Where are you now?

Patch 5.2 Release Date
More interestingly, what do you think would be a good date to launch 5.2?

Do you think the majority of players are already “finished” with the current content? Where do you think most players stand in terms of PvE and PvP progress right now?
What rules do you think we should follow when deciding to launch new content? 
Should it be a fixed linear time cycle? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I copied this from MMO-Champion, and funny enough it kept the style...

So where are you now?

Where am I?

Well, I am currently finishing off Shado-Pan rep. I am 2/3 through revered with them. I am also finishing off August Celestials, I am a sliver away from Revered with them.

Raiding wise we have killed the first four bosses from Heart of Fear and were closing in on the kill on Amber Shaper.

Gearwise...well, we have been incredibly unlucky with the leather spirit drops, but our raid has their gear somewhat behind what we're beating, because I'm not the only one who has not finished their reps.

Valor points? I have now reached the valor cap 5 times since MoP went live! But then again, we were talking about this during raid last week and one of our shamans said he had reached it a whole total of once.

Legendary quest? I am 2200/6000 or so. I have a 500 int gem in my bags which is rather useless since I have no weapon to stick it in (not a usefull weapon at least, I did get the staff without spirit twice already in LFR).

Pet Battles, I have several pets at level 25, and am 2/4 on the Spirit Tamer quest.

Alts? yah...not nearly as far as I would wish to be, mostly because I keep feeling guilty if I spend time on an alt while I could finish of reps on my main.

Challenge Modes? We've completed 1 challenge mode and got no medals for it. Luckily I find the gear monks get ridiculously ugly, so I only have to get silver to get the mount. But yeah, somewhere I would love to find time to do some of this.

I have done the scenarios all once at least, but since I don't have time I am nowhere near tired of them. I am somewhat done with dungeons though since it doesn't seem to matter how much time I put in there, I seem to get the wrong ones anyways.

Oh yah...I am also allowed to go into Black Temple for transmog gear now, and got myself brutally murdered by the heads boss (reliquary), the rest is fairly easily doable solo.

So all in all I am nowhere near done with this patch

Yet, people are asking about patch 5.2. I am personally hoping that it will not be there for a bit still. I have accomplished quite a bit if I put it all in a row, but specifically the alts part is something that I would love to find some time for before I have to get back to grinding on the main again.

And I would love to have at least cleared all the normals before the next patch. Terrace is a few weeks away and I am looking forward to this instance. I find it incredibly pretty in LFR and the fights seem like they will be a fun challenge.

And I'm not even looking much at the achievements...

I guess FP's other group is looking at achievements...cause this was not our 10man...sounds fun, lol. 

So like all the Panda's say, Blizz:  'Slow Down.'

I am in no hurry to have a new patch already. I would only feel way behind again. (and we're 14th on the server on 10man progression...I think there might be more people who are not done yet).

How about you?

Alts, will they ever be the same again?

I came >< this close to actually quitting the game entirely last week. I had a whole post written up and was ready to post on our guild forums that I would not be raiding that weekend, or in fact any weekend at all every again.

The main reason?

I am tired of waiting for change. The game to me has not felt fully fun since Wrath of the Lich King.

Cataclysm was one big annoyance to me. Not until the very end did it feel like more fun again. Mana management is what Blizzard wants, but I hate it. I hate not being able to heal when I should be healing. I hate not being able to compensate.

Mists has done a better job at that end, now when I run out of mana I know I need to tweak my approach, and mana management is not so tight anymore that no mistakes are allowed. Healing stress is slightly lower at least now.

But now I am so tired of the dailies, that I can only longingly look at the moment that my main is caught up and has no more reps to do and can actually just get her valor cap by raiding and LFR.

And maybe, just maybe I'll get to play my alts some. I miss my alts...

My favourite way of playing this game?

Gear my main through raid and a little bit of other stuff, like a dungeon or two. And outside raid time I want to play my alts.

What have I been doing so far?

Playing catch up on my main. Frantically trying to get the reps done so that I won't feel guilty when I spend time on my alt. Running dungeons, scenarios, and doing dailies, just so I can get the valor cap on my main.

I have levelled 1 alt so far. I miss my alts...

Thror kept saying just wait for the next patch, it'll be better. But what the hell. Blizzard has been designing this game for years now, they shouldn't need a next patch again just to make things 'better'. They had it spot on when they started Icecrown.

The only thing wrong with that expansion was that it lasted a bit too long at the end. And even there I didn't care all that much since I had alts that I could gear up and play for the necesary change of flavour. I miss my alts...

Last week I felt like the dinosaur that should've been extinct a long time ago already, like the way I like to play the game just doesn't match with how game design works any longer.

But then I finished the shieldwall reputation, and realized. Blizzard really did fuck it up with the reps and dailies at first. I loved shieldwall, I loved how the storyline drew me in, how it kept me going, and how I wanted to get to the next part. Even if it meant having to do some dailies for it.

I think this is how my druid must be feeling, sad, alone, and abandoned. 

So while the rep situation will really just fix itself by the next patch, I do think Blizzard has learned.

However, that does not mean that they are now saved. No, all my alts still have the mount everest of dailies and reps to go before they can even start thinking about their professions.

I don't want to do that again on an alt. I don't care if I have increased rep gain. I just don't want to do it at all. And the worst is that you cannot get to one rep before you have finished the other. (Golden Lotus > Shado Pan & August Celestials).

Fix this Blizzard, please? Fix it so I can feel happy about playing my alts again, instead of feeling like I just finished all the chores on my main and if I ever want to play my alts somewhat properly I have more hoops to jump through, instead of just have fun with an alt.

Please fix it, so that I do not have to dread playing my alts, level them to just before 90 because I know that the horror starts at that level.

Please fix it, so that I can have fun with my professions again. So that I do not have to spend hours and hours and hours before I can do anything with my alts professions.

Please fix it? I miss my alts...

Pandaria Mounts Guide (MoP mounts)

I did a guide on the mounts in Cataclysm way back when, and this guide is still searched for and visited a lot. Over time more and more tools have come up to figure out which mounts you can get and where, and pretty lists are available through tools like wowhead. But an overview of what each mount looks like, and where/how to get it I have been unable to find.

A good guide can be found on wowhead here btw, but it still requires you to go to each link separately to figure out what to do and what they look like.

This will be a long list, since 73 mounts have been added in MoP so far. Luckily they can somewhat be divided into families.

Cranes

Available in Game:

Golden Riding Crane

Azure Riding Crane
Golden Riding Crane
Regal Riding Crane

Not Available in Game:
Albino Riding Crane
Crimson Riding Crane
Jungle Riding Crane

Cranes are ground mounts only, they do not fly.

Three Riding cranes are available at exalted with Golden Lotus; Azure Riding Crane, Golden Riding Crane, and Regal Riding Crane. They cost 500G, 2500G, and 1500G respectively.

The Albino Riding Crane, Crimson Riding Crane, and Jungle Riding Cranes are in the game files, but cannot be bought it seems at this time. The Albino Crane can be seen in game at Dawn's Blossom next to stable master Hong the Kindly (46,43).

Serpents

This being the eastern / asia feeling expansion the serpents had to be there of course, and there are quite a few of them.

Serpents are flying mounts, and I personally find them quite wobbly to ride, but they are gorgeous to see.

Available in Game:
Astral Cloud Serpent

Astral Cloud Serpent

Azure Cloud Serpent
Crimson Cloud Serpent
Golden Cloud Serpent
Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent
Jade Cloud Serpent
Onyx Cloud Serpent
Thundering August Cloud Serpent
Thundering Jade Cloud Serpent
Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent

Not Available in Game:
Heavenly Azure Cloud Serpent
Heavenly Crimson Cloud Serpent
Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent
Heavenly Jade Cloud Serpent


The Astral Cloud Serpent drops from Elegon as a very rare drop.

The Azure, Jade, and Golden Cloud Serpents can be obtained by reaching exalted status with the Order of the Cloud Serpent. The comments on wowhead give a good explanation of what to do to get these.

The Crimson Cloud Serpent is a reward from completing Glory of the Pandaria Hero achievement.

The Heavenly Crimson Cloud Serpent is a reward for completing the achievement Glory of the Pandaria Raider. 

Thundering Jade Cloud Serpent

The Onyx Cloud Serpent is a reward from the quest Surprise Attack!. This quest becomes available on becoming Exalted with Shado-Pan.

The Thundering August Cloud Serpent, and the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent are rewards from reaching exalted with The August Celestials. These cost 10.000 gold each.

The Thundering Jade Cloud Serpent can be bought for 3,000 gold from guild vendors once your guild has completed Guild Glory of the Pandaria Raider.


The Heavenly Azure Cloud Serpent, The Heavenly Golden Cloud Serpent, The Heavenly Jade Cloud Serpent, and The Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent have been datamined but are not available in the game.

Water Striders

Azure Water Strider

Available in Game:
Azure Water Strider

Not Available in Game:
Golden Water Strider
Jade Water Strider
Orange Water Strider
Crimson Water Strider

Only the  Reins of the Azure Water Strider are available in-game, through Exalted reputation with The Anglers in Krasarang Wilds.

The other four colors of this mount, though available from the same vendor during beta, are currently unavailable.

This mount walks on water, but cannot fly.

Dragon Turtles

Available at Level 20:

Great Blue Dragon Turtle

Black Dragon Turtle
Blue Dragon Turtle
Brown Dragon Turtle
Green Dragon Turtle
Purple Dragon Turtle
Red Dragon Turtle

Available at Level 40:
Great Black Dragon Turtle
Great Blue Dragon Turtle
Great Brown Dragon Turtle
Great Green Dragon Turtle
Great Purple Dragon Turtle
Great Red Dragon Turtle

Dragon Turtles are the pandaren racial mounts. So all you have to do is reach exalted with the pandaren...or be a pandaren of course, or even have been a pandaren, because after a race change you keep the mounts you bought already.

Dragon turtles are ground mounts only.

Yaks

Available in Game:

Grand Expedition Yak

Blonde Riding Yak
Grey Riding Yak
Grand Expedition Yak

Not Available in Game:
Black Riding Yak
Brown Riding Yak
White Riding Yak

The Blonde Riding Yak, Grey Riding Yak, and Grand Expedition Yak can all be bought from Uncle Bigpocket in Kun Lai Summit. The Blonde and Grey one cost 3000 gold each and the Grand Expedition Yak costs 120.000 gold. But this one does come with 2 vendors, just like the traveller's mammoth, and it is a rather impressive mount.

Yaks are ground mounts only.

Phoenix

Ashen Pandaren Phoenix

Ashen Pandaren Phoenix
Crimson Pandaren Phoenix
Emerald Pandaren Phoenix
Violet Pandaren Phoenix

Obtained via trading in an Ancestral Phoenix Egg (which is obtained via challenge mode dungeon achievement: Challenge Conqueror: Silver).


At the moment it looks like it's possible to pick one color only, so choose wisely!

Goats

Black Riding Goat
Brown Riding Goat
White Riding Goat

These mounts can be bought once you reach exalted with the Tillers. Gina Mudclaw sells them. The Brown one goes for 125 gold, Black for 375 gold, and the White one for 812,50 gold.

These are ground mounts only.

Tigers

Blue Shado-Pan Riding Tiger
Green Shado-Pan Riding Tiger
Red Shado-Pan Riding Tiger

These mounts can be bought from the Shado-Pan once you reach exalted with them. The blue version costs 125 gold, green 375 gold, and red costs 625 gold.

These are ground mounts only.

Kites

Jade Pandaren Kite

Pandaren Kite (alliance)
Pandaren Kite (horde)
Jade Pandaren Kite

The Pandaren Kites can be gotten through completing the achievement to reach exalted with all orginal Pandaria Factions, Pandaren Ambassador.

The Jade Pandaren Kite is granted upon collecting 150 mounts, and getting the achievement We're Going to Need More Saddles.

These are flying mounts.

Depleted-Kyparium Rocket

Engineering Rockets

Depleted-Kyparium Rocket
Geosynchronous World Spinner

Geosynchronous World Spinner

Both of these mounts can be created by engineers. One by a gnomisch engineer, the other by a goblin engineer. Each costs 3 Orbs of Mystery which go for 20.000 gold per from the vendor (or 18.000 gold with guild perk), and other materials.

These are both flying mounts.

Jewelcrafting Panthers

Jeweled Onyx Panther

Jade Panther
Ruby Panther
Sapphire Panther
Sunstone Panther
Jeweled Onyx Panther

Jewelcrafters can get the patterns for these mounts at honored and revered Order of the Cloud Serpent. Each of the mounts costs quite a bit in materials and an Orb of Mystery.

At Exalted the jewelcrafter can make the Jeweled Onyx Panther. This mount requires the jewelcrafter to have all of the other 4 in his bags (unlearned!) and he can then combine them.

Gryphons and Wyverns

Grand Wyvern

Grand Armored Gryphon

Grand Armored Gryphon
Grand Armored Wyvern
Grand Gryphon
Grand Wyvern

These mounts are alliance and horde specific. They can be bought once you reach exalted with Operation Shieldwall. The armored version costs 2000 gold and without armor you have to pay 34 gold and 20 silvers.

These are flying mounts.

Miscelaneous

Amber Scorpion

Amber Scorpion can be bought for 10.000 gold from the Klaxxi once you reach exalted, this is a ground mount only.

Cataclysmic Gladiator's Twilight Drake is the arena mount for season 11.

Cataclysmic Gladiator's Twilight Drake

Imperial Quilen is the collector's edition and digital deluxe edition mount. This mount is a ground and flying mount, and can be used in all zones.

Imperial Quillen

Red Flying Cloud

Red Flying Cloud this mount can be gotten by reaching exalted with the Lorewalkers. This mount is a ground and flying mount and can be used in all zones. Check here for a guide on how to get this mount.

Son of Galleon

Swift Windsteed

Son of Galleon drops from killing Galleon. You can win the mount on a coin roll, but this does require you to actually be in the group that kills Galleon. I have personally never seen this mount. This is a ground mount only.

Swift Windsteed will be available through the Blizzard store for 25$ or 20€. It is expected to be availble from patch 5.2 onwards.





This completes this mount guide for the moment, I am sure that at a later time more mounts will be added in patches, but currently this is the known information.

Let me know if you find errors or incorrect information.

Glyphs, Talents, and Reforge

Please stop being so restrictive about the Glyph/Talent UI. It's driving people nuts, I loathe the moment I have to change!
Philosophically, we don't want automating talent or glyph swaps. Once it's easy to reglyph every pull, players feel like they must. (Source)

The above is about addons on the talent/glyph ui.

In Vanilla there was one spec, no glyphs, and if you wanted to change your talents you had to go to your trainer. He would then give all your talent points back and you could redecide how you wanted to spend those points.

Back then it was actually possible to spend your points halfway over 3 different trees if you so desired. The only requirement was that you had filled up the previous talent tier with enough points to open up the next.

There was no gemming your gear, no reforging, no glyphing. No nothing. You picked a spec, figured out what your role was, and went with the best spec for that.

During raid, you had no option then to just deal with it. And sometimes classes would be switched out, and the high-end raids would sometimes send people out halfway through to have them respec quickly and summon them back.

This was comparatively a lot more costly, but much easier, because at some point you would know your specs so well that you could just fill them in blindly almost. As long as you made sure to enchant all your gear you were good to go once the summon came.

Now when you get an upgrade you often cannot even wear it directly. Because without reforging, gemming and enchanting it it would quite often be a downgrade to your perfectly tuned set.

In fact, what happened to me the other day is that I got a neckpiece of ilvl 496 which replaced my 463 neck. 30 item levels up, but I could not use it because I would be so far under the hit cap by swapping it out that it would be a problem.

This makes me wonder if Blizzard has gone overboard in the options to finetune your character. Each time you win a piece all other items have to be reforged to be in tune with the items you already have. Gems have to be replaced, enchants have to sometimes be redone, etc

Hit and expertise are the worst for this as the blues have already admitted, but also haste forms an issue since for quite a few classes there is a haste cap. Mistweaver monks included, in between the different haste plateaus the stat simply doesn't do a lot and you're better off with crit or even mastery.

And then there is the retalenting and glyphing. I have to admit, I was excited when I learned that we would be able to reglyph and talent on the move. I'm not so sure anymore.

It feels like I'm at a disadvantage if I don't reglyph/retalent for every fight. So pre-fight check is no longer a matter of having all your buffs (flask, food, and casted buffs), it now includes do you have the correct talents and glyphs.

It feels as if more time is spent in between fights just to finetune it so you have the edge, more time spent in between and less time on the actualy fight. More time spent on preparation and less on actually having the fun. Or is the preparation supposed to be the fun?

Another problem on top of this is that when you do change a talent or glyph it changes the way you fight, or heal so drastically at times that it takes a couple of attempts to adjust. So while it may be the better glyph choice for the fight, it may change the way you do things so much that you'll do worse at first. Glyph of Uplift is a good example for this.

With glyph uplift costs mana, without it costs chi. Sounds simple, but it affects so much more. Because you're using mana for uplift you need to use a different spell to spend your generated chi, to generate mana tea. This changes your rotation. However, if you do not change your rotation and make sure to spend the chi to get mana tea you're running out of mana real fast, because not only does uplift no longer spend chi, and hence generate mana through mana tea, it also costs mana.

Or glyph of mana tea, allowing you to have instant mana tea, but only 2 charges at a time. But it still costs a global cooldown, so if you do not have those to spare you cannot just use more mana tea at a handy moment. To know if you have to use the glyph or not requires you to know before the fight whether you'll have downtime to drink your mana tea.

So one glyph can change your healing style so much that you can easily screw it up, yet it is expected that you know how to work with all this.

I'm liking this new method less and less. Yes, I have choices, but all those choices are diminishing my time spent on the actual fun, namely the fight and learning the fight.

And since the fights are built around having the option to reglyph and retalent I cannot just ignore this part of the game. I have to play the game as it is designed even though I would much rather just focus on the gorgeous raid fights themselves.

Not to mention the costs involved with changing everything every time, meaning that you have to go farm for those costs. An upgrade will generally cost about 400 gold - 8x reforging + new enchants, + new gem. And then it's not even a weapon which upsets stuff even more.

I find myself longing more and more for the days where the difficulty was in figuring out how the fight worked, not how my character, gear, talents and glyphs work for each and every fight separately.

(and please Blizz don't go with reforging on the run, because then I have to add that to my pre-fight check as well).

Have A Nice Day Mr Troll!

A while ago I read this story at WoW Insider. If you don't want to go through the entire story, it is about a Blizzard CM, Tseric, who way back when picked a fight with forum trolls. He spoke his mind, but in the end, he lost the fight from the trolls, and lost his job over it.

Today I read another post on WoWInsider, about how a blue poster explains what you can do against harassment. And also repeating Blizzard's promise to deal with these people if they are found guilty as accused.

This all made me think on where we are going with this. It feels like I see it more and more that people are rude and mean to other people. Intent on bringing other people down, on hurting other people as much as they possible can, with no other purpose than their own enjoyment it seems.

Are we forgetting that there are real people behind the characters? Or worse...are we not forgetting, but is this simply how society is nowadays? Are these in-game bullies simply this messed up that they automatically do this?

It feels like more and more people are so self-absorbed, so self-centered, that they cannot seem to take one step in the shoes of the people they are harassing, and imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end.

On the other hand, maybe these sort of in-game bullies are constantly on the receiving end in their real lifes, and they need to let of steam in their online lifes. Reaction instead of action in that case.

I do like this last stream of though. The big bad bully suddenly takes on the image of a grown-up crybaby in diapers, waving a world of warcraft game around instead of a rattle. Makes them seem a little less impressive, huh? ;)

Have A Nice Day

I while ago I posted the DailyBink Poster you can see on the left, this poster is not recent, and what happened to Tseric is also old news, so this sort of stuff is nothing new. But, it does feel like I see and hear more and more about it.

Maybe people are fed up with it by now, maybe the people who remained silent against the bullies are speaking up now. I don't know.

I do know that it doesn't make the game more fun. It doesn't make me want to play more. So I had an idea.

Because I too can be short of patience against fellow gamers, and maybe leave a group hanging without a healer, or just ride along on other player's shoulders in an LFR. I would never openly be rude, but I too find myself cussing newbs we come accross every now and then, and I complain to Thror about how some people have no idea.

Because I feel like we're not getting anywhere if I don't start with changing myself I am going to change this. Starting with my own behaviour. Even though I am nowhere near the level of what would ever be reported, I too can improve my nice-factor in game.

So from now on I will introduce for myself  H.A.N.D. - 'Have A Nice Day' one day per week. On this day I will be nice to everybody in the game, I will offer help to people who seem to need it or ask for it. I will take time for the people who need to learn, and I will be patient to every newbie out there.

I will say hello, and chat in my pug groups, and even greet people in LFRs. On this one day per week I will try to explain to rude people that they should be nice, that the world (or at least the warcraft world) can become a better place, if only you start by being better yourself.

And ya know, I will even do this on a day I normally play a lot, I'll take Saturday for this.

So the rules are:
- Say hello cheerily in every pug group
- Greet fellow players
- Be patient to players who need to learn
- Be helpful to those who ask, and even to those who don't ask, but look to need it
- Do not argue over loot
- Basically be a nice person

What do you say? Will you join and make your own gaming world a little better?

What's wrong with just wanting to raid?

"Regarding the alt unfriendliness of MoP. You created a huge requirement sink and refuse to address the elephant in the room"
"If an alt gets every accomplishment your main has then you have few reasons to play that alt. There has to be a better design."
"I disagree Greg. I play dif chars because I want to play a dif class, not to get some achieves. Make them all .net bound."
"But what are you going to do on that character if it has everything the main does. Just raid?"

I wonder what is wrong with just raiding. 

If I had it my way I would raid a whole lot more than I do now. I happen to find it the most fun and challenging aspect of the game. Granted, I wouldn't have time to raid every day, and most of the days I do log on to do one or the other in the game, but if I could choose I would love to have an insta raid ready for me the moment I log on and feel like playing for a few hours. (not an LFR, I love raiding, but LFR is not raiding for me).

I prefer to think of my alts as holding wintersleep

Also, I wonder what else they want to see as final goal in the game. Dailies? Dailies to me have always been a means to an end. And some people may enjoy them. Some people may even enjoy them so much that they  don't feel a need to do anything else after the dailies, but to me that has never been a goal on its own.

PVP? Sure, pvp is an end goal in the game. But then the argument that is being made here, completely invalid as well. "But what are you going to do on that character if it has everything the main does?" More PVP?

Do they really believe that people have alts to do the achievements again? I would bet that this is about the smallest part of the wow population you can imagine that actually does this. People have alts to have a change of scenery, to learn from a different perspective in the game, to experience a different playstyle. Some may have a specific alt jus tot PVP since they don't enjoy their main in PVP. Others may just really like questing. One of the main reasons is probably professions. But least likely it seems to me that people have alts to do the same dailies and achievements all over again.

Achievements on many alts is not a goal, and while I believe that the road to the end goal in the game has to be interesting, sometimes challenging, and always rewarding, I do not believe that it would hurt gameplay one bit if alts would have more things account wide.

Also, I think the forum poster here expressed himself badly. Alt unfriendliness in MoP is something that seems to be experienced by a lot of people. Myself included. I used to love playing alts, experiencing different classes, and different viewpoints. I had 7 characters at 85 and I with that I was definitely not special.

But now...now I have 1 character at 90. Exactly 1. My hunter is halfway through 89, so closing in on 90, but that took me remarkably longer than it has ever taken me before in previous expansions.

Why then are alts so unattractive at the moment?

I play on average about 18 to 20 hours per week. And I think this is quite a lot already. This includes 8 to 9 hours of raiding, and 2,5 hours of achievement/challenge runs on my Sunday evening. But what do I do in the rest of the time then? I still have about 7 hours of not raiding or achievements...well, I prepare as much as I can for raid.

And when I say as much as I can, I mean as much as I can without burning out on the game entirely. You see I don't like doing dailies. But to get my lesser charms I have to do them. So last weekend I spent about 3 hours just on doing dailies and getting my lesser charms so that Tuesday I can get my elder charms.

Other than this I want to not be broken on my characters. I hate standing at the AH and not be able to get my gear enchanted or gemmed. I have guildies and raid members who help with this of course, but sometimes I'm simply impatient and I just want that enchant/gem now. So I spend time on working the glyph and darkmoon card market. This takes about 20 minutes per day and keeps my wallet nicely filled enough to do what I want to do without going bankrupt.

Then of course I have some things in the game that I would like to do, which makes up for the last 3 hours of playtime. I go looking for pets, or transmog gear, or I do my farm, etc.

So reason number 1 why alts don't get pulled out of the stables? Time. They have created so many time sinks that are semi-required for the main that I just don't have a lot of time left to play an alt.

Next to this I still needed a lot of items on my main. Items that seem to all be soulbound, bind on pickup. So reason number 2, I cannot get what I need on my main by playing an alt. And I'm not talking about BoP gear, I am talking about spirits of harmony for example. Which I need to get my lotuses for flasks. I am talking about reputation, which I need for gear. Valor points and justice points, which I need to upgrade my gear.

Reason number 3, is that those reputation grinds are each looking like mount everest to me (and to a lot of others if I follow the forums a little). I haven't even been able to finish the rep grinds on my main. And time that I spent on my alts is taking away time from my main, who I feel already doesn't do everything I could do to be in the best shape possible for raid. I regularly don't do LFR. Last week I did only terrace. I don't max out my valor points every week. I haven't grinded all the reps to get the gear. Etc.

Every time I feel like playing an alt, I am thinking, "But I should really be doing this or that on my main" followed immediately after by, "But I really don't feel like that, blergh" and then quite often ends with "Hey Thror, feel like watching a film?"

Simply because it is all too much. What needs to be done is so huge still, that I cannot oversee what all needs to be done, which leads me to just not doing anything.

Lastly, reason number 4, As if it wasn't enough the first time I need to do all of it again on my alt. Once I finally have stuff on my main, I have to do the same grind (less heavy due to new rep tokens) again on my alts. To get to the better profession recipes I have to grind several alts to revered with shadopan for example. Tailoring and enchanting being two examples.

It feels like a task on my main, but it discourages me completely on an alt. So my hunter is hanging around at 89 and a half, because levelling her to 90 means that I have to start the rep grind.

Somehow I think Blizzard has shot themselves in the foot a little with this, and I think I'll leave my hunter where she is and level the warlock to 89 and a half next. At least at that level there's no pressure of rep grinds if I don't reach level 90.

But hey, this is just my take on this. Opinions may vary.

The great danger!

Patch 5.1 has now been live a couple of days and it seems to show a bit more what Blizzard has meant all that time when they said that this expansion would be more Alliance vs Horde.

The new dailies are very much pvp flavoured, even if you don't have to flag, or even join in any pvp style play, you do still feel very much that you're fighting horde.

The areas are as gorgeously made as the rest of Pandaria, and the boats are quite real. The daily zone that I went through really did give me the idea as if a battle was fought.

So if the dailies are ok, and there is no pvp, and the art is gorgeous once again, what then is this post about?

Well....I miss the hero aspect.

I wrote a post on wanting to be the hero as a healer and now I don't even feel like a hero with the dailies anymore. In fact this entire expansion doesn't feel as if the players get to be the hero. It feels as if we're all soldiers, playing our little parts, but nobody stands out.

Then again, on the other side nobody stands out either. The other side also has soldiers to beat, but no grand evil. And I think that this is where the problem is for me. There is no big baddie so far.

No common enemy to hate, no the enemy is splintered. Of course there is still Garrosh, who can die in a fire for all I care. And Varian...who can...well not much better (I know they're trying to make him more likeable, he's still an arrogant prick).

But there is no common purpose in the world at the moment. The world is divided, everybody fights their own little battle and that's that.

Now I'm no big lore monkey or anything, but even I felt the threat of Illidan during Burning Crusade. And when we finally beat him...god that felt good. In fact, I am currently doing quests with my monk and it still feels good.

You are not prepared!

And then in wrath there was Arthas. The Lich King was everywhere and Blizzard had made damn sure that everybody would be pestered by him at some point. Quests, dungeons, various raids...we all knew what we were fighting for.

Muradin's dwarves? Doesn't anyone stay dead anymore?

Once we had finally beaten the Lich King into submission (after he had beaten us into submission with his defile quite a few times) the world got turned upside down. Deathwing came flapping by and set the world on fire...quite literally in a lot of places.

I SHALL TEAR THIS WORLD APART!

When Deathwing was defeated there were...pandas?

Huh...yeah, ok, I love the pandas. In fact, I levelled the monk as a panda, shortly went human, but missed the panda so much that she's back to being cuddle and gorgeous. But we cannot really go fight the pandas much.

Well, we can, if they join the other faction we can, but that's not a big baddie. Who then?

The Sha?

Sha of Happiness

I can't help it. The Sha is just not as impressive as our previous big baddies.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, and hope that this all turns into something badass still.


And otherwise I will just keep on hoping that both Garrosh and Varian tragically find their end or something.

{◕ ◡ ◕}

Dailies, dailies, and LFR loot system

I've been following the blue posts a little and the hottest 2 items currently being discussed are the dailies, and the loot in LFR. Let me start by weighing in on the whole daily discussion.

Dailies 

Complainer's POV:
Everything is locked behind dailies. 
If we want to progress in the game we are forced to do dailies. 
Dailies ruined my game, I quit. 

Blizz's POV:
But you don't have to do dailies, go do dungeons and scenarios
You do not need your dailies or your reps to progress in the game. 
Go enjoy other content. 

My POV:
I have not maxed out my valor again this week. The reset is today and I have managed a wooping 720 valor or so. I play a lot, but I absolutely hate the daily system. They feel like chores to me, and so my whole head rebels and most of the time I really just don't want to do them.

I forced myself (no Blizz did not force me) to revered with the Klaxxi because I had nowhere!!! to spend my valor points. I hated every quest I did.

Now I am at the point where I don't feel like getting a lot more valor is currently worth much to me since I would have to force myself to do another rep to revered, and then another to get to something that I can use for my character. This means that I do not feel a drive to get valor points, and I feel even less drive to get the reps, since one is locked behind another rep.

So in all sense I do not feel a drive to do a massive part of the game. I do a dungeon to make sure I have maxed out my valor by the time the upgrade item system comes in, but that's about it.

What do I do in the game?

Well, last weekend I spent 3 hours with some guildies to get the dungeon achievements. A nice challenge and a lot of fun. Also got the guild some money.

Chores

I've also made a list of what I need to level all the cooking ways. There is a quest you get once you max it out and I'm curious for that. Plus I can skin with my hunter so I've been shooting crocs for their raw crocolisk belly.

I raid with my raid group and we're enjoying ourselves with that.

And I try to do LFR, but only on reset day since it sucks to try and get a proper group on other days. (unless my guild goes with a group).

Is this as rewarding as what I would prefer to do in the game? No. This is not the game I would prefere to play. I would prefer to actually run dungeons, because I like them, but I don't feel like that's very useful, plus since nobody has a drive to run them, it's not a lot of fun to actually do them at the moment.

I would prefer to work on my character's progression during the week and feel like I'm getting better for my raid. But since the only way I can do that in the game is in a way I really dislike, I just don't do it. I dislike that I am less good than I could be if only I could like the dailies. But I just don't like that part of the game, and it is the ONLY part of progression.

And here we come to the heart of the problem. The only SOLO path of progression is doing dailies. You can run dungeons till you drop, but it doesn't matter. Without doing the dailies you have nowhere to spend your valor.

You can level all your professions, do scenarios, do PVP, LFR, whatever you want to do. But the only way to progress your character and spend those valor points is through daily chores.

On top of that the daily chores reward you with valor better than all the other stuff does. So clearly the best way to progress solo through the game is to do chores. Which is very very discouraging to people.

And this is not going to improve much with the 5.1 patch either, since it's not worth upgrading your gear much if you didn't manage to get it in the first place.

Now, I'm lucky to have some raid gear, but people who do not raid...well, again, what do you upgrade? Your dungeon gear? Make me laugh, yeah?

And I agree with the poster from this post:
If blizzard is not going to fix this fast, they will lose a lot more people all over. Not because it is to hard this time around, no this time they will lose the casuals. Because those casuals feel like they cannot get anywhere with their game without spending some hardcore amount of time in the stupid dailies.

To sum up:

• There should be some other way to spend those valor points (and justice points)
• There should be a way to have people who cannot log in every day feel equally rewarded for their play time as the people who do log in every day
• My time in game without doing dailies should feel as appreciated by Blizzard as someone else's time in game who does do dailies
• If I love scenarios I should not feel discouraged to do them because the reward is useless without doing something else in the game that I do not love so much
• If I need something from such and such faction number 2, I should not have to go through faction number 1 as well to get to number 2.
• We need more not wiggly snakes in the game (oh wait, that is a personal peeve that almost every mount you can get in the game is a silly wiggling snake mount now)

LFR Loot System

This is apparently also Loot

Now this is a different discussion all together. It weighs in on the valor and daily points since it is one of the few ways that you could progress solo...if not for the ways the new loot system has decreased your chances of getting loot.

But statistically your chance is much higher to get loot! Blizzard says....

Ok, lets compare.

Raid:
2 cloth healer, 2 leather healers, 1 mail healer, 1 plate healer

1 plate tank, 1 leather tank

5 cloth dps - 2 mages, 2 warlock, 1 priest
6 leather dps - 1 boomkin, 1 monk, 2 druids, 2 rogues
3 mail dps - 1 hunter, 1 enhance shammie, 1 ele shammie
3 plate dps - 2 DKs, 1 pallies

Old System:

Boss dies. The system pops up with 3 items from a random loot table.
Mail Int Chest Piece
Plate Str Boots (no tank stats)
Spirit 1handed mace

Mail Int Chest Piece - 2 people who would want it the ele and the resto shammie. Chance you get it? 50%

Plate Str Boots - 3 people who would want it, and possibly an asshole tank who needs on it. Chance you get it? 25%

Spirit 1H Mace - 7 people who would want it (shadowpriest). Chance you get it? 14.3%

ew System: (as explained by Blizzard)

Boss dies.


- Each player has a chance to win loot, independent of the other players.
- For each player who wins loot, the game randomly assigns them a spec-appropriate item from that boss's loot table. This subset contains only items that the game (meaning the designers in this case) thinks are appropriate for your class and current spec.
- Notice that you aren't rolling Need or Greed. You don't have an option to Pass. The game just says "Take this."
- You can't trade this item, or that would defeat the purpose of removing the social pressure on groups of strangers. If you don't want the item, you are free to vendor, delete, or disenchant it.


In a blue post:

First, other players will not affect your loot in any way. Another player winning will not cause you to lose. Another player winning a mace will not mean that she took your mace. If there are many rogues in the raid, your chance of winning a rogue item is not diminished. We may decide that each player has an X% chance to get loot, or we may decide that X number of players get loot, and then randomly determine who those lucky players are.

Second, the item you win will be "useful" in the sense that it's potentially usable by your current spec. This does not mean that warriors will get leather because warriors can equip leather (at a huge stat loss). It also does not mean that the game will always give you an item you want or an upgrade for the items you have. It just looks and says "You are a Holy priest, so here is a random item chosen from the Holy priest-appropriate items that this boss can drop."


What in the end is my chance to get loot? I have not been able to find out what my chances are, but it certainly feels lower than the 14% I had before.

Problem 1.

I think the first big problem here is that other players will not affect your loot in any ways.

Lets say in the old situation my guild group did what we did last weekend. We jumped in with  a couple of  people who are outgearing most of the LFR gear already.

We had 2 leather healers, 2 plate tanks, 1 mage, 1 shadowpriest.

For the loot situation I described above this means that for example the mace could have 3 less rollers on it. Lets say that from the people who were not in our group there is another healer that already has a weapon. All of a sudden your chance is not 14% for the mace, but your chance has just gone up to 33%.

And your chances will get higher as more people are getting geared.

With the new system your chance is static and will not change, because it is unaffected by other players.

Problem 2.

The loot system decides what I need. I personally have won 5 items in LFR/Sha so far. Woohoo!

1 pair of pvp gloves (which I am using since it's better than I had, and hey the bonus on the roll is nice)
1 neck (I had better, so it got sold)
1 cloaks (I had betetr so it was sold)
1 offhand (which I would've gotten apparently if I had not done that boss already)
1 chest piece (which I am using, since it was an upgrade).

It really, really feels as if those items that I didn't need went wasted, and it would've been so nice if they could have gone to someone who did need them.

Also, I cannot see how many items are handed out, and how many loot bags. There should be some sort of window that shows me who won items.

I am not getting any offspec gear this way. I would love to actually get some gear for my windwalker, but instead Blizzard assigns int cloaks without spirit to me. (I refuse items without spirit as a healer, but that is a different discussion). The mage in the group could've used that item sooo much better.

When you get useless gear like that it feels like a carrot is being dangled in front of you. Frustrating.

Problem 3. 

Elder Charms. I worked my butt off to get these elder charms. I did your stupid dailies, I went through the motions of doing what I should be doing. And what do I get? Another bag of gold.

It really feels as if the work I did for the charms should be rewarded. Maybe not directly with loot, but then at least with a bigger bag of gold.

Hey, you know Blizz, maybe that gold you get when you change the small charms to the big charms could be handed out to make the gold bags from elder charms extra big!

I want something to show for my effort.

Problem 4.

I think this is already on the fix list (or at least I would hope so).

If you do LFR again, to help out guildies with a faster queue time for example. Or to see that specific effect from such and such boss again. You get taunted with the loot you would've gotten if only you hadn't been so dumb to already be locked.

This is just plain cruel and is really demotivating to do LFR more than once.

To sum up:

• It feels like loot is wasted
• The precious few times you do win, you often get something you do not want because the choice is taken out of your hands. 
• Your chances do not increase as people gear up
• The effort that was put in acquiring Elder charms should feel more appreciated and rewarded higher. 
• Show people what loot did drop from a boss. Seeing that loot has dropped (even if not for them) might make the feeling of accomplishment higher
• Do not show what you would've gotten if you had not been locked

PS: You get some really odd pictures if you google for loot o_O

Monk Tips&Tricks

Since I got my ranting out in this post here, I figured I would share a tidbit of positive as well.

My monk is currently MistWeaver main and WindWalker offspec. With my groups I have been running many heroics already, and I have found one talent to save my group several times already.

This ability buys you 5 whole seconds of no tank damage. And it works on not ALL enemies within 5 yards.

Accidental pull? Sweep! 5 seconds for the tank to pick stuff up, 5 seconds for you to pick up the heals.

Lots of adds in a fight? Sweep!

Need to buy your fellow healers some time? Sweep!

Brilliant talent, if you haven't tried it yourself yet, go do so :)

5 things I would change about Mists

This expansion is turning out pretty good so far, and I am truly enjoying myself. I am also glad that I made the switch to the monk. The playstyle is pleasant and quite a change from the priest, which is absolutely what I needed.

However, there are a few things I would change, wouldn't be a good WoW player if I didn't have a few peeves, no?

 

1. Mote of Harmony / Spirit of Harmony should be account bound.
I have alts with needs, but also I have alts with trade skills which are useless unless I actually play them. And at the rate the motes have been droping for me (since Sunday I have managed to get 30 or so, and I have done many many dailies and dungeons!) it'll take a looong time to get anything done with an alt.

 

People keep saying, 'It'll get bettter!' and 'They drop more often from high level mobs', well I have no idea how high the mob's level has to be, but doing all the Tillers, Klaxxi and Golden Lotus dailies, plus a scenario and 3 dungeons I got 6 motes yesterday.

That said, the droprate could be a tiny bit higher as well.

 

2. Alts should be allowed to fly.

Again the alts...(I have 6 85's waiting to get their time). Levelling from 85 to 90 takes long enough, why would you gate that as well? It's not all that bad to ride around, but with everything there is to do.

I bet that eventually they'll give alts flying books like the book they gave us a few months into Wrath, but I wish I could use this while stuff is current, instead of when it's no longer all that rewarding.

 

3. Tradeskill cooldowns

With all the artificial gating already in the game, (materials requirements being high, motes of harmony, reputation, not earning a high amount of valor points, justice points being near useless, etc) I do not think it was needed to put a cooldown on just about every major item needed for tradeskills. Inscription has them (scrolls of wisdom), alchemy (living steel), cloth...

I already didn't like them for cloth before, and now they're everywhere. It feels that if I want to get anything done in the game I am obliged to log in every day of the week, or be behind on the content. Not a nice choice.

4. Grocery baskets at the Tillers/Cooking

Did we really need 50 different baskets? And 20 different food items to grant the same stat? The only thing this does is fill up my bank and bags, and I think by now we all know how precious bag space is.

And the baskets...really now. I understand that there are baskets that need 100 of 1 item and ones that require only 20, but that makes for 2 or maybe 3 different baskets, not the outgrowth we have now.

 

5. Spirit food comes from fishing

Why is spellcaster food and healer food completely based on fishing? Are those the only people who are supposed to have the patience to do this? Or are these the classes that are not expected to prefer killing stuff over fishing?

I am very very annoyed by this, since it means that I have to spend all my hard-earned tokens on buying fish, or spend some of the time that I desperately need to catch up on fishing. And then force myself to go fishing more for the items I need. Why can I not go do my quests, kill some mushan cows and get my food? Why are spirit and int users put at a disadvantage here?

New Loot Window

You can type /loot to see who needs/greed/passes
I've done a few dungeons myself during this weekend and I've noticed that some players are simply unaware of this feature, sometimes I saw some people needing on offspec stuff because they weren't seeing any "need" rolls from other players, obviously this can lead to some arguing.

So here it is again for the sake of clarity, please type /loot, /lootrolls or you can just click on [Loot] in the chat window. 
This will open a new loot window that shows you all rolls on every item.
You can also go to Interface->Controls-> and click on “Auto Open Loot Rolls Window!”

(Official Forums)

You can see exactly that people have greeded, who won, which rolls they had.
For the green you also see the + where you can open up the rolls.

Monk Mastery & Blogs

I found some monk blogs that I thought were interesting. Most of them have excellent guides, so I'll not bore you with writing my own version of that.

What I will do is give my opinion on some of the things expressed in these guides. If you want to follow these blogs, they are listed on the left here, in the 'blogs I read' section. The 10 blogs with the most recent posts are shown in that list, though I do have more blogs in there.

From most of these guides on MistWeavers I read that they almost all find mastery a bad stat. Which is how they get to placing this stat all the way at the back in their stat priorities.

I have been thinking, and experimenting, with this a little, and I wonder if the mastery is really that bad.

Of course, I have seen the little green orbs appear everywhere but under the right targets as well. And of course, I haven't done any raiding yet. However, if I use experiences from the past (and I do have quite a bit of that ;)) I think this mastery might be quite a bit better than what people are thinking so far.

In fact, I think I might be nicely stubborn and go for a different stat order than what is recommended in most guides.

Spirit > haste until 1350 > mastery > int > crit

I will use 'Glyph of Enduring Healing Sphere' with this as well even. The most useless glyph, as others will say.

Let me share my reasons for this stubborness...

- My raid has had quite a few years of training in clicking the lightwell. I have been a priest for a looong time, and they've heard 'click the lightwell!' so often that my lightwells were generally used up entirely.

- Yes, the orbs spawn in locations where you might not need them immediately, but with the glyph they stay around for 5 minutes, 2 minutes base, and 3 minutes extra from the glyph.

- Fights always have a lot of movement in them and that means that while moving people will get healed by all those pretty orbs.

- These orbs are free! They do not cost any extra mana, or any effort to create. They happen as part of your normal healing. I have always loved trinkets that gave free healing on equip, this sounds even prettier.

Now of course I have to find out in practice if I am rightfully stubborn, or if I am completely wrong. I will keep you updated on which one it turns out to be.

Level 85-90 woah!

I spent about 35 hours to get to level 85....and I think by the time I reach level 90 I will have spent another 35 on reaching that level. Holy cow those last levels take forever!

My monk is now level 88 and a half...yes, Omi, like a 5 year old, it is important to mention that half!

Yesterday I completed the event in the Valley of the Four Winds. I have never felt so proud to be of a certain race in the game before. When I saw Chen Stormstout storming by, I was like, ooooooh, he's a panda too, just like me.

I've been wanting to change race once I reached level 90, after this, I am not so sure anymore. I think Chen Stormstout may be the first alliance character that I absolutely adore. I mean, Jaina is doing much better now she stopped sobbing, Varian turned out to be less of an ass then he first seemd, but he's still creating wars everywhere. And the other Alliance figureheads? I have honestly no idea where they are at the moment.

I had a discussion with Thror in the car this morning. He has switched to a worgen warrior for this expansion and is in the same levelling boat as I am. We were discussing which races we can relate to.

We came to the conclusion that we can relate to humans because...well, they're humans. Gnomeys are cute, but secretly a bit evil underneath. Dwarves are the happy drunk, merry people. Dranei, holier than god. Worgen...yeah.

Blizzard basically did a piss-poor job adding worgen to the game. After their starting area you don't see them anywhere. Relating to them is hard and I can imagine if you have not done the starting area you can completely wonder about where those wolves all of a sudden came from.

Panda's on the other hand....those are a different story. Already Panda's become fully integrated in the lore, in the stories and in our hearts. Panda's are the chubby, wise people. The people who are proud and elegant, yet they love their beer (no fancy wine for me sir, just an ale please).

I have to say though, if Blizzard ever adds a new class/race to the game I seriously hope they will not be starting at level 1. Any raider will be dead by the time they have levelled this character to full level in time for the first raid. And well..if not dead, at least completely pissed off with the game.

Anyways, that was the rambling for me for today. More levelling to do, but I will get there!

Monk Stat Priority

Been reading up some on Elitist Jerks about the MistWeaver, which will be my main spec. (careful the information there can be a bit older)

Conclusion:

Spirit > Haste 1350 > Int > Crit/Mastery

- Stack spirit up the wazoo especially in the beginning. It is the only stat that affects regen.
(and I am the master in being OOMM Out of Mana Monk(ey))

- Magical number for haste is 1350, anything above does not really add anything

- Int when you can get it

- Crit/Mastery, Do you want big heals or free orbs everywhere?

I have heard other people say they find the monk mastery soso, but I sort of like it. I have always liked the trinkets that would heal other people randomly and the orbs do so as well. So I might just become a mastery addict.

Hello Pandas!

My monk is now level 40 and picked up her fast riding skill this morning. So far it's going ok, but the fact that I have to work is getting in the way of going faster...but hey I guess the work sort of pays for the game, so not much choice than to keep going.

Luckily I have a few days off next week so starting this weekend I can put some serious hours in.

I've been running some quests, and some dungeons. I have to say that even the dungeons are a lot of fun again, because half of them I had not seen yet in their current state. And the scarlet dungeons have been redone entirely it seems.

I had to laugh at the poor beast master being so completely convinced that he would not die and his own doggies coming to eat him after. Silly dude.

Currently in Western Plaguelands. Zen'kiki is keeping me company..and boy if you ever had a noob of a druid. Love how he pulls out the mutated sealion and flops around on the floor.

Anyhow..levelling is going fast, and I should hopefully reach Outlands tonight. Maybe if you're running around there too we can run a dungeon?