General Updates
I have been spending more time on Ysondre than I have been in Ravenholdt because I have been leveling my shaman and priest with my girlfriend as of late. This is not to say I have abandoned my old realm. Ravenholdt is the perfect sized realm, "medium" population with a horde imbalance of about 3 to 1, that means 75% of the population is horde. What this does mean is that world pvp is not too lively, as you'll find some horde outnumbering alliance. but it also means that when alliance do find the time to harass a town, they will do it in force, 10 deep, with air support. and usually in Thrallmar (of course, the lower level town). It does have a pretty mature market, with gem cutters with all cuts, glyph makers with 20 of each glyph at all times and a wide array of crafting mats, not to mention the entertainment to be had in trade chat.
In Ysondre the life is a little different. There is much less going on in the AH, so mats are limited, especially mats to level professions. people can easly control a market for a limited amount of time, buy up all the mithril and relist it for more (but always having to watch out for small time undercutters). bags are limited as well, as are item enchants and enhancements. bags are limited by the low amount of netherweave due to the low amount of people leveling through outland. and those are the highest in-demand bags. special enchants are hard to get as the supply is lacking. however, common enchants are lowly priced since there's a lot of supply and little demand. things are quite skewed in ysondre. so if you're looking to make some gold and don’t mind "farming" please go there and mine and herb. seriously. sungrass should not be selling for 40g a stack. sungrass??
one thing I've noticed is that people do not know the value of some items. I die a little inside when I see cut golden draenite. why? because the cut versions are trash, used only to skill up points and tossed while the uncut variety are used for tailoring. yes, tailoring. at 10-20g a pop. why? because tailors need four of them to make their silly slow flying carpet. not only are you tapping into a market with little or no supply (check the AH for fel iron ore or adamantite ore or even the gem in question, and you will see almost nothing, or something that's omg overpriced), you're about to provide the tailor (who's second profession is probably enchanting, and NOT jewelcrafting or mining) with something he is not able to produce on his own… ever.
In any case, the difference in both servers cannot really be seen in the beginning levels, as leveling through the world can be a dry and lonely experience. you will not find a lot of people questing to learn about the lore. heck, do people even read the quests anymore? or do they just pick it up and look on their map for the dots to tell them where to go? im guilty of doing that but it is because I've already done those quests several times and do not need to be reminded of the story. If cata is going to change the entire face of azeroth, I'd love to quest again through to level 85, just to see the lower level's updated story, from all angles (and that means, yes, I might have to roll a troll…. or a gnome now). but yea, my point was that you will not see too many people leveling these days simply because there's the dungeon finder. it makes leveling emmensly, immensely, whatevers, easy. well not that easy. you still have to do "OK" and this teaches people how to perform in groups at an earlier level, and more often. one complaint I had previously was that people do not know how to perform in groups because they simply never did it due to it being "too hard" to find groups. well now you can easily do it. and do it often! so with repetition comes competence. or at least I hope so. no longer will a fresh level 80 walk into an instance for the first time because turning in quests was much easier to do. no longer will we have to learn two different "games" when we play this game. one at level 1, and the other at level 80. although both are available starting at level 13-ish.
On Leveling
What I noticed differently about this game is that I have been doing instances to level up way more than I do questing. a couple of years back, I would be questing most of the time, trying to get my player to a higher level. I did find that while questing, I was able to learn the little details of my class, but it wasn’t until I started playing with other people in instances that I really started to understand how my class played in comparison with others and how it can benefit others. When playing solo, I learned my spells well and well enough to use the different spells in different situations in groups. What I find lately is that everyone who parties with me knows quite a bit about playing in groups, especially post level 25. but, they do not use all of their tools to their advantage. somehow, leveling through instances requires knowledge of only several abilities. It’s a great way of learning to play in groups, but I find that it doesn’t help people actually learn everything they need to know about their class.
One Trick Ponies
What I see the most? People are not utilizing all of their skills, but only resorting to AoE style of play. Because many tanks can simply group a bunch of mobs together, the dps usually busts out with their AoE type spells (blizzard, volley, rain of fire, etc) and try to burn down all the mobs at once. this makes it easy, actaully. although healing through it might not be as before (I'll explain that in a bit), things seem to work and we move on to the next batch to start the process all over again.
What happens when people use their AoE all the time?
1. no one gets cc'ed. no one gets "crowd controlled". no one is dazed, sheeped or forced to repent.
2. no one interrupts. casters, with 3 second casts usually, do not get interrupted. shield slam? no. hammer of justice? no. wind shear? no. kick? no. silence? no. counterspell? no. of course not. all of these spells are learned in raids or in arenas, of course, at level 80.
3. no emergency spells. what is this? a near wipe! oh lets just wipe. actually there are many emergency spells that every class has that will help to live longer, and possibly to avoid a wipe. im talking interrupts and cc's, but also those damage mitigation spells every class should have by now. divine protection, last stand, shield wall, fears, frost nova, and so forth. what usually happens is that the hunter or warlock's pet takes over tanking and no one really has to blow any of their cooldown spells. one other thing is that mobs hit for less damage comparatively, so some healers will find it a lot easier to heal four people (each with one mob on them) than healing a tank with four mobs on himself. sometimes I even prefer to heal four "tanks" than just one. tis weird.
4. no synergizing. This means no one is really talking about ways to improve their dps with other members. should warlocks toss curse of the elements? which totems are best with this group composition? why are you giving me "dampen magic????" stop overriding my blessings! etc.
there might be more, but this is all I really wanted to talk about. all of this should be learned during our play time leveling, if not through discovery, than its through being told by someone in the group (sometimes without an explanation). but being told by someone in the group is often a matter of chance, so we leave it up to chance to learn how to best use our abilities? sigh. but whether or not we know how to really "play" our character, or why our character is doing crap damage vs everyone else, what matters most is that we learn how to work as a team. the above four points kinda illustrate how, as a member of a team, we can help each other out.
The Resto Shaman
I've been leveling up a shaman recently with my girlfriend's paladin. he's been quite a blast to play actually. What I've learned from having only one heal for 20 levels, and now having a second heal, that healing with a shaman is indeed, boring. but thank god we're not just limited to healing. no really, there are several instant attacks that you must utilize as a shaman. must. even at the cost of mana. because you helping to kill things faster makes instances faster, even if you have to sit and drink a little. here's my little bit of insight I want to share for those in levels 20-30.
1. include the fire totem. magma totem over searing totem. blast it on cooldown.
2. save frost shock for runners. if they don’t run, earthshock to reduce their attack speed (but if you have a warrior/druid doing demo shout, this becomes unnecessary).
3. target any caster and windshear their spells. less damage taken means less you have to heal. windshear is on a short cooldown so you can do it multiple times a fight.
4. always keep water shield up. they are your mana resource. glyphed water shield rocks too.
5. at level 30, always recall your totems. this saves you some mana.
After level 20, you can easily contribute to the speed of many dungeons by adding a ltitle burst dps when needed. just remember to watch your mana usage and hold off at certain times. especially when the tank is taking heavy damage (but those are often the best times to dps. oh so juicy). but I always have to remember I signed up to heal and so I should heal first and foremost.
The GF's Ret Paladin
My girlfriend has been trying to level up her paladin for over a week and has gotten her to her mid 30s today. Not much to say except that she usually top damage meters. Is that great or what? well she tops dps. im sure she gets it from me. but I think what makes her dps high is that I mention several things about her fighting. always judge on cooldown, and always use seal of command. so she's rocking through the instances with very little problems and doing pretty good damage.
Now that her paladin is about the same level as her warlock, we'll be leveling together. all four characters. her lock and pala with my priest and shaman. I guess I'll have to check out the different combinations (theres just two, but hey, trying to see how they fit together) to see which one works best to boost our dps and healing. you know, that synergy thing.
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