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http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2923-Developer-AMA-Live!?page=2#comments

Should be a full transcript of the AMA that went down with 5 Devs on Reddit yesterday.

Going to take a few minutes to read it fully before posting some comments.

Most of the information was pretty standard, though it's nice to see they are making the new player models a higher priority. I also like that the next raid is going to be very Ulduar-like, considering Ulduar was a very popular dungeon when it came to theme and design.

I'm also getting a happy face from Ghostcrawler switching to Twitter.

I'm honestly more excited for this expansion than any since Burning Crusade.

One thing I always found amusing, is that players love to curse Ghostcrawler for "dumbing down" the game. They don't realize that Ghostcrawler is actually a very hardcore player. He loved atunements, harder raids, and removing prestige items, etc... The issue is, he and his team know they are not a majority in the game.

This came all the more noticeable when Ghostcrawler attempted to bring some of that difficulty he desired back into the game for Cataclysm, and it backfired. Many of his comments about professions just help cement this, and I can even sense a sort of bitterness from him when it comes to things like account-wide mounts. This is why a lot of the mounts like the Mechano-Hog and the Guild Mounts kept flip flopping back and forth between character only and account-wide. His last bastion to hold out some prestige on mounts is by attempting to make the Gladiator mounts remain character based, even when it's hypocritical in face of all the rare raid mounts being account-wide.

They give Ghostcrawler too much credit for the changes in the game, so they don't realize it was the players input and trends the ultimately lead to where we are now. That's not a bad thing.

I'm honestly more excited for this expansion than any since Burning Crusade.

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This expansion I am more excited for then any of the previous. It fixes all the issues I had with Cataclysm, adds new things for me to do at end game, and just feels very adventurous. It's not perfect (the reputation change I find to be a mistake) but so far playing the beta I have had a blast, way more then any other beta I have taken part in for past expansions.

Maybe I'm being naive here, but...which reputation change?[DOUBLEPOST=1347465842][/DOUBLEPOST]In particular, I'm excited about the wide variety of things to do at max level, including an entire questing zone, scenarios, challenge modes, and a (hopefully) more accessible LFR.

Piotyr said:

Maybe I'm being naive here, but...which reputation change?

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They are not adding Championing faction tabards to the new Pandaria factions.

Instead, to gain reputation, you are forced to do the dailies scattered around the high level zones. Most of the factions can't even be done until you max out reputation with The Golden Lotus first. It's a step back and designed to drag out the reputations because the felt throwing on a tabard and running heroics was way to efficient and gave you too much in the long run. Since Valor gear is now tied to these reputations, they are even more important to grind to at least Revered, otherwise you can't buy Valor gear. It's the biggest mistake I feel they have made, since it's going to make gearing alts a pain in the ass.

I was hoping at the least doing a zone's regular quests would get high reputation, but they don't really add much of any, it's pretty much all dailies.

Again, it's not enough to reduce my excitement for the things I can do, but I still find it a huge blunder. At the least, make it so the tabards we can buy at Exalted allow Championing and are BoA so that we can run heroics to rep up our alts after the first daily grind. I can accept that compromise.

See, I kind of miss grinding rep. It gave me a reason to actually do my dailies, which gave me a reason to keep playing for more than a month or so after the latest expac-du-jour was released. I'm still struggling to get back into the game, which is really sad to me. I've spent a lot of time over the past 6 or 7 years playing and enjoying WoW, but right now I'm struggling with the pre-expac character changes.

Fall of Theramore is Live on all shards now.

It was a great for a scenario but even I'll admit that it doesn't do justice as a MoP starter event.

It's pretty short, yes. I think the balancing is a little weird too, did on my Horde hunter which has pretty low end gear and obliterated it, but ran it on my Alliance warrior with higher end gear and was barely handling it.

At least I know with such a weak "event" the next expansion is going to make up for it.

Updating WoW. I still don't think I'll play, but I want the patch... just in case.

It's definitely not enough to reactivate an account for. 5.0.4 was though, the changes to the classes have been amazing.

As expected, Mists of Pandaria will be deployed at midnight PST in the US. You shouldn't have to log off/on to get started, as the entry quest should automatically pop in once the time comes.

Totally excited about my midnight pick-up tonight.

It's always been tradition to pick up the copy, come home and start the installation, look over the Art Book while listening to the soundtrack.

Good times.

Gilgamesh said:

Totally excited about my midnight pick-up tonight.

It's always been tradition to pick up the copy, come home and start the installation, look over the Art Book while listening to the soundtrack.

Good times.

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If you've updated to the latest WoW patch, I don't think there should be an installation.

Ravenpoe said:

If you've updated to the latest WoW patch, I don't think there should be an installation.

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But I use that time for Art Book browsin and soundtrack listenin!

There may be a small patch to install, but the bulk of the Pandaria content is already downloaded with the last patch.

I STILL HAVEN'T PICKED A RACE FOR MY MONK!!!!! /panic

Dei said:

I STILL HAVEN'T PICKED A RACE FOR MY MONK!!!!! /panic

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Go original: Panda

I honestly don't care that ninety percent of the people will be playing Pandaren monks. Pandarens are the race and Monk is the class that I've wanted in the game from the very start.

Dei said:

I STILL HAVEN'T PICKED A RACE FOR MY MONK!!!!! /panic

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You and me both. I am torn between like five different races. Pandaren is the easy choice but I really loved trying out a human, troll, night elf, and orc monk in the beta. They all felt really solid.

I love what they did to Frost Mages in the beta, I just wish there was more to the xpac that had me excited to play again. I made a lot of great friends in WoW and still talk to most of them. Cata left such a sour taste, though, that I have trouble being interested at all past the Mage changes and the pretty new zones.

Man, that Challenge Mode competition was bad ass. Blizzard's team pulled off Mogu'shan Palace in just over 10 minutes flat with their tank DCing twice.

Dei said:

I STILL HAVEN'T PICKED A RACE FOR MY MONK!!!!! /panic

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gnome?

That's a big part of it too. My WoW crew is almost entirely gone. We were together since vanilla. It isn't the same without my eclectic Aussieamericanadian team.

Frank said:

That's a big part of it too. My WoW crew is almost entirely gone. We were together since vanilla. It isn't the same without my eclectic Aussieamericanadian team.

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This too, all but maybe two or three people have moved on to other games, and the remainders are spread over various servers.

For all those with spread over multiple server friends, why not use the REALID/Battletag system?

Oh and btw, awesome little event at FRY'S tonight, about 80 people were in line to get their copies. Awesome conversations (got into some friendly arguments while wearing my Alliance T-shirt) and overall awesome experience. Just for reference, when I came here for Burning Crusade there was about 20 people in line, 30-40 for Wrath, 40-60 for Cata and now about 80+ for Mists. At least in my city, WoW is growing.

Also really awesome to see so many younger people (18-25) and alot of couples there. Definitely not the stereo typical fat forever alone WoW nerds, of course there were a few but definitely the minority.

Over an hour to go before the release, and I'm already eyeing the clock and dreaming of sleep.

WHEN DID I GET SO OLD?

I just woke up

Also, It's one o'clock here... stupid time zones.

Though, for real, there are a ton of threads complaining about that on the WoW boards.

I purposely went to bed about 3hrs ago so that I could be up for a few hours after release. I'm psyched and ready to go.

I'm east coast, so it'll be 3am for me.

Ravenpoe said:

I'm east coast, so it'll be 3am for me.

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The sheer number of horde going to the wrong place to try to go to Pandaria was worth the price of staying up this late.

Honestly I'm waiting 2hrs after launch to start up the xpac missions. It's ridiculous (unless you're attempting server first) to try anything else.

Unplayable. Now I can't log in. Yeah, probably won't be touching it again till the weekend.

I'm cruising along, finishing up old world quests, hearing my guildmates complain about over population in the starting Pandarian zones. I'm just like -Really? I'd have never guessed- and bide my time. From 5am-3pm today is going to be some good gaming time (if I could play that long and for those hours )

Server firsts just hit: 1hr after opening
Master Medic
Master Miner
Master Skinner

Yeah, some of those were happening in the first 20 minutes.

I logged into a panda alt right when it went live, and laughed at the GIANT SEA OF PANDAS. Holy crap.

So I rerolled an orc monk to try the class out. Durotar was pretty empty, except for a few other orc monks.

Sigh.

Still burned out on WoW. Overnights keeps me off when everyone else is on. No sense paying for two nights a week where I can play with my friends.

I'll buy the expansion today . If I get some me time.

This is the first time in a long time that I play with the sounds 100% on including music.

This place is beautiful.

My monk is a gnome and my panda is a mage. One shaman and I in a huge crowd of panda monks!!

I did a bit of leveling on my level 85. The zone really is lovely. Its super crowded but there seems to be enough quest stuff to kill. Or least this early. My only complaint is please...let me skin my own kills...

Too bad I got too tired last night, I wanted to play some. Oh well, always tonight once I get home and get my housework done.

Frank said:

Yeah, some of those were happening in the first 20 minutes.

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How is that possible?

Fucked if I know. Whole teams of people giving the achievee all their cloth? Same thing with the skinning. A raid of people killing mobs while one guy skins everything.

Oh snap, engineers can make an item that lets you see extra gathering nodes. I smell $$$

The power leveling players have started hitting 90, including a monk.

How did the Monk do it? He leveled up two RaF characters to 80 before the expansion and then granted the free levels up to 80, then just powered through since midnight to get through the Cataclysm and MoP zones.

Some people are nuts.

Skinning at least would be straight forward. Enchanting, tailoring etc...good lord.[DOUBLEPOST=1348589065][/DOUBLEPOST]

ScytheRexx said:

The power leveling players have started hitting 90, including a monk.

How did the Monk do it? He leveled up two RaF characters to 80 before the expansion and then granted the free levels up to 80, then just powered through since midnight to get through the Cataclysm and MoP zones.

Some people are nuts.

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That is crazy! 85 to 86 on its own is a huge amount of experience.

Unless it was a gnome monk then it's fantastic

ScytheRexx said:

The power leveling players have started hitting 90, including a monk.

How did the Monk do it? He leveled up two RaF characters to 80 before the expansion and then granted the free levels up to 80, then just powered through since midnight to get through the Cataclysm and MoP zones.

Some people are nuts.

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To avoid the panda seas, I rolled an orc monk just to play around with the class, and saw another orc monk standing in the starting area leveling up repeatedly to 80.

Ravenpoe said:

To avoid the panda seas, I rolled an orc monk just to play around with the class, and saw another orc monk standing in the starting area leveling up repeatedly to 80.

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Yup, I just find it funny that they spent all that time making sure to level two (technically four, since you still need to be within a few levels of the RaF partner for the bonus to leveling they likely used) character to 80 just to start out faster with the Monk. Why not enjoy the leveling and learn the class a bit? I only power through levels now because I have done all the classes, I plan to level up my monk the old fashioned way.

I never understood the realm-first level mentality. I remember in Wrath seeing a Horde Shaman hit the cap within the first day, and a DK hitting it within the second (I was only 74 or so by that time). I feel like you're just missing out on stuff by pushing to level that hard, even if you go back with an alt to enjoy it.

Some people don't play the game to enjoy it.

Holy shit, do not logout high in the air on a mount. I logged back in this morning to splattered corpse.

Frank said:

Holy shit, do not logout high in the air on a mount. I logged back in this morning to splattered corpse.

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I'm a druid, I just hit Flight Form as I'm falling

Gilgamesh said:

I'm a druid, I just hit Flight Form as I'm falling

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Monks will be the second class able to do this, why I plan to have the Zen Flight glyph at all times.

ScytheRexx said:

Monks will be the second class able to do this, why I plan to have the Zen Flight glyph at all times.

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Wait, what?

Gilgamesh said:

Wait, what?

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Monks will be the second class able to to this, why he plans to have the Zen Flight glyph at all times.

Flying Nimbus!

Gilgamesh said:

I'm a druid, I just hit Flight Form as I'm falling

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Reason 1230 that druids are bullshit.

Also I was dead before the load in was finished. I wasn't falling, I was already dead.

Oh ain't that some shit. Just read up on it too.

Frank guess you should add Monk to that list.

I think the herb/mineral gathering in flight form is the most egregious of druid bullshit personally.

Honestly, it's a little upsetting. We were always given the excuse that we didn't get to ride mounts instantly or have a visual armor graphic because flight form was instant. Now Monks get to keep their appearance and instant flight? What's the excuse now?

Frank I would gladly give up gathering in flight form if it'd help. I just like the instant flight click of a button. What the trade off is supposed to be is that I can't ride a mount instantly or have any of my gear showing cause I'm in a -form-

Guess Monk threw that out the window.

Laziness.

Right now I'm a troll standing next to a pandaren. The models don't even look like they're from the same game. Shading, colours, complexity is completely different.

Gilgamesh said:

Honestly, it's a little upsetting. We were always given the excuse that we didn't get to ride mounts instantly or have a visual armor graphic because flight form was instant. Now Monks get to keep their appearance and instant flight? What's the excuse now?

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That was the excuse you heard?

They always said that the reason mounts are not instant is because they don't want people escaping fights in PVP at the drop of a button. The reason Flight Form was allowed to stay instant was because it can't be used in battlegrounds, so they figured why not give it as a class boon.

BTW the Monk skill Zen Flight is very slow, it's not going to be a full on mount. It goes the normal run speed, just lets you do it in the sky. It's more a fun item extra then Flight Form.

ScytheRexx said:

That was the excuse you heard?

They always said that the reason mounts are not instant is because they don't want people escaping fights in PVP at the drop of a button. The reason Flight Form was allowed to stay instant was because it can't be used in battlegrounds, so they figured why not give it as a class boon.

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Exactly, a class boon. At the expense of losing your form.
Now Monks have it as well, at no expense. Unless you count a Minor Glyph slot an expense.

Gilgamesh said:

Exactly, a class boon. At the expense of losing your form.
Now Monks have it as well, at no expense. Unless you count a Minor Glyph slot an expense.

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I clarified, Zen Flight is not a true mount. Flight Form is still much more of a boon. Unless you don't mind flying around at regular running speed.

ScytheRexx said:

I clarified, Zen Flight is not a true mount. Flight Form is still much more of a boon. Unless you don't mind flying around at regular running speed.

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I wasn't aware of the speed limitation of the Zen Glpyh.

I don't mean to sound entitled but one thing that's always bothered druids is that there is no point to getting -good looking gear- because we'll never see it, no matter what spec. Transmog was basically a double slap in the face. So the one thing we've held onto as a trade-off was instant flight. Also I do remember very specifically reading on a the druid forum a BLUE posting that was the reason for the trade off (The original post was a Druid whining that he couldn't instant cast any of his flying mounts and we were pretty much unanimous that we didn't want it because we realized it wasn't fair)

Interestingly enough Balance druids got Glyph of Stars which as a Guardian/Feral druid I'm pretty jealous of. Though we did get the staff in Firelands that gave us that amazing Firecat skin. Sadly, of course, it was not permanent.

Ha, still love swooping down on herb nodes in flight form with my druid. I can farm herbs so fast

Yes you can, it's super cool to watch after you've cleared a mob from a node.

Man, I am having too much fun as an enhancement shaman. It's like my favorite spec ever. You're just a lightning spewing tornado of death.

I wish WoW would adopt Guild Wars 2's phased node thing. If there's a node, it's there for everyone, not just one instance of it.

Nah, that way smaller servers already precariously shitty economy wouldn't be completely fucked by the CRZ thing.

Lots of griping from me here, but I only gripe because I love.

GW2's economy stands up to it, but then the game's still new-ish so that could change. Though really I don't see why economy matters much anymore, gold is so easy to come by if you're willing to work for it through dailies. Granted the server I've mainly played on is basically dead, so this could skew things a little.

I don't mean to sound entitled but one thing that's always bothered druids is that there is no point to getting -good looking gear- because we'll never see it, no matter what spec

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Don't forget that Restoration has been "formless" too since Cataclysm started, with our Tree Form becoming a cooldown rather then a real form. As you mentioned, Balance now has Glyph of the Stars to cover up Moonkin. I don't see them changing Feral and Guardian though. Forms are sort of the trademark of the Druid, and they need to have some actually require them. Otherwise they would just be glorified stances.

ScytheRexx said:

Don't forget that Restoration has been "formless" too since Cataclysm started, with our Tree Form becoming a cooldown rather then a real form. As you mentioned, Balance now has Glyph of the Stars to cover up Moonkin. I don't see them changing Feral and Guardian though. Forms are sort of the trademark of the Druid, and they need to have some actually require them. Otherwise they would just be glorified stances.

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You're absolutely correct, I do enjoy Feral/Guardian forms, just wish we had something more than Incarnation to -show-.
Overall I'm still very happy with Druid as it's always been my main. I did forget about Restoration too, I simply never messed with anything outside of Tanking or Melee dps as a Druid.

That could be done just as easily by a non druid. In fact, it happens to me all the time where I'm the one killing the mob on the node.[DOUBLEPOST=1348595998][/DOUBLEPOST]

Frank said:

Yes you can, it's super cool to watch after you've cleared a mob from a node.

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Bowielee said:

That could be done just as easily by a non druid. In fact, it happens to me all the time where I'm the one killing the mob on the node.

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It's worst when it's an enemy faction player.

Once, I was killing a mob near a node on my BE Paladin when a Draenei Warrior came down to take the node. I threw my shield at him and proceeded to have a 10 minute fight over that Saronite. Good times.

I won, btw, those pickaxe hits were like music.

ScytheRexx said:

Don't forget that Restoration has been "formless" too since Cataclysm started, with our Tree Form becoming a cooldown rather then a real form. As you mentioned, Balance now has Glyph of the Stars to cover up Moonkin. I don't see them changing Feral and Guardian though. Forms are sort of the trademark of the Druid, and they need to have some actually require them. Otherwise they would just be glorified stances.

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I was extremely unhappy when tree of life became a temp buff instead of a form. Though, yes, if you actually want to see your armor, healers will almost always be in caster form now.

Also, fuck the glyphs they added to make your spells LOOK like they used to. Like the one that makes one totem look like 4 or to make resto druids look like the tree of life.

Bowielee said:

Also, fuck the glyphs they added to make your spells LOOK like they used to. Like the one that makes one totem look like 4 or to make resto druids look like the tree of life.

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Why? I actually like they decided to try to let us somewhat keep out old looks, even if just in spirit.

As a shaman, it kind of feels like a middle finger.

I already hate spirits of harmony. WHY CAN'T THEY AT LEAST BE BoA GD IT RAWR.

Bowielee said:

As a shaman, it kind of feels like a middle finger.

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Shamans have, by and large, the worst glyphs of any class. Always have. Why should this expansion be any different?

Look at how cool the mage minors are.

I gave up on my Shaman in Wrath. I've played Enhance since BC as one of the first Draenei Shaman to hit level cap, and Blizzard has no fucking idea what they want to do with the spec. The primary stats have flopped all over the place so much.

Another thing annoying me. Quest rewards being tailored to the person doing the quest is nice, but can't I get a choice between tank or DPS loot, instead of being given gear specifically for my current spec? Annoying having to switch specs to see my gear options.

So is MoP as good, better, or worse than Guild Wars 2?

Silent Bob said:

So is MoP as good, better, or worse than Guild Wars 2?

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PVE is better. PVP is not.

Depending on what you prefer, there's your answer.

So, how many weeks will it take for this forum to rebound after the release of this expansion?

I seriously thought I was going to hate Li Li but man, she's a blast to have around.

Uhhhh Warcraft.... what are you talking about?

Nothing wrong with watering some HUGE MELONS.

I highly recommend doing the Jade Temple instance right after you're done with Jade Forest. It's heart wrenching and carries alot of emotion.

Also, I just finished Valley of the Four Winds and I'm really very entranced by the lands and the people I've met.

I'm a level 20 panda with no mount because the mount vendors aren't there.

SAD PANDA.

I'm sorely tempted to level one of my 85's just to see the new stuff, but I'm having a lot of fun with the Monk, too.

Oh... oh my...

This pet battle system. I... I may be in trouble.


........


I WILL CATCH THEM ALL

Ugh, reason 6050 to hate CRZ. Shifting (and it is very obvious when it happens) to a server that's overburdened and having my latency skyrocket.

lol'd pretty hard at this

I know, I was like -Oh hell no, it's Sholozar all over again!-

Finished the starting area with my Monk. There is not a single thing I didn't love about it.

I sat and listened to the rain in Krasarang Wilds for a solid 10 minutes while enjoying the scenery.

Man I am loving this expansion. I log on an I just don't know what to do half the time, or where to go. I just moved into the Valley of Four Winds, after the epic Jade Forest conclusion. Decided to focus my Alliance since my Horde server is queue city during the night.

Only one thing is bothering me, and that's leveling feels really slow. I understand why, but it just feels... wrong... only getting like 1% of a level per quest. At the least the story is engaging enough that I don't really care that much, but it will probably be a lot harder once I move to my alts. I blame those that power through the game in less then a day, since if they made it any easier for my casual ass those people would be 90 in two hours.

On the brighter side, I am glad they decided to really pepper the continent with trade nodes. I mean seriously, I was tripping over Ghost Iron every few feet. I know this will make it a pain to sell, but makes it so much easier to farm. I am so used to nodes often being like leagues apart from eachother, it's nice to stumble on like five in the same hillside.

Don't even get me started on pet battles, I have to force myself not to do them just so I can do some leveling. First day I already started working down trainers and collecting the southern EK pets. Who here you think will be the first Zookeeper?

I know exactly what you mean, I have to fight urges to level through Panderan Cooking or really look into the Tiller's faction. I'm attempting to simply play through all the zones and complete all the quests before doing anything else. Also I'm only entering dungeons when they coincide with the story thus far. Trying really hard not to make a Horde Druid to see that side of the storyline too. Pet battles, from the way my guild keeps going on and on about it, is trying my resolve as well.

ScytheRexx said:

Man I am loving this expansion. I log on an I just don't know what to do half the time, or where to go. I just moved into the Valley of Four Winds, after the epic Jade Forest conclusion. Decided to focus my Alliance since my Horde server is queue city during the night.

Only one thing is bothering me, and that's leveling feels really slow. I understand why, but it just feels... wrong... only getting like 1% of a level per quest. At the least the story is engaging enough that I don't really care that much, but it will probably be a lot harder once I move to my alts. I blame those that power through the game in less then a day, since if they made it any easier for my casual ass those people would be 90 in two hours.

On the brighter side, I am glad they decided to really pepper the continent with trade nodes. I mean seriously, I was tripping over Ghost Iron every few feet. I know this will make it a pain to sell, but makes it so much easier to farm. I am so used to nodes often being like leagues apart from eachother, it's nice to stumble on like five in the same hillside.

Don't even get me started on pet battles, I have to force myself not to do them just so I can do some leveling. First day I already started working down trainers and collecting the southern EK pets. Who here you think will be the first Zookeeper?

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On my main server I can still sell ghost iron for like 475g a stack, which is basically ridiculous, since it takes me 10 minutes tops to mine that much. I haven't really been selling it anyways, been trying to level BS, Engie, and JC off one person's mining. I'm also leveling 2 chars at once, one to play by myself and one to play with my husband. ALSO, I'm getting kind of annoyed at how many quest objectives are not shared with your group. On that note, NEED TO PICK MY SCALLIONS YAY.

Wow.... the storyline of Lorekeeper Vaeldrin and his daughter in the Krasarang Wilds.... just wow.

FUUUUUUCK I STARTED DOING PET BATTLES. MY LEVELING PROGRESS IS DOOMED.

Dei said:

FUUUUUUCK I STARTED DOING PET BATTLES. MY LEVELING PROGRESS IS DOOMED.

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What pet team you going to use?

Also, remember, you don't have to level up all 464 pets to 25.

Ravenpoe said:

Oh... oh my...

This pet battle system. I... I may be in trouble.


........


I WILL CATCH THEM ALL

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Super addicting!

A little pet leveling advice.

You only need to attack ONE round with a low level pet to get experience credit. I found by sending in my two low level pets for one round each, then finish off the group with a higher level pet, it can level up pretty quickly. You will have to travel to a stable master though depending on how low level the pet is though, as they will likely get hit hard that single round if the enemy pets a few levels higher.

You get extra experiences as long as the pet is one level under the pets you are fighting, a sort of difficulty bonus. Again, this will happen as long as the low level pet gets in one round, then you can use a high level pet to finish them off. The high level pet obviously will not get the bonus on his own experience.

If you succeed in defeating a enemy pet team with only a single pet the entire time, it seems you get even more bonus experience with that single pet, however that's pretty rare to do once you move beyond single pet fights into team fights.

are the vanity pets trainable as fighting pets?

sixpackshaker said:

are the vanity pets trainable as fighting pets?

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Yes. Nearly all pets can be used in the battle system. So far the only ones you can't are a few of the humanoids (Guild Herald, Argent Gruntling), the balloons, and the kites. Even the Enchanting Lantern is a Battle Pet.

For a updated list of the pets you can go to WarCraft Pets. It's been the long standing place for vanity pet info. The webmaster Breanni was even added officially to the game back in WOTLK as the Dalaran pet merchant and the one that mails the achievement vanity pets, due to the websites popularity.

P.S. Also for those curious about requirements, you have to be at least Level 5 and pay 100g (80g if Exalted with Stormwind) to learn the pet battle skill. However, you only have to learn it once, as the skill is account-based and will let you do the pet battles on any character after that point.

Right now I have Peanut, Clockwork Gnome, and Phoenix Hatchling. Will probably swap them around some eventually, but Peanut is pretty beast against the 5 billion critter types I keep running into. And popping fire aura on the phoenix, and dropping turrets with the gnome basically means I'm doing a ton of passive damage per round.

Since I have the highest achievement for Cata for number of pets, I can't come back to the game... I'd have to level 120+ pets...

Oh nice, server issues won't let me log in..... Nooooooooo!

I just let it sit at Connecting for about 6-7 minutes and it worked. Apparently that's the Official Workaround until Blizz figures out the issue.

Yep, finally in again.

The storyline connection and culmination of Krasarang Wilds and Valley of the Four Winds is truly something everyone who plays WoW is going to really enjoy.

We can name our pets!

Squiddy's got some Alt ADD going on tonight

Sadly that's nothing new

I've always had Alt-itis pretty bad, but the Monk's cured it for now. We'll see how that changes once I hit the high 50's before BC instances open and I have to quest more (screw BRD).

Getting sucked into the Tillers farm now, I want to level up all my alts just so I can use this farm more often.

Lao & Son's Yakwash.....

At every turn I'm caught by surprise....

I remember Blizzard saying that they were going to make leveling cooking a lot easier, little did I know they basically said "Get to Pandaria? Here, just learn all these Pandaren recipes, ingredients are at the vender, hurry up and get it to Zen Master."

Reins of the Grand Expedition Yak: 108,000g

Wait till you see what some of the stuff on the Black Market Auction House reaches.

ScytheRexx said:

I remember Blizzard saying that they were going to make leveling cooking a lot easier, little did I know they basically said "Get to Pandaria? Here, just learn all these Pandaren recipes, ingredients are at the vender, hurry up and get it to Zen Master."

Click to expand...

Really? Fuck, well, I guess no point in grinding that nonsense up with alts then.

Frank said:

Really? Fuck, well, I guess no point in grinding that nonsense up with alts then.

Click to expand...

At least till you get to Pandaria.

At the very least some of the recipes require carp, which you can only really get through fishing, but the majority just require things like rice and peaches, which are sold by the vendor that teaches you the new Pandaren recipes at Halfhill.

Good to know, I was thinking to finally try Cooking on the Monk since Pandas get that bonus to the skill.

Another knock on old -silly- quests.



Edit:
Just had a crab use an ability called -Slap and Chop-

After attempting to level as Protection on my paladin for awhile I just realized it was likely the reason I was going so slow (that and the fact I am reading all the quests and listening to all the little dialog). Changed my healing spec to Retribution, and now going a lot faster, moving through 87 now. Will likely hit 90 by tomorrow or the end of the week if the pace I had yesterday keeps up. Just unlocked the middle zone and the "capitol" of the continent, so now I have all the trainer, portals, etc... open to me, which is nice. So good to see the old Shattrath/Dalaran-style portals back up with all the capitols (They even have one for Shattrath and Dalaran, funny enough)

Not sure how I am going to handle alts. The leveling does feel pretty slow, I worry this will be another Cata and I will only stomach leveling a few of them. Will have to see how it goes with BGs. I love having a lot of alts at max level because it gives me more to do in heroics.

P.S. This expansion, if it has one thing going for it above and beyond, is personality. I have yet to come across a character I have not enjoyed. Even Mudmug, the hillbilly redneck Pandaren, makes me smile.

Remember: Brewfest starts today and to participate in the Coren event you must be level 89.

Gilgamesh said:

Remember: Brewfest starts today and to participate in the Coren event you must be level 89.

Click to expand...

Goddamnit. Those trinkets are going to be crazy good, too.

That's such a douche move. The brewfest thing, oh you didn't power through the levels in a week. No world event stuff for you.

Got the stam trinket on my DK, 1356 stam. Coren hits like a face smashing brick when you are only 89 though lol. Also, Brewfest lasts until October 13th. If you can't get to 90 by then, it has nothing to do with not being a speed leveler. Blizzard also bumped the start of Brewfest back a week to give people more time.

Hopefully there'll be some quests to do in the camps, at least. Generally the world event quests are worth some nice xp (the one to Uther's grave was like 9k with heirlooms at level 36 or so).

Also remember that the trinkets drop off the boss, so you can run it as many times as you want till you get them all (I usually get them all in one day for all three of my paladin specs). The only thing it's going to suck is losing days trying for the mounts. Thankfully for me, I already have both mounts.

I got the Brewmaster achieve years ago, at least, so I'm not worried about that part. Not using the title at the moment since every Panda in existence is, but I have it.

My Monk's name is Huflungpu, but sadly I never did bother with the Hand of A'dal questline.

BTW, they added yet a new "Brew" item this year. Before it was the Pony Keg (A keg you set on the ground), then last year it was the Keg Pony (Keg on the back of a pony), and the newest one is the Pandaren Brewpack.

The Brewpack costs 100 tickets (pretty easy to get no matter the level if you just do the daily events) and when active puts a Pandaren Keg on your back for 3 minutes. Perfect for those few times you want to look like a full Brewmaster.

I never got any of the holiday mounts, though I somehow managed to get them for about a dozen people. Never won the roll. Not once.

Fucking Headless Horseman and Direbrew can suck my dick.

Frank said:

I never got any of the holiday mounts, though I somehow managed to get them for about a dozen people. Never won the roll. Not once.

Click to expand...

That must have been a long time ago, since you no longer compete with people for the mounts.

Yeah, I haven't been playing much in the last couple years.

dammit! brewfest was my favorite WoW event... temptation is great.

ScytheRexx said:

After attempting to level as Protection on my paladin for awhile I just realized it was likely the reason I was going so slow (that and the fact I am reading all the quests and listening to all the little dialog). Changed my healing spec to Retribution, and now going a lot faster, moving through 87 now.

Click to expand...

I've been going protection, and I just started pulling all the quest mobs I needed at once. AoE dps is great with prot, single target blows though.

I would interject that I am leveling my DK in tank spec and it isn't slow at all, but everyone knows DKs are OP.

I was leveling my dk in tank spec, and it's slowed to a crawl. But that could be because he's 62 and can't go to outland

It's not like it's super slow, it's just the only time you get better efficiency is when you can pull a lot of enemies. Sadly, since there are a lot of people, it's hard to get more then one mob at a time in most situations.

Ravenpoe said:

I was leveling my dk in tank spec, and it's slowed to a crawl. But that could be because he's 62 and can't go to outland

Click to expand...

Why not?

Frank said:

Why not?

Click to expand...

Some people, on some servers, seem to be running into a major bug caused by the cross-realm zones, which causes npc's in outland to never load properly. I basically see nothing but a blank map and get attacked by invisible monsters.

Annnd I'm back. Or will be once everything is installed, updated and so on.

So where to? Is the Wyrmrest Accord guild the main gathering point for HF? I'm not all that gung-ho to go straight to my Dark Iron toons if I can hang with this crowd.

Ravenpoe said:

Some people, on some servers, seem to be running into a major bug caused by the cross-realm zones, which causes npc's in outland to never load properly. I basically see nothing but a blank map and get attacked by invisible monsters.

Click to expand...

Oh CRZ, is there anything you aren't bad at?

DarkAudit said:

Annnd I'm back. Or will be once everything is installed, updated and so on.

So where to? Is the Wyrmrest Accord guild the main gathering point for HF? I'm not all that gung-ho to go straight to my Dark Iron toons if I can hang with this crowd.

Click to expand...

Some of of the major wow players only have minor toons on Wyrmrest, like Scythe and Dei, but Squids, Pioty, and sometimes Poe, Bumble, and Dave (bumble hasn't been on much lately, probably for the same reason my play time has been greatly reduced) are pretty active on that server.

The only sucky thing is that the server is extremely high population.[DOUBLEPOST=1348906444][/DOUBLEPOST]

ScytheRexx said:

It's not like it's super slow, it's just the only time you get better efficiency is when you can pull a lot of enemies. Sadly, since there are a lot of people, it's hard to get more then one mob at a time in most situations.

Click to expand...

Try leveling a holy paladin... oy. You're damn near indestructible, but it takes forever. At least it is a little quicker now that Excorcism is usable on all mobs.

I also have a lvl 68 undead priest on another server (second character I ever created) and decided to hop onto him to see what's going on storywise with the Horde since WoTLK. Man, holy priests can actually kill stuff fast without even having to switch to shadow spec now.

First Pandaren. Sinanju the monk. Alliance side.

I need to redo some of my addons. Some inventory/bag related stuff just sends frame rate to nothing. So much for broker, I guess.

Tried to play this morning on my main server with some buddy's leveling monks and such. Couldn't. Got ganked everywhere by a half dozen different servers. So, switched to the PvE. Zones were so full that every quest I tried to do was 4 or 5 people standing around a graveyard of mobs waiting for the painfully slow respawns.

I quit.

I regret buying MoP almost as much as I regret Mass Effect 3.

I have to admit, even in the leveling zones pre-Pandaria, I'm not a fan of this CRZ thing. Coming up to a place I need to kill mobs and seeing it full of monster corpses while some jerk from Sentinels kills one more is pretty annoying. Even moreso if I'm in my Brewmaster spec, which is all about gathering up 5+ mobs and annihilating them.

What the fuck kind of disagree is that? Disagreeing with that post doesn't even make sense.

Frank sorry to hear you had a shitty experience, the worst I've had with CRZ cost me maybe 1-2 minutes of respawn wait time. To each their own I suppose. As for getting ganked, PVP servers and PVP in MMOs has always been about who brings the superior numbers and there's shit you can do about it. I see zero reason to play on a PVP server on WoW unless you don't mind getting ganked every few minutes or you're the one who enjoys ganking.

It wasn't terrible and was actually fun a long time ago. PvP servers were great in Vanilla WoW and not the worst things ever in BC. Once the power gap got to be where it is now though where level 90s (and there are far too many already) have 300 times the health of anyone below level 60 and can do 20 times their health in damage in a single hit is where it gets silly. Now, like I said, it's never been very bad before but now, CRZ has broken it beyond recognition. There's no way to report griefing players from other servers, there's zero accountability for any sort of bullshit. It's a griefer's fucking candyland joytime now. Dealing with shitheads from one server was tolerable but dealing with shitheads from a half dozen. It's not fun. At all.

Sorry I just never understood MMO PVP. I guess that's just my lack of information. Personally I play MMOs for the Lore and instances/raids with friends, and CRZ has barely touched that in a negative way so when alot of people have been coming down on it I tend not to really see why.

Sidenote: I have more Windwool cloth than I know what to do with. Last count was around 600 pieces. Prices right now are so low on it (4g a piece) that it's just not worth seeling yet.

I liked PvP servers in pre-BC and BC, leveled a Protadin on Zuluhed and it was fun and challenging. However, I lost interest in PvP once they added arenas and the various seasons of PvP gear. The idea that I couldn't enjoy world PvP without grinding battlegrounds/arenas was stupid to me, so I haven't played on a PvP server since.[DOUBLEPOST=1349032138][/DOUBLEPOST]MMO PvP can be a ton of fun. I loved Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin, taking a couple friends and all of us rolling together. Even solo it was entertaining. But the added competition of gear grinds and the eSport bullshit ruined the fun of it for me.

Battlegrounds I can understand, it's a team effort against another team. Running around the world solo and getting attacked by 3+ people or attacked while fighting a quest mob just doesn't seem fun. If you don't play solo, then you're the one ganking, which I also can't seem to find a joy in.

Frank said:

Tried to play this morning on my main server with some buddy's leveling monks and such. Couldn't. Got ganked everywhere by a half dozen different servers. So, switched to the PvE. Zones were so full that every quest I tried to do was 4 or 5 people standing around a graveyard of mobs waiting for the painfully slow respawns.

I quit.

I regret buying MoP almost as much as I regret Mass Effect 3.

Click to expand...

Honestly, Frank, I don't know what to tell you. I was playing the exact same time that you were, most of it on a pvp server, and had none of the problems you've discussed. I don't know if you're just extremely unlucky or what.

It's fine at night, when I see both of us on but this morning, as in a few hours ago, it was incredibly bad. That post was written after it got to me a bit and I was actually angry enough to log out. Cooled down, I'm not nearly as livid as I was.

I still despise CRZ.

Frank said:

I still despise CRZ.

Click to expand...

Honestly if you are having so much issues with it, I do hope they someday make an opt-out for it.

My problems have been more realm specific than CRZ. Wyrmrest Accord is extremely high population to the point where there's been a queue to even get on quite often lately.

Anywhoo, on a completely different note. I hadn't played Horde since before Cataclysm and MAN did they change the capital cities. I spent a large chunk of time just trying to figure out how to get to Northrend. Also WTF is up with the Horde and elevators?

Yeah, they're really against stairs. I guess when you're as wide as a Tauren or Orc male, you don't like things with rails.

I don't mean so much as an alternative to stairs, but I mean the necessity of them. Every single major Horde city is multiple floors and pretty dense to navigate with the exception of the BE capital. It's kind of the opposite of the alliance where every major city is laid out simply with the exception of Exodar.

Ogrimmar is such a piece of shit city before you can fly. Hate it so much.

Ah, yeah that's true. The BE city is weird to navigate also, even without the elevators. It's a strange shape and requires running through buildings to get places. I find Undercity easy to deal with, being a big circle, and Tarren Mill wouldn't be bad with a flying mount. Org is really the only one I just don't like the layout of. Never really have.

To be fair to the alliance side, Exodar is, IMO, even more poorly laid out than Ogrimmar.

Speaking of capitals, Why on god's green earth haven't they connected ALL capitals by portals yet? It's sad to me that all cities except Ogrimmar and Stormwind are ghost towns now, mostly because they are the gateways to new content. In Cataclysm and MoP's case, literally. If there were portals interconnecting the cities, people wouldn't have a problem actually inhabiting the different cities.

I mean, they even removed the different capital portals from Dalaran.

Bowielee said:

To be fair to the alliance side, Exodar is, IMO, even more poorly laid out than Ogrimmar.

Speaking of capitals, Why on god's green earth haven't they connected ALL capitals by portals yet? It's sad to me that all cities except Ogrimmar and Stormwind are ghost towns now, mostly because they are the gateways to new content. In Cataclysm and MoP's case, literally. If there were portals interconnecting the cities, people wouldn't have a problem actually inhabiting the different cities.

I mean, they even removed the different capital portals from Dalaran.

Click to expand...

Yeah they should put one in the Worgen Capital so I can.... oh wait....

I remember the days of Ironforge being so crowded it'd slam your framerate to 5 or lower on a busy day. Now it's only remotely busy on Brewfest.

CynicismKills said:

I remember the days of Ironforge being so crowded it'd slam your framerate to 5 or lower on a busy day. Now it's only remotely busy on Brewfest.

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Personally I enjoyed Shattrah and Dalaran the best. A forced peace between the two groups and getting to see EVERYONE from both sides going back and forth. Granted it was a death sentence on your framerate, it was pretty fun.

Can I also say that the soundtrack to Panderia is downright awe inspiring? Every single zone has such an amazing feel due to the fantastic music. For the first time since Burning Crusade, I play with music on.

Oh yeah, Dalaran killed my poor comp back then, I have no idea how I managed to run raids without sucking.

Gilgamesh said:

Yeah they should put one in the Worgen Capital so I can.... oh wait....

Click to expand...

At least your capital wasn't blown the fuck up, like the poor Gobs. Now all they have is Orgrimmar slums.[DOUBLEPOST=1349040654][/DOUBLEPOST]Ok, here's a question for ScytheRexx

What the hell is up with the whole doom to Theramore thing? How is the whole Theramore situation justified in the lore nowadays? Jaina was the most pro-Horde of all Alliance leaders. Is it all just more cartoonish super villainy on Garrosh's part?

Bowielee said:

I mean, they even removed the different capital portals from Dalaran.

Click to expand...

You will be happy to know the new hubs in Pandaria once again have multi-portals, including one for Shattrath and Dalaran. If you can get a warlock friend to summon you or a mage to portal you, you can pretty much use the place as a defacto hub for everything other then AH. It even has a transmog/void storage vendor.

Frank said:

What the hell is up with the whole doom to Theramore thing? How is the whole Theramore situation justified in the lore nowadays? Jaina was the most pro-Horde of all Alliance leaders. Is it all just more cartoonish super villainy on Garrosh's part?

Click to expand...

They wanted a reason for us to hate Garrosh, since he is going to be the final boss of the expansion. Since Jaina is, for the most part, liked by both Horde and Alliance players, it made the most sense to basically have him do the deed.

In the end though it definitly hurt the Alliance more then the Horde, so rumors are already swirling that he will do something even worst to the Horde sometime after 5.1, one of the bigger rumors...

Frank said:

At least your capital wasn't blown the fuck up, like the poor Gobs. Now all they have is Orgrimmar slums.

Click to expand...

Nope just swarmed by Forsaken, our families slaughtered before our eyes, our lands corrupted by death and our Prince slain. Instead of a Slum we got a Tree. Awesome.

Frank said:

What the hell is up with the whole doom to Theramore thing? How is the whole Theramore situation justified in the lore nowadays? Jaina was the most pro-Horde of all Alliance leaders. Is it all just more cartoonish super villainy on Garrosh's part?

Click to expand...

It's an entire book -Tides of War- which I'm about 1/3rd through now. From what I can tell it's Garrosh pushing for the Horde to go full bloodthirst and kill everything on Kalimdor that doesn't submit to his will.

Bowielee said:

To be fair to the alliance side, Exodar is, IMO, even more poorly laid out than Ogrimmar.

.

Click to expand...

I'm actually rather fond of Exodar. They even moved the flight guy and quartermaster inside now.

Exodar isn't bad because it's so small. The main issue was always getting into the place. However, much like the BE city, it's never really been used for anything, ever.

ScytheRexx said:

You will be happy to know the new hubs in Pandaria once again have multi-portals, including one for Shattrath and Dalaran. If you can get a warlock friend to summon you or a mage to portal you, you can pretty much use the place as a defacto hub for everything other then AH. It even has a transmog/void storage vendor.

Click to expand...

That doesn't really solve the issue, though. I know you can set your hearth, but due to the fact that the only way directly INTO pandara, or NR, or Uldum, Twilight Highlands, Tol Barad, etc... is ALL in SW or OG. That means that no one ever has any reason to go to any of the other capitals. This is actually not a new complaint for me as I HATE that the cities on the opposite continents of the main capitals (Darnassus/Exodar and Undercity/Silvermoon) are always empty. Even in Vanilla, Darnassus was always a ghost town. The only thing that kept people in the UC was it's proximity to the plaguelands.

Bowielee said:

Wyrmrest Accord is extremely high population to the point where there's been a queue to even get on quite often lately.

Click to expand...

Like right now

Bowielee said:

That doesn't really solve the issue, though. I know you can set your hearth, but due to the fact that the only way directly INTO pandara, or NR, or Uldum, Twilight Highlands, Tol Barad, etc... is ALL in SW or OG. That means that no one ever has any reason to go to any of the other capitals. This is actually not a new complaint for me as I HATE that the cities on the opposite continents of the main capitals (Darnassus/Exodar and Undercity/Silvermoon) are always empty. Even in Vanilla, Darnassus was always a ghost town. The only thing that kept people in the UC was it's proximity to the plaguelands.

Click to expand...

Adding portals to the other capitols from those places will not suddenly cause them to be more used though. People gravitate towards the one that is most convenient. This is actually why they removed all the portals from Dalaran and Shattrath. No one was going to leave Dalaran if it kept that convenience.

Yes, they could add them, but how much investment figuring all that out will it be worth, if in the end less then a dozen actually decide to live in Undercity or Ironforge because staying at the new hub in Pandaria is just more convenient? It's not something they can just plop down, they need someone to actually make sure there is room and that it all fits properly.

I find it really difficult to believe that it would be hard to implement a simple portal. I mean, if player characters can create one anywhere, why would it be an issue to create a static one, like the one they have to outland in the mage quarter.

The number one reason people remain in one capital city is because blizzard has made that city the center of convenience. The only thing that the other cities are missing is easy access to new content. I'm on a RP server and I really wanted my Dranei to make the Exodar her home, but to do that, anytime I want to access any content, I have to take a boat over to western kindoms, and in the case of Northrend, have to then take a boat from THERE to Borean Tundra.

It's a minor thing that would be easily implemented. They have portals between Darnassus and Exodar and UC and Silvermoon. This is not new ground.

Bowielee said:

I find it really difficult to believe that it would be hard to implement a simple portal. I mean, if player characters can create one anywhere, why would it be an issue to create a static one, like the one they have to outland in the mage quarter.

Click to expand...

Creating a portal is easy, finding a place to put it is the issue. Example, let's go to Thunderbluff. Where would they put all the portals to Undercity, Orgrimmar, and Silvermoon? What about the portals to Dalaran and Shattrath? Where would they put the portals to Uldum, Vash'jir, Deepholme, Hyjal, and Highlands? In the case of this new expansion, where will they put the Pandaria portal?

Adding one portal to Blasted Lands is not a huge issue, it's a single portal. Adding all the Cataclysm portals required them to open up more space during the revamp, in the case of Stormwind creating a whole farmland area, and in the case of Orgrimmar, opening up the cliffs above the city.

Again, we are not talking about a single portal or even a measly two, we are talking about a whole set of them to make the city viable convenience.

The number one reason people remain in one capital city is because blizzard has made that city the center of convenience.

Click to expand...

Which they do based on known trends. I am not sure how long ago you played, but if you played Alliance at all, Ironforge was the defacto city in vanilla. Stormwind had a few stragglers, and no one visited Darnassus. Why? Ironforge was just more convenient.

Now, if you want them to simply add a portal to Stormwind/Orgrimmar, that might be viable. It would still take longer for you to reach the locations you want, but at the least all smaller cities will focus into the main hub of the faction, which can then move out to some of the other cities. It will not be viable however to add all portals to all cities.

I'm not even talking about adding portals to all the content in every city. Just portals linking all the cities together.
Stormwind: Portal to Darnassus right up in the mage tower. They can even use the big ass portal that goes no where in that room.
Ironforge: Portal to Darnassus in the Mage's quarter. There's plenty of room there.
No need for a portal between IF and SW as they already have the deeprun tram. Same for Darnassus to Exodar, they have... oh yeah, portals between them.
Exodar: Portal to Stormwind. The entire city is open enough to allow portals at pretty much any place in the city.
Darnassus: Portal to Stormwind in the Temple of the Moon.

There, easy peasie. The same can be done for the Horde cities. I'd bet you real money that if they instituted a portal system like this, the populations of the other areas would open up. Also, maybe some alliance would actually quest in Kalimdor if they didn't have to to to Theramore or BB and fly across entire fricking continent to get to the capital cities there.

Ironforge was more convenient in Vanilla BECAUSE it had the only AH.

That's right, I forgot about that

Dei said:

Ironforge was more convenient in Vanilla BECAUSE it had the only AH.

Click to expand...

It was the hub on my old server at the time for sure. It was weird to come back to the game and see it so quiet.

Ah yeah. I remember people starting to speculate about the AH's going up in other cities like Stormwind because of the empty buildings you could walk into that were shaped like the IF AH.

Dei said:

Ironforge was more convenient in Vanilla BECAUSE it had the only AH.

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Which was done because it had the most people. They wanted it originally in Stormwind, but no one stayed there in the Beta.

Started a Pandaren on Dark Iron early Saturday morning. Went Horde to stay with my guild. Moving through Azshara and now Ashenvale...

WHERE IS EVERYBODY? The zones are virtually empty. The only toons I've seen questing near me the whole time were this evening.

DarkAudit said:

WHERE IS EVERYBODY? The zones are virtually empty. The only toons I've seen questing near me the whole time were this evening.

Click to expand...

It seems poor Frank can't get a place to himself, and here you are without anyone around. Did you start a character on Wyrmrest Accord or another server? Some servers still have CRZ disabled, though Wyrmrest should have it enabled.

ScytheRexx said:

It seems poor Frank can't get a place to himself, and here you are without anyone around. Did you start a character on Wyrmrest Accord or another server? Some servers still have CRZ disabled, though Wyrmrest should have it enabled.

Click to expand...

I started a Pandaren monk on Wyrmrest. Finished the starting zone and went alliance. Then I turned my attention back to Dark Iron the rest of the weekend.

My home server (Steamwheedle) has been a ghost town for years, but even with CRZ I barely see anyone (about to hit 68 so this includes any EK leveling zones and a few BC zones), save for the occasional person from Sentinels.

DarkAudit said:

I started a Pandaren monk on Wyrmrest. Finished the starting zone and went alliance. Then I turned my attention back to Dark Iron the rest of the weekend.

Click to expand...

If you don't have CRZ enable you may expect your server to be a ghost town other then the rare monk. Most people playing are focusing on the 85-90 content. CRZ is likely not turned on for Dark Iron yet, but when it is you will likely see a lot of other players around.

As I hit 90 this afternoon I decided to post a few of the things I am not really liking about the expansion. Be aware, I still think it's way better then Cataclysm, as most of the issues I had with Cataclysm have been fixed. However, nothing is perfect, and there are some things that could use some work.

Leveling
While the leveling feels more consistent then Cataclysm, it still feels like it takes a long time to level. Maybe once I play one of my better DPS classes the leveling will speed up, but even compared to Cataclysm is just feels awfully slow (this might also be a side effect of not having a flying mount). Personally I think they should reduce the requirements by another 20% and decrease monster health by 25%, so that it does not feel like I am beating down a monster for ages. Will it happen? Not likely, but I feel it would help. At least they didn't go through with the even more steep experience requirements from Beta. This gets into another issue.

Zones
One of the things they were promoting was a more variable leveling path. They even went so far as to split a zone to add another one during Alpha. However, they still suffer from the fact that only one level has a "choice". 86 allows you to choose Krasarang Wilds or Valley of Four Winds, but after that suffers from the same problem Cataclysm had, which is forcing you to pretty much route through the same zones, Kun-Li, then Townlong, then Dread Wastes. The reason for this? They decided to remove Vale of Eternal Blossoms as a leveling zone and instead made it a daily quest zone. Sadly, this removed a zone option. However, don't take this as a horrible downside, because Blizzard did stick to their promise of making more hubs in each zone. This means it's not entirely linear, and you can pick and choose questlines a little bit better. Still not as good as it could have been.

Reputations
This is probably my biggest problem with the expansion, and I am still scratching my head about it. All the JP and VP gear is locked behind reputations. At first I figured this wouldn't be too much of an issue, however in order to get to the main gear reputations, you have to get Exalted with the Golden Lotus, and only then do the other two main ones unlock. Really, starting out, the only reputation you can start leveling quickly is the Klaxxi, and that is only because it's one of the few factions that actually gives you dailies starting at 89, while also giving you reputations for general quests (lots of quests in other zones don't give any reputation at all). This, combined with the fact they removed the reputation tabard, means you likely won't unlock the JP/VP gear for a few weeks. Considering the JP gear is only 450, while the heroic drop gear is 463, means no one going through the game normally would in the end need that JP gear. This will probably lessen a bit when the VP gear downgrades to JP during 5.1, but I still find it a bit odd to do.

Alts
Really, my issues above in the end root to this problem, and that is MoP feels very "alt unfriendly". The long leveling can make it difficult to stay focused on the character, adding on the fact that this expansion decided not to go through with adding any new heirlooms for the 85-90 range (they added some pants, but those are only for 1-85). The fact all the gear is behind reputations means you can't just play a little bit and slowly JP yourself a decent set, and depending on how many characters you have, means you will have to do a lot of dailies. This is not going into the fact Spirits of Harmony are BoP, making it difficult to viably level up alt professions.

Once again, don't get me wrong, the expansion is still much better then Cataclysm, and my hope is that by 5.1 we get something to make alt leveling a little easier (I admit, Rested Experience will help a lot at least). This expansion, if you have one focus character, is well crafted with a lot of personality, but an altoholic like me feels a bit like my preferred playstyle (having multiple high level characters) was a little bruised.

I'll try and address some of this best I can with my own opinion.

ScytheRexx said:

Leveling
While the leveling feels more consistent then Cataclysm, it still feels like it takes a long time to level. Maybe once I play one of my better DPS classes the leveling will speed up, but even compared to Cataclysm is just feels awfully slow (this might also be a side effect of not having a flying mount). Personally I think they should reduce the requirements by another 20% and decrease monster health by 25%, so that it does not feel like I am beating down a monster for ages. Will it happen? Not likely, but I feel it would help. At least they didn't go through with the even more steep experience requirements from Beta. This gets into another issue.

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I actually found the leveling to be too fast, I was level 90 before I was even done with the Dread Wastes, leaving half of it and all of Vale of Eternal Blossoms to do post 90. I think it's also obvious that if you weren't a DPS class, you WERE going to be basically -gumming- down your quest mobs and that would very much make it feel like it was taking forever. Preventing flying pre-90 was genius, while it did make the leveling seem longer, it allowed for Panderia's majesty to be truly appreciated. However, I think that restriction SHOULD be removed account wide once you have your first level 90. In the end, I found leveling to be TOO fast for the content.

ScytheRexx said:

Zones
One of the things they were promoting was a more variable leveling path. They even went so far as to split a zone to add another one during Alpha. However, they still suffer from the fact that only one level has a "choice". 86 allows you to choose Krasarang Wilds or Valley of Four Winds, but after that suffers from the same problem Cataclysm had, which is forcing you to pretty much route through the same zones, Kun-Li, then Townlong, then Dread Wastes. The reason for this? They decided to remove Vale of Eternal Blossoms as a leveling zone and instead made it a daily quest zone. Sadly, this removed a zone option. However, don't take this as a horrible downside, because Blizzard did stick to their promise of making more hubs in each zone. This means it's not entirely linear, and you can pick and choose questlines a little bit better. Still not as good as it could have been.

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I thought making it linear was genius in the sense that every questline starts and ends in the same zone creating a very cohesive feeling unlike previous xpacs. Knowing it was a progressing storyline that just continues to ramp up made me excited for the next area every single time.

ScytheRexx said:

Reputations
This is probably my biggest problem with the expansion, and I am still scratching my head about it. All the JP and VP gear is locked behind reputations. At first I figured this wouldn't be too much of an issue, however in order to get to the main gear reputations, you have to get Exalted with the Golden Lotus, and only then do the other two main ones unlock. Really, starting out, the only reputation you can start leveling quickly is the Klaxxi, and that is only because it's one of the few factions that actually gives you dailies starting at 89, while also giving you reputations for general quests (lots of quests in other zones don't give any reputation at all). This, combined with the fact they removed the reputation tabard, means you likely won't unlock the JP/VP gear for a few weeks. Considering the JP gear is only 450, while the heroic drop gear is 463, means no one going through the game normally would in the end need that JP gear. This will probably lessen a bit when the VP gear downgrades to JP during 5.1, but I still find it a bit odd to do.

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Reputations are the new time sink. It's a funnel for people to consume content less quickly and I think it's a good way to do it as the dailies will actually eventually create a story as you progress, giving REAL meaning to a Rep instead of (yay I got an item for Exalted!)

ScytheRexx said:

Alts
Really, my issues above in the end root to this problem, and that is MoP feels very "alt unfriendly". The long leveling can make it difficult to stay focused on the character, adding on the fact that this expansion decided not to go through with adding any new heirlooms for the 85-90 range (they added some pants, but those are only for 1-85). The fact all the gear is behind reputations means you can't just play a little bit and slowly JP yourself a decent set, and depending on how many characters you have, means you will have to do a lot of dailies. This is not going into the fact Spirits of Harmony are BoP, making it difficult to viably level up alt professions.

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Honestly, I'm so very glad for this. For the first time in my entire WoW playtime I feel like there's a reason to stick to my main. It has a purpose I can work toward other than just cosmetic. I was so overwhelmed at 90 with everything I have to do that I don't feel the slightest urge to play an alt. While you are correct that MoP does feel -alt unfriendly- for you it's a pain, for me it's a boon.

Gilgamesh said:

I actually found the leveling to be too fast, I was level 90 before I was even done with the Dread Wastes, leaving half of it and all of Vale of Eternal Blossoms to do post 90. I think it's also obvious that if you weren't a DPS class, you WERE going to be basically -gumming- down your quest mobs and that would very much make it feel like it was taking forever. Preventing flying pre-90 was genius, while it did make the leveling seem longer, it allowed for Panderia's majesty to be truly appreciated. However, I think that restriction SHOULD be removed account wide once you have your first level 90. In the end, I found leveling to be TOO fast for the content.

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I did enjoy the fact I couldn't fly, mostly because it made me enjoy the landscape a lot more and will make getting it back all the sweeter. However, I don't think you should have to finish a whole zone before you level, no zone should honestly require that, considering how many quests can be located in them. They should balance it around finishing two or three "chains" and the rest you can either do on an alt, or go back and do later. That, in my opinion, was always the best method. I didn't find the leveling too fast at all. This is actually taking me longer to level then Cataclysm, which I already felt was rather slow compared to WOTLK (which I reached 80 in like four days).

I thought making it linear was genius in the sense that every questline starts and ends in the same zone creating a very cohesive feeling unlike previous xpacs. Knowing it was a progressing storyline that just continues to ramp up made me excited for the next area every single time.

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Cataclysm already had a similar style to this, which many thought was a mistake. Having linear stories are good, but people also like hubs that they can do something "differently" on, so that when they play another character they don't feel that sense of "I did this" burnout. That is why you should never require all quests to be done to level to max.

Reputations are the new time sink. It's a funnel for people to consume content less quickly and I think it's a good way to do it as the dailies will actually eventually create a story as you progress, giving REAL meaning to a Rep instead of (yay I got an item for Exalted!)

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That is all well and good when you do it on one character, like I said, but makes it more annoying the more characters you work with.

Honestly, I'm so very glad for this. For the first time in my entire WoW playtime I feel like there's a reason to stick to my main. It has a purpose I can work toward other than just cosmetic. I was so overwhelmed at 90 with everything I have to do that I don't feel the slightest urge to play an alt. While you are correct that MoP does feel -alt unfriendly- for you it's a pain, for me it's a boon.

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We can agree to disagree. I can't stick to one class because I have a need to keep my play "fresh" with different classes. Without that I may get burned out quickly. I know MoP has a lot of end game stuff to do, and maybe my concern will be for nothing, but I worry with how "alt unfriendly" it is I will burn out, and have another BC in which I spent a lot of the time not even playing.

I just want something closer to WOTLK, in which you felt like alts were promoted. Heirlooms took you up to cap, reputations were simply to gain through championing, heroics were not difficult, you could get a full set through token. They fixed the heroic issue, but I feel they took a few steps back in other areas and have slowly been demoting alt promotion. It's not a huge problem, but again, as an altoholic it may turn into an issue for me down the line when I get sick of my paladin and don't want to force another character through leveling for a week. We will have to see.

Not the best example, but I have a 90 and an 89 already, leveling didn't really feel that slow to me.I am also crazy.

ScytheRexx - Nearly 90% of your counter points were because of Alts, which I addressed soley in the Alts section of your previous post.

Dei said:

Not the best example, but I have a 90 and an 89 already, leveling didn't really feel that slow to me.I am also crazy.

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I just don't know how you do it. I play everyday when I get home, around five or six hours, and barely dent a level. This weekend I played almost the entire day each day, probably putting in 10-12 hours each day, and I still am 25% away from 90. Just to give you an idea, I played four hours last night before I went to sleep and got around 40% through 89. Four hours is a lot of time for me to only get 10% per hour.

Either I suck at playing a Retribution Paladin, or I am spending way to much time reading quest text I guess.

Gilgamesh said:

ScytheRexx - Nearly 90% of your counter points were because of Alts, which I addressed soley in the Alts section of your previous post.

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I know, but I felt I wanted to be more clear.

ScytheRexx said:

I know, but I felt I wanted to be more clear.

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Your point was clear: Someone who wants to play alts, it's a bit of a burden for the way Mists is set-up.
My counter-point was that someone who really wants to focus on a main character, it's amazing.

Gilgamesh said:

Your point was clear: Someone who wants to play alts, it's a bit of a burden for the way Mists is set-up. My counter-point was that someone who really wants to focus on a main character, it's amazing.

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Which I said in my own original post, we are not really arguing that.

Weird things that irritate me:
I think they made tradeskills *too* easy to cap out in MoP. I already have every production profession capped, except for leatherworking because that character is on the opposite faction from the rest, but seriously, when I can cap blacksmithing before hitting level 90, and be able to mail mats around to cap out engie, JC, enchanting, and alchemy before the xpac has been out a week... that is so wrong to me. I managed to cap out tailoring without having to even pass mats around to the tailor because cloth drops are as ridic as node spawns.[DOUBLEPOST=1349106502][/DOUBLEPOST]

ScytheRexx said:

I just don't know how you do it. I play everyday when I get home, around five or six hours, and barely dent a level. This weekend I played almost the entire day each day, probably putting in 10-12 hours each day, and I still am 25% away from 90. Just to give you an idea, I played four hours last night before I went to sleep and got around 40% through 89. Four hours is a lot of time for me to only get 10% per hour.

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Honestly I leveled faster once I swapped off my frost spec and over to blood, because i then proceeded to do whole quests in one pull. This was really only feasible once I hit Kun'lai Summit and mobs started being packed closer together.

And tank spec is OP as heck in Dread Wastes once you can get the Iron mantid zone buff.

ScytheRexx said:

Which I said in my own original post, we are not really arguing that.

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I know, but I felt I wanted to be more clear

Dei said:

And tank spec is OP as heck in Dread Wastes once you can get the Iron mantid zone buff.

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I love those zone buffs. Last night I even bugged (CWIDT) the buffs and was able to get two at once. I had Angel of Death and due to a quest causing an overlap, I also had the one that leg me mind control any creature as a pet. That helped a lot, but still took awhile.

P.S. Interesting to hear about the professions. I have not really been leveling my professions yet, because I like to simply collect the materials first and throw them all in the guild bank. I didn't even really plan to use them yet. Maybe I should.

One of the things I did like was that all the things you can make to start are lvl 85, so good for gearing up to start out. Though they generally are random enchant gear that can randomly proc to blue ilvl 415 lvl 85 gear.[DOUBLEPOST=1349107452][/DOUBLEPOST]The biggest thing that irritates me leveling my disc priest is that none of the GD blue quest rewards have spirit. Blah blah blah I can reforge, but it won't be as nice as having straight spirit to start.

Maybe that is what I need to do for my next leveling alt. I relied pretty much a lot on the gear I had and the gear from quests. Starting out with 415 gear in most slots would likely make it a lot faster. Adding on the fact the second time around I likely won't be reading quests and will have a decent rested bonus setup.

Actually the biggest problem I have right now is too much gear in my bags. Transmog has created a monster in me, in that I don't want to get rid of items that may be useful for transmog. As such, every set I have gotten through leveling so far has been kept, filling up my entire bank and bags. I really need to get over it and start culling the items I likely will never use in transmog sets.[DOUBLEPOST=1349108002][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, also some light information for those that have really crappy bags. There is a quest in Kun-Li that gives a free 24 slot bag. It's a pretty simple questline involving the Grummle and starts out of One Keg. I know buying bags can get expensive, so getting another free 24 slot does not hurt any.

As far as mobs and their kill-ability, I'm able to rip through mobs with my Enhancement Shaman.

My priest has full bank, nearly full void storage... I don't even want to talk about my transmog hoarding, only complicated by having been a raider and having every single old set ever. -_-

One of these days, I have to find out what the hell void storage actually does.

You guys need to be on an episode of nerd hoarders.

SR isn't going to be happy until the inventory system simply becomes a checklist of each individual piece of equipment that he can just check at any time in any arrangement for purely aesthetic use.

Piotyr said:

SR isn't going to be happy until the inventory system simply becomes a checklist of each individual piece of equipment that he can just check at any time in any arrangement for purely aesthetic use.

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Hell yes. I wanted void storage to be like a gear barbershop. You collect items, disenchant them into some storage thing, and then when you transmog you just cycle through the learned looks until you get the one you want. Sadly that didn't happen, so instead I have a bank and bags full of stuff. I just know I am going to delete some chest and regret it later when I find something that it would work with.

Random bit of info, supposedly Lorewalkers is the easiest reputation to raise in the game. You simply get the achievements for the lore scrolls and it gives you reputation up to Exalted. Something you can do in an hour at most once you can fly. I already see a lot of people riding around on the cloud disk.

Frank said:

You guys need to be on an episode of nerd hoarders.

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I have an embarrassing number of storage alts...not just here in Diablo 3 too.[DOUBLEPOST=1349117933][/DOUBLEPOST]

Dei said:

Weird things that irritate me:
I think they made tradeskills *too* easy to cap out in MoP. I already have every production profession capped, except for leatherworking because that character is on the opposite faction from the rest, but seriously, when I can cap blacksmithing before hitting level 90, and be able to mail mats around to cap out engie, JC, enchanting, and alchemy before the xpac has been out a week... that is so wrong to me. I managed to cap out tailoring without having to even pass mats around to the tailor because cloth drops are as ridic as node spawns.[DOUBLEPOST=1349106502][/DOUBLEPOST]
.

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It was almost too easy - I agree. Not that skinning is ever all that tough, but I expected enchanting to be harder. Getting it to 500 was rough...as soon as I passed that I got to 600 pretty quick and only bought minimal dust on the AH. And that was just because I was impatient. I could have easily disenchanted quest drops over the next few days for it.

ScytheRexx said:

Hell yes. I wanted void storage to be like a gear barbershop. You collect items, disenchant them into some storage thing, and then when you transmog you just cycle through the learned looks until you get the one you want. Sadly that didn't happen, so instead I have a bank and bags full of stuff. I just know I am going to delete some chest and regret it later when I find something that it would work with.

Random bit of info, supposedly Lorewalkers is the easiest reputation to raise in the game. You simply get the achievements for the lore scrolls and it gives you reputation up to Exalted. Something you can do in an hour at most once you can fly. I already see a lot of people riding around on the cloud disk.

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Yeah, if you have a coordinate mod, this guide tells you where all the spots are and you can get it done in about an hour, tops.

ScytheRexx said:

Leveling
While the leveling feels more consistent then Cataclysm, it still feels like it takes a long time to level. Maybe once I play one of my better DPS classes the leveling will speed up, but even compared to Cataclysm is just feels awfully slow (this might also be a side effect of not having a flying mount). Personally I think they should reduce the requirements by another 20% and decrease monster health by 25%, so that it does not feel like I am beating down a monster for ages. Will it happen? Not likely, but I feel it would help. At least they didn't go through with the even more steep experience requirements from Beta. This gets into another issue.

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I am only at 88 with my warlock, but I am finding it really slow as well. The quests each reward 141k experience and my bar hardly seems to move. Even with a rested bonus its slow.

I'm not finding the monsters hard to kill though. When I'm somewhere not too packed I kill them in packs to speed my experience up. By the time my pet has taunted and I've put my agony etc on the last monster, the first one is dead.

I do have a rant though Mr. Horde guy last night....let me skin my own kills thank you very much.

Squidleybits said:

I do have a rant though Mr. Horde guy last night....let me skin my own kills thank you very much.

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Just don't loot them right away.

Finding levelling a toon right from Level 1 is inexorably slow and unfulfilling. At least previously you would hit level 11 and start putting skill points into anything you want. To have to wait every 5 levels to choose one skill is really quite painful. There's really no sense of accomplishment to dinging any more. Sad

Dei said:

Just don't loot them right away.

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That's what I do. Tol Barad was the place to get savage leather because people did dailies and there were just corpses everywhere, so I wold kill a bunch myself and leave them glittering so I could quick get them skinned when everything was clear.[DOUBLEPOST=1349134958][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, rant-wise, I'm getting sick of other monk heal specced folks coming into my instances as DPS and taking my healer loot

Adam said:

Finding levelling a toon right from Level 1 is inexorably slow and unfulfilling. At least previously you would hit level 11 and start putting skill points into anything you want. To have to wait every 5 levels to choose one skill is really quite painful. There's really no sense of accomplishment to dinging any more. Sad

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I noticed this too. Plus as a Monk your abilities come at pretty large intervals until 50 or so.

Adam said:

Finding levelling a toon right from Level 1 is inexorably slow and unfulfilling. At least previously you would hit level 11 and start putting skill points into anything you want. To have to wait every 5 levels to choose one skill is really quite painful. There's really no sense of accomplishment to dinging any more. Sad

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It's meant to give you the freedom to just level. No need to go back and train every level. Just keep going.

I know what you mean though. It feels like you're just pushing to the end.

My monk is only level 25ish, but I haven't felt any long gaps between skills. Well, except from 1 to 10, that felt really starved for buttons to mash.

It feels like every other level or so I've been getting new abilities. Fire breath, touch of death, some really neato skills to use. It doesn't feel as exciting as it used to, though. Opening up your spellbook and trying to see what levels you'll be getting new skills isn't as interactive as a talent tree that you open up every ding to get instant feedback on how you're improving.

As a side note, low level monk tanking is ridiculous. I've been tanking level 20 instances and topping dps by nearly double, without heirlooms.

Ravenpoe said:

My monk is only level 25ish, but I haven't felt any long gaps between skills. Well, except from 1 to 10, that felt really starved for buttons to mash.

It feels like every other level or so I've been getting new abilities. Fire breath, touch of death, some really neato skills to use. It doesn't feel as exciting as it used to, though. Opening up your spellbook and trying to see what levels you'll be getting new skills isn't as interactive as a talent tree that you open up every ding to get instant feedback on how you're improving.

As a side note, low level monk tanking is ridiculous. I've been tanking level 20 instances and topping dps by nearly double, without heirlooms.

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All tanks should top the dps meters till Cata and higher honestly.

Should have seen that coming. Blizzard already caved in on the whole "Reputation required for Justice Gear" design and hotfixed out the requirements on all factions. So far it seems ONLY for the Justice Gear, you will still be required to gain reputation for Valor gear.

This combined with the Pandaren Artifacts I learned about last night, makes me think the game is not as "alt unfriendly" as I thought. Leveling will still be a bit of a pain just because it will take a solid week per character and we don't have heirlooms, but at least now I know I can pretty quickly gear out my characters when they do hit 90.

For those that don't know what I mean by Pandaren Artifacts, they added random items you can find in different zones. These items have a chance to spawn and can be looted, and are ACCOUNT BOUND. For example, there is a 450 sword called "Blade of the Prime" that can be found sticking out of a wall in a cave in the Dread Wastes. It does not spawn all the time, obviously, but if you check back now and then you may get to loot it, giving you basically a free weapon. They have artifacts like this of all types, from a staff to a crossbow, all of them account-based and can be traded to any player you have to use at 90.

The Justice Point thing was dumb, since JP gear is lower ilvl than what drops in heroics, and you could only get it after you grinded out rep and by then you'd probably have better. I'm glad they reneged on that.

Dei said:

The Justice Point thing was dumb, since JP gear is lower ilvl than what drops in heroics, and you could only get it after you grinded out rep and by then you'd probably have better. I'm glad they reneged on that.

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Same, I said before the whole design made me scratch my head. It didn't make any sense to me to put lower ilevel JP gear behind a barrier that meant people would mostly out gear it before they were even able to purchase it. It was a mistake it seems they realized quickly.

ScytheRexx said:

Same, I said before the whole design made me scratch my head. It didn't make any sense to me to put lower ilevel JP gear behind a barrier that meant people would mostly out gear it before they were even able to purchase it. It was a mistake it seems they realized quickly.

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I was already going to need to gear my priest in PvP gear in order to do heroics, which is dumb. I did not have this problem with my tank because I could craft her ilvl 450 tank gear.

I of course, had the option of running scenarios trying to get a random stat item instead of just gold, and then hoping the random stat item had the right stats, but I'm not even going to go there.

They could always put higher ilvl JP gear behind the reputations if they wanted to encourage players to do the grind. The problem wasn't so much the rep grind, but more so that the JP gear seemed to be out of order in the acquire process.

Ravenpoe said:

My monk is only level 25ish, but I haven't felt any long gaps between skills. Well, except from 1 to 10, that felt really starved for buttons to mash.

It feels like every other level or so I've been getting new abilities. Fire breath, touch of death, some really neato skills to use. It doesn't feel as exciting as it used to, though. Opening up your spellbook and trying to see what levels you'll be getting new skills isn't as interactive as a talent tree that you open up every ding to get instant feedback on how you're improving.

As a side note, low level monk tanking is ridiculous. I've been tanking level 20 instances and topping dps by nearly double, without heirlooms.

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It's more around 30-50 I suppose, mainly because (at least as the Windwalker) you're stuck with Jab, Blackout Kick and Tiger Palm as your only real useable abilities for DPS (Fists of Fury as well, but it's difficult to use while leveling as it's such a long channel). Your main DPS move, Rising Sun Kick, is at 56 and you can really feel how much better your damage and killing speed is once you get it. Brewmaster really only needs Keg Smash and Breath of Fire to stomp a group, Spinning Crane Kick makes it even easier.

So I logged into the starter account thingy and meddled around with a new paladin... and holy crap the skills are... um... unrecognizable to me now. Are there no longer skill trees? I got up to like level 7 or something but I didn't get to pick any skills... every once in a while a new skill would just magically appear on my hotbar. Do they still have specializations like Holy, Protection and Retribution? When the hell do I get my holy light healing spell?

Sorry for the massively ignorant questions... but the game has changed just a wee bit since I last played. Also, Wyrmrest Accord takes me forever to log into lol.

Azurephoenix said:

So I logged into the starter account thingy and meddled around with a new paladin... and holy crap the skills are... um... unrecognizable to me now. Are there no longer skill trees? I got up to like level 7 or something but I didn't get to pick any skills... every once in a while a new skill would just magically appear on my hotbar. Do they still have specializations like Holy, Protection and Retribution? When the hell do I get my holy light healing spell?

Sorry for the massively ignorant questions... but the game has changed just a wee bit since I last played. Also, Wyrmrest Accord takes me forever to log into lol.

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- There are no longer skill trees, but every 15 levels you will get to choose one of three talents.
- Skills are automatically given to you when you level.
- When you hit level 10, you will be able to pick a specialization. The specialization gives you 4-5 unique abilities, and the skills you earn from that point on will be specific to that spec.
- Holy Light is now a Holy-only ability you get at level 34. Fret not, however, a healing spell (Word of Glory) is available at level 9, and Flash of Light is a level 14 spell.

Sticking it out with my panda priest to 20. If things don't improve, I'm done; if things do improve, I'd consider a 6 month return to WoW.

Azurephoenix said:

So I logged into the starter account thingy and meddled around with a new paladin... and holy crap the skills are... um... unrecognizable to me now. Are there no longer skill trees? I got up to like level 7 or something but I didn't get to pick any skills... every once in a while a new skill would just magically appear on my hotbar. Do they still have specializations like Holy, Protection and Retribution? When the hell do I get my holy light healing spell?

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Already answered but I will give a bit more detail.

Specializations are still gained starting at LvL10. Once you reach LvL10, rather then having a talent tree like the old system in which you add points, you instead get to pick which specialization you prefer. Once you choose a spec, it will give you any starter skills required for that spec, and then later on will give more skills for that spec as you level. You can still duel-spec once you reach LvL30, or change specializations by visiting a trainer and paying a fee. You no longer have to visit a trainer for skills, instead once you reach the proper level to learn the ability, it's automatically added to your spellbook. They want you spending more time questing then heading back to towns to learn skills.

One change you will notice is that while in one spec, certain former baseline abilities are no longer around. They did this for two reasons. 1) They wanted to trim up the bars, which already were getting bloated with more skills then we could utilize, and 2) Many of the skills only really worked for one specialization anyways. Examples are the majority of healing spells now only appear in a healing spec, while you get one or two of the more utility spells to keep in other specs. Skills that require a shield for damage are only going to appear in a Tanking spec, etc...

The new talent system is basically a choice between three abilities every 15 levels. These abilities are designed to be a real choice rather then simple passives like +5 critical or +3 haste with a few random utility talents few would take over said passives. All those former passives were "baked" into the spec, meaning you pretty much get them automatically when you reach the proper level, no points required to be viable.

Some love the new talents and some hate them. I love them because they actually are choices that I can change based on how I want to play, while others hate them because the "utility" nature of them means you can, for the most part, take barely any of them and do just fine. I don't really agree, but hey, that's why they are opinions.

Example of the first talent row you will get at 15 is "Speed of Light", "Long Arm of the Law", and "Pursuit of Justice". Speed of Light is a basically a Paladin Sprint, allowing you to run at high speed every 45 seconds. Long Arm of the Law increases your speed for a few seconds whenever you cast Judgement on a target, making it more like a Paladin Charge to close gaps on an enemy. Pursuit of Justice is a passive 15% speed increase that gains another 5% per Holy Power (up to the max of three), meaning it's a more consistent speed increase that can be "ramped up" from combat. All are useful, but you can only have one of them, so you have to choose based on what you feel will be better for your playstyle.

Can I still have at least 2 different builds to switch between at lvl 90?

sixpackshaker said:

Can I still have at least 2 different builds to switch between at lvl 90?

Click to expand...

Yep and you can change specific Talents on the fly (out of combat)

sixpackshaker said:

Can I still have at least 2 different builds to switch between at lvl 90?

Click to expand...

Yes, you can still dual spec.

Piotyr and ScytheRexx thanks for your responses. I'll level this guy up to 20 and fart around with him for a while before making a final decision on coming back to Azeroth... although that's really going to depend on whether my wife enjoys the game or not .[DOUBLEPOST=1349205669][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, also... what's this transmogrify thingy all about? Can I take old gear that I like the look of (like the Paladin tier 2 judgement set) and imbue it with the stats of much better gear that may look like crap?

Azurephoenix said:

Piotyr and ScytheRexx thanks for your responses. I'll level this guy up to 20 and fart around with him for a while before making a final decision on coming back to Azeroth... although that's really going to depend on whether my wife enjoys the game or not .[DOUBLEPOST=1349205669][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, also... what's this transmogrify thingy all about? Can I take old gear that I like the look of (like the Paladin tier 2 judgement set) and imbue it with the stats of much better gear that may look like crap?

Click to expand...

Close! You can take good gear and imbue it to look like any other gear that you own.

Man, I need to go back and start farming Molten Core, T1 was the coolest Dwarf Hunter armor model.

There's a reason that I run around in my fishing clothes....

So they are buffing JP items up to ilvl 358... still not as good as the heroic drops... so JP are still basically throw away points until you do enough heroics.

sixpackshaker said:

Man, I need to go back and start farming Molten Core, T1 was the coolest Dwarf Hunter armor model.

There's a reason that I run around in my fishing clothes....

Click to expand...

I still think Vanilla had the best armor and weapon models. They weren't over the top cartoonish in their size or design like they tend to be now.

Shakey said:

I still think Vanilla had the best armor and weapon models. They weren't over the top cartoonish in their size or design like they tend to be now.

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Shaman Tier 2.5


Hunter Tier 2


Paladin Tier 2.5


Warlock Tier 2.5


Paladin Tier 2.5


Mage Tier 3


Paladin Tier 3

Uhhh....?

Eh, guess I meant more tier 1 and molten core stuff. I really like the dark iron items.

Tier 1 was Molten Core. I think you mean the 1st Dungeon set, which in all honesty, Tier 1-2 weren't that bad but there were alot of bad ones as well. I think my favorite sets were WOTLK.

Ahh molten core... tier 1 paladin banana armor!

Also, fuck that 40 man raid bullshit. Can you solo MC now with a level 90 character?

Azurephoenix said:

Ahh molten core... tier 1 paladin banana armor!

Also, fuck that 40 man raid bullshit. Can you solo MC now with a level 90 character?

Click to expand...

You could solo it at 80.

Well that gives a pretty good showing of the power difference between a level 80 and a level 60 character. The level 80 guy is about 40 times stronger

(although I'm also assuming they've probably rebalanced Molten Core and you no longer need 40 people to do it at the appropriate level).

Well here's one. At lvl 60 a tank starting out in Molten Core would have about 4k HP. My DK, who isn't geared enough to do the lvl 90 dungeon finder yet, has nearly half a million HP.

The worst tier sets mostly came out of Burning Crusade and it's overabundance of pink crystals on fucking everything.

Frank said:

The worst tier sets mostly came out of Burning Crusade and it's overabundance of pink crystals on fucking everything.

Click to expand...

I was a Protadin for a raiding guild. Pink armor, big shiny shield from Gruul, and that big blue longsword with a shitload of spellpower on it. I looked like a Barbie doll.

Ravenpoe said:

As a side note, low level monk tanking is ridiculous. I've been tanking level 20 instances and topping dps by nearly double, without heirlooms.

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I'm running instances with my druid with heirlooms. I'm destroying the dps monks, but the monk tanks are killing me every time.

Shakey said:

I'm running instances with my druid with heirlooms. I'm destroying the dps monks, but the monk tanks are killing me every time.

Click to expand...

Tanks are going to win DPS all the way past Cataclysm, it's normal.

Oh, I know. I was just sayin.

Gilgamesh said:

Tanks are going to win DPS all the way past Cataclysm, it's normal.

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Really? That seems so weird to me, but then I haven't really tanked since my pally in Burning Crusade.

Ravenpoe said:

Really? That seems so weird to me, but then I haven't really tanked since my pally in Burning Crusade.

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They get vengence buff that add to their damage based on how much they are getting hit. That and since they are tanking they generally AoE as well. They stop winning DPS in raids/single target fights.

The best my toon ever looked...

and screw WoW for not increasing the bank vault size yet. I had to throw away the whole set when I started WotLK.

So, my wife rolled up a hunter last night and was gleefully shooting things with reckless abandon and wildly running through entire murloc villages aggroing everything in sight. She enjoyed it and we are going to keep playing for a bit and see what happens. I have a few questions for you veterans though.

First off. If we want to upgrade to the base game what does that include now? From what I read that covers vanilla, burning crusade and wrath of the lich king... so we could play up to level 80? Also, I have an old hard copy of WoW that has never had it's serial number registered (to my knowledge). If I add this to my battlenet account will it include those two expansions up to WOTLK?

Secondly, I know jack shit about hunters. Currently I have her just spamming the hell out of arcane shot and then the aimed shot thingy that restores focus when she runs out. What spec is the easiest for a newbie to play as? She has a tendency to aggro craploads of enemies at once and then I have to try and deal with the mess with my paladin.

Lastly, since we can't form a group with the starter version... can we stil effectively adventure together doing quests or are we gonig to suffer from one person completing quests and the other one gets screwed because we aren't in a group.

Thanks for your patience. This game is so different now. I was so sad when I found the dead horse Old Blanchy in Westfall lol.

common wisdom is, beast mastery talents for leveling. There are several websites about how to play a hunter, one that comes to mind is Warcraft Hunter's Union.

I sat out the second half of Cataclysm, after I got sick last year I did not feel like playing. So I have to learn how to play all over again.

Azurephoenix said:

First off. If we want to upgrade to the base game what does that include now? From what I read that covers vanilla, burning crusade and wrath of the lich king... so we could play up to level 80? Also, I have an old hard copy of WoW that has never had it's serial number registered (to my knowledge). If I add this to my battlenet account will it include those two expansions up to WOTLK?

Click to expand...

All accounts, regardless of when you purchased it, have been upgraded to wotlk level. You could activate your old account right now and level to 80, because wotlk is now part of the base game.

Amusing, but horridly untrue.

You disagree?

Jay said:

You disagree?

View attachment 8355

Click to expand...

Oh shit

Missed

My hunter used to be Marksman when I raided. When I went crazy pvp to get her gun, I went Beastmaster and loved it. She's Beastmaster again now and even though its different, its awesome!

Can she specialize her pets yet?

I love the look of the Hunter Tier 2. It looks a bit weird on that Troll though. Here's a question...my hunter is still wearing hers, but when upgrades come, can I transmorg it over and over?

I am digging the hell out of the look I have put together so far (and all of it is quest/rep gear)
Spoilered for size:

http://www.wowhead.com/item=89795/lorewalkers-tabard
Lorewalkers Tabard for Exalted.

I'm such a pet battle geek. I should be working on 90...shame

I've played for a week and have not dinged 86 yet, but I have 10 blue pets, and 10 lvl 10 pets...

That's fantastic! I'm really obsessive about getting the rare version of any wild pets I battle and like. I need to find a good mechanical pet.

They need to make shiny pets.

Ravenpoe said:

They need to make shiny pets.

Click to expand...

Pet Grooming Kit

Close enough...

I love it!

Got my 10 rares

Gilgamesh said:

I am digging the hell out of the look I have put together so far (and all of it is quest/rep gear)

Click to expand...

I just got my first JP item, the plate dps chest, and I loved the design so much I actually pulls some stuff out of void storage to form a new look. I have grown rather fond of what I dub the "Holy Crimson Jewelist".

That looks really good!

What is the Coren Direbrew Dungeon?

Brewfest event.

It's fun! The stopwatch dropped...I didn't win...but I will keep going back until I do!

Are the +stamina ones considered tank only?

Squidleybits said:

Are the +stamina ones considered tank only?

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If the tank does not have them, I would recommend letting them have it, because they work so much better for tanks. However, if the tank already had the one that dropped, then everyone else should be able to roll on them. That's how it normally goes.

So far I got the tanking trinket and healer trinket, but hope to get the DPS trinket and the two brew steins before the event ends.

Also, Kodo dropped for me again on my first run, too bad I already had it and couldn't trade it, lol.

Now for some new information, Blizzard just posted this on the forums, once again listening to the fans about the difficulty of reputation grinds on alts.

We're working on a change for a future patch that will make it easier to gain reputation with a specific faction on every alt on your Battle.net account, after you reach a certain reputation with that faction on another character.

Stay tuned for more information on this, likely coming before the end of the week.

Click to expand...

And account cancelled. Wish I could get my MoP money back at this point.

Will not be back.

Frank said:

And account cancelled. Wish I could get my MoP money back at this point.

Will not be back.

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that man. CRZ just too much?

I meant the Brew Stein trinkets not the tank specific one sorry.

I keep getting the same mace! It's cool but not a mount

Squidleybits said:

I meant the Brew Stein trinkets not the tank specific one sorry.

Click to expand...

I know, that is what I was talking about. The stamina on the steins is better for tanks, so the tank should get them default, but if he already has them, others can roll for either offspec or fun. No one outside of tanking would want the tanking trinket.

ScytheRexx said:

Sorry to hear that man. CRZ just too much?

Click to expand...

It basically made the part of the game I enjoyed most, relaxingly leveling alts, not at all fun.

ScytheRexx said:

Now for some new information, Blizzard just posted this on the forums, once again listening to the fans about the difficulty of reputation grinds on alts.

Click to expand...

I'm going to assume the rep they are talking about is Golden Lotus, which would be a good start. If it's not, then I'm going to go use my Ironpaw tokens to buy a flippable table.

Dei said:

I'm going to assume the rep they are talking about is Golden Lotus, which would be a good start. If it's not, then I'm going to go use my Ironpaw tokens to buy a flippable table.

Click to expand...

They didn't specify a certain rep, and while the mention of "a specific reputation" could mean this will only work on a single one, it is my hope whatever new system will apply to all reputations.

Personally, I want for them to go through with an old idea I had, in which alts are always at the next level down from the one you have on the highest level reputation character. Exalted with Golden Lotus? All your alts are now Revered. It means you still had to grind on that character to get the most out of it, but the trip itself is a lot faster because you only have to grind through the last level back. Another idea they might have is a buff similar to the Valor buff, in which one you get Exalted with a reputation all gains on that reputation will increase on alts by a percentage.[DOUBLEPOST=1349365626][/DOUBLEPOST]

Frank said:

It basically made the part of the game I enjoyed most, relaxingly leveling alts, not at all fun.

Click to expand...

Well, I will keep the board informed if they ever allow a way to opt out of the process.

Oh really Gil, are you gonna post another, "It doesn't affect me so it's fine" post about CRZ?

Frank said:

Oh really Gil, are you gonna post another, "It doesn't affect me so it's fine" post about CRZ?

Click to expand...

No, I'm going to say that I disagree with you leaving WoW over something that's not even the purpose of Mists. You say -I wish I got my money back on Mists- the problem is, Mists isn't about low levels or alts (that's what Cataclysm was for), it's about max level and having plenty of things to do with your main.

Yeah, I didn't even get to Mists, because the changes to low level shit was so terrible. And don't fucking say it isn't about low levels. They made insane sweeping changes to how all lower level zones work and added a new race and class. Both of which happen to start at level 1, not 85.

ScytheRexx said:

They didn't specify a certain rep, and while the mention of "a specific reputation" could mean this will only work on a single one, it is my hope whatever new system will apply to all reputations.

Personally, I want for them to go through with an old idea I had, in which alts are always at the next level down from the one you have on the highest level reputation character. Exalted with Golden Lotus? All your alts are now Revered. It means you still had to grind on that character to get the most out of it, but the trip itself is a lot faster because you only have to grind through the last level back. Another idea they might have is a buff similar to the Valor buff, in which one you get Exalted with a reputation all gains on that reputation will increase on alts by a percentage..

Click to expand...

Eh, I doubt they are going to do that. But you need revered Golden Lotus to unlock a pretty big chunk of dailies, which is the one they need to fix if they are only going to fix one.

Heh, there's been 1100 pages of anti-CRZ posts on the WoW forums and just about as many on the European forums. I don't think it's popular.

Exactly 0 responses from Blizzard.

I was sure to exactly spell out that it was the problems with CRZ that I was cancelling when I did so.

I saw something weird either this morning or last night...there were cross realm people the general chat in Pandaria.

Squidleybits said:

I saw something weird either this morning or last night...there were cross realm people the general chat in Pandaria.

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You can still cross-realm group with friends from RealID and BattleTag. It wasn't CRZ.

ScytheRexx

Earning reputation with various factions has long been an important part to World of Warcraft and as time has gone on, we've made tweaks and changes to the system to make it more interesting and to give players access to unique items. For example, we recently hotfixed the game to apply a change to some reputation items which you can read about in our recently updated blog that allows players to purchase certain items much sooner. And we're not done!

Coming in a future patch, earning reputation is going to become much more fluid. Basically, once one of your characters has reached at least Revered reputation with a faction, all other characters on the same Battle.net account will then earn reputation with the same faction at twice the rate. Going one step further, and as an added bonus, your main character who reached Revered will also begin to earn double the reputation as he or she climbs to Exalted.

Here's a simplified break down:

• Any single character earns Revered reputation with a faction
• All other characters on the Battle.net account begin to earn double reputation for that one same faction
• The Revered character earns double reputation as he or she works toward Exalted
• ???
• Profit

We’ll keep you posted as this change is closer to being implemented. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your feedback!

Click to expand...

Gilgamesh said:

You can still cross-realm group with friends from RealID and BattleTag. It wasn't CRZ.

Click to expand...

Weird there were tons of them.

Dei said:

ScytheRexx

Click to expand...

I like it. That means I will be getting nearly 1k reputation for each of my Cloud Serpent dailies (plus a good 3oo for the First Aid bonus daily), a good 3000k+ a day when I want to deck those guys out with serpents.

A bit odd about the whole Exalted thing though. By doubling the reputation towards Exalted, by just reaching Revered, they have effectively made it another level of Revered (since each rep level is double requirements of the last). Will take the same amount of time to get through both.

P.S Actually someone on the boards pretty much figured out why that is going to be happening. Blizzard does not have a way for the system to distinguish character when it applies the double reputation, and thus it has to apply it across the board to all characters. Thus when your character hits Revered and allows the other characters double reputation for that faction, it has to also apply to the main.

Now if only it wasn't taking me so long to get Golden Lotus rep. -_-

Frank said:

And account cancelled. Wish I could get my MoP money back at this point.

Will not be back.

Click to expand...

Open a ticket and explain why. You might get a refund. Couldn't hurt either way.

So I've gotten 5/20 Rare Treasures so far for Finder's Keepers achievement. Problem is, 2 of the 5 items weren't credited into my inventory because of bugs.
I submitted a ticket to a GM for getting those items replaced and my wait is 4days 13hrs.
Fan-freaking-tastic.

Quests that can be completed once a day for faction or other rewards.

Daily quests, quests that can be completed once per day for gold and reputation, mostly.

The vast majority of these are at max level, especially in Mists of Pandaria, where there's an entire zone dedicated to daily quest completion.

The Darkmoon Fair will be available soon and is for everyone

Azurephoenix said:

What the hell are these "dailies" I keep hearing everyone here referring to?

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I thought you played back in BC? Daily quests were added back then in Patch 2.1, for factions like the Netherwing, Shat'ari Skyguard, and Ogri'la. It's been a staple of the game ever since.

Azurephoenix said:

Heh, nope... I stopped playing before Burning Crusade was released. I'm a pure vanilla noob.

Click to expand...

That's when I had last played as well. I still find it crazy that three of us did BWL.

Squidleybits said:

That's when I had last played as well. I still find it crazy that three of us did BWL.

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I never got a chance to do Black wing lair. I only did Molten Core a few times and was running... um... I can't remember the names anymore but I was still just trying to put together my full lightforge set lol.

Here's another power scaling comparison for you, speaking of Molten Core. I went to pop off Geddon because I've been trying to get his binding, and realized that he now has less HP than mobs I regularly kill while questing.

Small rant: &^%#@!! stopwatch trinket

Once I realized I was calling it by the wrong name I got one

I can say that I am happy that Atonement is my primary source of healing right now, instead of just being used for lols or for certain gimmicky raid bosses. Some people might not like that playstyle, but too bad they can go Holy.

Frank, before you go, might I suggest you give Dark Iron a try? Yes, it's a PVP server, but as far as I've seen in the last week leveling two Pandarens, the CRZ hasn't been a big issue here. I guess not all the realm is CRZ yet, because I'm still seeing a whole lot of empty in my travels. Desolace is, well, desolate.

If you're Horde, Panda Attack is one of the best guilds around. I can put in a good word for ya.

Or just do random instances. There's almost no wait time on queues now.

I miss all the excitement thanks to overnight shifts. Something got hacked, and whole cities got massacred.

They got better.

I just heard about this too. Crazy stuff.

Also FWOOOOSH... Not sure but I just love this disk. It's all I ever ride now even over the more rare mounts I got.

The hell is that?!?

Dave said:

The hell is that?!?

Click to expand...

FLYING NIMBUS

Dave said:

The hell is that?!?

Click to expand...

Disc of the Red Flying Cloud, an item you can purchase from the Lorewalkers Quartermaster once you reach Exalted.



It makes me feel like I am sky surfing.

Want.

I honestly don't understand why people are going ga ga over that disk...

Bowielee said:

I honestly don't understand why people are going ga ga over that disk...

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Because after having over a hundred different forms of animals, it's nice when we get a mount that thinks outside the box. It's one of the reasons I love riding around on the flying carpet on my tailors, because it feels so unique. This is like giving me the carpet on all my characters and does not have that wavy up-and-down feel to it, so it's just a smooth satisfying feeling of cutting through the air.

To each their own I guess. Personally, I wouldn't grind for it, but I can see if people find it cool why they would.

If by grind you mean fly around for 20 minutes, then sure. I really don't plan to use it, but I got it because lol20minutes.

Bowielee said:

To each their own I guess. Personally, I wouldn't grind for it, but I can see if people find it cool why they would.

Click to expand...

Like Dei said, it's not much of a grind. Actually it's a great way to get some lore information about Pandaria while getting a cool bonus at the end. Takes no time at all once you can fly.

ScytheRexx said:

Like Dei said, it's not much of a grind. Actually it's a great way to get some lore information about Pandaria while getting a cool bonus at the end. Takes no time at all once you can fly.

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Sadly too, I didn't do it on my archaeologist, which means I need to go do it again so i can buy the thingies that will teleport me to digsites. /lazy

Dei said:

Sadly too, I didn't do it on my archaeologist, which means I need to go do it again so i can buy the thingies that will teleport me to digsites. /lazy

Click to expand...

Archaeology is so much easier to level then it used to be, I actually decided to cap it just this weekend on my Draenei. Will still put you back most of a day, but at 5-9 fragments per survey and 6 surveys per digsite, it goes a lot smoother then the old 3-4 fragments per survey and 3 surveys per digsite.

It's nice too, because Pandaren Archaeology is actually really interesting. Items you make come in either a normal variation or a pristine variation. The normal one you crate up, and can be used to purchase the teleport rune, reshuffle rune, or other arch racial fragments (yup, you can get Tol'vir items through nothing but Pandaren Archaeology). If you get a pristine version you can take it to the Lorewalkers and actually put it up in the museum, removing some of the clutter and adding little items with lore info. It's really fun actually trying to fill out the museum all the while getting my Tol'vir fragments.

P.S. One last thing, but if you are high enough in any of the Secondary Skills, the Order of the Cloud Serpents reputation gets more dailies based on the aforementioned skill, including Archaeology. Gives me another reason to do it each day looking for digsites.

I leveled archaeology by logging on my husband's account and used his vial of the sands to fly my sad sub 90 self around. My lvl troll 85 druid is now running around with shitty feral gear and an ilvl 463 spear wooo.

Also, my arch is a dwarf, so I get 6-10 frags per digsite wooooooo.

I also do all the dailies 2x a day as it is, I'm not going to cry about one less 180rep daily a day because I don't feel like leveling arch on everyone.

I can't stomach doing all the dailies, I mostly skip the Golden Lotus ones every other day. Going to wait till they give more information on that hinted Golden Lotus change, and the new reputation bonus system, before I start worrying about it at all on alts.

Golden Lotus is the one I refuse to skip, because right now I can't spend my valor points. I have been slacking on Klaxxi instead.

Dei said:

Golden Lotus is the one I refuse to skip, because right now I can't spend my valor points. I have been slacking on Klaxxi instead.

Click to expand...

I love the Klaxxi, and someday I really want that Scorpion mount.

I'm still trying to figure out Blizzards logic behind completely removing head enchants, making shoulder enchants a profession crafted item, and then proceeding to make us grind a bunch of different factions to get our JP/VP gear. Sure they say it's because you don't *have* to get gear from JP/VP, but it seems like really odd logic to me.

Dei said:

I'm still trying to figure out Blizzards logic behind completely removing head enchants, making shoulder enchants a profession crafted item, and then proceeding to make us grind a bunch of different factions to get our JP/VP gear. Sure they say it's because you don't *have* to get gear from JP/VP, but it seems like really odd logic to me.

Click to expand...

I think the logic was that heads already had a unique "enchant", meta gems, and by adding meta gems, regular gems, and an enchant, it was just getting a little silly.

Obviously they didn't want to just say they were doing it for a little of a reason as removing boosting bloat, so someone in the CM team just picked the worst thing possible to use as the excuse.

Since I've been away for so long, a new UI is on order to streamline and speed up my play. I'm looking at Spartan UI again, but what else is there for a rogue, DK, or monk?

DarkAudit said:

Since I've been away for so long, a new UI is on order to streamline and speed up my play. I'm looking at Spartan UI again, but what else is there for a rogue, DK, or monk?

Click to expand...

Personally I just use Dominos in a custom configuration with a few extra mods to make life a little easier, like Outfitter, TinyPlates, DBM, Auctionator, etc... If you want to move the unit frames those can be moved using the base UI now.

Personally I don't see much of a point to using Outfitter anymore, and I stopped caring about auction mods since the mobile app became free.

I just use Healbot. Me spam Heals.

Dei said:

Personally I don't see much of a point to using Outfitter anymore, and I stopped caring about auction mods since the mobile app became free.

Click to expand...

I use it mostly because it works with WeightWatchers, which allows me to basically take all the gear I have, say "make me a good retribution set out of this junk" and it uses the updated stat weights to form the set out of all the stuff in my bank and bags. Works like a charm when I have three different gear types I need.

How does heal bot work?

Squidleybits said:

How does heal bot work?

Click to expand...

Brings up a raidframe containing coloured bars for your party representing health and status. You assign button presses (left, middle, right) as well as modifiers (Ctrl, Shift, Alt) to spells and then click on the bars to heal/purify, etc.

For example, my disc priest is set to:

Left Click: Renew
Middle Click: Power Word: Shield
Right Click: Penance
Shift Left Click: Prayer of Mending
Shift Middle Click: Heal
Shift Right Click: Greater Heal
Ctrl Left Click: Purify
Ctrl Right Click: Cleanse

And then my toolbar at the bottom is random attack powers so I can target the boss/mobs/adds and just spam 1 while I can click on my Healbot to keep heals up on everyone at a glance.

Made me the master healer in the Loatheb fight in Naxx

I prefer Vuhdo. (Heathen!)

The first World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria patch of the year is in development and now available for testing on the Public Test Realms. This patch will include several updates to the ongoing conflict between the Horde and Alliance, the new Brawler’s Guild, Pet Battle improvements, assorted bug fixes, and more. If you'd like to help us test out this patch and provide feedback, you can start by copying your character over to a test realm. Once you've had a chance to try things out, be sure to visit our Public Test Realm forum to discuss the patch.

Note: Features mentioned in the 5.1 Patch Preview may not initially be available on the PTR, and could be included as testing progresses.

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 5.1.0

General

• The Pandaren Campaign begins!
  • The conflict between the Horde and the Alliance has ignited a new series of daily quests along the shore of the Krasarang Wilds.
  • Players can visit their faction strongholds in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms to begin the quest to summon their war fleets to the continent of Pandaria. (Please note: The Alliance version of this quest is not yet complete, but will still unlock the new missions and features).
  • Players will both valiantly defend their faction’s outpost and assault the opposing faction's headquarters.
  • Two new Reputations have been added: Alliance players can earn reputation with Operation: Shieldwall, while Horde players will curry favor with the Dominance Offensive.
  • Players can slay rival NPCs and opposing faction players along the shore to earn commissions that can be spent to upgrade their faction's base.
  • Look for strategic objectives to capture, including graveyards and towers. Commissions can be spent to recruit guards that will help protect this captured territory!
  • Players who are truly dedicated to their faction can spend their commissions on an item that will give their fellows an extra reputation group quest for the day. Horde players can speak with Ongrom Black Tooth, while Alliance players can contact Proveditor Grantley for details.

Pet Battles

• A new item has been introduced that can be used to upgrade the quality of Battle Pets: Battle-stones.
  • Battle-stones are available in two basic types, general purpose Battle-stones that can be used to upgrade the quality of any pet, and family specific Battle-stones, which can only be used to upgrade pets of a specific pet family.
  • Battle-stones are available in two qualities: Flawless Battle-stones can upgrade pets directly to Rare quality, while Polished Battle-stones will upgrade a pet to Uncommon quality.
  • Players will have a very small chance to obtain a general purpose Flawless Battle-stone after winning a match against wild pets; defeating higher level opponents increases the chances of obtaining a stone. These valuable items are not soulbound, and can be sold on the Auction House.
  • Family specific Flawless Battle-stones can be found in the Sack of Pet Supplies obtained from performing Pet Trainer quests, and are Bind on Pickup.
  • General purpose Polished Battle-stones can be purchased for 1000 Justice Points.
• Pet Journal
  • The quality of each pet is now visible in its slot in the Pet Journal.
  • Pets can now be filtered by name, type, rarity and level, and filters will remain in place each time the Pet Journal is viewed.
  • It is now possible to search locations in the Pet Journal. For example, searching “Westfall” will display all the Battle Pets that can be found in Westfall.
• Right clicking a pet's portrait will now offer the option to look it up in the Pet Journal.
• Players can now keep up to 650 pets.
• Battle Pet tooltips will now display whether a pet is owned, and how many pets of that type are owned.
• Pet Quality is now displayed in battles, and will be visible on portraits, names and tooltips.
• The level of battle pets in a zone can now be seen on the map, and it’s now possible to see the strength of wild pets relative to your team at a glance.
• Backline pets now display debuffs affecting them as well as the remaining duration of these effects.
• The experience multiplier obtained by all seven Grand Master pet trainers in Pandaria has been increased to x5 from x3.5.
• The experience multiplier obtained by defeating Pet Trainers Julia Stevens, Old Macdonald, Zunta, and Dagra the Fierce has been reduced to x2.5 from x3.5.
• Macros have been added that allow for summoning random pets and random favorite pets.
• The achievement Taming the World now awards the Safari Hat, which increases pet experience gained from Pet Battles by 10%.
• The I Choose You achievement has been added for defeating Zen Master Aki. The reward for this achievement is 3000 gold.
• A new Master Pet Tamer offering daily quests has been added to the Darkmoon Faire. Completing quests for the new trainer will offer the chance to acquire a new pet: the Darkmoon Eye.
• Two new Battle Pets now roam Darkmoon Island waiting to be caught.
• Fixed a bug where the Gazelle would join pet battles.

UI

• A new banner will appear when a player is subjected to an effect that causes them to lose control of their character. The effect that caused the loss of control and remaining duration will be displayed. Configuration options are available in the “Combat” section of the “Interface Options" menu.
• A search bar has been added to the mount section of the Mount and Pet Journal.
• The Mount and Pet Journal remembers which tab you were last using.

Brawler's Guild

• Underground fighting rings have sprung up in Stormwind and Orgrimmar that will give brawlers a chance to earn bragging rights by testing their solo PvE mettle against some of the toughest creatures found in World of Warcraft.
• Players will prove their skill, and increase their rank with the Brawler's Guild, as they win matches against some of the most difficult solo encounters in World of Warcraft.
• As their Brawler's Guild rank increases, players will unlock additional rewards and activities within the Brawler’s Guild.
• Brawlers on a realm will gather together into the blood spattered ring to watch as their peers face down their own opponents. They can watch the battles in progress to learn from hardened Brawler's Guild veterans as they wait for their own turn to fight.
• If this is your first night at Brawler's Guild, you have to fight.

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I find the Brawler's Guild somewhat exciting. If I still played on a PvP server, I'd be more interested in the PvP type stuff, but now I'm on a PvE server where alliance cowers in fear of flagged horde.

I can already imagine all the crying about it not having a raid and dungeon, not realizing that such is the reason they are already pumping this out not even a month into the expansion.

Still zipper lipped about CRZ.

Well as long as they don't push CRZ onto Pandaeria I'm looking forward to this patch. It's adding the Faction vs Faction warring (without forced PVP) that alot of people have been asking for.

Brawlers Guild is just a nice little touch to add on to my enjoyment.

Unless it's Tol'Boradish that new pvp thing sounds like a nightmare on faction imbalanced servers.

It's not forced PVP. You can either kill players (if they're flagged or you're in a PVP server) or PVE targets that count toward the goal.

I wish you could declare war on other Guilds and they'd become flagged.

Dave said:

I wish you could declare war on other Guilds and they'd become flagged.

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Loved that feature in Ultima Online.

First rule of Brawler's Guild is you do not talk about Brawler's Guild.

For the record, I was on to get Squid's alts in the guild.

BananaHands It would probably be best if we shifted GM powers over to Squidley. She is by far the most active member of the guild. Also, isn't there a way to assign officers that can make changes to guild permissions? If so, Pioty and myself would probably be a good thing as officers.

My playtime was higher recently as I was on extended medical leave. I'm back at work now and won't have as much time. I would prefer not to be a GM, but would like to be able to do invites etc as an officer or something like that.

Thank you for my invites last night! Last alts I swear!

Blizzard is really getting some action when it comes to the new Scenarios. 5.1 looks to be adding a good chunk of new ones, all of them pushing the story forward.

FUCK THAT.
I'm so ridiculously against that I can't even begin to explain.

Gilgamesh said:

Spoiler

Killing Anduin??!?!

FUCK THAT.
I'm so ridiculously against that I can't even begin to explain.

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Very much this.

Gilgamesh said:

FUCK THAT.
I'm so ridiculously against that I can't even begin to explain.

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That wouldn't be too bad.

I'm still rooting for Vol'jin to take over leadership of the Horde when Garrosh finally gets defeated. I know it probably won't happen, but I've always really liked his character.

Shakey said:

I'm still rooting for Vol'jin to take over leadership of the Horde when Garrosh finally gets defeated. I know it probably won't happen, but I've always really liked his character.

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I wouldn't say that...

Vol'jin has been really pushed for awhile now. He got good development during the retaking of the Echo Isles, a strong personal story on the website, he was a focus for the 4.1 troll patch, he has appeared constantly in the new novels as a large counter to Garrosh (As has Baine, but on less of a scale), and he is even confirmed to be getting his own novel. Right now, we have no orc character that can really take the role outside of Thrall gaining it back, and considering Blizzard outright stated that Thrall is not returning to the mantle of leadership, that does not seem very likely.

Vol'jin, frankly, is the best option to take the position. His only counter to such an event is the fact that, historically, the Warchief has always been an orc, but that does not mean it always has to be. In WC2, two clans had ogres as chieftens (Cho'gall and Mogor), so it's not like having another race take leadership is entirely alien to orcs, just not very common.

I have my hopes up because:

ScytheRexx said:

I wouldn't say that...

Vol'jin has been really pushed for awhile now. He got good development during the retaking of the Echo Isles, a strong personal story on the website, he was a focus for the 4.1 troll patch, he has appeared constantly in the new novels as a large counter to Garrosh (As has Baine, but on less of a scale), and he is even confirmed to be getting his own novel. Right now, we have no orc character that can really take the role outside of Thrall gaining it back, and considering Blizzard outright stated that Thrall is not returning to the mantle of leadership, that does not seem very likely.

Vol'jin, frankly, is the best option to take the position. His only counter to such an event is the fact that, historically, the Warchief has always been an orc, but that does not mean it always has to be. In WC2, two clans had ogres as chieftens (Cho'gall and Mogor), so it's not like having another race take leadership is entirely alien to orcs, just not very common.

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There are no Orcs worthy to take the mantle of Warchief. Saurfang and Etrigg wouldn't even take it if offered.

Rexxar! I know he'd never want to come back, but damn he'd be a good one. Might even be a way to bring in a few Ogres to the Horde.

Rexxar's ogres are already horde. Look in Dustwallow and Feralas.

Yeah after getting 3/4ths through Tides of War, I'm really starting to believe it'll be Vol'jin.

Frank said:

Rexxar's ogres are already horde. Look in Dustwallow and Feralas.

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I meant more active in the Horde, possibly making way for the final playable race addition.

Actually, there is one other scenario I didn't really mention, because the files for it are still very basic.

So freaking excited, I just completed the second greatest achievement I've ever tried for:

Is Another Man's Treasure:
Collect 20 Rare Treasures from around Pandaria.
Reward: Title - the Relic Hunter

This was an epic journey with 2-4hrs a day worth of work for over a week. It only went that well because of all the server resets, otherwise it would have taken months due to the sheer rarity of the spawn and the limited number of rare items there actually are.

Man, Stormstout Brewery is a pain in the ASS to heal on my shaman. It's easy with my Druid because most her heals are HOTs.

Seems we're going to be waiting a long time to see this storyline set-up/conclusion:

Vol'jin, Shadows of the Horde will be released in April 2013. Chen Stormstout will be in the novel.

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Gilgamesh said:

Seems we're going to be waiting a long time to see this storyline set-up/conclusion:

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I don't think anyone expected the story to conclude before sometime late next year. Most expansions last for nearly a year before they reach the "final patch" and then linger on a bit more before the expansion. Cataclysm released in December 2010 and 4.3 hit in November 2011.

At earliest I can see the story concluding in August.

Happy Day! I can mail heirlooms to my new undead priest!! I can't mail bags but the heirlooms are a go!

This is really my last alt now.

I'd transfer my priest over, but he's in a level 25 guild that has a large chunk of the reward achievements done. Once I can afford it, I can get the scorpion mount. Of course, now that mounts are tied to accounts, I can actually use that mount on any horde alts I would start on our server.

It's funny how I know so much about the game, but sometimes the little things sneak past me.

So I had 985908474875847 (give or take) ghost iron ore in my guild bank, so decided it was about time to suck it up and level my worgen warrior's blacksmithing up to MoP levels (had him lingering in BC levels, just didn't care enough to go after the Fel Iron) After finishing that process I started using up the ghost iron and found that the Ghost-Forged items have a random chance to proc a blue 415 version of the item rather then the green. I had no idea it did this. Needless to say a good chuck of iron later and my warrior is going to have a pretty easy time charging through Jade Forest.

Also, got my Cloud Serpent yesterday, made flying around getting the old materials a lot of fun, since random lowbies were whispering me about how awesome it looked.

For those interested in more 5.1 info, Vol'jin is confirmed to be getting his own model. One more notch towards him taking over a certain role from a certain big doofus.

ScytheRexx said:

One more notch towards him taking over a certain role from a certain big doofus.

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Vol'jin taking over the Alliance? What a twist!

ScytheRexx said:

It's funny how I know so much about the game, but sometimes the little things sneak past me.

So I had 985908474875847 (give or take) ghost iron ore in my guild bank, so decided it was about time to suck it up and level my worgen warrior's blacksmithing up to MoP levels (had him lingering in BC levels, just didn't care enough to go after the Fel Iron) After finishing that process I started using up the ghost iron and found that the Ghost-Forged items have a random chance to proc a blue 415 version of the item rather then the green. I had no idea it did this. Needless to say a good chuck of iron later and my warrior is going to have a pretty easy time charging through Jade Forest.

Also, got my Cloud Serpent yesterday, made flying around getting the old materials a lot of fun, since random lowbies were whispering me about how awesome it looked.

For those interested in more 5.1 info, Vol'jin is confirmed to be getting his own model. One more notch towards him taking over a certain role from a certain big doofus.

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I totally told you about the 415 thing a few pages back, and you even replied about it lol.

Dei said:

I totally told you about the 415 thing a few pages back, and you even replied about it lol.

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My brain sucks! Don't expect me to remember something that happens ten minutes ago let alone a few pages ago. I was to engrossed in all the other things I was doing in the game.

Piotyr said:

Vol'jin taking over the Alliance? What a twist!

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What's sad is Varian is now one of the moderate leaders. Instead they decided to make another popular Alliance character turn into the other sides Garrosh, much to my disappointment.

ScytheRexx said:

What's sad is Varian is now one of the moderate leaders. Instead they decided to make another popular Alliance character turn into the other sides Garrosh, much to my disappointment.

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Who is the Alliance -Garrosh- ? Everyone seems to be pretty level headed on the Alliance side these days.

Gilgamesh said:

Who is the Alliance -Garrosh- ? Everyone seems to be pretty level headed on the Alliance side these days.

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I kind of pointed it out in my spoiler post, but I guess I can go into a bit more detail.

ScytheRexx said:

I kind of pointed it out in my spoiler post, but I guess I can go into a bit more detail.

Spoiler

During the events of 5.1, Jaina learns about Anduin's death and that an attack was carried out using Sunreaver portals. She goes crazy over the fact "her" city was used in such a way and goes back to Dalaran to confront them. Aethas Sunreaver, who in Jaina's novel supported her becoming the new leader to replace Rhonin, attempts to defend himself but she cuts him off and tells him that he "Should have run when you had the chance".

She proceeds to capture and imprison every single Sunreaver in the city, regardless of guilt, and says she is "not responsible" for what happens to those that resist or flee. The Silver Covenant even joins in the bloodbath, taking out their own aggression on the Sunreavers. In other words, a systematic purge to everyone in the Sunreaver faction. Realize we have no idea how many of them actually were involved with helping Garrosh (the one at Theramore was denounced by Aethas), so for what could be only a dozen mages, the entire faction is being hunted down.

Why? Because they want Jaina to be seen as a brash and reckless, to be taking things to extremes rather then thinking over her actions. (Well, unless Kalec dong is involved I guess.) Varian himself is seen to be taken aback by her ruthlessness in 5.1, with her basically telling him "Not to go soft on me".

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........

Wut?

On those points I disagree with you on your comparison.

ScytheRexx said:

I kind of pointed it out in my spoiler post, but I guess I can go into a bit more detail.

Spoiler

During the events of 5.1, Jaina learns about Anduin's death and that an attack was carried out using Sunreaver portals. She goes crazy over the fact "her" city was used in such a way and goes back to Dalaran to confront them. Aethas Sunreaver, who in Jaina's novel supported her becoming the new leader to replace Rhonin, attempts to defend himself but she cuts him off and tells him that he "Should have run when you had the chance".

She proceeds to capture and imprison every single Sunreaver in the city, regardless of guilt, and says she is "not responsible" for what happens to those that resist or flee. The Silver Covenant even joins in the bloodbath, taking out their own aggression on the Sunreavers. In other words, a systematic purge to everyone in the Sunreaver faction. Realize we have no idea how many of them actually were involved with helping Garrosh (the one at Theramore was denounced by Aethas), so for what could be only a dozen mages, the entire faction is being hunted down.

Why? Because they want Jaina to be seen as a brash and reckless, to be taking things to extremes rather then thinking over her actions. (Well, unless Kalec dong is involved I guess.) Varian himself is seen to be taken aback by her ruthlessness in 5.1, with her basically telling him "Not to go soft on me".

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Dreadful.

You seem to be missing the point.

I'm starting to wonder if CRZ is disabled on my server, ran around Northrend last night, didn't see anyone else...

ScytheRexx said:

You seem to be missing the point.

Spoiler

It's not about the suspicion, it's about the methods.

She has a right to want justice. She shouldn't be carrying out that justice through the death of innocent magi, more so without valid proof. She saw what could have been the work of a single Sunreaver, and now the whole faction is getting brutalized by her own magi. The reason I say she is becoming the Alliance Garrosh is because her action are heavy-handed and not really seen through in any way that would be deemed respectable. Remember, this is not some random Horde outpost, these are the citizens of her own new city, lead by one of the Council of Six. It would be like a member of SI:7 decided to work for the Horde and helped feed them information, and suddenly Varian finds out and throws Mathias Shaw and all his men in the Stockades, cutting down any that try to escape. (And SI:7 has worked with the Horde in the past). Dare I say she is doing what Garrosh did to her at Theramore, lashing out versus a group because she can't see people, only a flag that now represents her enemy.

Also, I would not really call Varian "genocidal". Just because he was being mouthy with Thrall does not mean he wants all the orcs to be dead. He even let Varok Saurfang collect his son at Icecrown because he respected him. He is not entirely without merit. (Metzen even said that during the upcoming Orgrimmar Raid, Varian will be shown saving orc children to help starve off a lot of the image he developed during WOTLK.)

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I got the point, you compared Jaina to Garrosh. My point was, no, she's not that bad despite your example.

There's a difference between heavy handed and mass slaughter. For the record, Varian WAS genocidal or have we forgotten the Undercity event?

Dei said:

I'm starting to wonder if CRZ is disabled on my server, ran around Northrend last night, didn't see anyone else...

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That's the joke.

Some clusters are empty, others are sardine tins.

Last time I was in the game with any seriousness, reforging didn't exist. You took the stats you were given, and lived with the consequences.

So up to now, my gear sucked, especially on my DK. Expertise less than one percent. That's no good. But with a little judicious reforging, I'm much closer to the magic 7.5% mark.

And I'm not taking a quarter of my total health in damage every fight anymore. Go me.