Cataclysm Part III–Dungeons

Cataclysm brought back the dungeon design of Vanilla/BC.  By that I mean that Heroic are challenging and not the roll face WOLK used to be, at least at the current gear level.  Unlike the previous expansion you can’t hit 85 and just expect to go straight into heroics without.  We’ll you can if you cheat the system and have a guild to carry you.

First of all you needed the correct gear score to even queue for a heroic random.  Sure there are players that cheated the system by having a higher level item, even if it was the wrong spec, in the bank or bags.  All the roll face/LOL tanks in WOLK disappeared really fast and only those that truly know what they are doing and can put up with the crap that comes from pugging stayed tanking.  The result is that it takes more than 45 minutes for the Heroic dungeon queue to pop for a dps class. 

In Cataclysm Heroic dungeons trash has to be CC, interrupted, kited or is a wipe.  Very few if any trash can be AOE down and dps has to actually watch their threat or is a wipe.  If the boss fight is not done correctly is a wipe.  If the DPS score is too low is a wipe.  If the healer does not know how to conserve mana he will run out of juice and it’s a wipe.  If the tank does not know when to use cool downs is a wipe.  If the group does not move out, collapse or stand in bad is a wipe.  I think you get my point.

At the beginning I was doing random heroics with pure pugs.  I wanted the challenge that comes with pugs.  I had two incidents that made me stop pugging heroics all together. 

First one was in a heroic Deadmines run that dps started bitching how I could not hold threat.  After I blew off on them and told them to STFU and give me time to position the trash and grab agro, this was not WOLK that they could let go right away, they stop complaining.  I think it was more of them been scared of me leaving them stranded waiting another 30 minutes or more for another tank.  But miracles of miracles they started attacking the correct mobs instead of trying to aoe everything.  One more thing regarding Deadmines, the Foe Reaper 5000 boss sucks big time to tank as a warrior or bear tank.  The guy will hit us for a few second and go away to do his thing, leaving us rage starve.

The second incident, and the one the broke the camels back for me, was on a heroic Blackrock Caverns pug.  We got all the way to Beauty, and optional boss, without any problems.  If you have run that Heroic you know that the hard part is getting past Arsh Steelbender, the rest its easy.  I told the pug that I had never been able to down her at that time and I did not think we had the cc for the pups or the dps to down her.  Sure enough we wiped two times because we could only control one of the pups and the dps was really low.  Then out of no where I got kicked out of the group.  I never been kick out of a heroic before, and the worst part was I had no idea why I was kicked out.  After that I gave up on pugs and decided to run with mainly guildies only.

I have to say that I do enjoy the new heroics.  I’m sure they will become a joke after we get better gear, but for now they are challenging.  The only thing I hate about the heroics is that they take a long time to finish.  Some players, specially those that liked the face roll that was WOLK dungeons, are constantly complaining on how hard they are.  GC even wrote a long post on complaints on how hard they are.  You can read his post here. By the way I agree 100% with him on this matter.

Cataclysm Part II

Last week I summarized the status of my toons.  Today I will talk about my experience through the new Cataclysm leveling zones.  As of today I have experience 95% of the quests in Cataclysm with one toon or another, I got the Loremaster of Cataclysm on my main. 

 

Vashj’ir

The underwater world that my guild seems to hate.  Notice I said my guild and not everyone.  I actually picked this as my starting leveling zone instead of Mount Hyjal.  I really enjoyed the zone and don’t see why so many in my guild hate it.  The quests line that I enjoyed the most was the Naga quest line.  Unlike WOTLK I decided to actually pay attention to the lore and read all the text from the NPC.  Having said that I found it difficult to go back there for another round when I started leveling my alts after experiencing Hyjal.

 

Mount Hyjal

While I enjoy Vashj’ir quests, I found Mount Hyjal easier to level.  I think it had to do with the zone been smaller than Vashj’ir, or at least it seemed to be.  One of the big plus of this zone is that the portal from SW is right in the middle of the zone, so any place is relatedly close.  While the lore was good, the most striking part about this zone was the use of phase terrain.  A big example of this is how the Gove of Aessina, Santuary of Malorne and The Flamewake zone changes after completing the quest line.  Gone are the creatures and scared land you fought to clear.

 

Deepholm

I can’t say I enjoyed the zone, or quests, in Deepholm much.  I think the only part I enjoyed was the Therazane quest line.  The last few quests leading to the final epic battle were really good.

 

Uldum

Questing here was fun, specially the Harrison Jones quest line.  I specially like the quest that you use a flaming ball to kill 1000 gnomes.  Who does not like killing Gnomes .  One of the big plusses of this zone is how easy it is to mine ore.  The bad part is that everyone knows it and there are always two or three players doing the relative straight node farm in the zone.

 

Twilight Highlands

I experience two problems with this zone.  One, is the last  zone before getting to 85 so you are either burned out or in a hurry to finish leveling.  And the second is that most of the rep dailies are in this zone.  Having said that the quests are actually really good.  I think my favorite quest here is the one where you have to shoot down the horde drake riders with a flaming arrow missiles.

 

Overall I enjoyed the quests in Cataclysm.  I think the biggest problem I found is the small amount of new zones, only 5, in this release.  Having so small number of high level zones makes it quite hard to farm materials for various professions since there is a large number of players farming in the same places.  For example Twilight Jasmine can only be found in the Twilight Higlands and is a big component for end game raiding potions like Flask of Steelsking (it requires 12 of them per flask).

Cataclysm Update

Its been a couple of month since the release of Cataclysm and so far, like everything in life, it has its good, decent, and terrible parts.  First an update as to where I stand in the game.

I decided to go ahead and delete the Night Elf Druid and roll a Worgen Druid.  Why not simply race change?  I wanted to experience the startup area and the changes to the old world content.  As of today the new druid is level 22, easy to level with BOA gear plus extra bonus from guild achievement.   Been leveling him in Kaldimor, but I still prefer the Easter Kindom zone’s better.

I got my main, Raquoon, to 85 in no time since I was out on vacation the first two weeks of the Cata release.  I could have level the rest of my toons easy enough to 85 but did not want to get burn out, and needed to dedicate lots of time in gearing my main for raids.  So I level the rest on a most need priority based on how they could support my main.

Raqrage was my second choice because I needed the ore to level blacksmith and JC on main.  I’m still debating the future of this toon.  If I manage to level the DK, have tried it several times and can’t seem to like the class, as a gatherer I might server transfer him or delete him altogether.  Anyways as of yesterday my second warrior, shaman, Pali and mage were all 85. 

Leveling the profession on the alts is a slow process since the mats prices in the AH are ridiculous.  So far they are only high enough to support the consumables I need to raid.

Like I mention before I rolled a replacement druid that will take over the Skinning/Leather working slot of the deleted druid.  Leveling LW in Northrend is going to be a pain since the zone is somewhat empty and Blizz lower the xp requirements to level.  As for other toons?  The DK still sitting in the starting zone and the Hunter is sitting at level 60 in outland.

On the next ports I will go over my experience on the new zones, dungeons, leveling, and raiding in Cataclysm.

Cataclysm..so many decisions to make

Five day’s until the next expansion and can’t wait.  I been debating the order of leveling my toons.  I am, with out question, and alcoholic.  While lots of people hate it, I have the must fun going through the leveling process.  So far the first two I will level without debater are going to be:

1. Raquoon – My main since I starting playing WoW..enough said.
2. Raqrage – I need him to farm ore so I can level BS and Jewel Crafting on my main.  I might just fly around gathering mats until my main crafting is level and decide what to do with this toon.  I don’t need 2 warrior tanks now that I know how to play a pali tank and will be rolling a bear and DK.  Then again I do love warrior tanks.

After those two it’s a toss up as to what to level next.  All of my alts are there to support my main so the it will come down what’s more important at the time.

1. Raqshamy – my inscriptions and used to be the gold maker.  After the changes in 4.x no so sure anymore.  I made a TON of gold just after 4.x hit selling glyphs, so I’m more than confortable in the Gold department.
2. Raqpali – my herb/alchemy.  Since I won’t be raiding right away I might be ok in regards of pots.
3. RaqMage – Tailor/Enchant.  If there are no restriction on Toon level to crafting level this one will probably be the last to level.  Reason for this is that I will be getting all the mats as I level the other toons.  If there are restrictions then this guy has to be the second or third.
4. Raqdru – I been debating, and come close to deleting, what to do with this toon.  I what to roll a Worgen druid because they look nice.  On the other hand I have spent close to 10k gold on epic flying, mounts and crafting mats.  But in the end this one will probably be deleted.
5. <future> – Thinking of finally rolling a DK so I can have one of every tank class.  Have tried it several times but have never gotten pass level 60.
6. Raqhunt – He’s only level 60 and I only play with him when Shriel is online.  Will be resting for a long time while I level the rest of my toons.

I have a few low level toons in other servers but they will not be played much, or at all, come Cataclysm for a long while.