Sigh... World of Warcraft... anyone play?

[CAM]

Tanaan Jungle is pretty brutal. The scenery alone was responsible for a chain of repeated deaths.

[CAM]

EU Legion pre-patch hits tomorrow (or today in the US). Tonight is your last chance to do a few things before they get removed in the maintenance window:

 

- If you are on Khadgar's ring quest you must complete part 1 to get the epic ring (you haven't finished it until you get the achievement). Part 2 is removed at a later stage.

- Brawler's Guild is being stopped so no more fight club in the tram.

- Legend of the Draenor Raider will be gone.

- You must complete follower quests with gold rewards or they will automatically fail. Ships have been reported as sinking on PTR if they have gold rewards so make sure they are in dock or on a quest rewarding something else.

 

New specs and updated talents are being released. You won't get an artefact weapon yet so you won't have access to all abilities. Survival Hunters are getting a free Polearm based on your current raid level (normal or heroic).

 

New transmog system will be in place granting access to items you received from completed quests account-wide for your armour tier / weapon skill. So log in on an old main character too.

[Geoff]

Do we know if they are tinkering with the levelling experience any more in this patch? I have some low level toons.

[CAM]

No idea about low level, Danny might know more.

 

I know they are looking to merge spells where possible (example, single target strike that turns into the AoE equivalent when standing in an AoE spell) so there might be a bigger gap between new abilities.

[Geoff]

Well I recall they tweaked 1-20 so it wasn't one hit kills on all the mobs. They mentioned they would be changing it so that you did not out level a zone. e.g. everything scaled with your level. So you could finish a zones story. The tech that makes the scaling work is in Legion Beta for the Lost Isles zones (you can do zones in any order at any level and the mobs will be equal to you). I was just wondering if this is appearing in the pre-patch as it would mean I could play through the zones I like on my alts without worrying about out-levelling the zone.

[LiamHaith]

I would love if they just made the zones all the same "level"... that would open so many paths for insane levelling speeds. At the moment I run multiple accounts so that the slower inefficient areas can be skipped with tactful use of 300% Elixir and boosts.

[Geoff]

That's exactly how it works in Legion.

[CAM]

It would be great to go back to old content on current characters. I quite like the Timewalking system for dungeons, but I feel there is over a decade's worth of content in-world that is overlooked because of a number next to your character's portrait.

 

If you hit 100 and were phased into a scaled level 100 equivalent in-world, that'd be pretty cool. But it'd require work every expansion to rebalance it.

[DMcGuigan]

No idea about low level, Danny might know more.

 

I know they are looking to merge spells where possible (example, single target strike that turns into the AoE equivalent when standing in an AoE spell) so there might be a bigger gap between new abilities.

 

Changes that I'm aware of so far:

 

Quest bosses from Levels 1-20 are mostly multi-tap with scaleable health, similar to Tanaan Rares

Dynamic respawn timers for higher mob availability during high traffic times

Leve 1-10 NPCs have higher damage

Reduced Out of Combat regen for levels 1-20

Reduced player damage for ALL classes below level 40, unchanged from 40+

Death in dungeons now release IN the dungeon, not outside

 

 

They're gonna keep working on it, they want it all to be scaleable, but whether or not that will ever happen is up in the air.

[CAM]

Tried the patch last night and survival is incredibly good fun! You have to use one small set of abilities at first to power you up, then unleash your strongest attacks with another set of abilities then back to the first set to power yourself up again. It seems fairly generic at first but is actually quite engaging and I found myself thinking "What should I use here?" Downside is Survival seems rather....squishy. I died a lot, partly getting used to being melee again and having to pick my target more carefully due to proximity and no longer doing my damage over time.

 

My rotation basically goes:

 

- Lacerate to apply a bleed.

- Raptor Strike for 4 stacks of attack power boost.

- Aspect of the Eagle to increase crit chance.

- Mongoose Bite x3 (starts a 12 sec fury window that increases Mongoose Bite damage)

- Snake Hunter (restores 3 charges of Mongoose Bite)

- Mongoose Bite x3. Damage is getting silly here as I hit 6 stacks of damage boosting fury.

- Flanking Strike to try squeeze another Mongoose Bite attack into the fury window (it has a high chance of generating another charge).

- Then mix Lacerate, Explosive Trap, Flanking Strike and Raptor Strike until I have 3 charges of Mongoose Bite and open another fury window.

 

It's fun to play but how was damage? I was my normal bottom spot as everyone in the expansion out-gears me. A rampaging Deathknight tank pulled everything and did 80% of the team's damage alone in a heroic. 0.0 Timewalking or whatever they call it gave different results as gear and level is normalised so you are about on par with others. The spec was leading the damage meters not by much but consistently in the top two. I've bought some stuff from the timewalking vendor and now I look like a mage walking round with an agility kilt and a staff that did more damage than my free polearm. I'll post a photo later.

[Geoff]

Icy Veins have updated class guides for 7.0.3 / Legion. So they apply to the pre-patch. According to that, your rotation isn't quite right.

 

Survival Hunter DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities (Legion 7.0.3) - Icy Veins

 

I was having great fun on my Outlaw rogue last night

[LiamHaith]

Yeah that seems more like it @Geoff

 

Typically your bleeds/DoTs are what you want to apply first, then follow up with your single target rotation. If something has charges NEVER wait until max, because then you're wasting a small fraction of another charge which lowers overall DPS considerably. Take into consideration GBC. You could probably get away with casting when you have 2 + 3/4 Mongoose Charges and still get all 3 off but with much greater efficiency.

 

Icy-Veins is good for entry level class understanding, though they're not perfect with stat priorities and rotations all the time.

[CAM]

So survival is still prioritising the damage over time effects? Interesting.

 

I did a bit of pre-reading and was using a simplified rotation to get used to the spec before tweaking it. I am curious about Dragonsfire Grenade, although Butchery seems quite powerful in AoE. Axes I'm not sure on as it competes with the attack power buff from Raptor Strike?

 

EDIT - Had a read of the talents page, seems the balancing of the numbers has changed a few things.

Edited July 21, 2016 by CAM

[LiamHaith]

It's not necessarily prioritizing, but typically, if your class has any DoT - keeping 100% uptime whilst performing your optimal rotation will only ever increase your DPS. Sure you may take X seconds longer until you get to spam your alpha damage abilities, but those DoTs vastly outweigh the time spent.

 

At least for the most part. I'm struggling to decide what I want to main for Legion now... the changes to warrior are fun, but they're gonna get hit hard with the ol' Nerf Bat. UHDK looks good, but I've mained a DK for too long. Outlaw looks fun on the rogue... so many classes and such specific criteria that I need them to fulfill... sigh.

 

This is why I made a second account, so I don't have 50 level 100's to try and decide between playing when the expansion drops.

[CAM]

If you can't decide, join me and Draikey on Dragonblight.

 

I think he's levelling another Hunter....

[LiamHaith]

Oh I'm not leaving Outland. I need to be on a server that's got high tier PvP. I just need to think of what class

[CAM]

I need a transmog....

 

[LiamH]

I'm currently winning at wow (IE not playing), My wife resubbed recently however.

 

Not at all fussed about the new expansion, more burning legion *yawn* wonder if the next expansion will be the lich king again The downfall for me was the healing changes in the last exp, I mained healer and was pretty good at it, the new mechanics just lead to spam heals and hoping for the best.

[CAM]

Well, dipped my toe into LFR and now I've completed all three raids. Did most of it in one go yesterday!

 

Hitting no higher than 29k DPS at the moment with Survival (~675 iLevel). MM I only get 10k because I struggle getting my head round it. Not tried BM yet but I'm going to have to learn to use at least one of the ranged specs as I am not certain Survival will be seen as raid viable due to lack of melee spots.

[Geoff]

MM usually outranks BM in raiding. The loss in DPS due your pet having pathing issues, dying in fire and running between mobs being the main issue. Edited August 1, 2016 by Geoff

[CAM]

MM just seems confusing though. You have to Mark enemies, then make them Vulnerable, then exploit the vulnerability, then mark them again and repeat. It seems really convoluted and I only have a small handful of abilities making it feel incomplete. :/

 

And Sidewinders...I get the idea but the animation for it just seems, weird and out of place.

Edited August 1, 2016 by CAM

[LiamHaith]

So, decided to level another character on a fresh account...

 

So far. /played is showing me 15 hours, and I'm only 97... I was trying to beat my PB. Might have to do it all again.

[Geoff]

Try doing ironman. If you die you delete the character and start again. i.e. permadeath.

[LiamHaith]

I got 16h 37m to 100. Deleted it and started again

[Mark_Norton]

Used to play religiously from the middle of TBC till WoD. Started off with friends but as they quit i ended up just playing with my mother (Who still plays to this day). Ended up quitting mid way through WoD once i'd capped a couple of toons.

 

Shame really, i miss the memories i used to have playing the game and am considering coming back for Legion but with Uni around the corner i'm on the fence.

 

Legion does look AMAZING though.