5.2 Thoughts

While you wait for the second round results of the Transmog contest (sorry, work slipped in the way…I should’ve looked at the calendar when I set the round two dates), which will be up later today, I figured now is as good a time as any to share some thoughts on the next big patch.

Isle of the Thunder King
This interests me, though I have a long way to go before I get to it.  In the same context of the Isle of Quel’Danas, it’s the new Daily Quest Hub.  Alas, I think it’s still going to have a Molten Front feel to it and I know that’s not going to go over well with many players.  That one can choose whether to do PvE or PvP quests is a nice touch.  Also, parts of the island become available based on a Realm level rather than an individual one.  That has mixed potential, but we’ll have to wait and see. 

Blacksmiths
We still don’t have dailies for every profession, which I think is absurd.  However, the Smiths are getting some love.  Proceed far enough on the Isle of the Thunder King and you’ll come upon the Lightning Forge.  Apparently this will allow for the creation of some very unique items, including old weapons that I’m guessing have been removed from the game over time.  Oh, Moggers are giddy with anticipation…or just me.

New World Bosses
I’ve always liked World Bosses and I’m sure the folks farming the Sha would love something different. Two bosses will be coming in 5.2.  One is part of the phased island, but it seems Oondasta the giant armoured dino will be found north of Kun-Lai Summit right from the get go.  Also with this comes a slight change to the World Bosses themselves.  Blizzard refers to it as “Tap to Faction.”  If your faction tags the mob, so long as you take part you have a chance for loot -whether you were in the initial raid or not.  However, you can only earn said loot once a week (and the bosses will spawn more frequently).

Pet Battles
-Pet bandages are now bind to account…thank goodness.  This will most assuredly save me some bag space (they also stack to 25) instead of having several on several toons. 
-The Nether Roach will no longer die during an Apocalypse.  I mean, it was unique and fun that it was the one that could, but roaches be roaches.
-Players earn xp for pet battles as well, so long as the battle is within five levels of your highest level pet (so for most of us that would be any pet battle in the 20-30 level).
-PvP Pet Battles can also drop Battlestones now.  Interesting.  It would be more ruthless if you had a chance to win one if it was in your opponent’s inventory.  Stealing it outright would cause pandemonium, but being able to receive an equivalent to the one in their bags would be fun. 
-If you flee a battle, the pet you were fighting no longer disappears, but the fleeing squad will suffer some damage.  I like that.  Penalty for a tactical retreat and it makes sense if you’re running from the critter that it doesn’t disappear.
-Elite Battle Pets.  Oh my.  I know people where these will become the bane of their existence.  They spawn by themselves, too, so I suspect Pet Battlers are going to be in for one hell of a fight.  But, if you can beat them all you’ll receive a Red Panda pet (yep, the one up top there)

Buy The Farm
Even now that Tumunzahar has started questing out there, the whole farming thing does nothing for me.  Not even for potential gold profit.  Seriously, get it away from me.  Having said that, I know exactly how popular it is and the chance to own the deed for the land you’ve been cultivating is no doubt exciting to those indulging.

Notable Class Stuff
Pretty much every class (at least the ones I am familiar enough with) has some sort of notable changes going on.  I would suggest checking out the notes for what’s coming to your favourite role.  Warriors losing a 10% damage reduction for defensive stance is certainly one of the ones that jumped out at me. 

Green Fire!
Speaking of class stuff, Warlocks are dancing in the streets…if they’re into dancing.  The opportunity for Fel fire spells is finally coming to pass with the quest line now in-game.

*Poof*

So, yeah, I haven’t been the most active of bloggers as of late and you’ll have to forgive me for that.  There’s a few factors playing into that.  The medication I started taking two weeks ago just destroyed my sleeping at night (so the time of day it’s taken has now changed), and that was leaving me barely awake to be a dad, let alone blog post.  Also, my laptop video display went kerput (we’re thinking faulty wire at this point) and thus I have to HDMI to a tv in order to use it.  Otherwise I slip on Mrs. Amateur’s, but that’s no good for the blog as all my good screenshots are currently on the other one (and moving them over is not something that popped into my head all that fast).

I haven’t had a chance to talk about all the stuff coming with 5.1.  There are several items from the data that’s been made available so far that deserve their own post, to say nothing of just all the items in general (ugh…no more Thrall already).  I haven’t discussed some of the gold making tips I’ve put to use lately that are pretty straightforward and easy.  Nor have I done any of the transmog stuff I wanted to.  But hey, at least I managed to update Laid Back Raids for several weeks again!

Tied in with this has been my lack of gameplay as well.  Sure, some of you see me with great regularity, but you might have noticed the duration of those logins aren’t all that long lately.  I’ve focused primarily on one particular task and because it’s important to me to meet that goal, I haven’t been doing much else.  Plus, I just have other things going on (relating to the previously mentioned medication) that I haven’t really been all that “Azeroth here I come.” 

It’s not going to get much better mind you.  I realized today that I missed out on an awesome Guild Wars 2 Hallowe’en Event and was sad face panda because of it.  However, there’s a new…I don’t even know if event is the word I would use…well, I guess I’ll have to.  There’s a weekend event coming next weekend that’s only going to happen once.  It’s apparently going to introduce a new island to the game, and evolve some aspects of the world a bit in-game as well (this is something I’ve long though MMO’s should do by the way).  I’m intrigued by that and as such will be putting in some time in Tyria.  I’ll still be hopping on WoW, but only to do specific things (like LBR!) I would imagine.  That’s the short term plan.  The way things are going, that might change by this time tomorrow.

In closing, the Cinder Kitten looks amazing and I plan to snag three, given the proceeds go to Sandy The Storm victims.  One’s for me and one is for the Mrs.  Of course that begs the question, what are my plans for the third one?  Stay tuned…

Friday Top 5: Patch 5.0.4.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a top five, and with the patch coming next week I thought there’s no better time for a discussion than with the big change on the horizon.  So, here’s what I’m looking most forward to when I log on Wednesday evening (because I’m at a concert Tuesday):

1. Theramore
Yessir, the Lore fan in me is quivering with anticipation over what actually happens to Jaina’s nest and subsequently her as well.  I think what has me most excited, though, is for the first time in a pre-expansion event I get to experience the full spectrum on both sides.  Sure, I got to help Vol’jin get his island back but that was the extent of my Horde involvement.  Saintvache is armed and ready.  Tum has his spells prepped, and Siori’s lurking in the shadows of Dustwallow Marsh as we speak.

2. Glyphs
Probably a bit of a surprise, but much of what I have seen with the Glyph system is a welcomed relief.  Prime Glyphs are gone, and it looks to me like the idea of glyphs will be much more “flavour” than anything else.  I don’t think this could be more true than with the Druid class.  So many options now!  Can’t wait to see what they do with the others.  Oh, and of course the profits I expect my Scribe to experience.

3. Account Wide
Whether it’s achievements, pets, or mounts, it all falls under this category.  The mount one just allows me to use the best character for the job rather than the one I want it on most.  I’ll also happily admit it benefits those of us with alts and one could call it supporting laziness.  But much of this expansion is aimed at time-limited players, so less grinding and farming for alts is ok at this stage of WoW as far as I’m concerned.  Who knows, with achievements account-wide, I might actually try for a few more of them.

4. Battle Tags
In reading the Patch Notes, I finally saw confirmation of this system being implemented.  I’m happy because I know a number of people who have no interest in sharing anything personal via Real ID (and, quite frankly, I’m fine with that) but will quite easily share something as simple as a battle tag.  Once again, I have mine.  JDKenada #1124.  Feel free to hit me up if you’re not into the whole Real ID thing (or are just switching away from it).

5. AoE Looting
As someone who’s farmed and solo’d dungeons with some semblance of regularity (more so prior to this expansion)…this seems horribly overdue.  Heck, even my laptopis excited about this one.  I look forward to not having to figure out which sparkle is the one I haven’t looted and which one has the hunk of Bear Meat I just don’t feel like looting.

Obviously with a patch this big, there are a lot of things going on and a large amount offered up to us.  There’s currency conversions (man, I hope that means current Valor gear becomes Justice as well).  There’s the whole talent system, which I only kept off the list because I don’t know what to think at this point.  It’s definitely a wait and see on that one.  But you can bet for sure that come Wednesday night I will be doing all I can in Theramore…from both sides.  That’s the big one for me.

Azeroth Pet Food Stores Closing

Well, granted, the title is a bit misleading since there technically isn’t any pet food store.  Most Hunter pets eat items you can catch on a hook, carve off an animal, or the fruit vendors.  But, as of Patch 4.1 it really won’t matter.

 

If you’ve played a Hunter, this picture isn’t a revelation.  Your pet is happy, it does more damage.  Aside from a talent point that allows your pet’s happiness to increase the more it’s in battle, the only way to really keep your pet happy is to feed it.  Again, in Patch 4.1 that’s going to change.

The developers are removing the feed your pet buff/keep your pet happy buff.  Tamed pets will simply be happy just be in your aura of awesome.  The only bonus to feeding a pet is that it will automatically restore 50% of the pet’s health.  Of course, you can only do this outside of combat.

Personally, I think it’s another little thing that’s making the game more “going through the motions” at times, much like Rogues used to make their own poisons.  Did players really complain about this mechanic?  Personally, I thought it was kind of amusing when a pet just left.  It got annoyed or hungry enough that it said “screw you” to its master.  It was a small responsibility, at best, that just added that little something to the class.

Good News Pet Collectors!

Cute and....fluffy?

My guild (and many I know of) has been farming critters with some regularity, in an effort to knock off Critter Kill Squad and grant our pet collectors the lovely Armadillo Pup as the reward.  However, if you’ve accomplished said achievement there’s a slight problem with enjoying the rewards and it’s that you need to be Exalted with your guild.

There’s light on the horizon, though.  The notes for Patch 4.0.6 include the news this requirement is being reduced to Revered.  I know a few people will be happy with this news, and I think Blizzard was in the right in making this change.

I recognize they want some of the achievements to require some work to attain, and some guild commitment in order to achieve them, but for alt-guilds or small guilds it means working twice as hard.  I think this caters to those types without “caving in” too much.

Now if you’ll excuse me, this particular Guild Leader needs to work on getting Honored with their own guild…

Why, Why, Why? (and other patch notes)

As we all know, Patch Notes are subject to a little thing called fruition. That is to say, don’t count on it until you’ve downloaded it and seen said note firsthand. Having said that, I was taking a peak at the current notes (as of June 18th) and quite a few things caught my attention.

In no particular order:

-Druid skins. These are LONG overdue. Bear and cat forms now vary based on your hair colour. Simple enough concept for me. My only beef might be that the Night Elf Cats look like pets of The Bangles.

-Mounts. I discussed the mount situation in my previous post so nothing really to repeat here, except that cast time on ground mounts was cut in half.

-Tauren can now change skins in the Barber Shop. Good. Quite frankly, there’s not that many to start with, so hopefully this adds some variation.

-XP in BG’s. Yes, that’s correct. Twinks can get a junkshot if they aren’t paying attention. Nice thing is, you can turn off XP for 10g. The key here is “turn off XP.” Not just battleground experience. This turns off ALL experience. You bg and forget, you won’t be levelling any time soon. You can turn it back on for another 10g. A nice little money tugger that appeases both sides of the fence I think.

-Prayer of Healing for Priests sees the percentage of spell power this spell gains in healing (per target) has been reduced from 80.7% to 52.6%. As a Holy Priest, that one hurts.

-Rogues may use one handed Axes. For the love of all that’s right, why? Throwing axes were fine, but this just doesn’t make sense from any standpoint. Are classes not using Axes enough that it warrants granting Rogues the chance? For an Orc it makes sense, but that falls under the same line as let’s let Priests use guns so the Dwarves can benefit. Included in the note are the words “after quiet contemplation,” leading me to hope it’s a crock.

-Quest creatures and objects will now show on the player’s world map. Anyone else feel like you just hopped on the short boat to Stormwind? WoW has already been partially labelled as a hand holding game. This does nothing to defeat that notion. If there are people who need this kind of help on a regular basis, there are addons for it. In fact, there’s addons for many things to make the game easier. For those that still want a challenge, most of this stuff should be optional rather than forced.

There’s a tonne more notes, such as Death Knight trees resetting again because of class changes (nerf bat maybe?), Profession based bonuses being improved for Herbalism and Mining, and of course the expansion to the Argent Tournament. Oh, and Emblems. But please, look that one up yourself because I’m still a bit confused on it.