World of Whorecraft: Battle for Asseroth

[Mezebriel]

Xenich in ancient times talent trees were full of filler talents or talents which you just had to take to get further down the tree which didn't bring much. There weren't any meaningfull choices. As a priest you just had to take +crit talents to get divine fury ie. faster healing spells even though crit just contributed to overhealing.
And don't tell me talents like +1% dodge or parry were gamechanging and exciting.
Moreover i don't remember any experimentation with builds... it was always cherry picking best talents as guides online said... and when you didn't do so you had hard time participating in raids as you were expected to have some deep into the tree talent skills.
At least now you get real choices instead a false ones.

 

[Wilian]

Xenich in ancient times talent trees were full of filler talents or talents which you just had to take to get further down the tree which didn't bring much. There weren't any meaningfull choices. As a priest you just had to take +crit talents to get divine fury ie. faster healing spells even though crit just contributed to overhealing.
And don't tell me talents like +1% dodge or parry were gamechanging and exciting.
Moreover i don't remember any experimentation with builds... it was always cherry picking best talents as guides online said... and when you didn't do so you had hard time participating in raids as you were expected to have some deep into the tree talent skills.
At least now you get real choices instead a false ones.

You're not entirely correct. He's right that earliel you had more viable choices for experiementing and whatnot but that only applied to leveling and dungeons at end game. When doing any serious raiding it all crumbled down to what is most effective past MC.

 

[Xenich]

Choice was always illusion and the earliel you go more it's down to lack of understanding the system and presented information. After a certain point ( MC, which with best notions is like LFR raid ) you always went for pre-determined builds because they simply mathematically were better.

Anecdotal "my friend who was durid did this and that and it impressed people" ever came only down to a fact that he played in shit company to begin with to make such impressions. I played Ret Paladin and a rogue. I was famed for being good enough ret paladin to challenge people in DPS but it wasn't because of amazing builds or skills, it was because everyone else fucking sucked and I knew how to play the game. Further down as playing rogue it became more apparent when I was leading meters not by some 3-5% but 10-25%

If you ever had a feral druid friend who amazed anyone with his build or DPS, it's a good sign of "fuck that dude played with scrubs".

Now it can be argued that early game supported more inventive and hybrid builds better and that's true. It really did because you could counter normal instance mobs and pulls in many different ways and it always was great. Hybrid classes and such always shined most in the pre-raid enviroment for the sheer toolkit they had.

But when you got into the raid end game, bullshitting ends there.

No fucking Duh raid builds were limited, I mean... they were all pointless DPS contests anyway. It would have been nice if they would have focused on actually marketing on various hybrid and specialty focuses in the raids (they did to "some" extent in the early MC/BWL content) as they did in early group content, but when you have a stupid fucking player base that masturbates to DPS numbers, what do you expect?

The best content in WoW was mostly pre-raid content as there was a point to classes. Once raids hit, you only needed the top DPS classes, Tanks, and healers. Everyone else was wasted space. It is easy to make the claim about playing with scrubs because you don't agree with me, but then that sounds like a WoW forum argument of "learn to play". The fact is, Feral druids became ridiculously powerful in raid content. Hell, there were several nerf patches in the past expansions due to their insane tanking ability.

I played a Pally/Mage during the vanilla years. Came back on a few times during the later expansions, but didn't care for the fucktard direction the game went. Also, I think I know the difference between playing against people who sucked. I led 72 man raids in EQ and was playing with a lot of the people I played there with. So, it wasn't an issue of running with a bunch of idiots who couldn't figure out out to play the game. Seriously, there was nothing to complicated about WoW in the first place, excelling at it isn't something I would consider amazing. /shrug

 

[Xenich]

Xenich in ancient times talent trees were full of filler talents or talents which you just had to take to get further down the tree which didn't bring much. There weren't any meaningfull choices. As a priest you just had to take +crit talents to get divine fury ie. faster healing spells even though crit just contributed to overhealing.
And don't tell me talents like +1% dodge or parry were gamechanging and exciting.
Moreover i don't remember any experimentation with builds... it was always cherry picking best talents as guides online said... and when you didn't do so you had hard time participating in raids as you were expected to have some deep into the tree talent skills.
At least now you get real choices instead a false ones.

You're not entirely correct. He's right that earliel you had more viable choices for experiementing and whatnot but that only applied to leveling and dungeons at end game. When doing any serious raiding it all crumbled down to what is most effective past MC.

Correct, and to be honest... that was what they designed WoW to be in the first place. It that fucktard Furor and Tiogle who put WoW on a path of endless large raid content while neglecting the smaller group content to which the game was designed. Not surprising though, all the high level talent who designed the game left shortly before release.

Yeah, MC still contained many aspects of play to where you could use various class abilities in trash and special raid content. With BWL, that all went to shit as every fight became nothing more than a fucking DPS contest. I mean, the first fight of BWL had all kinds of interesting aspects of play, but they fucked it and allowed a simple DPS approach to invalidate the entire fight. This is where WoW started going downhil, well... it already had when they decided to go with 40 man raids and were neglecting group content to focus on fucktastic raid content.

 

[Xenich]

Xenich in ancient times talent trees were full of filler talents or talents which you just had to take to get further down the tree which didn't bring much. There weren't any meaningfull choices. As a priest you just had to take +crit talents to get divine fury ie. faster healing spells even though crit just contributed to overhealing.
And don't tell me talents like +1% dodge or parry were gamechanging and exciting.
Moreover i don't remember any experimentation with builds... it was always cherry picking best talents as guides online said... and when you didn't do so you had hard time participating in raids as you were expected to have some deep into the tree talent skills.
At least now you get real choices instead a false ones.

Not really, sounds like you are talking about the late tree focuses they had before they did this last one. The early trees had numerous ability type focuses that were not just DPS/HPS focuses. They allowed for lots of cool builds to do many different things in the content, but as Wilian pointed out, post MC, with the introduction of BWL, everything became a DPS fight and so over the course of BC, and on they started streamlining the trees and focusing them more on DPS/HPS rather than all of the various utilities they had before. Hell, last time I played before this time all the systems were down to key rotations to maximize damage based on the proper sync and timing. Now it seems like all you have to do is roll your face over the keyboard, no... seriously... that is how dumbed down it feels now.

What you have now is just stripped down streamlined DPS/HPS focused system, which is not a surprise considering that is all the content requires. There was a time when root, sheep, snare, etc... and a slew of other CC/utility abilities required for content. Now all you need is a big hammer because everything is a nail. It really is sad, todays WoW is romper room. /shrug

 

[Avellion]

Except not really, the nice thing about the new talents is that for most of the part, the three talent choices are roughly equally viable, with some faring better in some fights over others. Instead of chosing +30% damage for thorns vs being able to cast the main nuke spell 20% faster, the choices this time around are significantly more balanced around each other. While the old talent system was essentially minefield with the mines already being revealed to anyone with the slightest bit of common sense, the new system allows for much more choice and variety between builds.

Some talents in hte new system are utter shit however, like Chi Torpedo (which is only good if you are having a really good day and people line up exactly how you want them too or if you are Roleplaying M. Bison).

I don't see what you are talking about. Of the choices you have, you have 1) Pick your role and 2) make a choice between 3 talents every so many levels. Now it may be more "balanced", I am not arguing that, in fact I would agree that streamlining would result an easier time of balancing between the classes and it is probably the main reason they did it, not for any real attempt to create a better system. Past that, there is no real choice, no experimentation as you are essentially the same regardless of your choice. Now I guess it also depends what version of the trees you are comparing. I think it was around Cata that they revamped the trees and it really limited development choice and selection (ie killed multi-tree builds) as prior to that you could really create some interesting builds by going down the various trees and maximizing various focuses. If you compare to that, well... this is a severely dumbed down system and while it may be more "balanced", the idea that people were all playing the same thing back then isn't a lacking of the system, but rather idiocy of the player base. As I said though, they followed the fad until someone else found a new combination to which the idiot crowd followed that. The difference is that now, there really isn't any point as every choice is basically the same. There are not distinct play styles and builds, just meaningless choices resulting in the same basic function and ability as every other person of that role focus. There really is no comparison to old WoW trees.

Though, I see the reason for not having complex trees anymore. There is no need for character development of any note as the content is all pretty much the same. You run in, you group DPS/HPS and rush off to your next targets. Gone are the days of clever uses of a number of varying skills, of CC, of interesting combinations of abilities. There isn't a need, the content itself is bland, pointless, and easily suited for simplistic button smashing. /shrug

Yes, talent specializations do suck cancerous balls. Instead of each class being its own style, every player is now defined by their role determined by what spec they chose, not their class. Essentially resulting in 4 classes with different flavors.
Yes, you had more choice in early WoW than you do now, sure each individual choice you make now has more of an impact, but the accumulation of talents eventually added up. That said, the choice you had during Cataclysm was terrible, that is when the talent tree was met with huge decline.

However, you still have to make some choices, some of them are not as easy as others. I find myself swapping talents now more than ever, although that is probably caused by the fact that respeccing is a lot cheaper now, and the encounter and boss design really encourages it. I will say this, I miss the days when there was more to combat than DPS and HPS. When there was more to combat than a dps/hps race. I miss classes like the enchanter and bard. Support classes that relied heavily on buffing and debuffing foes. Early WoW had hints of this with the paladin and their constant need to reapply buffs, but I want to see this mechanic return to WoW. I know I would be the first in line to queue up for a proper support class again.

 

[Zed]

Getting a zone-unique ability has been pretty fun, Gorgrond's was useless (didn't really like that zone, pain to navigate and also the first time we collided with Horde, gankfest). The mount in Nagrand is essential, can't get away from or properly engage gankers without it.

Heh, for the story part I wonder why we didn't blow up the Portal on our side, also if mages can open portals to our time I wonder what was keeping Khadgar et al from returning home after BtDP's conclusion.

the gorgrond zone bonus allows you to access garrison resource treasures. you can still access them, but that means asking someone to clear the way for you.
it's a total of like 400 resources so it's very nice to grab early on.

 

[Avellion]

Getting a zone-unique ability has been pretty fun, Gorgrond's was useless (didn't really like that zone, pain to navigate and also the first time we collided with Horde, gankfest). The mount in Nagrand is essential, can't get away from or properly engage gankers without it.

Heh, for the story part I wonder why we didn't blow up the Portal on our side, also if mages can open portals to our time I wonder what was keeping Khadgar et al from returning home after BtDP's conclusion.

Since you are alliance we should be able to group up. If you havent gotten rid of the vines, I can get rid of them for you and help you get those resource treasures.

Also most hordes I have run accross have been really nice. Not only having no interest in ganking me, but sometimes even helping me take down my mobs. I return the favor.

 

[Keshik]

I was dumb and chose the bodyguard, turns out he doesn't help in PVP, hah, was getting hit by groups of 4 or so. Alliance around didn't want to assist, meh.

Always laugh when people bemoan the state of world PvP and how flying killed it (when it's BGs and arena - the latter being an annoying change to stuff outside of that e-sports place) most of the time it's just one sided ganking at least these days. Back in vanilla though it was more common to run into people wanting a fair fight so would end up with one on ones even when faced with a group.

 

[Zed]

the arena fighters or the shredder both net the same amount of resources and that's really the only thing that matters unless you're gonna stay in gorgrond for all eternity.

 

[Don Peste]

I stopped playing when I reached lvl 85. I will end up buying Warlords in a month or two. But first I would to try Pandaria in a private server. Can anyone recommend me a decent one?

 

[Xenich]

Well, we couldn't do it, we cancelled our subs. We tried but the game is so ridiculously dumbed down that I don't see how enjoyment can be had. We were questing, but gave up on that (small number of pointless quests designed for speed runs) and just started running dungeons to level (which is absurd that you can level so fast in a single run) and the game is so incredibly pointless. They stripped all the dungeons of their character. They are all speed run dungeons now. Very little trash, and what exists is designed for a quick group AoE pull. Nothing is challenging, everything is pointless DPS contests. There really isn't any character development (ie... having to weight choices to apply to various content), only various versions of DPS selections. All of the wonder, the challenge and accomplishment in this game has been stripped. All I see now is an weak action game with shallow grinds.

 

[Angthoron]

Too bad, because, like just about everyone here pointed out, this would be exactly what you'd be seeing up until Pandaria because of the Cataclysm world remake. Don't know why you both insisted on levelling from a scratch, that's probably the best way to kill any enthusiasm for the expansion.

I hope you at least didn't buy that because then it's a double waste.

Conversely, I've been having fun in the new dungeons, L100 normals can get a bit deadly, the mobs hit quite hard, and there's a lot of abilities to keep track of. Crowd control is - at least for now - useful, and the trash is fairly numerous. Yay!

 

[Xenich]

Too bad, because, like just about everyone here pointed out, this would be exactly what you'd be seeing up until Pandaria because of the Cataclysm world remake. Don't know why you both insisted on levelling from a scratch, that's probably the best way to kill any enthusiasm for the expansion.

I hope you at least didn't buy that because then it's a double waste.

Conversely, I've been having fun in the new dungeons, L100 normals can get a bit deadly, the mobs hit quite hard, and there's a lot of abilities to keep track of. Crowd control is - at least for now - useful, and the trash is fairly numerous. Yay!

Didn't buy anything. Pandaria was apparently free on our accounts. Only lost the price of one months sub.

So, in Pandaria, you are saying the dungeon designs go back to using CC abilities and focuses, lots of trash mobs that you have to weed out slowly as you crawl through? Or is it the same as everything else, sparse trash all in groups designed for aoe as you quick run through to the bosses? Are the dungeons longer? Do they take time or can they be speed run like there were in Lich/Cata? Are there tons of quests in Pandaria, are the outside world mobs hard even for basic quests or is it basically spam DPS to run through the crap to get the quick completion?

Keep in mind that I was disappointed with Lich's dungeon design, how everything was a 10 min aoe run to speed collect tokens. At least back then (prior to the talent/class changes) I could mess around with different things, but now, the only attention needed for the game is to spam keys as fast as you can to kill a given group of mobs. I can tolerate some amount of dumbing down (afterall, all MMOs are dumbed down these days), but this is too much to handle. Even if it is difficult as you say, I can only see the difficulty in that of spamming DPS/HPS as they have removed most if not all of the tools from the classes. To me DPS contest wins aren't playing a game, it is exercising ones fingers. /shrug

 

[Angthoron]

So, in Pandaria, you are saying the dungeon designs go back to using CC abilities and focuses, lots of trash mobs that you have to weed out slowly as you crawl through? Or is it the same as everything else, sparse trash all in groups designed for aoe as you quick run through to the bosses? Are the dungeons longer? Do they take time or can they be speed run like there were in Lich/Cata? Are there tons of quests in Pandaria, are the outside world mobs hard even for basic quests or is it basically spam DPS to run through the crap to get the quick completion?

Pandaria dungeons were better than Cataclysm ones, largely - but no, CC starts in WoD. MoP dungeons just have more going on.

Keep in mind that I was disappointed with Lich's dungeon design, how everything was a 10 min aoe run to speed collect tokens. At least back then (prior to the talent/class changes) I could mess around with different things, but now, the only attention needed for the game is to spam keys as fast as you can to kill a given group of mobs. I can tolerate some amount of dumbing down (afterall, all MMOs are dumbed down these days), but this is too much to handle. Even if it is difficult as you say, I can only see the difficulty in that of spamming DPS/HPS as they have removed most if not all of the tools from the classes. To me DPS contest wins aren't playing a game, it is exercising ones fingers. /shrug

Do you mean Lich dungeons when LK was the current content, or do you mean now? Now it's an absolute no-brainer, but even before it wasn't too terribly challenging, until ICC-5 dungeons. And yeah, the DPS race was a retarded decision, I think Blizz is starting to steer away from it.

 

[Xenich]

Pandaria dungeons were better than Cataclysm ones, largely - but no, CC starts in WoD. MoP dungeons just have more going on.

So they added CC back with WoD? As in... required or can you still AoE DPS things down. Also, as for the implementaiton of CC, is it just in dungeons or have they applied this to all the content (ie Vanilla WoW).

Do you mean Lich dungeons when LK was the current content, or do you mean now? Now it's an absolute no-brainer, but even before it wasn't too terribly challenging, until ICC-5 dungeons. And yeah, the DPS race was a retarded decision, I think Blizz is starting to steer away from it.

When LK was current. We were face rolling the content with speed runs (no raid gear in the group content). The DPS focus was just... lame. It reminded me of back in BWL when we figured out that we could ignore many intended mechanics by simply DPSing through everything.

Regardless, I can't bring myself to pay for an expansion. Been burned far too many times with WoW and I know they will continue to disappoint.

 

[Avellion]

I hit level 100 now, and despite the skill squish, I still find myself using plenty of skills including but not limited to... Jab, Keg Smash, Kick, Roll, Breath of Fire, Guard, Purifying Brew, Chi Wave, Transcendence, Expel Harm, Black Ox Statue, Blackout Kick, Spinning Crane Kick, Paralysis, Xuen, Charging Ox Wave, Zen Meditation and Dampen Harm. Not necessarily in that order.

The skills that were removed were pretty meh anyways and for most of the part, no big loss.

Overall, I would say that tanking as a monk is rather , and a massive compared to the tanking I am used to. Screw the haters and whiners on forums complaining that it is too hard.

 

[abija]

Well it's not hard for you but for the healer. Though all the monks I met in randoms were overpuling for some reason, maybe the QQ is just because they were overpowered as fuck in MoP.

 

[Avellion]

Well it's not hard for you but for the healer. Though all the monks I met in randoms were overpuling for some reason, maybe the QQ is just because they were overpowered as fuck in MoP.

The problem with the Brewmaster is that it is by far the hardest tanking spec to play as. It focuses nearly entirely on active tanking through, buff management, stuns, snares, kiting, distractions, and in general, prevent the damage from being taken in the first place. Once you play as the monk properly, your damage intake is roughly the same as the rest.

In fact, if you look at the top 5 teams in challenge modes, all of them have brewmaster tanks.

 

[Metro]

The skill squish didn't really hit monk tanks. They probably have double the amount of abilities other tanks have to worry about.

 

[Avellion]

The skill squish didn't really hit monk tanks. They probably have double the amount of abilities other tanks have to worry about.

It did it us, but any skills that were removed, were redundant anyway.

Which is being far less hit than certain other specs.

 

[Revenant]

CC is necessary (necessary as in it's a wipe if you don't use it) in normal lvl 100 dungeons if the healer can't pull it off, which might happen or might not happen depending on the skill and gear of the healer, I guess. Fact is, at the current situation (start of the expansion, no easy epic gear yet) endgame dungeons are definitely challenging and I assume heroics to be even harder (don't have the required ilvl for them yet).

 

[Wilian]

So far I've only really seen 2-3 pulls that really require CC but the pulls are more involving so I guess if you're worse player than me and my guildies CC would become more important. We mostly can execute mechanics/interrupts well enough to not having to bother with it but it's definately more than just plain gather->AoE-repeat of MoP and late Cata.

 

[Israfael]

That depends, sometimes CC can save a huge amount of time even if you are overgeared for the heroics / normal. It's essential in challenge modes, some of the mobs melee tank for 60-90k per swing (insane amount, if you look at pre-squish tank DTPS). I personally like new dungs, they are somewhat easier than the average cata heroic dungeons (there's nothing that is as challenging as SFK was back in 4.0 days), but much harder than MoP lol-faceroll dungeons. Challenge mode can be brutal, second boss in Skyreach has insane hps requirements (our healer did ~40k hps when we finally downed him), some trash (even on hc) requires steady interrupting (two void elementals in SBG will wipe the party very fast if no one interrupts)

 

[Hoodoo]

whats the garrisons or w/e like and how they figure into endgame?