Yeah, I liked that too. "No Blizzard, my internet connection is working just fine, thank you!!
I wondered if maybe Blizzard weekly maintenance might have something to do with it. Thanks for the info and the links. I feel much better now.
Attempted a guild run of H-SFK yesterday. We’re all fairly low-geared for heroics (except our lock, Cornballah - sorry I’ve forgotten your Doper name - who was putting out 10k dps). We took down the first two bosses with just a couple of wipes, then banged our heads on Springvale a few times before giving up and moving on. Wiped on the first attempt of boss #4 (Potion Guy, I call him) and then Tom Scud (tank) had to leave, and my wife was making noise about me, so we called it a night. So not entirely successful but we got some practice. I also picked up a pretty good healing neckpiece and had enough JPs to get my belt, which also added two gems (after adding a buckle). So at least I came out with some decent upgrades. It’s depressing though to see my currency tab with only 8 Justice Points, though.
Just so you know you can rebind the camera zoom to something other than the mouse wheel. I do this myself as I like to use the mouse wheel for abilities so have the camera zoom on the up/down arrow keys.
Grrr my Warlock’s portrait is still not appearing on the Armory! Hell my level 23 druid who recently underwent a race change is there with the new model but my level 85 'lock, no.
I think Potion Guy should be pretty easy once the DPS get a couple tries at him; he does almost no tank damage at all - I was dancing solo with him for 3 or 4 minutes after everyone else was dead. He’s kind of like Ick on crack.
Potion Guy is super easy, actually–the trick to him is that when he does the green poison–jump! Just run and jump around, and pretty much ignore the boss. This includes the tank. Hit him if you can, but if you can’t, just jump around until you’re not green anymore, then go back to attacking him.
Other than that, stay out of the little ice bombs, and you’re set. There was something about the orange stuff too, but I don’t remember what it was and I don’t think it’s critical (given that I’ve been ignoring it pretty much since I started doing that boss).
He hits like a wet kitten, and he goes down like Monica Lewinsky. 
Terribly horrendously. I think some or all of the NPCs have the ability to Charge immediately following a Shield Breaker, unlike us, who get stuck with the GCD in between.
With the right build, Prot Warrior AOE DPS is absolutely insane right now. On overall meters for dungeons (i.e., counting all the trash packs), it’s not unusual for me to be in one of the top DPS slots.
Oh thank goodness. I was going to do a few things on my bank alt before work and I couldn’t get on. I assumed it was something of the sort since I couldn’t post anything (or even log in) at the forums, either, but it’s nice to get confirmation.
You’d just use the same buttons you ordinarily use to change your camera viewing distance. If you haven’t ever done that, you can see what it’s bound to by opening the Keybindings menu and scrolling to the section that deals with your camera. You can also use that menu to rebind it to something more convenient if necessary (for example, you could use a modifier key like Ctrl, Shift, or Alt plus your up/down arrow keys).
I wasn’t thinking so much of raw dps as the fact that I can hit my aoe threat generation button three or four times in a row while dodging ground effects or running to wherever the rest of the mobs to be picked up are. But I have no idea how other tanking mechanics really work now; had the impression thunder clap and shockwave were both on moderate cooldowns.
I don’t ever seem to have a problem getting SB and Charge off almost at the same time, normally. The only time I seem to have a problem with that is doing the Commanders in front of the Citadel. For some reason I only have about a 50% chance of managing to Charge soon enough after the SB that I can actually avoid a counter-SB and Charge.
While studying the phenomenon, I think there is a bug where the first shield to go down doesn’t render immediately — that is, I have three shields up (green) and get hit by the Shield Breaker, but the displayed shields don’t change immediately (and sometimes the SB animation doesn’t play either) — it hangs, and only displays at about the same instant I get hit by my opponent’s Charge. So it appears that I’m getting hit by the SB and Charge at the same time, and thus losing two shields simultaneously. Where in reality I lost the first shield a second or two earlier; it just didn’t display properly.
I was led to that idea one day when I was down to just one (red) shield, and I was hammering on my “4” button yelling “OMGWTFBBQ!!!11 Why won’t my damn shield come back up?!”, only to have it abruptly jump straight from red to green. There have also been a few times when, right when I’m starting, before I’ve even challenged my first opponent, I’ll start getting myself ready and hit “4”, and nothing appears to happen, so I’ll hit “4” again and now I have two (yellow) shields up.
So it’s looking to me like the first shield up or down isn’t getting rendered, and so you don’t see anything until the second shield up or down. Which can be a hazard because you may think you have all three shields up when you really only have two.
You sure about that? In all the jousting I’ve done, there has always been a GCD after using Shield Breaker.
It certainly seems like I can hit "2"“3” one right after another and get off the SB and the Charge with either very, very short or no CD at all. This happens most often in the Valiants’ Circle. I can usually do it about 75% of the time in the Champions’ Circle and, as I posted, 50% of the time in front of the Citadel. It very well may be just my perception, though. I haven’t done any scientific experiments with timing.
Blood and Thunder is a Prot talent that applies Rend to every target hit by your Thunderclap if at least one target is currently affected by it. And Thunderstruck both increases the base damage of my TC and gives me a stacking buff with every TC that increases the damage of my next Shockwave. Plus, I have both a Talent that increases the damage of my Cleave and a glyph that makes it hit a third target. I have approximately zero problems establishing and maintaining AOE threat in this build–it’s very rare for a DPS to peel a mob off me in a pack, and then only when they’re focusing on a single target and I’m futzing with something else, like trying to keep interrupts going on another target. After the initial frustrations of the new setup, it’s very, very nice. (Also, after being at the bottom of the heap for so long, it’s also gratifying to see your name at the top of the lists. It may just be trash, but faster trash clears = faster instances.)
Haaaaaaaaaaaaacks. :eek:
And now for something completely unexpected, I found this little guy wandering around the Tanaris Desert. 
Also …
“I’m sorry, yer Highness. I know yer the Prince and all, but I’m still going to have to cite you for following too closely and failure to yield. And, er, just how fast were you going, yer Highness?”
Like I said, that’s probably my perception. Or lag. Or something. I think the CD is just so quick that it seems like I can do that. It’s certainly quicker than the damn Defense CD. Then again, a joust sounds in person like someone wearing castanets on both hands and both feet having an epileptic siezure with a side order of Tourette’s (“clikclikclikCLIKclikclikCLIKclikclikclikCLIKCLIKCLIKCLIKclikDAMNYOUDAMNYOUFUCKINGGODDAMSTUPIDIDIOTCOMPUTERTHROWTHEDAMNTHINGCHARGEDAMMITCLIKclikclikclikCLIKCLIK”), so it’s not like I’m all that good.
ETA: I’ve also been known to be snarky to my baby rogue at times…(“If you can find it in your heart to occasionally HIT THE DAMN MOB I would appreciate it…”)
Aww, cute. It’d be fun if it were tameable.
1.) Dawwwwwwww.
2.) Being stuck up an elephant’s ass is punishment enough for anyone.
1.) It’s a GCD–a global cooldown. You get a sweep across everything before you can use another ability so you can’t just chain things together. It applies to almost every instant attack in the game; very few abilities don’t trigger the GCD. This is not to be confused with an ability-specific cooldown, like on your shield when jousting.
2.) Crazy button-mashing to catch every possible GCD the second it’s up is, in my opinion, the mark of a *good *player, not a bad one.
Looks to be the same model as the other non-combat pet cats. If anything, it would be a vanity pet, not a Hunter pet. (I’d get one!)
Well, first round of heroic 5man nerfs incoming in the next patch. Some buffs too, but mostly nerfs (spoilered for length):
Dungeons & Raids
* Level 85 players can now choose any normal dungeon via the Dungeon Finder. Choosing Random Dungeon will still not add Blackrock Caverns or Throne of the Tides into the rotation.
* Blackrock Caverns
o Beauty now spawns with only two pups in Heroic difficulty. Not to worry though, the missing pup has been adopted by a wonderful, if not insane family.
* Grim Batol
o Faceless Corruptors now move 10% more slowly.
o Players may still use spell and abilities while afflicted by Forgemaster Throngus's Impaling Slam.
o Valiona's Devouring Flame damage has been reduced by 20%.
* Halls of Origination
o The duration of the Flame Wardens' Raging Inferno has been reduced by 80%.
o Anraphet's Nemesis Strike now does 75% of weapon damage, up from 50%. In addition, the damage-over-time effect applied by this ability does 15,000 damage every 2 seconds, up from 9,000.
o Earthrager Ptah's Flame Bolt now deals more damage per second on Heroic difficulty.
o Setesh seeks a portal every 25 seconds, up from 20.
* Lost City of the Tol'vir
o Lockmaw no longer tolerates fighting in his treasure room.
* Shadowfang Keep
o Baron Ashbury
+ Sadly, in his hubris he has forgotten how to Mend Rotten Flesh.
o Lord Walden
+ Conjure Poisonous Mixture now deals more initial damage.
+ Frost Mixture is now area-of-effect damage.
+ Toxic Catalyst now deals less damage over time.
* The Stonecore
o Stonecore Earthshapers' Dust Storm does slightly less damage.
o Corborus
+ The warning time for Thrashing Charge has been increased by 1 second. In addition, Thrashing Charge now happens 4 times, down from 5.
+ The visual for Rock Borers spawning during the submersion phase is now different from the Thrashing Charge visual.
o High Priestess Azil
+ She grew! She's now 175% the size of a human, up from 125%.
+ Gravity Wells should kill Devout Followers more quickly.
+ The cast time of Force Grip is now 1.5 seconds, up from 1.
+ The size of the warning visual for Seismic Shard has been increased to more accurately reflect the area it affects.
o Slabhide
+ The ground phase lasts longer and has fewer stalactites.
o Ozruk
+ There is now a precast visual on the ground to make it clear how far away a player must get to be clear of Shatter.
+ The cast time of Shatter has been increased to 3 seconds, up from 2.5.
+ Shatter damage is now reduced by armor, but has been increased by 33.3% (repeating, of course) as a result.
o Bug Fixes
+ Fixed a bug that made Ozruk's Shatter knockback component 10-yard range while the damage had a 15-yard range. Both are 15 yards now.
* Throne of the Tides
o The damage done by Lady Naz'jatar's Shock Blast and Naz'jar Tempest Witch Chain Lightning has been reduced.
o Tainted Sentries Swell damage has been reduced.
o The damage of Blight of Ozumat has been reduced by 25% per stack.
* The Vortex Pinnacle
o Creatures
+ Desperate Speed cast by Temple Adepts has had its duration reduced significantly.
o Altairus
+ The visual effects in this encounter have been adjusted to make the wind direction easier to read.
+ Cyclones now knock players straight up, and players hit by a cyclone cannot be hit again for a few seconds.
o Asaad
+ Skyfall Stars are now summoned to help him defeat players.
+ Static Cling has had its cast time increased to 1.25 seconds, up from 1.
o Grand Vizier Ertan
+ His health has been reduced slightly.
+ He now knocks away players standing too close to him when he retracts his Cyclone Shield, which now inflicts Nature damage if it touches players.
Class changes as well, go here if you want to read the whole PTR patch notes.
Resto druid buffs are nice, but not exactly what we need, I think. Sure, it’ll make it so we’re more competitive healing with being able to again spread around WG/RJ during heavy AOE phases, without devolving into WOTLK spamfests due to their still high mana costs, but druids still don’t bring anything else in their toolbox that other healers don’t already have except the now nerfed B-rez. We still have NO damage mitigation tools.
I’d like to see Efflorescence changed from an incredibly weak heal to a circle of shielding—something along the lines of “Swiftmend heals the tank for the full amount of Rejuv/Regrowth (currently around 21k for me, non crit) and creates a circle of shielding natural energy thus protecting any party/raid members within it’s confines by reducing all damage taken by 20% of the amount swiftmended per second for 6 seconds”. Gives druids a damage mitigation spell and encourages stacking for AoE heals. 20% is only 4k, and six seconds is only 24k shielded, but that can be the difference between a wipe and not based on what I’ve read of some of the new raid encounters.
No, no, don’t do it right after another. As a guildie told me, hit both buttons at the same time. That works just beauuuuutifully. I’ve never understood button mashing (watching The Hordie tank makes me feel sorry for his keyboard), but that’s one case of mini-mashing which certainly works.
Yesterday my guild’s Progression Team was supposed to be attempting their first raid, but the RLs decided to change it to several dungeon runs instead; we got 3 Heroic teams going, all three got Lost City. Mine finished first; the warlock was yelling “we are the champions” but restricted it to /p amidst much giggling. I now have a Big Bad Engineered Gun and a brand new spear, one of those that look like the implements certain pulpy Bad Guys like to hang from the ceiling above a table to which their enemies get strapped, and the blade goes swish-swishing from side to side coming closer and closer…
Be careful what you wish for. Having an on-demand absorb/mitigation may seem great at first, but once it’s in the game, the game will be balanced around it.
And once the game is balanced around it…well, it’s all down hill from there.
My guild recently accomplished Heroic Chimaeron, and while it wasn’t exactly “difficult” getting that power word barrier down at the right time with no timer was a real pain in the ass.
Finished up Twighlight Highlands last night and for those that haven’t done it you really should, quite a climax. A few issues with phasing and being grouped up though, sometimes I would credit for an escort quest or rescue when the guy I was questing with didn’t or vice versa. Annoying.
Though the zone was magnificent in storytelling and progression I came to realise last night that if I do it again, and no doubt I will, it will be the same. That is you can’t skip quests or quest hubs or you’ll not be able to progress. I know Blizzard wants to tell the story but I know there are some quests, I have found enough ale already thank you, I would rather miss next time. This was possible in WOTLK where one could avoid those annoying quests but not any more. A minor quibble is all.
A major one however is how they have screwed PvP at 85. If you weren’t 85 and doing PvP when the Tol Barad honor point fest (1800 points for a win, hello win trading)was live you are so far behind on gear it’s laughable. I know those that push themselves to get to 85 deserve the rewards first but a whole set of top PvP gear this early? If I was able to catch up pretty quick I wouldn’t mind but it will be weeks of dying an awful lot before I can.