WotLK - Questing, Leveling and Instancing - Page 2

Jebraltar · 11/14/08, 11:52 PM

Originally Posted by Xunwael

Well, Ingvar hit my ZA/Badge geared warrior for 11k instantly with his smash attack in the second form, though it can be resisted with shadow he seems a little too strong to me.

As mentioned, you're supposed to take a few steps to the side, that attack is a frontal cone and meant to kill you.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning is that Dark Smash seems to be an interrupt, so your healer/DPS should cancel their casts when he starts casting it.

Malan · 11/14/08, 11:54 PM

Originally Posted by Xunwael

But, seriously, he's stationary while preforming the attack?

It has a cast bar ... so yes.

Xunwael · 11/15/08, 1:01 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

It has a cast bar ... so yes.

There are spiders in stratholme that can move while casting stuff with their cast bars, and I'm sure there are others that do the same as well, so that's not really conclusive. But off-topic and irrelevant anyway since you've all confirmed that he doesn't follow.

Addled · 11/15/08, 1:16 AM

Is the Battle for Undercity buggy for anyone? I ported to sewer just outside UC, got the quest from Varian, and nothing. Waited for 20 minutes before I just left. I spoke to everyone there; no prompts to move the event along.

Also, for you engineers out there, make sure to watch for gas clouds in Borean Tundra and Dragonblight. I already have 2-3 eternal fires/waters/airs (each eternal requires 10 of Crystallized <Element>) just from my mote extractor.

Xequecal · 11/15/08, 5:08 AM

One thing that is interesting is that every single 71-80 level requires almost the same amount of XP. It's ~1.5m, every subsequent level only requires ~20k XP more than the last one. So that means 71 should be the longest level, and each one after that should go faster.

Plea · 11/15/08, 9:27 AM

Oh heck yea, engineers started rich.

Valerian · 11/15/08, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Xequecal

One thing that is interesting is that every single 71-80 level requires almost the same amount of XP. It's ~1.5m, every subsequent level only requires ~20k XP more than the last one. So that means 71 should be the longest level, and each one after that should go faster.

Along with this all quests give roughly the same 20k xp rewards as well. I was doing green quests in the Fjord at 74 and they were giving as much XP as grizzly hills quests. Since the mobs are a fair bit easier to kill this CAN be viable depending on zone populations.

KraxisSingular · 11/15/08, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by Typhon

On a slightly tangential note, do we know if there is any use of phasing technology in the starter zones? It would be rather disconcerting to come back to the Warsong Farms in 10 levels time to find them *still* under attack?

While technically not what you ask for, phasing technology is apparently being used in the last bossfight of Ahn'kahet where you have to fight shades of the 5 partymemebers alone, and then help your buddies as they 'spawn'. You are all alone until someone finishes his/her shades. I can't imagine such a situation before the expansion.

If you haven't experienced it I highly endorse a run of the instance. It is beautifully made (take a second to admire the view when you enter it), and all the bosses seem to have something to make them interesting (if not terribly hard).

And I can't let this go: I'm quite annoyed at Anub-arak being so easily killed in such a low instance. They better let him do a reverse Kael and have him stomp all over raids in Icecrown.

Liebestod · 11/15/08, 12:51 PM

This should be on topic... ooc, does anyone know exactly what it was that Athene and his group were doing that got his char banned at level 79? From the looks of things, they were having someone kill spawns on Anub'Arak for exp. While this could obviously be construed as not working as intended, I don't see this as really exploitative unless the spawns are giving more exp than they should (in the beta sometimes they'd add new content where the vehicle quests where you had to kill 250 mobs in 5 minutes or whatever would give normal exp and people would exploit that.)

Roywyn · 11/15/08, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

This should be on topic... ooc, does anyone know exactly what it was that Athene and his group were doing that got his char banned at level 79? From the looks of things, they were having someone kill spawns on Anub'Arak for exp. While this could obviously be construed as not working as intended, I don't see this as really exploitative unless the spawns are giving more exp than they should (in the beta sometimes they'd add new content where the vehicle quests where you had to kill 250 mobs in 5 minutes or whatever would give normal exp and people would exploit that.)

X + 4 friends are in an instance.
X leaves the group, pulls and tags a bunch of mobs, the 4 friends kill them.
X alone gets all the XP and kill credit for the mobs. X gets reinvited before auto-hearthing after 60s.

Rinse and repeat. Not sure about the mobs, if they were special.
But the drop-tag-kill-reinvite technique led to the ban.

[Edit]: They apparently used Anub'arak, who burrows and then spawns adds, like Ouro.
They seemed to grind the XP that those adds gave.

Nymh leveled by tab-dotting mobs in Grizzly Hills with an absurd respawn timer while having a healer out of group.

Liebestod · 11/15/08, 1:12 PM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

X + 4 friends are in an instance.
X leaves the group, pulls and tags a bunch of mobs, the 4 friends kill them.
X alone gets all the XP and kill credit for the mobs. X gets reinvited before auto-hearthing after 60s.

Rinse and repeat. Not sure about the mobs, if they were special.
But the drop-tag-kill-reinvite technique led to the ban.

What, just inside instances maybe? I'm pretty sure that's allowed in the outside world, that's how the "legit" 80 leveled up.

bv728 · 11/15/08, 3:16 PM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

What, just inside instances maybe? I'm pretty sure that's allowed in the outside world, that's how the "legit" 80 leveled up.

The Anubarak trick involves abusing easily killed but still technically elite (and thus worth double XP) adds in a boss fight and degroup/group to get around the autohearth. I think that's pretty clearly different than the Legit's use of one out of group healer and some rapidly spawning non-elite mobs in the world - the Autohearth is a mechanic to prevent similar tricks in most instances.

Montegomery · 11/15/08, 3:18 PM

Originally Posted by Liebestod

What, just inside instances maybe? I'm pretty sure that's allowed in the outside world, that's how the "legit" 80 leveled up.

At first glance the two approaches appear the same, but there are several differences ranging from technical to philosophical.

Philosophically Nymh's approach was something they could have done on their own, the healer simply made it more convenient. Without the healer Nymh could still have been grinding those mobs. Athene's strategy would become completely impossible without the group.

There's also a philosophical issue in the design. The mobs inside an instance are designed for a group of five players, with the rewards intended to be split between them. Athene's strategy manipulated game mechanics to circumvent this intention and redirect the rewards to one player.

Lastly, there's a technical issue in the circumvention of the auto-hearth. Players who aren't in your group are not supposed to be in the instance with you. Athene's group abused the auto-hearth mechanic to work around this restriction.

In aggregate these factors are what make the one approach legitimate and the other abuse.

mek · 11/15/08, 4:55 PM

Tap leveling has been around forever, and was "exploited" in the same way last expansion. (Frankly, it's not even exploiting, as there is no net gain - 1-4 people are sacrificing their time and xp to accelerate another's gain.) If it was an "exploit," Blizzard would have fixed it after the world first 70 got there with it.

IKT · 11/15/08, 6:44 PM

Originally Posted by Addled

Is the Battle for Undercity buggy for anyone? I ported to sewer just outside UC, got the quest from Varian, and nothing. Waited for 20 minutes before I just left. I spoke to everyone there; no prompts to move the event along.

I can confirm there is something wrong with it, after waiting 5 minutes I went in and got trapped in uc, hearthed back to northrend, took fp to org, there I abandoned quest, took fp to uc and there was thrall..

Tirin · 11/15/08, 7:28 PM

Anyone who hates downtime has got to hit Venture Bay in Grizzly Hills. 2 days of dailies there gets you enough Venture coins to purchase [Arcane Revitalizer] or [Goblin Repetition Reducer]. They're really nice upgrades from the old Sporeggar version. And even better, they stack with the old ones. It's fun getting 400 mana back with every kill.

[Commander's Badge] is surprisingly useful as well. The ally actually scales with your level, so it doesn't quickly lose effectiveness as you level like a lot of the limited duration pets. Very helpful for elites that are just a little outside your range.

Liebestod · 11/15/08, 8:36 PM

Oh yea. Anyone know if Crystalsong Forest is still incomplete on live now? It kinda sucks, with it being such a small zone, but in beta Dalaran was almost completely long-irrelevant because there was nothing really going on there.

Axl_Stukov · 11/15/08, 9:39 PM

Originally Posted by IKT

I can confirm there is something wrong with it, after waiting 5 minutes I went in and got trapped in uc, hearthed back to northrend, took fp to org, there I abandoned quest, took fp to uc and there was thrall..

If the event is bugging, kite one of the mobs to the NPCs, after they completely destroy it, the event will begin.

shamanx · 11/15/08, 10:10 PM

Originally Posted by Addled

Is the Battle for Undercity buggy for anyone? I ported to sewer just outside UC, got the quest from Varian, and nothing. Waited for 20 minutes before I just left. I spoke to everyone there; no prompts to move the event along.

Also, for you engineers out there, make sure to watch for gas clouds in Borean Tundra and Dragonblight. I already have 2-3 eternal fires/waters/airs (each eternal requires 10 of Crystallized <Element>) just from my mote extractor.

Buggy for me too, the event was finished as soon as I ported to near UC.

Jebraltar · 11/15/08, 10:53 PM

That's probably not a bug, they seem to have just made that quest a different phase for the area and they loop the assault script.

Trouble · 11/16/08, 12:23 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

Pro-gamer tip courtesy of Falk:
You can save yourself from doing almost a week of Sons of Hodir daily quest rep grind if, before you start the Sons of Hodir quest chain Forging an Alliance - Quest - World of Warcraft, you do this quest - Ancient Relics - Quest - World of Warcraft and use the +Rep booze [Rork Red Ribbon] when you turn in the Hodir quests.

Is this stuff gone? I keep hearing from people that it isn't available anymore.

greendef · 11/16/08, 2:01 AM

Yes, that reward has been removed from the quest.

• Falk · 11/16/08, 2:16 AM

That's odd... I somehow thought it automatically disappeared when you hit 80 when I tried looking for it today. Kinda makes sense if they took it out though, although disappointing. :S

Edit: Honored now, Spear quest gives 500 rep, most others give 350 (this is up from 350/250) so the grind* to exalted won't be as tedious.

*Not that it was much of a comparitive grind anyway, but I'll shut up about rep.

Okimi · 11/16/08, 5:12 AM

Can anyone shed some light on the "Cold Weather Flying quest"? Obviously, you can just buy the Northrend flying skill now for 1000g. Is the quest an alternative to it, or was it the quest PLUS 1000g in the beta? It would certainly be odd if you had a choice of doing 15 minutes' worth of quests OR paying 1k g but I guess it's possible

• Chicken · 11/16/08, 5:31 AM

Originally Posted by Okimi

Can anyone shed some light on the "Cold Weather Flying quest"? Obviously, you can just buy the Northrend flying skill now for 1000g. Is the quest an alternative to it, or was it the quest PLUS 1000g in the beta? It would certainly be odd if you had a choice of doing 15 minutes' worth of quests OR paying 1k g but I guess it's possible

That particular reward of the quest has been removed.