WoD Concerns

My main concern from the revealed WoD information is the quality of life for my army of alts. Specifically, flying or lack thereof. I was disappointed with the direction taken in MoP, where the only way to get flight in the expansion was to get to max level. Having played since the start of Burning Crusade, I've seen every expansion's original take on flight. I think that the best use of flying was done by the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Being landlocked for the majority of the expansion (until reaching level 77), allowed for zones to be tailored for ground mount only quests and a mix of ground and flight-only accessible areas. In patch 3.2, max level players could enable flight for their alts. Being able to fly on alts right away (well, after getting your main to max) was such a wonderful thing. Gone was the drudgery of slogging through the same mobs to reach quest or running cross country to get flight points. Leveling time was reduced, and allowed altaholics like me to be able to swap in another character as a main if the raid composition needed it. It also dropped the initial flying in Burning Crusade down to level 60, another quality of life plus for leveling through outdated content.

Cataclysm expanded on this by dropping the requirement for purchasing a tome for alts and allowing them to just train at 68. The addition of old world flying from the start just made sense to those of us that loved flying. Then came MoP, and everything changed...

In a move back to the original Burning Crusade model, nobody could fly until reaching max level. What a slap in the face. Here we are, at the end of the expansion, with no flying for under-90 alts and an uncertain future in the new expansion. I have 14 level 90 characters. After the first few, leveling gets boring. Tedious. Fun-sucking. The five characters I'm currently leveling in Pandaland are following the same path now:

• Arrive at Pandaria, do the canned quests
• Run down to the Jinyu area and get any needed gear upgrades and the flightpoint
• Fly back to the starting area and run to Halfhill
• Work on the farm and LFD until 87
• Run to the Temple and get the quest to open up the valley
• Run to and through the valley, make a home at the temple, talk to factions to open up rep
• Fly back to the farm and LFD until 90

Not having flight keeps me from going out in the world. When I had flight in the previous expansions, I traveled all around, questing, gathering, exploring. Not happening in MoP. Not happening in WoD either, if the same conditions apply to flight.

What happened to April?

I can't believe that it is already May. On the raiding front, we got another Gary kill and are 1/14 heroic with a Norushen kill. The bane of my existence, Children's Week, is upon us and I am still boycotting the School of Hard Knocks meta. Unless Blizz decides to drop it from the Long Strange Trip requirements, I will most likely never see the mount reward. Such is life.

The MoP leveling dungeon runs have been hit or miss; I have run quite a few with no issues. There have been a few that were difficult. I always cringe when I get the Shadow-Pan Monastery. The first half of the run always seems to go fine, and then starts to fall apart after the second boss. On my last run the group fell apart after two wipes on the trash mobs on the way to the Sha. I sat in the queue as the only remaining member of the party for about twenty minutes. When a new group finally reformed, we made it through to the end with no issues.

I finally reached exalted with the August Celestials on my tailor, and was able to make a few bags to sell. The bags still sell for a lot of gold on this server, and it was a much needed boost to my coffers. About half of the second team alts have reached max level on their professions, and I should be able to use them to feed my main characters raiding expenses and boost the rest of the professions on the others.

Original 11x90 server	"new" team
Hunter  90	Death Knight 90
Rogue 90	Hunter 90
Mage 90	Rogue 88
Druid 90	Mage90
Warlock 90	Druid 90
Priest 90	Warlock 87
Warrior 90	Priest 86
Paladin 90	Warrior 57
Shaman 90	Paladin 86
Monk 90	Shaman 86
Death Knight 67	Monk 86

Sometimes the Past Repeats Itself

Not unlike our Lei Shen kill, we spent the first raid night wiping to Garrosh again. On our second night, we one-shot him. It was poetry in motion. Nobody died to standing in bad, mechanics were handled, and massive DPS was, well, DPS'd. Obligatory screenshot was taken, and there was much rejoicing. The only downside was that our long-time mage wasn't with us for the kill. There will be other kills though, and we can start working on heroics now. Now that the pressure is off, we are going to kick back a bit. Our raid leader is doing the CTR podcast on our first raid night, and we will do a fresh run on normal to shake the rust off those earlier bosses on the second night, and perhaps do some achievements.

Big Damn Heroes

 I added another 90 to my group, hitting max level on my hunter. I was running what I hoped would be my last time in Siege of Niuzao Temple, and we were having a rough time. The tank was a little too under geared and inexperienced. Not even halfway through the Commander Vo'jak fight, and the battle-res was used and the tank down again. At around 50%, it was only me and the healer. With my pet on growl, I dropped down to the lower level. He killed my pet and made a beeline (pun intended) for me. I feigned death just as he got to me, and he turned back towards the healer. I quickly revived my pet and pulled him off the healer. Lather, rinse, repeat until he dropped. It felt like old times, back when my main was a hunter.

The tank and the healer eventually dropped after multiple wipes on General Pa'valak. I knew we were in real trouble when he was pulled with the adds in the middle still up. There would be no heroic come from behind victory with this boss. I was only able to feign death and wait for the rest of the group to corpse walk back to the instance. I did eventually hit 90 on this boss, and finished the run wearing the two timeless items in my pack. After the run, I got the rest of the gear out of storage and had 496 gear in every slot except neck, one trinket, and weapon.

I still have my notes from the recent RAF experience, and will most likely write up a little guide. I may also write up some basic leveling guides as well, since they seem to be few and far between as Stubborn noted.

Original 11x90 server	"new" team
Hunter  90	Death Knight 90
Rogue 90	Hunter 90
Mage 90	Rogue 87
Druid 90	Mage 88
Warlock 90	Druid 90
Priest 90	Warlock 86
Warrior 90	Priest 86
Paladin 90	Warrior 56
Shaman 90	Paladin 86
Monk 90	Shaman 86
Death Knight 65	Monk 86

 

Busy Busy Busy

Still raiding and still 13/14, with an 8% wipe in the final phase. It's been tough as we've had some churn in our raid team. We still seem to be perpetually short a healer, and hit or miss on a replacement DPS.

I was able to boost all but one character to 85 with the RAF bonus, and recently added another 90 to my growing collection. Most of the leveling was done in pugs, with some questing to bring in some gold. The majority of the pugs were uneventful, with some minor exceptions.

For some reason, Shado-Pan Monastery seems to be a headache most of the time. Either an overzealous tank will pull too many sha after the first boss, people face-pull adds on the run to the last boss, or DPS ignore the mechanics of the final boss.

When I finally hit 90 on my druid, I was able to get him decked out in a full set of timeless gear and a 484 BOA weapon. I was just under the ilevel for the latest LFR, so I queued for Thorne of Thunder. The first boss when down without issues, and then the fun started.

After the first wipe on Horridon, both tanks dropped along with half the raid. The wipe was mainly caused by  the tanks not talking and leaving the adds to run free. There were few DPS with me on the adds as well. The second wipe happened because one of the tanks dropped group after the pull. Asshole. Wipe three was all about add management, again. Most of the group dropped at that point, and I think I was one of only two people from the original group at that point.

With twenty new people, the rest of the run when smoothly. No loot for me, so off to the next wing. Tortos went down quickly, even though someone pulled the boss before the last group of adds were down. I saw a ranged attack hit him, but couldn't tell which idiot did it. The run to Mags was PULL ALL THE THINGS! Boss down. PULL ALL THE THINGS AGAIN!! Boss down, no wipes. Alas, no loot.

Original 11x90 server	"new" team
Hunter  90	Death Knight 90
Rogue 90	Hunter 88
Mage 90	Rogue 86
Druid 90	Mage 87
Warlock 90	Druid 90
Priest 90	Warlock 86
Warrior 90	Priest 85
Paladin 90	Warrior 56
Shaman 90	Paladin 86
Monk 90	Shaman 86
Death Knight 65	Monk 86

Last Pull of the Night and...

13 of 14 down!

Quick Update

We are now 12 of 14, with our first Blackfuse kill last night!

There and Back, Again

Here it is, at the end of the year, when I finally get back to my long neglected blog. I have finally figured out a workaround which will enable me to post again. A lot has happened since my last entry, both in and out of game. Since this is just a gaming blog, we’ll stick with WoW news.

When I last posted, my raid group had two more lockouts to try and down the final boss of ToT before the new patch. Our main tank was unavailable for the first night, but we were able to get a sub from our mega-guild that had downed the boss previously. The night was just one wipe after another. Our normal tank was back on the next night, and we got him on our first attempt. Our “casual” raid team was “Ahead of the Curve” at last!

We’ve been raiding on pretty much our normal schedule, even though we are now two healers short of a full time team. We are, however, 11 of 14 in the new raid.

My 11x90 is finally complete! I finished up my Monk last week, and with the Timeless Isle drops most of the characters can get into the latest LFR. The few that can’t are only about 10 ilevels from being able to queue for it.

I decided to take advantage of the current sale and start up a multi-boxing group again. I did this for two reasons – one is to get the latest recruit a friend mount, and the other is to boost the “new” 11x90 team. I miss having access to my own ‘personal guild’ of max level characters on my raiding main. I’ll post a guide for boosting teams soon – I’ve been taking notes this time. Things have changed since the last time I did this, and figuring out the optimal route is a fun pastime for me.

Original 11x90 server	"new" team
Hunter  90	Death Knight 90
Rogue 90	Hunter 55
Mage 90	Rogue 42
Druid 90	Mage 42
Warlock 90	Druid 70
Priest 90	Warlock 40
Warrior 90	Priest 33
Paladin 90	Warrior 18
Shaman 90	Paladin 16
Monk 90	Shaman 24
Death Knight 65	Monk 21