This weekend was the first in some time where we didn’t have some engagement, so it was quite relaxing.  Still had some errands to do, but there’s certainly something to be said about enjoying the simple things.  The slight blip to our bliss was an unexpected offer to purchase a cottage.  My wife and I are cottage people, so by ancient rites, our children must be as well, or be cast out forever.  We knew the offer was in the works but not for a few more years.  After crunching some numbers, it looks like it’s workable today and will slack off in a couple years.  I get quite antsy when it comes to finance, and it’s not like you buy real estate on regular basis.

Oh, and Star Wars.  If you didn’t have a chance to watch the recent trailer because that cave-in kept you busy, here you go:

A few notes about the trailer:

• Contrary to most trailers, there’s no plot given away
• I have no idea what relation exists between the characters as there’s next to no dialogue
• I dislike JJ’s scores but this one is Williams 100%. The tugs.
• Han and Leia deliver some awesome lines. You realize that the characters in this movie know less about Star Wars than the audience.
• Only 1 lens flare (red lasers)! Lots of saturation though
• Fingers crossed on no stupid steamy sexy scenes that are jammed in for no reason. (Super 8 the exception to the JJ rule)
• $50 bet that Chewie dies. Too bad cause he’s badass in the EU (though still dead there too).

Bang, Bang, Flop

I’ve been playing my Esper a fair chunk lately, focusing almost entirely on the Quiet Downs instance.  I think I can do it blindfolded now, with an average run time of 13:30 for gold.  I’m sitting on slightly over 2000 currency, and already have the hoverboard mount.  Not so lucky in the costume drops though…  I’ve re-runed a few things, knowing that some pieces of gear will never be updated unless I start raiding.  Quite a difference to be honest, giving me a fair chunk more power and survivability. It’s had an impact on my plat making mind you, since Quiet Downs provides no loot, outside of a bag with mostly decorations inside.  Stretching a little thing on that class, I decided to get back to my Engineer tank.

First to note, he has 5 pieces at ilvl90, so arguably better than the Esper, if you ignore the crap gear in the other slots.  Both are holding great weapons, so that certainly helps.  I’ve runed him for damage and it’s been ok so far.  His output is certainly higher than the Esper’s but his survival is in the pits.  Engineer’s are the only class that cannot self heal (outside of a T8 skill), which makes some content surprisingly difficult.

Expeditions with my Esper are usually cake walks.  Gauntlet is a good example, in particular the middle portion where you need to avoid exploding rats.  I can put on a passive heal that allows me to make mistakes during that 90s portion.  The engineer has to take that T8 skill PDU, that heals for around 4000 damage every 30 seconds.  The hits taken are between 5000 and 6000, so not exactly useful.  I missed completing Fragment Zero on gold due to 2 deaths due to combat sessions that lasted 2 minutes, since the entire zone is littered with tiny critters (quite a litteral Zerg fest).

Typical solo work isn’t bad.  The damage output is good, the defenses aren’t crippling.  The issue as I see it is that with my current ilvl, I’m just at the edge of reasonable.  I can’t see how a fresh 50 would have fun, when compared to other classes’ solo-viability. I know that giving Engineer’s a self-heal would homogenize the classes, but it would also increase the “fun” aspect of the class at lower ilevels.  And let’s be clear, a support-specced Engineer is a beast.  They hit like a mouse but take it on the chin like a champ.

So I think that’s where I’m going to end up, turning this Engineer into a tank-only monster for group content.  It’ll be a pretty big hit to his solo-ability but it’ll be a different content package than my Esper is running, which should help avoid any burnout.