World of Warcraft XVIII: Draenor was merely a setback

[The_Jackal]

*The only up-voted thread title from the last one.

Yet more World of Warcraft and meta-MMO-related blather.

Relevant and Useful links:
Battle Net (www.worldofwarcraft.com) --official site
MMO Champion (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/) --news site
Blizzard Watch (http://blizzardwatch.com/category/world-of-warcraft/) --more news
WoWpedia (http://wow.gamepedia.com/Portal:Main) --encylopedia of the Warcraft Universe
Wowhead (http://www.wowhead.com/) --search engine for pretty much anything in the game. Items, quests, achievements, enemies, everything.

Prior Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?379359-World-of-Warcraft-XVII-Warlords-Gone-Wild/page50)

[The_Jackal]

Hit the post limit on the last thread.


Too be fair, the guild was specifically put together to raid. We had our fun too, but the entire purpose behind our guild, aside from being full of experienced gamers from everquest who al knew each other, was to raid. We worked our way up together. We ran all the regular dungeons up through ubrs so we could get everyone geared up. We ran tons of key quest chains and such so everyone was ready to go. We even farmed gold specifically for the respeccing needed at times back then. But since raiding was our big thing, and back then raids generally took several hours several times a week to run (im not sure what its like now) we didnt have a lot of spare time for profit farming. But we had enough to do what we got together for, so it all worked out. Also, drunken raiding got to be a ton of fun. Ever tried to raid end game content for upgrades while half the raid is blasted out of their minds? Its an experience, and ventrillo was a lot of fun to listen in on.

I'm usually the no-fun guy trying to get the drunk folks to shut up an pay attention to what they're doing.


As for attunements that you get as your progress, I could see that working, so long as it doesnt turn into another case of, noone wants to go there anymore, they have all moved on.

Consider this: How many times have you seen people offering gold in /trade to get people to help them do stuff? Well, what if the game held those rewards out on their behalf, instead of putting the river of gold behind the stupid mission desk?

[Seerow]

Think we could edit the new title down to just "Draenor was merely a setback"? It feels a little too long as it is.



Anyway, ignoring the current talk about vanilla raiding guilds and whatnot, did anyone else take advantage of the event this weekend? Rep from dungeons for the 4 grindiest reps introduced to WoW since vanilla! I had managed to grind two of them to exalted before, but I took full advantage of this to get my Shatari and Steamwheedle Rep maxed out this weekend; and even picked up Gnomeregan and Exodar while I was at it (hey, don't look at me that way. I swapped mains mid-Wrath and never ground out most of the alliance reps on the Warrior I've been playing ever since. Still need Darnassus and Gilneas to have them all).

So I picked up a few new mounts, some new tabbards, got my 45 exalted reps achieve, and can now say I honestly have done everything in WoD except for farming 5000 of those dumb blackfang claws. Oh and like 3 or 4 of the mythic dungeons, I'll hit up the ones I missed next weekend.

Highlight of the weekend: Doing a Leeroy run in UBRS since I was killing all of the trash for rep anyway, and finishing the last boss of the dungeon 2 full minutes before leeroy started running. Legit had enough time to run from the last boss all the way back to Leeroy, then run with him to the beast. Felt great.

[Draconi Redfir]

i mainly only focused on getting my laughing skull rep up, so i'm exaulted now and finally have my level 3 trading post. fells good man.

find it kind of odd that you get laughing skull rep from clearing Archendune though. feels like they would be more concerned with the iron docks, wich are kind in their land you know. idk why they'd care about some Dranei temple.

[Seerow]

i mainly only focused on getting my laughing skull rep up, so i'm exaulted now and finally have my level 3 trading post. fells good man.

find it kind of odd that you get laughing skull rep from clearing Archendune though. feels like they would be more concerned with the iron docks, wich are kind in their land you know. idk why they'd care about some Dranei temple.

It's because Laughing Skull and Shatari Defense are linked, and Auchindoun very clearly is linked to Shatari Defense.

Laughing Skull is probably tied more closely with Everbloom Wilds? I dunno, not sure why that one gave Shatari/Laughing rep, but I am glad it did. All that trash plus 5 bosses added up to 7k+ rep per run, it was fantastic.

[Traab]

Hit the post limit on the last thread.



I'm usually the no-fun guy trying to get the drunk folks to shut up an pay attention to what they're doing.



Consider this: How many times have you seen people offering gold in /trade to get people to help them do stuff? Well, what if the game held those rewards out on their behalf, instead of putting the river of gold behind the stupid mission desk?

Heh, we paid attention, we knew what we were doing. We just had a lot of fun while doing it. And yeah, I can see that incentive being added in. Im just not entirely sure how it would work. I mean, would it work sort of like the dungeon queue in that you can select "group quests" as an option to be grouped and teleported to them? They could even add in some other extras to make it more desirable for a certain subset of gamers. Create a new faction with the usual rewards for "helping your fellow man" or something. The more times you group up to help someone run a key quest or some nondungeon group quest, as an example, before they nerfed them, the three wanted poster targets in dragonwastes from wotlk and other things like that, the more reputation you win (in addition to some gold or whatever) and eventually get something fun like another of those mounts that can carry passengers because you are such a team player. Toss in a unique pet as a rep reward to get those guys involved as well.

[The_Jackal]

Heh, we paid attention, we knew what we were doing. We just had a lot of fun while doing it. And yeah, I can see that incentive being added in. Im just not entirely sure how it would work. I mean, would it work sort of like the dungeon queue in that you can select "group quests" as an option to be grouped and teleported to them? They could even add in some other extras to make it more desirable for a certain subset of gamers. Create a new faction with the usual rewards for "helping your fellow man" or something. The more times you group up to help someone run a key quest or some nondungeon group quest, as an example, before they nerfed them, the three wanted poster targets in dragonwastes from wotlk and other things like that, the more reputation you win (in addition to some gold or whatever) and eventually get something fun like another of those mounts that can carry passengers because you are such a team player. Toss in a unique pet as a rep reward to get those guys involved as well.

Here's a simple one: Say you've got an attunement quest boss which had a unique, rare drop, like a mount or pet or cool-looking 'mog. He only spawns when the attunement is being done. Now, instead of having to cajole people into helping you, they'll be beating down your door for the opportunity to get a crack at the boss. IMO, that kind of thing is a far better use of the art assets they're currently selling in the mount store, as it drives engagement and makes the game more fun for everyone.

[Draconi Redfir]

Word in trade chat is that bliz announced no garrisons/related things like followers in the next xpac. Can someone confirm/deny?

Seriously hope they don't drop the idea. I like my followers!:smallfrown:

[Seerow]

Word in trade chat is that bliz announced no garrisons/related things like followers in the next xpac. Can someone confirm/deny?

Seriously hope they don't drop the idea. I like my followers!:smallfrown:

They've confirmed nothing about the next expansion at all.

Close to the beginning of Warlords, they said the Garrison as it currently exists will stay on Draenor, but we will likely see a new evolution of them in the future using the same technology. They haven't said anything else on the subject since then. The closest thing I can recall is an offhand mention comparing followers to battle pets in terms of something players will go out of their way to collect, being another form of content. Their design has been consistent with that philosophy, giving rare followers as rewards for achievements and rep, as well as putting really high gold costs on other followers (seriously I've spent 50k on followers this expansion on followers I don't even use, easily). If they just removed followers completely there'd be a riot.

My personal expectation is garrison gets left behind on Draenor. People can still go there and hang out if they want, and can still do work orders, but it's all for mats/currencies that are outdated so few people will bother. Followers continue along into whatever the new iteration is, and you get to go through the whole leveling/gearing process over again and work on the new level 110 missions added to the game.

Ideally follower missions themselves get an overhaul to encourage active play rather than just sitting at a table sending followers out to get you rewards. My thoughts on what a cool system would be are in spoiler below, but at this point I'm getting far beyond what's confirmed and into the realm of "man I wish...". Bottom line is right now nothing is confirmed, but design decisions from the devs point towards followers staying with us and continuing to be developed.



Bodyguards
1) All followers can be used as bodyguards. Most of them don't get the perks/special abilities that the core bodyguards do, but that's fine. The bodyguard mostly functions as a point of showing off while out in the world, much the same way that having a special mount or pet is.

2) Bodyguards gain a command bar so you can say "No, I really don't want you aoeing and picking up 10 extra adds. No do not taunt off of me I am a damn tank and you are squishy!", things like that.

3) Followers with standard racial models may be transmogged and you can choose the mount you want them to ride. So you can't give blook a full suit of plate (as cool as that would be, it's infeasible), but if you have Delvar Ironfist you can give him a different suit of armor.

4) You assign up to 5 followers as backup. These followers will replace your bodyguard if he dies in the field, and you gain a call-to-arms cooldown (like what you get in the first zone in WoD) that instead of summoning a bunch of generic stormwind guards summons the followers you have in reserve.

Shipyards
1) You can pick the race of your crew. You can assign inactive followers to command a ship, and a few follower traits will boost the ship's success chance based on your captain.

2) The naval table itself is changed such that ships have a set location on the map and stay there. It takes time to move from one place on the map to another. You can move your ships from zone to zone. Enemy ships and strongholds similarly exist on the map and ships will move around every few hours, possibly attacking you.

Entering a zone where enemy ships or strongholds are placed initiates a battle, using current mission mechanics. At any given time you can have your ships wait in patrol mode (reduce travel time within a certain radius), fortify an area (gain control of a map region, but limit mobility), or be actively moving/fighting. Basically the idea here is that the shipyard hits that RTS-style feel the developers claimed they were aiming for originally. Possibly eventually expand this to include tanks, airships, cavalry units, and other large scale war units beyond just ships.

3) Ships have HP and damage they take is dependent on ship type matchups and success rates. Imagine something closer to fire emblem in terms of how much damage you take. If it's a bad matchup you can get destroyed instantly, but if you play smart you can go a long time without losing a ship. Repairing a ship requires retreating back to a dock/fortification that you control, and takes time and resources. Reoutfitting a ship's equipment requires the same, but ship equipment is changed to be more impactful in terms of damage output/mitigation (if not overall success rates)

4) Ships themselves are far more expensive, while equipment becomes far cheaper. This is to encourage playing intelligently and retreating to save your ships. The max number of ships uncaps, but there is a heft cost increase for each successive ship, and dock space is a potential concern if you build more ships than you can safely house. Increasing dock space is a very costly investment.

5) Naval Missions never provide material rewards themselves, they enable earning material rewards. This especially tied in to follower missions. For example, you set up a stronghold in one region, and now your followers gain missions relating to that region since they can operate out of it. Or you sink an enemy ship in naval combat, it unlocks a follower mission to go salvage equipment/resources from that ship. Other rewards include zone buffs (the player character gains a buff while in the zone their ships control. Or gain a random cooldown a la the Garrison Magetower courtesy of their ships while they control the zone), unlocking extra content (imagine something like a reputation/quest hub that only unlocks while you have a fort built in a certain zone).

6) Occasionally Naval Missions will trigger a scenario for the player to participate in. Ideally set it up so that this triggers when a mission would otherwise go poorly. But imagine something like an enemy force attacks a base you have set up, and the player gets a warning similar to the garrison invasion asking for help to fend off the attack. Or you send the ship out to take on an enemy ship, and instead of getting an 8 hour wait to resolve the battle you get asked to come along and end it swiftly. In this case, player should get one life, if they die scenario fails and the battle is lost. If the player wins, they gain some reward above and beyond what they would have gained from winning it normally.

Follower Missions
1) As mentioned above, follower missions get tied into the shipyard, with controlling land area dictating a lot of what missions you get. Especially if the map encompases the old continents this can be a great way to enable gathering of old outdated trade goods and profession recipes.

2) More systems similar to the archaeology system. In case you're not familiar, you can trade in 3 restored artifacts (usually worth 15-30 fragments) to get a follower mission worth 50-100 fragments. So you go out and do something in the world, and can gamble the reward, either take what you already got, or trade it in for a mission to try to get something better. If your followers lose, you got nothing, but if you have good followers, you come out ahead, and you had to play the game to get the mission in the first place so you're not just sitting in your base all day.

3) Rare missions trigger scenarios similar to what was described for the ship battles. So you get a rare mission, and instead of selecting a handful of followers, click and forget, you select them and then go out with them to earn the reward. Particularly useful for gold missions and raid cache missions.

4) When followers fail a mission, there is a chance they end up captured or incapacitated, and you have to go out into the world to find them and return them. I think there was something like this in WoD beta (I remember someone having to go into Bloodmaul Slag Mines to rescue a follower at some point) but got scrapped. I think it's a great idea to encourage players to go out into the world, and give failure meaning without being permanent.

tl;dr: Shipyard becomes an RTS minigame. Follower Missions are tied tightly to a combination of the Shipyard RTS minigame and the content you personally do as a player. All followers usable out in the world as bodyguards and are customizable for showing off.

[Draconi Redfir]

Honestly i have no problem with how follower missions are right now, and i can't really see what people are so upset about.

I feel personally that the follower missions are a good example of an "idle game", look it up sometime, it's essentially a game that you don't really do much in, something you want to check back on every so often to break up your usual routine, but don't need to invest hours of your life into. A more populer example could be cookie clicker for example, You're bored and you want to play something, but you also want to watch youtube, or work on some projects, so it can't take forever. You load up cookie clicker, but a few coursers, and then alt-tab out to do whatever. Check back in an hour or two later, you have a bunch of points, you can buy some more coursers, etc etc. Essentially an idle game is a game you play in the background of whatever else you're doing. You go in, set it up to do something, go out, do something else that keeps you occupied, and when you get tired of that or need a quick break, you can go back to the game to make any adjustments you need too or that you've unlocked before leaving it again. small bursts of enjoyment over a long period of time. That's why i think follower missions as they are now would make a great mobile game, Hell I’d play it just for that awesome sound the chests make when they shake just before opening up.

i do sincerely hope that the followers come with us though, i've spent months on my druid collecting every Troll follower i could find in a succeeding attempt to populate my garrison with nothing but Trolls, I’ve only got a miner, blook, Kimzee, some forsaken, and a few laughing skulls to go now! I'd hate for all of that work to be flushed down the drain.

I might be a little bit overly attached to my followers though as i enjoy writing back-stories for them since they don't have any canon one's I’m aware of. It's possible that the folks at Blizzard who initially designed them might have had something in mind, but it was never stated or written down any place public, nor has it likely gone anywhere beyond "this guy got his cool sword from his father" level of mental notes.

Honestly I’m hoping that garrisons stay in some form in future expansions, it's kind of hard to believe that barring either mass amnesia or a massive loss to someone at your mistake you'd go back to being joe shmoe from down the road after being commander of your own dang base.

Admittedly i did always think it was a little silly how literally EVERY character on Dranor was "the Commander" and the lengths bliz went through to ensure that you never saw any other players being directly referred to as commander or having any of your bodyguards, because "only YOU can stop the Iron Horde!". Still think it would have been much nicer if you could assign alts, friends, or guildmates as additional followers to your garrison. Most if not all of the challenges your followers face in their missions are out in the real world for you to face as well. Hell i could assign you to go kill Oskiira The Vengeful with two other followers in a mission, and you'd either get them as bodyguards once you arrived in the location of the monster, or you'd get small buffs or additional abilities relating to their own traits and abilities once you arrived in the location of the mission. Throw in a large chunk of bonus XP for doing it while on a mission, and you can easily level up alts or friends without them needing to go through the long "you are the chosen one" garrison missions. Hell why not be extra awesome about it!? Show your alts or your friends walking around your garrison as NPC's when they're offline! i could ACTUALLY have my druid meet her grandfather in her garrison! Would be awesome IMO!

So yeah. those are my thoughts on the follower things. Nobody said the garrison had to be lonely.

[Seerow]

I feel personally that the follower missions are a good example of an "idle game", look it up sometime, it's essentially a game that you don't really do much in, something you want to check back on every so often to break up your usual routine, but don't need to invest hours of your life into. A more populer example could be cookie clicker for example, You're bored and you want to play something, but you also want to watch youtube, or work on some projects, so it can't take forever.

But follower missions fail to function as an idle game. Idle Games literally thrive on the skinner box, constantly giving you ridiculously inflated numbers and always having something new to strive towards and buy. Idle Games also tend to have built in mechanics that reward you for investing time, though usually with diminishing returns as you get deeper into the game. The best idle games also tend to provide you with incentives for resetting, completely destroying your progress in exchange for bigger reward down the road. Come to think of it, it's essentially WoW but in small scale (even the occasional reset is basically a WoW expansion...).

Follower Missions don't do that at all. They have a fairly flat leveling curve, no real upgrades to strive for, you never really have to play for more than 5 minutes every 8-12 hours, and rewards are determined mostly randomly with little increase as you improve. Basically everything that makes an idle game addicting and keeps you coming back wanting to play it isn't really there in WoW. If that is actually what the developers were aiming for, they fell far short of the mark.

On the other hand, the thing they did continuously reference when talking about garrisons and followers was Warcraft 3 and RTS style combat. They built it up like the Garrison was going to be our home base that we strike out at the iron horde from... and that never really materialized either.


Don't get me wrong. I'm with you in that I love my followers. And I log on multiple times a day to run my missions even if I have nothing else to do. I just recognize there is little lasting gameplay value in follower missions as they stand. They basically boil down to get rewards for logging in, like one of those phone app games that gives you rewards for consecutive daily logins. While that's not necessarily bad, there are a lot of people making complaints about feeling like their followers get to do all the cool/fun stuff, and you just sit at your base and play middle management... and there's a fair bit of truth in those accusations.

I think if follower missions as they are came during an expansion where we had more content and far fewer cut features (for example the Finding Farahlon mission is frequently cited as "Why the heck can my followers go there but I can't?!"), it might be better... but right now we are in desperate need of actual content, and warping followers into a system that is interactive and encourages and rewards the player for actually playing the game rather than just logging on to see if the reward you want is there yet would help alleviate a lot of the complaints while still keeping the core gameplay the same.


Edit: Thinking about what you said about everyone being a commander and guildies/alts becoming followers... I don't think making them followers is a good idea. But I do think making it so not everyone has to be a commander would be potentially great. Basically, I'd let everyone keep their active followers (all of the heroes on the server having a group of 20-25 followers doesn't break immersion to me), which can still be used as described before... but for the RTS style shipyard, let players essentially have the option to make someone else their commander. So if they don't like that style of gameplay, they can push the responsibility off to someone who does, while still getting the unlocked follower missions and zone buffs from whatever that person does with their shipyard. In return the person who is controlling the shipyard gets a couple of minor perks, maybe some extra resource generation for every person following him (enabling him to upgrade docks and ships better).

Possibly also some benefits like raising his follower cap (say 1 extra active follower per person following you up to a certain amount), increasing the effectiveness of the call to arms cooldown, and increasing the frequency of his zone buffs... basically minor things in the grand scheme of things but make you feel more like a badass commander. Ideally some bonus titles and/or transmog gear based on how many people you get following you as well. Like getting official Stormwind/Orgrimmar General Uniforms for having 50 players choosing to follow you? That would be awesome.

[Draconi Redfir]

But follower missions fail to function as an idle game. Idle Games literally thrive on the skinner box, constantly giving you ridiculously inflated numbers and always having something new to strive towards and buy. Idle Games also tend to have built in mechanics that reward you for investing time, though usually with diminishing returns as you get deeper into the game. The best idle games also tend to provide you with incentives for resetting, completely destroying your progress in exchange for bigger reward down the road. Come to think of it, it's essentially WoW but in small scale (even the occasional reset is basically a WoW expansion...).

Follower Missions don't do that at all. They have a fairly flat leveling curve, no real upgrades to strive for, you never really have to play for more than 5 minutes every 8-12 hours, and rewards are determined mostly randomly with little increase as you improve. Basically everything that makes an idle game addicting and keeps you coming back wanting to play it isn't really there in WoW. If that is actually what the developers were aiming for, they fell far short of the mark.

I don't think that's really true... i suppose I’ll have to re-watch the extra credits video on it. but from my perspective the whole diminishing returns thing is sort of included? Most of the follower missions when you start out are all about levelling them up, getting them to 100, getting them to epic, getting them geared up, etc. From there yes they don't grow anymore, but you start getting rewards such as welfare epics, materials, quest objectives, gold, and more resources. it does kind of fall into a line yes, but i still believe it counts as an idle game, hell there have been times where the highlight of my day was logging on for just a few minutes to check my follower missions, send them out on their way again, and log off. it was a good break and a way to feel like i was making progress despite not really being in the mood to play proper.


On the other hand, the thing they did continuously reference when talking about garrisons and followers was Warcraft 3 and RTS style combat. They built it up like the Garrison was going to be our home base that we strike out at the iron horde from... and that never really materialized either.

This is true. fingers crossed for something. Personally i'd love a warcraft 4, even if it was a seperate time-line or AU from WoW. Though now that i think about it, a warcraft 4 could serve as a reasonable timeskip for WoW. Launch warcraft 4, have Trall, Jaina, and all the others do their thing, and peace returns to the land once more. In the meantime, The Wow dev team works on the next expansion, using the added lore from warcraft 4 to build on all new events and happenings with reason, have some cinematic mentioning how ten or so years have passed since WC4, have Thrall's kids grow up and the like, then suddenly something happens and we're all thrust back into the action, maybe with some encouragement to make new characters as the offspring of our current ones and start anew. Though preferably that would be an option, not a requirement.


Don't get me wrong. I'm with you in that I love my followers. And I log on multiple times a day to run my missions even if I have nothing else to do. I just recognize there is little lasting gameplay value in follower missions as they stand. They basically boil down to get rewards for logging in, like one of those phone app games that gives you rewards for consecutive daily logins. While that's not necessarily bad, there are a lot of people making complaints about feeling like their followers get to do all the cool/fun stuff, and you just sit at your base and play middle management... and there's a fair bit of truth in those accusations.

I think if follower missions as they are came during an expansion where we had more content and far fewer cut features (for example the Finding Farahlon mission is frequently cited as "Why the heck can my followers go there but I can't?!"), it might be better... but right now we are in desperate need of actual content, and warping followers into a system that is interactive and encourages and rewards the player for actually playing the game rather than just logging on to see if the reward you want is there yet would help alleviate a lot of the complaints while still keeping the core gameplay the same.

Well yeah follower missions will obviously have to get a little more content in of themselves to keep things interesting. I’m just saying that if nothing else it's a fun time-killer, a way to get into the game without actually committing eight hours of your day into it.

did forget to mention in my last post.

I’m kind of hoping they bring back the mists of pandaria rare spawn encounters. Rare mobs in MoP were always a challenge with unique tricks, having moves and strategies no other mob had outside of a dungeon, like your own little personal one-vs-one boss fight. Personally i found it amazing! a hard challenge to take these things on, and needing to avoid and doge attacks just to stay alive! WoD has this to a small extent, but they feel a lot more nerfed, and i think one of the issues is that there are a little too many of them, and as such they don't really move around a lot. One of the best parts of my time on Pandaria was encountering the Zandalari Warscout multiple times in four or so completely different zones, from jade Forrest to four winds to the wilds, then up to kai-lang. And despite all my levelling and gear, he always went up with me, it took until our third or fourth encounter, the one in kai-lang that i finally defeated him, and the feeling was ecstatic! i had to /salute the guy for putting up such a good fight! WoD rare mobs in comparison are just slightly stronger versions of the mobs right beside them, that you can always find in exactly the same spots.

[The_Jackal]

Honestly i have no problem with how follower missions are right now, and i can't really see what people are so upset about.

I'm upset because this isn't the game I showed up to play, but the extrinsic rewards are so incredibly, grossly outsized relative to anything else that can be done with a similar amount of time and effort, it makes the opportunity costs for not participating are incredibly high. In addition, to make garrisons relevant, they gutted long-standing features of the game, features whose absence had a deleterious effect on my enjoyment of the game.


I feel personally that the follower missions are a good example of an "idle game", look it up sometime, it's essentially a game that you don't really do much in, something you want to check back on every so often to break up your usual routine, but don't need to invest hours of your life into. A more populer example could be cookie clicker for example, You're bored and you want to play something, but you also want to watch youtube, or work on some projects, so it can't take forever. You load up cookie clicker, but a few coursers, and then alt-tab out to do whatever. Check back in an hour or two later, you have a bunch of points, you can buy some more coursers, etc etc. Essentially an idle game is a game you play in the background of whatever else you're doing. You go in, set it up to do something, go out, do something else that keeps you occupied, and when you get tired of that or need a quick break, you can go back to the game to make any adjustments you need too or that you've unlocked before leaving it again. small bursts of enjoyment over a long period of time. That's why i think follower missions as they are now would make a great mobile game, Hell I’d play it just for that awesome sound the chests make when they shake just before opening up.

I want to be clear: I don't have a problem with cookie clicker, or farmville, or any other casual game. If that's your idea of fun, more power to you. But I don't enjoy them, and I honestly believe that WoW is far worse for the addition of the feature. Why? Because instead of enhancing gameplay, the Garrison /replaced/ gameplay. Professions were gutted to make work orders relevant. World gathering was made utterly redundant by giving every character a vast deluge of passive resource generation. The effect of a fully optimized garrison was a large gold and gear stipend for every character, which meant that actually playing the game to obtain those things, ie: gear and gold, became a complete waste of effort by comparison.


i do sincerely hope that the followers come with us though, i've spent months on my druid collecting every Troll follower i could find in a succeeding attempt to populate my garrison with nothing but Trolls, I’ve only got a miner, blook, Kimzee, some forsaken, and a few laughing skulls to go now! I'd hate for all of that work to be flushed down the drain.

Why should the garrison be any different from the raid gear, reputations, and other stuff that instantly becomes worthless when the next expansion breaks? At least with the Garrison, you can go back and visit it at will, since the Garrison hearth can still be kept in your inventory indefinitely. (That said, I'd just assume they re-work the hearth system to work more like SW:TOR's shuttle system).


I might be a little bit overly attached to my followers though as i enjoy writing back-stories for them since they don't have any canon one's I’m aware of. It's possible that the folks at Blizzard who initially designed them might have had something in mind, but it was never stated or written down any place public, nor has it likely gone anywhere beyond "this guy got his cool sword from his father" level of mental notes.

Honestly I’m hoping that garrisons stay in some form in future expansions, it's kind of hard to believe that barring either mass amnesia or a massive loss to someone at your mistake you'd go back to being joe shmoe from down the road after being commander of your own dang base.

That was the other thing that always bothered me about how Garrisons were implemented: If I'm the commander of the base, why am I the one picking picking the vegetables and mucking out the barn? Surely there's someone I can pay to do all this tedious dreck for me, so I can get back to doing what I do best, which is face-punch Ogres til they die.


Admittedly i did always think it was a little silly how literally EVERY character on Dranor was "the Commander" and the lengths bliz went through to ensure that you never saw any other players being directly referred to as commander or having any of your bodyguards, because "only YOU can stop the Iron Horde!". Still think it would have been much nicer if you could assign alts, friends, or guildmates as additional followers to your garrison. Most if not all of the challenges your followers face in their missions are out in the real world for you to face as well. Hell i could assign you to go kill Oskiira The Vengeful with two other followers in a mission, and you'd either get them as bodyguards once you arrived in the location of the monster, or you'd get small buffs or additional abilities relating to their own traits and abilities once you arrived in the location of the mission. Throw in a large chunk of bonus XP for doing it while on a mission, and you can easily level up alts or friends without them needing to go through the long "you are the chosen one" garrison missions. Hell why not be extra awesome about it!? Show your alts or your friends walking around your garrison as NPC's when they're offline! i could ACTUALLY have my druid meet her grandfather in her garrison! Would be awesome IMO!

This is always the problem in MMO's though. You're a unique snowflake surrounded by other unique snowflakes who are doing the exact same things. I do think that an account-wide garrison, or even better a guild garrison would have made a lot more sense, both from an engagement and a logic perspective. Imagine a guild citadel where every members can get a customizable plot! Throw the chore wars overboard, and instead focus on making the citadel a PVE enabled location where the entire guild can cooperate in the invasions, and every player's space can be improved to assist in the defense.

[Draconi Redfir]

i just realized i put in kai-lang instead of Kun-lai. Kai-lang is that guy from mass effect... i am so sorry...

[Seerow]

For what it's worth, I loathe the idea of guild garrisons. While the Draenor garrisons were sadly not very customizable, you can squint at them and see where there's a lot of potential for a much more customizable future iteration that could work in lieu of player housing.

With a guild garrison, I can only imagine the customization level getting lower, because providing a huge amount of customization for a guild where only one player out of a large group gets to make the majority of the decisions would be a huge waste of development resources... and even if they did invest you lack the same level of customization available from being able to display personal collections. A guild garrison couldn't do something like add an Embassy where you invite members from your favorite factions in the game to come hang out. A personal garrison could. A guild garrison couldn't add an armory to display your favorite transmogs, a personal garrison could. A guild garrison can't have a pet menagerie to display your favorite pets. A personal garrison could. And so on. The most interesting thing in the garrison is that sense of ownership, and the capability to display things that are meaningful to you.

Meanwhile a guild garrison would boil down to a private treehouse club where you and your guild can hang out. Screw that. Go hang out in front of stormwind bank or whatever if you want a place to chill with your guild. You don't need an instanced area to do that; and it's better for the community as a whole if the guild does go out into the world as a group standing together where others can see them.

Basically I see guild garrisons having none of the potential benefits of a personal garrison, but with all of the same drawbacks. Do not want.


Why should the garrison be any different from the raid gear, reputations, and other stuff that instantly becomes worthless when the next expansion breaks? At least with the Garrison, you can go back and visit it at will, since the Garrison hearth can still be kept in your inventory indefinitely. (That said, I'd just assume they re-work the hearth system to work more like SW:TOR's shuttle system).


Note in the section you quoted he's specifically talking about wanting to keep his followers, not the garrison itself. Consider followers more like pets or mounts, a unique collectable you gain as a reward from doing something. There is every reason to expect that to be persistent, and every reason to be upset if it is suddenly thrown away.


That was the other thing that always bothered me about how Garrisons were implemented: If I'm the commander of the base, why am I the one picking picking the vegetables and mucking out the barn? Surely there's someone I can pay to do all this tedious dreck for me, so I can get back to doing what I do best, which is face-punch Ogres til they die.


My headcanon was that the resources we go around grabbing are the excess available for my personal use. The mooks even go so far as to leave it easily accessible to me despite me not having any skill in harvesting the stuff. Meanwhile the ore/stone/herbs/fish that my followers/mooks pick up are going towards upkeep on the garrison, providing me with the passive garrison resource income, and feeding/treating my troops.

That said I would be absolutely fine if the next iteration of garrisons had no resource income at all, or a very limited one. If they completely trash work orders as a concept and make a garrison give a single resource you choose (and you must have a follower available with the appropriate profession trait, or have it yourself, to get the resource), rather than all of them, I'd be pretty happy.



Edit: Also, I'd be interested in seeing more difficult/interesting rare spawns again as well. I got my predator title from tanaan, but the only really interesting rare spawn was Xemerikol. All of the others, as Draconi notes are pretty much just beefed up versions of existing mobs. On top of being boring, the only interesting thing any of them drops is shipyard plans. They drop 655 gear, but that is strictly worse than what you get from apexis, and the 655 gear can't be upgraded. No toys. The only mounts come from the big 4 that everyone is camping and kill within 10 seconds of appearing. Oh and going back before tanaan, basically all of the leveling WoD rares can only be killed once ever, and have similar problems both in terms of being boring and having boring drops. I remember I spent days camping the rare in MoP that dropped the quasi-flask, there's nothing at all similar to that to do in WoD, and it's disappointing. There's a lot to be desired with WoD rares.

[Draconi Redfir]

I'm upset because this isn't the game I showed up to play, but the extrinsic rewards are so incredibly, grossly outsized relative to anything else that can be done with a similar amount of time and effort, it makes the opportunity costs for not participating are incredibly high. In addition, to make garrisons relevant, they gutted long-standing features of the game, features whose absence had a deleterious effect on my enjoyment of the game.

Okay, well you know follower missions aren't mandatory right? nobody is forcing you to do them, you're free to go out and play the game you showed up to play. Like i said before, it's an idle game, a thing you do between doing other things. Like for example, a thing you do between quest turn-ins in spires of arak or something.



Why should the garrison be any different from the raid gear, reputations, and other stuff that instantly becomes worthless when the next expansion breaks? At least with the Garrison, you can go back and visit it at will, since the Garrison hearth can still be kept in your inventory indefinitely. (That said, I'd just assume they re-work the hearth system to work more like SW:TOR's shuttle system).

Same reason they introduced transmogs. so they don't /Need/ to be replaced. You can keep your Dranor look as long as you want thanks to transmogs, the gear you're wearing will have different stats but the look will still be the same. Hell my druid's spent the entire game wearing the embrace of the viper set from whaling caverns, a vanilla dungeon. She still wears it to this day! it's become her look! I fail to see why Garrison things such as followers can't come with us in a similar fashion, they can retain the same appearance and feel while having different mechanics.




That was the other thing that always bothered me about how Garrisons were implemented: If I'm the commander of the base, why am I the one picking picking the vegetables and mucking out the barn? Surely there's someone I can pay to do all this tedious dreck for me, so I can get back to doing what I do best, which is face-punch Ogres til they die.

Because The Devs wanted you to be able to do something. you were just complaining about everything being made redundant a paragraph or two ago (one that i failed to quote due to not having a response too, sorry) so they made sure there's still things for you to do in your garrison when you log in every day. And keep in mind that again, none of this is mandatory, nobody is forcing you to go into the mines and dig everything up, plenty of other people willing to do that for you. Hell i've been completely ignoring the apexis daily missions since day one, never found a use for the things.



This is always the problem in MMO's though. You're a unique snowflake surrounded by other unique snowflakes who are doing the exact same things. I do think that an account-wide garrison, or even better a guild garrison would have made a lot more sense, both from an engagement and a logic perspective. Imagine a guild citadel where every members can get a customizable plot! Throw the chore wars overboard, and instead focus on making the citadel a PVE enabled location where the entire guild can cooperate in the invasions, and every player's space can be improved to assist in the defense.

Aye, i'll agree with you there. Always thought it'd be more fun to play an MMO the style of star wars: Battlefront, where you're not the chosen hero that will save the day, you're just random mook # 43972 just fighting the good fight. Planetside 2 does good in this i feel, though not the best.

[tigerusthegreat]

Word in trade chat is that bliz announced no garrisons/related things like followers in the next xpac. Can someone confirm/deny?

Seriously hope they don't drop the idea. I like my followers!:smallfrown:

I didn't care for the garrisons as implemented. It was a cool idea, but turned into just another thing to grind out.

[The_Jackal]

Okay, well you know follower missions aren't mandatory right? nobody is forcing you to do them, you're free to go out and play the game you showed up to play. Like i said before, it's an idle game, a thing you do between doing other things. Like for example, a thing you do between quest turn-ins in spires of arak or something.


the opportunity costs for not participating are incredibly high.

Opportunity costs like up to 1000 gold a day. So, since I'm leaving 1000 gold a day on the floor, per character, what highly lucrative, relevant activity to recommend to supplement my income, so I can afford the 100,000 gold Alliance Snowmobile (http://www.wowhead.com/item=116789/champions-treadblade)? Because if you say, "Play the Auction House", I'll point out that I was already selling stuff on the AH, and if you say "Re-run old raids", I'll point out that I paid to play the new expansion, not go back and cheese the old ones. And it's not just the followers. The infuriating work order mechanic substituted a system which rewarded effort for one that rewarded WAITING. Which is essentially what cheeses me off about all these "idle games": There's no gameplay there, only tedium and pellets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning).


Same reason they introduced transmogs. so they don't /Need/ to be replaced. You can keep your Dranor look as long as you want thanks to transmogs, the gear you're wearing will have different stats but the look will still be the same. Hell my druid's spent the entire game wearing the embrace of the viper set from whaling caverns, a vanilla dungeon. She still wears it to this day! it's become her look! I fail to see why Garrison things such as followers can't come with us in a similar fashion, they can retain the same appearance and feel while having different mechanics.

No, the introduced transmogs because of the frequent complaints about Outland Clown Syndrome (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RainbowPimpGear). But the gear itself is worthless once green is the new purple.


Because The Devs wanted you to be able to do something. you were just complaining about everything being made redundant a paragraph or two ago (one that i failed to quote due to not having a response too, sorry) so they made sure there's still things for you to do in your garrison when you log in every day. And keep in mind that again, none of this is mandatory, nobody is forcing you to go into the mines and dig everything up, plenty of other people willing to do that for you.

Well, having something to do is not the same thing has having something FUN to do, and that's where WoD fell pitifully flat. What the heck was wrong with daily quests, exactly that they had to remove them and replace them with Farmville and an obstacle course?


Hell i've been completely ignoring the apexis daily missions since day one, never found a use for the things.

And you don't see how that underscores my POINT!?!?! The one friggen daily quest the bothered to put in the game, and it was so disappointing in rewards compared to the middle-management job that you didn't see the point in doing it! Did you really get into WoW so you could do a project management simulator, or did you actually want to fight monsters? I'm not judging, I ask merely for information.


Aye, i'll agree with you there. Always thought it'd be more fun to play an MMO the style of star wars: Battlefront, where you're not the chosen hero that will save the day, you're just random mook # 43972 just fighting the good fight. Planetside 2 does good in this i feel, though not the best.

Well, you can be Alvin York, but not John J. Pershing, I think that's the important distinction. Really, being leadership doesn't even make sense in the RPG format, since you're the one taking all the orders.

[Astrella]

Bluh, so Wowhead's having this issue again where it won't load text or the menus properly and it's really annoying. Anyone have a clue what might be causing it? It's the only website that does it and does it in different browsers. I've tried a bunch of things already, but all to no avail. :/

https://i.imgur.com/OsD1Y5F.jpg?1

[Sylthia]

So WoW lost another million and a half subs. Hopefully, they get their act together and realize they can't release an Xpac without content.

[Traab]

Here's a simple one: Say you've got an attunement quest boss which had a unique, rare drop, like a mount or pet or cool-looking 'mog. He only spawns when the attunement is being done. Now, instead of having to cajole people into helping you, they'll be beating down your door for the opportunity to get a crack at the boss. IMO, that kind of thing is a far better use of the art assets they're currently selling in the mount store, as it drives engagement and makes the game more fun for everyone.

That sounds like it would be more complicated than my idea. Instead of targeting specific mobs for things to add to them, making it a new tab on the dungeon finder menu of dungeons, scenarios, raids, group quests, then slapping on a reputation tab that gets filled by it with the various purchasable rewards as rep increases would seem a bit simpler. Even add in some achieves.

[I Get By, With A Little Help, From My Friends] Complete "x" number of group quests.
[Lean On Me] Aid in completing "x" number of group quests that you dont need yourself.

Toss in a mount at exalted rep, a unique pet somewhere in the middle, maybe some other incentives to make you want to join in. Maybe have the group quest finder give a unique form of currency to buy the various items from the rep vendor like the honor points and such. After all, this is blizzard, we wouldnt want to make the grind that straight forward and easy to just end, now would we? :smalltongue:

[The_Jackal]

That sounds like it would be more complicated than my idea. Instead of targeting specific mobs for things to add to them, making it a new tab on the dungeon finder menu of dungeons, scenarios, raids, group quests, then slapping on a reputation tab that gets filled by it with the various purchasable rewards as rep increases would seem a bit simpler. Even add in some achieves.

[I Get By, With A Little Help, From My Friends] Complete "x" number of group quests.
[Lean On Me] Aid in completing "x" number of group quests that you dont need yourself.

Toss in a mount at exalted rep, a unique pet somewhere in the middle, maybe some other incentives to make you want to join in. Maybe have the group quest finder give a unique form of currency to buy the various items from the rep vendor like the honor points and such. After all, this is blizzard, we wouldnt want to make the grind that straight forward and easy to just end, now would we? :smalltongue:

I don't think a rep grind would work cleanly, because you'd have problem with people NEVER getting enough attunements to qualify. The rare drop solution circumvents that by simply giving you a crack at something cool. I also think that for the majority of players, cheevos aren't an end in and of themselves, just something you do to get other rewards.

[Traab]

I don't think a rep grind would work cleanly, because you'd have problem with people NEVER getting enough attunements to qualify. The rare drop solution circumvents that by simply giving you a crack at something cool. I also think that for the majority of players, cheevos aren't an end in and of themselves, just something you do to get other rewards.

Yeah, by themselves achieves arent the answer, but combined with all that other stuff, it creates interest. There are a LOT of people who enjoy completion goals. They like to max reps, collect all pets and mounts, and get the achieves. But thats the sort of thing people will max out once for the rewards then likely never do again, remember how a number of merchants let you turn in various nongold currency for things? Like tradeskill mats, and dungeon drop items like frozen orbs and whatnot. Add in something like that, a form of helping currency and a vendor with some sort of valuable materials people are going to want and that should help keep people running them.

As for never getting enough attunements, these are multi server queues here. If Blizzard slaps in as many group quests as they did in WotLK, there will be plenty enough for you to hit max faction by the time you run out of group quests if thats what they want, let alone from helping others as well.

[Aidan305]

Well, after that video I'm now wondering if a more appropriate thread title would have been "We were not prepared".


Is it my imagination, or do they seem to be trying to put in every single plot point that players have been asking for in to one expansion?

[The Glyphstone]

I'm getting a similar vibe - WoD was meant to be the 'nostalgia' expansion and it failed, so they're doubling down with EVEN MORE NOSTALGIA and loose plot threads.

[Requizen]

I'm getting a similar vibe - WoD was meant to be the 'nostalgia' expansion and it failed, so they're doubling down with EVEN MORE NOSTALGIA and loose plot threads.

I don't understand why people keep thinking this is a response to the previous expansion. Something this big isn't developed overnight as a response to WoD losing subs, they've been working on Legion for probably years now. If anything, WoD was the "thrown together" expansion, given how small it was, content wise.

[The Glyphstone]

I don't understand why people keep thinking this is a response to the previous expansion. Something this big isn't developed overnight as a response to WoD losing subs, they've been working on Legion for probably years now. If anything, WoD was the "thrown together" expansion, given how small it was, content wise.

Fair enough. In a weird way, the 'meh' reaction I have makes part of me hopeful. Cataclysm and Warlords both sounded awesome and fell really flat. MoP, on the other hand, got a decided 'meh' from me and turned out to be really really good IMO. So I really need to just kick back and trust Blizzard to put out good product as usual.

Also...where's Wrathion? This is, like, literally his entire thing, and he's not even mentioned in the trailer or preview coverage.

[MCerberus]

I can see myself liking this direction, with the storyline and the declared intent to add new ways of telling it.
Unfortunately, my entire social network is gone from WoW. My main server (Lightninghoof) is dead, so I server hopped with Ruin for a while... but now they're somewhere else and I'd just be alone.

I have my old stories. From the guilds I've been in, the server drama I was causing/part of/fighting. How someone in a custom channel would come up with some stupid idea and we'd end up having an impromptu soap opera in trade chat using alts. That's all gone now.

So I want to play Legion. The problem is WoW is dead, not in the "servers shut down end of days" dead, but just... dead to me.

[Requizen]

Fair enough. In a weird way, the 'meh' reaction I have makes part of me hopeful. Cataclysm and Warlords both sounded awesome and fell really flat. MoP, on the other hand, got a decided 'meh' from me and turned out to be really really good IMO. So I really need to just kick back and trust Blizzard to put out good product as usual.

Also...where's Wrathion? This is, like, literally his entire thing, and he's not even mentioned in the trailer or preview coverage.
Yeah, surprised they didn't bring him up, seeing as we're going to Deathwing Neltharion's Lair. But I'm like 97% sure he'll be there at least in some capacity.

I can see myself liking this direction, with the storyline and the declared intent to add new ways of telling it.
Unfortunately, my entire social network is gone from WoW. My main server (Lightninghoof) is dead, so I server hopped with Ruin for a while... but now they're somewhere else and I'd just be alone.

I have my old stories. From the guilds I've been in, the server drama I was causing/part of/fighting. How someone in a custom channel would come up with some stupid idea and we'd end up having an impromptu soap opera in trade chat using alts. That's all gone now.

So I want to play Legion. The problem is WoW is dead, not in the "servers shut down end of days" dead, but just... dead to me.

Yeah, I really only play when I know IRL or internet people are playing again. It's fun to level by oneself, pick up dungeons are ok, and PvP can be fun, but once you get past that... yeah, it's much better with friends. Heck, even those are better with friends.

[Draconi Redfir]

as i become more and more infatuated with the swords in this game, i seriously wish i played a paladin. but alas Trolls can't play paladins.

i must stick with my warrior, who so far has the habit of only using Axes. ahwell.

[Seerow]

as i become more and more infatuated with the swords in this game, i seriously wish i played a paladin. but alas Trolls can't play paladins.

i must stick with my warrior, who so far has the habit of only using Axes. ahwell.

Well it's looking like the prot warrior artifact will be sword and shield.

But all of the Arms artifact speculation I've seen is about axes, which disappoints me because I tend to prefer swords/maces. I'd actually be really happy with something similar to Blackhand's Hammer as the Arms Artifact.

[Draconi Redfir]

think my warrior is a fury warrior though, he's based on the dark-troll berzerkers of warcraft 3, so his think is basically using an axe in each hand, attacking really fast, and mashing bloodthirst every 0.1 secconds.

[Seerow]

think my warrior is a fury warrior though, he's based on the dark-troll berzerkers of warcraft 3, so his think is basically using an axe in each hand, attacking really fast, and mashing bloodthirst every 0.1 secconds.

Well dunno what fury's weapons are yet so we'll have to wait and see.


Personally I'm hoping they do give fury wars axes, because it means it's less likely Arms gets axes. Though right now smart money is on Arms getting a 2h axe and Fury getting Magni's Hammers

[Draconi Redfir]

fury can dual-weild tewo-handed weapons, i know that much. that or i'm actually speced into arms and didn't realize it.

[otakuryoga]

so, just woke up and watched the announcement video

--demon hunter class: from lvl1? or boost start like DK? pure dps or will it be 2 dps/1 tank(dont really see demon hunter as a healing type)

--class halls: return of class specific quests? and dailies?

--artifact weapons: Paladin Ashbringer..1h or 2h?(NM..looks to be 2h since both times they showed it the guy had no shield)

--did Dalaran change location? will we have 2 different Dalarans we can port to?

[Antonok]

so, just woke up and watched the announcement video

--demon hunter class: from lvl1? or boost start like DK? pure dps or will it be 2 dps/1 tank(dont really see demon hunter as a healing type)

--class halls: return of class specific quests? and dailies?

--artifact weapons: Paladin Ashbringer..1h or 2h?(NM..looks to be 2h since both times they showed it the guy had no shield)

--did Dalaran change location? will we have 2 different Dalarans we can port to?

Demon Hunter is the new hero class, so it'll be boost start like the DK. Seeing as we start with mission back in BC, I'm guessing a lvl 70ish start.

Class Halls: That's what it sounded like. Also really like the direction they took with followers.

Dalaran I'm wanting to say will be taken out of Northrend and moved to Broken Isles. They didn't have a problem back in Wrath, and Dal is very unused anymore (atleast I hardly ever see anyone there anymore, except those levelling)

[Seerow]

so, just woke up and watched the announcement video

--demon hunter class: from lvl1? or boost start like DK? pure dps or will it be 2 dps/1 tank(dont really see demon hunter as a healing type)

--class halls: return of class specific quests? and dailies?

--artifact weapons: Paladin Ashbringer..1h or 2h?(NM..looks to be 2h since both times they showed it the guy had no shield)

--did Dalaran change location? will we have 2 different Dalarans we can port to?

I'm guessing you just watched the 5 minute video and not the whole hour+ announcement speil.

1) Demon Hunter is a hero class, so starts at high level (my guess is 98, but that's just a guess). It has 1 DPS and 1 Tank spec. Yep, it only has 2 specs. And only usable by Blood Elf and Night Elf.

2) Ashbringer is 2h. The Artifact Weapons are spec specific, a different one for every spec in the game. You have a long quest specific to your spec tied into acquiring and upgrading your artifact weapon.

3) The Class Halls are basically Garrison 2.0 but with no personalization at all and you see other members of your class there. Lore-wise you will be a leader/hero among your class, based in part on the artifact weapon you obtain through the quest.

4) Yes Dalaran is going to be in the shattered isles. There will likely be two different ones because Northrend is time locked. I really don't get why Dalaran is a neutral hub again though, while I wanted a neutral hub for the next expansion Dalaran is supposed to be alliance only. That was one of our few wins as Alliance in years (seriously even SoO was the Horde taking down Garrosh with a little help from the alliance), and was never represented in game on the excuse that they couldn't update Dalaran without disrupting horde players leveling through northrend. And yet here we are getting a new copy of dalaran, and magically back to a neutral city. This actually really irritates me.



Basically right now I'm excited for Artifact Weapons and spec specific quests. But a lot of other things announced I'm either on the fence about or just don't like. I'm really pissed that I turned out to be wrong and we are losing all of our followers from Draenor. I'm interested in Demon Hunter, but did we really need a agi leather class? And one with only 2 specs available to a single race per faction? Just ugh.

Also their announcement did little to alleviate any concerns about endgame content. They announced 2 raids and 8 dungeons, exactly the same as what they launched draenor with, and made a passing remark about wanting to make dungeons stay more relevant with nothing to indicate what might be done to do that. No mention at all of scenarios, daily quest hubs, reputations, or lore delivery methods... and while I can understand there's a lot to cover and not a lot of time, 3 seconds to say "We're bringing back scenarios and we hear you regarding missing the 5.1/5.2 style of storytelling" and I would have gone from "blegh" to "Thank god" in an instant. Hopefully we get more information on this sort of thing soon.

[Wayac]

Also their announcement did little to alleviate any concerns about endgame content. They announced 2 raids and 8 dungeons, exactly the same as what they launched draenor with, and made a passing remark about wanting to make dungeons stay more relevant with nothing to indicate what might be done to do that.

My guess/hope is that your Artifact will be a source of constant progression throughout the expansion. I'm assuming there will be cosmetic unlocks from doing dungeon achievements and I'm hoping that there will be ways to constantly upgrade your Artifact by doing things like dungeons or dailies. I think if they do it right it'll be a really fun way to do non-raiding endgame content.

My question is, next expansion do you keep upgrading the same Artifact, get a new Artifact or go back to the old system and let your Artifact gather dust in void storage?

[Seerow]

My guess/hope is that your Artifact will be a source of constant progression throughout the expansion. I'm assuming there will be cosmetic unlocks from doing dungeon achievements and I'm hoping that there will be ways to constantly upgrade your Artifact by doing things like dungeons or dailies. I think if they do it right it'll be a really fun way to do non-raiding endgame content.

I agree the artifact is probably going to be a place where they give rewards. I suspect the artifact points will end up being like valor except used only to upgrade your artifact/progress through the artifact talent tree.

I'm more worried about the content that we have available to do for that progression in the first place. If dailies are more "go fill a blue bar" I quit. If reputations are "kill mobs for 10-20 rep a piece for a few hours" I quit. If reputations have no story attached to them, I quit. I won't quit over lack of scenarios, but I still really really want them back, and see no reason why they got removed entirely.



My question is, next expansion do you keep upgrading the same Artifact, get a new Artifact or go back to the old system and let your Artifact gather dust in void storage?

That's a good question. I actually kind of hope they give a new artifact with a different talent tree, but let you choose to level up the old one or progress the new one. Either way, that's a long way off no sense worrying about it yet.

[otakuryoga]

did they mention any kind of target date?


I'm guessing you just watched the 5 minute video and not the whole hour+ announcement speil.

2) Ashbringer is 2h. The Artifact Weapons are spec specific, a different one for every spec in the game. You have a long quest specific to your spec tied into acquiring and upgrading your artifact weapon.

yes..watched the "official trailier w/ gameplay and features" as the Blizzard bigshot said about 7 minutes in...watch the entire 5 hour stream? no thanks

2) so can we get the DPS and the Tank one both? or will we have to choose?


My guess/hope is that your Artifact will be a source of constant progression throughout the expansion. I'm assuming there will be cosmetic unlocks from doing dungeon achievements and I'm hoping that there will be ways to constantly upgrade your Artifact by doing things like dungeons or dailies. I think if they do it right it'll be a really fun way to do non-raiding endgame content.

My question is, next expansion do you keep upgrading the same Artifact, get a new Artifact or go back to the old system and let your Artifact gather dust in void storage?
looks that way...the video showed 5 versions of Ashbringer..and each one had multiple locked boxes in its window

it will of course keep your epic cloak(and likely ring as well) company in the vast coldness of the void(storage)

[tigerusthegreat]

I wish they would have done guild garrisons. there was so much potential in the garruson/base concept that they just **** all over

[otakuryoga]

lol..just watched the demon hunter bit

"double jump..because they are so more agile than everyone and can go places where no one else can"
unless they have flying....
.
.
.
.
.
.
oooooo, i see what they did there

:smallfrown: :smallfrown:
no flight next expansion

[Draconi Redfir]

Class Halls: That's what it sounded like. Also really like the direction they took with followers.

Mind explaining? i wasn't able to catch the whole thing.

[Antonok]

So talking about the xpac with some people, we came to the conclusion that WoD was just to bring Guldan back to life in the lore, and WoD was just a general set up for Legion in general. It just seems from just the reveal Legion had a lot more planning and work than WoD did.

Edit:


Mind explaining? i wasn't able to catch the whole thing.

The followers you will have in Legion will be far fewer in number, but have more impact. From what they said, your followers can be sent out to scout zones, find something, report back and have you, the player, actually go explore what they found. And if you have them on a mission in a zone, you get bonuses while in that zone.

As far as class halls go, it will be like Ebon Hold and DKs. Each class gets a specific place they can get (presumably) class quests and missions, and whatnot (pallys go to a secret chamber in Light's Hope Chapel, Locks get a post on a legion world, wtc).

Bit interested to know if Blizz is wanting to do away with Horde/Alliance stuff for the xpac.

[Draconi Redfir]

The followers you will have in Legion will be far fewer in number, but have more impact. From what they said, your followers can be sent out to scout zones, find something, report back and have you, the player, actually go explore what they found. And if you have them on a mission in a zone, you get bonuses while in that zone.


H'uh. Well the fewer active followers is a shame, glad to see we get to keep 'em around though.

[Seerow]

H'uh. Well the fewer active followers is a shame, glad to see we get to keep 'em around though.

You'll have followers, but you'll be recruiting a smaller number of brand new followers.

The followers from Draenor are just vanishing as far as I can tell.

[Draconi Redfir]

You'll have followers, but you'll be recruiting a smaller number of brand new followers.

The followers from Draenor are just vanishing as far as I can tell.

...:smallannoyed:

[tigerusthegreat]

...:smallannoyed:

Much like your farm in Pandaria, they will be left to rot.

[MCerberus]

Much like your farm in Pandaria, they will be left to rot.

I like to think that the supply shock of the water supply being corrupted combined with one of the few unaffected places going fallow lead to a horrible, horrible famine, proving that the players are, in fact, jerks that they shouldn't have let run around unsupervised.

[Seerow]

Much like your farm in Pandaria, they will be left to rot.

Difference is the farm in pandaria wasn't presented as something collectable.

This is the equivalent to telling all pet battlers "Yeah, your pet collection? It's worthless now. Gotta go to an outdated continent to even see them anymore. But don't worry, we're giving you a dozen REALLY AWESOME new pets"

[The Glyphstone]

Difference is the farm in pandaria wasn't presented as something collectable.

This is the equivalent to telling all pet battlers "Yeah, your pet collection? It's worthless now. Gotta go to an outdated continent to even see them anymore. But don't worry, we're giving you a dozen REALLY AWESOME new pets"

So it's more authentic to its Pokemon inspiration?:smallbiggrin:

[Seerow]

So it's more authentic to its Pokemon inspiration?:smallbiggrin:

Sort of, but in pokemon they at least generally give you around 100 more and some way to capture or transfer in the pokemon from previous games. I'd be fine if draenor followers got sidelined at the start, but we could gradually bring in like one a week over time.

[The Glyphstone]

Sort of, but in pokemon they at least generally give you around 100 more and some way to capture or transfer in the pokemon from previous games. I'd be fine if draenor followers got sidelined at the start, but we could gradually bring in like one a week over time.

Maybe if a few of the most iconic ones reappeared as Champions, but overall I'm happy to see Followers paired down/eliminated. I must have 50+ of them, half of which are perpetually shelved because Draenor Humanoid Resources won't give me a budget for more than 25 employees at a time. I can only name like five of them off the top of my head, and they're all special ones I earned via achievements and such. Having like five or ten Champions will make each of them actually matter to me in a way that adding a new random hireling to my reserves roster did not.

[The_Jackal]

More jump puzzles instead of flight. Well, Blizz doesn't get my money this time, I guess.

[Alent]

More jump puzzles instead of flight. Well, Blizz doesn't get my money this time, I guess.

"What do you mean we can't simply make money by stealing features we don't understand from Guild Wars 2?" - Imagined confusion at Blizzard

I'm honestly wondering what to make of this new expansion announcement. It seems to me they're just selling the second half of WoD as a new expansion..? :smallconfused:

I haven't really logged in or played since I got Thunderfury right before 6.1, and I haven't even seen the inside of any of the raid content, will I be missing anything if I decide to not play at all until the other half of the expansion hits?

[Requizen]

http://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/13199-wow-legion-details-at-gamescom-interview-with-tom-chilton-ion-hazzikostas/

Interview with Tom Chilton.

-No weapon drops. Artifacts only.
-Survival hunters are MELEE HUNTERS. Only took 6 expansions lol. Marksman is never with a pet.
-Kara will be back in some manner (maybe as Mage class place? or a revamped dungeon/raid??)
-Demonology seems to have lost Metamorphasis, or at least has less of an emphasis. Probably to make Demon Hunters feel a bit more special.
-Demon Hunters maybe starting 95-100
-Order Halls are multiplayer, but aren't hubs. No AH, no Banks, etc, so people are still encouraged to go to Dalaran and share a space (yaaaay! Garrisons sucked!)

[The Glyphstone]

Liking the sound of everything in that interview. Dammit Blizzard don't get my hopes up.

[Yana]

You'll have followers, but you'll be recruiting a smaller number of brand new followers.

The followers from Draenor are just vanishing as far as I can tell.

I'll miss my Pandaren Monk: Fo Sho Knucklebump.

[The_Jackal]

Liking the sound of everything in that interview. Dammit Blizzard don't get my hopes up.

The melee hunter thing is an affront, survival was my favorite Hunter spec, ever since they added Black Arrow and Lock and Load. Really, now the choices are 'no pet', 'all pet', and 'no range'? Last expansion it was Arms warrior whose cornflakes they pooped in, now Survival Hunter? Seriously, it's getting hard not to take it personally. They already managed to make Mages incredibly annoying with the stupid friggen 'cast spells at this glowing rock' gameplay innovation.

[The Glyphstone]

The melee hunter thing is an affront, survival was my favorite Hunter spec, ever since they added Black Arrow and Lock and Load. Really, now the choices are 'no pet', 'all pet', and 'no range'? Last expansion it was Arms warrior whose cornflakes they pooped in, now Survival Hunter? Seriously, it's getting hard not to take it personally. They already managed to make Mages incredibly annoying with the stupid friggen 'cast spells at this glowing rock' gameplay innovation.

That is clearly catering to the people who insist Vanilla was the best WoW experience, by returning Survival spec to its melee-focused roots.

[Antonok]

That is clearly catering to the people who insist Vanilla was the best WoW experience, by returning Survival spec to its melee-focused roots.

I'm looking forward to it :smallsmile: was really depressed they killed off my melee hunter. Was about the only enjoyment I got out of the class.

Specially in PvP. No one ever expected the feigning hunter to pop up and start taking huge chunks of health with a spear.

[MCerberus]

I'm looking forward to it :smallsmile: was really depressed they killed off my melee hunter. Was about the only enjoyment I got out of the class.

Specially in PvP. No one ever expected the feigning hunter to pop up and start taking huge chunks of health with a spear.

I'm pretty sure that seeing a Zin'Rohk or Akshandi on a hunter was a universal "nope" sign for getting into melee range, even against a marks.

Never did get an Akshandi though, even though I had it on DKP reserve for months at a time.

Also, want to hear a Vanilla Hunter joke? BM

[The_Jackal]

That is clearly catering to the people who insist Vanilla was the best WoW experience, by returning Survival spec to its melee-focused roots.

I don't think it's so much that as 'feature creep'. People say, "We don't want homogenized classes', so they're lurching out looking for ways to make the gameplay distinct, but due to the limitations of the platform (namely, combat resolution via client-side range check and hash table lookup), there's really not that much you can do that really makes abilities FEEL different, especially when you're giving people more and more buttons for their bar with every successive expansion. Basically, I'm saying that we want two mutually exclusive things from WoW, at this point: Familiarity and Novelty.

I've advocated this before, and I basically think it's still true, even though the likelihood of it occurring is diminishingly remote: It's time to start planning the end of WoW. Go out with a bang, not a whimper, throw down with a big death-duel with Sargeras, kill off Thrall in some awesome, heart-wrenching Heavy-Metal self-sacrifice. Give us the end of this story, instead of just trying to rewind back to the earlier stuff and make us watch it all again.


I'm looking forward to it :smallsmile: was really depressed they killed off my melee hunter. Was about the only enjoyment I got out of the class.

Specially in PvP. No one ever expected the feigning hunter to pop up and start taking huge chunks of health with a spear.

I expected it, because I play with player titles on, and NPC titles off. Melee hunters are warrior food.

[Traab]

I'm pretty sure that seeing a Zin'Rohk or Akshandi on a hunter was a universal "nope" sign for getting into melee range, even against a marks.

Never did get an Akshandi though, even though I had it on DKP reserve for months at a time.

Also, want to hear a Vanilla Hunter joke? BM

Heh, I remember when they did the early rebalancing act on hunters and added bestial wrath and frenzy for beast mastery hunters. There were unique pets out there, and the single most op pet was broken tooth from badlands. A bm hunter could get that cat to sub second attack speed, and combined with bestial wrath and intimidate, (I think they had dash as well) no caster was safe, and they could do a disturbing job of slaughtering warriors in melee even without the hunter plinking arrows into them at the same time. It was always fun to see just how terrible a job at "balance" blizzard would do with the various classes.

[Draconi Redfir]

Sort of, but in pokemon they at least generally give you around 100 more and some way to capture or transfer in the pokemon from previous games. I'd be fine if draenor followers got sidelined at the start, but we could gradually bring in like one a week over time.

Aye. Even if it's as simple as replacing some NPC's in class halls or something with my old dranor followers so i know they're still alive.

Even if they don't do anything, if they were just /there/ i'd be happy.

Hell give me a PVP/PVE arena like the fight club or the trials you needed to do in order to do heroic content, where every follower you ever got sat in the bleachers cheering you on. THAT would be enough.

[Sylthia]

lol..just watched the demon hunter bit

"double jump..because they are so more agile than everyone and can go places where no one else can"
unless they have flying....
.
.
.
.
.
.
oooooo, i see what they did there

:smallfrown: :smallfrown:
no flight next expansion

There would be riots.

I'm a bit disappointed by Demon Hunters being Elf only. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have Draenei and Orcs as Demon Hunters. If there can be Undead Priests or Worgen Death Knights, there can be Demon Hunters that aren't elf.

[The Glyphstone]

There would be riots.

I'm a bit disappointed by Demon Hunters being Elf only. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have Draenei and Orcs as Demon Hunters. If there can be Undead Priests or Worgen Death Knights, there can be Demon Hunters that aren't elf.

I'm betting the expac after Legion will have non-elf Demon Hunters, the same way we had to wait until Cataclysm to get Druids for any race except Night Elves/Tauren.

[Antonok]

I'm all for DH's being elf only, thats pretty much Lore. The question I have is....

Are Gnomes going to be allowed to be hunters finally?

[MCerberus]

Heh, I remember when they did the early rebalancing act on hunters and added bestial wrath and frenzy for beast mastery hunters. There were unique pets out there, and the single most op pet was broken tooth from badlands. A bm hunter could get that cat to sub second attack speed, and combined with bestial wrath and intimidate, (I think they had dash as well) no caster was safe, and they could do a disturbing job of slaughtering warriors in melee even without the hunter plinking arrows into them at the same time. It was always fun to see just how terrible a job at "balance" blizzard would do with the various classes.

2.0 PvP: Cats and Felguards fight for dominance. The winner gets the right to single-handedly kill the entire enemy team. For two solid months I could send in the red pet of doom onto the WSG spawn and farm HKs.

[tigerusthegreat]

I'm all for DH's being elf only, thats pretty much Lore. The question I have is....

Are Gnomes going to be allowed to be hunters finally?

I would buy this expansion if therec were gnome huntersvthat could resin their pets to look like clockwork versions

[otakuryoga]

robo-chicken as starter pet?

[Traab]

I could see them giving the gnome hunter a robo squirrel or chicken as their starter pet at least. That would be awesome.

[Shekinah]

I think the reason gnomes aren't hunters is because their pets would eat them.

Goblins are only hunters because they don't taste good.

[Astrella]

There would be riots.

I'm a bit disappointed by Demon Hunters being Elf only. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to have Draenei and Orcs as Demon Hunters. If there can be Undead Priests or Worgen Death Knights, there can be Demon Hunters that aren't elf.

Well lorewise Forsaken Priests don't use the light cause it hurts them, they only use shadow. Just mechanics differing from lore, same for Tauren Paladins and priests, Night elf Priests, troll priests, etc...

[Antonok]

Artifact weapons will be moggable; Demon Hunters are Elf only. (http://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/gamescom-2015-legion-interview-with-tom-chilton-ion-hazzikostas) Which means I will never roll a horde demon hunter this xpac. Blasted blood elves. grumblewishthey'dremovethemgrumble

[The_Jackal]

Artifact weapons will be moggable; Demon Hunters are Elf only. (http://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/gamescom-2015-legion-interview-with-tom-chilton-ion-hazzikostas) Which means I will never roll a horde demon hunter this xpac. Blasted blood elves. grumblewishthey'dremovethemgrumble

Don't be a hater, bro. ;)

In all seriousness, I fully understand why they're only doing one race of Demon Hunters. New weapons and new animations are a lot of work, and it's all got to be redone for each race.

[Bulldog Psion]

I think that any hero class should be universal for race, like the death knights. It's going to reduce people's enthusiasm for the new expansion quite a bit, at a minimum.

Very poor design choice, IMO. So it's hard doing multiple races? Well, get cracking, then, Blizzard, we pay you to work occasionally rather than never.

[Antonok]

I think that any hero class should be universal for race, like the death knights. It's going to reduce people's enthusiasm for the new expansion quite a bit, at a minimum.

Very poor design choice, IMO. So it's hard doing multiple races? Well, get cracking, then, Blizzard, we pay you to work occasionally rather than never.

Won't be that bad. For the xpac it makes a bit of sense. You start out as a member of Illidan's elite Demon hunters, most of which are Night Elves (with a smattering of other races).

I'm sure once Legion ends they'll expand it to more races under the guise of the training/process is more accessible. Remember that the Demon Hunters are an old sect, and tried to be sealed away and forgotten by the Night Elves.

[The Glyphstone]

I think that any hero class should be universal for race, like the death knights. It's going to reduce people's enthusiasm for the new expansion quite a bit, at a minimum.

Very poor design choice, IMO. So it's hard doing multiple races? Well, get cracking, then, Blizzard, we pay you to work occasionally rather than never.

I suspect the people who will refuse to play a new class because it cannot be combined with their favorite cosmetic race appearance (because racials basically mean nothing at this point) are a far smaller minority than you think.

And yeah, I agree that it seems the limitation is entirely story-based right now, since the starting experience arc involves specifically being one of the Illidari. Legion is very centered around Class and Class Identity as a major theme, so it makes sense for the new class to have a strong identity as a member of a specific, prominent lore organization who were almost exclusively elves. The next Xpac will almost certainly relax the restrictions as described above, with some mumbly handwaves a la Worgen DKs.

[Astrella]

The thing is that Death Knights being universal has a lot more credence behind it than Demon Hunters. Demon hunters have only ever been Elves, and they're bloody rare as is.

[Seerow]

Honestly, I don't like Demon Hunters.

Before the announcement, I liked the idea and wanted to see it done. But seeing the implementation? Don't care for them at all. The entire class seems to be built not to provide an engaging class experience, or fill a niche that is missing in the game. No, the entire purpose of Demon Hunters is to make it such that you can play as Illidan.

Don't get me wrong, a Demon Hunter class that didn't make it possible to be like Illidan would have been a mistake. But the class as it is goes too far the other way. You can play as Illidan. There is no other option. At most you can do Illidan with boobs. And honestly at this point I'm kind of surprised they allowed female Demon Hunters at all for that very reason.

Seriously, Elf Only. Special tattoos/horns to make you look more like illidan. Skimpy tier sets because Illidan didn't wear no shirt. Glaives are your only weapon type because Illidan doesn't use other weapons. Only 2 specs because adding a ranged spec would mean giving demon hunter abilities Illidan didn't have.

Like I get it. Illidan is a badass lore character and people love him. But that shouldn't be all there is to the class. And from what they've shown and told us? That's really the feeling I get. I'm not getting a new class. I'm getting a new character. And that **** just don't fly in an MMO. I don't want to be in a world with a million Illidans running around. The class needs to open up a huge amount conceptually to have any sort of long term value.

[Astrella]

Glaives are not the only weapon Demonhunters can use, it's just a weapontype exclusive to Demonhunters. (Nothing odd about that considering Bows, Guns and Crossbows are hunter-exclusive too.)

[Seerow]

Glaives are not the only weapon Demonhunters can use, it's just a weapontype exclusive to Demonhunters. (Nothing odd about that considering Bows, Guns and Crossbows are hunter-exclusive too.)

Conflicting information going around. In one interview they say Glaives are their only weapon, but they might open it up in later expansions. On the web site it lists standard one-handed weapons. Personally I'm going to go with the developer interview over the web site.

[Divayth Fyr]

Seriously, Elf Only.
Weren't elves the only playable race shown as DH before?


Special tattoos/horns to make you look more like illidan.
Which are optional - and both options are something people would expect from a DH.


Glaives are your only weapon type because Illidan doesn't use other weapons
With the focus the expansion is supposed to give to the artifact you'll get near the start, this is probably a non-issue, as you won't have much of a choice when it comes to weapons (unless you'll want to gimp yourself and use lower-tier gear).


Only 2 specs because adding a ranged spec would mean giving demon hunter abilities Illidan didn't have.
Weren't DH always described as meele combatants? Sure, they could pull a ranged spec out of nowhere - but it would make as much sense as a Warlock spec focused on powers of the Light...

[Kish]

Did they convert one each of the warrior, death knight, and rogue specs to be a "ranged spec" when I wasn't looking, or is "add a ranged spec or leave the class at two specs" as pure a false dichotomy as you could ever hope to meet?

[Leon]

Hopefully you can transmorg the Artifact weapons because undoubtedly they will look terrible.

Ok i didn't see the link till after i posted, thats a relief. Some of the best looking weapons in this game are simple to the point greens

[Antonok]

Artifact weapons will be moggable; Demon Hunters are Elf only. (http://warcraft.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/gamescom-2015-legion-interview-with-tom-chilton-ion-hazzikostas) Which means I will never roll a horde demon hunter this xpac. Blasted blood elves. grumblewishthey'dremovethemgrumble


Hopefully you can transmorg the Artifact weapons because undoubtedly they will look terrible.

This was answered about 10 posts ago...

[Draconi Redfir]

still not glad that the doomhammer, frostmorne, and ashbringer among others will become commonly availible. i don't care how powerful players get, those are designated NPC weapons, and should have remained that way. i could maybe see like, ashbringer or doomhammer breaking into peices and a single shard being used to forge a new artifact for us maybe, not not the whole dang thing.

or heck, maybe let us design and name our own artifacts so they're more personal and unique? i'd much rather have "Slakash, the Serpent's fang staff" that was custom built for my druid of the fang/hakkar worshiper over "Thrall's old weapon. that thing he's been pictured with since ever and is a huge part of his backstory. His backstory. not yours."

[Traab]

I suspect the people who will refuse to play a new class because it cannot be combined with their favorite cosmetic race appearance (because racials basically mean nothing at this point) are a far smaller minority than you think.

And yeah, I agree that it seems the limitation is entirely story-based right now, since the starting experience arc involves specifically being one of the Illidari. Legion is very centered around Class and Class Identity as a major theme, so it makes sense for the new class to have a strong identity as a member of a specific, prominent lore organization who were almost exclusively elves. The next Xpac will almost certainly relax the restrictions as described above, with some mumbly handwaves a la Worgen DKs.

Agreed. And even if blizzard WASNT planning on making demon hunters available to all races, it would hardly be the first time they changed their minds. Remember when shaman and paladins were faction specific? They tried for quite a long time to find a way to balance having a unique class for each faction before giving in and letting it become available to both sides in tbc. Honestly I always thought that was too bad. I kinda liked the shaman/paladin thing. It was very much a class war of opposites. Shaman were big bursty dps monsters, paladins were unkillable tanks with like 4 full life bars but low damage. Duels were awesome as heck and tended to turn into mana conservation battles. The first side to run out of mana for heals first lost. And considering the classes involved, that could take a very long time. The only other option was for the shaman to get really lucky with the rng, get a massive 2h weapon windfury triple crit proc followed by an earth shock crit proc and hope it did enough damage to finish them off. Im not saying there werent problems, there were, but I really liked the idea behind it.

[tigerusthegreat]

still not glad that the doomhammer, frostmorne, and ashbringer among others will become commonly availible. i don't care how powerful players get, those are designated NPC weapons, and should have remained that way. i could maybe see like, ashbringer or doomhammer breaking into peices and a single shard being used to forge a new artifact for us maybe, not not the whole dang thing.

or heck, maybe let us design and name our own artifacts so they're more personal and unique? i'd much rather have "Slakash, the Serpent's fang staff" that was custom built for my druid of the fang/hakkar worshiper over "Thrall's old weapon. that thing he's been pictured with since ever and is a huge part of his backstory. His backstory. not yours."

We have the power of alternate dimensions and time magic, we can pluck whatever overpowered weapons we want from whatever parrallel universe we deem fit.

[Draconi Redfir]

... ... I miss Earth Shock too:smallfrown:

[Traab]

... ... I miss Earth Shock too:smallfrown:

Grounding totem, and earth shock = dead spellcasters. Shaman were an evil as heck class back in vanilla. We had a counter for almost anything. About the only thing that worried me was a skilled stunlock rogue if I had no shield. With a shield I could generally survive till he ran out of cheap shots, kidney shots and gouges then heal to full and beat him till he vanished and ran away. But since I was generally a 2h wielding enhance shaman, I lacked the armor to safely outlast a good stunlock combo. We had the melee dps to murder warriors, the spell interrupts and protection to shut down spellcasters significantly and the ability to cast quick cheap heals that were scary hard to stop.

[MCerberus]

still not glad that the doomhammer, frostmorne, and ashbringer among others will become commonly availible. i don't care how powerful players get, those are designated NPC weapons, and should have remained that way. i could maybe see like, ashbringer or doomhammer breaking into peices and a single shard being used to forge a new artifact for us maybe, not not the whole dang thing.

or heck, maybe let us design and name our own artifacts so they're more personal and unique? i'd much rather have "Slakash, the Serpent's fang staff" that was custom built for my druid of the fang/hakkar worshiper over "Thrall's old weapon. that thing he's been pictured with since ever and is a huge part of his backstory. His backstory. not yours."

Lorewise, Doomhammer is just a hammer with a history.
From what we've seen, you're using shards of Frostmorne. Plus all the souls and the soul sucking power are dead with Arthas/Nerzul LK. (DW frost, btw)
Ashbringer is silly though, since Fordring is still active. That one's like if they gave Arcane Mages A'teish (one of the specs gets the personal staff of the first watchers though) "Oh hey Khadgar. I stole your staff off camera"

Why not just use a purified/restored Akshandi?
Ooh, and having Arms use the primordial pure form of Zin'Rohk. Wait. TROLLBANE. Back to its full glory. The sword that kept being teased but never actually seen. The one, original, trollbane.
edit 2 - and maybe Rohk'delar returns? that thing is a legend to anyone who played during vanilla.

[Draconi Redfir]

oh god Trollbane is actually coming into play? Dang, i thought that axe in Zul'aman was it.

something tells me a lot of Trolls are going to be running away from Arms Warriors:smalleek:

[Seerow]

oh god Trollbane is actually coming into play? Dang, i thought that axe in Zul'aman was it.

something tells me a lot of Trolls are going to be running away from Arms Warriors:smalleek:

Pretty sure that is speculation, not confirmed. Unless they confirmed the Arms Warrior weapon sometime after the ridiculous farce of a Q&A this afternoon while I was not paying attention.

[MCerberus]

oh god Trollbane is actually coming into play? Dang, i thought that axe in Zul'aman was it.

something tells me a lot of Trolls are going to be running away from Arms Warriors:smalleek:

I was just spitballing weapon ideas that aren't currently used by important NPCs.

[Antonok]

I was just spitballing weapon ideas that aren't currently used by important NPCs.

Well for Ashbringer, it's more than likely going to end up with Tirion dead somehow. That sword does tend to have a bit of a history killing it's owner...

[Yana]

... Is there even a legendary-ish weapon for rogues?

[Antonok]

... Is there even a legendary-ish weapon for rogues?

Aye. a lot of the weapons have yet to be revealed. All we really know is there is a artifact weapon for each class spec.

[Draconi Redfir]

I was just spitballing weapon ideas that aren't currently used by important NPCs.

ahh okay, my bad.

[Seerow]

... Is there even a legendary-ish weapon for rogues?

if there's not, they'll make some up. Combat uses a pair of one-handers, which means there's tons of options out there. Mut/Sub are harder, since daggers tend to not get a lot of lore about them. I suspect you'll get new previously unheard of options for them, with lore you learn about as you acquire the weapon, alluding to their unlauded use in various assassinations or whatever.

Actually getting the daggers Garona used to assassinate Varian's father would be interesting.


Also not sure if I mentioned it yet, but my favorite idea for an Arms Warrior weapon so far is Shalamayne (Varian's sword). Varian's been shown in the cinematic, but isn't listed as a hero/villain of the expansion, and Anduin's bio talks about him learning the price of peace. So I suspect Varian ends up as one of the heroes who either dies or loses hope and abandons the fight... and between the two I strongly lean towards death.

This opens up Shalamayne as an Artifact Sword, and it has such a distinctive base model that it has a lot of potential for cool reskins, so I want it just for that reason.

It also opens up a ton of possibilities for Alliance storylines. The developers have said time and again they don't know how to write for the Alliance because they are the good guys. Well Varian dying creates stories that practically write themselves.

Anduin coping with the loss and suddenly being thrust into leadership, possibly also dealing with guilt for his actions being what causes it; and his growth as a result. Other Alliance Leaders not being willing to follow a teenaged untested and idealistic Anduin as High King the way they were willing to submit to Varian, fracturing apart and engaging in politics amongst each other, or pursuing personal agendas that are not necessarily in the best interest of the Alliance as a whole but personal issues long unresolved, including but not limited to:
-Moira deciding with Varian being gone the Council of Three Hammers is no longer needed, and declaring Ironforge for herself, and all of the ramifications involved there.
-Gnomes, kicked out of Ironforge by Moira, strive to find a new home or retake Gnomeregan.
-Greymane rallying support for an attempt to reconquer Gilneas

Of course there's plenty of others. I'm pretty sure there's several zones/areas NElves lost during the Cataclysm they'd be interested in reclaiming. They may also be interested in trying to take a more prominent role in Alliance Leadership, citing general elf superiority/wisdom BS. The Draenei end up beleaguered on the front lines, being the only ones along with a group of human paladins and the player characters who are devoting all of their effort to the main fight instead of splitting forces for all of these other diversions.

Anyway back on the topic of the Demon Hunters:


Weren't elves the only playable race shown as DH before?


By that logic, Horde still would still not have any Paladins; and Alliance would have no Shamans. Fact is, lore is mutable; and having Orc/Draenei available as DH would be pretty reasonable to include without shattering the lore. A number of other races are also feasible, though being there in any large numbers would be questionable.


Which are optional - and both options are something people would expect from a DH.


Meanwhile customization options of this type (tattoos especially) are something players have been begging for for years and were never bothered with. But with demon hunters it is absolutely necessary, because you can't have a demon hunter without Illidan's special snowflake tattoos.


With the focus the expansion is supposed to give to the artifact you'll get near the start, this is probably a non-issue, as you won't have much of a choice when it comes to weapons (unless you'll want to gimp yourself and use lower-tier gear).


On the other hand making the glaives swords or some other weapon type, instead of their own brand new unique thing would have meant that some demon hunters might conceivably be able to transmog their weapons to something else.

Instead, demon hunters will have their artifact weapons as the only possible thing they can wield at all for the entirety of 7.0, minimum.


Weren't DH always described as meele combatants? Sure, they could pull a ranged spec out of nowhere - but it would make as much sense as a Warlock spec focused on powers of the Light...


It's nowhere near that opposed to their theme. It'd be more like Warriors gaining a ranged spec, something different from what we've seen from them, but feasibly fitting into the concept. Definitely makes more sense than healing monks did. It basically just boils down to expanding the Demon Hunter concept from "Things we've seen Illidan do" to "Things a character could do when training to kill demons while using demonic power". Because while Illidan is a very narrow concept, Demonically Enhnanced Super Soldier is a much broader concept, and encapsulates what Demon Hunters are.

[GungHo]

Before the announcement, I liked the idea and wanted to see it done. But seeing the implementation? Don't care for them at all. The entire class seems to be built not to provide an engaging class experience, or fill a niche that is missing in the game. No, the entire purpose of Demon Hunters is to make it such that you can play as Illidan.
Perhaps for truth in advertising they could just rename the class to The Illidan. I'm also supportive of renaming the Death Knight to The Arthas.

[Traab]

I think the real problem with giving out famous weapons like doomhammer and such is that if you give one spec/class a legendary lore weapon, then you have to come up with one for all the classes or else you will get the usual annoying whining of people who are convinced everything that doesnt make them gods is a sign blizzard hates their class/spec. It would be better imo, to have us make a NEW weapon of legend. It would also feed into phasing out the current big names. Something like,

Thrall: "New legends are rising across the face of azeroth and beyond. Noble warriors, mighty spellcasters, cunning assassins. Our time is passing, now it is time for a new age of legends to begin. Let the enemies of good tremble at their coming!"

We spend this long epic quest line farming items to aid in the forging of our new weapon, achieving great deeds as we go. Every step makes our weapon that much better. By the time we reach the end, and collect the blood of Finalraidbossiusmaximus to seal the final enchantments in, it will have become a weapon spoken of in taverns across the world. The legendary weapon of (insert character name here) savior of azeroth!

[Psyren]

What, they didn't have enough night elves and blood elves running around?
Maybe the thread title should be "LEGION... of Elves." :smallbiggrin:

I for one like the Hunter changes, I always wanted to play an archer/rifleman in this game without managing all the pet stuff. Hunter one of the two classes I never got to cap, in any expansion. And I always thought it was wack that a mail-using class couldn't enter melee.

[Antonok]

I've never wanted to go to Blizzcon, but this is making me want to go. (The 2015 blizzcon pet)


http://media.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2015/august/upMP01.jpg

Also seems they're prepping for Legion pre orders on the ptr. Patch notes here (http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/5085-Patch-6-2-2-PTR-Build-20395-Patch-6-2-2-PTR-Build-20395#_).

[Shekinah]

Wish there was a way to get the murloc pets without going to Blizzcon.

[Seerow]

Wish there was a way to get the murloc pets without going to Blizzcon.

You can buy the blizzcon virtual ticket and get it.

[Sylthia]

Perhaps for truth in advertising they could just rename the class to The Illidan. I'm also supportive of renaming the Death Knight to The Arthas.

Not giving Demon Hunter to at least Draenei and Orcs, who you don't have to twist lore too much to justify, just smacks of laziness. They have double to development team they did during Wrath, but have been releasing less and less content.

[Shekinah]

You can buy the blizzcon virtual ticket and get it.

Well, I feel silly now.


Not giving Demon Hunter to at least Draenei and Orcs, who you don't have to twist lore too much to justify, just smacks of laziness. They have double to development team they did during Wrath, but have been releasing less and less content.

Maybe it's elf only because Illidan only wants to train elves? I suspect that after Legion, we'll be seeing more races as demon hunters.

[Sylthia]

Maybe it's elf only because Illidan only wants to train elves? I suspect that after Legion, we'll be seeing more races as demon hunters.

Doubt it, we've gotten new Race/Class combos all of once in the decade long history of WoW.

[Astrella]

The current Demon Hunters are all going to be Illadari, who were only Elves.

[Traab]

Doubt it, we've gotten new Race/Class combos all of once in the decade long history of WoW.

Players will gripe and moan and blizzard will fold again. It may take till the next expansion, but it will happen. Its easy enough to justify in lore. The current batch of demon hunters took their training and passed it on, yadda yadda. Now multiple races can be demon hunters. Maybe all of them.

[Shekinah]

Players will gripe and moan and blizzard will fold again. It may take till the next expansion, but it will happen. Its easy enough to justify in lore. The current batch of demon hunters took their training and passed it on, yadda yadda. Now multiple races can be demon hunters. Maybe all of them.

I want pandaren demon hunters if only for the lulz.

In all honesty, I'm fine with demon hunters being in the elf-only club at least in this expac. I'm still feeling whiny about Gilneas not being available. Or Pyrewood for RP. The only place where we have Gilnean architecture that's easily accessible is Surwich. Blah.

[Astrella]

You might get more places, Gen seems to at least play a part in the Legion storyline.

[Seerow]

You might get more places, Gen seems to at least play a part in the Legion storyline.

He does, but it does not look like he will be doing a lot of building. It will be nice to get the Worgen doing SOMETHING though. As it is, the only lore related to them is their starter zone, and even that cuts off halfway through, and the only way to get the other half is to roll a horde toon and level as an undead.

They were planning to give some Worgen love in WoD, but the story got scrapped in favor of that lame Fiona quest chain where you go chasing down her traveling companions.

[Sylthia]

He does, but it does not look like he will be doing a lot of building. It will be nice to get the Worgen doing SOMETHING though. As it is, the only lore related to them is their starter zone, and even that cuts off halfway through, and the only way to get the other half is to roll a horde toon and level as an undead.

They were planning to give some Worgen love in WoD, but the story got scrapped in favor of that lame Fiona quest chain where you go chasing down her traveling companions.

Looks like that 5 minutes of development time went to good use.

[Traab]

He does, but it does not look like he will be doing a lot of building. It will be nice to get the Worgen doing SOMETHING though. As it is, the only lore related to them is their starter zone, and even that cuts off halfway through, and the only way to get the other half is to roll a horde toon and level as an undead.

They were planning to give some Worgen love in WoD, but the story got scrapped in favor of that lame Fiona quest chain where you go chasing down her traveling companions.

Its too bad too, because the worgen starting area was freaking awesome.

[Draconi Redfir]

Its too bad too, because the worgen starting area was freaking awesome.

might be too soon to tell but weren't the pandaren simmiler to that too? i haven';t noticed much Pandarain impact outside of Pandaria asside from a token place in Orgramarr and a few pandaren soldiers in tanann. i get the feeling their whole culture is just too spesific to blend with horde or alliance.

Hozen and Jinu though. Tellin you, they had it right the first time.

[Traab]

might be too soon to tell but weren't the pandaren simmiler to that too? i haven';t noticed much Pandarain impact outside of Pandaria asside from a token place in Orgramarr and a few pandaren soldiers in tanann. i get the feeling their whole culture is just too spesific to blend with horde or alliance.

Hozen and Jinu though. Tellin you, they had it right the first time.

I was a bit annoyed by the whole savage ape men are horde allies thing too be honest. Maybe back in warcraft 2 and 3 that would have been appropriate, but I have heard rumors that orcs have been learning to READ lately! They are getting down right civilized and such! Seriously though, im kind of tired of the "savage horde" label. Its just not really the case anymore. Much like the whole good and evil thing, there has been so much blurring that acting as if the horde are savages or just more akin to them is kind of annoying.

The pandaren thing was, imo, stupid. The pandaren we play as are not connected to the pandaren continent we explore. They have lived on the back of a giant turtle for generations, it was a little annoying to see that too be honest. I was hoping for a sect of pandarians that wanted to explore the rest of the world, not stay put on their farms and little villages fighting off moghu swarms and giant bug men. Instead we get a group of pandas that probably only remember their homeland from ancient legends.

[The_Jackal]

Well they had to come up with some mechanism to explain why your panda was new to Pandaria, didn't they?

[Kish]

I'm reasonably sure Traab is specifically objecting to the pandaren PCs being new to Panderia; saying they needed to justify it since it was the case is dodging his point.

And as for what else they could have done, going just by things they established a precedent for doing, they could have established a panderen starting area on the edge of the continent with high-level enemies just outside it, two zones going from level 1 to 20 with quest chains ending in "now you're going to bring back the Alliance or the Horde to help us here" (mimicking what they did for blood elves), or they could have established in backstory that these panderens had left the continent in a ship of some kind to find aid in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms (mimicking what they did for draenei).

[Traab]

Or your starting area could be a phased version of the horde/alliance starting spot of pandaria, you choose to aid one of the sides, and old whats his face, the guy who shows up when the sha starts taking over sends you to see if the horde/alliance is telling the truth about what they want. When you hit the right level you get summoned back "to make your report" and can move on with the pandaria expansion.

[GungHo]

Or your starting area could be a phased version of the horde/alliance starting spot of pandaria, you choose to aid one of the sides, and old whats his face, the guy who shows up when the sha starts taking over sends you to see if the horde/alliance is telling the truth about what they want. When you hit the right level you get summoned back "to make your report" and can move on with the pandaria expansion.

Agreed, but then they'd have had to change a lot of the dialog in the subsequent zones which made it clear that you were a stranger in a strange land. There is some panda-specific dialog (amounting to "oh, you're one of those"), but they eventually get to "this is a strange and exotic land with strange and exotic things, so go pick some onions".

[Antonok]

Recently resubbed again to prepare for legion (read: amass a LOT of gold), and discovered a wee bit of a problem.

I can only play monks... it's the only class I find fun. I have a hunter, pally, shaman, lock, and rogue at 90+ with a warrior and priest at 60+ and I can't stand to play them for more than 10 minutes before switching to one of my 4 monks (all on different realms/factions).

Blizzard, please do good on Demon Hunters so I can have more than 1 class :smallsigh:

[Psyren]

Can Worgen be monks yet? I'd renew for that.

[Traab]

Hah, I have had that happen before. Suddenly it seems like no class is any good anymore except for one. For the longest time for me it was blood spec deathknights. I just enjoyed rampaging around as them. I also had a number of classes that I got to high levels then didnt touch for a few expansions. My shaman, my first character, my raid character, I stopped playing him halfway through WotLK and didnt touch him again till pandaria. I forget why, I think they made some changes to the class I just didnt enjoy, but whatever. A lot of my characters got abandoned an expansion or two ago that I didnt really play again till panda land. I think my mage was the most annoying to max out. Everything just takes so long to DIE in pandaria unless you have high end gear. Quest gear gained from clearing zones solo doesnt cut it. Relearning my warlock was also a pita, he got abandoned in early wotlk.

[Draconi Redfir]

So apparently doing the Skettis apexis quest triggers a Shadowmoon invasion... o-okay... i'm not sure why that wouldn't trigger like, an Arakkoa invasion but... kay...

[Antonok]

Patch 6.2.2 slated for Sept 1st release (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/19820046/622-patch-notes-patch-arriving-september-1-8-19-2015)

Least I still have a couple weeks to catch up on Draenor Pathfinding.

Also really happy about the legendary ring catch up mechanics. Particularly since I still need to do the 300 elemental runes part.

[Sylthia]

Patch 6.2.2 slated for Sept 1st release (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/19820046/622-patch-notes-patch-arriving-september-1-8-19-2015)

Least I still have a couple weeks to catch up on Draenor Pathfinding.

Also really happy about the legendary ring catch up mechanics. Particularly since I still need to do the 300 elemental runes part.

What I'd really like is an increased Tome drop rate for alts. I've got 4 alts that I haven't started the last leg with and not sure if I can be bothered to complete it at this point.

[Icewraith]

The last patch felt like

Dear Alts,

F*** you.

Love,

Blizzard Entertainment

[Traab]

Why? What did they do?

[Icewraith]

Why? What did they do?

I got burned out doing the shipyard on everyone, the only thing to do is run around in tanaan and fill up those damn bars. Juggling three garrisons got to the point I just got sick of it and now I barely do my main's garrison. I dropped my gathering professions in 6.1 because there was STILL no point and now I need gathering professions and more running around in the jungle.

The timewalking feature was interesting but I only have time to do them on my main and it's almost never available when I have time to play (or it's pvp or battle pets), I have no idea how mythic 5-mans ended up working out. The 660 stuff isn't really good enough to step into normal hellfire on an alt so getting a break from tanking by raiding with another group is out, but I've mostly stopped doing that because I tend to have terrible luck when it comes to finding groups. Doing all that crap to try and keep my alts usable in case we need a healer doesn't really have a point because we're having issues finding a reliable second tank who actually wants to tank. 6.2 just added a ton of stuff that I don't want to do on more than one character, so my alts are now gathering dust. Also, the new legendary drop is random, so I probably won't be getting that on either of my alts.

The raid mechanics after the first two bosses seem to have gone up a step in basic complexity, and some of the people we run with just can't seem to cope. Alternatively nobody else is playing that much so people's skills are going down the drain. The fights so far aren't really "fun". A number of people appear to have stopped playing. I don't think I can stand another year or even six months of this, I actually cancelled my subscription renewal and will be evaluating how much I want to continue playing WoW over the next couple weeks.

Maybe things will turn around. My wife suggested we roll alts on a more populated server but she doesn't seem to actually want to work on them.

Alternative solution: find a different group that I don't have to run and organize.

[Antonok]

I dropped my gathering professions in 6.1


I still don't understand why people did this. Okay yeah, you don't need it for this xpac but you still need it for old world content and it was highly highly doubtful they'd use this same formula in the next Xpac with overwhelming negativity the current iteration of professions has garnered.

I will agree with garrisons/shipyards being alt unfriendly. Takes way too much grinding to get them up and running and keep resources flowing in. Doubly so for the shipyard.

[Sylthia]

I still don't understand why people did this. Okay yeah, you don't need it for this xpac but you still need it for old world content and it was highly highly doubtful they'd use this same formula in the next Xpac with overwhelming negativity the current iteration of professions has garnered.

I will agree with garrisons/shipyards being alt unfriendly. Takes way too much grinding to get them up and running and keep resources flowing in. Doubly so for the shipyard.

I've seen min-maxers shuffle professions in the past a lot, but I'm not sure why you'd drop a profession now, since there's no real advantage to having the professions at all, now.

[Icewraith]

I've seen min-maxers shuffle professions in the past a lot, but I'm not sure why you'd drop a profession now, since there's no real advantage to having the professions at all, now.

I didn't drop them "now", I dropped them after 6.1 hit and there weren't any buffs to gathering professions. The idea was to pick up BS and 1) grab the cool looking BC armor for xmog and 2: make the crafted armor etc for a couple slots I simply could not seem to get a good drop for.

[Delusion]

So who else is going to roll a demon hunter? I am pretty likely, unless their playstyle turns out to be really boring or clunky or something.

I like playing mobile classes and the turn into demon thing appeals to me.

[Traab]

If I ever get ahold of the latest expansions I will. I like to try things out. Even if I didnt think I would like them I generally give it a try, if only to confirm, "Yep, I dont like it."

[Draconi Redfir]

So has anyone gotten any of the part drops for the dungeon-module for the garrison trading post AH robot? I've been trying but so far i haven't even seen one...

[Sylthia]

So has anyone gotten any of the part drops for the dungeon-module for the garrison trading post AH robot? I've been trying but so far i haven't even seen one...

I've gotten quite a few of the cheaper ones, but to construct the whole thing, it will cost upwards of several hundred gold to buy them off the AH, which just isn't worth it, unless you're an AH Baron.

[Draconi Redfir]

i know that, but i'm not trying to get them off the AH, i'm trying to get them as drops, but the ones that are supposed to be dropping in dungeons aren't for me. so i'm wondering if anyone else has experiance with this, maybe i'm doing something wrong like maybe they don't drop on heroics or something, etc.

[Seerow]

i know that, but i'm not trying to get them off the AH, i'm trying to get them as drops, but the ones that are supposed to be dropping in dungeons aren't for me. so i'm wondering if anyone else has experiance with this, maybe i'm doing something wrong like maybe they don't drop on heroics or something, etc.

They do drop, I've gotten several pieces, but they're relatively rare.

But seriously, the whole thing is a huge waste of gold. Don't bother with it. Even if you farm all of the pieces (and that is a 100+ hour endeavor), you still have the opportunity cost of what you could have from selling the part. The Ashran part (Universal Language Module I think?) is still selling for 50,000g today. If you're worried about spending a few hundred gold on the dungeon parts, then you will be way better off selling the parts you happen to drop than using them.

I mean there's not even an achieve associated with completing it as far as I know, and we're abandoning the garrison in a few months. The AH is a needless extravagance.

[Sylthia]

They do drop, I've gotten several pieces, but they're relatively rare.

But seriously, the whole thing is a huge waste of gold. Don't bother with it. Even if you farm all of the pieces (and that is a 100+ hour endeavor), you still have the opportunity cost of what you could have from selling the part. The Ashran part (Universal Language Module I think?) is still selling for 50,000g today. If you're worried about spending a few hundred gold on the dungeon parts, then you will be way better off selling the parts you happen to drop than using them.

I mean there's not even an achieve associated with completing it as far as I know, and we're abandoning the garrison in a few months. The AH is a needless extravagance.

I don't know why they even added the potential AH in the first place. It's not really a gold sink, since the gold is going to somebody and not getting eaten. I do not know anyone who has actually completed it.

[Draconi Redfir]

for the convineince of having an AH in your garrison? it'd certainly save some time not needing to go to asharan and back every time i want to put something up on sale.

[The_Jackal]

for the convineince of having an AH in your garrison? it'd certainly save some time not needing to go to asharan and back every time i want to put something up on sale.

Since there is a portal to Ashran in your garrison, I fail to see why this represents any kind of convenience at all.

[Draconi Redfir]

ehh, portal's only one way, and the hearthstone has a cooldown. So if say, you go to asharan, put one thing on the AH, and hearth back to the garrison only to find you forgot to put something else on the AH, you need to go to asharan again, put it up, and then either wait for the free hearth back to the garrison, or pay the few gold to fly back to your garrison. Aaaand when you're basically playing on just the time tokens, any oppertunity to spend less gold is one you want to go for.

yeah, it's not SUPER inconveniant to go to asharan to put an item on AH, and if there wasn't the option of having an AH in your garrison i wouldn't complain in the slightest. but the option is there, and having it be right next to my town hall where i spend most of my time would be more convinent then needing to go to a different city alltogether.

[The_Jackal]

ehh, portal's only one way, and the hearthstone has a cooldown. So if say, you go to asharan, put one thing on the AH, and hearth back to the garrison only to find you forgot to put something else on the AH, you need to go to asharan again, put it up, and then either wait for the free hearth back to the garrison, or pay the few gold to fly back to your garrison. Aaaand when you're basically playing on just the time tokens, any oppertunity to spend less gold is one you want to go for.

yeah, it's not SUPER inconveniant to go to asharan to put an item on AH, and if there wasn't the option of having an AH in your garrison i wouldn't complain in the slightest. but the option is there, and having it be right next to my town hall where i spend most of my time would be more convinent then needing to go to a different city alltogether.

So you're telling me that you're going to spend a ton of hours to give you the ability to forego 10 seconds of planning. And how is this time efficient?

[Draconi Redfir]

If nothing else it's something to do and a goal to achive. it'd get rid of that yellow ! that's been lingering around my minimap for the past three months at least.

[Sylthia]

If nothing else it's something to do and a goal to achive. it'd get rid of that yellow ! that's been lingering around my minimap for the past three months at least.

The fact that I'm nowhere near completing this thing after 10 months of fairly regular play makes it seem a bit overtuned in terms of drop rarity.

[LibraryOgre]

"For the Lich King!"

The Mod Wonder: Revived by request. Right click for hot undead action.

[Psyren]

So the whole base management thing in Draenor was a huge turnoff for me just reading it, and led to me skipping that expansion entirely. I don't speak for everyone who skipped Draenor obviously, but that was my reason, that and the lack of shiny new classes or races to try. What's there in Legion for folks like me?

[Draconi Redfir]

You get to weild the ashbringer!

i mean, so does literally everybody else so we may as well just call it "common sword" and everything but... ehh?

[ryuplaneswalker]

You get to weild the ashbringer!

i mean, so does literally everybody else so we may as well just call it "common sword" and everything but... ehh?

Well if you are a Ret Paladin you get to use Ashbringer, if you are a holy or prot paladin you get..

"Things made by the titans that are super duper awesome..but was never ever discussed in lore before"

which is pretty much one of the biggest problems with the artifact system in a nutshell, also it has been commented that we may not be using them in the expansion after legion..so the most powerful Undead Slaying weapon in the setting? Discarded for a quest reward!

[The_Jackal]

Unless Blizzard is going on record with an about-face on Flying (ie: You can buy flying the minute you get to the level cap), they will not get my money for Legion.


Well if you are a Ret Paladin you get to use Ashbringer, if you are a holy or prot paladin you get..

"Things made by the titans that are super duper awesome..but was never ever discussed in lore before"

which is pretty much one of the biggest problems with the artifact system in a nutshell, also it has been commented that we may not be using them in the expansion after legion..so the most powerful Undead Slaying weapon in the setting? Discarded for a quest reward!

Of course, the BIGGEST problem with the artifact system is that there will be 700 copies of Ashbringer. Literally every Retribution paladin will have one, which kind of shows the level of head up posterior the current developers are labouring under.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8I9pYCl9AQ

[Draconi Redfir]

Unless Blizzard is going on record with an about-face on Flying (ie: You can buy flying the minute you get to the level cap), they will not get my money for Legion.



Of course, the BIGGEST problem with the artifact system is that there will be 700 copies of Ashbringer. Literally every Retribution paladin will have one, which kind of shows the level of head up posterior the current developers are labouring under.

[*Video snip*]

I quite enjoy this interpritation myself:

https://i.imgur.com/qvou5U1.jpg

[AgentPaper]

Worth noting that we'll be using our artifacts for a good year at least, possibly 2 or more depending on how soon the next expansion comes. I imagine that by that time, most people are going to be sick of using the same weapon all the time and be happy to have new weapons again, whether it's a new line of artifacts or back to the normal weapon system.

Or maybe artifacts will be super-popular and nobody will want to let them go, and instead of replacing them we'll just keep using the same artifacts, and just keep making them more powerful. By the sound of it, Blizzard hasn't actually decided exactly what they want to do with artifacts yet. Regardless of what they end up doing with them though, it looks like it'll be a lot of fun for the time we do have them, at least. Let Blizzard worry about what to do afterwards for now.

As for things to be excited about, well, there's a lot of class changes that could be interesting, but for someone coming back probably the biggest change is that apparently 5-man dungeons are going to be a legitimate end-game thing now, on par with raids in many ways. As in, they'll be as difficult as raids (using a scaling difficulty/reward system), and provide items just as powerful as those in the highest raid content, for groups skilled enough to handle it. So now you can take on some hard-core challenges even if your guild is too small for even 10-man raids.

Aside from that, there's a new class, the demon hunter, which looks pretty cool, and the end-game grind (ie: daily quests) has gotten seriously revamped, so you don't necessarily need to log in every single day to get the most out of it, and you get to pick and choose what kind of content, whether it's more traditional questing, silly challenges like rolling around in a war machine, joining a group to fight a world boss, etc. Remains to be seen if the system works out as well as they claim, but it looks promising.

And of course there's a lot of quality of life changes, for example you don't need to keep old items around for transmog anymore, but instead they're added to your wardrobe automatically if they're bound to you, you can transmog a few new items (shirts, weapon enchantment, a couple others I think), you can hide your shoulder slot along with your cloak and helm, you can save transmog outfits, etc.

And probably a lot more I'm forgetting, but overall it's looking like it's going to be a pretty fun expansion, especially if you play with alts since there's a lot of class-specific and profession-specific content.


Edit: Yes, there will be a lot of ashbringers floating around, but the same can be said for any major weapon in the game. I don't really see it as a problem though, especially with how much you can customize your artifact to look unique with the various versions and colors, which I can't imagine they won't be adding to over the course of the expansion. And if you really want to look unique, you can still transmog your artifact to look like any other weapon in the game, just like normal, so you can still be a pirate rogue with a cutlass or what have you if that's what you want.

Would it be cool if you could really have the one and only Ashbringer? Yeah, sure. It'd be awesome for that one person, and maybe kinda cool for his dozen or so friends who get to bask in it's awesomeness. I'd much rather have an artifact myself, even if many others also have it, than not have the artifact and just be able to think about how neat it is that there's only one.

[Requizen]

I quit during Cata, coming back to see leveling for MoP and WoD. Never got back into Raiding (not that I wouldn't like to, just time is a commodity nowadays), but I am reasonably excited for Legion. I've seen a lot of things that I like, though experience has taught me that a lot of the good stuff may or may not even make it into Legion when it comes out.

Still, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to playing my Hunter with the changes, and the Artifacts seem cool. Yes, being very proliferated seems iffy, but I like the idea of them. In every other expansion, I always felt like I'd get a badass weapon and then just junk it when the next patch came out. At least this time we'll keep one for the whole expansion, which I like.

I've resubbed and am leveling alts to get ready and get back into the game. I dunno if I'll stay any longer past the leveling experience and general Dungeon gearing once it comes out, but WoW has always been a fun game in my book.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Unless Blizzard is going on record with an about-face on Flying (ie: You can buy flying the minute you get to the level cap), they will not get my money for Legion.

They are on record, it is going to be an achievement like WoD put in, but you aren't going to be able to get it in the first patch.


Of course, the BIGGEST problem with the artifact system is that there will be 700 copies of Ashbringer. Literally every Retribution paladin will have one, which kind of shows the level of head up posterior the current developers are labouring under.

Unless you know, you don't care about what other people are using, and really that is a problem with all MMOs, and is not specifically tied to this system. *cough* skull of gul'dan *cough* and you can transmog onto the artifacts So you probably won't see as many using Ashbringer as you might think, I know I won't be using the Unholy Weapon..unless it has better skins than we have seen.

[Shekinah]

Just watched the cinematic trailer for the next expac after a hiatus to take care of real-life demands. I still don't know why Varian's head is smaller than his shoulderguards. It's incredibly distracting.

[The_Jackal]

Just watched the cinematic trailer for the next expac after a hiatus to take care of real-life demands. I still don't know why Varian's head is smaller than his shoulderguards. It's incredibly distracting.

Well, when the graphics were low resolution and highly stylized, it didn't seem too absurd, but one of the big issues with the graphical upgrade is that the art direction hasn't adapted very well at all. The other problem, of course, is 18 generations of oneupsmanship, where each successive raid tier set needs to have bigger shoulders and shinier art than the last one. In any case, yes, Varian looks idiotic as they try to render his Haohmaru hairdo (http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/haohmaru-ngbc.jpg) with realism.

[Psyren]

As for things to be excited about, well, there's a lot of class changes that could be interesting, but for someone coming back probably the biggest change is that apparently 5-man dungeons are going to be a legitimate end-game thing now, on par with raids in many ways. As in, they'll be as difficult as raids (using a scaling difficulty/reward system), and provide items just as powerful as those in the highest raid content, for groups skilled enough to handle it. So now you can take on some hard-core challenges even if your guild is too small for even 10-man raids.

This is the main thing you've said that piqued my interest. One of the things I loved about Cata was mastering the very challenging 5-mans there and even getting purples from doing so. Pandaria did away with that, with 5-mans no longer being worth the time it took to queue up for them what with Raid Finder and the daily rewards blowing what you could get from them out of the water.

If Blizzard learned anything from Diablo it should be that a satisfying endgame experience can be had solo or with small groups. The days of massive raids with a huge and prestigious guild may not be quite gone, but I find they're increasingly out of reach of those of us with vanishing free time and more and more adult responsibilities heaped on our plates.

[otakuryoga]

Just watched the cinematic trailer for the next expac after a hiatus to take care of real-life demands. I still don't know why Varian's head is smaller than his shoulderguards. It's incredibly distracting.

a 10-year Arms(shoulders anyway) Race with the Hoard is why

[Seerow]

I think the issue with "everybody gets Ashbringer!" is overblown.

To start with, it's a different weapon for not just every class, but every spec. Do you actually even know more than 2 people who play a ret paladin? The odds of you having meaningful interactions with more than a couple of people with the weapon is pretty low.

After that, the Artifacts are really customizable. Like a minimum of 5-6 skins per artifact, and each of those skins having 5-6 palette swaps. So every spec has somewhere around 25-36 different possible variations on their artifact. Or somewhere around 1,296 possible weapons spread across the game. And that's at Legion's launch. I wouldn't be surprised to see new skins added with later patches. In fact I'd be shocked if we don't see at least 1-2 new skins per patch with a new raid tier.

Oh and on top of that you can transmog over your Artifact weapon, and plenty of people will do exactly that, especially with the new transmog system supposedly loosening restrictions.

I mean right now I could theoretically go out into Stormwind and see a dozen alliance warriors wielding Gorehowl, Grom and Garrosh's iconic weapon. But in general I don't, and when I do see it, it doesn't bother me. So why would I be bothered by seeing a Ret paladin here and there with different variations on Ashbringer?



As for things to get excited about? CM dungeons have already been mentioned, but definitely bears repeating. Also the new method of open world scaling is something really unique and awesome. If they get it right, it's a hop skip and a jump from there to having the ability to set the difficulty of the world higher for you in exchange for greater world rewards, basically doing the same sort of thing they're doing with CMs but tied to the open world. I think the potential alone there is something to be excited for, even if it doesn't pan out.

The developers have been talking about designing multiple smaller raids instead of one monolithic mega raid, and we're already seeing signs of the devs using raid art assets to make dungeons. I am looking at this as a hopeful sign for more dungeon content during patch cycles, maybe getting 1-2 dungeons to accompany each of the raids. That combined with the new scaling CM system will help keep dungeons fun and fresh for a long time.

Class reworks for everybody! I'm nervous to see what they do for Arms after the trainwreck of WoD's rework, but the previews we've seen thus far have me hopeful. All of the specs previewed thus far have pretty interesting mechanics and very strong themes. Seriously, some of these new reworks seem fantastic. Just go take a look at Shadow Priest, or any of the Hunter Specs, these are changes to be excited for.

Reputations the developers have said are going back to a more MoP style system, with less focus on extensive grinding and more on quests and story rewards. If they follow through with that, it will fill in a huge chunk of the gap WoD had content-wise; though I still want to see them bring back 3-man queueable scenarios, they seem to be dead set against that.

Oh and let's not forget professions. Profession questlines, rare recipe hunting, unique crafted item perks, and lots more. The profession system is getting a major overhaul, and is looking to be pretty awesome, and almost a progression path in of itself.


Also some new PVP leveling system. I don't particularly care about PVP, but the system of re-leveling for more awesome cosmetic rewards is pretty cool. It puts the top rewards into the hands of players who want to invest the most time actually PVPing rather than the top .1% of arena players (many of whom push rating really early then just sit there for months doing nothing), which is kind of neat.

[Sylthia]

Is there even a way to do Scenarios that you out level? Unlike raids or dungeons where you can physically travel to, with scenarios, you can only queue. I missed a lot of the scenarios when I went inactive in MoP.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Is there even a way to do Scenarios that you out level? Unlike raids or dungeons where you can physically travel to, with scenarios, you can only queue. I missed a lot of the scenarios when I went inactive in MoP.

There should be a Lorewalker in the Lorewalker's area above where SoO is in the Vale for Scenarios.

also Warlock info is out

IMPSPLOSION!

[The_Jackal]

There should be a Lorewalker in the Lorewalker's area above where SoO is in the Vale for Scenarios.

also Warlock info is out

IMPSPLOSION!

I that's a first: Co-opting spells from Hearthstone into World of Warcraft. Cute. Any news on them re-designing the Arms warrior?

[The Glyphstone]

Well, I like the Affliction redesign, but the Destruction one looks like it has problems - the only way to generate Soul Shards on-demand is Conflagrate or Immolate ticks, as printed so far, so Chaos Bolts will be few and far between.

[AgentPaper]

On Scenarios, something to note (taken from an answer they gave in the Q&A at blizzcon) is that they aren't actually against including more scenarios in the game, but rather that they don't think that the "queue up and sit in town waiting for a scenario to start" is the best way to implement them. Instead, they've said that they want to integrate scenarios into the world more seamlessly, for example early on in Legion you'll take part in a 40-man cross-faction scenario where both the horde and the alliance are seeking to push the Legion back and establish a foothold on the Broken Isles. They're also adding in a number of end-game scenarios that will be a big part of the end-game content that's replacing the current daily quest system, along with stuff like world bosses, gimmicky minigames (like rolling over a ton of gnomes back in Cataclysm), and presumably at least of the more familiar daily quest style content.

[Yana]

I'm still irritated that after a frelling decade of being a combat rogue, Blizzard decides to up and change the name for no real reason.

*waves torch and pitchfork* COMBAT ROGUES FOREVER!!!!!

I'm actually not that mad, I'll just miss being a combat rogue. Outlaw is just as generic a descriptor and it doesn't have the same pedigree that combat has obtained.

[The Glyphstone]

I can understand why they did it. It'd be like if Mages had a spec called Spellcasting. Bland and boring and generic is not how a spec should be named...don't ask why they changed it after 10 years, ask why it took them 10 years to change it. Outlaw at least has a flavor, IMO.

[AgentPaper]

I dunno. Combat has always seemed to have a fairly weak identity, at least by the name. They're masters...of fighting! I wouldn't have minded it going more of a "blademaster" type route, someone who uses swords and agility in combat, in contrast to Arms and Fury warriors. A swashbuckling pirate sounds pretty cool though, and has potential for a lot of flavor.

[Yana]

I can understand why they did it. It'd be like if Mages had a spec called Spellcasting. Bland and boring and generic is not how a spec should be named...don't ask why they changed it after 10 years, ask why it took them 10 years to change it. Outlaw at least has a flavor, IMO.

A valid point, hence my white text in the previous post.

[The Glyphstone]

A valid point, hence my white text in the previous post.

I just happened to disagree that Outlaw was equally generic as Combat. Otherwise I can empathize.

[Psyren]

Are melee hunters a thing yet? Are shamans still stuck with shields even when they have no business tanking? Will DH wear leather or mail?

[AgentPaper]

Are melee hunters a thing yet? Are shamans still stuck with shields even when they have no business tanking? Will DH wear leather or mail?

Survival is actually changing into a melee spec in the next expansion. Raptor Strike, Wing Clip, and Mongoose Bite are all making a comeback. Even their artifact weapon is a spear.

Shaman still use shields I think, just like holy paladins do, but they're mostly there for the stats, and they use other off-hand items as well. Demon Hunter wears leather armor, though generally not around the chest region, male and female.

[Icewraith]

Leather DH last I checked.
Melee survival hunter is a go. Survival's ranged mechanics are partially being folded into Marks, so the Survival gameplay isn't necessarily going away. I was really hoping Survival would throw spears as a ranged attack like the troll units from Warcraft 3, but they do at least have a harpoon attack (heroic leap rip-off but it makes sense).

No idea on Shamans.

Here's what convinced me to preorder:
Improved transmog system. I am going to get so much bag and bank space back.
So much bag and bank space. They listened!
Also the free level 100 means I get to try out a mage. I'll finally understand all the things my wife complains about her mage main.
It sounds like we're back to doing missions for ourselves instead of sitting in the garrison while other people do our dirty work, at least partially. They probably listened!
One thing I didn't realize about 6.2 is they got rid of the randomness in replacing follower traits, now you can pick. They definitely listened!
The stuff they're talking about- more talent customization, stronger differentiation between specs - sounds good in theory. See above.
They're still willing to make changes and try out new mechanics and even overhaul classes.
Double jump. Outside chance it causes me to switch mains.

A few things I'm not sure about- some of the stuff they're talking about sounds like a direct port of Diablo 3 Greater Rifts and class mechanics stolen straight from Heroes of the Storm (Tyrael's sword throw, for instance). However, I really LIKE the sword throw in Heroes, and the Grift mechanics don't seem like a bad thing to steal.

Hoping hopeful hopes for the Warrior reveal tomorrow.

Things that anger me- the video. Some of Varian just looked off, I agree. But mostly.... why on EARTH AZEROTH would you fly an AIRSHIP against an opponent whose signature move is dropping massive demons out of the sky like meteors?!?!?!?!? I knew that thing would be destroyed the second I saw Varian was on the airship.

Oh, and if you're an opponent whose signature move is dropping massive demons out of the sky like meteors, why not target the horde airship that is basically a giant balloon and let the ensuing fireball take out the alliance airship that is flying right friggin' next to it?

Final note - even Varian was so unhappy with Arms in WoD that he went back to Fury.

[AgentPaper]

Addendum to the shaman thing: At least for the next expansion, since everyone gets artifact weapons, that means that Shaman will be wielding very specific (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/19941529/legion-shaman-artifact-reveal-10-23-2015) weapons for the forseeable future. That is, two hammers for Enhancement, a claw and a shield for elemental, and a scepter and shield/focus thing (kinda blurs the line, not sure which it is in game terms) for restoration. Also worth noting that, with transmog, you can change those into whatever weapons you want, so you can go dual axes or dual claws for enhancement if you don't find wielding the doomhammer to be awesome.


One criticism that I do agree with on what we've seen so far is that a lot of the artifacts seem to be just the same kind of "powerful but really kinda generic" weapons that we've been using this whole time. Sure there aren't enough Ashbringers and Doomhammers to cover every class/spec, but I'd like to at least see stuff like the Scepter of Azshara, where even if the item isn't already well-known, it's tied into some kind of existing, well-known and thematic character or lore. Beastmaster's Titanstrike is probably the worst offender here, being literally "a gun made by Mimiron". Survival's Talonclaw is almost as bad, but I'm so excited for spear hunter (and really spears in general) to be a thing that I'm willing to overlook it.

Hopefully they're not too committed to the items they have right now, as I really hope a few of them get, if not outright replaced, then at least re-fluffed to be better tied into the important lore of the class/spec in question.

[The Glyphstone]

My beef with the video was more thematic...out of all the Horde leaders they could have picked, Sylvanas has to be the absolute worst choice to be the person Varian learns to 'trust'. Vol'jin would have made far more sense in that exact position, being Varian's opposite number and a person who is actually worth trusting at times, plus being a 'class' with ranged attacks.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Final note - even Varian was so unhappy with Arms in WoD that he went back to Fury.

Varian has always been Fury, his entire character arc is trying to keep the fact he is the Hulk without the advantages in check so his kid doesn't think of him as a bloodthirsty psychopath, blizzard is just REALLY BAD about showing off what spec anyone is.

Garrosh was also fury.


One criticism that I do agree with on what we've seen so far is that a lot of the artifacts seem to be just the same kind of "powerful but really kinda generic" weapons that we've been using this whole time. Sure there aren't enough Ashbringers and Doomhammers to cover every class/spec, but I'd like to at least see stuff like the Scepter of Azshara, where even if the item isn't already well-known, it's tied into some kind of existing, well-known and thematic character or lore. Beastmaster's Titanstrike is probably the worst offender here, being literally "a gun made by Mimiron". Survival's Talonclaw is almost as bad, but I'm so excited for spear hunter (and really spears in general) to be a thing that I'm willing to overlook it.

I hate it just from the PR standpoint of

Commercial - WIELD ARTIFACTS OF IMMENSE POWER -shows Ashbringer, Frostmourne swords, Doomhammer-

In game - Here is random weapon that the titans made.

that will end up making some people excited to use those weapons and don't play the "right" spec quite disappointed.


My beef with the video was more thematic...out of all the Horde leaders they could have picked, Sylvanas has to be the absolute worst choice to be the person Varian learns to 'trust'. Vol'jin would have made far more sense in that exact position, being Varian's opposite number and a person who is actually worth trusting at times, plus being a 'class' with ranged attacks.

it isn't just that Sylvanas is nto Varians opposite from the other faction, but Sylvanas is over the line of redemption after Cata she is NOT A HEROIC CHARACTER. However..Vol'jin doesn't have ranged attacks anymore, the Kalimdor loading screen has him as a survival hunter..but then again his class changes every other patch.

[Seerow]

I that's a first: Co-opting spells from Hearthstone into World of Warcraft. Cute. Any news on them re-designing the Arms warrior?

Arms' class preview is tomorrow morning, so we should know more by the time you wake up. I'm super nervous about it.


On Scenarios, something to note (taken from an answer they gave in the Q&A at blizzcon) is that they aren't actually against including more scenarios in the game, but rather that they don't think that the "queue up and sit in town waiting for a scenario to start" is the best way to implement them. Instead, they've said that they want to integrate scenarios into the world more seamlessly, for example early on in Legion you'll take part in a 40-man cross-faction scenario where both the horde and the alliance are seeking to push the Legion back and establish a foothold on the Broken Isles. They're also adding in a number of end-game scenarios that will be a big part of the end-game content that's replacing the current daily quest system, along with stuff like world bosses, gimmicky minigames (like rolling over a ton of gnomes back in Cataclysm), and presumably at least of the more familiar daily quest style content.

Yeah, I get that. But their new design is scenarios as solo content, or as one time events. We saw the same thing in WoD. There was a good half dozen or so scenarios (at least one per zone) while leveling up. You did them once and never saw them again. And you did them alone.

It's looking to be more of the same in Legion, with maybe some of them worked into the end game randomized objectives. And I'm fine with using the scenario tech to create awesome story experiences in game while leveling. But to me, the absolute best part of scenarios was having small group content that didn't require a tank or a healer, so could be done with no queue on any character.

Them being 3-man casual content was a big bonus on top of that for me, since I have two friends IRL who I am really close with, but both are very casual to the point where even doing regular dungeons with them can be a pain. Being able to group up with them for some regular scenarios was a great experience, and we were left lacking anything to really do together come WoD until free Garrison gear let them outgear dungeons enough they felt comfortable queueing in with 2 randoms.


Basically, I'm fine with Blizzard using scenarios the way they are. I'd even be fine if they kept scenarios tied to a specific location rather than a queueable interface thing (though if they did that, I think it'd only be fair if they removed queues for Heroic Dungeons). But I absolutely do want the ability to run scenarios with friends, and the ability to go back and do them again. I'd also really like to have achievements tied towards them, since achieve hunting in scenarios was a lot of fun, and probably was worth 2 months worth of weekend playing for my little group.


I'm still irritated that after a frelling decade of being a combat rogue, Blizzard decides to up and change the name for no real reason.

*waves torch and pitchfork* COMBAT ROGUES FOREVER!!!!!

I'm actually not that mad, I'll just miss being a combat rogue. Outlaw is just as generic a descriptor and it doesn't have the same pedigree that combat has obtained.

I'm actually really looking forward to Outlaw. My biggest gripe is that they went through with changing Combat, yet we still have two restoration specs, two protection specs, and two holy specs. When they're making such a big deal about spec identity and uniqueness, I really expected those to be the first thing to get addressed.



Are melee hunters a thing yet? Are shamans still stuck with shields even when they have no business tanking? Will DH wear leather or mail?

Survival Hunters are going to be melee, so yes. They're also looking pretty cool. They get a harpoon throw that works like charge except better in every conceivable way, because Blizzard likes making the warrior community cry.


My beef with the video was more thematic...out of all the Horde leaders they could have picked, Sylvanas has to be the absolute worst choice to be the person Varian learns to 'trust'. Vol'jin would have made far more sense in that exact position, being Varian's opposite number and a person who is actually worth trusting at times, plus being a 'class' with ranged attacks.

I actually don't expect Varian's story to go towards "learning to trust the horde". Varian wasn't even called out as a major player in the expansion. Genn Greymane and Anduin are the main alliance leads. I totally expect to see something awful happen to Varian that causes him to either die, be captured, or abandon the field.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Eh I doubt Varian is going to be put out of action, else his swords would be fury's artifact weapon since they are..really powerful.

[Seerow]

Eh I doubt Varian is going to be put out of action, else his swords would be fury's artifact weapon since they are..really powerful.

I honestly really wanted his combined sword as Arms' artifact.

But I can't imagine any reason why he wouldn't be listed as one of the central characters of the expansion if he was going to stay in action the whole time. There's definitely something going on they haven't revealed yet.

[AgentPaper]

Yeah, I get that. But their new design is scenarios as solo content, or as one time events. We saw the same thing in WoD. There was a good half dozen or so scenarios (at least one per zone) while leveling up. You did them once and never saw them again. And you did them alone.

It's looking to be more of the same in Legion, with maybe some of them worked into the end game randomized objectives. And I'm fine with using the scenario tech to create awesome story experiences in game while leveling. But to me, the absolute best part of scenarios was having small group content that didn't require a tank or a healer, so could be done with no queue on any character.

Them being 3-man casual content was a big bonus on top of that for me, since I have two friends IRL who I am really close with, but both are very casual to the point where even doing regular dungeons with them can be a pain. Being able to group up with them for some regular scenarios was a great experience, and we were left lacking anything to really do together come WoD until free Garrison gear let them outgear dungeons enough they felt comfortable queueing in with 2 randoms.


Basically, I'm fine with Blizzard using scenarios the way they are. I'd even be fine if they kept scenarios tied to a specific location rather than a queueable interface thing (though if they did that, I think it'd only be fair if they removed queues for Heroic Dungeons). But I absolutely do want the ability to run scenarios with friends, and the ability to go back and do them again. I'd also really like to have achievements tied towards them, since achieve hunting in scenarios was a lot of fun, and probably was worth 2 months worth of weekend playing for my little group.

I'm...not sure you actually read what you quoted there. I specifically mentioned both a 40-man scenario and end-game repeatable scenarios (as part of what's replacing dailies), so...


On Wrynn's fate: Heh, who knows, perhaps the "Warswords of Valajar" are just an elaborate ruse to not spoil the early events of Legion and we're actually going to get Varian's swords for Fury instead.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I honestly really wanted his combined sword as Arms' artifact.

But I can't imagine any reason why he wouldn't be listed as one of the central characters of the expansion if he was going to stay in action the whole time. There's definitely something going on they haven't revealed yet.

I 99% expected Gorehowl for arms, but I am 100% Happy that it is not.

[The Glyphstone]

it isn't just that Sylvanas is nto Varians opposite from the other faction, but Sylvanas is over the line of redemption after Cata she is NOT A HEROIC CHARACTER. However..Vol'jin doesn't have ranged attacks anymore, the Kalimdor loading screen has him as a survival hunter..but then again his class changes every other patch.

Isn't he actually a spellcaster in-game? He's officially a 'Shadow Hunter', which isn't a playable class.

It's Thrall who just can't make up his mind whether he is Enhancement or Elemental.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Vol'jin is a shadow hunter, but that covers a good many "classes" for the trolls mostly Hunters though, they were mostly just covered under the umbrella of "Survival being stuff that doesn't fit in Marksman or Beastmastery" which is why it had a muddled fantasy, but he shifts a lot depending on the situation.

His Cataclysm leader story, talks about him using a melee Glaive sorta like the Spellbreakers the blood elves use.

In Cataclysm itself he mentions using an arrow to kill garrosh

In Shadows of the Horde, he actually trains as a monk in Panderia.

In Mists of Panderia..he uses Shaman Totems

In warlords of Draenor he is shown using a spear as a weapon, also in Warlords of Draenor there is one Shadow Hunter that is directly stated to be a Marksmanship Hunter (http://www.wowhead.com/follower=180.2/shadow-hunter-rala#comments)

AKA who the heck knows what the heck he actually is, because Blizzard cant stick to specs for half their characters for some reason, including for some really bizarre reason, Emperor Shaohaho being a Mistwalker monk of all things.

Edit : Mind you troll class lore is really halfhearted, Troll druids were literally explained as "we existed this entire time, but we were hiding on the Echo Isles for..reasons"

[Seerow]

I'm...not sure you actually read what you quoted there. I specifically mentioned both a 40-man scenario and end-game repeatable scenarios (as part of what's replacing dailies), so...

The 40-man scenario is a one time event.

The end-game repeatable scenarios are solo content.

My points stand. The point you're making is the same kind of dissembling the developers use to obfuscate bad decisions.

[The_Jackal]

The 40-man scenario is a one time event.

The end-game repeatable scenarios are solo content.

My points stand. The point you're making is the same kind of dissembling the developers use to obfuscate bad decisions.

I don't know if I would describe them as 'bad decisions', that's a value judgement that must necessarily be subjective. I believe the decision to phase out 3-man scenarios out of the multiplayer option set was that developers discovered that a substantial plurality of players would opt out of 5-man dungeons altogether, when scenarios were available. I know I did. Effectively, they starve the reward niche (which is already desperately tiny due to poor itemization/challenge balance) that got players to participate in dungeons.

For my part, I'd embrace any change that goes towards revitalizing dungeon play, up to and including removing LFR.

[AgentPaper]

The end-game repeatable scenarios are solo content.

Have they actually said this? From what I've read, it seems like they were implying that there will be multi-player scenarios as part of the end-game content.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I don't know if I would describe them as 'bad decisions', that's a value judgement that must necessarily be subjective. I believe the decision to phase out 3-man scenarios out of the multiplayer option set was that developers discovered that a substantial plurality of players would opt out of 5-man dungeons altogether, when scenarios were available. I know I did. Effectively, they starve the reward niche (which is already desperately tiny due to poor itemization/challenge balance) that got players to participate in dungeons.

For my part, I'd embrace any change that goes towards revitalizing dungeon play, up to and including removing LFR.

Players opted out of 5 man dungeons for Scenarios because at the end of Mists of Panderia Heroic Scenarios gave more Valor for your time than A dungeon did because Heroic Scenarios were introduced in a later patch, with higher tuning while there were no dungeons introduced in Warlords.

The Problem with Dungeon Play in MOP/WOD had nothing to do with LFR or Scenarios and had everything to do with them not giving anyone who stepped into Heroic, and probably Normal* Blackrock foundry any rewards worth doing, and that includes Mythic Dungeons. I still have not even touched one, and likely would not except that the Heirloom Trinket is going to be Best in Slot for my spec..since they have utterly destroyed the tuning on Strength Trinkets to the point where The Mythic Version of the BRF on use Multistrike trinket is stronger all but one HFC trinket even with item upgrades only affecting HFC.

*Mythic Dungeons drop higher Item level gear than normal, but is it worth it to fight three bosses to get one piece of gear that will probably not have the stats you want on it anyways since the Dungeon gear loot list is far too large to get any item reliably.

[Icewraith]

I could have sworn that Varian went Arms.

Like, he was going around with one two hander in MoP and WoD. I figured the devs did it to better differentiate him from Garrosh.

I'll have to go back and take a look, Varian was always running around in melee in SoO so I never got a good look.

Edit: Mythic is much better for gearing/catching up alts because of the per boss drop rate and lower time investment. Gear that rolls warforged comes out at 705 ilevel. Alts are less picky about secondary stats, it's more important to have gear in the right ilevel ballpark.

Double edit: If Varian had different swords he was using for arms and fury, his Arms sword is still in theory sitting in the final SoO room, so he's back to fury.

[The_Jackal]

The Problem with Dungeon Play in MOP/WOD had nothing to do with LFR or Scenarios and had everything to do with them not giving anyone who stepped into Heroic, and probably Normal* Blackrock foundry any rewards worth doing, and that includes Mythic Dungeons.

I don't think that's the only factor, to be sure. In Burning Crusade and Wrath, the ability to collect crafting reagents, gems, and other rewards useful even for the most hardcore raider was probably the MOST decisive factor in keeping the long tail of dungeon queueing alive as those expansions matured, however, LFR's relative ease in comparison to 5 man heroic content is ABSOLUTELY responsible for allowing everyone gearing up for raiding to completely sidestep Heroics. If they hadn't hidden the 3 reagents to stage one of the legendary ring quest in heroics, then there was literally no progression reason to look at them at all.

ALL of the Hardcore raiders I played with were religiously hitting LFR Highmaul, and LFR Blackrock, in those periods where it was possible to improve their itemization. I can't think of a single instance of them saying, "Let's do Heroics to get better gear", for the simple reason that the window where it was profitable compared to other, easier alternatives didn't exist.


*Mythic Dungeons drop higher Item level gear than normal, but is it worth it to fight three bosses to get one piece of gear that will probably not have the stats you want on it anyways since the Dungeon gear loot list is far too large to get any item reliably.

If they tacked on some decent economic rewards (hello, pre-WoD crafting reagents), and maybe some gold competitive with what you could get farming old raid content, people just might find it worthwhile. You do get seven bites at the apple, compared to just one for any given raid difficulty tier, assuming you hit your Mythic dungeon every day. And in any case, at least pulling the lever multiple times against a large list of possible drops is a more entertaining reward-throttle than weekly raid lockouts.

[Icewraith]

Knew I wasn't nuts. Varian was using one two-hander in MoP, which means Arms. Jealous of his splitting sword though. I guess he's like Thrall and swaps specs when he feels like it.

[The_Jackal]

Knew I wasn't nuts. Varian was using one two-hander in MoP, which means Arms. Jealous of his splitting sword though. I guess he's like Thrall and swaps specs when he feels like it.

Dual spec is a thing.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Knew I wasn't nuts. Varian was using one two-hander in MoP, which means Arms. Jealous of his splitting sword though. I guess he's like Thrall and swaps specs when he feels like it.

So was Garrosh, and he is implicitly a Fury warrior, his entire Plot in Wolfheart was "Coming to grips with his inner fury, with the help of the ritual the worgen use to overcome theirs"


LFR's relative ease in comparison to 5 man heroic content is ABSOLUTELY responsible for allowing everyone gearing up for raiding to completely sidestep Heroics. If they hadn't hidden the 3 reagents to stage one of the legendary ring quest in heroics, then there was literally no progression reason to look at them at all.

Have you done MoP/WoD heroics? LFR isn't relatively easy compared to Current Heroic Dungeons with the exception of the exception of UBRS, and the gear in UBRS was outright Crap because they never fixed the Procs.


ALL of the Hardcore raiders I played with were religiously hitting LFR Highmaul, and LFR Blackrock, in those periods where it was possible to improve their itemization

That is because the itemization of Warlords Of Draenor Dungeons were TERRIBLE you have 200 items in each dungeon that can drop the chance to get something with the right stats in WOD dungeons was basically impossible without more grinding than was remotely worth it, the trinkets got gutted to the point that the 725 Mythic Modes are still not as powerful as Normal BRF Trinkets, the reason 5 mans died in Late Mists and Warlords is because the developers removed -all- incentive to do them. That has nothing to do with LFR, that is the developers throwing out dungeons at the start and not doing anything to keep them relevant, No Valor and no Reliable gear drops.

I am not even a hardcore raider really, and I never touched LFR for gearing except on my alts who I don't seriously raid with anyways. The only reason I touched LFR on my main was to get Legendary Item drops on the bosses for the week I didn't get to kill on the difficulty I was working on at the time and most hardcore raiders probably didn't even have to do that because Normal Modes are just as easy as LFR if you don't have your head up your rectum.

[The_Jackal]

Have you done MoP/WoD heroics? LFR isn't relatively easy compared to Current Heroic Dungeons with the exception of the exception of UBRS, and the gear in UBRS was outright Crap because they never fixed the Procs.

LFR Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry absolutely were easier and more lucrative than Heroics when I dropped by WoW sub. My guild was pushing Normal BRF when I quit, and we had cleared every boss in Normal Highmaul, and quite a few in Heroic Highmaul. I was one of the tanks on my raid team.


That is because the itemization of Warlords Of Draenor Dungeons were TERRIBLE you have 200 items in each dungeon that can drop the chance to get something with the right stats in WOD dungeons was basically impossible without more grinding than was remotely worth it, the trinkets got gutted to the point that the 725 Mythic Modes are still not as powerful as Normal BRF Trinkets, the reason 5 mans died in Late Mists and Warlords is because the developers removed -all- incentive to do them. That has nothing to do with LFR, that is the developers throwing out dungeons at the start and not doing anything to keep them relevant, No Valor and no Reliable gear drops.

I am not even a hardcore raider really, and I never touched LFR for gearing except on my alts who I don't seriously raid with anyways. The only reason I touched LFR on my main was to get Legendary Item drops on the bosses for the week I didn't get to kill on the difficulty I was working on at the time and most hardcore raiders probably didn't even have to do that because Normal Modes are just as easy as LFR if you don't have your head up your rectum.

Sorry, I can't support the assertion that Normal mode is no harder than LFR. That's complete nonsense. I ran with LFR Highmaul with a handful of guildies and a big pack of PUGs early on in my itemization, and we CURBSTOMPED the entire thing in straight sets. Literally every boss' mechanics could be all but ignored, half your raid could die off, and the competent half of your LFR group would still carry you to loot. We spent a LOT more time grinding out normal Highmaul, because mechanics actually hurt, and not everyone in my guild is a hardcore gamer. Maybe the difference in our experience between Normal and LFR is the make up of our normal/heroic raiding team. But in any case, yes, you're certainly right that Heroics need some other reward to keep them attractive to raiders (something I've alluded to many times). But my gripe is that in WoD there was one reason to enter a Heroic dungeon: Legendary Ring. That's a pitiful state of affairs. Raiding shouldn't even be on the table until you're wearing a more or less full set of Heroic dungeon gear.

[Kish]

if you don't have your head up your rectum

the competent half of your LFR group
Having quit the game well before LFR came out, I have no dog in this fight, but I do feel obligated to point out that "you can do LFR mode with an incompetent raid" is not actually a counterargument to "Normal mode is no harder than LFR mode as long as the raid's competent."

[ryuplaneswalker]

LFR Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry absolutely were easier and more lucrative than Heroics when I dropped by WoW sub. My guild was pushing Normal BRF when I quit, and we had cleared every boss in Normal Highmaul, and quite a few in Heroic Highmaul. I was one of the tanks on my raid team.

No, they weren't. When LFR highmaul first came out, you could actually wipe to Impertiator Mar'Gok, and Twin Ogron, and Kro'gath, I can actually name quite a few LFR bosses that I have seen Kill groups if not done properly or heavily out geared, nothing in Heroic Dungeons outside of accidentally pulling too much at once was dangerous. Heroic Dungeons were face roll at item level 600, the only thing that wiped any group was people literally ignoring mechanics that couldn't be done by a single person..and the only one I can think of offhand was the skeletons on Ner'zhul and I bet there are classes that could do it if they went full burst on the things. I am not saying LFR is hard, it is abysmally easy, but so are heroic dungeons. Both have a difficulty of zero, none, nada. "LFR bosses can be done with the raid half dead?" When I was gearing up I killed 2 or 3 of the Dungeon bosses with only me and a healer left alive as DPS.



Sorry, I can't support the assertion that Normal mode is no harder than LFR. That's complete nonsense. I ran with LFR Highmaul with a handful of guildies and a big pack of PUGs early on in my itemization, and we CURBSTOMPED the entire thing in straight sets. Literally every boss' mechanics could be all but ignored, half your raid could die off, and the competent half of your LFR group would still carry you to loot. We spent a LOT more time grinding out normal Highmaul, because mechanics actually hurt, and not everyone in my guild is a hardcore gamer. Maybe the difference in our experience between Normal and LFR is the make up of our normal/heroic raiding team. But in any case, yes, you're certainly right that Heroics need some other reward to keep them attractive to raiders (something I've alluded to many times). But my gripe is that in WoD there was one reason to enter a Heroic dungeon: Legendary Ring. That's a pitiful state of affairs. Raiding shouldn't even be on the table until you're wearing a more or less full set of Heroic dungeon gear.

Lfr and Normal for the most part have the exact same mechanics, Normal isn't hard, the mechanics only hurt if you abysmally fail at them and when I mean not even having the basics of how to raid wrapped around your mind like positioning the boss, and I don't have a raid team, I pug everything I have seen people in normal modes absolutely crap out mechanically and the boss still died, and LFR HM does, generally require gear in the area of mostly blue Heroic blues, depending on if you have crafted/apexis/BOEs. Without those you would have to have at least 50% of your gear be Heroic Dungeon blues, if you had all the rest of the slots being normal dungeon blues.

Once again the problems with Heroic Dungeons in WOD was a complete lack of reward for doing them outside of usually poorly itemized gear.

If LFR didn't exist here is how gearing would have went down before HFC

"Get to 100 on an alt, ask your guild for a carry on farm night till the alt is geared enough to bring to real raids"

post HFC? Lfr Gear outside of the sets doesn't even matter since Empowered Baleful gear is of higher item level so it would be the same as it is now.


Edit : You know what screw the rest of the expansion and everything else.

GNOOOOOOOOMMMEEEEEE HUUUUUUUUUUNTTTERRRRRRSSS!


>.>

Now if only we can get

Panderan Warlocks : "I put Souls into this Brew!"

Paladins for every class that has priest since Human Paladins are Literally Priests that decided they needed to hit things with a sword.

Worgen Demon Hunters : no justification here aside from wanting to name my Worgen DH "IlliDAWG!"

[Sylthia]

Gnome Hunters sound nice. I wonder what other new Race/Class combos we'll get. It wound be weird if they only added one new thing.

Maybe Draenei Druid or Rogue. They were the only race not to get anything new in Cataclysm. I'd like playable Eredar and Warlocks, but doubt it will happen.

Could see Worgen Paladins, maybe Worgen and/or Goblin Monks.

[The Glyphstone]

We can finally be Gnome Hunters? Excellent, I can't wait to turn on Track Gnomes and get to work purifying the world.:smallcool:

[ryuplaneswalker]

Gnome Hunters sound nice. I wonder what other new Race/Class combos we'll get. It wound be weird if they only added one new thing.

Maybe Draenei Druid or Rogue. They were the only race not to get anything new in Cataclysm. I'd like playable Eredar and Warlocks, but doubt it will happen.

Could see Worgen Paladins, maybe Worgen and/or Goblin Monks.

I know I say this often, but it is 100% true, but any class with priest should automatically get Paladin due to how Human Paladins came to be. Really that there aren't worgen paladins already technically is astounding since The Gilneans were part of the Alliance in WC2 when the first human Paladins became..Paladins.

[Sylthia]

I know I say this often, but it is 100% true, but any class with priest should automatically get Paladin due to how Human Paladins came to be. Really that there aren't worgen paladins already technically is astounding since The Gilneans were part of the Alliance in WC2 when the first human Paladins became..Paladins.

I would agree as long as they are priests of The Light. I don't think we'll see Goblin Paladins any time soon.

[Icewraith]

LFR is dependent on the number of tanks and heals in the queue, 5 mans you can go straight to with a 5 man group. Sometimes there just aren't enough healers in the queue for my usual tank insta-queue to work for LFR so I rarely do it.

However, LFR has the wipe-it-till-you-make-it stacking buff built in, so eventually you'll just overpower whichever boss is giving you trouble-also the really abhorrent people in LFR tend to leave after a couple wipes or get booted. If you got a bad random group for Heroic Grimrail Depot and didn't massively overgear it you needed to start booting people or leave. That second boss and trash, especially before the Rifleman nerfs, was very hectic. Rolltall (3rd boss) in bloodmaul slag mines could also be bad if you didn't overgear it.

Right now the best non-raid strategies for gearing an alt (or catching up a main for returning players) are running around in Tanaan, which I persistently still think of as "the island", (or at least farming apexis crystals to get a decent weapon and then buying an account-bound upgrade token) or mythic 5-mans with a group willing to carry you. If you've got time, LFR probably isn't too bad, but I rarely end up doing it because of the variable wait.

I've wondered why there aren't Gnome hunters for a while now. For a race that loves its complicated ranged weaponry, you'd think the only class that can use a gun would have caught on with them already. Maybe it's just that you can play a pet-less hunter now so the "getting eaten by your own pet" jokes aren't universally applicable anymore.

[Yana]

The 11th anniversary of WoW is live.

And for a brief few hours, I can live out the fantasy of dual-wielding Thunderfury.

[otakuryoga]

If you got a bad random group for Heroic Grimrail Depot and didn't massively overgear it you needed to start booting people or leave. That second boss and trash, especially before the Rifleman nerfs, was very hectic.

ugh..i still have bad memories of working through those train cars...it was soooo easy to wipe on those trash groups in there

[Sylthia]

The 11th anniversary of WoW is live.

And for a brief few hours, I can live out the fantasy of dual-wielding Thunderfury.

Too bad it's only got 5 uses.

[ryuplaneswalker]

ugh..i still have bad memories of working through those train cars...it was soooo easy to wipe on those trash groups in there

That is only because those cards were among some of the worst design ever implemented in the game, and really was only bad if someone was stupid and pulled the entire second car at once.


I would agree as long as they are priests of The Light

Eh the light is a very general term, Night elves/Tauren worship the Moon/Sun - light, Trolls get priests from Loa worship..and all Troll Paladins would need to do is speak with the Loa and explain how they want to change the blessings they get.

Panderan Priests are not exactly lore filled so they might just be "the light"

As for goblins, they follow in all the basic tenants of the light so long as you can pay them to do so.

[The_Jackal]

That is only because those cards were among some of the worst design ever implemented in the game, and really was only bad if someone was stupid and pulled the entire second car at once.

This is true, with the proviso that everyone in your party needed to have actually read about the fight and avoid the various spectacular ways to die if you wanted to beat the Nitrogg fight. In PUGs, getting people who actually pay attention to mechanics are like hen's teeth, so you're looking at either going in with a premade, or doing a rotating wipe party until the queue coughs up enough non-idiots to fill out your roster. Honestly, the WoW encounter designers need to do a better job of telegraphing mechanics, because expecting John Q. Pugsalot to do homework before he joins a wipe queue isn't very realistic.

[The Glyphstone]

This is true, with the proviso that everyone in your party needed to have actually read about the fight and avoid the various spectacular ways to die if you wanted to beat the Nitrogg fight. In PUGs, getting people who actually pay attention to mechanics are like hen's teeth, so you're looking at either going in with a premade, or doing a rotating wipe party until the queue coughs up enough non-idiots to fill out your roster. Honestly, the WoW encounter designers need to do a better job of telegraphing mechanics, because expecting John Q. Pugsalot to do homework before he joins a wipe queue isn't very realistic.

That's why they added the Dungeon Journal. Reading a Cliff Notes summary of 'Dont' stand in this and attack this' is not homework, it's basic reading comprehension. I have no sympathy for someone who cannot spare 30 seconds - less than the time it takes to recover from a wipe, usually - to skim over their class-role highlights for a dungeon boss; someone that lackluster won't be capable of beating anything stronger than a training dummy no matter how telegraphed the mechanics are.

And of course, the raids are fantastic about this sort of thing - it's been extremely common this expansion and fairly common last expansion for bosses to have trash mobs preceding them with watered-down versions of the boss fight mechanics.

[ryuplaneswalker]

This is true, with the proviso that everyone in your party needed to have actually read about the fight and avoid the various spectacular ways to die if you wanted to beat the Nitrogg fight. In PUGs, getting people who actually pay attention to mechanics are like hen's teeth, so you're looking at either going in with a premade, or doing a rotating wipe party until the queue coughs up enough non-idiots to fill out your roster. Honestly, the WoW encounter designers need to do a better job of telegraphing mechanics, because expecting John Q. Pugsalot to do homework before he joins a wipe queue isn't very realistic.

Eh Nitrogg was soloable by half the tanks in the game if they were remotely competent, he had nothing that dealt damage outside of the gun.

Also, I have a new favorite talent ever

There is a Gaurdian Druid talent that gives all damage done a chance to fire a free moonfire beam at the target, this includes bleeds.

Orcs Should now have druids..because Gaurdian Druids now will have enough Dakka in mass AOE Fights.

[The_Jackal]

That's why they added the Dungeon Journal. Reading a Cliff Notes summary of 'Dont' stand in this and attack this' is not homework, it's basic reading comprehension. I have no sympathy for someone who cannot spare 30 seconds - less than the time it takes to recover from a wipe, usually - to skim over their class-role highlights for a dungeon boss; someone that lackluster won't be capable of beating anything stronger than a training dummy no matter how telegraphed the mechanics are.

And of course, the raids are fantastic about this sort of thing - it's been extremely common this expansion and fairly common last expansion for bosses to have trash mobs preceding them with watered-down versions of the boss fight mechanics.

And yet so few PUG players DID it. I don't have sympathy for them either, but I'm stuck QUEUEING with these idiots.


[QUOTE=ryuplaneswalker;20085801]Eh Nitrogg was soloable by half the tanks in the game if they were remotely competent, he had nothing that dealt damage outside of the gun.

Warrior must not have been in the half, because his trash was quite sufficient to sand me down before I overgeared the encounter.

[Icewraith]

And yet so few PUG players DID it. I don't have sympathy for them either, but I'm stuck QUEUEING with these idiots.

[QUOTE]

Warrior must not have been in the half, because his trash was quite sufficient to sand me down before I overgeared the encounter.

Remember there was a Rifleman nerf... pre-nerf their channel knocked off massive chunks of health and you can potentially have multiples out at once during the middle phase of Nitrogg.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Warrior must not have been in the half, because his trash was quite sufficient to sand me down before I overgeared the encounter.

Warrior's didn't have a self heal based on resolve which was something I had pointed out on the beta forums during closed beta and it was never properly addressed which of course is irrelevant since resolve is going bye bye.

[Seerow]

Warrior's didn't have a self heal based on resolve which was something I had pointed out on the beta forums during closed beta and it was never properly addressed which of course is irrelevant since resolve is going bye bye.

It was never dressed because it's not relevant except while soloing.


Warrior's design is such that they don't really have self-healing, but they take much less damage than other tanks. So in group play they need similar healing compared to the other tanks, but their damage intake is much smoother and predictable, making them actually very desirable.

The lack of heals is painful while soloing, because the design does mean that against anything with even slightly threatening damage will whittle the Warrior down, in any area of the game that the developers balance around it works out great. You'll notice with the Legion design they're doubling down on that design by making Shield Block cheaper and replacing Shield Barrier with Ignore Pain, which is like Shield Barrier except it can't nullify all damage, just most of it, so no matter what the Warrior will always be taking some damage when he gets hit. (Whereas before at least against weak enemies shield barrier plus multistrike healing really could keep you topped off).

[ryuplaneswalker]

well Resolve is going bye bye anyways so it is a moot thing that Warriors got nearly nothing out of the mechanic.

[AgentPaper]

Warrior's design is such that they don't really have self-healing, but they take much less damage than other tanks. So in group play they need similar healing compared to the other tanks, but their damage intake is much smoother and predictable, making them actually very desirable.

The lack of heals is painful while soloing, because the design does mean that against anything with even slightly threatening damage will whittle the Warrior down, in any area of the game that the developers balance around it works out great. You'll notice with the Legion design they're doubling down on that design by making Shield Block cheaper and replacing Shield Barrier with Ignore Pain, which is like Shield Barrier except it can't nullify all damage, just most of it, so no matter what the Warrior will always be taking some damage when he gets hit. (Whereas before at least against weak enemies shield barrier plus multistrike healing really could keep you topped off).

But, protection warriors do have self healing. Enraged Regeneration and Victory Rush, both of which are pretty good for keeping you alive in solo content. When you also include their many ways of reducing damage taken and stunning groups of enemies, I've found them to be one of the better classes to do stuff solo with. I guess they have a bit more trouble with single tough enemies, who they can't CC and where Victory Rush doesn't come into play as much, but for questing you can take on large groups and most elites without much problem.

[Seerow]

But, protection warriors do have self healing. Enraged Regeneration and Victory Rush, both of which are pretty good for keeping you alive in solo content. When you also include their many ways of reducing damage taken and stunning groups of enemies, I've found them to be one of the better classes to do stuff solo with. I guess they have a bit more trouble with single tough enemies, who they can't CC and where Victory Rush doesn't come into play as much, but for questing you can take on large groups and most elites without much problem.

1) ER is 30% health every minute, so if you're taking even .5% health in damage per second you will eventually get worn down past it. That covers most mobs that would be considered threatening by you (read: enemies that you don't overgear).

2) While I agree that Victory Rush is awesome (one of my favorite things about Warrior in general), especially for questing/open world content, in the context of soloing dungeons/raids, especially bosses, it's not often very useful. Incidentally Nitrog is an example where it can be very useful, but the Warrior would have to be really overgeared to kill the adds on that fight fast enough solo to get the necessary victory rush procs to survive and win.


edit: I guess the main point is that yes, warriors do have healing, but their healing amounts to very little in the scheme of things in group content. ER is a cooldown, and works great as a cooldown to supplement incoming heals from a healer, but does not really provide enough on its own. VR just doesn't proc in most boss fights. Warriors get enough healing to survive (and even thrive) in the open world, which is fantastic. But the discussion was about Prot Warriors not being able to solo dungeon bosses as easily as some other tank specs, and how resolve-based-healing (or the lack thereof) affects that.

[AgentPaper]

1) ER is 30% health every minute, so if you're taking even .5% health in damage per second you will eventually get worn down past it. That covers most mobs that would be considered threatening by you (read: enemies that you don't overgear).

2) While I agree that Victory Rush is awesome (one of my favorite things about Warrior in general), especially for questing/open world content, in the context of soloing dungeons/raids, especially bosses, it's not often very useful. Incidentally Nitrog is an example where it can be very useful, but the Warrior would have to be really overgeared to kill the adds on that fight fast enough solo to get the necessary victory rush procs to survive and win.


edit: I guess the main point is that yes, warriors do have healing, but their healing amounts to very little in the scheme of things in group content. ER is a cooldown, and works great as a cooldown to supplement incoming heals from a healer, but does not really provide enough on its own. VR just doesn't proc in most boss fights. Warriors get enough healing to survive (and even thrive) in the open world, which is fantastic. But the discussion was about Prot Warriors not being able to solo dungeon bosses as easily as some other tank specs, and how resolve-based-healing (or the lack thereof) affects that.

Ah, when you said "solo content" I assumed questing and other open world stuff. Soloing old dungeons and such, yeah you're going to have a hard time compared to the other tanks who can heal pretty much at-will through various means.

[The_Jackal]

Well, I'm glad on behalf of my fellow tanks that they're trashing resolve, it was a STUPID mechanic. Honestly, shield barrier/ignore pain is another 'non-choice', the conditions under which it makes sense to use are so marginal, you're mostly better of never mapping the damned button. Either a) you're soloing, in which case the rage is better spent producing damage with which to dent your enemy's face, or b) you're taking for a group, in which case you need the higher mitigation of shield block, because barrier will get blown off in the blink of an eye.

But, as I say, this is all moot for me, unless Blizz comes out with an about-face on the flying issue.

[Seerow]

Well, I'm glad on behalf of my fellow tanks that they're trashing resolve, it was a STUPID mechanic. Honestly, shield barrier/ignore pain is another 'non-choice', the conditions under which it makes sense to use are so marginal, you're mostly better of never mapping the damned button. Either a) you're soloing, in which case the rage is better spent producing damage with which to dent your enemy's face, or b) you're taking for a group, in which case you need the higher mitigation of shield block, because barrier will get blown off in the blink of an eye.

I think you missed the part where they dropped Shield Block's cost down to 10 rage, so you can keep it up all the time and still use Ignore Pain as your main rage dump/mitigation tool. I mean sure, if you're non-threatened by the incoming damage you could use Heroic Strike instead, but let's be honest, the healers will appreciate the damage you take being reduced by 25% of your max health more than they will appreciate you dealing an extra 10% dps.

[Icewraith]

1) ER is 30% health every minute, so if you're taking even .5% health in damage per second you will eventually get worn down past it. That covers most mobs that would be considered threatening by you (read: enemies that you don't overgear).

2) While I agree that Victory Rush is awesome (one of my favorite things about Warrior in general), especially for questing/open world content, in the context of soloing dungeons/raids, especially bosses, it's not often very useful. Incidentally Nitrog is an example where it can be very useful, but the Warrior would have to be really overgeared to kill the adds on that fight fast enough solo to get the necessary victory rush procs to survive and win.


edit: I guess the main point is that yes, warriors do have healing, but their healing amounts to very little in the scheme of things in group content. ER is a cooldown, and works great as a cooldown to supplement incoming heals from a healer, but does not really provide enough on its own. VR just doesn't proc in most boss fights. Warriors get enough healing to survive (and even thrive) in the open world, which is fantastic. But the discussion was about Prot Warriors not being able to solo dungeon bosses as easily as some other tank specs, and how resolve-based-healing (or the lack thereof) affects that.

Last Stand still significantly increases the healing from Enraged Regen when macroed together. When soloing your health is basically on a long cycle between 50% and full over three minutes. I really would appreciate some more reliable self healing though.

Ok, so shield barrier is gone and now we have ignore pain. Now we have a button to help with massive telegraphed boss hits, which is what SBar used to do (sort of). Only Sbar was useful even if you lagged a bit because the shield would still give some breathing room while the healers get you back up (if you weren't already at max self healing it technically was better as long as you were sure the big hit wouldn't kill you).

I don't know why they don't just slap a 40 rage cost to use VR, still have it usable for free on kills, and call it a day now that multistrike is dead and the passive regen was never noticeable. Or have heroic strike heal as well as damage when prot specced in defensive stance.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I guess the main point is that yes, warriors do have healing, but their healing amounts to very little in the scheme of things in group content.

Of course the entire discussion is Irrelevant because my comments about Warriors and resolve were not about specifically the amount of self healing but rather the fact that all of the self healing they have is based on % of HP meaning resolve never has an affect on it, which wasn't about the number of self heals warriors had and rather how that self healing was calculated. Guardian Druids have not very much more Self Heals than Warriors do but Druid's are all based on attack power.

[The_Jackal]

I think you missed the part where they dropped Shield Block's cost down to 10 rage, so you can keep it up all the time and still use Ignore Pain as your main rage dump/mitigation tool. I mean sure, if you're non-threatened by the incoming damage you could use Heroic Strike instead, but let's be honest, the healers will appreciate the damage you take being reduced by 25% of your max health more than they will appreciate you dealing an extra 10% dps.

I did miss that, though I don't welcome it. 'Press this button to keep this button pressed' is the worst kind of MMO game mechanic, one I had thought they'd woken up to when they revamped Paladins in 3.0. Using ignore pain as a 'rage dump' also doesn't make it sound like a reactive mechanic, but another button to keep mashed down. As for mitigation being better than damage in a group, sure, that goes without saying, but at least when aggro was a think tanks needed to worry about, your choice between keeping shield block up or hitting heroic strike had meaning (albeit, meaning in terms of how much you'd outgeared the encounter 90% of the time).

It's discussions like these which keep reminding me that I'm ready for the next innovation in MMO gameplay: An actual physics engine, instead of hash-table resolution. Reading what I just typed, I guess I'm looking for a fantasy-themed Destiny, for the PC.

[AgentPaper]

I did miss that, though I don't welcome it. 'Press this button to keep this button pressed' is the worst kind of MMO game mechanic, one I had thought they'd woken up to when they revamped Paladins in 3.0. Using ignore pain as a 'rage dump' also doesn't make it sound like a reactive mechanic, but another button to keep mashed down. As for mitigation being better than damage in a group, sure, that goes without saying, but at least when aggro was a think tanks needed to worry about, your choice between keeping shield block up or hitting heroic strike had meaning (albeit, meaning in terms of how much you'd outgeared the encounter 90% of the time).

Not sure what you mean by "press this button to keep this button pressed". If you're looking for some kind of deep meaning to what buttons you're pressing, you're playing the wrong kind of game.


It's discussions like these which keep reminding me that I'm ready for the next innovation in MMO gameplay: An actual physics engine, instead of hash-table resolution. Reading what I just typed, I guess I'm looking for a fantasy-themed Destiny, for the PC.

Well, there's Tera and Wildstar, both of which put a lot more emphasis on abilities that shoot where you point, rather than automatically at what you're targeting. Having played both, it's an interesting take, and I think superior to WoW's basic combat system, but not really as revolutionary as you seem to be thinking. Certainly not enough to make the two games I mentioned better than WoW on their own, at any rate, though I do think it'll be a part of whatever ends up replacing World of Warcraft as we know it, whenever that happens.

[The_Jackal]

Not sure what you mean by "press this button to keep this button pressed". If you're looking for some kind of deep meaning to what buttons you're pressing, you're playing the wrong kind of game.

I'm basically talking short-duration self-buffs whose cost and cooldown are low enough to make them more or less 'always on'. Shield Block in its original incarnation was exactly this kind of ability: One which doesn't do anything interesting, merely increases the tempo of key presses required to play the character. It would have been better to simply give the added blocking ability to the list of prot warrior passives, and save wear on everyone's keyboards.


Well, there's Tera and Wildstar, both of which put a lot more emphasis on abilities that shoot where you point, rather than automatically at what you're targeting. Having played both, it's an interesting take, and I think superior to WoW's basic combat system, but not really as revolutionary as you seem to be thinking. Certainly not enough to make the two games I mentioned better than WoW on their own, at any rate, though I do think it'll be a part of whatever ends up replacing World of Warcraft as we know it, whenever that happens.

Yeah, I tried Wildstar, the combat system was interesting, but still not quite doing it for me. The inane crafting system, glacial leveling pace and deserted servers (when I was playing, density is probably better now with F2P) didn't help. Wildstar definitely got some things right, it's might be the most ambitious take on the MMO I've seen to-date, and I won't rule out picking it up again, but it's worth noting I left to come back to my WoW hunter.

But yes, my dream MMO would look a lot more like Shadow of Mordor with multiplayer, which is gonna be pretty insane, in terms of server requirements.

[Icewraith]

I'm basically talking short-duration self-buffs whose cost and cooldown are low enough to make them more or less 'always on'. Shield Block in its original incarnation was exactly this kind of ability: One which doesn't do anything interesting, merely increases the tempo of key presses required to play the character. It would have been better to simply give the added blocking ability to the list of prot warrior passives, and save wear on everyone's keyboards.



Yeah, I tried Wildstar, the combat system was interesting, but still not quite doing it for me. The inane crafting system, glacial leveling pace and deserted servers (when I was playing, density is probably better now with F2P) didn't help. Wildstar definitely got some things right, it's might be the most ambitious take on the MMO I've seen to-date, and I won't rule out picking it up again, but it's worth noting I left to come back to my WoW hunter.

But yes, my dream MMO would look a lot more like Shadow of Mordor with multiplayer, which is gonna be pretty insane, in terms of server requirements.

Unless they got rid of Shield block's charges you still only have ~2/3 uptime at best on them. The thing I don't like about it is you're really dependent on bossmods to avoid using sblock right before the boss starts casting something or using an ability and it doesn't autoattack for half the duration.

[AgentPaper]

Unless they got rid of Shield block's charges you still only have ~2/3 uptime at best on them. The thing I don't like about it is you're really dependent on bossmods to avoid using sblock right before the boss starts casting something or using an ability and it doesn't autoattack for half the duration.

Yeah, it still has charges so you can't have it up all the time, like I mentioned before. As for boss mods, eh I guess I can kinda see that, but you should have at least Deadly Boss Mod installed anyways if you're going to take dungeons or raids even half-seriously, so meh.

[The_Jackal]

Unless they got rid of Shield block's charges you still only have ~2/3 uptime at best on them. The thing I don't like about it is you're really dependent on bossmods to avoid using sblock right before the boss starts casting something or using an ability and it doesn't autoattack for half the duration.

Sure, but it's still a 'put it up all the time' ability, because it's not worth pushing back on the cooldown to match some putative telegraph. Either a) you're earning your next charge of shield block, or b) you're not. If b), you're taking more damage. There might be some absolutely perfect timing to getting the most out of shield blocking a particular boss, but in practice, your attention needs to be devoted to far more important things, like fight mechanics and boss positioning. You've got other abilities for the 'big hit incoming abilities: Demoralizing shout being the foremost. In fact, in a lot of cases, shield block does nothing, for example, Kargath's impale, or virtually any spell.

[AgentPaper]

Sure, but it's still a 'put it up all the time' ability, because it's not worth pushing back on the cooldown to match some putative telegraph. Either a) you're earning your next charge of shield block, or b) you're not. If b), you're taking more damage. There might be some absolutely perfect timing to getting the most out of shield blocking a particular boss, but in practice, your attention needs to be devoted to far more important things, like fight mechanics and boss positioning. You've got other abilities for the 'big hit incoming abilities: Demoralizing shout being the foremost. In fact, in a lot of cases, shield block does nothing, for example, Kargath's impale, or virtually any spell.

But that's why you have two charges. You should use it any time you have two charges (unless you're not taking any damage right now), of course, but you'll still have your second charge sitting there which you can use at specific times when you know you're going to take a bunch of damage.

Against some bosses (especially bosses made before active mitigation was a named thing) it's just something you spam to reduce damage by X%, but as someone who mains a protection warrior, I can tell you that it's absolutely not a "just spam this whenever" button most of the time.

[The_Jackal]

But that's why you have two charges. You should use it any time you have two charges (unless you're not taking any damage right now), of course, but you'll still have your second charge sitting there which you can use at specific times when you know you're going to take a bunch of damage.

Against some bosses (especially bosses made before active mitigation was a named thing) it's just something you spam to reduce damage by X%, but as someone who mains a protection warrior, I can tell you that it's absolutely not a "just spam this whenever" button most of the time.

I mained warrior too, was my raid's main tank, and I have NEVER died due to mismanagement of shield block. LOTS of other issues, mainly, as I say, positioning and encounter mechanics. Now it's possible you're killing Heroic raid bosses all the way through and found one fight where timing your shield block was critical to your survival, maybe you had encounter mechanics so mastered that you could afford to curate your shield block. But that brings me to my next point: Depth versus reward. Maybe you're right, for someone who brings Matrix-like mastery of their cooldown management might eke a bit more mitigation out of timing their shield block. But it's not going to be very noticeable. As I pointed out, the big, scary mechanics are already unblockable. So, at the end of the day, Shield Block is just a 'push this button to take marginally less damage most of the time'. At least during Vanilla, blocking was a crucial part of pushing burst damage out of the attack hash table. But that stopped being a thing when defense was removed from the game, and was made into even less of a thing when they cranked up everyone's HP pool and dropped the efficiency and effectiveness of healing. So yeah, I'm still sticking with my original assertion: the ability is very much a 'keep this button pushed down' affair.

[AgentPaper]

I mained warrior too, was my raid's main tank, and I have NEVER died due to mismanagement of shield block. LOTS of other issues, mainly, as I say, positioning and encounter mechanics. Now it's possible you're killing Heroic raid bosses all the way through and found one fight where timing your shield block was critical to your survival, maybe you had encounter mechanics so mastered that you could afford to curate your shield block. But that brings me to my next point: Depth versus reward. Maybe you're right, for someone who brings Matrix-like mastery of their cooldown management might eke a bit more mitigation out of timing their shield block. But it's not going to be very noticeable. As I pointed out, the big, scary mechanics are already unblockable. So, at the end of the day, Shield Block is just a 'push this button to take marginally less damage most of the time'. At least during Vanilla, blocking was a crucial part of pushing burst damage out of the attack hash table. But that stopped being a thing when defense was removed from the game, and was made into even less of a thing when they cranked up everyone's HP pool and dropped the efficiency and effectiveness of healing. So yeah, I'm still sticking with my original assertion: the ability is very much a 'keep this button pushed down' affair.

I don't know what bosses you're fighting (or were fighting, it really sounds like you haven't played in quite a while), but it doesn't take matrix-like mastery of cooldown management. You see the boss go "I'mma hit you real hard now!" in one of hundreds of variations, and you hit shield block now instead of 5 seconds from now when you would have hit 2 charges.

Most of the time, yeah, you weren't going to die if you didn't use your mitigation correctly, but that doesn't mean that it's useless, you're making things easier for the healers by taking less damage overall, and making it less likely that a bit of unexpected damage or a misstep by the healer leads to you dying and the raid wiping.

And there are a few bosses where active mitigation is even called out and just spamming shield block on cooldown will get you dead. For example Kilrogg Deadeye (a boss in the Blackrock Foundry raid) uses Shred Armor which deals a bunch of damage and causes the target to take an extra 40% damage (stacking). If you use active mitigation, not only can you block a good amount of that damage, but it also prevents the debuff from being applied to you. Outside of raids, there's also Rukhran in the Skyreach dungeon, who uses Pierce Armor which has very similar effects (10% instead of 40%, but still stacking).

Hell, even outside of bosses, I've used it a lot of times to help me survive when a bunch of unexpected adds show up, or when the healer gets CCed, or even just at the start of a pull to block damage when all of the enemies are still up, rather than "on cooldown" later on when half of them are dead.

[The_Jackal]

I don't know what bosses you're fighting (or were fighting, it really sounds like you haven't played in quite a while), but it doesn't take matrix-like mastery of cooldown management. You see the boss go "I'mma hit you real hard now!" in one of hundreds of variations, and you hit shield block now instead of 5 seconds from now when you would have hit 2 charges.

You seem to have mentally inverted my recommended behaviour. Mash the button. All the time. You can't lose duration on shield block. If you've got 3 seconds left on a shield block, and hit your next shield block, it will have its duration increased to 9 seconds.


Most of the time, yeah, you weren't going to die if you didn't use your mitigation correctly, but that doesn't mean that it's useless, you're making things easier for the healers by taking less damage overall, and making it less likely that a bit of unexpected damage or a misstep by the healer leads to you dying and the raid wiping.

Like I said: You're far more likely to die by failing mechanics or positioning (which is really just another word for mechanics, really).


And there are a few bosses where active mitigation is even called out and just spamming shield block on cooldown will get you dead. For example Kilrogg Deadeye (a boss in the Blackrock Foundry raid) uses Shred Armor which deals a bunch of damage and causes the target to take an extra 40% damage (stacking). If you use active mitigation, not only can you block a good amount of that damage, but it also prevents the debuff from being applied to you. Outside of raids, there's also Rukhran in the Skyreach dungeon, who uses Pierce Armor which has very similar effects (10% instead of 40%, but still stacking).

Yep, never even NOTICED Pierce Armor in Skyreach, which I only ever wiped on when the DPS would feeb the adds and spawn 400 birds from running through the embers. Kilrogg basically turns 'timing shield block' INTO a raid mechanic, instead of what it is natively, a medicore and forgettable buff with <100% uptime, whose effect competes with your own class mastery.


Hell, even outside of bosses, I've used it a lot of times to help me survive when a bunch of unexpected adds show up, or when the healer gets CCed, or even just at the start of a pull to block damage when all of the enemies are still up, rather than "on cooldown" later on when half of them are dead.

As I said, you've got other tools in your toolbox for 'oh crumbs' moments. And, if you're using my method, you've got 18 seconds of uninterrupted shield block from the start of a fight. But this is all moot: It's a boring, stupid mechanic, and active mitigation is a boring, stupid design choice. I'd much rather have the 'keep aggro on my targets' challenge back.

[AgentPaper]

You seem to have mentally inverted my recommended behaviour. Mash the button. All the time. You can't lose duration on shield block. If you've got 3 seconds left on a shield block, and hit your next shield block, it will have its duration increased to 9 seconds.

Er, no? Have you played warrior before? It lasts 6 seconds and has a 12 second recharge. You can't have it up 100% of the time. Sure, you can use it twice in a row to get 12 seconds of block time, then once more when it comes off cooldown for a total of 18 seconds blocked, but once that's over you've got 6 seconds before it comes off cooldown again, so now you've just got it up half the time for the rest of the fight if you just keep spamming it.


Like I said: You're far more likely to die by failing mechanics or positioning (which is really just another word for mechanics, really).

Just because you're more likely to die if you make a simple mistake doesn't mean that a more subtle mistake isn't still a mistake.


Yep, never even NOTICED Pierce Armor in Skyreach, which I only ever wiped on when the DPS would feeb the adds and spawn 400 birds from running through the embers. Kilrogg basically turns 'timing shield block' INTO a raid mechanic, instead of what it is natively, a medicore and forgettable buff with <100% uptime, whose effect competes with your own class mastery.

I'm not sure what your point here is. Are you saying that shield block doesn't protect you enough? Because that's a lot different from the "you just press it to keep it pressed" point you made before.


As I said, you've got other tools in your toolbox for 'oh crumbs' moments. And, if you're using my method, you've got 18 seconds of uninterrupted shield block from the start of a fight. But this is all moot: It's a boring, stupid mechanic, and active mitigation is a boring, stupid design choice. I'd much rather have the 'keep aggro on my targets' challenge back.

If you think tanking whatever bosses you're tanking is easy, then you should be seeking out more difficult content. Tanking is not easier than it used to be, if anything it's become harder exactly because of active mitigation. Before, you basically just did your rotation, did the mechanics, and used cooldowns sometimes. Now you do the same things, but also need to make sure you're using your active mitigation at the right time to block as much damage as you can.

I also played a lot back in the "keeping aggro is hard" times (specifically naxx and ulduar), and trying to claim that tanking was harder because of it is frankly insulting. Against single target, you did your rotation as best you can, and if anyone got aggro anyways, you taunted and yelled at them for not watching their threat. Nowadays...you do your rotation as best you can still, only it's your own DPS that suffers instead of the whole raid.

And again, if you don't like that content isn't challenging, then go after more challenging content. Get going on heroics, or do challenge dungeons. Push your group to go faster, pull more trash at once, whatever. Don't complain that you can tank normal dungeons by pressing one button because of your epic raid gear. That's not the game's fault, it's your for taking on challenges that you are overgeared for.

[The_Jackal]

Er, no? Have you played warrior before? It lasts 6 seconds and has a 12 second recharge. You can't have it up 100% of the time.

I never said you could. I said that you can't LOSE DURATION. That is not the same as IT HAS 100% UPTIME.


Just because you're more likely to die if you make a simple mistake doesn't mean that a more subtle mistake isn't still a mistake.

I'm not contending that it's optimal. I'm contending that 95% of the time (in raid boss fights, outside of that, it's 100% of the time), it doesn't matter, and there are other places to devote your attention.


I'm not sure what your point here is. Are you saying that shield block doesn't protect you enough? Because that's a lot different from the "you just press it to keep it pressed" point you made before.

My point is that with the warrior's passive block chance, perks, and unavoidable mastery itemization, you're going to block most of the junk hitting you during the 6 second window when SB is recharging anyway, and when factored into the many other forms of mitigation you've got, assuming you're properly itemized AT ALL, the marginal difference in damage taken, barring some third-rail mechanic, is barely noticable.


If you think tanking whatever bosses you're tanking is easy, then you should be seeking out more difficult content. Tanking is not easier than it used to be, if anything it's become harder exactly because of active mitigation. Before, you basically just did your rotation, did the mechanics, and used cooldowns sometimes. Now you do the same things, but also need to make sure you're using your active mitigation at the right time to block as much damage as you can.

Again, I don't know how you can take what I said and conclude that I said 'Tanking is easy' at any point. The fact that I keep harping on how you've got far more important things to think about than playing Simon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(game)) with your active mitigation implies that I think the job is hard. Honestly, it was already the hardest job in the raid. Now it's just hard and not as much fun.


I also played a lot back in the "keeping aggro is hard" times (specifically naxx and ulduar), and trying to claim that tanking was harder because of it is frankly insulting. Against single target, you did your rotation as best you can, and if anyone got aggro anyways, you taunted and yelled at them for not watching their threat. Nowadays...you do your rotation as best you can still, only it's your own DPS that suffers instead of the whole raid.

Well, if you take that as an insult, then that's your choice. That's not how I meant it. When I was tanking back in Wrath and earlier, I received many, many compliments about my ability to hold aggro when compared to other tanks people played alongside. So clearly it CAN be done better or worse.


And again, if you don't like that content isn't challenging, then go after more challenging content. Get going on heroics, or do challenge dungeons. Push your group to go faster, pull more trash at once, whatever. Don't complain that you can tank normal dungeons by pressing one button because of your epic raid gear. That's not the game's fault, it's your for taking on challenges that you are overgeared for.

Again, you're assuming a level of arrogance in my position that I don't think is warranted. None of my position is 'Tanking is too easy'. My position is 'active mitigation is a dumb mechanic'.

[Alent]

I also played a lot back in the "keeping aggro is hard" times (specifically naxx and ulduar), and trying to claim that tanking was harder because of it is frankly insulting. Against single target, you did your rotation as best you can, and if anyone got aggro anyways, you taunted and yelled at them for not watching their threat. Nowadays...you do your rotation as best you can still, only it's your own DPS that suffers instead of the whole raid.

Naxx and Uld... what? :smallconfused:

As a BC era raid tank, I will attest that patch 3.0 was the end of the "Keeping aggro is hard" era. Taunt immune bosses were the status quo up until the end of burning crusade. Prior to Wrath, you only taunted bosses if the devs wanted you to taunt bosses (Brutallus, etc.) and there were raid tactics like the Heroism/Bloodlust cycling in combination with Drums of War cycling that would out-threat all but the highest TPS tanks. I'm told it was even more fun in vanilla, but that was before my time.

At least I think it was Wrath that made bosses tauntable. I honestly don't remember, they made paladin threat generation so insane during wrath that I don't think I ever actually had to use taunt until cata.

[AgentPaper]

Ok. this argument is going a bit all over the place, so I'm going to try and concentrate it back on what we were talking about originally.


My point is that with the warrior's passive block chance, perks, and unavoidable mastery itemization, you're going to block most of the junk hitting you during the 6 second window when SB is recharging anyway, and when factored into the many other forms of mitigation you've got, assuming you're properly itemized AT ALL, the marginal difference in damage taken, barring some third-rail mechanic, is barely noticable.

Unless things have changed since cata, extra block chance above 100% is changed 1:1 into critical block chance. So instead of having a good chance of blocking 30% of incoming damage, you have a good chance of blocking 60% of incoming damage. Effectively, you're taking almost half as much damage while using shield block compared to otherwise. Shield block actually becomes more powerful with a high base block chance, not worse.


Again, I don't know how you can take what I said and conclude that I said 'Tanking is easy' at any point.

You said, "I'd much rather have the 'keep aggro on my targets' challenge back." I don't know how I could take that as anything other than "tanking is easier now because you don't have to worry about aggro". It seems you don't actually believe tanking is easy though, so I don't know what point you were trying to get across before.

[endur]

My warrior only recently began to truly appreciate the value of shield barrier.

Shield block was my primary use of rage in group content. But while soloing recently, I discovered that shield barrier combined with second wind could be highly useful on some of the difficult soloing fights (where second wind by itself wasn't enough).

I agree with those above who said that resolve never had the impact on my warrior tank that resolve has on my DK. My DK could solo many 5 man bosses due to resolve and self-healing, whereas my warrior can solo only a few 5 man bosses.

[endur]

As a BC era raid tank, I will attest that patch 3.0 was the end of the "Keeping aggro is hard" era. Taunt immune bosses were the status quo up until the end of burning crusade. Prior to Wrath, you only taunted bosses if the devs wanted you to taunt bosses (Brutallus, etc.) and there were raid tactics like the Heroism/Bloodlust cycling in combination with Drums of War cycling that would out-threat all but the highest TPS tanks. I'm told it was even more fun in vanilla, but that was before my time.

I definitely remember taunting in Wrath, for tank swaps (trial of crusade stacks on first boss, etc.) I don't remember BC well enough to recall if we used taunt for tank swaps (I mostly recall the off-tank tanking adds), but I believe your recollection is correct that taunt didn't affect bosses. I know that you couldn't tank swap with taunt in Vanilla.

[tigerusthegreat]

I'm wanting to restart my experiment from last expansion and time my leveling of characters to the cap for wod. I'm not going crazy and doing it from lvl 1, but rather the level I have them at now (which is mostly 90s). Issue being it will be a little bit before I can resub.

It'd be nice to be playing again as once I do resubmit I can probably farm gold for tokens easily enough. 30k isn't hard to get with wod.

[Icewraith]

Of course you can lose duration on Shield Block. You hit the button and the boss starts a three second cast. You take no melee hits during half of that Shield Block charge. If you had waited three seconds, you'd have a higher % uptime on Shield Block when taking blockable damage. Mindlessly using Shield block on CD with a boss that regularly stops autoattacking on CD could conceivably push uptime below 40%. If you have really good or really overgeared healers, nobody may notice. If you're doing progression content for your healer's gear and skill level, they may very well notice.

I don't miss the pre-3.0 "keeping aggro is hard" days. There actually was a period of time during Wrath where keeping agro was nearly impossible, but only for people learning how to tank in 5 mans on alts while accompanied by friends in full raid gear (who were often tanks getting a break and thus extremely hard to tank against). This hasn't happened to me in a while (they may have finally gotten rid of this), but there's also the occasional Ret paladin offspec that forgot to turn off Avenging Wrath that can be a bit of a problem during aoe.

Actually, keeping aggro is still hard even now for a newbie tank against an experienced, geared tank. I've had the displeasure of taking nearly every single artillery shot during HFC normal, second boss, with a newbie off-tank. (The boss uses artillery against the highest threat target, regardless of whether or not it has aggro. So If I'm at 100.1% threat, and the boss pulls off when you exceed 110% threat in melee, I'll still get the artillery debuff instead of the other tank).

I'll own up to the moniker of "high threat tank", I've even pugged a BRF with another warrior who claimed to be a high threat tank who had better gear and weapon than I did, and out-threated him every single time (one pull I did accidentally taunt, but the others were all legit).

[Alaris]

I don't know if this is really the place for it... but I've been scouring around for an active thread on one of the forums I visit... and I found this one.

I haven't played WoW in... well... 7-ish years. Since the start of the 1st expansion, if I recall. I played it briefly, then stopped.

With a recent sale, I decided to get back into it. Since my old account was stolen, I bought it on my new account for $5; at the very least, it's 30 days of free game time. I even picked up the expansion(s?).

I... don't know where to start. So many new races, several new classes (and another expansion next year?). I had a guild long ago, though they quit and moved on to different things by this point.

So...advice? A starting point. I had 3 classes I played around with; Hunter, Warlock & Druid. They were all pretty fun... but I feel like maybe I want to try something different?

Anyway, thanks in advance... I really look forward to picking this all back up again.

[Icewraith]

I'd say make sure your faction of choice is well represented on the server you choose and has a high population.

Aside from that, druids, paladins, and monks can all tank, heal, or dps. Being a tank is still a position of privelege when it comes to pve queues, being a healer is usually better if you eventually plan to find a raid group. Healers don't level well, you should pick up the ability to dual spec fairly quickly (it will be very obvious when you can).

Hunters and warlocks are incredibly strong when it comes to solo leveling, hunters are also one of the more mobile ranged dps, which is a pretty nice place to be.

If you're looking for something new, charge on a warrior is still one of the most fun skills in the game (imo). The discipline priest's penance is one of the most satisfying to use (again imo). Be aware survival hunters and combat rogues will get major overhauls in the next expansion, so they might not be the best choices if you don't want to relearn your class later.

If pvp is your thing, rogues and frost mages usually have superb toolkits, although I'm not up to date on if that's still the case.

Once you hit level 15 or so you'll be able to queue for dungeons in addition to questing as a way to level. The queue is pretty fast regardless of role, but you may have issues holding threat against dps in heirlooms as a tank. You can also level in battlegrounds, but most people will be running around in heirloom gear and you'll probably have a rough time.

You can't make any really bad choices, class balance is pretty good right now, especially in pve. Also if you tell people you're starting from scratch, (especially in the dungeon finder) they tend to be surprisingly helpful.

[Traab]

I don't know if this is really the place for it... but I've been scouring around for an active thread on one of the forums I visit... and I found this one.

I haven't played WoW in... well... 7-ish years. Since the start of the 1st expansion, if I recall. I played it briefly, then stopped.

With a recent sale, I decided to get back into it. Since my old account was stolen, I bought it on my new account for $5; at the very least, it's 30 days of free game time. I even picked up the expansion(s?).

I... don't know where to start. So many new races, several new classes (and another expansion next year?). I had a guild long ago, though they quit and moved on to different things by this point.

So...advice? A starting point. I had 3 classes I played around with; Hunter, Warlock & Druid. They were all pretty fun... but I feel like maybe I want to try something different?

Anyway, thanks in advance... I really look forward to picking this all back up again.


Things have changed a lot since classic and the first expansion. First of all, while some classes are better at it, they can all solo to max level just fine. Second of all, talents are very different, they got rid of the talent trees so now every so many levels you get to choose between a few options. I remember trying to get the proper talent tree setup in classic was a bit confusing before you got used to it if you were interested in min/maxing talents. I would personally suggest that you start over from level 1 with whatever class sounds interesting. The early zones have all been changed, in some cases drastically, so even if you remember what zones you went to while leveling, in a lot of cases, that no longer applies. You will be guided along as you play, meaning, as you finish up one zone, you tend to get a quest to go to the next area.

Once you are leveled up enough to do so, and feel confident enough in your ability to fill your role, you will be able to join a lfg queue to go to various level appropriate dungeons. No more hanging out in orgrimmar spamming the chat channels trying to create a group. No more clicking on the dungeon stones outside the entrance. Just click on a simple menu option and once there is an opening you will be notified and teleported right to the place. You can even keep soloing while you wait, though it rarely takes long.

Another random plus, you dont have to buy spells anymore. You get your new stuff automatically as you level. No more buying serpent sting rank 3 at the hunter trainer back at the capitol city or whatever. Tradeskills work about the same as usual, though you can also track stuff like mining or herb nodes on the minimap, making it easier to spot them.

[Alaris]

Looking at Alliance (probably)... also mostly PvE... any recommended realm/servers? I'm glancing over them right now, but there's a lot to choose from.

[AgentPaper]

Looking at Alliance (probably)... also mostly PvE... any recommended realm/servers? I'm glancing over them right now, but there's a lot to choose from.

There's probably a lot of good ones, but apparently Sargeras and Stormrage are good. If you do go Horde, I'm on Area 52 which seems good, and I think a few other playgrounders might be on there as well.

[otakuryoga]

I don't know if this is really the place for it... but I've been scouring around for an active thread on one of the forums I visit... and I found this one.

I haven't played WoW in... well... 7-ish years. Since the start of the 1st expansion, if I recall. I played it briefly, then stopped.

With a recent sale, I decided to get back into it. Since my old account was stolen, I bought it on my new account for $5; at the very least, it's 30 days of free game time. I even picked up the expansion(s?).

I... don't know where to start. So many new races, several new classes (and another expansion next year?). I had a guild long ago, though they quit and moved on to different things by this point.

So...advice? A starting point. I had 3 classes I played around with; Hunter, Warlock & Druid. They were all pretty fun... but I feel like maybe I want to try something different?

Anyway, thanks in advance... I really look forward to picking this all back up again.
yeah i think pretty much every class has changed immensely since that early in the game...so even the ones you have already played would be a brand new experience

as mentioned...most people go straight into dungeons to level since they have done the zones multiple times
in heirlooms dungeons are faceroll mode and the fastest way to level
as a non-heirloom person you may have trouble in there as a tank
but as a healer it wouldnt be so bad(just explain to tank at start that you DONT overgear the place and maybe take it a tad slower)..and cake as DPS

[Yana]

There's probably a lot of good ones, but apparently Sargeras and Stormrage are good. If you do go Horde, I'm on Area 52 which seems good, and I think a few other playgrounders might be on there as well.

Stormrage was my original server that I left back in 2010. At that point, it had a 9:1 Alliance: Horde ratio at best which I wager has gotten even worse since then. If you want an Alliance dominated server, this is your best bet.

[Alaris]

yeah i think pretty much every class has changed immensely since that early in the game...so even the ones you have already played would be a brand new experience

as mentioned...most people go straight into dungeons to level since they have done the zones multiple times
in heirlooms dungeons are faceroll mode and the fastest way to level
as a non-heirloom person you may have trouble in there as a tank
but as a healer it wouldnt be so bad(just explain to tank at start that you DONT overgear the place and maybe take it a tad slower)..and cake as DPS

I hate to be that guy... but... what are Heirlooms? Google is my friend.

I went with Priest, as I've always wanted to be that healer dude that supports people. Hopefully I won't totally suck at it.

I didn't get far into Dungeons. I did Deadmines, Stockades... and I think 1 or two other ones (back when I used to play, that is).

I've hit Level 11, and I'm on my way to Westfall for a bit more leveling. The nostalgia is strong, I can say that much... I'm just wondering if I'll still enjoy it when that wears off.

[Traab]

I hate to be that guy... but... what are Heirlooms? Google is my friend.

I went with Priest, as I've always wanted to be that healer dude that supports people. Hopefully I won't totally suck at it.

I didn't get far into Dungeons. I did Deadmines, Stockades... and I think 1 or two other ones (back when I used to play, that is).

I've hit Level 11, and I'm on my way to Westfall for a bit more leveling. The nostalgia is strong, I can say that much... I'm just wondering if I'll still enjoy it when that wears off.

The good thing is, in cataclysm they revamped the old world zones. Now virtually every zone has a nice overarching storyline to it and a metric buttload of quests to do. You will never find yourself grinding out levels to unlock the next quest chain. This only applies to vanilla WoW content and not every zone is very different, but a lot of them have massive changes to them. And once again, tons of quests abound. In fact, its entirely possible to end up skipping zones because you leveled up so much in your current one you could skip right past the next on the line. As an example, normally as a human you do elwyn forest, westfall, then redridge then duskwood. If you do all of the quests in elwynn and westfall, then chances are good you will be able to skip right over redridge and go right to duskwood. I wouldnt suggest it, because redridge is one of my absolute favorite zones, but its a good example of what you can do. Another example is, after duskwood you start stranglethorn which is basically two zones now. If you have been doing all the quests, you can skip the first half of stranglethorn and follow the main path till you get sent to the second half of the zone.

Oh, good news, you get your mount at level 20 now. Epic land mount at 40. And its CHEEEEEAAPPP! No grinding 900 gold or whatever for your 100% speed land mount. Also, flying mounts are purchasable at 60, not 68. You can buy them from honor hold in outland instead of having to go all the way to shadowmoon valley. So yeah, thats fricking awesome. Once again, cheaper than before.

[AgentPaper]

The fastest way to level if you have a full set of heirlooms is to simply do every dungeon in the game once, with a bit of questing on the side starting once you hit level 58 or so. Without heirlooms, you'd still probably want to do each dungeon once for max speed, but I don't think pure dungeon running is the fastest, you probably want to be questing a bit as well.

For someone without heirlooms though, and especially someone who hasn't played in the new content, I'd highly suggest leveling primarily through questing. Do each dungeon once, at most, and preferably once you're a decently high level for that dungeon. Some of the dungeons are great, especially the early ones which have been revamped, but some of the later ones aren't really worth doing (from a fun/time perspective), and some are just horrible compared to modern dungeons. Specifically, I'd suggest avoiding: Gnomeragan, Maraudon (all 3), Dire Maul (all 3), and Lower Blackrock Spire. Each of those is progressively worse than the last, being long, fairly boring, and especially for LBS having incredibly confusing layouts that make it hard to know where you should be going without a guide.

I'd also suggest completing each zone from start to finish, rather than skipping to the next one just because you've gained enough levels. This might not be quite as fast leveling wise, but it'll let you experience each zone more completely, and also give you more options for later characters that you level for new zones to go to that you haven't played through yet, since especially if you do a bunch of dungeons, you could easily skip over a few leveling areas as you progress. This is especially true as you get to expansion content (starting with Burning Crusade).

Aside from that, play what you want and level as whatever spec you want. Don't bother doing research on your chosen class (yet), just pick the spec and talents that appeal to you, and figure out how to use each ability as you gain them.

Edit: Another tip, you should definitely look into mods, but take the one at a time. No need to go for a total interface overhaul from the start. For starting out, I'd suggest getting Auctioneer (http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/auctioneer) or something similar to help you sell the random stuff you pick up on the auction house, because you can make a lot of money doing that. Not that you won't make a good deal of gold just doing quests and selling things to the vendor, but it can be a nice boost for someone just starting out. For example, you can use it to buy a set of 16-slot bags early on to make managing your inventory a lot easier.

[Alaris]

Any recommendations add-on/mod-wise to improve the interface? I remember using... like... 1 or 2 back in the day (8 years ago)... I imagine they aren't used anymore and/or are outdated; not that I remember their names.