April News/Discussions
#1
Patch 2.4 sure is stirring things up! There is all sorts of information to be had, and things to do.

First off, your Thoughts on 2.4. How are you liking the patch? Is there something you love? Something you hate? Some great conversation in a thread I've started.

One of the big changes is the Spirit/Regen model change. It means huge changes for pretty much every mana using class (Yes, even hunters). There is a lot of great discussion in the post that Concillian has going.

Along with that good change, comes one that has nipped at hunters. It seems that Mania has gone over a bunch of reports, and found that Growl is miscasting, causing some Aggro Issues with hunters and their pets. It seems to be nothing more than annoying for the solo'ing hunter, but it is that, indeed.

In a topic that's coming up near and dear to me as I level up a warrior, Amanda Dean asks about those Long Runs you have as a young toon, with no mount and no previous Flight Point. What are some of the longest you fondly or, perhaps, not so fondly recall?

Something a lot of folks are talking about when they discover is is the buff "Sunwell Radiance". Doesn't sound familiar? That's because it's for the mobs in the Sunwell Plateau, the 25man instance introduced this patch. It's very existance has neither been confirmed or denied by Blizzard, but it does seem to be out there, and has a lot of tanks of all varieties talking about the buffs/itemization to come, as it looks like BLizzard is trying to remove the 'Crushing Blow' mechanic from the game.

Speaking of the Sunwell Plateau, WoWjutsu is currently saying that there are 18 guilds in the 'top spots' for the progress race with each guild having kills for the first three bosses in the Sunwell. The race is on to see how fast the raiders can beat their content!

For the PvP'ers, the World Tournament is beginning. Bornakk has a quick post here, and then in that post points you to here if you want to join in the 3v3 battle!

Finally, in keeping with the April Fool's idea, Boubouille has posted that he's finally created a hack that allows you to roll 96+ on any /random 100 roll. Enjoy the day!
~Not all who wander are lost...~
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#2
Quote:In a topic that's coming up near and dear to me as I level up a warrior, Amanda Dean asks about those Long Runs you have as a young toon, with no mount and no previous Flight Point. What are some of the longest you fondly or, perhaps, not so fondly recall?

So easy. Getting from the Night Elf starting area to the Dwarf starting area at level ... 4? 5?
Trade yourself in for the perfect one. No one needs to know that you feel you've been ruined!
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#3
Quote:So easy. Getting from the Night Elf starting area to the Dwarf starting area at level ... 4? 5?

What's crazy is that I remember meeting you in Loch Modan when you did that...
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#4
Quote:So easy. Getting from the Night Elf starting area to the Dwarf starting area at level ... 4? 5?

Ahhh back in the early days of the guild not a day would go by that I did not escort someone through on Sharanna.:)

Sharanna - Guardian Angel™ since Beta.
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#5
Sunwell Radiance is a very interesting mechanic. It's pretty much been confirmed though not by Blizzard.

-25% avoidance is... harsh. To say the least. Most of the early bosses in Sunwell do not crush, which makes that part a non-issue, but it's still a very hefty nerf for the tanks who like stacking Dodge gems.
Earthen Ring-EU:
Taelas -- 60 Human Protection Warrior; Shaleen -- 52 Human Retribution Paladin; Raethal -- 51 Worgen Guardian Druid; Szar -- 50 Human Fire Mage; Caethan -- 60 Human Blood Death Knight; Danee -- 41 Human Outlaw Rogue; Ainsleigh -- 52 Dark Iron Dwarf Fury Warrior; Mihena -- 44 Void Elf Affliction Warlock; Chiyan -- 41 Pandaren Brewmaster Monk; Threkk -- 40 Orc Fury Warrior; Alliera -- 41 Night Elf Havoc Demon Hunter;
Darkmoon Faire-EU:
Sieon -- 45 Blood Elf Retribution Paladin; Kuaryo -- 51 Pandaren Brewmaster Monk
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#6
Quote:-25% avoidance is... harsh. To say the least. Most of the early bosses in Sunwell do not crush, which makes that part a non-issue, but it's still a very hefty nerf for the tanks who like stacking Dodge gems.

Why do dodge gems have any relevance here?

No tank in enough gear to handle Sunwell has less than 20% dodge. It's a flat avoidance reduction for everyone.

Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
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#7
Simple. Avoidance scales exponentially, thus the more avoidance you have, the harder this hits.

And the best way to stack avoidance is to stack Dodge gems (except for druids).
Earthen Ring-EU:
Taelas -- 60 Human Protection Warrior; Shaleen -- 52 Human Retribution Paladin; Raethal -- 51 Worgen Guardian Druid; Szar -- 50 Human Fire Mage; Caethan -- 60 Human Blood Death Knight; Danee -- 41 Human Outlaw Rogue; Ainsleigh -- 52 Dark Iron Dwarf Fury Warrior; Mihena -- 44 Void Elf Affliction Warlock; Chiyan -- 41 Pandaren Brewmaster Monk; Threkk -- 40 Orc Fury Warrior; Alliera -- 41 Night Elf Havoc Demon Hunter;
Darkmoon Faire-EU:
Sieon -- 45 Blood Elf Retribution Paladin; Kuaryo -- 51 Pandaren Brewmaster Monk
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#8
Long runs? Warlock succubus quest at level 20. For my human warlock, it was a run from Loch Modan to Menethil Harbour, boat to Auberdine, Auberdine to that Tauren town in the middle of the Barrens (!!) and then *back* to northern Ashenvale (!!!). It took *forever*.
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#9
According to this, Proudmoore is the first server to reach phase 3 in the Shattered Sun Offensive. Cenarius is a very close second, at 99% right now. This came up in guild chat the other day, how hard it must be to do these dailies on a pvp server. For the curious, the first PvP server on the list is Blackrock, at #12 (87%). The second is Jubei'Thos, a huge jump away at #34 (77%). In last place right now is Blood Furnace, sitting at #224, with 2% in to phase 2.

For the theorycrafters out there, the brains over at Elitist Jerks are starting their Think Tank project. It will likely be a very valuable resource, so head on over and check it out, if you have the chops.
~Not all who wander are lost...~
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#10
Quote:According to this, Proudmoore is the first server to reach phase 3 in the Shattered Sun Offensive. Cenarius is a very close second, at 99% right now. This came up in guild chat the other day, how hard it must be to do these dailies on a pvp server. For the curious, the first PvP server on the list is Blackrock, at #12 (87%). The second is Jubei'Thos, a huge jump away at #34 (77%). In last place right now is Blood Furance, sitting at #224, with 2% in to phase 2.

Not all servers report data. Last I looked, Anub'Arak isn't even on the chart.
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#11
Quote:Not all servers report data. Last I looked, Anub'Arak isn't even on the chart.

That's because that is a Europe server and you would need to check here: http://www.gorgonnash.info/index.html for it.

The top European server would be about 12th if there was a combined list. Though of course any ranking needs to be checked against the last time it was updated. If one server was updated 8 hours ago and one was updated 8 minutes ago you can estimate that the 8 hours ago has probably gotten another 2-4% done.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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#12
Quote:If one server was updated 8 hours ago and one was updated 8 minutes ago you can estimate that the 8 hours ago has probably gotten another 2-4% done.

:( Our server only gets 2-4% done per day it seems like!
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#13
Quote::( Our server only gets 2-4% done per day it seems like!

Terenas is doing pretty well we seem to float between 40th and 60th depending on when the updates have been. Considering the population on our server has shrunk a bit and we are kinda in the middle of the road for population, I'm pretty happy with the progress.

Sorry to hear you guys aren't moving all that fast. I was surprised to see Stormrage moving as slow as they do with how big their server pop is as well.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
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#14
Quote:That's because that is a Europe server and you would need to check here: http://www.gorgonnash.info/index.html for it.

There's also a US Anub'Arak, from which most of my guild transferred from, and it's probably still at ~30%.

On phase 1.
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#15
Quote:Sorry to hear you guys aren't moving all that fast. I was surprised to see Stormrage moving as slow as they do with how big their server pop is as well.

I was a bit surprised at this, too. But then, it seems that any interest in the dailies has really dried up in the last couple of days. Makes me wonder if folks know exactly how the dailies work, or not. But there are some of us who run our eligible main and alt through.;)
~Not all who wander are lost...~
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#16
Quote:Sorry to hear you guys aren't moving all that fast. I was surprised to see Stormrage moving as slow as they do with how big their server pop is as well.

We don't really have the population that we used to, for a variety of reasons. We used to be one of the most active servers, but the latest unofficial census data gives the top servers around 35,000 players and Stormrage has ~20k. Terenas and Stormrage are right around the same ballpark these days (Terenas has about 18k players).
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#17
Quote:There's also a US Anub'Arak, from which most of my guild transferred from, and it's probably still at ~30%.

On phase 1.


Ouch.

That server will probably not hit Phase 4 complete before WOTLK at that rate. I bet in a few weeks they just finish things off automatically for the low-pop servers like that
Conc / Concillian -- Vintage player of many games. Deadly leader of the All Pally Team (or was it Death leader?)
Terenas WoW player... while we waited for Diablo III.
And it came... and it went... and I played Hearthstone longer than Diablo III.
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#18
Quote:Ouch.

That server will probably not hit Phase 4 complete before WOTLK at that rate. I bet in a few weeks they just finish things off automatically for the low-pop servers like that

They've already said that the system includes this. At some point, they'll get pushed to the next phase automatically.
<span style="color:red">Terenas (PvE)
Xarhud: Lvl 80 Undead Priest
Meltok: Lvl 70 Undead Mage
Ishila: Lvl 31 Tauren Druid
Tynaria: Lvl 66 Blood Elf Rogue
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#19
News - April 8

We'll open this up with a look at my favorite class, the Hunter. Danial Whitcomb has rounded up a nice selection of fora posts from the various hunter big names (such as Lactose and Cheeky) about some of the challenges a hunter faces. An often maligned class, this post is certainly a good read on some of the challenges hunters face in the game.

Scott Andrews continues the good articles with one about how to move a casual guild into the raiding scene. It's not as easy as one thinks. He gives some good tips and places to start. Probably the best advice I saw in there was this tidbit: "You can raid as a casual guild, but you can't raid casually." I see this personally elsewhere and it's a trainwreck every time.

What's a post here without a bit of controversy, right? Well, with the new Neck rewards available from the Shattered Sun Offensive, it seems that folks are regretting a choice made a long time ago...Aldor or Scryer. Now, you can change your faction, but it's a long painful grind, generally not really worth it. Of course, plenty of debate about whether or not the procs are one-sided or not ensues.

The final battle has arrived! It's Kel'Thuzad vs Illidan! Who will come out on top! Go cast your vote!

Zach Yonzon chips in with a great article on Eye of the Storm strategies. I have been trying to grind up some honor, recently, and took a couple forays into EotS due to it being an EotS weekend, and getting a couple daily quests there. The...disorganization had me almost ready to start pulling hair out. Folks shouting out 2-3 conflicting strats, while everyone seemed to do whatever they wanted anyhow, while the Horde steamrolled us. I wish I could have pointed folks to this page then.

Most folks who I play with in WoW know the love/hate relationship the RNG and I have with each other. It loves to hate me. But, I figure that for everyone out there like me, there is someone who the RNG loves. (I'm looking at you, Mr. I-Got-A-Mature-Blue-Dragon-Sinew-In-Less-Than-30-Minutes). So it's interesting to see that I'm not the only one the RNG has taken a disliking to.

Hortus has a pretty nice Known 2.4 Issues list up.

Bornakk also lets us know that greens are the new purples again in WotLK. It won't be as bad as it was with the Classic to TBC change, but one of the same general nature is coming. Time to stop raiding now and just kill time in Arena's and BG's....

On a final note, Sons of the Storm is a beautiful WoW inspired gallery site, with artwork well worth checking out.
~Not all who wander are lost...~
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#20
Quote:Bornakk also lets us know that greens are the new purples again in WotLK. It won't be as bad as it was with the Classic to TBC change, but one of the same general nature is coming. Time to stop raiding now and justkill time in Arena's and BG's....

Thankfully this isn't the case. No matter what your current content is, upgrading your gear is still a good idea. Yes, you'll replace the epics with greens -- but seeing as the stats are better, who cares? You'd replace the epics with better epics anyway.

The better gear you have going into WotLK, the faster you can level, and the faster you can get back into the raiding game. While PvP gear will of course help, it's just not as good as PvE gear -- mainly due to Resilience.
Earthen Ring-EU:
Taelas -- 60 Human Protection Warrior; Shaleen -- 52 Human Retribution Paladin; Raethal -- 51 Worgen Guardian Druid; Szar -- 50 Human Fire Mage; Caethan -- 60 Human Blood Death Knight; Danee -- 41 Human Outlaw Rogue; Ainsleigh -- 52 Dark Iron Dwarf Fury Warrior; Mihena -- 44 Void Elf Affliction Warlock; Chiyan -- 41 Pandaren Brewmaster Monk; Threkk -- 40 Orc Fury Warrior; Alliera -- 41 Night Elf Havoc Demon Hunter;
Darkmoon Faire-EU:
Sieon -- 45 Blood Elf Retribution Paladin; Kuaryo -- 51 Pandaren Brewmaster Monk
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