Passing the time in WoW

[Paelos]

So what are yall doing while you are waiting for the next content patch? Are you playing much at all? I find that I'm logging in about 2-3 nights a week less than I did when I had raids to do, but I've found some fun ways to spend my time.

1 - Old skool reps I missed - With the changes to rep gains, they aren't as bad as they used to be, so I've been doing Cenarion Circle, Netherwing, Sporeggar, the Consortium, Timbermaw, etc.

2 - Wintergrasp - I usually only like the assaults because they are fasters and the Horde can't cheat by driving through walls.

3 - AH farming - Dolla bill yall!

[Selby]

I didn't blitz through all of the content as fast as possible, so I've still not seen all of Naxx yet (haven't done Military or all of Construct yet).  I'm working on my Loremaster achievement for 2 different characters, finishing up the remaining Northrend quests to get cash for epic flying mounts, and have 2 characters sitting in the 60's-70's range to work up to 80 (already have 2 80's).

I still log in all the time and raid my new guild, which is fun since we all like each other and get along.  Hardly bored yet, although if you were a 1-character hardcore person since the release of the expansion, I could see why you would be.  One of my friends was working on his last of the heroic raid achievements for people not dying and timing, etc (those goofy ones that say "I've got good gear and know the fights too well").

[WindupAtheist]

Wintergrasp, plowing through quests in zones I skipped for cash, running newbs through instances, and some battlegrounds. Not as much of the last one lately since I'm waiting for the patch to buy gear, and since I'm kinda tired of constant Alliance suckery for the moment.

[K9]

Naxx 25, Timbermaw Rep and working on "Chef" for my main. I'm also slowly levelling up a shaman alt, 73 now and rising.

I'm online a lot less in the past month than in the preceding months.

[Fabricated]

Heroics and leveling my mage mostly.

[Mattemeo]

Uff. If I could find out what administration fuck-up is blocking the channels between CC company and Blizzard's Billing I'd be well into my assault on Sha'tari Skyguard (and possibly Netherwing) reputations. Beyond hitting 80 with my Shadowpriest and skilling up fishing, those are my main goals currently.

[apocrypha]

Well I came to the WOTLK party 3 months late because of my back, so I'm still levelling. Levelling a shaman & paladin combo, in 40-60 min bursts. Roughly 8-12 hours per level, just hit 74 the other day, it's going to keep me busy for a while yet :p

[Rendakor]

Grinding all sorts of reps (Netherwing, Darkspear Trolls) and old dungeons (ZG, Strath) for mounts to get the Albino Drake. I'm probably not going for the dragonhawk afterwards, plus 3.1 should be out by the time I hit 50.

[Ratman_tf]

I just got the last piece of Valorous plate for my holy pally, and am doing a little bit of rep grind for Hodir. I've got one more Naxx 25 scheduled for tonight, then I'm thinking about taking a break from raiding until 3.1.

[Ingmar]

We only just killed Malygos for the 2nd time, so the timing is pretty perfect I think for us.

[Rasix]

My shaman just hit 80 last week.  Doing heroics and finishing off quests with him.

Still can't find a reliable Naxx group during the times I can play.

I'll also like be dropping engineering for another profession like JCing or inscription.  Still haven't decided what yet.

[Delmania]

Working on getting my death knight's mining and skinning to 300.  Then back to the warlock for more leveling.

[Sjofn]

I've just been logging in to raid, then wandering off. Because of classes overlapping so aggressively now, plus the dual speccing to come, (both of which I MOSTLY approve of, mind you), I have way less interest in leveling all my alts than I did in TBC. I SHOULD level my priest so I have a level 80 healer I actually enjoy healing with, but I haven't really felt like it. We have enough healers and not so many tanks, so there's not much reason for me to play anything besides my DK anyway. :P

[kildorn]

I mostly just log in to raid or say hi, do a WG if it's up.

[Dren]

Our guild has not maxed raiding, so still have that to do.  Otherwise, alts.  I'm on my sixth 80.

On Deck:
- PvP
- Achievement Farming

When spread across 10 characters, I have plenty to do.  That said, I have been slowing down a bit.  I'm probably to 1/2 my weekly hours playing, but I think that has more to do with Spring and all that comes with it.

[Lantyssa]

Trying to get my Druid up to a reasonable level to do stuff with others, while attempting to not play alts.  At 42 since starting at the begining of February.  I'm so slow.

[Ingmar]

I am not logging on a whole ton except to raid recently myself, partly because I'm SAVING MYSELF for the Argent Tournament daily madness.

[Fordel]

I like to herd cats in WG, were getting pretty good at defending it. I finished my CC rep and my AD rep the other day as well. But like Ing said, we just got Maly down for the second time, so we are pretty much 'on pace' as far as content is being delivered. Just starting to fool with some of the Naxx achievements.

[Nevermore]

Just plugging away at leveling.  My Druid should hit 79 tonight or tomorrow.  I could have hit 80 by now but I've been distracted by my DK (72 now) and a new horde character I made recently since I want to see some things from the dirty barbarian side.  I really should get one of the more active BG guildies to take me under their wing and do some BG stuff.  I've been wanting to take a look at some of them but I've been intimidated by the whole 'If you don't have pvp/resilience gear you'll insta-die!!11!1' I read about.  Dieing doesn't bother me but not even being able to put up a fight (supposedly) doesn't sound like fun.  (Note: I PvPed all the time in DAoC but that was a much, much less gear dependent game.)

[Xeyi]

My guild has started doing alt naxx runs to pass the time so I've been seeing what it's like to dps and tank as well as heal in there.  We're also working on ToS with drakes up as we never tried that before (we went straight from no drake 10-man to no drake 25-man once we realised we could do it with 10 people).

I also finally got round to levelling my shaman from level 60.  I got the levels "gifted" from the recruit a friend scheme ages ago and so my gear was awful to start with, but a few bind-to-account items later and I'm doing great.  In fact I feel just as powerful as when I levelled my ret paladin pre-nerf.  Water shield really is infinite mana and it's a lot of fun to run around three shotting everything in sight while never having to drink.

[Kail]

Mostly, I'm levelling alts.  I have this persistent delusion that levelling a healer will get me into a raiding guild, so I'm trying to get my priest moving, but since he's only level 25, it's damn painful to play as him (he's in the barrens at the moment, so just logging in and seeing the crossroads for the millionth time just sucks my will to play).  My rogue at 62 is the character I want to like, but seems like he's getting weaker with every level.  My warlock, on the other hand, is insanely powerful, and he's got a playstyle which matches mine, mostly (load up an enemy with DOTs, tab out to read for a bit, tab back in, loot, and repeat).

My main is mostly just doing Wintergrasp, farming materials, and trying to get achievements (right now working on the "400 unarmed skill" one, that last point is a bitch to get).

[WindupAtheist]

Decided I am never going to even try to get any Hodir rep. The Wintergrasp shoulder enchant is almost as good for my needs, and that quest line to open up their dailies is some tedious shit full of typical gimmicky vehicle crap. Turning into something weird to finish a quest is one thing. Living an entire double life as a giant blue viking bitch for who knows how long, just so I can open up some quests to START grinding, is another.

Rep grinding is bullshit in general. I'm exalted with exactly one post-vanilla faction, Valiance Expedition, and that's essentially by accident.

[K9]

My main is mostly just doing Wintergrasp, farming materials, and trying to get achievements (right now working on the "400 unarmed skill" one, that last point is a bitch to get).

Did this on my priest, actually got all my weapon skills maxed this way. You want to go beat up on Azaloth in SMV. He's banished, but at 80 you can sit under him and not aggro anything.  Just start autoattacking and go afk, because you're in combat the game won't kick you like it usually would after you've been afk for a while. Doing this I got all my weapon skills maxed out in an afternoon while I pottered around doing stuff in the home.

[Azaroth]

Blizzard provided me with something to do by nerfing the everloving shit out of my character. Reroll.

Unfortunately I've won that raid too many times while playing WoW. I rerolled to RL.

[Merusk]

Blizzard provided me with something to do by nerfing the everloving shit out of my character. Reroll.

Unfortunately I've won that raid too many times while playing WoW. I rerolled to RL.

Hm.. what did you play, Az, I forget.  Lock wasn't it, what before that?

I've got enough gold to keep me going for a while, so no need for the daily grind.  Worked a bit on Loremaster but decided I'd rather fish in game or do something more productive offline for a bit.  When I'm on I do try and knock out achievements on old dungeons or raids. Got ZG a few weeks ago, but finding a non-retard group to even attempt BWL has been a chore as too many folks think they can just brute force it. Shadowflame does 20k damage, that'll kill even a well-equipped L80 priest. 

[Nevermore]

My main is mostly just doing Wintergrasp, farming materials, and trying to get achievements (right now working on the "400 unarmed skill" one, that last point is a bitch to get).

Did this on my priest, actually got all my weapon skills maxed this way. You want to go beat up on Azaloth in SMV. He's banished, but at 80 you can sit under him and not aggro anything.  Just start autoattacking and go afk, because you're in combat the game won't kick you like it usually would after you've been afk for a while. Doing this I got all my weapon skills maxed out in an afternoon while I pottered around doing stuff in the home.

If you read the last couple of comments on the link you provided, it looks like he doesn't provide skill ups anymore.

[Phred]

If you read the last couple of comments on the link you provided, it looks like he doesn't provide skill ups anymore.

I think they quietly nerfed the ability to get skill ups from banished targets. Someone in my guild suggested I try a banished demon (first boss in Shadow Vaults) when I bitched about my pole arm skill after getting a new weapon. I went there and tried it and could not get 1 skill up after about 5 min of auto attack, so I packed it in and forgot about it. My guild mate swears it worked for him so all I can figure is it got nerfed and as your demon is banished too they may have done it to all banished mobs.

[Azaroth]

Hm.. what did you play, Az, I forget.  Lock wasn't it, what before that?

Ret Paladin.

Dead last on DPS meters in 3.1 by a country mile, mana regen nerfed, utility given to everyone else, and recoil from SoB/M still making us a burden on healers in hard fights.

I got angry about it for a while. Then I wondered why the hell I was paying if I was so dissatisfied.

[K9]

If you read the last couple of comments on the link you provided, it looks like he doesn't provide skill ups anymore.

Ah damn, that sucks.

[WindupAtheist]

Dead last on DPS meters in 3.1 by a country mile, mana regen nerfed, utility given to everyone else, and recoil from SoB/M still making us a burden on healers in hard fights.

Elucidate? The forums keep telling me ret DPS is going up, going down, staying the same, going down but getting more burst, blah blah blah. I also heard that JotW was getting un-nerfed back up to 25% mana. Basically it's retarded as ever over there and the signal to noise ratio too high for me to make heads or tails.

[Ingmar]

Our ret pallies do ok on the meters. At least in 10s, wearing 10 man gear, class doesn't really matter all that much. Gear and brain activity level seem to matter a lot more.

My understanding is that they fixed the really low ret dps from early in 3.1 (or so EJ tells me.)

[WindupAtheist]

I don't PVE beyond dailies and the odd heroic, so I suppose it's largely moot to me anyway.

[Azaroth]

Here's what's happening if your Rets are topping your meters:

The rest of your DPS is bad.

This is VERY ESPECIALLY TRUE in 3.1, where Ret gets none of those neat Undead bonuses.

But, yeah. Math (an incredible amount of WWS reports) proves it, and so does my experience. Bad groups and mediocre guilds, I was on top. Actual good guilds where people know what the fuck they're doing, you'll be at the bottom.

Basically, Rets have a DPS ceiling several thousand below the rest of the classes. Much math involved. Not interested in finding it and pasting.

Here's the jist of the nerfery:

-GC quoted "We want Ret DPS to stay where it is in Naxx". Players expect buffs, being that Ret loses Undead Glyph, Crusade, Exorcism and HW in Ulduar (before nerfs). Azaroth states publicly to said players that they're putting their faith in the wrong people, that no buffs will likely come, and if they do they won't be enough. Argument ensues where many, many Paladins argue vehemently that Blizzard loves them and will take care of them.

-Answer? Four DPS talents/abilities replaced with one. Exorcism. Oddly enough, a burst talent usable in PvP but hardly adding much sustained DPS (more buttons to press between GCDs, 15 second CD, more mana use when we're already mana starved in a lot of instances, etc)- exactly what they said they weren't going to do, and adding more "burstanewb" utility to the spec that's getting us QQed all over and nerfed to shit in the first place.

-This news, equaling a fair net drop in DPS, is shortly thereafter followed by many little stealthy math nerfs, equaling out to being nerfed about as hard as Fury with the 10% Titan's Grip nerf. Just strategically placed, oddly enough, to harm sustained DPS. Again, exactly what they said they were not going to do.

-Spiritual Attunement douched, JoTW to 15%. Reports of severe mana starvation on PTR. Buffed to 25%. Results unknown, I've been gone.

-Blizzard oversees WWS tests on PTR against a dummy Patchwerk. Ret falling 15-20% below second last place hybrids (on an UNDEAD MOB). Silence from Blizzard.

-Awful Ret performance and representation in Arena (less than 2%) actually acknowledged. GC states publicly that Crusader Strike may receive a silence.

-Silence instead given to Arms Warriors. Who may also now break Paladin bubbles.

-Deciding that Ret needs less PvP viability instead, burst of judgements is heavily nerfed. (I haven't kept up on this one since I've quit. Only post I've read claims that SoB crits around 4.5k now, whereas a good crit for me when I played was 11.5k... I'd say I can't imagine the nerf being that insane, but this is Blizzard so I'm not entirely sure).

-Rets exclaim WTF? Other players happy, Ret reduced to LOLret where it belongs. Azaroth stops paying people to put cock in ass, spams F13.

[Merusk]

Ah, Ret Pally.. so sorry. 

The problem with going by Damage Meters is often folks don't have them set to look at fight-by-fight and look at total damage-dealt.  That's meaningless since it often includes all trash packs, and a good AOE'er can get high on meters then suck on boss fights and still come out in the top 5 at the end. (I see this on bad mages and ret pallies both.)  Plus, Az is talking about 3.1, the upcoming patch.  Wherever your ret pallies are right now, they'll be lower after the patch when their undead tools won't work on the Uldar mobs, not to repeat all the stuff Az just brought-up.

[Ingmar]

Or, you know, it is a 10 man raid in 10 man gear like I said, where nobody has the full suite of buffs that you see in 25s, nobody is near their theoretical dps caps, etc. And I didn't say they were topping them... but ok. (And we use WWS, I'm not talking about overall total meters, those are near-useless.)

EDIT: And exorcism is going to work on everything after the patch. And the EJ ret pally thread says their dps has been competitive in Ulduar in later builds. But ok sure the sky is falling.

Here, perhaps this will cheer people up: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t37843-retribution_paladin_thread_wrath_3_0_a/p137/#post1185685