Designated Legion Welcome Post

Hello my dear one single reader,

WARNING: NO SPOILERS

Thank you again for sticking with me through all these years!

I had briefly moved onto play random games like Creativerse and FFXIV, but all that is the past as Legion is back and its a roaring good time.


Where to Begin: The Story

Questionable/10

I have been meaning to do the obligatory Legion Just Launched post earlier but, I had to play the darned thing and there's so much to talk about that it just isn't possible to complete this in one sitting!

I'll have to go into semi-sporadic notes mode with this one.

Where did the Broken Isles come from again? Last I remember, we defeated Archimonde for his now 1% drop mount, and he cast Gul'dan away into a portal.

So between that time and now Gul'dan has somehow revived the Legion by finding Sargeras' tomb?

Apparently the old Gul'dan had already found the tomb and was ripped to shreds, so the Broken Isles had existed before WOTLK?

The Questing

10/10

The stories of each zone were well done, while I felt that they were short and sweet (or I was so immersed it felt short?).

Azsuna: Basically a borough of Suramar, it is elfy and magical.

Stormheim: Basically Howling Fjord 2.0.

High Mountain: For whatever reason I loved the winding passes and the mountainousness of this zone. But its basically what Thunder Bluff wished it was.

Val'sharah: Be warned if you play a druid you WILL die of orgasmic overload.

Suramar: Basically my favourite zone EVER. You will see once you reach it.

Class Fantasy

While everyone was blasting their way to 110 and immediately doing mythic dungeons on the SECOND DAY OF RELEASE I was first levelling my Truny then decided to get ALL my level 100 characters (Only 5) their first weapon as well.

The class halls was what garrisons was testing out and it's what I thought garrisons SHOULD have been, a minor but integral part of the game, but does not take up 95% of all content. Very well done.

Below is a list of all the classes I have tried out:

Warlock: Destruction

We are basically the same, with the removal of embers for soul shards you no longer spam incinerate to fill up the gauge, which feels...kind of empty. Rather you wait for conflagrate and also immolate crits.

With Shadowburn thrown into the mix and our Demonic Power cleave, destruction actually feels a bit more chaotic and spastic. Will update once we start raiding.

Warlock: Demonology

Truny is 110.

So many demons. We lose metamorphosis, which was a clunky-ish in-and-out CD in exchange for summoning tons of demons which we empower. Single target sustained damage seems okay. A bit of a ramp-up. Can't really switch targets. Implosion is fun but higher ramp-up. Your weapon talks to you! I found Demo to be a bit more interesting than Destruction for levelling, since you can basically level up with Shadowburn without looking.

Warlock: Affliction

More DOTS, more self healing, but otherwise....eh I like seeing my spells. Will comment if I randomly raid with this spec.

Warlock: Summary

Overall very fun, as Demonic Armor makes us nearly invincible unless we're taking on 10+ mobs unexpectedly. Our class hall is pretty damn awesome. Shadowburn spam is fun. Multiple demons is fun. Phantom Singularity sounds bad-ass.

Druid: Boomkin

Turny is only 102.

One word: Full Moon. I'm glad the lame moon cycle is gone cause sometimes you just zone out and don't care outside a srs bsns environment.

Druid: Restoration

One word: Have you SEEN our artifact abilities? OP HAXORZ??

Druid: Summary

Well I've only gotten to 102 but Boomkin is just..FULL MOON. I might just heal to 110 cause wow Boomkins take SO much damage (aka more than 2% of health per fight) compared to the warlock and can't really take down more than 8 mobs at once.

Hunter: BM

Turby is only 101.

What happened?? Sure the weapon is cool but why do we feel so...clunky? So much waiting? I think it's actually just the actual tactile feedback of the class. Dire Beast has no sound so its just hitting a button. Cobra shot is fairly silent even though we use a gun. Our gun is silent. Kill Command is also relatively quiet now so its just like...hitting buttons. It's...no good. And what happened to Spirit bond? Why am I taking damage?? Why is my pet dying?

I can still chain-kill tons of mobs at once but can no longer do a dozen mobs? Or i'm just undergeared.

Hunter: Survival

Decided to try out our new melee spec since finding BM to be...amiss. It's actually quite fun. We're like..a pseudo wearrior with a pet, which somehow feels more like BM than the actual BM spec. There's actually a spell that's synergistic with the pet. Rather than spamming silent buttons? Not much AOE and also "survivability" is questionable against more than 3 mobs.

Hunter: Summary

Will try out MM ...way way later. Our self heals are down, pet heals are down, we're just....not OP? Can I say that? Why am I waiting on energy we're not a silly rouge or warrior? Why does BM feel so....disjointed? It's not...satisfying. I can't really seem to put my finger on it but it just feels....lacking somehow.

Demon Hunter: The DPS One

Trueny is 100.

Loldoublejump

Tried it, it's fun. Probably won't continue with it though. Because the only melee I enjoy has stealth...

Rogue: Assassination

Runy is 100.

That weapon scenario was fun times. Kind of like getting the Fangs of the Father, stealthy style. I might try out Subtlety after reading up on the changes today....

End Game

Wow, there's actually STUFF to do at 110. Lots of stuff. Like we have to decide what to do and what not to do stuff! World Quests have finally arrived. Remember when we used to say things like: "There should just be random quests around the world to help out the locals"? It's been answered.

Sure its mainly gear and AP grinding but since its a choose your own adventure thing it doesn't feel "forced". What I do is just do the 4 Emissary Quests then log off.

One good thing is we don't have to do BORING dungeons to gear up. Sure a lot of effort is put into designing dungeons and encounters, but really....5 mans are just...so much boring mob killing then some boring boss fight for a chance at gear, and for those of us who haven't quit but are sick of the gear treadmill, WQ's have really really helped with the boring dungeon grind.

Perhaps I'm just some jaded impatient wrath baby elitist but the time-to-effort ratio for boring normal dungeons that require no extra skill beyond what we've already developed over the past DECADE whatsoever is just ...no good. Eg. If someone hadn't also chain pulled some mobs outside a boss fight, Truny could have almost solo'd one of the bosses after everyone died in that ...underground dungeon. I don't know which one LMAO. See, we might not have amazing big dick dungeon damage burst but Warlocks are still borderline immortal?

My ultra arrogant attitude that has developed in the past couple expansions is that Truny can basically operate at around 18-27 ilvl above her equipped so I won't even bother gearing up until that is actually tested in the first raid encounter.

Reputations are back and are paced very nicely. You can choose to farm the hell out of WQ or just take everything in stride. Again SURAMAR IS AMAZING I WANNA LIVE THERE!

I'm starting to lose my train of thought and shoving everything under the End Game heading now.

Overall, Legion seems to have been very well done. Heck even the tailoring quest chain was entertaining and I don't think I'm even done yet! Other than BM feeling sort of...off kind of like how Warlocks kinda sucked in Cata everything is going well. We already know that end-game is WQ farming and that's pretty entertaining. Let's check back in in a few months yeah?

Love,

Truny, Turby, Turny

Designated Mount Farmer?

My gnome warlock Trumy has been on a roll ever since I got his tiny little ass up to level 100. First was the Thone of the Four Winds drake, and now within two weeks Invincible and Experiment B-12!

One raid I'll never have to run again!

Sadly I am still missing Blazing Drake off of Deathwing, so gotta keep painfully bringing down Alexstrasza's no longer clutch and doing the spine dance.

And there I have fulfilled my image quota for the month.

Trumy the Secret Warlock

Wow, I haven't updated since JANUARY?

Not much to talk about. I am still doing the same old routine.

Horde 100's

1. Do Mogu'shan Vaults for Elegon mount.
2. Do Nalak for mount.
3. Do Sha of Anger for mount.
4. Do Zul'Gurub for raptor mount  (Finally dropped this week!!)
5. Do Ulduar for Mimiron Head
6. Do ICC for Invincible
7. Do other things probably mount related.
8. Sometimes wait for Nalak when i'm refilling my Mogu Runes of Fates for Nalak.
9. Do ONE Timewalking for the 500 coins on my druid everytime Timewalking appears.

My transmog game is pretty strong, and my bags/bank are pretty much 100% full. Hopefully Legion brings the cloud storage to fruition.

Alliance Lowbies

I made a new hunter on a secret server on Alliance side and am enjoying questing through content I've never seen before

That's about it, nothing new. I will post some screenshots of random stuff though if anyone cares (I DO).

Turny the Tree

Demonology Warlock: 6.2.3

At least I think we're in 6.2.3?

I've found that a post I made almost FIVE years ago is still getting views. Why? What information are you looking for? The good old days? I read over my post and wow, there's been so many changes to our spec that I've completely forgotten of the old spells and rotations but I bet if they changed it back it'd be like riding a bike. A very convoluted five wheel bike that sometimes changes to four, then three, then five, then is a bus, then is a bike again.

*Please correct me if I have timings off, its been too long!*

Truny's Recollection of Demonology
In Wrath

I played very casually, usually alone on my hunter during wrath. The friends who introduced me to WoW slowly left and I was on the brink of quitting since I had only played for about half a year, took a year off and came back.

What prevented me from leaving this world was the discovery of alts: specifically Truny the Warlock and Turny the Tree. They played so differently than my hunter, and the "fantasy" of a demonology warlock totally spell-bound me.

I could turn into a different form to augment my strength and soulfire back then hit like a truck, rather than the meh smart-car it is now. And our "rotation" was still fairly simple as at Wrath.

In Cataclysm

Things started to get ...weird in Cataclysm and demonology ended up being a hybrid of Destruction and Affliction. I remember juggling BOTH Immolate and Corruption, AND shadowbolt, AND Soulfire?? I didn't play my warlock much since my Hunter and later Druid became a raid hero, obtaining my most proudful mount, the Lifebinder's Handmaiden.

In MoP

MoP finally "fixed" warlocks in that we were playable. Very playable. My hunter took a backseat this time and Truny completely wrecked face. Mainly as destruction. This was the class resource revamp expansion where we saw burning embers and Demonology inheriting its totally weird demon form with "vamped" up spells equivalent to normal spells.

This would set the precedent for the Demonology rotation we have today.

Now to clear things up I am totally fine with the current Demonology rotation given that its semi transplanted into my muscle memory but I do see how very very weird it is to someone JUST starting.

Remember the old demonology? Where we used soul fire procs, then they made it so soul fire was exclusively an execute? That's easy to deal with.

Remember managing corruption and immolate? Well, Hand of Gul'dan is KIND OF like immolate, but now if you have the class trinket off Archimonde it makes HoG kind of like what Legion is supposed to do, blast out imps.

So they kept adding and adding to our rotation. Now there was curse of doom and touch of chaos, you were supposed to use Demo form as a CD and spam touch to maintain your corruption, but also manage your demonic fury via chaos wave on multiple targets, or *HERE IT IS* pop out of demon form to use Hand of Gul'dan, and while you're out you might as well spam some shadow bolts and then re-cast corruption if its falling off.

Now most fights have adds, and adds = AOE = dps whore mode. And this is where you want maximum dps, so you pop back into demo form to chaos wave them.

In WoD

So here we are in WoD and nothing much has changed from this "old" but semi convoluted rotation. We can now even make use of the Cataclysm spell for some absolutely massive AOE burst. For those who are used to the rotation will find raids exceedingly fun and dyanmic, popping in and out to maximize. But for new players....

For New Players

I think a lot of classes make where their source of damage come from quite obvious:

Melee: Their weapons. Through hitting.
Paladins: Through holy shit. Such bright.
Warriors: So rage.
Rogues: Wow, such stealth. Much hide.
DKs: Wow easy mode.
Monks: My fist to your FAISE.
Druid: Claws.

Hunter: Self, or pet, or just self. Via shots.

Mage: Magical shit.
Priests: Shadow shit.
Boomkins: Lasers mofo.
Shamans: Nature shit..

Affliction Warlocks: Dots and drains and shit.
Dstruction Warlocks: Fire and Brimstone. And shit.

Demonology Warlocks: Our demons?...wait no, our nukes..well no we have dots, our...demon form? No...well its like a combination of all of it and none of it feels especially fantastic/satisfying OTHER than nailing down the rotation it otherwise doesn't fit the fantasy.

Closing

Now I do hope the new Demonology isn't excessively one-dimensional. To be honest when I don't feel like using my brain OR when its just single target I prefer to go Destruction.

But if I feel like attempting the dance, the payoff is totally worth the multi-facted waltz that is Demonology.

Truny the Demon

OH wait did you come here for info? I mean our class is going away in three quarters? Uh well here's the tl;dr of Demonology as at today 01/18/2016 (Thanks for myself for putting this since in a years time I will look back at this post to see how weird demo was or how good it used to be depending and pending).

1. Keep corruption up.
1b. Get Curse of Doom up early and watch it.
2. Refresh hand of guldan buff, OR save it for Chaos Wave on multiple AOE, otherwise try to keep 1 up and save 2, and possibly line up to Cataclysm and other CDs.
3. Spam shadowbolt.
4. Save soulfire procs, use some if it hits 10 and you're not in execute mode.
5. Depending on mobs, pop into demon mode and touch. Touch their bum. Mainly to refresh curse of doom and make sure corruption isn't going to fall off cause touch also refreshes corruption.
6. Never hit demonic fury cap
7. Execute with soul fire, but keep your dots up.
8. Feed your imps.
9. Please please find a good transmog for your Wrathguard, he deserves it.
Bonus. You are a MOBILE CASTER in demonology form take advantage of the fact that you can spam touch of chaos ON THE MOVE as well as cast Chaos Wave on the move.
Bonus 2. Use demonic leap to move instead of with your feet like the peasants. Who needs to run around a pool when you can jump over it?
Bonus 3. Don't expect to have insane l337 burst, your damage builds up as your dance improves.

Truny the Demon

Wow Down to 5.6 Subs: A Discussion

Not really a discussion as I know I will end up wandering away as I type. I had created this draft all the way back in AUGUST of 2015 that is how much I potentially don't really care anymore? Anyways.

I was waiting for this number for many months and I had exceeded my expectations as I had initially forecasted subs to be in the 5.2 million range.

Has WoW finally and officially become just a product, a "cash-cow", aka the cash-flow hedge?

I mean, it always has been but hear me out.

In our industry, and I am going to be purposefully vague, our products and services generate a massive amount of revenue but are affected by environmental/political/economic factors and can create unwanted fluctuations. Enter in hedging 101, "hedge your bets" aka make sure you have a comfort blanket, a blanket made out of cash, reliable cash. Mm soft silky lustrous delicious cash. What's the best way to provide yourself with a comfortable low risk yet steady/stable cash flow? Hey, subscriptions!

In the real world, this can be seen by owning multiple properties and renting them out hence securing income without having to do much after all the paperwork is through.

Now I'm pretty sure we could all feel this throughout the expansions but the executive decision side of the game's PASSION has all but worn thin and WoD is the perfect example of what it looks like when content is just created for the sake of content.

Now there are tons of factors involved, most likely mid to mid-senior level management decisions/conflicts but one of the enduring comments of WoD is that "The art and story is great but everything else is just meh".

We can see here that art/story are unaffected by the gameplay/mechanics/delivery aspect of the game, but it is the decisions made in regards to the vision of the game is what I am most concerned about.

Stop blaming the "devs" I truly do think that if they had it their way WoD would still be blowing our minds right now. Wow such blow, so mind ..blown.

They attempted to present WoW in a pseudo-casual/mobile model with garrisons/shipyards and possibly trying to curb gold sellers by eliminating professions and made everything just really....weird.

I think what they think will retain subs might backfire: "People have invested so much time in their toons/mounts they won't leave".

Well, I've labored to collect 250+ mounts(except for the purple flying tiger) and am an obsessive collector of mini pets, I still managed to get four toons to 100 (2 of which I stopped using cause ew) and the rest are at 90 and almost every Klupty and all low level Turny/Turny/Turby you can find in the wowarmory are mine.

Pending how they deliver the next expansion may make or break these ti-

That is where I officially left off in August 2015, and I am now wondering what I was going to say? Make or break these ti-?? Timing? Ties?

Anyhow. Regardless of my personal investment, if its crap people will leave regardless of how great it used to be. WoD right now is in a weird place. This "expansion" is more like a preview of the next when Legion actually invades. This expansion could have been the first few patches of Legion. Hmmmm.

I am already liking the preliminary info on how Demonology warlocks are going to play like: A DEMON specialist (most likely maniacal) who sends swarms of demons into the fray.

All I have to say now is "Let's see". Let's see if the fantasy for Legion will hold strong from beginning to the end and not just end at the cut-scenes of the new zones.

Truny the Skeptical

How Timewalking of You to Join Us

Hi 2016

I won't make the same mistake as last year by having my first post of the year occur in February!

So what has the triple-crew been up to? I have mainly been trolling around FFXIV what with real housing and professions to do and what not.

On the WoW front, I do my mission tables on Turby the Hunter, and he is back in Pandaria doing archaeology. My goal is to acquire the Tol'vir mount this year!

Truny will do her pet battles and rare hunting in Tanaan for sport, and log in every 2 weeks for her free mythic caches.

Turny is my designated time-walking dungeon hero.

Every week time-walking arrives, Turny the Tree will pop online and start healing like a crazy person. This time I even remembered to do FIVE dungeons for the free gear rather than just the first time 500 points turn-in!

Now I have a gripe with the ICC 5-mans. We got Pit of Saron and the mobs seemed to be hitting EXTRA hard and that's when I remembered that this came out after what...T9? So most people would be in the range of 245-251, raiders maybe higher at 264+ but all our gear was scaled to 200!

We still managed to clear since we were STOOPIT but wow....scaling much? What happened to the good old days of throwing on 1 rejuv and life bloom and then go preparing lunch? Fun times though. For a character who I don't think has even set foot in Highmaul any 695+ free gear is good, right?

Timewalking

I haven't really given Time-walking the discussion that it deserves. When it was announced we were all in our "WoD sucks" phase and Time-walking just looked like a distraction of psuedo-content.

Sure, its just re-scaling old content, and doing the Outlands dungeons was a challenge but I didn't start in BC like all the cool kids. I started in Wra- wait not again! Come back!

Ok you're calm?

I started in Wrath, and yesterday's time-walking was my first wrath time-walking and I'd have to say the nostalgia is real. Wrath was where I went from unknowing noob to core raider to DPS-whore-who-also-always-died-last. It was in wrath that I discovered that raiding wasn't so fancy shmancy exclusive big dick club that we were waxed nostalgic about.

Running halls of lightning, all the old reflexes and habits kicked in. Why did I run behind this mob? Oh yeah, it shoots a death laser. I remembered all the mechanics! Could I say the same for the WoD dungeons? Ok maybe I could but...ok nevermind.

The Supreme elitists may say that wrath made the game super easy and gear became excessively available, but then once you meet these same supreme elitists on the battlefield you realize you are more efficient and effective in both output and damage mitigation even with their fancy gear vs your welfare epics.

WoD 2016

Nope, nothing to see here.

Turny the Tree