Patch 3.3

[Rendakor]

First 6 bosses in ICC seemed to be working ok for my group. What'd they change about the bracelets? The big change I noticed on mmo-champion was the removal of limited attempts on ICC bosses in normal mode.

[SurfD]

I think they changed it so that Lovely Charms no longer drop if you use vehicles to kill mobs (so no more Ulduar Dwarf Farming, or ICC Jousting / Bombing run farming.)

[Mattemeo]

the Ghostlands/Azuremyst experience is really head and shoulders over the vanilla starting areas.  The goblin/worgen areas are going to be even better if the DK starting area is any indication. 

Azuremyst/Bloodmyst Isles are excellent levelling experiences, well laid out for the most part, though Bloodmyst is in all honesty way too big. Ghostlands, on the other hand, is a steaming dark green lump of design fail as far as I'm concerned. Abysmal mob placement, quests that require you to traipse through stuff able to 1 or 2 shot you at the level you get them, a wandering elite, and considering it pertains to being one of the most important places in WoW lore, a dull environment filled with dull quests.

I have no doubt Gilneas/The Lost Islands will be better than ever before, but I do hope they've learned a few things from the previous two - chiefly, keeping it concise and making sure you enjoy every moment you're there.

[Sheepherder]

The palette of Azure/Blood Myst is complete fucking eyerape.

[Minvaren]

I think they changed it so that Lovely Charms no longer drop if you use vehicles to kill mobs (so no more Ulduar Dwarf Farming, or ICC Jousting / Bombing run farming.)

During last night's lag-fest, I definitely noticed that jousting near ICC was not dropping charms as before.  The bummer is that the server hijinks took one day out of a very short World Event.

[Rasix]

I did a HCOS and didn't get very many charm drops either.  I got very few last night where as I was getting charms a lot more often before.

My server was down for a long time, but performance seemed fine when I hopped on at night.

[Nebu]

Doesn't fixing bugs like this during a short and meaningless event just cause those that haven't finished it yet to be at a large disadvantage?  Seems the best thing to do would be to leave it as-is and fix it for next year.   Especially when fixing this 2 week event costs everyone a day of playtime. 

[Draegan]

I had the luckiest run of Heroic 5 Mans last night.

I was able to just about round out my character in BiS gear before raiding. 

Needle Encrusted Scorpion dropped and I won a roll vs 3 people.
Tyrannical Beheader dropped and I won it.
The Lady's Promise dropped and I won it vs. 3 people.

Not much else for me to do other than upgrade my Frost Wyrm Ribcage chestpiece to the 50 badge one of Conquest and work on my professions.

I need to find a casual raiding guild, or attempt to get into pugs with a 4800 GS and no achievements.

[Minvaren]

Doesn't fixing bugs like this during a short and meaningless event just cause those that haven't finished it yet to be at a large disadvantage?  Seems the best thing to do would be to leave it as-is and fix it for next year.   Especially when fixing this 2 week event costs everyone a day of playtime. 

Ah, I see - I was misreading the calendar in-game.  I thought the event only went through Thursday (and then Lunar Festival started), which is why I was extra-peeved at the downtime.  I should be able to complete the achievments I was after, then.   

[Nevermore]

the Ghostlands/Azuremyst experience is really head and shoulders over the vanilla starting areas.  The goblin/worgen areas are going to be even better if the DK starting area is any indication. 

Azuremyst/Bloodmyst Isles are excellent levelling experiences, well laid out for the most part, though Bloodmyst is in all honesty way too big. Ghostlands, on the other hand, is a steaming dark green lump of design fail as far as I'm concerned. Abysmal mob placement, quests that require you to traipse through stuff able to 1 or 2 shot you at the level you get them, a wandering elite, and considering it pertains to being one of the most important places in WoW lore, a dull environment filled with dull quests.

I really liked the quest where you get the bracelet that you give to Sylvanas, though.  If you stick around after you give it to her, she summons some banshees and sings a lament to what she's lost.

[Jayce]

Azuremyst/Bloodmyst Isles are excellent levelling experiences, well laid out for the most part, though Bloodmyst is in all honesty way too big. Ghostlands, on the other hand, is a steaming dark green lump of design fail as far as I'm concerned. Abysmal mob placement, quests that require you to traipse through stuff able to 1 or 2 shot you at the level you get them, a wandering elite, and considering it pertains to being one of the most important places in WoW lore, a dull environment filled with dull quests.

Oh seriously folks, when they came out we were all raising the roof about how awesome they were. They have a storyline, a point, a faction to build rep with and buy shiny blue stuff when you leave (and are exalted with it), they're laid out logically and are generally really polished.  This is in comparison to the old model of "I don't know; kill ten puppies and come back to me for your reward".

In retrospect they seem terrible but I'm pretty sure we'll be here two years from now talking about how the DK starting area was SO HORRIBLE and what we have now is much better 

[Draegan]

Blood Elf and Draenai starting areas are still full of awesome.  Well created zones in my opinion and still hold up.

[Cadaverine]

I think they changed it so that Lovely Charms no longer drop if you use vehicles to kill mobs (so no more Ulduar Dwarf Farming, or ICC Jousting / Bombing run farming.)

During last night's lag-fest, I definitely noticed that jousting near ICC was not dropping charms as before.  The bummer is that the server hijinks took one day out of a very short World Event.

They changed it so that mobs that don't normally give xp, despite being green or better, don't drop the charms.  So all the zombies, jousting, Frenyheart/Oracles, etc. are all out.  It's all good, though.  At 4079 GS, my Balance druid can still burn through the Cult of the Damned mobs behind the tournament grounds at quite a clip, and they've got a decent respawn.

[Lantyssa]

Thankfully I only had a few achievements left on either character.  What's silly is that you need forty drops for a series of dailies to get tokens so you can do achievements.  Or 120 drops for the Charmed, which is only three days worth of turn-ins.

I guess having a holiday where you never needed to step outside the cities for most of it was too much to ask for.  (Not that the old system didn't have some serious flaws.)

[Simond]

Incidentally, a hotfix went in that you get charms from someone in your group killing a mob instead of just yourself. So...the normal heroic runs should give you ample for the event.

[K9]

The drop rate seems less than stellar though. Might make CoT:Strat more popular for a while though

[caladein]

Anyone have any experience with LFD queue times as a leveling healer, say from 20 on up?  (In the Shadowburn battlegroup especially.)

Tanks are instant, and DPS has been about 10-20 minutes in my experience leveling an Arms Warrior.  At 80, healers are one/two minutes at most, but I don't know if that holds true down to the low levels.

[Selby]

Anyone have any experience with LFD queue times as a leveling healer, say from 20 on up?

It's entirely hit or miss.  Sometimes it will take forever, other times it will be instant.  My tank had issues getting groups in the early 60's some nights, and then no issues at all other nights.

[Soulflame]

It's been a long time coming for my guild, but I think Putricide is going to be the boss that finally breaks it.   

[ezrast]

Anyone have any experience with LFD queue times as a leveling healer, say from 20 on up?  (In the Shadowburn battlegroup especially.)

Tanks are instant, and DPS has been about 10-20 minutes in my experience leveling an Arms Warrior.  At 80, healers are one/two minutes at most, but I don't know if that holds true down to the low levels.

I've been leveling a resto shaman since 49 exclusively through LFD on Sargeras, which is in Shadowburn. Usually the queues aren't more than a minute or two unless I'm playing at 5 AM or something; they're definitely a little longer at the pre-death-knight levels though. Can't speak to the lower levels but I would be surprised if healers took much longer than tanks (in fact I'm surprised that queues for tanks are shorter than for healers at all).

Does anybody know how checking the group leader thing affects queue times? Like, if a tank, a healer, and 3 dps are all in queue but none have leader selected will it refuse to group them, or just give lead to someone at random?

[K9]

I always pick leader on my mains, not sure if it has any benefit. I can't see how it would make quese slower, and it might make groups quicker. Depends on how many people don't tick the option (and I have no idea there).

[Hutch]

Does anybody know how checking the group leader thing affects queue times? Like, if a tank, a healer, and 3 dps are all in queue but none have leader selected will it refuse to group them, or just give lead to someone at random?

I've never checked the box, but I've been handed the Party Leader slot more than once.

[Merusk]

The tick doesn't do anything, does it?  Originally it was going to give 'extra loot' and some achieve, but neither of those were implemented.  I wonder if the checkbox is just a leftover from that iteration, like the "LFG Flag" was at the end of Vanilla's open beta.

[Ingmar]

It makes you have [Dungeon Guide] or [Party Leader] for your chat prefix instead of [Party], I don't think it does anything else.

[Selby]

It's been a long time coming for my guild, but I think Putricide is going to be the boss that finally breaks it.   

Yeah, our guild has hit that wall.  We're *this* close, but it always seems to fall apart.  Luckily we have enough alt distractions and old hard modes to occupy our time so we aren't at each others throats.

[Ingmar]

I imagine that has to do with how the guild formed in the first place. If the whole goal at the start was to progress and do content that sort of thing will leave a littered trail of dead guilds. The ones that are just there to hang out and happened to stumble into raiding accidentally like us just shrug and go 'oh well' when we can't do something and go back to leveling alts.

[Draegan]

I'm stuck in progression.  I found a cool guild that lets me play in ICC25 sometimes and outside finding another guild, I'm stuck.  I have the best gear available before raiding.  I can't manage to get into TOC25/10 mans because my gearscore isn't high (4987) and I don't have achievements.  I'm stuck in a Catch-22 because I'm on an elitist douchebag server that is Mal'Ganis.  You can't even get into a TOC raid without a 5.3 GS and achievements.  The only one I did manage to get into fell apart after one kill.

The only thing I can think of is trying to find another guild, but that's tough as a DPS DK.

I guess there really is no point to this post other than venting.

[Minvaren]

I can't manage to get into TOC25/10 mans because my gearscore isn't high (4987)...

(spews drink out of nose) Ok, my 4K gearscore just depressed me...

I'm stuck in a Catch-22 because I'm on an elitist douchebag server that is Mal'Ganis.  You can't even get into a TOC raid without a 5.3 GS and achievements.

I'm on a pretty laid-back server (Sen'Jin - only one guild has cleared ICC), but people get laughed at if they gear check for ToC10 in Trade chat.

[Arinon]

That's a ridiculous requirement.  If you just want to jack up your gearscore easiest way is to replace some 232 gear with 264 PvP gear.  Bracer and neck come to mind right away as they require no arena rating and can be purchased with straight honour.  Generally just as good as 232 stuff if you discount the resil but if someone is just looking at the GS number they could buy you a couple hundred points.

[Simond]

Or just lie: http://sites.google.com/site/gearscoreugh/home

[Draegan]

(spews drink out of nose) Ok, my 4K gearscore just depressed me...

A 4987 gearscore is having the best gear you can get out of heroics and badges (including 50 frost emblems).

That's a ridiculous requirement.  If you just want to jack up your gearscore easiest way is to replace some 232 gear with 264 PvP gear.  Bracer and neck come to mind right away as they require no arena rating and can be purchased with straight honour.  Generally just as good as 232 stuff if you discount the resil but if someone is just looking at the GS number they could buy you a couple hundred points.

I agree completely, but you can get away with that on Mal'Ganis.  They do an initial GS check and you're ok.  But if they see you doing shitty DPS (which wouldn't be shitty dps for that raid), they'll kick you out.

For me, I've never done Ulduar, TOC or ICC.  I don't know the fights and you can only get so much from watching videos.  I hate saying I have zero experience with the place (no achievements) because you'll get kicked. 

Good example would be the Beasts of Northrend.  You have that one guy that shoots everyone against the wall and charges someone.  Well he focuses on me the first go around!  How lucky of me.  I ran out of the way but apparently just not far enough.  (I got stuck on a pillar on the wall and couldn't run fast enough after I realized I was stuck.  Fuck camera screwed me.)  After that happened a few of the douches in the group started screaming at me about it even though we still won.

Ah well.  Nerd rage.  I shrug and move on.

[Selby]

Ah well.  Nerd rage.  I shrug and move on.

Welcome to raiding.  That's what most of the elitist guilds are like.  Your only real hope is to find a group of casual players who want to learn to raid but are serious about it at the same time (NOTHING worse than a casual guild of people who can't bother to read up on fights or gem\enchant gear properly or at all).  If you eventually form a guild or get into one like that, great.  My server is pretty active and there are plenty of PUG raids out there that happen, but most break up just like you describe because a DPS is only doing 1k or a tank doesn't know the fights well enough to manage aggro and cooldowns.  Only if you get into a hardcore guild's alt run (or one of our PUGs ;-) ) can you pretty much be guaranteed a win.  When we go in to TotC-10, it's over in 45 minutes even with alts and the occasional PUG.

Have you visited your realm's forum to see if anyone is recruiting for any guilds that want to see progression?  New guilds form all of the time, and while most don't last, if it gets you experience and some gear in the fights, it's a step into the next one or a more "serious" or established guild.  That's how I got started back at the beginning of WotLK.  Joined a casual guild, put together a few VERY fail raids (OS-1 trash wipes for an hour!) but eventually managed to put together 10 people who didn't completely suck and got some raid content down (most of Naxx and OS).  Then that guild broke up, some people moved elsewhere, got a reputation for not sucking combined with being on at consistent times and before too long I was in a 25-m guild doing cutting edge content and hardmodes.  You have to want it and work at it though, being on 1-2 nights a week for 30-45m at a time isn't going to cut it.  Not that you are doing that, just saying that a certain amount of effort goes into proving yourself as a raider to a good guild.  Once you've done that, it's as casual as you want to be provided you gem\enchant all new gear appropriately, learn fights beforehand, and show up on time ;-)

[Musashi]

Only solution is make your own groups.  It's a headache, but if you want to get stuff and get into a guild it's the only way.  It's also a good way to meet guildless people who are willing to join a guild you might create if you are so inclined.  Unless you have friends in high places that will carry you, there's nothing else you can do.

[Draegan]

Ah well.  Nerd rage.  I shrug and move on.

Welcome to raiding. 

I'm by no means a stranger to raiding and/or hardcore raiding.  I'm just a casual player now on an elitist douchebag server.  I knew what I was getting into.  I'm just venting really.

[March]

I'm feeling this from a different angle... sort of like "Yay, I won WoW Casual 3.3"... but now I have nothing to do.

Unlike you, I don't want to raid (never found the scripted "Boss Hokey-Pokey" all that fun)... but can't find any new content or incremental advancement for my main.

I applaud the design shift that drop-kicks folks quickly to the new tiers of content (brilliant for the life of the game)... but I still find the lingering notion that now that I am RAID READY (TM) that I'll want to raid.  Perhaps this will die too in 4.0.