WotLK

[Fordel]

See, it's quite simple:
Flying castle = OK (See: Naxxramas, etc)
Dimensional Travel = OK (See: Dark Portal, etc).
Flying castle with dimensional travel = lollore. Not quite sure why, though.

See, if Dalaran had to transport itself to outland or whatever, I don't think anyone would even blink.

[Lakov_Sanite]

See, it's quite simple:
Flying castle = OK (See: Naxxramas, etc)
Dimensional Travel = OK (See: Dark Portal, etc).
Flying castle with dimensional travel = lollore. Not quite sure why, though.

See, if Dalaran had to transport itself to outland or whatever, I don't think anyone would even blink.

Somehow it's because they're 'wizards' as soon as you say it was wizards, people just nod and go 'oh, that makes sense'

Damned wizards and their floating cities, eating pie all day.

[Oban]

Based on the Dalaran cooking dailies I have been getting, they eat hot dogs with mustard all the time.

[Fordel]

Sewer Mushroom Meatloaf here. 



Lakov, that's what I'm getting at. With the Draenei, they have their weird ass crystal "technology" everywhere. The Warp Coil, The CryoTubes etc...



Like, if the Gnomes made a spaceship, no one would even blink, because it would be steampowered with 1950's rayguns. Fuck the Goblins made an actual ROCKET SHIP and no one seems to care 


The Draenei are just so out of left field compared to everything else in game.

[Kageru]

The initial look of Zul'drak (too much grey!) turned me off, but it's actually quite an interesting zone. It has a really strong progression / story to pull you through it and does give the feel of an immense ruined troll capitol city. Some good quests too, both the early horde lines and the troll gods.

It also had a quest which I wondered if it was inspired by Warhammers public quests. In one area you have to kill a number of mobs to make a slightly stronger named spawn. When you kill them they drop a chest containing one of the treasures you've been tasked with returning. The trick is that it is largely group independent. Everyone killing trolls contributes to the bosses spawning and the chest they dropped can be used by everyone, whether you were in the party that got the named kill or not.

Dinged 80 in Sholazar so still have multiple zones and lots of instances to explore. They've certainly piled on the PvE content and the quality is high.

PvP and class balancing I'm a lot less impressed with.

[Fordel]

I have a love/hate relationship with Wintergrasp currently. The zone is buggy as shit currently.

[Sjofn]

The initial look of Zul'drak (too much grey!) turned me off, but it's actually quite an interesting zone. It has a really strong progression / story to pull you through it and does give the feel of an immense ruined troll capitol city. Some good quests too, both the early horde lines and the troll gods.

The only issue I have with Zul'drak *really* is that it's trolls fucking with their gods. For the bazillionth time. Shit, one of my quest turn in ladies was like, "I know it sounds like the same old story, trolls using gods they should be worshipping, but it's different this time, seriously." Only not really.

[Sheepherder]

PvP and class balancing I'm a lot less impressed with.

In hindsight, Blizzard can suck a dick for having pvp survivability hinge so heavily on resilience.

[kildorn]

I have a love/hate relationship with Wintergrasp currently. The zone is buggy as shit currently.

Try it when half the time you have to click off a debuff to get a rez prompt, and you never keep your rank between deaths <3

Yeah, I respecced after two days of that.

[Merusk]

I'm slow and only just learned you can actually get Tier armor via Heroic Badges in this expansion.

Holy crap that's a nice change, particularly for those of us who are already running heroics while waiting on guildies to level-up so we can't do 10 mans yet.  Not to mention that once you DO start raiding, you're not forever fighting against 3-6 other people for that one tier token that rarely drops.  Get enough badges (what, 3-4 runs? I think 10 man bosses still drop 2 per kill.) and you just go out and buy it yourself.

[kildorn]

I'm slow and only just learned you can actually get Tier armor via Heroic Badges in this expansion.

Holy crap that's a nice change, particularly for those of us who are already running heroics while waiting on guildies to level-up so we can't do 10 mans yet.  Not to mention that once you DO start raiding, you're not forever fighting against 3-6 other people for that one tier token that rarely drops.  Get enough badges (what, 3-4 runs? I think 10 man bosses still drop 2 per kill.) and you just go out and buy it yourself.

Only two pieces (chest and gloves?) are badger buyable.

That said, still a nice boost if you want to farm up early, or even if you want an off set without feeling like a prick for rolling on the dropped token.

I would suggest stockpiling badgers later though. If they hold to form, better badger gear will come out with every content patch.

[Gobbeldygook]

I would suggest stockpiling badgers later though. If they hold to form, better badger gear will come out with every content patch.

I am highly confident they will do no such thing.  If you want better gear, you will have to get the better badgers that will drop from tier 8 content - Just like how you can't buy half the badge loot that exists now unless you're running 25's.

[kildorn]

I would suggest stockpiling badgers later though. If they hold to form, better badger gear will come out with every content patch.

I am highly confident they will do no such thing.  If you want better gear, you will have to get the better badgers that will drop from tier 8 content - Just like how you can't buy half the badge loot that exists now unless you're running 25's.

I fully expect them to keep this two tier system going forward, and have 10 man Uld/25 man uld, with new 10 man and 25 man badger prizes for them.

25 man will simply be ~10-13 ilevels over the 10 man gear still.

[Ingmar]

I'd be very surprised if they kept separate badges for each tier and type of raid; more likely I think is that we'll have one type of badge for heroics/10 mans and the other type for 25s, and they'll just add more gear to buy going forward. Giving 2 new badge types every time a new raid comes out would seem to be pointlessly unwieldy.

[K9]

Or they have badge types associated with ilvl, so T8 10 man raids will share emblems with T7 25mans etc.

[kildorn]

Or they have badge types associated with ilvl, so T8 10 man raids will share emblems with T7 25mans etc.

Would rapidly make heroics useless, though.

They kept the same badgers for all the tiers in TBC, seemed to work out fine. The two tier system is basically the same thing, with a nod to 25 man raiders and giving them slightly better badgers. You just jack up the cost on the new better gear.

[Paelos]

I agree about the heroics as the main reason they wouldn't release more badge types. Blizzard wants people to be able to obtain gear through 5 man content. Not all the gear, but some.

[K9]

Or they have badge types associated with ilvl, so T8 10 man raids will share emblems with T7 25mans etc.

Would rapidly make heroics useless, though.

They kept the same badgers for all the tiers in TBC, seemed to work out fine. The two tier system is basically the same thing, with a nod to 25 man raiders and giving them slightly better badgers. You just jack up the cost on the new better gear.

It didn't work out though, it stymied progression because most people could zerg-farm kara and heroics until they had the gear to brute-force higher tier encounters. I guess it depends on your perspective on progression. With all raids having both 10 and 25 man versions there's one less barrier to raid progression, but if you're using heroics to gear up for raids one or two tiers higher than expected, why aren't you just running the lower-level raids?

I would say that if they add new heroics that match raid releases, then that would make sense, i.e. T8 difficulty heroics that would require T7 level badge gear. Much like how MgT provided a source of good Kara-level gear to help nudge smaller guilds into ZA.

[Paelos]

They didn't start zerg forcing any content until well after it had been released AND when Blizzard had released newer badge rewards for the precise intent of helping people zerg content. Blizzard was controlling the pace of progression through their encounters, but they began to realize that they TBC had some horrible fucked up designs.

Will similar things happen in WoTLK? I'm not really sure it will. The encounters thus far aren't exploiting one classes singular abilities so far, and they have better melded DPS, tanks, and healers together without having one class as an obvious standout. Gone are the days where you NEED 4 shamans to raid, which was stupid. Raid-wide buffs saw to that, while the talent changes to classes saw to the rest.

I'm still trying to figure out if rogues or warlocks have a purpose though over other forms of DPS. They seem to be the odd classes out in most of the 10 mans I do.

[K9]

It's a fair point, and I think that the addition of parallel 10 and 25 man progression fixes the biggest flaw in TBC raid design and pacing. Hence why you may see overlapping tiers of badge rewards.

[Paelos]

It's a fair point, and I think that the addition of parallel 10 and 25 man progression fixes the biggest flaw in TBC raid design and pacing. Hence why you may see overlapping tiers of badge rewards.

Perhaps. The currency system makes that more likely than in the past. Having to hold onto bags and bags of different badges would have been a PITA. Speaking of which, I think they went WAY overboard with the "quest item" stuff. I pick up 5 quests and I have 4 items in my bag that I have to use on different things, or I have to collect 3 types of each thing that work with my item. Bags are for loot.

[Dren]

My only complaint with the expansion so far is that my item management skill hasn't budged even with my constant practice.

WTB 22 slot bags on the cheap please.

[SurfD]

It's a fair point, and I think that the addition of parallel 10 and 25 man progression fixes the biggest flaw in TBC raid design and pacing. Hence why you may see overlapping tiers of badge rewards.

Perhaps. The currency system makes that more likely than in the past. Having to hold onto bags and bags of different badges would have been a PITA. Speaking of which, I think they went WAY overboard with the "quest item" stuff. I pick up 5 quests and I have 4 items in my bag that I have to use on different things, or I have to collect 3 types of each thing that work with my item. Bags are for loot.

Personally, my biggest gripe with the currency system is that it doesent cover MANY things that SHOULD be currency.  There are a ton of items that drop in different zones that are soulbound, useful ONLY in that zone, and are used as currency to buy buffs or similar, but dont go in the currency tab simply because you can sell them for 10 copper each.......

Fuck that noise.  Take the sell price off them and stick them in the currency tab so i can get my 6-8 bag slots back.....

[Ingmar]

I'm still trying to figure out if rogues or warlocks have a purpose though over other forms of DPS. They seem to be the odd classes out in most of the 10 mans I do.

We're not going to think about it that hard. If one of our rogues or warlocks (or hunters or mages) signs up, we'll take them.

[Merusk]

I'm still trying to figure out if rogues or warlocks have a purpose though over other forms of DPS. They seem to be the odd classes out in most of the 10 mans I do.

Yet another reason I went ahead and rerolled with a DK main.  "I'm a DPS who offtanks" seemed more valid a reason to drag me in than playing as a prot paladin who (hilariously) gets told to offheal when there's no reason for a 2nd tank.  Or a DPS.. who... dpses or does nothing at all.

Thus far my predictions about "There's going to be a shortage of healers..." have proven true, too.  I have one friend who heals, he's always busy and getting tells for groups. Meanwhile I'm LFG as dps, or (with a few gear swaps) always the Tank of a full group looking for a healer. 

[Paelos]

The "prediction" that there would be a shortage of healers was obvious. If you give healing classes a good option to DPS, the majority of players will flock to it. It's always been hard to find a druid healer because 75% of them went feral. Shamans don't want to heal because of their buffs, dps, and utility. Now, pallies got a legit DPS buff while breaking their healing tree, so they all went prot and ret. Priests are the only people healing things now, with the occasional druid. If you find a priest, there's a very solid chance it's a healer. That's not true with any other class.

[Nebu]

Healing is still poorly implemented in these games... I love playing healers in terms of group responsibility, but soon tire with the fact that I spend all of my time watching the interface instead of the game.  If they woudl simply tie healing to damage output, I think players would have much more fun healing.  Design desicision failure tied to old diku class mechanics. 

[Typhon]

I couldn't agree more, and here's some concrete proof that it doesn't have to be this way (sample size is one! how much more concrete do you need?!)

Disciple of Khaine (WAR) was the first healer I ever played that I thought was fun to play.  Target an enemy, target a friend, beat on enemy and heal that target at the same time, spam a group heal occasionally, may a hot if you were feeling like you cared about whether your friends lived or died.  Every other healer class I ever played I hated.

[K9]

I have a lot of fun healing as a priest.

[Gobbeldygook]

I'm still trying to figure out if rogues or warlocks have a purpose though over other forms of DPS. They seem to be the odd classes out in most of the 10 mans I do.

The doom and gloom from the pure dps classes needs to stop.

-Warlocks are still the indisputed kings of AOE.
-Still bring a curse baseline.
-Can do a decent job maintaining their own HP pool if necessary/useful (A warlock/resto druid combo was how we dealt with the back two horsemen)
-Do lots and lots of single target DPS.
-Imp brings health boost if you lack a warrior for commanding shout.
-Health stones
-Soulstones
-Ritual of Summoning is awesome for respecs between fights or subbing people in; it can be a VERY long walk from the front door.
-Demonology locks offer a spelldamage buff if you lack a shaman.

Rogues are somewhat behind the other pure DPS classes at the moment, but
-Their two real DPS trees offer +2% raidwide physical damage or +3% raidwide crit.
-Dismantle works on some bosses.
-Expose armor is a love letter to the other dps if you lack a warrior.
-Still have some of the best oh shit buttons of any class and thus require less healing than most others.
-Tricks of the Trade.
-Kick.

Edit: The only class-spec combo that is really, really bad right now is ele and maybe enhance.  They're pretty pathetic.

[Ingmar]

I'm still trying to figure out if rogues or warlocks have a purpose though over other forms of DPS. They seem to be the odd classes out in most of the 10 mans I do.

The doom and gloom from the pure dps classes needs to stop.

-Warlocks are still the indisputed kings of AOE.
-Still bring a curse baseline.
-Can do a decent job maintaining their own HP pool if necessary/useful (A warlock/resto druid combo was how we dealt with the back two horsemen)
-Do lots and lots of single target DPS.
-Imp brings health boost if you lack a warrior for commanding shout.
-Health stones
-Soulstones
-Ritual of Summoning is awesome for respecs between fights or subbing people in; it can be a VERY long walk from the front door.
-Demonology locks offer a spelldamage buff if you lack a shaman.

Rogues are somewhat behind the other pure DPS classes at the moment, but
-Their two real DPS trees offer +2% raidwide physical damage or +3% raidwide crit.
-Dismantle works on some bosses.
-Expose armor is a love letter to the other dps if you lack a warrior.
-Still have some of the best oh shit buttons of any class and thus require less healing than most others.
-Tricks of the Trade.
-Kick.

Edit: The only class-spec combo that is really, really bad right now is ele and maybe enhance.  They're pretty pathetic.

Until we start seeing warlocks running around with 2800 spellpower, elemental shamans still bring the single best spellpower buff in the game by a large margin, so you'll see one in every 25 man raid for now.

[K9]

Warlocks also scale better with gear than any other caster. I'm not in a min-max guild though, and I feel that the serious min-maxers are a small minority of the overall playerbase.

[Merusk]

The "prediction" that there would be a shortage of healers was obvious. If you give healing classes a good option to DPS, the majority of players will flock to it. It's always been hard to find a druid healer because 75% of them went feral. Shamans don't want to heal because of their buffs, dps, and utility. Now, pallies got a legit DPS buff while breaking their healing tree, so they all went prot and ret. Priests are the only people healing things now, with the occasional druid. If you find a priest, there's a very solid chance it's a healer. That's not true with any other class.

Did you give up drinking or is there some other reason you've decided to just be a huge prick for the last few months? Get laid, douchey.

[Ratman_tf]

The "prediction" that there would be a shortage of healers was obvious. If you give healing classes a good option to DPS, the majority of players will flock to it. It's always been hard to find a druid healer because 75% of them went feral. Shamans don't want to heal because of their buffs, dps, and utility. Now, pallies got a legit DPS buff while breaking their healing tree, so they all went prot and ret. Priests are the only people healing things now, with the occasional druid. If you find a priest, there's a very solid chance it's a healer. That's not true with any other class.

I focus on Holy with my Paladin because my guild needs healers. PUGs and random wankers can use bandages and potions and fuck right off.

[Draegan]

So I worked counterclock wise through Howling Fjord and I only have 77/105 quests in the area and I've done all the instance quests.  Same thing with BT and I'm 134/150.

I don't get it.