The Random WoW Thread

[Mr Ben]

Hammer of Justice didnt interrupt spellcasting when it was supposed to, because bosses were immune to stuns and not interrupts (I'm unsure if this got fixed or not actually, anyone know? :S)

Oh, and finally got rid of all my lvl 70 gear after doing a naxx 10 man and the T7 shoulders and that plate belt off Gothic dropped

Also got the Wraith Spear and a load of tank stuff, including the T7 tank chest

[PinkMoon]

Hammer of Justice didnt interrupt spellcasting when it was supposed to, because bosses were immune to stuns and not interrupts (I'm unsure if this got fixed or not actually, anyone know? :S)

Oh, and finally got rid of all my lvl 70 gear after doing a naxx 10 man and the T7 shoulders and that plate belt off Gothic dropped

Also got the Wraith Spear and a load of tank stuff, including the T7 tank chest

But tell us about the GIRL! Did you meet yet? Balls to purples, I want tales of romance.

Mills And Pwn, if you will.

[sprite]

Balls to purples, I want tales of romance.

I can do this! I spent Christmas & New Year's in Denmark, we danced around the Christmas tree and I got dizzy whilst they sang songs in Danish. At New Year's I managed to get my hair in a candle and lit it on fire big time, but did my boyfriend the ex firefighter sort it out? NoooOoooOoo!! One of the girls noticed and came running over and just patted it out! Apparently it was a big flame! I only lost a few unnoticeable hairs though, but it smelled funny

In WoW news, I am now Loremaster of Kalimdor! Just Eastern Kingdoms to go which should be pish by comparison. (Yes, I know they're meant to be lowering the Kalimdor requirement but currently Silverpine Forest counts for BOTH so I decided to take advantage of that to finish it off, surely when they lower the requirement they'll fix this heh)

[Jonny5]

Random question for the random thread: Do the heroic instances increase in difficulty in the same way as the normal ones do, or is it like TBC where its pretty random which are harder?

[Sirloin]

Pretty random really. Stuff like Ahk'kahet and the other spider place are amongst the hardest, whereas places like Gundrak and Violet Hold are pretty easy.

[cowfields]

Except they're all easy really.

It's not like TBC where one would be absolutely mental hard for no apparent reason like Old Hillsbrad was.

[csuzw]

Also everyone seems to have different opinions on which the hard and easy ones are (although I agree about Ahn'kahet and Gundrak).

[Hexx]

I really like mages - pretty much a glass canon though.

I've gone frost, but might change to Arcane...

[Alask]

Pretty random really. Stuff like Ahk'kahet and the other spider place are amongst the hardest, whereas places like Gundrak and Violet Hold are pretty easy.

Really? I think Gundrak is the only instance I've struggled in with a decent (i.e. guild) group. So I'd have said it was one of the harder ones. It was before we had much decent gear mind so it's probably a lot easier now we're more awesome.

VH can be painful too if you get the voidwalker boss and players who don't know to kill the adds. You think kills adds would be easy.. but nope!

[bowser123]

Apparently silencing shot does interrupt now. It didnt used to. As I have been deep BM since BC came out I'm only going off what other people have said.

Thanks for looking into it. I asked a few ingame about it, consensus was silencing shot is pretty much all there is. I have no idea how I had that shot, or something very similar, plus the big red enrage pet button. Must have been a huge rearrangement in talents.

Found the first area of the game I really didn't like from the TBC expansion, Blade's Edge Mountains. Didn't get off to a good start when I saw it was a cave of spiders that is the one path in. Killed what I needed for the quest, mounted up and ran. Stupidly so, I guess, as being a confined space I aggroed pretty much the entire cave. Died, corpse ran back. Thing is I thought I could take short cut and run as the crow flies. Big mistake. Having never been there I soon realised it was like Azshara, great big sheer edges with no way back up. Massively lost I just returned to the spirit healer and ressed there. It'd taken me ages to get back to the starting point, so the prospect of a longer run and the cave of spiders didn't look a nice one. Not had that res sickness since about level 15, still at least the graveyard is right next to the village and a flight point.

Other than that the area is quite boring with all the same mobs. Seems quite underdeveloped and very unambitious, if anything it reminded me of Dustwallow Marsh. It was no surprise when I stumbled upon Gruul's lair which confirmed my suspicions, yes this is DWM Mark II, a place of nothingness here only for a raid boss.

Done a few quests, uncovered vast areas of the map and earned enough XP to ping level 67. So decided that's it, had enough. Lets hope the next areas are more promising, think it's Netherstorm I got a quest for.

[Jonny5]

I tanked Gundrak last night and it was all easy enough until the final Rhino boss. We wiped first time and then got Fey to tank it as it was 2am and just wanted it done.

[Sirloin]

Thanks for looking into it. I asked a few ingame about it, consensus was silencing shot is pretty much all there is. I have no idea how I had that shot, or something very similar, plus the big red enrage pet button. Must have been a huge rearrangement in talents.

Found the first area of the game I really didn't like from the TBC expansion, Blade's Edge Mountains. Didn't get off to a good start when I saw it was a cave of spiders that is the one path in. Killed what I needed for the quest, mounted up and ran. Stupidly so, I guess, as being a confined space I aggroed pretty much the entire cave. Died, corpse ran back. Thing is I thought I could take short cut and run as the crow flies. Big mistake. Having never been there I soon realised it was like Azshara, great big sheer edges with no way back up. Massively lost I just returned to the spirit healer and ressed there. It'd taken me ages to get back to the starting point, so the prospect of a longer run and the cave of spiders didn't look a nice one. Not had that res sickness since about level 15, still at least the graveyard is right next to the village and a flight point.

Other than that the area is quite boring with all the same mobs. Seems quite underdeveloped and very unambitious, if anything it reminded me of Dustwallow Marsh. It was no surprise when I stumbled upon Gruul's lair which confirmed my suspicions, yes this is DWM Mark II, a place of nothingness here only for a raid boss.

Done a few quests, uncovered vast areas of the map and earned enough XP to ping level 67. So decided that's it, had enough. Lets hope the next areas are more promising, think it's Netherstorm I got a quest for.

Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley are both pretty nice, but probably a bit higher level (69ish). I would do Nagrand, which is my favourite bit of TBC, even the Nesingwary bits.

With the heroics, I think it depends on the group, Gundrak we had no problems with (apart from me falling off a cliff). I think we raced through it one shotting all bosses with no issues. VH I pugged and wiped twice on the water boss, but once we got the knack of it we did that one easy too. But then again we've had troubles with Strat before, despite that being one of the easier ones. No rhyme or reason to it...

[sprite]

Isn't Oculus supposed to be pretty horrific? It's the only instance I haven't been to now, even on normal. My first visit to Utgarde Pinnacle was last night, too! That was pretty and fun.

From a healing point of view I think the hardest heroic I've experienced is Halls of Lightning, especially in the earlier days, the last boss was horrible at first and there's a lot of opportunities for people to do silly things.

Oh! And Strat heroic is tough too, especially if you want to make the timer. I've still never done it, only because every time someone does something stupid. MT pulling way more than necessary in the final undead gauntlet bit for one... last night our know it all said "stay here" to people (including tank) who don't tend to read chat and wandered, so I said "just stick together whatever", and know it all stood still on the spawn of the next pack after the boss.. wipe.

[Sirloin]

Never done Occulus or Halls of Lightning on heroic, as I know they are hard and I can't be arsed Would much rather snooze through Nexus while chatting on vent.

[csuzw]

Apologies in advance if I'd said this before but it keeps coming up and I can't work it out. Why do people consider Occulus hard? It's probably the heroic I've done most and while I can remember a couple of nightmare runs on the last boss, generally everything has been 1 shot with ease (in fact I can't remember ever wiping on anything other than last boss). HoL is similar but I think Loken is significantly more difficult than any other heroic encounter by far.

[kitten]

My first heroic was Halls of Lightning... with a paladin healing for Loken. It probably depends on the group, but running with mostly guildies they were happy to explain the trickier fights before we started and I got all the secondary boss achievements (I think) so we must have done okay overall, despite me being so undergeared that the PUG warrior decided to comment on the worst bits during a quiet moment.

[Alask]

It's all relative though. If you're reasonably well geared you can all just bunch up and burn Loken down without having to move at all, which makes it a pretty easy fight

[Jack]

Oculus is an absolute nightmare if your group consists of morons. Most dungeons you can work around this as long as they can point themselves in the right direction, but apparently vehicles with an almighty three buttons to press are too much for the average dumbass to figure out.

[sir stiff_one]

So the DK tanking weapons aren't happening. Sad at first, but makes sense really. Either you keep that weapon forever or they itemise them from then on. Looking forward to the change in the crappy (for 2h) haste sigil and the introduction of the tanking one, plus the various blood tanking buffs.

I'm still not at the def cap, been super unlucky with the legs from VH and gearing up both DPS and tank gear for a casual noob like me is slow. Still, one dragon's eye down, 3 to go for the Earthguard ring! Was lucky enough to find a Damaged Necklace, which was nice. When the gargoyle rune comes in, I should be at the def cap pretty easily and can start increasing my avoidance and ting.

Man, roll on dual specs and glyphs because I am sick of being okay at everything and not brilliant at anything. I spent enough time as a shaman ffs.

In other news, we managed 10 man Sartharion yesterday, after a long slog involving many trash wipes, a stoned main tank and healer, me offtanking and disconnecting randomly during the thing thanks to some ongoing problem with my internet connection, deciding to leave the whelps to hatch in the end after 3 wipes, repops wiping us as we got to the end, and Duncan going on the phone to his girlfriend for half an hour. We 9 manned it till the end when our Warlock in shining (shiny) armour Space Reporter Ulala came along and laid the smackdown on everything. Got there in the end though!

[scruffycat]

VH can be painful too if you get the voidwalker boss and players who don't know to kill the adds. You think kills adds would be easy.. but nope!

I don't know why but I have a real problem targetting the adds. Reminds me, sort of, of the second (third?) boss in MgT in that respect. I have no idea why.

[Melon_Bread]

Random question for the random thread: Do the heroic instances increase in difficulty in the same way as the normal ones do, or is it like TBC where its pretty random which are harder?

It's not really the instances that are hard but individual bosses, sticking points seem to be Slad'ran in Gundrak, Skadi the Ruthless in UP and Loken in HOL, tho we seem to have got the 1st 2 down now.

Any DPS DK's should try the 32/39 dual wield spec, I was hitting 3k dps last night in Sartharion. Massive nerf incoming for this spec so enjoy it while it lasts.

[cowfields]

I like how Sprite's 'romantic tale' is basically 'my hair caught fire'.

I think the variance in what is hard and easy in heroics probably equates more to bosses being affected by group set up rather than actual difficulty. Unless people find running out of fires difficult.

Jack is right for Oculus, the problem is that people just plain fail at the dragons, the problem is you'll never outgear the last boss, the dragons will always hit heal or take as much damage as they always do. With normal bosses people's gear can make things easier as you can just brute force it. You'll never be able to brute force the last boss, you have to actually play well. Makes it a bit of a chore to do several times over really, old content you conquered a while ago isn't really fun if you can't speed it up with good gear.

The VH voidy boss, isn't an achievement to ignore the adds? A lot of achievements seem to be along the lines of 'brute force it, ignore the proper tactics' (for example the faerlina achievement) but that's still fun.

On DK weapons, Blizzard really missed an opportunity here. Rather than complaining about how niche druid tanking weapons were, all they needed to do was make them appeal to both tanks. Maces or polearms or whatever that had high stam, dodge, armour etc. Rather than making DKs want parry which druids can't do but not shields and warrior/paladin 1h seems like they didn't think it through terribly well.

[Jack]

Tips for those bosses!

Slad'ran: Ignore him at first and continue clearing the trash in the next room, and a couple of the purple water blob things just in case they come a little too close. Then have your tank go back and grab Slad'ran and fight him next to the entrance of the water blob room. This will make handling the adds much much easier, as fewer will come into the room.

Skadi: If the sticking point is getting him to come down, you can grab a bunch of harpoons, then run back into the previous room to reset it. Presto, you've got a bunch of harpoons and can get him on the ground in one pass. If the problem is when he's on the ground, remember that the tank can taunt him while he's doing a whirlwind to pull him away from the group. He moves a little slower than normal run speed when whirlwinding, but you need to make sure you have plenty of room to run - if you're fighting beside the door to the next room, you can easily run out of space.

Loken: Use the designs on the floor as a guide on how far to run. Start on the circle, then move to halfway down the stairs. Next spot is down the next set of stairs, and back up if you haven't got him down. All of his magical damage is nature-based, so use a Hunter or Shaman resistance aura if you have one in your group.

[Nimmel]

I think perhaps like Malygos some of the difficulty in Occulus can be caused by peoples UI not coping well with having to use the dragons.

In general though I think all the heroics are too easy, I miss the days of pulls requiring a bit of CC there again I don't miss the days of "LF2 Mages MGT HC" or PUG tanks that insisted that on a three mob pull two of the mobs needed to be CCed. Seemed to take us (Muk) ages last time to build up to doing heroics I'd say a good 6 months or so from TBC release to being able to do the easier ones on a regular basis (attunements and lack of guild tanks no doubt slowed us down a little), now we are AOEing everything down within 2 months of the expansion having been released. Maybe we just got better at the game, but I can see the current 5 man content becoming stale very quickly.

I'm already a bit bored of Naxx, some of the boss fights are fun but as a zone it's pretty meh. Lots of big high ceiling rooms with randomly placed monsters. I miss Kara that place felt like a living (undead) place, certainly the first part of the instance anyway. Stables with horseys, ball rooms with dancers, dinning rooms with butlers from hell. I hope future raids can match up to it.

[Alask]

Yeah, does seem a shame that CC isn't needed for anything any more. Even Naxx doesn't need it, just go along blitzing everything. I got a lovely new spell to turn people into a frog and the only time I ever use it is during Insanity on Volazj..

[Jack]

I think one of the good things about reusing Naxxramas is that it's effectively given the raid design team twice as long to make Ulduar amazing. Given that it's likely that

Yogg-Saron

is going to be the final boss, I can't wait to see what sorts of mad shit go on in there.

[Mr.Jeff]

I really hope that's not the case. I'd much rather have a brand new raid instance for that. Although considering he's mentioned as

the 100 faced terror or something you could always end up face one part of his main body then in a patch later on have to deal with his actual body somewhere else. Or several different places even. As long as there's one that looks as pretty and as awesome as AN/OK.

Edit: For final Ulduar boss, dibs on

mind controlled/corrupted Thorim

[Jack]

Well based on quests in Storm Peaks and what Loken says in Halls of Lightning, it looks really likely that

Yogg-Saron's behind all the mad shit going on in there. It would make sense with the Titans database thing talking about old gods in Halls of Stone as well. Plus, from what I hear, the mystery 3.2 raid could be Grim Batol.

[Mr.Jeff]

Yeah I remember that from Loken's speech but I would have thought they'd have chosen somewhere a bit more appropriate like Dragonblight or perhaps Grizzly where there's a bit more tangible evidence of presence. That said, considering he reaches across Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Icecrown, Grizzly Hills and possibly into Storm Peaks and Zul drak

(The wierd tail/tentacle near the colossus platform in Gundrak has been suggested to be part of Yogg-Saron)

so I guess anywhere is possible really.

[cowfields]

I want to

join

in with all the

talk in spoilers

even though I don't

have much, well, anything to add to the discussion.

One thing I will say is

they missed a few opportunities for some awesome boss fight characters when they let you kill them off in quests. I'm talking about Orbaz Bloodbane and Drakuru specifically. I know

they

have to leave some

named mobs for quests

so

the

quests

don 't feel to

arbitrary but at the same time, the complaint about TBC questing was there wasn't much leading you up to the final bosses of 25 man instances. They're obviously better at it now with Arthas' cameos every 5 mins, and obviously the frequent but cryptic Yogg Saron stuff. But still, it'd be nice to leave some questlines on a cliffhanger to revisit much later with a raid instance