World of Warcraft XVII: Warlords Gone Wild

[Antonok]

*Since this title received the most positive feedback in it goes.*

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

Obligatory Linkages:
www.worldofwarcraft.com (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/) --official site
mmo-champion.com (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/) --news site
www.wowpedia.org (http://wowpedia.org/Portal:Main) --encylopedia of the Warcraft Universe
www.wowhead.com (http://www.wowhead.com/) --search engine for pretty much anything in the game. Items, quests, achievements, enemies, everything.
www.tankspot.com (http://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?323857-World-of-Warcraft-XVI-Wibbly-Wobbly-Timey-Wimey-Orcy-Worcey-Stuff)

[danzibr]

Too late to vote? I only recall seeing one second to the title.

[Antonok]

Too late to vote? I only recall seeing one second to the title.

I went ahead and voted for this one so its ahead 3 to 2 ahead of World of Warcraft XVII: Stronghold Builder's Guide Returns!. If one gets more popular than the other though I'll change it

[otakuryoga]

retro vote for warlords gone wild

[The_Jackal]

These threads go by pretty fast, anyway; at least compared to the rate at which expansions are produced, so I'm sure everyone's Warlord's jokes will get airtime. Back on topic, how many Playgrounders have gotten the Horseman's Reins? I've been running that dude for YEARS and he has yet to cough them up. I finally got my brewfest Ram this year, I was really hoping I could bring home the bacon for Hallows' End as well.

[Antonok]

I never usually have game time around october/november (when I normally take my break from WoW) so this is really the first year since I started playing back in 2007 that I've ran HH to try for the mount.

[The Glyphstone]

I always did it diligently on my main, but now I've got multiple max-level characters so I'm grinding it more. Still no luck.

[Traab]

Heh, its amusing really. Blizzard went through so much effort to nerf the heck out of the various expansions quests to make leveling to max easier, as an example, virtually all the 3-5 man nondungeon quests in wotlk are now solo quests, and yet I still find myself needing a bit of a helping hand (or a couple more levels) before I can take care of the last couple ghostland quests. The elite boss at the undead stronghold is kinda nuts. I get the feeling if I had full heirlooms or something it would be doable solo without much effort but ah well, I could never bring myself to farm. I barely had it in me to grind enough to get a single heirloom weapon from scenario and heroic dungeon spamming.

[Seerow]

Been leveling a Horde Prot Warrior last week or so. Been going in roughly 10-15 level bursts. First day pushed up to level 18. Second day pushed from there to 28. Today I went from 28 to 41.

But now I am at the dreaded Dire Maul wall. Dire Maul is the only instance in the game I just don't get. BFD? No Problem. BRD? One of my favorite dungeons. Scholomance (old or new) similarly among my favorites. Stratholme? No problem? Troll Dungeon #1928? Not ideal, but I can deal.

But Dire Maul. Man. I don't know which Dire Maul wing it is, but one of them has that annoying force field thing, and requires you to go on a mile long hike across multiple levels where the map just doesn't seem to work right, and never fails to take less than an hour. Usually longer. The other wings aren't as bad, but I still can't stand them. It's really weird because I love killing Ogres, but man. I just can't stand any of them.

My alts have a bad habit of stagnating for 6 months or more after hitting this point.

[tigerusthegreat]

Been leveling a Horde Prot Warrior last week or so. Been going in roughly 10-15 level bursts. First day pushed up to level 18. Second day pushed from there to 28. Today I went from 28 to 41.

But now I am at the dreaded Dire Maul wall. Dire Maul is the only instance in the game I just don't get. BFD? No Problem. BRD? One of my favorite dungeons. Scholomance (old or new) similarly among my favorites. Stratholme? No problem? Troll Dungeon #1928? Not ideal, but I can deal.

But Dire Maul. Man. I don't know which Dire Maul wing it is, but one of them has that annoying force field thing, and requires you to go on a mile long hike across multiple levels where the map just doesn't seem to work right, and never fails to take less than an hour. Usually longer. The other wings aren't as bad, but I still can't stand them. It's really weird because I love killing Ogres, but man. I just can't stand any of them.

My alts have a bad habit of stagnating for 6 months or more after hitting this point.

Save yourself a lot of headaches and just world level until 58. Sunken Temple is the only worthwhile instance at higher levle that isn't a pain in the ass, and that's only because its short.

[Seerow]

But that's like 17 levels of questing. QQ

I will likely try leveling via specific instances. Now that there's exp rewards for instance complete (and even bonus objectives!) in addition to quests, all separate from the exp bonus for a random dungeon, it may be worth it to do that.


Oh the other thing I am doing: since this is my first horde character I'm buying up all the horde tabards and trying to grab exalted with all the horde factions. Because I'm getting the rep anyway, why not? Got Thunderbluff done already, with Orgrimmar about halfway done.

[Togath]

So I tried out one of the +300% xp potions I got.
Decided to go into a dungeon after the first half hour(and two levels).
Wiped on the first trash fight(with me as a tank).

I..Yea..
At least I got two levels out of it.

Admittedly, we did have an afk dps... But still, it seems significantly more likely that it was just me not knowing how to tank as a warrior any more.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I always did it diligently on my main, but now I've got multiple max-level characters so I'm grinding it more. Still no luck.

I have run Brewfest and HH as much as I could have in the past couple of years..

I HAVE 6 GOATS zero Kodo or Horseman mounts.

[danzibr]

These threads go by pretty fast, anyway; at least compared to the rate at which expansions are produced, so I'm sure everyone's Warlord's jokes will get airtime. Back on topic, how many Playgrounders have gotten the Horseman's Reins? I've been running that dude for YEARS and he has yet to cough them up. I finally got my brewfest Ram this year, I was really hoping I could bring home the bacon for Hallows' End as well.
I have never once tried for the reins. Will do it this year and share my results.

Btw I also retro vote for Warlords Gone Wild.

[Traab]

I have run Brewfest and HH as much as I could have in the past couple of years..

I HAVE 6 GOATS zero Kodo or Horseman mounts.

I have the ram and the kodo, but no reins.

[The Glyphstone]

I got my first Brewfest Kodo this year, though.

[Antonok]

And I found a rather bad little buggy in the game.

Was doing the Treats of Eastern Kingdoms achieve, changed the blasted lands back pre iron horde, saw that I missed one and took the FP out there. Well the only FP I had was the new one so I took it. Low and behold it bugged. My poor monk is stuck falling thru an endless grey void and it disconnects me every time I log in. I can occasionally avoid it if I mount the broom fast enough but thats only if I stay still and not move.

Go figure I find this big of a bug and theres a 5 day wait time on tickets. :smallsigh:

[The_Jackal]

But that's like 17 levels of questing. QQ

You say that as if it will take time. Questing is fast and easy and profitable. I'm not saying dungeons are a waste of time, but I don't find any particular method of leveling to be more profitable than the others.


I will likely try leveling via specific instances. Now that there's exp rewards for instance complete (and even bonus objectives!) in addition to quests, all separate from the exp bonus for a random dungeon, it may be worth it to do that.

Dire maul isn't that bad, typically what I find complicates dungeons is too many people trying to take shortcuts, skipping trash and invariably someone facepulls and wipes the group, which is why I don't run low-level instances anymore.


Oh the other thing I am doing: since this is my first horde character I'm buying up all the horde tabards and trying to grab exalted with all the horde factions. Because I'm getting the rep anyway, why not? Got Thunderbluff done already, with Orgrimmar about halfway done.

Do the tabards work in all dungeons? I thought that only worked in Cataclysm dungeons or something.

[Antonok]

Do the tabards work in all dungeons? I thought that only worked in Cataclysm dungeons or something.

The main faction tabards work in classic dungeons. No idea if they work in post classic ones though. Start early enough and you can get all the factions exalted by the time you hit BC.

[Traab]

Heh, its amusing really. Blizzard went through so much effort to nerf the heck out of the various expansions quests to make leveling to max easier, as an example, virtually all the 3-5 man nondungeon quests in wotlk are now solo quests, and yet I still find myself needing a bit of a helping hand (or a couple more levels) before I can take care of the last couple ghostland quests. The elite boss at the undead stronghold is kinda nuts. I get the feeling if I had full heirlooms or something it would be doable solo without much effort but ah well, I could never bring myself to farm. I barely had it in me to grind enough to get a single heirloom weapon from scenario and heroic dungeon spamming.

Just wanted to update. Dar'Khan or whatever his name is, is now dead. He kept spanking me at 20-21. Then I hit 22 on my monk and got touch of death and touch of karma and kablooey, down he went. The guy has 4x my hp, has a nice fear spell, and does significant damage a shot. Despite all that, at 21 I was usually able to bring him down to a few hundred hp so it was close, but I just couldnt finish the kill short of a lucky spamming of crit hits. Ah well, omw to hillsbrad to get to work there. I love that zone and the three quest hunters you keep running into. :smalltongue:

[danzibr]

Just wanted to update. Dar'Khan or whatever his name is, is now dead. He kept spanking me at 20-21. Then I hit 22 on my monk and got touch of death and touch of karma and kablooey, down he went. The guy has 4x my hp, has a nice fear spell, and does significant damage a shot. Despite all that, at 21 I was usually able to bring him down to a few hundred hp so it was close, but I just couldnt finish the kill short of a lucky spamming of crit hits. Ah well, omw to hillsbrad to get to work there. I love that zone and the three quest hunters you keep running into. :smalltongue:
Nice ;)

I recall Belf being some of my more favorite starting quests.

[Antonok]

Managed to tag along to my guilds 25m heroic SoO tonight. They left off at Malkorok and we ended at blackfuse. Planning on trying to get a garrosh kill tomorrow.

Suprisingly, I came out with 3 upgrades. Got a weapon, tier shoulders, and a wrist, none warforged sadly. The weapon I had to laugh at when I got it. Got a LFR one to drop on tuesday to replace my timeless isle weapons, got a normal version on thursday, and then got the heroic tonight. It was like blizz saved all my weapon drops for this one week.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I ran with a Guild last night..

I dun killed Mythic Garrosh. YAY!

((I Rolled 1 on the mount...))

[Traab]

Nice ;)

I recall Belf being some of my more favorite starting quests.

Yeah, its actually a fun couple zones. Heh, I went to hillsbrad to do the quests right? I got to the last orkus "DO YOU SMELL WHAT THE LOKTAR IS COOKING?!" Only to have it bug out on me. I retried it like 4 times, couldnt get the alliance plans, so I gave up and moved on to tarren mill. Oh, wait, NONE OF THE QUESTS FOR TARREN MILL EXIST! Thank god, im level 27 so the warchief board for arathi is available. Ok, im now in arathi and able to get the quests there. Oh, and Orkus was stalking me through the entire zone till I got to arathi.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Yeah, its actually a fun couple zones. Heh, I went to hillsbrad to do the quests right? I got to the last orkus "DO YOU SMELL WHAT THE LOKTAR IS COOKING?!" Only to have it bug out on me. I retried it like 4 times, couldnt get the alliance plans, so I gave up and moved on to tarren mill. Oh, wait, NONE OF THE QUESTS FOR TARREN MILL EXIST! Thank god, im level 27 so the warchief board for arathi is available. Ok, im now in arathi and able to get the quests there. Oh, and Orkus was stalking me through the entire zone till I got to arathi.

You missed something with Orkus then.

[Traab]

You missed something with Orkus then.

It was the last part, let him distract the guys, grab the plans, then jump on his mount. I never was able to loot the plans for some reason. What suggests it was bugged was that someone else's pet (from pet battles, not a hunter pet) was in the area scuttling all over the place. For whatever reason, I reset the quest three times, logged out then back in a few times, it didnt help. No big loss really, like I said, I was already high level enough to move on to the next zone anyways, its just annoying.

[Antonok]

Well no go on a H Garrosh kill. Guild just couldn't down him this week. We got him down to 10% in P3 but couldn't deal with the mind control.

Debating the merits of just buying a garrosh kill...

[Togath]

Buying? ^_-
How the heck would that even work in this context.

[danzibr]

Buying? ^_-
How the heck would that even work in this context.
Pay a leet guild to be in its raid when they do the weekly kill.

[Alent]

Pay a leet guild to be in its raid when they do the weekly kill.

It always amazes me the things you can actually sell in WoW. Do guilds still buy half cleared raids to speed up mount and legendary runs?

How's Hunter balance working out this patch? I reactivated my account for Draenor, but haven't had a good chance to log in and finish leveling my old hunter to 90 yet. I was told by another friend that they were doing pretty badly right after the patch hit, but that hotfixes have been happening.

[Antonok]

It always amazes me the things you can actually sell in WoW. Do guilds still buy half cleared raids to speed up mount and legendary runs?

Makes sense though. End of the xpac, have nothing to do on you're 500th clear, why not make some gold to help out in getting ready for teh new xpac?

Gems and enchants are expensive and so will garrisons.

[Icewraith]

Balance won't be clear until 100. We're no longer at max level, so everything's out of whack.

If they let Disc continue to be this overpowered and empty headed at 100 there will be trouble. Not only from the other healing classes, but also from the Discipline Priests who have to keep changing their keybinds to even out the wear on whatever they're using for Holy Nova.

Edit: So, how do people feel about the new lockout system?

[ryuplaneswalker]

Balance won't be clear until 100. We're no longer at max level, so everything's out of whack.

If they let Disc continue to be this overpowered and empty headed at 100 there will be trouble. Not only from the other healing classes, but also from the Discipline Priests who have to keep changing their keybinds to even out the wear on whatever they're using for Holy Nova.

Edit: So, how do people feel about the new lockout system?

Holy Nova spam is only a problem because of how many fights in SoO were designed with stacking in mind, that won't be as much of an issue in T-17.

There is also the whole "Highly geared so mana is not an issue at all" but that crops up at the end of every expansion.

[Togath]

Can the gear from an ethereal soul trader be used for transmog?

[ryuplaneswalker]

Can the gear from an ethereal soul trader be used for transmog?

Should be able to be used, anything but legendary can be used as far as I know.

[Traab]

It always amazes me the things you can actually sell in WoW. Do guilds still buy half cleared raids to speed up mount and legendary runs?

How's Hunter balance working out this patch? I reactivated my account for Draenor, but haven't had a good chance to log in and finish leveling my old hunter to 90 yet. I was told by another friend that they were doing pretty badly right after the patch hit, but that hotfixes have been happening.

Well my hunter is power blasting his way through cata and now pandaria with ease marks spec. Chimera shot is a 1 hit kill on regular mobs if it crits. Make of that what you will. As for paying for runs, its an old tradition. They used to do that all the time in everquest. You would pay a raid guild for a ride along on a high end raid and dibs on a specific item. It helped that back then you didnt have a limit on how many people you could bring, so they would let you tag along for a fee as long as you didnt screw anything up and they were still able to field the full raid crew.

[Alent]

Well my hunter is power blasting his way through cata and now pandaria with ease marks spec. Chimera shot is a 1 hit kill on regular mobs if it crits. Make of that what you will. As for paying for runs, its an old tradition. They used to do that all the time in everquest. You would pay a raid guild for a ride along on a high end raid and dibs on a specific item. It helped that back then you didnt have a limit on how many people you could bring, so they would let you tag along for a fee as long as you didnt screw anything up and they were still able to field the full raid crew.

Ew, Marks. Don't get any of that on me. :smallwink:

Yeah, I guess I should have specified "internal" balance. I don't really intend on raiding unless something really promising pops up, and it doesn't even make sense to think about raid balance from this side of launch. I'm mostly just worried about being functional enough to level to 90 and try to get in on the pre-launch event and get back to playing Huntermon. Last time I played the stable only had two pages.

Once I updated my UI mods and logged in, everything seemed fine. I had just hit 88 last login, and the EXP rebalance caused me to ding 89 when I instagibbed a critter in valley of the four winds. Less EXP to grind, I guess. I'm loving the improved system performance, seriously need to get to a barber shop and fix the face on my human, tho'. Not that it'll stay long, faction hopping hordeside at 90.

Old EQ stuff brings a tear to my eye when I hear about it. I didn't play EQ, but just the nostalgia is infectious.

[Traab]

Well yeah, you will be able to easily grind up to 90 as a hunter. I swear, it feels like so far the only classes that are a little harder to level up are my enhance shaman and my feral druid. Everything else seems to be more or less chugging along just fine. Im not as happy with losing some skills though. My blood spec dk doesnt have heart strike anymore for example. It feels like im skipping notes in a song when I play him because im so used to the pattern I have used for so long. My shaman lost earth shock, but replacing it with flame shock and frost shock isnt too bad. Same for my hunter. No arcane shot sucks, but chimera shot and aimed shot are enough to kill stuff anyways. I just miss my focus burning skill.

[sonofzeal]

Well yeah, you will be able to easily grind up to 90 as a hunter. I swear, it feels like so far the only classes that are a little harder to level up are my enhance shaman and my feral druid. Everything else seems to be more or less chugging along just fine. Im not as happy with losing some skills though. My blood spec dk doesnt have heart strike anymore for example. It feels like im skipping notes in a song when I play him because im so used to the pattern I have used for so long. My shaman lost earth shock, but replacing it with flame shock and frost shock isnt too bad. Same for my hunter. No arcane shot sucks, but chimera shot and aimed shot are enough to kill stuff anyways. I just miss my focus burning skill.

What happened to feral druids?

[The Glyphstone]

Well yeah, you will be able to easily grind up to 90 as a hunter. I swear, it feels like so far the only classes that are a little harder to level up are my enhance shaman and my feral druid. Everything else seems to be more or less chugging along just fine. Im not as happy with losing some skills though. My blood spec dk doesnt have heart strike anymore for example. It feels like im skipping notes in a song when I play him because im so used to the pattern I have used for so long. My shaman lost earth shock, but replacing it with flame shock and frost shock isnt too bad. Same for my hunter. No arcane shot sucks, but chimera shot and aimed shot are enough to kill stuff anyways. I just miss my focus burning skill.

Huh. I didn't even notice Heart Strike was gone, since I never used it. Even on single-targets, Blood Boil was a higher-DPS use of runes.


My Enhancement rotation hasn't changed worth noting; Frost Shock instead of Earth Shock and we're good. I think the only class I'm playing that I had to readjust to was my Warlock, with the loss of Fel Flame/KJC (mobile attack) and the loss of Health Funnel (blueberry is a lot more fragile now).

[Traab]

What happened to feral druids?

Let me preface this by saying this is timeless isle and I havent played extensively, but I noticed my bearform druid was healing himself a lot more often than he was before the patch. Nothing I couldnt handle, its just an uptick in healing needed. Same for the enhance shaman, who I WAS playing a lot before the patch. I used to toss on an instant heal once per fight, maybe not even that often depending on wind fury procs, then the patch hit and it feels like my dps dropped, and I have to heal an average of twice per fight. Once again, nothing too troubling or difficult to handle, but it IS noticeable.

[Alent]

Well yeah, you will be able to easily grind up to 90 as a hunter. I swear, it feels like so far the only classes that are a little harder to level up are my enhance shaman and my feral druid. Everything else seems to be more or less chugging along just fine. Im not as happy with losing some skills though. My blood spec dk doesnt have heart strike anymore for example. It feels like im skipping notes in a song when I play him because im so used to the pattern I have used for so long. My shaman lost earth shock, but replacing it with flame shock and frost shock isnt too bad. Same for my hunter. No arcane shot sucks, but chimera shot and aimed shot are enough to kill stuff anyways. I just miss my focus burning skill.

Yeah, the Skill consolidation is wierding me out. I keep trying to hit Serpent Sting and Cower being gone is a bit unnerving. Why is Arcane shot not part of the Marks rotation?


What happened to feral druids?

Wait, didn't Wrath remove feral druids?

[Togath]

Feral or Guardian druid? From the sounds of it you mean Guardian, if you're using bear form rather than cat form.

[Traab]

Feral or Guardian druid? From the sounds of it you mean Guardian, if you're using bear form rather than cat form.

Oops yeah, guardian, sorry, My druid was rolled way back in classic, so im used to the old terms back when feral was both cat and bear.

[danzibr]

Feral or Guardian druid? From the sounds of it you mean Guardian, if you're using bear form rather than cat form.

Oops yeah, guardian, sorry, My druid was rolled way back in classic, so im used to the old terms back when feral was both cat and bear.
I was actually thinking of talent trees when Togath asked that. Ahh... talent trees.

[Togath]

I started playing back in mid bc, so I got what you meant(about how feral and guardian used to be the same spec). :3

Semi related: any advice for getting outland reps up? I was planning to try them out to get a few more mounts(only about 40 away from my pandaran kite...).
Any dungeons grant rep for mount granting reputations?

[Traab]

I started playing back in mid bc, so I got what you meant(about how feral and guardian used to be the same spec). :3

Semi related: any advice for getting outland reps up? I was planning to try them out to get a few more mounts(only about 40 away from my pandaran kite...).
Any dungeons grant rep for mount granting reputations?

I believe the cenarion rep in zangamarsh is grindable by running heroic versions of the dungeons for some item turn in, but dont quote me on that.

[Alent]

I believe the cenarion rep in zangamarsh is grindable by running heroic versions of the dungeons for some item turn in, but dont quote me on that.

I have no idea how it works post-stat squish, but when BC was relevant and all ferals had to get exalted for Earthwarden, all you really did was hit up all three Coilfang heroics daily and then I believe you can just repeat the regular 70 dungeon for plant parts to turn in at the expedition entrance. If SSC is soloable, I think it also gives Cenarion Rep, but I wouldn't swear to that as I've never been in there without exalted Cenarion.

Cenarion has the Hippogriff mount, as memory serves.

Halaani rep for Talbuks is simple enough- aoe farm ogres for obsidian beads when you tap out quests. Halaani tokens for the Black War Talbuks more or less requires kill swapping arrangements with someone of the opposite faction in Halas. I've never met anyone who's ever actually gotten them without such an arrangement, even back when that zone was current content.

Can't think of any others right now, haven't been through BC in a long time so I don't have any context reminders to spur memories.

[The Glyphstone]

Gaaaah. They finally fix the dang Kraken quest at the Tournament, but I can't go check it out because the maintenance patch is being extended.

EDIT: Aaaaand another 3 hours of extension. Sigh.

[Togath]

I wonder if they'll fix Throne of the Tides?
The second and the optional boss are both dealing pre-squish levels of damage, as well as the gill-goblins.
(the group didn't mind that we wiped a few times much.. But still..)

[Antonok]

Hmmm, this makes me curious as to what they screwed up on to extend the maint. this far.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Huh. I didn't even notice Heart Strike was gone, since I never used it. Even on single-targets, Blood Boil was a higher-DPS use of runes.


My Enhancement rotation hasn't changed worth noting; Frost Shock instead of Earth Shock and we're good. I think the only class I'm playing that I had to readjust to was my Warlock, with the loss of Fel Flame/KJC (mobile attack) and the loss of Health Funnel (blueberry is a lot more fragile now).

There is one really strange thing with the Enhancement rotation changes in that Frost Shock is not affected by Storm strike, it was something I made mention of early on in beta testing that never got tweaked, it is going to make the power just not worth casting once you get up to enough haste to use Elemental Blast/Lightning Bolt at instant speed consistently.

[thethird]

I started playing back in mid bc, so I got what you meant(about how feral and guardian used to be the same spec). :3

Semi related: any advice for getting outland reps up? I was planning to try them out to get a few more mounts(only about 40 away from my pandaran kite...).
Any dungeons grant rep for mount granting reputations?

If memory fails me not, the netherwing (http://www.wowhead.com/faction=1015#comments) is quite fast to level up and has several mounts. If you don't have it yet. My advice would be to locate the spawning points for the eggs (if you have any addon that let's you mark the map that's a good idea) and just circle the area.

The kurenai (http://www.wowhead.com/faction=978)/mag'har (http://www.wowhead.com/faction=941) also give mounts and their turn ins are quite farmable.

Other than those you can get mounts from the skyguard (http://www.wowhead.com/faction=1031) which isn't as fun to farm. But you probably just want to kill terokk (http://www.wowhead.com/npc=21838) over and over, and anything around it.

You can also get the hypogriph from the cenarion, for that farming the dungeons in zangarmash should work. The steamvault is the one that gives more rep if memory serves right. Note though that the other factions give more mounts, so you might want to do them first.

Edit: if you don't have it run sethek halls for the mount, it's still my favorite mount after all this time, and I might buy the collectors edition of warlord for the flying mount and the pet.

Edit2: this (http://www.wowhead.com/guide=1019#plan-day1) might be of interest.

[Icewraith]

Holy Nova spam is only a problem because of how many fights in SoO were designed with stacking in mind, that won't be as much of an issue in T-17.

There is also the whole "Highly geared so mana is not an issue at all" but that crops up at the end of every expansion.

Thing is, it seems like Holy Nova is supposed to be our efficient aoe heal. If I want my mana bar to go down, I spam Prayer of Healing or Flash Heal.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Thing is, it seems like Holy Nova is supposed to be our efficient aoe heal. If I want my mana bar to go down, I spam Prayer of Healing or Flash Heal.

Oh yeah, it is supposed to be the cheap AOE heal..that only works while stacked up, and remember Lucidity Procs + Lots of Spirit Right now still = Spam the crap out of one spell endlessly and all but 2 fights in SoO are heavily stacking fights which Benefits the crap out of Holy Nova, I do not think there is anywhere near the stacking in highmaul and blackrock foundry that there is in SoO (but I did not get the chance to test them due to my work hours)

[Togath]

Leveling a warlock.. Any advice?
I was hoping for something with decent self healing(even just something on the scale of a prot warrior, or the hunter's spirit bond) but I.. Well, don't really know anything about warlocks.

I do remember something about Blizzard trying to add more, to help with soloing, but I wasn't sure how much was added to warlocks(or if any existed).

[The Glyphstone]

Soloing as a warlock 101:

1) Summon your blueberry (Voidwalker).
2) Have it tank stuff.
3) Profit.


Warlocks (and hunters) are one of the most solo-friendly classes in the game. You can self-heal with Drain life if need be, but you'll almost never be actually taking damage you need to heal.

[Icewraith]

Oh yeah, it is supposed to be the cheap AOE heal..that only works while stacked up, and remember Lucidity Procs + Lots of Spirit Right now still = Spam the crap out of one spell endlessly and all but 2 fights in SoO are heavily stacking fights which Benefits the crap out of Holy Nova, I do not think there is anywhere near the stacking in highmaul and blackrock foundry that there is in SoO (but I did not get the chance to test them due to my work hours)

Also it deals damage, competitive with atonement healing IIRC (granted this is at 90). Since you can use it to stack DA, even on non-raid wide stack up fights with outgoing damage you can still hang out in the melee stack and rack up shields on the tank, yourself, melee, and put some free damage on the boss. It's probably going to be a big thing in 5-mans (once they're relevant again) for extra damage on trash. Add fight? Holy nova unless the tank is taking heavy damage.

Regarding lucidity, there's enough spirit floating around right now and disc has enough spells that deal damage that I'm running with the DPS caster meta instead. I think generally speaking you're going to see some stacking whenever possible on most fights as people have been trained to stand in the healing rain etc. The trick is, holy nova is still a useful tool, so I don't want to see it nerfed into hitting so weak it may as well not be there.

I think what it needs to come down to is that Atonement needs to significantly outperform holy nova when there's only one or two enemies and mainly tank damage going out. If there's 3+ opponents and/or there's non-ridiculous aoe damage going out, being in the melee stack (12 yard radius, so "stack" is loosely used here) holy nova-ing your fingers off makes sense (also this is a good tactic even in a ten man raid because priest+tank+two melee is one short of the five heal target limit of holy nova).

[ryuplaneswalker]

Saying it out heals atonement is a very low bar to cross ATM, smite healing is nerfed so badly that even at level 100 the only use for it is to stack up Evangelism.

Holy Nova does not need to be nerfed lower than atonement, atonement needs to be buffed so it is actually worth a crap.

[danzibr]

Leveling a warlock.. Any advice?
I was hoping for something with decent self healing(even just something on the scale of a prot warrior, or the hunter's spirit bond) but I.. Well, don't really know anything about warlocks.

I do remember something about Blizzard trying to add more, to help with soloing, but I wasn't sure how much was added to warlocks(or if any existed).

Soloing as a warlock 101:

1) Summon your blueberry (Voidwalker).
2) Have it tank stuff.
3) Profit.


Warlocks (and hunters) are one of the most solo-friendly classes in the game. You can self-heal with Drain life if need be, but you'll almost never be actually taking damage you need to heal.
While you should take The Glyphstone's advice, I've been wanting to level a lock and am going to use the glyph that makes their demon form tanky and face tank stuff. Sounds super fun.

[The Glyphstone]

While you should take The Glyphstone's advice, I've been wanting to level a lock and am going to use the glyph that makes their demon form tanky and face tank stuff. Sounds super fun.

That's an alternative option...Metamorphosis scales really really weird at low levels, from what I understand, to the point where you can get extremely high uptime on the transformation. Glyph of Demon Hunting itself is mainly a novelty/trap, but it can be fun to goof around with as well.

But for reliable solo-ing, you'll want a Voidwalker with Glyph of Demon Training.

[Togath]

I thought glyph of demon hunting had been removed?

[Antonok]

Good rule for Warlock changes: If it was fun, it got removed.

Still keep trying to use Curse of Exhaustion and end up using KJC due to it now taking the bar space :smallconfused:

[Alent]

Good rule for Warlock changes: If it was fun, it got removed.

Fixed that for you. The massive rebalancing that happens every major patch and expansion always seems to remove the really fun stuff. Eventually more fun stuff creeps in, eventually, only to be removed at a later date in the future. :smallfrown:

I finally made it up to iLev 510 last night thanks to Timeless Isle frog farming. Looking forward to trying out the level 90 UBRS, but I'm expecting long queues on account of tonight's festivities. Maybe I'll try taming Chimaeron again.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Fixed that for you. The massive rebalancing that happens every major patch and expansion always seems to remove the really fun stuff. Eventually more fun stuff creeps in, eventually, only to be removed at a later date in the future. :smallfrown:

I finally made it up to iLev 510 last night thanks to Timeless Isle frog farming. Looking forward to trying out the level 90 UBRS, but I'm expecting long queues on account of tonight's festivities. Maybe I'll try taming Chimaeron again.

Because Eye of the beast was fun? Or Symbiosis for anyone but tanks?

[The Glyphstone]

I liked being able to Rejuve myself as a warlock. Not sure what the druids got out of the deal.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I liked being able to Rejuve myself as a warlock. Not sure what the druids got out of the deal.

The ability to use your demonic circle.

[Alent]

Because Eye of the beast was fun? Or Symbiosis for anyone but tanks?

Hey, I tanked Deadmines with my pet bear using that spell, it was fun. (It was easier than doing it on a real level 16 bear druid at the time.)

Haven't seen Symbiosis yet. Or is that one already gone?

I finally managed to tame Chimaeron, that was a rough solo tame.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Symbiosis is already gone, and most of the removal were cooldowns (some of which were rolled into other cooldowns) or stupid things that got used maybe once an expansion.

Edit : By the way, we had Stat Squish, Ability Squish and removal of hit and expertise.

Next Expansion..Level Squish, I bet my Shadowmourne on it.

[danzibr]

I thought glyph of demon hunting had been removed?
I learned last night that it has :(

Good rule for Warlock changes: If it was fun, it got removed.

Still keep trying to use Curse of Exhaustion and end up using KJC due to it now taking the bar space :smallconfused:
I was going to boost a Lock to 90. Now... nope.

[Astrella]

Darkmoon Faire! Must collect all the pets.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I learned last night that it has :(

I was going to boost a Lock to 90. Now... nope.

I would not expect it to be...gone for very long, with the new way tanking works "Demon Hunter" as a tanking spec DWing Spellcaster axes, daggers, hammers, swords is something that is entirely foreseeable as a 4th Warlock Spec.

[The Glyphstone]

Not a full spec. Maybe a returned glyph, or a Talent choice in a future survivability talent tier.

As someone who's played a Warlock since classic, I'm not that worried about whether or not Warlocks are given tank capabilities. While things like Gladiator Stance and Claws of Shirvallah are leading the way towards talent-based spec hybridism, Druids are the only class who ever actually needed a 4th spec - they've had 4 specs since the beginning, just with 2 of them clumsily mashed together into one talent tree because all the other classes had 3 specs.

[Karoht]

I've only posted about Warlock tanking possibilities a dozen times over the years. Here's my thoughts:

1-Parry as main mitigation stat, though with current stat changes that is probably an obsolete concept.
2-The spec revolves around summoning and sacrificing pets as a form of active mitigation. Temporary shared health (between pet and master), having the pet taunt to take certain hits while the warlock takes other hits, sacrificing pets for certain effects (damage shields, self heals, mitigation effects like dodge/parry/stagger), etc.
3-DW 1h weapons, especially fist weapons. Could they stack two spellpower daggers? Unlikely as such weapons are "main hand" not 1h, and that would give a spell power advantage to the spec that no other spec has. Might be a pain in the butt trying to collect two spellpower weapons especially given how many other classes are fighting over them as well. Unless they do away with spell power altogether, which has been discussed.
4-Spec is not necessarily capped at 1 active pet, and may need to actively manage more than one pet, including positioning in addition to abilities.
5-May include a new pet or two specific to the spec.

PS-I am all in favor of their being 4th spec for everyone that doesn't have them, 4 major glyps for all, and 4 or even 5 columns of talent choices next expansion.

[Guancyto]

Maybe it's just because I went and played a lot of other MMOs after WoW (particularly with Wildstar and DCUO in mind), but I'd really like to see "pure" DPS classes go the way of the dinosaur (like they have nearly everywhere else).

Of course a "rogue tank" is basically a Brewmaster Monk already, so Pandaria may well have killed that dream.

[Togath]

Pure dps classes have always seemed a bit bland to me as well.

Always a chance they might alter some of the classes later on, like they did with druids and dks.

[danzibr]

I actually... am somewhat opposed to Warlocks getting an official tank spec. Glyph of Demon Hunting was cool 'cause you could sort of tank, but couldn't queue as a tank or do like raid tanking.

My main is a Rogue, and I wouldn't like to see Rogue tanking. Presumably it would be dodge tanking of course (was a thing back in BC).

Anyway. The reason I say this is because I played Rift recently. Every class could do everything. Had rogues healers, tanks, melee dps, ranged dps. Felt so watered down. I'm a Rogue and melee dps is what I do.

[Togath]

Ranged dps rogues remind me...
Anyone else notice that Shuriken Toss seems to have an abnormally high multi-strike chance?
Every time I've opened battle with it, I've hit for three units of damage.

At first I thought it was just my auto attacks... But it seems to happen even when I'm closer than the minimum range for having my autos turn ranged.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Maybe it's just because I went and played a lot of other MMOs after WoW (particularly with Wildstar and DCUO in mind), but I'd really like to see "pure" DPS classes go the way of the dinosaur (like they have nearly everywhere else).

Of course a "rogue tank" is basically a Brewmaster Monk already, so Pandaria may well have killed that dream.

Conceptually not really though, I could see the "Rogue" Tanking spec being the "Swashbuckler" spec, Sword Mainhand, Dagger offhand, pirate themed stuff, it somewhat tramples over combat..but I think combat has shifted more from Buckling Swashes to straight two sword style (Think Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender) fighting. Though really ALL the rogue specs need some tweaking, Death From Above and Shuriken Toss should be..baked into Subtley IMO, have DFA Replace Eviscerate so we get a bit more.."Finishing move" variance in the specs.

@Glyphstone I disagree simply based on the fact that more specs means more choices..and more choices means more fun for everyone and at this point they don't really need more classes persay.

[Bulldog Psion]

It took me a while to get used to PvPing with my assassination rogue after the patch. A surprisingly long time, actually. My character was a pitiful punching bag until this weekend, really. For some reason, I just couldn't get the new stuff to click. Now it has clicked, anyway, so I'm feeling a bit better about the whole thing.

Of course, I love most of the new models, so that goes a long a way towards winning me over right there. :smallbiggrin: Shallow, I know.

[Astrella]

Is the Whack a Gnoll minigame not scoring any points for anyone else?

[danzibr]

@Glyphstone I disagree simply based on the fact that more specs means more choices..and more choices means more fun for everyone and at this point they don't really need more classes persay.
More choices =/=> more fun.

I would much rather see more specs rather than another class, but I think they're fine as-is. Again, Rift had tooooooooooooooons of choices but was nowhere near as fun a WoW. Lacked the charm. And for most every class, there were only a few good combinations. Rift-done-right could be a lot of fun, though.

[Luzahn]

Is the Whack a Gnoll minigame not scoring any points for anyone else?

It's the same for me, looks to be bugged at the moment.

It's a shame, but the fact that they added a new pet battle daily makes me happy. :smallsmile:

[ryuplaneswalker]

More choices =/=> more fun.

I would much rather see more specs rather than another class, but I think they're fine as-is. Again, Rift had tooooooooooooooons of choices but was nowhere near as fun a WoW. Lacked the charm. And for most every class, there were only a few good combinations. Rift-done-right could be a lot of fun, though.

If for most every class there were only a few good combinations then there was no real choice, only the illusion of it, much like the Pre-MOP Talent system(Both the 60 point and 30 point of cata) there was zero real choice that impacted your character's progression. If you have real choices in how your character plays you become more invested in that character.

And yes More (real)Choice is more fun, the more possibilities you have to choose from the more interesting the game is, Look at the level 100 Retribution talents, the choice of your talent actively affects how you play your character. ((Seraphim from what I read is currently under powered as a mini-Inquisition it seems))

[Traab]

The problem with more choices is in the long run it rarely matters. There will still be at best a handful of "ideal" choices. It doesnt matter if there are a thousand points to put into every conceivable skill choice imaginable, there will always be the best and the rest will be dismissed as not worth it. The early talent point setup is proof of this. Even though there were a large number of combinations you COULD use, and most of them werent that bad, if you didnt use the cookie cutter specs then you "sucked" according to raid guilds and such. "If you're not first, you're LAST!" is the mentality.

And it is a total pipe dream to make it so there are a large number of specs equally viable in the same role. Sure you could make a tank, healer and dps spec all excellent choices for a class, but try setting things up so there are 3-4 equally excellent tank specs for the warrior to pick. It wont work outside of specific gimmicky battles designed for other specs, there will be one thats the best, if only by a narrow amount, and the rest will be dismissed as not worth picking except for those specific fights. I have been playing MMORPGs for over 16 years now, and I have yet to find a game where this isnt the case. Some games do a better job than others, but there will always and forever be a single superior choice, and a selection of second string options.

[The_Jackal]

Maybe it's just because I went and played a lot of other MMOs after WoW (particularly with Wildstar and DCUO in mind), but I'd really like to see "pure" DPS classes go the way of the dinosaur (like they have nearly everywhere else).

Of course a "rogue tank" is basically a Brewmaster Monk already, so Pandaria may well have killed that dream.

My preferred solution would be, instead, to remove the notion of 'tanks' and 'healers'. The problem with the 'everyone can heal or tank' notion is that facility is not the reason most players choose not to tank or heal. If you simply compare class population trends to the number of heal/tank slots needed for most content, you'll see that roughly 45% of players are playing a class capable of tanking, and 43% are capable of healing. Yet tanks and healers continue to gate queues for dungeons and raids, to say nothing of premade groups, as any raid leader can attest. The problem is that people don't WANT to perform these roles in the numbers that they're required, and no amount of changes to class mechanics or itemization are going to change that. There's no patch for human behavior.

How do you fix the issue? By getting breaking the trifecta altogether. First, remove spam-able heals. Get rid of them utterly. Instead, give healing classes heals with semi-long cooldowns, usable only to stabilize/rescue party members from imminent death. Turn healers into combat support classes, pitching in to fight and only occasionally using their support powers, instead of being a full-time whack-a-mole bot. From there you can more readily level out player durability, giving classes either the facility to avoid damage or use in-combat self healing for those melee classes. Finally, change the boss aggro AI to make taunt/threat levels non-existent. Let boss pathing and random behavior become the norm. Boss encounters suddenly become more chaotic, less coreographed, and everyone gets to actually PLAY the game, instead of just 2 tanks doing the only demanding job, and leaving the rest of the raid in the position of either filling green bars or depleting the big red bar.

[danzibr]

If for most every class there were only a few good combinations then there was no real choice, only the illusion of it, much like the Pre-MOP Talent system(Both the 60 point and 30 point of cata) there was zero real choice that impacted your character's progression. If you have real choices in how your character plays you become more invested in that character.

And yes More (real)Choice is more fun, the more possibilities you have to choose from the more interesting the game is, Look at the level 100 Retribution talents, the choice of your talent actively affects how you play your character. ((Seraphim from what I read is currently under powered as a mini-Inquisition it seems))
I absolutely agree. More *real* choices ==> more fun, but just more choices =/=> more fun. Which was exactly Rift's problem, as I stated, and as you reinforced.

[Antonok]

Dunno if anyones tried lvling a DK since the squish, but what the hell did they do to blood dks? Got to 62 and tried tanking a couple dungeons and I don't think I've seen a squisher tank.

[danzibr]

Dunno if anyones tried lvling a DK since the squish, but what the hell did they do to blood dks? Got to 62 and tried tanking a couple dungeons and I don't think I've seen a squisher tank.
Ooooh that's a pity. I only have two characters: a combat Rogue and a Blood/Unholy DK.

[Karoht]

My preferred solution would be, instead, to remove the notion of 'tanks' and 'healers'. The problem with the 'everyone can heal or tank' notion is that facility is not the reason most players choose not to tank or heal. If you simply compare class population trends to the number of heal/tank slots needed for most content, you'll see that roughly 45% of players are playing a class capable of tanking, and 43% are capable of healing. Yet tanks and healers continue to gate queues for dungeons and raids, to say nothing of premade groups, as any raid leader can attest. The problem is that people don't WANT to perform these roles in the numbers that they're required, and no amount of changes to class mechanics or itemization are going to change that. There's no patch for human behavior.

How do you fix the issue? By getting breaking the trifecta altogether. First, remove spam-able heals. Get rid of them utterly. Instead, give healing classes heals with semi-long cooldowns, usable only to stabilize/rescue party members from imminent death. Turn healers into combat support classes, pitching in to fight and only occasionally using their support powers, instead of being a full-time whack-a-mole bot. From there you can more readily level out player durability, giving classes either the facility to avoid damage or use in-combat self healing for those melee classes. Finally, change the boss aggro AI to make taunt/threat levels non-existent. Let boss pathing and random behavior become the norm. Boss encounters suddenly become more chaotic, less coreographed, and everyone gets to actually PLAY the game, instead of just 2 tanks doing the only demanding job, and leaving the rest of the raid in the position of either filling green bars or depleting the big red bar.
With respect, you basically described the design philosophy behind Guild Wars 2. Which was... not the staggering success Arenanet proclaimed it to be before launch.
In fact, ditching the trifecta basically meant that people found the most tanky of the classes and used that to tank to ensure everyone else had maximum uptime to damage the bosses. Which turned out to be the Necromancer because they basically had an active mitigation ability.
Part of why I'm a healer isn't because I have to be, it's because DPS is something I'm just flat up not interested in. Your system basically turns everyone into a DPS, which means the entire game has to be centered around that. And if there is nothing to differentiate one DPS from another, you get class stacking in a hurry. Why be DPS B when DPS A puts out more damage and neither have any difference in utility? So guess what everyone was playing in GW2 for a while there. Yeup, Necromancer spam. It broke entire encounters, never mind the PvP issues for a while. Sure, it was patched, but the community basically repeated the pattern for about the first year of launch. And it's part of why PvE content was quietly abandoned early on in development in favor of their PvP content.

Ditching the trifecta was an attempt to patch players, and the genre as a whole, and it failed. Hard.

As for MoP, part of why I really enjoyed raiding this expansion was because as a healer, I had something to do in nearly every fight in addition to your over simplification of 'fill up green bars' as did most DPS had more to do than 'deplete red bars' as it were. Particularly in Throne of Thunder where they introduced mechanics which went specifically after roles such as ranged and healers and ignored melee, and vice versa.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I absolutely agree. More *real* choices ==> more fun, but just more choices =/=> more fun. Which was exactly Rift's problem, as I stated, and as you reinforced.

Yes, however I should not have to say "More real choices" because a False Choice is not really a choice.

[Icewraith]

The problem with more choices is in the long run it rarely matters. There will still be at best a handful of "ideal" choices. It doesnt matter if there are a thousand points to put into every conceivable skill choice imaginable, there will always be the best and the rest will be dismissed as not worth it. The early talent point setup is proof of this. Even though there were a large number of combinations you COULD use, and most of them werent that bad, if you didnt use the cookie cutter specs then you "sucked" according to raid guilds and such. "If you're not first, you're LAST!" is the mentality.

And it is a total pipe dream to make it so there are a large number of specs equally viable in the same role. Sure you could make a tank, healer and dps spec all excellent choices for a class, but try setting things up so there are 3-4 equally excellent tank specs for the warrior to pick. It wont work outside of specific gimmicky battles designed for other specs, there will be one thats the best, if only by a narrow amount, and the rest will be dismissed as not worth picking except for those specific fights. I have been playing MMORPGs for over 16 years now, and I have yet to find a game where this isnt the case. Some games do a better job than others, but there will always and forever be a single superior choice, and a selection of second string options.

I agree that getting the three talents in each tier and each tanking class and each dps class to within the same order of magnitude has been a major challenge on Blizzard's part. However, they've mostly succeeded. I never hear about any tanking class being outright unsuitable for a specific boss, there's very rarely a talent that doesn't have a use even if it doesn't come up in PvE content, there's no longer "must have" classes only "must have" roles (although one of them is still "provider of raid-wide DPS cooldown", it's no longer only one class). Going to even four talents in a tier or adding more specs per class would complicate the balancing effort tremendously, I think. The more options you have, the easier it is to have an outlier.

[danzibr]

Yes, however I should not have to say "More real choices" because a False Choice is not really a choice.
Hmm. I had a bunch of text written, but a nice way to say it is as follows: there is an important distinction between choice and meaningful/viable choice.

Just saying more choices yield more fun makes it sound like a quantity-over-quality thing.

[Traab]

I agree that getting the three talents in each tier and each tanking class and each dps class to within the same order of magnitude has been a major challenge on Blizzard's part. However, they've mostly succeeded. I never hear about any tanking class being outright unsuitable for a specific boss, there's very rarely a talent that doesn't have a use even if it doesn't come up in PvE content, there's no longer "must have" classes only "must have" roles (although one of them is still "provider of raid-wide DPS cooldown", it's no longer only one class). Going to even four talents in a tier or adding more specs per class would complicate the balancing effort tremendously, I think. The more options you have, the easier it is to have an outlier.

It is true that its gotten to the point where you no longer have tanking classes that arent accepted as tanks, healers that are considered to suck at healing, and dps classes that always scrape the bottom of the meter. Thats why im saying that adding in tons more choices would make things worse. Thats why they got rid of the talent trees in the first place, within the dozens of combinations you could use, there were always a couple that were clearly superior for whatever role. It was an illusion of choice, or a bad choice. Your choice was, "Pick the best options, or suck." Yeah you could come close to the best options with a little fiddling, but that information was always in the back of your head, "No matter what other option i pick, it will never be as high dps/good at tanking/healing as the cookie cutter spec."

[The_Jackal]

With respect, you basically described the design philosophy behind Guild Wars 2. Which was... not the staggering success Arenanet proclaimed it to be before launch.
In fact, ditching the trifecta basically meant that people found the most tanky of the classes and used that to tank to ensure everyone else had maximum uptime to damage the bosses. Which turned out to be the Necromancer because they basically had an active mitigation ability.
Part of why I'm a healer isn't because I have to be, it's because DPS is something I'm just flat up not interested in. Your system basically turns everyone into a DPS, which means the entire game has to be centered around that. And if there is nothing to differentiate one DPS from another, you get class stacking in a hurry. Why be DPS B when DPS A puts out more damage and neither have any difference in utility? So guess what everyone was playing in GW2 for a while there. Yeup, Necromancer spam. It broke entire encounters, never mind the PvP issues for a while. Sure, it was patched, but the community basically repeated the pattern for about the first year of launch. And it's part of why PvE content was quietly abandoned early on in development in favor of their PvP content.

Ditching the trifecta was an attempt to patch players, and the genre as a whole, and it failed. Hard.

As for MoP, part of why I really enjoyed raiding this expansion was because as a healer, I had something to do in nearly every fight in addition to your over simplification of 'fill up green bars' as did most DPS had more to do than 'deplete red bars' as it were. Particularly in Throne of Thunder where they introduced mechanics which went specifically after roles such as ranged and healers and ignored melee, and vice versa.

There's more games, MMO and otherwise which don't use the triad to deliver their multiplayer experience. The Diablo games don't have support roles, and yet they have disparate character classes and party synergies which encourage group play. City of Heroes also does a pretty close take to the paradigm I offer, with their 'support' powersets mostly going toward buffs and debuffs, eschewing spam-able heals.

But really, you don't have to look at other games to see the problems imposed by the triad. Every expansion, Blizzard is trying to fiddle with the formula of tank durability vs healer efficiency. They routinely point out that tough tanks and efficient heals make rage timers necessary, make bosses which can casually one-shot non-tanks necessary.

I can't speak to GW:2, but bad class balance can exist in any MMO, with or without the triad. Blizzard had periods where everyone wanting to crush content needed to stack Shamans (for Bloodlust) or Warlocks (for massive DOTs) or whatever. And the reason DPS is a montonous affair is largely BECAUSE of the tank/healer mechanic. That's what allows the other 17 players in the raid to mostly forget about self-preservation and focus on stepping through their rotation and dodging fire on the floor.

[Icewraith]

There's more games, MMO and otherwise which don't use the triad to deliver their multiplayer experience. The Diablo games don't have support roles, and yet they have disparate character classes and party synergies which encourage group play. City of Heroes also does a pretty close take to the paradigm I offer, with their 'support' powersets mostly going toward buffs and debuffs, eschewing spam-able heals.

But really, you don't have to look at other games to see the problems imposed by the triad. Every expansion, Blizzard is trying to fiddle with the formula of tank durability vs healer efficiency. They routinely point out that tough tanks and efficient heals make rage timers necessary, make bosses which can casually one-shot non-tanks necessary.

I can't speak to GW:2, but bad class balance can exist in any MMO, with or without the triad. Blizzard had periods where everyone wanting to crush content needed to stack Shamans (for Bloodlust) or Warlocks (for massive DOTs) or whatever. And the reason DPS is a montonous affair is largely BECAUSE of the tank/healer mechanic. That's what allows the other 17 players in the raid to mostly forget about self-preservation and focus on stepping through their rotation and dodging fire on the floor.

How is staying out of fire forgetting about self-preservation? On what fight do you only have to dodge fire and dps the boss anymore? There's almost always some kind of add that needs to be killed, or a mechanic that will kill you if you don't pay attention to it (OMG WTF TANK! TAUNT NEW BOSS OFF ME AND SOMEONE CLEANSE ROOT!! HEALS DISPEL PLZ I CANT MOVE! TANK DO YOUR JOB AND TAUNT!) (OMG BOSS WALKED OVER ME AND 1 SHOT ME WTF!), or a crapton of different kinds of fire to stay out of. There's fire you MUST stand in, debuffs that cause you to aoe your buddies, forced group splits, missions for solo dps (although usually the best player keeps on getting these in each fight), fire that sucks you into the middle and forces you to run out before it explodes, mind controls, things that must be interrupted or stunned at regular intervals, places you have to stand to stop bad things from happening to the raid, forced directional movement...

The kind of fight you're talking about I don't think has been seen since Patchwerk or Noth in Naxx 2.0, and that's also the raid that gave us the Four Horsemen, Loatheb, Sapphiron and Kel'thuzad. DPS still probably has fewer things to worry about than the tank or heals overall, but most fights you can't just check out and spam your rotation. I think. Granted I spend way more time tanking and healing than DPSing, but tanking nowadays is just keeping track of your co-tanks debuff and paying attention to the boss' positioning and any adds that spawn while being aware of most of the raid hazards everyone has to worry about and monitoring your own health and doing your rotation. When I do get the chance to dps, I don't find it boring, I find it more relaxing.

[Astrella]

Huh, so I have a lvl 45 Pandaran Monk. Used to be a Windwalker but changed just now to Brewmaster since I want to try out those skills and get a bit of a feel for it before I start doing dungeons.

But... my Keg Smash is somehow hitting for over 1,000 damage right now, it's essentially one-hitting everything I fight on an 8 second cooldown, I'm dealing with stuff a lot easier than I was when I was spec'd Windwalker and that doesn't seem right?

[Traab]

Huh, so I have a lvl 45 Pandaran Monk. Used to be a Windwalker but changed just now to Brewmaster since I want to try out those skills and get a bit of a feel for it before I start doing dungeons.

But... my Keg Smash is somehow hitting for over 1,000 damage right now, it's essentially one-hitting everything I fight on an 8 second cooldown, I'm dealing with stuff a lot easier than I was when I was spec'd Windwalker and that doesn't seem right?

I find the same thing with my prot spec pally and his shield smashing everyone. I think a prot warrior does the same.

[Seerow]

I find the same thing with my prot spec pally and his shield smashing everyone. I think a prot warrior does the same.

Prot war used to do the same.

I started a fresh prot warrior on horde side, and shield slam got nerfed into oblivion below level 80. Like to the point it deals half the damage of an auto attack until you hit level 80 and it gets unnerfed. It's so sad.

[Traab]

Prot war used to do the same.

I started a fresh prot warrior on horde side, and shield slam got nerfed into oblivion below level 80. Like to the point it deals half the damage of an auto attack until you hit level 80 and it gets unnerfed. It's so sad.

Ouch. Glad I switched back to mortal strike. In hellfire im still nailing stuff pretty fast.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Prot war used to do the same.

I started a fresh prot warrior on horde side, and shield slam got nerfed into oblivion below level 80. Like to the point it deals half the damage of an auto attack until you hit level 80 and it gets unnerfed. It's so sad.

Shield Slam still does decent damage on my warrior below 80, the gap between it and revenge is not as bad now since now they both work off attack power and before...Shield slam had Very high base and low scaling with AP, and Revenge had sort of the opposite going on where it had low base but went up with AP.

[Antonok]

Shield Slam still does decent damage on my warrior below 80, the gap between it and revenge is not as bad now since now they both work off attack power and before...Shield slam had Very high base and low scaling with AP, and Revenge had sort of the opposite going on where it had low base but went up with AP.

My 44 War disagrees with you. I stopped using it to tank honestly. The damage and threat gen on it is just not worth it over thunderclap and devastate.

[Karoht]

There's more games, MMO and otherwise which don't use the triad to deliver their multiplayer experience. The Diablo games don't have support roles, and yet they have disparate character classes and party synergies which encourage group play. City of Heroes also does a pretty close take to the paradigm I offer, with their 'support' powersets mostly going toward buffs and debuffs, eschewing spam-able heals.The fact that you mention CoH and it's PvE content makes me laugh. What little 'raiding' content they had was designed in such a way where half the raid team could AFK and you could still beat the content with your eyes closed. Literally, this was a stated design choice by the development team. Honestly, you are comparing a game where the only necessary healing buttons were "100% health, spammable" and the unlimited in-combat rezes. The game where 'mash buttons in no particular order' was basically everyone's rotation, outside of a few cooldowns. When they introduced the "Don't stand in fire" mechanics, most of the community flat up gave up on end game content in that game. Ask Acanous some time. Or anyone from speed club if you can still find them. You are genuinely comparing a game where end game content genuinely didn't matter, to a game where the end game content is the focus of the game, it is very much an apples and oranges difference. And the lack of trifecta dependance (Dark/Regen scrappers tanking say hello) doesn't mean that the trifecta was non-existent to any meaningful degree.


I can't speak to GW:2, but bad class balance can exist in any MMO, with or without the triad. Blizzard had periods where everyone wanting to crush content needed to stack Shamans (for Bloodlust) or Warlocks (for massive DOTs) or whatever. And the reason DPS is a montonous affair is largely BECAUSE of the tank/healer mechanic. That's what allows the other 17 players in the raid to mostly forget about self-preservation and focus on stepping through their rotation and dodging fire on the floor.If the experience you are describing is LFR and nothing else... you are still inaccurately describing raiding in this game. There are incredibly few output fights in this game anymore. There is maybe one or two per raid tier, usually at the early part of the raid, mostly to act as DPS/HPS checks. In other words, the few of those you see exist for that purpose.

Honestly, if all you are doing is your rotation and little else, I greatly question when the last time one has actually set foot in any of the content, difficulty notwithstanding. Honestly, if the game were that simple, it wouldn't take guilds like Method and Paragon and Blood Legion so long to defeat the content, and the rift between other guilds attempting it wouldn't be nearly so bad. If the game were nearly as easy as your oversimplification makes it out to be, pugs would be killing mythic bosses left and right rather than scrambling on LFR and Normal.

Class stacking Shamans (Sunwell pre-nerf), Shadow Priests with Valanyr (Ulduar pre-nerf), or Warlocks with Tic Tok's and Mages with Dragonswrath (Dragon Soul pre-nerf) just to have even the slightest chance of downing content, is kind of old hat, and extremely niche. If you want to have that conversation we can, but it's about as relevant as comparing the new lockout system with 40man molten core vanilla. Suffice to say, the point here is that those mistakes were made and learned from, and became long ago outliers for a reason. GW2, for all their smack talk of WoW, learned precisely nothing from it. Neither did Rift really. Lets not even discuss SWTOR, AKA Space WoW.

[Seerow]

My 44 War disagrees with you. I stopped using it to tank honestly. The damage and threat gen on it is just not worth it over thunderclap and devastate.

It is still worth pressing over Devastate for the rage gen if nothing else. Especially if you take the level 45 talent that drops your HS cost dramatically.

[The_Jackal]

How is staying out of fire forgetting about self-preservation? On what fight do you only have to dodge fire and dps the boss anymore? There's almost always some kind of add that needs to be killed, or a mechanic that will kill you if you don't pay attention to it (OMG WTF TANK! TAUNT NEW BOSS OFF ME AND SOMEONE CLEANSE ROOT!! HEALS DISPEL PLZ I CANT MOVE! TANK DO YOUR JOB AND TAUNT!) (OMG BOSS WALKED OVER ME AND 1 SHOT ME WTF!), or a crapton of different kinds of fire to stay out of. There's fire you MUST stand in, debuffs that cause you to aoe your buddies, forced group splits, missions for solo dps (although usually the best player keeps on getting these in each fight), fire that sucks you into the middle and forces you to run out before it explodes, mind controls, things that must be interrupted or stunned at regular intervals, places you have to stand to stop bad things from happening to the raid, forced directional movement...

The kind of fight you're talking about I don't think has been seen since Patchwerk or Noth in Naxx 2.0, and that's also the raid that gave us the Four Horsemen, Loatheb, Sapphiron and Kel'thuzad. DPS still probably has fewer things to worry about than the tank or heals overall, but most fights you can't just check out and spam your rotation. I think. Granted I spend way more time tanking and healing than DPSing, but tanking nowadays is just keeping track of your co-tanks debuff and paying attention to the boss' positioning and any adds that spawn while being aware of most of the raid hazards everyone has to worry about and monitoring your own health and doing your rotation. When I do get the chance to dps, I don't find it boring, I find it more relaxing.

And yet all those raid mechanics are about one of two things: switching targets or moving your butt to the right spot, and doing the right thing is largely a function of having DBM installed and up to date and having read about the fight offline. It's a challenge only to your patience, especially when you're partied with people who refused to do those things. I submit that the game would be better with fewer mechanics you need to research and 'push button to not die' decisions, and instead presented players with more intuitive, more chaotic, and less curated gameplay.

[The_Jackal]

The fact that you mention CoH and it's PvE content makes me laugh. What little 'raiding' content they had was designed in such a way where half the raid team could AFK and you could still beat the content with your eyes closed. Literally, this was a stated design choice by the development team. Honestly, you are comparing a game where the only necessary healing buttons were "100% health, spammable" and the unlimited in-combat rezes. The game where 'mash buttons in no particular order' was basically everyone's rotation, outside of a few cooldowns. When they introduced the "Don't stand in fire" mechanics, most of the community flat up gave up on end game content in that game. Ask Acanous some time. Or anyone from speed club if you can still find them. You are genuinely comparing a game where end game content genuinely didn't matter, to a game where the end game content is the focus of the game, it is very much an apples and oranges difference. And the lack of trifecta dependance (Dark/Regen scrappers tanking say hello) doesn't mean that the trifecta was non-existent to any meaningful degree.

At the time CoH had no endgame content, the pinnacle of paladin rotation was the one-button macro, and by the time Blizz upped their rotation game by putting in random procs to shake up the monotony, CoH was on autopilot, riding on UGC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-generated_content)and paid costume packs. At no point did I suggest it had better raiding or endgame content, or even gameplay than WoW. It's merely an example of a game whose design didn't have eight required support toons to actually drive the game.


If the experience you are describing is LFR and nothing else... you are still inaccurately describing raiding in this game. There are incredibly few output fights in this game anymore. There is maybe one or two per raid tier, usually at the early part of the raid, mostly to act as DPS/HPS checks. In other words, the few of those you see exist for that purpose.

Honestly, if all you are doing is your rotation and little else, I greatly question when the last time one has actually set foot in any of the content, difficulty notwithstanding. Honestly, if the game were that simple, it wouldn't take guilds like Method and Paragon and Blood Legion so long to defeat the content, and the rift between other guilds attempting it wouldn't be nearly so bad. If the game were nearly as easy as your oversimplification makes it out to be, pugs would be killing mythic bosses left and right rather than scrambling on LFR and Normal.

There's no need to get defensive, I admit my choice of words was poor, and not intended to be inflammatory. I've been in plenty of the content, I've done all of Siege, I like quite a bit of it. But the gulf between the top guilds and the rest is mostly just time and momentum. If you're fortunate enough to get in a guild that has a slot for you and isn't filled with ham-heads, you're going to down raid content just fine. But that's just the problem I believe needs solving: decent healers and tanks are the gating factor of raiding. How many raids have you had called because insufficient DPS showed up?


Class stacking Shamans (Sunwell pre-nerf), Shadow Priests with Valanyr (Ulduar pre-nerf), or Warlocks with Tic Tok's and Mages with Dragonswrath (Dragon Soul pre-nerf) just to have even the slightest chance of downing content, is kind of old hat, and extremely niche. If you want to have that conversation we can, but it's about as relevant as comparing the new lockout system with 40man molten core vanilla. Suffice to say, the point here is that those mistakes were made and learned from, and became long ago outliers for a reason. GW2, for all their smack talk of WoW, learned precisely nothing from it. Neither did Rift really. Lets not even discuss SWTOR, AKA Space WoW.

I don't think it's reasonable to hold up a 2 year old game to a 10 year old game and expect the same level of refinement. In fact, that was exactly the point I was making when I brought it up: WoW had to learn lessons during their life cycle, and they had precursors to learn from as well. Balance is hard, regardless of what your coop model is.

Look, I didn't intend this thread to become an indictment of WoW. That's a wild misrepresentation of my position. There's a LOT I like about WoW, including WoW raiding. And I wouldn't have the first problem with the tank/healer/dps triad if it weren't for this pesky tank and healer shortage it's plagued the game with. If you think the triad is utterly necessary to make challenging, fun raid content, then I won't presume to debate you, it sounds like you've done a lot more raiding than I have. But I've played a LOT of multiplayer games that completely dispense with the notion of a full-time healer, and it's my opinion that WoW could do it too, without compromising on the quality of content they deliver.

[The_Jackal]

My 44 War disagrees with you. I stopped using it to tank honestly. The damage and threat gen on it is just not worth it over thunderclap and devastate.

When you're fighting something that can actually hurt you, you're going to need the rage for barrier or block.

[ryuplaneswalker]

My 44 War disagrees with you. I stopped using it to tank honestly. The damage and threat gen on it is just not worth it over thunderclap and devastate.

Are you using an Heirloom weapon?

[Togath]

Anyone have advice for warrior and/or dk tanking?
Been thinking of trying tanking with them.. But I don't really know where to start.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Anyone have advice for warrior and/or dk tanking?
Been thinking of trying tanking with them.. But I don't really know where to start.

For DK? Don't it is kinda bad right now, our mechanics are not at all good, but if you really wanna do it Mastery, Multistrike and Haste are the go to stats, other than that it is just kinda..face roll.

Warrior is fun though, general opinion is stack crit and mastery to the moon.

[Icewraith]

Warriors are fun, charge is still one of the best abilities in the game even if it doesn't stun anymore. The rotation is dynamic enough to not become stale without being hideously complex, you mitigate damage instead of taking it and getting healed (minor drawback when soloing, significant advantage in a 5 man or raid), your general mobility is excellent...

From what I've been hearing, bonus armor is the way to go when you can get it, followed by mastery and crit. Both interact with your rage generation in significant ways on top of flat-out adding to damage.

When tanking on a warrior, think of yourself as a dps class that has to watch its health. You want to shield slam on cooldown, revenge on cooldown, and fill in with devastate. For multiple targets Thunderclap to pick up adds (if you have shockwave or dragon's roar talented use those), then use revenge on cooldown, shield slam when revenge and Tclap are on CD, and devastate when those are on CD (once you have enough crit, you should mostly be sitting on revenge if three or four mobs are hitting you). When things are hitting you and you have enough rage, use shield block- it's six seconds of guaranteed 30% non-special damage reduction minimum, it generates more rage, and if you have heavy repercussions talented your shield slam damage increases. If you're about to eat a magic attack or you're not at full health use Shield Barrier.

If you're facing a constant or irregular stream of adds, save Tclap to pick up new waves and spam Revenge otherwise (you can also heroic leap in a pinch). You can be a bit more liberal with Tclap if you have Shockwave, Dragon roar, or Ravager talented but your main goal is to hit everything and get threat on it before your squishier pals do.

If your health drops really low, it's time to use Last Stand and your talented health regen ability (maybe shield barrier for some more breathing room unless a lot of things are beating on you, if you have Impending Victory you should use it a bit more proactively when you need healing). If you know you're about to take a ton of damage (like some dps just pulled the entire room and you picked it all up), it may be time for shield wall (40% flat damage reduction IIRC).

When incite procs you get a free heroic strike. Always use it, it's free and never uses a GCD. If you're filling up on rage and aren't worried about survival, you can dump some rage into heroic strikes as well (or just use shield block unless you already are).

Don't use taunt unless you need to pull something off someone else. If you are tanking with another tank, it's generally considered to be bad form to taunt mobs off the other tank unless it's required by the raid mechanics (or the other tank is going to die). If the other tank picks everything possible up, you can probably taunt one mob off him just so you have something beating on you to give you rage from critical blocks (this is also less of an issue since vengeance is gone).

Oh, and while charge is fun to use, don't charge out of range of your healers, or if you do, heroic leap back. You can also time a charge into a heroic leap so you get the rage generation and the initial burst of aoe damage. Safeguard/Intervene is a useful way to save people from death (and a mobility tool, you can intervene to people while in midair), but be careful about intervening the other tank on certain boss fights. There are a couple bosses where intervening the tank will refresh whatever debuff the boss puts out.

[Karoht]

And yet all those raid mechanics are about one of two things: switching targets or moving your butt to the right spot, and doing the right thing is largely a function of having DBM installed and up to date and having read about the fight offline. It's a challenge only to your patience, especially when you're partied with people who refused to do those things. I submit that the game would be better with fewer mechanics you need to research and 'push button to not die' decisions, and instead presented players with more intuitive, more chaotic, and less curated gameplay.
Again I sincerely doubt you've done any raiding in the last 3 tiers, outside of LFR. The number of fights I can boil down to such a piddly set of mechanics is pretty minor. Even LFR versions of fights don't line up so such oversimplification.

Before I go fight for fight on this argument, I'm going to point out the obvious, that mods like DBM and websites like Icy-Veins.com wouldn't exist if the fights were as easy and simplistic as you claim them to be. The race for world first would have many more guilds vying for top spot rather than the same top 5 every tier.


Dogs-Output check mostly. Tanking the right dogs while dpsing the right dogs, avoid stuff, soaking damage at the right time to remove fire chains, healing output check with jade dog. On heroic, add in the floor tiles which created a DPS timing check as well as a HPS timing check. Healers need to coordinate cooldowns and due to poor mana management at the beginning of the tier, also need to lean hard on their efficient heals.
Feng-Tank skill check. Maximizing Shroud and Barrier along with standard active mitigation effects (AME) usage greatly reduce HPS requirement. Avoiding stuff. Wildfire Spark and Draw Flame do cause raid members to run away, but based on their movement capabilities this allows them to not only take less damage and maintain uptime on boss (or minimize downtime) it also determines how many damage stacks the boss gets when he performs Draw Flame. Extra phase on heroic requires coordinated usage of CC abilities, and due to the short reaction time, often required twitch reactions
Garajal-DPS output check, healing output check, Tanks swapping and not wasting mitigation on his shadow attacks. Spirit World required raidwide coordination to determine when someone should or should not go, rather than any old twit going whenever they felt like. Due to the mana regen effects of the spirit world, healers also had to coordinate this tightly. Heroic added in the random factor of banishment, and those banished needed to assist the tanks before working on voodoo dolls or the tank dies.
Spirit Kings-Spread, Stack, Duck, Dodge, Dive. The first heavy avoidance fight in the tier. On heroic you are constantly avoiding something. CC required for Undying Shadows, interrupts required here and there. Of most important note was Meng and his insanity bar as well as his raidwide Maddening Shout, which required players to switch from single target damage to cleave effects without requiring adds involved in the fight. Heroic Mode introduced a new mechanic for each of the 4 bosses, typically requiring a very tight stop to DPS or the raid dies. Since the abilities were not on timers and could be very random, it was easy for an entire raid to die due to a shield exploding, so raid leaders basically had to be psychic and order a target swap or a stop of all damage before the shield went out or risk a wipe.
Elegon-A survival fight. You had to take your time with this and then sprint at the end. In addition to having an add that had to be killed with specific timing and in a specific place, players also had a buff/debuff they had to manage in order to not die. Far more nuanced than a "don't stand in bad" effect. Stage Two was just a fun little gimmick, mostly boiled down to target assignments, Stage 3 on Heroic required CC to keep the adds from murdering people before your tanks/healers could help them, Stage 4 was a soft enrage burn phase.
Emperor-A survival fight with some small DPS checks. Adds to be killed in a priority, dodge the bad everywhere, CC coordination was critical on heroic, and the dodging stuff gave everyone who succeeded a bonus bit of damage in the form of a big fat button to click. Challenging but extremely fun.



Zorlok-Avoidance and communication check. Sure, the effects are simple to avoid and handle, in fact one could even say that this fight was a template for Garrosh. His Force and Verve which spawned shields to hide in was fun, but required communication to ensure the right people were in the right shields, or they would just take a boatload of damage and die. Attenuation was easy to avoid if you knew how but if you lagged you died. He was a sincere pain on Heroic, on 10m it was believed unbeatable due to the splitting required.
Tayak-Spread, Stack, Run. Avoid damage, bait tornados into a safe enough area to buy you more space (similar to baiting the fire on Firefighter), spread and stack appropriately. Dodge stuff on the wind tunnels. Easy gimmick fight, even on heroic.
Garalon-Can you avoid one big yellow circle? Can you stand in smaller red circles? Can you kite? Welcome to a fight that had incredibly simple mechanics but stalled so many players, even on LFR difficulty where his Crush mechanic practically tickled. The trick to this fight that no one got if the didn't do it on heroic was having a kill order for the legs. Seriously. This fight stands directly in opposition to the idea that the game is easy, 'it's all rotation and dodging stuff.' This fight couldn't have been easier if Patchwerk himself designed it, yet it was honestly a stall point for LFR and pugs, even normal and heroic guilds had a tendency to stall on this fight until it was nerfed.
Kill order for the legs was kill the outside legs first (range nuked them), and have everyone stand on the inside set of legs and cleave from the boss to the inside legs, not cleave the legs.
MelJarak-{insert John Madden diagram} coordination check fight. Kill order, TIGHT HPS requirements pre-nerf heroic 10m, tight interrupts required on Battlemenders on 10m, and the CC had to be really on the ball, especially if something went wrong. If the CC broke somehow, it was incredibly difficult to recover, and was often the wipe inducer right there.
Amber Shaper UnSok-To quote the Fatboss video: "AMBER AMBER AMBER AMBER AMBER!!!!11!" In addition to requiring players to randomly be in a vehicle who's abilities and timing requirements were incredibly vague, and if anyone screwed up the vehicle portion, it was a wipe. Besides that it was a pretty straight forward encounter.
Empress-Inverse logic is best logic! If you get a dot, and there's a void zone, what do you normally do? Get rid of the dot and avoid the zone. Not on this fight. Stand in that void zone. Quickly.
This was how you dealt with Cry of Terror and Disonance Field, as well as Amber Trap. Amber Trapping the right mob proved neigh impossible in LFR, pugs rarely seemed to figure out how to not fail at this task, the wrong mob always seemed to end up in the trap. And poison drenched armor? It was almost always dispelled in pugs, rarely used for it's intended purpose either. Shame really.



Protectors-Choose your own ass whupping. Kill order gone wrong made the fight harder for no reason, kill order gone right got you better loot with a pretty difficult encounter, kill order gone really right was a pretty simple encounter. Tricky kill timing on globes, ninja fast dispels on Lightning Prison, and on heroic mode we have the minion of fear, which has to be killed, it's buff/debuff has to be absorbed, and with a really specific order of who absorbs and when.
TsuLong-Gimmick fight. Straight forward. DPS at night, HPS during day, manage adds appropriately, avoid bad stuff. The adds can and should be CC'd (cue the resto druid who spams Typhoon and Ursol's Vortex on cooldown), but that's about it.
Lei Shi-Gimmick fight again. Random abilities being random, Hide, Get Away, and Protect. Hide required AoE and some communication, Get Away required some movement control, Protect required some tanking/CC and some burst DPS. Heroic Mode has Scary Fog debuff, which was actually very fun to manage as both a positional and damage dealt/taken effect.
Sha of Fear-Coordination/Execution fight. Randomly pulls people to the platforms, which means you can't plan for it or assign people to the duty. Also of note, on heroic the platform guardians will drop most people in two hits with their spray, never mind the fear mechanic. Tanks absolutely MUST collect orbs during the Death Blossom ability, and they MUST pop a defensive while running, probably two defensive abilities chained. Also on Heroic, transferring the Fading Light buff around in order to break fears from Huddle in Terror required some serious coordination. And you also have to kite via passing that buff around as well, but not too much or the raidwide damage will wipe everyone so again, requires some serious coordination. Incredibly hard to kill spawns fast enough and still have enough uptime on the boss to kill him.



JinRokh-DPS check. What it says on the tin. Some avoidance mechanics, surprisingly a few that can one shot or insta wipe if they are mishandled. On heroic it was much harder to survive the lightning storms and the debuff was even more important to manage properly or you wipe.
Horridon-Tanks gonna tank. DPS gonna kill adds and get uptime on the boss when they can. Stacking adds on the bosses flank = cleave fun. Lots for healers to do, as there is a lot of spikey damage along with things like dispel spam to worry about. If you dispel on CD, you still can't keep up with all the dots all the time, so as a healer you have to make triage decisions on dots and dispels. Hex of Confusion was very lethal to the wrong people. Also, certain healers can't dispel certain dots, so that was a problem. Also, Frozen Orbs were surprisingly hard to avoid and still be within range to heal people or nuke adds. And those bear swipes could one shot clothies with poor gear. Not much different on heroic beyond the fact that disarming Jalak was pretty much a requirement early in the tier. Oh, and the Direhorn spirit who would kill you if you let it get close to you, but you could easily kite because any damaging effect was a knockback. Really annoying for healers though.
Zandalari Council-Coordination and DPS check. It was stack spread duck dodge dive time again, and there was something always to be avoiding. Or kiting. Or stacking in. Or CCing. And the empowerment meant that you were constantly changing focus in addition to avoiding something new. On heroic we get Soul Fragments, abilities working opposite of normal mode, and Twisted Fate. What's that, healers just push up green bars? Nope, not this resto druid. I had to get to the middle of every Twisted Fate, knock one of them back with Typhoon and Ursol's Vortex immediately, or we wiped. Fun times.
Tortos-Survival check with some DPS management. Kill turtles, manage the turtle shells to interrupt boss from wiping the raid. Also, bats had to be kited constantly on Heroic, and there was a nifty damage absorb/shield on Heroic that was lots of fun to goof off with. Plenty of void zones to avoid, some unavoidable damage here and there. Also, to help our DK kite the bats, myself and another druid had to alternate our Stampeding Roars, as well as Typhoon + Ursol's just seconds before the automatic stun that went out periodically. Timing those CD's and topping the healing meter, and still getting more damage output than the Disc Priest in our group? Yeah, just pushing up green bars, that's all I do.
Megaera-Heads = Kill order. Kill order controls the fight. Most of this fight involved groups figuring out what way they had to overcome certain specific problems at different stages, and it also involved people learning to run the heck away when told to. Heroic was hell until we had enough cleave damage to reliably take care of the adds, and a few things like stuns and yet more use of Ursol's Vortex and similar effects.
Ji-Kun-Pandaren for "Chicken" I'm sure of it. Gimmick fight mostly. Flying to nests to manage those problems, Ji-Kun on the platform was surprisingly simple to handle. Tanks enjoyed keeping their Vengence up by going around and soaking a few poison puddles while waiting for the tank swap, healers got in on that action too. Movement powers to avoid being pushed off the platform, but most guilds just stacked up and used the warlock portals all down a single lane for emergencies. Fliers trying to catch "feed young" AKA bird vomit for a DPS boost was a bit silly and required some flying skill. Sadly, the only heroic mode requirement was that you needed a tank in each flying group, though most groups got away with a DPS plate wearer or some clever ability usage by Rogues, or Warlocks using their Void Walkers, or Feral Druids standing in Bear form, or DPS Monks. Even Moonkin got in on the action from time to time, or so I heard tell.
Durumu-Oh this fight. How I missed it. Avoidance taken up a notch. Soaking Life Drain was a team sport, running the maze was brutal yet it made you feel like a god if you survived. Of note was the tank damage management effect. Tanks could survive all kinds of damage if they were clever, and if the healers were smart about timing their big heals, a tank swap wasn't really all that necessary. The colorblind phase or rainbow phase was rather annoying to coordinate, but coordination was really what that phase was all about, not much else. You had excellent control of the phase, the faster your people worked together, the faster it was over. Still, so many ways to wipe on that point. Heroic mode was annoying, but just upped the ante so very well. Colorblind phase was harder due to another color to worry about, Life Drain was much more of a problem and needed cooldowns to really survive it. Dark Plague was an absolute annoyance, and if you had the Life Drain target you with that up you could be in serious trouble. The frozen walls on the maze phase weren't really much of a problem, so long as your raid was smart and actually changed targets and used AoE to hit multiple points on the wall. The day we got this fight on farm, it honestly felt like we had really accomplished something great.
Primordius-Step in red, don't step in purple, kill adds hard and fast, don't let the boss step in anything, oh and the pools move towards the boss. Greaaaaat. Heroic mode added another type of add to be tanked, but also added a buff to compensate.
Dark Animus-This was an add control fight on steroids. And on Heroic? If you screwed up even one add being killed in the wrong place or at the wrong time? Reset because you'll probably wipe on the enrage. The strategy page on this fight is HUGE, which is saying something given that there are only a handful of effects going on. Special mention to Matter Swap which required very tight timing to dispel, as if you were off by a second you could kill one or both people affected.
Iron Qon-Oh this fight. Windstorms that could just murder whole raids at a time. On Heroic, Arc Lightning was a debuff to be managed with quality positioning, and if you couldn't get it to drop by phase 3 or 4 from everyone in the raid, chance are good the soft enrage of phase 4 would kill you. Oh, and Phase 4. On heroic, he gets all of his dogs back. Yaaaaay.
Twin Consorts-The constellation mechanic was pretty awesome. Beast of Nightmares was interesting for punishing spam heals, and I was always amazed how few healers understood this mechanic. Interestingly on this fight, one had to loosely stack around a point, and only when the timing was right, actually stack on it or risk being knocked off the safe spot. And Heroic. The invisible adds being only revealed by a highly damaging AoE? Oh man that was a pain.
Lei Shen-This fight was highly controllable, which is what made it extra interesting. Most of the fight was spread and stack, AoE and Burst Single Target, lots of transitions like that. Good old bouncing bolt, so good at wiping groups. Nothing like having a split second from one effect to get half way across the room to get hit by Bouncing Bolt. Oh look, you're going to make it... no you aren't, Helm of Command, lols. And that final burn phase on Heroic? Oh man, so freaking tight. Very little uptime on boss and so many ways to die. Kudos to Blizzard for that sweet Lightning Whip effect, arguably one of the best in the game.



Soooo, where to start?
Immersius-Output, movement, and avoidance fight. Initially tight on DPS, slowly transitioning that difficulty to healers. Nothing really noteworthy on heroic. Seriously, Blizzard likes their split phase fights (A, B, repeat)
Protectors-Kill order, avoid stuff, DPS checks. Heroic is much the same, just harder.
Norushen-Manage corruption, kill adds and soak Residual Corruption. Tests based on role, really just a gimmick. Again, nothing really noteworthy on heroic.
Sha of Pride-Swelling Pride varying based on each targets corruption was pretty cool. Also, the pac man maze on heroic was amusing.
Galakras-Adds, towers, mini bosses, burn phase. Heroic only had an extra mob to deal with the towers.
Iron Juggernaut-Before anyone says this was an output check fight, I have to ask, how was one dealing with the Crawler Mines? Hunters, Paladins, and Druids using Symbiosis on Hunters, that's how. Those mechanics working in with coordination is probably the most important part of the fight. Some tanks could take a mine or two with cooldowns. Especially on heroic.
Dark Shaman-Mostly an avoidance fight. Iron Tomb was probably the most interesting part of Heroic. Worth it to split the two bosses apart.
Nazgrim-I loved watching LFR groups fall apart on this fight, based on the fact that they couldn't figure out how to not stack up absurd amounts of rage. Ravagers. Ravagers everywhere. Kill adds, kill banners, kill boss, dodge stuff. He was really predictable, but in a good way. You could tell his next move just by watching his rage bar and the cooling off debuff.
Malkorok-Avoid certain spots, keep track of them, stand in puddles to soak explosions so the raid doesn't die. On heroic, dodging the orbs to reach explosions was downright annoying. Oh, and the stack phase on heroic? Yeah, lets hear it for Druids with Stampeding Roar to break that debuff. While we're at it, let's also thank Druids for using Symbiosis on Hunters or Monks to get another cooldown to soak more explosions. Yeah, you're welcome.
Spoils-Add control fight on crack. High RNG element to the add spawns meant the raid really had to roll with the punches. Still, kill orders were the name of the game. On Heroic, the extra orbs were fun to kill as a healer. It became extra imperative to point that healing buff and line up lots of stuff to damage, the orbs primarily. Doing so basically enabled the DPS to ignore them. Sadly, so few people could figure out how to drop bombs and not kill other players.
Thok-DPS/HPS check. With a kiting phase in between. Oh, and just to liven things up a bit, lets make the boss spam a silence effect to prevent virtually everyone from doing their best or spamming heals. Awesome. How few people could comprehend that being in front of the boss was a terrible idea... no matter how many times the boss had turned them into exploding meat puppets. Once you got your cooldowns sorted out, this fight went pretty smoothly.
Siegecrafter-Dodge all the things. On heroic? Dodge more things! Also a conveyor belt with lasers of death. What's not to love?
Paragons-It was cool to see these guys back from a daily questing area to a raid boss. Very cool. The buffs you could pick up were really neat too. On Heroic? Being turned into a scorpion and having to find a parasite and eat it to turn back? Toxic Injection and Fiery Edge added a ton of random crap to the fight. Seriously, this fight was nuts on heroic.
Garrosh-Spread, Stack, Duck, Dodge, Dive. A lot of mechanics are back from previous bosses such as the need to stack up and cleave your raid team to break their MC. The 'Visions' really added weight to the fight. The Heroic only phase with the Iron Stars and Bombardment were interesting as well.



@CoH
At no point did I say one game was better than the other. I said it was an apples and oranges example. I outlined why it was an apples and oranges example. I am completely unsure how you got game A </> game B out of that. Really.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Before I go fight for fight on this argument, I'm going to point out the obvious, that mods like DBM and websites like Icy-Veins.com wouldn't exist if the fights were as easy and simplistic as you claim them to be. The race for world first would have many more guilds vying for top spot rather than the same top 5 every tier.


That is because the same top five spend 40 hours a week plus raiding on their mains and use alt groups to learn fights before going with their main group, I do not deny the work they put in, but Raiding is NOT that hard, it is about learning the fights and execution of anything else, and most of it is really not too difficult even in Mythic SoO, outside of specific class things.

DBM and Icy Veins exist because Blizzard is terrible at UI and presenting the information players need in game in a way that is easy to understand, WoD has taken a step forwards and backwards in that regard.

[iyaerP]

Does anyone know when the legendary cloak quest line is being removed?

[ryuplaneswalker]

Does anyone know when the legendary cloak quest line is being removed?

It already is on anyone who did not pick it up before it was taken out

If you picked up any part of it before 6.0 you can do the whole thing on that character.

[Togath]

Wait, so I actually can still get it(the cloak) on characters who started the chain?(asking since I still need to gather those sigils from raids, and there isn't enough time to get all of the drops before draenor releases)

[ryuplaneswalker]

Yes any character who had started the quests can complete it, My Rogue and my Monk both have it to complete.

[danzibr]

Wait, so I actually can still get it(the cloak) on characters who started the chain?(asking since I still need to gather those sigils from raids, and there isn't enough time to get all of the drops before draenor releases)

Yes any character who had started the quests can complete it, My Rogue and my Monk both have it to complete.
Currently, anyone who is not on the quest can pick it up.

I've heard once WoD hits, it's scrapped. Even those currently on it will lose it from their quest log.

[ryuplaneswalker]

That would be a really strange thing to do.

Of course Removing it as a WHOLE is a really strange thing to do.

>.> If I wanted to make a bonus for those who did it while the expansion was going..I would have a feat of strength with a title and the ability to purchase the 4 "Transmog" cloaks that look the exact same..and have the animation if you use them as a transmog source.

You know.."If you get it while it is current..You get to Transmog it"

[Seerow]

That is because the same top five spend 40 hours a week plus raiding on their mains and use alt groups to learn fights before going with their main group, I do not deny the work they put in, but Raiding is NOT that hard, it is about learning the fights and execution of anything else, and most of it is really not too difficult even in Mythic SoO, outside of specific class things.

DBM and Icy Veins exist because Blizzard is terrible at UI and presenting the information players need in game in a way that is easy to understand, WoD has taken a step forwards and backwards in that regard.

Think about what you just said for a minute.

You are talking about fights that take the best players in the world multiple weeks at 40+ hours a week to learn. You're talking about a learning curve for a single tier of raiding that is somewhere in the vicinity of 80 hours. For the best players in the world (out of a population of millions of players who have been playing for nearly a decade).

In what world does that translate into easy by any stretch of the imagination? That is more time spent than the vast majority of entire games out there. Seriously, even take a difficult fast paced action game like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, how many hours does a great player invest to be able to beat it on its highest difficulty? I'd guess about the same, likely less.


Your whole argument comes off as "It's not something I enjoy, so I am going to write it off as easy and dumb", rather than actually being rooted in reality.

[The Glyphstone]

By that logic, brain surgery is not that difficult either. It's just about learning the mechanics of the human body - one specific part of it for that matter, not the entire thing - and all it requires is years of medical school and specialized training.

[danzibr]

By that logic, brain surgery is not that difficult either. It's just about learning the mechanics of the human body - one specific part of it for that matter, not the entire thing - and all it requires is years of medical school and specialized training.
Funny you should mention that...

I've taught from low-level Algebra to Calc 3. I tell my students that math is impossibly hard if you don't know how to do it, and easy if tedious otherwise. When doing some integral which requires trig substitution, you can spend a full page on a single question, but if you know exactly what you're doing it's easy. Or in Calc 3 when you do Stokes' Theorem, the setup takes a long time, the actual integral even longer, but no step is difficult if you know exactly what you're doing. Same is true in upper-level math.

Either you know what you're doing and it's easy, or don't and it's hard. Not trying to choose sides, just saying either interpretation is valid. Personally, I think all WoW is easy. You just sit on your butt and move your mouse and push buttons.

But crawling on your back in a 2' crawl space doing plumbing? Something like that is simple yet difficult.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Think about what you just said for a minute.

You are talking about fights that take the best players in the world multiple weeks at 40+ hours a week to learn. You're talking about a learning curve for a single tier of raiding that is somewhere in the vicinity of 80 hours. For the best players in the world (out of a population of millions of players who have been playing for nearly a decade).

In what world does that translate into easy by any stretch of the imagination? That is more time spent than the vast majority of entire games out there. Seriously, even take a difficult fast paced action game like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, how many hours does a great player invest to be able to beat it on its highest difficulty? I'd guess about the same, likely less.


Your whole argument comes off as "It's not something I enjoy, so I am going to write it off as easy and dumb", rather than actually being rooted in reality.

I never said I hate serious raiding, I hate the culture that surrounds it, I hate the Pandering that Blizzard does for it in terms of pushing content that is not fully ready, but I never said I don't enjoy it and if I had the time to do it I would actually attempt to see how high I could go in it, the difference between the time needed for Competative Mythic Raiding and DMC is that if you run the hardest Difficulty in DMC there is one person doing the mechanics (and really We are talking DMC 3 here and that is mostly around mastery of the counter attack stance) and in Mythic Raiding there is 20, thus 20 times the chance of someone screwing something up and killing everyone.

[Astrella]

So I've been thinking of rolling up a caster, and I've narrowed down my choices to either an Arcane Mage or a Balance druid. Does anyone have any experience with either / can share some thoughts on how they both compare?

[Antonok]

Balance druid.

I did the same thing shortly after 6.0 with my druid since I wanted a second caster class other than lock.

I did not enjoy it. The damage was either pitifully low, or stupidly high. The rotation was just mash whatever button synced up with your eclipse to get as many casts of as possible before it changed, and despite having 2 healing spells survivability was rather low.

[iyaerP]

I really enjoy my arcane mage. The whole balancing arcane charges for firepower or mana for casting is a lot of fun.

[Luzahn]

I'm curious, does anybody who has played a Ret paladin have experience with other dps classes? I've gotten the impression that the mechanics behind Ret are rather simplistic compared to other classes, and with 6.0 changes they seem even more simplified.

I'm not complaining about that, I honestly favor a class where I can pay attention to the fight moreso than complex class functions, but I was just curious whether all of the classes are feeling that way now. I know my arms warrior and BM hunter seem like they doing almost nothing since 6.0, but I'm not quite in a position to evaluate that.

[Traab]

I'm curious, does anybody who has played a Ret paladin have experience with other dps classes? I've gotten the impression that the mechanics behind Ret are rather simplistic compared to other classes, and with 6.0 changes they seem even more simplified.

I'm not complaining about that, I honestly favor a class where I can pay attention to the fight moreso than complex class functions, but I was just curious whether all of the classes are feeling that way now. I know my arms warrior and BM hunter seem like they doing almost nothing since 6.0, but I'm not quite in a position to evaluate that.

My marksman hunter uses chimera shot and aimed shot. Thats... pretty much it. If im fighting an elite or something I might fire off steady shots till I can chimera shot again, but thats about it.

[The Glyphstone]

Destrolock:

-Cast Chaos Bolt.
-Send in the blueberry.
-Dead? Y/N
-If No, spam Incinerate until you have another Burning Ember.
-Cast Chaos Bolt.
GOTO 1.

[Seerow]

Arms is a helicopter.

[Togath]

My marksman hunter uses chimera shot and aimed shot. Thats... pretty much it. If im fighting an elite or something I might fire off steady shots till I can chimera shot again, but thats about it.

Replace chimera shot with arcane shot and aimed shot with kill command and you have bm hunter. Sometimes with Bestial Wrath thrown in(at least the extra pets add some variety.. still a little bland though).


Unholy dk is proving fun though, as has fire mage.

[Luzahn]

I was remembering DK being complex, but the last time I actually played one you could kill unholy DKs in duels. :smalltongue:

If the hunter and warrior examples are indicative of the rest of the classes, Retribution might actually be on the more complex side. I have five or six regularly used moves, plus cooldowns, heals and hands.

[Astrella]

Monk still feels plenty complex, and my priest didn't really change in any big way either.

[Seerow]

Monk still feels plenty complex, and my priest didn't really change in any big way either.

Pretty sure monks made it out completely unscathed. Really liking my WW Monk at the moment. Prot Warriors also managed to make it without getting gutted, so Gladiator is going to be a fun spec at 100.

Ret is in a decent place, fairly middle of the road as complexity goes (compared to the low end being Arms and Marksman), and up towards the top would be Monks, Ferals, maybe some rogue specs.

I don't play casters, so I have no idea where any of them fall. I have a few mage friends and hear some grumbling from them, but they still seem to have stuff to manage, it's just simpler than before.

[The Glyphstone]

Ferals are, and will always be, JOHN [NAUGHTY] MADDEN.

[Seerow]

Ferals are, and will always be, JOHN [NAUGHTY] MADDEN.

Is it against forum rules to provide a link to that picture?

[The Glyphstone]

Is it against forum rules to provide a link to that picture?

Ehhhhhh....strictly speaking, I think so, yeah. At best, it's fuzzy, and 'when in doubt, stay on the safe side' definitely applies here, especially when just giving directions does the same thing at one step removed.

For the curious, there is an in/famous flowchart diagram depicting Cat Druid DPS's complexity. Google 'feral druid john madden' to find it.

[Antonok]

Shamans made it out fairly unscathed too. Haven't noticed any real differences in ele spec yet.

[Luzahn]

Hmm, I might need to check out my shammy, then. Poor guy, I've been leveling him since BC, and he's only hit level cap for a brief time in Northrend. :smalltongue:

[ryuplaneswalker]

Unholy is pretty simple now..I guess

Apply Diseases
Scourge Strike
Festering Strike
Death Coil
DnD/Defile
AMS Soaking.
Dark Transformation who am I kidding Timmy's fluffy pillow hands means we can more or less ignore this at the moment.

Necrotic Plauge build has a bit more complexity..

Unholy Blight
Same as above, just make sure to get 10 festering strikes in the 1:30 that UB takes to cool down.

[Seerow]

Shamans made it out fairly unscathed too. Haven't noticed any real differences in ele spec yet.

Oh yeah, I forgot them. Elemental has always been pretty simple, but Enhance has a lot going on, and if you like high complexity with tons of rotational buttons, that's your spec. Like I boosted an Enhance shaman and I think I have like 8 or 9 keybinds just for regular damage dealing abilities. It's honestly a bit too much for me. I am more comfortable with 4-6, and prefer a spec with a focus on resource management over FCFS or Tons-of-Procs.

[Aidan305]

Main difference with ele from what I can see is that we're back to being the turrets that we were pre-cata. Fine as long as we stand still, but life gets trickier once we actually have to start moving around.

Oh, and we finally have our air/lighting elemental :smallbiggrin:

[Icewraith]

Main difference with ele from what I can see is that we're back to being the turrets that we were pre-cata. Fine as long as we stand still, but life gets trickier once we actually have to start moving around.

Oh, and we finally have our air/lighting elemental :smallbiggrin:

Most of the casters are supposed to be more like that, so they could justify reducing the number of silences, interrupts, roots, stuns and the like running around and consolidate some CC categories. IDK how they managed hunters, but I gather they at least lost some CC and defensive tools.

I'm all for cc reduction as long as everyone else's cc was reduced. PVP might actually be fun this expansion, the last time I tried it out I spent about half of the time waiting for fear/horror/stun/disarm/root to wear off. That pretty much killed any interest in getting back into pvp.

I started doing research to see if going for Realm First max skill Engineer was going to be reasonable and was surprised at how difficult it was going to be with the changes to professions. Then I did some more research and found out there's not going to be any realm first leveling related achievements at all. So I'm considering not staying up for launch (which is healthy) even though I stayed up for every launch since I started playing WoW. It's kind of a relief and kind of a disappointment. I didn't just stay up for past launches because I was going to try to rush to max level or anything, although I did score Realm First Zen Master Engineer (I might have gotten Miner too if I had done things a little differently), but that slim hope that you could, even if you know you weren't going to be the first to the level cap, was part of the allure. It's like sports teams- for a brief period of time at the start of the season, everyone's tied for first place.

I mean, I will have work in the AM and I can't just take the day off (been a lot of family issues and several funerals, I'm pretty much out of time off), and I lost the ability to be effective on low sleep about halfway through grad school. Staying up would not be the best decision ever.

But launch days don't come around very often. Some of my favorite WoW memories happened within the first few hours of launch. Running around with guildies and friends, talking on vent, the crowds, the bugs, watching things break under the sheer volume of people going into the area- it's great. It's also an experience you just don't get later since with all the people in the starter zones the mob and resource spawn rates are usually turned up to eleven. Post launch leveling versus more normal leveling conditions is like espresso and coffee- you have leveling and questing concentrated.

I might just leave it until night of- if I'm too excited to get to sleep, I might as well stay up and play a couple hours right after launch. Even if I don't stay up, I will be on at some point Thursday.

[Seerow]

I'm an east coaster, so launch is at 3am for me. So I'll be going to sleep early (around 6-7pmish) and setting an alarm to get up and play when it launches. It'll be a weird schedule shift for me, but should be manageable. Staying up for it would be much harder.

[otakuryoga]

I'm an east coaster, so launch is at 3am for me. So I'll be going to sleep early (around 6-7pmish) and setting an alarm to get up and play when it launches. It'll be a weird schedule shift for me, but should be manageable. Staying up for it would be much harder.

3am Thursday?
or 3am friday? so its still "technically" thursday..being 1159 pm thursday on west coast
like they did the later wings of the dungeon....... rassem-frassem...mumble mumble

[Togath]

Any advice for finding Zandalari Warbringers/Scouts?
I'm trying to get my Shado-pan rep up,and looking for ways to boost it faster(sitting at about 9.5k into revered currently, and I do have a commendation and guild)

Also: any dungeons/raids/mobs give Shado-pan rep?

[Vaynor]

Sigh. Blizzard gave me 7 free days of play time, and it worked. Damn you, Blizzard! I'll probably start playing again after I graduate in December.

[Antonok]

Any advice for finding Zandalari Warbringers/Scouts?
I'm trying to get my Shado-pan rep up,and looking for ways to boost it faster(sitting at about 9.5k into revered currently, and I do have a commendation and guild)

Also: any dungeons/raids/mobs give Shado-pan rep?

Shado pan or Shado pan Assault? The forme rjust do dailies (which are pretty much everywhere and hard to find), the latter just run ToT LFR over and over.

On the Warbringers, one spawns in each area aside from the vale (map (http://www.wowhead.com/npc=69769/zandalari-warbringer)). They're on a 45 min - 1 hour respawn time, and if its anything like my realm, they're going to be camped to hell and back because they're decently easy to solo now. Specially by hunters. Damn hunters... /grumble

[Luzahn]

Ooh right, I need to see if Ret can solo them now. I feel like stat squish + charms ilevel boost should be helpful.

[Traab]

So.... im roaming through plaguelands for fun, doing the caravan quest chain. Im at the part where the two wannabe paladins join you for a few quests and toss on some buffs. Now im one shotting everything and finding it hilarious. I love finding these little bits and bobs where the stat squish didnt take proper effect.

[Togath]

Shado pan or Shado pan Assault? The forme rjust do dailies (which are pretty much everywhere and hard to find), the latter just run ToT LFR over and over.

On the Warbringers, one spawns in each area aside from the vale (map (http://www.wowhead.com/npc=69769/zandalari-warbringer)). They're on a 45 min - 1 hour respawn time, and if its anything like my realm, they're going to be camped to hell and back because they're decently easy to solo now. Specially by hunters. Damn hunters... /grumble

Given that the warbrigners are sometimes camped(and the fact that I thought they were the same power range as scouts) I'm probably going to try for scouts(and the faster respawn time doesn't hurt), trying warbringers if I happen upon one.


In other news: Just found out a 90 can one shot the DHETA camp in Borean Tundra.
They even have loot*~

*not very good loot, but still :3

[The Glyphstone]

I want DEHTA/Hemet Nesingwary to be a faction rivalry in the next expansion, like Aldor/Scryers or Oracles/Frenzyheart. Test the limit on how far players will go for their lewts (or if they bother to read quest text).

[Vaynor]

Well, I've officially resubbed. My battletag is Vaynor#1882 if anyone wants to add me. I main a goblin blood DK on Kil'Jaeden, but I have multiple 90s on both factions.

[Luzahn]

I want DEHTA/Hemet Nesingwary to be a faction rivalry in the next expansion, like Aldor/Scryers or Oracles/Frenzyheart. Test the limit on how far players will go for their lewts (or if they bother to read quest text).

Out of curiosity, is siding with DEHTA or Nesingway the bit that tests how far players will go? :smallbiggrin:

That said, Draenor would be a great place to do some Nesingwary nonsense. I assume he's around somewhere?

[The Glyphstone]

Out of curiosity, is siding with DEHTA or Nesingway the bit that tests how far players will go? :smallbiggrin:


In my mind, yeah. People are kind of conditioned to help out Nesingwary kill stuff for the sake of killing stuff. See if they'll complete a quest where you, say, take a bag of Savage Sabertooth kittens to a den, then hit the bag with a club until the cries lure the adult Savage Sabertooth out of its den so you can kill it and loot its spleen.



That said, Draenor would be a great place to do some Nesingwary nonsense. I assume he's around somewhere?

Yup. He's in Nagrand again, according to Wowhead. Though at least on beta, he's just sitting by the lakeside getting drunk because everyone wants him to hunt the Iron Horde's wolves instead of really interesting game.

[Seerow]

Yup. He's in Nagrand again, according to Wowhead. Though at least on beta, he's just sitting by the lakeside getting drunk because everyone wants him to hunt the Iron Horde's wolves instead of really interesting game.

Which for what it's worth is ridiculous, because there's literally a dozen "go kill exotic wildlife" quests in Nagrand! Not sure why they couldn't stick with tradition and let him be the quest giver for those.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Which for what it's worth is ridiculous, because there's literally a dozen "go kill exotic wildlife" quests in Nagrand! Not sure why they couldn't stick with tradition and let him be the quest giver for those.

Cause they like have to subvert things man! its like ART and stuff!

[Traab]

So when do we get a dungeon with nessignwary in charge?

"After many years spent traveling the world, even to other planets, all in search of the next big game to hunt, Hemet Nessingwary has grown bored. No animal is a challenge. Even the biggest and strongest of creatures has fallen to his rifle. It came to him. The most dangerous game, is one that can think for itself. The most dangerous game... is us. Utilizing the vast fortune he has raised from his hunting efforts, Hemet has built a vast complex for himself and a few like minded individuals. He has stocked it full of traps, the most dangerous animals he can find, and fellow hunters. He has made a habit of kidnapping and hunting various champions of the horde and alliance, with an open challenge for all who dare to try and face him on his own ground. Are you brave enough to fight the greatest hunter the world has ever known? Do you dare to enter his lair and face the obstacles placed in your path?

[Icewraith]

Odds are I'm staying up for launch. Warlords hits in 15 hours and change!

Traab:
We'll never have Hemet Nesingwary as any kind of boss because then he won't be available to give out quests for the next expansion! Although, if the news from beta is any indicator, they might be going that way anyways. Also I suppose "Undead Hemet Nesingwary" could totally be a thing.

Also, his ability to one-shot raid bosses when he enters play makes him a most likely overwhelming opponent for a group of players. We can't win against hard removal. (Hearthstone Joke)

Edit: @Togath: Consider going for warbringers when possible. They have about a 10% chance of dropping a cool mount IIRC.

[Traab]

Odds are I'm staying up for launch. Warlords hits in 15 hours and change!

Traab:
We'll never have Hemet Nesingwary as any kind of boss because then he won't be available to give out quests for the next expansion! Although, if the news from beta is any indicator, they might be going that way anyways. Also I suppose "Undead Hemet Nesingwary" could totally be a thing.

Also, his ability to one-shot raid bosses when he enters play makes him a most likely overwhelming opponent for a group of players. We can't win against hard removal. (Hearthstone Joke)

Heh, but seriously, he could be made into an interesting boss. We make him an uber hunter. He gets abilities like aimed shot, that power blast you get as a talent at 90, scatter shot, and a small army of enthralled "pets" he sends after us each with their own various abilities for major battlefield chaos. Add in some achieves for taking him down without killing his pets for extra challenge, a raid boss hunter would be a pretty damn nasty opponent, especially with some of those talents. Such as that one where you disengage, jump back and everyone is rooted for a few seconds. Imagine him doing that, then winding up an aimed shot to cripple his target. Or to randomly target a raid member to shoot with the power blast, knocking back and highly damaging everyone between him and his target.

As for needing him to hand out quests, feh, he has already conquered the SECOND most dangerous game, women. He has been married for years now and has kids that still enjoy hunting animals. Im sure his sons or daughters would be glad to accept our help bringing down whatever vermicious knids we will find in future expansions.

[Icewraith]

Heh, but seriously, he could be made into an interesting boss. We make him an uber hunter. He gets abilities like aimed shot, that power blast you get as a talent at 90, scatter shot, and a small army of enthralled "pets" he sends after us each with their own various abilities for major battlefield chaos. Add in some achieves for taking him down without killing his pets for extra challenge, a raid boss hunter would be a pretty damn nasty opponent, especially with some of those talents. Such as that one where you disengage, jump back and everyone is rooted for a few seconds. Imagine him doing that, then winding up an aimed shot to cripple his target. Or to randomly target a raid member to shoot with the power blast, knocking back and highly damaging everyone between him and his target.

As for needing him to hand out quests, feh, he has already conquered the SECOND most dangerous game, women. He has been married for years now and has kids that still enjoy hunting animals. Im sure his sons or daughters would be glad to accept our help bringing down whatever vermicious knids we will find in future expansions.

I'm imagining something between Northrend Beasts in ToC, Mimiron in Ulduar, and Horridon from ToT.

I was thinking that Hemet seems to be too busy shooting and killing animals for sport to bother acquiring pets of his own, but there's always the kitted out war mammoth you take down the Red Proto-Drake queen with in Scholazar Basin. He could conceivably have captured animals he could send out to attack the party, but not necessarily while he's around. Unless he has some kind of masking scent so the animals don't attack him.

So Hemet starts out on his war mammoth, which needs to be tanked traditionally. He fires at raid members at range randomly and multishots a cone aoe that needs to be avoided every so often. He also launches freezing traps a la Shannox that persist for a short time before despawning. Players in a freeze trap gain hunter's mark, after a reasonable period of time if the player is not free of the freeze trap the mark ticks down and Hemet aimed shots the player dead. Every ten seconds or so he Serpent Stings the Mammoth Tank, forcing a taunt swap every few stacks.

At 80%, he coats himself in elekk scent and two angry elekks appear in the fight area. They don't attack players, but instead do a big charge->knockback on a fairly short cooldown that needs to be avoided. When Hemet reaches 60% the Elekk scent wears off and he shoots both of them to stop them from attacking him. He douses himself in Tiger scent and six or so timeless isle-style white tigers jump into the raid area and start doing their leap->cleave->autoattack thing (not simultaneously, one every few seconds). At 70% and then 60% he uses kill command on the War Mammoth Tank and all remaining tigers immediately leap onto the tank and deal damage that needs to be cooldowned through. At 60% the Tiger scent wears off and Hemet kills the remaining tigers with a huge Explosive Trap (also dealing large amounts of raid damage and dealing an extra 5% to Hemet's mammoth). At 50% and below, eight or so seconds before he does his cone AOE Hemet drops a Frost Trap that must be killed quickly, otherwise it will slow large parts of the raid for the upcoming multishot cone.

At 40%, Hemet coats himself in Gorilla scent. The gorillas channel thunderstomp in an area around them. At 20% the Gorilla Scent wears off and Hemet sets off another Explosive trap that kills any remaining gorillas. Hemet then summons out at least one of every animal featured in a Nesingwary kill quest line- panthers, crocolisks, clefthoofs, all of which do slightly different but avoidable things. At 10% Hemet drops Snake Trap, which puts the stacking dot "Snakes!" on the whole raid (and any remaining animals), runs out of the other traps, and no longer does the damage cone. This is the true burn phase, the War Mammoth gains Snakes! but this gives it a stacking haste buff and damage increase. Hemet still fires on random raid members and stacks Serpent Sting on the mammoth tank, this continues until the raid is dead or the Mammoth is dead, crushing Hemet as it falls.

Achievements: DEHTA hates you more! Complete the Hemet Nesingwary encounter while killing all of the animals before Hemet can.

DEHTA loves you! Complete the Hemet Nesingwary encounter with at least one of the stampede (come out at 20%) animals alive.

DEHTA loves you more! Complete the Hemet Nesingwary encounter with all of the stampede animals still alive.

[Traab]

I look at it like this, normally he is all about killing animals, but now he no longer considers them WORTH killing. Collecting some of the biggest and baddest animals and forcing them to do his bidding? I could see him doing that. I liked your mammoth idea. I originally just wanted to show how insanely dangerous a raid boss hunter class could be, especially with spammable skills like the ones I mentioned. Maybe make the hunters mark be like the warning for gheddons living bomb? Everyone sees the priest at the back with the mark and gets the heck out of the way, because a few seconds later a power shot will come through and blast everything in a straight line between the two.

Another alternative that would make heavy use of the knockback effect is much like the various tombs in pandaria, the floors are covered in traps you have to carefully avoid. So when you take a power shot to the kisser, or get whacked by a scatter shot that dazes you, you have a good chance of walking right into a nasty trap on top of the damage you took.

[Togath]

Is it true that Garrosh will stop dropping heirlooms once WoD releases?

[Astrella]

Bluh, got that unsatisfied feeling going again and now I'm thinking of deleting my priest and aiming for another healer class. :/

[Antonok]

Is it true that Garrosh will stop dropping heirlooms once WoD releases?

Yes it is, sadly.

I only managed to get the agil staff. Which 2 of my chars can use.

[Icewraith]

Yes it is, sadly.

I only managed to get the agil staff. Which 2 of my chars can use.

I have the str one hander, the int staff, and the agi staff. I was using the caster staff on my (tank/dps) monk for a while just because the base damage was so much higher than his crappy green, and all the stats except int were useful. I suspect the reverse isn't as useful as I doubt the agi staff has a boatload of Spell Power on it.

In any case, there will still be weapons you can acquire via normal leveling and at 100, so while it is an inconvenience, it is a temporary one.

Double Edit: I wouldn't delete anything right now, see how it plays out at the level cap. Disc is flat-out boring holy nova spam atm.

[Togath]

Only have the str two hander so far.
Trying to see if I can get in another Garry kill or two before midnight.

[Icewraith]

Only have the str two hander so far.
Trying to see if I can get in another Garry kill or two before midnight.

It's either going to be farm fest or it's going to be a wall of fail as people scramble for their Heirlooms and screw up the empowered whirling corruption->adds->stack->mc mechanic. I'm hoping for the first, but prepared for the second.

A str shield, bow, 2 str 2-handers, another str 1-hander, and 2 agi 1-handers would be really nice to have. Doubt it though, and if it turns out to be terrible I can live with what I've got already.

[The Glyphstone]

Let's see..my heirloom collection:

Heroic Int staff
Normal Int staff
Heroic Strength 2-hander axe
Heroic Strength 1-hander sword
Heroic Agi 1-hand Axe
Normal Agi 1-hand Axe
Heroic Agi Dagger
Normal Agi Dagger

[ryuplaneswalker]

I have the str one hander, the int staff, and the agi staff. I was using the caster staff on my (tank/dps) monk for a while just because the base damage was so much higher than his crappy green, and all the stats except int were useful. I suspect the reverse isn't as useful as I doubt the agi staff has a boatload of Spell Power on it.

In any case, there will still be weapons you can acquire via normal leveling and at 100, so while it is an inconvenience, it is a temporary one.

Double Edit: I wouldn't delete anything right now, see how it plays out at the level cap. Disc is flat-out boring holy nova spam atm.

Never Delete anything you never know what might change in the future.

[Luzahn]

Not that there are circumstances where this doesn't apply

See: my Draenei hunter with Ammo.

[Togath]

Intro was fun, though I did admittedly luck out and not have to compete with anyone(didn't encounter any other players at all, oddly).

Frostfire was much more crowded... At a single optional quest 0_o
The rares are fun, and it's nice to be able to solo them for a change(and there just so much hidden stuff! ^w^)
Also nice to have small-ish archeology areas.

You can also fish in the lava apparently! :D

[Astrella]

Having most of my characters on Defias to play with a friend is proving a bit annoying right now, server's been locked with a 1000+ queue for most of the day. :c

[danzibr]

Anyone hit 91 yet? I'm wondering for the improved versions of old abilities, does it give you specific ones at certain levels, or do you pick one per level or something?

[The_Jackal]

Anyone hit 91 yet? I'm wondering for the improved versions of old abilities, does it give you specific ones at certain levels, or do you pick one per level or something?

You get a random perk every 2 levels.

[Draconi Redfir]

i was online for the launch, but my highest level charicter was only level 80 so i missed out on the whole thing, couldn't get any quests from mr. archmage, and going to the dark portal just showed the old burning crusade scene due to a lack of proper phasing.

[otakuryoga]

got a heirloom off Garrosh normal last night 30 minutes before expac(more like 20..seems like they popped it 10 minutes early) and yay for me it was the str 1 hander for my pally tank main

went and turned in a bunch of dailies i had completed and waiting 8)
--epic pet dailies turn-ins are bugged..it offers me new ones..but i cant accept new ones since i am waiting to turn them in....... 8(
then it was off to WoD..til the server crashed and i went to bed

cooking trainer in the WoD "temple" is an Alton Brown expy ..rofl

[Luzahn]

For any other ret pallies / haste people: Going from 90 to 91 is interesting...

And by interesting, I mean a massive jump in global cooldown time. :smalltongue:

[Traab]

Dear god, Every server I have characters on, and dozens I dont, all have queues on them. Its been so long since this has happened, I never noticed this during the previous expansions. Maybe I can play tomorrow while the kiddies are at school and the grown ups are at work. Im not looking forward to the weekend.

[Togath]

A word of warning(not something that caused problems for me, just something I figured I should mention):
If you hit level 91, you will no longer be able to do random pandaria heroic, scenario, or heroic scenario queues(including the rep boosts that come with them, 700-1400 points per day).

On the subject of Draenor, I've enjoyed it so far. It's been fun, doing events and fighting rares when I find them while I'm searching or ores and/or archeology sites.
One event to keep an eye out for is "The Frostwolf Veteran" which can drop an excellent trinket for soloing(massive stamina, and you recover hp any time you kill something)
The rares Bashiok(Gorgand) and Breathless(Frostfire) both have some fun loot as well.:smallwink:

[danzibr]

Speaking of queues...

Demerit of having toons in an old server (was full back when I started in BC): 1400 people in the queue on a Thursday around 4pm.

Damn.

[Delusion]

Had some trouble with installing WoD I think (it didn't even use to fourth disc wtf) and when I log in I have absolutely massive lag. Like stand on top of khadgar for 2 minutes before he loads amount of lag.

I think I will focus on other things this weekend and play more next week...

[Antonok]

Got 96, have a lvl 2 mine, stables, and (will, once servers are back up) engineering buildings.

So far I'm loving the xpac. Story is quite good, garrison's are good (tho I can't see doing it on all 7 of my chars), and there's quite a bit to find from the rares and hidden treasures everywhere.

[Seerow]

Got 96, have a lvl 2 mine, stables, and (will, once servers are back up) engineering buildings.

So far I'm loving the xpac. Story is quite good, garrison's are good (tho I can't see doing it on all 7 of my chars), and there's quite a bit to find from the rares and hidden treasures everywhere.

Probably won't manage followers on more than 2 characters, but will totally level a garrison for all to get the level 3 Mine, Herb Garden, and Profession buildings.

[danzibr]

Got 96, have a lvl 2 mine, stables, and (will, once servers are back up) engineering buildings.

So far I'm loving the xpac. Story is quite good, garrison's are good (tho I can't see doing it on all 7 of my chars), and there's quite a bit to find from the rares and hidden treasures everywhere.
Daaaaaaaaaamn 96? Is it way faster to level this xpac, or have you played nonstop?

[Antonok]

Daaaaaaaaaamn 96? Is it way faster to level this xpac, or have you played nonstop?

Bonus objectives. Especially in Gorgrond. They give 3-4 quests worth of xp each. And if you buy this (http://www.wowhead.com/item=120182/excess-potion-of-accelerated-learning), makes it even faster.

Edit: Only played about 10 hours or so and would be farther but theres too much to miss to rush thru it.

[Draconi Redfir]

servers don't seem to exist for me today, anyone else having this problem?

[Seerow]

servers don't seem to exist for me today, anyone else having this problem?

They went down for maintenance at 5am pst (8am est). Are scheduled to come back up in 10 minutes, but it might get delayed again.


Edit: And in the spoiler is my day of leveling yesterday before finally falling asleep. Spoilered because it's kind of long.

Really slow. Mentioned before I'm hanging out with a few friends for a few days, and between the three of us something is always slowing us down. Right at 3:30am shortly after WoD went live, my computer decided a Window's Update was absolutely necessary to do right that moment (I never even saw the "click this to postpone for four hours" thing). That was probably the most annoying part of the night. But besides that there was a lot of delay when profession items started dropping in SMV because we all had to run different directions and taking dramatically different amounts of time to handle that (like blacksmith and engineering take like 30 seconds each. Friend with tailoring and alchemy took like half an hour while two of us were sitting around going "are you done yet?").

Around 11am one friend had to break to run to school. He was not able to clear off anything due to a test he could not arrange to take early. So that was a 3 hour total break where I swapped over to my Paladin to try my hand at mining, only to find mining nodes are a lot rarer than I would like, and it is super annoying. I think I will be better off just leveling up all my toons for the free mine daily.

Then of course there were more general delays. "Oh look a rare over there!" "How do we get to it?" "I don't know, let's waste 20 minutes finding a way around to it!", or "Oh hey I have stuff finishing up at my garrison let's hearth back for a minute". "Hold on guys I got distracted by an herb/pet battle/fishing pool/shiny thing, wait for me to catch up before you start killing !@#$". Oh and a couple breaks for food (once to set up the smoker to make some chicken. Once to make some smoothies, and once to head over to burgerking late in the evening).

End result, I think I got something like 15 hours of playtime yesterday, and am still in the middle of Gorgrond at level 95.

On the bright side, after crashing at 1am last might, I got to sleep in until just half an hour ago. That was 10+ hours of sleep I really needed.

Edit: On the bright side, we didn't hit the majority of the problems others were complaining about. Around 6am-ish there was a big lag spike where things got kind of weird, I think that was the DDOS attack Blizz mentioned. Other than that we got booted a few times later in the day when Garrisons and the World Servers were being weird, but never more than 15 minutes or so, and since we're not on a high pop server, no multi hour queues to get back in.

[Traab]

Dangit, stinking WoW. This morning was my best chance of getting to play the freaking game, so of course it stays down till everyone in my time zone is home from school. All my servers are once again locked with long queues. Its like im back playing vanilla all over again when they estimated a tenth of the number of active accounts they ended up getting. Im down to trying to join random servers just to start a newbie character to kill some time but the server switch attempt keeps freezing up.

[Astrella]

Dangit, stinking WoW. This morning was my best chance of getting to play the freaking game, so of course it stays down till everyone in my time zone is home from school. All my servers are once again locked with long queues. Its like im back playing vanilla all over again when they estimated a tenth of the number of active accounts they ended up getting. Im down to trying to join random servers just to start a newbie character to kill some time but the server switch attempt keeps freezing up.

Do the switch, when it doesn't load cancel out again and log back into your account it'll default to the last server you selected and usually work then, or at least, that's what I've been having to do to switch servers.

[Togath]

The crowds of people rushing into Draenor are giving me an excellent chance to hunt Pandaria rares(Zandalari one sin particular... Now if only I could get the Shado-Pan insignias to drop...).
Planning to finish up Anglers and Shado-Pan before I head into Draenor on my mage, because... Well. I'm 2-3 days away from my kite ^w^.

[Astrella]

So I rolled up a rogue to play with one of my friends, but I have no clue on what spec to pick. Anyone have any thoughts on it?

[danzibr]

So I rolled up a rogue to play with one of my friends, but I have no clue on what spec to pick. Anyone have any thoughts on it?
Yes! My one and only is a rogue.

All specs are viable and fun. Combat for soloing multiple mobs. Ass for higher single target dps. Sub for party play and PvP.

For style points combat wins. Two swords ;)

[ryuplaneswalker]

So I rolled up a rogue to play with one of my friends, but I have no clue on what spec to pick. Anyone have any thoughts on it?

Assassination is okay if you plan on chain pulling to keep Slice and Dice up, that and Mutilate hits like a truck.

Edit : I think I may have discovered the cause of the "Shield SLam sucks at low levels thing"

They modified Strength to only give 1 attack point per strength point when it used to do 2

They also Modified weapon damage to be half of what it was, however in GREAT blizzard logic they don't apply changes like this to weapons that are too old to matter, which is basically everything level 85 and below so weapon damage is much higher than it should be.

[otakuryoga]

Then of course there were more general delays. "Oh look a rare over there!" "How do we get to it?" "I don't know, let's waste 20 minutes finding a way around to it!",

yeah..shadowmoon valley is bad for that
and there is a village or two where you get sent from one guy to another one inch away on the map...but it takes 2 minutes to get to him around the giant ridge that cuts right into the heart of the place.......

no idea what the 92-94 zone in north is like but i am most likely going to take future toons there as soon as i get the quest sending me there (added bonus in that would allow me to not deal with silly blinding tree lovers sub-zone)

[Luzahn]

Frostfire is terrible with that as well. Due to, y'know, half of the terrain being massive volcanic crags. That the rare is invariably hidden inside.

[otakuryoga]

frostfire is the horde start zone?

almost like they want to discourage us..which they might have but that the expac seems pretty good so far otherwise

rares spawn often..and only had one that was unsoloable so far..but went down to 3 people with a little work

and some nice references
--Gollum expy in the bonus objective cave near start
--Alton Brown expy as cooking trainer in ashram
--Hypnocroak :tongue:

[Togath]

"I am Bashiok"

Also: any advice for specs good at AoE? I generally tend to enjoy them more than single target classes.

Coming to mind are Unholy and Blood(and possibly frost? I've never tried frost) DKs, Fury and Protection(and possibly arms? again, never tried it) Warriors, and Combat Rogues.
Any others particularly good? I am counting DoT heavy classes as good AoE ones, as long as they can affect more than one target at a time with DoTs(even if they have to apply them individually), Affliction Warlocks might be a good example(if I understand how they work right anyway)

[Antonok]

"I am Bashiok"

Also: any advice for specs good at AoE? I generally tend to enjoy them more than single target classes.

Coming to mind are Unholy and Blood(and possibly frost? I've never tried frost) DKs, Fury and Protection(and possibly arms? again, never tried it) Warriors, and Combat Rogues.
Any others particularly good? I am counting DoT heavy classes as good AoE ones, as long as they can affect more than one target at a time with DoTs(even if they have to apply them individually), Affliction Warlocks might be a good example(if I understand how they work right anyway)

Monks with spinning crane kick, Brewwmaster also has kegsmash and breath of fire (which a dreanor perk lets its DoT apply regardless). and WW has fists of fury which with glyph can be cast while moving.

Hunters with multishot and barrage. RIP Rain of Arrows

SPriests I believe have that one AoE channel ability.


In other news, now lvl 99. Tamed all the beasties for my stables, now just have to train them and get the lvl 3 blueprint. Also have a lvl 2 trading post, lvl 1 salvage yard, and lvl 2 mine. Trying to save my goods up to get the lvl 3 garrison when I hit 100. So far only have 800 of the 2k needed. Gold isn't an issue.

Didn't like Spires of arak very much (only zone so far I haven't liked), but Nagrand joins the awesome zone club. Have to give Blizz credit. They did amazing on the areas and story for this. I can almost forgive them of all the stuff they cut out.

Did the first quest for the legendary ring which you can start at 98. First part you just have to run a dungeon and you get a lvl 100 640 epic ring. After that you have to collect 5k apexis crystals and run 3 heroics. Dunno about anything after that.

[danzibr]

Man I'm jealous. Haven't even been able to play yet. First night terribly long wait. Second night even longer wait (over 2100 people in queue). This morning I wake up early and can play... and the servers are down!

[Seerow]

"I am Bashiok"

Also: any advice for specs good at AoE? I generally tend to enjoy them more than single target classes.

Coming to mind are Unholy and Blood(and possibly frost? I've never tried frost) DKs, Fury and Protection(and possibly arms? again, never tried it) Warriors, and Combat Rogues.
Any others particularly good? I am counting DoT heavy classes as good AoE ones, as long as they can affect more than one target at a time with DoTs(even if they have to apply them individually), Affliction Warlocks might be a good example(if I understand how they work right anyway)

Arms Warrior uses Whirlwind for >50% of their gcds on single target.

Their AoE/Cleave is just silly. Fury's got nothing on it.

[otakuryoga]

Also: any advice for specs good at AoE? I generally tend to enjoy them more than single target classes.

ret pally is quite good at AoE



Did the first quest for the legendary ring which you can start at 98. First part you just have to run a dungeon and you get a lvl 100 640 epic ring. After that you have to collect 5k apexis crystals and run 3 heroics. Dunno about anything after that.

i think thats all you can do atm on the ring (if i remember my quick skim through the guide to it on wowhead)

[ryuplaneswalker]

"I am Bashiok"

Also: any advice for specs good at AoE? I generally tend to enjoy them more than single target classes.

Coming to mind are Unholy and Blood(and possibly frost? I've never tried frost) DKs, Fury and Protection(and possibly arms? again, never tried it) Warriors, and Combat Rogues.
Any others particularly good? I am counting DoT heavy classes as good AoE ones, as long as they can affect more than one target at a time with DoTs(even if they have to apply them individually), Affliction Warlocks might be a good example(if I understand how they work right anyway)


Unholy AOE has...Issues, large unavoidable nearly unfixable mechanical issues, and that is without the massive bug that has existed for 2 expansions and the fact that transitioning from Single Target to AOE is not great.

Frost AOE...if you Dual Wield you can pretty much use your AOE rotation in every situation in the game since Mastersimple is still usable.

[Antonok]

i think thats all you can do atm on the ring (if i remember my quick skim through the guide to it on wowhead)

You get the 4 quests after it, and now that I'm 100 I can do them. Just farming the 5k apexis crystals is going to take some time.

In other news, I did some of the proving grounds (bronze tank and silver DPS, bot hin BrM spec). The DPS one is an utter joke. the tank however, is freakin hard. I'm only 598 ilvl and not sure what the cap is but jesus those guys hit hard.

Doesn't help that monks are really squishy this xpac. Like we can't take a hit for crap even with 300 bonus armor and some mastery/versatility.

[Togath]

Unholy AOE has...Issues, large unavoidable nearly unfixable mechanical issues, and that is without the massive bug that has existed for 2 expansions and the fact that transitioning from Single Target to AOE is not great.

Frost AOE...if you Dual Wield you can pretty much use your AOE rotation in every situation in the game since Mastersimple is still usable.

Could you explain both of these?
I haven't a clue what you mean when talking about the Unholy Dk issues(seems fine to me. deathstrike/outbreak +festering strike[dot refresh], scourge strike[spare unholy runes], or blood boil[2+ targets], throwing in death coil whenever possible and death siphon when I need a heal. Using summons on big fights, and my pet's uber form when it's useable), or what "mastersimple" is.

[otakuryoga]

You get the 4 quests after it, and now that I'm 100 I can do them. Just farming the 5k apexis crystals is going to take some time.

In other news, I did some of the proving grounds (bronze tank and silver DPS, bot hin BrM spec). The DPS one is an utter joke. the tank however, is freakin hard. I'm only 598 ilvl and not sure what the cap is but jesus those guys hit hard.

Doesn't help that monks are really squishy this xpac. Like we can't take a hit for crap even with 300 bonus armor and some mastery/versatility.

as i said..just did a quick skim of the quest guide..i know there is a point where you cant continue even though the achievements for it are already listed

[Draken]

You get the 4 quests after it, and now that I'm 100 I can do them. Just farming the 5k apexis crystals is going to take some time.

In other news, I did some of the proving grounds (bronze tank and silver DPS, bot hin BrM spec). The DPS one is an utter joke. the tank however, is freakin hard. I'm only 598 ilvl and not sure what the cap is but jesus those guys hit hard.

Doesn't help that monks are really squishy this xpac. Like we can't take a hit for crap even with 300 bonus armor and some mastery/versatility.

Five days if you do the 1000 crystal daily in your garrison. Six if you do the 800 crystal one and have some other source of crystals (I got some from the mine today and also Inn quests).

Another one for the 100 club, for the record! Did Shadowmoon Burial Grounds today and goddamn that was an incredibly hard normal mode dungeon.

[Togath]

Advice for garrison buildings?
Any point in building one for a profession I already have on the character who owns the garrison?

And stables, barracks or an inn first?

[Draken]

Advice for garrison buildings?
Any point in building one for a profession I already have on the character who owns the garrison?

And stables, barracks or an inn first?

Professions I would say depends on the profession. I am a tailor/enchanter and my assessment thus far is that the Tailor building is a must if I want to craft anything with tailoring, whereas the enchantment building is fighting for dear life for the right to keep its plot and it is quite honestly losing the battle.

For mediums. Barracks is kind of default. I went with the Inn but I am mildly regretful of it. I will probably replace it with something else soon.

[Seerow]

Professions I would say depends on the profession. I am a tailor/enchanter and my assessment thus far is that the Tailor building is a must if I want to craft anything with tailoring, whereas the enchantment building is fighting for dear life for the right to keep its plot and it is quite honestly losing the battle.

For mediums. Barracks is kind of default. I went with the Inn but I am mildly regretful of it. I will probably replace it with something else soon.

Barracks is large, not medium. Personally I changed mine the second I could into a Dwarven Bunker.


For Medium, I actually like the Inn. It gives extra followers (Invaluable especially early on before you hit 20), a daily quest to do a dungeon that gives some random trade goods, exp, and gold. And a level 3 garrison unlocks a very lucrative new mission type.

If I dropped it it would probably be for a Barn, as my second is almost certainly going to be a trading post. But I'll wait to see how much savage blood prices end up stabilizing at before making that decision.

[Guancyto]

Tier 2 Barracks is god-tier once you can get your hands on it, just for Bodyguard. I have a demonology warlock following me around who tanks everything, mitigates everything, barely ever needs healing and does a good bit of DPS too. I'm sure she'll become obsolete once I'm in full raid gear or something, but it's great.

For a Jewelcrafter, Taladrite Crystals are bop so you'll need a Gem Boutique if you ever want to cut any gems, and likewise with Alchemists, Alchemical Catalysts and the Alchemy Lab if you're going to make Greater Flasks (and presumably you are).

Work toward upgrading your Mine even if you aren't a profession that uses it; it gives a huge amount of saleable ore.

I figured I'd get the Lumber Mill for my medium while building the garrison because resources would be scarce, and that's certainly true, but, it's actually pretty underwhelming in terms of output. 20 resources every 4 hours is slightly less than your natural generation.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Could you explain both of these?
I haven't a clue what you mean when talking about the Unholy Dk issues(seems fine to me. deathstrike/outbreak +festering strike[dot refresh], scourge strike[spare unholy runes], or blood boil[2+ targets], throwing in death coil whenever possible and death siphon when I need a heal. Using summons on big fights, and my pet's uber form when it's useable), or what "mastersimple" is.

Unholy's AOE rotation requires using Icy Touch to set up frost runes as death runes, Icy Touch was next to blood strike not he "List of Death Knight powers that need to die horribly" Alternatively you set up your AOE rotation using two festering strikes to set up the death runes..but at which point most anything of consequence is going to be dead from people who can AOE without 10 seconds of set up time.

Frost has 2 Subspecs, 2 Hand and Dual Wield.

Dual Wield has two potential rotations, the master frost or the master simple. Master frost uses Unholy Runes along with Frost or death runes to cast obliterate so that you are using your unholy runes. Master simple uses Howling blast and plague strike to spend runes. Master Simple is not supposed to exist in any way shape or form, but since Blizzard refuses to understand death knight mechanical issues and actually solve them it has never nor will never die, thus not only breaking the DW frost rotation, but making 2 Handed frost not very worthwhile overall because Obliterate does not scale up with mastery and howling blast does, and at some point it is more beneficial to just stack mastery and multistrike to the moon, use the simple rotation that takes no brains and passively cleaves.

Hilariously with Plaugebringer and Necrotic Plauge Dual Wield Frost adds stacks of NP with every special attack they make thus giving it nearly as much strength in NP as Unholy gets with Festering Strike. (that is if NP were a damage boost compared to defile, which it can never ever be and not be broken numerically, because the power is incredibly flawed from a basic design stance)

[danzibr]

Finally got to play! 92 now.

Well something crazy happened. I did an instance last night, was top damage! This has never happened before. I don't think I'm a crappy player, but Combat Rogues have just never been at the top of an instance that I've seen. Like ever. Then last night I did substantially more dps (and total damage) than the other players. Hunter and Mage dps, Warrior tank, Pally healz.

I wonder if it was some weird fluke, or if WoD gave Combat Rogues serious love relative to other classes.

[Togath]

So...
How quickly do you think frostwolf pup prices are goign to drop?
Was the second artifact I found in Draenor, and I'm considering selling it, given the 25-30k price tag right now(and the fact that I like farming archeology).

Also: Is there something I'm missing about 10 hour missions?
I mean, I can run them if I'm heading to bed/away for several hours... But even then, I could've invested those three followers into three normal length missions(which generally have a higher success chance, at least from what I've seen so far)

[ryuplaneswalker]

So...
How quickly do you think frostwolf pup prices are goign to drop?
Was the second artifact I found in Draenor, and I'm considering selling it, given the 25-30k price tag right now(and the fact that I like farming archeology).

Also: Is there something I'm missing about 10 hour missions?
I mean, I can run them if I'm heading to bed/away for several hours... But even then, I could've invested those three followers into three normal length missions(which generally have a higher success chance, at least from what I've seen so far)

there are followers that lessen the time it takes to do a mission, however mostly they are the stuff you throw followers on before you log out for the day.

[Luzahn]

To be honest, I haven't seen to many missions I actually want to send my followers on yet. It's all extra experience for them, and I need those resources for other things. :smalltongue:

[Togath]

To be honest, I haven't seen to many missions I actually want to send my followers on yet. It's all extra experience for them, and I need those resources for other things. :smalltongue:

Some give you xp :3
Fairly large chunks.
At least one other(hearthstone tournament) also gives you a "toy" item.

[The_Jackal]

I'm positive that follower XP is going to be worth more in the long run than the trifling amounts of resources you're spending to send them to get it.

[Guancyto]

On the one hand, a level 3 garrison (and really level 3 anything) is bloody expensive in terms of Resources, and conserving them as much as possible makes some kind of sense.

On the other hand, missions can award resources as well as take them, and missions get far less profitable if your followers aren't up to snuff; they get half experience for missions that are higher level than them, and have a pretty heavily reduced chance of success. If they're too far behind, their abilities don't even count for mission conditions.

You'll get a range of mission levels, but when your followers are mostly level 91 and you're getting mostly level 100 missions... yeah it's a lot harder.

I would guess it boils down to whether or not you have an Inn. If you do, you might be able to afford to slack off a bit on XP missions because you can recruit more instead of improving who you have?

[Seerow]

On the one hand, a level 3 garrison (and really level 3 anything) is bloody expensive in terms of Resources, and conserving them as much as possible makes some kind of sense.

On the other hand, missions can award resources as well as take them, and missions get far less profitable if your followers aren't up to snuff; they get half experience for missions that are higher level than them, and have a pretty heavily reduced chance of success. If they're too far behind, their abilities don't even count for mission conditions.

You'll get a range of mission levels, but when your followers are mostly level 91 and you're getting mostly level 100 missions... yeah it's a lot harder.

I would guess it boils down to whether or not you have an Inn. If you do, you might be able to afford to slack off a bit on XP missions because you can recruit more instead of improving who you have?

Maybe but I wouldn't count on it. My first recruitment from the Inn got me a choice between three level 90 followers. And you get one per week. It was handy for me because it lets you pick the trait you are specifically looking for, and I wanted a follower to help with my Mine work orders as I didn't have one. But I wouldn't rely on it to replace leveling up your followers normally.


Also, for what it's worth you gain garrison resources gradually over time. So if you are a casual player taking their time and going slow... you'll easily have enough resources by the time you hit 100 to max your garrison. On Beta I was playing just an hour or two here and there, and by the time I got to 100 I was able to max the garrison and level every building to 2, with a couple thousand resources to spare.

By comparison, on live, after hitting 100 in the first few days, I had only 700ish resources out of the 2000 needed for a level 3 garrison. So now I am out hunting rares and treasures across the various zones to pick up what I can. After clearing out SMV and Gorgrond I am within 400 of finishing.

[Antonok]

On the one hand, a level 3 garrison (and really level 3 anything) is bloody expensive in terms of Resources, and conserving them as much as possible makes some kind of sense.

On the other hand, missions can award resources as well as take them, and missions get far less profitable if your followers aren't up to snuff; they get half experience for missions that are higher level than them, and have a pretty heavily reduced chance of success. If they're too far behind, their abilities don't even count for mission conditions.

You'll get a range of mission levels, but when your followers are mostly level 91 and you're getting mostly level 100 missions... yeah it's a lot harder.

I would guess it boils down to whether or not you have an Inn. If you do, you might be able to afford to slack off a bit on XP missions because you can recruit more instead of improving who you have?

It's not the Inn you want, the Trading Post is what gives you resource work orders. I only get 30 every 4 hours but that 1-2 extra missions to send guys on.

And I've been running the heroics today. Some are easy, some are a decent challange, and some, are just friggin insane. Warlord Zeala in UBRS and the entirety of Grimrail are hard. Almost got the Leroy achieve with a random pug a bit ago but we seemed to have missed a pack and he got killed.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Grimrail heroic mode is UTTER BULLCRAP in terms of design and the stated goals.

"We want to return to immobile casting for the most part" *goes to create a dungeon where every single mob in the place requires movement"

[Luzahn]

On the one hand, a level 3 garrison (and really level 3 anything) is bloody expensive in terms of Resources, and conserving them as much as possible makes some kind of sense.

On the other hand, missions can award resources as well as take them, and missions get far less profitable if your followers aren't up to snuff; they get half experience for missions that are higher level than them, and have a pretty heavily reduced chance of success. If they're too far behind, their abilities don't even count for mission conditions.

You'll get a range of mission levels, but when your followers are mostly level 91 and you're getting mostly level 100 missions... yeah it's a lot harder.

I would guess it boils down to whether or not you have an Inn. If you do, you might be able to afford to slack off a bit on XP missions because you can recruit more instead of improving who you have?

Personally, I've been recruiting enough higher-level followers through questing that having some lower-level guys hasn't hurt anything.

I probably will be spending some resources on improving my low level guys for sentimental reasons now that I've done some upgrades to the buildings I wanted, but it doesn't seem to be a priority. Unless simply having low level followers causes poorer missions to generate, or something.

[danzibr]

I probably will be spending some resources on improving my low level guys
I didn't know that could be done.

In other news, to follow up my earlier post, I did another random last night. Was top dps again, above the Warrior tank and Shaman and Warlock dps's. So weird that Combat Rogues are doing well.

[The Glyphstone]

Grimrail heroic mode is UTTER BULLCRAP in terms of design and the stated goals.

"We want to return to immobile casting for the most part" *goes to create a dungeon where every single mob in the place requires movement"

No, that is exactly what they are intending, you just misunderstood. Cata-MoP casting had an unfair advantage over melee because it could DPS at nearly full efficiency on the move while remaining at a safe distance. Their goal was to remove that safety net, and force a choice between moving and casting. Grimrail embodies that philosophy excellently - it is harder to play a caster now, because you have to DPS in between moves.



I probably will be spending some resources on improving my low level guys for sentimental reasons now that I've done some upgrades to the buildings I wanted, but it doesn't seem to be a priority.

How does this work? I'm told that follower level affects how much they benefit a building they're assigned to.

[danzibr]

Any of my fellow playgrounders have pointers for the garrison? Like what to build when, followers, spending resources, etc?

[The_Jackal]

Stockpile garrison resources, make sure your put a lumber mill in your medium plot, start leveling your followers via missions, and most importantly, don't forget to empty out your stockpile outside your town hall. You want to be stingy with your garrison resources, reserving them exclusively for sending followers out on missions. Don't be tempted for the XP potion or any other such guff, they're not worth it. You'll reach level 100 loooong before you'll have maxed out your garrison.

IMO, anyone wanting to get their garrison maxed out quickly will want to get a lumber mill, for the extra resources it provides, and you'll want to prioritize maxing it out quickly, so you can get the extra garrison resource income it provides and eventually recruit Phylarch the Evergreen (http://www.wowhead.com/follower=194.2/phylarch-the-evergreen), who will accelerate your garrison resource income further.

[Bulldog Psion]

Wish I had enough time to do the garrisons right now. :(

[otakuryoga]

just shy of 96 atm
and starting to see gear upgrades

will run a slagmine when i get home..do some more of talendor..and see about startin upgrades on some buildings

anyone seen an announcement for maintenance tomorrow?

[ryuplaneswalker]

No, that is exactly what they are intending, you just misunderstood. Cata-MoP casting had an unfair advantage over melee because it could DPS at nearly full efficiency on the move while remaining at a safe distance. Their goal was to remove that safety net, and force a choice between moving and casting. Grimrail embodies that philosophy excellently - it is harder to play a caster now, because you have to DPS in between moves.

Except that Grimrail on heroic is -constant- moving, every single boss in the heroic version you must constantly move or you will die, there is no choice in move or dps, the choice is "Move or Die" and it STILL does not fix problems that melee has, the problem that melee has is that blizzard has their heads up their rump when it comes to fixing the major technical issues in Melee Specs.

Frost DK stat attunement? HASTE which ranks at best the second worst stat for Frost Death Knights, Versatility is the second ranking stat for 2 handed frost, and frost has zero use out of the healing portion of versatility beyond it boosting up death pact, rune of the fallen crusader and AMS, only about half of the melee specs in the game stack their attunement stats, and 3 of them are multistrike which has a hard (not sure if reachable) cap, and 1 of which is enhancement which has a cap at 50% haste then it falls, and one of the multistrike attuned can cap out at 75% due to tiger strikes.

Vs 8 Caster specs (leaving hunters out since mobile dps is their thing) who have their top stat as their go to, the exceptions are Shadow Priests..who have stats based on talent choices. Elemental shares something of the same issue that Windwalker does as they get 20% extra multistrike for free, right now every melee spec has a major mechanical flaw, some that weren't there Pre-WOD, but there are some that have been in existence since Cataclysm.

For instance.

Due to the mechanics behind it...at some point Enhancement shamans won't use frost shock at all, it is not affected by stormstrike's crit buff, while lightning bolt is.

[Togath]

So (apparently) Blizzard is saying the events of this expansion will have no effect on lore(from what I've heard anyway).
That this is all taking place in an alternate dimension.
For some reason.

So what are the odds that "this actually will affect the timeline" will be a twist later on?

Just sort of disappointing to be told from the start "your brave actions to save two worlds will have... no effect on the actual timelines" :smallconfused:
I mean.. If nothing else, I was really looking forward to them possibly exploring more continents of Draenor and such.:smallsmile:

I do get that this would wreck the timeline and lore though, and remove the Horde, as well as possibly the Draenie, Orcs, Forsaken, and Blood Elves.

Still kinda disappointing though.

[Luzahn]

So (apparently) Blizzard is saying the events of this expansion will have no effect on lore(from what I've heard anyway).
That this is all taking place in an alternate dimension.
For some reason.

So what are the odds that "this actually will affect the timeline" will be a twist later on?

Just sort of disappointing to be told from the start "your brave actions to save two worlds will have... no effect on the actual timelines" :smallconfused:
I mean.. If nothing else, I was really looking forward to them possibly exploring more continents of Draenor and such.:smallsmile:

I do get that this would wreck the timeline and lore though, and remove the Horde, as well as possibly the Draenie, Orcs, Forsaken, and Blood Elves.

Still kinda disappointing though.

I'm not too familiar with what they've been saying, but are you sure it isn't just a case of the events here not altering our Azeroth's past? I mean, last I heard, both factions were stated to probably be drawing reinforcements from the Frostwolves and Draenei once the whole war versus the Iron Horde is over.

[danzibr]

Well, I know why I was at the top of the dps charts. Improved Blade Flurry. Outdid the tank, a shammy and mage, but only when Blade Flurry was up.

[Togath]

I'm not too familiar with what they've been saying, but are you sure it isn't just a case of the events here not altering our Azeroth's past? I mean, last I heard, both factions were stated to probably be drawing reinforcements from the Frostwolves and Draenei once the whole war versus the Iron Horde is over.

Yes.
My point is that I had thought the whole point of this expansion was that we were going into the past to change it.
Sort of disappointing to see it looking like that might not be the case.

[danzibr]

This morning I thought to make Assassination my off spec, and for two reasons: perma-SnD seems cool, and increased energy. However, when I switched to Assassination, my energy remained 100. I could've sworn it gave +20 energy for some reason...

The thought of having a butt load of energy seems cool, while not too useful. Glyph of Energy, that level 100 talent, PvP set bonus. Ahhh...

[Karoht]

So (apparently) Blizzard is saying the events of this expansion will have no effect on lore(from what I've heard anyway).
That this is all taking place in an alternate dimension.Taken out of context.
It will not have any effect on PAST lore. Ours is the central timeline, maintained by the Bronze Dragonflight. We are not altering the past of that timeline. After not drinking the blood of manoroth, the Iron Horde didn't instantly try and invade. They spent the last 35 years building up to invade the modern timeline. Nothing about our past is changed or affected, because we are all in the present, not the past.
For example, our Orcs will still forever be green (though brown might finally be an option on character select in the near future), even though Draenor orcs did not drink the blood of manoroth. Thrall's Doomhammer didn't suddenly disappear. Etc.
It will absolutely have an effect on the future.
Will Varian and the races of the Alliance be able to look at Orcs or the Horde as a whole in the same way again?
Will this cause another Alliance/Horde conflict?
What about Wrathion's meddling that started this in the first place? What greater role do these events have to play in his plans? What does he gain from all of this, or has his plan backfired somewhat? Or is this all going according to plan? INB4 Wrathion: The Iron Horde was merely a setback!
What about the Old Gods? It's been hinted many times that other planets also have Old Gods imprisoned in them. When Draenor originally blew up, did it release one that we have yet to see? Is that Old God still trapped on this version of Draenor? Is it having any influence on the the Iron Horde, or any other inhabitants?
And what will happen to the price of Red Snapper on the AH?


Just sort of disappointing to be told from the start "your brave actions to save two worlds will have... no effect on the actual timelines" :smallconfused:Perspective. You are preventing this alternate timeline from invading ours. No effect on the timelines? That's huge, especially if you know anything about the Bronze Dragonflight and what they do and why. We are literally saving all the timelines by not allowing the invasion of the Iron Horde. The Iron Horde will likely kill/subjugate everyone on Azeroth, including the Orcs, if their invasion succeeds.
And if our timeline falters or is dramatically altered, there are two possible outcomes. 1-The Titans return and reoriginate the planet in order to fix the damage, 2-When Sargaras/The Burning Legion arrives (and he will) Azeroth will be too weak to stop him. He will acquire the last bit of power from the Well of Eternity, destroy the planet (thereby freeing the Old Gods) and go ruin countless other worlds until the Titans stop the combined forces of Sargaras and the Old Gods. Which they likely can't. So the Pantheon falls, and the universe is basically ruined.

Your brave actions may infact save more than two worlds. They may save many worlds, prevent many timelines from unraveling, and in fact may be saving all of space and time.


anyone seen an announcement for maintenance tomorrow?Yes. It was on the launcher as of 6pm PST. And on the main login screen.

[otakuryoga]

And what will happen to the price of Red Snapper on the AH?


i hoarded some 10000 red snapper...damn things BETTER go up! :smallwink:

[Togath]

So it's basically the present, but a different dimension?

Also: just got the item that lets me upgrade one of the large buildings, any advice?
I have a stable currently, but it's tier 2 effect seems a bit lackluster(unless there's some hidden aspect, like giving more quests to tame mounts)

Also, doing some quests, and it's interesting to see the horde interacting with Draenie, and to see Shatarah full of life.
Shatarah did make me curious though: why is it full of level 100 demons when I view it fromba distance, but a peaceful city up close?
Is there some quest where you have to save it from being destroyed by demons?

[Astrella]

Is it possible to level up fairly well as a Mistweaver Monk without solely doing dungeons?

[Icewraith]

Hit 100 fairly easily Sunday night (could have gone a lot faster too, but had family stuff). One thing I definitely regret is not doing more research on EXACTLY how the garrison buildings work. I wasted quite a few resources (I thought the Bank and Trading post were better than they are), and now I've got 1300 or so to go before I can upgrade to level three garrison. What really sucks is the one follower who can boost the Lumber Mill's output isn't available until you get the level three mill. I'd have a bit more gold lying around to absorb that 5K cost if I'd been paying more attention as well.

I didn't see a lot of value in the inn, at least not right now- I'm already overcapped on followers without it and have a pretty good selection of abilities- I think the inn will just result in extra long term gold costs from reactivating followers. Even if I already had the level three barracks, there are at least three guys I missed in Gorgrond, I have one inactive follower, and one of the follower quests bugged and didn't actually grant me the follower.

Also, I'm not impressed with the level 2 barracks ability. I tried it out with the resto shaman (I leveled my Prot warrior) and he seemed to be fairly use-impaired and more interested in shooting lightning bolts than healing me. I'll try it out with the shadowpriest later perhaps and see how it goes, but IIRC all of the melee guaranteed bodyguard trait guys are tanks. Because of how I tend to pull large groups of mobs (just enough that I think I'll be able to live through them), I think having a melee dps that HAS to move around with me would stop the NPC from hanging out at max range and letting more mobs patrol into him (I'm pretty sure this is what has gotten me killed both times I tried him out). Maybe I'll end up getting an inn after all... later.

One thing I have noticed is that the missions that give resources are usually to the tune of 35 or so, and usually cost ten to run. I will risk ten resources for even a 50% shot at 35 resources and guaranteed follower XP every time.

[danzibr]

[useful stuff]
Any other pointers for going through Draenor? I just hit 84.

[Togath]

So.
Had my first run in with trolls/griefers outside of a random dungeon pug.
An entire guild of them.

I was in a raid(using a list of the order people joined in to determine who got the mounts from the kills) farming that Garn mount, from the Frostfire world boss.
After about 15-20 kills a guild came rushing in, pulling adds at us, trying to ninja the boss, and spamming us with insults.
My raid seemed weirdly nervous(why?) about opening tickets(or even just reporting them) about those *****.
They did eventually leave, but it did sour the experience.
Then an hour later, another raid group rushes in(not of the same guild this time) and starts stealing the boss, and insulting anyone who pointed out that we were here first, had been goign for five hours, and were still inviting.

Our group disbanded after that...

[Seerow]

I wasted quite a few resources (I thought the Bank and Trading post were better than they are), and now I've got 1300 or so to go before I can upgrade to level three garrison.

Trading post is super useful, especially early on. The trading post and lumber mill are the only real ways to boost your garrison resource income reliably. Besides those things, the only ways to get extra resources are Scavenger missions (unreliable and rare at best), and hunting rares/treasures, which is a one time thing. On the bright side there is roughly enough scattered around Draenor for a full tier 3 garrison. I managed to get myself from 500 to 2000 in 2 days of hunting, while spending most of my resources from passive gathering on sending followers out on missions.

I made a mistake in changing out my Barracks for a Dwarven Bunker early. All told it netted me 16 iron scraps between 92 and 100, and put me 300 resources behind, and I wound up rebuying the Barracks when I finally hit my tier 3 garrison. Not all that great of a trade. (Similarly: Investing garrison resources into Dwarven Bunker Work Orders, while nice for getting guaranteed scraps and the occasional follower upgrade item, is really rough early on because it delays your building upgrades. If I could go back in time, I'd save that 280 resources I dumped into 14 work orders before realizing how steep the cost for a level 3 garrison is).


I didn't see a lot of value in the inn, at least not right now- I'm already overcapped on followers without it and have a pretty good selection of abilities- I think the inn will just result in extra long term gold costs from reactivating followers. Even if I already had the level three barracks, there are at least three guys I missed in Gorgrond, I have one inactive follower, and one of the follower quests bugged and didn't actually grant me the follower.


The Inn's quests are great for providing new toys, battle pets, trade goods, etc. It's random what you get of course, but there's a lot of interesting things available, including at least one level 100 epic follower. I would definitely recommend holding on to an Inn long enough to work through all of the one time quests, if not after that through the daily quests.

The follower thing from the inn is a minor perk by comparison. The followers seem to always be 90, and generally green or blue, so any follower you pick up from it is going to be a project. It is good for filling in gaps in your roster. For example I used mine to grab a follower with the Miner ability, because I did not have anyone with it at the time, and I like getting bonus resources from work orders. I will be keeping an eye out for any monster abilities I lack anything to counter with to grab from the Inn in the future, but doubt it will be relevant for some time.


One thing I have noticed is that the missions that give resources are usually to the tune of 35 or so, and usually cost ten to run. I will risk ten resources for even a 50% shot at 35 resources and guaranteed follower XP every time.


Missions that reward resources do not cost resources. I didn't notice this at first because pretty much everything else does, but since I noticed it I have not seen any exceptions. So those should always be top priority with whoever has the best success rate at them, just because they are potentially free resources. Also, the Scavenger trait is great for these. I've gotten a couple of mission rewards (level 98+ scavenger missions) of 100-150 resources, which is amazing.

[The Glyphstone]

Does anyone know if or how much the level of a follower affects the bonus they give when assigned to a garrison building?

[Antonok]

Does anyone know if or how much the level of a follower affects the bonus they give when assigned to a garrison building?

For work order bonuses yes it does. I don't know the exact numbers, and trying to find anything on it has been so far impossible, but the higher the minion lvl = better work orders.

Edit: Sigh. Just found it. at 100 it doubles the number you get every time and not just randomly.

[Togath]

Came across a few more things(in comparsion to that troll incident earlier).

I finally have a character strong enough to solo Zandalari Warbringers, there's no competition for them, and their respawn time seems to have sped up(for some reason).
I also just found out I can send the +rep insignias cross server... Which means I should have fewer gold issues if I try leveling off server alts(since I can send and vender them for about 17-19g each).

[Draken]

So it's basically the present, but a different dimension?

Yep, it is an alternate timeline. Also, it is pretty much impossible to say when it diverged from ours. For instance, there is no Maraad there and no sign of him ever being on Draenor, but his niece (Garona) exists, and so his sister probably does as well.

I am hoping on Eredar-Maraad (from their timeline) popping up as a boss in the eventual Gul'dan raid. It would be quite something. With that Maraad having sided with Archimonde and Kil'Jaeden instead.

[Karoht]

So it's basically the present, but a different dimension?It's pretty obvious, but yes. The Iron Horde are invading now, not the past. The events we see in the trailer with the blood of manoroth happened 35 years ago, evidenced by the fact that the trailer starts off with the words "35 years ago." Grommash Hellscream (AKA Hellscream SR) has been building up the orcs and ogres all that time with the help of his son Garrosh, and dealing with other problems like their bitter conflict with the Draenei at the same time. Why 35 years? Dunno, maybe Garrosh told Grom to wait until this time, when he knew that the Horde and Alliance had just suffered some pretty terrible losses on the back of the Siege of Orgrimmar.

Timey Wimey stuff in WoW in a nutshell.
Don't think of time like a series of linear events like the way Doc Brown draws it on a chalkboard in Back to the Future. It's one of the worst ways to think about time travel according to quantum mechanics.
Think of Azeroth more like a giant computer. The Emerald Dream is the original Azeroth, like backup copy of the hard drive. Supposedly it also has a vision of the future in there somewhere, but skip that.
So every major decision going forward creates multiple timeways. Think of this like running multiple versions of the same program. Time is really nothing more than a simulation, the alternate versions of time are extrapolations of those simulations, or timeways. We are the central timeway, the Bronze Dragonflight works tirelessly to figure out which timeway is the correct one, and then collapse the remainders. Some get left open so that they can close on their own, some get closed via paradox, some are actually destroyed/eaten by Nozdormu himself. Sometimes Nozdormu leaves one open for a while to study what differences occur, what decisions were made to create a particular outcome, but eventually they all get closed. Then there is the Infinite Flight which mucks things up somehow, but we'll avoid talking about them for now.
Recall the dungeon where we went back in time and picked up the Dragon Soul? We plucked it from an alternate timeway that was slated to be destroyed anyway (Chromie and two other NPC's say this in plain text) and that timeway had notable differences from the canon history of events. Side note, the fan-dumb still took that as a retcon anyway, but that same fan-dumb regards Illidan as a good guy and not a bad guy so take that with a grain of salt.
Kairoz took Garrosh to one of the many open timeways and somehow used what was learned on the Timeless Isle to "Lock" that timeway open. Said Lock is somehow linked to the Dark Portal itself. It doesn't overrun our timeway, it runs parallel to it. Nothing in our past has been changed, just the past of this alternate timeway. Eventually, this timeway will have to be closed/destroyed somehow even though the Dark Portal was destoyed on the side of the timeway. Alternate timeways can't be left open for two long otherwise bad things supposedly start to happen. At least, according to the Bronze Dragonflight members that we have encountered in game thus far.

All of the above is explained in game and across several books involving the Dragonflights. Most notably in Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects, is where this is most clearly explained, other than wowpedia.org

[Icewraith]

I'm pretty sure we're being invaded by Alternate Draenor from 35 years ago + construction time. Grommash only refused Mannoroth's blood (in the cutscene) because Garrosh had already arrived from our timeline and warned him about what was going to happen. They already had Iron Stars in the cutscene so presumably Garrosh was there long enough for the Iron Horde to construct them from scratch.

The Iron Horde Dark Portal looked pretty well on its way to completion, and I'm fairly certain Grommash Hellscream wouldn't look as hale and hearty as he does if the Iron Horde waited 35 years after refusing Mannoroth to invade Azeroth. Also, the Draenai cities on Draenor should be even further gone than they are in outland if they had to survive 35 years without Khadgar or the Naaru. (Even though the Draenai know about the Naaru, it was KHADGAR who summoned A'dal and Tempest Keep in Outland, not the natives. According to him, anyway.)

Instead, the Draenai are surprised that the orcs are attacking them. There's no way that ANY Hellscream is going to be able to sit on an army for 35 years after it's ready, and the army in the cutscene was ready. It would have been ready, since before the timeline diverted that was the original Horde invasion force gearing up instead of the Iron Horde.

So we're being invaded by an alternate, past timeline. To put it another way, if our Garrosh can arrive in the past to divert an alternate timeline and cause trouble there, the forces from that timeline can invade us directly without waiting for their timeline to catch up with ours. If you look at the trailer again, I'm pretty sure the mysterious hooded Orc helping Grom out is OUR Garrosh, having escaped from his prison in Pandaria with the help of the timeless hourglass quest guy. (Hey, could you find me the most devastating future timeline possible in Azeroth? I'm totally going to divert it instead of making sure it comes to pass. Never mind I show up alive and well when you get a vision of the bronze dragonflight being butchered.)

Edit:

Other useful questing things. You get a token for the plans to buy a level 2 building upgrade at a couple points, so you don't need to blow gold on purchasing your first upgrades if you can stand to be patient. You still need to spend the resources to actually upgrade the building, but you'll be saving yourself 750-1k gold a pop for the plans.

Lumber collected by having the Lumber Mill building stacks to 250 and is BoP WITH THE UNIQUE TAG. Once you get to 250 lumber, you can stop harvesting trees for a bit since anything over 250 just disappears. Keep your lumber and Draenic Stone in your bags since the work order guys apparently can't see your bank, or those don't actually count as crafting reagents.

Get on the legendary ring quest ASAP (it's either 99, 100, or when you get to Nagrand), it starts off as a free 640 epic and the quest can be completed on normal difficulty. Khadgar's Zangar Tower is not in the Zangar Sea.

All the quest armor so far seems to have world drop green BoE equivalents, so you can safely vendor or DE most of that as it becomes obsolete without worrying about permanently screwing yourself out of a transmog item. Be more careful about weapons and possibly cloaks, and anything you get off a rare (although many so far are safe to vendor).

[Seerow]

One problem with Karoht's explanation: I think it's more like 5 years they waited, not the full 35 years.


Yes, Garrosh went 35 years into the past to turn the Horde into the Iron Horde and start the invasion process. But if it had been 35 years the characters we are facing would be much older. Orcs age just like anybody else, and 35 years would turn all of the warlords from Warcraft 1 (not to mention Garrosh) into old men, and we would be fighting their alternate dimension children. It seems like it's been closer to 2-5 years for them, not 30. Long enough to mass produce the weaponry and drive the Draenei to their breaking point, but not to completely dominate the world and usher in a new generation.

Basically it seems like what happened is the dragon who helped Garrosh in the first place helped set up the Dark Portal to connect 30-year-ago draenor to present day Azeroth. Still an alternate timeline, so no grandfather paradoxes or whatnot, but giving us a glimpse into the Draenor and Warlords that we never knew.


edit: Ninja'd