WoW: Battle for Azeroth (8.3)

How do the Monk animations look with a Vulpera? I tried a Gnome Monk once and found them too subdued with the small model.

I haven't really noticed any oddities with the vulpera monk. That is aside from having your weapons strapped to your back when you punch and kick.
I'll take a closer look tonight.
On a monk note, I really wish I could understand the tank monk. I feel like I am just spamming things sans rhyme or reason. I feel like they need to visualize it more like the warrior's ignore pain. On paper it should be so much more fun but it doesn't click for me. (I love the other tanks - vengeance DH, prot warrior and pally, and guardian druid... less so blood DK)

edit: and now I can't unsee it. I will definitely level a fox monk and the tail helps with the animations, but they are awkward and it will be lower on the leveling priority.

fangblackbone wrote:

On a monk note, I really wish I could understand the tank monk. I feel like I am just spamming things sans rhyme or reason. I feel like they need to visualize it more like the warrior's ignore pain.

Have you got the personal resource display turned on? You really want a visual indicator of how much damage you have staggered. The spec revolves around two abilities that share charges: Ironskin Brew and Purifying Brew. The spec didn’t make sense to me until I made a Weakaura to make those charges look like Chi. The way it works is you spend charges on Ironskin Brew to keep up a buff that delays a portion of incoming damage. Then you spend charges on Purifying Brew to clear that delayed damage before you actually take it. So to play it correctly you keep the Ironskin Brew buff up constantly and wait to Purify when doing so will actually stop a significant amount of delayed damage.

It’s really hard to build up a significant amount of staggered damage while soloing. And since your survivability is more about being easy to heal than it is actually stopping damage, you’re not all that durable when you’re on your own. Conversely being easy to heal means that a decent healer can cover for a poor Brewmaster in such a way that neither of them really notice what’s going wrong. The poor feedback makes it a really hard class to learn. The strong baseline stagger means there isn’t much benefit to be gained from learning it.

The system of balancing your charges between stagger and purification is interesting on paper, but it doesn’t actually lead to fun gameplay decisions unless something is going wrong and you don’t have enough resources.

Monk tanks are strong, but their DPS and Healing kits are more fun.

Thanks for the monk tank info, Vargan. The Ironskin/Purifying Brew buffs make a certain amount of intuitive sense, but yours is the best and shortest written explanation of stagger that I've seen.

I'm solo-leveling right now, mostly just doing Legion quests (at 112 but w Legion gear) just because nothing matters now and why not? Nope, wait, it's because there's double rep and gold. And, yeah, I've noticed that if I get ahead of the damage I'm OK. If I get behind, I have to pop a pot or green torpedo my way out of there, hit a vivify or call on an unpopped green dot (which usually pop pretty close by). My brewmaster definitely isn't as squishy as my enhancement shammy, who was in a bad way in BfA until I got to about i400, but he definitely doesn't feel as stout as my tankadin.

Vargen wrote:

Conversely being easy to heal means that a decent healer can cover for a poor Brewmaster in such a way that neither of them really notice what’s going wrong.

Which is actually a plus for rolling Brewmaster. Lots of bad healers out there, including me.

I find the monk healing kit much like the healing kit for the shaman: the best soloing spec. The monk dps kit is much more fun than the shaman's enhancement or elemental (I've heard positive things in Shadowlands). That being said, the healing kit does include a healthy portion of the dps kit's fun and adds much greater and simpler survivability.

Thanks for info dump on the monk tank spec.

In other news, I am having a blast with the fox mage. She is now 44 and while I've had a serious itch to play frost and fire specs, I just keep plugging away with arcane. I do find the talents quite a bit lack luster though.

It will be interesting to see this becoming a trend in Shadowlands. That by folding some of the class abilities out of talents and into the core class, the talents become bland. There are lots of things that can reverse this as there are plenty of spells/skills with way too long cooldowns or could borrow the charges system or free cast procing system. IMHO any skill with a 30 second cooldown or perhaps even greater than a 15 second cooldown is nigh useless. It makes no sense to lock a unique skill behind every other fight usage. If it is insisted they have a 30 second cooldown then it needs to have the trait that if the monster dies in 20, 40 or 60 seconds the cooldown is reset. There are lots of better ways to mitigate a powerful skill with casting times, resource cost, combo points, level or talent req, channeling, and proc percentages.

edit: regarding monk tanks, weren't they supposed to have abilities that got more powerful when taking on higher staggered damage?

Enix wrote:

Thanks for the monk tank info, Vargan. The Ironskin/Purifying Brew buffs make a certain amount of intuitive sense, but yours is the best and shortest written explanation of stagger that I've seen.

Thank you.

Heh. You'd think I would have mentioned somewhere that Stagger is a DOT or that you get some Stagger without Ironskin Brew, but that doesn't actually impact your decision making that much. That stuff is why Brewmasters are easy to heal, though.

fangblackbone wrote:

edit: regarding monk tanks, weren't they supposed to have abilities that got more powerful when taking on higher staggered damage?

I think there's a talent or two that does that, but none of those effects are actually relevant. The main incentive to do it right is how much damage you prevent with each Brew charge. There's a little more in the Shadowlands alpha. The Invoke Celestial ability for Brewmaster will deal more damage based on how much you purify, for example. It remains to be seen whether that's actually going to matter.

Monk tanks are more fun for me than the dps spec for open world. And they are mostly viable if you take the dps leaning talents in the brewmaster line. Even so they are not nearly as self sustaining as as any other tanking class. It's also pretty unforgiving solo if ilvl is at or below current content.

I'm levelling a Vulpera hunter, currently working my way through Draenor. I'm frequently amused at how many quests in that xpac were obviously designed on the assumption that the player wouldn't be able to fly

(My spellchecker wanted to change "Vulpera" to "vulnerable". Come on, they're not that squishy...)

CaptainCrowbar wrote:

I'm levelling a Vulpera hunter, currently working my way through Draenor. I'm frequently amused at how many quests in that xpac were obviously designed on the assumption that the player wouldn't be able to fly :)

I think they do that on purpose. They know that one of the main reasons people like flying is because it feels really powerful, like you're getting away with something.

It is one of the reasons why I can't wait to level a demon hunter in the expansion. You get to glide all over vanilla, northrend, draenor, or wherever your heart desires. It should be really fun even after you get flying and can do things like glide off Stormwind, the dark portal, or the dwarven dam in thelsemar.

A very nice change is that newb zones are 1-60 now instead of 1-20. They are nice little questing xp bumps because the goals are simpler and closer together (for level appropriate xp). The revamped ones are especially nice (troll, gnome, etc.)

If you weren't sold on vulpera before, I don't know how you can resist when their swim animation is a dog paddle

fangblackbone wrote:

If you weren't sold on vulpera before, I don't know how you can resist when their swim animation is a dog paddle :)

Eh, I've got enough Hordies (two) as it is. But I've been meaning to roll a Highmountain Tauren warrior. And if I'm going to get a complete set of 120s (the XP buff makes it stupidly easy now), I need to roll a mage, and none of the Horde classes really say mage to me except for the tiny puntable* dog people.

* Ally revenge for all of those gnomes you've been drop-kicking all over creation for years.

Fox mages FTW!
I love mine

edit: and... my fox hunter is just hit 50! (43-50 doing troll newb area and a few bits of razor hill)

i'm enjoying my Fox death knight. flaming eyes

I am saving the DK for Shadowlands so I can level from the start. I already have a 120 draenai DK (and an il 420 blood elf DH) so I want to see what DK's and DH's are like at low levels.

Anyone done any party syncing?
I am seriously tempted to on my druid who is 101 right now.
I just think I would have so much more fun re-leveling in my favorite classic areas than Legion or BFA. (and they are so slow!)

Party syncing works!
It would be nice if Blizzard would just turn it on with or without a lowb party member.
But I was able to get a 1.25 to 1.5 levels pretty quickly re-running part of the gnome newb zone.

Milestone reached: 3M gold on my main and all his Ally sidekicks on BH-A.

I'm tempted to push for the brontosaurus mount. But that's way too much work -- except for the occasional bag and the even more occasional battle pet, my AH days are long over. I think I'll blow it all on mounts to get my 400 mount achieve-o and save for the next gold sink.

Enix wrote:

Milestone reached: 3M gold on my main and all his Ally sidekicks on BH-A.

I'm tempted to push for the brontosaurus mount. But that's way too much work -- except for the occasional bag and the even more occasional battle pet, my AH days are long over. I think I'll blow it all on mounts to get my 400 mount achieve-o and save for the next gold sink.

3m on all of your toons? Impressive!

Okay so Blizzard needs to just cut to the chase and release the pre-patch. Maybe they could use another month of numbers from the party sync system but for all intents and purposes, party sync is level squishing with the extra hurdle of creating a starter account, running two instances of wow and a macro (to prevent being logged off) to access it.

Agreed. I am already done with invasion events. There really is no incentive to grind for black empire gear. I am ready to try out the class changes meager as most of it is.

BFA felt like an epilogue to Legion rather than a full expansion. I predict that SL will receive similar praise. Will still play it but still.

Legion ended the major Warcraft story. Whatever they did afterwards would have felt like a step down. I don't really blame them for leaning into that a little.

Heretk wrote:

BFA felt like an epilogue to Legion rather than a full expansion. I predict that SL will receive similar praise. Will still play it but still.

I think I've said this before, but to me, of all the WOW xpacs, BFA is the one that's felt most like "Vanilla all over again".

BFA is definitely the most alt-friendly expansion in a while: plenty of time to level alts, a double-XP buff and easy gearing.

But I'm with y'all: This x-pac is pretty much done-zo. I mean, there's no shortage of stuff to do. But there's definitely a shortage of new stuff to do. I'll be glad to be done with the assaults. I'm closing in on exalted with both factions, and then I'll push for the bug mount.

So to pass the time:

* Finally get that Insane title.
* Level one of each class to 120 (seven down, eighth in progress)
* Chase more achievements

Honestly I should find another game to play, but I find a lot of comfort in Azeroth these days.

CaptainCrowbar wrote:
Heretk wrote:

BFA felt like an epilogue to Legion rather than a full expansion. I predict that SL will receive similar praise. Will still play it but still.

I think I've said this before, but to me, of all the WOW xpacs, BFA is the one that's felt most like "Vanilla all over again".

That's a good outlook. The Burning Legion is defeated. We've got the azerite business to fuss with but other than that life is good. Wait, Sylvanas step away from that tree! Step away from the tree! Oh crap where did that void lord come from? Now everyone is going mad. Sigh. Here we go again.

I am getting there. My "main" druid is 109.5 now. I shudder to think how many hours I have put into this character. I am a little scared that once i get her to 120, I may quit since it has been such an ordeal...
But I know that won't happen and I should be able to get to 120 by the weekend for sure.

I am tempted to bust out the pathfinders for BFA in the next few hours before taking my druid there to quest.
I guess we will see how the next few hours go. She is a druid so water travel form will really help.

edit: Now 113. It is gonna happen but man leveling is SLOOOOWWWWW, even with double xp. I'd say about 40 minutes per level minimum.

fangblackbone wrote:

edit: Now 113. It is gonna happen but man leveling is SLOOOOWWWWW, even with double xp. I'd say about 40 minutes per level minimum.

Oh my sweet summer child...

I just hit 118.5 - of note, party syncing and running through newb zones and westfall is the fastest way to level so far.

Island Expeditions are pretty fast too, 1/3 a lvl in 5-15 min. depends on if you got some geared 120s.

Yay! Wow, my "main" is finally at cap!
Holy crap is she undergeared (iL 263) and struggling a little with world quests
But, it is done. My first 1-120. I never thought she'd get there. So I am happy.