Initial Thoughts on Pandaria

[Azazel]

- WTF have they done to jp/vp stuff and why? Apparently you need to repgrind your way (through daily quests only, apparently) to be able to even buy anything. And then you need to do it on alts all over again. I will just end up not bothering because a] grinding daily quests can die in a fire b] the gear isn't really good anyway (though they may just put better gear there as later tiers roll out)
- Insert a half-page semi-coherent rant about daily quests and rep grinds here, because the previous bullet point wasn't enough.

Ahyup. That's why I'll come back in a year after they've unwound those particular thumbscrews. I can't imagine the larger amount of casuals staying for that.

[Setanta]

Ahyup. That's why I'll come back in a year after they've unwound those particular thumbscrews. I can't imagine the larger amount of casuals staying for that.

Same here - I hate dailies with a passion. They need to steal the system from GW2 where you have 4 criteria to complete a day which are part of your usual questing/gameplay.

[SurfD]

- WTF have they done to jp/vp stuff and why? Apparently you need to repgrind your way (through daily quests only, apparently) to be able to even buy anything. And then you need to do it on alts all over again. I will just end up not bothering because a] grinding daily quests can die in a fire b] the gear isn't really good anyway (though they may just put better gear there as later tiers roll out)
- Insert a half-page semi-coherent rant about daily quests and rep grinds here, because the previous bullet point wasn't enough.

Ahyup. That's why I'll come back in a year after they've unwound those particular thumbscrews. I can't imagine the larger amount of casuals staying for that.

I believe the logic here is that PvErs now have two distinct gearing paths:
A: for the Raid Crowd - Raiding - Kill bosses to initially collect gear, use valor / JP to upgrade your gear once that system goes live.
B: for those who hate raids, but still want raid Ilevel Gear - Rep grinds and daily quests - earn JP / Valor from dailys / dungeons, buy gear from rep vendors, spend points to upgrade gear when that system goes live.

You are not really "required" to do both to get your purples, though the true min maxers who want the "best in slot" gear for every slot will probably end up doing so, since i imagine the rep-grind gear will often have some of the better stat itemizations over the same slot raid gear for certain specs.

Of course, prety much every faction has mounts and goodies at exalted that everyone will eventually want to get most likely.

[luckton]

The way stuff is setup now, Bliz is buying themselves more time to develop and deploy patches at a pace they're comfortable with, instead of having to rush stuff to keep up with the hardcores that burn through content like nobody's business.  By putting a set limit on how fast you can unlock access to Justice/Valor gear, they can control how fast mudflation occurs, and also validate some of the more interesting things they're doing with the dailies that some of the factions involve.

I would concede that perhaps by next year there will be a faster way to rep up with the MoP factions, either through item acquisition or just increases in how much rep is awarded on dailies' completions.  But I don't think they're going to go back to the tabard dungeon grinding way.

Did a couple scenarios last night and this morning.  I like them for the quick and simple goal-driven aspects.  I hate that I can't /votekick a bad/DCed player because Bliz honestly forgot to put that in 

[Maledict]

You are not really "required" to do both to get your purples, though the true min maxers who want the "best in slot" gear for every slot will probably end up doing so, since i imagine the rep-grind gear will often have some of the better stat itemizations over the same slot raid gear for certain specs.

Unfortunately whilst they have often aimed for this, it has never, *ever* worked in WoW. People who raid always end up doing the dailies and grinding heroics for gear because often its better than raid gear or it's simply the fastest way to gear up for a raid fight. It was one of the (several) things that stopped me platying - the fact that every new tier of raiding I'd have to return to the drudgery of grinding out heroics every week just to buy the latest trinket or token or whatever.

[Numtini]

From memory, there was always one piece of equipment or one enchantment (shoulders?) that required you to grind the dailies and it was mandatory for raiding. I finally crashed and burned on the dailies last expansion. I'm sitting this one out.

[luckton]

From memory, there was always one piece of equipment or one enchantment (shoulders?) that required you to grind the dailies and it was mandatory for raiding. I finally crashed and burned on the dailies last expansion. I'm sitting this one out.

Enchantments are the exception.  Head enchants are flat out gone, and shoulder enchants got moved to Inscription.  Rep now is for Valor/Justice gear, vanity stuffs, lore, and mounts.

[Miasma]

From memory, there was always one piece of equipment or one enchantment (shoulders?) that required you to grind the dailies and it was mandatory for raiding. I finally crashed and burned on the dailies last expansion. I'm sitting this one out.

You don't have to do that one anymore.

It seems like you only need to get to revered and only with some of the factions to unlock the honor/valor gear.  You can only get 1000 valor a week now so just to buy a pair of pants will take three weeks if you max it out.  So you don't have to do all of them at once, which would be a terrible grind.  You find the one piece you most want and run that group's dailies, by the time you've saved up the valor you will be at revered I imagine.  The long grind from revered to exalted only gets you perks like mounts and other vanity items.

[Paelos]

From what I can see here's how the faction things break down:

Golden Lotus - If you're Leather or Tailor, you have to do this to honored for patterns. As for everyone else, the epics at revered at chests, rings, and shoulders. Necessary to be revered for other factions.
Order of the Cloud Serpent - Good for JCs, but otherwise it's just a fancier version of the Netherwing. It's a mount faction.
Shado-Pan - You have to be revered with Golden Lotus to get the daily hub. Enchanters will want the patterns here. Epic Trinkets, Headgear, and Cloaks are here at revered.
Anglers - Fishing faction. You get a goldfish pet, a badass raft that you can sail across water on, and one of those water bugs that you can ride around on at exalted.
August Celestials - Epic bracers, gloves, and boots for points. Also, you can get buffs for making offerings.
Klaxxi - Epic necklaces, pants, and belts. They have cool transmog weapons at exalted. Absolutely required for Smiths, since there's a ton of plans here. Also a scorpion mount.
Lorewalkers - No dailies, no quests, keyed with Archeology. You get a flying disc mount, a rock that ports you to arch sites, and a map that randoms your digsites for the continent.
Tillers - Farming faction. You get a goat mount, and rewards for your farm.

[luckton]

Doing Tillers stuff will make feast-making/Cooking in general easier.  Heck, once you get at least 10 plots open, you make a Harmony mat every day on the relatively cheap-side.

[El Gallo]

I don't mind dailies; they still seem like the best post-max option for solo gameplay.  They absolutely need to jack up the spawn rates of every daily mob about 9,000% and increase item drops to 100%.  Or add shared kill credit and drops for everyone who damages every mob, not just the miniboss types.  It's absurd how long I spend standing around waiting for something to kill, often standing at a static point waiting on respawns a la EQ/AC.  

[Simond]

Or add shared kill credit and drops for everyone who damages every mob, not just the miniboss types.

That, along with "sell junk" & "compact" bag buttons, needs to be stolen from GW2 yesterday.

[Rokal]

This is a good write-up on each factions rewards/process: http://www.wowhead.com/news=206830/mists-of-pandaria-reputation-quick-facts

People said that Catacylsm didn't have enough end-game content and the dailies/scenarios are Blizzard's attempt at making more end-game content besides raids and dungeons.

Theramore was garbage but the other scenarios have been a bit more fun. I can't really see much incentive to run them more than once or twice though. The drop rate on getting loot out of the bag at the end is poor and it may not be for your spec. Once you've geared yourself in heroics (which are apparently very easy in MoP) you won't have a reason to run them.

You'll probably want to run Arena of Annihilation as soon as your character hits 90 for an easy 450 weapon though.

The dailies haven't been impressive but I'm keeping an open mind as the daily hubs open up. So far it's been mostly kill/collection quests, so their claim that these daily quests were a different breed seems false.

[SurfD]

Also, Cloud Seprent faction and Lorewalkers both seem to be REALLY easy rep-throughs if you are lucky (or something), since I have seen multiple people who are exalted with those factions as of 2 days ago at least, which means that there is some mechanic that allows you to hit exalted with them very quickly after you hit 90.

[Miasma]

I think you get exalted with lorewalkers if you find all those lore scrolls.

[Rendakor]

Yea, Lorewalker exalted takes ~2 hours once you're 90 and can fly. I haven't done Cloud Serpent yet, but it's next on my list.

[Jayce]

Hotfix has been applied to remove faction requirements for JP gear:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6759237078

[luckton]

So much for waiting a year or so    I can understand why though, and I'm not sure why Bliz didn't until now, unless they just didn't want everyone that was sitting on their JP reserves from Cata to be in 450 blues the second they hit 90 in the first week.

Now if they could just make the rep crafting recipes BoA...

[Rendakor]

My thoughts so far after a few days at 90:

• Dailies: There are lots of them, and they're pretty important. I don't really mind them in MoP for a number of reasons: the removal of the 25/day cap makes it viable to grind all your reps (if you're so inclined) instead of forcing you to focus on a few at a time; it also frees up Blizz to give each rep a LOT of dailies. Each faction's quests are generally concentrated in one area, so you can bang out a whole set at once. The biggest change I'd like to see here is giving quest credit to anyone who touches a mob ala GW2. BoA crafting recipes would be another nice change, so I don't have to grind every faction on every alt. I'm glad they've unlocked JP gear from rep grinds, and wish they'd do the same with VP.
• Farming: This is a lot of fun so far, although I see no reason to gate 90% of the content behind a level 90 requirement. Some of the dailies are in places inaccessible without a flying mount, but the majority are not so you ought to be able to do this whole faction much earlier. I've always liked the Harvest Moon series so I'm already a fan, but the simple act of finding gifts for people, making them dishes and growing crops is pretty cool to me. I just wish you could use the vegetables to make food for every stat instead of requiring fishing for the majority as always (because fishing fucking sucks).
• Scenarios: I've only run 3 of them, and besides the new Ring of Blood I don't see the point of them at all. You have a small chance at what, an ilvl 450 item? I'm honestly not sure since I didn't get one any of the three attempts I made, but if the items aren't at least on par with Heroic gear they're just a waste of time. While we're talking about itemization, why don't any of the mobs in Scenarios drop loot? I don't mean gear, I just mean coin, cloth, vendor trash, etc. Loot issues aside, they seem like a decent diversion but felt a little long for how (un)rewarding they were. One of them felt like a 20 minute long escort quest (A Brewing Storm) that just left me feeling like I should've done a Heroic. In the Cata world where Heroics were 1-2 hours these might feel short, but not compared to most MoP heroics.
• Dungeons: There aren't enough leveling dungeons; more than half of the new dungeons are Heroic only which makes dungeon-leveling non-viable. Other than that the new dungeons are great, and a huge improvement from the slogs of Cata. I've done 8/9 so far (Mogu'shan Palace hasn't come up in my random rotation yet); the only one I dislike is Siege of Niuzao Temple because it felt pretty long and trash heavy. The bosses in general are interesting without feeling cockstabby; with only DBM to guide me I've had very few wipes tanking most of them blind and just listening to the warnings. I see more people die to trash than the bosses, mostly due to standing in fire (or water, or sha-residue) that mobs drop when they die. I'm not sure I'm fond of the return of vanilla-style rare boss epics, because I remember the horror stories but I suppose at least it'll allow nonraiders a chance at some epics.

[Azazel]

So much for waiting a year or so    I can understand why though, and I'm not sure why Bliz didn't until now, unless they just didn't want everyone that was sitting on their JP reserves from Cata to be in 450 blues the second they hit 90 in the first week.

Now if they could just make the rep crafting recipes BoA...

See, that's an incredibly good thing. I've got 4 characters I enjoy playing now, and while I can understand a rep grind to get a mount (even if I don't love it - I've done it for quite a few in the past) needing to do so just to unlock the ability to spend JP was ridiculous. Especially given Blizzard's stated "we wanted to not force people to play one character over another" goal which they used as justification for mount and achievement-consolidation. And, well, frankly, I'm over dailies. I never fully opened up firelands, nor got the pets or mounts from Deepholm or Tol Barad, since it just becomes boring grind-gameplay, and I already have a job. I don't mind dailies as an option, but for them to essentially be mandatory was a silly move, and one I'm glad they corrected.

[Hawkbit]

Instead of heading into new zones, I rolled a monk.  I started him on Saturday, and tonight hit lvl 35.  Granted, I do have two pieces of heirloom gear, but holy hell leveling is fast now.  I'm not sure how sticky the monk will be for me, but it's an interesting class.  It feels like 10% of the monks will be awesome, and the other 90% are going to be terribad.  Seems like a highly skill based class so far.

[Rokal]

They also knocked down some of the epic VP reputation rewards to require honored instead of revered, fyi. Belts, rings, etc.

While we're talking about itemization, why don't any of the mobs in Scenarios drop loot? I don't mean gear, I just mean coin, cloth, vendor trash, etc.

Unless I'm going crazy, mobs do drop loot in scenarios. I remember thinking it was a pretty good place to get motes of harmony. I don't know how they plan to get people to re-run scenarios, but then again people never really re-ran group quests either which is what scenarios are supposed to replace. It seems pretty clear that scenarios weren't cheap to make though, in comparison.

Enough guild-mates hit 90 for me to check out the new heroic dungeons. I like them so far. They aren't difficult, but there seem to be enough mechanically interesting fights to keep me happy. I'm also in love with the tanking changes, which has made easy 5-man content much more exciting.

[Zetor]

I have NO idea why they removed the rep tabards. Some people like to grind rep by doing dailies, others like to farm massive amounts of mobs for drops, others like to run dungeons. I'm in camp#3, and the change just screws me over without any apparent reason. They could also possibly make each scenario give rep to the 'appropriate' faction (though I'm not sure any of them fit klaxxi) from killing mobs/bosses and completion.

Speaking of scenarios, I've also seen SOME drops in them [mostly cloth and greys], but it was kind of on the scarce/low side when compared to Theramore at level 85. The nice thing about scenarios is that you can do one of them while sitting in a dungeon queue as DPS, and your dungeon queue will pop when you finish the scenario (it counts your time spent in the scenario as "standing in queue time", if that makes sense).

[Rendakor]

Maybe some of them drop loot, but they certainly ALL don't which is stupid. We weren't even getting coin for most of the trash in Brewing Storm.

I do miss the options we had previously for rep grinds, particularly because grinding dailies takes very long since you're limited on how much rep you earn/day. Even if each dungeon/scenario only gave it's appropriate rep instead of whatever tabard you were wearing that'd be nice; while none of the scenarios fit the Klaxxi there are a couple dungeons where you could make it work.

Good call on the VP rewards Rokal, I'll have to go check those out tomorrow.

[Lastwolf]

I have NO idea why they removed the rep tabards. Some people like to grind rep by doing dailies, others like to farm massive amounts of mobs for drops, others like to run dungeons. I'm in camp#3, and the change just screws me over without any apparent reason. They could also possibly make each scenario give rep to the 'appropriate' faction (though I'm not sure any of them fit klaxxi) from killing mobs/bosses and completion.

Speaking of scenarios, I've also seen SOME drops in them [mostly cloth and greys], but it was kind of on the scarce/low side when compared to Theramore at level 85. The nice thing about scenarios is that you can do one of them while sitting in a dungeon queue as DPS, and your dungeon queue will pop when you finish the scenario (it counts your time spent in the scenario as "standing in queue time", if that makes sense).

They haven't removed them exactly it's just there are none for most of the new factions this expansion (except Horde/Alliance Panda rep), I like the change tbh.

Rep tabards made those factions 'grinds' ridiculously easy, I'd already be exalted with everybody by now and waiting around for my raid days or leveling an alt out of boredom by this stage in Cata or Wotlk. You could easily do a rep a day, if not more and it required no more of you than wearing a tabard and doing what you were doing anyway. Dungeons were triple dipping on rewards, you got rep, gear and JP/Valor Points to buy more gear should the right stuff not drop or simply gear you even faster. Sure each faction had dailies but it was useless to do, unless you wanted some gold, I hadn't done any since the crusaders in Wotlk.

Needing to do multiple differing things to get where I want to go (raid ready) was and is great, at least for me. I didn't do any dungeons at all on the path to 90 because in previous expansions I burned out hard on them really quickly, to the point were I hated doing them, pretty much haven't done a 5 man in 6 months before Mists. But they felt really fresh and needing to go out into the world and do my dailies has prevented me from just sitting in 5man's till I pass out. I'm pretty much as geared as I need to be to enter raids but I still find myself wanting to do the stuff for fun. Also the rotating daily quests are good, even the same area can be different which is interesting.


The Golden Lotus phasing bug seriously ruined my day though.

 

[SurfD]

• Farming: This is a lot of fun so far, although I see no reason to gate 90% of the content behind a level 90 requirement. Some of the dailies are in places inaccessible without a flying mount, but the majority are not so you ought to be able to do this whole faction much earlier. I've always liked the Harvest Moon series so I'm already a fan, but the simple act of finding gifts for people, making them dishes and growing crops is pretty cool to me. I just wish you could use the vegetables to make food for every stat instead of requiring fishing for the majority as always (because fishing fucking sucks).

Once you hit friendly with the tillers (i think it is friendly, might be honored), this problem is somewhat alleviated by the ability to package up unwanted Veggies / Cooking Mats into baskets of Groceries, which can be turned in to an NPC for Ironpaw tokens, which can then in turn be used to purchase other Cooking Mats.  The major downside to this is that the conversion rate is generally around 4 to 1.  Ie, a full stack of Unwanted Mats (100 vegies or 20 meat / fish) converts into 1 token, which only buys 5 fish / meat or 85 veggies.

In the end, if you need a specific fish, you are probably further ahead to just go fish nodes for them.

[Jayce]

As someone who enjoys fishing, and also enjoys selling the fish, I'm glad fishing sucks   

When in Jade Forest, I was rushing (such as it is for me) to 90. I got to 86.5 and found Halfhill as of night before last. I'm still doing quests, but I think I'm going to take a pause here and smell the flowers. For the first time I think I'm just not in a hurry to max level.

[Paelos]

As someone who enjoys fishing, and also enjoys selling the fish, I'm glad fishing sucks   

When in Jade Forest, I was rushing (such as it is for me) to 90. I got to 86.5 and found Halfhill as of night before last. I'm still doing quests, but I think I'm going to take a pause here and smell the flowers. For the first time I think I'm just not in a hurry to max level.

I'm with you on fishing. It's been basically providing me with gold for my other tradeskills.

[Miasma]

Started angler rep and turned on the fish pool finder in the mini map for the first time in pandaria, seems like it's the same as mining/herbs in that pools are freaking everywhere.  Which I'm fine with.  I'm looking forward to fishing up those rares to improve nat pagle freindship, I want that hat that which puts unlimited lures on the pole.

I typically level up my druid to harvest to get gold but maybe this expansion I won't need an alt and will just fish up money.

[Paelos]

Started angler rep and turned on the fish pool finder in the mini map for the first time in pandaria, seems like it's the same as mining/herbs in that pools are freaking everywhere.  Which I'm fine with.  I'm looking forward to fishing up those rares to improve nat pagle freindship, I want that hat that which puts unlimited lures on the pole.

I typically level up my druid to harvest to get gold but maybe this expansion I won't need an alt and will just fish up money.

If you're done the fishing daily from SW, you get the bag that has a chance a hat with unlimited 75 lures +5 skill. I use that hat until I get the fancy epic hat.

[Miasma]

Oh and while we're talking about professions engineers don't have to scour the old world for mats to make tinkers anymore, you can just buy a tinker kit from the vendor and you use one for each and every tinker item.  The new goblin wings we can put on our cape are awesome, instead of a levitate type effect you are basically a hang glider and can steer.  Also remember engineers can use the AH bot.

All the non functional panda relics can be repackedged into a turn in item to get useful archeology items.  You can buy items to randomize the digsites and transport you to random ones (pandaria only sadly).

First aid was incredibly cheap and easy to level.

Cooking can be levelled up from 1 to at least 525 standing in front of and buying from one vendor trainer.

The alchemist potion from cata is still usable and has had its stats buffed up to MoP levels even though it is the same item.

[Zetor]

They haven't removed them exactly it's just there are none for most of the new factions this expansion (except Horde/Alliance Panda rep), I like the change tbh.

Rep tabards made those factions 'grinds' ridiculously easy, I'd already be exalted with everybody by now and waiting around for my raid days or leveling an alt out of boredom by this stage in Cata or Wotlk. You could easily do a rep a day, if not more and it required no more of you than wearing a tabard and doing what you were doing anyway. Dungeons were triple dipping on rewards, you got rep, gear and JP/Valor Points to buy more gear should the right stuff not drop or simply gear you even faster. Sure each faction had dailies but it was useless to do, unless you wanted some gold, I hadn't done any since the crusaders in Wotlk.

Needing to do multiple differing things to get where I want to go (raid ready) was and is great, at least for me. I didn't do any dungeons at all on the path to 90 because in previous expansions I burned out hard on them really quickly, to the point were I hated doing them, pretty much haven't done a 5 man in 6 months before Mists. But they felt really fresh and needing to go out into the world and do my dailies has prevented me from just sitting in 5man's till I pass out. I'm pretty much as geared as I need to be to enter raids but I still find myself wanting to do the stuff for fun. Also the rotating daily quests are good, even the same area can be different which is interesting.


The Golden Lotus phasing bug seriously ruined my day though.

About the bolded part: potato potahto. They basically removed the ability to get rep via tabards for the new factions is all I was saying.

IMO the best way to deal with rep grinds is to not have them at all OR... have them be something that maxes out while you're doing stuff that you enjoy, which was what the tabards were. Heck, even back in vanilla (the Dark Age before daily quests) you could get ZG/AQ20 faction rep from killing stuff in dungeons, and Argent Dawn rep from... killing stuff in dungeons or turning in stuff that dropped from stuff you were killing in dungeons. None of that is available anymore, and farming trivial mobs or playing silly repetitive minigames in 25 installments (* number of alts) every day is very much on the 'eff that noise' end of the scale for me. GW2 is pretty good in this respect, as I finish up the daily achievement in 30-45 min no matter what I'm doing (wvw, max-level farming, alting, maybe even dungeoning except for the event requirement).

RIFT had rotating quests in their level 50 zones... didn't really help, it's still doing mostly the same things in the same areas without much of a challenge. RIFT actually does a bit better because there may be an invasion or two to spice things up. Not sure about SWTOR's daily implementation - by that time my hatred of daily quests has prevented me from doing any of them.

[Paelos]

I'm actually ok with rep grinds if they had more carryover to your alts. I think every faction should sell a 300% BoA tabard at exalted for your alts to wear for dailies.

[Merusk]

I'm actually ok with rep grinds if they had more carryover to your alts. I think every faction should sell a 300% BoA tabard at exalted for your alts to wear for dailies.

This is a suggestion that should be made.

Oh and while we're talking about professions engineers don't have to scour the old world for mats to make tinkers anymore, you can just buy a tinker kit from the vendor

Real engies make their own damn tinker kits!

But yes, the cloak tinker is the most damn useful thing I've had this expac.  Pandaria being as hilly as it is and being unable to fly makes it REALLY great.  Plus it's a fantastic "Whoops, too many adds" escape in a number of places, where you can just hop off the hill.

One general Pandaria tip I just learned about:  http://www.wowhead.com/item=85777The Ancient Pandaria Mining Pick  It's a ground spawn in the mine in Jade Forest.  You can't mine gems without it, and even then the drop rate on gems is pretty abysmal. I finally picked-up the pick 2 days ago and have only found 2 gems.

OTOH; when I had a guildie prospect ore for me. I sent him 12 stacks and he sent me 5 full mails of gems in return.  So it looks like prospecting has had its rate increased significantly.

[Rokal]

I'm actually ok with rep grinds if they had more carryover to your alts. I think every faction should sell a 300% BoA tabard at exalted for your alts to wear for dailies.

They've said they want to implement some sort of tabard storage solution. Hopefully it'll just be account-wide. Besides the tabards, the mounts are the big reason to hit exalted with each faction so you really won't want to on your alts. I'm okay with hitting revered on each alt that I actually want to play, that isn't too big of a hassle.