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[WoW Classic] More full servers than Live.

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Posts

  • Kai_SanKai_San Commonly known as Klineshrike! Registered User regular
    As a priest, I spent 5s on a wand and it does more dps than any spell I can cast.

  • DhalphirDhalphir don't you open that trapdoor you're a fool if you dareRegistered User regular
    how long has it been since a PA World of Warcraft comic?

    aouqh75qnyak.png

  • ReynoldsReynolds Gone Fishin'Registered User regular
    Clearly not long enough.

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  • BizazedoBizazedo Registered User regular
    The Mallet of Zul'furrak is mine. I have no idea why I went for it. I had it in vanilla, maybe that's why.

    XBL: Bizazedo
    PSN: Bizazedo
    CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Bizazedo wrote: »
    The Mallet of Zul'furrak is mine. I have no idea why I went for it. I had it in vanilla, maybe that's why.

    how else you gonna get the carrot on a stick?

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Lord_AsmodeusLord_Asmodeus goeticSobriquet: Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered User regular
    Chanus wrote: »
    So I'm wondering if anyone is interested in a potential horde guild on Pagle. I have a low level alt there aside from my main in Sixteen Daggers, and while I'm sure most of the focus is on Sixteen Daggers it would be nice to be able to pool resources with those others interested in playing a bit of Horde on the side.

    i know chan chan wants to play horde and i’m up for anything since i’m addicted to altohol

    What we need now, is a name. And like 7 more people. But mostly, a name.

    Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
  • StragintStragint Do Not Gift Always DeclinesRegistered User regular
    Hit 20 on my shaman. Got ghost wolf and 2h skill for axes and maces.

    The guide I've been using to figure out what skills to purchase says to not do the water totem quest till max. That seems weird.

    PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
    What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak

    I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
  • Drunken BastardDrunken Bastard Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    44g now at 33.. Seems you guys don't need to worry that much, I got the gold just from questing (and selling some stuff at the AH but that was 2g at most).

    Oh I forgot that tibit - Iron grenades sell for 10s a piece at the vendor, and you make 2-4. That might have been a factor there as I vendored about 50.....The farm grind to be able to mine Mithril has the nice side effect of tons of Iron.

    Drunken Bastard on
  • PellaeonPellaeon Registered User regular
    As I recall the gold issue comes after you purchase your mount at 40, where you blow through most if not all of your money while training abilities/professions continues to get more and more expensive.

    If you're making money hand over fist after that, sure, let the good times continue, but if the price of a mount represents your cumulative wealth after 40 levels it can be a real shock to suddenly run around with only a few gold while still trying to buy skills, repair, flight paths, etc

  • StericaSterica Yes Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited September 2019
    If you’re a warlock or paladin, you definitely can’t make any “hay guyz im 41 and money is great!!1!!” posts.

    Sterica on
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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    I haven't even had to skip spells, being a paladin is great!

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Drunken BastardDrunken Bastard Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    And will deffo give those guys the English Salute,,,I'm a Hunter.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5W-wlIrEgc

    Drunken Bastard on
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    Stragint wrote: »
    Hit 20 on my shaman. Got ghost wolf and 2h skill for axes and maces.

    The guide I've been using to figure out what skills to purchase says to not do the water totem quest till max. That seems weird.

    Because it sucks and is hard and the water totems are not very good until you're raiding.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • reVersereVerse Attack and Dethrone God Registered User regular
    You aint a real shaman if you don't suffer through the totem quests at their intended levels.

  • milk ducksmilk ducks High Mucky Muck Big Tits TownRegistered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Some folks in my guild were talking about Druid Tanks last night, and just basically throwing around a lot of misinformation, so I wrote up something for our forums and I figured others here might be interested in reading it.

    An Examination of the Emergence of the Threat Tank Meta, the Viability of Feral Bear Druids in Classic World of WarCraft, and the Dangers of Misconceptions Based on Casual Retrospection:
    Often, I hear people, in our community and in many others online, talking about the viability, or the lack thereof, of particular classes in Vanilla/Classic World of WarCraft, To be honest, I'm guilty of condemning particular builds and build applications to a certain extent, as well. The truth is, however, that so often these opinions are dangerously predicated upon Vanilla World of WarCraft as we remember it, and not upon Vanilla World of WarCraft as we've come to understand it in the years since it released.

    To unpack the subject, and to better understand the issues I framed in the title, we have to go back and look at World of WarCraft from the very beginning --

    WoW was not the first MMO; not by a long-shot. But (Classic) Blizzard always had this knack for taking niche gaming genres, making them more accessible, and turning them into wildly successful franchises: they did this with RTS games (WarCraft, StarCraft); Rogue-likes (Diablo); FPS titles (Overwatch); collectible TCGs (Hearthstone); and they honestly created one of the best MOBAs on the market (Heroes of the Storm, which failed for a number of *other* reasons -- but that's an entirely different post); etc. And one of their greatest achievements was in the way they took the MMO framework, made it more accessible to gaming audiences, and created the greatest, most successful MMO of all time -- World of WarCraft.

    For many, many people in 2004 (almost certainly a majority of the playerbase, even), Vanilla World of WarCraft was their first MMO. And, honestly, because of it's meteoric rise in popular culture at that time (remember when there was an entire South Park episode rendered in Machinima dedicated to it?), there's a not-insignificant portion of the population that came to WoW as their first *game*. And what I'm getting at here is that, in 2004, people were learning. Lots of folks were just objectively bad at the game, but also remember that information was not as readily available then as it is today -- we didn't have access to many of the numbers under the hood at that point, and we didn't have resources like Wowhead and Youtube to inundate us with guides. So even the players that were progression-driven and mechanically sound were very much experimenting with builds and classes, basically just throwing ideas at the board and seeing what stuck.

    Additionally, there were a lot of misconceptions about classes and how they functioned at that time. If you were a Blizzard fan, let's say, and you rolled a Paladin of the Silver Hand in Vanilla WoW expecting it to be anything like your Paladin of Zakarum from Diablo II ... you were going to be sorely disappointed. Lots of those players never "gave up the dream", and tried all throughout Vanilla to turn the classes they picked into the classes they *wanted*. Some of them succeeded, many did not.

    Because this was the environment at the time -with lots of folks who were brand new to MMOs; others who were jamming square blocks into round holes; and others still who had the best of intentions, but were experimenting with builds and itemization at a time in WoW's history when experimenting with builds cost you 50g- the game had a very well-established meta: for starters, because all (or a vast majority of) a raid's DPS was "bad" (little-to-no previous raid experience, poor character optimization, uninformed about the importance of world buffs and consumables, etc), fights had a tendency to drag on. Forever. And because this was the case, Tanks favored high mitigation above all else, and Healers favored sustainability and efficiency above all else.

    I healed in a progression raid all throughout Classic World of WarCraft, and I can tell you from personal experience that the one and only metric that we cared about was Overheal. Because that was the one stat we could reliably look at on a report to see who in the healer core was the most efficient. If you were not an efficient healer, you were going to be a liability because you *were* going to run out of mana and that *would* fuck the raid group over. Tanks, then, wanted to mitigate as much damage as they possibly could, because that meant they'd be less of a drain on their healers' resources over a long fight. They didn't have to worry too much about Threat, because for the most part, all of the DPS was shit.

    So, with that scenario in mind, which class was the best tank? Well, Warriors are the *only* class that can permanently push Crush and Crit off of the attack tables of Bosses, so that's your answer. If all that matters is mitigation, you have to go with the class that can max out that particular stat.

    Okay, so fast-forward to 2019. It's been 15 years, and the game's changed a lot since then: for starters, the community has access to a wealth of online resources, in the form of professionally-written guides on WoWhead and YouTube, personal interaction with highly-skilled players on Twitch and Discord, and even a series of calculators that parse your records and tell you exactly, step-by-step how to improve your performance. In addition, even though WoW's moved on with a half-dozen expansions since then, radically changing essentially every element of World of WarCraft in the process, the Vanilla iteration of the game's been thriving on private servers for years. And the theorycrafters haven't exactly been hibernating.

    Did you know that Feral Cat DPS in Vanilla is *actually insane*? That their Best-In-Slot helmet was a level 45 crafted item? That one of their Best-In-Slot trinkets was also crafted? And that both of them are super easy to get hold of? Did you know that one of the most important consumables in a Feral Cat's arsenal was the Manual Crowd Pummeler, a two-handed mace that drops from Gnomeregan? To the extent that Feral Cats that want to stay competitive with Fury Warriors in DPS have literally entire bags full of them because they only have 3 charges each that don't replenish? Honestly, nobody knew that shit. Some of it has only recently been discovered.

    So, if the community is objectively better now, and more experienced, than it ever was during Vanilla World of WarCraft; if we have access now to infinitely more, and higher quality, guides and resources than we ever had before; and if we've discovered, even as recently as last year, how to unlock the secret potential of classes like the Feral Cat, how does that affect the tank mitigation / healer sustainability meta on the sides of the Holy Trinity?

    Well, it means tanks need to be able to push more threat now than they ever did during Vanilla. And this can actually be a problem for mitigation-focused Warriors toward the top-end, because they have an important relationship between damage taken and rage generation. Basically, when you've reached the point where enemies struggle to hit you, you're massively impacting your ability to generate rage. And you need rage to generate threat. Again, just to clarify, this was never seen as an issue in Vanilla because generally DPS was poorly-optimized, and weren't riding the tank's ass as easily as they could do today.

    Thus, came the emergence of the Dual-Wielding Fury Prot tank. These Warriors can pump out a lot more damage, meaning they can generate a lot more threat. They also *take* a lot more damage, meaning they can generate more rage than mitigation-focused Warriors, which they can then convert into even more threat.

    And this all combines to have a drastic impact on the healer meta, as well. Tanks taking massive damage, to the extent that they require spammed heals from one or two dedicated healers throughout an entire encounter, would have been a huge problem in Vanilla 2004 World of WarCraft. But because everyone's doing so much more damage now, Bosses are dying a lot faster; Hell, I've seen guilds on YouTube full-clear Naxxramas in about 2 hours, for example. So it's really not a problem.

    What does this mean about the viability of Feral Bear Druids as tanks in Vanilla? Well, if you examine how Bears stack up to Warriors, you'll find that they actually output a fair amount more threat (particularly single-target threat, and especially before Warriors gain access to Thunderfury), but they obviously can't defense cap, so they're taking a lot more damage than a mitigation-focused Warrior might. They have a shit-ton more HP to make up for it, but their health pool's still pretty swing-y.

    So, wait ... Feral Bear Druids output higher threat than mitigation-focused Warriors but they need a healing core that's willing to spam them with heals every pull? Isn't that exactly like a Dual-Wielding Fury Prot Warrior?

    I mean, yeah. Basically.

    The point I'm trying to make in all of this is that, even though it may seem like Classic World of WarCraft is exactly the same experience as Vanilla World of WarCraft, it actually isn't. These two games might be literally statistically identical, but they're not the same, because the community has changed: we've grown up, done our homework, gained over a decade of on-the-job experience, and now we can look at it with a fresh perspective. Possibilities have opened up that never would have been considered viable 15 years ago, and nothing's changed except for the community. I just think it's important to keep that in mind concerning Classic.

    Basically, a lot of the opinions I hear being thrown around about class viability in Classic are predicated dangerously upon misinformation and misconceptions from 15 years ago, and I think it's important for everyone to consider thoughtfully how few of the things we cling to as truths are actually written in stone.

    milk ducks on
  • crimsoncoyotecrimsoncoyote Registered User regular
    That's pretty neat!

    I am actually very interested in the ways our understanding of the game and strats around encounters has changed in the intervening years. Is there a good resource out there for starting to look into it?

  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Probably more akin to a 2H prot warrior or something because of the whole parry haste thing.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • StragintStragint Do Not Gift Always DeclinesRegistered User regular
    Stragint wrote: »
    Hit 20 on my shaman. Got ghost wolf and 2h skill for axes and maces.

    The guide I've been using to figure out what skills to purchase says to not do the water totem quest till max. That seems weird.

    Because it sucks and is hard and the water totems are not very good until you're raiding.

    Don't I get a healing one as the first one though? That seems useful

    PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
    What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak

    I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
  • dporowskidporowski Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Probably more akin to a 2H prot warrior or something because of the whole parry haste thing.

    Yeah, I'd be concerned about the idea of a DW shieldless tank. Parry haste in that context could easily mean an effective one-shot from the boss. I THINK you'd still be uncrittable, but any combo of hit/hit/crush (or hit/special/crush) would be a splat.

    Were specials unable to crit/crush in vanilla at this point?

    dporowski on
  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Stragint wrote: »
    Stragint wrote: »
    Hit 20 on my shaman. Got ghost wolf and 2h skill for axes and maces.

    The guide I've been using to figure out what skills to purchase says to not do the water totem quest till max. That seems weird.

    Because it sucks and is hard and the water totems are not very good until you're raiding.

    Don't I get a healing one as the first one though? That seems useful

    for the mana it's better to just heal yourself. if you are in a group, both the healing and mana ones "can" be useful. It just depends on if you are full grouping or not and how much healing/mana your group needs.
    the mana totem returns just as much mana as you spend so by yourself it's not "usually" worth it. There are a few exceptions. drop totems, drink water, fight and use spells before totem disappears, you'll get a little extra mana that way but not worth the effort.

    Pailryder on
  • milk ducksmilk ducks High Mucky Muck Big Tits TownRegistered User regular
    dporowski wrote: »
    Probably more akin to a 2H prot warrior or something because of the whole parry haste thing.

    Yeah, I'd be concerned about the idea of a DW shieldless tank.

    DW Fury Prot's a legitimate high-level meta, man. Check out Skarm's video on it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_azvBdVgz0

  • CyrenicCyrenic Registered User regular
    milk ducks wrote: »
    Awesome Guide

    What are those feral DPS items you mentioned and/or where is a guide that mentions them specifically?

  • dporowskidporowski Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    milk ducks wrote: »
    dporowski wrote: »
    Probably more akin to a 2H prot warrior or something because of the whole parry haste thing.

    Yeah, I'd be concerned about the idea of a DW shieldless tank.

    DW Fury Prot's a legitimate high-level meta, man. Check out Skarm's video on it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_azvBdVgz0

    I'm just saying, given that you can get hasted into a triple simultaneous hit from the boss, one of them being a crush? You're rolling the dice on an instant wipe, unless somehow they found a way to get shieldless tank EHP above crush + special + hit.

    Edit: And fuck, he's crittable? No. Fuck that.

    dporowski on
  • milk ducksmilk ducks High Mucky Muck Big Tits TownRegistered User regular
    edited September 2019
    Cyrenic wrote: »
    milk ducks wrote: »
    Awesome Guide

    What are those feral DPS items you mentioned and/or where is a guide that mentions them specifically?

    This guy's probably the best Feral Cat I've ever seen, and he has a series of guides that would be a lot more helpful than anything I could write up. Here's one of them. Also, looking back at my post, I realized that the crafted trinket I was talking about was the Smoking Heart of the Mountain, which is BiS for Feral Bear Druids, not Feral Cat Druids. Just for full disclosure, I fucked up with that particular inclusion.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2t7qG9SrVI&t=1s

    milk ducks on
  • milk ducksmilk ducks High Mucky Muck Big Tits TownRegistered User regular
    dporowski wrote: »
    Edit: And fuck, he's crittable? No. Fuck that.

    There's a follow-up video where Skarm addresses a lot of the concerns people had if you're interested.

  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    If you belong to a guild practicing DPS at a level well beyond what any vanilla guild accomplished back in the day, you too can have a bear tank

    No problem

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Jasconius wrote: »
    If you belong to a guild practicing DPS at a level well beyond what any vanilla guild accomplished back in the day, you too can have a bear tank

    No problem

    Dont even think "better dps than true vanilla" is particularly unreasonable

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  • FrozenzenFrozenzen Registered User regular
    I find the most amusing part about hating on bear tanks is being down on them while leveling.

    They literally level with their tanking tree, and have easier gear requirements than warriors. Even if they fall off at 60 (which they kind of do, mostly in a mitigation sense) they are really good all the way there.

  • MercadeMercade Registered User regular
    I’m leveling a Druid but there’s no way I’m farming Gnomer over and over for those pummelers. Oof.

    Switch: SW-1909-0466-9585
  • StragintStragint Do Not Gift Always DeclinesRegistered User regular
    I'm feeling pretty confident about 2h tanking on my warrior. I was able to tank stuff in WC at level 18 with little issue on my shaman using a 2h.

    Just gotta wait till about the 18th to start my warrior.

    PSN: Reaper_Stragint, Steam: DoublePitstoChesty
    What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak

    I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
  • dporowskidporowski Registered User regular
    edited September 2019
    milk ducks wrote: »
    dporowski wrote: »
    Edit: And fuck, he's crittable? No. Fuck that.

    There's a follow-up video where Skarm addresses a lot of the concerns people had if you're interested.

    While I don't want to sound unreasonably dismissive, I really can't take any series of arguments that ignores the defense stat and asserts "bosses crit for 3k" with much seriousness. He's also entirely neglecting parry haste and specials, though at least he does acknowledge a swing timer.

    Put it this way. In full Naxx raid gear, with full consumables and buffs, our tanks could be one-shot by a crit in the... eh, five figures? if they sat down to cause a wipe. Armor values and block values were definitely not the point of that piece of gear.


    Edit: Yeah, from other videos, he doesn't even seem to def cap. I wouldn't want to try going into a raid with a DW warrior sitting at 350 def, assuming the stats in his other vid are representative.

    dporowski on
  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    Can bears fail to taunt 4h?

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  • dporowskidporowski Registered User regular
    Smrtnik wrote: »
    Can bears fail to taunt 4h?

    Yes, any tank lacking the spellhit can fail. Warriors get the 4pc set bonus, bears would need to use uh... Pagle's Fishing Reel, if I recall.

  • InfamyDeferredInfamyDeferred Registered User regular
    If I had any interest in leadership, I'd consider making a guild called <misfit toys> that takes all specs to raid

    Really get that balance ret shadow survival synergy going ya know

  • FrozenzenFrozenzen Registered User regular
    If I had any interest in leadership, I'd consider making a guild called <misfit toys> that takes all specs to raid

    Really get that balance ret shadow survival synergy going ya know

    I'd be impressed if anyone got ret or enhancement to actually work. They are just incredibly bad specs all around in classic sadly.

  • PeewiPeewi Registered User regular
    I did six runs of SM Cathedral this evening because I want the necklace from Whitemane. The hat dropped five times in a row, followed by the hammer.

    I didn't mind the first two hats because two party members still needed it, but it got a bit silly.

  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    Frozenzen wrote: »
    If I had any interest in leadership, I'd consider making a guild called <misfit toys> that takes all specs to raid

    Really get that balance ret shadow survival synergy going ya know

    I'd be impressed if anyone got ret or enhancement to actually work. They are just incredibly bad specs all around in classic sadly.

    I vaguely recall ret can be beastly with like BWL gear and sulfuron. But that's like so much bullshit to get something that kind of works.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • MercadeMercade Registered User regular
    So I'm wondering if anyone is interested in a potential horde guild on Pagle. I have a low level alt there aside from my main in Sixteen Daggers, and while I'm sure most of the focus is on Sixteen Daggers it would be nice to be able to pool resources with those others interested in playing a bit of Horde on the side.

    I'd definitely have an alt Horde-side.

    Switch: SW-1909-0466-9585
  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    Peewi wrote: »
    I did six runs of SM Cathedral this evening because I want the necklace from Whitemane. The hat dropped five times in a row, followed by the hammer.

    I didn't mind the first two hats because two party members still needed it, but it got a bit silly.

    GIMME THE HAT (and the necklace, honestly)

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • MonwynMonwyn Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime. A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered User regular
    Preacher wrote: »
    Frozenzen wrote: »
    If I had any interest in leadership, I'd consider making a guild called <misfit toys> that takes all specs to raid

    Really get that balance ret shadow survival synergy going ya know

    I'd be impressed if anyone got ret or enhancement to actually work. They are just incredibly bad specs all around in classic sadly.

    I vaguely recall ret can be beastly with like BWL gear and sulfuron. But that's like so much bullshit to get something that kind of works.

    Ret burst with a legendary weapon and the best itemized gear for them in the game can indeed be insane, but it's very bursty.

    Unfortunately it's also completely uncontrollable, so I sure hope you don't Crit/SoC Crit/Hand of Rag proc a couple of seconds into the fight or you're going to be begging a druid for a battle-rez.

    uH3IcEi.png
This discussion has been closed.