Monday, March 11, 2013

Monday Random Thoughts

- I am really enjoying this new patch.

- I think more than I have any patch I have ever experienced and I have not even started to raid yet.

- A few people still away for another 2 weeks.

- There is just so much to do that it is too much.

- Who ever thought that would happen in this game?

- I finally got myself a dino mount from the warbringers.

- Did not come easily, not at all.

- Instead of trying to solo them I took someone else along with me.

- It was really late at night or very early in the morning depending on how you look at it, and no one was hunting them, so we had them all to ourselves.

- Did a full circle 7 times, that is 35 kills on top of the 40 plus I already had.

- Finally got the mount to drop and even had a second drop, which the other person got of course.

- When you do things like that as a team you split the loot.

- I would guess they are roughly a one in forty drop when looking at it that way.

- The person with me was a hunter as well.

- Hey, if a hunter can solo it, two hunters can make it really easy right?

- We went around destroying things.

- Adds come in while we are fighting?  No problem.

- Turtle gets feared into the dragon and we have to fight it?  No problem.

- One scout and the warbringer?  No problem.

- Two scouts and the warbringer all at the same time?  No problem.

- Half a dozen mobs a feared pet brought into it and the warbringer?  No problem.

- The dragon, the warbringer, two scouts, a few packs of roving animals, a bird or two and a porcupine?  No problem.

- Well, small problem, but we did it and it was exciting and got my blood pumping.

- And that was the attempt the mount drops on.

- Can you say we earned that baby?

- When all was said and done, we both got a mount and tons of baggies.

- I got enough tokens to bring 3 characters up to at least revered with every faction, even though they never quested.

- Even have an 86 now that is revered with a faction, klaxxi, because I had so many tokens and all 7 of my level 90 characters on that server are already exalted with them.

- I got more materials than I know what to do with.

- I ended up with 10 sha crystals, over 200 spirit dust, over 40 eternal shards and 60 essence.

- I ended up with over 80 of each white and black trillium, over 400 kyparite and over 200 ghost iron.

- I ended up with over 80 golden lotus, over 300 each of silkweed, green tea leaf, and raid poppy and over 200 each  of fools cap and snow lily.

- I ended up with 6 magnificent hides and over 100 exotic leather.

- I ended up with enough cloth to make over 150 bolts.

- Oh, and gold, yeah, I ended up with over 1000 looted just during that time frame too.

- And when all was said and done I only had a 24 gold repair bill so I call that a good investment.

- But the most important thing was I got the mount finally.

- No more being jealous over someone that got it on the only kill they ever had.

- Okay, I will still be jealous they got it so easy, but I will feel great knowing that unlike them, I earned mine.

- And I had a great time earning it.

- After getting it I realized that the drop rate is actually very good.

- Compared to other things I have done, a one in forty drop rare seems very player friendly.

- But really, how many people will end up killing 40 of them?

- Not many I guess.

- I am loving dino island too, got an egg over the weekend.

- Maybe I will get lucky and get a raptor mount too.

- I am over 1000 bones now, so if I do that many per week I have 9 weeks left to get my white bone raptor.

- I got over 20 of each of the pets there, I am going to just start vendoring them.

- They are so easy to get they are down to 100 gold on my server, and they vendor for 62.

- I will just save time and vendor instead of competing with 100 other people that all seem to have them in abundance.

- Took me about 100 kills of dinomancers my second night there to get the hunter book.

- Tamed a white direhorn.

- But after I got it, got 5 more almost immediately.

- They vendor nicely too.

- Just funny how it feels like it takes forever and a day to get one but once you get it they keep dropping.

- Killed the rare on the boat at dino island, twice.

- If you want to know how to get a team up there.  Just run up there.  Let one person FD, let the others die, and mass revive.

- Raid team on a boat ready to roll.

- We did not need a raid team however, we three manned it, two hunters and a paladin.

- Be careful if you do that, those dinomancers respawn really fast.

- We had them start respwning even before we downed the rare.

- So we killed all them and the rare at the same time.

- When we looted it took so long to hit greed on all the things that dropped, pets, hunter books, rep tokens, baggies, etc, that the dinomancer started to respawn a second time.

- Yeap, that much loot.

- Yeap, that fast of a respawn timer.

- That is also why the market is flooded with those pets.

- I could not help but think this is so fun.

- Killing the rares on the new island has that feeling too.

- You hear someone say haywire is up or goda is up and it is suddenly drop everything and see if you can get there in time.

- Then there are effects coming from everywhere and the life on those things drops like a rock.

- It is exciting when you make it there just in time.

- Once or twice I got there just as it was dying and got only one shot in.

- It is sad when it dies in view but not in range.

- The troll sector can be deadly to run through, even more so being they seem to knock you off your mount better than anything else can.

- Mogu sector is not much better either.

- But the saurok section is probably the best questing sector ever.

- I can spend all day jumping around in there, I wish we could be a saurok all the time.

- My hunter is already revered and now all my characters will get the bonus going in there.

- This is the first quest hub, ever, where I actually did it on 5 characters in the first week.

- I have never done anything as much before.

- Even now, years later, I do not have five people that have ever done one quest hub.

- And I already have 5 that have done this and expect to bring more in to do it as well.

- The rares are a huge draw, the key to do that one run each week is a draw, jumping around as a saurok is a draw.

- I love the island of thunder.

- But I really think they need to lower the spawn time on those mogu and trolls, because unless you are geared, you can get yourself in a ton of trouble really fast.

- My poor mage died twice just trying to get through the troll area.

- Taught me the lesson.

- On some characters it is easier to fight your way through than to try and run.

-My mage tried to run and he was dismounted and dead before I could even hit invisibility.

- And my invisibility is key bound.

- And my reflexes are not that bad.

- They just hurt a lot.

- I would guess a 470 item level would be needed to make life easier in there.

- My mage is not quite there yet, but will be thanks to half priced valor items now.

- And free valor being handed out like candy from the rares on the island.

- My rogue spent a few hours there and he was my worst geared character by far at 452.

- After all was said and done, he is now 466, thanks to easy to get valor and cheaper items.

- I also switched from combat to assassination.

- Every fight takes a year and a day at combat, or at least it feels like that.

- Seems I can do twice as much damage as assassination.

- I actually look forward to going there, at least at the moment.

- Phase 2 should be open by the time I get home from work tonight.

- It was at 90% last night when I logged off.

- I wonder what phase 2 has in store for us.

- As much as I like quick reputation it seems a bit odd that I will probably be exalted before phase 3 is opened being I am revered already and have the boost now.

- A little too fast maybe?

- At least at exalted I can buy the keys with coins, I'm capped at 20 already and I only had 1 before this thing opened.

- I think I like bringing people in there because I like doing that treasure run.

- Only my shaman and DK left on that server that have not been there.

- Need to get my horde hunter into there as well to see if anything is different from the horde perspective.

- I am sure something will be during the five phases.

- And I am looking forward to doing that.

- How amazing is that?  Something I am looking forward to in game.

- This expansion might not be perfect, but I am sure loving it.

- Just wonder why no one ever seems to be on any more.

- Can it really be that I like this expansion but everyone else doesn't?

- Screw it.  I am allowed to be selfish sometimes and I am going to be selfish this time.

- I am liking it, and I hope they keep up the good work with faster little content.

- Call me weird, but I like the little things.

- While I wish I could get more keys to do that solo scenario more I like we can only get one a week because it makes me want to get my other characters in there.

- I also like that my characters that I did not like to do quests on I was able to get their reputation up by killing rares on my main and getting those tokens.

- I also like that even if the time comes where I do not need those tokens they still sell for a fair deal and would still be worth killing the scouts and warbringers for.

- I like that my other characters now feel useful because they can get in there and get reputation stuff and send it to my main.

- How do you think I am on my way into revered already?

- They did their run and traded in for kirin tor reputation tokens and sent them to my main.

- Otherwise with just the normal quests I would not have hit revered until after my quests today. 

- For once my alts are helping my main with something important and not the other way around.

- I think they really hit the nail on the head with this patch.

- Account bound stuff you can trade between your characters to help each other are a good thing.

- I want to see more of that, a lot more.

- And I want spirit of harmony to be account bound as well.

- Now to just start raiding, 2 more weeks, and see how that angle is.

- If it is as big a home run as the new quest hub and dino island are, this can very well become the best patch ever.

- If it wasn't already that is.

- Have a great day.

16 comments:

  1. Wow another post full of enthusiasm I love it. Seriously though what I'm most impressed with is your efficiency. I don't know how you manage to do so much. I wrote off bone/pet farming until later as it would take a long time, and as it's just vanity items, I got more important things to do first.

    To me the Isle of Thunder is alright, I don't have your dismounting problem, I just ride and have only got knocked off once. Maybe it's because I have pally speed buff. I'm getting all the achievements that I can, still working on a few. It's alright, but I find the zone a bit dark in places. I prefer lighter zones, like the isle of giants, isle of thunder is a bit swampy for me. My friend is still going mad with his alts and getting them geared, but I'm slacking off. I did have an alt monk tank that I took to MSV occasionally, but I seriously can't be doing with the gear grind on another character. That probably makes me a bit lazy but faced with the choice of playing my main, or gear grinding an alt, I pick my pally everytime. I'll still level my alts to 90 but aside from the odd hc when I feel like playing them, that's all they'll be good for, and I'm happy with that.

    I'm loving 5.2 as well but for me I think it's less about the patch and more about my new situation. My own guild was dead, so me and the dedicated few I had left, joined another guild a week before the patch. So did another guild, so essentially my new guild just merged with 2 others. So we have a healthy roster now but I can hardly believe it's not even been a week since the patch dropped. Wednesday afternoon I killed hc Stone Guard, Thursday night I killed the first boss in the new raid, Friday night I killed Wind Lord and Ambershaper for the first time, then last night I killed Empress, Protectors, Tsulong and Lei Shi all for the first time, all in one night. Tonight we're going back to kill the Sha. Tomorrow night there's a cont run in Throne to try out the second boss but I don't know if I'll be picked for that yet. It's just absolutely incredible. You're probably used to kills like that but, I've struggled to get raids going at all for the whole of T14, so to actually raid is fantastic, to get kills as well is just icing on the cake.

    Oh btw first boss is not as scary as it looks. I watched the video on icy veins taken on the ptr, they had normalised 502 gear, were doing the mechanics right, and they couldn't beat the enrage. So I was thinking us with 485-495 gear wouldn't stand a chance. However, we killed him before he put the 4th puddle up, so I guess they tuned him a bit easier. I think we got him on the 25th attempt or something. So your group shouldn't have much trouble.

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    1. Sounds like you are having a whole slew of fun yourself. I have not had a run like yours in a while. No one wants to do the older content and pugging on my server is like pulling teeth. No one wants it. I have to look into that thing you use.

      First boss looks like a push over. I am sure that one and the second will be no problem once we get in there either. Third one scare me. I hate council fights, always have and always will. Just so annoying to explain and be raid leader on. Too much going on to ever be enjoyable. Not sure why they continue to make such crap like that.

      I am only at 497, but I am sure my and my guild mates will all be over 500 once we get a few LFR and valor pieces, which should make the first boss a push over.

      Oddly enough however, I am beginning to lose my desire to raid as a whole. I think it is because at the moment there are not enough people on to do it as much as I would like to, and I've found other things to do that I am currently enjoying. So it is almost as if I do not care any more about it.

      As for my efficiency, it comes from who I am in real life outside of the game. I set a task, I finish the task. I like having goals and going for them, it is a driving force for me and finding the most efficient way to do them means they get done faster. I play the game just like I do things in real life.

      1) Make a plan.
      2) Do it.

      Really, life and gaming comes down to things being that simple.

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    2. Just like Taitrina, I finally got some raiding action in. First time in the MoP raids.

      I'm 6/6 MSV and 4/6 HoF now thanks to alt/openraid runs. Got a couple pieces of gear using charms but nothing I actually needed: ilvl is 491.

      Did some trash runs in ToT so I'm almost Friendly. Did a few pulls on the 1st boss but we need more practice to get the water placement correct and to handle the lightning balls properly (one of our healers is not the most raid aware person...)

      Will probably go back into HoF this weekend and hopefully do ToES or try Jin'rokh again.

      I'm not staying up til 3:30am on Friday night and 4:30am on Saturday night again though... I was dead on Sunday...

      Got the 522 valor neck. Need to hit friendly with Shado-Pan Assault and get the ring, bracers, and trinket. For once, the valor trinket seems to be decent for hunters. Need to update my spreadsheet to calculate which item I should get first.

      Killed Sha of Anger twice and started a Galleon group, which was rather hard to get people on a Saturday afternoon, but we persevered. Got the ring off Galleon, which was a small upgrade.

      We killed Oondasta!!! Took 3 raid groups with some of those from another server. Took us well over an hour to get enough people to survive. We wiped half a dozen times before we finally got him. Got one pet while killing mobs that kept pathing into us but just gold off the boss.

      Tried looking for those Zandalari rares in Pandaria but there were always several people camping each spot.

      Killed a couple of the rares on Isle of Thunder. The looting is rather messed up. Couldn't loot one of the rares, but looted a random turtle near by and thanks to AoE loot, it also looted the rare. Bit odd...

      Finally finished [Getting Around with the Shado-Pan].

      Still trying to finish [Champion of Chi-Ji] and I realized I mixed up the daily set I needed for [Loner and a Rebel], so I have to wait for that to come up again.

      Got two of the remaining pieces I needed for my xmog set. Now, I just need [Boots of the Renewed Flight] since they're cooler than [Boots of the Endless Hunt], but they drop off Malygos 25, so not that simple to get.

      Patch is going ok for me but not necessarily because of what the patch brought, just having fun with guildies.

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    3. Seems like you had a very eventful weekend there. Congrats on the achievements and the boss downs.

      I got 2 valor pieces already. The ring and waist. Getting friendly was no problem. Maxed out on trash and had a BoA rep thing for them, so got that nicely. Might get the trinket this week, need to look into if it is really worth it. Have the BiS neck upgraded from last raid patch, so the neck valor thing would be the last thing I would get.

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    4. I looked into it. The valor trinket is a big upgrade even from a fully upgraded Relic of Xuen. Excluding heroic gear, it's #2 for BiS according to the theorycrafters, so it's the next upgrade I'll get.

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    5. I worry about that only because people over value hit.

      If you look in relevance to your gear and can reasonable remove all that extra hit and not end up wasting a butt load of stats because you can not reforge any more out of it, then that trinket is awesome.

      However, if you reforge hit off everything you have and are still stuck sitting at something like 9.7% hit, the hit from the trinket basically becomes wasted secondary stats which in the long term would be a loss, not a gain.

      For burst potential, even with that huge waste of stats with the 9.7% for example, it would be huge. But for long fights, the passive secondary stats you are being denied because of it would be better for you.

      I think it is one of those trinkets you need to look at when it is matched with what you are wearing and not on its own merits.

      On its own merits it is BiS without a doubt because hit is our #1 stat and the burst it supplies.

      Maybe if a lot of this tier does not have hit on it, it will up its value. But if I were to put it on now and reforged hit off everything I own I would still be pushing 10% hit rating and that is way to many wasted secondary stats.

      Sorry, just thinking out loud. But at least you can see what I was getting at, I hope.

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    6. I understand your point. I always equate Hit and Expertise to the same weight as Crit when comparing gear. I set AskMrRobot up that way, for example. Most things put Hit/Expertise up too high which is not necessary thanks to reforging. With the gear levels we're already at, we have more than enough secondary stats to ensure we reach the caps. In fact, we often can't reforge enough hit/expertise away.

      I'm going off Frostheim's rankings for the trinkets + AskMrRobot (with downgraded hit weights), so I think the excess hit is being taken into consideration.

      Either way though, I don't know if/when I'd be getting any normal gear from ToT, so I'll get the valor trink and deal with having some excess hit.

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    7. I am probably going to grab it as well being I noticed it was passive and not on use. While I like on use for burst I have enough buttons now and really did not like the idea of having another.

      With that trinket I will have to do a lot of stat dancing for a while I am sure and between that one and the expertise one which I got last night I doubt I will ever have any hit/expertise issues ever. lol

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  2. I am happy to see a happy post from you TGE :)

    Not that I'm saying you aren't happy much.

    However it really does sound like you're having loads of fun. The funny thing is that reading your thing... I have done hardly ANY of those things you have done. I haven't seen many rares, but I do really love the changes to rares and now everyone can get the kill. I'm pretty boring in that I don't like the crowds on the island so I just go in, do my dailies, see if any guildies there have seen any rares, then back I go to the mainland...

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    1. I am not big on crowds either. That is why my main server is a small server and why I hate CRZ with a passion.

      Rare hunting can be fun and is even more fun with a group of people. The island rares are great fun running all over the place to get them.

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  3. Hi Grumpy

    If you want to see the rest of the island, take your rogue for a swim around the north east corner. I managed to find some eagles close to the cliffs that prevent others from accessing the mainland. But not a problem for a rogue with shadowstep!

    I've spent hours just exploring the island while in stealth, I am loving this expansion!

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    1. I was able to get up to a few areas, even into the thunderforge with my hunter. Oddly enough there is a path on the west side you can just walk up. No tricks needed.

      I never even thought of the shadow step idea. Thanks. Warrior and druid charge are usually the tricks I used to get places like that. Never occurred to me to even try shadowstep on my rogue. I guess that explains why I am so bad at my rogue, I do not play it enough to know all the tricks. That is a great tip.

      There are a few other places I was able to get to, including the other entrace to ToT, but it is not actually there and the area is wide open. Guess that is where the world boss will spawn. Just some simple mountain climbing needed. Old school find an gap and keep jumping and it moves you up little by little.

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  4. Might be worth hanging onto those little dinosaurs pet for a while, apparently they nerfed the drop rate considerably now. Gratz on your primal egg, it seems to be 100% drop rate of the mounts from them so when it hatches you'll have a primal raptor mount! I and my friend both got the black one from our eggs that hatched yesterday, we're now farming for another each but 3 hours of farming last night gave us none, all good though we need the bones anyway ;p

    The valor trink is really good, I went for that and the bracers as my first buys, since the bracers are BIS normal mode and the trinket #2.

    Katzbalger-Arthas (US)

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    1. I got the black raptor out of it.

      Yeah. I saw that today and am so glad I did not empty my bags yesterday like I was going to. I was about to vendor a bunch of them. I think I will hold on to them for a few weeks then start to unload them now.

      Maybe I can make some money from my farm full of raptors. I've already given everyone that wanted some in my guild a full set of them and still have 40 left. lol

      Ring and bracers for me. Might do trinket next, still do not know. I have time to think about it.

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  5. Finally, now... you can now shut up about bad luck.

    Good going GE.

    We had a bad snow storm so I was busy moving the 5 foot high 15 foot long snow drift so I could use my truck yesterday. By the time I finished moving snow with a shovel, I might add, had to help the neighbor lady out because her hubby is in the hosp and I was poop'ed. So I did not game. Too bad drop rates for those pets seems to be nerfed. When will the damned players stop complaining and pointing out too much of something good to blizz. :D

    Sunday is ST Paddy's day "hic"

    Roo O'Hunter

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    1. My luck still sucks. I earned it with a level of persistence that people with luck never have to test. That is not being lucky, that is not taking no for an answer. ;)

      Damn, that is a lot of snow. I say sleep in while they are updating today and get an early start on playing tomorrow. And take 2 glasses of whiskey for the pain.

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