World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Traab]

So how long has this massive guild rep boost been active for? I cant help but think that it will be nerfed a bit soon, if only because its possible to hit revered with your guild before you even leave the starting area. I dont want it back to the old way, where you could hit 85 and still not be exalted, but it seems to have been boosted a bit more than is reasonable. I mean, being able to hit exalted before level 20 just seems to defeat the entire purpose of guild faction.

[Dublock]

Oh yea, a few days ago I was healing BGs on my Druid despite only have 3 PvP gear.

I wanted to get used to healing and using my CDs, so I thought BGs would be the best way.

My first impression: Wow healers are hard to kill right now. I don't think I ever died by one on one combat, and it took 2-3 people focusing on me to kill me. The only class that I noticed that was doing serious damage to me was a fire mage with combustion.

I love my survival CDs. "Oh 3 people attacking me?" *Places hots, might cast a spell, puts hots on team mates* "Oh half my health gone?" *pops swiftmend* "Oh another half of my health gone?" *Goes ahead and pops iron bark and for kicks, roar of whoever that turns me into a bear and watch them die by team mates then goes and loot their corpse*

The shrooming is a fun thing, I got it tied to my middle button and my back button on my mouse (forward button is my lifebloom) and I was able to use it pretty well, although guessing where people will be is harder then knowing like in a raid setting. I bet its good practice for dungeons where if people know where to go is rare lol.

Edit: I forgot to address Traab's post about guild rep.

They didn't buff guild rep but rather kept the same amount of guild rep for the lower levels and since those lower levels go through more quests it adds up much quicker. I don't like such a quick pace either but I like the fact that low levels can get rep and contribute to the guild exp now as well.

[Karoht]

@Archeology
So I tried out Archeology again today. Haven't touched it since the patch.
The idea of being able to survey a site 6 times instead of 3 is a big deal, as is the increased drop chance. You're basically guaranteed to walk away with enough fragments to complete at least one average artifact (35-45), and I think the drop chances for things like the Highborne Scrolls and such was also increased. I managed to go from zero fragments with Draenai and Orcs to maxed out in under a half hour. AND I managed to get a relic out of the deal (Last Treasure of Argus, the thingy that randomly teleports you).
Tomorrows plan is stock up on Vykrul and Nerubian fragments. Then tackle the rest. And tomorrow I may finally finish my Jin'rok the Destroyer. Possibly the coolest sword in the game. Maybe I'll transfer over my Deathknight, and finish up 80-85. Or my Paladin. Or my Warrior. Hmmm.

If someone were brand new to the game, or hasn't given Archeology a chance yet, now is a pretty decent time. And in the expansion, Archeology seems to be really important to the Lorewalkers Faction, which is packed with all kinds of story goodies. Even a museum to display your better artifacts.
Plus, one can level with Archeology reasonably well. It was pretty decent XP back in the day, especially if one combo's it up with Herbalism and Mining. Fly around gathering materials doing Archeology isn't a bad way to level up a character. If they could just throw a tiny bit more exploration element into Archeology, rather than "go here and do stuff" as it is now.

Next tuesday is the two week mark to MoP. Oh boy!

@Bloomshroom Healing.
Heroic Ultraxion. Resto Druids should always take Alexstraza's Blessing (Red buff) rather than the Ysera's Blessing (Green buff).
My Top 5 Heals by amount healed.
1-Efflorescence
2-Shrooms
3-Wild Growth
4-Rejuvenation
5-Lifebloom
My overhealing was 75%. At most I'd hit 50% on that fight before, and that was just spamming away with Rejuv/Regrowth. And that Glyph of Lifebloom sure makes the tank swap easy for me. Also, the extra AoE healing means that my Maw of the Dragonlord appears to be proc'ing more often too. It jumped up from 3% of my healing to 7%.
I think for that fight, the Treants are better than Treeform. I'll have to wait until next reset to get a definitive set of numbers though.

[Admiral Squish]

I made a new warlock toon last night. He's already level 30.

I really think that glyph of demon hunting should be a class feature instead of metamorphosis. While leveling, I found myself struggling to remember to turn on metamorphosis when I filled up the bar. It felt awkward and generally not worth the trouble. Maybe it gets better as you get higher in level, when that extra 25% damage is bigger and you get all the metamorphosis abilities, but so far I can definitely say I'd prefer the apotheosis form to the metamorphosis one.

[The_Jackal]

So that change to the number of excavations per site is on live? Good to know! I had capped out my fragment stash prior to 5.0.4, on the undertaking that I'd turn in 25 dailies and complete a ton of projects for a huge opening day XP bump, I guess I can start trolling Kalimdor and see if I can finish my damned bug mount.

[Karoht]

So that change to the number of excavations per site is on live? Good to know! I had capped out my fragment stash prior to 5.0.4, on the undertaking that I'd turn in 25 dailies and complete a ton of projects for a huge opening day XP bump, I guess I can start trolling Kalimdor and see if I can finish my damned bug mount.

Yes, it is for certain, live.
However, you still only get 4 sites per continent, I was under the impression this was being bumped up to 6. Perhaps I mis-read that somewhere.
However, I do have it on good authority that the sites themselves are much smaller in Pandaria. As in, all of them can and will fit on the minimap. This should make combing a site much quicker as well. No idea if this will be applied to existing sites in Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, and Northrend, but it is possible.

As for having 6 survey's per site, it is a bit of a mixed bag. If you don't like where you are, you are there for longer. But, when you get an important location, you get more out of it. It has the odd effect of making your time in a given area feel a bit more meaningful. I imagine that if the mobs were of appropriate level and challenge, it would make clearing an entire site feel a bit more like an accomplishment, but that is just a guess. It would make one more vulnerable to world PvP, as they are likely a target for that little bit longer.

But as all things with PvP, if you don't want to gank or be ganked, don't roll on a PvP server. It's more or less a no-brainer.

[Traab]

Oh yea, a few days ago I was healing BGs on my Druid despite only have 3 PvP gear.

I wanted to get used to healing and using my CDs, so I thought BGs would be the best way.

My first impression: Wow healers are hard to kill right now. I don't think I ever died by one on one combat, and it took 2-3 people focusing on me to kill me. The only class that I noticed that was doing serious damage to me was a fire mage with combustion.

I love my survival CDs. "Oh 3 people attacking me?" *Places hots, might cast a spell, puts hots on team mates* "Oh half my health gone?" *pops swiftmend* "Oh another half of my health gone?" *Goes ahead and pops iron bark and for kicks, roar of whoever that turns me into a bear and watch them die by team mates then goes and loot their corpse*

The shrooming is a fun thing, I got it tied to my middle button and my back button on my mouse (forward button is my lifebloom) and I was able to use it pretty well, although guessing where people will be is harder then knowing like in a raid setting. I bet its good practice for dungeons where if people know where to go is rare lol.

Edit: I forgot to address Traab's post about guild rep.

They didn't buff guild rep but rather kept the same amount of guild rep for the lower levels and since those lower levels go through more quests it adds up much quicker. I don't like such a quick pace either but I like the fact that low levels can get rep and contribute to the guild exp now as well.

Heh, the pvp thing reminds me of the old days of the start of battlegrounds. I was playing my enhance/resto shaman in wsg and got separated from the rest of my team except for a rogue. We got jumped by the entire alliance team and decided to go down fighting. It took a long time. They didnt work together, they didnt try to intterupt spells, they just whaled away on us trying to burn us down. Meanwhile im windfury proccing like theres no tomorrow, and the rogue is also slaughtering like its going out of style and in between im spamming heals on us both. We killed the entire team, and half of them a second time, (We got jumped near the graveyard) before I finally ran oom and we got killed. It was less raw badassitude, and more them being utter morons, but it sure was fun to experience from my side! It was HARD to take down smart healers back then! You had to do spell interrupts very carefully in order to pull it off. Wear him down, wait for the heal attempt, block it, then burst burst burst and pray you can finish him before he gets off the next heal.

Paladin duels could go on for hours since they sucked at dps and could heal themselves just fine while regenerating mana before they needed to heal again. Back when paladins and shaman were single faction only, when they met in battle it was awesome, high offense versus high defense. When a shaman with a great 2h weapon could do 2/3 of your hp in a single good windfury proc, the paladin had to keep spamming heals. Meanwhile the shaman is burning mana fast spamming shocks and such trying to burn down the paladin quickly. It was a war of attrition to see who could manage their mana the most effectively, and whoever ran out first would die.

[Talesin]

Paladin duels could go on for hours since they sucked at dps and could heal themselves just fine while regenerating mana before they needed to heal again.

As an aside to that dueling a shaman in early TBC with both of us as healers was mental. If you didn't kill the Shaman early you basically spent the next 5 minutes with SOW/JOW trying to get your mana back and then hoping to burst his...Crazy mana regen totem which I cannot remember for the life of me.

I miss those days of pvp, playing with people who were god awful at it so you could pull off some seriously awesome moves, like the one you've listed here. Running around at 2k rating has its advantages but eventually getting chain interupted while you try to keep your team alive in rated BGs make you want to shoot yourself.

[The_Jackal]

+Karoht IMO, more fragments per digsite is an unambiguous win. It's less time flying around, which is the major pain in Archaeology anyway. I personally don't mind the actual surveying/digging. I can usually find my fragment in 3 hops or less with my system, at most digsites.

[Dublock]

Sounds like I should work on my ~152 Archaeology before MoP.

*puts it on his non-existent list*

[The_Jackal]

Sounds like I should work on my ~152 Archaeology before MoP.

*puts it on his non-existent list*

When you do, make sure you do your starting grind (before you can dig in Uldum) in the Eastern Kingdoms. Avoid Kalimdor like the plague, because you'll be getting all the Night Elf fragments you could possibly want, and more, while trying to clear off Uldum digsites.

[Karoht]

When you do, make sure you do your starting grind (before you can dig in Uldum) in the Eastern Kingdoms. Avoid Kalimdor like the plague, because you'll be getting all the Night Elf fragments you could possibly want, and more, while trying to clear off Uldum digsites.

This. I was dumb and started in Kalimdor as well. Seriously, start in Eastern Kingdoms, otherwise it takes forever and a day to get any of the Dwarf relics.
You'll get Troll and Dwarf and eventually some Nerubian, I think there is a very small number of Night Elf sites. Kalimdor is mostly Night Elf, with a few Troll, LOTS of Fossil sites (another reason to hold off) and the select few Uldum sites for Tol'vir relics.

Yeah, the lesser flight time is a pretty big positive now that I think about it.

Outland and Northrend Archeology don't have many relics that are all that interesting, unless you like BoA gear that will only work for a very narrow band of levels. But, those pieces are nice for transmog.
Got my Zin'rok the Destroyer today. Now I just need to transfer over either my Ret Paladin or my Deathknight. Decisions, decisions.

[Dublock]

I think I am just going to start fresh on my druid to do Arch, instant flight form ftw and if my Monk is going to be my main anyway, I will have to do Lore Walkers on another toon anyway.

I will start while watching College football

Then if I am bored, I can hop in a BG or even LFR and then think "Oh yea, thats why I don't do LFR on Saturdays."

[The_Jackal]

Got my Zin'rok the Destroyer today. Now I just need to transfer over either my Ret Paladin or my Deathknight. Decisions, decisions.

Death Knight. Paladins are insufferable. In other news, congratulations. I actually got really lucky with Zin'rokh on my main, fortunately, having gotten it after about 3 days of cruising around EK.

[The Glyphstone]

Then if I am bored, I can hop in a BG or even LFR and then think "Oh yea, thats why I don't do LFR on Saturdays Ever."

Fixed your blatant typo, good sir.

[Dublock]

Fixed your blatant typo, good sir.

That is why you are a Mod good sir

[Mutant Sheep]

Death Knight. Paladins are insufferable. In other news, congratulations. I actually got really lucky with Zin'rokh on my main, fortunately, having gotten it after about 3 days of cruising around EK.

No, DK's are insufferable. Pallies are just dumb.

[Karoht]

No, DK's are insufferable. Pallies are just dumb.

Players are dumb.

So, because I'm not some drooling moron (it's cool, I'm not offended) nor am I an insufferable player, lets try this again.

So, I gots me a Zin'rok. I think it would look cooler on a Deathknight of any kind, particularly my female orc DK, but Zin'rok would look pretty awesome on a Tauren Paladin (yes I am willing to race change). Only thing is, my DK is an Herb/Inscriptionist. Yes, she's full of rage and hate, but she still picks flowers and practices her caligraphy. I wanted my Monk to be an Inscriptionist though, if I transfer the DK it would be sort of redundant.

Lets try this again...
I have a Zin'rok. What do I do?

[The_Jackal]

Players are dumb.

So, because I'm not some drooling moron (it's cool, I'm not offended) nor am I an insufferable player, lets try this again.

So, I gots me a Zin'rok. I think it would look cooler on a Deathknight of any kind, particularly my female orc DK, but Zin'rok would look pretty awesome on a Tauren Paladin (yes I am willing to race change). Only thing is, my DK is an Herb/Inscriptionist. Yes, she's full of rage and hate, but she still picks flowers and practices her caligraphy. I wanted my Monk to be an Inscriptionist though, if I transfer the DK it would be sort of redundant.

Lets try this again...
I have a Zin'rok. What do I do?

It's possible that I'm biased, but I think the Orc DK is the move. Tauren Paladin ought to use a big hammer.

[Traab]

As an aside to that dueling a shaman in early TBC with both of us as healers was mental. If you didn't kill the Shaman early you basically spent the next 5 minutes with SOW/JOW trying to get your mana back and then hoping to burst his...Crazy mana regen totem which I cannot remember for the life of me.

I miss those days of pvp, playing with people who were god awful at it so you could pull off some seriously awesome moves, like the one you've listed here. Running around at 2k rating has its advantages but eventually getting chain interupted while you try to keep your team alive in rated BGs make you want to shoot yourself.

I honestly never understood the hatred that took place in vanilla. I had both a shaman and a paladin, and I honestly liked both. The main hatred seemed to be that paladins couldnt dish out damage like a shaman thus imbalanced. But that totally ignored the entire role a paladin had. Too be damn near impossible to kill! You had an immunity to melee shield, a total immunity shield, lay on hands to heal to full, you had high armor, cheap fast heals, and at the time all of this was near spammable. (no cooldown between total immunity and melee immunity shields for example) Who needs high dps when nothing short of a very large army with 30 seconds to waste could bring you down? I warned them repeatedly on the class boards that griping and whining for "moar deeps!" would just get their class nerfed of everything that made it awesome, and I was right. Cooldowns got added, defensive abilities got weakened, all so they could be another bland melee dps class.

That being said, I LOVED the aoe tank role they had in tbc and wrath, ( I think thats when it was) A good healer backing up a good paladin plus 3 aoe damage dealers meant ultra fast dungeon clears as the first three rooms all get pulled at once and burned down. That was just plain fun. I could even level in that spec, or one close to it and aoe kill everything with uh, shield of wrath I think it was? Basically, put a shield spike on, activate this skill that does damage when I block, spam consecrate, and just pull everything. It wasnt my classic paladin, but at least that was a fun role to play.

[pffh]

Players are dumb.

So, because I'm not some drooling moron (it's cool, I'm not offended) nor am I an insufferable player, lets try this again.

So, I gots me a Zin'rok. I think it would look cooler on a Deathknight of any kind, particularly my female orc DK, but Zin'rok would look pretty awesome on a Tauren Paladin (yes I am willing to race change). Only thing is, my DK is an Herb/Inscriptionist. Yes, she's full of rage and hate, but she still picks flowers and practices her caligraphy. I wanted my Monk to be an Inscriptionist though, if I transfer the DK it would be sort of redundant.

Lets try this again...
I have a Zin'rok. What do I do?

It would look pretty sweet on the Orc.

Also it's a scribe not an inscriptionist.

[illyrus]

Control Undead is awesome. Heroic SFK is so much fun now as are a few of the other heroics as you can keep an undead throughout the entire instance. They do sizable dps (7-12K depending upon what you grab). It seems to last the whole timer every time (I don't know if it does naturally or if it is the fact that my DK is hit capped) and has no DR.

Was doing ZA on the second to last boss and the following happened:

warrior: ok CC the blood elf, kill the undead, go
*control undead the named undead and sent him on the boss*
warrior: <3 DK, nice

Kept him and let him wail on the final boss too.

Hope to enjoy it with heroic Scholomance as well come MoP.

[Zherog]

In my idle time (not much of it lately, with freelance work and soccer season starting, and losing a week of work to illness) I've been leveling my shaman. Took a while to get used to not dropping four totems at once, but I'm getting into the swing of things it seems. In the late 70s, she was able to pull a mob and kill it before it ever reached her. Now that I've hit 80 and moved on to Hyjal, that's no longer true - but it's still not bad at all. Last night I decided to drop leatherworking and pick up herbalism. I just wasn't finding LW to be very much fun and was always frustrated that I never had enough mats, even after seemingly skinning everything that moved in Sholazar Basin. So I'll go dual-gathering and not worry about it. Already up to somewhere around 135 or so after only a bit over an hour...

Also fiddled around with my mage just a wee bit the other night. Overall, arcane didn't change too terribly much. Some new fun toys - temporal something-or-other and a shield that self-heals - and arcane missiles seems to proc more often.

I need to find time to hop on my rogue and see how it looks now. I'm curious to see how it works out. But first I need to get through my backlog of freelance work. One of these days, I'll learn to say "No" when I get offered a project I don't have time for...

[Lord Raziere]

Ok, now I've played the Goblin starting zones…

I have two sayings, kernels of wisdom if you will gained from doing so:

1. A corollary to Murphys Law, namely, Explosions Law: anything that can explode, will explode.

2. "Anywhere a goblin goes, disaster follows."

and I think that goblins design every single machine they build with that Explosions Law in mind. namely, they think explosions are awesome so they make sure that they can make any device they want explode when need it to, just in case.

the second saying….well thats self-explanatory.

[Traab]

Ive tried out a new shaman, so far its kinda kickass, though it sucks to not have spammable melee skills so far. (Im only 21) I have to time things out if I want to melee multiple mobs at once. It isnt a big issue though, that lightning shield, lava lash, and flame shock combo means everything is half dead by the time the first mob is all dead.

I also started up my rogue, and discovered a few interesting things. All my poisons are now empty vials and its a skill not an item that I am applying, which is cool. The bad thing is more annoying than bad. I had to recheck ALL of my icons and skills on my toolbar, because, as an example, what looks like backstab, is actually my new version of sinister strike, but its only useable at 30% or lower life on the mob. Envenom is now my eviscerate skill, my deadly poison skill is a combo of deadly and instant, but weaker than each was alone. Im trying to figure out the best rotation to use to win fights, as honestly, my rogue is the one that seems to end up at low health more consistently than my other guys. I dunno, maybe its the level range. My rogue is 52, most of my other guys are 85 or newbies. I try doing the ambush opener, but I swear nothing in ungoro stands still, everything is constantly changing direction and its annoying as hell. Yes I know, distract, but its still a pita.

[Karoht]

I'm done ToC dailies in just a few days.
Firelands dailies finally dropped the pet for me, so I'm done with that.
Tol Barad dailies will be done in just under two weeks if I don't miss a day. Faster if I get more than 1 quest set done each day.


So I think coming soon I might do my Cataclysm Wrap Up post. Possibly with screenshots/videos.

It was a big expansion for me. Heroic content in all three tiers. I managed to complete all 3 meta achievements for the expansion. I was in a top 10 (server) guild. All in all, not bad. Wrath was my first serious expansion where I got to see all the content while it was current. Cataclysm was my first expansion where I got to see all the Heroic content while it was current.
I didn't meet my expansion goal of 13000 achievement points but I got darned close with 12740. On the whole I rather enjoyed Cataclysm.

[PrinceOfThieves]

I've been a casual player for a little over a year, but I've focused on DPS. I recently started playing a blood elf protection paladin to try and run solo alot of the old instances and raids for mounts, transmogs andwhat not. Anyone have any tips or suggestions on taking with the paladin, other than boost dodge and parry? I almost played a DK,but I don't like a tanking aspect that cant use a shield.

[Jonzac]

back when I played the prot pally focused on Block, using holy shield and consecration to kill packs of Mobs. Also putting a spike on the shield with that combination. That was how it worked in the past, you didn't want to dodge or parry as that lowered your DPS.

Of course, the mechanics may be different now.

[Karoht]

Icy-veins.com
Check out their guide. It is a lot more than stacking stats now.

[Traab]

back when I played the prot pally focused on Block, using holy shield and consecration to kill packs of Mobs. Also putting a spike on the shield with that combination. That was how it worked in the past, you didn't want to dodge or parry as that lowered your DPS.

Of course, the mechanics may be different now.

Yeah thats how I played my pally precata. Great for soloing. Pull the entire tower full of mobs, fire off those skills, laugh as they beat themselves to death, loot. Makes me wish aoe looting existed back then, as I needed it alot. Use your melee immunity shield or whatever if needed, but that was fairly rare. Just spam a few heals on yourself and keep letting them beat themselves to death like a diablo 2 thorns pally.