Monday, November 24, 2014

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.

19 comments:

  1. Damn Grump, 13 hours with lag and disconnects. That is fast as blazes. I didn't hit 100 til Monday, probably about 24-25 hours /played. And you leveled fishing to 700 to get Nat, that first day? Real fast, I'm impressed.

    I am really really liking this expansion thus far. Granted its early, and there is a lot of stuff to do still, but Im finding I just don't have enough time for all my daily tasks. Strategic Assault, stables dailies, Inn Dungeon Runs, farm leather for LW CD, Tannery, and AH. Ore and Herbs may be selling low on AH, but leather is still doing great. 100g for 5 on my server.

    I am enjoying the increased difficulty in heroics. Did Slag Mines and Grimrail Depot with guildies yesterday. Wiped a lot. I mean a lot. At least a full repair on each one. But we slowly made progress learning the fights, and it was really fun.

    MM is really good. In my MC LFR the top three dps were all marks hunters. I was still running BM at the time, so my numbers were crap. I was slumming down in the #20-25 range. But I switched to MM the next day, and Im doing twice as much damage. The spec isnt as boring as I thought it would be, but I don't like that so many of my TOTH procs go to waste. I use maybe one of them. Hopefully it will get better at higher haste levels.

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    1. One other thing: I found Barrage completely unusable in heroics. It pulls everything. Tanks were getting very mad at me, and I felt like a full on huntard. I teleported out of the dungeon, bought a tome of clear mind and switched back to Glaive Toss. Even if Barrage does slightly more dps, I don't think it is usable.

      Anyone else had this problem?

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    2. You can solve that problem with positioning. The easiest way it to stand in melee and just aim backwards, where you've already cleared everything. Other people like to stand at max range (around 43 yards for most MM hunters). You can also try having your target in the main pack, but then turning yourself to face a wall, it'll make your cone of attack much smaller.

      And yes, the main forums are filled with hunters looking for advice on how to do this, so don't worry, you're not alone at all.

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    3. @Troutmonkey

      Yeap, and got Nat done as well. I like to fish while leveling. It relaxes me. :)

      I could have done it a little quicker if I would have liked, but I was ahead of the pack and that was all that mattered to me. As long as I am in a quest hub with no more than one or two other people with me, I am a happy player.

      If blizzard ever offered a way to pay to play on a solo server, I would pay it, just for the leveling process, in a heartbeat.

      MM will get better with gear, feel wise. At least I hope. I must hit my aimed shot key 400 times in the time it takes to cast 1. I am not used to cast times like that, I am not a caster. But I am easing into it now. My biggest problem, as lone wolf, is forgetting to buff people. I am not used to having to do that myself.

      As Del said, you can solve barrage by positioning, but sometimes that is just not an option. I just do not use it when I think there is even a chance of pulling something else.

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  2. Ah I wondered how you were getting on. I'm not at all surprised with how far ahead you are. Though I am somewhat amazed at Nat Pagle. Doesn't that require 100 of each of those enormous fish? That must have taken a long time.

    I got to 100 Thursday or Friday? I can't remember, I don't know how long it took me as I didn't count it. I knocked out all of the zones and the bonus objective achievements while levelling. Hit 100 just after finishing Spires of Arak, so I did Nagrand completely at 100 with the War Bunker active as I was hoping for some upgrades.

    I've got 610 ilevel now I think. I ran two dungeons, tanking of course on sunday. I had one dps friend with me, rest were pugs. Did Skyreach and Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, normal obviously. Skyreach was easy presumably as it's the only levelling dungeon. SBG did hurt a little, I had to pop cds on trash a couple of times but then again we didn't cc anything much. My interrupt and stun buttons were rarely off cd just in case that helped. There was no wiping, just one shot everything. I was honest on zone in that I'd not done it before and pasted in tacts off wowhead before each boss. Not sure if that helped but the runs were pleasant. Heroic is probably a different story but I won't head there till I have more gear and experience.

    I got my level 3 garrison as soon as I hit 100 pretty much. I had been sending followers on missions but I realised that was a mistake a couple of days earlier. Went round and killed a bunch of rares and found some treasures and made up the difference. I put the Lumber Mill up when I got Level 3 garrison, and I'll leave it up till I get the achievements, all other buildings built/maxed and a nice stock of resources. Then I can build my long awaited stables.

    I've actually been spending time in Brawlers Guild. It's weird running it now as there's no guide up. They've rearranged the order of the bosses so I'm there and have no idea what I'll be facing. Rank 4 again, would be higher but the queue time is annoying. I realised when I was fed up running Nagrand the other day that I'm in no hurry. Sure I'd like the extra drops from MC but they aren't on a weekly lockout apparently. Plus I hate LFR so much no idea if I'll even run it more than once anyway, so I've got till January might as well just do what I want and enjoy myself.

    First profession I levelled to 700? Archaeology. Nuts right but I did the digsites when I was in the area and boom, nice and easy. Got 4 Pristine artifacts already, probably won't see anymore for months as that was insanely lucky.

    I am however missing flying something fierce. I suppose I will get used to it but it's annoying me.

    I'm sorry you aren't feeling it Grumpy but glad you seem to be engaged anyway. Nice to read your thoughts :)

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    1. I forgot a couple of things. I didn't go at launch, I logged in the following afternoon and didn't run into any problems until I tried to fly out of the garrison. I got stuck mid-air with the instancing issues. Then over the next few days couldn't login a few times when my character was in the garrison as it was down (I've learned to logout in the garrison at my own risk), then there was a ton of lag so bad I logged out last wednesday. That really sucked as I'd been working all day and playing was supposed to be my reward. Touch wood it seems ok now but I guess with 10 million subs again things were a bit overloaded. Even my server which has been opened to new players had a 30 minute queue the first weekend.

      As for alts I have no idea really about gearing, as I've not worried too much on my main yet. Not done the daily quests once, have picked up all the quests in my inn though. I did decide I'd like to level my kitty druid, maybe get into pvp with it, ofc I will be so far behind by the time that gets to 100 but meh I might be able to do the garrison achievements have to see.

      Oh and maybe it was my server but you said you didn't want to quest with people around you. Well outside of the first day when I was founding my garrison, I haven't really seen all that many people. Maybe 1-2 where I am, there's never been any issue with mobs, though I do agree respawn is insane in a couple of areas. I killed this rare, finished this add off literally like 10 seconds if that and boom the rare had despawned, had to kill it again.

      Anyway I'm of the opinion that any expansion without badge/points gear is alt-unfriendly. Damn I miss the good days.

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    2. Yeap Nat requires 100 of each of the enormous fish. I would have not went for it on day one,but as I was leveling I fished up the pole that gave +100 fishing and only lasted 1 day. This meant that I had no choice but to take advantage of that. I had an almost 100% catch rate of the enormous fish thanks to that pole so it was not actually as bad as it seems.

      Arch was not my first profession to max but it is max too. Was actually easy, surprisingly so. Got about half the pristine one thus far. As you do it, I just do whatever is in the zone I happen to currently be in. I do not like going out looking for them specifically. It does love to give me them in frostfire for some reason.

      One guild mate did the brawlers guild and told me about the wait time and I said, I'll wait. I have no patience for waiting. When I go do it I want to knock out one fight after the other, no waiting. It is solo player content so I should not have to wait for others, my opinion at least.

      I totally miss flying as well. Most in spires. I love that zone, but finding your way around sometimes in a pain.

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    3. The garrisons gave people all types of fits. We had these issues all throughout beta. I am surprised (or maybe not surprised) they did not fit them before releasing it.

      I agree, they need badge or point gear back, at normal mode level, for the expansion to stand a chance at being alt friendly. I really would like to gear up an alt, even if I have zero intention of raiding on it, so if I ever do decide, I do not need to start at the bottom and work my way up. Thought we left that stuff behind in vanilla.

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    4. @Taitrina
      The Stables gives you loads of resources, it easily pays for itself and will help towards upgrading your other buildings
      .
      If it's your plan to get it anyway, I would recommend getting it straight away.

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    5. I miss the stables dailies when you finish off getting the mounts. Those 120 resources per day were awesome, but now with my dailies dwindling it sucks. I liked them for the resources as much as the mounts they got me.

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  3. Did MC with 3 guild tanks. The one pug tank we got kept pulling everything. Kicked him, the next tank to come in kept pulling everything, kicked him, etc. I think we were to the third or fourth boss before we got one that worked, and I'm pretty sure that was because he was a DPS who just queued as tank for the fast queue. Which, with three guild tanks, that was totally fine, just stay out of the way.

    One friend mentioned that on his MC run, there was a typical LFR troll in there telling people that they can't AoE the corehounds, and that they have to single target, that's why they were wiping. Then he would vote kick whoever had the highest AoE damage. Could be he was just an idiot, but in my head I'm imagining someone with absolutely nothing to do with his life, who has spent all of his in-game time since MC came out queuing for it, then giving out mis-information and watching groups die.

    It was fun one time. Probably won't go back into it again, unless we have an all (or nearly all) pre-made group again.

    Anyhow, I've also had fun with the new xpac. I had pretty good luck with opening day problems. During one reset I was ported back to pandaria (hadn't reset my hearth yet). There was another time when our server's draenor was down, so I could log in on any of my alts that hadn't gone over yet, but not on characters in draenor. That was kind of weird. And yeah, even my incredibly small server had a 2 hour queue at one point.

    Part of me is really glad to see so much life in WoW. I mean, it's a good problem to have. Still a problem and should be fixed, addressed, whatever. But better than the opposite problem. I don't know if they released an official number anywhere, but I was hearing back to over 10m subs. And other than the huge problems with launch, I think Draenor won't disappoint people. I mean, I've had a lot of fun already.

    I can't decide if I agree that Draenor is alt-unfriendly. In once since, the vast majority of professions were completely ruined. I've been 100 since the friday night after launch, and I'm still not 700 in LW. I've crafted exactly 1 piece of gear. That sucks. By this time in in MoP I'd probably made a couple hundred thousand gold from 450 PvP gear and 476 gloves and chest. Spirits of Harmony were waaaay easier to grind than primal spirits.

    And while all of that is so difficult now, at this point in MoP I hadn't even touched any alts, while right now I've already gotten 3 other toons up to 92 (just like you, for the garrisons). I had a friend who had 4 enchanters buildings running by the second day after launch, and he's already completed at least a couple decks. Wish I would have thought of that. :-P

    So while I don't really look forward to getting an alt raid ready, I've at least gotten out my alts, brought them to draenor. that's something.

    Oh also, I totally agree on proving grounds. Silver was a joke. I think gold is were silver should be. Or at least, if they want it to be any sort of indicator of someone being able to play the class. If that were the case, however, you should get premade gear. Or scale your gear both up and down.

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    1. No core hound troll in ours, they said to AoE, they said they needed to go down at the same time. But the group was filled with people that thought "everyone else is going to do it so I can just do whatever I want". And that attitude leads to failure 100 out of 100 times.

      Life in WoW? I had a problem filling a 10 man at the end of mists, I could have filled a 60 man raid any day in the first two weeks. There is tons of action in my guild. Even from people that had quit in cataclysm. The influx of people is insane. Makes you think they were giving away the game for free or something.

      I say it is alt unfriendly because of the gearing issues. Grind crystal for crap gear. Craft "only" three pieces of crap gear. What else is there for an alt? Wait and hope for your followers to get a gear mission that is decent? Good luck with that. They will only get you one level higher than your max raid level, which for an alt means LFR gear which is crap gear. World bosses? Crap gear. Catch the trend here.

      So how exactly do you gear alts if they do not raid? You don't. We need a way to keep our alts raid ready without needing to raid. At least at normal raid gear level, which is currently 670. The apexis gear should be 670 to start, 680 to upgrade and 690 to second upgrade. Not what it is now. And even at that, it still would require a massive amount of grinding for an alt. Not something to can pick up a little at a time like you could with valor.

      Yes, in my opinion this expansion is extremely alt unfriendly. Remove the crafted (3) limit and make the apexis gear at least better than LFR and maybe, just maybe, they can save this expansion for my alts.

      I think for some people they went in early and were not very good at their character and had issues with silver, but anyone that waits to 615, the lowest it goes, I think they should be okay. It scales up from there. It would be nice if it gave people a warning of that fact. One guild mate (god bless them) could not get silver after hours of trying and I am VERY thankful for it. The last thing I wanted was that person doing heroics with me. Sorry if that sounded rude, but I am sure the fact they could not do silver after hours of trying tells you something.

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  4. Here's my quick last week break down.
    Didn't have too many problems with lag or with quests not working.
    Mostly the problems were the 6000 person ques. which were about 10 to 12 hours to get thru. I didn't have to much problem with that as I was up early and on all days because I had time off. I was also able to keep my partner logged in so when he came home he could hop right in.

    Hit level 100 on sat. planned ahead got salvage yard at 96 had 2300 GR when I hit nagrang at level 100 went back made a level 3 garrison and a warmill, I knew I wouldn't need upgrades until nagrand so I did the barraks for the extra follower exp quests. Did some tresure hunting then finished nagrand got some okay upgrades mostly blues but rolled out with a 610 Ilevel. did my normal mode skyreach for the epic ring and rolled into heroics. Yesterday I hit 637 Ilevel jsut a few pieces to tweek around. Got a nice 640 weapons from our CM yesterday as well as a 645 chest from my follower missions. I haven't really had a problem with GR right now I'm working on 1200 to get barracks level 3

    My goal right out the door was to get up to that 630 follower mission so I could maxmize the chance of getting 645 gear before raiding. So far so good I have:
    22 level 100
    8 at Ilevel 630 with a few below that

    This weekend I started the process of getting ready to move some of them to 645 I could do one or two now but I like to move 3 at a time I ended up with a lot of epics due to dumb luck so I usully hit them first for a better chance of success.

    Now I just am helping the other members of the raid while I sit back and let the loot flow in.

    Alt wise I don't really play alts so I haven't really started any.

    I'm ready for flying back. I got so mad at something that knocked me off my mount and chased me half a zone that instead of killing it I sheeped it and waited for invis to come off cooldown.

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    1. 6000 deep, ouch, that is one hell of a queue time right there. I think my server never got much past 2000 and I thought that was horrible.

      Sounds like you have had some nice luck with nagrand gear. My rogue ended with 605 from there. I guess a few epic upgrades in the right place can really make a difference. Moving from quests right into heroics had to be nice. If you had a guild group to run heroics with that is.

      I too am already tired of running around too. It is just a waste of time. I will be glad to see flying added. I think it was a mistake from the get go not to add it but they wanted us to play all those stupid jumping games so they forced us to stay on the ground. Lame excuse if you ask me.

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  5. -I tried leveling some on Friday night but the first server queue I hit, I just called it an early night and came back on Saturday.

    -Unfortunately, the servers were down all of Saturday morning...

    -Got my hunter to 100 though on Sunday afternoon (while watching FinalBoss). Haven't done anything with alts though.

    -Finished the vast majority of the quest lines in all of the zones.

    -Got the 640 ring for the legendary, haven't done heroics yet so don't have the 680

    -Got garrison to lvl 3, but buildings are all still lvl 2 (or 1 for pet/fish).

    -Have about a dozen lvl 100 followers now.

    -I think when I log in tonight, I'll have enough mats to craft a piece of leather gear finally. Thinking I'll make the legs.

    -They "fixed" all the crafted items so everything counts towards the 3-limit now... sucks...

    -ilvl is only 609 so far. Can technically queue for heroics using non-equipped items.

    -Got a 665 BoE int cloak... it hasn't sold yet though, so it may get "gifted" to my mage later...

    -Started the mount quests at the stables

    -Did the Ashran apexis daily twice... I thought I might like Ashran but I won't do the PvP since you lose a bunch of the tokens you need for the quest if you die... so I stay on the outskirts and do the PvE stuff. It's counterproductive to do the PvP unless you have full honor gear.

    -Got one piece of honor gear at least which helps my iLvL for heroics

    -Did Skyreach and Grimrail Depot on normal (random queues)

    -Skyreach was easy. Grimrail had a couple of wipes due to trash and the second boss. After we wiped, someone actually explained the fight. I just assumed no one knew it since no one spoke up and we were all kind of going in the wrong directions and stuff. I guess that one person assumed everyone knew so they didn't speak up...

    -I'll have to specifically ask I guess. Although, I don't won't to get kicked for saying I don't know the fight after sitting in a 45 minute queue...

    -I haven't done more since I don't have the patience for the queue. By the time it pops up, I'm in the middle of something else and don't want to do it or am just about to take a break (sitting for hours straight in front of the computer is not the best thing for you after all).

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    1. Hit the character limit...

      -I've heard the MC LFR horror stories already. Not even in a hurry to get in there.

      -I like that heroics requires silver proving grounds (even if it is a joke), but LFR should also require it. It's just stupid that LFR is easier to access than heroics...

      -Still playing BM. It's bad enough waiting for the CS cast timer... couldn't imagine waiting for AiS as MM, not to mention everyone keeps saying that Lone Wolf is the way to go for MM. Adaptation for BM is cool. I like seeing my pet with more health than me again.

      -Are there even any fights in MC where you can cheat the meters? Afaik, the fights in there are pretty simple in that regards, so DPS is DPS.

      -According to #TeamHunter, MM AoE sucks. It's not just you, Grumpy. They say to go BM for AoE. Improved Beast Cleave!

      -Only Invasion I've had is the intro one that everyone gets.

      -Invasions should just be a weekly quest. Random is stupid. "Who" invades can be random or based on "revenge", but there should be a guaranteed one every week as long as you do at least one Apexis daily or something like that.

      -Did bronze proving grounds just after I dinged 100, that was a joke.

      -Did silver proving grounds at ilvl 609, also a joke. I spent more time waiting around than killing stuff...

      -Haven't messed with gold yet.

      -They nerfed the hell out of the despawn timeouts to reduce server load and I still don't think they've fixed it properly yet.

      -One thing that annoys me is the variance with elites. Some respawn every minute, some respawn after what seems like hours, some hit like a wet noodle, some hit like a Mack truck. A level 101 elite with 2M health could be a joke while a different level 101 elite with 500k could rape you... It's annoying.

      -Only prof at 700 so far is skinning. LW and Fishing are only like 615 or so. Unlocked the others except Archeology.

      -Been doing a lot of treasure hunting... really miss flying when I'm out doing that. Also, the "rare" rares are never there... so that's annoying as well. Seems stupid that they are so rare and yet only drop 620 gear.

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    2. Outside of the fights in grimrail my biggest problem there on a personal level is that I can not see anything. It is too tight of a space in there for my liking.

      One guild mate who loves BM finally made the adjustment to MM and while he, like you and I, hates the cast times of MM he said he is loving the damage difference. MM is double what BM can do in most places. Really.

      Garr can be AoE cheesed and so can a few others with multi targets. I never thought I could top the meters on garr but I did. As soon as the adds were gone and everyone else was forced into single target I shot up the list. MM is great for single target and the chim cleave, while not really AoE did help a little while adds were still up. Best part is that none of the fights really require any movement in MC so MM is even better there.

      The invasion the GM seems to have gifted me was probably for the mobs I have killed the least. So there is no rhyme or reason to it. I did manage a gold however and got a 645 shoulder piece out of the deal. So I am happy with that. But absolutely, it should just be a standard weekly.

      They are so rare and only have a "chance" of dropping a 620. Blizzard still has not noticed the difference. If it is really rare it should be a "guaranteed" drop and if it is not to rare it should have a "chance" to drop. They do it the other way around which makes not sense what so ever.

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  6. The fast despawning mobs is a temporary fix to help with server load at the beginning of the expansion. There was a hotfix already (requires realm restart) to bring it back to normal, so we should be fine now (it was idd annoying :p)

    They did really fucked up launch though, and they know it. Bet proof of that? 5 free days for everyone, which haven't happenned in like.....ages?

    The invasion trigerring thing, is good and logical on paper, but the number required is supidely high(and ONLY count level 100 mobs). I do have some people in my guild that got them.....but after grinding mobs for like 5 hours straight in group of 5 for rep, we're speaking about like 6-7k mobs killed in the same level 100 zone.

    Oh and btw, they didn"t nerf the level 100 zone, it's just taht the zones are more populated depending on the apexis daily, I mean there are more mobs, and rares of a zone can now only spawn if it's one of the apexis daily.

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    1. I sure hope it is fixed soon because it sucks having to kill one mob at a time while collecting skins because I am afraid of things despawning on me, Not exactly fun game play to slaughter a pack of 5 and lost 4 of them to them despawning.

      I do not believe 5 free days is the appropriate "gift" to apologize for the problem. I am making a post today which shows what I believe would have been a better way to show they were sorry.

      That is what it seems to need, at least 2 hours of grinding. Got the invasion last night for some guild mates in a group of 10 killing in the apexis area for 2 hours. And at that, only 2 of them got it. Seriously, this random invasion thing is stupid and needs to be removed. It should just be a weekly like any other weekly.

      They did nerf them. Trust me. I spent a lot of hours there day one. Many mobs that were there and elites on day one are no longer there or no longer elites. Absolutely 100% totally with no doubt about it they were nerfed, really really hard. I could go to zones and point out mobs that were elite on the day of release and are not now.

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