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

[lupi]

Does adding those characters mean less in-game spam?

no

 

[lupi]

Blizz announced with 4.3 that wrath xp leevels getting reduced.

 

[cronos]

Blizz announced with 4.3 that wrath xp leevels getting reduced.

Damn. With RAF XP bonus goes to 80 that would make leveling 1-80 extremely fast.

I'm somewhat tempted to do another RAF just to experience this.

 

[rcpratt]

Damn. With RAF XP bonus goes to 80 that would make leveling 1-80 extremely fast.

I'm somewhat tempted to do another RAF just to experience this.

RAF is already stupid easy through Wrath (say that five times fast). I think we did Borean, half of Grizzly, and most of Scholozar and we were 80.

 

[I Saw OJ]

RAF is already stupid easy through Wrath (say that five times fast). I think we did Borean, half of Grizzly, and most of Scholozar and we were 80.

Couple that with all the EXP bonus gear you can wear and leveling requires very little time. I dont know why blizz just doesnt come out with max level toons that you can buy already.

 

[lupi]

with a fresh 70 and rest xp, I'd make 80 after doing fjord, tundra, and about a third of dragonblight.

 

[Adrenaline]

Couple that with all the EXP bonus gear you can wear and leveling requires very little time. I dont know why blizz just doesnt come out with max level toons that you can buy already.

RAF maxes out your exp gain at 300%. Your BoA gear does nothing for you when doing RAF.

 

[Aikouka]

Anyone have any advice for a Restoration Shaman on Baleroc? It seems our Shaman is having some issues with proc heals messing up the fight mechanics (I don't know them too well to describe what exactly is happening). I know she's already stopped using Earth Shield on tanks because of how it screws things up.

 

[railven]

Anyone have any advice for a Restoration Shaman on Baleroc? It seems our Shaman is having some issues with proc heals messing up the fight mechanics (I don't know them too well to describe what exactly is happening). I know she's already stopped using Earth Shield on tanks because of how it screws things up.

Proc healing? There are only three proc healings Resto Shamans do and none should proc Flame buff on tank - Earthshield, Ancestral Awakening and Earthliving Weapon (one procs off Crit and heals lowest target for up to 30% of Crit Heal (Ancestral) and other is chance on heal (Earthliving), other is chance on hit (Earthshield).)
EDIT: Note you only proc Flame from direct heals on the tank, AA/EWL/ES procs are not direct heals.

My guild has attempted Baelroc with two Resto Shamans and we've easily increased our stacks to 60+.

Things I can think of:
1) Riptide is being misused (this could be out of habit) and the shaman is just instinctively casting it on the tank, the first hit of Riptide counts as a Direct Heal thus proccing Spark of Flame (or whatever it's called) thus not allowing stacks of Vital Spark from building.
2) Possible chain heal arcing to tank.
3) Bad timing and casting a heal right before their turn to cover shard person (Flame is a 15 second duration, if timed wrong and depending on your shard rotation, the healer's Torment person is falling directly on their timer of flame and thus no sparks.)
3) The healer is not using fast enough heals (or doesn't have the haste) to build up sparks fast enough. Example, my resto shaman is a haste build so I have 22% Haste, other shaman is more balance so they sit at around 12% haste, with my haste I can time and chain RT>UL>HS>HS while tormented is eating 12 stacks gaining me 16 sparks while the other healer can barely get two spells in (usually RT>HS) due to GCD and cast time.)

Remember that the more stacks on the torment soak, the more sparks return, so I recommend healers at the start spam faster healers to just generate a few extra stacks then return to a more mana efficient cycle.

 

[Aikouka]

I appreciate all the information! I'll forward the post along.

3) The healer is not using fast enough heals (or doesn't have the haste) to build up sparks fast enough. Example, my resto shaman is a haste build so I have 22% Haste, other shaman is more balance so they sit at around 12% haste, with my haste I can time and chain RT>UL>HS>HS while tormented is eating 12 stacks gaining me 16 sparks while the other healer can barely get two spells in (usually RT>HS) due to GCD and cast time.)

Hmm I wonder if Haste could be a problem here. I checked the armory, and it looks like she has 8.81% spell haste.

 

[railven]

I appreciate all the information! I'll forward the post along.

Sure thing. This boss took my guild 2 days of attempts to get and it is definitely a healing fight. Your DPS and tank(s) can do their job to perfection, but the healers are what make or break this fight.

Hmm I wonder if Haste could be a problem here. I checked the armory, and it looks like she has 8.81% spell haste.

Her issue is most likely not because of haste (depending on how many stacks she is getting, but from your earlier post I assumed she was getting relatively low stacks (<20 or so.)) Haste will just help you build stacks faster, but it shouldn't cripple her. Our current healer setup for this fight is Holy Paladin/Resto Shaman/Resto Druid, and the shaman's haste like I said is lower than my shaman but she's had no issues building up her stacks.

The buff is the major handicap that would cripple her stack building. She has to make sure not to heal the tank at least 8 seconds before it's her turn to heal a tormented. If you guys are rotating healers per shard (highly recommended) keep this in mind: The shard only last 24 seconds (of ticks), it takes Bael at least 6-8 seconds to recast the next shard, the buff of flame lasts 15 seconds. The healers who are rotating need to rotate exactly when the shard ends (the DPS will no longer take any damage) and start healing the tank so that the healer who will rotate to the tormented is given as much time as possible to let their buff clear (remember they can't get a single stack of spark while that flame buff is up.) Our healers weren't rotating properly (waiting for the next shard to pop up) and this severely ate into their stacks.

Since she is a shaman she gets a little perk if she has Telluric Currents - use that 10-12 second gap of no heals to throw a few lighting bolts and generate any where from 10K to 15K mana depending on crits and hits.

 

[zokudu]

So after my guild has done absolutely nothing in Firelands since our 25m fell apart we are starting up 2 10 man groups. I have been selected to tank for Group 2 on y druid

Kind of excited to be tanking again. Really love Druid tanking. Hoping we can get at least shannox down on tuesday our groups first night.

 

[Sixguns]

Where is a good place to find PvP info? Starting PvPing and looking for some help on gems/enchants/glyphs and what not.

 

[zokudu]

Where is a good place to find PvP info? Starting PvPing and looking for some help on gems/enchants/glyphs and what not.

http://www.arenajunkies.com/

 

[lupi]

With the final showdown against Deathwing approaching, we&#8217;ve been keeping a close eye on players' progress through the current Firelands raid content. Before patch 4.3 is released, we want groups who are working on Heroic-difficulty content to be able to get as close to Ragnaros as possible, and we want players who are tackling normal progression to be able to experience as many of the encounters as they can. To achieve these goals, we&#8217;ll be toning down the difficulty of both normal and Heroic raids through hotfixes in the coming weeks. In general, we plan to reduce health and damage of all raid bosses in both normal and Heroic Firelands by around the same percentage we brought difficulty down for the original Cataclysm raids when Rage of the Firelands (patch 4.2) was released.

We're looking forward to seeing more groups of players face off against the Fire Lord in the weeks ahead. However, before we make these changes, we want to give everyone a final shot at the bosses at their current difficulty level -- so this is a heads up that we&#8217;re planning to apply the difficulty hotfixes beginning the week of September 19.

Stay tuned to the Patch 4.2 Hotfixes blog for these and other live updates to the game as they happen.

 

[lupi]

Rogue Legendary and Patch 4.3
Another interview showed up today in The Escapist. The most important part is the Rogue Legendary dagger and new raid level difficulty, but the important points are all below.

Rogues will get a legendary dagger and exciting quest line to go with it. The lore for the dagger has not been decided upon yet.
Looking for Raid tool raids will be easier than normal raids using a new level of difficulty (Looking For Raid).
The Looking for Raid tool will only work for 25 man raids, not 10 man.
Players will get different achievements and loot from doing Random Raid mode, no normal mode achievements or perks will be gained.
This will introduce players to the content and mechanics of the fights so that they are more prepared for an actual raid.
The new five mans will have tighter story integration with the Deathwing Raid than Icecrown Heroics did.
The Dragonflights will work together to help take down Deathwing.
Deathwing's random zone burning will continue at least until the end of Patch 4.3.
They might be talking about Pandas at Blizzcon.

 

[Aikouka]

Heh, we had a 10k HP wipe on H-Shannox last night. Gotta love times like that! Too bad my self-rez was down after dying on Baleroc earlier. :\

 

[chitwood]

Looking for Raid tool raids will be easier than normal raids using a new level of difficulty (Looking For Raid).

k. probably a good idea.

The Looking for Raid tool will only work for 25 man raids, not 10 man.

why not both? and won't that make the que times incredibly long?

This will introduce players to the content and mechanics of the fights so that they are more prepared for an actual raid.

considering the LFR is 25m only, and 99% of 'actual' raids are 10m, that could be a problem. Given how many people are likely to be carried through 25m LFR raids, I dont see this helping to 'prepare' anyone a great deal.

The new five mans will have tighter story integration with the Deathwing Raid than Icecrown Heroics did.

Impressive. PoS and definitely HoR had excellent lore integration.

The Dragonflights will work together to help take down Deathwing.

I bet at least one of them dies/sacrifices themselves

They might be talking about Pandas at Blizzcon.

BFD

 

[StepUp]

I hit 84 on my warrior last night.

Edit: It's taken me about a week to get to that level playing a couple hours a day. Rested XP + Instant Take Queue has been ridiculous. I quested through one zone. I can't remember the name of it, but it's the one North of Orgrimmar.

 

[lupi]

I thinl why it willl be 25 man only is a) they are redesigning with difficulty/loot and onlly want to do it once and b) they know that with 25 people there is a larger per person margin to error.

 

[Aikouka]

I thinl why it willl be 25 man only is a) they are redesigning with difficulty/loot and onlly want to do it once and b) they know that with 25 people there is a larger per person margin to error.

One thing I considered was buff management. Unless Blizzard wants to write this intricate AI to help ensure 99.9% of buffs and debuffs are covered by certain classes/talent combos, it would probably be easier to just allow 25 people and write a less sophisticated selection routine.

Also, if they did 10 and 25, it would require them to re-tune two sets of data (boss hp, damage, etc.) rather than just one. Kind of a lame excuse, but that could be part of it.

 

[lupi]

One thing I considered was buff management. Unless Blizzard wants to write this intricate AI to help ensure 99.9% of buffs and debuffs are covered by certain classes/talent combos, it would probably be easier to just allow 25 people and write a less sophisticated selection routine.

Also, if they did 10 and 25, it would require them to re-tune two sets of data (boss hp, damage, etc.) rather than just one. Kind of a lame excuse, but that could be part of it.

yep, all of that is part of my 'a'. as much as they talk about having plenty of people designing things for the game, I think we can all realize that there are plenty for those areas directly tied to bring in additional revenues (like the next expansion(s)) vice additional content like this.

 

[Chiropteran]

For unexplainable reasons, I decided to read through the TOS. I knew there was a lot of crazy stupid BS in it, but this part caught me by surprise:

Equitable Remedies.

In the event that you breach this Agreement, you hereby agree that Blizzard would be irreparably damaged if this Agreement were not specifically enforced, and therefore you agree that Blizzard shall be entitled, without bond, other security, or proof of damages, to appropriate equitable remedies with respect to breaches of this Agreement, in addition to such other remedies as Blizzard may otherwise have available to it under applicable laws. In the event any litigation is brought by either party in connection with this Agreement and consistent with Section 17, the prevailing party in such litigation shall be entitled to recover from the other party all the costs, attorneys' fees and other expenses incurred by such prevailing party in the litigation."

I guess it's probably a common lawyerish phrase, but it sounds like something odd to say. We all know how many people sell accounts, share accounts, sell or buy gold outside the game and such. And we also all know just how often these TOS violations go unenforced. I guess it's time for Activision to dismantle and shut down blizzard, given it's been irreparably damaged so many times.

I wonder if there is any kind of clause in contract law that says an agreement is invalid if it contains obvious lies presented as truthful facts?

 

[StepUp]

Anybody have any sites for Warrior Tank reading apart from tankspot?

 

[Rastus]

Anybody have any sites for Warrior Tank reading apart from tankspot?

Tankspot and Elitist Jerks are pretty much all that's left. Tankhard still does updates, but they are mostly high-end encounters.