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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.

The guild hacking AQ40 was "Overrated" horde guild I forget the server but they had already cleared Naxx at the time and simply didn't need loot from many of the bosses thus skipped to the end. That said even if they did full clear AQ trash was in some instances harder than the bosses so it wasn't nesessarly the volume of trash but the difficulty once mastered and geared properly a guild could rip through AQ very quickly.

I have herd a lot of positive feedback around this new expansion though, i've chosen to re-roll so we will see what happens once i get up to 85 i'm currently 67... It has been a very pleasing return to WoW after a long much needed break though.

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

Tanking pugs is a chore, I always hated it when I tanked but raid content isn't too bad.... especially encounters which actually require the tank to do something.

That being said feel free to add [email protected]

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.

Let me guess, you're a paladin?

Seriously though, it's not the difficulty that is currently causing a lot of healers to.. well, simply put not queue but rather the fact that healing for many classes has gone from using a lot of spells to using one or two. Since I play a shaman, let me take an example of my average heroic run (I'm currently sporting ilvl 349 gear); Earth Shield on tank, Water Shield on myself, Riptide+HW,HW,HW,Riptide,HW,HW,HW ad infinitum. It's the only two spells, apart from refreshing ES, that I ever need.

It's just incredibly tedious and not fun at all.

I'm absolutely loving my Warlock, Silverpine is a blast - although I'm sad I'm leveling up so far (20%+ xp from heirlooms, then 10% from guild perks = insane speeds). I was level 13 at the end of Goblin zone, and i JUST hit Gilneas and I'm already 18. I was looking to do some PvP and instances to level, is Demonology a decent PvP spec at lowbie levels? It seems like Demon would be the best leveling spec, but i honestly have no clue about PvP.

so i played some wow with the ssd, and honestly it's hard to say subjectively if it speeds up loads or not. seems like the bar goes quick and then it's just the loading screen for a long time with a full bar. but toons load fast runnning around org. i still had a couple stutters though, which i hoped would disappear.

also got a g510 kb which is taking some gettting used to , but the lcd gives useful at a glance info in bg's like time the bg has been going and hk's and kb's.

speaking of bg's i've never lost os many as horde. either lot sof decent pvpers transfered to alliance since i played in tbc or the horde on my battlgroup just suck that bad.

I finally did something last night that I never thought I would do. I leveled my rogue and warrior to 85, stood around in org for over an hour waiting for a random heroic or regular instance to pop up, nothing ever did. Out of frustration I deleted both the rogue and warrior. Its been a trip for the past 6 years, but it doesnt seem fun to me anymore, just an addictive grind. Now I get to go find something else to waste time on. As I said, it was fun while it lasted. I just couldnt get back into the rep grinding, and the gear requirements again.

I finally did something last night that I never thought I would do. I leveled my rogue and warrior to 85, stood around in org for over an hour waiting for a random heroic or regular instance to pop up, nothing ever did. Out of frustration I deleted both the rogue and warrior. Its been a trip for the past 6 years, but it doesnt seem fun to me anymore, just an addictive grind. Now I get to go find something else to waste time on. As I said, it was fun while it lasted. I just couldnt get back into the rep grinding, and the gear requirements again.

It's a MMORPG game, where your gaming experience completely depends on the people you play with. I'd recommend getting in a good social guild and the game will become really fun.

That's what I did and it worked.

Let me guess, you're a paladin?

Seriously though, it's not the difficulty that is currently causing a lot of healers to.. well, simply put not queue but rather the fact that healing for many classes has gone from using a lot of spells to using one or two. Since I play a shaman, let me take an example of my average heroic run (I'm currently sporting ilvl 349 gear); Earth Shield on tank, Water Shield on myself, Riptide+HW,HW,HW,Riptide,HW,HW,HW ad infinitum. It's the only two spells, apart from refreshing ES, that I ever need.

It's just incredibly tedious and not fun at all.

No I'm a holy priest and yeah I agree that the number of spells I have to use is limited, but I'm still having way more fun in heroics etc... than I ever did in wrath.

I don't heal heroics -- we've got three very talented ladies that do that -- but I'm swapping between healing and DPS as the role opens up in raids.

I'm using probably 15-20 different abilities during a single ~8 minute raid encounter now vs 4-5 in wrath during an encounter like Sindy or Lich King (as holy or disc).

I don't heal heroics -- we've got three very talented ladies that do that -- but I'm swapping between healing and DPS as the role opens up in raids.

I'm using probably 15-20 different abilities during a single ~8 minute raid encounter now vs 4-5 in wrath during an encounter like Sindy or Lich King (as holy or disc).

Well hopefully I'll get a taste of that on the 27th but not going to lie, right now in heroics I find myself using 5 or 6 abilities in most boss fights. Heal with Chakra/Flash heal and Greater heal when needed, Renew, Dispel and that's basically it. It's only on certain fights I find myself needing to use any AoE heals like Circle of Healing as well.

I went out for dinner & church with my parents, my brother, and his wife's family - while away I uploaded

a video from our Council kill (We've taken to calling him "Captain Planet", and Artramedes "Anne Frank").

I was going to upload one from Throne of the 4 Winds because that fight is actually pretty cool to watch,

but I got stuck tanking the "wind guy" which is so boring to play that I can't imagine anybody would want

to see it. (Even if you're doing that job: you just heal yourself and any friends that are visiting you, and

dodge a couple of tornados).

Hopefully I'll get to be DPS next week which makes for a fun time (goblin priest + wings = epic cute).

I started work on the Holy pala and DK tank, considering that doing BRC and the quests inside BRC give 43% of the XP required to go from 80-81 I was thinking of taking it easy and just levelling slowly via dungeons and just using rested to level the alts.

I have Healed a few normals on Pally and its brain dead easy, I am unable to understand how in heroics people can go oom with the current spells in the healing inventory, the free heals (WoG and LoD) along with beacon are awesome. On my DPS in heroics I see healers oom after each trash pull which is annoying.

As for the DK tank, well it gets hit like a truck compared to other tanking classes. Even if Bone shield is up along with Blood Shield via death strikes i feel that the DK still takes far more damage than a warrior or paladin would in the same situation. I see healers complaining quite frequently too which is annoying. Even when I was level 80 tanking BRC and ToTT in full ICC gear I got the same responses.

Raiding is still a no go, I feel it will be a no go till early Feb, by that time who know a new patch with NEW content might be out.

Well 85 2 days ago and put in a few hours in BGs had some fun, renewed my hate for Rogues and grew a new one for feral druids. Also just grabbed my merrymaker title. As long as I don't miss a holiday will have it next summer. Loved the worgen starting zone through becoming a worgen, went back to my hunter after that but with 30% xp between my herilooms and guild will proly pick up soon.

Guild reach level 7 today. Next perk is 15 minutes off hearth that's going to be great.

Anyways more aimed to Evn, but any suggestions on a raid progression? Planning on starting next week or week after, and reading up/watching vid's I'm getting a rough idea of a progression path but wasn't sure if it was needed, or it's kinda like the first 1-2 bosses are all at the same level.

I was defiently thinking Halfus, Defense system, Theralion & Veliona, Conclave but wasn't sure where to go from there. Guess the real question is, is it even needed?

Anyways more aimed to Evn, but any suggestions on a raid progression? Planning on starting next week or week after, and reading up/watching vid's I'm getting a rough idea of a progression path but wasn't sure if it was needed, or it's kinda like the first 1-2 bosses are all at the same level.

If I had to rank fights from easiest to hardest it would be:

  • Wyrmbreaker
  • Artramedes (which you can't do until after killing magmaw + robo council, but if you can kill his trash, you can kill him)
  • Magmaw
  • Robot Council
  • 4 Winds
  • Twin Dragons
  • Maloriak
  • Twilight Council
  • Chimearon
  • Cho'gal
  • Al'akir
  • Neferian (I haven't pulled him, but he looks to be the worst of the lot)

The difficultly curve is pretty linear in each dungeon and BoT ramps up at about the same rate that BWD does. I think BWD is more fun, but there's not really a good reason to favor one over the other.

so i did something silly and newbish at walmart today. i impulse bought the cata strategy guide book. without even leafing through it. got in the car and had a quick look at it and omg is it organized ****ing terribly. i dk what order they decided to put the zones in but it's not by level. there are 80+ zones mixed in with level 20 zones and ****. glanced briefly over some of the class pages and it's some of the most newbish **** ever.

i mean it's like the exact opposite of the extreme of mathelting your fine detail rotations for specific raid fights. and some of ht espell descriptions are wrong, for example it says frostfire has a 40% slow snare, but iirc the tooltip in game says 50%. for some reason it also pushes arcane as the spec to level in for mages.

so i did something silly and newbish at walmart today. i impulse bought the cata strategy guide book. without even leafing through it. got in the car and had a quick look at it and omg is it organized ****ing terribly. i dk what order they decided to put the zones in but it's not by level. there are 80+ zones mixed in with level 20 zones and ****. glanced briefly over some of the class pages and it's some of the most newbish **** ever.

i mean it's like the exact opposite of the extreme of mathelting your fine detail rotations for specific raid fights. and some of ht espell descriptions are wrong, for example it says frostfire has a 40% slow snare, but iirc the tooltip in game says 50%. for some reason it also pushes arcane as the spec to level in for mages.

I know a TON of mages who all leveled Arcane. I personally think Frost is the best for leveling hands down, but you might say fire.. Honestly which spec is best for leveling is all personal opinion, you know that.

I know a TON of mages who all leveled Arcane. I personally think Frost is the best for leveling hands down, but you might say fire.. Honestly which spec is best for leveling is all personal opinion, you know that.

maybe i just foun dit odd that it pushed arcane as the best so hard.

anyways trying to imrpove performance in org and certain bg's where i'm gett 30fps or less. tried reducing aa but that did nothing and texture projecting that said disabling would greatly increase fps but that did nothing too. idk wtf is going on here.

anyways lolz just did what i though was going to be my last bg of the night and anew piece of gear when! i finished and was ONE point away at 1649 honour! ROFLZ!

The biggest performance drain is shadows: set them to minimum for "omfg" improved performance.

Second is probably going to be view distance.

wow yeah setting shadows to low doubled my fps more or less in org. thanks. was looking for the liquid reflection option someone in my guild suggested and didn't find it.

wow yeah setting shadows to low doubled my fps more or less in org. thanks. was looking for the liquid reflection option someone in my guild suggested and didn't find it.

It's right under the shadow slider. Water isn't a big deal 99% of the time, most video cards can handle it without breaking a sweat.

I took a bit of a break tonight from my epic quest for Loremaster (I'm going through every single zone as it presents it to me.. following every single breadcrumb quest trail into the new zone) and went off to Western Plaguelands to do ONE quest there to get the next part of the chain toward getting a majorly awesome pet:

undeadeagle.jpg

He replaces my Seagull, but I'm very happy with him. You can only tame him during a certain quest, which is weird because if you try to tame him, even when a friend is doing the quest, the taming breaks.. but, it's tamable when you do the quest.

Took me about 40 minutes to get from Thousand Needles (which by the way is AWESOME.. if you haven't quested there yet.. seriously GO DO IT!)... to Western Plaguelands, but I'm very, very happy I took the time off to go get him because he'll be my pet until level 69 (I'm 49 now), then I'll go get my white core hound.

It's right under the shadow slider. Water isn't a big deal 99% of the time, most video cards can handle it without breaking a sweat.

for me for some reason they're both on the same slider. idk why. i didn't see an option to get more sliders. i would have liked to keep the nice water for those flyovers too.

oh btw, does this look right?

wowitem.png

i mean the gcd of blink? why not the regular cooldown? i mean this is useful in some scenarios i can think of off the top of my head for a frost mage, but.... .5 s off blink cd would be nicer imho. i seem to recall a pvp item or set bonus in tbc that shaved like 2 seconds off blink cd, was that too OP or something?

anyways, i'm looking my stats and planning out my gear progression and i'm wonder what should i be reforging gear to as a pvp frost mage? after i max out hit for pvp should i be stacking crit haste or mastery(i doubt mastery since it's so situational for frost mages).

and what the pvp hit cap at 85 i should be shooting for? i seem to miss a fair amount with a ~2% chance to miss in pvp

i mean the gcd of blink? why not the regular cooldown? i mean this is useful in some scenarios i can think of off the top of my head for a frost mage, but.... .5 s off blink cd would be nicer imho. i seem to recall a pvp item or set bonus in tbc that shaved like 2 seconds off blink cd, was that too OP or something?

Mages hands have had that since Vengeful Gladiator back in BC.

Hit cap's are the same as LK (percentage wise). You still need 5% (i believe that's right for PvP).

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