I spent some time last night looking over the LW items that I can make as well as what was available in the AH for sale. To my surprise and pleasure I noticed that there is a lot of BLUE armor items that are seeing a decent amount of turnover in the AH. Prices are reasonable and the stats available for a lot of that equipment are really nice. This has really gotten me to thinking what I need to be shooting for stat wise at 80. I'm already reading on BRK's site that level 80 hunters should have AP in the 3000 to 3500 range. I feel like my stats are comfortable for my level and the level of my gear currently. And since I only hit 70 just after the release of LK I'm happy with this. Plus LW does offer a lot of good gear. Here again, I am blessed in that my LW skill is high enough that I can actually craft gear that is above my level. From this standpoint I really don't need to be looking to buy anything in the AH, but at the same time, having access to both is groovy. I'm imagining given some of the changes regarding how things scale now that Crit Chance will need to be somewhere above 22 or 23%. What is still hard to figure is what will be a nominal number for AGI and INT, as well as if there is going to be a need for a nominal MP5 number.
While I know I won't be starting at 80 with great gear, it is nice to see that I will have plenty of access to good gear without having to run any of the instances right off the bat. I can't wait. I will definitely be hitting 72 over the weekend and I am hoping that I can make some good ground towards 73 as well.
Zulu
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Reminiscing.....
Gilneas is not known for having a significant Horde population any more which is unfortunate. I was trolling through the realm forum for Gilneas and something I noticed was the massive number of Horde players that have transfered to other servers. When I first started playing WoW I rolled a Horde toon along with an Ally toon. My Ally toon would become my main toon as that is the side many of my friends from work played on. But my Horde toon, an undead mage, is where I really cut my teeth on many aspects of the game that seemed esoteric in the beginning. In those days, prior to the release of Burning Crusades, my mage (who never advanced above level 19) was a PVP madman. On a weekly basis I would spend 2 or 3 hours in WSG thwarting Alliance PVP'ers and Twinks alike. Give me a good rogue at level 19 and my mage that was specced frost and no one could touch the flag if we were gaurding it. I remember also back then that the Horde had a significantly larger presence on the server.
While I can't remember the specific allocation of population accurately I believe in the fall of 2006 the Horde was at 30% or higher population wise. Now only 13% of the population of the server is Horde. This means that for the most part, questing as Horde means you will almost always be alone. I've done a fair amount of investigation regarding what has happened on the server to the Horde, including asking this question in trade chat, and the answer is pretty consistent. It seems of the veteran Horde players, some rerolled Alliance and now hardly ever play their Horde toons anymore, or they transfered off the server. From when I used to play my PVP mage and the original hunter I rolled on the Horde side, I see very few names of players that I recognize any more. Some of the names of the Horde players that regularly post in the Gilneas forum are unknown known to me as well, but there are a few that I remember seeing from back before BC.
A part of me misses the days when I would be in the barrens and see that the Crossroads was under attack, and the next thing you would know there would be 3 or 4 level 60 Horde guys there in full T3 to clean the Alliance players clocks. I miss dueling in Crossroads with players that were 5 to 10 levels lower than my level only to be beaten by people who really understood PVP combat and Dueling. I will miss the days of seeing RAID INC in Orgrimmar after a night of raiding. The part of these times that I won't miss are the City Raids, as these lag fests messed with many a weekend night when I was in the AH. Oh, well......
Looking at the Armory and WarCraftRealms one thing that kinda makes me happy is that my race is in the minority on the server. Why more people don't play trolls is beyond me, the racials have benefits that are good for both PVP and PVE. As I get closer to 80 I am beginning to think of what I would like to level next for the Horde. My bank toon is a Priest so all I'd have to do is just start questing with her, but I am also really thinking about rolling a rogue as well.
Zulu.
While I can't remember the specific allocation of population accurately I believe in the fall of 2006 the Horde was at 30% or higher population wise. Now only 13% of the population of the server is Horde. This means that for the most part, questing as Horde means you will almost always be alone. I've done a fair amount of investigation regarding what has happened on the server to the Horde, including asking this question in trade chat, and the answer is pretty consistent. It seems of the veteran Horde players, some rerolled Alliance and now hardly ever play their Horde toons anymore, or they transfered off the server. From when I used to play my PVP mage and the original hunter I rolled on the Horde side, I see very few names of players that I recognize any more. Some of the names of the Horde players that regularly post in the Gilneas forum are unknown known to me as well, but there are a few that I remember seeing from back before BC.
A part of me misses the days when I would be in the barrens and see that the Crossroads was under attack, and the next thing you would know there would be 3 or 4 level 60 Horde guys there in full T3 to clean the Alliance players clocks. I miss dueling in Crossroads with players that were 5 to 10 levels lower than my level only to be beaten by people who really understood PVP combat and Dueling. I will miss the days of seeing RAID INC in Orgrimmar after a night of raiding. The part of these times that I won't miss are the City Raids, as these lag fests messed with many a weekend night when I was in the AH. Oh, well......
Looking at the Armory and WarCraftRealms one thing that kinda makes me happy is that my race is in the minority on the server. Why more people don't play trolls is beyond me, the racials have benefits that are good for both PVP and PVE. As I get closer to 80 I am beginning to think of what I would like to level next for the Horde. My bank toon is a Priest so all I'd have to do is just start questing with her, but I am also really thinking about rolling a rogue as well.
Zulu.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
More about Learning & My Soapbox
So, everyone saw the news yesterday and like a lot of people, I am wearing a frown. While I can definitely say I will miss the destructive power of Volley, and I'm not sold that the changes to Steady Shot will really be all that much in the long run. The deciding factor here will be in how the new numbers scale with our AP and such. As far as the rest of the changes, I really am not all that worried about them. After looking over things in game and the overall numbers, losing 10% on Steady Shot can by returned through the Steady Shot Glyph, as long as you keep a sting on your opponent. This isn't such a bad deal as many of the stings, while situational, can be used. I know that some people will say this is a good use of mana, but the alternative is a loss of DPS in Steady Shot.
Personally, after having watched what Blizz has been doing in patches from the fall prior to the release of BC to now, I feel like Blizz, while being to kind to those who scream everyone else is OP, has the right intent at heart with most of their changes. I know they don't always get it right but hey, no one is perfect and when you have a group of people that are not perfect it can be interesting to say the least. Still though, while this changes things some for hunters I really don't see the numbers stacking up to be a major nerf. Losing a handful of points in damage is not really something to sweat. Now if they had said a 50% reduction on Steady Shot, I would have a problem as this would mean that this shot is no longer very efficient.
From reading peoples responses to this as well as take a further look into what the potential impact will be for me live in game, I can say that I concur with the sentiment of Loronar at 35 Years Out in that Blizz should not have released WotLK if they were not fully ready and had tested as well as possible all the aspects that were questionable. This unfortunately seems to be what a standard with Blizz. Rush things so the players don't get too bored and take the attitdue we'll fix it later. This is infuriating as a player in that we will see something and think this is what the new changes should be only to learn that is not what Blizz had intended from the bery beginning. To me this runs a bigger risk of alienating players than not having enough new content to keep people from becoming bored. But lets be realistic here as well and look at this in the scope of a broader picture.
When I began playing in the summer of 2006, the original Naxx had apparently just recently been released. I remember vividly back then that on my server, there were very few people or guilds that were in Naxx. The rest of the level 60 players, which to me seemed like a whole lot, mainly did the regular instance runs and Onyxia and worked diligently at their rep grinds in Winterspring, Silithus and the Plagelands. That fall there was a major change in the pre-BC patch that had a huge impact on a lot of players and talent builds. In many ways it totally elimated some talent tree builds from the game totally, especially for Rogues (whom we all know have been getting the short end of the stick for a long time now.) Burning Crusades released in the winter of 2007 and things really began to change from there. There was a diferrence though, in that many of the changes were attempts to fix issues that came up that Blizz had never intended to be in the game in the first place.
The confusion and anger this caused has been felt by all I feel, and this was made even greater with Blizz shifted focus towards PVP combat. All in all, the impression that I have gotten is that Blizz is sitting on a fence of sorts with the game and it direction, and BC only revealed to the players how deeply that indecision is at Blizz HQ. Over the course of the last two years, Blizz has seemed to balance some things and left other areas broken. Very little has happened in a positive way as far as class and talent changes go. There have been bright spots for most every class, these just haven't been very many or very often.
Lich King and it's pre-releaes patch have given the game a lot of positives. More than we've seen in a long time. But I have to agree wit Loronar in that Blizz should have taken the extra time to ensure that most of the issues were closer to where they wanted them to be in the first place before everything went live. Again, the impact here is greater than the WoW players getting bored. I know that a lot of people on our server were diligently working towards getting to Sunwell. BT had never been farmed so much on our server as it was that summer and early fall. But when Blizz announced that WotLK was going to Release on the November date that ended almost all raiding on our server. Why?
The principle reason why is that the players focus changed. Unlike the fall before the release of BC, people were not bored. The Outlands still provided everyone with a lot to do. Between dailies, rep grinding for great gear and flying mounts, to developing casual guilds into guilds capable of making it into Sunwell and the Arenas. There is more than enough for everyone to be involved in the game. Realistically I think Blizz could have easily waited until Feb of 09 or even maybe as late as May of 09 and not lost very many players to other games. Now though, Blizz may be in the crucible again of losing players over major changes because they didn't have all their ducks in a row when the game went live. If trade and general chat channels are a good way to measure the pulse of the players in the game, then Blizz should have noticed that most players had no intetions of ever leaving this game just because other games were coming out.
People have tried Conan and Warhammer, but most of the regular WoW players came back before the release date of LK anyways. Both games are good in their own right, but neither offers the total experience that WoW does. And this should be something that Blizz is aware of, as it gives Blizz a lot of room to be patient and to get things right from the get go. I really dislike reactionary actions and the release of LK so early I feel was reactionary to the release of so many other MMO type games this last summer and fall. Now Blizz is going to pay for this to some degree.
Sorry for the rant, but one of the major strenghts of this game is it's availability for solo PVE play, and I would like to see more from Blizz in this area. PVP, Instances and raids are great and making them more accesible to the regular player base is also a good thing. But there also needs to be greater focus on the stories in the game as well as a recognition that each class is different and this should be more apparent. Making the game more homogenized isn't the answer. Ensuring that each class is unique and interesting should be the answer as well as ensuring that people "need" the other classes and other players to complete the harder content.
Ideally I would like to see this game approach a medium where each class is significant in their own right. Rogues should be the masters of stealth and sneak attacks. Mages should be the masters of explosive power and warriors shouldn't have to worry about their longevity battling the masses and so on. Every class should have a strengh that they are the absolute best at and a weakness that can only be minimized by grouping with other people and classes. Some class v class match ups should be bad match ups. For example, warriors should be able to easily and quickly dispatch a mage or priest, but by the same token these classes should have a quick and dirty answer if those warriors don't play smart. A warrior that allows a mage to keep them at range should be burned down with a couple of spells, and a mage that allows a warrior to get to close should be cut down with a hit or two in duels. This only makes sense in a way regarding PVP.
Finishing up, I'd like to say, the upcoming changes are unfortunate but they are not seriously game breaking or class breaking changes. And in this respect we should be a little grateful to Blizz.
@Brajana:
Steady Shot is faster, no doubt. But having a mana pool of barely 5800 doesn't really make spamming Steady Shot feel better. I find that if I am in an area where I am moving through mobs rapidly, like around Camp Winterhoof and Skorn, I am keeping Viper up the whole time instead of keeping AotB up. Not that this caused any real problems, it just meant that I was still moving fairly slow. I'm still playing with it, so I'll keep you up to date.
Zulu
Personally, after having watched what Blizz has been doing in patches from the fall prior to the release of BC to now, I feel like Blizz, while being to kind to those who scream everyone else is OP, has the right intent at heart with most of their changes. I know they don't always get it right but hey, no one is perfect and when you have a group of people that are not perfect it can be interesting to say the least. Still though, while this changes things some for hunters I really don't see the numbers stacking up to be a major nerf. Losing a handful of points in damage is not really something to sweat. Now if they had said a 50% reduction on Steady Shot, I would have a problem as this would mean that this shot is no longer very efficient.
From reading peoples responses to this as well as take a further look into what the potential impact will be for me live in game, I can say that I concur with the sentiment of Loronar at 35 Years Out in that Blizz should not have released WotLK if they were not fully ready and had tested as well as possible all the aspects that were questionable. This unfortunately seems to be what a standard with Blizz. Rush things so the players don't get too bored and take the attitdue we'll fix it later. This is infuriating as a player in that we will see something and think this is what the new changes should be only to learn that is not what Blizz had intended from the bery beginning. To me this runs a bigger risk of alienating players than not having enough new content to keep people from becoming bored. But lets be realistic here as well and look at this in the scope of a broader picture.
When I began playing in the summer of 2006, the original Naxx had apparently just recently been released. I remember vividly back then that on my server, there were very few people or guilds that were in Naxx. The rest of the level 60 players, which to me seemed like a whole lot, mainly did the regular instance runs and Onyxia and worked diligently at their rep grinds in Winterspring, Silithus and the Plagelands. That fall there was a major change in the pre-BC patch that had a huge impact on a lot of players and talent builds. In many ways it totally elimated some talent tree builds from the game totally, especially for Rogues (whom we all know have been getting the short end of the stick for a long time now.) Burning Crusades released in the winter of 2007 and things really began to change from there. There was a diferrence though, in that many of the changes were attempts to fix issues that came up that Blizz had never intended to be in the game in the first place.
The confusion and anger this caused has been felt by all I feel, and this was made even greater with Blizz shifted focus towards PVP combat. All in all, the impression that I have gotten is that Blizz is sitting on a fence of sorts with the game and it direction, and BC only revealed to the players how deeply that indecision is at Blizz HQ. Over the course of the last two years, Blizz has seemed to balance some things and left other areas broken. Very little has happened in a positive way as far as class and talent changes go. There have been bright spots for most every class, these just haven't been very many or very often.
Lich King and it's pre-releaes patch have given the game a lot of positives. More than we've seen in a long time. But I have to agree wit Loronar in that Blizz should have taken the extra time to ensure that most of the issues were closer to where they wanted them to be in the first place before everything went live. Again, the impact here is greater than the WoW players getting bored. I know that a lot of people on our server were diligently working towards getting to Sunwell. BT had never been farmed so much on our server as it was that summer and early fall. But when Blizz announced that WotLK was going to Release on the November date that ended almost all raiding on our server. Why?
The principle reason why is that the players focus changed. Unlike the fall before the release of BC, people were not bored. The Outlands still provided everyone with a lot to do. Between dailies, rep grinding for great gear and flying mounts, to developing casual guilds into guilds capable of making it into Sunwell and the Arenas. There is more than enough for everyone to be involved in the game. Realistically I think Blizz could have easily waited until Feb of 09 or even maybe as late as May of 09 and not lost very many players to other games. Now though, Blizz may be in the crucible again of losing players over major changes because they didn't have all their ducks in a row when the game went live. If trade and general chat channels are a good way to measure the pulse of the players in the game, then Blizz should have noticed that most players had no intetions of ever leaving this game just because other games were coming out.
People have tried Conan and Warhammer, but most of the regular WoW players came back before the release date of LK anyways. Both games are good in their own right, but neither offers the total experience that WoW does. And this should be something that Blizz is aware of, as it gives Blizz a lot of room to be patient and to get things right from the get go. I really dislike reactionary actions and the release of LK so early I feel was reactionary to the release of so many other MMO type games this last summer and fall. Now Blizz is going to pay for this to some degree.
Sorry for the rant, but one of the major strenghts of this game is it's availability for solo PVE play, and I would like to see more from Blizz in this area. PVP, Instances and raids are great and making them more accesible to the regular player base is also a good thing. But there also needs to be greater focus on the stories in the game as well as a recognition that each class is different and this should be more apparent. Making the game more homogenized isn't the answer. Ensuring that each class is unique and interesting should be the answer as well as ensuring that people "need" the other classes and other players to complete the harder content.
Ideally I would like to see this game approach a medium where each class is significant in their own right. Rogues should be the masters of stealth and sneak attacks. Mages should be the masters of explosive power and warriors shouldn't have to worry about their longevity battling the masses and so on. Every class should have a strengh that they are the absolute best at and a weakness that can only be minimized by grouping with other people and classes. Some class v class match ups should be bad match ups. For example, warriors should be able to easily and quickly dispatch a mage or priest, but by the same token these classes should have a quick and dirty answer if those warriors don't play smart. A warrior that allows a mage to keep them at range should be burned down with a couple of spells, and a mage that allows a warrior to get to close should be cut down with a hit or two in duels. This only makes sense in a way regarding PVP.
Finishing up, I'd like to say, the upcoming changes are unfortunate but they are not seriously game breaking or class breaking changes. And in this respect we should be a little grateful to Blizz.
@Brajana:
Steady Shot is faster, no doubt. But having a mana pool of barely 5800 doesn't really make spamming Steady Shot feel better. I find that if I am in an area where I am moving through mobs rapidly, like around Camp Winterhoof and Skorn, I am keeping Viper up the whole time instead of keeping AotB up. Not that this caused any real problems, it just meant that I was still moving fairly slow. I'm still playing with it, so I'll keep you up to date.
Zulu
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Howling Fjord and Quests
So I found my self going through more quests in Howling Fjord this morning and I was up in the North near where you enter Grizzly Hills questing. I came out of the quests with a tone of mats from killing so many elementals and I also walked away with a very good impression of the area and the quests there. While I like Borean Tundra, I feel too often that the quests there were just thrown out there onto the board and that no one really paid all that much attention to where they landed. I spend as much time moving from one place to the next as I do actually trying to complete the quests. And to add to that, there is not a lot of continuity to the stories being told in the quests. Where as in the Howling Fjord, someone took the time to set up the quests in a much more rational manner and the story lines are a whole lot better. I am at a point though where I need to research into getting all my FP's in Northrend connected to each other somehow. I keep getting new FP's but I still have to go back to Undercity and Orgrimmar to move between Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord. This will save me so much time!
Another thing I am beginnig to notice, at least on my server. Where did all the Horde go in Northrend? Unless I am in one of the major cities, I never see any other Horde players questing on my server. I do see the occasional comment in general or trade chat, but beyond that it seems as if no one is on. Not that this matters to me all that much, but there have been times it would have been nice to group with someone to go through some of the areas that have large populations of mobs packed fairly closely together and on a fast reset timer. I'm finding in a couple of places like this, that I cannot kill the mobs fast enough to get my quest objectives done.
And Thanks to Brajana at Mend Pet for answering a question about 'Kill Shot' that had been lingering around in my brain. Which brings up another question that begs consideration. While questing I usually only use Serpent Sting and Autoshot on my of my kills unless I pick up more than one mob. Then I will use Multishot and then Volley once or twice. On harder kills such as Named mobs or Elite mobs I'll start with Serpent Sting then spam Steady Shot until dead. I find that when I use shots other than Serpent Sting I will have to turn on Aspect of the Viper if I want to keep moving from mob to mob. This isn't such a big deal really, but it does slow me down just a little bit as I am doing less damage. So my question is, what shots or rotations seem to be ideal for different situations?
Zulu
Another thing I am beginnig to notice, at least on my server. Where did all the Horde go in Northrend? Unless I am in one of the major cities, I never see any other Horde players questing on my server. I do see the occasional comment in general or trade chat, but beyond that it seems as if no one is on. Not that this matters to me all that much, but there have been times it would have been nice to group with someone to go through some of the areas that have large populations of mobs packed fairly closely together and on a fast reset timer. I'm finding in a couple of places like this, that I cannot kill the mobs fast enough to get my quest objectives done.
And Thanks to Brajana at Mend Pet for answering a question about 'Kill Shot' that had been lingering around in my brain. Which brings up another question that begs consideration. While questing I usually only use Serpent Sting and Autoshot on my of my kills unless I pick up more than one mob. Then I will use Multishot and then Volley once or twice. On harder kills such as Named mobs or Elite mobs I'll start with Serpent Sting then spam Steady Shot until dead. I find that when I use shots other than Serpent Sting I will have to turn on Aspect of the Viper if I want to keep moving from mob to mob. This isn't such a big deal really, but it does slow me down just a little bit as I am doing less damage. So my question is, what shots or rotations seem to be ideal for different situations?
Zulu
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Lag in Play
I know it has been quite a while since I last posted, but RL has raised it's ugly head and pretty much limited my play time recently. I have been able to play a little bit but I have chosen to play a lower level alt for a while as it is easier to fit that into the rare time that I have had to play recently.
Either way, I hit level 71 this morning while knocking out some quests around the Nexus and I also finally brought my gorilla up to peak level as well. This will help tremendously while I continue to level as it is a whole lot easier for him to maintain aggro than my cat. I know that as some point I will have to finish bring my cat up to level, I will definitely save that for another day.
My leather working is now almost 400 and I do like the gear that you can make. It seems to be as good as what I am seeing as quest rewards and this allows me to feel more comfortable about choosing to wear it. I am now wearing 4 of the 8 pieces and can now craft the 'Blue' chest and legs for the set as well. I can't wait to see what I unlock when I hit 450 in LW. My skinning is now also maxed at 450 so skinning what I need should not be a problem. Given the rareness of Arctic Fur, I am thinking about spending some amount of time over the next level or two farming as much of the stuff as I can get, if for no other reason than to sell the stuff. Also, does Kill Shot really measure up? I like the numbers this ability has, but is it worth using?
Happy Hunting,
Zulu
Either way, I hit level 71 this morning while knocking out some quests around the Nexus and I also finally brought my gorilla up to peak level as well. This will help tremendously while I continue to level as it is a whole lot easier for him to maintain aggro than my cat. I know that as some point I will have to finish bring my cat up to level, I will definitely save that for another day.
My leather working is now almost 400 and I do like the gear that you can make. It seems to be as good as what I am seeing as quest rewards and this allows me to feel more comfortable about choosing to wear it. I am now wearing 4 of the 8 pieces and can now craft the 'Blue' chest and legs for the set as well. I can't wait to see what I unlock when I hit 450 in LW. My skinning is now also maxed at 450 so skinning what I need should not be a problem. Given the rareness of Arctic Fur, I am thinking about spending some amount of time over the next level or two farming as much of the stuff as I can get, if for no other reason than to sell the stuff. Also, does Kill Shot really measure up? I like the numbers this ability has, but is it worth using?
Happy Hunting,
Zulu
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