WoW 5.0 - Mists of Pandaria

And that's what I get for only looking at helms. I've got a few of those that I can make too.

Bear wrote:

I stumbled across this today while checking out a tutorial.

Remember what raiding was like in Vanilla? Preach will take you back in time and make you wonder WTF we were thinking?

Caution, there is some profanity! I LOL'd several times!

I watched this, then found out I could sign up for a 10-day free trial to reactivate my old account (I left in '08, deleted almost all of my characters, gave away all my stuff, etc). I only found the video a bit funny because most of the things they joke about were still in place when I left. Damn this game has changed.

I was thinking about coming back, even though I only have an hour or so per night to play, but I think what really pulled me in the first time was the guild. I like the game, but I don't think I like it $15/mo worth with the guild dead.

PurEvil wrote:
Bear wrote:

I stumbled across this today while checking out a tutorial.

Remember what raiding was like in Vanilla? Preach will take you back in time and make you wonder WTF we were thinking?

Caution, there is some profanity! I LOL'd several times!

I watched this, then found out I could sign up for a 10-day free trial to reactivate my old account (I left in '08, deleted almost all of my characters, gave away all my stuff, etc). I only found the video a bit funny because most of the things they joke about were still in place when I left. Damn this game has changed.

I was thinking about coming back, even though I only have an hour or so per night to play, but I think what really pulled me in the first time was the guild. I like the game, but I don't think I like it $15/mo worth with the guild dead.

?? you mean Horde?

No, I meant Alliance. I've played a bit this weekend, most people I saw on during peak times was 2. Sorry, but I consider that pretty much dead.

PurEvil wrote:

No, I meant Alliance. I've played a bit this weekend, most people I saw on during peak times was 2. Sorry, but I consider that pretty much dead.

I'm on a fair amount (though not much last weekend), but I can't dispute the characterization these days. Most of the core raiders quit after Cata, and efforts to raid in Mists have been sporadic at best.

If you're on Blackhand and want a GWJ-Alliance invite, I'm happy to send one your way.

Glad you had a chance to poke around. Yes, the game has changed a ton since Vanilla/BC.

Enix wrote:
PurEvil wrote:

No, I meant Alliance. I've played a bit this weekend, most people I saw on during peak times was 2. Sorry, but I consider that pretty much dead.

I'm on a fair amount (though not much last weekend), but I can't dispute the characterization these days. Most of the core raiders quit after Cata, and efforts to raid in Mists have been sporadic at best.

If you're on Blackhand and want a GWJ-Alliance invite, I'm happy to send one your way.

Glad you had a chance to poke around. Yes, the game has changed a ton since Vanilla/BC.

We got sick of that dino boss in Throne and stopped playing.

Flex could have been good in getting a decent raid group going but everybody is too busy these days.

Zenke and I can barely get together once a month for random coop type stuff.

Got an invite, so I'm back in the guild (for the remainder of my free trial anyway). I like the dungeon finder. One of my favorite things about this game was the 5-man content, so being able to hop into a group quickly and go is a huge plus. I've mostly been sticking to the Burning Crusade heroics, and with most people being in the low to mid 70's, most groups have just steamrolled those instances.

I did get into a group that wiped on the second boss of Botanica, and I found an inconvenient issue with the dungeon finder. I released, and started to fly back, but couldn't remember which portal it was. I flew into Mechanar (I think), realized it was the wrong one, and went back out the portal. This put me in Shattrath (where I was when I joined the group and got portaled to them) with no good way of rejoining the group. About this time a buddy of mine called, and I logged off anyway, so not too big of a deal, but still kinda sucked.

One of the new features is Return to Graveyard. If you get lost, there's a button in the top right corner of your screen (at least it's that way on mine) that will let you start the corpse run all over again.

In most cases, the dungeon entrance is behind you. For some reason Blizzard faces you away from the instance after you die. Weird, I know.

As for the Zangar instances, I can't keep 'em all straight either. I know SSC is straight ahead. The rest of them? Good luck.

How are you getting into BC heroics in your 70s? I thought after a certain point you got locked out of them. Huh.

In any case, you might want to start running some Wrath content soon. The jump from Wrath to Cata can be pretty painful until you can quest your way to gear you can survive in.

PurEvil wrote:

I did get into a group that wiped on the second boss of Botanica, and I found an inconvenient issue with the dungeon finder. I released, and started to fly back, but couldn't remember which portal it was. I flew into Mechanar (I think), realized it was the wrong one, and went back out the portal. This put me in Shattrath (where I was when I joined the group and got portaled to them) with no good way of rejoining the group.

When you're in any kind of queued instance, there should be a green eyeball icon on the lower-left corner of your minimap. It can be hidden by other UI elements depending on what addons you have. If you right-click it, you get a bunch of options, including the one that lets you leave the instance group and go back to whatever you were doing. Well, one of the other options in that menu is the option to teleport to or from the instance. You can't use it while you're a ghost, but once you find a place to rez (even the wrong place), you should be able to just pop back into the instance from anywhere.

The next batch of connected realms is announced, and Blackhand isn't on it. Gurubashi and Aegwynn are, though, and those are two realms I see a lot of in the cross-realm areas.

Hey. I used to be on Aegwynn.

Just for sh!ts and giggles (and partly because I'm scouting for new realms to level alts; and partly because I can't keep straight who's who between the boards and the game; and partly because y'all probably play classes that I'd love to more about) ... could you post your mains and an alt or two?

I'll start:

Main: Jorrn, ret paladin, Blackhand-A. Rolled him during BC, picked him up in late Wrath and never looked back.

First alt: Blackbyrne, destructo lock, Blackhand-A. It took me four tries to level a lock. It's a lot of fun to watch things blow up.

Second alt: Enix, 90 surv hunter, Steamwheedle Cartel-A. My first main. Rolled in vanilla, abandoned in Wrath. (Got tired of shootin' and lootin', I guess.

Sure, sounds fun.
Main: Dysplasia, Destruction Warlock, Blackhand-A. Rolled during Vanilla, abandoned pre-BC, just picked it back up! Thankfully covered in epics again thanks to Timeless Isle.

First Alt: Dysplastic, 68 Undead Rogue, Onyxia-H. Basically quit my guild in vanilla and re-rolled a rogue on Onyxia. Account got hacked and the hacker leveled it to 68 before I got it back and shut down the account. When I came back I chose to rez my Warlock instead of my Rogue, just 'cause. If server transfers go on sale someday I'll probably bring Dysplastic over to Blackhand.

Haven't had time to focus on other alts, really. I'd like to play a Blood Elf Death Knight and a Worgen Druid for a bit, but still want to focus on getting Dysplasia up to snuff.

Well, it looks like my time ran out today. Doubt I'll actually resub, but it was nice to run my character around a bit. I loved being able to hop into instances with groups on the fly like I play Warthunder or WoT, but it really made me realize just how much of this game has been set to easy-mode.

Back when I played (and kids got the hell off my lawn!), I actually had to pay attention to my spell rotations, and plot out how to manage my mana as a mage. Now, every instance is pretty much wait for the tank to pull a group, frost bomb an elite, toss out that ice ball that does AoE, then blizzard the f*ck out of everything. And when I'm done, I'll still be at full mana. I remember the first night looking for my spell that would summon food/water for me, and being confused when they bound it into one. Then I realized they might as well have just done away with it all together, because I didn't use it after the first night. I think the only time in 10 days that I saw "Your mana is low!" was when I was switching specs, and my mana came back so fast that I could do that between pulls.

I guess I just miss the days where Fed, Cope, georob and myself would get together on vent, carefully make our way through dangerous level-appropriate instances, and gracefully wipe out from time to time. Now, I can blow through instances too high for me in record time with PuGs, and never say a word to any of them.

EZ MODE is very much in the eye of the beholder. I mean, you play a mage, amirite?

Unrelated: One of the proprietors over at MMO Champion posted some pretty detailed realm census info. Some very interesting numbers that I'm assuming are current.

Interesting stuff in that census, Enix. Area 52... 30k Horde, 70 total Alliance? The mind boggles.

Look at the Illidan server, too.

It's the most popular server (24K players, 56K toons) in the game, but the A-H ratio is completely out of whack - 99 horde, 1 alliance. How the hell does that happen?

Enix wrote:

EZ MODE is very much in the eye of the beholder. I mean, you play a mage, amirite? :D

It's not like it gets any harder playing other classes though. I remember running heroics as a fresh 90 when your average ilvl in a group was at or just over the minimum required, and even then you had to work pretty hard to wipe.

Enix wrote:

EZ MODE is very much in the eye of the beholder. I mean, you play a mage, amirite?

But that's the thing, playing a mage well actually used to be pretty difficult. You had to manage your mana, manage your aggro, pick a target to sheep and make sure they stayed sheeped, try to maximize your DPS, and on top of that, I used to keep an eye to the healer just because if they pulled aggro, I could switch my sheep and give the group a moment to realize what was happening. These were all things I was juggling at once, on every pull. I played more of a support/control/dps build. Now it's just spam whatever DPS spell I like the best, because it's not like it matters what spec or spell I'm using anymore. Which is essentially what all the mages we labelled as "BAD" would do in groups. There's no such thing as a glass cannon anymore... I was just a cannon, firing blindly at everything.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being too harsh on it, and I'm just trying to relive a time that I was happy playing a MMO. I just don't see the difficulty any more when a PuG group can blow through an instance with no strategy, just pull->kill->loot->rinse->repeat, without even talking to each other.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being too harsh on it, and I'm just trying to relive a time that I was happy playing a MMO. I just don't see the difficulty any more when a PuG group can blow through an instance with no strategy, just pull->kill->loot->rinse->repeat, without even talking to each other.

Don't feel bad man, it's most definitely not just you feeling that way. Small group content in WoW has all but been eliminated; Heroic Scenarios are supposed to scratch that itch, but it's a fairly high bar before you can get into running those. Challenge Modes are pretty awesome too, but those have a fairly high bar as far as group composition and what kind of classes/abilities need to be involved for the group to have a solid shot at success.

Yeah it's a design decision to ensure that encounters don't require cc... And by now we don't even do it on heroic scenarios... Those were all tuned for ilevels that people are now close to 80-90 points over.

It's the end of an expansion..so I'm not sure how you expect it to be different. Even in TBC by the time Sunwell hit we all could face roll even the hardest heroic like SH.

TheGameguru wrote:

Yeah it's a design decision to ensure that encounters don't require cc... And by now we don't even do it on heroic scenarios... Those were all tuned for ilevels that people are now close to 80-90 points over.

It's the end of an expansion..so I'm not sure how you expect it to be different. Even in TBC by the time Sunwell hit we all could face roll even the hardest heroic like SH.

There's a world of difference between it being a faceroll at the end of the expansion, and it being a faceroll for nearly the entire expansion. Heroics in TBC were actually challenging if you weren't totally overgearing them; here, there really not and haven't been in a while.

TheGameguru wrote:

Yeah it's a design decision to ensure that encounters don't require cc... And by now we don't even do it on heroic scenarios... Those were all tuned for ilevels that people are now close to 80-90 points over.

It's the end of an expansion..so I'm not sure how you expect it to be different. Even in TBC by the time Sunwell hit we all could face roll even the hardest heroic like SH.

There's a world of difference between it being a faceroll at the end of the expansion, and it being a faceroll for nearly the entire expansion. Heroics in TBC were actually challenging if you weren't totally overgearing them; here, there really not and haven't been in a while.

Consider that the content type has changed dramatically over the years.

Back in BC, you either ran lots and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of heroics, or you ground your way through all the various keys so you could raid.

Now you have 3s (regular and heroic), 5s (regular, heroic, challenge), 10s (regular and heroic), 25s (LFR, regular and heroic) and in-between (flex raids).

5-mans aren't intended to last through an entire expansion any longer. That ended during Cata.

I do miss CC, though. Every once in a while my paladin will toss a hammer at something. More often it's at some mob that someone else has frozen or otherwise CC'd. Otherwise CC is mostly a PvP tool. Interrupts, however, remain valuable.

Enix said it best.. making 5 mans "difficult" would have rendered them empty. Why even do them when you can queue LFR for better rewards? Frankly this design just works better.. early TBC heroics meant we (my guild) rarely did them even IN guild unless we have the right classes and people... the drama about heroic runs was awful and unnecessary for the rewards.

PurEvil wrote:

I don't know. Maybe I'm being too harsh on it, and I'm just trying to relive a time that I was happy playing a MMO. I just don't see the difficulty any more when a PuG group can blow through an instance with no strategy, just pull->kill->loot->rinse->repeat, without even talking to each other.

It's definitely not only you. That's how and the group of friends I play with feel about WoW nowadays. There's not much effort anymore, it just feels like a chores list you have to perform on a daily basis to collect the maximum amount of loot you can during that week. There's minimum planning, strategy and communication.

I understand a lot of people are in favor of this new design, but it doesn't work well with me anymore. I really miss the times where certain pulls in 5mans were tricky and a good group knew how to handle it to make the runs smoother. Communication, marking targets, CCs, handling your mana levels... All these things are gone now and I really miss that.

I understand a lot of people are in favor of this new design, but it doesn't work well with me anymore. I really miss the times where certain pulls in 5mans were tricky and a good group knew how to handle it to make the runs smoother. Communication, marking targets, CCs, handling your mana levels... All these things are gone now and I really miss that.

It's still there..its just locked behind a much harder gate to get to.. you need a good guild that still runs the 10 and 25M Heroic raids. Add to that the achievements and you have ALL the difficulty and demands you are listing there. Blizzard just removed it AS a requirement to enjoy the "end" game.

TheGameguru wrote:
I understand a lot of people are in favor of this new design, but it doesn't work well with me anymore. I really miss the times where certain pulls in 5mans were tricky and a good group knew how to handle it to make the runs smoother. Communication, marking targets, CCs, handling your mana levels... All these things are gone now and I really miss that.

It's still there..its just locked behind a much harder gate to get to.. you need a good guild that still runs the 10 and 25M Heroic raids. Add to that the achievements and you have ALL the difficulty and demands you are listing there. Blizzard just removed it AS a requirement to enjoy the "end" game.

There's a lot of different baggage that comes with running regular 10 and 25 Heroic raids. It's not the same.

I'm not sure how few people you can have for it (definitely fewer than 10), but flex raiding might be suitable for you.
And the last actually difficult heroic dungeons Blizzard made were the ones at the start of Cataclysm. Apparently they did not mesh well with general population used to steamrolling Wrath content.

Flex is for 10 to 25.. not less than 10