Cataclysm

[Lakov_Sanite]

As said above, since there will only ever be two tiers of gear you will always want those justice points for anyone except bleeding edge raid guilds.

[Minvaren]

Finished Vash'jir at last (including getting disco'ed on the way to the abyss), and dinged 83 a few minutes later.

Still looking for a better (warrior) tanking weapon...

[Ingmar]

Don't get hung up looking for something with avoidance on it, that is pretty rare - most of the 'tank' weapons you'll use will be strength weapons with hit/expertise, hit/mastery, or expertise/mastery. Those stat combos cover warrior and paladin tanks, single-minded fury warriors, and frost DKs now, so you'll see a fair amount of those. You can always reforge the hit or expertise if you feel the need.

Wowhead is down for me right now but you should be able to plug in a few filters to show what quests give 1h strength weapons.

[Azuredream]

As said above, since there will only ever be two tiers of gear you will always want those justice points for anyone except bleeding edge raid guilds.

I don't think this is true, there are long stretches of time between tier releases which is the only time you get new stuff to buy with your JP, and your JP is capped relatively quickly at 4000. Also, as said I think we'll have the same effect from WotLK where multiple people in the run want the optional bosses but the tank is completely kitted out and will just rush to the end.

[Vision]

anyone have any opinons of Un'Goro vs Winterspring for lvling? Thinking of Winterspring because it was always an old favority.

[Ingmar]

I haven't done either yet but I've heard Un'Goro has more changes.

[stu]

The Maximillian Quests in Un'Goro were well done. It's funny to see other players being chased around on the final leg, especially if you haven't done that part yet.

[01101010]

Finally got burned at the stake by Deathwing. Sky turned dark and I got a little excited. Mounted up and road around a bit, saw nothing... then outta the distance I saw him coming down the road. So I stood aside on a little hill and then blammo. Was pretty cool - after I ran back to my body and rezz'd, everything was all molten splashy.

[Nissl]

Gnomeregan
Mekgineer Thermaplugg is no longer using outdated abilities and has a shiny new list of abilities to use. He is also no longer immune to taunts.

Interesting.  Perhaps Blizzard reads this forum...

[Azazel]

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.

I found level-appropriate groups to be just fine while levelling a Prot Warrior. Overall, anyway. Gnomeregan wasn't a problem. As I got higher, fuckwit DPS who want to pull became more and more common. I may end up soloing up to 60, or even partway through BC, rather than dungeon running.

Oh, anyone had any experience with LK-era heirlooms post-80? I'd heard (speculation?) that the shoulders and chests no longer scaled up but that the weapons continued to?

[caladein]

Oh, anyone had any experience with LK-era heirlooms post-80? I'd heard (speculation?) that the shoulders and chests no longer scaled up but that the weapons continued to?

The Wrath heirlooms stop scaling at 80.  Just checked the weapons on one of my 80s and my 85 Priest.

[Fordel]

We just did Heroic DeadMines.


Fuck the first half before the note, its just a boring tedious slog.


After the note though, that is what every fucking instance in WoW should be like. A+ would swing on rope again.

[Sjofn]

I think the main problem was actually because we were wimps and decided to do the cheesy smite healer + real healer thing. lolsmite isn't exactly great DPS, so the boss fights felt like they were taking too long (and in the case of Ripsnarl, really actually was taking too long).

I enjoyed it, but it definitely was a longer time commitment than I thought they were shooting for.


PS: Paladin healing is pure love. Baby, I'm so glad we got back together.

[apocrypha]

After the note though, that is what every fucking instance in WoW should be like. A+ would swing on rope again.

Agreed! Although I've now had 2 separate groups that could not get past Cookie. 

Mostly however I am finding heroic pugs less painful than I was expecting. I think the 40 min queues are making people rein in their internet fucktardery a bit for fear of getting kicked and having to wait all over again.

[kildorn]

I think the main problem was actually because we were wimps and decided to do the cheesy smite healer + real healer thing. lolsmite isn't exactly great DPS, so the boss fights felt like they were taking too long (and in the case of Ripsnarl, really actually was taking too long).

I enjoyed it, but it definitely was a longer time commitment than I thought they were shooting for.


PS: Paladin healing is pure love. Baby, I'm so glad we got back together.

Yeah, the difference between a 2-3k smiter and a 7-9k actual DPS is huge, and ripsnarl was the first actual dps check of the instance. Everything before just took ages.

[K9]

I'm finding some fights where healing by Atonement is actually viable in heroics (moreso since they buffed the range). Setesh in HoO is one, Lady Vasj'ar in ToT is another.

[kaid]

Finished Vash'jir at last (including getting disco'ed on the way to the abyss), and dinged 83 a few minutes later.

Still looking for a better (warrior) tanking weapon...

One thing to check out for 1 handed tanking weapons is a good weapon with hit or expertise and mastery on it. Mastery is a pretty good defensive stat for prot warriors and that really opens up your choices in weapons a great deal. Also get a slow one 2.6 or so speed if possible. This allows for a lot nicer devastates these days with vengence it can allow for some pretty big dps/threat numbers.

[kildorn]

I'm finding some fights where healing by Atonement is actually viable in heroics (moreso since they buffed the range). Setesh in HoO is one, Lady Vasj'ar in ToT is another.

Futzing around, I really dislike Disc now. It doesn't seem to have scaled for jack. We were laughing last night that PW:Shield is now a regen mechanic and a weakened soul provider. Because a shield for 11.2k is D: in a heroic, and was managing to eat a whole 70% of a single tic of a dot from trash. While in chakra serenity, I can happily lob ~10-12k hps infinitely.

Disc still has nice toys, I just don't like the way it's scaled with the healing changes at all. I feel like I'm playing a priest, the class with the most tools to deal with any healing situation, but I left half my toolbox in my car.

[K9]

I hear you, I find it strange that as a class ostensibly built around PW:S the bulk of my healing done is Renew, PoH, GHeal and Binding Heal. I'll probably make the jump to Holy in the next day or so.

[kildorn]

I think my main issue with it is that Mastery seems to be a meh stat for Disc. Holy's mastery is wonderful. It's the PoH glyph applied to every heal. Disc's mastery improves a really meh spell that you only cast because of it's side effects (rapture and weakened soul), and Divine Aegis which only works on crits (with the lowered crit ratings everywhere) and PoH.

Echo of Light and Chakra: Serenity's renew refresh is a wonderful combo. And Echo of Light + PoH Glyph + PoH makes PoH do ~140% base healing for free, which is hilarious.

[lesion]

I was never a big fan of healing but the Chakra mechanics are fun as hell. Having a damaging disorient/instant heal+buff/area heal on a 30 sec cooldown is crazy awesome.

[kildorn]

I was never a big fan of healing but the Chakra mechanics are fun as hell. Having a damaging disorient/instant heal+buff/area heal on a 30 sec cooldown is crazy awesome.

I love that AE heal, even if it's the worst healing spell ever. My main complaint with is that due to the spell name changing, the UI doesn't handle it well and you have to do stupid things to make grid/clique or vuhdo use Holy Word: Serenity.

[Ivanneth]

We were laughing last night that PW:Shield is now a regen mechanic and a weakened soul provider. Because a shield for 11.2k is D: in a heroic, and was managing to eat a whole 70% of a single tic of a dot from trash.

I've found that shields in general are pretty useless these days unless they have some kind of secondary effect. Specced arcane, mana shield on my mage is primarily useful for the spell power boost you get from being hit and the knockback. As Frost, Ice Barrier is mostly useful for the AoE root when it breaks. I'm hoping that Blizzard will make absorbs less useless at some point, but I'm not holding my breath.

[K9]

The only good heal Disc has is PoH, there you are getting some really nice healing+mitigation in AoE damage situations. Otherwise absorbs feel pretty weak, yes.

[Fordel]

After the note though, that is what every fucking instance in WoW should be like. A+ would swing on rope again.

Agreed! Although I've now had 2 separate groups that could not get past Cookie. 

Mostly however I am finding heroic pugs less painful than I was expecting. I think the 40 min queues are making people rein in their internet fucktardery a bit for fear of getting kicked and having to wait all over again.

I had a hilariously high 'good food' stack on my balance druid, at least 10+. Turned my Starfires virtually instant 

[caladein]

Power Word: Shield's (and by extension, Heal and Strength of Soul) main use comes from Rapture making it mana positive.  It's still a very good spell that we just can't spam.  That doesn't mean Disc's Mastery isn't good, because it also boosts Divine Aegis which is actually a good chunk of my healing these days on fights with large amounts of AOE.  Also, it's not like Crit and Haste are burning down the house either .

Single-target, Greater Heal is where it's at because of Train of Thought.  Heal has probably been dead to me since Normal Stonecore, although I've only now come to terms with it.

[Xeyi]

Heroics got far easier for me once I (begrudgingly) swapped from disc to holy.  As holy your sustained hps is way higer thanks to chakra and echoes of light.  You can also get away with casting heal a fair amount rather than the almost pure greater heal that disc has to. 

Disc seems to have suffered badly from shield and penance scaling which have both become more efficiency spells rather than having any significant throughput as they used to.

[Sjofn]

After the note though, that is what every fucking instance in WoW should be like. A+ would swing on rope again.

Agreed! Although I've now had 2 separate groups that could not get past Cookie. 

Mostly however I am finding heroic pugs less painful than I was expecting. I think the 40 min queues are making people rein in their internet fucktardery a bit for fear of getting kicked and having to wait all over again.

I had a hilariously high 'good food' stack on my balance druid, at least 10+. Turned my Starfires virtually instant 

We should add here that we were tards that didn't realise we were going to HAVE to eat bad food in order to have anywhere to stand eventually, but luckily Fordel managed to live long enough after the rest of us died to finish Cookie off, so we got the "no more than one barfy debuff" achievement. :P

[Vision]

I am actually looking forward to a tough (not infuriating) instance/Heroic experience at level cap. Leveling is stupidly easy, as far as old world content and instances are concerned, and that is fine with me for the moment. But at this rate I'll cruise right into 80 having wiped a total of 2 times. I secretly hope the difficulty level will set in eventually, and ultimately end up in Wrath-level Heroics difficulty.

[apocrypha]

We should add here that we were tards that didn't realise we were going to HAVE to eat bad food in order to have anywhere to stand eventually, but luckily Fordel managed to live long enough after the rest of us died to finish Cookie off, so we got the "no more than one barfy debuff" achievement. :P

This is what we were doing wrong, we weren't nomming the nasties. It was a pug and by this time we'd been in there for 90 mins and fatigue was setting in. I look forward to the far-off day when I have more than 3 guildies geared enough to get into heroics. 

[Sjofn]

My paladin is not technically cool enough for heroics, which means we had to walk to the instance, OLD SCHOOL STYLE. I didn't feel TOO much pressure healing, though, as generally if someone is taking an asston of damage, it's because they're doing something stupid and thus deserve to die anyway.

[WindupAtheist]

So I'm getting Cata for Xmas. How are DPS queues?

[DraconianOne]

So I'm getting Cata for Xmas. How are DPS queues?

3 days long

[Ironwood]

Is that French Hens ?

[apocrypha]

So I'm getting Cata for Xmas. How are DPS queues?

On my server between 10-40 mins depending on time of day, phase of moon, etc. Heroic queues are currently double normal queues.

You won't like it anyway. Phasing sucks, pvp is broken, no variation in specs, crafting sucks, worgen are stupid, Ghostcrawler is an ass. There, I've saved you the effort of your next 12 posts! Consider it a Christmas present from me.