Soloing old content is weird

[Lewis]

It is amazing to me how many of the old instances and raids are severely
bugged when you go back to solo them.

Just for example, I didn't get credit for the second boss in the Naxx
military wing (the one with the bone piles) but I did kill him and did
go on to kill the boss after him (4 horsemen, iirc). But, no credit for
clearing military wing.

The final boss in naxx (after the dragon) bugged 6 times, despawning
after a few minutes over and over before finally not---as long as I stayed
still in the center and never moved.

One of the bosses in Firelands was not exactly bugged, but not exactly
not either.

Not sure if I should try the final raid in Cat or not. Will have to look
at the mechanics and see if it even allows soloing (my sense is that it
does not).

I did get a mount drop in some raid in Dragonblight, but it was mount I
already had.

I'm up to 145K gold, despite the increase in monthly coin cost (up to
35K+). The missions and ship missions bring in so much money that even
though I am spending 40-60K a month, I am still increasing my stockpile
steadily.

Most of my active minions are treasure hunters now, so god missions
sometimes get doubled three times. Barrels of oil sell for stupid
amounts of money (~1500g) as does a lot of worthless gear. I mean,
worthless to me. Who the hell spends 5K on an ilevel 400 item?

[Catriona R]

On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 14:08:29 -0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
Just for example, I didn't get credit for the second boss in the Naxx
military wing (the one with the bone piles) but I did kill him and did
go on to kill the boss after him (4 horsemen, iirc). But, no credit for
clearing military wing.
The final boss in naxx (after the dragon) bugged 6 times, despawning
after a few minutes over and over before finally not---as long as I stayed
still in the center and never moved.

I've had that one a couple of times, yeah, not encountered the earlier
bug you met though.

Post by Lewis
One of the bosses in Firelands was not exactly bugged, but not exactly
not either.

3 bosses in there are annoying in different ways - spider boss if you
fall down you end up basically permastunned till death, patrolling
dogs guy, one dog will permastun you till death unless you have a dot
onhim which if you're lucky will break the stun, and gatekeeper boss
does a % of health-based ability that basically will kill you if you
can't kill him before he does it... seeing as I'm a healy priest, my
dps is not high enough meaning I have to switch back to 10N mode for
that one fight, even though I can do everything else on 25N or 10H
(haven't tried 25H since I got better gear, that might be manageable
for me now, wasn't before 6.2) None of those are bugs though, just
mechanics that don't work out very well with only one person present!

Post by Lewis
Not sure if I should try the final raid in Cat or not. Will have to look
at the mechanics and see if it even allows soloing (my sense is that it
does not).

If you mean Dragon Soul, it is entirely soloable, although Spine of
Deathwing is the most annoying bloody fight ever - not so hard once
you figure out the correct execution (took me a couple of deaths and
one enrage timer before I got it right), but REALLY annoying. Think
I've only done 10-man normal there btw, but as I understand it heroic
is no harder mechanicswise.

Post by Lewis
I'm up to 145K gold, despite the increase in monthly coin cost (up to
35K+). The missions and ship missions bring in so much money that even
though I am spending 40-60K a month, I am still increasing my stockpile
steadily.

Those are great for money, our monthly sub is consistently 60k+ so I
pay with RL money (feels better value for money, in that the
conversion to US prices means we only pay slightly more than you guys,
vs nearly double in gold...), so my ingame gold is racking up now. Got
my eye on the BMAH for some really nice mounts, but of course on the
rare occasion they're up someone else already bid the goldcap - the
downside to a very active server, if I had the same gold on a dead one
I'd probably have been able to get something by now.

Post by Lewis
Most of my active minions are treasure hunters now, so god missions
sometimes get doubled three times. Barrels of oil sell for stupid
amounts of money (~1500g) as does a lot of worthless gear. I mean,
worthless to me. Who the hell spends 5K on an ilevel 400 item?

What, those barrels are sellable? Damn, I've been using mine, didn't
notice that and just assumed BoP! As for the useless gear, if it has
an interesting model, that'll be transmog hunters, supply seems higher
than demand on my realm but theoretically there's a number of rubbish
low lvl greens that are worth thousands, due to desirable models. I've
set MogIt up to display looks on a female when I mouseover, as the
more "revealing" models tend to be pricy (my main is a male so the
usual dressing room doesn't give me much clue how things would look on
a female!).

With the forthcoming transmog system letting people learn as many
looks as they like, transmog will be big money by the time 7.0 comes
round; I don't have enough bankspace to start now but in the runup to
it I'll start stockpiling salvage crates and see how much I can sell
in early 7.0 as people start wanting every look! (well, I'll probably
be learning a lot of them myself tbh... collector instinct tends to
come before goldmaking for me :-))

[Lewis]

Post by Catriona R
On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 14:08:29 -0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
Just for example, I didn't get credit for the second boss in the Naxx
military wing (the one with the bone piles) but I did kill him and did
go on to kill the boss after him (4 horsemen, iirc). But, no credit for
clearing military wing.
The final boss in naxx (after the dragon) bugged 6 times, despawning
after a few minutes over and over before finally not---as long as I stayed
still in the center and never moved.

I've had that one a couple of times, yeah, not encountered the earlier
bug you met though.

Post by Lewis
One of the bosses in Firelands was not exactly bugged, but not exactly
not either.

3 bosses in there are annoying in different ways - spider boss if you
fall down you end up basically permastunned till death,

Didn't matter that I got stuned, pet shredded the spider.

Post by Catriona R
patrolling dogs guy, one dog will permastun you till death unless you
have a dot onhim which if you're lucky will break the stun,

Same as above, but a much faster fight than the spider. 15 seconds,
maybe.

Post by Catriona R
and gatekeeper boss does a % of health-based ability that basically
will kill you if you can't kill him before he does it...

The thingy he dropped? It did some damage, but I moved away and then the
boss died.

iLvl 707, everything in Firelands simply melted. Dragon Soul was also
trivial up until the spine, which I couldn't do because I didn't
remember the mechanics and DW rolls so frequently you are simply
strafing back and forth the entire time. It seems doable, but bloody
annoykng so I may go back and do it again, or I may not. I think tonight
I am going to try to get all the achievements I am missing from Ulduar or
Ulduan or whatever it's called up in NE Northrend.

It's not particularly interesting game play, but it's more interesting
that running that bird heroic for the 700th time.

[Catriona R]

On Tue, 19 Jan 2016 04:40:48 -0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R
3 bosses in there are annoying in different ways - spider boss if you
fall down you end up basically permastunned till death,

Didn't matter that I got stuned, pet shredded the spider.

Ah, lucky :-P Priests haven't got that option, I have to be mighty
careful to not fall down ;-)

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R
patrolling dogs guy, one dog will permastun you till death unless you
have a dot onhim which if you're lucky will break the stun,

Same as above, but a much faster fight than the spider. 15 seconds,
maybe.

Yeah, you've got higher dps than me then, plus again, pet helps!

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R
and gatekeeper boss does a % of health-based ability that basically
will kill you if you can't kill him before he does it...

The thingy he dropped? It did some damage, but I moved away and then the
boss died.

Nope, you clearly kill him before he does it then (else pet tank makes
a difference!); he switches to hitting for 90% of your health,
repeatedly. Can't be shielded, reduced or anything that I can do to
mitigate it (can be parried and dodged but... yeah). He does it a set
amount of time into the fight so when solo it's a dps race; I could
only do it on 10 normal, but maybe my better gear now will let me do a
higher difficulty next time I try.

Post by Lewis
iLvl 707, everything in Firelands simply melted. Dragon Soul was also
trivial up until the spine, which I couldn't do because I didn't
remember the mechanics and DW rolls so frequently you are simply
strafing back and forth the entire time. It seems doable, but bloody
annoykng so I may go back and do it again, or I may not. I think tonight
I am going to try to get all the achievements I am missing from Ulduar or
Ulduan or whatever it's called up in NE Northrend.

The spine is annoying as heck - the only "easy" way to do it is the
stand in one of the holes where you killed a tentacle (they glue you
to his back) and wait for enough slime thingys to spawn - problem is
the elemental guy you need to charge up with the slimes falls off when
Deathwing rolls, so you still have to do the strafing for that part,
seriously annoying fight. I suspect I'd have a far easier time if I
just took an alt on follow and arranged the two characters one on each
side!

Post by Lewis
It's not particularly interesting game play, but it's more interesting
that running that bird heroic for the 700th time.

I really enjoy soloing old stuff, more fun than WoD content for sure.
Although I'm not bothering so much now, because I don't have enough
bankspace to store all the transmog gear thatdrops, might as well wait
for 7.0 when it's more use to me :-)