wow: the shattering (4.0.3a) is tomorrow!

I quit before I left for boot camp in June, and now that I actually have time to play again I really don't want to. I might accept the 7-day free reactivation just to see how the world has changed but beyond that I'm having a ton of fun playing through all the games I missed out on over the past 5 years while I was horribly addicted to WoW.

I also enjoy having the time to hang out with friends and watch TV (no TV in the room with my PC) without feeling almost guilty that I'm not currently playing
 
RedTalon19 said:
I quit before I left for boot camp in June, and now that I actually have time to play again I really don't want to. I might accept the 7-day free reactivation just to see how the world has changed but beyond that I'm having a ton of fun playing through all the games I missed out on over the past 5 years while I was horribly addicted to WoW.

I also enjoy having the time to hang out with friends and watch TV (no TV in the room with my PC) without feeling almost guilty that I'm not currently playing
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when i got out of bootcamp all i did was listen to music for like a month straight.

Its amazing the simple things we take advantage of every day. I had family members mail me lyrics while in boot camp. lol.
 
Katalysis said:
I've quit WoW a few times, but my biggest concern about playing the game again is that my server became a huge fail at some point while I quit. Medivh-H, which was getting world firsts in Vanilla, is now a cesspool and the most imbalanced population in all of WoW. As others have pointed out, the community is terrible. I would love to play an MMO again, and thought I would join some friends in FF14, but we all know how that turned out. When you are trying to pug or get into a guild in s game where the community is so rancid and vile, it pretty much sucks all the fun out of the WORLD of Warcraft.

I also think it is frankly terrible that Blizzard will not let people freely transfer off of servers where the population is wildly out of control. Sure, if you are one of the Alliance on Medivh who outnumber Horde 14:1, they will let you transfer for free. The thought of paying a free to transfer elsewhere sickens me, regardless of the amount. (it is $25 per character) If I could take all my characters, and move them all over, I would probably play again. However, Blizzard keeps all their realm stats a total mystery, so you can only guess if you are going somewhere balanced.
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You do understand if people knew the server statistics, things would be even more imbalanced and out of control?

Also the free transfers would be a nightmare. People would be jumping servers everytime they could. Communities (albeit barely exist now, but do exist) would cease to exist. Every server would house a bunch of transients that come, ruin things, and run.
 
Well Blizzard will probably release a fresh server so that will be a good place to start with. I'm european though so it might be a bit easier to get the new hardware rollin'.

Are frost mages still good in pvp combat? Back in the days when I was pvp'in the shit out of me, the kings of player vs player combat were the resto druids (wtf bossfight... he can't die... dps him.. wtf full hp again), followed by 1-2 killshot rogues and retribution paladins.

I remember when I was dpsing everything and everyone down with low-profile gear, just with a lighting bolt spam (at least till they tuned elemental shaman down a bit).

So how is it now in terms of pvp, which class might be the killer one? Would love to invest my time in a frost mage for some nicey crowd control and burst damage,
but I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Cheers to you all!
 
A lot of things are the same or barely changed. I started an orc mage (every race has an updated starting movie btw) and Valley of Trials is a little different but you still have all the same quests. Wake the peons, kill boars and imps, etc. Then you get outside and holy crap, Northwatch ships right outside invading. Other thoughts:

Holy crap are there a lot of troll druids running around.

The new seagull makes for an absurd hunter pet. Mine! Mine! Mine!

Thousand Needles is now an absolute pain in the ass without flying.

Org looks awesome now.

The most impressive zone to me was Hillsbrad. Southshore in ruins, Hillsbrad itself turned into a human farm (undead are farming people). After spending so much time in that zone back in the day, to see one side finally 'win' was pretty cool.
 
Dreaz said:
You do understand if people knew the server statistics, things would be even more imbalanced and out of control?

Also the free transfers would be a nightmare. People would be jumping servers everytime they could. Communities (albeit barely exist now, but do exist) would cease to exist. Every server would house a bunch of transients that come, ruin things, and run.
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I'm not so sure about the server stats part. Do you think people are seeking to go to totally imbalanced pop servers? The most fun I have is doing world stuff, and it is generally no fun when the balance is out of whack.

I'm not saying they should allow free transfers from every server all the time. If the server population balance is within reason, don't let them transfer. However, they need to do something to encourage making them balanced, whether it is combining servers or giving XP boosts to new characters on low pop factions or something. Since they are not going to do that, at least let me go somewhere else for free. I understand that is counterintuitive, letting people leave if it is unbalanced, but I see no other option.

The individual server communities have been made essentially worthless thanks to battlegroups, random dungeon queue, etc. for everything except raiding. It really kind of destroys the WORLD part of World of Warcraft.
 
Ritorix said:
A lot of things are the same or barely changed. I started an orc mage (every race has an updated starting movie btw) and Valley of Trials is a little different but you still have all the same quests. Wake the peons, kill boars and imps, etc. Then you get outside and holy crap, Northwatch ships right outside invading. Other thoughts:
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The beginning of the Orc starting zone was actually one of the least changed from what I've watched on youtube. The other races have gotten a pretty significant change, especially the undead zone. It's pretty neat, you start off with a "lowbie" NPC that does a couple quests with you, as if he's just barely starting out too.
 
Reus said:
So they cranked the difficulty of heroic five-mans and made them about as time consuming as a night of raiding, but with the same old pittance of a reward? Not worth the hassle. If you are going to up the tedium, make it worth the effort.
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The point is to do have a challenge for players that want it. Many players, myself included, complained when they started nerfing TBC heroics. It's nice having challenging content that you can do with 4 other people.

Vanilla, 5 man scholomance and stratholm were challenging (at first) and had crappy rewards, people ended up raiding them. Instances were nerfed heavily and then ability to raid them was removed.
TBC, 5 man heroics were challenging and had marginally better rewards than the non-heroic versions (although normally only off the last boss). Instances were nerfed heavily and rewards never changed.
WotLK, 5 man heroics were not challenging and had rewards equivalent to raid gear.
Catacylsm, 5 man heroics are challenging

As long as the gear is better than 5 man normals and not as good as raid gear I think they've struck a good balance.
 
Yoshiyuki Blade said:
The beginning of the Orc starting zone was actually one of the least changed from what I've watched on youtube. The other races have gotten a pretty significant change, especially the undead zone. It's pretty neat, you start off with a "lowbie" NPC that does a couple quests with you, as if he's just barely starting out too.
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o_0 will have to go create new toons to check them out. I rode around and checked out some of the Eastern Kingdoms. Pretty cool changes to some of the zones. Need to take my hunter out to get a fox and monkey.
 
I think a major reason why TBC heroics were relatively harder back then was that it was harder for the general population to outgear the instances. I PvP'ed most of TBC and I ran a handful of heroics daily in arena gear to get a cloak that was only available via Badges of Justice (ran mostly mechanar, shadow labyrinth and underbog). Nothing was ever really "hard," it was just long with a lot of trash pulls. If everyone was in gear equivalent to Sunwell and BT ilevels, they would without a doubt be pretty face-rolling easy.

From what I heard, Cata heroics should have some intrinsically difficult encounters, such as instant death mechanics (or near instant). Gearing up will still help in the long run, but it won't nullify that type of mechanic.

zoobaby said:
o_0 will have to go create new toons to check them out. I rode around and checked out some of the Eastern Kingdoms. Pretty cool changes to some of the zones. Need to take my hunter out to get a fox and monkey.
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Yeah, the undead one was really neat. There's Valkyr there rezzing undead to fit with the current lore (Sylvanas is trying to maintain her army since undead cant procreate).

One thing I've hated so far with the new world is trying to get the damned thanksgiving achievement as Horde, where you sit on an enemy's table. The docks in Darkshore that lead to Darnassus/Exodar was destroyed so I have to sneak into SW harbor to get to Darn, then sneak another boat to Exodar. If I die in the Teldrassil area, I get put at a GY in Darkshore. This means I'd have to go all the way back to SW to try again.
 
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uacn8 said:
Are frost mages still good in pvp combat? Back in the days when I was pvp'in the shit out of me, the kings of player vs player combat were the resto druids (wtf bossfight... he can't die... dps him.. wtf full hp again), followed by 1-2 killshot rogues and retribution paladins.

I remember when I was dpsing everything and everyone down with low-profile gear, just with a lighting bolt spam (at least till they tuned elemental shaman down a bit).

Cheers to you all!
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You really should log back on then. Frost mages are 3 shotting everyone in a deep freeze with insta-cast icelances. They land slided the Arena Junkies "Most OP" thread. Druids are grossly overpowered right now. Paladins are strong, but near as OP as they used to be. Rogues are a fomer shadow of what they used to be. Class balance is going through some growing pains right now as everyone is being balanced for level 85.
 
Battou62 said:
You really should log back on then. Frost mages are 3 shotting everyone in a deep freeze with insta-cast icelances. They land slided the Arena Junkies "Most OP" thread. Druids are grossly overpowered right now. Paladins are strong, but near as OP as they used to be. Rogues are a fomer shadow of what they used to be. Class balance is going through some growing pains right now as everyone is being balanced for level 85.
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This. My Icelances are hitting for 20k.
 
SixtyWattMan said:
This. My Icelances are hitting for 20k.
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There you have it, a mage admitting to being OP. Just remember if you are coming back to WoW right take the PvP with a grain of salt.

p.s. I don't recommend rolling a rogue (my only 80)
 
I'd like to level my mage (currenty 43) but I just cant get into playing a caster.
 
Battou62 said:
There you have it, a mage admitting to being OP. Just remember if you are coming back to WoW right take the PvP with a grain of salt.

p.s. I don't recommend rolling a rogue (my only 80)
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Coming back to play my 80 rogue is a bad idea? Is everyone a long-range killing machine or do I not have enough burst to survive anymore?
 
Katalysis said:
Coming back to play my 80 rogue is a bad idea? Is everyone a long-range killing machine or do I not have enough burst to survive anymore?
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Rogues are suffering from low damage output and terrible mobility(ironic for the only pure melee class). Any serious pvp rogue atm is gonna be Subtlety spec. The Subtlety spec requires considerably more skill to play than Assassination. If you are really good with a rogue and can swallow needing like 30 something keybinds to be competetive, then yes you can have some fun in Battlegrounds.
 
Yoshiyuki Blade said:
I think a major reason why TBC heroics were relatively harder back then was that it was harder for the general population to outgear the instances. I PvP'ed most of TBC and I ran a handful of heroics daily in arena gear to get a cloak that was only available via Badges of Justice (ran mostly mechanar, shadow labyrinth and underbog). Nothing was ever really "hard," it was just long with a lot of trash pulls. If everyone was in gear equivalent to Sunwell and BT ilevels, they would without a doubt be pretty face-rolling easy.
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By the time the majority of TBC heroics had been nerfed it was impossible to out-item-level them simply because the items hadn't been added to the game yet.

The general consensus seems to be that for a group of 5 people in level-cap blues WOTLK heroics are easier than TBC heroics as they exist today.
 
Battou62 said:
There you have it, a mage admitting to being OP. Just remember if you are coming back to WoW right take the PvP with a grain of salt.

p.s. I don't recommend rolling a rogue (my only 80)
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It's balanced for 85 bro. Apparently health pools are going to skyrocket and damage output isn't going to be much higher.
 
I've been playing a new human arms war, and I love it. The maps are superficially the same, but the quests are pretty much different, and have a lot to do with what is going on in the world, as well as building on previous WoW experiences. For example, when you first enter Westfall, you are given a quest (the start of a chain) to investigate the murders of a couple of familiar farmers. There are still not enough quests there, so I went to see if I could hep the elves. Darkshore is even creepier than it was, and I am having fun finding all the "new" areas and quests. Pop culture references and humor abound as usual (bonus if you find the reference to a certain popular casual game in a refugee camp there).

My only question is a lore one more than anything else:

Why do all of the quests on the heroes boards come from Varian Wrynn (even in the elven city)? Has he just taken charge of the whole alli recovery effort? What about the new dwarven queen? Or the people in charge of the elves, gnomes, or dranei?
 
Spectrum17 said:
I've been playing a new human arms war, and I love it. The maps are superficially the same, but the quests are pretty much different, and have a lot to do with what is going on in the world, as well as building on previous WoW experiences. For example, when you first enter Westfall, you are given a quest (the start of a chain) to investigate the murders of a couple of familiar farmers. There are still not enough quests there, so I went to see if I could hep the elves. Darkshore is even creepier than it was, and I am having fun finding all the "new" areas and quests. Pop culture references and humor abound as usual (bonus if you find the reference to a certain popular casual game in a refugee camp there).

My only question is a lore one more than anything else:

Why do all of the quests on the heroes boards come from Varian Wrynn (even in the elven city)? Has he just taken charge of the whole alli recovery effort? What about the new dwarven queen? Or the people in charge of the elves, gnomes, or dranei?
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speaking of popular games, in hillsbrad you can play plants Vs zombies wow style
 
Its too early to tell which classes need what. All the talents etc are based off of us being 85, and none of us are quite yet.
 
Advancement is sooo rapid. I leveled from 13 to 23 just playing a few hours last night and today. I haven't even finished Darkshore or Lakeshire yet, and all of my quests are green or black(!!!). Guess I need to stick with humans or elves, but not both. Haven't seen the Loch yet, or the Wetlands for the Dwarves, either. Guess we get a choice where to level now. Remember when you used to have to hit all of the zones just to get enough xp to level? Part of the problem is you get a lot of xp gathering, and DS is a herbists paradise. Pretty soon I think they will just start everybody at 55 like DKs.

Yeah, I figured out later that I screwed up in my last post. I saw a player with the plants vs zombies singing flower and somehow thought it was endemic to the place where I was in DS.
 
GregP24 said:
Or warrior.
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I havent played my warrior since the patch came out, they nerfed the crap out of warrior dps

# Cleave damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
# Execute damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
# Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
# Overpower now does 125% weapon damage, down from 150%.
# Rend base damage has been reduced by approximately 17% and percent of weapon damage per tick lowered to 25%, from 30%.
# Shield Block now only increases block chance by 25%, but excess block that pushes avoidance plus block to over 100% is now converted to critical block chance.
# Slam now costs 15 rage, down from 20, and now does 125% weapon damage, down from 150%.
# Victory Rush damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
# Whirlwind now does 65% weapon damage, down from 75%.

# Fury

* Blood Craze now heals for 1/2/3% of total health, down from 2.5/5/7.5%.
* Bloodthirst damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
* Raging Blow now does 110% weapon damage, down from 150%.
 
Warriors were op while leveling.

You could solo dungeons up to ZF as Fury.
 
leezard said:
I havent played my warrior since the patch came out, they nerfed the crap out of warrior dps

# Cleave damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
# Execute damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
# Heroic Strike damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
# Overpower now does 125% weapon damage, down from 150%.
# Rend base damage has been reduced by approximately 17% and percent of weapon damage per tick lowered to 25%, from 30%.
# Shield Block now only increases block chance by 25%, but excess block that pushes avoidance plus block to over 100% is now converted to critical block chance.
# Slam now costs 15 rage, down from 20, and now does 125% weapon damage, down from 150%.
# Victory Rush damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
# Whirlwind now does 65% weapon damage, down from 75%.

# Fury

* Blood Craze now heals for 1/2/3% of total health, down from 2.5/5/7.5%.
* Bloodthirst damage has been reduced by approximately 17%.
* Raging Blow now does 110% weapon damage, down from 150%.
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I'm back on my DK for now. I'm not sure when I'll pick up my warrior up again. One thing they didn't mention in the patch notes was nerfing the damage buff while dual wielding down to 10% from 35%. My heroic strike crits went from 11kish to 6k. :(
 
as someone mentioned somewhere else, all of the balance changes are for level 85. level 80 gets negatively affected as a side effect but it doesn't really matter as there is only a few more days left.
 
I just resubbed to WoW to give it another go with Cata.

I am so lost right now, everything seems to have changed when I left (over a year or so ago).

All talents reset on my characters, I have no idea what to spec or go for. Also my hunter seems to have misplaced one of his pets somehow (had a rare spider pet, now I blow the whistle and only have one winged serpent pet an dnot my spider).

I'm planning to roll a Worgen when Cata comes out though, was just wanting to hit the 55 mark on my hunter (35 right now) so I can roll a Death Knight.

My old guild is no longer active though so now I'm playing alone, most of my rl friends stopped playing/never played so now I'm trying to find a new guild to join.

Is there an active [H] guild or anyone here in a good active guild that usually has a lot of people on that quest/help each other? Like playing on pvp servers.
 
Stiler said:
I just resubbed to WoW to give it another go with Cata.

I am so lost right now, everything seems to have changed when I left (over a year or so ago).

All talents reset on my characters, I have no idea what to spec or go for. Also my hunter seems to have misplaced one of his pets somehow (had a rare spider pet, now I blow the whistle and only have one winged serpent pet an dnot my spider).

I'm planning to roll a Worgen when Cata comes out though, was just wanting to hit the 55 mark on my hunter (35 right now) so I can roll a Death Knight.

My old guild is no longer active though so now I'm playing alone, most of my rl friends stopped playing/never played so now I'm trying to find a new guild to join.

Is there an active [H] guild or anyone here in a good active guild that usually has a lot of people on that quest/help each other? Like playing on pvp servers.
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Your rare pet shouldn't show unless you spec for BM. As exotics have a BM requirement, if I remember correctly. Dunno about [H] server/guild.
 
It was just rare, not exotic I think. I specced for BM and it still isn't showing up :(.

I'm also having another problem, someone tell me how in the hell I get out of Shatterath now? There's no portals and I'm stuck here at lv 34, how do I get back to Silvermoon? Need to get my mount.
 
Stiler said:
I'm also having another problem, someone tell me how in the hell I get out of Shatterath now? There's no portals and I'm stuck here at lv 34, how do I get back to Silvermoon? Need to get my mount.
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Corpse run all the way to Hellfire Peninsula. :D Or hope that a nice mage happens to stop by to port you out. Shatt and Dal are no longer hubs for city travel anymore so its best to stick around the level-appropriate cities now.
 
So I've been trying to level my mage (was 42 before patch and now 54) and the changes they have made to the old world are freaking awesome. Zones that used to have little to no quests in them are now loaded with quests. Burning teppes has several large quest hubs added as well as additional flight paths. Swamp of sorrows has several new quest hubs as well. Sunken temple was changed so that the entrance to the instance is at the top now, but there is a quest line that sends you to the bottom to kill 3 named mobs.

Darkshore is one of the coolest "newb" zones now IMO

And for the pet collectors, I've found three new pets as quest rewards over the past couple days
 
Question: I'm a cheap ass and don't want to buy Cata, will I still be able to access the new patch stuff, except for a few things? What would would be those things? Might come back and actually finish leveling some classes.
 
you can access everything minus the new races, the new 80-85 content, and new profession. All the new 1-60 stuff you can do. Dont even need bc or wrath for that.
 
Yep. Otherwise, it would defeat the purpose of enticing new or returning players with all the new content. Would have been kind of a waste of effort for the current population except for altaholics.
 
bigdogchris said:
In classic EQ times, there was content that shipped that couldn't be beat until the following expansion.
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For starters this is absolutely untrue. Maybe casuals couldnt beat all the content before the next expansion but there was no expansion that wasnt trampled by the high end guilds within a couple months. Secondly who the fuck would think thats a good idea?

vasta said:
Blizzard doesn't know what balance is
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Go play any other MMO and check out the PVP. Wow is pretty balanced by comparison.
 
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