What is this “pally-bubble” or which you speak? Something I would know if I was specced Protection? I guess I could ask the same question about the Hunter class’s “Feign Death”, which I keep hearing about but have never seen a hint of, despite being lvl 50 and making regular visits to the Hunter Trainer.
It’s been the opposite for me. With Righteous Fury, Seal of Command, and now Greater Blessing of Might all lasting 30 minutes, I cast them all one right after another, and 30 minutes later they all run out within a few seconds of each other. I’ve discovered I’m much more likely to notice all three icons in the upper right blinking at the same time to tell me they’re about to expire than I was to notice just one blinking icon. I also got more distracted with constantly checking remaining times when one lasted 2 minutes, one lasted 10 minutes, and another lasted 30 minutes.
I really got to test this out the other day while fighting those damned gorillas in Un’Goro Crater. I got to where I was simply trying to kill the first gorilla as fast as possible before the message appeared in the chat box, “Un’Goro Gorilla pounds his chest and calls for help!”, because when he calls for help four buddies come running. Still, I was gratified not only by my survivability, but also to discover that my standard attack sequence and defensive measures work even when getting ganged up on by five mobs. Consecration is my best friend. I save it for when I get adds in a fight.
Also, while in Un’Goro at lvl 52-53 I found I had very little trouble taking down the lvl 53 Elite Stegodon that ambushed me from behind while I was fighting a lvl 54 (non-elite) mob. I think I’ll try my hand at a Devilsaur next!
BTW - does anybody else feel like an Elite mob ought to hand out better/more loot that a non-elite mob of the same level? In that regard, I like D&D 4E’s definition of “Elite”: a single monster that is the rough equivalent of four “normal” monsters of the same level, with loot to match. WoW’s definition seems to be simply “way harder to kill with no discernible improvement in reward”. In that case, instead of calling a mob “Level 50 (Elite)”, why not just call it “Level 60”? (I know, I know, because then it would need to drop lvl 60 loot.) This was especially noticeable when I was in the Badlands killing Scalding Whelps. Aside from that quest involving the pillars in Lethlor Ravine, why even bother with the elite dragonkin flying around there when I can get the same loot for less effort from the similar-level, non-elite Scalding Whelps?
Huh. I don’t know why I never saw Feign Death. My hunter is specced Marksmanship, though, so I probably wasn’t looking closely enough at the Survival skills. My Retribution-specced pally does have Divine Shield, but she’s never used it.
Thanks=) I did design it so that my UI wouldnt interfere with the viewscreen area - I did play around with different packages from Curse and WOWInterface, and decided to make my own, but using CT found that I could play things around the way I liked them without having to actually write up the code myself =)
The interesting thing about CT is that it can give you up to 9 bars of 12 keys to putz around with=) and the different bars and frames are movable. There are some graphics packages out there to make things pretty but I really dont mind the basic black.
I did try one that kept putting the clickies near the mouse where it was onscreen, and I kept screwing up the target/clicky bits, and decided that I really needed to clear the actual view area of crap.
On a large monitor, and in a dim room with good music on, immersion isnt a problem=) Im thinking of a backlit keyboard next=) then I can omit my tiny keyboard light=)
Damn! I forgot all about Feign Death. My Hunter is level 40 and was attacking the tower held by the Theramore Deserters in Dustwallow Marsh. There’s a ton of them around, and rather than start at the road and pull-and-annihilate, I tried to slip through the guards. When one saw and attacked me, it didn’t take long for my pet to start aggroing every enemy in sight and I got dogpiled by about 7 enemies. I didn’t even think of FD and just died.
Well, to be pedantic, there’s a material difference between a level 50 elite and a mob of a higher, similarly tough level, in terms of game mechanics. Elites hit and take hits at rates roughly equivalent to a mob three levels higher, which isn’t really all that much, but their hit points are usually WAY higher and they often get abilities that mobs of the same class at L+3 don’t have.
As to your general question, I think the original principle was for elites to be the targets of especially juicy quests, guard instances, and other sorts of things where you eventually would be amply rewarded, but in some places they do seem curiously pointless.
I am endlessly impressed - actually, awestruck would be closer to the truth - at the extent of the content detail Blizzard has put into the game and their attention to detail. They must have creative teams the size of battleship crews. But some things do sort of get left behind, like that elite felguard area in Blasted Lands, Tainted Scar, that no longer serves any purpose, or that zone in Kalimdor they still haven’t filled in. I guess pointless elites are a part of that.
Question for Retribution Paladins - did anyone pick up the Divine Strength talent? I am only level 31 at the moment and working my way to Vengeance after that it seems to me Divine Strength is the way to go. Any downsides?
Gear with +agility or +crit rating will increase your crit chance. There’s also some paladin talents that increase crit chance directly. The agility and crit rating bonuses diminish as your level increases, so the same gear that gives you say 20% crit will give significantly less 10 levels later. This diminishment is much greater after level 60 than before.
If you list the armory links of your characters we can tell why there’s a difference and help you figure out how to increase the crit on your Prot Pally.
I think martu’s playing a Ret Pally. Mine is at 17% crit, and I’m not entirely sure how it got there. The Conviction and Sanctified Seals talents together raise your crit by 8% straight up. My Agility grants an extra 9.33% crit chance, and Heart of the Crusader layers an extra 3% on top whenever a Judgment is active. I haven’t geared up with Agility in mind, but it is present on some of my gear, particularly the Ice Barbed Spear.
One thing I definitely appreciate is Blizzard’s decision to remove the “Elite” tag from many of the mobs – makes it possible to complete more quest chains than before. For example, the ogres in the Ruins of Alterac (in the Alterac Mountains) or the trolls on top of The Altar of Zul (in the Hinterlands) used to be elite, now they’re just regular mobs.
I usually play solo or with a friend, and nothing frosts my shorts more than a multi-quest quest chain that ends with a ‘now you must find 4 others and kill the elite-level uber-mobs’ quest. I want quest chains that I can finish by myself, dammit. :mad:
Heh…I’ve said this before, but if there were an option to play WoW as a single-player game with multiple-player towns, I’d activate it. I want to be able to do ALL content solo, but still have the AH, etc.
Except that Guild Wars has multi-player requirements for a lot of the adventuring. Most of the adventuring, actually, IIRC. There’s no way to survive as a solo, even with mercenaries, at higher levels.
Besides, I have other problems with Guild Wars…I’ve never really been able to sustain any kind of interest in that game, despite not having a monthly fee. It’s somewhat telling that I remain with WoW, paying roughly $13 a month, rather than playing the free game.
QFT. Rik, you really need to pick up Feign Death and learn how to use it (if you haven’t already). I only recently started getting the hang of it and it’s a massive advantage.
Accidentally pull aggro from your pet? Feign Death. Had a bad pull and 6 mobs are running at you instead of 1 or 2? Feign Death. Trying to solo a same-or-higher-level elite and your pet just died? Feign Death. Running a dungeon and accidentally pull some mobs of the tank? Feign Death. In fact, casting Mend Pet followed immediately by Feign Death when the mobs switch onto you is a good way to keep your pet up for tough battles without drawing the mobs off of them.
Really the only downside is the long CD (30 sec - reduced to 25 with a minor glyph - the best hunter minor glyph in the game as far as I can tell).
I’m in the middle of a trial to see how I like this game. So far, it’s pretty cool. I started with a paladin, as recommended by my playing partner (boyfriend), after I described to him how I play other games. Since I just started, I am basically poking around seeing how things work.
