<<< 70 gnome fire mage ATM however i re-spec more often than i think so don't rely on that tomorrow

i also have a 65 ret pally who i MAY re-spec to holy when it his 70 however it is just as likely that ill stay ret, either way it will be my PVP char until my warrior hits 70

QUOTE(Zoran @ Jul 13 2008, 02:29 PM) [snapback]244230[/snapback]

We have killed everything in Kara, Everything in Zul'Aman, I think the steam vaults instance gotta check on that, everything in tempest keep, almost everything in hyjal ( Sadly I cannot go yet T_T ) and well... I forgot what else we got down. But I have been told that we touched everything.

Your guild probably has kiled at lest 4-5 bosses in BT by now, most likely more if they say they've touched everything there. Sunwell, on the other hand, is quite a bit of a step up from BT.

QUOTE(Verbose @ Jul 13 2008, 05:04 PM) [snapback]244262[/snapback]

It's been a while since I last logged on but I'd imagine my guild is off finishing up M'uru or maybe even starting on Twins. I can't bring myself to be too excited these days. Gearing up is a pain for me because I'm too low to come to the new content and half of the farm content but they never do any of the raids where my next upgrades are. Being an enhance shaman hurts my odds of getting badges. People only do ZA for timed runs so I'm not usually worth the slot unless it's already pretty stacked. Kara pugs are either great or fall apart by Moroes.

I figure I'll simply catch up in WotLK. A good many of my class' problems will be eased by then, it looks like.

Yeah, I see a lot of friends of mine on WoW that get stuck in tha position. They're decent players but they get looked over because they weren't around at the right time in the right place most likely. But you could probably get some badge gear and do ok for BT. But Sunwell would still be a no no. You need at least 5/8 t6 or very equivalent to get anywhere in Sunwell. From what I've heard, M'uru is the most intensive fight in the game. My guild isn't exactly there yet, but at least we've defeated Kalecgos's demon. I think we can get Brutallus done real soon too. Maybe Felmyst soon after that if are raid attendence stays up through the summer slump. We clear BT every week (sometimes we near miss killing Illidan before it resets but you can't do much about that) and do hyjal sometimes but we don't focus on hyjal anymore since we need more time to push into Sunwell.


Oh, I'm a lvl 70 holy paladin. Sitting at 5/8 t6 as you would have guessed. Maybe 6/8 t6 if we drop Brutallus because I'm in a good spot on dkp. And I say I'm tired of healing but I can't try to switch to another toon because the only other lvl 70 I have is a gnome rogue with bum gear. So I'm stuck with healing for now. I can't go ret because the guild leader raids as ret (but he specs healing if we need it). So I can't respec. We have a good pally tank so I can't respec prot. I'm basically healing until WotLK. At least with the expac I can have an excuse to reroll something that doesn't have healing spells. (I'm thinking warlock, depends on how good new talents and skils we get in the expac, though. but warlocks are fun).

Really? Bored healing? I love it...... constantly get into groups, am so good that I can just get up and leave if the group is scrub, and I generally get gears when I need it. I am slowly lvling some of my other toons(the highest is like... 47) They're fun.... but I think in the end I'll still enjoy healing the most(the 47 is another holy priest, diff server-lol)

Well it just depends on what you do with the game and what you're outlook on it is.


For me, I raid. Raiding is why I came to wow in the first place. I don't like to pvp that much. I PVE, that's all there is to it for me. I've been healing for more than 2 years. It's starting to get boring. Yeah, I get some satisfaction out of it when we kill something new. But that's more because we killed the boss more than the healing (unless I did some awesome save on the MT or something like that). Meanwhile, dps gets to have all the fun (or rather, all the dps >.>). They don't have to worry about keeping people alive (other than themsleves, of course), they get to worry about outputting enough damage so the boss dies and occasionally do other tasks that is required of a certain boss. They get to look at the boss rather than at healing mod of choice.


Yes, healing is as much important as dpsing or tanking for a raid but dps is supposed to be the fun part right?

My main is a druid that still nobody knows about, but.....

I've main tanked things on him, and I've healed on him. Even been able to dps for a few fights. The thing is, every wipe, every failed attempt....The raid leader finds a reason to yell at the tanks, or the healers. Even if they didn't do all that much wrong, or they couldn't have done anything different....yay, they're in trouble!

It occasionally happen to dps, but even when dps is in trouble...."healers, you suck!" It gets annoying after awhile, and can rub some people the wrong way. Same with tanks, if the can't handle it, they quit or respec.

Eh. I play to collect. Minipets, mounts, loot cards, etc. Raiding is... a job, really. and I already have a job. When I join a guild I make it as clear as possible that my RL takes priority. If they have attendance requirements or anything crazy like that, I don't join. And I think that outlook on it is what's keeping it fun for me. raiding, seeing the new content, downing new boss'.... it's *all* new to me because I don't go to every raid, cause I don't spend months and months trying to learn a boss(I can understand a boss fight after less than 2 tries) And it all being new is what's keeping me interested. That, and collecting the next new thing. patch 2.4.3 is bringing out a bunch of new stuff, outfits and minipets and whatnot, I'm really excited about that !!


quick edit for post before mine... I don't get the "healer u suck" comments often. When I do, if the person actually has a solution that will work and the problem was me, I take it in stride. But if it's the DPS' fault, and they have no solutions, just lookin for a scapegoat... I don't accept that. I'll hearth so fast it'll leave them seein stars. I have other things to do besides listen to scrubs who need scapegoats for their scrubbiness.

I do enjoy healing in a way. I was the main healer with a group of friends as a balanced druid in Durnhold. I was enjoying myself cause mainly one: I was a human and liked how I looked in my armor. Two: I could blast a mob for 1500 normal damage with wrath and pop some life blooms on our tank to keep him/her alive. So much fun, but then I turned back to a Night elf for Black Morass and I was under so much stress to keep everyone alive and maintain mana.

My trouble was more in the vein that I couldn't play for six months. Which hurt me because I'd gotten a shaman from 1-70 in a few weeks, second one to do so in the guild by about five hours and third took a week and a half after that. We were different specs, too.

It's just that nobody knew what we were for. Not really. By the time they'd starting getting used to the class' options, I couldn't play. When I could, they'd filled the necessary spots with other guys. It's more or less been a chain of that for a while.


Well, that's a different thing altogether. Yeah, they have less responsibility but at the same time they're also a lot more replaceable.

Depending on the fight, too, you have a lot of people who can't have fun. Too many fights punish melee DPS for them to enjoy raiding consistently. They also get abused and blamed for just about everything under the sun - a lot of the blame belongs there, though. There's less individual accountability because they're more or less a hurty blob of amorphous bits.


Yeah, a lot of guilds are pretty anal about that. Which is kinda weird, really. Maybe my guild is the rare exception but we're probably top-ten Alliance guild on our server and we don't have a DKP system or require attendance. If anything, people are often sat for a fight or even half a raid just because another class is more useful. It stops us having two raid groups but it means our raid groups aren't as structured and hence aren't as easily disrupted by people who can't make it to raids.

I beg to differ. The repsonsibility of DPS is to bring the enemy down while not turning it onto the raid. That responsibility is of no less importance than keeping the enemy from overrunning the raid or keeping the raid healed.

The only thing is that a tank and healer failure results in an immediate wipe while DPS not doing what they're supposed to do usually results in a wipe due to enrage or healers OOM thus people jump to the (false) conclusion that DPS has less responsibility, including the DPS people themselves.

So yes, tank and healer screw ups show immediately and drastically whereas DPS screw ups are long-term problems.

But no, my responsibility in a raid is to do what I do to the best margin possible, just like everyone else. And yes, slackers do give us DPS a bad name.

Yeah, but unless your raid is very peculiarly stacked, any one DPS could be replaced with another kind without significant harm to the performance of the group.

As a role, you're probably right. There is certainly a responsibility not to be retarded and in the better guilds, to maximise their usefulness. DPS is just the last element you need. Tank and Heals are very chicken and egg when it comes to importance but quite commonly guilds learn fights through survival. DPS is simply the final piece of the puzzle.

Totally agree with ya, there verby. Tanks and healers are what holds the group together. I dare say it, but some boss', that're all you need if they're good enough. Dps is just.... there. They're always there, always everywhere. You can always find dps and dps is so much more replacable than tanks and healers. you piss off the tank or healer, and you may have to call the run. piss of dps? ppft, so what, get another and move on.


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anyone have any suggestions on a good way to level up fast(ish). my free time is very limited and i would like to try and get a few of my characters up there before deployment so that when i get back i won't have as much work to get a hero class in WotLK.

There are a bunch of guides available for free on the net. Many of them are easily adaptable because exp requirements are lower than they used to be and Dustwallow Marsh fills in the niche that you used to have to spend doing dungeons all the time.


It's the only reason that there are enrage timers.

Without them, DPS would be optional.

QUOTE(Verbose @ Jul 15 2008, 11:25 PM) [snapback]246219[/snapback]

It's the only reason that there are enrage timers.

Without them, DPS would be optional.

While that may be true. I doubt that there's a lot of fights end game where you could have practically no dps in the raid and still get the boss down in a reasonable amount of time. Nobody would want to sit there for like 3 hours or more just on only one boss. That's why dps get to have more "fun" then tanks or healers (though, I'm sure there's plenty of people who love to tank).





And while it may be true that there are always peopel to replace a dps slot, it isn't always guaranteed that they are good dps. Dps characters are the majority group on every server I would think. So that's more time you have to spend sifting through the bad to get the good. Same thing goes for healers and tanks but on a smaller scale. But you're right, typically healers and tanks are a bit harder to come by.


@Jaezelle: Healing isn't boring for you most likely because you said that you don't put copious amount of time into raiding. Which makes it always a lot fresher to want to heal a raid/group. If you were to increase your raiding hours and do that for over a year, I'm sure you would be more tired of it then than you are right now. So, it's a good thing that you limit your time on WoW in the first place. Also, the only thing i want to collect on WoW now is the bear mount. Since they are taking it out in the expansion, my guild is completely capable of doing bear runs but we don't seem to get one started anymore. It's kinda driving me nuts cause I could never get into the bear runs when the Bear Group still didn't all have their mounts. Once all 10 of them go their mounts, the bear runs decreased like tenfold. The bear mount is all I care to get now. Other than raiding, I want a bear mount so bad.

Questsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. With the increased xp from quests, you can get a level every hour/two. Maybe faster depending on how quickly you can do it/how often you die/how talented you are at the game.

Heh. 'Talented.'

QUOTE(Darkhawk @ Jul 16 2008, 02:50 AM) [snapback]246512[/snapback]

Questsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. With the increased xp from quests, you can get a level every hour/two. Maybe faster depending on how quickly you can do it/how often you die/how talented you are at the game.

Heh. 'Talented.'

True. But you also need to cut down your travel time too. Doing a bunch of quests in the same area that are relatively easy will help you lvl up faster than trying to do a bunch of quests all over the place.

All we DPS classes want is a fair attitude. We have our responsibility as well and we wish for that to be acknowledged. A group must do much more than "hold together" if they want to progress anywhere.

Yes, it's true that it's easier to find a DPS, but that does not make us subhuman, if you catch my point.

E-peen is one thing I do not tolerate in raids. I much rather wipe in Karazhan with a bunch of people I enjoy playing with than progress with some arrogant and disrespectful tank/healer kids who think raiding is about e-peen and abusing the "lowly DPS classes". Have seen my share of abuse in my WoW career myself, that may be why I am so damn defensive on the issue.

Took me ages to find a guild in which I am respected AND can progress, but I got it. And the officers do tell me they have a hard time replacing me if I cannot make it to a raid, even if I may be just "a lowly and expendable rogue" in the eyes of many others.

And that is all we replaceable and lowly and unworthy DPS classes wish from the almighty tanks and healers: to be respected for doing what we do best to our best.

Also, I could turn your logic around by citing the cases of pure DPS groups with no tanks and healing went and downed bosses, but that's just be e-peen and I don't do e-peen.

Yeah, while it's true that nobody would skip DPS simply because of the length of time it'd end up taking, the reality is that if not for enrage timers (the actual timers and the "unofficial" ones like on Vashj) then you could pick and choose your DPS with impunity.

As for sifting, guilds are designed for that purpose. And I've never seen any group - especially a pug - fall apart because some of the DPS had to be swapped out. Their job is no more interesting or engaging over a long period of raiding, it just seems like it is to the high-pressure people. Trust me, I'm every bit as bored of Kara as anybody else who's been through it fifteen or thirty or sixty times. It's just made almost any higher level dungeon completely worthless due to Badge gear. With twenty (or twenty two or three, I'm not entirely sure) badges for the lowest gear instance in the game, more than anywhere else that isn't Black Temple, and rewards that are equivalent to T5 or sometimes even T5.5, it's a bad case of the redundants.

I like the idea of badge gear. It allows for rewards for people who aren't going to get any upgrades from drops. It's just that the way it's set up right now, you get better gear farming Kara and plugging away at BGs and especially at Arena.

All three of which aren't ideal for my class, I'll add. If I didn't completely outgear everything in Kara (except, I think, for one ring drop and possibly a trinket) I'd not be very useful in there. I gather from the WoW Shaman Forum that this has been a long-term problem made worse by giving the Horde paladins. Hopefully some of their fixes in the next expansion solve some of our problems, but I think that they're more or less going to make us less desirable in numbers. Raid-wide totems are fantastic on paper but the chances of getting two of any non-healing shamans in suddenly shrank noticeably.


Also, don't sit around in cities whenever you can help it. Odds on, nothing you can do there early on is worth doing in the limited amounts of stuff you have.

But now you get mounts at level 30 so it's not as bad as it used to be.

how do you get bear mounts? i have started using some plug ins that help show on my maps where quests/quest items can be completed/found.

Bear mount is a 100% reward from the 4th chest in ZA. You need to be in a group that beats the timers.

somehow i doubt i'll get it before deployment and WotLK will be out by the time i get back.

QUOTE(Verbose @ Jul 16 2008, 08:41 AM) [snapback]246778[/snapback]

Yeah, while it's true that nobody would skip DPS simply because of the length of time it'd end up taking, the reality is that if not for enrage timers (the actual timers and the "unofficial" ones like on Vashj) then you could pick and choose your DPS with impunity.

As for sifting, guilds are designed for that purpose. And I've never seen any group - especially a pug - fall apart because some of the DPS had to be swapped out. Their job is no more interesting or engaging over a long period of raiding, it just seems like it is to the high-pressure people. Trust me, I'm every bit as bored of Kara as anybody else who's been through it fifteen or thirty or sixty times. It's just made almost any higher level dungeon completely worthless due to Badge gear. With twenty (or twenty two or three, I'm not entirely sure) badges for the lowest gear instance in the game, more than anywhere else that isn't Black Temple, and rewards that are equivalent to T5 or sometimes even T5.5, it's a bad case of the redundants.

I like the idea of badge gear. It allows for rewards for people who aren't going to get any upgrades from drops. It's just that the way it's set up right now, you get better gear farming Kara and plugging away at BGs and especially at Arena.

All three of which aren't ideal for my class, I'll add. If I didn't completely outgear everything in Kara (except, I think, for one ring drop and possibly a trinket) I'd not be very useful in there. I gather from the WoW Shaman Forum that this has been a long-term problem made worse by giving the Horde paladins. Hopefully some of their fixes in the next expansion solve some of our problems, but I think that they're more or less going to make us less desirable in numbers. Raid-wide totems are fantastic on paper but the chances of getting two of any non-healing shamans in suddenly shrank noticeably.
Also, don't sit around in cities whenever you can help it. Odds on, nothing you can do there early on is worth doing in the limited amounts of stuff you have.

I can somewhat see where you're coming from as far as shammies go. But there are some things I disagree with you about.

I think it was discussed earlier in the thread about how shammies (alliance side) are there only for the Heroism button, and it's true. Heroism is a great spell/ability. It helps healing, it helsp dps, it helps tanking. It's just a great utility boost for your raid that it makes shammies more valuable to have in a raid. Granted gear does take into account depending one what instance you're trying to tackle, but shammies are great for raiding, healing and dps wise. Totems are also a big bonus. Windfury and Grace of Air for the melee while Mana Tide and Wrath of Air totems are great. Granted, at first when the expac came out, many guilds were unsure of shammies since not too many people rerolled them; but it's been how long..? Over a year since the expac came out and shammies are more available now then before. Shammy is a great class for raiding.

While on the other hand, I'm not too sure about how good they are for pvp/arena, since I don't pvp at all basically. But I guess they could rework them for the next expac.

QUOTE

But now you get mounts at level 30 so it's not as bad as it used to be.

Yeah, I forgot about that. I have at least 2 toons that can get their mounts now than before. I don't think they have enough gold to get them yet though (since they aren't a pally or a warlock).

All of which are easily provided with resto shamans. Their windfury totem is slightly worse than mine but not enough to significantly matter.

I have exactly one buff that a resto shaman doesn't - and it is a nice buff, +10% melee AP - but to pay for that buff I have a gimped DPS and no CC. Unless you're stacking melee DPS, and in most fights, it's better to not do that, I'm simply replaceable. A resto shaman brings more raid utility.


We're a buff battery - which will be more pronounced if some of the alpha data doesn't change.

And you can tell a good PvP shaman - notably a good arena shaman - by the fact he manages to get Bloodlust/Heroism off before he's stunlocked to death or kited indefinitely. Because we have no way to speed ourselves up and only a single, shoddy way to slow others down. Slowing speed by 50% was great before every other class managed to get boosts that make them faster by 60% or more or debuffs that slow others by more than 50%.

Some of our problems are vaguely fixable. Mostly they're not.


They lowered the price, too. Down to 1g from memory.

QUOTE(Verbose @ Jul 17 2008, 05:50 AM) [snapback]248210[/snapback]

We're a buff battery - which will be more pronounced if some of the alpha data doesn't change.

Which I don't see what is wrong with that. Paladins are in the same boat on that particular matter. They want their kings and their salv and their might/wisdom. Buff buff buff.

QUOTE('Verbose')

They lowered the price, too. Down to 1g from memory.

They did? I have yet to get on those toons; so I don't know for sure yet. I guess I could check now but I'm lazy and I should have went to bed a few hours ago.

Yeah, but there's always at least two or three spots for a paladin, if you can fit them in.

If the alpha notes don't change too drastically, two shamans can provide pretty much every conceivable buff you'll need for the whole raid. One drops the +str/agi totem, one drops windfury, one drops healing, one drops mana, one drops the +spell damage totem.

Then there's still room for a tremor and two fire totems before you're out of slots from two shamans. Considering that the only other totems that do get used are tremor and possibly tranquil air (the threat reducing totem, which the new change renders useless - what benefit is 20% less threat when the tank is also losing 20% threat?). Resistance totems are occasionally needed too.

But that's more or less it. Two shamans are all you'll need and I can pretty much guarantee that most guilds will take healers. Chain Heal is just too nifty to pass up. So two healing shamans and then the other two are just dead weight buff-wise. Unless they somewhat ungimp our DPS, they're going to be undoing their efforts to make elemental and enhancement viable specs.

I haven't seen the alpha notes. But on a somewhat related topic: I heard that raiding is going to dwindle down to 10 mans... wtf is that? I thought they were gonna have 10man versions and 25man versions. 10 man is gay. I'd rather raid with 25 because it's fairly even. 40 mans were fun but it was an effort to get 40 online. I'm not even sure how we did it back pre-TBC... since now-a-days, it's sometimes hard just to get 25 to show up. I guess the game has changed a bit since the old days.

But uh... yeah. I'm hoping they have someting more than just 10man raiding cause that says to me that Blizzard just wants to pamper the casuals. I can see why though, they are the ones that give them the most money. I think at this point, they're at the "damned if they do, damned if they don't" part. But I guess they're going with whatever is less damning to them in terms of their wallet size.

Every raid has a 10-man and a 25-man run. The 25-man runs are harder and provide gear about a tier above the 10-man.

Well, as long as the 25man versions have better gear, that's all I care about. Plus, you could do the 10 man version with alts or just to collect badges (hoping that there's some good badge loot in the expac though).

They're currently planning for the 10-man and the 25-man instances to be on separate locks, meaning you can do each instance twice before the reset.

To allow greater raid flexibility, I imagine.

roughly what level do you suggest for that?

BTish. Although I suppose a group that practiced together every week may have a chance of beating it if they were only SSC/TK lvl. But BTish lvl will make it cake as opposed to a sweat&tears run.

i'm a very casual player (forced to be), what character level range would you suggest? (numerical value would be much appreciated)

i think you have to be 70 to do those

i thought you had to be 70 to do any of the raids

for a bear mount? lvl 70.

Seeing all the new wrath information is making me giddy , I am SO looking forward to this .

I get to fight arthas *giggles madly*

Also... Vampire/death knight/blood elf crosses. Its a new slant on an old formula

The wrath talent trees are frightening pictures of overpowered. I can't really speak for most classes as I have limited knowledge of their various mechanics, but rogues got ridiculously good abilities, and what appear to be several fairly balanced builds (dps output for pve/viability for pvp) to work with instead of the old standby: PVErs go 20-41-0 , PVPers go 20-0-41, and some of you can try mute (41-20-0). Long story short, I'm psyched that they're gonna try to let us be effective with whatever we choose to play (swords s daggers). I also like that for the larger raids its going to be viable to bring pretty much one of every spec in every class.

The thing is that they are all EQUALLY overpowered , thus making the level of "power" relative

Besides, its early days yet, changes will be incoming

I see a shift back to pre-BC roguery and I've very happy about that. Deep sub daggers seems like it's going to just about decimate anyone not in plate. Also druids are absolutely ridiculous, I mean what the hell?

Yeah, they're pretty much being turned into Gods.

Blizzard should just announce that they prefer druids to anything else already. Get it out in the open.

The same way they preffered shamans in vanilla and Warlocks in BC?

Meh, I don't notice things like this too much, I PvE

i'll second that although i'm on a pvp server just because when i switched servers it had the lowest population.

Hmm, I should probably have a look at the talent trees ands such for WotLK. From what one of the mages in my guild said that the mage talent trees are kind of underwhelming, though.

Has anyone had the opportunity to fiddle with the Beta? I'd really like to know if its as awesomediddles as I think its going to be.

I don't play a mage but it's only underwhelming compared to what Druids are getting.

Nobody else gets toys as shiny as them. Couple other classes come close, though.

Someone should drop a link to notes about the up and coming talent trees. I haven't heard anything about them, but I've been out of the wow world for months now.

QUOTE(Verbose @ Jul 19 2008, 09:21 PM) [snapback]250166[/snapback]

I don't play a mage but it's only underwhelming compared to what Druids are getting.

Nobody else gets toys as shiny as them. Couple other classes come close, though.

Well, they could always "fix" those said druid talents/skills before releasing the expansion. Or at least nerf them if they don't get to it before releasing. They are going to let us fiddle with the new talents a month or so before the expansion comes out like they did last expansion, right?

Well, ya I suppose Warlocks were OP... and I don't know if this has already been said, but with Wrath we get decimated. First of all, the affliction tree really doesn't get touched too much, so kudos there. Demonology gets a bs talent at the bottom of the tree... YAY We Get To Turn Into A Demon!!! Against other warlocks that completely blows... Banish anyone??
And Destruction is a great joke. Destro is now a fire mage with a tiny bit of shadow thrown in. WTF?


and Druids are so... OMG that I'm scared, I really am.

honestly, what I can't wait for(and I'm sorry for all of you hardcore people who's ears will start bleeding when I say this) is the ability to make my character look different. new hairstyles and such. <3 I know my priest drives me nuts, even though she's my main, I hate how she looks. Fixing that is gonna be one of my first priorities when I get my copy of the xpac.

Actually, I wouldn't mind doing that to some of my characters too, Jaezelle

I am looking forward to giving Josef (my chars name) a good beard trim