You spend hours making a cake. Not only did you make it from scratch, you shopped for the best ingredients and decorations and even made fondant figurines and used food colouring and silver and gold balls, and 6 different decorating nozzles and then – guess what happens?
People eat it. They don’t stand there tasting the love in each mouthful but they push past each other, and fight over the fondant rainbow – shoving chocolate and cream into their mouths until nothing is left but the tin foil covered cake stand and a mush of cake remains.
Thats what I felt I did with my Questing to 85 – I destroyed someones cake – and I didn’t even stop to taste the difference in the cake layers – I went from zone to zone and chewed through the quest lines. Untill I hit 85.
If you are 85 – right now, Just on a week after release, can you tell me you did any different. That you stopped and enjoyed the smell of the coffee beans, and the light vanilla layer, letting it roll over your tounge, or did you put your hands first into the top layer and munch down.
NOMNOM
So instead of a cook, or a cake decorator, how about a quest writer or designer. Every quest so lovingly written, only to be trampled on by a bunch of over eager levelers.
I had so much fun doing some of the quests. ( brain blank on specifics.. it shall come to me one I have purged myself of the chatter that is in my head) Click click. Done. Spent less time on some quests then I’m sure it took to write the quest text.
It’s most certainly sad at the rate that people chewed through the quests like hungry zombies.. EXPPPPPPPP EXPPPPPPPPPP – but some people are already working on their 2nd 85’s so hopefully they are enjoying the 2nd time round.
I dinged before bed Sunday night – and I finally hit 329 Ilevel to get into Heroics tonight, ( Tues) but you can guess what I did…. I de’d a green which was worth 2 points and I am now back down to 327 and servers going down soon – hence blogging! , So I shall not be running heroics until I fix that. 320 more earthen ring rep and I shall have a new cloak which may push me over. Good news though! The Mats from the DE got me one point and pushed me to 495 enchanting.
I did ‘cheat’ on my ilevels I have 3 pieces of crafted pvp gear in my bags. Not wearing, ( sacrilege that would be) but their presence in my bags means that I get a better, best ilevel average. You don’t even need to equip them. Just have them in your bags.
I feel a little guilty at the devouring of the content, but I’ve got 5 alts I want to see to 85 eventually, so I will get to pick and choose a little.
Shadow Priesting is currently fun, and strange. I did a few normals in my Questing, and have done a few at 85 for gearing up. I healed the first few I queued for 1 1min wait v a 46 min wait was a better option, but healing felt so hard. Mana was a precious resourse, as another healer said in a dungeon” I am learning what things are worth the cost to dispel” ( this was at level 83) and now my gear is all over the shop so I am not game to queue as heals again untill I fix some stuff.
As shadow, I do ok on metres, but it really depends on cooldowns. I love the look of dark Evangelism – black wings sprouting from my back. I have broken out and healed a few times to save the tank – I guess that means I don’t trust healers much. Well….. I have not ever over helped, if that makes sence. I help rescue, or strengthen the position with some heals until the healer has them under control. Then I go back to dpsing. I just wish they would say “Halp” or maybe I should tell them, if they need help to say so in party, and I can jump right in.
Mana is still hurting. Give me a month and we will all be so OP again .
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I did enjoy the cake, even if I ate it quickly. Anyone could see and hear me linking this item or laughing at that joke or expressing amazement at the scenes.
Have you ever eaten cake so slowly that it became stale? Chewed so much that it turned into flavorless mush?
I don’t like stale cake 🙂 and yes Wrath was / becomming a stale cake.
I did a little bit of both.
I started out in Hyjal enjoying the cake, but I quickly realized I could not have my cake and eat it too with everyone else eating their cake near me.
They were too sloppy and icky, and their spit and crumbs were getting dangerously close! So I trail-blazed ahead. I didn’t slow back down until I got to Uldum and Twilight Highlands.
For what it’s worth, I did digest most of the parts of Twilight Highlands I did do; but I didn’t do any parts of it having to do with the Twilights.
By the way, on the note of greens, blues and epics. The itemization formulas were yet again changed. Currently, greens, blues and purples of the same ilvl have the EXACT same budget. There is no more “epics are 20% better [than blues]” going on in the game.
Although, since epics start at ilvl 359, and most blues are ilvl 316 to 346 this is rarely noticeable (greens top out in the 312 – 318 range, so you will rarely have conflict).
Lastly! You better nom nom shadow with mind control before they nerf it. In fact, yesterday’s hotfix already “nerfed” something. It’s entirely possible for a Shadow Priest to solo the first 1-2 pulls in the Twilight Bastion raid instance.
Mc is a valid form of CC again! tanks have been asking for it – though if there is no shammy or mage are cursing under their plate armor that its not real cc. Sharing the cake was aweful. Not only was it laggy, but 200 people trying to click on the single big clam in the start up quests in Vash was a massive road block. Found though that in most areas the quests had to be done sequentially, so there wasn’t too much option if too many people were trying to eat the cake.
I loved this cake much more than the last one. The icing and designs were much nicer. The flavor much richer. I had been starving for weeks, perhaps months as my mind was foggy with many heroic slices of the old.
While I truly over gorged myself and gobbled this delight down to quickly. I did enjoy the entire path. The phasing, cut scenes and humor where all classic. I wish we had had this expansion 2 years ago rather than last week.
there were quite a few quests that did force you to stop – and do a cut scene or two. Made it so much more a story and I agree the quests were more interesting then Wraths, but it will take my 2nd 85 I think to truely appreciate some of them.
I never ask for help on heals in party chat unless I can predict it going into the fight. Here’s why:
there are two possible issues with heals, either I can’t keep up with something, or I am out of mana. Now, if I’m out of mana, I can type that in party chat, but that’s almost never been a problem in wrath. Even when some dumbass pulls and I have next to nothing, usually my regen is enough that with a little efficiency I can get through it.
The main reason I might need help is that for whatever reason, I have throughput issues. perhaps dps is taking too much avoidable damage, perhaps the tank pulled too many mobs or positioned them incorrectly. Perhaps I erred at some point and failed to keep people topped up and now we are facing huge aoe damage from some source.
Here’s the problem with asking for help in party chat. It’s almost impossible to type something in party chat at the very same time I’m trying to maximize my healing throughput in an emergency. Well it’s possible to do it, but the chances are, my healing is going to suffer.
So I’m never going to type anything in party chat when I have a throughput problem. If we are using vent, it requires only a single button press to talk — I can manage that while thinking about and casting my spells in an optimal burst rotation. I can’t type “help hael pls” while doing that.
So if you want to help healing, you pretty much have to be situationally aware enough to know when to throw a heal on your own.
And that is exactly what I do when dpsing on a character with heals, just keep everybody’s health bars in my peripheral vision, and if I notice some precipitous drops, I stop dpsing and help out. If I myself have taken some damage and I decide to heal it, I almost always do it with an aoe heal if I can, so that it will splash some extra health around.
Of course, healing is so bloody easy most of the time in wrath that this is a non-issue. On my ele/resto shammy now 79 — since 4.0.1 when my mana issues in ele completely disappeared, I have taken to running (as the healer) in ele spec when the tank is decently geared and the dps are not drooling morons. I can somtimes top the dps, while keeping everybody healed no problem, even though my healing options are now extraordinarily limited outside of resto spec (no heals faster than 2 seconds).
As Cata mana issues become more important, this asking for help is more likely to be worth it.
yes healing and typing hard though with some of these stupidly long cast times theres 2.3 sec ( after haste – for communication) . I’m trying not to step on toes by over healing, and I ran with some friends, and asked when most of the part was down to 30% would you like me to heal, and there was indignation in his voice.
It was too much sugar too fast and I’m not even finished yet.
I expect to enjoy it over a long, nice, delightfull “meal” with an alt.
As for shadowpriesting I’m enjoying it a lot. MC is FUN. Select the right mob and rock the meters (Shadowpriest.com already has a nice list if you haven’t checked it yet). Mana becomes less of an issue as you start going up in the ilvl, also the spirit is priceless on the downtime between groups giving a little extra kick to the mana pool as the marking goes on. At ilvl 340 and already getting some mastery over CD management I no longer need drinking and very seldomly do I need Dispersion.
You’ll have fun I guess!!!
lots of people seem to be leveling their gathering profession alts and getting a heap of xp just from them, but yes I do want to take it slower the 2nd time. 3rd 4th.. 5th.. 6th might get tedious though, but thats a long way off.
Although I heal lots of stuff pre cata, haven’t set foot in the new dungeons as a heals. They look chalenging as for the saying help when one needs it, I get into the whole smashingcd’s and things and usually don’t have time to type help into chat unless it is that I am just a little undergeared/wasting mana on stupid.
Luck on yhour runs
i want to venture back into heroics as heals. Quicker Queues.. but am looking forward to getting some better gear so I don’t feel so fragile.
I felt unable to enjoy the content at the low levels because the XP pace seems to fast (I haven’t experienced the 80-85 content yet). I elaborate in this post. If it’s true at the higher levels as well, then I suspect it’s not entirely the player’s fault.
I made the pace fast – but I know one person in their race to the finish line wasn’t even stopping to loot unnecessarily, the end goal more important then the experience, but often I think its the experience that makes us the better player,
I tried to savor the cake. I tried to taste the individual layers, lick the frosting slowly, but it collapsed like a bad souffle, leaving mostly air in my mouth. there wasn’t much to taste there, unfortunately.
I’m a pretty slow quester/leveler/player regardless of the game I play. I tend to sight see a lot, read and sometimes reread the quest text, oooh and aaah over amusing references and fun cutscenes, remark on craziness of the NPC that is obviously stirring up something they have no real understanding of and that will probably end badly (I’m looking at you Harrison Jones and Bran Bronzebeard) Granted I was playing more densely, but even with sleeping and going on with usual real life stuff, I was 85 in 3.5 days. with hyjal and deepholm fully finished, about 50 quests in Vashjir, about 50ish I think (I just got to the dragon chain of quests when I stopped) in twilight highlands and 80 something in Uldum. half my guild was was 85 on day one.
so many quests are one sentence delivery kind. so many quests practical auto-complete for you, while you just go along for a ride.
I started questing on my hunter back then, and without reading the text much anymore (since I read it all the first time) I was 81 about an hour later.
sadly.
the cake is a lie 😦
I am most certainly enjoying my cake, taking time to explore the different layers, such as archeology, but still diligently doing my quests. I’ll hit 85 tonight. My server is restarting now, and I have 2 bars till that final ‘Ding!’. But I know what you mean. I just hope that those people who have somehow managed to shove the whole cake in their mouths (the people who are somehow already raiding) don’t QQ for the rest of this expansion that the cake wasn’t big enough, since they didn’t take the time to really appreciate the time and effort Blizz spent making it.
I’ll be taking my alt to 85 next, and as a rule she hates questing, but you kind of scared me, as she is a resto druid, and I had planned on Qing as heals XD Oh, and I love your analogy. Baking, and decorating a cake to perfection, is indeed very very hard. But hearing the ‘Ooh’s, Ahh,s and Yummy’s!’ make all the time and effort worth while 🙂
Well, servers came up, I got one more bar down, then the Christmas trees came up, and, well, I am still one bar away from dinging. I do so love the Holiday season, level capping be damned!