Cataclysm

[Lantyssa]

Once upon a time the numbers seen in Disgaea games were a joke.

[WindupAtheist]

Okay so basically it's a bunch of 70's running around Shadowmoon Valley still wearing Onyxia purples and blues they got out of Scholomance and wondering why they're getting owned. Lawl. My mind is eased somewhat.

[Fordel]

Don't forget they are also trying to AE down the dungeons like they would in WotLK. That is also full of comedy.




The Mobs DO hit harder though, make no mistake about that.

[Merusk]

People are to used to just mindlessly running through instances these days. And yeah, it did start with ToC. I dont know if anyone tried to do Halls of Lightning with level 76 to 78 characters in questing blues and greens, but it was HARD. I like hard instance as long as its balanced hard. Heroic Shadow Labs, no fucking thanks.

I did and you're precisely right.  People have forgotten what these were like in greens/ blues because the items they have are so over the top compared to what the beginner endgame was.  Hell, when I took a 3-hour-old L80 pally through Icecrown quests I wound-up DEing all of them because I had better crafted stuff, never mind the badge stuff I'd bought after dungeon-running while leveling.  I remember on the DK going "Oh hell I HAVE to do that quest it's got an upgrade."

[Lt.Dan]

I don't mind really, but there's gonna be some serious butthurt when people actually realize they're gonna be tossing Heroic Lich King gear and Shadowmourne for quest greens.

The level 85 dungeon rewards are iLevel 333 vs 284 for Shadowmourne and 277 for LK25H gear.  Although, as discussed elsewhere in this thread, you may need to upgrade for lower ilevel gear for the Cataclysm health boost.

[Azazel]

I don't mind really, but there's gonna be some serious butthurt when people actually realize they're gonna be tossing Heroic Lich King gear and Shadowmourne for quest greens.

This is why gemming-up aside, I'm not spending any badges on gear for the mages once I get finished with the last pieces for them - chest/hat/gloves/robe/pants. After that, it's heirloom crap all the way until I've got every piece of that which could be useful. The Khadgars' will let us blitz through the many WotLK quests that we haven't done, and we can get into enough of the random dailies now.

Rings and wands and so forth would be nice, but just not worth the effort when everything is going into the bin in a couple of months - dungeon drops are good enough...

[Morat20]

That's pretty much what I ended up deciding. Heirloom gear now. When I get enough frost badges I'll probably buy the trinket or ring, but I have the full T9 set (plus Wintergrasp belt plus a cloak that's from, I think, from the honor vendor in Stormwind).

I'll probably end up grabbing boots off WG or an honor vendor, since it's an upgrade over what I've got -- but I bought my first heirloom item yesterday (Mage chest -- my poor mage will miss her Dreamweave vest....). So I'm aiming for the full set. My guildies like the random heroics and are geared and skilled, so collecting badges is easy enough.

I know they only go to 80, but that still covers everything to Cataclysm. 

[dd0029]

I'll probably end up grabbing boots off WG or an honor vendor, since it's an upgrade over what I've got -- but I bought my first heirloom item yesterday (Mage chest -- my poor mage will miss her Dreamweave vest....). So I'm aiming for the full set. My guildies like the random heroics and are geared and skilled, so collecting badges is easy enough.

I would skip on the badge caster staff.  Just pick up the WG one for 300 Stone Keeper Shards.  I am mostly through a new heirloom mage and am disappointed with the staff I bought.  It's is no way comparable to the melee weapons.  Those are god mode.

[Morat20]

I would skip on the badge caster staff.  Just pick up the WG one for 300 Stone Keeper Shards.  I am mostly through a new heirloom mage and am disappointed with the staff I bought.  It's is no way comparable to the melee weapons.  Those are god mode.

Is the WG one BoA? 'cause my mage is 54. I'm starting with getting the full set of shoulders/chests for the bonus XP, then weapons. Probably have my mage go ahead and add fiery and lifestealing to the swords, since I'm sure my rogue will be happy with that. :) Nice thing about BoA is I can route it all through my enchanter, get it enchanted, and send it on -- and when I get new and better enchants, I can send it back.

Of course, my enchanter is still in Greater Essence hell right now. Might be time to send my main back to Zul'Farrak to farm greens and mageweave.

I got told that for my 20-ish paladin tank, though, that the BoA plate (at 40) is DPS plate. I'm aways away from that, of course.

[Rendakor]

I like the Badge Staff more than the WG one, personally. Int + Crit > Hit + resil. Throw 30 spellpower on there if you can find someone who has the chant and you're good to go. I don't see the hate for either of the caster weapons; they have a TON of spellpower on them, even during levels where weapons did not always have spellpower. Even though melee classes traditionally scale better than casters, the staff will still be a larger DPS increase than either the shoulders or the robe.

[dd0029]

Is the WG one BoA? 'cause my mage is 54. I'm starting with getting the full set of shoulders/chests for the bonus XP, then weapons. Probably have my mage go ahead and add fiery and lifestealing to the swords, since I'm sure my rogue will be happy with that. :) Nice thing about BoA is I can route it all through my enchanter, get it enchanted, and send it on -- and when I get new and better enchants, I can send it back.

Of course, my enchanter is still in Greater Essence hell right now. Might be time to send my main back to Zul'Farrak to farm greens and mageweave.

I got told that for my 20-ish paladin tank, though, that the BoA plate (at 40) is DPS plate. I'm aways away from that, of course.

Yes, all of the WG weapons are BoA.  The staff is the Grand Staff of Jordan.  On the plate shoulders, the cool thing about Heirloom gear is it scales with your needs.  So at lvl 1-39 the plate shoulders are mail for plate wearers.  Same deal with the hunter/shaman shoulders and leather/mail.

Crusader is the goto option for most melee weapons.  If you want to be different though, they did recently buff Unholy so that it now does 40 damage as well as the ap debuff.  The mats are slightly less annoying to acquire.

[Morat20]

Crusader is the goto option for most melee weapons.  If you want to be different though, they did recently buff Unholy so that it now does 40 damage as well as the ap debuff.  The mats are slightly less annoying to acquire.

Speaking of Crusader -- I was in Upper City a few weeks ago and the Fiery enchant dropped (since I was there with my enchanter, I got it) which led me to wonder -- can you purchase fiery now, or is it still a drop?

What other good enchants/schematics/recipes/etc from Vanilla WoW still need to be farmed, rather than appearing on trainers in Outland or Northend?

[dd0029]

I like the Badge Staff more than the WG one, personally. Int + Crit > Hit + resil. Throw 30 spellpower on there if you can find someone who has the chant and you're good to go. I don't see the hate for either of the caster weapons; they have a TON of spellpower on them, even during levels where weapons did not always have spellpower. Even though melee classes traditionally scale better than casters, the staff will still be a larger DPS increase than either the shoulders or the robe.

I don't hate the caster weapons.  It's just that I have done two melee characters now and the staves are not anywhere near the power boost that the axe or even the sword are for pallys and warriors.  Those things are a beast.  At 54, the badge staff gives me a little over 1% to crit.  Hit is a very rare stat pre 60.  Missing is always a giant DPS loss.  The resilience is completely wasted though.

With that in mind, you generally wind up with Stone Keeper Shards as a product of working to badges and don't have much use beyond the BoA gear.  Badges generally have other uses.  I have aquired shards to buy the staff, a dagger, the gun for my dwarf hunter, shoulders I accidentally deleted on an earlier hunter, leather caster shoulders, at least one stupid mamoth mount just in the course of my daily activities.  Badges are a more rare commodity and the badge weapons are expensive.  So, I think the badge melee weapons are a better time investment than the caster weapons for the boost you are going to get out of them.  

On the armor, you are never really using them for the stats beyond the "Experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 10%."

They really need to make the SP to weapon enchants more available than the MC drops.  That thing is still stupidly rare for how good it is when you compare it to the easily available melee alternative, Crusader.

As far as I know, the drop enchants are still drops.  Some are more common than they used to be.  Kill demons in fellwood for an hour and you are nearly guaranteed two copies of Unholy.

[Morat20]

Oh wait, you guys come from a server where your faction controls Wintergrasp half the time.

I don't. I come from one of those other servers, where the Horde owns Wintergrasp about 80% of the time. And the 20% they don't is called "3 in the fucking morning".

I don't get stone keeper's shards in any real amount.

[SurfD]

Speaking of Crusader -- I was in Upper City a few weeks ago and the Fiery enchant dropped (since I was there with my enchanter, I got it) which led me to wonder -- can you purchase fiery now, or is it still a drop?

What other good enchants/schematics/recipes/etc from Vanilla WoW still need to be farmed, rather than appearing on trainers in Outland or Northend?

there is almost always a Fiery Enchant recepie on the AH on my server.  If memory serves me, nearly all old world enchants that drop in 5 or 10 man instances (Old world being anything that is not a WolK enchant) now has a 100% drop rate.

[Rendakor]

With that in mind, you generally wind up with Stone Keeper Shards as a product of working to badges and don't have much use beyond the BoA gear.  Badges generally have other uses.  I have aquired shards to buy the staff, a dagger, the gun for my dwarf hunter, shoulders I accidentally deleted on an earlier hunter, leather caster shoulders, at least one stupid mamoth mount just in the course of my daily activities.  Badges are a more rare commodity and the badge weapons are expensive.  So, I think the badge melee weapons are a better time investment than the caster weapons for the boost you are going to get out of them. 

Meh. I've had too many geared toons at 80 for too long; both badges and SKS come very easily, so I figured you'd get the better item since you were going to get 80 levels out of it. Plus I have a tendency to burn SKS into BoA honor tokens to get some PVP gear for new 80s. Badges, on the other hand, only go to epic gems these days. Also as Morat said, you can farm Badges even if you don't own WG.

[Ingmar]

Those honor tokens work really nicely to buy the blue pvp rewards for lower level characters from the WSG/AB vendors and such.

[Rendakor]

Yea, I usually use them for those, or the 264 PVP neck since that's a difficult slot to fill for most characters at 80. (Let's not have the debate on how much better the 232 or 226 ones are again kthx)

[Morat20]

Yea, I usually use them for those, or the 264 PVP neck since that's a difficult slot to fill for most characters at 80. (Let's not have the debate on how much better the 232 or 226 ones are again kthx)

I think I snagged the 245ish WG belt, since finding a fucking belt is a PITA. Neck and boots are being a similar pain.

[Azazel]

I'll probably end up grabbing boots off WG or an honor vendor, since it's an upgrade over what I've got -- but I bought my first heirloom item yesterday (Mage chest -- my poor mage will miss her Dreamweave vest....). So I'm aiming for the full set. My guildies like the random heroics and are geared and skilled, so collecting badges is easy enough.

I would skip on the badge caster staff.  Just pick up the WG one for 300 Stone Keeper Shards.  I am mostly through a new heirloom mage and am disappointed with the staff I bought.  It's is no way comparable to the melee weapons.  Those are god mode.

I'm going with the WG-stone keepers shards gear over badge stuff at this stage, based on the fact that stone keepers shards are "free". I'll look into badge weapons later. maybe. after I buy chests. and maybe some shoulders. Especially since I have to grind out a set of everything for my wife as well.  She still needs her 80 mage gloves by the end of this weekend, then I start on her heirloom plate chest.

[Morat20]

I'm going with the WG-stone keepers shards gear over badge stuff at this stage, based on the fact that stone keepers shards are "free". I'll look into badge weapons later. maybe. after I buy chests. and maybe some shoulders. Especially since I have to grind out a set of everything for my wife as well.  She still needs her 80 mage gloves by the end of this weekend, then I start on her heirloom plate chest.

I hate you, your server, and everyone associated with you.

Actually, I just hate Blizzard thinking "tenacity" buffs somehow make up for "numbers". When you have equal numbers of Horde guarding the fucking keep while a goddamn roving zerg of 40 Horde run around rampaging through fucking everything, you are goddamn hosed.

You only keep a garage until the zerg arrives. You can't stack enough vehicles to get through the goddamn wall because you keep dropping down to 4 or 8 vehicles max thanks to the damn zerg, and there are enough Horde in the courtyard that they practically insta-gib anything comeing in. And you don't have TIME because the goddamn zerg has killed both towers.

So I don't get shards. :)

[Sheepherder]

I got told that for my 20-ish paladin tank, though, that the BoA plate (at 40) is DPS plate. I'm aways away from that, of course.

Tanking gear does not exist in any real quantity until level 50+.  The BoA plate is always up to date with your level however, which usually means it has superior strength (block value), stamina, and armour class compared to anything else you can acquire easily.

I'm going with the WG-stone keepers shards gear over badge stuff at this stage, based on the fact that stone keepers shards are "free". I'll look into badge weapons later. maybe. after I buy chests. and maybe some shoulders. Especially since I have to grind out a set of everything for my wife as well.   She still needs her 80 mage gloves by the end of this weekend, then I start on her heirloom plate chest.

If you buy a two-hander make it the badge axe.  The lower weapon speed is worth the frustration.

[Azazel]

I hate you, your server, and everyone associated with you.

So I don't get shards. :)

Transfer over - join us on Proudmoore. Paelos is here. We hang out all the time have never met ingame.

[Paelos]

Heh, I'm pretty sure Azazel plays at times when I'm at work or asleep, given the Aussie > US time exchange.

Also, don't come to Proudmoore. It's a crowded release-day server that hasn't had the hamster replaced in years. We do have a fairly dominant Alliance population though.

[Shrike]

We have plenty of room on Whisperwind. Hell, everyone else is here, may as well jump in.

Alliance usually has WG. Horde managed to--briefly--grab it Sunday. It was amusing in /trade. "Since when do horde take WG?!?" Apparently a couple of premade raids waiting for VoA had to disband... 

[Rendakor]

Fuck that, just faction change to Horde. It's better on the dark side. 

[Azazel]

Heh, I'm pretty sure Azazel plays at times when I'm at work or asleep, given the Aussie > US time exchange.

Also, don't come to Proudmoore. It's a crowded release-day server that hasn't had the hamster replaced in years. We do have a fairly dominant Alliance population though.

Yeah, pretty much that. Also, I haven't played in 2 years and raided maybe once or twice in the early days of PMA. I'm sure we've been on at the same time recently, just doing our own things.

I do like PM though, because it's the Aussie Shithole server (unofficial PVE Oceana server at launch, Blackrock for PVP), so there's always people on around the clock. We're also the unofficial (launch) GLBT server.
 

[K9]

Troll druid forms are 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Troll druid forms are 

That can't be stated enough, seriously retarded.

[Sjofn]

I prefer the term "hideous" when discussing the troll druid forms.

[Musashi]

I prefer the term:  Awesome.  Tea-bagging by a rainbow bright bear is an experience I relish the opportunity to dispense.

[Ingmar]

I find them sort of awesome/hilarious too, they're over the line into so bad they're good.

[apocrypha]

I think they're hilarious. First person to organise a 100+ strong Troll Pride march wins a prize!

[Morfiend]

Heh, I'm pretty sure Azazel plays at times when I'm at work or asleep, given the Aussie > US time exchange.

Also, don't come to Proudmoore. It's a crowded release-day server that hasn't had the hamster replaced in years. We do have a fairly dominant Alliance population though.

I seem to recall Morat is on Tich, which is a VERY crowded release day server. 

[Morat20]

Heh, I'm pretty sure Azazel plays at times when I'm at work or asleep, given the Aussie > US time exchange.

Also, don't come to Proudmoore. It's a crowded release-day server that hasn't had the hamster replaced in years. We do have a fairly dominant Alliance population though.

I seem to recall Morat is on Tich, which is a VERY crowded release day server. 

Argent Dawn. RP-geeks one and all. :) I think I picked it for the simple reason that I had a friend on it. Luckily, I started about four or five months after release.