Dragon rank achieved in just shy of 3 weeks of the league. crazy how fast it went when I wasn't playing more, and only slightly "better" - last two leagues it took me 5-6 weeks to hit dragon when I had even more free time. points definitely were heavy weighted in certain areas this year making it easier to hit dragon even with a higher threshold. First time i've hit dragon before maxing, and it wasn't on purpose... the points just came easy before I even decided to try to clean up my slower skills.
because it went by so fast I do think I'll try to do as many tasks as I can, as long as it's fun. I don't think I'll do the stuff i really hate since point capping likely is impossible for me due to a few skill tasks out of my reach but we'll see how it goes. I also might start up another run on my alt to try other interesting echo drops i want to play with.
(just for my own record: rank as of hitting dragon = 3,682.)
quick progress update for hitting rune rank, about 1.5 weeks in. I can't remember when i hit rune last league but I think it took longer than this. Definitely slowing down points tho now that most of what is left is either stuff I am not super excited to do, or PVM i'm not that experienced at yet. But I'm excited to keep going with it.
inferno done, making the 3rd time i've done it in a temp game mode (and increasingly reminding me i should just learn it maingame). redid a better water mage + overheal + accuracy build for this (really needed the accuracy since I don't have the OP kandarin echo items)... the waves were borderline afk with the water mage overhealing, that's stupid good. I actually had the longest zuk i've ever done (because the previous times I've done inferno, I had nevermiss 2t tbow + last stand, meaning it was just click zuk + win). I was NOT perfect but considering it was the first time I actually had to do the real zuk method of walking with the shield, dealing with the sets and healers, etc I am pretty proud of how cool I kept it. tanked a few hits but kept calm and carried on and it tells me that I definitely CAN do this maingame... altho... the waves are the obviously much harder part maingame. idk when I'll have the patience to lock in and learn how to flick and safespot properly but this feels nice for now, anyway. maybe i should go try Colo as well while i'm on a roll (but I'm not sure that will go as smoothly lol)
just a quickie league progress update. i guess i'm just a sweaty nolifer, within the top 3k (for now) lol. doesn't feel like i've gone harder than last year but i guess it's a combination of being a little more confident doing some pvm early and also the way they weighted tasks this year really snowballs points fast if you have a plan (lots more points for completing even easy boss CAs, getting multiple skills that are boosted by your relics up to 25, 35, 50m early, and so on). I don't know if it'll be faster for me to hit dragon than last year (which i think was like 5-6 weeks?) but I'm pretty sure this is more points than i had at this point last year. I do expect progress will slow soon tho as I clean up the easy stuff and start hitting the pvm content I actually need to learn a bit / find groups for.
i've been so immersed in this league i've barely posted my little progress thingies so here's one after 4 days of playing a lot (even when working lol) and about to start day 5 where i finally get a whole day with no other commitments to fully gremlin out even more than I already have.
here's the progress so far:
mostly just been vibing, following my heart, though i did really want to get all areas and max XP multiplier as soon as possible. I think I had 2 areas and t5 before the end of day 1, then unlocked my last area (Mory) and tier 7 around the third day. since then i've just been kinda roaming, doing a little pvm to experiment with pacts and try to unlock more.
I'm honestly enjoying the slower, more nuanced power curve in this tree. I still feel plenty powerful so far though not trivializing EVERYTHING in the game yet, which is exciting. water mage was great for early stuff, but my favorite is THORNS. thorns are so so so good. I saw not a lot of people talking about them before the mode launched, but they looked really strong to me, and I wasn't sure if I was being dumb... but I think i was in fact smart and other people were dumb because they were only focusing on what makes big number in DPS calc, and thorns couldn't show up in a DPS calc. but it is SOOOOOO fucking good. both for trivializing all pvm (ESPECIALLY stuff with multiple things attacking you at once) and also for melee XP. I've almost maxed my melee stats without even trying. and as you can see my tank armor isn't even near maxed yet, so I'm not at max thorns power yet. if you are struggling I highly recommend thorns. even with rune armor and an obby shield it's insane damage.
I didn't wanna have to use pact resets too soon, so I'm gonna delay them until I start to feel very limited... but my current plan is that i'm speccing into as much prayer penetration as I can to help making grinding echo hunllef for crystal seeds easier/faster. then when i'm done with that I'll reset because I don't really need prayer pen for anything else in my regions (doom is the only other thing where it works at all, and I think you only need 15% prayer pen for the grubs?). I am at a point where I CAN decently farm echo hunllef now (1t staff + 60% prayer pen) but to save myself some time and annoyance I'm gonna take a break to farm a couple more pacts if I can (get 75 or 90%) and other tasks to reach t8 so the final relic can help it too.
just a quick update for day 1 progress before i finally make myself go to bed! 2 areas unlocked, t5 with a good chunk of the way to t6 (which is scary, because i'm still undecided on what I want for my t6 relic...)
don't have it in me to post much about adventures yet because i've just been vibing and having a nice time. a bummer to actually have to work tomorrow but i really can't complain with the WFH life meaning I will be able to goof off and play the league a good amount of time anyway.
Dragon trophy officially earned for Leagues V! in just over a month. it FELT a bit longer than last time, but I just looked back and it took me about 6 weeks last time around. so i guess that's the difference of me not having a full time job this time, lol. but it definitely was tougher to get Dragon on one hand (higher point threshold, no 25m/35m tasks for combat stats), but also i think it felt less like a slog this time vs last time because I had a lot of more "engaging" points available from raids, and I also specifically picked some relics that would alleviate the grinds that felt most painful last time (mostly RC, mining, and agility).
I MIGHT play a little more on this account just for fun/to see how high i can get my rank, but honestly I probably won't; I am craving the slow but permanent progress of the maingame. OR i might bond up an alt to try another build since there's a good amount of time left (I would love to try a VTM melee build).
I am proud of how I did this time though! I cleared 1 billion XP. I had more gold than I knew what to do with, even without Golden God. I feel that I actually did learn some good skills for TOA, even with it being piss easy with relics, of course; I got a lot more familiarity with the bosses and the timing which I think will help a lot with reducing frustration in the maingame (though it will be PAINFUL to go from never missing to ... usually missing). I did the Inferno for the first time even in Leagues. I did some solo CoX, scuffed yes, but still did it. I had some fun with the Tbow at the end, and great fun with the drygore blowpipe and venator bow before that. I played a mix of efficiency and fun that worked out for me. and I got my second Dragon trophy! :)
Areas, relics, stats, etc. above. I also did unlock the 10th combat mastery point, but didn't bother spending it.
Some more little stats just for fun:
Overall Rank (as of right now): 7209
League Points Rank (as of right now): 4602
Highest Rank for Any Hiscores Category: Skotizo, currently rank 105 with 45 kills (I got loads of totems doing slayer anyways, and figured I might as well kill the boss for the relatively-common shot at a jar. didn't get it tho.)
Collection Log Slots Filled: 609 (i was very tempted to go for the 750 log slots task even though it was not remotely 'efficient' for points when just going for Dragon. I just like clogging! but then thinking it thru i was like, the time i spend doing that i could instead get clogs in the real game... alas...)
Pets obtained: 5 (Abyssal Protector, Kalphite Princess, Herbi, Skotos, Tumeken's Guardian). (this adds on to my singular pet from last League, Callisto Cub).
Craziest Drop: 3rd age platebody from a clue, very rare even in Leagues. Honorable mention to Herbi pet from like, 60 herbiboars (pets not boosted)
Hardest Task Completed (according to Wiki's crowdsourced completion rates): Complete the Fight Caves 10 times, which apparently has 0.4% completion. I guess people just don't want to spend the time which is fair bc it's pretty boring. But i wanted the CAs and slayer XP and I had like 7 clears already last night so just decided to skip for tasks and ran 3 more in a row since they're braindead and 20 min.)
Easiest Task NOT Completed: Enter Puro-Puro from a Crop Circle, the only 10 pt task I didn't complete. I just never saw one around and couldn't be bothered to go out of my way to find one.
Task I Can't Believe I Didn't Fucking Get: Equip full Masori, which apparently has been achieved by over 14% of people per wikisync, while less than 2% of people have completed 50 ToA, which is where I left off. Granted not every single one of my raids was a guaranteed purple, but I rolled 38 purples, ELEVEN of which were masori pieces. 9 bodies and 2 legs. i mean, on the bright side, the mask was probably the best piece to be missing...)
Relic Choice I Most Regret: None! lmao I was quite happy with my choices. as I said I'm tempted by some REGIONS and builds I didn't experience, so I may try out an alt, but for now I'm taking a break. Hopefully for at least a day or two lmao
