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

[jhbball]

LOL that depends on your point of view. Many people believe the PvE changes were made to accommodate the other two. It’s all perspective I guess.

Usually when change is damage/healing related, it's a PVE change. This has been especially true lately. There's also a blue post somewhere stating that PVE is the core part of the game, and thus they try to prioritize balance there first.

Warriors for example:

-Raging Blow damage buff - was explicitly a PVE change, which created the 100k damage in 2 gcds combo.
-Arms Damage buffs - all pve related (as a result, arms burst is insanely high right now), they nerfed mobility into the ground to compensate
-Spell Reflect nerf - apparently this was nerfed because it was being abused on some PVE ecounter (why not just make the spell immune to reflect?), which gave warrior tanks an advantage.
-Back in Woltk, prot was viable in arena because they buffed warrior damage to be competitive with other tanks.

But yeah, sometimes it certainly goes the other way. And as Anubis has said, often PVP changes affect play style and over enjoyability of doing other things in the game (like farming for example).


Edit: also, very few balance changes come from a result of Rated Battlegrounds. It's really comes down to Raiding vs. Arena.

 

[oogabooga]

LOL that depends on your point of view. Many people believe the PvE changes were made to accommodate the other two. It’s all perspective I guess.

It's hard when
- You're balancing so many classes and
- You're balancing the synergy abilities each classes bring, and trying to make sure they don't stack in a retarded or broken manner and that no class has a totally unique ability (like Lust/Brez)
- And you add the Balance PvE and PvP at the same time. Oh, and in PvE we're introducing a "Bring the player, not the class" mindset so we gotta balance dps specs to be equal, healing/tank specs to be equal... but at the same time unique. They have to be unique without having a niche.

There's no denying there are PvE specific changes and PvP Specific changes. And that anytime there's a change for one it pisses of the other group. Shield mana cost is going up so PvE Priests can't shield a whole raid? Thanks Blizz! (etc etc).

Really it's impressive given their stated goals how balanced the game is all things considered. That said, it's still not very balanced from an arena point of view, and even for rBG.

It's probably really hard to balance the game with how they have it setup. I personally miss the old days where each class had a niche, pvp was more interesting cause of it, pve was ... well, it was still pve. Though to be honest, this is viewing the past with really heavily rose colored glasses.

 

[zokudu]

Don’t know how they were using them but I have yet to see any change Blizzard makes in game NOT upset someone. Were the rants at least amusing?

It was amusing because the streamer (MikeB aka Fony from the BFF Report and Legendary if anyone was curious) plays a Prot warrior and they always give the flag to. When he would get it he would get as high as possible and rocket boot parachute across the map then Goblin rocket jump the other half it was insane. A GM was watching (either the podcast or the match) and spoke to the BG when he went to do it a second time and started raging on vent about it.

I laughed he was kind of miffed but they were getting rolled last night they went 1-4 so I think he was a bit angry to start.

 

[Anneka]

LOL that depends on your point of view. Many people believe the PvE changes were made to accommodate the other two. It’s all perspective I guess.

And it's all on how you look at things and if farming is fun for you (although don't believe anyones loves farming)

 

[RatboyX]

And it's all on how you look at things and if farming is fun for you (although don't believe anyones loves farming)

Huh?

Not sure what point you are making or what “Farming” has to do with balancing both PvP and PvE play.

If you are trying to say you prefer PvP to PvE I would say that there are a lot of people that feel the same way. If you are trying to say that PvE is nothing more than “Farming” I would disagree.

Lets go back to the beginning though, what are you trying to say or am I just being obtuse?

 

[RatboyX]

It's hard when
- You're balancing so many classes and
- You're balancing the synergy abilities each classes bring, and trying to make sure they don't stack in a retarded or broken manner and that no class has a totally unique ability (like Lust/Brez)
- And you add the Balance PvE and PvP at the same time. Oh, and in PvE we're introducing a "Bring the player, not the class" mindset so we gotta balance dps specs to be equal, healing/tank specs to be equal... but at the same time unique. They have to be unique without having a niche.

There's no denying there are PvE specific changes and PvP Specific changes. And that anytime there's a change for one it pisses of the other group. Shield mana cost is going up so PvE Priests can't shield a whole raid? Thanks Blizz! (etc etc).

Really it's impressive given their stated goals how balanced the game is all things considered. That said, it's still not very balanced from an arena point of view, and even for rBG.

It's probably really hard to balance the game with how they have it setup. I personally miss the old days where each class had a niche, pvp was more interesting cause of it, pve was ... well, it was still pve. Though to be honest, this is viewing the past with really heavily rose colored glasses.

Well I think you actually make my point very well. I think Blizzard has done as well as can be expected but the problem is that the two styles of play are so different that changes in one often affect the other negatively. I think the examples you give are right on the money.

It’s such a complex issue complicated even further by the fact that some people prefer PvP (Arena or Battlegrounds) and some people prefer PvE.

 

[rh71]

Tol Borad commendations - didn't they mention they were going to make these bind on account? Still waiting...

 

[Worthington]

I thought the same. The wording was tricky. The actual quest reward marks are NOT BoA. However you can use those marks to purchase commendations (the 10 mark -> +250 rep item). Those are BoA and can be mailed.

pretty useless since by the time you have enough marks for something you also have the required rep but whateva.

 

[RatboyX]

I thought the same. The wording was tricky. The actual quest reward marks are NOT BoA. However you can use those marks to purchase commendations (the 10 mark -> +250 rep item). Those are BoA and can be mailed.

pretty useless since by the time you have enough marks for something you also have the required rep but whateva.

Oh crud.. Yeah I agree that’s useless.

 

[NomarFachix]

Finished my PC build, jumping back into WoW tonight. Any suggestions for class? I've played a priest, rogue, and warrior to at least level 60 so far.

 

[Aikouka]

Finished my PC build, jumping back into WoW tonight. Any suggestions for class? I've played a priest, rogue, and warrior to at least level 60 so far.

Shaman!

 

[rh71]

My main is a rogue and he's pretty 1-dimensional.. kinda boring other than the mass dps in a raid setting. I like playing my resto shammy a lot more and I can easily quest with either enhance or elemental... liked enhance more, but i don't want 2 melees.

 

[NomarFachix]

I went with a Goblin Shammy, going to be fun!

 

[wheresmybacon]

My guild is going through some shrinking pains, with the GM and his SO dropping out of action to have a baby, and another longtime officer taking an extended trip around the world.

So I'm shelving my well-geared DK and reinventing myself as a warlock. Right now at lvl 26 I feel so OP it feels like I'm cheating. Of course I have all the BOA items possible which helps. Overall I'm really liking this class and I know I haven't even scratched the surface...

BTW if anyone is in a mature guild that's into heroic progression and in need of a DK, PM me. Transferring isn't out of the question. I have 360 level sets for UH, Frost, and Tank.

 

[Hacp]

My guild is going through some shrinking pains, with the GM and his SO dropping out of action to have a baby, and another longtime officer taking an extended trip around the world.

So I'm shelving my well-geared DK and reinventing myself as a warlock. Right now at lvl 26 I feel so OP it feels like I'm cheating. Of course I have all the BOA items possible which helps. Overall I'm really liking this class and I know I haven't even scratched the surface...

BTW if anyone is in a mature guild that's into heroic progression and in need of a DK, PM me. Transferring isn't out of the question. I have 360 level sets for UH, Frost, and Tank.

That's why I'm always weary of guilds lead by officer/gms that are friends in real life. They always fall apart when the group loses interest.

 

[wheresmybacon]

That's why I'm always weary of guilds lead by officer/gms that are friends in real life. They always fall apart when the group loses interest.

True story. Also we're all getting older and RL is getting in the way.

We've been ~ top 5 on our realm since BC, but it's looking like this could be the end. We'll see. Some of us longtime members are going to see if we can merge the 2 10 man's we run, but most of the old guard is gone. Sad times.

 

[slag]

Hit 85 last night, was doing the wedding quests. Went and finished the underwater sub quests as well. I think I'm going to start some dungeons. How are boomkins in a raid? Are they a requested class, or just filler?

 

[Scotteq]

Hit 85 last night, was doing the wedding quests. Went and finished the underwater sub quests as well. I think I'm going to start some dungeons. How are boomkins in a raid? Are they a requested class, or just filler?

A good Boomkin is - always - a beautiful thing to have in a raid.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Hit 85 last night, was doing the wedding quests. Went and finished the underwater sub quests as well. I think I'm going to start some dungeons. How are boomkins in a raid? Are they a requested class, or just filler?

Boomkins are great and do outstanding raid and 5 man dps. My main is a boomkin and I typically either top meters or fall slightly behind 1 of our rogues.

They bring good utility with innervate and brez and are particularly helpful on magmaw where you can push back the parasites with typhoon.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Our guild finally got to raiding and we downed Magmaw, Omnitron, and Maloriak. Maloriak seemed the easiest of the 3. Should we continue in BWD or move to BOT to do the first few bosses there? It looks like Chimaeron is a healing check. Hopefully we get more healer drops this week. I got drops 2 of the 3 bosses last week (Boomy). That's great but I rather our healers and tanks get more gear.

How does the rest of BWD compare to those first 3 bosses?

 

[Aikouka]

Chimaeron is a healing check in phase 1, but not a terribly hard one (Nefarian is probably harder on healing). He's more of a DPS check in p2. Atramedes is not that hard, but it is a little easier if you have a few Druids or Shamans in your group for their fast indoor speed during phase 2.

Nefarian is the hardest boss in BWD and relies a ton on good kiting in p3, proper interrupts and good AoE healing in p2 and good add kiting in p1 as well as synchronized damage dealing to Nefarian and Onyxia.

We usually have tank deaths in p3 wipe us. One time, I used Spirit Walk, which caused me to overshoot the platform in p2 and I didn't get my interrupt off in time because of it... woops!

I did do BWD on Friday on my Shaman and I got a new chestpiece off Maloriak and the off-hand trash drop, so now I'm half epic'd out. I also did BWD on my Paladin tank and ugh... there were some bad players in that run. The off-tank kept dying to Electron because be wouldn't stop when he shielded! He died at least 5 times to this :\.

 

[rh71]

That's why I'm always weary of guilds lead by officer/gms that are friends in real life. They always fall apart when the group loses interest.

Our GM and his wife are the MT and main heals... they actually met in-game and he swiped her from her RL hubby - who played on another server (you snooze you lose?). The other officers are the husband's 2 brothers and many local friends. I hooked up with them a few years ago and they were just cool people so I've stuck with them for 5 years now and so I too am an officer. They have stayed with WoW this entire time. The couple just had a kid a few months ago and they still find time to lead raids. Actually they put more time into their toons than some of our players... it's quite sad what that says about our other players. Can't even down fricken Magmaw... did get Halfus once and almost Valiona.

 

[RatboyX]

I beat our rouges DPS last night when we took out Argaloth, a rare occurrence and manly due to the fact that he died. Our Boomkin gave him a BR otherwise this would have been a wipe for sure.

We had to fill in with a friend who brought a WAY under geard shadow priest because our Mage was on a business trip. The shadow priest only managed about 5800 DPS so the rest of the DPS knew we had to make up the difference.


The fight went 5 minutes and 10 seconds, and as I am sure you are aware Argaloth has a five minute enrage timer. The end wasn’t pretty but we had two people left standing when Argaloth went down and a win is a win.

Boss dropped a nice purple for the Rogue and our DK tank so it was worth the effort.

Then because we didn’t have or regular 10 man crew we decided to do something just for fun and we ran AQ40 for the achievement and to get a few people the “Battle Tank” mounts. We get to the triple bug boss fight and the Raid leader says, “Hey Hunter do you want to tame the orange Brain bug? It’s the only one of its kind with orange color; you can’t get it anywhere else.”

So I figure why not go for it. Now I have a pretty cool looking bug pet. It’s Cunning which I don’t use very often but it’s decent enough with a nifty poison web it spits at things that holds and poisons a mob at the same time.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Thanks for the info Aikouka. Maybe we'll try to get Chimaeron down before going to BOT.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

I beat our rouges DPS last night when we took out Argaloth, a rare occurrence and manly due to the fact that he died. Our Boomkin gave him a BR otherwise this would have been a wipe for sure.

We had to fill in with a friend who brought a WAY under geard shadow priest because our Mage was on a business trip. The shadow priest only managed about 5800 DPS so the rest of the DPS knew we had to make up the difference.


The fight went 5 minutes and 10 seconds, and as I am sure you are aware Argaloth has a five minute enrage timer. The end wasn’t pretty but we had two people left standing when Argaloth went down and a win is a win.

Boss dropped a nice purple for the Rogue and our DK tank so it was worth the effort.

Then because we didn’t have or regular 10 man crew we decided to do something just for fun and we ran AQ40 for the achievement and to get a few people the “Battle Tank” mounts. We get to the triple bug boss fight and the Raid leader says, “Hey Hunter do you want to tame the orange Brain bug? It’s the only one of its kind with orange color; you can’t get it anywhere else.”

So I figure why not go for it. Now I have a pretty cool looking bug pet. It’s Cunning which I don’t use very often but it’s decent enough with a nifty poison web it spits at things that holds and poisons a mob at the same time.

All we ever get from Argaloth is pvp gear We usually down him in 3.5-4 minutes now. It's not even close anymore. I usually do about 16-17k. Same for our rogue, and we have several others above 11k.