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In LFG it's always hard to get a tank, healer is usually ok.

I'm sure when I respec Prot, I'll be in groups in no time :p

As a DPS, I wait in excess of 15 minutes in my battlegroup. As a healer, I normally wait about 5 minutes. Once I get on my prot pally, the wait is sometimes as long as it takes to push the Join Queue button. I ran 12 heroics in one day due to tanking!

I would hope that more tanks would start using the LFG tool so the other roles would start to have reduced times waiting for a heroic.

Yeah I'll probably still wait till 80 to spec prot, right now as DPS I'm own every single instance I run for some reason :laugh: (on recount Damage done).

But the wait time for DPS is never quick, always like at least 10 mins for me. At least I'm good at what I do for the group that eventually gets me :p

By the way what do you do with the Coin of Ancestry? Just got 5.

I would hope that more tanks would start using the LFG tool so the other roles would start to have reduced times waiting for a heroic.

Thing is: most pugs are jerks - they're you're "friend" for 10-15 minutes and then you never see them again. They do some really odd things: like standing in front of cleaving mobs, AOEing before you've hit anything, or just going AFK for the duration of the zone. My personal favourite is the 264-dagger wielding rogue that needs on some trash blue weapon simply so they can screw the group out of their 10g shard. When so many people in the pug queue have become raging jerks it's no wonder that those with options are making life better for themselves.

I'm not sure how life is on other servers, but if you're a tank on shadowmoon you can just go in trade chat and find a half-dozen DPS willing to pay you to queue with them (20-50g per dungeon).

Why would any tank random queue when they can trade pug, have more control over the group members, guarantee themselves any drops they might want, and make 150g every 15 minutes (50g from the group, 30g from the vendor drops/shards, and one gem every 45 minutes that you sell for 150g)?

At that point they may as well just replace all gear with a generic "Increase all stats by X" where X increases with each tier of content.

If you've got gear that has 1000 stamina when you're tanking (which is less than you'd expect on DPS gear), 1000 intellect when you're casting, and 1000 spirit when you're healing, and 1000 agility when you're DPS - why bother? It's not like a tree druid is going to be using the agility so they don't gain anything. Likewise the bear tank won't be getting anything out of the intellect so it doesn't matter if it's on there.

If you're going to go that far you may as well just get rid of gear entirely (make it pure vanity like shirts and tabards). Every time you kill a raid boss you get points towards an achievement - once you've killed killed the evil bad guy 10 times you get your stats increased by another 10% or something.

At that point they may as well just replace all gear with a generic "Increase all stats by X" where X increases with each tier of content.

If you've got gear that has 1000 stamina when you're tanking (which is less than you'd expect on DPS gear), 1000 intellect when you're casting, and 1000 spirit when you're healing, and 1000 agility when you're DPS - why bother? It's not like a tree druid is going to be using the agility so they don't gain anything. Likewise the bear tank won't be getting anything out of the intellect so it doesn't matter if it's on there.

If you're going to go that far you may as well just get rid of gear entirely (make it pure vanity like shirts and tabards). Every time you kill a raid boss you get points towards an achievement - once you've killed killed the evil bad guy 10 times you get your stats increased by another 10% or something.

They're trying to simplify items already, so that we have more inventory space, as a druid player, it just makes sense to have just two sets of armor, possibly a third for pvp purposes that includes resistance.

They're trying to simplify items already, so that we have more inventory space, as a druid player, it just makes sense to have just two sets of armor, possibly a third for pvp purposes that includes resistance.

Ya, dumbing the game down even further to make it easier by removing some key stats that made you actually evaluate your gear and your gem choices. Such as a warrior (Arms and Fury). STR is the best stat, until you start getting some ArP on gear. Once you reach a certain level, then gemming full ArP, to meet that 100% cap, becomes a better stat to improve your DPS. Knowing when to do that, only really took a few minutes of googling searches, but any player who has half a mind should know how to gear the character accordingly and not need outside help. With the changes, you will simply be looking at gear that has the most STR gear on to improve your DPS. And that's it, nothing else. Just STR. Ya that sounds like so much fun.

One stat and one stat alone, nor more juggling gear pieces to find the which one is the better upgrade. You have a piece with 100 STM, 104 STR, 78 Mastery and 99 Hit. Your raiding the next tier of instances and your upgrade drops. 110 STM, 113 STR, 86 Mastery, and 107 Hit. Wow. Nothing changed there. Sure this example is a simplified way to look at it, but it isn't going to get more complex than this. Back in the day and still partly to the day you have to see what happens when you equip an item to see how much of an upgrade it is.

Now we have this lol-i'm-a-scrub-and-i-suck way called gearscore, were people use items that simply boost there gearscore and call it an upgrade. I see the fun out of gearing you character and the punishment (if you wanted X stat u lost Y stat) with the Cata system going bye-bye. Now it'll all be numerical upgrades and nothing more. Maybe as Cata get's close (Beta anyone?) we can really see how profound the changes are going to be and whether or not there like I imagine..

Is it better for the game? Hell ya, make **** even easier to keep the playerbase happy, by dumbing it down. Do I think you will loose that feeling of what you do really matters to your character? Hell ya, I do.

They're trying to simplify items already, so that we have more inventory space, as a druid player, it just makes sense to have just two sets of armor, possibly a third for pvp purposes that includes resistance.

Wouldn't my proposal simplify it even further? No gear needed at all. I don't think it has as much to do with bag space as it does with the increasingly complex state of itemization.

The current itemization formula ties blizzards hands when it comes to making new gear (look at trends for Tier 1-2-2.5-3, 4-5-6-6.5, and 7-8-9-10) you see the same "bad itemization + wasted stats" -> "bad itemization" -> "good itemization" -> "good itemization + secondary stats".

Part of the problem is that every time they give us a new/better scaling stat they can't take it away at the next tier of content: that's (partly) why so many people refused to replace their Tier 3 with Tier 4 loot in TBC. Tier 7 got around that issue by huge item level inflation (~50 points between T6.5 and Tier 7 vs 10 points between Tier 3 and 4). Unfortunately the itemization formula is logarithmic: to get the same increase in quality between tier 10 and 11 they'd need to inflate points by say 150 and each tier would need to be 30 levels apart (rather than the 13 they are now).

The second major issue is that most players have no idea how a given piece of gear effects their character. Is 10 intellect better than 15 spirit and 1 MP5? Is 10 expertise rating better than 5 hit and 5 dodge? Without solving a complex system of equations (or getting someone to do it for you): there's no way to tell. Should I use armor penetration or agility gems?

Then there's that the new stats Blizzard has introduced all have arbitrary caps geared towards raiders but they don't offer any way to find out what those caps are. It's not obvious what the haste/hit/crit/expertise/etc. caps are and the game provides no way to find out and yet it's fairly easy to bang into them at end game levels of gear. Originally you only had to worry about the hit and defence cap - now there are hit, haste, crit, defence, expertise armor penetration, and resilience caps (both hard and soft versions of each). There's no way that somebody can find out what those caps are simply by playing the game.

They want to get back to a simple stat system to make the game more comprehensible for players and to simplify the process of designing gear upgrades. Bag space is a secondary concern that can just as easily be solved by giving tailors a 40-slot bag pattern.

. Do I think you will loose that feeling of what you do really matters to your character? Hell ya, I do.

I don't. I'm not just 3000 spellpower, 1000 haste and 30% crit. The stuff that matters to me is the encounters and the people you play with. Most people who understand gear don't spend a lot of time debating <x> vs <y> upgrades: they just plug it into rawr and look at which offers the most DPS/healing/survivability.

At the end of a tier of content everyone ends up in the same gear (or would if they had time to farm it long enough). Best in slot for one hunter is best in slot for every hunter, there's not much thinking needed there.

OH EM GEEEE

AT LAST!!!

it only took Blizzard five years to fix!!

There is a small Mastery bonus for wearing "your" gear. So a Balance druid who takes cloth will be essentially giving up free stats. Sometimes that may be worth it to them (just as sometimes it's worth it for a Resto druid to take that piece of +hit gear), but often times it won't be worth it especially if it's an upgrade for you.

http://www.wow.com/2010/03/01/mastery-bonus-in-cataclysm-to-encourage-proper-gear-choices/

So.

I called Blizzard to find out where my wow-pets-06.jpg is.

I ordered him a week ago. I waited on the phone for four hours (on hold!).. When they apologized profusely, they gave me three days free..

That's not the half of it.

I asked about my old account which I wanted to see if they could find.

They found it.. confirmed it was mine (by asking my mother's maiden name), revived the account, merged the account to my current account making it so that my account registers my current account five year subscriber (! :woot: !) as I've been playing for five years, and then told me that all of my toons were still there.. yet.. on the old server they used to be on.

I gained a level 40 Hunter and a level 25 rogue I haven't played in something like 3-4 years.

I'm looking forward to switching my 40 hunter to the new server I'm on now.

It's absolutely amazing that they could do this for me. :D

If you're curious about my hatchling, long story short, he got delayed because of UPS shipping error at the UPS Shipping Center.

Man, I'd love to see bosses that actually take up physical space as they move. I remember an old video of a boss on Warhammer Online where after getting the boss to a certain point, he drops to the ground. The players then proceed to run up his arms, shoulder, and start wailing on the back of his head. Truly awesome stuff!

I also hope old world armors that you level up in get revamped. I know I'm probably dreaming big here, but hey, it'd certainly be nice. :blush:

Man, I'd love to see bosses that actually take up physical space as they move. I remember an old video of a boss on Warhammer Online where after getting the boss to a certain point, he drops to the ground. The players then proceed to run up his arms, shoulder, and start wailing on the back of his head. Truly awesome stuff!

I also hope old world armors that you level up in get revamped. I know I'm probably dreaming big here, but hey, it'd certainly be nice. :blush:

Yeah that does sound really cool, could lead to much more interesting boss fights. Maybe on the next xpac Blizz will add collision detection for the 3d models.

You ever thought of a Blog?

So.

Ever thought about the fact that this is the WoW thread zone and it's related to all things WoW, therefore, it counts?

Guess not.

I thought it was pretty cool news, and it goes to show just how awesome of a company Blizzard is.

It was a cool story, I still have an 80 rogue and 40's pally on an old account that I would like to have merged to my main account but don't really wanna pay for it. Maybe I should order one of those stuff animals and hoped it gets delayed! It would make a good gift for my g/f anyways. :)

It was a cool story, I still have an 80 rogue and 40's pally on an old account that I would like to have merged to my main account but don't really wanna pay for it. Maybe I should order one of those stuff animals and hoped it gets delayed! It would make a good gift for my g/f anyways. :)

Merging doesn't cost anything. :)

I was just shocked they could find a 5 year old account. :laugh:

Merging doesn't cost anything. :)

I was just shocked they could find a 5 year old account. :laugh:

Really? They say your account doesn't go anywhere. Not sure how/why your characters would disappear, as I'm sure plenty of people would be ****ed if they did. :ermm:

Overall, I'm not sure you really gained all too much. At least, not to me. Though, over the course of the years I've played, I have:

80 DK

76 DK

72 Paladin

71 Mage

67 Warrior

65 Druid

50 Rogue

47 Warrior

47 Paladin

45 Warrior

32 Paladin

25 Priest

24 Shaman

23 Warlock

22 Hunter

and a ton of characters under 20.

And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head on various servers between 2 accounts. :p

Leveling just isn't hard, especially when you take your time, get that rested XP, and jump into randoms when you do get on.

And no, I don't play hardcore as other people do. In fact, I haven't logged on in 3 days. :blink:

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  • Posts

    • Nope. That lack of surround sound capability (analog) won't fly with me. Sure, I use headphones most of the time, but still.
    • Creative Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe review: your headphones will love it by Steven Parker If you have been reading Neowin for any length of time, you may remember that I reviewed the Sound Blaster Audigy FX Pro back in April. I found it to be an excellent budget sound card, even though it lacked support for formats such as DTS over the included SPDIF port. Anyway, Creative reached out to me again asking if I was interested in reviewing the Sound Blaster AE-X. It is a card mainly targeted at headphone wearers, which I'll get into a bit later. Before we get underway, here is a disclaimer: Creative Labs provided a free sample without any review pre-approval. Here are the full specs of it: Creative Sound Blaster AE-X Dimensions: 179 x 126 x 18 mm Weight: 263g / 9.28 oz Platform: PCI-e DAC: ESS ES9039Q2M Connectivity Options Side: Rear: 1 x HD Audio Front Panel Connector, 1 x ⅛“ Headphone port, 1 x RCA Line-out (Left) port, 1 x RCA Line-out (Right) port, 1 x Coaxial SPDIF-out port, 1 x ⅛“ Mic in/Line-in port, 1 x TOSLINK SPDIF-in port Surround: No DNR / SNR: THD+N: 0.0001% Dynamic Range 130 dB Recording Resolution: PCM up to 32-bit / 192kHz (Stereo) Direct Mode: Line Out (Stereo): PCM up to 32-bit  384 kHz Coaxial SPDIF Out: PCM up to 24-bit 192.0 kHz Headphone Amp: PCM up to 32-bit / 384kHz (Stereo) Native DSD: DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 Output Impedance: 1Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 8–600Ω, IEM: 0.5Vrms, Low: 1.5Vrms, Mid: 3Vrms, High: 6Vrms, Maximum output power: 350mW @ 32Ω (High), Maximum output voltage: 6Vrms (High) Front Panel Headphone Amp: PCM up to 32-bit / 192kHz (Stereo) Native DSD: DSD64, DSD128 Output Impedance: 10Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 32–300Ω, Maximum output power: 40mW @ 32Ω, Maximum output voltage: 1.9Vrms ASIO: ASIO 2.3 Total Harmonic Distortion: THD+N: 0.0006% Dynamic Range: 114 dB Scout Mode: Yes EMI shielding: No (but it passed all the FCC emission tests) Operating temperature: 0–45°C Input Power: 12V⎓0.5A Warranty: 1 Year (MSRP) Price: $179.99 / £169.99 The Sound Blaster AE-X was announced at the end of May, and it becomes clear that it is mainly for headphone wearers. I should also note that the card does not support DDL/DTS encoding technology, but it is said to support decoding through the coaxial SPDIF port. I was able to test this working with the classic Windows Sound properties, but I could not get a DTS (decode) signal through my Logitech Z906, it defaulted to 3D sound whenever I played DTS content through Plex or Emby. In addition, this card only supports two channels (stereo) over the speakers. The surround support is limited to the Headphone Amp, so before I get underway, what we have here is a card mostly intended for headphone use, especially with its SPDIF In (Toslink) port where you could connect another device like a console. So what about the highlights of this card? The AE-X is powered by the ESS SABRE DAC (ES9039Q2M), which is capable of a 130 dB dynamic range. In addition, it supports 32-bit/384 kHz playback for deeper detail and clarity. The headphone amplifier delivers up to 350 mW @ 32Ω, which admittedly far surpasses standard onboard audio, offering support for studio-grade headphones. DSD256 and ASIO 2.3 are also supported. What doesn't it have? No support for What-U-Hear, Super X-Fi, or the SmartComms Kit No EMI shielding, but it passed all the FCC emission tests (from the FAQ) I also want to make it clear that I am no audiophile. For me, it's purely subjective and it should just "work" out of the box. First impressions As I said in the introduction, I was a bit sad to see that the AE-X only supports stereo output, meaning it would not be on par with my ALC1220 over my speakers, as I mentioned it seems like this card is marketed toward headphone users. Since I am not an avid gamer that would rule me out as a potential customer, but I can still test its capabilities! The card arrived in a nice-looking box, as shown above. It's quite a bit larger than the Audify FX Pro that I reviewed back in April, and at first I thought the covering meant that it was EMI shielded, but it isn't as mentioned above in the highlights section. What's in the box: 1 x Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe card 1 x 3.5 mm CTIA TRRS to Dual TRS Headset Splitter Cable 1 x Quick Start Guide Aside from the Quick Start Guide, which someone at my age (I guess) needs a magnifying glass to read thanks to the tiny fonts, Creative Labs also has the manual online, which first requires you to prove that you're human in order to access it (so I can't direct link it). Anyway, the box is mostly made up of cardboard, and the only plastic in it is the anti-static bag for the card itself. Design Top Bottom The card itself looks pretty cool and actually wouldn't look out of place in an all-white build. There's only one connector, and for some reason it is awkwardly placed on the side (front-facing) that is for the front panel audio connector, which will let you use the headphones through the front PC audio jack. Since the front panel Headphone Amp has fewer capabilities than the rear headphone port, I decided not to use it. Rear of card PCI-e interface The rear of the card is completely open and is normally where you would find the front panel connector. The PCIe interface side is completely covered, which initially made me think it was EMI shielded. I/O panel Side (front-facing) with Front panel connector On the outer rear bracket side we have the TOSLINK SPDIF in, Coaxial SPDIF out, RCA line out (Right), RCA line out (Left), Headphone out, and Mic/Line in ports. On the front facing portion of the card itself is the F-panel connector. Usage Test System Our test system consists of the following: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER (BIOS F12) Corsair RM1000x (2024) Thermal Grizzly Kyronaut (33x33x0,2mm) 2x 32GB Kingston Fury Beast RGB DDR5 6000MT/s CL36-38-38-80 T-Force Z540 2TB (PCIe Gen5) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition (NVIDIA) Creative Sound Blaster AE-X Windows 11 25H2 Pro I installed the card into the Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER which includes the RealTek ALC1220 onboard audio. For our subjective listening tests, I used the Coaxial SPDIF port to my Logitech Z906 speakers. For headphone tests I used the OneOdio Studio Max 2 Wireless DJ Headphones that I reviewed last month. After installing the audio driver, I installed Creative Nexus, which is a relatively new app designed for the latest Sound Blaster cards. Then I discovered the AE-X needed both a driver update from 1.00.15.0001 to 1.01.09.000 and a firmware update from 1.00.06.0000 to 1.00.06.0002, then I was set to go. It should be noted that the card did not work without the driver (not Plug and Play). As you can see above, you can manage the firmware, driver, and inputs via Advanced Settings on the Device tab. By default Nexus enabled "Direct Mode". Upon clicking on Acoustic Engine, the Equalizer can be enabled and set to four different presets, which are: Gaming Music Movies Footsteps Enhancer There's also a dedicated Scout Mode for gamers. I mainly used Tidal and Spotify in the past week to listen to some of my Liked Songs (which now total over 700) in Shuffle mode; there were no pops or interference that I could hear. I also found a 5.1 Surround Music playlist on Tidal that sounded really great over Studio Max 2 headphones. When I reviewed the Audigy FX Pro, I went out and purchased a Logitech Z906 set second-hand for €100 specifically to use with the card, but in this instance all I could get on the AE-X was the 3D output of surround sound through Coaxial SPDIF and although it still sounded great, it isn't quite as good as DTS Interactive via my onboard Realtek ALC1220. Conclusion So what have I learned? The AE-X lacks multi-channel support for 5.1/7.1 setups and drops support for modern surround technologies like Dolby or DTS, functioning strictly as a stereo output device. So to really benefit, you will need Studio-grade headphones to "hear" the benefits of this card. With that being said, I can imagine it will appeal to gamers who are switching between console and PC. By utilizing the SPDIF in port, you could just plug your headphones into the AE-X (front or rear port) and then switch between PC and Console without having to move the headphones to a different port. As I said in the Sound Blaster Audigy review, the EQ in the Creative Nexus app offers safe presets, which allows a user to further tweak the lows, mids, and highs for a personal listening experience. Of course it all depends on the headphones you hook up to it. Speaking of headphones, I kind of wish I had higher-quality Studio-grade headphones to really test this card with; I'm not usually wearing headphones in my day to day duties. The only time I will wear them is if I want to listen to music very late at night and I don't want to disturb my neighbors, so my rating (verdict) is based on this fact. Someone with a PC/Console setup and wears headphone religiously to game, and consume media will benefit much more than I from the high-quality Headphone Amps that are included in the AE-X. Once again, I do feel like Creative could have gone the extra mile to support the S/PDIF port a bit more. Why include it if you're not supporting the main popular digital formats? It seems like the decision was more of a legacy-based one, offering uncompressed 2-channel PCM audio, for users with high-fidelity audio systems and external DACs. Maybe I will be lucky enough to review a card that truly includes all these features in the future. I am sure readers with far more knowledge on audio systems than me will correct me in the comments below. I'll just say I am happy to learn what I don't know! Where to buy The Sound Blaster AE-X is available to purchase now in preorder for $179.99 on the U.S. Creative website, or for £169.99 on the Creative UK website and will start shipping to customers from June 25.
    • $80 or 90%, anything else would be financial suicide one way or another.
    • Or... just use Bitwarden. Free, and has on-prem option as well. Works both on desktop and mobile, wherever you are. The age of local password files is over.
    • Thanks
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