Burning Crusade is so good

[Azazel]

And if you know the healer isn't up the task, you're going to know pretty early on.  Sorry, you're screwed.  No amount of "heal me" is going to mend their terrible ways.

Giving someone a helpful pointer like "be prepared to heal me after I sap this" or "there's going to be a lot of burst damage when this starts, be ready" is fine.  "Heal me" is just generic, insulting and makes you look like a paniced moron. 

I mean really, even in the example you gave it was a pointless exercise. 

Edit: Raids are different beasts all together.  I've never heard a raid tank yell "heal me". Heard plenty of "HOW THE FUCK DID THE OFFTANK DIE AGAIN, DAMN IT".

Yeah, I do actually agree with most of what you said, though as a tank I tended to use lines of "would you mind dropping a heal on me before I die?" rather than "HEAL ME WFT!!1@" though occasionally I did have to use the "heals?" or "HEAL" while hoping not to die and firing off Leechcurse and whatever else I had up my sleeve. Sometimes though, yeah a healer was just distracted by somethingorother and my prompt would net me that life-saving fast heal. In my regular group (RL mate played a cleric) my HP often went down to 20% but in those instances it didn't worry me so much because I know the guy well and I know he was just keepng himself entertained (Divine Arbitration -evens out all the groupmember's HP->World of Replenishment/etc -group heal) even so in those situations I didn't feel great about it but I knew that unless he fucked up bigtime or started going linkdead I'd be fine.

I do remember one particular raid main tank who would bitch about heals often. I think he got often got fewer heals because of the way he thought he was red hot shit and the way he treated out healers (I was a raid sub-healer with my 2-boxed druid, so I was in healer's channel too).

[pants]

For regular 5 man stuff - what is the healing ability of a hunter like to heal his own pet?  If his mana bar is full - should the priest heal or should the hunter not assume that responsibility?

Hunter pet healing is shithouse, especially in-combat - its a channelled spell and heals not very much, and the fact he is channelling means he is doing 0 dps and his not-great mana regen is now hurting even more.  So while its fine as a downtime reducer between fights, its pretty crap during a fight (caveat: My hunter is only lv60, dunno what the numbers are like at 70).

[Lantyssa]

I haven't done anything with a high level hunter, but my experience so far agrees with pants'.  At best a mend in combat keeps the pet alive a few more seconds and gives a real healer a bit more time to notice the tiny pet health bar is getting low.

[Paelos]

I usually just say something along the lines of "It's getting dicey on heals, I've blown my healthstone/last stand." That usually gets attention, or directs things back on point without being a complete raging douche about it.

[WindupAtheist]

Regarding the RP tangent:  It's just not worth doing in WoW, regardless of the community.  It's like trying to roleplay in Diablo 2 or something.  Sure you could do it, but why would you want to?  The world consists of nothing but a million near-identical iterations of the same small handful of professional monster hunters with huge shoulder pads.

If I were walking around roleplaying in UO, and I met a wandering paladin having a confrontation with a death knight type, while one of the local bumpkin town guards watched to make sure a fight didn't start and an errant samurai walked past on his way out of town, I could tell all of them apart just by looking at their style of dress and equipment.  Even if, in reality, they were all using identical warrior templates.

I'm having fun with WoW right now, but I wouldn't bother trying to RP there unless Blizzard suddenly went batty and added a HUGE variety of fluff clothing and equipment variation.

[Tale]

Why though? EQ1 never had ...

EQ had tiered progress that roughly continued through expansions. If your guild was capable of doing Z, you had obviously equipped everyone by doing X and Y first. While that made it all catassery and grinding, it eliminated the need for "badges". Although it did have honorary titles for players who had achieved certain things.

WoW in its expansion has levelled all its old tiers, wiped the slate clean and made everyone roughly equal again, whether they played the 60 game for two years or not. TBC is entirely self-contained, where EQ expansions were not.

You could delete all your gear at 60 in WoW and still do TBC at about the same pace as someone who kept everything. If you did that in EQ, you would have to redo earlier raids to equip your character to the standard your guild required.

[Tebonas]

And thusly people that quit some time ago could jump right in without having to be dragged through old instances by their Guildbuddies. By leveling up to 70 you get the needed gear to jump right into the fray.

Sound business decision if there ever was one. Blizzard still works under the premise that people played up to now because they had fun, not because they have an obsessive-compulsive disorder and are too cheap to spring the money for a good psychiatrist!

[Azazel]

Why though? EQ1 never had ...

EQ had tiered progress that roughly continued through expansions. If your guild was capable of doing Z, you had obviously equipped everyone by doing X and Y first. While that made it all catassery and grinding, it eliminated the need for "badges". Although it did have honorary titles for players who had achieved certain things.

Yeah, that's right. But why do you need an e-peen measuring device to show off that you for max rep with Hydraxian Warlords? Just like Thurg or Kael rep meant next to nothing later, besides access to a few npcs and so on, so to does your maxed Cenarion Circle rep.

You cleared MC? Big grats and big deal. So did half of the rest of the playerbase. Again, no need for an e-peen flag any more than a "we cleared Tormaxx" or "we killed Ralllos Zek" when hanging around at the Ironforge Bank/Plane of Knowledge. Your badges of former uberness are still there in your Tier whatever armour and your big pointy purple stick of former-uberness. Unless you just sharded them, but then, that's a choice you make.

I kept a bunch of my old raid shit in EQ that meant something (to me) when we did it first time around. I keep my especially cool looking weapons I pick up in WoW, hence I still ahve my souveneirs of old-timey "uberness" in EQ and my "that was fun and cool" pieces in WoW. I don't need a special medal because I maxed out some mindless rep grind though to show off to random people I'll never even group with in a PUG in Ironforge.

 

[Jayce]

I kept a bunch of my old raid shit in EQ that meant something (to me) when we did it first time around. I keep my especially cool looking weapons I pick up in WoW, hence I still ahve my souveneirs of old-timey "uberness" in EQ and my "that was fun and cool" pieces in WoW. I don't need a special medal because I maxed out some mindless rep grind though to show off to random people I'll never even group with in a PUG in Ironforge.

I disagree, not because it's needed (what IS?), but because it's drop dead easy to design and code, won't break any sort of balance, and it's fun.  Win/win.

Besides, like it or not, epeen waving is a big part of the endgame WoW.  It IS the endgame for a lot of people.  Let the raiders have their fun as well as the casuals.

[Merusk]

They've not removed they e-peen waving AT ALL.  Those of you waxing towards anxiety about the BC soft-boot haven't thought things through.

EQ1 had a progression like they had because raids were either the same size, or grew in the amount of players required  Your group for Nag went on to Sebilis, then VP, then ST, then increased in size to hit the planes.  Through it all you kept the same folks (who hung arond for it) and added new ones.   Most of you seem to have quit before the FUBAR that was GoD, or have wiped it from your mind. 

 You went from a raiding guild that was required to field 72 players to take out the last boss in PoP to a HARD CAP of 40 or so in GoD.  The cries from the raiding playerbase were resounding as hardcore guilds were required to boot people out or sit them on the sidelines to get anywhere.  Masses of people quit not just because GoD was buggy (and it wasn't as buggy as most SOE expansions), but because all their friends who were on the sidelines said 'fuck this' and quit too since they couldn't advance. 

Sure they could have tried to builda new guild, but that would require running these new raiders through the lower dungeons and planes ALL OVER AGAIN.  It was far easier to walk-away than to mess with it.

Now we're seeing something similar in BC as the raids are downsizing.  The same guild break-ups are happening, but you're not seeing the masses of quitting people.  Why?  While guilds are breaking-up, there's 2-3 new guilds forming in their place and they're ALL able to run the endgame stuff.   Why?

It's simple: because now se new guilds can include those players who have started the game sometime in the last 3-6 months and WANT to raid right now, but couldn't join those raiding guilds before because they were 'full up, sorry'.  These new guilds can add them without going through all the progression bullshit that the 'hardcore' who care about it want them to.

I fully believe this 'soft reboot' was absolutly based on the above reasoning. Right now it's helped the game and made parts of it more accessible at the expense of a few people's egos.   Those of you upset about it have no idea what the future plans are for adding-in dungeons, or even what the next expansion will do.   MC gear wasn't that superior to UBRS/ Scholo gear, it took almost 2 years to hit Naxx-type stupidity.

[Paelos]

True, but now we grind though 5 mans again for a while, then move up to 10, then move to 25. It's the same style of grind in a new package. We're doing it again as raiders, just not in Molten Snore anymore.

That said, I do enjoy the new 25 mans, and Gruul's Lair is fun even though my ass was sore when I left. 7500 fireballs??? OMG! 

[WayAbvPar]

I am one of the n00blers who is looking forward to raiding anything for the first time. I have never maxed out a character in any game (SB was closest), so this will be a new experience for me. I am not sure how excited i am to get yelled at for being a n00b though.

[pxib]

I am one of the n00blers who is looking forward to raiding anything for the first time.

You poor bastard.

[WayAbvPar]

I know. I feel dirty.

It is just that SO much of my MMOG time is spent soloing that I haven't totally burned out on grouped activities. As long as they aren't PUGs.

For instance- tonight we are going to try to fun ZF...there are 3 of us, but we will likely need a couple of PUG members (if we can't find a 70 in the guild to come babysit for an hour). That will hopefully be tolerable. Daddy needs some blues for his mage!

[Morat20]

About the only time I ask for heals is for my pet -- you'd think the priest I just yanked a mob off (because of adds, or because the fucking warrior wasn't doing his job) with my pet would realize that all that's standing between him and the coveted #1 spot on the hate list is my pet would at least toss a heal that way.

For regular 5 man stuff - what is the healing ability of a hunter like to heal his own pet?  If his mana bar is full - should the priest heal or should the hunter not assume that responsibility?

Let's just say that I'm probably better off running up to my pet with a bandage than using the heal, and I'm currently using gear that boosts my pet heal and range. It's only good if I'm trying to keep the pet up another 5 or 6 seconds and someone else is handling DPS.

My guild's generally good about pet healing, and I'm okay with the fact that unless my pet is playing directed off-tank (as in: Group or Raid leader says "X pet is offtanking so-and-so, keep it up please) that I'm damn low on the priority list. My guild's healers are also pretty good at tossing a heal towards it at least once in the fight if it's playing "round up the adds".

If it's just doing DPS and it's health gets low, I call it back. I hear warp hunters always warp in to the back of a mob, which -- if true -- is pure awesome. There's a lot of boss fights where the safe spot is to be behind them, and it's impossible to get pets to do that reliably.

[Tale]

But why do you need an e-peen measuring device to show off that you for max rep with Hydraxian Warlords?

I mentioned Hydraxian Waterlords as an example, because you could only have high reputation with it if your guild had mastered MC raiding. Previously in the WoW progression, if you were doing BWL it was a sign your guild had achieved MC clearances. If you were doing AQ40 you had mastered BWL, if you were doing Naxx you had mastered AQ40.

Your badges of former uberness are still there in your Tier whatever armour and your big pointy purple stick of former-uberness. Unless you just sharded them, but then, that's a choice you make.

It's not a choice for me. I play a druid and I need to maintain and bank different sets of gear (healer, cat, bear, moonkin) plus resist gear sets, plus tradeskill and quest stuff. There's no room for an old tier, it's going to get vendored. There will be no evidence of anything I ever did. Even the graphic for the epic weapon in my healing set was reused for a green quest reward in TBC.

I don't need a special medal because I maxed out some mindless rep grind though to show off to random people I'll never even group with in a PUG in Ironforge.

Ironforge? No high level folks there anymore.

Anyway, If I complete the City to Surf (annual 14km fun run in Sydney) I get a certificate saying so, giving my time. It doesn't mean much to anyone that I completed it in 80 minutes in 1986, but at least I can prove it. If play in the local soccer team and we win a community tournament, it doesn't mean much to the rest of the world but we all get little trophies or certificates.

What I'm thinking is something like SWG's badge system, but without the fluff badges for meaningless crap like walking up a hill. It's like a tattoo on your character's bicep, just to show you are oldschool and something happened in WoW before January 2007. Some of these things took serious teamwork skills - getting the Razorgore thing right in BWL, for example. There is no longer a marker of anyone having done them.

[Valmorian]

There is no longer a marker of anyone having done them.

That's because for the most part, nobody other than the person who did it cares. 

[Morat20]

There is no longer a marker of anyone having done them.

That's because for the most part, nobody other than the person who did it cares. 

That's quite true -- but frankly badges are nice on a personal level. I'm a bit surprised WoW has never implemented it (it seems an easy enough feature), but perhaps they will at some point. After all, they already track which quests you've completed, which zones you've explored, etc. I suspect that if they implemented it that retroactive badging would be a bit sparse, but they could expand on it for newer areas.

Oh course, I liked badges most in SWG -- simply because prior to the level-shit, looking at someone's badges and gear was the best way to determine how good they were. (I can't count the number of TKM/Fencers who ran around with "Novice Brawler" tags). And even then, you couldn't be sure -- maybe they were changing profs.

It's not a necessary feature, it's just a nice little "I wish" sort of thing that personalizes toons and helps players form attachments to them. I'm only surprised that WoW doesn't have a version of it (other than rep tracking) simply because Blizzard is pretty spot-on in spotting simple and nice little touches like that and adding it in.

[Jayce]

There is no longer a marker of anyone having done them.

That's because for the most part, nobody other than the person who did it cares. 

It's fitting, because that is the person who will see it the most :)

Also, it lets someone maintain the illusion to themselves that someone else cares.

[Calantus]

There is no longer a marker of anyone having done them.

That's because for the most part, nobody other than the person who did it cares. 

I love me some distinguished combat efficiency pins in BF2142 (you get them for a 10 killstreak), and am happy anytime I get one. The funny thing? Nobody else can see how many I have. They can see I have 1 (and almost everybody has at least 1), but they can't tell more than that. Only I can see the number, but it's nice to be able to look at them and see how many I've got. I'm even max rank (which is just a function of time) so the bonus points they give are meaningless to me as well.

If WoW gave badges ala BF2142 where you get bronze, silver, and gold variants for instances I'd probably be happily plugging away forever. Bronze badge for completing the instance once. Silver for having completed it 10 times. Gold for completing it 30 times. I'd be so there. :P

[Tale]

There is no longer a marker of anyone having done them.

That's because for the most part, nobody other than the person who did it cares. 

Huh? "The person"? No, the people.

Given that they were 40-person raid achievements, mostly done by a guild at a time, and a vast number of people did them, I think it's far more than an individual thing. A guild cares that they did it.

I would find it useful to be able to inspect someone and see that they raided right up to AQ40 in the old days. It would give me some confidence that the player behind the character (presuming the account has not been traded) is good at teamwork.

Maybe if/when they inroduce player housing and/or guild halls, they could do it that way? Onyxia's head, Ragnaros's mace, to decorate your guild hall. Eternal quintessence to decorate your house, and so on.

[caladein]

Why though? EQ1 never had anything to say that "this person is Max Ally with Thurgadin". I see no reason to reward faction/rep grinds with a dick-measuring token. Even the decorative range-slot shields that you got in PoP were only given for the Elemental planes and then Time, and the people with their raptor mounts from ZG still have them.

They sorta did add that in BC with all the Exalted tabards. It's not a full-on badge system, but it's a nice, "hey doesn't this look sexy, ignore the fact I just grinded my eyes out in an instance."

[Chenghiz]

If WoW gave badges ala BF2142 where you get bronze, silver, and gold variants for instances I'd probably be happily plugging away forever. Bronze badge for completing the instance once. Silver for having completed it 10 times. Gold for completing it 30 times. I'd be so there. :P

That would actually be useful as well. You join a pug for Botanica (I did last night... ouch). Does the tank know the instance? Check out his title/badge/medal/whatever.

[lamaros]

There is no longer a marker of anyone having done them.

That's because for the most part, nobody other than the person who did it cares. 

Huh? "The person"? No, the people.

Given that they were 40-person raid achievements, mostly done by a guild at a time, and a vast number of people did them, I think it's far more than an individual thing. A guild cares that they did it.

I would find it useful to be able to inspect someone and see that they raided right up to AQ40 in the old days. It would give me some confidence that the player behind the character (presuming the account has not been traded) is good at teamwork.

Except is doesn't mean any of those things. It just means they were in AQ40 at some point.

[Tale]

Except is doesn't mean any of those things. It just means they were in AQ40 at some point.

No. I didn't suggest anything that stupid.

In my MC example, the badge would be awarded based on high faction with Hydraxian Waterlords (which signifies a lot of MC time), for example when you qualify for eternal quintessence instead of aqual quintessence.

That only solves MC, but I'm sure smart minds could come up with similar types of triggers, such as possession of X pieces of tier 2 gear (BWL veteran).

[Zetor]

Based on that system, the people most likely to flaunt their 'BWL Expert' title would be those who paid uberguilds 1k gold to get their full tier2 or tier2.5 set (and yes, there were guilds selling naxx loot pre-BC, too).


-- Z.

[Tale]

I don't care about useless people with badges they paid for. There aren't that many of them, and they're generally the kind of folks who are already the laughing stock of the server.

It's how you wear it. There was a guy who ninja-looted an item from my group (deliberate late need roll on an item his friend wanted). He had good equipment and when he was kicked he said "suckers, I'm in a guild that has BWL on farm". I replied "not for long" and he laughed at me. So I posted a screenshot of the incident for his guildmaster and now he can't get a guild for love or money. He still can't understand why.

Most people are not like that. If you inspect someone's badges and see a list of achievements, most of the time it's going to be a reflection of quality raiding experience.

[Azazel]

I pretty much agree with Merusk's entire post just up the page. I'll also say I find the desire for a "I catassed MC to teh MAXtreme!!" badge a tad retarded.

- And no, I'm not calling Tale retarded, just that particular idea of only rewarding (recognising) maximum MC catassery as opposed to having just cleared the place. Yes, even despite the difference between one clear and 4,325 farm runs, as the difference in skill between the (or a) first run and going in on the 325th harvest train are very different.

You also know as well as I do that if they were to give out a "certificate" or some form or visible recognition it would take up one of your bank slots (you did get the extra bag and vault space like the rest of us, didn't you?) as much as the Harpoon of former uberness would, as opposed to being /inspectable.

Like the Valentine's day outfits, the Moon Festival outfits, the Summer festival shoulders, Christmas pets, Limited edition pets, etc, and even the various Rep tabards all do.

Anyway, with that, I'm out of this argument. I've said my piece, and it's Blizz's call in the end.

edit - some cleanup and clarification.

[Xanthippe]

Coming in late to the thread - which is all over the place  - but I'm still very much enjoying TBC.  Old Hillsbrad is just awesome.

I've gotten my hunter to 70, but am still finishing quests in Shadowmoon and have to do most of the ones in Netherstorm still.  Have to do BM again for the last part of my Kara key (not looking forward to that, I hated that instance).  Working on rep, but in a non-hurried kind of way.  Working on gold, so I can get my fast mount - so far I have a net loss though, due to having crafting alts and buying  a lot of recipes.

I have a 375 jewelcrafter (my lock, lvl 61) and a 370 tailor (my priest, lvl 60).  Some day I'll level those too.  Mostly those hang out in the Exodar, because it's the only city where I can avoid random beggars and people wanting me to run them through VC.

Due to lifestyle, I'm not able to instance much at all - limited to weekends, pretty much, and being a hunter, I try to avoid pugs as much as I can.  Which is easy, being a hunter.  (Oh and being a nightelf to boot, fuck you all).

My guildies are mostly all further along rep-wise, key-wise, heroic-wise and all that.  I don't know that they are enjoying the game as much, though - they seem pretty driven and downright grim sometimes.

I'm kind of baffled that a month into the expansion, people are losing happiness.  It's been one month, that's all.  Maybe a little more balance in life is needed?  Maybe you're playing too much and still feeling left behind?  Maybe people need to relax and not try to do it all in a month or two.  Or maybe it's time to take a break.

I haven't even gotten to fish as much as I'd like.  There's so much to do that I haven't done, and I'm still looking forward to it.

[Jayce]

There's so much to do that I haven't done, and I'm still looking forward to it.

I think this statement encapsulates it for me. Everytime I get worried that I'm not as uber as I should be, and don't have enough time to play with family and work commitments, I remember that I'm one of the lucky ones :)

[jpark]

Moving at a snail's pace - my RL friends and I are almost at a point where we can all start keying together.

What can we look forward to so far as good 5 man instances?  We loved Dire Maul.  The Baron runs were also good fun and quick.  What 5 man instances do you guys see as comparable or that you really enjoy?

[Paelos]

Pretty much Ramparts and Blood Furnace are easy and quick. Slave pens is pretty solid too once you figure out the layout and what trash you can bypass. Underbog sucks because it's long and you'll generally only want to run it a couple of times since the loot tables are pretty bleh. Sethekk halls is very fast and a good time, and I liked Steamvaults even though what you want never seems to drop off the last boss, so you have to do the worthless bosses again and again.

Pretty much anything in Tempest Keep is rough. Mechanar is short but challenging, and I like that one. The Botanica is a freaking pain in the ass and probably the worst designed 5 man in the expansion. There are 5 bosses instead of the normal 3, it's horribly long, there is trash everywhere, and on top of that most people will end up only wanting the loot that drops off that 5th boss way the hell at the end. The Arcatraz is alright, but the last boss is ridiculously overpowered compared to the rest of the place. I never understood what the hell they were thinking on that dude.

[Righ]

Coming in late to the thread - which is all over the place  - but I'm still very much enjoying TBC.  Old Hillsbrad is just awesome.

I guess its the same Alliance side, but you're not quite as 'connected' to Thrall Jr. As a hordie, seeing Thrall clock the guard has me /cheering every time. The "Let's ride!" after he takes the horse from the defeated chap at the gate makes me want to play some cheesy 80s hair metal over Ventrilo. Fortunately I don't have any to hand.

I'm kind of baffled that a month into the expansion, people are losing happiness.  It's been one month, that's all.  Maybe a little more balance in life is needed?  Maybe you're playing too much and still feeling left behind?  Maybe people need to relax and not try to do it all in a month or two.  Or maybe it's time to take a break.

For me its the realization that I'm in a raiding guild that's becoming more hardcore by the week, and that with the number of hunters we have with extreme attendance, I'm not doing anything especially useful by playing one. Also a hunter has gone from being a somewhat boring PvE class that's a hoot to play in PvP to being mind-numbing to play in a raid and somewhat under-armed in a knife fight. Can I be arsed to level another class up to 70 and gain the rep & gear? Probably, but the option isn't available to me in my current guild, so I'd have to find a new home. With so many wankers out there, that's a big chore in itself.

[dotter]

Moving at a snail's pace - my RL friends and I are almost at a point where we can all start keying together.

What can we look forward to so far as good 5 man instances?  We loved Dire Maul.  The Baron runs were also good fun and quick.  What 5 man instances do you guys see as comparable or that you really enjoy?

All the the 5 mans are fun to me (but I'm a small group/raid person).  The easiest I'd say is ramparts/slavepens.  We haven't really found any (regular) mode instance to be hard--so try them all and see what happens!

Heroic dungeon setting is another beast altogether.  The non level 70 dungeons in heroic mode, the trash was more of a pita than the bosses.  Shattered Hand heroic mode to finish my hyjal key I've yet to finish on time (you need to finish the gauntlet after the first boss in 55 minutes to get quest credit).

Also, as an answer to a post 2 above, botanica you can skip 2 bosses to get to the last one with careful dodging.  Mechanar's last boss is a mush of some of the mobs/bosses abilities from AQ and bwl.

[Ironwood]

Dotter, do you play a Warlock ?