World of Warcraft General Discussion

[Shot_From_Guns]

I was a busy little bee last night. Loremaster and Guardian of Cenarius! So glad those grinds are over and done with.

@col_10022

My offspec is bear (my main is tree) and the problem I run into is that there are very few encounters in a well balanced raid group where you would give up healers for tanks or vice versa.

Yeah, the current choke point is really healers. IMO, Blizz would have been better off adding another healing class than another tanking class in Wrath.

@Mekhazzio

Bear in mind that the warrior prot tree got an immense improvement already with the release of Wrath.

We got a huge buff even before Wrath. Shockwave? Awesome. Having TC hit more than four targets? Awesome. I’m not denying that.

Most of the cutting edge raid progression guilds still use warrior tanks and prot warriors are even making an amazingly good showing in the top end of PVP, something that was utterly unheard of in the past.

The PvP thing is news to me. There are really top-ranked Arena teams that use Prot Wars?

they have a very wide toolkit including reflects, stuns, rapid mobility and vigilance, and they have the greatest density of raid buffs and debuffs

Mobility is the one thing I’ll give you there. Reflects and stuns don’t work on the overwhelming majority of bosses (nor do interrupts). Vigilance isn’t a buff–it’s a stopgap to fix something that’s incredibly broken with us (our threat). I shouldn’t have to steal threat from a DPS in order to get mine to an acceptable level. And while Arms/Fury Warriors can bring some good passive buffs/debuffs (e.g. that proc on crits), our actively applied ones (Commanding, Battle, and Demoralizing Shout) need work. (I don’t even know what you mean by “density” here.) IIRC, they’re the only active buffs that still have a <10 minute duration. Untalented and unglyphed (as they would be for a Prot War), they’re often not worth the Rage and GCD they take to apply. Battle Shout still overwrites Might and vice versa.

The paladins got their recent buffs because they were absolutely second string tanks on anything at all difficult [snip] The DKs are getting buffed in the next patch because they’re in pretty much the same state right now

I don’t disagree that Paladins needed a buff, and DKs started OP and then got nerfed way too far, so they’re definitely due for some improvements. But Paladins, right now, are way too strong compared to other tanks. Compared to Warriors, they have **way **better Stam scaling, 100% Block uptime, and a **passive **way to completely defy death (AD), just to name a few. I have… Warbringer. Great.

Warriors remain the tanks by which all others are judged. You would have a very difficult time making the argument that the spec is broken.

Right now, people who know tanking are judging everyone by Paladins. Can the fights be done with other classes? Sure, but they’re going to be noticably easier with a Paladin. As for Warriors being broken… we do the worst DPS of any tanking class, our threat depends entirely on someone else in the raid cranking out enough that we can steal some, our Stam scaling is the worst…

@Bosstone

To get the achievement, you have to have 40 Exalted reps at the same time.

Yeah, this is either a bug or really poorly phrased.

@smiling_bandit

The problem, as I see it, is just that the class really doesn’t have a good focus. Playing as a Druid, it fdoesn’t look you have anything in particular to go for. You could go for anything, but you need two or even four sets of gear to really optimize. And you have to carry that around, and be able to sub in as needed. So, you have to really know how to play four entirely different roles.

Hybrid classes aren’t designed with the expectation that the person playing them is going to be awesome at every single role their class could possibly fill. Most hybrids will choose two roles to focus on (maybe three, if the gear overlaps). And carrying around a crap-ton of gear is something every hybrid gets used to. I only have two possible roles (tank or DPS), and I still have three sets of gear that are on me at all times (tanking set for Block/Stam, tanking set for Dodge/Parry, and DPS set).

@Nava

Yeah, but I find it terribly irritating when someone claims to be equally good at healing, DPS and tanking.

Well, maybe they just suck at all three. Equally.

[Nava]

That must be it, SFG.

[Bosstone]

@Shot_From_Guns

And carrying around a crap-ton of gear is something every hybrid gets used to.

That’s definitely something a specialist class has got going for it. Mages, Warlocks, Rogues, and Hunters are all going to have pretty much the same gear regardless of which tree they’re using, with perhaps some slight variations. (I notice they’re all DPS, too. No class is just a tanking class or healing class, but there’s plenty of just DPS classes. Funny.)

Also, congrats on the titles! I plan to get Guardian of Cenarius eventually, and I’m not really looking forward to it…freaking Silithus…

[Tom_Scud]

@Bosstone

That’s definitely something a specialist class has got going for it. Mages, Warlocks, Rogues, and Hunters are all going to have pretty much the same gear regardless of which tree they’re using, with perhaps some slight variations. (I notice they’re all DPS, too. No class is just a tanking class or healing class, but there’s plenty of just DPS classes. Funny.)

Also, congrats on the titles! I plan to get Guardian of Cenarius eventually, and I’m not really looking forward to it…freaking Silithus…

Priests are the closest – just 1 DPS spec and 2 healing specs.

Oh, and Guardian of Cenarius is kind of tedious but not at all difficult - really it’s probably not worth bothering with all the quests, just commit genocide on the Twilight dudes and do the turn-ins. On the plus side, you’ll pick up like 50 stacks of runecloth.

[Ferret_Herder]

@Tom_Scud

Priests are the closest – just 1 DPS spec and 2 healing specs.

Discipline has some good DPS power going for it. I use my Disc/Holy “tank heal” spec to do soloing on quests too.

[Tom_Scud]

@Ferret_Herder

Discipline has some good DPS power going for it. I use my Disc/Holy “tank heal” spec to do soloing on quests too.

I find that it feels a lot more like soloing as a tank than soloing as a DPS. Slow, but you can take down bigger stuff.

[martu]

Grats on the titles SFG.

[martu]

I have re-specced my Warlock to get the Felguard after levelling Affliction previously and I have to say I am enjoying it more. I agree with most people out there that it’s slower but I never really liked getting hit, drain tanking always felt wrong, and I can easily send my minion into one mob, DoT it up, then DoT and Fear kite another so it’s not slow per se merely slower than aff where I was killing 3-4 at a time. Mana issues at the moment though so I am going to blast through 7 levels to get Improved Life tap. Oh and make some money for glyphs, expensive this re-speccing.

[smiling_bandit]

@Shot_From_Guns

Hybrid classes aren’t designed with the expectation that the person playing them is going to be awesome at every single role their class could possibly fill. Most hybrids will choose two roles to focus on (maybe three, if the gear overlaps). And carrying around a crap-ton of gear is something every hybrid gets used to. I only have two possible roles (tank or DPS), and I still have three sets of gear that are on me at all times (tanking set for Block/Stam, tanking set for Dodge/Parry, and DPS set).

I think people misunderstood my statement.

I was primarily talking about what Druids have to deal with in order to excel - simply put, it’s a monumental task to develop a druid character and even simply to learn how to play different specs, far beyond even the normal difficulty of class-based talent specs. A Fury Warrior is a very different beast than a Prot warrior. A Bear Druid plays almost nothing like a Cat Druid. Neither of those plays anything like a Balance Druid or Resto. Balance and Resto have only a little similarity, and then you get hybrid builds like Caster-form Druids. Contrast this with Rogues (or mot classes), who have relatively few endgame options and those choices are more obvious. Even if you mess up a build, you can respec and the new build is not going to have utterly different play goals.

For an advanced player, the learning curve is sufficiently steep as to be worrisome. Will I even be useufl in the endgame, or am I going to be so far behind in class management as to become a net drain?

For a new player, the learning curve is ludicrous.

[Bosstone]

I think you may be making it out to be a bigger deal than it is. We’re only talking about four playstyles, five with caster form, and it’s highly unlikely a Druid will be bothering with more than three of them. The mechanics of each style are pretty easy to grasp, and there’s not an overwhelming number of abilities for each style. Hell, Bears barely have any abilities, especially compared to Warriors.

I also don’t think it’s necessary for a Druid to need to be versatile to excel. Resto Druids are in high demand, even if they never fire off a Wrath or switch to Cat during a raid. Same with a Moonkin. There might be some expectation for a Feral to swap between Cat and Bear as necessary, but since it’s one tree that’s not unreasonable. As long as you’ve got gear with decent amounts of stam, strength, and agility (or attack and crit), you can do well in either form.

I’m not a novice, but neither am I advanced; I’ve never been in a raid unless you count battlegrounds, and I’ve yet to have an 80. Right now, though, I’m finding Druids well within my capacity to work with and understand.

[Ferret_Herder]

@Tom_Scud

I find that it feels a lot more like soloing as a tank than soloing as a DPS. Slow, but you can take down bigger stuff.

Good point; I think that analogy works well.

[Jas09]

@Shot_From_Guns

I was a busy little bee last night. Loremaster and Guardian of Cenarius! So glad those grinds are over and done with.

Grats! Those are some bad-ass titles to be rocking.

The PvP thing is news to me. There are really top-ranked Arena teams that use Prot Wars?

I don’t think so. Plenty with Arms warriors though. I do know that Prot Warriors are one of my new nemesis in a BG for some reason.

[Darwins_Finch]

@Bosstone

To get the achievement, you have to have 40 Exalted reps at the same time. Since you can only be Exalted with one or the other (and it is a hard and fast rule that you can only have one at a time, like the Aldors and Scryers), it only counts as one.

Exactly. If it were just a matter of 40, ever, I’d have already switched from Aldor to Scryer and Oracles to Frenzyheart, and be guaranteed 40 factions within a couple weeks.

As it is, I instead have to choose between grinding out Darkmoon faire rep or Defilers rep for that elusive 40th faction…

[Shot_From_Guns]

Thanks for all the grats (gratses? :p)!

@Tom_Scud

Oh, and Guardian of Cenarius is kind of tedious but not at all difficult - really it’s probably not worth bothering with all the quests, just commit genocide on the Twilight dudes and do the turn-ins.

The quests aren’t that hard, and IMO the rep is worth it. Note that you can also get rep from running AQ40 (maybe 20, too, I don’t remember), so if you’re working on Brood of Nozdormu rep, you’ll get some bonuses there.

All of the turn-ins are AHable. Search for Encrypted Twilight Text (10 = 500 rep), Abyssal Crest (1 = 150 rep), and the Twilight Cultist _____ (Robe/Mantle/Cowl, I think are the pieces), where a set of three can be used to summon an elemental that will drop an Abyssal Crest.

@Bosstone

I think you may be making it out to be a bigger deal than it is. We’re only talking about four playstyles, five with caster form, and it’s highly unlikely a Druid will be bothering with more than three of them. [snip] I also don’t think it’s necessary for a Druid to need to be versatile to excel.

Big thumbs-up to everything said in this post.

@Jas09

I don’t think so. Plenty with Arms warriors though.

I don’t remember hearing about any highly ranked Prot Warriors, either. We’re just too easy to shut down: don’t hit us, and pretty soon all we can do is auto-attack. Plus, there’s no PvP Prot gear (i.e., no Resil). And MS is still useful, but I think it’s still not that popular at the highest levels these days.

[Yeticus_Rex]

SFG…“GRATS YOU EFFING SLACKER!”

Slacker Indeed!

[Tom_Scud]

@Shot_From_Guns

The quests aren’t that hard, and IMO the rep is worth it. Note that you can also get rep from running AQ40 (maybe 20, too, I don’t remember), so if you’re working on Brood of Nozdormu rep, you’ll get some bonuses there.

I was going to see if I could solo AQ20, but never quite got around to it. And those Twilight Cultists were so easily squished!

[Gary_Robson]

@smiling_bandit

I was primarily talking about what Druids have to deal with in order to excel - simply put, it’s a monumental task to develop a druid character and even simply to learn how to play different specs, far beyond even the normal difficulty of class-based talent specs. A Fury Warrior is a very different beast than a Prot warrior. A Bear Druid plays almost nothing like a Cat Druid.

I’ve played primarily casters (my mains are a frost mage and a shadow priest), and I’m now giving a try at playing a druid. My main frustration so far (I just hit level 18) is that I like playing as a bear, but it seems like every tough situation requires swapping forms during the fight. If I just want to pull one mob out of a group, I have to go to caster form to pull, then swap to bear form. If I take too much damage, I have to go to caster form to heal. If I have a “runner,” I have to change to caster form to take him down before he brings buddies.

I’ve also gotten stuck in caster form when I’m in a multi-mob fight and I pop out of bear form to take out a runner, heal myself, and don’t have enough mana left to go back to bear form (and a low-mana druid caster in a multimob fight is a dead druid).

Later in the game, is it possible to just be a bear and stay a bear for a whole encounter?

[Shot_From_Guns]

Hey, guys, did you hear about the good news on the PTR?

Kanye will be nerfed in the next patch. His interrupt is just way too OP.

@Yeticus_Rex

SFG…“GRATS YOU EFFING SLACKER!”

Slacker Indeed!

That was from one of my pocket healer’s alts. It’s an ongoing running joke in a small group of friends that whenever one of us gets an achievement, the others congratulate them with things like “about time” and accuse them of slacking. Also optional is saying something along the lines of “I got that at 73.”

@Tom_Scud

I was going to see if I could solo AQ20, but never quite got around to it. And those Twilight Cultists were so easily squished!

FWIW, AQ20 was a very easy two-man with a Prot War and a Resto Druid. AQ40, on the other hand, still has a few bosses that are a complete bitch because of mechanics. The MCs on the first boss means you can’t do it with just one or two people, and Twin Emps is still going to require some strategy, for example.

The Cultists **do **go down easily, but I really, really hate grinding for drops.

[Bosstone]

@InvisibleWombat

Later in the game, is it possible to just be a bear and stay a bear for a whole encounter?

At 18 you should have Faerie Fire (Feral). 30 yard ranged taunt, costs nothing, does damage, lowers armor. Use it, love it. I stopped messing about with caster form except to heal around then (and yes, running out of mana before you can shift back to Bear suuuuucks).

If you’re putting your talent points into Feral, about midway down the tree you get Leader of the Pack and Improved Leader of the Pack, which gives you 8% mana every time you critically hit, which helps with mana. It’s first obtainable at level 41, though, which is a ways away. Just remember, you can eat and drink while shapeshifted.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Bosstone

Just remember, you can eat and drink while shapeshifted.

Absolutely adorably, in point of fact. Since the patch that introduced the new forms, anyway.