My First Impression From Timeless and Flex

As was my plan I headed straight to timeless island like perhaps hundreds of thousands of others did.  From the feel of it I would have guess all those hundreds of thousands where on my server.  It is one of the things I do like about being on a smaller server.  New hubs are a lot more manageable.  But that does not mean they are not frustrating at all.

The island was very frustrating.  Some of us deal with it, like I did, and others just give up.  Had a few guild mates just say "fuck it" and quit.  Not the game, but running the island for now.  They just logged off.  Rares would pop up and someone would be just a few yards away and it was dead before they could get there.  A chest would be seen and before you could make two steps toward it, it was gone.  I deal with it, but some people it just frustrated beyond belief.

I guess when connected realms come it will be even worse.  I wonder if blizzard will ever use their technology to balance things out so instead of having 500+ people all reaching for one treasure chest they limit the people in a zone.  I am sure they could do it.  It will be a lot worse once connected realms come.  Heck, I would have never guessed we had as many 90s on my server as I saw there.

Coins and gear tokens drop like candy.  I sent a bunch to my least geared character and got them from 470 to 484 already and there are still pieces I can get from there.  I've vendored off at least 40 of them already, as most all my characters have everything 496 or better to begin with.   When you go there, have a lot of bag space, they will be filled faster than you can imagine.

I don't think I have seen the whole place yet but I did spend about two hours there and was able to get some shots in on a few rares.  I do see one HUGE problem with rares however.  Once I died and when I got back to the rare I was not able to loot it.  I had hit it.  I was hitting it from 100% to 20% when I died.  So I should have been eligible for loot but apparently I wasn't.

I died on a second one but the graveyard was what seemed like a million miles away.  By the time I made it back, and I did not dilly dally, I went straight there, the mob was gone.  Again, I should have gotten loot from that one.

So the mobs are not giving credit where they should if you die, and if you die in some spots you will not get loot because the bodies despawn way too quickly.  They need a lot more graveyards there.  Most of the graveyards are miles away from where you are most likely to die.  Those were the only two times I died to mobs on the island and both times I can say I experienced that insane run back first hand.  I was put about as far from where I needed to be as possible.

So they need to add some graveyard, they need to fix the loot problem, and they need to keep the bodies from despawning that quickly.  Those would be my gripes for the rares.

Most of the island rares I was able to handle solo.  As a matter of fact I killed three of them and did not even notice they were rares, I thought they were just elites.  So they were pretty simple for a hunter in decent but not awesome gear.  536 for reference.

Just like any other fresh quest hub there will always be griefers.  There were many people standing on quest givers with mammoths.  Standing on vendors you needed to buy things from with their mammoths.  You know the type.  For those that have that happen I will let you in on a little trick.  Bring your camera in, first person type of in, as in all the way.  Stand as close as you can to where you know you need to click and then change the camera angle to looking up from the ground.  You will be able to click the feet of the mob you need to talk to no matter what is covering it.  Works 100% of the time, at least from all the times I have been forced to do that.

Another bug I would really like to see fixed is the AoE bug when it comes to PvP.  Back in BC they changed it so AoE will not accidentally PvP flag you but when they added the thrall cloak quest line in cataclysm they broke it and AoE will now hit flagged targets and flag you.  I am surprised that they have not fixed it yet.

Either way, it was damn fun doing some world PvP on the island even if I did not exactly intend to do so.  My first accidental flagging was when I opened a treasure chest and got attacked by a bunch of mobs.  I got my 535 upgrade piece, not sure what I will use it on, and I killed all the mobs, but I ended up flagged in the process because there was a horde rogue there that was flagged.  He owned me, that is the only way to explain it.  I was not exactly at low health but I was hurting and started to revive my dead pet from fending off all those mobs to begin with, but him getting a jump on me before I even noticed I was flagged sealed my fate.

The next time I accidentally flagged myself while trying to click on the ladder to get on a boat, I clicked on a horde shaman instead.  It did not fire or flag me at that moment, I grabbed the ladder and started to climb, but being I was still targeted on the shaman it shot them as soon as I got to the top.  Just my bad luck that he had 2 buddies with him.  I pulled out all stops.  Killed the shaman and then died shortly after.  Opps, was not intended but at least I killed him.

We were both put at the same graveyard.  Oh my god, the hell that is going to be on a PvP server where everyone is spawning in the same graveyard.  I can see it already.  Awesome. 

I started to mount up, was not going to kill the shaman again.  First off it was accidental, second, he did not have his friends here this time and if I was able to kill him with 2 other people he had no chance against me 1 on 1.  I am not that type of player were I am going to kill him just because he is an easy kill.

Just as I was about to mount he hits me with a flame shock.  You have got to be shitting me, is exactly what passed through my mind.  Okay, I'll fight.  I spun around, called stampede, blew everything, and he was dead within seconds.  Dude, I was leaving you alone, what did you attack?

I then saw a rare while running around still flagged and a DK thought it would be funny to kill me while I was killing the rare.  Sadly it did not work out that way for him.  I kited him and the rare and killed them both and collected my loot.  I hope when he got back to his body there was no loot on the rare for him as there was no loot on that one for me earlier.  Would be poetic justice.  No kill on me and no loot on rare.  If only he helped kill the rare and then tried for me, he might of at least got some loot out of the deal.

Got flagged again while fighting another rare and it looked like everyone in the area did.  We started this long and drawn out but extremely exciting war up there on the bridge.  I would guess there were about 15 or so alliance and 20 or so horde.  We pretty much went back and forth killing here and there.  Was a great deal of fun.  It ended up with just three of us alive.  Oddly enough, the three that were alive was me and the two people I was in group with.  Woohoo, go team.  Put a hunter that knows how to kite in a group with two healers and unless you are a PvPer, you are dead.  Simple as that.  I am guessing the people there were not PvPers.

We were still flagged when we ended up at an event.  No fighting went on during the event, but as soon as it ended a hordie attacked.  They did not last long because I had picked up two more people on our way there and five on one meant me had no prayer.  When we mounted up to leave one of the healers slacked off behind a little and he came after her.  She called out in vent that he was back and after her, we turned around and went back and stomped him once more, just for good measure.  It is a small island, if you are going to pick on someone in a group, make sure the rest of the group is far enough away that you can kill the person before they get back.  Word to the wise there.

I think I got more honor kills, world wise that is, on the island in one day than I had the entire expansion so far.  It was kind of fun.  I always liked world PvP.  Not killing for an objective, just killing for the sake of killing.  Sadly I am sure this will not continue too long.  Even if the wilds was meant for PvP there never was any on my server, neither was there any on the island of thunder.  But this there was.  I liked it, but I still think blizzard needs to fix that bug where AoE flags you.  It is just wrong.

I joined a few groups for the celestial kills.  The cat seems easiest.  All of them were not much of a problem however once you saw the mechanics.  The huge fighting area however did tend to be an issue.  It was like I was out of range more than I was in it.

I made my 5K coins without even thinking about it.  They really are everywhere.  Little boxes all over the place.  Mounds of crystal, mounds of dirt, all things you can pick up.  Gathering gets you coins, killing regular mobs gives you coins, killing elite mobs gives you coins, killing rare mobs gives you coins.  I don't see how the 5K coins will be a problem for anyone.

I like my new cloak, even if I do not show my cloak because it would mess with my mog.  But it does look like I have wings.  If you are a hunter and want to force proc the wings casting mend pet seems to do it.  They look kind of cool and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt it procs all the time.  And that is not just exaggeration, it really does seem to proc all the time.  The visual is unmistakable.

I got my first chance to test hunter DPS when we got together to do a flex run.  Bursting nicely still and even with the cloak I do not see a huge boost to my numbers but more importantly, I do not see huge drop in my numbers either.  I would say I feel roughly in the same place I left off last patch.

If that is what is intended then they did well.  I did have some issues here and there but I quickly adjusted.  I hit my bind for readiness at least three times even if it is not there.  I needed to change my stop casting silencing shot macro to a stop casting counter shot macro.  The biggest adjustment was the arcane shot.  I often fired one and then did not have enough focus for my signature ability.  Oops, that is going to take some getting used to.  Just a matter of practice I guess.  I found myself focus capping again even with the increased cost because I was becoming overly cautious about not having focus for the bigger abilities.  I'll smooth it out.

My burst as survival seemed to actually go up in 5.4.  I was easily pulling 350K even messing up a bit which I think is nice being I only recall bursting between 270-310 usually.  Once I smooth it out it might actually be better than it was.  I believe that thrill of the hunt feels almost mandatory as survival now but I have to look up some numbers to make sure.

It was procing so often during AoE that between that and the cloak it was almost a constant flow of lines flowing out from me either by the cloak or my multi shot.  If I had to take a wild guess I would say I think that the cloak attacks are procing it.  Which of course would be a bug that is going to be fixed, but on AoE packs my thrill of the hunt was lit up for the entire fight.  Yes, the entire fight.  I am sure that is not intended but I must say it was awesome fun.

As for the flex raid we went with a full 25 people and it was not until the 3rd boss that we had any problems.  With a mix of players from 480 item level up to 540 item level and only 7 of the main 10 that had full ToT and some heroic experience, we were able to pass through the first two bosses with ease.

If I had to guess I would say for most people the first boss will be harder than the second.  We lost nearly all the raid at the end of the first boss and were still able to pull it out with just one tank, one healer and 5 damage dealers.  The second fight.  No one died.

It helped that the tanks knew what they were doing and were both geared and experienced.  But I would say that difficulty wise the fights did not seem that bad for a 25 man.  I can see some progression being needed on the later bosses and surely the third boss will need some testing to get people in and out, as we did wipe a few times on that one, but everything seemed doable, even that one which we wiped on seemed doable.

Admittedly we had a few really well geared characters there so the ease of flex might be a bit over stated from what I am saying.  It probably is not that easy, but I can tell you that it would be doable with a group of people that can follow mechanics even if they are not pulling 200K or better.

So maybe flex is exactly what it is intended to be.  I'll let you know how it turns out when we all bring in our alts that we are not so great at and then make a decision how easy it is.  But for people that where doing normal ToT it surely seemed easy.  Not LFR easy when you can do it with half a raid of horrible players, but Jin' Rokh easy where once everyone can see the mechanics and follow it, it should not be a problem.

I do like the little proving grounds thing on the third boss and was surprised to see how many people failed it.  It seemed healers were failing it left and right.  That might be the biggest test when pugging flex becomes in vogue, which you know it will once people know the fights.

To anyone that is planning on raiding, I suggest at least taking a peak the the proving grounds, because you are sure has hell going to stand out like a sore thumb if you die every time you go into it during that fight.  I already have a short list of people that were on our 25 that lost their spot until they can figure that out.

On the world boss I ended with the standard gold and gold.  Could not get the cloak boss because, as I suggested might happen, there were not enough people on my server to make a group.  Lots of people that wanted to join but could not get there.  There were just not enough cloak people on my server that were on at the time.

Speaking of not having a cloak.  We did manage to find a way to get people there without the cloak.  No, I am sorry, I am not going to tell.  Still not sure if I will use this information to try and gear up some people that are behind, or just leave it as is and do nothing.  I'll ask the readers here.  If someone does not have the cloak do you think it is wrong to have them in on a kill?  I know it is not intended for them to be able to, but they can get there, so should they get a kill?

I did not share it with the people because I did not want to abuse a bug, or let people even know it was there.  Even if it would have benefited me to be able to do that boss yesterday.  Trust me, I was tempted to just get everyone I could up there just so we could do that boss.

I did not get any of the island achievements, but then again I was having so much fun PvPing and just killing random things, that I don't really mind.  So far the island seems like it could be fun, for a while, but I wish the rares dropped valor like the rares on the the other island did.  Otherwise, I see this place being a ghost town sooner than later.  I'll be around to get all the achievements and enough coins for everything, mount included, but I do not see there really being any people that would be there outside of toy collecting, achievement collecting or rare bosses very soon.

Flex seems to have potential, I am not ready to pass judgement on it right now after just one run through it.  Lets see how it does in smaller groups or in groups with people that were not geared from ToT normal in there.  Then and only then will I really make a decision on it.  Lets see if it can be the beer league it was intended for.  The first and second boss, sure, beer league.  Not sure after that.  At least not yet.

Well, being I got the cloak out of the way, it is time to do some research on achievements because tonight I go achievement hunting. 

Have fun all, timeless might not be really timeless and only have a limited window of use, but it is fun right now, so enjoy.