Support NeoGAF

[SatelliteOfLove]

In my defense, it would help if you ever wrote, like, one post ever in a normal, comprehensible way instead of using flowery and circuitous language to avoid actually saying whatever the hell it is you're actually talking about. If you had a point other than "stuff is easy now so there's no reason to value personal improvement in tackling it" it certainly didn't come through.

Even if that was true, as opposed to cherry picking that one sentence? Of course the rest wouldn't make sense if the reader thinks everyone in WoW is on one side of that old black-and-white argument of Hardcore vs Casual. And it wasn't even about that, it was about why is the ennui hitting again in Cata when everything's gotten noticably better since Wrath. Hell, I even broke it down my post before that:

This I swear is not a loaded phrase, but Wrath spoiled people. Less accomplished people were used to instances where the tuning was to a level they didn't have to work hard and smart on their character and complexity was dropped so they didn't have to upgrade what was between their ears before entering. Raiders (capitalized) from before Wrath got VERY comfortable with two things: a system that relegated wiping to only THE hardest HM bosses, the PTR, or those discreet frontloaded 10 man learning meetups away from Fraps and WoL while spending as little time actually in an instance was valued most highly instead of what it took under the guild culture to get the job done.

Then you have the monetary/logistics/gearing and general pace of pre-raids is faster than ever, but the pacing on the release of the new instances isn't (Done when it's done.™ and all that).

Simple, plain English. The other one was me listing things explaining, again to you, what we're seeing in others around us, or in ourselves, about that ennui that's mysteriously gripped players. It's not the right answer? Fine. I'm curious and I'll keep an open mind to new info or insights. You don't get it? Fine again.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Apparently, Blizzard is going to change the daily dungeon quest to a 7 daily quests/week cap instead of 1 quest/day.

4.1 is apparently going to introduce, instead of "dailies," a 7-time cap on the bonus rewards. Thus, you can get 490 VP for running 7 heroics in a week at any time (including right in a row), rather than 1 per day.

My understanding is that you should be able to cap out VP on heroics alone with Tier 1 and 2 heroics.

 

[Cipherr]

Outside of raids I never log on. I'd just kinda like a compelling reason to log on for at least some of the 95% of the week when I'm not raiding.

Man its been like that for years. Stretching back to the end of BC is about the time I stopped logging for anything other than raids. Once I got tired of raiding there wasn't anything left.

 

[wonderdung]

Finally killed Heroic Maloriak tonight after conquering raider replacements, network issues, and various schedule conflicts. We're a pitiful 3/13... I blame it on 10 man being a lot harder than 25.

 

[Freyjadour]

Anyways I'm tired of the content already. Did Heroic Halfus today, and I just don't even feel like doing the rest of the bosses now. Clearing the same boring trash, farming the same bosses, just to get a few attempts in on a new heroic boss, which is basically the old boss with a twist.

Pretty much. When Ulduar released I really liked the concept of hardmodes. I also think Ulduar captured the spirit of hardmodes the best with the whole "trigger them" idea. Sure Mimiron's was kind of a lazy switch on/off, but stuff like burning XT's Heart or killing the Iron Dwarves in a certain order was at least interesting.

Now, I'm of the mind that all "Heroic Mode" does is artificially lengthen content to somewhere between 1.5-2 times the length it should be. Has Blizzard ever released content on a better schedule than they currently do (ICC nonwithstanding)? Not really, but that isn't the point. In a choice between 12 "Heroic Modes" of bosses I've already killed and 12 entirely new fights in entirely new zones/areas, I think my choice is pretty obvious. Maybe that's an unrealistic choice to start with, but that just exemplifies the fact that Heroic Modes are a lazy method of extending content past its expiration date.

Then again, I've played the game for 6 years and have raided for most of that. The carrot-on-the-stick and all its ways are painfully apparent to me now. I plan to quit raiding soon and I doubt that I'll ever return to it in WoW without 9 close friends to brave dragons and the like with alcohol on the weekends. I've pretty much had it with dealing with random people I don't know or like's shit day in and day out.

 

[ToyMachine228]

Attempted heroic Chimaeron with the guild last night. In 10-man, there's so much RNG involved it's not funny. Hope the rest of the heroic modes aren't as random as this.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Attempted heroic Chimaeron with the guild last night. In 10-man, there's so much RNG involved it's not funny. Hope the rest of the heroic modes aren't as random as this.

It's not really rng, your healers just need to know who to heal and when.

The only real rng I've encountered is in nef phase 2 because if your healers get cinders at the same time you are fucked.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Just killed Overlord Sunderfury for the 2nd time since launch. Anyone have a list of other high level rares?

 

[wonderdung]

It's not really rng, your healers just need to know who to heal and when.

The only real rng I've encountered is in nef phase 2 because if your healers get cinders at the same time you are fucked.

We've killed heroic Chimaeron 5 times now I think and have used a different strategy every week to try to prevent random 100-0 tank gibbing in the fued phase. We're trying another strategy this week. RNG on the bot deaths is kinda frustrating but can be addressed with enough cooldowns.

Maloriak was very RNG heavy on 10 man until they fixed the red phase. The damage from his breath was much too high and could entirely miss players causing random gibbing. People were using raidwide damage cooldowns for this but sometimes you get 3 breaths and sometimes 2 for no apparent reason.

Apparently Conclave couldn't be done on 10 man without a rogue for a while. I'm not sure if this isn't true anymore because they hotfixed something or if people just figured it out. Not really RNG but just general bugginess.

It's a buggy tier, and that's extra frustrating in 10 man. But I think most things have been addressed now. I think they should allow more than one battle rez in 10 man to mitigate it really.

I probably sound like a whiner... I do like this tier enough to keep at it which is more than a lot of people can say. But I wish the content was a little more polished.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

We've killed heroic Chimaeron 5 times now I think and have used a different strategy every week to try to prevent random 100-0 tank gibbing in the fued phase. We're trying another strategy this week. RNG on the bot deaths is kinda frustrating but can be addressed with enough cooldowns.

Yeah some stuff can be just broken at times. You should be rotating cooldowns on the tank during feud.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Just killed Overlord Sunderfury for the 2nd time since launch. Anyone have a list of other high level rares?

I don't have a list on me, but I think one was posted on MMO-Champ around release. Since there's no achievement for killing Cataclysm rares though (besides the new feat incoming for the camel-related one), the only ones of note are the camel idol things in Uldum (which teleport you to a camel-dropping mob), Aeonaxx in Deepholm who drops a stone drake mount, and a shale spider in the gyreworm cavern in Deepholm that is an exotic hunter pet, but also drops a shale spider pet if killed.

I don't think there's anything else of particular interest (anyone correct if wrong) besides other rare hunter pets. Most the rares just drop blues which may or may not even be heroic level.

Quick Edit: Forgot to mention that I also use(d) NPCscan, which has a database of the rares you can look at and lookup on Wowhead if you want to see what they drop.

 

[Swag]

Wow leveling through the cata zones is an experience, having so much fun questing, as well as how awesome the new dungeons are.

Atmosphere in Vortex Pinnacle is so serene, combination of aesthetics and music meshes so well.

Only 83 but not experiencing the feeling of trying to rush to max level that I had in Icecrown / Scholozar.

 

[wonderdung]

Yeah some stuff can be just broken at times. You should be rotating cooldowns on the tank during feud.

We use Lay on Hands or Guardian Spirit on every feud depending on what is up at the time, and tanks spam cooldowns. I'm not sure what else we could do, but our latest strat is a 2 tank one so perhaps we'll just get less feuds which will lead to less gibbing.

I think the most frustrating thing is that you can do a fight "The Right Way" and still die. But given how far behind we are on progression right now it's probably just us failing somehow.

 

[Manus]

I wish I could buy choas orbs with my excess JPs. :[

 

[Bisnic]

I wouldn't be surprised if they go BOE someday.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

I wouldn't be surprised if they go BOE someday.

How do you equip a chaos orb and other trade goods

 

[ToyMachine228]

It's not really rng, your healers just need to know who to heal and when.

In 10-man it's definitely RNG. You have three healers, one who focuses solely on tank healing and two who focus solely on raid healing during Feud. We don't have a spare DPS with a taunt that can taunt and take double attacks. So we essentially have two tanks. In 25-man a lot of guilds use 3. In 10 you can't really afford to lose the DPS. You also only have one Divine Guardian, and one Lay on Hands. Well, my 10-man does anyway. The threat in the Chimeron encounter can also be strange. There's been a lot of times where the only reason we avoid deaths, or lose break is because of lucky parries or dodges. We do normal Chimaeron first try every week.

It's no secret that 10-man raids are "harder" by nature because of the limitations of only having 10-people. In 25-mans, you can use 3 battle rez', you have a much higher chance of having at least one of every class and spec, so you have more tools available to the raid, you can carry shitty DPS, or a bad healer, etc.

 

[dc89]

I need help guys.

Trying to get Loremaster (horde). It's time to complete the quests in Stonetalon Mountains.

The thing is, I can't pick up a single quest anywhere! Searched around the actual zone and the neighbouring borders. Been back to Org to see if there is a Q on the boards or given by a NPC but no joy.

What do?

 

[wonderdung]

In 10-man it's definitely RNG. You have three healers, one who focuses solely on tank healing and two who focus solely on raid healing during Feud. We don't have a spare DPS with a taunt that can taunt and take double attacks. So we essentially have two tanks. In 25-man a lot of guilds use 3. In 10 you can't really afford to lose the DPS. You also only have one Divine Guardian, and one Lay on Hands. Well, my 10-man does anyway. The threat in the Chimeron encounter can also be strange. There's been a lot of times where the only reason we avoid deaths, or lose break is because of lucky parries or dodges. We do normal Chimaeron first try every week.

It's no secret that 10-man raids are "harder" by nature because of the limitations of only having 10-people. In 25-mans, you can use 3 battle rez', you have a much higher chance of having at least one of every class and spec, so you have more tools available to the raid, you can carry shitty DPS, or a bad healer, etc.

There are a lot of things you can do, really. One "3 tank" strat we used involved a fury warrior tanking + taking breaks in the non-fued phases. The MT only tanks during feud and the OT takes double attacks the entire fight.

You shouldn't have any trouble meeting the DPS timer with three tanks, though. Ever since we swapped out our full epic holy paladin with one in 80% blues who heals heroic fights without any real issues I've been convinced that gear isn't as much of a factor in hard modes as RNG and strategies.

We're not amazing but if you want to view our sordid history of logs: http://worldoflogs.com/guilds/5492/

Edit: I've heard you can have a voidwalker fill one of the tank slots. This sounds amazing and terrible at the same time, so I suggest it every week after we wipe to something RNG-ish.

 

[ToyMachine228]

You shouldn't have any trouble meeting the DPS timer with three tanks, though.

We're not worried about the timer, our DPS is pretty damn good. We just want to make it through in as few feuds as possible. Last night was our first night of attempts. And I think we'll kill it tonight. But I still think the fight is bullshit.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

We're not worried about the timer, our DPS is pretty damn good. We just want to make it through in as few feuds as possible. Last night was our first night of attempts. And I think we'll kill it tonight. But I still think the fight is bullshit.

Pretty much every strat I know of has an OT thats a plate dps.

 

[speedpop]

I need help guys.

Trying to get Loremaster (horde). It's time to complete the quests in Stonetalon Mountains.

The thing is, I can't pick up a single quest anywhere! Searched around the actual zone and the neighbouring borders. Been back to Org to see if there is a Q on the boards or given by a NPC but no joy.

What do?

From my understanding, Stonetalon is heavily reliant upon phasing so you have to try and find the pre-cursor quest for it. It should be in either Ashenvale or in Northern Barrens (which leads you to Ashenvale anyway) so try searching around there.

 

[Bisnic]

How do you equip a chaos orb and other trade goods

Ok, maybe i should have said get rid completely of the BOP.

 

[Tamanon]

Chaos Orbs are going to do the same thing as Frozen Orbs did, BoP to start, tradeable and purchasable in 2nd or 3rd patch.

 

[ToyMachine228]

So yeah...28k heroic Chimaeron wipes. 10-man heroic mode balance is fucking terrible.

 

[dc89]

From my understanding, Stonetalon is heavily reliant upon phasing so you have to try and find the pre-cursor quest for it. It should be in either Ashenvale or in Northern Barrens (which leads you to Ashenvale anyway) so try searching around there.

Hey thanks!

With a mixture of your advice and the help of a GM (I raised a ticket) I figured it out. The GM told me because I have leveled past the area for the zone I can no longer get the one from Warchiefs Command Board. He told me exactly what quest I needed to do.

I guess they know exactly where you are up to in quest lines too! He then told one of their stupid jokes:

Then I wish you a pleasant evening Growlith. Farewell and may the gentle Furbolgs watch over you while fierce leper gnomes feast upon the toes of your enemies ("\/")

 

[Angry Grimace]

Chaos Orbs are going to do the same thing as Frozen Orbs did, BoP to start, tradeable and purchasable in 2nd or 3rd patch.

Frozen Orbs were never BOP. That's Nether Vortexes you're thinking of.

 

[Morn]

ROFL

 

[markot]

lol >.<

 

[markot]

Frozen Orbs were never BOP. That's Nether Vortexes you're thinking of.

I think they were bop initially in wotlk, for the first patch or two.

 

[Narag]

I think they were bop initially in wotlk, for the first patch or two.

I seem to remember buying them for a rather high price when they first came out as I just missed the server first leatherworking thing due to the pricing.

 

[Alex]

New heroic VP methods are so nice, I had stopped working on the daily heroics because there's nothing I need at all 'cept boots to sell but If I can do them in clumps at my own leisure and help out alts, etc, I'm all over that.

Also sounds like you can now earn up to 980 a week if you do the new "tier 2 heroics" they're calling them as well. I'm really loving my Frost DK more than my Shaman, so maybe I'll gear it up and swap it when it's comfortable to do so after some more gear and the buff.

 

[Bisnic]

980 a week with heroics isnt so bad, that means that in the 3rd week you can already buy your T11 chest or legs.

I just wonder that the day Firelands is released and T11 is buyable with JP... are the helms and shoulders still going to require raid tokens?

 

[Entropia]

980 a week with heroics isnt so bad, that means that in the 3rd week you can already buy your T11 chest or legs.

I just wonder that the day Firelands is released and T11 is buyable with JP... are the helms and shoulders still going to require raid tokens?

Based on what Ghostcrawler said in his blog post today, you will still need the raid tokens:

We wouldn’t be surprised to see some guilds try the first few Firelands bosses one night, while using the next night to go back to get the head and chests from Nef and Cho’gall in order to complete their set bonuses, that is until acquiring new set bonuses becomes feasible.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2452061#blog 4th paragraph

 

[ToyMachine228]

So Blizzard came out and said they're having difficulty balancing 10-man hard modes. Glad they at least know it's an issue.

 

[Entropia]

So Blizzard came out and said they're having difficulty balancing 10-man hard modes. Glad they at least know it's an issue.

The whole 10/25 being equivalent thing has become such a slippery slope. They're trying to make sure that the difficulty of both of them is on par while making the rewards the same. I'm curious how they'll be handling this going forward. Atleast they are aware of the problems right now though.

I'm curious if they're noticing that more guilds have doing 10 mans over 25 mans? One interesting point, it seems that no 10 man guilds have killed Sinestra yet.

 

[wonderdung]

The whole 10/25 being equivalent thing has become such a slippery slope. They're trying to make sure that the difficulty of both of them is on par while making the rewards the same. I'm curious how they'll be handling this going forward. Atleast they are aware of the problems right now though.

I'm curious if they're noticing that more guilds have doing 10 mans over 25 mans? One interesting point, it seems that no 10 man guilds have killed Sinestra yet.

If you look at some of the changes they made for cata (reforging, stat consolidation, 10/25 merge, etc) they're all part of a strategy that reduces the total number of items they have to create. I'm guessing it was partly to mitigate all the work that had to be done on revamping 1-60, but now that's over and they can just create twice as many items and not have to deal with these problems. All the weapons use practically the same model anyway...

But now that groups have settled into their 10/25 groups, going back to 25 as the definitive raid would screw people in the same way that taking that away did. I think I'd definitely welcome it, but it would be another hard set of transitions for my guild to go through.

I think we're stuck, though. We'll probably be going through the rest of the expansion with horribly balanced 10 vs 25 encounters and one viable item choice in every slot... maybe 2 if we're lucky.

 

[ToyMachine228]

I'm curious if they're noticing that more guilds have doing 10 mans over 25 mans? One interesting point, it seems that no 10 man guilds have killed Sinestra yet.

10-man hard modes are far harder than 25-man. That's not to say 25-man are easy, just that 10-man are harder. You're raid has way fewer tools at it's disposal. For example, my guild is working on Hard Mode Chimaeron right now. Tank's spot's strategy to mitigate the Shadow DoT in Phase 2 is to group up, use the Disc Priest Bubble, use Anti-Magic Zone, rotate Holy Paladin Aura Mastery, use Divine Guardian, etc, etc. My raid has one Aura Mastery, and that's it as far as raid wide damage reduction. So we get six seconds of reduced damage. While a 25-man probably has enough CD's to have one up until Chimaeron dies.

On that same token, the Tankspot strategy for Feud's is simply to rotate things like Lay on Hands, and Guardian Spirit at the beginning of each feud after Massacre to prevent quick tank deaths. In 10-man, we don't have that many CD's. So I (A Holy Paladin) have to manually heal the tank up fast enough each time. Which I have down, it's pretty tough but I've got it down. It's much more mana intensive to quickly have to Divine Light spam the tank up to full health at the beginning of each feud than just pop a CD on him and be set. To reiterate how little room for error there is, I have to watch DBM and when my timer reaches 1.5 seconds to massacre, I start a Divine Light cast. If it goes off before massacre, it's a wasted heal, if I don't start it before the massacre actually occurs I may not get the tank high enough to take a double attack in time. But like I've said, I've got this aspect down, I'm just drawing a 10 to 25 man comparison.

On top of that, you get into the whole distribution thing. In 10-man, each healer represents 33% of your group's healing and each DPS represents 20% (assuming normal raid composition). In 25-man, each person is much less than that. So you're more able to lose a DPS or healer to a death, or connection issue, or even mess up more because there are others there to help you and cover for you. In 10-man you have less wiggle room in that regard.

This isn't at all an FU Blizz post. This is a serious post discussing 10 versus 25 man balance so don't go all emo on me.

 

[charlequin]

If you look at some of the changes they made for cata (reforging, stat consolidation, 10/25 merge, etc) they're all part of a strategy that reduces the total number of items they have to create. I'm guessing it was partly to mitigate all the work that had to be done on revamping 1-60

I think it has much more to do with how their tier strategy completely broke itemization in Wrath. The need to have four whole distinct levels of gear (10m, 25m, 10mH, 25mH) associated with each tier in Wrath made item levels shoot up way faster than intended, which both made the step between different tiers more absurd and led to system-straining design issues later on (like people gearing up to the crit cap.)

Personally, I think the "25 man is real" thing is friggin' stupid and I'm glad they moved away from it, even if it results in tuning problems while they figure it out.

 

[Manus]

So never quested in Vashj'ir I always went to Hyjal. Though since I'm grinding rep on my alt I had to go there and wow I love the zone. People weren't kidding when they say it's beautiful, plus I'm loving the quests.

 

[Ferrio]

So what incentive does Blizz offer to run 25's instead of 10s? Did they intend to make them easier than 10's for that purpose?

 

[ToyMachine228]

So what incentive does Blizz offer to run 25's instead of 10s? Did they intend to make them easier than 10's for that purpose?

They are easier by nature, and more pieces of loot drop at a time which gives you a higher chance to see what you want drop. Though there are more people in the raid that want it. I know on my server, there are only 2 10-man guilds in the top 10. So it seems to me, most guilds are still running with 25.

 

[Ferrio]

They are easier by nature, and more pieces of loot drop at a time which gives you a higher chance to see what you want drop. Though there are more people in the raid that want it. I know on my server, there are only 2 10-man guilds in the top 10. So it seems to me, most guilds are still running with 25.

Well my guild runs 25s too, but I'm just curious if Blizz officially stated what incentive there is to 25s. I thought maybe they did mean to make them easier (maybe not that much easier), to offset the headache of getting 25 over 10. To me more gear drops isn't at all an incentive.

 

[ToyMachine228]

Well my guild runs 25s too, but I'm just curious if Blizz officially stated what incentive there is to 25s. I thought maybe they did mean to make them easier (maybe that much easier), to offset the headache of getting 25 over 10. To me more gear drops isn't at all an incentive.

Yeah, I don't know. I've talked to a few people about 10-man's and they're completely opposed to doing them because they know that there's more pressure. If you fuck up, it can be a major setback and possible wipe, especially on the harder content, one death can ruin the entire encounter. A lot of people like to be able to slack or zone out and not worry.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I think they were bop initially in wotlk, for the first patch or two.

They weren't. That's primal nethers and Nether Vortexes from TBC.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

They are easier by nature, and more pieces of loot drop at a time which gives you a higher chance to see what you want drop. Though there are more people in the raid that want it. I know on my server, there are only 2 10-man guilds in the top 10. So it seems to me, most guilds are still running with 25.

According to wowprogress.com world stats there are like 5700 10 man guilds with at least 1/13 H. 2 with 13/13 H. 3000 25 man with atleast 1/13 H. 44 with 13/13 H. So, there are more 10 man guilds because it's naturally easier to get 10 people together but it's easier to do heroics in 25 man.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

Some fights are easier on 10 man

 

[C.Dark.DN]

Some fights are easier on 10 man

I wouldn't know as I'm not doing heroics, but a larger amount of 10 mans with 1/13H and an extremely small amount with 13/13 H compared to 25 man says a lot about overall difficulty.

 

[cuevas. PhD.]

I wouldn't know as I'm not doing heroics, but a larger amount of 10 mans with 1/13H and an extremely small amount with 13/13 H compared to 25 man says a lot about overall difficulty.

A lot of these 25 man guilds have been the top 25 man guilds since BC. They constantly get the better players so they remove these good players from the talent pool that is available. Most - not all - top tier players want to play in 25 man guilds. There will be some good 10 man guilds but there are just always going to be more quality 25 man guilds than 10 man guilds.

I'm not saying there are not balance problems in 10mans but what I just said certainly doesn't help.

 

[Trumpet909]

Well my guild runs 25s too, but I'm just curious if Blizz officially stated what incentive there is to 25s. I thought maybe they did mean to make them easier (maybe not that much easier), to offset the headache of getting 25 over 10. To me more gear drops isn't at all an incentive.

The only incentives for 25 man that they intentionally added were a slightly higher loot drop per person ratio for 25 man heroics, more valor points, and more gold. It wasn't their intention to make 25 man easier.