I started my revised schedule this week by going into LFR on my Druid. While waiting for the queue, I started running Golden Lotus and Shieldwall daily quests. The first half of MV went without a hitch. I had enough Valor to pick up a ring from the Golden Lotus quartermaster. I now had a high enough item level to queue for the entire LFR. The second half of MV didn't go very well. The boss wasn't too terrible, even though one of the tanks rushed in and was one-shot. We still managed to pull off a victory without wiping. Elegon proved a little tougher. On the first pull we had a few DPS fall down the hole. I wasn't expecting a tank to fall though. Same tank that had gotten one-shot previously. After another wipe where neither tank paid any attention to the adds, we somehow managed to down the boss. I had a feeling that there was no way we were going to down the final boss. After several wipes, it was getting late and I dropped group. If the tanks can't do the dance and the DPS won't kill the adds, it is just a waste of time.
I moved on to HoF the next day. The first half went quite well, and I picked up a new set of bracers from the second boss. I queued up for the second half and was met with disappointment. The group could not get past the second boss. It was getting late and I was getting tired. I logged for the night.
Last night was "interesting". I went back into the second half of Hof and we one-shot all of the bosses and I picked up the leg armor token. I went into Terrace and ran into the first real asshat of the week. I'm used to groups pulling both Sha on one side at the same time to save time, but this is the first time I've seen three being pulled. After the wipe, the bear tank was complaining about the healing and linked the healing meters. They were low, but I died before the tank due to lack of threat generated. I didn't pull threat, he just didn't have any. After the wipe, the tanks pull big again before everyone is buffed and knowing that healing is a bit low. We wipe again. The bear tank complains again about the healing done, linking the healing meters and going on about how he is a better healer. On the first boss, he actually changed over to his healing spec and healed the fight instead of tanking it. Enough people were sick of his antics and we finally kicked him.
The rest of the run went fairly smooth. We killed the next boss, and my Sha-touched staff dropped. On my first kill. Without using a bonus roll. I couldn't believe it. I have thirteen attempts on my Death Knight with no luck. First time through on my Druid and it drops. Go figure. After the raid, I queue for a scenario and heroic to get closer to the valor cap. The scenario was a long one, and I was fading fast. The heroic popped up, and it was one I haven't done yet - the first part of the new Scarlet dungeon. This tank didn't have a clue either, and we wiped when he pulled everything. I dropped group and called it a night. I'm very close to capping valor, and should have it done early enough to make attempt fourteen on my Death Knight tonight.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
There IS Loot in LFR
It's been a busy few weeks. The LFR gods have smiled upon my hunter and I not only have my Sha-touched boomstick, but I am also sporting four tier items. The Sha-touched sword for my Death Knight still eludes me, although Elegon did cough up Starshatter for me (but only the LFR version). We had an excellent raid this weekend, one-shotting all of MV and the first two bosses in HoF on the first night! We even had time to do a few pulls of Garalon. We made some quality progression on Garalon during the second night, ending with the pheromone swaps starting to get a bit smoother and running into the enrage timer.
I'm going to have to do a little research and math to figure out the best way to earn Valor points, because this is the second week in a row that I've gone into raid night on my Death Knight after reaching the cap. The rescheduling to Sunday-Monday raiding, while better for me IRL, has thrown my in-game schedule askew.
I didn't get a lot of progress on my alts, with only my Warlock seeing any real time played. This was mainly due to farming up motes so I could make the BOA staff for my Druid. It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but the repetitive nature gave me some time to get used to my new gaming toy; I picked up a Nostromo N52 before the weekend. I'm still getting used to it and trying to come up with a keymap setting that will work for me, but this might be what it takes to get me to stop being a "clicker". If you are ever looking to farm motes of spirit on a low level character, the area over by Pearlfin Village is great. It is even better if you are still on the quest where you have a party of NPCs with you! As a Warlock, I could just sit myself at a crossroad where the mobs would spawn or pass through and hit Harvest Life, loot, and repeat. The only thing that slowed me up was my limited bag space!
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 90
Warlock 87
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 70
I'm going to have to do a little research and math to figure out the best way to earn Valor points, because this is the second week in a row that I've gone into raid night on my Death Knight after reaching the cap. The rescheduling to Sunday-Monday raiding, while better for me IRL, has thrown my in-game schedule askew.
I didn't get a lot of progress on my alts, with only my Warlock seeing any real time played. This was mainly due to farming up motes so I could make the BOA staff for my Druid. It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but the repetitive nature gave me some time to get used to my new gaming toy; I picked up a Nostromo N52 before the weekend. I'm still getting used to it and trying to come up with a keymap setting that will work for me, but this might be what it takes to get me to stop being a "clicker". If you are ever looking to farm motes of spirit on a low level character, the area over by Pearlfin Village is great. It is even better if you are still on the quest where you have a party of NPCs with you! As a Warlock, I could just sit myself at a crossroad where the mobs would spawn or pass through and hit Harvest Life, loot, and repeat. The only thing that slowed me up was my limited bag space!
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 90
Warlock 87
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 70
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Ding!
I reached 90 on my Druid last night, bringing my max level character count up to three. It also meant that now two of the three characters with gathering professions were at max level. My skinner/leatherworker will most likely be the next 90. After flying around a bit, enjoying having my wings "unclipped", I did the starter chain for the Golden Lotus daily quests and called it a night.
On the raiding front, I'm now 5/6 in MSV. After downing Elegon, we made a few attempts at the final boss(es). Towards the end of the night, I was getting pretty good at the tank dance. The only combo I had trouble with was the 360 AOE followed by a front cleave. That combo didn't come up too often, and I was able to avoid all the attacks with the exception of two of the aforementioned combos. I may change up my strategy there, and try to use the magnetic armor mechanic to close the gap quicker. We still had to pug a healer and a DPS for the raid, but one of our regular healers is going to be joining us next week which should help with our consistency on the fights.
On my "old" main, I'll be hitting revered with the Shadow-Pan and Shieldwall factions this week. This will open up a few more options for my other two 90s, as I loathe doing daily quests for factions that I can't get the "extra" rep. My lowbie Monk has been chugging along. I hit 68 and made my way to Northrend. Doing some of the starter quests while queuing for two pugs resulted in reaching 70, where he will set for a week or two regaining the rested xp bonus.
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 90
Warlock 86
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 70
On the raiding front, I'm now 5/6 in MSV. After downing Elegon, we made a few attempts at the final boss(es). Towards the end of the night, I was getting pretty good at the tank dance. The only combo I had trouble with was the 360 AOE followed by a front cleave. That combo didn't come up too often, and I was able to avoid all the attacks with the exception of two of the aforementioned combos. I may change up my strategy there, and try to use the magnetic armor mechanic to close the gap quicker. We still had to pug a healer and a DPS for the raid, but one of our regular healers is going to be joining us next week which should help with our consistency on the fights.
On my "old" main, I'll be hitting revered with the Shadow-Pan and Shieldwall factions this week. This will open up a few more options for my other two 90s, as I loathe doing daily quests for factions that I can't get the "extra" rep. My lowbie Monk has been chugging along. I hit 68 and made my way to Northrend. Doing some of the starter quests while queuing for two pugs resulted in reaching 70, where he will set for a week or two regaining the rested xp bonus.
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 90
Warlock 86
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 70
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Raiding Again
My guild was looking for another tank, and I have stepped into the role of second tank for our ten-man team. The only experience I had with tanking on my Death Knight was during WotLK where I tanked 5-man pugs. It took the beginning of the week to get my gear up to par. I got lucky in LFR and got the tokens for my chest and gloves, although I had previously bought those same slot items on the auction house. The LFR tier items were a wee bit better, and provided a set bonus as well. I have never tanked in a raid previously. We do, however, have a great team of folks and we made it through the first four bosses with a few wipes here and there. Our main tank did an excellent job tutoring me, and I was able to follow his guidance with few problems. We spent the second raid night wiping on Elegon, but the final attempt was a wipe at 11%. It was the best attempt of the night, and I think I finally got the hang of the dance towards the end. After the raid was over, I jumped into a PUG doing the Sha of Anger, and picked up a new boots for my tanking set.
I had the day off on Monday, so I was able run LFR on my Hunter. Doing all of the runs netted me a belt. Which I already had. At least I picked up some valor. I did finally reach exalted for the Golden Lotus, and almost honored with the August Celestials. I'm also sitting midway through honored with the Shadow-Pan, Operation:Shieldwall, and the Black Prince. While no longer technically my main, this will be the character I use for reaching exalted with various factions. I don't even bother with dailies on my alts if I haven't reached revered with this one first.
My Monk is now two levels away from leaving Outland. Spending a day doing the initial quests in the first zone and eleven PUGs (and the quests inside the dungeons) nearly took me through the whole expansion. My Druid was close to 89, so I did a few PUG runs Monday evening. All three were Shado-Pan Monastery, but the runs were as different as night and day. I ported into combat on the first run. It was only the initial pack of mobs, so I hadn’t missed anything. The tank seemed to know his way around, and used all the shortcuts that he could. I had to hold back a little on my DPS during any AOE phase, but that is to be expected since I have the Spear of Xuen. My AOE is incredible, pushing 150k at times. The second run was horrible. The tank could barely hold threat, even when I throttled my DPS. He died while engaging the first group of Sha. I popped into bear mode, and the healer managed to keep me alive. One of the other DPS died standing in the bad, but we survived. We had a wipe on the mobs just past the Sha boss, as nobody killed the orbs. I was the only one attacking them and it wasn’t enough. This foreshadowed the fail we had on the boss fight. With two ranged DPS, it was up to me to melee down the orbs. After the second wipe on the boss, I dropped group. There was no way to beat him if I was the only one working on the orbs. The third run went quickly. The group worked well together, and we had no issues.
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 89
Warlock 86
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 66
I had the day off on Monday, so I was able run LFR on my Hunter. Doing all of the runs netted me a belt. Which I already had. At least I picked up some valor. I did finally reach exalted for the Golden Lotus, and almost honored with the August Celestials. I'm also sitting midway through honored with the Shadow-Pan, Operation:Shieldwall, and the Black Prince. While no longer technically my main, this will be the character I use for reaching exalted with various factions. I don't even bother with dailies on my alts if I haven't reached revered with this one first.
My Monk is now two levels away from leaving Outland. Spending a day doing the initial quests in the first zone and eleven PUGs (and the quests inside the dungeons) nearly took me through the whole expansion. My Druid was close to 89, so I did a few PUG runs Monday evening. All three were Shado-Pan Monastery, but the runs were as different as night and day. I ported into combat on the first run. It was only the initial pack of mobs, so I hadn’t missed anything. The tank seemed to know his way around, and used all the shortcuts that he could. I had to hold back a little on my DPS during any AOE phase, but that is to be expected since I have the Spear of Xuen. My AOE is incredible, pushing 150k at times. The second run was horrible. The tank could barely hold threat, even when I throttled my DPS. He died while engaging the first group of Sha. I popped into bear mode, and the healer managed to keep me alive. One of the other DPS died standing in the bad, but we survived. We had a wipe on the mobs just past the Sha boss, as nobody killed the orbs. I was the only one attacking them and it wasn’t enough. This foreshadowed the fail we had on the boss fight. With two ranged DPS, it was up to me to melee down the orbs. After the second wipe on the boss, I dropped group. There was no way to beat him if I was the only one working on the orbs. The third run went quickly. The group worked well together, and we had no issues.
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 87
Druid 89
Warlock 86
Warrior 86
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 66
Monday, January 7, 2013
A new year begins...
Prior to the holidays, my WoW time was mainly logging on to each character that was parked on the farm and harvesting the day's crop. I managed to get all of my Alliance toons, save my Monk, over to Halfhill and set up with a little four plot farm. My two 90s (Hunter and Death Knight) had the full farm. I had actively worked on getting the farm on my Hunter, but my DK reached exalted with the Tillers almost exclusively through farming. If I had time, I would do the Klaxxi daily quests on my Death Knight. When I finally reached revered and was able to buy the rep boost, I started playing on my Hunter again. The difference is amazing. I was dreading doing the rep game across my alts, but after running through the quests that led up to the Klaxxi dailys I was already at revered. I hit exalted so quickly that I was able to spend time getting my main to revered with the Golden Lotus, which is starting to open up more daily quests. I even started checking out that Operation Shieldwall thing.
All of my farmers working tirelessly provided me with enough cooking mats to finish leveling my cooking skills. Now that that is complete, it's all about using the crops to generate tokens. With my two 90s planting enigma seeds and the others planting the daily crop, my production line is working smoothly. I was originally using my DK to farm motes, which I used to make living steel. The market was always hit or miss, but I did make some profit. With so many gems and golden lotus in stock, I started making primal diamonds. Because I had been running my jewelcrafter though several pugs, I had a slew of cuts. They were selling like crazy.
With my new bankroll, I treated my main to a nice crafted chest off the auction house. With that purchase, and the VP legs from the Klaxxi, I was able to queue for the first raid. It went quite well, with only one or two wipes. I picked up a nice set of bracers from the first boss, and got the bow off the last boss with a bonus roll.
I went back to the auction house and turned some of the jewel profit into mats for my scribe. I had been creating scrolls every day, and used them to craft darkmoon cards. I ended up with three complete decks, and some doubles. I sent one deck to my Hunter, and put the other two up for sale. I saw a nice upgrade for my Hunter's green gloves which bumped my item level to 469, just shy of the next raid. I had actually capped my valor, leaving my just short of upgrading one of my epics to put me at 470. I'll just have to wait until next week.
I had shied away from pug runs with my Monk, and stuck to questing after the last few horrid runs. I hit 58 last night, and I will have to manually select Ramparts for my pugs for fear of getting one of the older dungeons using the random setting. Off to Outland I go!
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 86
Druid 88
Warlock 85
Warrior 85
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 58
All of my farmers working tirelessly provided me with enough cooking mats to finish leveling my cooking skills. Now that that is complete, it's all about using the crops to generate tokens. With my two 90s planting enigma seeds and the others planting the daily crop, my production line is working smoothly. I was originally using my DK to farm motes, which I used to make living steel. The market was always hit or miss, but I did make some profit. With so many gems and golden lotus in stock, I started making primal diamonds. Because I had been running my jewelcrafter though several pugs, I had a slew of cuts. They were selling like crazy.
With my new bankroll, I treated my main to a nice crafted chest off the auction house. With that purchase, and the VP legs from the Klaxxi, I was able to queue for the first raid. It went quite well, with only one or two wipes. I picked up a nice set of bracers from the first boss, and got the bow off the last boss with a bonus roll.
I went back to the auction house and turned some of the jewel profit into mats for my scribe. I had been creating scrolls every day, and used them to craft darkmoon cards. I ended up with three complete decks, and some doubles. I sent one deck to my Hunter, and put the other two up for sale. I saw a nice upgrade for my Hunter's green gloves which bumped my item level to 469, just shy of the next raid. I had actually capped my valor, leaving my just short of upgrading one of my epics to put me at 470. I'll just have to wait until next week.
I had shied away from pug runs with my Monk, and stuck to questing after the last few horrid runs. I hit 58 last night, and I will have to manually select Ramparts for my pugs for fear of getting one of the older dungeons using the random setting. Off to Outland I go!
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 87
Priest 85
Mage 86
Druid 88
Warlock 85
Warrior 85
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 58
Friday, November 23, 2012
It's been how long already?
After almost two months, I've barely put a dent in the expansion's new content. I did manage to get my main and another character to 90, but my play style has changed a bit since leaving my regular raiding schedule. Since I didn't have any pressure to "improve" my character, I've been able to pick and choose what I want to do rather than what I "need" to do. I wanted a cloud serpent, so I worked on reaching exalted with that group. I wanted to max out my farm, so I also worked on the Tillers. So far, they are the only two groups that I have worked on. With both of them at exalted, I may move on to the Anglers and Lorewalkers. I'm up to honored with the Klaxxi on my other 90, and once I hit revered I will work on another rep that I don't have on my main. I'm not going to bother with the same rep across characters until 5.1 comes out with the rep boost mechanic - there's just no reason to burn out repeating the same daily quests across all my characters.
Most of my main professions are at or near max across all of my characters, although most of them haven't even set foot in Pandaria yet. In two more months, I may have two more level 90 characters or perhaps a few more level 86 ones. It just be a matter of what I want to do when I logon. I have run a total of 2 scenarios and one heroic on my 90s, so there's that to do yet. LFR hasn't even been on the radar. Oh, and pet battles too!
I'm very happy with the expansion. With more stuff to do than time to do it, I don't see running out of new things to try for quite some time.
My monk has reached the half-way point, mainly waiting for the weekend and playing until the rested XP boost is used up. I've been running pugs using the LFD tool, and that have been pretty good for the most part. The last run I did, however, wasn't as smooth as the rest. I zoned into a live-side Stratholme already in progress. I caught up to the group, and we proceeded to make our way to the canon boss. Somehow, the boss was pulled before the last trash pack was finished, and we ended up wiping on the never ending trash mobs that spawn.
This run had all the signs of a fail pug: joining in progress, wipe to bad pull/mechanics, dps that didn't release and run back, and now an argument between the tank and the healer. A vote kick on the healer came up, and didn't pass. I didn't vote to kick because I hadn't seen enough to make a call. The tank then proceeded to pull the boss and dropped group. So, Snookkums, that makes you the asshole. We managed to down the boss without a tank for most of the fight, keeping him by the cannons and using them to kill off the marksman when they spawned.
With our new tank, we proceeded to the next boss. The tank accidently pulled another group that wandered into the group we were fighting, and we wiped. The healer asked him not to pull such a large group rather rudely, and they started arguing. The healer and lazy DPS from before were still dead and going back and forth with the tank by the time we had released and ran back. I had finally had enough, let them know just what kind of idiots they were, and dropped group. I was almost to 45, so I did the cooking daily in Stormwind to level up. Sigh.
I am going to eventually have all my characters reach 90, but I'm not working on it in the same way as my 10x85 project. I'm just going to play what I want, when I want, and keep track for reference.
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Mage 86
Druid 85
Warlock 85
Warrior 85
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 45
Most of my main professions are at or near max across all of my characters, although most of them haven't even set foot in Pandaria yet. In two more months, I may have two more level 90 characters or perhaps a few more level 86 ones. It just be a matter of what I want to do when I logon. I have run a total of 2 scenarios and one heroic on my 90s, so there's that to do yet. LFR hasn't even been on the radar. Oh, and pet battles too!
I'm very happy with the expansion. With more stuff to do than time to do it, I don't see running out of new things to try for quite some time.
My monk has reached the half-way point, mainly waiting for the weekend and playing until the rested XP boost is used up. I've been running pugs using the LFD tool, and that have been pretty good for the most part. The last run I did, however, wasn't as smooth as the rest. I zoned into a live-side Stratholme already in progress. I caught up to the group, and we proceeded to make our way to the canon boss. Somehow, the boss was pulled before the last trash pack was finished, and we ended up wiping on the never ending trash mobs that spawn.
This run had all the signs of a fail pug: joining in progress, wipe to bad pull/mechanics, dps that didn't release and run back, and now an argument between the tank and the healer. A vote kick on the healer came up, and didn't pass. I didn't vote to kick because I hadn't seen enough to make a call. The tank then proceeded to pull the boss and dropped group. So, Snookkums, that makes you the asshole. We managed to down the boss without a tank for most of the fight, keeping him by the cannons and using them to kill off the marksman when they spawned.
With our new tank, we proceeded to the next boss. The tank accidently pulled another group that wandered into the group we were fighting, and we wiped. The healer asked him not to pull such a large group rather rudely, and they started arguing. The healer and lazy DPS from before were still dead and going back and forth with the tank by the time we had released and ran back. I had finally had enough, let them know just what kind of idiots they were, and dropped group. I was almost to 45, so I did the cooking daily in Stormwind to level up. Sigh.
I am going to eventually have all my characters reach 90, but I'm not working on it in the same way as my 10x85 project. I'm just going to play what I want, when I want, and keep track for reference.
11x90
Hunter 90
Death Knight 90
Rogue 85
Priest 85
Mage 86
Druid 85
Warlock 85
Warrior 85
Paladin 85
Shaman 85
Monk 45
Monday, September 24, 2012
Cataclysm in Review
With the launch of the new expansion tomorrow, it seems like a good time to look back on what I have been doing in this expansion. My usual posts are written up during my lunch break, but I haven't been able to get to them over the last month or so due to work.
I completed my 10x85 project, with all but one character getting through at least part of the LFR Dragon Soul raid. I managed to do some "real" raiding on my Hunter main, and even got the legendary first stage daggers on my rogue. The only character I haven't gotten up to raiding level is my Paladin. If I have a chance tonight, I will attempt to get hm geared up enough to at least give it a try.
I haven't logged onto my Warlock since the pre-expansion patch, and that is the only character that hasn't been through the Theramore scenario. I will do that first tonight, as that will be easiest to complete. The new scenario concept is interesting, with some pros and cons. On the plus side, they are fairly short and easy. When the queue is not horrible, it is a nice way to run group content. At the beginning of the week, the queue could be an hour or more. It was around five minutes later in the week. The objectives are spelled out for you with the rolling quest objective system introduced with Cataclysm. There are some "shortcuts" that can be taken by experienced players, but even going through all the trash only adds a few minutes to the run. As long as you don't over-pull, it can be completed without crowd control by three DPS without any healers. That would be the slowest, least efficient method so far although I haven't seen a group with three healers.
On the negative side, the biggest problem is what happens when someone drops out. As far as I can tell, there is no way to get another player like you would in a LFG/LFR run. You can either two-man it, or drop group and requeue. I was able to two-man the last two fights with another caster on my mage, but it was slow going. The demolisher was easy, but the final fight was a lot longer than usual. The other negative was not something specific to the scenario system, but rather the false expectation that this was somehow a pre-expansion event, or designed to take its place. There is no bread trail quest, nor anything in-game other than the queue interface. No lore, no backstory, no follow-up. It just feels like they dropped the ball on this one. I wasn't around for the Burning Crusade event, but I was there for the Wrath and Cataclysm events. It is disappointing that this is all there is.
For most of the last 30 days, I've been working on leveling my personal guild. With level appropriate quests giving 60K guild XP, I took advantage of the $5 sale and started multi-boxing again. I found the most efficient way to level my guild was to run through the human starting area; the quests are all close together and there is only one gathering quest. By the time the characters are headed to Goldshire, I had half a bar of guild XP. In the limited time I had available, I was able to gain several levels by three-boxing. Once I start running my regular alts through the new expansion, I should have no problem maxing out my personal guild.
I also changed up my computer layout a bit, and finally upgraded to a decent graphics card. I still have some rearranging to do, but everything is set for the new expansion. Well, almost everything. My work schedule isn't going to allow me to spend the first few days in Pandaria as I had hoped. In fact, the soonest I will be able to start will most likely be Thursday, if not later. The silver lining is that hopefully most of the people will be out of the starting zones. I didn't take part in the beta, nor have I read very much about the new zones. This is the part of the game I enjoy the most, exploring and taking in the new content. I won't be rushing things just to level, at least on the first few characters. By then I should be well on the way for my 11x90 project!
I completed my 10x85 project, with all but one character getting through at least part of the LFR Dragon Soul raid. I managed to do some "real" raiding on my Hunter main, and even got the legendary first stage daggers on my rogue. The only character I haven't gotten up to raiding level is my Paladin. If I have a chance tonight, I will attempt to get hm geared up enough to at least give it a try.
I haven't logged onto my Warlock since the pre-expansion patch, and that is the only character that hasn't been through the Theramore scenario. I will do that first tonight, as that will be easiest to complete. The new scenario concept is interesting, with some pros and cons. On the plus side, they are fairly short and easy. When the queue is not horrible, it is a nice way to run group content. At the beginning of the week, the queue could be an hour or more. It was around five minutes later in the week. The objectives are spelled out for you with the rolling quest objective system introduced with Cataclysm. There are some "shortcuts" that can be taken by experienced players, but even going through all the trash only adds a few minutes to the run. As long as you don't over-pull, it can be completed without crowd control by three DPS without any healers. That would be the slowest, least efficient method so far although I haven't seen a group with three healers.
On the negative side, the biggest problem is what happens when someone drops out. As far as I can tell, there is no way to get another player like you would in a LFG/LFR run. You can either two-man it, or drop group and requeue. I was able to two-man the last two fights with another caster on my mage, but it was slow going. The demolisher was easy, but the final fight was a lot longer than usual. The other negative was not something specific to the scenario system, but rather the false expectation that this was somehow a pre-expansion event, or designed to take its place. There is no bread trail quest, nor anything in-game other than the queue interface. No lore, no backstory, no follow-up. It just feels like they dropped the ball on this one. I wasn't around for the Burning Crusade event, but I was there for the Wrath and Cataclysm events. It is disappointing that this is all there is.
For most of the last 30 days, I've been working on leveling my personal guild. With level appropriate quests giving 60K guild XP, I took advantage of the $5 sale and started multi-boxing again. I found the most efficient way to level my guild was to run through the human starting area; the quests are all close together and there is only one gathering quest. By the time the characters are headed to Goldshire, I had half a bar of guild XP. In the limited time I had available, I was able to gain several levels by three-boxing. Once I start running my regular alts through the new expansion, I should have no problem maxing out my personal guild.
I also changed up my computer layout a bit, and finally upgraded to a decent graphics card. I still have some rearranging to do, but everything is set for the new expansion. Well, almost everything. My work schedule isn't going to allow me to spend the first few days in Pandaria as I had hoped. In fact, the soonest I will be able to start will most likely be Thursday, if not later. The silver lining is that hopefully most of the people will be out of the starting zones. I didn't take part in the beta, nor have I read very much about the new zones. This is the part of the game I enjoy the most, exploring and taking in the new content. I won't be rushing things just to level, at least on the first few characters. By then I should be well on the way for my 11x90 project!
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