Are You in Beta?

[eMan]

Saw today that I had the Cataclysm beta option so I downloaded the client and tried it out. Created a little goblin mage - Gabbe - and did some low level stuff. Hopefully I can get Erina copied over in a day or so and do some proper heal testing. My new computer rig feels up for the challenge so I can run the game on ultra settings in 1920x1200. Game looks pretty!

Some pictures:
- Gabbe in car with firends (me driving ofcourse)
- Dressed for party!

Really like that streaming download thing they have added. Only needed to download ~1GB of ~17GB to start playing.

[Christa]

checked battlenet just now, and i can at least copy characters over. i'll try again this afternoon to DL the client, see if it works this time.

[Blinky]

I have been opted in for beta since the new battle.net was released. Still not in the beta:P

[Christa]

Installed beta yesterday, and could log in and everything, so wooptiedoo, i have something to do again! Not playing live much anyway, there's no more reason for me to gear up or stock up as preparation for Cata.
Copied Christa, Hadnor and Zaldor over so far. Had to rename Christa to Christatg, so if anyone wants to chat or group or whatever, you know how to find me. Server is that mekkator thing or whatever it's called.

[eMan]

My installation got frakked up so I had to reinstall it. Then I continued my troll adventures, but something bugged out on the boat so I got stuck there. It did help me notice that I was on the US server though and that my copied characters was on the EU one which was nice. PLayed a bit on Erina (that had to adopt the alias Eriná there), but I can not really say I enjoyed it much. Went to Hyjal to quest a little in shadow spec, but it was just so repetitive - pick up quests, go to the marked places on map, pick up stuff/kill mobs, go back, pick up new quests... Was more fun in the Goblin starter zone with some new things happening like breaking into a bank vault, football, partying and such.

Hopefully its more fun to heal, but I dread to level in healing spec with low damage and crap mana management. Leveling just in dungeons is not really fun either as they stop being that interesting after a few runs and a you miss a lot of lore by skipping the questing part of the game. Not sure what to do really, but I will probably try the Worgen starting zone next.

[Lynxe]

Both goblin and worgen start areas seem to be bugged and you get stuck once you hand in the last quest of the "first chapter" around level 5. There are ways to work around it posted on forums but I can't be arsed myself tbh. I assume Blizzard will fix it eventually.

[Christa]

Doing Mount Hyjal on Christa atm, got lvl 81,5 yesterday. Indeed, most quests are "kill 10 mobs here, collect 8 items there", pretty basic. Mobs respawn quickly enough so you don't have to fight too much over them. It's nice that dots "tag" the mob even before the first tick hits, so that makes it easier to tag them . I do think that on a PVP server like Dunemaul, these zones will be gankfest heavens/hells! I fear it'll be impossible to quest there without getting ganked all the time

I've run into 1 problem, maybe someone can help. I've went to tailoring trainers to learn new things, but they don't teach me bolt of embercloth! I've learned the thing for increasing the lvl cap, but nothing else really.... My tailoring is 4 points below the old 450 cap, maybe that has something to do with it? But i can't even find the skill when checking for "unavailable" skills/patterns/whatyamacallthem. Wowhead/google doesn't give me any usefull information.
Anyone know what's happening here?

[eMan]

My priest is a 450 tailor and I think I could train a few patterns when I visited the trainer in SW yesterday, cant check from work though. Then I ofcourse got flagged as horde and guards rushed in to kill me.

[Christa]

Ok, so in Cata, there's no more portals. I find this a royal pain in the derriere. Been questing in Mount Hyjal mostly, but for trainers/AH/etc you need to go to a major city. It seems Darnassus actually is the closest nearby. But when you then want to go to IF/SW, you either have to take a boat, or take the Dark Portal portal (they havent removed that... -yet-), and fly from Blasted Lands.

Yesterday i wanted to try out some instances, but you first have to "discover" them. I think in the end it took me 2 hours or so to discover 2 instances, mainly because of travel time and not really knowing where these things are. Pretty frustrating.

One thing i do know: move all your toons out of Dalaran before patch 4 or cata launches, or you'll have to sail them all out, at 15minutes a toon or so!

[eMan]

Played a little more this weekend. Did the worgen starter stuff up to lv5 where it bugged out and it was fun that far. I do think the goblin starter things are more fun and varied though.

Continued a little on Eriná and got as far as level 82. Cannot say I enjoy that much and from the crowded level zones on the PvE beta server I suspect it will very troublesome to do them on an inbalanced PvP server at launch. Most quests are the same kill X blabla/collect Y blable, but sometimes they spice it up with something different like climbing trees to rescue baby bears.

The updated zones I have seen so far does not impress me much, but I have not seem the majority of them yet. Maybe you get a better feel for them if you level up from scratch? There are some cases where the phasing of the world messes up with quests and the minimap a bit, but overall I have not seem that many bugs. Travelling is more troublesome than it has been the last two expansions as there basically are no portals anymore except to the Dark Portal in Blasted Lands. They have added some new flight points, but for example the one in Darnassus shoudl be avoided as it is much faster to fly to village instead and run through the teleporter than to spend another 3m on the bird.

So far I have run without any addons and it works alright while leveling as dps at least. Will see if I dare to venture into some dungeons and try out healing in the new (and in my opinion bad) mana starved environment. From what I have seen so far I will not spend my money on this expansion.

[Christa]

Originally Posted by eMan

Continued a little on Eriná and got as far as level 82. Cannot say I enjoy that much and from the crowded level zones on the PvE beta server I suspect it will very troublesome to do them on an inbalanced PvP server at launch. Most quests are the same kill X blabla/collect Y blable, but sometimes they spice it up with something different like climbing trees to rescue baby bears.

I've almost completed Mount Hyjal on Christa, and yeah, i agree, most quests are "kill x mobs, collect y items". I do, however, like the phased enviroment thing, like we saw in icecrown. Makes it feel all your efforts are actually useful.
I also expect questing on a PVP server will be... painful. But the phasing might help a bit, right? You can't see people that are in a different phase, i think?
Lack of mobs is a problem here and there. I ran into 1 quest where there were just 5-10 ppl all waiting for spawns, and i only ever really saw 2-3 mobs (tagged ofc) at the times i was waiting for them. Went back this morning early, and there was noone around, so that fixed the problem

The "waterworld" quest area is a lot more interesting. Still many "kill 10 mobs" quests, but also some alternatives. I got to ride me a SHARK! wootwoot

Will see if I dare to venture into some dungeons and try out healing in the new (and in my opinion bad) mana starved environment.

I've done a few instances, both healing and dps on Christa and tanking on Hadnor (yeah, he's also 82, i'm an altoholic!). So far, i've only seen the Tides thing (waterworld) and the blackrock mountain one. Let me share my experiences.

I've started on Christa as shadow. Nothing much changed here. AOE seems dead, mind sear does shit damage, but multidotting solves that problem. Getting aggro isn't hard, but the mobs dont hit too hard as well, and with a ~40k healthpool and VE healing, i can take a bit of beating.

On the disc spec, firstly i was shocked by the mana cost of flashheal (and suprised that it actually did a lot of healing). This was at lvl 80/81 still, i changed to greater heals and only used flash when absolutely needed. Now i'm 82, both flash and greater cost about 2k mana anyway, so flash becomes more interesting again. No, better say: greater becomes less interesting. It does a bit more healing, but takes longer as well. "Heal" is very cheap but does like.... 4-5k healing or so? So, pretty crap to heal anyone up with that. It also takes ages to cast.
Anyway, enough about spells. I found healing very hard or relatively easy, depending on the group's experience with the instance. There's a LOT of potential damage going around, or should i say AVOIDABLE damage? In non-heroic instances, well geared tanks can get 1-2 shotted again, but only if they don't avoid the damage. Same counts for dps, AKA "dont stand in the fire". You'll see dps get oneshotted, it's not the healers fault. People need to seriously L2P (again or still).

Did some tanking of these 2 instances as well. And let me illustrate that last point: first boss in waterworld tides whatsitcalled: boss does a shockwave thing on the tank. It's a 3sec cast or so, interruptable, so no problem IF you know you should interrupt it. If you don't, it hits for ~40k, while i have about 50k HP at that point. One time though, i got knocked up into the air and then she did her cast. Couldn't interrupt it, noone else did either, and i was too late with shield wall/cast stand --> dead.
2nd boss in the same instance: very easy to get a lot of damage as tank or dps/healer when you're standing in something you shouldnt be. Fights like these either are VERY painful, or VERY easy. Heck, 2 times i pretty much duo'd this boss with a shadowpriest gone healing (healer dead) or no healer at all at around 40% of boss' health.
Some trash in that instance also does a lot of damage, which is easily avoidable. So, as long as people know what to do, healing is fine, if they don't, it's a mess.
Mana starvation isn't really a huge issue, especially when using your cooldowns well (fiend, archangel).

Tanking currently causes a big problem for me in the form of aggro. Maybe it's my low dps weapon (ilvl 232), but lots of dps can pull aggro, mostly single target fights. I'm using taunt a lot

Anyway, long story, hopes it helps

[eMan]

Phasing have in my experience not only been good in WotLK. For example if you are not riding the quest wave early on it can be hard to find help for group quests that involves phasing later on in the chains. It is not that people are not willing to help - they cant. They do not see you when you enter an from their point of view earlier phase of the world and thus they cannot help you.

And in regards to mana starvation not all specs specs have access to the archangel thing until level 83 and from what I have read most holy priests does not pick it up as you just dont have time to smite in dungeons. The talent that lets smites heal are only available to disc. A holy priest have Holy Consentration to pick up some of the mana regen slack, but for each level I seen my spirit regen dwindle. Its almost a love-hate situation to level up. You know you want to reach the level cap, but each time you ding you see your hit, crit, haste, regen stats go down. Its not always you have fresh better gear in your bags waiting for you to level up that can make up the difference. And to level a healer without dual spec (and a dps spec) outside of dungeons - good luck. It will be slooooow compared to a dps spec at least. Dont really know how tanks fare. Not really a surprise there as most parts of the questing process have always been favoring dps over healing. It is at least a lot smoother than it was back in vanilla and first half of TBC before the spellpower changes.

[Leei]

Im liking the sound of the Dungeons..after reading what you guys say, its nice to know it will be an accomplishment to finish even an non heroic 5 man.
I really have missed the days of working out how to do things or how best to take on a group of mobs. Hooray for no more falling asleep in 5 man bore fests
Role on the swearing as we wipe days

[Doncadach]

Originally Posted by Leei

Role on the swearing as we wipe days

Roll on the rage quits in pugs going up by 300% but then at least only the better and more patient players will get the better gear now like it should be

[Spooks]

Dual spec is 100g as of 4.0.1. So no excuses for not making a leveling solo spec to use alongside your healing spec. I leveled my Priest to 83 no problems using a Disc spec that relies on the new Evangelism mechanics to get 15% mana back at the end of every fight more or less, and when popping Power Word: Barrier, you are basically immune for damage lol.

I like the whole new feel of certain quest areas like Vashj'ir and Deepholm, as well as some of the Uldum stuff, it's extremely epic and cool how it's all integrated with the old content. I'm also liking the fact that even normal mobs in quest areas can pose some challenge to kill, it got a bit boring in wotlk being able to kill things by just looking at them. It's nice that normal instances pose some challenge, and indeed when I started in beta a lot of random groups ragequit when they couldn't just aoe zerg their way through.

Since it's beta, certain things are always broken in every new build, since they don't bother with quality assurance testing to catch every crappy bug. Some things that worked fine in an old build just suddenly break for no obvious reason some times.

Hope you enjoy and hope to see you around in Cata.

[Christa]

Played on my priest again yesterday. Finished Hyjal, and let me tell you (Erina): the phasing isn't a problem for getting help, because there are no group quests. Everything is soloable, apart from the final quest. I assume everyone that's done that quest will always be able to help latecomers do it as well.
As Rumil said, dual spec really is the awnser for healers/tanks that want to speed things up. And it's nice to queue up as a healer or tank for an instance, because the queues are a lot shorter then .

Been questing in Deepholm now, it's a freakish place. Had to look up and around a few times (and read the quests) to understand where exactly i was in relation to the Mealstorm.
Did about half a run of the instance there (stonesomething, god i'm good with names!), as healer, and it's intense! Trash is pretty hard, getting adds was generally a wipe or some amazing improvising.
Keeping mana up (no water, no mage ) was also a juggling act with Archangel and cooldowns. Getting the hang of healing as disc again, hardly using shields/penance though, mostly healing with greater/flash heal. Haven't ever used barrier yet, i should try it sometimes...

The XP requirements for each level seem odd. Levelling to 81 and 82 was quick, only about 1.7M XP needed. Now, we need 6.5M XP getting to 83 and 84. Wonder if that'll change at live, but 1.7M really is too little.
Also, now in Deepholm, i'm replacing my first ilvl 264 ICC heroic epics with green quest rewards. Always a stange feeling when that happens

[Spooks]

The first two levels have been kinda short since early beta, it's mostly because they want to allow you to be able to gain those levels by doing only one zone, either Hyjal or Vashjir, since after that there's only Deepholm, Uldum and Twilight Highlands for getting the last three levels. It's a little bit inconsistent, but I guess if they had planned it slightly better there would have been one more zone to cover 81-82, ah well.

[Christa]

Status update: done most of deepholm quests now. At the end, there seem to just be repeatable quests from the earthmother, much like sons of hodir. Haven't done those yet.
Again, there's phasing of the place going on, but it's not a problem, as there are no group quests yet. I wonder why they did that, actually. Everything is soloable, which is fine, but they always implemented group quests before.... ah well.

Tried to do Stonething instance again once or twice. Killed everything except the endboss, which seems to be a fight you really need to learn tactics on. Definitely not your average tank and spank fight.
Again, i like the fact that you can (and will) die/wipe on trash and bosses, even when running in normal mode with toons that are higher then required level. Definitely a huge change from WotLK instances!

One thing that does bother me is the portal thingy: there are portals in Stromwind going to waterworld and deepholm, and even a deepholm portal back to stormwind, but there are no portals from/to Hyjal whatsoever. This is especially crappy for alliance toons, as they'll have to travel a long way to get there. Heck, there doesn't even seem to be an inn in Hyjal, where you can park your toon for rested bonus. Yes, there's an innkeeper, but you don't get rested. Or am i wrong?

[Christa]

Ding! Christa is now 85. Did the last few instances over the weekend (all at 83/84), healing them. Those things are INTENSE. Mana was something to keep an eye on all the time, especially because it seems Archangel is bugged (5stack only gave me 3k or so mana, instead of .... lots more). I noticed my mana costs went up another 25% or so dinging 85, so i'll now have serious mana issues. Which isn't all bad, you really just have to rethink healing. No more endless mana.
I'm still a bit unsure which spells to use as disc. I find myself using gr. heal a lot (40-45% of total healing). It seems to do the work well enough. I've now noticed penance is pretty cheap, so will try and use that more when it's off cooldown.

Also been tanking a bit on Hadnor. Stonecore mostly. Found out that you really don't need any CC on trash, as long as you have a somewhat decent group, and are willling to pop cooldowns during those pulls. I never liked tanking around CC anyway . Ow, and now that i've started using HS/Cleave again, i'm normally the top dmg dealer in 5mans, doing anywhere between 3-4k on single target to 8k dps on groups. It's rather insane, and will probably need a nerf.
Some numbers:
highest shield slam crit 25k
highest HS crit 20k or so?
highest Cleave crit 18k or so.
This is at lvl 83, with a lvl 81 required blue 2.6speed weapon.
Sufficient to say i have no problems whatsoever with aggro.

[Christa]

Done a few of the highest instances on Christa again last night. Now that i'm lvl 85, all spells cost a lot more, and healing is a lot harder! Even on some trash pulls, i had to completely spam heal my 72k mana pool dry in a matter of 30 seconds or so! Obviously, more CC will help in this department, but still, sweet mother of god! Archangel is not working properly still, so getting mana back is a matter of timing shadowfiend and Hymn correctly. Also, i'll probably be looking at spirit gear/gems/enchants to increase regen.
Healing, at least at the moment, definitely is a different ballgame compared to WotLK. Don't get me wrong, i love the challange, but people (mainly nonhealers) will have to learn that they don't get healed up quickly if at all, when they take damage. I've been spamhealing the tank at times, just to keep him up, leaving the rest of the party at low health.
Previously, you could heal up a tank from low health to full in 2-3 spells, this is also not the case anymore. Tanks have, lets say, ~100k HP. My greater heals go for 15k noncrit to 25k crit or so. So, it takes a lot of time (and mana, gr. heal is 5.5k mana) to heal someone up again. Definitely very different from WotLK.
Interesting times it will be, when Cata goes live and people start instancing!