Patch 5.2: Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, Thunder King Ho!

[Paelos]

I wonder why they didn't use Mogu? Why would the trolls care? He's a mogu emperor.

I mean other than using more troll art assets.

[Miasma]

The weak ass lore they introduced through a quest is that they are doing it so that they can get a new homeland.

[Paelos]

Yeah but I don't mean from a lore point. I mean, WHY? Pretend we're in amateur design mode. Does it make any sense at all to forgo mogu in favor of trolls? Is it easier? Did they save costs somewhere? Was this a bad gambling debt somebody lost?

[Lakov_Sanite]

I "Think" the design was to somehow link pandaria to the greater world in terms of enemies....that or laziness.

[Rendakor]

I just assumed there was a minimum of 1 troll dungeon per expansion cycle required on some design document somewhere.

[Fabricated]

Huh, did anyone here like Zul Aman when it was new content in TBC? I rather liked it at the time myself.

Now in Cata? Notsomuch.

[Merusk]

ZG, sure. Loved it. It was fun and a nice change.   ZA? Shitballs no, hated it.  Terrible encounter design that was overly-punishing for my group of professionals and tradesmen & their spouses.

[Fabricated]

We carried like 2-3 really bad players through ZA, clean up to 2-3 chest clears. Ironically Ulduar is when we had to really bench the people who couldn't improve at all.

TBC we never benched anyone, but we never did content when it was current outside of Kara, ZA, and Mags/Gruul post nerfs. We only really hit Tier 5 after ZA let us get geared enough to overpower some encounters and Tier 6 after badgegear island.

[Paelos]

I despised ZA, loved ZG.

ZA after Karazhan was just annoying. The Eagle and Dragonhawk fights would drive me nuts with people who can't comprehend where to stand ever. Also, fucking gauntlets. And bad trash. Ugh.

[Fabricated]

We used what was basically an exploit to break the gauntlet in the Eagle's area for all but the first run we did. Ha ha, fuck you Blizzard.

It was also how we got to 2-3 chests regularly with the bad players. Dragonhawk was the only boss I really hated; people weren't good at not clustering up so he only hit 1-2 people tops with his cone attack. Eagle was stupidly easy since it all but telegraphs where you need to go and the area where you need to stand isn't as ambiguous as the fireballs/cone attacks of the Dragonhawk.

[Paelos]

Oh and I forgot the lynx boss, which was an insta-gib factory if your OT and healer were drunk.

Mine were often.

[Fabricated]

In Vanilla and part of TBC we had a french dude in the guild who only played WoW whenever he had wine to drink; he got better the drunker he got and he was pretty unintelligible by the end of the night usually. I miss that guy.

[Paelos]

Sounds like my tanking 

[Ingmar]

I liked pretty much every troll dungeon except Sunken Temple. ZA was a bit too rough at release, but they hadn't really figured out that they needed a smooth progression for 10-man only groups at the time, so I forgive them.

They generally have pretty art, fun boss fights, and good music. Nothing wrong with more trolls!

[Zetor]

I never did ZA in TBC (non-raiding guild), but I actually liked the Cata version. My overpowered blood DK (without raid gear!) got plenty of bears for other people... then of course my resto shaman happened to win it the first time I ran the dungeon on her  

[Sjofn]

I don't mind troll dungeons, really, it's just sort of odd how they feel forced in sometimes (such as ... this time). But I blame that on the fact Blizzard sux@story, rather than trolls, y'know?

[Setanta]

I miss the original ZG - I liked the remake, but wish they'd had a second version (CoT?) which was the original re-tuned for 5mans (hard for Hakkar I know).

As for the rest, finally my sucker annual pass has run out and I've finally been able to unsub. GW2 didn't grab me and I went back to WoW - now I'm back to GW2 and having more fun. 

Every other expansion I was able to level all my alts to cap - now I got to 3 and that's it. Give me GW2 dailies in WoW, give me new dungeons every now and then, give me a chance at pretty armour, give me decent PvP and I would have played WoW as a casual forever. :(

[Zetor]

Mkay, so apparently there's a new island which has eleventy billion daily hubs (eff that), new raids (2 weeks until they're in LFR, woo moneygrab), a pseudo-tabard system by championing reps in dungeons and scenarios (except for the REALLY MINOR detail that the one rep that you are required to grind for the legendary quest - Black Prince - is not available for this ), and apparently there's a whole lotta new gear too.

My question is, where is the valor vendor with the new phat lewts that I kept reading about? I didn't find it when I went to daily island. Does it require the completion of an arbitrary number of daily quests like the isle of QD back then? The old valor vendors just keep selling the same old (gated beyond rep) stuff.

[Rokal]

This may help, but it's possible the NPCs the article mentions have been moved or renamed. It's a good overview of what you can buy, at what reps, and at what gold/valor costs.

http://www.wowhead.com/news=210532/5-2-ptr-new-reputations-and-rewards-preview

[Zetor]

Oh, so it's another rep-bound valor vendor. What will they think of next? 

Thanks, though.

[Sheepherder]

I don't mind troll dungeons, really, it's just sort of odd how they feel forced in sometimes (such as ... this time). But I blame that on the fact Blizzard sux@story, rather than trolls, y'know?

Also, there is no cow level.

[Rokal]

Oh, so it's another rep-bound valor vendor. What will they think of next? 

Well, the daily faction (Kirin Tor/Sunreaver Offensive) requires gold instead of valor, so it's a small improvement. The really nice gear is locked behind valor and a raid rep though.

[Simond]

Most of the new VP gear is side-grades though.

[Zetor]

Ok, as someone who has zero progress in any of the factions (except honored klaxxi) and zero desire to grind them out, what can I spend my vp on?

[Rokal]

The raid faction in this patch still has an item available to purchase for VP at neutral (522 ilvl necklace), but you'll gain rep with that faction if you're running LFR too so those rewards aren't unavailable to you.

There are also some rewards with other factions available at honored, and you can rep up with them by doing daily scenarios/dungeons or Tillers work orders. Evidently some spawns on the new island also drop bind-on-account rep items for 1k rep (before bonuses) each frequently, so that's also an option.

[Zetor]

Good info, thanks. I'll be doing LFR, so I should be getting those rewards then. Not sure I'll be spending too much time on the island though... I did the Isle of Qel'Danas grind once back in BC, and I'm getting flashbacks already. 

[Brennik]

Whoo boy. Am I remembering this correctly, didn't Blizzard say they think they had too many dailies in 5.1? Why am I doing three hubs with several dailies each (and then some) the moment I set foot on the Isle of Thunder...  Well, it is less than five factions each having 6-8 quests per day but still.

[Rokal]

Whoo boy. Am I remembering this correctly, didn't Blizzard say they think they had too many dailies in 5.1? Why am I doing three hubs with several dailies each (and then some) the moment I set foot on the Isle of Thunder...  Well, it is less than five factions each having 6-8 quests per day but still.

It works out to be 9-12 dailies a day (3-4 per hub, 3 hubs), so it's not as bad as MoP launch. As to why they made the same mistake again: They said the 5.1 and 5.2 teams worked on their patches at the same time, so the good daily design from 5.1 didn't make it into 5.2. On the plus side, the rep is moving pretty quick and it's much less obnoxious when it's the only daily faction you're doing instead of one of five. I'm already at honored which means I should be at revered (where double rep starts) in a few more days.

I guess we'll see how things change as the island opens up, but so far the non-raid content in 5.2 is pretty lame. I like the raid so far.

[Ingmar]

Whoo boy. Am I remembering this correctly, didn't Blizzard say they think they had too many dailies in 5.1? Why am I doing three hubs with several dailies each (and then some) the moment I set foot on the Isle of Thunder...  Well, it is less than five factions each having 6-8 quests per day but still.

That shit was probably already in the development pipe and close to done when they realized they had an issue with too many dailies. Takes a while to change course when you're driving a giant oil tanker.

[SurfD]

Whoo boy. Am I remembering this correctly, didn't Blizzard say they think they had too many dailies in 5.1? Why am I doing three hubs with several dailies each (and then some) the moment I set foot on the Isle of Thunder...  Well, it is less than five factions each having 6-8 quests per day but still.

Actually, I think there are less total dailys to do on the Isle of Thunder then there are for the full "Golden Lotus" chain, with the bonus aspect that you dont have to rep-up to unlock them.   That being said, I dont know if there will be "more" dailys unlocked when phase 2 of the Isle Invasion opens up, or if the dailys will just further randomise hubs, spreading them out more evenly over the island as more and more of it opens.

[Brennik]

Yea, turns out they're not that bad. It was just the sight of "first quest: kill 12 mogu, second quest: kill 15 ghosts" that unnerved me. Waiting to see how Stage 2 fucks it up, luckily I don't need to do the dailies on main anyway since I don't really need the rewards.

[Simond]

And going back so "So why are the Zandalari the bad guys?" thing from earlier: http://www.wowpedia.org/Waterlogged_Zandalari_Journal

I can still see it, still remember how I felt when I laid eyes on it. Blinking to wake up, telling myself I was already awake. The great palace listing to one side, like a drunk hunched against the wall. Still gleaming and gold. Was Rastakhan still inside? King of a crooked throne.

The morning sun glimmering off the seawater that crept into the forum. Pretty but for the jagged fissure tearing up the tile. We thought that was the worst of it. But the Cataclysm had only begun.

Water up a foot by the next evening. A week later, high tide came up to the market awnings. Still the sun shone. Like the world was saying it was sorry. Sorry to take your home. Sorry to give it to the sea.

World don't get off that easy.

Also I'm still liking the whole thing about the Mogu being Titan Constructs that aren't fel-corrupted or mind-controlled or anything - they're just doing their job: bringing order to chaos and fighting Old Gods and their spawn. Sure they're evil, but nobody said the Titans were nice, either. "Your gods are not your gods" and all that.

[Rokal]

I'm on Proudmoore now (hi Paelos!) and phase 2 has unlocked. Same dailies as phase 1. Already revered and the daily dungeon/scenario bonus alone nets 1k rep at that point, so people will be able to hit exalted long before all of the phases have unlocked.

[Paelos]

Watch out for Aussies. They'll steal your nodes.

[Setanta]

I miss being an Aussie TOG member on Proudmore. I used to have my alliance alts there back in the days of one faction, one server. Then when TBC hit my pally became a BE on Blackrock Horde with all the others. Proudmore was more relaxed :)