(WoW) Cataclysmic Log p7
I'm running out of "new" things to comment on about Cataclysm content, but there's still a few things...
Potions
It didn't sink in right away, but Cataclysm-level potions seem to only be available via Alchemy. Previously, you'd get some from quests or dropped off monsters, but in the level 80+ content, I haven't seen a single potion drop or reward. I guess that's a deliberate choice made to emphasize a profession a little more, but it seems strange. Then again, even healing 10k out of a health pool of 130+k is a smaller percentage than what I think we were seeing before, too. But I've managed to get some made for my main, at least.
Tol Barad
I'll always have mixed feelings about the PVP content, I suppose. Or, at least, I'll always have some negative and might have some positive.
Tol Barad is reasonably pretty, if a little dark. I like that they split the battleground from a non-battleground area, so there are things to do there without being involved in the PVP battle. The mobs there were a little kick in the pants, too - especially the ghosts that pack a punch in their spells. So I don't mind doing dailies here to build rep. And if your faction holds the battleground zone, there's a short raid and six more dailies to access (though they phase out 15 minutes before battle time, sadly).
The PVP battleground, on the other hand... kind of sucks, honestly. Where most WoW battlegrounds involve something like acquiring points for controlling one of several positions or capturing a flag, or even accomplishing a set goal (taking Wintergrasp by a certain time), Tol Barad is seriously biased toward the defense. Both sides are limited to 40 players, from what I've seen. And there are three flags that shift control based on how many people of a faction are around it. Offense needs to have all three flags their color at a time to win. Any other outcome is a defensive win. Think about that. Defense only has to hold one of three points. The defenders really only have to stick together to win. Even if the offense brings all their people to bear on one point (which they can't really afford to do without risking losing another) the defenders could meet them person-for-person. Or slip to another point and overwhelm it in short order.
Destroying the towers gives the offense more time, but that only makes the fight drag that much more. It's bad enough that Blizzard upped the honor reward for an offensive win versus a defensive one. Their first tweak make an offensive win worth ten times a defensive one - so much that it was actually an efficient way to acquire honor points to swap control, deliberately losing on defense. They lowered that to double for an offensive win, which probably isn't enough to encourage trading and still doesn't fix the actual problems with the place. And since Horde on our server tends to be stronger in this realm, I suspect we won't commonly have access to southern Tol Barad, just as we didn't to Wintergrasp in the later Wrath days.
Epic!
I finally got a chaos orb, with which to make my epic shield. Yay. Also picked up boots from Wildhammer reputation. Along with a few heroic drops I wasn't expecting, my paladin is actually pretty well geared at this stage. I think one trinket is the only thing really lacking, because I haven't found a good stamina trinket (or alternative that has won me over) better than the one from ICC. I know they're out there, but haven't seen one drop yet.
Heroics
Getting more experience with heroic dungeons, too. I've been through Halls of Origination enough that it's starting to feel familiar.
I managed to sub in on a heroic Deadmines run that ended up successful, too. That's... interesting. Ripsnarl is still rough. Cookie is chaotic, but doable. Then there's a series of "nightmare" encounters that have mini-bosses and a lot of hazard avoidance. Avoid the flames and falling ice to beat down an ogre. Stay toward the door to avoid pulling too many spiders while killing a goblin. Avoid the circling beams of death and beat down a construct. Then race through killing worgen in time to save people. Finally there's the fight with Vanessa Van Cleef, which is hectic and busy, and involves grabbing ropes to swing off the deck and back when she detonates explosives (at something like 50% and 25% health, I think). Thankfully, when you swing back on, you don't have to immediately re-engage, and can regain mana before pulling her again - I can't help but wonder if that's intended or not.
I just wish the guild were a little more on the same page as far as dungeon runs. We have a handful of people who log in with "okay, I need to do my daily heroic random, who's game?" It's hard to match that eager-to-go-now attitude across several schedules. Several times I've been asked to tank when I was working on something else, soon to be logging off, or otherwise distracted. I feel bad when I'm not making myself available, but a heroic dungeon can be a commitment of a couple hours even if things go well, and that's a fairly long stretch for most days. And I know I'm not the only one feeling that way with the scarcity of our heroic-ready tanks and healers. Perhaps timely, I see an article about this sort of thing.
Potions
It didn't sink in right away, but Cataclysm-level potions seem to only be available via Alchemy. Previously, you'd get some from quests or dropped off monsters, but in the level 80+ content, I haven't seen a single potion drop or reward. I guess that's a deliberate choice made to emphasize a profession a little more, but it seems strange. Then again, even healing 10k out of a health pool of 130+k is a smaller percentage than what I think we were seeing before, too. But I've managed to get some made for my main, at least.
Tol Barad
I'll always have mixed feelings about the PVP content, I suppose. Or, at least, I'll always have some negative and might have some positive.
Tol Barad is reasonably pretty, if a little dark. I like that they split the battleground from a non-battleground area, so there are things to do there without being involved in the PVP battle. The mobs there were a little kick in the pants, too - especially the ghosts that pack a punch in their spells. So I don't mind doing dailies here to build rep. And if your faction holds the battleground zone, there's a short raid and six more dailies to access (though they phase out 15 minutes before battle time, sadly).
The PVP battleground, on the other hand... kind of sucks, honestly. Where most WoW battlegrounds involve something like acquiring points for controlling one of several positions or capturing a flag, or even accomplishing a set goal (taking Wintergrasp by a certain time), Tol Barad is seriously biased toward the defense. Both sides are limited to 40 players, from what I've seen. And there are three flags that shift control based on how many people of a faction are around it. Offense needs to have all three flags their color at a time to win. Any other outcome is a defensive win. Think about that. Defense only has to hold one of three points. The defenders really only have to stick together to win. Even if the offense brings all their people to bear on one point (which they can't really afford to do without risking losing another) the defenders could meet them person-for-person. Or slip to another point and overwhelm it in short order.
Destroying the towers gives the offense more time, but that only makes the fight drag that much more. It's bad enough that Blizzard upped the honor reward for an offensive win versus a defensive one. Their first tweak make an offensive win worth ten times a defensive one - so much that it was actually an efficient way to acquire honor points to swap control, deliberately losing on defense. They lowered that to double for an offensive win, which probably isn't enough to encourage trading and still doesn't fix the actual problems with the place. And since Horde on our server tends to be stronger in this realm, I suspect we won't commonly have access to southern Tol Barad, just as we didn't to Wintergrasp in the later Wrath days.
Epic!
I finally got a chaos orb, with which to make my epic shield. Yay. Also picked up boots from Wildhammer reputation. Along with a few heroic drops I wasn't expecting, my paladin is actually pretty well geared at this stage. I think one trinket is the only thing really lacking, because I haven't found a good stamina trinket (or alternative that has won me over) better than the one from ICC. I know they're out there, but haven't seen one drop yet.
Heroics
Getting more experience with heroic dungeons, too. I've been through Halls of Origination enough that it's starting to feel familiar.
I managed to sub in on a heroic Deadmines run that ended up successful, too. That's... interesting. Ripsnarl is still rough. Cookie is chaotic, but doable. Then there's a series of "nightmare" encounters that have mini-bosses and a lot of hazard avoidance. Avoid the flames and falling ice to beat down an ogre. Stay toward the door to avoid pulling too many spiders while killing a goblin. Avoid the circling beams of death and beat down a construct. Then race through killing worgen in time to save people. Finally there's the fight with Vanessa Van Cleef, which is hectic and busy, and involves grabbing ropes to swing off the deck and back when she detonates explosives (at something like 50% and 25% health, I think). Thankfully, when you swing back on, you don't have to immediately re-engage, and can regain mana before pulling her again - I can't help but wonder if that's intended or not.
I just wish the guild were a little more on the same page as far as dungeon runs. We have a handful of people who log in with "okay, I need to do my daily heroic random, who's game?" It's hard to match that eager-to-go-now attitude across several schedules. Several times I've been asked to tank when I was working on something else, soon to be logging off, or otherwise distracted. I feel bad when I'm not making myself available, but a heroic dungeon can be a commitment of a couple hours even if things go well, and that's a fairly long stretch for most days. And I know I'm not the only one feeling that way with the scarcity of our heroic-ready tanks and healers. Perhaps timely, I see an article about this sort of thing.
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