World of Warcraft: Current Year

Burns · Oct 27, 2022

Rajaah said:
Sounds to me like Ardenweald and Korthia are the main zones worth doing. I heard Ardenweald looked incredible.

PUGs in WoW seem better this go-around than I remember. Maybe it's because the content is so unbelievably easy, but I haven't had any issues with groups wiping out over idiocy.

I remember playing in other expansions and watching groups wipe repeatedly because people would stand in pools of acid or randomly jump off cliffs or whatever. There were some raids in Legion where I'd witness things like a raid leader saying "everyone needs to run across this bridge" followed by 3-4 people going flying off the sides of the bridge.

Another common one was people jumping around like a spastic retard while in a dungeon, eventually aggroing all the mobs around us that we're trying to sneak past.

WoW's solution? No, don't expect anything from the players so that they need to step their game up slightly. Instead dumb everything down! Then everyone can get to the same point because there's no threshold for having skill or...any idea what you're doing.

It's like full-on Video Game Equity.

Did they implement the changes in the XP requirements in the pre-patch? If not, leveling in Shadowlands should be the slowest it's going to be, right now, unless the XP buff is still up (maybe even with it). I doubt it will stay up for much longer, but maybe they will run it the whole prepatch. I would assume that once DL release date hits, you will be able to level to 60 in chromie time, in any xpac, and can skip Shadowlands altogether.

If you have a choice, I would skip Shadowlands altogether.

Hell, I liked leveling in BFA better than Shadowlands. The three Horde zones were all good, and Alliance had one great zone in Drustvar then a good zone in Tiraguard. Stormsong Valley looked nice enough, but it got old pretty fast.

In contrast, Shadowlands only really had Revendreth as a good zone. Maldraxus is mediocre through and through; it's a drab zone, but at least the quests/NPCs were ok. Ardenweald and Bastion looks nice, but the NPCs are fucking retarded.

Uriel · Oct 27, 2022

XP buff is up until the 15th, and that's when chromie time and xp changes are supposed to hit I believe.

Edit: fps stutter fix A Quick Bandaid Solution for FPS Stutter Issues

YttriumF · Oct 28, 2022

To War Mode, or not to War Mode, that is the question. Not seeing a downside to the +15% buff while levelling ... any lasting consequences?

Burns · Oct 28, 2022

YttriumF said:
To War Mode, or not to War Mode, that is the question. Not seeing a downside to the +15% buff while levelling ... any lasting consequences?

Depends on what you want, if you want a pvp experience to break up leveling, then sure, but don't expect that many people to really engage.

You don't miss any content by having Warmode on. It only changes how tags work, being able to attack the other faction, access to few more abilities, and the XP buff (which can/used to increases for the faction that is heavily outnumbered).

If looking at it from just an XP boost, then there are a few different factors for if I turn on warmode:

Solo vs group
- You may run into another group once or twice the whole leveling time, so always go warmode as a group
Class (for solo)
- Tanks and stealth always get the warmode. Tanks can die, if a full group decides to kill you, but 90% of the time, no one wants to mess with you 1v1 or even 3v1. Stealth can just vanish/invis
- I don't play disc, but it seems close to impossible to kill one, 1v1 in warmode (or at least in previous leveling experiences I have seen)
Faction imbalance of the cluster
- If you are running into so many of the other faction that you cant get tags, and keep getting killed, then it is much much slower than non-warmode
Level range (new xpac push or leveling alts)
- People will go back and gank lowbies once they hit cap, since a huge subset of pvp don't want an actual challenge; if you are behind the curve, you may start running into gankers
- I have not used cromie time, so not sure how it works with max level gankers. If it is capped at 50 (soon to be 60), I am sure there are tools that turn off xp at 49, so they can go gank people in warmode cromie time, but probably not enough to worry about.

Foggy · Oct 28, 2022

Ignore Burns’ post. You will rarely come across players of the opposite faction when leveling until shadowlands, and even then very few will be interested in fighting. Warmode is just free xp boost while leveling plus extra abilities from pvp skills. Turn it on. If you run into the rare ganker, just wait a few minutes and they will move on out of boredom. If they persist, just run to town and turn war mode off (can turn it off in any rested area).

Also, tags now work cross faction as well so that isn’t even a concern.

Arbitrary · Oct 28, 2022

Foggy said:
Warmode is just free xp boost while leveling plus extra abilities from pvp skills. Turn it on. If you run into the rare ganker, just wait a few minutes and they will move on out of boredom. If they persist, just run to town and turn war mode off (can turn it off in any rested area).

Also, tags now work cross faction as well so that isn’t even a concern.

The last character I leveled I was killed one time during the entire process.

Daidraco · Oct 28, 2022

Dragonflight starts at 60 and goes to 70 iirc. So he's GOT to play through Shadowlands to get to Dragonflight afaik. Where as BFA and before are all lumped into the noobie zone to 50 experience? I even remember them saying that the most recent expansion before the current one from here out (BFA when this was said) will be part of the leveling process in order to help the player "catch up" to the current lore.

Not Lore of WoW, but the topic of how lore is implemented in WoW:

The lore though, even at the beginning of SL's is a jumbled mess. Made worse by the few content patches where they made sweeping changes that they said they would never do. If you actually wanted to understand the lore behind SL's without reading up on it on the web - you would have to not only level up through the story, but also switch covenants all four times, then do each raid to completion on LFR, in order. I already had four characters spread between all the different covenants - I just had to catch up on the raids and zones like Korthia, but I got most of the story.

There are more than a few moments where I rolled my eyes (the story is bad, we get it), but I have to give SL's at least an ounce more appreciation in that I can get the entire story IN THE GAME this time. In BFA (and before) you had to read the fucking books to fill in what happened to cause the events that you're doing within the game. But in SL's the real life books (afaik, I dont read them) - are side stories that are irrelevant to the story taking place in WOW. The other side I appreciated about SL's is that, if you at least know the order of the zones that came out, the quests make you well aware of the fact that you're going to one of these new zones. So if you're just trying to get the base story from playing, you can, and then you can choose to go to Korthia and then Zereth Mortis. Unlike previous expansions where you could, using SL's for comparison - unknowingly pick up the quest for Zereth Mortis, go there and skip the entire story of SL's without even realizing it.

Basically, for those that WANT the story - they do a really shitty job at it on all fronts. But it helps that they at least look like they're cognoscente of their past failures.

Burns · Oct 28, 2022

Does the cross faction taps work in warmode? I wouldn't be surprised if they left it off to "encourage" pvp.

Your warmode experience may depend heavily on what faction you play on what cluster. Most clusters are going to have Horde outnumber Alliance 10 to 1, so if you are leveling as horde, of course you aren't going to see many alliance. The alliance, on the other hand are always going to have max horde in their instance.

I play alliance, and on a hoard heavy cluster. I have leveled in Warmode on three or four characters, in the first month of every xpac (usually three tanks and a rogue). I always see and run into horde. In every xpac, it has costs a decent amount of time on my second+ character (first one is ahead of the curve and the zones are mostly empty). It is usually 3 to 4 people ganging up on my tank and killing me 3 or 4 times in areas where there isn't any room to go somewhere else.

In BFA, on my second character (Blood DK), I easily lost 30 minutes to an hour at various spots in Drustvar alone. Shadowlands had a few people attack me, but the shards I was put into were only outnumbered around 3 to 1, so less people were willing to initiate anything.

I have always debated whether warmode saved me more time than is lost. In BFA and Shadowlands, it depended on how heavy the buff was in favor of the Alliance.

Burns · Oct 28, 2022

Daidraco said:
Dragonflight starts at 60 and goes to 70 iirc. So he's GOT to play through Shadowlands to get to Dragonflight afaik. Where as BFA and before are all lumped into the noobie zone to 50 experience? I even remember them saying that the most recent expansion before the current one from here out (BFA when this was said) will be part of the leveling process in order to help the player "catch up" to the current lore.

Not Lore of WoW, but the topic of how lore is implemented in WoW:

The lore though, even at the beginning of SL's is a jumbled mess. Made worse by the few content patches where they made sweeping changes that they said they would never do. If you actually wanted to understand the lore behind SL's without reading up on it on the web - you would have to not only level up through the story, but also switch covenants all four times, then do each raid to completion on LFR, in order. I already had four characters spread between all the different covenants - I just had to catch up on the raids and zones like Korthia, but I got most of the story.

There are more than a few moments where I rolled my eyes (the story is bad, we get it), but I have to give SL's at least an ounce more appreciation in that I can get the entire story IN THE GAME this time. In BFA (and before) you had to read the fucking books to fill in what happened to cause the events that you're doing within the game. But in SL's the real life books (afaik, I dont read them) - are side stories that are irrelevant to the story taking place in WOW. The other side I appreciated about SL's is that, if you at least know the order of the zones that came out, the quests make you well aware of the fact that you're going to one of these new zones. So if you're just trying to get the base story from playing, you can, and then you can choose to go to Korthia and then Zereth Mortis. Unlike previous expansions where you could, using SL's for comparison - unknowingly pick up the quest for Zereth Mortis, go there and skip the entire story of SL's without even realizing it.

Basically, for those that WANT the story - they do a really shitty job at it on all fronts. But it helps that they at least look like they're cognoscente of their past failures.

They are rolling Shadowlands into Chromie time when they start the prepatch event and allow people to make Drakthurrr. Every xpac should be able to go to 60, through chromie time, at that point.

Daidraco · Oct 28, 2022

Burns said:
Does the cross faction taps work in warmode? I wouldn't be surprised if they left it off to "encourage" pvp.

Your warmode experience may depend heavily on what faction you play on what cluster. Most clusters are going to have Horde outnumber Alliance 10 to 1, so if you are leveling as horde, of course you aren't going to see many alliance. The alliance, on the other hand are always going to have max horde in their instance.

I play alliance, and on a hoard heavy cluster. I have leveled in Warmode on three or four characters, in the first month of every xpac (usually three tanks and a rogue). I always see and run into horde. In every xpac, it has costs a decent amount of time on my second+ character (first one is ahead of the curve and the zones are mostly empty). It is usually 3 to 4 people ganging up on my tank and killing me 3 or 4 times in areas where there isn't any room to go somewhere else.

In BFA, on my second character (Blood DK), I easily lost 30 minutes to an hour at various spots in Drustvar alone. Shadowlands had a few people attack me, but the shards I was put into were only outnumbered around 3 to 1, so less people were willing to initiate anything.

I have always debated whether warmode saved me more time than is lost. In BFA and Shadowlands, it depended on how heavy the buff was in favor of the Alliance.

Even though there is a small resurgence of players coming back to WoW - I believe he still wouldnt see that many people for Warmode to become inconvenient. Its a trip to a city at worst, and thats usually needed anyways. Warmode players are generally put in their own phase, too. So with as few people as there is right now - he would likely have most of the zones to himself. Never mind that most of the people Ive seen when I do have warmode on, are just in warmode for the exp buff. It would take me forever to count the amount of times I stood in a group of Alliance players as a Horde and no one gave a single fuck.

I personally keep warmode off on expansion launch because that is when people are fighting over mobs and you have dick heads that would rather waste their time ganking you at 25% health than level.

Foggy · Oct 28, 2022

Burns said:
in the first month of every xpac (usually three tanks and a rogue). I always see and run into horde.

Well no shit. It’s the only part of any xpack where there are people out in the world. War mode is a mixed bag for the first few weeks. Then on it’s cake.

Burns · Oct 28, 2022

Foggy said:
Well no shit. It’s the only part of any xpack where there are people out in the world. War mode is a mixed bag for the first few weeks. Then on it’s cake.

I guess I should have specified that I was talking about leveling in DF, being that the new xpac is less than a month away, I would assume that that is part of the equation, eventually.

Also, if someone is just looking to level fast, and doesn't care about content, there is a decent possibility that the invasions for the prepatch will give shitloads of XP and be the best way to get to 60.

Foggy · Oct 28, 2022

It’s only relevant with respect to the new zones. The old world doesn’t change all that much. In fact, there is new stuff to keep the idiots busy instead of running around old zones.

Daidraco · Oct 28, 2022

Burns said:
I guess I should have specified that I was talking about leveling in DF, being that the new xpac is less than a month away, I would assume that that is part of the equation, eventually.

Also, if someone is just looking to level fast, and doesn't care about content, there is a decent possibility that the invasions for the prepatch will give shitloads of XP and be the best way to get to 60.

I havent looked - I still have a few classes I never touched I need to level from 50-60. Are the invasions live yet?

Burns · Oct 28, 2022

Daidraco said:
I havent looked - I still have a few classes I never touched I need to level from 50-60. Are the invasions live yet?

Wowhead says Nov 15 for DL invasion event. Although there is no guarantee they made it a huge XP event. The Legion event had silly amounts of XP, but I don't remember what BFA or SL were like.

2022-10-28 11.53.59 www.wowhead.com df3f8dfc237b.png

Guide to the Dragonflight Pre-Patch Event - Primal Storms and Primalist Invasions

Guide to the Dragonflight pre-patch event, including Primalist Invasions, their locations, and rewards such as ilvl252 catch-up gear for alts and a time-limited toy and heirloom trinket.

www.wowhead.com

Fucker · Oct 28, 2022

Burns said:
Wowhead says Nov 15 for DL invasion event. Although there is no guarantee they made it a huge XP event. The Legion event had silly amounts of XP, but I don't remember what BFA or SL were like.

View attachment 440268

Guide to the Dragonflight Pre-Patch Event - Primal Storms and Primalist Invasions

Guide to the Dragonflight pre-patch event, including Primalist Invasions, their locations, and rewards such as ilvl252 catch-up gear for alts and a time-limited toy and heirloom trinket.

www.wowhead.com

BFA invasions weren't worth doing.

SorrowsEnd · Oct 28, 2022

Was looking into making something on retail to try it out again.

On wotlk classic I've been playing feral/boomkin. I heard retail boomkin might be pretty fun right now?

Was asking a friend what their guild needed and was suggested to roll a demonhunter/monk/mage any of those especially enjoyable currently?

Daidraco · Oct 28, 2022

SorrowsEnd said:
Was looking into making something on retail to try it out again.

On wotlk classic I've been playing feral/boomkin. I heard retail boomkin might be pretty fun right now?

Was asking a friend what their guild needed and was suggested to roll a demonhunter/monk/mage any of those especially enjoyable currently?

If you can stand his accent, this guy always has a pretty based take on the meta classes.

Burns · Oct 28, 2022

SorrowsEnd said:
Was looking into making something on retail to try it out again.

On wotlk classic I've been playing feral/boomkin. I heard retail boomkin might be pretty fun right now?

Was asking a friend what their guild needed and was suggested to roll a demonhunter/monk/mage any of those especially enjoyable currently?

Poke around the Discord for each class and see what they are saying but, usually, the "what's good" wont be decided until the first weeks of the raid. The first 2 weeks of dungeons will give a good feel though, and the last 3 xpacs haven't penalized a player too much for switching classes after the first week or two (unless you are trying to bleeding edge mythic).

DPS Demon Hunters sound kinda mediocre. Few things on disco that I read were mostly people saying that they don't get much new, the new trees just picked apart what they already have, which will make them play like they currently do. If it's all new to you, that shouldn't really matter. They are a fast class and can zip/jump all around, which is nice.

Mages have the pure dps thing going for it, so it's hard to go wrong if DPS is all you want to play. At least one spec is usually good and, unlike warlock, I cant remember a xpac where all three specs were trash.

Monks have the taint of Pandas upon them, so I know nothing, and wish to know nothing more about them!!! (They have all three rolls, so if you like tanking or healing on occasion, those rolls sometimes are OP (for monk), but, then again, the DPS spec is sometimes trash). Fun fact: In Legion every brews (tank) player was playing the spec wrong and the Dev team had to jump on the forums and mansplain it to them.

Cinge · Oct 28, 2022

Launches can be fun, though mostly I've used them in the past just to gather every herb and mining node I could, farm gathering like hell for the first few weeks, sell it all for way too much gold, then buy tokens and apply them to account for bnet cash to buy games in the future. Might just skip this one though, will see.

World of Warcraft: Current Year

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