Today's blog entry is on the kerning of instances and a brief update:
Brief update of this past weekend. Me and my gf went off and completed a few more instances of Dire Maul East to finally reached 58. My gf was sitting pretty at 59 but I wasn’t the bit worried.
We traveled to the dark portal the long way so she can pick up some flight paths along the way plus see some of the zones she'll probably never return to. we ran through swamp of sorrows and killed a few things. I honestly would never want to quest there again. I did it on my paladin not too long ago and hated most of the quests. Anyway, we entered the dark portal and was ushered into a whole new world full of demons fighting. it was a pretty awesome sight to see. that battle has been going on for ages, but to every new person passing through that portal, it is fresh and feels like things are happening as we speak (not 4 years ago). we then went through the intro quests and finally on to thrallmar where we collected blood, destroyed some tanks, killed a bunch of demons and broke nearly every demon teleports there are in Hellfire Peninsula. I wonder if HFP was actually a peninsula before the world got broken apart. hmmmmm...
After we took care of the bombing runs I decided to skip the quests in southern HFP (Spinebreaker post) simply because it’s a very crowded area full of mobs. it’s a busy zone. there were quite a few people leveling through that area, much more so than in azeroth. the reason for this is probably because in azeroth, there are various different zones of the same level and many of us are able to pick and choose which zones we'd like to quest in. not so with outland. everyone starts in hellfire peninsula. we're encouraged to play against each other. I like that idea. but I also like the idea of northrend, where there are two level 68-72 zones. and all the zones somehow kind of overlap. dragonblight isnt level 73, you can go there at 71 and still be okay. etc.
Now that we're both 62, I think we can go back to southern HFP and finish off some of the quests there. however, we really do not need to. we can just move on to the next two zones to play (Zangarmarsh and Terrokar forest, with terrokar just a smudge higher level than zangar).
Outland Instances and their Set up
Now in terms of instances, we went through quite a few over the weekend. I still do not have the kilt of rolling thunders, and my gf is still looking for the gloves from the maker in bf. I did end up with a nice belt. I got leather gloves from the first boss in underbog then saw it drop about five more times. I would love that totem for some more mana regen though. gf got the belt from the hydra and shoulderpads from the hunter. just gotta get the pants from the hunter next time around and the hammer from the hydra. I will run ramps again for the shaman pants. this works out because my gf can get the boots off the dragon boss too. she already has everything else she needs from that instance, hellreaver included.
So here we are sitting pretty at level 62. we've been here for four levels and have done four out of the six lower level instances in HFP. The other two are in mana tombs and auchenai crypts. but I think by the time we get to level 67, we'll be doing sethekk halls durnhold. Its somewhat sad to see this because there's quite a few more instances out there left to do. In Tempest keep, there's the Arcatraz, the Mechanar and the Botanica (think: the Exodar, but as three separate dungeons). Hellfire citadel has one last instance at level 70 called Shattered halls. Coilfang reservoir has one called Steamvault and Auchidon has one called Shadow Laberynth. Oh and lets not forget Caverns of time's The Black Morass. These are all level 68-70 instances that may be skipped. /sad
Here is the breakdown of dungeon clusters in Outland:
1. Hellfire Citadel: Ramparts & Blood Furnace (58-62), then Shattered Halls (70).
2. Coilfang Reservoir: Slave Pens & Underbog (60-64), then Steamvault (70).
3. Auchindon: Auchinai Crypt & Mana Tombs (64-66), then Sethekk Halls (67-69), then Shadow Laberynth (70).
4. Caverns of Time: Escape from Durnholde (66-67) and The Black Morass (68-69)
5. Tempest Keep: Arcatraz, Mechanar & Botanica (68-70).
There are also raids that are obsolete, but people do still run those from time to time.
So with this list up, I see things pretty spread out, having things for everyone to do at whatever level they might be. The problem for me is this: We're pretty much going to skip 7 or 8 of those instances. Forget all the ones I've marked as 70, since those will be skipped in favor of Utgarde keep, a level 68-72 instance in northrend. Also skip escape from durnholde and black morass since much of the population do not know how to unlock it, or wont be assed to do it even if they knew how. I will tho, I love those two for the same reason I like culling of stratholme. Theyre not a regular instance like everything else.
what I would love to see is that the level requirements for most of these instances reduced a bit. im sure these instances have been nerfed in the past, and so lowering the level requirement will only help for a bunch of people to actually see some of this stuff. I do want to do Shattered Halls, Steamvault, Shadow Lab and all of the Tempest Keep instances before I hit 70. My last level 80 did them all as well, but Devynity didn’t get to finish all of those instances until level 74. Yes, level 74. I remember fishing in Dragonblight waiting for the queue for Mechanar and Arcatraz to pop. Really? 74? come on bliz.
I want to see some of this stuff before im too high leveled for it. that's basically my point. I know, no one is stopping me from doing them now, or later. But the rewards they give don’t match up with what new content can give. This is the same for the transition between Azeroth and Outland. Stratholme, Scholo and BRS do not offer enough incentive to stay.
I know, there are people who do not have the expansions necessary and are limited. But in a day and age where I can simply check the AH for some Outland gear at level 58, even on a toon who's stuck maxed at 60, he can still wear some of this good stuff found in outland. Same with Northrend. I can check the AH if I don’t have the Wrath expansion and get some gear that can suppliment my tanking, dps, or healing. Heck, at level 70, I can get the Cobalt tanking set and tank all of outlands with it. it’s a lot better and can be easily made (since every BS has to make some of those items to level up).
Cata hopes:
What I am hoping to see in Cataclysm is that the instances don’t start at level 78. I would hope they start out at level 83. yes, 83… all so that people will be arsed to do the level 80 northrend instnaces as well as the harder icecrown citadel instances.
It would have made a lot of sense if the new instances (back when they were new) were bumped up about two levels or that the old instances be pushed down about two levels. actually, the older instances have been nerfed to oblivion, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t lower the mob's levels as well (and also lower the level requirements for some of the boss drops).
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the layout and pacing of all the instances in this game. not saying they did a bad job with it, as it was a pretty awesome job back in the days. but as time progressed, expansions entered the picture and things should change. What I see is that things arent changing as newer content is being added. I think it would make a lot of sense to actually go back and tune some of these instances for lower levels.
Showing posts with label instances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label instances. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Monday Report
Ah... the Monday "TPS" reports! it is that time of the week again where i have to update a few things and make sure all of my customers are paying, or at least, have a reason to not pay on time. Now this often interferes with what i really want to do, which was to recap the weekend (which i briefly did in the previous post) and reflect on a few points of discoveries for this week. I think that having some form of contemplation is good, even if its very little or if it results in absolutely nothing.
DPS is leveling out. I remember pretty well the few days of blogging about 200 dps and i do remember my first venture into RFC, where my dps was a whopping 17. 17 dps. that was crazy cool since everyone else was doing 8 dps. But it slowly got better. in fact, it kept jumping every few levels. but now it seemed to have leveled out as i find myself sitting at 1k-1.3k dps since 66. I remember 66 vaguely because this is when i got my awesome hammer from the hydra boss inside underbog. i added some STR gems to it and it made a gigantic jump in dps, so much more than the hellreaver. also with the gloves, chest and boots having a bunch of slots, i gemmed them with bold bloodstones and perfect bold bloodstones. those are cheap and are way more than i really need at my level. so since then, my dps hasnt really changed much. i did have a lot of fun with holy wrath on demons and dead/undead things as well as timing my divine storm and consecration right. all those add to the awesome aoe dps. there are many times where i did pull aggro but it wasnt too hard to finish off the mob before it killed me. i did venture into UK once and got my ass handed to me for pulling aggro, so my hypothesis was correct. i can "safely" pull trash mobs from the tank in outland, but not in northrend. although this had led to a bunch of butthurt tanks who, instead of try to be better TPS, decide to hold a pity party at our expense and either afk out or leave. TPS is threat per second. come on guys, im hitting the same mob you're hitting and im pulling them off of you. maybe you should learn to tank?
So my analysis is this. DPS stops at around 1k around level 66 and stays that way until 73, when most people get their gear "up to par" with the dungeons up north. this gear i speak of has stats that go well with the new system of play, or new stat priority, or new damage formulas Wrath brought on in patch 3.0. Once we are able to do Violet hold and Drak Theron Keep, we should have gear to decently outdo 1k dps. Please note this is also my theory. It is by no means what happens normally, as there are many classes and many ways to buff your dps. i mean give a warlock seed of corruption and there you have it, 4k dps at level 75. but this analysis is based on my own ret paladin with his own playstyle. also, i speak of overall dps, and not just single target dps since most of what matters in instances is the AoE dps anyway. When raiding happens, i guess we'll have to fine tune things. but for now, no boss is really on some kinda "enrage" timer where we can wipe if we take too long. so the limiting factor is really, or should ideally be, the healer's mana.
So going back to the topic, i feel that this stagnation in dps can be a good and bad thing. one, it can help me focus on fine tuning my play without really worrying too much about dps. in UK, i was top dps at 1k dps overall, but had a 500dps on prince keliseth, mainly due to running back and forth killing the frost tombs, and getting frost tombed three times with the first time not being freed until i yelled "HELP". I figured i'd be a little higher than that. we'll see how things pan out tho. but keliseth really drops my dps more than anything in utgarde keep. but fine-tune i will do.
i do notice some abilities that i will never use and one is repentance. oh why dont they just give me that ability at 80 instead of sacred shield? i'd sooooo love a trade. i'd run and SS myself all day if i could. it would make things a lot more interesting than a silly CC that i'll never use (not just because everyone is AoE crazy, but also because, well, there is no real spot for me to use it besides MGT. really, i've only used repentance at magisters terrace. and the tank didnt even notice. nope. he went and pulled a second group and left the CC'ed mob standing, only to get out of it and blast a hole in me. thanks stupid tank. oh and at the five super friends right before Keal, i asked which mob should i CC, but by the time i finished asking the question, the tank already charged in. needless to say, no one survived. no one knew how to fight that fight. everyone thought the naga chick was tank and spank. but there's gotta be a reason why all five of them are standing there right? i mean its pretty close to a perfect group and killing the healers first would have been nice. i mean stupid tank should at least ask about the fight. anyway, that group dropped and i was stuck trying to figure out how people can be so bad when it comes to thinking. i mean yes, tank and spank requires little thinking, but when it comes to fighting groups or bosses where there's more thought involved, people seem to get anneurisms and die, and politely drop group asap so we dont have to waste a /kick.
OK these reflections are turning out to be rantfests. but maybe that's what they're supposed to be. i havent had a deep thought in the past several posts. its been very... dull to just hear me mention stupidity. and it angers me tho, to see this kind of dumbness and see people, instead of wanting to figure out what happened and fixing it, to just dropping group and thinking that the current wipe was due to just "bad luck" or " bad group composition" or because the tank just sucked. sure. it could be one of those things, or all of those things. but how will you overcome these things if you're just gonna drop group each time a wall pops up. these instances are supposed to be hard. they're supposed to be challenging. they're supposed to involve a kind of synergy in a group where everyone works together to try to accomplish something a single character would be unable to do. instead, i feel that the mentality is one where people want to progress through. and progressing means they level up. no, it does not mean beating a boss. it does not mean learning your CC's or utility spells. it doesnt even mean decursing. i was cursed several times throughout many runs before and i wasnt dispelled until i actually had to ask for it in party. what? seriously. isnt 200 mana for a dispell worth it to the group?
anyway, my point is this: Progression means to level up and not to accomplish a goal.
This really shouldnt be the way to play. otherwise, any monkey can play this game and progress. i wanted to down the bosses and get the achev for accomplishing the instance. sure i can leave, level up to 72 and do the instance again. but why do that? i can do it perfectly fine at 70. i dont see why we cant all make the corpse run, talk about the wipe, and then kick the boss' butt. no, im stuck with people thinking its not worth the effort because leveling was so easy in comparison (then why did you q for a friggin instance then?!!!??!?!????). why deal with this "harder" bs when the easy stuff will lead to the same thing... and that's to gain experience points? why deal with having to move out of the fire? why deal with lowering my already low dps so i can CC someone? because it keeps everyone alive dumbass. it allows us to move on to the next group of mobs or bosses. this is not always an aoe fest where the tank grabs everything and we all hope the healer can heal through all of that while we dps everything down. maybe part of the game is to play using all of our tricks. maybe that makes the game actually fun??? If you dont want to deal with it, dont queue up for dungeons. if you want easy, go do a quest and leave the instance queues for those who actually want to do this. /facedesk
But alas, through 70 levels we were forcefed one way of playing, the easy way of playing. so why not take the easy way when it comes to leveling? finish off your quest while waiting for another instance queue. and hope that you dont get the same hard instance, or that if you do get the same hard instance, mechanarlol, that there will be a great healer, or great tank, or a great dps that will carry everyone through so you dont have to learn anything yourself, so you stay unchallenged, so you can continue pressing your usual three buttons.
So ok, since i have ADD and cant hold a constant thought for a paragraph, im going to just post this rant and call it a week. Have a great one everyone. i hope to type about happy things later on.
DPS is leveling out. I remember pretty well the few days of blogging about 200 dps and i do remember my first venture into RFC, where my dps was a whopping 17. 17 dps. that was crazy cool since everyone else was doing 8 dps. But it slowly got better. in fact, it kept jumping every few levels. but now it seemed to have leveled out as i find myself sitting at 1k-1.3k dps since 66. I remember 66 vaguely because this is when i got my awesome hammer from the hydra boss inside underbog. i added some STR gems to it and it made a gigantic jump in dps, so much more than the hellreaver. also with the gloves, chest and boots having a bunch of slots, i gemmed them with bold bloodstones and perfect bold bloodstones. those are cheap and are way more than i really need at my level. so since then, my dps hasnt really changed much. i did have a lot of fun with holy wrath on demons and dead/undead things as well as timing my divine storm and consecration right. all those add to the awesome aoe dps. there are many times where i did pull aggro but it wasnt too hard to finish off the mob before it killed me. i did venture into UK once and got my ass handed to me for pulling aggro, so my hypothesis was correct. i can "safely" pull trash mobs from the tank in outland, but not in northrend. although this had led to a bunch of butthurt tanks who, instead of try to be better TPS, decide to hold a pity party at our expense and either afk out or leave. TPS is threat per second. come on guys, im hitting the same mob you're hitting and im pulling them off of you. maybe you should learn to tank?
So my analysis is this. DPS stops at around 1k around level 66 and stays that way until 73, when most people get their gear "up to par" with the dungeons up north. this gear i speak of has stats that go well with the new system of play, or new stat priority, or new damage formulas Wrath brought on in patch 3.0. Once we are able to do Violet hold and Drak Theron Keep, we should have gear to decently outdo 1k dps. Please note this is also my theory. It is by no means what happens normally, as there are many classes and many ways to buff your dps. i mean give a warlock seed of corruption and there you have it, 4k dps at level 75. but this analysis is based on my own ret paladin with his own playstyle. also, i speak of overall dps, and not just single target dps since most of what matters in instances is the AoE dps anyway. When raiding happens, i guess we'll have to fine tune things. but for now, no boss is really on some kinda "enrage" timer where we can wipe if we take too long. so the limiting factor is really, or should ideally be, the healer's mana.
So going back to the topic, i feel that this stagnation in dps can be a good and bad thing. one, it can help me focus on fine tuning my play without really worrying too much about dps. in UK, i was top dps at 1k dps overall, but had a 500dps on prince keliseth, mainly due to running back and forth killing the frost tombs, and getting frost tombed three times with the first time not being freed until i yelled "HELP". I figured i'd be a little higher than that. we'll see how things pan out tho. but keliseth really drops my dps more than anything in utgarde keep. but fine-tune i will do.
i do notice some abilities that i will never use and one is repentance. oh why dont they just give me that ability at 80 instead of sacred shield? i'd sooooo love a trade. i'd run and SS myself all day if i could. it would make things a lot more interesting than a silly CC that i'll never use (not just because everyone is AoE crazy, but also because, well, there is no real spot for me to use it besides MGT. really, i've only used repentance at magisters terrace. and the tank didnt even notice. nope. he went and pulled a second group and left the CC'ed mob standing, only to get out of it and blast a hole in me. thanks stupid tank. oh and at the five super friends right before Keal, i asked which mob should i CC, but by the time i finished asking the question, the tank already charged in. needless to say, no one survived. no one knew how to fight that fight. everyone thought the naga chick was tank and spank. but there's gotta be a reason why all five of them are standing there right? i mean its pretty close to a perfect group and killing the healers first would have been nice. i mean stupid tank should at least ask about the fight. anyway, that group dropped and i was stuck trying to figure out how people can be so bad when it comes to thinking. i mean yes, tank and spank requires little thinking, but when it comes to fighting groups or bosses where there's more thought involved, people seem to get anneurisms and die, and politely drop group asap so we dont have to waste a /kick.
OK these reflections are turning out to be rantfests. but maybe that's what they're supposed to be. i havent had a deep thought in the past several posts. its been very... dull to just hear me mention stupidity. and it angers me tho, to see this kind of dumbness and see people, instead of wanting to figure out what happened and fixing it, to just dropping group and thinking that the current wipe was due to just "bad luck" or " bad group composition" or because the tank just sucked. sure. it could be one of those things, or all of those things. but how will you overcome these things if you're just gonna drop group each time a wall pops up. these instances are supposed to be hard. they're supposed to be challenging. they're supposed to involve a kind of synergy in a group where everyone works together to try to accomplish something a single character would be unable to do. instead, i feel that the mentality is one where people want to progress through. and progressing means they level up. no, it does not mean beating a boss. it does not mean learning your CC's or utility spells. it doesnt even mean decursing. i was cursed several times throughout many runs before and i wasnt dispelled until i actually had to ask for it in party. what? seriously. isnt 200 mana for a dispell worth it to the group?
anyway, my point is this: Progression means to level up and not to accomplish a goal.
This really shouldnt be the way to play. otherwise, any monkey can play this game and progress. i wanted to down the bosses and get the achev for accomplishing the instance. sure i can leave, level up to 72 and do the instance again. but why do that? i can do it perfectly fine at 70. i dont see why we cant all make the corpse run, talk about the wipe, and then kick the boss' butt. no, im stuck with people thinking its not worth the effort because leveling was so easy in comparison (then why did you q for a friggin instance then?!!!??!?!????). why deal with this "harder" bs when the easy stuff will lead to the same thing... and that's to gain experience points? why deal with having to move out of the fire? why deal with lowering my already low dps so i can CC someone? because it keeps everyone alive dumbass. it allows us to move on to the next group of mobs or bosses. this is not always an aoe fest where the tank grabs everything and we all hope the healer can heal through all of that while we dps everything down. maybe part of the game is to play using all of our tricks. maybe that makes the game actually fun??? If you dont want to deal with it, dont queue up for dungeons. if you want easy, go do a quest and leave the instance queues for those who actually want to do this. /facedesk
But alas, through 70 levels we were forcefed one way of playing, the easy way of playing. so why not take the easy way when it comes to leveling? finish off your quest while waiting for another instance queue. and hope that you dont get the same hard instance, or that if you do get the same hard instance, mechanarlol, that there will be a great healer, or great tank, or a great dps that will carry everyone through so you dont have to learn anything yourself, so you stay unchallenged, so you can continue pressing your usual three buttons.
So ok, since i have ADD and cant hold a constant thought for a paragraph, im going to just post this rant and call it a week. Have a great one everyone. i hope to type about happy things later on.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Summing up the weekend.
I started the weekend off late 40's, at around level 48 and ended up at level 53 Sunday night. There was a lot going on throughout the weekend, but i really dont know what to say about it. actually, i dont know anything meaningful to speak about regarding leveling from 48 to 53. These five levels are actually pretty packed with change, but i dont seem to know how to adress the changes. it could be the case of the mondays. but more likely than not, its just burnout.
But any which way, i am going to try to attempt to write something because i really really want to mention the addition of 3 points of Sheath of Light and 1 point of Crusader Strike. That, and i also have this itching to write at work, since, for some odd reason, Websense is actually letting me blog from work. Score!
So here is how my weekend started. after having ran around tanaris in a big circle and doing all of the ZF quests, i mozied off to Swamp of sorrows for some really easy green quests. i basically killed an alliance guy who thought the forsaken was going to betray the horde. i think it was the group that sided with Varimathras instead of Sylvanas. I am still uncertain of some details in that uprising. no spoilers if you havent already done it.
anyway. killed the human, then went off and did some quests to help the orcs there. killed a bunch of murlocs for an orc that seems pretty angry at the ocean, or ocean creatures in general, and then wondered why we dont see too much of the sea on the eastern coast of lordaeron and the eastern kingdoms. The only coastal contact i've had with this part of the sea was at the following: Briefly in eversong, Hinterlands, briefly in EPL and only during the DK starting area, then there's this gigantic void until you reach swamp of sorrows and then STV. Then i thought about the western coast of kalimdor and thought, the coastal contact i have with that side of the world seems remote, yet tranquil and lush. Lets start with Feralas, a lush green area with a coast and a large island. then desolace wasnt too awesome, but it did have some diving quests, and lots of nagas to kill. further up the coast is the shores of the zoram strand with an instance, as there is no meaningful coastal contact along stontalon mtns. Then, further up is the nightelf level 10-20 area. then, going over the waters, there's Teldressil, Azuremyst, and Bloody myst isle.
What i can take from this is this sheer fact that there's a lot more interaction between the player and the coastal environment on the western side of kalimdor than there is on the eastern side of the eastern kingdoms (Lordaeron, for short). Apart from two quests that has me swimming to small islands in Hinterlands (and short short quests as it is), and one to in STV to kill three captains, there isnt a whole lot going on on the eastern seaboard. i dont know why that should be the case. But what i do know is that this has lead me to view the eastern sea as a large mysterious body of water, a large, mysterious and somehow dead body of water. sure, it has fish, turtles, waves, and the occassional sea monster, but i somehow find it very easy to believe that these sea monsters would rather be in the other oceans. so would i.
i went to swamp of sorrows because, like stv, i've never quested there. but i quickly realized that i really wasnt missing much. i had to collect 10 crab legs that basically took the whole of three passes to complete. that's 10 crablegs from 15 monsterious crabs. and so i cleared them all. once, twice, then three times. thats about 40 crabs killed in order to loot 10 legs. and shadow panther hearts? i killed them all twice over. to get five. yes five hearts. lets not talk about the crocodile claws and crocodile flanks. omg. and just to drive a final nail in the coffin of "omg worst zone ever" there's a giant instance in the middle of the zone, complete with a maze... before you get to the instance itself. thank goodness for LFD, at least you can skip the maze, that's until you realize there's a maze inside the instance, and the isntance is as big as the whole zone, and that if you die... good luck finding the entrance (for me, i've done this instance many times before, so corpse runs arent a problem. but do you feel the pain im feeling? anyone?). and finally, adding a vanity nail into the coffin... i decided to help out a human who was captured by some broken draenei halfbreeds. well you would expect the captive to run AWAY from his captors, correct? well being human, he wasnt too bright, so he walked me right through their camp. what a dumbass. he died about five seconds have he aggro'ed 4 of them. then i died. i really dont know whats dumber: this quest, the escortee, or the designers who actually thought it was a good idea to have the captive path back through the village. /rant
finally, upon outleveling the zone, i decided to move to my favorite zone in the map (and this time with two quests from STV, one to kill 20 trolls and put their skulls on a spike, and another to gather some bottles of rum, plus one quest i got from UC to burn some documents that careless high elves will leave lying around). i ran to Raventusk village and picked up all of the quests. i had to drop some quests, including the dumb failed escort quest mentioned earlier. but i was really glad to have dropped it. anyway, i went up the coast, killed the turtles and found lard's lunch, then went back to turn it in. then i went inland and made a big gigantic circle around the map, and completed every single quest there. i dinged 50 somewhere at around the same time i was killing vile priestess hexx, then went to turn in all the quests and got super close to dinging again. flew to UC and turned in my quest there, took the zep to grom gol and turned in the quest there. flew to booty bay and turned in the quest there. ding. 51. really quick and easy. i went to tanaris to do something else and finish wastewater justice quest. then called it a night as i was super tired. it was saturday night by then. =]
i got a bit lost after hinterlands tho. since i figured hinterlands was probably my favorite zone ever, due to the trees, the hills and many little pockets of camps and things all thoughtfully melting together in one gooey place. gooey goodness, of course. not to mention it has mageweave, mithril nodes, sungrass and purple lotuses galore. so my next option is to enter WPL and do the quests there. as far as it seems, level 58 isnt too far away. im 53, so 5 levels of questing and im out of Azeroth. although STV was a pretty refreshing, there isnt really much to say about content in the "old world". its just one of those things everyone has to go through and try to escape as quickly as possible. sometimes people dont make it through and end up with a level 35 alt somewhere.
as far as instances go, i really havent gotten much of a chance to do any of them to any extent, mainly because they have broken the later ones into artificial pieces that many people decide they should skip straight to the end boss for that "instance". really though, orange mara, purple mara, and pristine waters mara. you cant skip much in orange or purple, but with pristine waters, you can basically skip the goblin, the rock boss and head straight for the farting princess. and after the princess, no one wants to jump down and kill the giant gator. no one. then, upon hitting 51 or 52, i kept getting BRD, and we only had to go into the cave to the right and kill that one "fear" happy boss. there are some groups that ventured further. but seriously, at 52 most of us seemed capable of taking out the whole instance. the content is way too easy. seeing how, at my level, i am only given credit for the first boss in BRD, when we went as far as getting the key to the instance (i think its called the shadowforge key, about 7 bosses in). it feels like whoever divided the level requirements up forgot that all the instances underwent several NERFS. halfassed job blizz. srsly. when i first entered brd at around 51, i was blowing things away. and i was still forgetting to use my new attack, crusader strike. we ended the instance with me using that ability maybe five times. i really think, come cata, that the difficulty be put back to "Normal" with some heroic modes for all of us 85's who would really like to go through old content again. and yes, break up the larger instances. but dont break it up but give us the ability to wander into the next parts of the instances. just break it up and attune it for 85. then for heroic 85, or whatever you want hardmode to be called. orange mara should be a separate instance. BRD should be three different instances. with portals at the beginning for us to select. let us work.
yes, let us work. this is why im ranting about the instances and how they're planned out. actually how they've resulted through series of nerfs. what happened is that, level appropriate four years ago is not level appropriate today. this leads to sloppy play by everyone. i dont even care if i pull aggro any more. i just do. even with vigilence, i pull, and i dont care because i can take the 10 hits before the mob dies (consider outlands and northrend, where 5 hits would have been overkill and i'd be dead, but here, nope) and i still have enough health to "tank" another mob. all the warlocks cast rain of fire. all the mages cast blizzard. all the hunters cast volley and do explosive traps. all the paladins cast consecrate. all the warriors are tanks and do amazing damage. there are no DKs but when there are, im sure i'll see a million square feet of death and decays before its all over. tanks would pull three groups at once. healers never run out of mana, even with the three groups and an accidental fourth group. honestly. a boss fight isnt really a boss fight. its just another mob with a little more health and maybe does a little more damage. that's basically it. everything's really just a laughfest right now. its so sad. that's how its been since ragefire chasm. none of the instances i've been to actually challeged us. everything was a quick jog through to level up. i really didnt get to learn my class as much as i figured i would. i actually learn my class a lot more through "easy" solo content. aparently the status quo has changed, and in order to really learn your class, you have to go solo. this wasnt the case three years ago when i started playing. it shouldnt be the case now, especially when playing solo requires the ability to tap two buttons and knowing which mob is a questmob. really. how dumb can we go? but im sure there's a reason for that. i'll have to theorize on this a little later, as it is just about time to wrap up.
and finally, i've ventured into WPL and did the first two quests there at 53. hopefully, the next five levels will pass by quickly. hopefully, come outlands, i wont be steamrolling through instances like i did before.
for my next post, im gonna talk about the transition from my level 1-49 attack sequence to my new level 50 attack sequence, which includes Crusader strike. its a lolstrike actually, doing pretty crap damage, but its still something "new" to the level 50 paladin.
also up in the near future will be my thoughts on how leveling through instances has been trivialized, and how its creating a lot of bad players. etc, things like that. also will update on enchanting, jc and that little bit of inscription, not to mention cooking, first aid and fishing.... on my pala.
all good stuffs compared to today's drivel. drivel you say? yes. just a bunch of garbage spit out at ya. feel free to reply with comparable garbage in the comments. =]
But any which way, i am going to try to attempt to write something because i really really want to mention the addition of 3 points of Sheath of Light and 1 point of Crusader Strike. That, and i also have this itching to write at work, since, for some odd reason, Websense is actually letting me blog from work. Score!
So here is how my weekend started. after having ran around tanaris in a big circle and doing all of the ZF quests, i mozied off to Swamp of sorrows for some really easy green quests. i basically killed an alliance guy who thought the forsaken was going to betray the horde. i think it was the group that sided with Varimathras instead of Sylvanas. I am still uncertain of some details in that uprising. no spoilers if you havent already done it.
anyway. killed the human, then went off and did some quests to help the orcs there. killed a bunch of murlocs for an orc that seems pretty angry at the ocean, or ocean creatures in general, and then wondered why we dont see too much of the sea on the eastern coast of lordaeron and the eastern kingdoms. The only coastal contact i've had with this part of the sea was at the following: Briefly in eversong, Hinterlands, briefly in EPL and only during the DK starting area, then there's this gigantic void until you reach swamp of sorrows and then STV. Then i thought about the western coast of kalimdor and thought, the coastal contact i have with that side of the world seems remote, yet tranquil and lush. Lets start with Feralas, a lush green area with a coast and a large island. then desolace wasnt too awesome, but it did have some diving quests, and lots of nagas to kill. further up the coast is the shores of the zoram strand with an instance, as there is no meaningful coastal contact along stontalon mtns. Then, further up is the nightelf level 10-20 area. then, going over the waters, there's Teldressil, Azuremyst, and Bloody myst isle.
What i can take from this is this sheer fact that there's a lot more interaction between the player and the coastal environment on the western side of kalimdor than there is on the eastern side of the eastern kingdoms (Lordaeron, for short). Apart from two quests that has me swimming to small islands in Hinterlands (and short short quests as it is), and one to in STV to kill three captains, there isnt a whole lot going on on the eastern seaboard. i dont know why that should be the case. But what i do know is that this has lead me to view the eastern sea as a large mysterious body of water, a large, mysterious and somehow dead body of water. sure, it has fish, turtles, waves, and the occassional sea monster, but i somehow find it very easy to believe that these sea monsters would rather be in the other oceans. so would i.
i went to swamp of sorrows because, like stv, i've never quested there. but i quickly realized that i really wasnt missing much. i had to collect 10 crab legs that basically took the whole of three passes to complete. that's 10 crablegs from 15 monsterious crabs. and so i cleared them all. once, twice, then three times. thats about 40 crabs killed in order to loot 10 legs. and shadow panther hearts? i killed them all twice over. to get five. yes five hearts. lets not talk about the crocodile claws and crocodile flanks. omg. and just to drive a final nail in the coffin of "omg worst zone ever" there's a giant instance in the middle of the zone, complete with a maze... before you get to the instance itself. thank goodness for LFD, at least you can skip the maze, that's until you realize there's a maze inside the instance, and the isntance is as big as the whole zone, and that if you die... good luck finding the entrance (for me, i've done this instance many times before, so corpse runs arent a problem. but do you feel the pain im feeling? anyone?). and finally, adding a vanity nail into the coffin... i decided to help out a human who was captured by some broken draenei halfbreeds. well you would expect the captive to run AWAY from his captors, correct? well being human, he wasnt too bright, so he walked me right through their camp. what a dumbass. he died about five seconds have he aggro'ed 4 of them. then i died. i really dont know whats dumber: this quest, the escortee, or the designers who actually thought it was a good idea to have the captive path back through the village. /rant
finally, upon outleveling the zone, i decided to move to my favorite zone in the map (and this time with two quests from STV, one to kill 20 trolls and put their skulls on a spike, and another to gather some bottles of rum, plus one quest i got from UC to burn some documents that careless high elves will leave lying around). i ran to Raventusk village and picked up all of the quests. i had to drop some quests, including the dumb failed escort quest mentioned earlier. but i was really glad to have dropped it. anyway, i went up the coast, killed the turtles and found lard's lunch, then went back to turn it in. then i went inland and made a big gigantic circle around the map, and completed every single quest there. i dinged 50 somewhere at around the same time i was killing vile priestess hexx, then went to turn in all the quests and got super close to dinging again. flew to UC and turned in my quest there, took the zep to grom gol and turned in the quest there. flew to booty bay and turned in the quest there. ding. 51. really quick and easy. i went to tanaris to do something else and finish wastewater justice quest. then called it a night as i was super tired. it was saturday night by then. =]
i got a bit lost after hinterlands tho. since i figured hinterlands was probably my favorite zone ever, due to the trees, the hills and many little pockets of camps and things all thoughtfully melting together in one gooey place. gooey goodness, of course. not to mention it has mageweave, mithril nodes, sungrass and purple lotuses galore. so my next option is to enter WPL and do the quests there. as far as it seems, level 58 isnt too far away. im 53, so 5 levels of questing and im out of Azeroth. although STV was a pretty refreshing, there isnt really much to say about content in the "old world". its just one of those things everyone has to go through and try to escape as quickly as possible. sometimes people dont make it through and end up with a level 35 alt somewhere.
as far as instances go, i really havent gotten much of a chance to do any of them to any extent, mainly because they have broken the later ones into artificial pieces that many people decide they should skip straight to the end boss for that "instance". really though, orange mara, purple mara, and pristine waters mara. you cant skip much in orange or purple, but with pristine waters, you can basically skip the goblin, the rock boss and head straight for the farting princess. and after the princess, no one wants to jump down and kill the giant gator. no one. then, upon hitting 51 or 52, i kept getting BRD, and we only had to go into the cave to the right and kill that one "fear" happy boss. there are some groups that ventured further. but seriously, at 52 most of us seemed capable of taking out the whole instance. the content is way too easy. seeing how, at my level, i am only given credit for the first boss in BRD, when we went as far as getting the key to the instance (i think its called the shadowforge key, about 7 bosses in). it feels like whoever divided the level requirements up forgot that all the instances underwent several NERFS. halfassed job blizz. srsly. when i first entered brd at around 51, i was blowing things away. and i was still forgetting to use my new attack, crusader strike. we ended the instance with me using that ability maybe five times. i really think, come cata, that the difficulty be put back to "Normal" with some heroic modes for all of us 85's who would really like to go through old content again. and yes, break up the larger instances. but dont break it up but give us the ability to wander into the next parts of the instances. just break it up and attune it for 85. then for heroic 85, or whatever you want hardmode to be called. orange mara should be a separate instance. BRD should be three different instances. with portals at the beginning for us to select. let us work.
yes, let us work. this is why im ranting about the instances and how they're planned out. actually how they've resulted through series of nerfs. what happened is that, level appropriate four years ago is not level appropriate today. this leads to sloppy play by everyone. i dont even care if i pull aggro any more. i just do. even with vigilence, i pull, and i dont care because i can take the 10 hits before the mob dies (consider outlands and northrend, where 5 hits would have been overkill and i'd be dead, but here, nope) and i still have enough health to "tank" another mob. all the warlocks cast rain of fire. all the mages cast blizzard. all the hunters cast volley and do explosive traps. all the paladins cast consecrate. all the warriors are tanks and do amazing damage. there are no DKs but when there are, im sure i'll see a million square feet of death and decays before its all over. tanks would pull three groups at once. healers never run out of mana, even with the three groups and an accidental fourth group. honestly. a boss fight isnt really a boss fight. its just another mob with a little more health and maybe does a little more damage. that's basically it. everything's really just a laughfest right now. its so sad. that's how its been since ragefire chasm. none of the instances i've been to actually challeged us. everything was a quick jog through to level up. i really didnt get to learn my class as much as i figured i would. i actually learn my class a lot more through "easy" solo content. aparently the status quo has changed, and in order to really learn your class, you have to go solo. this wasnt the case three years ago when i started playing. it shouldnt be the case now, especially when playing solo requires the ability to tap two buttons and knowing which mob is a questmob. really. how dumb can we go? but im sure there's a reason for that. i'll have to theorize on this a little later, as it is just about time to wrap up.
and finally, i've ventured into WPL and did the first two quests there at 53. hopefully, the next five levels will pass by quickly. hopefully, come outlands, i wont be steamrolling through instances like i did before.
for my next post, im gonna talk about the transition from my level 1-49 attack sequence to my new level 50 attack sequence, which includes Crusader strike. its a lolstrike actually, doing pretty crap damage, but its still something "new" to the level 50 paladin.
also up in the near future will be my thoughts on how leveling through instances has been trivialized, and how its creating a lot of bad players. etc, things like that. also will update on enchanting, jc and that little bit of inscription, not to mention cooking, first aid and fishing.... on my pala.
all good stuffs compared to today's drivel. drivel you say? yes. just a bunch of garbage spit out at ya. feel free to reply with comparable garbage in the comments. =]
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
RET vs. PRT: Mana
As far as differences go regarding Retribution and Protection, I find that my have more trouble with mana as prot while questing and ret while in instances. really? yes, even with blessing of the sanctuary up. this is because a lot of quest mobs are scattered, and many are casters. to keep a prot paladin's mana bar full, I will need to run up to about 3 or 4 melee mobs (or hope a caster or two will stand in melee range and take a swing at me, or pull the two melees towards the caster and tank them at the caster's position) and take them down together, as a group. I'd be halfway down in health, but my mana bar will be full. I just need to cast heal on myself and move to the next set of mobs. although this works well with cats and raptors, this doesn’t work well with humanoid or undead mobs who cast spells. so instances are the best places for prot paladins to work. but overall, questing isnt so bad if you plan out the pulls.
as far as ret leveling goes, questing is slow enough that I do not need to sit and drink often. switching to seal of light basically negates all need to heal after combat, even when judging wisdom, leaving my mana for better things like exo or judgments or lolturnevil. I don’t even use turn evil. I may have to one day tho. so after several mobs, I sit to drink, then continue with my kills. for one-target pulls, I pull with exo, then judge and walk to my fridge to look for a bite to eat. come back--mob's dead. its that simple, and im so glad that in cata expansion, pallys will have one more attack to work with.
now, as ret in instances, things get a little tricky. since it is a group effort fighting other groups, starting off with an exo might be a dps loss, unless it’s an undead I am trying to kill. so I run in with judgment, then consecrate. I keep consecrate up as long as there's three or more mobs. im using seal of command instead of seal of light, and the tanks do not seem to have problems ever, so im keeping ret aura up instead of devotion or whatever else. sometimes I am surprised with my mana regen and im at 75% mana after a big pull. and sometimes I find myself completely out of mana.
for example, in SMGY, after the first hallway there is a torture room with 10-12 mobs. some tanks pull the whole room. some pull half but end up getting the whole room pulled due to fleeing mobs. sorry, judgment of justice has an 8 second cooldown. if mobs die one at a time, we usually finish them off before they aggro a new group, but when two or three decide to flee at once, in different directions, we end up with more groups being pulled. this isnt too much a problem. but I find myself running back and forth a lot, which is always fun. in this room, I usually deplete my mana supply. then I drink and move up to the actual graveyard. I deplete my mana supply there as well, right before we enter the mausoleum. now if the group decides to kill all the mobs in the graveyard (instead of killing only the ones on the path), then I drink midway through the graveyard and once again before we enter the mausoleum. im at about 25% mana before we hit the boss, but I find that that is just enough mana to finish off the boss.
so there, some minor nuances in mana management between prot and ret. please note that I leveled prot almost two years ago, and that was before the changes made to the paladin class in patch 3.0. and even then, i only leveled prot to 60 before picking it back up again several months ago, during patch 3.3.2. so many prot leveling is a little different now. or maybe the same. some input may be required. =]
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