7 days of free game time - I feel like a total n00b ;-)

[Urbin]

I did not think I would be back for WoW after quitting more than two years
ago. However, there was this e-mail from Blizzard tempting me with 7 days of
free game time and as these 7 days coincide with the wife being away at a
conference I thought "why the hell not" :-)

So I updated my client and logged in for the first time last night and have
now played a few hours. Wow. Do I feel out of my depth :-)

- for 7 days I won't even bother updating any addons, I'm just playing using
the standard UI. Quite a bit has improved, but it's an unusal view
compared to the tailored UI I had put together during my 7+ years of
previous play time
- half of my abilities seem to be gone or changed. My survival hunter seems
to be down to 5 attacks, two of which are on long cooldowns. I can kill
stuff and don't intend to group, so I won't even bother with working on a
rotation but it all seems to be rather haphazard
- my pet dies. a lot. Back then, my pet seemed to be unkillable, I could
just send it from foe to foe without ever healing it. Now, I need to.
Frequently. Or it dies.
- did they tinker with the numbers? My health is down to 39k or so. I seem
to remember being way about 150k when I quit. Did they rebase everything
or am just misremembering?
- with just 7 days I won't even bothering on anything completionist, so I'm
just wondering around randomly questing a bit. Back when I came back for a
month to test out Pandaria, I only quested as far as it took me to turn
90, then spent a lot of time on pet battles, so there should probably be
half of pandaria to quest in remaining. However, I didn't get that far.
First I got sidetracked by the pre-quests to the expansion, that was fun
but very easy and got me a few hefty upgrades (may average item level was
around 440 or so, now I've risen to 455 which is probably still nothing,
but not bad for 30 minutes of questing :-)
Next I went to the vale but instead of going back to normal questing I
was sent to Thunder Isle, so far I've done one solo instance and am
enjoying it, so I'll probably continue on this. Just one question: I'm
now at the Kirin Tor base but cannot find a flight master or a portal.
Is there a way to go back and forth between here and the rest of the
world? Or do I need to complete the next solo instance(s) to unveil
that possibility?
- I am lost. Sure, I still remember the world but I'm nowhere near as
familiar as I used to be, you sure forget a lot in two years
- my guild is not dead. While there are not many active people (I haven't
seen anyone yet) but at least there seem to be four or five players
whose characters have logged in during the last few days, I'm really
looking forward to catching up with them

Well, I guess that's it for the time being. I won't buy the expansion but I
plan to make the most of those seven unexpected days of reminicscing :-)

Cheers
Urbin

[Peter T.]

Post by Urbin
I did not think I would be back for WoW after quitting more than two years
ago. However, there was this e-mail from Blizzard tempting me with 7 days of
free game time and as these 7 days coincide with the wife being away at a
conference I thought "why the hell not" :-)
So I updated my client and logged in for the first time last night and have
now played a few hours. Wow. Do I feel out of my depth :-)

Hehe wb. :)

Post by Urbin
- did they tinker with the numbers? My health is down to 39k or so. I seem
to remember being way about 150k when I quit. Did they rebase everything
or am just misremembering?

The stats squish with 6.0.2. My mage went from ~700k health to ~85k. :)
Blizzard is still fine-tuning many aspects of the game. But you
should be able to oneshot a lot of lowlevel mobs now. Before 6.0.2 you
still needed an experienced group to do complete ICC25HC. Now you can
solo it. Et cetera. I even soloed VoA25 for the ach (kill all bosses
within 15 secs) a week ago. Before 6.0.2 I couldnt solo even 10man if I
went for the ach.
So the stats squish has given you much more damage to lowlevel mobs. If
you have managed to level your hunter to 90 you can see the difference
in your damage when you attack a lvl85 doll or a lvl90 doll. I easily
do 500k dps on a lvl85 doll while I do 13-14k dps on a lvl90 doll.
Thats how it works now.

Post by Urbin
Next I went to the vale but instead of going back to normal questing I
was sent to Thunder Isle, so far I've done one solo instance and am
enjoying it, so I'll probably continue on this. Just one question: I'm
now at the Kirin Tor base but cannot find a flight master or a portal.
Is there a way to go back and forth between here and the rest of the
world? Or do I need to complete the next solo instance(s) to unveil
that possibility?

Yes there is a way to port back to Longtown Steppes. It depends on
which step youre at on Thunder Isle. You prolly have to click a sphere
or portal somewhere at your base.

Post by Urbin
- I am lost. Sure, I still remember the world but I'm nowhere near as
familiar as I used to be, you sure forget a lot in two years

I know the feeling as I skipped Cata completely when 4.0 arrived in the
LK exp. So when I returned a week before Panda went live lots of
changes were presented for me as well. The best part was all the new
flight points!

[Catriona R]

Post by Peter T.
Before 6.0.2 you
still needed an experienced group to do complete ICC25HC. Now you can
solo it.

Haha, IF you're good enough, me and my bf are failing at duoing it at
present, I guess lacking the skill :-P We're fine on 25 normal though,
and failing heroic is probably us being noobs :-P

Post by Peter T.
Et cetera. I even soloed VoA25 for the ach (kill all bosses
within 15 secs) a week ago. Before 6.0.2 I couldnt solo even 10man if I
went for the ach.

I'm meaning to try that one, bosses died way fast when I did it on 25
not going for that achievement, so the ach should be well possible
even for me.

Post by Peter T.
So the stats squish has given you much more damage to lowlevel mobs. If
you have managed to level your hunter to 90 you can see the difference
in your damage when you attack a lvl85 doll or a lvl90 doll. I easily
do 500k dps on a lvl85 doll while I do 13-14k dps on a lvl90 doll.
Thats how it works now.

Yeah, the key here is a buff to dmg against mobs from lower lvl
expansions, for a very clear way to see it, take a lvl 90 to Jade
Forest, attack a lvl 85 mob and note the numbers... then go to
Twilight Highlands and see the numbers there - miles higher. Makes for
a ton of fun visiting old content, especially for people like me who
didn't do most of it at the time, I hadn't seen the Cata raids at all
(except Dragon Soul LFR) and had only done 10-man Wrath raids before
this patch, so clearing through them all for the first time or on
harder modes is fun!

[Peter T.]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Peter T.
Before 6.0.2 you
still needed an experienced group to do complete ICC25HC. Now you can
solo it.

Haha, IF you're good enough, me and my bf are failing at duoing it at
present, I guess lacking the skill :-P We're fine on 25 normal though,
and failing heroic is probably us being noobs :-P

hehe true. :) I havent tried yet. But a few guildies has soloed it.
They're also in mainly mythic gear though.

Post by Catriona R

Post by Peter T.
Et cetera. I even soloed VoA25 for the ach (kill all bosses
within 15 secs) a week ago. Before 6.0.2 I couldnt solo even 10man if I
went for the ach.

I'm meaning to try that one, bosses died way fast when I did it on 25
not going for that achievement, so the ach should be well possible
even for me.

Dont tag them with a dot as they go down very easily now. Even in 25man.
I pulled all four bosses (25man) on my mage by using my blink and other
speed buffs + speed pot so I avoided the daze debuff. I finished them
off with spamming arcane explosion where I lost ~25% health in the final
phase.

[Urbin]

Post by Peter T.

Post by Urbin
Next I went to the vale but instead of going back to normal questing I
was sent to Thunder Isle, so far I've done one solo instance and am
enjoying it, so I'll probably continue on this. Just one question: I'm
now at the Kirin Tor base but cannot find a flight master or a portal.
Is there a way to go back and forth between here and the rest of the
world? Or do I need to complete the next solo instance(s) to unveil
that possibility?

Yes there is a way to port back to Longtown Steppes. It depends on
which step youre at on Thunder Isle. You prolly have to click a sphere
or portal somewhere at your base.

Thanks, before starting the second step I found the portal to the Shadow-Pan
offensive (name?). I must have missed it between the smaller Kirin-Tor
portal kind of looking decorations that do not seem to do anything but are
clickable :-)

Cheers
Urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin
I did not think I would be back for WoW after quitting more than two years
ago. However, there was this e-mail from Blizzard tempting me with 7 days of
free game time and as these 7 days coincide with the wife being away at a
conference I thought "why the hell not" :-)

Hehe, great timing! :-)

Post by Urbin
So I updated my client and logged in for the first time last night and have
now played a few hours. Wow. Do I feel out of my depth :-)
- for 7 days I won't even bother updating any addons, I'm just playing using
the standard UI. Quite a bit has improved, but it's an unusal view
compared to the tailored UI I had put together during my 7+ years of
previous play time

It's a lot better than it used to be, yep, I've found I can play with
no addons fairly well, so long as I'm not healing, still prefer to
have my addons though.

Post by Urbin
- half of my abilities seem to be gone or changed. My survival hunter seems
to be down to 5 attacks, two of which are on long cooldowns. I can kill
stuff and don't intend to group, so I won't even bother with working on a
rotation but it all seems to be rather haphazard

Yeah, they did a big ability prune, in fairness kinda needed as
actionbars were overflowing, think they overdid it in some cases
though, most my characters have missing abilities I really want
back...

Post by Urbin
- my pet dies. a lot. Back then, my pet seemed to be unkillable, I could
just send it from foe to foe without ever healing it. Now, I need to.
Frequently. Or it dies.

Ouch. My warlock's voidwalker is unkillable in old content, but very
squishy indeed in more recent content... I'm not used to having to
heal him ever time I get adds!

Post by Urbin
- did they tinker with the numbers? My health is down to 39k or so. I seem
to remember being way about 150k when I quit. Did they rebase everything
or am just misremembering?

They did indeed, a big numbers "squish" as they called it, since
numbers were getting a bit silly, we were into hundreds of thousands,
moving towards millions, so it's all been reduced again. Feels weird,
I'm getting fairly used to it, but I have zero idea what dps is "good"
or not these days.

Post by Urbin
- with just 7 days I won't even bothering on anything completionist, so I'm
just wondering around randomly questing a bit. Back when I came back for a
month to test out Pandaria, I only quested as far as it took me to turn
90, then spent a lot of time on pet battles, so there should probably be
half of pandaria to quest in remaining. However, I didn't get that far.
First I got sidetracked by the pre-quests to the expansion, that was fun
but very easy and got me a few hefty upgrades (may average item level was
around 440 or so, now I've risen to 455 which is probably still nothing,
but not bad for 30 minutes of questing :-)

Pretty good indeed for such a short time! If you want more, and really
easy high lvl gear, go to the Timeless Isle, you've probably been
given a quest to speak with Chromie, if not, go up to the Lorewalkers
building in the vale (above Mogu'shan palace) and have a word with
her; she'll portal you over there. Then have fun treasure hunting,
although be careful of the mobs, they *hurt* when you're lowgeared -
but, there's tons of little treasure chests, and not-so-rare (about
30-60 mins spawn) rare spawns to kill, all of which can drop tokens
which turn into 496 gear. Also some worldbosses in the main area who
can drop really nice gear first time you kill one (only get a chance
at loot on one kill per week, not all of them)

Post by Urbin
Next I went to the vale but instead of going back to normal questing I
was sent to Thunder Isle, so far I've done one solo instance and am
enjoying it, so I'll probably continue on this. Just one question: I'm
now at the Kirin Tor base but cannot find a flight master or a portal.
Is there a way to go back and forth between here and the rest of the
world? Or do I need to complete the next solo instance(s) to unveil
that possibility?

There ought to be a portal after the first solo scenario, if not, I'd
keep doing them - it might be hiding in a building or something, the
horde one's not the most noticeable, anyway (haven't unlocked it
alliance side so can't give you any more idea!)

Post by Urbin
- I am lost. Sure, I still remember the world but I'm nowhere near as
familiar as I used to be, you sure forget a lot in two years

I'm not surprised you're lost, things change so fast! Especially when
you're coming in just after a major patch, where even more than usual
changed.

Post by Urbin
- my guild is not dead. While there are not many active people (I haven't
seen anyone yet) but at least there seem to be four or five players
whose characters have logged in during the last few days, I'm really
looking forward to catching up with them

Always good to see old names around, only seen a couple of my old
friends but at least some have returned with the patch :-)

Post by Urbin
Well, I guess that's it for the time being. I won't buy the expansion but I
plan to make the most of those seven unexpected days of reminicscing :-)

Hehe hope you have fun!

[Peter T.]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
- did they tinker with the numbers? My health is down to 39k or so. I seem
to remember being way about 150k when I quit. Did they rebase everything
or am just misremembering?

They did indeed, a big numbers "squish" as they called it, since
numbers were getting a bit silly, we were into hundreds of thousands,
moving towards millions, so it's all been reduced again. Feels weird,
I'm getting fairly used to it, but I have zero idea what dps is "good"
or not these days.

I almost wetted my pants first time I did a 2m crit with a shadow bolt
on my warlock on Timeless. :)

[unknown]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
- with just 7 days I won't even bothering on anything completionist, so I'm
just wondering around randomly questing a bit. Back when I came back for a
month to test out Pandaria, I only quested as far as it took me to turn
90, then spent a lot of time on pet battles, so there should probably be
half of pandaria to quest in remaining. However, I didn't get that far.
First I got sidetracked by the pre-quests to the expansion, that was fun
but very easy and got me a few hefty upgrades (may average item level was
around 440 or so, now I've risen to 455 which is probably still nothing,
but not bad for 30 minutes of questing :-)

Pretty good indeed for such a short time! If you want more, and really
easy high lvl gear, go to the Timeless Isle, you've probably been
given a quest to speak with Chromie, if not, go up to the Lorewalkers
building in the vale (above Mogu'shan palace) and have a word with
her; she'll portal you over there. Then have fun treasure hunting,
although be careful of the mobs, they *hurt* when you're lowgeared -
but, there's tons of little treasure chests, and not-so-rare (about
30-60 mins spawn) rare spawns to kill, all of which can drop tokens
which turn into 496 gear. Also some worldbosses in the main area who
can drop really nice gear first time you kill one (only get a chance
at loot on one kill per week, not all of them)

Into the cave nw for the blue crystals and crystal of insanity
http://www.wowhead.com/item=86569/crystal-of-insanity
3% drop, get the fire buff , run away when jumped at low level, easy

Moss covered chests
http://www.wowhead.com/object=221670/moss-covered-chest
maybe get a few appropriate 496 drops, maybe not

get the food buff, the shrine buff, run all three potion buffs, and piju
buffs
it gets pretty easy up to 91-92 elite with 496 gear
Intro quests lead you to the buffs and cave, the time worn journals
gives some backstory.

then join a frog group and make a lot of frogs lootable

All of which will be pretty useless in a week with wod greens.
just make sure to get the crystal.

Then, just enjoy being a tourist

[Urbin]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
- half of my abilities seem to be gone or changed. My survival hunter seems
to be down to 5 attacks, two of which are on long cooldowns. I can kill
stuff and don't intend to group, so I won't even bother with working on a
rotation but it all seems to be rather haphazard

Yeah, they did a big ability prune, in fairness kinda needed as
actionbars were overflowing, think they overdid it in some cases
though, most my characters have missing abilities I really want
back...

It's not really that I miss anything in specific. It's just that my fingers
have better muscle memory than my brain can remember :-) Last night I
repeatedly found myself pressing "7" which used to be my one "hard hitting"
attack but which is currently unassigned because I can only really fill 2-6
and 8 with attacks (and 8 has always been multishot ever since I first got
it, so there is no way it will move anywhere else :-)

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
- my pet dies. a lot. Back then, my pet seemed to be unkillable, I could
just send it from foe to foe without ever healing it. Now, I need to.
Frequently. Or it dies.

Ouch. My warlock's voidwalker is unkillable in old content, but very
squishy indeed in more recent content... I'm not used to having to
heal him ever time I get adds!

Oh well, I've hotkeyed pet heal now and have become quite good at
remembering pressing it every once in a while.

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
[snippage about iLevel upgrades]

Pretty good indeed for such a short time! If you want more

I don't think I'll bother just for the level. I've finished all the normal
quests (and a first batch of dailies) I could get on Thunder Isle and that
was fun, but I won't start grinding in 7 days, rather I'll just have a look
around a bit more.

Post by Catriona R
go to the Timeless Isle, you've probably been given a quest to speak with
Chromie, if not, go up to the Lorewalkers building in the vale (above
Mogu'shan palace) and have a word with her

Haven't gotten that quest yet. I'll give that I go just to see the place and
see what the quests are like.

Post by Catriona R
although be careful of the mobs, they *hurt* when you're lowgeared

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Some of the quest bosses on Thunder Isle
hurt, too :-)

Post by Catriona R
Hehe hope you have fun!

So far I am. On the other hand, it's still clear that to really enjoy myself
I would need to immerse myself fully and give the completionist in me free
rein. That is not an option, so I'll just have a look around and enjoy the
short stint.

Cheers
Urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
- half of my abilities seem to be gone or changed. My survival hunter seems
to be down to 5 attacks, two of which are on long cooldowns. I can kill
stuff and don't intend to group, so I won't even bother with working on a
rotation but it all seems to be rather haphazard

Yeah, they did a big ability prune, in fairness kinda needed as
actionbars were overflowing, think they overdid it in some cases
though, most my characters have missing abilities I really want
back...

It's not really that I miss anything in specific. It's just that my fingers
have better muscle memory than my brain can remember :-) Last night I
repeatedly found myself pressing "7" which used to be my one "hard hitting"
attack but which is currently unassigned because I can only really fill 2-6
and 8 with attacks (and 8 has always been multishot ever since I first got
it, so there is no way it will move anywhere else :-)

I know that feeling well, fortunately I was on the beta so did my
learning there with my priest but it took ages before I stopped
bashing 5 for Shadow Word: Death... I still miss that spell! On the
flipside some of my beta keybind changes grew on me so fast I had to
do them on live even before the patch :-)

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
go to the Timeless Isle, you've probably been given a quest to speak with
Chromie, if not, go up to the Lorewalkers building in the vale (above
Mogu'shan palace) and have a word with her

Haven't gotten that quest yet. I'll give that I go just to see the place and
see what the quests are like.

There's very few actual quests there but tons to explore, treasure all
over the place is pretty fun :-)

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
although be careful of the mobs, they *hurt* when you're lowgeared

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Some of the quest bosses on Thunder Isle
hurt, too :-)

Post by Catriona R
Hehe hope you have fun!

So far I am. On the other hand, it's still clear that to really enjoy myself
I would need to immerse myself fully and give the completionist in me free
rein. That is not an option, so I'll just have a look around and enjoy the
short stint.

Yeah, I find the most fun parts are the completist things too, so
since that doesn't work well for you with RL, you've got the best
approach. You can have some fun trying old raids out if you have some
free time by the end of your week, anyway - assuming you never did
them at the time, it's a whole new form of exploration! Wrath 10-mans
should be mostly fine even with low gear, I think, TBC raids certainly
will be soloable for you :-)

[Urbin]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
go to the Timeless Isle, you've probably been given a quest to speak with
Chromie, if not, go up to the Lorewalkers building in the vale (above
Mogu'shan palace) and have a word with her

Haven't gotten that quest yet. I'll give that I go just to see the place and
see what the quests are like.

There's very few actual quests there but tons to explore, treasure all
over the place is pretty fun :-)

Tried that last night. Wow. I had only been there for 10 minutes before I
found a huge steaming chest. Clicked on it. Had two epic 496 items. Ten
minutes later two more dropped from random elites. Within the first half
hour I ended up with two epic necklaces and three epic belts. :-)

Lucky I loosely still lurk here, so I realised what all these frogs were for
when I rode past them and once I saw that 20k coins would reward me with a
nice and epic crossbow I spent the next two hours in a frog group of three
which was nice and relaxed. By the end of it I had 19k coins, 50 stones of
iforgetwhat, epic pants, epic bracers and half a dozen more epics to vendor
off. Handed in the 50 stones, bought my crossbow and logged off.

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
although be careful of the mobs, they *hurt* when you're lowgeared

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Some of the quest bosses on Thunder Isle
hurt, too :-)

Actually, I was positively surprised. I was very careful attacking those
elites, but 2 out of 3 times I managed to solo them. Didn't expect that. At
one point I switched my pet from ferocity to tenacity and that helped, too,
as it gained a little survivability. I died a few more times to respawns
(especially in the frog area before being grouped) but all in all it went
far better than I could have expected to. I stayed well away from the 250+k
giants and some other uber elites, but the "normal" 35k HP ones were ok.

Quite some difference, being able to solo same level elites. I remember well
how Old Sooty or Hogger killed me again and again even when I was 2 or 3
levels above them :-)

Still, I must be a n00b damage wise. While I can take down those frogs, it
takes me and my pet about 15-30 seconds to do so. My group mates (shaman and
DK) managed to two shot whole bundles of them...

Post by Catriona R
You can have some fun trying old raids out if you have some
free time by the end of your week

Yes, I think I'll give that a go next, now that I've seen the two Isles that
weren't there at the start of Pandaria. I should do better, now that I'm
geared up a little. I'll see how I do. I guess I'll have 1 or 2 more nights
time before my time runs out.

Cheers
Urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
go to the Timeless Isle, you've probably been given a quest to speak with
Chromie, if not, go up to the Lorewalkers building in the vale (above
Mogu'shan palace) and have a word with her

Haven't gotten that quest yet. I'll give that I go just to see the place and
see what the quests are like.

There's very few actual quests there but tons to explore, treasure all
over the place is pretty fun :-)

Tried that last night. Wow. I had only been there for 10 minutes before I
found a huge steaming chest. Clicked on it. Had two epic 496 items. Ten
minutes later two more dropped from random elites. Within the first half
hour I ended up with two epic necklaces and three epic belts. :-)

Yep, very fast gear, a full set of 496 epics is pretty much the
standard now, I have a bank alt full of tokens for my alts to grab
when they hit 90 too :-)

Post by Urbin
Lucky I loosely still lurk here, so I realised what all these frogs were for
when I rode past them and once I saw that 20k coins would reward me with a
nice and epic crossbow I spent the next two hours in a frog group of three
which was nice and relaxed. By the end of it I had 19k coins, 50 stones of
iforgetwhat, epic pants, epic bracers and half a dozen more epics to vendor
off. Handed in the 50 stones, bought my crossbow and logged off.

Nice :-D The frog farming is a fairly recent thing, it was turtle
farming when it first came out, over time people switched to frog and
it's just silly now, thank goodness that'll calm down after the aptch,
I still need to kill the rare frog!

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
although be careful of the mobs, they *hurt* when you're lowgeared

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Some of the quest bosses on Thunder Isle
hurt, too :-)

Actually, I was positively surprised. I was very careful attacking those
elites, but 2 out of 3 times I managed to solo them. Didn't expect that. At
one point I switched my pet from ferocity to tenacity and that helped, too,
as it gained a little survivability. I died a few more times to respawns
(especially in the frog area before being grouped) but all in all it went
far better than I could have expected to. I stayed well away from the 250+k
giants and some other uber elites, but the "normal" 35k HP ones were ok.

I'm impressed, my lowgeared alts struggle badly, my warlock tried some
elites and while she could kill them, her voidwalker nearly died every
time. That said, a lot of the most damaging attacks are avoidable or
interruptable (if you *have* an interrupt, my main did not before
6.0!), so smart play helps a lot :-)

Post by Urbin
Quite some difference, being able to solo same level elites. I remember well
how Old Sooty or Hogger killed me again and again even when I was 2 or 3
levels above them :-)

Hehe yeah, killing them at all was an achievement!

Post by Urbin
Still, I must be a n00b damage wise. While I can take down those frogs, it
takes me and my pet about 15-30 seconds to do so. My group mates (shaman and
DK) managed to two shot whole bundles of them...

You'll be in 496 or lower gear, while many people now are 550 or
higher, some 580+, and that much higher ilvl makes a big difference.
Even my priest, which is a healer spec, outdpses my bf's 496ish alts,
the gear is a massive difference. I can see it best on my 2nd priest,
which has the exact same spec as my main, but about 70 ilvls lower...
it's huge, I can barely kill things which my main has no trouble with!

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
You can have some fun trying old raids out if you have some
free time by the end of your week

Yes, I think I'll give that a go next, now that I've seen the two Isles that
weren't there at the start of Pandaria. I should do better, now that I'm
geared up a little. I'll see how I do. I guess I'll have 1 or 2 more nights
time before my time runs out.

Cool, hope you get to see some cool places on your tourism trip! :-)

[Urbin]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
although be careful of the mobs, they *hurt* when you're lowgeared

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. Some of the quest bosses on Thunder Isle
hurt, too :-)

Actually, I was positively surprised. I was very careful attacking those
elites, but 2 out of 3 times I managed to solo them. Didn't expect that.

I'm impressed, my lowgeared alts struggle badly, my warlock tried some
elites and while she could kill them, her voidwalker nearly died every
time. That said, a lot of the most damaging attacks are avoidable or
interruptable (if you *have* an interrupt, my main did not before
6.0!), so smart play helps a lot :-)

Actually, I just sacrificed my pet for each elite. Cast HoT on pet, send it
in, open up my rotation with dots, then the large cooldown attack, then
standard attacks. Elite and pet usually died at around the same time. Revife
pet, rinse and repeat. I hope he doesn't hold a grudge (it's the worst I've
treated him since taming him at level 10 in Dun Morogh, it's still the same
snow leopard).

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
Still, I must be a n00b damage wise. While I can take down those frogs, it
takes me and my pet about 15-30 seconds to do so. My group mates (shaman and
DK) managed to two shot whole bundles of them...

You'll be in 496 or lower gear, while many people now are 550 or
higher, some 580+, and that much higher ilvl makes a big difference.

Yeah, that was pretty obvious :)

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
You can have some fun trying old raids out if you have some
free time by the end of your week

Yes, I think I'll give that a go next, now that I've seen the two Isles that
weren't there at the start of Pandaria. I should do better, now that I'm
geared up a little. I'll see how I do. I guess I'll have 1 or 2 more nights
time before my time runs out.

Cool, hope you get to see some cool places on your tourism trip! :-)

I'm sure. Haven't decided yet if I want to solo Ulduar (never managed to
finish it back in the 10er days) or if I want to visit ICC (got three or
four bosses in on two PUG raids once) or what. I'll see what takes my fancy
and what achievments I still have open that sound achievable.

Cheers
Urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
Actually, I was positively surprised. I was very careful attacking those
elites, but 2 out of 3 times I managed to solo them. Didn't expect that.

I'm impressed, my lowgeared alts struggle badly, my warlock tried some
elites and while she could kill them, her voidwalker nearly died every
time. That said, a lot of the most damaging attacks are avoidable or
interruptable (if you *have* an interrupt, my main did not before
6.0!), so smart play helps a lot :-)

Actually, I just sacrificed my pet for each elite. Cast HoT on pet, send it
in, open up my rotation with dots, then the large cooldown attack, then
standard attacks. Elite and pet usually died at around the same time. Revife
pet, rinse and repeat. I hope he doesn't hold a grudge (it's the worst I've
treated him since taming him at level 10 in Dun Morogh, it's still the same
snow leopard).

Awww, poor pet! Sounds about similar to my warlock's experience then
hehe :-)

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
You can have some fun trying old raids out if you have some
free time by the end of your week

Yes, I think I'll give that a go next, now that I've seen the two Isles that
weren't there at the start of Pandaria. I should do better, now that I'm
geared up a little. I'll see how I do. I guess I'll have 1 or 2 more nights
time before my time runs out.

Cool, hope you get to see some cool places on your tourism trip! :-)

I'm sure. Haven't decided yet if I want to solo Ulduar (never managed to
finish it back in the 10er days) or if I want to visit ICC (got three or
four bosses in on two PUG raids once) or what. I'll see what takes my fancy
and what achievments I still have open that sound achievable.

Both of them are cool, and should be fine on 10-man, although some
fights will make you think and take a couple of attempts, most likely!
Don't try heroic modes (you'll likely do some accidentally in Ulduar,
but the ones that require intentional turning on, like Mimiron's
"don't press this button", just don't ;-)) or 25-man though, 10N is
the safest bet! Oh and DO ask the Ulduar keepers to help you with
Yogg-Saron, unless you want to spend several wipes learning the
hardmode mechanics ;-)

Black Temple, Sunwell, Naxx, Trial of the Crusader are all pretty easy
too if you never did them at the time, Cata raids will be more
challenging and you'll likely run out of time, I'd focus on Wrath/TBC
for faster fun :-)

[Urbin]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Cool, hope you get to see some cool places on your tourism trip! :-)

I'm sure. Haven't decided yet if I want to solo Ulduar (never managed to
finish it back in the 10er days) or if I want to visit ICC (got three or
four bosses in on two PUG raids once) or what. I'll see what takes my fancy
and what achievments I still have open that sound achievable.

Both of them are cool, and should be fine on 10-man, although some
fights will make you think and take a couple of attempts, most likely!
Don't try heroic modes (you'll likely do some accidentally in Ulduar,
but the ones that require intentional turning on, like Mimiron's
"don't press this button", just don't ;-))

Hehe, I remember wiping for four hours on Mirmiron back with our guild on a
"fun run". It all depends on how you define fun ;-)

Post by Catriona R
Black Temple, Sunwell, Naxx, Trial of the Crusader are all pretty easy
too if you never did them at the time

We've done Naxx (never saw the original place, but we've finished the new
version several times). I've been along in the Trial of Crusaders once.
Never set foot inside Sunwell or Black Temple, so I might give those a go.

We'll see how much time I've got.

Cheers
Urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Cool, hope you get to see some cool places on your tourism trip! :-)

I'm sure. Haven't decided yet if I want to solo Ulduar (never managed to
finish it back in the 10er days) or if I want to visit ICC (got three or
four bosses in on two PUG raids once) or what. I'll see what takes my fancy
and what achievments I still have open that sound achievable.

Both of them are cool, and should be fine on 10-man, although some
fights will make you think and take a couple of attempts, most likely!
Don't try heroic modes (you'll likely do some accidentally in Ulduar,
but the ones that require intentional turning on, like Mimiron's
"don't press this button", just don't ;-))

Hehe, I remember wiping for four hours on Mirmiron back with our guild on a
"fun run". It all depends on how you define fun ;-)

Haha yeah, I wiped loads of times on Yogg-Saron first visit, he's
still tough at any level, tbh, especially when you don't know the
tactics. Only had a couple of wipes on Mimiron, having only done him
at 90, main point: don't stand in red glowy patches on the ground
(ever so slightly dumb of me not to realise that without learning
through experience, in my defence, most things like that don't
actually hurt now, turns out that ability still oneshots you ;-))

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Black Temple, Sunwell, Naxx, Trial of the Crusader are all pretty easy
too if you never did them at the time

We've done Naxx (never saw the original place, but we've finished the new
version several times). I've been along in the Trial of Crusaders once.
Never set foot inside Sunwell or Black Temple, so I might give those a go.

Both well worth a visit if you've never seen them, really cool places
and fully soloable now :-) Some nice transmog items in them too, I've
always liked the Burning Crusade looks.

[Cryptoengineer]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Cool, hope you get to see some cool places on your tourism trip! :-)

I'm sure. Haven't decided yet if I want to solo Ulduar (never
managed to finish it back in the 10er days) or if I want to visit
ICC (got three or four bosses in on two PUG raids once) or what.
I'll see what takes my fancy and what achievments I still have open
that sound achievable.

Both of them are cool, and should be fine on 10-man, although some
fights will make you think and take a couple of attempts, most
likely! Don't try heroic modes (you'll likely do some accidentally
in Ulduar, but the ones that require intentional turning on, like
Mimiron's "don't press this button", just don't ;-))

Hehe, I remember wiping for four hours on Mirmiron back with our guild
on a "fun run". It all depends on how you define fun ;-)

Post by Catriona R
Black Temple, Sunwell, Naxx, Trial of the Crusader are all pretty
easy too if you never did them at the time

We've done Naxx (never saw the original place, but we've finished the
new version several times). I've been along in the Trial of Crusaders
once. Never set foot inside Sunwell or Black Temple, so I might give
those a go.
We'll see how much time I've got.
Cheers
Urbin

BTW: If you get a 'Burden of Eternity' - rare drop from almost
anything - it can be applied Timeless armor items (*before*
conversion) to bump the created item up to 535. Upgradable 4
times, to 551. Very nice gear.

pt

[unknown]

Post by Cryptoengineer

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Cool, hope you get to see some cool places on your tourism trip! :-)

I'm sure. Haven't decided yet if I want to solo Ulduar (never
managed to finish it back in the 10er days) or if I want to visit
ICC (got three or four bosses in on two PUG raids once) or what.
I'll see what takes my fancy and what achievments I still have open
that sound achievable.

Both of them are cool, and should be fine on 10-man, although some
fights will make you think and take a couple of attempts, most
likely! Don't try heroic modes (you'll likely do some accidentally
in Ulduar, but the ones that require intentional turning on, like
Mimiron's "don't press this button", just don't ;-))

Hehe, I remember wiping for four hours on Mirmiron back with our guild
on a "fun run". It all depends on how you define fun ;-)

Post by Catriona R
Black Temple, Sunwell, Naxx, Trial of the Crusader are all pretty
easy too if you never did them at the time

We've done Naxx (never saw the original place, but we've finished the
new version several times). I've been along in the Trial of Crusaders
once. Never set foot inside Sunwell or Black Temple, so I might give
those a go.
We'll see how much time I've got.
Cheers
Urbin

BTW: If you get a 'Burden of Eternity' - rare drop from almost
anything - it can be applied Timeless armor items (*before*
conversion) to bump the created item up to 535. Upgradable 4
times, to 551. Very nice gear.

I suspect they may have increased the drop chance, or RNG gods love me,
or they are really really evil.

Yesterday I got one from Vazuvius, OH JOY!!
A short time later from Archierius, Oh Joy!
So I needed more lessers to upgrade them, ground some frogs.
That put me over for coins,bought another burden, oh Joy.
But damn I want OFF this island.
But really should grind more frogs now, I have a dozen luck potions to
burn anyway.
Today.
Got enough to upgrade that one then when sorting junk to finally leave I
found another,
?? joy ??
No idea where that one came from I should have noticed it, unless during
all the 'greed' clicking in frog groups.

Oh, sigh, more frogs.
Now it happens, when they are nearly but not quite useless.
Finally got 200, so off to the gamblers den to burn the last of the
timeless coins.
...you guessed it..another burden.

OH NO!! more frogs.
And half a dozen monkey pets to fit 3 slots, run free little monkeys.
my..goodness...I WANT --OFF-- THIS GOL DARN ISLAND :-)
Still, the frogs now sometimes die as soon as I tag them, didn't take
long at all.

Finally I left timeless , I even ignored a dying rare on the way to the
fp, just in case.
As I flew away I looked back and I swear the clouds and mist looked like
a huge evil grin.

[Urbin]

Post by Cryptoengineer
BTW: If you get a 'Burden of Eternity' - rare drop from almost
anything - it can be applied Timeless armor items (*before*
conversion) to bump the created item up to 535. Upgradable 4
times, to 551. Very nice gear.

I did see some epic 535 item drop. As on all others I just greed rolled. The
Shaman in my frog group (who greed rolled on everything else) rolled Need on
it and was really happy to get it. And it will definitely get more use out
of it than if I had won it, so I reckon it's fair.

Cheers
Urbin

[Urbin]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Black Temple, Sunwell, Naxx, Trial of the Crusader are all pretty easy
too if you never did them at the time

We've done Naxx (never saw the original place, but we've finished the new
version several times). I've been along in the Trial of Crusaders once.
Never set foot inside Sunwell or Black Temple, so I might give those a go.

Well, I've just cleared Sunwell and Serpentshire Cavern. I'm flying to Black
Temple as I type and if that goes as smoothly as the other two, I might even
add Tempest Keep (where I've been before but never managed to down the final
boss) which would mean completion of all BC raids :-)

Brutallus caused me some deaths (first attempt I took him down to slithers
of death but then died, the next three attempts I died with him far beyond
50% but on my last attempt he died with me at >50%. Kil'jaeden I had to try
three times as he despawned whenever I clicked the orb and turned into a
blue dragon. Then I just dpsed him down which worked nicely.

Serpentshire was trivial (none of the bosses had any tricks except for lady
vashj) the only thing it took was patience for the four tainted elementals
to store. When I killed her, she had 95 stacks of damage increase and I only
just killed her only to die 3 seconds later to a dot she had placed on me
:-)

I'll let you know how Black Temple goes.

Cheers
Urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Black Temple, Sunwell, Naxx, Trial of the Crusader are all pretty easy
too if you never did them at the time

We've done Naxx (never saw the original place, but we've finished the new
version several times). I've been along in the Trial of Crusaders once.
Never set foot inside Sunwell or Black Temple, so I might give those a go.

Well, I've just cleared Sunwell and Serpentshire Cavern. I'm flying to Black
Temple as I type and if that goes as smoothly as the other two, I might even
add Tempest Keep (where I've been before but never managed to down the final
boss) which would mean completion of all BC raids :-)

Yay, nice one! :-) Tempest Keep may be a problem, as Kael'Thas has
Mind Control... now, I've never tried this on a pet class, but
certainly going in with more than one person, it doesn't tend to end
well lol, and with a pet class, well, he might use you to kill your
pet and then reset. Hopefully not, but be prepared for this! It's an
awesome fight if you're *not* a pet class, really fun to see.

Post by Urbin
Brutallus caused me some deaths (first attempt I took him down to slithers
of death but then died, the next three attempts I died with him far beyond
50% but on my last attempt he died with me at >50%. Kil'jaeden I had to try
three times as he despawned whenever I clicked the orb and turned into a
blue dragon. Then I just dpsed him down which worked nicely.

I never even noticed the orb! Have to try that next time (as long as
I'm not solo), sounds cool! :-)

Post by Urbin
Serpentshire was trivial (none of the bosses had any tricks except for lady
vashj) the only thing it took was patience for the four tainted elementals
to store. When I killed her, she had 95 stacks of damage increase and I only
just killed her only to die 3 seconds later to a dot she had placed on me
:-)

Lol ouch! She was horrible pre-patch, my main could solo her, none of
my alts could, tried several times on one, but it wasn't happening.
Sounds like she's still tough then!

Post by Urbin
I'll let you know how Black Temple goes.

Good luck! :-)

[Urbin]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Black Temple, Sunwell, Naxx, Trial of the Crusader are all pretty easy
too if you never did them at the time

We've done Naxx (never saw the original place, but we've finished the new
version several times). I've been along in the Trial of Crusaders once.
Never set foot inside Sunwell or Black Temple, so I might give those a go.

Well, I've just cleared Sunwell and Serpentshire Cavern. I'm flying to Black
Temple as I type and if that goes as smoothly as the other two, I might even
add Tempest Keep (where I've been before but never managed to down the final
boss) which would mean completion of all BC raids :-)

Yay, nice one! :-) Tempest Keep may be a problem, as Kael'Thas has
Mind Control... now, I've never tried this on a pet class, but
certainly going in with more than one person, it doesn't tend to end
well lol, and with a pet class, well, he might use you to kill your
pet and then reset. Hopefully not, but be prepared for this! It's an
awesome fight if you're *not* a pet class, really fun to see.

Yeah, back in the days, just before Wrath, my guild started doing "fun runs"
with the non-raiders (we did the same pre-Cata, that's when I experienced
all those Mimiron wipes) and we got to Kael Thas but never managed to take
him down. So I knew the fight and I did go back to try and solo him, though
I don't remember if that was @85 or @90 in my month of trying Pandaria. I'll
see how it goes, at worst I'll have to try to do it without my pet, which
should be easier now that there is no minimum distance for my crossbow.

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
Brutallus caused me some deaths (first attempt I took him down to slithers
of death but then died, the next three attempts I died with him far beyond
50% but on my last attempt he died with me at >50%. Kil'jaeden I had to try
three times as he despawned whenever I clicked the orb and turned into a
blue dragon. Then I just dpsed him down which worked nicely.

I never even noticed the orb! Have to try that next time (as long as
I'm not solo), sounds cool! :-)

There are 3 or 4 greenish orbs around the edge of the room. During the fight
there is a lot of blabber, which says that the elf woman (I forget her name) activated
another orb, which makes one of them clickable. Don't know how cool it is
because as soon as I tried I turned into dragonform for 1 second and then
the fight reset. I never saw the action bar of the dragon, so can't say what
abilities you'd get.

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
Serpentshire was trivial (none of the bosses had any tricks except for lady
vashj) the only thing it took was patience for the four tainted elementals
to store. When I killed her, she had 95 stacks of damage increase and I only
just killed her only to die 3 seconds later to a dot she had placed on me
:-)

Lol ouch! She was horrible pre-patch, my main could solo her, none of
my alts could, tried several times on one, but it wasn't happening.
Sounds like she's still tough then!

It wasn't actually hard until phase 3. Phase 1 was a piece of cake, phase 2
just took patience until the fourth tainted elemental spawned. Even in phase
2 she had 60+ stacks but hardly damaged me with that. Only in phase 3 did
she really start to hurt me and honestly I didn't notice until it was too
late and never bothered to misdirect, so I actually tanked here instead of
the pet. I was at <2k HP when she died and then there was a last tick of the
lightning she casts periodically before the fight ended which killed me :-)

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
I'll let you know how Black Temple goes.

Good luck! :-)

Thanks. That went really smoothly. None of the bosses gave me trouble, the
only two head scratching moments were when I couldn't attack Shada of Akama
and Kil'Jaeden because I didn't notice I had to talk to Akama first :-)

Apart from getting the achievment I also managed to increase my Ashtongue
rep from unfriendly to about 800/12000 Honoured, so two more runs should
take me to exalted (though not tonight, I'll keep that for my next return to
WoW).

Tonight I'll see how I do in Tempest Keep and then my 7 days will be up (or
rather they will be up some time tomorrow while I'm at work :)

Cheers
Urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
Lol ouch! She was horrible pre-patch, my main could solo her, none of
my alts could, tried several times on one, but it wasn't happening.
Sounds like she's still tough then!

It wasn't actually hard until phase 3. Phase 1 was a piece of cake, phase 2
just took patience until the fourth tainted elemental spawned. Even in phase
2 she had 60+ stacks but hardly damaged me with that. Only in phase 3 did
she really start to hurt me and honestly I didn't notice until it was too
late and never bothered to misdirect, so I actually tanked here instead of
the pet. I was at <2k HP when she died and then there was a last tick of the
lightning she casts periodically before the fight ended which killed me :-)

Yeah, it was phase 3 I could never survive, had to be more effective
in phase 2 to stop her getting so many stacks of buff up, and I never
was good enough! My main was fine, but he's far better geared than the
rest of my alts :-) I'd certainly expect it to be easier now than
before the patch, so I'll try again sometime, got a quest I want to do
on one!

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
I'll let you know how Black Temple goes.

Good luck! :-)

Thanks. That went really smoothly. None of the bosses gave me trouble, the
only two head scratching moments were when I couldn't attack Shada of Akama
and Kil'Jaeden because I didn't notice I had to talk to Akama first :-)
Apart from getting the achievment I also managed to increase my Ashtongue
rep from unfriendly to about 800/12000 Honoured, so two more runs should
take me to exalted (though not tonight, I'll keep that for my next return to
WoW).

Yeah that place is really nice for rep. Glad it's so easy now, used to
be rather tougher but I thought the dmg buff would negate the harder
fights - I guess they must've nerfed the Reliquary of Souls too, as it
was all too easy to die through doing too much dmg in the past (he did
a dmg reflect so if you nuked too hard you'd kill yourself!)

Post by Urbin
Tonight I'll see how I do in Tempest Keep and then my 7 days will be up (or
rather they will be up some time tomorrow while I'm at work :)

Good luck in there :-) One week seems such a short period of time when
there's so many things to do, sounds like you've managed to see a lot
though :-)

[Urbin]

Post by Urbin
Tonight I'll see how I do in Tempest Keep and then my 7 days will be up (or
rather they will be up some time tomorrow while I'm at work :)

Wow. Tempest Keep was so easy it was almost scary. None of the three
preliminary fights were anything to write home about. Thanks to all the tips
about dismissing my pet first before attacking Kael. I still remember how we
kept wiping on this fight at level and how I still wiped on my solo attempts
(probably at 85 or maybe at 90 in quest greens). Last night it wasn't even a
fight. His adds attacked me one by one first, I one shotted them all. The
weapons went down just as fast. Then his adds attacked me all at once and
immediately stun-locked me for about 40 seconds, I was getting quite worried
until I noticed that I took no damage at all. Once I got out of the stun
they were dead within seconds and the two phases of Kael itself were
extremely brief.

I am now officially certified Outland Raider :-)

So, what to do with the rest of the night? I had finished Naxx 10 in a group
at level a few times. I had been to Ulduar a few times but never seen/done
it all. I had been to most of the Wrath raids as a guest though not finished
most of them (except for the dragon ones below the temple). While I had very
fond memories of Ulduar, I also remembered it as a huge place with many
bosses I had never even seen before. Looking through my achievments I
decided to attempt 25man Trial of the GC. Sadly, I only noticed I was in 10
man mode *after* killing the first boss and being locked to the instance, so
I finished that without getting new achievements. When done I was ported to
Dalaran and since that is so close to Naxx, I decided to try that (with the
option of trying to solo the dragons, the WG bosses or ICC as alternatives).

I was amazed that soloing a 25man level 80 instance was hardly harder than
the level 70 ones, it just took a little longer due to the larger health
pools. I breezed through the arachnoid and plague quarters, never in any
danger. Then I entered the construct quarter and almost died to the acid
channel before Patchwerk but survived. Then I atacked Patchwerk and boy, he
still hits like a tank. When I was down to 8k HP I feigned death and let my
pet build up some solid aggro while I just healed the pet before going back
to dealing damage. We killed him in the end but not paying attention almost
cost me my life, even at 90 with iLvl ~480.

On to Gluth. Boy, was I hopeless :-) It took me two attempts to realise
ignoring the zombies was a bad idea. Then I figured out they stacked me with
their debuff, but did not manage to kill them fast enough. Then I googled
some and realised why Gluth was so hard to kill, each Zombie heals him when
they get to him. No wonder I was dead faster than he was. Then I tried some
kiting solutions on the net. They all seem sto have been recorded before the
culling of abiliites, as even as a hunter I seemed to lack the tools (or the
skills :-) to keep the Zombies away from me and Gluth (couldn't keep them
off my and still attack him, couldn't kill them even when tehy were
debuffed). After five or six attempots I switched to the military quarter
and breezed through again, the only downside being that I only managed to
kill 3 of the horsemen within 15 second, the fourth one had run away just at
the right/wrong moment to cheat me of this achievment :-(

I thought I might get at Thaddius from one of the other quarters but those
access tunnels were flooded with acid, at least I could get at Sapphiron and
Kel-Thuzad which were both easy kills. In summary I got about a good dozen
new 25man achievments (though I lack three because I could not clear the
25 man construct quarter, 25 man Naxx and 25 man Naxx with <21 people which
would have been cool) and a lot of fun.

One week seems such a short period of time when there's so many things to
do, sounds like you've managed to see a lot though :-)

Yeah, it was cool. I saw some of the new things added after initial Pandaria
(Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle) and got to collect some achievments on
old content that I knew well. I didn't get around to seeing all of the Wrath
raids, but hey, that's fine, too.

Now my seven days are up and I'll go back to lurking here.

Enjoy Draenor!

Cheers
Urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Urbin
Tonight I'll see how I do in Tempest Keep and then my 7 days will be up (or
rather they will be up some time tomorrow while I'm at work :)

Wow. Tempest Keep was so easy it was almost scary. None of the three
preliminary fights were anything to write home about. Thanks to all the tips
about dismissing my pet first before attacking Kael. I still remember how we
kept wiping on this fight at level and how I still wiped on my solo attempts
(probably at 85 or maybe at 90 in quest greens). Last night it wasn't even a
fight. His adds attacked me one by one first, I one shotted them all. The
weapons went down just as fast. Then his adds attacked me all at once and
immediately stun-locked me for about 40 seconds, I was getting quite worried
until I noticed that I took no damage at all. Once I got out of the stun
they were dead within seconds and the two phases of Kael itself were
extremely brief.
I am now officially certified Outland Raider :-)

Yay! :-) Yeah it's a lot easier now, aside from the mass CC from those
adds, but at least that's an annoyance rather than lethal!

Post by Urbin
So, what to do with the rest of the night? I had finished Naxx 10 in a group
at level a few times. I had been to Ulduar a few times but never seen/done
it all. I had been to most of the Wrath raids as a guest though not finished
most of them (except for the dragon ones below the temple). While I had very
fond memories of Ulduar, I also remembered it as a huge place with many
bosses I had never even seen before. Looking through my achievments I
decided to attempt 25man Trial of the GC. Sadly, I only noticed I was in 10
man mode *after* killing the first boss and being locked to the instance, so
I finished that without getting new achievements. When done I was ported to
Dalaran and since that is so close to Naxx, I decided to try that (with the
option of trying to solo the dragons, the WG bosses or ICC as alternatives).

You might've struggled a little with 25, I did 25N with my bf the
other day and the Faction Champions were awful (there are far more of
them in 25 than 10), we took no dmg, but their healers outhealed our
dmg, and they kept crowd controlling us too! Took us ages to save up
enough cds to burst down one of the healers, then get the other down,
I think it'd be extremely hard to solo!

Post by Urbin
I was amazed that soloing a 25man level 80 instance was hardly harder than
the level 70 ones, it just took a little longer due to the larger health
pools. I breezed through the arachnoid and plague quarters, never in any
danger. Then I entered the construct quarter and almost died to the acid
channel before Patchwerk but survived. Then I atacked Patchwerk and boy, he
still hits like a tank. When I was down to 8k HP I feigned death and let my
pet build up some solid aggro while I just healed the pet before going back
to dealing damage. We killed him in the end but not paying attention almost
cost me my life, even at 90 with iLvl ~480.

Ouch, I did that place on 25 recently, but it was tw of us, probably
both higher geared than you (plus one was my Disc priest, so a fair
bit of Atonement healing), so didn't notice that so much, I'll
remember that if I plan to solo it one day!

Post by Urbin
On to Gluth. Boy, was I hopeless :-) It took me two attempts to realise
ignoring the zombies was a bad idea. Then I figured out they stacked me with
their debuff, but did not manage to kill them fast enough. Then I googled
some and realised why Gluth was so hard to kill, each Zombie heals him when
they get to him. No wonder I was dead faster than he was. Then I tried some
kiting solutions on the net. They all seem sto have been recorded before the
culling of abiliites, as even as a hunter I seemed to lack the tools (or the
skills :-) to keep the Zombies away from me and Gluth (couldn't keep them
off my and still attack him, couldn't kill them even when tehy were
debuffed). After five or six attempots I switched to the military quarter
and breezed through again, the only downside being that I only managed to
kill 3 of the horsemen within 15 second, the fourth one had run away just at
the right/wrong moment to cheat me of this achievment :-(

That's a shame, we were lucky with Gluth, that we had enough dmg to
just ignore the zombies as we outdamaged the healing done, it did look
like it had the potential to be a right pain to solo though!

Post by Urbin

One week seems such a short period of time when there's so many things to
do, sounds like you've managed to see a lot though :-)

Yeah, it was cool. I saw some of the new things added after initial Pandaria
(Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle) and got to collect some achievments on
old content that I knew well. I didn't get around to seeing all of the Wrath
raids, but hey, that's fine, too.

Leaves you something to do next time there's a 7 days free offer at a
convenient time for you ;-)

Post by Urbin
Now my seven days are up and I'll go back to lurking here.
Enjoy Draenor!

I'm sure I will! Been great talking to you again this past week, hope
you'll continue dropping in to see us! :-)

[Peter T.]

Post by Urbin

Post by Urbin
Tonight I'll see how I do in Tempest Keep and then my 7 days will be up (or
rather they will be up some time tomorrow while I'm at work :)

Wow. Tempest Keep was so easy it was almost scary. None of the three
preliminary fights were anything to write home about. Thanks to all the tips
about dismissing my pet first before attacking Kael. I still remember how we
kept wiping on this fight at level and how I still wiped on my solo attempts
(probably at 85 or maybe at 90 in quest greens). Last night it wasn't even a
fight. His adds attacked me one by one first, I one shotted them all. The
weapons went down just as fast. Then his adds attacked me all at once and
immediately stun-locked me for about 40 seconds, I was getting quite worried
until I noticed that I took no damage at all. Once I got out of the stun
they were dead within seconds and the two phases of Kael itself were
extremely brief.

I only farm Kael on those classes that can wield the legendary staff
that grants to immunity (almost) to CC, silence, stuns and MC. Atm I
have a mage, lock, kitty druid, monk and shammy that can use the staff.
I lose dps, yes. But it also makes the fight far less annoying.

Post by Urbin
I am now officially certified Outland Raider :-)

hehe. Gratz. :)

Post by Urbin
So, what to do with the rest of the night? I had finished Naxx 10 in a group
at level a few times. I had been to Ulduar a few times but never seen/done
it all. I had been to most of the Wrath raids as a guest though not finished
most of them (except for the dragon ones below the temple). While I had very
fond memories of Ulduar, I also remembered it as a huge place with many
bosses I had never even seen before. Looking through my achievments I
decided to attempt 25man Trial of the GC. Sadly, I only noticed I was in 10
man mode *after* killing the first boss and being locked to the instance, so
I finished that without getting new achievements. When done I was ported to
Dalaran and since that is so close to Naxx, I decided to try that (with the
option of trying to solo the dragons, the WG bosses or ICC as alternatives).

Even Thorim in Ulduar is soloable now (technically it was soloable
before 6.0.2 as any pet class was required and also you had to cheat the
game mechanics in the tunnel). So go ahead. :)

Post by Urbin
I was amazed that soloing a 25man level 80 instance was hardly harder than
the level 70 ones, it just took a little longer due to the larger health
pools. I breezed through the arachnoid and plague quarters, never in any
danger. Then I entered the construct quarter and almost died to the acid
channel before Patchwerk but survived. Then I atacked Patchwerk and boy, he
still hits like a tank. When I was down to 8k HP I feigned death and let my
pet build up some solid aggro while I just healed the pet before going back
to dealing damage. We killed him in the end but not paying attention almost
cost me my life, even at 90 with iLvl ~480.

If you have a pet you can let that do all the damage. I did that when I
went there with my frost mage back in MoP. I rarely attacked Patchwerk
and just healed up my elemental pet now and then. A long an boring
fight, but doable as Patchwerk only attacked my pet.
Btw. With the latest big patch mages have absolutely no selfhealing or
pet healing anymore which makes old content a bit harder... :(

[Catriona R]

Post by Peter T.
Even Thorim in Ulduar is soloable now (technically it was soloable
before 6.0.2 as any pet class was required and also you had to cheat the
game mechanics in the tunnel). So go ahead. :)

Also Valithria in Icecrown is skippable, so I've heard, so nonhealers
can do the rest of the place :-)

[Peter T.]

Post by Catriona R
Yay, nice one! :-) Tempest Keep may be a problem, as Kael'Thas has
Mind Control... now, I've never tried this on a pet class, but
certainly going in with more than one person, it doesn't tend to end
well lol, and with a pet class, well, he might use you to kill your
pet and then reset. Hopefully not, but be prepared for this! It's an
awesome fight if you're *not* a pet class, really fun to see.

Every class or spec with a pet (hunter, frost mage, warlock etc.) has to
dismiss the pet before fighting Kael'Thas or the boss will reset after
he has MC'ed you. Even a mage's mirror spell is a no-go. :)

[Catriona R]

Post by Peter T.

Post by Catriona R
Yay, nice one! :-) Tempest Keep may be a problem, as Kael'Thas has
Mind Control... now, I've never tried this on a pet class, but
certainly going in with more than one person, it doesn't tend to end
well lol, and with a pet class, well, he might use you to kill your
pet and then reset. Hopefully not, but be prepared for this! It's an
awesome fight if you're *not* a pet class, really fun to see.

Every class or spec with a pet (hunter, frost mage, warlock etc.) has to
dismiss the pet before fighting Kael'Thas or the boss will reset after
he has MC'ed you. Even a mage's mirror spell is a no-go. :)

I had a feeling that was the case, I've always made a point of not
using my Shadowfiend to be on the safe side, seems that was a good
decision then :-)

[unknown]

Post by Catriona R
Awww, poor pet! Sounds about similar to my warlock's experience then
hehe :-)

I just finished up my last warlock , pretty low geared
a couple of 520 a couple of 551
some of 496 slots weren't even upgraded
stand on edge
glyph of conflagrate to slow them

spam
/target gulp frog
/cast conflagrate

four or five hits to kill but a couple land before they even get near
some take a chaos bolt or the low health kill

voidlord only died once getting 150 lesser and 5k timeless in around the
time it takes a potion of luck to run out
just stand near a group of Whored (or doh-lliance) and let them kill
your taps for you :-)
Actually my spams often target and hit other players tags so it probably
works out.

The 'main' warlock which used to be a banker but for some reason RNG
gods choose to bless can sometimes one shot them.
Obviously crit or multistrike or other players hitting plus the
voidlords hits but grumpy if it has to move to loot :-)
spam . . . . . . . . . . loot

. being numpad delete, doctor who cyber reference in a cybergame
DELETE DELETE DELETE in my head :-)

[unknown]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
go to the Timeless Isle, you've probably been given a quest to speak with
Chromie, if not, go up to the Lorewalkers building in the vale (above
Mogu'shan palace) and have a word with her

Haven't gotten that quest yet. I'll give that I go just to see the place and
see what the quests are like.

There's very few actual quests there but tons to explore, treasure all
over the place is pretty fun :-)

Tried that last night. Wow. I had only been there for 10 minutes before I
found a huge steaming chest. Clicked on it. Had two epic 496 items. Ten
minutes later two more dropped from random elites. Within the first half
hour I ended up with two epic necklaces and three epic belts. :-)
Lucky I loosely still lurk here, so I realised what all these frogs were for
when I rode past them and once I saw that 20k coins would reward me with a
nice and epic crossbow I spent the next two hours in a frog group of three
which was nice and relaxed. By the end of it I had 19k coins, 50 stones of
iforgetwhat, epic pants, epic bracers and half a dozen more epics to vendor
off. Handed in the 50 stones, bought my crossbow and logged off.

Upgrade it with the lesser coins 50 per upgrade at your vale shrine
in with the ethereals , you should have 10 or so upgrades worth since
frogs drop 1 each (more or less ??). Another reason to farm frogs.

Cast the 496, see if it is a better stat match for your current gear
then vendor , more gold. Normally you would save some for burden to 530
gear later, send to appropriate alts banks ,but not much chance in the time.
Or just go all tourist :-)

[Urbin]

Post by unknown

Post by Urbin
Handed in the 50 stones, bought my crossbow and logged off.

Upgrade it with the lesser coins 50 per upgrade at your vale shrine
in with the ethereals , you should have 10 or so upgrades worth since
frogs drop 1 each (more or less ??). Another reason to farm frogs.

Thanks, I'll have a look at that before I start soloing old raids.

Cheers
Urbin

[Lewis]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
- half of my abilities seem to be gone or changed. My survival hunter seems
to be down to 5 attacks, two of which are on long cooldowns. I can kill
stuff and don't intend to group, so I won't even bother with working on a
rotation but it all seems to be rather haphazard

Yeah, they did a big ability prune, in fairness kinda needed as
actionbars were overflowing, think they overdid it in some cases
though, most my characters have missing abilities I really want
back...

It's not really that I miss anything in specific. It's just that my fingers
have better muscle memory than my brain can remember :-) Last night I
repeatedly found myself pressing "7" which used to be my one "hard hitting"
attack but which is currently unassigned because I can only really fill 2-6
and 8 with attacks (and 8 has always been multishot ever since I first got
it, so there is no way it will move anywhere else :-)

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
- my pet dies. a lot. Back then, my pet seemed to be unkillable, I could
just send it from foe to foe without ever healing it. Now, I need to.
Frequently. Or it dies.

Ouch. My warlock's voidwalker is unkillable in old content, but very
squishy indeed in more recent content... I'm not used to having to
heal him ever time I get adds!

Oh well, I've hotkeyed pet heal now and have become quite good at
remembering pressing it every once in a while.

I put the heal into my shot macro, which is something like:

/castsequence arcane shot, arcane shot, cobra shot, arcane shot, cobra shot, heal pet
/use kill command
/use kill shot

(typing from memory, I know I left out some stuff, like the /use ## to
use the trinkets, but I never remember the slot numbers 12 and 13? 13
and 14?)

[Lewis]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin
I did not think I would be back for WoW after quitting more than two years
ago. However, there was this e-mail from Blizzard tempting me with 7 days of
free game time and as these 7 days coincide with the wife being away at a
conference I thought "why the hell not" :-)

Hehe, great timing! :-)

Post by Urbin
So I updated my client and logged in for the first time last night and have
now played a few hours. Wow. Do I feel out of my depth :-)
- for 7 days I won't even bother updating any addons, I'm just playing using
the standard UI. Quite a bit has improved, but it's an unusal view
compared to the tailored UI I had put together during my 7+ years of
previous play time

It's a lot better than it used to be, yep, I've found I can play with
no addons fairly well, so long as I'm not healing, still prefer to
have my addons though.

Post by Urbin
- half of my abilities seem to be gone or changed. My survival hunter seems
to be down to 5 attacks, two of which are on long cooldowns. I can kill
stuff and don't intend to group, so I won't even bother with working on a
rotation but it all seems to be rather haphazard

Yeah, they did a big ability prune, in fairness kinda needed as
actionbars were overflowing, think they overdid it in some cases
though, most my characters have missing abilities I really want
back...

Post by Urbin
- my pet dies. a lot. Back then, my pet seemed to be unkillable, I could
just send it from foe to foe without ever healing it. Now, I need to.
Frequently. Or it dies.

Ouch. My warlock's voidwalker is unkillable in old content, but very
squishy indeed in more recent content... I'm not used to having to
heal him ever time I get adds!

Post by Urbin
- did they tinker with the numbers? My health is down to 39k or so. I seem
to remember being way about 150k when I quit. Did they rebase everything
or am just misremembering?

They did indeed, a big numbers "squish" as they called it, since
numbers were getting a bit silly, we were into hundreds of thousands,
moving towards millions, so it's all been reduced again. Feels weird,
I'm getting fairly used to it, but I have zero idea what dps is "good"
or not these days.

I see most top DPS in a raid in the 5-6K range, and most of the DPS
around 4K. I don't think I've seen anyone over 10K, but I've only done
one raid so I could be misremembering. It's still nothing like trying to
get to 1K dps back in TBC.

HOWEVER, you go to do old content and the boost is insane. I went and
soloed ICC, and I was averaging 93K dps. Basically, killed every boss in
a few seconds up to Sindragosa, which is where I hit exalted and left
the instance.

I did die once, when I got stuck on the horde ship and couldn't reset,
so jumped out of the instance