Like A Rolling Stone

I confess, I got it wrong. The Timeless Isle is brilliant for gearing alts and ultimately it will result in a gear reboot, with every character able to get around iLevel 500 without too much of a problem. My initial thoughts was that a main character would be able to kill all the nasties and then send the gear home. Whilst this approach is possible it is not the quickest and smartest route. The best way is to send each of your Alts to the Timeless Isle so that at the minimum they can spend an hour there and do the initial quests.

Day 2 saw the Guild raiding, they sensibly left it a day after the patch, which left me soloing Timeless Isle on my Hunter. This time the pace was so much slower with 90% of the Island uncovered and explored. Having seen some of the achievements I decided to try and fill in some the gaps, by killing mobs I had previously ignored and searching out new types of Treasure Chests.

This resulted in a lot of platform action, of which I do not excel, like balancing on a yardarm on the pirate ship and tightrope walking across 3 different ropes at differing levels. The things we do for treasure.

There are certainly a lot more quests than I was lead to believe. Icy Veins in their overview describe questing as:

Questing. There are a few quest lines that take place on the island, including the last part of the Mists of Pandaria legendary quest line. There are also two daily and two weekly quests, and a cooking quest line that rewards you with the recipe for crafting a raid cauldron that provides +300 food to everyone in the raid.

I suggest doing all the starter quests on each character and then just doing the two dailies and  2 weekly quests on your main. I got stuck on the cooking questline, but thanks to Icy Veins I now need to do The Temple of the Jade Serpent to kill the Sha of Doubt. There are so many Sha's that I lost track of the location of this one. Icy Veins suggests that you should stay in the instance:

"After killing the Sha, do not exit the instance, because you need to turn in the quest to the scroll in the same room as the Sha. Also, try to get the tank to stay with you, because the next quest, Bad Feeling, Worse Result, requires you to kill an elite mob on the balcony at the end of the room where you fought the Sha of Doubt. To defeat this mob, just avoid all things thrown at you."

Another useful piece of advice is killing Great Turtle Hatchlings for the 50 Epoc Stones. I was finding the going quite slow, so this should speed up the process no end.

The one thing that I have really noticed about the Timeless Isle is how easy it is to die, unless you have got your complete game face on. R yesterday mentioned in the comments about the huge Frogs that leave a nasty coating of venom which will continue long after they have died. The frogs themselves are not a difficult fight, but I only noticed a problem when I sent my Cat into attack to find it had expired on the floor. There are other mobs that will charge and remove your health bar to around 25%. The difficulty level is definitely there, and I am starting to think that Blizzard is unsure about solo and group content. Grouped the content is very easy, solo you need to be careful. Which one do you want us to do Blizzard?

 Icy Veins gives suggestions about where it is safe to farm for Rep, and I am starting to think they have got a good point. The Rares seem easy enough so why not let the whole zone have group loot or Rare tapping.

BBB yesterday made a good point about the new minimap Rares appearing, in Pandaria and not just in the Timeless Isle. On a brief sojourn to the Isle of Thunder, I was able to snag a Rare without having to go out of my way to look for it. This will be a huge benefit for anyone still visiting the Island. 

Sugar Sugar

Sugar, ahh,
Honey, honey.
You are my candy girl,
And you got me wanting you

The Archies

This song has been bouncing around my head since the Grumpy Elf described the Timeless Isle as,

"Coins and gear tokens drop like candy.

Sitting at work and waiting for news of the new patch is rather painful and surprisingly few bloggers managed to write up their experiences, I guess they are still working out what to do with all the Candy Loot.

 I was fretting yesterday about how to get to the Timeless Isle, but I should not have worried, with Blizzard using the incoming message as soon as you enter the Vale. A quick teleport and you are stood opposite the new Flight Path attendant.

Blizzard described the experience on the Timeless Isle as, "Open-world adventuring at your own pace.", but does this adequately describe the zone. There are quests to guide you along your first tentative steps, which is like having stabilisers on a child's bicycle, but ultimately you feel compelled just to roam and see what the world contains. Certainly there are lots of things to click on and treasure chests lurk in dark corners. 

The mini map will draw you attention to any new activities in your new vicinity, like rares and treasure chests, so keep an eye on the map and the other eye on the screen, because respawn rates are rather crazy at the moment. The difficulty level of the island was described by Blizzard as:

"Being able to take on large creatures by yourself also means that long after Patch 5.4 comes out, when the number of people visiting the island dwindles, you’ll still be able to bring new characters there and engage with everything it has to offer."

Having read Grumpy and the fact that he died several times, mostly to PvP but the point remained that this Island may contain some hidden nasties and the answer is definitely in the affirmative. If you take iLevel as a reasonable indicator it might shed some light on Blizzard's statement. If Grumpy is 536 and Bob is 504 and a new 90 is 458, then I predict some problems. Almost everything is 90, 91, 92, Elite or Rare, which would mean that unless your new level 90 can simply drop threat at a moments notice then they are going to become well acquainted with the Spirit Healers and Graveyards.

I usually run my Hunter as Beast Master with a Ferocity Pet, but it soon became obvious that it would be hard to keep my pet alive this was. Pet Tanking is the new methodology and possibly a respec is required to generate some additional healing from Spirit Bond. In some respects I am tempted to do the Isle on a Blood Death Knight, all the gear is BoA so what does it matter which character brings home the bacon.

With so much iLevel 496 gear dropping on the Isle, it makes me wonder why I was so obsessed with the Battlefield:Barrens, I could simply have taken 6 weeks off WoW, enjoyed the summer and come back to the the game in September refreshed.  The Justice points that I have been carefully collecting are almost useless as well. The best gear available with Justice is the gear formerly with the 5.1 Operation:Shieldwall vendor which oddly enough offers iLevel 496. Why spend the Justice points when you can wait for a drop? At the current rate I should be able to clothe all my characters in less than a month, and maybe as short as 2 weeks if lucky with the right drops. So far on my Hunter I am a magnet for boots of any material and mail Chestpieces. These are great for converting to Epic items and either vendoring or disenchanting, the price of Enchants is set to nosedive.

The area is considerably smaller than I was expecting but then again a quarter of the zone is only open to the Elite Cloak wearing brigade who are fortunate enough to have done those LFR chores week after week. I do not begrudge anybody who was patient enough to complete the Wrathion quest line. What is more of a concern is the stupid idea for getting to the highest parts of the zone in the mouth of an Albatross [*], that takes the longest route known to man and who moves slower than the average gastropod. No wonder the peaks have treasure chests on top, nobody can be bothered to wait that long. In some respects the Pandarians should telling us to slowdown, and should be more British in asking people to queue in an orderly line.

In recent weeks I have been rapidly using up my supply of Exotic Leather, and even started farming it with Raptorleaf seeds at the Sunsong Ranch. The Timeless Isle provides a multitude of corpses, including snakes, bulls, crabs and cats. The number of people with skinning on their mains is probably quite small and this leaves a huge pile for the discerning skinners amongst us. The extra bonus is the Timeless coins that drop from skinned corpses, makes it a double win.

With all this Timeless coinage arriving in my pocket, and everybody on the Isle wanting to sell me something it is like being at a Bazaar. Never wanting to foolishly part with my money, although I did buy some keys, (I couldn't resist) for the cave with treasure chests in it (I felt like Indiana Jones trying to choose the Holy Grail). I have discovered the following list from Battle.net forums:

Mistwalker Ai, Located in the Celestial Court

496 tokens for 7500 coins

476 Weapons for 10000 coins

Burden of Eternity 50000 coins

535 Trinkets 50000 coins

Mogu Rune of Fate - 2500 coins

Time Worn Journal - 500 coins

 

Mistweaver Ku - Shaohao Rep

 

The scroll of challange is used to summon a group of elite mobs that are rather hard to kill. It is used as a part of the Shaohao questline.

Vanity Masks - Friendly - 100 coins each

Scroll of Challenge - Honoured - 500 coins

Time Lost Artifact - Honoured - 7500 coins, 476 trinket that ports to the Isle

Harmonious Porcupette - Revered - 7500 coins, battle pet

Celestial Defenders Medallion - Revered - 2500 coins, transforms you into a "celestial defender"

 

Speaker Gulan

 

This guy sells a "censer of burning agony" for 7500 coins. When you activate this you become pvp flagged to all players. When you kill a player you are rewarded with a "bloody coin" which can be spent here

Black Ash - 1 coin - Reduces targets healing taken by 90% for 10 seconds

Pouch of White Ash - 20 coins - trinket that increases pvp power and resilience by 5641 for 30s

Fire-Watcher's Oath - 50 coins - Transforms you into a Yangol

Reins of the Ashhide Mushan Beast - 500 coins - A mushan beast mount.

 

Blizzard describe the currency rewards as:

"The currency of the Timeless Isle is Timeless Coins, which players can use to purchase Mogu Runes of Fate, additional BoA gear, pets, mounts, and some just-for-fun items. The island also contains a new faction—one that forges a mystic bond with the lost Emperor of Pandaria, Shaohao himself—that will grant you access to even more cosmetic rewards. Gaining faction with Emperor Shaohao isn’t gated, but it does require battling some of the most ancient and powerful creatures the island has to offer."

If the coins are merely for spending then, I believe that a 535 Trinket would be my number one priority at the princely sum of 50000 coins, with a Mushan Mount coming in a close second.

I nearly forgot that there is a new faction, and a fully Exalted reputation bar is always a reasonable motivator for many players. I am not sure whether this zone will have the legs to last for any considerable time and I expect it to be almost deserted in about 6 weeks, but for now, I am happy to collect my daily candy.

[*] Apologies to the person who was enjoying his slow ride to China, before some stupid Hunter attacked the Albatross that was carrying him.

What's New Pussycat?

What do we know now that patch 5.4 is a day old? Well for those of us in Europe, we can only go on the murmurings from the US servers and those of you lucky enough to have got some game time under your belt. So here is a roundup for what to expect. Big Bear Butt is exploring the wide open spaces like a modern day David Livingstone or Christopher Columbus. The Godmother is going to fill in forms for all her many offspring.

We have not heard from the Grumpy Elf but he has already foretold his plans for yesterday.

Kaliope is of course giving some sound advice regarding crafting, it seems to involve smacking around the local inhabitants. This is good advice so I will repeat it here:

Blacksmiths: - Farm Pandaria mobs until you get the Balanced Trillium Ingot plans - craft one!

Engineers: - Farm Pandaria mobs until you get Chief Engineer Jard's Journal and learn the recipes from it. Pop your Blingtron daily for a chance at the new Lil Bling pet!

Scribes: - Farm Pandaria mobs to collect new Glyph recipes as well as the Crafted Medallion of Tenacity.

Leatherworkers: - Farm Pandaria mobs for the Hardened Magnificent Hide recipe as well as the Drums of Rage recipe.

Tailors: - Farm Pandaria mobs for the the Celestial Cloth recipe and craft one to learn a random Crafted Malevolent recipe.

Cooks: Visit the Timeless Isle to start the quest chain for Noodle Carts! I'm sad to say that I was not able to put this post together in time for the patch. I got stuck on the stupid Jade Temple boss and could not kill him. Unfortunately on the PTR player gear was scaled down to 463 inside the 85 dungeons. I have no idea if this will be the case when 5.4 goes live.

I am guessing that most of my Alts are going to get at least a little playtime depending on how long it takes for the recipes to drop from "Farming Pandaria Mobs". To be brutally honest I know there is a Timeless Isle and a starter Quest, but I have no idea where it is or how to get there. I get the feeling the game might have some serious arrows pointing me in the right direction, similar to the Darkmoon Faire arrows.
 

Ready To Rock

A new week and the countdown begins Tuesday and Wednesday will see Patch 5.4 install itself on our computers. With plenty of new material to go at. are you Ready to Rock?

Blizzard have made it nice and easy for the transition and you can find their guide here, they have even done a preparation for the new patch. I have spent a full month preparing for Wednesday and it is only now I am starting to ask myself why did I bother.

Without a time constraint we all probably spend a little time dawdling or faffing about, but if you are given a date for completion, then we all get on with it, even if you leave it to the last minute. "Homework must be in on Tuesday", "I want that report on my desk at the close of play today", we have all been there and we know what the punishment is likely to be for failure to comply. WoW has no punishment, but we apply our own rationale, complete with rewards and punishments One such example is:

The conversion rate for Justice Points to Honor Points have changed. The conversion rate is now 500 Justice per 250 Honor (up from 375 Justice per 250 Honor).

If I don't do it now and end up converting at a later stage it was cost an extra 150 honor/justice to convert, is this the end of the world? no of course not. It is the equivalent of doing a weekly shop at several different supermarkets to get the best price. It is nice in theory, but the usual result is that we just visit one conveniently located supermarket and buy everything from the one shop, mostly because it is just easier.

The main thrust of my preparation is to do with the acquisition of Justice points, which involves dailies, scenarios and the occasional Heroic 5 man on multiple characters. When I need a break I have been completing fishing and cooking, and for some stupid reason I need to complete the "Way of" on all my characters. Getting to 600 is not sufficient I need all the specialisms and all the Banquets. The cooking process needs lots of different fishes, so I go off and do fishing, and that leads to daily Anglers quests. I guess I just get easily distracted from my main focus.

With a new patch, Blizzard releases the new code weeks in advance, so we end up playing some hybrid game with the client and server slightly out of sync. The result certainly in Europe has been for logging on issues, disconnects, poor framerates, terrible lag spikes, and the game just hanging. All of this bodes well for the incoming patch. The environment needs to be stable before you make changes. You wouldn't do open heart surgery if a patient was running a fever.

In another useless bit of preparation, I installed the latest set of addons. I say useless because even when the addon heroes have had several weeks testing their products  on the PTR, it turns out that the Live version is slightly different or the impact of thousands of people on a server causes unforeseen problems. The Tuesday of a patch release is filled with Blizzard hotfixes and Addon updates.

The only addon that caused any problems was TradeSkillMaster which apparently is a whole new beastie. Needless to say I can now no longer do mass Glyph updates on the Auction House, which is probably the main reason that anybody would use the addon in the first place. Fortunately Euripides has come to my rescue, and I will give it a go tonight or just bin it off.

I have said it more than once, but it still stands, I am glad that the European Realms have an extra day to fix all the bugs.

Photograph

Yesterday I took possession of a new work computer, which I have syphoned from another project. This is one of the perks of working in IT, but the problem I have is moving all my junk onto the new computer. It is not just the applications that need uninstalling from one machine and reinstalling on the other, it is the data that I have been hoarding over the last 2 years.

It was during this process of reassignment of my data, that I opened Dropbox. For those of you not in the know Dropbox is:

Dropbox is a file hosting service, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, and client software. Dropbox allows users to create a special folder on each of their computers, which Dropbox then synchronizes so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of which computer is used to view it. Files placed in this folder also are accessible through a website and mobile phone applications.

My main use of this function is for updating WoW addons. I can download at work and drop them in a folder and then pick them up at home. It was really impressive when I first encounter this technology, but it is fairly old hat now that everybody is talking about cloud computing. The previous method was using FTP servers which was rather unpleasant method for the average user.

I discovered in my addon folder that I had copied my WoW screenshots, into a Dropbox folder, so for want of anything better to post here are some screenshots from Bobs's World. 

 This is from my time levelling my Panda Monk through the Eastern Plaguelands. This area is vastly improved since the Cataclysm and I particularly enjoyed the Caravan quest hubs.

A trip down memory lane, who can forget the starting areas in WotLK. the Lich King expansion utilised quite a number of gimmicky quests and the use of vehicles. The one above is from the Howling Fjords and ends in the giant leap across half the zone to get to the next hub. The other notable quest from the area was firing yourself across a chasm on a harpoon.

 

 

A 3 part screen capture from the Cleansing quest where you leap off the mountain after killing a carbon copy of yourself.

A chance to act like Crocodile Dundee. This was my favourite zone in WotLK, it was full of skins, ores and herbs, what is not to like about this area.

 Flying around Azeroth is something we have to do to get from A-B, but sometimes the beauty of what is so familiar is lost on us. "WoW's graphics are outdated", maybe the engine is ageing, but I like the cartoony feel to the place, and it is not without detail and certainly not with beauty.

 

 

This is a sequence that made me laugh, and in the end is quite difficult to capture. The scene is from Duskwood and the Vul'Gol Ogre Mound. I was simply trying to level Archaeology at the end of the last patch. The Ogre runs headlong at a level 85 Hunter saying, "Me Crush, You Die". The hunter in melee range merely looks at the Ogre with contempt and the result is a dead Ogre.

 

This is from my recent experiment at Tanking on my Blood Death Knight. I kind of wish that Skinning was a Secondary profession, or that we could have 3 Primary professions.

 

Another scene for the Barrens and my mage was having a bit fun with the Kor'kron Outriders. Some of these Hunters sit astride a Battlewolf which I polymorphed into a cat. The cat runs around aimlessly and the Outrider is left trying to outgun a mage at distance.

Every so often it is possible to capture glitches in the system, this one looks something out of a scene from the Matrix.

Oi put that kite away!, you will not find any wind in this Inn.

Feelin' Groovy

The Godmother is hosting Hunter Week and this got me thinking about the changes that are upcoming in the next patch. Just in case you don't play a hunter (and to be quite honest why not?), they are nerfing hunters by doing away with the single best cooldown in the Hunter's arsenal. Below is the list of changes:

Hunter

General

• The following Hunter pet abilities no longer cost Focus to use: Dash, Dive, and Charge.
• Arcane Shot now deals 125% ranged weapon damage (up from 100%) and had its focus cost increased by 50%.
• Counter Shot is now a baseline interrupt ability learned by all Hunters at level 22.
• Deterrence now has a 3-minute cooldown (up from 2 minutes) but has 2 charges.
• Disengage now has a cooldown of 20 seconds (down from 25 seconds).
• Explosive Trap had its overall damage decreased by 30%. Proportionately, more damage has been removed from the initial damage than the periodic effect.
• Hunter's Mark now has a duration of 20 seconds while in PvP combat (down from 30 seconds).
• Readiness has been removed.
• Revive Pet no longer requires the Hunter to have line-of-sight to their pet.
• Stampede damage dealt by pets when the ability is used outside of an Arena or Battleground is no longer reduced by 75%

Beast Mastery

• Beast Cleave's range has been increased to 10 yards (up from 8 yards).
• Kill Command damage has been increased by 34%.

Marksman

• Aimed Shot now deals 450% ranged weapon damage (up from 350%).
• Binding Shot is no longer a Marksman Hunter ability and is once again a talent.

Survival

• Explosive Shot damage has been increased by 27%.
• Explosive Trap no longer shares a cooldown with Black Arrow but can no longer activate Lock and Load.

Hidden away in the middle of these changes is Readiness has been removed. 

I am not a 100%  sure, but  I think this was originally a Marksman Spell and was made available for all Hunter specs for the MoP expansion. I am guessing that this one spell made Hunters the kings of PvP in this expansion after years of being hounded out of battlegrounds. Hunters used to suffer from a terrible affliction called minimum range, where the weapon changed from a ranged weapon (Gun,Xbow, or Bow) to a melee weapon. This left the hunter with 3 offensive spells, auto, wing clip and tickle me with a feather. This was a severe problem if a warrior could ever close enough to hit you. Rogues would generally stunlock you to death and it is the main reason that PvP hunters permanently sat on a Ice Trap. With MoP all the abilities were aligned for the first time, no minimum range, Readiness, and a viable Beastmaster spec. Hunters had a massive prolonged burst damage, with the ability to drop all cooldowns and then do it all again.

The problem with cooldowns especially of the 5 minute variety, is that you always want them available, just in case. In a raid you either use it a the start of the boss fight or during the burn phase, and in PvP you have a Win button, but then for the next 5 minutes you have no emergency button it is already gone. For the good players out there they time these cooldowns to perfection, and for the less experienced we waste them or at least waste part of it. In the worse case scenario, we hold onto the emergency button for an emergency that never comes. It is for this reason that I will probably benefit more from the changes than a good player.

A good player was able to stutter step and strafe when movement was an issue, this issue was removed in the last expansion and the Aspect dance became a thing of the past. My timid use of cooldowns affects my DPS output across all characters, and so my Hunter will probably only see the buffs to Arcane Shot and Kill Command, but I will need to weave more Cobra Shots into the rotation, which also means that I am less likely to have Serpent Sting ever drop off.

I hate the fact that PvP affects PvE in this way, and I feel sorry for the Hunters that can use Readiness properly, but in general this move will probably be a good step in reducing the number of Huntards we encounter, although the term Huntard seems to have dropped out of popular usage. No more running out of ammo, forgetting to feed our pets or rolling on every item.

The complexity of Hunters is being diminished all the time and the phrase "Easy to play - difficult to Master" will just become "easy to play". Now Blizzard needs to tackle the Spell bloat that afflicts Hunters.

Carry On Regardless

11 Months ago we rushed out of the starting gates in an attempt to speed our characters through the new expansion. Once at level 90 we opted to run hundreds of dailies making up the Reputation grinds. This was an activity that we probably only did on our main characters and not the alts that came through much later.

Now with only a week left until Patch 5.4 drops and a chance to enact some vengeance on Garrosh for all the evil deeds he has overseen in the last 12 months. I have used my time in Patch 5.3 to catch up on some alt time, and just like in previous expansion I have not completed all the original expansion content and merely stopped at level 90 in the pursuit of better gear.

This in reality means that I have Krasarang Wilds, Valley of the Four Winds, Dread Wastes and half of Townlong Steppes to complete. Of these options Dread Waste and Townlong Steppes over the chance to increase our alts standing with 2 major factions, Shado Pan and the Klaxxi.

Dread Wastes was a fearsome place at level 89 but with a bunch of Epics the fear factor soon disappears and it is a nice pace of quest gathering when being attacked by multiple mobs at the same time does not mean having to drop all your cooldowns just to survive. After a nearly a year away from these zones we have become immune to how well Blizzard matched the levelling difficulty of this zone. Stat inflation means we can now wander through the zone with one eye on the game and the other watching television.

The main reason for revisiting this content was due to the fact that my Mage who is my Tailor/Enchanter never got to Exalted with the August Celestials. The Quartermaster of this faction has the following goodies available:

Item	Profession	Reputation
Formula: Enchant Bracer - Super Intellect	Enchanting	revered
Formula: Enchant Bracer - Greater Agility	Enchanting	revered
Formula: Enchant Bracer - Exceptional Strength	Enchanting	revered
Pattern: Royal Satchel	Tailoring	exalted

The driving force was ultimately for bigger bags, but I am also struggling for decent wrist enchants with the 3 enchants missing from my arsenal.  

Judging from the above picture, it is going to take a little more work to achieve in a timely manner. Fortunately there is more ways to garner Reputation than the original 1100 available on a Daily basis. I am trying to supplement this by Farming, and championing the August Celestials in Daily Heroics and Scenarios.

I was hooked into helping the Klaxxi and Shado Pan, only by the fact that I had quests that were completed but never handed in. I appear unable to walk past a yellow exclamation mark without taking a peek.

I doubt whether I will be able to sustain doing all the regular quests on more than a couple characters, but ultimately that is more than I managed with either Icecrown or Twilight Highlands. I guess it depends how long Blizzard make us wait for a new expansion without any new content. I firmly believe that Patch 5.4 is not the last one in Mists of Pandaria.