# World of Warcraft General Discussion **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [March 4, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294 "2009-03-04T17:44:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 364
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7261 "2009-12-01T02:24:22Z")
Note to self: Do not ride through here like you’re King Shit of Turd Mountain. Not at level 59. :eek: Quasi ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7262 "2009-12-01T02:56:03Z")
The quest was Zaeldarr The Outcast in EP, and some guy did a “Quasi” and decided just to ride right through and he got mobbed. I saw it happen and ran right in behind him and between the two of us we slew the heathen undead. When they were dead, I backed **Wolkie** away, let him loot, stood back and waved and he said “thanks”. Question: _It was okay for me to do that, RIGHT?_ See, I never know the etiquette, but I saw the guy was in trouble (I _guess_ he was - like I said I didn’t see his level), so I helped, but I remembered someone saying something like you shouldn’t if he’s going after quest items… Anyway, that was kinda exciting that I was able to jump in like that, Q Admittedly, I didn’t know the guys level because it all happened so fast ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7263 "2009-12-01T03:04:12Z")
That’s fine, Q; to you it looked like he was in big trouble! If you’re thinking that you’re helping and suddenly you see that he’s actually level 80 and killing everything easily, just back off. It doesn’t sound like that was the case here. Oh, and lots of people make that mistake. Skirt to the south around town - don’t get too close to the lake - then get back onto the road once you’ve passed. Oh, and look out on the road east of the Crossing for a Crimson Courier and her escorts - very dangerous! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7264 "2009-12-01T03:16:13Z")
> [@Mogle](#): > > What’s wrong with Cleanse? Frost Nova is a _Magic_ debuff, you can remove it faster than he can cast it. > Other than that, bring a friend, this game isn’t balanced around 1v1. > I think I said this earlier in the thread(or in the previous one), paladins are very vulnerable to kiting and mages are good kiters, so if you end up fighting a 1 on 1 with competent mage you’re at a disadvantage, no way around that. And to make matters worse your gear isn’t all that great either, right? Cleanse? I didn’t think of that. Didn’t even know it would work! Though as I mentioned in an earlier post, my last trip to WSG nearly the entire opposing side was casters, and I suffered a steady barrage of these things. And we had _no_ casters on our side. ETA: So counting Cleanse, when I eventually get the relevant trinket I’ll have four ways to get out of stuff. Yeah, my gear sucks, and I’m still about 29000 Honor Points away from being able to purchase my first piece of BG-reward PvP gear. That’s the trouble with starting doing this at level 80 - have to start from zero ☹ > [@Quasimodem](#): > > **Mister Rik** : Okay, I’ll give QH another try, but you know it also shows that toothy, grinning face and **that** I have found to be accurate. Also, those green square boxes are. My only problem is with the WHITE arrows. **Those** are the ones you mean that are just compass points, right? I just looked closely at the “arrow” icon, and it appears to be not an arrow, but a compass 😃 Not the “points North” kind, but the “draw a circle” kind. I think that must mean “draw a circle around this spot and look there”. The toothy grin icon indicates that you need to kill something at that location (in other words, the killing is the main point of the quest, whether that’s to kill a specific mob, or to kill several of something), while the compass/arrow icon means you need to go there and perform some other action, such as gathering or finding an item. It can involve killing things, like when you need to kill a certain kind of animal to get its meat, but the actual killing isn’t the job. Are you sure you’re using the latest version of QH? The last several versions draw an outline of the area around the icon if you hold your mouse over it. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7265 "2009-12-01T03:21:22Z")
But if he _were_ an 80, even though I jumped in, I didn’t hurt anything, right? Or might he have gotten better drops by himself at that level? Like I said, it happened very quickly. The guy was on horseback. It occurs to me that I also should have looked at his health bar, correct? But if he had been an 80, he shouldn’t have been in EP anyway, right, **FH**? Thanks Quasi ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7266 "2009-12-01T03:26:28Z")
**Rik** , You were right. My QH wasn’t current. It is now.🙂 Thanks Q ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7267 "2009-12-01T04:00:18Z")
> [@Quasimodem](#): > > But if he _were_ an 80, even though I jumped in, I didn’t hurt anything, right? > > Or might he have gotten better drops by himself at that level? > > Like I said, it happened very quickly. The guy was on horseback. > > It occurs to me that I also should have looked at his health bar, correct? > > But if he had been an 80, he shouldn’t have been in EP anyway, right, **FH**? If he was lvl 80 he was probably killing stuff so fast that it wouldn’t be a big deal if you helped. And if he was lvl 80, he wouldn’t have gotten mobbed in the Crossing unless he wanted to. 😃 I’ve had a couple 80s of my own running through there doing old quests and such, including intercepting the Crimson Courier who was bearing down on a high 50s character. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7268 "2009-12-01T04:19:03Z")
This happened last night as well. It doesn’t seem to affect the game, I just have to click on WoW down at the bottom again. But it IS aggravating and happens like 5 times an hour. I DID have the WOW thread open as well, so I can go back and forth to check on any answers, but that didn’t USED to make a difference. Any ideas? Also, I thought if you killed the boss, you could leave w/o being attacked, but that didn’t seem to be the case with Zaeldarr the Outcast. I got all the down to the bottom of the stairs, killed his ass, and then when I went trotting back up, there the undead were again and I had to kill like three at a time. Guess I thought wrong, huh? One thing: I am getting more confident in going _after_ the big guys. It just takes some pulling and killing to get a clear field to him. 6 months ago it seems like I always needed to group with someone, or ask someone to “run me through an instance”. I know that I may still have to do that sometimes, but now it’s just a whole lot easier to play. Except for riding through a place as if I owned it, that is!😉 Man! Talk about gettin took down a notch or two! :smack: Thanks Q ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7269 "2009-12-01T04:21:29Z")
> [@Quasimodem](#): > > Or might he have gotten better drops by himself at that level? Nope - drops depend on the level of the mob, not the level of the player. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7270 "2009-12-01T05:41:46Z")
I am so close to having all [200+ gear](http://www.wow-heroes.com/index.php?zone=us&server=Cairne&name=Nahren) for my healer set. I just need two more daily heroics to afford the [Idol of Flaring Growth](http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47671). I lubs my healer Drood. ---
**Author:** ![Mogle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mogle/32/12021_2.png) [@Mogle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mogle)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7271 "2009-12-01T10:10:06Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Cleanse? I didn’t think of that. Didn’t even know it would work! Though as I mentioned in an earlier post, my last trip to WSG nearly the entire opposing side was casters, and I suffered a steady barrage of these things. And we had _no_ casters on our side. When people gang up on you there isn’t much you can do other than bubble up and run(or HS :)). > [@](#): > > ETA: So counting Cleanse, when I eventually get the relevant trinket I’ll have four ways to get out of stuff. No, the trinket and Every Man For Himself shares cooldown. > [@](#): > > Yeah, my gear sucks, and I’m still about 29000 Honor Points away from being able to purchase my first piece of BG-reward PvP gear. That’s the trouble with starting doing this at level 80 - have to start from zero ☹ Everyone stats from zero(or at least they did before patch 3.2) it’s just that most people started before you did, and they probably farmed a lot of heroic gear/badges too. ---
**Author:** ![Mekhazzio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b38774/32.png) [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7272 "2009-12-01T11:24:58Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > ETA: So counting Cleanse, when I eventually get the relevant trinket I’ll have four ways to get out of stuff. It’s important to note here that unlike the other methods, Cleanse has **no cooldown**. The downside is that it can only remove one thing (well, one magic, one disease, and one poison…) at a time. Frost Mages put an extra magic debuff on when they deal damage to you, so if you fall behind on cleansing, you’ll have to use one of your big guns to get out quickly. Getting out quickly is exactly what you want to do, because frost does much more damage if you’re frozen in place. The other major paladin vs mage interplay is how you use your knockout moves. Hammer of Justice is an extremely powerful ability, but mages have one of the best counters to it - they can use their Blink teleport spell to get out of stuns. Ideally you manage to get the jump on the mage, using Hand of Freedom to stay glued to them and make them Blink to get range - since Blink has a 20-ish second cooldown, if you can land a Hammer on them while it’s down, you get to have a field day. The other method is to Hammer them to draw out the Blink, and then use Repentance on them to buy you time to heal, cleanse frost nova and/or close back into range…preferably buying time for Hand of Freedom to cool down at the same time. It also helps to know where the frost novas are coming from. They can cast their “real” one only so often, but when their ice shield absorbs its full amount, it also bursts into a frost nova. You can potentially use exorcism (or hammer of wrath) to trigger that from a safe distance away. Their water elemental pet also casts novas at a pretty wicked rate, so if the opportunity arises to hide behind something blocking the mage’s fire on you, you can trash the elemental (it’s squishy) to eliminate that source of problems. That said, this is also the hardest fight you could possibly have. Frost mages exist around controlling movement, making them the most powerful anti-melee fighter in the game. The deck is stacked against you, although as a paladin you have it easier than most others do (non-prot warriors, most rogues and enhancement shaman are just meat to a decent frost mage). ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7273 "2009-12-01T15:20:54Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > So I guess anyone who wanted to bring their toons in to train in Warsong Hold would be pretty safe after all. Well I took my now-level 16 lock to Howling Fjord last night to get the Master Cooking training, so now she is at 300/325. The next step is getting some BC recipes and mats for her to cook – even though she won’t be able to eat any of it at this point. I still have 20 Turkeys; I wish I had saved some honey and autumnal herbs so I could cook those. > [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Yeah, my gear sucks, and I’m still about 29000 Honor Points away from being able to purchase my first piece of BG-reward PvP gear. That’s the trouble with starting doing this at level 80 - have to start from zero ☹ You probably know this, but you’ll usually earn Honor Points a lot faster in Wintergrasp than you will in any of the battlegrounds. In addition you’ll get Stonekeeper Shards you can turn in for PvP gear by doing the WG quests. And if you can get in some Vault of Archavon raids, that drops pretty good PvP gear as well. Just in case you get tired of BGs. ---
**Author:** ![Mekhazzio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b38774/32.png) [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7274 "2009-12-01T15:29:34Z")
It’s not a big advantage to start pre-80 anyway, at least in terms of gear. Honor gain is much faster at 80, and it’s easier to get in a game at the top end as well, since there’s a lot more traffic. Starting earlier does let you learn the ropes against easier targets, though. The non-80 brackets are full of people getting their feet wet while leveling, so they’ll be inexperienced, and likely not on a strong PVP spec either. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7275 "2009-12-01T15:58:51Z")
Woohoo! My Mage is 68, and [I parked her ass in Borean Tundra](http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/8405/wowscrnshot120109000330.jpg). 😃 I was just thinking last night about how fun it is that my two highest-level characters are a Warrior and a Mage: the two classes that are complete polar opposites. As promised (albeit belatedly), here are screenshots from the ghost boat. It is, in fact, [under the Alterac Mountains](http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8137/wowscrnshot020909190539.jpg). You can see that the minimap lists the Lordamere Internment Camp. And [here’s a shot without the UI](http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/4631/wowscrnshot020909190602.jpg), where you can see spiders and a mountain lion walking up above me. > [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > In the last two weeks we’ve had three guildies’ accounts compromised, including one yesterday who ended up being used to farm Kara most of the day (my WAG was farming for Mongoose enchant), and one account last night who had goddamned **banker** access and stripped our bank of anything blue/purple! Does Blizzard return stuff when that happens? The people who got hacked should open a ticket to get the gbank items returned. Blizz should be able to check the logs. It’s always a tossup as to what they’ll restore and what they won’t, though. With that many guildies getting hacked at once, it kind of gives me pause… (a) They might be [del]retarded[/del] naive. (They get a tell saying, “Hey, you just won a Blizzard contest! Go to www.[plausible-sounding website].com to collect your prize!” and they actually go to the site and enter their account info.) (b) They might be sharing their accounts with each other. Only one person had their computer compromised, but that person logged into more than one account, so the hacker got everyone’s info. (c) They might be buying gold or powerleveling services. > [@jayjay](#): > > Has it been suggested yet that NO ONE who doesn’t have an authenticator gets Gbank access? Personally, I’d love to get an authenticator… as soon as they’ll let you tie multiple authenticators to one account. One of my good friends has my account info, and I have his, and we share a third “mule” account. It’s incredibly useful for things like transferring items cross-faction or running lowbie alts through instances when only one of us is online, or when one of us is busy. > [@Quasimodem](#): > > Sure am! And guess what **her** name’s gonna be? I dunno, but she’ll make Wolkie’s name more literal, that’s for sure! > [@jayjay](#): > > Three cheers for the scientific method! Hip hip! Hoorah! Hip hip! Hoorah! Hip hip! Hoorah! > [@Quasimodem](#): > > Question: _It was okay for me to do that, RIGHT?_ Yup! He thanked you, after all. 😃 Small note about looting: if you’re not in a party together, you’ll each only be able to loot the mobs you’ve “tagged.” So anything that you can see as lootable (sparklies) can only be looted by you, and anything that isn’t sparkly for you can only be looted by him. > [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Cleanse? I didn’t think of that. Didn’t even know it would work! I strongly recommend getting an addon called Decursive. I use it on every toon that has some kind of a dispel ability. Decursive creates UI boxes for you and anyone in your party/raid, and when it pops up an alert to say that there’s something you can remove, all you do is click in some way on the box of the player in question (which changes color) to remove it. For instance, on my Priest, I left-click to get rid of Disease and right-click to get rid of a Magic effect. Also, don’t forget about BoP (er, I guess it’s [HoP](http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=10278) now). The CD means you can’t pop it constantly, but it’s great for when your ass is really in the fire. > [@](#): > > I just looked closely at the “arrow” icon, and it appears to be not an arrow, but a compass 😃 Not the “points North” kind, but the “draw a circle” kind. I’m not sure if this is the one Quasi was talking about… I thought he meant the actual arrow that QH can put on your screen, as opposed to marking your map. > [@Quasimodem](#): > > It doesn’t seem to affect the game, I just have to click on WoW down at the bottom again. But it IS aggravating and happens like 5 times an hour. Hrm, that’s weird. It sounds like something in your IE window is stealing focus. My suggestion is to get a browser that doesn’t suck. 😛 > [@](#): > > Also, I thought if you killed the boss, you could leave w/o being attacked, but that didn’t seem to be the case with Zaeldarr the Outcast. Nope, anything that’s still alive will kill you. Usually, you’ll have enough time to get out of the area before things respawn, but that’s not always the case. Alternatively, if someone else was there just a minute or two before you, their respawns will probably be back up around the time that you’re trying to leave. > [@](#): > > One thing: I am getting more confident in going _after_ the big guys. It just takes some pulling and killing to get a clear field to him. Yup, that’s all there is to it! > [@Skammer](#): > > You probably know this, but you’ll usually earn Honor Points a lot faster in Wintergrasp than you will in any of the battlegrounds. In addition you’ll get Stonekeeper Shards you can turn in for PvP gear by doing the WG quests. Also, Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. ---
**Author:** ![Jbone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@Jbone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jbone)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7276 "2009-12-01T17:27:54Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > As promised (albeit belatedly), here are screenshots from the ghost boat. It is, in fact, [under the Alterac Mountains](http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8137/wowscrnshot020909190539.jpg). You can see that the minimap lists the Lordamere Internment Camp. And [here’s a shot without the UI](http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/4631/wowscrnshot020909190602.jpg), where you can see spiders and a mountain lion walking up above me. Ahh, the ghost boat! I had a ride on that too. I believe it was one of the first times I tried to take the boat from SW to BT. You can see the [“Dalaran Force Field”](http://s687.photobucket.com/albums/vv240/johnryan_photo/WoW/?action=view¤t=WoWScrnShot_121808_234305.jpg) in the back ground. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7277 "2009-12-01T17:52:59Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > The people who got hacked should open a ticket to get the gbank items returned. Blizz should be able to check the logs. It’s always a tossup as to what they’ll restore and what they won’t, though. > > With that many guildies getting hacked at once, it kind of gives me pause… > > (a) They might be [del]retarded[/del] naive. (They get a tell saying, “Hey, you just won a Blizzard contest! Go to www.[plausible-sounding website].com to collect your prize!” and they actually go to the site and enter their account info.) > > (b) They might be sharing their accounts with each other. Only one person had their computer compromised, but that person logged into more than one account, so the hacker got everyone’s info. > > (c) They might be buying gold or powerleveling services. See, that’s the weird thing. If it was all from the teenage boy contingent in our guild I’d assume any/all of the above, but these guys aren’t RL friends or anything. Only one was a teen, another was a new Alliance-\>Horde transfer who hooked up with us because of our “hey, we’re a way laid back casual sorta-raiding-sometimes” guild post on the WoW forums. He’s got major-awesome gear but wanted to get out of the hardcore raiding thing. I don’t know if he might fit any of those categories, but maybe #3? The last guy I’ve met, and I don’t think he would be stupid enough for #1. My assumption was easy passwords, someone harvesting e-mail addresses (now that we’re all on [Battle.net](http://Battle.net)) from somewhere - maybe other WoW boards, maybe guildportal since that’s where our guild website is? - or people who have to try every addon they can think of and don’t keep decent malware/antivirus protection on. The last guy apparently had a hardcore hacker grab his account - the second guy was left intact, as was the previous guy, but this latest one? Not only did they raid the guild bank, apparently they also cashed in all of his characters’ badges on every server (he’d come over from another server to join a RL friend/coworker, who happens to be the GL) for stuff like gems/orbs that could be auctioned for cash, and his characters’ gear was all stripped for gold! ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7278 "2009-12-01T18:12:45Z")
> [@Mogle](#): > > When people gang up on you there isn’t much you can do other than bubble up and run(or HS :)). Well, I’m not gonna hearth out of a BG 😃 I’m also getting the impression that my pally bubble doesn’t do a darn thing against spells. > [@](#): > > No, the trinket and Every Man For Himself shares cooldown. Then I guess I shouldn’t bother with the trinket, then? That will be a savings. > [@](#): > > Everyone stats from zero(or at least they did before patch 3.2) it’s just that most people started before you did, and they probably farmed a lot of heroic gear/badges too. What I meant was that I _assume_ the BG reward gear you can spend Honor Points on at the lowest levels (the stuff you can buy from the quartermaster(?) at the BG entrance\*) costs less than the level 80 BG reward gear you buy from the quartermasters back in SW. So people who started doing BGs as soon as they were able purchased reward gear as it became available to them, and they’ve been upgrading as they go along, and by the time they get to 80 they’ve had their leftover unspent HPs plus everything they’ve accumulated since the previous upgrades. - I say “assume” here because, being lvl 80, I haven’t bothered to look at what the lowest-level vendors are offering. > [@Mekhazzio](#): > > \ Thanks! > [@Skammer](#): > > You probably know this, but you’ll usually earn Honor Points a lot faster in Wintergrasp than you will in any of the battlegrounds. I _didn’t_ know that! > [@Mekhazzio](#): > > It’s not a big advantage to start pre-80 anyway, at least in terms of gear. Honor gain is much faster at 80, and it’s easier to get in a game at the top end as well, since there’s a lot more traffic. Starting earlier does let you learn the ropes against easier targets, though. The non-80 brackets are full of people getting their feet wet while leveling, so they’ll be inexperienced, and likely not on a strong PVP spec either. Speaking of those lower levels, what’s so magical about level 19 (as opposed to 29, 39, etc.) that would make people want to turn off their XP and stay there as twinks “forever”? Is it simply that at that level their opponents are more likely to be easy-target noobs? > [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > As promised (albeit belatedly), here are screenshots from the ghost boat. It is, in fact, [under the Alterac Mountains](http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/8137/wowscrnshot020909190539.jpg). You can see that the minimap lists the Lordamere Internment Camp. And [here’s a shot without the UI](http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/4631/wowscrnshot020909190602.jpg), where you can see spiders and a mountain lion walking up above me. Coolness! > [@](#): > > Yup! He thanked you, after all. 😃 Small note about looting: if you’re not in a party together, you’ll each only be able to loot the mobs you’ve “tagged.” So anything that you can see as lootable (sparklies) can only be looted by you, and anything that isn’t sparkly for you can only be looted by him. That’s why when I’m running around a lowbie zone on my lvl 80 paladin and I see a lowbie getting ganged up on, my usual method of helping is to first cast a heal on them if necessary, then a buff appropriate to their class. Then I stay back and try to give them the opportunity to _tag the mobs themselves_ before stepping in and killing things for them (unless they’re obviously going to die if I don’t kill something). I figure any gear drops in a lowbie zone aren’t going to do me any good, so I don’t need to loot stuff. (Though I guess if I did loot something cool I could just open a trade window and give it to them.) > [@](#): > > I strongly recommend getting an addon called Decursive. I use it on every toon that has some kind of a dispel ability. Decursive creates UI boxes for you and anyone in your party/raid, and when it pops up an alert to say that there’s something you can remove, all you do is click in some way on the box of the player in question (which changes color) to remove it. For instance, on my Priest, I left-click to get rid of Disease and right-click to get rid of a Magic effect. That sounds cool - I’ll check it out. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure if this is the one Quasi was talking about… I thought he meant the actual arrow that QH can put on your screen, as opposed to marking your map. Well, he said “the white arrow”, and the onscreen directional arrow is never white. > [@](#): > > Hrm, that’s weird. It sounds like something in your IE window is stealing focus. My guess was going to be that maybe he’s running WoW in a window instead of full-screen, and he’s accidentally hitting a key combo that minimizes the window. But I’m a Mac user, so I don’t know how that would work on Windows, or if Windows even has a “minimize window” hotkey. I _can’t_ accidentally minimize the WoW window on my Mac, because the OS’s “minimize window” command (command key + M) is the same command WoW uses to switch between “full screen” and “windowed” modes. So all I’d end up doing would be switching between the two modes. > [@](#): > > My suggestion is to get a browser that doesn’t suck. 😛 Indeed 😃 > [@](#): > > Also, Wintergrasp Marks of Honor. Yup, I have two of those now from flying over just as the battle’s being won 😃 In other news, _I finally got my paladin’s Enchanting skill up to 350_! Last night I was _finally_ able to disenchant the crapload of Northrend gear I’d been saving (I’d mailed most of it to my bank alt and then had her mail it all right back to me so it had been lurking in my mailbox for a while). w00t! Four full stacks of Infinite Dust, a full stack of Greater Cosmic Essences, and 3 Dream Shards. And you know what this means: My combination of Enchanting 350 + Tailoring means I can now make Frostweave Bags essentially free. So I do the Hodir dailies for the gold + the Frostweave and Relics I can farm from the relevant mobs, then I run over to Bouldercrag’s Refuge and go to town on the iron dwarves across the way to farm more Frostweave and Relics. Free gathered Frostweave + making my own Infinite Dust means free Imbued Frostweave, so I can make the bags for just the cost of the Eternium Thread. Pure Profit! I made 4 Frostweave Bags, and got 1 Tailoring skill point out of the deal, pushing my Tailoring to 447. Real World WoW Moment: The other day I overheard the general manager at my job, who I can confidently say has never played WoW, talking to one of the sales people, and she quoted a goblin vendor: “Ah, a potential customer!”. In almost exactly the same tone of voice 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7279 "2009-12-01T18:26:01Z")
And _now_ I remember the other thing I was going to ask about. Last night in Storm Peaks I answered a LFG for Sirana Iceshriek, a quest I had in my log but had been unable to solo. So I grouped up with a warrior and a rogue, and was surprised to see that their portraits, instead of just floating over on the left side like in normal party, were contained in sort of a box. The “box” was shaped like a backwards “D” and had a translucent, dark gray background. What was up with that? I’d never seen that before. Also, after we killed Sirana, that’s when I noticed I’d gone into battle without my Retribution Aura :smack: I had logged out the night before in my PvP spec/gear, and switched back to my PvE spec/gear when I logged in. Apparently switching specs cancels my auras. One more thing to remember … ETA (d’oh!): I also think I was “lucky” enough to end up with Sirana focusing all her fury on _me_, because by the end of the fight my HPs were below 50% and neither of the other guys appeared to have taken any damage at all. I’m not a tank, dammit! ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294/7280 "2009-12-01T18:41:20Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Also, after we killed Sirana, that’s when I noticed I’d gone into battle without my Retribution Aura :smack: I had logged out the night before in my PvP spec/gear, and switched back to my PvE spec/gear when I logged in. Apparently switching specs cancels my auras. One more thing to remember … That used to happen to me all the time with my DK and his presences. It’s bad enough to try and DPS something without your +15% damage (and reduced threat); when you try and tank without the extra threat, damage reduction, and hp from frost presence, you end up with wipes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294.md?page=363) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-of-warcraft-general-discussion/488294.md?page=365)