Tuesday Night WoW Plans

Tuesday night Karla and I play our Horde characters and we post the info so anyone who wants to can join. Anything else is aside from what we do on Tuesday and not related.

I have a Warlock that''s a sneeze away from level 11. SHe could be 11 but I have decided not to complete those quests so I can group with the guys tonight.

Looks like Im gonna need some help getting my voidwalker tonight too.

Dunno what Im gonna do for a char tommorow night. I have a Troll shammy thats 7.5 or I could make a new undead or Tauren char and try and figure out how to get to undercity.

If anyone sees this, I had some major issues just now, but they''re resolved, and I should be in in about 10 minutes (stupid queue). If you could wait, that''d be wonderful.

Well that''s amusing as hell. It would appear i do NOT have any characters on Blackhand. I remember specifying BH, I KNOW i choose BH, but nooo. Apparently I''m on Archimonde or some crap like that.

wtf blizzard.

Well it was good times once things got rolling. We had some logistical problems at the start and then there were some drop outs at the end. A good night overall though. Is it me or do the Undead lands seem really stingy with the quest drops. Im not just talking tonight, but I just noticed today the Brill and Sepulcher quest drops were unusually rare. I cant tell you how many spiders we killed. It seemed like when we were a group of 4 they never dropped but once someone accidentaly died or dropped, and we were split into 2 groups of 2, stuff magically started dropping.

edit: Oh I forgot to add, great job Mori, Shaun, Graxx and Eagleclaw. I know we introduced ourselves by our GWJ name but I forgot them 5 minutes later...

Yes, very good night once we got rolling on. Having the groups will make more sense once we hit level 15 and there are some ""bigger"" quests to do. With that in mind, next Tuesday''s starting level is 15 so feel free to get caught up and solo those annoying heart gathering quests.

If I missed tonight will there be a place where I could meet you guys as 15''s next week?

I could even try not t blow the level cap. (Try that is!)

If I missed tonight will there be a place where I could meet you guys as 15''s next week?

Silverpine!

Sounds like it was fun - I am quite jealous, perhaps I will leave my undead mage at 16 and play him next week with you guys :)... Time to work with a new Alt or back to my NE warrior :).

So you guys were able to play on Blackhand last night? Every time I try to connect to Blackhand my PC freezes up and I need to do a hard reboot

I get into the tavern where I logged out, but not all the UI features load and I can''t do anything. Is it just me?

EDIT: I uninstalled Cosmos and it worked. Then I reinstalled Cosmos and it still works.

Glad you guys had a good time! I will get my warlock or shaman to 15 now in case I can make it next week.

I''m gonna try again tonight. Last night was a mess for me.

My wife was on as Padwynd, and was trying to join in the chatting, but no really had time to talk to her (although Certis was nice enough to invite when she found a prospective member). So she was a bit bummed, she''s pretty social when she plays. And she was getting killed repeatedly, which did not help. Then her system overheated - there''s a hot spot centered on her video card - so she quit in disgust. I''m really trying to keep her in the game and the clan.

My son had to bail at 2130, and I realized a few minutes later that I was not going to get far by 2200, and that this cold I''m fighting off is kicking my butt. So I bailed before I could become a liability when I stopped. Sounds like the group turned out okay, though. What level did you guys get to?

What a night. Sigh. Thanks to whoever on TS suggested the case mod, that set off bells in my mind and I ordered a new case this morning for my wife''s system that is festooned with fans. I''ve already replaced her video card and upgraded fans in the existing case several times; it''s time to kill this problem dead.

Here''s a question - Can we spin off a (maybe small) East/Central group an hour earlier? We had folks on at 8pm EST who were playing alts and waiting. Why not accomodate the Right Coast folks and give them an extra hour grouping, so they can stop at a reasonable hour? Anyone up for that?

Robear I will be more then happy to play next week - East Coast myself...

I play normally on a different server but I would like to join up with a east coast group on this one for thuesday nights. I was actually on the sever yesterday but was too low level.
-Xino

"Robear" wrote:

Here''s a question - Can we spin off a (maybe small) East/Central group an hour earlier? We had folks on at 8pm EST who were playing alts and waiting. Why not accomodate the Right Coast folks and give them an extra hour grouping, so they can stop at a reasonable hour? Anyone up for that?

I would be very into that. My gaming time is pretty strict -- from about 7:30 to about 10:30 or 11:00 EST on a good night...so I would appreciate that as well. Tonight I''ll probably just aim for the 9:00 groups since I need to get my priest up a couple levels yet.

Certis, can we get a note about an earlier group for whoever wants in put up on GameCal? I don''t know if I can mess with that...

Thanks!

Robear

It made this fine young troll shed a tear of joy to see so many representin'' the Horde last night. Thanks for stopping by. I didn''t join up on TeamSpeak because I was deep in the Wailing Caverns instanced dungeon, but I would open up my guild list every now and then and smile. You guys should try and find an instanced dungeon (Ragefire Chasm?) for next week. You really get a chance to work as a team and there are nice rewards for drops and xp.

BTW, there are a couple spots in Wailing Caverns where WoW becomes a platform game and you have to make these jumps. Pray that your response time to the server is good. We had one guy who missed the jump probably 6 or 7 times. Those of us on the other side were having a good laugh, but I know he was about to lose his patience. Even worse is the jump toward the end that will actually drop you down a couple levels and you end up near the beginning. I made the mistake of falling in that one and getting back was miserable.

Let''s see...what else did I learn last night? Need Before Greed is a great loot-setting. It causes those who can''t use magical drops to auto-pass on rollable items. They can still pick it up if everyone else passes. I just like my looting nice and friendly as opposed to the Diablo item scrum.

Also, when going into a dungeon or the like, share as many of your area-related quests with your party. And do it at the beginning! We didn''t think to share quests until we had some downtime and we had already killed off some of the quest-related mobs.

I can''t wait to see you all next Tuesday.

I must say that grouping with my warrior was the most frustrating experience I''ve had in this game so far. I believe the warrior is supposed to be a tank. However to be a tank you have to hold aggro, and you can''t use skills to hold aggro unless you have rage. You only gain rage by hitting the mob or being hit. Since you can''t hit mobs that are a few levels higher than you with much frequency (my weapon skills were capped btw), and you can''t be hit by the mob unless you have managed to grab aggro... well you can see the nature of the problem. I''m sure there are some skills that I just haven''t gotten yet that will help somewhat, but the class design, as a tank, seems fundamentally flawed to me.

Any higher level warriors with tips feel free to speak up.

"Strekos" wrote:

Any higher level warriors with tips feel free to speak up.

I played a Warrior in the OB/ST and I had a great time. I haven''t really played other MMOs before so I don''t know how it ""should"" work. Just to play Devil''s Advocate, you seem to be basing your expectations of the warrior class on your experience from other games...maybe WoW isn''t trying to emulate that tank/nuker/healer/whatever formula? That''s not to say you don''t have a valid point -- if you want to play that way then there is a problem with the warrior...but maybe there are other ways to play?

I don''t know, but I''d like to think that Blizzard could break out of such formulaic gameplay.

"hubbinsd" wrote:
"Strekos" wrote:

Any higher level warriors with tips feel free to speak up.

I played a Warrior in the OB/ST and I had a great time. I haven''t really played other MMOs before so I don''t know how it ""should"" work. Just to play Devil''s Advocate, you seem to be basing your expectations of the warrior class on your experience from other games...maybe WoW isn''t trying to emulate that tank/nuker/healer/whatever formula? That''s not to say you don''t have a valid point -- if you want to play that way then there is a problem with the warrior...but maybe there are other ways to play?

I don''t know, but I''d like to think that Blizzard could break out of such formulaic gameplay.

I think, much like everything else in WoW, they aren''t trying to break any forumlas of MMORPG gameplay, but to tweak it a bit and make it more widely appealing.

Indeed, according to Blizzard''s own site, tanking is something that a warrior is supposed to be good at:

The Warrior can be a defensive, shielded tank, a damage-dealing powerhouse, or a mixture of the two. Their abilities obviously pertain to the art of close combat; their stances carry with them different moves for different situations and party setups. All in all, the Warrior is one of the prime candidates to capture and hold the attention of creatures while they die to sword and spell.

One of the main complaints about tank classes in other games is they have very little to do other than spam some sort of taunt skill. Result, warrriors in WoW can''t do that, and instead there are a variety of interesting skills and tactics in a warriors arsenal.

I think I''m quite open-minded to using different tactics to accomplish a goal, but my complaint is that there doesn''t appear, to my admittedly inexperienced eyes, a tactic that actually works for the goal of tanking with a warrior. The interesting skills that Blizzard has given the warrior are great when soloing, or perhaps if you''re a damage dealing warrior instead of a tank, but for tanking they seem sorely lacking.

Hubbinsd, when you played a warrior in OB, did you tank in a group? Or were you playing as more of a damage-dealer? If you were the damage dealer, I''d like to know what class did the tanking in your groups.

It also just be that I''m too low level to tank yet...

"Strekos" wrote:

Indeed, according to Blizzard''s own site, tanking is something that a warrior is supposed to be good at:

The Warrior can be a defensive, shielded tank, a damage-dealing powerhouse, or a mixture of the two. Their abilities obviously pertain to the art of close combat; their stances carry with them different moves for different situations and party setups. All in all, the Warrior is one of the prime candidates to capture and hold the attention of creatures while they die to sword and spell.

Good find! I stand corrected!

Hubbinsd, when you played a warrior in OB, did you tank in a group? Or were you playing as more of a damage-dealer? If you were the damage dealer, I''d like to know what class did the tanking in your groups.

I guess I tanked as best I could, although it was a challenge to consistently hold the monster''s attention. Although for me it just made the combat more frenetic and exciting. We all took damage, but we all were equipped with a good balance of damage-dealing and other abilities. The priest that I''m playing right now can kick ass with Smite, and his mace isn''t anything to sneeze at either. Not to mention the Shield spell, which is costly, but can really turn the tide of a battle.

I guess someone could argue that WoW is designed to flatten out some of those roles, at least. I think I would get bored if I had only one role to play in a group all the time...

"hubbinsd" wrote:

I guess someone could argue that WoW is designed to flatten out some of those roles, at least. I think I would get bored if I had only one role to play in a group all the time...

I think you hit it right on the head there. We still use terms like ""tank"" and ""healer"" in-game because they are still meaningful and descriptive of what may be needed in a group. And some classes are definitely more suited to some jobs than others. But every class seems to be able to fill multiple roles at least to some degree, and even more so with the system of Talents.

As a shaman I''m often brought in a group as a healer-type, though my heal spells are fairly weak. Still I can keep a group alive pretty well and rez them when I fail. Yet I can also get the mobs to hate me without getting into a ""ON ME!"" panic. I can also stand in the back and play ""nuker"" if I want.

I was a healer in DAOC and that''s pretty much all I was. My class was healer and so was my job. I love having the ability to heal, but I didn''t feel like doing only that in WoW so I originally shied away from the priest class. After grouping with priests and watching them *gasp* solo, I can see that I probably would have been pretty happy in that class, too.

Like any of the classes a Warrior is only effective if your group is working to get the most advantage out of him. Casters are going to flat-out beat you on damage and get all the hate. If you want to take the hits you''re going to need to pull and get a decent head start on hitting the enemy before anyone else starts slinging spells. That should pretty much do it.

The Warrior will also get better tanking skills as you go up in levels, give it time

Blizzard toned down the Warrior''s taunt, I believe by lengthening the cool down? It caused an outrage on the forums. Hopefully people can learn to work the current system. I played a priest in the OB/ST and generated a lot of hate. Basically anything I did other than a mild heal-over-time spell would draw the mob to me, not fun.

But then, the use of pets for high-dps casters helps take the aggro away from the caster. There are subtleties that can be used to advantage. My Warlock can solo stuff that nearly killed my Shaman, because he''s got a pet to suck up the attacks, but my Shaman is more survivable in a melee and of course can rez. And his totems are like immobile, temporary pets.

I like the system.

Everyone needs to ""know your role, jabronie"". It sounds like casters that Strekos is tanking for are a little kill crazy. The casters number one priority in any encounter is NOT TO PULL AGGRO. That just puts everyone into scramble mode.

I play a Priest and I haven''t gotten into many Party vs several mob encounters, but I feel I have been pretty successful as a caster. Some observations:

-When in pulling situations, you want to use your LEAST damaging ranged attack, preferably a wand, to pull. This allows the tanks to get aggro back with a single taunt/special attack.

-Do not wade in with your big damage spells immediately. Give the tank a bit of time to build up some hate. Put your DoT on and peck away with your wand.

-Heal the tank incrementally with smaller spells rather than waiting for the ""big heal"". This generates less hate. Renew is a great spell to cast early, plus it''s IC.

-I ususally wait until the mob is down to about 3/4 health before I start casting Smite and I don''t spam it. I usually try to alternate Smite and the wand. You are NOT trying to maximize damage output.

-Wait until the Mob is way down on health and use your big damager as the ""kill shot"".

Not playing WoW now but I played a warrior in ST and charge was the key at early levels to get your hate going since charge gives you instant rage.

Basically I would charge then taunt then my group would join in with me taunting everytime it was an option.

Eventually you get defensive stance which will help you hold aggro even more in my limited expereince but for the most part I did well with my Undead Warrior during the ST.

"JimmDogg" wrote:

When in pulling situations, you want to use your LEAST damaging ranged attack, preferably a wand, to pull. This allows the tanks to get aggro back with a single taunt/special attack.

I usually try to alternate Smite and the wand.

One problem is that the wand interferes with the ""three second rule."" After casting a spell (or using the wand) your mana regeneration stops for three (5?) seconds. It starts to make a big difference. In larger group fights you don''t have the luxury of using trickle hills on people, you have to give one person a large heal (in order to have any affect on large HP pools) so you can move to someone else as well.

I can understand his frustration. My void walker had an unbelievable taunt. It had to be double the effectiveness of Strekos Warrior.

Strekos, Druids get a skill in Bear form that lowers defense for a period of time but generates rage (over 12 secs or so). I assume that warriors get this skill and much sooner.

I would also recomend standing behind the casters and archer pullers and when they engage the monster, use charge. Charge is an unbelievable opening skill for its chance to stun and rage generation.

BTW, it is my humble opinion that Warriors need some balancing love at least up till level 10.

Also, Strekos, you might try a faster single handed weapon. You will get the same amount of hit/miss rate but much faster than the 2 handed sword. = same amount of hits in a shorter time frame.

BTW, I had no problems with your warrior last night. Sorry to hear about your frustration.

Also, in a few instances, especially without a healer, it was a good thing my Void Walker could taunt things off of you more or less at will.

I wonder if they could give the Warrior a mode where rage generates if anybody in the party gets hit?

Hmmm.....

edit: Oh the funniest quote from last night had to be regarding my healthstones. I didnt really insist my shaman take one and he declined my offers.

Gweren - Eagle do you want a healthstone?

Eagle - Naw (commence death number 1)

Gweren - Eagle dp you want a healthstone?

Eagle - Naw (commence death number 2)

Eagle - Gweren, can I get a healthstone? (almost simultaneously the trade window pops up with a healthstone in it)