[PC] World of Warcraft

Originally Posted by Knighthawk

I must say though, I love the Nightblade/Maladath combination, its going to be so sweet with the new weapon skill specialization

You mean the one that's +5 to weapon skill, and so far into the Combat tree that you might as well take Adrenaline Rush because you've already gimped your stunlock ability?

Yeah, I saw the new talent trees.... and I honestly have to say that between Rupture not getting a change, Eviscerate being "fixed" with a new book, Improved Sprint not producing immunity to snares (apparently), and no real fixes to Rogue's melee DPS problems (on a fight where aggro is no concern, a good Fury warrior can pull over 700 DPS, whereas a rogue on the top of their game can pull around 4-500), OR their reliance on 5 minute cooldowns, and these frankly terrible trees that have the new talents up where most builds can't reach them... yeah, this review is going right next to the shaman and paladin reviews as the worst. *sigh*

Oh well, at least rogues got better at ganking shaman, more or less the only class they stand a good chance against.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

World of Warcraft Public Test Patch 1.12.0

Cross-Realm Battlegrounds
For the first time in the history of World of Warcraft, you will be able to face off against players from other realms in the Battlegrounds. PvP Battlegrounds link Alterac Valley, Warsong Gulch, and Arathi Basin so that players from several realms will be combined into one huge matchmaking pool. Replenish your mana, sharpen your blades, and get ready for some brand-new challengers!
World PvP

The stage is set for intense, objective-based land battles as Horde and Alliance vie for control over important strategic positions and resources around Azeroth. Head
out for Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands to engage the enemy on the field!

General

Threat Reduction Effects
This system has been redesigned to eliminate inconsistency in how the effects work. Previously, some were additive (for example: 30% reduction + 20% reduction = 50% reduction) while others were multiplicative (30% threat reduction multiplied by 20% threat reduction equals 44% threat reduction). They are now all multiplicative. This also prevents unpredictable behavior when the total reduction percentage was equal to or greater than 100%.

Haste and Slow effects
Previously Haste and Slow effects worked inconsistently, with spells working differently from weapons, and hastes and slows not acting as inverses of each other. We have revised the system so that all haste and slow effects work the same way, and haste and slow percentages perfectly cancel each other out (30% haste and 30% slow combine to no change). As a result, we had to change the tooltip numbers on all spell haste effects, and on all melee and range slow effects. The numbers in the tooltips are different, but the game functionality is unchanged (other than slight rounding errors). Those tooltips that changed will now display larger numbers than they used to display. Conceptually, haste values indicate how much more of that activity you can perform in a given time. 30% melee haste means 30% more swings in a given time. Slow values indicate how much longer an activity takes to complete. 30% slow means an action takes 30% longer to finish. For those interested, the new haste and slow effects work mathematically in the following way. Each effect separately multiplies the attack timer of your weapon or casting time of your spell. They are multiplied in sequence (order doesn't matter) and the final result is the attack timer or casting time. The multipliers use the following equations:

Haste effects: multiplier=1/(1+percent/100)
Slow effects: multiplier=1*(1+percent/100)

As an example, a 50% haste generates a multiplier of 0.666; a 50% slow generates a multiplier of 1.5. If they are multiplied together the result is 1. A 50% haste on a 3.0 speed weapon makes it 2.0 speed, resulting in you getting 30 swings per minute instead of 20 swings per minute: 50% more swings. A 50% slow on a 3.0 casting time spell generates a casting time of 4.5. It took you 50% longer to finish casting the spell.

The deserter debuff will now continue to expire even while you are offline.

Druids

Barkskin: The tooltip has been changed to 25% due to the haste effect change.
Ferocious Bite: The Book of Ferocious Bite (Rank 5) now drops somewhere in the world.
Furor: This talent now works correctly with Cat Form again.
Improved Shred: The discounted cost for Shred will now be displayed correctly even when you are not in Cat Form.
Rip: Lesser potency Rips will no longer overwrite greater potency ones.
Hunters

Spirit Bond: This ability will now be correctly reapplied when you resurrect in a battleground and your pet is polymorphed or otherwise unable to act normally.

Mages

Arcane Missiles: It is no longer possible to cast this spell on an evading mob. In addition, the animation will now stop when the target is dead.
Arcane Power: It is no longer possible to gain the benefit of this spell and Power Infusion at the same time by careful timing.
Frost Armor Chilled effect: The tooltip has been changed to 100% due to the haste effect change.
Ice Armor Chilled effect: The tooltip has been changed to 100% due to the haste effect change.
Polymorph: This spell will now be removed when a player leaves a battleground. This prevents some bugs involving polymorph from occurring.
Evocation will no longer be usable while silenced.

Paladins

Divine Shield: The tooltip has been changed to 100% due to the haste effect change.

Priests

Mind Control: The tooltip has been changed to 25% due to the haste effect change.
Psychic Scream: This spell now uses the same resistance checks as the Warlock spell Fear.

Rogues

Due to significant talent changes, Rogues will have all talent points refunded and can be respent. Training costs for all talent spell replacements have been significantly reduced.
Eviscerate: Manual of Eviscerate (Rank 9) now drops somewhere in the world.
Garrote: The damage from this ability has been increased approximately 50%.
Relentless Strikes: This ability will no longer trigger when your finishing move does not hit your target.
Sap: Enemy rogues will now always lose stealth when you Sap them.

Shaman

Grounding Totem: This totem will no longer absorb multiple effects from Entrapment in a 10 second period.
Windfury Totem: The weapon enchantment from this totem will now only trigger off normal melee swings. This means abilities such as Sinister Strike, Mortal Strike, and Hamstring will no longer trigger the Windfury Totem.
Reincarnation should now display the cooldown timer when used.
Chain Heal - After the initial target is healed, the healing effect will jump to the most damaged target (by absolute health) within range. In addition, if a raid member is the initial target it will look for valid raid targets to jump to rather than non-raid targets as a priority, making it consistent with group targeted Chain Heals.

Warlocks

Cripple (Doomguard): The tooltip has been changed to 45% due to the haste effect change.
Enslave Demon: The tooltip has been changed to 40% due to the haste effect change.
Health Funnel: This spell will now work correctly on low-level enslaved demons.
Howl of Terror: This spell now uses the same resistance checks as the Warlock spell Fear.
Siphon Life will now properly gain a benefit from Shadow Mastery.

Warriors

Flurry: The text on the tooltip has been corrected to indicate it triggers on all types of attacks.
Shield Slam: This ability will sometimes no longer remove more than one beneficial effect from the target.
Sword Specialization: This ability can no longer trigger off of itself.

Items

+30 Spell Damage Enchantment: Fixed a bug with this enchantment which was preventing it from benefiting healing spells.
Blade of Eternal Darkness: The triggered effect from this weapon will no longer occur when the spell being cast has its effect broken by causing damage.
Blazefury Medallion: The triggered effect from this item will no longer break Gouge.
Bonescythe Armor: The Eviscerate bonus will no longer trigger when your Eviscerate does not hit your target.
Darkmoon Card- Twisting Nether: The dialog for this resurrection will now always reappear after the Spirit of Redemption effect has completed.
Eye of the Dead: Holy Shock now interacts properly with this item.
Ranged Elemental Damage: Our ranged combat system does not allow a ranged weapon to do a mix of Elemental (Fire, Frost, Arcane, etc.) and Physical damage. Many ranged weapons existed which were listed as doing Elemental damage and did not function properly (the damage was dealt, but was treated as Physical). All of those weapons have been changed to deliver the Elemental damage as a chance on hit effect. Hurricane was previously changed this way in 1.11. The following ranged weapons are also fixed in 1.12: Bow of Searing Arrows, Dwarven Hand Cannon, Heartseeking Crossbow, Dark Iron Rifle, Galgann's Fireblaster, Quillshooter, Shell Launcher Shotgun, Venomstrike, and Verdant Keeper's Aim.
Talisman of Ascendence: This item will no longer trigger from physical damage effects. In addition, if either of the buffs from the item are cancelled, they will both be cancelled.
Zandalarian Hero Charm: Item tooltip corrected to match the effect tooltip.
The Items that summon mounts have been changed in their color/quality. Items that summon normal mounts are now blue(superior)items and items that summon swift mounts are now purple(epic) items.
Fixed a bug that allowed you to use items which restored health or mana while you were already full health or mana.
Fixed a bug with the Jom Gabbar trinket which was causing it to trigger a category cooldown for a duration longer than intended.
Fixed a bug that prevented Arcane Missiles from being able to trigger the effect of Wrath of Cenarius.
Clarified the tooltips for the Stormshroud armor and Kalimdor's Revenge to explain that they deal Nature damage.
Fixed a bug that caused the Blooddrenched Mask to hide a character's hair.
Warbear leather now stacks to 20.
Professions

Engineering: The damage from sapper charges can now be resisted. The overall DPS of the charges should not be significantly altered from what it currently is.
Engineering: Explosive sheep do fire damage instead of physical damage.
Raids and Dungeons

Uldaman
Reduced the number of Shadowforge Ambushers that attack after looting the quest chest.
Shadowforge Ambushers are no longer elite.
The respawn of the Stone Stewards has been changed to 2 hours (from 30 minutes).
Zul'Farrak
The respawn of the 2 Troll/1 Basilisk patrollers should now be 2 hours.
Reduced the damage dealt by the Sul'lithuz Abomination and Sul'lithuz Sandcrawler.
Dead Heroes are no longer elites.
Theka the Martyr will now only remain immune to physical damage for 30 seconds before reverting to normal.
Antu'sul's Sul'lithuz Broodlings now only hatch 4 at a time and are significantly weaker.
Witch Doctor Zum'rah will no longer call as many dead heroes to his aid when aggroed.
Weegli Blastfuse now has slightly more hit points.
Antu'sul's Warden no longer attempts to knock adventurers into Antu'sul's lair.
Sandfury Cretins who engage the party during the pyramid event are no longer able to cast shadow bolt.

Mauradon
Noxxious Scions will no longer spawn when you cleanse Celebrian Vines.

User Interface

V key functionality has been improved in several ways.
V key now shows summoned monsters (such as the gargoyles in Stratholme.)
V key now shows both monsters and player enemies.
V now shows enemies only (no longer shows friendly targets.)
Shift-V now shows friendly targets only, not enemies (with a new bindable hotkey.)
Control-V shows both friendly targets and enemy targets (with a new bindable hotkey.)
New floating combat text has been added to the game with a number of options. You can see when you take damage, when you are healed and how much, when you acquire and lose auras and much more. You can turn on the new options in the newly revised options screen.
The Need Before Greed and Group Loot countdown timers will now have a 3 minute countdown when there is a bind on acquire item on the corpse. This should allow a bit more time in making a decision to roll for an item.
Automatic Quest Tracking has been added to the game and is turned on by default. Any time you advance a quest by advancing one of the requirements, the quest information will appear on your screen for 5 minutes before fading. You can turn this option off from the options screen.
There is now a confirmation dialogue when you attempt to disband your guild.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug that caused some non-combat pets to be referred to as Minions instead of Pets. Mini Diablo however has escaped this fate and will continue to be referred to as a Minion.

Mother. FUCKER.

So Blizzard just took the ONE thing that shamans brought that was something approaching good to a raid and nerfed it. I think that somebody did the math and it came out to a 150 DPS nerf to all Horde side raiding.

Congratulations. People wanted Alliance to not only have better buffs in every way shape and form, along with bullshit tactics like Divine Intervention on Razorgore (I think it's him), but to have Horde have absolutely nothing to compare, and they just got it.

I'm seriously considering organizing a server crash to protest this utter bullshit. =\

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by dagget

off course this pertains if this is all true or not.

It is. Go download the PTR for 1.12 and look up the notes. They're what I posted.

Gonna make a new account with the 10-day guest pass I got with the game, using my dad's info.

Let's just say... you guys won't wanna play on Burning Legion Tuesday.

EDIT: Oh, and your agility buff? Blessing of Kings? The one that not only buffs agility, but every other stat, and scales with gear?

I also find it hilarious that the only thing you can come up with to counter my point is a shitty-ass acronym that implies I am somehow a bad player for wanting Blizzard to actually close the gap between Alliance and Horde raiding difficulty, instead of widening it even further.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Kensaki

Actually I'm just being stupid and whiny in retort to your behavior.

And seriously go cry at Blizzards forum I don't post or go there anymore cause its all fucking whines and crying. And if you just rolled shaman for windfury well sucks to be you, now live with it.

I seriously don't see what whining on this site will make Blizzard change a thing about their game. Go rant to Blizzard itself if you want something changed geezus.

EDIT: And yes about BOK this is something a paladin actually has to talent. Last time I saw the agility totem wasn't a talent ability neither was windfury.

I see horde guilds in Naxx making good progress. I'm sorry your raiding experience isn't easymode enough for you but the real raiders doesn't seem to have your problems so whatever.

Anyhow cry more cry till your eyes turn red cause thats all you do apparently. But please go cry somewhere else cause its giving me a fucking headache.

Also agility totem + windfury totem is comparable dps to BoK and BoM so whatever.

what the fuck.

SO MUCH IGNORANCE.

1)How the fuck is your sheer faggotry any way comparable to "Why the fuck did Blizzard nerf a faction that needed a buff?"

2)Grace of Air and Windfury CANNOT BE USED TOGETHER. Learn about the fucking class before you complain about it.

3)I did not roll a shaman for Windfury, I rolled it because I thought that they sounded like a good class. Why should I have to give up all the time I've invested in it because Blizzard decided that I can't bring anything decent to a raid?

4)Blizzard does not fucking listen. At all. The forums can't be used because any time somebody posts a legitimate, CIVIL question about these senseless nerfs, it gets deleted, occasionally locked with no warning. And also, why can't I use a thread dedicated to talking about this game, to discuss problems with it?

5)How many Horde guilds are making Naxx progress, and how many Alliance guilds are making Naxx progress? It's about 9 to 2, Alliance advantage if I recall correctly. Yet the ratio of Alliance population to Horde population is around 45:55. What does this say to you?

6)I love how you call Horde raiding "easymode." Because having the single best buff in the game, insanely good mana regen, and practically no aggro worries is so incredibly hard, and having buffs that are all but useless due to insane in-combat mana cost, range issues, and are also mathematically inferior to the other faction's buffs is so incredibly easy.

God, sometimes I really, REALLY have to wonder if anybody actually bothers to learn any basic knowledge about the game before posting.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Kensaki

1). Blizzard devs clearly doesn't think so and they designed the game I think they'd know better than you. But hey whatever makes you sleep better at night.

So they would know better than almost everybody who has raided both Horde and Alliance?

Quote:

2). I see your problem right there... You need to bring more than one shaman too a raid you know...

...So you would have two shamans in EACH MELEE GROUP, just for windfury and Grace of Air. Because guess what? Totems only affect the party, not the raid. In fact, that's one of the major complaints many people have with Horde raiding: You need a much larger amount of Shamans to buff a raid (8, and that's not even giving out all the useful buffs; you'd need something along the lines of 16 for that) than you do paladins. And with each shaman you put in, you hurt your raid's DPS, tanking, and healing capability more than you gain with the buffs.

Quote:

3). All hybrids are being forced into a healing role since Blizzard made just one main healing class. Not much you can do about it so yeah cry more.

What does this have to do with ANYTHING I said? I would be FINE if I could heal and buff good. The problem is that I can't provide enough healing, or enough buffs, or enough DPS, or enough tanking to justify taking me over a Resto (or even Feral) druid, or a priest of any spec, or pretty much any other class.

Quote:

4). I'd delete the whine too else the forum would be more flooded with the crap than it is. Infact I'd start banning the whiners and lvl 1-10 flaming alts too. Would make the forum actually usable. And if you think 99% listen anymore you are out of your mind. We are all trying to stuff our ears full so this monotome screeching sound will go away.

So in other words, when people ask "Why did you do something that makes no sense?" it's a whine, and should be deleted.

Clean your nose, for God's sakes. It's stinking up the house.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Quote:

One thing is to come with suggestions and explain why you think so. Another is to rant about "Blizzard doesn't care about me! They have no clue what they are doing!" Since obviously that's going to make them take you seriously.

Done and ignored. People have tried being civil and constructive. They did it for months before the review, did it for the majority of the review, and quite a few people did so AFTER the review, and look what it got them: a PVP buff and now PVE nerfs. So when civility doesn't work, what is there that you can do?

Quote:

Also they factions are balanced differently obviously as they do not want one faction to be a clone of the other.

I would LOVE "different but equal." The only problem is that the status quo right now is "different, not equal." And with a few basic mechanics that are already present in the game (Somebody suggested giving shammies special totems using the Lightwell mechanic to give out 5-minute dispellable buffs), it COULD be "different but equal." Instead, they're being ignored and this change makes it "different and less equal than before."

Quote:

As far as I remember there was a horde guild that downed C'thun first in europe. So I think people like to exagerate the importance of the paladin buffs. Of course horde needs different tactics but its not ten times harder as people would have you thinking.

That was sheer luck. That was a hotfix that came out when the instance was more or less completely cleared, and IIRC, that Horde guild was followed by around half a dozen Alliance guilds.

Quote:

Or I could just bring on that old blanket statement: Alliance is PVP Alliance is PVE.

Fixed. Remember, Naxx guilds take that gear into battlegrounds. And racials do not an imbalance make.

Quote:

As I stated before Blizzard are content with pushing hybrids into a healing role in raids which the 1.12 "nerf" also seem to hint at. A shaman can say he can heal but his buffs are to weak and thusly he is not useful in raids. But if we are going to bring up that one could also argue why bring rogues too. After all fury warriors do over 90% of a rogue dps and buffs party and can change gear to offtank. Some classes are simply meant to be more specialised than others but that doesn't mean the class is useless. Hell have you ever seen a serious raid with no shamans or rogues?

We're starting to see raids with no shamans. And rogues do bring better aggro control than warriors. They need some help, yes, but they're not utterly worthless. A shaman, put simply, can't pump out the healing, DPS, tanking, or buffs to justify taking one over another class. 4 shaman in a raid could be replaced by a priest, druid, mage/rogue, and warlock, and be just as good, if not better off, than with the four shammies.

Quote:

Also what I hear is Grace of Air totem is better for raid DPS than Windfury from the getgo. I see a boost in raid viability here not a nerf.

The Chain Heal tweak is a bugfix. It's also easily worked around. Currently, if you target somebody in your group, it will only heal members of your group. If you target somebody in your raid, however, it works as normal. This is little more than an ease of use buff. *shrug*

Jam it back in, in the dark.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...tmp=1#blizzard

All I can say is, thank God they got their heads out of their asses.

Now shammies are back to borderline dead weight instead of utterly worthless.

EDIT: Oh, I also forgot. There's a rumor going around that there's a new talent, or skill, or SOMETHING for shammies, called Unleashed Rage on the PTRs: http://www.thottbot.com/test?sp=30811

I dunno about you guys, but if this is true, it's definitely a big step in the right direction. I'm not holding too much hope, though.

When the PTRs come back up at 8, I'll copy over my shaman and snoop around for more info.

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I feel you, man. I got on my rogue finally in the PTRs, and while stunlocking was fun, and I won quite a few duels... I just have no idea how to proceed, y'know?

And yeah, sprint DID need a bigger buff. I would've preferred an immunity to roots/snares for 1/2 to 3/4 of the duration of the buff, and Vanish needs more fixing.

Hell, while we're at it, why the FUCK haven't they lowered the cooldowns for Blind/Vanish/Evasion/Sprint? Seriously, they're the abilities that are depended upon to win more than any else in the game (and even then they're not always a 100% guarantee of a win), so why is it that a rogue is only good once every 5 minutes?

I don't wanna see a 30 second cooldown, though. I'm thinking a 60-second cooldown for Sprint, 3 minutes for Vanish/Blind, and 2 minutes for Evasion. That would be more balanced.

Oh well, at least the PTRs have convinced me to start levelling my Troll Rogue again. =D

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Kaelin

EDIT2, my thoughts on this:Well hopefully this will FINALLY bring the horde and alliance pops to more equal footing overall. It seems a bit like a copout/hackish move by Blizz, but you gotta go with what works I guess. I can't see the Shaman population being too happy overall since most guilds will just want to replace them with pallies though.

You're damn right I'm pissed.

Not only is this a complete cop-out (hay guys instead of actually fixing a class's problems that result in a faction imbalance let's just give them the better class), but it shoots the lore to hell (again), and basically ruins any chance of me actually getting into a raid come Burning Crusade.

That fucking does it. Unless they actually get us something that makes me good in a raid, I'm done with this game come expansion. I'm fucking tired of this utter bullshit.

How ya doing, buddy?

To be honest, I am maintaining a sliver of hope for them actually fixing the shammy in PVE come expansion, but considering how they've had the chance to do so several times and haven't.... no. With Blizzard's stupidity, blessings and totems most likely won't stack either.

Unless Blizzard manages to pull off a big surprise for everybody involved, the expansion pack is the death of the shaman class.

I was speaking idiomatically.

You think 30-49 is bad? Wait until you start grinding 50-60. Takes fucking FOREVER, and it's almost impossible to find a group for the higher instances (ST, BRD/BRS, for example) because either you a) need to be around 55 to stand a chance (BRD) or higher (BRS), or b) the instance is so long and just not worth it that a group is almost never happening (ST).

I'm at 54 right now and pretty much at a standstill. Most of my time on my shammy is spent helping a friend grind up to 40, and meanwhile I've rolled a warrior (a troll, again ) and have been levelling HIM up. And to be honest, I forgot that being a warrior was so FUN in PvE. He's already level 11, and I think that eventually he'll become my main for raiding and shit, and my shammy will be a farming/PVP alt. That may change when Burning Crusade comes out, though, especially if Blizzard alters the mechanics enough so that pallys have a role more along the lines of tanking/buffing and shammies have a role along the lines of DPS/healing/spot buffing, instead of just healing.

I'm trying to remain somewhat optimistic about the expansion... but to be honest it's not working out too well. ;_;

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Eh, I'm not sure. All I know is that it's taken me forever to get anything done.

Of course, that's most likely because I've been helping my friend level instead of grinding. OH WELL. *shrug*

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Knighthawk

40 to 50 is ezmode. Just run 5 man instances and you will make it. RFD from 40-42, Ulda from 42-45ish, and then Mara.

NO. Uldaman is utter shit. Period. Not only is it hella hard to finish (I fucking loathe that golem with the adds), but it's also insanely difficult to navigate.

I went like this: SM from 40-42, RFD every so often, then ground out to around 44 and started running Zul'Farrak, then Maraudon.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I hit 55 tonight. Got about 20% from a BRD attunement run for MC (couldn't do it because I was ONE LEVEL TOO LOW D=), then did two Mara runs, one a full run and the other a Princess run to get up to about 80%, and then did a ZF run up to Gahz'rilla and soloed a few mobs in the instance after everybody hearthed out for the last 2 percent.

Oh, and I am now the proud owner of http://www.thottbot.com/?i=13424. Some moron put it up on the AH for 20 gold and I just couldn't resist. As soon as some of my auctions sell, I'm off to Silithus to start my Tier .5 quest!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Agreed. However, let's be honest about why Blood Elves can't be warriors:

Charge/Intercept + Hamstring + AOE Silence + Mana Drain = dead squishy.

Granted, a rogue prolly wouldn't be much better (Cheap Shot + AOE silence to prevent a mage blinking out of stun = win)... but hey, since when has Blizzard made much sense? =\

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by WraithTwo

I don't buy that, simply because a Mage will probably still beat a BE War, and Warstomp > AOE Silence, and you don't see people crying about how unbalanced that is.

1) A mage can blink out of Warstomp.
2) Warstomp has a cast time. I'm not too sure on the silence, though.

But seriously, I am still somewhat surprised that Blizzard didn't give us blood elf warriors. I would've expected them to nerf the shit out of the racial, not this.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Orrrr..... we could see Windfury totem being reserved for the MT group.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

From hearing all the whining from shamans about how useless their totems are in raids it almost seems this class/faction switch is a buff for the horde. We get windfury and mana tide totems, they get kings, might, wisdom etc etc. Then again I've never really raided with horde so I don't have any first hand knowledge...

I'm still unsure about it. I mean, yeah, now we might be better, but so will everybody else.

Really, it depends on what new skills we get come expansion, along with what totems wind up stacking with what blessings. If not much changes, though... I wouldn't be surprised to see 1, MAYBE 2 shammies in a raid, for WF totem in the MT group.

Oh, and the Alliance in Thorium Brotherhood are literally complete morons. Seriously. They LITERALLY had an Alterac Valley game won last night. They had our aid station, they had all of our towers destroyed, and they were at Drek'Thar's door.

SEVEN horde stalled them (apparently had them too scared to try Drek'Thar, from what I heard afterwards), while the rest of them, me included, raced up to Stormpike and killed him.

And this was done by a faction who has ONE guild that downed Ragnaros in the entire server. Which fell apart and is rebuilding right now.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by BlueMikey

I haven't played in a while, but I signed up to play again last week. A guy I work with had characters on Thorium Brotherhood, so I signed up there as well. Glad to see a GFFer or two over there (though I'm alliance, so oops).

Missed you, WoW.

If you want PVE goodness, then you're better of sticking with Alliance on that server (there are at least two guilds that are past MC, whereas there are NONE on Horde that have even downed Ragnaros). However, unless you get into a good PVP guild, you're going to get your ass handed to you in PVP every single time. Alliance PUGs suck. And then you have assholes from the Recoil guild like Axetonhank, Dragonxx, Idaks, and Pistachio (alliance players) who graveyard camp in the BGs. =\

In other words, roll Horde and have actual FUN. ='D

I'm also the 2nd-in-command of a nice RP guild, and I can DEFINITELY get you a spot in it if you want to.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It's fairly good. Most PVP you'll find is in the BGs, and lately we've been having some trouble because people have been acting like pricks in the BGs - graveyard camping, rude-ass emotes, shit like that.

Once 1.12 comes out, though... well.... we're pretty much the only RP server in our battlegroup, and most of the others are PVP servers. It's going to be freaking Burning Legion all over again for me.

Most amazing jew boots

Eh, queues aren't such a bad problem on Thorium Brotherhood. ESPECIALLY with Alterac Valley. It surprises me to wait more than 30 seconds to get into a spot, really.

Arathi Basin and Warson Gulch are another story, though. They take anywhere from a half hour to NEVER. ;_;

'Course, WSG always lasts at least a half hour in my experience. And that's a quick match.

Unfortunately, Thorium Brotherhood also has a policy of "don't be a douchebag in battlegrounds," and a guild that recently transferred over here from a PVP server (I can't remember the name) has been getting a LOT of flack 'cause some members have been doing shit like graveyard camping and spamming "YO U L O SE EV ERY TI M E." I think some guilds have even blacklisted them from grouping in PUGs 'cause of that.

Oh, and it also doesn't help that one of their members is named Axetionhank. Which is 2DMAXX but also sorta destroys the suspension of disbelief. =\

The point is, though, that it sorta sucks that this server which has an honor code, polices itself, and doesn't really have any good gear (We only JUST opened the AQ gates, and the top Horde raiding guild only just downed Ossiran) is going to be thrust in with these PVP servers where odds are that Naxx'd-out warriors spamming rude emotes and graveyard camping will be the norm. And to be honest, I can't help but think it'd sorta ruin PVP on Thorium Brotherhood.

I just pray that they include an option to decide between joining a server-exclusive BG or a cross-server BG.

How ya doing, buddy?

Yeah, that looks pretty badass. Might be worth actually getting the expansion pack and grinding to 70 JUST for that one.

Anyway... ground up to 56 a few nights ago. Also got a Fiery enchant on my Cold Forged Hammer, and as a result was too poor to get anything but the last ranks of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning.

Also did WSG tonight. YOU ARE GEE AYCH.

I remember now why I utterly loathe that place. Literally the ONLY reason one side wins half the time is because the other is populated by fucktards who think that turtling is the way that you win BGs. Horde turtled like a mofo tonight. >=|

Oh, and let's not forget those that don't listen at all when the raid leader (me) says "PEOPLE: WE NEED TO GO ON OFFENSE AS ONCE AND STOP TURTLING OR WE WILL LOSE."

Oh well, at least I only have to go through that pain twice more (once if I get lucky and PUG with a GOOD group) before I can kiss it goodbye until 60.

Then I move onto Arathi Basin, which is somewhat more tolerable if only because the matches are by their very nature only around a half-hour to 45 minutes long.

Oh, and WTF blizzard:

Quote:

- Temporary item buffs (e.g. poisons, sharpening stones and shaman
weapon buffs) will no longer persist through zoning or logging out
due to technical issues. This feature is anticipated to be
activated once more with the expansion.

BRILLIANT. Now do they go back to the days where rogues have to blow around 2-3 time more gold on necessary skills than they do, but they don't even explain WHY they did it, and why the expansion will magically fix this issue.

Seriously, this is a gigantic slap in the face of so many rogues, especially since this is their review. The only one bigger than this is druids getting Innervate trainable in the Shaman review. =\

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I swear, the second I read "Pallies are going to get a snap-aggro AOE taunt" and "Shamans are going to be refocused more into a healing and DPS role," I literally cried out "Whoo-hoo!"

The scaling-difficulty dungeons sound sweet too.

Blizzard just got a repeat customer for the expansion.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Quote:

Maybe some real numbers will help you understand. We have a Naxx raiding base of about 56 people. Generally our attendance ranges from 75-95% a night. In order to be able to run 2 groups when you have an 75% attendance you would need about 67 people. This means right away we are recruiting 10 more players. Now you have troubles with 2 seperate raid locks; less active people can only fill a spot in one of the raids per lock cycle. So if A Team was short on tanks the first night; they would have to lock all the excess tanks in order to progress that night. If A Team regular tanks returned the next night and B Team was missing tanks they would have no backup pool to go too.

Also, its awesome when A team is one shotting everything and B team is still wiping to the boss weeks after yor first kill. As well if A and B team are always the same people; might as well make 2 fucking guilds. You thought organizing one 40 man group was hard? Try organizing 2 balanced 25 man groups. Even back when ZG was freshly opened and everyone was interested in doing it; it was difficult to constantly and successfully field 2 seperate raids.

Now if we do only one raid with our 56 members than 55% of our members are sitting playing with themselves all night. People being left out constantly on OOR will just say fuck the game or the guild.

Couldn't they just... uh, you know, change it so that a raid isn't locked by players, but by the raid leader?

If they could do this, then I think it would solve most of the problems you're mentioning. Group A one-shotting bosses while Group B wipes at 100%? Shuffle around the raid and switch out some that have finished the boss with those that haven't.

Granted, the only time I've ever set foot into freaking MC is when we had finished a PUG attunement run (that I couldn't do) and we were curious... but this sounds less like a problem of 25-man caps and more of a problem with the mechanics of raiding currently in place.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by dagget

Guild I've been going to MC with for a while has finally put the stops on a few warriors going in there. It sucks because now I've been asked to bring my Shaman instead of my warrior. Granted I'll get geared faster, but I'm cautious about bringing my Shaman in these runs. I know I'll end up screwing up. heh.

Don't worry, shammies are supposedly good in MC. Just get MP5 then +healing then intellect, and if you want to spec it for JUST raiding go 31 points in Resto, and pick up Mana Tide and Healing Way. Skip purification though, it doesn't factor in healing, and Totemic Mastery if you have 3-piece Earthfury.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?