AT World of Warcraft Thread (Cataclysm, Where do you play, General BS and all that)

Page 124 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Status
Not open for further replies.

RatboyX

Senior member
Oct 12, 2010
233
0
0
Well despite the fact that I feel the 80 to 85 content is a bit short on the solo/questing side of things I don’t mind Blizzard pushing the new raid content out a bit. The raiding guild I am in is not typical in that we raid once a week so our progression is slower than most.

My guild consists of people who are friends in real life, and as our name implies “Old WoW Gamers” we are a group of adults. At 51 I am NOT the oldest person in the guild. Most of us have a lot going on like families, kids and jobs. A few are retired and have a lot more time to spend in game but for the most part one night a week was all we could swing as a group.

Now despite all that our guild made it all the way to Lich King in Wrath, though we never managed to take him down. We only had about four attempts on him before Cata hit… yes we were way behind the curve LOL. Stupid valkyrie…

There is something to be said for tenacity and we have a large supply of that as well as a great respect for each other. It makes a HUGE difference how you treat someone in a guild when you know, and like, them in real life.

We all (My guild) agree that the new 10 man content is much harder than anything Blizzard put out previously and just last week managed to down our first 10 man Cata boss. Despite that I think Blizzard is going in the right direction however I also think they may have underestimated the amount of time it was going to take people to adjust to the changes.
 

slag

Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
10,473
81
101
DAMN YOU 7 DAY FREE TRAIL!!!!

Dipped back into it,... and I just purchased Cataclysm - back on the habit again,....

LOL ROTFLMAO

I am on day 2 of my 7 day trial. I had been clean since October of 2009. I bought a new system, new monitor, new everything, and then got the email.

Fired it up, logged in, and while a lot has changed, a lot has stayed the same as well. I don't have the xpac yet, but might get it. I'm torn between WoW and Rift right now, trying to decide which way to go. Still, it was nice to log in and see my old characters. The only issue I had was that I had been in bird form on my druid and when I logged in, I was in human form and was falling and, well, SPLAT. lol.

Imagine my surprise when I was standing in town and saw a level 85 walking past with like 107k hp. I was standing there in my level 8 and 8.5 epics with 17k... dear sweet baby Jesus...
 

zzzz

Diamond Member
Sep 1, 2000
5,498
1
76
Imagine my surprise when I was standing in town and saw a level 85 walking past with like 107k hp. I was standing there in my level 8 and 8.5 epics with 17k... dear sweet baby Jesus...

haha, I am going to be in for some shock then.. as I had given up just as the first expansion started (level 60 limit). I think my hp was like 4 k....
 

Pantlegz

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2007
4,627
4
81
haha, I am going to be in for some shock then.. as I had given up just as the first expansion started (level 60 limit). I think my hp was like 4 k....

My dk tank has 171k unbuffed... My warrior fully buffed at 60 had about 10k
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
We were doing Nefarian on Friday, and man... that fight is so boring as DPS. I mean, in phase 2 at least I get to interrupt but then back to phase 3 where all I do is whip through my priority and maybe toss a heal on myself with MWx5 after an electrocute. The hardest thing is activating Shamanistic Rage for the 30% damage reduction pre-electrocute :p.

The furthest we got him was 24%... seems the most problems were with the tank kiting the adds, which seems like the hardest part of the entire fight. Our healers seem to really dislike how hectic the fight is on them :p.
 

zokudu

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2009
4,364
1
81
We were doing Nefarian on Friday, and man... that fight is so boring as DPS. I mean, in phase 2 at least I get to interrupt but then back to phase 3 where all I do is whip through my priority and maybe toss a heal on myself with MWx5 after an electrocute. The hardest thing is activating Shamanistic Rage for the 30% damage reduction pre-electrocute :p.

The furthest we got him was 24%... seems the most problems were with the tank kiting the adds, which seems like the hardest part of the entire fight. Our healers seem to really dislike how hectic the fight is on them :p.

I really dislike how they added "difficulty" to encounters by making them more and more healing intensive. It makes sense in a weird sort of way ie DPS stands in fire healer has to heal stupid dps wipe due to low mana, orr tank doesn't pop cooldowns at proper time healer can't keep up wipe.

I can see why they designed it like that. I just feel bad for the healers.
 

Scotteq

Diamond Member
Apr 10, 2008
5,276
5
0
The furthest we got him was 24%... seems the most problems were with the tank kiting the adds, which seems like the hardest part of the entire fight. Our healers seem to really dislike how hectic the fight is on them :p.


Once the Kiting Tank gets that aspect of the fight nailed, Nefarian will fall.
 

Glayde

Senior member
Sep 30, 2004
554
0
71
One thing that is really nice for Nef is if you can get everyone to wear the Broken Mirror trinket from Tol Barad commendations. It's a +400 resist 10 second clicky that's up every 1min. It's huge to help mitigate the crackle/electrocute damage, especially when up on the pillars. (We usually eat two crackles on the pillars)
 

slag

Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
10,473
81
101
Played on and off on Sunday, mostly on. Went from level 80 to 82 by 7 pm. Pretty decent so far, nothing spectacular, but not bad either. The entry level greens are just slightly better than my epics, in all stats except for stamina and expertise or mastery. So, I'm DEing all my epics (sob sob).
 

Macamus Prime

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2011
3,108
0
0
Leveling my Ret specced human Paladin, currently 84.

When I hit 85 (and finish all the quests for gold and enchant mats), it's time to grind the dungeons.

I am not sure if i want to raid yet. But, I am sure I need mods and vent.

What mod(s) would you recommend for someone who may consider tanking or healing as a 2ndary spec? And, even a mod for DPS.

I understand that there are tons of links at the beginning of the threar, however, I am at work and just killing time.

:D
 

Macamus Prime

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2011
3,108
0
0
Imagine my surprise when I was standing in town and saw a level 85 walking past with like 107k hp. I was standing there in my level 8 and 8.5 epics with 17k... dear sweet baby Jesus...

Wait until you hit Cata content and you see your own HP leap by the 10's of thousands by the time you finish chain quests!

I am 1 level and 3 untouched zones (plus dungeons) away from 85. I am sure there is more loot with mountain loads of stats. Makes me wonder how great 'teh epixxx' will be.
 

RatboyX

Senior member
Oct 12, 2010
233
0
0
I really dislike how they added "difficulty" to encounters by making them more and more healing intensive. It makes sense in a weird sort of way ie DPS stands in fire healer has to heal stupid dps wipe due to low mana, orr tank doesn't pop cooldowns at proper time healer can't keep up wipe.

I can see why they designed it like that. I just feel bad for the healers.

Yes no kidding and it’s not like there were tons of people willing to be healers to begin with. I’m seriously worried that we are loosing more healers with every run. I can see doing it on SOME fights but to make it extremely tough on healers on each and every fight is just stupid. In the past there were some fights that healers hated and just had to deal with but not every singly fight like now.
 

RatboyX

Senior member
Oct 12, 2010
233
0
0
Played on and off on Sunday, mostly on. Went from level 80 to 82 by 7 pm. Pretty decent so far, nothing spectacular, but not bad either. The entry level greens are just slightly better than my epics, in all stats except for stamina and expertise or mastery. So, I'm DEing all my epics (sob sob).

There are some extremely good reputation gear items that can be had including 359 purple items at exalted from various reputation vendors. At level 85 you should run the normal difficulty five mans to learn the content and also to supplement your gear until you get the minimum gear score for heroics then run heroics and use the justice and valor points to augment gear as needed. Do that and you will be ready to start looking at 10 man content.
 

RatboyX

Senior member
Oct 12, 2010
233
0
0
So our guild raids on Sunday evening and we started out with a one shot of Argaloth, who we now have on farm. Still doing about 13 K DPS on this fight as a BM hunter and coming in second on the DPS log after our Rogue. As all our DPS is within a few hundred points of this figure we are able to beat the enrage timer easy enough. Fire phase is the key to this fight, survive those and have enough DPS and the fight is simple.

One thing I noticed and I am loving about this fight is that I don’t appear to have a minimum range for my shots. I always hated it when Blizzard made a fight mechanic that required DPS to stack on the tank and the only one that couldn’t was the Hunter. Could it be that Blizzard finally realized that not everyone could run the fight mechanic the way they wanted it to be run and fixed it? The world shudders at the tought.

Then we headed to BT for trash runs and several attempts at Halfus Wyrmbreaker. The trash is no picnic and requires some good CC, especially since they fixed the exploit that people were using in there. It’s good practice for 10 man CC and there are all those nifty purple drops. We usually get three or four BOE 359 drops in an evening which is not bad considering these are trash mobs. \

Halfus went as expected for a first attempt, meaning we didn’t take him down. I’m still trying to figure out the fireballs that are being tossed out and how to stay out of trouble. I managed to be the last person standing on several attempts though. The best run we had was one drake down out of the two we activated so we have a way to go on this one. Still it’s good to be seeing new raid content with my guild.

Blizzard has really embraced the idea of the first boss in a raid being a “Test Boss” that is likely harder than many of the bosses that follow. They have done that in the past in other raids but it feels like they are doing that everywhere these days.
 

Worthington

Golden Member
Apr 29, 2005
1,432
17
81
I'm not so sure about that. Halfus is probably the easiest boss of this current raid tier (not including the BH boss). None of the bosses later in BoT are easier, and the only boss that compares in BwD might be Magmaw.

Granted your weekly drake combo tweaks the difficulty slider for Halfus but he's not ever going to be more difficult then say Ascendent Council.
 

RatboyX

Senior member
Oct 12, 2010
233
0
0
I'm not so sure about that. Halfus is probably the easiest boss of this current raid tier (not including the BH boss). None of the bosses later in BoT are easier, and the only boss that compares in BwD might be Magmaw.

Granted your weekly drake combo tweaks the difficulty slider for Halfus but he's not ever going to be more difficult then say Ascendent Council.

Well we will see, hopefully soon, how the other bosses in there stack up. I can only go on the word of our raid leader who may be saying this boss is harder then the next in order to keep our sprits up after wiping on him multiple times. I expect once everyone gets their head around what needs to be done we will take this boss down. A lot of movement required in that fight a lot of positioning issues and as has come to be expected the healers are pushed to the limit.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Halfus' difficultly sometimes depends on the drakes that are available. If you don't have to deal with the knockbaco AoE, the fight becomes much easier IMO. I also thought that those fireballs from his protodrake are fairly unavoidable in regard to their direct damage. I'm still not 100% knowledgeable on all fights though.
 

Anubis

No Lifer
Aug 31, 2001
78,712
427
126
tbqhwy.com
Halfus Conclave and Magmaw/Council are all really easy fights. and def not harder then those that follow. however those that follow aren't that hard either.

Atramedies and Chimeron are pretty simple as well as twin dragon idiots and council
 

Cookie

Golden Member
Jul 3, 2001
1,759
2
81
I thought the twin dragons were easier than Halfus. Our group had a lot of trouble originally on Halfus. I would say Omnitron, Magmaw, Conclave, and the twins were all easier than Halfus. I think part of our problem was a really crappy drake combo the first couple times we tried it.
 

Worthington

Golden Member
Apr 29, 2005
1,432
17
81
magmaw is cake. If you guys need a break from Halfus you can definitely hit magmaw up for some fun. Omnitron... is all about not being dumb. That goes for all the fights obviously but there are a lot more things that will kill you with omnitron. If you don't get hit by bombs, stand next to someone that is being focused by magmatron, stand in the group with lighntning conductor, etc etc etc you can lazily dps your way through the Tron council. Almost all the damage there is avoidable. That said, since it is avoidable, you get punished if you don't.
 

RatboyX

Senior member
Oct 12, 2010
233
0
0
I find that some fights just click better with some groups. But at least my guild is back in raid content again which I prefer over five man content any day of the week.

I think it’s pretty obvious that the fight mechanics in Cata are much more unforgiving than they were in Wrath. I don’t mind the challenge myself as I’m pretty tenacious and our Raid leader knows how to mix things up so we don’t beat our heads against one boss all night. As an example, after wiping on Halfus the Raid leader had us reset the instance and run the trash to get to him again. There is noting that’s a better motivator than the chance for a nice purple drop.

That cuts down the number of times in a raid you end up doing the boss but the trash pulls to get to him don’t take that long. Sure the only way to learn the fights is by repetition, and all the Tank Spot videos in the world won’t help if you never give the fight a try, but we want to have fun doing it.

This particular fight though it would be nice to have some indication where the fireballs are going to fall so you could move out of the way and avoid damage. Avoiding damage when you are already on fire from a fireball you never saw coming is a lot tougher. I’ll move, I’ll dodge, just give me a chance to do it.
 

randomrogue

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2011
5,449
0
0
Thinking of these bosses in "tiers" take your pick from any of them in a tier.

Halfus
Magmaw
Omnitron
4 Winds

Maloriak
Chimaeron
Atramedes
Fabulous Dragons

Elementium Monstrosity
Cho'gall
Nef
Al'akir

That's my opinion at least. Each boss will cater to some of your strengths and jab you in your weaknesses. Because Halfus is different each week you might want to start with Magmaw. That's what we did. Omnitron requires simply that your raiders memorize a few abilities that at first seem like a lot but aren't. 4 Winds requires that you can setup 3 separate groups that act mostly independently.

Halfus this week was an easy comp iirc. I'm pretty sure it didn't require interrupts. For those asking about the fireballs, just step out of them. Ranged can easily see them. Melee just move and try not to move into someone else's barrage. When you're first learning this fight you don't want to be a mana/brez sponge so don't stand there and take them in the face. If you don't see them coming that means you haven't released the drake that slows them down. I don't remember that being an option on normal mode but I could be wrong.

As an aside, if you're struggling on any of these bosses, ie you can't kill a single one of them after a full night or 2 of attempts, you need to look at your players and make sure they are ready. Better yet look ahead of time. You can't just show up without reading up on the fight wearing greens and expect results. However if everyone has read up on the fight and is in mostly 346 gear with a rep epic or two you should have no problems. Magmaw specifically does not require a full raid to kill and is very lenient. No enrage timer on Magmaw, Halfus has one.
 
Last edited:

Juddog

Diamond Member
Dec 11, 2006
7,851
6
81
The hackers / phishers are going crazy lately with all the "authenticate your account" spam. I checked my e-mail this morning (an e-mail address that wasn't tied in directly to any of my battle.net accounts). The funny part is that I only use this e-mail address with WoW related message forums where I registered to post.
 

Pantlegz

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2007
4,627
4
81
I think halfus was our first kill, followed the same raid lockout with magmaw then omnitron. For me(us) I think omni was the hardest to get down consistently now it's easily farmable. My guild has been raiding for just over a month and we just got 9/12 last night. For as hard as people make AC sound it's absurdly easy, took us 4 attempts and we were damn close on our 3rd. We spent some time wiping on Al'akir because our tank(me) had connection issues and had issues dodging squall lines at times with 500+ms latency.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.