All things being equal, it occurs to me that I’d really rather study strat for LFR than learn a metric crapton of different heroic instances in order to gear up for real instances. That’s what I did for MoP, and it worked out well. (I’m pretty timid about going in cold to a new instance, and studying one slightly tough one (LFR) really well is better for me than half-ass learning 8 slightly easier ones (5-man dungeons). And I flatly refuse to learn 'em on the fly; embarrassing myself preventably in front of four strangers is intolerable.)
Ah, okay, I guess I couldn’t have summoned a shredder, since I built the Sparring Ring in Gorgrond (already had a Lumber Mill in my garrison). Beatface showed up the first time before I’d even met him and done the quests that included him. Since I didn’t consciously summon him (he just showed up out of nowhere when I clicked on the Odd Rock), my brain didn’t connect his appearance with the Sparring Ring.
Heh. I haven’t grouped for an endgame dungeon since Wrath, but during Wrath I literally went into every 5-man blind the first time. And I wasn’t even running DBM until the ICC dungeons came out. And, outside of the ICC instances, my first visit to every 5-man was on Heroic mode. I’m too much of an RP enthusiast and immersion-demander to go into a dungeon the first time with “metagaming” knowledge. I figure, story- and lore-wise, our characters are going into the dungeons blind, and I like maintaining that sense of “surprise”.
Now, that said, I didn’t start playing the game until shortly after Wrath’s launch, so by the time I got my first character to 80 (my human ret pally), those dungeons had already been out for months, so almost everybody running them via LFD was already familiar with them. I also waited quite some time after hitting 80 before I started queueing for dungeons; I actually didn’t start running dungeons until I had literally exhausted everything else there was to do in Northrend at level 80. So, the first time I set foot in a dungeon, I was Exalted with just about everybody and decked out in every top piece of rep gear I could get. And most of the people I found myself grouped with already outgeared the heroics.
As a melee DPS character, my basic procedure in every dungeon was to let the tank pull, count to five, then charge in after him/her, get behind the boss, and start whacking. It also helped that I was very quick to grok the mechanics (such as they were), and was pretty good at not standing in stuff. Once I was familiar with all of the dungeons as melee DPS, I felt confident enough to start running them on my mage. I remember, after multiple Forge of Souls runs on my paladin, noticing how, with certain trash packs, there was always this one caster mob that no tank could ever manage to gather up. It would always stand several yards away from the scrum. So my first FoS run on my mage, I waited for the tank to engage that group of trash, and then sheeped that caster. That earned me several compliments from others in the group 
Ok, now that I’ve had a chance to try Highmaul LFR myself I have to agree that it was really easy, even for LFR. I don’t even know why they bothered to keep the moss&flamethrowers on Brackenspore, if I didn’t already know about the moss I would never have noticed it and those flame throwers are just a trap for the people who don’t know what they’re for. Watched someone use it the boss the entire fight, which did nothing but reduce his dps.
I’m on a fair amount these days, playing my troll hunter, Ygramul.
So far I’ve just been going through quests. After hitting 100, I was hoping to explore some of the dungeons, but my ilvl is not quite high enough yet. Guess that’ll come at this point from having my followers complete quests with item rewards?
I have to admit to being a little frustrated that I’ve got to do item grinds to queue for non-heroic dungeons.
Speaking of the BDL— since taking over the Guild Leader spot (not that I’ve done much actual “leading”), I’ve kind of made a point of not touching the Guild Bank. Other people deposited pretty much everything that’s in there, so I’m kind of leery of messing with it, aside from very rarely withdrawing an item that I can use. But … the last time I looked, it was really full. Mostly Wrath and Cataclysm gear and mats.
So I’m debating cleaning it out. Sell the stuff and deposit the proceeds back into the GB. This would improve the GB’s gold reserves somewhat. Guild activity really dropped off in late Cataclysm, and was abysmal in MoP, so there wasn’t much influx from the guild perk that generated funds from members looting corpses. And now, in WoD, that perk is gone. For the most part, I don’t see much point in trying to sell the gear on the AH. Given that my most recent leveling character (my warlock) hit level 80 while still in Borean Tundra and level 85 about halfway through Vashj’ir, I don’t see much demand for gear from those expansions. So simply vendoring the stuff would seem to be the best route.
If I do this, I would like there to be some form of accountability. I have no desire, or need, to profit personally from near-emptying the GB, I just want to free up some space. I think a good way to go about this would be for me to create a level 1 character with no gold of his own, promote him to whatever rank is necessary for full bank access, and let that character handle the “business”. That way, the proceeds wouldn’t get mixed up with an existing character’s gold, and all this “accountant” character would have to do is deposit all of the proceeds back into the bank without needing to do any math. Of course, I would make this character’s name known, and his purpose, before doing anything.
I would want another active guild member to, at the very least, take a look at the contents of the bank before anything happens, and get a general idea of how much gold should be coming back. Either that, or everybody could just trust me to be trustworthy and tell me to just go ahead and do it.
(This is all so much easier with my vanity guild on Lightbringer, <Order of The Rik>. It’s my bank, I put everything in there, and I can do whatever the hell I want with it.)
Anyway, input from currently-active members is desired, and I will accept input from any inactive member who may still be reading/posting to these WoW threads.
Had an odd little situation crop up today. Working on the legendary quest, up to the point where you meet Khadgar and Chromie to kill a dragon. To start the fight, you have to talk to Khadgar and tell him which role you will take in the fight–tank, heals, or dps.
The catch? This fight is in-freaking-possible for a mage if you choose the DPS role. I failed multiple times. Actually broke my gear trying. So I googled for a strategy hint. Turns out lots of people had the same problem–if you choose DPS, then Chromie acts as a healer, and she’s not really very good at it. If you choose heals as your role, despite being a mage, Chromie will DPS…and she is pretty good at that. Khadgar tanks with a pet. I still failed twice after making the switch, but the third time was the charm. Took everything I had, including Time Warp in phase 2, but killed the dragon and got the upgrade for my ring.
The next step is going to take awhile. You need 125 stones that drop in Highmaul, plus something that drops off the final boss. I did LFR today. Got four (4) stones off three boses. Looks like you may be able to get some stones via garrison missons, but still…gonna take awhile.
Yeah, another instance of Og-awful quest design. If you’re DPS, the only hope you have is to burn the dragon ASAP, because asking Chromie to heal is basically gimping your DPS for exactly zero useful healing.
That said, if you all DPS, it’s actually not horribly hard to win. It’s just the lying, useless, deceptive option of having Chromie “heal”.
Haven’t LFR’d yet, but yes, the occaisional rare garrison mission will yield 3 stones (did one recently). The mission commits the followers for 24 hours :eek: but it is three stones. Also, you can apparently loot stones from work orders; I got one with a mining work order. I have to assume that’s very rare, but the timing was weird. I got that one literally the day after getting the quest to collect the stones.
TBH, I haven’t had the patience to queue for LFR, not even Molten Core. I’ve decided my raiding spec is Marksman Lone Wolf, so I raid petless. But that’s not very useful as a questing spec, so once I queue and re-talent, I’m basically just sitting around the garrison waiting. Not fun, considering how lying cheating worthless the queue timer display is (“Yes… only 4 minutes to go… no wait, it rolled back, now 35 minutes to wait… WTF?”)
HA! I had the same problem. I’m a rogue (don’t have any healing capabilities whatsoever - don’t even have mana) and picked healing and beat it that way. I did need to use a healing potion in the last few seconds just because I wasn’t sure I had quite enough HP. But that was after multiple failed attempts at doing DPS - Chromie is the worst healer ever (You are 99% dead? Here, I will give you 2,000 HP every 5 seconds!) and Khadgar is the worst tank. I had constant aggro, no matter what I tried.
If you pick Healer, the fight seems to adjust to where you really don’t have as much aggro, Chromie DPSes decently enough, and you can get around behind the boss and really burn him down. Chromie and Khadgar seem to hold their own, for HP and neither of them complained that my heals were sub-par. (They were, of course, non-existant!)
So now I’ve got a 680 ring, which pulled my iLvl up to 638, a nice boost.
That quest makes me actually appreciate the competence of any tank or healer in an LFR group. And I’ve bitched repeatedly about how bad that is. :smack:
Worst. Party. Ever. Burn strategy was the only way to win.
Perhaps the only advantage of grouping with these two over an LFR or LFG: They don’t bitch about your healing. 
Grats. Yeah, the 40 point jump on the ring is very helpful. I still have a couple pieces of scrub-gear holding me down, but I’ll LFR to make that up (I hope), or else heroic instance LFG. Maybe I’ll afford the Apexis Crystals to buy upgradeable 630 gear from the Arakkoa vendor in Warspear.
Leveling my tankadin today, I found a couple of things I missed the first time through in Admiral Taylor’s garrison.
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In the Inn, there’s a ghost dog named Ruby Roo. Click on him, and it says he looks hungry and his owner may have food he likes. The owner is the chef working in the kitchen, and also a merchant. She sells some obviously named thing–Ruby Snacks or something like that. Give one to the dog, and it loves you…then runs away out the door. Follow it and give another, and it runs down the side of the building. Give it one more treat and it goes around back. On the deck is a pile of Ruby Roo’s Poo. Click it to get his collar, which was a decent upgrade for my neck slot.
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In the town hall, there’s a locked chest that needs an “old key” to open. There is also a ghostly steward. Click on him, and he tells you he lost the key somewhere, but can’t remember where…thinks it was while reading under a tree near a painted death’s head. As you head back to Taylor’s farm, to the left there is a boarded up mineshaft, with a skull & crossbones painted on it. The key is on the ground under a nearby tree. Unlocking the chest nets some garrison resources and Taylor’s Garrison Log, which is readable. Some interesting stuff in there about what happened at the garrison, including a mention of Wrathion being there and suspecting the traitor–but leaving before the massacre.
Number for day: 78
Last night I finally got around to running my human rogue through the Tanaan Jungle opening sequence. Beforehand, she hit the Darkmoon Faire, where she picked up the XP buff from the carousel and the Test Your Strength quest. The TYS quest let me easily track how many kills I made between going through the portal and killing that giant for the last quest before building my garrison: 78 “qualifying” kills.
I was surprised by how low that number was, given all the slaughter going on. Then again, the actual number was higher, but the orc you kill to get that Iron Horde Missive for the very first quest gives no credit; neither do any of your kills in Kargath’s arena.
I spent most of the day, though, on my human paladin, wandering around Gorgrond at level 100. She has that quest to “assassinate” four trees/ancients. She got the quest in Spires of Arak, and acquired her first target in that zone with the very next Timber she harvested. “Okay, so that’s how it works. Easy-peasy,” I thought. On Thursday she ran around Shadowmoon looking for Timber (holy crap it is surprisingly scarce in that zone), but despite harvesting several trees couldn’t get the target in that zone to spawn. Then yesterday, same thing in Gorgrond. Once again, very scarce Timber nodes, and no luck spawning that zone’s target. So she finally gave up and went back to her garrison, where she accepted the quest to head to Nagrand. The very first tree she chopped there spawned the Nagrand target. So the two “hardest” targets are down. Now if I could just get the two easier ones to show up …
While in Gorgrond I also tried to find the path into Frostfire Ridge, with no success. I know there must be a way, since one of my garrison fishing dailies wants to send me there, but damned if I could find the road. And speaking of fishing dailies … so far I’ve had one each for fish from Frostfire, Gorgrond, and Spires of Arak. Talk about frustrating. As I said, I couldn’t find the road into Frostfire, and then in Spires of Arak I managed to find exactly one pool of the required fish in the entire zone. In Gorgrond, two pools, and the second one was already being fished by another player when I found it. So I’m pretty much completing the quests by just buying the damned fish from the AH.
Follow the road north from Deeproot then turn left, you’ll pass through the ruins of an orc village before reaching the border.
You don’t need pools to catch the fish for the daily quest, any fishable water in the zone will do. Use every fishing buff you have, and watch for bait for your target fish to show up in your catch. Using the bait will help you knock out the quest in a few minutes. Very rare for me to not finish it within the duration of two bait buffs, sometimes it only takes one. The higher you can buff your fishing skill, the more likely you are to catch “enormous” target fish. It only takes 5 of those to be able to clean/gut for the quest item, and 2 stacks of 5 has always been enough to complete the quest for me.
Tips for the fishing quests:
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Always use the appropriate bait.
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Buff, buff, buff - ideally you want the “enormous” variety.
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Save extra fish for the next time.
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Save extra EGGS for the next time! Deposit any eggs in excess of 10 into your bank, that way you turn in ONLY 10 eggs to the quest-giver, the rest will stay in your bank. Next time the quest is for that fish you’re already ahead of the game!
(Much thanks to the spouse who figured out that last trick)
Hmm, Deeproot doesn’t sound familiar. I’ll have to look again. Thanks
Thanks, ** Oakminster** and Broomstick for the fishing tips. I do have some bait in my bank.
Yesterday I did some fishing in Stormshield, and fished up five Awesomefish and one Grieferfish. I’m going to save the Grieferfish for the next asshat I see parking his giant mount in a doorway/portal. It would have been handy for that guy who stepped through the DMF portal and then mounted up on his blue protodrake on the other side and just sat there.
I made a somewhat embarrassing discovery yesterday as well. For the first couple weeks after the WoD launch, the game performed very well on my Windows laptop (granted, on low graphics settings). Then, for the last week or so, performance has just been abysmal. I was getting very frustrated. But I found the problem, and it wasn’t the game.
It turns out that I had SETI@Home set to “Run Always”. I had set it like that when I was still playing WoW on my Mac (which I can’t do with WoD) and forgot about that setting. So now I’ve got it set to “Run based on preferences”, and in my preferences I set it to not run when WoW is running. Everything is back to normal.
The reason my game performance was good for the first couple of weeks is that the SETI project somehow ran out of work units to send to participants, so with nothing to do, the SETI client was idle and not hogging CPU cycles. Once there were more work units, it went back to work, and there went my game performance.
What clued me in was opening up the Windows CPU/Memory Monitor gadget. I noticed immediately that my CPU usage was pegged at 100%, despite the fact that the only app I had open was the Battle.net client.
For the last week I thought that the Spires of Arak zone was just too graphics-intensive for my laptop to handle.
Care Bear checking in.
I wish to vent some frustration: I just learned that (as a leather worker), I can only wear three of the 640 epics I can make via crafting (using 100 burnished hides, etc.). So, us PVE types can’t even have a full set of epic armor. NoooOOOooo… gotta “get to raidin’ ya scrub”!
razzim frazzim razzim
In MoP you could only wear two, since crafted items were only available for 2 slots each tier, at least now you get to pick which slots you want fill with crafted gear.
Mostly true. For most classes, you could also use a crafted weapon as well. Just like now. The greater range of choices is a good thing, but I’m still with mlees on this. There are patterns for every specialty and every significant armor slot, so I did get a bit jazzed at thinking I’ll be able to gear myself up on my own efforts. I didn’t notice the limit until I’d crafted the fourth item and couldn’t wear it. Thankfully I could send it to an alt that could.
It’s not an unreasonable limit, but very subtly documented.
Changing subject. Finally went into LFR Highmaul.
It’s literally the first time I’ve ever gone into a raid the first time and didn’t die. At all. Color me shocked. I’m surprised to say the LFR may actually be undertuned. 
No loot, of course. That doesn’t shock me. Just stones for the legendary quest and some Augment Runes. I guess it’s nice to have the +50 on top of a flask/elixir bonus (like Crystal of Insanity), but it’s not much of a consolation prize. But as hard as I had to work in that raid, I don’t really feel like I earned the purplez, so I’m OK with it.
Weirdness in LFR today…twice we killed a boss, I got the legendary stone quest thingy, but no loot, burned a bonus roll-still no loot, then clicked the boss corpse and got loot. I don’t remember which bosses…think both were in the second wing. One drop was an off hand piece, and the other was a robe (cloth chest piece). Neither item showed up on the loot table from the raid journal entry.
Moral of the story is always check the corpse, I guess.
Well, I always click the shiny, but when during my LFR run I got gold on the personal loot rolls (including the bonus token rolls) and only the augment runes when manually looting the boss.
Congrats on getting the epics, even if by unconventional means.