World of Warcraft XIV: Fish Felreed, and the Reed Pond fish

[Togath]

A thread of all of us Giant ITP'ers to discuss World of Warcraft.

Lets hear about your success and failures!
Lore discussions, class discussions, faction discussions.

Also, ask questions. Crowd source those problems.

Obligatory Linkages:
www.worldofwarcraft.com --official site
mmo-champion.com --news site
www.wowpedia.org --encylopedia of the Warcraft Universe
www.wowhead.com --search engine for pretty much anything in the game. Items, quests, achievements, enemies, everything.
www.tankspot.com --strategy guides, class guides and videos, forums. PST and The Weekly Marmot are posted on this site.

Previous Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230444&page=50)

[Mutant Sheep]

Yeaaaaah new threaad. New issues of dattamining Varian... more BE Alliance rumblings so we can all facepalm and wish that BEs would just go down to female-dwarf level of the population.

[Togath]

That reminds me, how different is the alliance storyline for pandaria from the alliance perspective compared to the alliance storyline from the horde perspective?
For horde our first encounter is being attacked by them, freeing the pandarans they enslaved, and allying with the surprisingly smart hozen, while fighting off the vicious jinyu.
It seems like the alliance quests probably have a different story(since they have paladins and that sort of thing, enslaving the natives of a continent and allying with vicious fish men to slay the comparatively peaceful hozen seems out of place. Their leader in jade forest also becomes a minor sha in the horde quest line)
Mostly, it's that from what I remember from playing my alliance, they were usually the more heroic side, and it seems like it would be a rather odd choice to flip the styles

[The Linker]

For Alliance our first encounter is storming and wiping out their base on the southern tip of Jade Forest with an aerial assault, allying ourselves with the Pandaren village the Horde were jerks to (including kidnapping their young to use as bargaining chips) as well as allying ourselves with the wise and measured Jinyu, who are under attack by the vicious and brainless Hozen.

And yeah, one particularly angry Horde becomes a Sha. One of our guys, a Night Elf, actually almost succumbs to the Sha in the beginning, but a Shado-Pan (Taran Zhu?) draws it out of him. This happened when the Night Elf and his men were ordered to shoot the Horde survivors dead in the water -- he was pretty torn with doubt at that point.

The Alliance's reason for being there, though, is because the ship carrying Varian's son, Anduin, was lost at sea, and so a strike force was sent to find him. When you find Anduin, however, he refuses to leave, knowing that the arrival of the Alliance and Horde has set events in motion that could destroy the world if left unchecked. He's trying to uncover Pandaria's secrets and, well, save the world.

[Togath]

Aye that's pretty much the horde quest line, but with the sides reversed. Horde and hozen being the corrupt/brutal ones, with the alliance being he peacful ones, though the encounter with wrynn is different(as horde you capture him at rifle point).
The horde's reason for arriving was because a shipwrecked crew washed up on an unmapped continent(pandaria).
I wonder how much of the jade forest quest lines are mirrored, I've really got to level my alliance sometime(I have three sitting at 85, but I haven't played them since early cata)

[Karoht]

Karoht finally replaced his last piece of Heroic Dragon Soul Gear. Yes, it was THAT good that it lasted me to 90, and then into the dungeon gear up.
My shoulders. Better shoulders just refused to drop, the quest rewards all were crap, etc.
With that, I'm now sitting with a 470 item level. I just need a chest upgrade, and I'm ready for challenge modes.

[Togath]

Just remembered, does anyone here play either Scryers alliance or Shu'halo horde?, My mains are on Shu'halo, but my old alliance toons are over on Scryers in case anyone wants to try grouping up on either server(mainly on Shu'halo, since it's small enough for it to be difficult to find pugs for challenge mode dungeons, and I've been wanting to try them on my hunter)

[Togath]

Conversation from the previous thread(moved since the previus one reached 50 pages)

I think I will try a monk again, but first I am going to farm up for leather heirlooms. I am thinking maybe it is unfair to compare it to the classes where I have two pieces of armor and now a weapon.

I kind of wish there was a 2h agility heirloom. I don't want to have to farm for two weapons for a monk... I wish heirs were as cheap as back in Wrath.

There is actually a 2 hand agility heirloom, a staff bought from the justice point vendor for 3500JP.
The darkmoon fair also has a few heirlooms, and if you buy the darkmoon quest items before it starts, you can usually get them for only 15-80g each

[Krazzman]

Well... I am disappointed at the moment.
This ID the others in my guild began to run away from me in the sense of dps.
Spirit Kings I with 52k dps and them with about 70k dps... and I don't know why? I did the same stuff as last ID and then I was practically on the same amount of dps...
Elegon was slain last ID and our Mage got the damned Wand from him as Bonus Loot and I still haven't got something really useful. An Intellect/Crit Trinket and well... some reputation stuff (Valor) stuff.

[Togath]

How much is norml dps for level 90?(I mostly ask since I've been wondering if I built my hunter wrong, since he's only ending up with usually 6k-10k dps at level 90, which didn't seem that much better then I did with him in cata)

[Aidan305]

How much is norml dps for level 90?(I mostly ask since I've been wondering if I built my hunter wrong, since he's only ending up with usually 6k-10k dps at level 90, which didn't seem that much better then I did with him in cata)

Generally, you want a minimum of about 48k (ilvl 460). Ideally, you'll be somewhere between about 52k and 70k.

I honestly don't know how your DPS is so low. Armoury link?

[Togath]

Link here (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/shuhalo/Moranus/simple) to his page. His main spec is beast master, and he does do about 30k dps in survival.

[Daverin]

Conversation from the previous thread(moved since the previus one reached 50 pages)


There is actually a 2 hand agility heirloom, a staff bought from the justice point vendor for 3500JP.
The darkmoon fair also has a few heirlooms, and if you buy the darkmoon quest items before it starts, you can usually get them for only 15-80g each

Eh, I mostly just run Wintergrasp and Tol Barad when they come up, since on my server they are deserted and alliance controlled. Which means a slow, but steady income of annoyance-free honor.

I'd almost consider the Darkmoon Faire, except... I have no idea where to begin with that one. That and, don't you have to do at least 2 months worth to possibly get enough tickets?

Also, I hate farming. So much. I can only hope this will make it worth it...

[Togath]

If you go for the darkmoon quest artifact items(which can drop from anywhere as long as you have the journal in your inventory, and they can drop even without the fair active) you can get the tickets a little faster. The monthly quests(each gives 3 tickets) also give 5 skill ups each, which can be useful if your leveling any professions. Also, how well is your guild doing?, If a guild is high enough level you can buy heirlooms for only 1300-1500g

[Daverin]

Its a newbie guild, which I joined because my friend helped found it. I honestly am only looking for the chest/shoulder and eventually the weapon. Managed to get shoulders, now just for the chest.

[The Linker]

Found out yesterday that a few guildies aren't coming back for MoP raiding. This includes the main healer/guild leader and the main tank. Plus another healer. And a DPS. This all makes me a sad panda.

Also, I've run six heroics so far and not one upgrade has dropped for me. Luck is not on my side.

[Togath]

Its a newbie guild, which I joined because my friend helped found it. I honestly am only looking for the chest/shoulder and eventually the weapon. Managed to get shoulders, now just for the chest.

Ah, chest and weapon are harder then the shoulders.....tol-barad/wintergrasp are probably the fastest ways then.


Found out yesterday that a few guildies aren't coming back for MoP raiding. This includes the main healer/guild leader and the main tank. Plus another healer. And a DPS. This all makes me a sad panda.

Also, I've run six heroics so far and not one upgrade has dropped for me. Luck is not on my side.

Ouch, which server are you on?,My mains are The Scryers and Shu'halo, but I also have a few characters on Agrammar and Farstriders.

[Daverin]

Ah, chest and weapon are harder then the shoulders.....tol-barad/wintergrasp are probably the fastest ways then.

Yeah. Plus, I actually would have to farm up quite some gold. And rep, although that seems relatively easy.

I mean, really given the option, I'd take a full entourage. It's just that is more work than I really care for. I mean, if I could make gold really fast, I'd just briefly join another guild and farm its rep, but... I just have never made money very easily.

Although it does look like running 70 heroics seems to at least not be horrible in that regard. Is there any raid that is not too difficult for a mage to run that give good gold?

EDIT: Wait, looks like I can fairly safely do 80 heroics. Which also means Battered Hilt. :smallbiggrin:

[Traab]

Aye that's pretty much the horde quest line, but with the sides reversed. Horde and hozen being the corrupt/brutal ones, with the alliance being he peacful ones, though the encounter with wrynn is different(as horde you capture him at rifle point).
The horde's reason for arriving was because a shipwrecked crew washed up on an unmapped continent(pandaria).
I wonder how much of the jade forest quest lines are mirrored, I've really got to level my alliance sometime(I have three sitting at 85, but I haven't played them since early cata)

Alot of it is mirrored. A very large portion are identical quests period. the tian monastery, the jade mines, that section where you end up freeing the ghost in the ruins and run a fairly long quest chain, that panda village in flames, the jade dragon quest chains with killing the moths in the library and such, all are identical.

I hate those &^$R%*&^%$ monkeys. If I have to read one more spammed message about being ooked in the dooker or whatever, I am going to start petitioning blizzard to let me set the faction at war and slaughter the entire misbegotten race. Seriously, I hate those things. I hate them in the panda starting area, I hate them as my enemies on the alliance, I hate them as my allies as a horde, I HATE THE MONKEYS!

[The Linker]

Ouch, which server are you on?,My mains are The Scryers and Shu'halo, but I also have a few characters on Agrammar and Farstriders.

Uh, Llane. Why?

[Togath]

I was mostly checking if you happened to be on one of the servers I'm on(I usually run tanks, and sometimes healers, so I was seeing if you needed someone to fill the missing raid slot).

Also, is it an exploit to use the monk flight glyph to gather crafting materials without landing?, I just a little while ago began to wonder if I should stop doing that(since even druids need to land)

[Daverin]

So, I just found a way to bypass the whole "once a day" thing for farming Battered Hilt, although it can be very annoying and costly in repairs: Wipe before you complete a boss in Halls of Reflection. The entire waves restart from wave 1.

[ZeroNumerous]

So, I just found a way to bypass the whole "once a day" thing for farming Battered Hilt, although it can be very annoying and costly in repairs: Wipe before you complete a boss in Halls of Reflection. The entire waves restart from wave 1.

Wouldn't it be easier to just kill all the non-boss mobs in Pit of Saron, zone out of the dungeon, then reset it?

[Daverin]

Can you reset it if you kill none of the bosses? I don't quite remember how it all works. :smallredface:

Also, I finally have a steady source of income: Managed to get tailoring to 325 and got Northern Scavenging. Now I can loot frostweave easily, which sells for a lot.

[Aidan305]

So, I just found a way to bypass the whole "once a day" thing for farming Battered Hilt, although it can be very annoying and costly in repairs: Wipe before you complete a boss in Halls of Reflection. The entire waves restart from wave 1.

That reminds me far too much of simply playing HoR back in Wrath.

[Daverin]

I can do the other two Frozen Halls without dying, but that one is still too much for my sad mage. Always was a brutal dungeon.

But I also liked all three. Plus, Bronjahm is one of my favorite bosses ever. Ya duh duh dum. :smalltongue:

EDIT: Wow, didn't know that (or forgot) about reseting heroics. Thanks for the tip, Zero!

[Antonok]

Got the MoP trial 5 days ago and been leveling a monk tank/dps.

Love the class but its rather subpar in pvp :smallannoyed:

[ZeroNumerous]

Can you reset it if you kill none of the bosses? I don't quite remember how it all works. :smallredface:

As long as you don't kill any of the bosses and just kill mobs you can reset it up to 5 times in an hour.

[Togath]

Got the MoP trial 5 days ago and been leveling a monk tank/dps.

Love the class but its rather subpar in pvp :smallannoyed:

What spec are you using?, I might have some useful advice, and the monk can be a tricky class to get used to.

From the battlegrounds I've run on my monk so far, I've found myself usually trying to stay at range to take advantage of windwalker's spinning fire blossom, mixed with the self heal and crackling jade lightning, or wade in with spinning crane kick and stunning kick with the bouncing heal talent thingy(it heals allies/damages enemies, and bounces up to 7 times) when there's three or more players grouped together, using fists of fury to stun them when I can.

[Antonok]

What spec are you using?, I might have some useful advice, and the monk can be a tricky class to get used to.

From the battlegrounds I've run on my monk so far, I've found myself usually trying to stay at range to take advantage of windwalker's spinning fire blossom, mixed with the self heal and crackling jade lightning, or wade in with spinning crane kick and stunning kick with the bouncing heal talent thingy(it heals allies/damages enemies, and bounces up to 7 times) when there's three or more players grouped together, using fists of fury to stun them when I can.

Currently level 61, and with brewmaster I can hold my own for a rather long time until I get stunlocked, but I can't do enough damage to hardly even bypass most classes self healing abilities.

With windwalker I can't hardly do anything with unless I'm with a group. Force Jade Lightning helps a bit, but it even lacks any real punch.

The main issues I'm having is no CC breaks (aside from the gnome racial), and the lack of any real CC abilities. Since I hit 60 a bit ago I got the Charging Ox Wave talent (30 yard stun) so that will help. Its just majorly sucks to be passed around like a cheap bottle of wine without any way to break out of the stuns/fear (gods I hate fear)/entangles.

[Togath]

Aye, the lack of cc breakers was something that I've found frustrating as well.(also I mostly relied on other players to kill targets in pvp while I ran around and tried to snare them, the lightning suggestion was more for it's knockback then it's damage)

[Daverin]

Yay, got the Hilt! Now I just need to find someone willing to buy it at an exhorbitant rate on my server... There appear to be none in the AH, so I don't know what to think of that.

And, of course, if it turns out my server does not have any of the kind willing to pay, I've never done the questline. Would be cool to for some class who could wield a sword.

[The Linker]

The questline is guaranteed to grant a useful weapon to every class, yo. Can't use swords? Have a mace! (http://www.wowpedia.org/The_Return_of_Quel%27Delar_quest_chain#Rewards)

I've still got to get my hands on one of those. Mostly because I've heard it's a neat questline, though. Someday...

[ZeroNumerous]

The main issues I'm having is no CC breaks (aside from the gnome racial), and the lack of any real CC abilities. Since I hit 60 a bit ago I got the Charging Ox Wave talent (30 yard stun) so that will help. Its just majorly sucks to be passed around like a cheap bottle of wine without any way to break out of the stuns/fear (gods I hate fear)/entangles.

Be a human. Built in PvP trinket.

As far as how to PvP with a brewmaster: Like playing almost any other tank in PvP, your job is keeping dudes off your squishies so they can deal damage. You shouldn't worry about dealing damage yourself, and just work on peeling(clash is absolutely beautiful) and slowing people who want to kill the guys you like.

[Aidan305]

Link here (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/shuhalo/Moranus/simple) to his page. His main spec is beast master, and he does do about 30k dps in survival.

Hmm. Part of the problem might be that you're severely lacking in both hit and Expertise. Cap on each is, IIRC 7.5% and since you're well below that you're not hitting nearly as much as you should be.

[The_Jackal]

Hmm. Part of the problem might be that you're severely lacking in both hit and Expertise. Cap on each is, IIRC 7.5% and since you're well below that you're not hitting nearly as much as you should be.

No reason not to raid as BM, imo. The parses of top 100 players show not much numeric advantage for SV over BM.

Here's some easily attainable gear upgrades:

Ghost Iron Dragonling (http://www.wowhead.com/item=77530)
Golembreaker Amulet (http://www.wowhead.com/item=83803)

With precise/rigid cogwheels, you should be able to stack quite a bit of hit/exp, which will absolutely improve your DPS.


Be a human. Built in PvP trinket.

All being human does is allow you to equip a proc-trinket in addition to your click PVP trinket. Nice, but hardly game-breaking.

[Togath]

No reason not to raid as BM, imo. The parses of top 100 players show not much numeric advantage for SV over BM.

Here's some easily attainable gear upgrades:

Ghost Iron Dragonling (http://www.wowhead.com/item=77530)
Golembreaker Amulet (http://www.wowhead.com/item=83803)

With precise/rigid cogwheels, you should be able to stack quite a bit of hit/exp, which will absolutely improve your DPS.

Actually, my hunter is a leatherworker, so I can't use engineer items.
I will work on hit though(also, what would be good pets to keep on hand?, I've mostly ben using a tank spec bear or tank spec quilen, bringing out a corehound to get the timewarp effect and then dismissing him to bring back whichever of the other two I was using.)

[ZeroNumerous]

All being human does is allow you to equip a proc-trinket in addition to your click PVP trinket. Nice, but hardly game-breaking.

Human's are literally the best PvP race, because they get a full set of items in addition to a PvP trinket. That means humans get extra PvP Power in addition to the same amount of Resil that other races get, which means they get extra damage that other races just don't have, even with their DPS racials.

Humans are flat out the best PvP race now, in addition to their ridiculous strength prior to that.

There's a reason a lot of top arena teams include a human as DPS. They are just that good relative to other races.


Actually, my hunter is a leatherworker, so I can't use engineer items.

Everyone can use Ghost Iron Dragonling. It is NOT Engineer only.

[Togath]

Ah, I missed that about the dragonling, I'll keep an eye out for it then, I think there's a 600 skill engineer in my guild, since we got the "get all professions to 600 skill" guild achievment about a week ago.

[Traab]

Yay! Finally hit 90! God I level slow. But man is my affliction warlock pretty much easy mode for solo grinding.

*EDIT*

Ok, so I was reading another topic when the idea hit me. Lets all share our favorite close call wins in WoW!

For me it was back in TBC. We were running shadow labyrinth and we got to Murmur at the end. The fight was going rough, we got close but then our tank died, then the main healer died, then the other two dps died, all the while we are trying to burn him down. He is at 10% life, 5% life, 2% life. The last dps besides my elemental shaman goes down! I have him at 1% life but my hp is low, worse yet, im VERY low on mana! I have enough left to either heal myself, or to cast one last lightning bolt! I take a deep breath, choose to cast the lightning bolt, and BOOM! It crits for all his remaining hp just as I take a lethal hit! Murmur dies, I manage to self resurrect, and we celebrate our skin of our teeth victory!

[Togath]

Congrats on 90:smallbiggrin:.
Also, since your a warlock. How do warlocks keep getting the new warlock pets?, Such as the six armed female demon thing, the fancy voidwalker, fancy imp, dread herald and the beholder looking thingy? I first thought they were a glyph, but I haven't been able to figure it out.

[Lord Raziere]

am now paying for this….highest is troll warlock is now lvl 40 with dreadsteed….discovered that running instances is actually faster leveling than questing….

its all awesome. :smallcool:

Edit: the fancy new pets are a talent demonology warlocks get at level 45 I think.

[Daverin]

Got someone to offer 11k when they can make it for the hilt! Provided there is nothing bad that will happen suddenly, this'll be good! :smallbiggrin:

Also, now have 400 in tailoring and am working on embersilk farming as well. OMG, the trogg war area is so good to farm. And, for whatever reason, fun as heck. As it getting chests for having the potion.

I think I've discovered a new liking for farming.

[Krazzman]

Warlock good in Sologrinding? Yes that's because they seem to be Blizzards loved child while the other classes except the Paladin have to hide in the closet...

On a more serious note: Warlocks and Frost Mages are DPS monsters. As is a good equipped Mutilate Rogue... you can't keep up with that as a shadow... it's really depressing.

Close Calls? Well our first Elegon Kill was... pretty close. Final Phase begins, one after another everyone dies. The Warlock and I stay alive, he uses self heal I dot elegon, mb, 3 orb Devouring Plague then dispersion and I survive as only one and we got our loot. Sunday we had a 0.2% wipe because everything was perfect... right before the second P3 our rogue falls into the pit-.-

[Traab]

Pure talent. No, really, its a talent. I honestly dont recall which level I got it at, as my warlock was already 85 when pandaria came out.


Warlock good in Sologrinding? Yes that's because they seem to be Blizzards loved child while the other classes except the Paladin have to hide in the closet...

On a more serious note: Warlocks and Frost Mages are DPS monsters. As is a good equipped Mutilate Rogue... you can't keep up with that as a shadow... it's really depressing.

Close Calls? Well our first Elegon Kill was... pretty close. Final Phase begins, one after another everyone dies. The Warlock and I stay alive, he uses self heal I dot elegon, mb, 3 orb Devouring Plague then dispersion and I survive as only one and we got our loot. Sunday we had a 0.2% wipe because everything was perfect... right before the second P3 our rogue falls into the pit-.-

Oh good lord, I thought that finally, considering how stupidly easy it is to solo on all classes, the "favored child" stuff was done. Guess I have been away from the blizzard boards too long. Especially considering that my dk and mage, both of whom I am also bringing through pandatown, are having no issues going through. My warlock was just the one that snagged my attention the most for the first 90. I think I will make my dk second.

[Karoht]

Since I've now pushed my Warlock to 90 I can safely say...
It was no faster or slower than my Balance Druid really. There were parts that went faster, and parts that went slower. Even taking multi-doting into account, combats lasted about the same. My bear tank druid is leveling faster than both of them (according to hours played so far).

Warlock, Paladin, and Mage have always been Blizz favorites. But it's severely less noticeable than it was during say, Burning Crusade when the Warlock nerfs finally started to really hit, and fear was STILL broken.

Warriors have always been behind the curve to some extent. But that statement accompanies a qualifier. Warriors have almost always been the most gear dependant class due to their scaling. Which is why things like weapon proc's and proc trinkets tend to get normalized around Warriors using them. Or, tend to get fixed after Warriors use them to break things.
You can thank Swifty for that. That man is probably the source of the majority of Warrior nerfs (and some buffs) since the beginning.

@Close Calls
First kill of Nefarian 25.
Two healers following the skeleton tank. Me and a Holy Paladin. Fire closing in everywhere. Tranquility just got used to save the raid from a bad fire spawn. Treeform still going to squeeze out a bit more life. The Nef tank drops, I battle-rez him.
Skeletons aggro me. And they're uberpowered. I pop barkskin and survive a hit. The tank gets rocked by a bunch of them.

We're both at less than 1000 health.
I hit Nature's Swiftness. And I have to make a call. Heal myself, or heal the tank.
My brain runs through the cooldowns used in the last 3 minutes, I know an Electrocute is coming in 10 seconds or less, I know the Holy Paladin has nothing to help us with, the other healers are tapped out or low on mana or dead.
I heal the tank. And die. As the Nef tank dies again.

All of the above occurs in literally the 1 GCD I had from hitting Nature's Swiftness to using an instant Healing Touch on the tank.
It crit, thankfully, put him just high enough to survive the next hit that came his way, long enough for the Holy Paladin to pick back up. Tank picks up Nef, leaps away from the skeletons.
In the next 5 seconds, the 10 people alive somehow did enough damage to finish the boss for our first Nef 25 kill.

[Traab]

Feh, every class has been blizzards "favorite" at several points in the games history. Equally noticeable, every class has been blizzards "red headed stepchild" and clearly the devs hate the class and anyone who plays it. Just once I would like to play an mmo where this kind of rhetoric isnt used on a daily basis. Class balance is impossible in any game with more than one class. The most you can do, and what is always done, is to constantly buff and nerf all the classes over and over to switch the load of complainers to another pile. Thats probably the real reason blizzard keeps changing the talent system. This way they dont have to waste time fine tuning anything, they just scrap it every year and make something different.

[The Glyphstone]

It's been a long time, but I remember a close-call fail back in the Burning Crusade days against Prince Malchezzar. He was getting sub-10% when something went wrong, the tank followed by everyone else began dying, and the last person alive was a Rogue who popped the one-use 10-second Invincibility potion you used to get from a quest in Eastern Plaguelands...got the guy to less than 1%, but then it wore off and he got flattened.

[Karoht]

Feh, every class has been blizzards "favorite" at several points in the games history. Equally noticeable, every class has been blizzards "red headed stepchild" and clearly the devs hate the class and anyone who plays it. Just once I would like to play an mmo where this kind of rhetoric isnt used on a daily basis. Class balance is impossible in any game with more than one class. The most you can do, and what is always done, is to constantly buff and nerf all the classes over and over to switch the load of complainers to another pile. Thats probably the real reason blizzard keeps changing the talent system. This way they dont have to waste time fine tuning anything, they just scrap it every year and make something different.
Aside from odd outliers (Paladins in Classic solo'ing world bosses in 3 attacks, look it up) most class balance is pretty darned tight. Dragon Soul saw a 5% difference between the top three best specs (Fire Mages with Legendary, Rogues with Legendary and Proc Trinkets, Hunters with Proc Trinkets) and the bottom 3 specs. Which really isn't that terrible a spread. Fine tuning happens all the time.
Besides that, such fine tuning rather than more broad change gets boring, especially in the old system where you had such staple and required talents. A fine tuning change in a staple talent isn't exciting or even all that interesting. Especially among the crowd who refuse to read patch notes. Whole new buttons to push are far more interesting. I much rather enjoy having Drain Life as a viable AoE, that is way more interesting than any percentage based changes to Drain Life.

PvP balance is a bit tougher to quantify, most imbalances tend to be based around a class being too mobile, too slippery, too survivable, or too bursty in relation to another class being too mobile, too slippery, too survivable, or too bursty. And due to the interferance of Resilience and now PvP Powah! stats, the fine tuning there is much harder. Even a 1% change feels like a broad stroke rather than an act of finesse. PvP balance also tends not to be viewed in 1v1 terms. Other games have attempted to balance it around 1v1, their balance has typically been more out of whack, but that's probably due to the rock-paper-scissors effect of balancing around 1v1. Blizzard seems to focus more on 3v3 and larger scale balance for battlegrounds, and that is their stated philosophy.

The 'known OP' classes tend to get leveled first, ranked high first, get resilience and PvP Powah! in good numbers first. This really does skew the initial perceptions of them as well.
Druids were the WORST class for years, we dealt with it. I fought OP Paladins, I fought OP Warlocks (stuuuupid fear chaining), I fought OP Mages. Usually, once the meta game changes, these classes balance out more as well. By which I'm refering to the tactics (in which the new talent system plays a MUCH larger role overall), as well as once gear starts to balance out a bit more. Once that meta game changes around a bit, the complaints follow some other class for a while.

It's all relative really.

[Traab]

Aside from odd outliers (Paladins in Classic solo'ing world bosses in 3 attacks, look it up) most class balance is pretty darned tight. Dragon Soul saw a 5% difference between the top three best specs (Fire Mages with Legendary, Rogues with Legendary and Proc Trinkets, Hunters with Proc Trinkets) and the bottom 3 specs. Which really isn't that terrible a spread. Fine tuning happens all the time.
Besides that, such fine tuning rather than more broad change gets boring, especially in the old system where you had such staple and required talents. A fine tuning change in a staple talent isn't exciting or even all that interesting. Especially among the crowd who refuse to read patch notes. Whole new buttons to push are far more interesting. I much rather enjoy having Drain Life as a viable AoE, that is way more interesting than any percentage based changes to Drain Life.

PvP balance is a bit tougher to quantify, most imbalances tend to be based around a class being too mobile, too slippery, too survivable, or too bursty in relation to another class being too mobile, too slippery, too survivable, or too bursty. And due to the interferance of Resilience and now PvP Powah! stats, the fine tuning there is much harder. Even a 1% change feels like a broad stroke rather than an act of finesse. PvP balance also tends not to be viewed in 1v1 terms. Other games have attempted to balance it around 1v1, their balance has typically been more out of whack, but that's probably due to the rock-paper-scissors effect of balancing around 1v1. Blizzard seems to focus more on 3v3 and larger scale balance for battlegrounds, and that is their stated philosophy.

The 'known OP' classes tend to get leveled first, ranked high first, get resilience and PvP Powah! in good numbers first. This really does skew the initial perceptions of them as well.
Druids were the WORST class for years, we dealt with it. I fought OP Paladins, I fought OP Warlocks (stuuuupid fear chaining), I fought OP Mages. Usually, once the meta game changes, these classes balance out more as well. By which I'm refering to the tactics (in which the new talent system plays a MUCH larger role overall), as well as once gear starts to balance out a bit more. Once that meta game changes around a bit, the complaints follow some other class for a while.

It's all relative really.

I agree. Also, to all those who like to cry about "favored classes" I say this. Do you really think a successful game company is going to stay successful if they blatantly picked specific classes and showered them with everything while your pitiful class got nothing? Of course not. In reality, its nothing more than escalating hyperbole. The complaints start about so and so class being not powerful enough, or too powerful. More people join in, then the exaggerations start. "Omg! My x got slaughtered by y when I was 22 levels above him!!!" Then, when the usual whining isnt enough, they start dragging in accusations of personal bias. Like the game designers all got together and said, "Hey, we all like this class now, lets make sure everyone else sucks in comparison."

Its even worse when you have the people who absolutely refuse to accept that the game needs to be balanced for pve AND pvp. So they focus on the one aspect most important to them, and keep chain posting the change they want made despite the fact that it would ruin balance everywhere else. They complain about how long it takes to change things, when its "so obvious" that all they have to do is z. They dont get that each change has to be tested against every scenario, solo pve/pvp, group pve/pvp, raids, and everything else.

Whatever class is "overpowered" changes so frequently that I cant understand how anyone can be willfully blind enough to miss this fact. Every single class in the game has been "overpowered" and every single class has been "nerfed into the ground" Many have been both repeatedly. So players, stop complaining about favored classes and hated classes. They dont exist. They never have, and never will.

[Karoht]

I agree. Also, to all those who like to cry about "favored classes" I say this. Do you really think a successful game company is going to stay successful if they blatantly picked specific classes and showered them with everything while your pitiful class got nothing? Of course not. In reality, its nothing more than escalating hyperbole. The complaints start about so and so class being not powerful enough, or too powerful. More people join in, then the exaggerations start. "Omg! My x got slaughtered by y when I was 22 levels above him!!!" Then, when the usual whining isnt enough, they start dragging in accusations of personal bias. Like the game designers all got together and said, "Hey, we all like this class now, lets make sure everyone else sucks in comparison."I do want to point out that this actually took place (not word for word) with Diablo II and the Barbarian. There was a stated personal bias, along with a defense of that bias affecting game balance by the Blizzard North team.
Then they went and made Hellgate London.
Fan-dumb still claim it's part of what made Diablo II great. Not sure why really, but that's off-topic.
So when fans know that Ghostcrawler plays a Mage, then see Mage buffs, then see Mage nerfs get reverted, they do get a tad suspicious. Letting slip back in classic that Chris Metzen's favorite class was Shaman, while Mike Morhaime's favorite class was Paladin, probably contributed to similar assumptions of bias = balance.

And who could forget the Deathknight fiasco back in Wrath?
The assumption that the term Hero Class should mean that class has an advantage was one that Blizzard took literally. But when it went horribly wrong, they fessed up and fixed it.



Its even worse when you have the people who absolutely refuse to accept that the game needs to be balanced for pve AND pvp. So they focus on the one aspect most important to them, and keep chain posting the change they want made despite the fact that it would ruin balance everywhere else. They complain about how long it takes to change things, when its "so obvious" that all they have to do is z. They dont get that each change has to be tested against every scenario, solo pve/pvp, group pve/pvp, raids, and everything else. This completely. The sheer amount of hours of testing completed in the Alpha stages alone is staggering, let alone when they start collecting all that data in the Beta/PTR stage.
When gamebreakingly powerful combo's come out and everyone asks, "why didn't it get caught in beta" there are usually three answers here.
1-Clever players didn't report it, less clever players didn't find it, no obvious numbers cropped up from beta to get a substantial lead to investigate it.
2-It didn't get reported nearly as much as another problem, which may or may not have been larger.
3-The problem didn't exist in beta and only cropped up on live due to some other, completely unrelated change, like a change to all ranged spell effects, but somehow it magnified a tiny issue with [insert spell].
And lets also recall that they do in fact look at logs and parses when the players submit them on the forums. They take them with a grain of salt unless the log is conclusive, but ultimately they are analyzed and I don't know any other company that does this.



Whatever class is "overpowered" changes so frequently that I cant understand how anyone can be willfully blind enough to miss this fact. Every single class in the game has been "overpowered" and every single class has been "nerfed into the ground" Many have been both repeatedly. So players, stop complaining about favored classes and hated classes. They dont exist. They never have, and never will.Generalizations, but mostly true. Warriors have had some serious valleys and few peaks, typically niche. Druids were the yardstick of suck for years. I don't personally recall either class ever reaching OP status.

But this raises the point of perspective. Mages have been on the OP list since Cata, you'll notice Mage nerfs (look up Pyroblast recently) have a tendancy to get dropped entirely. In PvP they are claimed OP due to their levels of control, slipperiness, burst, mobility, and survivability. But place them up against a Warlock player who is better at any one of those things and the Mage melts to the Warlock's DoTs and self-healing. Or a Warrior who, between stuns and interrupts and charges (and a talentable AoE Silence), can stay right in the Mage's face and smash them into next week. This is where the meta comes into play like I was talking about. Eventually, people begin to adapt to these things and deal with it. The Warrior can talent change and adapt quickly and easily if need be. Same with the Warlock. Change pets, lockdown rather than burst, commence with the awesomesauce.

Heck, look at the Arena Teams going to the World Championships. Out of all the teams I saw maybe 1 mage, 2 Warlock's, and 2 Paladins.

[Traab]

When feral druids got a boost in tbc, they kicked ass on a multitude of ways. In pve, a bear druid was able to absolutely crush everything with his frenzied regeneration combos, and cat druids were rather nasty on damage. This is during the leveling grind fyi, im not talking end game or something. As for warriors, it is insane how they do in solo pve during cata. I can rush into a half dozen yellow cons, and end the fight at full health with victory rush or whatever its called and some seriously high damage crits from stuff like mortal strike. Once again, i cant speak for end game, as my warrior hasnt reached that yet, (im levelling up everything lol) But the cata change to warriors made them freaking powerful. But once again, all this is spoken from my reference, which is generally solo pve, as I dont do pvp (burnt out from daoc and never got back into it) and im not a big fan of dungeon runs generally either.

That being said, i DO remember when warriors kinda stank. In classic my enhance shaman could stand toe to toe with a warrior and melee him to death with ease. That all changed once raid gear started getting out there. Those 2h swords were insane, and we shaman got shafted with healbot gear, but thats just one example. Pre raids, warriors got beat to death in melee damage by shaman. That wasnt right.

[Karoht]

Exactly. Class balance is transitional, dynamic, and totally depends on your point of reference. Level 19 Twink Hunters crushing everyone? Wait a few levels and see what happens. Level 29 untouchable uncatchable Druid flag carriers? Wait until 39 or 49 and watch them get eclipsed by Rogues, Paladins, and Mages.

Even taking the point of reference of Endgame, it's still a state of flux. There's gearing up, there's meta game, there are nerfs/buffs/adjustments. We're also only in what, week 6 of a fresh expansion? Most of the numbers aren't really tell-tale yet.

Understanding class balance is a mindset. Just like understanding that dailies are more optional than everyone lets on is also a mindset. Just like understanding that LFR is more optional than everyone lets on is also a mindset.
Lets be honest. Most people don't want to think about this sort of thing, it's a game. Anything resembling work get's pushed aside. Then someone beats them at PvP, their mindset regarding their performance is inflexible, so it must be someone else's fault. One starts seeing favoritism and unfair treatment very easily with that mindset.


That said, I look forward to Heart of Fear on LFR tonight. My priorities for this week are get LFR done, and the rest of the week see about finding myself a better raid guild that has an open dedicated healer spot. I'm having difficulty finding a group that raids at my time of night (midnight server onward) or on tues-wed-thurs, so I might have to change some things up.

[Krazzman]

Ok let me clarify my "rant".

First off the gear. It is practically more suited for a Warlock (on nearly every item is mastery... a pretty important stat for warlocks and a nigh unwanted stat for spriests. Now comes the big thing: despite having more other stuff they could take they also need a certain amount of haste which is mostly exclusively on the gear Frostmages and Shadows need. Desparately. But there isn't that much of this.

I haven't done a full depth analysis on this yet but I can't keep up with them on similar gear. And no this does not come from my playstyle. If I recollected it correctly I had a DoT uptime of ~90% on elegon, which is good considering that he is inactive for a few seconds. And yet I were around somewhere 90kdps compared to the near 120k dps of our warlock. And this is in nearly every fight. Stoneguard or Feng might be a close call but when I am in LFR, totally own the recount for stoneguard and then I get behind the Warlock that has worse equip than me, while I still have my flask... this isn't even remotely funny. The problem here is I want to play my Priest to 100% but I get demotivated when I see our Warlock outperforming me... while messing up.
The same for Paladins. My GF plays the Restoration Shaman since WotLK. At the beginning of MSV the holy paladin and my GF were even. But now for elegon it was just unfair. The Holy stood there with near full mana and ahead in HPS by a wide margin. As it has been said a difference can't be avoided but not one for about 20% with similar gear.

[Karoht]

Paladins. My GF plays the Restoration Shaman since WotLK. At the beginning of MSV the holy paladin and my GF were even. But now for elegon it was just unfair. The Holy stood there with near full mana and ahead in HPS by a wide margin. As it has been said a difference can't be avoided but not one for about 20% with similar gear.
Right, but that isn't every fight.
Not every spec is going to be even on every fight.
Also, in a vacuum this example doesn't tell us much. We don't know if the Paladin focused on the tanks or raid or both. We don't know if the Shaman focused on the tanks or raid or both. And that does have a significant impact.
Are you two healing it or three? That is also going to make a major difference. If you're two healing it, effects like Beacon of Light become much more significant, so that could skew the numbers somewhat.

Mana at the end of a fight isn't really relevant. Especially when it comes to Paladins who get incredible amounts of mana from Divine Plea every minute. I speak from experience when I say that if you push your cooldowns hard enough, especially your mana cooldowns, it isn't hard to end fights with lots of mana left.

When the shield drops and everyone is on the outer ring, it is entirely possible that the Paladin lucked out and ended up with a group which, for whatever reason, took more damage therefore had more damage to heal up, thereby placing him higher on the meter.

Lastly, this is why I only partly pay attention to healing meters. Being ahead on the meters by a severe margin might mean something, or it might mean nothing. I imagine if you compaired total output the two healers would be closer, which is why I also look at total output when I analyze healers, not just total healed.


========
Did Heart of Fear LFR last night.
Garalon is fun. Everyone hates him, I think he's fun.
Blademaster is awesome. I'm excited to see that fight on Heroic.
And the Viszier? I see him being way more engaging in higher difficulty, but ultimately it's a well designed encounter.
MSV LFR tonight.

[Shishnarfne]

Having breezed through Mogu'shan Vaults last night (one wipe, due to both tanks attempting to grab the same add on Elegon, leaving no one on the boss), with our first kill of Will of the Emperor (we'd nearly downed him with three undergeared bench players Monday), I finally feel that I can give a reasonable assessment of the instance.

As I am currently the guild's main tank (Death Knight), my thoughts may be skewed a bit. (Yes, that means I'm one of the people who caused us not to one shot the place.)

Stone Guard is all about the tanks managing the Empowerment correctly, with healers picking up the slack when a "bad overload" occurs, and with the raid disabling jasper chains and cobalt mines properly. It's not a hard fight, once you get the hang of it, but most groups will wipe repeatedly while learning it and again a few times as weeks go on. DPS requirement on normal seems minimal (as long as they're attacking the pair, it'll probably be fine).

Feng is a fight that seems to rely heavily on proper use of Nullification Barrier (yup, tanks again), with the Shroud of Reversal dropping off dramatically in usefulness after you stop seeing Epicenter. It's healing intense, and requires a bit more raid awareness than Stone Guard (one person with Arcane Resonance standing in the raid can wipe you!), but DPS is more of a case of getting everything down before healers fall too far behind/oom.

Gara'jal is a DPS race. Our best results have been 2-healing it, sending in a Shadow Priest to DoT up all the adds each time, if possible (along with a healer to regen mana and another DPS if more help is needed). It's probably the easiest one to tank, but demanding on DPS and healers. If you can limit damage taken while a Voodoo Doll, it helps, but it's really the healers and DPS that determine this fight.

Spirit Kings is a practical examination in raid awareness. Having single-tanked this, my main concern is trying to be roughly near the middle of the room when Flanking Orders goes out (easiest place to handle it), and being ready to race the boss away from a poorly kited add. Frankly, as long as your raid stacks, spreads, and moves correctly, it'll probably be fine.

Elegon tests everyone. Phase one requires that the Main Tank be able to survive a Total Annihilation from the add while rocking at least 8-10 stacks of the debuff that increases damage taken. I like Anti-Magic Shell. It's possible that if a healer is resetting stacks at the time (so they don't get rocked by the Annihilation), that they'll be out of range of you. Meanwhile, the off tank (roles switch with each add) has to tank the add on the vortex until 25%, then get it off before it dies while your DPS is going bananas on it. And then rush in to rescue the main tank from Elegon. A healer cooldown for this transition works nicely, too. And it goes much more smoothly if you push Elegon to a transition to phase two right when an add goes down, before the next one arrives.

It's the most complicated fight (and hardest, probably), and that's just phase 1!

Phase 2 consists of nuking down as many waves of adds as possible while resetting personal stacks so the damage when the adds die doesn't kill you. Our raid gets 3 sets down. We let the fourth through while we get DPS time on Elegon (precious, precious 10 seconds); we then rush madly to get off the platform before we fall to our deaths.

Phase 3, damaging the focuses isn't the hard part, it's doing so while the tanks pick up all of the adds (whose damage can start to add up), and being ready to get back to phase one as smoothly as possible. Usually, some quick AoE will rapidly drop these guys.

Then, the cycle repeats once more, before going to a modified version of phase one, minus the adds, but plus an increasing AoE damage on the raid.
This fight is rough on everyone.

Will of the Emperor is mostly about 3 things: proper add management, ducking Devastating Combos (both for reduced damage taken and extra DPS), and healing through the increased damaged phases of Titan Gas. Essentially, the same fight as LFR, with bigger numbers. So, once your tanks and melee learn how to dance around the combos, the fight really isn't that hard, provided that your DPS down the adds properly. My health felt a bit spiky when I loused up a Combo dodge... an Emperor's Strength trying to stun you makes that trickier. However, I'd say that this fight is mostly won by DPS managing adds, with tanks and healers helping out.

I hear that LFR Heart of Fear has been wiping people who don't know how to handle mechanics even worse than MSV. I may test this tonight.

Also, it feels weird that after swapping out my Brewfest Stam trinket for the mastery trinket off of Elegon, that my raid buffed hp exceeds that of our bear off-tank by 100k.

[Krazzman]

Right, but that isn't every fight.
Not every spec is going to be even on every fight.
Also, in a vacuum this example doesn't tell us much. We don't know if the Paladin focused on the tanks or raid or both. We don't know if the Shaman focused on the tanks or raid or both. And that does have a significant impact.
Are you two healing it or three? That is also going to make a major difference. If you're two healing it, effects like Beacon of Light become much more significant, so that could skew the numbers somewhat.

Mana at the end of a fight isn't really relevant. Especially when it comes to Paladins who get incredible amounts of mana from Divine Plea every minute. I speak from experience when I say that if you push your cooldowns hard enough, especially your mana cooldowns, it isn't hard to end fights with lots of mana left.

When the shield drops and everyone is on the outer ring, it is entirely possible that the Paladin lucked out and ended up with a group which, for whatever reason, took more damage therefore had more damage to heal up, thereby placing him higher on the meter.

Lastly, this is why I only partly pay attention to healing meters. Being ahead on the meters by a severe margin might mean something, or it might mean nothing. I imagine if you compaired total output the two healers would be closer, which is why I also look at total output when I analyze healers, not just total healed.


Not quite what I meant but yes it's not in an vacuum. The problem is more in the terms of how unfair it is compared in gear. Our Warlock has 480(479 equipped) while I have 478 equipped. That's not a big enough difference to say that 60k dps compared to 90k dps is ok. The same difference between Shaman (478) and the Paladin (480). Really in nearly every encounter they are on the same... a difference of about 2% to 5% except that the Paladin doesn't have any mana problems while my GF needs my Hymn of Hope.

[Karoht]

Not quite what I meant but yes it's not in an vacuum. The problem is more in the terms of how unfair it is compared in gear. Our Warlock has 480(479 equipped) while I have 478 equipped. That's not a big enough difference to say that 60k dps compared to 90k dps is ok. The same difference between Shaman (478) and the Paladin (480). Really in nearly every encounter they are on the same... a difference of about 2% to 5% except that the Paladin doesn't have any mana problems while my GF needs my Hymn of Hope.
Is the Shaman rocking a Blue weapon or a Purple weapon? The difference in spell power does equal a lot of throughput. Amped up by Elegon's buff, I would imagine that right there could be a major difference. Same also applies to Windsong VS Jade Spirit enchant on the weapon. A blue weapon with Windsong (or no enchant) VS a purple with Jade Spirit? Magnified by the 50% healing buff, could be your difference right there alone.
Also, how's the spirit look? My mana regen sucked when half my gear had spirit and half didn't. Once all the slots had spirit I was fine again.

Lastly, I'm not normally a fan of such automated optimization, but have you checked out Ask Mr Robot or any other such gem/reforging website? I didn't think a 2% difference in gear optimzation was that big a deal. Then I followed the instructions and tried it myself. And life got better.

[Krazzman]

Is the Shaman rocking a Blue weapon or a Purple weapon? The difference in spell power does equal a lot of throughput. Amped up by Elegon's buff, I would imagine that right there could be a major difference. Same also applies to Windsong VS Jade Spirit enchant on the weapon. A blue weapon with Windsong (or no enchant) VS a purple with Jade Spirit? Magnified by the 50% healing buff, could be your difference right there alone.
Also, how's the spirit look? My mana regen sucked when half my gear had spirit and half didn't. Once all the slots had spirit I was fine again.

Lastly, I'm not normally a fan of such automated optimization, but have you checked out Ask Mr Robot or any other such gem/reforging website? I didn't think a 2% difference in gear optimzation was that big a deal. Then I followed the instructions and tried it myself. And life got better.

I think we both have 463 weapons (I have a staff, my GF mainhand and shield). The Paladin doesn't seem to have an epic weapon if I recall but I'm not so sure if he might have an "LFR-Weapon". I know for sure that my GF only has spirit items and AskMrRobot told her last time to pump everyxthing into haste. I already used it but couldn't really get anything from it due to our first tries on the emperor and the first boss in Heart of Fear.
FOr the healers it's not the output but how this output is achieved. It's aggravating that when someone has a few better items than you and outperforms you while having no mana problems. A 5% difference is ok in terms of balancing... 20 to 30% is not... at least for me, when they also say they need the items I would need desperatly. I think when Elegon drops his wand... I'll have to wait for a second time since the warlock has it only in lfr version. I'm not sure if I should change my DP makro and make an additional MB makro to ensure a near 100% uptime/cd-time for my trinket.

Another thing that irks me is the supposed BiS list for Spriests. Sometimes they reforged crit to haste and used that value to calculate the ranking... sometimes they did not. Example is the Spirit/Crit ring you can get from Feng or the Spiritbinder (unsure which it was).

[Karoht]

Okay, so then what in your estimation is the reason for the extreme difference between the two? A few item levels of gear? If that were the case the difference would be far more severe on all fights, not just Elegon. There has to be more to it.
Also, this is rather odd, because the Paladins I've been speaking with seem to have the inverse of your situation. They end the fight with no mana, rock every cooldown, and end up behind everyone by a 10% or larger margin.

I would check and see if Aura Mastery is counted in there. Some meters take damage negated as potential healing. However, they specifically do not count Spirit Link beyond noting that it was used. Aura Mastery (raidwide 20% reduction) on Elegon? Yeah, that would kind of be a big deal.


I really enjoy Will of the Emperors and Garalon. Yeah, I'm crazy. Whatevs.
I'm still having difficulty finding a guild that works for me. I'm just going to have to take an earlier time by the looks of it. 830pm server is the latest group I can find right now, that works out to be 630pm my time.

[Krazzman]

Hmm unsure if our Recount logs Aura Mastery... but for damage... well we cleared yesterday but... Stone Guard, good dps #1 in recount. Feng and Garajal were... well it sucked. 58/59k dps and 60k dps. While the Warlock is rocking on his higher dps (unsure because we rushed on, so I couldn't track everything). Uptime was 100% for Garajal and 99%/96% for Feng. I installed HaloPro now to get better usage of my Halo but I hardly believe that this makes a difference of over 50%. My thoughts are: my equipment isn't that suited for this... in one fight I had to fight with our Warrior and our Monk-Tank but I'm not sure if it was a kill or just a wipe try.
Our Monk-Tank got his Pandaria Epic-Achievement yesterday... I got a nice Leg item that I will be changing for the T-Set Legs as soon as I get them. Well Spirit Mastery... while I need haste badly.
I know not every item can/should be BiS... but at least an alternative would be nice. Instead I have 1 Boss where I have to fight for 2 Items with the 2 other cloth-dds (luckily one of them had it as bonus loot already). And one item from other bosses... where the others already have them/don't need them... We already disenchant stuff... not like the Sha-Crystals of that won't be used for enchants...actually I'm thinking about dropping alchemy or herbalism and get Enchantment... but then I would need to get a twink of mine to 90 to farm some herbs for potions and stuff...

@Karoth, have you thought about switching servers to a better timezone?

[Karoht]

@Karoth, have you thought about switching servers to a better timezone?
It's been a very solid consideration.
I need to move a minimum of 3 characters, plus my fiance and whoever she wants to move. Not something I have the money for right now.

I haven't quite got to the point where I'm spamming trade channel looking for a guild with more favorable times. I think I'll spend this weekend pugging normal mode and see where I get with things, drop hints that I'm looking for a guild, etc. If that doesn't get me any leads, then I'll think about changing up.

Krazz, was that an invitation by any chance? :smallwink:


@Professions
Yeah, I highly recommend Alchemy and Enchanting. Specifically, I would put Tailoring + Enchanting on a clothie character you plan on playing, and leave Alch + Something on someone else. Though, Alch + LW on Karoht is pretty darned awesome. I should have made this switch ages ago.
As for leveling up crafting professions, in reality it is very possible to do it now by just buying materials. My jewelcrafter went from 525-575 on 3 stacks of green quality gems, which I picked up for under 100g total. 1-300 sucks but it isn't as bad as 1-300 Blacksmithing, and from 375 onward it just gets easier and easier. I'm confident that oen could level jewelcrafting from 1-max for under 2K if you were clever about your purchases and followed an up to date guide.
Right now none of my characters with gathering professions are leveled beyond 85. But all my crafting professions are maxed or very close. Yeah.

[Mutant Sheep]

I've given up. I'm going to try the 10 day trial of MoP and maybe even level past 81. But I'll probably wind up leveling alts anyways. So that. :smallsigh::smallamused: And It'll take an hour just to re-relearn druid. Augh.

[Krazzman]

It's been a very solid consideration.
I need to move a minimum of 3 characters, plus my fiance and whoever she wants to move. Not something I have the money for right now.

I haven't quite got to the point where I'm spamming trade channel looking for a guild with more favorable times. I think I'll spend this weekend pugging normal mode and see where I get with things, drop hints that I'm looking for a guild, etc. If that doesn't get me any leads, then I'll think about changing up.

Krazz, was that an invitation by any chance? :smallwink:


@Professions
Yeah, I highly recommend Alchemy and Enchanting. Specifically, I would put Tailoring + Enchanting on a clothie character you plan on playing, and leave Alch + Something on someone else. Though, Alch + LW on Karoht is pretty darned awesome. I should have made this switch ages ago.
As for leveling up crafting professions, in reality it is very possible to do it now by just buying materials. My jewelcrafter went from 525-575 on 3 stacks of green quality gems, which I picked up for under 100g total. 1-300 sucks but it isn't as bad as 1-300 Blacksmithing, and from 375 onward it just gets easier and easier. I'm confident that oen could level jewelcrafting from 1-max for under 2K if you were clever about your purchases and followed an up to date guide.
Right now none of my characters with gathering professions are leveled beyond 85. But all my crafting professions are maxed or very close. Yeah.

Sadly no. We don't need a Heal Druid atm and we play on a German server... + I am not in a position to give raidslots... in December we will leave our guild and make something together with a Holy Priest and a Prot-Paladin.
Switching proffessions... the main point against this is... I would have to depend on my GF strongly... which I dislike, as she hates farming and I can't play with her UI...
My main Concern is that I just paid 10k for the Darkmoon card. And I am now at 31k Gold (all chars added up) and I dislike skilling through AH... costs too much.

[Togath]

I've given up. I'm going to try the 10 day trial of MoP and maybe even level past 81. But I'll probably wind up leveling alts anyways. So that. :smallsigh::smallamused: And It'll take an hour just to re-relearn druid. Augh.

Cat, boomkin, and tree druids are about the same as always, though wardens are different

[Karoht]

Cat, boomkin, and tree druids are about the same as always, though wardens are different
Yeah, we were lucky, we didn't see incredible differences in how we play, apart from Bear. Bear has some pretty radical designs. I recommend a guide site if I were you.
www.icy-veins.com
Oh look, my weekly plug!

[subanark]

Another week of attendance problems. Tuesday we breeze though the first 4 bosses. Next day we can't find anyone to help us with elegon (next time we recruit, we have to know that 6/6 may mean 6/6 LFR). We haven't had much practice on him, but from other runs people have done on him they haven't gotten past enrage. Haven't even tried HoF as we've heard it is really hard, and trying to get people to come for long raids is not easy.

Personally, I got though the last of the NPC pet battles, and I don't really feel like trying to level up more pets to 25. I don't do enough dailies anymore to get valor capped so I need to do dungeons to catch up.

[Mutant Sheep]

Haha, hit 83. IM SO PROUD OF MYSELF. :smalltongue: I almost took 2 Ally pallies, there was a massive bunch wandering through Hyjal today with asdefrvd keyboard smack-names. I play with myself flagged (I try to challenge to duels so there isn't the 'dying' thing, though) because PvP server memories.:smallamused: I then cruelly pounced one of them when she was alone with a magic bear-charge of doom. And then summoned a quest-summon-mob-guy-item on her corpse and flew away. 'Cuz evil.
I might be able to get some heirlooms someday. What's the fastes way to get them, outside of the guild-pure-gold-purchase that you need revered with to get? :smallconfused: I'm gonna level a pally and find out what the hell they do, ebcause my two paladins 45/64... I dunno how to make their Ui and I don't want to spend the time digging through it.:smallsigh:

[Togath]

That reminds me, how does halfhill inn work on pvp servers?, on PvE servers it's open to pvp(I've managed to get at least 8 kills with my hunter by ambushing people in the inn, or by chasing people into it), but I can't see how anyone could log out there on a pvp server

[Antonok]

What's the fastes way to get them, outside of the guild-pure-gold-purchase that you need revered with to get? :smallconfused: I'm gonna level a pally and find out what the hell they do, ebcause my two paladins 45/64... I dunno how to make their Ui and I don't want to spend the time digging through it.:smallsigh:

Honor or JP. Honors probably faster (though theres only 2 or 3 for it)

Its not hard to get revered with a guild, or get the money for BoAs. I got all 3 dps leather pieces in a day, then got the shoulders from the darkmoon faire. All funded by selling pets and and going thru jade forest.

[Karoht]

Found a guild.
Thurs-Fri-Sun, monday is optional day, 1am -3am server. Which works very well for me.
They run 3x 10 groups. Also, Tues and Wed are probably going to be dedicated Challenge Mode days.

Excellent.

[Krazzman]

Found a guild.
Thurs-Fri-Sun, monday is optional day, 1am -3am server. Which works very well for me.
They run 3x 10 groups. Also, Tues and Wed are probably going to be dedicated Challenge Mode days.

Excellent.

Congratulations. I ditched Herbalism for Enchanting... cost me about 3 or 4k gold and now am nearly max skilled (and haven't sold anything yet).

[Karoht]

Remember, sell your Enchants and Mats on tuesday. Just don't be the first to list them. By Wednesday, the prices drop due to undercutting, though mat prices tend to stay pretty stable.

Have a Jewelcrafter friend with lots of green quality gems and no idea what to do with them?
Have your friend turn the gems into green quality rings/amulets. They occasionally get lucky and proc a blue quality sometimes. Either way, disenchanting those items tends to yield really well for materials, about 3-4 dust on average, and an essence about 1-10. Sell dust or make into enchants, sell, give your friend a cut, enjoy.
As for compensating your friend, there is a hassle free way to do it.
A stack of green quality gems will yield about 20g vendor price (I think that's if they cut them, not uncut). That's a stack mind you, not individual gems.
I give my fiance 4x the vendor price to give me disenchantables. 80G to 100G for 20 green quality items (and a few blues) to disenchant isn't bad. It's quick math, it doesn't rely on me selling, and gives me a price point for the materials that works. It works out to around 5g per item, and with 3 dusts per item, it means I'm paying 1.6g per dust, better or 'lucky' results not withstanding.
I also compensate my fiance further by growing more of the Ore on my farm (all my farms will be Ore producing soon, except for Karoht who will be Mote/Spirit producing once the others are up and running) which just means I get more supply, more consistantly, and faster. It does the job rather nicely.
Dust pricing under this model, means my break even point on dusts is 2g or less. I try not to sell them unless the average price is 3g or better. As for convenience pricing, I recommend stacks of 4, for some reason they always seem to sell better than stacks of 5, even with the same price, or a slight discount on the stacks of 5.

As for specific Enchants, the best seller I've found has been Windsong. DPS and Heals use it, sometimes tanks use it, so there is a broad market. My second best seller has been the off-hand intelligence booster. My third best is probably Pandaren Step (Mastery + Movement on boot).

Once you have the rep for it (August Celestials, revered) the three enchants of STR/AGI/INT on (bracers? gloves? Whatever, it's the rep one) do sell well and sell high, from what I can gather.

Best of luck.

[Traab]

ARGH! I hate the new instancing thing in zones. It used to be, if there was 3-4 people doing the same quests as me, I could log out for 10 minutes, come back, and everyone is done and gone. Now it seems like no matter when I log on there will always be at least 3 people from multiple servers all doing the exact same quest chain as me. Im trying to level up my worgen druid, (I freaking hate the 2 druid race thing) from the starting area, and everywhere I turn there are people doing the starting quests. When THAT isnt an issue, im getting buggy quests! Last night I had to stop playing because I was on that rescue the drowned gilnaens quest and those stupid buggers wouldnt get off my back for love nor money. No credit, no way to get rid of them, no way to grab more, nothing. It finally worked today, but it still took forever because the damn things wouldnt get off me. I found copious swearing in chat helped somehow, so I kept it up till the quest was over.

[Karoht]

/non-serious response
Some dislike a world that is empty.
Some dislike a world where the population is greater than 1.
Some just hate everything universally.

/serious response
Party up rather than compete. You honestly get about the same amount of XP given that you complete quests faster.
You'll find that past level 20 it seems to become less and less a problem as time goes on. Until you hit daily hubs at 90. And then everyone is spamming general chat to form groups to make daily questing go faster.

Personally, I like it. I make new friends all the time now. I don't even bother reading general chat to find a group, I just swoop in and help someone who looks like they need it (Typhoon the cluster-foop of mobs off the shadow priest and then spam some heals, throw out Mark of the Wild), and BOOM invite city. And we blast things, we goof off, we save other people or groups of people, we get dailies done in a timely manner. Fun times.

[Antonok]

ARGH!

Yea, someone at blizzard decided to throw in CRZ when it wasn't ready. There's a lot of bugs with it and it seems 2 person mounts are useless now.

The biggest complaint I've heard (and felt) was on a PvP server, now you have people from 5 different servers invading the quest hubs.

[Karoht]

Complainers wanted more World PvP, they got exactly what they deserve.
Don't like getting ganked, don't roll on a PvP server. Which has been the motto since Vanilla.

[Traab]

I would also like to throw in my pet peeve, speaking of level 90 quest hubs.

Hey, hey you! You on the giant fricking flying mount! Do you mind terribly dismounting and NOT standing directly on top of the quest giver npc? Or at least not going afk on top of them?

[Karoht]

I would also like to throw in my pet peeve, speaking of level 90 quest hubs.

Hey, hey you! You on the giant fricking flying mount! Do you mind terribly dismounting and NOT standing directly on top of the quest giver npc? Or at least not going afk on top of them?Because we haven't dealt with this problem for the last 8 years. /sarcasm

Actually, I hear tell that they might impliment a fix for that in 5.1
Similar to that invisible wall they had for the valor/jp vendors.

[Gryffon]

To be honest, if they just added a menu option from their target frame, I'd be happy.

Then I could just /tar <npc> and right-click.

[Karoht]

To be honest, if they just added a menu option from their target frame, I'd be happy.

Then I could just /tar <npc> and right-click.

Hit Control V to bring up nameplates
Click (right click) the appropriate nameplate, ignoring the n+1 people on mounts completely. Assisted further if you have the tidyplates addon (which is actually remarkably good and helpful) but addon is not necessary.
Though the menu option is actually pretty darned clever too. The two together would be keen.

[Gryffon]

Yeah, targeting has never really been the issue. It's just the inability to bring up the options(although I think there are some macro options for that even.) It would just be really handy for an option on the menu that said "Interact" or something, that does the same thing as right-clicking on the npc.

[Karoht]

Yeah, targeting has never really been the issue. It's just the inability to bring up the options(although I think there are some macro options for that even.) It would just be really handy for an option on the menu that said "Interact" or something, that does the same thing as right-clicking on the npc.I completely agree.
I think there may already be an Addon which can do this, but ultimately I believe that this would make an excellent addition to the standard interface.
Simple and brilliant.
Have an internet and a cookie.

[Traab]

Hit Control V to bring up nameplates
Click (right click) the appropriate nameplate, ignoring the n+1 people on mounts completely. Assisted further if you have the tidyplates addon (which is actually remarkably good and helpful) but addon is not necessary.
Though the menu option is actually pretty darned clever too. The two together would be keen.

Or people could just, you know, NOT be asses. Im just glad there is no collision detection. I HATED that in everquest. Some fat ogre could sit down in front of the only entrance to the bank or whatever, and noone could get by him, often for hours as he was intentionally not letting himself get logged out due to inactivity.

[Karoht]

Or people could just, you know, NOT be asses.Welcome to the internet? People could just not teabag in Halo, or swear at each other over xbox live, but I doubt we'll see that ever change.


Im just glad there is no collision detection. I HATED that in everquest.Implimented on just NPC's (and select ones at that) I think it would work out fine. Implimented on everyone? Yeah, that's asking for trouble, as many examples have pointed out for us.

I wonder if they could change the hitbox area of the larger mounts or something? That could help too.

[Daverin]

I just got my Netherwing Drake. I am extremely happy.

Now it is my mission to get the pattern for the Greater Stats enchant for chests.

[Traab]

Im working on cloud serpent faction. Just hit revered and of COURSE the race course trainer quest is buggy as hell. She keeps warning me to keep up, then poof, she vanishes, but the tether remains and never goes away. Is there a trick to keeping this from happening? Or am I just that unlucky that I keep hitting all thes (^&%I*&^%*&&^% buggy quests on every class I try to play?

[Karoht]

Im working on cloud serpent faction. Just hit revered and of COURSE the race course trainer quest is buggy as hell. She keeps warning me to keep up, then poof, she vanishes, but the tether remains and never goes away. Is there a trick to keeping this from happening? Or am I just that unlucky that I keep hitting all thes (^&%I*&^%*&&^% buggy quests on every class I try to play?
I think you are just unlucky. I don't know a single person who has had a problem with that quest. And I know people who are still running serpent dailies because they enjoy them, having hit exalted a while ago.

Do you run a custom UI mod of any kind? I've heard that in some cases they play a role in bug reports and buggy quests, though not commonly so.

Also, I've rarely run into a bug where reloading my UI didn't solve it. Type /reload and see what happens.

[Traab]

I have no mods or anything special, just what the game gives me. I havent tried today, today im busy finding even more bad luck playing medal of honor limited edition and having THAT damn thing bug out on me. Im at one of the early missions where im stuck because my freaking npc teammates wont move on and open the door so I can move along. Im stuck in a damn building and nothing fixes it. I think i will have to start over from the beginning of the mission at this rate. I just. . . seem to have horrible horrible luck with everything bugging out on me, and I, like my guitar, am gently weeping.

[Zherog]

Thumbs up, at least, for the Beatles reference. :smallcool:

[The_Jackal]

Im working on cloud serpent faction. Just hit revered and of COURSE the race course trainer quest is buggy as hell. She keeps warning me to keep up, then poof, she vanishes, but the tether remains and never goes away. Is there a trick to keeping this from happening? Or am I just that unlucky that I keep hitting all thes (^&%I*&^%*&&^% buggy quests on every class I try to play?

High server lag. Do you play with the micro-menu enabled? It has a very small lag-o-meter which should show when your connection latency spikes.

[Togath]

Just found an interesting bit of lore on grummles;
apparently(or at least according to the book I found in game) they are a form of mutated trog, created by the moguls to serve as scouts against the pandaran, jinyu and hozen.
It’s kind of fun to find something that makes them seem a little bit less random, anyone else find interesting bits of lore in mists yet? Since I found the grummle thing I’ve been reading most books I find while questing, to see if there’s anything interesting in them.

[Mutant Sheep]

Borong Grummle "i didnt SEEEE any enemies" thing, some Zandalari stuff, bla bla bla...:smalltongue:

Heirlooms are affordable for me all of a sudden! Is there a discount for guild rep? XD. Or are quests just actually funding me now?:smalltongue:

[Togath]

Guild rep does reduce the price of guild heirlooms, and level 90 quests often award 20-50g each, so it may be both.

[The Linker]

Lorewalker Cho's story on the Jinyu, through the provided 'pictures', seemed to indicate the Jinyu are Murlocs that evolved over time into a wiser sort of aquatic humanoid from the magical pools within Pandaria. I think that was the neatest snippet I've found.

I never liked the grummles...

[Togath]

The jinyu thing is neat, and aye, I agree that the grummles are a bit odd(I actually thought they were a joke when they were first revealed on the preview site).

A completely unrelated thing I’ve been trying to figure out; is the female pandaran dance a specific one, or a specific parody of something? I feel like I’ve seen bits of it before, but can’t place what it’s a parody of.

[Cerlis]

Yes it is a parody/taken from some stupid anime dance. Someone here will tell you i'm sure but in the mean time i suggest you look up Female Pandaren Dance on youtube. Chances are any video that comes up will likely point it out.


I like the grummles. I'm their Lucky-do. I think its cute to have this sort of Gipsie like race going around. Creatures that are tricky and good hearted but not stupid. yea, i think Gipsy is the best word for em. Representative of those clever sherpa travelers who seek opportunity, but not enterprise like Goblins.


-----------

But i find it interesting just how much the Vale of Eternal Blossoms has modified Pandaria. The Jinyu, The Mogu, and by them the Grummle and Saurok.

If you read, the Yaugol are Tauren immigrants from before the sundering. They got stuck on the bad side of the wall and so where forced to be more vicious and opportunistic (and learned how to use Oil) in order to survive.

I also hope the Jade serpent doesnt die before another vessel can be made for her! (they said it took 1000 years to get all that jade for the statue.)

[The Linker]

Ah, the Female Pandaren dance. I recognized it instantly; given the Haruhi fans I know online and off, I've come across the video more than once (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_indP8fT494).

Edit: Oh, and it's also mixed with the Caramelldansen dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXK9ShllebQ). That video is just one example of millions, but I think you'll get the idea.

[Togath]

I like the grummles. I'm their Lucky-do. I think its cute to have this sort of Gipsie like race going around. Creatures that are tricky and good hearted but not stupid. yea, i think Gipsy is the best word for em. Representative of those clever sherpa travelers who seek opportunity, but not enterprise like Goblins.


Aye the grummles are cute, I more meant it seemed odd at the time(since out of saurok, mushan, mogu, wind serpent, grummle, bug thingies. all but one is some sort of fierce monster, or powerful beast)


Ah, the Female Pandaren dance. I recognized it instantly; given the Haruhi fans I know online and off, I've come across the video more than once (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_indP8fT494).

Edit: Oh, and it's also mixed with the Caramelldansen dance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXK9ShllebQ). That video is just one example of millions, but I think you'll get the idea.

Ah, so that's why they looked familiar(I think I've seen bits of the haruhi dance, and well as the second one before, which would explain the déjà vu)

[Karoht]

Wow. I am sitting on 9 Sigils of Power already, just from LFR raiding. I got 5 last night.
Probably going to do the second half of HoF this weekend, and I've got my first full week of raiding with my new guild starting tonight.

LFR balance is interesting this go around. Because people who are well geared are still mostly incentivized (not required) to still go to LFR, it means that you get a good spread on gear levels for everyone. I'm almost in complete LFR gear now, but I'm usually coming in 2nd for healing on most fights. Then I inspect the guy in first place and of course, they are better geared than me, though usually with a small margin rather than a large one.

Oh, and my LFR group managed to have no one die when Elegon dropped the floor, and we one-shot Garalon without a single person standing in the purple circle. This is LFR we are talking about people. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

[The Glyphstone]

Pics or didn't happen, man.

[Togath]

Just heard something while browsing tvtropes. Does anyone know if it's true that their planning to kill off Garrosh by making him the final villain of the expansion?

[Mutant Sheep]

Just heard something while browsing tvtropes. Does anyone know if it's true that their planning to kill off Garrosh by making him the final villain of the expansion?

...Thats been out since like, pre-Beta. How did you only hear about it now? Him being a raid boss near the end if the expac has been known as discussed to death.:smallconfused::smalltongue:

[Togath]

I'm not sure how I didn't hear about it then...
Is he still going to be the horde warchief?

[The Linker]

...When he's dead? Seems doubtful to me.

[Togath]

Ah, so it's not a "beat him until whatever is possessing him is gone" scenario.....darn
Have they revealed any of the plot that explains how he's suddenly turned evil?

[The Linker]

I think the point is not that he's not going to turn evil. He's a hateful, warmongering, vicious, animalistic humanoid who chooses violence before words and seems close to attempting to wipe out his own allies. A lot of people already want him dead, one of them being Vol'Jin, the Troll leader.

In theory, this storming-Orgrimmar event would occur after he goes just a bit too far and the Alliance and Horde mutually agree he needs to be stopped. Perhaps he'll want to raze Pandaria for the sake of razing Pandaria, and everyone rises up against him for it.

At any rate, it's (probably) not that he gets possessed by the Sha or anything. He's been a bastard from the beginning.

I don't think we know for sure that he'll be killed, but he'll certainly be outed as warchief, I believe. And someone we "might not expect" will come forward to fill the throne.

[Togath]

After you mentioned the Vol'jin thing, I looked up some lore...I'd lost track of more then just the Garrosh thing apparently.
Are there any good sites for looking up lore?(I'm really interested to see if I've missed anything else)

[Mutant Sheep]

Yeah, tons of fun lore. Outside of virus warning wikies, there's always WoWInsider (http://wow.joystiq.com/category/know-your-lore/), but they have Tinfoil Hat editions, which are all speculation.

[ZeroNumerous]

I don't think we know for sure that he'll be killed, but he'll certainly be outed as warchief, I believe. And someone we "might not expect" will come forward to fill the throne.

Thralls back. Yay...

[Zherog]

He's a hateful, warmongering, vicious, animalistic humanoid ...

You left out spiteful. And jerkface.

[ZeroNumerous]

You left out spiteful.

Hey, I can respect a spiteful quick thinker. Not that Garrosh thinks, but you know what I'm saying.

[Gryffon]

A couple of things relevant to the current conversation:

1) Garrosh may not be a raid boss. I believe the words used were event. So it could be a scenario.

2) Thrall(Go'el) is unlikely to come back to be the Horde Warchief.

3) WoWInsider is definitely a good source for lore, but make sure you're not looking at the Tin Foil Hat edition and taking it as canon. Another good resource is Wowpedia (http://www.wowpedia.org)

I've been a fan of Trolls since release. My original Horde main(I was alliance for a couple of months, first) is a Troll Shaman, that is still my main today. They're just awesome. And Vol'jin is excellent. The new Troll starting area is great, and if you enjoy their lore at all, it's probably worth leveling a troll to ~10 to see it all. Vol'jin is also feature in an upcoming scenario I believe, in 5.1

Also, on an unrelated note, I run a Horde guild on Ravenholdt-US(RP-PvP), we've been around since BC. If you're on the server, check us out. Legacy of the Sun (http://www.legacyofthesun.org)

[Krazzman]

I've been a fan of Trolls since release. My original Horde main(I was alliance for a couple of months, first) is a Troll Shaman, that is still my main today. They're just awesome. And Vol'jin is excellent. The new Troll starting area is great, and if you enjoy their lore at all, it's probably worth leveling a troll to ~10 to see it all. Vol'jin is also feature in an upcoming scenario I believe, in 5.1


Yeah I like them the most too. At least on Horde side... I began playing a Nightelven Hunter (switched to Draenai Paladin, paid to make him human when he was 80, switched servers and fractions to another RP-PvE server).
Yet I suck at names... my Main Krazzman, I will level a DK (to help my GF level her Paladin faster) named Krassman and now have a level 13 Shaman named Ryodact... luckily I'm no longer playing on a RP server anymore... weird guys were there... Names like Hope or Axeofdeath were "allowed" but pure fluff names were reported. For example someone called his druid Acewind in celtic. He had to rename his char to Acoend. When he had hit 70 months ago.

[Karoht]

Wowpedia.org and wowinsider are the two I most strongly recommend.
Along with keeping up with MMO-Champion.com

wowwiki is not recommended, for reasons previously mentioned.

@Garrosh
1-Vol'jin is in an upcoming scenario. Spoilers are up on mmo-champion.com but to sum up, the tension between Vol'jin and Garrosh is increasing.
2-Christie Golden is writing a book about Vol'jin currently. This is a big deal, though it is not actually evidence that he will be the new Warchief.
3-Patch 5.1 brings us one set of events of the story for the expansion. Later patches have been hinted at to have similar story events to patch 5.1.

Make of that what you will.

Unrelated-Patch 5.2's development started shortly before or shortly after Pandaria launched. It's been in alpha phase testing since the PTR went up, according to my contacts.

[Gryffon]

Yeah, I've seen the name stuff as well. Most of my characters are actually named using the random generator in-game, aside from my priestess(Illumine), and my Death Knight(Shikyo).

One of my old guildmates used to be named Gooch-something. It got reported, and a GM renamed him to Taynt. That was pretty funny.

[Togath]

I'd always thought the naming thing was just a myth/joke., Then again, most of my characters on rp servers(I don't actually rp myself, due to too many encounters with weird people, such as the people who often in habit the Pig and Whistle or Lion's Pride inns on some servers...such as moonguard) have names such as Ilara, Iver, Joe[still amazed I managed to snatch that one up], or Freddee...then again, I also have a monk named Foomanchui and a rogue named Scorpon on the same server as the Ilara, Joe and Freddee.

I also once made a hunter named "Moranus" due to a typo(meant to call him Moronus, as a meta joke about the term "huntard"). Amazingly he still has that name, and he's ended up my main.

[Traab]

I'd always thought the naming thing was just a myth/joke., Then again, most of my characters on rp servers(I don't actually rp myself, due to too many encounters with weird people, such as the people who often in habit the Pig and Whistle or Lion's Pride inns on some servers...such as moonguard) have names such as Ilara, Iver, Joe[still amazed I managed to snatch that one up], or Freddee...then again, I also have a monk named Foomanchui and a rogue named Scorpon on the same server as the Ilara, Joe and Freddee.

I also once made a hunter named "Moranus" due to a typo(meant to call him Moronus, as a meta joke about the term "huntard"). Amazingly he still has that name, and he's ended up my main.

I have an entire clan of characters on an rp server. Stabbymcgee, my rogue, Healymcgee, my priest, Scrubbymcgee is another rogue, I had Demomcgee as a warlock for awhile but I deleted him, basically, any time I create a character I mostly intend to just fart around with, maybe run a starting area for giggles, I give them a goofy name, (My orc warrior Rendalthor is awesome) The rest get some variation of Traab or Trib.

[Krazzman]

"Moranus"

Well... I laughed at that... it remembered me at my encounter with a Random Names generator. You could choose something like medieval europe and such and... well I went for German Male names.... with Anus being on top of that list.

I think the worst name I have seen was from a Counterstrike buddy of me... he played a short time with us on Forscherliga and... well his DK he generated there was called: Scatman. I laughed. (In german the Trolls say "man(n)" instead of "mon"). He got a few reports... as well that our Hunter tried to name his Bearpet Pedobär (pedobear) and well it got reported rather quickly... he renamed it to pedrobear and... it got reported too.

[Gryffon]

The best hunter pet I've seen is the white ape named "Honkey Kong"

[The Glyphstone]

I think the point is not that he's not going to turn evil. He's a hateful, warmongering, vicious, animalistic humanoid who chooses violence before words and seems close to attempting to wipe out his own allies. A lot of people already want him dead, one of them being Vol'Jin, the Troll leader.

In theory, this storming-Orgrimmar event would occur after he goes just a bit too far and the Alliance and Horde mutually agree he needs to be stopped. Perhaps he'll want to raze Pandaria for the sake of razing Pandaria, and everyone rises up against him for it.

At any rate, it's (probably) not that he gets possessed by the Sha or anything. He's been a bastard from the beginning.

I don't think we know for sure that he'll be killed, but he'll certainly be outed as warchief, I believe. And someone we "might not expect" will come forward to fill the throne.

Wrathion for Warchief!

[ZeroNumerous]

2) Thrall(Go'el) is unlikely to come back to be the Horde Warchief.

I'd just like to point out that Blizzard has out-and-out lied about future content before. It's entirely possible for Thrall to make a reappearance, and I'd honestly be surprised if it isn't Thrall.

[Karoht]

I'd just like to point out that Blizzard has out-and-out lied about future content before. It's entirely possible for Thrall to make a reappearance, and I'd honestly be surprised if it isn't Thrall.
I would out-and-out be surprised if it was Thrall.
If I knew nothing of Cataclysm, the Shattering made it pretty obvious that he is done with the Warchief role for a very long time, Twilight of the Aspects only reinforced this heavily, so did Tides of War. The Doomhammer Plate-Wearing Thrall is really his past, the character has just grown entirely out of that role. If they send him back in (as Warchief, not some advisor) with Thrall in his current state, that would be an incredible subversion of the character. Possibly riot inducing. And I do strongly doubt they can build up the character to go back as Warchief in 3-4 content patches.
If he comes back, it won't be as Go'el the way he is today. There would have to be an extreme character change, precipitated by a very extreme event to make this happen.

Spoilers, under spoiler cut, for those who dare:

If you follow some of the data mined information, there is a quote where they refer to...

...Anduin Wrynn as being deceased. Supposedly killed by Garrosh. Anduin tries to stop him from doing something with the Divine Bell. It sounds like Garrosh tortures Anduin and then kills him. Maybe even desecrates the corpse.

See, that's signifigant because Saurfang was able to at least bury his own son. Varian allowed him to claim the body. For Garrosh to perhaps deny Varian proper burial rites? That's kind of a big deal.

Just stating the above because it is interesting, not because it relates to Thrall in any major way. The retaliation for such an act COULD involve Thrall, but I sincerely doubt it. Given Thrall's visions in the Save Thrall questline, I don't see him doing anything but empathizing with Varian. But not enough to just drop his responsibilities as a Shaman or as a future father and come back to the Horde as Warchief.

Perhaps an event related to this, just might be enough to get Go'el/Thrall in the right headspace. But, I doubt it. It seems more like something to be played out by other characters who seem more closely related to the situation.


Curiously, when in your estimation did they 'lie' about lore-based content? I've seen a few vague misleading statements over the years, but anyone following the data mining or the PTR/Beta usually managed to read into their real meaning pretty easily.
Dance Studio doesn't count :smallwink:

[Zherog]

Spoilers about K's spoiler...

While I'm not too big into caring about the lore, that'd be a pity in my opinion. Anduin seems to me to be the most level-headed leader in the game.

[The_Jackal]

Spoilers about K's spoiler...

While I'm not too big into caring about the lore, that'd be a pity in my opinion. Anduin seems to me to be the most level-headed leader in the game.

Which is the reason he has to die. Drama does not ensue in a room full of calm, reasonable people.

[Togath]

Wait, didn't the horde have him at weapon point twice already?, I haven't finished all of the zones yet, but it seems like less of the surprise(we already caught him at least once) for someone such as Garrosh to catch and kill him.....then again, I do prefer Anduin over "vrykl with a giant chin" Wrynn, because he(Anduin) seems like a more interesting character then his father(and he looks more like a human then his father...is there any storyline explanation why his father looks like a vrykl? I’ve been wondering why he looks so odd ever since he first showed up ingame)

[Karoht]

It is currently not confirmed (maybe he goes missing or something).
Also, him dying for an ideal can precipitate MUCH drama.

[Togath]

Not a lore question, more a "is this rude?" question;
is it impolite to attack some one flagged as pvp either while they're logging in or while they're ressing?(on a non pvp server).

[Traab]

I say yes, mainly because you dont get honor for the kill, (I think they have that debuff active for a few seconds at least) so its honestly pointless from anything but a griefing standpoint. But imo, if you run around flagged, you deserve to get killed. Its not like standing still for 5 minutes before rezzing yourself is such an onerous chore.

On another topic, am I the only one disappointed by the 8th anniversary item? 8% rep and exp for 24 hours? Least they could have done was give us a kickass pet or something. Maybe an octopus, 8 legs for 8 years.

[Togath]

I do wonder why they stopped giving out items for the anniversaries, the blizzard bear and whelpling were both really neat.
edit: and aye, I'll probably stop attacking people logging in while flaged as pvp then(I do wonder why there are no guards there though, the part with the faction venders and cooking trainers has guards that can two shot most people)

[Mutant Sheep]

I say yes, mainly because you dont get honor for the kill, (I think they have that debuff active for a few seconds at least) so its honestly pointless from anything but a griefing standpoint. But imo, if you run around flagged, you deserve to get killed. Its not like standing still for 5 minutes before rezzing yourself is such an onerous chore.

On another topic, am I the only one disappointed by the 8th anniversary item? 8% rep and exp for 24 hours? Least they could have done was give us a kickass pet or something. Maybe an octopus, 8 legs for 8 years.

I was murdered while fighting a rare mob by a level 90 mage today. She didn't even get to loot it, it had 100k out 1100k left.:smallsigh: I level flagged because I miss my PvP server, and because Hyjal PvP was pretty enjoyable. But noooo. Apperently just walking in jade Forest flagged means that people will sky dive you with Sky Serpents. (actually, I was a bit close to the sky serpent repgrind spot, so I don't totally blame the murder. Could have waited for me to finish my first Yaungul rare though. Or hell, just waved before ganking.:smallsigh:)

It's a pretty mediocre gift. The letter's text is the same as last years too. (NEW EXPANSION, WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT DEATHWING? PANDA!). I remember the Onyxia dragon whelping, its my main battle pet now.:smallredface:

[Traab]

Speaking of battle pets, THEY STOLE MY ONE EYED WILLY! I dont know if you guys remember, but back, I think in tbc, or shortly after wrath, they had that orpha escort quest series, and I ran through it. I got to choose my pet, and it was willy, a baby beholder mini pet. It was the coolest and cutest little thing! When I saw battle pets I just knew which one I would raise and max out, but NOOOOOOOO!!!! Its not on my list! I cant summon it, I cant find it, its like it was never there! The only thing I can think of is, it got deleted when i got hacked once, and never got restored, or maybe blizzard eventually realized the double entendre was a bit over the line for the games rating and removed it.

Ah well, my mini pink pacyderm and rock em sock em robot pet are letting me kick ass well enough.

[Togath]

willy does still exist(and has a few pretty decent attacks), have you logged onto the character you earned him on? Battle pets aren't added unless you log onto the characters with them. If willy is lost, you might be able to buy a new one on the ah(all pets obtained outside of pet battles can be bought or sold now).

[The Linker]

Willy has to be in your list somewhere, even if in the 'pets you don't own' section. Type it in the search bar and make sure. If nothing comes up at all? That's a glitch.

[Krazzman]

Did you make a faction change? Because apparantly Blizzard doesn't change everything to the otherfaction version now. My GF for example had 3 of those choppers. Even after restoring her huntress who had it... she didn't have it. But now she transfered her Priest back to horde and suddenly has it... It#s weird, if it still doesn't show ask a GM. A few of them are actually quite competent in such matters.

@Birthdaybonus:
Afaik the bonus is an event that goes till december, but I'm not sure about that, someone in my guild mentioned it yesterday and well I raided that day so I didn't have time for twinking. Got the Raidfinder T-Set Chest for my priest, could afford the headpiece for valor points and got the Inscription offhand finally. Additionally Elegon dropped a trinket for me and I managed to get 2 bloodspirits (items from bonus loot I didn't need) and could give them to our Guildbank. Switching to enchanting was the second best thing I could have done.

On another note:
Does anyone else here play Shaman? A Restoration shaman? On Thursday our Guild finally slew the second boss in Heart of Fear. The problem here is... we tried to kill him the whole tuesday with me as a healer.
Our Setup is: Resto Shaman, Holy Paladin and Resto Druid. Our Tanks are a Prot Paladin and a Monk. Tuesday our Druid wasn't available so I switched from Shadow to holy. It was quite boring. I mostly stood there with 100% mana (being a reactionary healer) and still generated too much overheal from Renew. Now the problem is: My GF (the shaman) can't really compete. Either she get's near the hps the Paladin has and is oom quite fast or our monk actually "heals" more than her and suddenly it's her fault. The thing is: the advice coming from the Monk (who has a Shaman twink) is mostly stupidly irrelevant. Some things like "Riptide-Glyph sucks" and "Use this!" "This is how you have to play!"...
Social competence or things like properly giving advice is one of the greatest lacks our raidlead has.
We play on Blackhand, and if you could give me some advice for her (Yuvati) it would be great. (can't link her armory atm) This grews to be a problem in this raid... in which we will probably be only until mid-december anyway but then if we want to start good we should both improve (luckily I have howtopriest.com for my shadow).

Hope you can help us...

[Togath]

If I remember right, shamans and druids need to prioritize spirit as their main stat(it's worth sacrificing most other stats for, excluding usually mastery), so that might be the problem(how squishy are the raid's tanks? Also; which heals is she using? As a druid I usually find that low mana heals are the most useful ones, even if it means I'm not healing that much per cast. Two other things; is she using just the basic wow interface to heal?, I've found the healbot addon to be very useful for most classes in dungeons and raids. And is she remembering to use earth shield as much as possible?
Replacing ancestral swiftness with echo of the elements, and glyph of telluric currents with glyph of cleansing waters could be useful as well.

[The Linker]

On another topic, am I the only one disappointed by the 8th anniversary item? 8% rep and exp for 24 hours?

I just logged in and checked out the item; it reads "Requires 8th Anniversary Celebration". The 'celebration' generally goes on for, like, two weeks. Or at least it has for past anniversaries; I remember logging on to characters well after the date and getting the relevant achievement.

[Krazzman]

If I remember right, shamans and druids need to prioritize spirit as their main stat(it's worth sacrificing most other stats for, excluding usually mastery), so that might be the problem(how squishy are the raid's tanks? Also; which heals is she using? As a druid I usually find that low mana heals are the most useful ones, even if it means I'm not healing that much per cast. Two other things; is she using just the basic wow interface to heal?, I've found the healbot addon to be very useful for most classes in dungeons and raids. And is she remembering to use earth shield as much as possible?
Replacing ancestral swiftness with echo of the elements, and glyph of telluric currents with glyph of cleansing waters could be useful as well.

Well...
I don't know. As far as I got it for druids it was hastecap, 10k spirit, everything else in mastery! And yes she was the first one in our raid to do that. For her there was only a switch between metagems while the others had to change nearly every socket.
She uses basic Interface together with Grid and Clique + Bartender afaik... she tried out pitbull this weekend but... I don't really know what she uses as I don't like playing on her laptop... (I did it a few times in order to get the tillers to exalted on a weekend where she was on a trip).

[Antonok]

This (http://www.noxxic.com/wow/pve/shaman/restoration) is the site I use. It gives a good breakdown of the rotations, stat priorities, etc.

Its not let me down so far.

[Karoht]

I forget, does Grid show incoming heals from other players or not so much?
Not a super relevant question, just asking.

Anyhoot, in relation to your GF's Resto Shaman...
Togath has some solid advice there, and I'll plug icy-veins.com yet again.
And armory link would go a long way here.


Raid Update:
2/6 MSV 1/6 HoF Normal. Yeah, laugh, I am WAY behind.
But, I'm the top healer of my raid group currently.
"They need to nerf Karoht. Not Resto Druids, just Karoht"
That made my day.
We have a Holy Paladin... well, I am honestly beginning to wonder if she's actually pushing buttons or not. I know she raids extremely late where she is and doesn't do well on a lack of sleep, and she's a perfectly nice human being and all, but she's not doing well at her role. My overhealing is doing more than her total output (healing + overheal) and she has some mana problems. I'm really new to the guild, I don't know people all that well, so I'm keeping my mouth shut for the time being. If I keep being awesome, they'll eventually ask my opinion on the matter, and I'll do my best to give it without being rude.
Heart of Fear bosses are really fun. Blade Lord is simple yet engaging. Just need to get Tornado Ally phase down and we're good.

[Krazzman]

This (http://www.noxxic.com/wow/pve/shaman/restoration) is the site I use. It gives a good breakdown of the rotations, stat priorities, etc.

Its not let me down so far.

I'm not sure. I believe we already looked there but came to the conclusion that this is how she already played the shaman. Currently I'm even beginning to think that her - in the eyes of our raidleadership - "bad performance" is due to her PC and her low haste (I think she just went for the first haste cap because of not having enough haste). She uses a Laptop while playing and while in WotLK and Cataclysm movement wasn't a problem it seemed like it becomes one.
The points the raidlead told me yesterday were: Heart of Fear second boss:
Unseen Strike on her, a few wipes because she didn't come fast enough to the group meeting point. One time I Leap of Faithed her. The executionphase... she managed to get to the other platform (one or two times ran into a cyclone (one that spawned at the end of the path)) and she reincarnated into an unseen strike which was already through according to her dbm and visual effect on her laptop. As I said in that fight the Monk was actually on first or second place in healing. I was bored because I didn't have anything to do as most of the time the group was fully healed and when they were dropping due to debuff or unseen strike 1 or 2 instants and they were back up. A renew here and there, heal or greater heal depending on importance and that's it. And jeah as I said I'm a reactionary healer.

Our Monk is squishy as far as I can see it and our Tank Paladin should not.

[Antonok]

~snipeth~

Is she using the touch pad to try and move/click (or keyboard turning)? Cause that can be fixed by an external mouse, and healbot/mouse over macros.

Mostly sounds like lag issues, which can sometimes be solved a few different ways, like switching to DirectX9, lowering graphics, etc.

And yea, monk tanks are a bit squishy due to having a higher learning curve then other tanks. You have to keep blackout kick and guard up, and purge your stagger dot when it gets too high, or after you eat a rather nasty hit.

Pallys I'm not sure what happened to them, they used to be the easiest tanks to heal and now I groan every time I see one as a healer.

[Krazzman]

Is she using the touch pad to try and move/click (or keyboard turning)? Cause that can be fixed by an external mouse, and healbot/mouse over macros.

Mostly sounds like lag issues, which can sometimes be solved a few different ways, like switching to DirectX9, lowering graphics, etc.

And yea, monk tanks are a bit squishy due to having a higher learning curve then other tanks. You have to keep blackout kick and guard up, and purge your stagger dot when it gets too high, or after you eat a rather nasty hit.

Pallys I'm not sure what happened to them, they used to be the easiest tanks to heal and now I groan every time I see one as a healer.

She already uses an external mouse. A MX518 from logitech actually as we both find this model rater good for our hand. I've got the later model G500 or something like that. Lowering graphics... I already did it a slight bit but I'll try to ask her about that. It's because paladins are easy to learn hard to master and timing your "shield-bash" against nasty hits is a good way. It's a high reduction for a few seconds after using it. This took the probably Deathwing Heroic kill in the last ID before the addon with our guild at that time but we were kicked out that evening so I don't really care.

[Karoht]

What is her ping and FPS? FPS lower than 20 becomes very difficult to play. Ping higher than 400 runs into the same problems.

Being a reactive healer as Holy is fine. It is completely built that way, with very little in the way of pre-emptive abilities that you actually want to use.
Being a reactive healer as a Resto Shaman SHOULD be fine, to a point.
Lag hurts reactive healing and reaction times.
And for spread out fights, Shaman tend to get the short end of the stick, even with the Chain Heal range fix, or so I hear tell. On Blade Lord you spread out rather a lot. Meanwhile Holy has effects such as Cascade and Prayer of Mending which work out regardless of range, and are well suited to for fights where everyone spreads instead of stacks.

As for your GF and her Shaman, hitting the first haste cap is all that is necessary. Only push for the second cap if you can hit it, otherwise any extra haste is probably wasted. Haste isn't that big a help for Resto Shaman anyway.
Telluric Currents + (that healing rain talent that heals people standing in healing rain when an enemy in healing rain takes damage) will probably help out that little bit more. Mastery is good for when you have the ability to heal-snipe (reaction times), and on fights where raid member health will generally be low on a constant basis. Regardless of what AskMrRobot says, crit might be a better stat for now due to playstyle. Crit will probably provide more consistent benefit than Mastery.
Finally, rock them cooldowns. Rock them hard. Spirit Link + Healing Tide are absolutely excellent, staggered apart or put together. Healing Stream totem should have a 100% uptime. Same with Riptide, Glyphed or not, someone should always have it ticking on them.
Ultimately, by the sounds of things, lag is her issue. There is an indicator which may help identify this. On whatever meter you guys are using to track heals, check out total healing or overhealing. If her total output (healing landed + overheal) is relatively the same as everyone else, then odds are it is lag and not an output issue but one of reaction time. If her total output is noticably lower than everyone else's, lag can be a contributing factor, but there is an output issue, which could mean gear/gemming/reforging, it could mean an ability or two not being used correctly (healing stream should be used with 100% uptime).

The last thing I can think of is, crippling lag and low frame rate is really affecting her personal reaction time. To the point where I would estimate she's probably only getting about half the casts in as anyone else. What also tends to happen with planted healers like shaman, is that they wait to see the cast complete before starting the next one. With high lag/low frames, this problem just gets worse. She needs to start casting her next spell (yes, you can do that, it's called server side queuing), probably with 1/4 of the bar left to go. There is an addon which can tell her how to do this, but I have no idea what it is called or how to search for it. But basically the addon will add a small red section to the tail end of her casting bars, and in that red section, if she starts a cast, it will begin casting immediately after her current casts finishes. If the lag is so bad that the red bar takes up more than 1/4 of a long cast bar, then technical solutions will probably go farther than playstyle solutions.

[Shishnarfne]

There is an addon which can tell her how to do this, but I have no idea what it is called or how to search for it. But basically the addon will add a small red section to the tail end of her casting bars, and in that red section, if she starts a cast, it will begin casting immediately after her current casts finishes. If the lag is so bad that the red bar takes up more than 1/4 of a long cast bar, then technical solutions will probably go farther than playstyle solutions.

I can help by providing the name of this AddOn: Quartz. I manually download it from Curse (from what I hear, the Curse client is a bad idea).

I can also second that poor framerate can hurt healing effectiveness. While on my old laptop, I'd barely be able to heal some fights on my priest because I was trying to play a slideshow.

Server-side queuing: a caster's best friend since Blizzard stopped giving bosses resistance to certain elements.

[Karoht]

I can help by providing the name of this AddOn: Quartz. I manually download it from Curse (from what I hear, the Curse client is a bad idea).

I can also second that poor framerate can hurt healing effectiveness. While on my old laptop, I'd barely be able to heal some fights on my priest because I was trying to play a slideshow.

Server-side queuing: a caster's best friend since Blizzard stopped giving bosses resistance to certain elements.
Curse client stopped being loaded with viruses about the same time they got picked up by ZAM Official. My frequent scans will attest that Curse Client is perfectly safe these days.

I may have to add Quartz into my list of goodies.

[The Glyphstone]

Are you going to have an in-game wedding?

[Alarra]

Finally managed to get myself up to raiding ready and joined our group Friday and Sunday. This weekend we got down the first two bosses of MSV but kept running up against the enrage timer on the third.

[Cerlis]

Aye the grummles are cute, I more meant it seemed odd at the time(since out of saurok, mushan, mogu, wind serpent, grummle, bug thingies. all but one is some sort of fierce monster, or powerful beast)



Ah, so that's why they looked familiar(I think I've seen bits of the haruhi dance, and well as the second one before, which would explain the déjà vu)


I think it makes more sense when you consider Jinyu, Hozen, and more imporantly Pandaren. The Pandaren seem like the perfect race to rule an island to allow a small rare race like the Grimmle (a race of small traders and sherpa) to thrive.

------------

As for Garrosh, yea he doesnt turn evil. He was always neutral at best, and he is his father's son. I dont need to list all the stuff he's done (not even Theramore, which thrall and almost every Horde leader was against), nor list all the lines he is crossing in 5.1. I'll just say that it is a fact that his only regrets over his duel with Cairne is that he was tricked by the grimtotem witch and he would never know if he could have beat Cairne. And we see this in a bit of narrative that is taking place from his point of view, which any mind reader will tell you is the way to get the most honest truth.

[Togath]

not even Theramore, which thrall and almost every Horde leader was against

What happened in Theramore?
Was the nuke a part of a plotline?

[The Linker]

He had it blown up. It's a smoking crater. You should do the 'Theramore's Fall' scenario.

[Togath]

Did the bomb dropping effect any quests, areas or items though? I had assumed it was more an alternate timeline sort of thing, since I'm pretty sure Theramore is still intact(since my mage still has teleport: Thereamore as a spell, though I haven't actually been to Theramore on him since around cata)

[ZeroNumerous]

Did the bomb dropping effect any quests, areas or items though? I had assumed it was more an alternate timeline sort of thing, since I'm pretty sure Theramore is still intact(since my mage still has teleport: Theramore as a spell, though I haven't actually been to Theramore on him since around cata)

You should cast that spell. It's pretty amusing as to what happens.

[The Linker]

Speaking as an Alliance player, a lot of the NPCs you fight with in Pandaria are thirsty for Horde blood because of its destruction. "This is for Theramore" may have been uttered more than once.

Also, there's a Bronze Drake nearby (in human form) who will send you into a phase where Theramore is still intact, if you wish. That's how you can hand in old quests and whatnot.

[Togath]

Ah. I'll visit when I have time then, I hadn't realized Garrosh had nuked the town in canon. Is the lore thing I found on one of th sites linked a page back about the leader of Dalaran(Rohnin?, I can't remember his exact name at the moment) being dead true then?, As well as the bit about smiling Jim having probably been slain?

[The Linker]

You sound like the kind of person who, like me, could spend hours perusing sites like, say, www.wowpedia.org (http://www.wowpedia.org). All the information on WoW lore you could ever want.

And yes, Rhonin's dead (http://www.wowpedia.org/Rhonin).

(I hadn't actually known that. Huh.)

[Togath]

Aye, with the whole "slew the leader of the Kirin Tor" thing, I can understand them making Garrosh a villain, and that the horde is apparently a neutral faction, which explains why he could be too evil(I feel a little silly for not knowing the "The Horde is politically neutral" thing)

[Karoht]

Are you going to have an in-game wedding?
Truthfully, we haven't decided yet.
But if I do, I'll stream it.

[Zherog]

I decided last night to grind my archeology up a bit; I was sitting at 200 at the time. I'm happy to say Blizz has drastically improved the "grind" of getting your score up. There were a few changes: A) Now, digging up a fragment always gives you a skill-up; previously, it stopped giving skill ups around 100 or so. B) each dig site will now allow you to dig 6 times, rather than the 3 previously. So you have to do less flying / running around to get your points. C) I can't confirm it, but I think there are more pieces each time. I was getting 6-9 fragments every time I dug one up, and I even got 10 fragments a few times. D) You still get multiple points for finishing an item.

I went to Outland with a score of around 310-315 - I had a rare dwarf artifact I wanted to finish. I hit a total of four dig sites in Outland and had enough skill points to head to Northrend.

All told, I went from a skill of about 200 up to 525 in about 90 minutes. I disliked the previous grind; this is a significant improvement. I'm actually considering going back to Old World dig sites to get more stuff now that completing items isn't nearly as brutal. So, for anybody who's a completionist like me and who likes to max out their skills, arch. isn't bad at all to max out now. Set aside a few hours and you'll be golden.

[Karoht]

I decided last night to grind my archeology up a bit; I was sitting at 200 at the time. I'm happy to say Blizz has drastically improved the "grind" of getting your score up. There were a few changes: A) Now, digging up a fragment always gives you a skill-up; previously, it stopped giving skill ups around 100 or so. B) each dig site will now allow you to dig 6 times, rather than the 3 previously. So you have to do less flying / running around to get your points. C) I can't confirm it, but I think there are more pieces each time. I was getting 6-9 fragments every time I dug one up, and I even got 10 fragments a few times. D) You still get multiple points for finishing an item.

I went to Outland with a score of around 310-315 - I had a rare dwarf artifact I wanted to finish. I hit a total of four dig sites in Outland and had enough skill points to head to Northrend.

All told, I went from a skill of about 200 up to 525 in about 90 minutes. I disliked the previous grind; this is a significant improvement. I'm actually considering going back to Old World dig sites to get more stuff now that completing items isn't nearly as brutal. So, for anybody who's a completionist like me and who likes to max out their skills, arch. isn't bad at all to max out now. Set aside a few hours and you'll be golden.
I would push from 525 to 600 if I were you. Why?
Your grey artifacts from Pandaria zones?
You can turn them into a currency.
A currency which can buy you any of the other types.
So for a completed item from Pandaria that you were just going to vendor anyway, you can box it up, and trade it for about 5-9 of say, Tol'vir to push for Vial of the Sands, or Troll to push for a Zin'rok, for example.
In other words, you can grind out Pandaria AND old world stuff at the same time. Crazy huh?
And the push from 525-600? Once you are flying, it takes about 45 minutes if you are lucky and all your sites spawn in Jade Forest, or close to it. Collect fragments until you can't carry any more, then do turn-ins. It is pretty quick.

EDIT:
Made 10K in AH trading last night, YUS!
Breaking down bulk, selling Silkweed and Snow Lily. I tripled what I bought them for (some ca-razy undercutting was going on, I capitalized on it), and it's working.
I still have product up to be sold. I haven't even sold it all.
And to think. I'm STILL not dealing in gems yet.

[Zherog]

I would push from 525 to 600 if I were you. Why?
Your grey artifacts from Pandaria zones?
You can turn them into a currency.
A currency which can buy you any of the other types.
So for a completed item from Pandaria that you were just going to vendor anyway, you can box it up, and trade it for about 5-9 of say, Tol'vir to push for Vial of the Sands, or Troll to push for a Zin'rok, for example.
In other words, you can grind out Pandaria AND old world stuff at the same time. Crazy huh?
And the push from 525-600? Once you are flying, it takes about 45 minutes if you are lucky and all your sites spawn in Jade Forest, or close to it. Collect fragments until you can't carry any more, then do turn-ins. It is pretty quick.

Even before knowing this, I was going to push through eventually - the next time I had an hour-ish in game to kill. I just was bleary eyed last night, so called it quits.

So where / how does one go about making this exchange?

[Karoht]

Even before knowing this, I was going to push through eventually - the next time I had an hour-ish in game to kill. I just was bleary eyed last night, so called it quits.

So where / how does one go about making this exchange?
Go to Mogu'shan Palace, same zone as Shrine of Two Moons. Outside is the Golden Lotus Quartermaster. Directly above the entrance to the instance, you will find the Lorewalkers faction HQ. Brann Bronzebeard is inside, as well as the Lorewalkers Quartermaster.
Also, if you want to be exalted with Lorewalkers and have a spare hour to kill, you can go around and collect all the scrolls at various sites around Pandaria. There's a guide to it on wowinsider.com, as well as one on wowhead.com. Takes about an hour or two, nets you a mount as well as 5 achievements and a bunch of cool presentations by Lorewalker Cho. I'm not sure if you need to be exalted with Lorewalkers in order to make the exchange or not, which is why I mention it.

[Zherog]

Thanks .

[Karoht]

Raid Night
So, MSV. First two bosses were one-shots. 3 pulls to learn Garajal, 3 pulls to learn Spirit Kings. And we got the achievement on Feng for absorbing all of his effects.

Stone Guards. I'm not a fan. If your tanks are slow on swapping, things go bad. And it can be difficult to tell who is going to blow up next (because a tank might swap at the last second, so you pop a cooldown to survive only to need it in about 20 seconds later), and poor communication can really screw people.
Protip: Don't bother breaking Jasper Chains. They are most dangerous when they spawn and people are spread out. Once people have chains and are together, the danger is gone, so more chains spawning is needless.
Healing Protip: Tank Healing can be a bit sketchy. Rotating Defensive CD's on tanks is typically a good idea. Iron Bark, Hand of Sanc, Vigilance, Pain Suppression. A good coordinated rotation of the above, especially with tanking CD's worked in, can really make Tank Healing this fight a snap.

OH WOW. Let me just say that Garajal is an amazing encounter. Two healing it is fine, especially if your healers swap every time. You spam and you spam and you spam as hard as you possibly can. Our kill-pull I ended up not going in the spirit realm, not even once. My mana JUST held out long enough for us to kill him.
Protip: Two heal it right off the hop. Trust me.
Healing Protip: It's easier to assign one healer who ALWAYS goes in the spirit realm, and have the other healer on standby in the event of an emergency. That other healer has to be ready to move at all times.
A way to ensure that you always get a healer in the Spirit Realm is have both healers stand in the Totem area. If one gets voodoo doll, the other will go down. If neither get voodoo doll (it happens), then the one healer can quickly top themselves off and push the button to break out of the spirit realm, typically within 4 seconds. It's worth it to pop a cooldown if this happens.

Spirit Kings is just as fun on Normal as it is on Heroic. It's the stack spread dodge spam we are all familiar with. But the progression of all of the effects through the entire encounter keeps it feeling really fresh. It has a feel very similar to Lich King for the stack spread dodge spam, but to me that is a good thing.
Protip: Dodge things. All the things.
Healing Protip: When he casts madness, you're healing doesn't work if it is cast onto a player. So don't cast on them. Seriously.
HoTs will stay on and work, so have a few up and ready.
Efflorescence, Healing Rain, and other healing patches on the ground will all work, but you probably want to cast those just before he casts madness.
I know for a fact that Bloom Shrooms will work, but you definitely want them cast before people stack up.
And to be honest, due to the lack of healing allowed during Madness, it's probably one of the most lethal effects, if you get unlucky and have something weird happen like an impale from the arrows along with it.
Madness Protip: To maximize your DPS, try to arrange for only 3 DPS to AoE if possible. For example, it isn't worth it for the Rogue to lose DPS uptime to use Fan of Knives (and it applies poisons), and you probably don't want an Arms Warrior using Sweeping Strikes and hitting someone with Mortal Strike or Colossus Smash by accident.
You also don't want any AoE that leaves a DoT or Bleed or anything of the like.
Warlocks can use Drain Life (the AoE talent one) and this is probably the best one to use. Death and Decay and Consecrate are excellent choices as well, because people can just move in and move out, in the event they get pinned down by arrows or have to dodge an oddly positioned Flanking Orders.
Druid Hurricane isn't a bad choice, so long as it is NOT Glyphed to slow people.

Spoiler'd bits above are for readability and length.

Hopefully we will get Elegon and Will of the Emperor tonight. That will push Group 3 up past Group 1 for progression.

[Traab]

So, i was playing my hunter, and I have to ask. How long will this last? I am currently in outland, and am two shotting pretty much everything that isnt a boss or orange to me. Aimed shot is a virtual 100% crit as an opening shot, and arcane crits often enough to give me the easy kill. Otherwise its aimed shot, arcane then kill shot. Now, I also have a lower level hunter, and its similar there too. Aimed shot crits, removes 66%-75% of the mobs hp, then it dies within 1-3 shots. While I like being able to remove insane amounts of hp in a single shot, I also realize this is just silly levels of unbalanced. Im not even buying some crazy epic gear, im using the first bow you get in outland as a quest reward.

[Antonok]

So, i was playing my hunter, and I have to ask. How long will this last? I am currently in outland, and am two shotting pretty much everything that isnt a boss or orange to me. Aimed shot is a virtual 100% crit as an opening shot, and arcane crits often enough to give me the easy kill. Otherwise its aimed shot, arcane then kill shot. Now, I also have a lower level hunter, and its similar there too. Aimed shot crits, removes 66%-75% of the mobs hp, then it dies within 1-3 shots. While I like being able to remove insane amounts of hp in a single shot, I also realize this is just silly levels of unbalanced. Im not even buying some crazy epic gear, im using the first bow you get in outland as a quest reward.

Yeah, Blizz a while back pretty much said they didn't care about anything below 80-85 so the OPness will last a bit into lich king territory, about the time hierlooms really start to lose their value.

(Its also why lowbie PvP is a mess)

[Seerow]

Go to Mogu'shan Palace, same zone as Shrine of Two Moons. Outside is the Golden Lotus Quartermaster. Directly above the entrance to the instance, you will find the Lorewalkers faction HQ. Brann Bronzebeard is inside, as well as the Lorewalkers Quartermaster.
Also, if you want to be exalted with Lorewalkers and have a spare hour to kill, you can go around and collect all the scrolls at various sites around Pandaria. There's a guide to it on wowinsider.com, as well as one on wowhead.com. Takes about an hour or two, nets you a mount as well as 5 achievements and a bunch of cool presentations by Lorewalker Cho. I'm not sure if you need to be exalted with Lorewalkers in order to make the exchange or not, which is why I mention it.


There's also a handy add-on called Lorewalker Helper that will point you to the nearest artifact to you that you don't already have. Much easier than alt tabbing to a map/guide.


You don't need Exalted with Lorewalkers to exchange for old relics though. It is however required for the maps that let you change up which dig sites are active in pandaria (which is great because I absolutely hate ALL of the digsites in Townlong Steppes. One of them has a bugged spot where you can't get the artifact. One is in the middle of a daily quest hub with fast respawning creatures that are hard to deal with even in epic gear. There might be one or two others that aren't so bad but I can never remember which is which, so if I see more than one or two up there, I reset the map.


The other day I cashed in like all 80 of my stored up artifacts for a bunch of troll artifacts, hoping for zin'rok. No such luck. Maybe I should try for vial instead, because that sword seriously hates me (I wasted more hours than I will admit to trying to get it at the start of cata)

[The Linker]

I've been spending all of my Restored Artifacts buying Tol'vir parts, and I've gotten all the 'collect five' achievements. Nothing! Disappointing.

Oh, and also, my Hunter was doing the whole two-shot thing in Vash'jir. I can't remember much after that, but I'm pretty sure it didn't get much harder.

[Krazzman]

Raid Night
Spirit Kings is just as fun on Normal as it is on Heroic.

Hopefully we will get Elegon and Will of the Emperor tonight. That will push Group 3 up past Group 1 for progression.

Jay, gratz to your raid.... but now my question:
Do you kill Heroic Bosses already? If yes, which ones? Because Garajal doesn't seems like being on heroic due to your description.
For Spiritkings I delay my cascade as soon as the Demented comes into play. I use it, it splits into 15 bolts, Frostmage Icelances me, everyone is happy.

Lorewalker Helper.... hmmm I might going to try that one out. Anyway my Archaeology is around 200 on Krazzman and I have no energy to change that anywhere soon. Between Cookingdaily, tilling and sowing and maybe leveling up a shaman (no interest in Retri or Mage atm) I currently play Darksiders 2... combined with my work and work out shedule and raids I don't have that much time for such things. But luckily DPS aren't that much of a trouble anymore... yes there is still a lot of space in that I could advance but I can hold my place so far and the only encounter where we have a tight enrage timer is Garalon with 3 healers. (First Kill with 1 or 2 seconds left and last ID we got 10 seconds). But that's it. MSV 6/6 normal, HoF 3/6 normal, none heroic. We might switch to a 25-man raidgroup but probably going to lose our Rogue and Monk in the progress. Might as well lose our Heal Druid (he's going to become a father this month and afair he was against 25-man).

[Karoht]

Jay, gratz to your raid.... but now my question:
Do you kill Heroic Bosses already? If yes, which ones? Because Garajal doesn't seems like being on heroic due to your description.WHERPS! Nope, I meant LFR and Normal. They are as fun on Normal as they are on LFR.


For Spiritkings I delay my cascade as soon as the Demented comes into play. I use it, it splits into 15 bolts, Frostmage Icelances me, everyone is happy.Cool. Cascade? Paladin thing I'm guessing?

Ugh, got in so freaking late from a weekend trip up to the hotsprings. Totally skipped raid night last night.

I'm going to try working on challenge modes next tuesday. I have high hopes for them. The Druid Challenge Mode gear is freakin awesome. That and Dreamwalker and T11 set might be the only 3 sets I ever Transmog for a very long time.

[Krazzman]

WHERPS! Nope, I meant LFR and Normal. They are as fun on Normal as they are on LFR.

Cool. Cascade? Paladin thing I'm guessing?

Ugh, got in so freaking late from a weekend trip up to the hotsprings. Totally skipped raid night last night.

I'm going to try working on challenge modes next tuesday. I have high hopes for them. The Druid Challenge Mode gear is freakin awesome. That and Dreamwalker and T11 set might be the only 3 sets I ever Transmog for a very long time.

No, Priest! Shadows are awesome if they weren't that weak atm (in terms of damage + movement) having a Burstdps of 90k compared to a warlocks normal DPS of 90k is just a bit unfair in my opinion.

The thing I have for mogging is... WotLK the ICC-T-Set... dunno which it is (T10?) I would like to have a staff insteaf of mainhand/Off-hand but a) MH/OH is stronger and there are no really good staves you can get in a Raid (at least for our "progress"). But if I had one I would transmog it into the Scythe you got from Frost Lord Ahune, the Midsummer eventboss.

Funny thing: Our Pandaren Warrior mogged himself that way his Belt is supporting that his Pandaren just has a really big belly :D But he is quite lucky... Elegon First kill: Two handed sword for him. Second Kill the same sword again being a Fury and all...

[Seerow]

Funny thing: Our Pandaren Warrior mogged himself that way his Belt is supporting that his Pandaren just has a really big belly :D But he is quite lucky... Elegon First kill: Two handed sword for him. Second Kill the same sword again being a Fury and all...


Ugh really. I've been banging my head against Elegon for weeks, including using coins on him, and have yet to see a single weapon drop. At this point I've given up on that and am just hoping for Sha to drop his axe for me.

[Krazzman]

Ugh really. I've been banging my head against Elegon for weeks, including using coins on him, and have yet to see a single weapon drop. At this point I've given up on that and am just hoping for Sha to drop his axe for me.

Same for me... luckily he had his trinket inside his box last time... yesterday we had the sword again + Shaman-Spirit Shoulders. and for me obviously gold.

Feng dropped the offhand... and off course our druid-heal wins it. He told me if the Will of the Emperor doesn't drop a weapon he will give it to me.... jeah we failed that often that we hit the 2 hour limit... normally we need 2 hours from first boss engage to last boss dead. But we wiped on spirit kings because we had Meng as second. No one cared to hit the shadow and so I died... Elegon fell on third try. First try one healer dies, battlerezz already in use for the rogue. Second try Monk-Tank dies... Then another wipe on the last boss and bam 3 hours have passed and guess what? The druid didn't got a weapon...

[Karoht]

Patch Day!
5.1 brings lots of fun changes. Not a heck of a lot of class changes, which is nice.
Full info on the front page of www.mmo-champion.com

New faction, new dailies, an improvement to rep gain for alts, and 4 new scenario's. Not bad for the first content patch.

And for all the BC fans, one of the new scenario's involves Black Temple.

[Traab]

Wow. I mean. . . . WOW. I complain about how stupidly OP the aimed shot skill is with that passive talent and what do they do? THEY MAKE IT BETTER! Now it works with the mob down to 80% hp instead of 90%. At least then you had to get the first shot off before your pet started attacking or it wouldnt be likely to crit, now they might as well just make it, "Aimed shot always crits. Even when it misses it still does crit damage." I mean, you can even do aimed shot while moving!!!

[Karoht]

Oh. My. Gawd.
The JP/VP item upgrade system is AWESOME!
If you cap out on Valor every week, it means one upgrade very week, 4 upgrades every 3 weeks.
The interface is decent too.

And the rep change feels exactly where it should be. I likes.
LFR tomorrow. Starting quests for the invasion tonight. Maybe some scenarios even. We'll see.

[Krazzman]

Yeah, I can't test it because patchday is today and I won't be playing today. This weekend I will try to get all LFR's done again (missed them last ID) and try to get into a heroic at least once. I have one blue left, that is going to be upgraded when i get to it and I have to decide between getting a new back or upgrading my Light of the Cosmos.

What do you mean with Rep-Change? And anything about the new faction? SO far I only heard something about it is expensive to "get in" and then only achievments, pets and mounts...

[Antonok]

What do you mean with Rep-Change? And anything about the new faction? SO far I only heard something about it is expensive to "get in" and then only achievments, pets and mounts...

When you hit Revered with a faction, you can buy a permanent double rep boost thats account wide.

And on the brawlers guild, its really just something to challenge yourself with. The fights are rather difficult at times (most of the fights have abilities that one shot you), and you can get an invite by farming certain Alliance/Horde NPCs in the new domination point areas so if you have a bit of luck and the patients (sp?) you can get in without spending gold.

[Karoht]

When you hit Revered with a faction, you can buy a permanent double rep boost thats account wide.

And on the brawlers guild, its really just something to challenge yourself with. The fights are rather difficult at times (most of the fights have abilities that one shot you), and you can get an invite by farming certain Alliance/Horde NPCs in the new domination point areas so if you have a bit of luck and the patients (sp?) you can get in without spending gold.
Pretty much. Being able to boost my alts rep gain is handy.

Brawler's guild is that thing I'll do if and when someone sends me an invite, or if I stumble onto one.
It is a feature that is not intended for everyone to be involved with Day 1, personally I don't care that they are gating it with money, and like Pet Battles, I'll get to it when I get to it. I'm interested in the solo challenge factor, but not when I'm as busy as I am trying to get other things finished.

I still have a bunch of Archeology stuff to do, I have reps to finish (I'm not doing every rep, every day, I'm focusing on 2 at a time), there is still plenty of raiding to be done, I haven't even touched the Challenge Modes yet even though I really want to, I haven't even begun to get my Scenario or Dungeon achievements either. And there is lots left to do with Pet Battles.
I would also like to point out that I haven't had time for any other games since Mists launched.
So Brawler's Guild? Yeah, it can take a number, like all the other concerns.

[Seerow]

I swear, my luck with LFR is absolutely horrid. Other people in my guild go in, and after two raids have 4 pieces of gear, most of which they're vending or DEing. In 4 weeks of doing it now, including 5 weeks worth of coins, I've only dropped 2 pieces total. It's really terrible. I had to spend effectively 40k gold on BoE epics just to be able to enter the last 3 raids.

[Gryffon]

Our guild is pretty consistently up to Elegon now, and hopefully he should be dying soon. We also did some pulls on Vizier in Heart of Fear, and were making pretty good progress.

I managed to get the shield from Gara'jal last night for my Elemental Shaman. I went ahead and upgraded it with Valor, since it's BiS(mostly, aside from an offhand in Heart of Fear, but since I'm one of two classes that can uses shields, it makes more sense to not compete on the other offhand) for this tier. The fact that the shield is Troll themed makes me even happier!

[Zherog]

Pretty much. Being able to boost my alts rep gain is handy.

Is this for all reps (well, most, I assume) everywhere? Or just Mists? For example, could I get the boost for, say, Timbermaw?

*

I hit exalted on Tillers last night. I only have one best friend as of now, though, so I'll have to continue on that. Maybe I'll spend some time flying around looking for dark soil - there's an addon that uses the Tomtom addon to direct you to known locations.

My Cloud Serpent rep is close. Probably another three days, maybe 4, of dailies for that one.

My freelance work is pretty booked between now and Christmas, so I don't know that I'll be spending a lot of time in-game. I'm close to the point where I'm going to switch to another character (likely my horde rogue) and do the quests again. I'm interested in seeing things from the other side.

I'm also looking to play my panda monk a little more, but for now I'm reserving that game play for when I can also play with my friend - which is tough to line up at the moment, though we're planning on it tomorrow night.

*

In the past, I've mentioned my health issues being a culprit in reducing my game playing time. I have a rant about that, but since it's not directly related to the game, I'll spoiler it.


So back in October, I went to the doctor again, and she did a bunch more tests. I was supposed to get the results "about a week" later. Well, about a week later Hurricane Sandy hit and knocked out power in our area for 3-5 days (depending where you lived - 3 days at my house, 5 days at the doctor's office). So, understandably, the results weren't in when they were expected.

So once a week, I've been calling. At one point, they had no indication of two of the tests - only the cholestorol level (which was normal). Then two weeks ago, the lab guy found the results. Yay! "The doctor needs to talk to you about the results." Oh. I guess that means something turned up. Tests I'm waiting on? Thyroid, diabetes, testosterone levels. having one of those as the problem isn't exactly a walk in the park, but at least all three are treatable. But getting my doctor to actually call me with the news? Yeah, I'm still waiting. I was told yesterday she'd call by end-of-day today. I'm not holding my proverbial breath...

I also go for a sleep study in a week, to see if my apnea is back. (I had surgery for it back in '02).

So I have some vague progress on my health, and I'm hopeful that by end-of-year I know what the problems are (finally!) and can get started on whatever needs to be done to treat them. Seriously. Exhaustion sucks! I'll never use the phrase, "I'm exhausted" lightly again. Getting out of bed is an effort. Getting anything resembling productivity done at work is an effort. Staying awake long enough to eat dinner and help my kids with homework is an effort. Coaching soccer? It takes me at least a day to recover. Thyroid, testosterone, diabetes, sleep apnea? yeah, all those are sucky. But at least they're all treatable; I'll take treatable over exhaustion. (Although if I get any say in it, I'd really prefer to not have diabetes. Just sayin'...)

Anyway, thought I'd toss out an update, since I've mentioned the health issues here in the past. And, frankly, I needed to rant - such as it is - about how terrible my doctor is at getting back to me. Which is a shame, because she's terrific otherwise.

[Karoht]

Is this for all reps (well, most, I assume) everywhere? Or just Mists? For example, could I get the boost for, say, Timbermaw?Um, I mentioned that they have a big giant post concerning the matter on mmo-champion.com
But no. It's Mists only. Specifically, it is for the rep you purchase it from.

IE-Shado-Pan
So your main hit's revered with Shado-Pan. Go to the rep vendor. Buy the commendation. Use the commendation. Now ALL characters on that account gain double rep with Shado-Pan. This includes your main pushing from revered to exalted with Shado-Pan.

The Tillers commendation is really worth picking up. Bigger farm, faster, with your alts.


@Health Issues
Sorry to hear that.
Best of luck.

[Zherog]

mmo-champ is blocked at work, and I'm forgetful enough to not remember to check when I get home.

And I apologize that my question wasn't clear. What I meant was can you buy the commendation for all reps, including non-Mist ones. (you did answer that part, so thanks.)

On the health saga: while I was in a meeting with my boss, she called. *sigh* when I called back, she was with a patient and "will have to get back to me later." *double sigh*

edit: she called back already. Results aren't bad, but are spoilered for those who don't give a flying fig about my health issues.


So she tested for a lot more than I thought. The good news is that my cholestorol, thyroid, testostorone, liver, kidney, and blood sugar were all normal. Yay! The bad news, such as it is, is that I have low levels of vitamin D, and that can indeed lead to exhaustion. So I have to take a prescription dose of D once a week for 8 weeks. From there I have to either alter my diet and/or take an over-the-counter supplement to keep the levels up.

I also still have to go for the sleep study, to either rule out or treat apnea.

All told, I'm very glad she found something. And given the list of things she tested, this was the best-case scenario. I mean, if you offer me the choice of a pill once a week for 2 months or insulin the rest of my life, well.. give me the pill!

Yay! Potential light at the end of the tunnel!


We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread...

[Karoht]

Seriously, if you ever want to go do Timbermaw rep, your best bet is to toss out some spam in a main city for about 5 or so minutes. Then just go up to the north end of Felwood (spam general some more if you feel generous) and let the slaughter begin. If you kill them all before they respawn, fly to Winterspring and repeat the process with the few furbolgs right outside the cave mouth. Don't turn in feathers until you are revered. Oh, and I heard that they boosted the rep gain back in Cataclysm, it goes pretty fast now.

[Zherog]

Yep, yep. I just tossed out Timbermaw as an example. For whatever reason, when I tried to think of an older rep, it was the first one that came to my mind.

[Traab]

Maybe we will get lucky with the rep thing. After evaluating its effect on pandaria rep gains, they may start adding it to useful factions going back further. Say I want to buy stuff off the cata quartermasters. If I got revered with one guy I can buy the commendation and my alts will be able to max out way faster. That way I could, say, buy my exalted cenarion gear while im only halfway through with hyjal.

[Lord Raziere]

Got my first character to 75 today, a troll warlock.

said warlock is also a skill 314 engineer with a flying machine mount. and a character just one rep up away from Ambassador of the Horde.

and I'm like "how did I get so far?" on one hand…and on the other, I'm busy wondering how to possibly get enough gold to buy myself artisan riding…

just….sharing is all.

[Seerow]

Got my first character to 75 today, a troll warlock.

said warlock is also a skill 314 engineer with a flying machine mount. and a character just one rep up away from Ambassador of the Horde.

and I'm like "how did I get so far?" on one hand…and on the other, I'm busy wondering how to possibly get enough gold to buy myself artisan riding…

just….sharing is all.

Don't worry about gold, just keep on questing and you'll get it. Leveling through cata content is like 5k gold. Leveling through Pandaria content is like 10k gold. I don't remember how much from wrath, but either way you'll have more than enough money soon enough.

[Karoht]

just….sharing is all.
Yeah, that's mostly what we do around here =D


and I'm like "how did I get so far?" on one hand…and on the other, I'm busy wondering how to possibly get enough gold to buy myself artisan riding…
Type in the command /played some time.
I had money for artisan riding by about 78 on my last alt. But while leveling, I buy absolutely nothing and live on quest rewards.
Cataclysm quest rewards jump up rather nicely, as do Pandaria rewards. You'll have that money before you know it.

Speaking of money, I'm going to finally tick over the 100K mark probably today. Bear in mind I started the expansion with less than 20K, and I've made 80K in 2 months of nothing but buying and selling. Herbs and Enchants and Cloth are my big three money makers. Gems will probably make their way into my 'portfolio' pretty soon though.
When I hit the 120K mark, I'm going to start pet/mount trading. Why? Get lucky and you net thousands at a time, and I see people selling pets at a severe undercut all the time.
Especially with the popularity of the new pets in MC, BWL, AQ40 and Naxx. Those are going to sell pretty well for a long time to come.

[Seerow]

Money in Panda is really easy. Like I started out the expansion with no gold at all. I had quit before 4.1 hit, and gave away basically anything I had of value to friends. I also started playing again late, only about a month ago.

As of right now I have only 3k gold, but have bought like 40k worth of gear, leveled Blacksmithing from 400 to 600, JC from 520 to 600, and probably put another 10k or so worth of stuff into random stuff; ie gems, enchants, void storage, and especially reforges (seriously Reforge costs add up, I end up spending 100-200 gold every time I get a new piece of gear). So in about a month without actually trying to hard to earn gold beyond standard questing/dungeoning, I've made somewhere between 50 and 60 thousand gold. And now that I have BSing leveled and Tillers at exalted, I can make an easy 10k or so every 5 days until 476 epics stop selling well.

[Karoht]

Pretty much. Money comes easier. Not to the point where one can casually buy and sell 100K or higher mounts as though they were candy, but enough that the gold sinks stop being gold sinks after a while. I won't say they become meaningless, but they definitely become less meaningful pretty quickly.

[Krazzman]

Woohey... raiding was fun yesterday...

We started with a random healdruid and about 30 minutes later than usual due to certain problems atm. Our MT is moving and doesn't have internet at the moment so our Heal-Paladin switched to tank our Monk-Tank FINALLY switched back to his Druid-Tank and so we ran off with 2 Druids, 1 Shaman as heals. Stone Guard was pretty easy killed but I somehow had less DPS than last ID unsure why, logs give no indication of change. Feng was easy as well and Bonusloot gave me... another damned Ring. Deciding between sparing it for second or disenchanting it for it's bloodspirit. Garajal was finally in the mood to give me his shoulders and through that I have finally nothing of rare quality anymore. Spiritkings were failpulled but we managed to kill them. Elegon again was pricky about a Mainhand or a Trinket (as I have it already this would've been for our Mage or Warlock). The Will of the Emperor was (although our Tankpaladin was a bit "undergeared") easy... a quite funny thing that once you slay a boss you can repeatedly slay him. Afterwards we ran into the Heart of Fear and killed the first two bosses. Ending the raid sooner than thought at 22:45. Additionally I bought a cloak for valor points and now can start investing in Item Upgrades... I'm weighting my Light of the Cosmos against other items I now have... unsure which item will win. Next raid is on Saturday.

[Karoht]

Raid Night Updates
4/6 MSV all one shots.
Also, I'm streaming again. For the time being I am still streaming@
www.livestream.com/karoht
But I may change up to twitch.tv fairly soon.

Also, this weekend I'm considering doing a change to my UI. Everyone I know has recommended Elvui, so I'll give it a go and see what's what.

[Daverin]

Elvui is very good. I just can't for the life of me get disattached from the vanilla ui, which is a crying shame because there is some info that'd be nice to not have to glance at 3 diff corners to get.

Also, I have just found something that made me actually have much more ease and fun with my mage while out doing dailies: the Frost Blast Shatter combo; SO MUCH BURST, and then a FFB on top of that, and maybe even a Lance! I'm not going to lie, I wish mage pve was built more around this, building up combos for bombs and such.

Ironically, if anything, it is prob only go to see nerfing as time goes on; alot of people hate it in pvp (I wonder why... really why they need to be more willing to just make abilities do different things in pve and pvp.)

So, what are some ways to make money with current content, since it is clear that my server is too focused on that to really benefit from older, albeit interesting, stuff? I am doing dailies so I can get recipes for enchanting and tailoring, and to max out the Tillers farm and such, but besides that... anything?

[Traab]

Ok, so right now I am playing a 86 fire mage, and I was wondering, what stats are most important? Crit, mastery, or spell power? I love the big blasts, I think I have been hitting for 56k crits on pyro so far, not too shabby really, but im also enjoying those ignite ticks as well. Should I ignore mastery and pump up tons of crit and spellpower? Mastery and crit and dont worry about spellpower? some other odd combo?

[Mutant Sheep]

Ok, so right now I am playing a 86 fire mage, and I was wondering, what stats are most important? Crit, mastery, or spell power? I love the big blasts, I think I have been hitting for 56k crits on pyro so far, not too shabby really, but im also enjoying those ignite ticks as well. Should I ignore mastery and pump up tons of crit and spellpower? Mastery and crit and dont worry about spellpower? some other odd combo?

I want 56k crits. :smallfrown: My 85 mediocre geared Moonkin can get a 24k starsurge crit. On a good day.:smalltongue: I get crits alot (I love you crit gear) but I feel like I should be doing alot more damage. Wrath only does 12k! :smallmad:

What non-hunter class has the most fun burst? I've been wanting to try a non-druid class. :smallbiggrin:

[Antonok]

Ok, so right now I am playing a 86 fire mage, and I was wondering, what stats are most important? Crit, mastery, or spell power? I love the big blasts, I think I have been hitting for 56k crits on pyro so far, not too shabby really, but im also enjoying those ignite ticks as well. Should I ignore mastery and pump up tons of crit and spellpower? Mastery and crit and dont worry about spellpower? some other odd combo?

Int, Hit, and Crit are the big ones for fire. Mastery doesn't add enough to warrant an overflow of it. And a bit of haste is always nice.

Also I feel I should mention that fire mages got nerfed rather hard (like, the nerf dropped them pretty much to last place in dps meters)

From the Nov. 29th hotfix notes:

Mage
Fire
The periodic damage from Combustion has been reduced by 50%.
The critical strike chance multiplier from Critical Mass has been reduced to 1.25 (was 1.5).



I want 56k crits. :smallfrown: My 85 mediocre geared Moonkin can get a 24k starsurge crit. On a good day.:smalltongue: I get crits alot (I love you crit gear) but I feel like I should be doing alot more damage. Wrath only does 12k! :smallmad:

What non-hunter class has the most fun burst? I've been wanting to try a non-druid class. :smallbiggrin:

Lets see...

Arms War: Pop all CDs and watch the 150k+ crits come rolling out.

Frost mage: Nether tempest to start, frozen orb, pop TW, icy veins, and trinket, and just burst the crap out of something with ice lance, insta cast frostfire bolts, and one second cast frostbolts.

Feral Druid: pop cds with improved fearie and jungle kitty.

Ret Pally: They can get insane burst if RNG is on your side.

Warlocks: not so much burst, but seeing 300k crit chaos bolts is always fun

[Togath]

Are there any battle pets other then the flayer hatchling that have the reflect attack? And are there any non rare spawn dragon/magic types?(other then the nether fairie drake).

edit: Also fire mages are not that bad now, despite the nerfs, they still do decent dps in heroics and scenarios from what I've seen(both playing one and being in groups with them).

[Antonok]

Are there any battle pets other then the flayer hatchling that have the reflect attack? And are there any non rare spawn dragon/magic types?(other then the nether fairie drake).

edit: Also fire mages are not that bad now, despite the nerfs, they still do decent dps in heroics and scenarios from what I've seen(both playing one and being in groups with them).

VERY comprehensive guide to the pet battle system. (http://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pet-battles/)

It takes some digging but you can find the abilities of every single pet.
(battle pet families/abilities, then click on a type)

[The Linker]

One of my core group of three Battle Pets is the Mana Wyrmling, which got Reflection at level 20.

[Seerow]

Warlocks: not so much burst, but seeing 300k crit chaos bolts is always fun


300k Chaos Bolt Crits. You're cute. I'm pretty sure I've seen my guildy hit that hard with a Chaos Bolt before, I've heard crits upwards of 600-800k. Unless you're talking about PVP I guess. Either way, it's enough to make me want to level my Lock.

Arms with CDs up does get lots of big numbers though, especially when the RNG is rolling in your favor and you have lots of TFB procs. I'm certain I still haven't seen it go as high as it can because it's so rare, but I have had 500k Heroic Strike crits. I've managed 450k on a Dummy with self-buffs only. I'm pretty sure it could scratch 600k or more if I got the stars to align and had everything running at once (a weapon enchant proc, trinket procs, spec into avatar instead of bloodbath, Banner up, full raid buffs, and strength pot).

But if you just like lots of big numbers flying across your screen at once it's almost worth it to use Recklessness on AoE trash, because there's nothing quite like seeing 20+ crits pop up on your screen at once 3-4 times back to back.


As an aside, those Fire nerfs are hilarious. The crying from mages on the forum is nothing short of amazing. I'm sure they'll get it at least partially reverted in a week or two, but for now watching the complaints about the nerfs has been making for some good :popcorn:

[The Linker]

So... my 150k Ravage crits aren't such a big deal?

Aww...

[Traab]

So if fire sucks so bad, should I go back to arcane? Or is frost a lot of big dps fun? And keep in mind, im talking pre raid, pre epic gear kind of stuff. 86-90

[Togath]

So if fire sucks so bad, should I go back to arcane? Or is frost a lot of big dps fun? And keep in mind, im talking pre raid, pre epic gear kind of stuff. 86-90

Fire is just fine to be honest. I haven't encountered a significant drop.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm on the Pandaria free trial now.

been playing monk, and its awesome, especially when you play a Blood Elf with blond spiky hair, name them "Supersaying" and macro all their moves to shout out moves like "FALCON PUNCH" or "DO A BARREL ROLL" heheh.

[Alarra]

So, I missed Friday's raid, where we killed 4 bosses, apparently, and came in tonight to spend 3 hours banging our heads against Elagon. I loooooove looooove love this fight. Even though we aren't even close to getting him down, it feels possible and it's challenging and exciting for every role. I think we need better healers though, cause I'm way out healing the other two and have quite a bit worse gear than they do. We can't even think of two healing yet because neither of them can keep up a side by themselves in the focuses stage.

[Antonok]

-snip-

Most of that is coming from a pvp perspective since I lost the will to raid back in WotLK, and cata did nothing to stir it.

I know they can go higher, just only stated what I've personally seen.


Fire is just fine to be honest. I haven't encountered a significant drop.


So if fire sucks so bad, should I go back to arcane? Or is frost a lot of big dps fun? And keep in mind, im talking pre raid, pre epic gear kind of stuff. 86-90

Fires perfectly fine for leveling, 5 mans, and LFR, but just be expecting a few more changes to it since this nerf was a bit overboard. (And as funny as alot see it, it was still overboard.)

[Gryffon]

We managed to go 6/6 MSV last week. Tihan, Scepter of the Sleeping Emperor (http://www.wowhead.com/item=86148) dropped. I managed to get one on my bonus roll. I was very happy.

We're hoping to repeat, and start work on Heart of Fear this week. We did some attempts on Vizier, and he's not too hard.

[Krazzman]

Traab, I would test Frost if I were you. It makes leveling soooo much easier...

Our Raid so far doesn't really brought something up in weapons. Our Mage got his Mainhand through Bonus Loot, the 2-hand sword dropped three times already, our Druid stole my off-hand from Feng (and now still can't wear it because not having a mainhand.... yes not even a blue one... and well I'm sitting there with "suboptimal" MH/Offhand choices... Although having epic items in every slot now still has a nice feeling again.

[Togath]

Which do you think is better for the darkmoon pet battle?, a green Kun-Lai Runt(using it's two elemental attacks) or a grey Fel Flame(using two dragon attacks and the conflagrate elemental attack)?
Would one of those Elementals from Zul-Drak be even better? They have more elemental attacks, but deal less damage and have fewer HP then the others.
My only two level 25s atm are a Feline Familiar(upgraded to blue) and a Flayer Hatchling(green). I also have a single level 24(one of those hyjal wisps[green quality])

[The Linker]

I just want to get some Flawless Battle-Stones so I can get my two uncommon 25s to rare quality. Guess I gotta, like... farm pet supply bags. Hmmm.

[Togath]

I just want to get some Flawless Battle-Stones so I can get my two uncommon 25s to rare quality. Guess I gotta, like... farm pet supply bags. Hmmm.

Are there any in the AH?
I found out that there's one type that can be traded(though I've only seen it drop ocne so far).
The stones from bags seem to have about a 1/10 chance to drop, though those are usually for a specific type.
Also, does anyone know what the cave on Darkmoon isle is for? It's full of skeletons. Is it for the new vorpal bunny slaying achievment?

[The Linker]

Are there any in the AH?

No, I checked. And I heard one guy say he saw one for 35,000g -- not that he thought it would sell. But it probably remains that they're going to be massively overpriced for a while.

I mean, the only people that are going to be getting these stones with any regularity are going to be the people really into pet battling, so I can't imagine too many are going to hit the Auction House any time soon.


Also, does anyone know what the cave on Darkmoon isle is for? It's full of skeletons. Is it for the new vorpal bunny slaying achievment?

It is indeed the location of the Darkmoon Rabbit.

[Krazzman]

It is indeed the location of the Darkmoon Rabbit.

Remember to bring your holy handgrenade with you.

[Karoht]

Ugh. Super busy weekend guys. Sorry I don't have much to report.
Yeah, you should see me streaming on my livestream page for the time being, on thursday and friday nights, with sunday as a possible. I'll try to post here and let you guys know in advance.
I do in fact answer questions from chat as I go (when I remember to check chat that is), if you want to leave me a question to address on the stream you can leave it here or PM me, I'll try to address it on the stream.

Please note that I am trying to get back in the habit of talking and playing at the same time, I'm still a little bit stuttery from time to time, or I might just clam up and concentrate on what I'm doing and forget to talk for a while.


I want 56k crits. :smallfrown: My 85 mediocre geared Moonkin can get a 24k starsurge crit. On a good day.:smalltongue: I get crits alot (I love you crit gear) but I feel like I should be doing alot more damage. Wrath only does 12k! :smallmad:

What non-hunter class has the most fun burst? I've been wanting to try a non-druid class. :smallbiggrin:
Your first problem is the fact that you are 85. Push to 90.
Second, you want mastery for your Eclipse phases. That's where the big damage comes from. I'm in healing gear, reforged for mostly haste, but the mastery I do have causes me to have 300K Starfire and Starsurge crits (in moon phase) and 150K Wrath crits (in Nature Phase).
Also, due to the short cooldown, Treants are very much worth it for leveling as a Boomkin.

If you want to try a non-druid class, my recommendation is Shaman or Paladin or Warlock. Shaman gets a bit stale to level IMO and the same could be said about Paladin. Warlock just keeps getting new tools and tricks. All. The Time. If you find yourself getting bored, change pets and see what happens. I recommend demonology for leveling, and so far it is very good for daily questing and the like. I've done a handful of scenarios and I absolutely love the playstyle of the Demonology Warlock. My Warlock is fast becoming my DPS alt.

If you ever play a clothie (IE-Warlock) my advice on professions is Tailoring and Enchanting. Tailoring will almost always be useful to you, between making your own equipiment, some excellent enchants, and the ability to turn spare cloth into enchanting materials. Enchanting isn't that useful at low level, but once you get up around 50+ it begins to really take off. And Enchanting is no where near as expensive to level as it once was, especially if you DE quest rewards and green items you pick up as you go.



I'm on the Pandaria free trial now.
been playing monk, and its awesome, especially when you play a Blood Elf with blond spiky hair, name them "Supersaying" and macro all their moves to shout out moves like "FALCON PUNCH" or "DO A BARREL ROLL" heheh.
Oh goody. Another one. Just like all the people who thought it was clever to macro 'get over here' on a Deathknight's Death Grip.
(It's cool man, keep trollin, keep trollin, rub some funk on it!)

Actually funny story. I ran into a roleplayer on LFG.
I would drop down mushrooms to heal people, and this guy would violently fling himself away from them rather than get healed. I had no idea at the time he was from an RP realm. So I whispered him and asked him what was going on.
"Sorry, I'm an RP'er, my character is allergic to mushrooms."
I laughed, didn't bug him about it. However his low DPS caused the main tank to issue a vote kick a few moments later. I was the sad.

[Togath]

Remember to bring your holy handgrenade with you.
it's fun to see someone getting the reference:smallbiggrin:


Also, are deepholm battlepets bugged?, I'm only finding greys(and a single white) despite having cleared a fairly large area.
I did use flee, to conserve hp, would that change the odds?

[Traab]

Your first problem is the fact that you are 85. Push to 90.

Keep in mind, that he was comparing himself to me, an 85-86 mage. So I can understand being annoyed at doing way less max damage a shot at the same level.

Also, someone mentioned ice. Ice works well, stuff dies pretty fast and all, its just, It takes so freaking many shots. I feel like maxing haste just so I can get the full machine gun effect. I do love my ice lance procs though. Get a couple of them up and bang bang bang. I think with the fingers of frost effect or whatever its called, I was critting for 35k sometimes. Of course, this was while doing the tian monastary quest where im trying for 5 minutes straight to blow up two punching bags. God its annoying to constantly switch targets. So I dunno yet if my damage per crit will be different blowing up actual mobs.

[Gryffon]

Oh goody. Another one. Just like all the people who thought it was clever to macro 'get over here' on a Deathknight's Death Grip.
(It's cool man, keep trollin, keep trollin, rub some funk on it!)


I always wanted to name a DK Waynebrady, just for when I would use their choke ability.

In other news, we went back to MSV last night(the first reset since we killed Elegon and Will) and cleared it out in ~3 hours. We'll start on Heart of Fear Thursday night. Super excited.

I also did Terrance of Endless Spring on LFR the other day. I liked the fights. They were interesting. Can't wait to do it on normal.

[Krazzman]

I always wanted to name a DK Waynebrady, just for when I would use their choke ability.

In other news, we went back to MSV last night(the first reset since we killed Elegon and Will) and cleared it out in ~3 hours. We'll start on Heart of Fear Thursday night. Super excited.

I also did Terrance of Endless Spring on LFR the other day. I liked the fights. They were interesting. Can't wait to do it on normal.

Some tips that we would have appreciated if we knew them beforehand:
1st Boss: Force and Verve has to be planned throughroughly. For every usage of this ability everyone has to know what he has to do and when to properly use it.

2nd Boss: BL/TW/Heroism at the beginnning when everyone has his cd's and pre-pots running. Nuke him as fast as possible into the next phase.

[Gryffon]

Some tips that we would have appreciated if we knew them beforehand:
1st Boss: Force and Verve has to be planned throughroughly. For every usage of this ability everyone has to know what he has to do and when to properly use it.

2nd Boss: BL/TW/Heroism at the beginnning when everyone has his cd's and pre-pots running. Nuke him as fast as possible into the next phase.

Yeah, we did a couple of pulls on him the other night, prior to downing Elegon. I don't expect him to roadblock tonight.

[Karoht]

My advice for Force and Verve
Designate the second or middle bubble as the one healers stand in. Everyone can and should be close to the boss on this phase anyway, it's not a big deal to spread out after that.
Chain your cooldowns with Force and Verve. What healing cooldowns you rocking?
Because you're only likely to get 3 F&V's before you change platforms, I recommend making life easy and using 2 CD's each time if possible. If you have enough to go around, use 3 each. It's more mana efficient for the healers anyway, as opposed to spamming away to top everyone up. Much easier to deal with an Exhale right after if need be as well.
And you will almost always have cooldowns up in time for the final phase.

Also, 3rd platform tip. If you just stay on the platform when he goes to the middle, he will just pull people off the platform into melee range. Your tank should still run to him first though.
I mention this because I wasted a potion trying to sleep at the time. I got about 5 seconds out of the 10 seconds of mana return, and he pulled me. It really is not the ideal time for that.

Tip for Attenuation.
You can actually run the OPPOSITE direction if you're clever. I do this on LFR all the time, and never take damage. For some reason on normal I seem to screw it up though. Maybe the rings are slightly bigger, maybe I'm just goofing it up.
Also, save instant cast and AoE heals for Attenuation if possible.

[Togath]

Just had a bit of a bitter encounter in a dungeon, and it made me wonder;
why do so few dks use their battle res? Seems only about 1 in 10 that will ever actually use it, and some even refuse to believe they have it as a class ability:smallmad:.
After four years it seems like more ought to know their class by now, especially when most monks I see do.

[Seerow]

Just had a bit of a bitter encounter in a dungeon, and it made me wonder;
why do so few dks use their battle res? Seems only about 1 in 10 that will ever actually use it, and some even refuse to believe they have it as a class ability:smallmad:.
After four years it seems like more ought to know their class by now, especially when most monks I see do.

Isn't the DK rez something like "Bring back the target as a ghoul"?

[The Linker]

No, they got a full battle rez a long time ago, when Blizzard decided battle rezzes became something essential for every group -- rather than have at least one Druid be mandatory for every 10-man raid, they gave Death Knights and Warlocks battle rezzes.

[Seerow]

No, they got a full battle rez a long time ago, when Blizzard decided battle rezzes became something essential for every group -- rather than have at least one Druid be mandatory for every 10-man raid, they gave Death Knights and Warlocks battle rezzes.

I knew Locks got it, but wasn't aware of DKs getting it.

[Togath]

The dk one shares it's name with the old ghoul one, but is now days a true battle rez(and it instant as well)

[Aidan305]

Does anyone have any recommendations for how to maintain a decent degree of levelling alts. Whenever I get to about level 50 or so, I go back to my main and find myself doing stuff with him rather than continue the levelling process. As a result I have 1 main at 90 and 5 or six alts at about 50.

[Krazzman]

Does anyone have any recommendations for how to maintain a decent degree of levelling alts. Whenever I get to about level 50 or so, I go back to my main and find myself doing stuff with him rather than continue the levelling process. As a result I have 1 main at 90 and 5 or six alts at about 50.

Probably trying to switch your "Main"-Status of thinking to one of those alts?
I only have 4 85er alts(three on (an)other server/s 2 on Antonidas (Mage and DK) and another DK on Forscherliga), a Druid around 60 and 2 85 DK's that are naked and on another server. I don't really have any motivation to level anything right now. The highest I have is a level 32 Shaman on the Server I'm currently playing.

I would probably say biting through it. Try to reach for BC and then level on. I you don't have any fun how about filling the server with alts, when everyone is around 50 they can only advance further.

[Karoht]

Got my Legendary Gem last night. Started work on the next part of the quest line. 6000 Valor, go!
I must say that completing these phases of the questline is worth it alone for just interacting with Wrathion some more. Him giving you the Gem had a spiffy interaction all on it's own. You walk up to a scenic vista just outside the tavern, and then awesome things happen. Really makes you feel like a Legendary hero.
The next phase is a Sha-Touched Gem Slot applied to any weapon I want (ilevel requirement of course), and given the cost of re-applying it (or purchasing a replacement gem) I plan on sitting on both of these until I have either a heroic weapon, or just sit on them until the next tier of raiding.

Speaking of which, I would expect to see a new patch hit the PTR in about 2 months, 5.2 land approximately 4 months from now.

Also, tonight I will be Livestreaming. I should be up and running by 11pm my time, which is 15 hours from now. 11pm GMT, at least I'm pretty sure that's the time zone code.
www.livestream.com/karoht

[Krazzman]

Got my Legendary Gem last night. Started work on the next part of the quest line. 6000 Valor, go!

Gratulations! I hate my luck... only got 4 of these Wisdom Emblems... but 22 of Power! Raaaargh... even if I had it... I wouldn't have a weapon to put the gem in. And with upgrading it might be worth it to put it in a normal mode weapon. Considering that you won't be easily slaying those heroic bosses those bosses anytime soon (at least for me, we can't even kill the 4th boss in HoF).

The main issue I have is... somehow it feels like we will never really change/swap to 25-man instead of 10-man raid because it all just feels stretched at the moment. Too much to do, not enought time to do things.
Christmas Presents, Work, Working Out, 2 different groups of DnD/Pathfinder and 3 times a week raid for 8 Hours (2 times 3 hours one time 2 hours). I can hardly fill my Valor point cap. Could've been because Friday and Sunday were packed and Saturday was other stuff we had to do. And my GF most of the time doesn't have any motivation to do anything WoW related... and it growing into small arguments when I do them alone...

[Karoht]

The extra leg work is why I dislike 25 man raids. Also, in my opinion, I just feel like Resto Druids are better built for 10 man content.
Efflorescence hits 3 targets per tick
Rejuvenation is stronger in a 10 man environment
Treeform is MUCH stronger in a 10 man environment
Healing Mushrooms are extremely good in 10 man enviroment.

On trash pulls I've had moments where I broke 96K healing. On most boss fights I'm doing 56K. In 10 man everything feels tight and well tuned. In 25 it just feels sloppy. I guess I get intimidated/shocked by the sheer amount of numbers and health bars fluctuating up and down.

[Krazzman]

Jay we killed 9 bosses yesterday in 3 hours (had a few wipes on garalon). And in the Bonus Loot I had 2 Items.... well the Galaxy-Fire Belt from Elegon (dissed it) and Spirit/Haste Boots! Currently I'm swinging around with a 487 Item Level and... still don't do any considerable damage. At least not in the Feng, Garajal or such encounters. Dunno which place I was at Stone Guard, I think 2 because our rogue messed up big time. Feng I was being last place with nearly 65k dps... while everyone else seemed to be somewhere between 70k and 95k dps... The thing is... I'm still not being haste capped and can't even afford it... still sitting on 21.99% Haste is a good feeling. Sadly I can't enchant haste onto my boots because I need the running speed... but if this holds me from reaching the haste cap when I swap out the next item... then I will ditch that stupid pandaren step enchantment... which I am probably gonna throw into the AH when I have the head for it.

DPS problems are still there for: Feng, Garajal and the Heart of Fear bosses (at least the first 3, going to see how it works out with the Wind Lord next time). Going to ask at Howtopriest.com fir that.

Another thing is... I suddenly get Crit-Errors from WoW. Don't know why.
AddOns I use for my Shadow Priest are: Omen, Atlas Loot, Bartender, HaloPro, ShadowPriestDot Timers, Tidy Plates, DBM, Grid, Recount, Wim, Postal and Bagnon. (Planning on throwing Atlas Loot and omen out of my interface, Decursive might get thrown out also... not so sure if I still have it running).

[Togath]

That does remind me; how viable is scrapping everything else for crit, int, and mastery on an arcane mage?, I'm mostly using a fire mage(where it seems to work decently, via sorch spam/dots), but she has arcane as offspec, and I've been curious about gearing it/improving it.
Would it be worth getting a second set of gear for her offspec?

[Krazzman]

That does remind me; how viable is scrapping everything else for crit, int, and mastery on an arcane mage?, I'm mostly using a fire mage(where it seems to work decently, via sorch spam/dots), but she has arcane as offspec, and I've been curious about gearing it/improving it.
Would it be worth getting a second set of gear for her offspec?

Worthiness.... I don't know. Our Mage could change speccs depending on Bossfight (in some Arcane is stronger, in others Fire or Frost) but he mostly uses his Frost Specc as he dislikes Arcane and his Fire-Specc is "not worth it" due to him going mostly for Haste in his current gear and well I don't know about arcane. A second set could be worth it if you switch often but if your guild doesn't need it, then don't do it unless you are sure that it's going to be a Strong DPS boost. If you know for example: the next weeks I'm going to be Arcane instead of Fire, then simple reforging could do. For Garalon for example we send our Rogue back to a Reforger and then let him Reforge his gear for this fight, then afterwards go back and reforge back.

[Aidan305]

Feeling a bit melancholy today.

When I first started playing back in Wrath I joined up with a guild that was well-known on the server, with an excellent rep going back to the early days of Classic. It was fun, I enjoyed the company, and I grew to love my time with it. I've got many fond memories and screenshots of my time with them.

Towards the end of Wrath though, the membership dwindled. The server (Scarshield Legion EU) was growing quieter and arguments began breaking out among members. People left for other guilds and other servers, but still I remained, hoping that the guild would return to how I remembered it. By the end of Wrath it was just me remaining.

Then I was offered a two-year masters course. Since I couldn't play over the college network, I dropped the game, though still followed events and eventually returned to the game. The official roster of the guild had dwindled even further, with no member having been online in over a year. But because of my fond memories, and because of the once-high status of the guild, I couldn't bring myself to simply abandon it. A lot of people on the server still had fond memories of its members, and the events they held. For a time then, I entertained thoughts of perhaps reviving the guild, and trying to bring back some of its glory days. Finally, last night, I sent off a message to the GMs asking if they could depose the old leader and put me in their place. This evening, I got a reply. It was apologetic, it was understanding. It was impossible. Because I had never been moved much higher than the lowest rank in the guild, my status wasn't high enough to dethrone the old leader. And GMs no longer had the capability of changing guild leadership. I can't recruit new members to the guild, so either I abandon the guild and its history, or I am forever alone as the Last Greywolf.

It's a hard decision.

[Mutant Sheep]

Feeling a bit melancholy today.

When I first started playing back in Wrath I joined up with a guild that was well-known on the server, with an excellent rep going back to the early days of Classic. It was fun, I enjoyed the company, and I grew to love my time with it. I've got many fond memories and screenshots of my time with them.

Towards the end of Wrath though, the membership dwindled. The server (Scarshield Legion EU) was growing quieter and arguments began breaking out among members. People left for other guilds and other servers, but still I remained, hoping that the guild would return to how I remembered it. By the end of Wrath it was just me remaining.

Then I was offered a two-year masters course. Since I couldn't play over the college network, I dropped the game, though still followed events and eventually returned to the game. The official roster of the guild had dwindled even further, with no member having been online in over a year. But because of my fond memories, and because of the once-high status of the guild, I couldn't bring myself to simply abandon it. A lot of people on the server still had fond memories of its members, and the events they held. For a time then, I entertained thoughts of perhaps reviving the guild, and trying to bring back some of its glory days. Finally, last night, I sent off a message to the GMs asking if they could depose the old leader and put me in their place. This evening, I got a reply. It was apologetic, it was understanding. It was impossible. Because I had never been moved much higher than the lowest rank in the guild, my status wasn't high enough to dethrone the old leader. And GMs no longer had the capability of changing guild leadership. I can't recruit new members to the guild, so either I abandon the guild and its history, or I am forever alone as the Last Greywolf.

It's a hard decision.I know I sound like a ****** here, but... you have a title as hard to get as Scarab Lord, now.:smallamused: If the guild is as well known as you say, you can just keep that >text< above your name and hold your head high. :smallcool: Could lead to some great conversations, at least.:smalltongue:

[Aidan305]

I know I sound like a ****** here, but... you have a title as hard to get as Scarab Lord, now.:smallamused: If the guild is as well known as you say, you can just keep that >text< above your name and hold your head high. :smallcool: Could lead to some great conversations, at least.:smalltongue:

Oh, it does. Especially given the tiny server population.

It's just lonely.

[Karoht]

Streaming MSV 10 man Normal in a few moments.
Elegon progression, probably Will of the Emperors as well.
www.livestream.com/karoht

[Togath]

A sort of raid related question("sort of" because it's about one of the old level 60 raids); is there any way to solo Prophet Skerem on a character other then a warlock or hunter?

[The Linker]

A sort of raid related question("sort of" because it's about one of the old level 60 raids); is there any way to solo Prophet Skerem on a character other then a warlock or hunter?

I've soloed him lots as a Feral Druid. I just... beat him up in Cat Form. It was no big thing, and this was at 85. He didn't mind control me or anything. He just kind of died, really easily.

[Togath]

How do you avoid the mind control?

[Karoht]

Thanks to anyone who tuned in to the stream, we managed to learn and kill Elegon in 6 pulls? Maybe 7? Yeah.
Will of the Emperors progression on Sunday, but it's easier. We'll probably finish up with Blade Lord in HoF if we have time.

[Traab]

Speaking of mind control, I am now remembering old shadowfang keep, back when the final boss arugal would turn you into a worgen under his control. Heh, that was the most annoying fight ever to try and win solo as he would wolf me, then we both, (as I counted as an npc for the duration) would deagro and regen to full, the effect would break, and the fight started all over again. Or at least he would, I dont recall for sure if I did as I was doing it as a shaman and could just heal myself easily enough. But yeah, never ending boss battle until I eventually did enough damage fast enough to kill him before he could recast the spell. Yay for old school windfury procs!

[The Linker]

How do you avoid the mind control?

Have you actually fought him? Sometimes bosses just won't mind control you or use other abilities that would just end the fight when you're the only person in the raid. I'm assuming this is one of them.

If he is mind controlling you, well, I don't know. Bad luck? Or it was changed since Cata?

Edit: Just killed him again. He has as much health as a tougher normal level 90 enemy (just under 600k), and I just stood there while he earth shocked me for a good few minutes. There's seriously nothing to this guy.

Now, Twin Emporers, those guys were impossible to solo, but I heard they changed him in some way. I'll have to see about him.

[Antonok]

Now, Twin Emporers, those guys were impossible to solo, but I heard they changed him in some way. I'll have to see about him.

They changed C'thun not twin emps. His stomach doesn't one shot when your by yourself now.

Twin emps you can just out dps the healing now.

[The Linker]

They changed C'thun not twin emps. His stomach doesn't one shot when your by yourself now.

Twin emps you can just out dps the healing now.

I could sworn that I read that the cooldown for their heal went up a second or two, but I can't find any evidence of that now.

Regardless, I just killed 'em anyway. Even though I forgot I had to clear the hall beforehand and so had to fight like fifteen adds. Their heals were nothing compared to my damage.

[Lord Raziere]

hey, does anyone know why mages have a teleport to Stonard?

it just been bugging me: if you wanted a teleport to an outpost near the dark portal, there is already one in Orgrimmar that goes nearer to it. but if you wanted a teleport to some outpost where you could strike on the alliance, wouldn't it make more sense to use someplace like Kargath where you could strike easily on both Stormwind and Ironforge? plus if you want extended horde transportation through Eastern Kingdoms in general, why not Kargath? more central, more wide and such.

its just been bugging is all cause Stonard is just an outpost while all the other teleports are major cities and whatnot.

[The Linker]

It was added before the Blasted Lands portal existed.

As with Theramore, it's presumably designed to help Mages cover the entire world with at least one vaguely-near portal location.

[Daverin]

Yeah, if you look at it, both Stonard and Theramore are places that pretty much sorta cover the areas away from the capitals on those continents. Also noticeable is that those are the continents with less capitals for the faction with that port (pre-BC, it would've only been 1.)

Kind of interestingly, once you include Ancient Dal, the Alliance has slightly better coverage through porting than the Horde; then again, the comparable port would be, like, Winterspring or something, which is far less of a trip for the Horde than the northern kingdoms are for the Alliance.