World of Warcraft: Legion

[Gerald Tarrant]

I just tried an LFR as my priest, 11 DH's both of the tanks were Demon Hunters as well. There's going to be a glut of them for a while I think.

[TheFeniX]

The White Tiger tier set from Heart of Fear-Terrace of Endless spring, and the felforged one you can get for the legion invasion, there's a bonus in that the armor sets you pick up on the invasions are 700 and upgradable.

I had those legs. But I never got the rest of the set. I should run those.

The armory seems to finally be updated and SORT of working. I came up with this on the fly before calling it a night and the only thing I'm not crazy about is the sword AND giving up my insistence on mogging Wall of Terror because I love it so. I should now consider mogging it on my warrior instead. You know red? For Warriors? Because RAAAAAGE!

Anyway, if the link doesn't work, sorry. But I still want to look into the Tiger set or anything else that combines red/white.

The Invasions are a mess. I can't get into one without a massive 10 to 1 ratio in favor of Horde. I want the extra shards, but I'm basically flying in, throwing one ability then RUNNING! I'd be nice to, for once, be on the "we have eleventy billion people" side of things. Doing 3 sets of invasions on 3 PCs: all massive Horde fuck-all.

Anyway, some tips: if you're DPS DH do not engage a Tank DH. I will kill you and still have 80% of my HP. If you bring a friend, I will kill you both and still have 50% of my HP. Then I will /spit on your corpses. Seriously, DH tanks are beefy and do stupid amounts of cleave damage. And it's all on the fly. They don't have to be standing in a Consecration or Death and Decay. Hell, they just do stupid amounts of damage all around.

[Grumman]

The Invasions are a mess. I can't get into one without a massive 10 to 1 ratio in favor of Horde. I want the extra shards, but I'm basically flying in, throwing one ability then RUNNING! I'd be nice to, for once, be on the "we have eleventy billion people" side of things. Doing 3 sets of invasions on 3 PCs: all massive Horde fuck-all.

Try doing them at level 20 on a PvP server. Literally 2/3rds of all Invasions are basically off-limits - you can pick off some demons out in the suburbs during stage 3 but if you're not literally immune to ganking due to the home-ground advantage, I can guarantee there will be at least one tosser who thinks killing someone at least three orders of magnitude weaker than he is is its own reward.

[TheFeniX]

I've read SoO is duo-able now. And since we're got all this fancy 700 gear, I think I'm going to try heroic to get the Paladin Tier I've always wanted. Hell, each set, blue, yellow, red, is pretty solid. But I've always wanted the Red set but my guild was too terrible to clear Heroics.

I've been doing invasions almost non-stop. For the most part, I've been just idling on multiple characters (as many as I can get in while the timer is still going) and working on school work on my other monitor. So, I've done a couple dozen at the least. I've run into 2 that weren't a total Horde clusterfuck. 100-200 or so Horde with at most 10 Alliance. Those 2 were heavily in favor of the Alliance, but there weren't as many so the Horde were fairing horribly in those.

On my 90-98s, you're right: the desire for them to be ganked is hilariously high. To a point I have to ask if there's an addon that auto-targets sub-100s. The only positive point is that my Blood DK is beast now with all the welfare gear. Unless there's a Shadow Priest involved, I can take two on, especially melee. My health and CDs let me get out of the brawl and if one poor soul decides to follow, he'd better be ready to run back to his group.

You get ganked on PvP servers. But I could track names/guilds on my server. I would mark them KoS. I camped so many lowbies and at-levels on my DK (back when I had gear) from one guild so much, the guild lead (or at least he said he was) whispered me about "WTF is your problem?" I explained how X camped my Warrior while I was skinning mobs.

WPVP has always been a joke, but it was relatively manageable, especially on a small server where the 50 you camped might log and come back with a fully geared max-level and ROFLStomp you. In my old guild, my DK heeded calls like this in guild chat constantly. Oh man, those were fun days.

Anyways, enough old man ranting: Spoiler

They killed Tirion Fordring during a "cutscene."

So.. fuck you Blizzard. Nothing else even registered a response in me for the entire expansion. This was a low-blow, but likely done to setup for the Paladin class-hall. Still a major low-blow. He's done jack shit for two expansions, at this is how they bring him back.

[Lord Revan]

If you ask me if you play on PvP realm you're signing up to be ganked. That said I have no respect for people who try to get you "accidently" PvP tagged in a PvE so that they or their max level buddy (if they're not max level themselves) can gank you while you're dealing with AI controlled mobs, I've still seen people try to do this even though the changes to PvP tagging have made it impossible (or nearly so).

Playing on PvP server you accept certain rules conserning play interaction. That doesn't mean you can force people to play by those rules when it's convinient to you (and not play by those rules when it's inconvinient to you) on PvE realm.

[TheFeniX]

I originally signed up to get ganked by people on Kil'Jaeden, which was a Horde biased server. That's what I did. I then took the transfer to Nazjatar and dealt with a much smaller but much more balanced community. We then got merged with Blood Furnace and Mannoroth. Not great, but whatever: the guys ganking me were reachable and so were their guilds. There was still a functioning community.

As for PvE, doesn't being in enemy territory (not contested) flag you even there? I know it did in Rift. Either way, some bosses/mobs mind control you. And if, while mind controlled, you hit an enemy or heal a flagged ally: you get flagged, even though the new system is supposed to stop that.

That I really don't care too much about, but this is my current ROLE PLAYING!!!!!! experience. Not pictured: half a dozen or so Alliance AFKing on the flying mounts. Their only other option: Get involved in a fight and get blasted by Horde AOEs or targetted out either way. My tactic is to, on mobs that drop Shards, fly in, throw whatever ranged I have, then pop a mobility CD to get out, and try to survive/brutally murder the 1-4 Horde that try to off me.

Best part though, and I'm sharing my "secret" here: In Taruen Mill/Hillsbard. If you're Alliance, on the west most overlook, west of the AV vendors: there's two gyrocopters. Their AOE does 50k-150k damage..... FOR THERAMORE MOTHERFUCKERS. Been ganked so many times, they are my goto. Almost wiped the Horde ball once. Best revenge was killing the hunter that ganked my 93 Shaman. He tried to disengage but I lined the shot up perfect, then did a loop-de-loop over his corpse while laughing.

Also, the Mechanostriders in Dun Morough (sp) have range on their rockets out to the draw distance. So you can snipe AFKing flying Horde if you can target them. They also just do loads of damage outright AND even though they have low-health, seem to take less damage and are hard to kill.

To get back to my rant: yes, I signed up for PvP. But that PvP was before CRZ and this new type of sharding where I'm constantly matched with PvE players who want to try their hand at ganking. Getting ganked is never fun, but WPvP has it's fun moments. This entire invasion scenario is just not fun if you aren't the dominant faction.

The 1-2 times things were fairly even and/or most the Horde didn't bother ganking, I had loads of fun. Like fighting a Hunter and Unholy DK on my Prot Warrior and railing the shit out of them over and over thanks to my welfare gear. DAMN, Prot and Fury are fun as balls now.

[Grumman]

As for PvE, doesn't being in enemy territory (not contested) flag you even there?

Yes, but PvE servers have a much more restrictive definition of "enemy territory": only capital cities count, while on the PvP servers it also covers zones up to level 20, with a few exceptions.

[Lord Revan]

As for PvE, doesn't being in enemy territory (not contested) flag you even there?

Yes, but PvE servers have a much more restrictive definition of "enemy territory": only capital cities count, while on the PvP servers it also covers zones up to level 20, with a few exceptions.

Indeed it's pretty much impossible to accidently wander into "enemy territory" in a PvE realm if you're there you're there by choice.

Back before the PvP tagging was changed it was typical for me to get max level allies (I play mostly horde these days) hovering near me with PvP tag active trying to get to accidently hit them so they could get a free kill because I was a)busy with the mobs b)generally not close enough to max level to actually hurt them and if I brought a max level character they slink away then wait for the PvP tag to run out, only to return when I logged back to the lowbie char. Oh and these people would boast (it wasn't alliance only mind you I just faced mostly alliance as I played mostly horde) about their accomplishments in trade chat, then there's was the max level people who'd "raid" Razor Hill, Goldshire or similar "starter towns" and flee the moment anyone above level 40 arrived close enough to the town so it might seem they're there to fight the other faction and again the jokers would boast (obvious not mentioning that alliance/horde kills they got were most level 10 or so NPCs or players while they were at very least level 60).

[Lord Revan]

anyone know if the invasions are good way to level up my level 90+ characters before legion hits (bare in mind that I'll be in London for a few days starting from the 22nd so I won't be able to play during that time).

[TheFeniX]

anyone know if the invasions are good way to level up my level 90+ characters before legion hits (bare in mind that I'll be in London for a few days starting from the 22nd so I won't be able to play during that time).

Oh my, yes. You'll generally get a full level or most of one just idling per full invasion. I've gone from two 100s and a boosted to 6 100s. No idea if upgraded looms make a difference. Worst case, 2 will get you 1.5 levels.

Still can't get any 2hs to drop for my warrior. Got the 1h for tanking, but even setting to arms: I've been getting nothing but armor I already have. Also, the "no off-hands" shit is killing me. I have the sword and wand on my mage, but I want the staff... if it even exists.

As for PvE, doesn't being in enemy territory (not contested) flag you even there?

Yes, but PvE servers have a much more restrictive definition of "enemy territory": only capital cities count, while on the PvP servers it also covers zones up to level 20, with a few exceptions.

I was wrong about his. For Rift, I didn't get flagged till I walked into the ... whatever the faction was called capital. We were also on a PvE server for that game and people LOVED trying to bait us into flagging. Was easier with the Rifts system since it auto-grouped you and AOE heals would flag you as would any other AOE damage. I ran a Warrior tank though and they were stupid OP in that game, so I didn't complain. The souls system literally gave you a counter for everything and you could block from behind AND block ranged attacks. Only time you had problems was if you were fighting physical and magic DPS at the same time as your jack-of-all trades build was a bit weaker.

Could still kill 2-4 with little issue though since tanks were very heavily damage=threat oriented. I liked the devs reaction to it in the PvP forums when DPS complained about tanks in battlegrounds: "Deal with it." If not that exact phrase.

[TheFeniX]

Hot fix: The new gear can now be warforged...... I've got a few pieces 710 and 720.

Shaman hit 90, had 40 boxes (20 of each, so 20 invasions). This got me from 91 to 100. Just idling. Do the math. I got two pieces of 710 gear, so drop rate isn't great. Glaives are now BoA. It seems you can fel-upgrade them and still mail them. Have yet to test.

[White Haven]

Slight note, exp from individual invasions has been reduced, but there are now three at once rather than two, and they cycle in two-hour intervals instead of four. Less exp per, more of them.

[Broomstick]

Played the next installment on the pre-event questline with my Alliance toon - there is something that isn't quite right with Khadgar...

[Lord Revan]

Played the next installment on the pre-event questline with my Alliance toon - there is something that isn't quite right with Khadgar...

Oh? Besides his general quirkyness I didn't find him that odd, certainly not "legion infiltrator" level strange.

[Broomstick]

Why is he hanging back when you go into Karazhan? Why is always sending you ahead and hanging back? That's suspicious. His own defenses turning against him? Maybe he's not really Khadgar or he's been turned somehow?

Some of what the demons say can be ambiguous - "your former master" - is that Medivh (if he's really Khadgar) or someone in the Legion (if he's not)?

And when did my webbrowser gain the ability the spell-correct WoW names and locations? OMG! My computer's been infiltrated! No, seriously, that is weird.

[Zwinmar]

Don't think I am going to renew my subscription nor buy the expansion. I really do not like what they did to the classes.

[Lord Revan]

Why is he hanging back when you go into Karazhan? Why is always sending you ahead and hanging back? That's suspicious. His own defenses turning against him? Maybe he's not really Khadgar or he's been turned somehow?

Some of what the demons say can be ambiguous - "your former master" - is that Medivh (if he's really Khadgar) or someone in the Legion (if he's not)?

"your former master" means Medivh if he truly was a demon who betrayed the Legion the demons would have no reason to hide it. As for the defenses it seems like the part of Medivh's spirit still tied to the tower is subverting the defenses.

[Civil War Man]

I think Frost DKs are finally dead buddy. We should pour one out for them.

They definitely told all the exiled Blood DPS players "If you want to DPS with a 2-handed weapon and no pet, either reroll Ret/Arms or fuck off." Second time the spec I played has been removed from the game.

I haven't been subbed for a while, but I've been keeping an eye on what's been coming out since I was willing to give Blizzard a chance to prove that they were turning things around from WoD. Haven't really been tempted to come back after hearing what DKs are going through, though.

Frost definitely looks to be in a bad spot. And it's not just that it now apparently has the durability, mobility, and raid utility of a wet paper bag, but makes up for it by having mediocre dps while on target. The devs seem to have expended an almost admirable amount of energy attempting to completely scrub anything vaguely death-themed from the Frost Death Knight spec. No ghouls, no AoTD, no Soul Reaper. Apparently in the alpha the artifact had an ability to call forth the spirit of Ner'zhul, Arthas, or Bolvar, but it was replaced with a passive ability where a couple floating swords follow you around and occasionally plonk an enemy for a bit of extra Frost damage. I think the only death-related things they have left are Raise Ally and the artifact trait that allows them to summon Sindragosa. Everything else is more Frost Mage in Plate than Frost Death Knight, since it's just different varieties of dealing Frost damage, plus Obliterate.

I think the real deal-breaker for me, though, is the artifacts. I personally find the Unholy artifact skins to be really ugly, and the constant insistence that the Frost blades are totally Frostmourne only makes it all the more glaring that they feel like cheap replicas at best. If the devs were really dead set on making Frost dual wield only, I think they should have made Frostmourne the Unholy artifact. Name aside, it's never really been a Frost-ish weapon. Arthas wasn't feared because wielding Frostmourne gave him the ability to summon blizzards (I don't think he even had any Frost abilities until after he became the Lich King). It was because Frostmourne gave him the ability to steal souls and raise the dead. Frostmourne is an Unholy weapon.

Honestly, if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to play, I'd probably swap my Death Knight to Unholy and transmog the weapon into Quel'Delar.

[TheFeniX]

Slight note, exp from individual invasions has been reduced, but there are now three at once rather than two, and they cycle in two-hour intervals instead of four. Less exp per, more of them.

Down to about 1/3 of what it was. Gravy train has run dry.

They definitely told all the exiled Blood DPS players "If you want to DPS with a 2-handed weapon and no pet, either reroll Ret/Arms or fuck off." Second time the spec I played has been removed from the game.

Aw man, Blood Strike.. that takes me back.

Frost has always been weird since, for a brain dead spec, it's always had the option of going against what Blizzard wants.

In Cata, you either went 2h Unholy Pres and did shit damage or went DW Mastery Frost and did excellent cleave damage and middle-of-the-road single target. Except DW Unholy Pres Haste Frost was viable and murder-rolled both. Your OBs hit for less, but it didn't matter because your rune regen rate and general attack speed meant you were throwing more of them AND the auto-attack speed bonus of DW over 2h meant more KM procs. I coudl run a proc chain so hard as to rip aggro minutes after a pull. So, they made Frost Pres either (can't recall and they've tried both) increase the damage of Frost Strike or Reduce it's cost. And they capped the GCD because it was unfair to people with slow reaction times or latency (whatthefuckever). Thus killing Haste Frost.

In MoP: Master Frost DW was the only viable option and Blizz wanted you using OB and Soul Reaper. Except, as I've talked about, the scaling was so bad, Howling Blarg became the ONLY thing you used runes on. So, they made HB do shit damage outside of Rime procs.

In WoD: Once you hit (another) gear plateau: FrostScythe, the conal hitter which benefits from killing machine and does 4X crit damage competes with OB because it only cost one rune. So once again: You spam it as your only rune user and tell OB to fuck off. NOTE: I haven't had the opportunity to test this as I have not raided this expansion. It's all based on raid theory from Icy Veins and a few other reads I've done.

I haven't been subbed for a while, but I've been keeping an eye on what's been coming out since I was willing to give Blizzard a chance to prove that they were turning things around from WoD. Haven't really been tempted to come back after hearing what DKs are going through, though.

Blood and Unholy have always done good work. Unholy has also been cleaned up a bit. No more building stacks, abomination is just on a CD. And Gargoyle/Valkyrie is now a CD that does more damage as you spend Runic power.

But Frost. The only thing holding it together is that the players seem to constantly work out a way to keep it semi-viable in spite of Blizzard trying to force them to play a certain way. I can't think of another class with that kind of flexibility. Like, Ret is fucking garbage tier right now. Unless your wings are up, you're doing shit damage and it's been that way forever. And adding a few greater blessings isn't going to make people take them to a raid.

So fucking glad my progression days are behind me. I'm having fun just fucking around. Either way, your post hits home for me. I love Frost DK and it's a shame to see Blizzard try and kill it rather than making it fun and viable. Hell, I'd just take fun.

Tell you what though: Rogue feels strong right now. All my free shinies so I decided to take on a DH who just ganked a 98 Shammy. Opened up and just started hitting buttons. Without worrying about Slice and Dice and Recup (just gone for Sub), it was nothing but damage finishers slamming 20-65k crits in his face. He went down and another DH jumped me after that, I didn't even have to vanish and I just burned his ass down too. Could have been shitters, but I'm also a shitter trying to relearn on old PvP spec/character.

[Civil War Man]

Frost has always been weird since, for a brain dead spec, it's always had the option of going against what Blizzard wants.

...

But Frost. The only thing holding it together is that the players seem to constantly work out a way to keep it semi-viable in spite of Blizzard trying to force them to play a certain way. I can't think of another class with that kind of flexibility. Like, Ret is fucking garbage tier right now. Unless your wings are up, you're doing shit damage and it's been that way forever. And adding a few greater blessings isn't going to make people take them to a raid.

So fucking glad my progression days are behind me. I'm having fun just fucking around. Either way, your post hits home for me. I love Frost DK and it's a shame to see Blizzard try and kill it rather than making it fun and viable. Hell, I'd just take fun.

I actually am not too fond of Frost personally. 2H Frost in particular has always been tainted in my mind as being the scrap that Blizzard grudgingly threw to the Blood DPS players they alienated when they removed the spec (of course, now they've decided to remove that, too).

Though Frost isn't exactly alone in being a spec where players have rebelled against the way Blizzard wanted them to play, even among Death Knights. There was the highly successful Diseaseless Blood, which ended up forcing Blizzard to change Blood DPS to use Death Strike instead of Obliterate, because being forced to sink 13 talent points into making Obliterate not completely unusable was stupid. There was also the 32/39 Frost/Unholy dual wield spec, which was the reason the devs dropped Howling Blast to the bottom of the tree.

I think Frost's problems started when they decided to do away with the design philosophy of any tree being able to tank or DPS. The decision was better for the class in the long run, but it didn't do Frost any favors, especially since the devs basically took the past of least resistance in their decision on which tree should do what. Even though Blood DPS was far and away the most popular spec (I remember seeing some census data that said something like 6 or 7 of the 10 most used DK specs at the end of Wrath were some variation on Blood DPS), Blood was also being used as a tank spec in ICC, and so they decided to make Blood the tank spec. And they decided to make Frost the dual wield spec because all of the dual wield talents were there, even though more often than not most remotely viable dual wield builds put the minimum amount of points into Frost to get those talents and then dumped the rest into Unholy (funny enough, the only people I knew who specced Frost and dual wielded used that spec to tank 5-mans). Then, on top of that, they decided to design Frost to do either dual wield or 2H DPS in a vain attempt to placate the displaced Blood DPS players, which constricted their design space since any change to any Frost abilities beyond Threat of Thassarian and Might of the Frozen Wastes made either dual wield OP, 2H OP, or both of them useless.

I think that decision also made the tree awkward thematically. If you randomly polled people and, without taking the actual contents of the talent trees into account, asked them whether Frost or Blood was the more tank-y theme, most people would probably say Frost hands down. Because ice is cold, solid, and unyielding, while blood is thematically hotter and more ferocious. But by making Blood the slow durable tank spec and Frost the frenetic DPS spec, Blizzard gave both specs the themes that are more appropriate with the other.

[Broomstick]

Why is he hanging back when you go into Karazhan? Why is always sending you ahead and hanging back? That's suspicious. His own defenses turning against him? Maybe he's not really Khadgar or he's been turned somehow?

Some of what the demons say can be ambiguous - "your former master" - is that Medivh (if he's really Khadgar) or someone in the Legion (if he's not)?

"your former master" means Medivh if he truly was a demon who betrayed the Legion the demons would have no reason to hide it. As for the defenses it seems like the part of Medivh's spirit still
tied to the tower is subverting the defenses.

Why do you assume that if he's a demon he's betrayed the Legion? Why not a double-agent, or imposter rather than the real Khadgar?

I just find it suspicious, especially now that I've run the quest a couple more times (too many level 100's). Maybe I'm off base here, but it would be just like Bliz to have him turn out to be a bad guy of some sort down the line.

[Lord Revan]

Why is he hanging back when you go into Karazhan? Why is always sending you ahead and hanging back? That's suspicious. His own defenses turning against him? Maybe he's not really Khadgar or he's been turned somehow?

Some of what the demons say can be ambiguous - "your former master" - is that Medivh (if he's really Khadgar) or someone in the Legion (if he's not)?

"your former master" means Medivh if he truly was a demon who betrayed the Legion the demons would have no reason to hide it. As for the defenses it seems like the part of Medivh's spirit still
tied to the tower is subverting the defenses.

Why do you assume that if he's a demon he's betrayed the Legion? Why not a double-agent, or imposter rather than the real Khadgar?

I just find it suspicious, especially now that I've run the quest a couple more times (too many level 100's). Maybe I'm off base here, but it would be just like Bliz to have him turn out to be a bad guy of some sort down the line.

If he was working for the Legion there wouldn't be any point to attract attention to that.

Then there's the fact that he goes to meet the demon hunters personally, you know the people who have fanatical hatred towards the Legion and can spot demons even when said demons are disguised. Though depening on the timeline Khadgar did fight a dreadlord at Karazhan already.

basically while he acts a bit wierd(er) at Karazhan when taken in context with other actions during the pre-patch and expansion it doesn't seem so likely that he's a willing agent of the Legion.

[Gerald Tarrant]

I just find it suspicious, especially now that I've run the quest a couple more times (too many level 100's). Maybe I'm off base here, but it would be just like Bliz to have him turn out to be a bad guy of some sort down the line.

I think that's the way Jaina is headed with her pent-up hatred of the Horde. Single minded vengeance driving you to do terrible things was Arthas's shtick in WC 3, and I think they're going to retread that with Jaina, it's felt like they've been setting that up ever since the attack on Theramore Scenario at the end of Cataclysm. If you've done the alliance side version of the quest you see the council of 6 vote to invite the horde back, and Jaina refuses to be part of the Kirin Tor anymore.

I just can't see Khadgar being a double agent, he could have opted out of inviting the horde back in, or voted differently or anything, and that would have "Lore-wise" left Azeroth more divided. I suppose it's possible that there could be some serious mustache twirling, wait til the exact right moment to enact complicated plan requiring twenty random things to fall in just right, and Khadgar turns out to be a secret Sargeri, but I'm betting it's just poorly written dialogue.

[Zwinmar]

Well, on the plus side; Jaina looks badass now. Other than that, i find it a bit meh overall.

[Broomstick]

If you've done the alliance side version of the quest you see the council of 6 vote to invite the horde back, and Jaina refuses to be part of the Kirin Tor anymore.

You get to see that in the Horde version, too. In fact, the Horde version is pretty much the same, only very minor dialogue differences regarding Dalaran.