Cataclysm

[Merusk]

The difficult part is the orphan wandering behind you is a giant "I AM NOT GEARED FOR THIS, GANK ME" flag.  That and the folks trying to achieve them don't actually want to be there and don't give a damn about doing what it takes to win (typically.)  So instead they will camp the center in EOTS or run from tower to tower in AV or only sit in the flag room for WSG, etc. 

This isn't so bad if it's just a person or two in a 15 man BG.  However, it becomes problematic when it's 2/3 of the team and nobody's really trying to do anything beyond the achieve, so it clogs things up becuase those events that happen regularly in a normal BG no longer happen with regularity.  This ends up frustrating not only the regular pvpers but the pve folks who resent being forced to "do this shit" just to get their mount.

I tend to agree that the PVP requirements for a PvE item continue to be one of the most ill-concieved parts of the whole system.  It only pisses everyone off and doesn't really enhance anything or entice anyone who was curious about PvP to give it a go after the holidy is over. (Which is supposedly why they did it in the first place.)

[Mattemeo]

Forced PvP is simply anti-fun. I'm not a carebear by any stretch but my best PvP days are long behind me and WoW PvP is and always has been utterly dreadful. But when you have to PvP in order to achieve PvE goals, you're so unlikely to find the experience fun enough to return to after the fact that the whole idea of making the achievement as a foot in the door to the PvP game is completely moot. You're frustrated and stressed, the PvPers don't want you there (though I'm sure they're not going to weep bitter tears about the free honor), everyone gets messed around for a week. It's a disaster that Blizzard have turned a blind eye to for three years now.

It's six of one, half dozen of the other for me, right now. I'm uber-happy that they made a snail pet (the snail critter was one of the first things I noticed when I resubbed) but still can't quite believe the Children's Week meta is blighted by that bloody achievement.

Either way, thanks for the advice and tips - I plan on an early morning BG excursion sometime this week to see if anything's possible. I'm SoL on gear and levels, not having Cataclysm yet, and it'd be impossible to gear and level up in time even if I did, heh. We'll see how it goes.

[Sjofn]

The EotS part of that achievement annoys the shit out of me because the flag in EotS is the devil and no one should ever want to cap the damn thing.

I am annoyed, I CHECKED to make sure my orphan was out at the beginning of EotS, then went on my merry way. Well, she apparently despawned when I leapt off the starter part, because when I really cleverly capped the flag (we flipped the node their carrier was running to, I grabbed his flag when he died), she wasn't OUT. >< So now I have to fuckin' do it again. On the upside, my paladin is actually PvP geared, so once I GET the flag, I'll probably be good to go. I'm actually enjoying all the miserable PvE-ers coming into the BG (since I don't give a shit if they trade flag caps or whatever), because they barely hurt my holy paladin ass. It's horseshit, but it's nice to feel nigh invulnerable sometimes.

[Setanta]

Anyone else play Elemental Shaman and finding that AoE pulls 3/4 of the instance through walls? I thought it was Earthquake but couldn't replicate it - then pulled half of stonecore with a chain lightening overload - from 2 rooms away, then pulled a shit ton of packs in SFK by nova-ing gargoyles. Likewise in deadmines.

It's nuts - I'm not tab-targeting but after CL/nova all of a suden I get threat - from a long way away. CL shouldn't pull more (I only use it on packs of 3
+ but overload seeems to send bolts of lightening everywhere on occasion and nova just works as intended.

Hell, even thunderstorm seems to pull mobs from a few rooms away.

I'm wondring if the changes to nva in4.1 forgot to keep spells within a room.

[Threash]

You have to be persistant and sneaky.  I did all of them on my L85 Alliance priest yesterday and her gear level is only 341ish. 

AV was one of the easiest.  I  just ran up pointing to my orphan and the Horde let me cap the tower, then I left and they recapped it again.   I then went and returned the favor at one of our towers by doing the same thing. (running up, pointing at their orpahn. They got the picture pretty quick.)

AB is also pretty easy.  Run straight for stables out of the gate and click like mad.  If you miss that, then just run from node to node and hit the flag instead of the players. This is even easier if you're Ally because they regularly fail to not only fight on the flag but remember the flag is the reason you're there, so you're often the only one clicking.

WSG is the hardest, because it's so short.  Sometimes you'll get a reasonable team who'll see you there with the orphan, pick up and drop the flag in the room and let you return it.  Other times they're just assholes and kill you because they know you're free honor.  I just play the BG normally after the first flag grab by always going after the carrier, then clicking like mad when his health is low.

EOTS was a bitch because it was EOTS weekend and all the hardcore PVPers were in there doing nothing but bitching as everyone camped the middle.  If you get a decent teaor try earlier in the day, it's pretty easy going.  Evenings and prime time are pure suck, though. =\

I can honestly say that never in a million years would it even cross my mind to let anyone do that and i am amazed anyone does.

[Ingmar]

The last couple years you have been able to find WSG games where people just pick up and drop the flags repeatedly for people to get their achievements done, too. I haven't been in one this year but I wouldn't be surprised to see it still happening.

I don't see what gear levels really have to do with it in general, its actually easier relative to any other expansion to get into PVP gear IMO. The crafted set is a fine starting place, and in terms of gear inflation over a full expansion cycle this children's week is in before it can really get out of hand - it is still the first arena season, etc.

EDIT: Whoa whole extra page.

[Nevermore]

The problem for Matt specifically is that the 78 crafted cloth PvP set isn't going to accomplish much as a level 80 in the 80-84 bracket.

[Ingmar]

Oh, well clearly just play 24/7 and grind up to 85 before the end of the week and your problems are solved. 

[Lantyssa]

He doesn't have Cataclysm, so he's stuck at 80.

[caladein]

I can honestly say that never in a million years would it even cross my mind to let anyone do that and i am amazed anyone does.

The first half of Children's Week (especially the first one in Wrath) makes for some awful battlegrounds.  Since most people as soon as they do their objective leave to go to another one, my thought was always, "Fuck it, let them trade caps, it'll get them out of my game faster."

[Threash]

I can honestly say that never in a million years would it even cross my mind to let anyone do that and i am amazed anyone does.

The first half of Children's Week (especially the first one in Wrath) makes for some awful battlegrounds.  Since most people as soon as they do their objective leave to go to another one, my thought was always, "Fuck it, let them trade caps, it'll get them out of my game faster."

You are just as likely to get more achievement hunters though.

[Ingmar]

I can honestly say that never in a million years would it even cross my mind to let anyone do that and i am amazed anyone does.

The first half of Children's Week (especially the first one in Wrath) makes for some awful battlegrounds.  Since most people as soon as they do their objective leave to go to another one, my thought was always, "Fuck it, let them trade caps, it'll get them out of my game faster."

You are just as likely to get more achievement hunters though.

Yeah but if your desire is a game without achievement hunters, you're still better off letting the players churn through their achievements faster, because each new player that comes in has a chance to NOT be one.

[Sjofn]

They were doing the tower exchange in the AV I was in, so I cheerfully took them up on it. WSG I expected a flag exchange to happen, but it didn't. Even so, I was with a bunch of people who apparently had no idea how WSG even works, so I got a flag return pretty easily (it's really sad when the holy paladin is the one who kills the carrier, guys). Had I been feeling mean, I would've run the flag and screwed the other side out of any flag returns, because no one in that BG could hurt me enough for it to be a concern. I haven't had an AB pop yet but that's the easiest one to get imo. I'm really good at getting out of the gate fast. 

I do think that achievement is bullshit. Well, bullshit in that it counts for the meta. No one likes it. Not the PvE people who just want a damn title/purple drake, and definitely not the PvP people who just want to do their BG thing without having people get mad at them for, like, trying to win the BG.

[Paelos]

Children's Week was the one that made me stop finally. I just refused to pvp for that achievement. It was dumb.

[Fordel]

EoTS is the only one that is really stupid, the others are all theoretically things you should be doing anyways.


It still would have been better to just have had the achievement been, "Go Do these BGs with your pet out!" instead of specific parts of said BGs, but I doubt that would've stopped people bitching about having to sully their hands by entering a PvP environment.

[Sjofn]

People would still bitch, because that is the human being's natural state, but it would be much less warranted.

[Koyasha]

Very often they're not really things you should be doing.  They're things someone on your team should be doing.  Important difference there.  A dps character with next to no survivability shouldn't be tasked with carrying the flag, for instance, they should leave themselves free to kill enemies attacking their flag carrier, healers, etc.

And the fact that even if a person never does pvp they have to go pvp - and be successful - is a problem as well, because they probably have no appropriate gear for that task whatsoever.

[Ingmar]

The big holiday meta involves every aspect of the game but crafting, I think. Them's the breaks. I'm sure the PVP-only-rawr people don't like being 'forced' into instances for those steps that require that either. I think it makes perfect sense to have PVP involved, personally. The specific requirements, sure, that sort of thing there's a case for changing.

[Fordel]

Very often they're not really things you should be doing.  They're things someone on your team should be doing.  Important difference there.  A dps character with next to no survivability shouldn't be tasked with carrying the flag, for instance, they should leave themselves free to kill enemies attacking their flag carrier, healers, etc.

And the fact that even if a person never does pvp they have to go pvp - and be successful - is a problem as well, because they probably have no appropriate gear for that task whatsoever.

Yes, I said EoTS one was stupid (It's also stupid for the reason Sjofn already mentioned, the flag in EotS is a TRAP).

Capping Towers and Returning flags, everyone should be doing those if it's available.

[Nevermore]

The big holiday meta involves every aspect of the game but crafting, I think. Them's the breaks. I'm sure the PVP-only-rawr people don't like being 'forced' into instances for those steps that require that either. I think it makes perfect sense to have PVP involved, personally. The specific requirements, sure, that sort of thing there's a case for changing.

Well, the difference is that right now *everyone* in the group gets credit for killing Ymiron for example.  It's not 'Get the killing blow on Ymiron', which would fuck over the other 4 people in the group.  If *everyone* got credit when someone assaulted a tower in AV, that would be a hell of a lot easier than having to do it personally.

[Samprimary]

EoTS is the only one that is really stupid, the others are all theoretically things you should be doing anyways.

I accomplished it first try this year. The last two years, however, were a nightmare — Alliance on our battlegroup would win maybe one out of 20 EotS, which was why it was so great that these battlegroup structures were dissolved.

[Rokal]

Since last week we were discussing how hard ZG/ZA would be in 346 gear or with a PuG:

I've been playing on my feral druid alt, and they're definitely possible in 346 gear and in pugs. My success rate with ZA is fairly high, while ZG pugs are probably 50/50. I found that my success rate went up a ton when I queued as a tank (ideally with healer alt from my guild) rather than queuing as dps. The first boss in ZG (Venonis) is where a lot of groups fall apart, and it's mostly because the tanks I was getting weren't avoiding the huge damage on the breath attack from Venoxis. Or they were standing in poison pools. A healer can technically heal through a lot of the avoidable damage in that fight, but it's practically impossible in 346 gear, so the fight really requires your tank to avoid the avoidable damage.

The zones are a bit more fun at their intended gear levels, so I'm enjoying 4.1 more now than I was a week ago.

I also tried tanking a random heroic to see what I'd get from the Call to Arms reward bag. After being blessed with Deadmines (still the longest heroic by a pretty significant amount), my goodie bag had 90g and an ugly plainstrider pet  DPS queues are way down on my realm (went from ~20 minutes to <5), so Call to Arms appears to be working, but I don't think I'll be tanking random heroics exclusively for pets/mounts any time soon.

In other news, 4.2 will be changing CC so that trapping/sheeping/rooting(etc.) will not pull a pack of enemies.

Crowd Control

    * Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, Wyvern Sting (will still cause hostility when it begins to deal damage), Freezing Trap, Polymorph, Repentance, Shackle Undead, Blind, Hex, Bind Elemental, Banish, Seduction.

It should be a pretty nice change overall (bringing other CC into line with how Sap works), but it's going to make the game less immersive when enemies stare blanky as their friends are turned into sheep or frozen solid.

[SurfD]

In other news, 4.2 will be changing CC so that trapping/sheeping/rooting(etc.) will not pull a pack of enemies.

Crowd Control

    * Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, Wyvern Sting (will still cause hostility when it begins to deal damage), Freezing Trap, Polymorph, Repentance, Shackle Undead, Blind, Hex, Bind Elemental, Banish, Seduction.

It should be a pretty nice change overall (bringing other CC into line with how Sap works), but it's going to make the game less immersive when enemies stare blanky as their friends are turned into sheep or frozen solid

Eh, If you wanted immersion, they could fix it fairly easily.  Just give you a 4 or 5 second grace period before the enemies "notice" their friends have been CC'd.  Maybe even throw in another pop culture reference and have the Non CC'd ones pop up a big red ? over their heads after 2 seconds, then a big red ! after another 2, then come barreling at you like normal.

[Rokal]

Or, you could justify it by saying all enemies in WoW have extremely poor vision :p. It would also explain why they always hit the big guy/girl in front of them instead of the healer standing way in the back.

A grace period before the enemies notice their friend has been CC'd and attack would be a less silly change, but it still wouldn't fix the problem. I think they're trying to eliminate how CC kills the pacing of a dungeon run if you're one of the classes that puts targets in combat when they CC. Half the time when I tank a heroic with a mage or a hunter as the groups only CC, I mark the targets then patiently wait for the mage or hunter to CC the target I marked for them, only to have them say "ready?" 30 seconds later. Drives me nuts. Hint: if I marked the target, I was ready. If a hunter could trap their target without screwing their group if they weren't ready, you probably wouldn't have those huge long pauses.

[Merusk]

Well, if you've PVPd at all as Alliance, you know just how realistic ignoring the healer vs the guy beating on you really is.   

[Malakili]

Or, you could justify it by saying all enemies in WoW have extremely poor vision :p. It would also explain why they always hit the big guy/girl in front of them instead of the healer standing way in the back.

A grace period before the enemies notice their friend has been CC'd and attack would be a less silly change, but it still wouldn't fix the problem. I think they're trying to eliminate how CC kills the pacing of a dungeon run if you're one of the classes that puts targets in combat when they CC. Half the time when I tank a heroic with a mage or a hunter as the groups only CC, I mark the targets then patiently wait for the mage or hunter to CC the target I marked for them, only to have them say "ready?" 30 seconds later. Drives me nuts. Hint: if I marked the target, I was ready. If a hunter could trap their target without screwing their group if they weren't ready, you probably wouldn't have those huge long pauses.

Thats a good point.  I think this will help pacing more than anything.  As someone who plays a tank I try to work hard at the beginning of an instance to build trust that I can pick things up when a sheep pull happens and just try to go with it throughout.  When you get in a nice rhythm with the pulling the pacing feels right.  But when you have the kind of thing you are talking about it makes me lose my mind a little bit.  I think this will help solve that problem.

[Zetor]

Since last week we were discussing how hard ZG/ZA would be in 346 gear or with a PuG:

I've been playing on my feral druid alt, and they're definitely possible in 346 gear and in pugs. My success rate with ZA is fairly high, while ZG pugs are probably 50/50. I found that my success rate went up a ton when I queued as a tank (ideally with healer alt from my guild) rather than queuing as dps. The first boss in ZG (Venonis) is where a lot of groups fall apart, and it's mostly because the tanks I was getting weren't avoiding the huge damage on the breath attack from Venoxis. Or they were standing in poison pools. A healer can technically heal through a lot of the avoidable damage in that fight, but it's practically impossible in 346 gear, so the fight really requires your tank to avoid the avoidable damage.

The zones are a bit more fun at their intended gear levels, so I'm enjoying 4.1 more now than I was a week ago.

I've checked out the new instances on my main, since my account is still on for a week: tank DK in full 346 gear plus 359 cape/belt from rep and the archeology sword... I also have two 333 pieces. I don't raid. I did the instances in full PUGs a few times and they were definitely harsh -- 2-3hour slugfests were not uncommon. ZG is especially demanding for all party members, very coordination-heavy... in a PUG that's just recipe for trouble.

I had to use my new battlerez on almost every boss (the bear boss and hex dude in ZA / zanzil in ZG were the only exceptions I can think of), and use every other tanking cooldown as well, including army of the dead quite a few times to finish off a boss when everyone else [!] was dead... which was a very common situation. :p

Elitism is also out there in the new instances in full force. A rogue once remarked "lol y u tank if u dont have tanking gear" and ragequit the group halfway through zanzil after he died to poison... then we 4-manned the boss without issues.  I also witnessed people getting kicked all the time for being terribad dps (I have no way to verify this since the mods I used were borked by the patch)... though to be honest you literally CANNOT do some of the bosses if your average dps is below 6k or so, in my experience.

[WindupAtheist]

It should be a pretty nice change overall (bringing other CC into line with how Sap works), but it's going to make the game less immersive when enemies stare blanky as their friends are turned into sheep or frozen solid.

The last six years of forty dudes standing around in plain sight picking their noses while you slowly murder them in groups of five has been SO immersive. "Hey look those guys are killing Frank and Steve!" "Yeah but they're like 15 feet away, leave them alone unless they come within 14 feet."

[SurfD]

  I also witnessed people getting kicked all the time for being terribad dps (I have no way to verify this since the mods I used were borked by the patch)... though to be honest you literally CANNOT do some of the bosses if your average dps is below 6k or so, in my experience.

Umm. if you are in full Ilevel 346 gear (basicly the minimum requirement to actually queue for them), and you are pulling sub 7k dps on boss fights that dont have some huge gimmic, you probably shouldnt be in ZA / ZG in the first place.  Thats like, only 2 or 2.5k over what the average tank can pull on a boss fight, and would probably be considered sub par dps in normal heroics, let alone the new mini-raids.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah!  Back to the same handful of instances for you until you're decked out in better gear.  In fact, you should just do those three normal instances over and over until you've got better gear.  No new content for you!

[Malakili]

Yeah!  Back to the same handful of instances for you until you're decked out in better gear.  In fact, you should just do those three normal instances over and over until you've got better gear.  No new content for you!

Well, to be fair, if you have gear that good and still can't pull 6k DPS, thats on you.  More to your point though, there should have been normal modes for these new dungeons.

[Sheepherder]

I think Blizzard is stalking me to mine good suggestions.  Alternatively, that CC shouldn't trigger combat is obvious good game design.

[Paelos]

I think Blizzard is stalking me to mine good suggestions.  Alternatively, that CC shouldn't trigger combat is obvious good game design.

I think they should go a step further and just remove CC requirements from trash. Will it make trash trivial? Yeah. It was already. It's trash.

[Soulflame]

The approved term is "pacing mechanisms".

[Rendakor]

See also: Timesink.