly two minutes later they spawn. I usually flying back and log off by 08, 28 or 48 accordingly. I then log onto a character and work on dailies for 10 minutes.

Currently there are only 2 dailies available (a third, if you count the one that has you killing loads of elites). Depending on the character, I might be able to do one or both these daily quests. I then log off in time to log onto the designated character for the next elite and repeat the process.

It means playing for short times on multiple characters. It feels like juggling at first, but it soon becomes second nature and I can watch TV or listen to an audiobook as I do it. It means that not only do I do all the dailies on my alts, but I also get the elites as well whilst doing it.

I’ve not spent any of the currency just yet. You can get decent gear for it, but in terms of effort, it’s quite expensive, so I’d rather not buy something only to have something slightly better drop as loot from an elite. As a result, it currently feels like a lot of work for little reward, when in reality, just before shadowlands launches in just over a week, I’ll be able to cash in and gear ALL my alts.

But with a first draft to write, other games with events on or ending soon, and a backlog of tasks, I feel slammed at the moment.

Still, since the start of the year I’ve been wanting to be ready for Shadowlands and unlike the Bronto, it looks like I’m going to complete this challenge.

I just wish they didn’t release expansions during NaNoWriMo