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[Angry Grimace]

With the usual EJ caveats ("sim it," "details may vary based on your gear and rotation," etc.) my understanding is that crit and haste both deliver significantly more DPS increase per point than mastery for MM in the current tiers. Because the MM mastery procs additional shots (so they happen more due to haste and do more damage due to crit) there's a tipping point at which once you have crit X and haste Y, points into mastery become more valuable than raising crit and haste more, but current gear won't really get you high enough to hit those points so it's better to swap mastery gear for crit gear whenever possible and reforge all mastery you're left with (i.e. you want to be as low as possible.)

Mastery is always the question-generating stat, but unfortunately for Blizzard, you could just generalize that mastery is good if you're a tank, and worse than crit or haste for everyone else be like ~90% accurate.

 

[Azwethinkweiz]

Mastery is always the question-generating stat, but unfortunately for Blizzard, you could just generalize that mastery is good if you're a tank, and worse than crit or haste for everyone else be like ~90% accurate.

It's a wash for DKs, but yeah, Mastery is pretty nice for the other tank classes.

 

[charlequin]

Mastery is always the question-generating stat, but unfortunately for Blizzard, you could just generalize that mastery is good if you're a tank, and worse than crit or haste for everyone else be like ~90% accurate.

But as an enhancement shaman mastery is better for me than any other secondary stat!

Finally got Heroic Cho'gall last night, what a bitch ass fight, sheesh.

I know, finally. The rest of us have been teabagging heroic Cho'gall for like two years now. Noob!

 

[Entropia]

Mastery is always the question-generating stat, but unfortunately for Blizzard, you could just generalize that mastery is good if you're a tank, and worse than crit or haste for everyone else be like ~90% accurate.

For Ele Shaman: Haste >> Mastery >>>>>>>>> Crit

But yeah, it's just another stat that's "GREAT" for some specs (ie tanks, ele/enh shaman) and shit for others (ie Resto Shaman)

 

[Mairu]

But as an enhancement shaman mastery is better for me than any other secondary stat!

Mastery is also better than crit or haste as a ret paladin since 4.0.6

 

[etiolate]

I just saw someone with a Blazing Hippogryph. One of the nicest looking mounts in the game. Maybe my favorite.

 

[Fantasy Final]

For my Unholy DK, Crit is shit. Haste is where it's at. And I love Speed!

 

[Thoraxes]

It's a wash for DKs, but yeah, Mastery is pretty nice for the other tank classes.

It's not all that great for bears. Agi is still our master stat because it increases crit, dodge, and AP, which translated into more frequent and more absorbent bear shields.
Mastery isn't totally worthless, but the only time you reforge it is when it's impossible to reforge to dodge, which doesn't happen on leather.
It's not that great for bears also because of the 50% chance on crit for SD, and dodging makes vengeance fall off, which leads to weaker SD procs because of weaker AP, which leads to less damage absorbed, etc...
If you rely on the shield, you better be making sure you don't dodge enough to let vengeance stay on, but if you're getting hit too much then it's a pain in the rear for healers.

I just have been stacking dodge, and it's been suiting me fine so far, have had zero problems while clearing the current raid tier. Will be starting heroics soon though, so we'll see how much it changes.

 

[Angry Grimace]

But as an enhancement shaman mastery is better for me than any other secondary stat!



I know, finally. The rest of us have been teabagging heroic Cho'gall for like two years now. Noob!

That's like one spec of one class. I think with regards to hunters, mages and warlocks, mastery is the suckiest stat for all three.

 

[davepoobond]

With the usual EJ caveats ("sim it," "details may vary based on your gear and rotation," etc.) my understanding is that crit and haste both deliver significantly more DPS increase per point than mastery for MM in the current tiers. Because the MM mastery procs additional shots (so they happen more due to haste and do more damage due to crit) there's a tipping point at which once you have crit X and haste Y, points into mastery become more valuable than raising crit and haste more, but current gear won't really get you high enough to hit those points so it's better to swap mastery gear for crit gear whenever possible and reforge all mastery you're left with (i.e. you want to be as low as possible.)

i'd go so far as to argue crit and haste will always make your mastery more valuable in the end. as long as you have an appreciable amount of mastery to make a difference, say around 25%, you would never need to gear into mastery intentionally.

more haste = more wild quiver shots
more crit = harder hitting wild quiver shots


"only" getting more quiver shots in and of themselves don't exactly help with any of your other attacks or rotation problems etc. mastery is sort of the thing you want to gear for last, just because everything else works for mastery, AND everything else at the same time.


the same situation is sort of there for mastery vs crit in survival, except haste is dead last since it doesn't really help as much as it does in MM. Crit affects all of your shots, while mastery only affects some of them.

 

[Johnlenham]

I swear this thread was way more active when ICC was out than now?

Up to 83 with my dk and 82 with hunter, cant decide which to stick to but ive done hyjal with one and doing vashwhatever with the other which is a hell of alot slower :/

 

[dimb]

I swear this thread was way more active when ICC was out than now?

Maybe because it seemed like there was more on the horizon. Right now WoW just feels like it is moving at a lethargic pace for new content. Unless you find the limp dick inducing "balance" changes exciting I guess.

 

[ShadyMilkman]

Noob raid question

My guild recently started our 10 mans and have done Mag and Omno a few times and we want to get Halfus down tomorrow before lockouts expire.

None of us have done the fight, so our knowledge has been limited to what we have read/watched. Storm, Time, and Whelps are up right now, and I wanted to figure out which to release and when. I know Storm is instantly released due to Shadow Nova. Should we release either of the other two at the same time as the Storm, or wait?

 

[PillowKnight]

Noob raid question

My guild recently started our 10 mans and have done Mag and Omno a few times and we want to get Halfus down tomorrow before lockouts expire.

None of us have done the fight, so our knowledge has been limited to what we have read/watched. Storm, Time, and Whelps are up right now, and I wanted to figure out which to release and when. I know Storm is instantly released due to Shadow Nova. Should we release either of the other two at the same time as the Storm, or wait?

It really depends on your raid setup. My group and I did it releasing storm+welps and in order to heal the tank who was tanking the dragons I had to get up to 16k HPS just on him(which meant blowing all my mana at the start). If you decide to release two drakes be sure to use time warp or w/e to dps one of the drakes down very fast. We didn't see how much raid-wide damage we took releasing one at time...but it may work for you.

If you do get past this part the rest of the fight is relatively easy so long as you've got the interrupts down.

 

[Brazil]

My raid keeps wiping on Al'Akir and all I wanna do is give these noobs the finger and go play Rift... Oh God.

 

[Entropia]

My raid keeps wiping on Al'Akir and all I wanna do is give these noobs the finger and go play Rift... Oh God.

Al'Akir is a stupid RNG "get out of shit" olympics. Phase 1 is frustrating as Hell.

 

[Alex]

We're also stuck on Al'akir. It's a bit RNGy, but if you're getting caught in it frequently, after two full raids of attempts like our guys are, you're just fucking stupid. My patience for these people is wearing thin.

Doesn't help that im 5000+ DPS ahead of everyone as a god damn Shaman.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Phase 1 is easy now after the nerf, how long are you guys staying in P1? It might be a dps issue.

 

[Brazil]

Phase 1 is easy now after the nerf, how long are you guys staying in P1? It might be a dps issue.

Nope. We're facerolling everything else (including Nefarian, I shit you not), but, for some reason, the first 30 seconds of this fight is lethal to half the ranged DPS.

I fucking hate this fight.

 

[ToyMachine228]

Still looking for a Priest on Alterac Mountains-US! PM me if you're looking for a new beginning! We're currently 11/12.

 

[Trumpet909]

Nope. We're facerolling everything else (including Nefarian, I shit you not), but, for some reason, the first 30 seconds of this fight is lethal to half the ranged DPS.

I fucking hate this fight.

Jumping off the edge > Squall line. If they even might get hit by it, just tell them to jump. At least, that's what we had to have our ranged do since they couldn't dodge it for shit.

 

[Alex]

Finally, burn in hell Al'akir. Oh and what sweet loot, double rot shitbin non-set pants.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Seriously, what is up with Al'Akir's loot table. Random loot is making AQ40 (for it's time, back in the day the loot there was terrible) look good in comparison.

 

[Entropia]

It sucks that the loot is a total crapshoot there. Have to hope that the legs you can use drop AND that they have the random enchant that's best for your class/spec. :\

That said, there are some good pieces but... you have to be lucky.

 

[Alex]

Yeah, our guild has agreed to not head back to him anymore, until we have to. There's just better uses of our already fairly limited time. He can drop weapons, I hear... but hey, Conclave can supposedly drop rings, and I've yet to see one.

AQ40 loot was at least somewhat interesting, depending on who you were. Like the first piece of legitimate Holy Paladin loot came from AQ40! Classic itemization cracks me up. But yeah, basically it boiled down to "Do we want to spend all of our raid days in Naxx or do we want to clear all these bosses for our C'thun loot?"

I actually think it was a fun zone though, Twin Emps, Viscidous and C'thun were the bosses that started to bump up the ingenuity quite a bit for the era. Thinking of 40 people in a raid again though... it's a thought that makes me ill nowadays. I am so happy with our little tight knit 10 man, even if I do want to jettison this one guy out the air lock. (nice guy, just really inept at times)

 

[lordmrw]

Wow its amazing that people are clearing heroic raids and I haven't even started raiding yet aside from Baradin Hold. Been to busy updating my website to find a guild to raid with. The guild I created was just for my alts and for the longest time I didn't have anyone I temporarily pass it to so I could log on an alt and have them pass it back. That has been done now, but man I'm behind the curve.

 

[Johnlenham]

Maybe because it seemed like there was more on the horizon. Right now WoW just feels like it is moving at a lethargic pace for new content. Unless you find the limp dick inducing "balance" changes exciting I guess.

Really its only two months old odd though right? to me who left just as it was released it feels like there its too much to do now!

 

[Angry Grimace]

If MMOC's "plan" is correct, a lot of people are going to be pissed off:

* Patch 4.1 - Firelands Raid + Abyssal Maw Dungeon (Blizzcon Preview)
* Patch 4.2 - ??? (Caverns of Time: War of the Ancients?)
* Patch 4.3 - Deathwing Raid and death


Considering raids are now like 1/3 to 1/2 of the size of either Ulduar or ICC.

 

[Rapstah]

What now? That's all they've announced so far, wasn't it at least implied we were getting like double that in content they hadn't announced yet? It's really poor if they're doing two raids after the game releases and calling that an entire expansion. I can't believe Abyssal Maw and Firelands were too unfinished considering they both have shittily locked entrances and Firelands has fully designed areas you teleport to in Hyjal.

 

[Angry Grimace]

What now? That's all they've announced so far, wasn't it at least implied we were getting like double that in content they hadn't announced yet? It's really poor if they're doing two raids after the game releases and calling that an entire expansion. I can't believe Abyssal Maw and Firelands were too unfinished considering they both have shittily locked entrances and Firelands has fully designed areas you teleport to in Hyjal.

No, that is what I'm saying. It would be fine if there was a lot more content we don't know about. But if it's nothing but a 6 boss Firelands raid, a 6 boss CoT raid and a 6 boss Deathwing raid, people are going to justifiably be pissed off.

 

[dimb]

Really its only two months old odd though right? to me who left just as it was released it feels like there its too much to do now!

It took like, a month to clear all the new content, so it's been an extra month now of nothingness and we're still without an announcement of the next patch, meaning it'll probably be about 3 months after the game shipped.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to justify paying for World of Warcraft given the steep decline in their dedication to delivering patched content in a timely manner to the consumer.

In the game's first year Blizzard released 7 major patches. There were a few three month lulls, but by and large the content being added felt like it came more often, and had a bigger impact. So far I don't see Blizzard on a path that provides more than 2 or three major content patches this year.

 

[Rapstah]

No, that is what I'm saying. It would be fine if there was a lot more content we don't know about. But if it's nothing but a 6 boss Firelands raid, a 6 boss CoT raid and a 6 boss Deathwing raid, people are going to justifiably be pissed off.

It's what I'm saying too, I was agreeing.

 

[davepoobond]

i think this will be a short expansion. one raid should last us a 2 or 3 months if it has heroic modes.

so if there's 3 more raids to do, that's about 6-9 months. which would bring us to around christmas time and a possible release of the next expansion.

if they need more time then they'll just add more raids i guess, but its pretty possible that we get a new expansion a lot quicker than we think it'll come out.

75% of this expansion was the recreation of 1-60, so a lot of work went into the expansion already. I don't see how this expansion can last much longer considering Wrath was ONLY about the next 10 levels.


thats just what i think. they might end up stretching it to 2 years, in which case we'll be seeing a lot of people quit again cause they're bored.

 

[ToyMachine228]

I wouldn't be surprised to see Blizz mail in a ToC style raid before the Deathwing raid instance. That said, as I've noted before I think Blizzard has done a really bad job at showing the player where things are going this expansion. Both in-game, and through announcements online and whatnot. Although I'm enjoying Cataclysm, I find myself already looking forward to the next expansion because this one feels generic in theme and content. That's not to say a lot of the gameplay enhancements they've made aren't appreciated. I'm speaking strictly about content direction, lore, and the whole theme and feel of the expansion.

 

[Touchdown]

I've been pretty happy overall with Cataclysm. The most fun I've had so far this expansion is getting guild achievements. I think it's more fun now with more things to do as a guild that we wouldn't have tried before the release of Cata. I'm not a hardcore raider so maybe that is the reason why I'm not bored yet lol. Still haven't completed any of the raids besides BH, and that doesn't really count. Although now I have been going back and doing the old raids that I have never done before for the guild achievements. I'm one of those evil "wrath babies" so I haven't had much experience doing much of the old content. I've been having a blast going back and doing some of the old classic raids with fellow guildies.

 

[Aeris130]

People rag on wotlk, but the whole arthas/northrend setup was great, and tied in well with the previous content.

Now it feels more like blizzard woke up and realized that the LK was dead.

"uh, wait guys, don't cancel your subscriptions yet! lesse here...oh yeah, there's like, Deathwing. Deathwing, yes. And he's angry and evil again. Here, have some more bosses, we promise there won't be more than one corridor and trashpack between each!"

Bastion of twilight has a somewhat bastion'y feeling about it, with stuff that you're familiar with from the quests in TH, but BWD feels like a pure loot pinata.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Maybe it's because I left after Ulduar hard modes but I am still enjoying the game. These hard modes are getting a little repetitive, AOE DMG GATHER UP!!! OKAY SPREAD OUT, but they are still fun. This is just entry level raids so I don't expect much creativity out of them right now. PvP is still fun so there's a bunch to do.

 

[TheYanger]

It's only been like 2.5 months...anyone finished with raiding at this point should be working on heroics, if you're done with heroics, grats you're one of the top guilds in the world and you're used to waiting WAY longer than this for content. I would expect a PTR in a month and a release in a couple months at best, so settle in kids.

 

[Alex]

We've just barely wrapped up normal modes and we're ahead of most! I think two months is a bit early to complain about content considering the progress that's been made.

For 4.1, Abyssal Maw is a 4 boss raid, Firelands is a 7 (making it an 11 raid boss patch), there's also at least one new 5 man for every tier now. I'm pretty interested to see the side functionality of these patches, like the new tools and off-content bits. I always like that stuff.

If the complaint is that theres not enough patches, keep in mind the plan is to expand faster now. We'll see how realistic of a goal it is in the future, but Expansion 4 is marked for Q2 2012.

 

[charlequin]

I am finding it increasingly difficult to justify paying for World of Warcraft given the steep decline in their dedication to delivering patched content in a timely manner to the consumer.

In the first year of vanilla, counting the stuff it launched with, there were 6 endgame 5-mans and 4 total raids: Onyxia, Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Zul'gurub. From the release of Molten Core to the release of Blackwing Lair, there was an eight-month gap. Sure, there were more "major" patches, but some of them added nothing in terms of PvE end-game content.

In the first year of Wrath, there were 12 five-mans added (all endgame-viable due to heroics) and five or seven raids (counting Vault of Archavon, depending on whether you count Onyxia and Naxx as new.) It was six months from the expansion release until the first new raid content was added with Ulduar.

When 4.1 comes out, it'll be up to seven or nine five-mans (depending on whether you count SFK and Deadmines) and five raids (counting Baradin Hold.) If it hits in April, it'll be five months from the expansion to the first major patch.

In conclusion: it's possible that by the numbers the actual boss count is going to turn out lower, but in general the idea that content used to come out more quickly or in significantly greater volume simply isn't true.

Also: less than 1/10th of a percent of all raiding guilds have cleared all the current raid content including Sinestra, and maybe 10% of raiding guilds have downed even a single heroic boss, so the idea that there's this dearth of content and everyone is out of stuff to do already is pretty ridiculous to me.

Or, shorter version:

We've just barely wrapped up normal modes and we're ahead of most! I think two months is a bit early to complain about content considering the progress that's been made.

 

[J-Rzez]

Nope. We're facerolling everything else (including Nefarian, I shit you not), but, for some reason, the first 30 seconds of this fight is lethal to half the ranged DPS.

I fucking hate this fight.

You guys using as much of the platform as possible? Like for 10-mans using one whole half of the platform?

Also, I noticed our ranged used to "tunnel" in there all the time to ignore the cyclones. Sometimes they'd snap out of it but by then the wind blast would knock them back and they wouldn't make it to the opening in time.

And yes, random loot-tables are lazy and FTL.

No, that is what I'm saying. It would be fine if there was a lot more content we don't know about. But if it's nothing but a 6 boss Firelands raid, a 6 boss CoT raid and a 6 boss Deathwing raid, people are going to justifiably be pissed off.

Even blizzard doesn't have the balls to do this. If they attempt to pull that one over on the fans, they'll be helping make Trion a success story.

 

[johnsmith]

They got away with no new content for an entire year after they released ICC. (Ruby Sanctum doesn't count). I think they'll be just fine.


My guild's still working on normal modes. 8/12 at the moment. I'm in no hurry for new content and neither are the vast majority of players. You people doing heroics are a miniscule but vocal minority.



Rift is just another in a long list of failed wow killers.

 

[Ferrio]

Finally broke down and purchased a crossfire crossbow. They dropped in price rapidly, was 5 of them on AH with minimum being 9k. I'm sure within 2 weeks it'll be down to 5k. Really only class that needs them is a tank warrior, so very niche.

 

[Alex]

If they release a new expansion in Q2 of 2012 (I'm a skeptic, but I'd rather be positive) that'd really make a sameish timeline to WOTLK very appealing, assuming no filler raid.

I'd be very pleased with that. Maybe I'd stick around a whole expansion for once!

Also, I refuse to count Naxx 80 as content, I dont care if some people didn't see it before, it was using vanilla content almost 1 for 1 (unlike the retooled heroics for SFK and DM, which I also don't care for) except for it being incredibly dumbed down. I'm really glad we don't have some janky "entry level' raid this time. If you wish though, you could count Ulduar as TWO raids, it's just that good <3

 

[ToyMachine228]

Again, my gripe is not the amount of content or features I find myself with plenty to do, its the direction of the entire expansion. There isn't one. Its the most generic content we've got since vanilla. There's hardly any theme tying the whole thing together. Its...Deathwing's back, the world's tearing apart but...We don't know why. As I've stated feature and design wise, Cataclysm is just fine and I find myself enjoying playing and with plenty to do. Its just that a lot of the content is...Uninspired so to speak.

In BC everything was centered on fighting Illidan and his allies, the world of Outland, and the Burning Legion. In Wrath, everything was centered on Northrend and all of Azeroth fighting against Arthas and the Scourge. In Cataclysm you're fighting...Mostly random groups that have tied themselves to Deathwing for no clear reason who also tend to be extremely generic.

 

[J-Rzez]

They got away with no new content for an entire year after they released ICC. (Ruby Sanctum doesn't count). I think they'll be just fine.

My guild's still working on normal modes. 8/12 at the moment. I'm in no hurry for new content and neither are the vast majority of players. You people doing heroics are a miniscule but vocal minority.

Rift is just another in a long list of failed wow killers.

This isn't good, and what's going to allow them to continue doing what they did in Wrath, and once again we'll have incredibly long content lulls, which isn't good for ANYONE which includes casuals (if you can be the voice of the vast majority, so can I ). ICC for 12 months was incredibly painful.

Blizzard said in Wrath they know they have to get content out quicker, which they failed. Now they said they really mean it this time so we'll see if they stick to their word. Poor blizzard is upset as is that they have to actually tune the game live in between patches far more than they ever did, so they're a little more worried than before. Maybe they'll release stuff on a timely manner. Besides, I'm sure they've been working on "content" patches for Cata at the same time as the core-launch.

Rift didn't even launch yet and you're writing it off lol. It's going to put a dent into blizzard's pie, not kill it, but blizzard doesn't want any form of dent put into their sub-base. You should be hoping that Rift challenges WoW, because maybe then blizzard will go back to how they once were in one regard; that they listened to their community.

EDIT: Yes, the lore this expansion is abysmal at best, despite all the good things they've done it kinda dilutes the overall experience.

 

[Painraze]

Again, my gripe is not the amount of content or features I find myself with plenty to do, its the direction of the entire expansion. There isn't one. Its the most generic content we've got since vanilla. There's hardly any theme tying the whole thing together. Its...Deathwing's back, the world's tearing apart but...We don't know why. As I've stated feature and design wise, Cataclysm is just fine and I find myself enjoying playing and with plenty to do. Its just that a lot of the content is...Uninspired so to speak.

In BC everything was centered on fighting Illidan and his allies, the world of Outland, and the Burning Legion. In Wrath, everything was centered on Northrend and all of Azeroth fighting against Arthas and the Scourge. In Cataclysm you're fighting...Mostly random groups that have tied themselves to Deathwing for no clear reason who also tend to be extremely generic.

This is pretty much my biggest gripe with Cata. The overall story is uninspired, mostly unexplained and generic.

 

[Alex]

Seems about the same quality of fare to me, although I've gotten more out of the writing this time with the extra slant to the side and the comedy. To be fair I just don't care much about their overarching plots. Deathwing actually got off his ass and did something and looks the coolest, so that's enough for me.

Actual content is a lot better than any intro phase of any period of WoW though, by far, IMO.

 

[Angry Grimace]

We've just barely wrapped up normal modes and we're ahead of most! I think two months is a bit early to complain about content considering the progress that's been made.

For 4.1, Abyssal Maw is a 4 boss raid, Firelands is a 7 (making it an 11 raid boss patch), there's also at least one new 5 man for every tier now. I'm pretty interested to see the side functionality of these patches, like the new tools and off-content bits. I always like that stuff.

If the complaint is that theres not enough patches, keep in mind the plan is to expand faster now. We'll see how realistic of a goal it is in the future, but Expansion 4 is marked for Q2 2012.

Abyssal Maw is a 5 man.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

People rag on wotlk, but the whole arthas/northrend setup was great, and tied in well with the previous lore.

Now it feels more like blizzard woke up and realized that the LK was dead.

No it wasn't. They turned LK into Dr. Claw.

Blizzard said in Wrath they know they have to get raids out quicker, which they failed.

It is inevitable, with this deluge of quality of life quickies. Quite frankly, if that risks more Trial of the Raiding Guilds, then slower is better (but again, sentence one).

They got away with no new anything for an entire year after they released ICC. (Ruby Sanctum doesn't count). I think they'll be just fine.

Far too many let this slide, but then again, there was also far too many guilds at stake too.