Tales from the PUG Stone

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
Which server/faction do you need gold on the most? I can get you at least a couple thousand via a pet sale pretty easy, should help you out.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
@Stormfury: Thanks for the offer, but I just ran Molten Core and Karazhan on my DK and got what I needed. (I run mostly horde, though)

Ironic, because no sooner had I gotten back to the AH, I found selling those glyphs for about half of what I'd seen them before and snatched them up as quick as I could.
 

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
you sure? I mean, I remember back when I did not have any gold, and the sheer difference in quality of life I went from having a few thousand gold spread across all my characters to the hundred-2hundred thousand I have now.

All I would be doing is selling a battle pet that I have an extra one of on the AH on your server and tossing you the gold, would probably be 1-7k depending on how expensive stuff is.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
Nah man, it's cool. But thanks for the offer. :)
 

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
no prob.

If you need another fun goal to set for yourself, try to beat the pet challenge on the timeless isle.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
So, heads up for anyone who decides to try out Vashj'ir or goes there to see if being max level makes it more bearable, some parts of it are still buggy, like the entrance to one of the hideouts in the Ruins of Vashj'ir in Shimmering Expanse being glitched closed before you even complete the quest chain that closes it (if you die or get yourself killed close to the entrance, you can apparently go inside and rez, and it de-glitches); but the one thing I wanted to note is that the final quest in the zone (Defending the Rift) has been altered GREATLY.

Instead of going into a cutscene about chasing Ozumat, having whatever vessel you happen to be on explode-amated, and then fighting an obnoxiously long chain of elite naga who can kill squishy characters in a lengthy gauntlet where Erunak is constantly saving your ass (just like he did at the start of Vashj'ir);

You now head down to the Abyssal Depths by yourself, and you can choose and kill 15 random naga, then head to the southern most point of the rift to talk with either Nazgrim or Taylor to get your reward.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
The Item Squish and the majority of the model graphics updates are now live.

My thoughts on the graphics... Not sure if it's my graphics settings or what, but a few of the females ended up.... not looking so good. The Worgen, Goblins and Pandaren are obviously untouched as they were made with these tweaks in mind:

Female Human - Do NOT look at her directly from the front, at least not zoomed in like at the Barber's. For some reason, their lips look like they're balancing a loogie on their bottom lip. When you look at them a bit from the side, they don't look quite so bad.

Female Dwarf - Maaaan, she is hiiiiiiiigggggh..... or so tired that she barely cares. The alternatives weren't much better. I'd swear a few made her look like she had a skin condition or disease.

Female Gnome - The only two faces I found worth my time either made her look exhausted or like she's fending off tears with her eyeliner starting to blot. I chose exhausted. Otherwise, not that bad.

Female Orc - There were more faces I found palatable than with the Gnome, but what I liked more was that FINALLY my female orc mage has some decent hairstyles. Sure, most of the ones that give her long hair make her look like she either hasn't bathed in a while or doesn't care for her hair much, but it's so much better than their previous options.

Female Tauren - OH GAWD! Probably the one that I ended up liking the least when I saw how their appearances ended up on my loading screen, I ended up changing both of my taurens far more than any other character I've looked at so far.

Female Troll - Not sure if I lucked out or not, but she still looked pretty good. Working as intended here.

Female Forsaken - I either REALLY lucked out or something, but she looked better than before. Working as intended here.

I don't have any Night Elves or Draenei, so I'm not going to review them; and Blood Elves aren't going to get their update until after WoD actually drops, so I'm still anxious about how they're going to look.

Aside from the faces, the graphical update is VERY nice and I'm glad to see it. I just wished I knew they decided to tweak some things, like the plots in the farm. Randomly, they'll rotate when you interact with them and I don't know WHY. It... it just didn't seem like it was worth the trouble.

----

As for the item squish.... it's weird seeing it in action.
My Rogue, who was at item level 503 when the squish happened is now rocking only ~55,000 health; my druid, who was at about 500K+ health is now down to ~78,000. The first mobs you'll face from the Iron Horde outside of the Dark Portal are only 19K health, so even if you're in shit gear, you shouldn't have too much of an issue shredding them (but be careful of pulling packs if you're a tank spec as they can do some notable damage if you aren't managing them properly), but it's just bizarre to see my Druid use Faerie Fire on a level 55 mob and do ~27K damage, then use it on one of the Iron Horde right next to it and only do about ~780.

I ran both through Karazhan, where the horses in the stables also had about 55K health. Both of my characters were taking PIDDLY damage and dealing it back a thousand fold, to the tune of 78K+ for auto-attacks for my rogue (yeah, her weapons are garbage. ;;-_-;;) and 100K-200K damage for a SINGLE THRASH from my druid's bear form.

Also, if you're like me, you'll be surprised by how streamlined your character is, even if you knew they were trimming the fat when it came to abilities.

Oh, and heads up for druids, they removed Mangle from your hot bars. Instead of Mangle being a separate ability for both Cat and Bear forms, it's now a universal ability for both forms, so they needed to remove the "singular" ones.

Also, I have no idea what differentiates your travel form if you're high enough level to have flight form. I've used it and become a bird when I intended to go stag and vice versa. At least it auto-shifts if you go underwater.
 

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
yeah, now is the time to do old raids, because you do scaling increased damage based on how much higher level then you are of a mob.

Also, 5man mop dungeons while you level are much harder then they used to be, because tanks need to learn active mitigation even more, and healers need to learn how to heal without going oom. Not nearly as faceroll anymore.

Like the second boss in Jade Serpent, the one with the two mobs with the stacking buff that does aoe damage on each stack and makes them invincible at 10 for a few seconds... The aoe damage STARTS at 3k damage, and increases by 10% per stack (and stacks quickly). I had like 20k hp doing that fight when I tried yesterday. The healer has to heal 3k+ damage to all 5 players every 3-4 seconds, and its pretty much broken.



I did Mythic on Tuesday, most fights were easier (Paragons was a complete and utter joke), but some fights were different- Ranged actually had to help on siegecrafter adds instead of the tanks facerolling them like they did in the past. Garrosh was initially tuned too hard though, he just had too much hp and phases were taking longer then they did when we were progressing on the fight over a goddamn year ago.

Thankfully they nerfed his hp down 15% so he should be easy again. His p1 transition adds were nerfed to hell too, so at least theres that.
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
Welp, time to finally do the Blood part of the Shadowmourne questline.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
If you are not entirely geared to the nines or you are coming back to WoD, here's a heads up:

Any portal to the Blasted Lands that is NOT in Stormwind or Orgrimmar now goes to the other side of the Dark Portal for Burning Crusade content, not WoD content. ONLY the Portals in Orgrimmar and Stormwind still send you to the Blasted Lands.

The Iron Horde quest chain gives you a 515 ring, a 515 neck piece, a 515 cape and a 520 trinket. ONCE YOU HAVE COMPLETED THIS QUEST CHAIN, you can return to the Blasted Lands via the portals in SW or ORG, and there will be a Quartermaster fairly close to Rohkan for Horde and the SW portal for Alliance. If you are not a solely DPS class or you accidentally sold your quest rewards and want them back, these vendors will sell you two to four 515 Rings, 515 Necklaces, 515 Capes and 520 Trinkets for 10 silver each (there's one suitable for each of your class' roles, so druids get the most naturally). They sell back for 1 copper.

So, if you have been struggling to get rid of your ilvel 496 (or lower) trinkets, neck pieces, capes or rings, but you just haven't gotten around to it; you can now do so with ease.
 

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
The gear here doesn't really matter, seeing as Wod comes out tonight!

Just remember to do garrison shit every opportunity you get- getting your garrison rolling is very important. Don't buy anything that costs garrison resources (like the xp bonus potion) unless it is directly for your garrison.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
So, Garrisons. Anyone coming back will be wanting some info, so here's some quick faction-based tips:
To start the WoD Content, you need to speak with Khadgar, who is on the balcony in front of the Shrines of Seven Stars/Two Moons in Eternal Vale. He's got a pillar of light surrounding him, making him even easier to see.

If you know what you're doing, you can plow through the opening quest chain, with only a few classes struggling depending on AoE needs and/or multiple mob management. Shouldn't be too much of an issue so long as you pay attention.

It plays out identically whether you're Horde or Alliance, at least until you hit the docks and head to Shadowmoon Valley (Alliance) or Frostfire Ridge (Horde).

Once you're in Frostfire or Shadowmoon, you'll have a few quests to complete before you get your garrison, but they shouldn't be an issue for anyone who is in 450 or higher gear. (which you should be)

Having gained your garrison, there's a few quick quests to get you acquainted with some of the aspects of running on as well as a new hearthstone that can bring you back to the Garrison every 20 minutes that is on a separate cooldown from your normal Hearthstone. I strongly recommend leaving your normal hearthstone tied to Shrine of Seven Stars or Two Moons, as those are the only places with portals to every other major city (barring Ashran).

It should be noted that Mining and Herbalism ingredients are available to all characters upon unlocking them at Garrison Tier 2, provided you are Level 92 and Level 96 respectively. That's right, you don't even need to take Mining OR Herbalism to mine or gather herbs AT YOUR GARRISON. The only thing you won't get is specific herbs/ores. If you're needing skins (for leatherworking) or furs (for tailoring), you can gain access to the Barn at Garrison Tier 2, which gives you access to traps that you can use to catch animals and bring them back to the barn to turn in for furs or leather depending on the animals caught.

Do NOT buy plans from the Blueprint goblin/gnome until much later, as you will earn free blueprint books as you quest and free is always better than 1000 gold.

Work Orders are useful means to get materials for crafting. By giving the requested items to an NPC at a profession building, they'll craft the mats for you, but they will take a while. Work Orders can also provide you with Apexis Crystals (which can traded for gear, pets and mounts), Sorcerous Elements (for crafting) and Primal Elements (which can be traded for mats at Primal Traders). Mining and Herbalism in your garrison can also provide mats that can turned in to specific NPCs (usually the one you needed to talk to unlock the Herb Garden/Mine) for work orders that produce yet more mats (the herb garden's draenic seeds can also be used to buy a pet and you need 1000 to purchase it). The Mine Level 2 & 3 is also another way to get extra archaelogy fragments for Draenor.

If you want to advance your garrison as much as possible and as quick as possible (and you should, as it unlocks a vast majority of the professions, advanced pet battling, fishing and also can give you various buffs), you'll want to follow the storyline, which isn't entirely easy, as you're given a few paths to follow.
 

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
go warmill/barracks for large, lumbermill (at first) and inn for mediums, and your two professions for small and your salvage yard asap.

Once you get both followers from the lumbermill, swap it out for trading post.

Once you get all your profession stuff from one of em (like no real reason to keep it anymore for purposes of having extra mats from work orders/buying patterns), drop that for a storehouse.

Inn you need for follower gain. Its incredible, don't underestimate how important having your choice of ability in a follower every week.

Lumbermill is good if youre out in the world, trading post gives more resources but it costs profession mats. Wait til you stock up herbs/ores for that, which is usually around the point you get lvl 3 lumbermill and get both followers.

Warmill you want for follower gear and seals. Barracks you want for the extra 5 followers+bodyguard if you like that sorta thing.

Salvage yard is super super important, even as nerfed as it is now. It gets more follower gear for you, and you need more follower gear. You can only get it after doing a quest line in southern spires though, so do that questline for the goblins asap.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
If you're finding yourself struggling to get fur or leather, or bouncing between alts that need said supplies, consider getting a Barn. Every captured animal yields 10+ furs or leather, and takes comparatively very little time to collect. Especially Fur, since it's so damn random.

Fur is easy with wolves being outside both Alliance (to the south and southwest) and Horde (head east into the canyon) garrison.

Leather takes a bit longer, but not much more. Horde will find ample numbers of Clefthoof in the valley below Bladespire Citadel, and if you're farming the clefthoof solo, the ones you take out on either of the long ends should have respawned by the time you catch your way 3/4ths of the way to the other side of the valley. Alliance can find ample Elekk herds just outside of the Temple of Karabor.
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
There's really no more need for gathering professions, now that Garrisons are so awesome.
 

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
i cap on garrison resources every week, until I buy two seals with them on tuesday (yay war mill for giving me the third free).

On my main I'll probably never swap set up from what I have now (Warmill/Barracks, Inn/Trading Post, Enchanter/Storage/Salvage). I'll probably pick up a stables on an alt for a bit to get the mounts, and glad sanctum to get titles, but everything I have now is too valuable to lose. Except Storage, but theres nothing better to replace it.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
A heads up for those wanting the free mounts out of the Stable: I would recommend that you get to max level before getting Stables 2, as the daily missions sometimes require you to go to Nagrand to kill mobs, which will be Level 99-100.

I'd also recommend doing the Stables on a caster or ranged class, as you can cast and move while using the in-training mounts. I do NOT know how bad these missions would be for melee, and considering that the Clefthoof and the Meadowstomper mounts are VERY slow, dodging would be awkward if you can't make some space.

Hunters are probably perfect for this as Mend Pet heals your mount, but my Priestess did well going Shadow and tossing shields on my mount to keep its health up. Just note that if you normally have a pet, the mount takes that spot and prevents your from summoning said pet. Priests, you can't even summon your Shadowfiend while doing this, so remember that.

Be ready to wait for respawns as well, as the random nature of the dailies sometimes have you killing the same target on multiple mounts.

There's also BONUS mounts you can get by killing specific mobs with each of your in-training mounts while holding one of two items that spawn in the Stables that will slow down your mounts (one spawns at Stables Level 2 and the other spawns at level 3 Stables). Just a small warning that apparently there's a bug for the Garm-Tooth Necklace achievement that incorrectly lists that you already have credit for one of the kills to start, so you'll need to remember to kill the mobs with ALL six mounts for the achievement.

----

I'm also going to start listing what I've completed and what I'm aiming for since I lasted posted here.

Completed
Raiding with Leashes III: Drinking from the Sunwell
Both the Blue and Azure Drake mounts from Eye of Eternity
Swift White Hawkstrider from Kael'thas in Magister's Terrace
Depleted-Kyparium Rocket
Geosynchronous World Spinner
Armored Frostboar

Current Aim:
Basically every rare mount that drops (Karazhan Mount off of Attumen, Ashes of A'lar from Kael'thas in Tempest Keep, Deathcharger's Reins from Stratholme, Flame of Alysrazor from Firelands, etc)
Mounts that are gained via achievements - Currently aiming to get Stay Chill from Cataclysm Raids for the Drake of the East Wind; will move onto other mount-based achievements
Get 35 Heirlooms for Heirloom mount
Grind up 100000 Timeless Coins and Exalted Rep with Emperor Shaohao
Clean up Purchasable Mount list for Parade of Mounts Achievement (getting 350,000 gold is going to hurt >.< )
 

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
You shouldnt have a stables period before lvl 100.

You should get 1 profession small buildings and 1 salvage yard for small (if you want the second prof building before you hit 96 and can get salvage yard, thats cool, but salvage yard>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> every other building in the garrison), a trading post or lumber mill for the medium slot (i prefer trading post, but i'm lazy and dont go out and farm lumber), and the barracks for large.

Second you hit 100 and can build more, getting a lvl 2 inn becomes your top priority (because of hte weekly extra follower you get with good traits, like Epic Mount, Scavenger, or Treasure Hunter). Having a lvl 3 Salvage yard is your second priority.

After that, you want to get either lvl 3 barracks or lvl 2 War Mill (Barracks for 5 extra follower slots, War Mill for the work orders for follower gear). Barracks is easier to wait on then War Mill, because if you want to really be diving into the higher ilvl follower missions (like the High Maul or BRF ones) you need a good spread of geared followers.

Get Master Plan addon for that, its pretty fucking amazing.

If you roll with doing 2 professions all the time, then feel free to go with 2 profession small buildings and the salvage yard for smalls. I personally only keep 1 up, then have Storagehouse and Salvage Yard on all of my followers, becasue of the convenience of having the Storehouse. Storehouse is pretty fucking awesome, whereas I simply don't need an engi building- no point in at all.

For Mediums, Inn is by far the most important. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a constant stream of GOOD followers being added to your team, letting you sub out the shitty ones (like the non-horde race characters, the body guards, etc.) for optimal ones.

The other one can be whatever you like, but I highly recommend a Trading Post. Eventually AH part prices will drop enough to make getting your in-garrison AH a decent buy, but before then its just so much easier to get your extra Garrison resources that way, plus once you hit lvl 3 its 20% rep bonus if you like getting exalted everywhere.

Larges I recommend Barracks and War Mill, for reasons I said above.


Also, started work on Mythic Blackhand this week. P1 strat is pretty fun.

Phase 2... not so much.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
I HIGHLY recommend you all download the addon "Breeze", as it turns off the animations for the Garrison mission reports and lets you get on with your fucking day. Used to take me what felt like 5-10 minutes just to get one character's garrison mission rewards. It now takes 30 seconds to a minute at MOST. Since I have 11 max-level alts, being able to collect my rewards and get on with shit is VERY NICE.

Also, I've gotten Attumen's Horse FINALLY, the Drake from Glory of the Cataclysm Raider, and I'm almost done with Glory of the Cataclysm Hero (which I kinda never got around to, WHOOPS!). Only achievement left is "Crushing Bones and Cracking Skulls", which is quite annoying, because the boss has to hit me to spawn the adds I need him to kill. I tried with my hunter, stripped her bare of even trinkets and rings.

Boss still couldn't hit me reliably. ;;=_=;;

Hell, HE NEVER SPAWNED AN ADD. Even naked, my Tauren hunter was too fucking nimble for him.

Then again, those Tauren boobs might've been distacting him. :p
 
akun50 said:
I HIGHLY recommend you all download the addon "Breeze", as it turns off the animations for the Garrison mission reports and lets you get on with your fucking day. Used to take me what felt like 5-10 minutes just to get one character's garrison mission rewards. It now takes 30 seconds to a minute at MOST. Since I have 11 max-level alts, being able to collect my rewards and get on with shit is VERY NICE.
Have you had the problem mentioned in this thread?

PSA: "Breeze" addon will kill your bonus EXP

I doubt it but I thought I'd ask.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
I've had the experience bars FUBAR on me, as in seeing character's exp bars fill, then reset to their original state, then fill in again. Given my 11 max level alts, I've seen this particular problem a number of times.

And I was seeing this problem well before I got Breeze.

If anything, I'd say this is more likely them not paying attention to whether or not the mission was successful or not, or the game itself fucking something up. And given this post by someone who hadn't been using Breeze, it's more probable that the game's fucking up.

Also, as people in that thread point out, addons wouldn't fuck with what you're actually getting. An addon could tell you that your minions are getting a million exp, but that's just a display.

But apparently, there _is_ indeed a known bug that's triggered randomly by cancelling or "rushing" the animation, which pissed me right the fuck off because now I'm back to having to wait for the fucking animations to complete.

I _really_ fucking hope Blizzard fixes this bug and/or gives the option to remove the animations themselves, because I hate wasting 30 extra minutes watching that stupid shit, especially when the mission failed. >_<
 

Stormfury

Well-Known Member
Get Master Plan.

It does the same thing, while also figuring out optimal mission setups for you.

I have 5 100s, and it takes more time to switch characters than it does to do the mission reports/pick new missions.
 

akun50

Well-Known Member
Been busy with all sorts of randomness:
1) Got the new Noblegarden non-combat pet in about 20-30 minutes without really trying. (already got everything else that I want)

2) Randomly got Precious' Ribbon from Icecrown 25; as well as Zod's Repeating Crossbow and Rowan's Rifle of Silver Bullets. The crossbow and rifle had my friend, who once mained a hunter, fangasming over the luck, as both were really good at the time. It made me feel bad as we were running a Priest and Druid to unlock Heroic 25 man so we can run through here for the mount.

3) Got the Grand Master of All achievement thanks to Darkmoon Faire speeding up my enchanting. (I'm more prone to vendor something than DE it if it's gold value is high enough, hence why it took longer than it should have)

4) My Hunter farmed up ~10000 Giant Dinosaur bones in about 7 hours (separated between Saturday and Sunday), getting a grand total of 11000 bones and got me the mount and the pet from the Isle of Giants, so I NEVER have to go back there again (unless it's to kill Oodansta again). BTW, anyone looking to farm up bones, I had a lot of luck using a BM Hunter with Barrage, Stampede and the Glyph of Mending that boosts healing. Hell, even pulling an entire camp of Devilsaurs or Direhorns was barely harming my pet enough to need more than one or two Mend Pets. Plus, the respawns are good enough that you can just focus on one half of the island rather than trying to do full sweeps (which, in the early morning, makes keeping your Giant Dinosaur Bones per hour rate fairly high when other people inevitably show up)

5) Got my alliance Paladin and my horde Death Knight through Silver Tank Training, so they can run heroics. (I had been seriously putting this off after a bad run early into WoD where my DK died from the heavy hits that the mantis enemy was dishing out combined with the painful lava ticks from that asshole Yaungol caster)

6) Got the "Got My Mind On My Money" for looting 100,000 gold on my DK. Which surprised me because I'm sure I've collected more than 100K on my DK before this past week.

About two-three weeks ago, I finished both my Depeleted Kyparite Rocket on Horde and the Geosynchronous World Spinner on Alliance, dropping my finances to about 39,000 across all 11 characters. I'm now back up to 130,000+ gold across all my characters.

And there are people that whine that gold is hard to get? :no:

I accomplished all of this while DICKING AROUND.
 
It's been a while since I played WoW, and I was never hardcore even while I did, but when I decided to make a Protection Warrior yesterday I noticed that the Shield Slam, damage wise, wasn't nearly as good as when I played previously. Was it nerfed or was this perhaps a consequence of the item/stat squish thing? I used to do quite well killing everything with it.
 

Shirotsume

Not The Goddamn @dmin
iirc, pretty much everything about protection warrior damage was nerfed and/or moved to gladiator stance.

Mostly because of people like me that abused it in MoP to do 240k+ dps sustained while tanking in back when max ilvl was 500~ish.

<3 vengeance.
 
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