Cataclysm

[Merusk]

Heh I'm totally the same was Sojfn.  Then after the silence, throw your stun hammer on 'em just to truly piss em off.

I also love judging Justice from 40+ yards in WSG.  FLag carriers have no idea wtf just happened to them.

[Selby]

Sorry to interrupt the PVP talk...

My latest guild officially quit the raiding scene yet again with even more people leaving due to RL issues.  Kind of sucky.  I enjoy playing this game when others are on to talk to, but now everyone has left and it's a ghost town.  I don't have an alliance guild so playing those characters isn't as fun as the horde ones I've had for 5+ years.  Starting over on another server... again...?  I'm not sure if it's the expansion or people just changing stages of life, but it feels like I have little reason to log in anymore and my fun is now gone.  It's a shame too because I used to enjoy playing, even during vanilla and TBC ages of stupid class\raid mechanics.

[sinij]

Both adoption and abandonment in mmorpgs are processes with a lot of momentum due to social aspect of the game.

[Ingmar]

I think at this point the only f13 Slap people playing are me, Nevermore, and Mattemeo.

EDIT: By the way, ran 6 or 7 more PUG heroics last night (non Zul), all were fine. I declare the game fixed, you can all come back now. 

I even ran a full PUG Zul'Gurub last night and it wasn't horrifying, as well as some mostly-pug Zul'whatevers over the weekend. Also people have been generally nicer than I remember from the past, except for one guy in a ZA run. Maybe I won't miss many of the people who quit (in a general sense that is)?

[Azuredream]

I used my free week when they gave it to me and tried a few troll instances on my mage. The first one (ZA) went alright with a few wipes but every run (2 ZA, 2 ZG) after that was a revolving door of tanks and healers and hours spent just trying to get halfway through, with the usual accompanying jackassery that goes with a dysfunctional run.

[Ashamanchill]

I'm actually totally cool with ZA and ZG, cause I don't HAVE to do them. I can run normal face rolling heroics all day, and never set foot inside there. Will I miss out on VP? Sure, but it's worth it.

[Zetor]

I ran zg/za a lot along with a whole lot of 'normal' heroics about a month ago as a tank (to get some worth out of my sub before it lapsed), pugging all the way. There were a few wipes in the troll instances (and I had to use my new DK battlerez liberally  ), but it was surprisingly smooth otherwise, and I never had to abandon a run. I think the pug booted a clueless dps once after he kept hitting the wrong targets (his dps was pretty bad too, 3k or so) and couldn't stand in the right spot on jindo, but that was the extent of all the 'meanness' / votekicking that I've experienced. Actually I think the only boss that really needs everyone to be on the ball is jindo in ZG. Of course playing a tank helped, since I was able to control one of the group factors that has the possibility to go terribly wrong. 

Normal heroics were almost faceroll except for the instant-kill mechanics (stonecore and brc are the main culprits here). No CC or anything, most of the time I didn't even need to bother with marking. So yeah, I think people are getting to the gear level where things can be bruteforced, but it's still not near what WOTLK used to be.

(for ref, my character is a blood DK in blue 346 gear to start, along with 3 pieces of 333 stuff and the epic archeology sword... I picked up a lot of troll epics and VP epics by the time my sub ran out)

[Ashamanchill]

Stonecore is an insta dodge for me, as a tank or DPS. So is Deadmines, but that is because I hate that dungeon.

[Ingmar]

Actually I think the only boss that really needs everyone to be on the ball is jindo in ZG.

The other one that comes to mind is the chick with the ascendant guys and the beams to stand in, that one still is too much for some people to grok.

[Zetor]

Yeah, there's a reason I mentioned brc in the instakill list. Thankfully she is doable if 3 people know how to do beams. As a tank I usually end up taking one of the beams, and the healer usually knows how to do it as well, and one dps usually pipes up to volunteer for the last one. If not, they usually get it after the first or second wipe 

[Azazel]

I'd probably come back, but I just don't have the time to make a sub worthwhile. If I could drop a couple hundred on a lifetime sub and then never worry about it again I'd probably do that and login a couple of times a week, but I just don't have the time right now. Having study on top of fulltime work is painful. Besides, I have a giant pile of xbox and steam games to plow through in the limited time I have.

[Pantastic]

Yeah, there's a reason I mentioned brc in the instakill list. Thankfully she is doable if 3 people know how to do beams. As a tank I usually end up taking one of the beams, and the healer usually knows how to do it as well, and one dps usually pipes up to volunteer for the last one. If not, they usually get it after the first or second wipe 

Ahh, the things you learn in PUGs - you can get away with just 2 people on the beams. all you have to do is let one Zealot mutate, then kill him, then switch back to the boss. One zealot at a time is easy to manage even with low gear, it's having multiples and not controlling them that wipes you.

[Rendakor]

Players getting themselves mutated is another cause of wipes.

[caladein]

I'm going to consider it a miracle if they get 4.2 with just the one raid in it out before July 4th weekend.

Looks like they'll just make it as the current PvP season ends 21 June, maybe a week later (source).

[Sjofn]

Players getting themselves mutated is another cause of wipes.

That's what usually kills my PUGs, yeah.

[apocrypha]

1 player fucking up once and then 3 others ragequitting the group instead of explaining what went wrong and trying again are what usually does it for me. 

[Sjofn]

Uuuuuusually someone will fuck up, it will get explained, someone will fuck up again, THEN the ragequits happen in my experience. 

[apocrypha]

4.2 probably set for June 21st. Link.

[Azuredream]

My personal favorite was a tank joining a ZA run and immediately leaving after seeing the timer.

[Setanta]

I have almost everything I want as a prot paladin doing ZA/ZG - am I bad person for considering a ninja of the 2H for my ret gear even if there is a DK/Warr in the group?

[caladein]

I'd take issue with that unless a) the person wanting "off-spec" gear said they were going after that at the beginning of the run or b) the person who's role that gear goes with is okay with it.

I'm generally cool with someone rolling on, and taking, gear outside their role that I also want as long as I'm asked first and they're not going after something "bad" for them (Hunter wanting something with Expertise, Mage/Warlock wanting Spirit).

[Ingmar]

I have almost everything I want as a prot paladin doing ZA/ZG - am I bad person for considering a ninja of the 2H for my ret gear even if there is a DK/Warr in the group?

I would probably cry a little if someone stole my hammer, yeah.

[Setanta]

Yeah - that was my original thought - but there have been cases of plate wearers rolling on tanking plate that I needed and winning it when I was the tank. I know two wrongs etc but this is becoming the norm, not the exception - last night was the kicker when a fury warrior rolled on the prot legs at the end of ZA AFTER he'd just got 3 other DPS pieces.

I have not hit the "fuck them all" point :(

[Ingmar]

My general rule is I'll roll need on the stuff for my other spec (whichever one I'm not using at the time) only if the person who is there using it doesn't (that sentence could be clearer probably), but yeah there are always those people who just roll if they can.

[Paelos]

Nerf to the VP cap just got posted per week. 

Yeah, they totally get it.

[caladein]

For a raider, it's pretty much the same thing as the current tier: full* clear + 3-4 Heroics gets you cap.  (Yes, you could cap Valor if you killed all 14 bosses in a 25m, but a) Sinestra and b) who the hell bothered with Throne?)
For a purely non-raider, you can max Valor income just from running ZA/ZG.

I think it's a good set-up.  Non-raiders can cap Valor income now and it keeps at least some raiders in the Dungeon Finder pool for a while.  Maybe it's just the patch being soon, but Chicago's Horde-side queues are pretty constantly on tank or tank/healer Call to Arms at this point.

For reference:

The maximum number of Valor Points which can be earned in a week from any and all applicable dungeons and raids is now 980, down from 1250.
The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Rise of the Zandalari dungeons remains at 980.
The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Heroic dungeons remains at 490.
The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 70 in 10-player mode, and 90 in 25-player mode.
The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu'thar in Baradin Hold is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.
The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss on Heroic difficulty in The Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four Winds is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.

[apocrypha]

Surely this reduces the difference between raiders and non-raiders in terms of gearing up speed?

How is that a bad thing?

[Azuredream]

It looked like an across the board nerf to me. It's only neutral if you don't play enough to cap out under the current system. Unless I'm remembering wrong, I thought it was already possible to cap out doing nothing but 5 mans.

[Rendakor]

No, they lowered the old cap to the current 5-man-only cap.

[Paelos]

Surely this reduces the difference between raiders and non-raiders in terms of gearing up speed?

How is that a bad thing?

Because Blizzard is trying to gate their content even more since they are lagging on the development. The move from "Faster patch = better" became "We're also going to put in a heroic cap" to "Oh by the way, we've going to slow down your rate gains." If you don't like the ZA/ZG dungeons? No problem, you'll just earn your gear a few months later now.

The whole thing just screams that they can't keep up, so they're going to slow everyone else down with invisible walls.

[Merusk]

It certainly screams "omg we can't keep up," to me as well.  If that weren't the case they could have upped the cap for non-raiders to match the raider cap if they wanted to create equality in terms of earned points per week.  Nerfing it downward means "shit, we need to slow down how fast people gear up and therefore get bored."

It's both a good and a bad thing.

[caladein]

The whole thing just screams that they can't keep up, so they're going to slow everyone else down with invisible walls.

Valor income can be maxed from the start of the cycle in 4.2.  To get the same number of Valor Points before 4.1, you'd have to kill seven 10m raid bosses a week and do your random heroic every day.

If prices stay constant this is a reduction in both total income and weekly income at the backend of the content cycle, yes.  But Valor now is a lot less valuable than it was when you were under 6/12.  It's a reach to call this "more content gating" for everyone outside of high-end 25m raiders.  For a lot of players (myself included), it's a net gain in more ways than one.

Edit: Clarity.

[Rendakor]

This is not a current nerf caladein, this is a change coming in 4.2. How is valor going to be less valuable? New gear is coming to the valor vendor that is on par with the Firelands loot. It's not like they're nerfing the valor income to stop people from buying 359s, because those are all moving down to the justice vendor.

[Paelos]

I fail to see how it's a gain unless they are lowering prices of gear.

[caladein]

It's more valuable to have 980 points/week from the very beginning when you have few sources of current gear (T12) than it is to have a slightly higher 1250 points/week cap that you can't approach until you're doing normal clears (T11).