Initial Thoughts on Pandaria

[Nebu]

The healers I know don't play healers anymore. I think Cata burned them and they never went back.

That being said, I think the changes to mana pool didn't help. Priests are having major issues dealing with it, and a lot of people played those that were healers. Gear solves that problem with regen some, but you have to put up with the ramp up factor right now. Once you have the gear, I think it's similar to warrior tanking in terms of effectiveness to gear standard.

We ran all of the heroics the first month of the expansion and our priest healer never had any problems.  We weren't all that well geared either.  The key (he said) was that he had to pay more attention to mana management but that was about it.

I enjoyed the difficulty of the heroics.  You had to pay a little attention, but they were still pretty easy overall.

On another note: I found the big numbers my mage put out to be offputting.  I don't like the scaling.  I want the damage and hp like they were in vanilla... just with more abilities.  Still... fun expansion.  We lasted a month before moving back to SWTOR.

[Fabricated]

I'm still trying to get over my cata-induced trepidation of LFD. I'm just done with people being pushy because I'm not pulling fast enough or whining that I don't know fights or tanking for groups of retards who die to every instakill mechanic.

[Nebu]

We used the dungeon finder often to fill our last spot.  It was odd that we either got an amazing player that rocked their class or the exact opposite (dead weight that stood in fire).  Maybe I just remember the extremes, but that's how it seemed.

[Merusk]

You're just remembering the extremes.  When I was still running dungeons I had a pretty varied experience.

I feel your pain, Fabricated. The same thing is keeping me from leveling my healer, which I've always done in Dungeons. I'm still shellshocked and don't want to try even though I know they're considerably easier than they were.  Too many assholes ruined it for me and I generally liked LFD.

[Nebu]

There are certainly a lot of vocal assholes.  Between their inability to have fun and the dps meters so ubiquitous in the game, it became an exercise in epeen measuring.  If I'm going to start doing the epeen thing, I'll do it in pvp.

[cmlancas]

As someone who has mained a healer in the last three MMOs I've played, blaming the healer is ubiquitous.  It doesn't matter that some DPS has stood in the fire so badly that his damage taken meters are above the tank's, it's still my fault.

That being said, I wish e-peen people would get off DPS/damage done and start looking at shit that matters like damage taken, activity, and overhealing.

/raidleadersoapboxoff

[Miasma]

Healing in LFD seems fine.  It's way, way better than at the start of cata.  Be sure to gem/enchant for spirit instead of int and use a spirit flask if you're just starting out.  Only times I have had problems in LFD is when they want to do the achiev for a boss, as a healer I wish it wasn't possible to do achieves in pugs.  There are some things that have to be interrupted but between the tank and three dps someone usually gets around to it.

I'd say the hardest fight is Armsmaster Harlan in Scarlet Halls.  His always-kill-you-if-caught vortex, plus the adds plus needing someone to dispell his buff is difficult for a pug.

[Fabricated]

In WotLK I used to run LFD over and over again while drunk and had a great time even with bad players and was nice to people who genuinely tried.

Outside of when it first launched and Deadmines/Stonecore were ridiculous, people were fucking assholes in Cata and dropped the instant things didn't look good. And I didn't really blame them honestly because not a single one of the launch heroics were fun.

Goddamn Cataclysm was a shit expansion.

[Merusk]

That being said, I wish e-peen people would get off DPS/damage done and start looking at shit that matters like damage taken, activity, and overhealing.

/raidleadersoapboxoff

I can say the same about raid leaders. I got bitched at on the DK because my DPS was 'way down'  However, my Damage Done, Activity and Damage Taken were always  top 3, top 3, bottom 5 for DPS.  Didn't matter because my "DPS" number was low.  Hi, DK dots fuck that up (and skew activity) because they keep your DPS running but do low damage so your DPS number is lousy.

Once I started standing in the fire my DPS went up but they bitched about my damage taken.

[Nebu]

Raids put the asshole in and take the fun out of gaming for me.  I hate any encounter that takes more than 5 people. 

[Paelos]

Yep I pretty much stopped doing anything beyond 5 people at this point. I may do some LFR if my guild wants to group up and get it going, but if not I don't really care. Valor rewards are there, heroics are there, challenge modes are there, and I like to fish.

[Nebu]

I think that's why we went back to SWTOR.  Better pvp, 4 man hard modes, and 8 man raids.  You can get mostly friends together and noone cares if we wipe.  If you want a challenge, we do hard modes with 2 or 3 people. 

[Zetor]

I strongly disagree with the 'better pvp' for swtor. Both swtor and wow pvp are seriously broken, but I found swtor pvp much less fun than wow's.

e: I guess I should give my reasons - complete gear dependency with a ridiculous grind attached, no baseline resil/etc for new 50s (the blue set is a joke), rampant pugstomping due to no separate premade queues, lack of cross-server fights meant fighting the same premades all the time. Lots of wonky mechanics too, though they may have gotten fixed. The only thing SWTOR pvp had going for it was better baseline class balance (but even then I was being ganked in an opener by operatives and marauders even with my team actively trying to peel them off me)

[Zetor]

To be a bit more on-topic: healing as a resto shaman has been a breeze so far, and I actually had people complimenting my healing in LFR (twice!)... which is a strange and definitely un-Cata-like experience. 

Levelling my baby monk has been good too, though instances shoot me past levels WAY too fast (and I only do each of them once) - I'm sure this will change once I hit level 60 and the BC Suck starts. Lowbie instances are still crazy easy with heirlooms, even if I get the occasional jackass prot pally who thinks it's funny to queue as dps and keep taunting everything in sight. 

[Selby]

I'm still shellshocked and don't want to try even though I know they're considerably easier than they were.  Too many assholes ruined it for me and I generally liked LFD.

This is how Cata in a nutshell affected me to the point I won't even group or go into dungeons with any characters.  I never saw beyond the initial dungeons\heroics in Cata and haven't done a single one in Pandaria.  Too many assholes made me almost quit the game entirely.

[Ironwood]

Anyone have a GOOD Pet Addon Manager ?

[Merusk]

What features are you looking for?  The "You don't have this" and "Here's the quality of the pet" features in the mod linked earlier were all I was looking for.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, but also 'you are in this zone and here's shit you can get that you need' would be good.

I'll search for your link.

[Merusk]

Ooh, that'd be a good feature, yes.

[Zetor]

I just keep this page open while leveling my alt. Seems to work fine so far...

[Ironwood]

Cool, thanks.

Curse does seem to have an addon or two that does what I want;  I'll give 'em a shot tonight and report back if they're any cop.

[Hutch]

I'm still shellshocked and don't want to try even though I know they're considerably easier than they were.  Too many assholes ruined it for me and I generally liked LFD.

This is how Cata in a nutshell affected me to the point I won't even group or go into dungeons with any characters.  I never saw beyond the initial dungeons\heroics in Cata and haven't done a single one in Pandaria.  Too many assholes made me almost quit the game entirely.

I stopped doing Cata's launch heroics as soon as I had my main geared up. I never did LFD, partly on the basis of the stories I was hearing, and partly because if I was going to slog through those damn things, by golly I was going to do it with my guildmates.

Pandaria, different story. The 5-mans are relatively brief, the mechanics are less punishing (i.e. you have to move, but you can beat the encounter without a dispeller or interrupter). I still prefer guild-only or guild-mostly runs, but I've solo pugged a few times, and had pretty good experiences so far. Just lucky, perhaps :D

I almost want to say that Blizzard pushed the pendulum too far in the "easy" direction. WotLK had some 5-mans, notably Gundrak, Old Kingdom, Utgarde Pinnacle, and Occulus, that I dreaded going into with a pug. So there was a mix, instead of "all hard all the time" vs "everything is cute and furry".

[Fabricated]

I didn't think Gundrak, Old Kingdom, or Utgarde Pinnacle were that bad even at release. The last boss of Gundrak could put out fairly ugly damage on blue-geared people but it wasn't bad at all. Utgarde was never really hard, and Old Kingdom wasn't TOO bad. Occulus just sucked because of the dragon gimmick which was kinda poorly conceived but well-intentioned.

Loken was about the most deadly of the early WotLK 5-man bosses. In leveling gear he'd one-shot most people with his aoe.

I was petrified to try LFD when I came back during the last half of the Hour of Twilight patch since everyone was geared and I was in shit (still all blues). I got some "fail HP" whines from healers about my hp totals and then a drop, got kicked from a couple for my HP totals, then I got one of those silent groups that never says anything and ran the whole series without incident- picking up several upgrades along the way. Lucky I guess.

[Cadaverine]

I've run the first two dungeons a handful of times as healer on my Druid, and so far it's been decent.  I'm still not quite ready to dust off the Prot Pally, and try tanking again, though.  Dealing with the unrelenting stream of jackasses bitching about everything in Cata soured me on tanking for pugsever again, I think.

[Sheepherder]

I was petrified to try LFD when I came back during the last half of the Hour of Twilight patch since everyone was geared and I was in shit (still all blues). I got some "fail HP" whines from healers about my hp totals and then a drop, got kicked from a couple for my HP totals, then I got one of those silent groups that never says anything and ran the whole series without incident- picking up several upgrades along the way. Lucky I guess.

Blizzard had realized the enormity of their fuckup by the Hour of Twilight launch.

[Setanta]

I've run the first two dungeons a handful of times as healer on my Druid, and so far it's been decent.  I'm still not quite ready to dust off the Prot Pally, and try tanking again, though.  Dealing with the unrelenting stream of jackasses bitching about everything in Cata soured me on tanking for pugsever again, I think.

Don't expect this to change. I'm currently levelling my prot pally in dungeons (because I hate healing and Ret makes my fingers bleed and my brain explode). On single targets I'm lucky to pull 13K dps and have the DPS whinging about carrying me etc. Fuck 'em - I've had this pally since she was a human in Vanilla and moved her to BE and I know how she works - a massive damage soak.

Then I look at my 90 Blood DK and cry because she was pulling twice that DPS while tanking at 87 but take a damage spike when I rune starved and had to hit CDs. My Bear tank is somewhere in between.

Interestingly Blood DK still seems to put out figures that leave me in a happy place - some fights I can top the meters. I wish prot pallies had a chance to come close.

[Merusk]

I still haven't got the new prot rotation down myself so I can't offer finesse tips, but Prot Pallies can definitely dish damage if you're doing it right.   One of my guildies is often #1 or #2 in DPS because LOL VENGEANCE.

Use crusader strike, not Hammer of Righteous on single targets.  HOR got it's teeth kicked-in on damage comparatively.  20% weapon damage vs CS' 125% + Fixed damage.  Also make sure you've got Holy Wrath in your rotation.  That's my guesses for what you're doing if you're oldschool.

[Ironwood]

PetJournal ticked all the boxes.  Just so you know.

[Merusk]

Looks like I'll be replacing my mod. Thanks, IW.

[Setanta]

I still haven't got the new prot rotation down myself so I can't offer finesse tips, but Prot Pallies can definitely dish damage if you're doing it right.   One of my guildies is often #1 or #2 in DPS because LOL VENGEANCE.

Use crusader strike, not Hammer of Righteous on single targets.  HOR got it's teeth kicked-in on damage comparatively.  20% weapon damage vs CS' 125% + Fixed damage.  Also make sure you've got Holy Wrath in your rotation.  That's my guesses for what you're doing if you're oldschool.

Cheers, I did notice I was hitting HoR a bit too much, rather than for just the debuff. Plus I got rid of the consecration glyph and went back to the old-school run in and consecrate as a filler. I pulled a few more K DPS and had a smoother rotation. Admittedly I still have some 378 purples on as I only hit 88 last night and am still in the Pandaria starter zone - I probably need to quest more :)

I played around with ret a bit more - it's nicer than I thought once I slowed down and stopped button mashing.

[Merusk]

Yeah Ret is a lot nicer than it used to be.  It's also what you "should" be leveling as unless doing dungeons according to most of the stuff I've read.  (I'm still prot and 87, but I also round-up 4+ quest mobs at a time, which is easier now than it was at launch.)

This FAQ at maintankadin helped me tremendously this week.  I looked it up after I realized (and posted) that I didn't understand the rotation wholly. 
http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=33033&sid=2ffa439d34306bd1afcdcf8549dbb994

[Paelos]

I've switched to dps. My guild is just so full of tanks that I went and picked up some gear and made myself some weapons to DW with my smithing.

As a warrior, it's simply not that hard to do 40k dps just be facerolling in LFR.

[Merusk]

Yeah, I hate warriors for that reason.  I'm at ilevel 372 but still hovering at 35-37k on the hunter while the DKs and Warriors are eating my lunch with lower scores.  It helps that there's so much AOE going on, I suppose, because I notice I jump in to the top 5 on single target fights.

[Paelos]

Yeah, I hate warriors for that reason.  I'm at ilevel 372 but still hovering at 35-37k on the hunter while the DKs and Warriors are eating my lunch with lower scores.  It helps that there's so much AOE going on, I suppose, because I notice I jump in to the top 5 on single target fights.

True. Fury will always been middle of the road on single target because DW bladestorm doesn't do much.

Some warriors don't realize that fury is all about quick bursts. You build up your rage, you fill up the bar, then you flip all cooldowns and crit your way to massive damage in the span of 20s.

[Zetor]

Going back to my original concern about cross-server zones -- yes, it is a huge fucking pain in the ass to level an alt on a pvp server, since there is a fairly significant chance of some bored 90 from some high-pop pvp server running around in lower-level zones* (whether they are gathering stuff, doing pet battles / archeology, or just having nothing better to do) deciding to one-shot you just 'cause. Chain-running dungeons can be an alternative, of course.

* in practice, this refers more to BC/WOTLK/Cata zones. There are so many zones with 1-60 - not to mention that levelling is insanely fast even if you only do each dungeon once - that even getting camped by some 90 isn't a show-stopper. Plus a lot of sub-60 zones are at least partially phased, which also helps against gankers.