Support NeoGAF

[fallout]

I used to play but I dont get it... why play WoW?

Why waste years on building the ultimate character if the server eventually will be closed down and everyone will move to a different game or WoW2?

Well, really, why play any game? Have you ever honestly gone back to a game and looked at something you've done years ago? I mean, maybe you'll do it, but there's very little gratification from it.

As for why I do it? Because it's fun!

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I got Dragonspine Trophy from Gruul today. I really hope they don't nerf this trinket, because it beats the crap out of every other trinket you can get to boost melee dps.

This is in heroic when trophy, hourglass, and mongoose procs while having bloodlust. I was afraid that my daggers would start smoking.

Anyways Bloodlust Brooch can go f*** itself now.

I just got his dentures (Teeth of Gruul); excellent necklace, my Renews are now somewhere between vulgar and insane now: Armory

 

[SteveO409]

I used to play but I dont get it... why play WoW?

Why waste years on building the ultimate character if the server eventually will be closed down and everyone will move to a different game or WoW2?


I guess I could make the same analogy about life. Why even live if we are all eventually going to die anyway? whats the freaking point?

It's fun meeting people who have similar interests. I played WoW for 2 years and quit about a month ago. WoW is one of the most amazing games I've played and met alot of interesting people that I would never thought to meet in other games. Some of them have become very close friends too. The reason I quit a month ago was the direction the game was going and how TBC was a wakeup call for me on quitting the job(raiding 5 days a week and so on) and people got tired of it.

Why do we play games at all? Because it's fun

 

[SteveO409]

Urge to renew... growing... GAF, help me stay the course! The game is crap, right?

Well, I'm a veteran player and have friends who also thinks that WoW is losing its magic. If you have friends that still play then you should rejoin. It's hard to find guild nowadays since there are alot of elitist guilds that set expectations too high when you join. There really aren't many options when you hit level 70 though. For raid progression in this game, you have to go at the content hard and be very devoted to the game. You could be a casual and do karazhan but you're most likely get everything you want after 3-4 weeks. PVP is starting to suck since battlegrounds are pretty much done since not many people are doing it. You could spend a few hours a week doing arena and get good gear. The game still feels like a static world though...wish there were some cool events

 

[Zalasta]

I just got his dentures (Teeth of Gruul); excellent necklace, my Renews are now somewhere between vulgar and insane now: Armory

Heh, the blue necklace I've been wearing for months has better +healing than that. Maybe the epic is better overall due to the stats but I kind of doubt it.

 

[cubicle47b]

Heh, the blue necklace I've been wearing for months has better +healing than that. Maybe the epic is better overall due to the stats but I kind of doubt it.

Go ahead and link to it (or link your armory) and we'll see for ourselves.

edit:

Here's my armory - http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#character-sheet.xml?r=Kael'thas&n=Esmi

I really want to replace my head/chest items but it'll probably be a while.

 

[Mute]

I used to play but I dont get it... why play WoW?

Why waste years on building the ultimate character if the server eventually will be closed down and everyone will move to a different game or WoW2?


I guess I could make the same analogy about life. Why even live if we are all eventually going to die anyway? whats the freaking point?

Honestly? I have nothing better to do. Other than get ****ed up. My life revolves around very little at the moment. School, drugs, and video games, all in that order. That being said, summer is out. I'm currently balancing my time between being high and being on WoW.

A friend agreed to

A) Finish leveling my Hunter to 70 (from 69)
B) Pay for my 60% flying mount.
C) Get me a guild invite into one of the top 3 Alli guilds on my server.

All this for leveling his Draeni Shaman from 63-70. He's nuts. He did what I did; he leveled 0-63 in about two weeks (7 days played) and then got burnt out :lol. What a beautiful deal I have here.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Azerothian Super Villians

Shoulda been "Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him well" rather than the "To be or not to be..." monologue, but good nonetheless.

@Zalasta: I've found the added raw STM/INT/SPR/MP5 very much useful after the changes to alchemy. My +healing is increasing both from the epics buff and the new gear coming in, but since it was sky-high from Primal Mooncloth, Golden Spellthread, etc, that base is covered, and the fact the other stats are growing at a faster rate is not a problem. Now I gotta get more regen and frankly more survivability; I ain't sacrificing 6 STM, 9 SPR, and 8 MP5 for +9 healing or some crap.

 

[firex]

Personally, I'm trying to get a good balance of mp5 and +healing on my pally for my healing set. Although I still want to go prot when I get enough gear for 10k base HP and 490 defense (nearly got the latter, but not the former). but for healing, I'm trying to get something like 100 mp5 and +1100 healing. I'm not sure if that's too much mp5 or not though, and right now I'm at 93.

Anyway, I'm also leveling up my warlock alt and I really like the pet summoning/unsummoning thing on mount/dismount. They've gone a long way to making soul shards as little of a nuisance as possible.

 

[Zalasta]

Go ahead and link to it (or link your armory) and we'll see for ourselves.

Natasha's Guardian Cord.

Like I said, your neck piece's stats is a lot better, but is +11 INT better than +7 healing and +2 mana/5? Maybe there's a calculator somewhere, but I don't exactly know how INT translates into your healing effectiveness.

Seriously though, I'm hard pressed to find neck and rings in Karazhan better than some of the blue quest/rep rewards I can get. The epics all have better stats for sure, but a lot of times their +healing and mana/5 is much lower.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

And the cost of that smidgen of +healing is fragility. I was in those blues once, and only fully raid buffed with an Imp out did I crack 7k hp and 400 SPR. Like I said, I've probably gained 250ish +healing since getting 3 Primal Mooncloth and its bonus and that's without the epic buffing. I'm poundin' on regen and survivability now.

Magtheridon at 34%...then someone is knocked too far to click...and doesn't announce it to someone not in a rotation...>_<

 

[Zalasta]

And the cost of that smidgen of +healing is fragility. I was in those blues once, and only fully raid buffed with an Imp out did I crack 7k hp and 400 SPR. Like I said, I've probably gained 250ish +healing since getting 3 Primal Mooncloth and its bonus and that's without the epic buffing. I'm poundin' on regen and survivability now.

Eh, one item won't make or break your survivability. So if you're talking about a combination of gears, then I would maybe agree. However, a single neckpiece worth say 23 more stamina only gives you 230 more HP, and if and when you are getting hit by bosses, I seriously doubt that additional health will be the determining factor between life and death.

Like most people have said when choosing between a shield and an off-hand item. If you are getting attacked as a healer, it's most likely a wipe anyway, so not like having a shield will actually save you, may as well go with the better +healing item you can have as an off-hand.

 

[Nikashi]

Me dinging level 70 a day or so ago

 

[speedpop]

You should have done the whole "explore The Exodar to ding 70"

 

[Nikashi]

You should have done the whole "explore The Exodar to ding 70"

I dinged 69 from an exploration XP bonus actually, I think it was the Netherstorm.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

Urge to renew... still growing... I don't even know why. I loathe the game yet I'm reaching a fervor for it. Maybe there's something more to this addiction thing.

 

[firex]

I just finished heroic sethekk halls (including killing the raven god, but it was with sploits) and I'm surprised at how easy the instance is. I don't think we really had ideal crowd control (no mage at least) and it was still pretty easy. Ikiss is a bit more of a pain, especially since the hunter turned retarded for that fight, but it went ok.

Until they fix it, the raven god is easy to cheese. We killed it with 4 people...

 

[John_B]

We got Magtheridon down after only four tries today. It was like the perfect kill, four adds were down when he broke free, all of the adds were down in good time, every single time the clickers did a perfect job, one guy died to a cleave, another to cave-in and they both got combat ressed. It was like totally professional, and everyone was in awe.

We lost a shit load of people after the expansion due to a million reasons and we have slowly been rebuilding, but it has been hard since we didn't have much to offer before we got Gruul down. It looks like we will have an even better guild in the near future.

 

[speedpop]

Urge to renew... still growing... I don't even know why. I loathe the game yet I'm reaching a fervor for it. Maybe there's something more to this addiction thing.

I went back on my statement and renewed a few weeks back due to a friend wanting me to go hop on an Oceanic server. Haven't touched the game for a couple of days because I can't get into it anymore. I think I'm just stuck at creating countless alts to hit lvl 19 and run through Battlegrounds with.

Atm doing up a Dwarf Warrior and seeing if I can get a shitload of stamina, few points in Prot and running around at lvl 19 in Defensive stance disarming twink Rogues for kicks.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Eh, one item won't make or break your survivability. So if you're talking about a combination of gears, then I would maybe agree. However, a single neckpiece worth say 23 more stamina only gives you 230 more HP, and if and when you are getting hit by bosses, I seriously doubt that additional health will be the determining factor between life and death.

Like most people have said when choosing between a shield and an off-hand item. If you are getting attacked as a healer, it's most likely a wipe anyway, so not like having a shield will actually save you, may as well go with the better +healing item you can have as an off-hand.

Heroics. Magtheridon. Nightbane. Gruuuuuuuuul. Lots of splash damage and even being targeted. Increasing gear gives small boosts to your survivablity and endurance, thus easing the fights.

Single =/= the whole she-bang. I'm not sure why you're talking up min-maxxed blues like I'm axing vast gobs of +healing for 9k self-buffed hp or some crap. It's actually hard to find Prince Malch and beyond epics that do min-max for insane +Healing & another stat, so you're talking about talking me into gear that amounts to like 3 things.

It's like this, iLevel is expensive for blues, so you get with Natasha's Guardian Cord being the Padre's Trousers of BC; big in some healing areas (healin' powah, constant regen, base mana pool), at the cost of having none in others (survivability, long term MP5).

 

[Zalasta]

BTW, the original item in question was Teeth of Gruul, which has no stamina what so ever, making your argument null. So I have no idea why you even brought it up, since it wasn't applicable in that discussion.

And I'm not sure what you meant by long term MP5. If you meant the absence of Spirit, as a Shaman myself, mana/5 is a better choice over Spirit anyway, so of course I would choose gears with more mana/5.

Bottomline, I don't disagree some fights require more stamina, I would say Aran and Illhoof would be good examples. However, I question those epics designed for healers that have worse +healing and +mana/5 than some quest rewards. That's all.

 

[cubicle47b]

You can't expect an epic item to have 20+ in 2 stats and still beat a blue in +healing/regen when it's all that blue focused on. I go for a balance of all the stats I need and stamina is certainly up there. I'm extremely happy I wear a shield and have over 10K health with fort/kings every time I run heroic shattered halls or we kill Magtheridon. And especially now that we're working on Morogrim and I group the murlocs.

 

[PhoenixDark]

Check out my 1H axe:
http://www.thottbot.com/i9478

Got it in Zul Farrak. Pretty badass

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

BTW, the original item in question was Teeth of Gruul, which has no stamina what so ever, making your argument null. So I have no idea why you even brought it up, since it wasn't applicable in that discussion.

And I'm not sure what you meant by long term MP5. If you meant the absence of Spirit, as a Shaman myself, mana/5 is a better choice over Spirit anyway, so of course I would choose gears with more mana/5.

Bottomline, I don't disagree some fights require more stamina, I would say Aran and Illhoof would be good examples. However, I question those epics designed for healers that have worse +healing and +mana/5 than some quest rewards. That's all.

That was before the conversation got sidetracked; I was just happy on having a necklace that'll last me thru tier 5! :lol

Short term Mana regen = MP5. Long term = SPR. Granted, this is more for Priests and Druids rather than Pallies and Shammies, but yah.

 

[ToyMachine228]

Nihilum is already on Illidan. DnT and the other top guilds are also flying through Black Temple and Hyjal. I'm not playing right now, but still keeping track of the game online. I think Blizzard really screwed up the difficulty scaling for PvE in the Burning Crusade. There are some really difficult encounters early on but it appears that their two newest dungeons (BT and Hyjal) are easier and more balanced than stuff like The Eye and Serpentshrine. It took time for the top guilds to clear through Serpentshrine and The Eye. But they're just flying through Black Temple and Hyjal.

 

[border]

The only reason The Eye and Tempest Keep took time to clear was because they had bugged encounters and a ridiculous respawn rate.

As usual, Blizzard is caught between competing interests and can't really win. If the raid content is hard, it's "Boo hoo why are they making all this content for 1% of the users."

If the raid content is easier, it's "Boo hoo, they should make it harder!"

If Nihilium downs Illidan, fine. But unless you've downed him yourself, then why complain about it? Most guilds are probably 2-3 months away from Black Temple to begin with. It seems like most are still jerking around with Kara/Gruul/Mag.

 

[ToyMachine228]

If Nihilium downs Illidan, fine. But unless you've downed him yourself, then why complain about it? Most guilds are probably 2-3 months away from Black Temple to begin with. It seems like most are still jerking around with Kara/Gruul/Mag.

I complain because I canceled my account because my server will never get into Black Temple. And I mean that. There's one guild in it and they were stuck on the first boss of Serpentshrine for like 3 months.

 

[border]

There's at least 6-8 months left of Burning Crusade (assuming the unlikely event that Blizz actually keeps to their "1 expension per year" schedule) and they've supposedly fixed most of SSC. What makes you so sure that nobody on your server will get to BT?

 

[ToyMachine228]

What makes you so sure that nobody on your server will get to BT?

There is one guild that can kill Magtheridon. That's it. The "second best guild on the server" had an entire week of attempts and best they did was get into Phase 2 once. Then they disbanded. Bunch of emos.

 

[Fularu]

We got Magtheridon down after only four tries today. It was like the perfect kill, four adds were down when he broke free, all of the adds were down in good time, every single time the clickers did a perfect job, one guy died to a cleave, another to cave-in and they both got combat ressed. It was like totally professional, and everyone was in awe.

We lost a shit load of people after the expansion due to a million reasons and we have slowly been rebuilding, but it has been hard since we didn't have much to offer before we got Gruul down. It looks like we will have an even better guild in the near future.

Mag is a joke.... At least we had the pleasure of killing him pre-nerf

 

[border]

There is one guild that can kill Magtheridon.

Yeah, but again.....Mag got nerfed (much like SSC and The Eye). Are you basing this all off of pre-2.1 PVE progression?

Pretty much all you have to do is get the Channelers down quickly and Mag is easy. At that point people just have to pay attention.

 

[Meier]

Think I've played 1 day out of the past month or so.. definitely wont be renewing my sub when the pre-paid card runs out I dont think. There really is only life to this game if you get in a raiding guild and I just dont want to get sucked in again like I used to be.

 

[border]

There really is only life to this game if you get in a raiding guild and I just dont want to get sucked in again like I used to be.

People still say this despite the Arenas, the Battlegrounds, the Heroic instances, the new 5-man content in Ogri'la/Skettis/Netherwing faction.....

Short of releasing a new 5-man instance every month or so (which would indeed be sweet), I'm not sure what Blizzard can do please this crowd.

They could release "EZ Mode" versions of SSC, The Eye, Hyjal, and Black Temple so that they could be done in 5-10 man groups and bosses only drop blue items. That might be pretty sweet since there's a lot of people complaining that they can't/won't see that content. But then people would just complete them on Easy and go back to saying there's nothing to do except raid.

 

[traveler]

Illidan killed by Nihilum. Here's the story:

Grats, guys. (Too bad I'll never be able the same for myself. )

 

[MrPing1000]

man Nihilium plowed thru the black temple.

 

[border]

Grats to Nihilium -- surprisingly, most of the complaints on the WoW forums are not about how easy it was but the fact that Nihilium buys gold. Boo-hoo *rolleyes* As if gold really had anything to do with it.

Amusingly, everyone is using this kill to push their own little pet agendas:

"They only had one hunter in the raid! Fix my class Blizzard!"
"I'll never get to do this! Make WoW easier Blizzard!"

 

[ToyMachine228]

What happens when Illidan dies? Nihilum say anything about that yet? Anything involving Maeiv and Akama like was rumored?

 

[PhoenixDark]

What happens when Illidan dies? Nihilum say anything about that yet? Anything involving Maeiv and Akama like was rumored?

That's what I'm wondering...is there just one Illidan, or is he gone once the first guild takes him down on their server? I assumed every server had him on there, and could fight him as many times as they wanted (like an instance)

 

[border]

Black Temple:

Spoiler

Maeiv storms the temple with Akama, and kills Illidan. Supposedly there is a sound file that indicates that he's not dead, much like how Kael'thas taunts those that turn in the quest item that he drops.

 

[Oni Link 666]

I got back on a few days after the patch. Pretty much just to get the Netherdrake. It was kind of a grind but, I gotta say it was the easiest and most well designed grind I've ever done in WoW. It's not so bad since you don't have to complete every quest every day. You can just take your time and spend a few days on each quest. I really didn't spend more than 4 hours a day doing those quests and I got my dragon in like 2 weeks I think. I got the Onyx ( black one).

 

[yacobod]

There is one guild that can kill Magtheridon. That's it. The "second best guild on the server" had an entire week of attempts and best they did was get into Phase 2 once. Then they disbanded. Bunch of emos.

lol sounds like you are the one thats emo

 

[Tamanon]

There is one guild that can kill Magtheridon. That's it. The "second best guild on the server" had an entire week of attempts and best they did was get into Phase 2 once. Then they disbanded. Bunch of emos.

So basically you're upset because there's no guild that you can just join after they've completed the content already and leech off of

 

[border]

With the way the crafted items and Heroic loot are working, I think leeching off a guild to some extent is the smartest thing to do. If I can make 3-5 epic items that are Tier 4 equivalent, and maybe get another couple epics from Heroic drops....and then another couple epics from turning in Badges of Justice......why should I screw around with a bunch of goofballs in blues, stumbling their way through Karazahn?

Obviously it will vary from class-to-class, but why not sidestep Karazahn if you can? There's nothing out of that place that I'm really interested in other than the Shadow Damage pendant (random drop meh) and the Nathrezim Mindblade (an equivalent blade drops off Gruul anyway).

 

[ToyMachine228]

So basically you're upset because there's no guild that you can just join after they've completed the content already and leech off of

Nah dude I lead a guild all the way up to Twin Emps on my server before I took a break from WoW before the expansion came out. My server right now is basically comprised of hundreds of small joke guilds that run Karazhan. And I could honestly care less about gearing my character. Of course it happens, and it's needed for progression but I've always played just to experience cool encounters.

 

[ToyMachine228]

That's what I'm wondering...is there just one Illidan, or is he gone once the first guild takes him down on their server? I assumed every server had him on there, and could fight him as many times as they wanted (like an instance)

He's just like a normal raid boss with a reset timer.

 

[Meier]

People still say this despite the Arenas, the Battlegrounds, the Heroic instances, the new 5-man content in Ogri'la/Skettis/Netherwing faction.....

Short of releasing a new 5-man instance every month or so (which would indeed be sweet), I'm not sure what Blizzard can do please this crowd.

PVP in WoW isn't particularly fun and getting a group is just an absolute nightmare for a Hunter basically. I just cant be bothered I suppose. They needed to raise the level cap to at least 85 or so.. 10 levels just wasn't enough (even 70 in my case).

I have no clue how someone can find it fun to level up another character to 70.. just an absolute bore.

 

[speedpop]

Good job for Nihilum. Whether they buy gold or not is another issue entirely but it's quite a treat to see a Horde guild beat everything else (with the introduction of Paladin no less :lol)

Was hoping they'd clear him practically instantly rather than be cockblocked by him for a week. Still waiting on lore details!

 

[ToyMachine228]

Good job for Nihilum. Whether they buy gold or not is another issue entirely but it's quite a treat to see a Horde guild beat everything else (with the introduction of Paladin no less :lol)

Yeah I think adding the Paladin to the Horde has had more of an impact than the Shaman being added to the Alliance.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Good post by Tigole on Illidan falling so early after 2.1 from Elitist Jerks' website:

My thoughts
I've enjoyed reading this thread and I think there are a lot of valid points and views here.

(Disclaimer: I've also been following the threads on the WoW Forums that are similar and wanted to respond there but the forums are down!)

I think there is some nostalgia going on here though. Either that or we're watching a textbook case of the "grass is always greener" going on. In WoW 1.0, we faced many complaints about the lack of raiding options. We were often criticized with coming out with new raid content "at a snail's pace." In fact, I challenge anyone to find a thread from Winter 2005 where people are talking about how awesome the pacing of the raid content was.

Some other things to remember. You *could* skip some of AQ 40 in your progression if you wanted to. This was viewed as an interesting debate (having options is a good thing, yes?). Not a design flaw. We're always looking to give players options -- from PvP (multiple arenas, battlegrounds), to 5 mans to raiding. My biggest criticism of our 10 person raiding game right now (I have a few) is that there are no options beyond KZ. We're fixing that. But you get my point. Players need options.

I'll go ahead and make a controversial statement to illustrate a point. Let's pretend for a moment that Burning Crusade never came out and we were still in vanilla WoW land. The community, as a whole, would have eventually screamed bloody muder over the difficulty of the Four Hoursemen. The Four Hoursemen were considered one of our best tuned encounters in the game. But I'll argue that's because so few people actually progressed to the point of needing to beat them. And the ones who did beat them, were ok with going to extreme measures to do so (consumables, world buffs, server transfers for tanks in 4 peice dreadnaught). A fight that requires 8 tanks is *not* acceptable to the raiding community as a whole. A fight that requires 8 tanks was acceptable to the bleeding edge only (and their fans) and only because it seperated them from the rest -- not because that's what made a *fun* raiding experience. How fun was it for the hunter who got benched for Warrior #8? How fun was it for the guild who lost their main tank when he server transfered to be a part of one of the World Firsts?

For the place and time, Four Horsemen were great. They were beatable and mostly bug free.

While we're on the topic of Naxx, I want to remind everyone that during it's initial opening, almost ALL of the bosses died within the same period that the BT bosses are dying. People forget that because of the Four Horsemen wall. If raid content is tuned correctly, it will die relatively fast (UNLESS it requires some sort of progression check -- Onyxia Cloak, resist check). Even straight up gear checks are very dicey. More often than not that lead's to excessive raid stacking rather than a true gearing up.

Another thing to keep in mind is the PTR. In order to release the highest quality encounters, we put the content on the PTR. This happened with Naxx as well. It's not surprising that the three EU guilds who have progressed the furthest in Black Temple are also the guilds that spent the most time on the PTR. While it's "only taken them 2 weeks" to kill most of the content in BT, we've been watching them rep on the dungeon for 2 months now.

Properly tuned and accessible raid content will die. It's ok. We'll make more. That's what we do for a living. What's really important is for the content to be enjoyable to do for more than just one clearing. Because after all, your priest wants his shoulders off of Boss X or your tank wants that shield off of Boss Y. It should be epic to kill a boss like Illidan or Kael. But it shouldn't be epic because no one is doing it because they are overtuned or bugged out.

My opinions on Black Temple? Najentus is tuned perfectly -- we wanted a "reward" boss for getting in. Akama is a tad easier than we had hoped but he's a really cool, fun fight so it works out. Reliquary of Souls is just where we wanted it to be -- it's very hard. Teron is a hard fight until people know what they are doing at which point it becomes easy. The more guilds that kill Teron, the easier the fight becomes for everyone.

I think the raid game is in a very good place right now. Raiders of all skill levels and time commitments have a variety of options. There *are* some extremely challenging and rewarding fights in the game (Kael, Reliquary, Archimonde, Illidan). Raid tuning walks the razor blade. Things that make raids *seem* more challenging (trash, raid stacking, consumables, resist checks, attunements, limited access, limited tries) are usually perceived as tedious or "progression blockers" and the complaints fire away. But I'll reiterate, a well tuned raid boss -- even a very hard and complex one -- will die quickly if it's tuned properly and bug free.

I'll leave you guys with a question. How many people posting in this thread that the Black Temple is too easy have killed a boss in Black Temple?

 

[SteveO409]

Yeah I think adding the Paladin to the Horde has had more of an impact than the Shaman being added to the Alliance.

Paladin makes a big difference but Nihilium still would of kick ass without pallys. Before TBC, Nihilium still got several world first on Cthun and several bosses in Naxx