Suggested Timeless Improvements

Timeless Island has been a lot of fun since it has been released.  All my characters seem to spend a fair deal of time there and I am enjoying it as an excellent way to gear up alts.  However, I do believe that there are a lot of things they can improve on to make it better the next time.  I do hope there is a next time.  The design of the island has been great in my opinion and a step in the right direction.

It's Dangerous:

For a geared character the timeless island is not much of an issue.  Unless you happen to be melee and get a few of those stun / ground effect guys on you at the same time.  Then even a geared character can very well kiss their shiny epic geared ass good bye.

For the fresh 90 going there to gear up however it can be a little brutal.  I had no issues because I knew the island before I went there on one of those weaker characters.  I knew which areas I could safely go to in an effort to loot chests and hope for the best to get some 496 gear to make it easier.  But for the person that did not know where all the chests where you could very well walk into a few areas where you would get your butt stomped.

Don't get me wrong, I love this design and it is part of why I like the timeless island.  The world needs some sense of danger again.  I remember getting ripped apart by some ?? dragonkin outside of forest song thinking, where the F did they come from.  But it was cool walking around, being afraid that if I do not pay attention I could be dead instantly.

That is the issue with the island, it is dangerous and there is really no safe path that you can avoid stuff, if you want to get around much out of that first entry point that is.  Having those dangerous mobs is an awesome addition, even having a path, which is usually safe, go through a village with a whole slew of spirit monks that will rip you limb from limb could easily teach you that the blizzard entry screen tip of "stick to the road" was just blizzard trolling because sticking to that road means you are dead.

"Hunters always have it easier."

The issue is not with the danger in the world, it is with the danger in the world that makes no sense.  Or does it?  Some guy can be fighting a tiger near me while I am standing there minding my own business, not even doing anything, and some damn cat pounces on me even if he is tagged for someone else.  Not only that, but he starts attacking me after he pounced on me.

Excuse me mr cat but what the hell did I ever do to you?  Go after the guy that just hit you in the head with a sword.

It is really dangerous, and I like that, but a little work on the aggro issues would be nice.  Nothing worse than fighting a yungol and avoiding all his ground junk just to have someone elses yungol, that was no where near you, come and charge you and stun you as your yungol puts out his fire path.  You are so dead and it was not because you did it wrong, but because of some odd coding error.

But was it a coding error?  Really, maybe this is blizzards way or stepping up adding the real feel of a dangerous world to the game.  Where even being in the general vicinity of a mob means you are on their aggro table.  No longer do we need to do something to get on it, just be within 50 yards and you are on it.

If that is the new design, okay I can roll with that.  But unless I hear it is, the island is bugged with aggro and next time around it would be nice if it were fixed.

I'm Walking Here:

I understand the idea of being dismounted when running somewhere mounted, it is a long standing part of the game, but sometimes it is just frustrating.  On the island more so.  If you are running through a questing area and get dismounted you just kill the mobs and go along your way.  On the island when someone calls out a rare you want and you get dismounted it is like, WTF, do I have a come at me bro sign on my back?

"Dire Beast, Fuzzy Style."

The worst part of the island is not just the dismounting, but the disorient when dismounted.  The sheer amount of mobs on the island with all their different deadly abilities are enough to deal with but to be disoriented on top of that is just like saying "we don't want you mounted here and are trying to kill you."

Again, another part of the game that if it is intended say so.  We can deal with it.  But have you ever been running from the water through the frogs and trying your best to avoid them when suddenly one gets a good shot in on you, you are now stunned and dismounted and before you know it there are 8 frogs on you and your look up fast in a panic and see 9 stacks in 1 second and just say, screw it and die?  Not fun is it?  If it were not for the stun at least you would have had a chance.  But like I said, maybe this is blizzards way of saying they do not want us running places, they want us fighting our way everywhere.

I can accept that, to some extent, but it gets annoying when you see that one rare you have wanted up because it drops the pet you have had no luck with, because it has some vanity item that would so fit you, because it is one you have never seen up and need it for the achievement, or just because you like to kill rares.  Whatever the reason, seeing the skull on your screen, mounting and then getting dismounted, dazed, and stuck fighting while you watch it die in the distance f'n sucks.  Seriously.

I am not riding around with a come at me bro sign on my back, so why the hell does everything have to dismount me and daze me all the time.  It was not like it was always like this, just last week it seems something was changed with the mobs to do this.  Let me say, from just the opinion of one grumpy elf, it was much better when we rarely got dismounted and only if we tried to run right through something, and we never got dazed.  Go back to that style.  If I am trying to avoid things taking the wide route, how the hell are their melee attacks they can not even reach me with dismount me and stunning me.  I take the long route around them so I will not be dismounted.  Fix please.

More Please:

More burdens, more valor, more quests, just more of what there is less of.  You give coins like candy and 496 gear like candy but the things that would extend the life of the island seem absent.  One weekly for 200 valor, one daily for 50, and another for 100 coins which is not even worth doing for the 100 coins as much as it is worth doing for 45 gold for 1 seconds work.  A little more of the things people can sink their teeth into would be a plus in my opinion.

"Have you seen the size of my stable?"

It was nice to get those alts that first burden and all the 496 gear they could put their grimy little mitts on but when you know that is all you get unless you get super lucky with drops and at honored with the one reputation on the island, the desire for alts to play around seems to have already lost its luster for me.  If I knew I could get something each week with them then I would be on my alts more often getting them that one burden for a 535 piece that will most likely be the best they get this expansion.

On many alts, the ones that you might just keep geared up some for "the hell of it" grinding coins can be a task and a half.  So it is grind and get lucky or grind and get 50,000 coins.  That is awesome for an additional way to get up those alts, but a more structured system where you know once a week, if you did a large quest, something along the lines of the 50 epoch stone one that gives 200 valor, you can get your one burden each week, it would give a lot more life to the island for my alts as it would really be worth doing something there each week.

I would pop on here and there gather a little working toward the quest being done and maybe get myself one burden a week or every few weeks, depending on how I want to play it.  Or I could go the route of grinding coins, or killing until I get lucky.  I would have more options.  More options are nice.

Having the rares on the island drop valor on the isle of thunder was a stroke of genius.  Why was that not carried over to this island.  Sure, valor is needed a lot less now, unless you get lucky with many different tiers of drops, but it would still be nice to have a way to get some extra.  As I mentioned about alts before, there is still a bunch of 522 gear a couple of them can surely use.  Valor helps get that.  Heck, valor from anywhere that is not labeled LFR is a good thing.

Some more dailies quests would be nice too.  They do not need to be anything big, give 5 or 10 valor and a few hundred coins, make 3 of them.  They would be something that people would not feel they "need" to do but it would be an option and do I need to say it again but more options are good.  Some people need structure and the dailies would work for them and as long as you do not tie reputation to them or anything substantial, they would be less likely to feel mandatory to some.

It Was There, I Swear:

I love rare hunting, hey, I am a hunter, can you blame me?  But even on a dead server like mine it is nearly impossible to get to some rares.  Even if they spawn while they are on your mini map range and you head there instantly it is dead by the time you get there.

I have a joke in guild whenever I see the dead body of Zesqua.  I say that Zesqua is spawed dead.  I've seen it spawn on my mini map and disappear just as quickly.  I killed the turtle while farming for the meat for my cart quest line in 5 seconds.  5 seconds for a rare.  The crane I accidentally killed once before I even noticed it was a rare, it went down basically as fast as normal cranes do.  I usually like to call out to guild when a rare is up so they can get there, but if one other person is there, the darn thing is dead.  Even on a dead server like mine nothing lives for more than a few seconds.

"Camouflaged hunters, I could have sworn they were there."

On one of my servers, even if classified as medium, there are usually hunting parties going on.  I am talking a pack of 50 or more people running around killing rares.  Someone will have that addon that announces rares and it will say something like "Huolon spotted 100%" and10 seconds later, not kidding, "Huolon dead".

Now I can just imagine a filled server if things die within a minute on my dead server, and within 10 seconds on medium servers.  The rare spawn idea is nice, it is fun, I have had absolutely no luck with the drops off rares and have killed most at least 60 times already, but I am not complaining about that, at the moment, but I am complaining they just die too quickly.  Unless you can keep track of their timers and be there as they spawn there are almost no rares that you can make it too if they are called it.  Makes me wonder why people even call them out. "Gu'Chi up" is like telling me "ha ha sucker you just missed it even if you are only 10 feet away because he will be dead before you can turn around".

They need to do something to make these mobs live longer.  I am not talking turning them all into epic battles that take forever, but at least have them last a little longer so if I am at Cranegnasher I can get to Gu'Chi before it is dead.  When one person can kill nearly all the rares in less than 30 seconds you know there is an issue with how long they live.  Imagine how much faster they will go down as people start getting more gear.

I am thinking that there needs to be something done, make them have a lot more life, but do less damaging abilities, so they can still be soloed easily, but last longer or have them have some sort of timer where they will always live at least 2 minutes.  So even if it took me 5 seconds to beat the turtle it will stay at one life before it kneels over in its demise for a total of 2 minutes after it was first hit.

This is not a lot of time but it would be something and it would make it worth at least attempting to get to it if you know you are close.  Yesterday someone called jade spirit, I was in the center, close enough to get to the jade spirit no problem right?  Got knocked off and dazed by a crane (see above) and even if it only took a few seconds to kill it and get mounted again, I never made it.  I was there less than 30 seconds after it was pulled.  I know that because I guild mate was there and said, just pulled, and I just missed it.

Rares should be something fun and exciting to encounter, not something that gets you annoyed because they die faster than rag in MC to a level 90 now.

Stop Attacking Me:

I touched on this in "it's dangerous" but want to talk about it a little more in regards to hunters in particular.  What the hell is wrong with our pets.  They do not auto cast growl, even when you manually press growl you need to monitor your aggro like a hawk.

In a way I kind of like it, took me by surprise of course, but it was like the good old days when everyone needed to have omen installed.  Now aggro is not so much of an issue and you can really tell the rookie hunters from the old vet in a matter of seconds.  Hunters have always had the best aggro management in the game but until now none of it was really needed most of the time in the last two expansions.

"How about we let the turtle tank it?"

It has become increasingly stressful to spend half the fights using feign death and manually hitting growl and then hoping that it is working but not knowing if it is unless you have a threat manager installed.  And lets get real, who out there (besides me) actually still uses omen?

There is no reason what so ever for our pets not to be able to taunt the mob on auto cast.  Blizzard really needs to fix this but because it is an issue that matters to hunters you can be assured that it will never get addressed.  They have the "hunters are second class citizens" attitude about them, so being blizzard will not do anything about it, I will give you a very short tutorial on how to keep the mob on your pet without any problems, even the rares.

Have the misdirect glyph, serious, why wouldn't you.  While you're at it have the glyph of mending one as well, a healthy pet is a happy pet, and it lives longer which helps keep the mob off you.  While there are very few mobs that will actually hurt your pet, keeping it rolling surely does not hurt.

Now to how it works.  Misdirect is a temporary threat transfer.  When it ends, that threat disappears, and so does your pets threat lead.  So misdirect is only a band aid when you actually need stitches.  Growl is a taunt, growl stitches things up and keeps that threat there.  Now it is all about timing.  Open up with an MD and hit growl 4 seconds after, this is assure your opening threat remains with the pet.  Why 4 seconds and not longer?  It leaves room for error.  Safer that way.

From that point on when growl is 4 seconds from coming off cooldown MD and hit your largest abilities, yes changing your rotation might sometimes be a good idea to front load the big damage in those 4 seconds.  When growl comes off cooldown, hit it.  That once again makes sure the threat lead stays with the pet instead of disappearing when the misdirect wears off.  Do this a few times and your pet should have full aggro.  On harder mobs that take longer to kill like rares you might need to keep it up but for most mobs they will not live much longer than the opening MD and maybe one after that.  Either way, this method assures that aggro stays with the pet.

Sounds easy enough right?  It really is.  You know what would be even easier?  Blizzard fixing the game to work right.  But I will not ask for too much, I know that is a lot to ask for.

The timeless island has been a lot of fun, but there could be a few things done to make it better.  These are just a few of them in my opinion.  What do you think?