[PC Game] World of Warcraft: Catch All Thread

I have a bunch of targeting macros that help. I'm fortunate that my dps is decent. I don't think if have a second Fel Hound phase. The best I have done is having one left before getting eaten.
 
Blizzard posted a 3-part blog on the progression of raiding, culminating today in their plans for Warlords. Some interesting pieces, particularly about LFR:

- LFR will have a unique loot table separate from Normal, Heroic and Mythic.
- ilvl of LFR gear will be halfway between 5-man heroics and Normal, completely skippable for guilds that want to jump into normal raiding after heroics.
- No tier or specialized trinkets will drop in LFR anymore, to prevent players from feeling the need to run LFR alongside normal/heroic raiding.
- Each raiding difficulty will have a separate lockout, with hopes that lessened emphasis on Valor going forward will prevent excessive repetition from players for the sake of getting valor (to prevent "Trial of the Crusader" burnout issues).
 
There goes LFR. There is almost no incentive to run it more than once. My guess is a few weeks after a new raid is released it will be a ghost town.
 
There goes LFR. There is almost no incentive to run it more than once. My guess is a few weeks after a new raid is released it will be a ghost town.
It'll be the haven of the terrible players that everyone hates doing LFR with, along with players that can't dedicate more than 45 minutes to play in a night and don't have a guild.

Which is fine, since everyone with half a brain will be doing normal via guild or Group Finder.
 
It'll be the haven of the terrible players that everyone hates doing LFR with, along with players that can't dedicate more than 45 minutes to play in a night and don't have a guild.

Which is fine, since everyone with half a brain will be doing normal via guild or Group Finder.
The gear won't be noticeably better than 5-man heroics, which are quicker and easier. I doubt anyone will run LFR for gear any more.

We'll see how group finder works out. All those people you don't want to group with in LFR are going to go there. My guess is it's going to be an absolute mess. It's going to be just like LFR is now, except harder. I'm sure it'll turn into the whole "must have a gear score equal to or greater than the drops in this raid to run with us."

I guess I just don't see what's wrong with LFR right now. If they want to make it less of a requirement, have heroic 5-mans be relevant again so people can gear for flex or normal without running LFR.
 
The gear won't be noticeably better than 5-man heroics, which are quicker and easier. I doubt anyone will run LFR for gear any more.

We'll see how group finder works out. All those people you don't want to group with in LFR are going to go there. My guess is it's going to be an absolute mess. It's going to be just like LFR is now, except harder. I'm sure it'll turn into the whole "must have a gear score equal to or greater than the drops in this raid to run with us."

I guess I just don't see what's wrong with LFR right now. If they want to make it less of a requirement, have heroic 5-mans be relevant again so people can gear for flex or normal without running LFR.
From what I've heard of 5-man heroics, they won't be easier than LFR. Plus, people will be able to gear in heroics without running LFR.

The primary reason for pulling tier and trinkets out of LFR was that players felt they had to run LFR when they hated it, just to get another weekly chance at set bonuses and trinket procs they missed out on normal raids. Without that incentive, the only people in LFR will be people that actually want to be running LFR. I guess we'll see if there's an audience for that.
 
From what I've heard of 5-man heroics, they won't be easier than LFR. Plus, people will be able to gear in heroics without running LFR.
Which is why no one will be running LFR after they've seen it once. They don't need to do it for gear, so why not do a 5-mans that take 1/4 of the time.
The primary reason for pulling tier and trinkets out of LFR was that players felt they had to run LFR when they hated it, just to get another weekly chance at set bonuses and trinket procs they missed out on normal raids. Without that incentive, the only people in LFR will be people that actually want to be running LFR. I guess we'll see if there's an audience for that.
It also removes any incentive to run it at all. Would people run the normal or higher difficulties if there was no gear to get? Like I said, The people who don't care are going to be pushed in to Flex which is not as forgiving as LFR. I just don't see this ending well.
 
- ilvl of LFR gear will be halfway between 5-man heroics and Normal, completely skippable for guilds that want to jump into normal raiding after heroics.
- No tier or specialized trinkets will drop in LFR anymore, to prevent players from feeling the need to run LFR alongside normal/heroic raiding.
Skippable? Sure, no big deal. That second point? Fucking horrible idea. I agree with Shakey, I can't see anyone but horrible players and the poor souls who don't have a dedicated guild being stuck there.

It also removes any incentive to run it at all. Would people run the normal or higher difficulties if there was no gear to get?
Honestly yes, I bet some would, but only till the world first/big achieves were done. Never underestimate the will of achievement hunters with too much free time.
 
The LFR issue won't be a problem as long as they got through with the idea of making LFR a cake walk in the first place.

P.S. Having been messing with some of the new models after ripping them from the client, I have to say they are pretty impressive. Can't wait to get them all.
 
Honestly yes, I bet some would, but only till the world first/big achieves were done. Never underestimate the will of achievement hunters with too much free time.
I'm sure some would. Just like some will still run LFR.

I just don't have enough faith in the community to make flex LFG a worthwhile experience. While LFR can be a pain in the ass, you at least aren't at the mercy of an asshole leader. I really hope I'm wrong, but my experiences so far show otherwise.
 
Makes sense. It does happen during the events of WC1. It would be odd not to have him play some sort of role, considering he helped create the rift in the first place.
 
Guess who is in the WoD Alpha? This guy!

So far I can definitely tell the key word for this expansion is NOSTALGIA. I have only been able to play a bit, but the first thing that happens when you start up is stand with Drek'thar, Thrall, and Khadgar about to meet Durotan (the suicide mission that gets you into the expansion is not added yet) After you meet Durotan you head to the top of the hill where you establish your Garrison. Khadgar opens a portal back to Azeroth and pulls through Gazlowe, who will be the chief builder of the Garrison, and Rohkan, who seems to be the head of the Garrison defenses. You may remember Gazlowe and Rohkan from WC3. The process of building the Garrison requires you to mark trees for your peons to cut down, all with the "Work Work" and "Jobs Done!" sound effects from WC3 as you watch each tree get chopped over, which makes you feel like you are building a WC3 base.

Even the zones feel very classical. A lot of the areas like Nagrand are very in-tune with the BC version while still looking updated, and even places like Frostfire Ridge give me a bit of a WOTLK vibe, though that might just be due to all the snow. Overall you can tell they are really trying to make Draenor have the visuals of Pandaria but way more of the classic fantasy style.

The thing that is going to take some getting used to is the stat squish. At first I was so enthralled I just didn't think about it and played as normal, but then I found a rare, killed it, and got a blue trinket with +56 haste. 56 haste! I then opened my character panel and noticed all my gear was in the sub-100 numric wise. Oddly enough, it went back to that feeling of Nostalgia since those numbers were close to the same numbers you would have when you first went from Azeroth to Outland, so once again brought back some of those memories.

Whether it can do more then just tickle my nostalgia bone, we will see as I get more time to play.
 

Dave

Staff member
This might be enough to bring me back. But is it just the one area where stats are squished or all of them?
 
This might be enough to bring me back. But is it just the one area where stats are squished or all of them?
Everything is squished down, so going through Outland, Northrend, Cata, and MoP will also have the heavily reduced stats, and by extension all the mobs will be tuned down to compensate. Overall the process of gear is going to be a lot more uniform and won't have any more "jumps" in power moving from one expansion to the next, since they removed all item levels from the previous expansion raids.
 
Will I still be able to destroy old dungeons for mounts?
Yes, that was something brought up constantly once the squish was confirmed, and Blizzard basically said...

"If you can destroy Kael'thas solo today, you will still be able to destroy him solo in 6.0"

How they will achieve this I am not sure. My best guess is just tuning down all the bosses, but it could also be a special high level only buff. Either way they don't want to kill people who enjoy soloing old content.
 
Had a bit more time to log on tonight. A few things of note.

While you have quests, you also have a whole lot of rares and resources just thrown around to kill or collect, similar to Timeless Isle. The rares give blue items while the resources go towards the Garrison. They are sprinkled all over the place.

Some new UI improvements are the bags now have the ability to be "smart". You can have one bag hold certain items automatically. They also added a small coin icon to the trash items so you know which items you can sell at a glance. Selecting and targeting now have a snazzy outline that surrounds the creature, so you can tell pretty quick which characters are friendly, neutral, or hostile.

The Garrison itself I had a chance to play and it's basically a game within the game. Once created you can collect blueprints, followers, and resources. The blueprints allow you to build a certain building, the resources are the currency you use to build them (rather then gold), and followers are used for missions to collect gear and resources. You also gain an automatic number of resources just from owning the Garrison. Starting out, this number is just 1 resources every 10 minutes.

To get you situated they give you a free Barracks blueprint, which takes only 20 seconds to build. Once done you have to return to the town to finalize it. Some buildings will take longer to build then others.

The follower mechanics are pretty interesting. When you visit the Garrison you are given randomized missions. Each mission has hazards. To be successful, you need to build a group of followers that better counter those hazards. The one example I got before I logged off was sending a tauren follower on a mission to kill from Gronnlings, little baby Gronn. The Gronnlings have a hazard called Wild Aggression, but the tauren has an ability called taunt, which counters Wild Aggression. By using him for the mission the chance of success increases and I may even win a chest with resources and gear. The mission takes 30 minutes, whether you are logged on or not.

Frankly even if I barely play WoW itself, I will likely log on just for the Garrison. I am weird like that.
 
Meh, the problem is the goal of the game has changed from having fun leveling to grinding raids. They can't go back, so they have to make the raiding experience enjoyable, and that really depends on the community. That's something you can't beta test. Nostalgia or not, this will do no better than MOP because of that. I'll probably play a bit, but that's it.
 
Meh, the problem is the goal of the game has changed from having fun leveling to grinding raids. They can't go back, so they have to make the raiding experience enjoyable, and that really depends on the community. That's something you can't beta test. Nostalgia or not, this will do no better than MOP because of that. I'll probably play a bit, but that's it.
I think the raiding scene will be more enjoyable just because it's going to be way less rigid come WoD. Being in a raid and having just three people drop can sting horribly, but now that Flex scaling is going to be used for all formats outside Mythic, that won't be as much of an issue. Let time standing around stewing means less time for people to be jerks. As for the leveling experience, so far it feels way better. I think it's the fact we have 10 levels again, so each level feels like it can move smoothly into the next. They also say they are going to utilize scenarios for some solo story missions in each zone, and rely more on dungeons again for the low end players end-game.
 
At least you're pretty close. I was so uninterested in raiding this expansion I only just reached the valor part of the chain. :cool: I likely won't get the cloak before the expansion hits. Oh well, not like I can use it for transmog anyways.
 
I have a love/hate with the quest. I understand that it's needed on my raiding hunter. Sadly, to get into raids and be competitive on my alts its kind of required as well...which is gross. My healer is on Test of Valour during this buff lol.
 
I don't know why I re-up WoW, I do the same thing every time.

Re-up, patch game.
Pick last character I mained and log in.
Look at RealID list, guild list (not this time though, guild transferred factions), marvel at how empty and offline everyone is.
Check quest log.
Look at hotbars.
Sigh deeply.
Log out.
 
I don't know why I re-up WoW, I do the same thing every time.

Re-up, patch game.
Pick last character I mained and log in.
Look at RealID list, guild list (not this time though, guild transferred factions), marvel at how empty and offline everyone is.
Check quest log.
Look at hotbars.
Sigh deeply.
Log out.
It's worst right now because we are right now in one of the longest content funks the game has ever had. Blizzard made it seem so much like last year WoD was going to be super quick to come out, then later we found out it was pretty much over a year off. =/
 
It's worst right now because we are right now in one of the longest content funks the game has ever had. Blizzard made it seem so much like last year WoD was going to be super quick to come out, then later we found out it was pretty much over a year off. =/
I mean, I stopped after maybe a month into the Siege patch, so I actually haven't even done the SoO raid. I spent some time on the Timeless Isle but that's about it.

I did notice the xpac page says the game's latest release date is fucking December, though, which is ridiculous.
 
It's especially bad since timeless isle had nothing to do other than to grind mobs mindlessly. No real quest lines at all.
 
The best thing to come out of Timeless Isle is that Blizzard learned the old "tapping" format was stupid, so they removed it in WoD, at least so far. Now that all loot is personal if you see someone fighting a rare or questing you can join with him regardless of group and work together.
 
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