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Title: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Trippy on March 07, 2005, 03:56:01 PM
More detailed information about the upcoming patch:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/patch-05-03-04.html


Information about upcoming test servers:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=1806260&p=1&tmp=1#post1806260


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: ahoythematey on March 07, 2005, 04:02:46 PM
This better not be a band-aid to distract us from their less-than-half assed handling of WoW Live...


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Toast on March 07, 2005, 04:11:10 PM
There's a lot of stuff in the patch notes. I wonder why they aggregated so much into one patch instead of parcelling out into smaller, more frequent rollouts?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: sidereal on March 07, 2005, 04:25:36 PM
Quote
Charge has been improved so it will work through doorways and won't path you through an entire dungeon.

Thank you, sirs.  There's nothing quite so exhilerating as trying to charge someone through a doorway, but instead shooting around a corner, up three flights of stairs, down an elevator, and over a balcony to get to them, meanwhile picking up 70 new friends.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Calantus on March 07, 2005, 05:39:07 PM
Wow there is alot of stuff... some of it I was like "damn that's good", so they have been working. Would have been better with more frequent smaller updates, but I guess this is how Blizzard operates. Still digesting it all, but I wanted to point this one out:

- Added /golfclap.

Heh.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: MrHat on March 07, 2005, 07:23:56 PM
Wow there is alot of stuff... some of it I was like "damn that's good", so they have been working. Would have been better with more frequent smaller updates, but I guess this is how Blizzard operates. Still digesting it all, but I wanted to point this one out:

- Added /golfclap.

Heh.

They have been promising more frequent patches after this one.  I don't believe them.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: schild on March 07, 2005, 07:25:29 PM
They have been promising more frequent patches after this one.  I don't believe them.

/golfclap


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Jayce on March 07, 2005, 07:38:00 PM
Looks like warriors are the only ones who got their training prices increased.  Everyone else decreased.

 :cry:


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Calantus on March 07, 2005, 08:06:16 PM
Looks like warriors are the only ones who got their training prices increased.  Everyone else decreased.

 :cry:

That's actually fair though. I was always disgusted to see my brother's training costs every 2nd level when compared to my own.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Signe on March 07, 2005, 08:11:24 PM
You can only get on the test servers by special invitation?  How is that right?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: MrHat on March 07, 2005, 08:17:04 PM
You can only get on the test servers by special invitation?  How is that right?

I guess that keeps it more hush hush.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: schild on March 07, 2005, 08:25:40 PM
You can only get on the test servers by special invitation?  How is that right?

I guess that keeps it more hush hush.

Like Orkut or Friendster or B2? Yea, that'll work out well.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Paelos on March 07, 2005, 08:59:27 PM
Looks like warriors are the only ones who got their training prices increased.  Everyone else decreased.

 :cry:

That's actually fair though. I was always disgusted to see my brother's training costs every 2nd level when compared to my own.

Heroic strike gets love - This is good news.
Thunderclap gets massive love - This is great news.
Execute doesn't sink your rage on a miss - Duh. This shouldn't have been the case anyway
They apparently fixed a bug where rage wasn't being generated - frankly I'm not shocked at all.
They added some visual proc on swords - shiney!

Guess this means it's time to respec back to arms. I've been a fury warrior for leveling, but if this is the case, suddenly the main arms arsenal is much stronger. We still need to see defensive specs revamped. As of now they are horrid for many reasons, namely holding aggro without doing a million stance-dances.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Chenghiz on March 08, 2005, 06:11:24 AM
After seeing that Druid PvP video that was floating around the WoW forums for a while ago, I'm not so sure that Druids needed that much lovin,' but my Druid friend assures me that they do.
Quote
Fixed a bug where creatures were keeping their innate resistances after being tamed. This was unintentional and the fix will affect all existing pets.
This makes me sad. I wish they would leave in some means of having a distinctive pet other than its speed and attack rate. Now every min/maxer and their mother will have King Bangalash.
Quote
You can no longer use Eyes of the Beast to leave a flight path.
I'd better try this before they patch it (=


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Jayce on March 08, 2005, 06:47:05 AM
love

My favorite thing is that we can now overpower after the opponent dodges a special attack.  I thought that was intentional because they (at least mobs) seem to dodge specials more than they dodge straight attacks.

It's overpower 4tw now though!  Improved overpower is reason enough for the arms tree in and of itself.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: XMackenzie on March 08, 2005, 07:20:19 AM
The Warrior training cost increase sorta miffed me  - but thankfully it was the first thing followed up by, this is better and that is better now updates.  When I saw those patch notes the first thing that came to my head was - "man I got a warrior to 40 before they were FOTM!"  Changes look great for an arms specced warrior.  Only downside is that now I need to actually bother buying thunderclap from the trainer at a higher cost. 


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: murdoc on March 08, 2005, 08:08:18 AM
You can only get on the test servers by special invitation?  How is that right?

Moving forward, all players who have an active World of Warcraft account will be eligible to participate in testing on the test realms. However, this initial testing phase requires characters between the levels of 55 and 60 in order to properly test the content and functionality for the next patch


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Alkiera on March 08, 2005, 08:08:39 AM
That's a long list of changes.  One in particular amused me...
Quote from: WoW Patch Notes
Previously, in many cases, a Block, Parry, or Dodge was translated into a "Miss," thus causing confusion over actual miss rates. We've made the following changes in an attempt to be more clear as to what is actually happening in combat:

    * Block: All creatures will now report a Block on attacks from the front, reducing damage caused instead of converting the attack into a "Miss." Creatures will no longer be able to Block attacks from behind.
    * Dodge: Every time a creature Dodges, it will report a Dodge. We will no longer translate a creature's Dodge of a rear attack to a "Miss."
    * Parry: All creatures will now report a Parry on attacks from the front instead of translating them into a "Miss." Creatures will no longer be able to Parry attacks from behind.

Wow.  Just.... wow.

Alkiera


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: jpark on March 08, 2005, 08:38:39 AM
Not sure if I am reading this right - seems that Power Word Shield (Priest) is now castable on other members - not just himself.  A very powerful spell, that's a huge change since it was previously self only.

Am I reading this right?  I wonder if the timer affects the target as well - otherwise you could line priests up on a raid and have constant PWS coverage of a mage or tank (single target).



Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2005, 08:45:17 AM
Not sure if I am reading this right - seems that Power Word Shield (Priest) is now castable on other members - not just himself.  A very powerful spell, that's a huge change since it was previously self only.

Am I reading this right?  I wonder if the timer affects the target as well - otherwise you could line priests up on a raid and have constant PWS coverage of a mage or tank (single target).



You're not.   PW:S is now castable on all raid group members not just the group the priest is a member of.

And you can't chain it.  The weakened soul effect is per target.  So you just can't chain it on someone.  Fastest would be every 15 seconds depending on the talent spec of the priest.

Just curious, but do you actually play WoW?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Sky on March 08, 2005, 09:12:22 AM
Quote from: Chenghiz
I wish they would leave in some means of having a distinctive pet other than its speed and attack rate. Now every min/maxer and their mother will have King Bangalash
No kidding. What we needed was /more/ pet differentiation, not less. This sucks. Hunters figure pet speed differentials is the next to go, so King B and friends will no longer be desirable, either. I have a King, but I prefer my Longtooth Runner, which fits my character better. I was going to grab Snarler, because he also fits my orc hunter with worg vibe, but now he's crappy as his resists are what made him interesting. I guess I may as well stick with my Longtooth and get a bear for heavy tanking, just like every other motherlover on the server.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: ahoythematey on March 08, 2005, 09:31:09 AM
Lo and behold, more warlock nerfs, and to Fear of all things.  What in the FUCK is going through their minds?  Are they deliberately trying to hurt me (http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=1999-05-14), or are they all really this goddamn dumb (http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-07-03&res=l)?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: HaemishM on March 08, 2005, 09:48:33 AM
I fail to understand why high-end dungeons now need player caps. Is this a sop to the uber cocksuckers, who think that the ability to organize 70 people is somehow a bad thing (OH NOES, THE ZERG!)? Or is it just Furor and Tigole getting their rocks off by saying "J00 R NOT L33t IF YOU CAN'T DO IT WITH 40! PWNED N00BL3R!!1@1!2"

Fuckers.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Paelos on March 08, 2005, 09:55:06 AM
I fail to understand why high-end dungeons now need player caps. Is this a sop to the uber cocksuckers, who think that the ability to organize 70 people is somehow a bad thing (OH NOES, THE ZERG!)? Or is it just Furor and Tigole getting their rocks off by saying "J00 R NOT L33t IF YOU CAN'T DO IT WITH 40! PWNED N00BL3R!!1@1!2"

Fuckers.

It's probably to adjust for a player/drop ratio involved in each instance raid. Or such is my guess.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: trias_e on March 08, 2005, 10:01:08 AM
I like it.   I like challenges.  Other people are usually pussies and try to avoid challenges by gathering as many people as they possibly can for absolutely anything.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: HaemishM on March 08, 2005, 10:04:58 AM
Having led what could be considered "zerg" raids before, I can tell you that it is nothing like easy. Brute force is great, but the application of that force requires assloads of organization. It's like trying to herd cats, especially when you do the raids with people you don't even know. I say this as someone who has led dragon raids in the olden days of EQ with 50+ people from 15 different guilds when the only raid channel I had available was /shout or /ooc.

I will say it's much more fun doing it with people you know and less numbers, but it's still challenging mustering the zerg.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2005, 10:11:50 AM
I fail to understand why high-end dungeons now need player caps. Is this a sop to the uber cocksuckers, who think that the ability to organize 70 people is somehow a bad thing (OH NOES, THE ZERG!)? Or is it just Furor and Tigole getting their rocks off by saying "J00 R NOT L33t IF YOU CAN'T DO IT WITH 40! PWNED N00BL3R!!1@1!2"

Fuckers.

This is the one part of the patch that somewhat irks me.  After a patch, if a guild wants to do a raid encounter they're either going to have to hit MC, Onyx or hope one of the outdoor ones is up (OOOH, EQ dragon races, how I didn't miss that one bit).  Molten Core, while not being sure on the prereqs for getting in, I'd imagine takes an assload of time and is probably outside the abilities of our guild (not enough warriors/priests).  Onyxia you have to key up for and that ends in a quest that's in Blackrock Spire.  Again, even if we were keyed, Onyxia is probably well out of our abilities.  We're the uber guild on a somewhat backwater server, so we're not you're typical Afterlife/Conquest/FoH entity.  We're actually pretty casual for a raid guild as we usually only target one place per raid day and only one run per outting.  (BTW, I think 40 was the cap regardless as that's the raid group max size)

Having MC/Onyxia being your only 15+ member options doesn't help if you can't get 40 people online all of the time and don't have the ability to currently tackle them.  Our guild simply zergs BRS and other places because right now that's all we have available to us.  How is splitting the guild into separate groups for upper BRS raiding going to not suck.  There just isn't anything that falls between the 15 to full raid group encounter.  Also if there's say 25 people online, it's more than likely just going to be the first 15 on and everyone else can go play their fucking alts or slum it through lower BRS if you still need some quest kills there.

God, this isn't even mentioning the pathing problems that some of these dungeons have, where unless you're zerging it, HELLO WIPE. And kiss the sub 2 hour upper BRS goodbye.  Some of these dungeons, unless you're zerging them, are just really fucking long if you want to do a complete sweep (not to mention in some places really fucking difficult).  This means doing Strath you're either hitting the scarlet crusade or going baron, but hahaha, don't try both unless you've got a day to waste there. 

I don't like this.  There's nothing for a guild that isn't quite up to snuff for Onyxia/MC without breaking your guild into smaller groups.  And for guilds that average about 20-30 people online for raids, this is going to blow.   Fuck, I can now expect us to be hitting UBRS every single day until patch to get as many people their Onyxia quest drops before 2 hour UBRS runs are a thing of the past.   

I know that they're doing this to prevent people from trivializing their higher tier content, but these caps don't help when there's large gaps in group size for these encounters, these encounter's dififculty can be magnified by amount of pathing and other bugs present, and without zerging these encounters can take quite a bit of time due to all of the filler crap between the actual worthwhile encounters.   GAH.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2005, 10:13:56 AM
I like it.   I like challenges.  Other people are usually pussies and try to avoid challenges by gathering as many people as they possibly can for absolutely anything.

Often it's not trying to avoid the challenge of an encounter, it's trying to make sure all of your guild members can participate.  Not everyone says "hey, we've got too many people, this isn't challenging.  GO HOME GROUP 4 AND FARM CASH."


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: MrHat on March 08, 2005, 10:14:57 AM
Only instance I haven't done with 7 people is Molten Core.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: trias_e on March 08, 2005, 10:20:11 AM
Quote
Having led what could be considered "zerg" raids before, I can tell you that it is nothing like easy. Brute force is great, but the application of that force requires assloads of organization. It's like trying to herd cats, especially when you do the raids with people you don't even know. I say this as someone who has led dragon raids in the olden days of EQ with 50+ people from 15 different guilds when the only raid channel I had available was /shout or /ooc.
This is true, and there was basically only one guy who could reliably organize 70+ person pickup raids on my server/realm in DAOC and make everything work without much gnashing of teeth.  However, I don't necessarily think that should be the main skill required to succeed on raids, so I still like WoW's changes.  Also, the main thing that was bothering me in WoW was people getting 20+ to take out dungeons that can be done with 5-10.  The 10 man cap is great for those instances, since it seemed to be wide-spreadly believed that you needed so many people to do them (which was just wrong and based on the fact that people seem to avoid challenges most of the time).

I haven't hit the raid game yet, but it definitely does seem that Onyxia is too difficult an initial raid target.  However, this still doesn't change the above fact.  Just means they need to fix that.  I know I wouldn't have fun zerging UBRS with my guild every night.

Quote
Often it's not trying to avoid the challenge of an encounter, it's trying to make sure all of your guild members can participate.  Not everyone says "hey, we've got too many people, this isn't challenging.  GO HOME GROUP 4 AND FARM CASH."

I really don't see what the big deal is with seperating into more than 1 group is for say UBRS.  If you have more than 40 members and are complaining about the limits on onyxia...that could be a problem.  I don't like huge guilds however, so luckily, I'll avoid that problem.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: WayAbvPar on March 08, 2005, 10:20:23 AM
Quote
A new engineering recipe is available in Blackrock Depths for a repair robot. This robot acts as a repair vendor for 10 minutes and will repair and purchase items for normal cost. This will allow dungeon groups and raids to get items repaired and sold without returning to town.

That is cool. It sounds kind of cheesy, but it beats having to destroy the less desirable loot.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2005, 10:25:30 AM

I really don't see what the big deal is with seperating into more than 1 group is for say UBRS.  If you have more than 40 members and are complaining about the limits on onyxia...that could be a problem.  I don't like huge guilds however, so luckily, I'll avoid that problem.

This is more likely a problem more specific to my guild and guilds like it.  We have poor class balance (lots of hunters/warlocks)  and we typically have 20-30 people on per night for raids.  Until we grow up a bit, this really won't be possible.   We're not a huge guild, we're just simply large and the only game in town for high end raiding on our podunk server (horde side that is).


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Threash on March 08, 2005, 11:20:32 AM
Strath and scholo with 10 people are NOT a challenge, UBRS with 15 is NOT a challenge.  That change doesn't affect 95% of the raids who already used those numbers for those dungeons, frankly taking more just makes it a frustrating mess, i usually just ditched raids that took more than that anyways.  If you want a challenge 5 man strath, scholo and LBRS like they where supposed too, you'll have a much better chance at loot and you'll get better at playing your char.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2005, 11:33:48 AM
Strath and scholo with 10 people are NOT a challenge, UBRS with 15 is NOT a challenge.


From what I've seen, you're right.  Not sure if you're trying to rebuke anything I said, but it's not really an issue of challenge, it's just that's there's nothing out there for guild that doesn't quite have the tools for Onyxia or Molten Core.

Quote
If you want a challenge 5 man strath, scholo and LBRS like they where supposed too, you'll have a much better chance at loot and you'll get better at playing your char.

Now, if you can step off the badass podium for just a second, wouldn't 5 manning those instances take for-fucking-ever (never been to Scholo, so I don't know there)?  Strath and LBRS just have a ton of fodder you have to mow through before you get to any of the juicy bits. 


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: MrHat on March 08, 2005, 11:39:19 AM
Strath with 7 peeps last night took about 2 hours and no wipes.

It's funny because with 15 people we wipe more often.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2005, 11:42:14 AM
Strath with 7 peeps last night took about 2 hours and no wipes.

It's funny because with 15 people we wipe more often.


Just curious, but is that doing both sides, Crimson and Baron?  I didn't like Strath much, it just felt like an exercise to better equip our warriors (every fucking drop was plate this or that).


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: MrHat on March 08, 2005, 11:49:01 AM
Just the Baron, I haven't actually done that otherside.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 08, 2005, 11:51:21 AM
Just the Baron, I haven't actually done that otherside.

Pitty, you missed a more boring version of Scarlet Monastery (why can't more instances be like this one.. heh).


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Sky on March 08, 2005, 11:57:51 AM
There are instances in WoW?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Chenghiz on March 08, 2005, 11:59:00 AM
Pitty, you missed a more boring version of Scarlet Monastery (why can't more instances be like this one.. heh).

If they all were, people would complain about that. There're only so many ways you can make a dungeon cool/fun.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: HaemishM on March 08, 2005, 12:45:13 PM

I really don't see what the big deal is with seperating into more than 1 group is for say UBRS.  If you have more than 40 members and are complaining about the limits on onyxia...that could be a problem.  I don't like huge guilds however, so luckily, I'll avoid that problem.

This is more likely a problem more specific to my guild and guilds like it.  We have poor class balance (lots of hunters/warlocks)  and we typically have 20-30 people on per night for raids.  Until we grow up a bit, this really won't be possible.   We're not a huge guild, we're just simply large and the only game in town for high end raiding on our podunk server (horde side that is).

My guild in EQ was similar. We were a Casual guild. We didn't force you to play an alt you didn't want to play on raids, we didn't have level limits, we didn't recruit by class, and as a result, all the bigger/more raid-oriented guilds had plenty of the most needed classes (healers, enchanters) and we were stuck with people who either didn't like raids to be like jobs or just didn't care that much about raids. And had there been caps on the size of raids, we'd have had real issues with trying to pick who could go and who couldn't. The worst part would have been those "required" classes would have ALWAYS had to be there.

You really cannot understand the issues this presents until you've had to deal with the problems of a friendly guild.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Sky on March 08, 2005, 01:51:39 PM
Quote
The worst part would have been those "required" classes would have ALWAYS had to be there.
I think that's the only problem I have with WoW. At some point the game stops being fun and starts being endgame EQ-like. So much done right and then....BAM shitbag city. Maybe it's not as bad as the EQ endgame, I never got past the original batch of Planes because it was so much bullshit for a not-fun raiding experience payoff. But then, EQ at release wasn't nearly so shitty at the endgame than it later became, so WoW has plenty of time to sink further into the suck.

Haemish, I wish I had been in that guild, may have saved my sanity. I play casually and I hate restrictive guilds, but I also like to play with competent players when I actually do have time to sit and group up. My EQ guild actually wasn't too bad...until they decided to reorganize (borged by another guild, too) for "raid content", and the "Inner Circle" of the new guild was a bunch of self-serving jackasses. I now totally hate not only the endgame bullshit, but just about any guild of decent size, because of the petty politics and drama. I won't put up with that kind of juvenile behaviour (high school shit imo) in reality, I'm damn sure not going to do so in my 'relaxing' hobby.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Fabricated on March 08, 2005, 02:08:01 PM
I've been playing WoW less and less since the endgame looks like a drag. Like I fucking feel like spending 3-4 hours in a raid with a clusterfuck of other people on the off chance I maybe, just maybe, will get one piece of an armor set I want, or a decent weapon.

That being said though, it's nice to see warriors getting some love. Thunderclap may just be useful outside of burning off excess rage now.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Luxor on March 09, 2005, 01:50:54 AM
I dont know if this has been menioned on the US forums but the EU version of the patch is going live on the 18th. I forsee a weekend of pain


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Ironwood on March 09, 2005, 04:29:36 AM
I dont know if this has been menioned on the US forums but the EU version of the patch is going live on the 18th. I forsee a weekend of pain

That's a shame - do you think you'll have any spare time to play WoW ?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: HaemishM on March 09, 2005, 08:23:24 AM
Haemish, I wish I had been in that guild, may have saved my sanity. I play casually and I hate restrictive guilds, but I also like to play with competent players when I actually do have time to sit and group up. My EQ guild actually wasn't too bad...until they decided to reorganize (borged by another guild, too) for "raid content", and the "Inner Circle" of the new guild was a bunch of self-serving jackasses. I now totally hate not only the endgame bullshit, but just about any guild of decent size, because of the petty politics and drama. I won't put up with that kind of juvenile behaviour (high school shit imo) in reality, I'm damn sure not going to do so in my 'relaxing' hobby.

That's the funny thing. We were a much more relaxed, fun guild to be around before we started really being eligible for "raid content." Soon as that happened, most of the resources, mine and the officer corps, got absolutely borged by the need to get the guild into a raidable state. And we didn't even "raid" all that often. But in order to do things like the Planes and Dragons, pretty much everything else got put on hold or dropped. We had a decent roleplaying storyline going in the guild (with our allied guilds) that got dropped because I couldn't devote any time to it or get much interest out of it because almost everyone wanted to raid for the phat lewtz. As that progressed, the alliance we were in and many members of the guild got caught up in the "I want to get mine" lewt hunger that led to me doing more forum arguing trying to set "fair" loot policies than anything else, including playing the game.

I hope WoW's endgame requirements are much easier on guild leaders, because that whole mentality can just destroy games for individuals and whole guilds alike. It turns friends into enemies squabbling over table scraps. Limiting the amount of people that can participate is almost akin to a guild size limit for any guild that wants to raid. Because if you have more than 50 people and want to do the instance that caps at 40 people, it's time to set a policy for who gets to go. Making that fair is going to be a fucking nightmare, especially if there are class issues involved, such as priests being mandatory for healing.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 09, 2005, 08:53:42 AM
Just did LBRS to Ommok/Voone/Shadowhunter last night.  Took just over 2 hours with 2 wipes: rogue went LD on big pull (he left due to lag) and another where we just unlucky with some heals (the 4 mobs + raider  + 2 wolves pulls are viscious + other shaman wasn't paying attention at time of pull).   Group was 2 hunters, 2 shaman, and a mage.  When we got going, we moved through it pretty fast and didn't have a problem on any of the bosses we faced.  Probably could have done it in about an hour 30 if we didn't have the two hiccups and the laggy rogue that had to be replaced (lag was bad last night, 150 pings in an instance).

You'll like this Sky; I'd now consider hunters (and multiples) to be great to have in these instances.  Freeze traps and the pets, which can be quite durable in some situations (hell, we pet tanked Voone) were a blessing.  Made everything much more manageable and on top of that they made up for the fact that I couldn't really add any DPS being on full time healer mode.   



Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Sky on March 09, 2005, 09:58:38 AM
Woot! Gotta love the hunter love. I'm in a kind of second honeymoon now with my hunter and WoW in general. The eqholic picked the game up last weekend, so I've been playing more (I was off in Battlefield Vietnam for a couple weeks, I loves the Battlefields!). The few weeks prior I was playing my mage and shaman alts...so now my main has like two full levels of rest, which is pretty nifty. Dinged 45 last night doing some leatherworking quests and all of 45 is blue. Also tamed Snarler...just before his nerf. Hope to get him out for some pvp over the weekend, maybe. Even ran into a very cool Shaman...I was out hunting in Feralas with my Longtooth Runner when Snarler spawned (he's rare ifyadintno). I was close to Mojache, so I jumped over the back wall there, stabled Longtooth, ran back...and a Shammy had Snarler almost dead. I asked him if I could tame it, and he went ahead and let me! Too bad Blizz decided to have less unique pets in the world, dammit. We need more cool pets, not less!


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Ironwood on March 10, 2005, 01:35:29 AM
You can tame the unique beasts ?

Dammit.  Wish I'd known that a while ago.

Is there anywhere you can point me for the full skinny on the hunter class ?  Thot and alaka don't seem to be chocka full of the details.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Trippy on March 10, 2005, 02:33:20 AM
You can tame the unique beasts ?

Dammit.  Wish I'd known that a while ago.

Is there anywhere you can point me for the full skinny on the hunter class ?  Thot and alaka don't seem to be chocka full of the details.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-hunter&t=155&p=1&tmp=1#post155


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Ironwood on March 10, 2005, 02:54:38 AM
Wow.  The Official Boards Hunter Discussion threads.  I should have thought of that.  I'm obviously too f13 orientated.

Cheers mate.


Edited to add :  Wait a minute, I have to tame another pet with bite or claw so that I can learn it and then teach it to Hobbes ?  Eh ?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: pants on March 10, 2005, 03:39:16 AM
Wow.  The Official Boards Hunter Discussion threads.  I should have thought of that.  I'm obviously too f13 orientated.

Cheers mate.


Edited to add :  Wait a minute, I have to tame another pet with bite or claw so that I can learn it and then teach it to Hobbes ?  Eh ?

Yep.  If you tamed Hobbes as, lets say a Lv10 Cougar from Mulgore, he won't have any skills.  You can learn basic growl from the pet trainer, but to learn any other skills you have to.

*  Put Hobbes into the stables.
*  Go out and tame another pet with the skill you want to learn.
*  Go and fight a few (only 2-3 mobs) with the new pet - you will learn the skill you want (Bite/Claw/Cower) off it.
*  Abandon the pet.
*  Go back and get Hobbes out of the stable.
*  Use Train Pet to teach Hobbes the new skill.

You have to do this not only when learning a brand new skill (ie learning Bite because Hobbes doesn't know Bite), but when upgrading a skill from, say Claw 1 to Claw 2.  So you end up faffing around with pets once every 7-8 levels to get their new skills.

There is a good list of what animals have what skills here -> http://www.goodintentionsguild.info/hunters.html


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Trippy on March 10, 2005, 04:43:52 AM
Some additional Hunter comments and clarifications:

Edited to add :  Wait a minute, I have to tame another pet with bite or claw so that I can learn it and then teach it to Hobbes ?  Eh ?

Yep.  If you tamed Hobbes as, lets say a Lv10 Cougar from Mulgore, he won't have any skills.  You can learn basic growl from the pet trainer, but to learn any other skills you have to.
You get Growl 1 and 2 automatically when you complete the second part of the beast taming quest. It's already in your Beast Training skill which confusingly is located under the General Spellbook tab (the top right tab) and not the Beast Mastery tab like your other Pet skills are. A lot of low level hunters don't realize this since the quest wording is very vague about all this.

Quote
*  Put Hobbes into the stables.
*  Go out and tame another pet with the skill you want to learn.
*  Go and fight a few (only 2-3 mobs) with the new pet - you will learn the skill you want (Bite/Claw/Cower) off it.
It may take more than a couple of mobs to learn the new skill. You'll see some text appear in your General chat window (not the Combat Log) window when this happens. It also helps to put that skill on autocast (right click on it) so you don't have to micromanage it.

Not all pet families can learn all four pet skills (Growl, Bite, Claw, Cower) though all the cats can so you won't run into that issue with Hobbes. When you do teach Hobbes Claw you may want to consider leaving autocast turned off on it if you need Hobbes to do the tanking while solo. Claw does not have a cooldown (just the normal skill refresh time) so he'll burn through his energy very quickly if you leave it on autocast and then he won't have energy for Growl and he'll lose aggro. If you are in a group with sufficient tankage you can turn off Growl autocast and turn on Claw autocast and have Hobbes swipe away at mobs.

Edit: Ugh, *Growl* not *Cower*


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Ironwood on March 10, 2005, 07:01:45 AM
Cheers for the assists all.  I have growl and cower already, since I think I learned them when I was trundling about with the taming quests (the crab and the boar).  It's just a shame I didn't know about this earlier, or I could have done it before level 15 !  Yeah, Yeah, I know - pwned Noob, etc.

It also clears up another question I had - Hobbes NEVER uses up any of his Focus at all, and I was starting to wonder what the hell it was 'for' and why you would use talents to increase it.  Obviously, if the other skills burn through it quicker, that would make sense.  You just know that if something's too easy, you're doing it wrong...

I still say that it's the most fun class I have played yet - I have a warrior (yuck) a 20th Rogue and my hunter - the wife has a paladin, a priest - neither of which appeal to me.  Though oddly enough, she never has any trouble getting a group....


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Sky on March 10, 2005, 08:09:45 AM
Well, since you only have growl/cower, and only one of those should be active at any given time, he's using very little focus. When you teach him claw and/or bite, he'll use more. But pets regen focus quick, so it's not really a big deal. I think improving a pet's focus is pretty much a waste of talent points. I did take the hit point boosting talent, but that was to fill out prereqs for the run speed talents in the beastmastery tree (right now I'm 18 beast/18 marksman, but the rest of my talents will be marksman).

Anyone know if the Snarler nerf means that the Burning Roc (fire resists..helloooo mages and warlocks!) is getting a nerf as well? I was hunting in Tanaris last night and thought about taming one while I'm there...and ditching my King B, finally. He has slightly better stats and better dps than my longtooth runner, but the wolf does ok, since he's a speed pet and not a tank pet. Thinking about grabbing a scorpid or a bear to complement Longtooth.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Calantus on March 10, 2005, 08:13:08 AM
It wasn't a Snarler nerf. It is a nerf for all pet resistance, so yeah... the rocs will be nerfed.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Sky on March 10, 2005, 09:41:11 AM
whaaaaaahhh  :cry: As I said previously:
Quote
Too bad Blizz decided to have less unique pets in the world, dammit. We need more cool pets, not less!
Guess I'll stick with my wolf, blah. How bland. And get a bear like every other moron. Yay.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Phred on March 14, 2005, 04:40:25 AM
whaaaaaahhh  :cry: As I said previously:
Quote
Too bad Blizz decided to have less unique pets in the world, dammit. We need more cool pets, not less!
Guess I'll stick with my wolf, blah. How bland. And get a bear like every other moron. Yay.

Maybe your server is different, but the 2 I've played on most, the morons tend to gravitate toward cats. King B or lookalikes seem to be the pet of choice of the worst hunters I've encountered,  at least.

Oh ya, another good hunter trick I picked up recently, that's obvious in retrospect but didn't occur to me. Use a freezing trap when taming pets. You don't have to take a beating as long if you can keep the potential pet nicely away from you.

I tamed a black bear in Loch Modan at 10 when I got the skill and have stayed with him pretty well exclusively. I tried a swamp jaguar for a bit but with the pet speed bug, his much higher pursuit speed was pretty well useless most of the time, and he didn't seem to tank as well as the bear. I've tried a turtle but the supposed better armor class wasn't there when I compared him with my bear so I went back to the bear. The main reason I like the bear is they will eat anything, don't make annoying sounds when they attack like apes do and he does a decent job of tanking. It would be nice is pets had a bit more variety though. Other than attack speed and run speed when told to attack, they all seem pretty much the same and Blizzard seems determined to set them all to the lowest common denominator.



Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Ironwood on March 14, 2005, 07:12:18 AM


Maybe your server is different, but the 2 I've played on most, the morons tend to gravitate toward cats.


I take offense, Sir !


As to your other remark, it's another one of the hallmark problems of online games - if you don't make ALL pets bland and the same, then mostly everyone will use the same 'good' pet.  It's that simple.  And once you realise that, all you're left with is a lot of different pets with the 'same' grades.

Come with solutions !!


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Jayce on March 14, 2005, 07:21:08 AM

As to your other remark, it's another one of the hallmark problems of online games - if you don't make ALL pets bland and the same, then mostly everyone will use the same 'good' pet.  It's that simple.  And once you realise that, all you're left with is a lot of different pets with the 'same' grades.

Come with solutions !!


Various pets for various situations.  This pet has good resists, this one is fast.  That one has a lot of hp or damage mitigation, but the other is a glass cannon (high damage but fragile).  In essence, create a microcosm of the (well-done in WoW) class differentiation but in the pet world.

The hard part might be this dual-vision design: each beast-type mob has to be both an adversary and potential ally.  That could  complicate encounter creation.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Phred on March 14, 2005, 08:59:37 AM
What Jayce said. Balance for the pets is tricky, especially with the hunter being one of the last classes added, but having some reason to have a few pets stabled or picking a pet that fits how you want to play the class would be much more interesting, IMO. It's like the talents for hunter. At first look it would seem that having a fast attacking pet would be a good thing if you went beast mastery, what with the talent that heals you every time the pet hits something, but I find with my play style I am so infrequently in melee that the need to be healed by my pet is non-existant. If I'm getting attacked, it's usually from a big crit and I usually take a couple of hits then disengage and back off to gun range. I've gone from dual wielding and caring about melee weapons to picking a 2H weapon with stats, and my skill is usually hovering about 5-10 pts behind my level max.



Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 14, 2005, 09:09:25 AM
Just an FYI, hunters become pretty valid offtanks in later instances in the proper gear.  I'd wager a few of them are using that pet heal ability. 


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: pants on March 14, 2005, 01:29:44 PM
(lag was bad last night, 150 pings in an instance).

Please tell me you're joking.  Please tell me 150 pings are not 'bad'.

Anything under 500 is good for me - regularly play at 500-600.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 14, 2005, 01:33:09 PM
I typically ping in the low 60s, especially if I'm in an instance with only 4 other people.  If my ping starts hovering above 150 in an instance, 400+ in org,  or high 200s in zones like STV, I can tell it's a bad day for the server. 

Sorry to those of you on shit connects or overcrowded servers.   


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Jayce on March 14, 2005, 01:34:29 PM
Sargeras just started having queues and lag problems lately.  I have pung around 120ish on average since forever.  Now sometimes it climbs into the 200s.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Calantus on March 14, 2005, 05:45:39 PM
I ping 300-400 from Australia... how the hell do you ping 500-600? Dial-up?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: pants on March 14, 2005, 06:01:31 PM
I ping 300-400 from Australia... how the hell do you ping 500-600? Dial-up?

Not sure frankly.  I'm coming from Aus too - on tpg's 1.5Meg ADSL plan - maybe coz Proudmoore is one of the basket case servers?  Anyway I regularly see 500-600 pings - which means 95% of my online time the ping bar thingy is red.  Maybe I'll try out a lower pop server and see what the pings are like (altho convincing the rest of my guild to move could be, ah, interesting).


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Margalis on March 14, 2005, 07:08:32 PM
A large problem with raids is that WoW is not generally a group centric or guild centric game. Then suddenly the endgame is to gather huge swaths of people.

I think they just didn't know what else to do. Fast levelling curve, people get to the end...and what?


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Rasix on March 14, 2005, 08:45:53 PM
Que?

Edit: Valid and somewhat true observation (to a point), just a tad out of left field at this point in the thread.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Margalis on March 14, 2005, 09:32:51 PM
Que?

Edit: Valid and somewhat true observation (to a point), just a tad out of left field at this point in the thread.

I haven't been reading the therad, and that was the interesting part.

Now go back to discussing your ping.  :-P


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Ironwood on March 15, 2005, 01:40:04 AM
I ping 300-400 from Australia... how the hell do you ping 500-600? Dial-up?

Yes.

*Sob*

Playing from work, I get as low as 100 - But of course the downside is getting caught and fired...

It helps that I'm on the European Earthen Ring, which is a nice little quiet polite and stable server.  I love it.

Fucking dial-up.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Paelos on March 15, 2005, 07:03:42 AM
I ping 200 avg with blips of 500-600 about once an hour. I've seen it get as bad as 1000 and still be connected. Of course, the server crashed soon after. Although I did get in some kickass screenshots of the Dark Portal while the guards lagged.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Jayce on March 15, 2005, 07:11:53 AM
I think they do rolling restarts of the game cluster when the server gets unstable.  Yesterday people in my guild in different parts of the world were being disconnected at different times.  Before they'd get disconnected things were weird, like the gryphon NPC not being in Stormwind and the Tram not running, and after they were OK.

But it was all at different times based on where you were in the world.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Train Wreck on March 16, 2005, 09:33:43 AM
I used to consistantly run at around 100 ping on a cable modem.  Two weeks ago it increased to 300, and now I can't stay connected for longer than a minute.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: Sky on March 21, 2005, 05:21:15 PM
Quote
Oh ya, another good hunter trick I picked up recently, that's obvious in retrospect but didn't occur to me. Use a freezing trap when taming pets. You don't have to take a beating as long if you can keep the potential pet nicely away from you.

I tamed a black bear in Loch Modan at 10 when I got the skill and have stayed with him pretty well exclusively. I tried a swamp jaguar for a bit but with the pet speed bug, his much higher pursuit speed was pretty well useless most of the time, and he didn't seem to tank as well as the bear. I've tried a turtle but the supposed better armor class wasn't there when I compared him with my bear so I went back to the bear.
Yes, freezing traps are almost a necessity when taming, especially some of the nastier stuff later on (heck, taming the King is kinda tricky in itself if solo).

I haven't found the differentiation between 'non-special' pets (no resistances, run buffs, no fast atk speed, etc) to be anything at all really. While I haven't done scientific analysis of it, using several different kinds of pets never really favored any type over another noticeably. So I'm still sticking with my Longtooth runner. The run speed bug is annoying, but there are a few workarounds that make it less annoying than it could have been.
Quote
Various pets for various situations.  This pet has good resists, this one is fast.  That one has a lot of hp or damage mitigation, but the other is a glass cannon (high damage but fragile).  In essence, create a microcosm of the (well-done in WoW) class differentiation but in the pet world.
Well, exactly. And to an extent, it's the system that's in place and being patched out, which is why I'm pissed about it. I /like/ planning ahead, if I'm going to the Searing Gorge, I'm going to bring Mortimer, my roc from Tanaris with 250 fire resist (yeah, I went and got him, he matches my badass red jeans (tm themexicanrooster). Even so, he doesn't resist much more than my 0 fire resist Longtooth.

Still thinking about a tank pet, but hate giving up run speed and/or attack speed.


Ping - goes from mid 40's to 200ms on ER.


Title: Re: Upcoming patch notes, test servers going live
Post by: HRose on March 21, 2005, 09:17:14 PM
I'm around 250-300 from Italy and on dial up :)