I am sorry. I havent been posting as i should. I have been busy thouhgh: with work, wow, and more work. But i do have some updates and hopefully i can start blogging more soon.
1. New Server: I have started to play Wyrmrest Accord more often now and will probably play on there for good with the occassional transmog run or LFR run on my toons in Ravenholdt. I have moved two toons from to WrA already, one from Ravenholdt and the other from Ysondre. Ysondre is a dead realm, which was meant to be my backup realm when i dont want to be seen in Ravenholdt. However, i found the peace and quiet a little too mundane and have moved my paladin over to WrA.
2. New Guild; Actually, I started my own guild over in WrA. the guild doesnt focus on RP but allows me to level a guild nonetheless. i think this is one of the few things i havent done in this game and will probably end up being one of the last things i do. For now, this is a "casual" guild and i hope to get to level 6 as soon as possible. I think this is the magic level, or the minimum level any guild should be advertising at because of the perk, Fast Track lv.2. We just reached level 2 so our first perk is Fast Track lv.1. I cant wait to get all of the guild acheivements, mainly the legendary collection and united nations. wish us luck on our journey! Guild leveing is the new leveling game!
3. New toons: but ultimately old toons. How so? another rogue? sure. another warrior? sure. another paladin? no way jose. There's still not enough room on the server to get all my toons/classes together. So until then, i have to choose. i cant have doubles of classes unless it's on a different faction. Anyway, i'll update my toon list on the side. Most are leveling still. Some are in their 30's and some are in their 80s. I wish i had a toon in his 60s as well. but oh well.
Anyway, i am glad if anyone still reads this blog. Hopefully, i'll have time to post decent material for the next few months.
Showing posts with label updates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label updates. Show all posts
Monday, March 19, 2012
Thursday, June 2, 2011
My Current Projects
Hi guys! I just wanted to update everyone on what's going on in my WoW life and such.
Gold and AH
As many of you may know, i've been trying to hit 200,000 gold last month. it didnt happen. actually i was short about 33k gold (hitting about 167k before dropping off a little due to restocking, etc). yesterday i dropped about 15k gold since my gf decided to level an alliance toon and wanted to afford everything. So off i went to send her 15k gold in booty bay. after AH fees, she received 12,800 gold. That's a huge fee for transfering that much gold over. but in any case, that's the cost of having an escrow company between factions. yes, you can also sell high ticket items for cheap across factions and hope those sell within the faction you want, but having the item for cheap means there's a risk someone is also standing there at the AH and ready to snipe the would-be transferer. It happend to my gf just yesterday as she tried to sell of boots. my advice: do it with two people. do it during offtimes. do it once transaction at a time, just in case. if you lose one item, at least you have the rest for another time. you dont wanna lose your shirt all at once.
in any case, lesson learned; pay the escrow fee.
In this case, i had her pick up 15 moth eggs and sell it in the AH for my horde char to buy. i picked up 15 eggs and paid 1k gold each. totals 15k transfered. 2.2k went straight to auction house fees.
in any case, that's enough for flying, epic flying and epic-er flying. maybe even azeroth flying. who knows.
Characters
In terms of character progression, i've taken my DK on Ravenholdt through some ZA/ZG dungeons and got pants, shoulders, helmet and a sword. Trying to get the matching sword sometime this week. there is a ring that i should be getting from there as well. This will probably be all that i need from these dungeons. i am slowly, but surely, reaching 20k dps. on various boss fights i am doing about 15k-18k. this includes target switching and running out for charges, fires and other game mechanics. at the target dummy, without the LFD buff and the other party buffs, i am doing about 11-12k dps.
My DK on Ravenholdt also went to a raid with the guild (when we're able to muster up enough people for one) and destroyed omnotron and magmaw. those who raid often must think im nuts for even mentioning this. but considering that i dont raid all too often, this is quite a feat! so far, i've defeated halfus, omnotron and magmaw. so far i received zero drops but i had a lot of fun learning these fights. I've also figured out when to use my key cooldowns (both dps and defensive) and where i should be standing at certain times in certain fights. although omnotron still confuses me, i do run away from shields.
My Prot paladin on Ravenholdt is gearing up nicely. a little over the 346 ilevel minimum and is barely able to tank a ZA heroic. in all actuality, it looks as though she's very squishy. i dont know how, but i've just about reached 85% avoid+block and i still get clobbered. of course, this is not wrath of the litch king, but i still feel that i am quite squishy.
My rogue is on hold for now, as i dont have much time to really gear up another dps for fun. he's already in 346+ ilevel gear so he's always ready to do stuff with guildies, if needs be. but i dont plan on using him much unless to goof around.
My Druid really needs help. i dont like moonkin dps. i dont like healing as much as before. i dont even like farming herbs anymore. it's completely dull now. and it's not that i dont heal because i dont like it anymore. i just dont heal because i dont want to deal with the crap that hapeens in random pugs. im a pugger. i do like healing. but not the random folks to pull without cc. it makes the healer's job that much more difficult, especially when they cant seem to faceroll content.
Now i have three characters which needs a little more mention. they are not on my home server, but are on my "vacation" server. my little home server away from home.... server. or something. I have several characters in Ysondre. it's a low to medium pop server, with a slow economy and rampant adverts to buy gold. the alliance side is even worse. it appears that the lower a population is, the more gold sellers thrive.
I have a DK that is blood tanking it from 80-85. So far, he's reached 84 and is still quite a ways away from hitting 85. He only did the starting quests from Mt. Hyjal and, since getting enough equipment to tank, has stopped questing almost entirely (besides JC dailies). My second paladin is slowly leveling up as well. he's currently level 82 and still randomly getting throne of the tides and black rock caverns when he queues up. no such like getting stonecore i guess. in any case, he's slowly leveling up as well, getting about 10% of an experience bar each dungeon.
Possible new guild
My last character of mention is a goblin shaman i just made. he will be used to start a new guild in which i hope to make a social/leveling guild. zero drama and all "for fun". it will be a guild where people hold hands and help each other out by patting each other on the back, even if they're fail. push-button leveling is the name of the game here, and anyone who can spam one attack while leveling is welcome to join. of course, this may be a problem in the future when the guild actually wants to progress through something. but for now. it will be a place to network, make friends, do trivial things that dont matteer in the long run, and teach people how to play with more than the couple of buttons they cant seem to stop using. standing in fire is another thing as well. The guild will be called Brazen. hopefully, it sums up the type of people i want in the guild. stubbornly defiant people who cant be assed to optimize. but instead, would rather have a good time. since, after all, most of the population of wow play this game to enjoy it. playing it badly... well that's another story for another time. In any case, i'll have to keep you updated on this, since i really havent been blogging much do to lack of anything and everything to write about. Anyway, we need guilds like these to just be in and relax. no pressure. no problems. and this will probably be the guild i will hang out in when i am not chilling over in Ravenholdt.
in any case, thats all the updates i have so far. i hope everyone had a great week and is ready to return to the weekend for some good fun. short weeks are awesome!
Gold and AH
As many of you may know, i've been trying to hit 200,000 gold last month. it didnt happen. actually i was short about 33k gold (hitting about 167k before dropping off a little due to restocking, etc). yesterday i dropped about 15k gold since my gf decided to level an alliance toon and wanted to afford everything. So off i went to send her 15k gold in booty bay. after AH fees, she received 12,800 gold. That's a huge fee for transfering that much gold over. but in any case, that's the cost of having an escrow company between factions. yes, you can also sell high ticket items for cheap across factions and hope those sell within the faction you want, but having the item for cheap means there's a risk someone is also standing there at the AH and ready to snipe the would-be transferer. It happend to my gf just yesterday as she tried to sell of boots. my advice: do it with two people. do it during offtimes. do it once transaction at a time, just in case. if you lose one item, at least you have the rest for another time. you dont wanna lose your shirt all at once.
in any case, lesson learned; pay the escrow fee.
In this case, i had her pick up 15 moth eggs and sell it in the AH for my horde char to buy. i picked up 15 eggs and paid 1k gold each. totals 15k transfered. 2.2k went straight to auction house fees.
in any case, that's enough for flying, epic flying and epic-er flying. maybe even azeroth flying. who knows.
Characters
In terms of character progression, i've taken my DK on Ravenholdt through some ZA/ZG dungeons and got pants, shoulders, helmet and a sword. Trying to get the matching sword sometime this week. there is a ring that i should be getting from there as well. This will probably be all that i need from these dungeons. i am slowly, but surely, reaching 20k dps. on various boss fights i am doing about 15k-18k. this includes target switching and running out for charges, fires and other game mechanics. at the target dummy, without the LFD buff and the other party buffs, i am doing about 11-12k dps.
My DK on Ravenholdt also went to a raid with the guild (when we're able to muster up enough people for one) and destroyed omnotron and magmaw. those who raid often must think im nuts for even mentioning this. but considering that i dont raid all too often, this is quite a feat! so far, i've defeated halfus, omnotron and magmaw. so far i received zero drops but i had a lot of fun learning these fights. I've also figured out when to use my key cooldowns (both dps and defensive) and where i should be standing at certain times in certain fights. although omnotron still confuses me, i do run away from shields.
My Prot paladin on Ravenholdt is gearing up nicely. a little over the 346 ilevel minimum and is barely able to tank a ZA heroic. in all actuality, it looks as though she's very squishy. i dont know how, but i've just about reached 85% avoid+block and i still get clobbered. of course, this is not wrath of the litch king, but i still feel that i am quite squishy.
My rogue is on hold for now, as i dont have much time to really gear up another dps for fun. he's already in 346+ ilevel gear so he's always ready to do stuff with guildies, if needs be. but i dont plan on using him much unless to goof around.
My Druid really needs help. i dont like moonkin dps. i dont like healing as much as before. i dont even like farming herbs anymore. it's completely dull now. and it's not that i dont heal because i dont like it anymore. i just dont heal because i dont want to deal with the crap that hapeens in random pugs. im a pugger. i do like healing. but not the random folks to pull without cc. it makes the healer's job that much more difficult, especially when they cant seem to faceroll content.
Now i have three characters which needs a little more mention. they are not on my home server, but are on my "vacation" server. my little home server away from home.... server. or something. I have several characters in Ysondre. it's a low to medium pop server, with a slow economy and rampant adverts to buy gold. the alliance side is even worse. it appears that the lower a population is, the more gold sellers thrive.
I have a DK that is blood tanking it from 80-85. So far, he's reached 84 and is still quite a ways away from hitting 85. He only did the starting quests from Mt. Hyjal and, since getting enough equipment to tank, has stopped questing almost entirely (besides JC dailies). My second paladin is slowly leveling up as well. he's currently level 82 and still randomly getting throne of the tides and black rock caverns when he queues up. no such like getting stonecore i guess. in any case, he's slowly leveling up as well, getting about 10% of an experience bar each dungeon.
Possible new guild
My last character of mention is a goblin shaman i just made. he will be used to start a new guild in which i hope to make a social/leveling guild. zero drama and all "for fun". it will be a guild where people hold hands and help each other out by patting each other on the back, even if they're fail. push-button leveling is the name of the game here, and anyone who can spam one attack while leveling is welcome to join. of course, this may be a problem in the future when the guild actually wants to progress through something. but for now. it will be a place to network, make friends, do trivial things that dont matteer in the long run, and teach people how to play with more than the couple of buttons they cant seem to stop using. standing in fire is another thing as well. The guild will be called Brazen. hopefully, it sums up the type of people i want in the guild. stubbornly defiant people who cant be assed to optimize. but instead, would rather have a good time. since, after all, most of the population of wow play this game to enjoy it. playing it badly... well that's another story for another time. In any case, i'll have to keep you updated on this, since i really havent been blogging much do to lack of anything and everything to write about. Anyway, we need guilds like these to just be in and relax. no pressure. no problems. and this will probably be the guild i will hang out in when i am not chilling over in Ravenholdt.
in any case, thats all the updates i have so far. i hope everyone had a great week and is ready to return to the weekend for some good fun. short weeks are awesome!
Monday, April 18, 2011
Quick Monday Update
I got a few things done over the weekend. But none of it is really important.
1. Healed another PUG on my druid.
2. Tanked for a guild group heroic. it was fun. but tanking is a bit too stressful for the rewards, atm.
3. DPS'd mindlessly still. but tried my best to avoid the fires.
4. Went and did a much smoother ICC. YES, ICC. as in Ice Crown Citadel. It was 25mans and going for heroic and acheivements. Hey, for the non-raiders, this is a nice change of pace from constant heroics. dont hate.
5. My archeology skill went up by 15, then i decided to gag myself with chloroform.
6. BH gave me a pvp neck, which i gave to my gf because she pvp's more than i do.
7. Sunday night became Glee Marathon night. Wow got pretty boring, really.
8. Contemplated making alliance toons. /barf
9. Deleted several never-played characters (all of which were alliance, on my first server).
10. Contemplated what to do. what to do.
Really, there's not much else for me to do in this game. some folks say raid, but i say i dont have the concentrated time necessary for 3 hours of raiding. I have no problems with 30-minute heroics, then a break. but this game is made for many different types of people. I think its best to take the parts that work for me and run with it. well i guess things are dulling down. honestly, the only other thing to really do is go through levels 1-60 again and experience the "new" world. that, and experience things from the alliance point of view. i guess i can make a new character. but if im questing, i think it will be best to make a character just to play by myself. my gf will want to level up asap, and that's great and all, but i already have five 85s and seven 80s. i really dont need to be in a hurry.
What didnt happen that i wish did happen:
1. Anzu drops his mount.
2. Keal drops his white chicken.
3. Alar drops ashes.
4. Attuman drops midnight.
5. Maly drops an azure drake.
6. Skadi drops a blue proto drake.
7. I get bitten in blood queen without fucking up the bites (note to self, if your target doesnt get bit, maybe he's already bitten). And how the hell, after the 7th week, can we NOT finally get the mount??? /sadness.
Have a great day everyone.
1. Healed another PUG on my druid.
2. Tanked for a guild group heroic. it was fun. but tanking is a bit too stressful for the rewards, atm.
3. DPS'd mindlessly still. but tried my best to avoid the fires.
4. Went and did a much smoother ICC. YES, ICC. as in Ice Crown Citadel. It was 25mans and going for heroic and acheivements. Hey, for the non-raiders, this is a nice change of pace from constant heroics. dont hate.
5. My archeology skill went up by 15, then i decided to gag myself with chloroform.
6. BH gave me a pvp neck, which i gave to my gf because she pvp's more than i do.
7. Sunday night became Glee Marathon night. Wow got pretty boring, really.
8. Contemplated making alliance toons. /barf
9. Deleted several never-played characters (all of which were alliance, on my first server).
10. Contemplated what to do. what to do.
Really, there's not much else for me to do in this game. some folks say raid, but i say i dont have the concentrated time necessary for 3 hours of raiding. I have no problems with 30-minute heroics, then a break. but this game is made for many different types of people. I think its best to take the parts that work for me and run with it. well i guess things are dulling down. honestly, the only other thing to really do is go through levels 1-60 again and experience the "new" world. that, and experience things from the alliance point of view. i guess i can make a new character. but if im questing, i think it will be best to make a character just to play by myself. my gf will want to level up asap, and that's great and all, but i already have five 85s and seven 80s. i really dont need to be in a hurry.
What didnt happen that i wish did happen:
1. Anzu drops his mount.
2. Keal drops his white chicken.
3. Alar drops ashes.
4. Attuman drops midnight.
5. Maly drops an azure drake.
6. Skadi drops a blue proto drake.
7. I get bitten in blood queen without fucking up the bites (note to self, if your target doesnt get bit, maybe he's already bitten). And how the hell, after the 7th week, can we NOT finally get the mount??? /sadness.
Have a great day everyone.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Tankin and Spankin
For the last couple of weeks, my gf has been leveling a priest. I got her started with the basics (look for cloth gear with int, spell power, spi, stam, ignore the rest for now) and saw her heal more and more. now she's more pro than before. now she's healing bad tanks and just complains about them behind the screen (but will keep them alive anyway just to get the instance over with) like its normal. We talked about holy and disc and how they're different and all that. she chose Disc because i chose disc... on three of my priests. Yes, there're three disc priests. dont ask. i just like them.
anyway, she got her priest leveled up to about 60 when i decided its finally time to break out my old tank and practice a little. He's a burly orc warrior, with massive teeth and a dogface stare, ready to kick some butt. i started off looking at my reset talents. as i stared at the new tree, i realized that it was pretty much a no-brainer what i should get: more survival, more threat, more rage, better mobility. i wasnt able to get shockwave tho, as it was one of my favorite spells. i'll get it at level 67.
i then got all my new spells at the warrior trainer and then started on part two of my night: macros.
it didnt take long before i realized several things about the macros. its not different from before. just about every spell i used before was still there. nothing has really changed except for my macro to shockwave. that just gives me a red question mark. i'll get that spell soon enough so i didnt bother changing it.
i went into ragefire chasm and started running around to practice. there were two people hoping for a run, so i took them with me. they dinged in the two runs i was there. grats to them. after two runs i got used to the buttons, made some changes in my macros and decided it was time to take on some more solid content.
seeing that my gf was 60, we started the night in ramps. i grabbed, and grabbed and grabbed. it was fun. almost chain pulling, but making sure that the current group was just about dead before i moved on to the next group. most of the night, i was at near full health. of course, i was 65 doing a 60 dungeon.
several tries at ramps and then blood furnance, i ended the night at 66, almost 67 (and ready to do some durnhold, save my hero thrall, keep runs). he's not really my hero. he's my orc's hero. he'll be a warrior just like... wait... thralls a shaman. nevermind.
my gf got from 60 to.... 61! yep. rocked. but i knew that once i hit 69 or 70, i wont be able to do randoms with her anymore. i can, however, queue up for specific dungeons with her. that sucks. the extra bonus exp will not count since im too high level? really? that's really sad. anyway..... i got on my rogue (who's level 61 as well, who i havent played since forever. to put this into perspective. she has slow riding, which was about 90gold at level 40, back in the days. and at level 60, we would get journeyman, fast land riding for about 600g. that, i would not pay for since i wanted to stop playing my rogue. yea, thats how old this rogue was. wasnt played with for a long while). i got on and repsec'd subably, made some macros for stealth, openers, finishers, and combo point makers. then i configured my buttons to just the way i liked it.... and queued up with my gf. at the start of the day, at level 61, i was doing about 500 dps.
okay i lie. i started off doing about 350dps. then, as i got the hang of it, ended the instance with about 500dps. several quests and several instances later, i was doing slightly more damage. it wasnt until late last night, about level 65, with several dungeon pieces (mostly gemmed with delicate bloodstones (yes, just bloodstones)) that i finally broke 1k dps. 1k dps!! wtf??? yes. its awesome. then by the end if the instance, it leveled out to about 800-900 dps. not bad for a 65. what happened is this. i found out that my biggest damage came at the beginning of a fight, and only coming out of stealth. so i wait for the perfect time to shadowstep, then ambush (3cp), someone will crit (4cp) and i will simply do a backstab (5cp).... then finish with Evis. they die. in about 6 seconds i just did 10k-12k damage. the rest of the fight has me applying backstab+evis, or hem+rupture.
there really isnt much else to do because after the first mob dies, everyone else is at about 1/2 health anyway. there is absolutely not enough health or time left to get a full stack of combo points to really do anything useful. and then there's the bosses. =] love those fights.
anyway, hopefully spending some time as a rogue will help me with my paladin dps. lol fat chance. but will hope.
as for my warrior, this was how it was played for the several instances that i actually tanked.
for trash, i would charge in and rend immediately. then thunderclap to apply rend to everyone (and slows them), then cleave. thats it. all done. actually i'd demo shout at times, shieldslam as often as possible, revenge when proc'd, shield slam when proc'd, thunderclap on cooldown (unless i see more mobs coming into the picture, i can save it for them) and cleave to dump my rage.
on bosses, i charge, shield slam, devastate, rend, devastate, devastate, revend on proc, shield slam on proc, keep sunders up (and increase my threat lead) with devastate.
i find that devastate is pretty useless with trash unless its one of those "theres nothing left to press" situations. trash dies quickly enough. healer has no problems healing me, and i rather save my global cooldown for some more aoe moves than a single target move. that said, devastate the boss, cleave the trash.
one other thing, my gear is made for questing. my spec is for questing. i leveled up as prot for a while and it was awesome. even in outland, lack of defense gear is not doing any harm to me. i'll save the dodge gear for later, when i hit 70 and have to get the cobalt set. my design before was this, to allow myself to be hit more, thus gaining more rage, but also being able to heal myself as i fight. this worked well, but those days are gone. now that i am doing dungeons regularly, i dont want to be hit more to gain rage. i'll be hit plenty, so i'll have to slowly switch over to more mitigation, avoidance, and stamina gear. my talent tree is not as customizable any more, so im stuck with a cookie cutter spec. thanks bliz. now we're all the same.
anyway, thats just my update. it feels like the weekend but its not... yet. have a great weekend everyone!
anyway, she got her priest leveled up to about 60 when i decided its finally time to break out my old tank and practice a little. He's a burly orc warrior, with massive teeth and a dogface stare, ready to kick some butt. i started off looking at my reset talents. as i stared at the new tree, i realized that it was pretty much a no-brainer what i should get: more survival, more threat, more rage, better mobility. i wasnt able to get shockwave tho, as it was one of my favorite spells. i'll get it at level 67.
i then got all my new spells at the warrior trainer and then started on part two of my night: macros.
it didnt take long before i realized several things about the macros. its not different from before. just about every spell i used before was still there. nothing has really changed except for my macro to shockwave. that just gives me a red question mark. i'll get that spell soon enough so i didnt bother changing it.
i went into ragefire chasm and started running around to practice. there were two people hoping for a run, so i took them with me. they dinged in the two runs i was there. grats to them. after two runs i got used to the buttons, made some changes in my macros and decided it was time to take on some more solid content.
seeing that my gf was 60, we started the night in ramps. i grabbed, and grabbed and grabbed. it was fun. almost chain pulling, but making sure that the current group was just about dead before i moved on to the next group. most of the night, i was at near full health. of course, i was 65 doing a 60 dungeon.
several tries at ramps and then blood furnance, i ended the night at 66, almost 67 (and ready to do some durnhold, save my hero thrall, keep runs). he's not really my hero. he's my orc's hero. he'll be a warrior just like... wait... thralls a shaman. nevermind.
my gf got from 60 to.... 61! yep. rocked. but i knew that once i hit 69 or 70, i wont be able to do randoms with her anymore. i can, however, queue up for specific dungeons with her. that sucks. the extra bonus exp will not count since im too high level? really? that's really sad. anyway..... i got on my rogue (who's level 61 as well, who i havent played since forever. to put this into perspective. she has slow riding, which was about 90gold at level 40, back in the days. and at level 60, we would get journeyman, fast land riding for about 600g. that, i would not pay for since i wanted to stop playing my rogue. yea, thats how old this rogue was. wasnt played with for a long while). i got on and repsec'd subably, made some macros for stealth, openers, finishers, and combo point makers. then i configured my buttons to just the way i liked it.... and queued up with my gf. at the start of the day, at level 61, i was doing about 500 dps.
okay i lie. i started off doing about 350dps. then, as i got the hang of it, ended the instance with about 500dps. several quests and several instances later, i was doing slightly more damage. it wasnt until late last night, about level 65, with several dungeon pieces (mostly gemmed with delicate bloodstones (yes, just bloodstones)) that i finally broke 1k dps. 1k dps!! wtf??? yes. its awesome. then by the end if the instance, it leveled out to about 800-900 dps. not bad for a 65. what happened is this. i found out that my biggest damage came at the beginning of a fight, and only coming out of stealth. so i wait for the perfect time to shadowstep, then ambush (3cp), someone will crit (4cp) and i will simply do a backstab (5cp).... then finish with Evis. they die. in about 6 seconds i just did 10k-12k damage. the rest of the fight has me applying backstab+evis, or hem+rupture.
there really isnt much else to do because after the first mob dies, everyone else is at about 1/2 health anyway. there is absolutely not enough health or time left to get a full stack of combo points to really do anything useful. and then there's the bosses. =] love those fights.
anyway, hopefully spending some time as a rogue will help me with my paladin dps. lol fat chance. but will hope.
as for my warrior, this was how it was played for the several instances that i actually tanked.
for trash, i would charge in and rend immediately. then thunderclap to apply rend to everyone (and slows them), then cleave. thats it. all done. actually i'd demo shout at times, shieldslam as often as possible, revenge when proc'd, shield slam when proc'd, thunderclap on cooldown (unless i see more mobs coming into the picture, i can save it for them) and cleave to dump my rage.
on bosses, i charge, shield slam, devastate, rend, devastate, devastate, revend on proc, shield slam on proc, keep sunders up (and increase my threat lead) with devastate.
i find that devastate is pretty useless with trash unless its one of those "theres nothing left to press" situations. trash dies quickly enough. healer has no problems healing me, and i rather save my global cooldown for some more aoe moves than a single target move. that said, devastate the boss, cleave the trash.
one other thing, my gear is made for questing. my spec is for questing. i leveled up as prot for a while and it was awesome. even in outland, lack of defense gear is not doing any harm to me. i'll save the dodge gear for later, when i hit 70 and have to get the cobalt set. my design before was this, to allow myself to be hit more, thus gaining more rage, but also being able to heal myself as i fight. this worked well, but those days are gone. now that i am doing dungeons regularly, i dont want to be hit more to gain rage. i'll be hit plenty, so i'll have to slowly switch over to more mitigation, avoidance, and stamina gear. my talent tree is not as customizable any more, so im stuck with a cookie cutter spec. thanks bliz. now we're all the same.
anyway, thats just my update. it feels like the weekend but its not... yet. have a great weekend everyone!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Small update
Hi readers.
Just wanted to give a small update on how things are going with me. I spent most of the night last night doing laundry so when i did get to play, it wasnt to heal on my shaman or to finally spec my druids. no, it was to get on my paladin, Devynity, and run through ZG for the two mounts. gotta say it was kinda fun for two people. my girlfriend came along. im glad she got to "discover" how hard some of these things can be. enjoy it cos that's how some fights are like later on in raids. but anyway, every boss has their own "mechanic" and so we walked into ZG without much knowledge of anything (only i knew about the healing) and walked away with the annoyed look of dont-ever-wanna-do-that-again.
but it was great to see my gf yell ohshit so many times... until she realized somewhere halfway... that she should just get used to it and deal with the consequences when it comes. as paladins, we had plenty of tools to overcome both of the boss encounters. it was an experience in learning not to panic and learning to queue up your countermoves should you need to.
and that's essentially what we did. i went as ret and my gf went as prot. we walked up to the raptor boss and promptly hacked and slashed him down. then i realize i should be attacking the raptor first. sure thing. next, we had to deal with the fears, which was fine. wait til it wears off, heal to recover and then continue burning him down. it became almost clockwork after the... fifth fear. then on the sixth fear, we aggroed a group. panic again, but this time it wasnt so bad. my gf got aggro and i slowly burned the adds down one by one before i went back to the boss. my heals were expensive, but after about two hits, i was back to full mana. so it wasnt so bad. finally, the raptor boss died but he didnt give up his mount. /sad
the zulian tiger boss was next to go down, but he had goons. so i figured it would be much better for me to go in as holy (which may or may not have sped things up). my gf stay prot to tank all three of them. it was fine in the beginning, but i was surprised how fast her health was going down. i was spamming exorcism and casting holy shock and judgement on cooldown. my Word of Glory was used to heal us primarily, but sometimes i had to use holy shock to heal. we burned the bosses down slowly, but it took us a while to time the attacks so that they would all die close to the same time. there were about five ressurections, so it did take us a while to get it down. my gf had a good time learning to read nameplates to switch targets, and for once, burning down bosses isnt the priority here. the priority is in switching targets, interrupting heals and staying alive over the course of a long fight. because really, if every fight was tank and spank, who'd want to play wow? anyway, no tiger. /sad
tonight, we're gonna go to kara to kill attumen and midnight... to get midnight.
and then we're headed off to magister's terrace for some more really hard "know your shit" kinda fights. that, and to get a chance at the white hawkstrider and pet phoenix.
and then... one more... ravenlord mount from heroic sethekk halls.
hopefully, someone forms a "for the horde" raid too.
now, all i have to do is read up on how to get the kara key....
Just wanted to give a small update on how things are going with me. I spent most of the night last night doing laundry so when i did get to play, it wasnt to heal on my shaman or to finally spec my druids. no, it was to get on my paladin, Devynity, and run through ZG for the two mounts. gotta say it was kinda fun for two people. my girlfriend came along. im glad she got to "discover" how hard some of these things can be. enjoy it cos that's how some fights are like later on in raids. but anyway, every boss has their own "mechanic" and so we walked into ZG without much knowledge of anything (only i knew about the healing) and walked away with the annoyed look of dont-ever-wanna-do-that-again.
but it was great to see my gf yell ohshit so many times... until she realized somewhere halfway... that she should just get used to it and deal with the consequences when it comes. as paladins, we had plenty of tools to overcome both of the boss encounters. it was an experience in learning not to panic and learning to queue up your countermoves should you need to.
and that's essentially what we did. i went as ret and my gf went as prot. we walked up to the raptor boss and promptly hacked and slashed him down. then i realize i should be attacking the raptor first. sure thing. next, we had to deal with the fears, which was fine. wait til it wears off, heal to recover and then continue burning him down. it became almost clockwork after the... fifth fear. then on the sixth fear, we aggroed a group. panic again, but this time it wasnt so bad. my gf got aggro and i slowly burned the adds down one by one before i went back to the boss. my heals were expensive, but after about two hits, i was back to full mana. so it wasnt so bad. finally, the raptor boss died but he didnt give up his mount. /sad
the zulian tiger boss was next to go down, but he had goons. so i figured it would be much better for me to go in as holy (which may or may not have sped things up). my gf stay prot to tank all three of them. it was fine in the beginning, but i was surprised how fast her health was going down. i was spamming exorcism and casting holy shock and judgement on cooldown. my Word of Glory was used to heal us primarily, but sometimes i had to use holy shock to heal. we burned the bosses down slowly, but it took us a while to time the attacks so that they would all die close to the same time. there were about five ressurections, so it did take us a while to get it down. my gf had a good time learning to read nameplates to switch targets, and for once, burning down bosses isnt the priority here. the priority is in switching targets, interrupting heals and staying alive over the course of a long fight. because really, if every fight was tank and spank, who'd want to play wow? anyway, no tiger. /sad
tonight, we're gonna go to kara to kill attumen and midnight... to get midnight.
and then we're headed off to magister's terrace for some more really hard "know your shit" kinda fights. that, and to get a chance at the white hawkstrider and pet phoenix.
and then... one more... ravenlord mount from heroic sethekk halls.
hopefully, someone forms a "for the horde" raid too.
now, all i have to do is read up on how to get the kara key....
Monday, November 1, 2010
I have done zilch on my 80s
I just wanted to say that, for about the past month or two, i have done zilch, zero, nada on my 80s.
This is in part due to getting my girlfriend to play. Now she has several characters, six of them being bloodelf warlocks. But she does enjoy playing her paladins. yes, with an S. There are several classes she does get bored of though. She doesnt like hunters and elemental shamans. she likes the melee classes more but sometimes goes and plays her mage. even as a mage, she casts things in melee. no really. that's how you know she's one of those up-close and personal (or in-your-face, depending on perspective) kinda people. She now has a rogue which has leveled past 50 in about a week. she's into combo points and stuff (which i really hate, and hate even more now that it has infected other classes), being sneaky, backstabbing folks, etc. she's dual spec'ed assassination and subtlety (which, after about two hours of practice, she is able to pronounce that word correctly).
"so i am trying out my subly spec"
"its suttleteeeee".
"so anyway, subaly is.."
"SUT-TLE-TY"
"yea subably is great"
Anyway, lets talk about her two paladins.
One is level 78, almost 80. We're getting there. The paladin is paired with my shaman, who's a healer. and i figured i could have simply dual spec'd Resto/Elem and not have to deal with gear changes much. She's dual spec'd Tank/DPS on the paladin. Preferring tanking more since somehow, it does more dps. odd or what? the only problem is that she's never seen many of these dungeons in northrend before, so playing with guys who have played for years is difficult, mainly because no one wants to wait. if that was me, i'd let the anxious dps die. actually i do let them die since i heal on my shaman. Healing on the shaman is quite fun actually. i dont bubble spam. i dont rejuv spam. i only have one shield, my HoT has a cooldown and my AoE heal is limited due to a long casting time and proximity issues. which allows me to THINK. =] Thank you bliz on this one!
The second paladin is a Holy/Tank. More tank, less holy. about level 50 just waiting for paladin #1 to ding. She's liking the healing but does have mobility issues due to not having a shield/rejuv like mechanic, which stays on the targets even when she's not in LOS. I did install Vuhdo for her so things got a lot easier (the easiest being the ability to tell who really needs a heal) since she's able to see the health bars better and can tell who has aggro. Unlike me, she's into the whole combo point/holy power thing. for healing, its just holy shock, holy shock, holy shock, word of glory. that's half of the healing. the other half is Holy Light spam. that's it. i've been trying to get her to use her "hand" spells more but often, they're not needed until level 80. and even then, some people still do not know how to use their spells. but i digress.....
Anyway, so there's an update about me and my gf. we're going to level our DK's next. im blood tanking and she's unholy dps (and still wonders why she's doing 2k dps while her paladin, 6 levels higher, is only doing 1k dps. my opinion: dumb combo points). we're early 70s getting queues for AN and OK, if that gives you some kinda perspective.
And so, this is why for the past two months i've basically neglected all my 80s. It is not why i havent been posting much, however. This is due to moving to a new job environment. Im doing the same thing, just with another team of people (old boss retired, they wanted to keep me in the company so i had to work for another team). Different location too! I'm in the edge of the financial district in San Francisco. Awesome place to be in the early mornings. there's about three coffee shops on every block. and my new team is giving me a lot more to do, so less time blogging. I'll also get to those Patch 4.0.1 changes when i can, but i've been playing more on my shaman to try to get him to 80 these past two weeks that i havent really been able to really write about any other class. oh, and they took away treeform. it almost makes me want to close this blog.
Anyway, im hoping my posting pattern doesnt drop off like it did in october. Six. SIX POSTS!!! grrrr.
This is in part due to getting my girlfriend to play. Now she has several characters, six of them being bloodelf warlocks. But she does enjoy playing her paladins. yes, with an S. There are several classes she does get bored of though. She doesnt like hunters and elemental shamans. she likes the melee classes more but sometimes goes and plays her mage. even as a mage, she casts things in melee. no really. that's how you know she's one of those up-close and personal (or in-your-face, depending on perspective) kinda people. She now has a rogue which has leveled past 50 in about a week. she's into combo points and stuff (which i really hate, and hate even more now that it has infected other classes), being sneaky, backstabbing folks, etc. she's dual spec'ed assassination and subtlety (which, after about two hours of practice, she is able to pronounce that word correctly).
"so i am trying out my subly spec"
"its suttleteeeee".
"so anyway, subaly is.."
"SUT-TLE-TY"
"yea subably is great"
Anyway, lets talk about her two paladins.
One is level 78, almost 80. We're getting there. The paladin is paired with my shaman, who's a healer. and i figured i could have simply dual spec'd Resto/Elem and not have to deal with gear changes much. She's dual spec'd Tank/DPS on the paladin. Preferring tanking more since somehow, it does more dps. odd or what? the only problem is that she's never seen many of these dungeons in northrend before, so playing with guys who have played for years is difficult, mainly because no one wants to wait. if that was me, i'd let the anxious dps die. actually i do let them die since i heal on my shaman. Healing on the shaman is quite fun actually. i dont bubble spam. i dont rejuv spam. i only have one shield, my HoT has a cooldown and my AoE heal is limited due to a long casting time and proximity issues. which allows me to THINK. =] Thank you bliz on this one!
The second paladin is a Holy/Tank. More tank, less holy. about level 50 just waiting for paladin #1 to ding. She's liking the healing but does have mobility issues due to not having a shield/rejuv like mechanic, which stays on the targets even when she's not in LOS. I did install Vuhdo for her so things got a lot easier (the easiest being the ability to tell who really needs a heal) since she's able to see the health bars better and can tell who has aggro. Unlike me, she's into the whole combo point/holy power thing. for healing, its just holy shock, holy shock, holy shock, word of glory. that's half of the healing. the other half is Holy Light spam. that's it. i've been trying to get her to use her "hand" spells more but often, they're not needed until level 80. and even then, some people still do not know how to use their spells. but i digress.....
Anyway, so there's an update about me and my gf. we're going to level our DK's next. im blood tanking and she's unholy dps (and still wonders why she's doing 2k dps while her paladin, 6 levels higher, is only doing 1k dps. my opinion: dumb combo points). we're early 70s getting queues for AN and OK, if that gives you some kinda perspective.
And so, this is why for the past two months i've basically neglected all my 80s. It is not why i havent been posting much, however. This is due to moving to a new job environment. Im doing the same thing, just with another team of people (old boss retired, they wanted to keep me in the company so i had to work for another team). Different location too! I'm in the edge of the financial district in San Francisco. Awesome place to be in the early mornings. there's about three coffee shops on every block. and my new team is giving me a lot more to do, so less time blogging. I'll also get to those Patch 4.0.1 changes when i can, but i've been playing more on my shaman to try to get him to 80 these past two weeks that i havent really been able to really write about any other class. oh, and they took away treeform. it almost makes me want to close this blog.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Post Patch 4.0 Musings - Intro
It has been about two weeks since we all received our can of whoopass haha learn2play patch and i feel a little overwhelmed still with all the new changes to every single friggin class there is. so i guess this calls for a little series i would call Post Patch 4.0 Musings. And it will be regarding pretty much every class i play.
So i am thinking of first, since this is supposed to be a healing-centric blog, i would write a little about healing. That's coming shortly. also, since this supposed to be a blog about druid tree form whatever it is called now, i may as well do the dreaded deed and log on to my druid healer to relearn druid healing.
my schedule is pretty rough these past couple of weeks. I work at a different office now, so my commute is completely different. same company, same position, just different office. i have a few more responsibilities and find that my downtime is very little apart from the long lunches with the coworkers or with clients.
i might have to stop playing for this weekend tho. aparently it seems that all the quality players are stuck in the OC attending this thing called Blizzcon while im here at home stuck with stupid, idiotic and jerky players. really, the quaility actually went down several notches AND the wait times have increased slightly for randoms.
yes this is a rant hidden within the guise of an "update". anyway, lets hope my future posts arent full of rants, but actually full of useful info about Shamans, Druids, Paladins, Death Knights, Warriors, Mages, Warlocks, Priests and even rogues. yes, rogues get a little love here and there too. just dont expect me to write about huntards. ugh. /wrists.
okay enjoy your day and thanks for dropping by!
So i am thinking of first, since this is supposed to be a healing-centric blog, i would write a little about healing. That's coming shortly. also, since this supposed to be a blog about druid tree form whatever it is called now, i may as well do the dreaded deed and log on to my druid healer to relearn druid healing.
my schedule is pretty rough these past couple of weeks. I work at a different office now, so my commute is completely different. same company, same position, just different office. i have a few more responsibilities and find that my downtime is very little apart from the long lunches with the coworkers or with clients.
i might have to stop playing for this weekend tho. aparently it seems that all the quality players are stuck in the OC attending this thing called Blizzcon while im here at home stuck with stupid, idiotic and jerky players. really, the quaility actually went down several notches AND the wait times have increased slightly for randoms.
yes this is a rant hidden within the guise of an "update". anyway, lets hope my future posts arent full of rants, but actually full of useful info about Shamans, Druids, Paladins, Death Knights, Warriors, Mages, Warlocks, Priests and even rogues. yes, rogues get a little love here and there too. just dont expect me to write about huntards. ugh. /wrists.
okay enjoy your day and thanks for dropping by!
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday Report - Outlands: Halfway mark
It's Monday and I just want to update my two or three followers out there about the happenings of WoW and stuff for me and my gf.
This weekend we got our deathknights to level 66-67. We've been going through dungeon after dugneon trying to get some very nice gear but unfortunately, things arent going that well. Neither of us got the boots from Ramps (tho we both have hellreavers and the belt). i could never get quagmaron to drop the chest piece so im stuck buying fel iron chestpiece from the AH. quest reward items and green drops have been sucking lately as well. my gf has a bit more luck with drops tho. she's got matching chest and pants from some dungeon. What we're trying to get are shoulderpads, boots, a new sword or hammer, and a nice chestpiece for me. Sucks. but oh well. with all the gemming we do to the new gear (note that these gems are from the Wrath expansion and not the Burning Crusade expansion) we are pretty over-geared for the content we do, even if we dont have all the gear we want. and this is the sole reason why i see level 65s do 600-1000 dps in dungeons. back when the burning crusade was the only expansion, the gems that you can place in these slots werent so hot, but helped anyway. seeing 600 dps was the cream of the crop. but now, seeing 600 dps is the standard. anyone below that? we know they dont know how to really "play" their class.
anyway, with the list of rewards slowly going obsolete in four levels (and it is very important to a tank, as every tank that i took personally to northrend who wasnt geared in northrend items usually died in two to three hits, with any pulls that had more than 3 mobs obliterating each and every one of those tanks) i think its a good time to save a little bit of cash to buy up cobalt bars. i'll also have to get someone to craft the entire cobalt set. actually i've been looking since two nights ago and can only find the gloves (since the material costs to make it is low, people usually make tons of these to level up their profession, not knowing that other pieces will sell for a lot more).
Since its a whole set, im probably going to buy up the cobalt bars i need and tip a BSer to make the items for me. they will fill in nicely at level 70. i dont think i want to tank anything in northrend until i actually get this set. i've healed some squishies in UK and Nexus before, and those were people who had really nice gear from outland. and they're squishy in northrend. seriously they are.
in any case, back to outland talk. we've just opened up Escape from Durnholde. Hopefully we'll find a group for this during the weeknights. I know a lot of people dont bother to do the quest to open up these instances, but how many more times can someone go through mana-tombs and sethekk halls before they rip their eyes out? durnholde, and the followup dungeon Black Morass, will help break up the monotony. actually i kinda want to do tempest keep stuff before we hit 70, but seeing that these dungeons are 70, i might end up skipping them. sucks for a tank, because tanks need to be able to soak up the damage the mobs deal. but we'll work on it.
doing the higher level dungeons will probably be a lot of fun. its not a breeze like northrend, really. what i mean is that these dungeons are still "hard" if you dont come to it with your full attention. i actually would rather just do instances for content rather than gear. so these instances will still be on my list of to-do even while im past level 70. actually, my paladin, Devynity, was still doing tempest keep and magisters terrace at level 74 (which i think, is the last level i can queue up for those dungeons. sad but yea).
okay, so coffee is kicking in now and hopefully i'll have more to say a little later on today. so there, we're about halfway through all of outland's dungeons. we barely scratched the outland contenent itself, but we're slowly getting there. in any case, six instances explored, about eight more to go. gonna write more later, hopefully.
This weekend we got our deathknights to level 66-67. We've been going through dungeon after dugneon trying to get some very nice gear but unfortunately, things arent going that well. Neither of us got the boots from Ramps (tho we both have hellreavers and the belt). i could never get quagmaron to drop the chest piece so im stuck buying fel iron chestpiece from the AH. quest reward items and green drops have been sucking lately as well. my gf has a bit more luck with drops tho. she's got matching chest and pants from some dungeon. What we're trying to get are shoulderpads, boots, a new sword or hammer, and a nice chestpiece for me. Sucks. but oh well. with all the gemming we do to the new gear (note that these gems are from the Wrath expansion and not the Burning Crusade expansion) we are pretty over-geared for the content we do, even if we dont have all the gear we want. and this is the sole reason why i see level 65s do 600-1000 dps in dungeons. back when the burning crusade was the only expansion, the gems that you can place in these slots werent so hot, but helped anyway. seeing 600 dps was the cream of the crop. but now, seeing 600 dps is the standard. anyone below that? we know they dont know how to really "play" their class.
anyway, with the list of rewards slowly going obsolete in four levels (and it is very important to a tank, as every tank that i took personally to northrend who wasnt geared in northrend items usually died in two to three hits, with any pulls that had more than 3 mobs obliterating each and every one of those tanks) i think its a good time to save a little bit of cash to buy up cobalt bars. i'll also have to get someone to craft the entire cobalt set. actually i've been looking since two nights ago and can only find the gloves (since the material costs to make it is low, people usually make tons of these to level up their profession, not knowing that other pieces will sell for a lot more).
Since its a whole set, im probably going to buy up the cobalt bars i need and tip a BSer to make the items for me. they will fill in nicely at level 70. i dont think i want to tank anything in northrend until i actually get this set. i've healed some squishies in UK and Nexus before, and those were people who had really nice gear from outland. and they're squishy in northrend. seriously they are.
in any case, back to outland talk. we've just opened up Escape from Durnholde. Hopefully we'll find a group for this during the weeknights. I know a lot of people dont bother to do the quest to open up these instances, but how many more times can someone go through mana-tombs and sethekk halls before they rip their eyes out? durnholde, and the followup dungeon Black Morass, will help break up the monotony. actually i kinda want to do tempest keep stuff before we hit 70, but seeing that these dungeons are 70, i might end up skipping them. sucks for a tank, because tanks need to be able to soak up the damage the mobs deal. but we'll work on it.
doing the higher level dungeons will probably be a lot of fun. its not a breeze like northrend, really. what i mean is that these dungeons are still "hard" if you dont come to it with your full attention. i actually would rather just do instances for content rather than gear. so these instances will still be on my list of to-do even while im past level 70. actually, my paladin, Devynity, was still doing tempest keep and magisters terrace at level 74 (which i think, is the last level i can queue up for those dungeons. sad but yea).
okay, so coffee is kicking in now and hopefully i'll have more to say a little later on today. so there, we're about halfway through all of outland's dungeons. we barely scratched the outland contenent itself, but we're slowly getting there. in any case, six instances explored, about eight more to go. gonna write more later, hopefully.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Kerning of Instances
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)