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

[Xonim]

I'm getting crap luck with the 675 missions. Keep giving me ones that reward primal. As if I didn't so many stacks of them in my bank already. At least I saved a couple slots since you can stack them larger now.

Redeem for savage blood and sell them imo. They'll only decrease in value.

 

[Xonim]

New LFR I think is going to be problematic for a while. Had a fairly decent group last night, 1 shot the first two bosses and wiped twice on the iron maidens before we got them with I think me and 7-8 others alive. Got close to wiping on the 2nd boss as well but about 10 of us were left alive for the last 15% or so. Got a little messy.

And fire ... omg fire. I had my mage enchanted/gemmed for mastery to try out arcane, got bored with it almost instantly and swapped back to fire since we all know it's always been the only real mage spec (though I was lacking a bunch of crit from gems/enchants). Holy cleave batman. On a couple of those trash pulls I was at 80k-ish in my whopping ilvl 651 or whatever I'm at. Finished the first boss around 20, 2nd boss at 24k, and I think the maidens at 27-29k each attempt.

After last night, got a warforged tiny upgrade from a highmaul mission for boots, upgraded my DMF trinket from 670 to 680, and sent a blackrock mission this morning. Here's hoping for something good ... I could actually use gloves. I have to be one of about 3 people that actually equipped one of the 610 salvage pieces, and yes, I'm still using it.

 

[Sixguns]

Have they changed the spawn of the raid caches? I seem to be getting both a Highmaul and BRF every week. No complaints here just wondering since I thought it was like 2.5 weeks.

 

[Xonim]

Have they changed the spawn of the raid caches? I seem to be getting both a Highmaul and BRF every week. No complaints here just wondering since I thought it was like 2.5 weeks.

Not as far as I know. My 2nd BRF mission just showed up last night (2 weeks from 6.1 when I did it last), Highmaul the same way.

I wish they'd at least increase highmaul's spawn rate a little since it's likely to get DE'd anyway, but everyone has that one or two slots that they can't get an upgrade for.

 

[Phoenix86]

Some people reported 2 or even 3 highmaul missions at one time. Something's fucky.

 

[Xed]

In before my mythic brf cache gives me the crappy haste/vers pants (dk)

 

[lupi]

WarcraftDevs @WarcraftDevs · 1h 1 hour ago
We've just pushed a hotfix that reduces the effectiveness of the "Cornered" Hunter pet ability

WarcraftDevs @WarcraftDevs · 4h 4 hours ago
We've applied a hotfix that reduces PvP damage by 10% in response to an overall increase in damage since Patch 6.1 launched.

 

[Xonim]

For BRF missions this week I got an int / haste proc trinket on my mage and an int / crit proc trinket on my spriest. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I got the crit proc on my priest because haste procs mess with dot-weaving, but I really wish it was a crit proc for the mage too :'(

 

[Worthington]

At least it was useful. I keep getting the same piece over and over.

 

[Phoenix86]

I keep getting the same pieces too, trinket at that. Normally I'd be super happy with getting a trinket for free, I was still carrying a 645 trinket. However, all I seem to get are trinkets and none dropping from instances.

That left me with shard of nothing+a crappy 645 for all of last tier.

This tier I managed to get a the int/haste trinket, finally I have a decent second trinket. Then I get it again from the cache (lower ilvl), then again on a bonus roll.

Game is fucking trolling me. 😛

 

[lupi]

Can't figure out why my fps in game is so low now. Recently loaded up WoT again and noticed it now has a display in my keyboard screen and show a FPS counter among other things and that stays in mid 50's. While sitting still in my garrison solo I'm just over 30.

 

[Worthington]

maybe some of the new AA features?

 

[Xonim]

It does almost seem as if there are more trinkets from the BRF/Highmaul missions than anything else. I've seen 2 separate caster dps trinkets from highmaul missions multiple times each on my mage/priest. Both got caster dps trinkets from BRF this week after one each getting shoulders / chest last week -- definitely have more of a need in other slots where I could go from 640 or 645 to 665 instead of 655 to 665. Of course, sample size is still relatively small, so...could just be bad luck.

Anyone know of a loot list with drop chances available somewhere for these missions?

 

[lupi]

I turned AA off when the previous change made my text all blurry.

 

[Aikouka]

maybe some of the new AA features?

Blizzard also added a few other graphical features that seemed to be enabled by default on my system because I had everything turned on to the max setting. I mentioned them in a post not too long ago.

 

[Worthington]

It does almost seem as if there are more trinkets from the BRF/Highmaul missions than anything else. I've seen 2 separate caster dps trinkets from highmaul missions multiple times each on my mage/priest. Both got caster dps trinkets from BRF this week after one each getting shoulders / chest last week -- definitely have more of a need in other slots where I could go from 640 or 645 to 665 instead of 655 to 665. Of course, sample size is still relatively small, so...could just be bad luck.

Anyone know of a loot list with drop chances available somewhere for these missions?

I'd kill for a trinket. My 665 main is still using a Grandiose Plans because Trinkets hate me.

 

[Aikouka]

I'd kill for a trinket. My 665 main is still using a Grandiose Plans because Trinkets hate me.

The BRF missions keep giving me replacements for items from the Highmaul missions. 🙁 I think I did manage to get a trinket reward on two of my characters so far, which was nice. Although, I kinda realized that I've been a bit of an idiot with my Priest and Druid. While I have DPS specs on them, they're healers by default. So, it's actually not a bad idea to just create the caster 645 trinket in addition to the healer one, and use both of them as a healer. You probably won't need two trinkets that help with mana regen anyway (the healer trinket is +intellect and +spirit).

 

[lupi]

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[Xonim]

All this trinket talk and I just DE'd three more on my mage last night -- a warforged 646 from HM LFR a 650 from BRF LFR, and a warforged 651 + socket from one of the grandoise things. Wish I could share :'(

 

[lupi]

Got another BRF cache and it turned out to be a ring so it goes into the dust bin.

Haven't had much time to test FPS more this week, but did noticed when I logged yesterday it was first onto my bank char to do an AH scan and I was at around 100 in the org AH. Then went to my main in the garrison HQ and was sitting around 75. Walk out into the garrison and I'm just above 30. Gpuz never shows more than about 53% use.

 

[lupi]

Been doing a bit more FPS testing. Both my computers mostly the same except for GPU, one running a 480 and the other a 7970. The 7970 also has 2 monitors attached to it.

Loaded the game up on the 480 and noticed that I was getting about 20 FPS higher in same locations on the 7970. Then went to the 7970 with all addons disabled and noticed no change in FPS. GPUz doesn't report any problems with the 7970 and has it at only 50% usage. Now to figure out what next to try.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Ashes of A'lar dropped for me last night. Total of 30 runs on my toons before it dropped. 😀

 

[lupi]

We are preparing to deploy a hotfix next week that will increase the item level of all raid drops from all difficulties of the Blackrock Foundry raid.

The main purpose of this change is to ensure that killing new bosses in the Blackrock Foundry raid feels appropriately rewarding. We are finding that groups coming out of a couple of months in Highmaul could often have an average item level that was just barely shy of the loot dropped by the appropriate difficulty in Foundry. A core part of the experience of progressing through a new raid tier lies in the sense that even if you didn't manage to kill a particular boss this week, the upgrades your raid group gathered along the way will make things smoother and improve your chances the following week.

This change will be retroactive, affecting existing items that players may have in their possession. Thus, instead of an item level range of 650/665/680/695 for Raid Finder/Normal/Heroic/Mythic Foundry, the loot awarded will now be item level 655/670/685/700 respectively. At the same time, we will be increasing the item level of the new highest-tier crafted and Apexis vendor items by 5, in order to keep their power unchanged relative to the Foundry raid itemization.

A few comments in response to some posts so far.

First, I wouldn't read much into the use of the word "tier" in the post - it's being used as a synonym for "zone" in this case. The point stands regardless: When you go through a series of learning attempts and wipes to defeat a new boss for the first time, you expect a commensurate reward for doing so. Many players coming out of 2 months in Highmaul were in a situation of having to work to learn and defeat new bosses that dropped loot of roughly the same quality as what they already were wearing. That isn't satisfying and doesn't allow for much power progression.

Second, the primary point of this change is not to nerf Foundry encounters. If that were the goal, it would have been much simpler to simply nerf the encounters, and we'd taken a more surgical approach to specific encounters. The aim is strictly to improve the reward side of the difficulty:reward ratio.

To use an example, consider a guild that primarily does Normal mode content and eventually progresses into Heroic. This guild may have been 6/7N Highmaul by early January; they ventured into Heroic and killed 2-3 bosses there, and then went back and finished off Mar'gok on Normal. Along the way, they also got some item level 670 loot from garrison mission caches. Now, Foundry comes out. Just because this group killed a couple of Heroic Highmaul bosses after two months in the zone doesn't suddenly make them a Heroic guild - they will, appropriately, begin in Normal Foundry. But their average item level with mostly 655 items (some 661 warforged), and some 670 items from Heroic Highmaul, is likely around 661 or 662 as a raid group. And that simply doesn't leave much room for meaningful reward. And replacing a 670 non-set piece with a 665 set piece is likely a power upgrade, but also does not feel particularly satisfying. You can change the difficulties in the example above, and we see the exact same situation with Heroic guilds coming into Heroic Foundry with an average item level in the 675+ range, which again didn't leave much room for improvement.

(Note that this logic really does not apply to Mythic Foundry, but once we're buffing loot from the other difficulties, we must also adjust Mythic in order to keep Mythic drops feeling like an appropriate upgrade over Heroic. Mythic Foundry is still plenty challenging and ranks among the overall hardest raid zones we've designed - an extra few item levels is not going to change that.)

Edit: And yes, the actual stats on the items are of course increasing along with the item level. The point is to improve the actual reward, not smoke and mirrors creating the illusion of one.

 

[lupi]

yeah I think I found my fps issue. looks like when I have usb3 turbo turned on for my mobo it soaks up some of the pci bandwidth causing it to cut what is available for the graphics card. turning off the turbo mode and I can now saturate the 7970 in testing and my WoW FPS for the 7970 is at or slightly ahead of the 480 instead of lagging behind it. Also ran a couple other games and noticed they had substantial improvement.


One interesting thing while I was testing WoW FPS prior to fixing the bandwidth, went through and cycled several settings including shadows and while I could visually tell when doing so, on FPS it was having a minimal impact. Have they coded it better into the game or has the dx11 suite minimized the impact they have on the game?

 

[lupi]

Was in everbloom to complete a couple quest. Group skipped witherbark (or however the name is spelled). Hunter said at the end he needed to kill I'm as everyone else started to bail. Went with him to try and finish. Somewhat surprised how far we got, if not for the group required mechanics we could have downed him.



Also looking to replace the mill. Unless I want to constantly dump a lot of resources into the war mill for possible upgrades, don't have a strong need for the resources via timber.