World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Traab]

Heroic Slabs was honestly one of the greatest experiences i've ever had in WoW. The run took about 3-4 hours, which was fine back in the day as I had plenty of time, and was such an insane challenge for myself and the people I played with. But going in there with a group of randoms or even 1 random made it a pain beyond all belief. I know the room you're talking about, the one before the 2nd boss, and I had to respec survival so we could actually do the room.

Our gear was fairly terrible but we had 1 sheeped, 1 trapped, 1 sleep stung (I wanna say wyvern sting but its been forever since i've played wow) and I kited one while the rest of my group killed the mobs as best they could. That actually wasn't a hard pack, if you got the pull right and didn't have any idiots spamming aoe, but if a thunderclap broke a trap then you're screwed. I think we actually ended up pulling the mob group right back into the room with the first boss.

However after the first time its really not as fun, especially if you don't have a group of friends to do it with. Having to drag some mouth-breathing "I need to living bomb everything to get max deeps" fire mage who breaks all CC through any kind of content eventually made me quit. Though i've still got fond memories of Ulduar hard modes, Escape from Durnehold heroic, slabs heroic, Kara, Gruul and trying to down Magtheridon with a 4th tank in mostly blue gear.

I would say though I am definitely in the camp of "it has to be challenging to be fun" but I would also comment that if any sort of run took 4 hours to do now days then there would be no way I could even think about playing that kind of game as I don't have the time.

But your point about the fire mage is what i really meant. It wasnt that the dungeon was too hard, it was because morons didnt want to have to pay attention at all. They just wanted to spam blizzard so after the fight was over they could post the dps meter and brag about how they did such awesome dps. As for long dungeon runs, Ill admit that that one was a bit of a grind time wise, but I think the real downside is we have gotten used to doing aoe dungeon runs since the days of Wrath, when cc was no longer needed in 99% of the content, because the paladin tank could just consecrate spam and pull three packs of mobs at a time for the three frost mages to blizzard to hell and back in seconds flat. Yeah some things changed to make it less of a cake walk, but its still the general rule of thumb afaik. Pull the full pack, burn them down, move on. No sheep, ice trap, succubus mezz, or anything, just pull them all, kill them all.

[Karoht]

I've been thinking about getting back to healing, maybe even my old paladin main again, but I keep getting discouraged because I'm far too susceptible to information overload because there are SO many changes from when I played up until roughly 2 weeks into Ulduar content. I played this particular character ever since BC launched and I played a different paladin for a tad leading up to said launch.

Not that terribly long ago when I was reading a WoW Insider article giving news of how the game will explain different changes being made to whatever class you play and...heck with it. Y'know what? I'm just going to copy/paste my comment from there into a spoiler below because I honestly can't put it any better than that.

Spoiler

Show

Anything that simplifies classes gets a thumbs-up from me.

I am likely in the minority but information overload is what puts me off from learning most classes/specs.

I played a paladin healer when it was the simplest healing and I liked it. Was it kind of a cheap way to do things? Only if you, personally, are capable of much more that what was required at the time. Me? I was able to actually be effective and not get screamed at because I couldn't handle the more complex rotations, prioritization, etc.

I play fire *right now* since, as far as I am concerned, it is the simplest mage spec. Arcane? I don't buy into that "1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 3, 2, 2...." crap. You actually have to be very careful and frost is more detail-orientated so fire is the one for me.

I might get hated on for this but y'know what? I'm happy I'm able to play this game and I don't give a flying **** about all this min/max, server first, or any other stuff that is somehow a way to justify calling me derogatory comments if I am not friggin' perfect in a rackin' frackin' GAME!

So, yeah, simplifying classes is greatly welcomed and appreciated.

It certainly isn't for a lack of trying to learn and adjust. I just simply cannot wrap my head around a lot of things.

There are plenty of guides that will explain a given class for healing. Go looking. No really.

www.icy-veins.com is probably your best resource.
They won't tell you what has changed, they'll just tell you how to use the tools you have now, which will probably make your life easier. If you are missing something, ask, we can fix you up.

I haven't actually played a paladin healer in a long time (Wrath, Naxx), but they aren't all that difficult. The hard stuff is the cooldown management, Divine Plea timing, and managing Holy Power. Everything else is just judgement on when to use certain heals on certain people.


EDIT:
Yes, it sucks having people say rude things to you. I totally empathise as a fellow healer.
BUT
As a healer, the group depends on you pretty hard. If you are lacking, you are holding back 4 other people. In no way am I justifying anyone's poor treatment of you, but you have to understand their frustration.
Yes, it is a game, THEY want to have fun too.

I've met plenty of healers who just don't understand how to use all the tools in their toolbox. My biggest and best advice? Try to experiment with everything available to you. Learn how things work by doing if you must. But understand that if people are dying, accept that it might be your fault (I said might, you can't heal stupid people), endevour to be better next time.

[Talesin]

As for long dungeon runs, Ill admit that that one was a bit of a grind time wise, but I think the real downside is we have gotten used to doing aoe dungeon runs since the days of Wrath, when cc was no longer needed in 99% of the content, because the paladin tank could just consecrate spam and pull three packs of mobs at a time for the three frost mages to blizzard to hell and back in seconds flat.

I think that started to happen when they buffed pally tanks, admittidly to make them viable, back in TBC. With the right gear set you could pull most of the trash before Nightmare in Kara and the DPS could burn it down. You had to outgear the content a little to do what i've listed above but it could easily happen with 2-3 packs.

Though I agree that the Wrath model of instances, well I say model I doubt they intended it to swing as far as it did, was awful. I think Wrath really killed the game for me. The arguement that blizzard was 'catering for casuals' isn't one I agree with as I believe the game had evolved away from things like grinding several weeks worth of time to get resistance gear into a shorter style of play.

I just found all of the instances were boring, though that could've been the fact i'd gone from a new player of the MMO genre to one who had been Sunwell and was therefore experienced. But saying all that I think Ulduar was one of the best raids released but Naxx and Trial of the crusader were just poorly thought out.

Not that I didn't like the fights, the champions fight was my favourite there as it allowed those of us who had PvP'd to a high level to try some interesting pieces of gameplay and was a fight that I thought knocked many PVE only players for 6 because they couldn't respond to the mechanics.

[Karoht]

@Dungeon Difficulty
When you were expected to do a dungeon every day for points/badges, it made some small amount of sense to make them quick and easy.
When they changed valor points around in Cata, and you could get them easily enough through raiding that you didn't have to do dungeons anymore, and therefore dungeons were largely optional, this is where having hard dungeons made more sense.

Partly why I am a fan of the proposed system in MoP. Normal for 85-90. Heroic for 90 and gearing up for raids. Challenge Mode for the optional level of difficulty and more extreme challenge, with no gear reward but just a prestige reward. Normal and Heroic can be whatever difficulty they want, when you get to that point where you don't need them anymore for gear and such, Challenge modes are an 'at your leisure' sort of content. And with LFR as most people's entry point into raiding, it means that yes, most people will just grow out of Normal/Heroic dungeon runs at some point in the progression.

Personally, I was a fan of the longer dungeons in BC, with more complicated pulls. At the time though, it sucked if you had next to no CC in your party. Given how much CC they've given to everyone, and how much CC they've placed in the hands of healers and even tanks now, I fully expect that Challenge Modes will be remarkably similar to the BC model of Dungeons, with the added challenge in that you can not over-gear them.

But at that point, it means they can focus on making Normal and Heroic more fun, more in depth, rather than spending nearly as much time tuning them. To be honest, I don't expect to see Normal or Heroic modes nerfed during the expansion. I see adjustments and fixes to mechanics that are not working properly, but not actual nerfs.


@TOC and NAXX
If Naxx 10/25 was bad, it's because Naxx 40 was bad. Just saying.
TOC I rather enjoyed. Having to run it 4 times a week was crappy, but that was about it. I actually wish that we see more fights like Northrend Beasts and Faction Champions again. Heck, I was a huge fan of Twin Valks. Jaraxxus just had this kind of cool factor along with some BC nostalgia. Anub'arak was clever in it's use of environment and mechanics together, and it was BLOODY hard on heroic when it was current.


"The arguement that blizzard was 'catering for casuals' isn't one I agree with as I believe the game had evolved away from things like grinding several weeks worth of time to get resistance gear into a shorter style of play."
I think this is what is making WoW so successful is that it constantly keeps stripping away unnecessary things, like grinding for resistance gear. The issue is, it does make some content feel shorter, less important, etc. I was never a fan of Barrier of Entry on any kind of content, but some people liked jumping through the hoops to get to the content. It was part of the journey for some, it made them feel extra special. Others it just aggrivated, and it made it much harder to run more than one character in current content. Part of why I became good with Karoht. I thought to myself, I could run another character through the attunement process, or I can just solo heal Karazhan because I enjoy it and help others get their characters geared up for further content.

[MechaKingGhidra]

There are plenty of guides that will explain a given class for healing. Go looking. No really.

www.icy-veins.com is probably your best resource.
They won't tell you what has changed, they'll just tell you how to use the tools you have now, which will probably make your life easier. If you are missing something, ask, we can fix you up.

I haven't actually played a paladin healer in a long time (Wrath, Naxx), but they aren't all that difficult. The hard stuff is the cooldown management, Divine Plea timing, and managing Holy Power. Everything else is just judgement on when to use certain heals on certain people.


EDIT:
Yes, it sucks having people say rude things to you. I totally empathise as a fellow healer.
BUT
As a healer, the group depends on you pretty hard. If you are lacking, you are holding back 4 other people. In no way am I justifying anyone's poor treatment of you, but you have to understand their frustration.
Yes, it is a game, THEY want to have fun too.

I've met plenty of healers who just don't understand how to use all the tools in their toolbox. My biggest and best advice? Try to experiment with everything available to you. Learn how things work by doing if you must. But understand that if people are dying, accept that it might be your fault (I said might, you can't heal stupid people), endevour to be better next time.

I definitely appreciate the advice and whatnot, but I suppose another thing that I did not consider at the time of my typing of that (when, really, it is ridiculous of me NOT to take into consideration) was that I truly loathe anything other than actual clicking for, well, anything in-game (except tab-targeting as dps since the tab key is so naturally positioned to hit when needed due to the way I hold my left hand when playing).

Macros? Using key shortcuts? Mouseover healing? Addons? No, no, no, and *DANG* no. I have always used the default UI. I learned to heal with no help whatsoever back when no one had any concept of what a tank was until runs like BRD and such. Was it difficult and altogether stressful? Oh yes, indeed, but at least I felt like I was the one actually managing things. When more and more tools kept on being added to just raiders as a whole, even so much as the focus system, it honestly hurt every character I played.

I've been told by too many people to count that it seems like I do things almost exclusively the hard way, be it in gaming or any other aspect of life. I dunno, maybe some (read: not all) of what's helpful to others just goes against every sense of personal organization I have. Like it actively works against how my mind works because I'm more or less hardwired into one way of doing things, if you will extend me the courtesy of humoring me.

Wouldn't be surprised, actually, if this were the case. I am always trying to expand on what I know, how things can be handled differently be it in perception, theorizing, executing, or adjusting afterwards. For healing, I can honestly say that I find it extraordinarily frustrating and sometimes I don't really give a rat's rear about some of the mentioned aspects of it.

I suppose it was a really silly, emotion-inspired post to think at the time that I would actually want or even could come back to that.

Also doesn't help that I hate the holy power system. I hate rogues for the combo system and with 3 levels of essentially the same thing for paladins doesn't really seem all that appealing. Mind you, this is just a side note on things. Certainly far from the main reason.

So, yada yada yada...I'm a clicker at heart...yada yada yada...I do things the old way...yada yada yada...I guess I was probably out of my gourd to honestly think and post anything regarding trying to get back into it...yada yada...side note, paladins mirror rogues in one way that actually shouldn't be taken as seriously as I currently do.

Again, thanks for the advice and support in the matter. I should definitely take more time to reflect on sudden feelings/urges/whatever before typing about them so I don't have to make posts like this.

Oh! Before I forget, the very ending part of my original spoiler comment was just covering the aspect of things in which much of the very loud and obnoxious section of the community has stupid arbitrary (redundant?) standards and thinks that if you aren't performing like Ensidia (they even still around? haven't heard anything in ages) and Paragon then you're a scum-ridden nub who (insert long-winded rant of expletives being thrown around with no regard as to grammatical accuracy nor the fact that small children may be nearby).

Having something at the end like that as a 'just in case' button is very much needed for the internet. It acknowledges that you can't have absolute pure innocent thoughts on the internet (well, maybe for 3-1/2 minutes; after that, you're struck with, in all likelyhood, people with god complexes).

[Talesin]

I don't agree with Naxx 10/25 being bad because Naxx 40 was bad as I think wrath Naxx would've been much more interesting if it was even remotely difficult. I started a new guild a while after Naxx started and cleared it on 10 man in the first week. Week after we did an undying run that ended with 2 deaths on Grobb and that was it. That run was awesome fun as it required focus and was a challenge.

I do agree that resistance style gears made it much much harder to run more than 1 character in the current level of content and as someone who cannot play 1 character for long before getting bored this was a frustration.

I personally, though only relating to PVP and again more specifically arena, much preferred it when you could grab all the Arena/whatevertheycallitnowdays points you needed with just 5 wins. That meant I could run my 4 characters through their wins quickly then focus on playing whatever team was on or my friends fancied. Shame they changed that

[Karoht]

I truly loathe anything other than actual clicking for, well, anything in-game.
Macros? Using key shortcuts? Mouseover healing? Addons? No, no, no, and *DANG* no. I have always used the default UI. I learned to heal with no help whatsoever back when no one had any concept of what a tank was until runs like BRD and such. Was it difficult and altogether stressful? Oh yes, indeed, but at least I felt like I was the one actually managing things.

I made the exact same statement back in the day when I solo-healed Karazhan, while it was current. Yeup, I was clicking. And that was also in the horrid horrid days of downranking.

Then I gave healbot a fair chance. I wasn't forced to, I was just curious. Guess what I do now? Click. I'm just clicking a different pane than the default raid UI. Watch my livestream if you want to see.
www.livestream.com/karoht
Instead of feeling like I was fighting the UI, I felt more like I was actually doing my job. You know, healing. Rather than always being 1 or 2 clicks away from being able to save someone from the brink of death, I was actually able to save them from the brink of death.
Of course, this was back when the UI was MUCH worse. Now it's much better. I've met more and more healers who use the Default UI to get things done. It is an entirely acceptable playstyle, make no mistake. I was testing out new heals on the Beta server using the default UI, again, it is entirely doable, I just feel like I don't have quite the same finesse as I do with Healbot.
So yes, clicking? Isn't so bad these days.

Wouldn't be surprised, actually, if this were the case. I am always trying to expand on what I know, how things can be handled differently be it in perception, theorizing, executing, or adjusting afterwards.

Then trust me on Icy-Veins.com
If you're serious about this statement even in the slightest, then just give the guide a read. Skip the UI and talent and gear and gem and reforge sections.
They'll help you get a handle on your heals themselves (the abilities I mean, not the interface) and that alone might help you.
Also, please take what they say as a recommendation, not a "IF YOU DON'T DO IT LIKE THIS YOU ARE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD." If you don't like what they have to say, if it doesn't gel with how you want to do things, then ignore it. Simple as that.

I've been told by too many people to count that it seems like I do things almost exclusively the hard way

It's fine if you want to open a pull door by pushing on it. Certainly, at some point it will open. But if you want to snap at people who dare to suggest you should read the sign and pull, well, I'm not all that surprised at your comments regarding how people treat you in dungeons. Maybe just ease up on that a bit? Your remarks about 'this is how Ensidia does it' strike me as you projecting, I certainly hope you aren't projecting like that on someone who suggests for example that you leave Beacon of Light on the tank.

Point of reference, the last guy who said "this is how Paragon does it" in my guild got bounced out a few weeks later because no one could take his crappy attitude anymore.

For healing, I can honestly say that I find it extraordinarily frustrating and sometimes I don't really give a rat's rear about some of the mentioned aspects of it.

...Okay, then why are you doing it?

So, yada yada yada...I'm a clicker at heart...yada yada yada...I do things the old way...yada yada yada...I guess I was probably out of my gourd to honestly think and post anything regarding trying to get back into it...
Again, thanks for the advice and support in the matter. I should definitely take more time to reflect on sudden feelings/urges/whatever before typing about them so I don't have to make posts like this.

So you weren't seeking advice?

if you will extend me the courtesy of humoring me.

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming you to have a caustic attitude or poor skills at the game. That counts yes?

[Traab]

Ugh, I hated healbot back in the days when mc was cutting edge content. It made everything so BORING, just spam chain heal, (I was on my shaman) for 4 hours, and move when they tell you to move. Of course, I was pissed in general because I was an enhance shaman from 1-60. I had even main tanked general drak on UBRS runs when we were light on warriors, and now that we are raiding, im a damn heal bot, because aside from a small handful of random epics that allowed me to equip them, (I never did get my finkles lava dredger) it was all pure heal bot gear. Half the decent random drops were claimed by everyone else first as well. It was those days that it sucked to be a "hybrid" class.

[The Linker]

So you weren't seeking advice?

Well, no, he wasn't. He was just letting off some steam and describing his personal experiences and views. The post was something that wasn't even originally intended for us.

Heh. You do have a tendency to try and fix things for other people when they weren't looking to be fixed. It's certainly a quality with both its good and its bad sides, and it's probably worked out more often than it hasn't, so, uh... keep on, I guess.

[Expf]

Point of reference, the last guy who said "this is how Paragon does it" in my guild got bounced out a few weeks later because no one could take his crappy attitude anymore.

Haha. It's been rumored that Paragon players often run with the wrong spec when they log out just to mess with people. I don't know whether it's true or not, but I remember a person telling me this: people in top guilds are there because they play and cooperate well, not necessarily because they know the best and they aren't necessarily the best theorycrafters either. Like every advice that people give, take it with a grain of salt and don't just gobble what they give.

Now, as to healing UI, I do quite agree with Karoht's perspective there. Using a dedicated healing UI is much more productive than Blizzard's default UI. Of course, Blizzard's UI has significantly improved over the years, so it's not as bad as it used to be, but there is a reason why such addons continue to thrive (Blizzard isn't very good at designing UIs sometimes). There are reasons why Blizzard's UI is poor for raiding / PvP:
- You can't choose which buffs/debuffs to show.
- You need to target the person to do any healing (mouseover macros can remedy this).
- It lacks important positional information (e.g. finding clusters for most efficient use of AoE healing).
The first two being the most important reasons. You could say customizability is another, but that's entirely a matter of taste.

I understand the frustration when it comes to changing UIs, and many people are glued to whatever they are used to. That's pretty normal -- it's much easier to do things using tools we are familiar with -- but at the same time, if there is a significantly more efficient way of doing something, it might be worthwhile to try it out (and by try it out, I don't mean do it once and then say it's not worth using).

Here's a personal example: I have always left mouse acceleration on because I liked it (didn't have to move my hand much), but I read from everywhere around the Internet that it is very bad for gaming, so I turned it off. Then my mouse felt really awkward -- I was tempted to just turn it back on -- but I continue to practice doing stuff without acceleration, and by now I don't really notice it anymore. However, it has improved my accuracy quite a bit so I think it was a net gain for me.

[Alarra]

Personally, I fumble around like I have 6 thumbs when I have to try to heal without an addon. I used to, way back in the day, but now I'm so accustomed, and 80% of my spells aren't even on hot bars, are only bound to mouse clicks. I'm sure there's a way, mouse-over macros and messing with the keybindings or whatnot, but I fail at those most of the time. So, the addon lets me set all that up without feeling like I need to be able to code to be efficient. And it's beyond handy to be able to click someone and have it target and heal without going through multiple steps. It never feels like it's doing things for me, I still have to decide which spell to use when (and i use pretty much every spell I have) and almost more difficult, remember what key combination that spell is.

[MechaKingGhidra]

Apologies, Karoht, I was more in a state of mind of running many thoughts through my head, healing one of them.

I got thinking about it and it quickly turned into what may be considered as awkward patterns of thought to others and I was trying to explain how I got to the point where I believe now healing is dead to me.

I apologize for my lacklustre articulation skills. Been this way ever since I was a wee tyke. I understand what I'm saying, even if it takes a convoluted route to get to the point where everything ties in.

I wasn't trying to bait someone into answering and turn rabid on them, nor am I a typically emotional fellow, or anything like that. I just have a very set method to my madness.

Again, thanks for the advice and support in the matter. I should definitely take more time to reflect on sudden feelings/urges/whatever before typing about them so I don't have to make posts like this.

This is what unfortunately a huge glaring flaw with me but at least I acknowledge its presence in retrospect. Better than not seeing for what it is at all.

[Karoht]

@Traab and Healbot
Indeed. That is what Healbot was. It is not that anymore.
For Druids, it was Healing Touch rank 4, and Innervate.

When they broke the 'mod figures out what heal you need and uses that' kind of coding, none of the addons could do that anymore.
Healbot is quite good these days. Again, check my livestream for a few seconds, you'll see healbot and what's all going on with it.

Actually, due to popular demand, I'm probably going to do a livestream day where I completely configure Healbot from the ground up as a sort of live tutorial on what all it can do. The amount of display control I have is excellent. I can see incoming heals and predicted healing amounts (the system guesses). I can see if cooldowns are on the tank, I can see HoTs, it shows me debuffs. If I want I can see other healers HoTs and cooldown type effects. I used to have Healbot show me who had PW: S and Divine Aegis up, but that alone sort of cluttered things up too much so I turned those off. I can see all kinds of useful information, at a glance. And I am never more than 1 click away from reacting to what I see. It's really quite awesome.

And what that allows me to do is read the heals, and 'read the play' of what is going on with my team. I can see if people are out of position, I can see if something is about to hit someone, I can see if someone is already reacting to a problem that is brewing. I can see a problem and react to it before anyone realizes that it might even be a problem. That is some potent stuff.

If my online stock broker website was NEARLY as intuitive and gave me that much information in an easily understandable manner, I would have been a millionaire years ago.

[Expf]

If my online stock broker website was NEARLY as intuitive and gave me that much information in an easily understandable manner, I would have been a millionaire years ago.

Many, many websites are very poorly designed in terms of usability. AT&T is one example (which is quite ironic for an ISP provider).

[Elm11]

@ Karoht

Thanks for pointing out the existance of Icyveins, actually. I found it really useful for fixing up one or two glyphing and speccing problems, as well as really helping me get my heal on.

[Karoht]

I list off helpful websites all the time. Yay, someone actually took stock of one.


www.wowhead.com <---Find anything
www.tankspot.com <---not just for tanks, also home of PST and The Weekly Marmot
www.youtube.com search: L2Raid (no stupid music, boss mechanics and strategy explained in great detail, occasionally inaccurate information due to PTR testing)
www.youtube.com search: Fatboss (no stupid music, boss mechanics and strategy expained in slightly less detail than L2Raid, typically more accurate information)
www.icy-veins.com <---class/role and boss strategies

[MechaKingGhidra]

Fatboss, never heard of that one and certainly going to keep on eye on that in MoP, as like you described "no stupid music" is something I can appreciate.

All too many so-called "strategy" videos don't have any text explaining what is going on, no voice-overs, not even an explanation in the video description, and of course is just BLARING gawd-awful music.

Also, as a side-note, I hate it when the one capturing the video has all their settings to maximum. That's very nice, Mr. I Have A Powerful Computer, but I can't see anything besides a few black shadows I have to *assume* are you and the rest of the raiders whilst being completely ENGULFED in an orange/pink atmosphere.

Sure, a lot of fights literally cannot have that level of "Mein eyes! Ze gogglez! Zey do NOTHING!" but it is still incredibly frustrating when it does pop up.

[Karoht]

All too many so-called "strategy" videos don't have any text explaining what is going on, no voice-overs, not even an explanation in the video description, and of course is just BLARING gawd-awful music.

Um, that isn't a strategy video at that point, it's a kill video with the word strategy taped to it. It's a common mistake really.

Fatboss does more talking, typically no text on screen.
L2Raid does A LOT of text on screen, and A LOT of talking. I find their format to be be a bit too much data at once though, even if I'm familiar with the fight.
Tankspot does talk, text, and diagrams, and relates the things they are talking about with what it looks like on screen. But, sadly Tankspot has sort of fallen off making strategy videos as of late, as the old crew that used to do it more or less fell apart. Papapaint has a band, Aliena stopped being a public nerd after some not cool attention from the public, Ciderhelm is running other projects, and Lore is busy with 3 other shows and working on 3 more.

I can't see anything besides a few black shadows I have to *assume* are you and the rest of the raiders whilst being completely ENGULFED in an orange/pink atmosphere.

Odd, I've never encountered this or heard of anyone else encountering it. If you come across another such video can you hit me with a link? Seeing as I'm doing vid capture/livestreaming now, I want to make sure I avoid doing that as well.


Speaking of livestream, if we decide to press on with H Spine tonight I probably won't stream. If we start fresh I'll stream up up to H Spine. And I'll try to make with more of the talky talky to more or less pass on our strategy. Yes, I do this live. On my livestream.
www.livestream.com/karoht

I do try to answer questions from the chatroom on my livestream page, but I don't have the opportunity to check them with any degree of frequency. So if I don't answer your question, I'm not snubbing you.

[subanark]

Well here we go for another week of raiding. I think our GM has decided that the rest of DS (last 3 heroic bosses) we just don't have the coordination for, so we are just going to farm the place, possibly wait until we get a DK geared up, and in the mean time hit our heads against heroic rags.

[Karoht]

Streamed some D3 before raid, then did raid in 2 parts. Part one is first 5 bosses, part 2 is H Blackhorn + H Spine attempts.

EDIT:
Last night, killed H Spine,totally forgot to stream it.
Again.
Sorry.
On the plus side, I convinced the guild that we should just extend the lockout on tuesday and progress on H Madness, get it done. I'll try to remember to stream that.

EDIT 2.0:
Put 2 hours of attempts in on Madness. Made it to 5th platform. At which point we discovered that our Slows for the Bloods are not so good.
I switched up to Glyphed Hurricane, our Hunter could not position a frost trap to save his life. Ugh. We ended up pugging 3 people though, the regulars showing up should probably fix this issue.

[Elm11]

Well, I accidentally went a little overboard with my levelling yesterday, and pushed my druid up from 73 to 79. He's continuing to be a huge amount of fun, and it's nice to finally have a proper, big direct heal spell (I'm primarily healing for dungeons etc). Ice-crown quests have matured much better than I thought they might, which is great.

Not so great is that I've beggared all of my characters paying for epic flight form/artisan riding. I don't bother with professions, since I don't find them fun. As such, scrounging up 4,500 gold isn't too easy (though I can get about that much from two hours worth of farming using those potions of treasure finding).

[Traab]

Well, I accidentally went a little overboard with my levelling yesterday, and pushed my druid up from 73 to 79. He's continuing to be a huge amount of fun, and it's nice to finally have a proper, big direct heal spell (I'm primarily healing for dungeons etc). Ice-crown quests have matured much better than I thought they might, which is great.

Not so great is that I've beggared all of my characters paying for epic flight form/artisan riding. I don't bother with professions, since I don't find them fun. As such, scrounging up 4,500 gold isn't too easy (though I can get about that much from two hours worth of farming using those potions of treasure finding).

Yeah, every time I started on a new server, I would roll a skinner/miner and make tons of gold very quickly. I dont have to farm or do anything unusual, just go out and do my quests and I stumble across enough nodes to easily reach the next teir before I get there. Same for skinning. It pretty much all sells, from low to high end. All of my characters have the cash needed for 280% flight speed at least by the time im high enough level for it, many get the 310%. And thats with constantly scanning the ah for upgrades as I level up. Gold just rains from the freaking sky if you run two gathering professions.

[Expf]

Though, if you want to make gold with the least amount of effort, most high-level professions have various different methods of making large quantities of gold just by sitting at the AH every day for a couple minutes. If you do that fairly regularly you can easily get enough to pay for all your alts' flight trainings (limited to that server, of course).

[Traab]

Though, if you want to make gold with the least amount of effort, most high-level professions have various different methods of making large quantities of gold just by sitting at the AH every day for a couple minutes. If you do that fairly regularly you can easily get enough to pay for all your alts' flight trainings (limited to that server, of course).

Yeah but you need to grind those tradeskills to high levels first before that happens. Gathering professions are great because you dont have to do anything special. Especially now that they have boosted the resource nodes. At least for mining, I never did much herbology. It used to be that you had to wander the maps in each zone just trying to grab copper or whatever, in order to gether enough to skill up to the next level of mineral. Now you can barely walk 20 yards without seeing another node spawn on your minimap. Once every couple levels you go to the ah, drop off several stacks of leather and metal, and go back to work. The next morning you open your mailbox and loot tons of gold. :p

[Karoht]

I am now the proud owner of a Dancing Bear. Next Month I will own the strider and be complete in all of the Darkmoon Faire rewards. Huzzah.

I personally hope the the entire island is one day covered with activities. Especially if they can find some good mechanics for the spooky forest, where you get randomly turned around or your mini map turns off or just something to sort of trick players into getting lost in there. Would make even just a few daily quests rather interesting.


@MoP
Got the beta going again.
Man do I enjoy how Resto Druid healing isn't changing massively this expansion. It's just being built on, naturally extended even. Shroom healing is really good, and there are a lot of people fighting to use it at every opportunity, but I really don't think that was it's intention. And even 1 Shroom exploding is quite useful, never mind 2 or 3. It is really a nice addon to Druid healing.
If you are a druid, get used to using your shrooms now, find a good keybind that works for you or something. I use them for extra DPS right now, so the interfacing really isn't all that unfamiliar to me.

I liked Cenarion Ward, but I'm highly tempted to switch to Nature's Swiftness. It's greatly improved in my opinion, and a 1 minute CD can still be pretty darned useful. It's still a toss up between having another heal button, or having a quick healing CD.


Also, Icy-veins.com put up a guide on Monk tanking (Brewmaster). It is worth a read, they honestly sound more fun by the day.

[subanark]

Wow, you must have really been pushing those darkmoon fairy turnins. I still have 2 months after next.

I assume by all rewards you mean the pets/mounts, not any of the transmog items :P.

[Karoht]

Wow, you must have really been pushing those darkmoon fairy turnins. I still have 2 months after next.

I assume by all rewards you mean the pets/mounts, not any of the transmog items :P.

Indeed.

I wait about 2 weeks after the faire ends, and then I buy up the turn in items. I buy a good stockpile up until the week before the faire. When the faire hits, I turn in my turn ins, and the rest of the stockpile gets sold off for about 4x what I bought it for. I still can't fathom who pays this inflated price, but I get my gold anyway.


Darkmoon Faire week is usually a week when I can actually do dailies every day, so I try to. I get Faire + Argent Crusade + Firelands dailies, and I'm usually done all of the above in about an hour. I still need 400+ Crusader tokens to buy my last 5 mounts. And I'm still missing my pet from Firelands Dailies.


In MoP
There is no longer a cap on how many dailies one can do per day. I take this to mean a few things:
-They might somehow incentivize doing older sets of dailies. Sunwell, Wrath, Etc.
-They might literally be including so many new dailies that the cap became too prohibitive.
-They might randomize dailies some how, which again, the cap would be prohibitive.
-With 25 some people still feel they need to max out that number every day. With no number there isn't a ceiling therefore there isn't a max. Might ease this effect.
-They may introduce more equipment upgrades and transmog rewards and pets and mounts and other such rewards, via situations such as the Broken Hilt/Quel'Dalar quest lines, with a hint of legendary questline sprinkled in. And while it might have grindy components, they want it to be something you progress via solo or 5 man or 3 man play.
-There may be more daily/weekly quests in other content, like PvP and raids. They want everyone to be able to experience this content, which wouldn't work if someone is maxed out on daily quests that day.


Just some speculation.

[Traab]

I wonder if unlimited dailies will even further inflate the cost of everything on the ah? As it is you cant buy any low level gear without spending more money per slot than you could earn from a full level of grinding. Yeah yeah, I know, everyone has a half dozen level 85 alts to farm cash with, but to me its beyond stupid to charge so much or be willing to pay so much, for an item you will outlevel in 30 minutes of game time.

[Karoht]

I wonder if unlimited dailies will even further inflate the cost of everything on the ah? As it is you cant buy any low level gear without spending more money per slot than you could earn from a full level of grinding. Yeah yeah, I know, everyone has a half dozen level 85 alts to farm cash with, but to me its beyond stupid to charge so much or be willing to pay so much, for an item you will outlevel in 30 minutes of game time.

Dailies largely did not contribute to AH inflation. People gaming the system with gathering professions have pushed inflation far more every expansion. Cata dailies didn't reward all that much more than Wrath dailies. And they were usually slower to finish up than Wrath dailies. Yet the AH prices of just about everything shot up pretty quickly, and stayed stable.

Don't forget that lots of people stockpile supplies and materials and cash prior to an expansion. There is usually quite a bit of money to be made in the last 4 weeks of an expansion as a result, if you know where to look. Unfortunately, this tends to drive up prices perminently.


On a side note, I finally bought myself and my fiance a Mechano-Hog each. Sadly, these sort of expensive mounts will not be shared on an account wide basis, but that's okay.

[Traab]

Dailies largely did not contribute to AH inflation. People gaming the system with gathering professions have pushed inflation far more every expansion. Cata dailies didn't reward all that much more than Wrath dailies. And they were usually slower to finish up than Wrath dailies. Yet the AH prices of just about everything shot up pretty quickly, and stayed stable.

Don't forget that lots of people stockpile supplies and materials and cash prior to an expansion. There is usually quite a bit of money to be made in the last 4 weeks of an expansion as a result, if you know where to look. Unfortunately, this tends to drive up prices perminently.


On a side note, I finally bought myself and my fiance a Mechano-Hog each. Sadly, these sort of expensive mounts will not be shared on an account wide basis, but that's okay.

Its not just that either. It seems like every expansion just has larger and larger cash value on quests and such and builds up money faster. Ive played since release. I remember when getting 1k gold for your epic ground mount was months of farming runecloth and praying for lucky drops. I cut that in half by looting a GREAT epic item that sold for a whopping 500 gold! (big money back then) Now its getting to the point where, by the time im high level enough to buy it, I have the cash for it. I barely have to farm at all for 310% flight. I didnt even get 280% flight on any character until the end of WRATH, let alone tbc. It was just too expensive to be worth it for me. Now I throw away another what, 4500 gold? Just for a 30% extra boost thats only really noticeable over long flights.