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that kind of sucks, i was hoping to just gain the normal rep from normal modes until i decided which faction to grind rep for(probably in heroics after the nerf).

What nerf are you talking about? According to blue posts, Blizzard is happy with the difficulty of heroics right now and rightfully so.

the inevitable nerf to content that happens with all new content in wow a few weeks or so after it is released after the hardcores have cleared it all. seems like a lot of qq over just how hard heroic 5 mans are right now, and raiding seems prohibitively expensive for the average raid player.

anyways thanks for the link smeltn.

the inevitable nerf to content that happens with all new content in wow a few weeks or so after it is released after the hardcores have cleared it all. seems like a lot of qq over just how hard heroic 5 mans are right now, and raiding seems prohibitively expensive for the average raid player.

That is assuming Blizzard hasn't learned from what it has admitted to be mistakes. There were many bad decisions made in Wrath, which is what I'm guessing you have experience in.

I honestly don't think they will nerf it though. Blizzard is extremely happy with the current contents difficulty as am I. Its back like Vanilla wow, nothing is free anymore it requires work. Once people stop trying to blow through something without crowd control, like shaman's spamming chain lightning, it will be ok. As far as costing a lot in raids.. its not NEARLY as bad now as it was in Vanilla wow. Gold is SO easy to make now and TONS of it, I mean I can make 1k a day just from doing dailies.

I am loving the difficulty. Sure I find myself frustrated at times depending on the group you get in, but again Blizzard is pushing more towards guilds now, with perks, and bonus' for doing guild runs, etc, so it really makes it worth wile to get with a guild and do dungeons with them so you stop getting the randoms who have no idea what they are doing.

Yeah if you read the official forums they keep saying that they are ok with the new difficulty because they are trying to make the game more difficult, make heroics exactly that heroic, and make epic drops something to work hard for. I am very happy with the change.

meh i don';t plan on doing much pve myself, i'm just seeing lots of qq everywhere about it. from what i hear the hardest thing about vanilla raids was getting 40 ppl together for them on a regular basis that were semi competent.although i do agree it's alot easier to make gold now, i'm just referring to evn's post about how much he is spending per run or week or w/e it was. iirc he is going through more per week then i made getting to 85 from 80.

as for the empahsis on guild stuff, i think there are pros and cons and wow players are also going to have to go through a paradigm shift. wotlk seemed to be all about hte PUG and many people are going to have to get used to doing something with a guild, which isn't for everyone. i'm still seeing lfm for lk pugs in ./2 on my server.

i think even if less casual raiders are happy with the current dificulty(and they tend to be happier with higher dificulties of any content) and even if there have been blue posts saying blizz is happy with current dificulty, i think they will look at the stats on % of raiders completing content vs raiders still banging their heads on it and do a nerf, depending on those stats. i don't think it they will be nerfed to wotlk levels by any means, but to some degree that makes them more accessible to players outside of the top 5%. it might not be until the next content patch.

i mean i'm happy for the hardcore raiders that are happy they no longer one shot supposedly hardmode content on their first attempt at it like i hear was happening in wotlk, but as far as heroics go, which probably represents a broader chunk of the wow end game pve playerbase, there's very little reason that after a paradigm shift back to somethign similar to tbc playstyles with marking and ccing trash among players is widespread, there can't be nerfs to makes it more accessible while retaining a degree of dificulty even with the proper gear.

i mean i'm just looking at blizz actions in teh context of the last 4 or so years in which nerfs have been fairly predictable and a part of the game. hardcore guilds do content before the nerf, normal mode guilds do content after the nerf. this was true of tbc as well, though i don't recall nerfs in vanilla(which is before i played/paid attention at all)

if there isn't a nerf i think a lot of players who did endgame pve in wotlk for example are going to get frustrated with the paradigm shift needed to do them, and go to a more pvp or non gear progression focus, and if that happens i think blizz wil react to get more players into endgame pve again.

i'm pretty sure i wasn't th onyl player who got sick of incompetent players in their own guild wiping them on bosses in normal mode 5mans in tbc and more or less quitting end game pve while those incompetents kept baning their heads on the wall in raid content until their classes were buffed and the content nerfed. i had self professed pro pve tanks in my guild and PUGs who couldn't do something as run out of the GD bad stuff that killed you in 2 seconds in normal mode 5 mans, and saw many guilds bang their heads against karazhan while other guilds were running killing kael thas in outlands raid(not he second appearance of him) and BT.

which bring sup another point, i think zerg raid guilds will be more powerful than ever as per hte guild leveling perks and harder content goes. incompetent raiders will flock to them to be carried liek was ramapant in my experience in tbc and the old stereotypes will come back stronger than ever. while casual raiding and casual raid guilds will suffer as a result. because quite franklyi think any guild who is planning on doing casual raiding is not being honest in terms of what it takes to do even heroics let alone raids right now.

i don't know where you class yourself int eh casual-hardcore spectrum smeltn, but i'm pretty sure evn is a hardmode hardcore raider somewhere in the top percentile, and he seems to admit that the current content is pretty difcult even for his guild.

soo all that combined, plus the word on the street, tells me that regardless of the blue posts, as usual a nerf is inevitable, even if it might take longer than in the past.

There is a much higher percentile of people progressing through this first tier of content than 5%. It's not like Sunwell.. Further, the players not being able to clear the content will still be able to progress via grinding heroics and acquiring Valor Points and therefore epic gear. Albeit, this is much slower than just being "pro" to begin with. That's the point, though; there should be a penalty for not being motivated to do the right things, and not being a better player. That is the difference between Wrath and Cata.

Also, it does not take a hardcore player to be able to clear content. All it takes is a good group of people. If you're goal is to clear it first, then yes, but being hardcore (raiding every day as if a full time job) is not required to clear this content.

That is assuming Blizzard hasn't learned from what it has admitted to be mistakes. There were many bad decisions made in Wrath, which is what I'm guessing you have experience in.

naw i have more experience in tbc. and there were plenty of nerfs to content back then too.

from word of mouth of people i played with in tbc in pvp and less pve because they were frustrated by having to rely on other players who just didn;t even do the bare minimum to take down content, then changed to pve in wotlk, is wmroe of what i know of wotlk.

the only thing i personally know of wotlk is after 4.03a when wotlk content was trivial at best. and even then there were players who were getting themsleves killed on trash pulls and so on.

what i am seeing on my own server right now for qq tends to be people who go into heroics with the bare minimum gear to get in to them in their inventories and not even equipped, when it seems like you really need to farm for the best rep gear BEFORE going into heroics if you're going to PUG them.

i mean i'm hearing about tanks with like 68k hp in heroics or something(maybe i mis read that one because honestly i had like 91k hp as mage before i bought the craft gear last night), and healer qqing about going oom healing only the tank on bosses.

There is a much higher percentile of people progressing through this first tier of content than 5%. It's not like Sunwell.. Further, the players not being able to clear the content will still be able to progress via grinding heroics and acquiring Valor Points and therefore epic gear. Albeit, this is much slower than just being "pro" to begin with. That's the point, though; there should be a penalty for not being motivated to do the right things, and not being a better player. That is the difference between Wrath and Cata.

well unless you can link to a source for the higher than 5% progressing through content figure i'll have to go with what i see in /2 and my own guild and gaming sites. i doubt even 5% have gotten to actual raiding yet.

generally i agree on the concept that the best gear should go to the best player/most motivated/(no lifers) players first.

i just think that just because blizz is happy with the difficulty right now, doesn't mean there won't be a nerf in some manner down the road for current content, maybe not before new content is released but after.

just because everyone as able to progress quickly in wotlk compared to tbc doesn't mean that it will go back to tbc and before like where only the top 5% of raid groups got past the first tier or two of progression.

all that being said, i welcome pve washouts to pvp progression. sometimes people who are bad at pve are much beter at pvp, and it tends to decrease queue times when there's lots of players filling up matches(or so it seems)

^ just a correction from "what you hear" Vanilla was much much much harder than TBC and WOTLK. I quit when 25 man raids began because the sense of a guild and community around it depleted, as a hardcore vanilla raider (MC-NAXX) it took a lot more time and effort to down bosses and obtain "epic" loot, having all epics was... epic. I think what did it for me what that it needed 40 very skilled players in order to be on the edge of content (everything was eventually nerfed, now it is just released nerfed); in that those 40 people inevitably formed bonds and for me my guild had a very good sense of family among us. That more than anything kept me playing and enjoying raiding, 25 man raids, at least for me, ruined that.

I just started playing again lastnight (I hardly played wotlk), and instead of leveling my 80 warrior to 85 I've chosen to level my 66 mage to 85, it seems a lot of the changes have made the game much easier to play and understand (UI-stuff), im not sure how I feel about the spec limitations but we'll see....

yeah well time spent in a raid doesn't necessarily equal hard to me. from what i recall the world top raiding guild in vanilla got banned for trying to cut down on time spent on trash by haxing walls in raid dungeons because there was just so much trash to deal with. effort wise, really depends on the effort. if effor tmeans spending 16 hours a day 7 days a week farming between raids for consumables and repair costs, then that's not the kind of effort i appreciate personally, and i've never added that to a criteria for content to be hard in any way in any mmo prior to wow.

anyways http://wow.guildprogress.com/Cataclysm on normal modes runs out of guilds that have done all raid progress on normal modes on the first page. hardmode list is even shorter.

now these are the top guilds in world. so obviously they are loving this. i couldn't find stats for content like 5 man heroics. maybe my search terms suck.

^ just a correction from "what you hear" Vanilla was much much much harder than TBC and WOTLK. I quit when 25 man raids began because the sense of a guild and community around it depleted, as a hardcore vanilla raider (MC-NAXX) it took a lot more time and effort to down bosses and obtain "epic" loot, having all epics was... epic. I think what did it for me what that it needed 40 very skilled players in order to be on the edge of content (everything was eventually nerfed, now it is just released nerfed); in that those 40 people inevitably formed bonds and for me my guild had a very good sense of family among us. That more than anything kept me playing and enjoying raiding, 25 man raids, at least for me, ruined that.

I just started playing again lastnight (I hardly played wotlk), and instead of leveling my 80 warrior to 85 I've chosen to level my 66 mage to 85, it seems a lot of the changes have made the game much easier to play and understand (UI-stuff), im not sure how I feel about the spec limitations but we'll see....

I don't know what you remember about vanilla 40-mans, but my experience was very different. It wasn't hard to carry bad players in a 40-man, and most of the fights had pretty simple mechanics. Being in full Naxxramas gear was certainly an achievement. BWL and MC were not really hard, though. In my experience, individual lack of skill tended to show up more in ZG?because it was a smaller raid.

Well, now i'm at another dilemma. I want an alt, and for some reason the thought of playing a melee attracts me since i've never played a high level one. But at the same time i'm not sure if i would enjoy it, so i'm debating between making my warrior a PvP char, making a warlock, or making a rogue. Rogue's seem UP atm, so i'm honestly not sure.

Well, now i'm at another dilemma. I want an alt, and for some reason the thought of playing a melee attracts me since i've never played a high level one. But at the same time i'm not sure if i would enjoy it, so i'm debating between making my warrior a PvP char, making a warlock, or making a rogue. Rogue's seem UP atm, so i'm honestly not sure.

warriors seem stronger than ever in pvp right now. i fought a few last night and they were definitely the toughest fights out of the 14 i had. very hard to kite a pvp warrior as a mage now(although i was doing it wrong), and they kinda reminded me of how rogues used to be in terms of locking people down with stuns and such. probably doesn't play like that until at least 70 or 80, but it definitely was an intersting class to fight.

the two rogues we fought last night were cake walk. maybe it was the players and/or the gear they had, idk. but we also had gimpy gear so.

idk about warlocks right now. my latest experience of them in 4.03a was in wotlk heroics where one was tanking trash and pushign the group forward. although i heard just before that they were nerfed. in my previous experience they tend to be a more dificult class to play well, as they have both a pet to manage and lots of different kinds of spells with various utility(dunno if the latter has changed or not, my mage seems to have less spells to manage now), but when played well they were extremely powerful.

well unless you can link to a source for the higher than 5% progressing through content figure i'll have to go with what i see in /2 and my own guild and gaming sites. i doubt even 5% have gotten to actual raiding yet.

That is anecdotal evidence. The opinions of a few people in trade and guild hardly hold any relevance to actual statistics.

anyways http://wow.guildprogress.com/Cataclysm on normal modes runs out of guilds that have done all raid progress on normal modes on the first page. hardmode list is even shorter.

There are far more guilds to have successfully killed 12/12 than 24. Unless I am not understanding what you said, that site is clearly wrong. WoW Progress is the de facto progression statistics site.

i'm just referring to evn's post about how much he is spending per run or week or w/e it was. iirc he is going through more per week then i made getting to 85 from 80.

Evn also in a guild that competes for the top spot on his server (feel free to correct me Evn). And he's also raiding while prices are sky high. If you start raiding in January/Feb prices will already be on a slow steady decline, not to mention you can farm mats/gold to help get ya ready for raiding.

That is anecdotal evidence. The opinions of a few people in trade and guild hardly hold any relevance to actual statistics.

There are far more guilds to have successfully killed 12/12 than 24. Unless I am not understanding what you said, that site is clearly wrong. WoW Progress is the de facto progression statistics site.

you or slane said more than 5% were making good progress on current content. both your link which seems to only show hardmodes and my link which also show normal modes say otherwise. WAIT i just looked at this chart:

Blackwing Descent

Magmaw: 5676 (68.39%)

Omnotron Defense System: 6315 (76.09%)

Maloriak: 2555 (30.79%)

Atramedes: 1664 (20.05%)

Chimaeron: 1147 (13.82%)

Nefarian: 124 (1.49%)

The Bastion of Twilight

Halfus Wyrmbreaker: 5868 (70.71%)

Valiona and Theralion: 3703 (44.62%)

Ascendant Council: 1103 (13.29%)

Cho'gall: 509 (6.13%)

Throne of the Four Winds

Conclave of Wind: 3793 (45.70%)

Al'Akir: 549 (6.62%)

except i have doubt that 60% or more of guilds are actually even riading normal modes at this point. especially when the link i gave seems to give the same heroic info as your link but on normal modes runs out of 12/12 progression guilds pretty quickly.

Evn also in a guild that competes for the top spot on his server (feel free to correct me Evn). And he's also raiding while prices are sky high. If you start raiding in January/Feb prices will already be on a slow steady decline, not to mention you can farm mats/gold to help get ya ready for raiding.

that's my point. Evn has been doing a good job at giving us his progress and so far his top (on his server) guild is making slow progress. which they probably love comapred to wotlk one shots on the first night.

but it still says to me that it's silly to say current content will no be nerfed eventually. maybe not as fast in the past, but just because blizz is happy with dificulty right now, doesn't mean that at some point, maybe in a month or two or more, either before or soon after new content is released, current content won't be nerfed to allow slow pokes and lower skilled raid guilds to see cata content,a dn get prepared for new content for when it too is nerfed.

nvm that back in tbc blizz nerfed hard content so more people could see it and i seem toget the impression that people are saying current cata content is about on par in dificulty with tbc content. so why this would change(keeping in mind that iirc wotlk content was released nerfed and iirc in some cases actually made harder later).

i don't expect cata content to ever be as easy as wotlk content, just that there will be a nerf to it at some point allowing more people to see it and get gear from it.

oh anyway, if evn reads this i just want to confirm the steps for copying over wow to an ssd.

i'm thinking basically

copy wow to ssd

point shortcut to new location

verify install

make sure the game runs

delete wow from old location

does that sound right?

Everything WoW needs is in the Program Files directory. Simply pointing the shortcut to the new location will work. The registry keys created when following proper installation, however, will be incorrect. This will affect uninstallation of the game in the future and proper integration with Windows Vista/7 Game Explorer. You could just do a search of the registry and fix all appearances of it.

like a lot of qq over just how hard heroic 5 mans are right now, and raiding seems prohibitively expensive for the average raid player.

The solution to the 'cost' of consumables isn't to nerf the raid encounters because we'd still be chain-chugging them in Naxx 2.0 difficulty raids. Make the materials more plentiful or increase the yield for a given amount of materials. If we weren't trying to skip the 'intended' progression of normal -> heroic -> raid we could have done without consumables. This week we did 7/12 without the new expensive potions and did just fine. A little more gear goes a long way.

i think zerg raid guilds will be more powerful than ever as per hte guild leveling perks and harder content goes.

The rate that my guild obtains the rewards is no better than a 5-man casual guild will: if you have 5 people that play for an hour a day you will reach the guild level cap some time in late April just as every other guild does. The rewards are minor niceties - not something that makes or breaks your game play.

There is a much higher percentile of people progressing through this first tier of content than 5%. It's not like Sunwell..

That'll be true eventually, but right now the only people making serious attempts at the end-game raids is going to be the top few percent. Again, that's not because the content is impossibly hard, just that this expansion hasn't been out long enough. Eventually more people will get into the end game content but right now they're still leveling and gearing up. There's been at-most 2 'real' raid lock outs since the expansion shipped: most guilds weren't killing yogg or arthas on week one either. I think we'll have a better idea of how things are shaping up in mid January.

when it seems like you really need to farm for the best rep gear BEFORE going into heroics if you're going to PUG them.

Heroics are intended to be a 'tier above' normal mode dungeons - blue posts indicated that you're supposed to have spent some time farming 333/346 gear before you go there. It's "progression" for people who don't raid. Some players will power through content below the intended gear level but that doesn't mean you have to.

There are far more guilds to have successfully killed 12/12 than 24. Unless I am not understanding what you said, that site is clearly wrong.

As of right now there are 134 guilds that are 12/12 normal mode. Just prior to patch 4.0 there were around 3500 guilds that had killed heroic Halion and Arthas on either mode. Those made up the top 3% of all raid guilds. The number of people making progress in Bastion of Twilight or Blackwing Descent is probably throttled by people not trying yet, not by the content being too difficult.

Evn also in a guild that competes for the top spot on his server (feel free to correct me Evn).

The top guild on the server is 10/12 (one ahead of us) and has spent roughly twice as many hours raiding.

Our wipes can be blamed on:

  • 30% having the wrong strategy. We don't understand how a certain mechanic works and we just have the wrong idea about how to counter it - it causes us to wipe. We spend around 5 minutes reading over boss abilities before we go in, but don't watch videos or read guides because we suspect that most of them are 'questionable' this early in the expansion.
  • 30% disconnects. We've had major issues with people getting disconnected during combat. Critical errors, huge lag, etc. When they log back in their usually in a different instance too. There's also been some strange things with combat res not working, etc. Chalk this up to general bugginess of new content.
  • 20% playing badly. IE: for throne of the four winds our "wind guy" tank getting knocked off. People standing in fire (or out of fire), missing interrupts, hitting the wrong cool down, and generally just making mistakes playing their class.
  • 10% RNG. Sometimes a really bad combination of events happens and it feels like there's just nothing you can do about it. A change in strategy might help but usually it's a rare enough event that you just ignore it and try again.For example: a tornado spawn on a tank during elemental council and then knock him into grounding-zone right before Quake is cast.
  • 10% enrage timer. Usually when we're learning an encounter we prioritize "don't die" over "kill boss" which tends to mean lower DPS because we're focusing on learning mechanics. After we hit enrage we can usually tighten up our execution, take a few more risks, and scape out a kill in short order. I guess that could count as 'bad play' too - if you want to be less charitable.

If you ignore hardware/software bugs our failures are caused by playing badly most of the time and that seems pretty fair to me. If we played more we'd progress more but right now Christmas and final exams > video games. I suspect many of the other people not focusing on world first feel the same way. We've had 2 weeks, there's no looming content, and there are good reasons to be doing something other than playing video games right now. In the new year people will start trying end-game content and we'll see how things shape up.

If it takes 40 hours to clear all of normal mode content that's not to bad: probably on par with what it took to clear Ulduar. We've spent around 15 hours raiding so far, but I expect Neferian/Chogal/Alakir will take a fair bit of learning.

oh anyway, if evn reads this i just want to confirm the steps for copying over wow to an ssd.

Those are exactly right.

It's not unlikely that I am overestimating the number of guilds progressing as fast as we and other progression-focused guilds are.

What I genuinely find to be the most successful and positive change in this expansion is the apparent progression you describe from regular 5-mans to heroic 5-mans and then to 10- and 25-man raiding. You briefly touched on it, but what this does is create/force a more thorough experience through all of the content. In Wrath, they went to an extreme to make sure all players could experience most content. If a new player joined the scene mid-ToC, this resulted in blasting through all tiers of content by merely running heroics and jumping into the current tier.

This was in great contrast to Vanilla and BC end-game content where only the truly top players ever even stepped foot; Blizzard spent time and money on content that no one even experienced. Wrath was a huge change in concept, which resulted in an ironic shift where then most players joining mid-ToC, mid-ICC, did not experience the earlier content Blizzard spent time and money on, although not to the extreme of Vanilla/BC. In effect then, it was mildly successful.

Jump to Cataclysm, now and I think they have reached a nice medium where each jump in tier (5-man Reg -> 5-man Heroic -> Tier11, etc) mean a whole hell of a lot more while still making it perfectly doable given time to farm Valor Points for truly casual players. The real question to be answered is what will they do to allow players progression from 5-mans to raids when the next content patch hits. Will they make T11 purchasable using Justice Points and T12 Valor? That would be disappointing given what I described as the problem in Wrath.

It's not unlikely that I am overestimating the number of guilds progressing as fast as we and other progression-focused guilds are.

What I genuinely find to be the most successful and positive change in this expansion is the apparent progression you describe from regular 5-mans to heroic 5-mans and then to 10- and 25-man raiding. You briefly touched on it, but what this does is create/force a more thorough experience through all of the content. In Wrath, they went to an extreme to make sure all players could experience most content. If a new player joined the scene mid-ToC, this resulted in blasting through all tiers of content by merely running heroics and jumping into the current tier.

This was in great contrast to Vanilla and BC end-game content where only the truly top players ever even stepped foot; Blizzard spent time and money on content that no one even experienced. Wrath was a huge change in concept, which resulted in an ironic shift where then most players joining mid-ToC, mid-ICC, did not experience the earlier content Blizzard spent time and money on, although not to the extreme of Vanilla/BC. In effect then, it was mildly successful.

Jump to Cataclysm, now and I think they have reached a nice medium where each jump in tier (5-man Reg -> 5-man Heroic -> Tier11, etc) mean a whole hell of a lot more while still making it perfectly doable given time to farm Valor Points for truly casual players. The real question to be answered is what will they do to allow players progression from 5-mans to raids when the next content patch hits. Will they make T11 purchasable using Justice Points and T12 Valor? That would be disappointing given what I described as the problem in Wrath.

All current Valor Points equipment becomes purchasable with Justice points when the next tier is released. Blizzard has already stated that. While on one hand I'm fine with it, people should be focusing on current content because you don't want to end up in a guild that was working on Hydross and A'lar while other guilds were working on Illidian. At the same time, you end up feeling jipped because of all the work you put into the game. I'm more than fine with people being able to run heroics and use JP to jump into new content as long as making encounters overly easy isn't the comprise.

Looking forward to starting raiding. Looks like normal content stuff will provide a challenge to everyone, the extent of that challenge would be factor to skill and preparation and heroics look like they'll be real challenging and require A games for everyone. Still a tad bit earlier to tell, but that's what I'm hoping.

Finally got my Last heroic upgrade to notch my average item level to 346. As a sv hunter I do find my Damage/DPS leaps and bounds above other classes, in certain randoms I am doing 52% of overall damage (not aoe!) Even with like minded players with similar gear I am edging them out by arond 10-15% in damage done.

Enjoying the difficulty however not liking the Tank and Healer shortage in the guild at the moment, progression its non existent at the moment, we have players that can easily kill a few bosses off I would assume we were even over geared for some of the encounters, the only problem is we can never assemble a full team to Raid :(

Finally got my Last heroic upgrade to notch my average item level to 346. As a sv hunter I do find my Damage/DPS leaps and bounds above other classes, in certain randoms I am doing 52% of overall damage (not aoe!) Even with like minded players with similar gear I am edging them out by arond 10-15% in damage done.

Enjoying the difficulty however not liking the Tank and Healer shortage in the guild at the moment, progression its non existent at the moment, we have players that can easily kill a few bosses off I would assume we were even over geared for some of the encounters, the only problem is we can never assemble a full team to Raid :(

:(

We have our first one scheduled for the 27th of December, I gave up raiding when ToC came out and I told my guild I was only a backup once cata came out but it turns out most of their healers don't want to heal because of the difficulty so I've been asked to go. I really don't understand it to be honest, me and a group of 4 friends are getting the heroics done now in about the same time the wrath ones took us and healing is just as easy when you get some decent gear.

Oh well Blackwing Descent here I come.

Tanked last 2 boss's of Heroic Tolvir last night, the tank we had didnt want to move the shadow phoenix, so melee rance shadows ended up causing a wipe,,, so i put on my tank gear ( ALOT better quality then my dps gear ) beat it first attempt, as well as final boss.

I hate tanking pugs, Due to the other players attitudes, but love tanking in general, and will always volunteer for guildies

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    • 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.
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