Take for example the Ragnaros fight, which is the climax of the Hyjal quest chain.
Q completed that quest last week, which is an "assist XXX in defeating YYY" type of quest. I know some bloggers kind of pooh-pooh those quests because they feel they have no impact on the result, but I enjoy them. In this quest, you're not the focus, but that's okay. After all, you're not Warchief, but someone else is*.
In the quest The Firelord, you're providing support in Cenarius' fight against Ragnaros, along with Malfurion and Hamuul, the two Arch Druids. Basically, you're there to keep the adds off of Hamuul and Malfurion while they blast Mr. By-Fire-Be-Purged with massive debuffs. Not a hard thing there to do if you're a Ret Spec Pally, but when I saw the healing requests go by, my first thought was "Holy crap! There's no way in hell Neve could do that!"
From what I've read online, I think that the heal requests will only show if your class can actually heal. Otherwise, your job is straight DPS. After finding that out, I let out a huge sigh of relief.
On the flip side, when I was questing on Neve through Vashj'ir, I thought that the zone was ideally suited to ranged DPS. She could stand back and hit from distance, and so long as she obeyed the cardinal rule of engaging in one enemy at a time, she could handle Vashj'ir quite well. I was certain that melee DPS would not only get hit harder, but have a more difficult time of surviving through the first several sections of Vashj. Melee DPS would be under-armored as well as under-powered, while ranged DPS could reduce the enemy's health significantly before the enemy could close.
As it turns out, the result was a wash. Whether ranged or melee, each DPS had could handle what was thrown at them.
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One thing I've never been able to figure out is why some people take such perverse delight in griefing and corpse camping on PvE servers. It's not like they're not going to get caught, because all it takes is someone with the fortitude to hang around long enough, luring the griefer on, while one of two things happens: the toon being griefed gets friends and/or guildies to show up, or an Admin responds to the ticket request. Either way, the griefer loses.
So why bother? What do you get out of thwacking toons in Goldshire or Tranquillien that you can't settle in a Battleground or an Arena?
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Having completed three of the Cataclysm zones so far --Vashj'ir, Hyjal, and Deepholm-- I have a set of likes and dislikes. Vashj is the zone with the biggest downer, leading straight into the Throne of the Tides instance. (The other two instances, Blackrock Caverns and Stonecore, are more of a sidelight on the main quest chain.) The Hyjal zone has the happiest ending, with Deepholm close behind.
As for the quest chains themselves... For a quest whore like myself, I really did enjoy them. And yes, I did go through Vashj'ir twice, so the undersea environment didn't bother me at all.
Having now seen both Ysera and Alexstrasza, I guess the formal uniform of a female Dragon Aspect includes a bikini. I'm not exactly sure why, but then again, I'm not planning on asking either of them. I guess it goes to prove the answer to the old question as to what a dragon wears: anything they want.
The Earthen Ring and the Guardians of Hyjal (and the Cenarion Circle) are this expansion's version of the Argent Crusade: a cross faction organization that brings all of Azeroth together to fight the enemy. With all of that going on, it makes me wonder why there isn't more emphasis placed upon the attitude of the grunts who fight alongside their "enemies" on the other faction. Perhaps I'll find more of that later on, but so far I haven't seen anything to demonstrate otherwise.
I've read some posts out there in the WoW blogosphere about how Therazane is a great character, and I can't disagree. She is a strong female character who isn't clad in a skimpy outfit, she has her own agenda that has nothing to do with any other faction, and she's just as likely to kill you as welcome you to her throne room. The strange thing is that I want to check out the quest line for Maraudon again, just to see if there have been any tweaks to accomodate Therazane's presence in Deepholm.
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And before I forget, Happy Valentine's Day to all of you out in the blogosphere!
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Convoy to 85 Update
Tomakan: L84 in Uldum
Nevelanthana: L83 in Deepholm
Quintalan: L82 in Deepholm
*Although if you could toss Garrosh out of the Warchief's seat, I'd bet boatloads of Hordies would do so in an instant.
I have been wodering about this. ATM I'm leveling a tankadin and a holy priest to 85, which comes down to very different play styles.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the tankadin is utterly overpowered. That corpse run you describe in the other post on Hyjal, that happened to me. Except that I didn't die. Tankadins just don't die, you go Crusader Strike x3 (or Hammer of the Righteous), Word of Glory and you're at full health again, while continueing to deal damage to the enemy. I take down quest mobs without using the magical thingamajig to weaken them and elites alike. For fun.
It has happened to me that I was tanking in a normal instance and the healer was not keeping up for some reason, so I kept myself alive. Not the best strategy for a boss, but completely possible as a tankadin, and without losing much hate. Overpowered.
It's not until I hit lv 83 that I felt less overpowered, because the amount of hp of the mobs in Uldum is just massive. Though I still don't die, it takes longer to take the enemy down. I'm not sure whether that's because my gear sucks or tankadins are just supposed to deal less damage than DPS classes at the endgame.
Now the holy priest is an entirely different story. She's 71 right now and though the Howling Fjord is not overly dangerous, every quest is a challenge. I have however discovered the most important survival talent for holy priests on their own: Body and Soul. It gives you +60% movement speed when you cast your bubble. Perfect for quick get-aways.
It's nice to read that DPS classes can solo the new areas well. When my priest has survived Northrend, we'll see how she does in Vashj'ir.
@Nath--
ReplyDeleteI'm actually kicking myself that both Tom's and Q's offspec is Holy. It seems only natural that if I'd have converted them both to Prot Spec, I'd be able to cut a swath through a lot of the zones. The damage mitigation alone would have meant I could have not worried about multiple mobs at all.
Once a Ret Spec Pally hits L81 and gets Inquisition, then the DPS starts to accelerate and the mobs become easier. Also, just about every item drop has either haste or crit to it, which had hampered things in Northrend once 4.0.1 dropped.
Have you thought about trying Disco with your Priest? I was wondering if Smite would make Disco more useful for solo questing.
I'm with you in that I don't terribly mind quests that are not really reliant on my assistance. What kills me are all the cinematics... and ones that you cannot cancel out of either physically or because the quest will not complete. These offer me NO opportunity to interact. And Uldum feels like half the zone is the game playing my toons for me. It gets annoying quickly.
ReplyDeleteI too noticed how insanely OP tankadins are leveling! I'm not complaining, as it was a ton of fun to just steamroll all the content, never needed to eat, drink, or corpse run. My disc priest was mostly leveled with my husband's warrior, but disc might be a bit more sustainable than holy. Disc bubbles provide nice mitigation, and your smites will self heal for half the damage done. At 5 stacks of evangelism, you will not only be doing more damage with your smite, but you can trade them in for archangel, which will restore mana and increase your healing (good post-fight recovery).
I was a bit spoiled leveling my prot warrior and didn't realize it until I tried out my rogue. I've even had a corpse run on my DK, and have seriously considered changing him to a tank spec.
ReplyDelete@NaturalGamerGirl-- With your stable of toons, I can see why the cinematics would drive you bananas. Considering my paltry three, they don't bother me yet.
ReplyDelete@Soul-- I thought you had your DK set up as a tank offspec. Did you change it around a bit?