f13.net

Patch notes: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/17561381/61-ptr-patch-notes-january-29-1-29-2015

Unless they're sneaking something in at the last minute (or maybe they already did at launch and has yet to be activated?), this is a Quality of Life patch, something they really haven't done for long time. Class balance changes all over, Heirloom system overhaul, Garrison updates and improvements for all related systems, Profession updates, and even colorblind-mode.

And to celebrate Blood Elfs finally getting their base model update along with Twitter integration (because blowing up Twitter with acheivement/boss kill spam is EXACTLY what the world needed), here's a fun vid showing off the new S.E.L.F.I.E. camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWVCJtli7BY

I don't see anything in there that makes me want to play my warlock more fun, sadly. I'm finding warlock to be the worst of the classes I've played this expansion. Really clunky.

this makes me much more excited than it should.

Clunky is the way the combat on all my characters felt.  In eating their own dogshit about rotation optimization they forgot to leave us with a few buttons to press that don't require a regression analysis to lowest common denominator of 4 seconds.  First expansion where after the first rotation I could be standing around waiting for RNG to proc an ability cooldown.  Probably plays better at max gear with Haste and your key proc metric maxxed... but I wasn't interested enough to find that out.  Ironically, the way WoW "fixed" combat by making it fun all those years ago is why I started playing.

Oh I didn't know that, cool.  Also, I'm going to enjoy the increase in raid wipes because of people taking selfies.

I was just setting up my Pally to tank and was amused to see that haste was the top secondary stat to take according to icy veins... so that your resources come online faster. That screams out to me that instead of being seamless there is some janky shit going down in button mashing town. Sadly it's true of most of my characters :(

I think the paladin thing has more to do with the fact that you have a fixed rate at which you can generate holy power (which is tied to specific abilities that generate a point), and your two prime defensive's both require holy power to activate.  Therefore, the faster you can cycle those abilities, the faster you generate holy power, and the more "uptime" you have on your prime defensive.   Paladins currently have only one mechanic that gives them any kind of "random" holy power generation, which is pretty much a "hit it every time it lights up for a bonus point" kind of thing. They actually have one of the least "button mashy" tank rotations, since the cooldown timers on a few of their abilities pretty much make for a fixed rotation of x, y, filler, x, filler, y filler, repeat, or something similar.

6.1 dropped on Tuesday.

Nice changes, especially the heirlooms tab. I ended up getting a mount out of it for having plenty of heirlooms - a chauffeured motorcycle, usable at level 1. I think it's awarded at 35 heirlooms.

All one must do is log into each character where one might have heirlooms. Don't have to actually find them and click on them or open bags or bank, just log in.

Other new things are nice as well - click all for work orders, new quests in garrisons, new profession stuff to learn.

Yeah it's 35 heirlooms. Love the tab, I can now level-up alts without all the ridiculous mail-swapping of gear AND transmog them so each character looks the way I want the whole time.  Such a small thing but it makes a big difference. This is the type of QOL stuff Bliz used to be the best at.

The other changes are nice, but not earth shattering. I had mods to do most of the tedious clicking already and haven't tried the quests out yet.  I've been enmeshed in the Pet Battle world ever since I discovered the ez-Carry to 25 route. 

What is the ezy carry to 25 route? I am noob at pet battles. I think I have 3 over 20 (but not 25 yet). I'm not even sure they are the right 3. I last beat the trainers on Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, and was sent to Outlands.

I followed this guy's Youtube video to get my first ~23 pet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ihzt0kh6JA

I made some changes as I kept getting stomped by the Moths at the last step, but the crabs roflstomp critters. Since that's what the majority of the creatures at the farm area in Pandaria are I was able to sweep up a few critters and then use those to nab other level 25 pets in other zones.

Now since 25s drop to 23 you're stuck grinding, right? No.

The pet trainer in your garrison sells tokens for only 3 battle tokens that will give any pet a 1 level boost. There's another for 2 tokens that gives a random pet *family* a boost but for the first few pets I bought the 3-token since it was for any family.  No chance I wouldn't get a token for the pet I was looking to level.

The way you get those tokens is by defeating trainers in Draenor. The best way of doing so is using the Pandaria Mechanical Dragonling (though I use the Darkmoon Zepplin as it has similar abilities) and the Sprite Darter Hatchling.  The guide to do all the trainers with just these two pets is here:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/15353775980

Sometimes you lose to a crit early, but those exact patterns work pretty well.

After I had my level 23s I used them to beat-up Ashlei over a few days and get tokens to make them 25.

If you've got a few 20s you *might* be able to luck your way into defeating Ashlei. One of her pets is a stuffed elekk and it has no offensive moves so you're fighting a trainer with only 2 pets.  You don't have to run the challenges to do Draenor trainers. Just run up to her and the daily is already available.

It's better to level one pet to 25 than to swap them around to share XP.  Once they hit 25 they stop gaining XP, so any XP goes only to the other active pets. When power-leveling you've got (2) 25s and a "carry"  The carry gets ALL the xp as if they'd defeated everything themselves, provided they did one combat move and have survived.

Include the bonus from fighting a pet trainer and being under-leveled and you can get a level 1 pet to 11 in a single fight against Ashlei. As you get your team together to beat other trainers you can get them up to 25 in a day's circuit.  Apparently if you have the Safari Hat (10% EXP to pets) and a pet biscuit on them (another 10%) you can hit 25 in only 3 fights.

Thanks for the pet info!  Those little buggers are fun.

You're missing a trick.  Ashlei is so fucking easy, she can be soloed by the netherchap.

So you can actually carry two pets in her fight.  Further, they used to get 5k exp.  It's been nerfed into the fucking ground now.  You're in for a much longer journey.  Used to be 3 pet fights to get your chap from 1 to 25, now it's almost the complete circuit.

I have almost all the pet cheevies pre patch and complete the celestial tournament weekly.  It's insane the amount of level 25 pets I now have.   :heartbreak:

What nethercap?  I just started last week so I don't have a lot of pets.

As for the xp, I know I got 5k off Ashlei last night. It was the last thing I did before bed. No hat no treat.  Took my Starcraft Murky from 4 to 17.  The Xp from the Draenor trainers does decrease significantly after the pet hits 20 though.

This Chap (http://www.warcraftpets.com/wow-pets/dragonkin/dragon-whelps/nexus-whelpling/).  He can solo the lot.  The trick is making sure he doesn't fucking kill anyone before the two carry pets get some XP.  There are times when Doodles just won't swap the fuck out of the way.

Interesting about the XP, I shall recheck tonight using a tiny wee scrote.  I should be getting more since I now have to do Raiding With Leashes III.

Also, make sure you level your GWHS pets asap.

(Yes, I see what I did there..)

GWHS?

Geyser, Whirlpool, Howl, Surge of Power.

It's a way to do over 3k damage in a very short space of time.

Pandaran Water Elemental and Chrominius.  For example, Eleanor the Goat is the boss today in EU world.  Bitch gets FUCKED by GWHS.

Free Badges.  Free level 3 menagerie pet.

I tried for Chrominius on 4 characters last weekend and didn't get him to drop at all. Maybe I'll  have better luck this week, but going after that first boss is a drag because the mechanics suck.

I got him from a drop, but he usually shows up on the AH for quite reasonable amounts....

I'm training a second one at the mo for the wife.  Done her a water elemental, so...

Add Unborn Val'kyr as the third pet to make this even better.  Start with the Val'kyr and use Curse of Doom followed by Unholy Ascension.  Val'kyr dies, put in Water Elemental and use Geyser followed by Whirlpool.  Swap to Chrominus and Howl+Surge of Power.  Also known as the Howlbomb team. 

Doing it this way, Curse of Doom will go off one turn before the Geyser/Whirlpool.  You can also adjust it to make all 3 hit at the same time but you'll lose out on the 25% extra damage from Unholy Ascension.  Fight with the Unborn Val'kyr normally until she's killed by the mob, then use Curse of Doom on her "free" turn.  GWHS as usual.

I prefer the first method but either way will wreck the shit out of most "elite" pet bosses.

Yeah.  But despite my own good luck with UV, she's a hard one to get.

Ahh, the Howlbomb gang.  Yeah. Already got them covered.

Having a Beast pet with the Stampede type debuff + a Damage on hit Debuff (like a Zandalari raptor) is also pretty nice for many combo's too.

Wow. Thanks for all of this info.

Do you guys even play the regular game any more, or just the pet battles?

I do the regular game still, but it's mostly raiding 3 nights a week doing Heroic/ Mythic stuff and using the Inn on alts to farm cash.

No Chromini so far this week, either.  Though I've discovered that characters below 100 have an easier time on Razorgore. The adds don't seem to eat him as fast.

Is  this where I can beg for some gold to buy some heirlooms? I'm poor.

Also, anyone on Hyjal that can make some 630 BOEs weps that I can use to level from 90.