I have 18 left in Icecrown…pretty sure we’ll have a few of those in common.
I had planned to try to get into a raid pug last night, but ended up chain-running heroics with a few guildies. Because the random DF hates me, naturally we did UK, OK and HoL – those are the ones I always seem to get. Then as a nice surprise we got ToC.
OK was much harder than usual because the two non-guildies with us, both DPS, were apparently doing <1k dps. I know Recount is messed up so it was probably a little higher, but still we might as well have three-manned it. In fact, for the final boss, we did three-man him because those other two guys both died in the first insanity wave.
Then a quick run though RFK again with my 'lock – it’s a lot easier at 37 then it was at 34, and the healer was fantastic so I could keep spamming Rain of Fire and then Tap myself back to full mana. The tank was helping out by pulling 2-3 groups of trash at a time. It was great!
Oh, and the biggest news: I finally replaced my ilvl 200 bracers on my priest with Royal Moonshroud Bracers. That was my last piece of 200 gear (for my main spec, anyway). Finally!
You guys can probably two-man those all pretty easily, but if you want a spare tank let me know. (Actually, 3 people is very good to have if not necessary for the one with the cauldrons, whatever it’s called).
That’s a bug?
I thought that was an intended change implemented in 3.3…
I get this almost every day now.
So Oculus is getting another buff. If you get it as a random dungeon, killing Eregos at the end gets you 2 extra Triumphs, a couple of rare gems, and a chance at Reins of the Blue Drake. That’s 8 Triumphs total for the place, which seems like a pretty good deal to me. But then, I’ve never run Oc.
If there’s a lot of guildies on tonight, I think I might try to conscript 'em to run Oc and OK with me to get my Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement. 
Besides, I’d like to have gone through Oc at least once before potentially winding up in a PUG for it.
Jeez, Oculus is bad, but it’s not that bad (especially since they nerfed it). For 8 triumphs and a chance at gems and a drake, I’d run it every day.
I’ve only been randomized into it twice, and the second time everyone else quit the group as soon as we zoned in.
Yeah, the Wow.com article had a lot of people declaring that Oc just went on farm status before they were reminded you only got the extra goodies if you got Oc through the Randomizer. If you queue up specifically for it, you won’t get it.
It’s definitely an attempt to stop people from popping out of group when they realize their random is Oculus. That’s been a major problem since the randomizer went in, from what I’ve read.
It’s part of a chain that starts with a necklace that drops randomly.
You make a Sourge disguise, then use it to go up inside a floating necropolis, where you do tasks for the Drakkari troll in charge of the operation while undermining his work. One of the things he has you do is use the aboms to kill a bunch of other trolls to lure their chieftans out to be kidnapped. You need to kill 20 trolls to lure each chieftan, and you need three chieftans, so that’s 60 trolls. You can imagine how… frustrating it would be when you’re not getting credit for the majority of the ones you’re blowing up.
Was that a change, or has it always been that way? I remember most starting areas having few or no red mobs… maybe just at the very outskirts. And I know there were definitely quests where I could just waltz through a bunch of neutrals to get to another named neutral.
Could be worse–could have thought you posted it **and **lost the text and had to re-type it all. 
Rep tabard + random Heroics = you’ll hit Exalted in a day or two.
Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t just (or also) nerf the instance itself, especially with the inability to choose your group composition when you’re doing a random PUG. Gear is gear, but skill is skill, and the former is no indication of the latter, especially today. I’d rather have someone in 200s who knows how to CC and focus-fire than someone in full Triumph badge gear who thinks that they should just AOE the hell out of everything because that’s what puts them at the top of the DPS meter.
Woot! Hope you didn’t get totally gouged on the price or the combine fee/tip.
It hasn’t been that bad when I’ve been hit with it as a random, but now I’m actually hoping to have it pop up.
Not a bad idea. Honestly, it’s not that bad now. The final fight is a bit of a pain, since it’s vehicle-based, but there’s no pressure to use your drake right away when you get it. You can take as much time as you want to mouseover the abilities and read them. The only thing to remember is to (a) stack together (to make healing easier) and (b) move together when the boss phases and summons the orbs. (It’s generally best to specify which way you’ll be moving AND designate and mark one person for everyone else to follow and stack on before you begin the fight.)
No kidding. I got Oc once from the randomizer. The tank instantly dropped. The DPS and I still wanted to try it, so we got another tank…who instantly dropped. The third tank did the same. Finally we had to just give up.
I haven’t played for months now, but if what he describes is what’s happening, it is a change. The vile familiars have always been hostile before. It’s one of the reasons that it was such a pain to have to finish the “Kill 12 vile familiars” quest before you got the quest to actually go back into the cave for the amulet, since you have to kill the familiars in the cave to get to the pick and to the head warlock guy. It would have been so much easier to get them concurrently and kill the familiars for the quest at the same time you were killing them just to get past them.
I am needing like 10 more quest for Loremaster in Howling Fjord, but I cannot find any other Horde Quest Givers. anyone know some out of the way QG’s I may have missed? I have all of the quests i can find in the four town areas, the camp near the Explorers guild area and the ones near the dig site.
I’m vaguely remembering that there’s a little camp near where the north-south road on the west side of the zone crosses the east-west road that takes you into Grizzly Hills. There are some undead in there and I THINK they have quests.
Unless that’s one of the ones you already mentioned. It’s been a while since I’ve been in HF.
Right. I’ve been through every single one of the starting areas, and the composition of the enemies is always the same. There’s two types of neutral enemies where you learn how to fight and how to loot quest items. They’re usually level 1 and 2. Once you get past them to levels 3-5, you get introduced to hostile creatures, who are usually tucked away in a corner of the starting area so unprepared newbs won’t accidentally run into them. The Vile Familiars were those hostiles in the Valley of Trials, so if they’re neutral now, that’s a change.
Innnnnnnteresting. Wonder if the poor nublings will freak out when they hit the Real World ™.
Go get the latest version of QuestHelper. It includes an option to mark, on your zone map, locations of quests you haven’t yet completed. You may have to look up the quest by name on Wowhead to find out where the questgiver is (I think it usually marks the map with where you achieve the quest objective vs. where you accept it), but that takes all of two seconds. (The only problem is that it will also show holiday or class-specific quests, but (a) you won’t hit many of those in Northrend and (b) a quick Wowhead search will easily tell you what you can and can’t do.)
All calculations of “Hostile” are based on the game as it stood prior to this last patch.
Northshire Abbey (human) -
Neutral: Wolves, Kobolds
Hostile: Defias
Coldridge Valley (dwarf/gnome) -
Neutral: Troggs, Wolves, Boars
Hostile: Ice Trolls
Teldrassil (Night Elves) -
Neutral: Grelkin, Boars, Cats
Hostile: Spiders
Ammen Vale (Draenei) - This is where the “2 or 3 neutral and 1 hostile” breaks down
Neutral: Moths, mutations, uninfected moonkin
Hostile: Flower thingums, infected moonkin, blood elves
Valley of Trials (orcs/trolls) -
Neutral: Boars, Scorpids
Hostile: Vile familiars, orc warlock in cave
Red Cloud Mesa (tauren) -
Neutral: Boars, Striders, Cougars
Hostile: Quillboars
Deathknell (Forsaken) - Major deviation from 2N, 1H
Neutral: Wolves, Bats, Zombies (2 types), Skeletons, baby spiders
Hostile: Adult spiders, Scarlet Crusade
Sunstrider Isle (Blood Elves) - Major deviation from 2N, 1H
Neutral: Mana wyrms, lynxes
Hostile: Keepers (2 types), Mana wraith, Tainted mana wraith, whatsisface at the top of the floaty thing
Did you do the walrus/Tuskarr folks on the two islands off the south west coast?
Heh. On my human pally I’m still trying to get all my gear up to iLvl 200. I’m almost there - only need to upgrade my pants (iLvl 187), one ring (iLvl 174) and my libram (iLvl 150)
Nope, it may not be a “bug”, bu I’m pretty sure it’s not the way it’s supposed to work. I still run into plenty of respawning mobs that don’t aggro immediately when they respawn next to me and I have a few seconds to safely get away from them. I’m likening this to a situation I ran into in Teldrassil a while back where I was doing a quest I’d done easily several times before, but was suddenly finding it next to impossible. It was a quest where you have to fight your way through a bunch of furbolgs to get to their chief and retrieve a quest item from the chief. It had always been simple - just clear a path through the furbolgs, kill the chief, loot, run away. This one time, though, it was like all the timers were speeded up. Not only were the mobs respawning almost instantly after I killed them, the casters were aggroing and already starting their casting animations while they were still barely visible. It was like trying to bail water out of a river. I finally gave up and tried again the next day. By that time, everything was back to normal and I was able to cut a path through the mobs, loot the quest item, and be done with it.
Is that the necklace you take to Ebon Watch? If so, then I probably did do the quest, since it’s probably a prereq to the Betrayal quest I’m stuck on.
Yup, I’ve definitely done it then.
Yup, even that warlock in the cave is neutral now. You can pretty much just stroll all the way to the back of the cave, ignoring everything as you go, walk right up to him, and then attack him.
Other changes I noticed:
On that “Thwarting Kolkar Aggression” quest you pick up in Sen’jin village (where you have to find and burn three sets of attack plans), while the centaurs are hostile, there seem to be a lot fewer of them.
My gear took no durability damage until after lvl 10.
I also found the most surprising piece of “trash” loot last night. My troll was wearing a pair of quest-reward, white text leather pants with with 29 armor. While killing harpies for that goblin next to the road, one of them dropped some gray text leather pants … with 54 armor. +25 armor improvement from a piece of trash. I don’t think I can even buy a pair of leather pants with that much armor from a vendor yet. The pants also look better than the quest reward pants.
The final step of the quest is where you teleport with him up to the roof of the necropolis, where you then control one of the giant scourged trolls to use to fight him while he throws blight crystals at you that put down ground AOE you have to move out of. Well, it actually takes two or three trolls to kill him, but you control one at a time, and don’t pick up a new one until your old one dies. But you know what I mean. So I dunno if you ever got to that point yet or not.
Pretty sure Rik got to the end of that chain, because I recall him being unhappy waaaaaaay back in this thread or even the previous one about not being able to do Betrayal solo.