official World of Warcraft

[+orgitnized Subscriber¹]

I have a concern.

When I buy the game today or tomorrow, will I easily find people to be in a party with? For quests/instance runs etc. ? I usually have to run up to random people I see grinding to see if they want to party up and do something. I get pretty good results like that, too. Also, how do I find a guild? Just ask around town?

Just wondering.

Yeah, like it was recently said, once you are out of trial mode it will be a bit easier. Just remember gaming etiquette when playing. Use things like "/1 Anyone want to group up for some quests?" Then you'll be asking in the General Chat section of the area you are in, assuming that you are using 1 for General chat like most everyone does...

And definitely don't just walk up to someone and invite them to a group. I usually give out the old FU and put them on ignore if they just randomly invite me to groups. I'm an ******* anyway so whatever, but I simply can't stand it. Especially when you are in the middle of fighting something. You get a damn group invite without them saying anything beforehand and well, it's rude as hell; I don't care if people agree with me or not.

Asking in General chat is a nice way of going about things because there is normally someone in your position as well that has to do quests and could use some help. But that's how it is on my server anyways - there's always low level alts on, or people just starting in the game.

And from a guild standpoint, it's really not a big deal (as also said before) until you really start getting higher in your levels. Seriously, I was in a guild from the moment I started the game (pretty much) because there's a guild of friends that are all related via people in real life - no randomness, it's like a whole "6 degrees methodology" in our guild. But I solo'd damn near everything in the game and PUG''ed it 99% of the time until I hit 70.

I thought that was stupid but whatever. It had its benefits and disadvantages. You'll appreciate the people in a guild more as you are higher though, since they will be able to make you better weapons, enchants, pots, etc. Just make sure you don't get in a guild and beg for stuff - that's an instant ban if you do it in most guilds :laugh:

Also be careful on what kind of guild you are joining. Don't just pick one to be in one, and don't sign random charters that people flash in front of you. That's more rude bull**** that I hate. On our server, most of the decent guilds don't advertise. You are invited based on how well they see you play and if they could see you as being a valuable member. Many times this will happen during instance runs where you have a chance to impress people with your leet skiils :laugh:

[the evn show]

About Paladins:

Our raids generally run with 2 or 3 depending on who's available and the content we're doing. Typically we try for one of each spec but there are times when we'll drop the healer in favor of an extra priest (bloodboil) or have the protection paladin respec holy (archimonde) to stack healers.

Protection In general a protection paladin with appropriate gear for the level of content is the ideal tank for 5-man content and a solid first-choice "trash" tank. Their ability to hold multiple mobs is unmatched and they are less likely to stall threat generation due to rage starvation. Whenever I feel the need to bang out a heroic daily quest I'll typically get a protection paladin, shadow priest, and two warlocks. I can't remember the last time I spent even 50 minutes in a 5-man dungeon using the "to hell with CC, just aoe everything that moves" strategy.

While they don't make great "all the time" tanks due to their lack of emergency abilities and fear breaks, they do trivialize enough encounters to make them worth having along. In some way's they're a lot like COH priests in that their true power doesn't really show itself until late tier-5/tier-6 but they're still first-class all around tanks.

Their ability to trivialize some content is astounding. Reliquary P3 - soul scream "Holy crap" moments just don't happen like they do with a warrior. All of the trash in Hyjal is substantially easier too (does anybody not use a protection for Hyjal?)

Holy They lack the versatility of priests and the party-buffs a shaman brings, but it's hard to beat a paladin for single target healing-per-second through put. Even after the 2.1 nerfs it's pretty rare to hear a healing paladin have issues with mana. HL4 and FoL spam are very powerful. If you're not using at least 1 paladin on main tank, your raid is gimped IMO.

Retribution A few dozen pages back I lamented retribution paladins because we had a horrible time finding a competent one. A month or so ago one of our strongest holy paladins re-spec'd for retribution and we fed him gear from ZA/TK/SSC on keying nights. Now he's one of the best things to happen for us since patch 2.0 and VT made mana concerns go away.

The obvious place to attack is their "lack-luster" personal damage: at the Tier 6 level they're capable of around 1,200 DPS on a typical tank'n'spank like Gorefiend. Add to that add roughly 3% of the raids DPS to their own (3% critical strike chance translates to roughly 3% DPS for most classes) - for a 15,000 DPS raid that's an extra 450 damage/second. On top of that you gain nearly 100% uptime for 1 judgement per paladin: JoW is godsend for casters not fortunate enough to get a shadow priest in the group.

The way I see it: so long as your retribution paladin isn't 3% of Raid DPS lower than the guy at the bottom of the DPS charts he or she will have provided a net increase to your raid damage. There isn't any content in this game that isn't made easier buy having more DPS.

Plus it's somebody that will actually take the billion different 2-handers that litter boss loot-tables.

Edited February 14, 2008 by the evn show

[Prosidius]

About Paladins:

Our raids generally run with 2 or 3 depending on who's available and the content we're doing. Typically we try for one of each spec but there are times when we'll drop the healer in favor of an extra priest (bloodboil) or have the protection paladin respec holy (archimonde) to stack healers.

Protection In general a protection paladin with appropriate gear for the level of content is the ideal tank for 5-man content and a solid first-choice "trash" tank. Their ability to hold multiple mobs is unmatched and they are less likely to stall threat generation due to rage starvation. Whenever I feel the need to bang out a heroic daily quest I'll typically get a protection paladin, shadow priest, and two warlocks. I can't remember the last time I spent even 50 minutes in a 5-man dungeon using the "to hell with CC, just aoe everything that moves" strategy.

While they don't make great "all the time" tanks due to their lack of emergency abilities and fear breaks, they do trivialize enough encounters to make them worth having along. In some way's they're a lot like COH priests in that their true power doesn't really show itself until late tier-5/tier-6 but they're still first-class all around tanks.

Their ability to trivialize some content is astounding. Reliquary P3 - soul scream "Holy crap" moments just don't happen like they do with a warrior. All of the trash in Hyjal is substantially easier too (does anybody not use a protection for Hyjal?)

We have a prot pally in our guild. It makes life so much easier, he can tank like 12-17 mobs at once. It's amazing.

[Bawx]

Ghost69/the evn show and others. Thanks a lot for taking the time to type all that. Gives me damn good perspective as to what I should be expecting. It's so frustrating seeing all these high levels and there insane gear, I get ****ed that I'm so low/weak. I want to get there as fast as possible.

It would be especially neato if someone reading this was on the Firetree server and could send Yawkey a whisper in-game. (clears throat very loudly)

[Sethos]

Hey,

I'm trying to find a decent Addon Compilation for my Hunter. I tried the PhotekUI X7, it does look okay but it seems like they favored look over functionality, it takes up the entire screen and is worse than standard UI.

So could anyone recommend me a few decent compilations, gonna try the MirageUI pack next.

[Sethos]

Is anyone else using Service Pack 1 in Vista ( X64 ) and having any errors?

I'm on my third re-install after i installed Service Pack 1, i keep getting decompression errors :(

[funkymunky]

Is anyone else using Service Pack 1 in Vista ( X64 ) and having any errors?

I'm on my third re-install after i installed Service Pack 1, i keep getting decompression errors :(

No mate.

Mine is working better since the x64 SP1 install :)

[Dark Ride]

2.4 PTR news:

• Tier 4 tokens for Gladiator Season 1.
  
• Tier 5/6 tokens for Gladiator Season 2.
  
• Sunwell Tier 6 tokens for vindicator armor.
  
• Badges of Justice for all PvP gear.
  
• You can now purchase Nether Vortex with badges (cost: 15 badges + 6 gold)
  
• Primal Nether & Nether Vortex are not soulbound anymore.
  
• Resilience now affects mana drains according to the tooltip.
  

Source

[Spookie]

Hmm cue riot from the "hardcore" raiders. :p

[SMELTN]

Hmm cue riot from the "hardcore" raiders. :p

2.4 PTR news:

• Tier 4 tokens for Gladiator Season 1.
  
• Tier 5/6 tokens for Gladiator Season 2.
  
• Sunwell Tier 6 tokens for vindicator armor.
  
• Badges of Justice for all PvP gear.
  

Doesnt really hurt us. Its actually kinda nice. It means we the hardcore raider who after we all get our T4/T5/T6 can instead letting those extra tokens go to waste, can now turn them in for PVP gear.

The PVP'er is who is should **** off.

[the evn show]

* Tier 4 tokens for Gladiator Season 1.

Yawn. Season 1 wasn't even good when SSC/TK required. It's still probably faster to just mindlessly grind honor for everything than it is to outfit 25 people with tokens.

Tier 5/6 tokens for Gladiator Season 2.

Season 2 is about to become honor purchasable so, see above. Plus if you're still getting Tier 5 tokens you need the gear for PVE so nobody makes out better here. Guilds that have been farming Illidan for > half a year finally have something to do with their spare tokens. That's good, they'll likely be running BT/Hyjal for essences to unlock the last half of Sunwell.

Sunwell Tier 6 tokens for vindicator armor

It'll be months before people trade ilevel 150+ tokens for ~15k honor. Maybe this is to address issues where druid PVP gear is often more useful than PVE items?

Badges of Justice for all PvP gear.

Finally. Now, if only I could trade back the full fire resist set for the badges I paid back in April. Never worn. Ever.

You can now purchase Nether Vortex with badges (cost: 15 badges + 6 gold)

That's good. That's good, sadly all the stuff you'd make with vortexs are about to be eclipsed by badge gear. Maybe my alt will get a belt of blasting out of this change.

Primal Nether & Nether Vortex are not soulbound anymore.

So long ridiculous pricing for leg enchants.

Resilience now affects mana drains according to the tooltip.

Don't worry warlocks, we buffed mana drain.

Hmm cue riot from the "hardcore" raiders.

You mean gear that would otherwise go to waste now has some minor value to me? Why would I be upset?

I'm a little upset that I'm seriously considering replacing Archimonde's legs (which I haven't even got gemmed) with the new badge reward. Going back to 5-man dungeons and Karazhan to upgrade drops from one of the end bosses of the game is lame. On the plus side, the new chest is good because we've had all of ONE Tier-anything chest token drop and it went to our main tank. Of course Bloodboil is also holding out on me. Wearing the same chest piece for over a year is a little embarrassing.

The PVP'er is who is should **** off.

Not really. Season 4 is about to be 2 full sets behind, season 1 is about to vanish forever. That gear isn't really going to make much of a difference at any arena bracket where it will matter.

[Golferjim]

Season 2 is about to become honor purchasable so, see above. Plus if you're still getting Tier 5 tokens you need the gear for PVE so nobody makes out better here. Guilds that have been farming Illidan for > half a year finally have something to do with their spare tokens. That's good, they'll likely be running BT/Hyjal for essences to unlock the last half of Sunwell.

From this you can get S2 with honor points from pvp... is that what your saying, or do you need the T5 tokens to get the S2 peices? i'm kind'ove confused :s

[mshepp]

From this you can get S2 with honor points from pvp... is that what your saying, or do you need the T5 tokens to get the S2 peices? i'm kind'ove confused :s

Season 2 will sell for honor points in the next patch i think and tokens can also be used to redeem arena gear.

[Rodrigo]

Season 2 will sell for honor points in the next patch i think and tokens can also be used to redeem arena gear.

I don't think it's confirmed for next patch. It's confirmed for season 4 and for all we know it could be in more than two months.

[the evn show]

From this you can get S2 with honor points from pvp... is that what your saying, or do you need the T5 tokens to get the S2 peices? i'm kind'ove confused :s

Season 4 information is already in the patch and blizzard has said there will be a fourth season. When season 4 starts, season 1 gear will be removed from the vendors and season 2 gear will be purchasable for honor.

Season 1 was ready along side Tier 4 content.

Season 2 started June 19, 3 weeks after Patch 2.2 which introduced Black Temple.

Season 3 started November 13, along side the launch of Zul'Aman

It seems reasonable to expect Season 4 to start roughly (within 3 weeks of) the Sun Well. Arena gear is intended to track top-end PVE gear in terms of iLevel so there cannot be a long gap between the introduction of a new tier of PVE content and the start of the next arena season.

The patch notes say Tier 5 tokens can be used to purchase Season 2 gear so it looks like there will be two paths to attain that gear: mindless farm battlegrounds for 100k+ honor, or mindlessly farm Tier-5 content for tokens.

[Spookie]

Why would I be upset?

It was a more of tongue in cheek joke at the cretins on the official forums who whine about anything which creates a link between PvP and PvE. Or even worse makes getting an alt geared even easier (see the whole no keys needed for BT etc).

[Sethos]

Just rerolled on a PvP Server, Horde side on Stormscale.

You know how much it sucks to start all over again :laugh: No gold, no bags, no nothing :(

[SMELTN]

Just rerolled on a PvP Server, Horde side on Stormscale.

You know how much it sucks to start all over again :laugh: No gold, no bags, no nothing :(

Should have rolled on Stonemaul. Its a PvP server.. And my guild is on it :) could have helped ya out some.

[funkyjunky]

Never really played the game... may be looking in to getting it though. :)

[»X«]

I just cant seem to stick at one char. I played my hunter up until he was 64 and got bored. Went back to other classes and tried but I cant stick. I seem to play a mage for an hour, then swap to my warrior. At this rate, it will take me about 5 years to level them all up. Don't know why I do it :(

I think its because Im not in a guild and never really have been. So its 99% solo work and most instances I get involved in, I find myself grouped with twats who havent got a clue. So I lower myself and cause the instance to be wiped. For example, in SM Cath, wait until im close enough to the big guy in the center and pull. Causing every single mob in the cath to charge at us. Ive lost count how many times ive cried with laughter over that one, with my half witted group going "ZOMG WTF, HEAL ME".

Maybe thats why Im not in a guild..

[brentaal]

Just rerolled on a PvP Server, Horde side on Stormscale.

I see someone wants to pwn Athene. :p

Anyway, I'm leveling a shaman nowadays, he'll ding 70 soon (in a few days). I'll get some welfare epics and then might start leveling a warlock... The leveling process has really become much easier since 2.3...

[gregb0b]

Every one see how you can get honor through a pvp daily mark(1 of each mark) turn in and repeat it as many times as you want in a day starting with 2.4!!!!!!!!!? You only get the 11g 99s once a day though but after that the quest is repeatable as many times as you want. Some one said 100 of each mark will yield you some where around 30k honor :D

[brentaal]

Yeah, you get 314 (or was it 318??) honor for 1 of each mark.

[the evn show]

I think its because Im not in a guild and never really have been. So its 99% solo work and most instances I get involved in, I find myself grouped with twats who havent got a clue. So I lower myself and cause the instance to be wiped. For example, in SM Cath, wait until im close enough to the big guy in the center and pull. Causing every single mob in the cath to charge at us. Ive lost count how many times ive cried with laughter over that one, with my half witted group going "ZOMG WTF, HEAL ME".

If you're intentionally wiping an instance you're no better than the other people that you say haven't learned to play. When a group runs poorly leave the idiots to their misery rather than sinking to their level.

[gigapixels Veteran]

If you're intentionally wiping an instance you're no better than the other people that you say haven't learned to play. When a group runs poorly leave the idiots to their misery rather than sinking to their level.

I agree. I think it's pretty crappy to wipe an instance just because you think everybody else are noobs or you don't like the way they play. Everybody was a noob once, everybody had their learning period. You can't expect people to be as good as those who have had many characters or a few high-level characters; everybody learns at a different pace. (When I say "you" I am speaking in general.)