MoP-ing up after the Cataclysm: Updated WoW General Discussion 8/22/12

The Game Room
1241

I’m hoping to do some small scale raiding by the time the expansion releases. My rogue is slogging through the upper 80s now and XP ain’t what it used to be. Getting to 90 is taking longer than I had hoped! Priest is at 83.

And with all the focus on XP, of course, my profession skills are woefully underdeveloped, something like 10 levels behind where they ought to be. I haven’t stopped to learn about this new pet thing and have barely scratched the surface of Archaeology.

Never mind the money grind to buy flight ability in Pandaria.

I think 3 months ought to be enough time, at about 10 hours per week of play. I’m impatient, though!

1242

I’ve been going back and finishing some of the quest chains I missed in Pandaria.

One thing about making all of these awesome quests at the end of zone wide chains, is that a lot of people (including me), never get to them. Defending Stoneplow was a lot of fun.

I ended up having the Nessingary quests in Valley of the Four Winds, and only a treasure map quest to finish in Karasang, so I finished both of those zones pretty quickly. The whole Chen Stormstout story line really connected everything and made it feel like more than just a bunch of quests.

I’ve been also working on getting enough cloth to do the Tailoring research and eventually make something fun. All I seem to get are PVP patterns so far though. I still remember working towards making a Mooncloth Robe in BC, and that took me a long time. With the new special cloth this feels similar.

1243

Yeah, you’ll get a lot of those. And it’s all 476 gear. My tailor and leatherworker finally ended up learning the patterns for the 553 pants and belts, but I was getting frustrated because my LW learned all of the +!NT patterns before learning a single +AGI pattern. Given that my two level 90s on that server are a hunter and a rogue, and I don’t even play druids or shaman — nor have I gotten far with monks — that was rather annoying.

I’ll present my priest:

:cool:

1244

Very nice. I keep going back to my priest after trying other characters. My only other 90 is a warrior I made when I pre-ordered.

Having to go to a Moonwell each time to make more cloth was annoying but actually made it feel epic. I really like the simple look I’ve got with my priest, but Mooncloth Robe is another great one.

1245

FYI, a good source of windwool cloth is to plant windshear cactus at Sunsong Ranch. The yields are generally quite good for the time invested (especially compared to the counterparts that provide materials for enchanting and leatherworking).

1246

So, I’ve been working on leveling a warlock, and have gotten her almost to level 65, and …

Holy cow, I’m being reminded of how bad Blizzard was at lining up quest rewards in TBC.

One of the earliest quests out of Honor Hold awards a blue chest piece. And no fewer than FOUR subsequent quests award GREEN chest pieces to clothies, all of which are inferior to that blue chest piece. Except for transmogrification purposes, a feature that was not available during TBC.

So far I’ve seen no shoulders, no gloves, no boots, no belts, and one pair of pants (sexy pants!). But I’ve been awarded five chest pieces.

My main, a paladin, noticed the same thing in WotLK: While questing through Borean Tundra and Dragonblight, she got one shoulder piece after another, all with slight variations in stats. My Horde paladin, while doing the quests out of Agmar’s Hammer in Dragonblight, got no fewer than three shoulder pieces from quests, and I was all, “Which one do I pick?” Again, pre-transmog.

Then there’s that TBC stat itemization. With plate, I understand that Agility was still a desirable stat for tanks. But today, my warlock found a pair of blue-quality MAIL boots with +STR on them. When has +STR ever been a desirable stat for a mail-wearing class?

1247

Enhancement shamans still used str in TBC, and except for the armour it provided, there was still no reason to use your highest available armour type so plate users were even prepared to use leather if the stats were good.
But yes, even back then those boots would’ve made more sense with +AP.

1248

Point well made about Enh shammies. Their effective AP contribution from base attributes was the average of agility and strength together, so +strength mail armor was for them. (Or for clueless huntards, the same stupid ones that would need on +int weapons “for arcane shot”. :rolleyes: I hated those guys; I’d always have to prove that I wasn’t one of them in groups and raids that could blanket assume I probably was, on the basis of their experiences with other hunters.)

1249

I’ve taken my (untouched since vanilla) rogue from 60 to 88 in the last couple of weeks. The last couple of levels are just. inching. by. so. slowly.

I’m ready to be 90 already. Definitely ready to be able to fly again. Looking forward to being able to pursue my favorite secondary, Fishing, properly again. Those guys at Angler’s Wharf won’t give me quests at all yet. I presume they’ll talk to me at 90. I like the looks of that water-walking bug mount and can’t wait to start my rep grind to get that.

Archaeology seems pretty… pointless… so far, though admittedly I’m only at 300 or so on that. I did get a little pet from it, and a “trap yourself in amber” toy.

And yes, I’m having a hard time with leveling tailoring and enchanting as well. I’ve resorted to buying whatever greens I spy in the AH that might disenchant into Hypnotic Dust since I’m not doing Cataclysm stuff anymore that would get me that level of greens anymore. The jokers on my server’s AH are charging ridiculous sums for Hypnotic dust, and I’m not made of money! Nor am I getting embersilk, or I’d sew up some crap greens and DE them. Instead I’m only getting windwool which of course I can’t do anything with. It’s irritating.

The blues that I win but don’t need are too high level for me to DE anymore, so they’re piling up in my bank and taking up a lot of space.

Ah, first world problems.

1250

Now just imagine if you had come back before they made 85-90 30% faster. :wink:

1251

My rogue made it to 90 today, so I have been racing around trying out all the things that have been denied me - flying in Pandaria, dailies, Heroic dungeons, the “scenario” groups. My gear’s not good enough yet to queue for any raids, so that’ll have to wait.

For some reason, I really don’t remember ever earning any, but apparently I was maxed out on Justice points, to the point that I couldn’t empty the prize containers from the scenarios, so I went and spent a few of those on upgrading the worst of my armor - still had a few pieces left from Cataclysm dungeons.

I might convert the rest to Honor points and start building a PVP gear set, though I haven’t PVP’d since I came back to WOW. Is there anything else good you can do with Justice points?

The first scenario I did, I lucked out and there was a blue-quality rogue leather item in my box - the highest quality of anything I have gotten so far. I was somewhat disappointed when the second scenario I did rewarded me with a cloth green that was low enough that I could DE it, with my weak enchanting skill.

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Not really. Early in the xpac, they were for buying blues, but nowadays you can get much better gear for much less effort over on the Timeless Isle. If you don’t pvp, the only thing I can suggest is to use them to buy honor points and then use the honor points to buy motes of harmony.

1253

I don’t PvP either, but I have four level 90s in complete sets of iLvl 522 PvP gear, and three more 90s in almost-complete sets.

What you do is head to the Isle of Thunder. You’ll need to go to the Shado-Pan Garrison in Townlong Steppes, and find your faction’s small camp nearby. Alliance is down the hill to the north; Horde is just south of the flight point. Talk to the main NPC there (Vereesa Windrunner, for Alliance, can’t recall the Horde NPC at the moment), and you’ll get a flight to the Isle of Thunder.

Once there, you’ll need to complete a series of single-player scenarios (fairly challenging if your gear isn’t all that great). Once you’ve completed the scenarios and “opened” the island, you will be able, each day, to choose between “PvE” and “PvP” dailies. The PvP dailies will award a total of 525 Honor Points each day, for completing seven quests. If you complete all seven quests, you also get a bonus of 50 Conquest Points. (Some days I don’t do all seven, because one of the randomly-selected quests, “Made for War” requires killing what is effectively a heroic dungeon boss, and I just can’t solo that. Some people can.)

1254

Hey all. I’m doing some catch-up on old achievements to kill some time and catch some content that I never saw.

I’ve got all the old dungeons and raids completed . . . except for Blackwing’s lair. I can’t quite get the solo mechanic down for Razorgore, and I’m sick of trying. Any Cairne denizens interested in duo-ing Blackwing’s lair (or at least that first fight)?

1255

Is Razorgore the one with the orb you mind control and squish eggs?

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The very one.

He’s a massive pain to solo. Doable, but never easily so. Generally, not worth messing with unless you’re really down for some achievements, pets, or transmog gear. Or feeling very touristy and totally want to take in the ambience of BWL. :wink:

TBH, BWL is just unpleasant to solo even as a 90 on many levels.

We’re discussing Razorgore. We all know he’s a PITA.

Then there’s Vaelastraz, the next boss, who is guaranteed death to any mana user unless you can burn through his 1.92 million HP in 35 seconds or less. (My calculations make that 132k DPS. I can do that on my well-geared hunter, but it’s absolutely beyond any of my alts. Ironically, since hunters don’t use mana any more, it’s not actually a problem. But it did kill my enhancement shaman when I tried him.)

The next boss, Broodlord Lashlayer, is just annoying. Well, not him, but the room leading up to him, because it projects an apparently unavoidable slowing field that makes you move through it at no faster than walking speed. I’m not a patient man, and RP-walking through a room full of annoying but harmless whelps just pisses me off.

The drake bosses after Lashlayer aren’t bad, but Chromaggus can be annoying if you don’t honor the debuff mechanic he has: if he can lay all 5 debuffs on you (take too long killing him, and don’t clear the one that you can with the item provided in earlier kills), he’ll MC you and reset. End of encounter, enjoy trying that again with all the debuffs you’ve already accumulated. :mad:

Nefarian, the final boss, never really bothered me, but there are some mechanics that can be annoying. The “class call”, in which every 30 secs Nef does something bad and specific to a class, is particularly annoying to Hunters: he instantly and completely breaks your equipped ranged weapon. Which means either the hunter must swap out to a spare, use a repair bot, or punch him. (BMs are better off, since the pet can still do a lot of damage.) Some of Nef’s summoned mobs have an MC mechanic, but I’ve never seen it… either it’s disabled for soloing, or else I’ve been doing well enough burning down summons.

BWL is probably the hardest soloing experience in the classic game. I don’t blame anyone for seeking out a second.

1257

Correcting math after edit window: you have 15 seconds to kill Vael (1.92 million healthm 132k dps) if you don’t want to die to Burning Adrenaline. If you don’t mind dying, as long as you win, you have 35 seconds, and the 20 seconds you’re under the effects of Burning Adrenaline every attack or spell you cast will be instant cast and all your outbound damage will be doubled. I should certainly hope you can do 55k DPS under those conditions.

1258

I play ally on Argent Dawn but can’t we join cross server now ? (if you are ally that is)

I’ll be available in about an hour if you want to try.

1259

I’m horde, but thanks!

1260

Too bad you’re not on Madoran.

Oh wait - wrong forum.

Y’all have a realm you’re on? Guilded?