My First Full Day on Beta
Elapsed — Fri, 08/15/2014 - 22:34
I just logged out from spending my first full day on Warlords of Draenor beta and let me tell you a bit about what I did. I had the beta here for a couple of days, and I've logged on and looked around a bit but hadn't done very much beyond setting up my bars the way I wanted.
The very first thing today was to run a dungeon with Craeg. He had been just dying waiting for someone to get on the beta he could run stuff with. So I made a level 100 paladin and setup my holy setup. From talents to glyphs to macros. I got myself ready for the changes. We queued up for all of the dungeons and with me being a healer it took no time at all to get in. We got a dungeon already in progress with the first boss down. Craeg was feral druid, I holy pally, our tank was a paladin, we had a few dps as the dungeon went on, and they were not worth mentioning really. The dungeon we found ourselves in was Grimrail Depot. A moving train, very tight quarters, close walls, and not a lot of room to get out of mechanics at times. We had a few struggles with randoms not picking up on the mehcanics very quickly. But our tank had patience and I was just healing my ass off trying to keep everyone afloat (Holy Pally guide and thoughts to come at a later date) We finished up and enjoyed our loot.
Then I coppied over Elapsed as level 90 over to the "leveling realm". Once coppied, bars setup, and UI configured I started with the Blasted Lands intro quests. They were straight forward and for the most part your standard "Kill x targets, loot y things, take them to z person." It told a story that I wont spoil here, but it's the full into into getting to Draenor. The Blasted Lands reminded me a lot of what they did to the Barrens for the Vol'jin story arc of MoP. It's not quite as involved but there's a ton of shit going down.
Upon completion of those quests I found myself entering The Dark Portal. This was the biggest nostalgia trip I've had in AGES. Something about how they made the other side look and feel reminded me EXACTLY of when I did this back for the launch of The Burning Crusade. I proceeded on to do some phased solo quests (not sure if you can group for them) But this phasing from the rest of the worl immersed me into the story and the world so much. I found myself fighting aside badass lore heroes as they assaulted the other side of The Dark Portal. The quests themselves had some nuance to them. There were the new "Extra Action Button" quests and even a vehicle quest or two that really were quite fun.
Once you complete that "phased" quest line, you find yourself in Shadowmoon Valley. The very first quest line sets up your Garrison. The Garrison seems to be quite quest-centric and if you want to quest beyond that point, you'll be required to go back to your Garrison from time to time (or at least create it.) This is another in the long line of things Blizz changed their minds about since Blizzcon '13. But I'm 100% OK with it! The Garrison is fun, a little home away from the grind, and you even get a special Garrison Hearth (20 min CD.) You send off "follower" NPCs to do quests for you, they take some time and trying to find the right follower for the right quest is important to it's success chance. The items they come back with were nothing compared to my Siege of Orgrimmar raid gear, but they vendored nicely.
In Shadowmoon Valley I found all sorts of neat things to do. From your basic pick up a bunch of quests for a spot and do them, to rares that all drop 516 ilvl blues, to even new "Bonus Objective Quests" that pepper the area. The "Bonus Objectives" are your standard kill X things, pickup Y things, quest that were used to. They show up in your quest tracker the moment you enter their zone. They give over 50g each and a good chunk of XP. You only need go slightly out of your way from the other quests to do them and are well worth the effort.
I leveled twice today (I coppied over Elapsed.) At 92 I got my first "Draenor Perk." For those not in the "know" these are enhancements to some of your current arsenal of spells that you will get every other level. Every spec has 5 Draenor Perks, and you earn them in a random order. My first ret perk was to reduce the CD on Hand of Sacriffice by 30 seconds. By no means a game breaking ability, nor even one I'll use while questing, but a cool way to break up the leveling none the less and make you feel as though you've accomplished something along the way.
The mount I'm on is the new Ravager Mount from the store
Lastly I found and ran into one of the new "Rare mounts." Rare Mounts require you to have a certain level Stables in your garrison to tame. The one I found was named Shinri, and was pretty fast! Shinri is a Ghostly Talbuk, and the new model their using looks very cool and noble. I'm disheartened to know that you have to have a Stables for this. As you will be taking up 1 large plot just to have that ability. I suppose that once you have them all, you can replace the plot and get a new building. That will keep you working in your garrison to be sure. And also headed out for whatever the best way possible at 100 is to get garrison supplies.
I will be back as I find more interesting things to report on in the WoD Beta, if you have any requests let me know. I'll be more than happy to try and get any info from the beta I can.
Please click HERE to check out our dungeon guides/experiences from Beta.
Dungeon overviews, vids, comments
Mehguy — Sun, 08/24/2014 - 16:12To save some space on Elapsed blog so it isnt such a huge wall of text, our beta Dungeon vids, obervations, comments can be found in the Downfall Handbook.
Please click HERE to check them out.
moar beta info
Mehguy — Fri, 08/22/2014 - 20:04So I havent done a whole lot more in regards to leveling/questing in the last few days as I would like.
But one thing that has happened a few times when I have played is randomly boosted gear from quest rewards, or even from Garrison rewards. For example, most of the quest rewards are Green quality, when completing the quest the game will sometimes randomly upgrade/boost the gear to Blue quality. If the reward is blue, it has a chance to be upgraded/boosted to Epic quality (this happened on one of my rewards from my Garrison missions I sent my followers on). So thats a nice little boost, you may already have an equal item equipped then you complete the quest and the game might give you a slightly better one. That should help with gearing up a little while leveling. I have not experienced the boosted gear reward from dungeon drops yet.
One thing that we have experienced in the dungeons as well, is that we occasionally get loot specific to us. Like bonus loot that one one else gets. Just have to make sure you actually CHECK each boss for it as you wont get it otherwise. This loot comes along WITH the normal loot the bosses have that you roll for. Not sure if this is just for beta so people can get gear to tinker with, or if it will be a permanent thing.
My thoughts as I
saedo — Wed, 08/20/2014 - 18:56My thoughts as I played...
Oh my. Blizzard has chosen
saedo — Tue, 08/19/2014 - 17:57Oh my. Blizzard has chosen me. No contests for me! I may have to hijack this blog too.
Beta SMV Flightpaths
Mehguy — Tue, 08/19/2014 - 07:40I forgot to add this in last night, but you can easily tell that Blizz is trying to shove "No Flying" down our throats to try to get us to not care about it. What do I mean by this you ask? Why its called FLIGHT PATH EXTRAVAGANZA!!! No shitting you there are ELEVEN (one of which is max-lvl only) flight paths in Shadow Moon Valley ALONE!!! Granted Shadowmoon Valley feels pretty big, but definitely not big enough to warrant 11 flight paths to try to get us to not care about flying.
And BTW... a LOT of the flying mounts look REALLY retarded running around on the ground full time. The bigger square on the far left near Spires of Arak is the max-level flight path.
I went out to that "max
Elapsed — Tue, 08/19/2014 - 10:17I went out to that "max level" isle to the south, scary place for a 94 to be surrounded by 100s. But you can pick the FP up and discover the area for once they have the exploration achievements implimented.
To add a couple of things as well to our thoughts. I've made a little over 1k gold per level roughly from doing quests. While it may not be the fastest to get the Loremaster achievements for a zone, I figure you can hit 100 in only 3 zones if you clear them out and leave all of the high level for once you hit 100. Remember that once you're max level all quests completed have their experience turned into an "amount" of gold. I postulate that getting the loremaster achievement for Draenor if done this way can net over 20k gold easy. Added note, the gray items are worth picking up again. They are worth from 15silver up to 50silver. Since bag space is no longer a premium in Draenor, you can net a ton of money from this. Also, the items in SMV DE to MoP materials atm. Most of the quest rewards are only ilvl 515 and not worth keeping if you even have LFR SoO gear, so they vendor QUITE well. Some weapons have been worth over 50 gold at times.
Each zone has had a "building" choice added to it where the Garrison plot was going to be. It seems they've changed the style to make it do you're bringing the front lines of your garrison army to that location. In Gorgrond I got to chose between a thingy that made PvP worth more, or a thingy that lets me use a Mech vehicle every 3 mins. I ofc chose the vehicle. It has 3 HIGH damaging abilities that make life easier when fighting some of the rare mobs or elites. And also allows you to loot and interact with the environment while in it (yet that would be a waste of your limited time in the suit and should be done when it's on CD)
Additional Beta observations
Mehguy — Tue, 08/19/2014 - 01:03I agree with Elapsed IRT going through the Dark Portal once again, doing the questline in Blasted Lands had a good story to it, and fighting alongside all the Lore heroes was a great starting adventure and introduction to Draenor, compared to previous expansions (except MoP) where you just walk into a zone, get quests to kill creatures and collect items to move on. While these introductory quests are having you do the same thing, its taking you on a journey along the way and you actually feel like your getting somewhere and doing something. You even get introduced to several of the Iron Horde Warlords through these quests also.
A few things I noticed, the starting quest areas are NOT phased, I definitely came across several other players and at times had to compete for a few kills here or there. Overall it wasn't bad because the respawn rate on a lot of items was fairly quick. However on live with the connected realsm it might be a different story. You should definitely be able to group up with friends to complete the quests. I too noticed the "Extra Action Button" quests, however they do not appear to be specifical "abilities" like you would have done on Ultraxion or Deathwing. What it looks like they are possibly trying to do, is make it so when you have a quest and the quest giver gives you an item to use (one of the quests involves burning down abandoned huts) or if you pick up a quest item off a mob that you have to use, then instead of having to look for it in your bags, or hoping you are tracking the quest on your UI to use it that way, it will instead pop up the item in your Extra Action Button window for you to use when you are in range of 'whatever-it-is' that you need to use it for. There are some quests in SMV where it doesnt work like that and its the traditional find the item somewhere in your bags and use it, but in the entry quests, they way they did it was definitely a welcome change.
Another thing to note, was they added a new "glow" system to identify friendly/enemy/neutral NPCs, and also changed the sparkle effect on lootable quest items. Remember back in BC when they gave us the sparkle effect so it was easier for the player to identify/find the item that was so small you could never find it? Well now instead of it sparkling, it glows a slight yellow-ish color. And as I mentioned about NPCs, if you place your cursor over an NPC, it will glow either Green/Yellow/Red based on whether its Friendly/Neutral/Hostile of if they are a quest objective to you. So while I kind of like the glowing on NPCs, I dont like losing the sparkle effect on lootable items. I just found the sparkle effect to be more obvious to me, the glow effect just seems off and doesnt catch my eye as well. But I guess if you're like me, you'll just have to adjust. Below are some pics.
Quest item glow (whitish/yellow) *imagine this glow on a small fricken flower on the ground....*
Green Glow/Friendly NPC
Red Glow/Enemy NPC (view the original image to see it better)
Yellow Glow/Neutral NPC
Quest Objective NPC Glow
So as you can see, those are the new "glow" effects. Some arent too bad, but Im gonna miss the Sparkle effect.
In case you were wondering at all in regards to quest reward ilvl. Starting out, the ilvl for quest rewards is currently 506 in opening quests, then it moves up to 510, 514, so on and so forth. That might change by the time it goes live, but thats where its at currently through the first few quest areas of Shadow Moon Valley. So as long as you are doing SoO flex or normal, you should be good for the first zone and then some.
Elapsed and I ran 1/2 of the Shadowmoon Burial Grounds dugeon on our lvl 100 toons. Its fun for what we were able to complete of it. Every time we wiped we pretty much guaranteed had someone quit group so we had to keep waiting around for someone to que in. First 2 bosses had some fun mechanics, but nothing too crazy really. First boss is fairly easy so long as you dont touch bad runes, stand on white moons when the eclipse comes and dps the spirit add. For the 2nd boss, if you are a healer just be sure to have your DPS spells on your action bars as you will need them. You get phased and have to chase around your spirit and kill it, then click on it to retrieve your spirit within 20 seconds or you just insta-die. Otherwise just have tank face boss away from group and dont run around the walls of the room, there are graves that if you touch will spawn additional trash. 3rd boss we could have done if we had a group that stuck around long enough, Id recommend watching the Fatboss guide to see what he's about. We pretty much figued out what we needed to do to counter the 3 worms slamming down on the ground with limited space, but people kept leaving so we just quit as it was too late anyways. The worst part of the instance is honestly the trash AND the run back. Be sure you have AT LEAST 2 interrupts available. We didnt really CC anything, just grouped up and AoE'd down (slowly...) and overall the dmg wasnt too severe with using proper CDs, but if you didnt interrupt certain abilities it was pretty much guaranteed a wipe.
As for Garrisons, as Elapsed said, you pretty much HAVE to do them (so much for them being optional like they said at Blizzcon). But its not a bad thing, they rewards that some of them give can be pretty handy, for example if you get an upgraded stables (lvl 2) you can interact with objects while mounted (mining nodes, herbs, etc). A lvl 3 trading post grants 20% increased reputation gain in Draenor as well. So itll be something fun to do, but will be mandatory. Im sure once I get further along like he has I will start to see where Ill have to keep running back there to get new quests to take me to new zones, etc.
From the Warrior standpoint, as Fury, I pretty much still have all my normal abilities, same with Prot. But the limitations they put on some of the abilities does seem to be a bit annoying. Requiring you to be in certain stances to use some. You would think it would require stance dancing, but if you are playing correctly, you wont need to use those abilities to worry about switching stances in the first place. The one thing I do miss is not having banners anymore. No more Demoralizing Banner, no more Skull Banner. The only thing we have left is Mocking Banner (AoE taunt) and that is exclusive to Protection spec. A little frustrated that we dont have Rallying Cry as Prot, because its a great raid utility for us to provide, and what better spec can you want for that other than Prot? But no, all we have for Prot is Last Stand and Shield Wall. Rallying Cry is specific to Fury/Arms. As for talents, I have to say that Second Wind blows IMO. The leech effect just doesnt seem worth it to me. 10% of the damge you deal when you are below 35%? Currently at 91 Im doing around 7-10k DPS not critting, so if I get into trouble Im only going to be healing myself for 700-1k health per hit? Im currrently at 102k health so 1% max health heal per hit just wont cut it in some situations. Right now Im relatively overgeared for the leveling content so I havent really had to experience the effect at low level, but at lvl 100 when I tried doing some garrison quests as fury and also in the dungeon we ran, it was pretty much worthless. It could be better with higher ilvl gear, etc, but from what I saw it likely wont be worth much at max level in its current state. But thats just my opinion. Id be better to go with impending victory. I havent experienced too much of an issue with rotation with either fury or prot. They seem to follow the same path or idea as in MoP, although utilization of CDs as Prot is MUCH more important and crucial in WoD. Its just with the way they are tweeking abilities all the time and changing the cooldowns on some abilities, you will definitely have some down time where you REALLY want to use something, but you cant because everythign is on CD.
I have not touched Ashran yet, but I did receive a quest shortly upon arriving to SMV to talk to someone there, but havent ventured over that way yet. Ill try to add more as I experience it. If you have anything specific I'm sure Elapsed and I will see what we can dig up for you.
thanks Mehguy for the info
badpenny — Tue, 08/19/2014 - 05:45Appreciate the pics too. I think I'm going to like the garrison. I just wished there was a megacity you could build with a guild. Something where you have enhanced buildings/graphics and abilities as more garrisons form a city for the guild.
How can you get your hands on
chaca — Sun, 08/17/2014 - 06:40How can you get your hands on a beta to try things out?
anyone who follows me on
Elapsed — Sun, 08/17/2014 - 10:28anyone who follows me on twitter can tell you I entered dozens of contests on various sites, from Wowhead to Blizzpro. I finally got lucky on one of them
really great pics and info E!
badpenny — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 09:20This is great stuff for us who do not have beta access. I'm looking forward to hearing about the mechanic changes for pally healz. Also, how did the pally tank hold up? Was he squishy for content based on his gear? Did they improve pally tank dps at all? I'm excited about the garrison concept. It would have been cool if there could have been a guild wide plot where everyone helps create a city.
Wild, wild West, moving trains on a 5 man! Holy cat pajamas that is cool!
Keep the pics coming Elapsed. What does your garrison look like? Can you personalize it?
The tank lived for a long
Elapsed — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 11:59The tank lived for a long time, part of that was just being a normal and his heroic SoO gear. The other part is how the damage comes out is entirely different from how we expect it to now and days. People's health bars just chip away. I argue this gives good reason for both holy and prot to be using Eternal Flame. But that's for a different post!
The Garrisons don't have a ton of ways to customize them sadly. You get to chose which buildings you want on which plots but beyond that it's fairly cookie cutter. But they are fun and cool to be in. You get a special Garrison hearthstone seperate from your normal one, and there's even a direct FP to your garrison so you can fly there from anywhere in Draenor.
I had set my town to build an Engineering bay last night before logging out (1 hour build time) I woke up this morning to find it ready for completion. You have to walk over to the building and click on the "blueprints" outside to accept the building. It then finishes it and does a panorama of it for you with fireworks going off.
The Town hall is where you get all of your work really done so far. Inside are two different tables. The building table (right) and the Commadning table (left) . From the building table is where you place your buildings on your plots, and assign followers with those professions to work them. From the commanding table is where you send your followers off on quests, dungeons, and even raids.
Either this early on, or this low of a level I only have quests to send my followers on, This one just returned from a quest (takes 20 mins) with some Garrison Supplies (the currency you use for everything in your garrison from buildings to sending them out on more quests and the like.) Your followers also get XP from completing them and will level up eventually (mine aren't there yet lol)
This is the follower selection screen for this quest. The boss that the follower will fight puts a magic debuff on them, so finding a follower who can "counter" this with one of their abilities is key to making that quest completion % go up to 100%. Sadly I don't have one that can counter this, so I sent a druid tank (my first follower) to take him out, with a 78% chance to win I think it's going to come back A-OK. But I suppose there's always the chance it'll be my first failed follower quest.
There's much more to the garrison from the mines, the fishing area, your pet managerie, to all of the empty plots and other neat things, But I'm just getting into it and haven't fully picked it all up.
can others
badpenny — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 13:27see or visit your garrison? Any barter going on? The developers should go the way of HayDay farms and have customizable garrisons with cool stuff to make it personal. I bet they would get a whole new audience playing the game.
yes, you can have others in
Elapsed — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 13:50yes, you can have others in your party (presuming you are the party leader who invited them) come to your Garrison. I'm not sure about any barter things, but that would be a boss idea. They are planning on having the Inn, or Town Hall I think display your archaeology things and some other stuff. I'm hoping for some cool raid things to display, sort of Head of Onyxia or Heart of Deathwing style
Lore wise, it's 35 years in
saedo — Fri, 08/15/2014 - 23:42Lore wise, it's 35 years in an alternate past?
not quite. Garrosh went 35
Elapsed — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 11:12not quite. Garrosh went 35 years into the past (Think Marty McFly from BTTF) Once he's gone back and changed a single thing he's made an alternate timeline. Yet somehow due to the nature of Outlands being the way it is (don't ask me the physics of it, not like there are real ones) it's not affected. Garrosh (in the cinematic) stops his dad and the other orcs from drinking the blood of Manaroth, preventing Gul'dan's scheme of cursing the orcs. Then they go to finish The Dark Portal (takes time) so that they can come through at our time and take Garrosh's revenge and take over the Horde and the world as he planned.
We are not traveling back in time by being there, just an alternate timeline... so at worst were from the TV show Sliders and were just hopping dimensions a bit.
I'll go with Future Trunks
saedo — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 11:27I'll go with Future Trunks going back to alter the timeline but his own future still existing.
But I just thought I read somewhere that the new portal connects through time to the present so thought Draenor was still in the past.
Anyways, next thought. So is there duplicate Exodar and Valen and all that stuff around?
I haven't seen The Exodar at
Elapsed — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 11:33I haven't seen The Exodar at all, I presume they might make it a tier or plot point. There are duplicates but they aren't and wont be meeting each other.
And this was retweeted by the blues after people made it several months ago
So there is some credence to what you say. I'm still confuzzled by the whole thing and wonder if our goal is to curse the orcs again
Also, on cursing orcs. Doubt
saedo — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 12:32Also, on cursing orcs. Doubt it. At least not as the goal.
It'd be a terrible end. Since "fixing" the past doesn't do a thing as it's an alternate timeline. All cursing them would do is hand them over to the Burning Legion. It would have to be someone manipulating both sides for this to happen to set up the next expansion. Garrosh 3 - Draenor was merely a setback.
One goal could be destorying the Dark Portal, but then, that may shatter Draenor again and they might not want that.
It could be Thrall enters as their new Messiah showing them another path. But then Garrosh probably has propganda against him being a green "corrupted" slave orc.
A goal could be to contact the Naaru, maybe they're not around, and they can do the whole light redemption thing for the Iron Horde to calm them of their bloodlust after we murder all their Warlords.
maybe this will all setup
Elapsed — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 13:51maybe this will all setup into the next major Sargeras story line or something. Were already fucking with The Burning Legion's timeline, maybe something in this alternate dimension will push us that way
Reading up on this, it is
saedo — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 13:53Reading up on this, it is Wrathion that orchestrates the whole thing saying this would prepare Azeroth for the Burning Legion. So maybe the goal is simply, kill em all, steal their stuff, winter is coming.
If it's not explicitly
saedo — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 12:00If it's not explicitly mentioned I would like Draemor in the past. Waiting 35 years to face off against a geriatric Grom and Garry seems anti climatic.
So why aren't the duplicates meeting each other? Are they going Timecop and doing a mutual annihilation if they do?
not sure, but they explicitly
Elapsed — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 12:01Not sure, but they explicitly said the duplicates would not meet on more than one occasion.
You have to remember that Garry needs time to help Grom build up the iron horde with all that tech he brought from the past too. Otherwise it'd be super easy for us to come in with our giant death machines and nuke em
Time yes, but 35 years? I
saedo — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 12:12Time yes, but 35 years? I was thinking more like 5, maybe 10. We're still gonna be facing off against the other Warlords too, all big names in the past. Unless Garrosh brought them eternal youth too...
(No subject)
Elapsed — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 11:36This also postulates what could be happening
nerd
Insta — Sat, 08/16/2014 - 12:00nerd