6401

Pretty sure you have that backwards! Damn elves.

Also, that wowhead link is excellent.

6402

So I could in theory transmog my chest piece into a tuxedo? Is that possible? It might be fun to try to go for a steampunk look.

6403

I think one of the rules is that you can only transmog items that have stats on them. Since tuxedos, wedding dresses, holiday outfits, etc. typically don’t have stats, they can’t be used.

6404

Oh yeah, I forgot the “no white/statless items” rule. Sorry.

6405

My verdict on the new 5mans is very positive. It is a return to the WOTLK model of instancing. Fast runs, little trash, a few idiot checks and loot levels from the prior raid. Some cool boss mechanics too that I hadn’t seen before.

I ran all three fairly quickly and half of us had never been there. No wipes and maybe 2-3 deaths. Definitely not a pug killer. Much more enjoyable than the launch 5mans.

Boss spoiler

One fight has a boss with a ton of HPs. The fight gets crazier and crazier until people start dying. However there is an hourglass that you can click a few times that resets everyone and every cooldown to the beginning of the fight. Even if you died you are rezzed with all your cooldowns and debufs removed. Basically you just do this a few times until the boss dies.

6406

The best part of that boss fight? Stacking heroism. Awwww yeah.

I love the change that removed the cooldown on Chain Lightning for elemental shaman and also the buffed damage to Earthquake. AoE pulls are a lot more fun now. Plus I get to pretend I’m a Sith two weeks early! YOU get a chain lightning! YOU get a chain lighting! Everybody gets a chain lightning!

6407

I tried out my shamen yesterday - not really feeling the new lightning bolt it’s better than the previous blob thing but it seems way too thick. I like the new aoe mechanics for enhance a bit clunky but much better than before.
Did they get rid of call to arms or were queue times very short never saw the bonus when I was on my tanks - and I don’t feel like going through pugs without a bribe.

6408

With the BGs if you do a random BG you get 90 honor for winning it. That’s the call to arms bonus. If you do and win more than one, the subsequent reward is 45 honor.

6409

It’s also great for rapid gearing up. I’ve picked up 4 ilevel 378 items from quest rewards and lucky drops in just two runs. It’s all light years better than the troll instances (which have been shortened and lumped in with regular 5 man heroics).

boss spoiler 2nd instance

The final boss fight in the second instance is going to get old pretty fast though, if there’s no way to skip all the cinematics and text.

6410

There is a way to skip the cinematics, you right click on the drake you are riding and tell him to jump ahead.

6411

I meant the call to arms bags you used to get for completing a herioc as tank or sometimes healer. I guess there are lots of people tanking now so they don’t need to bribe them to reduce queue times.

6412

you can’t stack heroism or time warp on that fight, the debuff stay through the turning of hourglass.

not that you even need heroism, you get 40% speed buff just by turning the hourglass.

6413

Yeah, it’s still there, just not as often for now.

6414

FWIW, it’s now higher across the board now: 135 honor for the first winning game, and more than 45 for the subsequent ones (~60 now.)

Also, even though it doesn’t always show up on the UI when you queue, they also added Conquest Points as a reward from any winning random or Call of Arms battleground game. You get 100 Conquest Points from the first one of the day that you win, and 50 for all others that you win.

They’re trying to make it easier for people to run battlegrounds to get better PVP gear long-term, beyond just the honor set. The battlegrounds are crazy busy, with instant queues at this point; it’ll be interesting to see if it stays that way once the arena season gets going.

6415

I am disappointed so far with the difficulty level of the new raid. $ bosses in one raid night is a bit too easy. I know the heroics will be harder of course, I was looking for a little more of a challenge I guess.

6416

I ran the BGs at level 84, so I think the rewards are scaled down a bit.

I got 30 free days via a scroll of rez but I didn’t know I had the free 30 until there were only five days left, so I got in a bit of WoW over the last few days. I’m unsubbed again now, but I played enough to get the itch. I think I might resub and use my 85 rogue to go into old raid dungeons to see if I can get some fun pieces for transmogging. That. and I want to get my 84 hunter to 85 and get his PvP gear.

I want the free Diablo 3 also, but I’m a bit scared of resubbing for an entire year and having WoW always there for me to play, sucking up gobs of time.

6417

Actually, I find that the beauty of the annual pass offer. I’ll probably be playing anyway, but since I get D3 for free, there is less guilt in splitting my time between the two games (I’m one of those that thinks since I’m paying a subscription fee, if I’m not playing pretty consistently I’m wasting my money. Yet I have cable with 278 wasted channels, and it costs a hell of a lot more than $15/mo. I fail at logic).

6418

Its funny I am so cheap with my wow subscription. I would just go prepaid month to month cause I didnt want to pay for the days between raid days if my sub expired between them. This annoyed my guild when I would get booted between pulls because my subscription expired and I would have to scramble to buy a 30day card from the blizzard store.
If you are an on and off subscriber I don’t think the annual pass is really worth it. Free diablo is equivalent to 4 months of wow time if you have not play wow for 5-6 months in the last year I don’t think there will be much happening this coming year to keep you interested. This current patch seems like it will keep people busy for 1-2months then we have the long wait till pandaria.

In other news it looked like they open up realid group queuing for bgs. I wish they got rid of the realid part and just let you add people by name-realm then it would be much more useful to group up with semi randos from message boards and the like.

6419

My night last night:

Log in to discover I can be the guild GM of 80 inactive people. Yay? Took it for fun. Didn’t do anything with it, though.

I mainly play a holy paladin (been a few months since I’ve played…pre-Firelands). We were never really successful raiding, so I have a few 359 pieces and all at least 346 heroic pieces on. I think my ilevel in my holy suit is 354. Pretty sure.

I looked at the Justice and Valor vendors and went O.o for a few minutes. Crazy stuff on there (for me it is). So I pop up the random dungeon finder to get some points rolling, as I don’t have any sitting around. It defaulted to the new End Time dungeon, which I know nothing about, so I changed it to Random Cataclysm Heroic, which hands out the same points.

So it pops, and I appear in…End Time. Which is alright I guess. The tank asks if I’ve done it yet and I say no and he assures me we’ll be fine, and he was nice enough to explain the very basic first boss fight. Don’t stand in stuff, move out of the purple circle. Okay, no worries. So I’m healing, healing. All the DPS stands in the circle and dies. Yep, sorry I can’t heal stupid. So they kick -me-. Nice.

Pop another random and end up in SFK. Easy pie. Tank takes one look at me and vote kicks me. Nice. I guess 354 is shit now eh? Not good enough to do the heroics that I got most of my stuff in am I? Sigh.

Pop another. Kicked again.

Pop another. Tank quits after the first pull. No one was in danger of being killed at all (Stonecore). Waited 20 minutes for a tank. None showed. Left group.

In all, I made 7 attempts and never did finish any. Awesome.

So now what. Find a guild that will do heroics with me? I don’t find that terribly likely. Most holy paladins I see are waaaaay better geared than I am. I see a TOR on the horizon, I guess.

6420

Wow. I’ve never had that issue in pugs and my alts are around the same gear level.