Who is Your Favorite Follower Thus Far?

It is still early in the expansion and our opinions might change as time passes but right now I kind of like my followers and their seemingly different personalities.  I understand that much of their personality is really in my imagination.  I doubt blizzard really coded them to all be different but it sure seems like they are.

One of the followers I make sure to get as soon as I can when I first get to draenor is Fiona.  It is not because she has some great abilities that I must have, it is because she is Fiona.  I liked her quest line in the plaguelands and it is kind of cool to be hanging out with her.  Actually I have found her abilities to be quite lacking.  Her herbalism ability of course can come in handy when you get your herb garden up and running but outside of that there really isn't anything stand out about her.

There are a few followers like Blook that are just so huge I never feel as if they fit well in my garrison, but because of their size they can make for some interesting visual effects.  I once saw Blook standing in front of the inn just looking in the front door.  There is no way he can fit, at least not reasonably.  And it seemed as if he knew that.  He was just staring into the inn and I found some humor in that.  He eventually did walk in and it was not exactly what you would call visually correct but in my mind I could just picture him bending over and squeezing himself through the door after those many minutes spent staring inside wishing he could enter.

Pleasure Bot 8000 scares me a little bit and I think he might be a stalker.  I know he is supposed to be some sort of butler unit and not a pleasure bot that some people think of when they first hear the name but the fact he keeps offering to give me a massage I might question that one a little bit.  Lets face it, even if pleasure bot 8000 gives the greatest massages in the world do you really want cold metallic hands being the ones doing it, or more so cold metallic hands that were created with gnome technology doing it?  I guess it is better than if it were goblin technology, so that is something.

Professor Felblast is one of those odd followers that make me wonder why is she even following me.  If ever I see her in my garrison and walk toward her she starts moving away, as if to avoid me.  Even if she was standing still for 10 minutes, the second I make a break for her she apparently has something so much better to do than talk to me.

Then you will always have those followers that have traits you never expected of them, traits that are not listed as one of their traits like my Phylarch the Evergreen has.  More often than not I can find Phylatch either sitting at the bar in the inn or standing right in front of the pet battle ring watching the fights.  So here is this tree, something we consider part of nature, good and pure and natural, that just wants to get drunk and watch caged animals fight to the death.  It just doesn't seem like what I would have expected from a tree.

While playing around with my skyterror personal delivery system from the gearworks I landed on top of my garrison to check things out from above and to my surprise there was one of my followers, just standing there alone on a little patio looking out at everything.  I wonder if he wanted to be alone to think things out, was being protective and seeking a place where he could see everything, or just managed to get lost up there and could not find his way down.  The idea along that the followers moved around like this, even in and to places I did not know existed in my garrison like this, gave them more life in my mind.

I am not sure I have a real favorite yet, but I do have a few I really like and it doesn't really have much to do with their looks or their story or anything else as it has to do with how they act around my garrison.  Even if I make these persona's that they have up in my own mind, it is those little things that make me like them.

Do you have any favorite followers yet?

Is 5 Days Compensation an Appropriate Response?

Blizzard, as an apology, for the many queue times, world server is down mesages, and lag issues we had on release of warlords of draenor has announced that they will be giving all players that had an active account on the date of release for the game five free days of game time.

I wonder what you think about that.  I'll, or course, share my opinions on the matter.

At face value five free days is an exceptional gift.  If I had to guess I lost maybe a total of, at absolute most, 3 hours game time due to not being able to get into the game at all at one point or another.  Be it world server issues, queue issues, or what have you, there were only, at most, a total of 3 hours of gaming I lost.  But that is just me.  I am not everyone.  Some lost nothing, others lost more.

A few guild mates of mine lost over 24 hours because they just so happened to be unlucky enough to try to open the garrison at the wrong moment and they got themselves caught in a constant state of being both in their garrison and not in their garrison at the same time.  If they tried to leave their garrison the world was there, but completely empty, and they would get rubber band snapped back to their garrison.  When in their garrison they sat there with hundreds of other people trapped there in that one spot but all together and not in their own garrisons.  So they could not do anything in their garrison or outside of it.  They really did lose all that game time, even if they did manage to get in game, they could not do anything while in it.

When it comes to lost time I would be hard pressed to believe that anyone even came remotely close to losing 5 days of play time.  So 5 days is more than ample for a gift to say they are sorry for the inconvenience.  Or is it?

Lets take another guild mate of mine who logged in on release day when he got home from work with a two hours queue looking him in the face.  He sat there while listening to us on voice chat talking about what we are doing in game while he saw a counter counting down.  Sometimes it actually counted up.  He logged on to an 800 queue and as he waited he saw himself move to 1000 in queue, 1200 in queue, 1400 in queue, he was moving backwards, not forwards.

Needless to say he was infuriated.  He paid, just like the rest of us, for this expansion.  He had as much right to be in there as I did.  I took off that day from work so I was already in, some others like himself where not able to do so, so he was sitting on the outside.

He waited in queue for three hours, all three hours he had for that evening, and never made it into the game.  His case, and many like it, are ones that I believe 5 days free play time do not make up for what he was forced to experience.  Sure you can say he only lost 1 day play time, that 1 day he could not log in when he got home from work.  But there is the frustration, anger, and feelings of being left behind to not enjoy what everyone else is enjoying that you can not put a price tag on.

What exactly is 5 days free play time to blizzard?  Nothing.   That is because for most of us we will never even notice that 5 days.  If and when it is added to my account I will never know it is there.  It will make no difference to me.  I will not "feel" the gift, I will not "feel" the apology, and most defiantly my friend that never got in even if he spent the same exact amount of money I did for the game will not "feel" that apology.

Five free days more than amply covers any lost time.  It more than covers any lost time.  But this is not about lost time.  Do you really think someone cares about lost time?  No.  The only people that are crying about lost time are misplacing their anger or just flat out trolling.  It is not an issue of the lost time, it is an issue of not being able to log in on release day for something you have been waiting 14 months for. 

It is the feeling of not being able to experience something that your friends are all talking about.  It is about the feeling of being on the outside looking in.  Every single person in the world has something inside of them that just hates to feel left out.  Even if they will not admit it.  And it is that person waiting in queue.  That person stuck in their garrison not being able to do anything.  That person that can't get to their garrison when they need to go there.  That person that wants to do what others are doing.  That feeling of not being able to do what others are doing sucks.

It sucks a hell of a lot more than 5 days that you would never even notice being added to your account ever could or would make up for it.

How exactly does 5 free days make up for coming home from work excited to play a new game you paid for a year ago and being told you have to wait and never getting to play?

How exactly does 5 free days make up for being suck in game but not being able to do anything and just feeling the frustration of running in one place for hours on end?

From a standpoint of time and time alone, 5 free days of play time is an exceptional compensation for lost time because none of us lost even close to 5 days of time.  But this is not about a pure standpoint of time.  It is about so much more.  It is about people feeling let down, people getting frustrated, people not being able to play something that they paid for a year ago.  The feeling that many of these errors were known on beta and should have been fixed before release.  5 days is not an acceptable apology for that.  Even if blizzard offered a year free time to everyone, while that would be well above and beyond anything even the wildest dreams could lead to, it is still just time.

Blizzard could have given people something tangible in game.  That, in my opinion, would have been a much more suitable apology if you want my opinion.  Something people could see, use, have, instead of 5 days that will just blend in with the days we already have to the point were we never even notice we have them.

My idea would have been this. 

Blizzard revised the refer a friend system a while back where if you refereed a friend to the game you got a token which you could then turn in for a mount or a pet.  Blizzard should have given everyone that had an active account on the date of release one free token that they could exchange for one of the refer a friend rewards of their choice.  Don't you think that riding around on an Emerald Hippogryph or pet battling with your brand new Golden Pig would have been a much better way for them to say "I'm sorry" than giving you 5 days you will never even notice they gave you?

Maybe I am asking too much.  But then again maybe I am not.  The mounts and pets from the refer a friend system are already in game.  They are already something most people are not taking advantage of.  It would cost them nothing and at the same time advertise all these great mounts and pets you can get from referring a friend.  They could have turned a bad occurrence into an amazing act of generosity by giving a free pet or mount to everyone and advertising the refer a friend system at the same time.  They could have turned a disaster of a release day into a possible business boost by offering a free mount or pet and showing people that if they refer some friends they could get even more.

Would that make up for the guy that could not play on release day when he got home from work?  Absolutely not.  Nothing can ever make up for how that person felt when he could not long in.  But it would be way better that 5 free days.  At least this way whenever he sees that emerald hippogryph in his mount book he will know that he got that because blizzard felt sorry for the inconvenience.  Five free days will never, could never, give the feeling that blizzard actually felt sorry for the inconvenience.

So in my opinion, no, 5 free days is not an appropriate response.  Blizzard can take my five free days and shove it where the sun does not shine.  Keep those five free days, hang them on your wall as a reminder, and remember it so the next release never happens like this one again.

Monday Random Thoughts

- I took a week off posting so I could soak in the expansion.

- If I posted I would have just complained about all the opening issues and I did not want to do that.

- A little different for me, I know.

- I have two level 100 characters so far.

- My hunter was my first of course.

- I'll leave you hanging on the second for now.

- In my opinion this was the worst launch I have ever experienced.

- A friend said that the BC launch was worse, but as I was not there I can not compare.

- Between the dreadful lag, the phasing issues, the disconnects, the server queues, and many bugs, this felt more like a beta release than an expansion release.

- After the last couple of releases I really had thought blizzard had gotten it down.

- It was one of the few things I have usually been very vocally supportive of with blizzard.

- They had learned to master a warcraft launch.

- Getting better with each one.

- Until now.

- Even with all those problems, excessive lag and getting kicked out for over an hour at one point I managed to get my hunter to 100 in 13 hours.

- Yes, I played it straight through.

- A very frustrating straight through.

- Could have been worse.

- Three guild mates found themselves stuck in their garrison while not actually being in their garrison.

- If they tried to leave the world was empty and they would get rubber band snapped back to their garrison.

- When in their garrison, they could not do anything because there were dozens if not a hundred other people with them in it.

- They effectively could not play at all.

- They lost over 24 hours because of that.

- One mentioned a tin foil hat theory that actually makes some sense.

- Maybe they removed server firsts because they knew this would happen and they did not want even more backlash from people that were going for server first when they lost 24 hours and effectively missed every single first they could have shot for.

- As usual I was one of the first on the server to hit max level.

- As such I was one of the first with a level 3 garrison.

- This meant that on day 2 and 3 and 4 when everyone else was still having massive garrison loading issues and some could not even go near there or take a flight path that went over it, I could come and go without incident whenever I pleased.

- I liked that.

- Who wouldn't?

- Someone new to the guild asked me if I was going for server first.

- I said no.

- They asked, so why are you going to hard at trying to get out of the starting area so fast.

- I said, because I like to level alone and not with hundreds of people around me.

- I like to get ahead of the pack, not because I want to be first, but because I want to actual enjoy the leveling experience instead of fighting over mobs.

- And I did that.

- I did not even touch another character for a week.

- Had to let the rush finish before I went out.

- Like I said, enjoying the leveling process is more important than speed or anything else to me.

- And I can not enjoy it if there are dozens of people all around me.

- There is nothing fun about that.

- When I did other characters in I bought them through for the starting experience and to snag a few early followers to get started up until 92.

- Why 92?

- So I had the mine.

- That, and a nice selection of starting followers so I could start working my followers.

- Felt like a good point to leave them off at.

- A friend of mine found the ultimate leveling spot.

- He went from 90 to 100 in 3 hours.

- And he was not even on beta, he just found it on his own, how cool is that?

- No I will not share it because blizzard will nerf it and he wants to level more characters that way.

- Even if I suggested against it.

- I would rather take longer and quest, I like to quest.

- Not to mention you get followers, gear, garrison resources, the salvage yard pattern.

- There are more than enough reasons to actually level over speed leveling.

- This time leveling I managed to have no luck with BoE drops.

- A guild mate got two, last expansion I managed to pick up 5 epic BoEs while leveling.

- I did however get one 665 BoE thus far from my level 3 salvage yard.

- I will have three level 3 salvage yards rolling shortly.

- My second 100 does not have enough garrison resources to upgrade the town hall to 3 yet, so can not upgrade the salvage yard to three by process.

- My soon to be third 100 played it smarter and is saving up so I will have enough on it when I hit 100 to build it instantly.

- I usually master my leveling process by character 3 and this expansion seems no different than any other.

- I am just caught in a tough spot right now on my main.

- Do I spend all my small flow of resources on pounding out massive amounts of missions to try to get more BoEs or do I save them to upgrade other buildings.

- I've unlocked most of the level 3 patterns already.

- Need the gladiator sanctum one of course being I do not PvP and the storehouse one along with a few others I have not touched yet like mage tower and gearworks.

- Already have over 5000 gold looted on draenor for the storehouse one, so no doubt that will come soon.

- I made some last minute on the fly changes to what I wanted to do with my garrison when leveling and built the lumber mill first.

- I figured I would be out in the world a lot at the start on my main, so knock out that first and all the achievements and followers that come with it.

- The tree guy you get from the level 3 lumber mill quest is a lush.

- I always find him sitting at the bar in the inn getting drunk.

- Who would have ever thought trees drank?

- I guess he has a hollow trunk because he can really down them.

- Of course, as I said I would, I had Nat Pagle on day one.

- He is a survival hunter now, I could swear it was marksman on the beta.

- I got all five of the bodyguards already and managed to get them all to maximum level friendship already too.

- Yes, that is a total of 10,000 kills with a bodyguards with me already.

- And guess who my first wingman was?

- The one with wings, how funny is that?

- Love the ability to summon someone to me.

- Having the portable mission table is nice too.

- I have not been achievement hunting however which is odd for me.

- I usually like to knock them out really fast.

- I just am not feeling it this expansion.

- Even bringing myself to get motivated enough to level a second character was rough.

- Now that I am working on number three and found my pattern I am getting a little more comfortable with the idea of leveling alts.

- But I was not digging it at all.

- Maybe it is partly because I did it all on the beta already but I think it has more to do with the fact that this expansion does not seem alt friendly at all.

- Horrible gearing options for alts.

- Horrible time investment needed on alts.

- Horrible grinding needed on alts.

- At least one of the dailies I have managed to figure out how to get done really fast.

- The upper arakkoa one.

- Get 5 keys, free 5 all at once, slaughter everything in sight and some more, turn them in, done.

- It takes a total of 7 minutes, max.

- At least on a hunter I know how to play that is all it takes.

- My alts will not have as much luck with it I am sure.

- I am a freaking psycho on my hunter.

- I was in all the 100 zones the second I hit 100 looking for rares and killing anything that moved.

- Sadly none of the rares were up, because they were not yet added it seems, but the mobs did put up some fight and I loved it.

- Then, guessing a time here, about 5 days after released they nerfed the ever living hell out of all the 100 zones.

- Why blizzard why?

- Mobs that were elite, no longer elite.

- Mobs that would patrol no longer patrol.

- Many mobs where outright removed.

- Seriously?

- Was nerfing all of these zones really necessary?

- We just hit 100, it is supposed to be hard.

- As soon as LFR comes out and everyone has some LFR gear at the absolute least these things will be face roll to begin with, there was no need to nerf them.

- Why not let them stay a little hard for the first couple of weeks?

- I have not been following the forums, been playing, but was there really an outcry that the level 100 zones were too hard?

- If there was I would have said, you just hit 100 and are in quest gear you fool, it is supposed to be hard.

- I already got my 680 ring, just like basically everyone else in the world that plans to raid day one did by now I am sure.

- I did it all in guild groups to make things more bearable.

- Did not want to deal with week one pugs.

- They really toned things down from the beta, very much so, which I am very glad to see.

- But most of these fights are still very pug unfriendly.

- The second fight in grimrail depot comes to mind as the worst fight of them all.

- It reminds me of the final fantasy game when the fight on the train.

- I would not be surprised to see if grimrail become this expansions oculus, when people see it they just drop group.

- Second boss is a nightmare on a pug.

- But first boss with a tank that does not know what to do can be just as bad.

- I had a few people ask me how to do it so they could explain it to their tank.

- Get a tank that does not know what to do and first boss is undoable at starter gear level.

- Get a slow to move person and they are dead instantly on the second boss, no time to waste moving.

- And have no one that knows how to click bodies and use the canon and you are in for a long series of wipes.

- Last boss in that place was the easiest.

- Stupid easy if you ask me and more in line with how all bosses in random heroics should be difficulty wise.

- All other ones I can see being managed, with some work on some, in a pug, but grimrail, no thank you.

- At least not yet.

- I'll be so glad when I can do more damage so I can basically carry a group and make them easier.

- But wait, there is no incentive to do dungeons now so once I am geared up, why do it?

- Oh yeah, they added 50 garrison resources to a random.

- I can really use them.

- Make it 500 blizzard and you might have a deal.

- And I still might not do it.

- Need to make randoms easier if I am going to test my luck this early in the expansion.

- Let people learn with others first and get some gear first.

- I don't mind teaching people, but it really helps to teach people if I am not under geared too.

- Oh, you want to know who my second 100 was?

- I'll give you a hint, it wears leather.

- The molten corgi became my 600th pet giving me the achievement.

- I did the molten core when it first came out.

- Is it okay for a grown elf to cry in public?

- The first pulls were a nightmare.

- Tanks thinking they can chain pull a dozen mobs.

- Trash respawning quickly.

- Everyone and their mother thinking we didn't have enough and pulling more on purpose.

- People pulling more by accident by backing into them.

- People accidentally pulling, or maybe on purpose, and instead of dying and letting us revive them they ran into the group.

- Many times.

- I said, you can tell who here isn't an actual raider.

- A real raider knows do not wipe the raid team because you accidentally pulled, die and let us revive you.

- People single targeting the core house packs and not making sure they die at the same time.

- Someone pulling the boss with the hounds.

- Up to the first boss was like one and a half hours of hell.

- After that we cleared out most of the trouble makers.

- Kicked the people pulling.

- And it went mostly smooth the rest of the way.

- We suffered only one wipe after the point where we wiped on the boss and the core puppies that were pulled at the same time.

- That wipe was on the baron of course, as if you really had to guess which boss we would have wiped on.

- We had one hunter pulling baron while the tank was trying to explain what we were going to do.

- When someone said to kick him he said, what did I do.

- We were all standing there in the hallway and we saw him run in and pull the boss and the trash packs.

- He still said he did nothing wrong.

- Said, hunters are supposed to pull that boss.

- Yes, they were supposed to pull that boss, back at level 60, and more importantly, when the group was ready for it, not whenever they felt like it.

- Apparently some hunter just wanted to give hunters a bad name.

- But do not worry, I stood tall for hunters and absolutely destroyed everyone in there, stood where I was supposed to stand, did not pull any adds, tranquilize shot when it was needed, attacked the skull, and all around did what is expected of someone that is there to win, not wipe.

- Even doubled up everyone but the other 3 people closest to me.

- Which either means I was really rocking it or this group really sucked.

- I am going to guess this group really sucked.

- I was pulling close to 30K in 619 gear but I suspect a more skilled hunter would have put me to shame.

- Still getting used to marksman and could manage that knowing I could have done much better.

- Expect marksman to be nerfed hard.

- When there were others in there whispering me about it you know there was something wrong there.

- One guy already had a 638 item level and told me he was going to report me if I did not stop hogging the meters.

- Not kidding, he was going to report me for doing good DPS.

- I would love to be the GM that read that report.

- What are they going to do to punish me?

- Force me never to group with people like him again?

- Poor me.

- MM AoE sucks hugely however.

- Unless I am really doing something horribly wrong.

- I only do slightly more AoE than I do single target.

- So I just stick to my single target rotation and throw in a multi once in a blue moon.

- Hey, every trash pack has a priority target, I guess it will just be my job to kill that one.

- Have you done any invasions yet?

- Been two lockouts thus far and no invasions for me.

- Blizzard said if you kill enough mobs one will pop up.

- I killed enough mobs to get all 5 of my baodyguards to wingman status, is that enough blizzard?

- Apparently not.

- They said that you will have an increased chance of triggering one if you are killing mobs in the apexis daily location.

- I have done the apexis daily every day since release and stayed there for hours and hours longer to level bodyguards, farm primal spirits and apexis crystals.

- If I did not kill enough at the daily spot, I do not know who has.

- One day I spent 4 and a half hours killing stuff there.

- And no invasion.

- I put in a ticket telling blizzard to fire the fool who came up with this idea for invasions being a random if you get it or not chance.

- What do you think about this random invasion crap?

- Whoops, guess me calling it crap gave away how I feel about it.

- Sorry, I do not care if "random is random" but if I did not get an invasion after the mass genocide I have committed on draenor it is not a good way to trigger events.

- I suggested that if they want to keep it like this, as in you need to do something to get it, then they need to give a concrete what we need to do.

- None of this random crap.

- Kill 200 orcs, 200 goren, 200 whatever, and trigger an invasion.

- Give us a set number.

- Give us a way to make sure we get one if we want one.

- Or better yet, just pop it up in our garrison at the beginning of the week being it is a weekly and probably one of the most enjoyable parts of the expansion.

- Nah, they can't do that, it would make too much sense.

- Do you know what the reply to my ticket was, I got it this morning before going to work.

- It was, I am glad to see you are getting along well on draenor, thanks for your input BS.

- And the garrison invasion quest was at my garrison.

- What a surprise.

- Who wants to bet they read my letter, looked at the number of mobs I killed on draenor, and said, whoops, we must have done something wrong with this random stuff if this guy did not get one yet.

- But it was not just me.

- I was killing for hours with people, not alone, and none of them ever got one.

- We are talking at least a dozen level 100s doing the apexis crystal daily since launch killing everything that moved for anything and everything they offer and none of us got it.

- Sorry blizzard, your "organically" getting the invasion weekly idea does not work.

- Not even close to working.

- Ditch it because it is a horrible idea.

- Even more so when it is a broken function that is a horrible idea.

- I taught a few guild mates how to take advantage of the current market to make some gold.

- Have one guild mate that had never seen over 10K have over 50K a few times, spend it all, and then be able to make it back quikcly.

- It is great when people listen.

- He wanted to list a stack of 200 meat for 12K.

- I said, hell no, list stacks of 10 for 600.

- He said it won't work, I said trust me.

- So he put up a bunch of stacks of 10 and one stack of 200.

- Next day every stack of 10 was sold, the 200 just sat there.

- He learned and is now making money hand over fist.

- 12K seems like a lot for meat.

- 600 does not.

- That is why the sell like wildfire at 600 but never move at 12K.

- Even if at the end of the day it is the same amount.

- It is how the mind processes the numbers.

- Not to mention, people know they are going to go down, getting 200 at once is a lot, but 10 is enough for right now.

- Proving grounds sliver is not going to keep anyone out of heroic dungeons.

- I stepped into it at 589, and it only scales down to 615, and I had no problem with gold.

- Sure, I understand I know how to play a hunter and that is why.

- But at that gear level gold should have at least given me a challenge being so under geared.

- I take it if I can get gold with some skill as a hunter in that gear that someone with little or even no skill can get silver.

- Like me on my rogue, I don't think I would be able to get silver on it.

- It is the one character I really truly suck at.

- I am not great at all on most classes, but I really suck on my rogue.

- Oh, that second 100.

- Yeah, once again it was my rogue.

- Yes, the one I suck on.

- And no I did not try proving grounds with it yet, but I will.

- I needed the leather, he is my only skinner on the server, had no choice.

- I leveled him to stalk nagrand and pick up the pieces people leave behind.

- Oh well, leveling the druid now.

- My rogue died so often leveling.

- My hunter, of course, never died leveling.

- Hunters are OP at leveling and I love it.

- Now if they could give hunters a tanking and healing spec, I would never play another class.

- Speaking of mobs, anyone else notice the amazingly fast despawn time.

- Two friends and myself killed one of those 5M elite mobs that drop crystals one day and an add was accidentally pulled.

- I was far away so while working on the add the mob despawned and I did not get my loot.

- WTF?  It was only 20 seconds on the add, if that much.

- My rogue killed a mob, bent over to loot, bent back over to skin, the mob despawned as I was skinning it before the skin cast finished.

- And my rogue is a worgen with the fast skinning.

- That is way to fast for mobs to despawn.

- Blizzard broke something.

- Well, this expansion it looks like they broke a lot.

- I can't say I hate it however.

- I just can't say I like it either.

- But for now it does hold my attention and I am very happy with it for that.

- I would be happier if I could get an invasion in a more predictable way.

- And I would be happier if I could loot stuff and skin stuff before it despawns.

- But over all I am okay with how things are.

- Will let you know what I think of tanking and healing when my druid hits max this week.

- Have a great day.

Are You Ready to Kill Some Orcs?

There is less than a day left before we storm through the dark portal and come face to face with a new orc threat.  Like it or not, it seems like one again we will be pounding down the pig faced beasts.  A few posts have popped up asking the question if we really see the orcs as a threat and it got me to thinking about it.

At face value a bunch of orcs are really of no real consequence.  Been there, done that, been pretty much bored of it for ages now.  The orcs have tried, and had limited success, taking over azeroth before and were beaten back by what was mostly an unprepared group of forces that were not even working as a team.  These orcs were infused with fel magic, they were stronger, more brutal, and definitely more determined.  So if we can, as an unorganized, unprepared group of people, beat back a stronger, more brutal orc threat, what exactly makes these orcs think they are anything more than a general annoyance.

The entire orc threat seems to be nothing more than a glorified quest line.  One that should be finished in a small zone where most of the leaders are end of the quest line non elites, just kind of harder than the average orc, and then maybe we sum up the entire zone with a deadmines dungeon sort of thing where all the orcs we heard about while questing are in a 5 man dungeon and we kill them all along the way.

Seriously, this is exactly how I see the expansion.  As something that would have been better served as a 5 man dungeon in the caverns of time or maybe even a three dungeon block at most.  For good measure they could have also given us a small patch of land that involves them where we use a portal to get to and from it, like with the island of thunder.

I do not see the orcs as a threat, never have, never will.  If the much more deadly fel orcs served as no threat, why should the weaker version do so?  Remember, these are a group of people that were capable of being turned into slaves by the orges.  The orges people, just think about how weak of a race you would have to be for that to happen.

Some people like to point out that the orcs have future technology from the blackfuse that garrosh bought back in time with him to use in this endeavor to become a stronger more aggressive force of conquerors. But lets face it, giving technology to orcs is like giving a typewriter to some monkeys. Given enough time they might manage to do something that resembles intelligence but mostly they will just spew out gibberish.  Orcs do not have the intelligence of the goblins or gnomes, they do not have the tactical knowledge of the trolls, and they do not have the power of higher reasoning like the draenei.  They are just, well, orcs.  All they do is smash things with an axe, nothing more.

But then something popped into my mind.  Something that would in fact make the orcs a threat, something I would have to use my imagination to build up because blizzard has done nothing to make us actually fear these orcs of lesser power than our own tame orcs.  So here it is, my completely made up fantasy of why the orcs are something to be considered a threat.  While you might not agree with my reasoning, at least give it a try, because unlike blizzard, I am actually going to try to give us a reason to fear them.

Remember I am taking many liberties here and making some stuff up as I am going along.  I am just trying to create an orc threat that I can really accept as a threat, because lets face it, the threat blizzard presented to us is really nonexistent.  Let me know what you think of my imagination in creating a real, true, orc threat.

There are 5 reasons to fear these orcs:

1) Numbers:
2) Brutality:
3) Desperation:
4) Faith:
5) Fear:

1) Numbers:

These orcs are large in numbers.  While it might be true that we do not know exactly how many orcs there are we can safely assume there are a lot of them.  It is quite possible that their could be more draenor orcs than there are combined forces of both factions that came over from azeroth.  And being the orcs are basically animals and as I said are just the type that smash people with the axes, their numbers could very well be something to fear.

Even if the combined forces of both alliance and horde are in the range of 1000 trained, battle hardened, motivated individuals that are willing to work as a team against this threat, what chance to do they have if an army of 100,000 orcs come charging at them.  Even if they can thin the pack and pick off a few orcs here and there even the vastly more prepared azeroth heroes would be quickly overwhelmed and be annihilated by the superior, even if only in numbers, orc forces.

There is a great strength in numbers, and these orcs have the numbers.  Every orc is raised to be a fighter and all they ever do from birth to death is fight.  While they might not be the smartest of fighters or the most tactical of fighters they do now how to swing an axe better than most.  So with a number advantage as huge as the one they have, even if they all just come blindly swinging axes with no real military planning, the orcs will win based on numbers alone.

2) Brutality:

They might not be as strong as the orcs we know that were infused with the fel energy.  They might never be able to match them in brute force.  But what they can do is be brutal.  They have no code of honor, they have no peaceful shamanistic ties.  They have to part of their mind that can be reasoned with.  They are not the orc we were lead to believe came from this time.  Maybe that is because these orcs are not the ones that came from this time, in our past that is. These orcs are pure animals, no threads of humanity at all, just bloodlust.

These orcs, from what little we know of them, were always brutal.  They were never peaceful.  They did not need to drink blood as an excuse to kill, they killed because they wanted to kill.  There is no right and wrong, just strength and steel.

Think of the story Maraad told us, where the orcs of our timeline murdered women and children and then look at our past and the past of the orcs we are going to visit and you will see the parallel.  Sure our past have the blood drinking orcs, but this world has already shown us that these orcs are more brutal than our orcs were even after drinking the blood.  So if our orcs could do it, these orcs would probably think of killing women and children as a fun family get together game like pin the tail on the donkey.

If these orcs had drank the blood it might be a really bad threat because they are more  brutal, more without honor, more without morals than our orcs ever were.  These orcs would rape and kill your wife in front of you then use dark magics to revive her just so they could do it all over again in front of you.  And then when they were tried of torturing you like that, they would revive her once more and let her demon body rip you apart just for the fun of watching you scream in pain knowing the hell they put you through.  They would laugh more at this then a stoned college student watching cheech and chong movies.

And these orcs that did that would be these orcs on one of their better days when they are trying to be nice.  If there were a word that further stressed pure brutality, it would be used for these orcs and these orcs only.

3) Desperation:

These orcs are at a fork in the road, they have come from being slaves and they know that someone was trying to manipulate them into drinking the blood to turn them into slaves once again.  So they stand at a point where they can either become slaves, fight for themselves, or become conquerors themselves, perhaps in an effort to get slaves of their own to fight the incoming threat they know will be coming.

They are desperate to be top dogs because they are tired of being beat on.  They have always been the strongest, but not exactly the smartest, so they are using their strength and the motivation of their desperation, to try and become leaders instead of slaves once again.  There is an old saying that the most dangerous people are the people that have nothing to lose, and right now the orcs see themselves in this very situation.

They have nothing to lose.  If they choose to stand still, they could be over run, if they go back they could become slaves again, and if they move forward they could lose.  But of all the options the only risk worth taking is the risk of moving forward.  Going back or standing pat are not options, so in desperation they need to move forward and they have nothing to lose.

Always fear the person that is not afraid to die because there is no way you can ever win against them unless you kill them.  They will keep coming at you.  And knowing what is in the past and what could come to pass again if they do not move forward as conquerors, they really are in a no win situation and that makes them dangerous beyond dangerous.

4) Faith:

I am not sure how garrosh managed to do it but be has become a prophet for the orcs of draenor.  He was able to convince grom that drinking the blood would be wrong, he was able to convince the other orcs to follow groms lead.  He was able to get them to drop their individual clans and join as one large clan for the greater good.  He positioned himself as a prophet for what could make the orcs a great race and his people believe him to be so and be capable of delivering on that promise.

In the real world more people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other reason.  Why should the game world be any different?  It shouldn't.  Orcs are now following the lead that garrosh set.  He offered them all this big vision of what could be, how great the orc empire would be, if only they would invade azeroth.

While we know he is doing it as much for revenge as he might be doing it because of some daddy issues they only see him as a gift from the heavens that has shown them the true path to a greater society and they are following the path he laid down for them with blind faith.

As long as you have people that believe in something so very strongly that they will do bad things, horrible things, dreadful things, incomprehensible things, all in an effort to move forward to what the master plan is, you have a force you can never win again.  You can kill a person but you can never kill an idea.  Ideas are eternal and faith, when placed wrongly, in those ideas can be deadly.

The prophet garrosh has come and laid down the path to the golden land and the orcs believe it, with complete faith, and they will do whatever they can to fulfill that prophecy.  As we all know, fanatics that are following their prophet and have been radicalized, will do whatever it takes to get to the promise land.

Garrosh promised them glory, they believe him, and they will not stop, ever, until they push forth and kill every last person on azeroth like their prophet told them to do.  If that is not scary enough for you, I don't know what could be.  You would need to wipe out the entire race to cleanse any remnant of that sort of thinking.  And that is the threat we face.  Even if we kill all the adults now, their children will grow and and continue along the path the prophet garrosh set out for them with even greater zeal than their parents had fought for it because now they are also fighting for the honor of their fallen that died for this belief in the promise land.  It will never end until the entire orcish race is eliminated from the face of draenor.  There are no other options.

5) Fear:

What could these brutal, faith filled, desperate orcs in large numbers fear?  Surely it is not the forces of azeroth because they are marching directly for us.  Perhaps we need to go to the teachings of the prophet garrosh to find out what would make even these animals, these beasts, these killing machines, have their hearts filled with fear.

The prophet garrosh told them about the legion.  How he saw with his own eyes as a world, much like this one, was sundered, torn apart piece by piece.  He told them of the stories of how they enslaved the races high in strength and large in numbers and eliminated the races that could not serve them to the point of extinction, or near extinction.  He mentioned that the visitors on this world, even if they had been living in a somewhat fragile peace with them, were being hunted by the legion and that one day a pit lord would come to enlist the assistance of the orcs to kill them all.

An offer of blood would be given and if they drank it they would gain amazing power, more than enough to kill each and every last draenei on the planet but that they too would become slaves to the legion, minions of their destruction.  And if they did not accept this gift from the legion they too would be put on the list for elimination.

He told them that there was this land, a land he had been to, lush with land and trees, and filled with great power.  A land where the legion attacked and lost, the only land were the legion ever attacked and lost.  After bringing thousands maybe even hundreds of thousands of races to extinction, destroying, sundering, reducing to dust thousands of planets within a blink of an eye and yet this one place remained safe.  He told them of the promise land, one where they would be safe from the legion forever.

After the prophet laid down all they needed to know and the day came where this pit lord he mentioned arrived and offered them a gift that if they accepted they would need to exchange everything in return for that power, they were sure, the words of the prophet garrosh were true.

In their effort to not become slaves again and knowing there was a safe place to go to, they not only turned down the offer but they killed the messenger.  They killed the pit lord that came to offer them power.

The prophet garrosh let them know, just like they would never stop hunting the draenei that got away, the legion would now never stop hunting them down.  So there was only one thing they could do and that was to become conquerors themselves.  They needed to conqueror the world that the prophet described as the promise land, the one land where the legion could not win.

So under the guise of being the strong ones and becoming conquerors when in fact they were running, out of fear, for their very lives from the burning legion that they knew would come down on them hard for rejecting the gift that was being bestowed upon them and killing the lord that offered it.

The orcs are like a cornered dog, scared and with nothing to lose.  And a trapped animal is a dangerous one.  Their fear that the burning legion would come for them coupled with the knowledge from their prophet that they could not beat them unless they were at the promise land gave them more than enough motivation to want to get there.

The orcs we are fighting are fighting for their very lives.  They are fighting like a cornered dog, tooth and nail, just trying to get away from draenor, to save their own very lives and make it to the promise land.  Their fear of the burning legion coming to exact revenge is greater than their desire to conquer, and that makes for a very dangerous combination with their strength and numbers.

Now, as I said, blizzard did not really do anything to make me believe the orcs where a threat, but I have tried my best, in my own mind, to create a world where I could see the orcs as a threat.

The question is, do you think of them as a threat now too?

Seeing Things in Context

Since the previous blizzcon when warlords of draenor was announced up until this one which happened on the door step of warlords of draenors release we have ran through a number of hot button topics.  I, like everyone else, had an opinion. 

Being I was able to experience a fair deal of the issues on beta my opinion on some of those hot button topics changed.  I am not one of those people that are set in stone and I can't or won't change my mind.  If I am shown that I am wrong I will freely admit it and change my opinion.  That is the beauty of opinions, they can be changed if there is reason to do so.

So as we knock on the dark portal and wait for someone to answer the door and let us through in less than 2 short days I want to revisit some of those hot button topics and see if my opinion changed, or has been reinforced even stronger.

Karabor / Bladespire Capitals:

When these were announced as our main cities on draenor I was very excited for it.  Admittedly as a player who mostly has alliance characters it was nice to be on the winning side for once.  We see horde favoritism in nearly every step of the game and anyone who denies that is willfully blind, so having the fabled black temple as our home city before it was known as the black temple was a bit of a reason for the alliance to shout out with joy.  We finally won one and get a little bit of the feeling of favoritism for once.

When they later announced they were, in fact, not going to be our capital cities it became a hot button topic.  I was firmly on the side that believed they should be.  Not only because I wanted that feeling like alliance got something special for once, but because two major cities sounded really freaking awesome.  To have those two major cities replaced by some outposts somewhere else seemed like such a let down.  We were prepared for this huge city and got tents and shacks and nothing much more instead.

My time on the beta allowed me to reevaluate my opinion and as it turns out, change my opinion.  I am now glad these cities are not our capitals.  Even if I most definitely would have liked them to be, they really seem mostly unnecessary now.  I found myself spending the vast majority of my free time in my garrison and not in the new main city at all.  If it were these huge buildings they would have went to waste.  So they might as well be some outposts in the middle of nowhere that are basically, if not exactly, a carbon copy of each other alliance or horde side.

I might miss having had the chance to call the black temple home for an expansion, but it is better they did not waste all the resources it would have taken to make it fully functional and vibrant because I really would not be spending any substantial time there anyway.  It would have been a complete waste.

Ashran Capitals:

Another hot button topic that came on the heels of the previous one was when we were told our new city hubs would be in the PvP zone, or the out skirts of it as it may be.  It felt, to most, as a way for blizzard to try to force PvP on the players by making their capital be, basically, part of a PvP battleground.  There was a lot of back and forth on this, mostly from PvE focused players and players on PvE realms that do not want to PvP.  I too was against it.

In practice they fixed a lot of the things I had issues with right away. They expanded the bases so it wasn't just a few tents, it was now a lot of tents and even a solid structure or two here and there.  They gave it some real space and filled it.  This made it feel more like a staging area and less like a rest stop.

They also changed another things I personally had an issue with at the get go which was the fact it was part of the PvP island.  While in the city you would not be flagged for PvP.  So no worries about going AFK for a toilet break or to heat up a coffee and coming back to a dead body.  It has happened to me before and it is no fun.  I don't mind dying in battle, but I hate being ganked while I am getting my coffee.  Only a coward kills a man getting his coffee fix.  This issue was solved.

Then on the beta I got to test it out.  There was no way to accidentally flag yourself, which helps because you won't just stumble into instant death, and the guards were a little beefier than you might expect so they can help keep the battlefield war from entering the outpost.

So while I was against the capitals being in a PvP zone it works out that I actually like them where they are.  Because of a few reasons, first of which is, like mentioned previously, I will be spending most of my time in my garrison anyway, so it is not like a really need a capital city, my garrison is my capital city.  The second reason I ended up liking it goes back to the previous post where I say that blizzard wants to get us PvE players into PvP and this helps ease us into it.  Being there is no waiting, you just step in and you are in world PvP, and you can step out at any time by retreating to your ashran capital city makes it just a little more welcoming, even if not perfect.  All part of blizzard effort to allow us to get into PvP if we were not previously into it.

This goes as the second thing I have changed my mind on once I saw it in context.  It is really true that your gut check response can sometimes be wrong when you do not have all the facts at hand and have yet to see the finished product.  This is one of those cases where I am glad I was wrong with my first opinion on this hot button topic.  The ashran bases are not exactly something I would say I like, but they most definitely something I do not dislike.  And I do like their placement even if I were against it at first.

No Flying:

This is still a huge hot button topic and it will not be going away anytime soon either if trade chat is any indication.  It seems like the vast majority of players still do not know that there is no flying on draenor.  Even some of the ones that do realize it don't fully understand it and seem to think that they will get flying when they reach max level or shortly after.  Yes, we might, just might, get it in 6.1, but it has never been said we will.  So working on that assumption is wrong.  It is best to believe we will not be having it at all, and then if they add it and you wanted it, congratulations.

I was against no flying from the get go.  I said I will live with it and that remains the same, I will live with it.  I've always been one of those people that would rather spend my time playing the game than traveling somewhere to play it.  Given the option of running to a flight path, taking the flight path, then running to the area I want to go to or just mounting up and flying directly there, it is a no brainer.  I would rather mount and fly directly there.  It allows me to spend more time playing the game and waste less time traveling.

After playing on the beta my opinion remains unchanged.  If anything is it even more so reinforced.  I seriously dislike the absence of flight and I beleive it will really hurt the game over all.  There is already so little reason to go out in the world of draenor that flying is the only thing that can salvage that.  At least if we could fly we might go out and explore or just fly around wasting time instead of sitting in our garrison wasting time.

I still believe that after I leveled up, then leveled up another character or two as well, I have done all the sight seeing I could ever want.  From that point on it becomes more about getting from point A to point B and flying just makes that easier.  Forgive me for wanting the easy way out but like I said, I would rather spend my time playing instead of traveling, and after playing on the beta with no flying for months, my opinion remains unchanged.  Flying should have never been removed.   I will live with it, no big deal, but I would be a much happier paying customer if it were still in game and they didn't completely disregard my, and many others, opinion on the matter.

Customizable Garrisons:

Well, customizable to some degree.  They never said garrisons would be customizable, they never even hinted they might be.  But they did say you could have one in multiple areas, which you can't, and they did say you can rename your followers, which you can't.  This was a major hot button topic for many and still remains so in some small circles.

Personally, I never really cared about placement of my garrison.  I would always put it wherever was closest to where I would want to be often.  Again it would be about time.  If the raid is in nagrand, then putting it in nagrand would make it easier to get to the raid.  It is about time playing vs time traveling and I would rather spend my time playing.  However, not being able to place it where I wanted did not matter to me.  Draenor is so damn small away, so I will leave 2 minutes earlier to get to the raid, not such a big deal, I can live with that I guess.

The other part was naming followers.  I was always against that.  If someone has a name, that is their name.  You can not change it.  These people are followers, not pets.  Heck, even as a hunter if I tame something that is a named mob I keep his name.  Like when I tamed Buru, he is Buru.  When I tamed Beast, he is Beast.  You get the idea.  It is not my place to change someones name and if I would not change the name of a pet, why would I even consider changing the name of a follower.

Nothing changed here from my original assessment.  Blizzard went back on their word, sure, but I did not care when they first went back on their word here and I still do not care.  I think garrisons being in one place is good and I sure as hell think you should not be able to rename a person.  How would you like if I renamed you Bob?  And if your name is bob I am now going to call you Walt, what do you think about them apples?

Some opinions change and some opinions stay the same.  I am sure some will disagree with me.  But I changed my opinion on some things after seeing them in context.  Maybe others might as well.  As time has gone by, have your changed any of your opinions on these or other hot button topics?  Maybe when the game comes out, you might.  Something to consider.

Blizzard Wants You To PvP

With just less than two days before the launch of warlords of draenor I can't help but think that blizzard is really trying to push PvP this expansion, more than they did last expansion which was supposed to be the PvP faction conflict expansion.  They are doing it well too, for the most part, unlike how they did it in mists.

The fact of the matter is that more people PvP on a regular basis than raid.  While I am not personally a PvPer I can understand and accept that fact.  PvP by nature is more open and welcoming than PvE even if the venom in a random battleground is often worse that an LFR, which says a lot.

Blizzard tried to actively push PvP last expansion in the wrong way.  By adding the PvP part of the legendary cloak quest line they did more harm than good in trying to entice people to PvP.  The number of "never again" posts about PvP after being forced into it was astounding.

If you were a horde player, while you were almost all but guaranteed a win in each battleground, you had to wait to get into it, sometimes up to 30 minutes.  If you got unlucky and lost, which is extremely rare for those playing horde side, it was frustrating because you knew there was another long wait before you could to try again for a win.  If the unthinkable happened and you lost two in a row, it might push you to the point of giving up.  A hour wasted and two lost battlegrounds.  Admittedly that never happened to me, horde for me were instant wins.  I think I lost a total of 1 battleground the entire expansion as horde.

On the other hand if you were the alliance you would be blessed with instant queue times but that usually resulted in a lot of losing and frustration mounting up.  In the same hour it would take a horde character to win one battleground an alliance character could very well be in 5 or 6 or even more battleground and they would lose every single one of them.  While it is true that on a couple of my characters, one hunter and one priest, I one shot both battlegrounds as alliance, the over all result for me was a nightmare.  My warlock took the worst of it, losing 17 battlegrounds in a row at one point.  It was enough for me to quit even trying to get the legendary cloak on it.

So you can see that adding the mandatory PvP part of the quest line worked for no one.  If you were the alliance you had to deal with what felt like a 90% loss rate and if you were the horde you had to deal with the long wait times.  Either way, no matter who won the battleground, everyone lost in terms of fun.  It was nothing but frustrating and was no way to try to get people into PvP.

This expansion blizzard is going with the more subtle approach in trying to get PvEers like myself into PvP and it is already working for me, even if the expansion is not out yet.

There is one small mistake I think blizzard made and that is not making the gladiators sanctum a standard building in your garrison.  If blizzard had done that I would have stood up and cheered for intelligent design and the perfect way to attract new people into PvP.  But sadly, they didn't.

But even with that said, the gladiators sanctum is a fantastic way to try and get people into PvP, at least people like me.  It offers some interesting titles to be won, an ongoing collection of broken bones that can then be used to possibly get you some free gear through work orders, and dailies of a sort.  It also gives people something to do in what is an otherwise lackluster expansion in terms of content.

By adding the building and all the things that go with it, it worked as bait, bait that will or could get me to bite and want to try to PvP a little more often.  More importantly, it would be making me do it because I wanted to do it and not because I felt like I had to do it, like with the legendary quest line.

As I mentioned, the one fault here is that the building is not a standard building.  You need to spend one of your limited medium plots on your garrison to get it.  But even with that, it is still near the top of my list of building my main will be getting.  Yes, me as a PvEer is planning on getting a PvP only building on my garrison.  Good work blizzard.  Your bait caught one fish.

The other way they are baiting people is with gear.  Anyone that plays both ends of the spectrum knows that PvP has a MUCH better gearing system than PvE does.  It has for a very long time.  PvP gear is based on working for it whereas PvE gear is based on luck.  Given the option I would rather earn my gear (PvP) than be handed it (PvE) any day.  PvE seriously needs to adopt the PvP gearing system, but that is for another post all together.

Looking at the item levels of gear and seeing that conquest gear is better than anything you could ever get out of LFR really makes me interested in PvP even more.  Anything that can keep me from going to LFR is a good thing in my opinion and offering me better gear to NOT do LFR is a total winner if you ask me.  I have never PvPed on my paladin, or warrior, or DK, outside of the occasionally open world dust up, which are the only three classes I never got a legendary on because I refuse to tank LFR and all three of those classes I only tank with, but now I can skip the LFR completely if I decide to PvP.  I really like having this option.

I am not sure if it is a good idea for PvP gear to be better for PvE, that is an argument for another day and will always be based on opinion but it is something blizzard did on purpose.  And I believe, just guessing here, that it was done on purpose.  To give those people that do not like LFR another option and maybe bait them into trying something new.  Well, once again, it is working.  At least for me.

Blizzard is not forcing PvP on the players this time around, but they are making PvP seems like a viable option for both fun and gearing and letting us, the player, decide if we want to do it.  Blizzard wants us to PvP and they are going about getting us to do it right this expansion.

When all is said and done I might end this expansion the same way I did the three before it, with only a little bit of PvP done and being more of a PvE player.  But this expansion offers me something additional that appeals to me, and that is good.  It is a lot better than forcing PvP on me to get the legendary cloak.

Do you believe that blizzard planned this out, enticing PvEers to PvP, or is just happened to work out that way?  Either way, blizzard wants you to PvP in warlords of draenor and I think I might take them up on the offer.

Preraid Gearing Up In Warlords of Draenor

As always when a new expansion comes out we know the best gear is to be found from raiding.  It is just the way things are, but there are many other ways to gear up in warlords.  Perhaps not what most would call decent gear, but it surely is a way to get your foot in the door.

Whether your goal is to be ready for raiding as soon as normal and heroic are released a few weeks after launch or just to gear up your characters so you can kill creatures out in the world easier, having gear matters to each and every player.  It is how you gauge your personal progression.  So here is your warlords release gearing guide.  Use it to gear up for raids or to gear up so you can kill elites and rares faster, whatever floats your boat, here is how you can get it.

Crafted Gear:

There is gear for every slot that can be crafted in warlords.  From trinkets and rings, to chests and legs, to weapons and shields.  If you can wear it, you can craft it.  But there is one problem with that.  While allowing us to craft gear blizzard decided to limit the number of slots you will be allowed to wear crafted gear in.  Which completely ruined a perfect idea in my personal opinion, but that is another story.  Crafted items are limited to 3 equip.  It doesn't matter if the pieces come from different professions, they all share the 3 equip rule, which means if I have the engineer gun, the leather back and the darkmoon trinket I can not equip anything else that is crafted, even if it is a ring from jewel crafting, which I am wearing nothing from.  Only 3 crafted items total can be equipped.

Crafted Armor: 640, 655 and 665

Tailors can make cloth gear, leather workers can make leather and mail gear, blacksmiths can make plate gear and engineers can make special engineer only goggles.  Each of these professions can also make items that upgrade the gear they made from 640 to 655 and then from 655 to 665.

Crafted Weapons:  630, 645 and 655

Blacksmiths can make melee weapons and shields, scribes can make staves, an offhand, and a wand,  and engineers can make a gun.  Each of the associated professions can also make upgrade items that can upgrade a 630 weapon to 645 and a 645 weapon to 655.

Crafted Rings and Necks: 640, 655, and 665

Jewel crafters can make necks and rings for all classes and specs and can also make the items that can upgrade them from 640 to 655 and then from 655 to 665.

Trinkets: 640, 655 and 665 (620)

Scribes can make the darkmoon cards than when assembled can be turned in for a 640 trinket.  They will also make the item needed to upgrade the trinket from 640 to 655 and later from 655 to 665.  Alchemists also offer a trinket but it is only an item level of 620 and can not be upgraded, however it is also the only piece of over 600 crafted gear that does not count toward the limit of only 3 crafted pieces of gear.

Crafting These Items:

Anyone can craft these items, with the exception of the engineer goggle and alchemist stone as they require the profession to use, with the appropriate garrison building.  Which means even without the profession you can make 630 or 640 items.  Only the people that actually have the professions can make the items to upgrade them however.  But do not worry, the upgrade items can be traded, which means you can buy or sell them on the auction house the same way you would with gear itself.

Questing:

Questing gear will start around item level 500 in the first zone and continue to get better as you move from zone to zone up until the final zone, nagrand, which is where even the most geared player currently, will start seeing upgrades.  This zone ends around a 600 item level.  But there are more quests you can do to get some better gear.

Proving Grounds:

When you complete the quest that sends you there and asks you to do the bronze challenge you will get a 610 item level weapon appropriate for your class / spec.  Unless you got lucky with a boosted quest reward this will be the best weapon you can get your hands on when you first hit 100 before you step in a dungeon.  This weapon could end up upgraded as well if you have the building for it.

I would suggest that everyone hit this quest up as soon as they hit 100.  The bronze medal is really easy and should be attainable by anyone, even those with slower reaction times and lesser ability with their characters.  It makes for a great pre dungeon start.

Legendary Quest Line:

The legendary quest line sends you to a dungeon that can be completed on normal mode and awards a 640 ring.  It should be easy enough to do and you can even pick up the quest at level 98 and do the dungeon while leveling.  You will then be tasked with completing 3 dungeons on heroic and collecting an item for each.  Remember if you wish to queue for them with a random group you will need a proving grounds silver medal to do so.

The next stage will require you to complete yet another dungeon on heroic and collect 4986 apexis crystals. You will then be sent on a series of quests which require you to find people, look for clues, face a bronze dragon in battle, you know, the standard things all us adventurers do on a near daily basis.

After you finish that part of the quest line, which has a solo scenario like the solo ones in the mists legendary line, you will turn in the quest and be rewarded with a 680 item level ring, which is heroic raid level.  The next part requires you to enter the raid, and being this post is about pre raid gearing, I will leave that for another day.  Enjoy your very easy to get 680 ring with only the need to run a few dungeons and complete one solo scenario really.  Oh, and collecting a boat load of apexis crystals.

Apexis Crystals:

There is one daily quest that will award you with 800 apexis crystals (or 1000 for the group and PvP versions) should you do it.  Mobs in the level 100 area also drop small amounts on rare occasion.  Some rares, even more so the harder ones, award a fair bit when you kill them as well.  Either way grinding these should take some time and outside of being used for the legendary quest line as mentioned above they can be used to purchase some gear.

630 Bracers and Capes: 3000 apexis crystals
645 Bracers and Capes: 9000 apexis crystals + previous item
655 Bracers and Capes: 14500 apexis crystals + previous item

630 Belts and Gloves: 4000 apexis crystals
645 Belts and Gloves: 10500 apexis crystals + previous item
655 Belts and Gloves: 17000 apexis crystals + previous item 

630 Legs and Helms: 5000 apexis crystals
645 Legs and Helms: 11500 apexis crystals + previous item
655 Legs and Helms: 20000 apexis crystals + previous item

Yes, you read that right.  For the best item there it will cost 36500 apexis crystals, which if you only do the daily will take you roughly as long as 45 days to get it.  Being the gear is a crap item level, even when maxed out, this is not a very reasonable gearing option.  At least not for mains or semi mains.  Actually, it is not a decent gearing option for part time players either as it would take them much longer than 45 days as they might not log in and do the daily every day.

Don't get me wrong, I like options for gear, but blizzard really missed the mark on this one in my opinion.  If it is going to take 45 days to grind out one single piece of gear, that piece of gear better be mythic item level, not LFR level.

PvP Gear:

Honor gear will be at a 620 item level when doing PvE content and conquest gear will be of 660 item level while doing PvE content. As (I believe) conquest becomes attainable as soon as the raids open the 660 gear is not really an option for pre raid gearing, but for alts that come up later it could be a very viable gearing option, even the option of choice if you ask me, and I am not even a PvPer.  Once again it is easier to gear for PvE through PvP, at least later on when catching up.  The 620 item level honor gear could work nicely to fill in some spots while you are hoping for drops from dungeons, and it works at a 675 item level value in PvP content at the same time which is not too shabby to start I guess.

Garrisons:

Outside of the profession building, already mentioned, garrisons offer you more opportunities to get gear.  And it could be semi decent gear as well.

Invasions:

You can start a garrison invasion alone or with friends.  Completing these invasions will net you some apexis crystals.  If you manage to snag a gold you win a bag that could contain a 645 item level helm, shoulder, boot or weapon.  It could also contain one of four different mounts as a little bonus. 

Sadly this is a weekly and is not a daily, as it should be really.  This means it will not really be an exceptional means to gear up pre raid, but will most definitely be a welcome way should you manage to win a 645 piece you actually need. 

Not sure if it was smart loot but the three times I got loot I did not get the same item twice.  I hope it cycles through all 4 because if it does that means you can get the four pieces on all your characters at a predictable rate which is kind of nice.  Sadly I do not see this marked as smart loot, so do not expect that to be the normal result.

Missions:

Gearing up your followers is important as I have mentioned several times in the garrison posts and this right here is one of the reasons why that is important.  The higher your followers item level the better success they will have at mission and the higher their item level is the more missions that will get opened up for them to attempt.

Follower Level and the rewards they can get you:

Under 100:  You will get 530, 540, 550, etc. missions for gear.
At 100, item level 600: missions could appear for 615 gear.
At 100, item level 615: missions could appear for 630 gear.
At 100, item level 630: missions could appear for 645 gear.
At 100, item level 645: missions could appear for 655 or higher gear.

All gear is based on the timeless island model.  It will come in a piece that when clicked on will create an item for the loot specialization you have selected.  As for the top missions, the gear you get will align with highest difficulty level raid you have finished and move it up one higher. 

Example, you only finished LFR, it can be LFR item level or normal item level to as high as if you have finished heroic it could be anywhere from LFR item level to mythic item level.  I will not go deeper into it, as this is pre raid gearing and those rewards require post raid.  So at best, expect no higher than 645 item level from follower missions before the raids are released.

BoE World Drops:

There are world drops for helm, shoulder, belt, neck, cloak, ring, trinket, offhand and shield.  All these items are 665 item level.  While they can be world drops the highest chance to get them will come from the big crate of salvage which you can only get if you have a salvage yard at level 3 on your garrison.

As a side note, even if this relates to raids.  When the raids do come out there will be BoE raid drops and unlike in previous expansions, if you get a heroic BoE and a mythic BoE it will be a heroic item level or mythic item level.  The BoEs that drop in raids are now of the item level of the raid you are in.  There have never been heroic (now mythic) BoEs before.  Pretty awesome right?  I can see some of my alts saving up for some mythic BoE items already which will include belt, wrists, gloves, boots, cloak and neck.

World Bosses:

There are three world bosses, two of which rotate in one place, yet count as one boss like the four celestial bosses did, so don't think you will be rolling on both like I was thinking, because we would both be wrong then.

The rotating bosses which will be open from the start of the expansion drop 650 item belts and gloves, both, but one, Drov, also drops a neck and the other, Tarlna, also drops a chest.  Make sure to use your coin accordingly if you are seeking the neck or chest.

The other world boss will not open until after the raid comes out but for sake of completion it will drop 665 gear for the feet, legs and finger slots.

Dungeons:

Last but not least, the only truly grindable gearing up method.  (my favorite type of gearing method to be honest, this is why I loved valor gear, decent gear that you could grind for) If you want to spam dungeons, and we know you will do a few for the legendary quest line, this will be a solid way to build some starter gear.

Normal Mode:

Bloodmaul Slag Mines (530), Iron Docks (550), Auchindoun (570) and Skyreach (600) all drop what I would consider sub par gear on normal, even sub par during the gearing up process.  If you quested up until, and through, nagrand, most of your gear will be better than the first three there and the few pieces that aren't better than skyreach's gear should not really hold you back from moving into the better normal dungeons where you can actually start finding better gear.

Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, Grimrail Depot, The Everbloom and Upper Blackrock Spire all drop 615 item level gear that will be a nice starting place to begin your gearing quest.  If you plan to go into LFR when it first comes out and not really into normal or higher, you can probably gear up right here, and with a few added items from other things mentioned above like crafting or garrison invasions, be perfectly ready for LFR.

Heroic Mode:

All heroic mode dungeons drop 630 item level gear and unless they went back on what they said they will also have a chance to come with gem slots and warforged, but I never saw one like that. 

Remember that you need to have a silver medal in the role that you wish to queue as to get into a random heroic dungeon using the group finder.  However, if you have a self made group you can just walk right in.  Heroic dungeons however still follow the previous rules as you can only walk into them once per day.  If you want to do a dungeon on heroic a second time you will need to queue into it.

If you want to go straight to normal mode raiding this is the type of gear that should be sufficient to do so along with some invasion gear and maybe a few crafted or crafted and upgraded pieces.  Really skilled groups might be able to even pull off entering heroic raids with this type of gear, but I would say that would really be reaching for most of us.

Challenge Mode:

Unlike the previous expansion this time around challenge modes do offer gear.  It is not exceptional by any means of course at a 640 item level but it is better than heroic mode gear.  To get the gear you would need to pick up the challenge mode dungeon daily in your ashran city and then walk into that dungeon with your dungeon difficulty set to challenge mode.  No medal is required to get the reward, the only requirement is that you finish it meaning even if you do not get bronze and it turns into a wipe fest, if you finish it, you get a 640 piece when you turn in the quest.

For most people that wish to step right into heroic raids, this should be the absolute minimum gear you have.  Completing challenge modes daily and getting lucky as to not get duplicate drops with some additional invasion gear and crafted gear and with a little bit of skill and dedication you can be raiding heroic on release.  Even if you have to snag a few normal pieces on release to help you along the way, for the person that wants to be the best geared they can be before raids open, this is where you will be getting those last pieces, and lowest pieces.  Good luck on getting the one slot you need.  I hate RNG personally.

Happy gearing all, see you on the other side.

Monday Random Thoughts

- It is weird thinking my next random thought will be about leveling again.

- It took so long to get here and while it is well over due it always feels like you are not ready when it happens.

- Or is that just me?

- I watched blizzcon with the virtual ticket.

- As a warcraft fan I basically feel as if I really over paid for a battle pet.

- Because as a warcraft fan that really is all blizzcon had to offer for me, warcraft information, and there was none.

- I know the expansion is in a few days, but they could have talked about something.

- And no, talking about the stat changes and stuff does not count.

- You can't have a panel talking about the same exact thing you have been talking about for over a year and consider it exciting.

- At least I didn't.

- They could have talked about the upcoming 10 year anniversary.

- They could have hyped up the MC and SS vs TM battleground.

- They could have teased what "might" be coming for 6.1.

- They could have told us what their intention is moving forward in terms of patch speed.

- They could have mentioned if they were still on target for a yearly release or if they changed their mind.

- They could have addressed the extremely high over priced cost of the expansion and what they believe their justification for it is if they really do plan to go yearly.

- There was so much warcraft stuff they could have talked about.

- But they talked about hit and expertise being removed.

- Really?

- The tenth anniversary is around the corner, the expansion is around the corner, and all you can think to talk about was old new from over a year ago.

- So basically I paid for a virtual ticket to get a battle pet.

- The only thing that really had a good warcraft vibe was the Looking for Group video.

- But that was something you would not watch on the live stream anyway.

- It really bought back the feeling of why so many of us love the game.

- It is worth watching.

- It made me miss the old stuff.

- Funny thing I noticed was that they sort of gave themselves away as not having much faith in the game in the video.

- I can only blame that on bad cutting, but you can not put words in peoples mouths.

- When they start talking about the game there is such a light in their eyes, you could see they loved what they were talking about, there is a feeling of they are doing something great.

- From release to BC to Wrath every time you hear someone talking about this they talk with excitement.

- They say thing like this is great, this felt epic, this was fantastic, both blizzard and non blizzard employees.

- But as soon as it moves on to cataclysm, mists and warlords the tone of the people being interviewed changed, they did not feel as excited about what they were talking about.

- This might be fun, this could work out, this should give people the feeling of, things like that.

- They went from when they knew the game was great with is, to when they know the game lost a step or two with should.

- I wonder if it is me just reading too much into the body language and the words the people decided to use, but when you are trying to tell the truth from the hype it is that body language and the words they choose that let you know the truth.

- If you watched it, maybe you caught what I did.

- If you haven't, check it out.

- Not to see that, just to see it.

- It was a great video.

- Reading into it or not.

- Well worth an hour of your time in my opinion.

- It sure did give me a gentle reminder of why I love the game.

- The way they talk about the start up, BC and Wrath, reminds me why I love the game.

- The way they talk about cataclysm, mists and warlords, reminds me why I complain.

- But I complain because I care, so that works out well.

- If I didn't care, I wouldn't complain.

- On to the major announcement of the blizzcon, overwatch.

- Could they have announced anything that could interest me less?

- Does the world really need a first person shooter that looks like a children's movie?

- Don't get me wrong, I loved the incredibles and if you do not see the direct comparison between the video and the incredibles you are either willfully blind or never saw the incredibles.

- I just do not think that a game with a cross between a children's movie art work and anime art work, and more so a first person shooter, is really something I would ever want to play.

- Sure I will try it, if it is free or has a free trial, who am I to say no to free, but I've never liked first person shooters to begin with.

- They have an uphill battle if they want to win me over.

- Do people really like that stuff?

- If so I am so very out of touch with today's generation of gamers.

- I'll stick to my RPG type games that require a brain and leave the mindless first person shooters to people who prefer to just play, not think.

- When I want to just play, not think, I prefer hack and slash like diablo, not first person shooters.

- To each their own, we can't all like the same things right?

- When they were running around in overwatch, and you were not in first person view, it looked like something I might be interested in.

- But they said that only happens out of combat, in combat it goes to first person.

- Oh well, lost me completely there.

- If it stayed further out, like it was when they were running around, I would have been on that like white on rice to try it out, because even if the artwork is insanely childish it still looks good.

- Now I really do not care.

- First person shooters and I do not mix well.

- One thing is one against proved.

- Blizzard really does know how to make videos well.

- Would love to see their art team just make a cartoon series.

- I would love that.

- They do simply amazing work, no question.

- Being I doubt that I will be leveling any more characters in the next two days it looks like my tally for level 90s will end at 21.

- I could have done more, would have done more, but with no end game gearing method outside of raiding I did not feel like adding more characters I would be forced to LFR wtih to the mix.

- If valor gear was still in game and I could gear up with valor gear I probably would have ended the expansion with 30-35 or even 40 90s.

- But with no way to gear characters outside of raiding I had no desire to level more characters.

- This is what I worry most about with warlords.

- There is no way to gear up without raiding.

- Before someone jumps down my throat I will explain that statement.

- To me getting raid ready means normal mode gear, which is what valor gear always was.

- So my bar to what I call "gearing up" to be raid ready means 670 gear, as my mode of raiding drops 680 gear.

- If I am 670, or as close I can can reasonably get to it, on my alts, than I am raid ready.

- So yes, you can get gear in warlords and lots of it.

- Don't get me wrong, just because they removed some stuff does not mean there is nothing.

-  It is just all crap, but it is something.

- There is dungeon gear, challenge mode gear, garrison invasions gear, garrison mission gear, apexis crystal gear, crafted gear, upgraded crafted gear and that is all without even mentioning PvP gear and lesser level raid gear.

- So there are a lot of gearing option.

- If you want to have your alts waking around in garbage gear that is.

- I want a way for my characters to get raid ready without having to raid.

- Looks like if I want 670 gear, I have to raid to get it.

- Which means I can not get alts to the "raid ready" level so if we need it I can switch unless I raid with those alts.

- Just like this expansion was at the end.

- And it stopped me from leveling characters this expansion, and they only removed valor gear at the end.

- What do you think it is going to be like when there is no valor gear at all from the start?

- Yeah, no thank you.

- I do not see this expansion being very alt friendly.

- Or very "average player" friendly either.

- With the cost to garrisons well out of the range of the majority of players, what do you think it will do to people that have alts when they can not even afford it on one character?

- Yeah, a very alt unfriendly expansion is coming people.

- Choose which characters you will level smart, because unless you plan to play and raid 24/7 you will not be gearing up alts in a fun and meaningful way.

- Sure you might be able to get them a couple of 665 pieces and 645 pieces, but that is not exactly raid ready, at least not in my opinion.

- Maybe, just maybe, if they removed the crafted 3 limit on crafted gear and you could get all 665 pieces if you worked hard enough for them, then I would say it was okay.

- I have no issue working for my gear.

- I just do not want to do LFR to get it.

- There is a difference between working for something and banging your head against the wall for something.

- I actually like working for my gear.

- Would love a system were I could craft all 665 gear for my alts even it if took a really long time.

- It would give people a reason to log in every day.

- A subscription MMO needs something like that to work.

- I, of course, plan to level my hunter first, then druid and priest immediately after.

- I will level all my classes of course, at some point.

- At least one of each class and at least one horde side.

- Any horde guilds want an alt hunter that is a fair raider but would only play fill in once in a while?

- Let me know and I will consider it.

- My horde hunter needs a new home, my old guild has died and I do not see it making a comeback. :(

- I want to try out gladiator stance and I want to see both sides of the stories.

- Those are some key things I am looking forward too as far as alts go.

- So I will still have alts, but I do not want a repeat of this expansion.

- Lets take my warrior and give a quick history of his life this expansion.

- I love tanking on my warrior, figure that should be mentioned first.

- But my druid made it to 90 first, as usual, and it was tanking MV and I think into HoF by the time my warrior reached 90.

- I flat out refuse to tank LFR, no thank you, I would rather gargle with a mouth full of broken glass.

- But thanks to valor gear my warrior was not left in the cold.

- I worked reputations, opened the valor gear, worked my ass off to get some pieces, and with some world boss drops, my warrior caught up somewhat.

- If and when I needed a second tank my warrior could fill in.

- But by that time my druid was so well geared so I never really got much play time on my warrior.

- However, my warrior was close to raid ready thanks to valor gear and I did not need to step into LFR to do so, which is as it should be.

- When ToT came out, and you needed raid reputation to buy gear, my warrior started to fall behind in gear.

- My druid and monk were both better geared, so if a tank was needed during ToT I used my druid or monk.

- My warrior fell further behind.

- I did everything in my power to get it gear, but options were limited because valor gear was locked behind a raid reputation and I was not raiding on it.

- So a couple of crafted pieces here and there and some weekly kills on world bosses, and it slowly, oh so slowly, geared up.

- But it never stepped foot into ToT because its gear was so far behind.

- When SoO came out, with no valor gear at all, not even locked behind some reputation, my warrior was put on the "see you next expansion" list.

- I do not want another expansion of that.

- We need valor gear, and it needs to be decent gear that makes you raid ready.

- So valor gear should be 670 gear and it should be added back into the game before release.

- So, now you see why I say there is no way to get raid ready in WoD, and I think that will hurt my desire to play alts.

- And I think it will hurt a lot of other people.

- But there will always be fun to be had, I just need to learn that having fun does not mean gearing all my characters and having them all raid ready.

- Even if that is what is normally fun for me, gearing up all my characters.

- Or I need to get over my problem with tanking for randoms and do the LFR.

- But until blizzard starts making rules and enforcing them in LFR, you will not see me in there, outside of the rare occasion where I have reached near terminal boredom.

- But in terms of my warrior, at least now my warrior tank will have a DPS spec.

- Which is how my druid and my monk were able to gear up and my warrior was not.

- I could DPS in my tank gear as a druid or monk, I couldn't as a warrior.

- Thank you gladiator stance.

- Woot, DPSing in tank gear.

- I am so looking forward to that.

- Now all they need to do is bring back blood DPS and make ret capable of being done with a sword and board and I can play all my characters again.

- Or better yet, just fix the F'N community and start banning the people that make LFR experience unenjoyable for everyone.

- I think I would like that better, a nice community, absolutely would like that option better.

- I did a class run this weekend.

- No, not hunters, druids.

- A SoO run with all druids, nothing but druids.

- The only class run that could have tanks, healers, ranged DPS and melee DPS.

- It was fun.

- Do you know how many people applied to the group even though it said, clear as day, SoO druids only clear.

- One person in the group had an awesome idea.

- Invite someone like a mage that asked to join and wait for him to get there and then we all switch to bear form, circle him, and say... we think you are in the wrong place buddy.

- It would have been so funny.

- We did not manage to full clear it sadly, but we had a hell of a lot of fun.

- At least 3 times someone that got invited asked for a summon.

- Excuse me?

- Class run.

- Since when do druids have a summon?

- Sometimes people just talk out of habit instead of thinking.

- I think that is what it is, out of habit they always ask for a summon.

- I usually do not get into things like that but I was in the mood for some fun.

- I am glad I did it.

- I spent so much time this weekend working on my characters that some fun was needed.

- I need to learn to loosen up and have some more silly fun like that.

- I've just become so jaded of random people it is like I am scared of them.

- I'd rather do nothing than join a pug sometimes.

- But there is some fun to be had on occasion if you are willing to take the risk.

- Even when we started wiping in that all druid group, people kept their spirits up and had fun.

- Not once did anyone say to another person, you suck, your bad, you wiped us, how do you not know these fights, blah blah blah standard pug mentality stuff.

- It restored my faith in the people that play this game, even if just a little.

- I would like to give a shout out to all the druids in that group, you guys rock and made my day.

- Speaking of druids, I decided to go balance on the last druid I leveled.

- It had zero gear so I sent it the BoA staff, a set of timeless gear, did the blasted lands quests, blew a couple of coins on both a celestial kill and an ordos kill, even joined in for a nalak kill, and needless to say won nothing from any of them, but I did manage to get to 519.

- Not bad, from fresh 90 gear to 519.

- Did a couple more ordos, just to practice the rotation to get used to it.

- I must say one thing...

- How the hell can anyone play a class like this?

- Nearly 3 second cast time?

- When can you ever stand still for 3 seconds?

- Even on ordos, which is about as tank and spank as you can get, even having to be moved from the fire now, I could not stand still for more than a few seconds.

- Tanks moving him out of range, need to move.

- Ranged not moving from me and me not noticing it means I get popped up.

- Ranged not moving from me so I move from them.

- Ranged trying to get away from the back but run right into me means I get popped up.

- Me getting the thing on myself means I get popped up.

- All casters should be able to cast on the move, it is annoying playing like that with insane cast times.

- But boy oh boy when I was able to stand still I was blowing things up.

- One fight I only got knocked up once and needed to move, it was on me, and I managed to do 8.7K with no island buffs.

- Most runs, with having to move a little here and there and getting popped p a few times I was ranging between 5.8K and 7.2K.

- So at a 519 item level, having never even once played a max level druid boomkin, and not spending more than 2 minutes on icy veins, I was able to do more DPS than nearly every single person I've seen in an LFR.

- And more than everyone except for two of the druids and the tanks that were in the all druid run.

- The tanks were both super geared, so they were always top 4 with the other 2 good damage dealers.

- Speaking of druid tanking, everything I read and watch has people saying all they feel like is a giant fur ball of health.

- Like that is a bad thing.

- I actually like that idea... some.

- Warrior does seem to way to go next expansion.

- Everyone seems to be saying it.

- But I did not need people to say it to convince me to want to tank on my warrior.

- I just needed gladiator stance.

- I always said, if the game wants me to DPS as a warrior, then make it so I can DPS with a shield.

- So I have to DPS as one now, or else I would be going back on my word.

- So being I can gear for tank and DPS with the same exact gear I can not think of anything else to say outside of every single class needs something like that.

- No need to even have different neck, cloak, trinkets, rings or weapons.

- Just choose the gladiator stance talent and go to town.

- Yeah baby.

- Damn, now I want to level my warrior second.

- I just confused myself.

- Healed a bunch of garrosh kills again this week and the nerf to holy nova sucked.

- But holy nova is still extremely over powered at 90.

- Sure my HPS dropped to about 17K but that is way more than needed for heroic garrosh.

- I imagine someone being more involved than myself and a better player would be getting over 25K in my gear with it.

- I am just having too much fun bouncing around spamming holy nova to care about maximum output right now.

- As long as the boss goes down and I can continue bouncing all over the place with my holy ball of illuminated healing I am happy.

- Too bad holy nova sucks major league at 100.

- I remember doing dungeons on beta and hearing disc priest begging us to slow down and CC and pull one at a time because they had no AoE healing.

- Normals I am talking here, not even heroics.

- One priest sounded as if he was going to break down crying.

- They went on how they healed heroic (now mythic) garrosh on this character but they could not heal a normal mode dungeon on it.

- They were stressed out and you could tell it by their typing.

- And they sure sounded like they knew what they were talking about.

- Of course we worked as a team, our idea was to learn the fights and give feedback at the same time.

- We all left feedback at the end that our poor healer was in tears because a disc priest could not keep up with the AoE damage even when we were single pulling mobs.

- How is holy nova so insanely OP at 90 and so pitifully useless at 100.

- You would think one of these years blizzard would get better at balancing things so they work differently at different levels.

- That would be smarter than using one formula that is supposed to work for every level forever.

- Ten years and they still have not figured this out yet?

- Makes me wonder what the hell they are smoking over there.

- And more so, why are they not sharing.

- Have a great day.