WoW; 4th expansion Mists of Pandaria

I've been playing on/off since November 2005. In those eight years, never have I done anything as difficult as the warlock green fire chain ... and that includes wiping on Vashj for 10-12 nights before we downed her.

My warlock is my alt, I've never raided on him, I hadn't even done LFR (including Cata) on him until this past week. Basically, I'm not very good at warlock-ing. So! I dug out buttons from my spellbook I didn't know I had, made some macros for things based on the various guides, respecced some talents, and got to work. Item level 492 (mostly timeless isle gear) with an unenchanted 463 weapon.

Four hours and 650g later (repairs -- I farmed for the jade serpent pots, purification pots, and flasks), I'm lying dead on the ground and the boss is at ~1m hp. I right clicked my demon to dismiss so I could release and try again ... but I wonder. Yes, I can continue to control my demon from the grave! 1-2 minutes later, my demon disappears, some dialogue starts. BOOM. Green fire!

Now, I know I died so it's kinda cheating, but I would have gotten it within the next 2-3 attempts anyway. I had the felhunters down, and I only died because I got impatient. Tried using the imps for infinite embers and just shadowburning the boss. Didn't work out so well, wouldn't have made that mistake again. Now that it's done, I feel like it'd be pretty easy to do again. I do wish there was an achievement for doing this before 550+ ilvl where he doesn't even live long enough to summon everything, but oh well.

I also finished the transmutes for my Sky Golem on Sunday. That thing is awesome! I love being able to herb without dismounting. Hopefully they add one like it for mining, that'd be more useful to me.
 
Transmog has kept WoW alive for me. I love going after a certain armor set, or specific weapon. Keeps the game fresh and fun farming for mog gear.

I still like most the Wrath era gear, stuff in ICC, Uldar, Naxx looks the best to me. The Tier 10 plate sets for DK's, Warriors looks awesome, most of that gear drops in ICC, plus some killer looking Shields and Swords in there as well.
 
Zorachus said:
Transmog has kept WoW alive for me. I love going after a certain armor set, or specific weapon. Keeps the game fresh and fun farming for mog gear.

I still like most the Wrath era gear, stuff in ICC, Uldar, Naxx looks the best to me. The Tier 10 plate sets for DK's, Warriors looks awesome, most of that gear drops in ICC, plus some killer looking Shields and Swords in there as well.
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I like the older gear as well -- but I go for TBC or Vanilla stuff, I don't think think the sets now days look anywhere near as cool as the older ones. For example, I have the following sets for various characters:

Tier 1
Felheart (warlock) with Staff of Dominance transmog
Earthfury (shaman) with Drillborer Disk transmog

Tier 2
Bloodfang (rogue) with ZG dagger transmog, Glaives if I'm just hanging out
Judgement (paladin) with Drake Talon Cleaver transmog, Hand of Rag if just in SW

Tier 5
Corruptor (warlock) with Brutal Gladiator's Battle Staff transmog
Tirisfal (mage)

I actually don't have my mage transmogged right now because she's in a mix of MSV and HoF gear and I actually like the way it looks quite a bit.
 
Xonim said:
I like the older gear as well -- but I go for TBC or Vanilla stuff, I don't think think the sets now days look anywhere near as cool as the older ones. For example, I have the following sets for various characters:

Tier 1
Felheart (warlock) with Staff of Dominance transmog
Earthfury (shaman) with Drillborer Disk transmog

Tier 2
Bloodfang (rogue) with ZG dagger transmog, Glaives if I'm just hanging out
Judgement (paladin) with Drake Talon Cleaver transmog, Hand of Rag if just in SW

Tier 5
Corruptor (warlock) with Brutal Gladiator's Battle Staff transmog
Tirisfal (mage)

I actually don't have my mage transmogged right now because she's in a mix of MSV and HoF gear and I actually like the way it looks quite a bit.
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MoP Raid and Dungeon gear blows, style wise. I would never run MoP Raids in future expansions, for mog gear, there is nothing whatsoever I would want in any MoP Raid or Dungeon to Transmog.

The Swords and Axes have gotten worse looking, they look like big butter knifes, just dull, rounded, and lame in MoP. Where as Vanilla to Wrath, the weapons actually looked sharp and dangerous and cool.

I hope Transmog hasn't stopped the art team from caring about designing cool new Tier gear ?
 
Zorachus said:
MoP Raid and Dungeon gear blows, style wise. I would never run MoP Raids in future expansions, for mog gear, there is nothing whatsoever I would want in any MoP Raid or Dungeon to Transmog.
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I don't know that I'd ever go back to run it, but I don't think it ALL blows. I snagged this screenshot from the mobile armory app, but here's what my mage is in (MSV/HoF/ToES with a valor piece or two). I actually kinda like it, the cloak is also green. The weapon has jade serpent on it, so that shows up as green rather than orange.

U2DMXxal.jpg
 
Gearing up both my Tanks during the holiday, got them both to an average of i525, with unbuffed 700k health. Not super Epic at all, but not fresh 90 either. Some of the Tanks in my Guild have 1.1 million base health unbuffed, not Druids but DK's.

I am pretty happy with my mog gear, this has kept the game alive for me really. I love running old Raids hunting for specific gear.

Tankadin;

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[/URL][/IMG]


Death Tank;

88385660-profilemainjpg01-02_zps13c50074.jpg
[/URL][/IMG]
 
Zorachus said:
Gearing up both my Tanks during the holiday, got them both to an average of i525, with unbuffed 700k health. Not super Epic at all, but not fresh 90 either. Some of the Tanks in my Guild have 1.1 million base health unbuffed, not Druids but DK's.

I am pretty happy with my mog gear, this has kept the game alive for me really. I love running old Raids hunting for specific gear.

Tankadin;

[


Death Tank;
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/spit. [H]orde. bleh
 
jjandrob said:
/spit. [H]orde. bleh
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LOL.

I like the Blood Elf male model best in the game. To me it is hands down, no question the most accurate natural looking body type for a male. If this same model was available in Alliance, I would Faction switch. Gear just looks proper and correct on the Blood Elf male. They aren't fat, nor too skinny, not short, or too tall.

Only other Races I would think about, but their models suck;

- Human males = fat, bloated, huge Popeye forearms, and gloves look way too big :rolleyes: and stand like they are constipated. Gear just looks bad on them, too fat looking. The human male is the ugliest and most outdated model in WoW.

- Night Elf males = too tall, HUGE shoulders for no reason, and skinny girl waste, big duck feet, and walk like apes. Gear makes them look like a bad cartoon.

Rest of the Horde are monster looking, and ugly, and rest of the Alliance are either midgets, or fat space cows, or dogs.
 
Entered my frist raids this week with LFR, pretty exciting but there can be quite some hostility if things aren't going well or people make mistakes. (I made mistakes as well) To the point that at the last boss the tanks and some of the healers left, not sure if the game added replacements but that fight was quite a mess. (Will of the Emperor, Mogu'shan vaults)

The boss I found most uncomfortable to fight so far was Elegon, I don't know, his mechanical tortured voice just sends a shiver through my spine. Awesome fight though.


Used some of my valor points to upgrade my weapon, used my justice points to buy rings and a trinket to increase my ilevel so I could unlock ToT, and been farming timeless coins for Mogu seals, looking forward to try out LFR ToT this weekend.
 
Getting back into this game and having fun playing it casually. I'm not gonna play my 90(paladin) because I didn't like it and I think that's what made me quit last time. Sent all my heirlooms to a brewmaster monk and have got him to Lvl 40 now. It's been a lot of fun and a nice change of pace. I may take my warrior or hunter to 90 first though. They are 85 and 87 respectively. Most likely a warrior or dk cause I love tanking in this game.
 
I spent an hour on Wednesday farming the island in Jade Forest where the cloud serpent dailies happen. There's a spot on the hill where the mobs just keep respawning and running up toward you ... 390k hp. Popped a few potions of luck and went to town.

Problem is, that was Wednesday and I still have over half my haul because even after 3 mergers, my server's economy is dead. The toon I did it on (warlock) is a tailor, so I had ~50 stacks of cloth, 3-4 stacks of leather, 5 stacks of various trillium ore, and a few stacks of ghost iron. I'm also sitting on a stash of Pandaria herbs from tillers plots.

I've moved all of my black trillium, the ghost iron, and ~10 stacks of cloth. Golden lotus seems to go at a rate of about 12 / day, anything more than that is too much. I'm not even getting undercut, it just doesn't move. I could keep the cloth and transmute to make/sell royal satchels, but I've been trying to unload all of this before the 8th because I thiink I'm going to let my account lapse for a while again.
 
I hope WoD release is going to be the rumored May / June release, two months after Diablo ]l[ expansion release, as most are saying. Typical time from beta to release for WoW has been on average 4 months. So they'd need to start the beta no later than February to get a late Spring release, which has been rumored, and seems very possible, if the beta starts in the next month or so.

Thing that pissed me off, was the crazy long delay of zero new content, at the end of Cat 4.3 patch in December, to MoP release in October. A solid 10 - 11 months of nothing new, that really did damage on having people leave the game.

The last MoP patch was 5.4 released in September, and nothing new is being released, until WoD itself. I sure hope it's not another 10+ months of only 5.4. I can only take a few more months of this, before I quit. Will run weekly mog Raids for the few pieces of gear I really want, Firelands DK helm, and Dragonsoul Plate shoulders. Once I got those, I am done until WoD.
 
Zorachus said:
I hope WoD release is going to be the rumored May / June release, two months after Diablo ]l[ expansion release, as most are saying. Typical time from beta to release for WoW has been on average 4 months. So they'd need to start the beta no later than February to get a late Spring release, which has been rumored, and seems very possible, if the beta starts in the next month or so.

Thing that pissed me off, was the crazy long delay of zero new content, at the end of Cat 4.3 patch in December, to MoP release in October. A solid 10 - 11 months of nothing new, that really did damage on having people leave the game.

The last MoP patch was 5.4 released in September, and nothing new is being released, until WoD itself. I sure hope it's not another 10+ months of only 5.4. I can only take a few more months of this, before I quit. Will run weekly mog Raids for the few pieces of gear I really want, Firelands DK helm, and Dragonsoul Plate shoulders. Once I got those, I am done until WoD.
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I bet it'll come out around August/September. Right at the start of the Holiday season. The content has been dry but if they really invest lots of resources into this new expac then I'll for it. I'll just farm/pvp/raid when I feel like it ;)
 
Godmachine said:
I bet it'll come out around August/September. Right at the start of the Holiday season. The content has been dry but if they really invest lots of resources into this new expac then I'll for it. I'll just farm/pvp/raid when I feel like it ;)
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Blizzard needs to do something with these long stretches of nothing new for 10 - 12 months. It's damaging the fan base. Seems like last few expansions have been the same in this regard, with the final patch release at the end of an expansion, and then nothing new at all for 10 to 12 months, until the release of the next new expansion, just tumble weeds blowing, and crickets chirping for close to a year.

Why doesn't Blizzard plan one more Raid and content patch, maybe 6 months before the next expansion. For example, right now Blizz should have planned to release a new 5.5 patch in March or so, with a new smaller Raid, and maybe 2 new 5man dungeons.
 
Xonim said:
I've been playing on/off since November 2005. In those eight years, never have I done anything as difficult as the warlock green fire chain ... and that includes wiping on Vashj for 10-12 nights before we downed her.

My warlock is my alt, I've never raided on him, I hadn't even done LFR (including Cata) on him until this past week. Basically, I'm not very good at warlock-ing. So! I dug out buttons from my spellbook I didn't know I had, made some macros for things based on the various guides, respecced some talents, and got to work. Item level 492 (mostly timeless isle gear) with an unenchanted 463 weapon.

Four hours and 650g later (repairs -- I farmed for the jade serpent pots, purification pots, and flasks), I'm lying dead on the ground and the boss is at ~1m hp. I right clicked my demon to dismiss so I could release and try again ... but I wonder. Yes, I can continue to control my demon from the grave! 1-2 minutes later, my demon disappears, some dialogue starts. BOOM. Green fire!

Now, I know I died so it's kinda cheating, but I would have gotten it within the next 2-3 attempts anyway. I had the felhunters down, and I only died because I got impatient. Tried using the imps for infinite embers and just shadowburning the boss. Didn't work out so well, wouldn't have made that mistake again. Now that it's done, I feel like it'd be pretty easy to do again. I do wish there was an achievement for doing this before 550+ ilvl where he doesn't even live long enough to summon everything, but oh well.

I also finished the transmutes for my Sky Golem on Sunday. That thing is awesome! I love being able to herb without dismounting. Hopefully they add one like it for mining, that'd be more useful to me.
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I did it at 515, hard fight but the entire trick is to get off 3-4 chaos bolts when Karenthad is stunned because he takes double damage. At 515 mine were hitting him for over 1 million.
 
Superfly3176 said:
I did it at 515, hard fight but the entire trick is to get off 3-4 chaos bolts when Karenthad is stunned because he takes double damage. At 515 mine were hitting him for over 1 million.
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Yeah I was doing that the best I could, but unfortunately, that was only ~600k for me ... less if I didn't have trinkets procced.

Leveling another warlock horde-side, not sure if I'll finish it or not because my sub runs out in a day or two and I'm not sure I'm going to renew. If I do, I'm going to try doing it on that toon also. I'm guessing it wouldn't be a problem to do again now that I've done it once.
 
It's Tuesday :D in WoW

That means all Raids reset, and I can do my mog gear runs.

- Kara; solo that for the mount off first boss
- ICC 10; 2 man that going for the T10 Warrior style gear
- Firelands; going after the sword from first boss, and DK T13 helm off firebird boss

Right now my Tankadin is i530 geared, and I am sort of burned out on SoO, running it weekly last 2 months. And with WoD due out in May / June possibly, I am just not hungry to raise my gear rating, and get better gear right now. As soon as WoD comes out, I will replace my i536 Epics with greens dropping off a Level 91 toad in the new zones :p What's the point to run SoO anymore, if in a few months all the gear will be easily replaced in WoD early zones.
 
Fought a Destro lock today as affliction few ilvls higher then me it was a neat contest but soul burn + Drain Life + Harvest Life Talent + Drain Life Glyph is insane you heal for at least 75k/tick on mobs. Don't know how much I was getting against this guy but it was nuts.
 
Zorachus said:
Blizzard needs to do something with these long stretches of nothing new for 10 - 12 months. It's damaging the fan base. Seems like last few expansions have been the same in this regard, with the final patch release at the end of an expansion, and then nothing new at all for 10 to 12 months, until the release of the next new expansion, just tumble weeds blowing, and crickets chirping for close to a year.

Why doesn't Blizzard plan one more Raid and content patch, maybe 6 months before the next expansion. For example, right now Blizz should have planned to release a new 5.5 patch in March or so, with a new smaller Raid, and maybe 2 new 5man dungeons.
Click to expand...

The pure monotony of the game should be blamed on the 2 expansions that basically felt like soulless content patches (Wotlk and Cata). They also have changed the game to suit an audience that no longer exists within WoW (casual which has basically left the game for MOABs) and now they are trying to pull back former core players.

But Blizzard sucks at dividing its resources concerning WoW. They've proven that with how the patch content team and expansion content team handle releases differently. Make their focus purely the expansion and make it as rich and fun and non-repeating as possible. Doing this will mean more than one extra soon to be boring raid and perhaps some daily quest line that you don't give a shit about anymore than the rest.

Will you remember the new content after the next expac releases a few months after it? I doubt it. You'll be knee deep in getting to 100 and you'll be engrossed in the expansion entirely.
 
Just started trying for this classic flying mount, 'Ashes of Al'ar'
http://www.wowhead.com/item=32458/ashes-of-alar

I am a Level 90 i530 Paladin Tank, and breezed right through the Tempest Keep - the eye Raid solo, except the final boss fight.

I was killing the boss trash easily no problem, but they would keep casting dizzy spells on me, and kept doing it non stop. I could only do one attack or spell like once every 30 seconds, sometimes not even that. And my health slowly kept going down, took awhile, but they killed me after 5 minutes non stop whacking me, and I was pretty much stuck, couldn't do anything, expect like one attack every 30 seconds.
 
Zorachus said:
Just started trying for this classic flying mount, 'Ashes of Al'ar'
http://www.wowhead.com/item=32458/ashes-of-alar

I am a Level 90 i530 Paladin Tank, and breezed right through the Tempest Keep - the eye Raid solo, except the final boss fight.

I was killing the boss trash easily no problem, but they would keep casting dizzy spells on me, and kept doing it non stop. I could only do one attack or spell like once every 30 seconds, sometimes not even that. And my health slowly kept going down, took awhile, but they killed me after 5 minutes non stop whacking me, and I was pretty much stuck, couldn't do anything, expect like one attack every 30 seconds.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I tried that fight as well, no success. I do like though that even now at MoP this fight can give quite a bit of trouble. It's a good way to keep a challenge even several expansions later.

I believe you can pick up one of the weapons you destroyed earlier in the fight to give some immunity against spells but it's a bit of a hassle.

Another tactic is to run out of the room before Kael'thas finishes his opening speech and the room is locked. Then lure each sub-boss that is send after you away before killing them. (First two toward raid entrance (not too close to entrance though), the female mage in first hall were Alár is flying and finally the engineer near the entrance to Kael-thas room. This way you can kill them one by one before their spells become a problem. It's quite tedious though.

===

I'm now on the hunt for the Drake of the Northern wind. After around 70 tries the last few weeks, I'm now farming for scuttler shells so I can bypass most of the trash in Vortex. Hopefully each shell can give around 12-15 runs. (logging off when reaching the hourly limit). Currently have 8 shells, it's a bit of a good thing my server is not very crowded.
 
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jh24 said:
Yeah, I tried that fight as well, no success. I do like though that even now at MoP this fight can give quite a bit of trouble. It's a good way to keep a challenge even several expansions later.

I believe you can pick up one of the weapons you destroyed earlier in the fight to give some immunity against spells but it's a bit of a hassle.

Another tactic is to run out of the room before Kael'thas finishes his opening speech and the room is locked. Then lure each sub-boss that is send after you away before killing them. (First two toward raid entrance (not too close to entrance though), the female mage in first hall were Alár is flying and finally the engineer near the entrance to Kael-thas room. This way you can kill them one by one before their spells become a problem. It's quite tedious though.

===

I'm now on the hunt for the Drake of the Northern wind. After around 70 tries the last few weeks, I'm now farming for scuttler shells so I can bypass most of the trash in Vortex. If working well I could do around 12-15 runs on one scuttler shell. (logging off when reaching the hourly limit). Currently have 8 shells, it's a bit of a good thing my server is not very crowded.
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Theres a strategy to soloing ashes of alar.. I did it on my DK at 85. Just had to bring him out to the big room and not do it in the old room. You would kill the adds in different rooms so you could fight them 1 at a time or 2 at a time. Made it a lot easier.
 
Zorachus said:
Just started trying for this classic flying mount, 'Ashes of Al'ar'
http://www.wowhead.com/item=32458/ashes-of-alar

I am a Level 90 i530 Paladin Tank, and breezed right through the Tempest Keep - the eye Raid solo, except the final boss fight.

I was killing the boss trash easily no problem, but they would keep casting dizzy spells on me, and kept doing it non stop. I could only do one attack or spell like once every 30 seconds, sometimes not even that. And my health slowly kept going down, took awhile, but they killed me after 5 minutes non stop whacking me, and I was pretty much stuck, couldn't do anything, expect like one attack every 30 seconds.
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Get a 2H and respec to ret for this fight; don't bother with a pvp trinket it won't help. When you kill the adds in phase 1, spread them out around the room to give yourself time to deal with them in phase 3 (I do one to the back left, one to the back right, the mage somewhere in the middle and the engineer right near kael). Your DPS as ret should be enough to 2 or 3 shot them. If you get toyed during phase 3 (you probably will) bubble it off. After killing the engineer, focus on the mage, the other two aren't enough of a problem to worry about.

You don't need to bring them to the rest of the eye to do this, you can do it all in kael's room.

I farmed this for about 18 weeks to get a twinblade for my paladin and my ret ilvl was only about 506-516 during that time. And I just did it this week on my ilvl 503 arms warrior with the same general tactics.
 
If you're above around ilvl 502 just go straight DPS and burn the shit outta them. Also, you probably don't want to summon pets as if KT MCs you...it'll reset the event.
 
What if I bring my brother in to help ? He's just a level 85 Warlock, and I am a Level 90 i530 Tankadin.
 
Kael fight is a joke now... If your having trouble just kill the 3 of the adds in a corner behind kael and kill the fire Mage female at the entrance of the room. When they resurrect pop CDs and kill her first. If your a pally it's a joke you can just bubble through all the cc. Even a prof pally should have plenty of damage if you have current gear if not just go ret.
 
DNME said:
Kael fight is a joke now... If your having trouble just kill the 3 of the adds in a corner behind kael and kill the fire Mage female at the entrance of the room. When they resurrect pop CDs and kill her first. If your a pally it's a joke you can just bubble through all the cc. Even a prof pally should have plenty of damage if you have current gear if not just go ret.
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The problem I was having, was kept getting spells cast on me, kept me from casting any spell, or doing any attacks, except like once a minute. I would just sit there, dizzied couldn't move, couldn't attack, maybe get one move off every minute.
 
Zorachus said:
The problem I was having, was kept getting spells cast on me, kept me from casting any spell, or doing any attacks, except like once a minute. I would just sit there, dizzied couldn't move, couldn't attack, maybe get one move off every minute.
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Yeah, even if you spread them out within the same room, if you can't two/three-shot each one almost immediately the others will catch up to you quick. And once you get, like you said, in that "stun" pattern it's hard (depending on character) to get out off.


If spreading them out in the room or "bubbling" through CC/spells doesn't work, spreading them out in different parts of the raid (like mentioned in posts above) might be the safest way. Or if your brother can help, it might help spread out the stuns a bit, it depends on what you prefer the most.
 
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Zorachus said:
What if I bring my brother in to help ? He's just a level 85 Warlock, and I am a Level 90 i530 Tankadin.
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Long as it's real players. The main problem is say, I'm a monk. I summon Xuen and I'm by myself in the instance. I get MCed and Xuen gets killed or the duration is over. I'm still under MC so the encounter resets. If you have two people, the other person remains hostile and once you're no longer MCed you should be okay. Also, if he's a warlock, just have him pick up the staff and use it to make the aura that prevents all the stuns/disorients/etc.

If you're soloing and having trouble with the adds when they respawn, just make sure you throw down an AOE and target the adds in this order,

Mage -> Engineer -> Whatever

At 530 tank gear you should be able to kill them slowly. Also as a tankadin, the BIS tankadin gear is usually equivalent to the best Ret gear, Haste > All. So just go ret and blow them up ;):D
 
WoD release in July;

There will be another PVP season in MoP, so that means at least 20 - 25 weeks until WoD release, after that new PvP seasons starts.

Let's say the new PvP season starts late January / early February, add on 20 some weeks, which is 5+ months. That would put WoD release in July, and I have heard that an early Summer release has been rumored for a long time. I would bet on July being very realistic. Plus that gives them a 5 - 6 month Beta test, if the beta starts soon, and averaging all expansion betas, they range from 4 to 6 months.
 
Think I'm going to take advantage of the free character migration and move my horde toons off Illidan. The extended family member I was playing with there just rerolled on Zul'jin, and I don't really want to start over on another server yet again. Most of my playing is done through LFD/LFR and BGs anyway, so aside from the economy, server doesn't really matter. The queue times on Illidan are getting annoying (45+ minutes last week), so I'm thinking taking the transfer might be a good thing.
 
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