Hello, my pally friends. I looked up the new talent trees on Wowhead (warning: these may change at any time) and, apart from being underwhelmed at our options in prot and ret, I wanted to mention something.
They nerfed Illumination.
At 5/5 points, it now gives you 100% chance to get 50% of the spell’s base cost back. That’s right, 50%. Crits are no longer free, folks!
They did give us a talent (leading up to Illumination) which gives us mana regen while casting, so that should help to offset things. Hopefully. Maybe.
Now, again, this could change. But I think this was a very deliberate and mindful change, so I think it’s unlikely to change again going forward. Who knows?
Let me know your thoughts, and let me know what you’re curious about in Forever and I’ll try to help get you clarity when I get into beta on Thursday, September 17!
Well, there’s one word on my mind today and that word is FOREVER.
First, there’s the video I recorded. (Let’s ignore the fact that I had a pounding sinus headache and recorded it at like 4:30am on Saturday night.) It’s about 30 minutes long and talks about what we see on the WoW Forever site and a few things I heard in the talks about it and such.
If you watch the video, you’ll know I purchased the Epic Edition, primarily for Beta access. But also because elves. (You’ll also know I spent the gold for the tokens, and Blizzard still hasn’t gotten one penny from my wallet or credit card since they ate much of the contents of my guild bank.)
So I’m excited for Thursday and to see what Beta holds for us. I won’t do All The Things because look, I’ve already done the various starting zones a dozen times on actual realms, and I’m sure I’ll be doing them again at least a few times for Forever, so I may just do a few things here and there and look at talents and the like. What do you want to see from Beta?
I’m looking forward to seeing the full talent trees for paladins and giving my two cents on what a holy paladin should do. Probably also for MM hunters, although I’ve never theorycrafted for my hunter the way I have for my paladin.
I’m also really looking forward to the new graphics. I’m probably going to stick with Classic character models and animations, but I can’t wait to be on my hunter out in Riverglades and other new zones, exploring things.
So far, the plan is: one night elf hunter, one human paladin, one dwarven shaman, and then either a Skyborne mage or druid. I’m not sure I want a druid, though — a lot of the joy I get from my druid on retail is flight form and farming.
Professions: Hunter gets skinning/LW, pally gets herbalism/alchemy, shaman may depend on if dual gathering is “supported” in the sense that nodes for both mining and herbalism are visible at once. If not, shammy gets mining and … engineering??? I have no idea, frankly. It’s kind of wild to think about old-school WoW, without jewelcrafting or inscription. (I’m not complaining.)
The racials are wild. They’ve been amped UP, dudes.
EUREKA! Reduced cost at 10% increased damage or healing on next 3 spells or abilities
AND
Expansive Mind: Maximum Mana, Rage, or Energy increased by 5%
Almost enough to want to roll a gnome. Almost.
And Undead get basically a free Lifestealing enchant, built-in!
Touch of the Grave: Sometimes drain health with your attacks
Speaking of Undead, I think it’s wild that we’re getting Undead Paladins in both Forever and Retail. UNDEAD PALADINS. WHAT. They look super cool, I’m not gonna lie, but what the heck. I have mixed feelings.
Now, my biggest thing here is… I hate people. 😂 So how is this open-world hanging out going to affect me? I can be nice enough in-game, but most of the time I just want to chill by myself or play with my brother (or other friends). We’ll see how that goes. I guess having a campsite thingy to chat and chill and get buffs will be helpful. And I do like providing buffs for others, sooooo I guess I’ll be doing that a fair bit?
Also, no servers? Should be … interesting.
I’ve been thinking a lot over the last couple of days, about everything to do with Forever. And my original experiences with WoW. It still astonishes me that so much of my life has been shaped by what server I chose to play on when I first loaded up World of Warcraft in October of 2005.
I literally looked at the list of servers.
I found one that was PVE (that was never going to be in question) and one that was also based in Eastern Time. I could have picked Dalaran or Khadgar or Stormrage. But I saw the name Eldre’Thalas and thought “hey, it has an apostrophe! That’s pretty darn cool.”
So I selected it and began my time playing.
Within hours, I was on the phone with my brother telling him he HAD to buy this game.
When he installed it, he asked me what server I was on, so he created Thefog on Eldre’Thalas, a night elf druid. (Hilariously, throughout all of BlizzCon, they kept talking about Fog and The Fog and I’m like “what about my brother???? Ohhhhhhhhhh. The WEATHER.”)
My brother has always been the extroverted one. I’m the introvert. I like to sit and read a book or play a video game versus going out to hang with people. So I wasn’t particularly surprised when he made sort of friends with people. This eventually led to him getting invited to a guild called Fated Heroes. And then I eventually joined, too. (And then Fog abandoned us for Tempest because they were raiding MC and then, possibly out of pure spite, I worked my ass off to get Fated Heroes ready for raiding. And Fog eventually came back to us anyway.)
So how was that life-changing? Well, without Eldre’Thalas, we wouldn’t have joined Fated Heroes. And without Fated Heroes, I wouldn’t still be good friends with people like Majik and Toga and Kam and Tia and Dar. Like I have met (most of) these people! I was a bridesmaid at Majik’s wedding, where I met legit half my old guild in person, including Maj’s brothers and Dar! Then, a few years later, Majik, his wife, and I went to Toga and Kam’s wedding together, and Dar was there too! These people are still in my life, at least to an extent. All because I chose a realm name with an apostrophe in it. It truly breaks my brain a little bit.
Anyway, with all that said, there’s a lot to look forward to learning about WoW Forever, and I’m planning to help people better understand what’s new in that version of this game we all play.
What are you curious about in Forever? Let me know, I’ll try to find out the answer for you!
I’m done with Timewalking. I’m DONE. I was excited for Wrath Timewalking! I was pysched! And then… I hated basically every single person I grouped with. Suicidal tanks. Inconsiderate warlocks. GO GO GO people.
People who, by my guess, weren’t even alive when Wrath came out the first time.
I’ve come to accept that running these dungeons now, some 15+ years on, is not a good idea for me. The rewards are nice! But not enough to deal with actual assholes. People who don’t know mechanics. People who know about mechanics and don’t care! People who leave others behind, time and again.
I legitimately like a lot of the Wrath dungeons. And this run… soured me. I’m too old for this shit. Too old to play with kids who weren’t out of diapers when I was running Heroic Nexus for my epic mace (pre-raid BiS!). Too old to constantly be chasing the idiot tank. This game moves ever-further from what I want out of the game. This was an event I really thought could be different, would be different. And yet. That’s it. I’m done.
It really didn’t help that I spent a chunk of the weekend watching mostly Liquid and a bit of Echo and their race to world first. Seeing talented players executing difficult strategies, then being faced with these bozos.
One could be forgiven for thinking it’s an entirely different game.
Yet, I continue, as I make money, play Hardcore Classic with my brother, and do stuff I find enjoyable. But this ain’t it. Not anymore.
Don’t have much time to write today, it’s been a long one for me. Eesh.
Topic 1: Hardcore.
I wanted to share that I died on hardcore at 36.
Here’s the short:
And here’s the whole thing:
Basically, I was dumb.
I will probably reroll again. But not right now. Why?
Topic 2: Patch 12.1.0
Because it’s time to make money again! Season 2 starts tomorrow and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to pull in somewhere around 40-50k tomorrow alone.
I’m also aiming to get characters actually levelled up in this patch. I’ve got Kurn, Madrana, my mage and my druid all at 90. Next up is my shaman, then my grandbaby paladin, I think. Maybe. I dunno.
And it’s gonna be about time to really start outfitting everyone with decent profession gear, too.
Topic 3: BlizzCon
Is it really less than a month ’till BlizzCon? Huh, September 12-13. I guess so. Looking forward to learning more about Classic Plus and such things. Is digital attendance free? I can’t seem to figure that out.
Well, I got to playing a bit of Hardcore this week. I managed to escape two moments where I was surely going to die within about five minutes of one another.
And I made a short of the big moment where I was about to eat it.
And then, last night, I did more stuff, including dinging 36.
I’m mostly doing the hardcore stuff because I’m bored on retail. I know the patch comes out like tomorrow, so that’s good, but I do enjoy the immersion of hardcore. And the challenge of it. I just hadn’t touched it in something like ohhhhhhhhhhh two years! hahaha! So I’ll probably do more of that while I attempt to make all the monies in retail.
Have you tried hardcore? What’s your highest level and what class was it? 36 pally is definitely mine. My brother got a mage to 51 and died and was very, very sad (and mad) about it.
If you haven’t tried hardcore, is there any particular reason why not? I’d be interested to know.
Not too much to talk about this week. Spent all of Monday out with my littlest nephew and am absolutely wiped out.
But, over the weekend, I did do 5 BC Timewalking dungeons on Madrana, so you might enjoy looking at that! I had one tank I thought of as “good”, one was “okay” and the others were, IMHO, bad.
Not too much to say, just posted a couple of videos this week, both showing me healing Classic Timewalking Dungeons.
And then I ran the remaining four dungeons yesterday, and I also discuss tanks in general, dungeons in general, and of course probably use the phrase “back in my day” a dozen times or so…
That’s it for this week. What are you up to? Did you do any Classic timewalking? What do you think about running a dungeon solely to complete it, versus running it because you enjoy it or running it to get a specific piece of gear? I’d be interested to know.
I started a rogue. Warning, the first “episode” has zero audio from me. You probably want to start with Episode 2.
Topic 2:
I keep meaning to download my achievements but I am so enamoured with pickpocketing that I haven’t bothered… It’s a lot of fun, I don’t know why all rogues don’t spend all their time pickpocketing, honestly.
Topic 3:
Relatedly, I’ve been trying to farm up a Disgusting Oozeling. No luck yet, but I’m in a level range (28) where oozes drop the Oozing Bag, which is where the Disgusting Oozeling drops from. Have you ever gotten one to drop?
Bonus Topic:
The Guild is doing a reunion movie! They launched their Kickstarter on Monday the 20th and reached their first goal of 1.5 million USD in under three and a half hours. Stretch goals now! If you’ve never watched The Guild, go watch it now!
Well, it wasn’t entirely a boring week for me in WoW… I did stuff. And things!
Topic 1:
I livestreamed on YouTube for the first time in quite a while. I did about an hour of Scarlet Monestary runs for fun and profit and then healed on my pally.
It was interesting! I may do more healing in a livestream capacity this week, too.
Topic 2:
This expansion is going very differently than basically any other expansion. Kurn was first to level cap, which is the natural state of things, but then instead of Madrana (the paladin) or Beldinn (the shaman and farmer extraordinaire), my mage was second to 90. And then, this weekend, instead of either of the others dinging max level as the third 90, it was my druid. So weird. To be fair, the druid was 87, just like the shaman, but it’s just so much easier to farm herbs on the druid. And boy, did I farm. Not just herbs, though…
Topic 3:
And that brings me to what I really wanted to discuss here: pattern farming.
There I was, on the paladin, just minding my own business and doing a couple things here and there and I started finding these little things called Coalesced Light. Now, I’d seen these things before on Kurn, but hadn’t done the weekly quest with them for months.
And so Madrana was there, gathering them up all merrily… and gets a pattern. A tailoring pattern.
Like a good tailoring pattern.
And so I swapped to the druid to farm them A LOT, as well as gathering herbs. I got like one pattern and it wasn’t all that good. In fact, it was so cheap that I got my blacksmith to learn it.
Does ANYONE know how these work??? Is it like 1 pattern per toon per week?? 2 patterns per account per week? Or are all the patterns just that shitty in terms of drop rates? My elbow hurts from farming so much. And I didn’t even get the pattern I need on Madrana!
I am, unfortunately, working this weekend, so this may be shortish. I’m not American, so working on July 4th didn’t bug me, but oof, I don’t like working weekends. Alas, it’s the nature of the career I’m in, so occasional weekend shifts are just something to expect and then deal with.
Topic 1:
I never have enough Azeroot, but that’s largely because I don’t farm anywhere near as much as I used to. So last night, I thought hey, let’s do a quick lap or two around Harandar on the druid. Maybe level him up to 88 since he’s so close, and get some more herbs.
Well, I ended up getting mostly Tranquility Bloom and Sanguithorn, but the fun thing I did was kill Annulus the Worldshaker. He had like 3.5 million health. But I saw him and I thought… well, I’m a tank, aren’t I? Let’s see how OP druids really are. (I mean, I’m sure I could have survived on a paladin, but probably not a warrior, so let’s see how the druid does.) So here’s a screenshot of my stats about halfway through the fight, which definitely took more than ten minutes.
So yeah, level 87, 143 ilvl, lots of cooldowns, and maybe halfway through the fight. Honestly, it wasn’t difficult, it was just long.
It went on so long that rarescanner or whatever it is alerted me about him again. I had been fighting him the whole time! 😂
Also, fun fact, he casts some sort of “sludge”, I think it is, at you, but it’s a movement speed debuff. It shouldn’t bother you too much if you don’t interrupt it. He does cast a couple of earthquake things, but you have plenty of time to get out of them if you are, you know, paying attention.
So that was fun. I like doing stupid things on my various toons.
Topic 2:
Still farming instances for transmog, still selling a few items every week. Certainly enough to make it worthwhile, even though I’m disenchanting so much. Actually, since Greater Eternal Essences are hovering anywhere between 18-24g each, it’s actually more worthwhile these days.
Topic 3:
The goal for this week is to use the WoW API to download my achievements and review them. The UI is crap for that, even the armory site is pretty gross in terms of the interface. So I’m gonna download them and present them in a way that doesn’t suck (locally on my own computer) and then see what I can do with them. What achievements are worthy of a Storytime with Kurn video? What achievements am I missing? What achievements do I want to … achieve?
What about you, folks? What are you up to in WoW this week?
