Thinking about resubbing.

[Merusk]

Really? That's got to really fucking suck running it at appropriate level. How weird.

Still, it's almost as funny as the time a Rat gave a full resist to my mage friend's fireblast to imagine a level 70 mage going "aaghh, I died level 18 elites!"

[Sjofn]

If we're talking about powerleveling inscription, sure, but I thought we were talking about someone picking something to level as they go. The cost of picking the herbs you see as you run around doing quests is pretty low.

I really feel like I'm repeating myself at this point. Here, I'll make a list. Maybe it'll be easier to understand my thought process.

1. As a DK, you start at 50, your tradeskills start at 0. Thus, you are forced to farm at least into the 200s for any gathering profession.
2. If one of your skills is a gatherer skill, you can either gather and sell them or gather and use the mats to fund the tradeskill. Either way, you have X income from your gatherer profession (I would estimate about 2000 gold income from level 50-80).
3. Even if you put money from your gather skill into your tradeskill, it will not get you to 450. It MIGHT get you to 400. You will still have to additional farming to get it to 450.
4. Can the gold investment to get your tradeskill to 450 be recouped through AH sales once it's maxed? Some research will tell, but this varies by server.
5. Inscription's personal utility can be substituted by an alternate farming method, hodir rep.
6. If you're looking for personal utility only (and can't or won't plan on recouping any losses through AH sales) hodir rep is far superior to inscription due to not taking a tradeskill and providing actual income rather than a gold investment.

Sorry to derail the thread, but now that I've resubbed to join a work mate with a(nother) death knight on a new server.

What gathering professions should I take as a bankroll?

Is it worth going back and mining copper/skinning/gathering so that when I hit Outland and 70-80 I'm not losing out on available nodes?

Which one should I take?

I'm leaning towards mining, skinner but if mining/herbs are more profitable why not.

I'm on an established server if that helps (Tichrondrius).

I leveled up my mining before going to Outlands and I'm glad I did, because it meant my mining was high enough for Northrend while I was leveling there, and that I didn't have to go back to Outlands ever again if I didn't want to (I am OVER Outlands).

[Soulflame]

Wintergrasp is every two hours.

You're both wrong.  It is every 2.5 hours.

[Phred]

I hope this isnt too late, but if you take mining, beg, borrow or steal the +5 mining enchant. Mithril and Thorium are still totally painful to level, at least on my server, where one other person can seriously depress the spawns available in a zone. The crappy way that mithril and thorium are spread through zones mixed with other ore makes 2 people mining a very frustrating affair.

I wouldn't mix mining and herbing, myself. Switching tracking is a huge pita, IMO. Mining/skinning is a lot less of a hassle.

I just leveled up my dk's skills at 69 to go along with my move to Northrend. I will never level another miner again, unless for some bizarre reason I am starting a character from L1. I took a brief break to hit 70 in northrend so I could grab a flying mount for outland mining which helped a ton with leveling through there and even there the +5 mining gloves meant I didnt have to skip all those khorium veins.

Has anyone ever figured out what changed between old world mining and outland, because I find it way easier to mine in outlands, even with a bunch of active miners in the zone? Is the spawn time faster or is their just way more nodes?

[Hindenburg]

way more nodes coupled with far less ore diversity.

[Selby]

way more nodes coupled with far less ore diversity.

Exactly.  When you are stuck at iron on green and barely able to find mithril and gold nodes, it's so painful it hurts.  Also, most ore spawns in most zones out in Outlands even when not near mountains, so you aren't stuck camping the Charred Glade or running around EPL\WPL looking for nodes.

[Signe]

I have become demotivated again and haven't logged in for a few weeks.  This always happens.  This time, though, I've made it to level 49 and three quarters!  Go me!

[Evil Elvis]

I was thinking of checking out the WotLK trial, until I heard they fucked up PVP.  Again.

They need to get away from Arena being the focus of player vs player, post haste.

[Azuredream]

I was thinking of checking out the WotLK trial, until I heard they fucked up PVP.  Again.

They need to get away from Arena being the focus of player vs player, post haste.

It's been gone over but it's still completely right, I don't think the developers over at Blizzard are in touch with this. Arena is fun, yes, but not when it's the only way to get decent PvP gear. The rating requirements are so high right now that unless you're a hardcore arena player you've probably just got arena points piling up and nothing to do with them. The game isn't designed to be an e-sport, it's designed to be fun and accessible.. I'm all in favor of keeping arena around for people who want to do some controlled environment PvP, but of the three forms of PvP right now the one that makes the most sense to prioritize is battlegrounds. There are so many untapped battleground formats they could design a map around that I have no idea why we still have only five total battlegrounds after nearly five years.

[Merusk]

There are so many untapped battleground formats they could design a map around that I have no idea why we still have only five total battlegrounds after nearly five years.

We covered this in another thread, but since you're new I'll recap for you.  The problem is Kalgan. PVP is his domain and he loves arenas. They're his baby and he likes them as they are and the reward structure and hates Battlegrounds. Until he's gone try to enjoy or ignore the crappy, flawed e-sport.

[Azuredream]

There are so many untapped battleground formats they could design a map around that I have no idea why we still have only five total battlegrounds after nearly five years.

We covered this in another thread, but since you're new I'll recap for you.  The problem is Kalgan. PVP is his domain and he loves arenas. They're his baby and he likes them as they are and the reward structure and hates Battlegrounds. Until he's gone try to enjoy or ignore the crappy, flawed e-sport.

Somebody should start a petition for Blizzard to 'promote' Kalgan to the new MMO development team. 

[Koyasha]

I don't know if that's true.  I mean, they do keep saying they want to reward battlegrounds better, if they could come up with an effective metric of determining personal ability and success.  Unless you think they know how to determine that and just aren't implementing it.  Or unless you think they should reward everyone, whether they completely suck and don't do a damn thing toward victory or not.

Personally I agree that battlegrounds need such a metric, because I hate the idea of doing my best to win, and having the useless turds that are being carried by those of us who do put in the effort get the same reward.  Especially since almost nobody does preformed, so I can't form a battleground team if I wanted to, since there basically aren't enough opponents in the preform queue.

[ashrik]

Oh God, for the first time in 2 years I got to play again. It was my friends lvl 80 DK. It just felt so...so right. Specially when compared to my last Diku, Warhammer Online. GOT-DAM YOU BLIZZARD!

[Delmania]

I don't know if that's true.  I mean, they do keep saying they want to reward battlegrounds better, if they could come up with an effective metric of determining personal ability and success.  Unless you think they know how to determine that and just aren't implementing it.  Or unless you think they should reward everyone, whether they completely suck and don't do a damn thing toward victory or not.

Personally I agree that battlegrounds need such a metric, because I hate the idea of doing my best to win, and having the useless turds that are being carried by those of us who do put in the effort get the same reward.  Especially since almost nobody does preformed, so I can't form a battleground team if I wanted to, since there basically aren't enough opponents in the preform queue.

If by useless turds, you mean the people who /afk in battlegrounds, then I would agree with this, which is why Blizzard should implement something where if you do 0 damage and/or 0 healing in a BG, you shouldn't get honor and token.  However, so long as the reward for BG are ultimately gear, your statements about skill and metrics are meaningless.  The only way Blizzard can implement some form of metric is to normalize gear.

[Koyasha]

It's not just that, it's the ones that "fight" but don't do anything that actually contributes to victory.  Warsong Gulch mid-field battler types, that go out and fight enemies on midfield but don't focus on key targets and so on.  If three people stop midfield to kill one enemy, that's not just useless but detrimental, since it means one enemy has effectively incapacitated 3 people, by removing them from any useful task whatsoever.

The afk reporting thing is only somewhat effective, too.  I know I'm too damn busy fighting and trying to win, sometimes, to try to figure out who's standing around AFK.

[Merusk]

I don't know if that's true.  I mean, they do keep saying they want to reward battlegrounds better, if they could come up with an effective metric of determining personal ability and success.  Unless you think they know how to determine that and just aren't implementing it.  Or unless you think they should reward everyone, whether they completely suck and don't do a damn thing toward victory or not.

It's really not all that hard.  They track most if not all of the stuff you'd use to do it already. Flag caps/ returns, defense within radius of a node, kills: deaths, healing done, # of flag-carriers killed or people interrupted in the middle of capping.  You reward honor and marks based on these stats and goals of the individual BG not on "your side won/ lost  with 'bonus' honor based on the number of HKs you farmed.   Reward nothing to people who have done nothing in the game, not even a "hey at least you showed up" mark.  It's not hard to get at least some HKs, return a flag, tag a node or do a little dam/ healing even if you completely suck and run around naked and unarmed.

Hell you could even determine individual rankings from that, then perhaps display them on a scoreboard at the end of a match.  

They talk a good game, about wanting it to matter but refuse to implement based on what they're already doing.

[proudft]

That whole "0 damage and 0 healed, omg they're AFK" guideline is not always true.  In AV, for example, I'm often in a mood to be that rogue who sticks around IWB or SH.  And I'll usually let the Horde cap it, and I sit, and wait.  And wait. 

Why do I wait?  A good percentage of the time, they'll just wander off and leave it unguarded, and I take it.  Sometimes only one or two people will remain behind, and I'll take them out (if I think I can take 'em) and recap it.  And sometimes a whole squad of people remain behind, and what do I do then?  I leave.  That's suicide to take on that many.

So let's say it was that latter case, it was 5 people who stayed back to guard the tower, here we are, 7 minutes into an AV, and I have 0 on my stats.  Am I AFK?  No.  My plan just didn't work out, I'll be at RH in a bit guys, hope you're not done by the time I get there.

Fortunately, I've never actually been flagged by my side as AFK, because you can plainly see on the battlemap what I am doing, but if you just blindly go "omg 0 stats, AFK" without looking at stuff in context, that's too simplistic to actually work.

[Merusk]

You missed the part about capping things.  You completed an objective by capping the GY, you get honor and a mark for that.

Do you get as much as someone running around, killing, capping and doing other shit? No; but then you're not being as useful as them, are you.

[Koyasha]

Healers throw a wrench in that.  Sure, you can give rewards by amount healed, but that can be easily exploited (find a non-fatal place to jump off of, get a healer partner, jump off of it and heal each other).

Defending things gives HK's, but that's no different than fighting midfield in WSG, for example.  If you base it on HK's, the best way to get rewarded will be to ignore defending the flag and fight midfield to get HK's.  If you defend the flag in WSG, often you won't get many kills.  But you'll tend to weaken and slow the enemy, which can give time for the rest of your team to come along and kill them as they try to escape with the flag.

I've come up with some ideas on how to properly reward defense, but even those are probably flawed in one way or another.  Accurately judging contribution toward goals other than 'kill x' is difficult.  Very often the person with the most damage done/hk's is one of the least useful people on the battleground, because they've been chasing kills, not focusing on battleground goals.

[Ingmar]

You missed the part about capping things.  You completed an objective by capping the GY, you get honor and a mark for that.

Do you get as much as someone running around, killing, capping and doing other shit? No; but then you're not being as useful as them, are you.

I would argue that in AV he is. The end game honor reward is in part controlled by tower control, so that guy who rides down, caps a tower, guards it til it burns and then doesn't make it in time for the end boss fight is personally responsible for a noticeable chunk of endgame honor for all 39 other players, and was probably overall more important to victory than that mage who won the damage charts by AEing the bridge.

[Merusk]

Here's the thing.. all systems are flawed and those flaws show upon first encounter with real people. They're going to have ways to game them and they will be exploited.  The current system is flawed and is just as exploited and was even worse when it was introduced.  If you'd rather keep shit "no gear for BGs" than try to change it and then work on a fix for that, awesome.  I'd rather they move in the direction of rewarding actual work done in the BGs and implement a system then fix it as they go along.  Like they've been "fixing" the arena system.

I would argue that in AV he is. The end game honor reward

As I said, you eliminate the end game honor reward.  You're rewarding work done in the BG itself, reinforcements determine the length of a game, so he is providing a goal but it is not the most valuable one until late in the game when reinforcements are low.  Then you can give bonus honor for that capture.  Until that point in the game, however, he could have been running around doing other shit.  He's a stealther, it's not like he'd have a hard time moving around the map and coming back later.

[proudft]

You missed the part about capping things.  You completed an objective by capping the GY, you get honor and a mark for that.

No, I'm saying sometimes I DON'T cap the thing because six yahoos stick around until the tower burns.  Sometimes the plan goes bad.  On AVERAGE, it's been a good plan, I retake towers, screws up their offense, go team go.  But sometimes it doesn't.  Am I supposed to be penalized on a random BG-to-BG basis on this?

[Azuredream]

I don't know if that's true.  I mean, they do keep saying they want to reward battlegrounds better, if they could come up with an effective metric of determining personal ability and success.  Unless you think they know how to determine that and just aren't implementing it.  Or unless you think they should reward everyone, whether they completely suck and don't do a damn thing toward victory or not.

Personally I agree that battlegrounds need such a metric, because I hate the idea of doing my best to win, and having the useless turds that are being carried by those of us who do put in the effort get the same reward.  Especially since almost nobody does preformed, so I can't form a battleground team if I wanted to, since there basically aren't enough opponents in the preform queue.

Can somebody give me a stat as to the amount of people (in %) who have a 2000+ arena rating? I'm okay with having a very top tier of gear have arena requirements but they've gone way too far with it. I personally don't even care if they have a battleground 'skill' measurement or not. There's a middle ground where you can reward the best players without punishing everyone else.

[Gobbeldygook]

Can somebody give me a stat as to the amount of people (in %) who have a 2000+ arena rating?

Of the % of characters that participate in 2v2 and 3v3 brackets, 2.5% of those characters have a 2k+ rating.

[Koyasha]

Rating requirements on Arena gear definitely seem too high, as there's very few people able to get the best gear.  It should be weighted so that the top 10-20% of people get the best gear, the second-best gear goes to the next 30% or so, and the rest get the lowest type of gear.  That'd mean the upper 40-50% get decent rewards, rather than whatever much smaller percentage it is now.  Leave the vanity rewards like titles and mounts for the top tiny percentage.

[Zetor]

Or maybe, just maybe, equalize gear in the arena minigame completely. This has been hashed out in some other thread, though... 


-- Z.

[Khaldun]

There's no way to automate rewards for playing towards the objective in an intelligent manner. There just isn't: think of a metric and someone will game it, while someone who fails on the metric might be the person whose quick tactical thinking is actually key to overall success. It's like the difference between roto baseball and actual baseball: someone you might not want on your roto team because of mediocre offensive stats can be the guy who catalyzes great play from teammates on the field simply by knowing what to do and when to do it. The guy who snares or slows the flag carrier in WSG just long enough for everyone else to catch that person is way more important than the guy who actually kills the carrier, but there's almost no metric I can think of that will show you that difference.

[Sjofn]

That whole "0 damage and 0 healed, omg they're AFK" guideline is not always true.  In AV, for example, I'm often in a mood to be that rogue who sticks around IWB or SH.  And I'll usually let the Horde cap it, and I sit, and wait.  And wait. 

To say nothing of the fact that AFKers already often smack and/or heal someone ( and would DEFINITELY do this if it became mandatory), like, twice, then afk the rest of the time. Hell, in AV, you wouldn't even have to find a player to do damage/take damage (and then heal yourself), etc.

[Sheepherder]

To say nothing of the fact that AFKers already often smack and/or heal someone ( and would DEFINITELY do this if it became mandatory), like, twice, then afk the rest of the time. Hell, in AV, you wouldn't even have to find a player to do damage/take damage (and then heal yourself), etc.

I've seen bots with basic pvp combat routines.  Was pretty funny actually, you could wand it once and train it halfway across the zone, and get it to auto-attack you in front of town guards.  The only problem is it tended to move in single step intervals and would get hung up on trees.

[Zetor]

A lot of alliance AFKers these days use the crystal of zin malor and spam self heal skills via an out-of-game macro, then they eventually die, auto-rez at the gy and repeat.

Lets them rack up high healing points too... 

(thankfully, the trinket is getting reverted to a normal quest item in 3.1)


-- Z.

[Koyasha]

Fuck, they have to break every goddamn cool thing in the game.  Every alliance character I have gets that trinket and never finishes the quest (except warlocks).  I like an on-demand suicide stone for a variety of purposes.

It's bad enough tying quest items to the quests so they HAVE to be destroyed when you delete the quest from your log.

Meh, I miss the old EQ days where once you obtained a thing, it was really really rare for it to be changed, since existing items were in most cases kept as they were and only future drops were removed/nerfed/whatever.  Except the Moss-Covered Twig.  Only thing that sticks in my mind which was nerfed retroactively.

[Lantyssa]

I was griping about that in /guild with the Rod of Dartol last night.

[Nevermore]

I was sad to learn that they stripped all the effects off of Savory Deviate Delight except for the ninja and pirate effects (which are canceled by Druid forms). 

[bhodi]

My rod of furblog transformation is still intact! I'm going to be bitter as hell if they actually make it usable only in ashenvale.

[Azuredream]

There's no way to automate rewards for playing towards the objective in an intelligent manner. There just isn't: think of a metric and someone will game it, while someone who fails on the metric might be the person whose quick tactical thinking is actually key to overall success. It's like the difference between roto baseball and actual baseball: someone you might not want on your roto team because of mediocre offensive stats can be the guy who catalyzes great play from teammates on the field simply by knowing what to do and when to do it. The guy who snares or slows the flag carrier in WSG just long enough for everyone else to catch that person is way more important than the guy who actually kills the carrier, but there's almost no metric I can think of that will show you that difference.

I don't even see why there needs to be a system to measure skill in place. Would the populace revolt if you could get almost-the-best (or even the best) gear from battlegrounds? Didn't we already have this in TBC? Did anyone really hate that enough to say 'screw this, I'm quitting' ?

(Gogo equalized arena gear)