Love Is In the Air: A Look Back

Well, it's only a few days into the event and I'm almost done. Part of it is that my priest already did most of it last year. But I am also doing some of it on my level 66 druid; I know I won't finish it this year on her, but I'll get a head start on next year.

So a lot changed from last year, and most of it is to the good. Last year, there were two major pains in the butt -- having to play the RNG game to such a huge extent, and having to find someone who would be willing to unbreak your heart with one of those stupid friendship bracelets. I'm not sure who thought of that last one, but man, it was almost impossible to get your heart unbroken unless you had one to trade in return.

Now, by making Lovely Charm Bracelets, it's just a matter of collecting and turning in. There are five daily quests you can do to get a total of 30 Love Tokens a day, but in order to do that, you need to make 4 Lovely Charm Bracelets a day. To get those, you need 10 Lovely Charms each, which you get by killing mobs that give you experience, or would if you weren't already level 80.

In fairly typical fashion, Blizzard let the pendulum go one way, and then when it was clear that nearly anything would allow the charms to pour in like snow in the Midwest these days, they put it to a screeching halt. Charms are no longer particularly easy to get; getting 40 charms a day now takes awhile. This is fine on my druid, but on my priest it's a major pain in the butt. She does what dailies she can that normally yield a lot of kills, but even so, she has to go farm some purposely. After you've restocked your bank with all the rhino meat and chilled meat you'd need for a lifetime (given I already have more cooking awards than I know what to do with), and nothing else that needs farming, it just gets a bit old. Thankfully she only needs 15 more Love Tokens to get her perma-Peddle and she's done.

Even so, even with the relative charm drought, it's far better than last year. Last year, I literally set a timer in my office so I could log on, every hour on the hour, to kiss a guard and get my gift, and hope to the RNG that it would give me something I actually needed. Thankfully, I got what I needed. I knew a lot of people who gnashed their teeth over the candy bag in particular.

The apothecary fight in SFK is actually a bit challenging at 80, unlike the holiday boss fights originally calibrated for level 60 or level 70 toons. We did them on Monday and actually wiped once. I got a fairly nice necklace upgrade (for me; some of my gear is still weak) and the Heartbreaker, which makes people break down and cry. I want to try it out in PVP to see if it interrupts Allies. I have to annoy PvPers by running into Arathi Basin and pitying my Fool anyway.

I definitely had the feeling of slight disappointment that it all seemed too easy. However, it's a welcome change after last year's frustrations.