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[dave is ok]

The hardest tiers to raid - in terms of introduction:

Tier 3 = Insane tanking requirements to clear Naxx. Needed 8 warriors with 4 set bonuses.

Tier 2.5 = Extremely punishing trash towards the end of AQ. C'thun unkillable for months.

Tier 2 = Very few guilds were in BWL as soon as it launched, but it was a buggy mess. Plus, only one hour per day to try and kill Vael.

Tier 4 = Karazhan was never amazingly difficult, but Gruul and Magtheridon were overtuned for a while. Gruul especially

Tier 6+ = Sunwell was basically Tier 3 part 2.

Tier 1, 5 and 7 were all pretty easy compared with the above.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I make my MSBT make noises when Bloodsurge procs an instant Slam. Works quite well.

I do this on my Warrior too. I don't usually need any noise since I can see the proc, but it's especially good since the Slam! buff you get on proc is very short (3 sec.)

 

[vumpler]

The hardest tiers to raid - in terms of introduction:

Tier 3 = Insane tanking requirements to clear Naxx. Needed 8 warriors with 4 set bonuses.

Tier 2.5 = Extremely punishing trash towards the end of AQ. C'thun unkillable for months.

Tier 2 = Very few guilds were in BWL as soon as it launched, but it was a buggy mess. Plus, only one hour per day to try and kill Vael.

Tier 4 = Karazhan was never amazingly difficult, but Gruul and Magtheridon were overtuned for a while. Gruul especially

Tier 6+ = Sunwell was basically Tier 3 part 2.

Tier 1, 5 and 7 were all pretty easy compared with the above.

Why the hell were 8 warriors needed for Naxx? What was different? Geezus christ

 

[Dina]

Why the hell were 8 warriors needed for Naxx? What was different? Geezus christ

Four horsemen.

 

[Wrekt]

Why the hell were 8 warriors needed for Naxx? What was different? Geezus christ

In Four Horsemen the back two didn't run to the back on their own. You always needed 4 Warriors tanking the Horsement and the other 4 were moving to take the place of the next Warrior. They needed the 4 piece bonus (5% less taunt resists) since a resisted taunt pretty much meant a wipe.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Why the hell were 8 warriors needed for Naxx? What was different? Geezus christ

Well the Four Horsemen back then weren't rooted. So you need a lot of fucking tanks. Although the big problem for most people was the giant cockblock that gear levels, and especially resist sets.

See, back then, resist gear on Sapphiron wasn't "optional." Nor was the frost gear readily available on the Auction House/crafted and didn't have absurd amounts of stamina to render the aura damage trivial.

You had to get your resist gear by random drops IN Naxxramas that you competed with 40 other people for. In other words, it fucking sucked. And that's on top of the absurd gear requirements for the raid in general.

 

[Jazzy Network]

I love the resistance requirements back then. Like Huhuran. So cool!



-_-

 

[Chris R]

Resist sets were awesome!!! I mean come on, wearing level 40 blues to fight a boss in AQ40 is so awesome :lol :lol :lol

 

[Cipherr]

So am I, but what does that have to do with hunters being whiny dicks who are incredibly anal about pet buffs (on trash no less) to the point where I used to have 10 tell conversations with them whenever another Paladin went AFK?

To be fair no hunter enjoys the way that works either. When we die like everyone else I WISH all I had to do was accept the rez and get the group buffs tossed out immediately, But unfortunately back when BM was the raid spec, you had to click accept and begin channeling your rez pet IMMEDIATELY and HOPE that group buffs didn't start going out before you pet was up.

Remember that pet was 40% of our dps. And be honest, even if we asked you for the pet buffs 10 minutes afterwards once we got to the boss rather than as during the trash, it would have still annoyed you, and you know it :lol. This is why many of us fucking hated BM and we are glad its gimped and hope it never ever fucking comes back. Buffs should transfer from hunter to pet. Stupid that it doesn't.

Nowadays since its only 18% of my total damage done I can afford to go without buffs if my pet dies, plus since SV hunters pet dps is alot lower than a BM hunters dps, the pets dont pull aggro anymore when the MT and OT go down. I always have time to recall him, dismiss him and feign so he never dies and never loses his buffs.

In short, fuck the beast mastery tree.

 

[explodet]

Resist sets were awesome!!! I mean come on, wearing level 40 blues to fight a boss in AQ40 is so awesome :lol :lol :lol

Hey hey, that's not fair. They were at least lvl 45 blues.



I can't believe how much my old guild farmed freaking Mauradon for resist items just to beat Huhuran.

 

[KolosLazar16]

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Taste for Blood now gives you a 33/66/100% chance of allowing the use of your Overpower ability for 5 secs whenever your Rend ability causes damage. This talent will not occur more than once every 6 sec.

Unrelenting Assault: Now also increases the damage of Overpower and Revenge by 10/20%, and causes Overpower (when used to attack a casting target) to decrease the effectiveness of all the target’s non-physical damage and healing by 25/50% for 6 seconds. Tooltip and visual updated.


WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

 

[Lain]

Spiritual Attunement: Removed from trainers. It is now available deep in the Protection tree for 2 ranks at 5/10%.

Poor Rets, poor my mana bar QQ

Edit: Poor low level tankadins =p

 

[Chris R]

Hey hey, that's not fair. They were at least lvl 45 blues.



I can't believe how much my old guild farmed freaking Mauradon for resist items just to beat Huhuran.

I was the BEST at getting NR gear. I even helped other people farm Mara for their gear, as well as crafted the epics that were available. Was a pretty cool fight, even if something like it now could never work (because you can't force resistance fights now).

 

[gottalovetheglove]

Oh hey, 3.1 has started pre-loading already. I guess most of the Ulduar model/texture data is final along with the weapon and armor models/textures, which is probably the majority of the content of this.

 

[firex]

If they're going to make SA into a deep prot talent, then make it stronger than it is now. whenever I do stuff that my gear trivializes (like virtually every heroic) SA doesn't give me near enough mana, so I have mana problems.

 

[Chris R]

3.1 as a mage will be a total laugh. Pointless "buffs" (because they aren't really buffs) and lots of nerfs, as well as more promises of future buffs that will never come (lol spirit and more dps).

Kinda glad I'm leveling my alts instead of slaving away on my mage.

 

[Angry Grimace]

3.1 as a mage will be a total laugh. Pointless "buffs" (because they aren't really buffs) and lots of nerfs, as well as more promises of future buffs that will never come (lol spirit and more dps).

Kinda glad I'm leveling my alts instead of slaving away on my mage.

Mage does retarded amounts of damage.

 

[etiolate]

There are four classes that are worth pvping as right now. Otherwise, just don't bother. You roll rogue, ret, dk or hunter, or you roll healer and follow one of those around. Now that arcane mage has been nerfed, it is all physical damage eating everything alive.

And for all the nerfs and the issues with DK, ret is still the strongest. Even if you focus fire them, its just bubble and reset. You can at least burn through a DKs cooldowns while they are up.

 

[pxleyes]

Mage does retarded amounts of damage.

Lowest pure DPS in 3.1, so no.

 

[vumpler]

Lowest pure DPS in 3.1, so no.

No more glass cannon eh? More like a glass water gun

 

[Tamanon]

It really is weird to play as a mage, even our utility spell Polymorph isn't used any more since everything's AOE now. Outside of a damage boost, I can't see how they can fix it, even the replenishment they added to mages is only for Frost Mages, and we're the lowest dps so nobody really uses them in the endgame.

 

[Kyoufu]

Counting down the days til when they remove and drastically revamp PVP because right now its just a penis slapping contest for DKs and Paladins.

 

[vumpler]

Counting down the days til when they remove and drastically revamp PVP because right now its just a penis slapping contest for DKs and Paladins.

True, I'm an enhancement shammy and unless I walk up on a clothie I don't have a chance. Kinda sucks so I generally only play AV or Eye of Storm because at least then I can run the flag like a mad man :lol Spirit wolves with 2 15 sec sprints FTW

 

[pxleyes]

It really is weird to play as a mage, even our utility spell Polymorph isn't used any more since everything's AOE now. Outside of a damage boost, I can't see how they can fix it, even the replenishment they added to mages is only for Frost Mages, and we're the lowest dps so nobody really uses them in the endgame.

Decurse more motherfucka!

 

[Kyoufu]

Woops, I meant remove arena. That is basically part of the pvp problem right now.

And yeah those wolves are pretty nice.

 

[Lain]

I got the ZG tiger mount the other day and it is so beautiful with my belf on top of it =p

 

[flsh]

Lowest pure DPS in 3.1, so no.

When was that EVER the case?
3 weeks before 3 released "oh no, look at this parse! weakest damage, even hybrids deal more". Come 3, mages at top 2.

Mages deal a lot of damage, but they scale in a way that is far more balanced than other classes so before balancing you'll see a lock deal too much dps. Mages gain nothing from spirit, because they deal that amount of damage without the need for it. Once you give mages spirit scaling, you take away something else so it'll be the same.
The only problem mages have now is the nerf to crit debuff, which isn't all that bad. True, saying that 10% debuff is too strong is common sense, but that's the only thing we give. Locks can now give - slight SP buff, CoE (ranging from amazing to very good on boss fights), 5% crit, mana replenishment - all depending on the spec. What we can do - spec out of improved scorch, put living bomb glyph on and not cast scorch.
From casting fireball/frostfire bolt you gain some dps back. From LB critting (right now affected from 4 tier 7 bonus and meta gem, nothing else though and doesn't give pyro) you gain some more back. Also, we scale quite well with spell power.
We will be fine. I think blizz doesn't want another TBC for mages and the lesson about casters is learned.

The huge amount of spirit on 3.1 gear is annoying and there are definitely ways to make spirit useful to mages. Converting spirit to spell power/critical strike chance/haste will only mean they will make sure we get the same dps but we now need to worry about spirit. They said they wont do it, and if they do it'll be a lie since it wont buff us, just get us to the same place with more competition against priests/warlocks/druids.
Just make spirit give threat reduction, as 3 lucky streaks can be game ending for us if we are buffed properly. Other than that, frost is shit and arcane is mana starved, so one is meaningless about spirit and the other will need it to keep dpsing.

On PVP, delete arena or give mages insane survivability. It seems the only 2 classes balanced properly are rogues and mages, and the moment another class is stacked with anti rogue/mage tricks, we are fucked. Frost mages vs muti/ShS rogues is a beautiful fight, others are usually burst race/healing race.

 

[Tamanon]

Also, frostfire mages are going to take a hit if the Rune of Razorice change goes through for DKs(makes it only affect their own frost damage)

 

[Chris R]

Also, frostfire mages are going to take a hit if the Rune of Razorice change goes through for DKs(makes it only affect their own frost damage)

There won't be any FFB mages in 3.1 so you don't have to worry about it. Arcane will be the only spec worth it in PvE. Fire will be a leveling spec and nothing else come 3.1. Frost will still be the PvP spec, and Arcane will be the PvE spec.

Took a break today from leveling alts and did some naxx25 on my mage. I was top DPS mage as FFB, but that was only on two bosses (Heigan/Loatheb). Two other mages were Arcane and 200/300 dps behind me. I was barely in the top 5 dps though, behind a warrior, two dks and a shaman (not saying my gear is great though). Would have loved to win the cloak from Heigan or the shoulders from Loatheb, but the lowest dps mage won them both

 

[Cipherr]

Mage does retarded amounts of damage.

Mages arent looking good at all in 3.1 actually. These dps specs of each class seem to be built oh so fragile. Change a few small things and you could overpower them to hell, or completely knock down the house of cards. Feral druids are RIDICULOUS dps in 3.1 right now. Unless they change something people are going to shit their pants when they see what a well played feral druid does.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

Still have anywhere from 3-5 weeks before 3.1 so I can't imagine where this discussion is going.

 

[thatbox]

I got the ZG tiger mount the other day and it is so beautiful with my belf on top of it =p

I've been farming for this lately. I can solo Raptor boss on my Holy paladin quite easily, but I don't have the DPS or interrupts for Tiger boss. I've teamed up with a friend with fishing, so now we knock out Raptor, Tiger and Tome of Polymorph: Turtle boss every ZG reset. So far all we've gotten is one Tome of Polymorph.

Along the same lines, a couple of friends and I have been working on a sort of old content progression. We 4-manned Magtheridon and are making progress on a 5-man Gruul kill (it's not Gruul who's the problem, it's High King Maulgar). I know we could make progress into AQ40 if we could just kill the first boss, but when he Mind Controls us we always one or two shot each other. We've been taking turns trying to solo him, and I have a new tactic I'm ready to try next time. Does anyone else enjoy doing stuff like this?

It's like actual progression in new content, something that's lacking in WotLK. Figuring out how to do Mag was awesome. The way we did it is as follows:
-Paladin tank tanks everything in one corner of the room, including all of the channelers and infernals.
-When Mag pops, the paladin quickly picks him up as well.
-We have a DK pick out the channelers from the pack one by one and drag them to the other side of the chamber, where he burns them down along with a mage. They have to be separated from each other, otherwise they heal one another.
-I stand in the middle of the room and heal the fuck out of everything. The Blast Nova is trivial at 80, so we don't even worry about somehow trying to click cubes. If there are any loose infernals giving me trouble, I fear them, but usually they aren't an issue.
-Once the channelers are down, everyone DPSes Mag. You have to kill the channelers or infernals continue to spawn, until it's too much to heal through.

 

[sprsk]

So I just switched from frost to arcane and I'm quite confused.

Why the fuck would anyone be something other than arcane?!

 

[LAUGHTREY]

So I just switched from frost to arcane and I'm quite confused.

Why the fuck would anyone be something other than arcane?!

Eats up a lot of mana on boss fights right? You go OOM all the time.

 

[Cipherr]

So I just switched from frost to arcane and I'm quite confused.

Why the fuck would anyone be something other than arcane?!

Wow you play WoW? No idea why Id never noticed you in the thread before. Anyway I think its because of the mana consumption like someone else mentioned. Not likely a problem today with the ridiculous amount of mana regen floating about and 2.5 minute boss fights. But I imagine things will be different afterwards.

The more I think about this the more I'm starting to feel like mages got royally shafted. Its sometimes tough to see things from the perspective of a class that isn't your main, but I do have an 80 mage (havent played him since getting him epic;d up for Naxx and he was FFB specced) but I'm starting to get the feeling that losing a flat 5% crit and losing a crapton of mana regen right off the top could really cripple the class. Unfortunately with my mage in a couple of pieces of 10man T7 and heroic epics I cant exactly copy over and test dps.

I could, but without BiS gear it would be pretty meaningless. I ran him through 10m Naxx one time. And I remember being frustrated that FFB was so RNG focused that you could be through the roof on one fight and do terrible dps the next. The rotation was simple, but without 25 man raid buffs you really felt the pain of Evo having a long cooldown. Made me realize the blessing that Aspect of the Viper is. Sure it halves damage, but If the boss is at 20% I can viper on command and get back ONLY the mana that I need and switch back to hawk and it has no cooldown. Not the case with evo, once the mana stone is used, pot is used and you have evo left you need to find a time to use it for the full duration, because if you cut it short a few ticks and you undershoot how much mana you need, you would be wanding....

Not my style of play at all. Hated it, really only leveled him for an alt to mine with and make my bullets via engineering any so meh.

 

[LAUGHTREY]

Wow you play WoW? No idea why Id never noticed you in the thread before. Anyway I think its because of the mana consumption like someone else mentioned. Not likely a problem today with the ridiculous amount of mana regen floating about and 2.5 minute boss fights. But I imagine things will be different afterwards.

The more I think about this the more I'm starting to feel like mages got royally shafted. Its sometimes tough to see things from the perspective of a class that isn't your main, but I do have an 80 mage (havent played him since getting him epic;d up for Naxx and he was FFB specced) but I'm starting to get the feeling that losing a flat 5% crit and losing a crapton of mana regen right off the top could really cripple the class. Unfortunately with my mage in a couple of pieces of 10man T7 and heroic epics I cant exactly copy over and test dps.

I could, but without BiS gear it would be pretty meaningless. I ran him through 10m Naxx one time. And I remember being frustrated that FFB was so RNG focused that you could be through the roof on one fight and do terrible dps the next. The rotation was simple, but without 25 man raid buffs you really felt the pain of Evo having a long cooldown. Made me realize the blessing that Aspect of the Viper is. Sure it halves damage, but If the boss is at 20% I can viper on command and get back ONLY the mana that I need and switch back to hawk and it has no cooldown. Not the case with evo, once the mana stone is used, pot is used and you have evo left you need to find a time to use it for the full duration, because if you cut it short a few ticks and you undershoot how much mana you need, you would be wanding....

Not my style of play at all. Hated it, really only leveled him for an alt to mine with and make my bullets via engineering any so meh.

Most raid bosses last longer than that, only extremely well geared groups do most naxx 25 bosses in less than 6-7 minutes.


One of our Mages tried Arcane for a bit and he did just the same amount of DPS as his Fire spec, but he was running out of mana a lot faster. He was wondering if a mage in +MP5 gear arcane spec would be the best way to go.

 

[firex]

It sounds like in 3.1 that arcane could be really good, although I wonder if they are trying to make Mage Armor better via also improving Arcane Meditation. If those stack then you would always be getting oofsr regen, plus if they're making spirit worthwhile to them in other ways, then mana would be pretty easy to regen.

although I wonder if that's actually a net dps loss over using Molten Armor instead.

as for me I guess my 2 80s will be paladin/shaman. I'd kind of like to get my hunter up there (especially since my shaman has engineering, so I can make him the nesingwary 4000 so he'll have a good weapon right at 80, and my pally has JC, so my alts always have good rings/necks/best gems in every socket) but I don't like playing BM spec, even for soloing, and that makes leveling as marks/survival really annoying when I pull aggro from my pet all the time. maybe if they unnerfed growl I'd like it better.

edit: nm, they already nerfed that arcane med. I was looking at an older 3.1 build I guess, because it used to be like 70% mana regen when maxed.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

thinking of rolling a new char

currently I have a 60 priest and a 73 lock to show for my november 04 till now career in wow... :lol



was thinking of a huntard, any advice about not being a huntard? I can mange pets well enough I guess having leveled a lock (altho i usually just have my imp shifted as a mana battery).

im thinking dwarf

and mining skinning

 

[firex]

well, at least dwarves are one half of the two redeemable alliance races along with gnomes. but I'd say to take something different. maybe try a melee class instead. part of the problem for me with playing a hunter is it feels a lot like playing a caster, but with a tank pet and less spell spamming. maybe survival's rotation is more complex so you're always using abilities, but in my experience a leveling hunter essentially does the following:
mark target
send in pet
serpent sting
auto shot/arcane shot on cooldown

then later on you maybe add in steady shot when you get it.

 

[Kyoufu]

So I just switched from frost to arcane and I'm quite confused.

Why the fuck would anyone be something other than arcane?!

I'm assuming you're 60+ now? If so then yeah, Arcane Barrage, Arcane Blast and Missile Barrage = sex.

Frost is just for AoE grinding and PvP. A good frost mage in PvP is pretty deadly. Arcane mage is ez mode though since you just spam a few instant spells and get kills.

 

[Tamanon]

thinking of rolling a new char

currently I have a 60 priest and a 73 lock to show for my november 04 till now career in wow... :lol



was thinking of a huntard, any advice about not being a huntard? I can mange pets well enough I guess having leveled a lock (altho i usually just have my imp shifted as a mana battery).

im thinking dwarf

and mining skinning

Being a hunter is pretty simple early on, it's just about pet management(easy) and establishing an effective shot rotation. Once you pick your spec, they each have a specific rotation. There's no more trapping in dungeons really:/

The other option is to just go to the dark side and roll a Death Knight

 

[Scum]

I'm thinking of starting another character too. I'm trying all I can to kit up my Warlock I've had for more than 4 yrs! :lol

A melee character sounds good, but I have no idea. Are Death Knights good fun?

 

[keeblerdrow]

You'll have a hard time separating yourself from the sea of other Death Knights, at this point. The same can be said for Paladins, though not to the same degree. I've found that Rogues are in shorter supply than they were pre-WotLK and Warriors didn't see as much of a drop off thanks to the TG added value.

I have a DK and a Paladin, I play the Paladin a lot more because it's just plain hard to get groups for the DK whereas the Paladin petitioning for the exact same role is welcomed with open arms.

 

[Scum]

I might give a Paladin or Warrior a go then. See how things pan out...

 

[colinp]

well, at least dwarves are one half of the two redeemable alliance races along with gnomes. but I'd say to take something different. maybe try a melee class instead. part of the problem for me with playing a hunter is it feels a lot like playing a caster, but with a tank pet and less spell spamming. maybe survival's rotation is more complex so you're always using abilities, but in my experience a leveling hunter essentially does the following:
mark target
send in pet
serpent sting
auto shot/arcane shot on cooldown

then later on you maybe add in steady shot when you get it.

Is a melee classes rotation really that much more complex?

 

[firex]

paladins don't have one and warriors have to manage their rage, so... yes? plus, they actually take damage.

 

[colinp]

paladins don't have one and warriors have to manage their rage, so... yes? plus, they actually take damage.

I was asking a genuine question because, being a complete wow noob, I am not sure how any of the classes play in relation to each other. So a paladin would:

mark target
auto attack
cast spell
cast heal

I guess I was hoping for more elaboration on what it is like to play melee.

 

[firex]

oh, my bad.
paladins really don't have a rotation though for dps. they just run in and use whatever's not on cooldown. warriors are kind of similar but it's more like they do a bunch of auto attack damage and then use instants whenever.
I don't know about rogues, but as far as I know they've gone beyond the old sinister strike -> eviscerate spam, though maybe not for soloing. enhance shamans have a pretty simple rotation, but it varies depending upon when they get 5 stacks of maelstrom weapon.

as a low level, though, probably the one with the most melee abilities is the warrior. you'll at the very least use heroic strike, and probably also rend, and overpower when it procs, and possibly other skills.

the thing is, even with my hunter at 61 as marksman spec, I basically do the following:
mark target
send pet in, let it taunt once or twice
serpent sting
autoshot/steady shot mix
chimera shot

the only time this really changes up is if I'm low on mana, and fighting a caster mob, and then it's wyvern sting -> chimera shot.

 

[colinp]

Yeah that's interesting, thanks. I think I might try making a melee, not sure what class just yet though.

 

[Cipherr]

then it's wyvern sting -> chimera shot.

Wat.



Yay got the frosted androit gauntlets tonight for my hunter, and now I'm way over the hitcap and need another Journeys end to drop badly so I can ditch the black Ice. Ive stripped all hit gems and replaced them, gotten rid of Icewalker and I'm still 30 over. Its getting bad now that Im just a few slots away from having the full BiS set.