World of Warcraft

[Totenkindly]

Ended up just doing more leveling, then did a final 4-mask Orgrimmar run to close out the night, to get a 465. Did it without any real issue, but the drop was armbands with less favorable stats, so...?

They've been installing the prepatch today. I have my computer on upstairs to download everything if necessary, I'll go check in a bit.

Sigh. So fade the powers of a temporary god.


Corruption was a pain at first, but once I figured it all out and got my cloak built up, I could stack lots of it, and it was such a hoot to play. There is nothing quite like running into a cluster full-tilt of things that used to be able to kill you, cut them all down in about three seconds because all your procs are going off, and at the same time meteors (infinite stars) comes smashing down on the guy you were about to kill after two seconds of combat. BOOOM, ack! Sometimes I would almost cry-laugh because it was so absurd... but also so awesome. It was the closest I've ever felt to being a superhero in WoW.

 

[Totenkindly]

The game was down from the typical 10am EST to close to 7pm EST. The servers finally started coming up a bit before 7pm, and I was really enjoying all the typical chaos of a patch release.

Blizzard has done this so many times in the past, so you'd think they'd have something seamless figured out (or a rolling reopening or something); but no, pretty much you just try to log in and hopefully get in at some point. I was reading their tech support page just for the LOLs watching hundreds of people post in record time all with the same one or two line complaint about sitting at the "looking for realms" popup and then getting booted with one of their two "can't make the connection" error message codes. PRICELESS! Because come on people, we all know what it is -- it's three zillion players trying to login all at the same time due to the new patch.

And then along with all the confused / bitchy bitchy complains about the connection issues we already assumed would occur, there were the typical other complaints, including "Blizzard has been around 16 years, and this happens every time, how incompetent are they because they can't even seem to FIX THE PROBLEM???" That's about 1-3% of the posts on the tech support forums -- kicking Blizzard while they are down.

It's like watching junkies climbing the walls to get their fix.

Me, I just hung tight, repeatedly tried to make the connection, and finally about 7:10pm got on and had no further issues.

Yes, maybe Blizzard could rollout better (using a rolling rollout or some other strategy); but I was pleasantly surprised -- it only took 10 minutes past their actual "Everything's up" official time for me to get online, and even after getting booted once by my system, I had no issues getting back on. That is a remarkable improvement, honestly. I remember the system being clogged for a few hours on one of the last rollouts.

As far as the patch itself, corruption is blacked out. And the character panel seems very sparse. That being said, I did play a bit in Mechagon and didn't have issues with dealing with things. And a number of frills are in place -- for example, any unicorn/courser mounts now do actually fly. (This includes your PvP mounts, like Bronze or Ivory.)

All my talents got reset, though, so now I have to read icy veins and just reset them to the standard best options for SL, until I get time to grasp the changes. I also have to go into each character to see what abilities were changed/removed and reorganize my action bars. I took everything related to my Horrific Visions runs and mailed to my bank character, to clear out some room.

It's really weird trying to gauge my character's abilities with everything so scaled down again -- not just level, but iLvl and stats and damage and whatever else.

But the worst is that all of my plug-ins had to be disabled. I'll look later to see what has been upgraded by now, if any, but it's like living in the dark ages -- especially where bags are concerned. (I think I was running Adibags.) it's just a disorganized mess.

 

[Totenkindly]

About an hour before Retail came back up, I logged into Classic for the heck of it.

I was quickly reminded why I do not play that game.

The guild that my friend was running pretty much seems defunct -- only my friend was on recently (three days back) and the next person in the list was 3-4 months ago for their last login, and some people had not been there for a year.

I took my 18th level warrior over to Redridge, to the lake, saw I had a few quest, and headed up the hill towards the gnolls. I promptly died when I attacked a single mystic, and then a warrior gnoll add ran over and killed me.

The corpse run took way too long.

I retreated and found a single orc and managed to kill it, although I almost died.

I watched a party of three run up the path being chased (unknowingly) by three orcs they aggroed, and they almost all died.

I withdrew to the OTHER side of the lake to kill buzzards to complete the Stew quest, managed to kill four of them and only got one drop (out of five) for the quest, while getting killed by baby dragon adds and/or almost killed. They aggro from a FAR distance. Finally got frustrated and hearth'ed back to Stormwind and quit.

That was as a freaking warrior. Not exactly the hardest class, and supposedly being durable... and I could barely solo anything and could not deal with adds.

Classic is not a solo player's game unless you are operating in areas under level, but then your progress is very slow versus just slow. It's really not designed for single players.

 

[Totenkindly]

Shadowlands: Exile's Reach Easter Eggs

 

[Lord Lavender]

I took a long break for a while I did not like BFA at all I just didn't enjoy the story, the events, everything tbh it just felt like a filler expansion to me especially after Legion which I enjoyed very much. I resubbed for Shadowlands since from what I see of it there's a lot of fun things like I especially look forwards to the new idea and concepts featured and I liked many of the class changes mostly old spells returning . I played through Exiles Reach and it was pretty fun but nothing super duper special tbh but what made my day was finding out they've allowed levelling in any zones from 10-50 which made me jump in joy no more having to jump around!

 

[Totenkindly]

Yeah, they actually made it coherent ... you can do all your leveling through a particular expac, if you enjoyed one setting or never played it through before. I really like that approach.

I'm bouncing around leveling but mostly to pick up the two extra hearthstones (garrison + Dalaran).

 

[Merced]

I have a WoW subscription and was leveling up one of those ox race people but then I stopped because someone told me there was an update coming that lets you play as a black person so I've been patiently waiting for that. So far my experiences with the game have been really fun but it urk'd the shit out of me that I couldn't play as a elf with brown skin.

I have been desperately trying to find a MMO that has character customization that isn't just.... pale. Kurtzpel has been the closest I've found but the gameplay is lacking. That's a derail though.

Maybe we should all get online and play WoW together sometime! That sounds fun

 

[Stigmata]

I have a WoW subscription and was leveling up one of those ox race people but then I stopped because someone told me there was an update coming that lets you play as a black person so I've been patiently waiting for that. So far my experiences with the game have been really fun but it urk'd the shit out of me that I couldn't play as a elf with brown skin.

I have been desperately trying to find a MMO that has character customization that isn't just.... pale. Kurtzpel has been the closest I've found but the gameplay is lacking. That's a derail though.

Maybe we should all get online and play WoW together sometime! That sounds fun

That update just released this past Tuesday. Wow is officially desegregated.

 

[Merced]

That update just released this past Tuesday. Wow is officially desegregated.

Really?? I'm so excited!

 

[Totenkindly]

^ all for it.

And yup, the new character mods are in place and everything's available at barber. You can even change gender.

---

How is everyone's leveling experience in New system? Just ran shaman from 25-30 and dk from 35-41. Seems to still go quicker than pre-sl.

 

[Stigmata]

^ all for it.

And yup, the new character mods are in place and everything's available at barber. You can even change gender.

---

How is everyone's leveling experience in New system? Just ran shaman from 25-30 and do from 35-41. Seems to still go quicker than pre-sl.

I've been leveling up a night elf druid the last few days. I'm at like level 37 with 9 hours played almost exclusively healing dungeons. It seems to be leveling quite quickly, especially if you're already familiar with where to quest.

 

[Totenkindly]

Huh, I thought there had been another post in here...


I did do the Assault on Sunday (in Drustvar). I'll be honest, I'm not super happy with the ret pally adjustment yet, I feel "less than" what I was before -- although I realized YESTERDAY that I was missing powers off my toolbar from the Pally class panel (versus the Retribution panel), so now I have added those (hammer of justice, Consecration, etc.) which is helping a little. But it felt pretty underwhelming in PvP so far.

In contrast, my Marksman hunter is a bitch -- I feel souped up playing her, there's more powers, and her powers are more effective (I even get a Volley now!) I can just drop shit from far away, which is exactly what the spec should be. Meanwhile, I have been on the receiving end with my DH, and let me tell you, it sucks when you're doing stuff and you can hear a hunter plugging you from somewhere and you have no clue where, nor is there a pet on you. Again, it's what the Spec should be. But I'm seeing others ALSO talking about how powerful Marksman Hunter and Shadow Priest are now, for DPS.

Another thing I definitely noticed was the loss of the PvP break power everyone got -- I'm getting stunlocked a lot rather than auto-ing out of the stun.

Anyway, for all those who had 120 level characters, I would recommend rechecking both your Class *and* your Spec power panels to make sure you aren't missing any new powers you've been given. My toolbar isn't really big enough for some of this so far.

 

[Totenkindly]

Hit 50 on my Blood DK yesterday. Continuing with my vulpera Shaman now (Currently at level 34?)

Hallows End holiday is going on for one more week. I just got the "Hallowed be Thy Name" achievement for the holiday or whatever it is called. If someone needs to be wanded with various costumes for "The Masquerade" achievement you need to complete that, let me know -- I have all the wands on one of my Horde, and I have most / can get the last few on my Alliance pally. (You can't wand yourself, and you have to be in a party to wand someone else so no cross-faction wanding.)

Some of the other achievements do allow cross-faction -- like sticking pumpkin heads on various races across the spectrum of races.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Totenkindly]

Excited today -- I've been trying on and off to get the Wild Dreamrunner from Val'Sharah bonus chests in the Legion expansion, happened to notice Val'Sharah was up for a 4 World Quests chest (and you can also get them by cycling through the 10K rep gain), did four quests and turned in, and voila!

Got the drop! And of course it flies, under current pre-SL code.

I was, like, super-ecstatic.

There's a blue-tinted one you get for 100 Exalted reps.

 

[Totenkindly]

I haven't been following recently, but it sounds like prince/king Anduin has been having a helluva 2020-style year and a half in WoW.

World of Warcraft’s nicest boy is sad, kidnapped to the death realms - Polygon

 

[Stigmata]

I haven't been following recently, but it sounds like prince/king Anduin has been having a helluva 2020-style year and a half in WoW.

World of Warcraft’s nicest boy is sad, kidnapped to the death realms - Polygon

Apparently he gets kidnapped by Sylvanas' val'kyr. I'm kind of upset it appears they're setting up Sylvanas to be in cahoots with The Jailor and priming her to be the next big bad -- she's easily one of the most awesome characters in all of Warcraft. That said, after several years of horde-centric storytelling, it appears as if the Alliance is going to be setup to be the protagonists here by what I imagine will be the freeing of Anduin.

 

[Stigmata]

Also, the new official release date for Shadowlands is November 24th. I've leveled 3 of my Alliance characters to 50 (Druid, Shaman, Priest), taking advantage of the new leveling system via dungeon spamming. I still have absolutely no idea what I want to play for the expac, and at the rate I'm going I'll probably be burned out before it launches. Healing is the only thing that manages to hold my interest longterm, as every single fight varies in what needs to be done to keep your group alive, yet I'm kind of ready to go back to DPS'ing. If I were to play a DPS, I'd probably go Hunter or Rogue -- mayyyyyybe fury warrior. Maybe....

 

[Totenkindly]

Apparently he gets kidnapped by Sylvanas' val'kyr. I'm kind of upset it appears they're setting up Sylvanas to be in cahoots with The Jailor and priming her to be the next big bad -- she's easily one of the most awesome characters in all of Warcraft. That said, after several years of horde-centric storytelling, it appears as if the Alliance is going to be setup to be the protagonists here by what I imagine will be the freeing of Anduin.

I think it's nice for Alliance to be central -- but has Alliance ever been villains? I guess Arthas was the Lich King, so... maybe? I just haven't really followed the lore much. I might read up more on it. I just didn't really play the Lich King when it was current, and all the expansions I've been playing (Pandaria, Warlords, etc.) all seem to make the Horde into the awful people that need to be stopped, with all that focus on Hellscream who I never cared for to begin with.

I was really bummed with Sylvannus went rogue. I guess the storytelling has justified it at this point, that her plan was a lot bigger than Horde or Alliance and that she is driven by the numb pain of being resurrected as an undead/forsaken. BUt I really liked her as a character, it just felt like crapping on her when all the bad turns were happening.

Also, the new official release date for Shadowlands is November 24th. I've leveled 3 of my Alliance characters to 50 (Druid, Shaman, Priest), taking advantage of the new leveling system via dungeon spamming. I still have absolutely no idea what I want to play for the expac, and at the rate I'm going I'll probably be burned out before it launches. Healing is the only thing that manages to hold my interest longterm, as every single fight varies in what needs to be done to keep your group alive, yet I'm kind of ready to go back to DPS'ing. If I were to play a DPS, I'd probably go Hunter or Rogue -- mayyyyyybe fury warrior. Maybe....

My Marksman hunter is badass, but you'll probably see a glut of them now. Elemental Shaman also feels stronger. I haven't tried Shadow Priest but I'm hearing it's cranking.

I felt like Fury locked in a bit in the new incarnation and the play didn't feel as fuzzy to me.

Ret Pally feels pretty much the same now that I have reworked my rotation (and Disc priest in terms of heals), but my Havoc DH feels less-than. I'm still squeezing out two Blade Dances when I do the 6-sec (instead of 8-sec) metamorph after Eye Beam, but I basically have to use other attacks to speed the Global cooldown to squeeze it in -- they were already part of my chain, though.


As far as SL, I will probably focus on my ret pally and my disc priest (although I might run her with Shadow for leveling), but maybe I will do my shaman or hunter as my third main instead of the DH.

 

[Stigmata]

I think it's nice for Alliance to be central -- but has Alliance ever been villains? I guess Arthas was the Lich King, so... maybe? I just haven't really followed the lore much. I might read up more on it. I just didn't really play the Lich King when it was current, and all the expansions I've been playing (Pandaria, Warlords, etc.) all seem to make the Horde into the awful people that need to be stopped, with all that focus on Hellscream who I never cared for to begin with.

I was really bummed with Sylvannus went rogue. I guess the storytelling has justified it at this point, that her plan was a lot bigger than Horde or Alliance and that she is driven by the numb pain of being resurrected as an undead/forsaken. BUt I really liked her as a character, it just felt like crapping on her when all the bad turns were happening.



My Marksman hunter is badass, but you'll probably see a glut of them now. Elemental Shaman also feels stronger. I haven't tried Shadow Priest but I'm hearing it's cranking.

I felt like Fury locked in a bit in the new incarnation and the play didn't feel as fuzzy to me.

Ret Pally feels pretty much the same now that I have reworked my rotation (and Disc priest in terms of heals), but my Havoc DH feels less-than. I'm still squeezing out two Blade Dances when I do the 6-sec (instead of 8-sec) metamorph after Eye Beam, but I basically have to use other attacks to speed the Global cooldown to squeeze it in -- they were already part of my chain, though.


As far as SL, I will probably focus on my ret pally and my disc priest (although I might run her with Shadow for leveling), but maybe I will do my shaman or hunter as my third main instead of the DH.

I did a few dungeons on my Priest as shadow to break up the monotony of healing -- Shadow seems like it'll be absolutely insane when geared at max level. You get a proc while Mind Flaying that gives you a free, instant cast mind blast that you can cast while still channeling mind flay. Plus devouring plague hits like a truck. I'm not sure I wanna go that direction but it seems like it'll be fun.

I wasn't a fan of BFA Marksman but it sounds like they've tweaked it a bit to make the rotation a bit more fluid, so I may try it again.