Cataclysm

[Selby]

"Why couldn't Blizzard do that for the 80-85 experience?"

They did.  Personally I like the new zones and questing experience.  It's pretty simple and easy to follow, the quests are not as horrid as they used to be and there's a variety of things to do.  I enjoyed Deepholm and Uldum quite thoroughly.  Uldum just made me giggle over the Harrison Jones stuff despite the numerous cutscenes that I felt should be able to be skipped after the first time through.  I hit 85 after doing just 3 zones (Vashj'ir -> Deepholm -> Uldum) and am going to finish off the other 2 zones for the phat cash bonuses and loremaster achievements...

[koro]

Well see, they DID do it in the 80-85 experiences. I don't find much difference in the flow at all (it's all very directed, just like the low level stuff, each zone has a story, just like the low level stuff, etc), but the zones tend to drag like hell because you're a) not leveling very fast and b) each zone is more like three sub-zones, and you feel like you spend forever in each one rather than "I FINISHED THE STORY, NEXT SONG" like you do in the low level zones. Vash'jir is the worst offender for me, the other zones I've done have finished around the time I got sick of them (I haven't actually finished Deepholm or Twilight Highlands yet, of course).

My primary complaint with the 80-85 zones is that you actually do level a bit too fast. You frequently have to decide between seeing a zone's storyline to the finish or bail early and head to places with far better xp and quest rewards. I got maybe 2/3 through Vash'jir before finally ripping myself away and going to Deepholm, since I wanted to get started on working toward Therazane rep while getting some Earthen Ring (since for the first week or so, Vash'jir gave no ER rep for quests, and naturally they aren't going to award it retroactively), and I made myself stick with Deepholm to the very end.

I ended up finishing Deepholm at level 84, and thus completely skipped Uldum. I liked Deepholm a lot and thought the whole zone's subplots tied into the meta-plot nicely, but I kind of wanted it to be done and over with because I really wanted to see Uldum when it was "level appropriate."

And now I'm stuck having to trawl through the utterly boring Mount Hyjal to get Not-Cenarion-Circle rep for the caster head enchant (which is another complaint I have: what's the point of having the level 85 head enchants for each faction Bind to Account if you still need the rep to use them? If you're so criminally lazy that you can't take the easily-accessed teleporter from Stormwind/Orgrimmar directly to the vendor?), which just thrills me to my fucking core.

[Oban]

I agree that Uldum was great, but that was one zone.  The rest of the zones seemed rushed out the door.  V'J was just horrid for multiple reasons and I can only imagine how awful it must have been on day one with the masses trying to complete quests. 

[kildorn]

I agree that Uldum was great, but that was one zone.  The rest of the zones seemed rushed out the door.  V'J was just horrid for multiple reasons and I can only imagine how awful it must have been on day one with the masses trying to complete quests. 

Uldum was fun, deepholm was awesome, Hyjal was pretty great. Vash was neat, just suffers from a TON of walking, and some seriously cockblocky quests when crowded. The only zone that feels rushed to me is Twilight Highlands.

[Azuredream]

I rushed to the cap but I still feel like I have plenty of things to do. My archeology is at 375 (to me it's a profession like fishing, where you have to be either chatting on vent, listening to music/radio, something), I still need to put together a full PvP set, and there's still a couple sidegrades I want out of heroics (not to mention getting the volcanic stone drake achievement). If I get bored of my 85 I'll probably start a worgen/goblin or go level one of my other 80s.

[Paelos]

Hyjal was fun. It's an easy romp the whole way through.

[Sjofn]

My primary complaint with the 80-85 zones is that you actually do level a bit too fast. You frequently have to decide between seeing a zone's storyline to the finish or bail early and head to places with far better xp and quest rewards.

I finished out zones, personally (except Deepholm, that one was yaaaaawn to me and I figure I'll just catch it next time through). I actually liked that I didn't have to do ALL of them to level because it means I can do some new stuff on my next alt. I have a lot of them. 

[Threash]

I hate having to go back to finish zones for the rep.  I found out one of the new reps which happens to have the bis pre heroic neck and chest for rogues was based entirely in hyjal and i leveled entirely in vash so now i have to go back at 85 and either get friendly and use a tabbard for the rest or do all the quests.

[Evildrider]

My primary complaint with the 80-85 zones is that you actually do level a bit too fast. You frequently have to decide between seeing a zone's storyline to the finish or bail early and head to places with far better xp and quest rewards.

I finished out zones, personally (except Deepholm, that one was yaaaaawn to me and I figure I'll just catch it next time through). I actually liked that I didn't have to do ALL of them to level because it means I can do some new stuff on my next alt. I have a lot of them. 

You do have to do deepholm to completion to open up the Therazane Quartermaster tho. 

[Sjofn]

My paladin is a scribe, so no I don't. 

[Zetor]

Yeah... incidentally Therazane is the biggest weakness I see with the cata questline design. Unless you're a scribe, you need to do basically every quest in deepholm just to get access to shoulder enchants. Maybe they'll make them boa eventually?

[caladein]

I'm sure they will a patch or two down the line.  The helm enchants are already BoA so I don't see a big change in over the Wrath set-up incoming.

[koro]

I'm not a huge fan of how slow repping up via tabard-wearing is. Not only do mobs not give a lot of xp per kill (only about 17 as a human, and people tent to skip as much trash in heroics as possible), but the only heroics with dense enough trash to be worth much are Grim Batol, Deadmines, and Shadowfang Keep.

[Rendakor]

Gearing up via JP, on the other hand, seems a lot faster than last time around. It only took a few days of running 2-3 a day for me to get everything I need for my tank set. I'm now blowing the points on DPS gear I'm not likely to use, since I'm the only dedicated tank in my guild. Between the relatively low JP cap, the fact that I was already capped when Cata hit, and the lack of (new) heirlooms/chaos orbs/BOEs/epic gems to buy with JP only makes the situation feel shittier; I've already got every BoA I want, so I'm just buying the DPS gear to make my daily random not feel like a total waste besides the Valor Points.

[kildorn]

Gearing up via JP, on the other hand, seems a lot faster than last time around. It only took a few days of running 2-3 a day for me to get everything I need for my tank set. I'm now blowing the points on DPS gear I'm not likely to use, since I'm the only dedicated tank in my guild. Between the relatively low JP cap, the fact that I was already capped when Cata hit, and the lack of (new) heirlooms/chaos orbs/BOEs/epic gems to buy with JP only makes the situation feel shittier; I've already got every BoA I want, so I'm just buying the DPS gear to make my daily random not feel like a total waste besides the Valor Points.

Depends on the group, but the gain/cost ratio seems saner.  My guild needs to gear up to heroic levels so I can start running them with a sane group. So far I'm sitting at about 1 non horrible LFD heroic per every 10 tries. My bar for horrible is high, too. Don't know the fight? Ok! Missed a kick? Okay! Stood in giant rock formation and/or huge purple circle for more than 90% of it's duration? You're terrible. Stood next to a lightwell while spamming party chat with HEAL ME after being told what that glowy thing does 8 times? You're not only terrible, you're a entitled prick.

I actually told the group OOM once during a pull (the mage and I were summoning a table when the tank went and rushed a group well out of range), and a dps stood next to me /yelling HEAL ME DAMNIT while I calmly explained that "oom" stood for "out of mana" which means I can't "cast spells" while I took every drop of regenned mana to toss heals on the tank. *sigh* wrath made us all terrible players. Especially the end of it, where gear let us brute force heroic encounters instead of dealing with fight mechanics.

[Shrike]

Gearing up via JP, on the other hand, seems a lot faster than last time around. It only took a few days of running 2-3 a day for me to get everything I need for my tank set. I'm now blowing the points on DPS gear I'm not likely to use, since I'm the only dedicated tank in my guild. Between the relatively low JP cap, the fact that I was already capped when Cata hit, and the lack of (new) heirlooms/chaos orbs/BOEs/epic gems to buy with JP only makes the situation feel shittier; I've already got every BoA I want, so I'm just buying the DPS gear to make my daily random not feel like a total waste besides the Valor Points.

With a dedicated group, this would probably be the norm. Most of us aren't at that point. Random heroics are nightmarish--just as predicted. What I didn't see coming was the 40min queues for them. So now we have a 40 minute wait (about a quarter of my available playtime each night) for a group that will fail 3 out of 4 times--and that's being optimistic. I've enjoyed myseif up unto this point and meet all the gear reqs for heroics, but I can't do them except when guild groups are around on Sundays.

Flying around Uldum scrounging ore for two hours waiting for fail PuG isn't any fun. So here we are, three weeks in and the fun is running out and options are narrowing by the night. I'm getting to the point that I have to seriously consider leaving a guild I've been in for five years, bailing on the game altogether, or going alt-crazy until another option presents itself. I really didn't want TBC v2.0, but at least it's not me this time getting kicked for lack of crowd control.

[Soulflame]

I have to say, I'm really really glad I went the route of leveling a character from 1.  I figured heroics would be an utter disaster, and I have no real desire to be a part of that.  I have to say, I do hope Blizzard comes to their senses, and nerfs the hell out of the heroics before I hit that wall.  Oh, and it'd be nice if they'd change their mind on healing mechanics too.

Hell, I seriously doubt I'll see Mekgineer Thermaplugg die while I'm at the appropriate level for that to happen, and I imagine that fight isn't anything similar in difficulty to the boss fights at cap.

[kildorn]

The more I use them, the more I think holy priests and resto shaman are in a good place for healing. The problem with pug heroics is entirely people feeling that their mistakes should be carried by the rest of the group. My mana is fine and I have plenty of buttons (besides holy word not liking healing frames and macros at all) since the patch to priests. I only have trouble when people are lazy and expect me to keep them healed through something that is by design not supposed to be healed through. A 10k/sec ground effect isn't supposed to be healed, it's supposed to be avoided. In wrath, we had the mana and HP/S that we just healed through it. People don't get that in Cata, you need to cut that out and look at your screen. I had three dps yesterday go "sorry, was watching tv" as a response to standing there doing a dps rotation while in a fire. Because in wrath a lot of rotations on heroic bosses was just pressing four buttons in sequence and not watching the screen.

[dd0029]

Hell, I seriously doubt I'll see Mekgineer Thermaplugg die while I'm at the appropriate level for that to happen, and I imagine that fight isn't anything similar in difficulty to the boss fights at cap.

Thermaplugg is way easier.  The bombs come much less frequently and they don't do much damage compared to health pools.  His hard thing is he does something to drop aggro on tanks with regularity so you are going to wind up with some ranged DPS pulling threat and running around hoping for the tank to do something.  And even then, it was not tough for my resto druid to keep them up through it.

[Soulflame]

I read up on the fight, which is amusing in and of itself:  Forced to read up on strats for a level 29 elite.

Apparently the trick is he does a knockback on the person with the highest amount of threat, which wipes threat.  Also, he is immune to taunt.  Not to mention, 27k health.

The only reason the instance is completable via RDF is that a wipe = completion+reset of the instance.  Shhh don't tell Blizzard.

[Sjofn]

I haven't done any heroics yet (my paladin is at something like 325 and you need 329 I think), but I'm not really jazzed to start because I know who in my guild CAN do heroics and any of them are people I absolutely do not want to do heroics with.    I enjoy going "eee, a blue!" again though.

[Nevermore]

I haven't done any heroics yet (my paladin is at something like 325 and you need 329 I think), but I'm not really jazzed to start because I know who in my guild CAN do heroics and any of them are people I absolutely do not want to do heroics with.    I enjoy going "eee, a blue!" again though.

Why do you hate your guildies? 

[kildorn]

I haven't done any heroics yet (my paladin is at something like 325 and you need 329 I think), but I'm not really jazzed to start because I know who in my guild CAN do heroics and any of them are people I absolutely do not want to do heroics with.    I enjoy going "eee, a blue!" again though.

Why do you hate your guildies? 

Because I keep waving howling blast around if they make me dps instead of heal. :P

[Sjofn]

Oops, I typoed "many" as "any" but my point still stands.

It's less "I hate my guildies" and more "I hate that my guildies STILL STAND IN FIRE."

[K9]

Heroics are getting easier with gear and experience as a healer. Did HoO without wipes with a full melee group and Vortex Pinnacle with just a single wipe on the dragon boss. Now I'm into most 333 and 346 pieces with spirit gems and enchants and heartsong my regen is bottoming out a lot less. DPS are learning what not to stand in and the whole thing is generally a lot more enjoyable.

The only thing I find odd is the length of the dungeons. I thought the stated philosophy was lots of short content, and while the trash:boss ratio is better generally than before, most of the trash packs are taking as long to kill as the bosses. Even with death-free runs, the shortest heroics feel longer than most of the entry-level WoTLK ones, and even some of the TBC heroics. The playstyle is definitely less casual friendly right now I'd say, and while I appreciate the challenge, I suspect that it's going to be another couple of months before the instances are soft-nerfed through gear acquisition and experience before people are blowing them up in 30 mins.

[Azuredream]

The only thing I find odd is the length of the dungeons. I thought the stated philosophy was lots of short content, and while the trash:boss ratio is better generally than before, most of the trash packs are taking as long to kill as the bosses. Even with death-free runs, the shortest heroics feel longer than most of the entry-level WoTLK ones, and even some of the TBC heroics. The playstyle is definitely less casual friendly right now I'd say, and while I appreciate the challenge, I suspect that it's going to be another couple of months before the instances are soft-nerfed through gear acquisition and experience before people are blowing them up in 30 mins.

I was about to come in here and say this, even with no wipes I think heroics take too long.

[K9]

I'm trying to figure out what the shortest heroic would be. Vortex Pinnacle only has three bosses, but has some pretty  trash and makes you run sodding all over the place. Deadmines is fairly easy, but the whole "RUN THROUGH THE DUNGEON AGAIN LOL" mechanic for the Vanessa Van Cleef fight probably adds an extra 10 minutes onto any run (I see this becoming one of the most tedious fights of the whole game in the future). HoO has seven bosses, SFK is fairly long, although the fights are thankfully pretty short. Grim Batol might be the shortest depending on how much time the dragon excursion adds/saves. Tol'Vir might be the other short one, I don't know. Even so, I don't see sub 30 minute runs for those any time soon.

[Nissl]

I read up on the fight, which is amusing in and of itself:  Forced to read up on strats for a level 29 elite.

Apparently the trick is he does a knockback on the person with the highest amount of threat, which wipes threat.  Also, he is immune to taunt.  Not to mention, 27k health.

The only reason the instance is completable via RDF is that a wipe = completion+reset of the instance.  Shhh don't tell Blizzard.

The fight isn't that bad.  I did it about a week and a half ago leveling my new warrior.  Lost a dps to the aggro wipe mechanic (which we didn't know was coming), and the healer at the end, but got it down just fine.  Didn't even need to do anything to stop the bombs, albeit we had a strong healer.

[Threash]

Gearing up via JP, on the other hand, seems a lot faster than last time around. It only took a few days of running 2-3 a day for me to get everything I need for my tank set. I'm now blowing the points on DPS gear I'm not likely to use, since I'm the only dedicated tank in my guild. Between the relatively low JP cap, the fact that I was already capped when Cata hit, and the lack of (new) heirlooms/chaos orbs/BOEs/epic gems to buy with JP only makes the situation feel shittier; I've already got every BoA I want, so I'm just buying the DPS gear to make my daily random not feel like a total waste besides the Valor Points.

With a dedicated group, this would probably be the norm. Most of us aren't at that point. Random heroics are nightmarish--just as predicted. What I didn't see coming was the 40min queues for them. So now we have a 40 minute wait (about a quarter of my available playtime each night) for a group that will fail 3 out of 4 times--and that's being optimistic. I've enjoyed myseif up unto this point and meet all the gear reqs for heroics, but I can't do them except when guild groups are around on Sundays.

Flying around Uldum scrounging ore for two hours waiting for fail PuG isn't any fun. So here we are, three weeks in and the fun is running out and options are narrowing by the night. I'm getting to the point that I have to seriously consider leaving a guild I've been in for five years, bailing on the game altogether, or going alt-crazy until another option presents itself. I really didn't want TBC v2.0, but at least it's not me this time getting kicked for lack of crowd control.

Seems like the easiest option would be to find a guild with more people in it.  I took a look at the queue wait times and the success ratio of random pugs and said "fuck this" and joined a guild that runs regular heroics all the time, frustration is down and fun is up.  The difference between jp now and in wrath is that the jp gear is comparable to the heroic gear and minor upgrades over regular dungeon/blue quest rewards, before jp gear was several tiers ahead of anything else you could get outside of raids.

[Ingmar]

I read up on the fight, which is amusing in and of itself:  Forced to read up on strats for a level 29 elite.

Apparently the trick is he does a knockback on the person with the highest amount of threat, which wipes threat.  Also, he is immune to taunt.  Not to mention, 27k health.

The only reason the instance is completable via RDF is that a wipe = completion+reset of the instance.  Shhh don't tell Blizzard.

The fight isn't that bad.  I did it about a week and a half ago leveling my new warrior.  Lost a dps to the aggro wipe mechanic (which we didn't know was coming), and the healer at the end, but got it down just fine.  Didn't even need to do anything to stop the bombs, albeit we had a strong healer.

I've healed it a couple times on my priest with no issues at all, but maybe disc is broken at those levels, I dunno.

[Azuredream]

I'm trying to figure out what the shortest heroic would be. Vortex Pinnacle only has three bosses, but has some pretty  trash and makes you run sodding all over the place. Deadmines is fairly easy, but the whole "RUN THROUGH THE DUNGEON AGAIN LOL" mechanic for the Vanessa Van Cleef fight probably adds an extra 10 minutes onto any run (I see this becoming one of the most tedious fights of the whole game in the future). HoO has seven bosses, SFK is fairly long, although the fights are thankfully pretty short. Grim Batol might be the shortest depending on how much time the dragon excursion adds/saves. Tol'Vir might be the other short one, I don't know. Even so, I don't see sub 30 minute runs for those any time soon.

If you're just doing your daily random (eventually will be most people) you can skip 3 of the Halls bosses, but it's still pretty long. Throne of the Tides is pretty short, Vortex Pinnacle is relatively short too.

[kildorn]

HoO's extra three bosses aren't that bad, they're each 1-2 quickie trash pulls. If you can take the first few trash packs of evil tiger things then the entire instance is the best bang for your buck, JP wise imo.

[Azuredream]

I meant when nobody needs JP (I don't anymore), no one is going to bother doing those bosses, like that Maiden of Virtue boss in Halls of Stone is like 1 or 2 trash pulls away but most groups just skipped her.

[Ingmar]

The way the gear/points trickle down now when new tiers release means that there are probably always going to be people who want to do the extra bosses in most groups, I'm guessing.

[kildorn]

The Maiden was skipped for stupidity, I think. Basically half the pug would need every point they could get, but the tank would be ICC geared and just wanting to get the instance over with and move on.

In a guild where you just want the 70 VP for the day's run? Sure, skip away. But anything before that? HoO rocks for them. With my tank, I purposefully left the fire boss until last just so people wouldn't take the complete and drop group :P