World of Warcraft General Discussion

[Tom_Scud]

@Tom_Scud

Actually, Death Knights can do this too (by shifting from blood or unholy to frost aspect) - with an emphasis on the “speedbump” nature of the tanking.

@Damuri_Ajashi

I gain about 25% HP and thousands of armor points by going from cat to bear. I didn’t think DK changed THAT much by changing aspects.

The HP gain isn’t all that much (maybe 6%), but the total armor should be about comparable assuming a DPS wearing all plate & not “cheating” by using leather/mail with better plusses. (He’d be starting from a higher baseline so his armor wouldn’t increase as much, but the armor values should be about the same relative to a tank, less whatever talent bonuses you’d get from the frost tree). And threat production goes way up when you switch from blood to frost, which can be handy.

I don’t want to push on it too hard; I’ve hardly played in any raids and the times I’ve swapped to frost mid-battle it generally hasn’t gone very well (with the glorious exception of the time I ended up the last man standing and killed the poison-nova dude in Gundrak with about 1000 health left).

[The_Lurker_Above]

@Skammer

It’s Wednesday, which means the weekly Burning Dog Legion alt instance run. After running Sunken Temple the last two weeks, tonight we’re going to make our fist foray into Blackrock Depths. If you have an appropriate-level toon on Cairne, please join us by 8:45 server time to run with us.

My prot pally (55) is right in the middle of the range for BRD if they haven’t changed things too much since I last worried about vanilla instances.

[Bosstone]

@Tom_Scud

I might have to miss this one. Getting married this weekend, and there are a lot of chores that need doing yet.

Congrat-

@Tom_Scud

Well, she thinks WoW is kind of silly and is amazed I’m not bored with it by now, so not terribly likely.

Oooh.

Yeah, I’m not sure I could live with someone that didn’t get MMOs. Wee bit addicted. Congratulations, though.

[Skammer]

@The_Lurker_Above

My prot pally (55) is right in the middle of the range for BRD if they haven’t changed things too much since I last worried about vanilla instances.

Great! I normally tank with my pally, but I’m dual-specced as Ret so I can switch over. I think I’ve got a two-handed weapon around here somewhere rummages through bags

What’s your name so we can look out for you?

[Tom_Scud]

@Tom_Scud

Well, she thinks WoW is kind of silly and is amazed I’m not bored with it by now, so not terribly likely.

@Bosstone

Yeah, I’m not sure I could live with someone that didn’t get MMOs. Wee bit addicted. Congratulations, though.

I would not have figured I would marry a non-gamer (which is not statistically much different than “would not have figured I would marry” full stop), but there you go.

[Skammer]

@Tom_Scud

I would not have figured I would marry a non-gamer (which is not statistically much different than “would not have figured I would marry” full stop), but there you go.

Eh, my wife is pretty anti-gaming in general. and really wishes I would quit, but we work it out. Marriage is about compromise.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Tom_Scud

Actually, Death Knights can do this too (by shifting from blood or unholy to frost aspect) - with an emphasis on the “speedbump” nature of the tanking.

Druid Feral DPS gear is pretty much the same as Druid Feral tanking gear. DK gear is not. The DK thing is more analogous to a Warrior switching to Defensive stance and slapping on a shield.

@Bosstone

From what I understand, Holy plate works extremely well for Protection.

That was once the case, but it’s completely wrong for the current state of the game. No Paladin tank who knows what they’re doing uses Holy plate for Prot. They wear the same armor as Warrior and DK tanks, and have for quite some time now.

@Bosstone

I’m pretty sure SFG is aware that no Greek or Russian lives in a hut partially made out of crystal.

Thanks for killing my dream. Want me to go make a bagel so you can pee on it, too?

@Damuri_Ajashi

No I’m saying that only paladins roll for caster plate. Warriors and DKs have very little need for it.

One of the stupidest things Blizzard ever did was keep gear that is used by ONE spec of ONE class and have it drop equally with DPS and tanking plate. :smack:

@Quasimodem

Is there a way to set that thing to where only my friends and guild members appear?

Yes, you can turn all of those other chats off. Right-click on the chat tab and look for something like Settings or Customize. Then you can un-select the Global channels like Trade.

Personally, I’ve created extra tabs. My original tab has everything, but I have a Guild tab that cuts out /say, /yell, Local, and Trade, and a DND tab that puts /say and /yell back in but cuts out Guild Chat, for when I’m in raids.

@Quasimodem

1. Can “import” my own music to hear while I’m questing?

Nope, there’s no way to change the in-game music. Your only option is to disable it and then run another player at the same time (iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, your stereo, etc.)

@jayjay

Just be glad you don’t have to do “Triage” anymore, Quasi…that was like Hell Quest.

You know, I never got all the Triage hate. It was the one time when keyboard turning actually was useful.

@Tom_Scud

I might have to miss this one. Getting married this weekend, and there are a lot of chores that need doing yet.

Woohoo, grats!

@Tom_Scud

Well, she thinks WoW is kind of silly and is amazed I’m not bored with it by now, so not terribly likely.

Psh, you just need to get a second computer and an account of her own. You need to upgrade the box you’ve got, too–no wonder she doesn’t get the appear if all she sees is massive lag.

[Gary_Robson]

@Shot_From_Guns

Yes, you can turn all of those other chats off. Right-click on the chat tab and look for something like Settings or Customize. Then you can un-select the Global channels like Trade.

I have two visible chat boxes at the bottom of my screen - one on the left and one on the right.

The one on the right is guild/party/raid and whispers. That’s it. That way I don’t miss anything important.

The one on the left has two tabs. One is for combat, and the other is for all the general stuff (gen. chat, trade chat, /say, /yell, and so forth). I have an add-on that blocks all whisper/say/yell text from level one toons unless they’re in my party or guild or friend list, and I report the trade chat idiots for spam so I stop seeing them. That tab’s gotten relatively calm now!

@Shot_From_Guns

Nope, there’s no way to change the in-game music. Your only option is to disable it and then run another player at the same time (iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, your stereo, etc.)

I’m quite pleased with the way Bliz handled this, actually. If you run iTunes at the same time as WoW (caveat, I’m on a Mac and I’m not sure if it works the same on Windows), you can assign keys in WoW to pause, play, skip, and so forth in the iTunes music, and set relative volumes of music, background sounds, dialog, and so forth. I have a playlist that I frequently run when I’m playing.

Hmmm. That may make another interesting thread: what music do YOU listen to when you play? If one of you doesn’t start the thread first, I’ll do it when I get home to my playlist.

[aruvqan]

@Shot_From_Guns

Psh, you just need to get a second computer and an account of her own. You need to upgrade the box you’ve got, too–no wonder she doesn’t get the appear if all she sees is massive lag.

Go check ubid.com, I bought a surplus pavillion dv7 for $750 that can play 2 instances of eve or wow with very little problem normally, and has no problem in a raid playing 1 instance. This morning I was playing eve on a smaller screen than the 17" diagonal fullscreen mode, and watching my NCIS dvd marathon in the corner … you can get quite good refurbished and off lease equipment fairly cheaply if you can be online near the ends of the auctions [sort of like sharking ebay used to be done manually…]

[Bosstone]

@Shot_From_Guns

Thanks for killing my dream. Want me to go make a bagel so you can pee on it, too?

Aw, I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I’m sure at least some of them have pet moths.

[Nava]

@Tom_Scud

I might have to miss this one. Getting married this weekend, and there are a lot of chores that need doing yet.

Congratulations on reaching Marriage level 0!

[Tom_Scud]

@aruvqan

Go check ubid.com, I bought a surplus pavillion dv7 for $750 that can play 2 instances of eve or wow with very little problem normally, and has no problem in a raid playing 1 instance. This morning I was playing eve on a smaller screen than the 17" diagonal fullscreen mode, and watching my NCIS dvd marathon in the corner … you can get quite good refurbished and off lease equipment fairly cheaply if you can be online near the ends of the auctions [sort of like sharking ebay used to be done manually…]

Thanks for the advice; purchase of a new game machine will be on the agenda once we have a down payment pulled together :).

[Mister_Rik]

Didn’t get to play a whole lot yesterday. First the extended maintenance kept me out. Then I could get in and tried to run Gnomeregan on my 80, but there were some serious lag issues going on (hey, that maintenance didn’t work!) — kill a mob, then wait 5 minutes between right-clicking the corpse and the loot actually landing in my bags, give up and try to log out, which takes another 5 minutes …

So I switched servers and got on my rarely-played nelf druid. That server seemed to be functioning properly. I picked up with the same quest I left off with last time I played her, the one that was really frustrating me and had already killed me six times. It was part of that Tower of Althalaxx chain where Delgren the Purifier at Maestra’s Point in Ashenvale wants me to retrieve the orb thingy from the warlocks over yonder. I finally, finally figured out how to do that quest with a druid. If the warlock mob has a voidwalker minion I root the voidwalker, Wrath the warlock til she’s dead, then switch to Bear form* to take on the voidwalker who is now charging at me. If the warlock has an imp minion I go to Bear form, run in and flatten the imp first and then smack the warlock down.

A bit later I was out at Zoram Strand killing nagas. I had the quest to swim out to that island to kill the named mob there (Ruuzel?). I’d recently done that same quest with my mage, which was a total PITA, but I’d come up with a successful strategy on the mage and was attempting the same strategy with this druid. That is, sheep/root Ruuzel’s melee escort, ranged spells on her caster escort until it’s dead, then run like hell back toward the mainland (this was easier on the druid, what with Sea Lion form) and hope Ruuzel and her melee escort leash back before I run out of HP. Eat/drink on the beach, swim back, sheep/root melee escort, spell Ruuzel to death, kill melee escort, loot. As luck would have it, a nelf hunter showed up with the same quest as I was fleeing after killing the caster escort. I invited him to group, and together we took out Ruuzel and the melee escort.

So on my way back to turn in the quest I got into it with a wandering naga, when everything lagged up like it was while my 80 was in Gnomeregan. In this case I got stuck in the casting animation without the spell actually going off. When the spell still hadn’t fired off 5 minutes later I again gave up and logged out.

Decided to give WoW a rest until Blizz could get everything fixed for real and went to check my e-mail, and that’s when I discovered the latest “lag” was at my end. Couldn’t connect to my e-mail, couldn’t connect to any Web sites … So I had my roommate call the ISP to see if they were down. Everything was fine at their end. So the tech had us trying to reset our router, but that didn’t work. Took the router to the ISP to get tested (after hours, even - this was after 7:00 PM), where we discovered the router was fine but the power supply/cable had gone bad (how that works is a mystery - the router was still getting power, lights on and all that, but it wasn’t connecting). Unfortunately they couldn’t get us a new power supply until tomorrow (which is now today) for some reason. Unwilling to wait that long I just went to Office Depot and bought a brand new router, then spent more time on the phone with the ISP getting it configured.

Anyway, I finally got back online sometime after 8:00PM. Logged in my 80 pally, discovered the server was finally working, and had another go at Gnomeregan. I had stumbled across three quests for the place that I hadn’t seen before and wanted to apply them toward Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms. While I was in there I picked up the quest to escort a wounded goblin to the exit. Then I found the Grime-Encrusted Ring that starts another quest, which led me to that gnome jeweler in IF who gave me another quest, so in all I ended up 7 quests closer to Loremaster of EK. Only 47 quests to go!

*Bear Form: I understand that it uses the same Rage mechanic as a warrior, and I’ve finally got the hang of that for my warriors. But good grief it seems to take forever for the bear form to actually build up that rage! I was trying to use Bear Form on the murlocs for the first part of the Raene’s Cleansing quest chain and it was taking forever to kill the little buggers, especially since they like to run away and the Bear Form isn’t exactly built for speed. So I switched to using Cat Form on the murlocs, and that worked much, much better. For some reason, all of the Bear Form’s special abilities seem to be in slow motion.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@InvisibleWombat

I’m quite pleased with the way Bliz handled this, actually. If you run iTunes at the same time as WoW (caveat, I’m on a Mac and I’m not sure if it works the same on Windows)

This only works for Macs, unfortunately.

That may make another interesting thread: what music do YOU listen to when you play? If one of you doesn’t start the thread first, I’ll do it when I get home to my playlist.

Some stuff I’ve listened to in the past includes Afghan Whigs while doing my QD dailies and Bjork’s *Post *while PvPing.

@Bosstone

Aw, I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I’m sure at least some of them have pet moths.

Hoorah!

And hooves? What about hooves? Cloven ones.

[Bosstone]

@Mister_Rik

For some reason, all of the Bear Form’s special abilities seem to be in slow motion.

Well, I know Maul, which is your primary damage dealer and threat generator as Bear, replaces your standard auto-attack for one hit, and the bear has a 3.5 second swing. So if you tap it after you attack, you have to wait ~3 seconds for it to kick in. It’s basically the same as the Warrior’s Heroic Strike.

I agree that the Bear Form seems to have some trouble generating Rage. You do have Enrage available, which is like the Warrior’s Bloodrage, but I don’t like losing 27% of my armor in the middle of a fight. If you can remember to hit it before going into combat so that you start fighting right as the effect ends and you still have the Rage, it should work better. Slow, though.

Personally, I find Cat works beautifully for 9 out of 10 situations. The only time I’ve fought as a caster since level 20 while soloing was when I was doing the Durotar lowbie quests for reputation and was hunting in the water by Sen’jin Village; Wrath was faster than swimming to the crabs in Cat form. Even with the modest armor Cat provides, I can still handle 2-3 enemies at a time, since they just die so fast. Only rarely do I need Bear form, although I suspect when I hit 40 and get Dire Bear it’ll be a lot more useful.

[Darwins_Finch]

@Mister_Rik

*Bear Form: I understand that it uses the same Rage mechanic as a warrior, and I’ve finally got the hang of that for my warriors. But good grief it seems to take forever for the bear form to actually build up that rage! I was trying to use Bear Form on the murlocs for the first part of the Raene’s Cleansing quest chain and it was taking forever to kill the little buggers, especially since they like to run away and the Bear Form isn’t exactly built for speed. So I switched to using Cat Form on the murlocs, and that worked much, much better. For some reason, all of the Bear Form’s special abilities seem to be in slow motion.

Unspecced (or low level) bears do take forever to be able to do anything, largely because many of their talents center around reducing rage cost for various abilities (e.g., Ferocity), increasing damge (which, in turn, increase rage generation), or generating rage (e.g., Primal Fury). Without those, rage builds slowly, and abilities use much of what you do generate, leaving you to primarily auto-attack at 3.5 speed. Until you get fully specced out, bear form is going to deal damage veeeeery slowly. It won’t ever match cat form in terms of killing speed, of course, but it also won’t take forever to kill anything. And once you get to the point where you can take on multiple mobs consistently, rage problems tend to go away (or, at least, lessen).

[Mogle]

@Mister_Rik

*Bear Form: I understand that it uses the same Rage mechanic as a warrior, and I’ve finally got the hang of that for my warriors. But good grief it seems to take forever for the bear form to actually build up that rage! I was trying to use Bear Form on the murlocs for the first part of the Raene’s Cleansing quest chain and it was taking forever to kill the little buggers, especially since they like to run away and the Bear Form isn’t exactly built for speed. So I switched to using Cat Form on the murlocs, and that worked much, much better. For some reason, all of the Bear Form’s special abilities seem to be in slow motion.

What special abilities? At the level we’re talking about here the only offensive abilites you have are Maul and Swipe. Swipe is for aoe tanking and Maul works just like the warrior’s Heroic Strike, ie it’s an On Next Melee-ability. Bear form is for tanking, when soloing you only use it if you want to kill an elite or if you need to fight a large group of mobs. If you’re fighting mobs one or two at a time just stick to cat form.

[shinto46]

@InvisibleWombat

I’m quite pleased with the way Bliz handled this, actually. If you run iTunes at the same time as WoW (caveat, I’m on a Mac and I’m not sure if it works the same on Windows), you can assign keys in WoW to pause, play, skip, and so forth in the iTunes music, and set relative volumes of music, background sounds, dialog, and so forth. I have a playlist that I frequently run when I’m playing.

There used to be an addon that enabled WinAmp or the Windows version of iTunes but it stopped working back during the early days of Burning Crusade.

And EW who would want to play on a Mac?

As to my friend issue. While I do enjoy playing with others I just can’t connect with them or stand to be around them longer than an hour or so. At least with him we could raid in misery together.

[Bosstone]

@shinto46

And EW who would want to play on a Mac?

People who…own Macs?

I mean, WoW’s a fun game, but I wouldn’t go out and buy a Windows machine just to play it.

[Mister_Rik]

@Mogle

What special abilities? At the level we’re talking about here the only offensive abilites you have are Maul and Swipe.

That’s them (+ the one that stuns, can’t remember what it’s called). When I say “special abilities” I just mean “things that aren’t auto-attack”.

Swipe is for aoe tanking and Maul works just like the warrior’s Heroic Strike, ie it’s an On Next Melee-ability. Bear form is for tanking, when soloing you only use it if you want to kill an elite or if you need to fight a large group of mobs. If you’re fighting mobs one or two at a time just stick to cat form.

This druid is specced Balance. I’m using the animal forms for two things: when I need the extra armor/HP, because at lvl 22 I’m still pretty squishy, and letting myself continue fighting when I’m OOM and low on stuff to drink - I can switch to bear or cat and fight that way while my mana regenerates. I hate long downtimes.

@shinto46

And EW who would want to play on a Mac?

Er, people who own Macs? Blizzard’s games function identically on either platform (though in this case it appears the Mac version has functionality the Windows version lacks).