So, new xpac is out. Who's still playing? Not me, cause my game is permalocked by the server problems of millions of people trying to do the exact same quest at the exact same time.
I rolled on Sargeras because it was the most populated PVP realm. Now I really do regret that decision. Especially with all the cross-realm zones that adds to the burden.
It's even worse in EU, Blizzard even stated they consider US a higher priority and they snuck in some hotfixes for US pre-release when they saw problems on EU.
I've managed to reach 95 so far, but spending hours in a queue is not fun, neither is constant crashes, broken flightpaths, broken garrisons, quests that were not designed with more than a few people in mind and so on.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Much of the lag and crashes is not Blizz's fault, though. They report lots of DDOS attacks.
I begun the quest-line today, as soon as I went through the dark portal it all went wrong
None of my abilities or spells would work, I could only auto-attack and it would always miss, thankfully the NPCs helped me kill the orcs for the missive you need but then I could not loot the corpses.
After several re-boots and messing around I finally got the game to play properly and then it was fine until i reached the 'build your garrison quest'.
Been stuck there since, will try again tomorrow but I think I'll probably take a break for a few days until it all blows over.
So far it's been alright for me besides long queue times. I really like the new armour that's been dropping for quests for warriors, makes my Orc actually feel like an orc! At least compared to the Pandaria sets. I do have to say that the cloth armour does look lacklustre though for warlocks as my friend (who plays a warlock) and I joked that by the time he reached 91 he looked like a hobo of draenor rather than a warlord
My rogue is level 93 (I'm in no rush!) and I am loving this expansion. So far I think it is probably the best expansion they've put out, but I'll reserve giving it that distinction until I complete the leveling process and delve in to the endgame.
I will admit, I'm loving the garrisons way more that I thought I would. Come to think of it, that's probably the reason why I'm only level 93!
The expansion couldn't have come at a worse time. Between Nanowrimo, the constant connection issues that seem to be plaguing WoD at the moment, feeling utterly gak and unmotivated to do anything, and sleeping, I have no real time to play.
Most of the stability issues seem to have been dealt with. There's an annoying bug that I last saw on Saturday that caused things to not show up like they should. For instance, at one point I opened a trade skill window, and my Draenor tradeskills didn't show up. And just after upgrading my garrison to level 3, my resource collection buildings weren't on the garrison blueprints map.
The lack of flying is much more brutal in this expansion than it would have been in earlier expansions. If you ignore zones like The Storm Peaks (half of which was inaccessible without flying), this is perhaps the expansion where flight would be the most useful. While a couple of the zones are wide open, others are very tight and cramped. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of space within those zones. But you're stuck to tight paths due to steep slopes or similar blocks. Flight would make it much easier to get around. It's a design decision, though, and I can see why they went with it.
Trade skills have been *massively* overhauled. Shortly after arriving, you'll find items (either looted or harvested) to help with your tradeskills. For resource gathering skills (herbalism, mining, fishing), you'll harvest an item that instantly boosts your skill cap to 700. Did you unlock Herbalism and then left it at skill level 1? Your skill cap will still go from 75 to 700 (remember that the pre-expac patch changed under-skilled gathering so that you still get *something*, so even a level 1 Herbalism guy can attempt to gather Draenor nodes). For production skills, you'll loot an item that gives a quest that involves talking to at least one NPC. Finishing that quest (which will require a small bit of effort) will reward you with a boosted skill cap, a handful of recipes, and a blueprint for the related production building.
And then it gets weird...
Your initial crafting items will likely all be yellow in your crafting log (i.e. good chance of a skill-up), and not orange (i.e. guaranteed chance of a skill-up). Any that are orange will either be once a day recipes, or require *massive* amounts of components. For instance, blacksmiths can Refine Truesteel Ingots (it's not a mining ability this time), craft a book called Secrets of Draenor Blacksmithing, and a few (three?) pieces of armor that might be of use while working toward level 100. Only the refining and book options will grant a skill-up, and they can only be performed once per day. Refining will require 20 pieces of True Iron Ore and 10 pieces of Blackrock Ore, and will provide at least 4 ingots in return. The exact amount is variable, and increases as your skill level goes up.
When you build a profession building in your garrison, two NPCs are placed. The example will be an Inscription building. The first is the work order NPC. You trade him resources (for instance, pigment), and four hours later he gives you one War Paint in return (or two war paints, if you assign one of your followers to work at the building). You can queue up to 9 work orders with a Tier One building, and up to 19 with a Tier 3 building. The second is a basic trade skill trainer. But he doesn't train Draenor recipes in the traditional fashion. Instead, you open his vendor panel, and can trade those crafted books (i.e. for blacksmiths, Secrets of Draenor Blacksmithing mentioned above) for recipes. One book will provide an weapon recipe for an ilevel 630 item that can be equipped at level 91 (the specifics vary per trade skill; for instance, a blacksmith can create ilevel 640 items, but it takes a *lot* more items to fully kit out a character). Level 100 non-heroic dungeons drop ilevel 615 gear. But there's a catch, of course. That catch is the components required. It takes 100 War Paint, and 1 simple wood, to craft a Crystalfire Staff alone. A resource building with a follower working there can craft 12 war paint per day, and a player can craft 4 (this actually increases slightly at skill levels over 600), which means *at most* you're only going to get 16 ingots per day. Which means that it'll take a little over 6 days to craft that staff. On the other hand, you also get ten skill up points for completing it.
Then after you've crafted the staff, you can use 150 War Paints, and some other semi-rare items (that can also be purchased from a garrison vendor using Primal Spirit drops) to create an item that will allow you to boost your staff's ilevel from 630 to 640. That recipe costs 5 books, btw. And then you can purchase yet another recipe (for another 5 books) that will allow you to increase the staff's ilevel yet again - to 655 - this time using 200 War Paints and other semi-rare items.
Cooking, fishing, and first aid have also been changed up.
First off, there are "small", "regular", and "enormous" fish. The kind that you catch is based off of your skill level. Low skill level means nothing but small fish. 700 unbuffed skill means mostly regular fish, with some enormous fish. Catching 20 small fish, or 10 normal fish, or 5 enormous fish, all of the same type, allows you to convert those fish into fish meat of the appropriate type (somewhere between 15-25, from what I've seen).
Cooking gives you two very basic recipes that don't give stat bonuses. Crafting those items has a (very good at the start) chance of granting you new cooking recipes. And crafting those recipes has a chance of granting you yet more recipes. Each of the normal recipes requires five meat, and returns four product (more if your skill level is high). And there are the usual more advanced recipes, which require finished products from earlier recipes, and feasts, which require more raw meat.
First aid is also more complicated. There are no cloth scraps, but the beasts now drop fur which is essentially the same thing. But you can't just convert fur into bandages. You now also require fishing drops. And bandages don't give skill ups for very long. Instead, you craft what are essentially healing potions (I don't know if alchemy has something similar), anti-disease potions (which don't work in instances), and anti-poison potions (which also don't work in instances) for your skill-ups. All require fish parts.
So if you like first aid, you'd better practice your fishing.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, yeah, and since I'm playing a Mistweaver monk...
GET OUT OF THE FIRE, YOU HALF-WITS!
And while you're at it, QUIT BREAKING THE CROWD CONTROL!!!
And READ THE DUNGEON JOURNAL BOSS ENTRIES!!!
Seriously. Went into Auchindoun with a PUG. First boss fight. The journal clearly states that the one of the boss's moves is to throw his shield at one of the players. It also states that he uses an ability called Consecrated Light, and that you should hide behind his shield when he does so. Otherwise you will die.
First boss fight starts. Boss throws his shield. Boss starts casting Consecrated Light. A BIG MESSAGE shows up on my screen courtesy of the game UI informing me that the boss is casting Consecrated Light.
I hide.
Tank survives, though with massive damage.
All three dps either instantly die, or die shortly afterwards (I don't recall which).
>.<
Fortunately, the tank and I were able to finish off the boss. He started to cast Consecrated Light again later in the fight, and I had to tell the tank in Party Chat to come hide.
Seriously. Half of the nonsense I have to deal with as a healer could be avoided if people would just take thirty seconds to glance at the Dungeon Journal before queueing up for a dungeon the first time.
I just had a guildmate sell a BoE iLvL 665 epic for 140,000 gold. Who pays that much for something that'll last for one patch at most? I'd understand it if it were a mount or something, but one piece of gear?!
Catyrpelius wrote: There seems to be alot of emphasis placed on fishing in this expansions... Especially when trying to level cooking and first aid.
They also seem to have made archeology easier, there are alot more ways to get fragments.
Cooking requires fishing to start. But once you learn your first meat recipe (by making the basic fishing recipes), you can ignore fish if you choose. The decision to add fishing to first aid is rather puzzling...
And there are other odd bits. For instance, the "once a day" cloth recipe requires herbs. The work orders don't, so swapping out Enchanting (the usual profession that's paired with tailoring) for Herbalism is a mistake (you only need ten herbs once per day). But the fact that you need herbs at all is rather odd. In comparison, the Inscription daily only requires pigment. The mining daily only requires ore. And the enchanting daily only requires an enchanting ingredient. It's not clear why they decided that the tailoring daily recipe should require herbs.
Archeology isn't the only gathering profession that's had its gathering options improved. You get a mine, a fishing pond, and an herbal garden automatically in your garrison (i.e. they have their own dedicated slots, and don't take up one of your limited slots). Anyone can gather from these locations (once per day), even if they don't have the gathering skill. Further, whenever you gather from a mining or herb node, there's a chance that a hostile mob will spawn nearby and attack you. These mobs drop a significant amount of the resource that you were gathering. For instance, if a podling spawns in response to you gathering from a starflower node, it'll drop somewhere between 12-20 starflowers. And not only are the "gatherable" mob corpses back, but the items that you can gather from them are the same "partial resource" items you now get if your gathering skill is too low to gather from a node under the new system. So while gathering corpses is a slow way to get resources, it's yet another option that's available if your interested in pursuing it.
On another note, you can assign followers to level 2 gathering buildings, and they supposedly boost the building somehow. Does anyone know how they do this? I've added followers to both my mine and herb garden, but apparently the improvement is too subtle for me to pick up on.
According to WoWHead, adding a follower to your mine causes the mine carts to spawn. Several of these spawn each day, and they contain a random assortment of items. Frequently they're cheap vendor trash, but they also sometimes have mining picks (give a buff that causes you to mine faster), miner's coffee (buff that makes you run faster - but only in the mine), and archaeology fragments for WoD artifacts.
Adding a follower to your herb garden apparently allows you to select the herbs that will grow (this isn't advertised). Handy for alchemists, and possible others (more Gorgorond Flytraps for tailors). Not so useful for characters with Inscription.
According to WoWHead, adding a follower to your mine causes the mine carts to spawn. Several of these spawn each day, and they contain a random assortment of items. Frequently they're cheap vendor trash, but they also sometimes have mining picks (give a buff that causes you to mine faster), miner's coffee (buff that makes you run faster - but only in the mine), and archaeology fragments for WoD artifacts.
Adding a follower to your herb garden apparently allows you to select the herbs that will grow (this isn't advertised). Handy for alchemists, and possible others (more Gorgorond Flytraps for tailors). Not so useful for characters with Inscription.
Mine carts spawn for me and I dont have a follower attached to the building...
I'm guessing that it might be time to pull a certain orc off of mining duty...
Edit: removed minor spoiler
Maybe thats a part of the game thats still broken? Or maybe the level of the follower matters?
I'm not overly impressed by their execution of the Garrisons... Although, and this isn't going to make much sense; I'm having more fun with the garrison then I thought I would and I'm having less fun with the garrison then I thought I would.
The follower in question is level 99, so I doubt that's the problem.
I probably get what you're saying about Garrisons (though without elaborating, it's impossible to be certain). One thing that's occurred to me is that the most important buildings are probably the tradeskill support buildings. You pretty much require those buildings to use tradeskills in this expansion. The large and medium buildings provide extras, but nothing that will cripple you if you ignore them.
Also, I think I would have been a lot happier if they'd included one more large and medium slot, for a grand total of three of each.
Eumerin wrote: The follower in question is level 99, so I doubt that's the problem.
I probably get what you're saying about Garrisons (though without elaborating, it's impossible to be certain). One thing that's occurred to me is that the most important buildings are probably the tradeskill support buildings. You pretty much require those buildings to use tradeskills in this expansion. The large and medium buildings provide extras, but nothing that will cripple you if you ignore them.
Also, I think I would have been a lot happier if they'd included one more large and medium slot, for a grand total of three of each.
I'm not sure if you ever played City of Heros but towards the end of its lifespan they introduced lairs or bases or whatever they were actually called. You used resources you generated through questing to build and upgrade your lair, the best part about it was how unique and variable you could make your lair. You could use it to show off your accomplishments. This was what I was hoping for with WoW's Garrisons, instead I've got a base that looks more or less like everyone elses, the only variance I can introduce is which buildings I choose to build. What I like about the Garrisons is that there are a number of buildings that provide you with gathering and crafting opportunities just like in CoH.
On the same note though... The player base has been demanding player houseing for so long that I don't think anything they could have done would have really met my expectations... I wanted player housing in WoW that would let me take some time out of the game, show off some of my collections and acheivements and give me a unique place to hang out. Instead I got another job in the game thats grindy but useful.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
remilia_scarlet wrote: If it means anything, it could be worse. FFXIV got the 2.4 patch and now they're down every week. blizzard's team is way more capable than squenix.
Blizzards done this a few more times then them...
Honestly this isn't their worst launch, our original trip into outlands, Burning Crusades was much worse. I had thought they had fixed all the expansions issues when Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria launched eithout much in the way of problems.
I think alot of it had to do with just how much the player base shrunk during MoP, creating a ton of low population servers. This caused most of the active player base to move over to higher population servers. Couple this with the amount of Cross Realm stuff during that expansion to increase population in less populated areas and they created the perfect storm. In the end I've got no real way of knowing if this is what caused it or if it really was targeted DDoS attacks or some combination of the two.
I agree, and even add that after repairs, they don't try to goad you into buying the special edition where you pay 1/3 more money for mounts that aren't worth it.
I agree, and even add that after repairs, they don't try to goad you into buying the special edition where you pay 1/3 more money for mounts that aren't worth it.
Wait, your saying I don't have to buy the special edition? Now your just talking crazy!
So content wise this is a pretty big expansion, but it just doesn't feel as big as Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King.
I agree, and even add that after repairs, they don't try to goad you into buying the special edition where you pay 1/3 more money for mounts that aren't worth it.
Wait, your saying I don't have to buy the special edition? Now your just talking crazy!
So content wise this is a pretty big expansion, but it just doesn't feel as big as Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King.
It's supposed to have a lot of new stuff, so I'm excited to play more once I get a chance.
I played City of Heroes off and on, and did mess around a bit with the lairs.
A custom housing option is something that I was also hoping to see included with this. But they didn't go that route. The customization options are very limited beyond which buildings you select. There's apparently an option to install racial banners if you have the Tier 3 barracks, some pedestals at Garrison Tier 3 to display statues commemorating which of a half dozen or so achievements you accomplish, and the relics room to display your Pristine archeological stuff. And if you have the guild dungeon clear achievements, there's an NPC that will apparently add something to commemorate. I'd hoped for a Commander's Quarters type of room or building, but no such luck. The puzzling thing is that there are apparently useless things that suggest the possibility of customization. For instance, there's a level 1 painter NPC wandering around my garrison. He seems like the perfect opportunity to allow you to customize the artwork you have on display. But you can't actually do anything with him.
It's supposed to have a lot of new stuff, so I'm excited to play more once I get a chance.
I get the sense of a lot of stuff that's prepped for release, but not available yet. The first raid, Highmaul, doesn't go live until Dec. 2, iirc.
There are a bunch of achievements related to "invasions", which presumably involve one of the various groups or wildlife attacking your garrison (presumably after getting inside the walls without any trouble...). And there are achievements related to "garrison chapters". But I haven't seen any information on how to trigger either one. There's only one daily quest at level 100, and it's not related to any of the factions (though it does tend to send you after mobs that provide faction when you kill them). So I have a definite impression that there's some high level content that they're holding back in addition to the raids.
Eumerin wrote: I played City of Heroes off and on, and did mess around a bit with the lairs.
A custom housing option is something that I was also hoping to see included with this. But they didn't go that route. The customization options are very limited beyond which buildings you select. There's apparently an option to install racial banners if you have the Tier 3 barracks, some pedestals at Garrison Tier 3 to display statues commemorating which of a half dozen or so achievements you accomplish, and the relics room to display your Pristine archeological stuff. And if you have the guild dungeon clear achievements, there's an NPC that will apparently add something to commemorate. I'd hoped for a Commander's Quarters type of room or building, but no such luck. The puzzling thing is that there are apparently useless things that suggest the possibility of customization. For instance, there's a level 1 painter NPC wandering around my garrison. He seems like the perfect opportunity to allow you to customize the artwork you have on display. But you can't actually do anything with him.
It's supposed to have a lot of new stuff, so I'm excited to play more once I get a chance.
I get the sense of a lot of stuff that's prepped for release, but not available yet. The first raid, Highmaul, doesn't go live until Dec. 2, iirc.
There are a bunch of achievements related to "invasions", which presumably involve one of the various groups or wildlife attacking your garrison (presumably after getting inside the walls without any trouble...). And there are achievements related to "garrison chapters". But I haven't seen any information on how to trigger either one. There's only one daily quest at level 100, and it's not related to any of the factions (though it does tend to send you after mobs that provide faction when you kill them). So I have a definite impression that there's some high level content that they're holding back in addition to the raids.
They shouldn't have held stuff like that back... Al its doing is reminding me why I shopped playing halfway through Pandaria.
Holding raids back makes sense, especially when there are realm-firsts to play for. You don't start a race as soon as the first runner shows up, and having them available at the start, especially with all the connection chaos, would just mean that the first guild with a minimum level 100 raid team, or the guild that got the most stable connections at the time, would claim everything.
Delaying raid releases ensures that unsuccessful guilds can only blame themselves by not taking advantage of the time to prepare. A lot of people have had level 100s for at least a full day or so now, and if your guild can't collect a geared raid team in 3 weeks when it can take as few as 3 days to hit 100, then it's not Blizzard's fault, and it's not down to the luck of the draw.
If you get the Dwarven Bunker (or its Horde equivalent), it appears that you want to get it early on. Specifically, if you want it, you should probably replace your barracks with it as soon as you get the blueprint.
Tier 1 gives you access to capital city guard transmorg items, and increases the chance that your quest rewards will increase in quality. Given that your quest rewards are going to pretty much disappear after you hit level 100, this means that the second bonus is largely useless after that point.
Tier 2 gives you access to four armor skins - one for each armor type - in exchange for drops from Iron Horde orcs. I'm not particularly impressed with the skins myself, though others may like them.
Tier 3 gives you one free raid loot roll per week. Not a bad option for a raider that doesn't have time to farm up the loot rolls via alternate methods.
Avatar 720 wrote: Holding raids back makes sense, especially when there are realm-firsts to play for. You don't start a race as soon as the first runner shows up, and having them available at the start, especially with all the connection chaos, would just mean that the first guild with a minimum level 100 raid team, or the guild that got the most stable connections at the time, would claim everything.
Delaying raid releases ensures that unsuccessful guilds can only blame themselves by not taking advantage of the time to prepare. A lot of people have had level 100s for at least a full day or so now, and if your guild can't collect a geared raid team in 3 weeks when it can take as few as 3 days to hit 100, then it's not Blizzard's fault, and it's not down to the luck of the draw.
In all honesty, it's always the same guilds that end up getting realm firsts in raids and I highly doubt that would change if they opened them at launch.
In my guild we've got 20 or so lvl 100's all relativly geared from heroics waiting on raids to open... It's getting boring.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I just had a guildmate sell a BoE iLvL 665 epic for 140,000 gold. Who pays that much for something that'll last for one patch at most? I'd understand it if it were a mount or something, but one piece of gear?!
I found one too and only sold it for 50k. :( Should have charged way more.
Draenic Dust is silly. There are no profession greenies to DE, you can't turn shards to dust, and the drop rate of BoE greenies are awful. Dust's going for 30g EACH on my server currently, while shards are 7g each. GG Blizzard.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Draenic Dust is silly. There are no profession greenies to DE, you can't turn shards to dust, and the drop rate of BoE greenies are awful. Dust's going for 30g EACH on my server currently, while shards are 7g each. GG Blizzard.
My main (rogue) is an enchanter and I agree that dust is pretty hard to come by, but luckily for me I haven't had very many quest rewards get upgraded and I've gotten a fair amount of BoE greens as well.
I've also gone out of my way to complete all the quest lines in each zone before moving on to maximize my quest rewards; I've done it in Frostfire Ridge, Gorgrond, Talador, and almost in Spires of Arak. I'm level 100 already and I haven't even set foot in Nagrand yet so I'll probably head there this week and start knocking that out. Leveling is when I like being a rogue the most, just for the speed in which I am able to complete quests and how quickly I can kill anything, even without awesome gear (I started WoD with a mix of SoO raid finder and Timeless Island gear).
Dipped back into this last week after a 3 year break.
Quite enjoying it too, they've certainly made improvements (gfx, quest hubs, toning things down) and introduced some fun stuff, public quests ala Warhammer Online, Garrisons and new zones.
Definitely will only be playing casually but its a nice change of pace and has me interested so far.
My concern at this stage is the pace of the quests. Im currently 95 and have only been to Gorgrond and the starting zone yet. There are so many quests per zone (which is great on the one hand) I fear getting to 100 well short of having seen every zone.
I completed the "story line" quests in each zone thru Spires (so starter, gorgrond, and spires) and had started Nagrand when I hit 100. I'm just playing thru the quests now for Nagrand and eventually the other 100 zone while doing the normal daily stuff. Story is fun and so is the environment so it doesn't feel like a chore. Plus it's good easy gold which I need since stuff is expensive
Hulksmash wrote: I completed the "story line" quests in each zone thru Spires (so starter, gorgrond, and spires) and had started Nagrand when I hit 100. I'm just playing thru the quests now for Nagrand and eventually the other 100 zone while doing the normal daily stuff. Story is fun and so is the environment so it doesn't feel like a chore. Plus it's good easy gold which I need since stuff is expensive
I did the same thing and I really enjoyed it.
I don't know if you know this, but there is an NPC in Ashran (Srikka for the Horde in Warspear and Grakis for the Alliance in Stormshield) that sells Treasure Maps of all the zones that you can buy once you've earned the storyline achievement for each zone. Using the map put the names and locations of all the hidden treasures on your map.
Hulksmash wrote: I completed the "story line" quests in each zone thru Spires (so starter, gorgrond, and spires) and had started Nagrand when I hit 100. I'm just playing thru the quests now for Nagrand and eventually the other 100 zone while doing the normal daily stuff. Story is fun and so is the environment so it doesn't feel like a chore. Plus it's good easy gold which I need since stuff is expensive
I did the same thing and I really enjoyed it.
I don't know if you know this, but there is an NPC in Ashran (Srikka for the Horde in Warspear and Grakis for the Alliance in Stormshield) that sells Treasure Maps of all the zones that you can buy once you've earned the storyline achievement for each zone. Using the map put the names and locations of all the hidden treasures on your map.
Some of the treasures can still be a bit of a pain to find even when you're standing right on top of where the map says they're supposed to be, though...
In any event, finishing the Nagrand storyline is definitely worth it if only so that you can finally watch
Also, the title is now incorrect. There is little lag to be found.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Prediction time!
7.0: Burning Legion invades. E'lune reveals itself and merges with Anduin to lead the army of the light. Tyrande embarrasses herself again and Jaina goes on nerdrage. Thrall runs off to save the world together with Varian. No other leader gets any screentime.
Also, the title is now incorrect. There is little lag to be found.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Prediction time!
7.0: Burning Legion invades. E'lune reveals itself and merges with Anduin to lead the army of the light. Tyrande embarrasses herself again and Jaina goes on nerdrage. Thrall runs off to save the world together with Varian. No other leader gets any screentime.
I think you mean
"Thrall does all the cool stuff, while Varian stands at the side line and looks on."
I mean, it's Thrall. Chris Metzen + Thrall = Thrall-time.
Hulksmash wrote: I completed the "story line" quests in each zone thru Spires (so starter, gorgrond, and spires) and had started Nagrand when I hit 100. I'm just playing thru the quests now for Nagrand and eventually the other 100 zone while doing the normal daily stuff. Story is fun and so is the environment so it doesn't feel like a chore. Plus it's good easy gold which I need since stuff is expensive
Tanaan hasn't been implemented yet, so no need to rush through Nagrand.
Really, so there is a whole zone that basically isn't in swing yet? Oh well.
Good call on the maps guys. I'll have to run that stuff down. Finally got my garrison to level 3 this morning so I've got some stuff to do when I get back from work tonight
Ratius wrote: I heard they redid MC as a level 100, 40 man raid.
Wow, thats pretty darn epic to be fair
Yes... and no.
It's a level 100 raid only for the anniversary event, and from what I understand will revert in January. And I think I've read that the only reward is the mount you get for the clearing achievement, and a possible mini-pet that sometimes drops from Ragnaros.
Ah bummer.
Never understood why they didnt revisit some of the older dungeons and just update them slightly (slightly being the operaitve word, not total overhauls).
Like the original Dire Maul was a gem of an instance (all3).
As was Sunken Temple in its day.
Just ramp up the mobs HPs, throw in a few good reward items and add maybe 1 or 2 new boss dynamics. Boom, sorted.
Ratius wrote: Ah bummer.
Never understood why they didnt revisit some of the older dungeons and just update them slightly (slightly being the operaitve word, not total overhauls).
Like the original Dire Maul was a gem of an instance (all3).
As was Sunken Temple in its day.
Just ramp up the mobs HPs, throw in a few good reward items and add maybe 1 or 2 new boss dynamics. Boom, sorted.
Sunken Temple was a fun zone, but it was *long*. Vanilla WoW had a trend in which the higher level a dungeon was, the more time it took to clear. Sunken Temple was the first instance where this became particularly noticeable. Stratholme dealt with it by allowing access to the "back door" and undead side. But both Blackrock Depths and Upper Blackrock were *very* long instances.
Blizzard noticed this, and TBC introduced shorter dungeons, which never have more than three or four bosses, with only a few small groups of trash mobs to clear in between (for the most part). This change has continued up to the present day.
It's notable that when UBRS was overhauled, they completely changed the instance. They didn't replace the mobs present in the instance. They changed the layout as well. Parts of it are familiar to old-timers. But huge chunks of it are no longer accessible. It's now a much faster instance to run than it was back in the day.
Not sure if it was worth it. It was a three-hour wipefest with grinding, respawning trash and so on.
Highmaul is feeling great so far though.
I think it is worth it if you're a mount collector (I am!).
I've been lvl. 100 for some time now and I haven't done the new MC yet, but I plan to before it gets taken away... as far as the trash is concerned, I thought I read that they were hotfixed to no longer respawn.
I also hope to get into Highmaul with my friends this weekend.
Whoever thought making Molten Core into a 40-man LFR thingie was a good idea needs to at least have a stern talking to. "Don't AoE the Firelords" is too complicated for random groups.
On the plus side, I got overkilled by The Butcher in Highmaul for 296 trillion damage yesterday, so apparently that's a thing.
Not sure if it was worth it. It was a three-hour wipefest with grinding, respawning trash and so on.
Highmaul is feeling great so far though.
Highmaul is pretty but its also pretty boring... If you've got DPS thats aware enough not to stand in aoe effects on the ground then its really really really easy. Tank damage isn't overly high, but there is alot of damage that can go out to the raid if everyone isn't paying attention and right now healing is the weak spot.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Whoever thought making Molten Core into a 40-man LFR thingie was a good idea needs to at least have a stern talking to. "Don't AoE the Firelords" is too complicated for random groups.
On the plus side, I got overkilled by The Butcher in Highmaul for 296 trillion damage yesterday, so apparently that's a thing.
I think they made Molten Core into a 40 man LFR just to show all the people talking about the 'good old days' that the days weren't really that good.
Not sure if it was worth it. It was a three-hour wipefest with grinding, respawning trash and so on.
Highmaul is feeling great so far though.
I think it is worth it if you're a mount collector (I am!).
I've been lvl. 100 for some time now and I haven't done the new MC yet, but I plan to before it gets taken away... as far as the trash is concerned, I thought I read that they were hotfixed to no longer respawn.
I also hope to get into Highmaul with my friends this weekend.
Is that where that Corehound mount came from I keep seeing everyone on?
Sunken Temple was a fun zone, but it was *long*. Vanilla WoW had a trend in which the higher level a dungeon was, the more time it took to clear. Sunken Temple was the first instance where this became particularly noticeable. Stratholme dealt with it by allowing access to the "back door" and undead side. But both Blackrock Depths and Upper Blackrock were *very* long instances.
Blizzard noticed this, and TBC introduced shorter dungeons, which never have more than three or four bosses, with only a few small groups of trash mobs to clear in between (for the most part). This change has continued up to the present day.
It's notable that when UBRS was overhauled, they completely changed the instance. They didn't replace the mobs present in the instance. They changed the layout as well. Parts of it are familiar to old-timers. But huge chunks of it are no longer accessible. It's now a much faster instance to run than it was back in the day.
Oh no problem acknowledging the lenght of the older dungeons, you could easily spend 4+ hours (Maraudon) even in the lower level ones aan you had to have one seriously dedicated group to do a full run.
But having said that a lot of them were very well designed, with great boss fights, fun trash packs and cool events, remember the Pyramid stairs in Zul Farrak and the ensuing NPC fight? Great stuff.
I just think the option to upgrade some of the older ones would be a nice bonus to the game.
I ran iron docks and the level 91 dungeon a few times and to be frank, they were tediously unimaginative in most respects.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Whoever thought making Molten Core into a 40-man LFR thingie was a good idea needs to at least have a stern talking to. "Don't AoE the Firelords" is too complicated for random groups.
On the plus side, I got overkilled by The Butcher in Highmaul for 296 trillion damage yesterday, so apparently that's a thing.
I think they made Molten Core into a 40 man LFR just to show all the people talking about the 'good old days' that the days weren't really that good.
Attunements were one if the dumbest things about vanilla WoW; they were often overly complicated affairs that didn't really prove anything other than you completed a long quest chain. Heroic dungeon keys in Outland were dumb too.
I understand the theory behind it, I just though it left a lot to be desired in practice.
Thats why I loved them! I loved the complicated/grindy/fiddly game that wow used to be.
I personally think we should bring back the days when only Paladins and Warlocks had mounts.
When WoW catered to the hardcore player they seemed to be better at retaining the player base. Now that they've substantially dumbed down the game the player base drops pretty quickly after an expansion. Hell on the server I'm on were already looseing people due to disintrest.
End of December, so you've got some time. I'm in the same boat. Only iLevel 607 right now. Going to need a little time before I can even run heroics....Because our regular dungeons take like 45 minutes in LFG...
Hulksmash wrote: End of December, so you've got some time. I'm in the same boat. Only iLevel 607 right now. Going to need a little time before I can even run heroics....Because our regular dungeons take like 45 minutes in LFG...
Did you get the ring that starts your legendary quest line?
usernamesareannoying wrote: hey guys, what did you all use your free 90 boost on?
if I wanted a class that can handle multiple mobs with little downtime can you recommend one?
WRT taking multiple mobs with little to no down time, my main is a prot warrior, and with gladiator stance I can basically farm nonstop with the Impending Victory talent. Ideally dealing with 2-3 enemies at a time.
Not any more in my experience, and I started the expansion at iLvL 585. Everything takes ages to kill as affli because there just is no burst, and with the selfhealing nerfed having multiple mobs hitting you is bad news.
But then, I love the hell out of DKs and have 1 level 100, 1 level 96 and 3 level 90 DKs.
They are just so good in every way - free weapon enchants, fun gameplay yet simple enough for you to be able to focus on the raid mechanics as well, and awesome for RP.
Catyrpelius wrote: Thats why I loved them! I loved the complicated/grindy/fiddly game that wow used to be.
Grinding is not fun. It wasn't in vanilla and it isn't now. Most of the original attunements came down the RNG, which is a terrible way to decided whether or not a player could experience content they paid for.
I personally think we should bring back the days when only Paladins and Warlocks had mounts.
I think you might be remembering things a little different then they were... everyone had access to mounts, but warlocks and paladins had their epic quest chain to learn how to summon their class specific mounts. I admit, those quest chains were fun (especially the warlock one), but in the end you typically had to spend more gold to complete the quest chain then to outright buy an epic mount. You also needed people willing to help you, so if you didn't have that you were gak out of luck.
I would like to see a return to class-specific epic quest chains, like the priest Benediction quest.
When WoW catered to the hardcore player they seemed to be better at retaining the player base. Now that they've substantially dumbed down the game the player base drops pretty quickly after an expansion. Hell on the server I'm on were already looseing people due to disintrest.
Not quite, as the game hit its subscriber peak of 12 million in October 2010 at the end Wrath of the Lich King right before Cataclysm was released. WotLK was the start of the more accessible model of endgame and subscription skyrocketed through the course of the expansion with more people participating in the endgame than ever before. There is was nothing 'hardcore" about vanilla endgame: half the classes were useless (you want to be a paladin or priest? forget about everything else your class can do get ready to heal! You want to be a shaman? Good, stand there, buff everybody, and do nothing else), raids were boring trash-fests, and getting in them didn't take any real skill, just time sitting in front of the computer grinding away and everyone knows time invested =/= actual skill.
More people started playing as the game gradually did away with all the dumb gak that people like to claim was great (which obviously it wasn't, or we would still be doing it 10 years later). The numbers don't lie:
Spoiler:
In the end, I had fun back in vanilla and there is no denying that it was a great game back then, but if you take off the rose-colored glasses it's pretty obvious that there were serious flaws with the model.
Not any more in my experience, and I started the expansion at iLvL 585. Everything takes ages to kill as affli because there just is no burst, and with the selfhealing nerfed having multiple mobs hitting you is bad news.
Ive had a different experience. Ive been levelling up starting with mostly cata gear as I never played mists and take on 5-6 mobs regularly as afflic. The voidwalkers taunts got a serious buff imo so groups of mobs shouldnt really make it to the lock and if one or two do youve still got survivability with drain, corr ticks, howl of T, portal jumping and sacrifice.
I did a test last night and took on 11 ogres simultaneously in Teledar(sp?).
Was a good fight but survived it fairly easily.
Granted afflic has no burst but it never did, dotting up multiple mobs and bleeding them over time as voidy holds aggro and you avoid them works great imo.
The numbers did get significantly reduced, circa TBC I think. Im level 97 in mostly blues at this stage and Im about 150k hit points.
Crits dont go much above 3-4k for me and mob hit points at the moment are circa 50k with harder ones up about 200-250k (non instance obviously).
500m crits has not happened. The highest crit I have seen (without temporary things like the 1000% damage buff you get for the last phase of Ozumat) was back in 5.4 when I saw a Warlock in mostly heroic warforged gear stack all his cooldowns and Timeless Isle buffs, getting a 3 million Chaos Bolt on an Eternal Kilnmaster.
Garrosh on Heroic difficulty had to selfheal several times during the fight as otherwise his max health would have been too high for the game system.
Before the stat squish I had 670k hp in Frost and averaged 350k dps on a somewhat Patchwerk-ish fight (specifically Iron Juggernaut).
Right now, at 100, I have 270k-ish hp in Frost and I average around 20k dps with full raid buffs on a dummy.
As you can see, damage has been reduced a lot more than health. To make old content as soloable as before you take less and do more damage when fighting pre-MoP NPCs.
I got a 6 million Obliterate crit on heroic 25 Festergut this evening.
500m crits has not happened. The highest crit I have seen (without temporary things like the 1000% damage buff you get for the last phase of Ozumat) was back in 5.4 when I saw a Warlock in mostly heroic warforged gear stack all his cooldowns and Timeless Isle buffs, getting a 3 million Chaos Bolt on an Eternal Kilnmaster.
Garrosh on Heroic difficulty had to selfheal several times during the fight as otherwise his max health would have been too high for the game system.
Before the stat squish I had 670k hp in Frost and averaged 350k dps on a somewhat Patchwerk-ish fight (specifically Iron Juggernaut).
Right now, at 100, I have 270k-ish hp in Frost and I average around 20k dps with full raid buffs on a dummy.
As you can see, damage has been reduced a lot more than health. To make old content as soloable as before you take less and do more damage when fighting pre-MoP NPCs.
I got a 6 million Obliterate crit on heroic 25 Festergut this evening.
Yeah, I was just exaggerating is all. The over the top crap that MoP introduced stat wise is one of the things that killed my addiction, but now that things appear to be better managed and less silly, I think I might come back.
Been considering a change of pace too, maybe a realm change, race and faction change for my Paladin (Won't be doing the holy power bovine, perhaps a male Blood Elf.) and use the 90 boost to raise up a different horde toon.
Any suggestions? Haven't played since before the Siege of Orgimmar update in MoP...can't imagine much has changed.
I personally think we should bring back the days when only Paladins and Warlocks had mounts.
I think you might be remembering things a little different then they were... everyone had access to mounts, but warlocks and paladins had their epic quest chain to learn how to summon their class specific mounts. I admit, those quest chains were fun (especially the warlock one), but in the end you typically had to spend more gold to complete the quest chain then to outright buy an epic mount. You also needed people willing to help you, so if you didn't have that you were gak out of luck.
I would like to see a return to class-specific epic quest chains, like the priest Benediction quest.
This, so much this! The Green Fire questline for Warlocks is one of the best quest lines Blizzard has ever designed IMO. More of it to everyone (except to Mages, feth those guys! ).
Catyrpelius wrote: Thats why I loved them! I loved the complicated/grindy/fiddly game that wow used to be.
Grinding is not fun. It wasn't in vanilla and it isn't now. Most of the original attunements came down the RNG, which is a terrible way to decided whether or not a player could experience content they paid for.
I personally think we should bring back the days when only Paladins and Warlocks had mounts.
I think you might be remembering things a little different then they were... everyone had access to mounts, but warlocks and paladins had their epic quest chain to learn how to summon their class specific mounts. I admit, those quest chains were fun (especially the warlock one), but in the end you typically had to spend more gold to complete the quest chain then to outright buy an epic mount. You also needed people willing to help you, so if you didn't have that you were gak out of luck.
I would like to see a return to class-specific epic quest chains, like the priest Benediction quest.
When WoW catered to the hardcore player they seemed to be better at retaining the player base. Now that they've substantially dumbed down the game the player base drops pretty quickly after an expansion. Hell on the server I'm on were already looseing people due to disintrest.
Not quite, as the game hit its subscriber peak of 12 million in October 2010 at the end Wrath of the Lich King right before Cataclysm was released. WotLK was the start of the more accessible model of endgame and subscription skyrocketed through the course of the expansion with more people participating in the endgame than ever before. There is was nothing 'hardcore" about vanilla endgame: half the classes were useless (you want to be a paladin or priest? forget about everything else your class can do get ready to heal! You want to be a shaman? Good, stand there, buff everybody, and do nothing else), raids were boring trash-fests, and getting in them didn't take any real skill, just time sitting in front of the computer grinding away and everyone knows time invested =/= actual skill.
More people started playing as the game gradually did away with all the dumb gak that people like to claim was great (which obviously it wasn't, or we would still be doing it 10 years later). The numbers don't lie:
Spoiler:
In the end, I had fun back in vanilla and there is no denying that it was a great game back then, but if you take off the rose-colored glasses it's pretty obvious that there were serious flaws with the model.
How were attunements down to RNG? Most of the early ones required that you just complete a chain of quests that usually just took you into dungeon somewhere. There was the server unlocking event for Temple of Ahn'Qiraq, but I don't think thats what you were talking about. Its something I really wish they would bring back. It's something that I saw occur on several servers and it was really interesting to be a part of.
Way back at the begining of the game not every class had acess to mounts... They changed it with either the first or the second major patch, I can't remember exactly which.
There used to be quest lines for all the really major abilities, the Paladin Resurection quest line was interesting.
I have no idea how to even start Brawler's guild. I skipped MoP for the most part, but I found an item that gave me a quest to the Brawlers guild. Now I have a card to fight a Rank 6 something or other (Argh! I think is his name) and the guards keep telling me to go find an invite.
streamdragon wrote: I have no idea how to even start Brawler's guild. I skipped MoP for the most part, but I found an item that gave me a quest to the Brawlers guild. Now I have a card to fight a Rank 6 something or other (Argh! I think is his name) and the guards keep telling me to go find an invite.
Yeah, I got that item too.
There are a few different ways to join the Brawlers.
1.) You get an item from the black market that costs quite a lot of money. I'm not sure whether the black market is still around, though, so this might not be an option.
2.) You get the same item as a drop from one of the rare mobs in Pandaria. It apparently has a 4% drop rate from any named rare in MoP. There's also a guy who sometimes spawns at the old black market location on the Veiled Stair who has a 100% drop rate.
3.) Anyone who reaches Rank 7 in the guild gets an invite that they can dispose of as they choose.
Note that you only need one invite for all of the characters on your account.
Also, bring a group for the Rank 6 ticket fight. The first mob that spawns (I suspect there's more than one) has over 6 million hit points. Unfortunately, the quest doesn't mention that you'll need a group. The guild has always been intended as a group thing, though I don't know if the mobs introduced in MoP have had their level updated to match WoD. So it might be possible to solo some of the low ranking fights now.
Edit - You can find both of the invite items on the AH with a little luck.
I'm halfway to level 3 with the brawler's guild. I just bought the invite and cleared the first 6 bosses. I'm not sure you're allowed to group for the Brawler events now but I might try it out. The first 6 bosses are pretty soloable. I just want to get to level 5 for the follower
Also got my Core Hound mount for the Anniversary over the weekend so that was a plus.
Are there really only 3 groups to get reputation with in this expansion so far?
How were attunements down to RNG? Most of the early ones required that you just complete a chain of quests that usually just took you into dungeon somewhere. There was the server unlocking event for Temple of Ahn'Qiraq, but I don't think thats what you were talking about. Its something I really wish they would bring back. It's something that I saw occur on several servers and it was really interesting to be a part of.
Way back at the begining of the game not every class had acess to mounts... They changed it with either the first or the second major patch, I can't remember exactly which.
There used to be quest lines for all the really major abilities, the Paladin Resurection quest line was interesting.
The first step to vanilla endgame was UBRS and it needed a key, a key that was very hard to come by. You were lucky to be in a guild with more than one person to have one. If you didn't have one or no someone who did, you were reduced to standing by the instance begging people for runs. That was probably the worst offender, but half of the quest chains made you travel across the world just to hand in an item. They were poorly designed and pointless, which is why they got axed.
I was there for AQ and luckily I was on a populated server... If you weren't it totally sucked because it took forever.
There were always mounts available for everyone and there was never a time when there wasn't. You had to buy apprentice riding skill at 40 and journeyman skill at 60; journeyman skill was ridiculously expensive because there was no easy way to make money because no daily quests and quests didn't award money at max level like they do now. Warlocks and paladins had their quest lines for their special mounts, which while cool, ended up costing more in mats than to buy the skill from the trainer.
ScootyPuffJunior wrote: There were always mounts available for everyone and there was never a time when there wasn't. You had to buy apprentice riding skill at 40 and journeyman skill at 60; journeyman skill was ridiculously expensive because there was no easy way to make money because no daily quests and quests didn't award money at max level like they do now. Warlocks and paladins had their quest lines for thief special mounts, which while cool, eneded up costing more in mats than to buy the skill from the trainer.
And the hunters whined and whined and whined...
Still, at level 60, the final fight for the warlock mount was *awesome* with a good group.
I'm not sure you're allowed to group for the Brawler events now but I might try it out.
You are. I was down there yesterday, and there was a group in the ring. And let me be blunt - there was no way in the Twisting Nether that my Mistweaver monk was going to solo that bear for the quest being referenced. I tried and I lasted for a few minutes, but I got worn down by what was more or less a straight up normal fight. And I didn't even see the bear's hp bar move (because over 6 million hp, after all). Soloing him would have taken a *very* long time.
Ashiraya wrote: You can't group for Brawler's Guild fights - you can group up to share buffs, but all fights are solo.
It was the same during MoP. I completed all of the MoP fights, they were all solo.
Weird. I saw multiple characters in the arena yesterday. Must have been a multiple NPCs vs one player fight, then.
And after looking up the Bear fight, apparently it involves jumping on a bunch of trampolines that I didn't notice in the arena.
Yeah, sometimes people DC and glitch into the arena too, but they can't contribute to the fight in any way if that happens regardless. Otherwise it's just NPCs. No group fights.
Also, yes, the Bear and the Lady Fair - when you bounce 3 times you get a HUGE damage buff which is how you beat the fight.
I'll race you guys to rank 8! I just beat Battletron earlier tonight.
