#3 guild in the US quits WoW.

[Valmorian]

I really think you should give it another go.

Is it much better?  I've been tempted for a while now to go back to LOTRO for a bit, but I seem to recall that as I got higher in level the areas seemed less and less "finished".

[Mrbloodworth]

I really think you should give it another go.

Is it much better?  I've been tempted for a while now to go back to LOTRO for a bit, but I seem to recall that as I got higher in level the areas seemed less and less "finished".

They have been revamping a lot of the upper areas with each "Book". As well as adding 1-2 each time as well, and 1 to 2 classes get more top end skills added. I say people should give it another go, because I'm sure, if you played Wow for any length of time, LOTRO was not given a fair look. For one, don't play it like Wow, the end is not the only part that matters.

Check out this discussion here for more takes on it.


Anyway 2c.

[Chimpy]

All I know about LOTRO is that it's TAXI TO VICTORY only lasted 2 weeks.

[shiznitz]

My old EQ1 gang is split 40/40/20 WoW/LOTRO/EQ2. I hear good thing about LOTRO quite often, the most common being that the grind is minimal and the atomosphere is great if you like Tolkein.

[Lightstalker]

WoW brings out the Achiever, LotRO brings out the explorer.  I suppose it helps that I play LotRO solo and don't have a guild eager to chew through 'new' content.

I do wonder about the playability at times.  WoW has done their usability studies even if you don't agree with what you are expected to do in game.  In LotRO you have more confirmation dialogs about getting off your horse than for buying a house...  Though, LotRO bug fixing appears faster than WoW bugfixing, so I guess one can't have everything.

[Paelos]

I'm starting to feel like Blizzard is losing it's ability to create group content that isn't horribly annoying instead of fun. I don't think the new 5 Man is even that fun. I remember when Dire Maul came out and I thought, DAMN this is a good time.

Magister's Terrace just seems like they took the trash pulls from Shattered Halls, coupled it with the boss fight from the "PvP group" in BRD, and then dumbed down the Kael fight adding floating orbs of doom.

Heavy CC, high trash/boss ratio instances aren't my idea of a good time. Given the fact they itemized it to pretty much exclude tanks barring 1 trinket, I've basically said fuck that place.

[Fordel]

My first memories of Dire Maul were "shit those ogres hit hard!" 

As to Magister's.

The first bit of trash isn't terrible, you can skip a little bit of it and it's a good intro to the kind of mobs you'll be fighting. Not too far in and you reach the first boss room with the crack elves. This is the first time in the dungeon where I really start to think "I hope you brought CC!". I think it's six or seven mobs to a pull? They don't hit very hard, but it can easily overwhelm if your DPS is retarded and can't assist. The first boss himself is a loot pinata. SV end boss, the sequel.


The 2nd hall/area is probably my favorite in the whole dungeon. The little Trail of mana fish mobs you follow into the "Holy fuck that's a lot of mana fish!" hall. Gleefully discovering the mana fish buff your damage, wondering if you were supposed to use said buff to kill the 2nd boss. I really like the 2nd boss , the mini Curator. There are a bunch of different ways to approach the fight and it gives someone other then the tank and healer responsibility that doesn't completely revolve around "screw up and wipe us all!". Also a fight where things like hunter/warlock pets aren't just random damage adds! The fact the entire fight can be 'controlled' if desired is also really nice.

The little cutscene is a nice bonus too, as is what's his face showing up.

The third section is where things start to get really stupid trash wise. The big golem robots aren't to much trouble, kill a couple of those then you start with the 4-6 mob pulls with half of them being casters, the other half being super annoying. This is where you 'appreciate' the difference between all the caster mobs you fought before in other dungeons, and the MT caster mobs. Other dungeons have casters that cast one spell every 15 seconds then melee you with a staff. The MT mobs act like actual casters and do nothing but spam their spells at you. Spells that actually hurt. You get at least two of these a pull, along side a LadyDemon that seduces, a Ethereal that blinks and PBAE's, the stun boomerang shield warrior, the 2h paladin that actually has a heal worth a damn and the priest mob that uses PRoM.

What sucks about this pull, is you do it at least a dozen times in a row. Just two rooms full of this same pull, for no reason outside of 'because'. You can't really skip most of it either, since you need the space they all occupy for the 3rd boss fight.

The 3rd boss is actually a entire enemy AI group. The Boss fight is a PvE version of a PvP fight. The mobs don't obey aggro rules, will target the healer/squishies and are all completely CC able, but not Tauntable. The moral of this boss fight is snare kite ftw. It's as mentioned, the BRD Dungeon 2 quest fight all over again. Which is good imo, since so few people actually got to do the Dungeon 2 fight. This fight generates a LOT of tears from pure pve folk. The "I have 2k +dmg/heal but only 50 Hitpoints!" kind of pure pve folk. If your a priest in the primal mooncloth set, go pick up your rep vendor blue pvp set and use it, if only for this fight. Your life will be made infinitely easier.

There is only one more group of trash in your way before Kael, it's pretty much the same group of trash you already killed 20 times by now, only notable because you have to fight it in what feels like the slimmest hallway ever created.

Then your left with Kael himself. If the 2nd boss is Mini Curator, then this Kael is a mini-me version of his 25 man counterpart. The first 50% is straight forward and simple, any PuG will manage it without issue. The second 50% is where you may be questioning your choice of group mates. The actual mechanic is really cool, especially since there isn't really anything like it in the 5-10 man range up until that point. It also causes people to turn dumb, dumb and blind.

Overall, I do like the dungeon, they just need to remove 50% of the trash and rework the remaining 50% to not fuck over every DPS'er in game that doesn't come with CC. "You can't Trap, Sap or Poly? Why are you even here?". This is also the dungeon that highlights how far behind Holy paladins have come in healing 5mans. It seriously a giant fuck you to them.

But everything else I like. I enjoy the boss fights, I enjoy that the trash seems to have a little depth, I really liked the little bit of 'lolore' they put in, along with how they tied the 25 man into the 5.

As to the loot, my two mains are a Moonkin and Prot Paladin, neither gets loot to begin with :p


PS. The invisible wall on the entry balcony? totally should drop once the 3rd boss is dead!

[Driakos]

PS. The invisible wall on the entry balcony? totally should drop once the 3rd boss is dead!

Yes.

[Paelos]

Yeah, I guess I was just expecting something else. I wasn't expecting massive amounts of trash thus defining the exact type of groups you would have to have, not to mention a final boss that directly punishes certain classes like melee dps and pally/shaman healers.

That and the loot diversity really sucks. I don't see many tanks wanting to do this place for long. Once they get that trinket, they are basically done. There are about 10 different places in Outlands that are easier to get badges. Slave Pens, Botanica, Mech, Underbog, Ramparts, even Old Hillsbrad is simple now with the lookouts gone.

[Zetor]

The second and fourth bosses are "really fun" to heal as a shaman [and even worse as a pally, I'm guessing, as shamans at least have a kinda-AOE heal and a weak AOE hot]. The tank is taking heavy constant damage, the group itself is taking significant AOE damage, and everyone has to spread out so I can't even chainheal them. No instant heals make dodging the phoenix / flamestrikes / orbs while trying to keep the rest of the group alive in the Kael fight "really fun" too (though we cheated with our feral druid tank keeping HOTs on everyone while up in the air, might as well put the mana pool to good use since there's no tank for phase 2).   

Of course, the Blizzard forums are full of resto shamans in tier6 posting that the "instance is tuned just fine, easy to heal, l2p" and boasting how they zoomed through heroic MT with no CC in 1 hour. I'm impressed, really!

It's not as bad as the first boss of H-Crypts (hi2u 400% casting speed reduction), but it's not good on the blood pressure, that's for sure. Especially with a pug. :p


-- Z.

[Paelos]

If Blizzard tunes instances to the overgeared, then I'm going to honestly quit a month after the expansion. You are supposed to tune instances to those who could use all the drops as an actual upgrade.

[Fordel]

They already do with Heroics. Most of them just aren't doable with the gear you'd get from Rep and normal dungeons. Not without an 'ideal' group setup.

The leap from even a kara/badge tank back down to a Rep/Dungeon blue tank is somewhere between laughable and demoralizing.

[Fabricated]

I don't think the instance is tuned for the overgeared so much as it's tuned for the most generic WoW group ever. If you're not packing 3 forms of hard CC go home is basically what Magister's Terrace says. If you're an offspec you're fucked. There's like 4 amazingly great drops for fury/arms warriors in there but NO reason to bring one. I did it several times on the PTR with groups of people in blues. 3 of the best runs I had were with groups with like 6 epics between everyone...and hilariously enough the worst 2 were with groups where everyone else was rocking full T6.

The lack of tank loot depresses me too but well, I'm used to not getting upgrades. I can get...a trinket and a pretty cool set of tank throwing knives to hold me over until I get my ubiquitous tank gun.

[Paelos]

There's like 4 amazingly great drops for fury/arms warriors in there but NO reason to bring one.

Uh, yeah. Can you not see this coming as the gods of the game? I'm pissed off because they utterly and totally FUCKED THIS PLACE UP.

[Simond]

This is about the only WoW forum I've seen where people are nerdraging over MrT (other than "Second boss in heroic  " which is everywhere) What gives?

[Chimpy]

This is about the only WoW forum I've seen where people are nerdraging over MrT (other than "Second boss in heroic  " which is everywhere) What gives?

Paelos nerdrages about everything that is not totally filled to the gills with what he considers good warrior tank loot, has more than one trash pull in the whole zone, and doesn't look exactly as he thinks it should aesthetically.

[Fabricated]

This is about the only WoW forum I've seen where people are nerdraging over MrT (other than "Second boss in heroic  " which is everywhere) What gives?

Paelos nerdrages about everything that is not totally filled to the gills with what he considers good warrior tank loot, has more than one trash pull in the whole zone, and doesn't look exactly as he thinks it should aesthetically.

I started becoming that way after about my 5th Kara run as a tank when we stepped out into the library. It does eat shit to be a tank in terms of drops though, because our best (read: the most significant boosts to our survivability) come from bosses towards the END of each raid which is kinda odd considering that the tank is pretty much the most gear dependent role in the game and that shit would be a lot more useful for meeting gearchecks towards the beginning of the instance.

I like MgT a lot though. It's fun with the right group, but it sucks that it's neigh-undoable at the appropriate gear level (read: should be all blues) without it.

[Paelos]

This is about the only WoW forum I've seen where people are nerdraging over MrT (other than "Second boss in heroic  " which is everywhere) What gives?

Paelos nerdrages about everything that is not totally filled to the gills with what he considers good warrior tank loot, has more than one trash pull in the whole zone, and doesn't look exactly as he thinks it should aesthetically.

Yeah, we'll see how easy it is to get tanks involved in the place over time. It's already tough enough trying to find the CC classes for it in our raiding alliance. As far as filled to the gills with tank loot, you're nuts. When you put 13 items on an end boss, you'd expect one to be tanking. Instead, for example, 2 of them are leather dps shoulders. WTF?

[Chimpy]

You obviously did not read and understand what my post said. Nowhere did I say anything about the loot of any specific zone, or even that it was filled to the gills.

Step away from the game if you hate it so much, seriously. Every post you make about the game is bitching about how anything new added doesn't fit what you consider to be the direction the game should take.

[Phunked]

They already do with Heroics. Most of them just aren't doable with the gear you'd get from Rep and normal dungeons. Not without an 'ideal' group setup.

The leap from even a kara/badge tank back down to a Rep/Dungeon blue tank is somewhere between laughable and demoralizing.

They certainly are doable.With worse gear than what you have now.

They're hard yes. You can't screw up yes. But you CAN do them. We cleared Heroic SH with one cc 2 days after 70. Not because ZOMG WE ARE LEET, but because we figured out a strat and said here we go, this is how we're going to approach the pull and executed it. Yes we wiped a couple times, largely because I screwed up a pull or someone CC'd  a moment too late. But it was brand new content and supposedly hard, if I hadn't wiped on it I would have quit the damn game right then and there.

Stop saying stuff isn't doable. Magister's Terrace is harder than the other instance at 70 because for once the mobs are all individually dangerous (aside from the physicians who don't do shit). Seriously, I don't care if you play 2 or 20 hours a week, asking for easy content is the dumbest shit ever. It's meant to be hard, god mode gets boring after 20 minutes.

[schild]

Ah yes, MMOGs, where hard means unbalanced and more hitpoints.

God bless you, diku-landscape, you always deliver.

[Phunked]

This is about the only WoW forum I've seen where people are nerdraging over MrT (other than "Second boss in heroic  " which is everywhere) What gives?

Paelos nerdrages about everything that is not totally filled to the gills with what he considers good warrior tank loot, has more than one trash pull in the whole zone, and doesn't look exactly as he thinks it should aesthetically.

Yeah, we'll see how easy it is to get tanks involved in the place over time. It's already tough enough trying to find the CC classes for it in our raiding alliance. As far as filled to the gills with tank loot, you're nuts. When you put 13 items on an end boss, you'd expect one to be tanking. Instead, for example, 2 of them are leather dps shoulders. WTF?

Let's go through this step by step:

1st boss regular:

http://wowhead.com/?item=34699

DPS axe for warriors/shaman, can also tank with it for high devastates.

2nd boss regular:

http://wowhead.com/?item=34706

Nice tanking ring with expertise and armor for warriors and feral druids

http://wowhead.com/?item=34703

Slow MH sword for rogues/warriors, DPS or tanking (large devastates again)

3rd boss regular:

http://wowhead.com/?item=34783

Excellent tanking ranged weapon, or a rogue stat filler.

http://wowhead.com/?item=34789

Very nice DPS bracers for warriors pallies.

4th boss regular:

http://wowhead.com/?item=34807

DPS boots

http://wowhead.com/?item=34810

Tanking/PvP cloak

http://wowhead.com/?item=34798

DPS ring

Now onto heroic

1st boss heroic:

http://wowhead.com/?item=34601

DPS shoulders

http://wowhead.com/?item=34603

DPS/tanking thrown

2nd boss heroic:

http://wowhead.com/?item=34606

1.3 speed dagger. Pretty shitty to tank with overall (getting less AP from normalization) but it is really fast for heroic strike rage dumps. Arguably the only boss without a drop tailored to warriors..

3rd boss heroic:

http://wowhead.com/?item=34472

Best trinket in the game for any tank not expertise capped

http://wowhead.com/?item=34473

Best trinket in the game against anything that hits even remotely hard.

4th boss heroic:

http://wowhead.com/?item=34615

DPS chest

http://wowhead.com/?item=34609

Fast sword (for tanking) that also doubles as a rogue offhand

http://wowhead.com/?item=34616

slow axe for DPS warriors, shaman, hunters.

That instance has a drop that a warrior would want on all but one boss in both heroic and normal modes (7/8 bosses have desirable loot), with several bosses having multiple desirable items. Please stop bitching that the entire place does not provide you with t6 tanking, dps and standing around in Shat gear. The place has much more tank loot than most other 5 mans.

[Llava]

Ah yes, MMOGs, where hard means unbalanced and more hitpoints.

God bless you, diku-landscape, you always deliver.

That isn't what they're talking about.  These things don't hit harder and don't have more hitpoints.  But they're mostly casters, so that requires different tactics, and there are a lot of them, so you have to be coordinated or else they'll overwhelm you.

Strategy and coordination, like real multiplayer games.

[Fabricated]

Ah yes, MMOGs, where hard means unbalanced and more hitpoints.

God bless you, diku-landscape, you always deliver.

That isn't what they're talking about.  These things don't hit harder and don't have more hitpoints.  But they're mostly casters, so that requires different tactics, and there are a lot of them, so you have to be coordinated or else they'll overwhelm you.

Strategy and coordination, like real multiplayer games.

Basically, you can't CC the right mobs and have the pull magically become easy. Most of the other BC instances have pulls with like 4-5 mobs where only 1-2 are anything to worry about. In MgT pretty much every mob has something dangerous it does (Warlocks spam a nasty incinerate, Physicians actually cast a prayer of mending, blood knights hit soft targets hard and have a big heal, mage guards have that fucking glaive throw, ethereals dump aggro teleport and aoe, succubus seduces, etc.).

[Llava]

My point exactly.  I was trying to express the point that it's not so hard because they do X more damage and have Y more hit points.  There's real strategy involved in dealing with all that craziness.

[Paelos]

You obviously did not read and understand what my post said. Nowhere did I say anything about the loot of any specific zone, or even that it was filled to the gills.

Step away from the game if you hate it so much, seriously. Every post you make about the game is bitching about how anything new added doesn't fit what you consider to be the direction the game should take.

I like the game a lot. I don't like this new zone, so I don't run it. I don't think other tanks will either in the long run. Is there some fundamental rule on the forums that I shouldn't voice such an issue? Step away from "teh h8" long enough to realize the point I'm making. Exactly what am I supposed to gleen from "frothing nerdrage" "one pull" and "filled to the gills" anyway? If you want to be a dick, step up and do it.

Toolbox.

[Paelos]

My point exactly.  I was trying to express the point that it's not so hard because they do X more damage and have Y more hit points.  There's real strategy involved in dealing with all that craziness.

There's strategy to a point. Then somebody posts how to min/max it with the right classes, and that's that. For example, I'd never walk into the place without a warlock, period. That sort of starts to limit your class choices on that alone.

[Llava]

<shrug>

As time passes, groups will become more and more lax and still succeed because they know what's coming.  Time was you couldn't hope to do Heroic Shattered Halls without a Paladin Tank.  Or Warlocks were mandatory for Heroic Mech.

The place will probably get nerfed anyways, but I bet given some time you'll see new techniques for skipping certain pulls or handling them differently, and a result of that will be that some flexibility in groups will be opened.

[Paelos]

Yeah, I agree it will be nerfed. That's the Blizzard M.O. for new releases as we've seen. I'm perfectly fine with that as an approach because it usually appeases the hardcore and then lets in the semi-casual-almost-hardcore. However, they typically don't add things to an instance, so I'm sort of meh about the place because of what it is in rewards. I'll admit I'm not one of those people who runs 5 mans for a challenge. I run them as a relaxing getaway from the politics and timing and ridiculousness that can be raiding in a 25 man group.

On the plus side, MT is very gorgeous from the athestics POV. I like the sort of desert palace thing they have going on in the place. The cutscene they added at the orb is also very cool. I did encounter a few camera issues due to the curtains on the walls, however. Has anyone else dealt with this? I'll try to face a mob in a hallway and all of sudden i'm in a tapestry. It's weird.

[K9]

...

[Tarami]

Oh it gets better, blizzard couldn't figure a way to make the new raidbosses innately harder without giving them the ability to 1-shot tanks, so they just made this.

Basically stepping into the zone reduces all tank's avoidance by 25%.

WoW does alot of things right, but that's just epic game design!

[schild]

Ah yes, MMOGs, where hard means unbalanced and more hitpoints.

God bless you, diku-landscape, you always deliver.

Oh it gets better, blizzard couldn't figure a way to make the new raidbosses innately harder without giving them the ability to 1-shot tanks, so they just made this.

Basically stepping into the zone reduces all tank's avoidance by 25%.

Oh man, that's awesome.

[Phunked]

My point exactly.  I was trying to express the point that it's not so hard because they do X more damage and have Y more hit points.  There's real strategy involved in dealing with all that craziness.

There's strategy to a point. Then somebody posts how to min/max it with the right classes, and that's that. For example, I'd never walk into the place without a warlock, period. That sort of starts to limit your class choices on that alone.

The fact is, you're comming across as the real min/maxer. I hate to break it to you, but the real powergamers don't run around clearing the place with prot pally holy priest mage*3. They take what they have at the moment and make it work. It's actually the "casuals" who are so damn rigid about what classes they take because "you NEED A MAGE AND A WARLOCK ZOMG NO WE CAN'T DO IT ANI OTHUAR WAI!!!!@!@!@!!" Also, "omg need t6 to kill kael".

You want to bitch about power gamers and min-maxers, fine. Just don't be a hypocrite and talk about never doing it without a certain class (min-maxing at its finest).  Oh and, learn to LoS and use spell reflect+thunderclap.

[Phunked]

Ah yes, MMOGs, where hard means unbalanced and more hitpoints.

God bless you, diku-landscape, you always deliver.

Oh it gets better, blizzard couldn't figure a way to make the new raidbosses innately harder without giving them the ability to 1-shot tanks, so they just made this.

Basically stepping into the zone reduces all tank's avoidance by 25%.

Oh man, that's awesome.

Actually, he has it so wrong.

That spell reduces tan avoidance, so that the mobs can hit more often, but for less, requiring the same total healing output but reducing the damage of each individual hit exactly so that the bosses don't 2 shot. This is because the old raid instance bosses (h2u Kaz) could already 3-4 shot a tank. Increasing their damage would lead to 80% avoidance steaks where you never get hit for 15 seconds and then bam two hits land and you're dead.

This is a bandaid fix yes, but at least it works out to being better for the players: more steady reliable damage with less omg instagib spikes.

[Mrbloodworth]

Ah yes, MMOGs, where hard means unbalanced and more hitpoints.

God bless you, diku-landscape, you always deliver.

Oh it gets better, blizzard couldn't figure a way to make the new raidbosses innately harder without giving them the ability to 1-shot tanks, so they just made this.

Basically stepping into the zone reduces all tank's avoidance by 25%.

Oh man, that's awesome.

Smells like LOTRO dead system, but not nearly as cool.