As part of my beta testing I decided to see what it would be like to be a total noob in Northrend. I have 5 L70 toons right now (Alliance and Horde pallies and horde hunter, warrior, and shaman). I've also got a 69 lock and 68 priest who pretty much were just farmers. The priest hasn't even finished all the HFP quests. The lock was my PvP toon pre TBC, but I didn't really play her much in TBC for various reason. So I decided that an L68 priest with a few instance blues (nothing beyond Old Hillsbrad) and a few quest rewards would be a good test of how the game plays. I figure this is likely the path of alts and new players as well. Besides I have the least amount of experience with the priest, I've only played rogues and mages less than priests.
I've also read very little about wrath. I've read stuff on here and looked at the patch notes some but haven't really delved into any of it. I don't know the names of the instances for example. I don't know all the mechanic changes. This was intentional.
I decided on a build somewhat similar to my holy grinder spec going with this http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=bVMrzhGdboZbxtcbbqbZG I'm sure I'll change it a lot with the 2 copper respecs, but it's got good mana regen, and buffs up the holy talents, I've not been a huge fan of shadow, tried it a few times, just didn't feel as comfortable with it.
But you are dealing with a priest here with all of 6K HP and 8200 mana and 478 spell damage all buffed up. I've got around 20% holy spell crit, and about 2.65% spell hit. He's an herber/alchemist, both at 375. He farmed a lot of my primal life for my other toons. He's a noob. :)
So what do I do? I get in, hit a priest trainer to make sure I didn't miss any spells, then catch the Zepp from UC to Northrend, Vengeance Landing to be exact. As I exit the Zepplin I can see that this is a place of war though it's in a calm right now. You can see battle ships on the waters and there are cannons firing (see next 3 shots for some variation as well) from their emplacements.
I wander around town getting a feel for the place. I find my first aid, alchemy and herbalism trainers and expand my knowledge of those crafts some. I pick up the flight path, I fire off a cannon because I can, then I grab some quests.
They aren't anything special. Burn some bodies, feed a dog, search for some crates. I kill a few mobs for these, nothing really all that scary. Sure I don't just mash them into the ground, but they are generally a level or 2 bigger than me, but I maintain about 375 DPS on them. I've always felt that if you could get up to 350 DPS soloing that it was very livable. I get 2 of the 3 quests done, and get my first green drop as well and then on the way back into town run into this little envoy from Arthas. I stand back and watch. (Screeny view the next 7 to get the rest of the story)
I run a few more quests, follow a tracking animal, kill X for Y drop, do some bombing runs (much like the TBC bombing runs, they are fun). Then I take a flight to a boat and have to kill the alliance that boarded it. This was more fun then the SSO daily where you board ships. You had sailors fighting on your side and there weren't enough on the boat I landed on so I had jump off the boat onto a small island then onto another. It had a bit of a feel of pirate adventure leaping around like that to help the crews. This lead to dropping some markers by some cannons to help the horde force (see next shot as well) I had already spoken with on an earlier mission break through. After doing this I'm asked to assassinate some of the alliance leaders to help our horde forces. This lead to the first quest reward I kept, a 173 spell damage mace there were 74 DPS one handers and 110 DPS 2 handers as well to help out folks who are changing spec to level or who didn't get any purples in those slots. Again, my gear sucks, nothing beyond Old Hillsbrad and HFP quest rewards. So don't expect to change your gear out with Northrend gear right away if I only changed one piece after doing around 10 quests and getting 3 or 4 green drops. :)
Doing all that dinged me 69 so I took a break to go train and write this up. I've got some screenies that I'll add when I get them cropped and uploaded, but this is my first installment.
For those looking for more detail I'll get there too. I'll be running my hunter (my main) and my shaman through the paces as well. Not sure which toon I'll take over with my 4th copy, one of my pallies or my warrior and I've got a DK of course.
Some notes from the priest on new mehanics. The new spell push back mechanic is nice. I got myself in a bit of trouble on purpose and only having 2 stutters for a total of 1s on the cast was nice, much easier to get that bigger heal off to get back into the fight, and much easier to cast with people in my face without having to shield if I don't feel like wasting that much mana.
Mana regen with spirit tap and the occasional mana monster was just fine I never had to drink, this I expected because grinding with a priest of spec like this in TBC was not really an issue either and since I've got imp spirit tap and I work mind blast into my smite spam, that helps it out too.
Anyway this is where I'll be posting updates and I'll edit this post with a few screenies as well.
I've also read very little about wrath. I've read stuff on here and looked at the patch notes some but haven't really delved into any of it. I don't know the names of the instances for example. I don't know all the mechanic changes. This was intentional.
I decided on a build somewhat similar to my holy grinder spec going with this http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=bVMrzhGdboZbxtcbbqbZG I'm sure I'll change it a lot with the 2 copper respecs, but it's got good mana regen, and buffs up the holy talents, I've not been a huge fan of shadow, tried it a few times, just didn't feel as comfortable with it.
But you are dealing with a priest here with all of 6K HP and 8200 mana and 478 spell damage all buffed up. I've got around 20% holy spell crit, and about 2.65% spell hit. He's an herber/alchemist, both at 375. He farmed a lot of my primal life for my other toons. He's a noob. :)
So what do I do? I get in, hit a priest trainer to make sure I didn't miss any spells, then catch the Zepp from UC to Northrend, Vengeance Landing to be exact. As I exit the Zepplin I can see that this is a place of war though it's in a calm right now. You can see battle ships on the waters and there are cannons firing (see next 3 shots for some variation as well) from their emplacements.
I wander around town getting a feel for the place. I find my first aid, alchemy and herbalism trainers and expand my knowledge of those crafts some. I pick up the flight path, I fire off a cannon because I can, then I grab some quests.
They aren't anything special. Burn some bodies, feed a dog, search for some crates. I kill a few mobs for these, nothing really all that scary. Sure I don't just mash them into the ground, but they are generally a level or 2 bigger than me, but I maintain about 375 DPS on them. I've always felt that if you could get up to 350 DPS soloing that it was very livable. I get 2 of the 3 quests done, and get my first green drop as well and then on the way back into town run into this little envoy from Arthas. I stand back and watch. (Screeny view the next 7 to get the rest of the story)
I run a few more quests, follow a tracking animal, kill X for Y drop, do some bombing runs (much like the TBC bombing runs, they are fun). Then I take a flight to a boat and have to kill the alliance that boarded it. This was more fun then the SSO daily where you board ships. You had sailors fighting on your side and there weren't enough on the boat I landed on so I had jump off the boat onto a small island then onto another. It had a bit of a feel of pirate adventure leaping around like that to help the crews. This lead to dropping some markers by some cannons to help the horde force (see next shot as well) I had already spoken with on an earlier mission break through. After doing this I'm asked to assassinate some of the alliance leaders to help our horde forces. This lead to the first quest reward I kept, a 173 spell damage mace there were 74 DPS one handers and 110 DPS 2 handers as well to help out folks who are changing spec to level or who didn't get any purples in those slots. Again, my gear sucks, nothing beyond Old Hillsbrad and HFP quest rewards. So don't expect to change your gear out with Northrend gear right away if I only changed one piece after doing around 10 quests and getting 3 or 4 green drops. :)
Doing all that dinged me 69 so I took a break to go train and write this up. I've got some screenies that I'll add when I get them cropped and uploaded, but this is my first installment.
For those looking for more detail I'll get there too. I'll be running my hunter (my main) and my shaman through the paces as well. Not sure which toon I'll take over with my 4th copy, one of my pallies or my warrior and I've got a DK of course.
Some notes from the priest on new mehanics. The new spell push back mechanic is nice. I got myself in a bit of trouble on purpose and only having 2 stutters for a total of 1s on the cast was nice, much easier to get that bigger heal off to get back into the fight, and much easier to cast with people in my face without having to shield if I don't feel like wasting that much mana.
Mana regen with spirit tap and the occasional mana monster was just fine I never had to drink, this I expected because grinding with a priest of spec like this in TBC was not really an issue either and since I've got imp spirit tap and I work mind blast into my smite spam, that helps it out too.
Anyway this is where I'll be posting updates and I'll edit this post with a few screenies as well.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.