World of Warcraft

[Greywolf2375]

Oh and what's more? I had a DPS apologise to me yesterday for standing in the fire. "Sorry healer, I stood in the fire, died and it was my own fault". I had to read it three times to believe it. :P

So THAT'S why the world server crashed.

btw, I LOVE the fact that I-level had replaced GearScore.

"335 lock with glyph LFG heroics"

[Mack Kilimaro]

Heroic 5-mans are hard as hell. Good lord. I am the only tank leveled in my guild at the moment, so any time anybody wants to do one they're sure to find me. I have only done four, and every time it's taken at least 2 hours. H-Deadmines with Admiral Ripsnarl was probably the single most ridiculous encounter. But then in places like Halls of Origination and Vortex Pinnacle, trash was harder than bosses for the most part.

[Myshkin]

I got me a Skeletal Raptor yesterday.

[jurble]

Aight, so here's my first impressions of Cata.

Imo, Cata's new zones and quests don't match WotLK's. WotLK's leveling experience was frickin' amazing, and the zones all looked super-amazing. Like WotLK is probably my favorite leveling experience, in any game. The quests were cool, and it was visually compelling. Cata doesn't match that. The zones are really meh. Vashj'ir looks lame, Deepholm is drab, Hyjal looks like Elwynn Forest, Twilight Highlands look like Arathi. Uldum is just confusing. They already did the Egyptian shit with the Nerubians and AQ, no idea why they decided the problem was more Egyptian shit. The dungeons too look far less awesome than WotLK's dungeons. I'd rate WotLK's art direction like 10/10. Cata is like a 5/10 in art direction. TBC's art direction, while I disliked immensely, was also more cohesive - 7/10-ish.

WotLK's quests all felt like you were doing something - trying to defeat the Scourge, and the Blue Dragonflight, and shit. Cata's super-phasing means that everything you do accomplishes shit, but the villains this time - the Twilight's Hammer aren't as uh imposing as the Scourge were. The Scourge art, and story were perfect. Twilight's Hammer is just composed of weirdos - from a Lore point of view, they can't actually number more than a few thousand people, whereas the Scourge were limitless. Moreover, we knew Arthas wanted to conquer the world. Deathwing wants to destroy the world and presumably free the Old Gods. I mean, that's better than TBC, where it was decided Illidan had to die, for no reason. But Deathwing isn't really a compelling villain. He seems more like someone's right-hand man and he is -to the Old Gods. But the Old Gods are getting lame at this point, Blizz has never managed to pull off the whole Lovecraftian horror well. WoW's graphics engine and interface can't do horror, and therefore the Old Gods are kinda fail villains. Though honestly, if they snuck in like 5 second real cinematic some point, where out of no-where a thirty mouth-ed monster in high detail just tells you to kill your children, I might be impressed. I wouldn't be surprised if Deathwing dies easily and quickly, like what happened with Illidan being released too early in TBC, and they just stick another Old God at the end.

And it's not explained why only Ragnaros and Al Akir want to free their masters - the Old Gods. Why are Therazane and Neptulon good? Speaking of Neptulon I'm predicting content patch 2 for this expo will add Mermen.

Haven't done any raids yet, but, honestly, I've never enjoyed raids. WotLK's raids were boring, and I imagine I'll find Cata's raids boring.

As to the revamped talent system - meh. I wouldn't have minded a zillion talent points to spend. The mastery system is also rofl, since, at least for rogues, it's the least important stat.

Archaeology got nerfed a bit, but it's still a huge time sink - you now get 3-5 pieces per dig as opposed to the previous 3.

As for the 5 man dungeons - difficulty was raised, and some of the fight mechanics are interesting, but I don't find any of the dungeons visually appealing like I did in WotLK. Rated BG's this week are 15 v 15, I kept asking gchat for players, but no one wants to take the chance. Such utter fail, I ran a premade BG group in Vanilla, and there was never a shortage of players. There were some groups looking for players in Trade, but I'd rather pvp with players I know have skill - especially in BG's. People in trade were looking for Arena vets, but the principles of BG's are objectives not killing the opposite team. I'd rather take players I know will follow commands and move in groups, rather than actively try to kill their opponents in the middle of the road somewhere.

[Lyanna Stark]

As for the 5 man dungeons - difficulty was raised, and some of the fight mechanics are interesting, but I don't find any of the dungeons visually appealing like I did in WotLK. Rated BG's this week are 15 v 15, I kept asking gchat for players, but no one wants to take the chance. Such utter fail, I ran a premade BG group in Vanilla, and there was never a shortage of players. There were some groups looking for players in Trade, but I'd rather pvp with players I know have skill - especially in BG's. People in trade were looking for Arena vets, but the principles of BG's are objectives not killing the opposite team. I'd rather take players I know will follow commands and move in groups, rather than actively try to kill their opponents in the middle of the road somewhere.

I dunno, I think Throne of the Tides and Vortex Pinnacle look amazing. Tol'Vir and HoOr aren't bad either, in fact I think Uldum is just an amazinglt pretty zone, with really nice quests as well. Vashj'ir is also getting a lot of flak, and I initially didn't like it either. However, I went back on my DK (mostly for herbing) and found myself really caught up in just questing and the storyline. the naga battlemaiden storyline is just excellent with loads of lore and nice tidbits. Also, three people from my guild went and pulled the Whale Shark. :lol: He melees for 100k. :P

Haven't done Grim Batol yet, but the rest of the dungeons are definitely neat and nice looking. Altho Vortex Pinnacle comes a bit closer, there is nothing coming close to the annoyance of the pre-nerf Occulus or the plain stupid of the "LF pala tank + 3 mages for Shattered Halls" of TBC.

Oh and priests are apparently due a buff according to blue posts, and holy palas got hit by the bat of NERF. I celebrated by speccing my priest holy (incl LOLwell) and gonna give it a shot again. Shows what a great pala I am that half the talents they are talking about (Tower of Radiance, Protector of the Innocent) I can't even remember what they do. I just wing it, and so far it's been really easy. HS, HL, HL, WoG, rince, repeat with a LoD and Radiance thrown in if AoE damage. On my priest I keep thinking "Rolling renews? No, too expensive. What about PoH? No, too slow, and heals for too little. CoH? Worthless." So I end up popping Divine Hymn as I feel it's the only option, or people are near dying cos I just can't find any buttons to press that are useful! Maybe LOLwell will solve it as now instead of wondering what buttons to press, I press my "CLICK THE LOLWELL!!!!" macro button and relax. :P

[Inkdaub]

I just finished the quests on Hyjal and had a good time. I go at a pretty slow pace so I'm out of the loop on any sort of 'firsts'. My highest level currently is 82. I am looking forward to seeing the new dungeons and then some raid content but it will be a few weeks before that happens. I'm content and having fun anyway.

[Greywolf2375]

Worked our way through heroic VP & Tol'Vir, had to pug the last DPS for Tol'Vir which was funny. Wiped to Augh & Lockmaw and he yells "all DPS must focus on adds" then drops group. Look at recount - less than 1k damage on the adds. Apparently it meant all DPS 'cept me. Guildie came on, grabbed him and we got it. Do have to say though that the break between Lockmaw and Augh activating is damn short.

Finding in a lot of rights with the healer mana/throughput issues that I am switching to and from SoLight. Kinda makes it interesting to go back to seal swapping.

came up just short last night on Hyjal rep, need about 400 more to hit exalted. Just couldn't stay up any later.

[saint777]

I dipped into the Cataclysm Heroic pool yesterday and drowned. First up was HOO. We were good up to first boss with three doing cc work. Then first boss wiped us three times. First time was my fault. No one explained to me you had to hold the switch till it opened. Then on second and third attempts the vipers overwhelmed party to low hit points and healer was OOM.

Next was H TOT. Did awesome up to first boss. About five wipes before we took the Lady down. She kept one shotting the tank with that blast spell. Only wiped once on second boss before we just kited the fucker back into the ladies room. He died right next to her. Third boss(MC guy) was about 10 or so wipes before everyone left.

Both dungeons the healer was going OOM really early into the fight and the bosses have abilities that can one shot the tank.

Overall I love the heroics. Nice and challenging but the loot is really stingy. Going to have to grind a lot just to get one piece of gear. The repair costs are crazy. I actually lost money doing heroics yesterday.

Addendum: DBM doesn't seem to work in Heroics which is awesome. The healer was using dbm and was saying that everything was off. I had hoped Blizzard would counter this mod as I think it's a flat out cheating device.

[Lyanna Stark]

Addendum: DBM doesn't seem to work in Heroics which is awesome. The healer was using dbm and was saying that everything was off. I had hoped Blizzard would counter this mod as I think it's a flat out cheating device.

Yeah I had that happen as well. You just need to try and adapt and think on your feet, which is not easy at all. Don't even want to think what HCs are like when normals where I miss stuff, I die. Killed myself by a nice double-bounce on mines in Tol'Vir first boss due to just...missing it, and someone else taking a blast before me and I had to stop and heal.

Supposedly healers are now supposed to slow down the speed of healing to "have a look around", but that ain't working as everything is ten times more hectic than in Wrath. :P

EDIT: Can't you interrupt her nasty blast? (I thought it was interruptable, maybe it's different on HC?) I think I tanked it on my pala and basically saved Av shield, HoJ or Arcane Torrent for it. She rarely got one off on me. Even as a healer I always have the boss as focus target to see WTH is going on, as I tend to tunnelvision way too much otherwise. :/

[Slurktan]

I wouldn't be surprised if Deathwing dies easily and quickly, like what happened with Illidan being released too early in TBC, and they just stick another Old God at the end.

Given that Illidan wasn't the big bad of TBC I'm not sure why you wanted him to be delayed till later. It would be kind of like complaining that Kel Thuzad wasn't the big end boss of WotLK.

[Poobah]

Given that Illidan wasn't the big bad of TBC I'm not sure why you wanted him to be delayed till later. It would be kind of like complaining that Kel Thuzad wasn't the big end boss of WotLK.

Illidan was supposed to be and was marketed as the big bad of TBC. You can tell by how, like Arthas in WotLK and DeathChin in Cata he's on all the marketing material, in the cutscene and all that...

[Slurktan]

Illidan was supposed to be and was marketed as the big bad of TBC. You can tell by how, like Arthas in WotLK and DeathChin in Cata he's on all the marketing material, in the cutscene and all that...

Meh. I never saw it that way as it was supposed to be a crusade against the Burning Legion. Illidan was middle management for that and always was.

[Shryke]

Illidan was marketed as the big bad and one of the big mistakes Blizzard said they made with TBC, that they are avoiding with WOTLK and Cata, is having the Big Evil go down like a chump in the first major patch instead of the very end of the expansion.

[Slurktan]

Illidan was marketed as the big bad and one of the big mistakes Blizzard said they made with TBC, that they are avoiding with WOTLK and Cata, is having the Big Evil go down like a chump in the first major patch instead of the very end of the expansion.

Well I guess I'm quite wrong then. Probably comes from illidan being such a chump in the WC3 expansion. Begs the question though, was their plan originally to save Kil'Jaedan for another Burning Legion focused expansion? Otherwise it is simply idiocy as KJ was always Illidans boss.

[jurble]

Well I guess I'm quite wrong then. Probably comes from illidan being such a chump in the WC3 expansion. Begs the question though, was their plan originally to save Kil'Jaedan for another Burning Legion focused expansion? Otherwise it is simply idiocy as KJ was always Illidans boss.

Illidan had broken from Kil'Jaeden, he was trying to make Black Temple unassailable from any foe - Horde/Alliance and Burning Legion. That's the whole point of the Kael'thas storyline - Kael'thas had decided to break with Illidan and join Kil'jaeden and betray Illidan. KJ still would have shown up at some point, but I think one of their original plans for post-TBC was to add portals to Outland, the new raids would have been Demon Worlds - the home planet of the Eredar, the Dreadlords, the Succubi.

[Kalbear]

I do think that WotLK answered 'why are you here' a lot better than Cat has. While Hyjal makes sense (Ragnaros and Deathwing) you go to Vashjir to...conquer some land? And then you hang out there because...naga are bad? Uh...the Naga don't have a whole lot to do with the GIANT HOLE IN THE WORLD.

Uldum has only a small connection to Deathwing - Deathwing wants the tech there. But it's still basically a big treasure hunt. There aren't old gods there, there's no Algalon-type threat, much less Yogg-Saron. It's all cutesy and silly with Harrison Jones and big catmen.

Twilight Highlands is the best integrated into the storyline, but even then you've got really weird crap. In the middle of stopping the Twilight from killing all the red dragons, you go into a mine with a goblin? The fuck? Half the time (and all the rep quests) have you simply fucking over the other faction. Bizarre.

Deepholm gives us the best answer to why we're there, but the actual questline is a huge mess. Okay, we're impressing some of these stone guys - THAT makes sense. But why are we allying with the other faction here but not in TH? Meh.

The leveling was very smooth and consistent. But it wasn't that memorable other than Vash'jir, and Vash'jir was mostly memorable because of the zone itself. There's no Wrathgate type of moment. The phasing that's used seems fairly boring and doesn't seem to accomplish much. The quests themselves aren't particularly memorable for me save Vash'jir's battlemaiden quest and the molten Katamari Damacy gnome quest in Uldum.

I will say that Deepholm and Vash'jir look fantastic. Gorgeous, and a great cry from the dull colors of WotLK. TH is kinda dull and meh (with way too much purple crap). Hyjal is kinda boring too. Uldum is...Tanaris, basically, though there are a few neat bits with the architecture (in the dam, some of the pyramids). But Deepholm and Vash'jir are just amazingly wow.

[Poobah]

Deepholm gives us the best answer to why we're there, but the actual questline is a huge mess. Okay, we're impressing some of these stone guys - THAT makes sense. But why are we allying with the other faction here but not in TH? Meh.

'cause Thrall's running the entrance to Deepholm, but Garrosh is running the entrance to TH? ^_^

[Weak With The Dawn]

I do think that WotLK answered 'why are you here' a lot better than Cat has. While Hyjal makes sense (Ragnaros and Deathwing) you go to Vashjir to...conquer some land? And then you hang out there because...naga are bad? Uh...the Naga don't have a whole lot to do with the GIANT HOLE IN THE WORLD.

You go to Vash'jir because the Twilight cult is attempting to assume control of the seas with the help of the Naga.

[Kalbear]

Maybe that's why alliance goes. Horde ends up in Vash'jir because Garrosh wants to take over a couple of islands he just found. And if the Twilight Cult are trying to take over the seas - who the fuck cares? Again, GiANT FUCKING DRAGON ENDING THE WORLD. GIANT HOLE IN CENTER OF PLANET.

Twilight cultists being the Big Bad army this time around just doesn't work for me nearly as well. First off, there are apparently a ridiculously large number of people who are totally cool with blowing everything up in as many ways as possible. Really powerful ones too, with dragons and shit. At that point I don't think it's right to call it a cult. I think you really need to call it the Twilight religion. At least it's an ethos. Hell, at least in WotLK there were other enemies that mattered, even if the Scourge were the big ones. This time? It's all cultists, all the time.

[TerraPrime]

At that point I don't think it's right to call it a cult. I think you really need to call it the Twilight religion. At least it's an ethos.

Don't be hatin' Edward, you Jacobite.