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[Twig]

I'm not going to argue about whether or not TB is good - most people here know I love it, and I know most people here hate it - but I would agree that one of the biggest problems that I've seen is that people spend way more time whining about it and trying to use exploits that do not actually work (as far as I can tell), than actually thinking about it...

 

[Sai-kun]

This thread is almost as bitchy as the oooold Halo 3 thread. :lol memories.

Anyways, my good ol' shammy finally hit 80 tonight I think I'm going to level as Enh, since I went through all of Outlands/NR as Ele. What say you all? And how could I get get some gear to suit Enh?

 

[Twig]

I got the green proto drake just now from that Oracle egg.

Yay!

I almost don't even care about the blue proto drake anymore, 'cause the green one is my favorite color for that model, but I guess since I've gotten the Skadi pattern down pat, I'll keep it up. PROTIP: you don't even have to fight the first two bosses, you can just run right past them. WHUPS.

On a completely different note, I did Throne of Tides earlier and I noticed halfway through, after he rolled need on something I would have taken if I needed it, that a druid tank was gemmed for strength and wearing a strength cloak and ring.

Because I was so desperately close to getting Ramkahen exalted, I stuck with it, but man what a horrible player. U: Even after I informed him that druids no longer use strength, he then rolled need on something off the last boss that I DID need, although it wasn't a huge upgrade, so when he won, I didn't care that much.

But god, so terrible.

I would like to think he was trolling me, though, which makes it funny instead of annoying, so hey. U:

 

[Trasher]

I'm not going to argue about whether or not TB is good - most people here know I love it, and I know most people here hate it - but I would agree that one of the biggest problems that I've seen is that people spend way more time whining about it and trying to use exploits that do not actually work (as far as I can tell), than actually thinking about it...

Massive world PvP like TB has always been a clusterfuck and no fun to me. I only enjoy PvP when it's a more manageable size to organize and go in with friends/guildies. 50 people running around with no rhyme or reason is not what I consider fun. AB on the other hand is really fun when you can get 15 people together in vent and actually use some strategy. Arenas will always be the best for PvP because in there you actually have to plan and think about how to attack your opponents. That doesn't happen in the zergs of TB where people put little to no effort of trying to work with one another.

 

[Naeblish]

I got the green proto drake just now from that Oracle egg.

Yay!

Gratz! I'm 4 days of dailies away from being revered with the oracles. How many eggs did you buy before you got the mount?

 

[Majine]

Can I create a macro hotkey for switching speccs? It's kinda annoying going into the talent menus all the time.

 

[zugzug]

Gratz! I'm 4 days of dailies away from being revered with the oracles. How many eggs did you buy before you got the mount?

about 8 months worth of eggs on my Holy Paladin, and just got it last week and now sitting on my enhancement shaman about 6 months into eggs.

they eased the eggs by changing it from 7 days down to 3 days spawn time on egg. Howeva....still annoying

Blue Proto drake enhancement shaman got on 69th trip thru heroic Utgarde pinnacle when 3 members of group did not roll on it knowing that was only reason I was running dungeon so that was very cool of them and i beat the mage who rolled.

My holy Paladin however is up to 164 trips thru and saw it drop 3 times I have screenshot of me losing out blue proto drake to a DPS DK on his very first trip thru Heroic Utgarde pinnacle. Prolly my fault for running with LFG randoms and not friends who would pass.

 

[borghe]

The fact that you don't actually care about your health is telling, good DPS know how to use healthstones, know how to see quickly when they're taking damage they could be avoiding, or not taking damage they should.

healthstones have nothing to do with the last two points you've made, and neither of those points are blanket. If I'm taking damage I shouldn't be, then using a healthstone should NOT be my first priority. If I'm not taking damage that I should be, then a) that has nothing to do with healthstones and b) there is going to be a mechanic in there that I will have to abide by anyway (i.e. see chimaeron).

Not a single thing you've mentioned is difficult to do with the default UI. That's what is telling about YOUR argument. Maybe you had a considerably more difficult time with the default UI, but there is a reason I am always one of the last ones wiping up on Chimaeron and it's not because I have my UI all clustered up in the middle of my screen or five million indicators going off telling me precisely when to press a key.

If I am in a fight that I am expected to heal myself, I heal myself. If I am in a fight where I am expected to burn and only burn, I burn and only burn. If I happen to need health and my mana is down, I'll evoke. If I happen to take a nasty hit before I'm healed and I cauterize, I'll IB out of the cauterize. If I draw crazy aggro by accident from the tank I'll either pop invis or drop images to lower threat. And yes, if I am low on health and healers are down or otherwise removed I will pop a HS or even get a few ticks of a dense embersilk bandage off.

and somehow I manage to do that all well enough with the default UI to end up the 17th highest ranked pve mage on our realm. go figure.

UIs make things easier or harder for the player. However by no means do they dictate the resulting effectiveness of said player. You can have awful players with carebear UIs and amazing players with near-default UIs. There are a few add-ons that are obviously near mandatory for each class and a few add ons that are mandatory or near mandatory for every raider. That I will concede. But if you are having serious ADHD problems with the default blizz UI, go grab a new UI. It's great that blizz allows us to do that. At the same time though, for those of us who have decided and enjoy to work inside of the basic UI with the few crazy necessary add ons, don't sit here and pretend to think just because you can't do it that no one can. How arrogant.

Also understand that I am not talking about a truly vanilla UI. As I already said.. things like Omen, OmniCC, DBM, and combustion helper I would totally be lost without and use these every second I am in combat. Also understand that I put a lot of work into each boss, including rearranging my buttons on a boss by boss basis, throwing up focus frames in cases where it's handy (such as focus framing myself in chimaeron for quicker access to my health) or focus framing a mob I am needing to spellsteal, interrupt, or sheep with macros I wrote, or as you said, just knowing where the hell I am. fighting Halfus, Omnotron, Conclave or Magmaw, I should NOT have to worry about my health. Fighting Maloriak I shouldn't have to worry about my health as long as I'm stealing (and someone isn't dispelling) remedy. Fighting Chimaeron I most certainly have to worry about my health, especially on the caustic slime he throws right before the massacre cast starts. the twin drakes I don't have to worry about my health as long as I'm not standing in shit. etc.

 

[Bisnic]

I wasn't aware that they reduced the cooldown on the oracle egg. 3 days doesn't sound too bad now, maybe i'll go back to buying them.

Now i just need to see if heroic UP is soloable on my frost mage before trying that. My main still has no proto drake. Probably the only reason i bother with the world event achievements or WOTLK heroic achievements(still need to do 2 runs of Oculus, 1 of Gundrak and 1 of UP)

 

[TheExodu5]

Lots of people get that sort of 'I don't need mods' attitude, but I can guarantee you'd be a better player if you used less default. The built in SCT is a mess, and anyone that says they can effectively read everything on it is lying or is spending far too much time paying attention to it where a superior mod would filter so much of the garbage out, or have a stronger layout, etc. "having a good idea" of your health is not nearly as good as actually HAVING your health somewhere highly visible, along with target health, buffs/debuffs, etc. UIs are very personal things, I don't like to be too specific when I think about what could be done better or worse with people's setup, but the default is almost universally worse, even if it's 'improved' over the years.

Agreed. Having your health near the middle of the screen is incredibly important.

I use IceHud, myself. Lots of people just move the unit frames to the center of the screen.

I also use PowerAuras to set up timers for my Rogue...Rupture, Slice n' Dice, and Poisons. They let me know exactly when I should refresh my timers without having to scour the boss frame at the top left, and my buffs at the top right, all the while trying to keep up raid awareness. I'm thinking of setting up an indicator now to keep my Tricks of the Trade usage up.

 

[Dunlop]

We just can't buy a break, our first time at Halfus and we get the brutal combination of Slate, Storm and Scion. After a few wipes we get him down to 2% before he enrages, morale is high we will have him the next attempt...and we lose 2 people to DC issues.

We really need to bolster our ranks

On the plus side, those trash pulls are either bugged or we are super lucky, we got 6 epics on 2 clears...none that I could use. In fact to date there has not been a single drop that could be remotely useful for a Priest

RAGE!!!!

 

[ToyMachine228]

After three nights of wipes with different problems popping up here, there and everywhere, we went in and first tried Cho'Gall last night and killed him absolutely flawlessly. Was pretty amazing to see it go that well. I got some new bracers for my Holy Paladin on the lootz side.

 

[borghe]

I also use PowerAuras to set up timers for my Rogue...Rupture, Slice n' Dice, and Poisons. They let me know exactly when I should refresh my timers without having to scour the boss frame at the top left, and my buffs at the top right, all the while trying to keep up raid awareness. I'm thinking of setting up an indicator now to keep my Tricks of the Trade usage up.

not sure about rogue stuff, but OmniCC sticks "massive" numeric timers on YOUR debuffs on the boss frame. for buffs on the right, I suppose if there were buffs I needed to replenish on myself, having an easier way to track that would be nice.. but alas all of my buffs are either procs (which I am just scorch weaving on anyway), or AI and Molten Armor.

The WoW UI is a VERY personal experience. With 10 classes and 30 possible specs it's silly to say "this ui works/doesn't work for everyone". Just between specs, while there are certainly some add ons that are "must have" from spec to spec, the UI is STILL a personal thing that people will agree or disagree on.

For example you guys keep saying stuff in the center of the screen... I don't want shit in the center of my screen. My entire viability in a lot of situations is being able to spread DOTs around an keeping living bomb up on as many mobs as possible. or seeing how close mobs are clumped together to know if Pyroblast! procs who the best mob is to hit with that and Living Bomb to then spread with Impact. Or bosses like omnotron where there is so much shit going on that you need a clear view. Am I standing in green? Could I be standing in blue? Does arcanotron have converted power stacks that I can steal? Are poison bombs out that need to be burned down? Do I need to IB out of the flamethrower? This is all visual shit going on in the middle of the screen that I don't want all of my stupid frames and five million add on indicators in the way obscuring.

On the plus side, those trash pulls are either bugged or we are super lucky, we got 6 epics on 2 clears...none that I could use. In fact to date there has not been a single drop that could be remotely useful for a Priest

RAGE!!!!

rng on trash is bizarre. Just clearing the ring in BWD in 10 man we had 4 drops. it was for unofficial practice on the bosses so it was like BONUS!!!! Then we went to the second group of trash in BoT (after Halfus) and had 3 more drops.... then the next night went and cleared the ring again. nothing. cleared the trash before Atramedes, nothing. Cleared trash after halfus. nothing. last night for official raid night in BWD, inner ring, nothing.

from everything I am hearing (we haven't gotten him yet... been working on Chimaeron instead), Cho'gall is surprisingly easy. The drakes were also surprisingly easy. Also hear that Atramedes is incredibly easy, and Maloriak isn't really that hard. Only obnoxious fights this tier really are chimaeron, halfus depending on your drakes, and supposedly nefarian and Al'Akir. So only three obnoxious fights. Well, omnotron can be a bit of a pain when toxi and magma are up at the same time, but even that isn't more than an annoyance.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

The problem with TB is that 40v40 removes individual skill.

 

[Bisnic]

Speaking of addons, is there something that could make my decurse job easier on my mage? Having to look at health bars on the left side of my screen for curse debuffs when i'm already busy dpsing, avoiding falling rocks or void/fire zones around me, kiting adds, and so on, is frustrating. Fighting the last boss of heroic Stonecore yesterday with her curse debuff that increase damage received just reminded me how annoying it is to decurse someone with no addon when you are not a healer.

I just need something that can easily warn me that someone needs a decurse. Something as good as DBM which does a loud sound when something needs to be interrupted.

Also, does that Power Aura addon shows stacks? The ingame one is kinda cool for Fingers of Frost & Brain Freeze procs, but it is not showing when i have 2 stacks of Finger of Frost and there is no timer, so i always have to take a quick look at the top right corner of my screen for both of them. =/

 

[borghe]

Something as good as DBM which does a loud sound when something needs to be interrupted.

pretty sure DBM tells you when she casts the curse on someone. other thing you can do with the default ui is turn on raid frames for party mode and turn on "only show cearable debuffs". Then when a curse is cast you can easily glance over to the party frames and see the only frames with big yellow outlined debuffs in the boxes and click and decurse. fortunately I never have to worry about decursing on the fight as the healer is almost ALWAYS better at it. My biggest concern is seeing the Force Grip go for two or three ticks with no one interrupting it and then grabbing it right away.

But mostly you are probably better off focusing on DPS because chances are your healer can remove curses infinitely more easier than you can and it won't cost the group DPS.

 

[Bisnic]

pretty sure DBM tells you when she casts the curse on someone. other thing you can do with the default ui is turn on raid frames for party mode and turn on "only show cearable debuffs". Then when a curse is cast you can easily glance over to the party frames and see the only frames with big yellow outlined debuffs in the boxes and click and decurse. fortunately I never have to worry about decursing on the fight as the healer is almost ALWAYS better at it. My biggest concern is seeing the Force Grip go for two or three ticks with no one interrupting it and then grabbing it right away.

But mostly you are probably better off focusing on DPS because chances are your healer can remove curses infinitely more easier than you can and it won't cost the group DPS.

Yes, the Force Grip is really annoying. My usual group for heroics have a warrior, warlock, hunter, mage and druid, and i think only the prot warrior have an interrupt with a short cooldown. If he's not fast enough to interrupt Force Grip before it stuns him and that my Counterspell is on cooldown(or if im too busy kiting the adds in the shadow circles, or stopping them from hitting the healer), there's nothing we can do. Warlocks and resto druids have no interrupts, and unless im mistaken, survival hunters dont have one either.

It makes the 1st boss of H SFK very annoying also with his big heal. I should just go there with my fury warrior instead lol. But their lack of CC sucks.

Yes, i realize this may sound like i have a group of noobs, but we're very casual about instances and not in a hurry to raid, so we're still learning the heroics until we can one shot most of the bosses.

 

[borghe]

It makes the 1st boss of H SFK very annoying also with his big heal. I should just go there with my fury warrior instead lol. But their lack of CC sucks.

warrior's interrupt should be able to catch all of the Stays, your interrupt should be able to catch all of the Mends. Don't recall what CD is on Mend but I thought it was longer than the CD on counterspell.

or just wait til the next patch when they remove Mend............ smh...

force grip's CD is shorter than counterspell's, so if you are having to be the primary interrupter of it... well, some are going to probably get through. that being said, if you progress to raiding content at all, your warrior is going to have to be the perfect interrupter anyway... pretty sure almost every boss requires a regular interrupter on them at all times. much of the time it's given to shamans, but obviously the DPS and tanks actually on the boss make more sense.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Speaking of addons, is there something that could make my decurse job easier on my mage? Having to look at health bars on the left side of my screen for curse debuffs when i'm already busy dpsing, avoiding falling rocks or void/fire zones around me, kiting adds, and so on, is frustrating. Fighting the last boss of heroic Stonecore yesterday with her curse debuff that increase damage received just reminded me how annoying it is to decurse someone with no addon when you are not a healer.

I just need something that can easily warn me that someone needs a decurse. Something as good as DBM which does a loud sound when something needs to be interrupted.

Also, does that Power Aura addon shows stacks? The ingame one is kinda cool for Fingers of Frost & Brain Freeze procs, but it is not showing when i have 2 stacks of Finger of Frost and there is no timer, so i always have to take a quick look at the top right corner of my screen for both of them. =/

Use grid

 

[Bisnic]

warrior's interrupt should be able to catch all of the Stays, your interrupt should be able to catch all of the Mends. Don't recall what CD is on Mend but I thought it was longer than the CD on counterspell.

or just wait til the next patch when they remove Mend............ smh...

force grip's CD is shorter than counterspell's, so if you are having to be the primary interrupter of it... well, some are going to probably get through. that being said, if you progress to raiding content at all, your warrior is going to have to be the perfect interrupter anyway... pretty sure almost every boss requires a regular interrupter on them at all times. much of the time it's given to shamans, but obviously the DPS and tanks actually on the boss make more sense.

Yeah, our prot warrior isn't the perfect interrupter(he's still pretty much learning the whole prot warrior stuff, so yeah im not going to be mad at him), i actually have to do some interrupts even on the 1st boss of ToT(the lady naga) against that dangerous spell she often does. He's getting better since we started at least, so it's just a matter of time.

I would probably do a better job if i was actually tanking with my own prot warrior, but people really love my CC, my free water(eh), my "freezing skills" and my awesome DPS with my mage, they really want my mage lol.

 

[NameGenerated]

Does anyone know what's up with some clicking deadzones I'm getting? I'm assuming it's from some addons. A few parts of my screen just don't respond to clicks which can be really annoying if I am trying to click on something or position my camera. One of them is right where I receive an item in the mail. I use bartender4, DBM, Quartz, and some other minor ones.

 

[borghe]

Does anyone know what's up with some clicking deadzones I'm getting? I'm assuming it's from some addons. A few parts of my screen just don't respond to clicks which can be really annoying if I am trying to click on something or position my camera. One of them is right where I receive an item in the mail. I use bartender4, DBM, Quartz, and some other minor ones.

it is very possibly addons. Addons can support click through or can obstruct... it's entirely up to the addon. I know DBM specifically supports clicking through which is highly recommended with everything it has going on. Don't remember if it's turned on or not by default.

edit - let me rephrase that.. it is DEFINITELY addons. The possibly part is going through which ones it could be.

edit 2 - also ran the most bizarre GB pug yesterday. One shotted Umbriss, Throngus (still no wand), and Valonia. The only wipe we had was going back and taking the dragon shortcut after Umbriss and landing in a pack of troggs.. weird. Anyway, we get to Erudax and wipe. Apparently tank dc'ed... well, then a guildmate drops (all dps was guild) because he has a birthday party he has to make and literally didn't have the 5+ mins needed to finish. Then the healer must have dropped because he thought we wiped due to sucking.... weird. Anyway, me and the other dps requeue, get some guys right away and they are like "ummm... really don't want to come in on a wipe here guys".. so me and the dps are like "no.. not what it looks like. Other tank dc'ed at the beginning, guildie DPS had to drop and the healer left for some weird reason. we'll have this finished up in 5 mins for your easy 70 VPs" and the guys were still apprehensive ("yeah.. we'll see.") Anyway, we pull him and some drakes get released.. THANKFULLY the pug DPS mans up and says "my bad.. was confused on which corrupter I was on. g2g". Pull again, get the achievement and a record kill on my dbm. just odd that 2-3 of the group members put in almost an hour on the random, and then 5 mins from getting the VPs drop when you could tell from the first three bosses that we were already fairly OP to begin with.

 

[Dunlop]

Use grid

I would go with Vuhdo (or grid + clique), either way you can set the frame to notify you about debuffs you can remove and then remove it just by clicking on the raid frame once it is configured

 

[J-Rzez]

I don't get why people actually believe Blizzard could just hire more people and fix things.

Because it CAN fix certain aspects. More artists + More Modelers = less recycling of everything, and I mean everything. Perhaps people will finally get their re-animated and remastered vanilla races.

 

[Bisnic]

Because it CAN fix certain aspects. More artists + More Modelers = less recycling of everything, and I mean everything. Perhaps people will finally get their re-animated and remastered vanilla races.

We'll get it in the next expansion in 2013... will probably be their next "graphical amelioration coming from an expansion", just like Cataclysm got water and WOTLK got shadows. I forgot what BC did better in graphics... the sky? the weather?

 

[Retro]

I don't get why people actually believe Blizzard could just hire more people and fix things. There is a point at which throwing more money or people at a problem doesn't fix things. I'll grant you Tol Barad is broken and dumb as fuck, but this theory that Blizzard either has infinite resources or that infinite resources would just instantly fix problems is kind of silly.

I didn't say "hire more people" or "throw more resources at it". I said I wouldn't release it, or having released it and discovered it didn't work as I had designed, I would remove it until such a time as it could be fixed, offering a temporary replacement. When time and resources could be directed towards that repair, I would do so. I never said Blizzard has infinite resources, but to keep that kind of crap out there pissing players off would be completely unacceptable to me if I were in their position (which is how the original question was framed).

For example, Tol Barad is currently a PVP zone that players fight over for access to a quest hub. Since the PVP part is obviously broken, I would remove that aspect and simply allow the Peninsula area to remain open for both Horde and Alliance, turning it (temporarily) into Quel'Danas. I would also temporarily grant TB Commendations as quest rewards (2 a day instead of the 3 that are earned per win). It's not perfect, but it's better than pissing the community off.

Of course, that's a temporary fix until the PVP zone can be properly fixed; not hotfixed with some bullshit number tweaking, but fundamentally repaired so it's something players want to do, not exploit glitches to avoid dealing with it or slog through.

You make a good point: Tol Barad is awful, but it's more likely to be the result of a failed attempt at making a good BG, and not because blizzard didn't try or because they didn't have the resources. Some things just don't turn out well and it's a fact of life.

That's kind of my point; things turn out poorly, sure. It happens all the time and nobody expects perfection. But at the end of the day, Blizzard controls their game and can do whatever they want with it. To me, that means yanking out a part of the game that is 'dumb as fuck' or 'broken' until it can be fixed, not leaving it in. And most certainly not leaving it in through a patch cycle. Since 4.0.6 doesn't do anything to address the gameplay issues, to me it seems that Blizzard is content leaving TB in just as it is.

Whether it's 'laziness', a lack of time/resources, or just ignoring it because they know their players will slog through it, I can't say (no do I want to). But since I was asked what I would personally do... well, I can't believe they would just leave such obviously and widely despised content in the game.

Calling TB substandard content just because you don't like the rule setup is a bit of a stretch. Saying things should be changed just because people whine about them isn't a very solid game design philosophy.

And if you have time to complain about TB you're clearly not doing enough Archaeology.

Heh, don't get me started on how bad Archaeology is either. (insert LoL emoticon here).

The problem with this line of reasoning is that game design is very different from any other medium; books, film, art, etc. Once the work is finished, it's done. It doesn't change. It doesn't get better or worse or different because the player doesn't interact with it or make any changes.

Game design, on the other hand, is like designing only part of the experience. At a certain point, the developer has to turn the rest of the game over to the player, who then finishes the experience by actually playing it.

The difference between good and bad game design hinges on whether the developer has properly communicated the rules of the game to the player (games essentially being an organized system of rules). In this usage, the rules are both fundamental ('up is up, walls are solid, etc.') and gameplay specific ('Do xyz to advance'). If you have complex, confusing rules, people won't play your game (or in that weird MMO-specific kind of mentality, still play but bitch about how miserable they are doing so).

What I'm getting at is, Game Design has more give-and-take between the designer and the player, a symbiotic relationship almost. The players may be the dumbest fucks in the universe, but they're paying customers and Blizzard should at least try and improve the experience, not ignore it as they seem to be.

the 'ir' in irregardless seems kind of redundant

True, it's a habit I picked up a while ago and slip into every now and again. It's not 'wrong' but it's certainly not right.

Queue more name calling on a public forum till Grimace and Cuevas have broken down each line and make themselves feel satisfied as board warriors.

.... Give that Official Forums attitude a rest, please. We can discuss the merits and issues of a game without slipping into finger pointing, name calling or personal attacks.

 

[charlequin]

I don't get why people actually believe Blizzard could just hire more people and fix things.

They haven't read The Mythical Man-Month.

Queue more name calling on a public forum till Grimace and Cuevas have broken down each line and make themselves feel satisfied as board warriors.

What if you, like, chilled out, man?

(This goes for everyone. Chillaxxxxxxxxxxxx. Breathe deep. Pet your Core Hound Pup.)

 

[Bisnic]

They haven't read The Mythical Man-Month.



What if you, like, chilled out, man?

(This goes for everyone. Chillaxxxxxxxxxxxx. Breathe deep. Pet your Core Hound Pup.)

But i killed his mother and brothers & sisters in BRC. He doesn't want to see me anymore.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Does anyone know what's up with some clicking deadzones I'm getting? I'm assuming it's from some addons. A few parts of my screen just don't respond to clicks which can be really annoying if I am trying to click on something or position my camera. One of them is right where I receive an item in the mail. I use bartender4, DBM, Quartz, and some other minor ones.

Bartender (and other action bar mods) will create deadzones in your interface if you just leave the bars all out and "hide" them. That's been my experience, at least. Solution is to minimize the size and move the bars someplace you don't click.

PUG Heroics seem to be getting less and less painful every week. There's a gear factor there, for sure, as people start to average in the mid 340s now, but even then it's actually rare that boss mechanics need to be explained in much detail to the DPS'ers. The main issue is (still) people DPS'ing and pulling like 4-5k. If they wanted to lower DPS queue times they could put in a retard check with a target dummy or something, if you can't hit X value then you don't get to queue in the RDF.

 

[Retro]

They haven't read The Mythical Man-Month.

Oddly enough, I own a beat-up old copy (stolen borrowed from my father) though I've never finished it (it's a tad tech-heavy for my tastes). Plus, software development and game development aren't as similar as they once were, nor does it relate to any of the more recent trends in development like Scrum (which wasn't really described until the mid-80s). Still a pretty good springboard, I just wish I could wade through it.

I disagree with the application of Brooke's Law in this particular example; Tol Barad is 'done', not 'in development'. If Blizzard works anything like most game development companies, then the team that originally worked on TB has been reassigned to new content.

To me, at least, it would be logical to pull some or all of the original Tol Barad team back to fix it and either delay whatever they were working on or go through the hassle of shifting people around to continue work on their post-TB project.

But that gets back to the core of the discussion; is Blizzard alright with allowing TB to continue sucking, because they know eventually the game and players will both eventually make it pointless, dead content (as is the case with Quel'Danas, Winterspring, etc.)?

(This goes for everyone. Chillaxxxxxxxxxxxx. Breathe deep. Pet your Core Hound Pup.)

I'm not saying this is directed at me personally, but I honestly feel like there's a decent discussion going here, not a heated argument, that I would very much like to continue. That said, certain individuals are clearly flamebaiting from the peanut gallery... but I don't feel like 'everyone' needs to chillax.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Because it CAN fix certain aspects. More artists + More Modelers = less recycling of everything, and I mean everything. Perhaps people will finally get their re-animated and remastered vanilla races.

This is entirely speculative. You have no clue how much any of this costs and/or how many people they already have; you're just operating under the assumption that if you had 1000 people working on it, Blizzard could put out an expansion in a week.

Bartender (and other action bar mods) will create deadzones in your interface if you just leave the bars all out and "hide" them. That's been my experience, at least. Solution is to minimize the size and move the bars someplace you don't click.

PUG Heroics seem to be getting less and less painful every week. There's a gear factor there, for sure, as people start to average in the mid 340s now, but even then it's actually rare that boss mechanics need to be explained in much detail to the DPS'ers. The main issue is (still) people DPS'ing and pulling like 4-5k. If they wanted to lower DPS queue times they could put in a retard check with a target dummy or something, if you can't hit X value then you don't get to queue in the RDF.

Crazy; I just noticed this yesterday when I got my Razer Naga setup. I checked Bartender and it's not the bars; I think what it is is weird coding on the quest objectives panel. When I hid the panel, I stopped getting those.

 

[Retro]

This is entirely speculative. You have no clue how much any of this costs and/or how many people they already have; you're just operating under the assumption that if you had 1000 people working on it, Blizzard could put out an expansion in a week.

He's not talking about expansions, he's saying more artists = more art resources, which is pretty hard to find fault with. If there was one extra artist making models or textures, you'd see more item models or textures.

Expansions never enter into his statement, so why mention them? In this very specific example of more artists = more art, he's making a pretty logical case.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

This is entirely speculative. You have no clue how much any of this costs and/or how many people they already have; you're just operating under the assumption that if you had 1000 people working on it, Blizzard could put out an expansion in a week.

Um, how does more man power in the art department helping in various ways like less recycled of models equate to getting an expansion in a week? You make huge leaps. What you replied to had nothing to do with time frame.

 

[Angry Grimace]

He's not talking about expansions, he's saying more artists = more art resources, which is pretty hard to find fault with. If there was one extra artist making models or textures, you'd see more item models or textures.

Expansions never enter into his statement, so why mention them? In this very specific example of more artists = more art, he's making a pretty logical case.

Because it's just an exemplary statement.

The problem is, we weren't talking about art resources, J-Rez just kind of entered the conversation to add in a conversation about art assets. But the reason for that is obvious The reason they don't hire new people to come in and work on art assets is obvious. Because they are a business and they decided that there's diminishing returns on hiring more artists past a certain point in terms of subscribers to overhead.

My guess is that a vast majority of their Warcraft related budget is spent on technical aspects such as keeping the servers online.

How many people do you actually think are on the Warcraft development team? Because I have an idea.

Um, how does more man power in the art department helping in various ways like less recycled of models equate to getting an expansion in a week? You make huge leaps.

No I don't; its just a rhetorical statement that you took literally.

I'm simply positing that there's this common sentiment that if you added more people to the project, aspects of the game in general would magically pop out faster, but I don't think that on the whole this is entirely accurate.

I'm sure its possible with regards to certain art bits, but that wasn't really in context; J-rez just brought that up right now.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

No I don't; its just a rhetorical statement that you took literally.

Well, what you replied to had nothing to do with time frame. More art man power for less recycled content means just that. It could wind up taking longer if the goal was green light but problems came.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Well, what you replied to had nothing to do with time frame. More art man power for less recycled content means just that. It could wind up taking longer if the goal was green light but problems came.

I fail to see how there's evidence that graphic designers are somehow exempt from the maxim that adding people to a software project makes it take longer. Time frame is an essential component of any game, but even more so World of Warcraft.

 

[No45]

I suggest you avoid Arcane if you want a spec with lots of button, they barely use 2 or 3 spells, even at higher lvls. I cant talk much about Fire as its the only mage spec i havent touch enough, but i think they have much more spells to use than Arcane.

Frost at higher lvls have Frostbolt, Ice Lance, Frostfire bolt, Deep Freeze, Pet Freeze, (Frost)Fire Orb as their most used offensive spells. Then you have Ice Barrier that you want to keep up as much as you can, help your healer against those hard to avoid boss attacks. Weak AOE since Blizzard is like 11k mana at lvl 85 and i only have 80k with self buffs(and thats with 347 average item lvl, i had around 70k when i was a new 85). And Flamestrike kinda sucks. But i love to use Frost Nova + Cone of Cold against those weak big group of pats in 5 mans, quick easy ~18k DPS in 2 secs lol.

Dual spec Fire & Frost is the way to go i believe. But you'll have to deal with drinking if your gear kinda sucks. But with free water, mana gems, Mage Armor that regen 3% mana every 5 secs and Evocation, its not that bad.

I've levelled previously as Frost so I chose Fire for a change this time. No doubt that the survivability isn't there, but I'm enjoying it a whole lot more in instances I have to say. Pyroblast, Fireball, Scorch (Glyphed and Improved), Blastwave, Flamestrike (Improved to add Flamestrike to Blastwave) and Dragons Breath I use all the time. Managing that lot and shifting the dots around with Impact and Combustion is great fun!

The only problem I'm having at the moment is not pulling the whole group off of the tank. <3

I also NEVER drink (level 68 at the moment). Evocation and sensibly using the Improved Scorch means I can basically go on forever if I want. The only time I've had to conjure refreshments is for other people in instances. ^_^

I'm sure it changes later on though. Oh, also beware if you don't like the RNG. Hot Streak is awesome but it can be annoying when it doesn't proc for AGES.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

I fail to see how there's evidence that graphic designers are somehow exempt from the maxim that adding people to a software project makes it take longer. Time frame is an essential component of any game, but even more so World of Warcraft.

What's so hard to understand?

J-Rzez said Blizzard could hire more people if they wanted to end recycled art. There is no implication that things would be faster in his comment. After a goal like that is geenlight training people and unforeseen problems could cause a delay or it could go quite smoothly. Thus, whether or not more people can speed expansions has nothing to do with his point at all. It would help deliver better art plain and simple. Which answers your statement: "
I don't get why people actually believe Blizzard could just hire more people and fix things."


edited

 

[Bisnic]

I've levelled previously as Frost so I chose Fire for a change this time. No doubt that the survivability isn't there, but I'm enjoying it a whole lot more in instances I have to say. Pyroblast, Fireball, Scorch (Glyphed and Improved), Blastwave, Flamestrike (Improved to add Flamestrike to Blastwave) and Dragons Breath I use all the time. Managing that lot and shifting the dots around with Impact and Combustion is great fun!

The only problem I'm having at the moment is not pulling the whole group off of the tank. <3

I also NEVER drink (level 68 at the moment). Evocation and sensibly using the Improved Scorch means I can basically go on forever if I want. The only time I've had to conjure refreshments is for other people in instances. ^_^

I'm sure it changes later on though. Oh, also beware if you don't like the RNG. Hot Streak is awesome but it can be annoying when it doesn't proc for AGES.

Yeah, since you are lvl 68, you just got Deep Freeze for frost spec i believe, and that spell is pretty awesome for instances and lvling. Either it does incredible damage against bosses, either it stuns your target, which allow you to at least spam 3 Ice Lances on your target for strong damage and easy crits. A Deep Freeze (which has a high chance to crit on top of that) used like after 2 secs on any boss fight or elite immune to stuns will assure you that you pull aggro off the tank if you don't have your Mirror Images up. I still need to watch out for this sometimes lol. Thank god we have Invisibility.

And RNG kinda plague Frost sometimes. You're like... "COME ON, i've just spammed 4 or 5 Frosbolts, where are my Fingers of Frost or Brain Freeze procs?" And other times, you get these procs after every 1 or 2 frosbolts.

Yay for RNG.

And believe me, you will have to drink after lvl 80. Mana is a non issue for most classes prior to that. I remember my old low lvl paladin before Cataclysm would go OOM often without some judgment talent or blessing of wisdom. Now? He doesnt even need water.

 

[Fularu]

Got my Nef shield yesterday Now for Asscandy to drop

 

[Angry Grimace]

What's so hard to understand?

J-Rzez said Blizzard could hire more people if they wanted to end recycled art. There is no implication that things would be faster in his comment. After a goal like that is geenlight training people and unforeseen problems could cause a delay or it could go quite smoothly. Thus, whether or not more people can speed expansions has nothing to do with his point at all. It would help deliver better art plain and simple. Which answers your statement: "
I don't get why people actually believe Blizzard could just hire more people and fix things."


edited

Whether or not J-rez thinks timeframe is important has little to do with what Blizzard thinks. The debate at hand never had anything to do with whether Blizzard had the physical capability to deliver better or more art assets.

I'm not even entirely certain what your point is, but I do know that I'm regretting that I made a figurative reference to bringing out an expansion since you're taking it literally well after I explained that it was figurative language.

I've levelled previously as Frost so I chose Fire for a change this time. No doubt that the survivability isn't there, but I'm enjoying it a whole lot more in instances I have to say. Pyroblast, Fireball, Scorch (Glyphed and Improved), Blastwave, Flamestrike (Improved to add Flamestrike to Blastwave) and Dragons Breath I use all the time. Managing that lot and shifting the dots around with Impact and Combustion is great fun!

The only problem I'm having at the moment is not pulling the whole group off of the tank. <3

I also NEVER drink (level 68 at the moment). Evocation and sensibly using the Improved Scorch means I can basically go on forever if I want. The only time I've had to conjure refreshments is for other people in instances. ^_^

I'm sure it changes later on though. Oh, also beware if you don't like the RNG. Hot Streak is awesome but it can be annoying when it doesn't proc for AGES.

Hot Streak has two different talents, T3 Hot Streak and T4 Hot Streak. T3 HS is a random proc on crit, and T4 is the double-crit proc we're used to. It's designed to smooth out the proc chance and not overvalue crit for that spec since T3 Hot streak's PPM decreases as you gain more crit rating.

 

[No45]

Yeah, since you are lvl 68, you just got Deep Freeze for frost spec i believe,

I'm Fire this time (haven't bothered dual-speccing). Living Bomb next level - I don't know how I'm going to fit it all onto my fingers! Fortunately I won't need it much for a while as everything's dead within 10 seconds.

Hot Streak has two different talents, T3 Hot Streak and T4 Hot Streak. T3 HS is a random proc on crit, and T4 is the double-crit proc we're used to. It's designed to smooth out the proc chance and not overvalue crit for that spec since T3 Hot streak's PPM decreases as you gain more crit rating.

Yeah, I have both of them. Is the T3 still in effect even after T4 though? Asking because I swear I got three in immediate succession last night when I couldn't possibly have gotten two other non-periodical crits inbetween. :s

 

[charlequin]

I disagree with the application of Brooke's Law in this particular example

Yeah, that was a) me being snarky and b) a response to the sort of general criticism of "why isn't X done?!?" I agree, it's not that applicable to Tol Barad; I think the problem there is really more not having a good idea of how to tackle the problem (partially because they didn't think through the original TB design as much as they should have, and partially because it's actually a hard problem to solve.)

I'm not saying this is directed at me personally, but I honestly feel like there's a decent discussion going here, not a heated argument, that I would very much like to continue.

I would like it to continue too, that's why I'm asking people to breathe and be polite to each other and not telling them to stop talking about it or banning people.

 

[Gravijah]

I think I'm done with WoW for a while. A few weeks ago I just didn't feel like playing any more, and I've been playing my long neglected consoles. I'm free!

 

[borghe]

I'm Fire this time (haven't bothered dual-speccing). Living Bomb next level - I don't know how I'm going to fit it all onto my fingers! Fortunately I won't need it much for a while as everything's dead within 10 seconds.

fire rotation is actually very minimal (fire raider here). Basically fireball on everything, living bomb when dropped, ball of fire when up, Pyroblast! when procces, and combustion when up on a single target, or if multiple targets and you get a good chance for combustion, blast wave and flamestrike to proc impact. mirror images when up to really get your DPS up, but you have to manage MI to know when a boss is up for burn phase. mostly save CDs, trinkets and burn items for Molten Fury (35%), NOT TW/BL. Also remember remember remember to use mana gems and evocation on long fights (especially glyphed evocation). Finally, learn earlier than I did about the wonderful little trick of cauterize. When you cauterize, use Iceblock immediately to drop the cauterize effect. you can only cauterize once per minute, and iceblock is 5m CD, but you can at least IB once to drop cauterize, then evocation on the next caut, then bandage on the next, then can health pot on the next, then bandage again, and then voila, you can repeat the cycle again starting with iceblock.

Yeah, I have both of them. Is the T3 still in effect even after T4 though? Asking because I swear I got three in immediate succession last night when I couldn't possibly have gotten two other non-periodical crits inbetween. :s

Hot Streak is Hot Streak. The two tier have no difference on the proc. The first tier is only to replace your AM proc with Hot Streak proc, nothing more. Second tier is where you give yourself a better chance of it proccing on successive crits.

To understand the phenomenon you are describing, you have to remember that all of your spells have a travel time.

You cast a fireball, on your casting lead time you start your second fireball. Partway through that second cast your first fireball connects and procs hot streak. after your second fireball cast you cast Pyroblast! (instantly) during which your second fireball hits and procs Hot Streak. Thus you have two Hot Streaks without seeming like you cast two spells. You just have to remember that Hot Streak procs when the spell crits which is after it hits, and it doesn't hit until a sec or two after you cast it.

The above is very important when taking Combustion into consideration also. You see you have Living Bomb and Ignite on the target already and Hot Streak procs. However you have to remember that you CAN'T hit Pyroblast! and then combustion immediately after. The GCD is less time usually than it will take for your PB to hit the target and DOT. My routine at this point has been when HS procs, to cast HS, then a scorch or two until I see PB stack on the target, THEN Combustion to ensure that I get the PB included in the Combustion total. Or if Living Bomb is about to fall off, cast PB! and then followup with the living bomb refresh THEN followed by the Combustion. Nice thing about doing it that way it Living Bomb doesn't tick right away, so if Ignite refreshes you know it was from the PB! crit which is basically one of your two best crits (only second to your main nuke crit.. FB or FFB)

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

Inscription is a fun profession. I like the daily discoveries. I got the penguin polymorph glyph!

 

[Weenerz]

Inscription is a fun profession. I like the daily discoveries. I got the penguin polymorph glyph!

I spent about 9k leveling inscription to 525 just to make the new cataclysm cards. It's paid for itself a few times over already, I just keep forgetting to do daily discoveries.

 

[Retro]

Yeah, that was a) me being snarky and b) a response to the sort of general criticism of "why isn't X done?!?" I agree, it's not that applicable to Tol Barad; I think the problem there is really more not having a good idea of how to tackle the problem (partially because they didn't think through the original TB design as much as they should have, and partially because it's actually a hard problem to solve.)

It's definitely problematic, and I wouldn't really want to theorize what I'd do to fix it since I myself haven't played it. But I can say with confidence that I'd rather rip the entire PVP element out than let it sit there and continue to frustrate and annoy players.

Maybe that's unrealistic, but from my chair Blizzard should drop this idea of a "PVP Zone" since it's continually plagued by the same problems (disorganization, faction imbalance). Within the context of WoW's game mechanics and community, there may not actually be a viable solution.

I would like it to continue too, that's why I'm asking people to breathe and be polite to each other and not telling them to stop talking about it or banning people.

Unfortunately, it seems like the discussion is moving towards "Hiring more people does nothing / Yes it does" and everyone is kind of ignoring whether fixing broken content should be a priority or just paved over with new content. Oh well.

I think I'm done with WoW for a while. A few weeks ago I just didn't feel like playing any more, and I've been playing my long neglected consoles. I'm free!

I dunno what it is about Cataclysm, but in this thread alone it seems like a lot of people are unsubscribing while the content is still relatively new. Usually you see people coming back at the start of an expansion, but this time it seems like everyone was excited and then quickly lost interest. All of my friends and family were excited, but none of them are playing anymore either.

Any speculation I could make on why this seems to be happening would probably lead to unpleasantness, but I can't help but wonder if the "WoW Magic" is starting to fade. Not because of any competing game, mind you, but because a game can only go for so long before people get bored with it.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

I'm pretty sure Hot Streak in general procs less often than Arcane Missiles would, to balance it being more powerful.

As for Inscription:

It takes a few months to get all the glyphs (and will be especially difficult now with about half the discovered ones coming from the books, which will be harder to come by).

Honestly, even though I have all the glyph recipes, I just don't spend the time making money with glyphs, even though I could. I made some decent money with Darkmoon Cards, and made myself a Hurricane Deck (that I originally intended to sell, but just equipped when the prices went from ~40-50k to about 20k or less during the week of the faire.) Although even that market has crashed somewhat on my server for the moment at least, even though the high end herbs have been relatively stable.


Honestly, once you have a certain amount of gold, I found I became a bit more lazy when it comes to making money, especially with multiple maxed professions.

If I ever needed more gold quick, I have the potential to make it, but otherwise, I'm too lazy.

And I'm still sitting on about 40k+ worth of Maelstrom Crystals, so there's that. The other people on my server have almost run out of their stock.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Inscription is a fun profession. I like the daily discoveries. I got the penguin polymorph glyph!

Damn I did inscription because I'm lazy and didn't want to farm shoulder rep. Also to make gold off cards