mists of pandaria

witless1 wrote: »

I don't think SoR works on a new monk char, think I saw a blue post weeks ago about that. I know from reading around that the levels granted from RAF work so people could free boost a monk to 80 if they had two RAF characters ready to grant levels (2x 40 free levels). That's an instant 80 about 2 mins after the game goes live. Granted it would still take an extreme effort to get 80-90 in <10 hours.

I think it does work.. Launch started at 11pm Ire. time and by 1am I had seen a level 80 Monk already on server. That being said, I also saw a level 5x Monk. Still, the difference between 5x and 80 is an easy few hours!

Noxin wrote: »

I think it does work.. Launch started at 11pm Ire. time and by 1am I had seen a level 80 Monk already on server. That being said, I also saw a level 5x Monk. Still, the difference between 5x and 80 is an easy few hours!

Nope, it doesn't according to the FAQ on the SoR:
https://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/scroll-of-resurrection-faq#q15

Monks aren't eligible for the free level 80 boost. The level 80 monks you were seeing came from RAF boosting using 2x RAF accounts to grant 40 levels each. To get that someone had to level 2x RAF accounts to level 80 & pay the appropriate fee for the battlechest & one month sub.

froog wrote: »

i was also curious about the crazy levelling speed. apparently some people are doing this exploit called "mob-tagging". basically they go into an instance with some friends, then leave the group when inside but continue on with the instance. you target the mobs and your mates kill them, but since you technically aren't in the group, you get all the xp. so from a single dungeon you could easily get a level and a bit's worth of xp.

beware tho, this will get you banned. the worlds first 90 was on my server and he got xp and gear nerfed back to 85!

Mob tagging is around since WoW began and is fine in the open world, I do it the whole time as a shadow priest Doing it in an instance is an exploit, think that muppet Athene got done for his world first on it in the past. The Fs chap on Ravencrest is hard done by IMO. It wasn't really an exploit and it didn't really fall under clever use of mechanics considering the XP wasn't boosted or anything. Was a genius idea though but they dropped him back to like 87 which didn't make sense, if it was a proper exploit he should have been pushed back to 85.

Dinged 90 about 1am. After the post-launch hiccups, I enjoyed the leveling. Parts of Jade Forest were rubbish (punching bags anyone?) but overall, it was fun. The overall world theme is cheesy as hell but dammit it's impressive at the same time.

Also, leveling professions was remarkably painless. My experiences with tailoring have been horribly expensive from WotLK and Cata but this time around, the cloth needed is minor in comparison and I got to 600 with only spending ~800g, and would have been a fraction of that if I waited a few hours.

Dcully wrote: »

Anyone know of whats changed for holy priests?

I had been away and came back a week before launch, so haven't raided with new changes at 85. That said, any instance I did seemed fine. If you check out the talent system changes (good summaries on icy-veins, can't link in work), you can mess about a lot with different niche setups but from my two runs, play style hasn't changed much. I think disc has seen the bigger changes tbh. Oh and the lvl 90 talent skill hasn't been used because my 90 /played is only about 10 minutes

witless1 wrote: »

Saw the video on MMO champion before replying to your post earlier. They basically found level 89 mobs that leave a cloud behind them when you kill them. This increases your DPS and can be stacked up to 8 times. So he was tagging mobs and him and his team of 5 others were taking them down. XP was alright at the start and as he got closer to 90 the XP went up as the mobs became level appropriate. They practiced it in beta and it made it into the live game. For me it's not a bug, it's intended functionality, the buff worked as intended it worked for a limited duration, they chain pulled, respawn rates were normal and they kept the buff rolling on max stacks. His XP gains weren't over the top or bugged but I'm sure they went with the clever use of game mechanics. Just bad press for Blizzard to see people hit 90 within a few hours of release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GofjSQ5ei1g

cool, seems a bit unfair so. no real rule against that.

super_furry wrote: »

Do the Monks start out level 1 or is it like the Death Knight boost?

They start at level one

I haven't levelled a character since the Cataclysm revamp so I might make a Monk and go for it. Healer / Tank most likely for queues. Need to get my Priest levelled first. Got to 86 today was quiet happy with that.

Question: I completed all of the quests around Perlfin Village up to and including the quest where you kill the elite and get your first blue (staff for me) and also got a pet. Quests were actually quiet fun even though they were long winded at times. Anyway after handing in those two quests and becoming exalted with them I had no more quests. I got offered no follow on quest or prompts as to where to go next. I went all around the place and back to the city you land in from SW. Could find nothing, a google search turned up a question from someone in the beta who experienced this and reported it as a bug, no reply to his thread though. So is this a bug or is this what they intended? I spent 30 mins or so running around to different flight path locations and picking up the odd quest or two. Now it seems to be somewhat back on track up at the Monastery place. Should I just move onto the next zone or keep questing there? I normally use the zone achievements while leveling as a metric for when to move on but seems my progress wasn't really as linear as it should have been I'm not to sure what to do. That and I don't want to spend more time running around like a dope looking for quests scattered about the place!

The Queues
Can't talk about a new WoW expo without talking queues, and it was horrible. Playing on probably the games highest pop server never helps when it comes to WoW and a new expo.
Launch night was horrendous and I think from now one I'll stop getting myself pumped for launch night. The transition from CATA into MOP , while you are logged in, was a great idea. Unfrotunately the hardware couldnt deal with it and there was lag and constant disconnects, hanging and bugged queus all over the place.
I gave it an hour or two before calling it quits.
I was hit with some bad luck throughout. Everyone knows that you have a 15 minute grace period to hold your spot in the queue. Four times, whilst in a queue, I was disconnected and when reconnecting a few SECONDS later was thrown to the end of the queue.
I was disconnected from the game three times during the last three days, and each time, after logging back in after a minute or two, got put into a 3 hour queue.

This actually prompted me to ring Blizzard customer support after getting some fit of rage. I was calm on the call and explained that I'd been suffering some horrendous bad luck and bugs that were extremely frustrating. In fairness they were pretty nice about it and it was escalated to a line manager who said they would look into sorting me out somehow.
But overall there was about three times I loaded up the FCM and felt like moving, as it was a joke, in 2012, with the advances in cloud computing and server balancing that queues still exist in the first place, but even more annoying was the consistent bugs I got that through me into massive queues.

The levelling experience
Due to the above issues, levelling was slower then I wanted. I had hoped to be 90 by Wednesday night and instead it took till Friday afternoon which was a pity. I encountered a number of quests which bugged and stopped the progression of the current hub, or hubs bugged in general which caused a drop in XP per hour.
The questing was linear, but didnt feel it. You were being guided along into each relevant area, but it didnt "feel" that way.

The quests were good, it never felt "grindy" and there was good variation. I dont at all feel sick thinking of having to do it twice more soon for alts.You got a good introduction to the Panda race, although I never felt in anyway " epic" going through it. I've killed the Lich King, I've banished Death Wing, I've slain Illidan, yet I was having gargles with Pandas and ploughing fields : /

The Class changes and talents
Warlocks rotation hasnt changed much, with Aff coming into the expansion top dog, the most interesitng change is not using a pet, instead sacrificing it for a big DPS increase for 30 minutes. However I used my voidwalker for levelling , as a tank, provided good efficeny. I'm happy with the new way you choose your "tier"talents. There is genuine variety and I've already see myself chop and change a bit, Tome of the clear mind are a must have in your bags.

I have a "spec" I'm happy with and will keep, and best of all, didn't check or look at a "guide" or "cookie cutter" build once, but lads talking ingame say that its mostly choice anyway.

A big win here, for far too long talents were never a thought, and just you checking a website or a top raider and copy and paste, this is a big big big win in my book.

Pandaria
Looks beautiful. A very high level of Asian influence, the zones feel epic, they feel great and they look astonishing.
It doesnt feel cramped, yet its not too big so you can get around easy enough. The mobs look relatively interesting, and while there is a bit of rehashing, they kept inline with the zones.

Dungeons
I've gone through all the normal mode ones and most of them on heroic. The dungeons, I have to say, are very easy. Typically every expansion you struggle a little until you gather gear, and then gradually start to overpower the dungeons. No such problems here. After dinging 90, fifteen minutes later I had the required ilvl and went on my merry way. A few dungeons later I'd gathered a decent amount of gear already.
But I havn't had a wipe yet in a dungeon, and I havnt had an ow **** moment. Granted most of the runs have been with a skilled group, I've run some heroics specifically for gear, with randoms, and had no issues.
Don't know how I feel about this, I'm kinda unsure, but its extremely easy.

The designs and encounters are good, are fun, and keep you on your toes in terms of watching for boss abilities.

Proffessions
Shock to the system. I was raging I forgot to get myself mining to max on an alt to use for JC on my main, well, didnt matter in the slightest. From the cloth I gathered during my levelling, I was able to basically sit in one spot and get max level tailoring, for no cost. Making the cloth pvp sets, I was able to boost my own ilvl, and also make about 9k gold in a day from selling the items.
Jewelcrafting I took a look into seeing what price the gems were raw, to cut and then level. To my suprise, maxing JC cost me about 1k gold, and considering the profit from tailoring, didnt cost a thing, furthermore the sales I've made from my cuts put me into profit alone.
All in all I think Blizzard didnt want to make proffs a hnderance, and it was extremely quick to level. The way JC works is interesting, in that you dont buy patterns, you do research which gives you random gem cuts of that colour. I'm not sure if you can learn a specific cut, but it appears you need to cross your fingers you get the cut gem you want, or a gem that will earn some gold. Must look into this more.
JC also has some mount patterns ( which I've got a few already) although cost 20k each to make. You also get the metgem patterns from random mobs from levelling, I think I have 9.

Tailoring has the norm, a new bag and some gear, although the patterns for the bag come at Exalted from a faction, and the two main patterns for PvE cloth wearers comes at honoured which isnt bad.

Scenarios
A bit of fun, they take about 10 minutes with a good group, and are basically group quests. Interesting to see and do, easy gear and VP points, not much more then that, a bit of fun. Three people of any class can go in and clear.

Challenge modes
I havnt ventured in, these appear harder then heroics to get your medal, and without a good dedicated group at 90 I'm not wasting time pugging.

Raids
Unlock this week, doubt I'll raid at all tbh

Dailies and factions
I like this, we are a bit of a throw back to TBC here. Tabards are gone, so reputation is gotten purely from dailies, so its putitng a grind element into the game. But there are plenty of factions (about 6 I think) and each provides different things, so its down to you to look into what you want and pick what you want to hit first.
Grnted you could spend the day doing everything, as the limit now is like 50 quests a day, if your struggling for time you need to prio, well worth having a read up on.

For me I've gone for Golden Lotus for their PvE tailoring patterns and epic bag patterns, and Order of the Serpeant for the mount and their JC mount patterns.

PVP
Who gives a ****

Overall impression
Still need to try pet battles, but overall, very impressed. Its always good to be back in WoW and playing with new content, but there genuinelly feels like plenty to do. With a host of end game content, constantly something to do with dailies and factions, dungeons being relatively smooth and not monotonous, there is plenty here to keep me confident in my 6 month renewal, and I havnt even looked at raiding.
Raids unlock this week ( which I'm not sure if I will be touching, as my guild is dead, although few alt run/casual runs lined up) and LFR unlocks next week which will be good to get into.

After the dissapointment and epic flop of Swtor, the confusion with Guildwars2 ( I didnt know there was no PvE endgame) its nice to see the best MMO back on top and still going strong.

And with content patches going to hit us quicker then ever, its a good time to be playing WoW

TheDoc wrote: »

The Queues
Can't talk about a new WoW expo without talking queues, and it was horrible. Playing on probably the games highest pop server never helps when it comes to WoW and a new expo.

<snipped>

Pretty similar experience, but thankfully I am on a server with no Queue's.

Leveling: I found 88-89 a pain in the ass, and slow. But 89-90 a breeze. Maybe i was in the wrong area, but by 90 i had completed almost all of the Quest meta achievements.
I found some areas disjointed in that I didnt find quest hubs, or quests leading to these hubs until I was flying over them at 90.

Dungeons: Hit 90, made a JC necklace, straight into the HCs. I agree they are too easy. The only wipe I've had is the third boss in the Gates instance, who sometimes bugs and the fires stay there for the boss fight.

Scenarios: Went to do Scenaturday on well Saturday, and a load of it was bugged.

Professions: Cooking seems to be all over the shop. I like that it is split into sub sections, but now the amount of work/tokens/mats required to level it is nonsense.
JC learning the blue recipes is interesting. Great that we can get the JC only epics straight away though. Pity is now 2 instead of three

Challenge Modes: Tried yesterdays CM [Scarlet Halls] with a fairly decent group. Definately undergeared. Gave up after 15 mins.

Gear:
A) F*** Brewfesat. Took about 50 tries to get the Melee trinket, as everyone seemed to be rolling on it. Tanks, Druids Healers etc. Pain in the ass.

Was EXTREMELY lucky and got let into a Sha of Anger kill at 89. Got Tier Legs, which was nice. However it would be nice to be able to see your loot locks for world bosses.

C) Low rate epic HC drops. Still not sure how i feel about these. Drop % is so low, by the time you get them you will have LFR stuff.

Dailies:
Finding doing Golden Lotus, Klaxxi and Cloud Serpents is definitely enough for me. Will at least keep me busy when i get home from work for a few hours every evening.

Raids: We have had quite a number of people apply to our 25m [currently looking at about 40 players on the roster], so actually looking forward to raiding. Seems we had 50+ people on all over the weekend, and while a good few are socials, and people will fail trials, or become disinterested, it still looks healthy.

Overall I am impressed and looking forward to see what is coming in the nexct few weeks/months.

TheDoc wrote: »

Few things I took from your post

World bosses

Completely forgot about these...holy **** they give Tier? Need to get myself into a pug on those bag boys.

Cross realm
Cannot state enough, if your having a mare like I was in some areas with an over population jossling for a mob, grab a friend from real id and join a party, typically you get transfered to their realm

World Bosses:
An unannmed guild on our server who is pretty much one of the top, yet somehow filled to the brim with douches were wiping on Sha. Four times the pulled, Four times they wiped. We were in a 40man PUG that was trying to tag at the same time. Anyways, we finally tag We have the boss on sub 20%, they somehow bug the boss with Smoke Bomgs or some other rogue shennanigans.
This is the problem with world bosses. While it is nice to have 40 people together, it isnt particularly hard. Tagging makes it annoying.
They also Drop PVP Season gear, but meh. EDIT: FYI the gear is NOT LFR gear as suggested, but proper 496 Tier gear.
Havent been able to do Galleon yet due to the previous mentioned douches and tagging again, but that is a rant for another day.

However my main gripe with it is you cannot tell if you are loot locked, and apparantly, even if you are, you can use your coins to try roll again [a guildie got something, did Sha again, used coin, got Epic PVP stuff]


The cross realm idea is god damn nifty, but once again, my server is pretty much Horde only, and is a relatively friendly environment so never really had an issue.

Anyone else having the same issue when it comes to pvp on pvp servers btw.
It seems everyone on shattered hand is in some weird agreement to not attack the opposing faction?

witless1 wrote: »

I haven't levelled a character since the Cataclysm revamp so I might make a Monk and go for it. Healer / Tank most likely for queues. Need to get my Priest levelled first. Got to 86 today was quiet happy with that.

Question: I completed all of the quests around Perlfin Village up to and including the quest where you kill the elite and get your first blue (staff for me) and also got a pet. Quests were actually quiet fun even though they were long winded at times. Anyway after handing in those two quests and becoming exalted with them I had no more quests. I got offered no follow on quest or prompts as to where to go next. I went all around the place and back to the city you land in from SW. Could find nothing, a google search turned up a question from someone in the beta who experienced this and reported it as a bug, no reply to his thread though. So is this a bug or is this what they intended? I spent 30 mins or so running around to different flight path locations and picking up the odd quest or two. Now it seems to be somewhat back on track up at the Monastery place. Should I just move onto the next zone or keep questing there? I normally use the zone achievements while leveling as a metric for when to move on but seems my progress wasn't really as linear as it should have been I'm not to sure what to do. That and I don't want to spend more time running around like a dope looking for quests scattered about the place!

yup, i'm having this problem when getting to a new zone. i found last night that if you look at a new level appropiate zone on the map, there should be a yellow i showing you where you should go for a quest to start things off.

ravencrest is a bit of a nightmare for horde questing. had a day off yesterday and it was fine all day, round about 4-5pm the ganking started. as a rogue it's not too bad with stealth etc, but it must be unplayable for most classes.

Dcully wrote: »

I watch Towellie and Kungen at times, although i was turned off Kungens stream somewhat while watching him play GW2 and the utter bull**** coming from the douchebags on his voice comms.
You wouldnt believe the sheer elitism ****e and garbage they were spouting.

They can spout what they want.

They are probably the best 5-6 MMO players to ever play the games they play. When they go into a new game, they dominate beyond belief. And they have a significant reputation for WoW and DOTA.

I must admit I stopped watching him whilst he was on the Gw2 bandwagon because it was so mind numbingly boring and he wasnt even enjoying it himself. But now hes back on WoW, its being epic to watch.

And typically he is reasonably maturely mannered, a bit of trash, but then again he only usually kicks back at the people giving him abuse.

You have to remember most people on Twitch these days are because of SC2 and LoL, and have no idea of some of the absolute bosses on there. Kungen is one of them....