World of Warcraft

[Dis]

dp

[Apocalypse]

Two shadow priests, two hunters makes it go pretty easy. Also a druid with my exact build.

[Dis]

Finally got Moroes. We got a new hunter to our guild, and he helped out. Used freezing traps when a shackle broke early or resisted. As that was a major problem before. Other than that, pretty much the same setup. 2 holy priests, one resto shaman (me). We also got the rogue to respec, as he was using a pvp build, and our holy priest (who has an awesome rogue main) helped him out with combo point buildup/rotation. It just takes some solid dps to down the adds quickly, and down Moroes quickly. I died twice in the fight though. I picked the right attempt to blow my reincarnation cooldown, but then got garroted a second time and died when Moroes was about 3%.

And I got the belt of Gale Force . As i'm the only healing mail user, it went to me.

Now we have to figure out Maiden. First couple tries we only got her around 39%. I'd like to keep ranged in my party to protect them from holy fire with my grounding totem. But I'm not sure if my chain heal will heal rogues in the other party. But the rogues are taking too much damage and they aren't doing a good job keeping her in the center. But I think we can get her.

[Dis]

Oh I also did BG's for the first time last night with some guildies after our kara run.

I wasn't sure about them with a full raiding resto build, and healing equipment. Lately I've been too lazy to switch out equipment, and just leave all my healing equipment on all the time. I don't farm much anyways, just bog lords for ancient lichens (i hate the drop rate of these things, need to get my druid high enough so he can sneak in instances and get it). I'd use my hunter if I had to farm elementals.

I was so happy I could take out a mage in a 1 on 1 fight. I basically outlasted him, and he ran out of mana. Between my grounding totems and my earth shocks he didn't get much off on me. He did counterspell one of my heals, but I healed after that. He started using his wand when he ran out of mana. And I beat some hunters 1 on 1 as well. Strangely, despite my spell damage, I use melee and shocks. As I know I can't compete with a hunter with ranged damage. So I use shocks/earthbind to slow him and just chase them around and slowly beat them down. the key word is slowly . Those hunters were stupid for not using their freezing traps though. So they weren't that good. Other hunters I beat because they kept firing arrows at another target while I just melee'd/shocked them down.

I like BG's. I'm anonymous enough that it doesn't matter if I suck. . But I did okay. I can sometimes top healing charts, and get a few killing blows and a decent amount of kills.

[Dis]

I'm starting to get burned out on this game again. But I still enjoy it as well. It's kind of a love/hate relationship. Raiding just takes too much time it seems. And now we have guild drama, and our 2nd best healer (holy priest) left. I'm not sure if she was that great anyways. I might be a better healer than her. She basically wanted to be included on every Kara run no matter what. And some of the guild members didn't feel that was fair. I don't have much preference on the matter. She was senior to me in the time in the guild. I had no problem stepping down. In fact, I was more than happy to step down for the Moroes fight. . That thing is still a pain in the ass. In fact, we couldn't down him tuesday night. Our dps was a little different, and I think they were lacking. And the healer who left had problem keeping shackles on. Though my brother told me just a few points of spell hit will prevent or minimize the shackles breaking early. Anyways she was on my friends list, and she's the one who invited me to the new guild (after the old one fell apart), when I came back after my hiatus.

The issue I have now is I want to quit and play D&D online with my brother. . It's just hard to quit a guild who you've invested a lot of time in. And they invested time in me getting me keyed for Kara. And I got 2 drops in Kara. Couldn't do it without them. But in the same token, I am looking forward to a game that doesn't have such a huge time investment. And D&D online seems to be this game. I think I would prefer a game where death has some meaning, and it isn't necessary to wipe on a boss like 5 or 10 times before you finally figure out how to beat him. And we haven't even got to Curator yet. And I hear he's real hard. Although the way my brother was explaining it, it doesn't seem like he's that hard- assuming the party can work together that is.

Anyways we haven't run Kara since last tuesday. Everything seems in turmoil now. She was the one who updated the guild calender. Now no one is using it. But I did heal for the final boss fight in heroic slave pens last night. One guy dropped out, so I was brought in to heal. I was a bit undergeared, but we downed him first try. I just barely kept myself and the tank alive. we did lose 2 dps people though. I ran out of mana, burned a pot, ran out of mana again. But he was like at 2% then. So we downed him. I had to use too many lesser healing waves that fight. And that spell just isn't that efficient compared to healing wave (especially when healing way stacks 3 times). But sometimes you have to use the faster heal to ensure someone doesn't die. That was my first experience in a heroic. I've been scared to do heroics up till now. But I feel a little better about the easier ones (some are just insane though).

[DrSpike]

I'll let you into a secret: the love/hate relationship is the cornerstone of all successful MMOs.

Raiding can be a pain, because of guild politics, wipes, people not preparing properly etc, but taking down a new boss feels great. I think you just have to decide whether the good outweighs the bad.

On the plus side you haven't invested too much yet - you'd quite easily get into a low tier guild later I'd guess, with the raid gear you've added recently. So you haven't reached the (dangerous) stage where you're locked into to reaping the return on your investment.

As to D&D it's not really an MMO and was panned on release for lacking missions (a problem in a mission based game). I'm sure they've added content since then but you are still paying monthly for a glorified Guild Wars type game. GW is getting old now but still an unrivalled classic at what it does, and you want to consider playing through those campaigns with your brother.

[Zero]

i dont raid, i pvp.

i have about 10 friends that play on same server. we made a private guild of our own. we would do some light raiding (which i dont take part in), but we're mostly pvp based.

and its for the exact same reason why ur dreading it. getting 25 ppl to work together is too much work. If it happenes great, but if ur forcing it and investing too much time to make it work, its not fun. so why bother with all that politics.

im having fun doing dailies, world pvp, arena and bging with them. because not everyone has to make it to all these events and u can play with whoever is online atm.

[Dis]

haven't posted in a while. Raiding is taking up all my time. . And I also have a new job. so between that and raiding, not much time for much else.

We've done a few complete clears of Kara now. Not too bad. Prince fight can be tricky if you have some bad luck, but not so bad with grace of air totem out. My healing is around 1645 right now. Still pretty far above the pally, so I've been primarily main tank healing. though I've had stints chain healing, which I love. Because I get on top of the healing charts that way . I still can't figure out how the pally beats me in healing when I have 300 more healing than him. But my earth shield doesn't show up in healing charts under my name.

We also tried Gruuls' with another guild. that was a huge cluster****. We didn't get very far. *sigh*. We only had 5 healers. and I know that's not enough. So again, I was relegated to MT healing, which isn't my strongest point.

And we continue to try ZA. We've been attempting ZA for like 4 weeks now. Mainly to learn the fights. But can't really get the 1st bear boss past 50%. I think the tanks are just taking too much damage, which requires massive healing and overhealing which burns through my mana. I don't think we are good enough for ZA, but the raid leader keeps pushing us. I still would like to farm a lot more from Kara. mace from maiden, shield from chess event, chest from Netherspite, necklace maybe from Nightbane, not to mention I haven't got either T4 in Kara.

[Sparrowhawk]

Wow, I was starting to wonder if I was the only one on Apolyton still playing

I am still playing 5 characters, and focusing more on other goals then leveling (which is my excuse for leveling slowly ).

My 5 are:
Level 50 NE Druid
Level 35 Human Priest
Level 35 Dwarven Hunter
Level 35 Draenei Paladin
Level 35 Draenei Shaman

I have had the recent goal of raising profession skills while getting everyone to 35, so that I could raise skills to Artisan. Now that I have that, I plan on getting my skills up beyond 225 (primary and secondary).

I had stopped playing my main, but now might stick with the Druid as I got to Shatt for the first time last night, and made it my home (once someone in my guild explained that I had to choose between the two factions in Shatt to make a home there). It was an exciting moment, as I figured I had finally gotten to the next portion of the game! Still too low a level for Outlands, but it is cool to at least be able to see a small part of it (and upgrade my all important professions to master!).

My characters still don't compare to similarly levelled characters, for three primary reasons. (1) I don't spend talent points. For my druid I spent the points up to level 39 in order to get Heart of the Wild, but since then they nerfed it so not sure it was the greatest decision. The other 4 have yet to spend a talent point. I am strangely proud of that point, though not sure why. I still get asked "what spec are you" which I generally respond to with a lol and a suggestion that they inspect me. (2) I don't farm instances for better equipment, nor do I purchase equipment on the AH (though I have, just not much). I am cheap and believe my professions will carry me with decent enough equipment, even though I know I would get better through drops. I don't like to even use BOE equipment, preferring to disenchant it or sell it. That leaves me with what I make and what I get through BOP items. (3) I have yet to get an enchant beyond what my enchanter casts on herself. Does make sense to me to pay for an enchant on a weapon/armour that I may only use for a few levels, so I don't bother.

These three things result in my being considerably weaker then a comparable leveled/class Toon but I am okay with that, I just don't Duel or PvP .

I look forward to what comes next, the game is still exciting for me.....though worried that says more about me then it does about the game

/me

p.s. Anyone care to help me with understanding profession specialization? I don't know when I have to choose, and whether choosing one means I can't do the other or just can't do it as well or as often. Help would be appreciated here.

[DrSpike]

Why would you not use your talent points?

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally I figured I didn't want to have to pay to respec, so I wanted to make sure I got it right the first time. After a while I kinda forgot about them and it wasn't until later that I decided I wanted to get Heart of the Wild (feral druid). I think I will try to get a moonkin (maxing Balance) but that won't be until 70 and not sure what route to get there and haven't thought about it much.

For the others it became a challenge to see how much I could level without spending Talent Points. With my priest for example, I orginally created it with the thought of being a Holy Spec as I wanted to be able to easily find a group to do instances with. The more I read however suggests that Shadow is the way to go and that if I want a Holy Priest that I should go shadow until level 70, and then respec to Holy if that's what I stil want. The other toons I have just been too lazy to check into the different options and too indecisive about what way to go based on what little I have read.

That was the long answer, short answer is being too indecisive about which way to go for fear of making a mistake (even knowing that it is a mistake not to spend them).

/me

[DrSpike]

Well, whatever floats your boat I guess.

My view is that early respecs are very cheap, and by not using your talent points you lose out on far far more gold by killing slower.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Zero

and its for the exact same reason why ur dreading it. getting 25 ppl to work together is too much work. If it happenes great, but if ur forcing it and investing too much time to make it work, its not fun. so why bother with all that politics.

You should have tried it when raids required 40 people. I think 25 is too much, but the whole point of raiding in games like this is a time sink for the developers. Frankly, the harder it is to organize, the better it is for the devs.

I haven't played WoW for just under a year now. A few of my long term friends in game had quit, so it was time.

And Dis, if the warrior tank refuses to use a shield, find another tank. 99% of the time that player is not only a noob, but a noob with an ego problem. Same goes for a priest who doesn't know what fade is, or a hunter who refuses to feign death because it is "cowardly", or a Warlock who doesn't know what a soulstone does.

What's the deal with hunters lately? When I left Beast Mastery was (ironically) the top PvE spec. Is that still the case?

I never got to the Moroes fight. Is it like that fight in Scholo where the priest has to shackle one add and the hunter chain traps the other? I always enjoyed that fight (although not as much as my solo Drak kills).

[DinoDoc]

Which BG would you guys run to getgear if the stuff you have is crap? I've never really run these things before but the guild refuses to take me on raids with what I have and told me BGs are the fastest way to get better gear but neglected to recomend one.

[Sparrowhawk]

I have been playing for almost a year now, but can't help you....my gear (and everything else) is crap too!

But that is by choice, lol.

/me