MoP Beta, Where to start questing…
Once you get the Beta installed, if you are like me and want to dive right into questing you will first need to go to Pandaria. To do that you will need to find the Panda in your faction Capital City. The Panda should not be too tough to find in either city as he was placed in the most active area with a moonglow spotlight on him.
When asked, have him port you to Pandaria, there were a couple of different port options, but bottom line you need to end up in the Jade Forest and if you are horde make your way to the Northwestern top of the map, Alliance Southwest bottom of the map to find the starting quest areas. Horde is right above Hellscream’s Hope (Have the Panda port you there if it is an option still), Alliance is at the Wayward Landing (Also probably a port option).
I started out picking talents and a spec that sounded good for leveling. Talent choices really do have a feel for them based on play style so there really probably isn’t a better or worse option just one that fits how you like to level. If you like to grind on multiple mobs while questing you might pick different talents than if you prefer bypassing a lot of combat to get quests completed more quickly.
I knocked out a couple quests and even received my first reward, a two handed staff for either Boom or Kitty, neither of which was better than what I already had in inventory which is typical of every expansion since I raid… so nothing new on that front… except of course that the quest reward is custom so every class will get a useable item from that exact same quest without seeing like 8 possible rewards, just 2 based on which spec you want it for. A very welcome change and I am very happy Blizzard is finally looking at intelligent ways to reward loot.
I will post more after spending some time in the beta this weekend.
Runy returns to WOW.
Just a heads up to all you Druids to check out Runyarusco and her blog. You can find the link in my Blogroll of to the right. I really liked her most recent post about the new Dungeon Journal. Although the Journal will be trumped by most progression raiding guilds in favor of watching videos and reading other online resources I really like the fact that some of the more diehard RP players can get their information from within the game that will lead to success.
I don’t know about everyone else but I still see constant chat traffic in game asking questions that are easily answered by going to Wowhead or any other of the informational sites available. These people are either lazy, are HEAVY into the social aspect of the game, RP people HEAVY into the Fantasy aspect, or unaware of the Wow community on the WWW. I remember when i started playing Wow all the needless running around I did looking for NPC’s, items, mobs, dungeons, etc. My God, I remember when part of the length of leveling was just trying to figure out cryptic quest directions to people, resources, monsters, or places. Then a RL buddy turned me on to Thottbot… thank goodness.
The new Journal extends the solutions Blizzard has offered in aiding people in game with knowing what they need to know. I can see my progression 10 man raid team using it quite a bit since we like to do a lot of fights “Our Style” which is sometimes very different than the standard way people do fights, usually tweaked because of our lack of range DPS. It will also be a good and fast resource when trying to determine why people died. How many times in a raid do you hear “What killed you?” and then “What is that?” LOL. Less tabbing out of the game to look something up is always a good thing (for those of you with single monitor setups). I think pugs will also benefit as it is a place people can learn a little about what they are getting into as a party forms.
Hey Blizz, go a step further now and create a resources journal of where to find ore, herbs, fish, leather, etc… mats… a mats dictionary… and give me a 3rd spec already.
Beta Testing.
So ever since I hit 85 with Jacemora in the Beta I essentially stopped playing in Beta.
My plan now, with the little time before the Cataclysm release I plan on testing out just how Uber my premade can be in full Raid T11 gear. I have cut the gems (such weird requirements on the meta), enchanted my gear, and choose a bear feral spec.
My plan is to solo some content… Most likely some Black Temple trash, just to see how viable solo grinding the last little bit of rep I need will be. Also probably Utgarde Pinnacle as I still don’t have the Blue Drake. It is possible to solo Utgarde already for the drake drop, but I want to see how much easier it is at 85 with awesome gear.
Ok… so off to BT… Fly to Blasted Lands… go through portal… fly to Outpost…. fly to BT…
“You must be in a raid…”
Damn it.
Hearth.
Fly to SW Harbor… boat to Northrend… fly to Valgarde… fly to UK… set to Heroic and enter UP.
Stealth to Skadi…
Run the gauntlet… kill guys… pick up harpoons… shoot down Skadi…. oh wait…
Bags are full… /damn it
Drop a Heaveweave manual…
kill guys… pick up harpoons… shoot down Skadi.
Kill Skadi, loot… no Blue Proto. /Sigh
Ok, so what did I learn?
- This is Easy. I went from 130K+ health to about 100K. Fought him standing still, never moved. Used no cooldowns.
- Bears hit freaking hard.
- Droprate will have me doing this quite a bit.
Beta update.
I am now a little over half way through level 84. Leveling 84-85 seems to be taking a lot longer than the previous dings. Kills and quest completion are still giving crazy XP it just looks like the last level is just a lot of work.
I am questing in the Twilight Highlands to finish up, this is also the location of Grim Batol and the new “Ring of Blood” called Crubicle of Carnage. I have not done it yet, maybe I can get some people together to help me out here soon.
I am still a Worgen… what a rip as I am still running around as a Human Druid… bletch… I don’t know what bletch means but it came up in my spell check so I went with it.
How to keep having fun with an expansion looming.
So a little update…
My 10 man raiding has completely stalled as of the first week in April…. so we have dropped to 2nd on the server… /sigh. Our MT had to take a series of trips and now our OT is out of town as well… what can you do, RL crit us worse than Sindragosa.
Our 25 man raids have been hurting too… Spring Break… people looking ahead to the new expansion and playing less… bads… people jumping ship thinking it’s different for other guilds… same old, same old. 25′s is quickly on the way to getting fixed thanks to some hard work by 2 new officers in our guild and a blogger or two advertising beyond our website and trade chat. Looks like we are getting some real talent and people with good FPS and Latency.
So with raiding stalling like it has been here are some suggestions of things you can do in order to still enjoy playing WOW…
- Achievements – I know this isn’t for everyone but they can be a ton of fun with friends or alone. Personally I am trying to get to 9K and I am 16 more 10pt achievements away. This leads to my 2nd suggestion…
- PVP – As far as gear goes we have heard that rated battlegrounds are the thing of the future. Start getting good now and beefing up your PVP set and resilience. Queuing with friends (Premades) can be lots of fun and there are a lot of PVP related achievements to be had. PVP as feral is much better than it used to be. When you start off and don’t have PVP gear just burst down a caster… I recommend locks as an easy start, Pounce, Mangle, Shred, Berserk, Maim, Shred… just kill them. The key on that series on locks is Berserk so you won’t get feared away. Once you get comfortable start going after priests and shammies. Hunters are a little more challenging and I recommend putting mages last on your to kill order, especially those of a frost variety… let the DK’s kill them. Once you have a decent PVP gear set you will be able to do more than burst down an enemy in exchange for your life… something to look forward to. For some real good pro tips head over to Starmist, though most tips are for arena he has a lot of good PVP advise and some sweet video that can be a lot of help.
- Farming mounts, pets, gold, and other fun stuff – A good place to start is Rarren’s blog where you can learn how to pimp your druid. If gold is your thing you better be selling now before everything becomes worthless after the expansion, head over to the Greedy Goblin for some tricks of the trade.
- Level and gear alternative characters – You never know what an expansion will bring, have your other toons ready to go just in case druids are no longer fun. They took away tree form and boomkins got an invisible mushroom… I guess it can only get better. It also helps to learn other classes to better understand the game and lingo. It will improve your raiding and give you a PVP edge the more experience you have playing other classes so give it a try or a little bit of your time if it is something that sounds like fun.
- Start a blog – We have lost quite a few druid bloggers and there are even less blogs of classes that don’t have pets for some reason. It can be a lot of fun learning how to create and design your website. Joining the Warcraft blogging community has other perks like helping new players, spreading good tips to experienced players to better represent our class, and even in some cases if you really contribute getting items in game named after you like the BRK-1000, Phaelia’s Vestments of the Sprouting Seeds, Astrylian’s Sutured Cinch, and Toskk’s Maximized Wristguards. Jacemora’s Helm of Reason anyone? Named after my lack of over theory crafting for just a few DPS here and there… ok, so maybe not…
- Run 5 mans – With the new random system in place this can be a fine way to meet new people, possible new recruits, or just get a good laugh at the various noobs and crazies that also exist in our online world. You can also get emblems for PVP gear, second spec gear, or to buy and sell items for gold.
Anyway, that is just a start of some of the things you can do in game if raiding is slowing down.
Have fun!
