WOW Beta: Warlords of Draenor

[Regorium]

Was on vacation when the expansion released, and just binge-gamed for the weekend. Hit 100 in 2 days and the game is absolutely fantastic.

No longer gonna do heroic (or mythic) raiding, but it seems like there's so many things to do that have meaningful progression and are fun at the same time so am still pretty happy so far!

[Komskies]

If I were doing a boost on a new character I'd still take the time to level it to 60 to get the level 600 professions. You can do 1-60 in an afternoon or two of dungeon grinding.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

One thing to keep in mind is that if you boost a character from below 60, your profession skills won't boost with it.

How is that any different than changing a profession and starting from scratch?

[Blaster86]

Things I've liked (in list format):

• Lore. It matters. After the high of killing Ar'zhulthas they really needed to come back with something big. No, killing Deathwing for the third time and Jack Black don't do it. They got on the right track at the end of MoP and carried it through here. It's both nostalgic and new enough to work for everyone.
• Garrison work. What a huge improvement on dailies. Same function, easier and more enjoyable as you see growth and change while doing it. Feels less like a job and more like a game.
• Dungeon Difficulty. Cataclysm was easy. Too easy. I feel between the three levels I have tried, they hit the mark for what they need to do.
• The Loot System. Gone is the day where that big bad ass you killed was just wearing a belt for five of you to rip off his corpse. Now every one can find an accessory to rob from the dead beastie. Just makes sense. I know it simplifies gearing, but as long as the fight is difficult it shouldn't matter. A boss should have more than a helmet on.
• The LFG/LFR system. I thought I would hate it. Actually don't mind it. I got over the loss of community via the quickness of queuing.

What I don't like:

• All the rare spawns. Why is Draenor so full of named spawns? Why are they all so easy to kill? How can I find the Iron Horde threatening when they couldn't kill a Talbuk that they decided was so ferocious that they named it, but I walk up and smack it around like, well, a talbuk.
• Why are epics dropping off these easily killed rarespawns. One of WoW's biggest issues has been the cheapening of gear levels. Going back to Vanilla. With the stat crunch, I'd have hoped they'd take the advantage and reestablish epics and legendaries as awesome and impressive things to have. Not getting them from a 91 bog monster or a quest line done outside of a raid.
• PvP is still awful. Heard complaints of imbalance and BGs are still won or lost based on what faction you're on. Awful.
• Importance of ilevel. Dumb. Skill matters too, but WoW puts emphasis on luck of drops and time spent farming.
• The neutering of crafting skills. Poor... poor alchemists and jewelcrafters.

Over-all enjoyable to return. The first raid (no Molten Core doesn't count. #### Molten Core) will be the true test on if I stay or if I go.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by Komskies

You can do 1-60 in an afternoon or two of dungeon grinding.

Serious? Is it that quick now??

[Komskies]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

Serious? Is it that quick now??

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Now my characters were fully heirloomed out, but you can start queueing for dungeons at level 15 and for the first while you're getting over a level per dungeon (the dungeon quests are now inside the dungeon at the start, and provide great exp) and it takes 10 minutes or less to clear one with a good group. It slows down around level 50-52 as the choices for dungeons starts to dwindle.

I'd take leveling a character to 60 over leveling two professions from 1-600 every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

• Lore. It matters. After the high of killing Ar'zhulthas they really needed to come back with something big. No, killing Deathwing for the third time and Jack Black don't do it. They got on the right track at the end of MoP and carried it through here. It's both nostalgic and new enough to work for everyone.

Oh, yes. I love running around, reading the quests and seeing what's going on. Things feel like they matter again.

• Garrison work. What a huge improvement on dailies. Same function, easier and more enjoyable as you see growth and change while doing it. Feels less like a job and more like a game.

I'm a huge fan of my garrison

• All the rare spawns. Why is Draenor so full of named spawns? Why are they all so easy to kill? How can I find the Iron Horde threatening when they couldn't kill a Talbuk that they decided was so ferocious that they named it, but I walk up and smack it around like, well, a talbuk.

I like this. The mobs don't really drop much useful, though there are some neat toys, they are fun to find but not required, and you can hunt them for garrison resources. I enjoy having them around.

[steveo]

I don't mind the rare elites either cause I got myself a lot of decent gear and a lot of luck getting them to roll upgrades to rares/epic quality (as well as quest items) for my druid.. Its probably nice for a lot of ppl who don't have much gear or came into WoD with boosted gear.

For my warlock however I had quite a bit of heroic and warforged heroic gear so I didn't upgrade much from that stuff until I hit 100. The PvP gear came pretty quick from ashran and daily random pvp for the lockbox which gave me my ilvl 620 ish gear (goes up to 675-720 during pvp/battlegrounds)

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Komskies

Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Now my characters were fully heirloomed out, but you can start queueing for dungeons at level 15 and for the first while you're getting over a level per dungeon (the dungeon quests are now inside the dungeon at the start, and provide great exp) and it takes 10 minutes or less to clear one with a good group. It slows down around level 50-52 as the choices for dungeons starts to dwindle.

I'd take leveling a character to 60 over leveling two professions from 1-600 every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I'll have to disagree. The average person will need a good week to hit 60 on a new character, because they won't have an heirloom item for every slot like you do. I have 4 heirloom pieces on a Warrior I'm leveling and after hitting level 40 the Dungeons take longer and you don't get as much out of them. The 20th run of Scarlet Monastery gets pretty boring too.

I can level professions anywhere while I quest, and I'd rather do that as I go because they aren't a necessity anymore. I barely even care about leveling Jewelcrafting on my main now because there's very little point compared to before. The gem market is dead.

[GreenLantern]

One question I had about trades, do you still get that specific one slot bonus? For example, with tailoring the last time I played having it at a certain level allowed you to apply a very nice bonus to your legs, giving you an advantage for having that trade skill.

I think enchanters got to do extra or more powerful enchants, jewelcrafting gave a few more powerful jewels etc... are those still around?

[Blaster86]

No, you don't. Crafting bonuses have been removed.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

One question I had about trades, do you still get that specific one slot bonus? For example, with tailoring the last time I played having it at a certain level allowed you to apply a very nice bonus to your legs, giving you an advantage for having that trade skill.

I think enchanters got to do extra or more powerful enchants, jewelcrafting gave a few more powerful jewels etc... are those still around?

They've purposely removed these things so you don't feel like you HAVE to take a specific profession just to eke out a little more in your theorycrafting simulator build. Professions are very much simplified from their previous incarnations.

[nik-]

god dammit, I broke down and bought a computer to try this out

I'm a ####ing #######

[RedMileDJ]

Lol.

I think we should all do a little LFR once we all hit 100. Maybe organize a weekly thing.

[Skaloper]

Originally Posted by RedMileDJ

Lol.

I think we should all do a little LFR once we all hit 100. Maybe organize a weekly thing.

LFR is beyond painful. If you are organizing a group I would recommend doing normal mode as you can control who you group with.

[Big_BC_FlamesFan]

Hit 100 a few days ago....getting into heroics, I thought the Silver Tirals Challange needed to enter Heroics (in conjunction with ilvl) was a bit lame. But with Insta 90's I guess they had to do something to allow people to learn their respective classes.

Ran the MC last night too....I have not been in that place in YEARS...lol it was funny watching the amount of fail that was going on...luckily the RL booted those folks out over the course of the first 2 bosses....then we had a pretty stable group than burned through it. The mount is cool...the Helm is nice to get the ilvl up.

very happy with the game though I dont even miss flying.....yet.....

[Maccalus]

I also hit 100 a few days ago and have been delving into heroics. I have found all the dungeons to be fairly enjoyable and want to hit challenge modes as soon as I can get geared to an acceptable point. This is the first time that I completed the quests for every zone on a character. It was actually really fun.

My Fury warrior rotation does feel a little broken at this gear level and crit level. This seems like it hasn't changed from every expansion prior.

If you guys want to add me, I am Maccalus#1227

[DoubleK]

They did some rebalancing with the latest hotfix/patch. Nothing for priests...

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

Is there a cap to what the resources get to before you have to collect them?

I have since learned that the cap for your Garrison Cache is 500.

[RedMileDJ]

WhiteTiger, what is your BattleTag?

You guys can add me: Redmile#1569