World of Warcraft: Take 2

[Last Exile]

The other bonus is once you hit Exalted with the League of Arathor/The Defilers, you get an extra 400 honor for each win. So winning becomes an ever bigger bonus and helps make the grind shorter.

[Charizard04621]

The other bonus is once you hit Exalted with the League of Arathor/The Defilers, you get an extra 400 honor for each win. So winning becomes an ever bigger bonus and helps make the grind shorter.

Wait, you mean if you get Exalted with AB, you add 400 honor every time you experience a victory? This only counts for AB itself, right, not the other BGs?

[Last Exile]

Wait, you mean if you get Exalted with AB, you add 400 honor every time you experience a victory? This only counts for AB itself, right, not the other BGs?

Yes, it only applies for Arathi Basin. That is why EVERYONE shooting for Grand Marshla on Alliance and Horde are all inside Arathi Basin. It is the fastest way to rack up honor.

On that, I finally got back into the AB supergroup last night ffor 5 hours. A pile of victories and loads of honor to boot. Had three 2000-20 victories in that period.

AB rewards are okay for Druids. For Exalted, the cloak, Lizardhide Shoulders and Ironbark Staff are pretty decent. Of course, the Rank 12-14 gear is what PvP is all about really.

[Andrew]

In amusing times, I went to a net cafe that offers WOW. However when I tried to play it, I needed a password ect. Plus when generally browsing the net, their pcs crashed 4 times so I had to move. ALSO. Um... seeing some huge fat guy snoring in a swivel chair and drooling onto himself whilst his WOW character ran in circles was disturbing.

[Leon-IH]

Rank 12+ pvp gear is all very nice, however IMO theres some very nice attainable gear from Faction with Defilers/Warsong Outriders/Frostwolf Clan and lower pvp ranks.

Besides if your just playing for items - why play wow?

[FTorchicX]

In amusing times, I went to a net cafe that offers WOW. However when I tried to play it, I needed a password ect. Plus when generally browsing the net, their pcs crashed 4 times so I had to move. ALSO. Um... seeing some huge fat guy snoring in a swivel chair and drooling onto himself whilst his WOW character ran in circles was disturbing.

You must have been scarred for life.

Edit: By the way, I made 60 tonight. Perfect timing too, since our guild is going Zul'Gurub tomorrow.

[Razola]

On that, I finally got back into the AB supergroup last night ffor 5 hours. A pile of victories and loads of honor to boot. Had three 2000-20 victories in that period.

AB rewards are okay for Druids. For Exalted, the cloak, Lizardhide Shoulders and Ironbark Staff are pretty decent. Of course, the Rank 12-14 gear is what PvP is all about really.

Check the armor. I ditched my frostwolf belt for the Leather Defiler Belt because of the armor.

[Last Exile]

Check the armor. I ditched my frostwolf belt for the Leather Defiler Belt because of the armor.

The extra attack power on the belt is worth it too.

[Stormchaser]

Bah, Alliance is easy mode. >_> *runs and hides*

I play, and am a balance druid/hunter (( Main puller, yey! )) in Molten Core. Sadly, not a whole lot of hunter or druid loot has dropped, but our shamans, warriors and rogues are getting set bonuses out the wazoo.

Edit: It also makes me giggle there's an ad to buy gold in this topic, heehee. Bah, farming farmers in pvp is fun... Especially when you get a bunch of buddies and hit Tyr's hand.

[Yero Thropp]

Being the pally that I am, I must say this.

I CAN'T WAIT FOR PATCH 1.9!!!!!!

For those of you who haven't checked it out already, go to www.worldofwarcraft.com and you'll see what I mean.

That is all.

[Charizard04621]

Being the pally that I am, I must say this.

I CAN'T WAIT FOR PATCH 1.9!!!!!!

For those of you who haven't checked it out already, go to www.worldofwarcraft.com and you'll see what I mean.

That is all.

Woo, let's nerf rogue weapon speed and then make it easier for paladins to kill them! :)

Don't mind me, I'm biased.

[Last Exile]

And let's give shamans healing cast times cut in half and +3% to critical strike when all other classes when all the rest only get 2%!

THe +15 FR enchant looks good though. Plus the Trnasmute to turn a Heart of Fire in to 3 Elemental Fires.

[Leon-IH]

I went into ZG yesterday with some friends: 19 man with 4 druids, 3 shamans, 2 priests, 3 mages, 2 warriors, 2 hunters, 2 rogues and 1 warlock.

The High Priestess Jeklik encounter is fucking hard for a non-MC geared team, Mages and spare warriors along with the priests are pulled out of combat to tackle the bat add's until she is 50% dead, but the problem is without MC gear they can only handle 3 waves of bats.

Which means your non-mc geared hunters/rogues/locks have to take 50% of her HP off before that 4th wave of bats spawns AND your shamans have to heal like priests because druids can't stop her spike damage for crap - which without MC gear ain't half easy, of the 3 shamans I was the only one who still had mana when she was down to 50% and went to non-summoning of bats form and I'm 2/8 earthfury heavily resto-specced and whats not earthfury is elements/good blues.

In short: the first boss of ZG is not a 'Casual' encounter by any means, GG Blizzards statement ZG was for 'Casual' gamers. We did kill the high priestess though, and I had a blast doing it.

[Last Exile]

My guild can beat Jek'lik, Venoxis and the Bloodlord in ZG. It is very class dependent for Jek'lik though. You need at least FOUR mages in your 20 player group to beat her properly. Put your mages at the front with 1-2 healers at the place the bats come. Get you tank to fight Jek'lik around the tree. Make sure eveyrone is spread out and that your Hunters use Viper Sting, Warlocks and Priests using Mana Drain to get Jek'lik's mana down ASAP. Then spread out in Phase 2 so the fire bombs don't take multiple people out at once.

ZG is gear dependent indeed. We can get Thek'al to Stage 2 but once he goes Lion Form, everyone is out of mana. Mar'li is really hard at the start. We managed to get Jindo down to 55% on our first and only shot so far. Considering Jindo is the hardest ZG boss and not Hakkar, we might be able to beat Hakkar, since he is the one boss that guarantees 2-3 epics.

Good work on downing her. Venoxis is far easier than Jek'lik. Just make sure you have Druids hibernating the adds and kill them quick. Only have the main tank within range of Venoxis's AoE poison burn spells. As for the Bloodlord, have everyone except melee classes on the ledge so he can't charge the clothies/healers for 4000+ damage because the spears block the way. And if you're being watched by him, DON'T DO ANYTHING or he will charge you. And the more he kills, the stronger he gets, so don't die against him. Then you might be lucky enough to get his epic mount.

Hear about the anti-AFK out of battleground measures in 1.9? Apparently if you AFK out, you are banned from entering any battlegrounds for 15 minutes. That is a good idea IMO.

[Razola]

My guild has taken down Hakkar, who is really dissappointing compared to the other bosses. Creative, but not difficult in the least.

[Last Exile]

My guild has taken down Hakkar, who is really dissappointing compared to the other bosses. Creative, but not difficult in the least.

From what I read, the Hakkar fight is jsut about having MT and Hakkar well away from everyone else, who are on the two platforms. Hunters pull the Sons spawns to the platforms, we get the poison buff, Hakkar loses health when he drains our buff. And that it's about a 15-20 min fight and you need to conserve mana.

I've also heard that High Priestess Arlokk is bugged at the moment on a lot of servers.

[Razola]

There's a Line of Sight issue where you can kill Hakkar no problem using the Life Drains. My guild downed him on the first try.

[Stormchaser]

My raid group is up to the tiger guy and we may get him down tonight. But what's really fun is the time I brought two buddies, ran up the platform and tamed a son of hakkar. So now I have a bad ass, color changing, pie eating pet of doooooooom that shoots lightning.

[Razola]

This patch is like my Birthday and Christmas present in one. Paladins are crying over this, and their tears are oh so sweet.

[FTorchicX]

This patch is like my Birthday and Christmas present in one. Paladins are crying over this, and their tears are oh so sweet.

Paladins? Crying? Whoa, when does that ever happen!?

=P j/k to the Paladins here.

While leveling up a Shaman, there are some things I've noticed: 1) Some people believe were overpowered (which I have known since I was 30) and 2) That we are like Warriors/Rogues/Priests combined (but only the VERY ignorant players believe this). Although it is true that we are a very strong class because of our ability to adapt to situations, this is hardly the case endgame. Basically, the Shaman's job in endgame instances is to drop tremor/fire resistance/cleansing totems, and to help the Priests/Druids out with healing. Unless we are in an open-minded and radical guild, this is our main job (which I understand, since you can find always find a Rogue, while Priests are hard to come by).

Not only this, but since we are a hybrid, we (dare say) don't have priveliges on as much stuff as other classes. Don't get me wrong, we don't go into MC without any chance of getting anything, but we are not allowed to roll against let's say a Warrior for a ring with +str and +stam (well in my guild atleast), even if some of our Shamans are very deep into the enhancement tree (one of our Shamans who went last time was not allowed to roll on a ring that would greatly benefit him because of his spec, because other classes needed it).

I'm not going on a class rant and how "we were screwed by Blizzard", but I'm just saying, being a Shaman endgame isn't as it is often portrayed as (mainly by the people who cry "Nerf Shamans" on the forums).

Alright, I'm done.

[Last Exile]

Raz, dream on. The pallies in my guild are ecstatic over 1.9. Say hello to double the armor and triple the DPS. Clearly the pallies you know didn't use the test server properly. Our pally leader did and he's ready to let loose on anything that bleeds. And we get 15 minute duration on Kings, Wisdom, Salvation, Light and Might instead of 5. Sorry, but the Alliance are ecstatic over 1.9. Don't know what you've been smoking in your wigwams.

As for 1.9, here's something you may like Raz:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...t/genesis1.jpg

Who gives a damn about Stormrage when Genesis will now be available?! So glad I never won that damn helm from Ony, now I can same up points for Ahn'Quiraj loot, with only 1-2 competitors rather than 7-10.

My guild tried Arlokk for the first time last night, beat it on attempt 4. Most fun fight I've had in ages.

[Red Angel]

Genesis is uglier than sin, and while it's got nice stats overall, the mana/5 is retarded on a set that's supposed to be a hybrid set (two of the 3-piece set bonuses are +15 def and +150 armor).

My guild finally took down Rag with less than two seconds before the second sons WTB [DPS], PST. I think our ranged DPS hasn't gotten used to the idea that they can DPS as hard as they want on Rag without any danger whatsoever of pulling aggro.

[Leon-IH]

Pallies are going to be the ultimate 'sheep target' in 1.9 haha.

Isn't Ahn Quiraj meant to be the next step up from BWL...?

[Charizard04621]

My guild finally took down Rag with less than two seconds before the second sons WTB [DPS], PST. I think our ranged DPS hasn't gotten used to the idea that they can DPS as hard as they want on Rag without any danger whatsoever of pulling aggro.

I'm the only lv60 Rogue in a guild of almost 200 people, the others aren't even close. ;-; I get invites constantly the whole day to run instances. Oh, and the ZG run was really gay, I hate the bat lady. We had 17 people (some had to leave us) and 2 were low level healers, 2 more were 56+ offtanks but not level 60. We had a total of one Rogue and one Hunter, we didn't even have the physical people there that could actually do dps. >< Talk about pressure not to die...

I don't mind running instances really, since I get all the Rogue stuff, but yesterday in 5man LBRS, all the way up to wyrm, a total of THREE Shadowcraft Belts dropped, and I greeded them all because I already had them. That was like, ouch.

[Razola]

Pallies are going to be the ultimate 'sheep target' in 1.9 haha.

Isn't Ahn Quiraj meant to be the next step up from BWL...?

Overall AQ is even...starting easier and ending harder.

[FTorchicX]

Our guild trried to tackle Barron in Molten Core, but unfortunately we failed. We only have about 25 people that actually showed up through, and through farming trash mobs we just decided to try for the hell of it.

The biggest problem with Barron is that it requires for EVERYONE to pay attention. The main reason why we keep whiping is because when people are the bomb, they won't run away from the group, and end up killing a ton of our guys. It's funny, because we'll be yelling at whoever's the bomb, AND (if they have CT_Raid, which is pretty much a necessity to have in our guild) It says in full caps "YOU ARE THE BOMB" at the bottom of their page, but yet some people STILL don't move.

Although it was only one person that didn't react fast enough (not at all, rather), so we definitely did a lot better that time. Everyone else was right on the nail, and when they were the bomb they reacted very quickly.

[Last Exile]

Our guild trried to tackle Barron in Molten Core, but unfortunately we failed. We only have about 25 people that actually showed up through, and through farming trash mobs we just decided to try for the hell of it.

The biggest problem with Barron is that it requires for EVERYONE to pay attention. The main reason why we keep whiping is because when people are the bomb, they won't run away from the group, and end up killing a ton of our guys. It's funny, because we'll be yelling at whoever's the bomb, AND (if they have CT_Raid, which is pretty much a necessity to have in our guild) It says in full caps "YOU ARE THE BOMB" at the bottom of their page, but yet some people STILL don't move.

Although it was only one person that didn't react fast enough (not at all, rather), so we definitely did a lot better that time. Everyone else was right on the nail, and when they were the bomb they reacted very quickly.

That sucks. Everyone needs to be alert. And Shazzrah is a much bigger pain than Geddon, so unless the whole raid follows proper orders, you don't have a hope in hell of downing either.

[Yero Thropp]

w00t eye for an eye!

I'm not majoring in anything; 16 holy, 11 protection, and 24 retribution for me. The only thing I would want really is the Blessing of Kings, but 1) I can get that from another paly some other time, and 2) It takes an awful amount of talent points to get to it, and I don't really want anything more than the 24 I have in retribution already (minus of course the BOK.)

But that's okay... in the Protection tree I got Blessing of Sanctuary, w00t for more defense, then used the last 16 talent points I had to improve my healing and get Consecration for farming.

I am SALIVATING over 1.9, btw...

[Charizard04621]

Rogues better get a buff next, they can lose duels to Priests and anything else without a big difference in gear, plus they got ****ed up by the weapon speed changes =P Open PvP they're still a contender, and they're good PvE, but who cares about PvE on a PvP server >< I can get PvP gear just as easily as endgame PvE stuff. Right now I'm loving my sword though, my guild isn't big enough to run MC but I *omfg* saw, and won (over 3 other Rogues) Dal Rend's Sacred Charge. Best blue Rogue sword dropped by a boss in an instance ever.

I rerolled Shadow Priest on the new server (Akama) and completely owned in WSG last night, never died once even though I was in the front line. Mind Flay <3 Yeah, and the poor Rogue who tried to kill me how many times failed miserably. My heart goes out to him. Lol.

[Last Exile]

Um, Red Angel, the funny thing is Genesis has more mana regen than Stormrage. Stormrage only has 6/5 secs total because only the helm has it. Genesis has 11/5 secs. Cenarion has 18/5 secs.

Unless I'm mistaken, Genesis, which is only a 5 piece set, actually has mana regen that falls in between Stormrage and Cenarion. That sounds hybrid-like to me.

Now for the healing.

Stormrage - 275
Genesis - 122
Cenarion - 98

Again, Genesis is 5 pieces yet has more healing than all 8 pieces of Cenarion combined. Plus it's not just a healing boost for Genesis, it's a boost to spell damage as well! Plus there +3% to melee critical strike, +1% to spell critical strike, reduction of target's resistances by 10. As well as the +67 Strength and +63 to Agility.

For a 5 piece set, these stats almost equal the stats for the Druid Field Marshal set, aside from the ATK power and movement speed boosts you get from the Field Marshal set. The real joke is the Genesis set gives about the same Stamina and more Intellect than the Field Mashal set, only slightly less Strength and Agility.

Considering the stats for Cenarion and Stormrage are almost the same except for the healing and mana regen, I'm glad something worth going for has come.

Combine 3 Cenarion/Stormrage pieces with the 5 Genesis ones, looks pretty damn good to me.

Means I no longer have to rely on getting to ranks 12-14 to get some decent hybrid/PvP gear and spend months grinding it out. The Grand Marshal Stave would be nice but there are BWL staves that are just as good.

[Red Angel]

The key issue is that mana/5 and health/5 do not work in forms, thus making it a retarded stat choice on a hybrid set. If it had more Spirit (which does work in forms), that would be excellent.

[Razola]

You cannot add or remove mana while in forms. You only have your natural regen from spirit. Thus, mana burn, viper stings, etc. do not work along with effects like Mar'li's Eye or Mana Regen items.

Oh, my guild downed Ragnaros. Woot-woot. Oh, TMM, you find it interesting that Mai-Kero got the Netherwind Pants. I have a feeling you two are good chums.

[FTorchicX]

We downed Lucifron and Mag tonight, and also decided to down Gehennas as well (since we sped right through the first two). The Earthshaker dropped off of Magmadar, and I won the roll! So yup, I now have my very first epic ever.

[Last Exile]

Viper Sting still affects you in shapeshifed forms, guys. I know from duelling hunter guildies. I was only able to beat my guild's best hunter after risking taking him on in cat form early to get his health down fast, 1 quick nature's swiftness heal then tanking in bear to finish him. Viper Sting drains you of mana regardless of your form.

I still prefer Intellect over Spirit anyday though.

Pulled off a new damage crit for me today. 1781 dmg with Ferocious Bite, wearing 3 Cenarions and 4 PvP (2 rank 7, 2 rank 8) pieces. I reckon I could crack 2000 with Genesis gear.

[Red Angel]

Viper Sting still affects you in shapeshifed forms, guys. I know from duelling hunter guildies. I was only able to beat my guild's best hunter after risking taking him on in cat form early to get his health down fast, 1 quick nature's swiftness heal then tanking in bear to finish him. Viper Sting drains you of mana regardless of your form.

Only if it hits you before you shift, and even that's apparently a bug. Try it out sometime - shift to Bear (or Cat) and have someone sting you. Do nothing. When Viper Sting ends, you'll have more mana than you began with due to regen.

[Leon-IH]

Yay I got my Earthfury Pants in MC about half an hour ago, 3/8 earthfury.

The 3/8 bonus of 10 yards of totem range is going to be a major help in fights where the healers have to move around and sometimes run out of my mana totem range.

Negative DKP System = win.

[Last Exile]

Only if it hits you before you shift, and even that's apparently a bug. Try it out sometime - shift to Bear (or Cat) and have someone sting you. Do nothing. When Viper Sting ends, you'll have more mana than you began with due to regen.

Good point actually. The time I beat my guild's best hunter, I did go Cat Form and stealthed before the duel started. That is a very good point, thanks. That'll give me some ideads for PvP vs Hunters.

Somehow I won Cauterizing Band last night. That's only the 2nd time it dropped for the guild. Pretty lucky indeed.

[FTorchicX]

We tackled Sulfuron tonight, and on the first attempt too! Unfortunately, most of the raid was disappointed by the drops (Salamander Scale Pants, and Shadowstrike).

[Razola]

Those are incredible healing pants.

[Red Angel]

Those are incredible healing pants.

Heh, yeah, very happy with mine. Up to almost 300+ healing and over 7k mana raid-buffed. I love Heart of the Wild.